The Britishisation of American English

[Rogie]

any Jack Tar worth his salt would know why to mind them. Do you?

 

What is the significance of the wording in the second illustration of post #46 "Sailor, find his cutlass" ? Has one of the sailors lost his, and if so why address another sailor rather than the one who's lost his.

 

I wonder why some sailors had pigtails? I like long hair in men myself, but on board ship it must have been a bit of a pain to keep your hair looking neat and tidy. When I see somebody with dreadlocks I cringe somewhat wondering when their scalp last saw a bottle of shampoo. Ships must have had a barber (maybe the same chap that did the amputations ) so easy enough to keep the crew's hair short and sweet-smelling I would have thought.

 

I have noticed the differences in spelling between British and US. as in Britishisation instead of Britishization. There are many such words like this ending in ". . . sation" instead of ". . . zation."

 

'z' in such words looks horroble to me, but I guess to American eyes the 's' does too.

 

So while minding our "Ps" and "Qs" let's not forget our "s" and "z." Mini-quiz of typesetting trivia.

 

Call that a mini-quiz? I suppose it would be if all the expressions are related, but I'm not clear if they are.

 

Wasn't Mergenthaler one of the M's in M & M's? The other guy, could he have been 'em-dash' (M-dash) or a certain Mr Mutt?

 

I am eagerly waiting for the meaning of chicken-plucker to be explained.

[Guest thaiworthy]

They are all related to typesetting, but mainly to cold type, rather than hot metal or letterpress as shown in FH's picture. Not even the great quizmaster himself, Khun Koko-- will guess the chicken-plucker.

[kokopelli]

Koko does know the meaning of galley in the print trade but none of the other words. As for chicken plucker I have heard that term used to describe someone whose preference involves chicken especially a cockerel.

[Guest fountainhall]

Better keep those fowl words to yourself, Khun Koko! I've heard chicken pluckers are not welcome in Cockadoodle Plaza! Don't be so cock-sure by struttin' your stuff on those eggshells or you'll sure have something to brood on - in jail!

 

(I assume you are remembering my M&Ms )

 

Chicken plucking: continuing with a chore that must be completed, even if the rewards are minimal - an existential task with an obscure or unknown endpoint, a sense of carrying on despite odds.

 

If it's not that, what the pluck is it?

[Guest thaiworthy]

It's not that eggistential, Khun Fountainhall.

 

So far, Koko is ahead by a neck in the chicken race. Answers coming Friday, or as soon as possible, before Koko and KT pluck each other into ecstatic oblivion.

 

Don't chicken out and let Khun Koko win again! There's still time.

[kokopelli]

C

Answers coming Friday, or as soon as possible, before Koko and KT pluck each other into estatic oblivion.

 

I think the British spelling is eggstatic. Koko will continue to scratch around for a more precise answer to chicken plucker. Must be something to do with picking the correct type from a box of type face; maybe the chore of a boy aka chicken.

 

I did learn about a goat-choker and a rim editor in the printing biz. LMTU is a good example of a goat choker.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Must be something to do with picking the correct type from a box of type face; maybe the chore of a boy aka chicken.

 

You are very, very close! But think cold type, not letterpress or hot metal. More tomorrow. Very good thinking, Koko!

 

I did learn about a goat-choker and a rim editor in the printing biz. LMTU is a good example of a goat choker.

 

You are really asking for trouble here. Unless you can claim it's a compliment. Knowing you, I actually think you could pull it off, which would be a greater challenge that solving this quiz.

[kokopelli]

I was thinking of cold type regarding chicken plucking.

 

And for sure, goat-choker is indeed a compliment, albeit a back-handed one, at which LMTU is a master.

[Rogie]

I don't know the difference between cold type, letterpress or hot metal, so am walking on glass here. Are the bits of type all separate like in a game of scrabble, and you put them together to make a word like the picture in post #49? My guess is, just as a real life the chicken needs plucking to make it clean, and ready to cook, so the chicken plucker's job in printing is to go through all the type making sure everything's nice and clean, and if it isn't it's his job to clean it. If so, it must be a thankless, tedious task just as it must be plucking real chickens for Col Sanders . . .

[Guest thaiworthy]

I don't know the difference between cold type, letterpress or hot metal, so am walking on glass here. Are the bits of type all separate like in a game of scrabble, and you put them together to make a word like the picture in post #49? My guess is, just as a real life the chicken needs plucking to make it clean, and ready to cook, so the chicken plucker's job in printing is to go through all the type making sure everything's nice and clean, and if it isn't it's his job to clean it. If so, it must be a thankless, tedious task just as it must be plucking real chickens for Col Sanders . . .

 

Wow. You guys are good. I never thought of it that way, but this is right, too. Remember the days when your phone bill came on a punched index card?

[kokopelli]

My guess is, just as a real life the chicken needs plucking to make it clean, and ready to cook, so the chicken plucker's job in printing is to go through all the type making sure everything's nice and clean, and if it isn't it's his job to clean it. If so, it must be a thankless, tedious task just as it must be plucking real chickens for Col Sanders . . .

 

 

 

That's not plucking, that's preening.

 

Forget Col Sanders and remember Frank Perdue, the chicken king, who's slogan was "it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken".

 

***Anyone spot the lmtuism?

[Rogie]

***Anyone spot the lmtuism?

 

Afraid not. Not something I wrote I hope!

 

Good reference to Perdue. I hadn't heard of him before.

[kokopelli]

No it wasn't you're lmtuism, it was mine. " who's slogan was "

[Guest thaiworthy]

Here are answers to the typesetting mini quiz.

 

Straight matter is a column of pure text.

 

A galley is also a column of of text, but may contain display ads or headlines.

 

Mergenthaler is one of many typesetting machines. The one I had exposure to was as big as a walk-in closet, and had an array of electronics based on the old cathode ray tubes. It contained a carousel with many glass plates though which a light beamed causing a character to be printed on photographic paper. It looked like a jukebox, but instead of vinyl records, it contained glass slides with different fonts. Larger or smaller point sizes were achieved by adjusting the space between the glass slides and the photographic paper. The input came from a typesetting console whereby the operator typed the characters-- and when finished, was output onto a wide paper tape with holes punched in rows. The machine was named after Ottmar Mergenthaler, its inventor.

 

http://en.wikipedia....ar_Mergenthaler

 

Compugraphic Corp. invented a similar machine, except much it was contained in a much smaller unit, slightly taller than a washing machine. It also read paper tape but was not quite as wide. Instead of glass plates, it used a film strip attached to a wheel that rotated around at very fast speeds.

 

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Compugraphic

 

A mutt is the same as an em space, I believe 12 points wide if the character is 12 point.

 

A nutt is the same as an en space, only 6 points wide if the character is 12 point.

 

The terms mutt and nutt were used since em and en sounded so much alike. "M" was derived from the space that letter took in width in a certain typestyle in capital letters.

 

An em dash is a dash that is the same width as an em space, 12 points wide. Same for the en dash, only 6 points wide in the same mentioned format.

 

A pica-pole is a ruler of 12 inches measured in points and picas. 12 points equals a pica.

 

Leading refers to vertical space, generally in straight matter, from baseline to baseline. Typically this is a few extra points greater than the depth of the character itself. A 10-point line of text will be set in 12 points of space.

 

And now the answer you've all been waiting for, what the heck is a chicken-plucker? This compound word is actually part non sequitur, at least as far as I know, since I cannot explain the "chicken" reference, but I suspect it may be a euphemism for something else in the trade, unknown to me. But all this comes from memory of nearly 40 years ago. But the name bears no significance to its use, anyway. If I had to guess, I would say the chicken plucker came as a tool for typesetters "too chicken" to admit they made a mistake, and used this device to fix it before it was seen set in actual type.

 

The "plucker" part refers to the punched holes in the paper tape. A seasoned professional could read the holes in the tape and recognize words and letters. If a keystroke resulted in a typo, the chicken-plucker created a a new hole changing the character completely and effectively editing the mistake. Not all words could be repaired this way. I suspect the strategy employed here was for use with letters most commonly typed and neighboring keys that got typed by mistake. The use of the chicken-plucker saved a lot of cut, paste and reset and expensive photographic paper.

 

What started all this to be trumpeting in my brain was Fountainhall's picture of the letterpress example. And, once again, Koko came closest so he wins, with honorable mention to Rogie.

[kokopelli]

Hmmm, my last word on this topic is:

[bkkguy]

or as the old tounge-twister has it

 

I'm not the pheasant plucker

I'm the pheasant plucker's son

And I'm only plucking pheasants

Till the pheasant plucker comes

 

bkkguy

[Rogie]

Oh dear, the pheasant plucker's life is not a happy one

 

(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)

[Rogie]

Learn English online: How the internet is changing language

 

Online, English has become a common language for users from around the world. In the process, the language itself is changing.

 

There are now thought to be some 4.5 billion web pages worldwide. And with half the population of China now on line, many of them are written in Chinese.

 

Still, some linguists predict that within 10 years English will dominate the internet - but in forms very different to what we accept and recognise as English today.

 

That's because people who speak English as a second language already outnumber native speakers. And increasingly they use it to communicate with other non-native speakers, particularly on the internet where less attention is paid to grammar and spelling and users don't have to worry about their accent.

 

"The internet enfranchises people who are not native speakers to use English in significant and meaningful ways," says Naomi Baron, professor of linguistics at American University in Washington DC.

 

Users of Facebook already socialise in a number of different "Englishes" including Indian English, or Hinglish, Spanglish (Spanish English) and Konglish (Korean English). While these variations have long existed within individual cultures, they're now expanding and comingling online.

 

"On the internet, all that matters is that people can communicate - nobody has a right to tell them what the language should be," says Baron. "If you can talk Facebook into putting up pages, you have a language that has political and social standing even if it doesn't have much in the way of linguistic uniqueness."

 

Some words are adaptations of traditional English: In Singlish, or Singaporean English, "blur" means "confused" or "slow": "She came into the conversation late and was blur as a result."

 

Others combine English words to make something new. In Konglish, "skinship" means intimate physical contact: handholding, touching, caressing.

 

Technology companies are tapping into the new English variations with products aimed at enabling users to add words that are not already in the English dictionary.

 

Anybody heard of Hinglish?

 

Hinglish is a blend of Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and English and is so widespread that it's even being taught to British diplomats.

 

Mobile phone companies are also updating their apps to reflect its growing use.

 

In Hinglish, a co-brother is a brother-in-law; eve-teasing means sexual harassment; an emergency crew responding to a crisis might be described as 'airdashing', and somewhat confusing to football fans, a 'stadium' refers to a bald man with a fringe of hair. There's even a new concept of time - "pre-pone", the opposite of postpone, meaning "to bring something forward".

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20332763

[Rogie]

Another interesting feature that I had never thought about:

 

(taken from the same link as in my previous post)

 

Fragile languages find footing online

 

Unesco estimates that half of the world's 6,000 languages will have disappeared by the end of the century - but new research shows that social media and text messaging in particular are promoting and supporting language diversity.

 

Texting is now conducted by speakers of around 5,000 languages.

 

"Text messaging is the most linguistically diverse form of written communication that has ever existed,"

 

"It's also become the first form of written communication of many of the world's languages,"

 

"Most have only ever been spoken. But the technology and economics of text messages and the proliferation of cells phones means it's the most economic option of communication."

 

 

If I understand that correctly, it means languages without an alphabet are making themselves understood in non-verbal fashion for the first time in their history.

 

Seems incredible to me. How is it done? How do you transcribe sounds into text message? Who does that and who decides how to do it?

[Rogie]

New York, a graveyard for languages

 

Home to around 800 different languages, New York is a delight for linguists, but also provides a rich hunting ground for those trying to document languages threatened with extinction.

 

To hear the many languages of New York, just board the subway.

 

The number 7 line, which leads from Flushing in Queens to Times Square in the heart of Manhattan takes you on a journey which would thrill the heart of a linguistic anthropologist.

 

Each stop along the line takes you into a different linguistic universe - Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali.

 

And it is not just the language spoken on the streets that changes.

 

Street signs and business names are also transformed, even those advertising the services of major multinational banks or hotel chains.

 

In the subway, the information signs warning passengers to avoid the electrified rails are written in seven different languages.

 

But as I have discovered, New York is not just a city where many languages live, it is also a place where languages go to die, the final destination for the last speakers of some of the planet's most critically endangered speech forms.

 

Of the world's around 6,500 languages, UNESCO believe that up to half are critically endangered and may pass out of use before the end of this century.

 

Immediately we think of remote Himalayan valleys or the highlands of Papua New Guinea, bucolic rural villages where little known languages are still spoken by handfuls of speakers.

 

But languages can die on the 26th floor of skyscrapers too.

 

Several languages have been uttered for the very last time in New York . . .

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-20716344

[Guest thaiworthy]

Of the world's around 6,500 languages, UNESCO believe that up to half are critically endangered and may pass out of use before the end of this century.

 

Maybe that's because about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers.

 

The most popular language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 1,213,000,000 people in the world that speak that language. English and Spanish are almost tied at second place, but are outnumbered by Mandarin Chinese by over 3 and one-half times.

 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775272.html

[Guest]

I have read that about 1.5 billion people speak English, as it has become very popular as a second language.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Latin is dead. But Kokopelli heard it was a romance language, so he tried to pick up a Thai boy with it. Surprisingly, this Thai boy could speak a little Latin, so he responded to Kokopelli's every question by saying, "Sursum ad vos."

 

Nothing much was lost in the translation. Language may change, but the culture sure doesn't.

[Bob]

"Sursum ad vos."

 

The trick to frustrate many a Thai boy is to learn to say it first. Leaves them flummoxed. Of course, they're highly unlikely (almost near impossibility?) to understand latin so give 'em the home town phrase: แล้วแต่คุณ

[Rogie]

แล้วแต่คุณ

 

Been down so long it looks like Up to Me, but I could be wrong. Up to me, up to you, who cares?