Originally posted by vinteuil
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No reason to insist on using 'relation'. Is there?
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Synonyms. Cf OED for 'relative': 3a A person who is related to another or others by blood or marriage; a relation. Examples quoted date from 1650 to 1998.
No reason to insist on using 'relation'. Is there?It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. -
... it's Nancy Mitford - the use of one or t'other was seen as a class markerOriginally posted by french frank View Post
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Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
... it's Nancy Mitford - the use of one or t'other was seen as a class marker
I don't harbour ideas above my station: I know my place. It's 'relative' in that context. I would say 'friends and relations', though - I'm quite versatile, if common
. I say lounge and notepaper too.
It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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... how can one not?Originally posted by french frank View Post
what with AA Milne, and "Rabbit's Friends-and-Relations"
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In Devon as well, probably Dorset and Cornwall as well. "Bin" I remember from my time in neighbouring Bristol, as in: "Wurr's thee bin?" - answer, "I ain't bin nowhurr", or "S'out thurr in the back yard, my lovely".Originally posted by french frank View Post
No complicated grammar in Somerset: it's I be, You be, He, She or It be; We be, You be, They be. Who said English was difficult?
I noted a young relative with a BA and an MA referring on WhatsApp to 'Her and her workmates are'. As I am only a theoretical pedant, I have to concede that his usage is … correct
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"...fell into administration". I've seen this several times recently and am wondering why "fell" replaces "went"? It's almost as if administration was an accident that befell the business out of the blue, rather than being something that is arrived at after a period(sometimes protracted) of preliminary wrangling.Comment
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Since March Sainsbury’s has invested more than £188 million in lowering prices across more than 120 essentials, such as bread, butter, milk, pasta, chicken and lavatory paper.
From The Times this morning.
It still insists on using this expression rather than toilet paper/roll/tissue.
Does anyone else?
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I have honestly never heard the term 'lavatory paper'. In our family we have always said 'loo roll'.Comment
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... I think 'lavatory' v 'toilet' is still very much a shibboleth* - at least for people of my age. It doesn't seem to be a matter of concern for the younger generation.Originally posted by Pulcinella View Post
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National Trust properties have only Lavatories.
So reassuring.Comment
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No-one that I know. Even my maternal grandparents, who were sticklers for "proper", didn't refer to it that way that I recollect. My memories are more of preparing the squares of newspaper to be hung up in the outside toilet - which we were expected to use during the day. Not as primitive (apart from the paper) as it sounds, as the house had a verandah along part of the back wall which sheltered the various doors.Originally posted by Pulcinella View Post
I'm afraid it's been bog roll in this household for as long as I can remember, with kitchen roll being GBR - giant bog roll.
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As a reader of 19th-century novels, I can't get over the change in the meaning of 'toilet' , which used to mean one's appearance when washed and brushed.Comment
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Cf contemporary usage of "washroom" and/or "bathroom"; both, basically, euphemisms for more basic bodily functions.Originally posted by smittims View PostComment
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…that nomenclature is on the decline - some are now called toilets!Originally posted by kernelbogey View PostComment
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