Common language

[onehitwanda]

Anyone know how the Millenum Falcon's doing?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Even Lit's built in spell checker recognizes the truth. Aluminium gets flagged as a spelling error.

 

[SimonDoom]

Anyone know how the Millenum Falcon's doing?

I have no idea. It's a conundrium. It vexes my cerebrium not to know. But I'm glad you brought it up in this forium.

 

[Pabiporffor]

In the UK it's arse not ass because we're posh.
The word thick is a bit odd. In America it's a woman with a bit of extra meat on her bones but in the UK it means stupid, as in thick as pigshit or thick as two short planks.

 

[Rustyoznail]

In the UK it's arse not ass because we're posh.

With absolutely zero references to back me up, I would say ass came from the days when a married couple slept in separate beds in movies, and comics had to abide by the " Comic Code".

Words that refer to parts of the body? Oh dear, who'll think of the children?

 

[MillieDynamite]

With absolutely zero references to back me up, I would say ass came from the days when a married couple slept in separate beds in movies, and comics had to abide by the " Comic Code".

Words that refer to parts of the body? Oh dear, who'll think of the children?

I think it's older than that, as I think I read the word in an erotic story written in the 1870s or so. I can't remember which one, maybe the Romance of Lust.

The Romance of Lust is repetitive, with almost exact phrasing for the sex scenes which are profuse and long. Lots of thrusting, trusts, thrust, licking, locking of lips, forcing deep in a well lubricated velvety cunt, and frigging her while she sucks him, or me in the actual text.

Edit: Damn dyslexia!!! Where are my glasses?

 

[gunhilltrain]

As to common words used by folks in my circle, hela, kibbitzer, naches, kvetch, plotka-macher, and nudnik come to mind. You'd have to be a Yiddish speaking Jew, or someone who knows Yiddish to get their meaning. There is no direct translation to English for any of the words but hela, which is a simple hello.

Most of those words more used and understood by many New Yorkers at one time. Probably not so much now.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Must be nice to be rich.

Still waiting for my first trip to the French Alps. Or anywhere in the Alps would do.

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

For those who don't get my admittedly wonky sense of humor, I'm kidding. I bear no ill will against the Brits...

Si vis pacem, para bellium

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Canny means shrewd, prudent, clever, astute, or thrifty, while uncanny means supernatural, weird, or unsettling. Canny is Scottish uncanny is not. How weird is that? Oh, it's uncanny, actually.

Aye, that's as maybe, but you canny sneak off for a canny swift half with yer canny pal.

Otherwise, the word "trolley" is used in certain cities to indicate an electric streetcar. (Like the thing Judy Garland is on in Meet Me In St. Louis.)

Is there a difference between an electric streetcar trolley and a tram? I recall the SF trolleys have track and.overhead cable, so does that make them short rickety trams?

 

[Voboy]

I recall the SF trolleys have track and.overhead cable, so does that make them short rickety trams?

If you’re talking about the old-skool cable cars? No. They ran on a cable alongside the track, down in the pavement. It was all done with winches and a continuous cable: you’d move by clamping the car to the cable, and stop by releasing it.

The Internet says other places call that a “cable tram.”

 

[onehitwanda]

Si vis pacem, para bellium

vidi, vici, lingua tuae veni.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Is there a difference between an electric streetcar trolley and a tram? I recall the SF trolleys have track and.overhead cable, so does that make them short rickety trams?

No, they're the same. Trolley, street car, tram, and arguably light rail describe the same vehicle.

In Melbourne we've had horse drawn trams, steam trams, electric trams, and cable trams over the years.

Edit: and the tram has derailed this thread.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

On the other end of a car, U.S. 'hood' is U.K. 'bonnet.' Also, is 'truck' used in the U.K. for a railway freight car?

Truck is used, yes, though wagons might be more common. People collect wagon numbers. Box vans are the rectangular wagons. Open containers (like what we call skips) would be wagons, then there's flat-bed wagons.

Lots of different car and driving terminology (UK indicator/ US turn signal or blinker, petrol vs gas, saloon vs sedan, car park vs parking lot, roundabout vs rotary/total confusion), but what glares much more when some Americans set a story in the UK is the mindset:

Assuming you drive everywhere (no, no-one drives to Soho from their London office which they probably didn't drive to either), that any adult can drive and has access to a car, and that roads are straight and wide, driving is relaxing, and there will be parking available at your destination...

Other culture clashes which show up in un-Britpicked stories are the totally different education systems (JK Rowling made up almost nothing for Hogwarts - it's a typical English school with slightly different subject names), and attitudes to alcohol, healthcare and the police.

 

[onehitwanda]

no, no-one drives to Soho

Of course people drive to Soho. It's just generally after dark, in large limousines or solid gold Italian sports cars.

No normal person willing drives anywhere inside Zone two. At least, not twice

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Of course people drive to Soho. It's just generally after dark, in large limousines or solid gold Italian sports cars.

No normal person willing drives anywhere inside Zone two. At least, not twice

Nothing funnier than some twat in a limo trying to get down Old Compton St. Possibly looking out of a Chinatown restaurant window at some ponced-up supercar parked on Cranbourn St and counting the number of scratches it gets over a couple hours, some keying, mostly accidental...

Fair point, about 0.001% of visitors to Soho drive.

I actually prefer driving in London to driving in certain Home Counties (cars are going about 15-25mph and are trying not to hit you, as opposed to cunts with company insurance flooring it and don't give a shit). But you don't drive in z2 unless you have a place to park. Took family member to a hospital appointment last year. Drive: 15 min. Finding a parking space: 40 min. When I was in labour last, spouse drove me to the hospital but it was 10am. He parked on a grass verge and a flowerbed. Parking attendant goes "you can't park there!" "My wife's in labour!" "Yeah, right, mate! You... Oh! OK, mate, go ahead..."

 

[onehitwanda]

I actually prefer driving in London to driving in certain Home Counties

I resonate with this point of view. I thankfully learned to drive back in sunny SA, with the result that I've seen most things under the sun and am not generally intimidated by traffic. But I'm still filled with terror when I know I need to negotiate several miles of Kent B-roads to get where I need to go.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I resonate with this point of view. I thankfully learned to drive back in sunny SA, with the result that I've seen most things under the sun and am not generally intimidated by traffic. But I'm still filled with terror when I know I need to negotiate several miles of Kent B-roads to get where I need to go.

God yes! Single-track roads with high hedges on each side and the fuckers in their BMWs zooming along at 60...

No, Google, I don't want the shortest route in miles!

Still, better than driving in Italy or other countries where it's similar, just on the side of a cliff.

 

[onehitwanda]

God yes! Single-track roads with high hedges on each side and the fuckers in their BMWs zooming along at 60...

Round here there's a running joke that the mating call of the 20 year old man is an wrecked Vauxhall Corsa with a fart-cannon exhaust leaking oil in a farmer's field.

 

[SimonDoom]

In the UK it's arse not ass because we're posh.

I love the word "posh." It's so distinctively British. It's rarely used by Americans. It has no precise American equivalent, and I think of it as conveying something about the attitude of the speaker that's distinctively British, too, in that the Brits think about class distinctions differently from the way we do.

 

[Bramblethorn]

God yes! Single-track roads with high hedges on each side and the fuckers in their BMWs zooming along at 60...

...or a combine harvester coming the other way...

 

[gunhilltrain]

Aye, that's as maybe, but you canny sneak off for a canny swift half with yer canny pal.


Is there a difference between an electric streetcar trolley and a tram? I recall the SF trolleys have track and.overhead cable, so does that make them short rickety trams?

A trolley car (or a streetcar) is the American term while a tram is basically the same thing in the British Isles (and France). Most such systems in the world do have overhead wires, but there are other ways of doing it. Below is a horse-drawn vehicle (invented in the 1840's; I guess they were just called horsecars) and an electric trolley or streetcar (New Yorkers would call it a trolley). Those were perfected in the 1880's. This is one of the rare places in the world were the power was from a third rail in the conduit or slot between the rails. Overhead wires were banned in Manhattan but not the rest of the city.

At the bottom is a New York proposal that I doubt is ever going to happen. The vehicles have gotten much longer over the years. However, this much like what you have in Sheffield, Manchester, Dublin, etc. now and would still likely be called a tram.

https://cdn.skyrisecities.com/sites/default/files/images/articles/2016/07/21931/21931-75919.jpg

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/...834-73O5HCG7AOQB56W4JWGD/BQX.jpg?format=2500w

 

[Pureotica]

View attachment 2252146

Spell check is probably localized. It's definitely the opposite in the US.

I'm only teasing anyway. I find the differences in the various English-es fascinating. I don't understand the elitism, for lack of a better term, some people feel about the particularities of their peculiar off-brand. Most American dialects are older than the modern iteration of RP/Queen's English. And we were no longer a colony when current conventions of 'proper' English emerged in London. I don't even recognize Britain's authority over my language. They lost the rights with the collapse of their empire.

English doesn't belong to England, it belongs to everyone in the big, diverse world who speaks it. I love Indian English, and Australian English, and Canadian English, and the varied music of Caribbean English, and South African English, and the other English-es that elude me at the moment. What gives the snooty Londoners the right to judge the rest of us, when they are one of the smallest demographics among the language's speakers?

English is spoken far outside of London, and it isn't stable even there. From what I gather, RP isn't even predominant in London. London has its own dialect in addition to Cockney. English changes all the time. The UK alone has 37 or so dialects on its tiny island. America is a big place. The USA is far more diverse both geographically and demographically than the UK. And most of our citizens don't trace our heritage to England. American English is a lot more Irish/Scottish than it ever was British to begin with. I have some Irish heritage, but the rest of my ancestors came from Germany and Eastern Europe? Why would any reasonable person expect Americans to speak like Brits? We have little connection to them at all.

A full 20% of our population doesn't speak English as a first language, and some don't speak it at all. Spanish is about thirteen percent. Asian and European languages have little enclaves. Most of the globe is represented in less significant numbers.

And depending how you sort them, we have from twenty-four to hundreds of distinct dialects of English. I can meet people with different accents within my own State, even if I never set foot in its major cities. I live in the sticks, so my accent is mid-Atlantic rural American. Not southern. Not New England. Not Midwestern. We have our own dialect. Definitely distinct from the State's metropolitan areas, which each have distinguishable accents of their own. Creek is pronounced crick. Caramel has two syllables. We eat PEEKans, not peKAHNS. The edger of the road might be the shoulder, but most of us call it the berm. Daresn't (contraction of dare not) is a word, but it's dying out with the old timers. Pronounced dairsint with two syllables. It's not remotely grammatical, but I'll kind of miss it when it's gone. Reminds me of my grandparents.

I'm not saying my derivation of the language is the "right" one, just that there is no "wrong" dialect. Our particular spelling of Aluminum is older, if only by a nose.
And it was coined by the dude who discovered the element. It's not like our version lacks provenance.

And no one gives the fucking Canadians grief about it. We get singled out for some reason. (I'm kidding. I like Canadians.)

And this kerfuffle was initiated by the other team. My stake is purely reactionary. I'm not trying to convert anyone. I just want to be left alone to enjoy my more efficient, wasted syllable-free iteration of the thirteenth element. If the rest of the world wants to deplete their energy with linguistic extra lifting, I'm cool with that.

On a personal level, I have a general dislike of uneccesary syllables. Irregardless. Preventative. Argumentative. Orientate. Any word that adds a syllable that does no semantic work. When greater effort improves results, I'm all for it. When adding a syllable winds up at the same meaning, why bother? Aluminium is one of those. Why change a functional four syllable word into a clunkier five syllable word for no semantic gain? Even if the US adopts the international spelling, I'm not budging. I'm stubborn about certain things.

In any case, we're not likely to change it. Only a tiny handful of scientific journals in the US use the British spelling. Even our official government agencies use the American spelling. What's the point in arguing about an inconsequential nuance in dialect? I probably go entire months without thinking, speaking, or typing the word aluminum in any iteration. I've probably used up a ten year supply in this thread alone. It's not that big a deal in our day-to-day lives. I'm willing to settle for détente. No one is going to win this fight. We like our version, and aren't going to surrender it any time soon.

I just want people to understand where we're coming from, and the 'why' behind our choices before they judge them. We didn't change the spelling. Everyone else did. We liked what we had, and decided to stick with it. It wasn't an intentional slight to anyone else's linguistic sensibilities. Believe it or not, I don't often think about how it will effect the Brits before I utter a sentence.

 

[Bramblethorn]

A trolley car (or a streetcar) is the American term while a tram is basically the same thing in the British Isles (and France). Most such systems in the world do have overhead wires, but there are other ways of doing it. Below is a horse-drawn vehicle (invented in the 1840's; I guess they were just called horsecars) and an electric trolley or streetcar (New Yorkers would call it a trolley). Those were perfected in the 1880's. This is one of the rare places in the world were the power was from a third rail in the conduit or slot between the rails. Overhead wires were banned in Manhattan but not the rest of the city.

At the bottom is a New York proposal that I doubt is ever going to happen. The vehicles have gotten much longer over the years. However, this much like what you have in Sheffield, Manchester, Dublin, etc. now and would still likely be called a tram.

https://cdn.skyrisecities.com/sites/default/files/images/articles/2016/07/21931/21931-75919.jpg

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/...834-73O5HCG7AOQB56W4JWGD/BQX.jpg?format=2500w

Looks similar size to Melbourne's E2s, which are indeed still called trams:

 

[onehitwanda]

Looks similar size to Melbourne's E2s, which are indeed still called trams:

View attachment 2252361

My depth perception and vision are not great and as far as I'm concerned that bastard is camouflaged.