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Arne H. Wilstrup
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 Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:14 am Post subject: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears? |
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Nick Spalding
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:33 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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Arne H. Wilstrup wrote, in
<4862a712$0$15888$edfadb0f@dtext01.news.tele.dk>
on Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:14:09 +0200:
| Quote: |
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
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Adspeak, but OK.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE |
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the Omrud
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:54 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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Arne H. Wilstrup wrote:
| Quote: |
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
|
Are you sure it's not:
- If you need a vacation, we're the ticket.
That would be more British ad-speak as it contains a pun. Although
"vacation" is not the normal BrE word for a holiday.
--
David |
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Jonathan Morton
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:28 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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"the Omrud" <usenet.omrud@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote in message
news:Pfy8k.15805$E41.6703@text.news.virginmedia.com...
| Quote: |
Arne H. Wilstrup wrote:
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
Are you sure it's not:
- If you need a vacation, we're the ticket.
That would be more British ad-speak as it contains a pun. Although
"vacation" is not the normal BrE word for a holiday.
|
The thing that strikes my ears - and I am not sure if this is what the OP
meant - is the use of the abbreviated "we've" as a main verb. I only ever
use "I've" etc when the "have" part is an auxiliary verb - when it is the
main verb I would say "we have the tickets".
Whether there is any basis to my practice, I have no idea.
Regards
Jonathan |
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Athel Cornish-Bowden (BrE
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:29 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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On 2008-06-25 14:14:09 -0600, "Arne H. Wilstrup" <nix@invalid.com> said:
| Quote: |
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
|
It sounds odd to me, and I don't think many BrE speakers would say it.
"We've got" is used much more often in ordinary BrE speech than "we've"
or "we have.
--
athel (BrE) |
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Mike Barnes
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:32 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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In alt.usage.english, the Omrud wrote:
| Quote: |
Arne H. Wilstrup wrote:
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
Are you sure it's not:
- If you need a vacation, we're the ticket.
That would be more British ad-speak as it contains a pun.
|
That would need to be "we're *just* the ticket" to my ears.
The original slogan would work perfectly pun-wise if it's actually
holidays for loom operators.
| Quote: |
Although "vacation" is not the normal BrE word for a holiday.
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That struck me immediately as well.
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England |
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John Dean
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:34 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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Jonathan Morton wrote:
| Quote: |
"the Omrud" <usenet.omrud@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote in message
news:Pfy8k.15805$E41.6703@text.news.virginmedia.com...
Arne H. Wilstrup wrote:
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
Are you sure it's not:
- If you need a vacation, we're the ticket.
That would be more British ad-speak as it contains a pun. Although
"vacation" is not the normal BrE word for a holiday.
The thing that strikes my ears - and I am not sure if this is what
the OP meant - is the use of the abbreviated "we've" as a main verb.
I only ever use "I've" etc when the "have" part is an auxiliary verb
- when it is the main verb I would say "we have the tickets".
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D'accord. Or I'd say "We've got the tickets"
--
John Dean
Oxford |
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Django Cat
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:03 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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| Quote: |
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
Are you sure it's not:
- If you need a vacation, we're the ticket.
That would be more British ad-speak as it contains a pun. Although
"vacation" is not the normal BrE word for a holiday.
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In fact - and I state this merely for the record - it's one of those AmE usages
that Brits tend to get irritated by - ask most BrE speakers to name two
AmEisms and they're likely to say 'vacation' and 'sidewalk'. My reaction to an
advert using the word 'vacation' would be 'American product that can't be arsed
to adapt its advertising vocabulary to world markets - that probably tells me
something about the attention to detail of this particular company and its
products, and the attitude it takes to customers relationships - don't bother'.
Coming soon: why do all those obviously American women in cosmetics adverts
sound like they come from Guildford?; how we all pretended we knew what diapers
were and that 'shag' wasn't offensive; why there are life-size figures of a
totally unknown player of a sport nobody follows, advertising McDonalds; and
the decline of the West.
DC |
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Django Cat
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:03 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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| Quote: |
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
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It's slightly less annoying than "I'm confused dot com". NO you AREN'T! Maybe
you're confused, but you aren't 'confused dot com'. That's the name of the
website!!!! What imbecile wrote this advert? ARGH! ARGH, ARGH, ARGH!!!!
DC, shuffles away sobbing and confused. |
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Arne H. Wilstrup
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:03 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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"Django Cat" <notareal@address.co.uk> skrev i meddelelsen
news:kGG8k.99983$8k.11607@newsfe18.ams2...
| Quote: |
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
It's slightly less annoying than "I'm confused dot com". NO
you AREN'T! Maybe
you're confused, but you aren't 'confused dot com'. That's
the name of the
website!!!! What imbecile wrote this advert? ARGH! ARGH,
ARGH, ARGH!!!!
DC, shuffles away sobbing and confused.
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I asked the question on a behalf of a Danish interlocutor in a
Danish newsgroup. He said that it was a letter from Sterling
Airways with the exact words:
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
And he was wondering whether the contraction "we've" was
correct in English (BrE) in this sentene, as he had never
heard this before. So it might be adspeak, but it seems an
unusual way of using this contraction - am I right?
> |
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the Omrud
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:03 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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Arne H. Wilstrup wrote:
| Quote: |
"Django Cat" <notareal@address.co.uk> skrev i meddelelsen
news:kGG8k.99983$8k.11607@newsfe18.ams2...
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
It's slightly less annoying than "I'm confused dot com". NO
you AREN'T! Maybe
you're confused, but you aren't 'confused dot com'. That's
the name of the
website!!!! What imbecile wrote this advert? ARGH! ARGH,
ARGH, ARGH!!!!
DC, shuffles away sobbing and confused.
I asked the question on a behalf of a Danish interlocutor in a
Danish newsgroup. He said that it was a letter from Sterling
Airways with the exact words:
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
And he was wondering whether the contraction "we've" was
correct in English (BrE) in this sentene, as he had never
heard this before. So it might be adspeak, but it seems an
unusual way of using this contraction - am I right?
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I see that Sterling is a Danish airline, so it would not be surprising
if their English were not entirely BrE. Yes, "we've the tickets" is
slightly strange in BrE but I would attack "vacation" before bothering
with "we've".
--
David |
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Django Cat
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:03 am Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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| Quote: |
DC, shuffles away sobbing and confused.
I asked the question on a behalf of a Danish interlocutor in a Danish
newsgroup. He said that it was a letter from Sterling Airways with the exact
words:
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
And he was wondering whether the contraction "we've" was correct in English
(BrE) in this sentene, as he had never heard this before. So it might be
adspeak, but it seems an unusual way of using this contraction - am I right?
|
Ah, good point. Yes - I teach that structures like 'I have a car' is slightly
non-standard, and I think I'd add that contractions like "'ve" only usually
happen when 'have' is an auxilery verb - 'I've been running this morning'. So,
right, it sounds foreign - and I don't think a native-speaker copywriter would
avoid a pun like 'we're just the ticket'.
DC |
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Chuck Riggs
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:32:43 +0100, Mike Barnes
<mikebarnes@bluebottle.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
In alt.usage.english, the Omrud wrote:
Arne H. Wilstrup wrote:
If you need a vacation, we've the tickets!
Is this really correct in British ears?
Are you sure it's not:
- If you need a vacation, we're the ticket.
That would be more British ad-speak as it contains a pun.
That would need to be "we're *just* the ticket" to my ears.
The original slogan would work perfectly pun-wise if it's actually
holidays for loom operators.
Although "vacation" is not the normal BrE word for a holiday.
That struck me immediately as well.
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Just as the Irish and British are slowly coming around on the word
"apartment", IMO, in place of the dated word "flat", I suspect they'll
come around to "vacation", but I suspect that transition is years
away.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland |
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Mark Brader
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:15 pm Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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"Viv" writes:
| Quote: |
... ask most BrE speakers to name two AmEisms and they're likely to say
'vacation' and 'sidewalk'.
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This comment immediately suggested the reverse to me: what are the likely
results if we ask Americans to name two British English usages?
Two words immediately came to my mind, but I doubt that they're the best
answers.
--
Mark Brader "As penance, I suppose I should read the standard
Toronto again, but I've already lost as much hair as
msb@vex.net I can afford." -- Tom Kelly |
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Mark Brader
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:35 pm Post subject: Re: unusual sentence in BrE? |
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Jonathan Morton:
| Quote: |
The thing that strikes my ears - and I am not sure if this is what the OP
meant - is the use of the abbreviated "we've" as a main verb. I only ever
use "I've" etc when the "have" part is an auxiliary verb - when it is the
main verb I would say "we have the tickets".
|
And yet when I come across that usage in writing, which I do from time to
time, I think of it as British and am less surprised to see it in a British
source.
It does occur in older writing in North America; my guess is that it became
unfashionable here sometime around 1930-1950, but lasted longer in Britain.
Let's try some Google phrase searches. In the right-hand column below, the
frequency of each phrase is expressed as a percentage of the frequency of
"I've got a job". Since that phrase is ambiguous in British usage, I've
included alternatives that mean "I've gotten a job" as well as those that
mean "I have a job".
UK:
"I've got a job" site:uk 54,700 100.00%
"I got a job" site:uk 48,900 89.40%
"I have a job" site:uk 21,400 39.12%
"I have got a job" site:uk 12,800 23.40%
"I've a job" site:uk 1,450 2.65%
"I've gotten a job" site:uk 3 0.01%
"I have gotten a job" site:uk 2 0.00%
Canada:
"I have a job" site:ca 26,100 715.07%
"I got a job" site:ca 10,300 282.19%
"I've got a job" site:ca 3,650 100.00%
"I have got a job" site:ca 1,130 30.96%
"I have gotten a job" site:ca 3 0.08%
"I've gotten a job" site:ca 2 0.05%
"I've a job" site:ca 2 0.05%
..com sites, which are mostly US:
"I got a job" site:com 5,630,000 207.75%
"I've got a job" site:com 2,710,000 100.00%
"I have a job" site:com 940,000 34.69%
"I have got a job" site:com 375,000 13.84%
"I've gotten a job" site:com 29,500 1.09%
"I've a job" site:com 27,200 1.00%
"I have gotten a job" site:com 26,700 0.99%
Well, that seems to fit with what I suggested as regards "I've", to the
extent that Google counts are meaningful.
In another branch of the thread, Viv described the uncontracted "I have"
in this context as "slightly nonstandard". It seems perfectly standard
to me, although many people would be more likely to select another usage.
I'm surprised to see the above data suggesting it's so much more frequent
than the altnernatives in Canada, though.
--
Mark Brader | "Reality aside, we would like to deploy a methodology
msb@vex.net | for how Rooter might behave in theory."
Toronto | -- scigen.pl (Stribling, Krohn, and Aguayo) |
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