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I don’t understand this universe any more


Heather Kay

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I’ve noticed some small - and probably innocuous - things about this universe I don’t understand. It’s just small changes from the universe I grew up in, but I’m wondering when I slipped into this subtly alternate one.

 

Instance the First: helo

 

First, that’s not how you spell helicopter. Second, the nickname was always chopper. When did that change?

 

Instance the Second: Wellie

 

The Vickers Wellington already has a nickname, and it's Wimpy. Stop making up new names!

 

I’ll be seeing my therapist later. I’ll be fine. :frantic:

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45 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

Instance the First: helo

Interesting one that - apparently according to Websters, first recorded use is around 1968 - something at the back of my head tells me this was in widespread use in Vietnam, so it is probably American in origin.

 

16 minutes ago, tank152 said:

I'd like to add the in vogue  use of congrats instead of saying congratulations. Is it really that hard to say the full word.

I suspect this may be a result of social media - much easier to type, and of course the language of social media is rapidly becoming part of the language in general ... e.g. people actual say 'LOL' quite often.

This has always been a feature of the English language - it is constantly changing. And complaints about the use of words and grammar has been a recurring theme throughout history. Shakespeare invented in the order of 2000 words - some became commonplace, others disappeared.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

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I suppose it's because people get bored with old slang and want something that makes them feel modern.  There is a precedent for it.

 

Archie has become flak; ASDIC has become sonar; runner has become sprue (but only for plastic modellers), and so on.

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I’m happy that language changes and evolves. It is what a vibrant language will do. But, here’s some more that are beginning to bother me.

 

If I say to you "Have you got the <insert thing> with you?" The correct response is "I have". I am beginning to hear, much more often, "Yes, I do." I suspect it’s an inevitable import from across the Atlantic.

 

Another is the verb "to fit". The past tense, "fitted", seems be dead or dying. "It was a bit tight, but after a bit of fettling it fit". :banghead:

 

I have to remember I’m getting old, and perhaps a bit stuck in my ways. ;)

 

 

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@Heather Kay I'm with you here.  Another screaming irritant is customers asking "Can I get a........?"   NO, the person serving "gets" the item for them.  The correct form is "Please could I have.....?" or "Please could you get me a ....?"  As a former coffee-shop employee I ws tempted so many times to respond to "Can I get....?" with "I don't know, can you?"

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40 minutes ago, 3DStewart said:

I suppose it's because people get bored with old slang and want something that makes them feel modern.  There is a precedent for it.

 

Archie has become flak; ASDIC has become sonar; runner has become sprue (but only for plastic modellers), and so on.

I've genuinely never heard the word Archie used to mean Flak.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, 3DStewart said:

I suppose it's because people get bored with old slang and want something that makes them feel modern.  There is a precedent for it.

 

Archie has become flak; ASDIC has become sonar; runner has become sprue (but only for plastic modellers), and so on.

 Archie from WWI went on to be Flak (German abbreviation) in WWII and currently the US military use, "Triple A" (anti aircraft artillery). 

 

Probably being superseded as I speak. 😂

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12 minutes ago, Neil.C said:

 Archie from WWI went on to be Flak (German abbreviation) in WWII and currently the US military use, "Triple A" (anti aircraft artillery). 

 

Probably being superseded as I speak. 😂


Ack-ack in WW2, from the British phonetic alphabet of the time - Ack (sometimes Ac), Beer, Charlie, Don, Edward, etc.

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1 hour ago, 3DStewart said:

runner has become sprue

I searched for an injection molding glossary one time and found out that sprue nippers should really be called gate nippers. The order was sprue; runner; gate; and cavity, so we've all been getting it a bit backwards. 🤔 Small talk at the Injection Molding Association's Annual Awards dinner must be scintillating. 😁

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1 hour ago, stever219 said:

@Heather Kay I'm with you here.  Another screaming irritant is customers asking "Can I get a........?"   NO, the person serving "gets" the item for them.  The correct form is "Please could I have.....?" or "Please could you get me a ....?"  As a former coffee-shop employee I ws tempted so many times to respond to "Can I get....?" with "I don't know, can you?"

My Mom used the same tact when I would ask "Can I have....",.Her response, "I don't know, can you?" Then would tell me, "Try saying May I. You might be surprised at the response."

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WW2 - Ack-ack comes from the sound of the shells exploding. RAF alphabet was A for Able, B-Baker, C-Charlie . . . 

Archie - WW1, came from a phrase in a play which was popular at the time, viz 'Not Now Archie!'

Helo was used by US forces & police for helicopters from about 1948. Its often pronounced 'heelo'. One can hear it used in old films and tv dramas from about 1948 through the 1950s right to the present time

 

My peeves;

US term 'gotten' for past tense of 'got' which is the past tense

'Fire' for Spitfire

'Tang' for Mustang, P-51

 

I was once told, and needed telling once only, by a certain famous RAF pilot,  ' Remember, boy, its an aeroplane, not a 'plane' and its the Royal Air Force, not the raff'

 

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7 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

RAF alphabet was A for Able, B-Baker, C-Charlie . . . 


There you are, you see? My universe is different - and currently Wikipedia agrees with me. The 1904 British Army Signalling Regs. Able and Baker and co are the US version. In fact, it’s a whole rabbit hole worth tumbling down. :like:
 

Incidentally, I got my phonetic alphabet from a wartime publication about the RAF, which I borrowed from a history teacher at my secondary school.

 

As for "gotten", well, I think it’s done the round trip from Elizabethan English to the colonies and back.

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5 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:


There you are, you see? My universe is different - and currently Wikipedia agrees with me. The 1904 British Army Signalling Regs. Able and Baker and co are the US version.

A. do not trust Wiki for everything. I trust my RAF R/T instructors 

 

6 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

As for "gotten", well, I think it’s done the round trip from Elizabethan English to the colonies and back.

b. 'Gotten' was never in Elizabethan English. It first appears in US dime novels about the mid-1880s

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4 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

do not trust Wiki for everything.


As I said, I got it from an Air Ministry publication dated 1941.

 

I don’t want to argue about it. I accept what were apparently parallel universes have bumped into each other somehow, and we both started from a slightly different place. ;) 

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Could be worse. We could all be speaking the language of Beowulf. What is the correct word in the West Saxon dialect of Old English for flak? I'm sure there is one but it's slipped my mind at the moment.   :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Oh, I almost forgot - a word used all the time in FineScale Modeler magazine. Accurizing. It's bad enough that they don't know how to spell modeller, but accurizing?    :doh:

 

Cheers,

Bill

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1 hour ago, Navy Bird said:

Could be worse. We could all be speaking the language of Beowulf. What is the correct word in the West Saxon dialect of Old English for flak? I'm sure there is one but it's slipped my mind at the moment.   :)

 

Cheers,

Bill


Arrows

 

Does this gets us back to “when did transfers become decals?”

 

Personally it all gone downhill for me since I last heard Octavius Augustus last say Civis Romanus sum 

 

but then what did the Romans do for us?

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52 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

Ooh! Here’s one that just popped into my email in-box.

 

We used to give gifts, the act of giving being better than receiving and all that. Now it’s become "gifting". :doh:

Apparently any noun can be converted into a verb these days. I once saw the sentence “I can’t believe you verbed weekend!” to which I added “I can’t believe you verbed verb!”

 

My bugbear is the use of alternate where the word required is alternative.

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