Pronunciation watch

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And 'Go figure'? All right with a comma?

Go AND figure...

[french frank]

And it seems not to mean what I thought it did. Definitions seem to favour something like 'Work that one out if you can' (indicating something puzzling or surprising). I thought it meant something on the lines of there's an obvious explanation lurking beneath the surface, put two and two together.

Still, no matter as I don't use the phrase.

[PatrickOD]

Come And fly with me?
I don't think so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j1KGHOvSkM

Go sit in the corner EA :)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Come And fly with me?
I don't think so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j1KGHOvSkM

Go sit in the corner EA :)

So we should copy naff Americanisms now.
But if you like the song, it could be "Come. Fly with me" or "Come; fly with me".

[Mary Chambers]

I love this thread

Can anyone explain to me why many people now say "As much as I like him..." instead of "Much as I like him..."?

[BBMmk2]

I don't know Mary. Also I dont know if the pronunciation of the word 'schedule' or scones has been mentioned?

[PatrickOD]

Yes, EA, the punctuation would make a difference. I take your point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4qii8S3gw

:)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I love this thread

Can anyone explain to me why many people now say "As much as I like him..." instead of "Much as I like him..."?

I suppose this is an attempt to avoid being gender specific. "Their", "they" and "them" are all plral words which are used as singular simply because they do not specify gender. It can look rather bad when written down, but it can be used fairly inoccuously in conversation.

But collective nouns can be controversial, e.g. "Celtic are a very good team." On the other hand, you would never say "the people is..." even though it is (or was) correct English.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Mary, forget all that. I misread your post (as a result of the tiny screen on my phone). Still, it was a point worth making.

[vinteuil]

An intransitive verb, followed directly by a transitive verb can hardly be grammatical. It's sloppy; there's no other way to describe it. The advert may well be amusing, but the English is still shoddy.

Eine Alpensinfonie: you may think it shoddy; the OED quotes dozens of instances of this grammatical form after go, from Beowulf and Chaucer to Spenser, Fletcher, De Foe, Jane Austen, and through to the present day. Go figure, as French Frank doesn't say - or go tell it on a mountain....

[Flosshilde]

To pronounce the LL, place your tongue behind your upper teeth (as you would when voicing a single L) and blow. You see? It's not that difficult.

Just make sure that your wallies are firmly in place first.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Eine Alpensinfonie: you may think it shoddy; the OED quotes dozens of instances of this grammatical form after go, from Beowulf and Chaucer to Spenser, Fletcher, De Foe, Jane Austen, and through to the present day. Go figure, as French Frank doesn't say - or go tell it on a mountain....

Great writers were fallible too. Charles Dickens was responsible for quite a few howlers, but they were few and far between. Tolkien frequently used adjectives instead of adverbs (e.g. "they sat silent" but his considerable literary style was such that he could get away with it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Eine Alpensinfonie: you may think it shoddy; the OED quotes dozens of instances of this grammatical form after go, from Beowulf and Chaucer to Spenser, Fletcher, De Foe, Jane Austen, and through to the present day. Go figure, as French Frank doesn't say - or go tell it on a mountain....

Great writers were fallible too. Charles Dickens was responsible for quite a few howlers, but they were few and far between. Tolkien frequently used adjectives instead of adverbs (e.g. "they sat silent" but his considerable literary style was such that he could get away with it.

Oh, yes. "Go, tell it on the mountain" is at least punctuated with a comma (which is better than nothing) in my hymn book.

[mangerton]

I dont know if the pronunciation of the word 'schedule' or scones has been mentioned?

"Schedule" on this side of the Atlantic should be pronounced "shed". Unfortunately, creeping Americanisation means it is increasingly pronounced "sked".

Scots, with a short "o", pronounce "scone" with a short "o". It is a Scots word. The English, for reasons best known to themselves, pronounce it with a long "o".

The town of Scone, where the stone came from, is of course pronounced "Scoon".

(As an aside, it has a place where local people take items to be re-used. A sign outside proclaims it to be a "Scone Re-cycling Centre".)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think you'll find that people in northern England generally pronounce it "skon".

But what about "patent". Even the BBC is moving towards the rather abrupt American pronunciation.