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Post by Verbivore on Mar 1, 2018 7:10:05 GMT
To start the month:
Years ago, my young sister-in-law couldn't wait to possess things – no saving and waiting. Everything she acquired was on hire purchase – which she unwittingly but accurately wrote as Higher Purchase.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 1, 2018 12:26:34 GMT
Hundreds of years ago, when I was a little boy, my mother used to say that when she was a little girl, she used to sing about “Shine on my bread as a star” which she later discovered should have been “Shine on, my bright desert star”, a hymn, I think she said although my brother thinks she said it was from a musical. Neither my brother nor I have been able to discover the origin of either. Can anyone here help? Having encountered it as a child, it has always been one of my favourite mondegreens — although the word mondegreen was coined much later.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 2, 2018 1:00:22 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 3, 2018 0:38:15 GMT
I received the following from an erstwhile editor colleague. I'm still chuckling.
A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a “bar”.
A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
A question mark walks into a bar?
A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out – we don't serve your type”.
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
A synonym strolls into a tavern.
At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar – fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
A dyslexic walks into a bra.
An adverb walks into a bar impossibly.
A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.
A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 3, 2018 17:16:21 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 4, 2018 3:17:07 GMT
Thanks, LJH. An interesting list.
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 5, 2018 19:35:15 GMT
It seems that this joke was circulating in Finland during the early part of last week: Cold weather is approaching from Siberia. In Britain they're calling it "The Beast from the East"; in Finland we're calling it "Wednesday".
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2018 1:23:37 GMT
An article, on ABC News Online, about the pronunciations of kilometre. I stubbornly stick with KEE-luh- me-tuh, though that leaves me in the minority among my peers.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 7, 2018 8:56:26 GMT
I try always to say kilometre with the stress on the first syllable. The kilOMetre version (a) doesn't make sense and (b) sounds like an instrument for measuring death!
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 7, 2018 9:46:32 GMT
Having been schooled in SI units, it's obvious to me that the accent should be on "kil", as with kilo anything (gram, hertz, newton etc.). The next SI unit up from the kilometre is the megametre, and I've never heard it pronounced, "meg-AM-eter". The confusion arises because words such as "speed-OM-eter", "ped-OM-eter" and the like are referring to meters - instruments that measure things - and not to metres. Even so, shouldn't we talk about "SPEED-o-meters" and "PED-o-meters?
It originates from the French "kilomètre", pronounced KIL-o-METR. I doubt les Français would understand kil-OM-eter if they heard it.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2018 10:07:34 GMT
With the American predilection for spelling paedophile as pedophile (a lover of feet?), I wonder if they'd be confused by the purpose of a pedometer.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 7, 2018 18:50:26 GMT
I will happily start saying kil–OMM–ituh when the majority of people say sen–TIMM–ituh and mil–IMM–ituh. Until then, I will continue to pronounce it properly.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 9, 2018 2:16:08 GMT
Dave, Twod, and LJH: Could you come to Oz and teach our bogans the correct pronunciation of kilometre?
The kil-OM-etre pronunciation was argued for, and popularised by, prime minister Gough Whitlam, who oversaw the metrication of the nation. He had his opponents on the matter of pronunciation, but he was such a big man – politically, physically, and charismatically – that he won the day, unfortunately. Even Aunty ABC, despite her pronunciation guide's recommendation of KIL-o-metre, appears to have given up, and now most of her presenters say kil-OM-etre, dammit!
The two most common casual pronunciations here are (1) kay(s) and, now in the minority, (2) klick(s).
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 9, 2018 20:59:02 GMT
I don’t think klick is used to any extent in the UK except in novels about military activities. One does, occasionally, hear K but I think only from young people.
I was motivated to wonder about the origin of klicks and spent a spare couple of hours browsing the internet. There doesn’t appear to be an accepted derivation. Several sites suggest, in such similar terms that they probably quote each other without acknowledgement or citation, that the word is military slang which became popular among US soldiers during the Vietnam war and is probably a simple contraction of the word kilometre. It was quick radio slang for people unfamiliar with the metric system which was used by most other countries and adopted by NATO.
Another suggestion is that it derives from the little clicks that were a feature of an older vehicle’s mechanical odometer as it moved forward.
Also suggested is that “it arose from the use of forward observed non-line of sight artillery targeting and actually began with the United States Marine Corp during the interwar period between the Korean and Vietnam wars. The M19 mortar introduced at the time had dials for adjusting the azimuth and elevation. It produced a loud "click" sound when both dials where set to a particular combination that resulted in a point of impact 1000m away on level ground at standard temperature pressure”. [https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/85009/why-does-klick-mean-kilometer-in-us-military-slang]
Another idea is that it originated with the Australian infantry. Apparently, soldiers would navigate by compass direction and measure distance by pacing 100 steps. The soldier would keep track of each length by moving the gas regulator on the Australian L1A1 rifle, one mark. After moving it 10 marks, the soldier would signal the section commander using hand signals, then indicate movement of 1000 meters by lifting the rifle and rewinding the gas regulator with a movement of the thumb, resulting in an audible "click." [https://www.thebalance.com/how-far-is-a-klick-in-the-military-3357005]
I don’t know that any of these are entirely convincing. I don’t have access to the OED or any other authoritative dictionary but I understand the OED simply says “uncertain”.
Does anyone here have better information
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 9, 2018 22:23:59 GMT
[...] Another suggestion is that it derives from the little clicks that were a feature of an older vehicle’s mechanical odometer as it moved forward. [...] I can't do better than that, LJH. It's always been my assumption that it referred to odometer clicks. My OED has little to say other than:
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