Car Security

No wonder they call it the TATA. The zero turn feature is the t_ts.

TATA is the surname of the person who founded the group. The most respected industrial group in India.

PIXEL is the name of the car. Just clarifying.

i will take your remarks as a compliment, since English is not my first language, and i am not that familiar with the idiosyncratic idioms of English speaking people in different parts of the world.

(And yes, i do know that 'i' should be capitalised, but i believe that shows egotism and the usage of the lower case shows humility.)

kvsridhar, you said "And yes, i do know that 'i' should be capitalised, but i believe that shows egotism and the usage of the lower case shows humility."

I have learned that the custom in Indian English is to not capitalise the first person singular pronoun. Yours is an explanation for this custom that sounds reasonable. Is your reason given commonly held by others, or a personally held belief?

What? Egotistic Americans who do not display humility? Where are these people?

Oh, about the thread: The burglars are using a 'Code Grabber'. This is old stuff. The only way to defeat this is to do as suggested first by Ace. (Or buy a newer system using one of the newest rolling code technologies which are by now obsolete anyway). A determined thief will always find a way to defeat any technology.

An Indian custom? Far from it ! We are as arrogant as anyone

This little gem i read in NY Times impressed and converted me actually. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03wwln-guestsafire-t.html

i didn't mean that anyone who uses uppercase 'I' is egotistic...but as the article says, this practice of using a capital first-person-singular is only in English... _{i rest my case}

Yes, i had heard of this grabbing software ... on credit cards and ATMs ... but this one on cars is news to me.

I can understand the rationale for lowercase i, (also as in the hungry i night club in San Francisco.) However, perhaps in a reverse psychology way, it can come off as bragging about one's humility! At the beginning of a sentence, it should still be capitalized, whatever one's preference later.

For various reasons, and in proper context, the names e.e. cummings, bell hooks, archy, and mehitabel are not capitalized.

In Washington State, there was once a guy named Absolutely Nobody who ran for lieutenant governor on the promise to abolish the position if elected. Some other guy in the U.S. adopted the name of 1069. Ahmet, Dweezil, and Moon Unit got zappaed by the naming gods....

Yes, i see what you mean. Nevetheless, i agree with Caroline and will stick to 'i' ....begging your indulgence.

While my English is passable, maybe even better than the Indian average, it is still primarily a means of communication with the world outside India...(also within India, since i can only speak 3 of the >24 Indian languages). While i enjoy reading a whole spectrum of authors from Ayn Rand to Jeffrey Archer, i do not have any wish to delve deep into the classical history of English.

"GemüseMac einmal, Sechs Stuck McNuggets und ein Bier bitte" is enough German for me. i should treat my English the same way. A means of making myself understood.

The classical heritage of Sanskrit and Kannada are enough to keep someone occupied for a lifetime. Why should i look to English for its nuances and refinements?

i must hereafter stay away from the ridiculous ranting i seem to have unwittingly initiated here....

First and foremost it was indeed intended as a compliment. I do understand the name of the car is Pixel and the manufacturer is TATA. I used a bit of poetic license in switching them up a bit to make a weak stab at some on line humor. As for whether to capitalize a name or not I was taught that it is just proper spelling practices to do so for proper names. Arrogance or humility were never brought up in the discussion. Sometimes what is taken as arrogance is just a difference in customs. IT IS UNDERSTOOD THAT WHEN TYPING IN ALL CAPS IT IS THE SAME AS SHOUTING. So I can understand why in the written language you were taught to not capitalize a reference to yourself such as the word i for the sake of humility.

I like the inference...who wouln't want to drive their TATA's around? If my neighbor had two, I would be like, "Hey lady, I like your TATA's!!!", or "NICE TATA's!!!"

It's kind of like the crap the Americanos got for the Nova when they tried to sell it in Mexico: No Va...get it?

Oops, i put my foot in it again. Sorry, didn't mean to offend you. This was a knee jerk triggered by a criticism elsewhere about the atrocious English of some Indians. Your post certainly did not deserve to be at the receiving end of this rant... i should have counted to 100 before doing anything else. Sorry again. Hope no hard feelings.

Just wandering if you meant to reply to another post. I did not take offense at anything you said in reference to my post. As far as I am concerned we are all grown-ups and must be tolerant of each other and their customs.

You wrote:-

(And yes, i do know that 'i' should be capitalised, but i believe that shows egotism and the usage of the lower case shows humility.)

It doesn't show humility, it shows arrogance in thinking that changing a language, obviously foreign to you, is your prerogative......if you did it on purpose, but knew better......

The ability to show humility in English is very different from the way in Hindi or any other foreign language.....certainly re-writing the language is not the way to do it.

As somebody said, in English, writing only in capitals is the same as shouting rudely when talking......

If you used the spelling checker, which isn't perfect by the way, it would improve your written English. I use it and I was born in the UK and I still make mistakes.......nobody is perfect.

(I checked, it does not pick up on a single "i" with or without the commas though....another of it's failings....)

Well, if you think it shows arrogance, it is your prerogative. The proponent of the lowercase 'i' is Caroline Winter, a 2008 Fulbright scholar, a Brooklyn-based writer. She wrote this paper in NY Times, (and not i, kvsridhar)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03wwln-guestsafire-t.html

Perhaps being born an English-speaker gives her a better right to modify her language....

Whatever. i hold that 'i' shows humility just as 'Sie' is de rigueur where you live.

_{Btw, "it's" is different from "its"}

Americans speak American. It was English many years ago but differs in words, pronunciation of words and even has different meanings for words other than true native English. It has developed in its own way. Due to exchanges of films over the years, each understands the other to a great degree....

You can hardly call a US citizen an expert on the English language (unless they studied English in a UK university maybe), anymore that many "English" speaking people from India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few are.....

Neither are Brits good in the American language. When I write here, the US spell-checker picks up on many words that I write.

There is nothing wrong in that, it's just a fact of life......its also not a criticism of anyone from any country, but you wouldn't ask a plumber to fix a light fitting would you?!!! You would ask an electrician.

When I translate German texts, I have to ask if its for a UK or a US audience before starting, for that reason.

Examples of differences:-

"Buy a rubber and erase a baby!" (This may or may not explain itself to you. It's and English/American Joke. There are many more)

"G'Day Cobber!" (Australian greeting.)

He will be momentarily here. (American for he will be here in a moment!)

From your point of view they may appear to be the same, believe me that aren't......

Can't say I've ever heard that "American" "...momentarily"....must be the Kennedy's...

Listen to the AFN radio (American Forces Radio), every day its used in this manner.

AFN Eagle in Frankfurt for example....

Oh, that must be those high falootin' Air Force guys. They try to make like the personalities on NPR.

Ah!!

That is eminently possible.

I personally find it annoying, but its not my language.....

Andy, I assure you that phraseology is not used in American English. Not sure what that guy has been smoking but I'm pretty sure he could get in trouble with his superiors for it. =b

What ever you say, I hear it regularly from many different speakers, male & female on AFN Eagle from Frankfurt Germany. You can probably hear it on the internet, possibly anyway..........

I have also heard it on US TV programs, but far less often.

I would guess that probably you might not hear it as quickly as I do......the English ear maybe?

Its pointless you saying it doesn't happen, all you can say is that you haven't personally heard it........I know it does happen, I have heard it often.

I listen to AFN regularly. They do not speak UK English, ever!!

What I cannot say, is if its used regularly in the US or not, but maybe its a regional thing...... I haven't a clue......but it happens.

It used to be that "momentarily" meant "for a moment" and "momently" meant "in a moment." I can't speak for other countries, but in America the distinction seems to have been mostly lost. One seldom hears "momently" in popular speech here.

--Editor Crankshaft

In English, timing and inflection often make the meaning:

"What's that on the road ahead?" Simple enough. Now again, with a little pause: "What's that on the road... a head?"

And as long as we are this far off the topic of car alarms, should I be offended if an Australian calls me a seppo? My inclination is to be offended. Wiki says I should be offended: Citizens of the United States of America are colloquially (and pejoratively) referred to as 'seppos' or 'septic tanks', rhyming slang for "yank".

Andy, I would suggest that modern UK English is no longer true proper English as well. Again, the local idioms have changed immeasurably since then. And for that matter neither is Autrailian, New Zealand, Canadian, or even Indian dialects, they have all suffered their own linguistic drift. At this point I don't think there really is such a thing as true and proper English being spoken anywhere on the planet except perhaps in academia.

Its true, a living language changes.

My point was though that someone living on the other side of the Atlantic from England is not a person to trust when "trying to change" the English language, as he/she speaks American English. No matter "How Humble" he/she is.......as I said, it gave the complete opposite impression intended to a "Genuine Brit!"

It takes something like the Oxford English Dictionary to do that in a proper manner.....!!!

The Oxford English Dictionary "charts" each year the changes in the English language in a most interesting manner, adding new words from time to time....deleting some old ones occasionally.

Duden does exactly the same for German.

Does the USA also have such an organisation for this important work?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary group does something similar I believe for us Colonials.

I just looked it up on the online Oxford Dictionary, its in there on this page:-

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/momentarily

as being used so by US citizens........QED.

So its common enough in the USA that the Oxford has it, and you haven't heard it before.....

Any further questions or comments?

The entry is as follows, the underlining is from me:-

not 100% the same phraseology however Andy, "He'll be here momentarily" is quite common, but that was not quite the phrasing used there. not that we're picking nits or anything here...=b

You are picking nits, that is the same usage that I mentioned and you said basically "NO WAY".

Admit you are wrong!!

No, it's not the same usage, and I have never heard it either. You seem to have a character fault in always needing to be right, but this time you are wrong.

Andy, you wrote "He will be momentarily here." I wrote "He will be here momentarily".

The two are not the same. The last two words are reversed.

Nit Picking.....no more no less....hair splitting or whatever they say where you live.....

Have you never ever been wrong (in your own eyes I mean)?

The last person that was SOOO good, they Crucified him. (I'm getting to know how he felt!!). So watch out for big crosses in your immediate area.....

Actually no Andy, it isn't picking nits (splitting hairs, both idioms are common) because the verb and adverb are reversed. In many languages with Latin roots, the adjective and the noun are reversed, but not in English (either flavor). Word order is important, not just for the idiom, but in general.

And if I did not believe that I was correct, I would not have even chimed in, so you are suffering from selection bias.

Go for it Andy Babe, YOU ARE SO RIGHT.

He is simply unwilling to admit he is wrong......also he has apparently problems in understanding any English language.

Yeah, leave it to the Brits to tell the world how the Americans speak. Yikes!

BTW, it says North American...not American...most of North America is Canada so that throws a spanner in the works, eh?

There are always further questions or comments.

Yea right, Canada has what around 35,000,000 people and the USA has around 312,00,000 this year, almost 10 x more.......

If you were looking at a map and thinking "size of country", do not forget that its usually a "Mercator's Projection", but of course you know what that implies?.....

But as countries do not speak, only the people can, and some parrots of course....... that really makes no difference.....

Most people in North America are US citizens......WOW!!

Canada is physically fractionally larger than the USA, 9.9 Million Square Kilometers against 9.6, just in case you were interested....check here:-

http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_area.htm

For such a tiny country as the UK is, we have had a remarkable history of world domination over many hundreds of years. Today the UK is around 60,000,000 people and only 240,000 Sq.Kms..Really tiny in comparison to both the USA & Canada.....I am personally very proud of that legacy.....

Cuba is even tinier........

I hope this helps you further.....Buenos Dias Senor. (my spelling is terrible!! Sorry)

Whatever...don't need your help...didn't ask for it. And btw, I was referring to land mass and I already knew that. It was all tongue in cheek...glad you got such a jolly laugh from it.

Thay dun teched me all that at skool. Weze all so ignunt here in Amerkuh that we jus doan kare.

Cuba is not in NA...not sure what that statement was for. Oh...that's my handle, not my location.

Andy, Andy, Andy...

Why do you always venture into these arguments? Do you like to pick out the littlest bits of information and blow them out of proportion?

I don't need you to explain Mercator projections to me, I really don't. As I stated, it was merely a tongue-in-cheek statement. Yes, Canada does have more land mass...that's it.

As to the original intent of your off-topic statement about how Americans use a particular word and such...you needn't be so pedantic.

It makes just about as much sense as saying we all wear cowboy boots and carry guns.

Observations shouldn't be based on book learning and pop-culture. That's just lame.

Ah, you are "tongue in cheek", is that your name for pedantic?

For me, you just screwed it up......

Do have a great day in spite of my tiny jabs....... I will!!

?

Jug of water and a hatchet?

Hope you are using these for camping Glad you did not list trash bags and powdered lime. From the way the rest of this thread has gone I'm starting to think someone here will be on the missing person list.

You can never be too prepared.

Agreed. I used to carry a tool box in my old blazer. Most of the time I was doing the helping and I really liked that. First it gives me a good warm fuzzy feeling and second I was not buying the parts. It amazes me how many people flit about without a flash light and jumper cables.