The language is mutating (and always has done)

[Spectric]

Language is just words but things go wrong when you use words in a way that conflicts with reality. A good example is some of the nonsense now being used like the NHS with " for people who bleed " rather than accept that it is only females that menstruate. You cannot change facts or reality by using different language, how can anyone be gender neutral, ever since we lived in caves there has been boys and girls, go right back to day one we had Adam & Eve so like it or not you are what you are and if you have doubts then look elsewhere for the root cause of the issue, just like cancer ignore it at your peril.

 

[Argus]

Table saw, dado, sled, lumber ...

Gotten ...

We seem to be going transatlantic. Doesn't have to be bad, of course, but at the same time can seem like a form of cultural imperialism. What passes the other way? I'm in favour of dialogue, but resistant to unidirectionalism.

There's a mechanism of cultural transmission at work by which such terms become ever more widely adopted and even the norm. I don't feel the need to jump onboard, but it also seems that it's an unstoppable bandwagon.

It makes my moustache bristle. Yes, I said bristle, not brittle.

And I blame the internet. But I don't suppose that anybody else has noticed, because I've never seen it mentioned ...

Going back to the starting point,

'Gotten' as an English word, as in 'to receive' or to 'obtain', in fact, as a widely used word, it's far older than the discovery of America.

I believe that the word 'gotten' had a presence in Middle English. Chaucer used something similar, descended probably from the remnants of Anglo-Saxon in colloquial 14th C English and it's been recorded in English usage since the 15th century. The early colonists took it, and other English words, to the States where it remained in currency after it went out of use in the Mother country.

On the subject of what passes the other way nowadays - East-to-West - there is an interesting occasional Blog on the subject of modern-day trans-Atlantic transition of 'normal' English that's worth exploring - it goes way back in time:

https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/
They call them 'Noobs', for some reason........ must be an acronym.

 

[Spectric]

This anglo american thing is strange, America was populated by many English and scots at the expense of the native indians and we complain about them now exporting the differences back to us, I love american woodworking books as they give some great ideas and things that stimulate the old grey mater into life.

 

[Tom K]

#rantmodeon
I have noticed, particularly ”Can I get…” when ordering something and the use of Z instead of S in words ending ‘ise’. I also hear lieutenant being pronounced loo-tenant rather than lef-tenant. And don’t get me started on the modern business trend of verbalising nouns!!
Soon we’ll have ‘aloominum’, sidewalks, hoods, trunks and fenders to go with the ‘dados’ and ‘rabbits’.
Sadly when I point this out to my kids, they tell me I’m old and stuck in medieval olde english
#rantmodeoff

Of course you realise Ye is properly pronounced The? My grandchildren like to use words like trash and garbage-can but I told them they were talking rubbish.

 

[stuart little]

#rantmodeon
I have noticed, particularly ”Can I get…” when ordering something and the use of Z instead of S in words ending ‘ise’. I also hear lieutenant being pronounced loo-tenant rather than lef-tenant. And don’t get me started on the modern business trend of verbalising nouns!!
Soon we’ll have ‘aloominum’, sidewalks, hoods, trunks and fenders to go with the ‘dados’ and ‘rabbits’.
Sadly when I point this out to my kids, they tell me I’m old and stuck in medieval olde english
#rantmodeoff

I sometimes uze a 'zee' instead of an 's' for ease when writing, it's only a back-to-front 's' after al! Isn't 'lieutenant' a French word? Zo, where the heck does an 'f' come from? 'Fraid I use Columbo's pronounciation! Rabbits? - RABBETTS

 

[niall Y]

The list is endless, but we don't have to adopt them unless we want to. One thing that might help with spelling is the spell-check on this very site. I don't want it to be endlessly pointed out, with a red underlining ,that i am spelling labour, metre, and colour, wrong. When I clearly am not.

 

[rogxwhit]

I always thought it was a plinth under a column or panelling to the lower part of a wall.

Correct!

 

[rogxwhit]

The list is endless, but we don't have to adopt them unless we want to.

Of course we don't, but I was just remarking on the prevalence.

 

[rogxwhit]

'Gotten' as an English word, as in 'to receive' or to 'obtain'? In fact it's far older than the discovery of America.

Yes someone else said that to me, but I never heard the word whilst I was growing up, and it seemed alien when it started reappearing from across the water.

 

[rogxwhit]

RABBETTS

Rabbets.

 

[akirk]

The list is endless, but we don't have to adopt them unless we want to. One thing that might help with spelling is the spell-check on this very site. I don't want it to be endlessly pointed out, with a red underlining ,that i am spelling labour, metre, and colour, wrong. When I clearly am not.

check your browser…
spelling check is a browser function, not a forum function

 

[Argus]

Yes someone else said that to me, but I never heard the word whilst I was growing up, and it seemed alien when it started reappearing from across the water.

I seem to remember 'gotten' cropping up in cowboy films and the like that migrated across the Atlantic when I was a kid.
I was pointed out at the time that it was 'incorrect' English. It turned out that the word was , how can I say it...... coming home?

It was a similar exercise in the conventions of spelling, which continues through its transition into economising thumb-strokes onto a small screen

Originally, words were spelled exactly as they were pronounced, dialectic inflections, accents and all.
All this for a largely illiterate population.
Later spelling became 'correct' - or even incorrect - when it became established as a printer's convention and you can blame Johnson and his like, in and out of Fleet Street, for that!

 

[Doug71]

It took me an age to find out what a dado was, but I still don't know what a dado rail is or if I actually need one.

The dado rail is often fixed to the "drywall" somewhere above the "baseboard".........

A couple more words there that people now seem to use thanks to Youtube

 

[niall Y]

check your browser…
spelling check is a browser function, not a forum function

Ahhh............ wondered if there was a way of changing that. Many thanks! Colour, colour, colour.......... it works!

 

[Adam W.]

The dado rail is often fixed to the "drywall" somewhere above the "baseboard".........

A couple more words there that people now seem to use thanks to Youtube

What ??

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes someone else said that to me, but I never heard the word whilst I was growing up, and it seemed alien when it started reappearing from across the water.

it's only use in English English is as ill gotten gains.

 

[niall Y]

Ill- gotten ( with a hyphen)

 

[Ttrees]

We're English. Don't we adopt foreign words that we like or find interesting in the same way that we adopt foods ?

I enjoy the good ones but find it irritating when people concoct new words just because they seem to be uneducated / ignorant about the perfectly good ones that we already have.

Yet to read of a more apt word to replace skookum which does the job as soundly.

 

[Sideways]

Yet to read of a more apt word to replace skookum which does the job as soundly.

pukka ?

But yes, skookum's a wonderful word

We (probably) stole a good one from French : un "truc", which can mean a trick, a technique, truqué for tricky .... but can also mean "a thing", a whatsit ....
It's a word that could have a lot of use around the workshop.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

One word that's not been adopted from Cornish, which is a pity - a spence. It's a cupboard under the stairs. So much better than "a/the cupboard under the stairs". From the word for larder, a spencer is a butler.