Mourning the apparent demise of electricity

[MontyDonsBlueScarf]

... but taking some small comfort in the thought of getting a shock from an electric bill.

Anyone else?

My guess is that it is borrowed from American English.

Apparently 'poop' in this sense dates from the eighteenth century, 'poo' only from the 1950s.

www.etymonline.com/word/poo

To be fair, some people are pretty hard to read.

The use of "was" instead of "were" in subjunctive sentences is now considered correct (exam board guidelines for about the last decade). I always tell my students that I won't correct it, because it's not wrong, but my advice to them is still to use it in formal contexts.

That's interesting. Of course a lot of American usage predates modern English usage so understandable. Always fun to point out though when the American English bashing starts.

@ErrolTheDragon Ooh! Yes 1:1 is a ratio, so yes it could be ten teachers and ten students!

Hmm maybe I'm getting confused with other sorts of ratios (teacher:student, instructor:learner, childminder:children)

I'm not sure myself now how one to one could be written abbreviatied, except that it probably shouldn't contain a number 2!

I'm not sure myself now how one to one could be written abbreviatied, except that it probably shouldn't contain a number 2!

1 to 1 is short enough for me.

@Splitscreened

The thing I find baffling, but also personally inimical, is usage of ‘side’ to mean kitchen counter or work surface. Is that regional? Again, I’ve only seen it on here. I don’t quite know why I dislike it so much.

Coming to this a bit late but on my first teaching practice in the Colne Valley I was baffled to read 'side off' and ' side the table' on Home Economics prep sheets. I worked out that it meant put dirty equipment to the side ie by the sink.

Normal expression for that area I discovered but an education for me, even though I'm from the same county!

True, but it still sounds wrong to me.

Train station is North American usage, so maybe that's another incursion from across the pond.

Really? That's one that surprises me, I've always said train station.

1-2-1 and T42: I don't say to and two or for and four the same way.

Ect comes from people say excetera

saying not say

Train station has been in use in England since about the 1850s, according to the Oxford dictionary.

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/train-station_n?tab=factsheet#9917892613

Railway station is a bit earlier, from the 1830s.

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/railway-station_n?tab=factsheet#9926962315

Train station is more logical isn't it? They're the place where the trains are stationary, the actual railways are static for their whole length (bar points).

Does this mean we should stop working at a work station. Or is it because we are stationary at a work station.

The latter. Trains are generally still working when they're stopped at a station. (They are much more likely to stop working when they're somewhere other than a station IME)

"Arriving into the train station"
I'll run and hide.

Definitely a distinction with those vibrant dialect phrases.

' side the table' meant clear it up.
The term for crockery was 'pots'
A tea towel was a 'pot cloth'
A back alley was simply a 'back'

I'm sure these phrases could pinpoint my town of origin within about ten miles.

That's a wholly different matter, and a fast dying one too.

Depends whether it has a roof or not?

There was an amazing online quiz a few years ago. It asked you a number of questions, like what do you call bread rolls etc and it could pinpoint the town you grew up in. Not just the county but the town. Now I lived in one house for my entire childhood but my mother lived all over. For me it had down to the postcode but for her it said all the places she lived.

Found it. Strangely in the New York Times! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html

I remember that quiz.

Darn, it's paywalled.