Outrage as Gatland drops O'Driscoll from Wales team

First topic message reminder :

Breaking news:

Warren Gatland has controversially left Brian O’Driscoll out of the Wales team to face South Africa this weekend.

Keith Wood is expected shortly to make a characteristically balanced announcement denouncing this disgraceful move.

Gatland justified his decision by highlighting BOD's lack of welshness, namely a dislike of lamb, laverbread and leeks

Cardiff Dave wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Aukster, the problem with American-English, is that it is evolving, and that is what gets me.  Can I aks if it annoy you, or anyone else, too?

Also no the mods should leave this thread going as long as realistically possible, just as proof that threads can get derailed by humour and banter, and not just wummery.

It annoys me too as does their spelling, color for example and the way they pronounce certain words such as ask (axe), leisure (leezure) and route.

However, english will evolve anywhere where it is spoken and there are also pronounciations in the UK that baffle me such as sixth (sickth) etc. and words that have evolved such as moreish that make my skin crawl.

 
What about Family Guy, when Stewy was pronouncing the H in word like whip, and Brian wanted to kill him, well Brian, SO DID I, in the English language we have silent letters, if their silent DO NOT USE THEM !!!!!!!!  Anyway back to Wagon Wheels, BRING BACK BIG WAGON WHEELS.

 

i was trying to Americanise it. 

The Great Aukster wrote:English has always evolved, as have all live languages. Even minority languages such as Welsh have by necessity incorporated 'foreign' words, as they don't have an equivalent.

I've never liked Millennium Stadium as a name because the Welsh name, Stadiwm y Mileniwm, looks like pidgin English. But 'millennium' and 'stadium' are Latin words, not English words. At least we had the good grace to change the spelling when we borrowed them.

LordDowlais wrote:
i was trying to Americanise it. 

Merthyrise more like. Or should it be Merthyrize?

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:

The Great Aukster wrote:English has always evolved, as have all live languages. Even minority languages such as Welsh have by necessity incorporated 'foreign' words, as they don't have an equivalent.

I've never liked Millennium Stadium as a name because the Welsh name, Stadiwm y Mileniwm, looks like pidgin English. But 'millennium' and 'stadium' are Latin words, not English words. At least we had the good grace to change the spelling when we borrowed them.

It's like Dara O'Briain on Johnathan Ross, Ross is taking the pish out of Irish and saying "yeah but you have modern words for things like 'telephone' don't you?" and DOB just says "yes, it's 'telefón' but that's a Greek word anyway"

Good stuff!

In my experience working with English teachers from all over I have generally found the English English teachers to be the least willing to soften their accents. The ones that I remember from Liverpool, Sunderland and Manchester were often very difficult for our students to understand and insisted that they shouldn't have to learn to speak more clearly as this is how English people speak.

Anyway languages grow and change, English has lots of new words adopted from around the world and some 'American' English is of course old English English which the English moved away from.

Cardiff Dave wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:
i was trying to Americanise it. 

Merthyrise more like. Or should it be Merthyrize?

Oi, only us Merthyrers can Merthyrize things, right BUT !!!!!  

LordDowlais wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:
i was trying to Americanise it. 

Merthyrise more like. Or should it be Merthyrize?

Oi, only us Merthyrers can Merthyrize things, right BUT !!!!!  

Tiz what you do to Aberdare boys on the weekend isn't it?

Cardiff Dave wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:
i was trying to Americanise it. 

Merthyrise more like. Or should it be Merthyrize?

Oi, only us Merthyrers can Merthyrize things, right BUT !!!!!  

Tiz what you do to Aberdare boys on the weekend isn't it?

We tend not to bother with the snakes. 

 

I didn't think it was their snakes you were interested in.

Nah Luckless, thats what us Merthyr people call people from Aberdare, years ago it was quite a serious topic, now we just call them that to wind them up. But, people never forget their history up here in the Valleys.

Snakes are quite good at winding themselves up.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:Snakes are quite good at winding themselves up.

Do you know why we call them snake Luckless ?

Go on, I'm intrigued.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:Go on, I'm intrigued.

 
Well the story from the Merthyr side is that during the early 1900's all the pits in Merthyr were on strike, so the pit overmen had people from Aberdare to come and work the mines and the Aberdare men were seen coming down the side of the mounting with their torches in a zig zag and they looked like a line of snakes walking down the side of the mounting to break the picket lines that the Merthyr men had formed.Thus from that day on they have been world known as Aberdare snakes, or Snakeland or anything with the word snake in it.
 
From an Aberdare point of view, it is the case that during the early 1900's Aberdare F.C had an emblem of a big A with a snake entwined throughout it thus giving them the nickname "The Snakes" and to this day I know the cricket team are called the Snakes, and I think the ruugby team are called the snakes.
 
But this is the story I have researched because I just needed to find out for myself, why me and everyone else were calling them snakes, is that, The Cynon Valley, so centrally located and so early in its economic development, often provided skilled miners to newly emerging neighbouring coalmining valleys. Sometimes they were accused of being " Aberdare snakes" but more frequently they were recognised as valued workmen and sound trade unionists, driven by victimisation and depression in search of work elsewhere.Which is kind of closer to the Merthyr side of the story, but it is all about what came first, the workers breaking the picket lines, or the an emblem with a snake on it which had no relevance to Aberdare until the strike incident.
 
Anyway, it's all a bit of fun now, and Aberdare is a lovely town, which actually just as close to where I live as my own town center.

Thanks, Dowlais. Interesting stuff.