Practice your English. Help and advice.

[ffdt]

best wishes for an happy new year for all of you in the english section

ciau

Franco

[AdlerTS]

These are the last days of school for kids: then "school is over" or "school is out" ?
For me the right one is "is over" but I've found the other one on a magazine and I'm a little bit confused

[Ron]

The first "school is over" suggests that the days of schooling are over, finito, non piu, and is very much English in origin.

The second "school is out" is, I would suggest, American in origin and suggests that the happening is of a temporary nature.

That's how I would read it but I'm sure that Peter, next time he sees this, is going to say that I am grammatically incorrect.

Ciau

Ron

[PeterG]

LOL. Ron, I wouldn't dream of it. American usage clearly favours 'school is out' for the long summer break, witness these examples: http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/s ... hp?t=41729 and http://washparkprophet.blogspot.com/200 ... s-out.html

But in British usage, or at least in the Midlands and in the North, 'school is out' refers to the exit of children from school at the end of the day.

As Ron says, school is over refers to the end of schooling as in the sentence When school is over, my duty will be to help others and I won’t quit until I serve my god appropriately. in this essay here http://faculty.whatcom.ctc.edu/swinans/lane4.htm

Peter

[AdlerTS]

Thanks a lot

[carso1967]

The second "school is out" is, I would suggest, American in origin and suggests that the happening is of a temporary nature.

Ron

School is over or school is off. Either way's fine in American English anyway the best would be school is over when you mean the school year has ended.
When l say > l'm off from school l mean l took some days to spend a short vacation... or whatever else.

[Ron]

Hi Carso

Was it Churchill who said of the US & England "Two countries separated by a common language"

Ciao

Ron

[AdlerTS]

Ok , another question: listening to music is not to difficult to heard about something called "kiss & tell". Now I do understand what kiss and tell separately means, anyway I'm afraid that together they get a new meaning, right ?

[carso1967]

Hi Carso

Was it Churchill who said of the US & England "Two countries separated by a common language"

Ciao

Ron

Uh... don't know whether it was Churchill to state that but believe me there's even an ocean between US and England

Ciao

[Ron]

Ok , another question: listening to music is not to difficult to heard about something called "kiss & tell". Now I do understand what kiss and tell separately means, anyway I'm afraid that together they get a new meaning, right ?

When I was a very young man the phrase referred to a young girl who would announce to her friends that "Tommy Jones had kissed me behind the school shed" and this was known as "kiss & tell".

Nowadays, when the media sets the scene for most of our lives, it usually refers to women of a certain character who claim they know the secrets of a well known footballer and are prepared to sell their stories to a national newspaper.

[AdlerTS]

It's clear, thanks

[nanaia]

Hi Carso

Was it Churchill who said of the US & England "Two countries separated by a common language"

Ciao

Ron

Also G.B. Shaw stated: There even are places where English completely disappeared: in America they haven't used for years

[carso1967]

Hi Carso

Was it Churchill who said of the US & England "Two countries separated by a common language"

Ciao

Ron

Also G.B. Shaw stated: There even are places where English completely disappeared: in America they haven't used for years

... And the Americans did pretty well not to use it

[babatriestina]

Another question:
I read on the Web that a lady in the morning feeds her critters.
I understand that she is speaking of her pets, but exactly, what those critters are? I didn't find the word in my dictionary, I'm suspecting it's American English.

[Tirabaralla]

I think there's a corrispondence between "creature" and "critter" and also between the italian "bestia, bestiolina" and "critter", I also remember that when I was searching infos on hamsters I found "critters" used refferring most of the times to small rodents and to "procioni" and "furetti" (I dunno the translation for those and I'm to lazy too look for it...lol) and similar animals.

[macondo]

Phonetically 'critter' and '(living) creature' are very similar. I believe it is an Americanism and, allegedly, 'critters' are often used in some rural area of the USA to call all kind of farm animals, including cows, horses, mules etc. It can be also used to call a child or even a person, as for 'the poor critter'.

It became popular, as 'critters' (plural), for all sort of fantasy small animals, sometimes a bit evil or just naughty.
In the UK, the term 'critters' are usually employed to define domestic rodents of any kind.

[babatriestina]

i begin to understand...
1 I had the impression that the critters were some rodents, but I was puzzled why so many people hosted rodents at home!!!
2 the americans are simplifying , and logically, I would say: if creature , from the latin verb creo, creas, creare is read as crìter or crìtar, why not write it critter??

[dcobau]

baba,

the yanks (americans) are famous for writing words the way they sound. For example, you will find (in america) many terms used daily which are grossly misspelled such as:

tonite = tonight

Not only that, many terms in 'american' english have different spelling from 'english' english such as:

jail = gaol
valor = valour
honor = honour

Reading a book you can pick up if the author is English or American by these words.

Of course the pronounciation remains the same.

saluti

Dave

[AdlerTS]

...also the first name Geoffrey or Jeffrey

[Coce]

There are many irregularities even in English "Proper", that is the reason
one must spell continuosly, specially the names of persons. In my conputer, Microsoft has got a spellcheck in American English, and any word that is not written in their way, specially non British in origin come up as incorrect even though they are perfectly correct. Ciao Coce