Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

Also, don't discount authors having lost email accounts. It happens all the time, and often, they won't even realize it.

I had email from my editor going to the junk mail folder for about six months without realizing it.

JIM7 says: PPPPPPffffffftttttttt!!!!!!!!!!

>

In some cases that can be a worry, but in some cases it can be good news

Yeah, but I work in IT. That it was happening for so long without me noticing is kind of embarrassing.

Now you know why I retired from that industry.

Nope, not a clue. I actually like my job.

Then I'm lucky with my job.

There was indeed some time ago scarcity of IT jobs, but last couple of years almost all our youth IT people left us - mostly for EU green fields and Canada - so us couple of old farts are now kings of IT in my country, and now I almost can live of my salary... :D

BTW The character with the smart remark following my last post is one of my editors who I have a lot of interesting email exchanges with on the use of the English language.

That's a misleading statement on its face: It's a well-known fact that Ernest writes a dialect of Aussie, and TeNderLoin now holds forth in Arzonian.
The one billows forth in great flowing streams while the other seasons it with pungent sprinkles of ground pepper flakes.

I get beteen 25-40 emails after each posting. That is 50-80 every week for five or six months.

I got (by rough count) 559 emails the day my most recent story concluded (and almost 200 since).

Exactly why I don't expect replies (and often suggest that I don't expect a reply.

Usually it is about typos and spell-check errors so I leave it up to the author to be aware and decide whether to correct or not - I never check.

I am actually surprised by and really appreciate how many authors do reply and, with one exception, in very nice terms.

The exception was where the author has used a foreign language as if it is his own (and in a manner which should be acceptable to non linguists) but then ascribes to the native speaker an English pronunciation which is totally at variance to reality. It was the tone of the reply saying that the speech was a deliberate put-on by the speaker (apparently divulged much later) which "got" me.

Just out of curiosity, how does the U.S. education system's definition of a dependent clause differ from the Australian education system?

I can't answer that directly (hopefully someone else can), as I'm neither American nor Australian, but I have some experience with the effect.

I'm Canadian, but I attended private and international schools due to travel, and those types of schools tend to teach grammar in classical British styles. More recently, when I returned to university after several years in the work-force, I found that while most professors don't have any issue with the use of British spellings -- as opposed to official Canadian spellings, which are a mix of British and American -- as long as you're consistent, they do generally require that you use the more modern grammar styles.

In a word, the rule is "simplification". This applies both to how the rules are taught and to how they are implemented. I suspect that @Ernest Bywater is referring to the fact that the U.S. government has been de-emphasising and de-funding education for years, so in order to ensure that kids can graduate school they make the training easier. And yes, the problem with this has been noted by many: according to OECD rankings the US is now 29th out of 76 nations compared in basic education; Canada is 10th and Australia is 14th.

The point being that since US schools are are trying to get a high percentage of kids to graduate while not having much budget, a lot of grammar rules are being simplified. Instead of teaching kids the actual fundamentals of grammar, public schools teach easy mnemonics for how to remember when to use a given punctuation mark.

For example, everyone here has probably heard the mnemonic that commas represent pauses for breath, and everyone knows that that is only partially true. That rule is more about when to breathe when reading aloud than it is about when to punctuate, but it can be used as a general rule of thumb in some situations when you're not sure if you need a comma or not. But if someone is taught the "commas represent pauses" concept as the fundamental rule, rather than as rule of thumb to support an underlying rule, then they will apply it all the time because they do not have a deeper understanding of grammar to support their writing.

There are also certain grammatical uses which are falling out of style, though not precisely wrong. I've met a number of people, both in academia and business, who won't use semicolons at all; I'm not sure if that's a fad, with people simply disliking the semicolon, or if it's a part of the ongoing simplification of English grammar in the US, since using semicolons correctly is complicated and it is rare that you cannot just replace them with a period.

On the other hand, I was also taught the old British way of punctuating within quotation marks, also known as the logical style, and that seems to be going out of favour everywhere. In the old British style, all punctuation relevant to the text inside the quotation marks is included inside the quote, all punctuation relevant to the overall sentence is outside the quotes, and nothing is eliminated even if redundant. This can lead to duplicate periods and the like. It makes perfect sense, but looks somewhat silly in print.

After I started the engines, there was one last group of hugs before we disconnected shore services, took in the lines, and slowly made our way from the dock. - I was taught the first comma isn't needed because the clause is part of the sentence and just stating the timing.

That is a difficult one because of the way it is written. The snogging is not a critical part of starting the engine, taking in the lines and getting under way. The way it is written IMHO I agree with you BUT if you changed the word 'before' to a different conjunction then there should be commas after 'engine' and 'hugs'

Another thing is, in the longer sentence above the author correctly uses commas to split up a list of actions in the second half of the sentence, yet a lot of US authors want to make each action a separate sentence and reduce it to the See Spot run category.

After multiple comments about modern education the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle is essential. I'm surprised they allow words of more than two syllables.

I was taught it's wrong to have punctuation marks on both sides of quotes or brackets.

KISS again; it depends on the text and has already been covered, in my view, accurately.
(I put the commas in there because it is an aside to the definitive statement)

The biggest issue we have is I hate commas and he wants one after every third word.
Some good rules here:
http://www.grammarbook

BUT look at them carefully. I think rule 6 about the insertion of commas applies far more often than we realise
However, for the purposes of example I quote from rule 2:
Quote: Use a comma to separate two adjectives when the order of the adjectives is interchangeable.

Example: He is a strong, healthy man.
We could also say healthy, strong man.

Unquote

The lady omits any reference to when the order of adjectives is interchangeable.Is she not playing with enallage?

As for adjectives there IS a very specific order in which classes of adjectives must be used in circumstances like the above. I have just spent an hour looking for it in my "bible" but had to cheat so this what I found elsewhere:
opinion (ugly)
size (tiny)
shape (round)
condition (broken)
age (old)
colour (green)
pattern (flowery)
origin (German)
Material (wood)
Purpose (shopping)

In front of those there are things like articles, ownership and others

Going back to the first quotes I have a dilemma - I would say that both adjectives relate to "condition" so where are the rules there? I know that there is a predetermined order of vowels for one vowel words but what happens when words have multiple vowels.
Two questions: why the blazes don't they teach us these things in primary school?
Does it matter anyway (except in your thesis for a doctorate)?

Some good rules here:

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/commas.asp

Yes, I agree with slight reservations. She has agreed with some commentators and changed some things. I suspect that there will never be a book of grammar rules which everyone agrees with. For me the other difficulty, as has been already stated, is that many or most people speak and write a language which might not be grammatically perfect but which is clearly understandable.

There is one query up for moderation:
Although he never owned it there is a bit of real estate outside New York which (pop Quiz #5) she says should be called John F Kennedy's airport or (I'm not sure of the legal name) JFK's airport.
OK she was writing about an airport in Ikeja but it is an exact parallel.

She MIGHT be right but in such case there will be ructions if anyone tries to force the CAA and the US and other equivalent bodies to change

@sejintenej

Although he never owned it there is a bit of real estate outside New York which (pop Quiz #5) she says should be called John F Kennedy's airport or (I'm not sure of the legal name) JFK's airport.

The Airport is named after JFK as an honorarium, he doesn't own the airport, thus it's not his. The proper name is "John F. Kennedy International Airport". I don't understand how this can possibly be unclear or confusing for any grammar fanatic?

That, CW, is EXACTLY the point I was trying to make.
Just as the New York airport uses JFK's name to honour him so Lagos airport uses the town's name for the same reason. That woman, in her reply to the Pop Quiz, is claiming that it should be Lagos' or Lagos's airport

I'm too important (well, somebody has to say it). I will not be classified as a common or garden muck raking customer - I an a client. Now about this parking sign - I class that as class distinction.

" my grocery store" and "I am either anal or weird": Well, things have come to a pretty pass...

In a red-light district, [Free Customer Parking] would include free parking for pimps and cops.

re "Free Customer Parking": That might include cops, but pimps are employees and as such should park, along with the girls, in the employee parking area.

Another possible option would to indicate how tall you are, in feet and inches, or meters and centimeters if that better fits the location where the story located. And then mention how tall she is. This might even be showing rather than telling relative heights. Or even mention how well you two fit together (dancing?) with her head even with your chin, or possibly waist (for a midget), or some reasonable point between that lets the reader know Big macho hero towers over Small adorable heroine.

In Central and South America, people get English books primarily from the US, but most of the rest of the world gets them from Britain. This is purely economic; shipping is cheaper from the UK to Europe, Africa, and Asia then it is from the US.

So far as Brasil is concerned a number of people go to the US for their further education - the owner of the company I worked for got his medical qualifications in Chicago, my immediate boss went to Harvard, I knew Yale graduates etc. This created a problem for us in Europe because of the different meanings of technical (and other) words and phrases so there were some which were banned.

As for Japanese people (and this goes back decades) those in Europe knew English but couldn't get their mouths round the sounds. An exception spoke good clear English because he had an English "pillow dictionary" but apparently even that was the cause of considerable problems where he worked.

I can't speak for other countries but here we have learned American from films but still speak out own basic language adding in imported words from everywhere. That said there are areas where nobody speaks English- I heard of one school where the pupils speak 129 different languages when they arrive

That creates a whole separate problem, though. Too many authors rely on levels of specificity that characters simply wouldn't know.

That depends on the point of view the story is told from. A third person omniscient narrator would know everyone's precise height, though too much precision about such things is not necessarily a good thing.

Most adults only have a vague idea of their own height, let alone being able to guess another person's height just by looking at them.

Can't speak for anywhere else, but most adults I know (I am in the US midwest) know their height to at least the nearest inch. I would consider that a good bit more than a vague idea.

Knowing your own basic measurements is important for many things, including but not limited to buying clothes.

Another method that can be used (for almost any POV) would be to have the MC compare other people to himself.

A stranger walked in the room. (MC or POV character) noted that the stranger was around 4 inches taller than himself.

It seems more natural to use generic terms and references in describing people, because that's how it's done in real life.

Agreed, but I was referring to a 3rd omni narrator.

and for your "hands-width taller than" to be useful at some point you need to give the height for the reference character in less general terms.

But even with a 3rd omni narrator it sounds stupid and annoying to have everyone described as xxx cm high yyy kg weight etc - many readers find such information annoying

Agreed, which is why I had said

A third person omniscient narrator would know everyone's precise height, though too much precision about such things is not necessarily a good thing.

sejintenej, Ernest Bywater

Thank you both, I am always interested in other people's experiences with respect to language. Despite having travelled a lot, and being very interested in linguistics and language, I've never really been able to learn a second language myself

Nobody believes it but languages are one of my phobias. As your mother probably realised a lot of the problem is differences in background cultures and that is, I think, a major reason why it is important to be immersed in the new culture. I wrote elsewhere about Tachi - the Japanese who was so good because of his "pillow dictionary". Were I not married .....!

However if you live and work in a country and see nobody who speaks your language ...... I've made many boo-boos but they have always been accepted as par for the course where foreigners are concerned.

One employer sent several of us to the local Uni to learn the politenesses in each of the languages used by staff in our offices. Everyone spoke (good) English but we had to recognise the tribal scars and say things like "good morning", "how are you" "thank you" to each of the staff in their own language. Seven languages, three of them tonal. In one of those one sound could be a house or a crocodile or part of the verb 'to be': you don't want to mix those up.

I still get thoroughly mixed up between a couple (that teacher tore out a lot of hair!)and as for the various versions of American Spanish I just don't want to know

Not if there's no specific reason for them knowing.

You like EB have apparently missed the entire second half of that sentence. A third omni narrator by definition knows everything. That includes every character's precise height.

I agree that including that information in the narration for no particular reason is not a good idea.

Thousands of stories here specify each woman's bra size in exact sizes, even though 80% of women wear the incorrect bra sizes, and have no idea what size they wear, or even how to properly measure themselves.

The average bra cup size in the US has increased significantly in the last few decades. I have seen both academic researchers and industry insiders saying that the cause is not that women's breasts are getting bigger, but because more women are buying better fit bras, a smaller band size with a larger cup size.

I would suggest, rather, that the average person knows their height as it was the last time it was measured, which was very likely for their first driver's license. Most people don't have big growth spurts later in life, but height does vary to a small degree based on a number of factors.

Unless you have significant spinal compression which doesn't usually develop until much later in life, it's highly unlikely that your adult height will vary by more than +/- 1 inch.

And yes, DS is right, it typically only accounts for an inch or two, rather than three or four.

Oh, certainly, I'm not saying that it is a huge difference, though there are several factors which most people don't consider, just that taken as a whole a person's apparent height due to a combination of shrinkage, slouching, and daily change (which is about 1cm or 1/2 an inch between waking up and going to bed) means that the height as listed on a driver's license is not the same as the visible height when someone walks into a room.

It's basically a separate but similar problem with giving a precise height: is it the person's actual height or their apparent one?

which is about 1cm or 1/2 an inch between waking up and going to bed

And what I said is that most adults know their height to the nearest inch. That half inch variance doesn't contradict that.

And what I said is that most adults know their height to the nearest inch. That half inch variance doesn't contradict that.

Yes, you are correct DS, nothing that I have said contradicts your measurement. I was not arguing with you in any way, nor did I intend to give that impression. I mostly use quotes so that it isn't necessary to re-read twenty previous messages to understand a response.

What I am saying, and what I believe that @Crumbly Writer and @Ernest Bywater are also saying, is that differences of a few inches are pretty small conceptually. Yes, a difference of just an inch or two is often visible, but that's due to a trick of perception. Most people do not really look at other people and think "she's 5'2" tall and 120lb", they think "she's kind of short, but she's got curves in all the right places".

There's a really great exchange in the first episode of NCIS. After taking a bunch of photos, the agent starts making measurements for sketches. When asked about it, he picks up a magazine with a bikini-clad model on the cover and asks:

Can you tell if she's (looks at magazine) 5'4" in a 35-C, or 5'7" in a 36-D? You can't, not from a photo. That's why we do sketches, take measurements.

There are additional factors. Because humans try to look each other in the face, we tend to "tune out" the lower body. As a result, size differences look bigger than they actually are, because two people standing next to each other are mostly compared from the waist up.

Also, many people have only a vague idea of precisely how big inches and feet are. They know the definition, certainly, and the sizes of a few specific items, but if you ask someone to show or draw a specific length, most people will have trouble unless they have a job which trains that skill. A carpenter, for example, might be able to eyeball lengths of wood.

In any case, if you want to use specific heights in your stories, feel free. For myself, I find that reading specific heights and weights takes me out of the story. At the very least, I'll pause while I try to visualise the character; that process is much easier with a vague description. Too many unnecessarily specific details will take me out of the story entirely, unless there's a good in-universe reason for the detail.

There's also another problem with giving exact heights, especially with ongoing serials of multi-part stories: it's much harder to catch mistakes. If a character shifts from being shorter than the protagonist to taller, an editor should catch it. If they change from being 5'4" to 5'6", that's pretty easy to miss if it has been 100 pages, but I can almost guarantee that at least one reader will notice and be bugged by it. There are NYT best sellers which have these sorts of mistakes over the course of several books in a series.

Most people do not really look at other people and think "she's 5'2" tall and 120lb", they think "she's kind of short, but she's got curves in all the right places".

Judging height at a distance is difficult. But for close encounters I would be willing to bet that more people than you think would think along the lines of "she's (some measurement be it a physical reference such as a head or a hand's width or a number of inches/centimeters) taller/shorter than me"

There seem to be a few sounds that I either can't hear or can't make (the "dz" in Russian, one of the sounds in Cambodian, etc.),

I have heard it said that a child's mouth is formed by the age of six. Some professionals seem to overcome it (though I have heard terrible mispronunciation from one or two opera singers) There are the basic differences between speaking from the front of the mouth and the back (which can be copied easily enough) but specific sounds, you are right. My big problem is the rolled double r such as ferrocarril in Castelleño

as for swearing in Akan - forgotten it all

A hand is 4 inches. 16 hands woudl be 5 feet, 4 inches. That is a perfectly respectable size for a horse, or a young lady. Neither would be anemic. Which is a problem involving a deficiency of red biood cells, rather than a height problem.

If the discussion were of John Henry, it would be 16 tons, loading of. Another day older and deeper in debt.

That only covers half the unfamiliar (outside the UK) units. You'd have far more readers understanding you if you said 5'4", 140 lbs.

The only place I've heard "hands" as a unit of measurement is in relation to horses.

That is a perfectly respectable size for a horse, or a young lady. Neither would be anemic.

Yes for the height, but 10 stone would be seriously under weight for a horse, or at least for a 16 hand horse. Miniature horses might be as light as 10 stone, but they would only be around 9 hands.

That only covers half the unfamiliar (outside the UK) units.

What are the other units?

tppm

That only covers half the unfamiliar (outside the UK) units.

What are the other units?

off the top of my head

carats (precious stones)

rods (area)

poles (area)

perches (area)

bakers dozens (13)

gross (144)

guineas (money)

score (20)

leagues (distance)

knot (speed and distance)

troy ounces (weight)

for a start

Interesting. I have heard of many of those. Some day I'll have to research others, just out of curiosity.

Plus the potential for confusion with
ton
pint
gallon

all of which are different quantities in the USA to elsewhere.
I assume that publications like vehicle specifications and cookery books are adjusted when reproduced overseas, but it does cause confusion when trying to persuade a wife to prepare a meal using an imported cookbook.....though tons aren't relevant unless you have a large family.

(14lb to a stone, 8st to a hundredweight, 20cwt to a ton - making an imperial ton 2240lb).

I assume that publications like vehicle specifications and cookery books are adjusted when reproduced overseas,

Just looked through those of my cookery books of foreign origin but translated into English where needed:

Keller (The French Laundry, CA) two books published New York - American measures but none which differ from UK but ARE different to Australian spoon measures

Escoffier: UK translation 1907 converted to UK measures

Escoffier: 1965 translation English measures with US in brackets (yes - I just double checked that!)

Ferran Adria, Spanish English translation: European metric

Paul Bocuse: UK translation ca 1978 European metric with UK measures in brackets

Coco - a collection from around the world - European metric

le Creuset (UK translation from French, 1997)) European metric with UK in brackets plus conversion table UK, Australian and USA incl many cup measures for selected ingredients.

it does cause confusion when trying to persuade a wife to prepare a meal using an imported cookbook

No. I don't think so. Cup measures and spoon measures are commonly available here in the UK and modern scales all cover metric and old UK measures. The risk is where two different measures are published such as le Creuset- you MUST choose one or the other and not mix them.

No. I don't think so. Cup measures and spoon measures are commonly available here in the UK and modern scales all cover metric and old UK measures.

Products like Bisto and Birds Custard Powder which are easier (and sometimes cheaper) to obtain direct from the UK contain instructions for making a pint or half pint. Where they are available in the USA I think they are all imports with unchanged labels as well, but am not certain. There is a .ml notation but when it says 4 heaped teaspoons to 1/2 pint, she worked with what she knew - and following the instructions using a pint measure in the US does make for slightly thicker consistency.
I can assure you it caused her confusion! :0)
I was the one who suffered, though cutting gravy is quite easy.

There is a .ml notation but when it says 4 heaped teaspoons to 1/2 pint, she worked with what she knew - and following the instructions using a pint measure in the US does make for slightly thicker consistency

When I checked the table showed teaspoons a being the same (Australian are smaller I think)but as you have smaller gallons perhaps it is your pints which are also smaller.

The Imperial pint is 20 fl oz, compared with the US pint which is 16 fl oz, so both the pint and gallon are 25% more in the UK than in the US.
Although US based now, I still think in imperial measures as I was educated long before the metrification of the UK. Like you, I still know my weight in stones and pounds, not kilos, but also still use inches and Fahrenheit as the alternatives aren't generally understood on the west side of the pond.
When metrification was first introduced in the UK I was working in the timber industry and one of the first changes was selling 2"x4" timber in 3 metre lengths. That obviously made everyone happy. :0)

Cookery books is an English language term, not to be confused with cooking the books, which I believe is more of an American habit. :D

Cookery books? Is that a Aussie term? Here in America, they're known as "cook books". That's like calling novels "readery books". 'D

It's cookery books in the UK where we also have rookeries

"Cookery book" is the phrase used in England, and versions of English more recently divergent from the mother language than American. I don't know which version is used in Canada, though I think it's "cook book".

I guess "cookery" strikes me, as it sounds vaguely dismissive, as in describing a wife's interest in her 'cookery', rather than a chef's interest in the culinary arts.

If you really want truth in advertising, they should be called recipe books.

I guess "cookery" strikes me, as it sounds vaguely dismissive, as in describing a wife's interest in her 'cookery', rather than a chef's interest in the culinary arts.
If you really want truth in advertising, they should be called recipe books.

Not necessarily.
Thomas Keller (American, The French Laundry) writes about things associated with cuisine like thoughts on freshness etc.
Pellaprat (French, 1012 pages, translated 1967) has sections on drawing up menus (including the eight course (with two choices per course)and fives champagnes for King George VI at Versailles 1938) menus from past dinners), culinary techniques, equipment, how to choose dairy products, wines, nutrition.
Yes, thousands of recipes but it is those "extra" bits which are so fascinating

a cookery book includes a lot of details about how you prepare the oven, pan etc to do the cooking and a lot more than just the recipe.

Ummm ... like, turn on the oven? Grease the pan? That sort of extra preparation?

Here in Corporatist America we still call that a cookbook. Spouse & I have a large collection; most include the sort of detail you mention. Cookbooks, one & all.

pre-heat the oven to ... - take out when ..... etc

Sorry, what temp to cook at, how long, do you need to pre heat the oven is part of an individual recipe and can differ from one recipe to another.

While a cookery book includes a lot of details about how you prepare the oven, pan etc to do the cooking and a lot more than just the recipe.

Except those details can be different for different recipes, and I rather doubt that those details amount to more than 10% of the books content. I'd still call that a recipe book.

I don't know which version is used in Canada, though I think it's "cook book".

Yes, in Canada we do generally use the US "cookbook" (one conjoined word). The problem in Canada is that while there is often a preference towards British terms and spellings, the majority of our media comes from the States, so that affects what kids grow up with.

It's not as bad today as it was thirty years ago because changes in filming costs, the growth of the film industry in Canada (due in large part to US companies using Canada as a cheap filming location), and the rise of independent and cable networks has allowed Canadian companies to produce decent content.

The only things that I can recall watching on Canadian TV when I was growing up in the '70s and '80s were some children's shows and a few unedited films. Due to differences in ratings systems, non-sexual nudity was allowed in films on CBC, so pre-internet boys watched a lot of classic films that we didn't really understand in order to get a three second look at a nipple.

My point being that for my generation, pretty much all TV, film, and comics, plus most books and music all came from the US, so the desire for maintaining British language usage is more of a social drag effect slowing down our conversion to American English, rather than a move towards a separate language. Whether that effect is going to speed up or slow down in the future is hard to predict; arguments can be made either way.

Is there influence on a "Canadian" English by the "French" speaking minority, Quebec and similar. I am under the impression Canada is officially bi-lingual. Does that affect how English is learned and spoken? Learning both may challenge immigrants who are not English speakers.

The quotes are around Quebec French because it is somewhat different than say, Parisian French. Dialects develop over time, eh?

The quotes are around Quebec French because it is somewhat different than say, Parisian French. Dialects develop over time, eh?

They may develop but I think that Parisian French and Quebecois developed from different sources within northern France.

Outside of Quebec, the French influence is insignificant in most provinces, but it does vary by location. The official status of the two languages mostly means that all federal government offices and communication must provide service in both languages. French language services are often provided at a provincial level as well, but that tends to be more touch and go. In addition, all packaging must have both languages present.

When I was a kid in Manitoba, French lessons in school started around grade 4 (8-9 years old) and was required for graduation. Later, when we moved to British Columbia on the West Coast, I learned that French classes started in grade 8 (12-13 yo) and were only semi-required. For graduation in BC you needed to have a second language at the grade 11 level, but it didn't have to be French. Many international students used their first language to fill that requirement.

In Quebec this is somewhat reversed; school is taught in French, but everyone has mandatory English lessons in school. It is worth noting that in Quebec 80% of the population are native French speakers and 10% are native English, the rest being non-official languages.

Manitoba, in addition to being 3,000 km closer to Quebec than BC is, also has a lot more Francophones than BC. Current demographics are around 13% French origin and 6.4% Métis (mixed race native), so overall that's nearly one-fifth of the population.

As an English Canadian who isn't particularly good at learning languages, my experience with French has mostly been that I know how to pronounce the language reasonably well and I can understand basic vocabulary when reading, but I can't understand spoken French.

Oddly, the dialect issue is actually somewhat odd. As you'd expect, most of the original immigrants were peasants, not Parisians, and came from western regions where French was not always the spoken language. Later immigrants and officials bought differing versions of French to the colony. After the British took over in 1760, the colony was not only separated from France, but there was social pressure to retain their language as it was to prevent the encroachment of English.

The result of those factors is that Canadian French held on to a lot of pronunciations and words that later fell out of use in France. So while Quebecois is certainly a separate dialect from Parisian, it is actually more of a time-capsule of Classical French than it is a new language. There are also a few other French dialects in smaller communities.

Overall, though, I'd say that other than a few words like Métis, and less of a tendency to completely mangle pronunciation as you hear on US TV, for most English Canadians French is just something that you're exposed to in day to day life because of signs and packaging but aren't really aware of.

Just an observation, and I may be wrong, but based on a few visits to British Columbia, Canadians are far more polite than Americans.

Afterthought: And better drivers.

The result of those factors is that Canadian French held on to a lot of pronunciations and words that later fell out of use in France. So while Quebecois is certainly a separate dialect from Parisian, it is actually more of a time-capsule of Classical French than it is a new language. There are also a few other French dialects in smaller communities.

French developed from a group of dialects spoken in the northern part of France now called Oïl (which means "yes"). In the south (from the Italian Alps to almost the Atlantic there was a very different group of dialects called "oc" (which also means "yes"). Hence the area and dialect where I go called 'Languedoc' (language of Oc). Catalan (found in Spain and the border country) is one of the dialects. Oc is far far closer to Spanish from which I can decipher most of it.

You say that Quebecois developed from the west of France prior to 1760 - that makes a lot of sense. Modern French came from patois in the Paris area and, although older, was only enforced as French after the revolution much later.

For French readers here is a bit of current Jerrois - a language which is one of the dialand is still the official language in Jersey
Nou peut ouï l'Jèrriais pâlé pustôt à la campangne ou bein tchiquefais en Ville dans l'marchi. I' y'a lé programme Eune Lettre Jèrriaise sus l'radio - BBC Radio Jèrri 88.8FM/1026AM - d'vièrs eune heuthe chîn lé Sanm'di l'arlévée Nou peut liéthe eune articl'ye en Jèrriais dans la gâzette du sé touos les tchînze jours, et un diton châque jour.

I wonder if Quebecois can freely understand it.

rods (area)

poles (area)

perches (area)

Rods poles and perches are surveyor units, but they are length/distance units not not area units. 1 rod = 5 1/2 yards. Rods poles and perches are all interchangeable terms for the same unit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_%28unit%29

An acre (a unit of area) is 160 square rods.

gross (144)

To pick a nit, the definition of gross (which is a number name, not a unit of measurement) is 12 dozen.

troy ounces (weight)

There are also troy pounds. Troy weight is generally what is used for precious metals, gold, silver, etc.

The interesting thing is that a Troy pound is 0.8 standard pounds but the troy ounce is larger than the standard ounce since the troy weight system uses a 12 ounce to the pound rather than the 16 ounces to the pound in the standard system.

What are the other units?

Stones. Stones is a unit of weight that has been used in the UK. 1 stone is ~20 pounds IIRC.

stone is and old imperial measure of weight of 14 pounds

Does it have sub units of rocks and pebbles?

I know my weight in stones and pounds but not in kilos- I'm just old fashioned that way .
I cook using metric weights because they are easier to use.
I measure in either measure because even now things could be expressed in either.

What are the other units?

I was only referring to that quote, in which only two units are used, "hands" and "stone". I suppose converting them to centimeters and kilograms would be more inclusive then to feet and inches and pounds, but I'm American and equally parochial in my own way.

@sejintenej

Are guineas (1 pound 1 shilling) still used since the pound was decimalized.

@sejintenej

Are guineas (1 pound 1 shilling) still used since the pound was decimalized.

I believe they are still the unit at auctions for racehorses but of course the man-in-the-street would not know them.. There is also a horserace called the 1000guineas for which I assume the prize used to be 1000 guineas

Two arms, one hand per arm, and zero tolerance for endless threads of pointless discourse. Blathering idjits not admitted to said lassie's knickers.

Generally speaking, the word "ton" is not a source of confusion as it refers only to the US "short ton". The metric unit is spelled "tonne", and is slightly smaller than a US "long ton".

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ton"

Acutally, the short ton is US, but the long ton is pre-metric UK.

And as for the tonne in the US this is generally called a metric ton.

Canada also generally uses US sizes for most food packaging with metric labels, while the UK and Europe have shifter to metric sizes, although the UK does still use pints for beer.

The US is shifting towards metric at least in the beverage market. A decade ago, most soda/water bottles in the US were 16 or 20 fluid ounces, but now many (particularly bottled water) are shifting to 0.5 liters.

@tppm

but I assume that like ha'penny and tuppence it's more of a colloquial term these days, rather than an actual unit of currency. Of course, my knowledge of the subject is based on UK TV, conversational usage might be different.

With decimalisation the old names have died out because the coins no longer exist - we don't have tanners (6d), bobs (12p or 1 shilling), half crowns (2/6d) any longer. We do have one new penny coins but I haven't heard them called coppers (the name for the old 1d)and we do have 2p coins ( tuppence is simply two pence spoken fast)

A grand is I think £1000 and I guess a pony is £100(I never use the pony slang so I'm not sure)

(the old small coins were pence but we used the abbreviation "d" for denarii (Latin) - I don't know why)

Most pornography is made using undressed wood. At least the guys.

The height of a horse is measured in hands, but at the withers (the base of the neck).

The height of all quadruped animal is measured this way even when measuring in feet/inches or meters. This is done because they can raise an lower their heads through a much broader range while standing. in most cases from above the shoulder to putting their nose on the ground.

Measuring a human's height in hands, you would still do it to the top of the head. because a human can not lower their head below the shoulders while standing.