Why do they say "decimal"?

[SierraDelta 1,352]

2 hours ago, Lord Farringdon said:

Frankly,  I'm in admiration of anyone who speaks English as a second language given that those of us who have spoken it as a first language all our lives still often don't grasp many of its nuances

That’s probably because we paid attention during grammar lessons 🙂

The vast majority people getting their/there/they’re wrong seem to be native speakers. Don’t get me started on the whole “would’ve” becoming “would of” thing.

[Chock 17,769]

8 hours ago, SierraDelta said:

The vast majority people getting their/there/they’re wrong seem to be native speakers. Don’t get me started on the whole “would’ve” becoming “would of” thing.

That's because a lot of people don't get that the apostrophe is abbreviating the letters you skip when using contractions such as could've for could have. Which reminds me of a funny story...

Back when I worked as a writer for a newspaper, we used to get our advertising reps, who were not noted for being great at English, asking us writers to check their copy they'd 'written' for any mistakes, particularly when using apostrophes, which they were usually clueless about. So one day, one of these reps came up to my desk and asked me if he'd got the apostrophe in the right place on some word in the advertising gibberish he'd written for some client. 'The what in the right place?' I asked him with a puzzled look on my face. 'The apostrophe. You know, is it in the right place?' He explained as he pointed to it. 'Oh! You mean the 'apastrofe',' I replied, 'yes, it is in the correct place'. 'Is that how you pronounce it?' he asked me. 'Yeah' I replied, with a serious look on my face, 'everyone always gets that wrong, it's like the silent P in trumpet, everyone gets always that one wrong too, they don't know it's meant to be silent and should be pronounced 'troomay'.'

I'm pretty sure that guy probably goes around to this day ridiculously 'correcting' people about those words and how you pronounce them. 🤣

Edited February 25, 2022 by Chock

[Phantoms 800]

On 2/21/2022 at 10:53 PM, neil0311 said:

I’m just an instrument rated private pilot, but I bet if you ask 100 American commercial ATPs, at least 101 would agree with me.

 

On 2/21/2022 at 11:19 PM, icewater5 said:

How does that work😊

Maybe he left off decimal, er point. You know, being in America.😁

[jozeff 95]

15 hours ago, SierraDelta said:

Frankly,  I'm in admiration of anyone who speaks English as a second language given that those of us who have spoken it as a first language all our lives still often don't grasp many of its nuances

Well, thank you..... I presume.

I'm sure I grasp more English nuances than any American/english/Aussie person grasps Dutch subtleties. No offense but that's just the way it is. I started watching the Young Ones when I was 10 ..that's were the finesse started  🤔🤔

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,799]

4 hours ago, jozeff said:

Well, thank you..... I presume.

I'm sure I grasp more English nuances than any American/english/Aussie person grasps Dutch subtleties. No offense but that's just the way it is. I started watching the Young Ones when I was 10 ..that's were the finesse started  🤔🤔

Most Aussies seem to mistake Dutch for German.  we have limited exposure to European languages here.

[jozeff 95]

Understandable! Although older people are quite offended by that they are very similar languages.

We have a certain appreciation for Aussies since watching flying doctors....mate. Broken hill etc..etc..

 

Cheers!

Jozeff

[-Belga- 141]

5 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Most Aussies seem to mistake Dutch for German.  we have limited exposure to European languages here.

Well, Dutch is some kind of German dialect, it's very close to the dialect that is spoken by the East Frisians in Northwest Germany. A lot of Dutch at least understand German (and many even speak it), however not that many Germans speak or understand Dutch.

[jcomm 5,974]

@OP...

for the same reason they say "NINER" ...

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,799]

On 2/26/2022 at 5:07 PM, jozeff said:

Understandable! Although older people are quite offended by that they are very similar languages.

We have a certain appreciation for Aussies since watching flying doctors....mate. Broken hill etc..etc..

 

Cheers!

Jozeff

To be honest many Australians are better at picking out Thai versus Japanese versus South Korean or Mandarin then they are at distinguishing various European languages.  On the other hand telling apart Hindi from Bengali, Tamil, Urdu, Punjabi, Marathi, Kashmiri etc is another matter altogether.  India has an insane number of languages

[Christopher Low 5,380]

On 2/21/2022 at 5:37 PM, neil0311 said:

There’s nothing “lax” at all when dealing with ATC. And it may please you to know that “position and hold” which made complete sense and emphasized holding, has been replaced by the vague and confusing “line up and wait” which was a huge mistake IMHO. “Hold” is a command that pilots know. “Wait” isn’t a command pilots know or use. I wonder how many additional runway incursions have happened since that change about 10 years ago.

Some of the official international phraseology is probably due to English not being a native language for many pilots.

I also prefer "taxi into position and hold". This has been the standard in all of the flight simulators that I have used that have included an ATC system (FU2/FU3/FSX/P3D). It is also worth noting that I preferred the system used in FU2/FU3 regarding crossing runways, whereby I would be asked to "hold short runway xx", before being told "cleared to cross runway xx". All I get now is "continue taxi", which sounds rubbish in comparison.

Edited February 27, 2022 by Christopher Low

[eslader 1,814]

On 2/23/2022 at 2:42 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Not relevant to current discussion of why Americans omit the ‘s’ off maths.

For the same reason Brits aren't being pornographic when they tell us to put our rubbers on. 😉

What interests me is not so much the language differences, but the similarities. We've been separated from England for246 years, and yet we still have no problem understanding each other. The USA is even adopting British slang. "Bloody" and "brilliant" are common to hear here, for instance.  Though I doubt it will ever get to the point of us adding back that extra syllable in "aluminum." 😉

 

 

[Ray Proudfoot 9,032]

@eslader, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Two countries divided by a common language!” 😁

Language constantly evolves but not always in a good way. Why, for example, do people now say “reach out” instead of contact or “thank you so much” when the simpler thank you is more than enough.

Nice to hear some English expressions are making their way across the pond. Let me know when you start saying “Wootcha” as a form of greeting. 😉