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terminology and common usage
On 01/12/2014 16:57, The Other John wrote:
On Mon, 01 Dec 2014 13:34:15 +0000, Bill Wright wrote: My grandma always counted like that. When telling the time my parents used to say five and twenty past or to the hour. Yes, my mother does that too -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. |
terminology and common usage
On 01/12/2014 11:31, NY wrote:
Likewise I'm well aware of the US convention of writing dates in month, day, year order, so I will always write "3 Feb[ruary] 2014" which is unambiguous, whereas "3/2/14" could mean either: have I used my own notation which the American should mentally swap round or have I already swapped it round for his benefit? You haven't swapped it enough. If it is done in words rather than numbers the typical American would expect February 3, 2014. Jim |
terminology and common usage
On 01/12/2014 13:28, Ian Jackson wrote:
By the way, I've met a few people who often use the form 'four and twenty' when saying numbers. It seems to be alive and well, and living in Essex. Or in the case of blackbirds, baked in a pie. Jim |
terminology and common usage
On 01/12/2014 13:11, Peter Duncanson wrote:
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 10:02:07 -0000, wrote: where did 12 come from as a common base for inches in a foot, This includes some suggestions for the origin of base-12 counting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozen 12 was the greatest number that could be counted on one hand. Using the thumb, indicate each of the finger sections on the same hand in turn. 3 per finger, four fingers, gave 12. Using the other hand as well, 12 x 12 was possible, hence gross. Also 5 x 12 giving 60 (seconds in a minute) Jim |
terminology and common usage
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 10:24:00 -0000, NY wrote:
The other "funny" with Germany is that they regard a time of xx:30 as being half-before rather than half-past. And then they colloquially omit the "before". This led to a lot of confusion. Some Germans would quote a time of "halb vier" ("half four") which means what we would term half past three. Time zone - they're an hour ahead of us. -- Peter. The gods will stay away whilst religions hold sway |
terminology and common usage
Anyone noticed that the French display time as 17h30 and
would say the hour plus half - 'dix-sept heure et demi' IMSMC. This follows the modern way of eliminating decimal points and commas such that a 4700 ohm resistor is shown as 4k7 rather than 4.7k and I have to say I rather like it! -- Woody harrogate three at ntlworld dot com |
terminology and common usage
"Indy Jess John" wrote in message
... On 01/12/2014 11:31, NY wrote: Likewise I'm well aware of the US convention of writing dates in month, day, year order, so I will always write "3 Feb[ruary] 2014" which is unambiguous, whereas "3/2/14" could mean either: have I used my own notation which the American should mentally swap round or have I already swapped it round for his benefit? You haven't swapped it enough. If it is done in words rather than numbers the typical American would expect February 3, 2014. Yes but he'd understand that "3 February" and "February 3" were the same thing, even if what I said wasn't the format that he normally used. Or are Americans less able to adapt to trivial alterations than Brits like me? :-) |
terminology and common usage
In message , NY
writes "Indy Jess John" wrote in message ... On 01/12/2014 11:31, NY wrote: Likewise I'm well aware of the US convention of writing dates in month, day, year order, so I will always write "3 Feb[ruary] 2014" which is unambiguous, whereas "3/2/14" could mean either: have I used my own notation which the American should mentally swap round or have I already swapped it round for his benefit? You haven't swapped it enough. If it is done in words rather than numbers the typical American would expect February 3, 2014. Yes but he'd understand that "3 February" and "February 3" were the same thing, even if what I said wasn't the format that he normally used. Or are Americans less able to adapt to trivial alterations than Brits like me? :-) Having worked for an American company, I always made a point of using the 3 Feb(ruary) 2014 format. They, in turn, would use normally use Feb(ruary) 3 2014. There was never a problem. On my computer, where necessary, I add the self-sorting* (20)14-02-03 date format to the filenames. *When you list by filename. Americans don't always use Month-Day-Year. Independence Day is, more often than not, called "The Fourth of July", eg "I'm as corny as Kansas in August, High as a flag on the Fourth of July!" -- Ian |
terminology and common usage
"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
... Which reminds me, I listened to a recent PC world advert on the radio, and they said the items being sold were available in pink and blue, laptops as it happens, and I thought, this sounds like stereotyping to me, I thought we had got away from pink for girls blue for boys years ago. Brian Apparently it used to be the other way round: "Back in the days when ladies had a home journal (in 1918) the Ladies' Home Journal wrote: 'There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger colour is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.'" http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...5/genderissues -- Max Demian |
terminology and common usage
"Indy Jess John" wrote in message
... On 01/12/2014 13:11, Peter Duncanson wrote: On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 10:02:07 -0000, wrote: where did 12 come from as a common base for inches in a foot, This includes some suggestions for the origin of base-12 counting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozen 12 was the greatest number that could be counted on one hand. Using the thumb, indicate each of the finger sections on the same hand in turn. 3 per finger, four fingers, gave 12. Using the other hand as well, 12 x 12 was possible, hence gross. Also 5 x 12 giving 60 (seconds in a minute) Using the binary system, you can count up to 15 on each hand or 255 on both hands, with the thumb used to hold your fingers in position. -- Max Demian |
terminology and common usage
"NY" wrote in message
o.uk... (*) Then there's the habit of BBC newsreaders referring to "an increase of half of one percent" rather than "an increase of nought point five percent" which (to may ears anyway) sounds less clumsy and more consistent with "an increase of three point five percent". I've even heard "an increase of nought point seven of one percent" :-). Come to think of it, given that all typewriters and computers have had the % symbol for many years, which do a lot of newspapers write "1.7 pc" rather than "1.7 %"? I find it faintly irritating when shops say "up to half price" rather than "down to half price" or "up to half off". -- Max Demian |
terminology and common usage
Max Demian wrote:
I find it faintly irritating when shops say "up to half price" Ah well, what they mean is, it might be seven-eights of the full price, it might be three-quarters of the full price, but there's a chance it might be up to half the full price. You don't have to be too logical with these things. Most people don't have logical minds. Think how much ******** people will believe. I've just this minute seen a picture of Michael Brown, the man who was shot in Ferguson, on the BBC News. The picture they always use shows a chubby lad of about 15. He looks quite sweet. In fact the person the policeman faced was a 300 pound six foot two body building obsessive hooligan with a criminal record who had just robbed a shop. And here's the words the BBC always use: ... failed to charge a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man. They always say 'white' and 'black' and 'unarmed'. An unarmed bloke of that size and weight is actually capable of doing you severe damage. Why do they mention 'black' and 'white' every time? When there's yet another case of Asian gangs raping white children in the UK the BBC doesn't mention the race of the attackers or the victims, or if they do it's well down the story. Bill |
terminology and common usage
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 23:43:46 -0000, Max Demian wrote:
"NY" wrote in message o.uk... (*) Then there's the habit of BBC newsreaders referring to "an increase of half of one percent" rather than "an increase of nought point five percent" which (to may ears anyway) sounds less clumsy and more consistent with "an increase of three point five percent". I've even heard "an increase of nought point seven of one percent" :-). Come to think of it, given that all typewriters and computers have had the % symbol for many years, which do a lot of newspapers write "1.7 pc" rather than "1.7 %"? Yes, and leaving a gap before "%" (also gaps before e.g. "?" and "!" or even """) Then there's using words for values 10 in an article that's all about the numbers. I find it faintly irritating when shops say "up to half price" rather than "down to half price" or "up to half off". That means, to me, that nothing is above half price. Saw a sale that said "Up to -40% discount" - that's an increase! The X7 and X4 busses through Northampton to MK used to have, based on the two timetables, "Up to every 30 minutes". Now that's an interval, not a frequency. Of course, they were /down/ to every 30 minutes. -- Peter. The gods will stay away whilst religions hold sway |
terminology and common usage
On 01/12/2014 23:37, Max Demian wrote:
"Indy Jess wrote in message ... On 01/12/2014 13:11, Peter Duncanson wrote: On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 10:02:07 -0000, wrote: where did 12 come from as a common base for inches in a foot, This includes some suggestions for the origin of base-12 counting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozen 12 was the greatest number that could be counted on one hand. Using the thumb, indicate each of the finger sections on the same hand in turn. 3 per finger, four fingers, gave 12. Using the other hand as well, 12 x 12 was possible, hence gross. Also 5 x 12 giving 60 (seconds in a minute) Using the binary system, you can count up to 15 on each hand or 255 on both hands, with the thumb used to hold your fingers in position. Tis true, but in the days when handy counting systems came into being, nobody would have thought of binary. It is not something the average human can easily imagine. Just my 110010 pence worth. :-) Jim |
terminology and common usage
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 23:37:50 UTC, "Max Demian"
wrote: snip Using the binary system, you can count up to 15 on each hand or 255 on both hands, with the thumb used to hold your fingers in position. Err 1023 if you can get your fingers to work - up for one folded for 0. |
terminology and common usage
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 23:29:37 -0000, "Max Demian"
wrote: Which reminds me, I listened to a recent PC world advert on the radio, and they said the items being sold were available in pink and blue, laptops as it happens, and I thought, this sounds like stereotyping to me, I thought we had got away from pink for girls blue for boys years ago. Brian Apparently it used to be the other way round: "Back in the days when ladies had a home journal (in 1918) the Ladies' Home Journal wrote: 'There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger colour is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.'" http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...5/genderissues I remember buying a bicycle from a continental manufacturer, Puch, for my daughter back in the 1970s. This model was available in two versions for boys and girls with the usual slight variation in construction, but I was surprised to note that the boys' version was red and the girls' one was blue. We were told that on the continent this was the convention. Rod. |
terminology and common usage
"PeterC" wrote in message
.. . On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 23:43:46 -0000, Max Demian wrote: "NY" wrote in message o.uk... (*) Then there's the habit of BBC newsreaders referring to "an increase of half of one percent" rather than "an increase of nought point five percent" which (to may ears anyway) sounds less clumsy and more consistent with "an increase of three point five percent". I've even heard "an increase of nought point seven of one percent" :-). Come to think of it, given that all typewriters and computers have had the % symbol for many years, which do a lot of newspapers write "1.7 pc" rather than "1.7 %"? Yes, and leaving a gap before "%" (also gaps before e.g. "?" and "!" or even """) Then there is the American habit of including punctuation (usually a comma or a full stop) inside the double quotes, even when it belongs to the overall sentence rather than the words being quoted: UK: See the section "Choosing Photo Gallery Options", later in this chapter. US: See the section "Choosing Photo Gallery Options," later in this chapter. The UK convention is more logical because the section heading doesn't include the comma so it shouldn't go within the quotes. Our convention on dates is probably more logical too because it lists the day, month and year in ascending order or significance (a month is bigger than a day and a year is bigger than a month). Interesting how different countries adopt different conventions. Our "u" in words like "colour" and "humour" doesn't really add anything to the words and could probably be omitted, and "theater" is probably a more straightforward spelling, given the pronunciation, than "theatre". |
terminology and common usage
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... I remember buying a bicycle from a continental manufacturer, Puch, for my daughter back in the 1970s. This model was available in two versions for boys and girls with the usual slight variation in construction, but I was surprised to note that the boys' version was red and the girls' one was blue. We were told that on the continent this was the convention. Yes but there is a world of difference between a good manly pillar-box red and a girly dayglo pink :-) |
terminology and common usage
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 23:29:37 -0000, "Max Demian" wrote: Which reminds me, I listened to a recent PC world advert on the radio, and they said the items being sold were available in pink and blue, laptops as it happens, and I thought, this sounds like stereotyping to me, I thought we had got away from pink for girls blue for boys years ago. Brian Apparently it used to be the other way round: "Back in the days when ladies had a home journal (in 1918) the Ladies' Home Journal wrote: 'There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger colour is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.'" http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...5/genderissues I remember buying a bicycle from a continental manufacturer, Puch, for my daughter back in the 1970s. This model was available in two versions for boys and girls with the usual slight variation in construction, but I was surprised to note that the boys' version was red and the girls' one was blue. We were told that on the continent this was the convention. Colour coding is always rather arbitrary until it is set in people's minds. Apparently the red and green traffic signals are based on the port and starboard lights on boats and aeroplane wingtips, so could easily have been the other way round. "Well obviously red means go as it's such a fierce colour..." Similarly for hot and cold taps. "Green is hot as green chilli peppers are hotter than red." -- Max Demian |
terminology and common usage
"NY" wrote in message
... Our convention on dates is probably more logical too because it lists the day, month and year in ascending order or significance (a month is bigger than a day and a year is bigger than a month). yyyy.mm.dd is better for automatic sorting by character code, and corresponds to numbers (thousands, hundreds, tens and units). I think only Sweden and Japan use this format officially. -- Max Demian |
terminology and common usage
"Indy Jess John" wrote in message
... Using the binary system, you can count up to 15 on each hand or 255 on both hands, with the thumb used to hold your fingers in position. Tis true, but in the days when handy counting systems came into being, nobody would have thought of binary. It is not something the average human can easily imagine. Apparently the Egyptians were using binary arithmetic for multiplication without knowing it three or four thousand years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_multiplication (I knew of this from the Russian (peasant) multiplication method, which only requires knowledge of the two times table and the ability to add.) -- Max Demian |
terminology and common usage
In article , Max Demian
wrote: "Roderick Stewart" wrote in message ... On Mon, 1 Dec 2014 23:29:37 -0000, "Max Demian" wrote: Which reminds me, I listened to a recent PC world advert on the radio, and they said the items being sold were available in pink and blue, laptops as it happens, and I thought, this sounds like stereotyping to me, I thought we had got away from pink for girls blue for boys years ago. Brian Apparently it used to be the other way round: "Back in the days when ladies had a home journal (in 1918) the Ladies' Home Journal wrote: 'There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger colour is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.'" http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...5/genderissues I remember buying a bicycle from a continental manufacturer, Puch, for my daughter back in the 1970s. This model was available in two versions for boys and girls with the usual slight variation in construction, but I was surprised to note that the boys' version was red and the girls' one was blue. We were told that on the continent this was the convention. Colour coding is always rather arbitrary until it is set in people's minds. Apparently the red and green traffic signals are based on the port and starboard lights on boats and aeroplane wingtips, so could easily have been the other way round. "Well obviously red means go as it's such a fierce colour..." Similarly for hot and cold taps. "Green is hot as green chilli peppers are hotter than red." which is why in the UK, we used Red for the live conductor in electrical cable. Mind you the Gemans used Red for earth since a lot of their soil is that colour. -- From KT24 Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18 |
terminology and common usage
"Martin" wrote in message
... which is why in the UK, we used Red for the live conductor in electrical cable. Mind you the Gemans used Red for earth since a lot of their soil is that colour. Haven't wire colours used everywhere change to a standard set How widespread are the brown, blue, green/yellow colours? Is it just within Europe or is it most of the world? Apparently one of the benefits of using green/yellow for earth is that this appears as two shades even for most/all types of colour blindness. I wonder if it might have been better though to make live the striped one, on the ground that if you can only determine one wire unambiguously, it should be live since that's the one that bites: neutral and earth *should* be at 0V with respect to earthed objects. I once worked for the summer in a chemistry lab as the assistant to a researcher. We were working on reactions which produced colour changes as an easy way for people and sensors to determine the concentration of a reagent. Tony, my boss, said that his previous assistant had spent ages working on reactions but no-one else could reproduce the same colour changes. After everyone had been tearing out their hair for several weeks, the assistant said "I don't know if it's relevant but I'm colour blind". Duh! |
terminology and common usage
On Tue, 2 Dec 2014 11:24:06 -0000, Max Demian wrote:
"NY" wrote in message ... Our convention on dates is probably more logical too because it lists the day, month and year in ascending order or significance (a month is bigger than a day and a year is bigger than a month). yyyy.mm.dd is better for automatic sorting by character code, and corresponds to numbers (thousands, hundreds, tens and units). I think only Sweden and Japan use this format officially. That I'd accept, as it is logical - the Merkin way has no logic. I suppose that the d-m-y we use is more useful to /us/ as we use the day-date more often than the year. It's the same with time: h-m-s gives the larger bracket first, but 'twenty past' is more useful than 'ten twenty' when the time is approximately known. -- Peter. The gods will stay away whilst religions hold sway |
terminology and common usage
"Terry Casey" wrote in message ... In article , says... "NY" wrote in message ... Our convention on dates is probably more logical too because it lists the day, month and year in ascending order or significance (a month is bigger than a day and a year is bigger than a month). yyyy.mm.dd is better for automatic sorting by character code, and corresponds to numbers (thousands, hundreds, tens and units). I think only Sweden and Japan use this format officially. Isn't there an ISO standard way of expressing date and time? IIRC it goes from largest to smallest, thus YY MM DD hh mm ss Yes I'm sure you're right. And evidently only Sweden and Japan use it officially. I organise all my digital photos into folders that relate to locations where the pictures were taken, and within each of those folders I create ones with the dates that pictures were taken - in the form yyyymmdd so they sort correctly even if the folder was created more recently than the date when the pictures were taken. |
terminology and common usage
Max Demian wrote:
"NY" wrote in message ... Our convention on dates is probably more logical too because it lists the day, month and year in ascending order or significance (a month is bigger than a day and a year is bigger than a month). yyyy.mm.dd is better for automatic sorting by character code, and corresponds to numbers (thousands, hundreds, tens and units). I think only Sweden and Japan use this format officially. All my folders that are date related (pictures etc) are named following this model: y14m12d01 dance show They are then automatically in the right order. Bill |
terminology and common usage
charles wrote:
Mind you the Germans used Red for earth since a lot of their soil is that colour. Soaked with the blood of the innocent. Bill |
terminology and common usage
In message , Bill Wright
writes Max Demian wrote: "NY" wrote in message ... Our convention on dates is probably more logical too because it lists the day, month and year in ascending order or significance (a month is bigger than a day and a year is bigger than a month). yyyy.mm.dd is better for automatic sorting by character code, and corresponds to numbers (thousands, hundreds, tens and units). I think only Sweden and Japan use this format officially. All my folders that are date related (pictures etc) are named following this model: y14m12d01 dance show They are then automatically in the right order. Quite. If you have more than one file folder, you can also add -01, -02, -03 etc to the date. I normally include the leading 0 to avoid the possibility of (say) -2 being listed before -10 (although this doesn't happen often). Today's creations would therefore start with 14-12-02-01, 14-12-02-02 etc, followed by a file/folder name. As well as sorting in date order, it also helps when doing a search. -- Ian |
terminology and common usage
Ian Jackson wrote:
Quite. If you have more than one file folder, you can also add -01, -02, -03 etc to the date. I normally include the leading 0 to avoid the possibility of (say) -2 being listed before -10 (although this doesn't happen often). Today's creations would therefore start with 14-12-02-01, 14-12-02-02 etc, followed by a file/folder name. As well as sorting in date order, it also helps when doing a search. I give each pic a file name which is the names of the people or pets on the pic, from left to right. This makes a search really easy. I was asked last week for old pictures of someone to embarrass him at his wedding. Searches for 'Andy' and 'Andrew' worked well. The bride almost changed her mind when she saw the pics. Bill |
terminology and common usage
"Brian Gaff" wrote in message ... Bring back the black and white Minstrels, the big thing when colour first started on TV. Brian Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Virgin Media told me over the telephone that even using the word "black" on news groups could be offensive. I kid ye not. I made them ring me after a very little man reported me. I now use eternal-september. -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active "Bill Wright" wrote in message ... Graham. wrote: On Sun, 30 Nov 2014 20:06:50 +0000, Bill Wright wrote: Graham. wrote: I suppose there is no other kind now, but elderly people used to say "coloured television". Strangely, coloured mean good for tv sets, bad for people. Bill Are you an albino? I should have typed 'meant' not 'mean'. It was a reference to the attitude of some of my elderly customers. Bill |
terminology and common usage
On 02/12/2014 20:06, Mr Pounder wrote:
Virgin Media told me over the telephone that even using the word "black" on news groups could be offensive. I trust you explained why you were not sympathetic to that point of view. I use VM. Perhaps I had better not mention Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish? Jim |
terminology and common usage
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terminology and common usage
"Paul Cummins" wrote in
message k... In article , (NY) wrote: neutral and earth *should* be at 0V with respect to earthed objects. Did you never do the test in Physics at school of measuring the voltage between neutral and earth (anything up to about 5V) and trying to light a bulb from it (surprisingly large currents available?) Granted mains and neutral are joined but usually at the nearest sub-station for older type installations. In modern installations the arrangements can be very different. Have no worry someone will be along shortly to describe the differences between TN's, TT's and the like. For those that cannot wait but for which I accept no responsibility you can look at http://www.neweysonline.co.uk/Earthing/Static.raction which attempts to explain it quite well. -- Woody harrogate three at ntlworld dot com |
terminology and common usage
"Indy Jess John" wrote in message ... On 02/12/2014 20:06, Mr Pounder wrote: Virgin Media told me over the telephone that even using the word "black" on news groups could be offensive. I trust you explained why you were not sympathetic to that point of view. I use VM. Perhaps I had better not mention Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish? I was on my second warning. One for cross posting to a group I have long forgotten the name of. One for using the word "nig**r" so I did not argue too very much. I was fed up with the VM news server anyway, it was always going down. |
terminology and common usage
Terry Casey wrote:
In article , says... "NY" wrote in message ... Our convention on dates is probably more logical too because it lists the day, month and year in ascending order or significance (a month is bigger than a day and a year is bigger than a month). yyyy.mm.dd is better for automatic sorting by character code, and corresponds to numbers (thousands, hundreds, tens and units). I think only Sweden and Japan use this format officially. Isn't there an ISO standard way of expressing date and time? IIRC it goes from largest to smallest, thus YY MM DD hh mm ss It's known as a DTG (Date Time Group) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date-time_group I remember using it when I worked at a NASA satellite tracking station in the 60s. -- Ashley |
terminology and common usage
On Tue, 2 Dec 2014 10:21:54 -0000, "NY" wrote:
Interesting how different countries adopt different conventions. Our "u" in words like "colour" and "humour" doesn't really add anything to the words and could probably be omitted, and "theater" is probably a more straightforward spelling, given the pronunciation, than "theatre". I agree, but the Americans should spell it "theeder", given their pronunciation, -- Dave W |
terminology and common usage
On 12/3/2014 3:01 PM, Dave W wrote:
On Tue, 2 Dec 2014 10:21:54 -0000, "NY" wrote: Interesting how different countries adopt different conventions. Our "u" in words like "colour" and "humour" doesn't really add anything to the words and could probably be omitted, and "theater" is probably a more straightforward spelling, given the pronunciation, than "theatre". I agree, but the Americans should spell it "theeder", given their pronunciation, I've heard it as thee-AY-dur/thee-AY-duh (ay as in hay). |
terminology and common usage
"S Viemeister" wrote in message
... On 12/3/2014 3:01 PM, Dave W wrote: On Tue, 2 Dec 2014 10:21:54 -0000, "NY" wrote: Interesting how different countries adopt different conventions. Our "u" in words like "colour" and "humour" doesn't really add anything to the words and could probably be omitted, and "theater" is probably a more straightforward spelling, given the pronunciation, than "theatre". I agree, but the Americans should spell it "theeder", given their pronunciation, I've heard it as thee-AY-dur/thee-AY-duh (ay as in hay). And somehow many American accents make "laboratory" (UK: la-BOR-a-t'ry) sound like "lavatory" (LAB-o-TOR-y) :-) When I used to watch US medical/science dramas (eg Quincy) it used to baffle me why US researchers seemed to spend so much time in the loo ;-) |
terminology and common usage
"NY" wrote in message
... "S Viemeister" wrote in message ... On 12/3/2014 3:01 PM, Dave W wrote: On Tue, 2 Dec 2014 10:21:54 -0000, "NY" wrote: Interesting how different countries adopt different conventions. Our "u" in words like "colour" and "humour" doesn't really add anything to the words and could probably be omitted, and "theater" is probably a more straightforward spelling, given the pronunciation, than "theatre". I agree, but the Americans should spell it "theeder", given their pronunciation, I've heard it as thee-AY-dur/thee-AY-duh (ay as in hay). And somehow many American accents make "laboratory" (UK: la-BOR-a-t'ry) sound like "lavatory" (LAB-o-TOR-y) :-) When I used to watch US medical/science dramas (eg Quincy) it used to baffle me why US researchers seemed to spend so much time in the loo ;-) Then there is that wonderful pice of hi-fi equipment - a tooner. And as for how they try to pronounce mirror.........!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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