h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Put the kettle on then mucker.


~jwf~

There is a popular attitude that puns are the lowest form of humour and it is therefore quite possible that few actually enjoy them more than I. Oh yes, several times I have been scolded and admonished by my fellow hootoists for my liberties with such lovely words as 'whirled'.

I find a sense of humour in this regard is helpful when dealing with the wonderful ambiguities of some etymologies which bring us all some confusion - as we have recently discovered with mugs.

There are for example those that make no distinction between 'brake' and 'break', a common spelling in writing and one learns to be forgiving of such ignorance.

But today I heard a BBC reporter describing a Formula 2 race manage to use the past tense of the latter to mean the former. According to this reporter a driver had broke too late to negotiate a corner.


~jwf~

I'm glad you brung that to my attention. It's always good to see new regular and irregular verbs being born.

I'd guess drink had been took.

Or token?

A lady on the radio recently spoke about someone in court having "pled" guilty.

'pled' is quite common in North Am.
At least that's what it sounds like.

In fact, while I wouldn't actually use it myself,
I would if pressed, spell it 'plead' riming it in my
head with 'led' but spelling it like 'lead', the metal.

I'm think that's how they spell it in print but they would
read it out loud as 'pled'.
Curious.

Most techno jargon, especially legalese, is often pronounced
in artificial ways by people unfamiliar with it who are trying
to sound formal or posh.


~jwf~

Pled feels weird to those who always pleaded . . . but I glance at the arbiter of correctness (Shorter Oxford) and it nods its approval.

Plead . . . Pa. t. and pple. pleaded; also pled (now Sc., dial., and US), *plead.

So 'plead' as past participle is obsolete (it's an obelisk not an asterisk in SOED) but pled is accepted as current usage in Scotland, US, and other dialects.

Ah, so it's officially a 'US' variant. Another example then of 'ye olde Engliche' surviving longer in the tide-water colonies than in the motherland.

Another legal term badly used over here is 'garnisheed'. Yes the term has 2 Es and quite rightly rimes with peed or plead.

In radio and TV adverts, uninformed announcers assuming the double E must be a typo have long mispronounced it like 'garnished', a term you'd more likely hear on a cooking show.

Hearing this used to be amusing, and allowed one to feel slightly superior. But the economic crisis and the rise of 'debt reduction' and 'mortgage foreclosure protection' scams by law firms and accountants, has meant a significant increase in this sort of advert and the error is now being firmly established as the currently acceptable way to say it.

Maddeningly, the sponsors (lawyers) would or should know better but they allow it, presumably thinking that's how their target market, obviously a bunch of ignorami, would pronounce it.

~jwf~

"Ignorami" must be a type of salami I didn't know about.

I wondered about the spelling "pled" or "plead" but plumped for "pled" to demonstrate how it was pronunced.

Plead pronounced pled sounds right and proper to my Scottish ears.

This must be one of the biggest headaches for learners of English as a foreign language:
lead(ing)/led/lead (the metal)
read(ing)/red/read (past tense)
and why is said said sed?

. . . when paid is called as payed . . .

And what's more sad than plaid.


~jwf~

if you want, I´ll just try a mockscot accent (reading the "Outlander" books at the moment) "Ye, I ken my pled´s made of led"?

Then there was the exam question: Write an Essay on the Importance of Reading. Most students wrote about the importance of reading (pronounced reeding), but at least one wrote about the importance of Reading (pronounced redding) because she was born there!

- literate AND female - unfair competician!

http://errata.wordie.org/2009/09/ive-got-no-option-but-to-sell-you-all.html

Today's Guardian contains the following list, for the benefit of tutors of current students:
Allow (that)
Big up - I knew this one
CBA
Cool beans
Frape
Long
Neek
Obv - guessed this one easily
Owned
SDW (40 odd years ago these were called double shift workers -DSW)
Smacked it
Teek - quite proud I guessed this one too
Tell over
Wagwan
Waste
Woop woop - guessed this one easily
Would you get a better score? Any that are still impenetrable, I'll explain in a couple of days - I've kept the cutting.