473,322 Members | 1,523 Online
Bytes | Software Development & Data Engineering Community
Post Job

Home Posts Topics Members FAQ

Join Bytes to post your question to a community of 473,322 software developers and data experts.

When someone from Britain speaks, Americans hear a "British accent"...

Americans consider having a "British accent" a sign of sophistication
and high intelligence. Many companies hire salespersons from Britain to
represent their products,etc. Question: When the British hear an
"American accent," does it sound unsophisticated and dumb?

Be blunt. We Americans need to know. Should we try to change the way we
speak? Are there certain words that sound particularly goofy? Please
help us with your advice on this awkward matter.

Jul 19 '05
114 7599
On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:29:56 +0100, rumours say that Tom Anderson
<tw**@urchin.earth.li> might have written:
On Thu, 30 Jun 2005, Benji York wrote:
python-needs-more-duct-tape'ly yours,


You're in luck: Python 3000 will replace duck typing with duct taping.


I would bet that somewhere in the "Ingliy-spiking werld" both terms
sound exactly the same.
--
TZOTZIOY, I speak England very best.
"Dear Paul,
please stop spamming us."
The Corinthians
Jul 19 '05 #51
muldoon wrote:
Americans consider having a "British accent" a sign of sophistication
and high intelligence. Many companies hire salespersons from Britain to
represent their products,etc. Question: When the British hear an
"American accent," does it sound unsophisticated and dumb?

Be blunt. We Americans need to know. Should we try to change the way we
speak? Are there certain words that sound particularly goofy? Please
help us with your advice on this awkward matter.


I find this amusing even when they have the most cockney, ghetto
English accent, Americans still find it "sophisticated".

And yes, seppos sound like dumb fucks to the entire rest of the world.

Jul 19 '05 #52
On 2005-07-03, Darkfalz <Da*************@gmail.com> wrote:
I find this amusing even when they have the most cockney, ghetto
English accent, Americans still find it "sophisticated".


No they don't. Americans have pretty much the same stereotypes
about regional English accents that the average Brit does.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Do you guys know we
at just passed thru a BLACK
visi.com HOLE in space?
Jul 19 '05 #53
Mike Holmans <mi**@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<pq********************************@4ax.com>. ..
Some of those sonorous slow talkers from the South, and majestic bass
African-Americans like James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman, have far
more gravitas than any English accent can: to us, such people sound
monumental.


Yes, get James Earl Jones together with some people speaking in
(Standard) British English accents and the impression you get is
almost Imperial...

Paul
Jul 21 '05 #54

[Chan]
T can be silent in England too ..

frui'
cricke'
[Stephen] Both of those words (fruit and cricket) have the letter T sounded.

Stephen (Nationality: English).


Not necessarily - in my native accent they'd be replaced with glottal stops.

Richie (Nationality: West Yorkshire 8-)

(Having a daughter has improved my speech - I'm much more careful about
enunciating my words properly so that she doesn't pick up my bad habits.)

--
Richie Hindle
ri****@entrian.com

Jul 21 '05 #55
Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> wrote:
I'm an American who grew up watching plenty of BBC, and I run
into afew native Londoners whom I have hard time understanding.
I don't ever remember having troubly understanding people
outside the city.


But have you encountered regional dialects? - e.g. from the north
of the country, where you get both a strong accent, very different
from London speech, and the use of different words.

For example, folk in parts of the north-east will say "canny"
instead of "careful", "gannin" instead of "going", "bonny lass"
instead of "pretty girl". The question "Do you know what I mean?"
expressed phonetically in Geordie (one of the north-eastern dialects)
becomes "Ya knaa what ah mean, leik?"
Nick
Jul 21 '05 #56
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 14:52:44 -0700, James Stroud <js*****@mbi.ucla.edu>
wrote:
Frankly, I can't watch Shakespeare or movies like "the full monty" or
"trainspotting" because I can't understand a damn word they say. British talk
sounds like gibberish to me for the most part.


Not just you. It always amuses me in trips to the US that British voices
(outside of the movies) are often subtitled, while first-generation
Americans whose English is. um, limited, are not.

Try pretending the British accents are from naturalised US citizens. That
should do the trick.

DaveM
Oct 6 '05 #57
On 2005-10-06, DaveM <as****@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Frankly, I can't watch Shakespeare or movies like "the full
monty" or "trainspotting" because I can't understand a damn
word they say. British talk sounds like gibberish to me for the
most part.


Not just you. It always amuses me in trips to the US that
British voices (outside of the movies) are often subtitled,
while first-generation Americans whose English is. um,
limited, are not.


What?!? I've never seen a British voice (inside or outside of
the movies) subtitled -- with the exception of one of a
nightclub scenes in one movie (I think it was Trainspotting)
where the dialog was inaudible because of the music.

While we're off this topic again topic, I was watching a BBC
series "Space Race" the other night. The British actors did a
passable job with the American accents in the scenes at Fort
Bliss in Texas, but the writers wrote British English lines for
them to speak in their American accents.

For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams,
government departments, states, corporations etc. are
grammatically plural. In American, the verb agrees with the
word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
that word.

In sports (thats "sport" for you Brits):

American: Minnesota is behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.
British: Minnesota are behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.

In politics:

American: The war department has decided to cancel the program.
British: The war department have decided to cancel the program.

And so on...

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I think I am an
at overnight sensation right
visi.com now!!
Oct 7 '05 #58
Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> writes:
On 2005-10-06, DaveM <as****@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Frankly, I can't watch Shakespeare or movies like "the full
monty" or "trainspotting" because I can't understand a damn
word they say. British talk sounds like gibberish to me for the
most part.

Not just you. It always amuses me in trips to the US that
British voices (outside of the movies) are often subtitled,
while first-generation Americans whose English is. um,
limited, are not.

What?!? I've never seen a British voice (inside or outside of
the movies) subtitled -- with the exception of one of a
nightclub scenes in one movie (I think it was Trainspotting)
where the dialog was inaudible because of the music.


Maybe they were dubbed? I know America International dubbed the first
version of "Mad Max" that they imported into the US. Then again,
American International is well-know for their quality.

<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mw*@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.
Oct 7 '05 #59
On 2005-10-07, Mike Meyer <mw*@mired.org> wrote:
Not just you. It always amuses me in trips to the US that
British voices (outside of the movies) are often subtitled,
while first-generation Americans whose English is. um,
limited, are not.
What?!? I've never seen a British voice (inside or outside of
the movies) subtitled -- with the exception of one of a
nightclub scenes in one movie (I think it was Trainspotting)
where the dialog was inaudible because of the music.


Maybe they were dubbed?


I don't think so. Where exactly did you see all these
sub-titled British TV/movies?

In all the British movies and TV shows I've seen in the US, the
British actors sound the same as the do on British TV. I don't
recall ever going to a theater in England, but I've seen plenty
of TV in England. To me the dialog sounds the same as it does
in the US.
I know America International dubbed the first version of "Mad
Max" that they imported into the US. Then again, American
International is well-know for their quality.


That could be.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! LIFE is a
at never-ending INFORMERCIAL!
visi.com
Oct 7 '05 #60
Mike Meyer <mw*@mired.org> wrote in
news:86************@bhuda.mired.org:
Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> writes:
On 2005-10-06, DaveM <as****@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Frankly, I can't watch Shakespeare or movies like "the full
monty" or "trainspotting" because I can't understand a damn
word they say. British talk sounds like gibberish to me for
the most part.
Not just you. It always amuses me in trips to the US that
British voices (outside of the movies) are often subtitled,
while first-generation Americans whose English is. um,
limited, are not.

What?!? I've never seen a British voice (inside or outside of
the movies) subtitled -- with the exception of one of a
nightclub scenes in one movie (I think it was Trainspotting)
where the dialog was inaudible because of the music.


Maybe they were dubbed? I know America International dubbed the
first version of "Mad Max" that they imported into the US. Then
again, American International is well-know for their quality.


A couple of nights ago, I was amused and amazed to see subtitles
during NBC news interviews with some good citizens of Louisiana. I
don't know what NBC was thinking. I didn't think the accents were
especially thick, either. I had no difficulty understanding the
spoken words except in one stretch where background noise obscured
some bits. I've certainly heard some New Yorkers with harder-to-
understand speech, though without subtitles. I suppose I could be
fooling myself in thinking I understood them.

--
rzed
Oct 7 '05 #61
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:35:16 +0100, DaveM <as****@dsl.pipex.com>
declaimed the following in comp.lang.python:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 14:52:44 -0700, James Stroud <js*****@mbi.ucla.edu>
wrote:
Frankly, I can't watch Shakespeare or movies like "the full monty" or
"trainspotting" because I can't understand a damn word they say. British talk
sounds like gibberish to me for the most part.


Well... are we talking "Ox/bridge", Dales, or Cockney?

And the US Kennedy's have accents I find difficult...
-- ================================================== ============ <
wl*****@ix.netcom.com | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG <
wu******@dm.net | Bestiaria Support Staff <
================================================== ============ <
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/> <
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/> <

Oct 7 '05 #62
Grant Edwards:
Where exactly did you see all these
sub-titled British TV/movies?


I've noticed this too when travelling but can't recall precise
details. Perhaps it is on the international versions of American
channels such as CNN which are commonly watched by people with less
English and hence less ability to handle accents.

Neil
Oct 7 '05 #63
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:33:43 -0000, Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> wrote:
On 2005-10-06, DaveM <as****@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Frankly, I can't watch Shakespeare or movies like "the full
monty" or "trainspotting" because I can't understand a damn
word they say. British talk sounds like gibberish to me for the
most part.
Not just you. It always amuses me in trips to the US that
British voices (outside of the movies) are often subtitled,
while first-generation Americans whose English is. um,
limited, are not.


What?!? I've never seen a British voice (inside or outside of
the movies) subtitled -- with the exception of one of a
nightclub scenes in one movie (I think it was Trainspotting)
where the dialog was inaudible because of the music.


I noticed this watching news footage rather than imported shows. I haven't
seen 'Trainspotting', but I have seen Scottish accents subtitled
(unnecessarily) on English TV, to understandable anger across the border -
so this isn't uniquely a US phenomenon, to be fair.

<snip>For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams,
government departments, states, corporations etc. are
grammatically plural. In American, the verb agrees with the
word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
that word.

In sports (thats "sport" for you Brits):
Yes.
American: Minnesota is behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.
British: Minnesota are behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.
True.
In politics: American: The war department has decided to cancel the program.
British: The war department have decided to cancel the program.


Not sure about this one. They may be used interchangeably as neither strikes
me as sounding "odd".

DaveM
Oct 7 '05 #64
DaveM wrote:
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:33:43 -0000, Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> wrote: [...]
For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams,
government departments, states, corporations etc. are
grammatically plural. In American, the verb agrees with the
word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
that word.

In sports (thats "sport" for you Brits):

OK, so how do you account for the execresence "That will give you a
savings of 20%", which usage is common in America?

There aren't any universal rules, except possibly "British people speak
English while Americans don't". Nowadays relatively few people on either
side of the Atlantic even know the difference between a collective noun
and a plural, so there's little hope of them being able to correctly
apply any rule there might be (and yes, I split that infinitive just to
annoy any pedants who may be reading).
Yes.

American: Minnesota is behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.
British: Minnesota are behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.

True.

In politics:


American: The war department has decided to cancel the program.
British: The war department have decided to cancel the program.

Not sure about this one. They may be used interchangeably as neither strikes
me as sounding "odd".

Then again, there's room for infinite disagreement about these topics. I
mentioned a while ago that I disliked the English on a bumper sticker I
liked, which read

"Some village in Texas is missing their idiot".

Several people defended this, saying that a village could use the plural
possessive "their". I personally found it odd (and essentially
non-grammatical) not because either the singular or plural forms should
be mandated but because this one manages to mix them up. So

"Some village in Texas are missing their idiot"

would be better (though it sounds like the kind of thing only the idiot
alluded to would say), while my preferred choice would be

"Some village in Texas is missing its idiot".

Then again, what can you expect from a country whose leader pronounces
"nuclear" as though it were spelled "nucular"? I suppose it's only a
matter of time before they change the spelling just like they did with
"aluminium".

tongue-in-cheek-ly y'rs - steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Oct 7 '05 #65
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:01:21 +0100, Steve Holden wrote:
and yes, I split that infinitive just to
annoy any pedants who may be reading
*Real* pedants will know that English is not Latin, does not follow the
grammatical rules of Latin, and that just because split infinitives are
impossible -- not forbidden, impossible -- in Latin is no reason to forbid
them in English.

The linguist Steven Pinker calls the sort of people who claim split
infinitives are bad English "language mavens", and he doesn't mean it as
a compliment. See, for example, chapter 12 in his book "The Language
Instinct".
[snip] "Some village in Texas is missing their idiot".

Several people defended this, saying that a village could use the plural
possessive "their".
"Several people" being the idiots missed by the villages? :-)
I personally found it odd (and essentially
non-grammatical) not because either the singular or plural forms should
be mandated but because this one manages to mix them up. So

"Some village in Texas are missing their idiot"

would be better (though it sounds like the kind of thing only the idiot
alluded to would say),
Absolutely. "Some villages" would work, but not village singular.
while my preferred choice would be

"Some village in Texas is missing its idiot".


Yes, that's the puppy.

I think where the people are getting confused is that it is (arguably)
acceptable to use "their" in place of "his or her", as in:

"Should the purchaser lose their warranty card..."

Some of the more conservative grammarians argue against that construction,
many accept it in informal speech or writing but not formal, and a few
(like myself!) argue that it is time to get with the 21st century and just
accept it even in formal language. If it was good enough for Willie
Shakespeare, it is good enough for me.
--
Steven.

Oct 7 '05 #66

[Steve]
and yes, I split that infinitive just to
annoy any pedants who may be reading
[Steven] *Real* pedants will know that English is not Latin, does not follow the
grammatical rules of Latin, and that just because split infinitives are
impossible -- not forbidden, impossible -- in Latin is no reason to forbid
them in English.


Your previous post to this thread was chock-full of split nominatives: "The
Hollywood voice", "the specific regional accent", "the English-speaking
world", "the original French". And you call yourself a grammarian.

--
Richie Hindle
ri****@entrian.com
Oct 7 '05 #67
Richie Hindle wrote:
[Steve]
and yes, I split that infinitive just to
annoy any pedants who may be reading

[Steven]
*Real* pedants will know that English is not Latin, does not follow the
grammatical rules of Latin, and that just because split infinitives are
impossible -- not forbidden, impossible -- in Latin is no reason to forbid
them in English.

Your previous post to this thread was chock-full of split nominatives: "The
Hollywood voice", "the specific regional accent", "the English-speaking
world", "the original French". And you call yourself a grammarian.

I am presuming this post was meant to be a joke? No smileys, though, so
you force us to make up our own minds.

Or is "the green tomato" also unacceptable?

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Oct 7 '05 #68

[Richie]
Your previous post to this thread was chock-full of split nominatives: "The
Hollywood voice", "the specific regional accent", "the English-speaking
world", "the original French". And you call yourself a grammarian.
[Steve] I am presuming this post was meant to be a joke?
It was.
No smileys, though, so you force us to make up our own minds.
Yes. 8-)
Or is "the green tomato" also unacceptable?
It ought to be considered unacceptable by people who think that "to
correctly apply" is unacceptable, which is the point that Stephen was
making:
*Real* pedants will know that English is not Latin, does not follow the
grammatical rules of Latin, and that just because split infinitives are
impossible -- not forbidden, impossible -- in Latin is no reason to forbid
them in English.


Split nominatives like "the green tomato" are also impossible in Latin, but
no-one seems to object to their use in English.

--
Richie Hindle
ri****@entrian.com
Oct 7 '05 #69
Steve Holden wrote:
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:33:43 -0000, Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com>
wrote:
For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams,
government departments, states, corporations etc. are grammatically
plural. In American, the verb agrees with the
word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
that word.


There aren't any universal rules, except possibly "British people speak
English while Americans don't".


I believe you overgeneralize. :)

A Welshman would likely be offended if you implied he spoke English, and
the Scots are notorious for only speaking English when they have too. (I
remember a news story some years back about a Scottish "lad" who was
fined/imprisoned for replying to an official court representative with
"Aye" rather than "Yes".) For that matter there are plenty of people in
Cornwall and even in London (Cockney) who speak something that is only
called "English" for lack of a better term.

Oct 7 '05 #70
On 2005-10-07, DaveM <as****@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams,
government departments, states, corporations etc. are
grammatically plural. In American, the verb agrees with the
word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
that word.

In sports (thats "sport" for you Brits):


Yes.
American: Minnesota is behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.
British: Minnesota are behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.


True.
In politics:

American: The war department has decided to cancel the program.
British: The war department have decided to cancel the program.


Not sure about this one. They may be used interchangeably as neither strikes
me as sounding "odd".


It could be that both are used in British English and I only
notice the "have" usage. In US English it's always "has"
because "deptartment" is considered singular:

"departement has" and "departements have"

For some reason I find this sort of thing fascinating enough to
have download the entire "story of English" series off Usenet...

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Yow! Now we can
at become alcoholics!
visi.com
Oct 7 '05 #71
On 2005-10-07, Steve Holden <st***@holdenweb.com> wrote:
In sports (thats "sport" for you Brits):

OK, so how do you account for the execresence "That will give you a
savings of 20%", which usage is common in America?


Dunno. Like much else in English (both American and British)
"that's just the way it is".
Then again, there's room for infinite disagreement about these
topics.
Which makes it an ideal Usenet thread. :)
I mentioned a while ago that I disliked the English on a
bumper sticker I liked, which read

"Some village in Texas is missing their idiot".
That would definitely be "is" and "its" in the US.
Several people defended this, saying that a village could use
the plural possessive "their". I personally found it odd (and
essentially non-grammatical) not because either the singular
or plural forms should be mandated but because this one
manages to mix them up. So

"Some village in Texas are missing their idiot"
At least that one is consistent, though it sounds "wrong" to US
ears.
would be better (though it sounds like the kind of thing only
the idiot alluded to would say), while my preferred choice
would be

"Some village in Texas is missing its idiot".

Then again, what can you expect from a country whose leader
pronounces "nuclear" as though it were spelled "nucular"?
Don't get me started on _that_ one. I found it particularly
horrifying that Jimmy Carter pronounced it "nucular" -- he had
studied nuclear engineering at the naval acadamy, and should at
least be able pronounce the word.
I suppose it's only a matter of time before they change the
spelling just like they did with "aluminium".


:)

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Oh my GOD -- the
at SUN just fell into YANKEE
visi.com STADIUM!!
Oct 7 '05 #72
Grant Edwards wrote:
On 2005-10-07, Steve Holden <st***@holdenweb.com> wrote:

[...]
Then again, what can you expect from a country whose leader
pronounces "nuclear" as though it were spelled "nucular"?

Don't get me started on _that_ one. I found it particularly
horrifying that Jimmy Carter pronounced it "nucular" -- he had
studied nuclear engineering at the naval acadamy, and should at
least be able pronounce the word.

I suppose it's only a matter of time before they change the
spelling just like they did with "aluminium".

:)

One can only hope that Bush has been control of the nuclear weapons
rather than the nuclear ones.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Oct 7 '05 #73
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 14:24:42 -0000, Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com>
wrote:
On 2005-10-07, Steve Holden <st***@holdenweb.com> wrote: [...]

"Some village in Texas are missing their idiot"


At least that one is consistent, though it sounds "wrong" to US
ears.


The Germans have a word for it (sounds "wrong"): Sprachgefuhl,
literally a feeling for the language.

[...]
Don't get me started on _that_ one. I found it particularly
horrifying that Jimmy Carter pronounced it "nucular" -- he had
studied nuclear engineering at the naval acadamy, and should at
least be able pronounce the word.


"I was talking to my daughter, Amy, last night..."

Regards,

-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not.
Oct 7 '05 #74
On Friday 07 October 2005 03:01 am, Steve Holden wrote:
OK, so how do you account for the execresence "That will give you a
savings of 20%", which usage is common in America?
In America, anyway, "savings" is a collective abstract noun
(like "physics" or "mechanics"), there's no such
noun as "saving" (that's present participle of "to save"
only). How did you expect that sentence to be rendered?
Why is it an "execresence"?

By the way, dict.org doesn't think "execresence" is a word,
although I interpret the neologism as meaning something like
"execrable utterance":

dict.org said: No definitions found for 'execresence'!


Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com

Oct 7 '05 #75
Rocco Moretti wrote:
Steve Holden wrote:
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:33:43 -0000, Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com>
wrote:
For example: In British English one uses a plural verb when the
subject consists of more than one person. Sports teams,
government departments, states, corporations etc. are grammatically
plural. In American, the verb agrees with the
word that is the subject, not how many people are denoted by
that word.

There aren't any universal rules, except possibly "British people
speak English while Americans don't".

I believe you overgeneralize. :)

A Welshman would likely be offended if you implied he spoke English, and
the Scots are notorious for only speaking English when they have too. (I
remember a news story some years back about a Scottish "lad" who was
fined/imprisoned for replying to an official court representative with
"Aye" rather than "Yes".) For that matter there are plenty of people in
Cornwall and even in London (Cockney) who speak something that is only
called "English" for lack of a better term.


So English is spoken only in the South East of England, except London?
I think you should also disbar the queen (unless she's already
classified as a Londoner), due to her apparent confusion between the 1st
person singular and 1st person plural :-).

Duncan
Oct 7 '05 #76
Terry Hancock wrote:
By the way, dict.org doesn't think "execresence" is a word,
although I interpret the neologism as meaning something like
"execrable utterance":

dict.org said:
No definitions found for 'execresence'!


however, 'excrescence' appears to be a perfectly cromulent word:

http://dictionary.reference.com/word...004/08/22.html
http://www.wordsmith.org/words/excrescence.html

maybe dict.org just needs to work on their "did you mean" algorithm?

</F>

Oct 7 '05 #77
Terry Hancock wrote:
On Friday 07 October 2005 03:01 am, Steve Holden wrote:
OK, so how do you account for the execresence "That will give you a
savings of 20%", which usage is common in America?

In America, anyway, "savings" is a collective abstract noun
(like "physics" or "mechanics"), there's no such
noun as "saving" (that's present participle of "to save"
only). How did you expect that sentence to be rendered?
Why is it an "execresence"?

Precisely because there *is* such a thing as a saving. If I buy a $100
gumball for $80 I have achieved a saving of 20%.
By the way, dict.org doesn't think "execresence" is a word,
although I interpret the neologism as meaning something like
"execrable utterance":

dict.org said:
No definitions found for 'execresence'!


Nonetheless, Google finds 369 hits for "execrescence" and 67 for
"execresence".

My Complete Oxford is still packed in a cardboard box, so I can't offer
any more convincing evidence.

If there isn't such a word, all I can say is there *ought* to be :-)

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Oct 7 '05 #78
On Friday 07 October 2005 06:24 am, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

[snip]
"Some village in Texas is missing their idiot".
I personally found it odd (and essentially
non-grammatical) not because either the singular or plural forms should
be mandated but because this one manages to mix them up. So

"Some village in Texas are missing their idiot"

"Some village in Texas is missing its idiot".


Yes, that's the puppy.

I think where the people are getting confused is that it is (arguably)
acceptable to use "their" in place of "his or her", as in:


In a Texas dialect, "their" is construed to mean "singular third person
of indeterminate gender". It's considered rude to use "it" to apply to
a sentient, and "his or her" is "PC" (and therefore a great sin ;-) ).

What's going on up above, is that "village" is being construed as
singular, but also sentient, since it's a group of people.

This is a simplification, since the actual grammar fluctuates -- I think
this is in the process of happening as the language evolves. Self-conscious
Texans simply try to avoid using constructs with an indeterminate third
person singular, substituting plurals wherever possible. So it's not
very consistent -- and quite a few of us attempt to assimilate our
speech to what we think is "Standard American English".

But you *will* occasionally hear pronouns here which do not occur in
"proper" English, such as "theirself" -- which shows what's going on
in the speaker's mind. They know the subject is singular, it's just
that you didn't realize that "their" could *be* singular. :-)

You also see there, the tendency to normalize reflexive pronouns to
the possessive + self form:

myself ourselves

yourself y'all's selves

hisself theirselves
herself
theirself

itself

Whereas so-called "proper" English is inconsistent (read "broken"):

myself ourselves

yourself yourselves

himself themselves
herself
his or her self

itself

The same thing happened to "you", of course, ages ago, which is why
we almost never use the ONE TRUE singular 2nd person, which is "thou".
In fact, hardly anyone remembers the correct thou conjugations of verbs
anymore. Or even that it *is* singular. I read an really annoying
book once which kept trying to say things like "thou are" -- if
you're going to use "thou", at least conjugate correctly!
It's "thou art".

Of course, just to keep y'all on your toes, we Texans have not only
construed "their" to singular, but also "you", and added a new
plural "y'all". As in "Why can't y'all get y'all's selves together
and understand that how a person talks is their own business."

"Innit?"

Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com

Oct 7 '05 #79
On Friday 07 October 2005 01:31 pm, Dave Hansen wrote:
Don't get me started on _that_ one. I found it particularly
horrifying that Jimmy Carter pronounced it "nucular" -- he had
studied nuclear engineering at the naval acadamy, and should at
least be able pronounce the word.


Well, there's your problem. He learned from engineers. Engineers
can't speak English. I was instructed in my "Engineering Statics"
class that a three-dimensional structure connecting non-coplanar
points in space was called a "tetrahedragon".

I am not kidding. This actually happened.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com

Oct 7 '05 #80
On 2005-10-07, Terry Hancock <ha*****@anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
Of course, just to keep y'all on your toes, we Texans have not only
construed "their" to singular, but also "you", and added a new
plural "y'all".


AFAICT, in many parts of "The South", y'all is now used in the
singular (e.g. "y'all" is used when addressing a single
person), and "all y'all" is the plural form used when
addressing a group of people collectively.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! If elected, Zippy
at pledges to each and every
visi.com American a 55-year-old
houseboy...
Oct 7 '05 #81
On 2005-10-07, Terry Hancock <ha*****@anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
Well, there's your problem. He learned from engineers. Engineers
can't speak English. I was instructed in my "Engineering Statics"
class that a three-dimensional structure connecting non-coplanar
points in space was called a "tetrahedragon".


Watch out for the fire-breathing kind. They're especially
dangerous since they have multiple faces, so there's no
"behind" from which to sneak up upon them from... of... to.....

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Nipples, dimples,
at knuckles, NICKLES,
visi.com wrinkles, pimples!!
Oct 7 '05 #82
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:44:29 +0100, Steve Holden <st***@holdenweb.com>
wrote:
Terry Hancock wrote:
On Friday 07 October 2005 03:01 am, Steve Holden wrote:
OK, so how do you account for the execresence "That will give you a
savings of 20%", which usage is common in America?

In America, anyway, "savings" is a collective abstract noun
(like "physics" or "mechanics"), there's no such
noun as "saving" (that's present participle of "to save"
only). How did you expect that sentence to be rendered?
Why is it an "execresence"?

Precisely because there *is* such a thing as a saving. If I buy a $100
gumball for $80 I have achieved a saving of 20%.


FWIW, my dictionary has a usage note:

/Savings/ (plural noun) is not preceded by the singular /a/, except
loosely:"The price represents a savings (properly /saving/) of ten
dollars." In the foregoing, considered as an example in writing,
/savings/ is unacceptable to 89 per cent the Usage Panel.

(Words enclosed in /slashes/ represent italics.)

The dictionary? "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language, New College Edition."

Still sounds wrong to me, though.

-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not.
Oct 7 '05 #83
On Fri, 7 Oct 2005 16:18:57 -0500, Terry Hancock
<ha*****@anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
On Friday 07 October 2005 01:31 pm, Dave Hansen wrote:


Actually, I didn't, though I did respond to it. Please watch your
attributions.

Thanks,

-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not.
Oct 7 '05 #84
On Friday 07 October 2005 03:44 pm, Steve Holden wrote:
Precisely because there *is* such a thing as a saving. If I buy a $100
gumball for $80 I have achieved a saving of 20%.


Nope, that's incorrect American. ;-)

You can say "I bought a $100 gumball for $80, saving 20%," or
"If I buy a $100 gumball for $80, I have achieved a savings of 20%."

(Although, you lose points for style with "achieved", and those
are awfully expensive gumballs). ;-)

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com

Oct 7 '05 #85
On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 09:14:51PM -0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
On 2005-10-07, Terry Hancock <ha*****@anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
Of course, just to keep y'all on your toes, we Texans have not only
construed "their" to singular, but also "you", and added a new
plural "y'all".


AFAICT, in many parts of "The South", y'all is now used in the
singular (e.g. "y'all" is used when addressing a single
person), and "all y'all" is the plural form used when
addressing a group of people collectively.

"What word(s) do you use to address a group of two or more people?"
http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL...maps/q_50.html
A map from a US dialect survey. Click around for many more questions.

The question was a bit broken, it did not list "all y'all" and its
most glaring omission was "yous guys" The Philly responders selected
the next best option of "yous"

It is a bit odd that You'uns, yins, and yous are confined to Pennsylvania
and very distinct east-west regions inside PA at that (Pittsburgh vs
Philly orbits).

-jack

Oct 7 '05 #86
On Friday 07 October 2005 04:21 pm, Grant Edwards wrote:
On 2005-10-07, Terry Hancock <ha*****@anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
Well, there's your problem. He learned from engineers. Engineers
can't speak English. I was instructed in my "Engineering Statics"
class that a three-dimensional structure connecting non-coplanar
points in space was called a "tetrahedragon".

[typo: the word "four" is missing above in the definition]
Watch out for the fire-breathing kind. They're especially
dangerous since they have multiple faces, so there's no
"behind" from which to sneak up upon them from... of... to.....


Well, yeah, although the correct pronunciation is apparently
"te-tra-HEE-dra-GON".

(Wishing I had figured out how to type IPA symbols so you could
fully appreciate that ;-) ).

It was very distracting, though, subvocalizing "tetrahedron" constantly
during this guy's lectures. I suppose that might've contributed
to my poor grade in this class (I left engineering altogether very
shortly thereafter).

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com

Oct 7 '05 #87
On 2005-10-07, Jack Diederich <ja**@performancedrivers.com> wrote:
"What word(s) do you use to address a group of two or more people?"
http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL...maps/q_50.html
A map from a US dialect survey. Click around for many more questions.
Cool. While we're on the topic, has anybody else noticed that
"guys" is acceptible and commonly used to refer to a group of
women, but the singular "guy" is never used to refer to a
single woman (and most of the women I've asked think that "gal"
or "gals" is insulting). Likewise, "dude" is often used when
addressing a female but almost never when speaking about one in
the third person.
The question was a bit broken, it did not list "all y'all" and its
most glaring omission was "yous guys" The Philly responders selected
the next best option of "yous"

It is a bit odd that You'uns, yins, and yous are confined to Pennsylvania
and very distinct east-west regions inside PA at that (Pittsburgh vs
Philly orbits).


Eastern and Western Pennsylvania are practically different
countries when it comes to language and culture.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! ... The waitress's
at UNIFORM sheds TARTAR SAUCE
visi.com like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY...
Oct 7 '05 #88
On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 10:28:18PM -0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
On 2005-10-07, Jack Diederich <ja**@performancedrivers.com> wrote:

It is a bit odd that You'uns, yins, and yous are confined to Pennsylvania
and very distinct east-west regions inside PA at that (Pittsburgh vs
Philly orbits).


Eastern and Western Pennsylvania are practically different
countries when it comes to language and culture.


I'll buy that, I'm from Eastern PA (half PA Dutch) and I've only been
to Pittsburgh once. There is a very good reason for this, the six hour
drive is the same as from Philly to Boston (through NJ, NY, CT and into
MA). Alternatively you can drive from Philly to DC to Philly or
Philly to New York to Philly to New York in the same amount of time.

-jack
Oct 8 '05 #89

Grant Edwards ha escrito:
While we're off this topic again topic, I was watching a BBC
series "Space Race" the other night. The British actors did a
passable job with the American accents in the scenes at Fort
Bliss in Texas, but the writers wrote British English lines for
them to speak in their American accents...

Continuing with this off-topic thread about british accent and
movies...
I've always asked myself why do Hollywood movies about the Roman Empire
show the Emperors and all the nobles speaking with british accent?
They were italians for God's sake!

Anyway, I can't imagine Julius Caesar speaking like Vito Corleone...

Oct 8 '05 #90

Luis M. Gonzalez wrote:
Grant Edwards ha escrito:
While we're off this topic again topic, I was watching a BBC
series "Space Race" the other night. The British actors did a
passable job with the American accents in the scenes at Fort
Bliss in Texas, but the writers wrote British English lines for
them to speak in their American accents...

Continuing with this off-topic thread about british accent and
movies...
I've always asked myself why do Hollywood movies about the Roman Empire
show the Emperors and all the nobles speaking with british accent?
They were italians for God's sake!

Anyway, I can't imagine Julius Caesar speaking like Vito Corleone...


Of course not! Vito Corleone was Sicilian.

Oct 8 '05 #91
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:03:20 -0700, Luis M. Gonzalez wrote:
Continuing with this off-topic thread about british accent and
movies...
I've always asked myself why do Hollywood movies about the Roman Empire
show the Emperors and all the nobles speaking with british accent?
They were italians for God's sake!
You would rather they speak in an Italian accent?
Anyway, I can't imagine Julius Caesar speaking like Vito Corleone...


:-)

The BBC adaptation of "I, Claudius" had all the upper-class Romans
speaking in posh English accents (think of Queen Victoria), and the
servants, soldiers, slaves etc speaking in Cockney and other working-class
accents.

This, by the way, is closer to the historical truth than many people
imagine. The Latin we learnt in school was so-called "Classical Latin".
Your average Roman centurion spoke something that was to Classical Latin
as your boyz in the hood speaks to standard American English.

In the recent movie "Alexander the Great", which was nowhere near as bad
as the reputation it got (okay, it wasn't that good, but neither was it
bad), they did a similar thing. The Greeks spoke in very polished
English accents, while the Macedonians (who by their own admission had
been goat herders only to generations before) spoke in broad
Irish/Scottish accents, and the lower class they were, the thicker the
accent.
--
Steven.

Oct 8 '05 #92
On Fri, 7 Oct 2005 16:18:57 -0500, Terry Hancock
<ha*****@anansispaceworks.com> declaimed the following in
comp.lang.python:
points in space was called a "tetrahedragon".
Sounds more like something that would appear in "Yu-Gi-Oh"
-- ================================================== ============ <
wl*****@ix.netcom.com | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG <
wu******@dm.net | Bestiaria Support Staff <
================================================== ============ <
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/> <
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/> <

Oct 8 '05 #93
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:24:35 +1000, Steven D'Aprano
<st***@REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> declaimed the following in
comp.lang.python:
I think where the people are getting confused is that it is (arguably)
acceptable to use "their" in place of "his or her", as in:

"Should the purchaser lose their warranty card..."
It gets even stranger...

"One should be prompt in mailing their warranty registration"
-- ================================================== ============ <
wl*****@ix.netcom.com | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG <
wu******@dm.net | Bestiaria Support Staff <
================================================== ============ <
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/> <
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/> <

Oct 8 '05 #94
Terry Hancock wrote:
On Friday 07 October 2005 03:44 pm, Steve Holden wrote:
Precisely because there *is* such a thing as a saving. If I buy a $100
gumball for $80 I have achieved a saving of 20%.

Nope, that's incorrect American. ;-)

You can say "I bought a $100 gumball for $80, saving 20%," or
"If I buy a $100 gumball for $80, I have achieved a savings of 20%."

(Although, you lose points for style with "achieved", and those
are awfully expensive gumballs). ;-)

I must have been working at NASA at the time; they are well known for
embiggening prices.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Oct 8 '05 #95
Duncan Smith wrote:
Rocco Moretti wrote: [...]
So English is spoken only in the South East of England, except London?
I think you should also disbar the queen (unless she's already
classified as a Londoner), due to her apparent confusion between the 1st
person singular and 1st person plural :-).

There are special rules for the monarchs, who are expected to refer to
themselves in the first person plural.

Oscar Wilde understood this. When he boasted that he could speak
extempore for a minute on any subject of a challenger's choosing someone
shouted "The Queen", to which he replied "The Queen, sir, is not a subject".

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Oct 8 '05 #96
Steve Holden wrote:
....
Or is "the green tomato" also unacceptable?

Of course it is. We all know* it should be "the green fried tomato", or "the
killer tomato".

:-)

(is it me, or is the subject line for this thread silly? After all, what
accent would you expect from someone in the UK? However, that said, the
concept of a *single* British accent is a silly as the idea. Sillier even
than the suggestion that the two lines below are British vs American:
American: Minnesota is behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.
British: Minnesota are behind 7-0. The Vikings are behind 7-0.
Or even these lines:
American: The war department has decided to cancel the program.
British: The war department have decided to cancel the program.
A better one might be: British: "They installed tunnelling for the petrol pipes made of grey
coloured aluminium."
American: "They installed tunneling for the gas pipes made of gray
colored aluminum."


(I think :-) I do my best with grammar, but can fail spectactularly, more
often than I'd like :)

Bad grammar flies at the same speed as the pedants who decide that the way
that other people talk is wrong. If the majority of people use a language
one way, and a small number of people say "you're wrong", who's right?

Is it the people who speak the language in a shared way that they all
understand, or the people who are setting rules based on how people *used*
to speak and *used* to define words? (NB, I *did* say majority above ;-)
Does /human/ language _require_ backwards compatibility?

;-)
Michael.

Oct 8 '05 #97
Terry Hancock wrote:

Well, yeah, although the correct pronunciation is apparently
"te-tra-HEE-dra-GON".

As opposed to a "te-tra-SHE-dra-GON" ?

;-)
Michael.
Oct 8 '05 #98
Steve Holden wrote:
Then again, there's room for infinite disagreement about these topics. I
mentioned a while ago that I disliked the English on a bumper sticker I
liked, which read

"Some village in Texas is missing their idiot".

Several people defended this, saying that a village could use the plural
possessive "their". I personally found it odd (and essentially
non-grammatical) not because either the singular or plural forms should
be mandated but because this one manages to mix them up. So

"Some village in Texas are missing their idiot"

would be better (though it sounds like the kind of thing only the idiot
alluded to would say), while my preferred choice would be

"Some village in Texas is missing its idiot".


Strangely, the one that scans most naturally to me is the first
one. Maybe its because the sentence starts by talking of a
village in Texas singular point on a map, but the idiot in the
second half is one of many inhabitants who have noticed his
absence. Yes, it is mixing singular and plural from a syntactic
point of view, but not so badly after interepretation into mental
images.

The one that always makes me grit my teeth is "You have got to,
don't you?". Well no, I do NOT got to, actually. Shudder!

Steve, Brung up in norf London.
Oct 8 '05 #99
Steve Holden wrote:
Duncan Smith wrote:
Rocco Moretti wrote:


[...]

So English is spoken only in the South East of England, except London?
I think you should also disbar the queen (unless she's already
classified as a Londoner), due to her apparent confusion between the 1st
person singular and 1st person plural :-).

There are special rules for the monarchs, who are expected to refer to
themselves in the first person plural.

Oscar Wilde understood this. When he boasted that he could speak
extempore for a minute on any subject of a challenger's choosing someone
shouted "The Queen", to which he replied "The Queen, sir, is not a
subject".


Yes, although I'm not actually sure where the 'royal we' comes from; and
we (Brits) are technically subjects rather than citizens. But if
northerners are not English speakers because we use words like 'aye'
(although we say far less understandable things than that) I think the
queen should be similarly classified for using the 'royal we' :-).

Duncan
Oct 8 '05 #100

This thread has been closed and replies have been disabled. Please start a new discussion.

By using Bytes.com and it's services, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

To disable or enable advertisements and analytics tracking please visit the manage ads & tracking page.