Sliver / Slither

[Captain Spod]

Some time ago I had a rant here about barter vs haggle and it seems that they are broadly interchangeable now (sigh).
HOWEVER Sliver and slither are not the same, they are different parts of speech and are not interchangeable.
GET IT RIGHT, BRITAIN.(Other English-speaking nations are available).
Thanks.

[MarkRae]

They're more likely to say "My father took my brother and myself to the park" - even worse!

[boxtops]

Arrgh, someone on the TV has just told us that "it affected my husband and myself..." LOL

[starone]

Creepy! But must be a coincidence boxtops.

[boxtops]

...perhaps it was one of us, LOL......

[jno]

actually, by creating a sort of internal rhyme - MY husband, MYself - the speaker has come up with something that may not be grammatically correct (though that's arguable) but sounds better than "my husband and me" because it's got a more pronounced rhythm.

That's only my opinion, of course, but I don't hold with the idea that anyone speaking this way is either illiterate or a wannabe posh. There's usually a eason why people say what they do, and it isn't always ignorance.

[standian]

more and more people use them when they mean those and it sounds chavvy

[starone]

The queen always says "My husband and I" in a very posh accent.

[ummmm]

My Dad always use to say 'myself and himself' instead of 'me and him'

[MarkRae]

> The queen always says "My husband and I" in a very posh accent.

She certainly does - when she and her husband are the *OBJECT* of the sentence e.g. "My husband and I are pleased to welcome the ambassador...."

[jno]

that's the subject, MarkRae (though strictly speaking, of course, the rest of us are her subjects...)

[MarkRae]

You may be... I, as a life-long abolitionist, do not consider myself as such.

P.S. did you spot the correct usage of 'I' and 'myself' in the above sentence...?

[MarkRae]

> My Dad always use to say 'myself and himself' instead of 'me and him'

My Mum says 'you was' instead of 'you were'...

[ummmm]

So do I...

The amount of times I type 'I was' then change it to 'I were' just to change it back again because it doesn't look right.

[Captain Spod]

The myself/yourself thing seems to be the norm north of the border, any Jocks on here?
I'm surprised that there's been no mention of the aitch/haitch problem. Apparently the latter would indicate a speaker from the Catholic side of town in Scotland and NI. I think that elsewhere it's just the 'trying to be posh' phenomenon covered above.

[Quizmonster]

The addition of the letter ‘h' to the front of ‘aitch'...ie the name of the letter itself...is generally regarded as uneducated, though it definitely IS becoming more common in day-to-day usage. In fact, The Oxford English Dictionary - the ‘bible' of English words - does not even list it.
It seems to have originated in Irish English and is relatively common in Australian speech. It may be that - like the rising intonation at sentence ends - Australian soap operas have had some influence. That is possibly because many Irish religious Brothers took teaching positions in the early days of settlement there.
I cannot confirm what follows, but I have been informed that, to this day, one can tell whether someone is an Irish Protestant or a Catholic by asking him to recite the alphabet, The latter, it is claimed, invariably says haitch.
As long ago as the 1700s, the addition or omission of an opening ‘h' was common in British regional speech, giving rise to forms such as the two following...
(a) "If a haitch and a ho and a har and a hess and a he don't spell 'orse, then my name haint 'enry, awkins."
(b) "Rifle butts are made of hoak, hash or ‘ickory." So said the apocryphal army drill-instructor.