Chewing the fat.

[Lodesman]

Sorry guys, I thought the indicated my remark was made with tongue firmly in cheek. That said, Talbot is quite correct - there is only one English language with individual words that are, for example: Americanisms, American slang, having American spelling, or a meaning that is specifically American. Or specifically British, or Canadian, etc. etc.

On 'posh' I don't think it necessarily would have been sarcastic, it may have been difficult for the Gypsies to say 'ha'penny' with their accent, or it may have sounded like a taboo word in their language - you never know.

Kevin

[Starbuck]

Kevin, I've just re-read, and noticed the electronic tone marker (a.k.a. smiley) for the first time, honest. Sorry to stir the pot unnecessarily...

I'm just not used to "reading" those things.

Don't sweat it Kevin. I saw the humoUr in your remark.
I am still not clear how posh made the transition from half pence to elegant. Websters does discount the theory of port out staboard home.

[Alan Wheeler]

The use of P.O.S.H was from the colonial days and did indeed refer to a set of initials placed on the tickets of the more wealthy folks, as they traveled between the British empire and India. It refered tot he more shady side of the ship. However, this abreviation wasn't placed on tickets till the 1930's and the term was already in use some 20yrs before hand. No one knows where it originated.
*taken from the Oxford University folk whom put together the Oxford Dictionary*

[swanny]

I had read a theory that it was the name of the company, not "port out stbd home" - the company being P&O Steamship Navigation Co. Of course the initials are wrong, but depending on the script, the 'N' might have looked like an 'H'.

Kevin

[nockerwhite]

Whether that is true or not, I know not, but P&O have just gone into Dubai ownership after a long and distinguished history.

[delmarrey]

Today, I was asked by a fellow employee, if I was going bar hopping this New Years eve.

I told him, "I believe there was a good one at the outlet of the Columbia River". ...................._/)

[Lodesman]

Not entirely topical, but worth a read. Certainly have respect for the forumites for whom English is a second language. Now where's that book on Esperanto...?

K

ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

-- Author Unknown

[CaptainK]

Nice piece of literature you've posted Lodesman.

Did you remember that from memory. Or what book did you get that from?

WOW! I like it! Hey Lodesman, who shold I credit if I were to use that on my show?

[Lodesman]

Sorry it was sent to me by a friend who found it somewhere on the net. The part I deleted said it was used to Teach English to the non-english at NATO, but I thought that doubtful. Author was listed as anonymous.

Kevin

Good enough for me. I am not using it for profit. Really is a fantastic example of the complexities of the Engligh language.

[CaptainK]

Well, that is one hell of a way to teach English. And non-English speaking foreigners wonder why English is such a hard language to learn.

In all fairness, a number of the words in that poem have fallen out of common use, but alas, I doth complin too much

[Lodesman]

Sadly it's incomplete - it's missing some 'ough' sounds. Here's a sentence that supposedly contains all of the pronunciations - care to guess how many:

Rough, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman John Gough strode through the streets of Loughborough; after falling into a slough on Coughlin road near the lough (dry due to drought), he coughed and hiccoughed, then checked his horse's houghs and washed up in a trough.

I've lived in Victoria for 15 years and still don't know how to pronounce Broughton St

Kevin