I've been also told that English is the language of exceptions. I'm with you in this.
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Some common spelling mistakes in English...
- Thread starter Smart_Guy
- Start date
I've been also told that English is the language of exceptions. I'm with you in this.
gnomon
Well-Known Member
I stride boldly upon the brick wall slick.......I... beg your pardon??
You only need to understand
Falling upon the slip slide
I failed upon the world decide
As I stumbled
Upon that brick wall slick.
Once I said Ma'am
Scolded upon the Northern sham
Than I said a simple Mister
Praised upon my gentle Mister
Once again was the simple
Miss'
Praised for my dialectic
Census............
Of course I pull your leg
It's always a Ma'mm or Missus
Against the so called
Proper. But what is proper
When you say Sir or Madam
And the outsiders fail to fathom
Language is an ever volving thing
A contextual linguistic change....
If you don't understand and attempt
To lay claim to a so called hard
Stance.....
You cannot speak with me
For you will never understand
How the very word
Changes
With every hand.
One day is a sorry Madame.
Another a shake your hand Mister.
Yet is another Ma'am.
Another shake...a dude.
I say ain't and it is understood....
Itinit...from the Mother Land
Properly understood...
To boldly go...
Is as proper as
There ain't no love...
Properly understood...
It's a weird dialect...
Often a stupid tongue...
But the English language is
Perhaps...
The most tongue to fun.
edit: I claim a copyright on "tongue to fun". Or I'm just drunk. What the hell is this thread about anyway?
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Now, MR Smart Guy, here you are with this thread, and not long ago you were not that good at talking English ?.
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
English is a victim of Britain's invaders. What started out as a German variant, with declined nouns and conjugated verbs that made it's way with the Anglos to the isle of Britain. Then starting with the Norman conquest and continued by various invasions from neighboring countries, declensions were lost and the strategy for conjugations changed. Archaic verbs, like "to be", retained their ancient conjugations while newer verbs were systematized and become "regular", Middle English was a new language for all intents and purposes at this point. Then England became a naval power.
English is also a victim of its imperialistic past. The propensity of the English to explore and conquer brought in a plethora of new words. As the original Lingua Franca, French was a great influencer during this time. In any case, the world left an indelible mark on the Queen's English adding many nouns with a few verbs, all with special rules and spelling. Origins seem to have been discarded during this time and people don't seem to care about roots, easily changing a word to mean what they want it to mean.
Take the word "monger". Ultimately of Latin origin (mongo), this was adopted into Middle English (manger) and has remained it's meanings in Britain. A monger is a seller of stuff. A fish monger sells fish and so forth. In the USA this mostly benign moniker has developed a negative connotation with war and fear monger. But the tricky Americans don't want to honor the roots of this ancient word. People like @Revoltingest want to use it like a club for anyone they don't like. Rather than reserve it for people who profit from war, they want to dilute the meaning and include anyone they want to accuse of liking war. While I normally don't mind such evolution, it's disturbing when a word loses it's flavor and precision due to political expediencies.
It's no secret that words are added to English in response to some words becoming pejoratives. Look at how bone yard was replaced with grave yard, which was then gave way to cemetery, to funerary grounds, to memorial park and ultimately to the current PC term: memorial garden. Every time the term became a negative, a new, less offensive term replaced it. I guess the most constant word in the English Language is simply "change".
English is also a victim of its imperialistic past. The propensity of the English to explore and conquer brought in a plethora of new words. As the original Lingua Franca, French was a great influencer during this time. In any case, the world left an indelible mark on the Queen's English adding many nouns with a few verbs, all with special rules and spelling. Origins seem to have been discarded during this time and people don't seem to care about roots, easily changing a word to mean what they want it to mean.
Take the word "monger". Ultimately of Latin origin (mongo), this was adopted into Middle English (manger) and has remained it's meanings in Britain. A monger is a seller of stuff. A fish monger sells fish and so forth. In the USA this mostly benign moniker has developed a negative connotation with war and fear monger. But the tricky Americans don't want to honor the roots of this ancient word. People like @Revoltingest want to use it like a club for anyone they don't like. Rather than reserve it for people who profit from war, they want to dilute the meaning and include anyone they want to accuse of liking war. While I normally don't mind such evolution, it's disturbing when a word loses it's flavor and precision due to political expediencies.
It's no secret that words are added to English in response to some words becoming pejoratives. Look at how bone yard was replaced with grave yard, which was then gave way to cemetery, to funerary grounds, to memorial park and ultimately to the current PC term: memorial garden. Every time the term became a negative, a new, less offensive term replaced it. I guess the most constant word in the English Language is simply "change".
You poor conservatives...unable to cope with change.
Do you still wear a powdered wig, & pinch snuff?
Get with the times!
Btw, I'd have said, "Get a clue!",
but you prolly still use the ancient definition of "clue", which is a ball of yarn.
Hmmm....in this sense, yer noggin is "naughty".
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
You wound me needlessly and with gay abandon. I am but a humble, albeit noble philologist who feels a need to improve communications through precision and take extreme umbrage at your attempts to dumb it down for a political advantage.
Most Americans have lost the roots and ergo the beauty of the English language. Take the term "Lubber Line". Most navigators and mariners are only cognizant of the word: they use one frequently. For those who lack experience with a compass, the lubber line is the line, drawn or imaginary, that indicates the direction of travel of a vessel at neutral rudder. On a compass attached to a boat, it is the keel line or parallel to the keel line. It makes it easy to determine a precise heading. A compass is a Chinese invention that found it's way to Europe during Medieval times. They were first put on sailing vessels without the benefit of a lubber line or demarcations of any sort. Interestingly, most sailors had no problem using this tool to set sail and find their way back to port. Except of course, the lubbers, which is an Olde English term for @Revoltingest, er I mean buffoons and idiots.
Consequently, a line was placed on the compasses for the lubbers giving rise to terms like the lubber (idiot) line and well as land lubbers (idiots). For reasons I can not fully comprehend, using a compass reduces normally intelligent people to, well, to blubbering lubbers. On Scuba, without the aid of a horizon, compasses are essential tools to get back to your boat. Taking a few moments to explain the origin of the word lubber, and constantly reminding them that the idiot line has to bisect the idiot, takes the angst out of using it, and I often hear my students giggling as they follow their compass under water. Learning can be fun with a little imagination. Also, I understand that with the election of a certain imbecile, there is a movement to change the term to the "Trump Line". He'll think it's an honor and we'll all have a good laugh at his expense. So, it's not that I oppose change. I just don't see a need to change for political expediency. Whenever I look up a word in a dictionary, I find myself taking note of the origin of the word and quite often that sends me on a linguistic quest to fully understand the primary, secondary and even tertiary meanings of a given term. I find this intellectually stimulating (You'll have to look that up, Rev) and do this for English, Greek, Russian and even Spanish. If you understand the roots, the origin of those roots and can put the term in an historical perspective, then it's really yours. Try it: you just mike like it.
If you want to collect collect stamps & sing swishy show tunes, it's OK with me, Scooby Doo.
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
Your command of the English language would be Berraesque were it only insightful, inciteful, clever or even phunni. Alas and alack, you're but a hack. We were looking for verse, but you gave us worse. At the birth of this year, it's kinda hard to bear!
Peace out!
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
The more I ponder this, the more apparent it becomes that most Americans are completely out of touch with their language of choice. Did you realize that addict is the Latin word for slave? Did you know that Starboard was the name of a rudder that was hung off the left side of a boat/ship. The Vikings, who gave us the word, would then put the right side of the ship to "port". Their word for the right side of the ship, larboard, was ultimately replaced with port.
The ironic thing about Americans and English is that many of us feel that this language born out of a country we reject, should somehow be our "official" language. A land built off of immigrants should have no 'official' language. Our strength lies in our diversity.
The ironic thing about Americans and English is that many of us feel that this language born out of a country we reject, should somehow be our "official" language. A land built off of immigrants should have no 'official' language. Our strength lies in our diversity.
Or we could take the French route, and outlaw importation of words from other languages...which would leave English with very few words, because the languages is made up of pre-Celtic, Celtic, Latin from Roman times, old French, Germanic languages from the Angles and the Saxons, but also the Danes, the Swedes and the Norse at different times, re-introduction of now-dead Latin, along with dead Greek, modern French (through Enlightenment diplomacy) and modern German (through the physical sciences and engineering of the enlightenment), with a smattering of words and phrases originating in the languages of South and East Asia, Africa and the Americas...
Your doggerel's no competitionYour command of the English language would be Berraesque were it only insightful, inciteful, clever or even phunni. Alas and alack, you're but a hack. We were looking for verse, but you gave us worse. At the birth of this year, it's kinda hard to bear!
to me, cuz of poor composition.
The most heinous crime,
that "year" & "bear" rhyme,
necessitates stern admonition!
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
I bought my poetic license at the Walgreens.
Skwim
Veteran Member
How much do you expect would be a decent amount of touch? Thing is, most don't care and see no reason to, particularly when pro-football is in season or they're picking lint out of their navel.
Correction.
"Starboard" comes from the Old English "steorbord" (Steering board)
Because the dominant side of most people is their right, boat rudders were positioned on the right to facilitate easier steering. The "star" of starboard comes from an Old English word meaning to steer, and the "board" meaning the side of the boat. Thus starboard denoted the right side (as seen from on board and facing the bow). Since a boat would tie up on the opposite side, the left, so as to minimize possible damage to the rudder, it was the side of the boat on which cargo and such was loaded. The loading side, was hence called the larboard: "loading side." For whatever reason, in the mid 19th century the British navy decided that a better term for the larboard side would be "port," after the side that was tied up closest to the port. Hence, "starboard" = right and "port" =left.
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oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Look........ them 'mericans just mess up spellin'!
Now yer Inglish 'ave got culture, innit, and spell werds like honour, colour proper. There's yer 'proper' used proper like.
When we goes on a journey we takes a route, pronin, pronun, err spoke like the sound of root, not like wot they says it........ rowt. Who ever herd og anyfink as daft as that?
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Should that be, I'm a fast learner ?.What do I say, I'm a quick learner
Well, I taught for quite awhile, and do have the ability to be reasonably picky. But now I'm more concerned with just getting the message across. Especially on forums like this, what's important is simply whether or not I understand the ideas the poster is trying to present. And yes, there are a few cases where I have to re-read, and am still unsure as to what the person was trying to say. Generally its from ESL, but occasionally, its because the other person simply doesn't pay enough attention to proofreading at all.