Using a Red Dot Finder properly

[Jasonb]

9 minutes ago, Louis D said:

It's rare I get hit with a word I've never heard before, but today was such a day.  I had to look up secateurs, what we Americans would call pruning shears.  Do Brits prune unwanted growth with secateurs or is there a verb version of secateurs as well?

A question on this forum I can answer! No verb version of Secateurs that I know of, we call it pruning here in Ireland too...

[Tiny Clanger]

53 minutes ago, Louis D said:

It's rare I get hit with a word I've never heard before, but today was such a day.  I had to look up secateurs, what we Americans would call pruning shears.  Do Brits prune unwanted growth with secateurs or is there a verb version of secateurs as well?

Ah, two countries, separated by the same language !

Nope, we prune with secateurs . The noun covers some different types , bypass secateurs being the type with two short blades arranged like scissors and anvil secateurs having one flat jaw with a lateral groove, which matches a single blade on the other jaw.

Garden shears over here are things with much longer blades and handles , typically needing two handed use, the sort of thing you would use for light work such as clipping a hedge . In which case one might call them hedge clippers ... but that could be an electrical device .... look, it's complicated , OK ?  😀 And one look at my back garden would show, I'm no expert !

An interesting snippet of the history of our language(s) : I've noticed 'gotten' being used recently by Brits., which is unusual because we stopped using it centuries ago, just defaulting to 'got' as the past participle of 'get' , and 'gotten' was relegated to 'ye olde cod historical' speech (and possibly some local dialects ). However, 'gotten' survived with you guys over the pond, and it seems just now to be creeping back in here. Various daft folk will no doubt be railing about Americanisms messing up English English soon though. If you are interested in the subject, Bill Bryson's books 'Mother Tongue' and 'Made in America' are good reads.

[johninderby]

And not forgetting loppers for heavier pruning. 😁

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, johninderby said:

And not forgetting loppers for heavier pruning. 😁

Same here. 😁  At least we can agree on some things.

2 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Garden shears over here are things with much longer blades and handles , typically needing two handed use, the sort of thing you would use for light work such as clipping a hedge .

The manual ones are referred to as hedge clippers or hedge shears over here, depending on the region.

2 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

In which case one might call them hedge clippers ... but that could be an electrical device

Hedge trimmers are always electric or gas (petrol) powered, so no confusion here.  This is all the more ironic since most Americans refer to the plants they trim with them as bushes rather than hedges.  Hedges are more of a British thing.  We'd just call a hedge a row of bushes more generally.  Very few properties are separated by hedges or hedgerows instead of fences over here.  Bushes are generally planted along fences to make them less ugly, not as a separator in their own right.  They can also be planted around houses as a landscape feature, but I think that's done pretty much everywhere.

Then there's grass shears with a 90 degree offset for trimming grass manually.

Lastly, there are the powered grass trimmers or string trimmers that most Americans refer to weed whackers or weed eaters (the original brand name).  We'll generally say we're weed whacking the yard with one (really, no joke).

This just goes to prove how quickly one comment about yard work can derail a thread.  Apologies to the OP.  Uh, good luck with your RDF to bring it back on topic? ☺️

Edited December 8, 2020 by Louis D

[johninderby]

Strimmers.    UK speak for string trimmers. 😁

[Jasonb]

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

This just goes to prove how quickly one comment about yard work can derail a thread.  Apologies to the OP.  Uh, good luck with your RDF to bring it back on topic? ☺️

Never mind back on topic, what I want to know is where phrasing such as 'he has gone and sat down' or 'he has sat down' comes from. I've heard that a lot in England, and in Ireland we just say 'he sat down'. No 'gone' or 'has' involved anywhere. It seems like a weird addition of tense or verb that's not needed. Any ideas? 😀

[Tiny Clanger]

Now you've been and went and gone and done it .... 😀

Just a guess, but I think maybe in the phrase 'gone and done it' for example , the 'gone' emphasizes the intent , whoever it was made the effort, went out of their way deliberately to do whatever it was. A sort of repetition for emphasis.

I could of course be very, very wrong ...

[Jasonb]

Yeah, I can see that alright, makes sense! Thanks! Now go get some sleep!

[Louis D]

Here in Texas, we've got "shoulda could" meaning "should have been able to".  We also have "usta could" meaning "used to be able to".  There are many more Texas colloquialisms that sound just plain ignorant to someone born and raised in the upper Midwest where Johnny Carson and many others learned to speak correct and clear American English that sets the national standard.

[latobon]

Pruning shears also called hand pruners or secateurs. I know this because I have bought these last month.