Moulding vs. Molding?
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@unknownuser said:
...also for the record.. nyc has 5 boros .. not really sure what the ough is supposed to accomplish. give it another 20 years an i'm thinking boro is going to be much more widespread
The ough is a hangover from Old English. The word used to be spelled 'burh' and is the same word as the Dutch and German 'burg'. Old English sounded very like Dutch...and they really rolled their r...so it must have sounded something like burrruccchhhh. Modern English forms can appear as borough, burgh, or bury. It certainly didn't (and still doesn't in the UK) sound like what a rabbit lives in.
TBH I'd never come across sill (as in window) being spelled as cill, until I came on this forum and was informed (by an American) that that's how we spell it in this country. We also use mould pretty much throughout. I've occasionally seen a matrix referred to as a mold...as in the US...but the stuff on cheese is always mould. The word by itself...Mold...would probably evoke a town in North wales to most Brits...at least in my part of the country.
A kerb is the edge of the road in the UK...although the verb meaning to set limits is curb...as in to curb ones behaviour...obviously related.
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[flash=640,390:2v96gv2t]http://www.youtube.com/v/KVN_0qvuhhw?version=3[/flash:2v96gv2t]
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The UK place name ending -borough, -bury, -burg, -burgh etc is not allowed in US place names 'by law' [land of the free?!]... although administrative parts of towns etc are still called 'boroughs'
There is a rule that all single place names ending in that 'borough sound' must always be spelled to end in 'boro' !
The one exception they've allowed was the longstanding names of 'Pittsburgh' etc...From November 27, 1758, when General John Forbes renamed Fort Duquesne as 'Pittsbourgh' in honor of William Pitt, it was always rather perversely called 'Pittsburgh'.
Then following the 'US Board on Geographic Names' policy decisions [see below], the 'United States Post Office' dropped the 'h' in Pittsburgh officially between 1890 and 1911, but the 'Pittsburghers' didn't!
The 'h' remained in all city ordinances and council minutes throughout that time period. After concerned citizens voiced their opinion for the traditional spelling, the 'Board' reversed its decision in 1911, making 'Pittsburgh' once again the official spelling.
Pittsburgh's 'h' is not only historical, it's unique.
There are ~19 other towns called 'Pittsburg' in the USA !]In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison established the ten-man 'US Board on Geographic Names' [including members from the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Geological Survey, the General Land Office, the Post Office, the Forest Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the Biological Survey, the Government Printing Office, the Census and Lighthouse Bureaus, the General Staff of the Army, the Hydrographic Office, the Library and War Records Office of the Navy, the Treasury and the Department of State !]...... to help restore order to the naming of cities, towns, rivers, lakes, mountains and other places throughout the USA.
At the time, some states actually had up to five different towns with the same name, which understandably, caused confusion.
To be fair the changes were not a surprise but a confirmation of what had already started some years before - e.g. 'Greensborough' had renamed itself 'Greensboro' twenty years previously...The Board made the following recommendations and changes:
- That spelling and pronunciation which is sanctioned by local usage should in general be adopted.
- Where names have been changed or corrupted, and such changes or corruptions have become
established by local usage, it is not in general advisable to attempt to restore the original form. - In cases where what was evidently originally the same word appears with various spellings sanctioned by local usage, when applied to different features, these various spellings should be regarded as in effect
different names, and as a rule it is inadvisable to attempt to produce uniformity.
Where a choice is offered between two or more names for the same place or locality, all sanctioned by local usage, that which is most appropriate and euphonious should be adopted. - The avoidance so far as practicable, of the possessive form of names [i.e. no "John's"].
- The dropping of the final "h" in the termination "burgh". [e.g. "Pittsburg"]
- The abbreviation of "borough" to "boro". [e.g. "Newboro"]
- The spelling of the word "center". [never "centre"]
- in connecting parts of names.
- The omission wherever practicable of the letters "C.H." ( = Court House) after the names of county seats.
- The simplification of names consisting of more than one word by their combination into one word.
- The avoidance of the use of diacritic 'special/accented] characters.
- The dropping of the words "city" and "town" as parts of names.
The 20th century wars against the Germans also led to several US towns renaming themselves 'xxx-boro' or 'xxx-vill' as they [wrongly] considered 'xxx-burg' as being of Germanic origin and not 'patriotic' [whereas 'xxx-berg' might have been!?]
Places like 'Freehold Borough' get around the 'boro' by separating the 'borough' part off by claiming that it refers to an administrative 'Borough' which is an allowed name [e.g. they have neighbor named 'Freehold Township']...
There were some other changes/reversions; e.g, 'Newburg' NY lasted for just one year before changing back to 'Newburgh', and the 'Foxboro Stadium', is located in 'Foxborough', Mass.... or there's 'Markleysburg Borough' etc etc... 'Carson City' also survived...Incidentally... the only place name in the UK ending in '-brough' is 'Middlesbrough' in the NE, the local Football team is [perversely] called 'The Boro' - the reason it is spelled 'brough' is from an error - in Victorian times when the new town was granted its 'charter' the person drafting the document made a spelling mistake and missed out the first 'o' - and so it stood because that was what it was 'legally' called
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Thanks, Alan - I had not heard of Tim Minchin.
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My pet peeve is the word (?) 'gotta'. I have even heard it on Canadian TV - the National News no less. I've always felt that 'gotta' is pure slang along the lines of 'aint'.
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Living in Texas we use y'all all the time and I have picked it up, just can't help myself.
My peeve is Aluminum in place of aluminium and tires instead of tyres.
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@greenbelt said:
My pet peeve is the word (?) 'gotta'. I have even heard it on Canadian TV - the National News no less. I've always felt that 'gotta' is pure slang along the lines of 'aint'.
gotta isn't really slang.. it's just easier to say then 'got to' (especially if 'I got to go...somewhere')
i guess it's a misuse of 'have to' but even then, that's often havta..
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Well, it would be a shortened way of "have got to..." (kind of an American equivalent of "have to")
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Tig, what makes you think there is a law forbidding the use of -borough, -bury, -burg, -burgh in U.S. place names? The U.S. Board on Geographic Names leaves it up to the individual states to name their counties, towns, cities, etc. When the Board does name a place, it will use the name used by locals, provided it isn't derogatory aor offensive. There are countless "burgs" across the U.S., and besides Pittsburgh (with an "h"), there is Plattsburgh, N.Y. and Edinburgh, IN.
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@daniel said:
Tig, what makes you think there is a law forbidding the use of -borough, -bury, -burg, -burgh in U.S. place names? The U.S. Board on Geographic Names leaves it up to the individual states to name their counties, towns, cities, etc. When the Board does name a place, it will use the name used by locals, provided it isn't derogatory or offensive. There are countless "burgs" across the U.S., and besides Pittsburgh (with an "h"), there is Plattsburgh, N.Y. and Edinburgh, IN.
I said it was a 'rule', not a 'law' [the 'by law' was in quotes - the Board does have powers to insist on name conformity - but the Post Office is more likely to press]... The Board did make many 'recommendations' [that were taken as a strong hint to conform if nothing else!]- e.g. that all '-burgh's became '-burg's - Pittsburgh changed back after it was 'officially' renamed but the town ignored it, as did a few others, BUT many didn't. Many '-borough's got renamed as '-boro's for some idea of 'consistency' - a somewhat strange idea as 'boro' is a made up word virtually never found outside of the US in a town-name - I suppose that it comes around the same time as Webster's ideas like 'wimin' for 'women' - but some changes never caught on...
Although the naming of places IS relatively 'free' in the US... I'd bet if you wanted to build a new township and call it 'Danielborough' the Post Office [backed by the Board] would firmly press you to call if 'Danielboro' - although the town-council's area could readily be called 'Daniel Borough'[Please remember: this isn't a definitive factual source - it's a lighthearted look at some absurdities of language and the world in general
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That's rich, oops, I mean funny.:)
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