Author:
This morning I was reading one of the stories on the site, written by someone in the uk...ish area.
During the read I saw O before estrogen. And for some reason this completely and totally pissed me off.
I didn't know why I was pissed off just that I was.
This is one of those words that I can only call a breakdown in the language. Is it due to some bigot that thinks "Oh well those bloody mericans call it this so we will call it this just to piss them off" thing?
Don't know. But there is a number of stuff like this that has been coming out of the uk in recent years (last two decades) that really does not make sense.
In a way it is kinda scary. This minor breakdown in the language. There is no american english or british english or canadian english. There is just English point blank.
If I am getting completely pissed off for no real reason. What about other people with a heck of a lot more political power than me?
Then again my emotions are all over the place as june and july are NOT good months for me. Dad died last year in june. Mom was in july years ago. Uncle was this time last year.
I was just wondering if anyone else has encountered and instance where they saw a word that, for whatever reason, they saw as wrong(even though it is not) and got so upset then wondered why they got so upset over a SINGLE WORD!
Comments
I'm sorry you're struggling
sending lots of comforting huggles.
Probably Shouldn't Get Into This...
Sorry, Tels. There isn't a "point-blank English." (And if there were, there's no reason to think it'd be a North American version.)
There's no central authority for English the way I'm told there is for French, or modern Hebrew. And it's probably safe to say that there never will be one that's universally accepted, since the U.S. isn't going to conform to U.K. usage and the U.K. isn't likely to decide that their version of Modern English has been superseded by us upstarts. And I doubt that anyone else (e.g., Canada) really wants to be dictated to.
There's also the question to what extent people accede to the mavens out there now, official or otherwise. Last I saw, none of the theoretically authoritative dictionaries in the U.S. or the British Isles was willing to accept "enormity" as a synonym for "great size". The correct meaning is something especially heinous: morally wrong or sinful, or exceedingly and usually sociopathically criminal.
I also don't believe any of them accept the frequent usage of "complement" as to work well with or go nicely with -- the dictionary definition (last I saw) does involve coordinating, but it's order to make something complete.
The official Hebrew and, IIRC, French authorities exist in order to limit word borrowing, these days usually related to new technology (mostly, it seems, from American English). I've read that they seldom succeed in getting people to adopt their substitutes.
Anyway, with authors and readers all over the world, BC wouldn't seem to have any reason to demand that its stories conform to either spelling of the language. If you find it that bothersome you could probably download it to a word processor that can "correct" it.
Very seldom is anyone doing it to tick somebody off. (I'd say never, but there was a writer here who'd use "principle" when she meant "principal" just because I'd been complaining to her about it. I had to admire her the final time; she had a character do it in a note or letter within the story. And I've never been sure whether or not another author here was using "dinning room" instead of "dining room" because she knew from previous corrections I'd made to her work that it drove me up a wall.)
In case anyone who has read this far is still vague on the distinction, when used as a noun, a principal is a person; a principle is a thing. (Principal can also be used as an adjective, describing either a person or a thing; for example, there's somebody out there who has made it clear that they think the principal reason I post comments like this is to lord it over people that I find grammatically inferior. FWIW, not guilty.)
Eric
(BTW, estrogen/oestrogen is derived from the Latin word oestrus.)
download it to a word processor that can "correct" it.
I usually read stories here by cut and paste to my word processor. Then when reading it the software shows me all the "mistakes" and being a compulsive editor, I can't stop myself from correcting it to American English.
But to be fair, English, as a language, derives its name from its country of origin... England, the central country in the United Kingdom (UK) so if anyone has a right to be upset over spelling variations, it would be the UK folks. I'm sure that the UK purists would claim that American English is a bastard offspring of the Queen's English,
Truthfully, I used to be bothered while reading works by UK authors, but these days I tend to read over the UK spelling with only a minor pause. What does bother me is when the author writes in a particular dialect of UK English or uses a lot of slang terms indigenous only to a particular UK locale. If I have to call up a British to American slang dictionary and spend time trying to tree the meaning, just to follow the storyline, it doesn't take long for me to lose interest and go on to another story
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Entertaining but...
The "principal" of the thing... couldn't resist...
It is not about one word it was about getting needlessly upset over a word.
"English" is an evolving language unlike many many out there. In many countries around the world "engrish"( its used in many chat rooms as a joke) is being used a lot in regular sentences of many other languages.
where to start
What the f are pon pons?
Spelling variations are one thing but my pet hate is the repetion of incorrect words, quotations, sayings etc whose meanings are completely changed by the wrong word.
FWIW, the nearest to a definition of standard English is that of the OED. But remember, the clue is in the name, its English, not Canadian, American etc. Words (and their spellings) have developed over centuries with bases in Norse, German, French, Latin and even (shock horror), old English! Depending on where you are in the country your local usage may favour one or more of these - for example in GOC (Yorkshire to the heathens) there is common usage of many Scandinavian words that date back over 1200 years. For example, a bairn is a young child in north Yorkshire and a baerne is the same in Danish. The spelling is different but is spoken the same. Another common cross language use is beer or bier in German, bierre in French or Bud in American (lol - ironic actually as Budweiser is Czech)
The biggest difference with US English is that often the same thing is said differently, so to use your example ESTROGEN is pronounced ess-tro-gen, OESTROGEN is pronounced ees-tro-jen. (the OE was originally a digraph from the Latin use (see also oesophagus etc) in German this would be represented by an o with umlauts) With globalisation particularly of TV and film, most people will understand these cross ocean variations - even some 'mericans!
Modern American spelling is often a dumbed down version of the original and not just from English. One simple example is weener - which is only a thing in the US. Elsewhere it would be spelt as wiener - it's base being the Austrian capital Wien (Vienna).
We could be here all day arguing the toss (a saying from cricket). If i'm reading a US author i'll accept the US spelling, a UK author I would expect the UK spelling - it's not an affection or done to annoy people. (providing of course it's the correct word in the first place!)
Back to where I started - clearly the use of pon is due to a mishearing of pom, its not written often so it's easy for people to never be corrected as the two sound very similar and in the use context most people will know what is meant.
Mads
(I have O level English!)
Madeline Anafrid Bell
I have never seen it written
I have never seen it written 'weener', and if I did, I'd be correcting the person immediately. I've _heard_ 'weeer', being 'one who wees', but that's really awkward to try to write.
The extremely awkward way certain UK authors use sit, sat, sitting, stand, standing, and stood, are some of my pet peeves, but I try to just grit my teeth and go past them. I also really wish that people would check their sayings before using them.
The next time I hear someone say 'In like Flint', I'm going to see if I can harvest some teeth. It's _Flynn_, as in Errol Flynn, known for leaping and swinging during adventure films, such as Robin Hood and Captain Blood. (Funny trivia - the theme for Captain Blood was used for Zorro, the Gay Blade)
It's mildly amusing to see a Brit mangling American slang, and vice versa. I haven't seen anyone really mangle Canadians, but almost nobody wants to write about us *sniff*. Maybe it's due to the fact that Canadians don't tend to come up in the news much.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Um, no
If I hear "In like Flint", I'm thinking immediately about the 1960's James Bond spoof films starring James Coburn.
I'd have to be in my 90's to remember Errol Flynn films.
Oh, and yes, we call them 'films' over here, not movies.
Penny
Um, yes.
Um, yes.
The movie title is a play on the phrase, so he's right.
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
I've Never Seen...
...it spelled or pronounced pon pons.
But the term and spelling pom pon comes from French, originally meaning a a tuftlike ball of wool, feathers, etc., usually on hats and especially the military-style headgear worn mostly by marching bands here in the U.S.. It's also a horticultural term for globe-shaped flower heads such mums and dahlias.
That comes out of the 1951 American College Dictionary (still my favorite). Only definition it gives for pom-pom is a machine gun, derived from the sound it makes.
So I don't know what the cheerleaders who used them circa 1950 called the crepe paper concoctions they sometimes held and shook, but in the 1960s they were pom pons in print -- if not necessarily in conversation --and that's the way I spelled it a couple of weeks ago in my "Another Boy at West Peak" story. Of course, it's mostly spelled pom-poms in print these days, except by retirement-age pedantic types like me. (With apologies to Angela Rasch, who according to the search function is the only other "pom pon" user onsite: the "vote" there seems to be 48 authors to 2.)
I've seen the slang term "weenie roast" (a gathering that cooks hot dogs/frankfurters/wieners, usually individually on sticks over an open campfire), but never "weener". "Hot dog" is the informal term used most in the U.S. for the sausage; it turns out that it derives from a newspaper cartoon from the first decade of the 20th century, drawn by someone who saw the resemblance between the sausages and dachshunds but didn't trust his ability to spell the latter word correctly. The 1951 dictionary referenced above says that wieners are "usually" smaller and thinner than frankfurters but that both are mostly beef and pork. I'd had the impression that frankfurters were all or mostly beef and wieners contained more pork. (I'm wondering now if that's because kosher ones -- obviously all-beef -- were frankfurters (or franks).) Csnned "vienna sausages"are small; they're made from pork and about the size of the "cocktail franks" used in hors d'oeuvres.
Eric
Sausages
Both "Wiener Würstchen" and "Frankfurter Würstchen" are just different names for the same kind of sausage. It's a regional thing ...
And neither of them should be something to get upset about, they just need to be eaten ;-)
(please do not roast or fry them, they should only be heated in hot water or steam).
English, Anglish, any who
Y’all forgetting Australia.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
We started it.
I think it was Noah Webster that took the U out of color and other words. And then there's aluminum (aluminium.) Or did the Brits change that one?
The only one that grates with me is pluralizing math.
But eh. We are countries divided by a common language.
We are facing similar political issues. I'm quietly watching to see how that brexit thing works out, and if their government will eventually listen to the will of the people.
us
Too! As has been pointed out just today - the people. Have had one vote whilst parliament will have 4 - apparently a second vote for the people is un democratic but those 4 votes on the same thing aren't. Go figure.
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Webster's fault
Actually, Webster took the 'u' out of colour, but I know what you mean.
It seems that, back before there even was a US, spelling wasn't as fixed as it is these days (hah!) and the prevailing fad in the British sphere of things was to use pseudo-French spellings, presumably to make yourself look well educated. (I think that it is the same impulse that has now made management-speak a thing.)
After the Great Divide, those westwards wanted to make themselves at least a little different to/from/than the UK, so Webster (amongst others) chose to simplify spellings in his new-fangled dictionary. Maybe the increasing immigration of non-native English speakers had a bearing on his decision, I wouldn't know.
For the information of tels, what (s)he thinks is the natural spelling ain't necessarily so, even within the US itself. Outside, the former Empire mostly follows the UK way of doing things, with added input from local words and various slang terms. Take a trip to Canada and (s)he will be shocked, shocked I tell you, at the strange way those weird locals spell things.
Penny
Spelling
I say we all switch to Unifon. Then all us oldies can confuse the hell out of the kids by using the old fashioned 26 character alphabet-- kinda like we do now with cursive writing.
indeed
Until at least the 18th century there were no fixed spellings, old texts often have multiple spellings of the same word! You can't even claim they are all phonetic or is that fonetic or phonetique. However you spell colour it isn't phonetic, that would be culler or culla (I think the former is some sort of cooking pot!)
We have similar discussions on a cycling forum I haunt - newcomers in particular often use terminology that is correct as they see it but not the term used by the cycling world. It can be quite confusing, regular culprits are 'pedal arms' (crank), 'gears' (sprockets) plus of course things like 'breaks' (brakes) so don't think it's a problem just with transatlantic writers!
Mads
Madeline Anafrid Bell
terms
Gears mesh together as in touch each other to form a drive train sprockets are linked by a chain to form the drive train simple mechanics but what do you expect of people when they do not even know how to check the air pressure in a inflated tire.
Have a good day and enjoy life.
back
When I was selling bikes for a living (20 odd years) the phrase 'i'm a mechanic' was enough to make any of the sales team start screaming and run from the building!
Mads
Madeline Anafrid Bell
you missed my point entirely
The point was that I got upset over a word... for no real reason.
I appreciate the comments.
The Brit that successfully
The Brit that successfully extracted aluminum from bauxite in a way that was commercially viable called it 'aluminum'. Later, 'aluminium' came from someone being a prat about it, that everything had to end in 'ium', such as 'uranium'.
So, you can say that the correct _British_ spelling of aluminum is without the second I. The prig way to spell it is with the second I.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
The spelling of 'oestrogen'
The spelling of 'oestrogen' comes from the same spelling that makes encyclopediae.
'AE' (prounounced 'ash') is from Old English, and is a ligature from A and E.
'OE' is another ligature, primarily from latin.
Mostly, you only see them in words like onomatopoeia, and some Norse/Nordic languages (Danish, Norwegian)
American English mostly dropped them in favour of single letters, as was the 'u' in many words.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%92
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86 (The system won't let me post the letters, but if you search for 'OE' on wikipedia, it'll show)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
sigh
The point I made, or thought I made clear, was that I got needlessly upset over a word. It could have been any word.
I just happen to find Oestrogen and used that as the example.
But...
I thought you were full of girly germs, and thus had lots of oestrogen of your own!
Who's to say it's needless?
Who's to say it's needless? I get upset over 'moot' all the time, considering how badly people misuse the word. Let's not talk about 'discreet/discrete'.
It's a nonstandard spelling to the majority of native English speakers, and with everyone getting so messy with spelling, writing, and everything else, I see it as being perfectly reasonable to show irritation.
Yes, I did say majority. As in the population of the US is far larger than that of the UK, Canada, and Australia. It doesn't make it 'right', or 'wrong'. It just is.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
So
What was the word?
Ummm... hijacked topic?
Ummm, I think it was Tels' point was that she wanted to talk about the fact that she got upset over nothing? But then the talk took a different turn and it became all about something else.
Sort of like someone moaning about being caught out in the rain because they forgot their umbrella, and then asking if that kind of thing happened to them, too, and then it becomes a discussion about umbrellas, and who made the first umbrella, and how umbrellas are different from country to country, and what kinds of umbrellas there are... The topic has been effectively hijacked. I know that feeling well. heehee.
But, if I may bring it back - yes, I think there are moments when people do irrationally get mad at nothing in particular. Me, too, actually. But my therapist says its more about someone needing to find focus for something that one is currently thinking about.
For example, if one is thinking obsessively about an exam she's gonna take the following day, she may go off at anything that would remind her of the exam.
My therapist also says that there are some with more deep-seated concerns or obsessions, like those mean bosses that like to berate their staff all the time or make unreasonable demands - those typically have had some problems not being paid attention to in the past or something like that.
She says that kind of thing speaks of deeper experiences that have had a hand in shaping the person, but then that is not a bad thing, necessarily, because what we become depends on all of the things that have had a hand in shaping us. What is important is if they have had a positive instead of a negative effect.
But for what you've experienced, I think it's what's called an emotional trigger. I know it's become cliche from being over-referenced, but it's a true thing.
We were all children once. When we were growing up, we inevitably experienced pain or suffering (or joy and happiness) that we could not acknowledge and/or deal with sufficiently at the time. So as adults, we typically become triggered by experiences that are reminiscent of these feelings. As a result, we typically turn to a habitual or addictive way of trying to manage the feelings they bring up (I am quoting here). As to why that word, or other similar words are triggers for you, I guess you can look back in your past and try and find out why they are triggers, and once you understand their roots, you'll be better at managing them in the future.
( Here's the article I quoted from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/wander-woman/20150... )
That is the key - the habit or addiction to responding to them in a specific way. If the habit is positive (like laughing at something, for example, instead of lashing out - that's a positive kind of behavior), then it's okay. It's when it's not positive that's a problem.
There are specific, quick short-term ways to manage these triggers. I was able to google this article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/wander-woman/20150...
Anyway, hope this helps.
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Sorry About That, Tels...
I wondered sometime after I posted my reply whether that was what you were really complaining about.
As to your real point, yes, I've been there, usually when I'm agitated about something else. Unlike another of the responders, I don't think the source of my original agitation has any connection to the new thing that gets me upset.
Sometimes writing an angry note about it is enough to calm me down, whether or not I actually send out my complaint to the source. Sometimes there's really nobody to complain to and I just sit there glowering until it wears off. I'm a loner type, so fortunately there's no innocent bystander to get caught in the undertow. If I'm stuck. I'll probably run through all my other panic reactions such as forgetting where I put things. (Not, in this case, a sign of age; it's been like that for decades.)
I don't suppose that's of any help to you or anyone, which is one reason I normally don't comment on threads about thoughts and feelings. (Wouldn't have done so this time if I'd known.)
Best, Eric
not that i got that mad about
but one thing to understand is that it was WEBSTERS dictionary, or those who ran it way back when who MADE those changes IN ORDER to make us "more independent" from the UK, things like colour to color for instance. It was done on PURPOSE, for this reason, arrogance on THEIR part, not that of England. This is the kind of thing that makes English, American or the Queens, one of the HARDEST languages to learn much less master for those learning it as a second language. most of the rules, etc do NOT follow the more "standard" rules a lot of the more Latin-based (ancient Latin, not what most call Latin America, etc today) but like the three so-called romance languages, French, Italian and Spanish. all are very similar but have some major changes that make it easier to learn them if you already know one, but can have some big pitfalls if you forget those differences, lol.
Teresa L.
Well, some of it predated
Well, some of it predated that as well. The Great Vowel Shift caused a lot of spelling changes - 'bough' and 'bow' can be pronounced exactly the same - or totally differently - and still mean the same thing. There are a number of other oddities like that.
And, unlike many other languages, English is, at its many roots, a trade language between other languages. It's the language developed by the Angles to chat up Saxon barmaids while listening to Jute bards give the news reports.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.