Billy Bates

[silentstriker]

There's a lot more reasons besides that one why I'm not innocent, Neville.

Americanisms annoy me more than anything due to having to take a crowbar to Microsoft Word everytime I have to write a letter to prevent it automatically 'correcting' words to have 'z' in them, changing Sulphur to Sulfur.... Having to struggle to do that means that when there is some free will involved and people who should be using English use American... its frustrating.

Interestingly, last time I was over in Aus, a lot of mechanics had changed the word 'Tyre' to 'Tire'. This conversation makes me tired to be honest. I'm just holding back the tide with the palm of my hand as the dictatorship of Microsoft tells the world how they should be spelling anyway. American English is the unfortunate future.

You guys need to get away from your antiquated bastardization of the language and use American English. The British Empire has ended, deal with it, and get on board with the American hegemony. It used to be your language, and the US borrowed it, but those days are long gone now. It's now America's language, and you need to stop butchering it.

 

[Fusion]

You guys need to get away from your antiquated bastardization of the language and use American English. The British Empire has ended, deal with it, and get on board with the American hegemony. It used to be your language, and the US borrowed it, but those days are long gone now. It's now America's language, and you need to stop butchering it.

I nominate this for the Afridi.

 

[neville cardus]

You guys need to get away from your antiquated bastardization of the language and use American English. The British Empire has ended, deal with it, and get on board with the American hegemony. It used to be your language, and the US borrowed it, but those days are long gone now. It's now America's language, and you need to stop butchering it.

The English will always own English.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

You guys need to get away from your antiquated bastardization of the language and use American English. The British Empire has ended, deal with it, and get on board with the American hegemony. It used to be your language, and the US borrowed it, but those days are long gone now. It's now America's language, and you need to stop butchering it.

**** off! The English language doesn't require your US style 'democracy", George Dubya! There's no weapons of mass destruction hidden within the 's' that you guys insist on changing for a 'z'!

 

[silentstriker]

**** off! The English language doesn't require your US style 'democracy", George Dubya! There's no weapons of mass destruction hidden within the 's' that you guys insist on changing for a 'z'!

It's about you refusing to accept the improvements that American has made on a language which was previously yours. The sun has indeed set on the empire, time to let it go. Learn from Blair, and fall behind the people who still matter.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

It's about you refusing to accept the improvements that American has made on a language which was previously yours. The sun has indeed set on the empire, time to let it go. Learn from Blair, and fall behind the people who still matter.

We'll keep fighting using guerilla tactics; dropping road-side lyrical bombs to confuse and disorientate you. We'll keep calling towns and cities names that you can't pronounce in a month of Sundays and we'll never grow tyred or lasy of putting 'esses' where you want 'zeds' or 'y's where you want 'i's. We shall fight for our language in the hedgerows of Towcester down to the thick, unforgiving bush of Rakiura. This language is our religion, get your own!

 

[silentstriker]

We'll keep fighting using guerilla tactics; dropping road-side lyrical bombs to confuse and disorientate you. We'll keep calling towns and cities names that you can't pronounce in a month of Sundays and we'll never grow tyred or lasy of putting 'esses' where you want 'zeds' or 'y's where you want 'i's. We shall fight for our language in the hedgerows of Towcester down to the thick, unforgiving bush of Rakiura. This language is our religion, get your own!

The English using guerilla tactics? That's about as likely as the French being there when you need them. If it weren't for them, you guys would have written the book on how not to use common sense when fighting a war.

Revolutionary War:
"Hey there yank, stop shooting us from the hills, why don't you come on over and stand in front of our guns?"

Crimean War
Officer 1: Say Old Chap, see that line of Russians with artillery? How about we charge straight at it with horses.
Officer 2: That sounds like a splendid idea!

vs. a Zulu army with spears
Chelmsford: Well, they just have spears, we have guns. I'm going to drink some Earl Gray instead of fortifying this camp.

Hell, even in peacetime:
Tyon: Say, how about we just make a hard turn right about now?
Navigator: But, the ship next to...
Tyron: Turn I say!

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

The English using guerilla tactics? That's about as likely as the French being there when you need them. If it weren't for them, you guys would have written the book on how not to use common sense when fighting a war.

Yeah. Cos I'm so English. Anyway, have you never seen the film Utu? That's where I'm learning my tactics from.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

This letter is available for viewing at the Todmorden Archives along with letters from a few other famous names from yesteryear,

Billy Bates letter

 

[neville cardus]

It's about you refusing to accept the improvements that American has made on a language which was previously yours. The sun has indeed set on the empire, time to let it go. Learn from Blair, and fall behind the people who still matter.

You, sir, are a paradigm of American society -- plastic, fictile and glutted with unfounded haughteur. Go spy on a Hollywood celebrity or something.

 

[neville cardus]

This letter is available for viewing at the Todmorden Archives along with letters from a few other famous names from yesteryear,
Billy Bates letter

Thanks. I found it last year, transcribed it and lost the link. It definitely gains something when you see it in the hand of the man who composed it.

Back in my obeisant days, I unwittingly set off an interesting flame war over this letter and the grounds that it gives for the presumption that Bates was dyslexic. I don't suppose CricketWeb has any experts in the field who could shed further light?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Thanks. I found it last year, transcribed it and lost the link. It definitely gains something when you see it in the hand of the man who composed it.

Back in my obeisant days, I unwittingly set off an interesting flame war over this letter and the grounds that it gives for the presumption that Bates was dyslexic. I don't suppose CricketWeb has any experts in the field who could shed further light?

I'm not an expert but I did wonder the same thing when I actually saw the letter with the "h" put on the word "am" and missed off the word "hoping". I also thought the word which you transcribed as "bowling" was possibly an attempt to use the word "following" which would make more sense in terms of what he was trying to say and is a fairly hazardous combination of letters for people thus afflicted.

 

[silentstriker]

Yeah. Cos I'm so English.

After extolling the virtues of your bastardization of the American language, you can't remove yourself as non-English now.

You, sir, are a paradigm of American society -- plastic, fictile and glutted with unfounded haughteur. Go spy on a Hollywood celebrity or something.

Right on two out of three counts. The haughtiness is perfectly founded in reality. Shouldn't you and the other remnants of the old empire be busy spending time reliving past glories instead of telling the current empire what to do? It's like the Roman Empire after the fall of the empire in the West - you still exist, but as far as history is concerned, the glory has ended and what is left is but a footnote.

 

[neville cardus]

It is odd that you should think America's influence so pervasive as to afford it adoption of the English tongue. I need point only to that other component of American culture, sport, to prove that American culture is confined to America.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

It is odd that you should think America's influence so pervasive as to afford it adoption of the English tongue. I need point only to that other component of American culture, sport, to prove that American culture is confined to America.

Touche! World Series anyone?

 

[silentstriker]

It is odd that you should think America's influence so pervasive as to afford it adoption of the English tongue. I need point only to that other component of American culture, sport, to prove that American culture is confined to America.

And yet if it wasn't for the three hour spectacle of crybabies wincing in pain when someone comes within a six mile radius of their body, otherwise known as soccer, that the most of the world is still inexplicably tied to, US would have a hegemony there as well. Even so, more people have heard of Michael Jordan than Donald Bradman. Discounting sports, denying the massive cultural influence of American TV, music, movies, sport, and even politics is not an argument you can win. The US may import toys made of lead, but the export is much more massive on a human scale. Face it, US is Rome, and the Old World is the decaying Egyptian Empire. Powerful and awe inspiring in name, but in all practical matters, a decaying and spent force that is subordinate and inferior to the actual power.

 

[neville cardus]

And yet if it wasn't for the three hour spectacle of crybabies wincing in pain when someone comes within a six mile radius of their body, otherwise known as soccer, that the most of the world is still inexplicably tied to, US would have a hegemony there as well.

Presumably you are trying to tell us that some American debasement is second in standing to football. I should be most intrigued to know which it is.

Even so, more people have heard of Michael Jordan than Donald Bradman.

That is because your lot make rather more noise about your heroes than ours do ours. Jordan's name may be more popular, but, which is more important, his sport is not.

Discounting sports, denying the massive cultural influence of American TV, music, movies, sport

American sport must be more influential than I have hithero believed if, even after being discounted, it still comes into the equation.

and even politics is not an argument you can win.

And it is not one that I espouse. But my regard for TV, music and movies is not a patch on what I feel for sport, language and, indeed, politics (on whose Americanised sway you really must elaborate).

The US may import toys made of lead, but the export is much more massive on a human scale. Face it, US is Rome, and the Old World is the decaying Egyptian Empire. Powerful and awe inspiring in name, but in all practical matters, a decaying and spent force that is subordinate and inferior to the actual power.

Few are the "actual powers" whose power is actual enough to control a cultural form as intrinsic as language.

 

[neville cardus]

Touche! World Series anyone?

No. "World" denotes an enterprise, not a planet.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Face it, US is Rome,

If the US is Rome, then let's be honest for a moment here. George W Bush must by the psychopathic, limp-wristed egotist Caligula.

Wow. That's a pretty good analogy.

Given the track record of Roman leaders being killed by their own staff, what price on Bushy being stabbed in the back by Dick Cheney? Fingers crossed!

One other thing I'd like you to explain. Why in the US is Maths known as Math? The word is 'Mathematics' - i.e. pluralised. However, in the US truncation, it is changed from plural to singular? Just what is going off out there?

I would also like to highlight the poor political relations between the US and NZ. NZ have managed to resist the constant barrage of abuse from respective US leaders about our Unilateral "anti nuclear" stance. What the **** does it have to do with you guys anyway? When do we get invaded in order to 'introduce democracy'? After all, there's plenty of oil reserves in NZ - the sea bed off the shores of Taranaki are brimming over with top grade oil. You are now a nation of Bully Boys that does its best to piss all over the tenets enshrined in its constitution. Bring back the "Happy to leave the rest of the World to its own devices" policies of Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. After all, even George Washington said [that the US should] "steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world". I'm sure his believes would have extended this to exclude bullying the rest of the world in a geopolitical or linguistic context.

 

[neville cardus]

Given the track record of Roman leaders being killed by their own staff, what price on Bushy being stabbed in the back by Dick Cheney? Fingers crossed!

"Et tu, Dick?" has a very nice ring to it.