OT: more PC insanity

Interestingly he said he'd never "learned" chemisty, I was taught it was "learnt" chemisty.

I thought it was because if it was a ABCDE keyboard when you hit common English words the hammers hit each other and stuck together, so they needed a way of making sure they didn't hit.

I also have probs with the word yuo instead of you.

AT least you didn't say sneaker, not found anyone thats seen pink. I was wondering whether it was some sort of new advertising method to get the image out on FB.

I remember that famous dress that some people saw in differnt colours to others.

My dad used to say the H in the word hour, it's sounds/looks like the H should be pronounced but most people don't.

My mum used to say it's like the silent P in swimming.

and I'd say there's no P in swimming and she said there is when I swim in the sea. and she'd giggle to herself.

I'll listen more closely as I'm not sure I've heard it.

I remember sitting a whole load of tests at IBM in 1973, before they offered me a job. And then I turned them down. (to be fair, I also turned down CAP, BT, and Imperial College)

No try thinking about it. If it's a common mistake then there's a logical reason for it. It's got to have something to do with speed that each finger can reach a particular key. If I type slowley I don't make the same mistake.

That they are logical, whereas artists and emotional people are right brained. A friend that teachs art at univ (he has a pHd in fine arts, not that I know what that means) but he didn't see pink either.

Yes that's what I remembered so the obvious one to teast it on. But I think it was fake and just a way to get the image shared on facebook.

But this also depends how you learnt to type, I've never been taught to touch type. I taught myslef by starting with one finger at a time and progressing to a resonable speed. I don't use all 4+1 fingers I still mainly use just 2 fingers on each hand. I never use my thumbs whereas my mum who worked in a typing pool used to and used more fingers to type.

I've often wondered why there was a 'corect' way to type in the first place.

Never heard that one.

Well historians aren't always the best people to ask.

That's an interesting one. My recollection from my upbringing in South London was of 50-50 useage, perhaps a slight working class / middle class split? I don't think I am consistent in Gloucestershire now but it seems to me that both are equally acceptable. Here is another viewpoint off the web; I think the phonetics essentially represents your two versions.

"When I grew up in North London, We said /??ær???/, and looked down on the lower-class people around us who said /??ær?d?/. But when I moved to Yorkshire, and gradually started talking Yorkshire (sometimes - depends who I'm talking to), I found that /??ær???/ seemed alien to it, and adopted /??ær?d?/. Now when I'm in the South and not talking Yorkshire, I don't know which to use: I think I say /??ær?d?/ more often."

SAUL was superseded by USS for most people. They went from defined benefit to defined contribution in April 2016, althiugh people retained the DB they had built up.

I retired 4 months before that.

He was referring to SAUL.

USS moved from final salary in April 2016.

This link gives three English (and two American) sound clips

Good English was essential for Cobol, unlike Fortran where symbols reigned. I liked Fortran.

We might even compete with some of the Chinese instructions that come with appliances.

I haven't used it since 1978. But any Fortran program of any size really needed to be run through a word frequency checker/counter, so you could find mistyped variables.

That's kinda ironic.

It's interesting to see vegans enjoying cognitive dissonance when considering their chosen nutrient-poor diet, and the emotional lengths they will go to to support their belief system against the facts of the matter.

'Boo' is an Aborigine word meaning "to return".

If you throw an ordinary meringue...

(Milton Jones)

I try to sort out my students, I refuse to give them banana leads or aligator clips. ! They get 4mm leads and croc clips !!! When they ask what the differnce is I tell them they are in the UK not the USA and they should speak english like wot I do. ;-)

That's not a spelling error, just a quirky regional pronunciation. I still know lots of people who would say that it that way but would always spell it correctly.

...

Very common in the counties around London.

I didn't suggest it was, quite the opposite in fact.

I'm not sure I've seen any sign of that, other than maybe from people from poorer areas who may not have enjoyed a good education, maybe over several generations. That's often where I hear the 'we was' and now the 'anythink'.

Any that you are close enough to to ask *why* they pronounce it that way? I have a mate who can easily 'lock in' a miss pronunciation of something, if he reads / hears it incorrectly the first time. Like he currently refers to the home automation software as 'Home Assist', rather than 'Home Assistant'.

In the 'old days' they employed / expected people 'on TV' to be able to speak properly, 'BBC / received pronunciation etc.

I get that might not be so relevant today with all the inclusion stuff however I think they do at least need to use real words and pronunciations?

Ok, I get some people will use Tautologies ... "3am in the morning ..." or use the wrong names for things because they have only heard others using them incorrectly ('Robin Reliant') and more cultural like 'aks' instead of 'ask', but where did the hard 'H' in 'aitch or anythinK come from?

Cheers, T i m