Hah! That caught your attention!

Berenger? Where are you?
It's good to have mildly pro-metric metrosceptics in these arguments.

Steve

It's already happened, according to the Scotsman - look at the reaction to Andy Murray's Wimbledon success so far.

"In an after-match press conference, he upbraided one respected United States tennis writer for referring to him as English.

Bud Collins, a veteran reporter for the Boston Globe, stepped into a mine-field likely to snare even home-based media observers.

"No-one in the States imagined an English kid could win the US Junior Open," he said, referring to the tournament Murray won last September, before being corrected."

Too right!

I, for one, get fed up with being called English when going abroad.

And that includes going to Scotland!! ;-)

SteveH: "I, for one, get fed up with being called English when going abroad.

And that includes going to Scotland!!"


Are you a Scotchman, Steve? I didn't realize that you were Scotch.

Actually I think the correct term is Scot and Scotsman,

- otherwise they'll think you're talking about sticky tape:-)

...... are the only 3 things that can be described as Scotch. Try going a bit south then west from Scotland for the land of Steve's fathers.

"Actually I think the correct term is Scot and Scotsman,

- otherwise they'll think you're talking about sticky tape:-)"

The terms Scot and Scotsman, Scotswoman, Scottish, Scots, are preferred in Scotland to Scotch and considered correct there, but Scotch is still a fully correct and standard term in other English-speaking countries and in other dialects of English, despite the preferences of the Scotch themselves. How a particular country's nationality and its inhabitants are called in any language or in any dialect of a language depends on the usage of the people who speak and write in that language or dialect, and not on the preferences of the natives of the described country.

Scots may prefer to call themselves exactly that, i.e. Scots, and consider it correct usage for themselves and try to impress this on others, but it does not follow that other English-speaking countries whose dialects are obviously not Scotch have to do the same. I repeat that Scotch remains fully correct and standard English in other, non-Scotch, dialects of the English language.

It's brevity appeals to many of us non-Scotch. And anyway I've heard plenty of older Scotch people describe themselves as Scotch as well. They were clearly not as particular as many of their compatriots may suppose about using the term outside Scotland. Why Scotch is supposedly so disliked by the Scotch themselves is a mystery to me. Both Burns and Scott often used it.

Cymro y dwy! CYMRMO!
rhyd wyn bob o Pontypridd, gymru ond rhyd wyn dod a Buckinghamshire, Oegwr cariad bach!

(probably)

Steve, you're Welsh, eh? At last we locate the locus of the H's. And you sprechen the Welsh, eh? Very good.

Actually I'm perpetually learning it.

It's difficult (it must be if there are six ways of saying "the", no such translation for the english word "a", and a word "yn" than does not exist in the English language but gets used an awful lot).

I'm surprised that Danny hasn't tried to convince me that Welsh is old and dead and no-one speaks it etc etc etc. After all, he's never been to Wales sho he should know all about it from google!

;-)

P.S. mile= millitir
yard= llath

I will be seeing plenty of that tomorrow as I will be driving to Tenby, Rhonddha, Brigend (Pen-y-bont) and Cardiff (Caerdydd).

Which is a long way from London (Llandain)

Now, Steve, don't be like that about a fellow contributor. And it's good to see that you are trying to learn the language of your forebears. I'm sure Welsh is a tough language to learn; a difficult, heavily-cased grammar and that sort of thing. As for me, I have enough trouble with the English as she is spoke. But just think what it'll be like when you've mastered the language. You'll be able to abuse people without them knowing it, and you and your fellow Welsh speakers can snigger behind people's backs. Surely that's something to look forward to.

I was just being facetious. A former boss of mine was Welsh, and he was the best boss I have ever had in my whole working career. I mean it. Hard-working and he demanded hard work from others, but very fair, loyal, and generous if he could see you were making the necessary effort. A good leader and people manager in a very difficult and pressured occupation. He was formally and by experience highly qualified for his post and very good at it. Those were the days.

Did he use metric?

Funny you should ask that. He did what many Brits in Australia did, and I suppose still do, he didn't even try to use metric. He used imperial exclusively and left it to you to work it out. Actually, though he had lived in Australia since the late 60s or early 70s, and was a republican, like many Australians and some Brits who are Australian citizens, he doggedly stuck to imperial measures.

But that was in the early days after metrication (1980), and as I've said before, 25 years on, time has overtaken many of these people because a lot of younger people can't understand what they are talking about when they speak imperial, and then you get people like me who tried hard to learn metric, and refuse to use imperial though they we were taught it and know it.

Actually I am in a good position in that I was taught both systems through my primary and secondary schooling. And that's what the members of the BWMA would have for Britain's schoolchildren: taught both systems and leave it to the kids to decide which weights and measures to use in the real world. Which to me is a recipe for disaster in a modern industrial country, society, and economy.

When I think that it's 25 years since metrication in Australia I am always amazed at how quickly that time has passed. And time is running out for Britain to metricate too. She should finish what she started in 1965, and should have finished by 1975. This two-system nonsense has dragged on now for 30 years, a full generation, and become even messier over that time.

So what did the guy do when someone spoke to him in metric? did he insist they speak to him in imperial or did they give him back the same treatment he gave others, that is to let him figure it out for himself?

How does such a person function in the market or on the job? When they get into t metric car driving down metric signed roads, buying gasoline by the litre with no one to do a conversion? Hear weather and news in metric only? What about on the job, when information has to be spoken in metric, the language of the shop? How would this guy read a metric drawing? There has to be a point where someone like him just can't survive in his isolated world.

Where is he now?

Well of course he used metric when circumstances forced him to use metric. But when he could he spoke in imperial measures and weights. I can't reveal his whereabouts. I've said too much already.

Danny - the boy who rummages around for metric so that he can declare it a universal language! lol!

BTW - Believe it or not - I found a place in Tenby called "Scotborough"! Sadly it reminded me of this place!

;-)