OT: Where did our language go?

And as used by youfa, "would of".

There is a tradition for abbreviations to lose the dot if they become commonplace enough.

That was about a piece of Equipment known as the BBC Microcomputer. Afterwards the name was officially changed to the British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomuter.

That is the most cringe worthy!

Never used to happen in the US either, and they have had lots of guns ever since guns were invented.

It has only become really fashionable in the last few decades. If you're looking for a correlation, it isn't with widely available guns.

Guns were also reasonably common the UK once, but a major school shooting didn't happen until about thirty years ago.

The etymology of that is curious. 'Would have' is the traditional. Elision of the [ha] results in 'would've'...

Then people attempting to speak proper, who can't, turned that into 'would of'....

Incidentally for more etymological fun try 'Rob Words' on you tube, or better still his duet with Jess Zafaris in 'words unravelled'...

Back in the day the nation's populace all stood together in the face of external adversity. But socialism has taught us all to hate each other.

Look at the anti- brexit hatred, the anti toff hatred, the anti-white hatred, the anti - English hatred in Wales and Scotland.

And the Anti-Jew hatred in Birmingham, the BBC and the Labour party.

So why not say 'I might fall asleep'?

It's short for application software. It would have been a program in olden days.

Widnows translates "installed programs" to "installed apps" if you do a search.

Brian

You are the one who said that you are annoyed by people using may and might interchangeably.

Might is used most often in the past tense, to describe unlikely hypotheticals and used to describe situations that did not occur. While may is used most often in the present tense and used to describe a probable hypothetical.

So, in the example I gave I would say 'I may fall asleep' as I was taking about the present day and about the real possibility of me falling asleep within it. Why risk annoying people unduly?

I suppose that the idea is that the subject is the doer and the object is the done to. The verb "to be" denotes identity, so is kind of symmetrical.

So there is your kid, waliking along a tree branch 10 feet up and you say 'look out, you may fall'

Not in my upbringing. Might is the default word to express possibility. May can be used that way but is more used as giving permissions. And implies intentionality more than might. I might have a tree fall on me I may cut the tree down.

It's a consequence of a live language that evolves. Sometimes we have to accept change.

Because they want to spy on your purchase and imply you're getting a great deal using you loyalty card all at the same time.

You seem to exude a whole lot of hat to your fellow countrymen. Did you vote Labour?

Yep, all that exists now is hatred from Brexiters, most others have got on with their life.

I haven't seen any Jew hatred in Birmingham. I have seen demonstrations against Israel for their ethnic cleansing of their occupied territories and illegal occupations though. Perhaps you're getting religion, race and a county mixed up. It's the sort of thing I would expect from a leftie.

I read that with might and may, the grammatical rules for using them may be more accurately described as guidelines. I guess that's why each rule is proceeded by 'most often used'.

So, not much to argue against what you have written there, except that 'could' may be a better default word to express possibility. As the modals of possibility - may, might and could - express degree of certainty or uncertainty about the likelihood of an event or situation, 'could' is the least contentious. Maybe use 'could' instead of 'may' and 'might', and leave everyone happy.

The only evidence I have seen is apparent hatred of Brexiteers from whining remainiacs. Why would Brexiteers hate anybody we won :-)

Le 18/09/2024 à 22:12, Jeff Gaines a écrit :

which is very common here in the West Midlands and I have been told it's correct English.

Yes, I think I'd probably distinguish between the two on that basis:

may = permission (you may smoke = you have permission to smoke)

might = possibility/probability (if you sit too close to the fire you might smoke) ;-)

I can see you point, but exceptions to rules always annoy me. I parse "it is me" as "it" = subject and "me" = object. We are so conditioned to subject-verb-object word order than verb-subject order just sounds wrong even thought purists say that it is right.

It's similar to "he is bigger than me" where we are conditioned to a sentence having a subject (he) and an object (me), but it should be thought of as being "he is bigger than I (am)" - two subjects and no object.

At what point does misuse by the majority turn into accepted usage? ;-)

"It is me" and "he is bigger than me" are acceptable to me, even though they are technically wrong, but "I could care less" and "I would of come" will NEVER be acceptable. Dual standards, perhaps?