Re: [OT Why GB English is different] Re: Mozilla firefox en-gb
On Fri, 07 May 2004 00:33, William Ballard wrote:
> On Fri, May 07, 2004 at 12:12:06AM +1200, cr wrote:
> > Yes I know exactly which meaning of the word 'affect' you were using.
> > Since your comment was IIRC in response to my post, I wondered if you
> > thought I was American, or were you referring to someone else?
>
> Nope, I'm American, and even though I like flavour and colour and find
> your use of "billion" and "trillion" intriguing because you can count
> higher without having to use words like sexigiliion, still I have to not
> adopt too many British customs because it gets goofy.
Okay, you were referring to yourself, then, I take it. It is of course
entirely acceptable to refer to oneself in mildly deprecatory tones. I have
occasion to do it all the time <g>
> For instance, if I were to start using the British billion, it would
> just be dumb. And if I start talking about pubs and fags, people roll
> their eyes. I like *a lot* of Britishisms. One of my favorites is to
> call a carton of cigarettes "Two Hundred" -- although I won't call them
> fags. "Give me 200, please."
>
> Another real problem for me is I *really* like the Contenintal style of
> writing the dates: dd/mm/yy.
That's the standard British style, actually. I've never used any other.
I remember a TV western (!) from years ago where some plot point hinged on
the date of a will and it turned out that the writer of the will was British
- so '5/12/97' was 7 months later than originally assumed....
> But you can cause *endless* confusion by
> not just going with the flow. I had a Math prof. once who was also sort
> of my philosopical/Jungian psych. "mentor" tell me that one should just
> use Month Day, Year because in our culture the year is usually well
> known, and it is important to contexualize the Month and Day quickly --
Sounds like a 'just so' story to me ;)
> but he mostly was telling me why the fuck did I want to go be difficult
Yeah, that sounds more likely. :)
cr
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