Stuart,
Gaol is the Old-English spelling of Jail (i.e. Prison), Jail is the US-spelling of the same word, but even HM Prison Service refer to them as 'Jails' in all paperwork, and on their database system.
If you look at court lists for any UK courtroom you will notice that once a sentence has been passed it's listed as "Mr X XXXXXX, of 29 XXXXXXX XXXX, was sentenced to two years inprisonment for the offence and has been admitted to Manchester jail". (That's taken from the Manchester Crown Court List).
People you've met you wish you hadn't
Unless they were reading Shakespeare or standing in front of one built before we adopted the US version of the spelling.Sput wrote:Stu, that's needless pedantry. Jail is also in the english dictionary (Yes, I checked) and no-one would have a damn clue about what a "gaol" is if it were written in front of them.
It's not needless pedantry, it's preservation of our own language.
I can only say that is a sad compromise. When I worked for MOD and did Court Reports I would always say that someone was sent to gaol, and it was accepted as such. The US term 'jail' always made me think of rather flimsy and ineffective confinement provided by the the cartoon character 'Deputy Dawg'.steddenm wrote:If you look at court lists for any UK courtroom you will notice that once a sentence has been passed it's listed as "Mr X XXXXXX, of 29 XXXXXXX XXXX, was sentenced to two years inprisonment for the offence and has been admitted to Manchester jail". (That's taken from the Manchester Crown Court List).
Even the Americans call them 'Penitentiaries' rather than jails, so I think we have adopted a rather useless spelling. Some of our national newspapers (probably the Daily Mail
) still spell it gaol.User removed
That's bollocks. It's both pedantic and needless here. Preserve the language in private if you want but don't start berating people for not using better-understood vocabulary when the conversation's got nothing to do with it.StuartPlymouth wrote:Unless they were reading Shakespeare or standing in front of one built before we adopted the US version of the spelling.Sput wrote:Stu, that's needless pedantry. Jail is also in the english dictionary (Yes, I checked) and no-one would have a damn clue about what a "gaol" is if it were written in front of them.
It's not needless pedantry, it's preservation of our own language.
Knight knight
-
Gavin Scott
- Admin
- Posts: 6442
- Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.16
- Location: Edinburgh
- Contact:
I think you will find that "jail" is the place one is put, short term, before one is sentenced to a "prison" term.
I would prefer to think of language as an organic beast, which is naturally corrupted and influenced over time. If you want to take your gaol-fetish to its natural conclusion, you would've stopped using any words that have emerged over the last 600 years.StuartPlymouth wrote:It's not needless pedantry, it's preservation of our own language.
I will give way on this matter, Herr Sput; but only if I can post this picture as an illustration of why I had the feeble perception of 'Jails' during childhood:Sput wrote:That's bollocks. It's both pedantic and needless here. Preserve the language in private if you want but don't start berating people for not using better-understood vocabulary when the conversation's got nothing to do with it.
User removed
Indeed it is lukey, but the development of the spoken language and the change in spelling are two completely different things.lukey wrote:I would prefer to think of language as an organic beast, which is naturally corrupted and influenced over time. If you want to take your gaol-fetish to its natural conclusion, you would've stopped using any words that have emerged over the last 600 years.
I have not advocated neglecting anything from that last 600 years.
User removed