er, was that a joke? Would you rather be a chav or dodgy looking greasy haired beggar?

'Caucasian, blue/grey tracksuit and long greasy hair' - is that not sufficient, descriptive only?

It's not a question of what one is (or would want to be) but of how one is talked about by other people. 'Dodgy-looking greasy-haired beggar' is a description, i.e. it would help you to recognize the person concerned. 'Chav' is merely a term used for insulting or abusing someone on the basis of their perceived class.

I didn't mean to insult anyone, and I am actually working class so please don't assume That I am making any assumptions on the grounds of class
As I find that upsetting.
Rightly or wrongly to me "CHAV" refers more to a way of dressing than anything else,
Tracksuit bottoms pony-tail and baggy t.shirt to me is a 'Chav" look even though it is worn by plenty of 'posh' people.

Perhaps I'm behind the times (as so often nowadays) and therefore over-reacted. So 'chav' is just a style, like 'hippy', or 'punk' or 'Goth'? And someone who dressed in chav style would be happy to be called a chav?

This post was last modified: 08-08-2013 12:37 PM by robin orton.

'Chav' is most certainly insulting, and refers to more than just someone's style of dress. It refers not to working class people as a whole, but as a group who are seen as something of an underclass, with no 'taste', living off benefits. It's not a word to be used lightly as it has come to have quite unpleasant connotations.

The title of this thread always grates with me. 'Use of English' or 'English Usage' would be a better subject title. Who's with me?[/b][/u]

I agree that 'usage of English' sounds wrong. I think that in its linguistic sense 'usage' is normally qualified by an adjective, as in 'Fowler's English Usage.' But if it means employment of or consumption of something, it usually takes 'of' with a noun, e.g. 'The usage of postage stamps has declined.'

In this context, 'use of English' doesn't sound right to me either. It would suggest that the thread is about e.g. 'the use of English' on the internet or by the institutions of the EU.

But I think it was Admin who actually started this thread (to avoid pedants like me seeking to hi-jack serious discussions by making nit-picking linguistic points all the time) and gave it its title...

I'm literally disgusted that

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...definition

What is the world literally coming to?
Dr Johnson will be literally rolling in his grave.
These people must be literally on another planet.
This is literally a kick in the teeth to those of us who attach any value to the language.
This is literally the last straw.
ROFLLMAO

Nothing new there. Many words were used differently in the past. Take Shakespeare.

Indeed. But the question always is, should we welcome (or at any rate shrug our shoulders at) change or resist it?

'Humanitarian' seems to be extending its meaning. I've always thought that its main modern meaning was 'philanthropic' or 'designed to prevent human suffering' - 'Oxfam is involved in humanitarian activities', 'we should intervene on humanitarian grounds.' But recently I've noticed expressions like 'a humanitarian emergency' or even 'humanitarian suffering' (the BBC today, reporting on the Government's legal advice on intervening in Syria).

This sounds very odd to me. One is tempted to ask why not use 'human' instead - but I suppose 'a human emergency' or 'human suffering' would be seen as a bit unspecific. I can't think of another alternative without using more words - 'widespread human suffering', 'an emergency involving widespread human suffering'. Can anyone suggest anything better?

Of course the English language changes and evolves. But it grates with me when improper or incorrect usage becomes proper or correct simply because people who don't understand the issue make the same mistake a million time's.

(See what I did with that apostrophe there? You see, I know my onion's about spelling

I agree. But most changes in the language are not just mistakes that happen to get widely taken up. They usually have some sort of rational explanation, e.g. social changes (youthspeak, the cultural dominance of the USA), a desire for economy of expression (sometimes castigated as 'laziness') or a desire to express new concepts in a succinct but unambiguous way (which may be what's going on with 'humanitarian.')

The misuse of the apostrophe 's' can be explained by the fact that the current rules are silly and people don't understand them. Ideally, we would drop the apostrophe 's' altogether in forming what is in effect a genitive case. It is quite unnecessary. So not just 'its windscreen' but 'the cars windscreen.' Once the apostrophe 's' had disappeared, greengrocers would no longer be tempted to write 'onion's'.

Then there is no succinct way to denote ownership. Context is not always sufficient. The language should not be changed to accommodate those too lazy to learn it.

Im not sure about that. I seem to recall that George Bernard Shaw ( a great advocate of spelling reform) used to insist that his works were printed without apostrophes - not just in the possessive case, but also where theyre used to indicate a letter omitted. Once you got used to it, I dont remember it causing any ambiguity.

But I accept that this is not a change which is actually in practice going to happen. It could only do so if it were imposed by some central linguistic authority, which doesnt exist in this country.

.

Well, it wont be. But, as someone who has struggled with learning foreign languages with all their (apparently) pointless complexities , Id be all in favour of any minor changes which made it a bit easier. I dont think this means Im lazy!

Is there a general trend in spoken British English for the accent to move to later in the word? 'CaFE' for CAfe' is long-established; 'deBRIS' for 'DEBris' seems to be gaining ground. (More US influence?) Everyone now seems to say 'tempoRARily' instead of 'TEMPorarily'. And I've very recently noticed two examples of 'pasTORal' for 'PASToral.'

On the other hand, 'ROmance' seems to have taken over from 'roMANCE', so perhaps the movement isn't all in one direction.

This post was last modified: 04-09-2013 08:21 AM by robin orton.

Hi Robin,

I’ve so enjoyed reading this thread over the years since late 2010. And it all started because of that cock running around the cemetery!

Do you use the Forvo pronunciation website?

Cafe is quite interesting on Forvo. TopQuark (Male from United Kingdom) pronounces it most pleasingly to my ears without any stress domination of either syllable. But I believe that he is the only one to get cafe correct as opposed to café. I forgive Mollydub (Female from Ireland) as she is one of my favourite users. Check out the beauty of her effin’. There is a gorgeous softness and a lurking brutality in her pronunciation.

Oh, TopQuark actually addresses this subject of stress in English words from the third paragraph in his User’s Info.

I’ve been very much enjoying Fry’s English Delight each Monday morning on the radio. This week it was all about our spelling system getting all chaotic. Have you also been tuning in?

Cheers,
Rob

Thanks, Rob, for drawing our attention to that very interesting Forvo site. I'd quite like to be able to contribute to it, but I don't think I've got the necessary hardware on my desktop PC.

I looked up 'temporarily' and note that the British contributor put the accent on the first syllable and the two North American ones on the third. So this looks like another US import! As does another of my bêtes noires, which I've mentioned before, 'comrad' for 'comrade'. But the 'conTROVersy' versus 'CONTroversy' controversy seems to rage on both sides of the Atlantic.

What Topquark says about the natural stress in English polysyllabic words falling on the third syllable from the end corresponds with what my father told me as a child (but he, being, like me, given to grandiloquence, called it the 'antepenultimate' syllable) But there are so many exceptions.

I should listen to Fry's English Delight, but I'm afraid that for some reason I find Stephen Fry very irritating.

'antepenultimate'? Great word - but I recall from my uni tax law lectures (I still have the scars) that the word m'learned friends use is 'pre-penultimate'.

Having said that I'd never even heard the word 'penultimate' until those tax lectures...