Subject: English language - discussions

Hi guys,

what the hell is 'a central reservation of the m25 motorway'?

The "central reservation" the long thin strip of land, with a barrier, along the middle of a motorway (to separate the traffic going in opposite directions).

The m25 is the famously busy circular motorway which goes around London

ahhhh thanks a lot guys :)

The word "reservation" probably threw you here as it's normally used to make a reservation at a hotel, or you have reservations about a person or event.

Central barrier would be a better term. Silly English language :)

Actually first thing that crossed my mind was an Indian reservation, which was quite stupid considering the action was based in England. :p

I'm translating a book about van Persie at the moment and it appears that he managed to crash into such 'reservation' at one point in his life :p

if you regularly read the newspaper, can you please send me an sk mail?
I have to do an interview about this for school.
thank you

for those who are interested in English... this poem will help you understand why spelling in English is just downright crazy and impossible to understand cause there is simply no system.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

OK, my brain stopped working, can't get the exact sense of a sentence.

"[...]to develop a severe upward mobility problem (but one symptom of which was a phobia of airplanes)"

first of all, I hate the 'but one' sentences

anyway...what does the bold part exactly mean, can anyone please re-write it?

if I understand it correctly, the phobia of airplanes was one symptom of the severe upward mobility problem, yes? sounds logical, but I'm kind of exhausted at the moment so...

if I understand it correctly, the phobia of airplanes was one symptom of the severe upward mobility problem, yes?

YES...
I would assume (not reading the whole article) that flying is one of the examples but not the main one since its mentioned in brackets. Wondering what the other one was...

elevator?

just guessing, I have only a short paragraph from the whole thing

More likely to be vertigo I would imagine.

:)

one more:

"van Bronckhorst said that he (RvP) was the best striker of the ball at the club."

does that mean that RvP was the best striker in general [for example better than Henry] or that he was best at shooting the ball...?

it means he can strike the ball very hard and well

That's what I thought, thanks

What made me think was the next sentence, so I decided to ask. :)