The English Language 2

As already stated the use of the plural dice for the singular die annoys me. Someone else has pointed out something that annoys them - "vee".



As in "Chelsea 'vee' Arsenal" now sure write it down and it's one letter instead of six but say it and it's just one syllable more "versus" easy; yet I suspect they're just reading what's on their autocue.

It seems to have been a couple of days of interesting English examples. In the Virtual Revolution "Dr Aleks" as the end credits VO referred to Dr Krotoski ponders if we're switching from Homo Sapiens to Homo Interneticus. Those scanning the comments on my linked entry above will spot a light discussion on suffixes. For singular you have -um plural is -a; however there is also a singular -us which has a plural -i (hence my use of Bratii and Bratus). So should it be Homo Internetici? Well it's one species so no, but it's multiple people so yes; heh.

Eggheads is next and since Jeremy Vine has been presenting it we've acquired a new subject "Jography" and as with die/dice that's been annoying. What happened last night - "Next subject is Jography or as I've been told I should pronounce it Geography" I punched the air in glee.

Finally I come to this mornings BBC Breakfast where they're discussing the teenage pregnancy rate VO tells us that a certain percentage of teenagers "fell pregnant". What do you mean fell? Sounds like some sort of illness (which some might consider accurate) I can fall ill, how does one fall pregnant? I can understand the intent to indicate accident; but if I started snuggling up to people with measles I don't it would be classed as falling ill; it's not as if they didn't understand the risks of sex.

It's all fun things with words.