Picking on Brits a Bit

[cosmicfolklore]

Nah, OED 3 (which is still being worked on) will never be printed. They say it would be at least 30 maybe 40 volumes so impractical for anyone other than institutions. I am by the way a contributor to OED3 but so are many hundreds of others.

It's available online for a fee but if your local library subscribes to it (as mine does) you get free access which to me is a huge blessing.

Jay.

I'm confused. I thought you had said that you had shelves built for your dictionary.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I'm confused. I thought you had said that you had shelves built for your dictionary.

I had a bookcase built to house my 20 volume OED Second Edition (published circa 1987), the same as in the picture I posted earlier.

Try to keep up prof

I also own a first edition set, all original and really quite a prized possession. Seen below with the later supplements. Just for scale, volume 8 is about 6 inches thick!



Jay.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I have always noticed that it is hard to end a conversation with a British in person

 

[Infantry23]

This dictionary talk is boring. What kind of guitar is it?

 

[mawnansmiff]

This dictionary talk is boring.

Dictionary talk is never boring

The no name guitar I bought from Argos....nothing special but it has a lovely tone.

Jay.

 

[sablebrush52]

I have always noticed that it is hard to end a conversation with a British in person

A British what?

 

[sablebrush52]

Us Brits have forgotten what a summer looks like it being so long since we had one.

On the rare occasion we did actually have something resembling a summer, I have to agree a chilled beer could be enjoyed.......but not that 'orrible Fosters pee water you seem to adore over there

Jay.

You're insulting pee with that remark.

 

[sablebrush52]

We have several dictionaries, and we have no one authority on the English language in the US. Even grammar has no one authority, but just several style manuals, to be used depending on the function of the writing.

Websters is probably the most hated dictionary. I used to have a professor that said that it was easier to use the Sears catalog to find the meaning of words than Websters.

Dictionaries were never meant to govern the language, but to reflect the way words are used in contemporary times. And, words change meaning quickly sometimes. Check out the word "literally" and "thru". The way we use the word, changes it's meaning and sometimes spelling over time.

For example, the antiquated notion that you cannot end a sentence with a preposition, if enforced in some way would have us sounding really dumb, in which it does. In modern conversation we end sentences with prepositions all the time. Otherwise, we sound really dumb.

This is why the entirety of the universe hates an anal retentive grammar nazi.

Well, not the entirety. I enjoy figuring out ways not to end on a preposition that do not come out awkward. It's possible to do, though it does take using that pink blob encased by one's skull, and I'm increasingly aware of how unpopular that is.
Regarding language being living, breathing, and constantly being subject to transformation, all of that is true. But as language is a primary way by which we communicate realities to one another, too cavalier an attitude to the meaning of words results in the verbal equivalent of a psychotic break. Good luck with that.

 

[bullet08]

English, Queen's, rather King's English is easy to understand. Now, if I'm watching a show with Irish or Scottish, I have to turn on the subtitle. It must be the skills of local NHS dentists and how they fill the teeth. They all look like shites.

 

[OzPiper]

On the rare occasion we did actually have something resembling a summer, I have to agree a chilled beer could be enjoyed.......but not that 'orrible Fosters pee water you seem to adore over there

Jay.

Oh Gawd !
I don’t know anyone here who drinks Fosters.
We send ALL our Fosters over to you lot

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Well, not the entirety. I enjoy figuring out ways not to end on a preposition that do not come out awkward. It's possible to do, though it does take using that pink blob encased by one's skull, and I'm increasingly aware of how unpopular that is.
Regarding language being living, breathing, and constantly being subject to transformation, all of that is true. But as language is a primary way by which we communicate realities to one another, too cavalier an attitude to the meaning of words results in the verbal equivalent of a psychotic break. Good luck with that.

Agreed and Right, not entirely. The rule was for more Latin based languages. And, most of our sentences become clearer when we resort the sentence to not end in a preposition. But, for 20 years now, the style guides have laxed to prevent those weird twisted sounding sentences where one has to use "in which" and sound awkward.

I don't know about a psychotic break, ha ha, but folks that don't understand there. their, and they're drive me nuts. Ha ha.

 

[atwaterville]

What the kids think is IPA these days, is nothing like a proper India Pale Ale: that stuff was originally brewed to mature in barrels on shipboard during the 6-8 weeks it took a sailing ship to get from Britain to India before the opening of the Suez Canal. It was brewed very strong, very heavily hopped and robust enough to stand the heat and the turbulence of the long sea voyage, and was very much prized at home as well as in the Colonies. The travesty that is marketed to us now is simply some average-strength beer in which they've shovelled in the hops but used citrus-tasting hybrids make you think it's second hand and someone's kidneys can't handle real lemonade.These days I avoid buying an IPA that isn't from a long-established brewery because if I want a grapefruit shandy (which I don't), I'll order one.

I read somewhere that, once the IPA barrels arrived in India, the beer is diluted with water to serve the soldiers while undiluted beer were served to the officers. Gotta love British classism... oh wait, I think we have that here in USA too.

 

[sablebrush52]

Agreed and Right, not entirely. The rule was for more Latin based languages. And, most of our sentences become clearer when we resort the sentence to not end in a preposition. But, for 20 years now, the style guides have laxed to prevent those weird twisted sounding sentences where one has to use "in which" and sound awkward.

I don't know about a psychotic break, ha ha, but folks that don't understand there. their, and they're drive me nuts. Ha ha.

As well as two, to, and too. How hard is it to learn this?

 

[MisterBadger]

English, Queen's, rather King's English is easy to understand. Now, if I'm watching a show with Irish or Scottish, I have to turn on the subtitle. It must be the skills of local NHS dentists and how they fill the teeth. They all look like shites.

This comment can't be in the King's English, because I don't follow what you're going on about, though you are clearly a Johnny Foreigner doing his best to master it, so I will be as patient as I can, in order to foster mutual understanding. Do you mean you have RTE in Irish and BBC Scotland programmes in Gaelic, via satellite TV?

 

[MisterBadger]

You guys and your fancy beer. If it's under 40 proof, is it even worth drinking?

What else to drink when you run out of whisk(e)y, brandy, gin, rum, vodka, calvados, poteen, polish spirit and isopropyl rubbing alcohol?

 

[mawnansmiff]

The rule was for more Latin based languages.

And that's another oddity about Americans, they love to use Latin as a motto or as a kind of linguistic 'decoration' yet Latin was never spoken in America and I very much doubt many Americans can even speak Latin let alone translate a simple motto. It's just for show.

At school I was taught English (language & literature), French, German & Latin, all of which were spoken over here at some point in time. All of that was pretty regular curricula back in the 1970's English schools though Latin was only an option in some schools.

Jay.

 

[Hillcrest]

I don't know about a psychotic break, ha ha, but folks that don't understand there. their, and they're drive me nuts. Ha ha.

As well as two, to, and too. How hard is it to learn this?

There too. They're two, their two,

 

[georged]

I never understood how you could drive your car for hours or days to a remote location, pack up all your manufactured clothes and gear that had been produced in a third world shithole, shipped half way around the globe, then obsess over your impact on the environment.

A) Insufficient intellect
B) Herd/tribal instinct

There is no C

 

[OzPiper]

What the kids think is IPA these days, is nothing like a proper India Pale Ale: that stuff was originally brewed to mature in barrels on shipboard during the 6-8 weeks it took a sailing ship to get from Britain to India before the opening of the Suez Canal. It was brewed very strong, very heavily hopped and robust enough to stand the heat and the turbulence of the long sea voyage, and was very much prized at home as well as in the Colonies.

One upshot of migration to the UK and Ireland from the colonies over the last few decades has been increasing imports to the UK/Ireland of
Sth African-brewed Guinness stout.
Apparently the colonials find the stuff available in the Mother Country TOO piss weak

 

[fireground_piper]

What else to drink when you run out of whisk(e)y, brandy, gin, rum, vodka, calvados, poteen, polish spirit and isopropyl rubbing alcohol?

You run out?!