OT: Where did our language go?

I remember my thermodynamics lecturer at University (never 'uni') checking if we were awake by referring to the 'Furlong, Fortnight, Firkin' system of measurement, when CGS was the current usual system. Or MKS, depending on your religion.

or a chain by a furlong.

Now you mention it, it has popped into mine as well

In some American east coast accents, one can hear "English" more prominently than in others and it's even possible to hear traces of Dutch.

"Darler" for "dollar" is [possibly borrowed from the Dutch "thaler".

It possibly stems from the start of compulsory education, with teachers stressing and re-stressing the importance of pronouncing, rather than dropping, an initial "h".

To some (and I can remember this from primary school), it seemed entirely logical to import an aspirant "h" into the pronunciation of the name of the letter itself.

You are right. It's a social class marker, ironically, like the dropping of the initial "h", except where convention requires it, as in "an hotel".

I have heard an argument to the effect that "innit?" is the exact effective equivalent of the French "n'est ce pas?".

No, I wasn't convinced either.

We still talk of moving image "footage", even when stored on a hard drive or SSD.

I'm sure electricians (of whom, believe it or not, I am technically one, though I have not worked in the industry since I was 22) speak of "voltage" rather than EMF.

Electro-magnetic force is how it is taught on the City and Guilds course at the local Tech.

I've never understood the logic of "an hotel". It's as stupid as "an hedge", "an dog" or "an man". The normal rule is "an" before a vowel or vowel sound, and "a" before a consonant or consonant sound. Why is "an hotel" and "an historic event" an exception to the rule?

I can understand that "hotel" is a word that English has borrowed/stolen from French, where the H is silent. So "an 'otel" would be correct, even if it sounded a bit pretentious to modern ears. Or else, the modern usage is "a hotel" with the H sounded. But not, FFS, "an hotel". That just sounds plain daft and ignorant. Even if, for some weird reason, it is "correct".

Hear, hear.

Did you mean ear, ear :-)

I think 'an hotel', no matter HOW correct it is supposed to be, is pretentious.

AIUI, the word 'hôtel was once 'hostel', but where (like lots of French words) the circumflex accent indicates that an 's' was once in there, but eventually ceased to be pronounced.

Slight cross purposes.

The social convention is to pronounce "a hotel" or "an hotel" as "an'otel".

Thinking back to grammar school days, we were introduced to this concept (or at least, I was) by the first year Latin master, who explained that "ab hostibus" ["with his soldiers"] was pronounced by the Romans as though the "h" was absent and that this was analogous with RP rendition of "a hotel".

Until the age of 11, I had never encountered this.

The "s" has certainly been dropped over the last four hundred years or so.

Apparently [Google...], the first recorded modern usage was for an establishment in Exeter, owned by a Frenchman, which he called the "the Royal Clarence Hotel".

That would make sense, but it's not how you hear people say it. Listen to BBC newsreaders etc who say "an hotel" or "an historic event" *with the H sounded*. Not as "an 'otel" or "an 'istoric event".

I suspect that neither of us moves in the social circles where we would hear it.

I'm not sure that there is a convention on dropping the aitch in the word "historic".

Yes, it looks like an analogy, but...

Given that the 'ne.. pas' construction signifies negation or 'not', and 'c'est' is a contraction of 'it is', and if reversed to 'est ce?' becomes 'is it?', surely the French phrase means 'is it not?' which we rearrange to 'is not it?' and contract to 'isn't it?'. 'Is it not?' is used in English, but usually to emphasise a point rather as a normal way of speaking.

I can't see 'innit?' as being anything other than an informal further contraction of 'isn't it?', especially since that is the context in which it is used.

I think EMF is generally used where generation is discussed, e.g. the EMF of a Leclanche cell or the 'back EMF' of a moving motor or switched inductor. Otherwise voltage is the more common usage.

Exactly.

I'm no fan of "innit" either.

But I reported an explanation I have seen elsewhere.

In message snipped-for-privacy@jrenewsid.jretrading.com>, Joe snipped-for-privacy@jretrading.com writes

And 'EMF' is not 'electro-magnetic force', but 'electromotive force'.

Unfortunately, it is now also being used to mean 'electromagnetic field' or even 'electromagnetic fieldstrength'.

I’m perfectly comfortable with this. It just makes it easy to spot idiots. ;-)

Tim