Subtle differences between the US and the UK that baffle me/you/us. - by SubJeff
SubJeff on 5/12/2012 at 08:52
Meh. Adding the y is always accompanied with shortening the word and that's it's true purpose. I don't like it but it's not illogical, it just sounds daft.
Over mechanization of words is a far more serious crime. Disorientated? Get out.
N'Al on 5/12/2012 at 09:43
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1535[/ATTACH]
Chimpy Chompy on 5/12/2012 at 09:55
Huh. I'd honestly never heard of that one. Wonder if it's a regional thing.
I am totally cringing at it tho, I'll give you that.
Vivian on 5/12/2012 at 10:53
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
I will say this-- referring to driving while drunk as "drink driving" sounds idiotic.
One should avoid drink-driving because it might end up with you driving while drunk. Make sense now? Legally proving someone is drunk is trickier than proving they've been drinking more than the legal limit. Hence the more conservative term. It's like how they are referred to as 'traffic incidents' now.
demagogue on 5/12/2012 at 11:38
Obviously his problem was with the word, not the concept. We just call it "drinking and driving". It's like you're drinking AND you're driving ... at the same time. Or you have an open container in the car. That's also an offense in the US.
The problem with a term like "drink-driving" as a verb is that English does not naturally have (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_%28linguistics%29) verb incorporation, or at least it's rare and a bit awkward, like back-stab. (It's a different case grammatically from a compound noun like traffic incident, which is much more common & natural to do.) We usually only get incorporation when it's backformed, like babysit from babysitter, breastfeed from breast-fed, bartend from bartender. But that doesn't work for drink-driving. (Edit: Actually it could if it were back-formed from a drunk driver, which is I'm sure where the US form "drunk driving" came from. But there's no analogous drink driver.) So it's a foreign form to English, and there's no backformed way to get to it. Hence, it sounds naturally dumb ... to someone that hasn't grown up with the term anyway.
faetal on 5/12/2012 at 12:44
Quote Posted by Chimpy Chompy
Huh. I'd honestly never heard of that one. Wonder if it's a regional thing.
I am totally cringing at it tho, I'll give you that.
Ditto. Never heard that, but then I don't hang out with complete dicks.
faetal on 5/12/2012 at 12:46
Quote Posted by demagogue
Obviously his problem was with the word, not the concept. We just call it "drinking and driving". It's like you're drinking AND you're driving ... at the same time. Or you have an open container in the car. That's also an offense in the US.
The problem with a term like "drink-driving" as a verb is that English does not naturally have (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_%28linguistics%29) verb incorporation, or at least it's rare and a bit awkward, like back-stab. (It's a different case grammatically from a compound noun like traffic incident, which is much more common & natural to do.) We usually only get incorporation when it's backformed, like babysit from babysitter, breastfeed from breast-fed, bartend from bartender. But that doesn't work for drink-driving. (Edit: Actually it could if it were back-formed from a drunk driver, which is I'm sure where the US form "drunk driving" came from. But there's no analogous drink driver.) So it's a foreign form to English, and there's no backformed way to get to it. Hence, it sounds naturally dumb ... to someone that hasn't grown up with the term anyway.
I think terms like drink-driving are due to the fact that our language is at least partially derived from Teutonic languages way back. Phrases like outgoing, incoming etc.. arte also contractions designed to slim down oft-used, bulkier phrases.
Vivian on 5/12/2012 at 13:40
Quote Posted by demagogue
Obviously his problem was with the word, not the concept. We just call it "drinking and driving". It's like you're drinking AND you're driving ... at the same time. Or you have an open container in the car. That's also an offense in the US.
The problem with a term like "drink-driving" as a verb is that English does not naturally have (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_%28linguistics%29) verb incorporation, or at least it's rare and a bit awkward, like back-stab. (It's a different case grammatically from a compound noun like traffic incident, which is much more common & natural to do.) We usually only get incorporation when it's backformed, like babysit from babysitter, breastfeed from breast-fed, bartend from bartender. But that doesn't work for drink-driving. (Edit: Actually it could if it were back-formed from a drunk driver, which is I'm sure where the US form "drunk driving" came from. But there's no analogous drink driver.) So it's a foreign form to English, and there's no backformed way to get to it. Hence, it sounds naturally dumb ... to someone that hasn't grown up with the term anyway.
I think it's supposed to be a dash, not a hyphen. Meaning drinking THEN driving. Not drinking and driving. So drink-dash-drive-gerund-ing.
demagogue on 5/12/2012 at 15:51
Ah, so not incorporation (baby-sitting) but an implied "&" in there. Fair enough. Actually makes it even a little weirder, but eh, language is weird sometimes. ;)
Ulukai on 5/12/2012 at 17:22
Quote Posted by Chimpy Chompy
Huh. I'd honestly never heard of that one [ninty]. Wonder if it's a regional thing.
Never, ever heard it either and I've lived in several regions of the UK. Maybe it's a chav thing.
