6
   

Fine-Tuning 15, British English/American English

 
 
Vivien
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jul, 2003 04:16 pm
Craven is correct. Not used in polite society though!

A paternoster is a lift. The kind with open fronted boxes that don't stop and are on a continous circular belt, going up, over the top and down.

You jump on and off them while they are moving.

(Scare me to death!) Shocked
0 Replies
 
Vivien
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jul, 2003 04:17 pm
oooops - lift as in elevator to you!
0 Replies
 
Roberta
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jul, 2003 04:51 pm
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?
0 Replies
 
Vivien
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jul, 2003 04:59 pm
Roberta wrote:
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?


Yes escalator is the same - surprise!! and we also say soccer but less frequently, football is more commonly used, we use it differentiate from rugby, which is rugby football.

rhyming slang was originally used by criminals to fool the law and you don't use the whole phrase - apples and pears is stairs but if you use it in a sentence you use the non-rhyming bit and say 'I'm going up the apples' - that way an outsider couldn't follow the conversation.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jul, 2003 10:39 pm
Roberta

Fully agree with Vivian:
Quote:
The term "soccer" came into use in England during the 1880s by university men from Oxford and Cambridge. The use of "association football" as distinct from "rugby football" was already in practice, and "soccer" became a colloquialism formed by extending the second syllable of "association." While football is the more common name for the sport in Britain, soccer is still used today and one of the world's leading football magazines, published in England is called "World Soccer." The term "soccer" is used extensively in Canada and the United States to distinguish it from Canadian and American style football and is also widely used in Australia where the soccer team is known as the Socceroos.

from: History of Canandian Soccer
0 Replies
 
Roberta
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Jul, 2003 10:54 pm
Thanks, Walter. I still don't know much about the game, but at least I now know where the word "soccer" comes from.
0 Replies
 
Merry Andrew
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 03:15 pm
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.
0 Replies
 
Merry Andrew
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 03:19 pm
Car park (UK)/parking lot (US)
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 04:13 pm
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
0 Replies
 
fresco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 04:57 pm
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
0 Replies
 
oldandknew
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 05:27 pm
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.
0 Replies
 
oldandknew
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 05:30 pm
Vivien == did you know that there is a Paternoster Square in the City of London ?
0 Replies
 
Roberta
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 07:20 pm
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."
0 Replies
 
Merry Andrew
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 09:25 pm
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.
0 Replies
 
Mr Stillwater
 
  1  
Reply Sat 5 Jul, 2003 11:11 pm
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??
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Jul, 2003 12:50 am
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.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Jul, 2003 01:03 am
'fall, trash, to loan' are original "English English" expressions, which were preserved in the colonies while became at home 'autumn, rubbish, to lend'.
0 Replies
 
Roberta
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Jul, 2003 01:59 am
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!
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Jul, 2003 02:08 am
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.])
0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Jul, 2003 02:20 am
I missed this one till now. Roberta, you could have invited me!
I'll read it later, bookmarking now.
McT
0 Replies
 
 

Related Topics

 
Copyright © 2024 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.08 seconds on 12/10/2024 at 06:48:20