West Somerset Railway General Discussion

As a non 'business person' I first encountered GBP on a ferry. It confused me at first, since 'p' is the recognised symbol for pence. One forum of which I was a member (on Compuserve, remember them?) used UKL, which seemed far more logical as the ' £ ' currency symbol is after all a stylised version of L for Librum.

Many things which were taught at the time of the original decimalisation seem to have fallen by the wayside. Such as using a hyphen ' - ' to separate pounds from pence rather than a full stop ' .' although I think might have been a recommendation from my bank to avoid a fraudster altering a cheque. Prior to computerisation the decimal separator was a dot at hyphen height, but this was I believe only available in extended ASCII. There were of course differences between the ways in which different nations showed numbers, most of Europe I think used a comma as a decimal point, and blank spaces as a thousand separator, whereas in the UK we used a comma to separate thousands.

And of course one business which does things differently is the retail fuel seller. They display prices in (improper quantities of) pence. This was understandable when the fuel price first exceeded one pound, but by now (especially given the inflation since) we should be paying for our fuel in pounds and pence, without the ridiculous .9 on the end.

 

Although reading through is hard if you are dyslexic. I am well aware of my convoluted writing and so will often edit my posts until I get the correct form of words, but my articles and tenses tend to go walk about and there are certain words I lose the ability to spell. Orange is very troublesome. I can look at a word and think it looks wrong for a long time.

I am also sympathetic to those who use English as a second or third language. I speak some other languages and would have no confidence in my ability to discuss railway topics, etc in any of them. I also work with non native speakers and it is something of a re-occuring joke that my English is the hardest to understand (too fast).

 

The tour was called 'The Skirl Revisited' and I was on it from Bristol. There was a total of 17 locos used on the tour over the weekend, and it used the dreaded Pilkington K liveried stock. Breakfast had been arranged at an Ayr hotel for early Sunday morning for anyone who wanted it, and we drew the attention of the local police as a hundred or so people made their way from the station - they feared an invasion!

 

I too work with many non native speakers of English. What makes it harder is how many different nations my fellow drivers originate from. Also the fact that if two (for example) Bengali speakers are conversing they may switch seamlessly between their own language and English in mid flow. Some of the African origin drivers speak many languages, such as their own native area's language, an African common language used outside their own local area, a former colonial power's language (often French) and English.

 

I tend to think the best English in the world is spoken by Indians of a "certain sort". My now retired G.P. was one such.

 

At risk of generating even more thread drift than usual, the ultra trendy pubs omit the 0 and quote a price as 2.5 rather than £2.50. That grates with me even more, though fortunately, the occasions I am likely to be in a place that does this are somewhat south of zero, even in pre and post CV times.

 

Call me thick, if you like, but I would read 2.5 as being £2.05 , Not £2.50 .

 

I haven't been back for a while but for years there was a pub in Islington which continued to express all prices in old money. Which the customer then had to convert. So if the barman said "Eleven pounds ten" he meant £11 10/- but he'd have to accept £11.50

 

Went to north Wales a few years ago went into a grocer store where the staff were speaking English, when I asked for something in English they reverted to speaking the Welsh language, ignorant lot.

 

Ever since I saw The Flipside of Dominick Hide in 1980 my personal way of expressing the UK currency has been in 'Quids' as in "it cost me fifty quids" or "give me more quids". But that's just an affectation - I know it's wrong.

 

I agree it's not exactly clear, but if you cast your mind back to school maths, 2.5 of anything is two and a half

 

It's shocking, you know, the way people speak their own languages around us English people. I went to the Netherlands last year and heard people in the supermarket speaking Dutch! So rude of them!!!!

 

If I saw it in a train register though I'd assume it was five past two!

 

A British friend mine who is a Russian speaker used to joke that you should never assume on a London bus that no one will be able to understand you. (And yes, prostitute and pimp on the underground sizing up potential clients I mean you)

I worked for a while with a group of colleagues who were Moldovan, Ukrainian, Azerbaijani and Georgian, when we were chatting the common langauge was English, when I wasn't there it was Russian.

I was in Berlin on the ubahn and there was a Moldovan chatting to a friend opposite and his discussion began in German, then it moved into Romanian/Moldovan, then into Russian back into Moldovan and finished with the English 'and I blend in with the crowd'.

I have a group of friends who learnt their English in Bucharest in the 1990s using British council tapes. They have the most cut glass RP accents you could ever imagine.

 

It is the perfect grammar and precise choice of words that impresses me about Indians who have been taught English properly.

 

Well, you obviously wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation, so they were right to do so. What does it matter they were speaking a language you didn't understand, so long as they served you?

 

I heard a story of a group of Welsh-speakers up in London for the rugby who got caught in this way. The elderly black man they were being rude about was from Tiger Bay, Cardiff and understood every word.

 

I'm not sure about "properly", but that may be a different debate. It is the ability of my Indian colleagues at all levels to switch seamlessly from their native Hindi into English, not just in general chat but in various flavours of professional discussion, that really impresses me.

But what this has to do with the WSR...?

 

About as much as the last X pages?....