Please see Styx thread on the Registered Shipmates consultation for the main discussion forums - your views are important, continues until April 4th.

Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

11819212324131

Comments

  • Also, I've heard "ashphalt" here in Michigan, too.
    • Falling headfirst is a header.
    • Head over heels means in love.
    • Tumbling down the stairs is going "ass over teakettle" in my family.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Forthview wrote: »
    Is it true that Americans say 'tid-bit' instead of' 'tit-bit' ?
    I’ve never heard “tit-bit.”

    And I usually see it spelled “tidbit,” with no hyphen.

    Tidbit is completely unknown to me, with or without a hyphen. (At times like this I miss being able to see where people come from.)
  • "Tidbit" is how I say it and spell it. M-W seems to agree.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    It's "tidbit" in The Great Midwest.
  • To fall is base over apex in my family. It’s titbit here, when it’s used at all. In my family, we’d usually have a smidge. And, in Queensland, we say bitumen instead of ashfelt (how I pronounce it, if I say it at all). Bitumen is any tarred surface, as opposed to ‘the cement’.
  • A header is what a footballer does to propel the ball with his head. Falling head first is falling head first. Arse over tit is any fall but specifically spectacular ones; head over heels tends to be metaphorical rather than physical in my experience. YMMV of course.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    A header is what a footballer does to propel the ball with his head. Falling head first is falling head first. Arse over tit is any fall but specifically spectacular ones; head over heels tends to be metaphorical rather than physical in my experience. YMMV of course.

    Which brings us to another point. A header as you describe is an action by a soccer player, not a footballer. Soccer is but one style of playing football. Rugby, which is the game that is played in Heaven, is the leader of these styles, but there are many others of course - American, League, AFL, soccer being some.
  • It's also the bit of your document that recurs at the top of every page.
  • Indeed
  • Gee D wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    A header is what a footballer does to propel the ball with his head. Falling head first is falling head first. Arse over tit is any fall but specifically spectacular ones; head over heels tends to be metaphorical rather than physical in my experience. YMMV of course.



    Which brings us to another point. A header as you describe is an action by a soccer player, not a footballer. Soccer is but one style of playing football. Rugby, which is the game that is played in Heaven, is the leader of these styles, but there are many others of course - American, League, AFL, soccer being some.

    Unless of course you have a soccer fanatic in the family who plays at top level and is investigating overseas teams. He points out that soccer is truly football, no hands stuff.

    Just saying... I would rather watch Rugby than any other variety.

  • Defo titbit, with or without hyphen. & it’s falling arse over tits. Head over heels is love or sanitised version of ‘arse over tits.’
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    Lothlorien wrote: »
    Unless of course you have a soccer fanatic in the family who plays at top level and is investigating overseas teams. He points out that soccer is truly football, no hands stuff.

    Just saying... I would rather watch Rugby than any other variety.

    A common enough argument, but it never deals with why Rugby is the game played in heaven. A match every Saturday afternoon, the Father, patron of both teams, seated on His special throne that moves up and down the sidelines to keep the play in close view, a thrilling draw as the result of every game - soccer is just not even mentioned there.
  • Whereas here, where we invented the games in question, no-one refers to "soccer".
  • As I said, I prefer Rugby.
  • Well, if we're doing different uses of words about sports, it's hockey. It involves ice and skates. We deke people out in hockey. Which has become a figure of speech for other feinting moves.

  • Defo titbit, with or without hyphen. & it’s falling arse over tits. Head over heels is love or sanitised version of ‘arse over tits.’

    US usage can also be 'ass over tea kettle'. I have no idea why. My wife never uses it, and her father would use the 'tits' version.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    NP--

    Are you saying there's another word for hockey? If so, what?

    Thx.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Well, if we're doing different uses of words about sports, it's hockey. It involves ice and skates.
    It took me a wee while to get used to "hockey" meaning the game with ice, skates and a puck; to me it was a game with mud and boredom. The game of which you speak was ice hockey.

    Of course, now I know better, and I even know what a Zamboni is for ... :mrgreen:
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    NP--

    Are you saying there's another word for hockey? If so, what?

    Thx.

    Piglet has it.

    Took a tumble or to take a tumble. I think this is "ass/ arse over tits/tea kettle".

    "Tumble home" is the curve of the hull of a canoe, where the gunwales are narrower than the maximum width.
  • Past tenses:
    My usage (British English) would be I dreamt, I leapt and a few others I can't think of right now. In my experience Americans regularise those forms to dreamed, leaped etc. I think maybe they save those forms for participles - I have dreamt, I have leapt etc. Is this correct?
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    It varies IMHO by age, location and reading. And one may use the form for one word (e,g, spelt) while eschewing it for another (dreamed), I believe we are in the process of losing the --t form, but the pace at which this proceeds varies by word and individual speaker.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Whereas here, where we invented the games in question, no-one refers to "soccer".

    That's odd, because soccer was the name given by those arriving here from Europe in the period after WW II.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited September 2019
    Each of them, Gee D? How could anyone tell them apart?
    ;)
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Whereas here, where we invented the games in question, no-one refers to "soccer".
    Not anymore. But it's where the term was coined. Just another of myriad examples (e.g. "gotten") where American English remembers older forms that British English has forgotten. Sorry, forgot.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    ;) Yup, we're the real traditionalists. ;)
  • Soccer was given to soccer, which was the new game. Rugby had been here for much of European settlement
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    On past tenses, I always blink at 'dove' since I (and I think the rest of Britain) would say 'dived'. I presume it formed on the analogy of drive/drove.

    Anent which, driver and drover seem to have appeared in the 14th and 15th C respectively, and while there is some interchangeability drive becomes associated with a) vehicles and b) applying force. So if you drive cattle, you actively chivvy them, but if you're a drover, it's more of a long-distance amble.
  • Not sure that droving is an amble! Is the difference that droving involves getting livestock from A to B, while that task can involve quite a bit of driving.

    Agree with you about "dove". I can't recall ever hearing it used seriously as an alternative to "dived".
  • Sport seems to provide unexpected uses of common words that take some getting used to, especially in Australia which has its own variations...

    Having recently become addicted to AFL through spending time with friends in Brisbane (shame about the Lions last weekend :disappointed: ) I have learned new uses for:

    Mark: to catch a ball that has been kicked, thereby earning a right to kick without being tackled... rather than assessing a student’s work, which would be grading (also in USA, I think)
    Behind: A scoring kick that misses the goal but is within a short distance either side of it, thereby earning one point instead of six (why isn’t it a beside rather than a behind?)

    Also the apparel which would be called a shirt or jersey in other sports is called a guernsey or just a jumper, even when it is more like a (UK) vest or (USA) sleeveless t-shirt.

  • I think 'dove' is fairly recent. I'd never encountered it until recently but it's possible that it's a dialect form that has become more respectable. It's lexically unusual. Verbs tend over time to get more regular rather than develop new irregular forms. The regular formation is 'dived'.

    Presumably there's an analogy with 'strive' in it somewhere.

    I think 'slunk' is another example, and, with apologies to shipmates for using a rude word in print, it's just possible 'shat' is one, but if so, probably older.

    The preference for regular forms is why (see above) dreamed, leaped, spelled, learned and even possibly sleeped seem gradually to be replacing dreamt, leapt, spelt, learnt and slept. My spell checker still regards sleeped as a spelling mistake.

    The reason may be that each generation of very small children goes through a stage when they've worked out how to form a regular past tense but not yet grasped which verbs are regular and which not. If they get away with using a regular form for what is more usually an irregular verb, they may carry on doing so.


    Another question is, 'even if you now spell these forms dreamed, leaped, spelled or learned, do you actually say them like that, or do you still say them 'drempt, lept, spelt and learnt'?
  • Of course, spelled can mean to allow to rest. I'd not use spelt in that sense, but keep it for the grain or to describe setting out the letters in a word
  • mousethief wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Whereas here, where we invented the games in question, no-one refers to "soccer".
    Not anymore. But it's where the term was coined. Just another of myriad examples (e.g. "gotten") where American English remembers older forms that British English has forgotten. Sorry, forgot.

    no, we kept forgotten as the participle - I forgot, I have forgotten. It's only gotten itself that we don't use.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Why is rugby played in Heaven? Because everyone is speaking Welsh up there. Simple.
  • Why is rugby played in Heaven? Because everyone is speaking Welsh up there. Simple.

    It is because the Father has given it to us here on earth to sustain is in this mortal life and to give us a foretaste of the life to come.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Why is rugby played in Heaven? Because everyone is speaking Welsh up there. Simple.

    So that's why there are supposed to be many dwelling places in Heaven--so we won't unnecessarily disturb each other!
    ;)

    I'll get me coat.

    NOTE: Welsh language is fine, Welsh choral singing even better! :)

  • Base over apex.
    Why is rugby played in Heaven? Because everyone is speaking Welsh up there. Simple.

    :grin: Exactly. And singing Hymns and Arias the while.
  • 'Sneaked' or 'snuck'? I was brought up on the former, but the latter seems for have managed to sneak in fairly recently.
  • I sometimes think I’m the only American lawyer who says “pled” instead of “pleaded.”
  • I don't see where you get "pled" from.

    Bread = breaded. Knead = kneaded. Or do you think it should be Bread = bred, knead = kned?

    Only people from the western side of the pond use "dove" to describe a past action of entering a body of water. Here the word "dove" is a pigeon-like bird.
  • I don't see where you get "pled" from.
    Don’t know either, but it’s in the dictionary as an alternative to “pleaded.” Perhaps another example of an older form holding in longer in the States than in Britain?
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    And why is Welsh the language of Heaven? Because it takes all eternity to learn it.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    But it's worth it! (Or so I'm assured.)
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Whereas here, where we invented the games in question, no-one refers to "soccer".

    From Wikipedia
    The rules of association football were codified in England by the Football Association in 1863 and the name association football was coined to distinguish the game from the other forms of football played at the time, specifically rugby football. The first written "reference to the inflated ball used in the game" was in the mid-14th century: "Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe". The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the "rules of the game" were made in 1848, before the "split off in 1863". The term soccer comes from a slang or jocular abbreviation of the word "association", with the suffix "-er" appended to it.[ The word soccer (which arrived at its final form in 1895) was first recorded in 1889 in the earlier form of socca.
    (Footnotes removed)

    One of the beauties of the English language is it is constantly changing. developing new words and new expressions.
  • there are two main forms of verbs in English
    strong such as I sing,I sang,I have sung (earlier sungen)
    weak such as I work,I worked,I have worked

    plus mixed such as I bring,I brought,I have brought

    strong verbs are constantly but slowly changing into weak verbs

    such as I help, I halp, I have holpen has changed into I help, I helped, I have helped
    and I work,I wrought,I have wrought into the weak form above

    plead, pled, pled becoming plead, pleaded, pleaded is a common enough change. These changes do not always occur at the same time in different parts of the English speaking world. What intrigues me at the moment is
    sing,sang,sung (based on singen,sang,gesungen in German)
    Many people now make the one word past tense to be 'sung' as in' he sung a song'
    To me that sounds wrong but I read and hear it a lot.
  • Why is rugby played in Heaven? Because everyone is speaking Welsh up there. Simple.

    Nag ydyn (no). Everyone in heaven speaks Hebrew. It's God who speaks Welsh.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I sometimes think I’m the only American lawyer who says “pled” instead of “pleaded.”

    We have "pled" all the time in the phrase "He pled the Fifth [Amendment]."

    Other than that, I can see the problem.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    My husband assures me regularly that everyone in heaven speaks Vietnamese.

    I understand that English is the language of Hell. Or so he says...
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I sometimes think I’m the only American lawyer who says “pled” instead of “pleaded.”

    Are you the only one? The impression I had was that it was common pronunciation but still written "plead".

    Gramps, Thanks for doing the legwork. I'd always understood that to be the derivation of "soccer".
Sign In or Register to comment.