i think i've been saying 'daylight savings' all my life! but i also apparently say things like "your guyses house is nice" otherwise tho, grammar is PERFEVCT
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:50 (sixteen years ago) link
PP that's also known as "moving to Iceland".
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:54 (sixteen years ago) link
but i also apparently say things like "your guyses house is nice"
say more things like this; i'm intrigued!
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:01 (sixteen years ago) link
if you found something that cost $100 on sale for $75, that would be a 25% savingS
That is pure mentalism.
Because the clock-shifting thing is sold to us on the clocks-going-back, October end of things, it being deemed important for farmers and schoolchildren to have more daylight in the morning.
Why don't farmers just get up later in the winter? And schools could start at different times? I don't really understand why we change the clocks at all.
― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:04 (sixteen years ago) link
this thread has been funny again recently
― RJG, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:20 (sixteen years ago) link
Umm I'd assumed "savings" had a standard definition on both sides of the Atlantic as more or less "stuff that has been saved" -- I keep my savings under my mattress, not in a savings account in a savings and loan
― nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 58,500 for "life savings" site:.uk. (0.27 seconds)
― jaymc, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Yes nabisco, but we think of Daylight Saving as an explanation of what the time change is intended to achieve, not a compound noun (is that the right term?) analagous to "lifetime savings".
― Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link
analogous.
― Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Farmers hate daylight savings time, but that's for another thread.
― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:01 (sixteen years ago) link
You are doing it, PP.
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link
The thing, you're doing it.
Yeah, Alba, I know -- I'm just talking about Grimly's apparent rejection of all "savings."
P.S. Before y'all UKers get all sneery about the S you should probably consider that your S-less version is in desperate need of a hyphen -- if it's about saving daylight, then it's Daylight-Saving Time
― nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:03 (sixteen years ago) link
we don't call it that
― RJG, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:04 (sixteen years ago) link
You know what time it is ... it's DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME
― n/a, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:04 (sixteen years ago) link
I mean they
― RJG, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link
xpost - Which is, admittedly, way cooler, because someone can say "WHAT TIME IS IT?" and you can say "IT'S DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME, KICK IT"
― nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Time to save some daylight up in this piece.
― jaymc, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:07 (sixteen years ago) link
hyphen: absolutely agree. this point was made at the very beginning and i don't dispute it.
"apparent rejection of all 'savings'" ... eh? not at all. in the right context -- eg the examples in your 4.49pm post -- it's perfect. beautiful. wonderful.
but "daylight savings time" remains nonsensical.
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:09 (sixteen years ago) link
even "another thing coming" makes more sense ;)
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:10 (sixteen years ago) link
My mind is now weighing up Trustee Savings Bank vs. Trustee-Saving Bank. I need to go home.
― Madchen, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link
I am fairly sure it was never about saving trustees.
― Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link
Grimly, try making a mental comparison with, say, "leavings."
"Leaving" is a gerund, "leavings" is a noun for what has been left.
Through rigorous daylight-saving activities, we will create a savings of daylight.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:22 (sixteen years ago) link
The typically USian part is very fancifully using the word "savings" to refer to something that isn't a discrete physical object. No surprise given our other colorful turns of phrase, though.
― Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:26 (sixteen years ago) link
11/10 for trying, nabisco, but ... sorry, i'm just not buying it.
xpost ... yes, there is something fascinating going on here, though, not just about US/UK grammar but about how that grammar reflects US/UK thought processes/approaches. i'll come back to it once we've had our introductory lectures on language and psychology :)
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:27 (sixteen years ago) link
I'll put that 11/10 straight in my Compliment Saving Account.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:31 (sixteen years ago) link
I'm being serious, you know how many American frontier tall tales/folk tales involve precisely that kind of linguistic play/stretching of the plausible? Ever heard of Pecos Bill and his bronco, Widowmaker? Or Paul Bunyan, or Davy Crocket? Take your pick; see also a TON of Native American stories in which conceptual things take physical form. It's no stretch at all to imagine the "daylight savings" being gleefully portrayed as, say, gold bricks that can be locked up until the hero of the story tricks them back from the villain.
― Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:32 (sixteen years ago) link
laurel, i'm going to come back and pick your brains [1] about this in the future. that's quite, quite brilliant.
[1] ha! a plural in the idiomatic form. with no logic whatsoever. i give up.
― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 18:00 (sixteen years ago) link
i am going to start an online bank called DYLGHT SVNGS where's your investment capital? it's in the fucking sun, bitches!
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 18:51 (sixteen years ago) link
i have confused myself with why i find this so funny
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 18:52 (sixteen years ago) link
(and aside from "guyses" i just say a bunch of westcoast things that i am only half aware of, hm)
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 19:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Do you say "janky"? Seattle, who is actually from SF, says it's an SF thing for "cheap, poorly made". I like it.
― Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Seattle is a girl's name
― nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link
You're a girl's name.
― Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link
I've heard jank but not janky
― Will M., Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:12 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.womanspapers.com/community/jan03/seattle2.jpg
I think I've only seen "janky" in print, not in conversation. But I didn't hear "hinky" until college.
― jaymc, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:15 (sixteen years ago) link
I say "janky" all the time, and I am Midwestern.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:20 (sixteen years ago) link
i have never heard janky! while 'dude' and 'awesome' transcend international borders, so many many words don't make it across
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:09 (sixteen years ago) link
'dude i don't know man i totally deked outta that scene before it got all heavy' has prob been said by me
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:12 (sixteen years ago) link
"Leaving" is a gerund, "leavings" is a noun for what has been left. Through rigorous daylight-saving activities, we will create a savings of daylight.
??? I get the 'leaving'-as-gerund part: Leaving your vegetables is lazy and bad for your health. I could imagine a noun 'leavings' for what has been left, e.g. He put his plate on the floor and let the dog eat his leavings, but I've never heard such a word - we would say 'leftovers'. But you could still never say 'a leavings'! The dog ate a leavings from my plate, but ignored a leavings which was on my wife's plate. That's so wrong.
Exactly the same with 'save': Saving money is a good idea in the long run. = ok The cost of the new kitchen ate into his savings. = ok He put some money away each month and built up a savings. = wrong, wrong, wrong!
― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Thursday, 1 November 2007 08:47 (sixteen years ago) link
But you could still never say 'a leavings'!
It could work. 'An innings' is perfectly OK, over here at least :)
― Madchen, Thursday, 1 November 2007 13:50 (sixteen years ago) link
NBS, you would never say "a leavings" because LEAVINGS IS PLURAL. You'd never say "a tomatoes" either.
― Laurel, Thursday, 1 November 2007 14:24 (sixteen years ago) link
So is it "less savings" or "fewer savings"?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 1 November 2007 14:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Less, of course. 25% is less of a savings than 50%.
― Laurel, Thursday, 1 November 2007 14:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Ah.
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 1 November 2007 14:55 (sixteen years ago) link
fewer.
but i can totally understand why laurel (and presumably nabisco) would say "less".
― grimly fiendish, Friday, 2 November 2007 08:44 (sixteen years ago) link
(and presumably several million other americans, natch.)
― grimly fiendish, Friday, 2 November 2007 08:45 (sixteen years ago) link
If you're talking about savings in a bank, then surely "less". You don't count such savings one by one.
― Alba, Friday, 2 November 2007 08:48 (sixteen years ago) link
i do. "one, two, thr ... oh. two."
― grimly fiendish, Friday, 2 November 2007 09:26 (sixteen years ago) link
less savings fine less of a savings mental-sounding
― RJG, Friday, 2 November 2007 09:29 (sixteen years ago) link