Things that make you :)

[The Johnster]

At around the same period as the above Felixstowe adventure, I went to a house party in Chelmsford, by train being able to use privilege tickets.  This was also a winter thing, and Chelmsford can probably be thought of. even then, as in the London commuter belt; certainly my friends sharing the house up there were all London commuters.  Even so, I was struck by the deep and unrelenting blackness outside the train windows compared to, well, any other direction out of London.  Significant lack of, well, much of anything beyond a very occasional isolated farm past Romford; Ingatestone, but that was about it!  Reading, Redhill, Deptford, Basingstoke, Watford, Hitchin, all ballpark about as far out as Chelmsford and, in the 70s as now, brightly lit and densely populated all the way.

 

Yes. it's a city-dweller's take on a bleak and empty part of the country, but I wasn't oblivious to what things were like after dark outside my city.  I was a frequent camper in remote mountain fastnesses, sometimes what would now be called a wild camper, and can assure readers that, even 50 years ago, nowhere in the Brecon Beacons (as it was then) was as 'empty', unoccupied and unlit as the last 10 miles into Felixtowe from the west were except perhaps wildcamping at the Neuadd Reservoir, and this is a 'dark skies' reserve; I imagine there are lit traffic junctions and housing developments that have changed all that now in darkest Suffolk... 

 

But Black Shuck's still there in the shadows, of course...  I don't believe in Black Shuck, but he's there, just the same...

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, J. S. Bach said:

That should be "THEIR ways"!!!! 🙃

 

 

 

A hit, a palpable hit, well played sir! 

 

American colloquial English is arguably 'purer' and more correct than British, because it retains more of the language and usage (it is, so, true) of the original 17th settlers, and this, even if most of them bowdlerised (bowdlerized?) it being low-class poorly ejumacaterized, is the language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible, some of the most magnicent writing ever penned anywhere.  So, while I use 'ColoUr' &c because they are colloquial to my home, I would not dismiss 'Color' as incorrect.  I have trouble with 'nucular' and 'aluminum' because the sound of the word, and hence it's meaning, is compromised; 'nuclear' and 'aluminium', please.

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

If you are referring to my speeling of humoUr I do the same with neighboUr, harboUr & so on

And those "U"s helpfully add soo much phonetically. Have you ever suffered a lack of comprehension when confronted with 'harbor'?

 

Quote

English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

A Finnish colleague, who spoke excellent English, said that he really struggled with the "ough" words. I don't blame him.

 

The led/lead (and similar like red/read) words aren't much better.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I have trouble with 'nucular' and 'aluminum' because the sound of the word, and hence it's meaning, is compromised; 'nuclear' and 'aluminium', please.

The word in American English is "nuclear". It is pronounced the same way as British English. Some (in the South) say it with an accent. Do you have accents in England? (He asks rhetorically.)

 

The history of the spelling of "aluminium" is interesting. An original English spelling used by Sir Humprhy Davy (who named it) is aluminum. 

Quote

A January 1811 summary of one of Davy's lectures at the Royal Society mentioned the name aluminium as a possibility. The next year, Davy published a chemistry textbook in which he used the spelling aluminum. Both spellings have coexisted since.

So American English follows the version documented in Davy's 1812 text.

 

Edited Sunday at 19:01 by Ozexpatriate

[J. S. Bach]

19 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 ...snip... .  I have trouble with 'nucular' and 'aluminum' because the sound of the word, and hence it's meaning, is compromised; 'nuclear' and 'aluminium', please.

One of the former Bush presidents (I do not remember which one) could not say"nuclear", it always came out "nucular"! 🙃As for aluminum, that was the way that I learned it and hearing "aluminium" on a Canadian radio broadcast I thought "They talk funny up there, must be the cold!"; but that was many years ago.

[franciswilliamwebb]

[Ozexpatriate]

16 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

One of the former Bush presidents (I do not remember which one)

"W".

[The Johnster]

53 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

And those "U"s helpfully add soo much phonetically. Have you ever suffered a lack of comprehension when confronted with 'harbor'?

 

A Finnish colleague, who spoke excellent English, said that he really struggled with the "ough" words. I don't blame him.

 

The led/lead (and similar like red/read) words aren't much better.

 

 

Shacking up with The Squeeze, whose own language, Polish, is ferociously difficult, has made me much more aware of such issues, which I never thought about much before she moved in.

 

49 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The word in American English is "nuclear". It is pronounced the same way as British English. Some (in the South) say it with an accent. Do you have accents in England? (He asks rhetorically.)

 

 

Oh, yes.  I did not mean to infer/imply/impute that 'nucular' was a specifically American feature, plenty of folk here call it that as well, in a variety of accents.  But you don't hear 'aluminum' in the UK at all, and while it has just as much cromulence as 'aluminium', it does not convey the meaning correctly here.  Why o why can't we all just call it bauxite...  

 

'Nucular' might be acceptable from a hillbilly or a rough Scouser, but I object to it from Presidents (Reagan and Carter were both guilty IIRC) or Generals (thinking of Westmoreland but may be wrong, at least McArthur got it right), or British politicians, military, and Electricity Board people who ought to know how to say the word since they are capable of using the stuff, which needs a level of competence for safety reasons.  Not being able to say the word does not inspire confidence in this competence!

[Hroth]

18 minutes ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Thats not a fart, it's a shart...

 

[Sidecar Racer]

 

 

 

[Sidecar Racer]

 

 

[Sidecar Racer]

 

 

 

[Sidecar Racer]

[KeithMacdonald]

2 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

A Finnish colleague, who spoke excellent English, said that he really struggled with the "ough" words. I don't blame him.

 

Even though the ploughman had a rough cough, he fought through the toughest slough and the trough of rain. Nought deterred him, his work was thorough enough, and ought to be bought again.

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

22 minutes ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 

 

Wrong spelling, it was/is Kryptonite

[Cokebreeze]

They look like they are wearing pants to me.

[ian]

6 minutes ago, Cokebreeze said:

They look like they are wearing pants to me.

Nah. Commando.

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 ...snip...  Why o why can't we all just call it bauxite. ...dnip...

Why? That is the ore, not the finished metal.

[Sidecar Racer]

10 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Wrong spelling, it was/is Kryptonite

 

 No , the sign is correct , it's Superman who has obviously misread it .

[kernowtim]

Many years ago now, the family holiday, usually the first 2 weeks in August,  would often be to Felixstowe, 100 miles, which seemed a very long way,   where we would stay at a caravan site in Manor Road, gas lighting and toilets in a block the other side of the road, There was a good view of the railway line to the docks and Double headed Stratford class 47 hauled container trains.

My parents often wondered why I would watch the trains and the resident cls11 shunter 'Colonel Tomline' rather than Going to the beach. Sometimes a few miles walk to explore the lovely but sadly then derelict Felixstowe Town Station and a trip to sit on the platform at Ipswich. 2 model shops in the town too, one selling Hornby and the other wrenn, bikes and prams!

Some years later I mentioned to my  cousins boy about the gas lighting and walk to get water or use toilets,  his only question was regarding lack of electricity and how did the TV work, and him being astonished when we said there was no TV...

 

[jcm@gwr]

36 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Wrong spelling, it was/is Kryptonite

 

But just like American English, it sounds about right, until you see it written down!

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

rough cough

I understand the location for Spam Can 21C125 "Rough Tor" (later Whimple) sounds like 'row' (like sow or cow, not tow or roe).

 

3 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 toughest slough ...

The bog or channel is usually pronounced as "slew" in American English - not that that matters. (It's kind of the point.) A few might pronounce it as 'sluff' (as in defoliation or a snake shedding its skin). 

 

3 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

trough of rain

What's a trough of rain? Is that one of those foot-pound furlongs per fortnight measures like a firkin? 😉

 

3 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

... and ought to be bought again.

Was the ploughman a slave?

 

Edited Monday at 00:51 by Ozexpatriate

[Martino]

Having been brought up in England, travelled a fair bit and for the past 20 years have lived in the southern part of the USA, I can actually appreciate that many American words are exactly the same as British English of time gone by.  I struggle with aluminum. I make a point of putting U in colour, Harbour, neighbour etc., just because most fellow Americans ‘just love your accent’. However, my hackles rise whenever I hear the word garage pronounced by Britons as garidge.  Why and when did this bastardization of English come about?   Similarly ‘train station’.Arrrrrrgh.

[kevinlms]

13 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I failed at yesterdays NY Times Wordl because the word was FIBER.

Someone who tells lies? Almost.

[kevinlms]

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

Shacking up with The Squeeze, whose own language, Polish, is ferociously difficult, has made me much more aware of such issues, which I never thought about much before she moved in.

 

 

Does she know what a

Polski Owczarek Nizinny

 

is?