Things that have bothered you for a long time.

[Andy in Germany]

Why can't the people who made smart phones so full of computer power that they rivals the Apollo moon landings invent a charging plug that doesn't break?

 

[mudsticks]

Why can't the people who made smart phones so full of computer power that they rivals the Apollo moon landings invent a charging plug that doesn't break?

Try not to be so rough with it dear boy

 

[Poacher]

Whilst bananas are a fruit and can be termed as Vegetable.

Berry well said!

 

[mudsticks]

Are you the Queen?

Your five pounds is in the post..

And you get two portraits of me too

 

[Andy in Germany]

Try not to be so rough with it dear boy

You know as well as I that smart phones are not built for our respective work/lifestyles.

 

[DaveReading]

I could compile a list, that would show a disproportionately high level of a's b's and c's in the commonly grown vegetable world.

It might however have to wait.. But not forever.

I did once compiled two contrasting lists in order to establish the proper* pronunciation of scone.. So I do have form

And of course, we here are all agreed that it *should rhyme with.

bone
cone
clone
drone
hone
lone
stone
tone
xylophone.
and
zone.

But some will insist upon making it sound like gone

Not forgetting Scone (the place in Scotland), which rhymes with spoon.

 

[mudsticks]

Not forgetting Scone (the place in Scotland), which rhymes with spoon.

Of course, we can't conclusively prove anything in English by reference to other words..

But my argument in favour of it being scone (as in stone) m'lud, is that it chimes with the pronunciation of nearly all other regular nouns and verbs.

A fanciful diversion, if nothing else

 

[mudsticks]

@Andy in Germany


Hating to tempt fate here.

But I've had the same smartphone accompany me around the farm, and on many a gnarly mountain and bike trip, for three years, with nary an injury.
(it's just a bit mucky, in some of its ports perhaps )

You boys are just so rough, and careless with things, that's the problem

 

[DaveReading]

But my argument in favour of it being scone (as in stone) m'lud, is that it chimes with the pronunciation of nearly all other regular nouns and verbs.

Unfortunately, as my ESOL students are forever finding out, English is full of rules that apply nearly all of the time.

 

[mudsticks]

Unfortunately, as my ESOL students are forever finding out, English is full of rules that apply nearly all of the time.

Don't you daily give thanks that h'english is your mother tongue?

It must be the most inscrutable muddle of rules that are there to be broken, to the outsider.

But perhaps all the richer for that..

 

[Chris S]

Whilst bananas are a fruit and can be termed as Vegetable.

Bananas contain seeds (well they did until they were bred out of them) so that would make them a fruit?

 

[Electric_Andy]

"A banana is considered an herb in botanical terms because it never forms a woody stem (or trunk) the way a tree does. "

 

[Andy in Germany]

@Andy in Germany


Hating to tempt fate here.

But I've had the same smartphone accompany me around the farm, and on many a gnarly mountain and bike trip, for three years, with nary an injury.
(it's just a bit mucky, in some of its ports perhaps )

You boys are just so rough, and careless with things, that's the problem

My wife trashes them faster than me.

 

[Electric_Andy]

of course, we here are all agreed that [scone] *should rhyme with...bone

Everyone I know who speaks in a broad Cornish or Devonshire accent pronounces it to rhyme with "bone". Like many things, people outside the areas where these things were invented tend to pronounce it how they want. Like a lot of English people will say they are going out to eat in a "rest-er-ont", but that's not how the French say it.

I was accused of being posh for pronouncing it scone instead of Scon; my argument was always "speak to my Gran who's as broad Devon as they come, she says scone, that's how the locals say it". I blame the South-Easterners...coming down 'ere, mis-pronouncing our scones....

 

[mudsticks]

My wife trashes them faster than me.

You're clearly not disciplining her sufficiently then ..