Re: Anglo-American communications studies
At 8:17 AM -0500 1/8/01, Ken Brown wrote: Anyway - I heard Americans on the TV last week talking about "railway" instead of "railroad". And "station" instead of "depot" (though Grand Central Station is I suppose quite old, so you must have had that one for a while) The most interesting Britishism to suddenly invade our shores and spread rapidly is "gone missing." I'm now hearing this in American movies, t.v. shows, and, importantly, television news. "The hunt is on for the fugitives in Texas who have gone missing." This is definitely new to our shores; I'm surprised (and pleased) at how rapidly it has spread. "At university" and "at hospital" have not become common (though "at college" and "at school" are fully equivalent and are common). As you said: Fact is, both dialects of English have longer versions of the same basic word than other dialects have. Which is preferable is a matter of taste and familiarity. and there are very few opportunities for real misunderstanding. We know "Randy" is a name in the US, even if we snigger when we hear it, and any American spending more than 5 minutes in Britain UK would find out that a "fag" is a cigarette, so no harm done. You must be a bum. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: Anglo-American communications studies
[Apologies for continuing this odd thread but ...] On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Tim May wrote: Anyway - I heard Americans on the TV last week talking about "railway" instead of "railroad". And "station" instead of "depot" (though Grand Central Station is I suppose quite old, so you must have had that one for a while) The most interesting Britishism to suddenly invade our shores and spread rapidly is "gone missing." I'm now hearing this in American movies, t.v. shows, and, importantly, television news. "The hunt is on for the fugitives in Texas who have gone missing." This is definitely new to our shores; I'm surprised (and pleased) at how rapidly it has spread. "At university" and "at hospital" have not become common (though "at The more common British term is "in hospital". I don't recall ever hearing anyone say "at hospital". There are innumerable small distinctions in usage . If you are in hospital, you are ill, not a member of the staff. Your being ill may the result of an injury. That is, the same term covers both sicknesses and injuries. If you are in hospital because of a broken back, people will say that you are ill. If you are sick, on the other hand, it means that you have vomited. college" and "at school" are fully equivalent and are common). They aren't equivalent at all. In the UK [young] children go to "school" and "college" generally refers to something very roughly equivalent to either an American senior high school or junior college. My company has university students spending a year or so with us on placement; if you ask them when they are going back to school, they tend to be offended, thinking you are poking fun at them. Taking the mickey, that is. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015
Re: Anglo-American communications studies
At 08:17 AM 1/8/01 -0500, Ken Brown wrote: and there are very few opportunities for real misunderstanding. We know The meaning of 'billion' differs by three orders of magnitude across the pond. That's plenty of room for confusion :-)
Re: Anglo-American communications studies
and there are very few opportunities for real misunderstanding. So Ken if you read that Blair was near Thatcher's house and knocked her up, Yanks would think something very different from Brits.
Re: Anglo-American communications studies
On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, David Honig wrote: At 08:17 AM 1/8/01 -0500, Ken Brown wrote: and there are very few opportunities for real misunderstanding. We know The meaning of 'billion' differs by three orders of magnitude across the pond. That's plenty of room for confusion :-) And in the US, "billiards" is a game played with cues and balls on a felt-covered slate table. In the UK, it's also a very large number. Thankfully, so large that that definition rarely comes into conversation. As I understand cross-pond conversions, it goes like this USA UK Scientific Thousand Thousand 1E3 Million Million 1E6 Billion Milliard 1E9 Trillion Billion 1E12 Quadrillion Billiard 1E15 Quintillion Trillion 1E18 Sextillion Trilliard 1E21 Septillion Quadrillion 1E24 OctillionQuadrilliard 1E27 etc etc etc This silliness seems regular, and has no good reason not to extend indefinitely. But perversely, both dialects use the same word for googols and larger quantities. This is one reason why I tend to just say "screw it" and go to scientific notation when writing. That way it's clear what I mean no matter where the reader is from. Bear
Re: Anglo-American communications studies
on 1/8/01 2:54 PM, Jim Dixon at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [Apologies for continuing this odd thread but ...] On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Tim May wrote: Anyway - I heard Americans on the TV last week talking about "railway" instead of "railroad". And "station" instead of "depot" (though Grand Central Station is I suppose quite old, so you must have had that one for a while) The most interesting Britishism to suddenly invade our shores and spread rapidly is "gone missing." I'm now hearing this in American movies, t.v. shows, and, importantly, television news. "The hunt is on for the fugitives in Texas who have gone missing." This is definitely new to our shores; I'm surprised (and pleased) at how rapidly it has spread. "At university" and "at hospital" have not become common (though "at The more common British term is "in hospital". I don't recall ever hearing anyone say "at hospital". There are innumerable small distinctions in usage . If you are in hospital, you are ill, not a member of the staff. Your being ill may the result of an injury. That is, the same term covers both sicknesses and injuries. If you are in hospital because of a broken back, people will say that you are ill. If you are sick, on the other hand, it means that you have vomited. college" and "at school" are fully equivalent and are common). They aren't equivalent at all. In the UK [young] children go to "school" and "college" generally refers to something very roughly equivalent to either an American senior high school or junior college. My company has university students spending a year or so with us on placement; if you ask them when they are going back to school, they tend to be offended, thinking you are poking fun at them. Taking the mickey, that is. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 Actually, gone missing has been in common usage in my home area for the past 20 years at least. My home area being southwestern Arkansas. This may be the reason that it has shown up on the news broadcasts for the Texas fugitives. Maybe it has already been in use in this small, little part of the country for awhile. Bryan Green
RE: Anglo-American communications studies
Central heating did not develop until well after the US and Britain split. There was little technology transfer, so it's not too suprising that the terminology is different. When I moved to Britain in the late 60's, central heating was still rare enough that it was noted in real estate listings. The Brits and other Europeans developed some rather odd devices to retrofit older houses 1. The Geyser (alt pro: geezer). A box attached to the wall in or near a shower, which provided instant hot water. Some were gas powered (in which case a balanced flue was fitted through a hole in the wall to the outside). Some were electric. Having several hundred watts of electricity in intimate contact with the water and metal piping of the shower was rather nervous making (saw many still in use in Scotland this summer). 2. The 'storage heater'. The CEGB (central electricity generating board) rates were far lower at night than during the day or evening. A storage heater was a metal box, typically 4' wide, 2.5 ft high, and about a foot deep, filled with electric elements and firebrick. During the night, the bricks would be heated electrically. By morning the box was a serious burn hazard, and radiating heat for the rest of the day as it slowly cooled. At my boarding school, we used to toss matches on the top of one and make bets as to which would be the first to light. Peter Trei
RE: Anglo-American communications studies
At 01:08 PM 1/4/01 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: 2. The 'storage heater'. The CEGB (central electricity generating board) rates were far lower at night than during the day or evening. Interestingly, this time-dependency has also forced other technology. Some years ago, the fuzzy logic people were touting a (german?) dishwasher which was extra quiet because it used their tech... which is important because Europeans apparently do their heavy-wattage usage at night, to save costs. A foreign concept to Yanks :-) Your electric meters must cost more. I once lived in UC grad housing that had no electric bill (free electricity :-) because it would have cost too much to install individual meters.
