I agree, Bob, almost no-one would use the phrase Heaven forfend nowadays. However, I'm a lot like Richard in some ways, and I might use it on occasion for effect. I suspect Richard was having some fun with you, Kalleh.

I suspect Richard was having some fun with you,

If so, I'd be surprised. It was just a normal e-mail about something quite mundane, if I recall. After hearing Bob's reply, I decided it must have something to do with Richards classical education.

I've mentioned before that my DH (dear hubby) has a habit of using odd phrases. Heaven forfend is something he would say.

He's funny that way.

In fact, although forfend is archaic in the UK (although I would use it when speaking to my friend Stewart and he would not so much as raise an eyebrow) it is actually a current (although specialist) term in US English.

It is a legal term having the meaning, "...protect by precautions..."

There are some rather nice archaic terms around that I like to use since they are often more picturesque and/or sonorous than their modern equivalents.

How much more interesting to say, "...She collected her chattels and set off for barely imagined new vistas..." than to say, "...She got her stuff and went off..."

She collected her chattels and set off for barely imagined new vistas..." than to say, "...She got her stuff and went off..."

Yes, I agree with you, Richard. And yet, in other discussions here, I remember your criticizing the vocabulary of academics. Is there really a difference?

By the way, is it "forfend" or "forefend?" Your original e-mail to me was the latter, but I misspelled it here as the former (later corrected it when I realized it), and now everyone is writing "forfend."

Forfend is correc; my original posting contained a typo.

Insofar as the use of language is concerned I draw a distinction between language that is used to make a passage sound or look beautiful, and arcane and turgid language that is used simply to give some spurious air of importance to a straightforward subject.

I suppose I get it, but sometimes I think there is a fine line between the two.

BTW, the dictionary contains both spellings, "forfend" and "forefend."

Quote "...BTW, the dictionary contains both spellings, "forfend" and "forefend."..."

Another problem for OEDILF when it gets to the "f's"...

I just looked up 'status' to see what the plural is, and they had a usage note on pronunction. They said:

"In a recent survey of the Usage Panel, 53 percent of the Panelists preferred the pronunciation (stăt'es), 36 percent preferred (stā'tes), and 11 percent said they use both pronunciations. The pronunciation (stā'tes) is the older, more traditional pronunciation, and it remains the most common one in British English."

So do you Brits say "stā'tes?"

Also, I have a question about the the start/programs/accessories/character map that jheem suggested using to get some of those characters (like the short and long "a's"). Many of them work just fine, but the upside down "e" comes out as a square. Does anyone know why?

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So do you Brits say "stā'tes?

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I suppose I would, although I'd be unlikely to use it; I'd probably recast the sentence. I can't say that I've ever heard it pronounced.

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Many of them work just fine, but the upside down "e" comes out as a square.

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It depends on the font you are using; not every font has a glyph for each and every character.

Modern fonts or character maps ought to include the schwa symbol (upside-down e), since these days it's not just a phonetic symbol (which are largely excluded from fonts), but is now a letter in a Roman orthography. After Azerbaijan gained independence they replaced Cyrillic with Roman, and at first used the letter ä, but after a couple of years replaced it with ə, as in the native name of the country: Azərbaycan. Now the big question is whether that shows up here...

... Well, it doesn't. At least not in the browser I'm using here at work; Internet Explorer 5.5. We are still running Windows NT4 here, which has no Unicode support, so that may be the problem.

I suppose I would, although I'd be unlikely to use it; I'd probably recast the sentence. I can't say that I've ever heard it pronounced.

Really? We use "status" here quite a bit. "What is the 'status' of your project?" Or "What is the 'status' of the patient?" I would say it is fairly common here. Why would you "recast" the sentence?

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We use "status" here quite a bit

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Quite. It has become a jargon-word. I'd use "How is your project?" or "How is the patient?" instead.

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... Well, it doesn't.

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... However, revisiting from home using Opera 8 on Win MX it does appear correctly.

Status is used in the travel industry, and accurately I suggest, to denote the situation of a reservation. You will see it on air tickets where there is a reservation status box which will usually bear the comment "OK" - meaning that the reservation has been confirmed. Sometimes you will see "RQ" and this is a warning that the booking is not secure; indeed, the flight may be full and you are on a waiting-list.

Now, arnie, just because I said that it is used "quite a bit," doesn't mean that it is overused. I don't think that 'status' is overused at all. The 'status' of the project would mean, to me, where precisely you are with it. What step are you on. "How is your project" would be too vague. As for the 'status' of the patient, you are probably right.

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just because I said that it is used "quite a bit," doesn't mean that it is overused

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Agreed. I said it was overused.

The whole world, I think, has been intrigued by the Prince Charles's proposal to Camilla. I read an article today that said Prince Charles would be declared a saint by American women. Why? Because famous men in our country fall in love with women 30 years younger than they are! How refreshing, said one publication, that Prince Charles is in love with a woman who is, in the eyes of this reporter, "a bit of a frump."

Anyway, what a lot of Americans are asking is this: What is a Princess Consort?

We (Americans & Brits) post together here in the English language, and our cultures seem very similar. Yet, it is situations like this that show how very different our cultures really are.

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

Anyway, what a lot of Americans are asking is this: What is a Princess Consort?

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A Princess Consort is a brand new made-up title to avoid provoking a constitutional crisis.

Unfortunately it also sounds to my ear like a 1950s or 60s motor car (I drive an Austin Princess Consort...)

Actually the more I think about that car, been around the block a few times, nothing much to look at, bit of an old banger...


Sorry, I'll stop now.

Quote "...A Princess Consort is a brand new made-up title to avoid provoking a constitutional crisis...."


It's new only in the sense that It's never previously been used for the wife of a king. It was first used in the masculine sense in Victorian times when Queen Victoria's husband, Albert, was The Prince Consort. He was never referred to as King.

It's new in the sense that "Princess Consort" is new.
Had we been discussing "Prince Consort" I would of course agree with you.

Unfair it may be but the fact is that had Albert been called "King" he would have outranked Victoria and he would have been our monarch. Camilla could technically be called "Queen" without outranking Charles (as he would be King) .

...I'll bet she's not even a Tudor (two-door).

Well, we'd sure like to see more of you Mark!

It was first used in the masculine sense in Victorian times when Queen Victoria's husband, Albert, was The Prince Consort. He was never referred to as King.

And, is the reason the one Bob gave...that he would have out-ranked the Queen? That makes sense. However, it still leaves this Princess Consort in the dark for me. Why couldn't she have just been the Princess of England? Why, anyway, is Wales in all of this?

'Prince of Wales' is unusual in being the only territorial princedom*. On the Continent you have the Prince of Monaco, and all the German princes of this and that, but in the British system 'Prince' just means a close descendant of the Sovereign: they're born Prince Charles, Princess Anne, and so on.

The one exception is Prince of Wales, which is created for the heir apparent. When it was first used this way in about 1300, Edward I was imposing his English son as ruler of the separate country of Wales, having conquered it. There had been Welsh rulers who had united Wales and been styled Prince of Wales before him, and Wales remained legally a separate country until about 1540. Ruler of an entire country was therefore the highest rank available to the English crown, above any dukedoms within England. There has never been any title such as Prince of England.

*eta No it's not. I notice that the Prince of Wales is also Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, though this is not his senior title in Scotland, which is Duke of Rothesay.

You also get what look like territorial princedoms but aren't. Prince Michael the son of The Duke of Kent is styled Prince Michael of Kent: but he's not Prince of Kent. (Likewise the Prince of Wales's elder son is Prince William of Wales.)

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Prince Charles would be declared a saint by American women

Not me! Why declare a man a saint for simple good taste and honesty? Nothing wrong with finding a woman your own age. Who cares what she looks like? He's not exactly "Hollywood Material". If you ask me, Diana was too young and pretty for him. At any rate, why should looks matter so darn much? It could actually be possible that they enjoy one another's company enough to want to have more of it! More power to them! Viva l'amor!

Not to be picky, but

a)isn't this a language forum?
and if it is,
b) aren't you mixing French and Spanish at the end?

Just curious!

You're right of course but as long as the majority of the board is about language we don't get too worried in here if we drift off topic occasionally. This particular bit of off-topicking started with a question about the phrase Princess Consort.

What is the correct French term?

We were talking about the Princess Consort on the Saturday Chat, and we also were talking about the salary paid to royalty. Coincidentally, there was an article in the Chicago Tribune today by a Brit talking about how much money the "royals" get. I can't seem to find it online to post it, but part of what they said is that the "royals" get $15 million a year.

BTW, she called them "the royals" in the article. Is that what royalty is called in England?

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The Civil List, which is the money the Royal Family get from the taxpayer, is, indeed, around $15 million.

That works out at about 25 cents for every person in the UK. Seems a bargain to me.

What does George Bush cost the US taxpayer every year just to run his little luxuries like Air Force 1 and that little pad he has in Washington DC?

quote:

she called them "the royals" in the article. Is that what royalty is called in England?

It is a little disrespectful, so no-one is likely to refer to them as "the royals" in front of them, but in informal writing it is quite common.

quote:

Now the big question is whether that shows up here...

Returning to this subject, we've just upgraded at work to Windows MX with IE6 but I still get a garbage character, although, as I said, I can see it from home in Opera 8.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
What does George Bush cost the US taxpayer every year just to run his little luxuries like Air Force 1 and that little pad he has in Washington DC?

Although I agree that every country's leader has an obscene amount of money spent on them - and for the record I think the few 'major' royals should stay on for tourism purposes (the second-cousin-type hangers-on can bugger off and get a job), the differences are that the royal family already have a huge personal fortune that they barely need to touch due to the payouts from us; and (to a certain extent) anybody can rise to become the elected leader of their country. No average person can become a royal.

Of course, considering our long and bloody royal history of coups, wars, treason, murder, intrigue, infidelity and the like, the original line is long broken and the current royal family have no more real genetic claim to the title than you or I.

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anybody can rise to become the elected leader of their country. No average person can become a royal.

Having seen who's in charge of the USA right now I'm inclined to believe you. Any multi-billionaire can do it, not trouble at all.

It might be easier to marry a Prince, though, if you don't happen to have a dad who owns a few oil wells.

Oh, and the Royal Family's fortune, substantial though it is, is theirs. They earnt it just as did most other millionaires.

And most of the Queen's "fortune" isn't hers at all - it's in trust for the nation. She can't flog off the odd Van Gogh if she needs a few quid for the nags!

Any multi-billionaire can do it, not trouble at all.

Exactly. That's why I said 'to a certain extent, anyone can rise to become leader of their country'. Of course money talks. That's why equality can never truly exist in a capitalist culture. But it's still easier for a working/middle class commoner to become President or Prime Minister than to get anywhere near a royal, let alone marry one.

They earnt it just as did most other millionaires.

But other millionaires don't get to keep it - they have to use their money for living expenses, as do we all.

Now, I'm genuinely curious about this - how exactly have the royals earnt their fortune? In my book, 'inheriting' is not the same as 'earning'. And before the most recent few generation, most royals 'earnt' the money by killing whomever was on the throne at the time and seizing the booty. More money would be raked in by taxation, but that's not the same as 'earning'.

quote:

Having seen who's in charge of the USA right now I'm inclined to believe you. Any multi-billionaire can do it, not trouble at all.

Now, that's not exactly fair, Richard. Yes, in the last election both candidates were rich. Yet, Barack Obama rose from state government, in a landslide, to the Senate, and surely has a bright future ahead of him. He wasn't exactly raised as a millionaire.

I don't know much about royalty and probably shouldn't have brought up the subject. But, just like anyone in England can become the Prime Minister, anyone here in the U.S. can become the president. I completely expect that we will see Barack Obama running for president in the near future.

I'm with Richard on this one. The popularity of the royals brings in far more money in tourist spending than they cost. That being the case, I think you guys should go with some kind of popularly elected or appointed family instead of the genetic crapshoot you currently have. Find some nice, well-educated family who is up to the job of visiting hospitals and not wearing embarassing clothing and then pay them to King and Queen. Let them reign for, say, 25 years or until they start to get goofy and then find another bunch.

I found this reply hilarious. VERY funny; if anyone out there hasn't seen it, I recommend you watch the film "King Ralph" with John Goodman. The entire Royal Family is wiped out in a freak accident, and research turns up the only remaining, albeit distant, heir: an American. And what a goofy American. Say no more, say no more (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

I was tempted to vent my frustration at the re-election of a semi-literate boob with a rich and influential father, but then I thought "Wait - this is a forum about language, and it's already ventured quite far into the realm of politics. Temperatures are beginning to rise. So perhaps I'd better not."

Ahem...

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Now, I'm genuinely curious about this - how exactly have the royals earnt their fortune? In my book, 'inheriting' is not the same as 'earning'.

The British Royal Families have not always been wealthy (leaving aside their palaces and suchlike which aren't theirs to sell). Indeed, there have been times when the British Monarchy was as near bankrupt as makes no difference.

When our present Queen acceded to the throne she had money but she was not fabulously wealthy. Much of her present wealth has been accrued through shrewd investment. Of course, you might say that investment is not the same as "earning money" but it is a fact that nost of the world's richest people have acquired their wealth by such means - and if it's OK for them then I reckon it's OK for the Queen.

The information about the Queen's wealth is easily accessible; more so than that about the US President whose true costs (apart from his $400,000 salary) I cannot find anywhere.

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Temperatures are beginning to rise.

Mine's not, I can assure you, markmywords. I'm having a fascinating conversation with well-educated people whom I respect, even if I don't always agree with them. We are a word board, but I (and I hope others) think it's OK if a thread occasionally strays off the topic - in my experience it always comes back to language; and the occasional straying adds (to me at least) a bit of stimulating variety, and shows we're a well-rounded bunch rather than a herd of one-trick ponies. And I can't think of a better board of people with whom to discuss certain matters!

So vent away, if you want to

Oh, it's not a problem with ME, I assure you. I just wondered if it was appropriate after seeing how input regarding this topic was escalating. I'm just as game to contribute my opinions regarding the Royalty in the UK and the Presidency in the USA. I find myself nodding and agreeing with many of the points made on either side. It's interesting - as long as it doesn't become a politically heated discussion. After all, all cultures have their own intrinsic values which don't necessarily compute in other cultures. I'm an Anglophile American living in Norway, but I don't think any of the three cultures are anywhere near perfect.

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Originally posted by markmywords48:
I don't think any of the three cultures are anywhere near perfect.

I'm in complete agreement with you there, mmw. Everywhere has good and bad, and anyone who thinks in one of the extremes is either very ignorant or living in cloud cuckoo land .

Having been brought back to this thread, I'm reminded of a letter I read on Teletext a few weeks ago about UK and US English that I found fascinating. I'll try and remember it and post it here - I'd be very interested in what everyone thinks.

Looking forward to it, Cat!

Temperatures are beginning to rise.

Not mine, either. I tend to agree with Markmywords' conclusions as well. I just don't think you have to be rich to be the U.S. president, and I suspect in the near future we will have someone (Obama?) who isn't.

Richard, you are right about the $400,000 salary of the president. I thought it was less, and of course there are a lot of "perks" as you indicate. Still, the salaries of CEOs in the U.S. are obscene as well. BTW, how much does Tony Blair make?

I did read that if ex-President Clinton lives a normal life, he will make about $6,000,000.

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quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:

I did read that if ex-President Clinton lives a normal life, he will make about $6,000,000.

I don't suppose many have ever accused him of living a normal life.

Toney Blair earns £178,922 per annum. His salary was increased just recently along with the salaries of all other ministers. You can find a complete list here http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/M06.pdf

That is a good salary but significantly less, even now, than many CEOs.

I don't suppose many have ever accused him of living a normal life.

...a fun one, though!

Which reminds me, Clinton was one of those presidents whose family wasn't affluent. In fact, his father died when he was 3 months old. Hillary's family, as well, came from a modest suburb of Chicago. They both are brilliant and worked themselves through excellent colleges, so their ambition and careers, of course, brought them money. However, neither Bill nor Hillary was born with a "silver spoon in his/her mouth." They each worked hard for what they've gotten.

Toney Blair earns £178,922 per annum.

Looking at pound versus dollar, that is very equivalent to our presidential salary. Yes, I agree that neither of them makes what many CEOs make.

Quote "...Looking at pound versus dollar, that is very equivalent to our presidential salary. Yes, I agree that neither of them makes what many CEOs make..."

A bit less, actually. It's $338,915.56 at today's rate of exchange.

And insofar as Bill Clinton's earnings are concerned, I assume that figure is the amount he will receive as his retirement "pension" from the US taxpayers. He will surely earn much more than that from his public speaking engagements. According to the New York Times he earns between $125,000-$300,000 for a speech (I assume his expenses are charged on top). So he's probably earning in the region of $10 million a year from speaking.

I am sorry, but I don't begrudge our ex-presidents their pension. We are a powerful country (just as England is) and our ex-leaders deserve a pension to the same extent as those in big business do. $6,000,000 over the rest of his life (about 20 more years) isn't overdoing it, in my mind.

As far as his own work, well, he is a brilliant, respected, charismatic man who has studied in major universities, here and abroad, to get where he is today. He has worked hard for his success, and again I don't begrudge him that money.

I know there are some who dislike him because of his personal life, but I am not one of them. To me, a personal life is just that...personal.