Roswell Fanatics

Rowedog wrote:

Zanity wrote:Quick search found this... Even uses one of my examples.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm

Yeah... it's still stupid. And you can't convince me that it hasn't originally grown from an original lack of understanding of the actual saying, but due to widespread use has become a saying in its own right. God I hate it so much; it's so illogical and nonsensical.

Yes, sarcasm has to make sense.

Rowedog wrote:

RosDude wrote:

nibbles2 wrote:It's just a figure of speech that Americans use, like Math (ugh) and write me (?).

Um what's wrong with saying Math?

~Chad~

The unshortened term is mathematics, which is plural. When you shorten it you make it singular, while a lot of the rest of the world keeps it plural as maths. Growing up in Australia and using the word maths, the first time I heard math on TV I almost had an aneurysm.

And yeah, 'I could care less' isn't sarcasm, it's a failure to understand the actual saying.

Actually, I would argue that both are acceptable...and it has to do with with how we define mathematics. Yes mathematics is plural as it covers a vast area of study (i.e. algebra, geometry, trigonometry) but it is also singular as it is essentially a single set of items.

Which is correct?

Mathematics is boring or Mathematics are boring?
Do you use math equations or do you use maths equations?

We shorten it to math because the noun is viewed as a single set of items. It becomes singular.

But hey...it could be just one of those things.

Kind of like... (color vs. colour or gray vs. grey)

And interestingly enough...both colour and grey are underlined with red as a misspelling yet I know many UK'ers spell it that way. And I believe colour is actually the right way to spell it, but American's intentionally decided to lose the "u," for whatever odd reason some odd years ago.

Edit: Though strictly dealing with abbreviations...maths is the proper way to shorten the word.

Sundae wrote:
Edit: Though strictly dealing with abbreviations...maths is the proper way to shorten the word.

Ha! In your face, America!

nibbles2 wrote:

Sundae wrote:
Edit: Though strictly dealing with abbreviations...maths is the proper way to shorten the word.

Ha! In your face, America!

lol

Ok so I'm American through and through, or at least I was born and raised in America. My question is why is it that there are so many instances that are strictly "American"? What exactly is the point of Americanizing words? It just seems like a waste to change the spelling of words for one country when most other English speaking countries spell them another way. They're not pronounced any differently just because they don't have a u, or only have one l, or are spelled with a z instead of an s, or an er instead of re. I really couldn't care less.

~Chad~

There was a movement from 1800's to simplify the "irrational" English spelling of many words. This would simplify the spelling and make it a bit easier on printers using movable type printing presses. It would be easier for the printers, if they could shorten a word, even by one letter.

In 1876, Noah Webster and several others began a movement to further simplify spelling so it would 'make sense.' They dropped the 'u' from words like Color and Labor, and eliminated some double letters, as mentioned. Trouble was, they also wanted to correct other spellings that they felt would create mis-pronounciations. Tung for tounge, ruf for rough, batl for battle and abuv for above. This was too extreme and they were pretty much laughed out of everywhere. But they came back with a more modified list.

The committee came back with a more modest list of spelling changes. tho, altho, thru, through, thoro, thoroly, thorofare, program, prolog, catalog, pedagog and decalog. Some, like program and catalog, were already in common useage. One newspaper did try using the new spellings but switched back only a few months later.

The National Education Assocation supposedly still is trying change the rest of those first twelve words in modern American english but has not made a great deal of progress. They had recommending 38 additional rules that would change the spelling of about 300 words.

You can see the suggestions here. http://www.bartleby.com/185/35.html

RosDude wrote: lol

Ok so I'm American through and through, or at least I was born and raised in America. My question is why is it that there are so many instances that are strictly "American"? What exactly is the point of Americanizing words? It just seems like a waste to change the spelling of words for one country when most other English speaking countries spell them another way. They're not pronounced any differently just because they don't have a u, or only have one l, or are spelled with a z instead of an s, or an er instead of re. I really couldn't care less.

~Chad~

Oh I really hate to say this since I'm American, but I honestly think that we have this weird need to feel special. I mean why else do we drive on the right side of the road, or the US refuses to switch over to the metric system? Not that I want to switch over to the metric system because even though they teach it in schools it's one of those things that you know long enough to take the test and then right after the tests are done you never think of it again.

valentinebaby wrote:Not that I want to switch over to the metric system because even though they teach it in schools it's one of those things that you know long enough to take the test and then right after the tests are done you never think of it again.

In the UK, we actually use a mixture of metric and imperial - for example, distance/speed on the roads is measured in miles/miles per hour, we measure our height in feet and inches, our weight in stones and pounds (1 stone = 14 pounds, so if someone weighs 9 stone, 5 pounds, that's the same as 131 pounds), areas of land in acres, some liquids in pints (milk, beer etc.). However, we also measure other weights in grams and kilograms, lengths in mm, cm and metres, volume in litres and ml or cubic metres and temperature in Celsius. A lot of older people in the UK are more familiar with the imperial system than with the metric system though, because we only officially changed to metric in the mid-90s.

In science, knowledge of the metric system is extremely important, no matter where you live. Scientific measurements are universal across the globe and all of the standard base units (SI units) are metric, based on the metres-kilogram-seconds system (length in metres, mass in kg, time in seconds, then you also have current in Amps, temperature in Kelvin, amount of substance in moles and luminous intensity in candela). There are only 3 countries in the world who do not use this system: Burma, Liberia and the US.

valentinebaby wrote:
Oh I really hate to say this since I'm American, but I honestly think that we have this weird need to feel special. I mean why else do we drive on the right side of the road, or the US refuses to switch over to the metric system? Not that I want to switch over to the metric system because even though they teach it in schools it's one of those things that you know long enough to take the test and then right after the tests are done you never think of it again.

In fairness most of the world drives on the right hand side of the world, it's only the UK and few of it's former colonies that drive on the left.

Heavenli24 wrote: In science, knowledge of the metric system is extremely important, no matter where you live. Scientific measurements are universal across the globe and all of the standard base units (SI units) are metric, based on the metres-kilogram-seconds system (length in metres, mass in kg, time in seconds, then you also have current in Amps, temperature in Kelvin, amount of substance in moles and luminous intensity in candela). There are only 3 countries in the world who do not use this system: Burma, Liberia and the US.

I agree, I just don't want to have to relearn it which is what would happen.

nibbles2 wrote: In fairness most of the world drives on the right hand side of the world, it's only the UK and few of it's former colonies that drive on the left.

Really? Didn't know that. I really need to travel.

valentinebaby wrote:

nibbles2 wrote: In fairness most of the world drives on the right hand side of the world, it's only the UK and few of it's former colonies that drive on the left.

Really? Didn't know that. I really need to travel.

Or you can just google it.