*sigh*

Try it with "liaison".

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Des Coughlan

YYSSW.

 

"Yeah, Yeah, Sure, Sure, Whatever"

 

This is my "too much time on my hands" post for the day.

I got 10 - dunno if I should be proud or not. The Shakespeare question did
seem a bit out of place as it's not really relevant to punctuation. The
answer to it was easy because languages tend to evolve far more quickly in
their land of origin than in colonies. Colonial languages will (by
necessity) adopt new vocabulary for new concepts, but curiously they will
tend to hang on to original words and grammar from the home language, long
after they have fallen into disuse in the land of origin.

This explains why Afrikaans is basically 17th century Dutch, and why the
British use the words 'aubergine' and 'mange tout' (adopted from France
during the mid 19th century) while the rest of the English speaking world
use the original terms 'eggplant' and 'snow pea'. Also explains why both
Australia and America receive the mail, and not the post. (It should be
noted that seperating words that arrived at the time of colonisation from
the words that were adopted once the era of mass-communication arrived can
be a hassle - Australia uses the American term 'station wagon' instead of
'estate car' but this is definitely a 20th century acquisition - but any
words that were in common usage in the 19th century most likely arrived from
the home colony).

Hence there are many 'Americanisms' which are actually far more "authentic"
than current British idioms. A lot of English speakers deride the
so-called-Americanism "different than", not knowing that it was very common
in England from the 1500's to the 1700's and was used regularly by Coleridge
and Defoe. "Fall" instead of Autumn was common in England until the late
1600's, as was 'deck of cards' and many other expressions such as
'maximize', 'minimize', 'gadget' and 'input', 'gotten', 'reckon' all of
which are definitely British in origin.

Also, the "U" argument is interesting - in many cases the "u" has been added
into words artificially as part of a 'pro-French' fashion that emerged in
Britain between 1750 and 1900 (around the same time that the words aubergine
and courgette appeared). Hence the poor word 'Honour" arrived in English
from the Normans with a "U", had lost it by the early 1600's and reacquired
it a century later. Its cousin "honorary" failed to re-acquire the "u", as
did the name of the "Labor" political party (although the word "labour"
did.)

Off to work...

Manning

 

What a load of bollocks.

--

Dave

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

 

<snip history lesson>

That was very interesting. I know I 'look down' on the American usage of
the English language, thinking that they have 'corrupted' elements of
it.

Food for thought.

 

Where's you sig?

 

And there is no reason to stop now...

voucherize, embiggen, misunderestimated, "Department of Homeland Security"

 

I've just been laughed at for using the "word" 'locallanguageisation'.

 

and sir.tony's real identity is revealed...

 

And rightly so.

 

Aargh! I married Sir.Tony!

Opens this Friday in cinemas nationwide.

 

Burglarize.

Ugh.

 

In a meeting just finished: "bespokify"

 

err, what does it mean?

 

"To make bespoke", at a guess.

 

yeah, "to make, bespokely[1]" (in other words, to do a lash-up)

[1] this also came out at the meeting[2]
[2] a "content services infrastructure" meeting. All very Nathan B.

 

sweller wrote

Retro styling thing innit?

 

s'obvious - to take some software and customise it so it is bespoke.

 

Whatever the customer needs you sell him the same old package
but put his name into a few variables so it looks like it was
written especially for him.