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Post by Verbivore on Jul 4, 2020 10:31:44 GMT
A special for the Fourth of July, from one of my YouTube subscriptions. The fun (but fake) etymologies of AmericaPS: I wonder why it is that so many language-topic YouTubers display odd speech characteristics including lisps, tics, and compromised / odd / non-standard pronunciations? Even though understanding them first time can be a challenge, I do enjoy the wide variety of spoken English(es) they present – provided, of course, their topic interests me. (Others, lacking life, can become rapidly soporific despite interesting material.)
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 4, 2020 12:35:22 GMT
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 5, 2020 9:50:11 GMT
Blimey, Crowe's put on the pork!
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 5, 2020 12:08:13 GMT
Blimey, Crowe's put on the pork! I thought so, too, Twod. There's a lot more of him than when I met him 20 years ago. (Nothing grand or formal; we were both fuelling our black Benzes at the same service station and RC – his Benz was a then-new S-Klasse – came over to check my far older, classic S-Klasse. Down to earth, no airs and graces, just an unassuming fellow methought.)
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 5, 2020 14:27:55 GMT
Hmm! I would say some of these slang words are worldwide, certainly British, let alone TransTasman. I am not a habitual user of slang but I have used knackered and chocker since childhood — long before I encountered “Neighbours“. I have assumed knackered comes from the knackers’ yard were old (therefore “tired”) animals were taken to be slaughtered. I think chocker comes from chock-a-block, which was more or less standard naval usage meaning that the chocks of two blocks in a block and tackle pulley system (not just sail halliards) were drawn tightly together and therefore couldn’t be hauled further. I think “good as” and similar constructions are just abbreviations of “good as gold” or whatever.
I didn’t know billabong was slang – I thought it was an alternative standard for, specifically, an oxbow lake.
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 5, 2020 23:39:08 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 8, 2020 23:47:09 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 9, 2020 10:44:26 GMT
I have listened to this blog before but can never remember the origin of curry favour even though it is interesting. I think I may have heard all of them spoken except for “growth sprout” which means nothing at all to me unless it means growth spurt which seems unlikely. According to Wikipedia: "Duck tape" is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as having been in use since 1899; "duct tape" (described as "perhaps an alteration of earlier duck tape") since 1965. So duck tape precedes duct tape. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape But I wonder? Duct tape makes more sense to me than duck tape but I read elsewhere that duck tape acquired its name during the second world war because it was made of cotton duck and/or because water ran off it like water off a duck’s back. I think I must believe the OED (if Wiki quotes it correctly). I have mentioned this before but I had always thought an eggcorn was a deliberate misuse of words for comic effect, not merely a simple mistake. I thought old timers’ disease was one such. It never occurred to me that it was a mistake. So, what is the word for a deliberate misuse of words for comic effect?
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 13, 2020 0:42:53 GMT
Below is a screen grab from an episode of Chris Barrie's Britain's Greatest Machines. The Sentinel Steam Wagon's signage bears an unusual take on the ampersand: it appears to be followed by an apostrophe. Has anyone else seen this usage? Is it merely a stylistic effect, or have ampersands been accompanied by apostrophes elsewhere?
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Post by Dave Miller on Jul 13, 2020 6:40:31 GMT
I’ve never before seen the ampersand-apostrophe combination.
Mind you, I’m not confident in the signwriter’s style (or skill?):
- no space between “R.” and “HAZELL” - the ampersand is more of an E - there’s a non-standard full stop after “SONS” - there’s an uncomfortable length of space between “ROAD” and “CONTRACTORS”.
Perhaps some of those were expected back in the wagon’s early days, but I don’t think so.
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 13, 2020 7:04:14 GMT
Indeed, Dave, there are numerous infelicities in the signwriting – I expect that to be the norm even today. On a local pub, recently renovated and re-signed, three of the name signs declare Courthouse Hotel while another two declare Court House Hotel. Even the proprietor didn't know his pub was the Court House – until I pointed it out to him on the business-name registration certificate. He probably gave the signwriter the wrong instructions, but then that tradesman has stuffed up anyway.
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 13, 2020 23:26:25 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 13, 2020 23:49:25 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 14, 2020 22:47:23 GMT
Yesterday we Aussies saw the release of the “Palace Letters” – mid-1970s correspondence between the AU governor-general Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace (actually the Queen’s private secretary of the time, Sir Martin Charteris).
In one of those letters (I’m halfway through the 1,200 pages!) Charteris wrote: “[…] While the Royal Household believes in the longstanding convention that all conversations between prime ministers, governor generals and the Queen are private […]”.
Governor generals or governors-general? To me it’s always been the latter, similar to attorneys-general (not attorney generals).
In another letter, Charteris wrote "Governor-General". Why no hyphen in Charteris's plural generic GG but inserted into the formal singular? Does the Palace have no style guide?
At first I thought the governor generals might have been a Guardian style, but both the examples mentioned above are contained within those Palace Letters.
The OED gives governor-general, but I notice the form governor general is gaining popularity (through ignorance or laziness?). OED doesn't give the plural form.
Note: The Palace Letters were the prelude to Australia's great constitutional crisis of 11 November 1975, commonly known as The Dismissal, where the GG sacked the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, and government.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 15, 2020 13:45:56 GMT
I suppose, like so much else, it’s a matter of custom and practice. According to Wikipedia, the title is spelled as Governor General in Canada but it is spelled with a hyphen in Australia. I suppose even the queen’s private secretary may be excused for occasional lapses from following the form of the “destination” country. I haven’t had the energy to explore the preferences in other Commonwealth realms. I have always thought the plural is governors general because the qualifying adjective follows the noun, but it seems correct that where the word is hyphenated into a single word it should become governor-generals.
The same uncertainty applies to court martial and court-martial, but who knows?
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