It seems that the person I wrongly identified as Stormzy was in fact Skin from Skunk Anansie. If there are fans of hers reading this, sorry for any seemingly gratuitous disrespect, but one speaks as one finds and it’s just an artistic opinion.
I watched the Stormzy video. He’s a beautiful man with a beautiful voice and charismatic presence.
I have never forgotten Skin appearing on children’s Saturday morning TV off her head and announcing she was stoned
I even heard ‘mail’ instead of courriel on France Musique!
I quoted you Jane about hearing “mail instead of courriel on France Musique” and it disappeared (SO irritating), and yes: but we are supposed to write it mél!
I’ve seen it written mél more than once on correspondence received.
Well slumdog verbiage doesn’t quite cut it for me. I think the perpetrators sound dumb and illiterate.
Hardly surprising considering their circumstances. I’m not sure how else you would expect people born into poverty and with little or no education to express themselves?
I’m not sure one follows the other. Also I’m not taking about people in poverty. I’m taking about kids from middle class families.
More superfluous use of ‘like’ in one of my favourite Frank Zappa songs-
Frank and his daughter on chat show
https://youtu.be/kPjKacvp6iU - discussion on the good folk of the valley from 6.20
Frank was a font of wise advice. For example “don’t eat the yellow snow, where the huskies go”
Which part of Oxford does your lady come from, like ?
Are we talking University graduate or Blackbird Leys resident ?
What a fantastic mature lady. She speaks very clearly. Dead pan humour too !
NB Could anyone offer me a tip on how to remember the correct use in context of the french words ‘humeur’ and ‘humour’ please ?
That story resonates a chord in me. My precious mum attended a special school in the 1950s.
She was termed disabled.
She didn’t learn to read or write until her guardian taught her when she was older.
My most tender memories of my mum was of her making up the most fantastic imaginative bedtime stories as she went along.
Not to mention teaching me to tie shoelaces with the utmost gentle patience.
Always attributed use of ‘of’ in place of ‘have’ to slight deafness rather than dumbness, but could be wrong…
I believe this is just that people believe it is ‘of’ and have not been told otherwise.
Of for have is my biggest bugbear
I find it interesting how many older english words have french or Norman roots, and conversely, how many French words relating to (new) technology or media have english ones.
One of the richest of the formerto deconstruct is the historical difference between ‘wood’ and ‘forest’, not least because today most anglophones think that a forest is a large wood. But, historically ‘wood’ is several centuries older, being from the Old German, and in Anglo-Saxon law meant a place where all people were free to gather firewood and hunt - the old Law of the Greenwood (Robin Hood etc.). By contrast, forest was a much later Norman introduction (forêt) and in legal terms meant the exact opposite to wood as peasants could be prosecuted and harshly punished for gathering firewood (stealing) or hunting (poaching) in a forest.
Sorry, my ironic facetiousness wasn’t sufficiently apparent - might have worked better in F2F conversation than in print…
Lesson learnt.