The Murder of the English Language

[fogbank]

I had a college professor who would always describe a student's off-topic remarks as tangenital.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I had a college professor who would always describe a student's off-topic remarks as tangenital.

Oh god, that reminds me of a grad school professor who would mess up sigma with smegma. It was a marketing research class, so this would come up often, and I'd cringe each time. After the semester was over, I actually wrote him a letter in which I asked him to please stop using that word...he actually replied saying he hadn't known what the word meant until he looked it up...

 

[Guest]

Fog or LadyJ: Please use tangenital smegma in a sentence.

Perdita

 

[cantdog]

Some of these are priceless. Hello, Perdita!

 

[Guest]

Hola, Cant

 

[LadyJeanne]

Fog or LadyJ: Please use tangenital smegma in a sentence.

Perdita

The manufacturing division's managers met behind closed doors to discuss the development of a new mission and vision statement. Each time they came close to agreement, the plant floor managers questioned whether Six Smegma Quality standards should be included in their strategy. These tangenital smegma arguments delayed their policy decision for weeks.

 

[Guest]

Brava! LadyJ. P.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Thanks, Perdita - I was hoping successful completion of my assignment would make me an 'official' twat.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Oh god, that reminds me of a grad school professor who would mess up sigma with smegma. It was a marketing research class, so this would come up often, and I'd cringe each time. After the semester was over, I actually wrote him a letter in which I asked him to please stop using that word...he actually replied saying he hadn't known what the word meant until he looked it up...

Oh dear Lord ... I laughed until I cried. Dear God preserve me from ever doing this. I don't think I could bear to stay in the room with someone doing that. The sympathetic agony would be too intense. I admire your courage in telling him; I'm not sure I could ever bring myself to.

Having written on the topic of pronunciation myself, I have to bow to Cantdog on that topic ... I even thought it as I was writing. Really, regionalistic variations are the heart and beauty of language. There is nothing, to me, quite so enchanting as a chance to spend an hour hearing the language spoken in a wholly new way, whatever way that might be.

Shanglan

 

[cantdog]

Sorry!

I seem to have thrown a wet blanket on all the fun! Forgive me.

 

[gauchecritic]

Sorry!

I seem to have thrown a wet blanket on all the fun! Forgive me.

It's ok Cant, I forbid you.

Gauche

 

[carsonshepherd]

Just today I found myself asking my son if he intended to drink the rest of his "sody" instead of soda or pop or coke or whatever.

If you ever say sody again I'm not sure I can talk to you anymore...

 

[OhMissScarlett]

If you ever say sody again I'm not sure I can talk to you anymore...

It's not like I asked him "Have you ate yet?"

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

http://www.terpzebra.com/billboard.jpg

 

[SlickTony]

People are just showing themselves up when they mock the regional speech of people from other parts of the English-speaking world. Soda, tonic, pop, and so on, used region by region for the same thing, or carrying folks as remarked upon above-- that too, is regional speech.

Do we really want to sound like a convocation of TV anchors? Bill Moyers lets his southern accent leak into his work, and I like him all the better for it.

 

[cloudy]

It's not like I asked him "Have you ate yet?"

I thought it was: djeetyet.

 

[SensualCealy]

It's funny we share thousands of miles / kilometers of boarder with the US and we still use different terms for every day items.

Pop- soda
fries- chips

Okay I have just suffered a brain fart, who can fill in the others?

Cealy