Mantus M2 vid vs Delta

[thinwater]

That's the clincher for me. My mind is made up.

I will, in future, use one Mantus rather than my five other anchors.

Simples!

Richard

This, from OED, regarding new entries for 2019:

"Our new entry for simples traces popular usage of this interjection back to a tweet from 7 January 2009, only two days after the launch of the advertising campaign which popularized it."
OED explanation

Use that expression outside the UK and folks will snicker, wondering if your elevator stops short of the top floor. Certainly most Americans (I hope) don't consider our President a paragon of grammatical correctness, although he does love to tweet (a whole nuther' embarassment). I'm hoping it just fades away as undignified. Is it really English?

 

[RupertW]

This, from OED, regarding new entries for 2019:

"Our new entry for simples traces popular usage of this interjection back to a tweet from 7 January 2009, only two days after the launch of the advertising campaign which popularized it."
OED explanation

Use that expression outside the UK and folks will snicker, wondering if your elevator stops short of the top floor. Certainly most Americans (I hope) don't consider our President a paragon of grammatical correctness, although he does love to tweet (a whole nuther' embarassment). I'm hoping it just fades away as undignified. Is it really English?

Says the person who spells snigger as “snicker”. Now that really isn’t English. Nor elevator - the Anglo Saxon word is lift.

 

[RichardS]

This, from OED, regarding new entries for 2019:

"Our new entry for simples traces popular usage of this interjection back to a tweet from 7 January 2009, only two days after the launch of the advertising campaign which popularized it."
OED explanation

Use that expression outside the UK and folks will snicker, wondering if your elevator stops short of the top floor. Certainly most Americans (I hope) don't consider our President a paragon of grammatical correctness, although he does love to tweet (a whole nuther' embarassment). I'm hoping it just fades away as undignified. Is it really English?

"His dressings were soon applied, and consisted only of some pounded bark, moistened with a fluid that he had expressed from some of the simples of the woods."

From "The Pioneers" by James Fenimore Cooper published in 1823 so, most definitely, a classical American term.

Richard

 

[thinwater]

Says the person who spells snigger as “snicker”. Now that really isn’t English. Nor elevator - the Anglo Saxon word is lift.

Elevator and snicker have been in the OED from the beginning, or at least for decades. Isn't that how we define English? But simples wasn't allowed in until this year, came from a meerkat in a commercial, of all places, and is undignified.

 

[thinwater]

"His dressings were soon applied, and consisted only of some pounded bark, moistened with a fluid that he had expressed from some of the simples of the woods."

From "The Pioneers" by James Fenimore Cooper published in 1823 so, most definitely, a classical American term.

Richard

That is an arcaeic usage, and yes, folks snicker when they hear it because you sound like one of the simples.

 

[RupertW]

Elevator and snicker have been in the OED from the beginning, or at least for decades. Isn't that how we define English? But simples wasn't allowed in until this year, came from a meerkat in a commercial, of all places, and is undignified.

If you define proper English as what’s in the OED then simples is in so it’s fine.

I don’t define it that way because quite properly dictionaries simply record current usage, no matter how ghastly.

Simples will come and go but abominations like elevator and snicker slowly morph from incorrect US usage to world usage where carelessly used outside our former colony.

 

[thinwater]

BTW, there are many sloppy American figures of speech that grate on my ears as well. I won't say texted.

Obviously, this is all in fun, two countries separated by a common language. And like the UK, we have people in the US that can't understand each other. Pretty funny to listen to. Some of the differences are colorful, and some are just lazy.

 

[thinwater]

If you define proper English as what’s in the OED then simples is in so it’s fine.

I don’t define it that way because quite properly dictionaries simply record current usage, no matter how ghastly.

Simples will come and go but abominations like elevator and snicker slowly morph from incorrect US usage to world usage where carelessly used outside our former colony.

Snicker, snicker.... You got that former part right.

Weren't we all cave men once, communicating in grunts and gestures? Some still communicate primarily with gestures, now that I think about it.

 

[RichardS]

That is an arcaeic usage, and yes, folks snicker when they hear it because you sound like one of the simples.

Presumably one of the simples who can quote James Fenimore Cooper from memory?

Richard

 

[thinwater]

Presumably one of the simples who can quote James Fenimore Cooper from memory?

Richard

First, this is all in fun. Very important point.

I didn't say that, but yeah. Cooper made it work.

But Cooper meant simpleton. Acording to OEd "simples" means:

simples, int.: Used (usually immediately after a statement giving a solution to a problem) to indicate that something is very simple or straightforward to do…

So not the same meaning, intent, or even the same part of speech. Do you have another older reference?

 

[NormanS]

First, this is all in fun. Very important point.

I didn't say that, but yeah. Cooper made it work.

But Cooper meant simpleton. Acording to OEd "simples" means:

simples, int.: Used (usually immediately after a statement giving a solution to a problem) to indicate that something is very simple or straightforward to do…

So not the same meaning, intent, or even the same part of speech. Do you have another older reference?

I think you will find that it's nothing to do with simpletons, but is a reference to herbs. In the context, "expressed" means squeezed. If you squeeze a simpleton, I don't think you would necessarily get a fluid useful in a dressing. Try simples as in herbs. Simples ?

 

[Humblebee]

I agree with Norman, above. Didn't Shakespeare use it in this sense, possibly in Macbeth?

 

[thinwater]

I think you will find that it's nothing to do with simpletons, but is a reference to herbs. In the context, "expressed" means squeezed. If you squeeze a simpleton, I don't think you would necessarily get a fluid useful in a dressing. Try simples as in herbs. Simples ?

Yes, you are correct. I did not read the example carefully.

I had not heard the word origin explained in that way. Makes sense that way. Of course, not one user in 100 understands that connection, the meerkat didn't think of it that way, and I believe the connection, as far as the common man is concerned is wholly coincidental. But thank you, Richard! My hat is off.

The evolution of language is weird and forums are often education in ways you don't expect.

I still hate "simples." And "texted."

 

[Neeves]

What I found interesting of the 'meerkat' advert, we also had it in Australia, and the Mantus video is what we (I) remember

Meerkats

Russian Meerkats

'simples'

and we did not mind it being totally ludicrous

and for Mantus

The sheer inapplicability of it all, the errors and treating the audience as idiots (we did mind it being ludicrous)

and both were trying to impart a serious message

If nothing else there are lessons in there for people making youtube vids


And on developments in the English language - its no good objecting to the changes - they have happened.

'Texting' is no worse than 'hoovering' (now there was a marketing success), more recently 'googling' and somewhere in between 'he has gone for a Burton'. I have no idea if Burton's derived any benefit. Texting, Hoovering, simples and Googling are instantly understood (or 'simples' is for anyone from the old Empire) - as was 'going for a Burton' - at the time, though possibly only for those at the heart of the old Empire). Language changes.

Jonathan

 

[NormanS]

I'm old school as far as language is concerned, but am willing to accept developments. If I send a text message, I have texted. What's wrong with that?
I'm old school as far as anchors are concerned, and to my mind anchors are for boats floating in water. Anchors being towed along a dry sandy beach behind a truck have absolutely no relevance to me.