It’s like export and import… I tried to work it into my pun on Edinburgh above, but I sometimes hear these terms used interchangeably and incorrectly in the States. (I sometimes use them incorrectly myself in colloquial speech.)
They are also sort of peculiar in that the stress is sometimes put on the first or second syllable depending on their use as a verb or a noun, as well as the persons’ location/dialect.
For example:
These imports are set aside for export.
These exports are set aside for import.
The scots imported their “O’s” to America.
The Scots exported their “O’s” to America.
(Though only one is correct, they both sound acceptable to my ears.)
I’m sorry, I call shenanigans here. I have lived in places where I’ve been asked for water, wooder, warder, and even agua ferchrissakes, and I have to wonder where in the English-speaking world do they not understand the correct pronunciation of “water.”
Do you have any idea how long I have been sitting here saying ‘laboratory’ and ‘secretary’?! I’m completely tongue-tied. How do you say them?
And no, I would never say ‘at Tuesday’. I’ve never thought of that before! Still, I rarely say ‘on Tuesday’ either, I’m more likely to say ‘this//last/next Tuesday’.
No, sorry, I really meant that take is correct, well at least where I come from… I know many Americans who use bring instead of take. If I was with one of them at the library they may well ask ‘Are you going to bring that book home?’ when surely it should be take. I notice it a lot.
SlowMindThinking I’m not sure how I can be ‘at’ the weekend, it just sounds right. Friday I will be at the park, but at the weekend I will be resting. Weird…
Oh, and Loughborough: Luff-bra. All those silent vowels!!
It sounds so wrong to me that when I encountered it in my textbook (while working as a TEFL), I posted a thread in GD to ask if it was a common British usage or just a typo, which was also a distinct possibility.
Since then I’ve heard it a lot, though. I can’t imagine how I’d never noticed it until then - it really stands out as sounding weird to my ear.
Can I just say that, I’m not sure whether it’s US or UK in origin (but I suspect US) that this new thing of “talk to this issue” shits me up the wall. You talk to a person, you talk about an issue.
Here’s a question: Is “I could care less” an American construction? I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anyone other than Americans use it. Tell a lie, I think I might have seen a few Canadians use it as well.
I firmly believe that anyone who uses that rather than “I couldn’t care less” needs beating about the head with a shovel. As I’m sure all right-minded people, regardless of nationality, agree.
‘LAB-ra-TOR-ee’ and ‘SEK-re-TAIR-ee’. Both four syllables (we lose the first O in ‘laboratory’. I’ve heard some British people say ‘la-BOR-a-tree’ and SEK-re-tree’.
Wow. That is so totally not what I expected.
Both of those are correct; in the first case, the Scots are in America, and in the second case, they aren’t.
At least you can be glad that what was once most widespread use of the word–as in the physical object used to carry “albums” of music–has become practically obsolete. I don’t think the word has any currency now outside of business, professional, and official language.
There’s a reason for that. The original “record albums” literally were “albums.” There was a series of pockets, each bound at the spine and each housing a vinyl disc, and you turned them exactly as you page through a photo album.
I hear it a lot in their movies and tv shows, and almost never in the US.