Re: Guardian 23000

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 17:21:16 GMT, Peter T. Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 wrote in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Dr Ivan D. Reid wrote:

>>         Back when I was delaying my stint in Viet-Nam the anti-war marches
>> were called demos, and it's an entry in Macquarie (First Ed. 1981),
>> pointing to "demonstration".

> Does it warn you not to try to use it thusly in the US?

        No, and neither does Chambers now that I'm able to check it.

>> > But you Brits tend to truncate words with so many syllables in odd ways.
>> > (Why don't you tolerate words with several syllables?)

>>         I suspect we inherited it from the US or somewhere else, though, as
>> the prototypical Australian two-syllable abbreviation invariably ends in
>> -ie, e.g. "cossie" for (swimming) costume, "brekkie" for breakfast, even
>> "Ivie" for Ivan!

> Very little of Ozzie vernacular seems to be US-related.

        By the early 70s we were starting to get US television shows -- in
fact I recall our trip to my great-aunt's every Saturday to watch Bonanza
and The Red Skelton Show, in the early 60s when things were still B&W (we
got TV in 1956, colour in 1972).  Today I expect teen culture is much more
influenced by the US than the UK.

-- 
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering,     ___     CMS  Collaboration,
Brunel University.     [EMAIL PROTECTED]             Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD.     "You Porsche. Me pass!"   DoD #484       JKLO# 003, 005
WP7# 3000   LC Unit #2368 (tinlc)   UKMC#00009   BOTAFOT#16    UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
        KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".