OT: Where did our language go?

Sep 18, 2024 Last reply: 1 year ago 282 Replies

I bet it still hurt, though. Apart from static shocks which are very high voltage but very small current, all my shocks have been mains ones

- due to my own embarrassing stupidity.

In the first case, as a teenager, I was working on a mains-powered reel-to-reel tape recorder. I turned the power off at the appliance switch so everything was safe... except the "input" live pin of the switch :-( I happened to touch the knuckle of one of my fingers against the live and neutral terminals that were connected to the mains lead. Hurt like hell for ages after, maybe because when only a few millimetres of skin are involved, there's lower skin resistance so higher current. My knuckle had two marks on it like fang marks of a snake bite. It didn't help that the shock made me jerk my hand away and I gashed it on something sharp.

The second case was only a couple of years ago, and it's a cautionary tale about Philips Hue bulbs and other similar ones which can be turned off internally by an app even though there is power to the terminals. I'd been gradually changing the GU10 light fittings in the grid on the bedroom ceiling, which involved removing each old fitting, pulling down the junction box, un-wiring one fitting and wiring another in its place. I'd been scrupulous about turning off both the wall switch and the circuit breaker at the "fuse box". Later on, my wife said "Can you just do those ones as well?" All the bulbs were off so I thought "the wall switch is off - it's safe". Wrong! The fittings were live but all the bulbs, controlled as a single "room" on the Hue app, were turned off. As I discovered... That shock was painful but nowhere as near as bad, probably because the house RCD tripped within the stated 30 msec, faster I imagine than my reflexes would have made me move my hand away. Just as well, because I think it was across my chest: I was holding the junction box in one hand (and maybe happening to touch a terminal) and then unscrewing another terminal with the other hand (happening to touch the shaft of the screwdriver). Having had a heart attack 10 years earlier, my heart may (I don't know) have been more sensitive than other people's to across-the-chest shocks.

I had been wondering about that use of '..Conference..' recently. Thank you for confirming its incorrectness.

I remember an interview with Dennis Norden, in which he said that he had not heard the word 'misled' spoken until some time after he had read it in the written form. He had assumed that it was pronounced 'mizzled', until he heard somebody actually say it. Thankfully, he was not copied.

My 'best' shock was from a Honeywell industrial spark plug transformer,

16,000 volts. Luckily, not enough amps to kill you, or I would not be here today. It was one of those "I hope he turns it off soon, 'cos I can't pull my hand away until he does" moments. Not to be repeated, especially as I am now well retired.

Of course the Olympics brought back to the fore, the word 'Medalled'

I medalled, I podiumed, I cupped, I plated.....

It's a bit of pretentiousness, the trades unions started it and the Labour Party are their political wing.

That proved by recent pay awards without any concessions in return.

Any lawnmower plug lead worth its salt will kick 25kV + up your appendages

I think it has roots in Russian or in Marxism somewhere.

Proving again that it is the amps rather than the volts that hurt you. My Honeywell transformer was mains powered, so could have driven quite a few amps if it had wanted to. The Honeywell design was unusual in that it took both sides of the mains sine wave and flipped one so that it added to the other, instead of just being blocked.

Russian. If I remember correctly from long ago classes in the Russian language, Russian has no word equivalent to the English 'the'.

No way to distinguish between the definite and indefinite article, then?

Context only I think..

"[Car not go], [is bad]"

Not that I recall - but my old textbooks are about 3000 miles from where I am at the moment.

I don't believe Latin did, and certainly had no words for 'yes' or 'no', though it's a while since I had anything to do with it.

Le 01/10/2024 à 19:11, Joe a écrit :

There is a "si" and a "no" in Latin, only that they are not used as extensively as in English. Also, "zero" exists but it is not used the same way as in English.

I do believe you are right.

Balbus murum aedifacavit...

[Balbus, wall , built]

It's been a long time but yes one did insert the articles in translation.

I think there were ways to identify that wall though... hic?

Balbus hic murum aedifacavit... [Balbus, this wall, built]

(my Latin is disgraceful, but you get the idea)

<snip.

It was during Thatcher's reign where the book of grammar was torn up. My essays were never marked where I had used grammar incorrectly. The theory was correcting children's grammar would stifle creativity.

Blair just continued Thatcherite policies.

It's rather a leap of fancy to imagine that such policies came about at the instigation of any particular Education Secretary*, and least of all Mrs Thatcher.

They were a fad originating within Colleges of Education and the Education departments of some universities.

[* Except for maybe the lunatic Crosland who *was* determined to wreck English education.]

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