Are We Losing Our Railway Stations?

[Ian Simpson]

If you're not careful, you'll get me started on "station stops" ...

[w124bob]

23 hours ago, dagrizz said:

But the more general language is being lost to hyperbole.

 

'yes' is now 'absolutely'

'very' is now 'incredible'

'good', 'very good', 'nice', 'super', brilliant' are all now 'fantastic'

'before' is 'pre'

'after' is 'post'

 

I know there is a plain English society. Are they still active?

 

Graham

One of my regular Youtubers is a dutch girl who does motorcycle adventures, one of her sayings is "super nice", I forgive her for several reasons. She did ride a brand new Royal Enfield Himalayan home from the factory, in India and home is Utrecht!

[Martino]

Well, of course English is a living language, so develops all the time with use. In can be argued that French (for example) is not a living language as changes have to be approved by the Institute Francaise.  Here in the US there are many folk who speak English as was spoken by Shakespeare or at least by the English hundreds of years ago. Many words in everyday American have fallen out of use in the UK.  It would behoove us to remember that.

Personally I find ‘garidge’ to be awful. Why can’t we pronounce it ‘garage’ as we did when I was a boy - admittedly that was when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I am not unhappy with Train Station, although wouldn’t use that myself, unless people didn’t know what I was talking about - here in the US it would need to be Railroad Station, Depot, or train station.

However when referring to something in the past then it would be inappropriate and a hanging offence to refer to a 1930s railway station as a train station .  

Likewise GWR places where engines were serviced was always an Engine Shed and should never be referred to by that awful term MPD!

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Martino
I can’t spell.

[Nearholmer]

Well, boys in different places clearly pronounced it differently.

 

I only discovered that I was saying “gerridge” (with a hard e sound), just like my father, when my children started saying it like that. Ditto “compass deep” for compost heap!

 

Where you grew up, and social class, still, even now, hold at least some sway.

[Talltim]

On 07/09/2020 at 21:28, BernardTPM said:

You just have to keep correcting the idiots.

 

Oh and this

 

/

 

is a stroke. A slash is something you do behind the bicycle sheds. Or something more vicious with a knife.

What do you call \?

[BernardTPM]

Yes you could, or more elegantly as oblique (/)  and acute (\).

 

Incidentally, you can see the relationship between the symbol / and his arm in mid stroke.

Edited September 9, 2020 by BernardTPM

[John Harris]

I suppose that "train station" is more logical that "rail station" or "railway station", mainly because I go there to get a train not a rail?

 

That said, my pet hates are "do the math" (not really singular) or "the science says" (no, it does not).  I also get a bit annoyed by people being described as "scientist", science is a very wide subject, all people who practice science will have a speciality, biology, chemistry, particle physics, cosmology, etc.

 

But, as others have said, it really just shows that English is a living and evolving language.  My Granny, when she was feeling a bit under the weather, always said she was "feeling a little queer", that would be very confusing on two levels these days!

 

jch

[Talltim]

29 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

Yes you could, or more elegantly as oblique (/)  and acute (\).

 

Incidentally, you can see the relationship between the symbol / and his arm in mid stroke.

I'll give you stroke (or oblique) for /, but \ has only ever been backslash

[Compound2632]

On 07/09/2020 at 22:46, dagrizz said:

But the more general language is being lost to hyperbole.

 

'yes' is now 'absolutely'

'very' is now 'incredible'

'good', 'very good', 'nice', 'super', brilliant' are all now 'fantastic'

'before' is 'pre'

'after' is 'post'

 

I know there is a plain English society. Are they still active?

 

Graham

 

Most native English speakers, especially teenagers, have the surprisingly sophisticated ability to change register instinctively according to context. The language teenagers use amongst themselves they will not use with adults, unless they're setting out to be deliberately offensive - as is often the case. Equally, they would view an adult's attempt to adopt their teen-to-teen register as incongruous.

 

I expect that if you listened to recordings of yourself in different contexts, you would find that your language changed in much the same way.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Compound2632

[Talltim]

10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Most native English speakers, especially teenagers, have the surprisingly sophisticated ability to change register instinctively according to context. The language teenagers use amongst themselves they will not use with adults, unless they're setting out to be deliberately offensive - as is often the case. Equally, they would view an adult's attempt to adopt their teen-to-teen register as incongruous.

 

I expect that if you listened to recordings of yourself in different contexts, you would find that your language changed in much the same way.

That was your 9,999th post!

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by Talltim

[BernardTPM]

6 minutes ago, Talltim said:

I'll give you stroke (or oblique) for /, but \ has only ever been backslash

 

Has it? I've never called it that. Come to think of to I don't think I've ever had occasion to write it either. I see no reason to change from stroke simply because it is backwards though. It isn't fundamentally changed, just a mirror image.

 

[Zomboid]

They've only ever been Slash and Backslash in my vocabulary.

 

If someone talked about a "stroke" then I don't think I'd have ever understood it as being a / before reading this thread. Might make me ignorant, but I'm a few months short of 40 and so far it's caused me no issues in either making myself understood or understanding what someone else is saying.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Zomboid

[melmerby]

26 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

 

Has it? I've never called it that. Come to think of to I don't think I've ever had occasion to write it either. I see no reason to change from stroke simply because it is backwards though. It isn't fundamentally changed, just a mirror image.

 

But it has a fundamentally different meaning.

Cambridge University English dept refer to "/" as a slash, so I think if I use that term I'm in good company

[Steven B]

3 hours ago, John Harris said:

That said, my pet hates are "do the math" (not really singular) or "the science says" (no, it does not).  I also get a bit annoyed by people being described as "scientist", science is a very wide subject, all people who practice science will have a speciality, biology, chemistry, particle physics, cosmology, etc.

 

Math vs Maths was covered by a Radio 4 documentry a few months ago - apparently both are correct depending on if you take the Latin or Greek derivation of the word. One's a singular verb, the other a plural.

 

I take "scientist" as being a general term. All biologists are scientists, but not all scientists are biologist.

 

Steven B.

[BernardTPM]

.

Edited September 9, 2020 by BernardTPM

[C126]

To my surprise, consulting my 'bible', the 'Oxford English Dictionary' on-line (alas, not in the 1st facsimile ed. though), I discover "train station" was first recorded, and in a London publication, in 1845.  However, the usage is rather specific, I think, to a "luggage train station" (whatever that is).  But the next citation is also from London:

 

train station  n.

[1845   Morning Chron. [London] 11 Mar. 6/5   A box, containing two bars of gold, value £1,600, was stolen from the luggage train station of the Dover Railroad.]
1856   Daily News [London] 14 Nov. 5/3   I got into the cab and told the cabman to drive up to the Dover train station.

 

Pleasingly, "railway station" precedes it by at least nine years:

 

railway station  n.

1836   Times 2 Apr. 6/5   His daughter accompanied him to the railway station.

 

However, I still adhere to the prejudice that "train station" is erroneous and alien.  If you want to use a foreign expression, why not revert to the nineteenth-century "rail-road"?  First cited in 1757:

 

Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion 1897–98 (1899) 31   Laying rails or making a railroad to the pits from the main or great road.

 

Although this is preceded by "rail way", surprisingly early:

 

1. A roadway laid with rails (originally of wood, later also of iron or steel) along which the wheels of wagons or trucks may run, in order to facilitate the transport of heavy loads, originally and chiefly from a colliery; a wagonway. Formerly also: †the lines of rails along such a road (obsolete). Cf. rail n.2   Now historical.

1681   Let. 4 Jan. in M. J. T. Lewis Early Wooden Railways (1970) xiii. 247   I tould Skelding that my Lord Windesor would bee very angry with him for distroying his raile way.

 

Enough pedantry, I think.

[eastwestdivide]

As the bowl of petunias said, "oh no not again".

 

Application forms are available at www.SFTPOEAIUTBBNSLATWCUI.org.uk for the

Society For The Preservation Of English As It Used To Be (But Not So Long Ago That We Can't Understand It).

 

Fare thee well for I must hie.

[C126]

3 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

As the bowl of petunias said, "oh no not again".

 

Application forms are available at www.SFTPOEAIUTBBNSLATWCUI.org.uk for the

Society For The Preservation Of English As It Used To Be (But Not So Long Ago That We Can't Understand It).

 

Fare thee well for I must hie.

 

Sign me up, please!  Do not get me started on the transformation of everything into verbs (e.g., "access")...

[eastwestdivide]

23 minutes ago, C126 said:

 

Sign me up, please!  Do not get me started on the transformation of everything into verbs (e.g., "access")...

Surely "...on the verbing of everything" ?

 

The "not again" and SFTPOEAIUTBBNSLATWCUI were meant as a dig at the endlessly-recurring topic of "it's not a train station".

 

My take* on it is: Sorry, but train station is entirely acceptable now. It's unambiguous, shorter than "railway station", easier to say and widely used. You can't stop changes in language if those changes work and people use them. 

 

*I think I nouned a verb there.

[C126]

3 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

Surely "...on the verbing of everything" ?

 

The "not again" and SFTPOEAIUTBBNSLATWCUI were meant as a dig at the endlessly-recurring topic of "it's not a train station".

 

My take* on it is: Sorry, but train station is entirely acceptable now. It's unambiguous, shorter than "railway station", easier to say and widely used. You can't stop changes in language if those changes work and people use them. 

 

*I think I nouned a verb there.

 

Mea culpa; I did not know it had popped up here before.  I am still curious as to why people have changed, but I will spare further droning.  Anyway, my tea is cool enough to drink now, so I will go and settle down with the latest R.M.

[Oldddudders]

4 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

I think I nouned a verb there.

ISTR a noun-verb is called a gerund.