Thread: Millimetres vs Millimeters

Originally Posted by Woodlee

I think he means Pajero which is supposed to be pronounced Payero.
How you get a y out of a j beats me .

Kev.

I thought he meant a Yeep

Originally Posted by Eli

In Boston you'd ask for a glassa watta, not wardder. For the record, Boston (East Coast US) pronunciation and Australian of 'English' are like two peas in a pod.

Now just a minute there m'friend! After nearly five years there, they still couldn't understand me!!!. If we're peas in a pod, we must have been Mendel's originals.

Regards,

Rob

Originally Posted by Woodlee

I think he means Pajero which is supposed to be pronounced Payero.
How you get a y out of a j beats me .

Kev.

Actually, its Payhairo, which means haircut in Mexican! After which, most say Yeep!!

I reckon that the Seppos have these curious spellings and pronunciations so that we can't beat them in spelling bees....

Useless triva for the day
the japs have only one sound for each letter so Toyota is pronounced Toe yoe tar not Toy yoe tar

Originally Posted by Eli

Hang on a minute (or is it 'arva sec'). First of all, the universal original first spelling of the element is Aluminum, according to Wikipedia. It was gussied up because it didn't sound fancy enough. I usually just say foil, but in deference to where I live, use -ium if it's a chunk of it. It is true though that only the Americans (not Americains, Neil, that's the french spelling) still retain the -um spelling worldwide, I'll give you that.

As someone that sits on THE international committee that decides the names of the elements let me just say that wikipedia has got this very wrong. The Original name from de Morveau in 1761 was alumine who proposed the name even though the pure metal had not been formed. In 1807, the Famous English Chemist, Davy proposed alumium, this was then changed to aluminium. In 1925 the American Chemical Society decided that they would use aluminum and there has been a controversy about it ever since. If you have access to a Chemical Rubber handbook (an American publication) the entry on Aluminium has just about got it right. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry permits both spellings as correct.

Originally Posted by Eli

As for nuclear, only the "president" (small p in quotes, so you know where I stand on him) can't get it right, and he says nookla.

Uhmmm . . . .that's not my experience of living in the good ole USA - the redder yer neck is the more likely to hear it. Even hear in Oz I hear it said a "newclar".

We Canadians don,t use millimetres , way too many numbers for us, we use something easy like inches and feet.

There are a few other words that are a little different , you say rubbish we say garbage , you say bin we say can , You say timber we say wood ,
you say G,day we say what's up bro

Merry Christmas everyone

Neil must have his laptop in hospital keeping a close eye on us

As the song goes

"Words are not enough"

Now we even have Auslan, Australia's own sign language

Australian English and North East (Boston) US English are the same???
You blokes still use and have the letter "R" in your alphabet!

Oil is sometimes "earl"

Bottle is sometimes "boddle"

In searching Aluminum vs. Aluminium, there was a paper listed in the chemical society archives that made a sarcastic comment about spelling Al both ways in the paper.

Most Yanks dont have problems with spelling the units used in the metric system. We spell them as, mm, cm, m, ml and l. All our spirits are now sold in metric quantities. A 'Fifth' is now 750 ml and a half gallon is 1.75 l. Ir was done so that the government could collect more taxes and the spirits industry could sell less liquid for the same price.

To a previous Fair Lady owner, Nissan will always be pronounced Datsun.

Originally Posted by cranbrook2

We Canadians don,t use millimetres , way too many numbers for us, we use something easy like inches and feet.

There are a few other words that are a little different , you say rubbish we say garbage , you say bin we say can , You say timber we say wood ,
you say G,day we say what's up bro

Merry Christmas everyone

And...

You put your babies to sleep in a crib, we put them in a cot.

What you call a cot, we call a trundle bed.
We 'nurse' our babies by cuddling them, you breastfeed them.

We give our children lollies, you give them candy.

We all drive on the left side of the road, you all drive on the wrong side, eh!


Merry Christmas to all of our 'Woodwork' friends from around the world,

and to all a Good Night.

SBS ran a series a few years ago titled "The Story of English" which was extremely interesting. The main thing I seem to remember was that the English language was a dynamic living language and its ability to adapt. So within those precepts there is nothing wrong with changing the spelling of words. A lot of those words that are spelt in a peculiar manner is due to them being spelt the way they were pronounced at that time ... one expert in the show pronounced a shakespearian excerpt in the original accent which was harder to understand than any modernday American accent. Anyway if you know what is meant what is the problem?

Originally Posted by rrich

Most Yanks dont have problems with spelling the units used in the metric system. We spell them as, mm, cm, m, ml and l. All our spirits are now sold in metric quantities.

Actually even some of those are not correct - the internationally accepted symbol for "litres" is "L" so it should be mL and L but few people get that right.

On the subject of English, if any of you have read "The surgeon of Crowthorne" you would know that many of the entries in the Oxford English dictionary were submitted, unbeknownst to the Oxford Dons, from an American inmate and murderer in a mental institution. So while French as has its language academy - English has a more egalitarian approach to language formation - basically it gobbles up anything useful in its wake!

Pajero is actually pronounced pa-hair-o. And it was sold under the name Montero in the Americas, because pa-hair-o is spanish slang for wanker. But I'm wrong, it's a Mitsubishi.

check it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero

Here is one RRich might be able to throw some light on:

I have noticed, in several US based publications, the loss of the word 'of'. The expression 'a couple of screws' has mutated into 'a couple screws'. Very jarring to someone used to getting a full compliment of words in their sentences - is this some sort of 'diet' writing?