Alix Pexton Wrote: > On 12/06/2011 16:11, Steven Schveighoffer wrote: > > On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 04:36:55 -0400, Alix Pexton > > <alix.dot.pex...@gmail.dot.com> wrote: > > > >> On 12/06/2011 02:40, Steven Schveighoffer wrote: > >>> On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 13:04:47 -0400, Andrej Mitrovic > >>> <andrej.mitrov...@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> > >>>> On 6/11/11, Alix Pexton <alix.dot.pex...@gmail.dot.com> wrote: > >>>>> On 11/06/2011 06:18, Andrej Mitrovic wrote: > >>>>>> We should rename Yes and No to Yay and Nay to make them alignable, > >>>>>> and > >>>>>> even more importantly to make us appear as old Englishmen! > >>>>> > >>>>> "Yay" and "Nay" are too similar looking, but luckily, "Yay" is not > >>>>> actually a old English word :) A more correct alternative would be > >>>>> "Aye" (pronounced the same as "eye"), which (along with "Nay") is > >>>>> still > >>>>> used for some voting actions (such as councillors deciding where to go > >>>>> for lunch). I myself say it al least 20 times a day :) > >>>>> > >>>>> A... > >>>>> > >>>> > >>>> Oh damn, yay is what teenage girls would say, not old Englishmen. My > >>>> bad, it really is "Aye". :p > >>> > >>> You were phonetically right :) It's yea or nay. > >>> > >>> http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/yea-or-nay > >>> > >>> My son's most recent birthday (3 years old) was a farm-themed birthday, > >>> and we asked people to RSVP yay or neigh :P > >>> > >>> So I guess there's all kinds of kooky fun you can have with flags... > >>> > >>> -Steve > >> > >> Nope, its definitely Aye when used for voting, (at least it is round > >> here) as in "all those in favour, say aye", "ayes to the right" and > >> "the ayes have it". Maybe southerners say this "yea" word of which you > >> speak, we don't hold with their strange customs in these parts ^^ > > > > I don't deny that aye is used frequently for voting. All I was saying > > is, the correct expression is yea or nay, not yay or nay. Andrej thought > > it was actually aye or nay, which I've never heard as an expression. > > > > I'm not sure it's used anymore, but it's definitely an expression that > > was used for voting (see my dictionary reference). > > > > -Steve > > True, "yea-or-nay" is quite a common, if old fashioned phrase, but "yea" > on its own is exceptionally rare (to the point where I doubt ever > hearing anyone make such a noise and mean it to indicate the affirmative). > > A...
Then you must not have heard the King James Version of the Bible read aloud, or been to a Shakespeare play. Admittedly the KJV and Shakespeare's works don't count as modern English, but I doubt you've never "heard such a noise"! :-) p.s. The word appears 209 times in Shakespeare's plays. There's a website for everything!