'public school' drifted into exonymic status as of the middle 20th century in the U.K..

For a long time, as long as I've been alive, they've called themselves 'independent schools', which in fairness is indeed clearer terminology. They're (more) independent from the government than state(-owned/run) schools.

isc.co.uk/about-isc/associatio…

The legal terminology is also and has long since been 'independent school'. See the Education and Skills Act 2008, for example, or indeed the Education Act 1944.

This was observed in 1985: "in recent years the less emotive phrase 'independent school' has slowly replaced the more familiar but totally misleading term 'public school'."

The humorous fact that 'public school' means something that seems contradictory to non-U.K. people has outlasted the very piece of terminology it is talking about, which in fact largely disappeared in endonymic or formal exonymic use during the times of Margaret Thatcher.

#education #EnglishLanguage

Therefore, I submit the following as a synonym for "to totter":

TO TORKLE.

Example sentence: Courtney got up in the middle of the night and torkled blearily to the bathroom.

This actually happened last night, which is what brought on this wild language ride first thing this morning. You're welcome. 😁💜✌️🤘🖖

2/2

#language
#etymology
#linguistics
#GermanLanguage
#EnglishLanguage
#Latin
#ILoveLanguage

This is where we find that Mr Jerry Rigge-Bodge actually existed. (-:

#EnglishLanguage #folklore

Another piece of evidence that /usr/dict/words was not based upon the 1934 Webster's, as modern folklore now has it.

To add to github.com/386bsd/386bsd/issue… and groups.google.com/g/alt.usage.…

The actual history, as documented by Karels, Bloom, and McKusick for 4.3BSD (c.f. SMM:12-22 Bug Fixes and Changes in 4.3BSD), is that web2 and web2a are from the Webster's Second Edition and were added in BSD in 1985.

Seventh Edition's words is not. In fact there's an old article from 1982 in IEEE TCOM by Doug McIlroy explaining how that came about. It wasn't dmr at all. It was McIlroy re-doing Stephen C. Johnson's original dictionary for SPELL.

It's from not a single source, McIlroy relating the rather complex origin; and the SPELL command's original source dictionary was dated 1970, not 1934. Unix used to be modern. (-:

groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.n…

#WebstersDictionary #Unix #EnglishLanguage #ComputerHistory #BSD

Idiomatic Hiberno-English, and a fairly straightforward extension of more widespread constructions that non-Irish speakers don't blink an eye at, such as "come on over!" and "come on in!" and even "cross over to", "go on around", "walk on by", and "walk out in front of".

Unusual enough to be an effective linguistic marker for 'Irishness', still. Although the word 'craic' does give it away a bit. (-:

#EnglishLanguage

You and your filo pastry! (-:

#biology #EnglishLanguage

Interesting. The Wiktionary Word of the Day today (not a word, but still) is, "At sixes and sevens": en.wiktionary.org/wiki/at_sixe…

Which I hadn't heard in a while. But I wonder if that's where 67 comes from? 🤔

#Etymology #englishlanguage

#DanMcClellan has just reminded me of how when I was young the King James Version of the #Bible was regarded as archaic and incomprehensible gibberish in places. ("Help meet"? What's a "help meet"? And why are there Sith in Ezekiel?) But the modern translations were viewed at the time in certain quarters of the CoE as a bit sus. Some of the ones that are well respected nowadays hadn't even been done yet.

McClellan points to 2 Corinthians 2. I haven't really bothered with the KJV for decades, but I just compared the KJV's version of that to the NET, the NIV, the RSV, and the NRSVUE.

My goodness! The KJV is even worse than I remember from my childhood.

The sad truth is that the KJV was already archaic in 1611. There's stuff in there that an Elizabethan English speaker would have had difficulty with; let alone me approaching 4 centuries later.

#Christianity #EnglishLanguage

#English #EnglishLanguage.

#Meme #Memes #Humour #Humor

One year ago, the #Trump admin gutted the #Education Department’s Office of #EnglishLanguage Acquisition, which is supposed to help about 5 million students in #PublicSchools “attain English proficiency & achieve academic success.”

By “gutted,” I mean cut 14 of the 15 staff positions in that office. Now the department has given #Congress official notice that it plans to dissolve the office entirely.

#law #immigration #ESL #racism #WhiteSupremacy #DualState

@telescoper

This would explain the 'OR' ligature letter, little known outwith Northumbria. (-:

@Richard_Littler

#EnglishLanguage #orthography #Newcastle #Northumbria

Maybe Finn Gillespie-Petersen did not write the sub-head. There's no mention of 'double-sided coin' in the body of the piece.

'two sides of the same coin' is a metaphor for two things that are a part of a single whole. 'a double-edged sword' is a metaphor for something that can be both favourable and unfavourable at the same time.

The metaphor in this sub-head seems to be a confused mixture of the twain.

In magic, a double-sided coin is simply a trick coin with both sides stamped the same, which clearly isn't relevant here as there's no assertion that tourism is some kind of magic trick.

westenglandbylines.co.uk/opini…

#EnglishLanguage #metaphors #Bylines #journalism #magic

I'm looking for an opportunity to use this new discovery!

Floccinaucinihilipilification [FLOK-suh-NAH-sun-nee-HIL-uh-pil-uh-fi-KAY-shun]
(n.) The act or an instance of estimating something to be without value.
(v.) To estimate something or somebody as worthless or trivial.

Originally coined by some clever student(s) at Eton College

#Language #Englishlanguage