Comments on You Can Have Your Dessert in a Desert

Go to Editormum's Grammar Guru - Add a comment - Go to You Can Have Your Dessert in a Desert

Editor again

I await you post with great eagerness!

posted by ariel70 on November 10, 2005 at 2:41 PM | link to this | reply

Editor

How very flattering, my dear! Ariel's somewhat scrawny chest expands with pride.

Not that horrid European xenophobic pride, you understand ; but genuine, pure Brit imperial pride!

Only kiddin'. I hate the damned place, and never intend to set foot in it again. But my passionate love affair with the English language burns as bright -or even brighter - than ever.

By the way, have you read " Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by that erudite sylvan goddess Lynn Truss? A must-read for all lovers of English.

I shall post that piece on London cockney rhyming slang soon. Watch this space!!!

posted by ariel70 on November 10, 2005 at 2:40 PM | link to this | reply

Oh, Ariel ... I know THOSE....

I thought maybe there was  something specific to today's topic that the Brits did differently. Give me a couple of days and I will resurrect some of my Brits vs. Americans posts in this column.

Personally, I prefer colour, honour, neighbour, and kerb. I prefer theatre to theater, too. Much more correct and attractive, to my way of thinking. But I've always been a bit of an oddball.

And I know what y'all mean by knickers (much more genteel than underwear), a flat, a lift, and a trolley. All are completely different from what we mean! When one of  you "knocks someone up," it definitely doesn't mean the same as it does if one of use "knocks someone up"  --- only our menfolk can accomplish that feat.

I learn a lot by reading the British authors ... Sayers, Rowling, James, Lewis, Chesterton, Wodehouse (pronounced /WOOD haus/ for all you non-British speakers), and Dickens, for starters. I may be a patriotic American, but I love all things British, too.

posted by editormum on November 10, 2005 at 2:34 PM | link to this | reply

Editor

A complicated subject! But a few examples ; we call your roadside 'curb' by its correct name of 'kerb' 'cos 'curb to us means to halt or stop, like curbing bad behaviour. or a type of bit for a horse can be a 'curb bit', the same meaning.

In many words, we use to 'l's where you use only one. ( can't think of an example right now, but I will!)

We spell such words as 'neighbour' with a 'u' while you spell it 'neighbor', and this applies to all words ending with 'our', such as 'savour', 'clamour', 'favour', saviour'

Hell, you've got me interested now! I shall definitely pursue this further, and let you know some more different words, as I come across them, or think of them

posted by ariel70 on November 10, 2005 at 12:00 PM | link to this | reply

Ariel, you've got me curious....

do the Brits do it different? I'm an American, so I generally go with the American flow ... but if you know a different way for the Brits, please amplify so I can make note of that in my blog. I'm all about BOTH kinds of English being correct, depending which side of the pond you're on.

posted by editormum on November 10, 2005 at 11:43 AM | link to this | reply

Editor

The moral of your post is never to depend upon a spell check program. Especially if you want English English, and Microsoft insists on there being only one form of English ... American

posted by ariel70 on November 10, 2005 at 10:32 AM | link to this | reply