😀 Tom Something inconsequential bothers me: A novelist writing a series of books featuring an American, spells "curb" as "kerb". "Curb" is the U.S. spelling, "kerb" is the British spelling. That spelling seems unnatural to me, I like the way other British words are spelled, but for some reason, not this one. I wonder why the author uses that spelling. I've only noticed it in his recent novels, so I wonder if he's used the American spelling in the past, and if so, why he changed.
··· 2y, 51w 4 replies ¬
☕ David Antoine Something even more inconsequential and maybe a bit related to that bothers me: why so many Americans pronounce the word nuclear, "nucular"? It's very stupid and drives me crazy... How in the world the syllabes nu-cle-ar get transformed into nu-cu-lar? You don't pronounce the word clear, "cular", do you? It makes zero sense and I even heard that pronunciation from some scientists, which is pretty... Baffling. Whatever...
··· 2y, 51w 2 replies
😃 Javier Aaand the billion thing. I learned to be a one with 12 zeroes to the right and when going to school in the US turns out they say is a 1 with 9 zeroes to the right...what gives? My conspiracy theory is that rich people and governments don't want to say they have a thousand millions so they altered to mean a billion as an euphemism to disguise their filthy decadent ways.
2y, 51w 1 reply
Login or register your account to reply
☕ David Antoine Oh yes, forgot about that one... Nice conspiracy theory! 😊 I think the billion initially refers two 2 times the million zeros, hence the bi-llion, but I'm not sure. Billion, trillion, quadrillion does sound better than saying something like gigallion, terallion, petallion for example. I don't know what are the correct terms to use in that specific case but it bothers me much less than the nucular f-in thing anyways...
··· 2y, 51w reply