NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
> "MB" <MB@nospam.net> wrote in message news:t9nchf$2ath1$1@dont-email.me...
>> On 01/07/2022 18:00, NY wrote:
>>> I'm reading a novel which was written a year or so ago but which is set
>>> in
>>> 1896. A character refers to "the East Coast Main Line". Is that reference
>>> an

> Fair enough. I'd thought that "ECML" was introduced in the British Rail era.
> I'm glad that the author hasn't made a boo-boo.
>
> I presume other line names like West Coast Main Line, Great Western Main
> Line and Midland Main Line date from a similar period. I realise that Great
>

One I have seen trip people up is the South Western Main line ,
which is the route from Waterloo to Dorchester as built by the London and
Southampton which became the LSWR and the Southampton and Dorchester.*
The LSWR had put pressure on the Southampton and Dorchester by threatening
to build a line westward to Exeter via Salisbury but then took it over and
Dorchester station laid out for a future extension to Exeter from there.
Other interests later built the route via Salisbury to Exeter and the LSWR
had to take it on to protect its territory which killed the intentions to
extend from Dorchester. The Salisbury route became known as the West of
England line which it remains though the destinations further West it once
served are now not rail connected or directly served by it.
Because of it being the longer route and at one time quite important it
sometimes got called the West of England Main line which arguably at one
time and almost certainly now the GWR route is the contender for.

Never the less I have seen the Salisbury route mistakenly referred to as
the South Western Main line
on a couple of occasions.

* The present route opened 40 years later via Bournemouth does differ from
the original between Brockenhurst and Poole, Bournemouth hardly existed so
the original line went across the New Forest to Ringwood and onto Poole via
Wimborne.
I don’t know what the name was for the original section during the years up
to 1964 when both were in use,I believe staff referred to it as the old
road .

GH

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <ta417u$1lmp$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:04:00 on Wed, 6 Jul
> 2022, ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>> On 06/07/2022 12:28, Roland Perry wrote:
>>> In message <ta3ou5$rf3$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:42:14 on Wed, 6 Jul
>>> 2022, ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>>>> On 05/07/2022 07:30, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>> In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4
>>>>> Jul 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>>>>>>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some
>>>>>>> other
>>>>>>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>>>>>>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in
>>>>>> Scotland it has
>>>>>> some most interesting pronunciations of place names.  It also sometimes
>>>>>> refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other
>>>>>> times “a  123”
>>>>>> - “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”.  Eh?
>>>
>>>>>  Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
>>>>> "Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
>>>>> humans would.
>>>
>>>>>  eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
>>>>>     like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
>>>>>     out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
>>>>>     eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
>>>>>     information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.
>>>>
>>>> Or it should be "Ay one, one-oh-one" as the [great grand] daughter
>>>> of the A1 ....
>
>>> That could be true, but very much less useful (nor something I've
>>> heard people say), as we have radial trunk (and de-trunked) roads
>>> clockwise the A10, A11, A12 and A13, which gives a more precise location.
>>
>> But that is a sub-set to the A1, A2, A3 etc radial trunk routes.
>
> Yes, but with significantly less precise of a hint where it might be.
>

Though as it refers only to the starting point of the road concerned, for
roads outside zones 1 and 2 it's not necessarily a reliable indicator.
Although it works well with, for example, the A37 A37 and A38 south of
Bath/Bristol, it falls down with the A38 through Birmingham and Derby, and
the A470 into North Wales.

Anna Noyd-Dryver

"Mark Goodge" <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d20bchth6gkos0ob9r96ntrkhk5dmmr402@4ax.com...
> When a number is used as a string (eg, a road name or telephone
> number), rather than an integer, we typically split it into convenient
> substrings and then vocalise those individually rather than enunciate
> the entire string as if it was an integer value. But even then, we're
> not entirely consistent.

It's interesting that some languages (French and German, and probably
others) say phone numbers as if they were lots of two-digit tens-and-units
numbers: 32 45 89 would be trente-deux quarante-cinq quatre-vignts-neuf in
French or zwei-und-dreizig funf-und-vierzig neun-und-achtzig in German (note
that German reverses the order of the tens and units, a la Four and Twenty
Blackbirds). Other languages read each digit in isolation, grouped into
either twos or threes: three two [pause] four five [pause] eight nine or
else three two four [pause] five eight nine..

I wonder why there is the difference. German and Dutch are particular
problems because the order in which you hear the digits isn't the order that
they are written in, because of Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Watching
Germans, they mostly buffer the two digits and then write them left to right
(in the opposite order to how they were read out), but I did see one person
who wrote them in the order 2 [backspace 2] 3 [forward 3] 5 [backspace 2] 4
etc which looked almost as much trouble as French's cack-handed
quatre-vignts-dix-sept instead of huit sept.

"Clank" <clank75@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:ta4271$1otm$1@dont-email.me...
> I've never
> actually asked officially where the dividing line falls, but my gut is
> telling
> me "more than thousands". I guess it's something you pick up naturally
> without
> thinking about...

It's like the difference between British and American usages for numbers in
the thousands. British may use eighteen hundred and forty but switches over
to two thousand three hundred and fifty etc at the 2000 boundary (apart from
years which are a special case), whereas American carries on with twenty two
hundred, thirty seven hundred etc.

In the year 2001 we saw the two different styles: is it twenty oh one or two
thousand and one?

On 07/07/2022 09:17, NY wrote:
> "Clank" <clank75@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:ta4271$1otm$1@dont-email.me...
>> I've never
>> actually asked officially where the dividing line falls, but my gut is
>> telling
>> me "more than thousands". I guess it's something you pick up naturally
>> without
>> thinking about...
>
> It's like the difference between British and American usages for numbers
> in the thousands. British may use eighteen hundred and forty but
> switches over to two thousand three hundred and fifty etc at the 2000
> boundary (apart from years which are a special case), whereas American
> carries on with twenty two hundred, thirty seven hundred etc.
>
> In the year 2001 we saw the two different styles: is it twenty oh one or
> two thousand and one?

A space oddity!

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message <ta63mg$aro5$2@dont-email.me>, at 07:58:08 on Thu, 7 Jul
2022, Anna Noyd-Dryver <anna@noyd-dryver.com> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <ta417u$1lmp$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:04:00 on Wed, 6 Jul
>> 2022, ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>>> On 06/07/2022 12:28, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>> In message <ta3ou5$rf3$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:42:14 on Wed, 6 Jul
>>>> 2022, ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>> On 05/07/2022 07:30, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>>> In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4
>>>>>> Jul 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>>>>>>>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some
>>>>>>>> other
>>>>>>>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>>>>>>>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in
>>>>>>> Scotland it has
>>>>>>> some most interesting pronunciations of place names.  It also sometimes
>>>>>>> refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other
>>>>>>> times “a  123”
>>>>>>> - “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”.  Eh?
>>>>
>>>>>>  Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
>>>>>> "Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
>>>>>> humans would.
>>>>
>>>>>>  eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
>>>>>>     like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
>>>>>>     out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
>>>>>>     eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
>>>>>>     information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or it should be "Ay one, one-oh-one" as the [great grand] daughter
>>>>> of the A1 ....
>>
>>>> That could be true, but very much less useful (nor something I've
>>>> heard people say), as we have radial trunk (and de-trunked) roads
>>>> clockwise the A10, A11, A12 and A13, which gives a more precise location.
>>>
>>> But that is a sub-set to the A1, A2, A3 etc radial trunk routes.
>>
>> Yes, but with significantly less precise of a hint where it might be.
>
>Though as it refers only to the starting point of the road concerned, for
>roads outside zones 1 and 2 it's not necessarily a reliable indicator.
>Although it works well with, for example, the A37 A37 and A38 south of
>Bath/Bristol, it falls down with the A38 through Birmingham and Derby, and
>the A470 into North Wales.

It's only an approximate rule, and there are many exceptions.
--
Roland Perry

In message <ta64r8$avd9$1@dont-email.me>, at 09:17:18 on Thu, 7 Jul
2022, NY <me@privacy.invalid> remarked:
>"Clank" <clank75@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>news:ta4271$1otm$1@dont-email.me...

>> I've never actually asked officially where the dividing line falls,
>>but my gut is telling me "more than thousands". I guess it's
>>something you pick up naturally without thinking about...
>
>It's like the difference between British and American usages for
>numbers in the thousands. British may use eighteen hundred and forty
>but switches over to two thousand three hundred and fifty etc at the
>2000 boundary (apart from years which are a special case), whereas
>American carries on with twenty two hundred, thirty seven hundred etc.
>
>In the year 2001 we saw the two different styles: is it twenty oh one
>or two thousand and one?

Not just that, but last century we are very familiar with talking about
"the 20's, the 30's" all the way up to "the 90's". (But I don't think
ever "the 10's")

More recently I don't think there's been a widely accepted generic for
the 2000's or 2010's.
--
Roland Perry

On 07/07/2022 11:25, Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <ta64r8$avd9$1@dont-email.me>, at 09:17:18 on Thu, 7 Jul
> 2022, NY <me@privacy.invalid> remarked:
>> "Clank" <clank75@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>> news:ta4271$1otm$1@dont-email.me...
>
>>> I've never  actually asked officially where the dividing line falls,
>>> but my gut is  telling  me "more than thousands". I guess it's
>>> something you pick up naturally  without  thinking about...
>>
>> It's like the difference between British and American usages for
>> numbers in the thousands. British may use eighteen hundred and forty
>> but switches over to two thousand three hundred and fifty etc at the
>> 2000 boundary (apart from years which are a special case), whereas
>> American carries on with twenty two hundred, thirty seven hundred etc.
>>
>> In the year 2001 we saw the two different styles: is it twenty oh one
>> or two thousand and one?
>
> Not just that, but last century we are very familiar with talking about
> "the 20's, the 30's" all the way up to "the 90's". (But I don't think
> ever "the 10's")
>
> More recently I don't think there's been a widely accepted generic for
> the 2000's or 2010's.

I am fairly sure that "the naughties" has been accepted generally for
the 2000's but the 2010's I have only heard "the twenty tens".

--
Colin

In message <ta6cti$bq6a$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:35:32 on Thu, 7 Jul
2022, ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>On 07/07/2022 11:25, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <ta64r8$avd9$1@dont-email.me>, at 09:17:18 on Thu, 7 Jul
>>2022, NY <me@privacy.invalid> remarked:
>>> "Clank" <clank75@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>>>news:ta4271$1otm$1@dont-email.me...
>>
>>>> I've never  actually asked officially where the dividing line
>>>>falls, but my gut is  telling  me "more than thousands". I guess
>>>>it's something you pick up naturally  without  thinking about...
>>>
>>> It's like the difference between British and American usages for
>>>numbers in the thousands. British may use eighteen hundred and forty
>>>but switches over to two thousand three hundred and fifty etc at the
>>>2000 boundary (apart from years which are a special case), whereas
>>>American carries on with twenty two hundred, thirty seven hundred etc.
>>>
>>> In the year 2001 we saw the two different styles: is it twenty oh
>>>one or two thousand and one?

>> Not just that, but last century we are very familiar with talking
>>about "the 20's, the 30's" all the way up to "the 90's". (But I don't
>>think ever "the 10's")

>> More recently I don't think there's been a widely accepted generic
>>for the 2000's or 2010's.
>
>I am fairly sure that "the naughties" has been accepted generally for
>the 2000's

It's the only candidate, but I wouldn't consider it *widely* accepted.

>but the 2010's I have only heard "the twenty tens".
>

--
Roland Perry

NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
> "Clank" <clank75@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:ta4271$1otm$1@dont-email.me...
>> I've never
>> actually asked officially where the dividing line falls, but my gut is
>> telling
>> me "more than thousands". I guess it's something you pick up naturally
>> without
>> thinking about...
>
> It's like the difference between British and American usages for numbers in
> the thousands. British may use eighteen hundred and forty but switches over
> to two thousand three hundred and fifty etc at the 2000 boundary (apart from
> years which are a special case), whereas American carries on with twenty two
> hundred, thirty seven hundred etc.
>
> In the year 2001 we saw the two different styles: is it twenty oh one or two
> thousand and one?
>
>

Obviously two thousand and one (a space odyssey).

--
Jeremy Double

On 2022-07-07 08:17:18 +0000, NY said:

> "Clank" <clank75@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:ta4271$1otm$1@dont-email.me...
>> I've never
>> actually asked officially where the dividing line falls, but my gut is telling
>> me "more than thousands". I guess it's something you pick up naturally without
>> thinking about...
>
> It's like the difference between British and American usages for
> numbers in the thousands. British may use eighteen hundred and forty
> but switches over to two thousand three hundred and fifty etc at the
> 2000 boundary (apart from years which are a special case), whereas
> American carries on with twenty two hundred, thirty seven hundred etc.
>
> In the year 2001 we saw the two different styles: is it twenty oh one
> or two thousand and one?

It has been interesting to see how people refer to years, and how it
has evolved over the last few decades. Taking the years 2004 and 2015
as examples, in the '90s and earlier, there was a fairly even split
between the former being "two thousand and 4" and "twenty oh four",
while 2015 was always "twenty fifteen". After 2000, and up to about
2010 or so, the former was always "two thousand and four", and the
latter was often "two thousand fifteen". Between 2010 and now, there
has been a steady shift away from "two thousand fifteen" back to
"twenty fifteen", though I have not heard "twenty oh four" make a
comeback.

Robin

NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
> "Mark Goodge" <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:d20bchth6gkos0ob9r96ntrkhk5dmmr402@4ax.com...
>> When a number is used as a string (eg, a road name or telephone
>> number), rather than an integer, we typically split it into convenient
>> substrings and then vocalise those individually rather than enunciate
>> the entire string as if it was an integer value. But even then, we're
>> not entirely consistent.
>
> It's interesting that some languages (French and German, and probably
> others) say phone numbers as if they were lots of two-digit tens-and-units
> numbers: 32 45 89 would be trente-deux quarante-cinq quatre-vignts-neuf in
> French or zwei-und-dreizig funf-und-vierzig neun-und-achtzig in German (note
> that German reverses the order of the tens and units, a la Four and Twenty
> Blackbirds). Other languages read each digit in isolation, grouped into
> either twos or threes: three two [pause] four five [pause] eight nine or
> else three two four [pause] five eight nine..
>
> I wonder why there is the difference. German and Dutch are particular
> problems because the order in which you hear the digits isn't the order that
> they are written in, because of Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Watching
> Germans, they mostly buffer the two digits and then write them left to right
> (in the opposite order to how they were read out), but I did see one person
> who wrote them in the order 2 [backspace 2] 3 [forward 3] 5 [backspace 2] 4
> etc which looked almost as much trouble as French's cack-handed
> quatre-vignts-dix-sept instead of huit sept.

The GPO/British Telecom (but probably GPO) used to have a convention that a
double number in a 4-digit group would be pronounced as “double-whatever”
if it were the first two or last two digits, but not the middle two. Thus:
double-1-2-3 or 1-2-double-3, but 1-2-2-3. I’ve no idea where I picked
this up but probably somewhere around the change to STD in the mid-60s.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

On 08/07/2022 10:51, Sam Wilson wrote:
> The GPO/British Telecom (but probably GPO) used to have a convention that a
> double number in a 4-digit group would be pronounced as “double-whatever”
> if it were the first two or last two digits, but not the middle two. Thus:
> double-1-2-3 or 1-2-double-3, but 1-2-2-3. I’ve no idea where I picked
> this up but probably somewhere around the change to STD in the mid-60s.

Presumably a "house style" for operators to use but I don't think it was
used elsewhere.

I think GPO people used to refer to the emergency number as
"nine-double-nine" but that could be because of the way the routing
system worked - the first nine put you through to the parent exchange so
on that exchange "99" would go to the emergency operator.

In message <tab61j$vjnc$1@dont-email.me>, at 07:08:51 on Sat, 9 Jul
2022, MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>On 08/07/2022 10:51, Sam Wilson wrote:
>> The GPO/British Telecom (but probably GPO) used to have a convention that a
>> double number in a 4-digit group would be pronounced as “double-whatever”
>> if it were the first two or last two digits, but not the middle two. Thus:
>> double-1-2-3 or 1-2-double-3, but 1-2-2-3. I’ve no idea where I picked
>> this up but probably somewhere around the change to STD in the mid-60s.
>
>Presumably a "house style" for operators to use but I don't think it
>was used elsewhere.

There's other wrinkles, such as one of my VoIP numbers was
mis-classified by the people selling them as AB CA BC {the standard
pattern they used on their price list} which didn't look to them like it
was even "Silver", when in fact presented as ABC ABC it's likely (also
because the "BC" is 'fifty') to be one step above "Platinum", viz a
"taxi number".
--
Roland Perry

MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
> On 08/07/2022 10:51, Sam Wilson wrote:
>> The GPO/British Telecom (but probably GPO) used to have a convention that a
>> double number in a 4-digit group would be pronounced as “double-whatever”
>> if it were the first two or last two digits, but not the middle two. Thus:
>> double-1-2-3 or 1-2-double-3, but 1-2-2-3. I’ve no idea where I picked
>> this up but probably somewhere around the change to STD in the mid-60s.
>
> Presumably a "house style" for operators to use but I don't think it was
> used elsewhere.

This was publicised somewhere - I was a child at the time of the STD
introduction and was interested in that kind of thing so I probably read it
in some of the leaflets that were around at the time. Or it might have
been some other time - I don’t know.

> I think GPO people used to refer to the emergency number as
> "nine-double-nine" but that could be because of the way the routing
> system worked - the first nine put you through to the parent exchange so
> on that exchange "99" would go to the emergency operator.

That makes a kind of sense.

Back in the early 80s one of the train enquiry lines I used to use
frequently - either Edinburgh or Cardiff - would connect before you dialled
the last digit, which was slightly disconcerting.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <tab61j$vjnc$1@dont-email.me>, at 07:08:51 on Sat, 9 Jul
> 2022, MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>> On 08/07/2022 10:51, Sam Wilson wrote:
>>> The GPO/British Telecom (but probably GPO) used to have a convention that a
>>> double number in a 4-digit group would be pronounced as “double-whatever”
>>> if it were the first two or last two digits, but not the middle two. Thus:
>>> double-1-2-3 or 1-2-double-3, but 1-2-2-3. I’ve no idea where I picked
>>> this up but probably somewhere around the change to STD in the mid-60s.
>>
>> Presumably a "house style" for operators to use but I don't think it
>> was used elsewhere.
>
> There's other wrinkles, such as one of my VoIP numbers was
> mis-classified by the people selling them as AB CA BC {the standard
> pattern they used on their price list} which didn't look to them like it
> was even "Silver", when in fact presented as ABC ABC it's likely (also
> because the "BC" is 'fifty') to be one step above "Platinum", viz a
> "taxi number".

So did you start a taxi service to capitalise on the mistake? :-)

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

In message <tabjh8$10npl$2@dont-email.me>, at 09:59:04 on Sat, 9 Jul
2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <tab61j$vjnc$1@dont-email.me>, at 07:08:51 on Sat, 9 Jul
>> 2022, MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>>> On 08/07/2022 10:51, Sam Wilson wrote:
>>>> The GPO/British Telecom (but probably GPO) used to have a convention that a
>>>> double number in a 4-digit group would be pronounced as
>>>>“double-whatever”
>>>> if it were the first two or last two digits, but not the middle two. Thus:
>>>> double-1-2-3 or 1-2-double-3, but 1-2-2-3. I’ve no idea where I picked
>>>> this up but probably somewhere around the change to STD in the mid-60s.
>>>
>>> Presumably a "house style" for operators to use but I don't think it
>>> was used elsewhere.
>>
>> There's other wrinkles, such as one of my VoIP numbers was
>> mis-classified by the people selling them as AB CA BC {the standard
>> pattern they used on their price list} which didn't look to them like it
>> was even "Silver", when in fact presented as ABC ABC it's likely (also
>> because the "BC" is 'fifty') to be one step above "Platinum", viz a
>> "taxi number".
>
>So did you start a taxi service to capitalise on the mistake? :-)

I keep wondering if I should, but I only get about one person a week
mistakenly calling it to summon a taxi.
--
Roland Perry