[DirtyDan]

Originally Posted by elfhelm

<rant>

. I cringe everytime I hear newsreaders and journalists say the word "Anyways".

</rant>

"Anyways" is American slang. You hear it a lot along with "Anywho" and "Anywhichway". It is meant t o convey a sense of whimsy over something.

[condor]

tsk1979 : Its actually due to Astrological reasons. .. So now you see, every car is sexy, every car is superb, and the Skoda cars, esp the Superb are reviewed multiple times.

Intresting. And Hyundai's next gen model will possibly be christened iSexy !

[ajitkommini]

Originally Posted by condor

Intresting. And Hyundai's next gen model will possibly be christened iSexy !

Yes. Except, it's so much more stylish to leave out the vowels and add some random hyphenation thus: iSX-Y

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by elfhelm

Atleast people in the media should use proper grammer for the language they use, be it English, Hindi, Marathi or any other language

And they should spell grammar properly. Especially on the English thread.

[Thad E Ginathom]

...Probably one of my regular mistakes!

Never could spell my own language

[normally_crazy]

I have noticed (in various newspapers) recently that its always printed "He hanged himself" .

Shouldn't it be "He hung himself" ?

[Thad E Ginathom]

No, oddly, it shouldn't.

Hung is what you did with your coat; hanged is what happened to the criminal.

Sam may be able to explain why, which I can't, but I am very sure this is right.

A sidenote: I always find it strange how, in Indian newspapers, the criminal is "awarded the death sentence" --- like it's some sort of prize!

[Sam Kapasi]

The past tense of hang is ALWAYS hung except for when you hang to death.

I am not clear as to why this distinction is applied. I could do some research but that is something I have avoided on this thread, in order to keep this information fresh and unpublished.

Perhaps it is just as well it is hanged. Let us consider the following questions and their responses.

------------
Q: How did he die?
A: He was hanged

Translation: He was killed by asphyxiation caused by tightening a rope around his neck.

-------------------------

And consider this

Q: How did he die?
A: He was hung.

Translation: He died because he had a unusually long appendage

[binz]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

The past tense of hang is ALWAYS hung except for when you hang to death..

Past continuous?

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Translation: He died because he had a unusually long appendage.

Teambhp Afterhours !

[Sam Kapasi]

It is common for us to use the word function as a word that describes a large celebratory public event.

However today I was faced with a rather hilarious situation.

I was having a drink with some Indian friends and one German colleague who was trying to understand Indian weddings and such.

The lady at the party went on to describe something that said "We were all invited, it was the new bride's first function at her home"
and my German colleague looked totally stunned.The way he understood it, there was a celebration for the new brides first function in her home. Which would logically be - copulation with her new husband.

It was beyond his comprehension why family and friends would be invited for this event.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Hey! I've been to a function celebrating an Indian girl's first period (coming of age). See what your German friends make of that!

[Thad E Ginathom]

I'm not very good at tenses, but...

British judges, I think, used to say "...where you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead". Not necessarily an instantaneous process :(.

So I guess the historical reporting of the event would be past continuous?

If the word 'hung' was used, then I can imagine that, after a particularly successful hanging, London executioners may well tell each other, He was well hung!.

Lets move on to something more cheerful...

[PatchyBoy]

The problem with English is that it has too much adaptability. Ironically, that also makes it the most versatile.
Afterall, any language is just a means of communication and as long as we are able to make ourselves understood, it is fine. I feel that grammar is not very important for spoken language, at least. How many of us say "The Team-BHP meet got preponed?" to indicate an advancement in schedule and are perfectly understood, though the word Prepone does not exist in English language? Neither doesn't an exact opposite of SIN. Also one will find number of posts talking about "Disc Breaks" or "Hand Breaks", when the correct spelling has to be BRAKE.

The technical explanation for this spelling difference would be that Brake is a noun and Break is a verb. The same holds good for advice and advise.

I wonder who in the world decided on these spelling differences and mainly WHY?

Cheers,

Rajan

[Thad E Ginathom]

Break and brake are two different words, just as are deer and dear. It is just that they are different parts of speech, which is not indicated by the spelling.

There is a word to describe these sets of words that sound the same but have different meanings --- but it isn't pheromones, which is what my brain keeps telling me!

Prepone is an valid word in Indian English.

English is a mongrel language: it has its origins in French, German, Latin, Greek, Scandanavian languages, celtic languages, even Indian languages. It is this multiplicity of sources that result in the difficulty of words that sound the same, but are spelt different.

Even words that have different pronunciations and meaning but the same spelling can easily be found in English, for example, Lead, the metal, and Lead, as in being a leader, or taking a dog for a walk on its lead.

This makes it quite easy to speak, but difficult to spell.

I'm very bad at it. Even now, I am amazed that my spell checker is telling to spell speak ea but speech ee.

The demands of grammar are less in speech, but the better the grammar, the more elegant and polished will the speech be.

[Proxima]

Originally Posted by DirtyDan

"Anyways" is American slang. You hear it a lot along with "Anywho" and "Anywhichway". It is meant t o convey a sense of whimsy over something.

Gentlemen, can you pls educate me on the use of anyways\anyway?

Something like this is very common in my office:
""Some long monologue and after that"" Anyways, lets get to the point.

Is this correct?