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Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Satch on January 23, 2008, 09:43:19 am

Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Satch on January 23, 2008, 09:43:19 am
On every forum I participate in people constantly misspell "losing" (as in "losing sleep") as "loosing".  It is easily the most common misspelling on the 'Net.  Stop it!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: sojournerphoto on January 23, 2008, 09:52:14 am
Quote
On every forum I participate in people constantly misspell "losing" (as in "losing sleep") as "loosing".  It is easily the most common misspelling on the 'Net.  Stop it!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=168989\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Unless you mean 'letting go' of course.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 23, 2008, 11:18:30 am
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On every forum I participate in people constantly misspell "losing" (as in "losing sleep") as "loosing".  It is easily the most common misspelling on the 'Net.  Stop it!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=168989\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
More common than 'payed'! Surely not?
Not really noticed the spelling error you dislike, that I can recall. But then maybe it's because I'm loosing my mind!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: snickgrr on January 23, 2008, 11:51:33 am
deleted
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Hank on January 23, 2008, 12:13:12 pm
The latest version of Firefox has a built-in spell checker.  Think it will help?

Naah.  Not.

Or should that be gnaw and knot?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: airchinapilot on January 23, 2008, 12:15:24 pm
Occasionally I see loosing for losing in articles here too
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 23, 2008, 02:04:44 pm
I seem to remember a thread here earlier on about misspelling and the lack of capital letters where they should, indeed, be used.

As a direct result of the corrupting influence (penny-pinching?) of text messages, I suppose we shouldn´t be too surprised; disappointed yes, but surprised, no.

Spelling has always been somewhat problematic for me; as time marches relentlessly on, I find myself with ever more shibboleths, not because my personal dictionary has expanded - far from it - but because I am becoming ever more prone to repeating the same mistakes. To compound matters further, I have developed what can only be described as dyslexic fingers which might, or might not, be the product of failing eyesight. Have to say, thank goodness I no longer have to use that portable Olivetti!

It seems to me that there is an ever increasing danger of misunderstandings arising through poor spelling skills than at any time since the quill first scratched parchment. Let´s hope our political masters all become better educated before it´s too late!

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: DarkPenguin on January 23, 2008, 02:12:31 pm
I wouldnt wori bout it, Rob.  s%n d thumbs wiL faL off of $MMz of kds.  thN we'll b bak 2 reg. eng.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Kirk Gittings on January 23, 2008, 02:23:45 pm
Quote
On every forum I participate in people constantly misspell "losing" (as in "losing sleep") as "loosing".  It is easily the most common misspelling on the 'Net.  Stop it!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=168989\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Anione who wories about such things is loosing their mind.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: framah on January 23, 2008, 04:20:52 pm
Rob... shibboleths??
Wow!! You even spelled that right!! Seems you aren't as far gone as you thought.
  2 snaps up for you!!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: DiaAzul on January 23, 2008, 04:30:53 pm
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As a direct result of the corrupting influence (penny-pinching?) of text messages, I suppose we shouldn´t be too surprised; disappointed yes, but surprised, no.

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169044\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I would say that text messaging (using predictive text input) is actually improving spelling rather than the opposite. It's a shame that the media and it's reporting can't quite share the same levels of accuracy.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 23, 2008, 05:01:35 pm
Lense
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on January 23, 2008, 06:02:15 pm
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Lense
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169068\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Lightse, camerase, actione?  
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on January 23, 2008, 07:50:54 pm
The one that gets me is "matte" for the kind of mat you put between the photo and the frame...

(Though I suppose most mats are also matte!)

Lisa
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: John Camp on January 23, 2008, 08:22:02 pm
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I would say that text messaging (using predictive text input) is actually improving spelling rather than the opposite. It's a shame that the media and it's reporting can't quite share the same levels of accuracy.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169063\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


It's.

JC
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Ray on January 24, 2008, 04:33:50 am
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The one that gets me is "matte" for the kind of mat you put between the photo and the frame...

(Though I suppose most mats are also matte!)

Lisa
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169105\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Lisa, I think you are getting into distinctions between Americanisms and Briticisms here. The British prefer to use lots of unnecessary letters, as in programme.

Matte is both a dull surface as well as a flat material surrounding a photo. In Britain, a mat is something you wipe your feet on.  

Here's one definition:

matte: An image or signal that represents or carries only transparent information that is intended to overlay or control another image or signal.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 24, 2008, 06:25:12 am
Quote
Lisa, I think you are getting into distinctions between Americanisms and Briticisms here. The British prefer to use lots of unnecessary letters, as in programme.

Matte is both a dull surface as well as a flat material surrounding a photo. In Britain, a mat is something you wipe your feet on. 

Here's one definition:

matte: An image or signal that represents or carries only transparent information that is intended to overlay or control another image or signal.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169174\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ray, I can see this is going to be another Canon v. Nikon with you!

Ciao - Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: GregW on January 24, 2008, 07:13:32 am
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In Britain, a mat is something you wipe your feet on. [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169174\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

And there was me thinking a mat was for resting your pint of beer on;)
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: larryg on January 24, 2008, 09:32:08 am
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Lisa, I think you are getting into distinctions between Americanisms and Briticisms here. The British prefer to use lots of unnecessary letters, as in programme.

Matte is both a dull surface as well as a flat material surrounding a photo. In Britain, a mat is something you wipe your feet on. 

Here's one definition:

matte: An image or signal that represents or carries only transparent information that is intended to overlay or control another image or signal.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169174\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

so what colour is your color?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Gabe on January 24, 2008, 09:55:28 am
This reminds me of the photo by Shelby Lee Adams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Lee_Adams) titled Born To Loose, Cannie Creek, 1987

(http://www.faheykleingallery.com/images/photographs/adams_sl/adams_03_bg.jpg)


You can't see it in the thumbnail, but the seated woman has a tattoo on her arm that reads "Born to loose".
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on January 24, 2008, 10:01:11 am
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The British prefer to use lots of unnecessary letters, as in programme.[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=169174\")
You mean, they're closer to cilivilized countries?  

Btw, I wouldn't dare to interfere in a british-american war, but the [a href=\"http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/mat]Merriam-Webster dictionary[/url] I use when I feel I really make too many english faults for a frenchman proposes the "mat" spelling for (5th entry) "a border going around a picture between picture and frame or serving as the frame" (while listing the "matte" spelling as a variant).
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 24, 2008, 10:07:13 am
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You can't see it in the thumbnail, but the seated woman has a tattoo on her arm that reads "Born to loose".
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169229\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Actually she's French and was born in Toulouse!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: GeneB on January 24, 2008, 10:12:49 am
I definately see alot of spelling errors around here!  
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on January 24, 2008, 10:29:14 am
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Ray, I can see this is going to be another Canon v. Nikon with you!

Ciao - Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169191\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
No, Rob! It's Canonne vs. Nikonne!    
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Gabe on January 24, 2008, 11:06:20 am
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Actually she's French and was born in Toulouse!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169235\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

   

A friend once suggested that perhaps it's not the word "loose" that has too many 'o's, but the word "to" that is missing one...  
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on January 24, 2008, 11:57:16 am
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Lisa, I think you are getting into distinctions between Americanisms and Briticisms here. The British prefer to use lots of unnecessary letters, as in programme.

Matte is both a dull surface as well as a flat material surrounding a photo. In Britain, a mat is something you wipe your feet on.

Well, waddaya know, I just learned something!  Thanks, Ray.

Now if the British can just avoid unutterably confusing visiting Americans with their "lemonade" vs. "lemon juice" definition mismatch, it would really help...  

Lisa

P.S.  Just how do the British disinguish between "lemon juice" as in lemon squeezings and "lemon juice" as in a mixture of water, lemon squeezings, and sugar?  I've never figured it out.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: sojournerphoto on January 24, 2008, 12:13:25 pm
Quote
Well, waddaya know, I just learned something!  Thanks, Ray.

Now if the British can just avoid unutterably confusing visiting Americans with their "lemonade" vs. "lemon juice" definition mismatch, it would really help...  

Lisa

P.S.  Just how do the British disinguish between "lemon juice" as in lemon squeezings and "lemon juice" as in a mixture of water, lemon squeezings, and sugar?  I've never figured it out.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169268\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Simple, lemon juice is squash:)
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 24, 2008, 12:25:48 pm
Lemonade is a fizzy, ready made lemon drink, lemon squash/cordial is not fizzy and you dilute with water before drinking and lemon juice is straight out of the lemon. Easy, even an American should be able to understand that.  
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 24, 2008, 01:47:04 pm
Quote
This reminds me of the photo by Shelby Lee Adams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Lee_Adams) titled Born To Loose, Cannie Creek, 1987

(http://www.faheykleingallery.com/images/photographs/adams_sl/adams_03_bg.jpg)
You can't see it in the thumbnail, but the seated woman has a tattoo on her arm that reads "Born to loose".
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169229\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

If you could see it, Gabe, you´d notice that the tattoo is Born Too Loose.

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 24, 2008, 02:55:17 pm
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Lemonade is a fizzy, ready made lemon drink, lemon squash/cordial is not fizzy and you dilute with water before drinking and lemon juice is straight out of the lemon. Easy, even an American should be able to understand that. 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169275\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Over here a lemon squash is lemon cordial with lemonade and if it's not fizzy there'll be trouble. David
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on January 24, 2008, 04:18:29 pm
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Lemonade is a fizzy, ready made lemon drink, lemon squash/cordial is not fizzy and you dilute with water before drinking and lemon juice is straight out of the lemon. Easy, even an American should be able to understand that.

Funny, last time I was in Britain (about 5-10 years ago), all the restaurant menus had "lemon juice" (in addition to "lemonade"), and I never once saw "lemon squash".  Did something change recently, or was I just in peculiar and confused restaurants?

Based on my experiences in Britain at the time, I made the following observations:
(1) British "lemonade" = American "lemon-lime soda" (or "lemon-lime pop")
(2) British "lemon juice" = American "lemonade"
(3) British ??? = American "lemon juice" (straight out of the lemon)

So you're saying my observation #2 is no longer true?  (Or ever was?)

Lisa
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Quentin on January 24, 2008, 04:26:18 pm
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Lemonade is a fizzy, ready made lemon drink, lemon squash/cordial is not fizzy and you dilute with water before drinking and lemon juice is straight out of the lemon. Easy, even an American should be able to understand that. 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169275\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You tell em!  

I've just written a book for a US publisher whose main market is North America, so all the spellings had to be converted to US English - color for colour, program for programme, commas before "and" etc., etc.  Her Majesty would not be amused  

Quentin
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: plugsnpixels on January 24, 2008, 04:34:17 pm
Thanks for posting this topic! It's my #1 pet peeve when I read forums.

Quentin: I thought in the US we didn't put commas before "and" (?). At least I learned that somewhere along the way (raised in NJ).
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on January 24, 2008, 07:21:38 pm
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Quentin: I thought in the US we didn't put commas before "and" (?). At least I learned that somewhere along the way (raised in NJ).

I've seen both ways claimed as correct various authorities around here.  I think either is considered acceptable.  In day to day use, I've seen about a 50-50 split between the two methods.

Lisa
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Quentin on January 24, 2008, 07:33:14 pm
Quote
I've seen both ways claimed as correct various authorities around here.  I think either is considered acceptable.  In day to day use, I've seen about a 50-50 split between the two methods.

Lisa
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169367\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Elsevier like commas.  'nuf said, my protests were doomed  

Quentin
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Hufford on January 24, 2008, 11:03:31 pm
I once worked as a proofreader for a magazine. The writers were from the US, Britain, Australia, Japan...everywhere. I had many pleasurable hours trying to figure out the "correct" grammar, punctuation, spelling, style, and so on. (Note that I did not use "etc" for that was forbidden except when used in a sentence in parentheses.)

Strangely, it often took hours of back and forth phone calls, e-mails, and tons of research to come to agreement on this stuff. The "rules" aren't especially clear (although everyone assumes that they are) when you start trying to establish a standard for all countries. You can't even get 3 people from the same country to agree. Everyone can almost always come up with evidence to support their version of the rules.

After a few years in that exciting and enjoyable position, I left for other less mind-numbing work. Though it is easy to find errors nearly anywhere---including the New York Times---I have learned not to numbskull myself any more than I already am by worrying about it. (Yes, I realize that "numbskull" is not generally used as a verb.)
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: plugsnpixels on January 24, 2008, 11:16:13 pm
As part of my adventures I currently do proofreading (and reviews) for .PSD magazine (http://www.plugsandpixels.com/psdmag.html) (published in Warsaw, Poland for a global audience). Contributors come from all over the world. Articles originally written in "English" (often by ESL folks) need a fair bit of work to bring up to readability.

The most fun are the articles originally written in "foreign" (depending on your perspective) languages that get run through Babelfish or some other automatic translation software before I see them! I can do little or nothing to help such copy, as you can imagine (since they are usually tutorials dealing with specific functions of high-end software). So they get published as-is... ;-)

Of course this doesn't take away from what the overall excellent publication offers–it's getting mainstream (available in Borders and Barnes & Noble, etc.), with ads and interviews from names you'd recognize.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on January 25, 2008, 04:10:05 am
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The "rules" aren't especially clear (although everyone assumes that they are) when you start trying to establish a standard for all countries. You can't even get 3 people from the same country to agree.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=169399\")

Haven't you got, at least in Great Britain, something like our French Academy (or may I write Academia?) (in French in the text, Académie Française - sorry, this time I feel compelled to include french caracters), who is the one & only voice of authority when it comes to grammar and spelling?

They even have an online dictionary :
[a href=\"http://atilf.atilf.fr/academie9.htm]Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française[/url]
As, unfortunately, the online stuff stops currently to "P" (it's a work in progress), I generally refer to another online dictionary, very aptly named :
Le Trésor de la Langue Française (informatisé) (http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/tlfiv4/showps.exe?p=combi.htm;java=no;)

After that, pleaaaase don't hesitate to correct at least some of my misspellings and other nonsensical translation errors!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Quentin on January 25, 2008, 05:36:16 am
Quote
Haven't you got, at least in Great Britain, something like our French Academy (or may I write Academia?) (in French in the text, Académie Française - sorry, this time I feel compelled to include french caracters), who is the one & only voice of authority when it comes to grammar and spelling?

They even have an online dictionary :
Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française (http://atilf.atilf.fr/academie9.htm)
As, unfortunately, the online stuff stops currently to "P" (it's a work in progress), I generally refer to another online dictionary, very aptly named :
Le Trésor de la Langue Française (informatisé) (http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/tlfiv4/showps.exe?p=combi.htm;java=no;)

After that, pleaaaase don't hesitate to correct at least some of my misspellings and other nonsensical translation errors!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169423\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

English is adapatable.  The French seem less flexible.  You will recall they intriduced a law outlawing the use of too many English expressions on French TV and radio.  Hilarious.  

Quentin

Quentin
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Mike Louw on January 25, 2008, 05:38:07 am
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Haven't you got, at least in Great Britain, something like our French Academy..

Not bloody likely!  

I can't make up my mind which irritates me more: "loose" or "lense". Now don't get me started on rogue apostrophes!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 25, 2008, 06:32:57 am
Quote
Funny, last time I was in Britain (about 5-10 years ago), all the restaurant menus had "lemon juice" (in addition to "lemonade"), and I never once saw "lemon squash".  Did something change recently, or was I just in peculiar and confused restaurants?

Based on my experiences in Britain at the time, I made the following observations:
(1) British "lemonade" = American "lemon-lime soda" (or "lemon-lime pop")
(2) British "lemon juice" = American "lemonade"
(3) British ??? = American "lemon juice" (straight out of the lemon)

So you're saying my observation #2 is no longer true?  (Or ever was?)

Lisa
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169321\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Menu descriptions are not what one would use to judge correct names of things as it depends which part of the world the restaurant is trying to emulate, sometimes several at once and assuming the menu is even written correctly as I doubt drichi was ever asked to proof!  

Orange Juice/Apple Juice/Tomato Juice is normally the juice of the fruit. We don't usually drink Lemon Juice in that manner and would normally ask for Lemon squash/cordial, but it's a far less commonly drunk cordial compared to orange and blackcurrent squash. Can't say I ever recall seeing Lemon Juice on a menu, though cordials may well be listed under Juices, where juices then simply means soft drinks as opposed to alchoholic drinks. Menus can be a bit vague about such things.
British lemonade is Lemon pop [soda] not a lemon-lime pop, like 7Up.

Actually even some idiot bar staff in the UK get confused when you ask for orange squash rather than cordial, so I wouldn't worry  too much about it. Cordial is simply the posh/grown-up word for squash.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 25, 2008, 06:51:49 am
Quote
Haven't you got, at least in Great Britain, something like our French Academy (or may I write Academia?) (in French in the text, Académie Française - sorry, this time I feel compelled to include french caracters), who is the one & only voice of authority when it comes to grammar and spelling?[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169423\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Ha ha ha ha ha hah ha ha ha ha ha ha.          
Errr, no!


Languages change constantly, the idea of an Academy to preserve a language is barking mad. Language is culture, culture changes and trying to pretend otherwise is a bt foolish. It's the literary equivalent of the Maginot Line.
Besides if the French wanted to be speak 'proper' French then they should adopt Quebecois French as that is truer to 'traditional' French, than modern French is. Just like when people in the UK complain about others using Americanisms, not realising quite a lot of them are actually truer to old English than our current English is. Anyway 'English is a Germanic language with a load of French and many, many other foreign words chucked in [ e.g. algebra, alchohol, assassin - all Arabic] . This was nicely illustrated by the wise man who rules America, who is supposed to have uttered the brilliant phrase - "The French, they don't even have a word for entrepeneur" as a way of mocking the French.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 25, 2008, 06:57:30 am
The problem is that it does matter whether or not the language is corrupted. The reason it matters is that language is about communication and if one is to accept a constant flow of fresh corruptions, then the only outcome must be even greater lack of common and accurate understanding.

Part of the trouble here is that the modern media is more or less based on the notion of the lowest common denominator, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of wave upon wave of ever newer slang heaped upon the previous popular verbal craze. In Britain, at least, there was a time when conversations inevitably gave rise to the articulation of at least one current (then) catch-phrase, usually coined by a scriptwriter to give some sad comedian a personality hook, something that might, just might, make him/her seem slightly different from the rest of the tribe.

This corruption currently extends to English teachers too - I have crossed swords with friends who consider alright to be acceptable; how, then, can such teachers provide sound principles for their students in the very discipline they presume to teach?

Insofar as the French example is concerned, I see little wrong with any attempt to protect the language. There is no need whatsoever for a French person to find it necessary to refer to le weekend as French provides perfect alternatives of its own. If it were not bad enough using slang from within one´s own language, the use or importation of even more remote words from the current waves of immigrants crossing borders almost at will bodes even worse for the future.

People counter this perception by making reference to Shakespeare or even Chaucer and saying that if change were not good, we would still be speaking and writing in the manner of the two aforementioned gentlemen. Well, if we were, then it would be the norm and we would still all understand one another; I believe that English has reached a very high plateau, a level beyond which it has no reason to attempt to climb. The only new words that need be fed into the language are, in my opinion, those that have to be created in the service of new technology, where existing words do not fit the bill.

Considering that such a high proportion of school kids fails to leave school with any worthwhile qualifications, even the ability to read and write, it seems strange to imagine that further complication of language will ever help to remedy the situation.

But then, it is the popular culture so attractive to that very group of zero-achievers that gets so much exposure, that perpetuates the problem...

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: GregW on January 25, 2008, 08:22:40 am
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a de-facto standard but reflects rather than protects the use of English today.

"The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books."*

And from the online version (Compact Oxford English Dictionary)**

matt
(also matte)

  • adjective not shiny; dull and flat.

  • noun 1 a matt colour, paint, or finish. 2 a sheet of cardboard placed on the back of a picture, as a mount or to form a border.

  — ORIGIN French mat.


*[span style=\'font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\']http://www.oed.com/ (http://www.oed.com/) About the Oxford English Dictionary.  http://www.oed.com/about/ (http://www.oed.com/about/) Retreived on 2008-01-25[/span]
**[span style=\'font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\']http://www.askoxford.com/ (http://www.askoxford.com/) Ask Oxford http://www.askoxford.com/ (http://www.askoxford.com/) Retrieved on 2008-01-25[/span]
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on January 25, 2008, 08:33:42 am
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Languages change constantly, the idea of an Academy to preserve a language is barking mad. Language is culture, culture changes and trying to pretend otherwise is a bt foolish. It's the literary equivalent of the Maginot Line.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169430\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Not really... or what's the point to argue against misspellings?  
It's the task of the Academie to frame the evolution of the language, and not to stop it, of course. Yes, of course too, they're doomed to be a bit late...
It's more like the "skyline blue" color of the french army's 1914-1915 uniforms, to stay around that kind of comparison.


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This was nicely illustrated by the wise man who rules America, who is supposed to have uttered the brilliant phrase - "The French, they don't even have a word for entrepreneur" as a way of mocking the French.
Another occasion to exercise my english : that's brilliant, if it has not been proved wrong!    Hadn't he cheated, we would laugh a good deal less than we do.
Am I correct?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 25, 2008, 09:03:37 am
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The problem is that it does matter whether or not the language is corrupted. The reason it matters is that language is about communication and if one is to accept a constant flow of fresh corruptions, then the only outcome must be even greater lack of common and accurate understanding.
New words are not corruptions, they are just changes and usually add to greater understanding. If you want evidence close to hand, this suite is litterred with neologisms that the computer/photography industry has introduced to the language in the last 10/12 years.  It would be very hard to communicate without these new words and not all ae technical. Some stick and become the new norm and some will fade away [floppy disk]. People don't normally fail to understand the meaning. They simply learn the new words without even really noticing.
The Language changing does not mean more complicated. It could be the exact opposite. Plus words have always changed meanings and slang has become the norm and the norm has become slang and some words have done a complete volte-face with regard to meaning. Some words undergo meliration and some pejoration, as long as we are using words in the same way as people around us, it matters not a jot.
 Joe Haldeman wrote a story set in the 1880s in the USA and he carefully researched the language of the time and decided not to use it. Why? A lot of the language had fallen out of favour and had only recently come back in and was now seen as modern slang. So by being accurate it would sound too modern. The ironies abound when one tries to preserve language. Language changes and it will do so naturally and slowly as it always has. Plus banning words like le weekend is ridiculous. And ironically reminds me of this French phrase, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Usually shortened to Plus ça change.. and is used here as well as France and means 'the more things change, the more things stay the same'. In fact with language, the only constant is that it will change.

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Insofar as the French example is concerned, I see little wrong with any attempt to protect the language. There is no need whatsoever for a French person to find it necessary to refer to le weekend as French provides perfect alternatives of its own.
'Le weekend' is the French word for weekend as in English it's 'the weekend'.  And I believe the reason it was adopted was because they did not have a word for it. Also a title of a famous [French] film by Jean Luc Goddard.

 
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If it were not bad enough using slang from within one´s own language, the use or importation of even more remote words from the current waves of immigrants crossing borders almost at will bodes even worse for the future.
My gran lived in a bungalow, should we ban that word as it is Indian in origin as is veranda. They had words for things we didn't have, so why not use the words. English is such an amazingly rich and diverse language specifically as a result of our adopting any word that is usuable. French has such a small and impoverished vocabulary compared to English, so limiting it even more is not the smartest of moves from a literary perspective. Heck it would be hard to communicate on a quotidian basis if we suddenly removed all the 'foreign' words.
 
 
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People counter this perception by making reference to Shakespeare or even Chaucer and saying that if change were not good, we would still be speaking and writing in the manner of the two aforementioned gentlemen. Well, if we were, then it would be the norm and we would still all understand one another; I believe that English has reached a very high plateau, a level beyond which it has no reason to attempt to climb. The only new words that need be fed into the language are, in my opinion, those that have to be created in the service of new technology, where existing words do not fit the bill.
The Victorians said the same thing about science at the fin de siecle [all these nasty foreign words!!] Everything has been discovered. Yeah, spot on there. Well seeing as culture and society changes as much as science, words will have to change too. Language is culture.
Besides seeing as Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter, it's unlikely that would be how we'd speak now as they didn't speak like that even then. Not to mention your comments about the two authors is arguing my point not yours!?  

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Considering that such a high proportion of school kids fails to leave school with any worthwhile qualifications, even the ability to read and write, it seems strange to imagine that further complication of language will ever help to remedy the situation.
As for kids not be fully literate when leaving school, there has always been a percentage who manage that and that will probably never change that much as some people are less able that way, even with good teaching. Besides the main problem with learning English is English. It is a very difficult language to learn correct spelling as it is quite nearly random, I think compared to Italian a child has to learn more than double the amount of spellings for common sounds. As someone who is literate and a good speller, I still have have to guess how to pronounce any new word I happen upon, as in English knowing how to pronounce a similar word, is not much help. Not to mention the huge range of regional pronounciations and idiolects.
 Label/lapel or bow/bough are good examples of English and its inconsistency.
 And as a fun test would 'ghoti' be pronounced?

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But then, it is the popular culture so attractive to that very group of zero-achievers that gets so much exposure, that perpetuates the problem...[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169431\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What problem?  
 Look at history, that's an eternal complaint. - Plus ça change...  
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 25, 2008, 09:21:31 am
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Not really... or what's the point to argue against misspellings?   
It's the task of the Academie to frame the evolution of the language, and not to stop it, of course. Yes, of course too, they're doomed to be a bit late...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169446\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Correct spelling is a different thing from have language police, which dictate what words are acceptable. Too close to the Thought Police for my liking. Hardly 'Libertie Egalitie Fraternitie'.
Though making radios play more French music gave French Hip Hop a big boost. Rapping in a French accent works quite nicely.

Anyone read Irvine Welsh? He writes in colloquial Scottish, so the spelling looks very odd, but if you read it in a Scottish accent [not out loud!] it makes sense.

On a  vgaeluy smiialr ntoe, if you wrtie a snctnece but levae the lsat ltetres the smae, tehn you can sltil raed it! Which is quite interesting from a perception point of view.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on January 25, 2008, 11:32:18 am
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British lemonade is Lemon pop [soda] not a lemon-lime pop, like 7Up.

About 5-10 years ago (when I was last in the UK), my first two attempts at ordering "lemonade" from a menu resulted in 7-Up or a close equivalent being brought, which is why I remembered the language confusion so clearly.  (Or maybe it was because we were in cheap restaurants - my parents, who I was there with, are more frugal than I...)

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Actually even some idiot bar staff in the UK get confused when you ask for orange squash rather than cordial, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Cordial is simply the posh/grown-up word for squash.

Funny, more differences...  If you order "squash" in the US, you get a plate of pumpkin, zucchini or a related vegetable!  

Lisa
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Harold on January 25, 2008, 12:30:29 pm
[span style=\'font-size:14pt;line-height:100%\']He eats shoots, and leaves.
or
He eats, shoots ---[/span]
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 25, 2008, 12:38:29 pm
jjj

Frankly, you are arguing against me on some points by the curious technique of writing more or less exactly what I have already writtenI

Your reference to new, technologically useful words was exactly my point too!

As for the French failing to have a rich language and literary tradition of their own - it´s a suggestion so ludicrous that it hardly warrants response. So, I leave that to any indignant Frenchman who might care to reply to it.

As for making references to the use of the traditional Scottish tongue - hold on a minute, please. I lived in Scotland for almost thirty years before I managed to exit that sorry land - many others would have followed but lacked the ability - and you might care to learn that the use of Gaelic, as with the wearing of the kilt, is little more than a tourist conceit and, outwith some hick communities, a national embarrassment, other than at weddings, where it becomes something even more ridiculous. Perfectly good street names in standard English are doubled, at rate-payer expense, with Gaelic alternatives for no greater purpose than to sell some faux bullshit to the poor saps being milked of their tourist pound for the pleasure of bad food, indifferent lodgings and grim service, to stretch a word.

Gaelic public services - yes, radio and such, more crap designed to garner minority votes for outlandish political parties again at poor old rate-payer cost. Of course, you might change the name of the fiscal contribution, but it is always the same old gang that gets the pleasure of actually having to pay the money.

Bungalow? Verandah? As I said, where no traditional name exists, a new one is a legitimate addition to the lexicon. New words, as you also say yourself, are not corruptions; the intentional misuse of existing ones is nothing but. Which is what I implied.

Present day English, without the use of long-established or assimilated foreign ones: I did state that, in my opinion, English was already on a very high plateau; that need to introduce new foreign additons or influences beyond any specifically intended for technological reasons had long passed. I still believe that. Why do you invoke Victorians to misinterpret what I have been writing? I made no reference to science fiction; had I done so, I would have accepted new words in the context of something which did not exist previously - of course such things require a name.

Don´t lecture me on the Italian language:; my mother was Italian, well-educated and well-travelled too. If you believe English is more difficult than Italian, then I have news for you: you are mistaken yet again.

To a person born in whichever country, the native language is not, should not, be difficult. It is too easy to lay blame on teachers. I have two of them in my family and I can only tell you that they don´t earn a great deal of money in that profession but, based on professional experience, they have made the decision to scrimp and save every penny they can with one goal: to put their own children through private education, which they have been doing for several years now.

Why? Because the state system, so beholden to that dreaded lowest common denominator, the democratic vote system, sucks. It cannot deliver. It never will deliver becasue it is based on flawed left-wing political cant already demonstrated as failed in the very countries from whence it spread.

The present geniuses running the UK wish to lower the voting age to sixteen: well, can you get more cynical than that? Even the well-educated young tend towards leftish thinking in the innocence, the naivety of mind common to most young people. It takes the experience of earning your living to open your eyes to the rights and wrongs of one set of people footing the bills for all of the people. Allow enough inexperienced people to vote and you have Socialism for ever and a day. But there you go, what´s the point of writing any of this - just lke Lucy Jordan, you will believe what you learned sitting in your daddy´s easy chair whilst I am now too old to feel like throwing away the lessons of the years.

But anyway, at least we all have another common denominator: photography!

Take care - Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on January 25, 2008, 12:51:43 pm
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Correct spelling is a different thing from have language police, which dictate what words are acceptable.
You're right, and the Academie makes indeed the former - even further in your direction, the Loi Toubon (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_Toubon) (referenced a few posts ago, and not promoted by the academie but by a zealous culture minister), which (tried to  ) forbade the use of English words in French, has been invalidated on this particular point, because it was a restriction of the freedom of speech and thought as stated in the declaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen.

And yes, we do not have any other word for "week-end" - "fin de semaine" means anything between thursday and saturday.
 
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On a  vgaeluy smiialr ntoe, if you wrtie a snctnece but levae the lsat ltetres the smae, tehn you can sltil raed it! Which is quite interesting from a perception point of view.
Oiu, ca mrcahe asusi en fanriacs tnat qu'on ne bugoe pas torp lse ltrtees...
In a few words : not as practical if it's not your mother language ;o).
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 25, 2008, 01:31:24 pm
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Funny, more differences...  If you order "squash" in the US, you get a plate of pumpkin, zucchini or a related vegetable!   
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169494\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Mmmmmn Butternut squash soup, yum!    
Also it's courgettes here, not zuchinnis and I don't think they are squashes, they are baby marrows, and I think to be a squash it needs to be a gourd. I'll have to ask the girlfriend, she grows the wretched things and boy do courgettes grow!!.
Here's a boot full of squashes [boot=trunk in American!]
(http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3449/2027/320/Allotment-Carload-%20-Sunset-2006-10-12---039.jpg)
(http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3449/2027/320/Allotment-Carload-%20-Sunset-2006-10-12---015.jpg)

Turk's Turbans are particularly weird and look just like their name.
(http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3449/2027/320/Allotment-Carload-%20-Sunset-2006-10-12---019.jpg)
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 25, 2008, 03:23:02 pm
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Frankly, you are arguing against me on some points by the curious technique of writing more or less exactly what I have already writtenI
 Your reference to new, technologically useful words was exactly my point too!
Aah but my point was cultural/social changes are equally relevent to science changes. And if it's OK to introduce tech slang, what the difference between that and say music slang. They both reflect changes in society and how we communicate, So what the big deal? New cultural forms needs new names, Drum + Bass, Bassline, Garage, Reggaetron, House, Emo are all corruptions as you would call it, but perfectly valid words to describe new musical forms, which soon become normal everyday words. It's no different from how music itself has been seen over the decades. Jazz, Rock n Roll, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Hippies, Punks, New Romantics, Ravers were all seen as morally degenerate by the previous generation, whilst the current youngsters viewed the previous moral degenerates as something quite anodyne and dull. Plus  ça change..  

 
 
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As for the French failing to have a rich language and literary tradition of their own - it´s a suggestion so ludicrous that it hardly warrants response. So, I leave that to any indignant Frenchman who might care to reply to it.
We seem have a French speaker posting here, doesn't seem too idignant to me. Are you offended NikoJorj? Beside I wasn't criticising their literature. A little bit of relevent info -  "The statistics of English are astonishing. Of all the world's languages (which now number some 2,700), it is arguably the richest in vocabulary. The compendious Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words; and a further half-million technical and scientific terms remain uncatalogued. According to traditional estimates, neighboring German has a vocabulary of about 185,000 and French fewer than 100,000, including such Franglais as le snacque-barre and le hit-parade."
Fives times the vocabulary is a phenomenal difference in richness. A hugely varied and rich resource for all thing literary.
 
 
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As for making references to the use of the traditional Scottish tongue - hold on a minute, please. I lived in Scotland for almost thirty years before I managed to exit that sorry land - many others would have followed but lacked the ability - and you might care to learn that the use of Gaelic, as with the wearing of the kilt, is little more than a tourist conceit and, outwith some hick communities, a national embarrassment, other than at weddings, where it becomes something even more ridiculous. Perfectly good street names in standard English are doubled, at rate-payer expense, with Gaelic alternatives for no greater purpose than to sell some faux bullshit to the poor saps being milked of their tourist pound for the pleasure of bad food, indifferent lodgings and grim service, to stretch a word.
 
 Gaelic public services - yes, radio and such, more crap designed to garner minority votes for outlandish political parties again at poor old rate-payer cost. Of course, you might change the name of the fiscal contribution, but it is always the same old gang that gets the pleasure of actually having to pay the money.
I never mentioned Gaelic, which seems to be a very sore point with you.    I was talking about English with a strong Scottish accent being spelled as it it pronounced and is not something you see very often in literature.
 On this theme, I come from Wales and every sign is biligual there and has nothing, nothing to do with tourism. Anything but. Nada.
 
 
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Bungalow? Verandah? As I said, where no traditional name exists, a new one is a legitimate addition to the lexicon. New words, as you also say yourself, are not corruptions; the intentional misuse of existing ones is nothing but. Which is what I implied.
What's this intentional misuse? Is there some secret cabal of people from Eastern Europe, subverting how English is used, simply to annoy Daily Mail readers?  
For the non-Brits, the Daily Mail is a right wing very, very xenphobic tabloid newpaper.
There's a 'corruption'  for you Rob,  Tabloid, which is a technical printing term, like broadsheet, fold or six sheet.  Except now it's generally accepted meaning is trashy or sensationalist  when used to describe journalism. Times change, words need to. And will always need to.  
 
 
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Present day English, without the use of long-established or assimilated foreign ones: I did state that, in my opinion, English was already on a very high plateau; that need to introduce new foreign additons or influences beyond any specifically intended for technological reasons had long passed. I still believe that. Why do you invoke Victorians to misinterpret what I have been writing? I made no reference to science fiction; had I done so, I would have accepted new words in the context of something which did not exist previously - of course such things require a name.
Science fiction! Eh?? You seem to have completely misread what I said. I simply drew an analogy to what you said about English not needing any outside influences or changes as it was such a high level [whatever that means?] to the Victorians saying a similar thing about science, not science fiction. They naively thought everything in science had been discovered.
 
 
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Don´t lecture me on the Italian language:; my mother was Italian, well-educated and well-travelled too. If you believe English is more difficult than Italian, then I have news for you: you are mistaken yet again.
No lecturing, I simply said English spelling is more dificult than Italian spelling. Not that English is more difficult than Italian, a subtle but very important distiction. Just like learning Japanese Kanjii is much harder than learning the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. A Japanese child is expected to learn a basic 1800 before leaving school. Learning the two syllabic Japanese alphabets is a doddle in comparison, even though there are nearly twice as many characters in each of them compared to English. I managed to be able to read and write Hiragana in a week, but learning Kanji, jeesh what a task! Makes colour mangement look easy!
And if you want to get very specific on this issue go here
A cultural effect on brain function (http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v3/n1/full/nn0100_91.html)
A less technical snippett
"Young Italian readers can achieve 92% accuracy on word reading tests after only 6 months of schooling, whereas learning to read in English takes much longer. Compared to German, another consistent orthography, accuracy levels in English are lower and reading speed is slower even after three years of schooling. Adult English readers are slower at reading non-words than readers of the consistent Serbocroat orthography."
Welsh should be even easier as it is completely phonetic [i.e. has perfectly consistent orthography]. So as soon as you learn the few rules it is sooooo easy to pronounce, assuming you carry summon up enough phelgm!    So much easier for Spanish speakers than most native English speakers to try.

 Having said that, English being such a mishmash of other languages and having so few rules, is not that easy to master if learning later in life. The so called 'rules of English' were simply 'Rules of Latin' dumped on English so as to try and codify the language a couple of centuries ago.  A French friend of mine once said about English  - "You knew you mastered it when you understood and know phrasal verbs and where to put F^%k in the sentence."  Somewhat irreverent, but she succintly described the very open, simultaneously vague and varied nature of English.

If you want to find out more about language and how we create/use it this is an interesting read.
The Language Instinct (http://www.amazon.com/Language-Instinct-Creates-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060958332/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201291654&sr=1-5)
 
 
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To a person born in whichever country, the native language is not, should not, be difficult. It is too easy to lay blame on teachers. I have two of them in my family and I can only tell you that they don´t earn a great deal of money in that profession but, based on professional experience, they have made the decision to scrimp and save every penny they can with one goal: to put their own children through private education, which they have been doing for several years now.
 
 Why? Because the state system, so beholden to that dreaded lowest common denominator, the democratic vote system, sucks. It cannot deliver. It never will deliver becasue it is based on flawed left-wing political cant already demonstrated as failed in the very countries from whence it spread.
 
 The present geniuses running the UK wish to lower the voting age to sixteen: well, can you get more cynical than that? Even the well-educated young tend towards leftish thinking in the innocence, the naivety of mind common to most young people. It takes the experience of earning your living to open your eyes to the rights and wrongs of one set of people footing the bills for all of the people. Allow enough inexperienced people to vote and you have Socialism for ever and a day. But there you go, what´s the point of writing any of this - just lke Lucy Jordan, you will believe what you learned sitting in your daddy´s easy chair whilst I am now too old to feel like throwing away the lessons of the years.
Aargh, more politics!!  
Left wing, socialist goverment!!!!!????? We've had a right wing party in power since 1979. New Labour are more right wing than dear old Maggie and thinking that all youngsters are left wing is a bit off the mark in my experience. Though the minority, extreme radical lefties you find at Uni, often become more right wing with age it is true. I grew up in a very right wing environment, yet as I get older I see how that is deeply flawed, much like you think socialism is deeply flawed. The major flaw to my mind in all political ideologies is not the stance, but the corrupt people who end up with the power. Left or right wing, they all get caught doing what they most protest about.
 
 
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But anyway, at least we all have another common denominator: photography!
 Take care - Rob C
 [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169518\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
We sure do.  But it is nice to chat about something different at times.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 25, 2008, 04:10:49 pm
" It is a very difficult language to learn correct spelling as it is quite nearly random, "

Most words in English have very interesting histories, and the spelling often gives information about the origin of the word. Take two words with a similar meaning such as wed and marry, or colour and hue, and the longer word will usually be from Latin and the shorter from Old English.

"label/lapel"

Good example. "Label" from French and "lapel" from the Old English "lap".

"bough/bow"

Ok, perhaps an example of how spelling and pronunciation can go their separate ways. Bough and bow (as in a bow and arrow and to bow down) are both from English I think, but bow (as in the bow of a ship) is Scandinavian. David
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 25, 2008, 06:46:57 pm
That reminds me Taquin, no-one has tried guessing how to pronounce 'ghoti'. A teacher friend used to use it to shown how English pronounciation can look odd in a different context to how you are used to seeing it. As you so nicely put it, spelling and pronounciation go their separate ways.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on January 25, 2008, 07:02:21 pm
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Hardly 'Libertie Egalitie Fraternitie'.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169461\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Or even Liberté Egalité Fraternité.

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Mike Louw on January 25, 2008, 07:16:53 pm
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That reminds me Taquin, no-one has tried guessing how to pronounce 'ghoti'.

One of my favourites! ("Fish", of course   )

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open your eyes to the rights and wrongs of one set of people footing the bills for all of the people.

From each according to his ability to each according to his need, as Marx said. Nice idea and I still think wistfully of the Utopian society where this would work, but that society wouldn't consist of humans.....

Of course, Darwinian capitalism as it exists in many countries is more a case of nearly all of the people footing the bills for a very small set of people, in effect.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on January 27, 2008, 12:51:29 pm
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That reminds me Taquin, no-one has tried guessing how to pronounce 'ghoti'. A teacher friend used to use it to shown how English pronounciation can look odd in a different context to how you are used to seeing it. As you so nicely put it, spelling and pronounciation go their separate ways.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169609\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Or, to be even more absurd, how to pronounce phtholognyrrh: turner.

 phth: t, as in phthisis;
 olo: ur, as in colonel;
 gn: n, as in gnat;
 yrrh: er, as in myrrh.

New York Times, 1877, but probably old hat even then.

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 27, 2008, 02:29:48 pm
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One of my favourites! ("Fish", of course   )
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169615\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
To explain how ghoti=fish

gh=f - cough
o=i - women
ti=sh - station
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 27, 2008, 02:39:56 pm
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Or even Liberté Egalité Fraternité.

Jeremy
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=169614\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Duh, I knew I'd do some stupid spelling error in this thread. But that's particularly dumb.  

Off tangent why are so many photographers called Jeremy or is it why are so many people called Jeremy, photographers? Only ever known a handful or two of Jeremys and only one wasn't a photographer. But that was at school and he was only 9 when I last saw him, so even he may be one by now!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 27, 2008, 03:37:13 pm
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To explain how ghoti=fish

gh=f - cough
o=i - women
ti=sh - station
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170014\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Ah, I got the gh and ti, but missed the "o" part. As you implied earlier, this does  often depend on placing letter combinations out of their usual order, which does suggest a much stronger underlying structure to English spelling/pronunciation than people give the language credit for. For example, if I spell "cough" as queoph, most people will work that out. But what about "cheoukn"? This was the only one I could make up.
Shorn!  (adj of shear)  "che" from cache, "ou" from bought, and "kn" from knot. David
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 27, 2008, 03:46:56 pm
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Off tangent why are so many photographers called Jeremy or is it why are so many people called Jeremy, photographers? Only ever known a handful or two of Jeremys and only one wasn't a photographer. But that was at school and he was only 9 when I last saw him, so even he may be one by now!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170018\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Some  say it because Jeremy come from the Hebrew meaning "appointed by God". No doubt referring to the blessed state of making a living out of photography. My theory is that the name really comes from the French/Latin "jeremiad" meaning a lamentation or mournful complaint. Again referring to making a living out of photography.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 27, 2008, 05:08:21 pm
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Some  say it because Jeremy come from the Hebrew meaning "appointed by God". No doubt referring to the blessed state of making a living out of photography. My theory is that the name really comes from the French/Latin "jeremiad" meaning a lamentation or mournful complaint. Again referring to making a living out of photography.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170033\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Very accurate ending to that post!

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: papa v2.0 on January 27, 2008, 07:34:35 pm
Hi Rob C

Which part of scotland did you live, sounds like the bit I stayed at. Where u from?

O by the way  its colour not color!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on January 28, 2008, 03:39:46 am
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Some  say it because Jeremy come from the Hebrew meaning "appointed by God". No doubt referring to the blessed state of making a living out of photography. My theory is that the name really comes from the French/Latin "jeremiad" meaning a lamentation or mournful complaint. Again referring to making a living out of photography.
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The second is slightly circular, with respect, since jeremiad is derived from the name Jeremiah, of Lamentations fame, suggesting that the name came first.

Of course, the first is a vastly preferable explanation!

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on January 28, 2008, 03:45:31 am
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Duh, I knew I'd do some stupid spelling error in this thread. But that's particularly dumb.   
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Sod's law, I'm afraid. On any other thread it would have passed without comment (if not without notice).

The Times last week had a letter on the topic of Sod's law. It concerned a lecturer teaching his students that the rule which determines that buttered toast always falls buttered side down is better known as Sod's law. To demonstrate the rule's universal applicability, he took a piece of toast, buttered it and tossed it in the air. When it fell buttered side up, he proclaimed, "There - a perfect demonstration of Sod's law!".

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Off tangent why are so many photographers called Jeremy or is it why are so many people called Jeremy, photographers? Only ever known a handful or two of Jeremys and only one wasn't a photographer. But that was at school and he was only 9 when I last saw him, so even he may be one by now!
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It's just The Name To Have, I suppose.

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: blansky on January 28, 2008, 12:17:04 pm
Since I'm Canadian, we were corrupted by both the US and Britain and can never decide how the hell things should be spelled.

A good example is X, Y, ZED in "Canadian" and X,Y, ZEE in American.

I once made fun of Brits for pronouncing aluminum as "al u MINI um" only to have it pointed out that initially the word was spelled and pronounced the Brit way and later changed in the US to the American way.

Now I keep my comments to myself and just mutter under my breath, about the bastardization of the English language by the English.



Michael
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Misirlou on January 28, 2008, 12:39:50 pm
At this point in time, irregardless of how you utilize it, I could care less about your English.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 28, 2008, 12:58:50 pm
Not only by the English, but by everyone else who speaks it.

Okay, let me come cleanly out of the language closet here: I have no problem lapsing into faux Hollywood when speaking to particular individuals - as long as they are not much younger than I am (which probably rules out most of the people I know) at which age they would be reduced to helpless laughter. But, I really do think that colloquial and written language should be kept separate.

On the internet, in personal letters, in the press, in any form of public display (including advertising), I think that the correct forms of expression should always be used. This is not just to make me happy personally; it is very much part of an ongoing education from which all of us can benefit. How can a teacher correct a child when that same child sees incredibly poor grammar flashed across the television screen night after night, when those awful banners flash across the bottom of Sky News, for example (and yes, even the BBC news), with appalling use of language now the norm? Advertising commercials seem to be particularly prone to wilful desecration of English.

Such things are not evolutionary change since there is no need for them as the correct words already exist;  they are language vandalism.

For pet hates: misuse of to, too and two. How in hell can that challenge anybody´s capability?

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 28, 2008, 12:59:47 pm
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At this point in time, irregardless of how you utilize it, I could care less about your English.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170297\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Meaning? Please?

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Misirlou on January 28, 2008, 01:09:38 pm
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Meaning? Please?

Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170303\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

There is very little. I was just stringing together a series of common usage errors which I find highly annoying. It would be difficult for me to choose the worst among them.

There is another example that I hate even more, but that few others will have heard. In the federal contracting community, one will sometimes hear the word "definitize," meaning to bring the details of a contract to a state of maturity just prior to its approval. I despise that "word."
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 28, 2008, 03:38:32 pm
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There is very little. I was just stringing together a series of common usage errors which I find highly annoying. It would be difficult for me to choose the worst among them.

There is another example that I hate even more, but that few others will have heard. In the federal contracting community, one will sometimes hear the word "definitize," meaning to bring the details of a contract to a state of maturity just prior to its approval. I despise that "word."
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Hi - I´m really getting rather slow tonight! Thanks for clearing that up.

Something which annoys the blazes out of me happens very often on television news programmes, where the studio link says to his colleague on location: ´Just remind us, please... ´ when there is either nothing to remind us about in the first place or, worse, the viewer is being treated with contempt under the assumption that he is too dumb to understand, remember or pick up on anything about the topic in hand.

But then, that´s the way of television: it has got away with murder until now and sees no reason to think its luck will run out. A truly offensive medium. But, unfortunately, an indispensable one.

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Misirlou on January 28, 2008, 03:49:37 pm
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Hi - I´m really getting rather slow tonight! Thanks for clearing that up.

Something which annoys the blazes out of me happens very often on television news programmes, where the studio link says to his colleague on location: ´Just remind us, please... ´ when there is either nothing to remind us about in the first place or, worse, the viewer is being treated with contempt under the assumption that he is too dumb to understand, remember or pick up on anything about the topic in hand.

But then, that´s the way of television: it has got away with murder until now and sees no reason to think its luck will run out. A truly offensive medium. But, unfortunately, an indispensable one.

Rob C
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=170339\")

A few years ago, Michael Kinsley (Editor of the LA Times, I believe) wrote this very humorous column about the way US TV news people have begun speaking entirely in gerunds, probably to mimic the way headlines are typically structured in newspaper stories: [a href=\"http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-79785537.html]http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-79785537.html[/url]

I apologize if that link won't get you to the complete piece, but I have zero control over syndicated column publishers, and even less patience with them.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 28, 2008, 03:58:26 pm
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Hi - I´m really getting rather slow tonight! Thanks for clearing that up.

Something which annoys the blazes out of me happens very often on television news programmes, where the studio link says to his colleague on location: ´Just remind us, please... ´ when there is either nothing to remind us about in the first place or, worse, the viewer is being treated with contempt under the assumption that he is too dumb to understand, remember or pick up on anything about the topic in hand.

But then, that´s the way of television: it has got away with murder until now and sees no reason to think its luck will run out. A truly offensive medium. But, unfortunately, an indispensable one.

Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170339\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I believe you are suffering from "painter's head". I have a bad case of it as well.
When painting my ceiling white, I can no longer distinguish if any has splashed on my hair. Cheers, David
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Sfleming on January 28, 2008, 04:31:42 pm
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Since I'm Canadian, we were corrupted by both the US and Britain and can never decide how the hell things should be spelled.

A good example is X, Y, ZED in "Canadian" and X,Y, ZEE in American.

I once made fun of Brits for pronouncing aluminum as "al u MINI um" only to have it pointed out that initially the word was spelled and pronounced the Brit way and later changed in the US to the American way.

Now I keep my comments to myself and just mutter under my breath, about the bastardization of the English language by the English.
Michael
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170290\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Britain and America.  Two continents separated by a common language.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Sfleming on January 28, 2008, 04:36:47 pm
By way of getting back to the original topic ... This losing/loosing thing really is becoming ubiquitous.  If *I* notice it ... it must be really bad cause I'm a horrible speller.  Thank dog for nearly universal spell checkers these days.  I can't remember when to double and not double a consonant to save my soul.  Sometimes I can't even look up a word in the dictionary cause I can't even get close.  That's with Mac widget dictionary too which actually tries to help you.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on January 28, 2008, 04:39:35 pm
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Britain and America.  Two continents separated by a common language.
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Countries, I think. We're definitely only part of a continent (the most important part, of course, but just a part  )

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: JohnKoerner on January 28, 2008, 05:51:35 pm
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At this point in time, irregardless of how you utilize it, I could care less about your English.


There is no such word as "irregardless" either; the proper word is regardless.

And by the way, an easy way to remember the difference between "lose" and "loose" (as in "lose a bet" vs. "loose change") is the following phrase:

"Lose lost an 'o' "  

Jack
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Sfleming on January 28, 2008, 06:36:02 pm
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Countries, I think. We're definitely only part of a continent (the most important part, of course, but just a part  )

Jeremy
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170359\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes. Thanks.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 28, 2008, 06:47:14 pm
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I believe you are suffering from "painter's head". I have a bad case of it as well.
When painting my ceiling white, I can no longer distinguish if any has splashed on my hair. Cheers, David
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170346\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Two things: you are lucky you still have hair to splash; I find it hard, when painting in white, to see where the second coat has or has not been. Strange folks, are we.

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Misirlou on January 28, 2008, 06:52:15 pm
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There is no such word as "irregardless" either; the proper word is regardless.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170380\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes, I was including it deliberately to express my irritation. Makes my skin crawl nearly as much as the odious "orientate."
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: JohnKoerner on January 28, 2008, 07:02:30 pm
Upon hearing a friend use the word "irregardless" once, I remember my brother telling this fellow that his word use was "irridiculous"
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on January 28, 2008, 07:17:15 pm
I like it! "Irridiculous"! I'll have to add that to my illexicon.  

I sometimes wonder if the folks who abuse "lose" and "loose" can tell the difference between a Canon 40D and a 400D.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 29, 2008, 11:04:14 am
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I like it! "Irridiculous"! I'll have to add that to my illexicon.  
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=170404\")
Summat to help embiggen your illexicon. -   There's a phrase to make Rob's skin crawl  
[a href=\"http://www.freerice.com/]Free Rice - word test[/url]
Did well over 5000 grains of rice with it last night and managed to reach level 49!
Learnt some new words too. Nudnick was my favourite.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Petrjay on January 29, 2008, 12:26:21 pm
Which one of you guys is going to tell Tony Soprano that there's no such word as "irregardless?"
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on January 29, 2008, 01:01:32 pm
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Learnt some new words too. Nudnick was my favourite.
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Then you need to read "The Joy of Yiddish" by Leo Rosten. Wonderful book.

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 29, 2008, 08:33:43 pm
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Learnt some new words too. Nudnick was my favourite.
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A chap who can use nudnick in a sentence is indeed a force to be reckoned with. My favourite has always been remembering the difference between abnegate, abrogate, derogate, abdicate and arrogate. David
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 30, 2008, 06:06:08 am
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A chap who can use nudnick in a sentence is indeed a force to be reckoned with. My favourite has always been remembering the difference between abnegate, abrogate, derogate, abdicate and arrogate. David
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170797\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This will eventually lead to Watergate and end up in tears.

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on January 30, 2008, 06:43:41 am
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My favourite has always been remembering the difference between abnegate, abrogate, derogate, abdicate and arrogate. David
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170797\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thanks for the free rice link! I had a bit of fun too...
To get back to philology, I was amazed, and amused, that many of these unusual-or-supposed-so english words were simply englishicized (oops?) french words (in your case abnégation, abroger, déroger, abdiquer, et s'arroger - all relatively common).

[mode on va pas commencer à pardonner pour Jeanne d'Arc, non plus!]
Hey, you did invade us some time ago, after all!
[/mode on va pas commencer à pardonner pour Jeanne d'Arc, non plus!]
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 30, 2008, 07:07:51 am
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To get back to philology, I was amazed, and amused, that many of these unusual-or-supposed-so english words were simply englishicized (oops?) french words (in your case abnégation, abroger, déroger, abdiquer, et s'arroger - all relatively common). [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170918\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
That's not unusual, I'm sure I used some French words above somewhere that are 'English' but not used that much. I think one was 'quotidian' [= daily in English], but also means 'ordinary' in the day to day sense. It's not that unusual to find a synonym for an 'English' word to be a French word, usually without the accents.

Another thing to look for to find French words in English, is 'et' in French is sometimes 'st' in English, etude=study, my brain is a bit fried at moment and cannot think of any others.

Anglicised is the word you were loking for. 'English', the word comes from the Angles who along with the 'Germans' from Saxony gave us the phrase Anglo-Saxon.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Provokot on January 30, 2008, 07:32:40 am
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On every forum I participate in people constantly misspell "losing" (as in "losing sleep") as "loosing".  It is easily the most common misspelling on the 'Net.  Stop it!
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There so inilliterate that their going to fail they're English exams and loose all incredibility. Ur lucky u can spell, m8.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Provokot on January 30, 2008, 07:34:21 am
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I like it! "Irridiculous"! I'll have to add that to my illexicon.  

I sometimes wonder if the folks who abuse "lose" and "loose" can tell the difference between a Canon 40D and a 400D.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170404\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

There's a difference?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 30, 2008, 07:37:42 am
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[mode on va pas commencer à pardonner pour Jeanne d'Arc, non plus!]
Hey, you did invade us some time ago, after all!
[/mode on va pas commencer à pardonner pour Jeanne d'Arc, non plus!]
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170918\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
?? I thought you invaded us!? 1066 and all that.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on January 30, 2008, 08:26:04 am
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?? I thought you invaded us!? 1066 and all that.
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Okay, we're not going to talk about Mers el Kebir then... How do you spell "Ennemi héréditaire" in English?

[mode even-degree-humour-challenged-oriented insertion]
 
[/mode even-degree-humour-challenged-oriented insertion]
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 30, 2008, 08:48:53 am
I don't think that incident had much impact on either language and it wasn't even France.  Though interestingly a single French word may have had a significant impact on this event

"The words “under German or Italian supervision” ultimately found their way into Article Eight of the armistice agreement which had been drafted in French. It immediately sounded alarm bells in the British Admiralty because of inclusion of the French word contrôle. In French it means to keep custody of and to inspect, but not to exert operational control. The British, never known for their interest in foreign languages, quite naturally took the word to mean that the Germans would take over control of the French fleet. Feeling betrayed, a meeting of the British War Cabinet on June 24, 1940 concluded that Article Eight’s assurances were to be disregarded. This resulted in a cascading distrust between two nations that had every need--and reason--to feel solidarity with one another, even though one had been beaten by a common enemy."




Hereditary enemies.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 30, 2008, 12:44:44 pm
Hey, Futt Futt!

Glad to see you are still actively engaged in helping the world get along...

Two things, whilst I remember:

a. yesterday, Sky News announced that the BBC was spending 25 million pounds to float a television service in Gaelic for 60,000 people;

b. the auld alliance, as the Scots would have it, between Scotland and France is perhaps partly to blame for the semi-hatred of some of them up north towards some of them down south.

On a different level of madness, I was amazed to learn that India now wishes to be seen as a donor country for aid to Africa... On the other hand, with our own British unresolved domestic problems of urban squalor, decay and crime, I wonder which is the pot and which the kettle in this respect.

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 30, 2008, 01:31:08 pm
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b. the auld alliance, as the Scots would have it, between Scotland and France is perhaps partly to blame for the semi-hatred of some of them up north towards some of them down south.
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There's a forum local to me which I rarely bother with as there are too many numpties ranting and raving, but when I looked the other day one of the resident idiots was going on about how the Scotish never, ever hated the English who went there to live!  And the Scotish and English always got on OK.
Apparently this was true as she was Scotish and she knew best.

I always thought the Scots hated the English for doing the usual English things like murder/torure/seizure of assets/imposing their own culture.. etc.
 The French were certainly allies of Scotland  at points in history, my enemy's enemy may have been a part of the bonding process.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: bernie west on January 30, 2008, 05:32:22 pm
Someone mentioned the phrase, as used commonly by americans, "I could care less about .....".  I've always found this strange as the australian version (and presumable the anglo version) is "I couldn't care less about .....".  The australian version implies that there is nothing in my world about which I care less than the thing in question.  Whereas the american version implies that there are actually things which I care less about, further implying that the thing in question may not actually be that bad after all.  Perhaps the american version should be "I should care less about ..."???

The other thing that bugs me (*) is the practice (or is that practise??) in business speak of turning nouns into verbs.  For example, "let's call a meeting and workshop this through"

And on the issue of Gaelic, what's wrong with promoting and taking pride in your indigenous language?  Why are you so ashamed of it?

And finally, as you saw above, I am Australian.  So the issue of strange words and strange spellings is actually the way of life down here.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on January 31, 2008, 05:26:19 am
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And on the issue of Gaelic, what's wrong with promoting and taking pride in your indigenous language?  Why are you so ashamed of it?
I don't know the particular case of Gaelic, but know the ones of some french regional languages : provencal, savoyard...
They're wildly used in city signs, and sometimes even street signs, these days - halfway between seek of regional identity and eye-candy for tourists. But they are indeed very rarely spoken apart from a few elderlies, not to say written (even if there has been indeed literature in Provencal, mainly around Frederic Mistral, Nobel prize in literature 1904)... In France, the only really spoken regional language I know is Basque (I mean, spoken by young people).
Actually, these languages have died from themselves for a very practical reason : the significant discrepancies between spoken languages from village to village, from valley to valley, made oral communication difficult when roads, coaches and trains began to make these places closer to each other.
These people had to unify their language, and due to what has been called Linguistic imperialism, and that I personally consider as belonging to a progress, the french language was proposed (better to say imposed) as a much wider-based standard.

I think this may well be the main question of the original post : we all need a common language.
Sharing that language, means it should at the same time keeped stable, but evolving - I still think the idea of an authority regulating language, in the sense of publishing an official reference about it (eg dictionaries, grammar books...), may be the least worst way to manage that.

No, I wouldn't give up french, because I feel that something as beautiful as what Proust or others have written shall not die - or at least, I don't want to be deprived of that.
But I'm glad to have learnt (even very imperfectly) english - the first reason here being it gives me access to a rather huge knowledge about photography, that we just don't have in french (I'm thinking to people from Ansel Adams to Norman Koren or the Steinmuellers, with many others of course, including Michael Reichmann and this forum).

The progress here would be, imho, that bilingualism becomes the norm.
As it's quite hard to teach to your children another language than your mother language, all the language that are reasonably widely spoken now will still be spoken - including national languages as french, or even some regional ones as the numerous german ones, but we will need a common world-spread language. Will it be english, or spanish, or hindi, or chinese, or icelandic? Wait and see...
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Sunesha on January 31, 2008, 07:59:49 am
After study english language for 6 years like all swedish people. I can say english is great language. Especially in describing things, as there is such large vocabulary it becomes easier. I read alot off english books as not all books are translated to my first language Swedish. I always have pro-found love for the english language.

So at least my language is consisting off fewer words than the english language.

But I must say there is hard twitch to learning to speak english. In sweden we have two schools off english teachers. The ones that only allow brittish way off pronounce words and the teachers that have a more laid-back way that allow american english. As none off our movies gets dubbed, more than children's movies. We are fed with american english, which seems to get into our learning.

Anyway after living in England and also worked with Americans for 4 years. I feel confused almost feels that I learnt two languages. Even that there are only minor differences.

I think spelling in the english language is quite hard as there often one way to spell and one way speak the word.

I think for example for second language guy like me, lenses made sense. Which was the way I thought you spelled the word. As for losing and loosing, I at least pronounce the word similar so to my understanding I can get way you would spell them wrong.

Otherwise I think English is a simple language for us swedes. As we dont dub any movies we grow up with english. Another way to see a diffrences how you learn languages. The younger generation off cable TV in sweden never learnt the danish language and doesnt understand it.

Myself when we didnt have many channels in Sweden watched danish childrens shows as swedish. Can both speak and understand danish. The kids today dont watch danish TV any longer. As we as all have gotten silly many TV channels.

But to say so, I can feel a bit angry on the internet as the first language english speakers sometimes get irritated if you cant spell perfectly. Which I think it is silly. Internet is a global thing and we can meet and discuss as many people from non-first language have learnt a second language.

I also sometimes meet in spanish and german forums to discuss with people. To be a bit harsch, I think native english speakers are more picky about the language to my experience. Myself have been bashed, not here thou. If I dont make clear that I dont have english as native language.
It very hard to learn the spelling off language more than speaking it. All people have the language police to morally enforce others to be better spellers. On internet I find this silly. Internet is a global platform.

This has led to many second-language english speakers have to excuse their lack off knowledge in the english language even if they are understandable.

I dont care if people write "lenses" or "loosing" as I am smart enough to put the words in a context and understand them.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on January 31, 2008, 11:34:19 am
Sunesha

Lens is singular; lenses is plural of lens.

I have no problem at all with foreign people who write in English without being correct all the time; if anything, I think they deserve great credit for trying!

I do not feel so kind-hearted towards British people who do not speak their mother tongue properly because I believe there is no valid reason for that failure other than a personal one. For many years all British children have had access to education and, as with everything in life, there are those who take advantage of the opportunity offered to them and those who waste it, their own time and the time of those employed to teach them. It´s THEIR educational failure, not a failure of the system, as so many bleeding-heart amateur (and professional) politicians would have us believe.

However, though you say you are smart enough to understand the different meanings of "lenses or loosing", problems arise when other peole are not as smart as you may be. That is why there is so much small print in contracts and it is failure to understand the small print that leads to disaster, Whilst contracts may be a rather extreme example, the sense of the example remains valid in many less severe instances of communication.

Bernie

The problem with Gaelic is that it is a minority interest which has the opposite effect to that which language is supposed to have: instead of promoting communication it promotes isolation.

Practice is the noun; practise is the verb.

Niko

You are absolutely right about the local languages or dialects being problematic even for those that speak one or the other of them.

Here in Mallorca the basic language is Mallorquin, which in turn is supposed to be a form of Catalan (which your friends in south-western France will know all about) but, strangely enough, this Mallorquin language itself varies from village to village. So, even within a tiny island, there are differences mainly resulting from the olden days when travel was by mule or foot and villages were almost countries apart though only ten or fifteen kilometres might separate them.

The result of this is that native children of Mallorca learn to speak in two languages: Mallorquin and also official Castilian Spanish. Cleverly, they now have the burden of a third, Catalan, on top of that, a political ploy designed to appease the separatist movement within the community - as far as I can understand.

So, in a place where you drive the length of the island in about an hour and a half, you have three official languages. Bravo!

Forgot to mention: the law here is now no longer Spanish alone; lawyers have the opportunity of charging for helping you with staying within the European set of golden rules as well!  Somebody always manages to make things pay well!

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 31, 2008, 01:15:17 pm
Quote
The problem with Gaelic is that it is a minority interest which has the opposite effect to that which language is supposed to have: instead of promoting communication it promotes isolation.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171258\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
The same could have been said about Welsh. The English made a damn good try at eradicating it, yet now, thanks to S4C [the Welsh channel] and less bigoted behaviour than before, it's more popular now than it has been for a very long time and I think it enriches the culture rather than isolating it. It's not as if one is forced to learn Gaelic or Welsh and not English, whereas the opposite was true once and guess what, that produced a lot of ill feeling.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 31, 2008, 01:50:16 pm
Quote
I do not feel so kind-hearted towards British people who do not speak their mother tongue properly because I believe there is no valid reason for that failure other than a personal one. For many years all British children have had access to education and, as with everything in life, there are those who take advantage of the opportunity offered to them and those who waste it, their own time and the time of those employed to teach them. It´s THEIR educational failure, not a failure of the system, as so many bleeding-heart amateur (and professional) politicians would have us believe.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171258\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Rob, no matter how good the teachers may be, there is no way I will ever be good at singing. Why? I have zero talent in that area. Just like some people are rubbish at maths or English or sport or whatever. Does that make me or them failures? We all have abilities in some areas, yet are are awful at others and you know what, it's a good thing, not a bad thing. I'm sure there are plenty of people whose English skills you may abhor, who are much better skilled than you in areas you lack. How would you feel if they dismissed your lack of skills in areas they found so very easy, as a lack of effort on your part?
My sister and my best friend from school cannot spell, my sister is dyslexic and my friend is simply hopeless at remembering words [and directions for that matter], yet he has a phenomenal memory for things I struggle with and is generally a very smart chap, in spite of his rubbish spelling.

I don't think it's having a bleeding heart, as much as empathy for others and realizing we are unequally gifted, just like some people cannot teach, including those paid to do so. I had quite a few of them at school and it was a good school, but some of the teachers dear me, absolute rubbish! And I doubt that's changed. So would it be the kid's fault if they failed? I had a crap maths teacher, but was fortunate in having parents who could afford a private tutor and suddenly I could whizz though past A-Levels papers that previously baffled me. Would you say those who couldn't afford such a luxury were failures because of their own doing?
Things aren't just black and white, there can be many reasons for a particular outcome and you seem to only see one, you sound more and more like a typical fulminating columnist from the tabloid press.



How good is your Castilian, Catalan, Mallorquin BTW?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 31, 2008, 01:51:52 pm
Quote
But I'm glad to have learnt (even very imperfectly) english.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171196\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I wish  I could speak any language as 'imperfectly' as you.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on January 31, 2008, 01:57:04 pm
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Otherwise I think English is a simple language for us swedes. As we dont dub any movies we grow up with english. Another way to see a diffrences how you learn languages. [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171208\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It also helps that Swedish and English are both Germanic languages, but the main thing as you point out, is you were exposed to it from young age. Native English speakers very rarely get that opportunity. And even when we try and speak the local language, everyone uses you as a way to practice English.  
I've spend a fair bit of time in Sweden over last few years and you never get to learn any Swedish.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on January 31, 2008, 03:35:44 pm
I visited the UK last year to see the places where my Welsh and Scots greatgrandparents were born (and managed to find 2 of their houses). Arriving in London I remembered how much I loathe big cities, so after pleading with Hertz got my car early, and by 8pm was sitting in a pub in Fishguard listening to a trad music session.
Anyway, there was something strangely comforting about hearing Welsh spoken in the street every day, like relaxing in a well used living room. I didn't hear Gaelic spoken in Scotland  until I got to the Isle of Lewis. Now my greatgrandmother didn't speak English when she emigrated to Australia, and I feel oddly sad a language should disappear from everyday speech so quickly.
David
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: bernie west on January 31, 2008, 08:09:37 pm
Quote
The problem with Gaelic is that it is a minority interest

Gaelic isn't an INTEREST, it's a LANGUAGE.

Quote
instead of promoting communication it promotes isolation.

That's probably because people like you refuse to embrace it, or at least accept it for what it is.

And by the way, how do I add a quote showing the details of the person who wrote the quote?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: TMcCulley on February 01, 2008, 01:21:53 am
This thread is amazing.  From a simple complaint about a what was most likely a typing error we have covered educational, socialogical and political agendas.  Now we are devolving into fanboy reactions about local language and dialects.  

Rob C did not denigrate anybody's local communication preference but stated that multiplicity of language and language varients does not foster communication regardless of the beauty or tradition.  He also did not say that you needed to be able to write a best selling novel or be a columnist for the London Time but that you should have participated in your education and achieved at least a minimum level of competence.  He is correct.  Education consist of two parts teaching and learning.  It is the students job to learn even some things that are very challenging, may not be of much interest, or any fun.

I would hypothesize the greater the effort put into learning the lower the requirement for teaching.  As photographers we probably learn the best when we learn from experience.

Tom
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on February 01, 2008, 05:18:10 am
Quote
That's probably because people like you refuse to embrace it, or at least accept it for what it is.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171375\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I still got mixed feelings about the question of replacing a local language by a wider-based one, because I know it would be a heartbreaking experience for those whose (?  , please correct if needed) it is the mother language...

But though, I do agree these local languages mainly promote isolation - it's simply the Babel Tower syndrome, and you can't ask someone to know every regional language in the world.

Practical answer : Bernie, how would you manage to be understood in Iceland (a goooorgeous photographer's destination, if any)?
Very probably, by speaking english (which most young people speak fluently in Iceland), not icelandic (I tried a few words but phewwww, it physically hurts if you didn't learn it at 1!)
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Sunesha on February 01, 2008, 07:33:14 am
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It also helps that Swedish and English are both Germanic languages, but the main thing as you point out, is you were exposed to it from young age. Native English speakers very rarely get that opportunity. And even when we try and speak the local language, everyone uses you as a way to practice English.  
I've spend a fair bit of time in Sweden over last few years and you never get to learn any Swedish.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171285\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
 

So true. one off my good friends is from London. I spoke english with him for last 8 years he lived here in Sweden. I was surprised 6 months ago when he met my grandmom and spoke fluid swedish.

So I asked him why didnt speak swedish. He just said there was no use speak swedish. Girls found him more interestning when spoke english

I am big kung fu movie fan, I hate when they dubb movies to english from chinese.

I think we would learn alot faster if we are exposed to diffrent languages. In the western world I am so used to use english. Even that I speak both spanish and german I get by my english. I have to force myself to train german and spanish.

We have the same debate in sweden by the elder population that they are afraid that our swedish language will die.

For example I admire Franch and Iceland they keep their language un-populleted.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: papa v2.0 on February 01, 2008, 07:35:40 am
there's only one gaelic word i would use for RAB C

'sasunnach'
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on February 01, 2008, 08:09:58 am
As with the Canon v. Nikon nonsense, there is no way that two tribes (or more) will ever agree to anything.

I suspect that the truth underlying what I have written is well-enough understood by some of those more inclined to argue in order to feel happy at the last word (theirs) but for myself, it really matters little.

Futt Futt wonders how good my Spanish  (of the three local varieties)  is: short answer is that I get along in Castilian, have no interest in the other two. Trouble is, from your perspective, even if my own use of a foreign language was really poor, it would still be a foreign language to me, and I specifically excluded foreigners from any blame.

Ciao, buenos dias, bon dia....

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on February 01, 2008, 08:59:12 am
Quote
And by the way, how do I add a quote showing the details of the person who wrote the quote?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171375\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Just click on the reply button of the post you want to quote and edit out any non relevent parts if need be.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on February 01, 2008, 09:46:06 am
Quote
As with the Canon v. Nikon nonsense, there is no way that two tribes (or more) will ever agree to anything.
Lots of Canon users are glad that Nikon has made better cameras, so not quite true. I think the new D3 is great and with the new W/A and tilt lenses Nikon is now making up some seriously lost ground. Looking forward to seeing the new Sony chip in a Nikon. And I own Canon Cameras. At present.

Quote
I suspect that the truth underlying what I have written is well-enough understood by some of those more inclined to argue in order to feel happy at the last word (theirs) but for myself, it really matters little.
It's only truth as far as you are concerned, some of it is ignorant nonsense as far as I'm concerned.  


Quote
Futt Futt wonders how good my Spanish  (of the three local varieties)  is: short answer is that I get along in Castilian, have no intererst in the other two. Trouble is, from your perspective, even if myn own use of a foreign language was really poor, it would still be a foreign language to me, and I specifically excluded foreigner from any blame.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171478\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
You assumed wrong, as I wasn't bothered about your spelling, I was just curious if you made the effort to learn the local language, as so many Brits don't bother when going to live Spain.
I want to live abroad, mainly so I can learn another language fluently. Castilian would be handy as it's so widely spoken around world and the Spanish are also very good at encouraging learning of the language via intercambios. But Barcelona would be where I'd want to live in Spain, a cosmospolitan city with hills and is on the coast, ideal by my books. Although I'd want/need to learn Catalan too.  But then, there's Nice and the Côte d' Azur and with Italy a  cycle ride away, very tempting...
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: ChrisJR on February 01, 2008, 10:07:03 am
Quote
Sunesha

Lens is singular; lenses is plural of lens.

I have no problem at all with foreign people who write in English without being correct all the time; if anything, I think they deserve great credit for trying!

I do not feel so kind-hearted towards British people who do not speak their mother tongue properly because I believe there is no valid reason for that failure other than a personal one. For many years all British children have had access to education and, as with everything in life, there are those who take advantage of the opportunity offered to them and those who waste it, their own time and the time of those employed to teach them. It´s THEIR educational failure, not a failure of the system, as so many bleeding-heart amateur (and professional) politicians would have us believe.

However, though you say you are smart enough to understand the different meanings of "lenses or loosing", problems arise when other peole are not as smart as you may be. That is why there is so much small print in contracts and it is failure to understand the small print that leads to disaster, Whilst contracts may be a rather extreme example, the sense of the example remains valid in many less severe instances of communication.

Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171258\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Increasingly less people in the UK speak the proper mother tongue as society here is getting worse with each generation. While some people aren't to blame because they don't have an opportunity for a better education, my wife is Taiwanese and even though her English competance is around 80% she speaks better English than a lot of people here, especially around the Birmingham area which we currently live in (and want to escape asap). She's horrified at the laziness of some of the local dialects.

I'm sick to death of all the local chavs with their "innits" (isn't it apparently) and "you know what I mean" (do I?!). I'm currently finishing off a HE course here but hoping to move to Edinburgh in a few months to do a degree in Photography then move to the far East. Can't wait!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: sojournerphoto on February 01, 2008, 11:28:20 am
Quote
a cosmospolitan city with hills and is on the coast, ideal by my books. Although I'd want/need to learn Catalan too.  But then, there's Nice and the Côte d' Azur and with Italy a  cycle ride away, very tempting...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171504\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Apart from the coast that sounds just like Sheffield, or even Leeds:)

Mike
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: john beardsworth on February 01, 2008, 12:00:17 pm
Quote
Increasingly less people in the UK speak the proper mother tongue as society here is getting worse with each generation....
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171509\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
"Less" people? So chav
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on February 01, 2008, 12:00:49 pm
Quote
Apart from the coast that sounds just like Sheffield, or even Leeds:)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171526\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Well if you replaced Rotherham with the Gower coastline, it's be perfect, location wise.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on February 01, 2008, 12:03:37 pm
Quote
Increasingly less people in the UK speak the proper mother tongue as society here is getting worse with each generation. While some people aren't to blame because they don't have an opportunity for a better education, my wife is Taiwanese and even though her English competance is around 80% she speaks better English than a lot of people here, especially around the Birmingham area which we currently live in (and want to escape asap). She's horrified at the laziness of some of the local dialects.

I'm sick to death of all the local chavs with their "innits" (isn't it apparently) and "you know what I mean" (do I?!). I'm currently finishing off a HE course here but hoping to move to Edinburgh in a few months to do a degree in Photography then move to the far East. Can't wait!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171509\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
There's always going to be a percentage of people [currently known as chavs]that do not speak BBC English and it hasn't changed or gone downhill of late. I wish I lived in the past that other people so fondly remember, It sounds so nice, everything was so much better then.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on February 01, 2008, 12:34:52 pm
radders

What can I say? A little anecdote not a million miles removed from your own experience: our current local dentist comes from Santo Domingo via Miami; he has a friend living in Birmingham, England, and he was invited to visit there over the Christmas period. His first words to us when we went to see him about some dental problem after his return was this: why are there no English people in Birmingham? As with so much that is written, nothing can make up for facial expressions and body language of the excxhange.

I don´t think you´ll have much fun in Edinburg either - it has/had? the reputation of being Scotland´s drugs capital with all the crime that you´d expect. However, it does have pleasant enough buildings and some reasonable galleries and museums; not that I´m suggesting that Scotland is fast becoming a museum itself, a caricature of its distant past, perish the thought that I would! I do not believe that you will find successive generations have fared any  better in Scotland than in England for much the same reasons - life has become a vicious circle of financial need inspired by greed which in turn creates further inflation and further need and so on into infinity.

That sound a little strange to young ears, I am sure, but for the sake of explaining the point, let´s take the 50s as a datum line, if only because that´s the period from where my own memory starts to be reliable. The norm, in middle-class households at least, was for the father to go and earn the money for the survival of the family and the wife would manage the home and take parental care of any children. The system worked well enough, but then cultural changes crept into the equation and women began to seek work outwith the domestic domain. The huge debate ever since, for those interested in such things, has been this: did the women choose to take on external employment because they wanted to escape from maternal duties or did they do so because of financial need? In other words, I guess that I´m probably posing a classical chicken or egg question: did change happen by virtue of need or of desire? Not the same things at all.

But, the result has been catastrophic. Parental responsibility is largely absent with the resulting feral kids (not all from poor homes) owning the streets;  ready-prepared meals would seem to be normal as few people have either time, inclination or even the skill to use the glamorous kitchens that they buy; family life as in the tradition of marriage is fast vanishing - hell, the list is endless, but you get the picture. Before women´s lib gets dragged into this, let me say that neither my wife nor any of her friends that I met were ever shrinking violets - none had need of the sorority to promote their interests; they managed very well on their own, thank you.

The result of all the changing factors in modern life has been to create greater appetites and must-have attitudes which can only be financed (in general) via two salaries, to my mind the root of much that´s wrong with contemporary life.

The madness of uncontrolled immigration is probabably the single most talked about topic today in the British media - I need not go there here. (Interesting, that last half-sentence. I wonder what I meant?)

Futt Futt

I assumed wrong? Surely, you mean wrongly? Just teasing. Also, I don´t think it´s fair to include people with dyslexia and other problems beyond their control in this discussion. I have the digital equivalent of dyslexia with my fingers: I seem to hit the wrong keys with almost unlimited abandon these days - you are fortunate not to have to see my posts (except for the last one, written in a hurry and posted as lunch went onto the table, forcing me into an edit after lunch in order to save my blushes).

As for learning the language here in Spain - it depends where you live. In a tourist area as is mine, the problem lies in the opposite direction: try getting a local to speak to you in his language! They all want to improve their English and you become the ideal teacher. Well, sometimes they pick the wrong teachers, but how are they to know?

You mention a desire to live abroad. An admirable though I have to say, but one which you should consider very carefully. I have no idea of your age, though I imagine you to be fairly young - say under thirty-five? Neither have I any idea of your financial situation but let me say this: at one stage in my life I acquired an agent in Barcelona. He came over to the island to meet me and I mentioned that I´d been thinking of moving to Barcelona because of the model agencies etc. and he was horrified. He looked around my property here and informed me that to find something similar there would be beyond my reality as a photographer. Hardly surprising, really, just the same as was the situation when I lived in Scotland: my home, complete with purpose-built studio and parking for five cars (which we certainly did not have) would probably have bought a garage in London, a very convincing argument for staying where we were.

For what it´s worth, I think the ideal way to travel is on commission. You don´t have to slum it, you don´t have to worry about money - if you quote correctly - and can see life abroad at comfortable levels. That was very much an incentive for me all my career; however, it seems that since the advent of digital and suicide stock agencies, foreign asignments are becoming fairly rare.

I wish you luck with your ambitions - the only way to find out if they will work is to do it!

Ciao - Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: bernie west on February 01, 2008, 07:08:54 pm
Oh Rob, I wish you could be free of all this fear you suffer from.  The world is such a better place when one's not a cynical old codger.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: David Sutton on February 01, 2008, 08:17:23 pm
Quote
Oh Rob, I wish you could be free of all this fear you suffer from.  The world is such a better place when one's not a cynical old codger.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171655\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Now pay attention young man. If anyone is going to offer fatherly advice it is us elderly. Not being exactly clear what you meant I did look up "codger" and found
1) A queer fellow. No, I'm sure that is not what you mean. So went to
2) a buffer.  
Very well, we are getting somewhere. Looking up "buffer" I found "An apparatus for deadening or sustaining concussion". Yes! I totally agree. There you have it. We spend our lives as an apparatus for absorbing life's "slings and arrows". So if we become a little cynical you can find it in your heart to look kindly upon us. Oh, and stand up straight, there's a good chap.
David
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on February 02, 2008, 06:27:30 am
Quote
The huge debate ever since, for those interested in such things, has been this: did the women choose to take on external employment because they wanted to escape from maternal duties or did they do so because of financial need? In other words, I guess that I´m probably posing a classical chicken or egg question: did change happen by virtue of need or of desire? Not the same things at all.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171548\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
A quick reply before hunting for doors in the snow!
Ever heard of the Pill Rob? Just like your rant above with regard to teaching, you fail to see all the options/factors that may be involved with producing an end result. The Pill is just one thing you missed. Education is another.
You must have been very good at monochrome photography, as you seem to see in B+W! And high contrast at that
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: NikoJorj on February 02, 2008, 07:36:57 am
Quote
Although I'd want/need to learn Catalan too.  But then, there's Nice and the Côte d' Azur and with Italy a  cycle ride away, very tempting...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171504\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
From the few days I was in Barcelona and Catalunya, I felt it was more practical to have a few words of catalan, at least to get in touch with people... I felt it was less so in Barcelona itself, than in the country/mountains side (where I was told speaking castilian was less recommended than simply speak french).

Btw, I'd think Nice would be a much less funny place to live - nice weather, cute little ancient villages, but nothing like the feast [edit :   oops, I meant party] culture of Barcelona (I don't count casinos into it). Your mileage may vary, it depends what you are looking for.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: bernie west on February 02, 2008, 07:45:05 am
Quote
...did the women choose to take on external employment because they wanted to escape from maternal duties or did they do so because of financial need? In other words, I guess that I´m probably posing a classical chicken or egg question: did change happen by virtue of need or of desire? Not the same things at all.

But, the result has been catastrophic. [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171548\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

How 'bout those pesky women!  Should never have let them out of the kitchen in the first place, eh Rob?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on February 02, 2008, 03:33:28 pm
Bernie

As you must have realised, some discussions are doomed to emulate the Flying Dutchman, so I think it time I abandoned this futile thread.

Suffice to say, Futt Futt, I probably know more about the bloody pill, those swinging ´60s and all that crap than you will ever read about. But my time is too short to waste in pointless discourse - think what you will, believe whatever takes your fancy, take solace where you might - it´s all the same to me.

Ciao - Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on February 02, 2008, 06:55:07 pm
Anytime ayone comes up with something that contradicts your world view you run away. Though not without some patronising remark. Always avoiding anything that contadicts your world view is not exactly the sign of a great debator. A bit disapointed in you Rob.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jjj on February 03, 2008, 03:08:22 pm
Quote
The madness of uncontrolled immigration is probabably the single most talked about topic today in the British media - I need not go there here. (Interesting, that last half-sentence. I wonder what I meant?)
Actually it's the weather, adulterous affairs or amazingly Princess Dianna, still! In the rubbish papers anyway. Real papers tend to report the news!

Quote
As for learning the language here in Spain - it depends where you live.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171548\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
So how do the Spaniards feel about the uncontrolled amount of Brits coming to live in their country then? You're part of the 'madness' there!  
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on February 15, 2008, 06:34:18 pm
See Alain Briot's article on the G9 (http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_01/section_gear_cameras/20080206_Canon_G9/index_alain_briot.html), item 7. Ah well.  

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: john beardsworth on February 16, 2008, 06:15:13 am
And what was originally titled Don't Loose Your Photos Before You Download (http://blogs.oreilly.com/lightroom/2008/02/dont-loose-your-photos-before.html). Sloppy language, sloppy thinking?

John
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on February 16, 2008, 11:03:40 am
Quote
See Alain Briot's article on the G9 (http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_01/section_gear_cameras/20080206_Canon_G9/index_alain_briot.html), item 7. Ah well.   

Jeremy
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=175139\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I'm glad we're getting back on topic.

But I find Alain's error slightly forgivable, since English is not his first language. Most of the "loosers" who "loose" sight of the difference between "lose" and "loose" are American-born "lose" canons, IMHO.  
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on February 16, 2008, 11:56:44 am
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Actually it's the weather, adulterous affairs or amazingly Princess Dianna, still! In the rubbish papers anyway. Real papers tend to report the news!
So how do the Spaniards feel about the uncontrolled amount of Brits coming to live in their country then? You're part of the 'madness' there!   
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Okay, Futt Futt, you ask how the Spanish feel about my being here.

I have been here 27 years; I bought my own home, cash, providing nice work for local Mallorcan builders; I have been a total importer of currency ever since, having taken NO work from any Mallorcan. In short, they think of me as a nett economic good thing, much as we do of the billionaire Indians we have in England. I doubt that either the Indian billionaire or even I fall into the ´madness´ category of problem foreign import. You neglected to ask what the Mallorcan people think of the Spanish - but that´s another topic

As for the UK chancers who come to work here, to rip off the resident British mugs (and tourists) who think they can trust them but not a Spaniard, mostly the various parties deserve each other. Happy? Can I go back to sleep now?

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on February 16, 2008, 12:00:58 pm
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I'm glad we're getting back on topic.

But I find Alain's error slightly forgivable, since English is not his first language. Most of the "loosers" who "loose" sight of the difference between "lose" and "loose" are American-born "lose" canons, IMHO.   
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I agree. But there must presumably be a subeditor at outbackphoto. So it's an Aussie who's partly to blame!

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: john beardsworth on February 16, 2008, 12:03:34 pm
Actually, I thought that site belonged to a German resident in the US.

It's fair enough to highlight non native speakers - but only if you do so in their native language.

John
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Satch on February 28, 2008, 01:29:12 pm
Had to post this one (from a dpreview discussion forum thread):

goodpics wrote:
> I see plenty of mistakes in your threads too. People who live in
> glass houses should not throw stones.
>
> Did I spell everything right. If not, well, I won't loose any sleep
> over it.
>
> Now, if you want to pay me to write something, I'll show you how well
> I can spell.
>
>
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Darren on February 28, 2008, 04:31:32 pm
I'm surprised that the word that has to be misspelled the most on any given photo forum hasn't been brought up yet--"raw." Why most people go out of their way to capitalize/misspell it is beyond me. I believe Adobe is the only big-name outfit who spells it correctly.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on February 29, 2008, 03:45:46 am
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I'm surprised that the word that has to be misspelled the most on any given photo forum hasn't been brought up yet--"raw." Why most people go out of their way to capitalize/misspell it is beyond me. I believe Adobe is the only big-name outfit who spells it correctly.
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I agree with the capitalisation point (I've never understood why people do it, since it isn't an acronym, but I suppose I just follow the herd), but how can you misspell "raw"? Lion noises?

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on February 29, 2008, 11:02:31 am
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I'm surprised that the word that has to be misspelled the most on any given photo forum hasn't been brought up yet--"raw." Why most people go out of their way to capitalize/misspell it is beyond me. I believe Adobe is the only big-name outfit who spells it correctly.

I've never explicitly heard the reason, but my assumption has always been that some capitalize it because it is a file format (or, more specifically, a collection of file formats), and file formats are typically capitalized (since most are acronyms).  You write about JPG files, TIF files, NEF files, etc., so it makes some amount of sense to also write about RAW files.  That emphasizes that it is a file format, not just something being compared with uncooked meat.

That isn't to say that I think it's correct.  I've seen it both ways, and used it both ways, and have no idea what the more "correct" way is (if there is indeed any one "correct" way).

Lisa
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Darren on February 29, 2008, 12:02:20 pm
No, raw is absolutely not a file format. It merely describes the file format, which is simply the common word describing the unchanged state of the file or capture, or yes, even uncooked meat in your example. CR2 or NEF (Canon and Nikon, respectively), for example, are the file formats for the raw capture, which are acronyms. Even if raw was a file format, and because it is not an acronym, it would have to be spelled, "Raw." So, ultimately, is undeniably incorrect to capitalize all letters.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on February 29, 2008, 01:59:57 pm
RAW/.raw File extension (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format) - FWIW also an audio file format
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on February 29, 2008, 03:40:03 pm
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No, raw is absolutely not a file format. It merely describes the file format, which is simply the common word describing the unchanged state of the file or capture, or yes, even uncooked meat in your example. CR2 or NEF (Canon and Nikon, respectively), for example, are the file formats for the raw capture, which are acronyms.
Since we're in this thread, I think it's reasonable to point out that CR2 certainly isn't an acronym: how on earth would you pronounce it? It's an abbreviation (Canon Raw v2?).

NEF is an acronym, standing for Nikon Electronic File (I think).

Jeremy
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Darren on February 29, 2008, 05:01:13 pm
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CR2 certainly isn't an acronym. It's an abbreviation
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Thank you for your perfect illustration of a contradiction!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Panorama on March 03, 2008, 02:39:54 pm
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I would say that text messaging (using predictive text input) is actually improving spelling rather than the opposite. It's a shame that the media and it's reporting can't quite share the same levels of accuracy.
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I'm glad to know that network news is "efforting" to bring us the information we need. Their not loosing there minds at all over they're.

Seriously - Boston, ABC, channel 5 is the one that's "efforting". I about fell out of my chair......
       
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Ray on March 04, 2008, 06:47:18 am
I prefer RAW over raw because RAW files are better than JPEG files  .

There's also a connotation of a proper name. RAW may not denote a specific and precise file format, but it's certainly a generic term for a proprietary file format native to the camera. raw just doesn't look important enough   .
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jashley on March 05, 2008, 10:05:12 am
I'd say spelling "yeah" as "yea" (yay) is probably second only to "loosing" as the most  common misspelling on forums.

Also, the most commonly misused word on forums is "ironic".  People constantly use "ironic" when they should use "coincidental".  Just saw an example of that on this forum.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Rob C on March 06, 2008, 04:13:05 am
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I'd say spelling "yeah" as "yea" (yay) is probably second only to "loosing" as the most  common misspelling on forums.

Also, the most commonly misused word on forums is "ironic".  People constantly use "ironic" when they should use "coincidental".  Just saw an example of that on this forum.
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Not to mention the confusion with palette and palate.... best not mention it.

Rob C
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Provokot on March 10, 2008, 04:33:27 pm
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I'd say spelling "yeah" as "yea" (yay) is probably second only to "loosing" as the most  common misspelling on forums.

Also, the most commonly misused word on forums is "ironic".  People constantly use "ironic" when they should use "coincidental".  Just saw an example of that on this forum.
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Its ironic how many people don't understand the meaning of the word "ironic".  I blame Alanis Morisette.
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: jashley on March 11, 2008, 11:21:05 am
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Its ironic how many people don't understand the meaning of the word "ironic".  I blame Alanis Morisette.
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That song didn't help, did it?

Here's something which actually happened to me, and has become one of my favorite examples of irony.  Went into a public restroom to take a leak.  There were two stalls (one handicapped), and three urinals.  Non-handicapped stall was occupied, but standing in front of the left-hand urinal was a handicapped guy who had gotten up out of his wheelchair to pee, and had left his wheelchair blocking the other two urinals, so I ended up using the handicapped stall!
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Provokot on March 11, 2008, 12:37:58 pm
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That song didn't help, did it?

Here's something which actually happened to me, and has become one of my favorite examples of irony.  Went into a public restroom to take a leak.  There were two stalls (one handicapped), and three urinals.  Non-handicapped stall was occupied, but standing in front of the left-hand urinal was a handicapped guy who had gotten up out of his wheelchair to pee, and had left his wheelchair blocking the other two urinals, so I ended up using the handicapped stall!
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That is indeed bone-crushingly ironic. Was the man's name Andy? Was he in possession of a bald pate fringed with longish hair?  And did he utter the words, "I want that one!" as he entered said public convenience?
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Satch on March 17, 2008, 09:09:18 pm
Ok, here's another one that's been driving me nuts lately.

Pirates say "ARRR!", NOT "ARRGH!".  "ARRGH" is from the Peanuts comic strip.

I challenge you to find any instance in the classic pirate movies from the 30's and 40's where a pirate says "ARRGH!".
Title: Stop Misspelling "Losing" as "Loosing"!!!
Post by: Tim.Lewis on March 17, 2008, 09:47:50 pm
It's about time to mention "its"!