20 Years With My Wife

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#25
Cal Weldon said:
Okay JP, I know you are a very smart man (please send $10 to my Paypal account for that comment)
I need you to tell me the purpose of the last two letters in that quoted word. Your flag is French but you might have a better answer than some others I have asked the same question.
If you have no good answer I ask that you add another $10 to that deposit.
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It is interesting that I remember this word too (with two additional letters) from my early school times. My schoolbook was printed in about 1970s-1980s in the USSR.
I googled it and found this:
Among and amongst are variations of the same word. Among is more common in American English, while amongst used almost exclusively in British English.
History and Meaning
Amongst may feel more archaic to speakers of American English, but among is actually the older word, dating back to Old English (circa 1000 CE). Amongst, in comparison, showed up in the language in Middle English (circa 1200 CE).Among and amongst are synonyms, sharing the same meaning. Both are propositions that refer to being surrounded by or in the middle of something that serves as the object of the preposition. You could say, “We’re among friends here,” or “She stood among the ruins of an ancient civilization” to express these meanings.
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It seems to me Europe (and the Soviet Union) studied British English. (But now American English is more common, or a mix)
 
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#27
Vovk, I find that quote ironic. I speak the Queen’s English here in Canada and we tend to say among. Our neighbours to the south are the ones I hear using amongst. Here we have unlimited exposure to both ‘languages’. I have always been a little confused by extending words beyond what is required, that’s all.
 
#28
I was reading some old code at work the other day, trying to figure out how something was supposed to work. I was wondering who wrote it, then I read a comment block which contained the word "whilst", and immediately knew the author was one of two chaps who used to work in the London office.

SWMBO and I hit the 33 year mark on the weekend, though we were "together" in one way or another for about 12 years before we got hitched.
 
#33
Vovk Z said:
It seems to me Europe (and the Soviet Union) studied British English. (But now American English is more common, or a mix)
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Yes, it was called Oxford English. Nothing US then, they had their hands full with the CCCP. I was in school when a teacher told about an exciting restaurant he was going to start. It was called mcDonalds and the system was "franchising"... Amongst is the more recent word. If the letter count would be most important then we maybe will end up with omitting vowels 🙂 The trend to shorten stuff and to use abbreviations and 3 letter acronyms is also more prevalent in English speaking countries but it sure makes communication more difficult instead of easier. To me it seems laziness/hurrying. At this very forum I see this a lot, often leading to misunderstanding and this with the simplest language in the world.

We also learned "they're"/"their", "weather/"whether" and "then"/"than". I still do that. Precision in a language is beauty.
 
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#34
Cal Weldon said:
. I have always been a little confused by extending words beyond what is required, that’s all.
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I think most of people like to shorten words and letters (ar least in spoken language), that is why for me (speaking in of the Slavic languages, where we have 1 letter = 1 sound) was always interesting why English language has so much additional letters? For example: "for" = "fo" , why do we have additional "r"? Why do we have "Who" with additional " W" instead of "Hu"? I even not talking about "Where" ("wee") and French-like words like "signature" etc.
For example, in Ukraine language "for example" is written as "наприклад" and it is spoken exact the same "наприклад" (napryklad).
 
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#36
Vovk Z said:
...interesting why English language has so much additional letters? For example: "for" = "fo", why do we have additional "r"?
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We Scots are famous for rolling our Rs, and you will hear the majority of us clearly sound out the "r" in "for".

However, there is a tendency for younger generation Scots to delay the R gesture, leading to the softening of words such as car, bar and for.
 
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