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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 13, 2019 12:01:19 GMT
You beat me to it with regard to sarcasm, Vv, but I wonder whether Aussie usage reflects the British idiom or the American?
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 13, 2019 20:35:05 GMT
You beat me to it with regard to sarcasm, Vv, but I wonder whether Aussie usage reflects the British idiom or the American? Despite Auslish's being too well peppered with Amerish expressions, that doesn't appear to have taken our idiom, sarcasm, or humour away from our mainly Britlish base. Some primary differences that I see between Amerish and Brit/Auslish include: * We don't take ourselves so seriously that we can't laugh at ourselves; the joke is still on the teller rather than the listener; * Our scatology and toilet humour remain unfettered by a cultural hygiene complex; * We retain our irreverence and sarcasm, our sense of irony; * We have few inhibitions on swearing; even news services are inclined to quote verbatim without much use of grawlixes (that latter being a very useful import from Amerish – such irony!). If there be any significant changes they are perhaps to be found among the youth who spend far too much time consuming / absorbing Amerish via the (anti)social media, though I think that influences vocabulary far more than it does the other cultural markers above.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 14, 2019 10:24:02 GMT
I am aware of the Aussie predilection for swearing, Vv. When my then ten-year-old grandson visited me in the UK a few years ago my daughter-in-law was somewhat embarrassed at his language: “I told you not to say things like that when your grandfather was there!” I was relaxed about it. As an admirer of Sir Les Patterson, I had not expected verbal elegance from Aussies but, on my first visit to Oz, I came to understand and appreciate the culture. I often recall my visit to Uluru and my observation that no-one left the paths notwithstanding the super-low delineation markers and how my bus-driver guide collected some litter that had been dropped by members of another group. The British predilection for dropping litter is more to be deprecated than the Aussie predilection for swearing.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 14, 2019 11:15:54 GMT
May of … ?!It’s far from unusual to read / hear had of, but may of is new to me. It’s from a local, Murdoch-owned rag with rather suboptimal standards of journalism, so one ought not be surprised.
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 14, 2019 15:22:00 GMT
Would of, could of, should of, might of, and so on all fall far too often on my ear and eyes!
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 15, 2019 5:38:56 GMT
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 15, 2019 8:23:27 GMT
Right at the end of Vv’s link, we have:
“... the Macquarie's full longlist is available on their website, along with links for the People's Choice award, a category that, in the grand democratic tradition, is voted by you.”
I don’t think I’ve previously met a transitive use of the verb to vote, so it sounds odd. Is it just me?
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 15, 2019 9:26:58 GMT
Right at the end of Vv’s link, we have: “... the Macquarie's full longlist is available on their website, along with links for the People's Choice award, a category that, in the grand democratic tradition, is voted by you.” I don’t think I’ve previously met a transitive use of the verb to vote, so it sounds odd. Is it just me? I, too, did a minor double-take at that, but then realised I had seen the usage previously. I do, however, consider it questionable.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 18, 2019 7:50:56 GMT
Not a lot happening here, so let's do a very British thing: Let's talk about the weather. While those in northern climes are perhaps wishing for summer … NSW temperatures soar past 46 degrees Celsius.Last night was Australia's hottest on record.Roads are melting and railway tracks are buckling. Old people and sheep are dropping dead (one asks whether the wether will weather it). Maximum temperature today in my state (New South Wales) was 46.9°C (116.42°F) at 14:40 (at Tibooburra Airport); the overnight minimum last night in another part of the state was 35.9°C (96.62°F). At my place – high on a hill near the coast – it peaked today at 37°C (98.6°F); last midnight it was still 28.5°C (83.3°F). Those temps are slightly high for here in summer, where there’s always a stiff coastal breeze on my hilltop (210 metres above sea level). At least the humidity was low – 27% relative – which makes the heat less unbearable; usually at this time of year in my neck of the woods the humidity is typically in the range 70–85% relative; that is unbearable. Now who denies global warming?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 18, 2019 10:11:23 GMT
As I am very sure you know, Vv, there is an important difference between weather and climate but I don’t envy you your weather in NSW. Here, in the UK my car has an on-board device which bleeps as the temperature drops below 4 degrees Celsius to warn me about possible ice on the road. It has been working far too often at night during these last few weeks but I am happy to say I have only had to scrape ice off the windscreen once this winter. I admit I am a late riser.
My Aussie family live near Brisbane and are due to visit the UK over the northern winter at the end of this year. I think they are daft but my fourteen-year-old granddaughter is looking forward enthusiastically to our cold, wet weather.
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 18, 2019 14:43:40 GMT
Now who denies global warming? Human-produced global warming? Mr Trump, I believe, but no-one who can read. The temperature here, at 2.43 p.m., is 3°C and dropped to -1°C last night, this being the mildest day forecast for at least the next couple of weeks. The Contessa and I are adopting our usual semi-hibernation mode for this time of year, but we probably dislike this temperature less than we'd dislike 46.9°C.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 20, 2019 9:27:25 GMT
sometime between December 28 and 29And exactly which date was that? I would accept "sometime over December 28 to 29" or "sometime on December 28 or 29", but there’s nothing between those dates. Never having tried before, I don’t know for sure how to insert quotations but I am trying 😳. Following a meal at a local pub, I was given a voucher for a 25% discount on my mext meal to be taken “between January and February”.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 20, 2019 10:01:37 GMT
sometime between December 28 and 29And exactly which date was that? I would accept "sometime over December 28 to 29" or "sometime on December 28 or 29", but there’s nothing between those dates. Never having tried before, I don’t know for sure how to insert quotations but I am trying 😳. Following a meal at a local pub, I was given a voucher for a 25% discount on my mext meal to be taken “between January and February”. Perhaps they planned to insert a leap-day?
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 23, 2019 21:12:44 GMT
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 23, 2019 22:49:26 GMT
My postcode ends in 0JP and I do try hard to say “zero jay pee” but that’s to make sure that people enter it correctly into systems, so that it can be found again.
I say ”oh” where the cipher appears (three times) in my phone number.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything other than “oh oh seven” for James Bond, or than “nineteen oh nine” for the year 1909 (and so on).
I say (for the road A505) “the ay five oh five” - yet for the A550 I say “five fifty”, not “five five oh”.
I think all of these are valid in their own way, as influenced by the level of formality or merely by how well they roll off the hurried tongue!
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