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Post by Verbivore on Jan 27, 2019 21:16:44 GMT
In a toilet at the Piddle Inn, Piddletrenthide, situated on a bank of the River Piddle, I once piddled. Twod: I'm glad you so honoured the place. But did you shit in Shitterton?
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 27, 2019 21:19:22 GMT
When househunting in 1985, I decided NOT to buy Camp Cottage, Gay Hill ... That would be a tad much to live with, eh! LOL I have a sister who lives at Gays Hill (a locale with a few farmlets, no village or such).
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 29, 2019 9:42:50 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 30, 2019 21:32:34 GMT
A collective noun I've just learned: a group of rays (those marine critters) is a fever.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 30, 2019 23:50:29 GMT
The error seems to have been corrected!
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 31, 2019 2:18:25 GMT
The error seems to have been corrected! So it has! Aunty actually took notice of my gripe. She doesn't always, but she's generally pretty good at taking such suggestions for emendment.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 31, 2019 12:32:22 GMT
On the topic of Oh for zero: In this YouTube video – an instructional / promotional filmette by Bell Systems introducing user-dial telephones (1954) – the presenter consistently refers to zero as “oh”. This can be heard at 2:49, 5:09, and 8:41, and elaborated upon when she says “the numeral Oh” as she points to zero on the dial (5:59). From there until 6:09 in the piece the presenter refers to the actual letter O, the one sharing space with M, N, and 6. At 6:12 she points to the zero “oh” and says “operator”. Perhaps this is the origin of using “oh” for zero – "Dial Oh for Operator"?
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 31, 2019 19:56:24 GMT
"Oh" for zero must have been in use quite a while before 1954, Verbivore. Here's the Glenn Miller Orchestra performing "Pennsylvania 6-5000", written in 1940; for most of the song the orchestra repeats, "Pennsylvania six, five thousand" but at 2:15 it sings, "Pennsylvania six five oh oh oh".
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 31, 2019 20:06:14 GMT
"Oh" for zero must have been in use quite a while before 1954, Verbivore. Here's the Glenn Miller Orchestra performing "Pennsylvania 6-5000", written in 1940; for most of the song the orchestra repeats, "Pennsylvania six, five thousand" but at 2:15 it sings, "Pennsylvania six five oh oh oh". There goes my little theory.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 1, 2019 3:15:18 GMT
Interesting, Vv. I thought you might have been correct until I read Twoddle’s post but I am astonished that as late as 1954, people needed to have an explanation about how to use dial telephones. I seem to recollect, in around 1950, moving from a dialling system to an operator system when we moved house from Middlesbrough to Lancashire and I pondered at the time on the backward step.
In the UK, it is many years since we lost the functionality of letters on landline telephones, something I regret as we now have to remember a series of eleven digits. I still miss the WHItehalll 1212 of the police at Scotland Yard. In fact my telephone keypad has letters on it but I have just realised that I have no idea what purpose they serve as one can’t send text messages from a land line. I envy the Aussie system whereby one can rent special “alphabetic numbers” related to one’s business.
I also note that the presenter on the video refers to lines being “busy”. I think Brits say, or certainly used to say, “engaged”. We never had a party line because my father had a public service job which often involved confidential conversations.
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 1, 2019 4:11:33 GMT
[…] my telephone keypad has letters on it but I have just realised that I have no idea what purpose they serve as one can’t send text messages from a land line. I envy the Aussie system whereby one can rent special “alphabetic numbers” related to one’s business. I also note that the presenter on the video refers to lines being “busy”. I think Brits say, or certainly used to say, “engaged”. We never had a party line because my father had a public service job which often involved confidential conversations. We use both busy and engaged. Party lines disappeared here with the introduction of self-dial, which arrived in the early '50s. Re texting over landline phones: One can do that in Oz provided both sender and receiver have the right hardware (which these days includes most cordless handsets). The US appears to have "name" numbers, e.g. 13good (134663) as we do in Oz; I suspect the US had those first. They were introduced here about the same time as mobile phones (late 1980s). At about the same time we began being allowed to choose our phone numbers (within the constraints of the system); I had three: 018 222 222 (work mobile, 1988 – I was running a confidential service mostly from the car, so had the first "mobile" phone in town, a clunky thing with a large handset on the dash, connected to a transceiver unit the size of four house bricks fitted into the rear of a LandCruiser and costing about $10K!); a work office number of 02 222 222; and a home number of 02 666 666. The 2- and 3-digit prefixes were fixed and related to one's local exchange; the rest were relatively random. The 222 222 numbers directly related to the nature of my work – the nation's second only (and non-metropolitan first) needle-exchange program; I wanted phone numbers that my stoned punters could readily remember in their brain-fog. The 666 666 was just because I could; I thought it devilishly clever at the time.
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 1, 2019 4:15:07 GMT
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Post by Dave Miller on Feb 1, 2019 10:26:05 GMT
Mmmm. Quantum can mean “a required or allowed amount” of money, so I suppose it’s OK.
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 1, 2019 11:16:30 GMT
Mmmm. Quantum can mean “a required or allowed amount” of money, so I suppose it’s OK. Yes, but total quantum? The amount was neither required nor allowed. The quantum is mere padding, trying to make the writer seem intelligent.
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 1, 2019 11:27:06 GMT
I found this on the Internet, but I've now lost where I found it.
"For those interested in the derivation of oh for the digit 0: the OED lists our oh as being derived from 0 (meaning zero), which is derived from the shape of the letter O. A quotation from 1596, for example: 'Cyphers or round oos'".
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