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Von: direct@cobuild.collins.co.uk [mailto:direct@cobuild.collins.co.uk]
Gesendet: Sonntag, 18. Mai 2003 06:33
An: erich.wallner@aon.at
Betreff: WordWatch
COBUILD WORDWATCH by EMAIL
Here is this week's Wordwatch feature from the COBUILD WorldWide Web site, delivered direct to you by e-mail. See the web page at www.cobuild.collins.co.uk/wordwatch.html for the full list of Wordwatch features.
Twocking
This week, two queries about usage, one lexical, one grammatical. The lexical one first:
How would you rate the neologism 'twoc' as a word worth
knowing/teaching? I understand it derives from the police acronym TWOC
meaning 'taken without owner's consent' and is becoming popular as a
verb (past tense and participle: 'twocked') in certain circles,
roughly synonymous with 'steal'.
Worth noting? Or better forget it?
There are entries for this word in both the Collins English Dictionary and the New Oxford Dictionary of English, although the former covers it as a verb (inflections twocced, twoccing) and the latter as a noun (twoccing or twocking). There are 11 citations for the various forms in the Bank of English, all from British sources, dating back to 1992:
Incidents of juvenile twoccing, for example, have halved in the
West End between January and October 1992, as compared with same
period in 1991. (British magazine)
He met up with a car thief and that was that. He liked twocking
(stealing) cars, he got a buzz out of it. (Guardian)
When he first met them, they were already seasoned twoccers (car
thieves), canny burglars and advanced standard drivers. (British
magazine)
A Google search yields results in the low hundreds, many of them referring to a novel about teenage joyriders in Bradford, and a play on the same subject that was performed at the Edinburgh Festival:
It's a play about twockers. Twocking - taking (a car) without the
owner's consent - is such a common crime that the word TWOC has
actually entered the language. Twockers start young: by fourteen many
are experts. For some it's youthful wrongdoing which they outgrow and
eventually settle down to live normal, law-abiding lives; for others
it's the first step into a life of crime, leading to burglary,
robbery, mugging, and so on. (from www.britishtheatreguide.info/)
As for whether it is worth learning or teaching; hard to say, especially for someone who's not a teacher. I could see it being introduced as part of a discussion on youth crime, or teenage disaffection. As a neologism, 'twoc' has a lot going for it, including the fact that it can easily generate noun and verb forms (twoccing,
twocker) and the fact that it may be applicable outside the narrow area of stealing cars, although I haven't seen it so used. Furthermore, these kinds of police expressions do often become part of the language, as they have a kind of gritty appeal. I suppose it's a case of wait and see.
And now, a query that seems to be about topic that troubles many learners of English, which preposition to use when:
I would like to know if you could tell me the difference in use in
"been in" and "been to", since I have already looked it up in your web
site and it is not clear enough for me.
In fact, the problem arises from the dual meaning of 'been', which is the past participle of 'be', of course, but is also used as the past participle of the verb 'go' when talking about visiting a place and coming back. First, some examples of the second meaning, where 'been' is followed by 'to':
Have you ever been to a farm? (US book)
If you've ever been to Dreamworld and thought `I could do better
than this", then Roller Coaster Tycoon is your sort of
game. (Australian newspaper)
It was the first time the couple had ever been to London. (British
tabloid)
In recent months he has been to India and Mozambique. (Times)
When 'been' is part of the verb 'be', it is followed by 'in' (or 'inside'), and is used to empasise not the fact of visiting a place, but the experience of being there:
Have you ever been in New Look [a clothes shop]? (Times)
Both Taylor and Waugh, neither of whom had ever been in a court
before, found the experience an ordeal but are glad they did
it. (Australian newspaper)
You'd recognise them if you've ever been in a small town in
Italy. (Australian newspaper)
There was no evidence that Mr Roldan had ever been in
Laos. (Economist magazine)
It is also used in phrases such as 'in hospital, in prison' to refer to places where you stay for some time:
Whenever I've been in prison I've never let
her come to see me. (British speech)
Have you ever been in hospital? (British speech)
What you can't say is: Have you ever been in France? when you want to ask if someone has visited that country; it has to be 'to' (that is, the verb to use here is part of 'go' and not part of 'be').
cobuilder@cobuild.collins.co.uk http://www.cobuild.collins.co.uk
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