BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II

Subject: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:02 PM

PART ONE

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:50 PM

I believe the proper British prounuciation of "wader" (water) is "woh-tah", is it not? Perhaps we should all go back to spelling words exactly the way we pronounce them. That wood bee fun, woodunt it?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 02:23 AM

Where I was dragged up, the proper pronunciation for H2O was wa'er[och! hoo the hell d'ye scrieve a gloa'al stop?]

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 03:33 PM

The mark ' signifies a glottal stop, or at least it does when one is writing Hawaiian. I think you can scrieve it for a' lingos.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Sarah2
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 04:35 PM

Since this has expanded from the original Improper Letter S Endings to include general bitches about the misuse of the English language, I'd like to include one that really irks me:

"decimate" does not equal "devastate"

I mean, "I decimated his argument." Wiped out one-tenth of it, eh? Oooh, that's impressive.

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 04:59 PM

Decimate has been getting improper usage for a long time, as it is not really that impressive to destroy 1/10 of an opposing military force in a given battle either, yet the word is customarily used as if one had wiped out at least 75% of them, in which case "devastate" would certainly make more sense...or "annihilate", in really extreme cases.

For instance, the Sioux did far more than merely "decimate" Custer's unit at Little Big Horn. I believe they more than decimated Reno's section, and they annihilated Custer's.

I believe decimate derives from a Roman practice of punishing a legion by executing every tenth man. Can anyone confirm that?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 05:18 PM

Decimate, originally, did not refer to a battle, but to killing civilians. The Roman army would say "We're annexing you or else." If the people didn't come along quietly, the Romans would kill every 10th person.

Thus the target here is not an army but a civilian population. Anything that kills 1/10th of a civilian population is pretty deadly (e.g. an influenza).

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Deda
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 05:20 PM

Yes, if a Roman legion (or a smaller military unit -- a legion consisted of some 5-6,000 men) disobeyed orders the commander could and regularly did respond by killing every 10th man. This forced the unit to depend on each other massively and to obey every order, since every life depended on every member's willingness to "do or die". I think that the use of "decimate" meaning to nearly destroy is not so unacceptable, since it clearly has separated long ago from its source, and meaning changes naturally with the passage of centuries. Furthermore, living and training and going to war knowing that every tenth member of your company could die for any disobedience seems like an intense kind of destruction to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 05:23 PM

Proactives- Saw this plural in the paper. Enough to give me plural pneumonia (two cases, that is). When people say proactive, I close my ears. Next, I expect to see proactive's stance and proactives stance.
genuine nuisance- have you ever seen an imitation nuisance?

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 05:58 PM

Yes! Woody Allen is an imitation nuisance!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Deda
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 12:18 PM

[I expect to see proactive's stance and proactives stance. ]

Personally I'm looking forward to the ProActives' Dance. This is a dance for Actives who make their living as actives, as distinguished from people who are actives as a hobby.

heeheeheehee

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 01:25 PM

If there are proactives, then that suggests that there must also be antiactives. How do we access an alleged antiactive with a glottal stop, and if we do, by what proactive technique can we merge his stance with that of other antiactives so as to form an antiactive coalition capable of repairing the present accessiblity gap that exists at this point in time between proactive and antiactive social conglomerates and non-associative entities in the national spectrum?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Sarah2
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 02:39 PM

Decimation, according to my memory of Gibbon, was a punishment for cowardice or disobedience during battle as practiced by the Roman army.

The century was divided into groups of 10 men each. The centurion would place 9 white beans and 1 black bean in his helmet and the each man of the 10 would draw a bean. The unlucky recipient of the black bean would be beaten to death by the others. If they obeyed in this, the man who died was allowed to leave property and belongings to his family. If they disobeyed, all ten would be beaten to death by the remainder of the century, and all or their property and belongings would be confiscated by the state.

This is strictly from memory, faulty at best. My Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has no index, and there's no way I'm going to go on a search right now. Corrections welcome.

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 06:53 AM

i'm not sure whether to add my comment here or in the 'american v english slang' thread. but this's about s's so i guess it goes here.

i've worked around the liverpool area for a number of years. lots of l/pool people say 'youse' when they mean 'you'singular, and also for plural.

i've also been in dublin, roi and they say 'youse'there too. maybe its an example of 'irish english' in l/pool.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 07:27 AM

In English as spoken in some rural parts of Ireland, "Ye" is also quite current as a plural, though it will probably die out soon through education, television and post-Vatican II updates of religious texts.

"Youse" and especially "yiz" will probably be more robust. Hell will freeze over before the publicans in parliament allow the licensing laws to be amended, so for years to come people will undoubtedly still be hunted out of pubs at closing time by that great rhetorical question: "Ladies and gentlemen, have yiz no homes to go to?"

And BTW, I'm disappointed in this thread, I thought it was going to be all about grocers apostrophe's.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 08:09 AM

People say "ye" all the time, they just don't write it that way." We might write it "What are you doing?", but for many if us the chances are that what we actually say would be much more accurately represented by writing it as "What are ye doing?"

There are lots of examples of that kind of thing. For example, you have people look askance at spellings like "dis" and "dat" for "this" and "that" as ridiculous, and then go on to pronounce the words that way after all. (I don't mean that those kind of "dialect" spellings are a good idea, because they have tended to be used in a way that implies some kind of put down, and they have the effect of distancing readers from the actual sense of the text - but they do represent actual pronunciations far more accurately than is often recognised.)

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Ringer
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 09:53 AM

I continue to bemoan many folks' inability to use the negative correctly, writing a construction such as "All cats are not black," when "Not all cats are black" would be more appropriate.

Wolfgang (for whom English is a second language) recently picked up a perpetrator who didn't appear to be able to see the difference even when it was pointed out to him.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 11:43 AM

mr irish plumber,

don't be disappointed. have a look at part 1 of this thread- there's stack's of wrongdoing's viz. grocer's apostrophe's esse's 's

caulie's, potatoe's, onion's, monday's ,etc's

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Declan
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 11:58 AM

Yiz have little to be gettin' upseh about - donten't yiz not.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 12:02 PM

In the expression "onion's", what belongs to the onion?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 12:11 PM

well, Ringer, I truly suspect that there are just many people who operate at a barely functional level of literacy. Some cannot see the differences, and some do not care, and will stubbornly resist being told that anything they do is inappropriate.

These folks seem to think it an imposition on them to have two words, 'affect' and 'effect' for two different concepts. If you tell them that they are used in different situations, they will growl and tell you that "..you know what I mean".

There are similar examples in spelling, punctuation, pronunciation and grammar.

(One of MY pet peeves is is radio & TV 'journalists' who, in these time of global communications, will NOT learn to pronounce the names of countries, persons, companies....etc., anywhere near the norm for the country. After MONTHS, Al Qaida is still pronounced Al KAYda by many. Many British reporters do not seem to believe that there is such a thing as a long 'a' and say things like "O-'sam'-a bin Laden" ...an earlier example was the Central American country "Nick-uh-RAG-you-uh"...lordy! It is not necessary to learn to roll your Rs like a native in order to avoid butchering it!

ok...rant off for now.....

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 12:28 PM

They say "yooz/youse" guys in parts of New jersey and NYC, also. Remember the movie My Cousin, Vinny and the great accent actor Joe Pesci affected? Him and his "two utes" for "youths."

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Phillip
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 12:45 PM

Unlike Bill D I am appalled by the intrusion of a long 'a' into many places which don't warrant it. This is usually southern English reporters on the TV and radio. I hear people saying Louisi-aaahhh-na, Paaahhhkistaaaahhn. And Islaaaahhhm of course. As a Mancunian, I find all this long a stuff so much toffee-nosed nonsense. It's all hypercorrection, really. I look forward to Maaahhnchester during the Commonwealth Games.

But what does really constitute "correct" pronunciation? How should we pronounce Madrid, for example. Or Berlin? The way we say those names is not how the natives do, but it would sound funny if we used the right way. And both Mos-co and Mos-cow are technically wrong, as the place is "Maskvye", with stress on the second syllable and a schwa as the first vowel. I think we should leave well enough alone.

Now, I haven't read part one, so this may have been said before. But still... Who knows what an apostrophe means these days? It means - look out, here comes an 's'. (I heard that originally on DEC's old JOYOFLEX conference in the mid 1980s.)

rgds

Phillip

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 12:51 PM

mr McGrath,

re:'ye'

in british english, 'ye' can be used more than one way.

there's 'ye' as in 'you' as you mentioned; and also as 'the'.

i seem to recall reading somewhere about fonts in old printing.

there used to be an alphabet letter 'thorn' which had the sound of 'th'. the letter was shaped somewhat like a 'y'.

in old printed documents, the 'thorn' was easily confused with 'y'.

d'ye suppose readers & other people of that period could have been using 'thorn' to read/say 'the' & 'y' to read/say 'ye'?

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 12:55 PM

In the States and Canada, "you" may come out as "yeh"- yeh don't say. A changed ye? "Yuh" don't say is also heard. At "yiz" we roll our eyes because the speaker is trying to emphasize his Irishness. "Youse" used to be considered a part of the Brooklyn accent, but no more.

"Not" can be tricky. An example from Prentice-Hall Handbook for Writers:
FAULTY - Ellen not only has been outstanding in her studies but also in athletics.
PARALLEL - Ellen has been outstanding not only in her studies but also in athletics.

When we(one) speak(s), we(one) often forget(s) just how a sentence was initiated and (we-one) stumble(s) toward(s) the end. Luckily, people mostly understand our intent. Mudcat postings are more akin to speech; minor errors should be forgiven.

Now many people say impact instead of either affect or effect. Impact has lost its emphasis as a result. This is one that I don't forgive.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: mack/misophist
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 11:54 PM

And now, back to "decimate". You will all be glad to learn that it was last done (in the proper sense) in WWI. My, haven't we come a long way.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 12:38 AM

Mesophist, I had never thought about decimate. Webster's Collegiate still gives
1. To select by lot and kill every tenth man of
2. To exact a tax of ten percent from (John Dryden, as in a decimated Cavalier) In 1st place in the OED.
3. To reduce drastically in number
3b. To destroy a large part of
OED also gives: To divide in tenths (obsolete)
ALL of the meanings are known from the 17th century (OED quotations).

And I always thought decimate was a tenth husband or wife.

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: Kaleea
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 02:53 AM

Lidull Howuk, if'n wee'unz spayulld everthang thet we'unz saee eggzaklee thu waee weeu'nz pronayownstt eeyut, thin ah thank thet sum uv usn'z wooden no hayow tuh reed whut t'utherz wuz a sayeeun! (you might be a redneck if you know what the above says!)

Subject: RE: BS: Improper Letter S Endings, Etc., II
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 07:34 AM

Decimation update: apparently some mercenary commanders in Africa have been using it since WW II not even as a punishment, but as a "training technique" with recruits in order to command the "respect" of the surviving 90 percent. I'm writing from memory, but I think I read of this in a book about the Biafra/Nigeria war.

Well that's cheered everybody up, hasn't it?