OK, is this regional? Grammar differences!

[danaeris]

[Poll #512162]

Comments

[aaangyl.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I found myself reacting more to the tense (has been tabled) for this. If you had said "The bill is on the table," I'd have selected the first option. I think that's because of the context I'm used to being associated with either tense. You put something "on the table" (noun) to discuss now, but you table (verb) something when you're putting it aside. It doesn't make *logical* sense, but I suspect I picked up the specific variants *somewhere*.

yes, it's regional

[geekosaur]

"Tabled" means the opposite in Commonwealth countries than it does in the U.S.

Re: yes, it's regional

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

True, but Canadians tend to speak an odd mix of US and British English due to the large amount of US media we're exposed to. This leads to confused language conventions at times... I think this may be one of them.

Re: yes, it's regional

[angrykat.livejournal.com]

Must stamp out american english usage within our borders. We need laguage laws! its programme not program.

Re: yes, it's regional

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Any notion on it's use in third (non US non Commonwealth) countries?

Re: yes, it's regional

[geekosaur]

No idea; I just recall a discussion about Commonwealth vs. US usage. I'd guess (but it's only a guess with not a whole lot to back it up) that parliamentary systems would use the Commonwealth meaning instead of the US one.

Re: Commonwealth

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Massachusetts is a commonwealth, and we say it correctly, like the rest of the U.S.

Re: Commonwealth

[geekosaur]

In the context of countries, "Commonwealth" means England and its ex-colonies (the ones that didn't free themselves via war, at least :) While I don't think much of Wikipedia in general, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations for an overview.

(Pennsylvania's a commonwealth as well, but that doesn't make it a member of the Commonwealth any more than MA is. :)

[otheronetruegod.livejournal.com]

Ultimately popularity doesn't determine correctness. English is a hodgepodge of meanings and spellings and gramatical rules, many of which are context-sensitive. Either you know them, or you don't.

Consider Esperanto.

[notshakespeare.livejournal.com]

Actually, when talking about words, popularity wins in the long run.

[cortneyofeden.livejournal.com]

If it were, "The bill is up for consideration", it would be, "the bill is on the table." At least I think so.

I'm certain that with what I was taught, "The bill has been put aside for consideration at a later date," would be stated as, "the bill has been tabled."

Hmm. Wonder how poorly I used my commas and quotes there. Hehehe.

[kshandra]

It's funny you should mention this today, because I was just looking at a Reuters US article that used "tabled" in the UK context, and I had to shift gears rather abruptly to parse the sentence. (I'll try and find you a link when I get home; I was reading it on my PDA from a download that was a couple of days old.)

[tunape.livejournal.com]

the word "tabled" has been tabled, eh? ;)

[laura47.livejournal.com]

responded from the wrong account. in this case zalice == laura47

[beowabbit]

Yes, I'm sure. I'm sufficiently aware of both meanings that my first thought on seeing that phrase would not be one meaning or the other, but "That's ambiguous! How do I know which meaning it's supposed to be?" I wouldn't use it for either meaning, and I wouldn't assume I knew what somebody meant if they said it without adequate context.

(By the way, I didn't realize the two meanings were US and Commonwealth; I just assumed it was an ambiguous word.)

[kijeren.livejournal.com]

reading over the other responses, I have to agree...

"on the table" = up for discussion
"tabled" = set aside

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that's only in the US.

In the commonwealth countries 'tabled' = brought up for discussion.

[kijeren.livejournal.com]

I'm a dork, that should have been a general comment, not a reply to your comment... :-)

[beowabbit]

That’s all right; I feel certain I shall survive, and I will be surprised if anyone else is too deeply scarred.

[night--watch.livejournal.com]

I just came up against that one in "Life House" by Spider Robinson. In any of the formal meetings I've participated in to "table a motion" means to put something forward to be voted upon.