Nice people thread part 6 - thrice by twice as nice :)

Generali

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Less than 200 posts to go until we're there

CK

Is it locked in anticipation of this thread reaching 9,999 posts?

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

No, it's not posh, it's correct. No more posh than apostrophe use or should have v should of' or loose and lose.

In fact, I would have thought you'd like it, its about correct use of language...and you have such a keen eye for that sort of thing.

I like it - what I said was that I didn't even know about it until 2 years ago.

lostinrates

Well, that's good. Maybe there are more things like it.

But I bet a misplaced apostrophe doesn't get past you often.

My surname ends in an 's' and I have to confess I sometimes break out in a cold sweat with possessive usuage.

michaels

lostinrates wrote: »

Well, that's good. Maybe there are more things like it.

But I bet a misplaced apostrophe doesn't get past you often.

My surname ends in an 's' and I have to confess I sometimes break out in a cold sweat with possessive usuage.

Possessive usage sounds like something from the relationships board. I agree with you the incorrect language grates but I also agree with PN that many literally donot know better so it is rather unfair to hold it against them. Rather like tattoos and piercings though, it doesn't stop me.

lostinrates

michaels wrote: »

Possessive usage sounds like something from the relationships board. I agree with you the incorrect language grates but I also agree with PN that many literally donot know better so it is rather unfair to hold it against them. Rather like tattoos and piercings though, it doesn't stop me.

I don't think I hold it against people. I just.....don't aspire towards it myself. Like tattoos ( in the main) or more piercings.

silvercar

michaels wrote: »

Possessive usage sounds like something from the relationships board. (

Just seen this:
https://www.couplesnuggle.com The video has to be the cheesiest ever!

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Possessive usage sounds like something from the relationships board. I agree with you the incorrect language grates but I also agree with PN that many literally donot know better so it is rather unfair to hold it against them. Rather like tattoos and piercings though, it doesn't stop me.

To what extent is usage correct by definition? In English we have a living language and if people want to use the word 'data' as a singular noun or use the word 'less' when once it would have been 'fewer' then at some point the users become right.

An example of how English changes is through theft.

Once 'to burgle' was a verb: I burgle, you burgle, he burgles, thee burgles, thou burglst etc (not positive about the older conjugation rules).

Then the verb was transformed into a noun, burglar. There was rejoicing across the land.

However, dark times were abroad. Across the Ocean of Atlantis was a Kingdom not ruled by a King but by a Pres-i-dent. The people of these States United took the noun 'burgle' and turned it back into a verb, 'to burglarize'.

The people of the Kingdom looked at the verb 'to burglarize' and saw it was bad, all the time not seeing that they had committed the sin of transformation originally and that sin had begotten sin.

Compare Shakespeare (chose your own spelling of his name, he did) with Tom Stoppard and tell me which one uses correct English. Both clearly isn't the right answer if you are a linguistic absolutist.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

To what extent is usage correct by definition? In English we have a living language and if people want to use the word 'data' as a singular noun or use the word 'less' when once it would have been 'fewer' then at some point the users become right.

An example of how English changes is through theft.

Once 'to burgle' was a verb: I burgle, you burgle, he burgles, thee burgles, thou burglst etc (not positive about the older conjugation rules).

Then the verb was transformed into a noun, burglar. There was rejoicing across the land.

However, dark times were abroad. Across the Ocean of Atlantis was a Kingdom not ruled by a King but by a Pres-i-dent. The people of these States United took the noun 'burgle' and turned it back into a verb, 'to burglarize'.

The people of the Kingdom looked at the verb 'to burglarize' and saw it was bad, all the time not seeing that they had committed the sin of transformation originally and that sin had begotten sin.

Compare Shakespeare (chose your own spelling of his name, he did) with Tom Stoppard and tell me which one uses correct English. Both clearly isn't the right answer if you are a linguistic absolutist.

I like Shakespearean english (far better than any other aspect of his work, frankly). But I do think the answer can be both.

For example, it is not correct to punch someone walking down the street, it is correct to box in a boxing ring. It is not correct to cut someone with a knife.....unless you are a doctor, or perhaps in an emergency situation, when you might need to cut something.

There are lots of instances where apparant absolutism is no such thing. I am an absolute antiabsultitist, about most things:rotfl:

MiddyMum

I often have people shocked when they meet me in person, they say that I don't "sound" or write like a black person. I find it a very odd assumption really. I was born in this country after all! I called an Afro-Caribbean hair dressers once, booked an appointment and when I got there, he said " Thank God, with the way you sound on the phone I thought a white girl was coming to get her weave done ". I then informed him that white girls do in fact get hair extensions, so what would have been the problem?

lostinrates

MiddyMum wrote: »

I often have people shocked when they meet me in person, they say that I don't "sound" or write like a black person. I find it a very odd assumption really. I was born in this country after all! I called an Afro-Caribbean hair dressers once, booked an appointment and when I got there, he said " Thank God, with the way you sound on the phone I thought a white girl was coming to get her weave done ". I then informed him that white girls do in fact get hair extensions, so what would have been the problem?

Some people do have very subtle 'indications' my husband told me when he first met he was part Italian and had been educated there, but I just 'knew' he was Jewish. (and no, he doesn't have a name that Shreiked it at me).

He and I both often talk like 'expat kids'. We use phrases in English from a generation or two (or four) older, because that's what we heard in English.

When I returned to uk for school it was assumed I was mixed race (accent, hair). And a bit of a shock to some school friends and there parents when I was 'white' where as i don't remember the same assumption being made the other way...I supoose because we lived in places too small or gossipy to not know my parents were both white.


Edit: I do not recall suffering racism in uk as a child, though I think some parents were treating me 'differently' thinking I was mixed race, it was not unpleasant to me. I think they were less kind when they felt I had somehow duped them. Lol. I did experience racism in UK as an adult. It was not nice, but sticks and stones and all that. ( old ladies, not yobs). Some black girls tried to stop be getting on a bus after a long day in court once by blocking the door and telling me only members of the 'ghetto' could get in. ( well, er, by marriage...though of course that's not what they meant). Generally I don't 'do accents' but from somewhere my west Indian accent came out of me and told 'em I had probably spent more time in such culture than they had, and pushed past them. Wouldn't dare now. I had a walking stick then too, I was lucky they did not wrench it from me and beat me to a pulp, nasty little wenches. Silly racist behaviour is as stupid whatever the skin colour of the perpatraitor and 'victim'.

I did experience extreme racism elsewhere though.