[Thad E Ginathom]

Change your dictionary-buying too!

Really, this is a bad one. Might have become US usage maybe?

Remember that dictionaries don't actually define good English: they define usage. Usage changes over time, usually for the worst. In the spirit of good usage of English, or any other language, we should try to avoid the ugly.

There is well-built, etc. Laziness might have chopped of the first bit. Then we are left with a nonsense like "than" by itself.

EDIT: (Otherwise known as "Oh, Wait..." )

My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary lists it as a form of build, meaning build style. It also lists it as obsolete! So have to concede. But only partly, as I still say it is not good usage, modern or traditional!

[anupmathur]

This car is well built.
This is a well built car.
This car has great build quality.
The build quality of this car is above average.

All of the above are correct.

But built quality? Wrong as wrong can be.

[Thad E Ginathom]

It was ok in 1615

Some things are better not invented, others are better left in the past.

[samaspire]

What was the mode of transportation in 1615 Britain?

[tilt]

Originally Posted by riteshritesh

Dictionary.com supports my buying decision.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/built

Er... actually dictionary.com does not agree with you, it agrees with me. I still maintain that what I said is correct and what you and mallumowgli said in rebuttal to my post is incorrect.

Cheers

[Thad E Ginathom]

Yes. Read it right, like, "Hey, man, this car was built!" and one can get a sense of colloquial use that works. Very colloquial, more like slang.

Fowler's English Usage does not even mention it. Probably Mr Fowler and his subsequent editors hadn't even conceived of the usage!

It is not right in any sort of written English.

Originally Posted by samaspire

What was the mode of transportation in 1615 Britain?

Carriages, I suppose, that were built, like houses, ships, etc. Horses, whose build probably often attracted comment.

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

This car is well built.
This is a well built car.
This car has great build quality.
The build quality of this car is above average.

All of the above are correct.

But built quality? Wrong as wrong can be.

I endorse your views. 'Built quality' is wrong.

[mallumowgli]

Originally Posted by tilt

Er... actually dictionary.com does not agree with you, it agrees with me. I still maintain that what I said is correct and what you and mallumowgli said in rebuttal to my post is incorrect.

Cheers

Hello...My post was not a rebuttal of your post. I was saying that what Ritesh posted reads very wrong

[tilt]

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

Hello...My post was not a rebuttal of your post. I was saying that what Ritesh posted reads very wrong

Oh! My apologies for the misunderstanding.

Cheers

[amitoj]

Miscommunication on a language thread
Who woulda thunk!

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by amitoj

....
Who woulda thunk!

That should read "Who woulda thunk it"!

[vnabhi]

Got the below on WhatsApp. Quite interesting:-

By Shashi Tharoor

As an Indian schooled in the English language, I have long been fascinated by its different variants in use around the world-from the Singaporean "la" suffixed to every sentence to the Australian "G'day" prefixed to every greeting. But most compelling are the multiple differences between British and American English, the two languages fighting for dominance in the Anglophone world.

In my first week on a US university campus, I asked an American where I could post a letter to my parents. "There's a bulletin board at the Student Center," he replied, "but are you sure you want to post something so personal?" I soon learned that I needed to "mail" letters, not "post" them (even though in the US you mail them at the "post office".

In Britain, one concludes a restaurant meal by asking for the bill, and conceivably paying by cheque; in America, one asks for the check and pays with bills. What the Brits call chips are fries in America; what the Yanks call chips are crisps in Britain.

An English friend of mine says he nearly had a heart attack on a flight in the US when the American pilot announced that the plane would be airborne "momentarily". In British English, "momentarily" means "for a moment", and he says he thought the pilot was suggesting an imminent crash after takeoff. In American English, however, "momentarily" means "in a moment", and the pilot was merely appeasing the passengers.

The plane took off, stayed aloft, my friend's heart stopped thudding, and he lived to tell the tale. But he understood the old adage that Britain and the US are countries divided by a common language.

Anecdotes abound about the misunderstandings that arise when foreigners come to the US thinking that they know the language.

In one anecdote, a young man, in the course of a passionate courtship, tells his American girlfriend, "I'll give you a ring tomorrow." All he meant was that he would call her. But she understood him to have offered betrothal, and the relationship didn't survive the misunderstanding.

Then there's the hotel that failed to understand an English guest who called to say he had left his "trousers in the wardrobe". Translators had to be summoned before the hotel staff finally cottoned on: "Oh, you've left your pants in the closet. Why didn't you say so in the first place?"

Sometimes you can get the right word but the wrong concept. Our former foreign minister, M.C. Chagla, once ruefully recounted the time he wanted to order a modest bite from room service in a New York hotel and requested sandwiches. "How many do you want?" Chagla was asked. Imagining delicate little triangles of thinly-sliced bread, he replied: "Oh, half-a-dozen should be enough." Six sandwiches duly arrived, each about a foot long and four inches high.


The language of politics is also not exempt from the politics of language. When a member of parliament in Britain "tables" a resolution, he puts it forward for debate and passage; when an American Congressman tables a resolution, he kills it off. A "moot" point is one the Englishman wants to argue; but if it's moot, the American considers it null and void. Such differences of usage reveal something of the nature of American society. It is no wonder, after all, that while the British "stand" for election, Americans "run" for office.

A British linguist once told a New York audience that whereas a double negative could make a positive, there was no language in the world in which a double positive made a negative. A heckler put paid to his thesis in forthright American: "Yeah, right."

Yeah, right, indeed. With the universality of English largely a result of US global dominance, it's time for other English speakers to accept the American usage is winning worldwide. Even Indians are saying "elevator" and "apartment" rather than "lift" and "flat". "Cookies" are supplanting "biscuits".

And as the Americans have taught the rest of us to say: that's O.K. Though not even they can tell us what those initials are meant to represent.

[binand]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

Got the below on WhatsApp. Quite interesting:-

By Shashi Tharoor

Are you sure this is by Shashi Tharoor? Many of these stories are apocryphal. I recall encountering them in Reader's Digest of 60s vintage that was part of my maternal great-uncle's collection. I myself have recounted the "we pay bills by cheque, they pay checks with bills" joke several times.

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by binand

Are you sure this is by Shashi Tharoor? Many of these stories are apocryphal. I recall encountering them in Reader's Digest of 60s vintage that was part of my maternal great-uncle's collection. I myself have recounted the "we pay bills by cheque, they pay checks with bills" joke several times.

Not sure, as it was a WhatsApp forward.

[tilt]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

That should read "Who woulda thunk it"!

Well, to be absolutely pedantic, it should read "whodathunkit" LOL

I posted something in another thread, but since it has to do with posting in proper English and is very relevant here, I thought I'd cross-post it in this thread too.

Originally Posted by ts1506

I was fined by Kolkata police yesterday, for "Abatement of Overspeeding".

No idea what it means, usually abatement to a crime means helping or instigating someone else into doing a crime *SNIP*

The word you're looking for is "abetment" or "abetting"; not "abatement". "Abatement" means "to end" or "to subside" or "to reduce". "Abetment" means "to aid" or "to help" or "to assist".

Cheers