| Author |
Message |
    
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 784
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 5:48 am: |       |
Hi Sarah,
If you could see the huge grin on my face whenever I read and respond on this wonderfully enlightening, but light as air and fluffy thread, you would realise that ‘tetchy’ doesn’t come into it.
Have you never heard of Tim Nicebut-Dim?
Nicebut-Dumb wouldn’t work at all, dear heart. Any more than Captain Mainwearing (pronounced Mannering) could call Pike “You dumb boy” and not “You stupid boy”.
Whatho Mark and Monty, old chaps. You put me in mind of dear old Mr. Cholmondley-Warner (pronounced Chumley-Warner, Sarah) and his equally posh interviewer. I loved the kiddies’ Yuletide gifts they joyfully advertised, such as the lethal chemistry set, and their advice to wives never to join in political discussions at dinner parties, but to stick with subjects like helpless kittens and pink things.
Makes one go all silly and nostalgic.
Pip pip.
Love,
Caz
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Sarah Long
Chief Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 752
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 5:58 am: | |
Caz,
Ok, apart from that Tim Nicebut Dim I haven't heard around where I live at least. Anyway Tim and Dim rhyme so of course Tim Nicebut Dumb wouldn't work.
I think it is a shame though that dumb has come to mean stupid as gay has come to mean homosexual. It's a shame.
Sarah |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 190
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 9:16 am: | |
Mark Andrew,
If it elevates, it's an elevator. It's as simple as that.
A butter knife and a butcher knife are fairly different but they are both still knives. If someone acts, they are an actor; if someone sings, they are a singer; if someone writes they are a writer; if someone plays music they are a musician; if someone teaches they are a teacher.
If it elevates, it's an elevator.
Thank you.
-K |
Sarah Long
Chief Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 755
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 9:21 am: | |
Kris,
I Mark means that "elevator" is an American word for our "lift".
I always say lift, mostly because it is easier and quicker.
I could always say Kris, if it lifts, it's a lift.
Sarah
(Message edited by sarah on February 26, 2004) |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 192
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 9:37 am: | |
True enough, and I would never deny you that, but to say an elevator is not called an elevator because an elevator actually lifts hay is a tad . . . urm . . . dim?
I have heard people say 'lift' my whole life, but have never had the audacity to tell them that their word is incorrect.
Oh me oh my.
-K |
Chris Scott
Chief Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 917
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:01 pm: | |
Lots of smiles on this thread:-)
Two book I remember - probably both long out of print sadly - came to mind. Some time in the early '60s, I think, there was a book published called "U and Non U" by Nancy Mitford, one of the famous Mitford sisters. This set out (none too seriousy) to show you could tell a person's class by the words they used for certain objects. This was mainly to distinguish between the true upper class (U) and the pretentious middle class (non U). the only ones I can remember off the top of my head are:
U - Napkin Non u - Serviette
U - Loo Non U - Toilet
There were many more examples but it is many years since I had the book.
There was also a small book which parodied the upper class pronunciation by printing it phonetically as in a foreign language phrase book. It was called "Dooker Min" - i.e. do come in!
Occasionally you hear on TV the "upper class drawl" - usually when some fossil from the hereditary peerage etc is interviewed. There are still some peculiarities to this accent:
The silent L - golf beomes gofe, Ralph becomes Rafe etc
Ou is pronounced i - as in house (hice), lounge (linge) etc
Off is pronounced orfe
Another supposedly upper class usage which is rarely heard in conversation and widely parodied is the impersonal pronoun ("one") and it almost a tabloid signature now for the royal family.
Keep this thread coming- it has given one many a smile!!!
Chris |
Sarah Long
Chief Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 761
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:09 pm: | |
Chris,
I always "loo" and "napkin" but I'm sure it doesn't make me posh or upper class.
The second book you talk about sounds odd. I can't imagine anyone talking like that except the extreme upper classes of over 50 years ago.
Sarah |
Alan Sharp
Inspector
Username: Ash
Post Number: 481
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:24 pm: | |
Chris
I do find it bizarre that proper English is referred to as "The Queen's English" when the English that the Queen speaks I find utterly incomprehensible.
As someone who went to drama school at the beginning of the eighties, I was one of the first generation of actors who were encouraged to keep our regional accents. Up until around the early sixties they were taught what became known as BBC English, the peculiar clipped form of speech you hear in all the old wartime broadcasts. It's quite funny in a way that the actors who continue to teach themselves that slightly posh neutral English accent all end up playing villains in Hollywood movies! |
Sarah Long
Chief Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 763
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:27 pm: | |
Alan,
Do you mean her accent is incomprehensible or the actual words because if it's the accent then it is still acceptable for it to be called "The Queen's English". I find it hard to understand people sometime from up north and when I say up north I mean anywhere past Birmingham.
Sarah |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2158
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:39 pm: | |
"Whatho" sometimes crops up in the Greyfriars stories of Frank Richards.
In a similar spirit if Stephen were to appear the cry might be "'Ware beaks!"
Oh, my hat!
Robert |
Alan Sharp
Inspector
Username: Ash
Post Number: 482
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:43 pm: | |
I mean that her mouth opens and closes and noises seem to come out but they never seem to resolve themselves into anything remotely resembling words. As for Prince Charles, he always sounds to me like the Rowley Birkin QC on The Fast Show and I keep expecting him to end every sentence with "but I have to admit I was very, very drunk". |
Mark Andrew Pardoe
Inspector
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 213
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 8:44 am: | |
Whatho all,
A lift also lowers (or you can use the stairs).
An agricultural elevator only elevates. You throw the bale down.
When actors were encouraged to use regional accents I wish someone had pointed out what a Nottingham accent sounded like. Recently Alan Sillitoe's novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was read on Radio 4; they got some Yorkshire Tyke to read it instead of using a mester wi' a Nottigum accent.
The same sort of thing happened to Monty's great city. A series of Adrian Mole was made and people spoke with West Midland accents. The bloody daft boggers.
Cheers, Mark (in the bar of the Trip with the pint of Kimbo's) |
Sarah Long
Chief Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 772
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 10:55 am: | |
Alan,,
Now you;ve said it I'll never be able to listen to Prince Charles again. I know what you mean though he does a bit.
Mark,
But it must go down to get another bale of hay.
I didn't know there was series of Adrian Mole. I loved his books.
Sarah |
Monty
Chief Inspector
Username: Monty
Post Number: 808
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 12:07 pm: | |
Mark,
Damn right.....hold on, we dont have an accent. We speak the Queens english perfectly thank you..
....you scruffy Northerner.....now hurry up with my plastering !
Monty
 |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 795
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 12:30 pm: | |
Hi All,
Another book along the same lines as Mitford’s U and non-U (people like ‘us’ and not like ‘us’, I thought, Chris) is Jilly Cooper’s ‘Class’.
Using anything French, like ‘serviette’, when we have a perfectly good English ‘napkin’, is regarded as pretentious and striving to sound posh when ‘one’ is not. 
Similarly, ‘lavatory’ - or ‘loo’ if one must - is ‘correct’ while ‘toilet’ is not.
‘Sofa’ but never ‘settee’, ‘drawing room’, not ‘lounge’ etc.
Holding one’s dinner knife like a pen is a sure sign of someone trying to look ‘genteel’, while the ‘correct’ (and in any case far more practical) way is to hold it like one’s fork, or best of all, don’t give a damn – just pick up your chicken drumstick or chop or whatever with your fingers, lick them afterwards and chuck the bones in the fireplace – a true mark of aristocracy, not remotely concerned about what ‘lesser’ mortals might think of one, and not to even notice how lesser mortals choose to hold their own cutlery.
I heard a story that Maggie Thatcher once called the palace to ask if a blue outfit would be ok for her to wear at some function she and Liz were both due to attend, as she didn’t want to offend her maj by wearing the same colour or one that would clash. The response was that the Queen never notices what others are wearing anyway, so Maggie could wear whatever colour she wanted.
Love,
Caz
|
Michael Raney
Detective Sergeant
Username: Mikey559
Post Number: 135
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 2:24 pm: | |
Caz,
As usual when you are on this type of thread (light and airy), I loved your post! I'm Irish, raised mostly in America by my very Brit (Lancashire)grandmother and Great grandmother I developed quite an interesting mode of speech. I was teased for "talking funny" which I never understood, I thought everyone else talked funny. I now sound VERY American unless I have recently been in the UK. I do have to be careful though about saying, lift, trolley, etc.
Mikey |
Mark Andrew Pardoe
Inspector
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 214
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 7:20 pm: | |
Whatho all,
I call the toilet "the old bog" so am I U or non-U. Probably neither but am a V.
I take your point Sarah but an elevator is a continuous belt so it's always going up. The down part in underneath so it you try to put a bail on that, it would fall off.
Next week we will discuss the use of the harrow (not to be confused with Eton - HA HA HA HA HA that was good, all right, please yourselves).
Cheers, Mark (reaching for the Blue Book) |
Sarah Long
Chief Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 778
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 5:35 am: | |
Mark,
Oh ok. I'm not that familiar with farming equipment so I didn't know it was on a continuous belt.
Sarah |
Mara
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2004 - 2:21 pm: | |
I was reading a scrap from Arthur Sullivan's diary in which he referred to the Whitechapel murders and says, "Heard at the theatre of the double murder at Whitechapel the previous night."
If I'd been writing it, I'd have said "murder *in* Whitechapel...". Is using the word "at" in that context a Britishism, a Victorianism, or a peculiarity of Sullivan's? I was just wondering.
|
Kelly Robinson
Police Constable
Username: Kelly
Post Number: 3
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 12:14 pm: | |
I read somewhere about a study a bunch of linguists did in which they listened to broadcasts of the Queen going back many years and determined that her speech has gradually become slightly less "Queen's English-y" (my term, don't recall theirs}. |
Sarah Long
Chief Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 830
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 12:26 pm: | |
Mara,
I would also say "in" not "at" and I'm British so it might have been more of a Vicorianism but then again it may just be him.
Sarah |
Mark Andrew Pardoe
Inspector
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 216
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 5:40 pm: | |
Whatho Mara and Sarah,
I say "in" a place but "at" a street. I think something cannot be "in" a street as it would be in the way of the traffic.
Cheers, Mark |
Paul Jackson
Sergeant
Username: Paulj
Post Number: 23
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 10:55 pm: | |
Hi All,
Could someone please tell me what is meant by a
"fresh" complexion. Im sure its been asked before, but i couldnt find it.
Paul |
Skittle McFluff
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 4:38 am: | |
As regards 'one' (a while ago I know. In fact, all of this was a while ago), I always think it sad that, because some people misused it and used the word to replace the first person singular, we are now effectively deprived of our impersonal thrid person. It may not sound important, but many times have I wished I could use it without sounding like a tosser; it is simply less confusing. |
Bullwinkle
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 8:44 pm: | |
The best Britishism is 'dreadfully lewd.' I imagine it must have taken centuries of experience for them to express so. No American would concieve it.
Bullwinkle
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