formulae vs. formula??

[Greg Truby]

It's a Yorkshire thing. They're a bit odd but mostly okay.

None of youz lot speak proper English!

Musta been 'bout fourteen years ago now... I spent an hour seated at the kitchen table of a Yorkshire farmer and a chap from my company's UK subsidiary who was from Newcastle upon Tyne. In the course of that hour I don't reckon I followed more'n 10%, maybe 15% of what that Yorkshireman said. Try as I may, my ears just never could get the knack of that ol' boy's accent and cadence.

Oh, and I always reckoned that it was "formulers" as in "weeeellll doggies, if'n them ain't jus' a right purdy bunch o' formulers right dere".

 

[Michael M]

Welll, I'm here to plead guilty to using formulae.
I think it may have something to do with age, in my primary school it was 4 of the best for the incorrect use of grammer and punctuation.
Having seen many a summer, both of them have slipped dramatically, but some things stick forever.
Having spent a few years teaching adults, "beginner computing", I found the use of "big" words made them ask questions like "what does that mean ?", ergo, they improved both their computer knowledge and their knowledge of terminology, AND something new !!
and finally
Tails, the lounge threads can be a little intimidating when the posts get warmed....but I can assure you everyone here will throw barbs at each other in jest....and to wind each other up as much as possible...just to keep the thread going....!!!

Cheers from the bush !!

 

[Expiry]

I haven't read all of the 92 posts before this, but i don't see anyone pointing out to the OP that the question really isn't formulae vs formula. It's formulae vs formulas. Everybody uses formula (unless they were exclusively breast-fed).

Interesting that someone said that formulae sounds too latin to use, even though it's correct.

I've noticed in my work a tendancy to use 'myself' instead of 'me', as in "He will report into myself", particularly from Directors and Managers because they think that it sounds better. It really winds me up.

 

[Greg Truby]

Don't you mean "It really winds myself up" ?

 

[RoryA]

I hate it when people use 'I' instead of 'me' in phrases like "He came with Bob and I". And 'could of'. And 'mute point'. Thinking about it, I may be a bit of a pedant...

 

[Expiry]

We also use the word colleague here, instead of staff. It's mostly misused, as in a "colleague discount".

 

[RoryA]

"thy rod and thy colleague, they comfort me"...

 

[arkusM]

Bloodly 'ell, this is verbose thread, like a long Seinfeld episode.

Edit: Can't believe I read it all.

 

[Michael M]

Rory
Maybe more Curmudgeon than Pedant.

 

[xenou]

A modest proposal: we call these buggers a "recipe", and circumlocute the problem. For example: Enter the following recipae in Cells A1 and A2 ....