Re: "write him" was Re: More questions
| From: | Tristan McLeay <zsau@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, November 28, 2003, 2:33 |
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On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 09:51:54PM +0000, Stephen Mulraney wrote:
> > Let me get a quick poll of another (to my mind) oddity.
> >
> > Does anyone employ phrases like "The water will stop immediately the
> > stop-cock is turned"? (I've just noticed it in some anti-frost precautions
> > the Uni sent around). I'm refering to the lack (to my mind)
> > of a word such as "when" or "after" following "immediately. I've only ever
> > noticed it in England, and it really suprises me each time I see it.
>
> I'm with you; that's one of several Britishisms which seem to me
> to have missing words. Also in that category are the
> previously-discussed time-telling phrases such as "half six" to mean
> "half PAST six".
>
> But the whole phrase is something that would never occur in my 'lect,
> or I suspect in most US dialects, even with a preposition
> inserted. First of all, I never hear the word "stop-cock" over here;
> it's a "faucet". And that term doesn't refer to the thing you turn,
Neither the words 'stop-cock' (well, maybe this does, but I've never heard
it, but IANA plumber) nor 'faucet' exist in Oz; we call them 'taps'. Most
people would turn the tap off, though I have heard 'close the tap'.
The thing I'm more concerned about: in dialects that use 'faucet' and
distinguish short o from au (i.e. say bot and bought differently), which
vowel does faucet have? When we happen to make use of the word, generally
when talking about American words, we use a short o. There are three
possible explanations for it: it's irregular and pronounced with a short o
everywhere; as in loss or caustic, the /o:s/ became /Os/; it has been
borrowed from American English, whose au sounds almost identical to our
short o (e.g. I had to translate from American English /stOk/ to AusE
/sto:k/---stalk---last night for my brother while watching tv, because
'stock' didn't make sense in context).
> but to the whole assembly as a unit. So I would talk about "turning the
> faucet off", or less specifically turning the "water" or "sink" off.
> If I *were* going to refer to the thing you turn directly, I'd call it
> a "valve".
'Valve' is such a technical term.
--
Tristan
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