<font color='navy' size='2' face='Comic Sans MS, sans-serif'><font size="2" color="navy" face="Comic Sans MS, sans-serif"><font face="Arial"><font face="Comic Sans MS, sans-serif">David<br>
Well , Heck David, (slang for H E double toothpicks) I don't know, but ....as my son in law from York says....<br>
It was Brilliant!<br>
Dale<br>
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<br>
<font color="crimson">End of digression! How did I get from swearing to kilograms?<br>
<br>
Best regards,</font>
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<br>
David.</font>
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<div style="clear:both"><font size="1" color="royalblue"><b><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, Serif"><font color="black"><font color="mediumblue" face="Comic Sans MS, sans-serif">Dale Erwin... RPT</font><br>
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<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: David Boyce <David@piano.plus.com><br>
To: pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org><br>
Sent: Wed, May 23, 2012 3:38 am<br>
Subject: Re: [pianotech] "Tune your Go#h D##n Piano!"<br>
<br>
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<font face="Arial">Personally I don't swear at all in everyday
speech. I am careful even with very mild expletives<br>
<br>
I don't want to drag this too far off-topic, but perhaps we are
allowed the occasional little digression, in the interest of
general Liberal Arts & Humanities?<br>
<br>
What constitutes swear-words, and their degree of gravity, varies
of course with time. "Bloody" is now less grave than it was in
the 1960s. In UK television we note that the "F" word is now
commonplace after the 9pm "watershed" (the time after which more
adult content is deemed acceptable on TV). It's also noteworthy
that the "C" word, up till now ABSOLUTELY taboo, is just beginning
to appear in broadcasting.<br>
<br>
The word "ruddy" as a simple adjective means red, as in "he has a
ruddy complexion". But doubtless it is, in an expletive context,
a derivative of "bloody", with the references you suggest, Susan.
In the UK it is seen as a very mild expletive, further down the
scale than "bloody". But the point is well-taken that this is an
international list. (In US usage, "fanny" means derierre, but in
UK usage it means, well, a lady's "front bottom" and is very rude
indeed)<br>
<br>
As a side-point, manufacturers are increasingly aware of this in
naming products, since products are sold internationally these
days. Thus, our much-loved "Marathon" snack bar got changed to
"Snickers", which a) sounds like knickers, b) is a word for a
snide little laugh and c) loses all the reference to ancient
Greece and Phaidipedes, and the connotation of getting enough
energy from the snack bar to run a marathon.<br>
<br>
Another example is the change in name, for Euro-marketing
purposes, of a well-known UK cream cleaning product, from Jif to
Cif. "Jif" was short for "Jiffy", a short time. In other words,
with the cream cleaner, you can clean the mess up "in a jiffy", an
instant. "Cif" is meaningless in any language. Another ghastly
change is the delicious chocolate/candy bar which was called
"Dime", being changed to "Daim". Shudder.<br>
<br>
There was the story also about Rolls-Royce years ago, with a new
model. They had Silver Shadow and SIlver Cloud, so the new one
was to be called Silver Mist, until someone pointed out that mist
is the German word for dung!<br>
<br>
In the UK we are split between trade with Europe and trade with
the USA. For that reason, our attempt at metrication of all
measurements got halted in its tracks. The poor old greengrocer
will get flung in jail and left to rot, if he sells you a pound
(lb) of brussels sprouts. His scale and all his prices, must by
law be in metric (Kg). But all our road signs are in miles,
including the speed limit signs, and when you buy an auto
magazine, it tells you fuel consumption in Miles per Gallon. BUT,
in the garage, fuel is sold in price per Litre! It was full-steam
ahead with metrication some years ago, until someone in government
realised that the USA is our biggest trading partner, and the USA
is resolutely uninterested in metric measurements and prices!<br>
<br>
When I visited relatives in California, I was delighted by a
measuring tape, and Stan my host kndly gave it to me. It has
inches along one edge, and along the other edge..... inches. In
the UK they all have inches on one side and centimetres on the
other.<br>
<br>
Personally, I think "imperial" (avoirdupois etc, non-metric)
measures are better for everyday living measurements. My size ten
shoe meaures 12 inches - one foot - great for pacing out a room.
And a pound of butter or cheese is a good amount to work with.
Metric lacks the in-between, anthropometric, sizes. Millimeters
centimeters and metres are OK for engineering but there needs to
be an inbetween measurement, perhaps a "sesquimeter" (i just
invented that), 15cm. Or something like that. And I really don;t
think we have gotten to grips at all with buying fook in grams and
kilograms. <br>
<br>
I find that young people here are not nowadays very good in either
system. When I used to teach photographic darkroom work and we
measured solutions, I would ask a new class "Do you mostly work in
metric or imperial?" and they would all say "Metric". So I would
ask "What height are you?" "Five foot eight!" What weight? "Ten
stone three" (143lbs). And when I would ask "How wide is this
room" and "How far is it to Glasgow", they often could not express
an estimate in either system.<br>
<br>
End of digression! How did I get from swearing to kilograms?<br>
<br>
Best regards,<br>
<br>
David.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" target="_blank" href="http://www.davidboyce.co.uk">www.davidboyce.co.uk</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">> Thank you David. I am on the verge
of adopting this usage. It will feel like an affectation for a
while, but eventually, like the euro-seven (7 with a line
through the stem) that I took on as a youth, it will work itself
into my DNA. I just hope it's OK with the fundamentalists.<br>
<br>
It may be okay with the fundamentalists, but I doubt it would
always go over so well with the Brits, or at least with some of
them.<br>
<br>
"Bloody" was once a fairly serious swear word there, while it
hardly is known here except from watching the BBC. Ruddy sounds
like a variant of it. "Bloody" was strong, if I remember right,
because it stands for Christ's blood.<br>
<br>
We should be careful before we decide to adopt foreign slang
when we don't know what the bloody hell we are saying.<br>
<br>
This concern may be wildly out of date, of course ... still ...<br>
<br>
s</blockquote>
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