Weather....

[D_W]

No it isn't. The people who make the stuff make the rules.

It's Legos in the US. Maybe I have to say it twice.

 

[John Brown]

Well, OK.
You can say what you like.
I just thought you might be interested in knowing that the rest of the world don't use that word.
Yet.
I'm sure we'll all be linguistically bullied into adopting the US term in time. Better get used to it.

 

[D_W]

Well, OK.
You can say what you like.
I just thought you might be interested in knowing that the rest of the world don't use that word.
Yet.
I'm sure we'll all be linguistically bullied into adopting the US term in time. Better get used to it.

You can swing your purse as much as you like. We'll duck, not make you swing ours.

Legos is the accepted term in the united states, even in lego enthusiast publications here. I was curious enough after you made your statement to actually look it up as I've heard the word "legos" thousands of times in my life. I'll spare folks here from the same kind of badgering "no - that's not the right way to say it!!".

Too much signaling for me.

 

[MikeK]

Please! There is no such word as "legos". It's a mass noun, like "furniture".

In the US, it's Legos.

No it isn't. The people who make the stuff make the rules.

It's Legos in the US. Maybe I have to say it twice.

Time out, gentlemen. If both of you are referring to the small plastic toys that snap together, the proper spelling worldwide is LEGO.

For what it's worth, all nouns in German are capitalized, such as Radio, Auto, Panzer, Tischfräser, Holzbearbeitung, and so on. If a business wants to be creative with using a noun as part of its business name, it can register it any way it likes and thumb its corporate nose at proper grammar. However, LEGO is the way The Lego Group chose to trademark those small blocks that feel real good when you step on them in the middle of the night in bare feet.

 

[D_W]

Mike, Legos is literally the accepted term in the states. The criticism of it caused me to look it up - one never knows if it's just a regional thing.

Plural "chiefly american" is Legos. I'm guessing a lego brand manager may be forbidden from using it here, but it's the dominant terminology. All the way up to professionally edited literature on the New Yorker and NPR.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Lego
That aside, if someone called them legos and it was a regional thing and they built with them regularly, I'd hesitate to try to tell them what they should do. The effect of that is very woodworking forum-like - to dicker over what things should be called without actually doing them.

We do note (those of us who have been exposed to Germans) that Germans are very technically particular about everything language-wise. The English among us in the states vary, but often end up harassing each other about what's proper vs. what's just being pedantic. Like levels - the guy who got me into woodworking is English. He likes to correct things that I say, but another acquaintance of his is pompous and he often complains about how it's impossible to have conversations that are enjoyable as it's nothing but a contest to find something to correct. I've met both of them, he's right - so when he wants to go on at length about how the English speak the only real English, I refer to him by the name of the second person.

I can't post his response to that here.

 

[John Brown]

"Swing your purse"!
There's really no need to question my masculinity!

Really, David, you make me laugh. I was feigning outrage. I don't really give a tinker's cuss how you say things. I have an American wife, three American stepdaughters, five hybrid grandchildren who can't decide if it's "tomato" or "tomato" and
about a billion American in-laws. I'm virtually bilingual.

 

[J-G]

In the US, it's Legos.

That makes no sense in any way. It's not a plural (adding an 's'), it's not a contraction (where is the apostrophe) . . . . on first reading I had no idea that you might be referring to the Danish Toy - so it doesn't convey your meaning.

 

[D_W]

That makes no sense in any way. It's not a plural (adding an 's'), it's not a contraction (where is the apostrophe) . . . . on first reading I had no idea that you might be referring to the Danish Toy - so it doesn't convey your meaning.

It's been common usage here for at least 40 years. It's not even a noun, it's a brand of plastic blocks.

 

[J-G]

It's been common usage here for at least 40 years. It's not even a noun, it's a brand of plastic blocks.

I've just asked my Niece who has lived in CA for the past 20 years and has two youngsters who have some LEGO and (without any prompting from me) confirms that she has never heard the term Legos.

 

[Rewound]

Resistance to metric measures is the preserve mainly of the over 50s. No great surprise.

YouGov research

I would hazard a guess the average age of forum members is somewhat older than 50 - and like me have got used to converting inches to centimetres and back again.

Why only half the job was done and we still have miles, pints and gallons defeats me.

The centigrade scale has the benefit that water changes state at 0 and 100 degrees C.

Daniel Fahrenheit in in the early 1700s was succeeded by Anders Celsius in 1742 - I don't understand why it took the Brits 250 years to grasp the benefits is beyond me. Our Atlantic cousins are still working on the implications, I guess.

Fahrenheit is a strange measurement with its negative threshold based on the freezing point of water when fully saturated with salt - what was the relevance of maximum strength brine?
And why do people think it is British? the bloke, as far a I can tell, never ventured onto out shores.

But just as I am mixed up with most measurements, some situations have me thinking in Fahrenheit, Summer days for instance, my thoughts turn to ºF such as 'it is very pleasant out, 70 ish, or it was hot today we touched 85. But then if it is a cold winters day I can imagine only in centigrade, same with the measurement of any thing else, annealing point of steel, well that would be centigrade too.

Linear measurements is another mixed bag for me, walking driving cycling it has to be miles, what else could it possibly be. But small measurements, lets say under 10' then I turn to metric.

Weight, there's another confused mix up, I try to keep myself under 13stone (failing a bit at the moment) , but anything below, lets say, 4 stone, I need grams

My car gets mpg, but I fill it with litres, my beer is brewed in litres, but I consider the end product as pints.

 

[Noel]

"Swing your purse"!
There's really no need to question my masculinity!

Really, David, you make me laugh. I was feigning outrage. I don't really give a tinker's cuss how you say things. I have an American wife, three American stepdaughters, five hybrid grandchildren who can't decide if it's "tomato" or "tomato" and
about a billion American in-laws. I'm virtually bilingual.

He‘s confused between a handbag and a purse.

 

[John Brown]

He‘s confused between a handbag and a purse.

I know. See above remarks re. American wife!!

 

[Pineapple]

It's Legos in the US. Maybe I have to say it twice.

I hope that, one day, presumably in the far distant future, the Americans will resign themselves to learning to speak ENGLISH - AS IT SHOULD BE SPOKEN !

 

[clogs]

didn't Jame May, *Top Gear* refer to the metric system as something Napleon did to annoy us....

 

[Cozzer]

..... those small blocks that feel real good when you step on them in the middle of the night in bare feet.

Thanks, MikeK.
My first real laugh of the day!

 

[John Brown]

I hope that, one day, presumably in the far distant future, the Americans will resign themselves to learning to speak ENGLISH - AS IT SHOULD BE SPOKEN !

To be fair, the Americans mangle the language in certain ways, but in other words or usages, they remain closer to old English, and the British English has evolved. British and American English spent a lot of time diverging, and now we are converging again, probably with a bias towards American.

 

[XTiffy]

What a curious and pointless discussion, so I can't resist!
I was brought up on imperial and am fully conversant with metric. From my point of view sometimes imperial is less prone to mistakes, too easy to move the point in metric! Most of the big advances in engineering were using imperial measurements. The idea that the UK doesn't use cm only mm, isn't true in my case and is often used online. As for differences in US versus English spelling/pronunciation, who cares? Provide both parties understand what's the beef? Having worked in the US and worked with many Americans, it is only the little things that divide us. As John Brown says the English language is constantly evolving and many words (Gotten, anyone?), have faded and new ones added. To me that is a plus. The US has Websters and we have the Oxford English dictionary, though too many English people have never used any dictionary.
As the French might say Vive La Difference (though they may never have said that!).

 

[mikej460]

I hope that, one day, presumably in the far distant future, the Americans will resign themselves to learning to speak ENGLISH - AS IT SHOULD BE SPOKEN !

Ah well you're capitalising and that's German...

 

[Limey Lurker]

Ha! You asked for it...
2 half pennys in a penny
3 pennys in a threepence or thrupenny bit
6 pennys in a sixpence
12 pennys in a shilling
2 shillings in a florin or 2 Bob
2 shillings and a six pence in a half crown
10 shillings in a ten bob note
20 shillings in a one pound note
5 one pound notes in a five pound note or fiver.
We still have 5, 10, 20, 50 pound notes bur one pound notes have been replaced with one pound coins and equal 100 (new) pence.

Well before 1971 we had thrupenny bits, farthings (4 = one penny)and sovereigns were one pound and a shilling which equaled one guinea.

And daft pippers like Reece-Mogg wonder why we ever changed...

I can remember in the 40s and 50s that 5 shillings were known as a dollar, and a half-crown was 'alf a dollar! A pound was a quid, and I asked my Mum why Mary didn't have a quid for a bed in the carol. ("No crib for a bed")

 

[John Brown]

Fahrenheit is a strange measurement with its negative threshold based on the freezing point of water when fully saturated with salt - what was the relevance of maximum strength brine?
And why do people think it is British? the bloke, as far a I can tell, never ventured onto out shores.

But just as I am mixed up with most measurements, some situations have me thinking in Fahrenheit, Summer days for instance, my thoughts turn to ºF such as 'it is very pleasant out, 70 ish, or it was hot today we touched 85. But then if it is a cold winters day I can imagine only in centigrade, same with the measurement of any thing else, annealing point of steel, well that would be centigrade too.

Linear measurements is another mixed bag for me, walking driving cycling it has to be miles, what else could it possibly be. But small measurements, lets say under 10' then I turn to metric.

Weight, there's another confused mix up, I try to keep myself under 13stone (failing a bit at the moment) , but anything below, lets say, 4 stone, I need grams

My car gets mpg, but I fill it with litres, my beer is brewed in litres, but I consider the end product as pints.

I agree. Miles, gallons, feet and pounds, but Celsius for temperature. If I'm estimating a drill size, or the thickness of plywood I use mm.
Cups(American, but who knows where they originated) when baking(talking about bread - I can do without having my macho credentials scrutinized again!).
Estimates: London buses(Routemasters, obvs.), Blue Whales, Wales, your right arm and football pitches, the latter being very approximate, as apparently there's no standard size.