Random Irritations

[Bunkermagnet]

The pay recommendation for Elon Musk at Tesla. Who gets it is irrelevant, it's an obscene figure that no individual human needs or should have

Wasnt it if he can drive there value from 1.5 Trillion to 8 Trillion dollars?
Accepting the US Trillion is different to UK Trillion, thats still a huge increase he has to generate. Especially when you see the Chineseeating into their market and profits at an alarming rate.

BTW, I can't stand the man. Him or his cars

 

[Neilds]

I've been saying it and spelling it as "Kiev" for over 50 years.
Chicken Kiev, The Great Gate of Kiev (Mussorgsky) etc

But in very recent years, the English language seems to have changed this to Kyiv. News channels pronounce it this way and The Times newspaper prints it this way.
I have a lot of books that have become out-dated.
Sainsburys have changed Chicken Kiev to Chicken Kyiv.
Apparently, "Kiev" is the transliteration of a Russian name for the city and we have adopted the Ukrainian language version. I don't really disagree with this.

But will we be changing to Roma, Munchen, Koln, Den Haag etc in order to be consistent? (please forgive the lack of umlaut)

Closer to home - how about Abertawe? It is a lot easier for English people to pronounce than Llandudno or Blaenau Ffestiniog.

It is up to the place to decide how we address them. Turkey (the country not the animal) has requested to be known as Turkiye and we all know about Ayers Rock and Snowden and suchlike.

 

[Orikoru]

I'm still wondering when the Ivory Coast became Côte d'Ivoire. And apparently there's no Czech Republic anymore, it's Czechia. So here we are.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Wasnt it if he can drive there value from 1.5 Trillion to 8 Trillion dollars?
Accepting the US Trillion is different to UK Trillion, thats still a huge increase he has to generate. Especially when you see the Chineseeating into their market and profits at an alarming rate.

BTW, I can't stand the man. Him or his cars

Yes, he has to hit certain targets. It's still obscene that that figure is even a thought though.

Maybe it's a smokescreen so when he gets $500bn people go 'well it could have been worse'

 

[Lord Tyrion]

I'm still wondering when the Ivory Coast became Côte d'Ivoire. And apparently there's no Czech Republic anymore, it's Czechia. So here we are.

Some of these are a break from a colonial past. Certainly the country name changes.

We have customers in Czechia. They still have their addresses as Czech Republic. It hasn't quite caught on yet, even internally. I did ask them about it, they all said they didn't care

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Think I got snapped last night at 01:45 on M25 just past Heathrow…pretty much empty motorway but spotted too late the variable speed limit overhead gantry was showing 50, when I was doing 60 thinking the gantry also showed 60…until I realised it wasn’t. Too late I braked as I went under the gantry - Flash.

What a pissr. Did a speed awareness just a few months ago following a very similar situation in Sheffield at same sort of time of day. I try and stick diligently to speed limits following the course…so really fed up as I’ll get a fine and some points.

Bleedin’ road was almost empty…why this messing around with speed limits in contexts that indicate minimal or no obvious risk.

Update…my Mrs tells me that as it was on the M25 I will be able to take a Motorway Awareness course as my previous course was a standard Speed Awareness course- phew…

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Was it John Motson who once said that he didn’t care about new pronunciations of team names - he would call them what he’d always called them…so for instance Ajax Amsterdam…always Ajax…never Ayax (maybe that wasn’t the example but you get my drift)

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Yes, he has to hit certain targets. It's still obscene that that figure is even a thought though.

Maybe it's a smokescreen so when he gets $500bn people go 'well it could have been worse'

Oh I agree, totally obscene. However I don't think he will hit the targets they are stipulating for him to get it.
I think the shareholders are just more scared of him leaving in the short to mid term. Long term, I think Tesla will be taken over by a Chinese company.

 

[backwoodsman]

Update…my Mrs tells me that as it was on the M25 I will be able to take a Motorway Awareness course as my previous course was a standard Speed Awareness course- phew…

Yes you can go on it - but only if the relevant police force offers it to you. And that's not guaranteed.

 

[cliveb]

Was it John Motson who once said that he didn’t care about new pronunciations of team names - he would call them what he’d always called them…so for instance Ajax Amsterdam…always Ajax…never Ayax (maybe that wasn’t the example but you get my drift)

Reminds me of the time I was introduced to a (female) friend's new boyfriend. (It was decades ago).
He was Dutch, and said his name was Vim. I said "wouldn't Ajax be more suitable?", but the joke was lost on him.

 

[D-S]

Accepting the US Trillion is different to UK Trillion, thats still a huge increase he has to generate. Especially when you see the Chineseeating into their market and profits at an alarming rate.

BTW, I can't stand the man. Him or his cars

I think they are now both 1 million million or to put it another way 1,000 billion or to put it another way too much for one individual.

 

[Voyager EMH]

I'm still wondering when the Ivory Coast became Côte d'Ivoire. And apparently there's no Czech Republic anymore, it's Czechia. So here we are.

And in their own language Slovakia is actually Slovensko. But if you refer to it as The Slovak Republic then it is actually Slovenska Republika.

Ivory Coast and Czech Republic will do for me just as much as Germany and Hungary, rather than their own language names, while I'm writing or talking English.

Cologne is an odd one, though. We use a French name for a German city.
We ought to call it Colony in English, as that is what France and Germany are calling it.

 

[HampshireHog]

I've been saying it and spelling it as "Kiev" for over 50 years.
Chicken Kiev, The Great Gate of Kiev (Mussorgsky) etc

But in very recent years, the English language seems to have changed this to Kyiv. News channels pronounce it this way and The Times newspaper prints it this way.
I have a lot of books that have become out-dated.
Sainsburys have changed Chicken Kiev to Chicken Kyiv.
Apparently, "Kiev" is the transliteration of a Russian name for the city and we have adopted the Ukrainian language version. I don't really disagree with this.

But will we be changing to Roma, Munchen, Koln, Den Haag etc in order to be consistent? (please forgive the lack of umlaut)

Closer to home - how about Abertawe? It is a lot easier for English people to pronounce than Llandudno or Blaenau Ffestiniog.

India is the worst, trying to remember to use the Indian city name only for the Indians to refer to it by British name or worse use the two interchangeably.

 

[rulefan]

And in their own language Slovakia is actually Slovensko. But if you refer to it as The Slovak Republic then it is actually Slovenska Republika.

Ivory Coast and Czech Republic will do for me just as much as Germany and Hungary, rather than their own language names, while I'm writing or talking English.

Cologne is an odd one, though. We use a French name for a German city.
We ought to call it Colony in English, as that is what France and Germany are calling it.

I thought it was Köln in German.

 

[Lucifer MorningStar]

I thought it was Köln in German.

It is I lived just outside of there for years and pretty sure it hasn’t changed !

 

[Voyager EMH]

I thought it was Köln in German.

It is I lived just outside of there for years and pretty sure it hasn’t changed !

I apologise for confusing you both.

To clarify.
Koln and Cologne both mean "Colony". We ought to be calling it Colony. But we use a French name for a German City, which is an odd thing to do.

 

[Lucifer MorningStar]

I apologise for confusing you both.

To clarify.
Koln and Cologne both mean "Colony". We ought to be calling it Colony. But we use a French name for a German City.

That’s typical English pedantry that we will call it what we want because we’re English. You didn’t confuse I know what it means I speak German and lived there.

Just because that’s what the word means doesn’t mean we should pronounce it that way because we’re English. It’s spelt Koln and pronounced as such if done properly but because of who we are we use the translation of Cologne! Just like in this country we refer to Hameln as Hamelin because we just do!

By your logic we should refer to Stafford as stæthford as that’s its origin and original meaning, or Birmingham as its proper old English form of Beormingahām. pick any number of English cities and places that have been made to fit the modern English tongue rather than remain with its origins because when it comes to language we’re a lazy and often ignorant country.

As I say it’s typical English language pedantry that we will make it fit what we want rather than respecting the origins and meaning of the native tongue and people.

 

[Voyager EMH]

That’s typical English pedantry that we will call it what we want because we’re English. You didn’t confuse I know what it means I speak German and lived there.

Just because that’s what the word means doesn’t mean we should pronounce it that way because we’re English. It’s spelt Koln and pronounced as such if done properly but because of who we are we use the translation of Cologne! Just like in this country we refer to Hameln as Hamelin because we just do!

By your logic we should refer to Stafford as stæthford as that’s its origin and original meaning, or Birmingham as its proper old English form of Beormingahām. pick any number of English cities and places that have been made to fit the modern English tongue rather than remain with its origins because when it comes to language we’re a lazy and often ignorant country.

As I say it’s typical English language pedantry that we will make it fit what we want rather than respecting the origins and meaning of the native tongue and people.

Since our language is far more German than French, I think "Koln" would make far more sense for us to use.
Also "Colony" would make some sense as an English adaptation.
But using the French word "Cologne" makes the least sense to me.

I have no idea how you have discerned "my logic" and extrapolated anything from it. That makes little sense to me as well.

 

[Lucifer MorningStar]

Since our language is far more German than French, I think "Koln" would make far more sense for us to use.
Also "Colony" would also make some sense as an English adaptation.
But using the French word "Cologne" makes the least sense to me.

I have no idea how you have discerned "my logic" and extrapolated anything from it. That makes little sense to me as well.

Maybe because on more than post here you’ve mentioned what you’ll stick to calling places what you do or that’ll do for you type comments rather than accepting the native preferences! But hey I’m just reading what you write, not looking to for more or less

I agree we should use Koln! But like I said we’re lazy and I believe we use the French adaptation because we’ve never used the Germanic iteration. When ruled by the Romans we used the Latin Colonia rather than the Germanic Koln, once the Romans went we lazily adopted the French version as it was most close to what was already used here. But this is a discussion that could go on for days and into alsorts of rabbit holes

 

[Hobbit]

Usually it’s the grammar police that irritate but now we’re splitting hairs over pronunciation. Bit odd when you’ve got Brits in Cornwall sounding nothing like Brits in Newcastle.

Quite literally sat here chortling away…