Guage

In message , Paul Stevenson writes

What happens with OO? Is that a scale, or a gauge, or both?

Um, its neither ;-)

Kevin Martin

Jane Sullivan said the following on 17/01/2008 11:18:

It's neither. OO (actually, I think it's 00) is a specific combination of one scale combined with the gauge that belongs to a different scale.

Sort of.

What, he used DCC?

MBQ

The same applies to a lot of designations. Only things like S4 can really be called scale, the others are a compromise of scale and some near scale representation of a particular gauge.

Then there's 009, etc., where the scale and gauge are explicitly stated. What do we call those, "Scauge". Is the 9mm track gauge an accurate scale representation of a 2'3" prototype or another compromise?

Down this road lies madness...

MBQ

I know my spelling isn't grate (OK great), but I never cease to be amazed by the standard of English on the interweb.

example: I use a sort of all-purpose one-size-fits-all, made-up word as a standing joke with my son. The word is "Squandle" - don't ask why. It's just a silly thing we do.... anyway.... in an idle moment I typed it into Google the other day and found page after page of message-board entries where people had used "squandle" instead of "squander". "He squandled all his money".... sigh....

Don't get me started on the number of model railway websites that sell "loco's" and "class 47's".

Adrian (or Adrain as I'm sometimes known)

Adrian said the following on 17/01/2008 12:25:

Like this posted to another newsgroup today:

"i am wondering if there is anybody knows off any pedals for bout £30 or less as i keep sliping off mi standard pedals on mi chucker and mi chucker waz bort 4 me 4 xmas and the pedals are not to good i wud advise anybody to buy new pedals for as they hav hardly any studs (spikes) cud anybody tell me if u now off any pedals under £30"

(No, I don't know what a "mi chucker" is either.)

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com said the following on 17/01/2008 12:18:

Ah - you've hit a pet peeve!! Bearing in mind that OO is specifically

Anyway, my narrow gauge stuff is S4n2!

I'm not mad - Squirrel Nutkin told me so :-)

Actually "loco's" is correct because the apostrophe can also show part of a word has been omitted to shorten it.

Any won hoo payed a tension at school doesn't knead a spell chequer. You sing one is an add mission of dee feet ann ill literacy.

Well, you're half right. Standardised spelling is in fact an invention of the printing industry, but not of the 20th century. It goes back to William Caxton (1422-1491), who brought printing to England well before Shakespeare. In the preface to one of his books Caxton writes about the problems of spelling, which at the time was phonetic. That meant that Northern and Southern English were spelled differently. Caxton also worried about differences in vocabulary, eg, "egges" in the South, "eyren" in the North.

As literacy spread, the need for a common spelling increased, and the schools took care of that, more or less. The King James translation of the Bible was a great regulariser of spelling, too. But a funny thing happened. Caxton started printing books when a great change in English pronunciation (mostly the vowels) was beginning. This shift was pretty well done by about 1700, but spelling changed very little. That's why current English spelling is non-phonetic. For every English sound (except one), there are at least two spellings (the sound represented by 'sh' has at least 13.) For most English spelling units (letters, letter pairs, etc) there are two or more pronunciations (four sounds represented by 'ea', for example). No wonder English-speaking school children are poor readers and writers, compared to their age-mates who enjoy more consistent spelling systems.

HTH

Mine was the texting rule ! ;-)

Andy

And it's "preceded", not "proceeded."

It's a mess.

Actually, it was Henry Greenly who perpetrated this abomination. He did so because he thought 4mm=1ft was "easier" for the home builder, since

Adrian wrote: [...]

When you're spending the housekeeping on your vices, eh? Er, sorry, I meant model trains. ;-)

Cheers Richard

Hmmm . Interesting. I'm not 100% convinced. People don't seem to join the Para's , they join the Paras (according to the Parachute Regiment website). Spacecraft have Gyros, not Gyro's (according to NASA).

Someone is wrong!

Adrian

I bought a little vice recently to help with my model-making ;-)

Adrian