Vocabulary, Spelling, Grammar

[turboplanner]

"Embiggen small things to fill screen"

 

Saw this official instruction on the official Flickr site., which obviously has spelling difficulties as well.

 

A fly landed on my screen so I clicked the button but nothing happened

 

 

[fly_tornado]

try this http://www.brenz.net/services/l337Maker.asp

 

 

[turboplanner]

They did, but why would you choose a longer non-word than enlarge.

 

And after 10,000 years of civilization expanding our vocabulary so understanding was more precise, but would you refer to a "photo" as a "thing"

 

 

[fly_tornado]

think of how many of your favourite english words are actually french!

 

 

[turboplanner]

Well the Normans, having conquered the country probably didn't want to give up their language, but this is a Company which has lost the plot and started to go backwards into ambiguous history

 

 

[fly_tornado]

flikr = yahoo.

 

 

[Neil_S]

...and if you are American why use one word when many will do , eg "ongoing emergency situation" an emergency to the rest of us...., or "at this point in time" ie now, and the (non)word burglarize , ie burgle. I could go on.....

 

 

[skeptic36]

...and if you are American why use one word when many will do , eg "ongoing emergency situation" an emergency to the rest of us...., or "at this point in time" ie now, and the (non)word burglarize , ie burgle. I could go on.....

You don't have to be an American, it's the way politicians use up their interview time so the amount of hard questions they have to answer is limited and so is the amount of actual answers

Regards Bill

 

 

[turboplanner]

Center which really is Centre

 

 

[fly_tornado]

unless you write html.

 

 

[turboplanner]

unless you write html.

Not in Australia, it's an American spelling

 

 

[Tomo]

me no speaka inglish...

 

 

[RKW]

I was going to comment, but I have a problem with my Programmatic specificity!!!

 

 

[turboplanner]

So did Rudd, and look where it got him!

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

think of how many of your favourite english words are actually french!

Yes, I've noticed some Americans recently writing 'walla' or 'walah' - quite seriously too. Then the RAAus mag extolled the virtues of an amphib that was designed to withstand the 'riggers' of salt water use.

 

Ah well, who cares I guess... we don't owe the French a whole lot (they gave us a few words plus champagne, funky cheese and goose-liver pate.... sheesh the blog software here doesn't allow me to use diacritic marks).

 

 

[Guest davidh10]

I thought that "walla" was what pigs did in mud!

 

I never cease to be amazed at the new non-words that appear every day. Even the ABC announcers seem to be on a downward trajectory as regards use of English and grammar.

 

The biggest issue is that people are losing the ability to express themselves coherently and unambiguously.

 

 

[old man emu]

My greatest hate: plural verbs with subjects which are in the singular and vice versa. And for the life of me, I can't bring an example to mind right now. I suppose I'll have to turn on ABC Local and wait for one.

 

OME

 

 

[facthunter]

When half the people (at least) don't have a good knowledge of word meanings, the effective language has contracted. Spelling gave a connection to the word origins. The simplification of spelling to just get the sound the same ( or somewhere near) removes this ability to think what the word means, or derive the meaning logically. Most "eenglish" language is derived from latin and greek.."Borrowed" words ( just lifted from another language) don't bother me as much as aspects that I have mentioned above.

 

The language is the vehicle of communication. Compromise it and we loose understanding, and we need more (not less) of that. Nev

 

 

[RKW]

Nev, I agree with your sentiments. Why have they changed the education system where we used to learn Latin and Greek roots. (and we could add up etc without using calculators) If it aint broke, dont fix it!

 

 

[Neil_S]

Nev, I agree with your sentiments. Why have they changed the education system where we used to learn Latin and Greek roots. (and we could add up etc without using calculators) If it aint broke, dont fix it!

I had to learn Latin at school, and at the time I hated it. But now I have to admit it was very useful as you absolutely had to understand the structure of language to be able to do Latin correctly. From there I actually understood correct English. When I talk to the younger generations at work about conjugations, declensions, the pluperfect tense, subjunctive mood, passive voice, gerunds, ablatives, etc they think I am talking another language.... But that is why I cringe when I see people write "would of" instead of "would have", and use "it's" when it should be "its" (personal pronoun), and say "Me and a friend did xyz". Grrrrrr

 

Maybe I am just turning into an angry old man.....

 

Cheers

 

Neil

 

 

[kgwilson]

How about "Yous guys" and the almost universal poor use of "myself"

 

What annoys me is Politicians and Journalists who can't be bothered learning to correctly pronounce place and country names. When I was travelling the world I always took the time to pronounce the names of places the way the locals did, often to their great delight. It makes me cringe to hear politicians argue about some place they call "Nihroo" (Nauru). It shows no respect for the people who live there.

 

And..................... Yes I think I've become a grumpy old man.

 

 

[turboplanner]

In Victoria, the "it doesn't matter how you spell it or say it as long as the other person understands" which invaded our schools in the 1970's was stamped out again in the 1980's, but this was quickly followed by the surge of the US computer era where the original English spellcheckers were all based on US English.

 

Many of the kids confused by that era are parents of a generation once again getting a more thorough education on our speech, but the kids are once again being led astray by the needs of small keyboards into shorthand words like ya.

 

Had coffee this morning ion an upmarket coffee and a young girl, very well dressed and obviously speaking her best English came up and outlined the specials, then said "can I get a menu for yous?"

 

 

[turboplanner]

And..................... Yes I think I've become a grumpy old man.

Not really kg, I've sat across the table from many senior company executives, and cringed in horror to see a million dollar deal go out the window as a colleage got the name of their company wrong, or worse referred to their competitor's product by mistake, then laughed it off.

 

It may not count if you're frequenting internet cafes or packing chicken, but if you are out there in the workforce looking for that extra order which keeps you afloat or pays the house off, it's 10% of your turnover.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Ironically Iggy, we get most of that in quite a thin band of time from about the age of 11 to 13.

 

There is usually only one English lesson per day, so the total number of hours for this key knowledge is very small.

 

The key part, where you learn how to break up a sentence into adjectives, nouns, verbs, past participles etc used to be at about age 12, and Latin started the following year, so you could see how a different language was structured with these components eg goes to school he does.

 

Many people struggle with English the rest of their lives because they were sick and away during some lessons and never caught up, or moved with their family, missed a block of lessons, and never caught up.

 

However, because a relatively low number of hours is involved, it's surprising more don't just hit the English books and catch up

 

 

[turboplanner]

Sometimes "memory prompts" work.

 

For example a HangAr is for Aircraft