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Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009Seen/Heard ITW:
Some recent usages of English I've seen or heard: "Wouldn't harm a flea." I've always heard "fly" rather than "flea.") "Iced," meaning "sealed the deal." (This may be common, but I don't remember encountering it before.) "Between the hours of 6 to 12." ("Between... to"?) Sign at a gas station (in Windsor, Ontario, Canada): "11:00 PM (night) Please Pay Inside Before Starting Pump" Maria Conlon, who has been out out town and/or out of sorts for a few weeks. Resident of southeast Michigan, near Detroit; native of east Tennessee. Maria Conlon: > Some recent usages of English I've seen or heard: > "Wouldn't harm a flea." I've always heard "fly" rather than "flea.") I also have always heard "fly". > "Iced," meaning "sealed the deal." (This may be common, but I don't > remember encountering it before.) I've encountered it, probably on TV. It occurs to me that I've been assuming it refers to ice (the agreement freezes the agreed conditions in place), but it could equally well be icing (which completes a cake). The verb is "iced" for both, after all. > "Between the hours of 6 to 12." ("Between... to"?) I'd call this a common enough error that in 20 years it won't be considered an error any more. It's particularly common when "to" is replaced by a hyphen or dash. "between the hours of * to" 259,000 "between the hours of * and" 681,000 Okay, that might produce false hits since * can match multiple words. So maybe this is better (of course it won't match times like 3:30): "between the hours of 1..12 to" 3,330 "between the hours of 1..12 and" 78,000 Still pretty common with "to". > Sign at a gas station (in Windsor, Ontario, Canada): > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Inside Before > Starting Pump" I bet they had a problem with someone not knowing what PM meant! The lack of a preposition is interesting when seen in common with the careful redundancy.  SignatureMark Brader | "On our campus the UNIX system has proved to be not Toronto | only an effective software tool, but an agent of msb@vex.net | technical and social change within the University." | -- John Lions, 1979 My text in this article is in the public domain. > Maria Conlon: > > > Some recent usages of English I've seen or heard: > > "Wouldn't harm a flea." I've always heard "fly" rather than "flea.") > > I also have always heard "fly". I've heard "flea" as well as "fly". AltaVista counts (Google isn't working on this computer, I don't know why): "wouldn't harm a fly": 27,500 "wouldn't harm a flea": 1,030 "wouldn't hurt a fly": 222,000 "wouldn't hurt a flea": 15,900 > > "Iced," meaning "sealed the deal." (This may be common, but I don't > > remember encountering it before.) ... > > "Between the hours of 6 to 12." ("Between... to"?) > > I'd call this a common enough error that in 20 years it won't be considered > an error any more. I'd say, without doing a survey, that the majority of Americans don't consider it an error, at least not unless something calls their attention to it. > It's particularly common when "to" is replaced by a > hyphen or dash. ... Yep. -- Jerry Friedman >On Apr 30, 12:39 pm, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote: >> Maria Conlon: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > >Yep. The local radio traffic reporters here (Beeb-only in my car, natch) are forever telling of motorway delays between junctions eleven to thirteen; and do I need to add that M-way J's are so identified on the road signs and maps, and, what is worse, the stranger in the district likely has no idea if his desired destination of Solihull or Sunderland is within or without the reported numeric range? SignaturePaul Maria Conlon filted: >Some recent usages of English I've seen or heard: > >"Wouldn't harm a flea." I've always heard "fly" rather than "flea.") STS warning: "Now, I'm a fella with a heart of gold And the ways of a gentleman, I've been told, The kind of a fella that wouldn't even harm a flea. But if me and a certain character met, The guy that invented the cigarette, I'd murder that son of a gun in the first degree." - Tex Williams (father of one of my third-grade classmates) ....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? > Maria Conlon filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > ....r "Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette Smoke, smoke, smoke And if you smoke yourself to death Tell Saint Peter at the Pearly Gate That you hate to make him wait But you gotta have another cigarette." (Sung by Phil Harris?) SignatureFrank ess Frank ess filted: >> "Now, I'm a fella with a heart of gold >> And the ways of a gentleman, I've been told, [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > >(Sung by Phil Harris?) Yes, and by quite a few others, I see...but Tex is most associated with the song for two reasons: he's one of its two composers, and he died of lung cancer....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? Maria Conlon set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum: > "Between the hours of 6 to 12." ("Between... to"?) I've seen that usage on a temporary roadsign beside some major road works in South Wales: "A465 closed between Ebbw Vale to Tredegar." Signatureξ:) Proud to be curly Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply > Maria Conlon set the following eddies spiralling through the > space-time [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > works in > South Wales: "A465 closed between Ebbw Vale to Tredegar." If the road sign is temporary, it's probably not harmful to thousands of schoolchildren. But "Ebbw"? Is that a correct spelling in the Welsh language? How is it pronounced? Assuming it's correct and pronounced unlike it's spelled, Maria Conlon Maria Conlon skrev: > But "Ebbw"? Is that a correct spelling in the Welsh > language? No, "Ebbw Vale" is the correct spelling in English. In Welsh it is "Glyn Ebwy". > How is it pronounced? Think of it as "Ebboo". SignatureJens Brix Christiansen >Maria Conlon skrev: > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > >Think of it as "Ebboo". Yes. In the Welsh language "w" is a vowel. There are many Welsh pronunciation guides on the web. Here is one: http://www.go4awalk.com/facts/welsh.php Welsh is a language whose spelling is entirely regular and phonetic, so that once you know the rules, you can learn to read it and pronounce it without too much difficulty. That webpage has a paragraph of English written using Welsh spelling: Ai hop ddat yw can ryd ddys and ddat yt meiks sens tw yw. Iff yw can ryd ddys, dden yw sawnd ryt and ar redi tw gow hycing in wals widd gofforawalc dot cwm. Gwd lwc and Haf ffyn. I hope that you can read this, and that it makes sense to you. If you can read this, then you sound right and are ready to go hiking in Wales with go4awalk.com. Good luck and have fun. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >>Maria Conlon skrev: >> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Welsh is a language whose spelling is (almost) > entirely regular and phonetic, > so that once you know the rules, (always the get-out clause...) > you can learn to read it and > pronounce it without too much difficulty. There probably is one (the only Welsh I know, I've picked up, and that mostly by ear) but I haven't yet seen a rule on how to pronounce "y" (as in, e.g., "Conwy" versus "Cymru"). Anyone care to enlighten me? Cheers - Ian (BrE: Yorks., Hants.) Ian Noble set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum: > There probably is one (the only Welsh I know, I've picked up, and that > mostly by ear) but I haven't yet seen a rule on how to pronounce "y" > (as in, e.g., "Conwy" versus "Cymru"). Anyone care to enlighten me? AIUI Welsh y is "ee" in the final syllable of a word and "uh" elsewhere, possibly with loads and loads of exceptions. As an example, "hynny" (means "those" but follows the noun) is pronounced exactly like English "honey". This makes for a change of sound when forming the plurals of monosyllabic words containing y: "dyn" ("man") is pronounced as "dean", but "dynion" ("men") rhymes with "bunion". A couple of simple exceptions come immediately to mind - in "y" or "yr" ("the"), and "yn" ("in"), the y has the "uh" sound. Signatureξ:) Proud to be curly Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply On May 1, 12:52 am, Jens Brix Christiansen <jens-use...@alesia.dk> wrote: > Maria Conlon skrev: > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > No, "Ebbw Vale" is the correct spelling in English. In Welsh it is "Glyn > Ebwy". And the Welsh name of the river is apparently Afon Ebw. So why does the English name have an extra "b" but leave the "w" untouched? > > How is it pronounced? > > Think of it as "Ebboo". That's "Ebw" or "Ebbw", Maria. I believe "Ebwy" would be pronounced more or less as you'd guess from English, but wait till you get an answer from someone who knows. -- Jerry Friedman jerry friedman wrote: >> Maria Conlon skrev: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >> "Glyn >> Ebwy". > And the Welsh name of the river is apparently Afon Ebw. So why does > the English name have an extra "b" but leave the "w" untouched? >>> How is it pronounced? >> >> Think of it as "Ebboo". > That's "Ebw" or "Ebbw", Maria. I believe "Ebwy" would be pronounced > more or less as you'd guess from English, but wait till you get an > answer from someone who knows. Thanks to you and Jens (and Peter, who was not quoted above), I have learned something new and interesting today. (I guess that means that I can relax now and veg out.) Note: "veg," from the word "vegetable," should probably be spelled "vedge" if correct pronunciation is to be easy. SignatureMaria Conlon > On May 1, 12:52 am, Jens Brix Christiansen <jens-use...@alesia.dk> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > And the Welsh name of the river is apparently Afon Ebw. So why does > the English name have an extra "b" but leave the "w" untouched? So we don't read it as "Ibu" or "hibou". SignatureRob Bannister > jerry_fried...@yahoo.com wrote: > > On May 1, 12:52 am, Jens Brix Christiansen <jens-use...@alesia.dk> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > So we don't read it as "Ibu" or "hibou". But then why not anglicize the "w" too, so we don't read it as... uh... so we know it's "ebboo"? -- Jerry Friedman >> jerry_fried...@yahoo.com wrote: >> > On May 1, 12:52 am, Jens Brix Christiansen <jens-use...@alesia.dk> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >But then why not anglicize the "w" too, so we don't read it as... >uh... so we know it's "ebboo"? Possibley to keep as close to the Welsh spelling as possible while indicating that the "e" is pronounced as in "ebb" rather than as in "emu". This article says: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/whatsinaname/sites/themes/pages/english.shtml Ebbw Vale is another example of an 'English' name that, in one sense, reflects the local Welsh dialect better than the standard Welsh name, Glynebwy. Ebwydd used to be the name of the river, but this became Ebwy, and then Ebw colloquially. However, Ebbw Vale is an artificial 19th century name, and Glynebwy is a translation of it. Pen-y-cae was the original name of the town which developed around the steelworks. That reference to a 19th century origin is confusing. From the Gwent Record Office: http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/cgi-bin/anw/fulldesc_nofr?inst_id=36&coll_i d=2581&expand= Title: Ebbw Vale (Steel, Iron and Coal) Company and the Ebbw Vale Workmen's Medical Society records .... Administrative/Biographical history: The founding of the Ebbw Vale Ironworks in 1778 had rapidly transformed the Ebbw Fawr valley. It was the first in the country to integrate both iron and steel production. In 1866, the Ebbw Vale Company Ltd. was reorganised as the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal Company Ltd. That 1778 date is the earliest for "Ebbw Vale" in the Gwent Record Office collection at that archives website. It is possible that the spelling "Ebbw" was invented for the company name "Ebbw Vale Ironworks" and that that spelling was later, in the 19th century, adopted for the town. [Pure speculation] Note: The Ebbw Fawr valley is the valley of the Ebbw Fawr river (big Ebbw). The Ebbw Fawr and the Ebbw Fach (little Ebbw) flow into one another. (Fawr and Fach are mutated forms of mawr, big, and bach, little.) SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) Peter Duncanson (BrE) set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum: > Note: The Ebbw Fawr valley is the valley of the Ebbw Fawr river (big > Ebbw). The Ebbw Fawr and the Ebbw Fach (little Ebbw) flow into one > another. (Fawr and Fach are mutated forms of mawr, big, and bach, > little.) Similarly the Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach meet at Porth to become the Rhondda. (Note: the dd is pronounced as the voiced th of this and that.) The words are cognate to the "m(h)or" and "b(h)eag" respectively, suffixed to many Scottish and Irish placenames when there are "large" and "small" instances of the same thing close to each other. Signatureξ:) Proud to be curly Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply >> jerry_fried...@yahoo.com wrote: >>> On May 1, 12:52 am, Jens Brix Christiansen <jens-use...@alesia.dk> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > But then why not anglicize the "w" too, so we don't read it as... > uh... so we know it's "ebboo"? English versions of Welsh names often, though not at all consistently, borrow the Welsh alphabet. Some early attempts survive, while others don't. I think of the great 17-C Welsh naturalist Edward Lhuyd: that surname is now spelt "Lloyd" in English, and "Llwyd" in Welsh. (It means "grey", by the way.) SignatureMike. On 03 May 2009, Mike Lyle wrote > I think of the great 17-C Welsh > naturalist Edward Lhuyd: that surname is now spelt "Lloyd" in > English, and "Llwyd" in Welsh. (It means "grey", by the way.) The colour of the phlegm when it's pronounced in Welsh, I believe. [goes and sits on the naughty step] SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >> jerry_fried...@yahoo.com wrote: >>> On May 1, 12:52 am, Jens Brix Christiansen <jens-use...@alesia.dk> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > But then why not anglicize the "w" too, so we don't read it as... > uh... so we know it's "ebboo"? Good idea. SignatureRob Bannister |
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