28 replies to this topic

[Rogal Dorn]

i pay in cash anytime im not on the internet because i like what im doing and where im going to be untraceable. when its things like bills or w/e i do autowithdrawl from my bank account. the only time i use my debit card is some random rare circumstance. never had a credit card.

[*Anastasia]

Found another weird example of American English which we exclusively use in Canada: -ible. This is so commonplace that when I saw someone spell the word collectable with an 'a' recently, I thought it must be a misspelling (and considering it was a US-based YouTuber, it probably was anyway ). However, it seems that is the British English version of the term, which I never knew.

[Redezra]

lol, we use both.

 

Collectible means an item that can be considered rare, it's an attribute that associates a non actionable value to an item.

Collectable means the item can be collected, or picked up, it's assigns an action that can be performed on that item, and importantly assigns no value.

 

So a collectable collectible would be a rare item that you can go pick up.

[*Anastasia]

lol, we use both.
 
Collectible means an item that can be considered rare, it's an attribute that associates a non actionable value to an item.
Collectable means the item can be collected, or picked up, it's assigns an action that can be performed on that item, and importantly assigns no value.
 
So a collectable collectible would be a rare item that you can go pick up.

Interesting. For what it's worth, the use I saw which confused me was referring to collectable games, which would by Australian usage then be misspelled after all.

[Redezra]

Yeah.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

If Americans used collect in quite the same way as Australians, i.e. to go pick something up, we would probably render the adjectival descriptor as collectable as well.  Indeed, my spell-check just now accepted it.

[Redezra]

Pretty cool isn't it?

 

My theory is that the original English spelling is Collectable, which was used for "With the capability to be collected", and whatever. Then the American spelling, Collectible, surfaced when the US started marketing items that were rare or... whatever. So we used both, being not snobby British, but not rebellious American. We're just pragmatic.

But we do invent our own words. Like the word "Selfie".

[Ellis]

Sliding back to the original topic here, everyone pays with cards here, much more than England or Australia, the other two places I'd actually be in a position to comment on. and we don't even take cheques anymore, aside from business transactions

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

In America we pay with the power of our minds.