British English

[PeteC]

I smelt the smelt? Pete

[hhfarang]

insure... ensure

[PeteC]

I've used the word 'enroute' forever , and so have most other people I know. Doesn't seem to be an official word though. Pete

[barrys]

I've used the word 'enroute' forever , and so have most other people I know. Doesn't seem to be an official word though. Pete

It's not English, Pete - two French words "en route", though I've never seen it written as one word before!

[PeteC]

I've used the word 'enroute' forever , and so have most other people I know. Doesn't seem to be an official word though. Pete

It's not English, Pete - two French words "en route", though I've never seen it written as one word before!

Great, I'll get my copyright paperwork in before it's too late. Pete

[Aussie_Al]

I will throw another use of the word learned in; just to confuse everyone even more.

What about barristers in Court refering to their opponents as my leaned (2 sylabols "lean" and then "ed") collegue.

Now someone way better than me can tell me is a "learned collegue" a noun, a verb, or whatever.

I am Aussie, so us colonials do not know much

[barrys]

I will throw another use of the word learned in; just to confuse everyone even more.

What about barristers in Court refering to their opponents as my leaned (2 sylabols "lean" and then "ed") collegue.

Now someone way better than me can tell me is a "learned collegue" a noun, a verb, or whatever.

I am Aussie, so us colonials do not know much

'learned' is a part-participle adjective in this case:


learn·ed [lúrnəd]
adjective
1. highly educated: well-educated and very knowledgeable
a learned professor

2. education scholarly: showing or requiring much education and knowledge
3. law honorable: used in addressing or referring to a lawyer in court
my learned colleague

4. psychology acquired, not instinctual: used to describe behavior or knowledge that is acquired through training or experience rather than being instinctual


[14th century. Originally the past participle of learn in the sense “to teach.”]


-learn·ed·ly [lúrnədlee], adverb
-learn·ed·ness, noun
Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2005.

[pharvey]

Received by email and thought it may bean interesting addition to the thread: -

For Lexophiles (Lovers of Words)

1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

6. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

7. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

8. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

9. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

10. A calendar's days are numbered.

11. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

12. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

13. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

14. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

15. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

16. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

17. When she saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she'd dye.

18. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

19. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

20. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of defeet.

21. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table as Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

22. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian .

23. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.

24. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from an algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

25. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

26. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

27. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

28. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

29. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

30. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

31. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

32. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital: when his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, "No change yet."

33. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.