Wordsmiths should be prepared to bid a sad farewell to a dozen terms today, after they were declared extinct by Collins Dictionary. The old fashioned and underused words, from aerodrome to charabanc, are to be removed from their pocket dictionaries after they fell out of popular use. Read more: Aerodrome and charabanc become obsolete as they are scrapped by Collins Dictionary | Mail Online Always liked the word - Aerodrome.
I note the words are being omitted from the pocket version of Collins Dictionary but are staying in the full version so a bit of a nothing story I feel. I like the word aerodrome too (didn't know it originally referred to probably a private facility) but it is often replaced by airfield these days.
Perhaps they need to listen to my mother, she is constantly telling me of her trips in the ol 'charabanc' when she was a child: charabanc a motor coach, esp one used for sightseeing tours 1797. No significant frequency since 1960s Mark
I'm proud to say that I have used 'charabanc' on this very forum. http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general/15760-vehicle-identification.html Down where I come from, which is between the two, Kenley and Biggin were both always referred to as 'aerodromes', as is Redhill, come to think of it. I can't imagine what else Kenley could be called. It's not an airport and it's not referred to as a field. I feel too young to be a last bastion of archaic speech.
.....I feel too young to be a last bastion of archaic speech. Yes so do I - surely aerodrome isn't that archaic. Charabanc however....
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/22/article-2028769-0D87266200000578-230_468x335.jpg Unless I have got it wrong, the Mail picture shows an Omnibus, I have attached a picture of what I believe is a Charabanc. The word Charabanc will be a sad loss to the English language, the next generation will not understand the words in the famous Welsh song, "There Were Three Jews From Jerusalem" (The choir practice version after a few beers) lofty
Lofty, I will have to go out for a few beers with you some time and join in the choir practice! I think you are right about the Charabanc Picture.
Collins might as well add courtesy, class, integrity and manners to the list of obsolete words while they're at it.
"oh shit there goes the charabang looks like I'm gonna be stuck here the whole summer well what a bummer I can think of a lot worse places to be like down in the streets or down in the sewer or even on the end of a skewer" Peaches, The Stranglers, 1977
I don't quite understand the concern about the loss of a word that wasn't even English in the first place, rather a French import Charabanc - Char-à-Bancs : car with benches as Lofty's photo shows. As for Aerodrome, again it must be a French import from the early balooning days, and in any case it's a mogrel Latin/Greek adaptation of Hippodrome!
I don't quite understand the concern about the loss of a word that wasn't even English in the first place... Take away all our non-English words and we're left with "ugh ugh".
Cut the noise! 'Sorry sir, what was that? ' I said temper your frivolity with a modicum of decorum', why did you nae say that then!
From Wiki... Historically, English originated from the fusion of languages and dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers by the 5th century – with the word English being derived from the name of the Angles, and ultimately from their ancestral region of Angeln (in what is now Schleswig-Holstein).[13] A significant number of English words are constructed based on roots from Latin, because Latin in some form was the lingua franca of the Christian Church and of European intellectual life.[14] The language was further influenced by the Old Norse language due to Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French, and vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the superficial appearance of a close relationship with Romance languages[15][16] to what had then become Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift that began in the south of England in the 15th century is one of the historical events that mark the emergence of Modern English from Middle English. Owing to the assimilation of words from many other languages throughout history, modern English contains a very large vocabulary. Modern English has not only assimilated words from other European languages but also from all over the world, including words of Hindi and African origin. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 250,000 distinct words, not including many technical, scientific, or slang terms.[17][18] What a smorgasbord! And what do a dozen words matter in 250,000?
From Wiki... Historically, English originated from the fusion of languages and dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers by the 5th century – with the word English being derived from the name of the Angles, and ultimately from their ancestral region of Angeln (in what is now Schleswig-Holstein).[13] A significant number of English words are constructed based on roots from Latin, because Latin in some form was the lingua franca of the Christian Church and of European intellectual life.[14] The language was further influenced by the Old Norse language due to Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French, and vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the superficial appearance of a close relationship with Romance languages[15][16] to what had then become Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift that began in the south of England in the 15th century is one of the historical events that mark the emergence of Modern English from Middle English. Owing to the assimilation of words from many other languages throughout history, modern English contains a very large vocabulary. Modern English has not only assimilated words from other European languages but also from all over the world, including words of Hindi and African origin. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 250,000 distinct words, not including many technical, scientific, or slang terms.[17][18] What a smorgasbord! And what do a dozen words matter in 250,000?
Well, Za - having a large vocabulary saves us having to post the same thing twice ! :p ...and sadly, words that I'm comfortable with have been replaced, no doubt, by others that I've had to look up on Google such as 'chav' and 'bling'. I'm not ashamed to admit that those are both words which I could never use in normal conversation.
I had a momentary case of seeing buttons OK-1 and OK-2 and as I was undecided pressed both You Brits can count yourselves lucky, very lucky indeed! We are in an uproar as we have The Powers That Bloody Be ramming down our throats a spelling unification treaty between Portuguese Portuguese and Brazillian and several African variants! Imagine what would an unification be of UK English with American, Jamaican, OZ, NZ, Kenyan, Sierra Leonese, etc, etc, etc, all put into a pot, stirred and forced into all the concerned nations! :mad111: Grrrrr!!!
I understand that Za because I live in Flanders where they regulate the language together with the Dutch and every few years we have to deal with New Spelling with altered rules. Even place names have received an altered spelling over the years in order to comply. To an Englishman, it's a nonsense. If a spelling was once correct then it should remain so. One consequence seems to be that I hardly notice a difference if I read a 19th Century English text but that certainly isn't so of Dutch.
Exactly, and you can see your language evolve by itself, as the English written by Chaucer was not the same as by Marlowe, nor Boswell, nor Mary Renault, flowing for a number of reasons and influences. Certainly not imposed from above. And woe betide you if you don't comply!
Omnibus, that's what the red one was called, but has that word already gone down the Charabanc road, or is it still in use? Those great big monarchs of the road Those observers of the highway code Those scarlet painted, diesel engined Ninety seven horsepower Omnibus, A verse from Transport of Delight, Flanders and Swann
