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Binoculars - short names, abbreviations (1 Viewer)

It never ceases to amaze me to see the lengths to which people will go to avoid using a perfectly good English word.

(and sound not too bright in the process)
Einstein was so fond of conservation of energy that he 'abbreviated' his wardrobe choice into 7 identical sets of clothing ...... but then again, he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed ;)


Chosun :gh:
 
But the English language is awash with weirdness. Take the phrase that we use in Britain: 'I couldn't care less'. Meaning the extent to which one cares about something couldn't be any less, it is a low as it can possibly get. In the USA the phrase is 'I could care less', which suggests that the extent to which one cares is not yet at rock bottom, but actually the meaning when using the phrase in the States is the same as in Britain.

other things snipped out

Not only English. In Danish, there is a work "uhumsk" which essentially means gross in the sense of dirty, infested, etc. The prefix "u-" in Danish is used to signal the opposite of the rest of the word. Except in this case, where the origin of "uhumsk" was "humsk" which meant the exact same as now meant by "uhumsk". "Humsk" is no longer in common use.

Niels
 
Something that can be set on fire is both "flammable" and "inflammable" in English. The latter was the original term but was changed (or at least use of the former advised) since the "in-" prefix generally reverse the meaning of the rest of the word, like Niels says for "u-" in Danish.

Ain't language funny?

And just so I'm not wholly off topic - it's usually "bins" or "binoculars" in full when I am out in the field. I know some who use "binos" presumably to avoid any ambiguity with waste receptacles aka trash cans, garbage cans or whatever. Especially when talking about poor quality optics - rubbish bins.

As with any form of communication though, context is often key and as long as the message is understood to mean the same by all that need to understand it the actual words used are not that important.

Oh, and I have heard "noculars" used but not in a serious context by any means. I suppose it stops anyone using a monocular (or even more than one) feeling left out if someone talks about a group getting "bins" or "binocs" on a bird.

Finally, "bins" etc only ever seem to get used as nouns when I hear them. I've never heard of a bird being "binned" or even "glassed". There is talk of getting "eyes on" a bird though. But birds seen through a spotting scoped are often described as having been "scoped".
 
Einstein was so fond of conservation of energy that he 'abbreviated' his wardrobe choice into 7 identical sets of clothing ...... but then again, he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed ;)
Chosun :gh:

The connection eludes me.

I guess your point is a bit too subtle for my simple mind.
 
Here is the difference between binoculars and a pair of binoculars.

Jerry
 

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Yes, Jerry but there is that infernal English language thing to confound your example.

Take your 'binoculars' (as opposed to the pair of binoculars).
Do you refer to it as a binoculars? Which confusingly mixes singular and plural?
Or do you change it to 'a binocular', which sounds better but nobody refers to a binocular and even bins is in the plural? I have used 'bin' myself and am not happy with it at all.
If you say 'I have some binoculars' how do they know you mean the single item shown in your illustration or whether you have a whole collection back home?

Lee
 
"Or do you change it to 'a binocular', which sounds better but nobody refers to a binocular and even bins is in the plural?"

I am satisfied that a binocular is singular, and I try to use the English 'correctly' but usage often gets in the way.��
 
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In my neck of the woods Boxing Day used to be known as the Day of the Shiny Shoofts.
Shoofts from shoofty ( to take a look) and Shiny because they'd only been unwrapped the previous day!!

Russ
 
:h?:

Well, you English invented the language. If you can't figure it out what hope is there for the rest of us?

Bob
 
The Anglo-Saxons invented it, then the French stuck their noses in and added a whole bunch of words.

So here we are today.

And don't forget the Vikings who didn't just rape and pillage then bu--er off home. They settled and left a legacy of words and names.

Many Scottish islands have a name that ends in -ay. And Ay is norse for island. Back home in Sheffield we live very close to the Derbyshire Dales and dale comes from the norse word 'dal' for a valley. Up in the north-east we have waterfalls called Aira Force and High Force, with names derived from the norse word 'fors' meaning waterfall. I used to work for a Swedish company called Forsheda, which was the name of the village where it was based and the name meant literally 'waterfall clearing'.

Lee
 
And don't forget the Vikings who didn't just rape and pillage then bu--er off home. They settled and left a legacy of words and names.

Many Scottish islands have a name that ends in -ay. And Ay is norse for island. Back home in Sheffield we live very close to the Derbyshire Dales and dale comes from the norse word 'dal' for a valley. Up in the north-east we have waterfalls called Aira Force and High Force, with names derived from the norse word 'fors' meaning waterfall. I used to work for a Swedish company called Forsheda, which was the name of the village where it was based and the name meant literally 'waterfall clearing'.

Lee

It has been said that if they spoke slowly and carefully enough, the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons could (more or less) converse, due to the similarity of Old Norse and A-S languages.

I have never studied Old Norse, and have only made poor and intermittent attempts at Anglo-Saxon. It makes my brain sore.
 
When I was in the army, many years ago, there were 2 guys from Holland in my barracks who had immigrated to the USA when they were children. One was from Rotterdam and the other one was from Friesland. When they spoke to each other in their native dialects they could not understand each other but when the guy from Friesland spoke simple sentences in his native dialect slowly like "the grass is green" and others like it everybody in the barracks could understand him.

Both of them spoke American English like they were born here.

Bob
 
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When I was in the army, many years ago, there were 2 guys from Holland in my barracks who had immigrated to the USA when they were children. One was from Rotterdam and the other one was from Friesland. When they spoke to each other in their native dialects they could not understand each other but when the guy from Friesland spoke simple sentences in his native dialect slowly like "the grass is green" and others like it everybody in the barracks could understand him.

Both of them spoke American English like they were born here.

Bob

Frisian is another language which is supposed to be (almost) mutually intelligible with Anglo Saxon, if people speak slowly and clearly. I don't know about Frisian and Old Norse.
 
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