<toys with ball of yarn, and looks cute. Noticeably doesn't cause collapse of solar systems>

But if those are cosmic strings...?

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'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

The universe makes some beautiful music, eh?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 09:27AM by OC Not.

Should we pool together and get a scratching post or squeaky ball of some kind?

I'd prefer a clockwork mouse.

You just can't get them anymore!

I've a clockwork alligator somewhere.

Does it tick-tock just like in the Disney 'Peter Pan' animation?

Now that's a funny thing that you should bring up tick-tock.

I was thinking the other day about edibles that have messages or pictures on them and we kids all used to love tic-toc biscuits that had a clock on the biscuit side and we would argue about whose bickie had the best time on it as we licked the candy side til it was mushy and then scraped it off with our teeth. Do they still make those? (tic tocs, I mean; I know they still make teeth)

We also loved those little sugary candies with lovey-dovey messages imprinted on them ("Be Mine", "You're the One") and we would then argue about whose lolly had the most embarrassing message.

I'm not talking about food shaped like different things (black cats, animal crackers, etc) but stuff that is otherwise perfectly normal but has different things stamped on it.

Do fortune cookies count? I do enjoy Sweethearts, as I believe they're called, although I can only eat a few in once-a-year intervals. Can't think of anything else at the moment.

I always thought those heart lollies were made of chalk.
We drew hop-scotch with them.

Marshmallow mice and *offensive term here* balls. Used to love those....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

They still make something like Tick Tocks but the non biscuitesqe matter which is applied to them has more of thre characteristics of car paint.

It you were to put one outside in a place where they have 'water falling from the sky' eventually what you will have is a little disc of coloured material without the slightest trace of biscuit on it.

****Stand by for a rant.

I bought one of Dr Karl's books last year at a personal visit to the local Dymocks*(more bonus points for me) and made comment on the deAustralianising of our language. I said 'cookies' was an example. Culturally we have used 'biscuit' as the term for a smaller flour based item be it sweet or savoury. These are now called 'cookies' and I put it down to Campbells buying Arnotts and changing something that worked into something foreign. Dr K was so insistent in telling me that 'biscuit' derives from 'bisq' which is to bake and that 'cookie' derives from a Dutch word meaning roughly the same, that he totally failed to see the point of cultural dissolution. The book was titled (partly) 'Hey Dude...' and another one is 'It ain’t necessarily so ... bro."

Now if you are ghetto Afro American these word 'dude and 'bro' are part of your cultural heritage. But they are not Australian.

On Enough Rope Dr Karl made a big point about his parents coming from Europe to Australia and what it meant. But his blind spot is that as a public figure he will do more harm to the 'Orstralyian way of Life' by his use of these types of foreign languages.

PS. I did see 'The Excitement of English' on SBS a couple of years ago and I don't doubt that language must evolve, but these are corruption, not evolution.

Come the revolution...................




!!!!!!!!! God here.

Bunyip's gone all pale and twitchy. I hope that he'll be alright in the morning.


So, assume this is end of rant.

Peace be with you.

Language and it's use changes. I believe there are some UK folk as upset as you are about americanisms entering the lingo, only about australianisms.

Personally I think when everyone speaks the same mashed up language with bits from everywhere melded into a whole, the world will be a better place.

It's time to strike a blow for globalisation!

An Australian ranting about the downfall of Australian language, on a Welsh/English forum, read by people from six or seven different countries around the world, all trying to more or less use the same language is...strange.

You know, I come from a country with maybe ten major regional dialects. None of them are taught in school. Their use in the business world is strongly disparaged. The High Form of German has been standardized in a process going on for 250 years and is stipulated for public servants. Nonetheless, the dialects strive. With the influx of immigrants for the last forty years, there are even new forms emerging that retain, for example, elements of Turkish.

At the same time, there are three officially recognized minority languages. Two of them are spoken nowhere else in the world. But in spite of bi-lingual public signs, literary stipends, dedicated schools and political exemptions, they are slowly disapearing.

Sometimes, language changes. Sometimes it doesn't. Some think that is a good thing, some denounce it. No worries.

German is very interesting from a linguistic point of view....

Must read more about it....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

English has always 'borrowed' and always will. From what I've seen of most 'Americanisms' they are not actually new, but a return to original words and spellings.

The dropping of the 'u' from colour, favour, and so on is an example: the 'u' was only inserted a couple of hundred years ago - I'm guessing that it was intended to add an exotic French flavo(u)r to how the word looked. Americans have quite rightly asked what the hell it was doing there and subsequently given it the boot.

Many 'Americanisms' in that sense are conservative rather than revolutionary, retaining an Anglo Saxon word where there is one rather than borrowing from French or Latin - 'Fall' (Autumn) being a case in point, as is 'coney' (rabbit). As an aside, Churchill's "We will fight them on the beaches... " speech is worth reading just to pick out where he has done exactly the same thing - "we will never give up" avoids the French word "surrender" quite pointedly, as one example.

Some Americanisms such as 'candy' are quite useful (the top of the above-mentioned tic toc, for instance is not 'icing' and 'sugary topping' is too verbose) and I tend to think of a 'cookie' as a biscuit of a particular shape; wafers and crackers are similarly still biscuits, yet the words distinguish their discrete particularities (and the one and only VoVo is king over all). And yet, while 'elevator' is better, I think, than 'lift', I'll still never be able to use 'sidewalk' let alone 'aluminum'.

I'm not sure if people are actually bothered in the UK about Americanisms. We get occasionally annoyed when we can't remember which the correct spelling is but otherwise it goes unnoticed, at least where I am.

I personally love resurrecting old words and am going to be referring to bumbershoots all day.

All that language tolerance said, the next person who asks where in England I come from, is going to get a thick ear.