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English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

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Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#121

Post by jtrip »

autoexec wrote: post #117
raincom wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"do the needful", "please revert back to me"-- phrases like these are not 'invented' by some Indian speakers. These are the stuff Indian savants picked up from the old English books. Then, these savants taught this stuff to fellow Indians and this dynamic gets reproduced everyday. See an entry from Charles Scholl, Geroge Mcaulaly et al's "A Phraseological Dictionary of Commercial Correspondence in the English, German…

It's interesting to see where it came from, but why does it persist? Is consuming English language media and the largest internet sites uncommon for English speaking people in India? I imagine I'd notice pretty quickly that English speakers in TV, movies, and on youtube, don't speak the way they did in the 1800s.

So, India inherited the British civil services system wholesale. The formal pseudo legal language used in the system, instituted by the British, continued. It was different enough from the language taught in schools that when someone was exposed to it or had to use it tried to conform to it's idiosyncrasies.

Over time, isolated from the cultural changes happening to the English world, it developed in it's own way. Like the albino and blind animals evolved in the seclusion of an isolated cave system.

Today, the best way to observe this secluded language branch is to read official Indian government announcements.

It has started to meld back into the main branch [0][1] as younger and younger, more exposed to the global English culture, take over responsibilities.

[0] https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=1888208

[1] https://indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/uploads/directora...

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#122

Post by waterpowder »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #66
Reventlov wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the exact same idioms in French for the last two (battre le fer pendant qu'il est encore chaud, and revenir à nos moutons) !

> battre le fer pendant qu'il est encore chaud Do people actually say that? Seems very long winded.

Not super often but yes, although we'd often skip the "encore"

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#123

Post by bryanrasmussen »

autoexec wrote: post #117
raincom wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"do the needful", "please revert back to me"-- phrases like these are not 'invented' by some Indian speakers. These are the stuff Indian savants picked up from the old English books. Then, these savants taught this stuff to fellow Indians and this dynamic gets reproduced everyday. See an entry from Charles Scholl, Geroge Mcaulaly et al's "A Phraseological Dictionary of Commercial Correspondence in the English, German…

It's interesting to see where it came from, but why does it persist? Is consuming English language media and the largest internet sites uncommon for English speaking people in India? I imagine I'd notice pretty quickly that English speakers in TV, movies, and on youtube, don't speak the way they did in the 1800s.

>I imagine I'd notice pretty quickly that English speakers in TV, movies, and on youtube, don't speak the way they did in the 1800s.

What about English speakers in Indian TV, movies, and on YouTube - which I assume might be more popular fare for an Indian audience?

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#124

Post by denton-scratch »

nerdponx wrote: post #62
raffraffraff wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that pretty much how the Americanism "I could care less" originated?

Yes. Along similar lines, expect a spelling convergence of "wary" and "weary" in the next 5-10 years due to so many people not knowing the difference between the two, not bothering to check, and perpetuating confusion by using the wrong one in their own writing.

> perpetuating confusion

"Perpetrate" and "perpetuate" are two words frequently confused by native speakers (in this context, you could have meant either, and I assume you meant "perpetuate").

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#125

Post by denton-scratch »

DangitBobby wrote: post #81
yamtaddle wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Envious" has all but completely been absorbed by "jealous" in the vernacular. People just use "jealous" for both things. Good thing there can never be any ambiguity about which sense is intended. "To comprise" is deployed incorrectly more often than correctly. Which is silly since, when used incorrectly, you could have simply used "to be composed of" (which is the thing people are confusing it for)—there's no benefi…

The "incorrect" use of comprise is correct and has been in use since the 18th century [1]. 1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprise

Merriam Webster are the arch-descriptivists. If a usage is attested anywhere, MW lists it as correct. Basically, they don't believe that any usage attested anywhere can be incorrect. If you want to know whether a usage is correct or not, don't ask MW.

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#126

Post by denton-scratch »

andrew_ wrote: post #91
kwhitefoot wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "raining buckets" Really? Which part of the UK does that come from. Where I come from *Nort Wilts.) the related phrase would be "It's bucketing down!" but I've never heard anyone say "It's raining buckets!".

"raining cats and dogs" also popular in the U.S.

I just stepped on a poodle.

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#127

Post by anthk »

eru wrote: post #101
adelie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a common expression here in the US, at least! unsure about the UK.

It would be exceedingly funny, if the expression had become idiomatic in the US, _because_ of the book. (However, it might have come to US English from Spanish which is pretty close to Portuguese and thus ultimately from the same source as the book?)

Spanish has "llover a cántaros" too.

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#128

Post by denton-scratch »

Aardwolf wrote: post #10
gherkinnn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I can't speak for Deepl, but Google remains terrible at idioms. Give the phrase "There's mud all over the shop." a try.

What if you actually want to literally translate "There's mud all over the shop"?

I think in that context, it's already literal. "All over the shop" as an idiom means disorganized, chaotic. I don't use it to mean "all over the place" in the sense of something pervading some location.

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#129

Post by amanaplanacanal »

denton-scratch wrote: post #125
DangitBobby wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "incorrect" use of comprise is correct and has been in use since the 18th century [1]. 1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprise

Merriam Webster are the arch-descriptivists. If a usage is attested anywhere, MW lists it as correct. Basically, they don't believe that any usage attested anywhere can be incorrect. If you want to know whether a usage is correct or not, don't ask MW.

Correct according to whom?

Re: English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

#130

Post by asveikau »

DanBC wrote: post #113
asveikau wrote: post #14

I think this highlights some differences between now and the 19th century. Global communication and travel, to say nothing of media consumption, is much easier today. Many more Portuguese or Brazilian people have easy access to English. But back then, someone who didn't even speak English could publish this phrase book and appear credible.

There are a million YouTube videos of people confidently telling you how to do something but getting it pretty badly wrong. There are so many that there's now another genre of reacting to this bad advice.

I'm not sure how my comment was interpreted as "it's impossible to be wrong". I made a narrow claim that faking English knowledge in Brazil and Portugal is harder today than in the 19th century.
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