[SOC] Britishness

[Paul Bartlett]

Bloomin' heck!

"Sennight" caused me to hit www.websters.com Never heard the word before
despite having studied Shakespeare (Macbeth) at 'O' level (public exam taken
at around 16 some thirty years ago).

As students studying physics in the late seventies, we set a spoof
examination paper. Two questions as I recall were:

"Express the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight." (It's a soddin' big
number...)

and

"Write out the Shroedinger wave equation entirely without the use of Greek
letters."

Paul ;-)

"Shroedinger rules the waves!"


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan" <n0aaa@n0rxd.ampr.org>
To: <soc@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2003 2:29 PM
Subject: [SOC] Britishness


> Paul - Gee, I have a grandmother from Sheffield and I couldn't answer most
> of those (I would be killed within two days of arrival by a bus while
> looking the wrong way while crossing the street, anyway). My son's Algebra
> homework (introductory stuff) contained the word "fortnight", which I
thought
> was cute, since we regard it as Shakespearean English. Further into the
> choices were "sennight" and another which might have given Willie pause.
>
> American immigrants have always had to prove some linguistic competence
> and knowledge of the culture and laws. Is this something new in Britain?
> I guess I would have assumed you did something like this! 73 Jan N0AAA
(#389)
>
>
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