(Fun) The internet should be more british

[An_dz]

I've read it in 9gag a while ago, but I do quite enjoy this.
Dedicated to jamespetts, TheHood, kierongreen and other British users:

The internet should be more British @9gag

[kierongreen]

If only everyone in Britain could be that stereotypically polite...

[jamespetts]

A bit slow on the uptake - but this is excellent!

[The Hood]

If only everyone in Britain could be that stereotypically polite...

I agree. An_dz you have clearly never been on the tube in rush hour! As far as politeness concerns, Japan wins hands down - when I was there they QUEUED in the rush hour instead of reinventing a mass game of rugby...

[sdog]

at least in britain, i would not understand any rude word uttered at me :-)

[but i should be quick with learning]

i do have a question to native english speakers, a question perturbing me for quite a while: Is "will you" impolite or inapropriate for uncertain hierarchical conditions?

I think i could tell a friend: "Close the door, will you?" without being rude at all, and i could do it as equals
i also think my boss could tell this to me while being polite.
Would it be appropriate to say this to someone in a higer social position, or to someone i want something from.

eg "warm the cup with hot water before putting tea into it, will you?" while trying to be friendly and polite to a barista.

[Carl]

While it would depend on tone and context, putting "will you" at the end of the sentence usually indicates frustration and would often be considered rude. Better would be "Could you warm the cup before putting tea in it, please?"

[sdog]

thanks for the clarification. While i liked it very much, since i read it the first time in the first chapter of Ulysses, i never used it. It sounded rather jolly in ulysses (and was used together with old chap).

[kierongreen]

It all comes down to tone... Either could be acceptable, or arrogant...

[Carl]

I think there's a "posher" dialect of British English where it sounds okay; kierongreen is right that it mostly comes down to tone.

[ӔO]

"Could you warm the cup before putting tea in it, please?"
is pretty formal and would be the better choice when talking to a complete stranger.

"Can you ...", "Can I..."
is improper English, but is often used in places where there is some level of familiarity with the people present, often classrooms or offices.

"Will you (please)..."
Is a more demanding tone, but if you say it with a thick accent, I doubt many native English speakers will hold it against you.

For instance, if I remember correctly, "priority" and "emergency" can be used synonymously in Spanish, but not in English.

[sdog]

'please' isn't used a lot here in toronto, but it is compensated by many 'thanks' and an overabundance of 'sorry'. It usually is not a good idea for a german to copy any british accent or dialect. At best we sound like arrogant pricks, worst like count dracula. So i rather stick with the "could and please form"

errr, just realised, i almost exclusively use "would you please" as i don't want to inquire if someone is able to do something for me, but if they are also willing to do it.

[this is an artefact of living in northern germany for a while, if you ask "could you" (koenten sie/ koennen sie) you often get just a "yes" as a confirmation of their ability. In some cases even a "wuerden sie" "would you" would not cause any action, just a yes answer, "i would if you'd ask me, but you didn't ask so i didn't do it,"]

[Carl]

That's right -- despite the fact that "could" is strictly about ability, British people normally take "could you ..." to be a request rather than an inquiry about ability.

[ӔO]

In canada and america, our english is slightly broken

[sdog]

the same is in general true in german. taking the more exclusive meaning is done as a way to anger people by artificially misunderstanding them, while having a legitimation. Mostly used by people who are dealing with customers.

James inadvertantly influenced me to overuse 'should'
answering to "what would you like" instead of "two paposeco please" i started to answer "oh, hello, i should like to have two paposeco, please."


@it's rather easy to identify the canadians, who are neither born torontonians nor immigrants. I haven't met anyone though, who would frequently say 'eh'.


Some older 'cultivated' people have a rather interesting english, very very polite.

[An_dz]

If only everyone in Britain could be that stereotypically polite...

I agree. An_dz you have clearly never been on the tube in rush hour! As far as politeness concerns, Japan wins hands down - when I was there they QUEUED in the rush hour instead of reinventing a mass game of rugby...

Of course, but at least you have a good reputation. Japan politeness is level hummm...        ...Japan.
And stereotypically? Ok, and you're not like sir...

In canada and america, our english is slightly broken

Normal. Those things happen when there's an ocean between.

[sdog]

talking of cliche, my childhood hero was John Steed.
(youth hero was Cpt. Black Adder IV)

there is one big difference i noticed, for some reason, british profesors are much more likely to be humorous in lectures. Surprisingly american (and canadian) profs seem more serious than german ones. This is just a rather subjective observation, partially from listening to a large number of podcasts of public lectures.

Normal. Those things happen when there's an ocean between.

even quite a bit more ocean for lusaphone.

[jamespetts]

"Will you" is perfectly polite if asking about the person's predictions of what that person will do - "Will you go to Paris this summer, do you think?" is entirely polite. It is not really polite to use it to make a request, however. A more polite way of making a request would be, "I should be very grateful if you could pass me that letter opener".

[jamespetts]

James inadvertantly influenced me to overuse 'should'
answering to "what would you like" instead of "two paposeco please" i started to answer "oh, hello, i should like to have two paposeco, please."

This is entirely correct, although some (I should say excessively trendy) people see this as old-fashioned: in the first person, will/shall and would/should are reversed. "Will" in the first person refers to an intention, whereas "shall" refers to a prediction, and the same is extrapolated to the conditional forms, "would" and "should".

[isidoro]

[...] A more polite way of making a request would be, "I should be very grateful if you could pass me that letter opener".

When reading this sentence, I pictured James in a big room, standing near the fireplace, having a cup of tea, and his monocle falling into the cup... 

[AP]

Should/shall is complicated. In particular Should vs Ought is an interesting one.

I should like to listen to Beethoven. (old fashioned, should=desire)
I should like to listen to Beethoven, but I don't. (modern, should=obligation)
vs
I ought to like to listen to Beethoven.

[jamespetts]

That confusion is a very good reason to use the clearer "ought", and confine "should" to its former use.

[The Hood]

Am I the first to spot the irony in the title? Detailed discussion of English grammar - (fun)?!?!

For my ha'porth (that's two cents to our American friends) the English language is what it is - the "rules" have frequently changed as people use the language differently over time. Getting back to the original question - I'd say it's more polite to say "would you mind doing such and such...", "will you" sounds slightly demanding. As a general rule (I studied some French and German at school) the English make much more use of conditionals (would, could, might etc) when they really mean "do this" and often understate things - "it's a little cold outside" = it's freezing etc.

[isidoro]

Yes, English doesn't have really true rules in part because the language doesn't have an Academy in the style of the French Academy.  A formal, authoritative reference.

I guess that in those times (France declining and England rising), that was one more thing to mark differences with the opponent.

And, as I have said somewhere else, English also suffers from another illness: all the non-native people like me that have to use it and continuously kick the language when writing or speaking.  But that is the price of fame, I suppose.

[sdog]

regardless of the académie française the rift between continental french and quebecoise french seems to be much deeper. i remember two french tourists who fled montreal to toronto telling me: "don't go there, the people are barbarians, and they speak like idiots." (i should add, the people i met in montreal myself were extraordinary nice, and i'm to thick to notice the different between diferent french dialects.)

@the hood: i learned this aspect of the language only when reading Terry Pratchett. What i don't know is whether a phrase is obsolete or still in use.

That confusion is a very good reason to use the clearer "ought", and confine "should" to its former use.

Thank you for the reminder, i ought to get used to 'ought'.

[IgorEliezer]

even quite a bit more ocean for lusaphone.

If in Canada and America, English is slightly broken, Portuguese language is almost nonfunctional here.

[kierongreen]

We have advantage (or disadvantage) of lots of cultural exchange from Britain to America and vice versa which  keeps the languages comprehensible. For a comparison most people in Britain and the US seem to have problems with Indian English, which has not had so much contact over last 60 years or so.

[IgorEliezer]

Mildly interesting...


http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4630904/The+British/

[Ters]

Several of those aren't exclusively British.

[AP]

"Quite good" is also quite far from accurate in that little chart - since we tend to use Understatement  (in addition to litotes).

If I see a film that I think is a sure thing for Best Picture at the next Oscars, I'll happily tell others it's "quite good".

There's a classic quote from a British Airways pilot (which google has just helped me find...), which is pretty spot on for that sort of thing: 

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

I think if aliens invaded Oxford tomorrow, the phone call to the government would be to report a "slight problem".


It must be a real issue to students of the language... 

[Ters]

It must be a real issue to students of the language... 

Nah. Students aren't bothered with such things. Not understanding such things is the price one pays for going to Britain without having watched British comedies first, which is possibly more of an issue for Americans than for Europeans.

[Junna]

Say, apropos of nothing in particular, but why does James Petts always type it as "to-day"? Is it, I wonder, a intentionally acquired anachronism? Let us then also not forget to write it to-morrow - though I have this nagging memory somewhere in the back of my head of James using this as well. I am a bit curious as to why, though, as it is my understanding that James is not particularly aged -- would it be some of that intentional "retro" ordeal that seems to have become a fad recently?

[jamespetts]

I don't do fads - I do like to do things properly. "To-day" and "to-morrow" were always written as such, and it is only a modern fad of laziness in which people incorrectly omit the hyphens.

[AP]

Indeed. Although for speed auto-correct is very useful for such things, especially for words wanting ligatures/diaeresis; naïve, coördinate, archæology, &c. which are a right pain to type.

[Ters]

"To-day" and "to-morrow" were always written as such

Makes sense. In Norwegian, both are actually split into two distinct words each, which is bit odd since Norwegian (like German) is very keen on joining words together into longer words while English is not. At least when I write "tomorrow", I use all the letters. I don't do the same with the corresponding Norwegian word.

[...]words wanting ligatures/diaeresis; naïve, coördinate, archæology, &c. which are a right pain to type.

You just need the right keyboard. (Although Internet Explorer likes to block the accute accent in web forms for some reason.) It's arguably not so good for programming. Or so I've heard, I've never tried any other keyboard layout (except accidentally).

[kierongreen]

I don't do fads

I'd say you create your own. 'buses and connexions being a couple I've noticed. I hadn't seen to-day before but it fits the pattern. Those aren't ways of writing used by most people, and English doesn't have any official standards, only what is used by the majority...

[jamespetts]

I think that a goodly number of other people would have to join me, but only temporarily, for my usage, once the standard, and still considered by some, including me, to be so, to be a fad.

[IgorEliezer]

Indeed. Although for speed auto-correct is very useful for such things, especially for words wanting ligatures/diaeresis; naïve, coördinate, archæology, &c. which are a right pain to type.

We Brazilians abolished the diaeresis or umlaut ( ¨ ) in the last orthographic reform that went into effect in 2009.

What a sad, I always thought it was cool to use diaeresis in worlds like freqüente (EN: frequent, pronounced /fra.'kwin.tə/) so we could make distinction between the "qu" pronounced as /kw/ and "qu" pronounced as /k/; the same goes for "gu" which can be pronounced as /gw/ or /g/. I had to ask for a few times how pronounce proper nouns, specially name of localities, when they are spelled with "qu" or "gu". :(

[An_dz]

Not understanding such things is the price one pays for going to Britain without having watched British comedies first

I don't see where Mr. Bean helps me on this.

@Igor
Agree with you Igor, now lingüiça will never be the same. They should had abolish the grave accent, no change in meaning, no change in pronunciation and hard to remember to use.

[IgorEliezer]

They should had abolish the grave accent, no change in meaning, no change in pronunciation and hard to remember to use.

Don't get me started. D:<

The grave accent does change the meaning in a written Portuguese, not in speaking language. The grave accent rule is incredibly easy: you use "à" when the preposition "a" (EN: "to") overlaps the letter "a" in a pronoun or article.

a + a = à = to the <female noun>
a + as = às = to the <plural female noun>
a + as quais = às quais = to which
a + aqueles = àqueles = to these

The thing is, people simply refuse to use the preposition "a" in favor of "para" (EN: "for").

[An_dz]

Can you give an example? I never found one.

[IgorEliezer]

Can you give an example? I never found one.

"O homem pinta a máquina" (objeto) = "The man paints the machine"
"O homem pinta à máquina" (à moda de) = "The man pains (something) by using a machine"

"O deputado depôs a CPI" = "The congressman overthrew/deposed the parliamentary commission of inquiry"
"O deputado depôs à CPI" = "The congressman testified to the parliamentary commission of inquiry"

"Caiu a sombra" = "The shadow fell"
"Caiu à sombra" = "(Something)/It fell by the shadow"

"Cheirar a laranja" (aspirar) = "Smell the orange"
"Cheirar à laranja" (feder a) = "Smells like orange"

"A noite chegou" = "The night [has just] arrived"
"À noite chegou" = "He/She/It arrived at the evening"

"Compra a vista" = "Buy the view/skyline/landscape"
"Compra à vista" = "Cash purchase"

"Comer a mesa" = "Eating the table" (Where are your manners?!)
"Comer à mesa" = "Having a meal at the table" (That's better.)

"Bater a porta" = "Hit/Slam the door"
"Bater à porta" = "Knock on/at the door"

[Junna]

I'd say you create your own. 'buses and connexions being a couple I've noticed. I hadn't seen to-day before but it fits the pattern. Those aren't ways of writing used by most people, and English doesn't have any official standards, only what is used by the majority...

I have generally used connexions in writing for a long time (likewise I make an effort to write naïve and coördinate)... I assume 'buses is a compromise between omnibus and the modern derivative bus. Tingling Victorian sensations.

At least when I write "tomorrow", I use all the letters. I don't do the same with the corresponding Norwegian word.

You don't? Does that mean you are one of those ravagers of words, contributing to the decay of modern language, the pollution of the tongues by dubious abbreviations and mobile-phone laziness? Even when I grew up, other kids would complain that my Swedish was excessively hard to understand due to rarely utilised words and what-not. These days my Swedish is in free-fall, for I do so rarely use it, that I myself am guilty of several cardinal sins, such as writing words apart and occasionally slipping up on grammar something fiercely, whereafter I find myself in a difficult position to whinge about the yearly choices of imbecilic "New Words" to be included in the degenerate dictionary.

[Ters]

You don't? Does that mean you are one of those ravagers of words, contributing to the decay of modern language, the pollution of the tongues by dubious abbreviations and mobile-phone laziness?

Writes the one who skips letters from "do not". The letters I drop from the Norwegian equivalent of "to-morrow" is probably something of a dialect, or in any case something way older than me. Even the slang trend when I was younger in which we only used the last syllable for some nouns (for the singular indefinite form, definite and plural forms would add further syllables during declension) was not something new, as evident by omnibus->bus, aeroplane->plane and (Scandinavian only) automobil->bil.

Even when I grew up, other kids would complain that my Swedish was excessively hard to understand due to rarely utilised words and what-not. These days my Swedish is in free-fall, for I do so rarely use it, that I myself am guilty of several cardinal sins, such as writing words apart and occasionally slipping up on grammar something fiercely, whereafter I find myself in a difficult position to whinge about the yearly choices of imbecilic "New Words" to be included in the degenerate dictionary.

I try to avoid the word-splitting sickness, which is a bit odd, since people still pronounce the words as one.

[An_dz]

@Igor
Thanks, now I finally found grave accent is useful.

You don't? Does that mean you are one of those ravagers of words, contributing to the decay of modern language, the pollution of the tongues by dubious abbreviations and mobile-phone laziness?

Just abbreviations and mobile laziness? You should check how some people write Portuguese in social medias, sometimes it takes two minutes to understand, and I'm talking about native speakers.

[Junna]

@Igor
Thanks, now I finally found grave accent is useful.
Just abbreviations and mobile laziness? You should check how some people write Portuguese in social medias, sometimes it takes two minutes to understand, and I'm talking about native speakers.

I've heard this told to me by native Spanish speakers, that they have a hard time reading that as well; I've noticed a few myself on various lowest-common-denominator sites, such as that they never tend to write out que, instead writing "ku" or just k. While I see things like this in most languages, the degree of it present Spanish and Portuguese seem very bad. From what I was told, apparently many of these younger people also have trouble reading correctly written Spanish, is this the case with Portuguese as well?

[sdog]

It must be a real issue to students of the language... 

Nothing that wouldn't be fixed by watching a few classic UK series on the net. If i can trust my memories, that's anyway what we mostly did in school. I've certainly seen half of Fawlty Towers there, and the Monty Python films two or three times.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

Or flying with British Airways...
I suppose, most people immediately understood it from the context, of   gliding.

I think that a goodly number of other people would have to join me, but only temporarily, for my usage, once the standard, and still considered by some, including me, to be so, to be a fad.

I rather like what James is doing, as it is -- i think -- important, to remind us of the etymology of words. Being ignorant of such leads to uncomfortable situations, that might exceed even the unpleasantness of bad kerning in print.


From my experience of marking student lab-reports and student essays at a Canadian University: The difference between 'connection' and connexion' is not apparent to most students who often write something that, depending on family background, would be similar to 'conaction' (learned how to spell, but limited vocabulary) or 'conashen' (learned to write from <enter celebrity> on the telly). Words of Latin or Greek origin, that could be spelled easily, by comparing a few similar pre- or suffixes, are consistently misspelled (and i suppose also not understood). I am not talking about missleading words here (eg collinear). I've seen 'avidense', 'paraboler', 'centripadle', and my favourite: a 'sentrypetal'.

Second observation, students in general, seem to understand that "not bad" is a very positive remark, they also seem to value "not bad at all" or "nicely done" much higher than "amazing", "excellent" or "very good" (which i was told to use when marking average results). I suppose, they are aware of the inflationary use of these words. Using expressions that are chiefly British, implicitly tells them a different, slightly less exaggerated, scale is used.

I should also remark, while i have a strong bavarian (german) accent and being far from perfection, a few english idiosyncrasies and a rolling 'R' appear to be enough, to put me in an British English (as-a-second-language) category.


ps.: media is plural, of medium :-) [sorry for the pedantry, this one gave a little sting everytime, i read a certain forum thread]

pps.: speaking a second language relatively well, and very often, one slips into habits that are both wrong and hard to notice by oneself. Please, lose your polite restraints when you see recurring mistakes i made, and point them out. This helps me in two ways greatly: (i) i can learn not to make such mistakes; (ii) knowing there is someone who corrects me from time to time, is very assuring, as the frequency of such corrections is a metrum for my control of the language.

ppps: is 'what-not' chiefly BE, in particular as a noun: "hand me the whatnot, will you?"

[isidoro]

Indeed. Although for speed auto-correct is very useful for such things, especially for words wanting ligatures/diaeresis; naïve, coördinate, archæology, &c. which are a right pain to type.

The problem with auto-correct is that in certain circumstances one has to understand the meaning of a sentence to spell it correctly.  And machines have a hard time understanding.

I've heard this told to me by native Spanish speakers, that they have a hard time reading that as well; I've noticed a few myself on various lowest-common-denominator sites, such as that they never tend to write out que, instead writing "ku" or just k. While I see things like this in most languages, the degree of it present Spanish and Portuguese seem very bad. From what I was told, apparently many of these younger people also have trouble reading correctly written Spanish, is this the case with Portuguese as well?

I think that has also something to do with the very bad interface old mobile phones (should I say tele-phones?) used to have.  And with SMS prices too.  When you have a tight budget as most younger people have you have to fit all you want to say in a single SMS.  The obvious choice is to make words shorter.  And all that made a custom that is kept nowadays, I think.

BTW, letter K is way cooler in Spanish than letter Q for some people, specially young people.  Hence they use it all the time...  Poor fashion-victims.

[sdog]

Does not, knowing how to type with an outdated 9 key phone, make one rather un-fashionable, as it is a sign of being old or worse*. It's a bit like swiping vs. pecking. The latter is also an attribute of old-farts, ie iphone users. The hip-kids all have Samsung (which is, i should like to note, comparably sensible of them).

The effect of that horrible fad is that, since about 3 years, when it started, i cannot understand what half of my friends are posting on facebook. For (a) their spelling doesn't reflect the comon latin words well enough for me to identify them (b) google translate only knows spanish (and catalan), not vulgar-spanish with catalan, euskera, mis-spelled english and german mixed in. Which, on a second thought, might be not a bad things, as it gives one more reason to shun FB.

For a comparison most people in Britain and the US seem to have problems with Indian English, which has not had so much contact over last 60 years or so.

This is constantly surprising to me, i consider english with an indian accent the most easily comprehensible form of spoken english. Or did you refer to english in india? Incidently, i am consistently not understood when ordering cake with raspberries, the sole exception are migrants who speak with an accent from the subcontinent.


*Ie ofspring of a family that wasn't afluent enough to buy their children smartphones?

[An_dz]

From what I was told, apparently many of these younger people also have trouble reading correctly written Spanish, is this the case with Portuguese as well?

Yes, but it happens with quite a lot of older people too. It's the "More [useless technology (TV, phone)], less schools" policy of our government since the beginning. Last month a nice social program that let lower class families buy necessary furnitures, like refrigerators and stoves, now, suddenly one year before presidential election, offer tablets. I'm still wondering what's the necessity of a tablet for a low class family.

Back to grammar, this problem happens in English too, Facebook is the gem for such.

The most common errors, that I can't understand how people can make, are: Your, You're; Their, They're, There; too, to; It's, Its;

[Ters]

The most common errors, that I can't understand how people can make, are: Your, You're; Their, They're, There; too, to; It's, Its;

I don't fully understand either, but I have caught myself in writing such errors myself. In my case, I know the difference, so there must be some mix-up when my brain converts phonemes to letters. (In Norwegian, it's a common problem to mix up the Norwegian word for "and" and the infinitival particle, which sound almost the same. Most of the time, it should be easy to tell which is correct, but there actually are a few difficult cases.) For too->to and it's->its, it can simply be a missing keypress.

[ӔO]

Unfortunately, auto-correction only does spelling and not grammar.

I think the trouble with the English language is how the locals have tried to inter-operate it with their own language.


It's kind of like how imported food finds a new use that the exporting country had never imagined.
Sushi pizza would be one of those...