Singapore Expats

I was telling a friend who's in a book reading club about errors in a book that I'm reading. The book has been translated from Swedish to English and maybe that's where the problem is. But she reckons one can refer to a person as being "pressurised" whereas I'm quite certain that when referring to people (unless we're inflating them ) that they are "pressured".
Could it be that the word has been misused so many times that either word is now ok?The sentence in the book is something like "the police officers felt pressurised by the press to act on the information they'd received".
Sounds very wrong to me.

I am under the same impression as you are. You can inflate somebody (embolism), or blow up an innertube or fill a scuba tank (pressurized) but to have mentally stressed somebody I think it would be pressured into doing something. I hear pressurized here in Singapore ALL the time, I just took to as with the rest of the grammatical errors that are so common here. Of course I the first to admit my grammar and English in general kinda sucks anyway. The cows never seemed to care.

Personally, I prefer women that are 'pneumatic' as opposed to 'pressurized'.

I am feeling really pressurised by this conversation.

Mind you I kept writing pacific isntead of specific on my uni assignments until third year - That said as an Engineering student that still placed me well above the field.

Coincidence?

A letter to Private Eye magazine (last issue) highlighted exactly the same point.

i.e. pressurised is a thing done to gases...

Guess I better edit my post then! I'm feeling pressurized right now.........

Whew! Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh! an SBD. Aaaahhhh, but I'm no longer pressurized!

I think now's a good time to play a catchy beat......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtrEN-YKLBM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lermqfhhJx4

AC/DC - Rock N' Roll Train


Now that's buzzin

I wouldn't mind a bit of "pressurisation" as long as its pronounced preSHUR and not preZHUR, which really makes my blood boil.

Also, would you orient or orientate yourself in the right direction? And what if you were to use it in a different context? E.g. I wish to get orient(at)ed with that handsome stranger.

You'd say orientated in the UK. Though after some years in the US I found myself saying oriented.

p.s. For the first (ever) time yesterday I saw another major Americanism in an article in a quality UK broadsheet. Rather than write 'It happened on Wednesday', it read 'It happened Wednesday'. This truncation is certainly a recent import...

Theoretically it is more correct than the British way, I would think. You can't do something on a day as it not a fixed object. I would think, to be totally proper, it should be "during Wednesday as it is a passage of time. Course, with my English, I'm lucky to be able to say Wen is day or is it Whens Day?

Hmmm... it is interesting to me, particularly when you have earlier English phraseology that was taken to the US. Now... it is easy to hear it and assume it is an Americanism. But often it is simply a British 'Victorianism' being reimported.

Referring to trousers as pants in one example. Though I have to say (over)hearing (I wasn't watching ok lol)) the judges on what Not to Wear constantly referring to a pair of trousers as 'pant', as in 'the pant don't go with the outfit' really jarred with my head. Still does!

JR8 wrote:Hmmm... it is interesting to me, particularly when you have earlier English phraseology that was taken to the US. Now... it is easy to hear it and assume it is an Americanism. But often it is simply a British 'Victorianism' being reimported.

Referring to trousers as pants in one example. Though I have to say (over)hearing (I wasn't watching ok lol)) the judges on what Not to Wear constantly referring to a pair of trousers as 'pant', as in 'the pant don't go with the outfit' really jarred with my head. Still does!

Spot on, American vocabulary is more faithful to the original English than modern English itself. (sadly) I remember quite a furore when sulphur was changed to sulfur on the basis it was an Americanism (neglecting the fact that Shakespeare spelled it sulfur).

The one that really gets me going, is soccer. The original derivation is from association football, with association being abbreviated to soccer in England, before the game became more popular stateside. It is used more in America as a convenient differentiator to (American) football.

I make a point of saying soccer whenever I can, just to be falsely accused of getting it wrong. On reflection, that probably makes me a bit sad...

Well I find it interesting...

Maybe we should both head for the coat-rack, as they say...