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English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]

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

#81

Post by DangitBobby »

yamtaddle wrote: post #74
nerdponx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"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

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

#82

Post by akolbe »

frozenlettuce wrote: post #57
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.

another good test is "Steve Jobs was fired from Apple"

FWIW, DeepL gets that one consistently right:

Steve Jobs fue despedido de Apple. O Steve Jobs foi despedido da Apple. Steve Jobs a été renvoyé d'Apple. Steve Jobs wurde von Apple gefeuert. Steve Jobs werd ontslagen bij Apple.

Google Translate too (very similar results).

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

#83

Post by xdennis »

WalterBright wrote: post #20

One of my Iranian colleagues back when I worked in an office had many entertaining phrases, like: "I go make some shoppings" "Time for go" Naturally, the rest of the gang picked them up and used them. I still say them to the consternation of others.

> One of my Iranian colleagues back when I worked in an office had many entertaining phrases, like:

> "I go make some shoppings"

As a Romanian living in the London, I hear English mistakes from various nationalities and I'm surprised how similar some are to Romanian, even when there's no connection. In this case, in Romanian we also word-for-word say "to make shoppings".

It often feels like English is the odd man out. :)

As an example, a Lithuanian was showing me a shortcut. He said "press alt plus ii". So I press "Alt+I". He chuckled and said "No, alt plus the English ii". So I pressed "Alt+E". The great vowel shift left vowels unrecognizable to other languages (/iː/ became /aɪ/, /eː/ became /iː/, ...).

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

#86

Post by adelie »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #65
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #4

From the Wikipedia: > O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez , commonly known by the name English as She Is Spoke , is a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting José da Fonseca as a co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book. However, because the "English" translations provided are usually inaccurate or unidiomatic, it is regarded…

> "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!".

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

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

#87

Post by yamtaddle »

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

Sure, it has a history. Any use that is described as incorrect has a history, else it wouldn't come up. Is it distracting? Is there another word that perfectly replaces it, is understood by practically all English speakers, and that's not distracting? Yes and yes, so: "to be composed of" should be preferred. I further doubt, very much, that the choice to substitute "to be comprised of" is an informed one in very nearly all cases—its presence is a "smell", if you will, which does mean it conveys some information, but most of the time that information is not something that the person using it is trying to express, which makes it a mistake.

I care less about this one than others, though, since there's little risk of this replacing the ordinary use of the word and making the language less expressive (as in the case of "envious" vs "jealous"). "Avoid doing this" remains good advice, but it's not so bad as errors go. I mainly brought it up as an example of incorrect use surpassing correct use.

It's in a similar class to using "X and I" where it should be "X and me". It causes little harm, most of the time, as far as hindering communication, but getting it right is still preferable to getting it wrong, which means that any decent guide will classify it as a mistake, unless (as is always the case) one means to commit the error, for some reason. That's the case despite the incorrect-I error having, I'm sure, a longer and more widespread history than "to be comprised of"—the history doesn't save it from being something to avoid. Maybe some day it will.

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

#88

Post by nickcox »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #65
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #4

From the Wikipedia: > O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez , commonly known by the name English as She Is Spoke , is a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting José da Fonseca as a co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book. However, because the "English" translations provided are usually inaccurate or unidiomatic, it is regarded…

> "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!".

Also from north Wilts and I'm pretty sure I've heard (and used) both forms.

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

#89

Post by dls2016 »

WalterBright wrote: post #20

One of my Iranian colleagues back when I worked in an office had many entertaining phrases, like: "I go make some shoppings" "Time for go" Naturally, the rest of the gang picked them up and used them. I still say them to the consternation of others.

Not in the same vein as the link, but I had an Iranian colleague tell me his wife was working occasionally as a babysitter, in technical violation of her visa... but he couldn't think of how to say this in English. He moved his finger back and forth under his nose and said in Iran he'd say she's working "under the mustache". I thought this was hilarious and told him how we'd say she's working "under the table".

I have never independently confirmed if this was an actual saying in Iran or not. (Google is not helpful.)

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

#90

Post by johnaspden »

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.

Using the power of not pronouncing most of the letters and speaking very very fast, they can get it down to:

batlefe pend ki letencoshow

which is more manageable.

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