Do they teach American language in Primary schools nowadays?

[Julia9054]

If that's the case, I did it wrong for years. Depending on the audience, "Greetings, fellow carbon based life forms" seemed to go down quite well.

Looking forward to trying that out on year 9 next time I want them to listen

 

[DRM]

Guys.
What is the informal, colloquial alternative way to address a mixed gender group of people?

Ey up you lot!

 

[Julia9054]

I'd probably say something like 'hey people'. I'd not say ladies, girls, lasses (eek!) or any single sex term, not because it'd be wrong per se but I think you have to be extra aware in that (teacher's?) context and avoid anything that might be cause for comment.

I do think you have to use a term that you are comfortable with though. A 'clunky' expression could backfire!

Girls is OK in a school setting because they are. I'd also use that in a group of adult women that I knew of which I were part.
Not OK to a group of adult women of which you are not part.

 

[DaveReading]

Isn’t “folk” already plural?

True. But adding the extra "s" makes it sound, well, kinda folksy ...

 

[bluenotebob]

About 1382-1400 according to the OED, long before the Americas were discovered.

If you'd read all of my post, you'd have seen that I said

"I'm sure "gotten" was used in Elizabethan times and exported to the US a few hundred years ago"

so what is your point?

 

[Tail End Charlie]

I always used "ahoy there me hearties" when addressing a group, young or old.

 

[yello]

Girls is OK in a school setting because they are

Would it depend on the age of the girls?

The girls/women divide is something that I, in all honesty, come a cropper on sometimes. I watch women's football and will sometimes remark something like 'the girls played well'. Some off them are in their 20s.

You can say lads of men's football but a similar words does not exist for the women's game. The obvious 'lasses' might work in some regions of the UK but it'd not be universally appreciated.

 

[Julia9054]

Would it depend on the age of the girls?

The girls/women divide is something that I, in all honesty, come a cropper on sometimes. I watch women's football and will sometimes remark something like 'the girls played well'. Some off them are in their 20s.

You can say lads of men's football but a similar words does not exist for the women's game. The obvious 'lasses' might work in some regions of the UK but it'd not be universally appreciated.

Girls are < 18.
I don't follow football but would say women in that situation. It would be appropriate for one of them being interviewed to refer to their own team as the girls just as I might say I am going for a night out with the girls to describe a group of friends.
Mind you, I wouldn't say lads to describe the men's football team either as to me it sounds like you are describing a group of which you are part.

 

[yello]

I might say I am going for a night out with the girls to describe a group of friends.
Mind you, I wouldn't say lads to describe the men's football team either as to me it sounds like you are describing a group of which you are part.

It just goes to show how personally tuned our vocabularies are. What words mean to us, how we use them to describe the world we see and experience. Is it any wonder that there is miscommunication? There is broad scope for difference.

 

[Alex321]

It just goes to show how personally tuned our vocabularies are. What words mean to us, how we use them to describe the world we see and experience. Is it any wonder that there is miscommunication? There is broad scope for difference.

View attachment 671703

Absolutely.

I well remember on a "management" course I was sent on by BT, they set us an exercise to rank a number of words in order of how frequent an occurrence they meant. Words such as "always", 'often", 'Invariably", 'never", "sometimes", "occasionally", "frequently". I think there were 10 words in the list, and we had 8 pairs of us setting orders. No two pairs ended up with the words in the same order, with some very wide variations.

 

[The Crofted Crest]

I once read that there are very few words that actually have significance in the sense of meaning. The only meaningful words (according to the author, perhaps AJ Ayer) are: here, there, this and that; all the others are just symbolic labels used for our convenience.

 

[GuyBoden]

Elizabethan English, about 1600, was my favourite English, it's gone down hill since.

 

[Tenkaykev]

I once read that there are very few words that actually have significance in the sense of meaning. The only meaningful words (according to the author, perhaps AJ Ayer) are: here, there, this and that; all the others are just symbolic labels used for our convenience.

In a similar vein, so are the labels that we assign to colours, with some cultures have different labels for a specific range of electromagnetic frequencies.
( this explanation got short shrift when the new pair of black jeans that I'd purchased were declared to be dark blue by Mrs Tenkaykev )

 

[The Crofted Crest]

the labels that we assign to colours

The labels we give colours evolved.
In ancient times, there were very few colours and one label could be stuck to what we today would call several colours. Homer, for instance, said the sea was wine-dark. What we would later call yellow and blue were referred to as one colour. I can't remember the order but it went something like: everything is "brown", then "brown and red", then "brown, red and black", etc. This phenomenon occurred in nearly all languages.

 

[BoldonLad]

The labels we give colours evolved.
In ancient times, there were very few colours and one label could be stuck to what we today would call several colours. Homer, for instance, said the sea was wine-dark. What we would later call yellow and blue were referred to as one colour. I can't remember the order but it went something like: everything is "brown", then "brown and red", then "brown, red and black", etc. This phenomenon occurred in nearly all languages.

For most men of my acquaintance (including myself), little or nothing has changed.