Holdontoyourhat
Former Member
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- Mar 28, 2005
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OK, HOTYH, I can take that all on board but I do think there are USisms outside the movie stuff - as I mention on previous post, the reference to 'Law Enforcement.' The police here don't enforce the law, they keep the Queen's peace
Levity aside, though, one thing I have to grant you is that non-native Anglophones can pick up a mix of US and British English.
The length of the letter could speak to staging, copycats of Loeb and Leopold, filling (as I have seen you refer to it) - that is one thing that I think points to no culture in particular.
Yeah, but the expression 'law enforcement' doesn't drop the RN into US-English either. The RN is plain awkward in US-English. Nobody says or writes 'the two gentlemen watching..." Its just too stuffy for US-English. Granted its not British-English but its too proper and wordy for US-English, IMO.
A veteran FBI profiler says he has never seen anything so bizarre as the JBR case.
Main Entry:bizarrePart of Speech:adjectiveDefinition:strange, wildSynonyms:bugged out, camp*, comical, curious, eccentric, extraordinary, fantastic, far-out, freakish, grody, grotesque, kooky, ludicrous, odd, oddball, off the wall, offbeat, outlandish, outré, peculiar, queer, ridiculous, singular, unusual, way-out, weird Notes:a bazaar is a shop or market while bizarre means odd or unusual
macabre means shockingly repellent or inspiring horror; bizarre means odd or unusualAntonyms:normal, reasonable, usual
There's nothing normal, reasonable, or usual about the ransom note, as far as US-English is concerned. The expressions and the handwriting are peculiar and outlandish. The word foreign comes to mind?