Team names on forums

[Bob8]

17 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

I used to feel outraged by much English usage that I heard or read, but am nowadays much more relaxed.  This is probably in part down to old(er) age, but also I have been won over by the prevailing thrust of the argument put forward by Oliver Kamm, who writes a regular Saturday column on English usage in The Times; it is called The Pedant.  One of his favourite tactics is turning up examples of allegedly bad English in the works of great writers from centuries past - Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontes and so on.  He has written a book too, which I recommend; it is Accidence will happen; the non-pedantic guide to English.

To his credit, Kamm is a stout defender of dialect constructions, arguing they are not 'bad' or 'wrong', but merely constructions in another form of English, which is neither superior or inferior to what is sometimes called The Queen's English. 

He also reminds his readers that the language changes constantly.  That doesn't mean it is getting worse.

The only context in which I have totally disagreed with him is his defence of the word 'unique' to mean very unusual.  To me it has such a usefully precise meaning that any dilution does, I confess, still irritate me.  I notice that estate agents are very keen on 'very unique' properties.  I have no idea exactly what that means!

We can, of course, all allow ourselves a smug thought or two about somebody else's idiosyncrasies.  I sometimes tell myself I really will bother to watch a whole SOO game when the Aussie commentators learn how to say 'maroons' properly!

As I say, I think we should all relax a bit...!

Living in Denmark does show words that are not only considered slang or dialect in English, but also their uses.

The use of "so" or "right" as a synonym for "very" is standard Danish, that it is also used in some English dialect also seems reasonable. 

"Child" and "kid" are not only synonyms, they are also the same word said differently.

Already is Skakespearian times, there was debate about whether "presently" meant "now" (as it had done) or "soon" (as it was coming to mean".

[Bob8]

16 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

You have no idea how annoying it was having to listen to American commentary for England v Croatia at the world cup. SemI (as in eye) final every other minute just irritated me beyond belief on top of us losing. Mexican commentary was better.

"Routing" things.  And planes landing momentarily.

It does jarr.

[Scarey71]

...and 'at this time we ask you to...'  or

'we've' been there two times'. 

How long before they come out with 'One time, upon a time...'

[Bulliac]

2 hours ago, Bob8 said:

"Routing" things.  And planes landing momentarily.

It does jarr.

Oh indeed, 'momentarily' is a slightly vague concept, I suppose, (I usually think around a few seconds..) but as long as there is time to get off before it moves again...

[deluded pom?]

I've just read the Ref abuse thread and scotchy uses the word 'cognizant' which I've never seen spelt like that before. That's another one to add to my list of hated Americanisms. As revenge I will now call them americanisms.

[thepimp007]

Main one for me with American use of English, is even though you select UK for your keyboard, my lovely American computer keeps spell checking me and trying to change my S's to Z's. Realise etc, even as i'm typing its annoying me having that red squiggly mark under my work. I refuse to add it to the dictionary

[Sports Prophet]

On 2 August 2018 at 5:00 AM, meast said:

Why do people insist on referring to Toronto as "TWP"? What's wrong with just Toronto?

No one hardly writes YCK, but York, or Salford rather than SRD, North and West Wales respectively are called North Wales and West Wales, not NWC or WWR yes, in some instances they do, but almost everytime i see Toronto referred it's "TWP"

I know it seems pedantic but it just seems to be a trendy, annoying thing to do, if you do have to abbreviate Toronto Wolfpack then it would be just TW as Wolfpack is just one word is it not?

Also TO for Toulouse, why not RH or KC ,SL or BB? is it just expansion clubs that get trendy acronyms.

Minor irritance gotten off chest

Absolutely! I find this kind of abbreviated rubbish to be probably my biggest problem with the sport today.

Same with games broadcasted on the television and the tackle counts are abbreviated like 4th instead of fourth. It absolutely grinds my gears.

IIRC there wasn't this kinda ridiculous abb' behaviour before the arrival of TWP and TO. If anything, both clubs should've been docked points for the start of the Mid' 8s campaign for bringing such blight on RL for this abb' nonsense. 

[Rupert Prince]

5 hours ago, Bob8 said:

"Routing" things.  And planes landing momentarily.

It does jarr.

Yes this is fair comment but they are a different country and their English has evolved differently to ours. And radio and probably more importantly tv evolved more quickly than ours.

To me one of the most classic different emphasised and odd words is, to them AnTHony, but to us, AnTOny. To my ear theirs is plain wierd. But of course we write with the H, but do not pronounce it, so who is to say they are wrong!

But really, theirs is not wrong, it's an evolution and just the way they developed on the other side of the world.

[Rupert Prince]

23 hours ago, Bearman said:

Dove for dived

Or is the past tense of love lived?

Premier League footballers do not help any of us.

'Yes, Gary, the boy done well'

[Rupert Prince]

23 hours ago, Scarey71 said:

Very much so....

'You know what I mean,'

'Like,'

'Actually,'

The liberally bestowed, 'like' must be the most offensive 4 letter word in the English language and sadly is most often used by the supposedly brightest. Students.

Supposedly...

 

[Bulliac]

1 hour ago, Rupert Prince said:

Yes this is fair comment but they are a different country and their English has evolved differently to ours. And radio and probably more importantly tv evolved more quickly than ours.

To me one of the most classic different emphasised and odd words is, to them AnTHony, but to us, AnTOny. To my ear theirs is plain wierd. But of course we write with the H, but do not pronounce it, so who is to say they are wrong!

But really, theirs is not wrong, it's an evolution and just the way they developed on the other side of the world.

One thing we maybe forget is that the Americans kept many of the old words and phrases which we no longer use. 'Fall' and 'Gotten', both fall into this category of once being used, in parts of England at least, in centuries gone by.

[deluded pom?]

52 minutes ago, Bulliac said:

One thing we maybe forget is that the Americans kept many of the old words and phrases which we no longer use. 'Fall' and 'Gotten', both fall into this category of once being used, in parts of England at least, in centuries gone by.

Or do they both Autumn into this category?

[The Canuck]

22 hours ago, Bulliac said:

To be honest, to really tell the difference you need to hear the word, "process". In the US is comes out as, "prorrcess" and in Canada more like "prohhcess".

The US version is more 'prah-cess' and Canadian is 'pro-cess'. It becomes more evident when pluralized:

US: prah-cess-ez

Canada: Pro-cess-is

It's one of the few words I say in front of my American clients and colleagues that distinguish me as a Canadian and often results in having to entertain them with "out", "about", and "roof". 

[deluded pom?]

Another bugbear is when the date is laid out as the americans would do it. Try quoting me and see what I mean.

[meast]

Wow!

[TheReaper]

I see people complain about the date format a lot.  And its a bit erroneous in that it's not that "our way" (NA) is wrong or backwards, it's that we don't really HAVE a set way. I've never been taught a standard way of doing it, and never seem to encounter a standard way anywhere else.

[deluded pom?]

20 minutes ago, TheReaper said:

I see people complain about the date format a lot.  And its a bit erroneous in that it's not that "our way" (NA) is wrong or backwards, it's that we don't really HAVE a set way. I've never been taught a standard way of doing it, and never seem to encounter a standard way anywhere else.

What’s that all aboot?

[Bulliac]

17 hours ago, The Canuck said:

The US version is more 'prah-cess' and Canadian is 'pro-cess'. It becomes more evident when pluralized:

US: prah-cess-ez

Canada: Pro-cess-is

It's one of the few words I say in front of my American clients and colleagues that distinguish me as a Canadian and often results in having to entertain them with "out", "about", and "roof". 

I suppose that is the difference between British and Canadian pronunciations and we are obviously comparing the US version with our own. To a British ear, what you perceive as prah in the US form, ' comes out as Prarr or even praw-cess, though I confess (to my British ear) the difference is slight. The Canadian 'pro', comes across as a much longer sound than the British one, hence the prohh-cess.Vive la difference!

[Bulliac]

14 hours ago, TheReaper said:

I see people complain about the date format a lot.  And its a bit erroneous in that it's not that "our way" (NA) is wrong or backwards, it's that we don't really HAVE a set way. I've never been taught a standard way of doing it, and never seem to encounter a standard way anywhere else.

In the UK it often depends on how it's written down. For instance we might write August the 4th 2018 but, if using figures, we'd never use the American 8/4/18, but always put 4/8/18, which to my mind is more logical - as in smallest to biggest DD/MM/YY. Sticking the day between the month and year seems totally counter intuitive to me.

[Sports Prophet]

On 8/3/2018 at 5:40 AM, jayemm said:

Soccer. It's not Soccer, it's ##### Football !

Soccer holds no more right to be called football than either rugby’s, AFL or gridiron.

It will always be called soccer in my house.

[Sports Prophet]

What really aggrevates me is when nations write cricket scores backwards like 123/1 instead of the obviously more logical and intelligent way 1/123.

[DavidM]

1 minute ago, Sports Prophet said:

What really aggrevates me is when nations write cricket scores backwards like 123/1 instead of the obviously more logical and intelligent way 1/123.

Behave !!!

[deluded pom?]

1 hour ago, Sports Prophet said:

What really aggrevates me is when nations write cricket scores backwards like 123/1 instead of the obviously more logical and intelligent way 1/123.

Do you weirdos still have eight ball overs?

[Rupert Prince]

2 hours ago, Bulliac said:

In the UK it often depends on how it's written down. For instance we might write August the 4th 2018 but, if using figures, we'd never use the American 8/4/18, but always put 4/8/18, which to my mind is more logical - as in smallest to biggest DD/MM/YY. Sticking the day between the month and year seems totally counter intuitive to me.

I would always say and at it 4th August, it seems logical ... day then month then year, in ascending order.

On another matter, just popped out of the head ... I believe the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Amiens is on 8 Aug. 1918, the definitive victory of WW1. 100 days later, the war is won. Lots of northern 'pals' soldiers to be remembered. Plus Canadians and ANZACs too.

[The Canuck]

4 hours ago, Bulliac said:

I suppose that is the difference between British and Canadian pronunciations and we are obviously comparing the US version with our own. To a British ear, what you perceive as prah in the US form, ' comes out as Prarr or even praw-cess, though I confess (to my British ear) the difference is slight. The Canadian 'pro', comes across as a much longer sound than the British one, hence the prohh-cess.Vive la difference!

Interesting! I'll have to keep an ear out next time I'm around some Brits. I spend a bit of time in the US midwest so it may be the regional differences we're each hearing as well. I could see "prarr-cess" from some southerns.