To point out that it's PACKED lunch and not PACK lunch?

[ICameOnTheJitney]

I keep seeing threads on here where people say "Pack lunch" I KNOW this belongs in Pedant's Corner but hey...only people who already know will see it then!

I also get irritated by "mash potato"....it's "MASHED potato" ffs.

Kepek Sorry

Me too SP.

Do you looove, do you love me...

Now that I can dance.........

Its going to take ages for this song to bugger off out of my head

I agree with Sooty, but in my case it's because the people I know who say text for texted also tend to say 'you was', 'we was' 'I seen', 'been as' etc. To me, that's lazy and uneducated. If they don't know how to conjugate the traditional verbs, I'd say the chances are slim that they'll be able to handle a new one.

I never heard pack up or snap before joining Mumsnet. If someone had talked to me about a pack up would genuinely have had no idea what they were taking about.

Mus-tash.

Thanks!

Gurt uld lump a beef ere, Sandiacre.

But on that basis, Kepek, in the house my friend grew up in it was normal not to wash and to wear underwear five times then turn it inside out for another five days before changing it (yuk). The fact that something is normal doesn't make it right. That is not how those verbs are conjugated in English - it's not accent, nor dialogue, nor a product of an environment. It's quite simply wrong.

Yorkshire here, and I've always said pack up. Although depends which bit you're from as where I am now in Yorkshire packed lunch is also used too!
Don't know if it's already been answered, but a snicket and a ginnel is a type of alleyway.
I grew up with snicket, but a few miles down the road in the next town ginnel was the most commonly used word.

We call it snap - much easier name for a lunch that is taken to work or school.

British Library page on Grammatical variation

"One of the most common differences between dialects is the way in which past tenses are formed."

"We should avoid the temptation to draw misguided conclusions about what is ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ grammar. The northern and southern dialect patterns are more regular than Standard English"

I don't think 'skim milk' is an Americanism. Here it's all 0%, 2%, half and half (half milk, half cream)...

I grew up in Yorkshire and it was always packed lunch.

We had snickets but my gran in Lancashire had ginnels.

That is not how those verbs are conjugated in English - it's not accent, nor dialogue, nor a product of an environment. It's quite simply wrong.

The assumption here is wrong.

Language is complex.

The use of language to label other people as outsiders, ill educated, thick, lazy, or, in the underwear washing example, dirty, is not complex, it is merely elitism.

Oh and there's American bingo. Any differences must be put down to the influence of "America" which is naturally inferior

And let's not forget Standard English has wiped out a plural "you" which thankfully is alive and well in some dialects e.g youse. Very useful word that.

Problems arise though when speaking to non-native speakers - if conjugating incorrectly is fine, why are foreigners taught to speak and understand 'correct' English. My mother tends to be very whimsical about how she conjugates her verbs but since living abroad she's realised how much easier it is to communicate with her neighbours if she uses standard English.

I would also argue that 'we was' and 'I done' sound fucking ugly, but I realise it's hard to defend that point of view .

While I accept that language evolves, grammar developed norms for a reason, which was to help people understand. In the same way that cooking ingredients add up to a final product and bread without yeast is flat, the perfect tense without an auxiliary verb just, well, isn't. It's flat bread.

Skim milk is what I called it growing up in America in New England.

My friends in the South grew up calling it 0% milk.

I think my West Coast friends also called it Skim milk.

Saying 'it's an Americanism' is Xenophobic and wrong.

The one I hate is when people write that something or someone is bias. It's biasED, for goodness sake.

I don't get why people seem suddenly to have this difficulty with putting "ed" where it's needed on the end of a word. What is so hard about writing packed, texted, biased? Especially when the alternative is so obviously wrong.

Well, unless they are talking about bias cut fabric.

Glad to help.