" 'You don't spell background-color with a U,' and walked away."
How else do you spell colour?
Welcome to the sixth instalment of "Who, me?", The Register's confessional for IT pros who managed to break stuff before it became the kind of user-generated mess story we run in On-Call. This week, meet "Don" who told us that "Back in very late 2012 I spent almost two hours debugging a front-end error on an app." That's well …
"...until I came across "burglarized"."
Is that Ignoramous for burgled?
Also I have come across bit when they mean bitten and broke when they mean broken. Broke as a adjective ONLY means out of money. Check your nearest English dictionary.
Yes, gifted' is a smarmy circumlocation to make giving something sound more, I don't know, formal and important, not just giving, but somehow conferring, a signifier of extra greatness, emotion, charity, generosity, whatever.
Unless, of course, it is 're-gifted'.
""Gifted" is the one that currently annoys me."
Some of the roots of English come from Scandinavian languages. I often wonder if there is a connection between the modern English "gift" - and the Swedish word "gift"*** which is "marry".
Traditionally in England a bride was her father's possession that was "given" to the groom.
***it also translates as "poison".
"Gifted" and "given" both have the same number of syllables--so, I don't get where it takes any longer to say. I'd also like to point out that the word "give" is used in a more broad sense, to mean the transfer of something, which may or may not involve receiving something in return--but the word "gifted" often carries further implications.
Gift:
something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.
So, it's all about context--in the case of a purchase, you wouldn't say that you were gifted something after handing the cashier money, because it was part of a transaction. You gave them money, and they gave you what you agreed to purchase. However, if they declined your payment, they could have gifted you with the item you desired to purchase--because it was given without expectation.
While there may be a "U" in the UK and EU, there's no "U" in Bexit--so, maybe some of those goofy French spellings will get dropped in the process?
"something given voluntarily without payment in return"
Except that many cultures attach great importance on an exchange of gifts. I find people are usually rather disconcerted if you give them a gift and insist on nothing in return "I expect nothing, I need nothing".
Of course such an apparently altruistic gift may have hidden emotional strings attached - a power play to establish your superiority. There is a saying apparently attributed to Benjamin Franklin. "Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones - with ingratitude. Benjamin Franklin".
It sometimes necessary to give the other person a way to a redemption for them to save face with a ritual exchange. I often use the following old sentiment in those circumstances - "Anything I would like is either illegal; immoral; or the doctor would not approve".
If you look carefully*, you'll notice that in Murcan Nglish, "bias" is fast becoming the past participle -- hence, also the adjectival form. That was the point of my post. And, yes, you were intended to catch it. I don't support the change, of course. Nor the broader trend.
The comprehensibility of on-line text is declining rapidly. You'd think by now the principle outlets would route textual submissions (e.g. comments) through a spell- and grammar-checker, then pass the proffered text back to the poster -- with red-lining -- asking for a few changes to be made for clarity, readability, etc. … It would not be difficult to programmatically assess posts for 'reading level' and add posting delays in inverse proportion to that metric. With fair warning, of course.
* e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/227ns7/why_is_bias_replacing_biased_as_an_adjective/
I did consider at one point they removed the letter U because they were just lazy
No - they made a conscious decision to simplfy English to enable all the non English-speaking immigrants (Germans and Dutch for the most part at that point) to learn the language more easily.
Which is kind of laudable in its own way.
No - they made a conscious decision to simplify English to enable all the non English-speaking immigrants (Germans and Dutch for the most part at that point) to learn the language more easily.
Which is kind of laudable in its own way.
And yet most Dutch and German English speakers; speak better English than half the left AND right pondian "native" English speakers
'And yet most Dutch and German English speakers; speak better English than half the left AND right pondian "native" English speakers'
I find that with most that have studied English as a second language. You don't try that hard with your native language, coz it just comes naturally, but you do try hard with other languages, coz you are studying them for a reason. The same likely applies to native English speakers learning other languages. Almost every European I have heard or seen saying "Please excuse my bad English, it's not my native tongue." has been better at English than a large percentage of native English speakers.
Both spellings are many centuries old. Color, now regarded as the American spelling, in fact predates the United States by several centuries. In early use the spellings vied for ascendancy with several other spellings. Colur, culoure, and coolor, for instance, were all in the mix before the modern British spelling gained permanent prevalence in the 17th century.
The removal of U from colour and other words was partly an attempt to distance American English from English English, but also an attempt to remove some French influences from the language.
Program used to be the English spelling, but Victorian show promotors wanted to infer a touch of French flair by advertising a programme of events on their posters. These days i refer to television programmes and computer programs.
Reminds me of the time many years ago when my wife, secretary in / to an electronics lab in the UK, typed a document for our resident Septic engineer:
Paraphrased from memory:
"Say, you've typed program(me) as both program and programme in this document..."
<< Q short lesson in English like wot she is spoken and writ >>
Grins all round when the story got out.
I think program for 'things wot run on computers' is more or less agreed on, though I do remember university exams saying 'linear programme'.
But what about dialog or dialogue? My view is that like program for things wot run on computers vs programme for things wot you watch it should be dialog as in 'having a dialogue about dialogs'.
as a kid, for the longest time, I was confused by the spelling of 'bough' - always thought it was pronounced 'bow' like 'bow and arrow', and not 'bow' as in 'bow to show respect'. And in my mind it was never connected to the spelling for 'tree bough'. It may be the worst example of arcane non-phonetic spelling causing confusion. [but in middle english it probably rhymed with 'cough'].
It may be the worst example of arcane non-phonetic spelling causing confusion
The trouble with English is that it's a complete packrat of a language - it has vocabulary and grammar from quite a few other languages grafted onto the fairly simple Germanic roots until the end result is more like a hazel thicket than a mighty oak tree..