New words

do yo uwork from home nowadays then?

 

Really? So, how many languages have there been? I seem to recall
reading that there were 2000 in aboriginal australia alone, and even
more amongst native north american. So, to set some form of boundary,
let's say that 100,000 languages have ever existed. Of these, I would
guess that no more than a couple of hundred have ever been formalised.
And these would only have been formalised in the last couple of
hundred years (when was Dr Johnson's first dictionary?). On the
other hand, I would guess that mankind has been using language for a
minimum of 10,000 years, and perhaps 50,000 or more.

Now you're just being snobby. And quite right - social pressures are
one of the key things which control language change. But unless the
'educated ear' has some form of social power, which it used to have a
lto more of than it does now, then it can't do much about it.

So, what you're really railing against is the decline of the class
system.

 

Didn't they used to call them 'Convict Colonies' back then?

 

Heh!

It would never recapture that magic first time, though, would it.

 

Do tell.

 

Andrewr At Work wrote:

400 years? Any references?
I prefer to use "his" when referring to a lawnmower of unknown gender.

 

You need to be at least a colonel to keep the title after retiring....

 

Andrewr At Work wrote:

....

Put that gun down.
The OED claims 1526 for that usage. Your honour is intact.
It also quotes Chesterfield; if it's good enough for him
it's good enough for me.

 

Old Fart at Play said....

I'm sure it's Major. It's called reaching your Majority and entitles you
to retain your military rank as a title, after leaving the service.

 

Lozzo wrote

I was told that you are entitled to be called one below your rank in
civvy street.

 

Agree.

Lots of people say: "We was..." but that doesn't make it correct.

 

And Blackadder burned it.....

 

I hope you only lent out the three-wheeled one.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#16? FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19

 

He's got a point - we need the rules so we can break them in glorious
fashion; whilst knowing what rules are being broken, we can subvert
them, tie them up in knots, stamp on their feet and shout 'boo' in their
ears, all the time knowing somebody is keeping score in a dusty cupboard
in Oxford.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#16? FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19

 

Well I'm off to my 'Advanced Cornering and Braking' course at Oran Park GP
Raceway soon, but here's a quick answer.

Mid-19th century England - a brief-lived trend for using French words
instead of English one emerges among the aristocratic/educated classes.
There were some permanent effects, as words like 'aubergine' enter the UK
English language. During this time such people were using pronunciations
like 'ee-stoh-reek' for "historic" and 'oh-tell' for 'Hotel' (some people
still do this). BTW - the dropping of the 'h' in words like 'hour' and
'honour' predates this event by several centuries.

Naturally, if you lose the voiced 'H' from the beginning of a word, it is
then perfectly acceptable to use the vowel article 'an' (hence we still say
'an hour', 'an honour'). As people were dropping the 'h' from the
French-derived words, they also began to write them down assuming that
pronunciation, and preceded them with the vowel-article 'an'.

After a couple of decades the spoken trend went away, but now there were
textbooks of English entering the public schools, indicating to the teachers
that they should use expressions such as 'an historic event'. Without
understanding the actual reason (the original authors were using a different
pronunciation) the teachers, anxious not to appear 'uneducated' began to
instruct their students to write certain words this way ('horrific',
'historic', and 'hypothesis' seem to be the most frequently abused).

So the whole thing arose because people felt anxious to imitate their
forbears, not knowing that the whole thing was just a mistaken
interpretation of a mid-19th century affectation.

Certain dialectical exceptions still occur, a lot of dialects will say 'ouse
instead of house, and then (quite appropriately) use the vowel article to
get "an 'ouse". These aren't related to the above events in any way.

Cheers Manning

 

The use of the N3P singular 'they' has indeed been around for quite a long
time.

There is also another precedent for interchanging plural and singular case
which we can thank the almighty Bishop Lowth for - he didn't like the
contraction "amn't" and so introduced the plural contraction "aren't". As a
result we say things like "I'm invited, aren't I?" even though "are" is
plural.

Manning

 

This may have a bearing on some of the use of 'an' in those contexts.
Perhaps a desire to disguise one's origins? Resulting in strangulated
'posh' speak with attendant mispronunciations.

Mostly harmless, but passed down from parent to child it would be
accepted as normal pronunciation.


--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#16? FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19

 

<snip fascinating exposition>

If you ever get the urge to do the long version, don't fight it.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Manning

Oi! You are an uncultured lager drinking fucking yob, and don't you
forget it!

The position of "Unexpectedly knowledgeable 'Strine" is already filled
around here <nods to Ivan>, so find your own niche, thangyewverymuch,

And, if you haven't got umlauts, it's "Goedel". Please don't ask me to
prove that.