oooops - lift as in elevator to you!
Setanta, Bush/Blair. LOL. Good one.
Walter, Thanks for the links. I stared in complete ignorance. Is the US the only place that calls football soccer? Where does the term derive from?
oldandknew, I've heard of this rhyming slang. How does it work in a sentence? Care to favor us with a few?
Vivien, Thanks for the paternoster info. I'll stick to elevators and escalators, thanks. BTW. I know that an elevator is a lift. Is there a different term for escalator, or is it the same on both sides of the pond?
Thanks, Walter. I still don't know much about the game, but at least I now know where the word "soccer" comes from.
You've all done such a great job with the words, you've left me naught but spelling differences. Now, I have very strong opinions on the vagaries of certain spelling variations in the two 'dialects' of the English language. For example, I think the British spelling of whisky (as opposed to American whiskey) is far more sensible Where'd that extra 'e' come from, anyway? Likewise, I think kerb is a phonetically sounder spelling than curb. On the other hand, why do you Brits spell 'tyre' with a y instead of a sensible i? I also don't see the need for those extra vowels in words such as favor or flavor or color (the Brits would stick in a 'u' where there's no need for onr). And to write 'cheque' when one means 'check' is just too, too French for me.
Car park (UK)/parking lot (US)
Should be very simple, Andrew: it's catholic aqua vita vs protestant snaps :wink:
Well, I found this explanation (which actually isn't really one!):
Quote:Publishers attach considerable importance to economy and conciseness in writing, shorter spellings being valued especially by the press. Many American forms have the advantage of being shorter as well as phonically more accurate than their British equivalents, and are therefore both more economical and more straightforward to use. Conciseness is a particular advantage in the case of tho, thru, thoro. Only in a very few cases is the shorter, more accurate recommended spelling currently found in British usage (racoon and whisky are two rare examples).
Choosing between American and British spellings as standards for written English: part 8
This one sounds better as source, but doesn't really explain the "e" either:
Quote:Of the relatively few English words that have come from the Celtic languages, certainly one of the most common is whiskey. The Irish Gaelic uisce beathadh and Scots Gaelic uisge beatha, terms for certain distilled liquors made in those countries, can both be translated literally as 'water of life'. Though whiskeybae and usquebaugh have both been used in English, the shorter whiskey (or whisky) is by far the most common form.
In sixteenth-century England aqua vitae, taken without change from the Medieval Latin phrase meaning 'water of life', first appears as a term for a distilled alcoholic drink, though as early as 1471 it had been used for medicinal alcohol. From the same Medieval Latin source comes Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian akvavit, which is used in English in the form aquavit as the name for a clear Scandinavian liquor flavored with caraway seeds. English has also borrowed the French translation of Latin aqua vitae in the form eau-de-vie as a term for brandy.
The name bourbon which designates some American whiskeys comes from the name of Bourbon County, Kentucky, where such whiskey was first made in the late eighteenth century.
The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories
Re Paternoster
http://www.bartleby.com/61/0/P0110000.html
It seems that the continuously moving elevator (lift) of that name originated in its visual similarity to the Rosary beads used in conjunction with the Lords Prayer.
Also this should be of general interest
http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2001/03/032001_language.jhtml
Roberta , I would of written back with cockney examples earlier but my computer has been a bit uncle dick and needed some TLC. So I've had a busy day at the coal face. Not much time to go down the frog and toad to the rubba dub dub or get my barnet fair cropped. I've been stuck in the cat and mouse all day with the trouble and strife. No peace for the wicked, as my old granny used to say. Still a nice mug of rosy lee and I'm off up the apples and pears to lay my uncle ned on the old weeping and get a dose of little bo peep.
Vivien == did you know that there is a Paternoster Square in the City of London ?
Andy, You tackled the spelling issue. Well, it's a dirty job, but someone had to do it.
Walter, Again, thanks for all the info.
Fresco, Thanks for the links. I looked up paternoster in my Webster's. I should have looked in my American Heritage. Who knew?
oldandknew, Oh, I like this rhyming slang. It took me a while, but I understood almost everything you said without checking back.
And now a flashback. My first trip abroad. Ten sun-filled, fun-filled days in Italy and then to London. I was looking forward to everything there was to see. And I was looking forward to not having to deal with a language that was foreign to me. My friend and I were lost. We sat down somewhere. We saw a bobby. I said that I'd ask for directions. I went up to him, asked my question, and returned to my friend. "What'd he say?" "I have no idea."
Great story, Roberta.
Walter, thank you for your great research effort. But, as you say yourself, it really doesn't explain why Americans stick an extra 'e' in whisky. As for aquavit, to paraphrase an old advert, I'd walk a mile for a Kümmel.
I always thought the whisky/whiskey was a Irish/Scots thing - the generic term in English for whiskey is 'Scotch'. Irish whiskeys are either named or called as such.
Now the big question is why anyone would call a spirit 'Bourbon'? Just how close is Kaintuck to provincial France??
Well, in this reprint of the
The Bourbon Country Reader you'll find some explanations about that.
Paternosters are actually banned in EU-countries since this year.
'fall, trash, to loan' are original "English English" expressions, which were preserved in the colonies while became at home 'autumn, rubbish, to lend'.
Walter, Just when I find what paternosters are, they're banned! Are they dangerous? They sound like something I would avoid if possible. But banning is strong. Thanks again for more information. Although I didn't know about fall, trash, and loan, I'm not surprised. In a way it makes sense for expressions to have arrived here and hung around, while they evolved and changed at the point of origin.
Andy and Walter, I attended an aquavit party in Norway. I'm not much of a drinker, but I was being sociable. Couldn't feel my legs for while, but the sensation returned. That is powerful stuff!
Well, they really could be dangerous to older people and those, like you, who don't know anout it.
(As a child, I watch one for hours. Then I came to the conclusions that nothing 'dangerous' could actually happen to them, since I could still read all the notices on "the other side". So I srew up my courage - heart in my mouth and scared silly - and made "the turn-around".[Some employees later asked my to stop it.])
I missed this one till now. Roberta, you could have invited me!
I'll read it later, bookmarking now.
McT
