Room 101 - what single aspect of modern life should be consigned to oblivion?

[MrGongGong]

Following on from Lat's post
I would put

Astrology, Homeopathy and all other forms of Woo there ....... (So that's the entire population of Totnes then )

[John Skelton]

I'd consign me to Room 101. If I don't qualify as modern or alive enough those ******* ****** ******* ****-**** HSBC adverts in which the bloke with the 'wise' voice explains 'local customs' accompanied by a film of beaming 'exotic people' doing charmingly 'local' capitalist things, OLD PEOPLE interacting with YOUNG PEOPLE etc.

[MrGongGong]

I'd consign me to Room 101. If I don't qualify as modern or alive enough those ******* ****** ******* ****-**** HSBC adverts in which the bloke with the 'wise' voice explains 'local customs' accompanied by a film of beaming 'exotic people' doing charmingly 'local' capitalist things, OLD PEOPLE interacting with YOUNG PEOPLE etc.

Cue the "Wicker Man" clip ?

[jean]

Thinking this over, the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) alphabet didn't have Z at all - it's an introduction from Norman-French - and I wonder if there's a sort of 'folk memory' of this that makes the letter Z seem unusual, even after so many years. Because it does seem so, doesn't it?

But there is a zeta in Greek, and that's where all these -ize words ultimately come from.

They were spelled with s in French, which is the route by which most of them came to us. But of course there are many English words that were never Greek at all, like surprise. So the easiest thing seems to be to spell them all -ise.

The one that really irritates me is the American spelling analyze, because although the noun analysis is Greek, there was never an -izo verb formed from it until we did.

[gradus]

Haitch.

[John Skelton]

Thinking this over, the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) alphabet didn't have Z at all - it's an introduction from Norman-French - and I wonder if there's a sort of 'folk memory' of this that makes the letter Z seem unusual, even after so many years. Because it does seem so, doesn't it?

"Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!" Shakespeare, King Lear Act II Scene II.

[Lateralthinking1]

Haitch.

Justine Greening says Haitch Ess Too so it must be right.

(I always wrote s rather than z, argued with people for about ten years that z was American, they insisted that it was the other way round, I changed mainly to z, and I still don't believe them so I'm going back to s again. Agree that adviser is v important!).

[Flosshilde]

Originally Posted by cloughie
Not text speak, board shorthand! Where've you been - thought you were a regular on these boards FW=Full work, BC=Bleeding Chunk!

Mr Pee doesn't contribute to the boards, cloughie- he just advertises for Sky

Be fair - I had no idea what FW & BC meant, either. Perhaps I don't read/contribute to the right threads.



JFLL's post (21) gave me an idea - consign the monarchy to 101. Religion too (I'd let it out when it promised to stop inerfering with me - I wouldn't want to deprive people of it permanently, although once they'd realised that they could survive without it for a couple of centuries they probabaly wouldn't be bothered if it didn't come out)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Crass continuity announcers who take over the end credits, try to be matey and sound as though they have no more than two brain cells in total.

[Tapiola]

It's just occurred to me that my office address is 101

May I have another one? To echo Beef's Message #41: "humanism".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In the 90s I was for a few months a 'training advisor'. I refused to wear the badge unless it was spelt 'adviser' (I'm awkward like that sometimes).

Me too.

Dictionaries say one thing; we all do the other. And of course, -ize just looks wrong.

Quite so, also those ugly angles reminding me of Manhatten. It's like having a sharp knife pushing into you.

I think this argument for dictionary compilers going back to Ancient Greek may have something to do with their own education in that language rather than using the actual spelling that we almost all use. I say "almost" because many British publishing houses still use "z" and it makes me wince every time it occurs.

[jean]

Agree that adviser is v important!).[/I]

Why, though? Do you know?

(I haven't got time to explain now!)

[Pabmusic]

I think this argument for dictionary compilers going back to Ancient Greek may have something to do with their own education in that language rather than using the actual spelling that we almost all use. I say "almost" because many British publishing houses still use "z" and it makes me wince every time it occurs.

Yes. Many (most?) -ise words come to us from French, where -ise is universal. By using -ize, I suspect many 17th and 18th-Century writers and dictionary compilers were demonstrating their knowledge of classical language. These are the same people who added a 'b' to words such as debt and plumb, or a 'c' to indict or verdict, to remind us all of the Latin originals. (In the case of 'verdict' at least they changed our pronunciation in the process.)

[MrGongGong]

Quite so, also those ugly angles reminding me of Manhatten. .

where ?

There are some interesting examples in Bill Bryson's "Made in America" about how several spellings and phrases that we think of as "Americanisms" are in fact relics of older English usage .....

[Pabmusic]

"Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!" Shakespeare, King Lear Act II Scene II.

Just so!