Discussion Groups / British English / November 2004

I've noticed in the last few months that more people seem to be saying
'zero' rather than 'oh', when reading out a number. Logically 'zero' is
more sensible, but I've got so used to hearing 'oh', that 'zero' sounds odd
to me.

Hi, my name is Francesco, I live in Italy, I'm writing becouse I'm looking
for some friends speak english to improve my english knowledge and if you
want I can explain to you Italian lenguage, I dont look for sex, girlfriend
but only reliable peaple

I have another question which may be related to 'old' fashioned English.
I've seen in several publications the word 'role' written with a
accent circumflex above the o (i.e. rôle instead of role).
Is this still common, or has it been a fashion long gone?

I have started to accept the singular "they" but the singular "themself"
takes a bit of swallowing.
"The student must complete all questions themself."
I'm reliably informed that it was used centuries ago and is now making a

Mitochondria. Now there's a word.

I am often wondering how to translate German phrases or idions into English,
and very often these expressionen cannot be found in dictionaries.
Is there a newsgroup I can ask questions?
Example we had today:

Soccer is a sport, cricket is a sport, etc.  So then why does UK English
refer to a collection of these activities in the singular tense?  Why not
"sports?"
s/ Curious in the US

Yesterday, a BBC reporter stumbled over the phrase "The Law Lord Lord
LLoyd"
Does the Law Lord Lord LLoyd sit on a bench of red leather yellow
leather? Has he got a pheasant plucker? I think we should we told.

We've never really recovered from decimalisation of the currency, have
we?  But I thought I'd heard all the ghastly permutations such as "five
pees".  Until today, when I heard a radio advert (for one of the many
cheap calls providers" which referred, over and over again, to ...

Election In Play, From Pres. Race To Senate
By Eddie Pells, Associated Press Writer
Nov 2, 2004 1:23 pm US/Mountain

In the german yellow press Prince Philipp is called "Prinz Fettnapf" - cause
of his "non-political-correctness".
Is there an simular expression in english?
Uli

This is making the e-mail rounds here, chastising us for the results of our
recent election:
In the light of your failure to elect a decent President of the USA and thus
to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your

When we talk about "a few", "a lot" or "a number of", are we talking
singular or plural?
Should we say, for example, that "there are a lot of
people.......(whatever)", or "there is a lot of

Does one say:
(i) Even if it WERE true...
or
(ii) Even it WAS true...