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Post by Verbivore on Feb 25, 2020 6:57:10 GMT
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 25, 2020 9:59:55 GMT
I was pleased this morning to find mention in the latest AP Stylebook newsletter the following directive (one that I'm sure I've previously posted about on here): Use "who" for references to people and to animals with a name. Otherwise, use "that." For example: "The woman who bought the car," not "the woman that bought the car." "The company that hired me," not "the company who hired me."I thought my mission on the matter was a lost cause, but if the AP Stylebook directive helps newspapers to avoid the rampant errant use of the relative pronoun for the personal I shall continue, encouraged, to bang that drum. There's a local example that confuses me. It's a car sales company named after its founder, Mr Lipscombe, and it advertises itself as "Lipscombes, the People that Care". A grey area, perhaps?
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 25, 2020 10:33:37 GMT
I was pleased this morning to find mention in the latest AP Stylebook newsletter the following directive (one that I'm sure I've previously posted about on here): Use "who" for references to people and to animals with a name. Otherwise, use "that." For example: "The woman who bought the car," not "the woman that bought the car." "The company that hired me," not "the company who hired me."I thought my mission on the matter was a lost cause, but if the AP Stylebook directive helps newspapers to avoid the rampant errant use of the relative pronoun for the personal I shall continue, encouraged, to bang that drum. There's a local example that confuses me. It's a car sales company named after its founder, Mr Lipscombe, and it advertises itself as "Lipscombes, the People that Care". A grey area, perhaps? Twod, perhaps your confusion lies in the fact that Lipscombes is a company (or other kind of business entity), which, according to the AP Stylebook, should take a that – although the inclusion of People in the slogan does mess with my head a little, because automatically I want to use who with people. A grey area: Yes. (Question: About what is it that the Lipscombe people care? Customer satisfaction? Reputation? Profit? Reliability of the products they sell? Integrity? Profit? They are a car dealership; not unlike real estate agents or politicians, methinks – not to be trusted until proven worthy of it.)
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 25, 2020 22:21:02 GMT
Update. This is a mite odd. In the 1980s I bought a car from the firm of Lipscombs (or Lipscombes - I don't recall the exact spelling), whose slogan was "Lipscomb(e)s, the People That Care". I've just checked, and the firm no longer operates from the town where I bought the car, but a company called Lipscomb (sic) now operates from three other towns nearby and has the motto, "Lipscomb, the Car People Who Care". No longer "That"; now it's "Who". Tomorrow I'm buying a used car from a firm in one of those three towns, but not from Lipscomb; it's from a completely unrelated company … except that the salesman's surname is Lipscombe (note the different spelling). It was his name, linked to Verbivore's posting about "that" and "who", that reminded me of my 1980s purchase and the use by the company of "That", rather than "Who". How strange. I'm not telling you the make of car the car I'm buying. (Verbivore disapproves of 4-cylinder Korean shitboxes vehicles.)
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 26, 2020 1:21:21 GMT
Update. This is a mite odd. In the 1980s I bought a car from the firm of Lipscombs (or Lipscombes - I don't recall the exact spelling), whose slogan was "Lipscomb(e)s, the People That Care". I've just checked, and the firm no longer operates from the town where I bought the car, but a company called Lipscomb (sic) now operates from three other towns nearby and has the motto, "Lipscomb, the Car People Who Care". No longer "That"; now it's "Who". Tomorrow I'm buying a used car from a firm in one of those three towns, but not from Lipscomb; it's from a completely unrelated company … except that the salesman's surname is Lipscombe (note the different spelling). It was his name, linked to Verbivore's posting about "that" and "who", that reminded me of my 1980s purchase and the use by the company of "That", rather than "Who". How strange. I'm not telling you the make of car the car I'm buying. (Verbivore disapproves of 4-cylinder Korean shitboxes vehicles.) How interesting, Twod. Nothing in life is simple, eh. I'm glad that the "new Lipscombs" have their pronouns sorted. BTW, I don't mind if you buy a Korean shitbox car, as long as I don't have to drive it. These days, in the context of modern cars, Hyundai has improved its game a lot. Even my Benz-fanatic mechanic advises folk who want a new, reliable, small car to buy either a Toyota Corolla or a Hyundai i30. But will it get better fuel consumption than my 5-litre Benz? A few years ago when Hyundai was claiming 6.x litres per 100 km they were exposed by the Oz authorities as lying: the real-world consumption was actually 8.5 litres per 100 km for their 2-litre 4-cylinder model. My Benz, thanks to clever engineering including very tall final-drive gearing, drinks 8.6 litres per 100 km, probably because it loafs along at 110 km/h at a lazy 1900 rpm while small cars are revving in the vicinity of 3,000 at the same speed. (The gods forbid, but should the two collide I know which one I'd rather be in.) Righto, lunch break is over: back to my car project.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 26, 2020 10:56:02 GMT
I read the article about “the” with interest. I hadn’t realised there were languages which had no such word — it must be a real challenge for speakers of those languages to use the word correctly in English. It is sometimes a challenge for native speakers as witness those who use “The Messiah” for Handel’s oratorio but who never say “The Hamlet” or “The Othello”.
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Post by Dave Miller on Feb 26, 2020 14:49:55 GMT
I read the article about “the” with interest. I hadn’t realised there were languages which had no such word — it must be a real challenge for speakers of those languages to use the word correctly in English. It is sometimes a challenge for native speakers as witness those who use “The Messiah” for Handel’s oratorio but who never say “The Hamlet” or “The Othello”. That probably comes from the understanding that Hamlet and Othello are proper names and Messiah isn't. (Think of pointing at one of them and saying "That is ...". You'd say "That is Othello", "That is Hamlet", but "That is the Messiah".) I know that you are talking about the name of the work, which in each case is the single word, but after all Handel may have been influenced by his German background. I reckon an English-born composer would have titled the work "The Messiah".
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 26, 2020 21:14:27 GMT
I read the article about “the” with interest. I hadn’t realised there were languages which had no such word — it must be a real challenge for speakers of those languages to use the word correctly in English. […] I learned that when I edited a PhD thesis for an academic whose native language was Farsi (he was multilingual: six languages!), which has no articles. In all the places where articles (definite or indefinite) were needed there were none and I had to insert them; conversely, where the author had used articles they were inappropriate and I had to excise them. Otherwise his written English was better than that of many native Aussie academics whose work I dealt with back then (the '90s). (The law in AU has since been changed to outlaw such editing / rewriting of academic theses by third parties, but it was a good little earner while I did it.)
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 26, 2020 22:45:07 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 26, 2020 22:46:16 GMT
The Surrey Police Force demonstrates a sense of humour. Given that humour is the most effective educator (if people laugh at something they’re more likely to accept and remember it according to my extensive experience as a community health educator), perhaps the Surrey Police's tactics might work.
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 28, 2020 8:49:23 GMT
Foreign pronunciations
This afternoon I was discussing organ voicings ("registrations") with a Japanese chap who had the typical Japanese problem with "r" and "l". I was talking about registration while my acquaintance kept talking about legislation. I tried hard not to laugh; after all, my Japanese is far worse (nonexistent) than his English. The chap also declared his love of "lock and loll" and The Beatres (Beatles).
When it comes to voting for governments, I believe the Japanese have erections – far more fun than elections, I'm sure.
Meanwhile, I've been practising my pronunciation of the Afghan "Q" so I can correctly pronounce a friend's name, Qasim (which others less caring pronounce Kasim). As far as I can get it, that "Q" sounds like the guttural "H" in the Hebrew Hanukkah.
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Post by Dave Miller on Feb 28, 2020 9:08:16 GMT
Clearly, the Japanese friend can say both r and l sounds, but it may be that, when they are combined with other letter sounds, he cannot hear the difference.
I recall trying to decide whether the Cantonese word for milk was “lai” or “nai” - some people seemed to say one, others the other. So, several times, to different people, I asked “ is it lai or nai?” ... only to be met with a blank look, as apparently I’d given two identical sounds.
When I say “can’t hear” the difference, I don’t mean any defect in the ears, but rather an insensitivity to the difference - much like an American saying “.com” will be heard by another American to have said that, but out of context a Brit will hear “dart calm”.
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 28, 2020 9:44:26 GMT
[...] When I say “can’t hear” the difference, I don’t mean any defect in the ears, but rather an insensitivity to the difference - much like an American saying “.com” will be heard by another American to have said that, but out of context a Brit will hear “dart calm”. That is my understanding of the phenomenon, Dave. Apparently it's much the same with the sounds of "V" and "B": Japanese "can't hear" the difference, and usually say "B", e.g. "berry good" – or even "belly good". I spend a lot of time (perhaps too much) at my local Japanese-fusion café where I get to make these observations. I've found some success in the past when tutoring Japanese in Engrish when I've used illustrative drawings of the various mouth-part positions for "L" and "R" and relating the tongue movements to the shape of the respective letters ("L" being a straight-up-and-down movement like a lowercase "l" and "R" being a roll not unlike the shape of a lowercase "r". For some reason those worked better than attempts to show the difference between "V" and "B"). If I've achieved nothing else, I've at least managed to get the café staff calling me Gordon instead of Golden. LOL
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 28, 2020 21:38:14 GMT
Here we are, in Oz at least, on the leap day.
Has anyone here found the forum slow to load recently? For the past week it's been very slow for me (7–12 seconds per refresh; usually 1–2 secs), though my connection speed and loading times for everything else have not deteriorated. Perhaps ProBoards' servers are overloaded? Or maybe it's just their connection to Oz that's congested. (I don't visit other ProBoards-based discussion boards, so have none to compare with.)
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 28, 2020 22:00:20 GMT
Here we are, in Oz at least, on the leap day. Has anyone here found the forum slow to load recently? For the past week it's been very slow for me (7–12 seconds per refresh; usually 1–2 secs), though my connection speed and loading times for everything else have not deteriorated. Perhaps ProBoards' servers are overloaded? Or maybe it's just their connection to Oz that's congested. (I don't visit other ProBoards-based discussion boards, so have none to compare with.) It's been its normal speed here, I think.
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