Do they teach American language in Primary schools nowadays?

[Dogtrousers]

Nice example; context and everything. The Z, in this case, isn't a letter it's part of the expression. Dee-Emm-Zed would just be wrong, the wrong pronunciation of the word. I doubt there's anyone in the UK that would say it - and if they did, it would be out of shere obstinance!

Sticking purely to the networking use of the term and not the military one, nearly everyone I know says DMZee but not all. I have occasionally heard it called a DMZed - and yes, it sounds weird.

 

[Julia9054]

If we were on a different forum, I'd give you a telling-off for not being aware of this stuff ;-) . Here's the first relevant google hit:
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/08/guys-gender-neutral/568231/

Which is an extremely long winded way of saying that guys is popular but imperfect. Which is what I said.
As the article is written by an American for American English, it doesn't help me at all.

 

[matticus]

it doesn't help me at all.

that's because it's for telling-off purposes, not for helping!

 

[steverob]

I agree but something like "He should of done that." is nonsense - or more correctly a non-sentence with no verb.

But isn't that just down to people misunderstanding "should've", possibly because they've never seen it written down and so assume from hearing it that it is "should of" when it's really "should have"?

Certainly that was the case for one of my former work colleagues who was always making that error, even though generally their English grammar was pretty good. Oh, except for the fact that they always spelled "oops" as "opps" and that really annoyed me for some reason I can't quite explain!

 

[Dogtrousers]

I'm normally quite easy going about this kind of thing but ...

they always spelled "oops" as "opps"

 

[DRM]

I believe Paul McCartney's Dad tried to persuade him to change the lyrics to "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" to "She loves you, yes, yes, yes" as it sounded more English so moaning about this sort of thing is nothing new.

I wonder would it have been the hit that it was if he had taken the parental advice...

That reminds me of the sketch Sarah Millican did where she was talking about being told off by her Mam for saying she was “Gan oot“ the admonishment being “No you’re going out” then later in life her mam said that “ her friend was in hospital because her leg had gangrene” only for Sarah to come back with “Don’t you mean her leg has gone green”?

 

[DRM]

Which is an extremely long winded way of saying that guys is popular but imperfect. Which is what I said.
As the article is written by an American for American English, it doesn't help me at all.

As I say “Ey up you lot” no nonsense Yorkshire, short, straight to the point & inclusive!

 

[yello]

But isn't that just down to people misunderstanding "should've", possibly because they've never seen it written down and so assume from hearing it that it is "should of" when it's really "should have"?

Yup, imho anyway. And it propagates; you hear 'of' and you repeat 'of' in your own constructions.

I guess we deduce/learn the rules from what we hear and not what people say the rules are. Grammar rules might tell us that the word form in that position is an auxiliary verb. Cool, no probs, 'of' is acting as one. Some might say 'of' is not an aux verb but they can't deny that it's working as one.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Interesting this. I noted some of my work colleagues prior to Xmas used 'center' instead of 'centre' in emails.

 

[matticus]

Interesting this. I noted some of my work colleagues prior to Xmas used 'center' instead of 'centre' in emails.

I blame these bar-stewards: Center Parcs UK and Ireland

 

[Electric_Andy]

YouTube has probably had far more influence than schools in that respect

 

[BoldonLad]

Interesting this. I noted some of my work colleagues prior to Xmas used 'center' instead of 'centre' in emails.

Is this not more likely to be the influence of spell check and/or predictive text than school?

 

[bobzmyunkle]

Is this not more likely to be the influence of spell check and/or predictive text than school?

I blame Bill Gates. But that can lead to serious rabbit hole problems.

 

[Moon bunny]

The Beatles knew which market was important! Well, Paul McCartney did at least The accusation of them singing in American accents is something I've heard before.

But if you consider which side of the Atlantic many of their influences are from, then we're back to the DMZ situation. Where did you hear something and in what context? Rock & roll, blues etc was 'yeah yeah yeah' not 'yes yes yes'. If the Brits had gotten (or got, whichever you prefer) there first then maybe it would have been a different story

Yeah, spelt thus, was seen in print at least as early as the late 19th century and is known to have been used since the 15th century in the north of England and southern Scotland ( from where many “Americanisms” originated) so the Beatles were just using their local words.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Is this not more likely to be the influence of spell check and/or predictive text than school?

Probably...spellcheck ...... at a mouse click you can write 'American' .