OT: Where did our language go?

Ah the West Midlands where "I seen a fox this morning" is regarded as proper English :-)

The (am) emphasises that "than" is a conjunction between two clauses, rather than a preposition taking "him" as an object. (I don't know why it can't be regarded as a preposition.)

Fredxx has to justify his own deep mental instability and hatred by assuming it is in fact the prevailing condition, and he is in fact perfectly 'normal'.

He is still in denial about how much the remain coalition and the EU lied to him

And you are getting senile.

I have stated clearly, many, many times that I voted for Brexit, however much you wish I hadn't.

The problem is that we are now encouraged to be gender-neutral even when the gender of the person is known.

Mr Jones is the chairman (we know he's a man) Miss/Miss/Ms Smith is the chairwoman (we know she's a woman)

"Chair" or "chairperson" should be reserved to describe the role in situations where we don't know the gender of the current incumbent.

I was once rebuked for pointing someone out who was on the other side of the room as "that woman with red hair over there". I was told (by a woman) that I should have referred to her as "that person with red hair over there".

The world has gone mad, and worse, this madness is being taught in schools.

No, see above.

... never be used.

And now no one can afford to send their child to a private school, they are all going to be brainwashed into wokeness.

I raised this earlier in the thread. Recently, in the world of cricket, the term batsman has been replaced by 'batter' No doubt that this has come about due to the rise in the women's game. Batsperson would be silly, but batswoman although rather clumsy would (IMO) be better than referring to them by the name of the product used to make Yorkshire Puddings. Indeed, I believe that many/most women would be quite happy to be referred to as batsman even now, in the same way that female chairpersons would rather be madam-chairman.

But the wokes will win because they shout the loudest.

I wondered how we came to be playing baseball so much in this country.

I once complained to the BBC about their written use of 'Nasa' instead of the correct 'NASA'. Their strange response was that, if such a construct resulted in a pronounceable word, such as 'Nasa', then that was how the BBC used it. My response in turn that that should then mean that they used 'Raf' instead of 'RAF' remains unanswered.

My wife played rounders at school in the forties/fifties.

Really? That one became established so widely so quickly that I think nearly everyone saw the logic.

Ditto "player of the match" and similar.

Every other cricket role (I think?) is already gender neutral.

nib

Jane Austen must have played it, or known of it; if you read her novels 'baseball' gets mentioned.

No, it was because everyone was keeping their heads down. We are in witch-hunt territory, these days.

This comes from a reference in Jane Austen's novel 'Northanger Abbey', doesn't it? But she calls it base ball, probably thinking of English 'rounders' rather than American baseball.

In those days, when that novel came out, America was all about 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' stuff rather than anything else, I imagine. I can't see Jane knowing anything about the off-side rule in football let alone anything about American baseball... I could be wrong, of course.

Various sources suggest that "base ball" or "rounders" was taken to America from the UK and the rules were altered in New York, becoming "baseball".

Yes. At that time rounders and base-ball were the same thing, and the first mention of 'baseball' is at least 20 years later. The game had been played since Tudor times.

Er hardly. Northanger Abbey was written in 1803.

A hundred years before Cassidy's death.

I am not sure the West even existed as part of the USA back then

In fact the area of land where Cassidy operated was only bought in 1803 (Louisiana Purchase) and the states where he lived only came into existence 60 years later. Before that it was 'Injun territory'...

Football was being played in Austen's time at public schools and the offside rule - or AN offside rule - existed.

I suspect its rise in popularity in the US as well as the 'pick up and carry' football derives from the fact that both cricket and football require well maintained grass pitches.

Something not on evidence in the USA until much later.

It is important to notice that the USA was in general colonised by Europeans who could not make their way in Europe, Second sons of the gentry, black sheep, religious bigots from the West country and parts of Europe, starving Irish.

Naturally they spoke degraded forms of the language with strange accents. If they spoke English at all.

Until now Cricket has made little impact on the Mercans, but I suspect that the modern version of the T20 and 'The 100', which are effectively baseball with wickets may change that, and result in a 'World Series' that includes other countries. Watch this space