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 #17 (permalink) Thu May 08, 2008 19:08 pm :) |
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Hi Nessie
Just to make things clear, I have to tell you that ALL of my attempts to imitate British English are generally bad. I truly believe that if a Brit heard me trying to speak like a Brit, I would be laughed at. 
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Yankee
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| #18 (permalink) Thu May 08, 2008 21:33 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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| Yankee wrote: |
| Molly wrote: |
I use it in examples such as these:
I shan't be coming to your party after all.
We shan't help you if you don't begin helping yourself. |
Are you saying that shan't is commonly used in Nigerian English?
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In formal Standard Nigerian English it is quite common, but I also speak BrEng, and use shan't there too. |
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Molly
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| #19 (permalink) Fri May 09, 2008 5:29 am Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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I've always associated the word shan't very strongly with British English. Would you say that Nigerian English is based strictly on British English?
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Yankee
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Molly
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| #21 (permalink) Fri May 09, 2008 11:26 am :) |
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| Yankee wrote: |
Hi Nessie
Just to make things clear, I have to tell you that ALL of my attempts to imitate British English are generally bad. I truly believe that if a Brit heard me trying to speak like a Brit, I would be laughed at.
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=> I believe you have no intention of causing vexation by laughing at the British,Amy, but I also believe your words might have caused misunderstanding and... some vexation also, that's why I stated my idea as above.
And please don't misunderstand me, Amy, I know I have no right of saying what you should or should not speak out in this forum,but I just want to state my hope that next time you will be more careful when talking about such sensitive subjects as British English vs American English to avoid vexing British English speakers (AND LOVERS)
Many thanks
Nessie
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 Nessie
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| #22 (permalink) Fri May 09, 2008 14:35 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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I do not speak British English, Nessie, and that fact doesn't bother me in the least. In addition, I see no reason why it should bother any speakers of British English or you that I don't speak British English. I see no reason why I should not say what is and is not common or typical in American English. When there is a difference between American and British English, I see no reason whatsoever that I should pretend the difference does not exist.
I speak American English. I cannot and will not imitate British English. My English is different from the English in the UK. It's as simple as that.
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Yankee
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| #23 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 14:34 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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You hear "shan't" sometimes in southern BrE.
It seems to have only a minor presence online; an advanced Google search by region returns:
c. 920 significant results for United Kingdom
c. 912 for the US
c. 580 for Australia
c. 220 for Ireland
c. 215 for South Africa
c. 5 for Nigeria, of doubtful provenance
(By "significant results", I mean "excluding those that Google calls very similar." If you include the "similar" results, the results for each country reach into 4 or more figures; except in the case of Nigeria, which remains at 5.)
MrP |
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MrPedantic
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| #24 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 14:39 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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What on earth is southern BrE when it's at home?
Alan
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| #25 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 14:54 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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I should have said, "standard southern BrE".
BrE = British English.
To take random examples from the world of entertainment: it's the English that e.g. David Attenborough, Jeremy Paxman and Will Self speak. Cf. the English spoken by David Beckham, Sir Alan Sugar, and Jamie Oliver, which includes non-standard elements.
MrP |
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MrPedantic
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| #26 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 15:15 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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Hi MrP
How does Google do a search by region? Does that simply mean, for example, that .com and .uk are counted as two separate regions?
The word shan't is basically not used in my neck of the woods at all. The main exception that comes to mind would be a possible usage accompanied by a mock British accent -- which presumably would not sound particularly authentic to British ears. 
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Yankee
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| #27 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 15:27 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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Hello Yankee,
I'm not quite sure what goes on in the guts of Google; but they might assess IP addresses, or domain registration data.
(They like to know where we come from, so that they can target their ads more effectively.)
MrP |
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MrPedantic
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| #28 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 15:29 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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| MrPedantic wrote: |
| (They like to know where we come from, so that they can target their ads more effectively.) |
Hehe Don't you just love those ads?
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Yankee
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| #29 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 22:57 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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| Quote: |
It seems to have only a minor presence online; an advanced Google search by region returns:
c. 5 for Nigeria, of doubtful provenance |
Could you tell us how you got those results, Mr P? We are around 8 million people using use the Internet in Nigeria. Most of us who use Nigerian English have a tendency to write quite formally - it's just a Nigerian thing. The weak form shan't might more be found as the strong form shall not when written by Nigerians. Speech is altogether another ball game.
I got this result from Google;
37,200 English pages for shan't in an advanced regional search for the UK |
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Molly
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| #30 (permalink) Sat May 10, 2008 23:49 pm Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when? |
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When you google on a particular word or phrase, Google says e.g. Results 1 - 10 of about 794,000 for <word or phrase>. (0.18 seconds)
This figure is quite misleading. It includes cached versions of pages, quotations in links, occurrences in listings for "My Discussions" in forums, repeated words in webpage headers, etc.
To eliminate these duplicates, find the last page with "real" entries. In the case of your UK search on "shan't", for instance, this is roughly page 92. Here you will find this note:
In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 923 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.
"923" is therefore the significant number. The "very similar" entries are those that Google considers duplicates. (For interest, if you accept the offer to repeat the search, and go to a later page, the omitted entries are indented below the entries they duplicate. Google sometimes misses a duplicate; but on the whole, it's quite reliable.)
MrP |
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MrPedantic
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| What can you tell me about these 2? | combining two clauses |
