| Author |
Message |
David
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 4:03 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
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In article <2liorbFdcjbpU1@uni-berlin.de>,
Skitt <skitt99@comcast.net> wrote:
| Quote: | We took out the driver's seat, put an orange crate in its place, and
drove it home, being careful to keep our feet off the pavement (most
of the floorboards were gone by now).
|
Of course, over here you'd get done for driving on the pavement.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/joachim/13-0.htm
The lamb's Navy rum hadn't gone down by so much
as one eighth of an inch in the last half hour.
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:01 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
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|
Odysseus <odysseus1479-at@yahoo-dot.ca> wrote in message news:<40F3AC11.F9C01649@yahoo-dot.ca>...
| Quote: | Tony Cooper wrote:
Deerflies bite (only the female) in the late afternoon, and mosquitos
come out mostly at twilight and later. The standard repellents for
mosquitos don't repel deerflies. Deerflies don't "buzz" like
mosquitos, so they are silent attackers.
They're damn light on their feet, too; unless you happen to see one
land, you'll never notice it until it bites.
|
Same for the British horsefly or cleg, found mainly in Scotland: if
you see it, you can splat it, but if you don't see it you'll discover
its presence only by the severe sting. Scotland -- and indeed Ireland,
now I come to think of it -- are problematic tourist destinations for
this reason. Some of us get immune, while others suffer incurably:
Scotland is a sort of nursery slope to the Arctic, and if you can't
handle it you should seriously consider a career in the Sahara.
Mike. |
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John Briggs
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:08 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
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Dr Robin Bignall wrote:
| Quote: | On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 19:37:48 GMT, "John Briggs"
john.briggs4@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote:
On Monday, in article
m2t4f01n2coiftknld1l34seemr8pvkftt@4ax.com
docrobin@ntlworld.com "Dr Robin Bignall" wrote:
That is no joke. I could show you here a street of town houses that was
built within the past three years, each with the standard-sized garage
built into the ground floor. Every house has its car(s) parked on its
drive because the garages are obviously too narrow to get a modern car
into them.
The architects presumably think that everyone still owns an A35?
Or an A30 (the only difference was the size of the rear window and the
capacity of the engine  )
The problem is that the standard size of garage door (through which a car
does not travel with its doors open) is used to define the width of the
garage.
That width of garage door does not seem to have changed over the years. If
you go back to the days of the A30 or Triumph Herald, you could only fit
two adults comfortably in the rear seat, maybe with a small child between
them. Most family saloons these days will seat three adults across. I am
always struck by how narrow these older cars look when I'm driving behind
them. I've seen double garages built with two standard-sized openings
separated by about six inches, rather than one wide up-and-over door, so
it's still difficult to get cars through the doors, and with two cars
inside it's still impossible to open the car doors more than a foot or so.
The problem in Britain is the cost of building land, particularly within
commuting distance of London. If an architect saves a foot in width on
each house in a street of 100 houses, he can squeeze an extra two or three
houses in. That's another five to seven hundred thousand pounds of
turnover.
|
Don't blame architects - most developers' housing has never seen an
architect. It was commented a few years ago (by a planner) that some of the
most acceptable housing in Hampshire was from a developer where one of the
directors considered that he had a flair for design...
--
John Briggs
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John Briggs
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:15 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
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|
Dr Robin Bignall wrote:
| Quote: | On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 08:56:48 +0100 (BST), bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton
Kelly}) wrote:
Never; moreover, we don't have coupes (some manufacturers' models have
been designated as coupés, but the name never seems to catch on with the
British Public).
The British Public that I know use coupe to describe a two-seater which is
not a convertible.
http://www.automotive.com/jaguar/05/coupe/
for example.
|
I think you've chosen a bad example - Jaguar always did drop-head coupés as
well as fixed-head coupés.
--
John Briggs |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:28 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
|
|
Mike Lyle wrote:
| Quote: | Odysseus wrote:
Tony Cooper wrote:
Deerflies bite (only the female) in the late afternoon, and
mosquitos come out mostly at twilight and later. The standard
repellents for mosquitos don't repel deerflies. Deerflies don't
"buzz" like mosquitos, so they are silent attackers.
They're damn light on their feet, too; unless you happen to see one
land, you'll never notice it until it bites.
Same for the British horsefly or cleg, found mainly in Scotland: if
you see it, you can splat it, but if you don't see it you'll discover
its presence only by the severe sting. Scotland -- and indeed Ireland,
now I come to think of it -- are problematic tourist destinations for
this reason. Some of us get immune, while others suffer incurably:
Scotland is a sort of nursery slope to the Arctic, and if you can't
handle it you should seriously consider a career in the Sahara.
|
I see that it was just as well that I didn't pursue the opportunity I was
offered to spend six to nine months in Coulport, back in the very late '70s,
providing support and instructions for the maintenance and support of one of
Lockheed products.
I lost my chance to find Nessie, though.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:32 am
Post subject: Re: Pronouncing "semi" (was Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms) |
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On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 18:25:21 GMT, "nemo"
<nemo@naughtylass.wet> said:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:clhve0p0ki9afenl06l0lga1v53ba9fm6k@4ax.com...
On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 04:26:45 +0000 (UTC), "Aaron J. Dinkin"
dinkin@babel.ling.upenn.edu> said:
On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 03:44:13 GMT, Bob Cunningham
exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote:
"Semi-trailer" isn't the term, because that's just the
trailer that the tractor tows, but still the combination
of the tractor and the semi-trailer is commonly called a
"semi", pronounced ['sEmaI].
Izzat so? ['sEmi] sounds no less correct to me than ['sEmaI]
for that sense.
There's no such thing in English usage as correct or
incorrect.
Coillons! (And that's appropriate Middle English usage!)
Semi is pronounced "Sem" to rhyme with them, and "mi" to rhyme with me.
See-My is the US pronunciation, which is as usual, extremely ugly. "A nation
of phonetic poseurs" describes them well.
|
Have you had this problem long? |
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John Dean
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 7:25 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
|
|
Skitt wrote:
| Quote: | Mike Lyle wrote:
Odysseus wrote:
Tony Cooper wrote:
Deerflies bite (only the female) in the late afternoon, and
mosquitos come out mostly at twilight and later. The standard
repellents for mosquitos don't repel deerflies. Deerflies don't
"buzz" like mosquitos, so they are silent attackers.
They're damn light on their feet, too; unless you happen to see one
land, you'll never notice it until it bites.
Same for the British horsefly or cleg, found mainly in Scotland: if
you see it, you can splat it, but if you don't see it you'll discover
its presence only by the severe sting. Scotland -- and indeed
Ireland, now I come to think of it -- are problematic tourist
destinations for this reason. Some of us get immune, while others
suffer incurably: Scotland is a sort of nursery slope to the Arctic,
and if you can't handle it you should seriously consider a career in
the Sahara.
I see that it was just as well that I didn't pursue the opportunity I
was offered to spend six to nine months in Coulport, back in the very
late '70s, providing support and instructions for the maintenance and
support of one of Lockheed products.
I lost my chance to find Nessie, though.
|
You're as likely to find Nessie in California as you are in Scotland
--
John 'heard loud noise. looked up' Dean
Oxford |
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Skitt
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 7:35 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
|
|
John Dean wrote:
| Quote: | Skitt wrote:
I see that it was just as well that I didn't pursue the opportunity I
was offered to spend six to nine months in Coulport, back in the very
late '70s, providing support and instructions for the maintenance and
support of one of Lockheed products.
I lost my chance to find Nessie, though.
You're as likely to find Nessie in California as you are in Scotland
|
Oh, I've given up drinking anyway.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Roland Hutchinson
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:11 am
Post subject: Re: Pronouncing "semi" |
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|
In article <sue5f0llin8r4gcni1gcvgj8f9si72s7eh@4ax.com> on Monday 12 July
2004 12:29, Brian Wickham wrote:
| Quote: | On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 23:54:53 -0400, Ben Zimmer
bgzimmer@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
I think ['sEmi] might be more prevalent among younger AmE speakers, at
least in some regions of the country. Compare the now-trendy automotive
term "hemi" (engine using hemispherical combustion chambers), invariably
pronounced ['hEmi].
It may be trendy now but the Chrysler Hemi engine was called that by
car enthusiasts at least as far back as the late 1950's.
|
Which just proves that what goes around, comes around.
Especially when crankshafts and flywheels are involved.
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. |
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Odysseus
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:44 am
Post subject: Re: Pronouncing "semi" |
|
|
"Don A. Gilmore" wrote:
| Quote: |
"John Briggs" <john.briggs4@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:H9UIc.535$Xz6.143@newsfe5-win.ntli.net...
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
According to
http://www.learnclassicalguitar.com/music-notation.html
either a "quasihemidemisemiquaver" or a "semihemidemisemiquaver".
More likely just a "grace note" :-)
No, a "grace note" is different. Grace notes are ornamental notes that come
slightly before a note within the normal rhythm. They are shown in written
music as tiny notes (much smaller than the rest of the ordinary notes) and
with a diagonal line slashed through them to indicate that they are
independent of the musical time. They are quick and could quite possibly
have a value close to 1/128th, but are never written as such. Infrequently
one encounters actual 1/128th notes, connected by five bars. Those are the
notes I was curious about.
In pipe music the grace-notes (which occur very frequently, singly or |
in groups of up to four -- or even more) are written as small
demisemiquavers (thirty-second notes), stems up -- the stems of the
melody notes all point downwards. I learned the traditional names
"semibreve", "minim", &c. in the course of my elementary music-theory
classes, but I've only heard any of them 'in the wild' from pipers,
and that rarely.
--
Odysseus |
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Ayaz Ahmed Khan
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:04 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
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|
"david56" typed:
| Quote: | "Ayaz Ahmed Khan" wrote:
"david56" typed:
"Uni"? "Uni"?? You never called it Uni. I never called it Uni,
and I am x years younger than you. AFAIK the awful "Uni" came in
with Neighbours.
I do. Often. If while reading I come across the word "university",
I'm quite likely to read it as "uni", and move along.
But you are excused for being under 30.
|
I'll quietly move along, then.
--
Ayaz Ahmed Khan |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:31 am
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
|
|
"John Dean" <john-dean@frag.lineone.net> wrote in message
news:ccv2it$r80$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
| Quote: | Phil C. wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 18:14:10 +0100, Dr Robin Bignall
docrobin@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:17:15 +0100, Phil C. <nobody@nowhere.com
wrote:
To keep me at the cutting edge of fashion, Mrs C. buys all my
clothes from Help the Agued. At least, I think that's what it's
called.
*All* your clothes? I don't think I'd care for pre-owned
unmentionables.
Sometimes, in melancholic moments, I'm moved to ponder whether my
clothes have been removed from a corpse... or perhaps I just need to
change my deodorant.
Mrs C. assures me that Help the Aged still exists, BTW. It seems a
rather quaint name for a charity in these image-conscious days.
http://www.helptheaged.org.uk/default.htm
http://www.helptheaged.ca/
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
--
John Dean
Oxford
|
Here in the US you can drop off old clothes at a Goodwill box, Goodwill
Industries being a non-profit charitable organization. In the last few
years, however, something else has appeared on the scene: A clothes drop-off
box that, you are informed if you read the text on the box, belongs to a
for-profit corporation.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Matthew Huntbach
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 3:39 pm
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
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In uk.culture.language.english Raymond S. Wise <mplsrayNOSPAM@gbronline.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Here in the US you can drop off old clothes at a Goodwill box, Goodwill
Industries being a non-profit charitable organization. In the last few
years, however, something else has appeared on the scene: A clothes drop-off
box that, you are informed if you read the text on the box, belongs to a
for-profit corporation.
|
Similar in Britain. Most old clothes that are collected by charities are
sold in bulk to dealers who export them to poor countries where they are in
turn parcelled out and sold to smaller operators who sell them on the streets.
Only the first sale involves raising money for charity. The charities have
high street shops in Britain which sell old clothes, but only a small
portion of the clothes donated reach these rather than the bulk sales
operators. Since this business of collecting old clotehs and selling them on
to exporters is a profitable one, commercial operators have got into it, I
assume by law they have to declare they are not charities, but they seem to
operate in a way as similar as possible to the charities so that people
donating old clothes don't realise.
There have been suggestions that this business is not particularly
beneficient to the poor countries which receive the clothes since the effect
is to out-compete with indigenous clothes manufacturers.
The appearance of charity shops in a British high street is generally a mark
of a high street in trouble, probably being out-competed by a nearby
shopping mall or by a large shopping centre which all but those who are
unable to travel far would prefer. Generally a shop is let out on a short
term lease to a charity only when it has no tbeen possible to find anyone
else to take it on.
Matthew Huntbach |
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Wood Avens
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 4:31 pm
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
|
|
On 14 Jul 2004 09:39:05 GMT, Matthew Huntbach <mmh@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>
wrote:
| Quote: | The appearance of charity shops in a British high street is generally a mark
of a high street in trouble, probably being out-competed by a nearby
shopping mall or by a large shopping centre which all but those who are
unable to travel far would prefer. Generally a shop is let out on a short
term lease to a charity only when it has no tbeen possible to find anyone
else to take it on.
|
Not quite true, in my experience. There are well-established charity
shops on the high streets of some very up-market towns of my
acquaintance. Depending on where you live and your social circle,
buying your clothes in charity shops (and being clever enough to dress
well with the results) now carries considerable cachet. The shops do
very well as a result.
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @ |
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Phil C.
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 4:49 pm
Post subject: Re: Lost/displaced Briticisms |
|
|
On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 22:46:08 +0100, Dr Robin Bignall
<docrobin@ntlworld.com> wrote:
| Quote: | That width of garage door does not seem to have changed over the years. If
you go back to the days of the A30 or Triumph Herald, you could only fit
two adults comfortably in the rear seat, maybe with a small child between
them. Most family saloons these days will seat three adults across. I am
always struck by how narrow these older cars look when I'm driving behind
them. I've seen double garages built with two standard-sized openings
separated by about six inches, rather than one wide up-and-over door, so
it's still difficult to get cars through the doors, and with two cars
inside it's still impossible to open the car doors more than a foot or so.
|
Strangely, the number of persons per car has declined as the width has
increased. Perhaps the growing obesity problem is the explanation.
--
Phil C. |
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