Non-motoring > Train stations and train tracks ............ Miscellaneous
Thread Author: L'escargot Replies: 27
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 12:22 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - L'escargot
....... is what our teenage grandchildren called them in a recent conversation. We, however, will continue our habit of a lifetime of calling them railway stations and railway lines, following the lead of our parents and our grandparents. We're often accused of being behind the times but surely three (to our knowledge) generations can't be wrong?
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 12:38 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Alanovich
L'es, if use of language didn't change with the generations, we'd all be speaking Proto Indo-European still. Language is built upon a constantly shifting sand.

I thought you didn't let things annoy you? ;-)
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 12:53 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - L'escargot
>> I thought you didn't let things annoy you? ;-)
>>

It didn't annoy me. In fact I found it amusing. I didn't comment on it, and I didn't try to correct them.
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 12:42 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - FotheringtonTomas
Railway train and railway station are correct. Most of the changes in our language usage come from the deluge of crap on TV from the USA. This is one such.
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 12:55 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - spamcan61
I've given up on this one, the BBC use 'train station' now.
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 13:07 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Badwolf
Just to be perverse, I tend to use 'train station' but 'railway tracks'. Does that mean that I'm only half American-ised?
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 13:08 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Zero
Its Railway Station and "the permanent way" here at platfrom 1 of Zero Palace.
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 13:11 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - smokie
Without pointing at anyone in particular here, I'm personally a bit dismayed to see that this kind of discussion has managed to make the transition - feel free to discuss the technicalities of English usage in it's own thread (as you are here) but please let's avoid letting old fashionedness (?!?!?) and pedantry creep into other threads.

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New Mon 15 Mar 10 13:22 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Bellboy
wasn"t this on the wireless this morning?
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 15:46 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Pat
It's a radio not a wireless:)

Pat
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 12:06 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - sherlock47
It's a radio not a wireless:)

But my portable radio is wireless! (and so is my laptop computer when the battery is charged).



What do you call it when listening to a programme from the BBC on the computer? You are surely not listening to the the radio? a radio programme possibly?
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 12:52 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Zero
A broadcast
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 13:26 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Vicar of Bray
with all due respect - it's starting to assume the characteristics of a 'walled garden' - this was an intersting and well balanced thread. :-)
Last edited by: oilrag on Mon 15 Mar 10 at 13:28
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 14:46 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - RattleandSmoke
To me it will always be a railway line and a railway station. However then I am the kind of person that drags his ex along to railway musuems and gets excited if a different type of train comes along!

To me the railway will always be the best form of transport ever, followed by the push bike followed by the motor car.
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New Mon 15 Mar 10 15:26 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Armel Coussine
American traditional usage is 'railroad'. We aren't really being railroaded into saying 'train station'. It's just what comes naturally to any English-speaking five-year-old. We may have invented the railway and trains but the technology reached its real splendour in big countries like Russia and America, freight trains two or three miles long with two or three massive locos, sad distant whistles over the prairies, Whoooo-whoooo, those trains can take ten minutes to go past, gdank gdank, gdank gdank, gdank gdank, stately in their blank functional dignity, serious like Americans...

A fragment from memory of Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl:

.... Who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing across America through grandfather night....
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 15 Mar 10 at 15:30
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 06:56 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - L'escargot
>> We aren't really being railroaded into saying 'train station'. It's
>> just what comes naturally to any English-speaking five-year-old.

Don't 5 year olds initially learn their English from their parents? Any deviation from that is an affectation copied from their peers, television programmes, films etc. Unless, of course, it's something they're now taught at school.
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 08:48 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Zero
In later life, peers have more infuence than parents.

Anyway, who is to say the parents are right? To be honest, as long as someone understands what you are saying you can call the station or tracks what you like.

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New Tue 16 Mar 10 10:40 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - L'escargot
It suppose it boils down to whether you're proud to be British, or whether you have no national pride and think it's clever to copy Americanisms.
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 10:47 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - L'escargot
>> .......... or whether you
>> have no national pride and think it's clever to copy Americanisms.
>>

If that's the case then help yourself to some of these. tinyurl.com/ylfs8ek
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 12:01 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Zero

>> If that's the case then help yourself to some of these. tinyurl.com/ylfs8ek

the first thing I see there is the fact that the "british" term for a German Shepard, is in fact wrong. There is no such dog as an "alsation"

And we do in fact wear "parkas" in the uk and have done for a great many years.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 16 Mar 10 at 12:02
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 11:04 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Statistical Outlier
Of course your argument rather falls down when you realise that many 'Americanisms' are actually because US English has evolved far less than ours. 'Gotten' being one good example. Bill Bryson's book 'Mother Tounge' is a good source on this.

I'm proud to be British partly because of the tolerance and good humour normally shown in this country. I'm not sure how ignorant hostility to others really fits with that?
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 11:11 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Vicar of Bray
is this the backroom?
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 11:34 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Statistical Outlier
>> is this the backroom?

Good point, well made.

Any passing Mods - feel free to delete the unnecessary last para of my last post. I will try and do better..
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 11:58 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Zero
And what was the backroom? It was a collection of people. The same ones are here, so Yes in that respect it is the backroom. But it apears with a bit more laidback feel.
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 11:56 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Zero
But snailey, the terms your grandkids used, are not americanisms, they are home grown in the good old UK.

And you have to copy something, or we would all be speaking in different tongues. It has absolutely nothing about being proud to be british or not.
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 12:02 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - L'escargot
>> But snailey the terms your grandkids used are not Americanisms ..................

I beg to differ.
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 12:08 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Zero
As is your right. You are wrong tho.
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New Tue 16 Mar 10 12:56 
 Train stations and train tracks ............ - Vicar of Bray
you are both wrong, i am right :-)

Oh, hang on... ,-)
Last edited by: oilrag on Tue 16 Mar 10 at 12:58
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