Words that get on your nerves

Regarding the letter h, I always understood the “haitch” pronunciation to be used by people with Irish ancestry. And here is a little bit of information that I found on’tinternet.

 

Be interesting to know whether the familiar term for "you" is taught in schools now. As per @noisette47, it was more or less ignored in my school French lessons. I'd been in France for a number of years when a friend asked why I didn't use it.

I've just come across the word "regift" in a Which article. Apparently the new word for recycling unwanted Christmas presents !!

 

Or the appalling "pre-loved"......so nowadays you may re-gift a pre-loved item.....

 

Funny old things, words.

Two parrots are sitting on a perch. One says to the other “Can you smell fish?”

 

Its just a way of making all your old rubbish sound exciting.

 

@Philippa OH spent a couple of years in the Netherlands in the 70s and, tho Dutch and Flemish have the formal U, equivalent to "vous", they are very egalitarian so he learned the familiar form and has simply transferred that to his French so "tu's" everyone, whatever the situation.

 

Going back to bin days, just looking mine up and we have "festive" collections, is their really anything "festive" about collecting rubbish.
I guess they dont want to annoy anyone by mentioning the word Christmas.

 

Sounds as though they just missed out the 'season' bit Our binmen find it festive...I tie a plastic bag with cards and a decent tip to the bin just before. In a country where very few workers do anything willingly or efficiently, our binmen are wonderful. They literally work every day of the year except C...s Day and May 1st. Rain, shine, fog, heatwaves....they never waver.

 

Nope I dont think its that, But I think the word Christmas might disappear in England in the next 10yrs.

 

We had a service like that when we arrived here. The postmen and women were marvellous, especially to elderly and isolated folk, taking post and parcels, getting prescriptions and generally providing a chat and surveillance service, as they knew everyone on their rounds. All changed now. Temporary staff have replaced many and La Poste has created a fee-based service whereby customers can pay for 20 minutes of personal contact. How very, very sad.....

 

Very best wishes to you all for a happy and healthy 2025

 

As an ex Grammar school girl I can code shift from standard English to broad Cornish as spoken by my older relatives. (not the Kernow language - the last native speaker died in 1900).
My younger friend and his brother sang in a male voice choir and picked up the accent from the old boys. When they had a couple of French girls staying with them on an exchange visit they got fed up with them speaking in French which they couldn't follow so got their revenge by talking to each other in broad Cornish.