New words

Glad I made an impression ) I did have a break from here for a while
but returned about September last year.

Well, recently split from g/f, work is so crap at the moment that I
sit here all day reading and posting to ukrm. On the other hand,
I have my health[1] )

[1] For fairly unhealthy values of...

 

This is actually a well-documented phenomenon. When a colony is formed, two
opposing forces set to work on the language. Firstly, exposure to new
situations and experiences creates new words (or adopts them from local
languages, which is how words like 'boomerang', 'caboose' 'safari' and
'ketchup' entered English).

The opposing force is a loyalty to the 'mother tongue'. It is speculated
that when people leave the native land they become more patriotic and
sentimental about the things from home. This can certainly be observed in
curious facts like the observation that more forign-born descendants of
Scotland will learn to play the bagpipes than native Scots, and St Patrick's
Day is a national event in the USA. If this theory is true, it certainly
explains why Afrikaans is basically 17th century Dutch, and why there are
numerous words and usages in the English of both Australia and America that
differ to British usage, yet these terms predate the mass-commincation era.
The most logical explanation for this similarity is that at the time
colonies were formed, this was how English was spoken in England. ("Trash"
instead of "rubbish" is a classic example, the word is easily understood in
America/Australia, but in the 1500-1700's the word 'rubbish' would have met
with blank stares as 'trash' was the only word they knew.)

Because the speakers in the mother land of a language don't hold these
sentimental attachements, they are far more likely to allow the language to
evolve naturally. There are several etymologists who believe that the
dialect of some remote parts of North Carolina is much closer to the
language of Queen Liz the First than anything currently spoken in the UK.

Another side comment: The expressions "Maybe", "I guess", "to leaf through a
book" and a "frame-up" are commonly labelled as Americanisms, but all three
are cases where an English phrase migrated to the colony and persisted, died
out in England and was then re-introduced to Britain in the Film/TV era.

Cheers Manning

 

An insult? My good sir, I merely offered another piece of sincere praise for
an English educational establishment, and then made a random observation of
an indisputable fact.

Methinks he doth protest too much...

Cheers Manning

 

et toi aussi

(note for the ignorant: that's French and it means - "and you -
Australian?")

Cheers Manning

 

I could explain to you the rules by which a new work enters the OED - as
explained to me by the editor of the OED New Words edition. But I
really can't be arsed.

Suffice to say, "Ginge" won't be getting in.

 

Look, I've not (yet) critised your use of commas; it's the
over-use of spaces at the end of sentences that I *was*
objecting to. You've put your case, and I've agreed to
let it drop. Or shall I finished off my slagoffdes.perl
script?

 

[OED rules for new words]

Because it's a proper noun?

 

Mainly because it's not in popular usage occurring in diverse print
media.

 

Not much of friend, if you don't know what sex they are.

 

NAHAY(tm)?

 

Oh, I'm dissappointed now. I thought someone would do the "It's only a
tranny" line.

 

Not true. Language is a self-correcting mechanism - it does not need
formalised rules, and I would suggest that such rules have only
existed for a tiny fraction of the history of a tiny proportion of all
the languages that have existed

Language's purpose is communication - if a person changes a feature
and they are still, or better, understodd, the change works. If not,
it doesn't.

 

Heh. Try reading some Clive James, Germaine Greer or Robert Hughes

 

Scray stat from the late 80s - more people in the UK watched
Neighbours every day than lived in Australia

 

Don't watch The Crocodile Hunter, or anything with Paul Hogan in it.

 

Scary stat from nowadays - more people *still* watch it in the uk than
have ever watched it in Aus.

 

*cough*

 

I'd pay to watch a crocodile with Paul Hogan in it.

 

Major Charles Ingram.

No, just a tickly throat, dear.

 

I'm watching it now.