Silly poll on English language

[Trinidad]

Hi all,

 

I have a silly question to all native speakers of English. My son needs to learn at school the proper English phrase for "driving while under the infleunce of alcohol". It needs to contain "driving" in the continuous tense and some form of the verb "to drink".

 

Please pick how you would phrase that. I am also curious about the variation of English you speak (UK, US, CAN, AUS, NZ, etc.), so I would appreciate it if you would provide that information.

 

Obviously, this poll is inspired by the fact that I was quite surprised about what they are teaching my son, but since I am not a native speaker and heavily biased towards American Midwest English (but, no, I don't use the phrase "I should have went to game"), I thought I would ask here.

 

Thanks,

 

Rik

[kuhchung]

here's one poll i didn't get wrong

 

USA here

[RMB1]

Delete this one before the votes get split?

[diana_eva]

Delete this one before the votes get split?

 

Yep, done. Actually I merged them, not sure if that saves the votes as well but at least from now on it will be OK.

 

Edit: poll votes were merged too.

Edited January 9, 2015 by diana_eva

[gordontd]

I think drink driving is the phrase we use here in England, and Wikipedia says that's the UK & Australian usage, but I see RMB1 has given a different answer. I could say his answer doesn't count because he doesn't drive, but then he might say mine doesn't count because I don't drink.

[RMB1]

The use of a hyphen in a verb phrase would be odd.

 

But there is little consistency in the use of hyphens; and a tendency for two-word phrases to migrate from two words, to hyphenated, to one word (with no hyphen or space).

[Bbradley62]

US: Half of my life in each metro New York and Atlanta, if that matters...

 

I have never heard the phrase "drink driving" and it would never occur to me to use it.

 

"Drunk driving" and "drinking and driving" are equally acceptable, and popular slogans include: "don't drink and drive" and "drinking and driving don't mix". Of course, in American English, the "--ing" words in the last phrase are called gerunds, and are treated as nouns, not as verbs. One influential lobbying group is called "Mothers Against Drunk Driving".

[Trinidad]

US: Half of my life in each metro New York and Atlanta, if that matters...

 

I have never heard the phrase "drink driving" and it would never occur to me to use it.

 

"Drunk driving" and "drinking and driving" are equally acceptable, and popular slogans include: "don't drink and drive" and "drinking and driving don't mix".

I am planning to summarize the results in a few days. I will interpret your post as half a vote for "drinking and driving" and half a vote for "drunk driving" for US English.

 

Rik

[Bbradley62]

I am planning to summarize the results in a few days. I will interpret your post as half a vote for "drinking and driving" and half a vote for "drunk driving" for US English.

 

Rik

That was what I intended. This poll might have been better in the "select all that apply" format.

[barmar]

I am planning to summarize the results in a few days. I will interpret your post as half a vote for "drinking and driving" and half a vote for "drunk driving" for US English.

/quote]

I was also split between those two, and wished for a multiple response poll.

[RMB1]

I think drink driving is the phrase we use here in England, and Wikipedia says that's the UK & Australian usage, but I see RMB1 has given a different answer.

 

I read the poll as what I say, not what is common usage.

[barmar]

BTW, a good resource for someone trying to learn English is English Language Learners. This is the sister site of English Language & Usage, which is for more esoteric discussion of English usage. E.g. an appropriate question on this topic for the second site would be how it came to be that Americans say "drunk driving" while Britons say "drink driving".

[ArtK78]

Drunk driving or driving while drunk are the two I would use.

 

Drinking and driving is also acceptable, but I would use the first two primarily.

 

USA here.

[kenberg]

If "drunk" is part of the sentence I much prefer "driving while drunk" to "drunk driving" I am drunk, the driving isn't. But my choice from the list was "drinking and driving". I will explain:

 

Say that I have had 250 ml of red wine. The usual stuff, not port or sherry. I will not be drunk, not in the way that the term is used by most people. I won't be slurring my words or stumbling. But quite possibly my alcohol level in my blood will exceed the legal limit.

 

The law is that you cannot drive when your blood alcohol level is beyond a certain limit, and I think that it is best if everyone understands and accepts that that is the law. Whether or not you are drunk in the sense most people use the term is irrelevant.

 

I also think this is a very strange assignment. I would like it better if your son, after choosing, was asked to explain his choice. This would encourage him to think about phrasing..

 

To borrow from Auggie March on my origins "I am an American Minnesota born." (I think that's the way it begins, with Minnesota replaced by Chicago.)

 

Added: If we are choose between "drunk driving" and "drunken driving" I opt for whatever form is analogous to "carefu" or "careless", and I think that would be "drunken". But I much prefer "driving while drunk" to either of these.

 

 

Fwiw: My father never got involved with my schooling and my mother rarely did. But I recall a time when my mother decided that the teacher was wrong in the way she was presenting grammar. My mother was intelligent and capable, but she had had about a year and a half of high school some thirty plus years before tis confrontation took place. And confrontation was what it was. With me, not with the teacher. I still rcall the details. We were in Weber's Bar, my mother had been consuming, and she decided she had to set me straight about all the wrong things I was being taught.

To go to the opposite extreme, I knew Sergei Brin when he was a school child and I knew his father. His father taught his son that whatever the teacher said was correct, at least for the current school year. If the teacher said San Francisco was the capitol of California, then it was. Next year it could be Sacramento again. Or San Diego.

This seems to have worked.

Still one more: I used to joke around with thsi Japanes graduate student I knew. Once she told me she had to run off and tutor mathematics to this Japanese child that she knew. I said "I though all of you Japanese had mathematics ingrained in your DNA". "He is going to an American school" she replied.

 

So good luck!

[Trinidad]

I also think this is a very strange assignment. I would like it better if your son, after choosing, was asked to explain his choice. This would encourage him to think about phrasing..

This is a misunderstanding. This is not part of an assignment. It is part of his English class. Each chapter in his English book (as a foreign language) has stories in English and a list of new words and phrases to the stories. He needs to look them up in a dictionary and will be tested on knowing them in the vocabulary tests.

 

He has found this nice little website to train his vocabulary: You can upload lists of words with their translations, and the website is quizzing you. So, I just happened to see that the website was prompting him for the English translation of "rijden onder invloed". He typed an answer and was about to hit the "enter key" when I asked him: "Are you sure?" because I was sure he made a typo. He laughed and said that his mother had said exactly the same thing, but that this was what the book said. And when he saw my face, he showed it to me right there!

 

So, my poll is really an idiot check on my (and my wife's) knowledge of English.

 

Rik

[Trinidad]

I am planning to summarize the results in a few days. I will interpret your post as half a vote for "drinking and driving" and half a vote for "drunk driving" for US English.

I was also split between those two, and wished for a multiple response poll.

I am a fan of the Dutch democratic system. ;) This means that everybody gets exactly one vote and everybody's voting power is equal to that of all other voters. You can split your votes anyway you like by posting them, and I will divide them into two, three or four if needed when I make a final tally.

 

Rik

[Vampyr]

Having lived in both the UK and the USA, I have noted the difference in usage; that is, drink driving in the UK and drunk driving in the US. In both places drinking and driving is also used.

 

EDIT: I almost forgot that "drive drunk" is also used in the US, such as in the slogan "Friends don't let friends drive drunk" or in a sentence such as I've never driven drunk in my life. I don't know whether this is used in the UK but I think that "driving whilst drunk" is sometimes used.

[kenberg]

This is a misunderstanding. This is not part of an assignment. It is part of his English class. Each chapter in his English book (as a foreign language) has stories in English and a list of new words and phrases to the stories. He needs to look them up in a dictionary and will be tested on knowing them in the vocabulary tests.

 

He has found this nice little website to train his vocabulary: You can upload lists of words with their translations, and the website is quizzing you. So, I just happened to see that the website was prompting him for the English translation of "rijden onder invloed". He typed an answer and was about to hit the "enter key" when I asked him: "Are you sure?" because I was sure he made a typo. He laughed and said that his mother had said exactly the same thing, but that this was what the book said. And when he saw my face, he showed it to me right there!

 

So, my poll is really an idiot check on my (and my wife's) knowledge of English.

 

Rik

 

You mentioned you were not so happy with what he is being taught. Could you give details? I am guessing that "rijden onder invloed" translates fiarly literally to "driving under the infuence". I would hate to see that marked wrong.

 

 

In college I took reading German. We read these little stories and translated them. It was long ago so I don't recall the exact German phrase but the story was about a ship that was sunk. The literal translation from the German was "went under" and I translated it that way. This was marked wrong. "Sank" was right. I really hate this sort of thing. Who gives a whatever whether the ship sank or went under? He said he would have accepted "went down".

 

 

I have learned about "lie" and "lay" and "who" and "whom" so I don't sound like too much of a rube but I really hope that a large number of reasonable choices for the translations of "rijden onder invloed" would all be acceptable.

[Bbradley62]

... but I think that "driving whilst drunk" is sometimes used.

"whilst" is not a word on this side of the pond.

[Bbradley62]

I am guessing that "rijden onder invloed" translates fiarly literally to "driving under the influence". I would hate to see that marked wrong.

Agreed. Both "DUI" (driving under the influence) and "DWI" (driving while intoxicated) are completely acceptable terms; there's no need to specifically use any form of "to drink".

[blackshoe]

Agreed. Both "DUI" (driving under the influence) and "DWI" (driving while intoxicated) are completely acceptable terms; there's no need to specifically use any form of "to drink".

Except perhaps in a construction like "she drives me to drink". :P

[Vampyr]

"whilst" is not a word on this side of the pond.

 

True.

[Elianna]

Add another American (California if that matters) vote for "drunk driving" or "drinking and driving" being very common. "drive drunk" or "drink and drive" are also acceptable variances. Here's how I would use these phrases in a sentence:

 

"He was arrested on a charge of drunk driving"/"Drinking and driving is dangerous and illegal"

"Don't drink and drive"/"He's been known to drive drunk"

 

The first two pairs are using the action as a noun, and the second as a verb. I think I change construction based on tense, too.

[chasetb]

United States, Midwest/Hillbilly location here -> I chose "drunk driving"

 

If you have already had your fair share of spirits/liquor and are behind the wheel, you are "drunk driving", much like "drunk texting" , "drunk phone calls", and the locally popular "drunk beer cans on a wooden fence post shooting" :blink::unsure: . DUI and DWI cover much more than just alcohol; it also covers being under drugs, but you first have to get caught in order to be charged with it...

 

The process of it is "drinking and driving", which is very much in use. However, I tend not to use this term for two reasons: (1.) Drunk driving is less syllables and easier to say.

(2.) I know a few people who on private property / backroads where no cops go, who will on summer nights, actually go drinking and driving. In the old days, it would be with "4 on the floor and Bubba ridin' shotgun". Nowadays, most trucks driven around here are automatics, people rarely name their dogs 'Bubba', and people won't just drive themselves, they will 'car pool' so you have a Full cab full of drunk idiots.

 

Yes, I know about these things, but have never done any of them. I value my life, and based on the current average male longevity in the USA(~76), I have another 49 years. Based on my current health and recent family history, I can reasonably expect 60+ .

[Trinidad]

You mentioned you were not so happy with what he is being taught. Could you give details? I am guessing that "rijden onder invloed" translates fiarly literally to "driving under the infuence". I would hate to see that marked wrong.

Ken, I couldn't agree more with your entire post. I promise I will give all the details you want, but first I want some poll results from the whole world.

 

My son uses an English method, developed in an English speaking country, not specifically geared to the Netherlands. (I had a similar method when I was in middle school.) This means that the book doesn't provide any translations, nor does it gear to things that Dutch speakers might consider particularly difficult or obvious about English (Dutch and English are relatively similar languages). On top of that, his teacher is a native speaker, with a relatively poor knowledge of the Dutch language.

 

So, his book had a story, containing the English phrase "d???????driving". In Dutch, there is no literal translation for this phrase. It would be a conjugation of the verb "drinken" followed by "rijden", but it is not used in Dutch, while "rijden onder invloed", which indeed translates literally to "driving under the influence" (DUI), is used. So, he translated it like that, I approve of that, and supposedly the teacher approved it too before he was told to memorize it.

 

Now, here comes the problem. My son has a handicap. His handicap is that he is already entirely bilingual. We are an international family and my wife and I have been speaking English since we met in Michigan. So, English is my son's first language. We moved to the Netherlands 10 years ago. That is when he started to learn Dutch. Children learn languages very fast and their friends have more influence than their parents, so now the local dialect is his dominant language, but his English is almost as good as that of an American kid his age (except for his writing), except that he sometimes uses a Dutch construction for an English sentence (or an English construction in his Dutch). (In addition, both our kids have been using "I amn't" instead of "I'm not" for ages. I think we got rid of that by now.)

 

So, our son already knows all the translations. It doesn't matter to him whether he reads a story in English or Dutch. They are equivalent to him (and sometimes he doesn't even remember in what language he read something). Last year's teacher didn't give any feedback on their translations: Her Dutch knowledge was insufficient to judge that. She just assumed that what she found in the dictionary was correct and since the kids supposedly have the same dictionary, their translations must be the same. Quite obviously, our son never opened his dictionary and translated all the words himself. I checked whether his translations were correct and they were impecable.

 

Then he gets the test: He needs to translate the Dutch words and phrases that he was supposed to have learned into English. About a third of the translations are different from what he translated. And in 95% of the cases, I consider his translations to be more accurate (but I only see that when he gets his test back). So when he takes his test, he gets a Dutch phrase that he never studied to translate into English. He does that, but doesn't always find the original phrase from his book (but a better one). WRONG!!! So, this bilingual boy, who is absolutely fluent in Dutch and English, gets insufficient grades on his vocabulary tests. (I am not kidding.)

 

So, his handicap, compared to the other children, is that he needs to forget what he has known for years, and replace it by something that he feels is wrong. That is awfully hard to do.

 

When I was his age, I often mentioned that using English methods developed in English speaking countries was a very bad idea. My arguments back then were that the methods are not specific to the Dutch situation and that if you want to pick anybody to develop a good method to teach you a foreign language, people from English speaking countries should be at the bottom of the list. They have the least experience in learning and teaching foreign languages (since the whole world speaks English anyway, look what I am writing now) and are completely clueless on how to teach or learn a foreign language compared to people from ... Denmark or India or the Netherlands, or practically any country in the world, who at least will have learned/taught foreign languages themselves. My teachers agreed with me, but explained that these books were simply cheaper by economy of scale. They are used to teach English in Mexico, India, Brasil, Spain. Books specific for the small Dutch market are much more expensive.

 

I think these arguments (mine and my teachers') are still valid. Now I at least had a teacher who was fluent in Dutch. My son has English teachers who don't speak Dutch. They only know English. Great for pronunciation (last year he developed a New Zealand accent) but poor for a proper understanding of the language structure, since his teachers can't explain how the English language is structured: they just speak it. That's how you make a sentence, because that's how it is. They can't tell why, or what the underlying principles are. They don't even understand why people would ask about that, nor do they realize that only sentences in English are structured that way and that this is not universal.

 

This rant has little to do with the DUI translation. I just thought that the DUI phrase he was taught was weird and was wondering where it came from, since it "certainly ain't American" and I felt it was incorrect British English too. My wife thought the same and I got the idea to ask here where there are a lot of smart native speakers of English in all its varieties.

 

Rik