The Bristol Railway Archive

One for the pedants here

OK here's a seemingly new language trend I've heard/read lately: I refer to the calling of a locomotive "The xxxxx". I first noticed it in America last year, when I saw magazines and heard people talking of "The 4449", rather than what seems more natural to me which is just "4449". I thought it was just an Americanism at first, but a few people there told me it was also new in terms of their language ...

To me, a locomotive has *always* just been referred to by its name or number, i.e. "Mallard", "Western Enterprise", D6566, 47840 etc., etc. ... The only time you would ever prefix the name with "The" is if "The" actually appeared as part of the name, as in "The Locomotion".

But watching TV here last week, I was surprised to hear the presenter referring to "The Rocket", "The Mallard" etc., etc. - to me totally wrong. It has also started to appear in the local press (you know how I hate them!) such as references to "The Clun Castle" or even worse "The 7029 Clun Castle".

Has anybody else noticed this trend in recent language? Does anyone else agree it is both unattractive, ill-educated and a just plain wrong departure into yet more poor English in relation to railway grammar?

As I have mentioned before "arriving into" is one of my pet hates. Now it seems we are going to have to tolerate "The D1015 arriving into Temple Meads". Anybody got a handy gun?

Oh good - a pedant thread! Here goes

On this one I think "it all depends," not least on the construction of the sentence in question, and perhaps also the fame of the locomotive.

What passes for English as it is written by journalists in papers is another matter entirely, and probably best ignored in this discussion. If we work on the basis that their quest for brevity and "flow" within their articles will usually result in what they write being a load of nonsense to anybody with a detailed knowledge of whatever it is they are prattling on about (on any subject, and not just railways), we probably won't go far wrong

As regards sentence construction, if we take as an example something that happened in 1938, I would say that both of these are "correct"

The world record for speed with a steam locomotive is held by ex-LNER Pacific "Mallard"

The Mallard, an ex-LNER Pacific, holds the world speed record for a steam locomotive.

As I see it, it would not be correct to include a "the" in the first sentence because there was no "the" in the name of the engine. In the second example I would say that the use of "the" is correct at the start of the sentence because it is the beginning of a description. In fact, to leave out the "The" in that sentence would make it appear disjointed (well to me it would ) - someone not "in the know" about railways may initially create a mental picture of a high-speed duck...

As regards "arriving into" I agree - "arriving at" is the correct form, as far as I am concerned.

Another announcement that grates with me is "our next station stop is..." However, when you think that one through it begins to make sense if there happens to be a signal stop just prior to a station arrival. I would hazard a guess that on-train staff might have had the odd run-in with daft passengers in circumstances like that;)

The only time "the 1015 is arriving at Temple Meads" should be used is when its describing the 0955 from Weston

As regards sentence construction, if we take as an example something that happened in 1938, I would say that both of these are "correct"

The world record for speed with a steam locomotive is held by ex-LNER Pacific "Mallard"

The Mallard, an ex-LNER Pacific, holds the world speed record for a steam locomotive.

I knew this thread would draw you out Robin

I agree to a point about the sentence structure and while your first example makes perfect sense, the second one - whilst I acknowledge might be correct grammatically - to me it still just doesn't sound right. I would prefer to say: "Mallard, an ex-LNER Pacific locomotive, holds ..." - then there is no doubt as to what is being referred to.

Lets suppose Mallard didn't have a name ... Would we say:

"The 4472, an ex-LNER Pacific ..."

I don't think I would, but it seems to be becoming very common usage recently.

Whilst I am at it, it has taken me 4 years to teach my fiancee the difference between a train and a locomotive, still not entirely satisfactorily (Though a few hours riding up and down the WSR in the cab of D832 did rather a lot to help!)

As to trying to teach teenage daughter the difference, I've given up ... totally!

jules wrote: Lets suppose Mallard didn't have a name ... Would we say:

"The 4472, an ex-LNER Pacific ..."

I don't think I would, but it seems to be becoming very common usage recently.

No you wouldn't, because "Mallard" is a noun. "The cat sat on the mat" "The dog ate my breakfast" "The Mallard is a duck or a railway engine" and so on.

"4472" is a number, so the prefix "the" is unecessary/ incorrect. "I live at the no.15" for example.

I think the Yanks started this with "The wreck of the old 97...."

Well, I think we have established "The D1015" is totally wrong then ...

I think the Yanks started this with "The wreck of the old 97...."

Do you know the words to that one too?

Robin Summerhill wrote: "4472" is a number, so the prefix "the" is unecessary/ incorrect. "I live at the no.15" for example.

But then, to completely demoilsh my own argument (perhaps)

"The no.12 bus stops here"

I guess it depends if there is more than one No. 12 bus?

If there is only one bus, then surely "The No. 12 bus stops here" is perfectly accurate. But if there is more than one bus serving the route, then to be absolutely correct one would say "No. 12 buses stop here", or even "The No. 12 buses stop here".

But who would ever say that?

Talking of No. 12 buses, I was actually thinking of a revitalizing post to the long standing No 33 Bus Thread We've not seen a bus North West of Durdham Downs all day today - too snowy, according to the powers that be at Lawrence Hill. I for one never remember total shutdowns like this when Bristol Omnibus was running the show, no matter how much snow there was ... perhaps now the assets are all owned by a private company with shareholders, they aren't quite so prepared to "put them at risk" as they were when they were half owned by the City Council? Or perhaps a modern bus just isn't as "sure-footed" as trusty old Lodekkas were?

When I was at school (QEH) on one occasion our bus got stuck at Shirehampton Park Gates in the snow. Several of us (approx 14 yo) left our satchels and bags on the bus and got off to help push it on the icy hill (H&S close your eyes). When it regained traction we all ran and jumped on the open platform.

We weren't allowed to travel upstairs if conditions were too bad and of course in those days if it snowed heavily then the company chained the rear wheels.

Never missed school due to snow, although on one occasion I did have to walk from Lawrence Weston to Sea Mills.

Not an expert in the finer points of the Queen's English myself, having spectacularly failed at O level in my native tongue but here's my contribution.

Could you refer to a locomotive as 'The' if it is unique? E.g It's Britannia for 70000 or The Duke of Gloucester for 71000. But then I suppose any good railwayman would insist that every loco is unique.

On the subject of no.12 buses, surely the norm is to wait for ages and then 3 come along together. I felt like the meat in the sandwich with no.7's running in convoy through Weston yesterday.

No buses up my way today as it was far too dangerous. 4x4's are fine in these conditions but then you have to know how to drive them. I was helping a chap today trying to reach the top of my hill (1 in 5) when he leaned on his car and it started sliding away. Luckily he managed to jump in but then I had to shout to him 'don't keep trying to rip the handbrake out of the floor, steer it into the kerb'.

No dustmen, no postman carrying bills, no milkman at 0530, no school run, no delivery trucks with those annoying reversing klaxons. Just peace and quiet today. Health and Safety does have some advantages

Whilst we're on the subject of Americanisms and pedantry...

jules wrote:I guess.....

Do you mean "I suppose" or "I think it might" or "I would argue that" ? What is there to "guess" about?

I hear this all the time from "''er indoors." I put it down to her watching too many American films. At least Jules has got a better excuse

The Americans and us, of course, are two nations separated by a common language. I am reminded of the story from pre-International Trunk Dialling days when a bloke from London was trying to contact his opposite number in New York via the operator. After 15 minutes or so of crackling on the line he finally heard his colleagues voice.

At that point the American operator came on the line and said "Are you through?"

He said "Yes thank you"

So she cut him off...

(Swan off on tangent mode - and to think that she sometimes picks me up on using the second person singular when speaking Bristolian... Thees know what I'm on about... )

It was being brought up using the broad working class Bristolian dialect which probably caused me to fail my O level. Am I bothered? Nah! Proud of my roots.

At that point the American operator came on the line and said "Are you through?"

He said "Yes thank you"

So she cut him off...

A typical misunderstanding I had with an American was with my dentist. I had a bad toothache, so that afternoon I called for an appointment for the next day. On explaining my predicament, the dentist said "Well, you could come in at 6"

"Haven't you got anything earlier?" I asked.

After a short silence, the dentist replied "Well, if it's that bad, I guess I could come in early ... "

Quite why everyone in America has to get up in the middle of the night I don't know, but it seems they do ...

Timetables in the US are still in AM/PM, where afternoon trains are shown in bold print - just like they used to be here. Steph is always hopelessly confused by the 24 hour clock, which she calls "European Military Time" for some reason

Also, topical for the current weather, US temperatures are still universally in Fahrenheit, so it is 32 outside today, which sounds like a balmy summer's day to me. Though my mother clung to Fahrenheit till the end of her days so I do just about remember it, though it never made any sense, to me at least.

jules wrote: Timetables in the US are still in AM/PM, where afternoon trains are shown in bold print - just like they used to be here. Steph is always hopelessly confused by the 24 hour clock, which she calls "European Military Time" for some reason

Also, topical for the current weather, US temperatures are still universally in Fahrenheit, so it is 32 outside today, which sounds like a balmy summer's day to me. Though my mother clung to Fahrenheit till the end of her days so I do just about remember it, though it never made any sense, to me at least.

We appear to be going off on many tangents in this thread so I might as well carry on

I seem to use a mixture of measurements myself. Whilst I tend to speak in feet and inches I am also quite happy using metric (up to a point - see below). For one thing its a lot easier with my Surveyor's hat on to use metric in drawings - scaling Imperial drawings is not easy (for example 8 feet to an inch = 1 96th...)

I always use the 24 hour clock which confuses the hell out of shop assistants SWMBO, having Greek, French and South African connections is quite used to it so I get no problem there!

I have a little spreadsheet which enables me to keep track of my car's fuel consumption in mpg...

However, it is about 35 miles from my house to Gloucester. You might be able to convince me that that is more or less equal to 12 leagues, but you will never convince me that it is 56 kilometers

Getting back more on track with rail-related matters but still dealing with times and the way in which they were/are expressed, I was interested to note that prior to about 1955-56, working timetables (at least those of WR lineage) were printed with separate columns for arr. and dep. times, rather than having a train's times in a single column, with arr. and dep. in the vertical format. The two-column format seemed to carry on much later in WR weekly traffic notices (e.g. those produced on cyclostyled sheets by Gestetner machine) giving times of extra trains in that fashion. Was the two-column format a hangover from the old GWR days, or was it a feature of all older WTTs?