Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 June 3

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June 3

"Revision"?

In Laura Spence Affair, it says "she tried to ignore the row by focusing on revision and not watching television for a week." (The BBC article/reference says " she just got on with her revision".) What does "revision" refer to? Is this another example of the British being perfidious again? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Revision is a common word in Australian English (and I would assume, UK English) for re-studying work already looked at (there's probably a better way of putting that) with a view to making sure it sticks in one's brain even more strongly. Can't see any perfidy there. What's the American word for that act? HiLo48 (talk) 05:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Studying. --Jayron32 05:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Not re-studying? HiLo48 (talk) 06:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps "reviewing" is used here, but you'll here "studying" used just as frequently. "Reviewing" would be considered a subset of "studying", and it would not be unusual to hear either term. Revision, in American English, is used exclusively for a form of editing of ones writing, or similar activities. You revise your essay, but you review for a test. --Jayron32 06:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Typically done just before school end-of-year examinations to ensure that the material learned is fresh in your memory. Rojomoke (talk) 05:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

study or review in American English. Revise has the meaning of editing or altering. A revision is the new document. When we hear it used the British English way it sounds like "I revised history today. Now William invaded in 1065. Tomorrow I am going to revise math. Pi is to hard to remember." Rmhermen (talk) 06:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

See also the article Revision week. Deor (talk) 15:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Both "revise" and "review" come from re- + videre, [1][2] but their usages have diverged a bit - and evidently, diverged in more than two directions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

We have an article called Cramming (education) which might be called "last-minute revision" in the UK [3] [4] [5] Alansplodge (talk) 13:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

By the bye, Wikt:perfidious: "disloyal to what should command one's fidelity or allegiance". Is there a joke I'm missing? Alansplodge (talk) 14:10, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Surely a reference to the epithet in Perfidious Albion (and, but this may be far-fetched, if the English use an English word in another than its true sense, they are not true to their word).  --Lambiam 15:17, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks; as you say, a bit of a stretch. Alansplodge (talk) 15:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Lambian's interpretation is better than what I originally intended (sneaky and underhanded), so that's what I meant in the first place. Yeah, that's it. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:20, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, perhaps it was perfidious of me to disparage a joke at our expense. Alansplodge (talk) 12:22, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Lynne Murphy discussed this in her blog Separated by a Common Language in 2006. My odd moment with "review" was in Heinlein's Double Star (surprised to find that's the primary topic for that phrase!) where Lorenzo said he needed to "review" the speech he was about to give. It became clear that he meant "rehearse inwardly", but "review" didn't have that meaning for me. --ColinFine (talk) 14:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I've tweaked the hatnotes in Double Star and Double star. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks, all. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:20, 3 June 2020 (UTC)