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Post by Twoddle on Oct 19, 2019 20:48:02 GMT
I've just returned from a fortnight's holiday in Cyprus, where I read about a current court-case involving a defence that revolves partly around the use of English. The defendant, an Englishwoman, claims that she was terrified by threats made by a Cypriot police officer into signing a statement withdrawing an allegation of an offence, following which she was prosecuted for making false allegations, or wasting police time, or something. In court she made the point that the withdrawal statement couldn't have been composed by her because it was obviously written in Greek English, not English English, using phrases and grammar that not a single English person would ever use. The case continues.
This may amuse you. I decided to take my new laptop to Cyprus with me, but before going I deleted my Passwords file from it as a security measure, first having copied the said file to an SD card to be carried separately. Just before leaving I looked for the card in the jacket that I was taking with me (and wore during the flights there and back), where I was positive I'd put it, but despite searching each pocket four or five times I couldn't find it, so I cursed somewhat but copied the file to a CD and took that instead.
When I reached Cyprus I tried to take part in this forum, only to discover that I'd never logged into the NTAPS using the laptop, so I needed my password to be able to join in discussions. Fine, the password was on the CD that I'd brought with me ... except that my new laptop doesn't have an internal CD/DVD drive and I'd omitted to bring an external one, so I couldn't use the CD. (I could have joined the forum as a guest but the sun was so bright, the weather so hot, and the all-inclusive food and drink so plentiful that I'm sorry to say that I couldn't be bothered. I've been reading all the posts, however.)
I didn't wear the jacket during the holiday, but upon returning home in the early hours of this morning I picked it out of its suitcase, whereupon the missing SD card fell out of a pocket. Nuts!
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Post by Verbivore on Oct 19, 2019 21:33:12 GMT
An adventure – or misadventure? – Twod? A pile of shit: Potty-mouthed euphemismsThe "fact" cited at 3:20 is much disputed. My favourite comment on that YouTube is "Excuse me, I need to use the euphemism", allegedly stolen from Dr. Seuss.
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Post by Dave Miller on Oct 19, 2019 21:35:48 GMT
I was fascinated by that case in which the woman “can’t” have written the statement, because it doesn’t match her English. Police statements rarely exactly match the person signing, because it’s the police officer who condenses what’s often a rambling conversation into the salient points, then asks the person to read through, amend as necessary, and sign.
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Post by Twoddle on Oct 19, 2019 23:11:36 GMT
I was fascinated by that case in which the woman “can’t” have written the statement, because it doesn’t match her English. Police statements rarely exactly match the person signing, because it’s the police officer who condenses what’s often a rambling conversation into the salient points, then asks the person to read through, amend as necessary, and sign. It does seem a fairly poor argument, Dave, but I wonder whether a defence of "poor use of English by the police" has been used before during a trial.
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Post by Dave Miller on Oct 20, 2019 0:13:36 GMT
Well, I’ve had, when I was giving evidence in a case of running an illegal off course betting shop, the objection that “he can’t have made a note at the time: he can’t write Chinese”.
I showed my note and explained the Sydney Lau system of using numbers to represent the intonation of each syllable when writing Cantonese phonetically. The guy was convicted on the crucial phrase: gau2 jai2 ‘ai6 ma3. (the doggies, innit)
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Post by Dave Miller on Oct 20, 2019 8:18:07 GMT
Boris Johnson’s “extra” letter to the EU, sent yesterday, includes the phrase “or not take a decision quickly”.
I’ve begun to notice the frequent use of “take a decision”, rather than “make a decision”, but I wonder: is it changing usage or my own new sensitivity?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Oct 20, 2019 10:41:13 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Oct 24, 2019 21:13:18 GMT
Jumping" Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jumped on the phone to do some damage control." Every day I hear "jump online" – would that be a virtual jump? Now we have Pompeo jumping on the phone (must be tough instrument to survive such treatment). People jump in the car – they must have very high roofs in their cars. And there's "jump in bed" – is that from a nightmare, perhaps? Is jump the new got / go / went? Some of those silly usages might just pass were they to include an into or onto, but others are just plain silly. Now I'll jump off the computer and jump in(to) the car.
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Post by Dave Miller on Oct 24, 2019 23:05:44 GMT
Strangely, I’ve never heard “jump online”, only “go” or “get” online.
My partner never “has” or “takes” a shower, but always “jumps in the shower”. I suppose it’s only as daft as the one-time popular expression “hop on a bus”. In that case, though, changing “on” to “onto” doesn’t really help dispel the odd mental image!
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Post by Verbivore on Oct 24, 2019 23:53:11 GMT
Strangely, I’ve never heard “jump online”, only “go” or “get” online. My partner never “has” or “takes” a shower, but always “jumps in the shower”. I suppose it’s only as daft as the one-time popular expression “hop on a bus”. In that case, though, changing “on” to “onto” doesn’t really help dispel the odd mental image! Jump online is a daily thing in Oz. I frequently eliminated the expression from many newspaper advertisers' copy. I hope for your partner's sake the shower tiling isn't slippery when he jumps in there. As for hopping on buses, that's something for kangaroos (and yes, there have been instances).
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Post by Verbivore on Oct 26, 2019 8:28:15 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Oct 26, 2019 10:33:21 GMT
There are many more accents than are implied here to be encountered in Britain. At one time, I worked in Dudley, a town in the West Midlands. It is a town of around 300,000 people with a number of readily identifiable districts. Two of there are Upper Gornal and Lower Gornal, the centres of which are, perhaps, less than a mile apart. Older folk who have lived in one or the other all their lives claim to be able to distinguish one from the other by their accents.
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Post by Dave Miller on Oct 26, 2019 13:26:47 GMT
> linguists agree that general Australian speech is fairly homogenous compared to the United Kingdom. <
I’d have used homogenEous, there - or is that, too, a UK/Aussie difference?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Oct 26, 2019 16:06:14 GMT
According to www.grammar.com/homogenous_vs._homogeneous — Homogenous is an older scientific term that describes similar tissues or organs. It has been replaced by homologous. Homogeneous is an adjective that describes similar or uniform characteristics. Unless you are a 19th century biologist, you should avoid using homogenous. Today, scientists would be more likely to use homologous in place of this archaic term. For all situations where you need to describe something as having similar or uniform characteristics, choose homogeneous. I do wish I had an OED but perhaps someone who has will see what it has to say?
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Post by Verbivore on Oct 26, 2019 19:18:56 GMT
> linguists agree that general Australian speech is fairly homogenous compared to the United Kingdom. < I’d have used homogenEous, there - or is that, too, a UK/Aussie difference? I thought so, too, and emailed Aunty to query the usage; no response as usual. Unfortunately, it's a misusage almost universal among hoi polloi in Oz.
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