soo my game crashed ... why is it going to take me 6 days to log back in ?

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

 

Those are both Strollers.

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That's strange. So if people are talking about strollers they have no idea what kind of stroller it is, until it is further defined (like "I mean a stroller where the baby lies down" and "I mean a stroller where the baby sits"). Here where I live we have different word for each.

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We dont make a distinction because we dont give a damn what type it is. It's not that important.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

Where people spell correctly. The word is 'tyre' - with a 'y'

What's the name of the language again?

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Unfortunately Phil, while I know that was a tongue in cheek comment, it is often said that American spelling and pronunciation is more accurate to older English. 

Also, remember that after 1066, Latin was the language used for most official documents, or French, French was the most commonly spoken language amongst the upper class and along with other Germanic influences, English has stolen many words and phrases and continues to evolve.. 

What I don't understand though is that a simple word like "Centre" which would have crossed the Atlantic a couple of hundred years ago, with origins in Greek and then Latin,  maintains "Central" but gets totally broken and turned into "Center" when it's CLEARLY Centre!  How did that suddenly become forgotten as to the correct spelling? :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

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I think every language steals, or has dropped on it, many words and phrases. I was recently in Boston, and found myself in the checkout line behind a mother/daughter pair who were conversing in a mix of English and another language in a way I'd never heard before. I've overheard conversations in foreign languages were I can pick out the occasional English/American noun or name, but this was something new to me. Both women were switching languages mid-sentence, for complete phrases. It was fascinating.

I interrupted the daughter to ask what language they were corrupting with English. She replied "African Portugese". I explained that I thought their mixed usage was fascinating and they both laughed. "We drive our friends nuts with the way we speak, and we don't even know we're doing it."

I love language, and it's demonstrations of the adaptability of the human mind like this that make my day.

[Dana Dielli]

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Ok, the British have solved the problem what the Americans have. :smileyhappy:

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LOL

Well I'm American, and I would have called #1 a Baby Carriage, and #2 would be a stroller. 

[Coby Foden]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

Drake1 Nightfire wrote:We dont make a distinction because we dont give a damn what type it is. It's not that important.

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Try putting a three year old kid into the stroller in picture 1.

You'll learn very fast that that the type matters a lot.  :smileyvery-happy: :smileywink:

[Coby Foden]

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Dana Dielli wrote:

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Coby Foden wrote:

Ok, the British have solved the problem what the Americans have. :smileyhappy:

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LOL

Well I'm American, and I would have called #1 a Baby Carriage, and #2 would be a stroller. 

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Ok, thanks for the clarification. Drake's reply seemed rather odd to me ("there's no difference").  :smileyhappy:

[Sassy Romano]

A carriage would have been recognised in the UK for the first too.

A carriage or pram would be typically referring to a lying arrangement, more akin to a cot on wheels, usually able to see the parents and vice versa.  At this point, the parents still think it's cute and want to keep and eye on it, the baby can still see the food source.

Whereas a stroller or buggy would be for the little ones that can't be bothered to walk or haven't been made to do so by their parents.  Typically forward facing so that it can't see the pained expression on the parents faces. 

[Kelli May]

First is a pram, second is a pushchair. Cos I was brought up dead common, like.

[Coby Foden]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

A carriage would have been recognised in the UK for the first too.

A carriage or pram would be typically referring to a lying arrangement, more akin to a cot on wheels, usually able to see the parents and vice versa.  At this point, the parents still think it's cute and want to keep and eye on it, the baby can still see the food source.

Whereas a stroller or buggy would be for the little ones that can't be bothered to walk or haven't been made to do so by their parents.  Typically forward facing so that it can't see the pained expression on the parents faces. 

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I love this explanation. Perfectly worded. Thanks. :heart: :matte-motes-smile:

[Phil Deakins]

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Coby Foden wrote:

Now as this thread has transformed into a language thread I have a question to ask. :matte-motes-big-grin:

What are these things, in the pictures below, most commonly called in USA and UK?

Picture 1

Is this: Perambulator, Pram, Stroller, Baby Buggy or Baby Carriage?

 

Picture 2

And what is this? Does it have different word from the above?

 

 

 

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I'm not up on baby stuff but the top picture is of a pram (perambulator) and the bottom one is of a baby buggy.

I've never heard the word 'stroller' used for such things, so I assume we don't use it here, but I could wrong. Dunno about 'baby carriage'. Again I don't recall ever hearing it used, but again I could be wrong.

Some English mother (or anyone) can correct me if I'm wrong, but a baby buggy is a chair-like device (2nd picture), and a pram is a lay-down device (top picture).

ETA: Sorry, I was late replying and others have answered perfectly well.

[Phil Deakins]

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Kelli May wrote:

First is a pram, second is a

pushchair

. Cos I was brought up dead common, like.

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That's the word for it that was used when I was little. I still use it to describe an event that occured when i was in my pushchair (a tram screeched to a stop when it was just a few feet from hitting me). The word 'buggy' came along later, and was probably nicked from the Americans.

[Sassy Romano]

Neither of those baby conveyances are really up to much though.  For the upcoming generation of baby, they need at least Bluetooth connectivity and WiFi plus integrated charging (batteries stored in the tube frames) and an attached tablet holder.

NexGen Baby won't cry to let mum and dad know something needs doing, it will just change it's Facebook status and Tweet the likes of:-

#PoopedAgain LOL!

[Phil Deakins]

LOL very good

[Madelaine McMasters]

In my neighborhood:

Picture 1 = Buggy

Picture 2 = Stroller

And this = a reason to have a baby...

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Dana Dielli wrote:

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Coby Foden wrote:

---

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Ok, the British have solved the problem what the Americans have. :smileyhappy:

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LOL

Well I'm American, and I would have called #1 a Baby Carriage, and #2 would be a stroller. 

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I make the distinction also.  Just for fun I did just try a google shopping search for "Baby Carriage" and primarily what you see are 'Strollers" as in #2. 

Carriages (#1) are really becoming a thing of the past.  I did see products like this that "....easily changes from stroller to baby carriage."

Wikipedia uses the term "Baby Transport" to cover them all.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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Coby Foden wrote:

---

Dana Dielli wrote:

---

Coby Foden wrote:

Ok, the British have solved the problem what the Americans have. :smileyhappy:

---

LOL

Well I'm American, and I would have called #1 a Baby Carriage, and #2 would be a stroller. 

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Ok, thanks for the clarification. Drake's reply seemed rather odd to me ("there's no difference").  :smileyhappy:

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I did not say there is no difference. I said we don't differentiate in the names. Naturally, if you have a 3 year old you would not get one designed for an infant. Also, there is a wonderful company here that makes strollers that morph throughout the years. They start out flat, then you change them to more vertical as the child grows.

[Dresden Ceriano]

Dammit!  I missed the whole spare tire discussion, and just when I had something significant to add to the conversation (which doesn't happen all that very often).  I blame Phil because of his tyre vs tire crap.

Oh, woe is me... I must look like a yeti.

...Dres (Don't worry, Perrie... I'm going back to the feeds now... I think.)

ETA: an N

[Dillon Levenque]

30 new posts since I last looked at this thread! Not only that, the subject has turned to one of my very favorites: etymology. I was delighted to learn that 'tire' is in fact probably the most correct spelling (despite the fact that to a mere colonial like me 'tyre' looks ever so distinguished). As for the two pictures: In my part of the States the first one is a baby buggy, second one is a stroller.

And now for something not exactly completely different. I read/have read a lot of history. It's a subject that fascinates me, so picking up a good history book for me is like picking up a good science fiction or suspense novel (my two favorite non-fiction categories). I don't do anything with it; I just like reading about it. The Durants are my favorite historians. They loved to side-track into how certain words or customs came to be.

In medieval times, as Europe began to grow out of Feudalism, commerce became an important thing. Merchants came to be: people who bought things one place and sold them somewhere else. One of the magnets for those people were the Fairs held in various places each year. Huge events, with products from all over. Some merchants began to purchase goods from the fairs in large quantities and then transport them back to their home bases where they would resell thim in much smaller quantities (but, of course, at a price that, should they sell enough, would more than cover what they paid for the big lot).

The practice of buying big chunks of someone's produce became known as buying 'en gros' or 'en grosse'. In the British Isles those people were called by an anglicized version of the French original: grossers.

I love stuff like that. :-)

 

ETA The stuff about 'en gros' and all was not copy/pasted from a Durant book (re-reading my post, it looks like I"m quoting them). What I wrote is just from what I remember from reading; it's accurate as far as I know but it's just how I recalled it. I did not bother to go find the volume on the bookshelf and find the original explanation (which, I assure you, would have been far more eloquent than mine).

[Phil Deakins]

Presumably our 'grocers' acquired that name because of what you described. Being British, we must have changed the spelling to something much more in keeping with we British  I like that stuff too.

Getting hold of the wrong end of the stick is an interesting one. The Romans in Britain used to clean themselves after a dump (a #2) with a sponge on the end of a stick. Getting hold of the wrong end of the stick wasn't recommended

The outskirts of a city or town came from the skirts on the outside of castle/city walls. The skirt is the sloping part at the bottom. It was built that way so that defenders could drop stuff over the wall and it would bounce off the sloping skirt onto the attackers.

The upper crust are so called because, in days of yore, when bread was made in the oven the bottom became burnt and black. It was cut off so the master etc. got the upper crust. Servants used the burnt lower crust as plates or even as food.

Sleep tight so the bugs don't bite comes again from days of yore when the matress rested on rope. The rope needed to be tightened so the bed didn't touch the floor where the bugs were.

Cupboard and sideboard, and I think other kinds of 'boards', including chairman of the board(s), came from castles with large dining halls and large kitchens. The master and such dined on a plinth at the end. There were various boards there for various things, such as one for putting the cups on. Hence cupboard and sideboard.

I belong to a group that regularly goes on trips. Two of the recent ones were to a castle (Skipton) and an old house. We learned quite a few origins of sayings on the tours round those places but I've forgotten most of them.

[Kelli May]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Presumably our 'grocers' acquired that name because of what you described. Being British, we must have changed the spelling to something much more in keeping with we British

 I like that stuff too.

Getting hold of the wrong end of the stick

is an interesting one. The Romans in Britain used to clean themselves after a dump (a #2) with a sponge on the end of a stick.

Getting hold of the wrong end of the stick

wasn't recommended

The

outskirts

of a city or town came from the skirts on the outside of castle/city walls. The skirt is the sloping part at the bottom. It was built that way so that defenders could drop stuff over the wall and it would bounce off the sloping skirt onto the attackers.

The

upper crust

are so called because, in days of yore, when bread was made in the oven the bottom became burnt and black. It was cut off so the master etc. got the upper crust. Servants used the burnt lower crust as plates or even as food.

Sleep tight

so the bugs don't bite comes again from days of yore when the matress rested on rope. The rope needed to be tightened so the bed didn't touch the floor where the bugs were.

Cupboard and sideboard,

and I think other kinds of 'boards', including chairman of the board(s), came from castles with large dining halls and large kitchens. The master and such dined on a plinth at the end. There were various boards there for various things, such as one for putting the cups on. Hence cupboard and sideboard.

I belong to a group that regularly goes on trips. Two of the recent ones were to a castle (Skipton) and an old house. We learned quite a few origins of sayings on the tours round those places but I've forgotten most of them.

---

That explanantion of upper crust is, I believe, a folk etymology. There is a reference to "Kutt the upper crust for your soverayne", but applying the phrase to the nobility is a much more recent concept. It's most likely to be purely metaphorical rather than drawn from any particular practice. Crusts were cut off and used for trenchers, or eaten by servants. The fluffy interior of the loaf was more likely to be served as food in its own right (although gravy-soaked trenchers certainly were eaten). Also, depending on how bread is baked, the upper crust can as easily become burned as any other part.

Sideboard, however, is quite accurate. It would have been a place from which food would be served in any communal eating place, rich or poor, set at the side of the room. The same meaning of board is extended in the phrase 'bed and board', and from there into 'boarding house'. Board, as in 'chairman of...' is a similar derivation through board as a table, this time being a table to meet around, rather than dine from. 

Sleep tight - I'm not so sure about that one either. Tight has a few parallel and metaphorical meanings including solid and close. There's also the connection between 'fast alseep' and 'sleep tight' through the word 'fasten' (think of 'the nautical term 'to make fast': making something secure) which seems too close for coincindence. My money would be on 'sleep tight' just being a way of saying 'sleep securely'.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Fast asleep and sleep tight a nautical terms, where you slept in a net hammock and would literally tie it closed around you during rough weather.

[Madelaine McMasters]

"Nimrod" is a modern (and little used these days) American term for incompetence, even though Nimrod was a king, a skilled hunter, and project manager for the Tower of Babel. So, how'd Nimrod join the ranks of "Nice job, Einstein"?

Bugs Bunny (@ 6:40) !...

Eh, what's up Doc?

 

[Phil Deakins]

I'm only going by what the guides told us. I wasn't around at the time, of course. But 'sleep tight' was explained at the castle and then we visited a very large house (called a hall). In the hall were old beds and under the matress was rope (I asked and it was shown to me). The corner is where the knot is to tighten the rope. I'm happy to accept that as the source of the saying, especially as it accompabied by the bit about bugs.

The 'upper crust' makes good sense as it was explained to us, and "Kutt the upper crust for your soverayne" appears to support it. It's easy to imagine that the nobility came to be known as the 'upper crust'.

So all-in-all I'll accept the origins as they were told to us. After all, nobody can be certain. 'Sleep tight' may well have been a nautical term, but that doesn't mean that it's origin was nautical.

[Phil Deakins]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

"Nimrod" is a modern (and little used these days) American term for incompetence, even though Nimrod was a king, a skilled hunter, and project manager for the Tower of Babel. So, how'd Nimrod join the ranks of "Nice job, Einstein"?

Bugs Bunny (@ 6:40) !...

Eh, what's up Doc?

 

---

That's an easy one to answer. It wasn't actually nimrod but it was changed to nimrod by people who misheard it. It was originally 'ninrod', which is short for 'ninny, Rodney'; i.e. "You are a ninny, Rodney". It was coined by DelBoy in the British sitcom, Only Fools and Horses. Or, to be more accurate, it was coined by John Sullivan who wrote the scripts for Only Fools and Horses. Rodney is DelBoy's younger brother and, when DelBoy wasn't busy calling Rodnay a plonker or a dipstick, he was busy telling him he's a ninrod.

[Perrie Juran]

[Madelaine McMasters]

Wiktionary says this...

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nimrod

Bugs first issued the phrase in 1938 (I couldn't find that video, though I learned the phrase from a Bugs/Elmer cartoon, not the Bugs/Sam ciip I linked, which dates from 1951) and the Only Fools and Horses sitcom you mentioned first aired in 1981.

The OED cites a 1933 use of Nimrod to mean fool (Hecht and Fowler's Great Magoo, which may have spawned the cartoon Mr. Magoo?), and it may have occured as early as 1831in "The Lion of the West" by James Paulding.

We may both be wrong, but I'm wrong before you. So neener, neener, neener.

;-).