Modern Vespa

G'day,

I've been lurking for a little bit now and I've noticed many people write about their riding or is it driving around on their scoot scoots. Are you a rider or a driver? Do you drive over to the shops or ride over? I think I'd say rider most of the time referring to myself, but I feel (esp. talking to non-riders/cagers) that it I'm showing off or overtly pointing out that I ride a motorscooter/motorcycle/scooter if I describe riding to work/home/etc. Is it boasting of your 2 wheeled freedom to say "Well on my ride home, I blah blah".

Does anyone care to ride around or drive around? I feel quite self-concious pointing it out, but then again I'm a new rider with just under a year of riding under me and don't necessarily know what sort of opinions people may or may not form about me...not just as a rider, but as one who points out that I ride.

I find there is at least a half second pause as people take in the fact that I said ride rather than drive as they figure out if I mean push pedal bike or scooter or harley.

Are you picky or do you use them interchangeably? Do you care to be known as a rider? We have a phrase here in Australia where cagers occasionally call riders 'Temporary Australians' due to the perceived dangers of riding.

Cheers!

Most basically. you ride ON a scooter and drive IN a car. No hard and fast rules though...

Just drop the preposition. We ride scooters. This is coming from a someone who speaks English as a second language.

I rode ON a car once. {minds exploding}

I drive nails but operate the hammer haha I just don't swing lol

If you sit in it-you drive it

If you sit on it-you ride it

At least that's what my wife told me last night!

But this does not explain driving with a golf club...

It's neither diction nor linguistics.

It's two different words for two different things.

You go drive your scooter. I'll fly my horse.

Actually you are both wrong, it's semantics...

The more you think about it, the more complex it becomes...

A herd of animals can be driven

According to Rolf Harris you can fly on a horse "climb up here and we'll soon be flyyyying"- Two little boys

As I have already said you can drive a golf ball

what about driven snow, riding high, riding shotgun,etc,etc,etc,

and this thread is driving me mad

I'll go with RIDE a scooter, DRIVE a car. As Max pointed out, drop the preposition, unless you're a passenger. Then I'd go for a ride ON a scooter (someone else in control), and a drive (or ride) IN a car (someone else in control).

For more on this subject -- Riding vs Driving

what about boats?

You steer a boat or sail in it!

oar?

I did some searching on modern vespa and found 14,007 instances of the word drive and 43,413 results for the word ride. I was getting at the fact that many riders, although they claim to know the difference, will casually and commonly use the word drive. Even taking into account all the instances of drive-train talk and actual reference to 4 wheeled vehicles; I'd say there is significant evidence for the usage of drive.

3,804 instances of drove

10,961 instances of rode

Anyhow the diction or word choice in actual spoken/written practice varies, though is heavily slanted towards the rider/ride/rode side. Anyhow it can be an infuriating and semantic topic, who started such nonsense anyhow?

Cheers!

unintentional on my part

but clever reposte on yours

Ever have a boss ride your ass to drive his point home?

If someone rides my ass, it drives me crazy.

Touchdown!

I'm driven to ride my scooter whereas in a car I just go along for the ride.

Yes....that is why I now wear kevlar reinforced jeans to work.

If my scooter is in the bed of my pickup am I driving it or riding it?

No, no. Don't bother to respond. I was being a silly billy. (Pop quiz: Who said that?)

I agree with the majority: ride a scooter; drive a car. All other uses of these two verbs are outside of the scope of this debate.




So there!

Mmm... I'd say you pilot a boat or sail in it. The semantics police on the sailing boards are pretty emphatic about the latter.

Oar what?

You can also sink it.

You ride a horse.

You drive (the horses, oxen, etc. that pull) a wagon.

So you ride a scooter, and you drive a car.

Mike Yarwood impersonating Dennis Healey

Why do people from NY wait 'on line' or stand 'on line?'

Personally I wait or stand 'in line.'

The only time I wait 'online' is for concert tickets or if MV is loading slowly.

I've always heard, said, and read "ride" and "rider" for the act of, and any operator of, PTWs and bicycles. Over the last several years, though, I've noticed a trend in LE reports and in the D.A.'s office to use the word "driver," and I see it's use more and more in trade publications.

It seems the English language is constantly evolving and this migration of terms might be a part of this.

I think you'll find that you're both queuing

I ride baby... I RIDE!

Hmmmm... Good crazy or bad crazy?

Give the man a coconut! (Pop quiz: Who said that?)

I RIDE my bicycle and scooters. I DRIVE my Ural and cars. I think the difference may be due to counter steering on two wheels and direct steering on three or more wheels.

I suppose that if I fly the chair on the Ural it is a transition from driving to riding and then back to driving again when the third wheel touches back down. Same thing happens when you take a corner on two wheels in an automobile.

In New England we drive on the parkway but park on the driveway.

A cowboy rides his horse while driving his cattle. You ride in the car to take a Sunday drive. Your sex drive often leads to a nice ride and you don't even leave the house.

Hi AussieKas

I have been doing some thought about what you said.
There have been few threads, many too few indeed, on English semantics or what is really and truely proper to say when refering to or talking about our bikes.
And today I come accross this one again. Always have a lot to say.

I ride a Modern Vespa so calling it a bike is acceptable in a general sense, 'moped', not so much. A 'Mobylette' is how the French would call it after having a few glasses of wine, despite
the fact that both the French and I know it in out hearts is not a moped. Nevertheless the galicism here is flattering just because it is French and we speak English. Naturally an anglicsm such as "New York' is a
bit more tricky since there are so many versions of the pronounciation of this City. All of them are fine if they are pronounced in the native language. With New York
there are so many choices: the English say New York whereas the natives tend to blend the two words together to form something entirely foreign to inhabitants of
the Great British Isles. If you are from Brooklin, the Harlem, or North Avenue they all have different ways to say the same place in whcih they live. I am culturally sensitive to a flaw I guess.
Please let me use a simile that may help with this convoluted thought. If I am going to borrow someone's Iranian coffee maker I need to follow the recipe and the ritual that goes with it: Pot brewing at the table with a small flame (Ewww! That does not sound right!)
from underneath. It takes time to brew so the drama happens at the table: Always welcome. It's so much better to have your creme brouletf flambeed
at the table. Along this same vein I would not borrow the expression Coup de grace or coup de dat without knowing how the natives pronounce it. Bastardizing these galicism or an anglicism is offensive to the host language. But ,of course, I am not a Nazi about this.
it's just that when spelled in one language it MUST be pronounced in that
language with as much care to cultural differences and differences in pronunciation. You see what I did there? That the British spelling pronounciation is gone!
There are two galicisms in the English language that some Americans just don't get it. Nowhere in France or any other French-speaking nation do they pronounced the "s"
at the end of the word, whether it be in the plural or not. Illinois and De Moines are prime examples of this pet peeve of mine. Yet I hear them mispronounced here
in the States a lot. Spoken by the natives of those two towns the "s" at the end would be silent. The locals again are the sticklers about it. You really don't 'drive' or 'ride' in a mobylette. And the
same is true for our chosen means of transportation. I hope I have make myself clear. In simpler terms: fly a plane, ride a scooter, drive a car, and sail a boat. If you
must use the prepostion do so at your own risk. You could say you are sitting "on" the scooter but not riding on a scooter. Ride, drive, fly, and sail do not take the preposion. They are all direct verbs that require a direct object. It would be a mistake to use these verbs with indirect objects which are de rigour
preceeded by a direct verb. It bit complicated. Try to say Haute Couture in Frech when speaking English in America to see their blank faces. Unfortunaetley
we Americans don't take the time, stop, and learn to say Haute Couture properly. Why did I go off on this figure of speech tangent
I will never know. Anyway... I am off my soap box now. Who shall be next!

I'm confused, first you say you will not borrow and bastardise french phrases then you go and use one!

As an Englishman I must say I never tried to pronounce the 's' at the end of either Illinois or De Moines.

So many phrases are adapted and assimilated by other cultures that their initial history and origin becomes lost. For example do you say champagne? Perhaps if you are in America you cay crystale because of the copyright but where do you think champagne comes from? A region of France perhaps. You couldn't be more wrong because champagne was in fact invented by English, yes! English monks...!

Ever use the word 'debut' if you do how do you pronounce it. It drives me nuts here in Australia because they say day boo where as in England we say day byu. In fact however the word is of course french and the Ozzies are pronouncing it correctly!

My point being that in such an eclectic, mixed up modern world languages will constantly change and adapt. Proper English of Chaucer's time is dead and buried and sounds much more like a mix of french and latin anyway when spoken aloud. Who has any real idea about how it was pronounced and that includes the more modern Shakespearean English as well.

Where do you think you travel to to hear a dialect of English that is considered to be the oldest and purest in form?

The answer is of course the east coast of the USA and not far from where the pilgrim fathers settled! Yet not all Americans sound the same do they

Down in Carbondale and Cairo it is very proper to a native to slither up the S's in the states name... R

I agree with you. In my defense I AM borrowing words but in no way bastardizing them. That did not go very well.

I cruise.

Sorry! You have misunderstood my use of the word 'bastardise' it is not in any way meant to offend, I simply meant it linguistically as 'to change or alter'.

I have just thought of two more mispronounciations that always make me chuckle.

The first is the small island off the west coast of Scotland my wife comes from called Islay. Many people incorrectly pronounce it 'is' as in 'is this yours' then 'lay' as in 'lay down'.

However it should be pronounced 'eye' 'luh' as in the 'L' of love, life etc with a soft sound and the emphasis on 'eye'.

The other is the word 'hyperbole'. When I first came across it I had no idea how to say it so I said it as it reads as two words 'hyper' then 'bole' as in 'bowl'. I thought this was right because of the 'bole' of a tree.

It was however many years later I realised it should be pronounced hy-per-buh-lee. Never really lived that one down.

I still occasionally come across a word and do not know how to pronounce it and am yet to find a good reliable online program that helps out as they are often culture specific in pronounciation.

Maybe we should all go learn esperanto!