Thursday, March 23, 2006

As for aluminium - wake up and hear the lingustic progress.
al·u·min·i·um noun
A chiefly British variant of aluminum.

Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary


Well, it doesn't surprise me to hear an American dictionary say that. The whole country gives me an Orwellian shudder.

However, a little history is available here:

http://www.world-aluminium.org/history/index.html

A quote from that site:

"1808 Sir Humphry Davy (Britain) established the existence of aluminium and named it."

You renamed it.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yawn.

Anonymous said...

the rest of the world has moved on a ways from 1808. it's called progress.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm Anonymous. Who just posted that last and why are you impersonating me?

Anonymous said...

s'long as you too wimpy to tell you name you gets lumped in wi the rest of us who don't sign nuthin.

Anonymous said...

Whatcha drinking and can I have some?

Romulus Crowe said...

I see the difference between 'anonymous' and 'anonymous comment', although the rest of you don't. Fortunately they operate on different levels of grammatical capability, so it shouldn't be too hard to tell them apart.

An interesting aside on drinking - it's not widely publicised, but it's legal to drink alcohol from the age of 5 in the UK. As long as it's provided by a responsible adult relative. You can't buy your own, or drink in a bar until you're 18.
It's not legal for anyone to be drunk in public at any time. That's usually what underage drinkers are caught with. It's also illegal to buy alcohol for unrelated minors. Getting your own child drunk counts as child abuse.

I'm drinking a very fine Scottish malt whisky, and no, you can't have any, whatever age you are.

Anonymous said...

Okay, then don't share. As it happens I'm not the whiskey type anyway.

Anonymous said...

And I'm not jail-bait. Should be obvious by the sizzlingly sophisticated way I express myself.

And by the way, boys who drink beer taste better.

Romulus Crowe said...

And by the way, boys who drink beer taste better.

With a statement like that, I certainly hope you're female!

By the way, that Northern place, Scotland, has just become Hell.

The bars are open 24 hours but you can't smoke in any of them, and you can't take your drinks outside.

That's got to be the nearest thing to Hell on Earth, and it's coming to the whole of the UK soon. I don't think I'll bother with bars any more.

Anonymous said...

The Scots are a practical people. They'll soon come up with a bar design that allows you to be half in and half out. Lean in - drink - lean out - smoke.

Take heart. Won't be long, I'm sure.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of boys, beer and bars, it's Friday! Weekend. If I'm not around for a couple of days...


Hmmm, wonder how far HeyJude's 'Isle Of A Thousand Touchs' is?

Anonymous said...

Oo,oo,oooo. I think I've solved the bar problem....

Two story bars. Bottom floor's indoors - sit down, have a drink - top floor's an open air deck - have a smoke.

Here's the cool part. The first story is only 4 feet high AND it has no roof. The second story has no floor.

How cool is that? Have a seat and have a drink. Stand up and you're on the deck - have a smoke.

Hard on the liver and lungs, but all that up and down'd be great for the thighs and buttocks.

Anonymous said...

I think Scotland will soon develop the world's longest straws.

Romulus Crowe said...

Well, they invented television, among other things, so they'll probably find a way around this ban too. Long straws are probably under development somewhere.

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