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Greater impact English

 
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On the snip of American news we get we heard that Blair was to undergo an operation. Blair underwent it earlier today and was glad he had undergone the operation though it left him with a sore groin. But he was still able to do lunch with some V.I.P.

Keep it simple : have an operation, have lunch.

It must be just the news readers trying to make the news sound very important because I can't say I notice that usage a lot on American sites or blogs.
We very rarely get that style of news reading anymore. Does using important sounding words when you have very little time have greater impact ?

"Police, I was speeding because I'm on my way to do lunch with a friend before he undergoes an operation this afternoon." Speeches at hot potato rallies show this marked difference in style.
 
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To "do" lunch is actually very informal slang. It's something that you imagine Hollywood talent agents would say. If a normal person says it, it's without a doubt being said ironically.

The "undergo" vs "have" observation is valid, although "have an operation" is a little ambiguous. If a physician "has an operation", he could be either the cutter or the cuttee; if he "undergoes an operation", there's no doubt as to the meaning.

But if we're going to talk about a dialect of English using longer words than necessary, let's do it over a nice Aluminum can of Coca-Cola
 
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Originally posted by Helen Thomas:

Does using important sounding words when you have very little time have greater impact ?


Greater than no impact at all, anyway. Why write a memo when you can fire one off? Regular mortals have lunch; captains of industry and statesmen must do lunch; they are, after all, men of action.

It was at one time, according to William Zinsser, an American tendency to inflate and thereby sound important. He wrote that some time ago, however, and since then the tendency seems to be to dumb things down. People 'do' their activities these days. They do lunch, do skiing, do Pilates, do homework. It's either not interesting enough or specific enough to eat, ski, exercise, or study.

The day the verb 'do' rose to national prominence in my mind was a day or so after George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton did a debate on national television. "I thought the President did just wonderful," said the woman who did the interview with the off-camera PR team. Worthy advice of a candidate that the whole country could do.
[ October 01, 2004: Message edited by: Michael Ernest ]
 
Ernest Friedman-Hill
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As an aside, your last example is unintentionally really interesting. Addressing a police officer as "Police" is something you couldn't do in American English. I've never heard that usage. You can say "Officer", or "Mr. Policeman" (if you're a child), but the word "Police" by itself is without a doubt a plural. You can talk about "the Police" to refer to a particular group of officers, or to police officers in general, but never address a person as "Police".
[ October 01, 2004: Message edited by: Ernest Friedman-Hill ]
 
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Perhaps the lunch that needed doing was so urgent that by the time you stopped several members of the police force were hearing your explanation at once. Still slightly innapropriate though, as you would be referring to several members of the police force, not the police force as an entity.

Interesting point you bring up Ernest. If you were to address an officer as "police", you would be treating them as a representative acting for the entire police force. This doesn't work in this case. Individuals must be addressed as individuals. You could of course address them by their position ("policeman, ...") but that would be considered impersonal to the point of being rude.

But what about in the sentance "CompanyX, it has been brought to my attention that..." (assume that you're speaking to or mailing an individual representative). It seems an acceptable use in that case... what makes the difference?
 
Helen Thomas
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"Help me, police!" shouted just before being mugged.

Or down the telephone "Police, I was speeding..." with some urgency or even after being stopped and you want to be heard before the situation gets out of control.
But if calm and relaxed as the innocent are, then yes, probably the sentence wouldn't commence with "Police,..."

And I think the surgeon would be doing an operation at such and such a time rather than having it. Correction. Where butchers did surgeries , surgeons perform surgeries these days.

Rock star Simon Bono made a rather arresting speech.Fairly direct but not necessarily precise. Lots of impact. Unfortunately I cannot link to it.
[ October 01, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
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""Police, I was speeding because..." might be used if English isn't your first language or perhaps if you were intoxicated.
 
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I read a study that really important people send very sloppy e-mail. They don't have time to re-read and edit for grammar or spelling or all lower case or whatever. Only the lowliest loser peons do that. Hmmm, that would be me.
 
Maxim Katcharov
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hmph, you can only blame so much on lack of time.
 
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Stan James:
I read a study that really important people send very sloppy e-mail. They don't have time to re-read and edit for grammar or spelling or all lower case or whatever.



Really important people don't even have time to eat and end up dying from starvation.
 
Richard Hawkes
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That used to be the case, but these days lunch can be downloaded straight to the desktop.
 
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Seriously, it's Aluminium. You can't just go around taking letters out of real words for your own amusement, where would it all end? Incidentally, what colour is the aluminium can from which you are imbibing?
 
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Originally posted by Ben Wood:
Seriously, it's Aluminium. You can't just go around taking letters out of real words for your own amusement, where would it all end? Incidentally, what colour is the aluminium can from which you are imbibing?



I assume, of course, that when the drink has been finished, it will be properly put in the rubbish bin, before being placed in the boot of the car and taken to the recycling centre (providing the car has enough petrol).
[ October 04, 2004: Message edited by: Joe King ]
 
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[Ben]: Seriously, it's Aluminium. You can't just go around taking letters out of real words for your own amusement, where would it all end?

Actually it was a Brit who added a letter. We're using the original British spelling.

The metal in question was originally named "Alumium" in 1808 by Sir Humphrey Davy, an English chemist. No one liked that name, so he changed it to "Aluminum". Americans adopted this spelling, but the Brits continued to whinge about it until Sir Davy changed it once again, this time to "Aluminium". The Americans largely ignored this later change, since the aluminum siding companies had already printed up their business stationery. Some groups such as the American Chemical Society attempted to follow the British revision for some reason, but they were ignored by real Americans until eventually the ACS admitted defeat in 1926.
 
Helen Thomas
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Well, the police announce themselves as "Freeze! Police" or with signs that say STOP! Police.
London has introduced Police signs that will talk. Bets are that some talking signs will start with "This is the Police."
(Actual recording:�Police warning: Keep your mobile phones safe � robbers operate in this area,� says a voice recording that emanates from a metal box mounted on a Streatham railway sign, in the borough of Lambeth, south London with a crime rate higher than NYC.)
So the Police cannot complain on being addressed as Police but I would think twice about that now.
The legal system would have people addressing the police or any bureaucrat as "Sir,..." .
BTW we haven't used Sir/Ma'am to address superiors in decades unless it's the army but I believe American bosses expect it until they ask their sub-ordinates to call them by the first names.

Not using "Sir/Ma'am" gets past the problem of what to do if the boss is years younger than the sub.
[ October 04, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
Joe King
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Originally posted by Jim Yingst:

The metal in question was originally named "Alumium" in 1808 by Sir Humphrey Davy, an English chemist. No one liked that name, so he changed it to "Aluminum". Americans adopted this spelling, but the Brits continued to whinge about it until Sir Davy changed it once again, this time to "Aluminium". The Americans largely ignored this later change, since the aluminum siding companies had already printed up their business stationery.



So we're both wrong then?
 
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The noun "police" is plural. It makes sense to say "The police have arrived" but not "The police has arrived." You could use it to address a bunch of cops, but not just one.

Or is this is a new usage invented by feminists to replace traditional terms like "policeman" and "policewoman" (so as not to offend women by reminding them that they are not men)?
 
Michael Ernest
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Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
Well, the police announce themselves as "Freeze! Police" or with signs that say STOP! Police....So the Police cannot complain on being addressed as Police but I would think twice about that now.


I think you can also say you won't hear: "Freeze! I am a policeman!" for reasons tactical as well as semantic.
 
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Originally posted by Stan James:
I read a study that really important people send very sloppy e-mail. They don't have time to re-read and edit for grammar or spelling or all lower case or whatever. Only the lowliest loser peons do that. Hmmm, that would be me.



Actually "really important people" have really meticulous secretaries who read and respond to their emails while they lunch and golf. So their responses are impeccable.
 
Joe King
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Originally posted by peter wooster:

Actually "really important people" have really meticulous secretaries who read and respond to their emails while they lunch and golf. So their responses are impeccable.



This is the next class war. While the rich bourgeois can afford to have their grammar and spelling checked, the downtrodden proletariat have to make do with shoddy writing. No more will we settle for this lack of equality! We will rise up and demand the ability, nay the right, to spell and write correctly. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their typing style. They have a dictionary to win. Working typists of all countries, unite!
 
Helen Thomas
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New Austrian doctor recruits who speak fluent academic English are baffled by South Yorkshire dialects of patients feeling "jiggered" or "manky", "mardy","maungy" for infected , whinging or moaner respectively,'club note' for sick note, 'fizog' for face, and 'lugholes' or 'lug oils' for ears. Even 'ey oop' for hello. 'Our lass' for Wife and 'Gipping' or 'Chuck up' for Vomiting,'Peffin' for cough,'Gut rot' for abdominal pain, 'noggin' for head, 'mitts' for hands, 'piggys' for toes, 'Sneck/Snoz' for nose,'tootsies' for toes, trotters for feet, 'Snip' for masectomy.

Feel whammy for weak, feeling queer for off-colour.

broad Black Country accent and dialect that Philipino nurse recruits in the Black Country have to learn:
"yo'am", which means "you are".'I ai' meaning 'I am not doing that' or say 'cor' meaning 'can't',wazzin (throat), fittle (food) and kid (relative).

Comedien Lenny Henry is famous for his Black Country accent. I thought it was forced Nigerian.
[ October 09, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
Helen Thomas
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"Short words are best", said Winston Churchill, "and old words when short are the best of all".
Those first words were no more than grunts but soon they grew to be grunts with a gist. It is hard to beat a good grunt with a good gist.
 
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Originally posted by Joe King:


This is the next class war. While the rich bourgeois can afford to have their grammar and spelling checked, the downtrodden proletariat have to make do with shoddy writing. No more will we settle for this lack of equality! We will rise up and demand the ability, nay the right, to spell and write correctly. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their typing style. They have a dictionary to win. Working typists of all countries, unite!



Every person has the power to speak, spell and construct grammatically correct sentences. We can point the finger at web-based forums (this one being the exception of course!) and instant-messaging (not to mention the popularity of SMS in the UK) as the direct cause of our language "evolution" over the past 10 years. Although, I would have to argue against calling it "evolution", maybe "devolution" would be more appropriate. Hopefully, between the teenagers attempting to shorten our language and lawyers attempting to use as much of it as possible (most of the time just to confuse people) we will maintain a balance for the forseeable future. I am most disappointed to see some of these abbreviations starting to make their way into the OED.

Ok, apologies, this turned into quite a rant... I certainly do not wish to be labelled as the grammar-police/policeman/policewoman/person/whatever.
[ October 09, 2004: Message edited by: Tom Screen ]
 
Helen Thomas
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The truth usually is out there, you just need to triangulate on it's position.
 
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