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

az. cheers. i looked it up too before i posted so for 5 minutes i actually knew that stuff. now i know it for another 5 minutes.

however, that stuff earlier about the picasso exhibition seemed off base to me without even knowing the formalities. one might choose to use the present perfect to indicate recency, but one isn't obliged to, nor does it tell you the ongoing state of the exhibition as earlier posters were suggesting. or at least i interpreted them as suggesting.

in short, americans aren't 'wrong' to use the simple past tense if they have just returned from an exhibition. nor have i noticed americans using simple past when present perfect would be expected, as per the examples you gave.

what is your opinion on 'dramatic presence'?

like:

"what happened was, this robber comes into the bank and yells 'dis is a robbery, reach for the sky' and i freeze, didn't i?"

I've never heard anyone say, "I don't got it," either--unless it's someone that is consistently wrong in grammar, anyway. Surely, if it were an "American saying" it wouldn't grate so (seeing as how I've been in Amercica for the last 34.5 years)? Even though I'd still be able to identify it as wrong...

"I don't get it," for "I don't understand," is perfectly normal.*







*Note that I make no claims as to *correctness*

'normal' on hootoo is a 'wide field' as we would say in germany

Is 'aluminium' as it pronounced in the US, purely a states phenomenon or does Canada follow suit on this? I guess you could add 'vase' as well to that.

Germany can't talk - they call a mobile/cell a Handy

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Quite why you're saying that I don't know.
It does imply the exhibition is still on, or at least that the opportunity to catch it even if at another location still exists, if you use the present perfect.

Similarly, it also implies that Keith U1287143 is still alive if you ask, "Have you met Keith?"

Consider this: Would you really ask someone, "Have you met Keith?" if you knew Keith had died?






And be careful with the recentness thing. Present perfect doesn't necessarily have anything to do with recentness at all:

"Have you ever been to Scotland?"
"Yes I have. I've been to Scotland, but not recently. Not for a very long time in fact."

Time frames play a very big part in the use of the present perfect in English. As we're now in July, yesterday is much more recent than January, but that's irrelevant in the following conversation that I happened to overhear this evening :

"I haven't been to the zoo this year."
"I have. I've been to the zoo twice this year." (Both times were in January, but as the speaker didn't specify the month the time frame includes the present - ie. this year.)
"So have I. I went to the zoo yesterday." If you specify yesterday (creating a closed time frame) then you cannot use the present perfect.

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That's true if it's a past time reference, one that doesn't include the present (as is the case with yesterday, last summer and 1996),
but you don't have to use the past simple time references that do include the present (this year, 2008, today):


"We've been to London this year."
"We've had a lot of problems today."

Sometimes there's a choice. Sometimes it depends a bit on your subjective view of events. You can say, "We've been to the zoo today"
AND "We went to the zoo today".

>> ...'aluminium'... does Canada follow suit on this? <<

Never. It's even spelled correctly here.
Aluminum and pronounced a-loom-in-uhm.

The British spelling with the extra 'i' - making it al-you-minny-uhm is a peculiarity of the British Press following the way Brits were already mispronouncing it as a-loom-in-uhm.

peace
~jwf~


PS: az, is a Mazda advertising slugline suggesting speed and performance in their cars which came to mind when discussing whatever it was back there in the backlog. A smiley would be considered too commercial and was not quite appropriate at the time.

>> ..already mispronouncing it as a-loom-in-uhm. <<

Bad edit there.
'a-loom-in-uhm' is the correct pronunciation.

So please delete 'it as' and read as:
"...already mispronouncing a-loom-in-uhm."

Thank you.
~jwf~

So Canadians do pronounce it in that odd phonetic sounding way. I never knew that.

I prefer the 'minny -um' way.

Humphry Davy coined the term 'aluminum', but some objected and said 'aluminium' was better. I think it was generally accepted as 'aluminium' until some point when when America decided to go back to the first option.

Evidently, The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry adopted aluminium as the standard international name in 1990, but the alternative is accepted.

Suit yourself.


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~*~Really? I've never heard anyone say that in my life. I doubt it's actually an "American saying".~*~

I'm not sure, but I think it's only used in the South and on the East Coast. Everywhere else in America would know this as "I don't have it", where "it" is a possession.

American: "Fill out a form." English: "Fill in a form."

I#ve heard it said that in writing a personal letter, or doing a blog, a person may 'pad out' or 'fill out a story.'



I've always found 'in' to be accetable.

Both "Fill out a form" and "Fill in a form" sound ok to me.

UK spellings seem more varied than US ones.

In the UK we have:
kerb (at the side of the road) and curb (to limit),
tyre (on a car) and tire (to grow weary),
program (as in computer program) and programme (as in TV programme),
check (to verify) and cheque (as in to pay by cheque).

In the US they have only curb, tire, program and check.

Depends on what you studied.

My Uni flatmate (Quantity Surveyor) used to pound it into me that pavement is what the traffic goes on (i.e. road surface) and kerb is everything beyond that (including what most Brits would call a pavement!).

as a side note on 'i don't got it', americans will sometimes deliberately use strange grammar in conversation to indicate informality or lightness. this will even go so far as imitating hillbilly or ebonic idioms. aussies and kiwis will sometimes lapse into 'childspeak' to achieve a similar effect. thus 'probably' will be rendered as 'prolly'. i wouldn't read too much into it. literally.

one american expression which isn't playful and appears to be used as tho it were normal is:

'i could care less' when they mean 'i couldn't care less'.

now that one DOES bug me.

An american collegue asked me what time a meeting was to be held. My andswer "Half seven." confused the hell out of her. She asked did I mean 6:30, or 7:30. Least she asked, and I made it clear it was "half past" that was meant.

And when it was quater to eight she said "it was quater of eight."