[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-10, 11:08, said:

A slightly related question is where I the English-speaking world is "principle" used for "principal"? This is one I have not seen before.

Places wear people confuse homonyms with each other. There are two many places like that.

I still remember the mnemonic I learned for this: The principal is my pal.

[barmar]

Google Ngrams reports almost 3x as many uses of "drunk driving" than "drinking and driving" in its book collection. However, they're much closer when restricted to British English.

[blackshoe]

mgoetze, on 2015-January-10, 04:29, said:

I assure you it would not sound incorrect to the vast majority of Americans.

Most Americans think "whilst" is some kind of namby-pamby English (the people, not the language) thing. It is, however, in my Oxford American English Dictionary (though it does say "chiefly Brit.")

[gnasher]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-10, 11:20, said:

Yes, but then the problem with the answer you and Robin selected is that the driving might not be affected at all, but doing it is still an offence.

None of the answers describe that, and anyway it's not what Trinidad asked. A good way to describe what you're talking about is "Driving with an illegal level of alcohol in your blood". Similarly, a good way to describe what Trinidad asked about is the phrase he himself used in the original post, "driving while under the influence of alcohol". Of course, neither of these meet his other condition of using "to drink" and "driving"

Of the other answers we were offered:
- "Drink driving" and "drink-driving" mean "driving a drink".
- "Drunk driving" and "drunk-driving" mean (in English English) "driving a drunk".
- "Drunken-driving" doesn't mean anything, because drunken is an adjective.
- "Drinking and driving" and "drinking-and-driving" imply doing the two simultaneously or alternating between the two, rather than doing one followed by the other.

So Robin and I picked the closest one to what Trinidad asked about, although perhaps we should have picked the "other" option and then specified "Driving having drunk" or "Driving following drinking".

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2015-January-10, 12:35, said:

Places wear people confuse homonyms with each other. There are two many places like that.

Yes, homophones ispecifically. "Lead" when you mean "led" has escaped into the wider world. I blame these forums for introducing it.

[Trinidad]

First of all, I would like to thank you in helping me with this.

Now, I think it is time to summarize the results. I included the votes from opinions given in posts and I split Barmar's and Bbradley's votes according to their posts. To determine the variety of English people speak, I used whatever they reported themselves. When it was not mentioned, I looked at the location. This inevitably means that mr1303 is considered Mongolian, even though I remember that he emigrated there a while ago, I just don't know from where.

The results (in %):
                       Total  ???   CAN   MON    OZ   UK    USA
drink driving           19    38     0     0    100   40     0
drink-driving            3     0     0    100    0     0     0
drunk driving           55    50     0     0     0     0    87
drunk-driving            3    13     0     0     0     0     0
drunken driving          6     0     0     0     0    40     0
drunken-driving          0     0     0     0     0     0     0
drinking & driving      13     0    100    0     0    20    13
drinking-&-driving       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
other                    0     0     0     0     0     0     0
Votes                   31     8     1     1     1     5    15

My non-scientific conclusions:
The Americans use "drunk driving", where "drinking & driving" is also used.
The Brits are split between "drink driving" and "drunken driving", but "drinking & driving" is also acceptable.
It seems pretty clear that the majority view is that, whatever phrase should be used, hyphens do not belong in there.

The phrase that my son was taught was "drink-driving", which leads me to the conclusion that mr1303 was the author of this English method. Now I understand why he fled to Mongolia.

Like Kenberg, I thought "drink driving" sounded awful. And, IMO, the addition of a hyphen made it even worse.

Thanks again for your contributions.

Rik

[gwnn]

What's the problem, it's just y=75-5x

[Trinidad]

gwnn, on 2015-January-11, 02:33, said:

What's the problem, it's just y=75-5x

Of course, but you and Ken (and I) are Math geeks. You see it, and you can explain it to a kid. But some kids have normal parents. They don't see it and can't make this translation. So, if the Math teacher can't explain it during the lesson, the kids with normal parents won't understand it. That is a problem.

Rik

[gordontd]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-11, 02:16, said:

It seems pretty clear that the majority view is that, whatever phrase should be used, hyphens do not belong in there.

I think they should only be there if they are used adjectivally. So I think "drink-driving programme" is correct.

[gwnn]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-11, 02:46, said:

Of course, but you and Ken (and I) are Math geeks. You see it, and you can explain it to a kid. But some kids have normal parents. They don't see it and can't make this translation. So, if the Math teacher can't explain it during the lesson, the kids with normal parents won't understand it. That is a problem.

Rik

He specifically said he doesn't know for sure. I know for sure and don't understand what's unclear about it. Independent variable just means the x axis and dependent variable means whatever depends on x. As far as I can tell, the origin of this nomenclature is a scientific experiment where we can vary x as much as we like (say, the temperature) so it is controlled by us and then y depends on x so it is dependent. In this case, we can imagine we make a long film of the nephew paying back the money every Sunday and we could fast-forward and rewind it at our will (or a bit more hypothetically, we have a time machine), so time is the independent variable and the debt is dependent thereon.

[gnasher]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-11, 02:16, said:

The Brits are split between "drink driving" and "drunken driving", but "drinking & driving" is also acceptable.
...
It seems pretty clear that the majority view is that, whatever phrase should be used, hyphens do not belong in there.

In case you're actually going to use this information, I should point out that this result is misleading as to the terminology used by the world at large. By asking only bridge players you skewed your sample in favour of people who think grammar is important.

In the UK, "drink-driving" and "drink-drive", with or without hyphens, are widely used in official guidance and legislation, by advisory organisations, and in the media. For example, here:
https://www.gov.uk/d...iving-penalties

"Drinking and driving" is also commonly used, I think because of an advertising campaign whose key phrase was "Don't drink and drive".

"Drunken driving" is, as Vampyr points out, the narrower category of driving whilst actually drunk.

[Zelandakh]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-11, 02:16, said:

The phrase that my son was taught was "drink-driving", which leads me to the conclusion that mr1303 was the author of this English method. Now I understand why he fled to Mongolia.

As I wrote above, this hyphenated form is used within the Act on the matter, so certainly not wrong.

My apologies to Vampyr for the slip - (un)*fortunately I do not speak American. I only added it because I was not sure if the Americans here would know what a headmaster is.

*: delete as appropriate

[kenberg]

gwnn, on 2015-January-11, 02:33, said:

What's the problem, it's just y=75-5x

My guess is that tis is not the "right" answer where "right" means "receives full credit. I am soory to sound cynical, but my expectation is that "describe the pattern" is a technical phrase. I asked the Thomas, the grandkid in question, to let me know what was wanted but that was a while ago and I don't think I am going to find out. But my guess is the teacher would mark it arong and explain that she asked for the pattern, nit the equation. Patterns are a big thing in education these days.

This comes back to the OP. I had never heard of "drink driving" before this thread. If, for some reason, it is thought important that a child in an English as a Second Language class learn that the phrase is the preferred one (preferred by whom we might ask) then I guess the kid has to learn it. But is that really the goal? Or should it be? Is it not at least somewhat relevant that someone who has lived in this country for 76 years has never before heard the phrase?


Back to math again. Math frightens many people and they find it confusing. It would be good if a kid learns that math is useful and makes sense. As it happens, we have lent some money (considerably more than $75) to one of our kids. It was for a good reason and it is being paid back at better than the agreed upon rate. Not once, in family discussions of this, has the issue of an independent variable x and a dependent variable y come up. Why are we determined to have children learn that mathematicians can find very complex ways of saying something very simple? Neither mathematicians nor normal people talk this way about payments on a loan.
I would be happy enough if Thomas were asked to write an equation expressing the remaining debt y in terms of the number x of payments that have been made.

[helene_t]

The votes here suggest that "drunk" dominates in USA while "drink" dominates in the UK. Google confirms this. On ".uk" sites, "drink" is about four times more prevalent as "drunk", while "drunk" is more than twice as prevalent as "drink" on ".com" sites.

[kenberg]

OK. maybe I understand or partially relent or maybe I am just exhausted.

perhaps the following are all true?

a. Rik and family currently reside in the Netherlands.
b. His son's teacher is a Brit teaching English as a second language.
c. "Drink driving" is in common usage in the UK.
d. The school tests are unforgiving of deviations. There is a right answer and other answers are wrong.

It a. b. and c. are true then I should probably butt out. Suasages are bangers, hoods are bonnets, drunk driving is drink driving. And there is something about wank, but that's another thread.

As to d. there can be room for substantial disagreement. St. Paul is the capital city of Minnesota, Minneapolis isn't. Other things are less precise. What do you do with a drunken sailor? Probably the same thing that you do with a drunk sailor. With a drink sailor? That's tougher.

[gwnn]

The pattern is "y depends on x as given by the function y(x)=75-5x." This reminds me of the recent chess book Move first, think later, with the funny conversation (a teacher is trying to have a student find the best move while exploring the various aspects of the position):
T: "What can you see in the position? What are some of black's weaknesses?"
S: "I would probably play Rd6, it looks strong, no?"
T: "OK but what plan would you like to follow?"
S: "Rd6 Qb8 I have Ne4, winning, right?"
T: "Yes but what about the general principles and the positional weaknesses in the black camp?"
S: "After Ne4 there is even mate in 3, nice!"

The point being that chess players naturally think in terms of moves while mathematicians think in terms of equations/functions. To demand otherwise is not only expecting the impossible, it also leads to a wasting everyone's time and probably pissing off everyone involved.

[Trinidad]

kenberg, on 2015-January-11, 13:19, said:

OK. maybe I understand or partially relent or maybe I am just exhausted.

perhaps the following are all true?

a. Rik and family currently reside in the Netherlands.
b. His son's teacher is a Brit teaching English as a second language.
c. "Drink driving" is in common usage in the UK.
d. The school tests are unforgiving of deviations. There is a right answer and other answers are wrong.

It a. b. and c. are true then I should probably butt out. Suasages are bangers, hoods are bonnets, drunk driving is drink driving. And there is something about wank, but that's another thread.

As to d. there can be room for substantial disagreement. St. Paul is the capital city of Minnesota, Minneapolis isn't. Other things are less precise. What do you do with a drunken sailor? Probably the same thing that you do with a drunk sailor. With a drink sailor? That's tougher.

Actually, I think b is false. It is a lady from Bulgaria who supposedly has English as her first language. Last year, he had a nice teacher from New Zealand.

And I agree with you an d, but if the teacher doesn't know Dutch, it is impossible for her to judge whether the answer was:

• the correct answer to an alternative meaning
  
• an answer that was in the right ball park
  
• or simply wrong.

Now, my kids are at a bilingual school. This means that they have regular English and "English-plus", which is more conversational English. On top of that, their classes in most subjects (Math, Science, History, Biology, Geography, Economy, Phys. Ed., Art , etc.) are in English. Only the languages (French, German, Dutch), religion and social classes from their home room teacher are in Dutch (since kids need to be able to express any social-emotional problems without language barriers).
In my opinion, they should get their regular English lessons from Dutch teachers. They will be able to provide the bridge between Dutch and English. Perhaps they will not pronounce the 'th' perfectly and they might say that "Tchicago is a city on Lake Mitchigan, that got its name from the Tchippewa native Americans", I don't care. Their native English speaking teacher for "English-plus" should be able to correct that.

Rik

[Trinidad]

gnasher, on 2015-January-11, 04:53, said:

In case you're actually going to use this information, I should point out that this result is misleading as to the terminology used by the world at large. By asking only bridge players you skewed your sample in favour of people who think grammar is important.

Do not worry. I only did this little survey to satisfy my own curiosity. I intend no harm. And I don't own a shotgun.

On the other hand, I think that the population of English teachers should be more skewed in favor of correct English grammar than the population of bridge players.

Rik

[Vampyr]

kenberg, on 2015-January-11, 13:19, said:

What do you do with a drunken sailor? Probably the same thing that you do with a drunk sailor.

Make him search for the missing syllable
Make him search for the missing syllable
Make him search for the missing syllable
Earli in the morning.

[blackshoe]

gwnn, on 2015-January-11, 13:51, said:

The point being that chess players naturally think in terms of moves…

I wouldn't be surprised to find that really good chess players think in terms of patterns of moves, rather than individual moves.