PAT Testing training - how to choose? (2025 Update)

Scroggie calls it ZF current.

I prefer the ATM machine by the La Brea Tar Pit.

Thomas "Department of Redundancy Department" Prufer

He did when alive, but he's not bothered now.

You can lead a horse to water...

FWIW common English Usage is what it is, and it is English wot we are speaking.

The standard excuse for lazy speaking and grammatical ignorance

You seem to be confused, I can't spell, I'm s*it at grammar, my handwriting is even worse. I barely scraped grade C at English language O'level. At 16 I had a huge sense of joy knowing I would never need to write another essay, ever again.

However we aren't discussing grammar, you are supporting an argument, from first principles, that we should interpret each foreign word literally, when we adopt a foreign loan phrase, and presumably similarly for acronyms.

My argument is that we should view foreign loan phrases holistically and use them in a way that sounds harmonious, standard, to the ear of a native English speaker.

So in English it is The hoi polloi, and not some convoluted interpretation of how some ancient bubble would use it in modern English. Similarly, if PAT testing sounds harmonious to the ear of your average sparky, that is what we should use.

The ultimate judge of what is right is standard usage.

I am arguing for people who use it to know how to use it.

You don't have to use it at all. Using it without knowing how is pointless afffectation.

No, it isn't. Not where precision counts.

That is a circular insult. The crime of misuse is predicated on the assumption it is misused.

The redundancy doesn't make it less precise, less compact perhaps.

WIKI gives a nice example of the word alcohol.

Quote:

Different cases, I think. The only suitable word in English for alcohol is "alcohol", so it has been fully absorbed into English.

OTOH, it is perfectly easy to use English phrases like "the masses", "the common people", "the great unwashed" etc. etc. - there are plenty to choose from. If someone chooses to use "hoi polloi" then they seem to be indicating a degree of familiarity with (Ancient) Greek, but by writing "the hoi polloi" they indicate the opposite. Confusing.

(No. I don't know no steenkin' Ancient Greek.)

No. Just English.

No, seem is one thing. The actuality is different