#1916315 - 03/26/08 03:45 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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Rampdog
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I see Hilary has been introducing new stuff into the language - the concept of 'Mis-Speak'.
Can anyone think of any more?
G.
Sniper fire................ Troops practicing on the rifle range.. 
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#1916325 - 03/26/08 04:24 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Rampdog]
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Xplorer
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Friendly Fire........ Horrible Accident
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#1916337 - 03/26/08 05:24 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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Chad
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I see Hilary has been introducing new stuff into the language - the concept of 'Mis-Speak'. American.........................English mis-speak........................lie burglarized......................burgled burglarization...................burglary anaesthesiologist................anaesthetist Can anyone think of any more?  G.
"Burglarization" is a bit cumbersome. Hillary, bless her heart, suffers from that tendency that afflicts many bureaucrat types (and lawyers), the urge to add syllables to a word, or the suffix "ize," to make themselves sound smarter or more important. ( I myself have never "utilized" anything, though I do "use" things from time to time.) For somebody as smart as Hillary I think this is more in the way of an unfortunate habit, picked up along the way.
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#1916351 - 03/26/08 05:54 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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Chad
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I don't understand the tendency to contrive more complicated words where there are perfectly adequate words which have been in use for centuries - see above. It may be a form of engrandiZement!!!!!! G.
Oh, I'm with ya. I hate self-aggrandization...
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I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. - Psalm 139:14
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#1916353 - 03/26/08 06:00 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Chad]
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Eric Iverson
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Yes, and that's something I try to do as a translator.. while being faithful to the style of the original, make it as easy as possible for the reader to understand! (In other words, legal documents can't read as "see Jane run".....) or is it Dick who runs? Do they both run? Now I won't be able to sleep tonight!
As long as neither is running for president, I guess we'll do OK!
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#1916390 - 03/26/08 07:14 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Eric Iverson]
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Chad
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Yes, and that's something I try to do as a translator.. while being faithful to the style of the original, make it as easy as possible for the reader to understand! (In other words, legal documents can't read as "see Jane run".....) or is it Dick who runs? Do they both run? Now I won't be able to sleep tonight!...
1. Under the terms of this instrument, the party to whom the below-referenced directives are addressed shall be First Grade Reading Student (hereafter "you" or understood to be "you").
2. The instruction "See Jane run" shall be interpreted as follows:
a. The term "see" shall be understood in its simplest and most common meaning, to wit, to observe with the unaided human eye.
b. The party identified as "Jane" shall refer only to Jane, sister of Dick (to be identified with particularity hereafter). No other Jane, whether living or dead, is referred to or contemplated.
c. "Run," in context of this instrument, shall refer to that activity wherein a person, male or female, engages in an ambulatory motion of the feet and/or legs; excepting that the activity of "running" shall be performed at a rate of speed greater than that of "walking" (defined below), to wit, that the feet of the person so "running" shall strike the earth, floor, or other surface more frequently than in the activity of the aforesaid "walking...
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I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. - Psalm 139:14
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#1916403 - 03/26/08 07:40 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Chad]
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J J
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Post-tramatic Stress Disorder = Shell Shock
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#1916409 - 03/26/08 07:45 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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skipclone 1
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This sounds like an advertisement for a film, `Revenge of the Dan Quayle Supporters`.
Anyway, before the no politics hammer comes down, the most interesting bit of verbiage to come out of politics, for me, predated Hillary by quite a while-referred to as the `First Person Exonerative`. In this verb clause form `I made a mistake`
becomes `mistakes were made`. `I misjudged the situation`
becomes `the situation was not free of misjudgements.`
`You will have to give up something` becomes `the future will require sacrifice`.
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#1916425 - 03/26/08 08:06 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: skipclone 1]
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Robitaille59
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When someone gets fired in the corporate world they are "terminated" or simply "termed"
People are often refered to as "resources"
I'm an educational technologist and I'm not kidding but these are actual terms used in my field(not by me but in publications and at conferences and such):
Students -------Learners
Teachers---------Instructors
Classroom---------Learning Studio
to teach something to someone ---------Knowledge Transfer
No wonder half of the professors think I'm full of crap!
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#1916469 - 03/26/08 09:12 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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Scott Fraser
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I see Hilary has been introducing new stuff into the language - the concept of 'Mis-Speak'.
Nothing new at all over here. Just the time-honored tradition of polit-speak, also known as bullshitting. She says "I mispoke", but what she really means is "I hugely exaggerated facts which are unsupported by actuality." Typical American politicalese.
Scott Fraser
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#1916486 - 03/26/08 09:45 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Scott Fraser]
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vkennedy
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I don't know anything about politics, but I do know about language mangling. I teach English and American literature in a small Eastern European university, and my students have several years of a course called "Word Formation" before they get to me. They are experts in tacking prefixes and suffixes onto word stems, so their sentences are full of autometamanglizationalisticalisms.
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#1916487 - 03/26/08 09:47 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: vkennedy]
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vkennedy
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p.s. most of my students graduate and become English teachers.
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#1916488 - 03/26/08 09:49 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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MILLO
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It may be a form of engrandiZement!!!!!!
However, there are a gazillion words that are accepted "Americanisms". Happens w/ every language, nothing wrong w/ that in my book. Whether "misspeak" is like that, or another "misunderestimation"-type idiom, I don't know. May the deities bless language variants!!!
Edited by MILLO (03/26/08 09:51 AM)
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#1916489 - 03/26/08 09:50 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Scott Fraser]
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MILLO
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I see Hilary has been introducing new stuff into the language - the concept of 'Mis-Speak'. Nothing new at all over here. Just the time-honored tradition of polit-speak, also known as bullshitting. She says "I mispoke", but what she really means is "I hugely exaggerated facts which are unsupported by actuality."
....and to be fair: happens everywhere.
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#1916493 - 03/26/08 09:54 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: MILLO]
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MILLO
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...and please excuse my grammar, English is my 2nd language.
My 1st language is another "bastardization" of another old European language forcefully taught by uneducated colonizers to Indigenous, African, and other European peoples.
Edited by MILLO (03/26/08 10:00 AM)
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#1916495 - 03/26/08 09:55 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: MILLO]
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Guitar55
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Constant misuse of the language then becomes the accepted norm.
We all prolly see this alot. :-)
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#1916496 - 03/26/08 09:59 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Guitar55]
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MILLO
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We all prolly see this alot. :-)
...now seriously: is "prolly" as a frequent occurrence only an internet phenomenon? ...or has the internet just made it obvious?
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#1916509 - 03/26/08 10:34 AM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: MILLO]
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GeoffB
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It's PROBABLY what the language buffs would term 'slovenly pronounciation' over here, but then the same people would be pronouncing 'drawing' as 'drawering'.
It's an English thing that drives we Scots mad.......!!!!!
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#1916585 - 03/26/08 12:49 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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Guitar55
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Also, it seems like many people think "alot" is one word.
Clue: It's two words. A <space> lot.
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#1916588 - 03/26/08 12:54 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Guitar55]
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J J
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also within typing/printing there's always
you're - you are
your - ownership
it's - it is
its - ownership
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#1916596 - 03/26/08 01:02 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: J J]
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Eric Iverson
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Yes, English is a minefield of things like that. It has one of the most complicated and confusing spelling systems in the world. Even we native speakers are not always sure how a word should be pronounced!
I'm glad I didn't come to it as a second language!
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#1916606 - 03/26/08 01:09 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Eric Iverson]
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jbote
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Something that drives me absolutely crazy is when sportscasters use the word "defense" as a verb. For instance, you'll hear that when a football team makes a defensive stop, some stupid commentator will say "they defensed that well."
Ahhggg! More of the english language going down the toilet.
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#1916628 - 03/26/08 01:57 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Eric Iverson]
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GeoffB
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Even we native speakers are not always sure how a word should be pronounced!
Shouldn't that be 'pronounciated'?
G.
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#1916638 - 03/26/08 02:16 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: J J]
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Chad
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...it's - it is
its - ownership
To be fair, that one's a bit tricky; not for me, I learned the difference years ago, but I have a strong verbal facility. I could see how it might occasionally throw others.
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I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. - Psalm 139:14
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#1916651 - 03/26/08 02:47 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: GeoffB]
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mdrs
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Geoff,
Personally, I'd blame it on the French. When you go to France, they have a different word for everything!! 
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#1916664 - 03/26/08 03:16 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: mdrs]
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Steevo
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I got this email recently so I'll add it for fun, in case you haven't seen it:
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking
English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? We ship by truck but send cargo by ship. We have noses that run and feet that smell. We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway. And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on. And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?
Some other reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English:
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
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#1916669 - 03/26/08 03:21 PM
Re: OT: The American Language.
[Re: Steevo]
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Hardtail
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The only thing that really pisses me off is when people confuse "loose" with "lose".
I once saw a Colorado Avalanche fan on TV waving a banner that said:
"The Red Wings Will Loose"
She waved it for the whole world to see.
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