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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: AllanUK on Sunday 11 December 22 14:24 GMT (UK)
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An ancestors death was reported in a newspaper published 2 February 1821 (a Friday) and reads:
'At Pinchbeck, on Wednesday se'nnight, Mr Morphat, farmer, aged 83'
Any idea what 'se'nnight' means?
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It's an abbreviation for 'seven nights' i.e. a week.
So in this context it would be a long way round of saying a week last Wednesday.
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Se'nnight = Seven nights = a week
Its like fortnight ( fourteen nights).
So Wednesday se'nnight = Wednesday last week
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I like the word se'nnight. Let's mount a campaign to bring it back into fashion (I can see that week is easier to say though).
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We've never stopped using it! We often get asked about it.
Mrs Zaph
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Thank you everyone -- it's plain reading now that you explain it ;D
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I wonder why we hung on to fortnight, but stopped using sennight?
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I wonder why we hung on to fortnight, but stopped using sennight?
Language is so interesting, why some words and expressions last and others don’t. Fortnight is not used over here, but other things have hung on in North America that long ago died out in the UK, such as “gotten”. I sometimes heard “boughten” when I was young, but that seems to have disappeared.
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I think "gotten" may be creeping back over here, which I have no problem with. (I have plenty of other language bugbears, but that is not one of them. And my bugbears are mainly not American!)
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I think "gotten" may be creeping back over here, which I have no problem with. (I have plenty of other language bugbears, but that is not one of them. And my bugbears are mainly not American!)
From watching British shows and movies (okay, films!), I’ve noticed a number of verb forms being used with the old “en” ending, but can’t think of one - perhaps “forbidden” is an example.
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Forbidden is standard in British English.
I had to go and find a website! The general opinion seems to be that gotten disappeared here 300 years ago. But the use of gotten in America seems more complex than you might think, as grammar often is. Quote:-
" Roughly: when talking about a static situation (possessing or needing) the past participle is got; when talking about a dynamic situation (acquiring or becoming) the past participle is gotten. So:
Yesterday I got a new guitar
I’ve got a great guitar
I’ve gotten a new guitar
You’ve got to see my new guitar
I got into playing the guitar last year
I’d gotten into playing the guitar the previous year"
The writer also thinks that more people in Britain are coming to use it.
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Yes, that is how we use got and gotten: "I have gotten better at organizing my genealogy", vs. "I"ve got a lot of new descendants entered into my programme".
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I think "gotten" may be creeping back over here, which I have no problem with. (I have plenty of other language bugbears, but that is not one of them. And my bugbears are mainly not American!)
I cannot agree with you 😝 it just somehow grates with me 🙁
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I think "gotten" may be creeping back over here, which I have no problem with. (I have plenty of other language bugbears, but that is not one of them. And my bugbears are mainly not American!)
I cannot agree with you 😝 it just somehow grates with me 🙁
Funny, because the British “got” just sounds ungrammatical to me - it’s what you’re used to, I guess.
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I think "gotten" may be creeping back over here, which I have no problem with. (I have plenty of other language bugbears, but that is not one of them. And my bugbears are mainly not American!)
I cannot agree with you 😝 it just somehow grates with me 🙁
What about the expression 'ill-gotten gains'?
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If we have "begotten" and "forgotten", it seems a bit odd to balk at "gotten"
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Being of a mature age, a couple of my bugbears are:
1. Using 'them' when it should be 'those'
2. Using 'p' when it should be 'pence'
But hey, as I said at the start, I am of a mature age and used to be in trouble from my English Language teacher if I used the wrong pronoun / noun / verb.
Oh how things have changed. :(
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Being of a mature age, a couple of my bugbears are:
1. Using 'them' when it should be 'those'
2. Using 'p' when it should be 'pence'
But hey, as I said at the start, I am of a mature age and used to be in trouble from my English Language teacher if I used the wrong pronoun / noun / verb.
Oh how things have changed. :(
How mature? I recall doing something called "parsing" in English.
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Obviously not as mature as me if he was using this in school! They were d's in my days at school. ;D
"Using 'p' when it should be 'pence'."
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Obviously not as mature as me if he was using this in school! They were d's in my days at school. ;D
"Using 'p' when it should be 'pence'."
Also 'ds' when I was at school (born just before ERII came to the throne) -- the use of 'p' when it should be 'pence' is used a lot, especially on TV - both dramas and factual programmes. I first noticed 'them' being used instead of 'those' way back in the 1980s when I was interviewing applicants for a junior office position. Unfortunately this was only the start >:(
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Using 'p' when it should be 'pence'
Where does the "should" come in, and who would make such a rule?
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Using 'p' when it should be 'pence'
Where does the "should" come in, and who would make such a rule?
When talking about a price of something that ends in a penny or pennies, I was always taught that a single penny would be 'a penny' and multiples would be 'pennies' -- these days it appears that the use of 'pennies' when talking plural has disappeared.
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I first noticed 'them' being used instead of 'those' way back in the 1980s when I was interviewing applicants for a junior office position. Unfortunately this was only the start >:(
But 'them' for 'those' isn't exactly a new or modern usage. It's been around since long before you were born as part of the everyday speech of most of northern England; I believe in some parts of the country they prefer 'they'.
What may be new-fangled here is someone using a regional term or a colloquialism in a fairly formal situation. I tend to agree that different settings may call for different ways of speaking, but it might not be an applicant's fault if they have never learned many of these. Shouldn't it rather be celebrated that (a) an ancient usage of these islands has been preserved, and (b) someone feels able to apply for office work in spite of not knowing how to talk proper? Rejecting someone because they don't speak King's (or Queen's) English could lead to all kinds of issues...
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When talking about a price of something that ends in a penny or pennies, I was always taught that a single penny would be 'a penny' and multiples would be 'pennies' -- these days it appears that the use of 'pennies' when talking plural has disappeared.
The plural of 'penny' meaning a specific coin is 'pennies'.
The plural of 'penny' meaning a unit of currency is 'pence'.
So I could buy something costing 50 pence by handing over fifty pennies. (but the shopkeeper might get annoyed).
And I am old enough to remember sixpences (not sixpennieses)
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Obviously not as mature as me if he was using this in school! They were d's in my days at school. ;D
"Using 'p' when it should be 'pence'."
It is now 50 years since the UK went decimal, so plenty of people have no memory of the old coinage. Many, probably most, only use 'p', but when they choose to use the full word, it may be '5 pence' but also 'one pence' - which of course is silly :D
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If the language didn't slowly develop we d still be using thee/thou.
I dont like "should of " but expect it will become the norm .
In 1980s we were fed up of masculine pronoun being used for all objects and profession's we used s/he for anyone who looked away
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If the language didn't slowly develop we d still be using thee/thou.
I dont like "should of " but expect it will become the norm .
In 1980s we were fed up of masculine pronoun being used for all objects and profession's we used s/he for anyone who looked away
Apologies for this BUT "should of" is rubbish - the correct wording is "should HAVE" ;) :-X :-[
ADDED: Apologies brigidmac - you are definitely NOT the only person in the world to make this "assumption". :'( Please forgive me for seeming to pick on you.
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Apologies for this BUT "should of" is rubbish - the correct wording is "should HAVE" ;) :-X :-[
Agree
The use of 'of' for 'have' is one of my pet hates
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Maybe in order to eliminate "should of" we should become more tolerant of shoulda, woulda, coulda ;)
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Maybe in order to eliminate "should of" we should become more tolerant of shoulda, woulda, coulda ;)
:-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
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I expect most of us say "should've" and "would've", and it is only a very short step to "should of". In fact it is virtually the same.
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Bumble bee I certainly didn't make an assumption that
" should of" was correct
I actually said I didn't like it !
( feel a little miffed , not picked on )
I hear it more and more on BBC radio as well as in common parlance
Like gadget I'd prefer "shoulda woulda coulda "
I have a linguistics background ,so learnt about how some anomalies developed
Many people don't realise the origins of some common words .
I always used to set my foreign students conundrums
Why do we say " she was born"
But ' she died "
How do you conjugate will + shall
+ Why
Does anyone know the difference between I will drown.No -one shall save me +
I shall drown no.one will save me
Rarely come across shall these days
Cinderella you shall go to the ball
I don't know if toddlers stamp their feet and say shan't anymore
I feel like I've told this before + I can't see my punctuation...there is an unfinished sentence in an earlier post .too late to modify
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I expect most of us say "should've" and "would've", and it is only a very short step to "should of". In fact it is virtually the same.
I think that it is a case of people writing down what they hear and it becomes "should of" instead of the above. Made worse no doubt by autocorrect text.
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Briged -
It wasn't me that suggested Shoulda, etc. It was Arthur. He posted immediately after me so you must have missed him ;D
I'm with Bumble and YT. It is the written form - should of rather than should have that I really object to.
Gadget
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I remember "no-one shall save me" - so no-one did!
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No - you can save her.
It's not often seen but it is correct. Spacing is all ;D
Hyphens/dashes are used frequently * in note making.
* or frequently used.
::) ::) ::)
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It wasn't me that suggested Shoulda, etc. It was Arthur. He posted immediately after me so you must have missed him ;D
Indeed - I've only just read Brigid's reply, and I was about to own up and let Gadget off the hook, but you've had plenty of time to get in first. And I possibly wasn't being entirely serious... ;) ;) ;)
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I have seen this a few times in newspaper records as well. I just saw "se'nnight" for a man baptised aged 90 in Tenterden, as he had never been baptised before.
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“Should of” bothers me too.
Brigid, in your reply #25, you wrote:
“In 1980s we were fed up of masculine pronoun being used for all objects and profession's we used s/he for anyone who looked away”
I don’t understand the sentence, but Isn’t “fed up of” a bit like “should of”? Shouldn’t it be “fed up with”?
(Probably no apostrophe in professions either. )
Sorry to be picky, but also looking for clarification as sometimes I’m not sure what is correct, or not. ;)
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Ruskie I have always said " fed up of "
& Not noticed that others said " fed up with "
I suspect that you are correct and "with " is the one taught in grammar books
But it might be one of those like " less " + "fewer" where the modern usage has become alternative correct usage .
I have not looked at a grammar book for ages ...I used to collect them for examples of changes .
I had one that was written to teach french children
With the sentence " what of the clock is it? "
Ive never heard anyone ask the time like that .!
I spent 13 ears teaching the correct reply to
" How are you ? "
Is " I'm fine thank you "
& That
"I'm good " signifies well behaved .
On return to my native country I heard all the young people say " I'm good " and now it sounds natural to me tho I still don't use it myself.
Apologies for the strange ending in reply
I think I drifted off to sleep while typing + spell check took over .When I saw " looked away" it was too late to modify ..wondered if anyone would notice .
We used s/he for everyone ,including dogs and soft toys .
My sister is a translator and uses "she " in all gender non-specific phrases whenever she can.
For example "The engineer arrived SHE was late"
It "kinda," redresses the language gender imbalance. 😁
I don't know if anyone has noticed but past few months I've been trying to write gender neutral sentences in support /solidarity of / transsexual/ transgender friends .
(Whose personal pronouns have changed ) It's really hard because we have years of sexist language biais built into us .
Also when talking about family history we are talking usually about specific people who had specific genders not a child + their grandparent.
But I can't get my head around "they./them" use for a single person.
I'm going to write a comedy sketch about it and about the norms for describing LGBTQ people have changed within my lifetime + how language is used to divide rather than unite people.
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I may be wrong but I don’t think that “fed up of” is incorrect in that, like “fed up with” it is a prepositional phrase, while “should have” is a verb form, and to me, “should of” is a spelling mistake. On this side of the ocean we pronounce “should have” and “should of” the same way.
I am not sure less and fewer are now considered the same, but correct me if I’m wrong. It’s the same issue with “majority” and “most” are used interchangeably when they do not have the same purpose- majority referring to an amount that can be counted, most can be used either way.
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Ahhhhh ... we can delpore these things til we're blue in the face and the cows come home, but we're no more able to turn back the tide of ignorant misuse than dear of king Canute (except now we're expected to spell him Cnut ... which just looks like a teenager's attempt to circumvent a profanity filter!)
The one that gets me every time is that "led" seems to be falling out of use in written English, and even supposedly learned journals and newspapers have been known to print something along the lines of "this has lead to a lot of consternation".
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!