The Picard ManeuverYou can feel how cathartic this must have been for someone
notsurethere are two "l"'s in cancelled, i will die on this hill.../s
Stoney_Logica1Merica gave England that other L.
language, though imprecise...
brings a methemetician's paradise
brings a methemetician's paradise
I’m in the same boat when it comes to gasses and busses.
I wonder what the Venn diagram of prescriptivists and graffiti artists is
mad_asshatterOn the one hand, a sign like this definitely did have enough room for the full spelling of “through”. There seems to be no reason to abbreviate it.
On the other hand, isn’t drive-thru just, like, its own noun now? Part of me thinks this was always spelled correctly.
It seems like shorthand for signs that has been used enough that it’s basically normal now, like “lite” instead light, or “donut” instead of doughnut.
Right, the distinction I’m making is this isn’t just “normalized” but actually the correct spelling. As in, if a newspaper saw it written as “drive-through” they would be obliged to correct it.
I still call it an air-port.
All my homies call them aerodromes.
The PantserI’m gonna take a ride in a aero
sawdustprophet“I would like to send this letter to the Prussian Consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4.30 autogyro?”
How about a nite-lite?
My kid calls it a plane station and frankly it’s growing on me
I’m down for that
SternhammerOr we could go with train-port.
I’m confused. What else would you call it?
Suppose both aight?
A drive-through or drive-thru (a sensational spelling of the word through), is a type of take-out service provided by a business that allows customers to purchase products without leaving their cars.
Sensational spelling is the deliberate spelling of a word in a non-standard way for special effect.
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆The correct way would be “drive-through.”
“Drive-thru” is purposely spelled wrong to attract attention. The same as “Krispy Kreme” or “Dunkin’ Donuts.” It’s only “correct” in that it has become ubiquitous through usage.
It’s only “correct” in that it has become ubiquitous through usage.
What you are describing is called “language”
“You” wasn’t always allowed to be singular. Colour vs color. Doughnut can be donut. Etc. Languages evolve over time, and “drive-thru” is in plenty of dictionaries.
Yup, “drive through” is an instruction, “drive-thru” is a noun. So you’ll drive through the drive-thru.
Pretty sure thru is to save space.
Yup, esp since it’s often written on the pavement.
Ohh I think donut was the American spelling of doughnut.
It is.
We spell it both ways.
Yup, doughnut if you’re being fancy, donut if it’s some trash from the grocery store.
Not necessarily. Some hole in the wall serving the best damn breakfast pastries our country has to offer is gonna call it a donut. A donut is a working class doughnut.
Yup, fancy is usually less tasty IMO. I prefer the ghetto donuts at our grocery store to the fancy doughnuts at the fancy bakery.
For some reason, my brain says that ‘lite’ was used for diet products because it uses 20% fewer letters.
Now I can’t remember if that was a comedian’s joke or actually part of a legitimate reason for its popularity…
“lite” has a different meaning (or at least connotation) to “light”
I can hear the commercial in my head…
LucidlethargyDonut is straight up just another way to spell doughnut, though. It’s fully accepted, and not shorthand.
Maybe they meant, only drive on Thursday?
bleistift2According to Merriam Webster, “thru” is an acceptable, albeit less common, variant of “through”.
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thru
mercDictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. They don’t decide if something is “acceptable”, just if it is widely used enough to report. If a mistake becomes common, it will enter the dictionary.
For a moment, I thought, this was a misprint and they had to officially get out a spray can to complete the word…
tacosanonymousJust a quick reminder that dictionaries are descriptive, they document existing language use rather than set down rules.
If enough people break an existing rule often enough, it makes it into dictionaries. Just ask anyone who doesn’t think that “ironic” should mean “coincidental”.
Literally
Lexicon is pretty important.
Sure.
It’s just that some people see a dictionary entry and take it as gospel truth.
Flying SquidI was with you until the end, but I refuse to let Alanis Morisette order the dictionary around!
Also: Aluminium.
Aluminum came before aluminium.
Sterile_TechniqueAlumium came before that!
…shoulda just left it at that.
I’ll drink to that.
Weird that Americans want to go with Aluminum when there’s also Americium, Berkelium, and Californium. Not to mention Deuterium, Helium, Iridium, Lithium, etc…
If we’re going to be consistent with other elements, it should be Aluminum, that way it matches Molybdenum and Platinum, the only 2 other elements ending in “um”.
Why do yu insist so strongly on writing thre mor letters that do nothing to chang the pronunciation of the word? Ar yu French?
I agre. It maks no sense.
If ther’s on thing I hat, it’s words ending with silent e’s. And whil we’r at it, we ned to get rid of doubl e’s as well.
NelotsI don’t mind silent e’s, they do actually change the way words are pronounced at least.
If they are silent, they don’t chang the pronunciaton, becaus if they do they are not silent.
In that persons comment, they removed several “silent” e’s, but all but one changed the word’s pronunciation. I was talking about them. Like the E in hate. It doesn’t make a sound itself, so isn’t it still silent?
It’s not silent, but in the wrong place. Haet would be more correct, as it changes the pronunciation from [hæt] to [heɪt]. Hait might be an even better way to write it (see also: bait, maid, laid etc.)
English is a weird language.
English is three languages wearing a trench coat and pretending to be one.
I just now realized that the word “trench” is in “trench coat”.
[…] heavy-duty fabric,[1] originally developed for British Army officers before the First World War, and becoming popular while used in the trenches, hence the name trench coat.
SLVRDRGNI don’t get it - what about “trench” being in “trench coat” …?