The absurdity of the English language.

[rmkrum]

A friend of mine from New York City once met another guy from the city. Within 4 minutes of talking to each other, they both suddenly named off an intersection in the area based on accent and vocabulary. They were both dead accurate to within a city block radius. It’s that regional out there...

[skyguyscott]

I believe you. I have a friend who is a linguist and he says he can name the part of the state, and in some cases, the city where you are from after listening to you speak for just a minute or two.

Then, without you asking, he will continue on to explain the history of your accent, and how it is related to other accents and what other accents it resembles, and how, if you had said a few words just a bit differently, it would indicate a completely different region, and so on and on and on.

[Steamguy]

From above, perhaps to help: 'Inflammable' has its root in the word, 'inflame'.

And to add to the confusion / fun: There is decreasing use of the Oxford comma (especially at work, where some bonehead in Corporate says 'you don't need it'). But I offer the following example of why it is indeed needed:

• I'd like to thank my parents, Mary and God.
• I'd like to thank my parents, Mary, and God.

[majorairhead]

I'm srory, but I'm hvanig torulbe fnigruig out waht tihs taehrd is all aoubt.

[skyguyscott]

I heard a story many years ago, perhaps an urban legend, some bean counter at General Motors calculated how much money in ink the company could save by spelling employee without the extra E at the end. And so in all their corporate communications employee was only spelled with only one e at the end.

Can any of our retired GM workers corroborate?

Here’s one’s common English word that is on the endangered list: “shall.” In the United States, you hardly ever hear it used in conversation anymore, and rarely if ever used by anyone under the age of 40 years. It has almost completely been subsumed by “will”.

A fairly recently dead English word I would like to see resurrected is “ ‘tis “ Mostly because I always get its and it’s mixed up. But ‘tis is a perfect substitute that uses the exact same number of letters and punctuation, and exactly the same letters and punctuation slightly rearranged to totally illuminate the confusion.

I realize of course that this will not happen, and that I cannot dictate it’s adoption. It dwells only in my fantasy land of a more perfect world, Where the penny, nickel, and quarter have been eliminated and we only have three simple coins, the dime, the half dollar, and dollar coins; and the number of hotdogs in a package matches the number of hot dog buns in a package, and gasoline companies eliminate the absurd 9/10 of a cent tacked on to the price of a gallon.

[rmkrum]

I got into the ‘word processing’ business when I got out of the military. I was already a decent writer, and very good at spelling. A few years in that field made me a lot better at writing, spelling, and proper punctuation.

Fast forward a few decades, and my current duties include a lot of ‘creative writing’ where I need to create or edit important regulations, procedures, and other documents. The funny bit is that I’m an engineer by trade, and engineering is not a field known for clear and correct writing. Guess I’m weird.

It’s fun to see all these stories, and also to bite my tongue at grammar and punctuation errors seen in everyday writing. Even the ‘mainstream media’ is full of glitches.

Fortunately I’ve gotten old enough to avoid getting too worked up over the vast number of glitches in most writing nowadays. Spelling errors, in particular, seem to leap off the page at me. Nowadays I try to just chuckle.

I do spend way too much time proofreading my own work here on the forums in an attempt to be clear, concise, and accurate. At times, it’s a curse when I reread something I wrote and I’m outside the edit window...and I see something wrong!!!

[RJJ]

Let us be happy we don't speak phonetically. 🥴

http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/e...netically.html

[jpaine4]

Strange topic for this forum 😳

[travelux1969]

Originally Posted by ROBERT CROSS

Too damn many people all over the world trying to use it that's the biggest problem.
If 'yer gonna speak American 'ya gotta live in 'Meraca.

Piece...☮️

Bob
🇺🇸

wow, i did not know Merica had their own exclusive language. (LOL) here in Canada we speak english, french and a bunch of other languages
you may recall "english" was invented/evolved in England, used in Canada, USA, and a whole bunch of other countries, eh?

my understanding of why english is such a "large" language is because we steal words from other languages to provide all kinds of subtle nuances (thats from french, eh?) to have the most descriptive language in the world. we all have our own mispronunciations and accents.


so a Newfoundland Canadian, a Louisianna state American, and an outback Australian walk into a pub in England to all order a beer, and the cockney British bartender couldn't understand any of them........

[NY24]

JUMBO shrimp


George Carlin did a whole routine on this topic.

[rmkrum]

I’ve always loved the quote attributed to Winston Churchill where he said something to the effect that the Americans and the British were two peoples separated by a common language.

One of my more interesting work assignment was working with a gentleman from London. My job was to translate between his very British spelling and vocabulary to standard American english and vice versa. Good thing I’m married to a former Brit...and she is an absolute demon when it comes to word games as well.

[DavidsonOverlander]

I find it interesting how quickly we can change the meaning of a word.

Take "virtual" for instance. Virtual is defined as "almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition". In other words, if the sidewalk was a "virtual skating rink" it was icy, but people weren't actually skating on it.

Now think about how we have come to use the work virtual to mean electronic. We have virtual learning, virtual meetings, virtual concerts and virtual conversations. While the ineffectiveness of an emergency switch to online learning may not have lead to actual learning, simply having it online doesn't mean it's not learning in reality. We never would have referred to a telephone conversation as a virtual conversation, it's a real conversation even though people aren't in the same room. The fact that you are watching a concert online doesn't make it "almost a concert, but not quite" it simply means you aren't there.

It's enough to virtually drive me crazy, but actually I mean that figuratively!

[skyguyscott]

Originally Posted by rmkrum

I’ve always loved the quote attributed to Winston Churchill where he said something to the effect that the Americans and the British were two peoples separated by a common language.

Oh yeah, Churchill. Another famous quote attributed to our friend Winston, upon being chided for ending his sentences with a preposition: “Madame, that is a rule up with which I shall not put.”

For what it’s worth, I had an English teacher once explain to me that that was not a genuine English rule, but one adapted from Latin, a mostly dead language, in which that was, apparently, something of a rule.

English unfortunately, is not yet dead. But I have been trying my best over the years to murder it and put us all out of its misery.

But even my best efforts in this regard have been put to shame during this election season. I’m afraid I can’t hold a candle to what even the lowliest politician can manage to do to the language.

When a politician gets hold of a word, they don’t just pass it on, they put a spin on it like a pitcher puts on a baseball. If you really want to kill a word give it to a politician. They’ll mangle and abuse that word so much it’ll be impossible to hit. Your average citizen won’t know if the word is coming or going, and wind up thinking The word means something completely the opposite of what he thought it meant.

That’s why baseball pitchers, when they really want to screw with a batter, learn how to “put some English” on the ball.

[rmkrum]

I’m always been comforted by the fact that politicians and used car salespeople only lie when their mouth is moving.

[GetawA-S]

We have found our thread answer man (Streamguy)!
How about ‘loosen’ and ‘unloosen’? How did that pair of equal opposites come about?

[AKmtnpilot]

Now I have a headache.

[skyguyscott]

Originally Posted by GetawA-S

We have found our thread answer man (Streamguy)!
How about ‘loosen’ and ‘unloosen’? How did that pair of equal opposites come about?

That’s nothing, my favorite in this regard is the new word “Irregardless”. Evidently, it means regardless. Up until recently irregardless wasn’t even a real word. But the thing about English is, if enough people start to use it, it magically becomes a word. I believe we have a recent ex president to thank for the relatively rapid adoption of that word along with other gems like “misunderestimate,” and on the need in this country for those seeking a bigger piece of the pie, “higher pies .” That’s it, I’m going to start to use “‘tis” today, irregardless.

[pmclemore]

To think that the Forums might sanction such a topic.

Pat

[skyguyscott]

‘Tis why there is a sub forum titled “off topic “ But irregardless, given that ‘tis English, it can evidently mean anything you want it to mean.

[Steamguy]

'Unloosen' comes from the same strange, dark place as 'dethaw'...

I remember adults using 'irregardless' from when I was a kid - and that was in the early fifties! We were far less divided as a nation, but highly divided by regional accents and idioms.

My dad had a friend from East Texas who used to run "hah-tayst" in his car, and have "garitz and bizkitts" for breakfast.