Re: Word usage in English dialects // was Slang, curses and vulgarities

On 3 Feb 2005, at 5.14 pm, Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)
wrote:

> Tristan McLeay wrote:
>
>> Really? So you're not getting the 'Only a little bit over?' ads, then?
>> I spose not, the TAC's a state thing.
>
> No. I believe (at least, the media strongly implied this) that
> research showed those advertisements to be, however philosophically
> appropriate, simply not effective.
Given the amount of money they must spend on them (they're some of the
highest quality ads on TV), they must be at least a little bit
effective. (:))

> Most later ads have emphasised the diligence and sophistication of the
> police in regards to catching drink-drivers.
They do that too, but I imagine they (the Victorian Government) want to
be a bit careful after the poor calibration of the speed camera issue
not that long ago.

On the subject of speed cameras---the other day I was watching a bit of
documentary on pay tv about the German autobahns apparently meant for
an American audience. They were talking about all the high tech
involved. At one point, they mentioned these awesome cameras that can
actually automatically take a photo of the numberplate of speeders and
send a fine to the owner of the car after the fact when they thought
they'd got away with it (I assume because they weren't pulled over by
cops). Don't Americans have speed cameras? (Or are they relatively
new?) They're everywhere here.

> Linguistic aside: I believe that in foreign places they sometimes talk
> about "drunken driving" (well, it says so on Yes Prime Minister so it
> must be true) or "drunk driving", but here in Australia the usual term
> is, of course, "drink driving". Thus leading to the old joke that
> still makes me laugh - "Don't drink Drive: it's a washing detergent".
The Wikipedia article (which I bumped into a bit ago) begins with:
   'Drunk driving (drink driving in the UK) or drinking and driving is
the act of operating a motor vehicle after having consumed alcohol...'
I guess that suggests the Brits have various uses.

I hadn't heard that joke before---it's pretty funny :)


>> > I don't agree with this: "a chicken" is perfectly grammatical to me
>> in
>> > the context of "Shall I go down the shop and get a chicken for tea?"
>>
>> Yes, well, the article's not the only thing wrong with that
>> sentence...
>> (I'd never use the word 'shall' unless I was purposefully affecting a
>> British style.
>
> This is very interesting. I assure you that 'shall' is alive and well
> in questions over here.
Well, I'm not entirely sure (with no context) what the question is
asking, so I couldn't even tell you whether I'd say instead 'Should I
go...?', '(So) I'll go...?', 'Do you what chicken for dinner?', 'Do you
want me to go down to the shop and get the chicken for dinner?' etc.
All of them seem possible translations, I imagine, but which you mean I
can't guess. ('Will I go...?', the obvious translation, doesn't seem to
make sense, but that just might be because it's devoid of context.)

> (I've never thought about it before, but it's worth asking whether the
> same is true of other English dialects internationally: i.e. that
> "shall" is common in questions but only in questions, so that hardly
> anybody would say "I shall go" but most people might say "Shall I
> go?".)
I'd be very surprised if it was. It seems so limited a context to use
it. Do you only use it with 'I'? 'we'? or any subject?

> I've emailed my uncle who lives in Melbourne in order to find out
> whether he (or perhaps the younger generation members of the family)
> agree with you about this sentence.
I'm sure they will (at least the younger generation, but I'd be
surprised if he didn't think of it as odd either). The only time I can
really remember someone using the word 'shall' without affecting a
British style was because it was convenient to pun with the homonym
'shell', but I'm sure I don't remember every use of every word, and
that was probably as memorable because of the pun as the word 'shall'.

>> > A few people say "chook" for all purposes, including references to
>> > food. My cousin, for one.
>>
>> Yeah, that's the definition that seems derogatory to me, to which I
>> alluded at the end of my sentence.
>
> It just gives me a mental image of eating it raw with its feathers
> still on.
Indeed, like eating a cow. The distinction is much the same :) It's
only natural that something should fill the void left by the loss of
the Norman-derived word beginning with p- that I can't remember.

> Keith Gaughan wrote:
>
>> P.S. I like Australia, just not the soaps. And they're everywhere
>> here!
>
> Most Australians don't like those soaps either. "Home and Away" and
> "Neighbours" are both produced primarily for the British audience.
Half of Neighbours doesn't even make sense! They don't even seem to be
able to decide if they're in Victoria or New South Wales.

--
Tristan.

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