From prez234 at JUNO.COM Sat Jan 6 11:38:24 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 05:38:24 CST Subject: Banned Words Message-ID: >True Freshmen -- "As opposed to a false or three-year freshman, or >what?" - Barry Campbell, Luther, Mich. "In my 76 years, I have yet to >see a false freshman." - Thaddeus Poprawa, Fraser, Mich. As opposed to a red-shirt freshman. A true freshman is one who is on campus for the very first year; a red-shirt freshman was on campus last year but was injured (perhaps in some very minor fashion), did not play for the college, but still has four years of eligibility. From prez234 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 18 07:46:15 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 01:46:15 CST Subject: "jimmying" Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2000 22:06:18 -0500 Anne Lambert writes: >Has anybody heard the word "jimmying" as in "I was jimmying around all >day, driving from one errand to another" or "I was jimmying around >trying to find the place"? My mother(born Missouri 1894 of New >England >family) used it, but I have never heard anyone else who did/does, and >it >is not in DARE. The only context in which I've heard it has been "to jimmy a lock," meaning "to pick a lock." I doubt it would have anything to do with GMC, although I understand a device that auto mechanics and car thieves use to open locked car doors is called a "Slim Jim." From prez234 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 12:57:13 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 06:57:13 CST Subject: And while we're on the subject.... Message-ID: >2. Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand? The original terms derive from Latin, which were: pars minuta prima -- "the first little part" of an hour pars minuta secunda -- "the second little part" of an hour. Of course the second hand is not the 2nd hand, but the hand that marks seconds. Now why didn't they say the hour was the first little part of the day and the minute was the second little part of the day and the second was the third little part of the day -- and is 'day' 24 hours or the time from dawn until dusk? >14. Why do 'overlook and 'oversee' mean opposite things? Hmm...my boss is supposed to oversee my work, but I think he usually does the former. Also, consider 'look over' and 'overlook.' >>> It's from the Greek words, porne', "prostitute" and graphein, "to write." Was it Pat Buchanan who called politicians who supported NAFTA "Trade Whores?" If we stretch the metaphor, it was Pat who was being pornographic, not the supporters of NAFTA. I've noticed the same thing happening to "cynical" -- a cynic is one who believes that others are selfish, but many people are using "cynical" as a synonym of "selfish." I have not heard or seen the word used in the way James Smith cites, but I do find the citations bothersome. From tcf at MACOMB.COM Mon Jan 1 00:18:36 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 18:18:36 -0600 Subject: sny--oops! Message-ID: Earlier I said that the roadmaps had the "Sny" on the Illinois side of the Mississippi opposite Hannible MO or just below. I must have misremembered. It's not on the Rand McNally roadmap. It IS on the DeLorme "Illinois Atlas and Gazeteer" maps 57 & 66 (2nd ed. 1996), but it is not a bayou. It looks like a creek that runs parallel to the big river, meandering through the bottoms between the river and the bluffs, in both Pike and Calhoun counties. Victoria's and other notes indicate it is likely a voyageur place name, since it seems to be Canadian. ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Neufeldt To: Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2000 10:44 PM Subject: Re: sny > 'Snye' or 'sny' is a Canadianism meaning a side channel of a stream (Gage > Canadian Dict., 1983). Etym: "From Canadian French chenail; cf French > chenal channel" I don't have my Dict of Canadianisms (1967) on hand so > can't check the dates or cites, but I seem to associate it with the > Maritimes, for some reason (?) > > Victoria > > Victoria Neufeldt > 1533 Early Drive > Saskatoon, Sask. > S7H 3K1 > Canada > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > > Of Grant Barrett > > Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 2:22 PM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: sny > > > > > > >To this very day there is a stretch of bayou along the Miss. near > > >Hannibal > > >called "The Sny." It is I think even on road maps. > > > > and > > > > > Sni Island is a separate occurrence and is identified as "A > > >portion of the former river bottom on the Mississippi River that > > today is exposed > > because > > >of a change of course in the river." > > > > Sni Island in Marion County Missouri, of which Hannibal is the > > largest town, may be > > the same thing Tim Frazer refers to, as per this extract from the > > book"Lighting Out > > for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American > > Culture" by Shelley Fisher > > Fishkin. > > http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/lighti > > ngoutfortheterritor > > y.htm > > > > "In 1847, when Twain was eleven, a runaway slave who belonged to > > a man named Neriam > > Todd swam across the river and hid in the swampy thickets of Sny > > Island, on the > > Illinois side of the Mississippi... Some woodchoppers chased the > > slave into a part of the > > swamp called Bird Slough..." > > > > On the other hand, Tim Frazer is talking about *swampy land on > > the Missouri side*, > > not a real island on the Illinois side (although with the > > Mississippi River farms, > > islands, swamps and river bottom change roles often enough to > > make the county clerk's > > job difficult). > > > > In looking further at the USGS site, I see that there is also The > > Sny Basin (the The > > appears always capitalized) which refers to a rather large > > drainage area (watershed) > > in eastern Missouri including five counties and 13 water drainage > > measurement > > stations. This, I gather, is an extension of the Tim's Sny bayou. > > The map below shows, > > finally, that The Sny, in fact, spans the Mississippi. > > > http://www.epa.gov/surf2/hucs/07110004/ > > I didn't turn up The Sny in my first search at the USGS and this had me a > bit > confused. The capital T on The should have been a clue. A search at > http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/gnisform.html under "The Sny" turns up: > > Feature Name: The Sny > Feature Type: channel > State: Illinois > County: Adams > USGS 7.5' x 7.5' Map: Marblehead > Latitude: 394714N > Longitude: 0912108W > > Feature Name: The Sny Cutoff > Feature Type: canal > State: Illinois > County: Pike > USGS 7.5' x 7.5' Map: Summer Hill > Latitude: 393011N > Longitude: 0905918W > > More Sny: > > Missouri NWIS-W Data Retrieval page > http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis-w/MO/ > > The Sny Levee District > http://www.geo.mtu.edu/department/classes/ge404/flood/day3/sny/ > > Newspaper Extracts from 1880 that mention The Sny Levee > http://www.outfitters.com/~melissa/genealogy/beadles/leonind2.html From emckean at ENTERACT.COM Mon Jan 1 00:37:33 2001 From: emckean at ENTERACT.COM (emckean at ENTERACT.COM) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 18:37:33 -0600 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: <002401c07388$b4a606e0$bc040640@wiu.edu> Message-ID: I heard a DJ on the teenybopper "alternative" radio station tonight say "And we'll be hearing more from them in the 2K1" meaning "2001". This is the first I've heard of "2K1" (even considering it doesn't start until tomorrow). I don't think it's all that novel, but has anyone else been hearing this? Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com I miss the old rap station, where the djs would talk about things "back in the nine-trey." (1993, a million years ago in rap time. . .) From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 1 02:07:53 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 21:07:53 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: A search on http://www.topclick.com/ brings up a number of sites, most of which seem to involve a discussion of sports activity, as in NFL 2k1 strategy. Usually found in gaming discussion sites, not sure if it is a copyrighted phrase or not. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 1 02:18:39 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 21:18:39 -0500 Subject: juvenile delinquent Message-ID: The context may differ, but in a book from 1862, by Richard Francis Burton, titled The city of the saints, and across the Rocky mountains to California, on p. 12, is "This juvenile delinquent stated with unblushing front, . . ." http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000015%2F0244city%2Fv0000%2Fi000&tif=00280012.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DAFK4700 Again, I didn't read enough of the publication to compare context usage. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 1 03:12:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 22:12:22 EST Subject: Federation Day greetings Message-ID: Happy Federation Day in the new millennium! My air ticket cannot be changed without a big increase in price, so I can't have an extra day in Sydney to do research...I'm carrying home some vegemite. I better not be stopped at the airport for bringing back "food." I toured the Cairns Central Shopping Centre (it has a food court) and have more food items. _JAMAICA BLUE CAFE_ Also at www.jamaicablue.com.au. COFFEES: Cappuccino, Mugaccino, Megaccino, Babyccino, Melloccino. MILKSHAKES THICKSHAKES OMELETTES: Kingston (ham, tomato, mushroom & cheese), Jamaican (cheese, capsicum, Spanish onion & pineapple), Carribean (cheese, chicken, chives & mushroom). JAMAICAN CLUB SANDWICH--bacon, pineapple, banana, cheese, lettuce & tomato. MELTS: Calypso (bacon, tomato, onion, cheese), Bermuda (chicken, asparagus, mayo, cheese), Caribbean (Yes, two different spellings--ed.)(bacon, banana, pineapple, cheese), Bahama (sundried tomato, capsicum, onion, cheese), Kingston (ham, pineapple, cheese). _RED ROOSTER_ ORIGINAL STRIP SUB--2 chicken strips, lettuce & creamy herb sauce in a freshly baked roll. _COAST ROAST COFFEE_ FRAPPECINO--frozen espresso, ice cream and choice of flavour. _ROYAL COPENHAGEN_ FRUIT WHIP--lite ice cream or yoghurt blended with a choice of fruits. _GRANARY GOURMET DELI_ CAPPUCCINO SKINNYCINO SOYACINO DECAFACINO ECCOCINO--made with Ecco. DRYACINO--counter woman had no clue. _BAKERY_ HUMMINGBIRD CAKE MELTING MOMENTS--two cookies with cream in the middle. I've seen this several places now. Willl OED record it? BROWN-EYED SUSAN--cookies with chocolate in the middle. Why not Black-Eyed Susan? POPPERS--juice drinks in little boxes are called this. _BI-LO SUPERMARKETS_ ROCK CAKES WHITE SNOWDROPS VIETNAMESE BREAD ROLLS--these are hot dog rolls! I've asked several people--both customers and employees--and no one had ever heard it called "Vietnamese" before. But it's on the label, and these things take up an entire shelf. _CAFE PACIFICO_ At the Pacifico Hotel. From the drink menu: ZESTI--Combination of smooth hazelnut frangelico, with added hit of fresh lime juice. Shaken and poured over ice. LOVE JUNK--Erotic mix of melon and peach liquors. Topped with refreshing apple juice. JO JO IVERY--Smooth and delicious combination of banana liquor, Kaluaha and rich smooth taste of Baileys Irishcream. PACIFICO ICE TEA--Based on the famous Long Island Ice Tea (sic), with the Pacifico twist--Blue Curacao and lemonade. ICED COFFEE--AUSTRALIAN--milk, vanilla ice cream, espresso, cream. REEF 'N' BEEF--usually "surf 'n' turf," but one restaurant has it as this. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 1 04:30:36 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 23:30:36 -0500 Subject: juvenile delinquent In-Reply-To: <002301c07388$b4276100$bc040640@wiu.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 31 Dec 2000, Tim Frazer wrote: > What is the earliest citation anyone can give me of "juvenile delinquent"? > I am guessing late 1940s, but I want to be on firmer ground. The OED has 1817 as its earliest citation, but law is not one of the OED's stronger areas, so it probably goes back to the 1700s. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 1 07:26:07 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 02:26:07 EST Subject: Banished Words List Message-ID: Lake Superior State University students have their Banished Words List, as they do every year. "Chad" is on this year's list. See Nexis or: http://www.lssu.edu http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Banish-Words-List.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Banished-Words.html -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. THE LOT--Appears to be an Australian sandwich name for "the works" or "the kitchen sink." One "The Lot" burger contained eggs, bacon, and cheese. MY FLIGHT--I told Qantas that there's a little snowstorm in NYC, all flights are being delayed, and I would be happy to spend an extra day or two in paradise. If I fly tomorrow, the flight is probably fully booked to NYC and they'd probably have to pay people to give up their seats. I got no call back to my hotel about any change. It's leaving as scheduled! If I do have an extra day in Sydney, make your Australian slang requests to me now. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 1 18:28:51 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 13:28:51 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20001227130232.00a72080@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if other users were as naive as we were? ] At 01:37 PM 12/27/00 -0500, you wrote: >Three origin-candidates (none invented by me): > >(1) from "nook" (referring to the vagina) >(2) from the old verb "nug" = (a) "copulate" or (b) "fondle" (see Farmer >and Henley) >(3) from Dutch "neuken" = "f*ck" > >[My Dutch friends find it humorous when someone speaks of "nuking" food in >the microwave oven.] > >There is also French "noc" = "vagina" (an anagram, apparently used by >Rabelais). > >In my experience "nooky" usually approx. = "sex" -- a mild and ambiguous >word, sometimes used for sexual activities other than coitus -- including >necking, petting, groping, grubbling, and nugging (b) .... The books also >show "nooky" = "vagina" (I haven't heard this one) and = "woman"/"women" >(I've heard it rarely). > >-- Doug Wilson _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From sagehen at SLIC.COM Mon Jan 1 20:03:29 2001 From: sagehen at SLIC.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 15:03:29 -0500 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if other users were as naive as we were?< Naive? Yes, perhaps. This was the only use current among the young people we knew in the past 20 years or so. I had only encountered its other meanings in books, and never connected the two. But I don't think I was aware of the brand name of the pacifiers, just thought of it as a slang term. A. Murie From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 1 20:10:56 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 14:10:56 -0600 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Didn't Benny Hill use/popularize the word 'nooky'? Or is my memory incorrect? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 1 21:08:04 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 16:08:04 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Not among pre-teens in the Louisville area in the late 1940's. dInIs >Didn't Benny Hill use/popularize the word 'nooky'? Or is my memory >incorrect? >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From bapopik at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 2 01:38:06 2001 From: bapopik at HOTMAIL.COM (Barry Popik) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 01:38:06 -0000 Subject: Milk Bar Message-ID: Big Apple Milk Bar --store in the center of Cairns, Australia Greetings from a free terminal in the Sydney Airport. I couldn't find any earlier "milk bar" in a quick check of the phonebooks. From the SYDENY MORNING HERALD August 3, 1936, pg. 16a Opened in Fleet Street by Hugh D. McIntosh _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From t-k.comerfo at WORLDNET.ATT.NET Tue Jan 2 14:26:15 2001 From: t-k.comerfo at WORLDNET.ATT.NET (Thomas Comerford) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 08:26:15 -0600 Subject: Doughboy Message-ID: Brewer's says that the word as applied to US soldiers derived from the similarity of the cake of that name to the uniform buttons on a soldier c WW I & earlier. Any other thoughts? T. Comerford -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 2 14:41:36 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 09:41:36 -0500 Subject: Doughboy In-Reply-To: <001301c074c7$f868b720$9d784a0c@default>; from t-k.comerfo@WORLDNET.ATT.NET on Tue, Jan 02, 2001 at 08:26:15AM -0600 Message-ID: > Brewer's says that the word as applied to US soldiers derived from > the similarity of the cake of that name to the uniform buttons on a > soldier c WW I & earlier. Any other thoughts? Yes, that the word actually dates to the Mexican-American War of the 1840s, and that the origin is unknown. Jesse Sheidlower From mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Tue Jan 2 17:12:14 2001 From: mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Salikoko Mufwene) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 09:12:14 -0800 Subject: Kenneth Pike Message-ID: Dear colleagues: I am sad to share with you the following news which I just received this morning from the LSA's Secretariat. Happy new year, Sali. > >This mornings email brought the sad news of Kenneth Pike's death on 31 >December. I have no details other than he had been in poor health and was >hospitalized at the time of his death. >Maggie > ********************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene at uchicago.edu University of Chicago 773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924 Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html ********************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Tue Jan 2 16:08:23 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 11:08:23 -0500 Subject: Fwd: RA announcement Message-ID: >The University of Georgia >Working Group for the Study of Languages, Discourse, and Communicative >Practices > >Position: >The interdisciplinary Working Group for the Study of Languages, Discourse, >and Communicative Practices, sponsored by the Institute for Behavioral >Research at the University of Georgia, seeks to hire a Research Associate >to manage a newly funded digital language research laboratory. The position >is a 12-month appointment, renewable for up to three years, to begin July >2001. Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and >experience. > >Qualifications: >A doctorate or ABD in applied linguistics, communication sciences, new >media production or related field by July 2001 is required. Also required >is expertise in using digital audio and video technological tools for >conducting research on language as well as a potential for or record of >success in publishing scholarship and obtaining external funding for >research. > >Responsibilities: >Duties include managing the research laboratory, conducting regular >training sessions for faculty and students, developing a clearinghouse of >technology-based resources, maintaining a language data bank, coordinating >the Invited Speaker Seminar Series, and identifying and securing extramural >funding to support laboratory activities and faculty research. > >Procedure: >Submit a letter of application, a curriculum vita, transcripts, and 3 >reference letters to the address below. > >Applications received by February 15, 2001 are assured of full consideration. > >Dr. Joan Kelly Hall >Chair, Search Committee >Department of Language Education >125 Aderhold Hall >Athens, GA 30602 >e-mail: jkhall at arches.uga.edu >Fax: 706-542-4509 > >The University of Georgia is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action >Institution. *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 2 17:29:54 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 12:29:54 -0500 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan writes: >>>>> Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if other users were as naive as we were? <<<<< And that's probably the right pronunciation, same as obsolescent (IMHO) English "nook" 'corner'. What bothered me was when people added a diminutive /i/ ~= "-ie" to it (prob. from its use with babies and baby-talk)! -- Mark From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 2 17:40:44 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 12:40:44 -0500 Subject: ox-bow Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan writes: >>>>> Relatedly, what's the origin of "ox-bow"? We have an Oxbow Trail, and of course there's _The Oxbow Incident_ (afraid I never read it). Does it come from the shape of an ox yoke (which I do know, having preserved my grandfather's)? <<<<< Ayup. As I recall reading in geography class or somethin' like it, it starts with a bend in a river. The dynamics of water flow cause the water to move faster along the outside of the curve than it does along the inside, so the river tends to undercut the bank on that side. The bank falls in and the river widens a bit in that direction. Meanwhile, the slow flow on the inner edge leads to silting-up and *that* bank tends to expand into the river. As a result, the course of the river migrates outward and the bend gradually grows into a bulge, then a meander, then maybe even a near-loop running over 180 degrees. This is an ox-bow. (AmHer 3ed: U-shaped bend in a river.) So is the land within the curve. -- Mark From Amcolph at AOL.COM Tue Jan 2 18:37:19 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 13:37:19 EST Subject: Doughboy Message-ID: US troops in Mexico quickly became dust colored, and were called "adobe boys=>dobie boys=>doughboys. Don't have a source for it, but I think the fried-cake version is apocryphal, as only the officer's coats had muffin-shaped buttons. In the 1840's enlisted infantry buttons were flat and made of pewter. Ray Ott From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 2 20:18:54 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 15:18:54 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:29 PM 1/2/01 -0500, you wrote: >Beverly Flanigan writes: > > >>>>> >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if >other users were as naive as we were? ><<<<< > >And that's probably the right pronunciation, same as obsolescent (IMHO) >English "nook" 'corner'. What bothered me was when people added a >diminutive /i/ ~= "-ie" to it (prob. from its use with babies and >baby-talk)! > > >-- Mark "Nook" isn't obsolescent for me--but I'll be more careful how I use it in the future! _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 2 08:02:32 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:02:32 +0800 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Beverly Flanigan writes: > >>>>>> >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if >other users were as naive as we were? ><<<<< > >And that's probably the right pronunciation, same as obsolescent (IMHO) >English "nook" 'corner'. What bothered me was when people added a >diminutive /i/ ~= "-ie" to it (prob. from its use with babies and >baby-talk)! > > >-- Mark Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not grossly, exaggerated. Now, CRANNY... larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Tue Jan 2 21:14:43 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:14:43 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: GSCole wrote: > > A search on http://www.topclick.com/ brings up a number of sites, most > of which seem to involve a discussion of sports activity, as in NFL 2k1 > strategy. Usually found in gaming discussion sites, not sure if it is a > copyrighted phrase or not. I think the 2K1 you were finding were discussions of Sega Dreamcast pro-sports videogames - they have several titles for 2001 that are called a "2K1" something. It's probably only copyrighted as used in the various titles. I would guess there was discussion about this around this time last year, but I don't much care for the use of 2K to mean 2000. As a number, K is most often used to signify quantities of bits or bytes. Since these critters live in a binary universe, K is a rough decimal translation: 2^10 = 1024, not 1000. So, Y2K would be the year 2048. The only other example that I can think of the number K being used with an elliptic unit is in foot racing - 5K or 10K races, where K = 1000 (meters). While both uses of K are current, the former is by far much more common. Since "Y2K" was most often used in reference to the potential date-related computer problems, I feel this adds more weight to the argument that in this case K should properly be used to refer to 1024, not 1000 (and that Y2K is a misapplication of the number K). How about other words or letters that are used to mean 1000, like "grand" or "G" or "large" (e.g., Y2G)? Unfortunately these 3 examples represent both quantity and units (i.e., forty large = $40,000), so they wouldn't work either. From annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET Tue Jan 2 21:25:55 2001 From: annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET (Anne Lambert) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:25:55 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe Message-ID: "Unsubscribe." From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 2 21:31:34 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 15:31:34 -0600 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: > Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our > apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady > nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". > It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer > to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not > grossly, exaggerated. Now, CRANNY... > > larry Oh, come on now . . . "cranny" itself isn't obsolete. It only becomes so when combined with the obsolete observation that "it's the berries". Then there was the stroke of genius that created the great title for a mystery novel: "Every crook and nanny". -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET Tue Jan 2 21:30:44 2001 From: annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET (Anne Lambert) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:30:44 -0500 Subject: Milk Bar Message-ID: Actually, this isn't about MIlk Bar, but a notice to all: I can no longer handle the volume of mail that comes with this list. I am leaving town tomorrow and am canceling my e-mail for four months. I have been unable to unsubscribe, though I have tried every way I can think of. I leave tomorrow morning. Can anyone please send me advice on how to unsubscribe before 9 PM Eastern Standard Time tonight? I realize this is an imposition, and I thank you in advance. Anne Lambert Barry Popik wrote: > Big Apple Milk Bar > --store in the center of Cairns, Australia > > Greetings from a free terminal in the Sydney Airport. > I couldn't find any earlier "milk bar" in a quick check of the > phonebooks. > From the SYDENY MORNING HERALD > > August 3, 1936, pg. 16a > Opened in Fleet Street by Hugh D. McIntosh > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 2 21:45:22 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 13:45:22 -0800 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010102151755.00afd1a0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: > >Beverly Flanigan writes: > > > > >>>>> > >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son > >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if > >other users were as naive as we were? We did too, as did others who had babies in Germany. It's from _nuckeln_ 'suck slowly,' perhaps connected with _suckle_, which German has in _suckeln_, belonging to _saugen_ 'suck.' Pons (Wb. d.dt. Ugs.) notes that _Nuckel_ is also the breast of a breast-feeding mother and says it (the word, not the breast) has been in use since ca. 1700. I don't have Grimm Dt. Wb. at hand, but could check on that if you like. Peter R. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Tue Jan 2 20:46:25 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 15:46:25 -0500 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Just a reminder to folks Washington-bound, bring your WOTYs with you. I suppose there is a category for _chad_, but I'm not inclined to nominate it for WOTY. It has some derivatives that might be considered. Happy New Year to all. See you in D.C. David Barnhart From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 2 22:08:26 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:08:26 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:45 PM 1/2/01 -0800, you wrote: > > >Beverly Flanigan writes: > > > > > > >>>>> > > >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son > > >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if > > >other users were as naive as we were? > >We did too, as did others who had babies in Germany. It's from _nuckeln_ >'suck slowly,' perhaps connected with _suckle_, which German has in >_suckeln_, belonging to _saugen_ 'suck.' Pons (Wb. d.dt. Ugs.) notes that >_Nuckel_ is also the breast of a breast-feeding mother and says it (the >word, not the breast) has been in use since ca. 1700. I don't have Grimm >Dt. Wb. at hand, but could check on that if you like. > >Peter R. What a relief! And it's good to know the word has a positive reference, i.e., to something above the waist. . . . _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Tue Jan 2 22:10:30 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:10:30 -0600 Subject: ads signoff Message-ID: from the web site http://www.americandialect.org *************** To Unsubscribe To leave the list at any time, send the following as the complete body of an email message to listserv at uga.cc.uga.edu or listserv at uga.bitnet : SIGNOFF ADS-L *********************** Hope this helps! Elizabeth Gregory <<< annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET 1/ 2 3:55p >>> Actually, this isn't about MIlk Bar, but a notice to all: I can no longer handle the volume of mail that comes with this list. I am leaving town tomorrow and am canceling my e-mail for four months. I have been unable to unsubscribe, though I have tried every way I can think of. I leave tomorrow morning. Can anyone please send me advice on how to unsubscribe before 9 PM Eastern Standard Time tonight? I realize this is an imposition, and I thank you in advance. Anne Lambert Barry Popik wrote: > Big Apple Milk Bar > --store in the center of Cairns, Australia > > Greetings from a free terminal in the Sydney Airport. > I couldn't find any earlier "milk bar" in a quick check of the > phonebooks. > From the SYDENY MORNING HERALD > > August 3, 1936, pg. 16a > Opened in Fleet Street by Hugh D. McIntosh > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From kfpastore at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 2 22:31:13 2001 From: kfpastore at JUNO.COM (kfpastore at JUNO.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:31:13 -0500 Subject: Word Origin Message-ID: To Whom It May Ring A Bell, I enjoyed reading about your society and Barry Popik in today's Wall Street Journal, and I hope someone can help me with a word origin and meaning question that has hounded me for years. In the 1930s movie "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" starring W C Fields and written by him, the word "tar-tupple" (this is the phonetic spelling) is used by a high society person whose wedding party Fields had just crashed. The word is repeated several times, pejoratively I believe. I have researched dictionaries, including Oxford, at the New York Public Library and I have sent e-mails to Yale, Harvard and to others for the meaning and origin of the word to no avail. The closest word to it in the dictionary is "Tartuffe". Does anyone have a better answer? Gratefully Yours, Fred Pastore (kfpastore at juno.com) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 2 23:06:25 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:06:25 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: All ADSers, Here is a link to the GREAT article about Barry Popik in today's Wall Street Journal: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB97838868937716381.djm If you cannot get to it with this link, try searching wsj.com for "Popik" under "Article search". The article is well done, and a fine public recognition of Barry's amazing work. Included are praising quotes by others about Barry, and even a reference to ADS. Finally, the truth about hot dog and Big Apple in print, in a big way! Congratulations, Barry! Frank Abate -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 2 23:22:33 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:22:33 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <005d01c07510$a19fb9e0$b101a8c0@fabate> Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Frank Abate wrote: >Here is a link to the GREAT article about Barry Popik in today's Wall Street Journal: > >http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB97838868937716381.djm This link requires that one be a subscriber - at least it required that I be one. For those of us who are not subscribers, can you give us the page no(s) of the article so that we can get it from our libraries? Thanks, Bethany From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Tue Jan 2 23:38:44 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 00:38:44 +0100 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: Full text, courtesy of Dow Jones News Retrieval. Fair use applies, I believe. LEISURE & ARTS Hot Dog! `Big Apple' Explained By Ed Zotti 01/02/2001 The Wall Street Journal A20 (Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) SO, MR. OR MS. Urban Literary Sophisticate, you think you know your word and phrase origins, do you? Try this pop quiz. 1. New York's nickname, "the Big Apple," originated with (a) 1930s jazz musicians who said, "There are many apples on the tree, but only one Big Apple," referring to New York's preeminence as an entertainment center; or (b) 1920s horse-racing insiders, who considered the city the top racing venue. 2. Chicago is called "the Windy City" because (a) New York Sun editor Charles Dana urged New Yorkers to ignore the "nonsensical claims of that windy city," referring to Chicago's noisy efforts to land the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; or (b) it's windy. You said (a) for both, didn't you? Wrong -- although you'd have been accounted right 10 years ago. The correct answer in each case is (b). For this turnabout in the conventional wisdom you can thank Barry Popik, the restless genius of American etymology. A part-time New York City parking judge, the 39-year-old Mr. Popik spends his off hours unearthing the past of American English -- a task he performs with uncommon zeal. Word detectives tend to be an eccentric breed. The classic case is W. C. Minor, who dug up more than 10,000 citations for the Oxford English Dictionary, a project he had a lot of time for since he was a deranged murderer who spent his life in an institution for the criminally insane. Barry (everyone calls him Barry) isn't round the bend like Minor, but he brings a similar manic energy to his task. Take his "Big Apple" research. He started it in 1990 after a chance meeting at the New York Public Library with Gerald Cohen, a language scholar from the University of Missouri, who was researching the New York City nickname. Mr. Cohen was certain horse-racing writer John J. Fitz Gerald was a key figure in popularizing the term, but despite extensive work hadn't found the "smoking gun" -- a citation establishing that Fitz Gerald was the first to introduce "Big Apple" to the wider world. Barry immediately made Mr. Cohen's quest his own. He spent weeks reeling through a decade's worth of microfilm to find two columns in the New York Morning Telegraph in which Fitz Gerald explained that he'd first heard the term used by two New Orleans stable hands in 1920. Your average etymologist would have been content to publish his findings in a scholarly journal and leave it at that. Not Barry. He wanted the rest of the world to accept the truth. Having written the requisite learned articles with Mr. Cohen as co-author, he began pestering newspaper editors, museum curators and New York city officials for public acknowledgment of his findings. In 1997, he was able to talk the New York City Council into declaring the southwest corner of 54th and Broadway in Manhattan, where Fitz Gerald had lived for many years, Big Apple Corner. Barry has since devoted countless hours to researching a long list of Americanisms, among them "hot dog," "Thousand Island dressing," "dude," "jinx," "danish," "chicken a la king," "Murphy's Law" and many others. Barry now distributes his research over the Internet, where much of it is available in the ADS-L archive at the American Dialect Society Web site, www.americandialect.org. Over the past year and a half he has posted 1,000 messages. Barry's output continues to be prodigious. On a single recent (and typical) day, his postings to the ADS mailing list included: a citation for the traders' term "teeny," one-sixteenth of a dollar, taken from a recent edition of the Daily News Express; citations for "Rueben [sic in the original, Barry says] sandwich," "French dip sandwich," "kaiser roll" and numerous other food terms from a restaurant publication, 1935-37; a discussion of the nonappearance of "chad," the infamous hole-punching detritus, in a 1950s computer publication and in a review of patents, 1937-60; and citations for "everything but the kitchen sink," "learn by doing" and other popular expressions from Popular Mechanics, 1947. "There's no question that Barry is one of the greatest researchers alive, and the stuff he manages to find -- about everything, every topic -- is just absolutely remarkable," says Jesse Sheidlower, principal North American editor for the Oxford English Dictionary. Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, calls him "a wonder, a one-man band." With praise like this, you'd think Barry would be the picture of serenity. Alas, no. On the evidence of his voluminous correspondence, his life is a roller coaster of triumph and despair, his discoveries punctuated with exclamation marks, his snubs and rejections recorded with Dostoyevskian gloom. Much of Barry's pessimism stems from the difficulty of dislodging entrenched beliefs. Example: "Hot dog." The commonly told story is that "hot dog" began on a cold day in New York's Polo Grounds in the early 1900s, when food concessionaire Harry Stevens began selling sausages in long buns to warm up his shivering customers. Supposedly sports cartoonist T. A. Dorgan captured the event in a drawing, depicting the sausages as dachshunds and calling them "hot dogs" because he couldn't spell "frankfurter." Nice story, but it's just (sorry) baloney. Popik established that the term was current at Yale in the fall of 1894, when "dog wagons" sold hot dogs at the dorms, the name a sarcastic comment on the provenance of the meat. Did the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council embrace these findings, which Barry sent to them? No. We might have predicted this. But he took it hard just the same. Now Barry has embarked on what arguably is his greatest challenge -- tracking down the origin of "the whole nine yards," which has eluded researchers for decades. Numerous possible sources have been advanced, ranging from the length of a shroud to the capacity of a cement truck, most of which are demonstrably wrong. The most popular explanation at the moment is that it refers to the length of the .50-caliber ammunition belt used during World War II. Whether or not this is true, the common sentiment among etymologists is that it can't be the source of the phrase -- for one thing, the earliest known citation is from 1966, 21 years after the war's end. "Give me a month," says Barry. I'm not holding my breath. But 10 bucks says he gets to the bottom of it before anybody else. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Tue Jan 2 23:40:31 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:40:31 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Any chance that "the whole nine yards" came out of American football jargon? Just speculation, but it's been my impression since I was a kid that the phrase is somehow related to football (maybe cos my family was big into football). OK, I read the WSJ article and thought I'd put in my 2¢, Barry. From Amcolph at AOL.COM Tue Jan 2 23:49:52 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:49:52 EST Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: British imposed sumptuary laws limited scottish highlanders to no more than nine yards of tartan cloth each. If they had as much as they were allowed, they had "the whole nine yards". This strip of home woven cloth was then folded in a certain way, wrapped around and secured with a waist belt to form both the kilt and the "over-the-shoulder" part of the outfit: a belted plaid. Ray Ott From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 2 23:59:29 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:59:29 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: The page in the hard-copy version of WSJ for Jan 2, 2001 is A20. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bethany K. Dumas" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 6:22 PM Subject: Re: Barry Popik in WSJ > On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Frank Abate wrote: > > >Here is a link to the GREAT article about Barry Popik in today's Wall > Street Journal: > > > >http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB97838868937716381.djm > > This link requires that one be a subscriber - at least it required > that I be one. For those of us who are not subscribers, can you give us > the page no(s) of the article so that we can get it from our libraries? > > Thanks, > Bethany > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 00:40:30 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 19:40:30 -0500 Subject: WOTY In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >What has put Barnhart in an unchaddish modd? dInIs >Just a reminder to folks Washington-bound, bring your WOTYs with you. >I suppose there is a category for _chad_, but I'm not inclined to >nominate it for WOTY. It has some derivatives that might be considered. > >Happy New Year to all. > >See you in D.C. >David Barnhart -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 00:48:36 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 19:48:36 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: <3A5266EF.39DA2335@cmu.edu> Message-ID: >What nine yards (in football)? dInIs (a former blocking back) >Any chance that "the whole nine yards" came out of American football >jargon? Just speculation, but it's been my impression since I was a kid >that the phrase is somehow related to football (maybe cos my family was >big into football). > >OK, I read the WSJ article and thought I'd put in my 2¢, Barry. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 3 00:41:32 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 19:41:32 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <006b01c07518$0b635ce0$b101a8c0@fabate> Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Frank Abate wrote: >The page in the hard-copy version of WSJ for Jan 2, 2001 is A20. Thanks! Bethany From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 2 12:15:43 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:15:43 +0800 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <913842600gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: On behalf of non-subscribers everywhere, thanks very much for posting the article, Grant. (And of course thanks to you, Barry.) Something to keep in one's mailer for the next time someone (not an ads-l regular, needless to say) posts with ignorance and misplaced confidence on "hot dog" or "the Big Apple". I'm not sure Barry will relish the comparison to the mad Mr. Minor, but on the whole a nice treatment. larry From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 3 01:20:17 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:20:17 -0800 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: dInIs asks: >What has put Barnhart in an unchaddish modd? modd? as in artists and moddles? as for this anti-chad sentiment, perhaps he's decided the issue is dead and done with. but at least we could show some respect. it would be only right to say chaddish. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 2 12:24:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:24:15 +0800 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:48 PM -0500 1/2/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>What nine yards (in football)? > >dInIs (a former blocking back) > >>Any chance that "the whole nine yards" came out of American football >>jargon? Just speculation, but it's been my impression since I was a kid >>that the phrase is somehow related to football (maybe cos my family was >>big into football). >> Well, with inflation, it's up to ten yards (in football). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 01:23:17 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:23:17 EST Subject: Milk Bar (corrected) Message-ID: Greetings from New York City. The "Milk Bar" posting was rushed (hey, I made my plane) and I wrote 1936 instead of 1935. Here goes again: >From OED: 20 November 1935, FORRES GAZ--The milk bar, or place where milk drinks are sold, is a popular institution all over Australia and plans are on foot for installing them in Britain. November 1934 Melbourne telephone directory I didn't see "Milk Bar" in a quick check of it. >From SYDNEY MORNING HERALD index ("Milk Bar" head): 3 August 1935, pg. 16a--Opened in Fleet-street by Hugh D. McIntosh. 28 November 1935, pg. 12c--Mr. Hugh D. McIntosh opens a second milk bar in the stock exchange building (London). UPCOMING: I'll try to meet Frank Abate for lunch when I head up to CT to research the "grinder." I'll continue my nationwide yellow pages "phonebook food" series and check for California sushi roll (Los Angeles 1970s), Buffalo wings (Buffalo, 1960s-1970s), chimichanga (Tucson, 1960s), hoagie (Philadelphia, 1940s), grinder (New London and New Haven, CT, 1950s)and more. From words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM Wed Jan 3 01:54:03 2001 From: words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM (Evan Morris) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:54:03 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <913842600gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: At 06:38 PM 1/2/01, Grant Barrett wrote: >Full text, courtesy of Dow Jones News Retrieval. Fair use applies, I believe. > >LEISURE & ARTS > >Hot Dog! `Big Apple' Explained >By Ed Zotti > >01/02/2001 >The Wall Street Journal Ed Zotti? As in the Ed Zotti who writes (it is said) The Straight Dope column under the name Cecil Adams? Cool. In any case, it is GREAT to see Barry get this well-deserved recognition. -- Evan Morris words1 at word-detective.com http://www.word-detective.com From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 3 01:00:45 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:00:45 -0500 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Dear Dennis: I don't like old words for WOTY. Never have and probably never will. Happy New Year! Regards, Dave Barnhart From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 03:06:01 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 22:06:01 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <913842600gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: Good to see the Wall Street Journal promulgate the straight dope on Barry. Congratulations on the well-deserved recognition! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Wed Jan 3 10:29:36 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 05:29:36 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: > On behalf of non-subscribers everywhere, thanks very much for posting > the article The WSJ copyright statement accompanying that article states that "reproduction or redistribution of WSJ.com content requires permission from us." I would have thought that scholars (which seem to form the bulk of this list's membership) would be acutely aware of copyright concerns and embarrassed (not glad) to see such an obvious (albeit minor) violation. My views of copyright may be old-fashioned in the Internet age, but I honestly believe that if we turn a blind eye to (or, worse, actively encourage) these smaller copyright infringements, then eventually larger acts of intellectual theft won't seem all that bad. And when that day comes, this being one of the slipperier of slopes, it surely won't be long before the whole notion of intellectual property is toast. Sorry for the off-topic soapboxian rant, but (as you've no doubt guessed) we're into Pet Peeve territory here. Paul From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 13:21:23 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 08:21:23 -0500 Subject: Milk Bar (corrected) In-Reply-To: <70.68f1193.2783d906@aol.com> Message-ID: >Is there any chance that Milk Bar is a calque from Polish (Bar >Mleczny)? Milk Bars ("plain food joints" - not just milk products) >are so designated there. dInIs > Greetings from New York City. The "Milk Bar" posting was rushed (hey, I >made my plane) and I wrote 1936 instead of 1935. Here goes again: > >>>From OED: >20 November 1935, FORRES GAZ--The milk bar, or place where milk drinks are >sold, is a popular institution all over Australia and plans are on foot for >installing them in Britain. > >November 1934 Melbourne telephone directory > I didn't see "Milk Bar" in a quick check of it. > >>>From SYDNEY MORNING HERALD index ("Milk Bar" head): >3 August 1935, pg. 16a--Opened in Fleet-street by Hugh D. McIntosh. >28 November 1935, pg. 12c--Mr. Hugh D. McIntosh opens a second milk bar in >the stock exchange building (London). > >UPCOMING: I'll try to meet Frank Abate for lunch when I head up to CT to >research the "grinder." > I'll continue my nationwide yellow pages "phonebook food" series and check >for California sushi roll (Los Angeles 1970s), Buffalo wings (Buffalo, >1960s-1970s), chimichanga (Tucson, 1960s), hoagie (Philadelphia, 1940s), >grinder (New London and New Haven, CT, 1950s)and more. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From stevek at SHORE.NET Wed Jan 3 13:48:05 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 08:48:05 -0500 Subject: WOTY In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > Dear Dennis: > > I don't like old words for WOTY. Never have and probably never will. Wouldn't that technically make the category NWOTY then? I didn't realize the N was implied, but I'm relatively new to the process. --- Steve K. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:10:16 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 09:10:16 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: > > At 7:48 PM -0500 1/2/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>What nine yards (in football)? > > > >dInIs (a former blocking back) > Well, with inflation, it's up to ten yards (in football). I didn't say it made any sense, I've just always associated that phrase with football, since I was pretty young. Third down and nine yards to go, they got the whole nine yards, hooray! - that sort of thing. If my six-year-old self could, he'd explain it to you :-) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:16:14 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 09:16:14 -0500 Subject: WOTY In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Our definition (which has grown with the process) has for some time >now noted that words which "have come to prominence" in a year (not >just those manufactured in that year) are worthy candidates. My >learned colleague David Barnhart has not been a strong supporter of >this turn, but, then, he is not athletic. dInIs PS: My apologies to the sharp-eyed Arnold Zwicky who noted my "modd" typo in my earlier contribution to this thread. >On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > >> Dear Dennis: >> >> I don't like old words for WOTY. Never have and probably never will. > >Wouldn't that technically make the category NWOTY then? > >I didn't realize the N was implied, but I'm relatively new to the process. > >--- Steve K. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:20:06 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 09:20:06 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: <3A5332C8.27DE7863@cmu.edu> Message-ID: >Aha! Associations, not etymology. Fine with me. Such associations >are part of the backbone of folk linguistics. Far be it from me to >trash any of that! dInIs (who more often remembers third and twelve, third and eigthteen, third and twenty-six, etc...; hell, I was just waiting for basketball season anyway) >Laurence Horn wrote: >> >> At 7:48 PM -0500 1/2/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>What nine yards (in football)? >> > >> >dInIs (a former blocking back) > >> Well, with inflation, it's up to ten yards (in football). > >I didn't say it made any sense, I've just always associated that phrase >with football, since I was pretty young. Third down and nine yards to >go, they got the whole nine yards, hooray! - that sort of thing. If my >six-year-old self could, he'd explain it to you :-) -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Wed Jan 3 14:35:33 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:35:33 +0100 Subject: Milk Bar (corrected) Message-ID: The Swedish word "mj�lkbar" (a place where one can get milk drinks and simple food) is attested in an article in the Svenska Dagbladet in 1930. The Dictionary of the Swedish Academy http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/saob4.shtml says the word is a loan from the English "milk bar", but gives no source. Jan Ivarsson, Sweden ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis R. Preston" To: Sent: den 3 januari 2001 14:21 Subject: Re: Milk Bar (corrected) > >Is there any chance that Milk Bar is a calque from Polish (Bar > >Mleczny)? Milk Bars ("plain food joints" - not just milk products) > >are so designated there. > > dInIs > > > Greetings from New York City. The "Milk Bar" posting was rushed (hey, I > >made my plane) and I wrote 1936 instead of 1935. Here goes again: > > > >>From OED: > >20 November 1935, FORRES GAZ--The milk bar, or place where milk drinks are > >sold, is a popular institution all over Australia and plans are on foot for > >installing them in Britain. > > > >November 1934 Melbourne telephone directory > > I didn't see "Milk Bar" in a quick check of it. > > > >>From SYDNEY MORNING HERALD index ("Milk Bar" head): > >3 August 1935, pg. 16a--Opened in Fleet-street by Hugh D. McIntosh. > >28 November 1935, pg. 12c--Mr. Hugh D. McIntosh opens a second milk bar in > >the stock exchange building (London). > > > >UPCOMING: I'll try to meet Frank Abate for lunch when I head up to CT to > >research the "grinder." > > I'll continue my nationwide yellow pages "phonebook food" series and check > >for California sushi roll (Los Angeles 1970s), Buffalo wings (Buffalo, > >1960s-1970s), chimichanga (Tucson, 1960s), hoagie (Philadelphia, 1940s), > >grinder (New London and New Haven, CT, 1950s)and more. > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > Department of Linguistics and Languages > Michigan State University > East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA > preston at pilot.msu.edu > Office: (517)353-0740 > Fax: (517)432-2736 From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 3 16:52:24 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 10:52:24 -0600 Subject: "chad" in 1952 Message-ID: One of the pleasant developments from the WSJ article on Barry Popik yesterday is an e-mail I received pertaining to "chad." The writer (Mr. Chris Jensen) remembers the word from 1952 and directs attention to the US Army's teletype machines. This jibes with the observations of Fred Shapiro to the already noticed earliest attestation (1947) from the Merriam-Webster files. Perhaps the most significant part of the e-mail is Mr. Jensen's mentioning the manufacturer of the teletype machines (approximate name; "The Teletype Corporation."). It's a lead to locating who might have introduced "chad" into teletype jargon. Here now is Mr. Jensen's Jan. 2 e-mail message, followed by material on 1947 "chad" from notes I have made in preparation for a "chad" compilation (no conclusive etymology yet). >If you are interested in the word Chad and its origin, you might >have information pre-dating this, but if not: > >I trained in the US Army's teletype school in 1952. We pre-packaged >the messages we had to send onto paper tape. When we were satisfied >with our accuracy, we sent the message by "reading" the tape through >the same machine that perforated it. > >The paper tape perforators came in two models, chad and chadless. >The chad perforators punched out the paper, leaving a hole. The >chadless perforators deliberately punched about 80% of the hole, >leaving the now-illreputed "hanging chad." Chadless was attractive >because we could edit it - patching in corrections in the form of >other chadless stretches of tape by making its hanging chad push >through the partial holes in the base document's tape. Sort of like >editing cellulose movie film, except without the glue. > >Those machines had been in the Army since shortly after World War >II, if not before. They were supplied by "The Teletype Corporation." >or some supplier like that. You might get more of a 'final' answer >from that corporation or its successor about where they learned >about the expression 'chad.' (from notes for a compilation, containing contributions of various individuals; due credit will of course be given): > 1947 (EARLIEST ATTESTATION) COMES FROM MERRIAM-WEBSTER FILES > > The earliest attestation for chad is 1947 and comes from the >files of Merriam-Webster. The following [ADS-L] Nov. 20, 2000 >message was sent by Joanne Despres (jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM): > > '...the 1947 citation for "chad" in our files reads as follows: > > "The sample tape shown in Figure 2 is of the form produced by the > typing reperforator. It is known as chadless tape because the > small discs, called chads, which are perforated to form the code > combinations are not cut completely from the tape but are > perforated only sufficiently to permit the chads to rise like small > hinged lids in response to the sensing pins of a transmitter. > > RCA Review > Radio Corp. of America Vol. 8 No. 3 > RCA Lab. Div. Sept. 1947 > > 'This same citation also provides our earliest evidence for >"chadless." Every other early source I've looked at defines >"chadless" in the same way, i.e., in terms of a tape-punching >method resulting in a lack of chads. The absence of any reference >to the name "Chadless" in these cites would seem to cast doubt >on the back-formation hypothesis posited as an explanation for >"chad." Jim Rader mentioned to me that he'd investigated this >hypothesis some time ago by checking patent records for the >name, but came up with nothing. The "perhaps" derivation in W3 >from a Scots word meaning "gravel" appeared to him to be pure >guesswork.' > > FRED SHAPIRO LOOKS AT THE ABOVE 1947 QUOTE IN CONTEXT > (Nov. 21, 2000 ADS-L message) > > For those of you who are eagerly awaiting more findings in >the Great Chad Quest, I have checked the original source of the 1947 >Merriam-Webster citation. The context does not, alas, shed any >further light on the >etymological question. The one thing I glean from examining the original >article in the RCA Review is that the milieu of this earliest known usage >is not computers, but rather radiotelegraphy. (The second oldest source, >the 1959 cite in the OED Addition Series, is also from a telegraphy >source.) > I also looked for other articles mentioning "chad" in the RCA >Review and other engineering journals from the late 1940s, but found >nothing. > >Fred Shapiro, Editor >YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS, forthcoming. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 17:00:02 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 12:00:02 EST Subject: Submarine Sandwich (January 1940) Message-ID: Greetings from the Library of Congress. Should I take time off and watch the swearing in? The Wilmington Library had a gap in the phone books, and I wanted to go back to the LOC anyway. There was nothing in the April 1939 phone book, but then again the ads and listings were double in number just a few months later. From the Wilmington, Delaware, Classified Telelphone Directory, January 1940, pg. 104, col. 2: _ARSENIOS DANIEL_ Spaghetti and Submarine Sandwiches 721 S Van Buren...Wilmgtn-2-9302 (...) De Matteis John Italian Food A Specialty Spaghetti--Ravioli--Pizza Submarine Sandwiches To Take Out 520 N Union...Wilmgtn-2-9241 From N270053 at VM.SC.EDU Wed Jan 3 16:55:24 2001 From: N270053 at VM.SC.EDU (Michael Montgomery) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 11:55:24 EST Subject: ADS meeting Message-ID: Dear Dennis I won't make it to Washington this weekend but will look forward to seing everyone a year hence in San Francisco and to conferring with you in the spring about advice on organizing the ADS program for next year. Already I have asked Patricia Cukor-Avila to think about organizing a panel on accent and employability. If it is not on the Executive Committee agenda fro Friday morning, I would like for someone to raise the matter of the society doing something to mark the life and contributions of Fred Cassidy. Perhaps there would be time to form an ad hoc committee of 2-3 people who knew him well andt to suggest a few ideas at the meeting that the committee might want to consider. A special issue of American Speech_ comes to mind as one possibility. A bonnie new year to you and Carol, Michael M From iatros at WWA.COM Wed Jan 3 18:14:51 2001 From: iatros at WWA.COM (Austin J. Gibbons) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 12:14:51 -0600 Subject: Kelsey's nuts Message-ID: Looking for the origin of the phrase "Kelesy's nuts". It is the title of a blues song. I don't know where I first heard it. Have mostly heard it used as ". . .dead as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . cold as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . flat as Kelsey's nuts" etc. Thank you -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 18:33:50 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 13:33:50 EST Subject: Word Origin Message-ID: In a message dated 1/2/2001 5:45:09 PM, kfpastore at JUNO.COM writes: << "tar-tupple" >> not tart-able? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 19:01:11 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 14:01:11 EST Subject: Tucson's Chimichangas, 1970-- Message-ID: Is Tucson the home of the chimichanga? The earliest I could find in the yellow pages was 1970. Various restaurants that later advertised "chimichanga" did not have large ads in the 1960s, unfortunately. July 1970, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 405, col. 1: _EL DORADO TAVERN_ Homemade Mexican Food--Icy Beer--Wine ALL FOOD TO GO Our Specialty--Chimichanga 1949 S 4 Av...622-9171 (NOTE: Restaurant was not listed in 1969--ed.) July 1971--same El Dorado Tavern ad. July 1972--same El Dorado Tavern ad. July 1973--larger El Dorado Tavern ad. July 1973, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 577, col. 1: _DON JUAN'S FINE MEXICAN FOOD_ SPECIALIZING CHIMICHANGA . FLAUTA 1120 A Wilmot Rd...298-9905 (NOTE: This restaurant did not have an extended ad before--ed.) July 1973, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 580, col. 2: _GUERRERO'S PLACE_ Specializing AUTHENTIC MEXICAN FOOD including FLAUTAS . CHIMICHANGAS CONE TACOS ORDERS TO GO Open 11 A.M. to 10 P.M. (Across from Randolph) 3326 E 22...325-9272 (NOTE: This restaurant also didn't have a larger ad before--ed.) July 1973, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 512, col. 3: _LERUA'S MEXICAN FOOD NO 1_ (...) Featuring Green Corn Tamales (NOTE: No chimichanga--ed.) July 1974--various chimichanga ads repeated. July 1974, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 620, col. 3: _LERUA'S FINE MEXICAN FOOD_ SERVING TUCSON SINCE 1922 GREEN CORN TAMALES CHIMICHANGAS ENCHILADAS TOSTADAS TORTILLAS TACOS CHORIZO CARNE SECA MENUDO RELLENOS 2005 E Broadway...624-0322 From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 3 19:50:33 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 14:50:33 EST Subject: nookie Message-ID: Larry Horn writes, referring to the treatment of "nooky" in HDAS: "And if anyone's wondering,"nookie/nookey/ nooky/nucky" is origin unknown." I would have supposed that it was from "nook", as in "nook and cranny", alluding to the female organ of generation. This must have been considered and rejected? GAT From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 3 19:53:28 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 14:53:28 -0500 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not grossly, exaggerated. <<<<< Yes to all those fixed phrases. I was careful to say "obsolescent", not "obsolete". Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? -- Mark From indigo at WELL.COM Wed Jan 3 20:01:11 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 12:01:11 -0800 Subject: 2K1 & hello In-Reply-To: <200101030505.VAA07576@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: snip >number, K is most often used to signify quantities of bits or bytes. >Since these critters live in a binary universe, K is a rough decimal >translation: 2^10 = 1024, not 1000. So, Y2K would be the year 2048. > >The only other example that I can think of the number K being used with >an elliptic unit is in foot racing - 5K or 10K races, where K = 1000 >(meters). snip >How about other words or letters that are used to mean 1000, like >"grand" or "G" or "large" (e.g., Y2G)? Unfortunately these 3 examples >represent both quantity and units (i.e., forty large = $40,000), so they >wouldn't work either. Hello to the list, This is my 1st posting after lurking for a while. I'm an artist & writer; my art frequently includes text or other reference to language & language structures (most currently sentence diagrams). So I'm a sort of language professional, but in a *very* different way, I'm assuming, than most folks on this list. So I ask your patience & indulgence if I inadvertently stumble over any academic conventions, &c. I am definitely here to learn & don't anticipate posting very often anyway. Anyway, as a tangent to the above post, I wonder if anybody else was using Roman numerals MM in their dates last year, eg 31/12/MM. I did it all year but never saw anybody else do it. A few store clerks expressed confusion (until I said "Roman numerals") but otherwise I never got any comment one way or the other about it. I don't think I will extend it into this year. MMI seems like a slippery slope into that Roman numeral awkwardness, which is what made me so appreciative of the simple MM in the 1st place. Indigo Som indigo at well.com Poets don't have hobbies; they have obsessions --Leonard Nathan From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 3 20:16:14 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:16:14 EST Subject: juvenile delinquent Message-ID: Tim Frazer asks: "What is the earliest citation anyone can give me of "juvenile delinquent"? I am guessing late 1940s, but I want to be on firmer ground." 1825: Meeting of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents. [held to open the House of Refuge] . . . a group of young vagrants of both sexes, was introduced by Messrs Hays, Conklin and other peace officers. Their destitute situation, being without shoes, stockings, and other necessary covering, and their vacant and squalid countenances, the combined result of poverty and ignorance, of idleness and vicious examples. . . . Commercial Advertiser, January 4, 1825, p. 2, col. 2 The House of Refuge was what is not called a "juvy", for JUVEnile detention center. When I first heard "juvy" I heard it as "judy", thinking it was for JUvenile DEtention center. Is "judy" used at all? By the way, the referent of "their", as in "their vacant and squalid countenances", &c. is the young vagrants, not the cops. GAT From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 07:53:07 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:53:07 +0800 Subject: Kelsey's nuts In-Reply-To: <002401c075b1$11aff7e0$3948ee9d@DJTBF10B> Message-ID: At 12:14 PM -0600 1/3/01, Austin J. Gibbons wrote: >Looking for the origin of the phrase "Kelesy's nuts". It is the >title of a blues song. I don't know where I first heard it. Have >mostly heard it used as ". . .dead as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . cold >as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . flat as Kelsey's nuts" etc. >Thank you There's a substantial entry in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, with cites back to 1933 and this comment on the origin: perh. orig. alluding (with pun on slang NUT 'testicle') to the permanency of welded nuts and bolts on wheels manufactured by the Kelsey Wheel Co., prominent in the U. S. automotive industry in the 1920's; see P. Tamony, "Like Kelsey's Nuts...", Forum Anglicum XIV (1985), pp. 120-33. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 3 21:04:18 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:04:18 -0600 Subject: Cranny hole. Message-ID: >Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of 'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of space in a building. This can include space under stairs or odd corners of an attic. It's not really a 'crevice' a la MW; in a house, a crevice is very small, something you clean with the vacuum cleaner's crevice tool. A cranny is larger. A nook tends to be useable space, as with breakfast nook, but I wonder if anyone else gets the feeling that 'niche' overlaps. 'Wall nook' does not sound strange; it would be an oversized niche set into the wall, often containing cabinets or shelves: the presenting side would have to be flush with the surrounding wall, I think. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 08:19:46 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:19:46 +0800 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:53 PM -0500 1/3/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Laurence Horn writes: > >>>>>> >Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our >apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady >nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". >It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer >to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not >grossly, exaggerated. ><<<<< > >Yes to all those fixed phrases. I was careful to say "obsolescent", not >"obsolete". > >Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? > I think it's fairly productive, in commercial contexts inter alia. A quick google search turns up "Santa's nook", "recipe nook", "nannies' nook", "users nook", "pumpkin nook", "kids' nook", and many "book nook"s, and the total number of hits is "about 374,000". It may be somewhat register-restricted, but endangered it's not. I agree that it's not as likely as its synonyms to appear unmodified, but even then I can imagine commenting on an out-of-the-way spot (indoor or outdoor) that I came upon with someone, "This is really a lovely nook." I'm not saying I WOULD say it, but I can IMAGINE saying it. larry From Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM Wed Jan 3 21:23:54 2001 From: Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM (Sallie Lemons) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:23:54 -0500 Subject: Cranny hole. Message-ID: In the pre-WWII building I live in (NYC), virtually all apartments have "wall nooks." They have rounded tops, mirrored backs and contain two or three shelves. Mark Odegard wrote: > >Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? > > As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a > dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of > 'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of > space in a building. This can include space under stairs or odd corners of > an attic. It's not really a 'crevice' a la MW; in a house, a crevice is very > small, something you clean with the vacuum cleaner's crevice tool. A cranny > is larger. > > A nook tends to be useable space, as with breakfast nook, but I wonder if > anyone else gets the feeling that 'niche' overlaps. 'Wall nook' does not > sound strange; it would be an oversized niche set into the wall, often > containing cabinets or shelves: the presenting side would have to be flush > with the surrounding wall, I think. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 3 22:17:29 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:17:29 -0600 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik Message-ID: Earlier today I posted an e-mail I had received Mr. Chris Jensen and commented that his mention of "The Teletype Corporation" might furnish a lead as to who introduced "chad" into telegraphy jargon. I just noticed that Barry Popik had already drawn attention to the Teletype Corporation a month ago. So Jensen's information jibes with Barry's and brings the date of Teletype usage back to 1952, while Barry had already taken the lead a step further (recommending that authors Adams and Butler be contacted). ---Gerald Cohen >Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 23:03:02 EST >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >Sender: American Dialect Society >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM >Subject: Teletype Corp. & "Chad" >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Try Teletype Corp.? > Several ads for the Teletype Corp. ran in BUSINESS AUTOMATION. >One ad, July 1961, pg. 61: "Tape Readers--Will read chadless or >fully perforated tape. (...) Teletype Corporation manufactures this >equipment for the Bell System and others who require the utmost >reliability from their data communications facilities." > Teletype Corp. was a subsidiary of Western Electric Co., Inc. >(now Lucent Technologies--or whatever). Its address was 555 Touhy >Avenue, Skokie, Illinois. I have no idea when Teletype Corp. >started, but Western Electric was around for a long while. > For further information on Teletype and "chad," perhaps someone >can get in touch with Stephen B. Adams & Orville R. Butler, authors >of MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE: A HISTORY OF WESTERN ELECTRIC >(Cambridge University Press, 1999). > >MISC. > >August 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 50. Systematics tape punch >has a "jam-proof chad disposal box." > >October 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 6, col. 1 ad for Avery Label Company: >4. Clean punched pin-feed holes--no "confetti." >5. No bent edges or "dog-ears." From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 3 23:05:16 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:05:16 -0800 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: <3A5244C3.D618C4CD@cmu.edu> Message-ID: > Behalf Of Drew Danielson > Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 1:15 PM > I would guess there was discussion about this around this time last > year, but I don't much care for the use of 2K to mean 2000. As a > number, K is most often used to signify quantities of bits or bytes. > Since these critters live in a binary universe, K is a rough decimal > translation: 2^10 = 1024, not 1000. So, Y2K would be the year 2048. > > The only other example that I can think of the number K being used with > an elliptic unit is in foot racing - 5K or 10K races, where K = 1000 > (meters). > > While both uses of K are current, the former is by far much more > common. Since "Y2K" was most often used in reference to the potential > date-related computer problems, I feel this adds more weight to the > argument that in this case K should properly be used to refer to 1024, > not 1000 (and that Y2K is a misapplication of the number K). K is common as an abbreviation for kilo (=1000) in the metric system. It is widely used in km and kg among others. While many online glossaries dedicated to computer jargon such as http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/acronyms/masterlist.html http://www.fasterimage.com/faq.htm http://www.sisnaaz.com/support/DB/glossary.html http://sislands.com/javascript/appendix/glossary.htm agree that a KB is 1024 bytes or that it is generally rounded off to 1000, others do not: http://data-direct.com/glossary.htm http://www.pcwebopaedia.com/TERM/K/KB.html The last in this list explicitly draws a line between data storage Ks (usually 1024) and data transfer rate Ks (1000). In any case, it would seem that the usage of K for 1000 (metric system) far outdates using it for 1024, which is a 20th century development to make things simple. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 3 23:24:56 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 18:24:56 -0500 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik Message-ID: Further to Gerald Cohen's below, I can report from research I did on the US Patent and Trademark Office website (a wonderful resource, btw, at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/search.html) that the name of the company is (or was) definitely the Teletype Corporation. Before the advent of faxes, email, etc., teletype machines were a very important means of long-distance communication for written data, used by all major businesses and governments worldwide, esp. after WWII. Teletype machines looked like a very large electric typewriter on a stand, and many had paper-tape recording devices along with them. Beneath the tape-punching device was a bin to catch the punched-out holes. However, punched-tape technology is much older than even teletypes. There are US patents for paper-punching devices for telegraphy dating back to the early 1920s. Some google.com searching revealed that the idea of coded paper tape goes back to the British engineer and inventor Sir Charles Wheatstone, who described the concept in 1857 as a way to record Morse code. Then Frenchman Emile Baudot (eponymous source of "baud") developed the Baudot code, a 5-bit system for encoding characters. This was used on paper tape for decades, until it was replaced by an 8-bit system in the 1960s. Then there are punch cards, which go back at least to the 1890 US Census and its Hollerith machines. The point is that people have been creating (if not saying) chad or chips for many, many years, and the search for earlier uses may take us very far back before 1947. I have not found an earlier cite as yet, but I suspect there may be good evidence from people who can access written records about telegraphy and the teletype. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 5:17 PM Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik > Earlier today I posted an e-mail I had received Mr. Chris Jensen > and commented that his mention of "The Teletype Corporation" might > furnish a lead as to who introduced "chad" into telegraphy jargon. > > I just noticed that Barry Popik had already drawn attention to the > Teletype Corporation a month ago. So Jensen's information jibes with > Barry's and brings the date of Teletype usage back to 1952, while > Barry had already taken the lead a step further (recommending that > authors Adams and Butler be contacted). > > ---Gerald Cohen > > >Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 23:03:02 EST > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society > >Sender: American Dialect Society > >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM > >Subject: Teletype Corp. & "Chad" > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > > > Try Teletype Corp.? > > Several ads for the Teletype Corp. ran in BUSINESS AUTOMATION. > >One ad, July 1961, pg. 61: "Tape Readers--Will read chadless or > >fully perforated tape. (...) Teletype Corporation manufactures this > >equipment for the Bell System and others who require the utmost > >reliability from their data communications facilities." > > Teletype Corp. was a subsidiary of Western Electric Co., Inc. > >(now Lucent Technologies--or whatever). Its address was 555 Touhy > >Avenue, Skokie, Illinois. I have no idea when Teletype Corp. > >started, but Western Electric was around for a long while. > > For further information on Teletype and "chad," perhaps someone > >can get in touch with Stephen B. Adams & Orville R. Butler, authors > >of MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE: A HISTORY OF WESTERN ELECTRIC > >(Cambridge University Press, 1999). > > > >MISC. > > > >August 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 50. Systematics tape punch > >has a "jam-proof chad disposal box." > > > >October 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 6, col. 1 ad for Avery Label Company: > >4. Clean punched pin-feed holes--no "confetti." > >5. No bent edges or "dog-ears." > From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 4 00:03:16 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 19:03:16 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: > K is common as an abbreviation for kilo (=1000) in the metric system. It is > widely used in km and kg among others. ... > In any case, it would seem that the usage of K for 1000 (metric system) far > outdates using it for 1024, which is a 20th century development to make > things simple. But K as a stand-alone "number", not coupled with a unit, is used in popular culture _almost_ exclusively in computer terminology - like "Meg" or "Gig". The only example I can think of K being used as a stand-alone value outside of computer-speak is the foot racing example I mentioned before. Are there other examples of this? From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Thu Jan 4 00:29:03 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:29:03 -0800 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: Drew Danielson wrote: But K as a stand-alone "number", not coupled with a unit, is used in popular culture _almost_ exclusively in computer terminology - like "Meg" or "Gig". The only example I can think of K being used as a stand-alone value outside of computer-speak is the foot racing example I mentioned before. Are there other examples of this? In medical-speak we talk about K calories but usually as Kcal per kilo (Kcal/Kg) though some do say K calories in writing about the "concept" as opposed to the actual measurement. Sharyn Hay storknurse From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 4 01:00:40 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 17:00:40 -0800 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. this has been around for some time - exactly how long i don't know - and has been adopted in other abbreviated written contexts, and then into speech as well ("they're offering us 250k!"). arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 02:13:12 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 21:13:12 EST Subject: Buffalo food (Beef-on-Weck, Surf-n-Turf, Buffalo Wings) Message-ID: I was looking for "Buffalo Wings" and requested 1963-1964, 1964-1965, and then 1967-1968 and others. I'll have to check the two phonebooks in between at a later date (no requests after 7:30 p.m.). 1963-1964 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, back cover. "Home Of The Famous 'REVOLVING BAR'" is in the CHez Ami ad, 311 Delaware Avenue. 1963-1964 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES. Pg. 438, col. 3--Art's Lounge has "ROAST BEEF ON KUMMELWECK." (See Lynne Murphy's posting on Kimmelweck in old ADS-L archives--ed.) Pg. 438, col. 4--Bordeaux's Grill has "ROAST BEEF ON KUMMELWECK." Pg. 443, col. 3--Ad for the Surf 'n Sirloin restaurant, 2443 Niagara Falls Blvd. Pg. 445, col. 2--Rusty's Grille has "Roast Beef Kummelweck." Pg. 447, col. 3--Blue Eagle Cafe has "Roast Beef Kummelweck." 1964-1965 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 455, col. 1: _SANTA LUCIA'S RESTRNT_ (...) BOMBER SANDWICHES (...) 2447 Niagara Falls Blvd. 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 483, col. 3. ANCHOR BAR ad states "Barbequed Chicken Wings." 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 483, cols. 2-3: _Syracuse Restaurant_ OUR SPECIALTY "TURF & SURF DINNERS" (...) 4346 Bailey Av. 835-5060 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 487, col. 3: SCHUPER HOUSE BIG "BEEF-ON-WECK" ALWAYS (...) 1802 NIAGARA ST. 877-9287 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 489, col. 4: _MICHAEL'S HOUSE OF STEAKS_ SUPERB STEAKS--LOBSTER--CHICKEN SURF 'N' TURF (Cor Niagara & Prospect) 949 Prospect Av...886-8929 From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 4 01:50:11 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 20:50:11 -0500 Subject: Cranny hole. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? > >As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a >dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of >'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of >space in a building. This can include space under stairs In England at least a space under the stairs could also be called a "glory-hole" rather than "cranny hole". Tony Glaser From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 4 02:55:33 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 18:55:33 -0800 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: <200101040100.RAA28770@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Along with this is income. It's pretty common to say (or even write on a job application/resume): $50K. (Although this generally falls outside of the US) what do metric users say for kilograms? I weigh 60 kilos or 60 Ks? Benjamin Barrett > -----Original Message----- > Of Arnold Zwicky > > many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures > (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the > corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Thu Jan 4 02:58:46 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 18:58:46 -0800 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And, MST3K = Mystery Science Theater 3000. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Benjamin Barrett wrote: > Along with this is income. It's pretty common to say (or even write on a job > application/resume): $50K. (Although this generally falls outside of the US) > what do metric users say for kilograms? I weigh 60 kilos or 60 Ks? > > Benjamin Barrett > > > -----Original Message----- > > Of Arnold Zwicky > > > > many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures > > (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the > > corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:02:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 22:02:58 +0800 Subject: Cranny hole. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:50 PM -0500 1/3/01, Tony Glaser wrote: >>>Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? >> >>As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a >>dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of >>'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of >>space in a building. This can include space under stairs > >In England at least a space under the stairs could also be called a >"glory-hole" rather than "cranny hole". > One wouldn't want to try using that variant with that meaning in the U.S. The term is already taken for a more...technical meaning. (Check on google.com if you want a handle on the denotation.) larry From lynneguist at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 4 04:32:07 2001 From: lynneguist at HOTMAIL.COM (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 04:32:07 -0000 Subject: Buffalo food (Beef-on-Weck, Surf-n-Turf, Buffalo Wings) Message-ID: >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM >1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 483, col. 3. >ANCHOR BAR ad states "Barbequed Chicken Wings." Anchor Bar is the 'original' Buffalo wings place--all other wings are supposedly judged against the Anchor Bar's. But I'd suspect that they weren't called 'Buffalo wings' until people outside Buffalo started making them. I didn't first eat them until 1979 in Niagara Falls, but they were well established in the area by this time--although only served in locally owned places, not in every bar/restaurant in town. But I recall us calling them "Buffalo chicken wings" and the shortening to "Buffalo wings" coming slightly later. Lynne, corresponding this week from western NY, where I've had my fill of wings and beef on weck (and just plain beef, beef, beef so long as it's safe to eat it) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 07:54:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 02:54:21 EST Subject: Hoggies (Philadelphia, October 1945); Submarine (Baltimore, 1941) Message-ID: Greetings from NYC and a few hours of Amtrak sleep. The Library of Congress was very frustrating. Some phone books were microfilmed, and some were in the original in the local history/genealogy division. But you don't know what is where, or if it's anywhere. I couldn't get Boston, Mass., phonebooks at all. I couldn't get New London, CT, and New Haven, CT, phonebooks at all. I went through Baltimore phonebooks to check for "submarine." I also went through Philly phonebooks in 1949 and 1953 and found a heaven of hoggies (usually that spelling). I then requested 1939-1945. I was brought 1939 & 1945. "Sandwiches" are there in 1939 and "hoggie" is there in 1945. When I went to request 1940-1944 again, I was told it's past 7:30 p.m. to make requests. Whatever. Here goes: October 1945, PHILADELPHIA YELLOW PAGES Pg. 754, col. 1: Bertha's Oyster House Spaghetti--Delicious Hoggie Sandwiches 3828 Eastwick av...BELgrde-1777 pg. 755, col. 1: _CAPPY'S STEAK & HOGGIE SHOP_ Delicious Hoggie And Steak Sandwiches Bet 18th And 19th Passyunk 2152 S Dorrance...DEWey-9313 Pg. 756, col. 1 (large ad): DE PALMA's RESTAURANT AL DE PALMA The Original Hoggie Man Hoggies 37 KINDS OF SANDWICHES orders made up to go out... OPEN ALL NITE 5142 MARKET ST. CALL GRAnite 5702 Pg. 760, col. 3: Jen's Hoggie Shop 1527 Jackson...FULton-4461 Pg. 762, col. 3: _MARY'S HOGGIE SHOPPE_ 1258 S 20 FULton-1353 Pg. 762, col. 4: Neff's Hogies 5515 Woodlnd av. ...SARatga-2363 Pg. 763, col. 2: _PEARLINGI JAS_ Hoggie's--Steaks--Sodas--Ice Cream 6216 Lansdowne av...GREnwd-9924 Pg. 764, col. 4: _STONEHURST SANDWICH SHOP_ _SO. WEST PHILA._ _Stonehurst Sandwich Shops_ Submarine (Hogies) & Other Tasty Sandwiches to Take Out 438 Long Lane Upper Darby...Madison-6303 7016 Elmwood Av...SARatga-4155 Pg. 765, col. 1: _TONY'S HOGIE SHOP_ _TONY'S HOGIE SHOP_ ANTHONY ZENONE, Prop. Specializing in Real Italian Hogies Exclusively SERVING CLUBS--MEETINGS SOCIAL FUNCTIONS LUNCHES TO TAKE OUT 6709 Woodland Av. 6214 Woodland Av. 6709 Woodland Av...BELgrde-4362 -------------------------------------------------------- This store wasn't even in the previous phonebook before this, so what are we to make of this ad? Winter/Spring 1941, BALTIMORE (MD) CLASSIFIED TELEPHONE DIRECTORY, pg. 326, col. 2: _ABRUZZESE AL_ Originator of Steak Sandwich on Italian Roll STEAK SANDWICH KING Submarine Sandwiches Catering to Parties, Picnics and Banquets OPEN 24 HOURS DAILY 803 E Baltimore...CAlvert-6742 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 11:21:47 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 06:21:47 EST Subject: Broadcaster Marty Glickman dies at age 83 Message-ID: Sports broadcaster Marty Glickman, 83, has died. See the following stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/04/sports/04GLIC.html http://www.nypost.com/sports/20455htm The New York Times story mentions Glickman and the word "swish!" in basketball. See the ADS-L archives (1998?), where I discussed Marty Glickman's words & phrases in detail. The New York Post story has: "The fellow who, as the original voice of the Knicks, had coined the expression 'key' (as in keyhole as in 'top of the key')..." From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 4 16:19:26 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:19:26 -0500 Subject: MM (was: 2K1 & hello) Message-ID: Indigo Som writes: >>>>> Anyway, as a tangent to the above post, I wonder if anybody else was using Roman numerals MM in their dates last year, eg 31/12/MM. I did it all year but never saw anybody else do it. A few store clerks expressed confusion (until I said "Roman numerals") but otherwise I never got any comment one way or the other about it. <<<<< I had a special interest in last year's Roman designation, since MM is also my initials. I write a lot of songs and often post them to lists or a newsgroup (rec.music.filk) or my web site ( http://world.std.com/~mam/filks/), and on some of them I put the copyright notice like this: Copyright MM MM Though I didn't use that formulation with it, this song, written just after last New Year's Eve, is appropriate to the topic. ("Ttto" is standard in this subculture for "to the tune of".) =================================== As I write this (in the year 2000), we are very close to the end of the second millennium of the Gregorian Era. Some folks believe we're already out of it and into the third. Regardless, we can all agree that the fun on New Year's Eve lies in watching the digits turn over on the odometer, and in that spirit I offer An Odometer Toast. (Chosen Best Humorous Song in the "Looking Forward, Looking Back" theme contest at Conterpoint Three.) An Odometer Toast (For New Year's Eve 2000) Mark A. Mandel, copyright 2000 ttto "The Marines' Hymn" ("From the halls of Montezuma...") From the day that each of us was born To the shores of Triple-Oh We have never known quite where we were Or just which way to go. As we stagger on from year to year At our ragged, stumbling pace Let us raise a glass and drink the health Of the struggling human race. Here's to those who make and move the stuff That keeps us all alive And to those whose charge is all our good That the common weal may thrive And to every woman, man, and child Born of Eve and Adam's line: May we all be doing twice as well In twenty-ninety-nine! =================================== And a very happy New Year, Decade, Century, and Millennium to one and all! -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 4 16:29:51 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:29:51 -0500 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad" Message-ID: Frank Abate writes: >>>>> Then there are punch cards, which go back at least to the 1890 US Census and its Hollerith machines. The point is that people have been creating (if not saying) chad or chips for many, many years, and the search for earlier uses may take us very far back before 1947. I have not found an earlier cite as yet, but I suspect there may be good evidence from people who can access written records about telegraphy and the teletype. <<<<< The Jacquard loom (1804*) used punched cards to define the patterns to be woven. It is regarded as an important influence on Babbage and Hollerith.** That may not be directly relevant to the etymology of "chad", but it sure looks like a hell of an antedate for punched cards! * http://dept.kent.edu/museum/anne/KSUM/paisley/Jac.html ** http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~ped/teachadmin/histsci/htmlform/lect4.html Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 4 16:58:56 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:58:56 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures > (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the > corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. In these cases, the unit is not elliptical - the convention is to include the unit symbol, "$", as in $50K. > this has been around for some time - exactly how long i don't > know - and has been adopted in other abbreviated written contexts, > and then into speech as well ("they're offering us 250k!"). Point taken. From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Thu Jan 4 17:06:08 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 18:06:08 +0100 Subject: MM (was: 2K1 & hello) Message-ID: It is common in media-buying to use M for thousands, as in CPM "cost per thousand." From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Thu Jan 4 17:10:15 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:10:15 -0600 Subject: netizen Message-ID: What is the second part of 'netizen' formed from? 'citizen' or 'denizen'? Bob Wachal From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 4 17:24:13 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 09:24:13 -0800 Subject: MM (was: 2K1 & hello) Message-ID: grant barrett: >It is common in media-buying to use M for thousands, as in CPM "cost >per thousand." ah, another lesson about the importance of context, given the use of "ppm" to mean 'parts per million'. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Thu Jan 4 18:10:00 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 13:10:00 -0500 Subject: 2K stuff Message-ID: View from the non-professional hinterland. I like 2K, since it gives us a handy moniker for the whole first decade of this century: 2KO's. A. Murie From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 4 18:19:20 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 13:19:20 -0500 Subject: netizen Message-ID: "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > > What is the second part of 'netizen' formed from? 'citizen' or 'denizen'? According to http://www.netizen.com.au/ n. a resident or inhabitant of the net. [from net (abbrev. Internet) and citizen (OE citisein, OF citeain)] From Amcolph at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 21:45:40 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 16:45:40 EST Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad" Message-ID: So "chad" may actually be a French word? From ttm2 at USWEST.NET Thu Jan 4 22:58:27 2001 From: ttm2 at USWEST.NET (Tymkovich) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 15:58:27 -0700 Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: Does anyone know when the word "jock" first was used to describe a person skilled in sports? Specifically, was it in use in the 1910-1930 era? Thank you, Sue Lyon From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 5 00:14:37 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 19:14:37 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <000501c076a1$e09ef560$e555e43f@uswest.net> Message-ID: yOn Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Tymkovich wrote: > Does anyone know when the word "jock" first was used to describe a person > skilled in sports? Specifically, was it in use in the 1910-1930 era? No, I don't think so. I believe that "preppie," "jock" and "wonk" all originated as part of a tripartite division of Harvard students in the 1950s, perhaps a little earlier. The earliest citation I have found for "jock" is from the Harvard Crimson, 21 Feb. 1958; I contributed this to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which printed it as their first use. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 01:17:38 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 20:17:38 EST Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: It seems to me that "jock" derives from "jockey strap", "jockey" being the trade name of a company which manufacters athletic supporters. No date, must be early 20th. Ray Ott From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Fri Jan 5 04:52:41 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 23:52:41 -0500 Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: Having heard 'jock' used in reference to a brutish person, not necessarily an athlete, I would like to know of a stronger connection to [jock = athlete]. As an 'arm chair researcher', I looked to see what I could find in the U. of Michigan MOA database. ================== ================== The brutish context may be hinted at in a reference to "Jock the teamster" at: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000001%2F0041plai%2Fv0000%2Fi000&tif=00560056.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DAFY0696 Supposedly the quote is from Emerson, and may have been familiar to those at Harvard. Per the quote, Jock was a wearer of iron shoes. The quote appears on p. 52 of Plain words to young men, by Augustus Woodbury, in 1858. ==================== At: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000036%2F0750teny%2Fv0000%2Fi000&tif=02350217.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DAEC9697 "k'jock" is noted as a come-along call to a horse. It appears as though k'jock is representative of a sound, rather than a word, per se. The phrase is from Ten years among the mail bags..., by James Holbrook, 1855, on p. 217. ====================== In other references in the U. of Michigan MOA database, there are at least two uses of jock as a name in Scotland. One source notes that Jack = Jock (Scottish). ====================== In The Primevel Man's Pastoral, the first line reads: My grandfather Jock was an ape. The poem is presented in Buffalo land...., by William Edward Webb, 1872, p. 349. ===================== Jock the woodsman is noted in Ceadmon the Cow-Herd, by Aubrey de Vere, in Feb 1878, published in Catholic world, 26, issue 155, on p. 579. At: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000072%2F1429cath%2Fv0026%2Fi155&tif=05830579.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DBAC8387-1429CATH-60 ====================== One source uses jock in an apparent reference to jockey. ======================= Again, merely some skepticism as to the Jockey shorts ==> jock derivation. I've been wrong before, and might be with the suggestion that brute = jock. But, with the supposed relationship from the Harvard 1950s usage, we're talking about a time when professional athletes often had off-season jobs that were less than genteel. Perhaps there was a difference in the use of jock for college athletes, vs. professional athletes? George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 5 08:50:00 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 00:50:00 -0800 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >British imposed sumptuary laws limited scottish highlanders to no more than >nine yards of tartan cloth each. If they had as much as they were allowed, >they had "the whole nine yards". This strip of home woven cloth was then >folded in a certain way, wrapped around and secured with a waist belt to >form both the kilt and the "over-the-shoulder" part of the outfit: a belted >plaid. I've heard that theory, too, but it also isn't true. The "great plaid" was at most 3-4 yards. One puts one's wide belt on the floor, centers the cloth on it, and pleats the whole thing until the belt is visible on either side. You lie down on the pleated fabric so that the belt is at your waist and then close the belt around you. This then creates a pleated, skirt-like bottom (i.e., the kilt) and a looser top portion which can then be used as carrier/blanket/cloak/etc. Rima From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 5 08:50:00 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 00:50:00 -0800 Subject: juvenile delinquent In-Reply-To: <1273449310E@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >The House of Refuge was what is not called a "juvy", for JUVEnile >detention center. When I first heard "juvy" I heard it as "judy", >thinking it was for JUvenile DEtention center. Is "judy" used at >all? In California (as far as I know) it isn't Juvenile Detention Center, it's Juvenile Hall - and referred to as "juvie." Rima From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 5 14:14:31 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:14:31 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <27.fa26e4e.27867ab2@aol.com> Message-ID: >It seems to me that "jock" derives from "jockey strap", "jockey" being the >trade name of a company which manufacters athletic supporters. No date, must >be early 20th. I agree in part: "jock" = "athlete" < "jock" = "jockstrap" = "athletic supporter". This transference occurred by the 1950's but I suppose it could be older. But "jockstrap" probably < "jock" = "penis", and "jockstrap" is old -- MW says 1886. "Jockey" as an underwear brand dates from 1934, I think (from a casual glance at the USPTO database). -- Doug Wilson From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 14:17:41 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:17:41 EST Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: Humbug! The American usage of "jock" has a definite association with an article of apparel called the athletic supporter or "jockstrap". Ray Ott From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 14:26:00 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:26:00 EST Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Exactly right. Mind you, I only put forward the explanation for this derivation of the term "the whole nine yards" as a possibility. In fact, however, the plaid was a strip of cloth about nine yards long, cut and sewed together to make a wider piece than could be produced on a typical highlander's home loom. Ray Ott From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 5 14:34:59 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:34:59 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:50 AM 1/5/01 -0800, you wrote: >>British imposed sumptuary laws limited scottish highlanders to no more than >>nine yards of tartan cloth each. ... > >I've heard that theory, too, but .... But nine yards is a standard length for an Indian sari, I believe (which is not to say that all or most saris are of this length). I can provide references old and new if anyone is interested, but I doubt that the origin of the phrase has anything to do with plaids or saris. A favorite etymology involves the length of an ammunition belt, and it is commonly thought that the expression has a military origin. I can't say that the ammunition-belt theory is unbelievable, but has it been substantiated? Certainly "Give him the whole nine yards [of ammo]" sounds good -- maybe too good. I have another (very speculative) proposal, probably put forth by someone else somewhere already -- very possibly originally military, but a little rude .... If there's any interest, I can expatiate. -- Doug Wilson From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Fri Jan 5 15:15:55 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 16:15:55 +0100 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik Message-ID: It might be paying to look also at another American firm, Morkrum-Kleinschmidt, producing equipment of the same type as Teletype's. Jan Ivarsson Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-272 31 SIMRISHAMN Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st Tel. +46 414 10620 Fax +46 414 13633 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Abate" To: Sent: den 4 januari 2001 00:24 Subject: Re: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik > Further to Gerald Cohen's below, I can report from research I did on the US > Patent and Trademark Office website (a wonderful resource, btw, at: > http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/search.html) that the name of the company is > (or was) definitely the Teletype Corporation. Before the advent of faxes, > email, etc., teletype machines were a very important means of long-distance > communication for written data, used by all major businesses and governments > worldwide, esp. after WWII. Teletype machines looked like a very large > electric typewriter on a stand, and many had paper-tape recording devices > along with them. Beneath the tape-punching device was a bin to catch the > punched-out holes. > > However, punched-tape technology is much older than even teletypes. There > are US patents for paper-punching devices for telegraphy dating back to the > early 1920s. Some google.com searching revealed that the idea of coded > paper tape goes back to the British engineer and inventor Sir Charles > Wheatstone, who described the concept in 1857 as a way to record Morse code. > Then Frenchman Emile Baudot (eponymous source of "baud") developed the > Baudot code, a 5-bit system for encoding characters. This was used on paper > tape for decades, until it was replaced by an 8-bit system in the 1960s. > > Then there are punch cards, which go back at least to the 1890 US Census and > its Hollerith machines. > > The point is that people have been creating (if not saying) chad or chips > for many, many years, and the search for earlier uses may take us very far > back before 1947. I have not found an earlier cite as yet, but I suspect > there may be good evidence from people who can access written records about > telegraphy and the teletype. > > Frank Abate > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Gerald Cohen" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 5:17 PM > Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik > > > > Earlier today I posted an e-mail I had received Mr. Chris Jensen > > and commented that his mention of "The Teletype Corporation" might > > furnish a lead as to who introduced "chad" into telegraphy jargon. > > > > I just noticed that Barry Popik had already drawn attention to the > > Teletype Corporation a month ago. So Jensen's information jibes with > > Barry's and brings the date of Teletype usage back to 1952, while > > Barry had already taken the lead a step further (recommending that > > authors Adams and Butler be contacted). > > > > ---Gerald Cohen > > > > >Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 23:03:02 EST > > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society > > >Sender: American Dialect Society > > >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM > > >Subject: Teletype Corp. & "Chad" > > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > > > > > Try Teletype Corp.? > > > Several ads for the Teletype Corp. ran in BUSINESS AUTOMATION. > > >One ad, July 1961, pg. 61: "Tape Readers--Will read chadless or > > >fully perforated tape. (...) Teletype Corporation manufactures this > > >equipment for the Bell System and others who require the utmost > > >reliability from their data communications facilities." > > > Teletype Corp. was a subsidiary of Western Electric Co., Inc. > > >(now Lucent Technologies--or whatever). Its address was 555 Touhy > > >Avenue, Skokie, Illinois. I have no idea when Teletype Corp. > > >started, but Western Electric was around for a long while. > > > For further information on Teletype and "chad," perhaps someone > > >can get in touch with Stephen B. Adams & Orville R. Butler, authors > > >of MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE: A HISTORY OF WESTERN ELECTRIC > > >(Cambridge University Press, 1999). > > > > > >MISC. > > > > > >August 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 50. Systematics tape punch > > >has a "jam-proof chad disposal box." > > > > > >October 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 6, col. 1 ad for Avery Label > Company: > > >4. Clean punched pin-feed holes--no "confetti." > > >5. No bent edges or "dog-ears." > > From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 15:23:25 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 10:23:25 EST Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Would have to be a belt of machine gun ammo, which would put it at late 19thcc at the earliest. As regards the other possible explanation, for shame, sir! That you would let mere fear of rudeness stand in the way of Science! Ray Ott From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Fri Jan 5 14:14:08 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 14:14:08 -0000 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: WHY DO YOU KEEP SENDING MAIL TO OUR ADDRESS??????? post at saunders_honda.co.uk PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SENDING ANYMORE Cara Hughes Saunders Honda United Kingdom -----Original Message----- From: Drew Danielson To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: 04 January 2001 16:59 Subject: Re: 2K1 >Arnold Zwicky wrote: >> >> many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures >> (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the >> corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. > >In these cases, the unit is not elliptical - the convention is to >include the unit symbol, "$", as in $50K. > >> this has been around for some time - exactly how long i don't >> know - and has been adopted in other abbreviated written contexts, >> and then into speech as well ("they're offering us 250k!"). > >Point taken. > From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 5 19:26:28 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 11:26:28 -0800 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <3A555319.DC1D872B@ark.ship.edu> Message-ID: I remember working on our high-school yearbook in about '58, when we managed to sneak past the faculty censor this racy little addition to the common "Best of..." category that is a staple of HS yearbooks: Best athletic supporter: Jacques Strappe The connection to _jock_ 'athlete' isn't manifest here, I'll admit, but at least the word has entered the human sphere as someone who supports athletics. I'm not absolutely certain, but it seems to me that at that time we did use _jock_ to mean 'athlete.' This was in northern Illinois. Peter R. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 5 19:54:48 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 11:54:48 -0800 Subject: milch cow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Peter McGraw and I were wondering the other day about the pronunciation of _milch cow_--that is of the _milch_ part. The DARE gives milks. Having seen it in print before hearing it, I always assumed the ch was an affricate: Miltsch. Then I heard it as Miltsch, but I can't attest to the authority of the speaker. I'd like to say it was from my grandmother, who was from Scranton, PA and had all sorts of PaGerman words floating about, but I can't. Does anyone out there have an affricate hook to hang this on? Or does anyone who wants to talk about a cow that's giving milk just say "milk cow" ? Peter R. From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Fri Jan 5 20:21:16 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 15:21:16 -0500 Subject: milch cow Message-ID: Relatives of mine, with large dairy farms, and those with small farms for that matter, speak of a 'milk cow'. I've never asked them to write down the word, but they pronounce the word much as they would in reference to a glass of milk. Speakers are from both Delaware and Northeast Maryland. Milking cows is the phrase for a group of milk cows. I don't know why; of course, I've never understood the in-print use of milch cow either. Perhaps 'milking cows' is the phrase to use for those cows giving milk that can be (or is) sold to a dairy co-op? Sort of a balance sheet term, in reference to the asset base of a farm. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Fri Jan 5 20:42:43 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 14:42:43 -0600 Subject: milch cow Message-ID: Winburne's _Dictionary of Agricultural and Allied Terminology_ (1962) defines "Milk cow" as: "A cow bred and used for milk production, in contrast to one bred for beef production. Also called _milch cow_." "Milking cow" is "a cow in milk; a lactating cow. Also called _milch cow_." However, under "milch," it says only "See _milk cow_." FWIW, "dairy cow" is defined as "a milk-producing cow which shows predominant characteristics of one of the dairy breeds." Elizabeth Gregory Agricultural Communications Texas A&M University e-gregory at tamu.edu From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 6 03:35:10 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 21:35:10 -0600 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: I have come across a term "yeloting," which is apparently not listed in the dictionaries. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems to refer to running of some sort. It appears in a baseball article in the _San Francisco Bulletin_, May 2, 1913, p.20, col. 5; 'Williams Is Puzzle To Seals' "Cac" [Henley] Easy For Wolves': 'Cac Henley's Oakland luck, or whatever you want to call it, deserted him yesterday, and Wolverton's bunch [the Sacramento Wolves] came to the fore for the second time in two days. The score was 4 to 0. Honolulu John Williams held the local boys practically helpless, allowing them only three hits,... On the other hand Henley was touched up for nine safeties, all of a nature to send the Wolves yeloting along on the road toward victory.' ---Gerald Cohen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Jan 6 04:43:10 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 22:43:10 -0600 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: It occurs to me that if one could find a copy of the layout of the Linotype keyboard (different from Qwerty!), this query, or ones like it, might resolve themselves as a 'typo'. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Sat Jan 6 11:29:58 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 12:29:58 +0100 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: Strangely enough, there seems to be no "map" of the Linotype 90-key keyboard available on the Internet. There is a photo, though, at http://typewriter.rydia.net/linotype.JPG but not very clear, at least not on my screen. But the first two vertical lines at least can be completed: the well-known mysterious words ETAOIN SHDRLU used by typographers to fill out lines by running their fingers down the rows. I hope someone can find a keyboard map and put it out on the Net - I am certain that it could help in many cases, if not in this. Jan Ivarsson Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-272 31 SIMRISHAMN Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st Tel. +46 414 10620 Fax +46 414 13633 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Odegard" To: Sent: den 6 januari 2001 05:43 Subject: Re: "yeloting" query > It occurs to me that if one could find a copy of the layout of the Linotype > keyboard (different from Qwerty!), this query, or ones like it, might > resolve themselves as a 'typo'. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 11:53:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 06:53:22 EST Subject: Frederic Cassidy remembered in NY Times Magazine Message-ID: The New York Times Magazine theme issue this week (Sunday, January 7th) is about people who passed away in the year 2000. See the article about Frederic Cassidy at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20010107mag-cassidy.html The article is written by Lorrie Moore, "the author, most recently, of 'Birds of America,' a collection of stories." Lorrie Moore attended the University of Wisconsin, but states that while Cassidy "was a colleague of mine, I didn't really know him." Yeesh. So why is she writing this rather than your average DARE fieldworker and ADS member? Why doesn't some like Donald Lance write this? Because Lorrie Moore is "an approved Times writer" and Lance is not? -------------------------------------------------------- SAFIRE WATCH (continued) One mild reservation about my Wall Street Journal article is that I "pestered" people about "the Big Apple." I "pestered" people to do their jobs. I wanted to find living witnesses. William Safire and the New York Times went out of their way not to help me. I've been "pestering" Safire for three months now to correct errors in his column--errors that involve my words. No one will speak to me. Obviously, nothing has changed for me, or will change. William Safire's column this week is another winner. It mentions "don't sweat the small stuff." I discussed that phrase right here on ADS-L. But you'd never know that, would you? From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 6 13:03:43 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 08:03:43 -0500 Subject: "yeloting" query In-Reply-To: <003c01c077d4$0a3e48c0$5aa7b2c3@janivars> Message-ID: Linotype keyboard seems to be (right side): E S C V X T H M B Z A R F G O D W K I L Y Q N U P J On the left are the lower-case letters with the same arrangement. In the middle, I suppose, other characters. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 6 16:01:37 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 11:01:37 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I did a little Web-surching. My casual effort probably doesn't merit the term "research", and my computer/desk chair has only short arms, so instead of "armchair research" we can call it a "short-arm inspection". Numerous Web pages refer to "nine yards"; most of them refer to the phrase in question; but in the older material at Making of America, "whole nine yards" presumably didn't exist yet. Several MoA items tend to suggest that nine yards was considered ample fabric for a woman's dress; perhaps it was a conventional quantity. I found mention of the procurement of nine yards for a dress; I also found an instance of a woman's purchase of eight yards for a dress (maybe a petite woman, or a summer dress). If one searches the Cornell MoA site (http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/index.html) for the phrase "nine yards to the dollar", one finds a humorous passage from 1870 which I take to imply that this phrase was taken from an advertisement -- I speculate that the idea was that a woman (or man?) could be clothed for one dollar [at somebody's store or whatever]. I highly recommend perusal of this item, which also has some classical scholarship of a high order. (^_^) There are also references to specifically nine yards of cloth apparently used in a sari, in a drapery for a (Christian) cross, in a sort of napkin used by Moslems, etc. I had never (until my current inspection) heard of any of these things. I'd also never heard of the nine yards of cement, ammunition, etc., etc., which are cited in speculative etymology of the phrase in question. And I don't find mention of any of these except in connection with "the WHOLE nine yards". Chapman's dictionary gives the phrase origin as 1960's military, and I don't see anyone explicitly disputing this. This might favor the "ammo-belt" theory, IF there really was a "nine-yard" conventional belt ... it seems to me that the length need not have been exactly nine yards; it would suffice that it was conventionally referred to as "nine yards". However, I found one "nine-yard" conventionalism which I have actually heard in my life (and which therefore I speculate some 1960's military joker might have heard too): "nine yards" is sometimes given as the length of the human intestine (or alimentary canal). I found this in MoA (Michigan) and elsewhere. (Note that I do not assert that this is an accurate or precise measurement or that it's used by gastroenterologists or anatomists: it's not, AFAIK. It's only a conventional expression used by laymen.) My rude speculation develops as follows. The "ammo-belt" proponents would (I guess) favor a phrase origin like: "I got that Zero in my sights, and I gave him the whole nine yards!" Not entirely unbelievable, but that's WW II, not the 1960's. A possible (still military) development for the 1960's: "Did the sergeant complain about the sorry state of your weapon at inspection?" "Yeah, he gave me the whole nine yards!" (with the ammo-belt metaphor). But suppose it was like this: "Did the sergeant give you any shit about your weapon?" "Yeah, he gave me the whole nine yards!" Nine yards of intestinal contents, or "all the shit"/"as much shit as possible." The expression is very portable ("Wow, look at all this shit!" "Yep, they ordered the whole nine yards."). Just one more item to add to the long list ... if someone else hasn't presented the speculation already. -- Doug Wilson From Heaberlin at SWT.EDU Sat Jan 6 15:50:44 2001 From: Heaberlin at SWT.EDU (Dick Heaberlin) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 09:50:44 -0600 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: Isn't this a coinage by the writer to replace "howling" with something that sounds like the howling. Dick Heaberlin Southwest Texas State University Gerald Cohen wrote: > I have come across a term "yeloting," which is apparently not listed > in the dictionaries. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems to refer to > running of some sort. It appears in a baseball article in the _San > Francisco Bulletin_, May 2, 1913, p.20, col. 5; 'Williams Is Puzzle To > Seals' "Cac" [Henley] Easy For Wolves': 'Cac Henley's Oakland luck, > or whatever you want to call it, deserted him yesterday, and > Wolverton's bunch [the Sacramento Wolves] came to the fore for the > second time in two days. The score was 4 to 0. Honolulu John Williams > held the local boys practically helpless, allowing them only three > hits,... On the other hand Henley was touched up for nine safeties, > all of a nature to send the Wolves yeloting along on the road toward > victory.' ---Gerald Cohen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Sat Jan 6 16:36:53 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 08:36:53 -0800 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: Gerald Cohen wrote: I have come across a term "yeloting," which is apparently not listed in the dictionaries. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems to refer to running of some sort. It appears in a baseball article in the _San Francisco Bulletin_, May 2, 1913, p.20, col. 5; 'Williams Is Puzzle To Seals' "Cac" [Henley] Easy For Wolves': On the other hand Henley was touched up for nine safeties, all of a nature to send the Wolves yeloting along on the road toward victory. " Wolves and coyotes are known for their "yodeling" calls. Could that be the answer? Sharyn Hay, storknurse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 6 17:30:13 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 11:30:13 -0600 Subject: chad--background info from C. Jensen Message-ID: Several days ago I posted a message from Mr. Chris Jensen about his hearing the term "chad" in 1952 when training in the US Army's teletype school. On Jan. 4 I received another message from him with some interesting background information and will now present excerpts (beneath my signature). ---Gerald Cohen >(...) I later worked for IBM, selling punch-card processing systems. >The current press attributes the word to the punch-card culture that >resides in ballots and voting machines. Interestingly, at no time in >my 24-year IBM career did I hear anyone use the word "chad." We >always used 'chip' and 'chips.' The piece of any machine that >collected the chips was called the "chip box." That was both common >usage and the name of the box in manuals, parts lists, etc. > >Rectangular punch-card chips collected in chip boxes until the box >was manually dumped. Users were cautioned to be careful with chips >because they could injure an eye if lodged there. That admonishment >was directed to those who would playfully dump the contents of the >chip box on another person as though it were confetti. Chips with >their pointed corners were potentially hazardous, while I've never >heard the same of confetti. > >My vocational path diverged from that of the people in IBM who sold >and support voting machine systems and I didn't have reason or >opportunity to keep up with that segment of the business. Possibly >they got to know the word 'chad' as defining chips from ballots. If >so, I don't know why they adopted that usage. > >In the Army we carefully disposed of the chad from perforators so as >to not leave anything behind a moving field unit that could identify >that unit's purpose or equipment. Chadless perforators didn't leave >chad. In either case, we had to manage the disposition of the >perforated tape in equal fashion. (...) > T -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 6 17:57:08 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 12:57:08 -0500 Subject: Fw: chad--background info from C. Jensen Message-ID: chad--background info from C. JensenMore on "chip(s)", following up on G Cohen's quote of Jensen below. The inventor who testified in the Bush v. Gore Florida trial about voting machines (I forget his name) made a point of saying that he called the waste matter "chips", not "chads". He was in the industry, and clearly very familiar with punch cards and their use. His invention of those voting machines dates back to the 1970s at least -- I came across one of his patents in searching the US patent site. This and what Jensen says below suggests that in the IBM-centered punch-card community, "chips" was the word for the waste from the cards. Given the possible origin of "chad" from a Scottish dialect word, and the fact that no one (despite much searching) has found an earlier US cite of "chad" than 1947, I have thought that the origin might be from the UK, transferred to US speakers during WWII, perhaps via contacts in the military or intelligence communities, where teletype and paper tapes were in regular use. I did some searching of patents on the UK govt site (in the UK, patents are handled by a sub-department of the Dept of Trade and Industry), but have found nothing earlier yet. That site, btw, is pretty good -- not as easy to use as the USPTO, but it does search patents worldwide, including European, Japanese, and US patents, and searchable by language. I expect someone will find "the missing chad" at some point. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: Gerald Cohen To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 12:30 PM Subject: chad--background info from C. Jensen Several days ago I posted a message from Mr. Chris Jensen about his hearing the term "chad" in 1952 when training in the US Army's teletype school. On Jan. 4 I received another message from him with some interesting background information and will now present excerpts (beneath my signature). ---Gerald Cohen (...) I later worked for IBM, selling punch-card processing systems. The current press attributes the word to the punch-card culture that resides in ballots and voting machines. Interestingly, at no time in my 24-year IBM career did I hear anyone use the word "chad." We always used 'chip' and 'chips.' The piece of any machine that collected the chips was called the "chip box." That was both common usage and the name of the box in manuals, parts lists, etc. Rectangular punch-card chips collected in chip boxes until the box was manually dumped. Users were cautioned to be careful with chips because they could injure an eye if lodged there. That admonishment was directed to those who would playfully dump the contents of the chip box on another person as though it were confetti. Chips with their pointed corners were potentially hazardous, while I've never heard the same of confetti. My vocational path diverged from that of the people in IBM who sold and support voting machine systems and I didn't have reason or opportunity to keep up with that segment of the business. Possibly they got to know the word 'chad' as defining chips from ballots. If so, I don't know why they adopted that usage. In the Army we carefully disposed of the chad from perforators so as to not leave anything behind a moving field unit that could identify that unit's purpose or equipment. Chadless perforators didn't leave chad. In either case, we had to manage the disposition of the perforated tape in equal fashion. (...) T -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 21:39:56 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 16:39:56 EST Subject: milch cow Message-ID: My father (b. 1917central NY) would use the word milch cow occasionally and could give it either pronunciation /ts/ or affricate. But it's very old-fashioned, 'dairy cow' would be the more common term today. In the old days of course, people used to just have a single cow. I'd find it hard to imagine applying the term 'dairy cow' to one of these loners. Dale Coye The College of NJ From buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET Sat Jan 6 21:49:07 2001 From: buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET (Buchmann) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 17:49:07 -0400 Subject: milch cow Message-ID: My understanding of midwestern farming usage circa 1950 was : MILK COWS = 'cows of milk giving breeds' = DAIRY CATTLE; MILKING COW = 'a cow kept to provide milk for a family' [of non dairy farmers]; MILCH COW = 'a milk cow actually giving milk.' - Alois Buchmann GSCole wrote: > Relatives of mine, with large dairy farms, and those with small farms > for that matter, speak of a 'milk cow'. I've never asked them to write > down the word, but they pronounce the word much as they would in > reference to a glass of milk. Speakers are from both Delaware and > Northeast Maryland. > Milking cows is the phrase for a group of milk cows. I don't know why; > of course, I've never understood the in-print use of milch cow either. > Perhaps 'milking cows' is the phrase to use for those cows giving milk > that can be (or is) sold to a dairy co-op? Sort of a balance sheet > term, in reference to the asset base of a farm. > George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu > Shippensburg University From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Sat Jan 6 22:46:29 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 17:46:29 -0500 Subject: milch cow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There's another example of a foreign word which is (mis?-) used in a particular setting and yet is pronounced in the standard English way: "bleu cheese". Is this pure marketing, trying to give a product a French cachet, or what? (Or is it a particular kind of cheese made only from the milk of milch cows, I wonder? :) ) Tony Glaser >My father (b. 1917central NY) would use the word milch cow occasionally and >could give it either pronunciation /ts/ or affricate. But it's very >old-fashioned, 'dairy cow' would be the more common term today. In the old >days of course, people used to just have a single cow. I'd find it hard to >imagine applying the term 'dairy cow' to one of these loners. > >Dale Coye >The College of NJ From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 7 02:12:31 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 20:12:31 -0600 Subject: Allan Metcalf & M-W in newspaper Message-ID: Allan Metcalf was quoted in an article in today's _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_, January 6, 2001, p.34, cols. 4-5: "New Collegiate Dictionary Truly Reflects the Times," by Ivelisse DeJesus (of _The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J._). Presumably it appeared elsewhere too. Here are a few excerpts: 'According to Allan Metcalf, a member of the American Dialect Society, a scholarly linguistic organization, the English language sires relatively few new words a year. At most, lexicons might see 200 new words a year, but it takes about 50 years to determine a word's enduring power. "It's very difficult to get new words into the dictionary. It's almost easier to win an Acadmey Award," Metcalf said. 'Slow to change, the English language is composed of approximately a half-million words that have for the most part been used for some time, give or take the few hundred that surge into vogue for a time, Metcalf said. "'Chad' in fact is a term that was widely used by teletype operators," Metcalf said. "It was sort of a specialized word used by few people. Now, it has widespread use."' **** Also, Merriam-Webster comes in for special attention in the article, with a quote from company president and publisher, John Morse: "People are interested in these [i.e. new] words [e.g. fashionista] and want to look them up and learn more about them," said John Morse... 'Since Nov. 7, Election Day, the most frequently looked-up word on the dictionary's on-line edition (www.m-w.com) has been "chad." Trailing it was "per curiam" (a brief, usually unanimous court decision).' ---Gerald Cohen From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 06:10:50 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 01:10:50 EST Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (1976-1979) Message-ID: The Bell & Howell Phonebook Fiche has most US cities, but from about 1976. I checked the large Texas towns (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso) for "fajita." There sure weren't a lot of hits. None in Dallas. None in El Paso. None in San Antonio. I hope I have the month correct. It took me a while to realize that the date of the white pages (usually December) isn't always the same as the date of the yellow pages (usually earlier, such as June or October). The year is correct. December 1976, AUSTIN, pg. 716, col. 1: Gilberto's Restaurant HUEVOS RANCHEROS . FAJITAS . DINNERS CARNE GUISADA . MENUDO . STEAKS . CHICHARONES 1500 E 1st 476-7215 ("Fajita" in ad was continued other years--ed.) December 1977, AUSTIN, pg. 760, col. 1: PARRIA TAPATIA CARNE QUESADA TACOS AL CARBON FLOUR TORTILLAS CARNE ASADA FLAUTAS BAR-B-Q FAJITAS QUESOS MEXICAN MEATS 1509 E 6 478-0475 June 1978, HOUSTON, pg. 1942, col. 1: LARRY PICO'S SPANISH VILLAGE RESTAURANT TACOS AL CARBON FAJITAS AL CARBON QUESO'S SIZZLING CHARBROILED STEAKS CHARBROILED OR FRIED CHICKEN 25th Anniversary 4720 Almeda 523-1727 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2143, col. 2: Don Arturo's Restaurant TACOS AL CARBON TACOS DE BARBACOA FAJITAS A LA PARRILLA CARNE ASADA BEEF SOUP 806 76TH 926-0337 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2163, col. 2: Primo's FAJITAS--VERACRUZANAS 519 Rosalie At Smith 528-9158 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2166, col. 2: LOS TACOS AMERICAN & MEXICAN BEER TACOS BURRITOS CHALUPAS TACOS AL CARBON FAJITAS CHILI RELLENOS 1308 MONTROSE 524-1458 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 06:57:16 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 01:57:16 EST Subject: Mongolian BBQ, Margarita & more Message-ID: More phonebook food from Texas. OFF TOPIC TIP: See the 2000 Tony-awarding winning play, COPENHAGEN. Especially after eight hours of judging parking tickets. When you fall asleep--and you will--tell your date: "I just flew in from the Australian outback, and boy, are my arms tired." -------------------------------------------------------- MONGOLIAN BARBEQUE From DALLAS YELLOW PAGES, October 1976, pg. 1266, col. 4: Genghis Khan Mongolia Feast SERVING MOGOLIAN BARBEQUE ORIGINAL DISH DEVELOPED BY NOMADIC MONGOLIANS 361-0280 4830 Greenville Genghis Khan had Mongolian barbeque? He didn't even know the word "barbeque." How come OED has "Mongolian hot pot" from--1967? Were the 1960s the Genghis Khan years? Does "Mongolian" really come from ancient Mongolia? This ad may have appeared earlier than 1976...I never saw "Mongolian" in any of the 1950s New York City phonebooks, and NYC has food from everywhere. -------------------------------------------------------- MARGARITA (continued) Perhaps this deserves a call to San Antonio. From SAN ANTONIO YELLOW PAGES, Setpember 1978, pg. 787, col. 3: THE ORIGINAL Pan American Restaurant OUR 39TH YEAR SPECIALIZING IN ORIGINAL MEXICAN FOOD (...) Pan American Cocktail Room Home of the Giant Margarita -COCKTAILS- FEATURING OUR FAMOUS MARGARITA (Two Margarita drawings are shown. I guess the place serves Margaritas--ed.) 924-5691 720 PLEASANTON RD -------------------------------------------------------- CHIMICHANGAS/CHIMICHANGOS (continued) From AUSTIN, December 1976, pg. 726, col. 1: La Hacienda "HOME OF THE CHIMICHANGO" (OUR OWN 3/4 LB BEEF BURRITO) 266-1322 1 mi. West of Mansfield Dam -------------------------------------------------------- SMOOTHIE (continued) September 1976, SAN ANTONIO, pg. 736, col. 3: the greenwood NATURAL FOOD STORE Delicious Fresh Salads Fruit Smoothies Sandwiches Of Every Description FAMOUS DESSERTS 1708 N Main 223-6937 September 1977, SAN ANTONIO, pg. 798, col. 1: FRUIT SMOOTHIES SIDEWALK CAFE Specializing in Poor Boys Natural Fruit Drink Dieter's Delight 342-3782 131 Central Park (lower level) -------------------------------------------------------- STUFFED PIZZA John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK states that "stuffed pizza" may come from Nancy's Pizzerias of Chicago, January 1974. I won't believe it until I hear it from Mike Salovesh. June 1978, HOUSTON, pg. 1931, col. 2: Little Italianos Family Restaurant "Some Of The Tastiest Pizza In The World" New York Style Sicilian Stuff Pizza Round Pizza Thick Chicago Style Detroit Style 465-4012 467-1745 935 N. WEST BELT DR AT I-10 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2159, col. 2: Eddie's HOMEMADE PIZZA DEEP-DISH SICILIAN "STUFT" & ROUND PIZZA LASAGNA & SPAGHETTI SUBS--SALADS 5176 RICHMOND 871-1822 -------------------------------------------------------- ROTISSERIE CHICKEN I can't find "rotisserie" in Mariani at all! April 1977, EL PASO, pg. 494, col. 2: CHICKEN FIESTA Charbroiled Tacos (In a box on the left--is this the name?--ed.) ROTISSERIE CHICKEN (In very large type at the top--ed.) CHARBROILED TACOS TORTAS . MENUDO 562-0409 3701 MONTANA -------------------------------------------------------- BREAKFAST TACOS I wasn't aware that anyone ate "breakfast tacos" until American Airlines served one to me. September 1979, SAN ANTONIO, pg. 868, col. 3: EL NORTE MEXICAN RESTAURANT Original Home Made Mexican Plates Breakfast Tacos "The Family Place To Eat" 691-1890 3511 OAKGATE In The Oakgate Center From rkm at SLIP.NET Sun Jan 7 07:26:25 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 23:26:25 -0800 Subject: Mongolian BBQ, Margarita & more In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... How come OED has "Mongolian hot pot" from--1967? Were the 1960s >the Genghis Khan years? I bought a Mongolian hot pot around 1967 in the Bay Area, so it was indeed around then. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 07:42:59 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 02:42:59 EST Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: This may be of interest to etymologists from Missouri (who need to be shown). John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK cites the WPA GUIDE TO MISSOURI (1941), which attributes the "highball" to The Planter's Hotel in St. Louis. From THE STEWARD, September 1948, pg. 11, col. 1: _"Highball" Christened In St. Louis_ ------------------------------------ Originated at University Club Back in 1888 According to R. C. Magill Who Went to Work at St. Louis Club as Boy But Now Manages Raquet Club in Missouri City--Naming of Popular Drink Erroneously Ascribed to Others THE Highball, avers R. C. Magill, manager of the Raquet Club in St. Louis, and himself a venerable institution in that city, originated at the St. Louis University Club back in 1888 (My earliest cites are 1895. See archives--ed.), which was situated three blocks from the St. Louis Club, where he started his career as a boy. In that year, he says, the younger members favored a drink concocted in an 8-oz. glass, consisting of 1-oz. of bourbon and club soda as desired. In each glass was also placed an "ice ball". The drink was usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, wanted a bigger drink and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a High Ball." Later, the St. Louis Club, which has stone spheres on either side of its entrance, occupied new quarters which had a private lane connecting with a thoroughfare where street cars ran. For a long time streetcar conductors at the stop called "St. Louis Club", but some long forgotten wit among them started calling it "Highball Alley." Incidentally, the original Highball was a tall drink worthy of its name and not the niggardly shorty that nowdays passes in some places as a Highball. Magill's explanation of the christening of the Highball is the most convincing that has been advanced, although the naming of this drink has heretofore been ascribed to others. For instance, H. L. Mencken in "The American Language" says that the Highball was variously credited to an unidentified bartender in the Parker House in Boston, and to Patrick Gavin Duffy who, in his "Official Mixer's Manual", asserts that the New York Times officially certified his claim. (Col. 2--ed.) "Table Topics", snappy and informative bimonthly house organ ofBellows & Co., importers and purveyors of fine wines, whiskies, brandies, etc., of 67 East 52nd street, New York City, which originally raised the question as to the "father" of the Highball, mentions the legend that this drink was named by Lilburn McNair, a social luminary of St. Louis, who is said to have borrowed the term from the lingo of railroaders. However, McNair's role in Highball history, says Table Topics in a subsequent issue, seems to have been that of a lusterlender and popularizer in best circles. Small-mustached, dapper, sartorially magnificent, he entered upon the Club scene at the turn of the century, took this hitherto local drink under his wing, and was presently asking for it at Chicago's old Palmer House and New York's old Waldorf--scoring a first in each instance. Hence the legend that it was his baby instead of just a hobby. The claim of Magill that the actual naming of the drink occurred at the St. Louis University Club, has attracted the attention of writers in the newspaper and trade press from Coast to Coast, including, to mention only a few, Ralph T. Jones, brilliant columnist in the Atlanta Constitution, the editorial writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Mid-West Hotel Reporter of Omaha, and Club Management of Chicago. (...) -------------------------------------------------------- (Previous posting should have read "Genghis Khan Mongolian Feast...Serving Mongolian Barbeque." I want to be right on Genghis Khan, although I'm always to the left of him--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 07:48:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 02:48:21 EST Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: Oops. "Racquet Club" on both. From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 7 12:48:09 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 07:48:09 -0500 Subject: milch cow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... a foreign word which is (mis?-) used in a >particular setting .... "Milch cow" apparently is not an adoption from German, although that's what I would have guessed myself offhand ... apparently it's from Middle English. The OED shows "milch-cow" from 1424, based on the adjective "milch" from ca. 1290. "Milch" (adjective) approx. = "milk" (attributive), meaning "used for milking", "kept for milk production" (as opposed e.g. to a beef cow). The adjective is/was applied to domestic animals kept for milking and also to humans (i.e., wet nurses). -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sun Jan 7 15:31:01 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 15:31:01 +0000 Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Sunday, January 7, 2001 2:42 am +0000 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >> _"Highball" Christened In St. Louis_ > ------------------------------------ > In that year, he says, the younger members favored a drink concocted > in an 8-oz. glass, consisting of 1-oz. of bourbon and club soda as > desired. In each glass was also placed an "ice ball". The drink was > usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, wanted a bigger drink > and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a High Ball." I may have mentioned this on this list before, but my family has a peculiar meaning for highball, which I've never seen elsewhere. To us, a highball is whiskey (I'm not sure if it matters which kind) and ginger ale. I'd chalked this up to the fact that my grandmother drank whisky and ginger ale, so maybe we just limited our use of 'highball' thusly because we had no use for the other meaning. But Grandma's been dead for nearly 20 years, and my mother (related to aforementioned grandmother by marriage only) said to me last week "we can't have highballs because we don't have any ginger ale" (we did have club soda). My family is all from western NY--paternal side from Attica, maternal from Niagara Falls area. My mom might've learned the term from my father's family. Are we the only people in the world who think that a highball has to have ginger ale? Lynne P.S. Slightly amusing story: While in the US last week, a hairdresser, upon finding out that I live in England said: "Do they make fun of you there because you don't have an accent?" M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Mon Jan 8 00:47:49 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:47:49 -0500 Subject: BODY LANGUAGE Message-ID: Any recent books on this subject (kinesics) including proxemics? Or should I be asking some other group like LSA? I don't happen to have any other address except ADS-L. Please help. The books I have or know of include BODY LANGUAGE by Julius Fast, 1970, and R. L. Birdwhistell's INTRODUCTION TO KINESICS (1952) and EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN (1963). I am actually more interested in WOMAN, as the one seated cross-legged on the cover of Fast's 1970 book. Humph. Thanks for helping. TOM PAIKEDAY From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 00:43:23 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:43:23 EST Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: The ADS web page www.americandialect.org currently includes the following: For Word of the Decade, web received 45 votes, the prefix e- 10, way meaning yes (4), the prefix Franken meaning genetically modified as in Frankenfood (2), ethnic cleansing (0) and senior moment (0). First, "genetically modified" is an inadequate synonym if not an incorrect definition. The "Franken-" part means "potentially if not active harmful" or perhaps "frightening". It just happens that this particular citation was about genetically modified food. Second, I have found a 1967 citation for "Franken-". It is in a science fiction story "To Love Another" by James Blish and Norman L. Knight that was published in the April 1967 issue of Analog Science Fiction. A sideplot in the story concerns the raising of something called "slimes" (presumably fungi, but it is not made clear). One of these slimes has something go wrong with it and turns carnivorous. At the bottom of page 23 column 2 somebody says "we have a Frankenslio deal with." James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 8 01:04:04 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:04:04 -0600 Subject: "chad"--verifying C. Jensen's 1952 date Message-ID: I have shared a few earlier messages from Mr. Chris Jensen concerning his 1952 familiarity with the term "chad." (The earliest attestation remains the 1947 one in the Merriam-Webster files.) Just to be sure, I double-checked with Mr. Jensen about whether 1952 was the year he encountered "chad" in his army training. Here is an excerpt from his reply: "Good idea to double-check dates. I was a Korean war draftee. I entered the Army in late 1952 and was home in graduate school in 1954. In deference to sheer accuracy, I went through Teletype school in December, 1952, and January, 1953. What little published material we had in Teletype school was from the vendor, the Teletype Corporation, and was old and well-used." ---Gerald Cohen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 8 01:43:47 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 20:43:47 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Fred, Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" sense) sense. dInIs >yOn Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Tymkovich wrote: > >> Does anyone know when the word "jock" first was used to describe a person >> skilled in sports? Specifically, was it in use in the 1910-1930 era? > >No, I don't think so. I believe that "preppie," "jock" and "wonk" all >originated as part of a tripartite division of Harvard students in the >1950s, perhaps a little earlier. The earliest citation I have found for >"jock" is from the Harvard Crimson, 21 Feb. 1958; I contributed this to >the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which printed it >as their first use. > >Fred Shapiro > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Fred R. Shapiro Editor >Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >Yale Law School forthcoming >e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 02:42:37 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 21:42:37 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This > is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" > sense) sense. I'm not sure what you mean. The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was referring to -- what is the "later preppie" sense? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 8 03:14:22 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:14:22 -0800 Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: fred shapiro: >The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was referring to -- what is >the "later preppie" sense? the sense in eckert's 1989 book title, Jocks and Burnouts. the reference is to a jocks/preps vs. burnouts/freaks/druggies distinction in a great many u.s. high schools. the "jocks" aren't necessarily athletes (nor are all athletes "jocks"), but they are school- and college-oriented types in contrast to the "burnouts", who are inclined to opt out and oppose "school values". (many students are neither, of course. these are just the highly polarized value sets.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 8 05:00:47 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 00:00:47 -0500 Subject: chad--background info from C. Jensen Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Frank Abate To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: Saturday, January 06, 2001 1:07 PM Subject: Fw: chad--background info from C. Jensen chad--background info from C. JensenMore on "chip(s)", following up on G Cohen's quote of Jensen below. The inventor who testified in the Bush v. Gore Florida trial about voting machines (I forget his name) made a point of saying that he called the waste matter "chips", not "chads". He was in the industry, and clearly very familiar with punch cards and their use. His invention of those voting machines dates back to the 1970s at least -- I came across one of his patents in searching the US patent site. This and what Jensen says below suggests that in the IBM-centered punch-card community, "chips" was the word for the waste from the cards. ------------------------------ One noteworthy consideration, IBM (their computer division at least) historically disregarded many industry standard terms and usages in favor of their own coinings. Whether that's true in this case or not, I can't say, but it is something to keep in mind... bkd From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 8 05:38:39 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 23:38:39 -0600 Subject: Boxer shorts. Message-ID: I did do a cursory search of the archives to see if anything had been said on this. M-W gives 1944. I don't have fuller etymological details at hand (no OED). I see in C.D. Buck (A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal IE Languages), at 6.48 'Trousers', in para 4: -start quote- Dan. buxer, Sw. byxor (pl), fr. MLG buxe, boxe, contracted from *buck-hose, i.e., 'trousers of buckskin' -end quote- This is tantalizing. I've always assumed boxer shorts are named after boxing shorts, but am now quite curious. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 06:01:14 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 01:01:14 EST Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger Message-ID: The New Haven Free Public Library was open 1-5 p.m. this Sunday. Everything else was closed, so I took a trip up. New Haven has a school of higher learning called Yale University--famous for teaching our next president everything he knows. Unfortunately, the New Haven Library has almost no Yale material. I'll probably go to New London, CT, for my "grinder" search next Wednesday--after the MLK, Jr. holiday when the colleges are in session. The New Haven Library had only the 1959-1960 telephone book, and 1920s phonebooks before that. (The city directories are not much help.) The librarian there was very kind and said he'd ask around (New Haven Colony Historical Society, telephone company) for earlier phonebooks for me and for his library. "Apizza"--not entered in OED or DARE--is everywhere (see also old ADS-L archive) in 1959-1960: Al's Restaurant (..."Grinders"...) Big Apple Restaurant, 164 Wooster (since about 1948--ed.) Bobbie's Apizza Cappie's Apizza & Restaurant...Apizza & Grinders Capri Bakery & Restaurant...Apizza...Grinders DePalma's Apizza F&H Apizza Gag's Apizza The Grand Apizza (Ad advertises "grinders" and has the winking chef giving the "OK" sign--ed.) High Ridge Gardens Apizza and Restaurant Johnnie's Apizza Restaurant Lew's Apizza Luigi's Apizza Restaurant (ad has "grinders"--ed.) Mike's Restaurant and Spaghetti House (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) Modern Apizza Place (Ad has "grinders"--ed.) Nicky's Apizza Spaghetti House North Haven Pizza House (Gotta be a typo--ed.) Palm Beach Apizza & Restaurant Paul's Bakery (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) Raccio's Apizza Ralph's Pizza (Probably another typo--ed.) Sam's Apizza & Restaurant Shorty's Apizza (Ad has "submarines"--ed.) Sloppy's Joe's 466BeachWH Smitty's Drive-In...Hamburger & Pepperburger Specialties Soundview Apizza Restaurant Tontine Restaurant (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) Tony's Apizza Restaurant Vece Peter Apizza Zuppardi's Apizza I checked the handwritten card index and found this from the NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 6 June 1979, pg. 40, col. 1: _Did New Haven Grind Out The First Hamburger In America?_ (...)(This UPI story is from Dallas. The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair claim is detailed--ed.) Other claims exist. Yankees in New Haven are convinced Louis Lassen served the first burger in America at his establishment there in 1895. Tolbert admits Lassen served something--but not a hamburger. "That was sliced beef," Tolbert said. Kenneth Lassen, who now presides over the cubbyhole that is Louis Lunch--seating capacity 28--emphatically says it was not sliced beef. He says the burgers served there today were cloned from the 1895 model. (...) (See 1880s "hamburgers" in the ADS-L archive--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 06:28:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 01:28:51 EST Subject: Boxer shorts. Message-ID: BOXERS (briefly) OED also has 1944 and "Special comb. boxer shorts, orig. _U.S._, long loose-fitting underpants for men, similar in design to the shorts worn by boxers in the ring." -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. NOT YOUR FATHER'S OLDSMOBILE--Ellen Goodman's syndicated column today on the Bush Cabinet discusses the "D-Word" (diversity). "This is not Bush's father's Cabinet," Goodman writes. Let's stop this cliche right now. It comes from the "Not your father's Oldsmobile" ads--and Olds is dead! CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING--From NEWSDAY, 7 January 2001, pg. B7, col. 1: "Jeremy Simon is a graduate student in creative nonfiction writing at Columbia University." What is creative nonfiction writing? Is he trying to land a job at the New York Times? UFO ROLLS--From NEWSDAY, 7 January 2001, pg. G9, col. 4: "KOTOBUKI, 86 Deer Park Ave., Babylon, 631-321-8387. Home of the 'UFO' rolls, combining salmon, tuna and yellowtail." IVY LEAGUER--From Grantland Rice's "The Sportlight," a syndicated column also in the NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 26 October 1939: "Ivy Leaguers and Big Ten to Clash on Saturday." INCLUDE ME OUT!--From NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 25 October 1939, pg. 13, col. 5, Walter Winchell column: "The numberous oldies in the 'On Your Toes' film (among them) 'Include me out!'--a line frequently credited to Goldwyn) make some of us wonder if a more suitable title wouldn't be 'On Your Heels.'" CARRYING A TORCH--From NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 31 October 1939, pg. 12, col. 2, Walter Winchell column: "Damon Runyon first put us hep as to how the phrase 'carryin' the torch' got into everybody's typewriter...It was in ballad Tommy Lyman sang, entitled: 'Gee, But It's Tough When the Gang's All Gone,' and had the line: 'When your thoughts start to scorch and you're carryin' the torch'..." From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 8 10:54:04 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:54:04 +0100 Subject: Franken- meaning genetically modified Message-ID: On lundi 8 janvier 2001 01:43, James A. Landau wrote: >For Word of the Decade, web received 45 votes, the prefix e- 10, way meaning >yes (4), the prefix Franken meaning genetically modified as in Frankenfood >(2), ethnic cleansing (0) and senior moment (0). > > >First, "genetically modified" is an inadequate synonym if not an incorrect >definition. The "Franken-" part means "potentially if not active harmful" or >perhaps "frightening". It just happens that this particular citation was >about genetically modified food. > >Second, I have found a 1967 citation for "Franken-". It is in a science >fiction story "To Love Another" by James Blish and Norman L. Knight that was >published in the April 1967 issue of Analog Science Fiction. A sideplot in >the story concerns the raising of something called "slimes" (presumably >fungi, but it is not made clear). One of these slimes has something go wrong >with it and turns carnivorous. At the bottom of page 23 column 2 somebody >says "we have a Frankenslio deal with." As I'm sure others will point out, first, the Word of the Decade doesn't meant the usage, word or phrase was *coined* during that decade (although I think we strive for that), merely that it became popular. Second, while I agree that "potentially if not actively harmful" could be a valid definition of the prefix "franken", the "genetically modified" usage is also valid and widespread. Anecdotally, and as far as I can tell, the "genetically modified" usage is currently more widespread, if only because popular belief is that "genetically modified" equals "potentially if not actively harmful." Grant Barrett gbarrett at monickels.com From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 11:51:23 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 06:51:23 -0500 Subject: Boxer shorts. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Mark Odegard wrote: > Dan. buxer, Sw. byxor (pl), fr. MLG buxe, boxe, contracted from *buck-hose, > i.e., 'trousers of buckskin' > -end quote- > > This is tantalizing. > > I've always assumed boxer shorts are named after boxing shorts, but am now > quite curious. The OED's definition notes, "similar in design to the shorts worn by boxers in the rign." There's no reason to look to Scandinavian roots. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 8 12:48:00 2001 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 07:48:00 -0500 Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) In-Reply-To: <743856.3187870261@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: No, your family isn't the only one to define highball in that way. Interestingly, my paternal grandmother used to make exactly the same drink, and call it by the same name. She lived in Lawrence, MA during my childhood, was born in Brooklyn, and grew up in Danby, VT (which on my map looks to be about 30 miles east of Glens Falls, NY) . From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 8 13:37:11 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 08:37:11 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >This was a big error in recent school-shooting episodes. Old guys >like us were misunderstabnding the current use of "jock" (usually >pretty academically oriented, well-groomed, soft drug and alcohol >using, mainstream kids, only some of whom are involved in sports). >The use from my time was sports-involvement exclusivly, although I >believe the connection with the semantic change is pretty >straightforward. dInIs >yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >> Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This >> is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" >> sense) sense. > >I'm not sure what you mean. The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was >referring to -- what is the "later preppie" sense? > >Fred Shapiro > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Fred R. Shapiro Editor >Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >Yale Law School forthcoming >e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 8 13:43:08 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 08:43:08 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>Since Arnold has done it (and I didn't see his message first), I >>will only apologize for not citing Penny Eckert's "Jocks and >>Burnouts" for the prime academic treatment of this label in its >>newer sense. Sorry Penny, dInIs >>This was a big error in recent school-shooting episodes. Old guys >>like us were misunderstabnding the current use of "jock" (usually >>pretty academically oriented, well-groomed, soft drug and alcohol >>using, mainstream kids, only some of whom are involved in sports). >>The use from my time was sports-involvement exclusivly, although I >>believe the connection with the semantic change is pretty >>straightforward. > > >dInIs > > >>yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>> Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This >>> is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" >>> sense) sense. >> >>I'm not sure what you mean. The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was >>referring to -- what is the "later preppie" sense? >> >>Fred Shapiro >> >> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>Fred R. Shapiro Editor >>Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS >> and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >>Yale Law School forthcoming >>e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 8 14:11:50 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 09:11:50 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <200101080314.TAA29651@Turing.Stanford.EDU>; from zwicky@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU on Sun, Jan 07, 2001 at 07:14:22PM -0800 Message-ID: > fred shapiro: >The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was referring to -- what is >the "later preppie" sense? This would presumably be HDAS _jock_ n.(1) def. 4.b. JTS From bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM Mon Jan 8 14:14:51 2001 From: bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM (Beverly Feldt) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 08:14:51 -0600 Subject: Body Language Message-ID: For books on proxemics (not terribly recent, but magnificent), anything by Edward T. Hall, including _The Silent Language_, _The Hidden Dimension_, _Beyond Culture_ and _The Dance of Life._ Fast is garbage. Hall is the real thing. Beverly Feldt From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 15:36:53 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:36:53 EST Subject: Words of the Year 2000 Message-ID: Here's our preliminary announcement: "Chad" perfused the voting for overall Word of the Year 2000 at the American Dialect Society's meeting in Washington, D.C. January 5. In the annual choice of the word or phrase that was most notable or prominent in the year gone by, "chad" earned 43 votes, compared to just 6 for "muggle," not only the Harry Potter term for a non-wizard but more broadly a mundane, unimaginative person, and just 3 for "dot bomb," defined as "a failed dot-com." Before that final vote, Words of the Year were chosen in eight categories: Most Outrageous was "wall humping," rubbing a thigh against a security card scanner to allow access without the inconvenience of removing the card from one's pocket. Other candidates were "starter castle," a dot-commer's first home, and "McMansion," a big new home in incredibly bad taste. Most Euphemistic was "courtesy call," an uninvited call from a telemarketer. Other candidates were "Supreme Court justice," reflecting the politics of the presidential election, and "klabokeys" (see below). Most Likely to Succeed was "muggle." Other candidates were "m-commerce," buying and selling over a cell phone, and "WAP," Wireless Application Protocol. Most Useful was "civil union," legal same-sex marriage. Other candidates were "bricks-and-clicks," a traditional business with a website, and "c.u.," to join a couple in civil union. Most Creative was "dot bomb." Other candidates were "blobject," a product like the iMac with curvilinear design, and "dot snot," a young dot-com millionaire. Most Unnecessary was "sudden loss of wealth syndrome," which pretty well defines itself. Another candidate was "scootermania," obsession with foot-powered scooters. Least Likely to Succeed was "kablokeys," a hard-to-pronounce word used in phrases like "It scared the kablokeys out of me." Other candidates were "subliminable," invented inadvertently by George W. Bush, and "malaphrophesizing," predictions phrased in malapropisms. Most of the candidates for Word of the Year have been around for some time but not particularly well known. "Chad" is a good example: Teletype operators used the term more than 50 years ago, but only in the Florida recount did the word become generally recognized. There are, however, some brand new words every year. The winner in the Brand-Spanking New category was "unconcede," to rescind a concession. Another candidate was "cell yell," loud talking on a cell phone. The American Dialect Society, an association of scholars who study American English, has chosen Words of the Year since 1990. They are listed on the Society's website, www.americandialect.org. Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 2001. From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 15:48:51 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:48:51 EST Subject: WOTY correction Message-ID: >>Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 2001.<< Make that January 4, 2002, of course. - Allan Metcalf From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 15:58:44 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:58:44 -0500 Subject: Words of the Year 2000 In-Reply-To: <43.efea741.278b3895@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Jan 2001 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > The winner in the Brand-Spanking New category was "unconcede," to > rescind a concession. Another candidate was "cell yell," loud talking on a > cell phone. "Unconcede" is not really Brand-Spanking New: 1996 _San Francisco Chronicle_ 6 Nov. In a final mishap of a campaign marred by strategic error, Dole conceded the race more than an hour before the polls closed in the West -- only to turn around and "unconcede" later, after vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp and other GOP leaders in California protested the effect the early concession might have on highly contested congressional races. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 16:03:33 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:03:33 -0500 Subject: Words of the Year 2000 (II) In-Reply-To: <43.efea741.278b3895@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Jan 2001 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > every year. The winner in the Brand-Spanking New category was "unconcede," to > rescind a concession. Another candidate was "cell yell," loud talking on a > cell phone. If Brand-Spanking New means coined in 2000, "cell-yell" is also not b.s.n.: 1999 _S.F. Chronicle_ 16 July Ed Moose's joint has gone cell free, because Ed found that many diners are annoyed by Mr. Bigshot at the next table speaking in typical cell-yell, closing a deal. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 16:24:10 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:24:10 EST Subject: Words of the Year 2000 (II) Message-ID: Memo for January 2002: Let's run b.s.n. candidates by Fred Shapiro before authorizing them for the ballot. - Allan Metcalf From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Mon Jan 8 16:45:12 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:45:12 -0600 Subject: Words of the Year 2000 Message-ID: Should the last line read: "Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 200_2_"? Elizabeth Gregory >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/08/01 09:36AM >>> Here's our preliminary announcement: "Chad" perfused the voting for overall Word of the Year 2000 at the American Dialect Society's meeting in Washington, D.C. January 5. >>>>>>>>>>snip<<<<<<<<<<<<< Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 2001. From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 8 16:52:16 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:52:16 -0500 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> First, "genetically modified" is an inadequate synonym if not an incorrect definition. The "Franken-" part means "potentially if not active harmful" or perhaps "frightening". It just happens that this particular citation was about genetically modified food. Second, I have found a 1967 citation for "Franken-". It is in a science fiction story "To Love Another" by James Blish and Norman L. Knight that was published in the April 1967 issue of Analog Science Fiction. A sideplot in the story concerns the raising of something called "slimes" (presumably fungi, but it is not made clear). One of these slimes has something go wrong with it and turns carnivorous. At the bottom of page 23 column 2 somebody says "we have a Frankenslio deal with." *********** <<<<< (Just to get it out of the way, I assume that "Frankenslio" is a slip of the finger or Net for "Frankenslime to".) I disagree with your analysis of "Franken-" as merely "'potentially if not active harmful' or perhaps 'frightening'". IMHO, a basic semantic component of the prefix is parallel to the difference between Frankenstein's monster and, say, King Kong or Dracula: a result of Meddling In Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Dr. Frankenstein's sin of hubris was his desire to create life, a power which in the story/legend rightfully belongs only to God and which no mortal can aspire to without disaster. That, to my mind, is the direct link between the Monster and genetic engineering. In the Blish/Knight citation it is not completely clear from your description whether these slimes are a product of human meddling in the stuff of life (whether intentional or otherwise). If they are and one of them goes bad (as a human "goes bad" rather than as an apple does!), the parallel with Mary Shelley's premiss is established, and my case is supported. Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com (speaking for myself) From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jan 8 18:24:25 2001 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:24:25 -0700 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: FYA, when I shared Lynne's "accentless" story with my colleagues here, I got the following response: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:19:23 -0700 From: Ed White To: ENGLISH at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: Linguistic laugh of the day: "no accent" (fwd) This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed White -- Original Message -- >------------------------------ >Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 15:31:01 +0000 >From: Lynne Murphy > >My family is all from western NY--paternal side from Attica, maternal from >Niagara Falls area. > >Lynne > >P.S. Slightly amusing story: While in the US last week, a hairdresser, >upon finding out that I live in England said: "Do they make fun of you >there because you don't have an accent?" > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >------------------------------ > From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 8 20:41:53 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 15:41:53 -0500 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: Jim Landau wrote to me: >>>>> I find your argument rather convincing. Are there other uses of "Franken-" and if so do they support your argument? <<<<< I found myself inspired to do some lazy research, and replied to him as follows: ========================================= Let's see. AFAIR, "Frankenfood" is used exclusively for genetically engineered food. I don't think I can put a finger on any other uses of the prefix, though I'm sure I've seen them. So I'll make a Web search with Altavista Advanced search: franken* & not (frankenstein or Franken or Frankenmuth or frankenia or Germany or ".de") (weeding out a lot of the false positives) search in English only About 10,999 pages found. Hmph! Adding more AND NOTs to take out more false positives.... Stopping "Frankenberry" (name of a breakfast cereal, marketed alongside Count Chocula) and "Frankenstien" (misspelling) cuts it by several thousand. About 1300 hits for Frankenfood or Frankenfoods. The first of them is at http://www.acfs.org/mtfnd9901.htm . Here's an explicit one (Institute of Food Technologists: The Society for Food Science and Technology. Food Laws and Regulations Division: http://ift.micronexx.com/INDEX.SEARCH/divisions/food_law/nl_v10n1.htm): "Worldwide there are several very determined protest groups organized to voice their objections to the use of GM-derived ingredients in the general food supply. These groups have adopted the term "Frankenfoods" to describe genetically modified foods." ["GM" = "genetically modified" -- MAM] There are a number of dog names, including German place names (von Such-and-such) but also Frankendog and Frankenbull. Here I think your gloss 'terrifying' is correct. In Frankenbiker, referring to a weight-training regimen ( http://www.powerbear.com/weights.htm), it seems to mean 'big and muscular'. Frankenbeans are "Beanie Baby"-type toys of cutely scary critters: spider, rat, etc., as near as I can judge by the pictures at http://www.markv.com/frankenbeans.com/ . All of the other hits are either surnames (Frankenfeld...; of course, Frankenstein is itself a surname in Shelley's story), German place names or words, as far as I could tell. I stopped all hits from domains in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as well as texts containing the names of those countries. I have not inspected all of these sites!!! Rather, I have taken them as guidance for the stoplist. Anyone wishing to check them out is certainly welcome to do so, as far as I'm concerned; better you than me. Here is my final search specification, which yielded no hits, meaning that the exclusions covered all occurrences of "franken*" (i.e., "franken" and any word beginning with "franken", in any combination of capital and lowercase) in the search space: franken* & not (frankenstein |franken |frankenmuth |frankenia |Germany |".de" |frankenberg |frankenberry |frankenfield | frankenburg |frankenstien |frankenthal |frankena |frankenbach | frankenfood* |frankenfeld |frankenjura |frankenforst | frankenwald |frankenheim |Austria* |frankens |frankenpost | frankenland |frankental |Switzerland |".at" |".ch" |frankenbiker | frankenmarkt |frankenne |frankenreich |frankenau |frankenbeans |frankenalb |frankenhalle) [search pages in English only] [no date limitation] So we seem to have - Frankenfood: genetically modified, potentially dangerous, hubris of meddling with life - Frankenberry: direct reference to the Monster, as a funny-scary creature, for marketing purposes - Frankenbeans: similar to Frankenberry: frightening, monstrous (but offset by the "beans" and the referent toys themselves) - Frankenbiker: big and muscular - Frankendog, Frankenbull...: (dog names) strong, dangerous, and scary (maybe given as a joke) . (Misspellings of Frankenstein are as numerous as they are meaningless here.) Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 07:58:55 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 15:58:55 +0800 Subject: unconcede In-Reply-To: <61.a44e2e1.278b43aa@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:24 AM -0500 1/8/01, AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Memo for January 2002: >Let's run b.s.n. candidates by Fred Shapiro before authorizing them for the >ballot. - Allan Metcalf Absolutely correct. As the sponsor of "unconcede", I offer my mea culpa. I should have gone with "unconcession". The nominating message I sent to ads-l on 12/20 read =============== A column appearing in the on-line Modern Humorist immediately after The Phone Call from Gore to Bush in the wee hours post-election is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek re-creation of this Great Moment in American Political History: "On Second Thought: Al Gore's Un-concession" http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0011/call/ This column, posted on 11/8/00 or 11/9/00 at the latest, provides what appears to be the first use of this word in print, and if e-print doesn't count, the Times' Week in Review column last Sunday (12/17/00) by Jenny Lyn Bader, "Finally, Nap Time in America", refers to "Mr. Bush's snippy response during the 3:45 a.m. un-concession". There are only a few other hits on "unconcession" or "un-concession" on google.com or Nexis, if we eliminate the irrelevant ones involving "U.N. concessions" or the French NP "un concession", and they all refer to the Gore phone call. So I nominate this word (preferably without the hyphen, to promote its lexical legitimacy) for the Brand-Spanking-New category in the WOTY vote. ========= When we held our nominations at the meeting, I somehow (mis)remembered checking both "unconcession" and "unconcede", when clearly I must have only checked the former. If we can't amend the vote (as far as I know, "unconcession" really IS brand-spanking-new as of 11/8/00, but we didn't really vote for it), we should retroactively un-vote for it and delete the category from the press release. Sorry about that--my bad. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 8 21:49:30 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 13:49:30 -0800 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: note on mark mandel's list: "Frankenbeans" might well be influenced by "franks 'n' beans" and have nothing particularly monstrous in its connotations. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Mon Jan 8 23:15:57 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 18:15:57 EST Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: With reference to Barry's recent posting on "highball": "In each glass was also placed an "ice ball"." I have never encountered the word "ice ball"; the only word I am familiar with is the now-standard ice-cube. I can't picture how one would freeze ice into balls, and would have supposed that in the 1880s ice would have to have been formed in cubes, (or at least rectangular solids more likely to be called cubes than balls,) or be fragments chopped from a block of ice. "The drink was usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, wanted a bigger drink and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a High Ball." It is my impression that the Irish use the word "ball" for a glass of whiskey. I believe that one of the boozers in Ulysses refers to a "ball of malt". If so, would this have a connection? A highball being a ball of liquor in a high glass? Despite having grown up in the company of my father, I was not a habitue of barroom when a toddler. Other hand, neither was I unfamiliar with them. When I got to college, I took a room in a working class neighborhood in Allston, within walking distance of Boston Univ. The bar in my neighborhood -- the Brighton Avenue Cafe -- was a working man's joint, exactly the sort of place my father would take me into, if he needed a beer. Or even if he didn't need one, but he hardly ever didn't need one. My friends from college would have me take them there, and they would be goggle-eyed at being in a place where drinkers at the bar wore paint-speckled overalls. The bar-tender, Les, who claimed to have pitched in the majors in the 1920s, was a cut-up. One of his standard gags was to bet someone that he could throw a ball into the phonebooth in the corner. If the bet was taken, he would go into a cramped windup, with empty hands, and mimic a throw toward the booth; then he'd send his foil to look in the booth, when he would have planted a glass of whiskey -- a ball. (You were wondering how this would be relevant, weren't you.) To become irrelevant, or even more irrelevant than usual, the first time I went into the Cafe, Les tried one of his gags on me. I might have been from a working class family, and raised to be at home in low saloons, but I also had "college kid" written all over me. After Les served me, he said, "Listen, you're a baseball fan, right, know the game? Tell me this, who would you say is the greatest ball-player who ever lived." I don't remember noticing the other bar-flies nudging each other and saying "watch Les give it to this kid", but I figured I was being set up for something. So I said, "Gee, that's a tough one, the greatest ever. I guess I would have to say, Big Ed Delehanty." Les didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then said, "Where in the hell did you ever hear of him?" The script, you see, called for me to say Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams, or some other player of the day, and then Les would say, "Shit, they don't teach you young punks nothing about history in school. You never heard of a man named Babe Ruth?" and he'd be off. But when he had been a kid himself, I think, his uncles and his father's friends would ask him "who's the greatest ball play of all time" and he's say, Babe Ruth, and they'd say, "Shit, you young punks don't know nothing about history. Ruth is nothing compared to Big Ed Delehanty." End of irrelevancy. Actually, not quite. I used to say frequently that the best advice that my father had ever given me, indeed the only good advice he'd ever given, was that if I ever saw the sign "Tables for Ladies" in the window of a bar, I could know that it was a low dive, and I should stay out of it. I tested this advice frequently when I got to college, and it proved valid every time. I remember one of my friends coming to me bubbling: she and her boy friend had actually seen a bar with that sign in the window, and she had wanted him to take her in, but he wouldn't. Perhaps his father had known my father. GAT From jasanders at CSUPOMONA.EDU Tue Jan 9 01:23:54 2001 From: jasanders at CSUPOMONA.EDU (Judi Sanders) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 17:23:54 -0800 Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. In-Reply-To: <20001214062637.3952.qmail@web4205.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The best source would be the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. Judi -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of prem kumar Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:27 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. Respected Sir/Madam: We are working on a project called “The American Slang”. We need to collect the definition of slang, nature and origin of American Slang , Words or Phrases or Sentences used as slang and general rules for th usage of slang . Give their meaning and their correct usage along with some twenty examples. I could get some information about “what is slang?”. But regarding history, nature, origin, rules to use slang and things like that, I could hardly collect any data. If you can help me in this regard, it would be very generous. May be if you have some data regarding this, you can send it to me through e-mail. You can also send me the name of websites from where I can collect the information relating to “American Slang”. Thank You for your help in advance. Prem Kumar. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 01:44:29 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 20:44:29 EST Subject: Phoenix (AZ) Chimichangas (1976-1979) Message-ID: I checked the phonebook fiche for Phoenix (AZ), 1976-1979. The 1976 ads may have appeared in earlier phonebooks. January 1976, PHOENIX, pg. 1197, col. 2: _EL MOLINO_ GREEN CORN TAMALES CHIMICHANGAS 244-0364 117 SOUTH 22nd ST. January 1976, PHOENIX, pg. 1199, col. 2: _La Pinata_ RESTAURANTE Home of the Chimichanga (This thing has more homes than O. J. Simpson houseguest Kato Kaelin--ed.) 279-1763 3330 N. 19th AV. January 1976, PHOENIX, pg. 1201, col. 1: JORDAN'S MEXICAN FOOD JORDAN'S 6247 N 7 St. SERVING PHX FOR 30 YEARS New: Margaritas & Cocktails CHIMICHANGAS, A SPECIALTY 6247 N 7 st...274-6836, 248-9522 January 1979, PHOENIX, pg. 1512, col. 1: el Don Quixote "CHIMICHANGAS A SPECIALTY" 944-3333 12838 N 19 AV January 1979, PHOENIX, pg. 1514, col. 2: La Canasta Mexican Food CHIMICHANGAS TAMALES TACOS, ETC. 252-9147, 278-7097 2501 W. VAN BUREN -------------------------------------------------------- MONGOLIAN BARBECUE (continued) This was in the LA (airport area) phone fiche. I'll have to check earlier phonebooks when I visit the Library of Congress again. October 1976, LOS ANGELES-AIRPORT AREA, pg. 398, col. 2: A centuries-Old Chinese Feast Authentic...Unique...Exciting ONLY AT COLONEL LEE'S Mongolian Barbecue 5608 W. MANCHESTER WESTCHESTER 641-6868 From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Tue Jan 9 00:38:54 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 19:38:54 -0500 Subject: unconcede Message-ID: For Larry and others: The problem of this year�s b.s.n. terms is troubling from one point of view. I simply did not do as much research as I should have. A Nexis search produced the following profile: 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1984 unconcede 6 2 unconceded 15 1 1 1 1 unconcession 1 1 A detailed examination of OED shows: unconceded OED 1674 A look at "Making of America" shows: To insist that the union was such as to destroy the separate existence and unconceded rights of the constituent parts of the body, is to maintain that the church is consolidated, and to establish a complete spiritual despotism. That no such union really exists between the several parts of the Presbyterian church is plain, because a member of one presbytery or congregation does not become ipso facto a member of every co-ordinate body. �The General Assembly of 1835,� The Princeton Review, July 1835, p 465 Clearly, this is more than consulting any individual. It is a matter of the principals doing their homework. My undertaking was incomplete to say the least. Please accept my apologies for my failings in this matter. Regards, David Barnhart -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: The problem of this yea Type: application/octet-stream Size: 20480 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 01:51:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 20:51:45 EST Subject: Eye of the Storm (2000, from 1861-1865) Message-ID: EYE OF THE STORM: A CIVIL WAR ODYSSEY written and illustrated by Private Robert Knox Sneden Edited by Charles F. Bryan, Jr. and Nelson D. Lankford hardcover, 329 pages, $37.50 The Free Press, 2000 See the article in today's NEWSDAY, 8 January 2000, part 2, pg. B3, col. 2, "Civil War 'Treasure.'" The article has a nice illustration of the "dead line" that's on page 221, from April 8-20, 1864. I'll have more to say on this Civil War book, but it's now about time for me to throw up watching Ken Burns's JAZZ. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 05:35:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 00:35:19 EST Subject: Fwd: "Jazz" and Ken Burns Message-ID: I just sent this letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. Perhaps other people might want to send letters to support it. Peter Tamony (a longtime ADS member and a San Francisco resident) deserves mention in any 19-hour JAZZ documentary! FWIW, I checked the old archives, and most of my work on "jazz" (Jazz in San Francisco 1913-1919, Jazz in Chicago 1914-1917, Jazz in New Orleans 1916-1918, Jazz in Wisconsin 1916-1917, Jazz in New York 1917) is gone! --Barry Popik -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: "Jazz" and Ken Burns Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 00:29:16 EST Size: 5637 URL: From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 9 05:42:50 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 23:42:50 -0600 Subject: Eye of the Storm (2000, from 1861-1865) Message-ID: Since Barry has mentioned this book, let me add my hosannas. This book ranks with U.S. Grant and Sam Watkins as *definitive* memoirs of the US Civil War. In the case of Pvt Sneden, it's his illustrations which make his reputation. Yes: these three are in the same category of war memoirs as those of Caesar and Xenophon. My ggg-grandfather (pvt Wesley Graham, Co C, 25th Tn Inf, CSA) got himself killed-in-action at the Battle of Mill Springs, KY, 19 Jan 1862. He left a house full of fatherless kids. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Tue Jan 9 13:57:16 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 14:57:16 +0100 Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: Ice can be frozen into balls by using a metal mold, consisting of two half-spheres joined by a hinge. The two parts can be filled with ground ice and then closed together and deep frozen in an ice-cream freezer, using salt and ice in the traditional way. This method is described (for making ice-cream balls) in an old Swedish cooking manual (Hagdahl, 1879, new ed. 1891). Jan Ivarsson Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-272 31 SIMRISHAMN Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st Tel. +46 414 10620 Fax +46 414 13633 ----- Original Message ----- From: "GEORGE THOMPSON" To: Sent: den 9 januari 2001 00:15 Subject: Re: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) > With reference to Barry's recent posting on "highball": > "In each glass was also placed an "ice ball"." > I have never encountered the word "ice ball"; the only word I am > familiar with is the now-standard ice-cube. I can't picture how one > would freeze ice into balls, and would have supposed that in the > 1880s ice would have to have been formed in cubes, (or at least > rectangular solids more likely to be called cubes than balls,) or be > fragments chopped from a block of ice. > > "The drink was usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, > wanted a bigger drink and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a > High Ball." > It is my impression that the Irish use the word "ball" for a glass > of whiskey. I believe that one of the boozers in Ulysses refers to a > "ball of malt". If so, would this have a connection? A highball > being a ball of liquor in a high glass? > > Despite having grown up in the company of my father, I was not a > habitue of barroom when a toddler. Other hand, neither was I > unfamiliar with them. When I got to college, I took a room in a > working class neighborhood in Allston, within walking distance of > Boston Univ. The bar in my neighborhood -- the Brighton Avenue Cafe > -- was a working man's joint, exactly the sort of place my father > would take me into, if he needed a beer. Or even if he didn't need > one, but he hardly ever didn't need one. My friends from college > would have me take them there, and they would be goggle-eyed at being > in a place where drinkers at the bar wore paint-speckled overalls. > The bar-tender, Les, who claimed to have pitched in the majors in the > 1920s, was a cut-up. One of his standard gags was to bet someone > that he could throw a ball into the phonebooth in the corner. If the > bet was taken, he would go into a cramped windup, with empty hands, > and mimic a throw toward the booth; then he'd send his foil to look > in the booth, when he would have planted a glass of whiskey -- a > ball. (You were wondering how this would be relevant, weren't you.) > > To become irrelevant, or even more irrelevant than usual, the first > time I went into the Cafe, Les tried one of his gags on me. I might > have been from a working class family, and raised to be at home in > low saloons, but I also had "college kid" written all over me. After > Les served me, he said, "Listen, you're a baseball fan, right, know > the game? Tell me this, who would you say is the greatest > ball-player who ever lived." I don't remember noticing the other > bar-flies nudging each other and saying "watch Les give it to this > kid", but I figured I was being set up for something. So I said, > "Gee, that's a tough one, the greatest ever. I guess I would have to > say, Big Ed Delehanty." Les didn't say anything for a few seconds, > and then said, "Where in the hell did you ever hear of him?" The > script, you see, called for me to say Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams, > or some other player of the day, and then Les would say, "Shit, they > don't teach you young punks nothing about history in school. You > never heard of a man named Babe Ruth?" and he'd be off. But when he > had been a kid himself, I think, his uncles and his father's friends > would ask him "who's the greatest ball play of all time" and he's > say, Babe Ruth, and they'd say, "Shit, you young punks don't know > nothing about history. Ruth is nothing compared to Big Ed > Delehanty." > > End of irrelevancy. > > Actually, not quite. I used to say frequently that the best advice > that my father had ever given me, indeed the only good advice he'd > ever given, was that if I ever saw the sign "Tables for Ladies" in > the window of a bar, I could know that it was a low dive, and I > should stay out of it. I tested this advice frequently when I got to > college, and it proved valid every time. I remember one of my > friends coming to me bubbling: she and her boy friend had actually > seen a bar with that sign in the window, and she had wanted him to > take her in, but he wouldn't. Perhaps his father had known my > father. > > GAT From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 9 04:36:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:36:15 +0800 Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:23 PM -0800 1/8/01, Judi Sanders wrote: >The best source would be the Random House Historical Dictionary of >American Slang. > >Judi Assuming all items investigated are from A-O, of course. larry >-----Original Message----- >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On >Behalf Of prem kumar >Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:27 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. > >Respected Sir/Madam: > >We are working on a project called "The American Slang". We need to >collect the definition of slang, nature and origin of American Slang >, Words or Phrases or Sentences used as slang and general rules for >th usage of slang . Give their meaning and their correct usage along >with some twenty examples. I could get some information about "what >is slang?". But regarding history, nature, origin, rules to use >slang and things like that, I could hardly collect any data. If you >can help me in this regard, it would be very generous. May be if you >have some data regarding this, you can send it to me through e-mail. >You can also send me the name of websites from where I can collect >the information relating to "American Slang". > >Thank You for your help in advance. > >Prem Kumar. mgpremkumar at yahoo.com > > > > >Do You Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. >Millions of Products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 17:51:26 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:51:26 EST Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN Message-ID: In a message dated 12/14/2000 12:48:35 AM, LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU writes: << "Indian" is definitely unPC and is now avoided. >> well, this is of some controversy among the folks themselves, as I undrstand it: some folks prefer "Indian" and think of "Native American" as a bit of PC jargon created by patronizing white folks. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 9 18:21:26 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 13:21:26 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:51 PM 1/9/01 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 12/14/2000 12:48:35 AM, LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU writes: > ><< "Indian" is definitely unPC and is now avoided. >> > >well, this is of some controversy among the folks themselves, as I undrstand >it: some folks prefer "Indian" and think of "Native American" as a bit of PC >jargon created by patronizing white folks. My impression agrees with Ron's: Even in the early '80s, when I was doing research on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, natives called themselves "Indian" and smiled at whites' use of N.A. (I don't think the term PC was around yet, but I knew what they were implying). After all, one said, "Indian" has been used for 500 years in both English and Spanish forms, so we might as well accept it. However, it is definitely unPC among whites, to the point where I'm frowned at by my students if I use "Indian." _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Tue Jan 9 17:09:22 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:09:22 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN Message-ID: There is also, Ron, the matter of all the long-established compounds dependent upon Indian: Indian agent Indian club Indian corn Indian file Indian giver Indian meal Indian paintbrush Indian pipe Indian pudding Indian summer Indian tobacco Indian wrestling These are a selection from M-W10. Regards, David David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 9 18:35:57 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:35:57 -0600 Subject: "Jazz" and Ken Burns Message-ID: Re: Barry Popik's letter to the San Francisco Chronicle: The S.F. Chronicle may or may not print his letter. But it is only a matter of time until the San Francisco newspapers pick up on the story about San Francisco's role in the "jazz" story. What concerns me most now is Barry's mention that much of his work on "jazz" has disappeared from the old ADS archives: > FWIW, I checked the old archives, and most of my work on >"jazz" (Jazz in San Francisco 1913-1919, Jazz in Chicago 1914-1917, >Jazz in New Orleans >1916-1918, Jazz in Wisconsin 1916-1917, Jazz in New York 1917) is gone! Fortunately, I have already written up some (most?) of Barry's San Francisco 1913-1919 material. But if he has copies of his other "jazz" material missing from the archives, I will print it this spring in my _Comments on Etymology_ to be sure it is preserved. ---Gerald Cohen From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Tue Jan 9 19:05:32 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 20:05:32 +0100 Subject: Jazz and Ken Burns Message-ID: On mardi 9 janvier 2001 19:35, Gerald Cohen wrote: > What concerns me most now is Barry's mention that much of his work >on "jazz" has disappeared from the old ADS archives: As I responded to Barry personally, there were months missing in the archives when I took them over, though I still haven't nailed down the exact dates. I wouldn't imagine he was expecting to save his work for posterity in an email format, anyhow. From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 20:25:02 2001 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 15:25:02 EST Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: Perhaps "franken-" only takes the negative connotation by people who are leery of technology to begin with. Here's an example of the use of "franken-" as a good thing from T3 magazine, November 2000: "MP3 Player/Phone >>Frankenphone! >>Finally, Samsung plans to bring one of its Frankenphones to the U.S., with a planned November release for the SPH-M100 Uproar MP3 player/phone. The Uproar offers all the modern conveniences associated with current phones, plus e-mail/fax access and an hour of MP3 playback. Intended to de-clutter the tech-savvy person on the go, its "two for the price of one-ness" should play well with those wanting to save dough for luxuries. . . like gas." Pardon any broken style conventions, I'm only a student. -dsb From mlisecki at POLBOX.COM Tue Jan 9 21:04:43 2001 From: mlisecki at POLBOX.COM (Michal Lisecki) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 22:04:43 +0100 Subject: body language Message-ID: Dear Thomas, for the sake of my thesis on computer-mediated communication in text-based only environments I investigated non-verbal communication, among these the body language. the publications I came across are far from being up-to-date but I might give you some hints on where to find some more materials on the web. perhaps you could find some more latest findings in the field there. i am sorry i am not directing you straight to the body-language pages because i've just gathered the links to the main sites. you will surely have to dig deeper in the archives of the sites to find some specifics. most of the recent publications I am familiar with are in Polish and thus I guess they would not be of any help to you :-> or am I wrong? Center for Nonverbal Studies http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/index.htm Exploring Nonverbal Communication http://zzyx.ucsc.edu/~archer/ Facial Analysis - links on the web http://mambo.ucsc.edu/psl/fanl.html Nonverbal Communication Research Page http://socpsych.lacollege.edu/nonverbal.html Nonverbal Communication Links http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/speech/commcentral/mgnonverbal.html http://zen.sunderland.ac.uk/~hb5jma/pam.htm you should also find it interesting that there are some online journals on nonverbal communication. when it comes to proxemics specifically i know nothing but some not-so-recent works by Edward Hall. all of them mentioned were mentioned by Beverly. you might also have a lok at the following article... Hall, E. (1968). Proxemics. Current Anthropology, 9, 83-95, 106-108. tafn -- Michal Lisecki finger me 4 my pgp 'Linguistics is a quest for meaning' Benjamin Lee Whorf From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 01:23:48 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 20:23:48 -0500 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Isn't there a breakfast cereal called something like Frankenberry >(made by the same people who sell Count Chokula or some other such >horror)? If all "Franken-" prefixed items were "negative," surely >they wouldn't have done this (although this obviously does not speak >to the genetic modification issue directly). dInIs (whose broken style conventions usually exceed dsb's, but I'm only a professor) >Perhaps "franken-" only takes the negative connotation by people who are >leery of technology to begin with. Here's an example of the use of >"franken-" as a good thing from T3 magazine, November 2000: > >"MP3 Player/Phone >>Frankenphone! >>Finally, Samsung plans to bring one of >its Frankenphones to the U.S., with a planned November release for the >SPH-M100 Uproar MP3 player/phone. The Uproar offers all the modern >conveniences associated with current phones, plus e-mail/fax access and an >hour of MP3 playback. Intended to de-clutter the tech-savvy person on the >go, its "two for the price of one-ness" should play well with those wanting >to save dough for luxuries. . . like gas." > >Pardon any broken style conventions, I'm only a student. > >-dsb -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 10 01:31:53 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 17:31:53 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ...not to mention Indian rub or all the expressions with Injun. Now: talk about un-PC... Peter R. On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > There is also, Ron, the matter of all the long-established compounds > dependent upon Indian: > > Indian agent > Indian club > Indian corn > Indian file > Indian giver > Indian meal > Indian paintbrush > Indian pipe > Indian pudding > Indian summer > Indian tobacco > Indian wrestling > > These are a selection from M-W10. > > Regards, > David > > David K. Barnhart, Editor > The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] > barnhart at highlands.com > www.highlands.com/Lexik > > "Necessity obliges us to neologize." > Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 > From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 02:19:25 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: In a message dated 1/9/2001 8:32:42 PM, prichard at LINFIELD.EDU writes: << ...not to mention Indian rub or all the expressions with Injun. Now: talk about un-PC... >> well, I don't THINK that Barnhart's point was that compounds in/derivatives of INDIAN are by definition perjorative. Indian Summer? Indiana? Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : INDIAN = NIGGER : NEGRO (in the days when NEGRO was the self-reference term of preference, of course). In other words, the status of INJUN does not in any way illuminate the status of INDIAN. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 10 02:26:42 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 18:26:42 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <99.f1c6c38.278d20ad@aol.com> Message-ID: > << ...not to mention Indian rub or all the expressions with Injun. Now: talk > about un-PC... >> > > well, I don't THINK that Barnhart's point was that compounds in/derivatives > of INDIAN are by definition perjorative. Indian Summer? Indiana? No, I don't think so either. But there seem to be a few expressions out there that don't go down quite as easily as those on the list: Indian giver and Indian burn come to mind. (And does anyone else have Dutch rub and Indian rub [knuckles on the top of the head] as synonyms, whereas an Indian burn is a two-handed twist of the skin on a forearm? I'll apologize if it's in DARE, which is safely at home out of the rain.) Is there a Dutch burn? (barn, yes...) PR From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Wed Jan 10 03:40:21 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 22:40:21 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > INDIAN = > NIGGER : NEGRO Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? From indigo at WELL.COM Wed Jan 10 08:26:06 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:26:06 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN In-Reply-To: <200101100501.VAA25661@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: >>well, this is of some controversy among the folks themselves, as I undrstand >>it: some folks prefer "Indian" and think of "Native American" as a bit of PC >>jargon created by patronizing white folks. > >My impression agrees with Ron's: Even in the early '80s, when I was doing >research on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, natives called >themselves "Indian" and smiled at whites' use of N.A. I think it often depends on context. Being one of those PC people myself (undergrad degree in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley & still live in Berkeley) & being around plenty of PC people (of all colors) all the time, I can report that some of the same people who say "Indian", "black" or "Asian" in casual contexts, especially among friends, will steadfastly insist upon "Native American" (or "indigenous" or "First Nations", or sometimes "American Indian"), "African American" and "Asian American" (or "Asian Pacific American" or "Asian and Pacific Islander") in more formal, mixed &/or "unfriendly" contexts. Then there are those who argue passionately in favor of "Indian" for general use, notably the famous writer Sherman Alexie. & then there are those who would ideally identify everybody more specifically, i.e. Ojibwe, Lakota, Menominee, &c. &c. Also there's the class/education angle on all of this. Ethnic Studies college students get into splitting these hairs. fwiw, I'm Chinese American & those formative undergrad years were in the late 80s. Indigo Som indigo at well.com Poets don't have hobbies; they have obsessions --Leonard Nathan From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 11:04:59 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 06:04:59 EST Subject: Great Scott! (1864; EYE OF THE STORM gems) Message-ID: From EYE OF THE STORM. Pg. 147, November 26 and 27, 1863: ...and the Sanitary Commission camp at a half demolished house known as "The Shebang." Pg. 167, November 30, 1863: ..up all night cooking "scouse"*... *"Scouse" was slang for a soldier-cooked dish. Pg. 167, November 30, 1863: I awake stiff and sore enough, and for the first time in prison found out what "sleeping on the soft side of a plank" meant! Pg. 169, December 2, 1863: The sinks*... *Sink was the name for a latrine. Pg. 225, May 3 to 5, 1864: "Great Scott," who would have thought that this would be the destiny of the Union Volunteer in 1861-2 while marching down Broadway to the tune of "John Brown's Body," etc! Pg. 239, July 4, 1864: ...all went "on the double"... Pg. 242, July 5 to 10, 1864: Each had thirty-two pound balls riveted to his legs with a heavy ox chain. These Wirz playfully termed "Confederate watches." Pg. 273, November 24, 1864: Dr. White acknowledged that "he had a white elephant" on his hands... Pg. 296, December 20, 1864: At the sinks, which are a long way from the barracks, many men were "mugged" and robbed. From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 10 12:26:22 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 07:26:22 -0500 Subject: Indian vs Native American, etc. Message-ID: Indigo Som said: >> I think it often depends on context. Being one of those PC people myself (undergrad degree in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley & still live in Berkeley) & being around plenty of PC people (of all colors) all the time, I can report that some of the same people who say "Indian", "black" or "Asian" in casual contexts, especially among friends, will steadfastly insist upon "Native American" (or "indigenous" or "First Nations", or sometimes "American Indian"), "African American" and "Asian American" (or "Asian Pacific American" or "Asian and Pacific Islander") in more formal, mixed &/or "unfriendly" contexts. << This is an excellent point. In formal settings, as on the floor of Congress or such, one hears African American almost exclusively (as one hears "gentlelady" there -- where else?). And if one does not know one's audience well ("unfriendly" contexts), it is wise to err in favor of formal register vs. the casual (akin to the polite/familiar forms in French, etc.). Thanks for pointing this out. It is more than PC vs. traditional; it is, or is becoming formal vs. colloquial. Frank Abate Dictionary & Reference Specialists (DRS) Consulting & Lexicographic Services (860) 510-0100, ext 2311 abatefr at earthlink.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mdkgottlieb at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 10 12:50:00 2001 From: mdkgottlieb at YAHOO.COM (=?iso-8859-1?q?Michael=20Gottlieb?=) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 04:50:00 -0800 Subject: "Popney" rhyming slang Message-ID: Inspired by Cockney rhyming slang, "Popney" rhyming slang terms have been collected on London-based www.music365.com since the site's owner overheard a man in a pub ask for "Britney Spears" instead of "a few beers." Jay Kay, for instance, of Jamiroquai fame, means takeaway. "What with practicing his quirky dance moves and keeping up with his banging social life, Jay doesn't always have time to prepare a properly balanced meal. Luckily cosmic Kay likes to keep one step ahead of himself..." Sample sentence: "I really can't be bothered to cook tonight. Let's just grab a Jay on the way home." RICKY MARTIN = SIDE PARTING Sample sentence: "Just a little off the top, please barber, and do us a Ricky Martin." TINA TURNER = NICE LITTLE EARNER Sample sentence: "I picked up ten videos for a ton and sold 'em for a monkey each - how's that for a Tina Turner?" BARRY WHITE = FRIGHT Sample sentence: "Crikey, that 'Blair Witch Project' gave me a right old Barry!" Sinead O'Conner -- doner George Michael -- cycle (v.) Fatboy Slim -- gym Gary Barlow -- Monte Carlo __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ From stevek at SHORE.NET Wed Jan 10 13:12:33 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 08:12:33 -0500 Subject: franken-cite In-Reply-To: <20010109.224122.-324609.3.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: >From today's Boston Globe (1/10/01) Section F, p 1 "A perverse fantasy 'Island'" Matthew Gilbert --- Not surprisingly, it's [Temptation Island] on Fox, the same network that brought us last year's cultural nadir, "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?," and its bride of Franken-groom, Darva Conger. ----- Yes, the ?," series is as in print, and Franken-groom is hyphenated. The globe is at www.boston.com/globe and you can look at articles free the day of or day after publication. --- Steve K. From m.laounodji at VOILA.FR Wed Jan 10 13:10:35 2001 From: m.laounodji at VOILA.FR (mbairessem LAOUNODJI) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:10:35 +0100 Subject: scholarship request for black studies Message-ID: Dear sirs, Best wishes fro the New Year 2001. I thank you all for you quick responses to my query about Black English or Ebonics forwarded by Peter Patrick on the linguistpost last year.My query was to have a backgound information about B.E because i lacked the materials.I have already defended my project on B.E for an M.A in linguistics. I would like to further my studies in linguistics,and mainly in Ebonics or B.E.So i send you this query to inquire if you could help me or to refer me to any institutions or Black institutions that could help me with any scholarship to achieve that aim.I love to know the deepest structures and the functionning of B.E.I hope you will be of some help or refer me to any helping hand.I am looking forward to sending you any information you may need.By the way,i am a Chadian student .I live and study in Central African Republic,Africa,which is a francophone country.And it is not easy to be in touch with anglophone world.I hope to hear from you soon. Best, Laounodji Mbairessem Monza University of Bangui po box 1450 Bangui,C.A.R From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 10 13:26:23 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:26:23 +0000 Subject: "Popney" rhyming slang In-Reply-To: <20010110125000.31760.qmail@web9901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: My students don't call this 'popney'--they call it 'Cockney rhyming slang' ('Britney' is their favourite example). I have some suspicion that "popney" is a marketing invention of the music site--it's the only place that seems to use that term. Lynne --On Wednesday, January 10, 2001 4:50 am -0800 Michael Gottlieb wrote: > Inspired by Cockney rhyming slang, "Popney" rhyming > slang terms have been collected on London-based > www.music365.com since the site's owner overheard a > man in a pub ask for "Britney Spears" instead of "a > few beers." > > Jay Kay, for instance, of Jamiroquai fame, means > takeaway. "What with practicing his quirky dance > moves and keeping up with his banging social life, Jay > doesn't always have time to prepare a properly > balanced meal. Luckily cosmic Kay likes to keep one > step ahead of himself..." > > Sample sentence: "I really can't be bothered to cook > tonight. Let's just grab a Jay on the way home." > > RICKY MARTIN = SIDE PARTING > > Sample sentence: "Just a little off the top, please > barber, and do us a Ricky Martin." > > TINA TURNER = NICE LITTLE EARNER > > Sample sentence: "I picked up ten videos for a ton and > sold 'em for a monkey each - how's that for a Tina > Turner?" > > BARRY WHITE = FRIGHT > > Sample sentence: "Crikey, that 'Blair Witch Project' > gave me a right old Barry!" > > > Sinead O'Conner -- doner > George Michael -- cycle (v.) > Fatboy Slim -- gym > Gary Barlow -- Monte Carlo > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! > http://photos.yahoo.com/ M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 13:57:31 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 08:57:31 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <20010109.224122.-324609.3.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. dInIs >On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > >> Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : >> INDIAN = >> NIGGER : NEGRO > >Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the >contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 14:05:08 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 09:05:08 EST Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof Message-ID: In a message dated 12/14/2000 12:48:35 AM, LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU writes: << "Indian" is definitely unPC and is now avoided. >> When I visited Alaska in 1974 I was informed that one did not ask a Caucasian if s/he were a "native Alaskan" because in Alaska the word "native" referred specifically to members of the three aboriginal races, namely the Eskimo, the Aleuts, and those people who in the lower 48 are and were generally referred to as "Indians". (I am not trying to be PC; rather I am trying to avoid ambiguity. I work for a company owned by a "real" Indian---a Gujarati from Bombay.) Incidentally, in Alaska in 1974, specifically in the city of Anchorage, "Texan" was a strongly perjorative word. At the time there were a number of unemployed people who came to Anchorage in hopes of getting jobs in the Prudhoe Bay oil boom. These people were collectively referred to as "Texans" although certainly some came from other states than Texas. I do not not know what events led to it, but these so-called Texans had acquired a reputation among the existing Alaskan residents as thieves/vagabonds/no-goods/etc. Hence "Texan" was perjorative. I received an eyewitness account of a black cabdriver in Anchorage who delivered a diatribe about "those dirty Texans who moved in and ruined the neighborhood." The eyewitness (who was from Baltimore) described that black cabdriver as "sounding just like a member of the White Citizen's Councils". James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) (Basic Commerce and Industries, Inc.) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 14:37:17 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 09:37:17 -0500 Subject: Italian Message-ID: DINIS wrote "Dialect forms which have had a similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example." I would think Carter's EYE-tal-yun is more similar to his EYE-ran for ear-RAN, a choice of one of two GVS possibilities, as root vs rout for . --db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 10 16:04:49 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 11:04:49 -0500 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: Does anybody here know the origin and significance of the saying "The postman [always] rings twice"? This seems to be some sort of aphorism or metaphor. It was the title of a famous novel, which I read long ago ... I don't remember a postman in the novel, but .... I looked through some reference books (books of proverbs, sayings, etc., at a small library) without any luck. Can somebody suggest a reference? -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 16:59:56 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 11:59:56 EST Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: << >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? From Amcolph at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 17:00:24 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:00:24 EST Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: James M. Cain, wasn't it, and a couple of movie versions (the better one with Lana Turner)? But did any actual postman ever ring twice? So you would not rush to the door expecting a visitor, but know instead that you could go get your mail when convenient? Who is old enough to remember such a thing? Ray Ott From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 04:03:09 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:03:09 +0800 Subject: Postman rings twice In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010110105951.028e2c40@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 11:04 AM -0500 1/10/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >Does anybody here know the origin and significance of the saying "The >postman [always] rings twice"? > >This seems to be some sort of aphorism or metaphor. It was the title of a >famous novel, which I read long ago ... James M. Cain, 1934 (and the celebrated 1946 film noir therefrom, starring Lana Turner and John Garfield) > I don't remember a postman in the >novel, but .... > >I looked through some reference books (books of proverbs, sayings, etc., at >a small library) without any luck. Can somebody suggest a reference? > >-- Doug Wilson My guess is that it wasn't really a saying, but a fact (presumably postmen back then really DID ring twice, to let you it was the postman and not someone else) that Cain used as a metaphor for a crucial plot element that didn't refer directly to postmen but alluded to foreshadowing of events, twists, etc. I would wager that to the extent it became a "saying", Cain is responsible. Fred? larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 04:09:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:09:42 +0800 Subject: Postman rings twice In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This is from a web site, http://www.educeth.ethz.ch/english/readinglist/cainj/ A Note on the Title of James M. Cain's Novel 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' In "Murder on the Love Rack," the tenth chapter of CAIN: The Biography of James M. Cain (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), Roy Hoopes details the history of Cain's famously enigmatic title for his first novel. According to Hoopes, Cain originally titled the work Bar-B-Que, but the publisher Alfred Knopf who was considering publishing the novel objected to the title and suggested For Love or Money instead. Cain hated Knopf's title because he found it generic, the sort of title that seems designed to market any sensationalistic book or movie. In return, Cain offered to call the book Black Puma or The Devil's Checkbook, but Knopf rejected these as well. Hoopes reports that finally, during a conversation with the playwright and screenwriter Vincent Lawrence--Cain's best friend in Hollywood, and the person to whom he ultimately dedicated this novel--came up with the title The Postman Always Rings Twice. The two writers had been commiserating over the agonies of waiting for the postman each day to find out the latest news on their submitted manuscripts. Lawrence said that he would sometimes go out into his backyard to avoid hearing the postman come but complained that the postman always rang twice to make sure he was heard. This anecdote put Cain in mind of an old English and Irish tradition according to which the postman always rang (or knocked) twice to announce himself. Cain pitched the title to his friend and Lawrence agreed that this metaphor was well suited as a description for the fate of Frank Chambers. Knopf, of course, accepted the title, and Hoopes notes that this title, with its rather obscure meaning, may in fact have contributed to the controversy that fueled the novel's huge success. J.C. Caruso University of Washington From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 04:10:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:10:58 +0800 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <13.fe2d20d.278def0c@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:59 AM -0500 1/10/01, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: > ><< >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >>fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >>of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >>form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >>similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >>would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> > >And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? No, if you say "Who's yer daddy?" fast enough. From RFelton at ISA.ORG Wed Jan 10 17:30:36 2001 From: RFelton at ISA.ORG (Felton, Robert) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:30:36 -0500 Subject: Sewer-pipe sailors Message-ID: An acquaintance who was once a naval officer tells me that submariners were known in his day as "sewer-pipe sailors." I don't know if this slang is known to everybody but me, but I thought I'd pass it along. Robert M. Felton, P.E. Technical Editor, InTech Magazine ISA - The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society 67 Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 E-Mail: rfelton at isa.org Phone: (919) 990-9223 Fax: (919) 549-8288 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 18:09:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:09:22 EST Subject: President-Select; Pay-If-I-Play Message-ID: PRESIDENT-SELECT From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 31, col. 2, "Why the Right Can't Win" by Michael Kelly: We'll (the left--ed.) never, no never, no never, quit hollering from the rooftops that the president-select, as we like to call him, was and forever will be entirely and utterly illegitimate... -------------------------------------------------------- PAY-IF-I-PLAY From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 3, col. 1: _ZETA WIN$ IF MICHAEL SINS_ _Douglas to pay $5M if unfaithful: report_ Michael Douglas has reportedly agreed to pay Catherine Zeta-Jones a whopping $5 million if he's ever unfaithful during their marriage. The 56-year-old star--once treated for sex addiction--inked the amazing "pay-if-I play" deal as part of the prenuptial agreement he made with his new bride, the London Daily Mail says. (But the question is, what if SHE strays? Not that she's going to do that--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- E-CLINER From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 34, col. 1: _JOE 6-PACK IS WIRED_ _New La-Z-Boy "e-cliner" has M'soft WebTV_ (...) The Explorer "e-cliner," which made its debut at the CES in Las Vegas yesterday, has a built-in airplane-style tray table designed to fit the infrared keyboard for a Web TV made by Sony. -------------------------------------------------------- PANINOTECAS From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 55, col. 2, Food: _IN: Paninotecas_--Hotter than a sandwich press is a panino plus a quartino (sandwich and wine--Italian style). They come with good vibes at Via Quadronno uptown and Il Posto Accanto in the East Village. From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 10 18:00:55 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:00:55 -0500 Subject: unconcede Message-ID: David Barnhart writes: >>>>> The problem of this year's b.s.n. terms is troubling from one point of view. I simply did not do as much research as I should have. [...] unconceded OED 1674 A look at "Making of America" shows: To insist that the union was such as to destroy the separate existence and unconceded rights of the constituent parts of the body, [...] The General Assembly of 1835, The Princeton Review, July 1835, p 465 Clearly, this is more than consulting any individual. It is a matter of the principals doing their homework. My undertaking was incomplete to say the least. Please accept my apologies for my failings in this matter. <<<<< The 1835 cite is irrelevant to the sense in question. It is un + (concede + ed) i.e., a negation of the past participle "conceded", rather than (un + concede) + ed the past participle of the negation of "concede". IOW, it is not derived from "unconcede", which is the lemma that people were discussing. I can't tell about the 1674 OED cite without looking, and my OED's at home whereas I'm at work, but I regard it as suspect for the same reason until examined in context. So, Dave, you've got less to apologize about than you think you do! -- Mark A. Mandel From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 18:21:40 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:21:40 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <13.fe2d20d.278def0c@aol.com> Message-ID: >Hmmmmmmmm. dInIs >In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: > ><< >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >>fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >>of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >>form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >>similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >>would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> > >And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 18:22:56 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:22:56 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >AAAAARGH! dInIs >At 11:59 AM -0500 1/10/01, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >>In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: >> >><< >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >>>fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >>>of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >>>form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >>>similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >>>would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> >> >>And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? > >No, if you say "Who's yer daddy?" fast enough. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 10 18:13:23 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:13:23 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: Duane Campbell writes: >>>>> On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > INDIAN = > NIGGER : NEGRO Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? <<<<< For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white man for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | African-American | ... } person, and he used it without pejoration or insult. "Negro" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was in the summer of 1966, in rural Kentucky near Corbin. There was certainly a lot of racism in that region, but as far as I could tell there was none in him. -- Mark From jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU Wed Jan 10 18:47:54 2001 From: jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU (Miller, Jerry) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:47:54 -0500 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: Doug: This is coming off the top of my head, but my recollection is that the reference in the Cain novel (and movie based on it, twice) was to explain away a ringing doorbell that "interrupted" the two illicit lovers at the center of the story (she had a husband, who met an unfortunate end, of course). I haven't found a reference yet that pre-dates the expression before Cain's novel. I have a hunch the double-ringing was a "signature" for postal deliveries in the '40s and perhaps earlier but can't offer any concrete evidence of same -- maybe a postal historian could help? I know this doesn't help much, but I thought I would throw it into the discussion for what it's worth. Jerry Miller jmiller at franklincollege.edu > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas G. Wilson [SMTP:douglas at NB.NET] > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 11:05 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Postman rings twice > > Does anybody here know the origin and significance of the saying "The > postman [always] rings twice"? > > This seems to be some sort of aphorism or metaphor. It was the title of a > famous novel, which I read long ago ... I don't remember a postman in the > novel, but .... > > I looked through some reference books (books of proverbs, sayings, etc., > at > a small library) without any luck. Can somebody suggest a reference? > > -- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 19:18:19 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:18:19 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:13 PM 1/10/01 -0500, you wrote: >Duane Campbell writes: > > >>>>> >On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > > > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > > INDIAN = > > NIGGER : NEGRO > >Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the >contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? ><<<<< > >For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white man >for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | African-American | ... >} person, and he used it without pejoration or insult. "Negro" wasn't in >his vocabulary. This was in the summer of 1966, in rural Kentucky near >Corbin. There was certainly a lot of racism in that region, but as far as I >could tell there was none in him. > >-- Mark "Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. Other phonological processes were historically at work in the change of "negro" to "negra/negger/nigger", I assume; but again, the use of "nigger" today would seem, like "Injun," inexcusable, at least once the speaker has been so told. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 19:20:17 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:20:17 -0500 Subject: query Message-ID: A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what the third one is? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 10 19:29:13 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:29:13 -0500 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110141904.01cde7d0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, >and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what >the third one is? There isn't really a good answer AFAIK. http://www.alt-usage-english.org/full_faq_with_int_links.shtml#fxwordse has a good discussion of this subject. -- Doug Wilson From bkane at TIGGER.JVNC.NET Wed Jan 10 19:51:42 2001 From: bkane at TIGGER.JVNC.NET (Bernard W. Kane) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:51:42 -0500 Subject: recent book reviewed Message-ID: The New Yorker (issue of January 15, 2001, p. 72 col. 3) brackets ADSer Allan Metcalf with Henry James as cataloguers of regional quirks in a brief notice of Mr Metcalf's "How We Talk" (Houghton Mifflin). Bernie Kane word-finder From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 10 19:43:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 19:43:05 +0000 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110141904.01cde7d0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 10, 2001 2:20 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry > are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me > what the third one is? There is no third one. Here's Jesse S's note from the archives. I must say, I'm as sick of the query as he was then! Hard to believe how often this goes around. Lynne Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 10:38:50 -0400 From: Jesse T Sheidlower jester at PANIX.COM Subject: Re: Words that end in GRY In the past few weeks I've seen this unanswered puzzler pop up in three different circles. So excuse me while I introduce it to this circle which might be able to answer it. The English language has (at least) three words that end in GRY. "Angry" and "hungry" are two of them. What is the third, which purportedly is an everyday word? AAAAaaaaargh! Does _every corner_ of the Internet have to be saturated with this? The answer to the riddle in the form you heard it (as opposed to the form you're quoting) is either "what" or "three." It's a shaggy-dog riddle. ("There are three words..." the question begins, and when the question asks "what is the third word?" it's really asking "what is the third word of the riddle?" Alternately, the question is asked earlier in the riddle, and then the last line is "'What' is the word.", declaratively--this version only works when heard orally.) As for words that end in -gry, there are a whole bunch, none of them common, including puggry, maugry, iggry, aggry, gry, and others, but the best is _nugry,_ coined on rec.games.puzzles to mean 'the sort of person who will ask the words ending in -gry question without checking to see if five billion people have already asked it here before'. JTS M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 06:49:45 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:49:45 +0800 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110141904.01cde7d0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 2:20 PM -0500 1/10/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, >and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what >the third one is? > >_____________________________________________ The short answer is that there isn't any. We've talked about this on the list--this is a trick question, usually posed along the following lines, or a variation: "Not many common words end in -gry, but there are three in the English language. Can you name them?" and of course the answer is "the", "English", and "language". Various posters (on this and countless other lists) have come up with nominees for words ending in -gry, but beyond "angry" and "hungry", none are even close to common. And that means you too, "aggry" beads. larry From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Jan 10 19:46:23 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:46:23 -0500 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: As one who does remember the 40's (& 30's, too, for that matter), I can say that in Lincoln Nebraska, at least, the postman on our route (Mr. Beggs) neither rang nor knocked, but simply put the mail through the letter slot. What he DID do twice, was deliver the mail each day. There were both morning and afternoon deliveries in those days. The second delivery was stopped sometime during the war. A. Murie From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 10 22:03:40 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:03:40 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: mark mandel: >For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white >man for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | >African-American | ... } person, and he used it without pejoration >or insult. "Negro" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was in the summer >of 1966, in rural Kentucky near Corbin. There was certainly a lot of >racism in that region, but as far as I could tell there was none in >him. i've heard any number of such reports, about people of considerable age or geographical isolation or both. at one level, this is just like my grandmother's continuing to refer to cars/automobiles as "machines", and refrigerators as "iceboxes", all her life, long after everyone else around her had either shifted their usages or had never acquired hers in the first place. she was entirely aware that other people used different words, but then we all know that different people talk differently, so as long as she was understood there was no particular reason for her to change. but there's the problem with "nigger". no one, even in rural kentucky in 1966, is so isolated as not to have come into contact with plenty of speakers for whom the word is pejorative, indeed strongly so, so that if you use the word you risk being misunderstood. perhaps you have a tin ear, and don't notice how other people use this word. perhaps you are socially incurious and unobservant. perhaps you are resistant to change, to the point where your linguistic inertia is stronger than your concern for being understood. perhaps you just don't care if other people think you're talking pejoratively; *you* know what you think. but it's not *just* a matter of your continuing to use a word the way you learned as a child. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 22:35:33 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 17:35:33 EST Subject: Ind'an (was INDIAN vs. INJUN) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/10/2001 2:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes: << Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. This version may be the result of influences within Lakota, but it could also be the way they first heard it pronounced by whites. Historically this sort of ending sometimes lost the high front vowel before schwa (and I can't recall more details without Dobson)... but Lydia for example was Lydda for my grandfather (b. 1893), and Shakespeare has a spelling somewhere that indicates 'ruffian' was 'ruffin'. There's lots of other examples, notably the -iage group, marriage, carriage, and for some foliage, though lots of us put the /i/ back in on that one. Dale Coye The College of NJ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 23:56:24 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 18:56:24 -0500 Subject: Ind'an (was INDIAN vs. INJUN) In-Reply-To: <81.557f04a.278e3db5@aol.com> Message-ID: Very good points--thanks, Dale. In fact, two of us were talking about "fol(i)age" just the other day (was it with you, Alice Faber?). I do not think Lakota is the main influence in the "Ind'an" case, and I didn't mean to imply that. At 05:35 PM 1/10/01 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 01/10/2001 2:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, >flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes: > ><< Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng > "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this > pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux > (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], > reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. > >This version may be the result of influences within Lakota, but it could also >be the way they first heard it pronounced by whites. Historically this sort >of ending sometimes lost the high front vowel before schwa (and I can't >recall more details without Dobson)... but Lydia for example was Lydda for my >grandfather (b. 1893), and Shakespeare has a spelling somewhere that >indicates 'ruffian' was 'ruffin'. There's lots of other examples, notably >the -iage group, marriage, carriage, and for some foliage, though lots of us >put the /i/ back in on that one. > >Dale Coye >The College of NJ _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 00:09:17 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 19:09:17 -0500 Subject: Ind'an (was INDIAN vs. INJUN) In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110185232.01dec5e0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: 'Tweren't me. I was too busy expounding on the possible influence of southern baseball radio announcers on NYC speech. Beverly Flanigan said: >Very good points--thanks, Dale. In fact, two of us were talking about >"fol(i)age" just the other day (was it with you, Alice Faber?). I do not >think Lakota is the main influence in the "Ind'an" case, and I didn't mean >to imply that. > >At 05:35 PM 1/10/01 -0500, you wrote: >>In a message dated 01/10/2001 2:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, >>flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes: >> >><< Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng >> "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this >> pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux >> (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], >> reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. >> >>This version may be the result of influences within Lakota, but it could also >>be the way they first heard it pronounced by whites. Historically this sort >>of ending sometimes lost the high front vowel before schwa (and I can't >>recall more details without Dobson)... but Lydia for example was Lydda for my >>grandfather (b. 1893), and Shakespeare has a spelling somewhere that >>indicates 'ruffian' was 'ruffin'. There's lots of other examples, notably >>the -iage group, marriage, carriage, and for some foliage, though lots of us >>put the /i/ back in on that one. >> >>Dale Coye >>The College of NJ > > >_____________________________________________ >Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics >Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 >Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 >http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 11 04:52:42 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:52:42 -0600 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: Adding to the thread ... You coulda looked it up at barnesandnoble. James M. Cain wrote some *torrid* novels (even for today, but especially for then). The ones made into movies were Postman (twice, the second time with Nicholson, as I remember), Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford's Oscar) and Double Indemnity (Fred MacMurray, Cecil Kellaway, Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck). Cain is the exemplar a certain kind of literary 'noir'. It's secular sin being rewarded with secular hellfire. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Thu Jan 11 08:39:48 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 03:39:48 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: from "Rudolph C Troike" at Jan 08, 2001 11:24:25 AM Message-ID: Rudolph C Troike quotes Ed White: > >This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a >pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were >called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," >I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came >the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed >White I ran this by an English friend, who said that what we call "English muffins" in America are just called "muffins" in England. (And in a nice bit of symmetry, what we call "muffins" she says are called "American muffins".) Her take was that the person in the pastry shop knew that "English muffins" were muffins, and that the pastry in question REALLY WAS a glazed bun, which is not a muffin, English or American. -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 11:24:45 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:24:45 +0000 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: <200101110839.DAA06755@ursolaris.spdcc.com> Message-ID: Like JW McKeogh, I found it a bit odd that glazed buns and English muffins had been equated. A glazed bun is a sweet thing--buns are sweet in UK English--except for hamburger buns, which are a relatively recent borrowing from US. US has this sense of 'bun' in 'hot crossed bun' or possibly 'cinnamon bun'--but I think you hear 'cinnamon roll' more there now. (I have my students do semantic field analyses of breads and cakes, so I've had a lot of discussion on this in UK and South Africa.) As JWK notes, a UK muffin is comparable to the US 'English muffin'. Here's the New Oxford's definition: [chiefly Brit] a flat circular spongy bread roll make from yeast dough and eaten split, toasted, and buttered. They also have a 'chiefly N Amer' definition that describes 'a small domed spongy cake...'. My students, when asked to define 'muffin' give both definitions but note that the American sense has only come into UK English in recent years, with the importation of American muffins (the recipes at least, if not the actual baked goods). You can now buy packaged blueberry and other muffins at coffee stands and supermarkets. Since Wal-Mart now owns one of the major supermarket chains here, we may see more importing of American food-concepts. Lynne --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 3:39 am -0500 Jeffrey William McKeough wrote: > Rudolph C Troike quotes Ed White: >> >> This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a >> pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were >> called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," >> I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came >> the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed >> White > > I ran this by an English friend, who said that what we call "English > muffins" in America are just called "muffins" in England. (And in a > nice bit of symmetry, what we call "muffins" she says are called > "American muffins".) > > Her take was that the person in the pastry shop knew that "English > muffins" were muffins, and that the pastry in question REALLY WAS a > glazed bun, which is not a muffin, English or American. > > -- > Jeffrey William McKeough > jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 12:27:44 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 07:27:44 EST Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: It might be interesting to quote from the "Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act", which is probably about as politcally correct an Act as Congress ever passed [following quote is from a Web site whose URL I failed to record. This may be an earlier draft than the one enacted into law.]. Section 2 contains the following definitions: (7) "Indian tribe" shall have the meaning given such term in section 4 of the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 450b). (9) "Native American" means of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is indigenous to the United States. (10) "Native Hawaiian" means any individual who is a descendant of the aboriginal people who, prior to 1778, occupied and exercised sovereignty in the area that now constitutes the State of Hawaii. (15) "tribal land" means (A) all lands within the exterior boundaries of any Indian reservation; (B) al l dependent Indian communities; (C) lands conveyed to, or subject to an interim conveyance of, Native Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; and (D) any lands administered for the benefit of Native Hawaiians pursuant to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, and section 4 of Public Law 86-3. The words "Eskimo", "Inuit", and "Aleut" do not occur in the text. It is interesting that the word "Indian" occurs without definition in (15) (B) when the text could easily have been more politically correct and read "all dependent Native American communities." Or is the Act specifically excluding Eskimo and Native Hawaiian tribal lands from (15)(B)? The earliest usage of "Native American" that I know of occurs in "Native American Church", which according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (15th edition, 1987, volume 8 page 554 article "Native American Church") took that name in 1918. James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are known as "Inuit" in Canada. From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 11 13:07:39 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 08:07:39 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <67.e379e08.278f00c0@aol.com> Message-ID: >The earliest usage of "Native American" that I know of occurs in "Native >American Church", which according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (15th >edition, 1987, volume 8 page 554 article "Native American Church") took that >name in 1918. "Native American" used as = "American Indian": this is older than one might suppose. From a casual glance at MoA (Cornell): ---------- Noun: <> -- W. J. Harsha, "Law for Indians", in "The North American Review", 134:288, March 1882. ---------- Adjective: <> -- "Origin and Characteristics of the American Aborigines", in "The United States Democratic review", 11:617, December 1842. ---------- I would speculate that one might find instances MUCH earlier still .... -- Doug Wilson From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 13:15:03 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 08:15:03 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010111073649.009f5b00@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >The earliest usage of "Native American" that I know of occurs in "Native > >American Church", which according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (15th > >edition, 1987, volume 8 page 554 article "Native American Church") took that > >name in 1918. > > "Native American" used as = "American Indian": this is older than one might > suppose. From a casual glance at MoA (Cornell): I have an article forthcoming in American Speech concerning the origins of the term "Native American." The earliest citation I was able to find was 1737. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 00:45:34 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 08:45:34 +0800 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010111073649.009f5b00@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 8:07 AM -0500 1/11/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >Adjective: > ><Lord Kingsborough, author of _Mexican Antiquities_), which refers the >entire native American population to the ten lost tribes of Israel ...>> > >-- "Origin and Characteristics of the American Aborigines", in "The United >States Democratic review", 11:617, December 1842. > So that's not just the Mormon view, as I always thought. As for Eskimo and Inuit (in James Landau's earlier P.S.-- >P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are >known as "Inuit" in Canada. --I've been "corrected" on at least one occasion in the U.S. when I used the (presumably non-approved) "Eskimo". Maybe the Canadians are just in the vanguard here.I'm not sure whether the objection to "Eskimo" is that it's too broad in its application or that it's too closely associated with tales of blubber-eating, nose-rubbing, wife-sharing and the like. larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 14:15:56 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:15:56 +0000 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 8:45 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > in James Landau's earlier P.S.-- > >> P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States >> are known as "Inuit" in Canada. > > --I've been "corrected" on at least one occasion in the U.S. when I > used the (presumably non-approved) "Eskimo". Maybe the Canadians are > just in the vanguard here.I'm not sure whether the objection to > "Eskimo" is that it's too broad in its application or that it's too > closely associated with tales of blubber-eating, nose-rubbing, > wife-sharing and the like. To quote from Rosalie Maggio's _Talking about people_: "in 1977 at the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Barrow, Alaska, the term 'Inuit' ('the people') was officially adopted as a preferred designation for collectively referring to the group of peoples of nothern Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and eastern Siberia known as Eskimos. 'Eskimo' has long been considered (perhaps incorrectly) to come from a term meaning 'raw meat eaters.' Some Inuit, but not all, would rather it not be used. [Info on Aleuts and Athabaskans deleted.] Inuk (or Innuk) is the singular of Inuit (or Innuit). In Alaska, 'Natives' and 'Alaska natives' are the accepted terms for the Inuit, Aleuts, and Athabaskans, when referring to the areas indigenous peoples in the aggregate." Note that the OED on-line prefers the spelling "Innuit". Not sure if this is a UK preference or general historical spelling. 'Inuit' is used on the argument that 'it's what the people call themselves', but, like many other ethnonyms, in that people's native language 'Inuit', it just means 'people'. It's likely that they didn't have a name for themselves before European explorers interrupted them. (You only need a name for yourself if you have someone to contrast yourself to and the realization that you are as much an aberration as they are. I discuss this a bit in my article on 'Race' in the new Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women. (At least I assume it's there--I haven't seen the volume in the flesh yet.) One can imagine how such 'people'-designating ethnonyms have come to be. Initially, outside groups gave the group whatever name they pleased. E.g., "Hottentot". Then it was decided, either within the group or by well-meaning advocates for the group that the foreign name is inappropriate. So, one needs a new name, but the language doesn't offer a clear one, but what it does offer is a distinction between unmarked 'people' and marked 'others/foreigners'. The unmarked term becomes a marked term referring specifically to the group. ("Hottentot" --> "Khoi" = 'people, men'). Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Thu Jan 11 14:32:29 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:32:29 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: Just for the record, AHD4 has usage notes on the words native, Native American, American Indian, Amerindian, First Nation, Indian, Eskimo. They discuss related terms like Alaska(n Native (and Native Alaskan) and Inuit. They were written mainly by my colleague David Pritchard, who has studied these, and other "people" names, for about 15 years. Joe From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 11 14:53:43 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:53:43 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Just for the record, AHD4 has usage notes on the words native, Native >American, American Indian, Amerindian, First Nation, Indian, >Eskimo. .... In AHD4, it is asserted -- http://www.bartleby.com/61/24/E0212400.html -- that "eskimo" remains the only inclusive term for "eskimo". The Yupik (non-Inuit Eskimos) are heavily 'outvoted' by the Inuit worldwide, I think. -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 15:40:11 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:40:11 +0000 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: The below is from a transplanted Texan friend of mine in Sioux Falls. AHD4 doesn't cover this 'yet'--can anyone else tell me anything about it? Lynne ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:29 am -0600 From: Kevin Cole By the way, people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For instance, "I need to go to the bank yet," "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" "Let's eat dinner at eight yet." The mood of the verb does not matter...yet. ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Thu Jan 11 16:18:27 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:18:27 -0500 Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger Message-ID: "Apizza" (or some spelling variation of that, but certainly with the initial "a") hit Bridgeport with a bang around 1948, as I dimly recall. I do remember the pronunciation, though: ah-BEETS. In spite of the restaurant signs, the more frequent designation was just plain "pie." > -----Original Message----- > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 1:01 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger > > > The New Haven Free Public Library was open 1-5 p.m. this Sunday. > Everything else was closed, so I took a trip up. > New Haven has a school of higher learning called Yale > University--famous > for teaching our next president everything he knows. > Unfortunately, the New > Haven Library has almost no Yale material. > I'll probably go to New London, CT, for my "grinder" search next > Wednesday--after the MLK, Jr. holiday when the colleges are > in session. > The New Haven Library had only the 1959-1960 telephone > book, and 1920s > phonebooks before that. (The city directories are not much > help.) The > librarian there was very kind and said he'd ask around (New > Haven Colony > Historical Society, telephone company) for earlier phonebooks > for me and for > his library. > "Apizza"--not entered in OED or DARE--is everywhere (see > also old ADS-L > archive) in 1959-1960: > > Al's Restaurant (..."Grinders"...) > Big Apple Restaurant, 164 Wooster (since about 1948--ed.) > Bobbie's Apizza > Cappie's Apizza & Restaurant...Apizza & Grinders > Capri Bakery & Restaurant...Apizza...Grinders > DePalma's Apizza > F&H Apizza > Gag's Apizza > The Grand Apizza (Ad advertises "grinders" and has the > winking chef giving > the "OK" sign--ed.) > High Ridge Gardens Apizza and Restaurant > Johnnie's Apizza Restaurant > Lew's Apizza > Luigi's Apizza Restaurant (ad has "grinders"--ed.) > Mike's Restaurant and Spaghetti House (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) > Modern Apizza Place (Ad has "grinders"--ed.) > Nicky's Apizza Spaghetti House > North Haven Pizza House (Gotta be a typo--ed.) > Palm Beach Apizza & Restaurant > Paul's Bakery (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) > Raccio's Apizza > Ralph's Pizza (Probably another typo--ed.) > Sam's Apizza & Restaurant > Shorty's Apizza (Ad has "submarines"--ed.) > Sloppy's Joe's 466BeachWH > Smitty's Drive-In...Hamburger & Pepperburger Specialties > Soundview Apizza Restaurant > Tontine Restaurant (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) > Tony's Apizza Restaurant > Vece Peter Apizza > Zuppardi's Apizza > > I checked the handwritten card index and found this from > the NEW HAVEN > REGISTER, 6 June 1979, pg. 40, col. 1: > > _Did New Haven Grind Out The First Hamburger In America?_ > (...)(This UPI story is from Dallas. The 1904 St. Louis > World's Fair claim > is detailed--ed.) > Other claims exist. > Yankees in New Haven are convinced Louis Lassen served the > first burger in > America at his establishment there in 1895. > Tolbert admits Lassen served something--but not a hamburger. > "That was sliced beef," Tolbert said. > Kenneth Lassen, who now presides over the cubbyhole that is Louis > Lunch--seating capacity 28--emphatically says it was not > sliced beef. He > says the burgers served there today were cloned from the 1895 model. > (...) > > (See 1880s "hamburgers" in the ADS-L archive--ed.) > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 03:35:36 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:35:36 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <4822521.3188216411@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 3:40 PM +0000 1/11/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >The below is from a transplanted Texan friend of mine in Sioux Falls. AHD4 >doesn't cover this 'yet'--can anyone else tell me anything about it? > >Lynne > >---------- Forwarded Message ---------- >Date: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:29 am -0600 >From: Kevin Cole > >By the >way, people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For >instance, "I need to go to the bank yet," "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" >"Let's eat dinner at eight yet." The mood of the verb does not >matter...yet. > >---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- > funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include Is there turkey yet? on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. The first of the South Dakotan "yet"s is consistent with this, but the latter two aren't. (I'm not sure WHAT they are: if "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" the drunkard's equivalent to "Is it soup yet?", uttered plaintively while staring at a bottle of Poland Spring, then it's just the AHD4's sense 1 or 2, but I suspect something else was intended.) larry *I know there's an AHD4 sense of "yet" given as 'still more', used with comparatives, but that's distinct (yet again related to) the 'still' sense I'm describing. I'd cite DARE, but I fear it will be a while (yet) before we hit the Y's. Any data on the distribution, Joan? From Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM Thu Jan 11 16:37:30 2001 From: Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM (Sallie Lemons) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:37:30 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: How does the English Muffin compare to scones and crumpets? Lynne Murphy wrote: > Like JW McKeogh, I found it a bit odd that glazed buns and English muffins > had been equated. A glazed bun is a sweet thing--buns are sweet in UK > English--except for hamburger buns, which are a relatively recent borrowing > from US. US has this sense of 'bun' in 'hot crossed bun' or possibly > 'cinnamon bun'--but I think you hear 'cinnamon roll' more there now. (I > have my students do semantic field analyses of breads and cakes, so I've > had a lot of discussion on this in UK and South Africa.) > > As JWK notes, a UK muffin is comparable to the US 'English muffin'. Here's > the New Oxford's definition: > > [chiefly Brit] a flat circular spongy bread roll make from yeast dough and > eaten split, toasted, and buttered. > > They also have a 'chiefly N Amer' definition that describes 'a small domed > spongy cake...'. My students, when asked to define 'muffin' give both > definitions but note that the American sense has only come into UK English > in recent years, with the importation of American muffins (the recipes at > least, if not the actual baked goods). You can now buy packaged blueberry > and other muffins at coffee stands and supermarkets. > > Since Wal-Mart now owns one of the major supermarket chains here, we may > see more importing of American food-concepts. > > Lynne > > --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 3:39 am -0500 Jeffrey William McKeough > wrote: > > > Rudolph C Troike quotes Ed White: > >> > >> This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a > >> pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were > >> called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," > >> I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came > >> the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed > >> White > > > > I ran this by an English friend, who said that what we call "English > > muffins" in America are just called "muffins" in England. (And in a > > nice bit of symmetry, what we call "muffins" she says are called > > "American muffins".) > > > > Her take was that the person in the pastry shop knew that "English > > muffins" were muffins, and that the pastry in question REALLY WAS a > > glazed bun, which is not a muffin, English or American. > > > > -- > > Jeffrey William McKeough > > jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 03:39:27 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:39:27 +0800 Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger In-Reply-To: <7BC5E7B79DD1D2119BCC0008C7E9653E02C44AE2@nyexch_3.na.randomhouse.com> Message-ID: At 11:18 AM -0500 1/11/01, Pearsons, Enid wrote: >"Apizza" (or some spelling variation of that, but certainly with the initial >"a") hit Bridgeport with a bang around 1948, as I dimly recall. I do >remember the pronunciation, though: ah-BEETS. ah-BEETS indeed; obviously a case of colonialization from up here. (Technically, that would have required a voiceless unaspirated [p], but in practice it always seems to be just plain [b].) larry From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 11 16:26:52 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:26:52 -0500 Subject: nigger vs. negro (was: INDIAN vs. INJUN) Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky writes: >>>>> mark mandel: >For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white >man for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | >African-American | ... } person, and he used it without pejoration >or insult. "Negro" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was in the summer >of 1966, in rural Kentucky near Corbin. There was certainly a lot of >racism in that region, but as far as I could tell there was none in >him. [...] but there's the problem with "nigger". no one, even in rural kentucky in 1966, is so isolated as not to have come into contact with plenty of speakers for whom the word is pejorative, indeed strongly so, so that if you use the word you risk being misunderstood. perhaps you have a tin ear, and don't notice how other people use this word. perhaps you are socially incurious and unobservant. perhaps you are resistant to change, to the point where your linguistic inertia is stronger than your concern for being understood. perhaps you just don't care if other people think you're talking pejoratively; *you* know what you think. but it's not *just* a matter of your continuing to use a word the way you learned as a child. <<<<< I agree with you in general, and certainly concerning the kind of folks (educated and in touch with a wider world) who are likely to be on this list. But Taylor Smith was illiterate and had only been out of his home region for two years, working in Chicago(?) in his youth, and maybe also a stint in the Army. That might have widened his horizons somewhat; I think I remember his talking about some of the good fellows he'd met in those days who were "niggers". (That was also the only period in his life when he had worn shoes. He invited me to stick a straight pin into his callused sole to show how thick and hard it was.) If he knew the word "Negro" at all, it was as an educated pronunciation as likely to be heard from a white racist (perhaps a politician) as not-- or more likely, considering the prevalence of racism there and then. So I think that, in that community, the distinction between /'niy.grow/ and /'nig.R/ was one of education and register, not of attitude. I was 17 at the time and participating in a youth program of the Ethical Culture Society called the Encampment for Citizenship. Our bi- or multi-racial group was housed on a college campus for most of the summer, but we lived with local residents for one week. One meeting we were in at a local group or movement office of some kind, the adult counselors quietly came in and told us to go out to the bus, staying together, looking straight ahead, and not saying anything: some of the locals were angry at the "niggerlovers" and were gathering outside. I mention this to provide some social context. Taylor Smith (he must be long gone, God rest his soul) had no problem with taking a Northern "niggerlover" -- as he did NOT call us -- of a kid into his household. -- Mark A. Mandel From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 16:50:33 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:50:33 +0000 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: <3A5DE149.3CE644BD@msdw.com> Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 11:37 am -0500 Sallie Lemons wrote: > How does the English Muffin compare to scones and crumpets? A scone is a much denser thing than a muffin or crumpet. They're usually thicker, too, and not toasted, but eaten with butter or clotted cream and jam. Scones also often have stuff in them (cheese, currants). Crumpets look like (English) muffins but are made on a griddle, not baked. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From stevek at SHORE.NET Thu Jan 11 16:48:29 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:48:29 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > Is there turkey yet? > > on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the > utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping > some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives > early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. The first of the South > Dakotan "yet"s is consistent with this, but the latter two aren't. > (I'm not sure WHAT they are: if "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" the > drunkard's equivalent to "Is it soup yet?", uttered plaintively while > staring at a bottle of Poland Spring, then it's just the AHD4's sense > 1 or 2, but I suspect something else was intended.) I've been chewed out in the Northeast for saying the following: "Are you awake yet?" to someone at midnight when they have not been to bed already and I've woken up for a glass of water and find them still at work at their computer. It seems natural and normal to me, but I've had that usage shamed out of me. --- Steve K. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 11 17:12:46 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:12:46 -0600 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene Message-ID: This is a bit off-topic, but here goes. I've heard several times on Ken Burns' "Jazz" series that there was strict segregation in the NYC jazz scene of the 1920's and '30's. There certainly was segregation, but Burns evidently overlooked Benny Goodman's interesting way of getting around it. The reference is Henry Anton Steig,"Profiles: Alligators' Idol" (on Benny Goodman). _ New Yorker_, April 17, 1937, pp.27-34. (I mention this in my 1991 book _Origin of New York City's Nickname, "The Big Apple"_, p.95; the book, btw, does not yet contain Barry Popik's valuable research). Page 27 of Steig's article begins: "Benny considers the colored outfits of Count Basie and Chick Webb 'real swing bands,' which is the greatest compliment he can pay. He has a high regard for colored musicians in general. They are better natural swingmen than whites, and Benny would like his own to be a mixed one." The article continues: "The managers of most hotels and dance halls won't stand for a mixed band, however, and Benny gets around this rather neatly. His official band--the men you see when the program starts--is all white, but the swing quartet, which plays special numbers and which has overshadowed the band in popularity, is half colored. The colored pianist, Teddy Wilson, and the colored vibraphone player Lionel Hampton, just step onto the platform when they are ready to play in the band, and there have been no complaints. Benny with his clarinet, and Gene Krupa with his drums, are two other members of the group." I don't have Steig's article in front of me, but if I remember right, the band's final number would be played by only the white musicians. So, as long as the beginning and end of the program were played by whites, the middle of the program could be integrated without producing any problems. ---Gerald Cohen From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Thu Jan 11 16:56:59 2001 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 10:56:59 -0600 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Folks, I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in 1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing their memoirs in great numbers.) 1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was founded. I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word "linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this would be? Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . Thanks! Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 17:22:32 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:22:32 +0000 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Frederick (Fritz) Newmeyer's books would be a very good source for your query: _The politics of linguistics_ and _Linguistic theory in America_. Also, the COSWL compilation _Women in the Linguistic Profession_ (ed. by Penny Eckert, Cornell U Press) has some autobiographical essays, I think. Lynne (who hadn't yet heard of linguistics in 1974) --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 10:56 am -0600 Erin McKean wrote: > Folks, > > I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would > anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in > 1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics > wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any > pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read > about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing > their memoirs in great numbers.) > > 1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was > founded. > > I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word > "linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in > frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this > would be? > > Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the > LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . > > Thanks! > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:14:45 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:14:45 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:35 AM 1/11/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 3:40 PM +0000 1/11/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >>The below is from a transplanted Texan friend of mine in Sioux Falls. AHD4 >>doesn't cover this 'yet'--can anyone else tell me anything about it? >> >>Lynne >> >>---------- Forwarded Message ---------- >>Date: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:29 am -0600 >>From: Kevin Cole >> >>By the >>way, people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For >>instance, "I need to go to the bank yet," "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" >>"Let's eat dinner at eight yet." The mood of the verb does not >>matter...yet. >> >>---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- >funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a >well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and >adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) >that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include > >Is there turkey yet? > >on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the >utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping >some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives >early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. The first of the South >Dakotan "yet"s is consistent with this, but the latter two aren't. >(I'm not sure WHAT they are: if "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" the >drunkard's equivalent to "Is it soup yet?", uttered plaintively while >staring at a bottle of Poland Spring, then it's just the AHD4's sense >1 or 2, but I suspect something else was intended.) > >larry > >*I know there's an AHD4 sense of "yet" given as 'still more', used >with comparatives, but that's distinct (yet again related to) the >'still' sense I'm describing. I'd cite DARE, but I fear it will be a >while (yet) before we hit the Y's. Any data on the distribution, >Joan? And then there's the (apparently) redundant form "still yet," used along the Ohio River. A student of mine who uses it natively elicited responses in her hometown of Portsmouth (or "Porchmouth"), Ohio to this sentence: "He still yet owns that old car." Maximum responses in three categories ranged from 20% personal use to 63% denial of personal use but recognition of others' use of it to 90% non-recognition--the last by teenagers. So it's disappearing in this area (I've only heard it a couple of times in Athens). Has anyone else heard it, and where? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 05:23:22 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:23:22 +0800 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:56 AM -0600 1/11/01, Erin McKean wrote: >Folks, > >I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would >anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in >1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics >wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any >pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read >about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing >their memoirs in great numbers.) > >1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was founded. > >I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word >"linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in >frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this >would be? > >Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the >LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . > >Thanks! > >Erin McKean >editor at verbatimmag.com You may want to look at Robin Tolmach Lakoff's paper "The Way We Were", a memoir (published, if I'm not mistaken, in the Journal of Pragmatics) of the era of the late 1960's and early 1970's from the perspective of a generative semanticist. There's also a lot of stuff in the histories of the Linguistics Wars written by Newmeyer, Harris, and Goldsmith & Huck. larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:27:53 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:27:53 -0500 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene Message-ID: I believe the segment next Monday night is going to deal with Goodman, so maybe the story will come out. BTW, I'm thoroughly enjoying the "Jazz" series, if only for the chance to hear two hours of jazz almost non-stop--and despite the historical and lexical problems. So I'd recommend we cavil less and recognize the overall contribution of the show, as when Wynton Marsalis movingly discussed the race issue the other night. I held my breath as he held his breath--and then he boldly plunged in on the ugly reality of the times. At 11:12 AM 1/11/01 -0600, you wrote: > This is a bit off-topic, but here goes. > > I've heard several times on Ken Burns' "Jazz" series that there >was strict segregation in the NYC jazz scene of the 1920's and '30's. >There certainly was segregation, but Burns evidently overlooked Benny >Goodman's interesting way of getting around it. > > The reference is Henry Anton Steig,"Profiles: Alligators' Idol" >(on Benny Goodman). _ New Yorker_, April 17, 1937, pp.27-34. (I >mention this in my 1991 book _Origin of New York City's Nickname, >"The Big Apple"_, p.95; the book, btw, does not yet contain Barry >Popik's valuable research). Page 27 of Steig's article begins: > > "Benny considers the colored outfits of Count Basie and Chick Webb >'real swing bands,' which is the greatest compliment he can pay. He >has a high regard for colored musicians in general. They are better >natural swingmen than whites, and Benny would like his own to be a >mixed one." > > The article continues: > > "The managers of most hotels and dance halls won't stand for a >mixed band, however, and Benny gets around this rather neatly. His >official band--the men you see when the program starts--is all white, >but the swing quartet, which plays special numbers and which has >overshadowed the band in popularity, is half colored. The colored >pianist, Teddy Wilson, and the colored vibraphone player >Lionel Hampton, just step onto the platform when they are ready to >play in the band, and there have been no complaints. Benny with his >clarinet, and Gene Krupa with his drums, are two other members of the >group." > > I don't have Steig's article in front of me, but if I remember >right, the band's final number would be played by only the white >musicians. So, as long as the beginning and end of the program were >played by whites, the middle of the program could be integrated >without producing any problems. > >---Gerald Cohen _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:59:12 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:59:12 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010111130408.01cc7100@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: This one may not fit any of the previously mentioned uses: while I was living in Bloomington, IN, a vet asked while examining my cat: "How old is she?" "10 next month," I answered. "Next month, yet," he said. I thought that meant he was impressed that I knew my cat's exact age. -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:59:01 2001 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Houston Hall) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:59:01 -0600 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There's also _First Person Singular: Papers from the Conference on an Oral Archive for the History of American Linguistics (Charlotte, NC 9-10 March, 1979)_. Edited by Boyd H. Davis and Raymond K. O'Cain, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1980. From paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:55:53 2001 From: paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU (Paul Frank) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:55:53 +0100 Subject: Verbatim In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >Erin McKean > >editor at verbatimmag.com Dear Mr. McKean, (Or ist everybody in this forum on a first name basis?) I live in a small village in the French Alps a million miles away from the nearest research library. Would you tell me a little about verbatim? I went to www.verbatim.com and was intrigued, but I'm still don't really know what your magazine is all about, because there were no back issues on line and the archives weren't accessible. Paul _________________________________________ Paul Frank English translation from German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Snailmail: 74500 Thollon-les-Memises, France PaulFrank at post.harvard.edu | Fax +1 509-752-9444 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 19:37:38 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:37:38 EST Subject: Beef-on-Weck; Chicken in the Rough Message-ID: Greetings again from the Library of Congress. Amtrak was only one hour late today...I checked the Labor Deparment's library, but they had THE MIXER AND SERVER for the same years as the NYPL. No one seems to have 1890-1900 (where I can find Manhattan & Martini). I couldn't find an earlier "surf & turf" or "fajita" in the Buffalo and Austin phonebooks here. 1951-1952, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 365, col. 1: _BRIDGE INN_ (...) SANDWICHES Beef on Kummelwick 1671 Seneca...WOodlwn-9887 (DARE has 1952 for Kummelweck. Want me to check earlier?--ed.) 1951-1952, BUFFALO (NY): Pg. 368, col. 2: The Royal Pheasant has "CHICKEN IN THE RUFF." Pg. 368, col. 3: Six-Nine-Eight Grill has "Chicken in the Ruff." Pg. 369, col. 1: Kaczary Grill & Restaurant has "Chicken in the Rough." Pg. 370, col. 2: Mann's Restaurant has "Our Specialty: 'CHICKEN-IN-THE-RUFF.'" 1965-1966, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 465, col. 2: SCHUPER HOUSE Try Our Famous Giant Size Beef On Weck 1802 NIAGARA ST. 877-9287 December 1975, AUSTIN (TX), pg. 687, col. 2: _La Hacienda_ "HOME OF THE CHIMICHANGO" (MEAT-FILLED BURRITO) 266-1322 Ranch Road 620 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Seth Subject: New Haven Phone Directories 1949-1954 Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 11:40:39 -0500 Size: 1337 URL: From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 11 19:49:30 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:49:30 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' (never mind) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Actually, I just realized it was "Next month, even." Sorry. mk On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Mai Kuha wrote: > This one may not fit any of the previously mentioned uses: while I was > living in Bloomington, IN, a vet asked while examining my cat: "How old > is she?" "10 next month," I answered. "Next month, yet," he said. I > thought that meant he was impressed that I knew my cat's exact age. > > -Mai > _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU Thu Jan 11 20:15:49 2001 From: paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU (Paul Frank) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 21:15:49 +0100 Subject: Verbatim In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > << Dear Mr. McKean, > > (Or ist everybody in this forum on a first name basis?) >> > > If you want to be formal then it should be Ms. McKean. > :-) Oops. Sorry Erin! No, I don't want to be formal at all. And I would like to learn something about Verbatim. Paul _________________________________________ Paul Frank English translation from German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Snailmail: 74500 Thollon-les-Memises, France PaulFrank at post.harvard.edu | Fax +1 509-752-9444 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 20:59:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:59:48 EST Subject: Hoggie (October 1944) Message-ID: Now the LOC tells me that Philadelphia 1940-1943 is missing! Last time I was here, there were no CT directories; now they have New Haven and I'll get it soon. Ah! October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 687, col. 1: Bertha's Oyster House Spaghetti--Delicious Hoggie Sandwiches 3828 Eastwick av...BELgrde-1777 October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 692, col. 4: Hoogie Shop 37 & Firmt...BARing-9764 (Hoogie? It's under that spelling the next year, also--ed.) October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 696, col. 2: _STONEHUST SANDWICH SHOP_ Stonehurst Sandwich Shops Submarine (Hogies) & Other Tasty Sandwiches to take out 7016 Elmwood Ave. SARatga 4155 October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 696, col. 3: Tony's Hogie Shop 6709 Woodlnd av...BELgrde-4 (Copy cut off. Don't call-ed.) (BTW: Various shops sell "Italian Tomato Pies." These would be "apizza."--ed.) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 11 21:28:26 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:28:26 -0600 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene Message-ID: I hope it's not caviling to point out the very interesting way that Benny Goodman skirted the absurd segregation rules of his time. This reminds me of an observation made by someone (Harry Golden, I believe) in the 1950s. He pointed out that the only time Southern whites objected to being together with blacks was when they had to sit down together ( e.g., buses, restaurants, bathrooms). His novel suggestion: Have a restaurant where no one sits down. Some (many?) restaurants were in fact tried along this line, and to everyone's pleasant surprise, there was no objection to the integration. This should all be grist for the mill of psychologists and sociologists. But I'm aware this is off-topic for a linguistic discussion, and so my next message (whatever it is) will be back on track. ---Gerald Cohen > So I'd recommend we cavil less and recognize the overall >contribution of the show,as when Wynton Marsalis movingly discussed >the race issue the other >night. From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 21:47:11 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:47:11 EST Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: I'm surprised to find 'yet' disparaged in the sense of 'Are you awake yet?' = Are you still awake. n, too dumb to get inside "...and I'll bet he's there yet, standing in the rain" ?? I guess not. Dale Coye The College of NJ From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 11 21:55:35 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:55:35 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <4822521.3188216411@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >... people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For instance, >"I need to go to the bank yet," This is perfectly natural to me, with "yet" = "still". I use this type of expression. I would not use "Is there turkey yet?" with "yet" = "still" simply because it's ambiguous as Larry Horn pointed out -- but either interpretation seems natural to me. I'm from Detroit. >"Is that a bottle of gin yet?" Seems odd to me; I would take the "yet" here as the 'ironic intensive' sentence termination (I think supposedly based on Yiddish "noch"?) -- maybe roughly = "after all". >"Let's eat dinner at eight yet." .... I don't remember ever hearing such a thing. I guess I would interpret "yet" = "still", with the implication that a suggestion of changing the dinner schedule from eight to something else is being rejected. I've lived in WI but not SD. -- Doug Wilson From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Thu Jan 11 22:38:54 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:38:54 -0500 Subject: Only Nixon could go to China Message-ID: I just heard the phrase "Only Nixon could go to China" attributed to Mr. Spock in Star Trek 6 for the millionth time. (When Captain Kirk asks Spock why Kirk was chosen to be the envoy to the Klingons, who killed his son, Spock says this to him and claims that it's an ancient Vulcan saying.) I once did some research on the saying and I found a bunch of references over the years, but I couldn't find out who first said it. Does anyone know? -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 11 22:42:05 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:42:05 -0800 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: <5191872.3188222552@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: SOMEBODY had to rub it in! Peter M. (Motto: "1974? Lessee--was that two years ago--or is it three by now?") --On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 5:22 PM +0000 Lynne Murphy wrote: > Lynne (who hadn't yet heard of linguistics in 1974) **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 11 22:41:56 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:41:56 EST Subject: query Message-ID: This is a question that wanders into the library every few years. The answer depends on which reverse dictionary one consults. One, I forget which, gives "puggry", a type of cloth; another gives a different answer, or perhaps several. If anyone really cares, speak out, and I will go downstairs to the reference room and get the precise references. GAT Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:20:17 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: query A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what the third one is? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 22:42:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:42:48 EST Subject: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) Message-ID: June 1946, NEW HAVEN (CT), pg. 186, col. 3: _TASTY SANDWICH SHOP_ Italian Cooking Our Specialty Delicious Sandwiches & Grinders To Take Out 25 E. Main...Clinton-688 August 1946, NEW LONDON (CT), pg. 103, col. 1: ANDY'S DELICATESSEN LUNCHEONETTE ANDREW SPESA, Prop. Specializing in HOME MADE SALADS--FISH AND CHIPS--SOUTHERN FRIED CHICK- EN--ITALIAN GRINDERS-- SPAGHETTI AND MEAT BALLS, ITALIAN STYLE Tel. 6371 467 WILLIAMS ST., NEW LONDON August 1949, NEW LONDON, pg. 116, col. 2: _MIKE'S HOTDOG STAND_ Specializing In Grinders--Hot Dogs 328 Mitchell Gtn...2-6854 August 1950, NEW LONDON, pg. 116, col. 2: _KEN'S DRIVE-IN_ Curb Service--Open Daily & Evenings Specializing Grinders--Hot Dogs--Spaghetti Poquonnock Brdge...New London-3-0041 May 1951, NEW LONDON, pg. 126, col. 1: LITTLE JOE'S RESTAURANT Specializing in SPAGHETTI--SANDWICHES GRINDERS--PIZZA (Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton at all!--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 22:51:41 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:51:41 EST Subject: Apizza (New Haven, January 1942); Gelati Message-ID: APIZZA January 1942, NEW HAVEN (CT), pg. 130, col. 2: Tony's Apizza Place 874 State...7-5641 January 1942, NEW HAVEN, pg. 128, col. 1: Eddie-App-Pizzeria 208 Washington Av...8-9684 (Col. 3--ed.) Frank App Pizzeria Restaurant 446 Chapel 8-9207 January 1942, NEW HAVEN, pg. 127, col. 3: THE ORIGINAL EST. 1925 _FRANK PEPE_ Old Reliable NEAPOLITAN TOMATO PIES (used more than pizza/apizza--ed.) 157 Wooster St. 8-7774 August 1944, NEW LONDON (CT), pg. 113, col. 2: LA PIZZA APIZZA . SPAGHETTI 42 Jefferson Av. TEL. 2-3928 August 1944, NEW LONDON (CT), pg. 113, col. 2: GLORY RESTAURANT APIZZA . SPAGHETTI . RAVIOLI Call NEW LONDON 2-4583 639 BANK ST. NEW LONDON June 1946, NEW HAVEN, pg. 179, col. 1: _CAMPOSANO'S APPIZZA One of the oldest appizza places in NH 73Whiting...6-1861 -------------------------------------------------------- GELATI January 1942, NEW HAVEN, pg. 10, col. 2: _BERARDESCA UMBERTO_ Italian & French Pastries & Confections Dolci, Gelati & SPumoni---Est. 1903 112 Franklin...New Haven 7-3835 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 11 23:02:38 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 18:02:38 -0500 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No, I didn't mean to imply you were caviling at all; in fact, it was a nice commentary. I'm concerned about talk of "vomiting" etc. while watching the show just because the city of origin might be wrong, or the etymology of the word might be wrong, or whatever. I don't wear my linguist's (or dialectologist's, or lexicographer's) hat all the time, and this is one time I'm happy to take it off. At 03:28 PM 1/11/01 -0600, you wrote: > I hope it's not caviling to point out the very interesting way >that Benny Goodman skirted the absurd segregation rules of his time. >This reminds me of an observation made by someone (Harry Golden, I >believe) in the 1950s. He pointed out that the only time Southern >whites objected to being together with blacks was when they had to >sit down together ( e.g., buses, restaurants, bathrooms). His novel >suggestion: Have a restaurant where no one sits down. Some (many?) >restaurants were in fact tried along this line, and to everyone's >pleasant surprise, there was no objection to the integration. > > This should all be grist for the mill of psychologists and sociologists. >But I'm aware this is off-topic for a linguistic discussion, and so >my next message (whatever it is) will be back on track. > >---Gerald Cohen > >> So I'd recommend we cavil less and recognize the overall >>contribution of the show,as when Wynton Marsalis movingly discussed >>the race issue the other >>night. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 12 00:32:09 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:32:09 -0800 Subject: nigger vs. negro (was: INDIAN vs. INJUN) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm also aware of a class distinction involving the n-word, but I don't think it's quite the same as the one Mark alludes to. My grandmother, a wealthy society matron in Oklahoma City in the days long before Brown vs. Board of Education, didn't have a malicious bone in her body but lived in a world where the Order of the Universe was that whites and "colored people" lived and moved in separate spheres and the twain met only in very specific settings. She employed a succession of black domestics, each of whom worked for her for a very long time--that was one of the main settings where interaction between the races was appropriate. She spoke of her maid's husband warmly as "such a nice colored man." Well, you get the idea. I think for her to utter the word "nigger" would have been as unthinkable as to sit down for a meal at the same table as a "colored" man or woman, for a different but somehow related reason. It would have been seen as a "bad word," perhaps similar to saying "damn"--something only trash, or maybe "hicks", would say. Peter Mc. --On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 11:26 AM -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: > If he knew the word "Negro" at all, it was > as an educated pronunciation as likely to be heard from a white racist > (perhaps a politician) as not-- or more likely, considering the prevalence > of racism there and then. So I think that, in that community, the > distinction between /'niy.grow/ and /'nig.R/ was one of education and > register, not of attitude. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 00:32:04 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:32:04 -0500 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word > >"linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in > >frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this > >would be? Very unuseful. Nexis has very little material before 1975, and doesn't really hit its stride until 1980. Even after 1980, the size of the database grows substantially over time. Any frequency study over time needs to be adjusted to reflect the growth in database size. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 00:50:21 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:50:21 -0500 Subject: Only Nixon could go to China In-Reply-To: <200101112238.RAA19577@ursolaris.spdcc.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Jeffrey William McKeough wrote: > I just heard the phrase "Only Nixon could go to China" attributed to > Mr. Spock in Star Trek 6 for the millionth time. (When Captain Kirk > asks Spock why Kirk was chosen to be the envoy to the Klingons, who > killed his son, Spock says this to him and claims that it's an ancient > Vulcan saying.) > > I once did some research on the saying and I found a bunch of > references over the years, but I couldn't find out who first said it. > Does anyone know? This is proverbial in nature, and I doubt there is a traceable coiner. The earliest use on Nexis is New York Tiems, 29 Dec. 1984. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 01:16:52 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:16:52 EST Subject: Kimmelweck (1940) Message-ID: The earliest telephone directory I requested was 1940-1941. 1940-1941, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 25, col. 2: Franz Frank J Rye Bread--Kimmelwecks--Our Specialty 240 High...LIncln-7773 (...) Heldmann's Walden Home Bakery Sheet Cakes Our Specialty--Open Evenings-- Real Homemade Rye--Kimmelweck 630 Walden av...TAylr-2975 1950-1951, BUFFALO, pg. 364, col. 3: _AMROCK GRILL_ GOOD FOOD OUR SPECIALTY Roast Beef on Kimmelwick--Fish Frys--All Legal Beverages--Jos. Zawistowski, Prop. 471 Amherst...RIvrside-9642 -------------------------------------------------------- HAM & CHEESE ON RYE 1949-1950, BUFFALO, pg. 357, col. 1: _COPPER KETTLE RESTAURANT_ GERMAN STYLE DINNERS and LUNCHEONS Try our Ham & Cheese on Thin Rye We're Famous For It! 2295 Main...UNvrsty-9764 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 01:25:18 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:25:18 EST Subject: Grinder (Hartford, April 1946) Message-ID: GRINDER (continued) April 1946, HARTFORD (CT), pg. 183, col. 1: Snack Shop Pasquale DeParolis--Raphaela LaBadia Grinders & spaghetti 71PlainvilleAvUnvle...Farmington-144-4 -------------------------------------------------------- POOR BOY (continued) November 1955, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 57, col. 2: _GENDUSA JOHN_ Originators of Poor Boy Bread Rolls--Doughnuts 1315 Touro...FRanklin-8238 -------------------------------------------------------- PIZZA (continued) March 1953, GREATER LITTLE ROCK (ARK), pg. 183, col. 2: "THE ORIGINAL HOME OF ITALIAN FOOD" Bruno's LITTLE ITALY 1903--Fiftieth Anniversary--1953 In America JIMMY BRUNO GIVES ARKANSAS ITS FIRST PIZZERIA LITTLE ROCK'S FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT FEATURING _AUTHENTIC_ ITALIAN FOODS. ACTIVELY PRESIDING IN THE KITCHEN AND PIZZA OVENS IS JIMMY BRUNO, WHOSE FATHER GIOVANNI CAME TO AMERICA IN 1903 TO INTRODUCE PIZZA 3400 W. ROOSEVELT Call MOhawk 3-9907 The Best Are Always Imitated BEWARE OF OUR COPY CATS From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 01:36:47 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:36:47 EST Subject: Chicken-In-The-Ruff (1942) Message-ID: 1942-1943, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 248, col. 2: Casper's Russell Restaurant Chicken-In-The-Ruff 1112KenmoreAv...RIvrside-9855 1945-1946, BUFFALO, pg. 237, col. 2: Six-Nine-Eight Grill Chicken On The Rough--Spaghetti-- Fish Fry Friday And Saturday Nights 689NorthIndAv...HUmbldt-9498 December 1949, BIRMINGHAM (ALABAMA), pg. 234, col. 2: VULCAN RESTAURANT STEAK AND CHICKEN DINNERS Dial 2-5723 2510 S. 18th CHICKEN IN THE ROUGH--DRIVE IN 2800 7th AVE, S. (Drawing of "Chicken in the Rough" shows a chicken with a golf club. "REG U.S. PAT. OFF" is written beside it, R-118--ed.) From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Fri Jan 12 03:22:26 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:22:26 -0800 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <67.e379e08.278f00c0@aol.com> Message-ID: > Behalf Of James A. Landau > > P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are > known as "Inuit" in Canada. I don't call them Eskimos and I live in the United States. I say Inuit or Athabaskan or whatever applies. Benjamin Barrett From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 12 03:14:04 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:14:04 -0700 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: <5076488.3188220633@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: And what's a crumpet, compared to a scone? Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University > From: Lynne Murphy > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:50:33 +0000 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: English muffins = glazed buns > > --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 11:37 am -0500 Sallie Lemons > wrote: > >> How does the English Muffin compare to scones and crumpets? > > A scone is a much denser thing than a muffin or crumpet. They're usually > thicker, too, and not toasted, but eaten with butter or clotted cream and > jam. Scones also often have stuff in them (cheese, currants). > > Crumpets look like (English) muffins but are made on a griddle, not baked. > > Lynne > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Fri Jan 12 03:45:45 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 22:45:45 -0500 Subject: ``Native American`` and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: Isn't calling a Koyukon or a Chipweyan an Athabaskan rather like calling an Englishman or a German an Indo-European? Herb Stahlke <<< gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM 1/11 10:21p >>> > Behalf Of James A. Landau > > P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are > known as "Inuit" in Canada. I don't call them Eskimos and I live in the United States. I say Inuit or Athabaskan or whatever applies. Benjamin Barrett From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 12 03:53:52 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 21:53:52 -0600 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: >I don't call them Eskimos and I live in the United States. I say Inuit or >Athabaskan or whatever applies. > >Benjamin Barrett My understanding is that the Eskimos themselves use the word 'Eskimo', at least in English. As a linguistic classification, it is still in effect, as demonstrated at the ethnologue data base: http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/families/Eskimo-Aleut.html _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 12 04:25:35 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:25:35 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are > > known as "Inuit" in Canada. This is probably the reason: "The Arctic peoples of Canada and Greenland in general prefer the term Inuit, while those of Alaska still generally favour the term Eskimo." -- E. Britannica (Web) "The term Eskimo, refused by other Inuit groups, is currently used with no despective [sic] sense in Alaska." -- "Inuit" ("Inupiaq/Yupik") Web page No surprise, since the Inuit constitute the vast majority of Canadian and Greenland Eskimos, while the Yupik (who are Eskimos but not Inuit) are numerous (a majority I think) among Eskimos in the US (Alaska). Eskimos in Russia are relatively few. After Greenland, US, Canada, I think the country with the most Eskimos is Denmark? [I use 'Inuit' and 'Yupik' and 'Eskimo' as used by "Ethnologue".] Aleuts are not Eskimos, although closely related. Athabaskans are not Eskimos, and are not closely related to Eskimos. -- Doug Wilson From tcf at MACOMB.COM Fri Jan 12 04:49:30 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 22:49:30 -0600 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: Linguistics in 1974. I went to the Linguistics Institute in Amherst, Mass. The Generative vs. Interpretive Semantics debate was hot and heavy. Noam Chomsky gave a lecture which might as well have been in Martian as well as I was concerned. He was very much worshipped there. I felt very intimidated! Robin Lakhoff gave a talk arguing that linguists needed to get out of ivory tower and pay more attention to the needs of ordinary people, e.g. issues in education, etc. Oh, and Bill Labov gave a very nice paper where he showed, empirically, that many native speakers of English did not much agree with Chomsky and his followers about which sentences were "ungrammatical." As it turned out, I ended up spending a lot of that summer watchng the Senate Committee's Watergate hearings on TV. Someone, I think it was Emmon Bach, taught a neat course in field methods. He brought in a native speaker of Mbo (?) and we had to transcribe on the spot. For me, a rare exposure to a non Indo European language. A few years before (71-72) I was interviewing for jobs. My only claim to being anywhere near linguistics was that I liked to draw dialect maps. But at all the interiviews I went to, I was asked about Chomsky, and I usually panicked. I am lucky to be employed. People were publishing high school textbooks on transformation grammar, full of tree diagrams. DARE was still moving forward. The fieldwork was complete, the operation was housed in White Hall in Madison after moving from univeristy drive next to the Octopus Carwash., and Mr. Cassidy was looking for funding. vol. I was still 11 years away. SJ Keyser was doing stuff in phonology. In one job interview I was asked if I knew about his work on Chaucer's prosody. Of course I had never heard of it. Still not sure how I ever got a job. I can't remember the exact year of Dilliard's BLACK ENGLISH, but that was certainly a hot topic then. Dilliard says some impolite things in that book about Raven McDavid and other dialect geographers, and Raven was very upset. I remember his joy when Sandra De'Eloia (sp?) published what a remember to be a solid critique of Dilliard's book in JENGL. That might have been a year or two earlier, tho. Most of the stuff back then was in books and journals; we didn't have Web sites. I didn't think I would ever need to learn anything about computers. ----- Original Message ----- From: Erin McKean To: Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 10:56 AM Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? > Folks, > > I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would > anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in > 1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics > wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any > pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read > about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing > their memoirs in great numbers.) > > 1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was founded. > > I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word > "linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in > frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this > would be? > > Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the > LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . > > Thanks! > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Fri Jan 12 05:41:58 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 00:41:58 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: from "Nancy Elliott" at Jan 11, 2001 08:14:04 PM Message-ID: Nancy Elliott wrote: > >And what's a crumpet, compared to a scone? That's a question for philosophers and poets, I'd imagine. :-) -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 07:38:00 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 02:38:00 EST Subject: Pina Colada Message-ID: THE SERVER (also, THE BAR SERVER) is a bartending magazine. The LOC has it from 1962-1971. I briefly looked through it for "pina colada." A Mexican menu from "Su Casa" (no fajitas or chimichangas, unfortunately) is given in THE SERVER, November-December 1966, pg. 37, col. 2: _MEXICAN DRINKS_ MARGARITA 1.00 TEQUILA, CONTREAU, FRESH LIME JUICE PINA COLADA 1.00 ??RUM?? TEQUILA SOUR 1.00 TEQUILA, FRESH LIME JUICE CAFE CHIAPAS 1.00 A SU CASA SPECIALTY MEXITINI 1.00 (Muy Seco) TEQUILA, DRY VERMOUTH, WHOLE MEXICAN PEPPER TEQUILA COCKTAIL 1.00 SANGRITA DE LA VIUDA 1.00 A MEXICAN BLOODY MARY TEQUILA, STRAIGHT .85 FRESH LIME WEDGE AND SALT DANIEL DE ORO 1.00 A MEXICAN SCREWDRIVER BANDERA 1.25 A FLAMING TOAST TO MEXICO PECHUGA ALMENDRADA 1.00 ALMOND FLAVORED BRANDY IMPORTED FROM MEXICO WET BACK 1.00 KAHLUA AND TEQUILA ON THE ROCKS BERTA 1.00 Why is "pina colada" on this list, with those question marks? From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Fri Jan 12 09:01:03 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 04:01:03 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: If you don't mind a bit of indecent exposure to another non Indo European language, there is a proverb that sounds somewhat like this: "Ottakaththinu [to the camel] sthalam [room] koduththathupohlay [like having given]." Of course any linguist can identify the language or at least the language group from the proverb's structure. My question: Recently I said, "You know the story (I mean fable, Aesop's, if I remember right) of the Arab and the camel." It drew a blank from a Missourian spiritual director at a Jesuit retreat house (he is an MSW besides professional qualifications) and a few days later the same blank from a Chicagoan Carmelite prior. Of course something was bothering me. The question (anthropologists, folklorists, please help) is about the blank. TOM. Tim Frazer wrote: > . . . For me, a rare exposure to a non Indo European language. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 01:40:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:40:15 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010111162421.025c87a0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 2:49 PM -0500 1/11/01, Mai Kuha wrote: >Actually, I just realized it was "Next month, even." Sorry. >mk >On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Mai Kuha wrote: > >> This one may not fit any of the previously mentioned uses: while I was >> living in Bloomington, IN, a vet asked while examining my cat: "How old >> is she?" "10 next month," I answered. "Next month, yet," he said. I >> thought that meant he was impressed that I knew my cat's exact age. >> >> -Mai >> and At 4:55 PM -0500 1/11/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >>"Is that a bottle of gin yet?" > >Seems odd to me; I would take the "yet" here as the 'ironic intensive' >sentence termination (I think supposedly based on Yiddish "noch"?) -- maybe >roughly = "after all". > I was going to say that Mai's vet's "yet" sounded Yiddish to me, and indeed it does, in exactly the sense Doug nicely captures ('ironic intensive'), and I was also going to say it's closer to 'even' in this sense than to either the standard "yet" or the Midwestern 'still' "yet". ("noch" is indeed a better fit than 'even', in fact.) I'll still say it, even though it's really Mai's "yet" rather than Mai's vet's "yet". I'm sure if she tried some vets in Brooklyn (NY, not Iowa), she'd catch some "Next month, yet!"s. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 01:51:30 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:51:30 +0800 Subject: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:42 PM -0500 1/11/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >E'S RESTAURANT >Specializing in >SPAGHETTI--SANDWICHES >GRINDERS--PIZZA > >(Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton >at all!--ed.) Well yes (if this a real question), in the same way that sandals and boots are shoes (SHOES -- SANDALS -- BOOTS) and chowders are soups (SOUPS AND CHOWDERS). L From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 12 15:14:08 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:14:08 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: If you don't mind a bit of indecent exposure to another non Indo European language, there is a proverb that sounds somewhat like this: "Ottakaththinu [to the camel] sthalam [room] koduththathupohlay [like having given]." Of course any linguist can identify the language or at least the language group from the proverb's structure. No doubt ... but some of us blue-collar types may be a little weak in Dravidian proverb morphology, and some of us have limited acquaintance with the Coromandel Coast area. Are there a lot of camels over there? (^_^) My question: Recently I said, "You know the story (I mean fable, Aesop's, if I remember right) of the Arab and the camel." It drew a blank from a Missourian spiritual director at a Jesuit retreat house (he is an MSW besides professional qualifications) and a few days later the same blank from a Chicagoan Carmelite prior. Of course something was bothering me. The question (anthropologists, folklorists, please help) is about the blank. The blank I think is self-explanatory. (^_^) Is this the one like "Don't let the camel stick his nose into the tent"? Good advice for Arabs and non-Arabs alike, I suppose. Give a camel a rupee, and he'll take a crore! -- Doug Wilson From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 16:20:54 2001 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 11:20:54 EST Subject: nigger vs. negro (was: INDIAN vs. INJUN) Message-ID: Speaking of grandmothers. . . My grandmother (2nd generation Irish-Scottish), who was born (~1912) and raised in Southern Illinois (below I-64)uses "nigra" and sometimes says "of the nigra tribe". I've also heard her use "colored" but when she does it's very informal, like in jokes. I don't think that there's any racist intent behind what she says. In fact, I think "nigra tribe" is her attempt to be PC, hence using "colored" for jokes. -dsb From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 03:40:56 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 11:40:56 +0800 Subject: another first for New Haven? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:59 PM -0500 1/11/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Now the LOC tells me that Philadelphia 1940-1943 is missing! Last time I >was here, there were no CT directories; now they have New Haven and I'll get >it soon. Ah! It may (or may not) be worth noting that just as New Haven claims to own the first citing/sighting of (i) (American-style main course) pizza (@ Frank Pepe's of Wooster St., mentioned earlier by Barry) (ii) hamburgers (@ Louis Lunch, mentioned earlier by Barry and others--no ketchup allowed) (iii) frisbees (supposedly from Yale students tossing pie plates from pies manufactured by the Frisbie Co. in Bridgeport) --we also claim to have originated the telephone book, called The Book of Names (as our modern directories continued to be titled until a decade or so ago). I have no idea which year that would have been, nor am I necessarily endorsing any of these theories, but then I'm not a native of these parts. larry From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 12 17:00:02 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:00:02 -0800 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: > This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in > England, at a pastry > shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items > were called, to be informed > that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," I > replied; in the US we call > them "English muffins." "Really," came the cool > reply, "How odd. Since > they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed White During an extended stay in England, the hotel where my brother-in-law stayed asked if there was anything he wanted regularly for breakfast. His request for English muffins was met with confused looks. They finally understood he meant crumpets, and thought it novel that he wanted a tea pastry for breakfast. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ From Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM Fri Jan 12 17:07:43 2001 From: Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM (Sallie Lemons) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 12:07:43 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: I'm so glad we speak the same language. :) James Smith wrote: > > This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in > > England, at a pastry > > shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items > > were called, to be informed > > that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," I > > replied; in the US we call > > them "English muffins." "Really," came the cool > > reply, "How odd. Since > > they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed White > > During an extended stay in England, the hotel where my > brother-in-law stayed asked if there was anything he > wanted regularly for breakfast. His request for > English muffins was met with confused looks. They > finally understood he meant crumpets, and thought it > novel that he wanted a tea pastry for breakfast. > > ===== > James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything > SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! > http://photos.yahoo.com/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 12 17:22:34 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 17:22:34 +0000 Subject: English muffins = crumpets Message-ID: I should trust my instincts more often--or use dictionaries more often. To me, English muffins look more like crumpets than like UK muffins (I've never actually eaten either). But when I looked up 'crumpet' in the New Oxford dictionary, it told me that 'crumpets' are made on a griddle. I assumed that English muffins were baked, but I've just looked up 'English muffin' in AHD4 and--whaddyaknow--they're made on a griddle. So, I was wrong (not for the first or last time) when I said that US English muffins = UK muffins. I've checked some on-line grocery stores to try to find you some pictures, but no luck. Perhaps Americans would call UK muffins 'biscuits' or 'rolls'--I'm not sure. Just remember, that this is a country where pancakes come already cooked in plastic wrap and are eaten cold, and where a 'flapjack' is sort of like a granola bar, except it's made out of oats. So anything's possible in how we differ in names of (and attitudes toward) bready things. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 12 17:29:20 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 17:29:20 +0000 Subject: UK flapjacks Message-ID: Anticipating a demand for 'flapjack' info, here are some websites: Recipe and cartoon picture: http://www.botham.co.uk/flapjack.htm Pictures of packaged flapjacks: http://www.hoppers.co.uk/Products/oatslices.htm M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 12 21:42:23 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:42:23 -0600 Subject: sny Message-ID: I was away while the sni / sny interchange took place. Sni-a-Bar Creek is in eastern Jackson County, which isn't far from where Greg Pulliam's father lives (the first posting on this item). USGS gives these variant names for the stream: Big Sni-A-Bar Creek, Sniabar Creek. The headwaters are in the southwest corner of Lafayette County. It flows into Jackson County and back into Lafayette County. Its mouth on the Missouri is just east of the town of Wellington. The highway sign on I-70 has SNI-A-BAR CREEK. Robert L. Ramsay (OUR STOREHOUSE OF MISSOURI PLACE NAMES, University of Missouri Press, 1952, 1973, pp. 9, 45, 47, 49, 121) speculated that the"popular etymology" of this name ((NOT corruption!!)) is an Americanized pronunciation of a French name given to the stream by French-speaking fur trappers or traders. He speculates that the name might have been Chenal Hubert, named for or by Antoine Hubert, a St. Louis merchant who traded there in 1768, or for or by Francis Hébert (1750-1780), a well-known St. Louis landowner. For the current pronunciation, the name Chenal Hébert is the more likely. Ramsay also suggests that the dialectal form 'chenail' for 'chenal' ('channel') may have led to the current name. It's not much of a stretch to imagine an early semi-literate English-speaking Missourian trying to "reduce to writing" the name 'Chenail Hébert' spoken in Canadian or Missouri French and writing 'SNI-A-BAR'. Ramsay also mentions Snicarty in Lewis County, the next county upriver from Marion County MO (Hannibal) and Adams County IL (Quincy), the location of The Sny discussed by Tim Frazer and others. USGS has this: Feature Name: Snicarty Slough Feature Type: gut State: Missouri County: Lewis Variant Name(s): Sny Carte Latitude: UNKNOWN Longitude: UNKNOWN Ramsay speculates that this name may have come from 'chenal Écarté' (separated channel) for this narrow channel that is/was not the main channel of the Mississippi at this point. It is also possible that the English-speaking name-givers in both northeastern and western Missouri were aware of the boatbuilder's use of the word 'sny' cited by Mark Odegard. DMLance Steve Hicks wrote: > Having grown up near the Sni-a-Bar area in western Jackson County, Mo., I remember > reading that it is one of those rough frontier anglicizations of an original French name > (as "Chemin Couver" became mangled to "Smackover"). I'll check on that, and see what > the French original is said to be. > > Steve Hicks From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 12 21:59:29 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:59:29 -0600 Subject: OK, a joke But it's about dialect Message-ID: I just finished posting an e-mail reeking of scholarliness, so may I now be excused for violating protocol and dumping a dialect joke on you? Warning: PG, offensive language. DMLance A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a New Yorker. "I'm not hiring any wise-ass New Yorker," the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a test hoping that the New Yorker wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and he'd be able to refuse him the job without getting into an argument" Here's your first question" the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9." "Without numbiz?" the New Yorker says. "Dat's easy'" and proceeds to draw three trees. "What's this?" the boss asks. "Ain't you got no brains? Tree 'n tree n' tree makes nine." "Fair enough," says the boss "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99." "Dare ya go," he says. The New Yorker stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Dare ya go," he says. The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99" "Each a da tree's is dirty now! So it's dirty tree, 'n dirty tree, 'n dirty tree. Dat's 99." The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire him, so he says "Alright, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100." Mr. New York stares into space again, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Dare ya go. A hunnert." The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred." The New Yorker leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? A little dog comes along and craps by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree an' a turd, dirty tree an' a turd, an' dirty tree an' a turd, which makes one hundred. When do I freakin' start? From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 12 22:20:11 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:20:11 -0600 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: True story. Back when I lived in Brooklyn, NY, I heard a pair coming out of the subway ahead of me say "Good; it's not raining still". There is also the 'shut up/hurry up already' locution. With the mentioned usage of 'yet', it seems to me we have a set of peculiar-sounding time markerd that seem used for states, that of not-raining, being hurried-up, or even 'being turkey-dinnered'. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 12 22:25:13 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:25:13 -0600 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: Nigra is dialectal for Negro. In some Southern lects, the vowel in Negro shortens before the consonant cluster, and schwa is the unmarked pronunciation of final vowels of all spellings, The people who say Nigra think they are saying Negro, and they are, but naysayers want to insist on the nay. DMLance Duane Campbell wrote: > On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > > > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > > INDIAN = > > NIGGER : NEGRO > > Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the > contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Sat Jan 13 00:21:39 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:21:39 -0800 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: An inquiry has come from a Chinese Malaysian friend in Panang asking the origin and meaning of "bless your socks off". I hear it often and assume it to be a superlative for "blessings" but have no idea other than that! Answers to the ADS-L would be appreciated as I do not have any of the reference works you folks use (just a lurker enjoying your company and learning). Sharyn Hay storkrn at msn.com From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 00:40:50 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 19:40:50 -0500 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: I inadvertantly sent this just to Tim last night, instead of the list... AF Tim Frazer said: >Linguistics in 1974. I went to the Linguistics Institute in Amherst, Mass. Hey...I was at that Institute too. It was the summer before I entered graduate school. >The Generative vs. Interpretive Semantics debate was hot and heavy. Noam >Chomsky gave a lecture which might as well have been in Martian as well as I >was concerned. He was very much worshipped there. Not completely. One of the things I vividly remember about that lecture series was Barbara Partee's anguish at giving a critical followup to one lecture. Oh, yes, and happening to get in the same elevator as Chomsky *and* Halle after another Chomsky lecture and having a friend stage-whisper to me "any questions?" There was lots of other stuff in the air suggesting that Chomsky didn't have the complete story. I had read the Keenan and Comrie Accessibility Hierarchy paper in mimeo (faded, at that) form for an undergraduate class. At the institute, I audited a class that Steve Anderson taught on ergativity. I think I audited something by Keenan also on grammatical relations and the AH. Or perhaps that was for credit. I also took (and greatly enjoyed) the course that Arnold Zwicky and Geoff Pullum taught on interconnections between phonology and syntax. I also was one of six students in a seminar on Generative Phonology with Halle and Keyser. There were so many auditors that the class met in a very large lecture hall (probably seated 250 or 300), and it was pretty full. It was a very intimidating setting for giving an oral presentation on my term paper. > I felt very intimidated! >Robin Lakhoff gave a talk arguing that linguists needed to get out of ivory >tower and pay more attention to the needs of ordinary people, e.g. issues in >education, etc. Oh, and Bill Labov gave a very nice paper where he showed, >empirically, that many native speakers of English did not much agree with >Chomsky and his followers about which sentences were "ungrammatical." I don't remember these. But I remember a talk by Bob King on rule loss, specifically final devoicing in Yiddish. That talk made me very glad I had already decided to go to Texas for grad school. Bob ended up being my dissertation adviser, and the provocative questions he asked about final devoicing have indirectly influenced my work on near mergers. > >As it turned out, I ended up spending a lot of that summer watchng the >Senate Committee's Watergate hearings on TV. Yup. I was sharing an apartment off campus with two UMASS students. One was in the process of divorcing her husband, and she was thrilled that I wanted to watch the hearings, as it gave her an excuse to demand the TV from him. I wrote two fairly decent term papers to the sound of the hearings, both house and senate. If there were any problems with my paper, Arnold, can I blame it on Barbara Jordan and Hamilton Fish? It's not Linguistics, but I have three other Watergate, etc. memories from that summer. The first was buying an "I Am Not A Crook" t-shirt at the student union. I still have the t-shirt, but have never worn it; Nixon resigned that night. The second was the reverberations from the fireworks set off at the grad student apartment complex after the resignation speech. Finally, the only place I knew in Amherst to get the NY Times was a drugstore a block or two from my apartment. Bundles of newspapers were dropped off in front of the store early in the morning, and they opened around 9 AM. The morning after the resignation, I got there around 8:45. The bundles had been torn open, and there were only a few papers left. But there was a pile of money on the sidewalk. I added my 50¢ to the pile and took two copies of the paper, which I still have, at my parents' house. Bringing it back to Linguistics, one of my professors (either at the Institute or back at Cornell) referred to certain of the evasive political utterances of that era as "circumlocutionary acts". Or something like that. For another take on the Zeitgeist of the early to mid 70's in Linguistics, have a look at _Studies out in Left Field: Defamatory Essays Presented to James D. McCawley on the Occasion of his 33rd or 34th Birthday_. Arnold and Larry may be able to contribute further insights. Alice -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 02:10:57 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 21:10:57 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: Hi Douglas Wilson, I have inserted my reactions below in square brackets. I hope you find them satisfactory. Thanks for bothering to comment. Tom Paikeday "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > > > > No doubt ... but some of us blue-collar types may be a little weak in > Dravidian proverb morphology, and some of us have limited acquaintance with > the Coromandel Coast area. [Quite correct! Thanks] Are there a lot of camels over there? (^_^) [None that I know of. Good question though. How did such a proverb get into Malayalam? But then I am barely literate in my mother tongue, having had only five years of elementary school]. > > My question: Recently I said, "You know the story (I mean fable, > Aesop's, if I remember right) of the Arab and the camel." It drew a > blank from a Missourian spiritual director at a Jesuit retreat house (he > is an MSW besides professional qualifications) and a few days later the > same blank from a Chicagoan Carmelite prior. Of course something was > bothering me. > > The question (anthropologists, folklorists, please help) is about the > blank. > > The blank I think is self-explanatory. (^_^) [I don't get this. Perhaps it doesn't matter. My own explanation is that the MSW not being from Oregon (as in A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS), he cannot be blamed for making me explain the fable to him, but the prior being from Illinois should probably have known better. But then no one is omniscient even with the best linguistic library in the world. Sorry if I seem to be preaching to a prior]. > > Is this the one like "Don't let the camel stick his nose into the tent"? [Yes indeed, as in op. cit.] > Good advice for Arabs and non-Arabs alike, I suppose. Give a camel a rupee, > and he'll take a crore! [Thanks for some creative proverb-making. I enjoyed this exchange]. > > -- Doug Wilson From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 11 18:20:55 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:20:55 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Jan 2001 12:07:43 -0500 Sallie Lemons writes: > I'm so glad we speak the same language. :) Two nations divided bya common language? You may quote me if you like. D From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 13 04:13:02 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 23:13:02 -0500 Subject: Bless your socks off In-Reply-To: <000701c07cf6$cd7b9000$32e1183f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >An inquiry has come from a Chinese Malaysian friend in Penang asking the >origin and meaning of "bless your socks off". I hear >it often and assume it to be a superlative for "blessings" .... It seems a little old-fashioned, but I have heard (rarely) "Bless your socks!" as an alternative to "Bless your heart!", meaning either "Thank you" or just "Bless you" (affectionate expression). I assume "Bless your socks" < "Bless your soul" but I don't have firm information. My books show only "Bless your (little) cotton socks", which would seem to be an elaboration with unchanged meaning (my own casual speculation: < "Bless your [little] heart and soul"). "Bless your socks off" appears likely to be a conflation of "Bless your socks" with "knock your socks off" (= "thrill/amaze you" or "have an overwhelming effect on you"). I have never heard "bless your socks off". I suspect that it is used mostly in an evangelical [Christian] context; there are a number of Web occurrences. There is a recent book by this title. Apparently the sense is "bless you forcefully" as in "[May] God bless your socks off" or "This [spiritual] music will bless your socks off" or "Doing this [good deed] will bless your socks off", etc. ... judging from Web items. [Web quotation: "It is better to bless your socks than to darn them." (^_^)] -- Doug Wilson From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Jan 13 04:30:40 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 22:30:40 -0600 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: I think Doug Wilson was being sweet. The term I'm aware of is 'drop your cocks and grab your socks', something a USMC drill sergeant is presumed to say when the fussy officer shows up for a snap inspection. The sexual politics of this term remain to be untangled. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Jan 13 05:09:33 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 21:09:33 -0800 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: alice faber reminisces about the 1974 linguistic institute, and in passing asks: >If there were any problems with my paper, Arnold, can I blame it on >Barbara Jordan and Hamilton Fish? as i recall, there was nothing whatsoever to blame on anyone. both classes i taught at that institute (intro to discrete mathematics for linguists was the other) were lots of fun. ellen prince and rochelle lieber (then an undergraduate) were in the math class. the syntax/phonology course had a lot of auditors, including rob robinson, who's now my colleague at stanford (head of german studies and now also of the intro to humanities program). the 70s involved a lot of travel for me - teaching at the linguistic institute (at north carolina) and a month in europe (the international phonology congress in vienna, and more) in 1972; the california summer school in linguistics (at santa cruz), a workshop on pragmatics at the linguistic institute (at michigan), and a month visiting the theoretical psychology program at edinburgh, all in 1973; teaching at the u.mass. institute in 1974; a summer visiting the experimental psychology unit at sussex in 1976; a return there for the autumn of 1977; several weeks at the linguistic institute at illinois in 1978. by 1970 i was embarked on the study of syntax/phonology interactions (pullum joined me in this enterprise in 1973), a project that led me into extensive work on morphology and on clitics and has provided me with wonderful puzzles for the past thirty years. increasingly, this work (and other projects on argumentation, on variation, on speech errors, and on stylistics and poetics, all of which i got into through teaching introductory linguistics classes) moved me far away from what was happening at mit, a process that had begun with my sympathies for "generative semantics" in the late 60s and blossomed into an enthusiasm for generalized phrase structure grammar in the late 70s. that was linguistics in the 70s, in a nutshell, for me. i wouldn't imagine there's anyone else whose experiences were much like this. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 13:20:18 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:20:18 -0500 Subject: OK, a joke But it's about dialect Message-ID: Very unscholarly/unacademic, but quite delightful, I must say. I have printed it out to pass around to a special-interest group of mine, without infringing copyright, if any claimed. Tom Paikeday ================================== "Donald M. Lance" wrote: > > I just finished posting an e-mail reeking of scholarliness, so may I now be excused for > violating protocol and dumping a dialect joke on you? Warning: PG, offensive language. > DMLance > > A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a New Yorker. > "I'm not hiring any wise-ass New Yorker," the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a > test hoping that the New Yorker wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and he'd be able > to refuse him the job without getting into an argument" > > Here's your first question" the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number > 9." > > "Without numbiz?" the New Yorker says. "Dat's easy'" and proceeds to draw three trees. > > "What's this?" the boss asks. > > "Ain't you got no brains? Tree 'n tree n' tree makes nine." > > "Fair enough," says the boss "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this > time the number is 99." > > "Dare ya go," he says. > > The New Yorker stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just > drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Dare ya go," he says. > > The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99" > > "Each a da tree's is dirty now! So it's dirty tree, 'n dirty tree, 'n dirty tree. Dat's > 99." > > The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire him, so he says "Alright, last > question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100." > > Mr. New York stares into space again, then he picks up the picture again and makes a > little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Dare ya go. A hunnert." > > The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred." > > The New Yorker leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says, . . . . > . . . . > > . . . . . . . . . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? > > A little dog comes along and craps by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree an' a turd, > dirty tree an' a turd, an' dirty tree an' a turd, which makes one hundred. When do I > freakin' start? From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 13 13:18:02 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:18:02 -0500 Subject: Bless your socks off In-Reply-To: <000701c07cf6$cd7b9000$32e1183f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >I have used "verb+possessive pronoun+socks" off my entire life, and >I suspect it is that "frame" which is productive. I confess never >having used the verb "bless" before in this context. My tendancy >(and the one I learned I am rather sure) has been for more "active" >verbs - work, beat, others I won't bother to mention. dInIs (working his danged socks off here in the cold of MI) >An inquiry has come from a Chinese Malaysian friend in Panang asking >the origin and meaning of "bless your socks off". I hear >it often and assume it to be a superlative for "blessings" but have >no idea other than that! > >Answers to the ADS-L would be appreciated as I do not have any of >the reference works you folks use (just a lurker enjoying >your company and learning). > >Sharyn Hay storkrn at msn.com -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 13:59:08 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:59:08 -0500 Subject: Body Language Message-ID: Many thanks for all the tips received about the latest on BL. The amazon.com site was especially charming with titles such as A LANGUAGE OLDER THAN WORDS by Derrick Jensen (2000). But I have decided to let the literature be and do some thinking of my own first. At least, I won't be accused of softcore plagiarism (that's passing off paid-for stuff, as in some student essays, hardcore being passing off stolen stuff. As in a recent paper of YT - sorry to go so off-topic). I am drawing up a scheme or model based on the human anatomy and getting a naive-informant group to help by running an ad in THE NIAGARA SHOPPING NEWS (a very unacademic paper as you can see). A scholarly question if I may and there's no leg-pulling here, just plain ignorance of elementary grammar: Is the part-of-speech called interj. verbal or nonverbal? (Please see RHD def. of BL). I appreciate it is vocal, as in "Ah-choo!" Is that kinesics or proxemics, especially when the subject sneezes close to the object? But I will read Edward T. Hall just as I have read Julius Fast's pioneering work. As if anyone cared! Seriously, THOMAS M. PAIKEDAY (_The Native Speaker Is Dead!_, Toronto & New York, 1985; Tokyo (Maruzen), 1990). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 14:05:39 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:05:39 EST Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: William Safire plagiarizes the OED once again. In this week's "On Language" column, he mentions two quotations in discussing "sidekick." Both can be found in the OED. Safire never mentions the OED. One quotation from O. Henry ("Billy was my _side-kicker_ in New York") Safire identifies as 1904. The OED has 1903. Also, in the OED, the term does not have italics. He can't even plagiarize correctly! Safire takes another dig at the family Bush (yes, politics in a Language column) by stating that Bush the Elder liked to quote Woody Allen as saying "Ninety percent of success is showing up." No Bush citations are provided. Safire called Woody Allen, who says he said "80%." Safire doesn't reveal that this "80%" is nothing new. Even the awful ENCARTA BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (2000) has "Eighty percent of success is showing up." Most troubling, of course, is that Safire's assistant came on the list, got a citation from Fred Shapiro, and has used it in this week's column. His assistant won't even respond to me about joining the ADS for free. Again, I ask Elizabeth Phillips to join the ADS for free. Again, I ask her correct the errors that William Safire made of my work. She owes it to me and to this organization. She used us! I demand (as I have for a mere NINE YEARS now) Safire to respond. From tcf at MACOMB.COM Sat Jan 13 14:50:38 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:50:38 -0600 Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: If other people want to buy ad space in Safire's paper to air Barry's complaints, I might contribute. (However, the urge to do this comes from my dark side -- to be honest, it would be less to do sg. for Barry than to have a good fight. So maybe it's not a good impulse.) ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 8:05 AM Subject: Safire Watch (continued) > William Safire plagiarizes the OED once again. > In this week's "On Language" column, he mentions two quotations in discussing "sidekick." Both can be found in the OED. Safire never mentions the OED. > One quotation from O. Henry ("Billy was my _side-kicker_ in New York") Safire identifies as 1904. The OED has 1903. Also, in the OED, the term does not have italics. > He can't even plagiarize correctly! > Safire takes another dig at the family Bush (yes, politics in a Language column) by stating that Bush the Elder liked to quote Woody Allen as saying "Ninety percent of success is showing up." No Bush citations are provided. > Safire called Woody Allen, who says he said "80%." Safire doesn't reveal that this "80%" is nothing new. Even the awful ENCARTA BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (2000) has "Eighty percent of success is showing up." > Most troubling, of course, is that Safire's assistant came on the list, got a citation from Fred Shapiro, and has used it in this week's column. His assistant won't even respond to me about joining the ADS for free. > Again, I ask Elizabeth Phillips to join the ADS for free. Again, I ask her correct the errors that William Safire made of my work. She owes it to me and to this organization. > She used us! > I demand (as I have for a mere NINE YEARS now) Safire to respond. From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 14:59:03 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:59:03 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: The standard answer, I suppose, is that the people themselves prefer to be called the Inuit, as in "The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada," as in all people and personal names, and especially because they are our neighbours. One reason surely is that "eaters of raw flesh" is derogatory in this day and age ("sushi" may be a status question) when most Inuit may be ordering their steaks done medium rare. TOM PAIKEDAY (PYE.kuh.day, not PAY-) P.S. Just read Doug Wilson's posting of Jan. 11. Laurence Horn wrote: > . . . Maybe the Canadians are > just in the vanguard here.I'm not sure whether the objection to > "Eskimo" is that it's too broad in its application or that it's too > closely associated with tales of blubber-eating, nose-rubbing, > wife-sharing and the like. > > larry From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 16:59:07 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 11:59:07 -0500 Subject: Quotative "like" Message-ID: I forget who gave the paper on this at the ADS/LSA meeting last week, and my program is at the lab. But there's a lovely example of quotative "like" in tomorrow's NY Times Magazine Section, in an interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin. Here's the context, with punctuation: "Someone was talking to people who had watched me, and they were like, She's the one with the normal hair. Which means that it was sometimes sticking out." The interview's on page 15. I'm not sure exactly how old Goodwin is, but, she's old enough to have been traumatized when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, which would make her at least 50. -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Sat Jan 13 17:08:04 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 11:08:04 -0600 Subject: Comments on the Joke Message-ID: The "thirty-three dirty trees" joke I inflicted on Listees yesterday has some interesting phonological dimensions. It doesn't focus on the stereotypical -er- --> -oi- vowel nucleus of New Yorkese to make its point. So, what is it in these words that makes the joke work so well? Relying solely on my own fuzzy memory and fuzzy math (even suspect data are always better than none), I suspect it's a package of lenis/fortis and aspiration stuff in the initial consonants. How does "dirty tree" work so well as "thirty-three"? The lower stress on the first word (dirty, t'irty) tends to neutralize the voicing opposition in the initial consonant in this dialect. If I say the words in my own variety of South Midland, the d- ~ t- < th- phonology just seems silly, but if I fake a Nuw Yawka accent, tirty-tree and dirty-tree have initial consonants that are much more alike. It's also interesting that the boss's assumption of NY wise-ass-ness isn't confirmed until the very last sentence (When do I freakin' start?). Until then, we get only the slightly macho-istic braggadocio New Yorker 'tude in "Dat's easy" and "Dare ya go," and then the freakin' Bam! at the end. The discoursal feature that the joke-writer capitalizes on is seemingly intentional flouting of register expectations in a job interview. Ya'd be a piss pooa New Yawka if ya followed all da prissy rules! It's kinda like what transpired on this List when a certain Iowan accused a certain Louavillian of having only one register, a register that one might label South Midland chutzpa, but the Iowan was too North Midlandly courteous to engage in such overt name-calling. That same Iowan said in DC that we might oughta spend some of our energies looking at chunks of discourse, so I thought I'd better do some serious homework to make up for violating protocol yesterday. On a somewhat related topic.... Bethany Dumas quoted one of my better e-mails in DC (about dialects of TV news anchors) and later told me that she wished I had expanded on my reference to 'register'. OK, Bethany, I've now given you some more on register (supra). What I meant in implying that the phenomenon of register is what in effect (for many Americans) "neutralizes" regional dialect in the broadcast presentations of the Inland Northerner, the South-South Midlander, the Canadian, and Babwa Wawa is that we have certain expectations of how one should behave linguistically in reading the news on national TV, and all of these announcers handle the register of news-announcing very well. Register is the set of linguistic features (diction, vocabulary, syntax, morphology, intonation, sincerity-marking, etc.) that one uses (or one expects to hear or read) in linguistic interchanges in specific socio-psycho-politico-informational situations. As I've indicated above, some of these expectations may differ from one cultural region of the country to another, and some expectations do not vary, or should not range far from expectations, as in broadcasting the news. Yes, Mr. Iowan, I think that even the Louavillian could clean up his language, if he chose, and be a successful newscaster, never giving away his N'abny IN provenance. Readers may notice that I did not include 'pronunciation' or 'accent' in the parenthetical list of features above. As long as the other features are held constant, regional accent (or even a speech impediment) is essentially, but not totally, irrelevant to successful performance in a register, including the telling of jokes. Sorry about all the in-group references, but Hey! this is e-mail, and the ADS Listserve. If you want to know more, join ADS and come to the annual meetings. DMLance ==================== A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a New Yorker. "I'm not hiring any wise-ass New Yorker," the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a test hoping that the New Yorker wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and he'd be able to refuse him the job without getting into an argument" Here's your first question" the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9." "Without numbiz?" the New Yorker says. "Dat's easy'" and proceeds to draw three trees. "What's this?" the boss asks. "Ain't you got no brains? Tree 'n tree n' tree makes nine." "Fair enough," says the boss "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99." "Dare ya go," he says. The New Yorker stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Dare ya go," he says. The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99" "Each a da tree's is dirty now! So it's dirty tree, 'n dirty tree, 'n dirty tree. Dat's 99." The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire him, so he says "Alright, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100." Mr. New York stares into space again, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Dare ya go. A hunnert." The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred." The New Yorker leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? A little dog comes along and craps by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree an' a turd, dirty tree an' a turd, an' dirty tree an' a turd, which makes one hundred. When do I freakin' start? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 17:48:13 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:48:13 EST Subject: Fwd: Washington Irving & CRIES OF NEW YORK Message-ID: FYI. Don Foster is the guy who unmasked Joe Klein as the anonymous author of the book PRIMARY COLORS. Foster recently got much publicity from the New York Times that Clement Clarke Moore did not write "A Visit from St. Nicholas"--although that had been rumored for many years. --Barry Popik -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: Washington Irving & CRIES OF NEW YORK Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:45:39 EST Size: 1270 URL: From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 13 18:14:31 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:14:31 -0600 Subject: "chad"--1944 attestation Message-ID: The earliest attestation thus far for "chad" is 1947 (from the files of Merriam-Webster). Here now is one from a few years earlier: _American Telegraphy After 100 Years_, by F. E. d'Humy, Vice-President and Chief Engineer, and P.J. Howe, Assistant Chief Engineer in Charge of Engineering Economics, The Western Union Telegraph Company. Published in Supplement to the "Transactions of the A.I.E.E.," volume 63, 1944, pages 1014-1032. Later reprinted separately. --(A.I.E.E. = American Institute of Electrical Engineers). The copy I obtained is the reprinted one. Page 16, col. 3 says: 'One of the equipment differences between the Western Union and Postal Telegraph switching systems is that the printer-perforator used in the latter is essentially a "typing reperforator," which uses a narrow tape and prints the characters right over the code perforations. In order to obtain readability,the holes in the tape are punched only part way,eliminating the "chad" and thus providing a complete surface to receive printing, although still leaving the holes free for entrance of the transmitter pins.' My thanks to the material from Merriam-Webster, Fred Shapiro, Chris Jensen and Barry Popik, which headed me in the right direction of radiotelegraphy. ---Gerald Cohen From Allynherna at AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 19:07:10 2001 From: Allynherna at AOL.COM (Allynherna at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:07:10 EST Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN Message-ID: My Rosebud Souix in-laws call thenmselves either "Souix" or just "Indian" and think that "Native American" is silly. Allyn Partin From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sat Jan 13 19:25:34 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 19:25:34 +0000 Subject: taylor on safire on clinton Message-ID: >From Charles Taylor's farewell to Clinton in today's Salon.com: "An esthetic Southerner like Jimmy Carter was acceptable as president. But a gregarious one of obvious (and hidden) appetites just had to be Lil' Abner playing dress-up. Here's William Safire a few weeks ago in the New York Times Magazine, talking about what he'll miss most about Clinton: "The Ozarkian's free-and-easy use of the American idiom." In other words, those hicks may not know how to speak English, but they sure are cute when they try. Imagine something similar being written about a black president. (And try to imagine taking language instruction from a former Nixon speechwriter.)" M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 07:56:31 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 15:56:31 +0800 Subject: Quotative "like" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:59 AM -0500 1/13/01, Alice Faber wrote: >I forget who gave the paper on this at the ADS/LSA meeting last week, and >my program is at the lab. But there's a lovely example of quotative "like" >in tomorrow's NY Times Magazine Section, in an interview with Doris Kearns >Goodwin. Here's the context, with punctuation: > >"Someone was talking to people who had watched me, and they were like, >She's the one with the normal hair. Which means that it was sometimes >sticking out." > >The interview's on page 15. > >I'm not sure exactly how old Goodwin is, but, she's old enough to have been >traumatized when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, which would make her at least >50. I seem to recall (from evidence provided in her book about growing up in Rockville Centre and bleeding for the Brooklyn Dodgers) that she's pretty much my age, 55, give or take a year. She's probably just been around a lot of Gen-Xers, her own or others. Of course, I have too, and I rooted just as hard for the Brooklyn Dodgers as she did, and yet "be like" is likely to remain trapped in my passive vocabulary. But that's me. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 08:25:48 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 16:25:48 +0800 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I inadvertantly sent this just to Tim last night, instead of the list... > >AF >Tim Frazer said: >>Linguistics in 1974. I went to the Linguistics Institute in Amherst, Mass. > >Hey...I was at that Institute too. It was the summer before I entered >graduate school. > >>The Generative vs. Interpretive Semantics debate was hot and heavy. Noam >>Chomsky gave a lecture which might as well have been in Martian as well as I >>was concerned. He was very much worshipped there. > >Not completely. One of the things I vividly remember about that lecture >series was Barbara Partee's anguish at giving a critical followup to one >lecture. Oh, yes, and happening to get in the same elevator as Chomsky >*and* Halle after another Chomsky lecture and having a friend stage-whisper >to me "any questions?" > >There was lots of other stuff in the air suggesting that Chomsky didn't >have the complete story. The 1974 institute was perhaps best known for being the launching pad of a syntactic theory that set itself up as a fairly major rival to what was then called the Revised Extended Standard Theory of generative grammar (i.e. Chomsky's then current model). This rival theory was Relational Grammar, and was advanced by David Perlmutter and Paul Postal in their joint course at the institute. While other LSA institutes have been associated with particular theoretical frameworks (the Generative Semantics institute at Illinois in the previous decade comes to mind), I can't remember any other theory that was really launched by an institute course in just this way, partly because P&P had eschewed the normal publication avenues up to that point and somewhat beyond. (There was an earlier CLS paper that was never written up and some provocative but inchoate hints by Postal in _On Raising_ (published in 1974 but written several years earlier), but really nothing in print up to that point. So for several years thereafter those of us who taught RG, either in a self-contained course or incorporated into an eclectic syntax course or seminar, did so using our notes from P&P's UMass Institute lectures as a text. Myself, I was really happy with a Pragmatics course offered by Bob Stalnaker and one on presupposition by Janet Fodor. Amherst in 1974 was also the first institute (or maybe the second--I can't remember the details about the 1973 'toot at Ann Arbor) at which Ivan Sag arranged for the rental of fraternity and sorority houses so that graduate students and faculty who were attending but didn't opt to live in the official dorms could pretend we were in summer camp, a practice that has extended through the 1999 Institute at Urbana. Partly as a result, there was also a lot of other stuff going on that summer that was only indirectly connected to academic linguistics and that can't really be mentioned on a family listserv. Ah, youth! larry From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Sat Jan 13 22:53:31 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 17:53:31 -0500 Subject: Quotative "like" Message-ID: Since she is a die hard Boston Red Sox fan, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn probably wasn't all that traumatic. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) ----- Original Message ----- From: Alice Faber To: Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 11:59 AM Subject: Quotative "like" > I forget who gave the paper on this at the ADS/LSA meeting last week, and > my program is at the lab. But there's a lovely example of quotative "like" > in tomorrow's NY Times Magazine Section, in an interview with Doris Kearns > Goodwin. Here's the context, with punctuation: > > "Someone was talking to people who had watched me, and they were like, > She's the one with the normal hair. Which means that it was sometimes > sticking out." > > The interview's on page 15. > > I'm not sure exactly how old Goodwin is, but, she's old enough to have been > traumatized when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, which would make her at least > 50. > -- > Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 > Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 > 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu > New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 23:14:37 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 18:14:37 -0500 Subject: Quotative "like" In-Reply-To: <001601c07db3$a7ce3160$2dcc35d8@oemcomputer> Message-ID: Tom Fenton said: >Since she is a die hard Boston Red Sox fan, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn >probably wasn't all that traumatic. *Now* she (Doris Kearns Goodwin)'s a Red Sox fan, but she grew up in a New York suburb. Larry Horn posted which one, but I don't remember, other than that it was on Long Island. -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Sun Jan 14 00:37:02 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 16:37:02 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Has anything appeared recently on the double conjunction "like that," e.g. "I feel like that they all ought to just leave me alone." It reminds me a bit of Spanish "de que," but it's clearly a horse of a different color. Peter R. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 00:43:24 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 19:43:24 EST Subject: "Chad" isn't going postal Message-ID: Congratulations to Jerry for finding that 1944 "chad." A friend of mine gave me a "chad" article from LINN'S STAMP NEWS. I checked philatelic dictionaries in the NYPL. It's not here. 1911--THE DICTIONARY OF PHILATELIC TERMS AND PHRASES (London). No "chad." 1922--THE STANDARD PHILATELIC DICTIONARY by W. H. Poole and Willard O. Wylie. "Chad"--See "Oubangi--Chari--Tchad." 1933--THE STANDARD PHILATELIC DICTIONARY by Willard C. Jackson. Has "Chad" as "A French colony in Central Africa." 1949--THE AMERICAN STAMP COLLECTOR'S DICTIONARY by Harry M. Konwiser. No "chad." 1950--STANDARD PHILATELIC DICTIONARY by Vijay Krishna (Barnaras, India). No "chad." From dmsnake at USIT.NET Sun Jan 14 01:40:17 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 20:40:17 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: Peter Richardson wrote: > Has anything appeared recently on the double conjunction "like that," e.g. > "I feel like that they all ought to just leave me alone." It reminds me a > bit of Spanish "de que," but it's clearly a horse of a different color. > > Peter R. I remember occasionally hearing this usage for many years, but never hearng it widely used. My theory is that the speaker is someone who would normally be inclined to say "I feel like they should leave me alone." But he remembers that his teachers or parents have told him to say "I feel that they should leave me alone." Yet the "like" is hard to give up, so he uses both. Snake From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 01:52:00 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 20:52:00 -0500 Subject: "Chad" isn't going postal In-Reply-To: <22.107dff1d.2792502d@aol.com> Message-ID: "Chad" is not a standard term in philately. But check "Stamping Our History: The Story of the United States Portrayed on its Postage Stamps", by Charles Davidson and Lincoln Diamant (a Lyle Stuart Book, Carol Publishing Group, New York, 1990) -- supposedly quoted in "American Heritage", Dec. 1990, Vol. 41 (Issue 8), p.109. I couldn't find this book at the local library. I haven't checked the magazine. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 13:08:59 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:08:59 +0800 Subject: Quotative "like" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 6:14 PM -0500 1/13/01, Alice Faber wrote: >Tom Fenton said: >>Since she is a die hard Boston Red Sox fan, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn >>probably wasn't all that traumatic. > >*Now* she (Doris Kearns Goodwin)'s a Red Sox fan, but she grew up in a New >York suburb. Larry Horn posted which one, but I don't remember, other than >that it was on Long Island. >-- Rockville Centre, just three towns north of where I went to high school in Long Beach, Long Island. And she was a devout Dodgers fan, as Alice and I have been saying and as she makes clear in her 1997 memoir of her Catholic (and Dodger) girlhood, Wait Till Next Year (us old Brooklyn Dodger fans can't miss THAT reference). Her moment of supreme grace was the year the Bums finally didn't have to wait till next year--1955-- and she also has a lot of nice things to say about Jackie Robinson, and her two traumas were of course--in order of importance but not chronology--(i) the traitor O'Malley's moving the team to L.A. in 1957 (shattering her allegiance, along with mine and most other fans I knew at the time--she eventually took up with the Bosox, presumably partly because they were poetically doomed to just miss (and usually to the Yankees) too and partly because she was living in the Hub) and (ii) Bobby Thomson's "shot heard round the world" wiping out the Dodgers in the playoff for the 1951 pennant. There was a lot of controversy on local New York sports talk radio when her book came out with her memories (as a six-year-old) of how she just KNEW the Dodger manager was making a fatal mistake bringing Ralph Branca in to pitch to Thomson--that couldn't possibly have been the a real memory of a six-year-old, the local talk show hosts (Mike and the Mad Dog) insisted. They also don't believe DKG could really have been that die hard a Dodger fan then and that die hard a Red Sox fan now, as she insists on the Ken Burns "Baseball" documentary. (Of course, Barry would no doubt remind us, every fact presented in a Ken Burns documentary is ipso facto suspect.) larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 02:15:15 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:15:15 EST Subject: Calamari; Banana Nut Bread; Do you serve crabs? Message-ID: CALAMARI The OED and Merriam-Webster have the 1950s and 1960s for the dish. From a European food tour described in THE STEWARD, January 1938, pg. 12, col. 1: Calamaria (squids), In Palermo, Italy, ... -------------------------------------------------------- BANANA NUT BREAD From THE STEWARD, May 1937, pg. 26, col. 2: BANANA-NUT BREAD 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs, beaten light 3 large bananas 1 1/2 tbs. sour milk 1 ts. lemon juice 2 cups soft wheat flour 1 1/2 ts. baking powder 1/2 ts. soda 1/4 ts. salt 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, bananas (put through sieve) and liquid ingredients. Add nuts and sifted dry ingredients. Blend thoroughly and bake 45 minutes in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) --_Service_. -------------------------------------------------------- DO YOU SERVE CRABS? An old joke, but how old? From THE STEWARD, December 1937, pg. 18, col. 1: One evening a diner unfamiliar with Schultz's viands(Schultz's Sandwich Shop, Grill and Stop-in Restaurant--ed.) asked of her "do you serve crabs here?" "Oh yes," answered Judith "we serve everyone." -------------------------------------------------------- CRIES OF NEW YORK & WASHINGTON IRVING (continued) David Shulman gave me the cite. From SPIRIT OF THE TIMES, 6 June 1840, pg. 157, col. 2: _Cries of New York._ AN UNPUBLISHED CHAPTER OF MRS. TROLLOPE. (...) The most profitable book that Washington Irving ever wrote was entitled "Cries of New York." It was embellished with pictures, (which are very taking in America,) of a man crying "Clams! clams! Rockaway clams!"... From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 02:27:50 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:27:50 -0500 Subject: "chad"--1944 attestation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > The earliest attestation thus far for "chad" is 1947 (from the >files of Merriam-Webster). Here now is one from a few years earlier: > >_American Telegraphy After 100 Years_, by F. E. d'Humy, >Vice-President and Chief Engineer, and P.J. Howe, Assistant Chief >Engineer in Charge of Engineering Economics, The Western Union >Telegraph Company. Published in Supplement to the "Transactions of >the A.I.E.E.," volume 63, 1944, pages 1014-1032. Later reprinted >separately. --(A.I.E.E. = American Institute of Electrical Engineers). > > The copy I obtained is the reprinted one. Page 16, col. 3 says: > > 'One of the equipment differences between the Western Union >and Postal Telegraph switching systems is that the printer-perforator >used in the latter is essentially a "typing reperforator," which uses >a narrow tape and prints the characters right over the code >perforations. In order to obtain readability,the holes in the tape >are punched only part way,eliminating the "chad" and thus providing a >complete surface to receive printing, although still leaving the >holes free for entrance of the transmitter pins.' Good show! I reviewed that volume of AIEE Trans. today, and it's about the same in the original journal form. Note that there's no explanation of the meaning of "chad", suggesting that the term was already familiar in the industry at the time -- but there are quotation marks! There seem to be no useful references. Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it didn't include that part. The technology was remarkably stable way back. Paper tape (Wheatstone tape [with chads!]) was virtually unchanged from ca. 1860 to the late 1920's, apparently, and the subsequent tapes weren't all that different. >... which headed me in the right direction of radiotelegraphy. But it doesn't need to be "radio-": wired telegraphy used the same sort of tape. The subject indices in AIEE Trans. and elsewhere tend to list this sort of thing under "telegraph", "telegraphy", "telegraph equipment", "teletype" (back to about 1930), etc. If anyone has some other good terms to look for in the indices, please let me know. -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 02:35:28 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:35:28 EST Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) Message-ID: Pain de Mie is not in OED (revising "M"). OK, so it's French. We have an ADS member in France, you know. From "Fancy Breads Taboo in France," THE STEWARD, pg. 11, col. 1: ...the breakfast "Croissant," the dinner and luncheon "pain riche" or "petit pain" or the simple "pain de manage" of our schoolboy days. (Pg. 12, col. 1--ed.) Au revoir to "Pain Riche" in all its marvelous forms and shapes, for which there can be no translation (OED take note--ed.); to the Pain Marchand-de-Vin, the Baguette Anglaise (alas!); the Baguette Gruau, the Joko Court and the Joko Long; the Baguette Ficelle (thin as a string) and the Couronne (crown); the Pain de Mie (sandwich bread) in six different (Col. 2--ed.) sizes, from the Mie ordinaire to the Mie Royale and the Royal Sandwich; the Pain de Seigle a Huitres; the Pain Gibier (for game) and the seigle Russe, the Boule de Seigle and the Miche de Seigle. Au revoir--and perhaps farewell--to the "Croissant" (crescent). And au revoir to all the little lunch and dinner breads which in all time have been the best part of the meal in Paris; the Empereur; the Galette; the Benoiston; the "Pistolet," large and small; the "Grand Opera" in four sizes and the "Opera Simple"; the "Lunch"; the "Brillat-Savarin"; the "Pain Buda"; the "Boule de fromage," and the "Galette." Au revoir, merci, et Vive la France! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 02:39:31 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:39:31 EST Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) Message-ID: THE STEWARD, August 1940 (wartime). Sorry. From rkm at SLIP.NET Sun Jan 14 02:56:03 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 18:56:03 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <3A610381.2FEF7D56@usit.net> Message-ID: >I remember occasionally hearing this usage for many years, but never hearng it >widely used.... I've heard it too, occasionally. Although many years ago I knew a guy who, instead of the annoying "ya know" after every other word, he'd put in the annoying "and like that" - but that, too, is different. Rima From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 03:35:48 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 22:35:48 -0500 Subject: Safire Watch (continued) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't want to get into the middle of Barry's vendetta against William Safire, but let me say this: I think it is wrong that the New York Times generally will not print letters correcting errors in the "On Language" column. But Barry's criticism of Safire is clearly excessive. As is his criticism of Safire's assistant, who presumably doesn't respond to Barry because of the latter's relentless attacks. As the person whose posting about "even a dog" is quoted in tomorrow's "On Language" column, I also want to note that I don't feel Ms. Phillips "used" ADS-L. Barry calls her actions "Most troubling, of course," but I don't see how they are troubling at all. Quite the contrary -- her inquiries and Mr. Safire's use of responses thereto are one of the most interesting aspects of this list. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU Sun Jan 14 08:09:38 2001 From: paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU (Paul Frank) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 09:09:38 +0100 Subject: taylor on safire on clinton In-Reply-To: <276197.3188402734@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: > From Charles Taylor's farewell to Clinton in today's Salon.com: > > "An esthetic Southerner like Jimmy Carter was acceptable as > president. But a > gregarious one of obvious (and hidden) appetites just had to be Lil' Abner > playing dress-up. Here's William Safire a few weeks ago in the New York > Times Magazine, talking about what he'll miss most about Clinton: "The > Ozarkian's free-and-easy use of the American idiom." In other words, those > hicks may not know how to speak English, but they sure are cute when they > try. Imagine something similar being written about a black president. (And > try to imagine taking language instruction from a former Nixon > speechwriter.)" > > M Lynne Murphy Has Safire commented on George W. Bush's almost daily assaults on the English language? Here is the latest: "I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be—a more literate country and a hopefuller country."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 11, 2001 Slate magazine has a long list of Bushisms: http://slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.asp Paul _______________________________________________ Paul Frank Business, financial and legal translation from German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch into English paulfrank at post.harvard.edu | Thollon, Haute-Savoie, France From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Sun Jan 14 12:27:25 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 13:27:25 +0100 Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) Message-ID: As far as I know, "pain riche" is not a specific kind of bread, but rather used as a synonym of "pain blanc", white bread, made from wheat. The term does not figure in the "Petit Robert" Dictionary, neither under "pain" nor under "riche". (It was curiously enough imported into Swedish as the name for what the French call "baguette" around 1940 - maybe this happened also in other languages.) "Pain de manage" must be a misprint for "pain de ménage", meaning simply "home-made bread". Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 3:35 AM Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) > Pain de Mie is not in OED (revising "M"). OK, so it's French. We have an ADS member in France, you know. > From "Fancy Breads Taboo in France," THE STEWARD, pg. 11, col. 1: > > ...the breakfast "Croissant," the dinner and luncheon "pain riche" or "petit pain" or the simple "pain de manage" of our schoolboy days. > > (Pg. 12, col. 1--ed.) > > Au revoir to "Pain Riche" in all its marvelous forms and shapes, for which there can be no translation (OED take note--ed.); to the Pain Marchand-de-Vin, the Baguette Anglaise (alas!); the Baguette Gruau, the Joko Court and the Joko Long; the Baguette Ficelle (thin as a string) and the Couronne (crown); the Pain de Mie (sandwich bread) in six different (Col. 2--ed.) sizes, from the Mie ordinaire to the Mie Royale and the Royal Sandwich; the Pain de Seigle a Huitres; the Pain Gibier (for game) and the seigle Russe, the Boule de Seigle and the Miche de Seigle. > Au revoir--and perhaps farewell--to the "Croissant" (crescent). And au revoir to all the little lunch and dinner breads which in all time have been the best part of the meal in Paris; the Empereur; the Galette; the Benoiston; the "Pistolet," large and small; the "Grand Opera" in four sizes and the "Opera Simple"; the "Lunch"; the "Brillat-Savarin"; the "Pain Buda"; the "Boule de fromage," and the "Galette." Au revoir, merci, et Vive la France! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 14:10:00 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 09:10:00 EST Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: If anyone (such as Fred or Jerry) wants to see this end, it's really very simple. Write to Elizabeth Phillips, William's Safire's assistant who came on this list. She won't ever grace me with even a response, but perhaps any one of you can get lucky. The address she last used is phille at nytimes.com. Ask her: 1. WHY WON'T YOU JOIN THE AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY FOR FREE, OR EVEN RESPOND TO THE OFFER? 2. WHY WON'T YOU CORRECT PRINTED ERRORS IN BARRY POPIK'S WORK, AND WHY HAS NO ONE EVEN RESPONDED TO HIM IN THE PAST FOUR MONTHS? Again, maybe any one of you will be more successful. From mlisecki at POLBOX.COM Sun Jan 14 15:42:41 2001 From: mlisecki at POLBOX.COM (Michal Lisecki) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:42:41 +0100 Subject: gender differences in non-verbal communication Message-ID: Dear ADS subscribers, I've been trying to gather materials for a paper on non-verbal language use by different sexes. Although I am going to concentrate in the paper mainly on the Internet communication (any communication systems within the medium) I would be interested in any hints on the latest writings/findings in the field. I find it very hard to access both the specific materials that I have the references for, as well as the materials themselves in Poland. I managed to track down some conference materials, however, it is impossible to get them in any Polish libraries. Before setting off for the any inter-library loan systems which take a lot of time to get the desired materials I thought perhaps some of you could point me to any other internet-based sources of the writings on the subject of gender differences in non-verbal language use (esp. the case of online communication). Perhaps somebody knows of any access to an electronic version of the following works or perhaps of a way I could contact the author(s): Epstein, C. F. (1986) Symbolic segregation: Similarities and differences in the language and non-verbal communication of women and men. Sociological Forum, 1(1): 27-49 Ivy, D. K. and Backlund, P. (1994) Exploring GenderSpeak: Personal effectiveness in gender communication. New York: McGraw-Hill Kramarae, C. and Taylor, J. (1993) Women and men on electronic networks: a conversation or a monologue? In _Women, Information Technology, and Scholarship_, 52-61. Urbana, IL: Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Any issues of _Computers in Human Behavior_, best accessible online. Should anybody be interested in the subject I can share the references/bibliography on the subject or post it to the list if there is a considerable interest in it. Thank you for any help, Michal Lisecki -- Michal Lisecki [lisu] From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 03:57:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 11:57:00 +0800 Subject: gender differences in non-verbal communication In-Reply-To: <200101141642410100.001015EA@smtp.polbox.com> Message-ID: At 4:42 PM +0100 1/14/01, Michal Lisecki wrote: >Dear ADS subscribers, > >I've been trying to gather materials for a paper on non-verbal >language use by different sexes. Although I am going to concentrate >in the paper mainly on the Internet communication (any communication >systems within the medium) I would be interested in any hints on the >latest writings/findings in the field. When I was teaching a course in language and gender last year, I posted a request on fling (a list on feminist linguistics) for pointers on gender differences in computer-mediated/on-line conversation. I reproduce here the replies I received; note that as you asked some of these do involve web sites where you can track down some recent research on the topic. Perhaps Vicky Bergvall's note of warning will also be useful. larry =================== >Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 15:25:52 -0600 >Sender: Feminists in Linguistics >From: Susan Herring >Subject: Re: two requests for research pointers > >Hi Larry, > >A recent overview of my own and others' research on gender >and CMC is available online: > >2000. "Gender differences in CMC: Findings and implications." _Computer >Professionals for Social Responsibility Newsletter_, Winter 2000. >http://www.cpsr.org/ >publications/newsletters/issues/2000/Winter2000/index.html > >It contains a number of references. > >Regards, > >Susan > >============================================================ >Susan C. Herring, Ph.D. (817) 272-5234 office >Associate Professor (817) 272-2731 fax >Program in Linguistics susan at ling.uta.edu >University of Texas http://ling.uta.edu/~susan/ >Arlington, TX 76019 USA >============================================================ ============================================================= >Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 17:58:11 -0500 >Sender: Feminists in Linguistics >From: "Victoria L. Bergvall" > >I just saw Larry Horn's query on computer-mediated communication (CMC) and >sex differences, and Susan Herring's reply (she has provided an excellent >bib and paper there, so do check them out). Thanks Susan--your work comes >just as I was doing a web search for the same material. You've been a >pioneer for all of us in this field. Thanks for your great work! > >Also,the latest volume of Berkeley Women and Language Conference Papers >(just out) (http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/BWLG/Conf98.html), has two >interesting papers on gender and CMC by James Waldinger and Ben Smith. > >However, I'd like to inject a plea, again, not to immediately cast the >question as one of "sex *differences*" (repeating Janet Bing's and my plea >in our chapter in *Rethinking language and gender research* (Bergvall, >Bing, & Freed, eds, Longman 1996). I realize that society often casts >"women" and "men" into seemingly dichotomous and opposed groups, but real >people--and real language--is often much more complicated, and needs to be >treated as such (as Susan and others, in fact, acknowledge). > >I will be presenting a paper (The continuum of gender construction in >on-line discourse) at the coming IGALA conference, which shows that gender >behavior in discourse forms a continuum on-line as it does off-line, and >that starting with assumptions about "female" and "male" speech forms can >cast the whole debate as dichotomous to begin with, and thus, perhaps >overlook the critical overlaps. > >I agree, strongly, that the nature of social construction of gender in >discourse on-line often exaggerates gender differences into virtual >burlesques of off-line gendered discourse patterns. But there are still >critical overlaps both on- and off-line; data in my IGALA paper will >illustrate that where the orientation of the talk is not to SOCIAL issues, >but more to TASK issues, gender is much less salient and virtually >invisible, and thus, gender "differences" are less obvious than the >similarities and continuities. That paper is still very much in process, >but I will be happy to share it and discuss it when it gets done. > >It is all a complex issue that demands more attention. So, my best wishes >to your students! > >Vicky >>___________________________________________________________________ >Victoria L. Bergvall Associate Professor of Linguistics >Director of Graduate Programs in Rhetoric & Technical Communication >Department of Humanities Michigan Technological University >1400 Townsend Drive Houghton Michigan 49931-1295 USA >vbergval at mtu.edu Phone: (906)487-3248 Fax: (906)487-3559 >___________________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 14 17:08:47 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 12:08:47 -0500 Subject: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) Message-ID: For the "grinder" record: 1. A grinder is made with a long bread roll (12 inches or so), like a baguette, but wider and with softer crust. It is synonymous with "sub(marine sandwich)". People who use "grinder" also are aware of "sub", and "sub" is sometimes used in the "grinder" area. There are "Subway" sandwich shops (the chain) in the "grinder" area, FWIW. 2. A sandwich (in the "grinder" area) is on sliced bread, a round hard roll, or such. 3. "Grinder" is still widely used from Connecticut up through the Conn. River valley into Western Mass. I first encountered it in the Amherst, Mass., area, in the late 1970s, and had never heard of it before (I came to this area from Ohio). It seems not to be actively used in eastern Mass., but respondents who live there may want to weigh in on this. 4. I don't have DARE handy -- is the distribution and etym in DARE? Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 8:51 PM Subject: Re: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) > At 5:42 PM -0500 1/11/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >E'S RESTAURANT > >Specializing in > >SPAGHETTI--SANDWICHES > >GRINDERS--PIZZA > > > >(Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton > >at all!--ed.) > > Well yes (if this a real question), in the same way that sandals and > boots are shoes (SHOES -- SANDALS -- BOOTS) and chowders are soups > (SOUPS AND CHOWDERS). > > L > From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 14 19:47:23 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 14:47:23 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: >I've heard it too, occasionally. Although many years ago I knew a guy who, >instead of the annoying "ya know" after every other >word, he'd put in the annoying "and like that" - but that, too, is >different. > >Rima Sounds like the Pittsburghese "n' at" -- which got a lot of hits in Swedish when I spelled it "annat" Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 20:00:19 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:00:19 -0500 Subject: "Chad" goes postal Message-ID: From "Stamping Our History: The Story of the United States Portrayed on its Postage Stamps", by Charles Davidson and Lincoln Diamant (a Lyle Stuart Book, Carol Publishing Group, New York, 1990), p. xi: <<(Each year, more than 75 tons of those minuscule punched-out wastepaper dots---called "chad"---fuel a special boiler at the Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing.)>> -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 20:13:58 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:13:58 -0500 Subject: Murphy's Law Message-ID: FWIW, Edward A. Murphy, Jr., appeared in "People" (weekly) on 31 January 1983 (pp. 81-2). There are pictures of him at age 65, (1) talking with Laurence Peter ("Peter Principle") and (2) "dropping his groceries" (of course the expensive wine breaks but not the cheap soda-pop, ha ha). Murphy is quoted here as stating that his "Law" has been misconstrued: "My original statement was to warn people to be sure that they cover all the bases ... It was never meant to be fatalistic." -- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Sun Jan 14 20:27:01 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:27:01 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 02:47 PM 1/14/01 -0500, you wrote: >>I've heard it too, occasionally. Although many years ago I knew a guy who, >>instead of the annoying "ya know" after every other >>word, he'd put in the annoying "and like that" - but that, too, is >>different. >> >>Rima > >Sounds like the Pittsburghese "n' at" -- which got a lot of hits in Swedish >when I spelled it "annat" > >Daniel >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com It isn't the same at all. It's simply a double complementizer, like "as if" and "so that." It's regionally restricted, as far as I know, to the central South (Tennessee and southward, maybe in Texas also--I've hear GW Bush use it); Bethany Dumas, Don Lance, and others should be able to pinpoint it better than I can. When I give it in questionnaires, in a sentence like "It seems like that no one writes letters anymore," very few of my students from Ohio accept it. The old "as if" is disappearing too, of course, giving way to "like" as both preposition and conjunction/complementizer. Thus, if "that" were dropped from the above sentence, leaving "It seems like" alone, no one would have a problem; nor would they if "like" were dropped leaving "that" alone. (I'm still an old "as if" user, but I seldom hear it now.) Such double forms go way back in the history of English, by the way. And the pronunciation would be [thEt] (no eth available), not the [thaet] of Rima's and Daniel's examples. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 20:38:08 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:38:08 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] In-Reply-To: <3A5FB931.7ED5F93F@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: >My own explanation is that >the MSW not being from Oregon (as in A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS), >he cannot be blamed for making me explain the fable to him, but the >prior being from Illinois should probably have known better. Now I see (I went to the library). The book gives Illinois and Oregon as the distribution of the story. I think this must be wrong or perhaps outdated. I can't remember where I heard it long ago but I think Michigan. I showed the glossed passage in Tom Paikeday's e-mail to my son (a young Pennsylvanian with no Malayalam) and he recognized it instantly, told the story and interpreted it as "Even slight evil should not be permitted" or so. I didn't tell it to him. I suppose this story has been broadcast; maybe it's been used in churches and schools all over; maybe it was on "Sesame Street" or something. What do the scholars say? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 21:01:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:01:51 EST Subject: Kummel Rye Bread (Philadelphia, June 1924) Message-ID: Greetings from Philadelphia, the only library that I saw open Sunday/Monday. June 1924, PHILADELPHIA CLASSIFIED TELEPHONE DIRECTORY, pg. 45, col. 4: Telephone COLumbia 4420 _Incomparable Bakery Co._ Famous Kummel Rye Bread and Rolls of All Kinds HOTELS AND INSTITUTIONS OUR SPECIALTY 2125-27 E. Dauphin Street PHILADELPHIA (This ad ran for at least 30 years--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 21:11:09 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:11:09 EST Subject: Hoogie (January 1941), Hogie (September 1943) Message-ID: HOOGIE/HOGIE January 1941, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 578, col. 3: Hoogie Shop 17 & Fairmt...BARing-9983 September 1943, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 598, col. 3: Tony's Hogie Shop 6709 Woodlnd av...BELgrde-4362 -------------------------------------------------------- STEAK SANDWICH April 1940, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 556, col. 1: Pat's Sandwich Shop Steak Sandwiches Our Specialty--Delivery 3251 Ridge av...SAGamor-9526 -------------------------------------------------------- SELL THE SIZZLE (continued) May 1937, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 619, col. 2: _LITTLETON'S RESTAURANT_ WEST PHILA.'S Most Outstanding Place to Dine TRY OUR SPECIAL "SIZZLING STEAK" 40th & Lancaster Av...BARing-8524 From mssmith at BOONE.NET Mon Jan 15 22:26:47 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:26:47 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic Message-ID: Greetings Linguists, Can anyone help me on a definition of the words deixis and deictic? Yes, I have looked them up in the dictionary, but I would like your input on these words. I ran across them in an article explaining the essence of the transformative nature of technology and literacy--or the deictic relationships between them. I begin to see the light, to grasp the meaning and then it skitters away from me! I am getting frustrated! Also, can you suggest the proper pronunciation for these words? Thank you all very, very much. Susan Gilbert mssmith at boone.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From prez234 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 11 12:06:53 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 06:06:53 CST Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: I've always thought that anyone born in the USA was a Native American. Is Cajun (from Acadian) formed the same way as Injun? I had a friend who disagreed with this theory and cited a Michener novel as proof. I tried reading the novel (now I don't even remember the title) but did not see any reference to the formation of "Injun" in it. Quotative "like": I think this originated during the 1970's from the cartoon "Scooby Doo." Shaggy used the expression quite a bit. I picked up the habit myself and it grated on my father's ears. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 23:28:48 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 18:28:48 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010114150616.025d8dd0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other sayings of this nature? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 00:11:47 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 19:11:47 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Here are a few off the top of my head. I'll go through my files and send others ASAP: RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) Your mileage may vary Off the grid The blue screen of death (a dead computer) Imminent death of the Net predicted! (a running joke about the perennial stories of the Net's pending demise. Used when someone starts doomsaying on a Net bulletin board) Information wants to be free The Net perceives censorship as damage and routes around it. Waving a dead chicken (having exhausted all the obvious fixes to a computer problem and starting on more irrational measures, i.e. resorting to voodoo) Problem exists between chair and keyboard, or PEBCAK (tech support slang for user error) Plate o' shrimp! (Used in online discussion when a strong coincidence occurs. Taken from a scene in the movie Repo Man.) Fred Shapiro wrote: > I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples > would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" > or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other > sayings of this nature? > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 15 01:46:38 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 19:46:38 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: The trouble with computers is that they do exactly what you tell them to do. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 12:48:16 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 20:48:16 +0800 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: <000e01c07f42$45a6c3e0$944d5c40@ast> Message-ID: At 5:26 PM -0500 1/15/01, susan wrote: >Greetings Linguists, >Can anyone help me on a definition of the words deixis and deictic? >Yes, I have looked them up in the dictionary, but I would like your >input on these words. I ran across them in an article explaining the >essence of the transformative nature of technology and literacy--or >the deictic relationships between them. I begin to see the light, to >grasp the meaning and then it skitters away from me! I am getting >frustrated! Also, can you suggest the proper pronunciation for these >words? >Thank you all very, very much. >Susan Gilbert >mssmith at boone.net As used in the philosophy of language and linguistic pragmatics, deixis refers to the phenomenon of linguistic expressions whose reference is determined (at least in part) by the context of utterance. Classic examples of deictic expressions include "shifters" like I, you, he, she, here, now, yesterday, ago, and so on, but also definite descriptions (the President of the U.S.) and tensed verbs. "Deixis" and "deictic(s)" come from the Greek word for pointing, and often a distinction is made between deictic and anaphoric uses of pronouns, e.g. "They're winning the game" (pointing to the Giants, or to their image on TV) vs. I bet on the Giants, and sure enough they're winning the game". Others would say that anaphora is in fact a special case of deixis, where the "pointing" works via the discourse context. The usual pronunciation is ['daiksIs] (DIE-ksis) ['daiktIk] (DIKE-tick) larry horn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 03:50:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 22:50:51 EST Subject: Drive-by-Wire; Names; How to Speak Minnnesotan Message-ID: DRIVE-BY-WIRE From the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 12 January 2001, pg. B1, col. 2: _"Drive-by-Wire" Technology Promises Simpler and Safer Car Control_ (...) Rather than moving the steering wheel to manually turn the wheels, the driver moves it--or a joystick--to transmit an electronic signal to a computer, which tells the wheels what to do. Drive-by-wire, used in jetliners for years, creates a car that handles like nothing else. BMW has already equipped two test cars... -------------------------------------------------------- NAMES A filler piece on 1999 New York City's Baby Names made the front page of THE NEW YORK TIMES, 12 January 2001, pg. B1, col. 2. The June 2000 issue of NAMES (the Journal of the American Name Society) arrived yesterday. It is "Dedicated to the Memory of Frederic G. Cassidy." See pages 151-152. Everyone here should also be ANS members. (I have also offered free ANS membership to Safire assistant Elizabeth Phillips, but she won't reply to that, either.) -------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO SPEAK MINNESOTAN The governors of New York and Minnesota had a bet on today's Giants-Vikings football game. NY won. Jesse Ventura is paying up, in part, with the book HOW TO SPEAK MINNESOTAN. Jah! From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 15 10:01:16 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:01:16 +0000 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Sunday, January 14, 2001 8:48 pm +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > ['daiksIs] (DIE-ksis) > ['daiktIk] (DIKE-tick) This is certainly how I pronounce these words, and it's like nails on a chalkboard when peole pronounce deixis as "dee-ex-iss" or some such thing. But I find that that's how my colleagues here pronounce it. At first I thought it was British pronunciation, but the New Oxford lists (I'm translating their phonetic symbols into pseudoEnglish) DAY-ksis and then DAY-ksis. So, I suspect that the three-syllable pronunciation is what people untrained in semantics make of the word--but then, of course I hear it from the students they teach as well. Not sure if this is limited to my university. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Mon Jan 15 10:45:59 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 05:45:59 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Never let a computer know you're in a hurry. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (Hanlon's Razor) I can write the program quickly, cheaply, or well. Pick two. All programmers are playwrights and all computers are bad actors. Every bug you find is the last one. There's always one more bug. That's not a bug, that's a feature. The number of bugs in a program is directly proportional to the number and importance of the people present at the first public demo. The amount of data expands to fill the storage space available. (Parkinson's Law of Data) Read the fucking manual. In cyberspace no one can hear you scream. No matter how fast your computer runs, you will eventually come to think of it as slow. Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it. To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. Paul From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Mon Jan 15 11:35:12 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:35:12 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: RTFM and RTFQ were used in the services long before the widespread use of computers. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) ----- Original Message ----- From: Gareth Branwyn To: Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 7:11 PM Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > > RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Mon Jan 15 11:36:34 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:36:34 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: SMOP - small matter of programming. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 14:11:49 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:11:49 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <3A624042.404FCF3F@earthlink.net> Message-ID: >Don't forget us Macpeople's 'chimes of death.' dInIs >Here are a few off the top of my head. I'll go through my files and send >others ASAP: > >RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > >Your mileage may vary > >Off the grid > >The blue screen of death (a dead computer) > >Imminent death of the Net predicted! (a running joke about the perennial >stories of the Net's pending demise. Used when someone starts doomsaying on a >Net bulletin board) > >Information wants to be free > >The Net perceives censorship as damage and routes around it. > >Waving a dead chicken (having exhausted all the obvious fixes to a computer >problem and starting on more irrational measures, i.e. resorting to voodoo) > >Problem exists between chair and keyboard, or PEBCAK (tech support slang for >user error) > >Plate o' shrimp! (Used in online discussion when a strong coincidence occurs. >Taken from a scene in the movie Repo Man.) > > >Fred Shapiro wrote: > >> I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples >> would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" >> or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other >> sayings of this nature? >> >> Fred Shapiro >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Fred R. Shapiro Editor >> Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS >> and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >> Yale Law School forthcoming >> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 14:10:14 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:10:14 EST Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) Message-ID: I just heard on the news that the Earth Liberation Front takes credit for burning down a house on Long Island. Some people call it "eco-terrorism." There was an article about ELF in the New York Times on 1-11-2001. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 14:14:02 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:14:02 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry, Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick dInIs >At 5:26 PM -0500 1/15/01, susan wrote: >>Greetings Linguists, >>Can anyone help me on a definition of the words deixis and deictic? >>Yes, I have looked them up in the dictionary, but I would like your >>input on these words. I ran across them in an article >>explaining the essence of the transformative nature of technology >>and literacy--or the deictic relationships between them. I begin to >>see the light, to grasp the meaning and then it skitters away from >>me! I am getting frustrated! Also, can you suggest the proper >>pronunciation for these words? >>Thank you all very, very much. >>Susan Gilbert >>mssmith at boone.net > >As used in the philosophy of language and linguistic pragmatics, >deixis refers to the phenomenon of linguistic expressions whose >reference is determined (at least in part) by the context of >utterance. Classic examples of deictic expressions include >"shifters" like I, you, he, she, here, now, yesterday, ago, and so >on, but also definite descriptions (the President of the U.S.) and >tensed verbs. "Deixis" and "deictic(s)" come from the Greek word >for pointing, and often a distinction is made between deictic and >anaphoric uses of pronouns, e.g. "They're winning the game" >(pointing to the Giants, or to their image on TV) vs. I bet on the >Giants, and sure enough they're winning the game". Others would say >that anaphora is in fact a special case of deixis, where the >"pointing" works via the discourse context. The usual pronunciation >is > >['daiksIs] (DIE-ksis) >['daiktIk] (DIKE-tick) > >larry horn -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Mon Jan 15 14:13:24 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:13:24 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <005b01c07ee0$5922c980$8321d0d8@mcfedries.com> Message-ID: A watched website never downloads Tony Glaser From Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 15:39:45 2001 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:39:45 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity." (posted on my wall) "Nothing is foolproof: fools are too ingenious." (general use, but especially applicable to computer-situations) Steve Hicks From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 02:48:32 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:48:32 +0800 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>larry, > >Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick > >dInIs > OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the nominal form. There you go. larry From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 15 14:46:19 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:46:19 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) Message-ID: ecoterrorism is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 6.2). It goes back at least to 1989. There's ecoterrorist (n.,adj.) too. There are variants, too: environmental terrorism, ~ist ecological terrorism, ~ist Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 16:02:42 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:02:42 -0700 Subject: MLK tidbit In-Reply-To: <005b01c07ee0$5922c980$8321d0d8@mcfedries.com> Message-ID: For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE rhoticity. In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, 115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at 62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still 79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - 187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as 'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% (27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and 'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. Happy Martin Luther King Day, Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:17:01 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:17:01 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry, minima indeed, but a gotcha is gotcha. dInIs >At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>larry, >> >>Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick >> >>dInIs >> >OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and >there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English >words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I >thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but >now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more >well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the >nominal form. There you go. > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:08:52 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:08:52 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > ecoterrorism is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 6.2). It > goes back at least to 1989. Here's a 1987 cite for "ecoterrorism" and "ecoterrorist": 1987 _Star Tribune_ (Minneapolis-St. Paul) 20 Aug. (Dow Jones) A wave of "ecoterrorism" by militant environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest has the timber industry preparing itself for a modern equivalent of the 19th-century range wars between farmers and cattlemen. ... Last month Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, called for harsh penalties for "ecoterrorists" and introduced a bill outlawing the spiking of trees. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:16:15 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:16:15 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here's a still earlier cite for "ecoterrorist": 1986 _St. Petersburg Times_ (Dow Jones) 4 July Forget the image of the friendly U.S. park ranger in his campaign hat giving a nature talk around the campfire. This may come as a terrible shock to you, but those guys are deadly eco-terrorists in disguise. For most of this century, they've been slowly and secretly exterminating the wildlife, ravaging the natural areas and destroying the national treasures entrusted to their care. The above uses the term oppositely to the common usage. Later in 1986 is the following usage in the conventional sense: 1986 _S.F. Chronicle_ (Dow Jones) 29 Dec. This month, unsigned "Wanted" posters appeared in store windows in town [Mount Shasta, California], calling two of the most prominent environmentalists "eco terrorists" and accusing them of "serious crimes against the people of Mount Shasta ... by attempting to destroy the economy, growth, recreationa nd enjoyment of thousands of residents and visitors therein, by locking up our natural resources and holding the public hostage to their selfish beliefs and demands." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:55:01 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:55:01 -0600 Subject: "chad" 1944 Message-ID: On Jan.13 I sent an ADS-L message with a 1944 attestation of "chad." Douglas Wilson then responded: >Good show! I reviewed that volume of AIEE Trans. today, and it's about the >same in the original journal form. Note that there's no explanation of the >meaning of "chad", suggesting that the term was already familiar in the >industry at the time -- but there are quotation marks! There seem to be no >useful references. Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it >didn't include that part. I am particularly interested in the last sentence just above. Would D. Wilson be able to provide the exact bibliographical reference(s). If the 1943 discussions about perforation contained no mention of "chad," this might indicate that the authors of the 1944 article were the ones who officially introduced "chad" into telegraphy parlance. They were not only distinguished engineers but important administrators at Western Union, and their article was no doubt read by many of the telegraphers there. My interpretation of the quotation marks is that the term "chad" was not yet a part of standard telegraphy parlance. In my work on the origin of the term "shyster" (two monographs) I noticed that the 1840s editor who first used this term put it in quotes--but only in the first article. Afterwards it appeared without quotation marks. He did the same with one other term, although I no longer remember which one. The point is that quotation marks around a term can indicate that a slang/dialectal term is being introduced into standard writing for the first time. The two Western Union engineers, d'Humy and Howe, may therefore deserve credit for introducing "chad" into telegraphy parlance (and thence into other technical fields). This is only a hypothesis, of course. There's a 1940 book on telegraphy I'm trying to get ahold of (available only in Carlisle,PA, non-lending), and it would be good to learn more about d'Humy and Howe. But if we hit bedrock with their 1944 article, then these two engineers represent the official starting point of the term in the U.S. And they almost certainly would have learned the term from British colleagues familiar with English dialectal "chat" or "chad" (=heaps of small objects). Maybe one or the other was British himself. ---Gerald Cohen > >Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:27:50 -0500 >From: "Douglas G. Wilson" >Subject: Re: "chad"--1944 attestation >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >> The earliest attestation thus far for "chad" is 1947 (from the >>files of Merriam-Webster). Here now is one from a few years earlier: >> >>_American Telegraphy After 100 Years_, by F. E. d'Humy, >>Vice-President and Chief Engineer, and P.J. Howe, Assistant Chief >>Engineer in Charge of Engineering Economics, The Western Union >>Telegraph Company. Published in Supplement to the "Transactions of >>the A.I.E.E.," volume 63, 1944, pages 1014-1032. Later reprinted >>separately. --(A.I.E.E. = American Institute of Electrical Engineers). >> >> The copy I obtained is the reprinted one. Page 16, col. 3 says: >> >> 'One of the equipment differences between the Western Union >>and Postal Telegraph switching systems is that the printer-perforator >>used in the latter is essentially a "typing reperforator," which uses >>a narrow tape and prints the characters right over the code >>perforations. In order to obtain readability,the holes in the tape >>are punched only part way,eliminating the "chad" and thus providing a >>complete surface to receive printing, although still leaving the >>holes free for entrance of the transmitter pins.' > >Good show! I reviewed that volume of AIEE Trans. today, and it's about the >same in the original journal form. Note that there's no explanation of the >meaning of "chad", suggesting that the term was already familiar in the >industry at the time -- but there are quotation marks! There seem to be no >useful references. Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it >didn't include that part. > >The technology was remarkably stable way back. Paper tape (Wheatstone tape >[with chads!]) was virtually unchanged from ca. 1860 to the late 1920's, >apparently, and the subsequent tapes weren't all that different. > >>... which headed me in the right direction of radiotelegraphy. > >But it doesn't need to be "radio-": wired telegraphy used the same sort of >tape. The subject indices in AIEE Trans. and elsewhere tend to list this >sort of thing under "telegraph", "telegraphy", "telegraph equipment", >"teletype" (back to about 1930), etc. If anyone has some other good terms >to look for in the indices, please let me know. > >-- Doug Wilson From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:56:35 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:56:35 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: There are a number of variants of the following: With a computer, we can make mistakes twice as fast as before. ===================== George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:57:51 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 08:57:51 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010114151415.00b02460@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > It isn't the same at all. It's simply a double complementizer, like "as > if" and "so that." It's regionally restricted, as far as I know, to the > central South (Tennessee and southward, maybe in Texas also--I've hear GW > Bush use it) Well, it's rampant up here in the Northwest, even among them what one would think don't, like, do it. PR From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 17:00:04 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:00:04 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: I wasn't aware of that, Tom. Do you know the etymology? Tom Fenton wrote: > RTFM and RTFQ were used in the services long before the widespread use of > computers. > -- > Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Gareth Branwyn > To: > Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 7:11 PM > Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > > > > > RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 04:09:45 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:09:45 +0800 Subject: new datum on the grammar of doughnut Message-ID: Randy Moss, star Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, bemoaning his team's shellacking in the championship game yesterday at the hands of the surprisingly intrepid New York Football Giants (as we used to call them): "41 to doughnut, I think that's probably the worst defeat I've ever been in in my life." More prosaically, the final score was 41-0. I've seen and heard "doughnut" used like "goose egg" or occasionally "bagel" to denote zero, with obvious iconic motivation, but always as a garden-variety count noun: "We thought we had a great offense and we ended up with a (big) doughnut". But this use as a mass noun (= "zip" or "squat") is a new one on me. (Moss is from West Virginia, if that's relevant.) larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 15 17:21:10 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:21:10 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: dInIs, wassup with your 'whuzzup'?! Maybe the voiced form is used by some? At 11:17 AM 1/15/01 -0500, you wrote: >>larry, > >minima indeed, but a gotcha is gotcha. > >dInIs > > > >>At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>>larry, >>> >>>Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick >>> >>>dInIs >>OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and >>there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English >>words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I >>thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but >>now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more >>well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the >>nominal form. There you go. >> >>larry > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 17:29:00 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:29:00 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010115121617.01c16380@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >Beverly, Indeed more than some. The fate of many intervocalics I reckon. dInIs >dInIs, wassup with your 'whuzzup'?! Maybe the voiced form is used by some? > >At 11:17 AM 1/15/01 -0500, you wrote: >>>larry, >> >>minima indeed, but a gotcha is gotcha. >> >>dInIs >> >> >>>At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>>>larry, >>>> >>>>Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick >>>> >>>>dInIs >>>OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and >>>there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English >>>words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I >>>thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but >>>now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more >>>well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the >>>nominal form. There you go. >>> >>>larry >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Department of Linguistics and Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >>preston at pilot.msu.edu >>Office: (517)353-0740 >>Fax: (517)432-2736 > > >_____________________________________________ >Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics >Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 >Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 >http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Mon Jan 15 17:28:59 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:28:59 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: My experience is early 60's and I had the impression that they had been use for a while. About the same time, in an engineering class in college, an instructor wrote RTFQ on the board and then turned beet red when he saw the lone women in the class. A kinder, gentler time. The only reason I pointed this out was the original poster didn't indicate originated or prevalent in the computer world. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) ----- Original Message ----- From: Gareth Branwyn To: Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 12:00 PM Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > I wasn't aware of that, Tom. Do you know the etymology? > > Tom Fenton wrote: > > > RTFM and RTFQ were used in the services long before the widespread use of > > computers. > > -- > > Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Gareth Branwyn > > To: > > Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 7:11 PM > > Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > > > > > > > > RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > > > From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 15 17:31:48 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:31:48 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:57 AM 1/15/01 -0800, you wrote: >On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > It isn't the same at all. It's simply a double complementizer, like "as > > if" and "so that." It's regionally restricted, as far as I know, to the > > central South (Tennessee and southward, maybe in Texas also--I've hear GW > > Bush use it) > >Well, it's rampant up here in the Northwest, even among them what one >would think don't, like, do it. > >PR But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 15 19:13:47 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:13:47 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010115122342.00cee600@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or > intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic > interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing > an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, > quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and > conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double > 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. Gosh, Beverly, I'd like to confirm your notion here, but I'm absolutely sure this is a double conjunction. It's most often used after _feel_: "I feel like that we ought to stop for groceries." It's all over the place up/out here, and not used exclusively by Southern emigres. Most other speakers would say either "like" or "that" after "feel"; perhaps the double conjunction is used to underscore the speaker's opinion or feeling about something, used in place of (or--horrors!--in addition to) "really": "I really feel like that the entire city council should just resign." _That_ is definitely not pronominal: "I feel like that sometimes." Peter R. From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 20:07:44 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:07:44 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: I posted something on this last week that didn't get through the server, apparently. Maybe didn't even get to it. AAR, the fact that "like that", where "that" is clearly a complementizer and not a deictic, is coming back into SE strikes me as a syntactic analog of the 16th and 17th c. "meet/meat/mate" problem that Labov has written about, a case where change is apparently reversed but what has really happened is that a dialect as lost a distinction that persists in another dialect and later borrows that distinction back from the other dialect. Maybe Labov's New York /r/ study is a better analogy, since this isn't really a reversal of a merger. SE has been losing "X+that" constructions for several centuries. About the only ones that have survived are "except that", "in that", "now that", and the rare "but that". Herb From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Mon Jan 15 17:41:30 2001 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:41:30 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <29.f2232e8.279473c1@aol.com> Message-ID: The three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris. (I think this is from one of the O'Reilly Perl programming books.) What's the one about the first comparison of someone to a Nazi means the thread (or discussion) is over? Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 15 20:27:20 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:27:20 -0500 Subject: "chad" 1944 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>... Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it >>didn't include that part. > > I am particularly interested in the last sentence just above. >Would D. Wilson be able to provide the exact bibliographical >reference(s). I can, the next time I get to the appropriate library. I don't think there's anything useful, though. I was noting that the 1944 article was similar to earlier material (although not NECESSARILY regarding the word in question). >If the 1943 discussions about perforation contained no >mention of "chad," this might indicate that the authors of the 1944 >article were the ones who officially introduced "chad" into >telegraphy parlance. ... The 1943 (?) material IIRC was by the same author(s), addressing only some of the same material ... it's not that the part with "chad" was discussed without the word in question -- I would have copied it in such a case -- but that the part about the printing and perforation of the tape wasn't in the earlier article (IIRC). AIEE Trans. has/had an annual author index. > My interpretation of the quotation marks is that the term "chad" >was not yet a part of standard telegraphy parlance. But the lack of an explanatory passage tends to indicate that the word was already considered understandable ... even though perhaps "figurative" or "colloquial". For example, imagine the same passage but with 'chad' replaced by 'chaff' or 'gravel' ... the quotation marks might be the equivalent of adding "so-called". If an engineering paper included a completely new coinage, I would expect a footnote or a parenthesized explanation. Two possibilities: (1) "Chad" = "paper residue" was already well known but considered a casual usage ... hence the quotes. I tend to prefer this one; "chad" could have been telegraphers' jargon for a year or for fifty years before 1944. (2) "Chad" = "paper residue" was not yet usual but "chad" was immediately recognizable as meaning "gravel". This possibility seems odd, I guess, but I have found three independent instances where "chad" (without quotes, and without explanation AFAIK) is used = "gravel", in technical contexts, all since 1977! I'll post the references later. Perhaps this word for "gravel" was much more usual in 1944 ... although this is hard to believe given the absence of the word in this sense from the OED, Webster's Third, etc. Some words might be common among engineers (or other specialized groups) but very rare in general use. (I also find an instance of the word used technically with respect to paper [but not punched, and not in a telegraphy or computer connection] and another technical use which MAY refer to seeds [remember the "chats" from the EDD?]). -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 07:29:50 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:29:50 +0800 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <20010111.060710.8487.4.prez234@juno.com> Message-ID: At 6:06 AM -0600 1/11/01, Joseph McCollum wrote: > >Quotative "like": I think this originated during the 1970's from the >cartoon "Scooby Doo." Shaggy used the expression quite a bit. I picked >up the habit myself and it grated on my father's ears. Without knowing the details, I'm willing to be that whatever popularity boost Scooby Doo may have provided for quotative "like", the cartoon did not originate this construction, any more than Saturday Night Live (either Wayne and Garth or the much earlier Steve Martin skit) originated retro-NOT (which, as discussed here and in AS, goes back at least to the 1890's). larry From tcf at MACOMB.COM Mon Jan 15 20:29:00 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:29:00 -0600 Subject: non-rhotic ( MLK tidbit) Message-ID: Maybe AAE varies along the lines of more r-lessness among southerners than among those who grew up in the North. One bit of evidence that AAE speakers in Chicago were self-conscious about r-less ness 30 years ago: in 1967, 68 and 69 I used to see these gang graffiti all over the Chicago "L": "Blackstone Rangers. All Up in Heah." (sic). "59th St. D's. Hey Heah!" I would also see the same graffiti else where with conventional spelling, that is, with the <> where it normally would appear in "here." (I don't remember an r-less spelling for "Rangers" tho.) Unfortuantely, I didn't have the foresight to go around the city and take systematic notes. ----- Original Message ----- From: Nancy Elliott To: Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 10:02 AM Subject: MLK tidbit > For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE > rhoticity. > > In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, > 115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a > stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier > in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at > 62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. > > > Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still > 79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - > 187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, > it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as > 'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast > to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% > (27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and > 'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the > DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC > speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. > > > Happy Martin Luther King Day, > > Nancy Elliott > Southern Oregon University From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 20:42:18 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:42:18 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Erin McKean wrote: > What's the one about the first comparison of someone to a Nazi means > the thread (or discussion) is over? Godwin's Law, named after Mike Godwin, well-known cyberspace rights lawyer. The law states: "As an online discussion grows, the probability of a comparison with the Nazis and/or Hitler approaches one." Usually associated with USENET, but I think Godwin coined it on The Well BBS. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 15 20:52:03 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:52:03 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:13 AM 1/15/01 -0800, you wrote: >On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or > > intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic > > interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing > > an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, > > quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and > > conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double > > 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. > >Gosh, Beverly, I'd like to confirm your notion here, but I'm absolutely >sure this is a double conjunction. It's most often used after _feel_: "I >feel like that we ought to stop for groceries." It's all over the place >up/out here, and not used exclusively by Southern emigres. Most other >speakers would say either "like" or "that" after "feel"; perhaps the >double conjunction is used to underscore the speaker's opinion or feeling >about something, used in place of (or--horrors!--in addition to) "really": >"I really feel like that the entire city council should just resign." > >_That_ is definitely not pronominal: "I feel like that sometimes." > >Peter R. This is interesting! From your previous note, I didn't catch this usage. Maybe other Westerners have heard this too? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 15 23:02:20 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:02:20 -0600 Subject: English Muffin & Crumpet recipes; also Bagle, Tea Ball. Message-ID: If Barry can do this, so can I. 8-). From: _The Bread Basket_, Standard Brands Incorporated (1942); 40 pages. It's one of those cookbooks put out by the food companies. In this case, it highlights Fleischmann's yeast. p. 36 -- ENGLISH MUFFINS 1 cup milk : 1 cake Fleischmann's Yeast 2 tablespoons sugar : 1 cup lukewarm water 1 teaspoon salt : 6 cups sifted flour 4 tablespoons melted shortening Scald milk, add sugar and salt; cool to lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water and add to lukewarm milk. Add half the flour; beat until smooth. Add shortening and remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic. Place in well-greased bowl. Cover and let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours. Divide into 18 portions and shape into round biscuits. Cover and let rise on lightly floured board about 1/2 hour. Roll each biscuit about 1/4 inch thick, keeping round in shape. Bake on hot, uncreasted giddle for about 10 minutes. As they brown, reduce heat and bake more slowly. Serve warm with marmalade or honey, or split and toast. -- p. 37 -- CRUMPETS 2 cakes Fleischmann's Yeast : 4 cups sifted flour 4 cups lukewarm water : 1 tablespoon salt Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water; add flour and salt; beat well. Cover and let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Beat well. Half fill greased muffin rings which have been placed on a slightly greased griddle heated to a medium heat. When the bubbles in the batter rise to the top and break, making holes through the crumpet from top to bottom, reduce to a slow heat and bake until dry on top and beginning to shrink at the edges. To serve, toast on the unbrowned side and spread with butter. -- This crumpet recipe agrees with what I've seen commercially marketed as a crumpet. English muffins have the holes only on the inside and are browned all-round. p. 9 gives 'bagles', spelled thus, calling for milk instead of the more usual water. p. 40 gives the Standard Brands family of brands. Fleischmann's Yeast and the 'Royal' brand of gelatin and pudding are still around. I have not seen Royal baking powder or Chase and Sanborn coffee in years. They show _Tender Leaf Tea_ "in the new filter paper Tea Balls, Individually wrapped in a sanitary envelope." These 'tea balls' don't sound like tea bags, but rather, individually wrapped portions of loose tea, but this is just a guess. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Tue Jan 16 00:07:17 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:07:17 -0500 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: Any truth to this tale? While the expression, "It Was Cold Enough to Freeze the Balls Off a Brass Monkey!" is still commonly used by sailors in extremely cold weather, the origin of the phrase has been largely forgotten. And now, the rest of the story . . . Virtually every sailing ship in the 1700-1800s had cannon for protection. Cannon of the times required round iron cannonballs. The Ship's Master usually wanted to store the cannonballs such that they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around the gun deck. The solution was to stack them up in a square-based pyramid next to the cannon. The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four, the next had nine, the next had sixteen, and so on. Four levels would provide a stack of 30 cannonballs. The only real problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels. To do this, they devised a small brass plate called, of course a "brass monkey", with 16 round indentations, one for each cannonball, in the bottom layer. Brass was used because the cannonballs wouldn't rust to the "brass monkey,"but would rust to an iron one. When temperature falls, brass contracts in size faster than iron. As it got cold on the gun decks, the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the indentations spilling the entire pyramid over the deck. Thus it was, quite literally, "It Was Cold Enough to Freeze the Balls Off a Brass Monkey!" From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 16 01:00:41 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:00:41 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010115155048.00cda750@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I haven't heard "like that" around the Seattle area, but it may be generational for this area. I can't believe there is a huge difference between speech patterns in Portland and Seattle, although when I moved here 26+ years ago, there were some noticeable differences in vocabulary. >From now on, though, I'll be listening for it. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > At 11:13 AM 1/15/01 -0800, you wrote: > >On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > > > But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or > > > intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic > > > interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing > > > an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, > > > quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and > > > conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double > > > 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. > > > >Gosh, Beverly, I'd like to confirm your notion here, but I'm absolutely > >sure this is a double conjunction. It's most often used after _feel_: "I > >feel like that we ought to stop for groceries." It's all over the place > >up/out here, and not used exclusively by Southern emigres. Most other > >speakers would say either "like" or "that" after "feel"; perhaps the > >double conjunction is used to underscore the speaker's opinion or feeling > >about something, used in place of (or--horrors!--in addition to) "really": > >"I really feel like that the entire city council should just resign." > > > >_That_ is definitely not pronominal: "I feel like that sometimes." > > > >Peter R. > > This is interesting! From your previous note, I didn't catch this > usage. Maybe other Westerners have heard this too? > > _____________________________________________ > Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics > Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 > Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 > http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm > From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 16 01:48:49 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 20:48:49 -0500 Subject: "chad" Message-ID: Please excuse my ignorance, but when a sprocket hole is punched in the material used for movie film, or regular camera film, is the punch-removed material also referenced by the word chad? Or, is the sprocket hole the result of a process other than a punch/knife removing material from the film? George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 02:41:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 21:41:22 EST Subject: Portfolio Pumping; Breathing While Republican; Balkan War Syndrome Message-ID: PORTFOLIO PUMPING Not new, but a good article is in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 15 January 2001, pg. C21, col. 1: _F.C.C. Probes "Portfolio Pumping"_ (...) Portfolio pumping refers to end-of-quarter trading designed to lift a fund's quarterly performance results. (...) (Col. 2--ed.) ...portfolio pumping, known in Canada as "high-close trading"... -------------------------------------------------------- BREATHING WHILE REPUBLICAN (BWR) Yet another catch political phrase. "Breathing While Republican (BWR)" is mentioned in a letter to the editor about the faults of George W. Bush's new Cabinet nominees in today's WALL STREET JOURNAL, 15 January 2001, pg. A23, col. 1. -------------------------------------------------------- BALKAN WAR SYNDROME "Balkan War Syndrome" has made a number of recent articles. A skeptic's view is in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 15 January 2001, pg. A22, col. 3. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 03:24:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 22:24:45 EST Subject: Off-Color British Slang (FWIW, from Deja.com) Message-ID: Abra-Kebabra: A magic act performed on Saturday night, where fast food vanishes down the performer's throat, and then shortly afterwards, it suddenly reappears on the taxi floor. Spanish Kiss: Similar to a French Kiss, but given a bit further south of the border. Back End of the Batmobile: The state of your Brass Eye soon after you eat a really hot curry. "I had a Ring Stinger in the Benghazi restaurant last night, and now I've got a dose of Gandhi's Revenge. My arse feels like the back end of the Batmobile." Beaver Leaver: or Vagina Decliner. A homosexual. Beer Coat: The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3 in the morning. Beer Compass: The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after a Booze cruise, even though you're too pissed to remember where you live, how you get there, and where you've come from. BOBFOC: Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch. Boiler Suit: The prosecution charge that you did wilfully, and with phallus aforethought, score with a Bobfoc last night. This charge is usually brought by a kangaroo court of your friends in the pub on Saturday night. Bone of Contention: A hard-on that causes an argument. e.g. one that arises when a man is watching Olympic beach volleyball on TV with his girlfriend. Breaking the Seal: Your 1st piss in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night. Budgie's Tongue or Small Man In A Boat, or Tongue Punchbag: The female erection. BVH: Blue-Veined Hooligan. The 1-eyed skinhead. Cider Visor: Beer Goggles for the young drinker. Cliterature: 1-handed reading material. Cock-A-Doodle-Poo: The bowel movement that, needing to come out urgently, wakes you up in the morning to get to the toilet quick. Crappuccino: The particularly frothy type of diarrhoea that you get when abroad. Double Bass: A sexual position in which the man enters the woman from behind, and then fiddles with the woman's nipples with one hand and her Budgie's Tongue with the other. The position is similar to that used when playing a double bass instrument, but the sound produced is slightly different. Etch-A-Sketch: Trying to draw a smile on a woman's face by twiddling both of her nipples simultaneously. Fizzy Gravy or Rusty Water. Diarrhoea. Flogging On: Surfing the Internet for some left-handed websites. Free the Tadpoles: Liberate the residents of Wank Tanks. Frigmarole: Unnecessarily time-consuming foreplay. FuckShitFuckShitFuckShit: The sound made when driving through too narrow a gap at too high a speed. Going For a McShit: Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the bog. If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is a McShit With Lies. Greyhound: A very short skirt, only an inch from the hare. Hand-to-Gland Combat: A vigorous masturbation session. Hefty Cleft or Horse's Collar, or Welly Top. Description of a very large vagina. McSplurry: The type of bowel movement you experience after dining for a week in fast food restaurants. Millennium Domes: The contents of a Wonderbra. i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there's actually fuck-all in there worth seeing. Monkey Bath: A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa! Aa! Aa!". Mystery Bus: The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in. Mystery Taxi: The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you Wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead. NBR: No Beers Required. Someone that you'd chat up instantly in the pub. The opposite of a 10-Pinter. Picasso Arse: A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she's got 4 buttocks. Sperm Wail or Spuphemism. A verbal outburst during the male orgasm. Starfish Trooper or Arsetronaut. A homosexual. 10-Pinter: Someone that you'd only chat up after drinking at least 10 pints. 2-Bagger: Someone that you'd need 2 paper bags to have sex with. (1 to cover their head, and 1 to cover yours, in case their bag falls off.) Titanic: A lady who goes down first time out. Todger Dodger: A lesbian. Wank Seance: During a masturbation session, the eerie feeling that you're being watched with disgust by your dead relatives. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 16 03:35:17 2001 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:35:17 -0800 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: To all: > I haven't heard "like that" around the Seattle area, but it may be > generational for this area. I can't believe there is a huge difference > between speech patterns in Portland and Seattle, although when I moved > here 26+ years ago, there were some noticeable differences in vocabulary. > From now on, though, I'll be listening for it. I live in Seattle, and I've never heard anybody around here(of any generation)say anything remotely resembling "I feel like that we ought to go shopping". I've heard a lot of people say something like "Is this, like, soap?" meaning something like "You're referring to soap?" or "She was, like, let's go dancing"(mostly among people a generation younger than me). But I've never heard anybody use the above construction. Maybe I'm just too fuddy-duddy to hear it. Anne G From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 16 09:49:19 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 03:49:19 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Fred Shapiro wrote: > I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples > would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" > or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other > sayings of this nature? There's one that provides a direct answer to GIGO: "Sparrows make a living by finding the good stuff that's packaged in horseshit". The short form is "Some good things come in horseshit packages". -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Tue Jan 16 10:00:34 2001 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 10:00:34 -0000 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: This story about the origin of the brass monkey story is widely told and believed. But there are immense difficulties with it. Firstly, warships of the period stored their immediate stock of round shot for the guns in wooden racks fixed to the ship's sides (cut with holes slightly smaller than the shot, very like an egg rack). These were called garlands and can be seen in illustrations of the period. It is impossible to imagine any sensible commander permitting shot to be piled in heaps on a deck that might be pitching at an angle of forty degrees or more at times. Secondly, there is no reference extant that I can find of the term 'monkey' being applied to any such construction. There was an eighteenth century gun called that, and the ships' boys who brought gunpowder up from the magazine were called powder monkeys, but that's all. But the clincher is basic physics: the coefficients of expansion of iron and brass are not so different; over the range of temperatures likely to be encountered on the deck of a warship at sea the differential movement is a fraction of a millimetre, not enough to cause a whisker of a problem. The story is obviously daft. Now to the interesting part: where did it really come from? My guess is that it was a bit of evocative British Indian Army slang relating to cold night temperatures in the hills, with thoughts of temple statues in mind. But there's no evidence for that either, alas. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 16 10:48:13 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 04:48:13 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Appropriate, but not originally about computers: Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. Something over 30 years ago, I added three lemmas: 1. It ain't 90, it's 99. 2. It ain't crap, it's shit. 3. The remaining 1% makes life worth living. The original Law is usually attributed to Theodore Sturgeon, one of the immortals of the Golden Age of science fiction. Secondary sources in the world of science fiction agree on that attribution, but so far I haven't found any that cite an alleged place of first publication. (I have a fleeting, partial recollection that the Law was mentioned favorably in the editor's column of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. The author was John W. Campbell, Jr.; the date probably was around 1950; the attribution was there without citation of the original.) In the same general epoch, Astounding Science Fiction provided a version of the laws of thermodynamics that should be as well known as Murphy's Law: First Law of Thermodynamics: You can't win. Second Law of Thermodynamics: You can't even break even. Third Law of Thermodynamics: You can't get out of the game. I'm sure that the first place where I read this reformulation gave full credit to the original author. I just don't remember who that was. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 16 13:07:26 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 07:07:26 -0600 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) Message-ID: Fred Shapiro wrote: > Here's a 1987 cite for "ecoterrorism" and "ecoterrorist": > > 1987 _Star Tribune_ (Minneapolis-St. Paul) 20 Aug. (Dow Jones) A wave of > "ecoterrorism" by militant environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest has > the timber industry preparing itself for a modern equivalent of the > 19th-century range wars between farmers and cattlemen. ... Last month Sen. > James McClure, R-Idaho, called for harsh penalties for "ecoterrorists" and > introduced a bill outlawing the spiking of trees. The word "ecoterrorism" gained currency as part of a disinformation campaign based on false accusations. It's a pity that the word "ecoterrorism" has settled into dictionaries without background information about the purposes behind its original use. Lack of that background points to the ultimate success of an orchestrated attempt to neutralize activists on one side of a public debate. It's worrisome that dictionaries can become the vehicles of political propaganda even when their editors have no intent of producing that outcome. The alleged ecoterrorism wave of 1987 was largely a creation of publicists aligned with the timber industry. The excerpt quoted above abounds with loaded words but presents no substantive facts about what the timber industry was preparing for. The source cited, the Minneapolis/St. Paul _Star Tribune_, is not a likely place to look for information about the Pacific Northwest. The Dow Jones news service isn't famous for showing any sympathy for environmentalist causes, either. It's important to note that virtually no allegations of "ecoterrorism" in 1987 were substantiated by citations giving verifiable details about specific incidents, known perpetrators, or actual locations. The word was frequently used in disinformation campaigns against environmentalists who had no association with criminal acts or terrorism of any kind. The most egregious case of the label "ecoterrorist" being used for propaganda purposes came in the 1990 carbomb assassination attempt against Earth First! organizers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. The evidence presented in a series of court cases related to that event clearly shows that the environmentalists were double victims: first of a carbomb, then of a disinformation campaign and frameup that tried to make it appear that the victims were the perpetrators. There is a strong preponderance of evidence that the criminal frameup after the bombing was carried out by members of the Oakland, California police in conjunction with agents of the FBI. The victims were alleged to be "ecoterrorists" without any corroborative evidence. In fact, there never was any proof that Earth First had been involved in any criminal activities, despite repeated attempts of agents provocateurs to encourage them to use dynamite to emphasize their messages. Extensive documentation of the facts in the Earth First! case is available at http://www.judibari.org A simple definition of "ecoterrorism" without this background creates the impression that the word arose because there was a widespread outbreak of activities that fit the label. That hands a propaganda triumph to one side on an issue which is still a matter of great public concern. I get a terribly uncomfortable feeling when I recognize the slanted implications of words that are semi-covert weapons in a war I never wanted to be in. Propagandists for and against many kinds of activist movements have been honing their skills for a long time. I hope I've learned not to take on the conclusions they would foist on me without getting solid, independent, and convincing evidence first. It's no help when respectable dictionaries lend their weight to only one side in a multi-sided debate. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: This message is in not intended as a commentary on the alleged activities in 2000 or 2001 of a group called the Earth Liberation Front. It's not at all clear whether incidents attributed to that group have any connections with anyone who has taken any public stand about the environment. There's not enough evidence in the public record to demonstrate that ELF has any real existence outside the world of propaganda. Neither is there any definitive evidence that they are somebody's deliberate fake. I'd rather not get agitated for or against positions that are supposed to have the support of groups whose very existence (or non- existence!) marks an attempt to manipulate public opinion. I can't know what to think until I know lots more about who they are and where they think they're going. From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 16 13:30:06 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 08:30:06 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) In-Reply-To: <3A64478E.BD2C8EE6@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Mike Salovesh wrote: > It's a pity that the word > "ecoterrorism" has settled into dictionaries without background > information about the purposes behind its original use. Lack of that > background points to the ultimate success of an orchestrated attempt to > neutralize activists on one side of a public debate. It's worrisome that > dictionaries can become the vehicles of political propaganda even when > their editors have no intent of producing that outcome. Isn't this like asking that dictionaries only define words as they were used in Shakespeare's time? If the media "distort" the original vision of a term, and that is the way the term comes to be used in citation after citation, don't lexicographers have a duty to impart how the term sees use? > Propagandists for and against many kinds of activist movements have been > honing their skills for a long time. In this regard, wouldn't then the 'pro'-faction's definition of the term be as skewed as the 'anti'-faction's? This does highlight the difficulty in defining politcally charged words, though. --- Steve K. From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 16 14:56:09 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 09:56:09 -0500 Subject: Sturgeon's Law Message-ID: Sturgeon's Law in its original form stated stated "90% of everything is crud," but the last word is usually altered to "crap." I had always heard that it came up in a casual conversation between the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon and some fans. While that may be the case, Sturgeon apparently made it available to the broader world in a talk to the World Science Fiction Convention in 1953. That's according to an account by James Gunn in The New York Review of Science Fiction #85, September 1995. According to the Theodore Sturgeon FAQ, Sturgeon then wrote about "Sturgeon's Revelation" (as he then called it) in the March 1958 issue of Venture Science Fiction. The FAQ, with a link to the relevant portion of the Gunn account, is available at http://glinda.lrsm.upenn.edu/~weeks/misc/faq.html#slaw John Baker From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 16 15:21:54 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 10:21:54 -0500 Subject: Chad on the airstrip Message-ID: On the Web, I find http://www.airnav.com/airport/INS -- a description of the Indian Springs AF Aux. Airport in Nevada. The runway has a "smooth packed chad surface"! Is it an alternative spelling of "chat" = "gravel"? Or an erroneous spelling thereof? Or a joke (the page is dated 30 Nov. 2000)? Or is the runway covered with confetti? Or does someone use "chad" = "gravel" currently in the US? ["Packed chat surface" is found on the Web here and there.] -- Doug Wilson From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Tue Jan 16 15:18:50 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:18:50 -0000 Subject: Sturgeon's Law Message-ID: Please stop e-mailing this address, it is a business address and no one has requested to join your American Dialect Society please refrain from sending this JUNK!!! -----Original Message----- From: Baker, John To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: 16 January 2001 15:06 Subject: Sturgeon's Law > Sturgeon's Law in its original form stated stated "90% of everything >is crud," but the last word is usually altered to "crap." I had always >heard that it came up in a casual conversation between the science fiction >writer Theodore Sturgeon and some fans. While that may be the case, >Sturgeon apparently made it available to the broader world in a talk to the >World Science Fiction Convention in 1953. That's according to an account by >James Gunn in The New York Review of Science Fiction #85, September 1995. >According to the Theodore Sturgeon FAQ, Sturgeon then wrote about >"Sturgeon's Revelation" (as he then called it) in the March 1958 issue of >Venture Science Fiction. The FAQ, with a link to the relevant portion of >the Gunn account, is available at > >http://glinda.lrsm.upenn.edu/~weeks/misc/faq.html#slaw > > >John Baker > From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 16 16:44:01 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 11:44:01 -0500 Subject: Chad in China and Hungary Message-ID: Thanks to Frank Abate for the tip on the UK patent site. Only the English-language title is listed for Chinese patent # CN2032249U (1989): "ANCHOR FILLED WITH CERAMIC GRAVEL SAND HAYDITE AND CHAD". It seems likely that "chad" more or less = "gravel" here, rather than "paper residue". What is happening here? What was the Chinese word translated as "chad"? Maybe it was "chad" itself (loan-word transcribed as a phonetic like "cha-du") -- or "chat" or "chert" or ...? Or does somebody think "chad" is a good English translation of some Chinese word denoting a certain type of gravel or aggregate? Does "chad" appear = "gravel" or so in some Chinese/English dictionary? Or did somebody ask a Scots tourist or visiting engineer "What do you call this stuff?" ...? [Haydite appears to be a trade name for a shale aggregate, like gravel.] Only the English-language title is listed for Hungarian patent # HU171647 (1977): "MOVING TRACK TREATING MACHINE FOR PACKING CHAD UNDER SLEEPERS OF TRACK". Here it is clear what is being translated, since equivalent patents from other countries are available in text. The word being translated as "chad" is the German word "Schotter" [perhaps a cognate of "chad"?] = "gravel"/"ballast", translated "ballast" in the UK and US versions of the patent, "pierraille" in the French version, and of course "barasuto" in the Japanese one. I don't know whether "Schotter" was translated directly to "chad" or whether it was translated through Hungarian. I am entirely ignorant of Hungarian (and I don't have the Hungarian text anyway). Does "chad" = "gravel" appear in some German/English or Hungarian/English dictionary? [BTW, one Hungarian translation of "Schotter" might be "sóder" = "gravel" -- which is possibly a loan-word from German ("Schotter")? -- and I find Hungarian "sóderol" = something like "gab" or "chatter" -- could this be a loan-word too, perhaps from English ("chat"/"chatter")? Just a coincidence? Any of the local scholars familiar with Hungarian?] -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 17:20:21 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 12:20:21 EST Subject: "like that" Message-ID: I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 16 05:16:28 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 13:16:28 +0800 Subject: another etymological urban legend? Message-ID: These come from an e-mail list; the former derivation we KNOW is wrong, and I assume the latter is as well, although I don't specifically know this for a fact, and this IS the exact story (or a paraphrase of it) that Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable offers. Is it in fact a fable? (I would have wagered, in a very small denomination, that "son of a gun" was a euphemistic replacement for "sun of a bitch", but most such substitutions are alliterative, so this isn't terribly plausible either.) larry =============== Fact: Why do we say a computer or computer program has a "bug" in it when it malfunctions? Because once the problem really WAS a bug. In 1945, a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and a woman investigated and found a moth in one of the circuits. She removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer, it is said to have a bug in it. <><><><> Fact: Where did the expression "son of a gun" originate? "Son of a gun" has its origins with sailors. When a ship was in port for an extended period of time, wives and other women were permitted to live on board with the ship's crew. Occasionally, children would be born on board and a convenient place for the birth to happen was between guns on the gun deck. If the child's father was unknown, the child was entered in the ship's log as "Son of a gun." From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Tue Jan 16 19:23:36 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:23:36 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Second Call for Papers for the 7th Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture Message-ID: FYI >X-Authentication-Warning: galileo.cc.rochester.edu: majord set >sender to owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu using -f >From: "LD Linton" >To: , , > , , > , , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , >Subject: Second Call for Papers for the 7th Conference on Language, >Interaction, and Culture >Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 08:09:37 -0800 >X-Priority: 3 >Sender: owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu >Status: > >Hello, > > I would appreciate your posting of the call for papers below on >any lists that may be relevant to the study of language, >interaction, and culture? >LD Linton > >Seventh Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture > >SECOND Call for Papers > >(PLEASE NOTE EXTENSION OF SUBMISSION DEADLINE TO FEB. 1, 2001!) > > > >Date: April 12-14, 2001 > >Location: University of California, Santa Barbara > >Plenary Speaker: Michael Lynch, Cornell University > >Website: http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/liso > > > >The annual conference promotes interdisciplinary research and >discussion in the analysis of naturally occurring human interaction. >Submissions from national, international, and University of >California scholars are encouraged. Research papers should address >topics in the study of language, interaction, and culture, and >should consist of naturally occurring data. Potential methods >include, but are not limited to, conversation analysis, discourse >analysis, ethnographic methods, ethnomethodology, interactional >linguistics, and interactional sociolinguistics. > >The Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture is jointly >organized and sponsored by the Language, Interaction, and Social >Organization (LISO) group and the Center for Language, Interaction, >and Culture (CLIC). LISO is an interdisciplinary faculty and >graduate student organization located on the campus of the >University of California, Santa Barbara. CLIC is a center comprised >of interdisciplinary faculty and graduate students located on the >campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. LISO and CLIC >are composed of researchers from the departments of Anthropology, >Applied Linguistics, Education, English, Linguistics, Psychology, >and Sociology. > > > >Submission Guidelines > >Presentations will be 20 minutes in length followed by a 10-minute >discussion period. Submissions from graduate students and junior >faculty are especially encouraged. > > > >Submission of abstracts must be in hard copy and should contain: > > > >1) A hard copy detachable title page that includes: > >a) the title of the paper > >b) the author's name, affiliation, postal address, e-mail, and >phone number > >c) a list of equipment needed for the presentation (subject to >availability) > > > >2) THREE HARD COPIES of a 500-1,000 word maximum extended >abstract of the paper that includes: > >a) the title of the paper and description of the project > >b) a brief description of methodology > >c) a description of the data > > > >3) An email sent to >lisograd at alishaw.sscf.ucsb.edu >with "Submission" in the subject line and Title Page and Extended >Abstract attached in a Rich Text Format (.rtf) formatted document. >Electronic submissions will not be considered unless accompanied by >hard copies. > > No information identifying the author may appear in the abstract. > > > >Three (hard) copies of submitted abstracts and the electronic >submission must be received no later than FEBRUARY 1, 2001. >Submissions not received in triplicate or by the FEBRUARY 1, 2001 >deadline will not be considered. > > >Papers selected from conference presentations, with the permission >of the author, will be published in the volume of conference >proceedings. > > >Further inquiries can be addressed via e-mail to: >lisograd at alishaw.sscf.ucsb.edu > >All submissions should be mailed to: > > >LISO Graduate Student Association >Department of Sociology >Ellison Hall, Room 2834 >University of California, Santa Barbara >Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9430 > > > > > *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 5250 bytes Desc: not available URL: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Jan 16 19:33:27 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 11:33:27 -0800 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: ron butters: >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 19:33:54 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:33:54 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: In a message dated Sun, 14 Jan 2001 18:28:48 Eastern Standard Time, Fred Shapiro writes: >I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples would >be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" >or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other >sayings of this nature?s That should have been "Do not bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate." WYSIWYG (acronym for "What you see is what you get") sounds like a proverb but it isn't. Rather it is a descriptive adjectival phrase, stating that what is displayed on the monitor matches what will appear on the printer. "to boot" a computer has nothing to do with footwear, kicking a malfunctioning machine, or the apocryphal German training film for PC users "DOS Boot". Instead it is a shortening of "bootstrap", itself extracted from the old saying "to pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps". When a computer is first brought into operation (known as a "cold start", as opposed to a "warm start", in which software is still running from a previous use) a small program known as a "bootstrap loader" has to be run to bring in a bigger program which brought in etc. until all the necessary software was in the computer's memory and ready to run. In punch-card days bootstrapping a computer could be a major effort. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is in ROM and almost invisible. "three-finger salute" sounds obscene but isn't. Instead it is the Control-Alt-Delete key sequence needed to boot a PC-compatible. By the way, those three keys were chosen because with the original IBM PC keyboard it was impossible to hit those three keys simultaneously by accident with one hand. "hard reset" (to fix a problem by turning the power off and back on) "deadly embrace" a type of computer gridlock e.g. program A is using tape drive 1 and wants tape drive 2; program B is using drive 2 and wants drive 1; neither can proceed until one program is cancelled "race condition" situation in which two or more programs are running and the outcome depends on which one gets started first "aomic operation" a computer operation that cannot be interrupted before it is completed big-endian versus little endian—a term picked up from Gulliver's Travels. Describes whether numbers are stored in a computer high-end first or low-end first (a headache in certain types of programming) FUD or "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" in the old days what IBM salesmen were said to create in the mind of users contemplating using a competitor's product. "iron" computer hardware, with the connotation of either 1) mainframe hardware or 2) obsolescence "IBM and the Seven Dwarfs" IBM and its domestic competitors Burroughs, Univac, National Cash Register, Control Data, Honeywell, General Electric and RCA. After the last two dropped out, the competitors became "the BUNCH". "bit bucket" the mythical but much-cited destination for data that gets lost during processing. A one-time supervisor of mine preferred "that big database in the sky". "write-only memory" euphemism for not being able to remember something "daisy-wheel" a type of printer common in the early 1980's but no longer seen "golf ball" the type element for the once-omnipresent IBM Selectric typewriter. I had a friend who was descended from a long line of Marine sergeants and habitually spoke as such. He also owned a Selectric. I unintentionally left him speechless one day when I needed some typewriter cleaner and asked him, "Do you have any of that stuff you clean your balls with?" "gender-changer" or "gender-bender" a piece of equipment to join two male plugs or two female plugs. I requisitioned a gender-changer once and Purchasing called me long-distance to ask if this were a joke? "Winchester" the original name for what is now prosaically called a "hard disk." Named after the Winchester .30-30 rifle because the original model stored 30 megabytes of data with an access time of 30 milliseconds. James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA P,.S. to Bapopil at AOL.COM: Airplanes do not have "drive by wire". Instead they use "fly-by-wire", a term cited in Merriam-Webster's Tenth Collegiate as dating from 1968 (the technique goes back at least to the Boeing B-17) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 19:44:44 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:44:44 EST Subject: Hoogie (January 1941), Hogie (September 1943) Message-ID: In Philadelphia the Franklin Institute had for several years an exhibit on "Shipbuilding in Philadelphia". One of the displays was about the Hog Island Shipyard and included the information that the "hoagie" was invented and named for Hog Island. Unfortunately the exhibit has been removed sometime in the last year or so so I can't quote the exact text. Someone might want to contact the Franklin Institute for the evidence behind this claim. Also, somebody said > >(Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton > >at all!--ed.) This statement implies the theory that a "submarine sandwich" was so called because it was consumed by sailors on submarines. I was under the impression the name originated because of the shape of the sandwich (I have heard the bread used called a "torpedo roll"), in which case submariners and their relatives in New London might not feel possessive about the name. Jim Landau -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 16 20:08:20 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:08:20 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: Larry Horn writes: >>>>> funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include Is there turkey yet? on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. <<<<< I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the (putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the inception of an expected future state: His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: Is there yet turkey? Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) -- Mark A. Mandel From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 20:31:38 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:31:38 EST Subject: "like that" Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/01 2:34:00 PM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: << yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? >> yup From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 16 20:21:01 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:21:01 -0500 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: Alice Faber remembers: >>>>> [...] buying an "I Am Not A Crook" t-shirt at the student union. I still have the t-shirt, but have never worn it; Nixon resigned that night. <<<<< I had an IMPEACH NIXON button. When he resigned, I wrote INOPERATIVE on a little slip of paper and taped it diagonally across the button, which I still have. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 16 20:32:37 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:32:37 -0500 Subject: s -> z /V_V (was: deixis and deictic) Message-ID: "Dennis R. Preston" writes: >>>>> [from Beverly:] >dInIs, wassup with your 'whuzzup'?! Maybe the voiced form is used by some? Indeed more than some. The fate of many intervocalics I reckon. <<<<< I have often noticed "electri[z]ity". On my whiteboard right now is the grandfathered list scissors possess dessert Any more contributions? -- Mark From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 16 11:41:20 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:41:20 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:08 PM -0500 1/16/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Larry Horn writes: > >>>>>> >funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a >well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and >adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) >that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include > >Is there turkey yet? > >on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the >utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping >some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives >early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. ><<<<< > >I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the >(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the >inception of an expected future state: > > His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. > >I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: > > Is there yet turkey? > >Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. >But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) I think they're at least slightly different. I can get Mark's example but only if I stress the "yet". The Wisconsinite "yet" was unstressed and lacks the rhetorical effect of the stressed "yet" = 'still' examples ("I remember it yet", "They can win it yet"). For those of us not in the relevant dialect group, the unstressed ("Is there turkey yet?") struck us as really deviant. larry From Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 00:39:43 2001 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:39:43 EST Subject: "sny" Message-ID: Sorry it's taken me so long to track down this citation, for what it's worth. "Sni, Sny French chenal, appearing in American French as chenail, as a generic for a natural, narrow passageway of water, became Sny in American usage, and appears as a specific in a few names, chiefly in Mo. Sniabar Creek Mo.; either from chenail-a-barre, 'sny with a bar (blockage),' or from chenail-a-Hubert (Hebert) from the name of a local French family." George R. Stewart, American Place-Names (1970) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 00:45:06 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:45:06 -0500 Subject: Sturgeon's Law In-Reply-To: <000701c07fcf$a29b04c0$721c78d5@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >Tsk Tsk. What if we called your Hondas JUNK? dInIs >Please stop e-mailing this address, it is a business address >and no one has requested to join your American Dialect Society >please refrain from sending this JUNK!!! > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Baker, John >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Date: 16 January 2001 15:06 >Subject: Sturgeon's Law > > >> Sturgeon's Law in its original form stated stated "90% of >everything >>is crud," but the last word is usually altered to "crap." I had always >>heard that it came up in a casual conversation between the science fiction >>writer Theodore Sturgeon and some fans. While that may be the case, >>Sturgeon apparently made it available to the broader world in a talk to the >>World Science Fiction Convention in 1953. That's according to an account >by >>James Gunn in The New York Review of Science Fiction #85, September 1995. >>According to the Theodore Sturgeon FAQ, Sturgeon then wrote about >>"Sturgeon's Revelation" (as he then called it) in the March 1958 issue of >>Venture Science Fiction. The FAQ, with a link to the relevant portion of >>the Gunn account, is available at > > > >http://glinda.lrsm.upenn.edu/~weeks/misc/faq.html#slaw > > > > > >John Baker > > -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 00:51:10 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:51:10 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <200101161933.LAA05628@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >Thanks Arnold; it's about time somebody taught Ron what a pronoun is. dInIs >ron butters: > >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." > >yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? > >arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 17 00:59:48 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 16:59:48 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <200101161933.LAA05628@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? --On Tue, Jan 16, 2001 11:33 AM -0800 Arnold Zwicky wrote: > ron butters: > >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." > > yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Wed Jan 17 02:02:11 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:02:11 -0500 Subject: AH-CHOO! Message-ID: Friends, Linguists, Grammarians, I could spend some time poring over my Longman's COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR (1985), but if anyone has an answer off the top of his head to the question at the bottom, please help. I just checked the OED disk (1988) and it has neither "ah-choo" nor "achoo." "Ahem" is in, though, and occurs 18 times in the text; "humph" 11 times; "zzz," the last entry in the OXFORD CANADIAN/CONCISE OXFORD, occurs a couple of times in the OED in the sawing and snoring senses. There are 42 occurrences of "interj." in the OED text but none has the sneeze as headword in any shape or form. "No sneezing please, we are British?" And no "Gesundheit" (an OED entry) or "Bless you" either? When I am in London next month, I hope to gather first-hand evidence on the subject. The main question for help from the List: If body language is "nonverbal," as the Random House Dictionary and all the literature cited by Michal Lisecki (Jan. 9) seem to say, does the sneeze (which is vocal, with its vocal/verbal counterpart as "Ah-choo") qualify as body language in some sense? If it does, I would like to use it as a checkpoint with my informant group since sneezing exists in all cultures with only very minor variations. A suppressed sneeze, I suppose, doesn't qualify as a sneeze. But I could benefit very much from your comments on the grammar side. TOM PAIKEDAY (trying not to sound dumb) Thomas Paikeday wrote: . . . Is the part-of-speech called > interj. verbal or nonverbal? (Please see RHD def. of BODY LANGUAGE). I appreciate > it is vocal, as in "Ah-choo!" . . . > From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Wed Jan 17 02:03:38 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:03:38 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy,Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: Doug Wilson, Many thanks for going out of your way to research this. I just checked the 1990 database of contemporary American English I used in my _User's(R) Webster_ and there is evidence of the story's being a broadcast item, like "[The regulators] fear the federal camel will stick its nose into the states' tent" (Best's Review, Dec. 1990). Oral testimony, of course, is much better on this issue. I too think the Proverbs book (DAP, 1992) missed a whole lot of evidence (Well, it's not exactly DARE, e&oe). As for a Greek fable becoming a Malayalam proverb, my speculation is Greek influence. Ancient Greeks used to trade for spices on the Malabar coast. Cheers! Tom Paikeday ========================== "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > > >My own explanation is that > >the MSW not being from Oregon (as in A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS), > >he cannot be blamed for making me explain the fable to him, but the > >prior being from Illinois should probably have known better. > > Now I see (I went to the library). The book gives Illinois and Oregon as > the distribution of the story. I think this must be wrong or perhaps > outdated. I can't remember where I heard it long ago but I think Michigan. > I showed the glossed passage in Tom Paikeday's e-mail to my son (a young > Pennsylvanian with no Malayalam) and he recognized it instantly, told the > story and interpreted it as "Even slight evil should not be permitted" or > so. I didn't tell it to him. I suppose this story has been broadcast; maybe > it's been used in churches and schools all over; maybe it was on "Sesame > Street" or something. What do the scholars say? > > -- Doug Wilson From dmsnake at USIT.NET Wed Jan 17 02:48:37 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:48:37 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: I heard that, like, she was like, "Some people think he's like that, but he's not really 'like that' like that. But, like, it's like he just acts like that he's like that." Peter A. McGraw wrote: > How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? > > --On Tue, Jan 16, 2001 11:33 AM -0800 Arnold Zwicky > wrote: > > > ron butters: > > >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." > > > > yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? > > > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 03:19:42 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 22:19:42 -0500 Subject: AH-CHOO! In-Reply-To: <3A64FD23.6229B22@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Thomas Paikeday wrote: > I just checked the OED disk (1988) and it has neither "ah-choo" nor > "achoo." "Ahem" is in, though, and occurs 18 times in the text; "humph" It is in the OED under the spelling "atishoo." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 05:10:23 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 00:10:23 EST Subject: "like that" Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/2001 7:49:00 PM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: << >Thanks Arnold; it's about time somebody taught Ron what a pronoun is. dInIs >> From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 08:42:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 03:42:21 EST Subject: Jump the Shark; Turf Legend Pat Lynch Is Dead Message-ID: JUMP THE SHARK From the NEW YORK PRESS, January 17-23, 2001, pg. 86, col. 3: Maureen Dowd, as the latest Internet witticism proclaims, has truly "jumped the shark" at a very young age. That is, it's all downhill. See www.jumptheshark.com. The phrase is usually associated with TV programs. It supposedly comes from Fonzi's jumping a shark motorcycle in HAPPY DAYS. -------------------------------------------------------- TURF LEGEND PAT LYNCH IS DEAD There was no mention in the NEW YORK TIMES. This is from the NEW YORK POST, 16 January 2001, pg. 65, col. 3: _Turf Legend Lynch dead at 84_ By ED FOUNTAINE Pat Lynch, a mainstay in the press box of New York racing for more than a half-century, died yesterday after a long illness at age 84. A New York native, Lynch worked for the Hearst newspapers for more than 30 years, at one point running copy for the legendary Damon Runyon. As the racing columnist for the World Telegram and Sun, Lynch won two Eclipse Awards for outstanding turf writing. (...) After his retirement he continued to attend the races on a near-daily basis. Almost ten years years ago, I called the New York Racing Association and asked if anyone knew who John J. Fitz Gerald was. Everyone associated with racing told me to call Pat Lynch. Everyone said that Lynch knew everything. They told me that he could be found every day in the press box. "No, Fitz didn't coin the Big Apple," Lynch told me. "We called him Jack Fitz." "He couldn't even write his own name!" I gave great weight to this and thought that perhaps Gerald Cohen and I had gotten the wrong guy. Ultimately, I found the Fitz Gerald columns where he discussed "the Big Apple." These were written before Lynch was ten years old. Lynch had known Fitz Gerald on the downside, when he was, perhaps, a drunk. Now dead are Pat Lynch; Cab Calloway (who helped bring "the Big Apple" to Harlem); Gene Ward (the Daily News columnist who called Aqueduct "the Big A"); Charles Gillett (the NY Convention and Visitors Bureau President who popularized the term in the 1970s); and Shirley Povich (the legendary Washington Post sportswriter who was hired by Fitz Gerald's brother). The New York Times has yet to write the story. I ask once again for William Safire and his assistant to talk to me and to correct the errors associated with my name. I have waited a long time. From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 17 13:04:04 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 08:04:04 -0500 Subject: another etymological urban legend? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Son of a gun": Isn't a rhyme as good as an alliteration? The Cassell slang dictionary says it's euphemistic for "son of a bitch" ... but derives the "gun" from "gonnof", which strikes me as unlikely. Partridge doesn't give an etymology but dates it from early 1700's, and points out a second meaning "soldier's bastard" [now obsolete, I think] with an 1823 reference. Farmer and Henley give the "soldier's bastard" definition and also the general one, and quotes an 1867 reference which gives the "boy born on ship" story. Random House dates it from 1700-10 and says it's perhaps originally "soldier's bastard". MW (Web) gives 1708 and considers it a euphemism although without giving explicit etymology. Chapman considers it euphemistic but quotes the "boy born on ship" story. I'm agnostic. Possibly there was a separate origin but even if so I think the expression quickly found a career as a euphemism. -- Doug Wilson From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Wed Jan 17 15:03:04 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 10:03:04 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) Message-ID: FYI. Although it doesn't mention language in the South, that topic does not seem to be excluded. --SL >Call for Papers: >"Souths, Global and Local: An Interdisciplinary Conference" >April 5-7, 2001 >University of Florida >Gainesville, Florida > > >What have been, and continue to be, the connotations of "the South?" Why >and how are regional spaces marked, mapped and/or constructed? How >might southern regions be studied in juxtaposition with one another? How >might >these questions intersect with work in regional studies, cultural studies, >critical theory, foreign languages, literature, history, >architecture, environmental studies, economics, political science, gender >studies, film and media studies, sociology, >anthropology, music and fine arts? > >We invite papers and/or presentations which examine the identifications >and significations of southern regions from local and/or global contexts >(and also contexts which interrogate the global/local opposition). >Creative works and performances along with panel presentations will be >considered. > >Possible topics may include but are not limited to: > >Southern Regionalisms in the Arts >The Two Birminghams: England's Center for Cultural Studies and Birmingham, >Alabama >The "Global South" and Late Capitalism >Modernity and Development in "the South" >The South of Which North? >Roundtable: Editing Journals in/about southern regions >Travel and Tourism >Artistic and Cultural Representations of "the South" >Southern Cartographies and (Post)Colonialism >Nostalgia and/or Primitivism >Nationalisms and "the South" >Southern Identities (Ethnic, Gendered, Classed) >Geographies and the Digital >Craft and Design >Regionalism and/in Popular Culture >Comparative Southern Regionalisms > >Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes each. > >Please send two copies of a one-page abstract or proposal by February 1, >2001 to: > >ego at clas.ufl.edu > >or > >EGO >c/o Department of English. >PO BOX 117310 >University of Florida >Gainesville, FL 32611-117310 > >This conference is sponsored by the Department of English, ACCENT, and the >College >of Liberal Arts and Science Student Council and organized by the English >Graduate >Organization. > >For further information, visit: http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/EGO/ > > > > >-------------------------------------- >"To be eaten by a sandwich..." > >J.Rice >University of Florida >http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jrice > >Yellow Dog: >http://www.ydog.net *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Wed Jan 17 16:17:39 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:17:39 -0500 Subject: MLK tidbit In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my aunt taped the interview. On there, he talks about how he came to the U.S. in his late teens. I've bought his book so I'll check there. --Sonja >For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE >rhoticity. > >In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, >115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a >stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier >in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at >62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. > > >Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still >79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - >187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, >it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as >'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast >to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% >(27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and >'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the >DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC >speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. > > >Happy Martin Luther King Day, > >Nancy Elliott >Southern Oregon University *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 16:19:07 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:19:07 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Our thanks to Sonja for sending this around, but it is a pretty sad >commentary - either on us (for not letting people know that >linguists are interested in, have been interested in, and have >important things to say about such topics) or on the University of >Florida's English Department [sic] which apparently wants to sponsor >a conference on "Southern Identity" but "forgot" language. (Well, >maybe they just "gave it" to the local linguists so they could get >down to their more important work.) dInIs (harumph) >FYI. Although it doesn't mention language in the South, that topic >does not seem to be excluded. --SL > >>Call for Papers: >>"Souths, Global and Local: An Interdisciplinary Conference" >>April 5-7, 2001 >>University of Florida >>Gainesville, Florida >> >> >>What have been, and continue to be, the connotations of "the South?" Why >>and how are regional spaces marked, mapped and/or constructed? How >>might southern regions be studied in juxtaposition with one another? How >>might >>these questions intersect with work in regional studies, cultural studies, >>critical theory, foreign languages, literature, history, >>architecture, environmental studies, economics, political science, gender >>studies, film and media studies, sociology, >>anthropology, music and fine arts? >> >>We invite papers and/or presentations which examine the identifications >>and significations of southern regions from local and/or global contexts >>(and also contexts which interrogate the global/local opposition). >>Creative works and performances along with panel presentations will be >>considered. >> >>Possible topics may include but are not limited to: >> >>Southern Regionalisms in the Arts >>The Two Birminghams: England's Center for Cultural Studies and Birmingham, >>Alabama >>The "Global South" and Late Capitalism >>Modernity and Development in "the South" >>The South of Which North? >>Roundtable: Editing Journals in/about southern regions >>Travel and Tourism >>Artistic and Cultural Representations of "the South" >>Southern Cartographies and (Post)Colonialism >>Nostalgia and/or Primitivism >>Nationalisms and "the South" >>Southern Identities (Ethnic, Gendered, Classed) >>Geographies and the Digital >>Craft and Design >>Regionalism and/in Popular Culture >>Comparative Southern Regionalisms >> >>Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes each. >> >>Please send two copies of a one-page abstract or proposal by February 1, >>2001 to: >> >>ego at clas.ufl.edu >> >>or >> >>EGO >>c/o Department of English. >>PO BOX 117310 >>University of Florida >>Gainesville, FL 32611-117310 >> >>This conference is sponsored by the Department of English, ACCENT, and the >>College >>of Liberal Arts and Science Student Council and organized by the English >>Graduate >>Organization. >> >>For further information, visit: http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/EGO/ >> >> >> >> >>-------------------------------------- >>"To be eaten by a sandwich..." >> >>J.Rice >>University of Florida >>http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jrice >> >>Yellow Dog: >>http://www.ydog.net > > >*************************************************** >Sonja L. Lanehart >Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) >University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) >300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) >Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu >*************************************************** -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:37:36 2001 From: mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Salikoko Mufwene) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 10:37:36 -0800 Subject: MLK tidbit In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:17 AM 1/17/2001 -0500, you wrote: >I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not >U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my >aunt taped the interview. On there, he talks about how he came to the >U.S. in his late teens. I've bought his book so I'll check there. >--Sonja > That was my impression too. I was shocked to learn otherwise. I suspect that being born and partly raised in the Bahamas was one of his qualifications to become the Ambassador Plenipontentiary of the Islands. Sali. ********************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene at uchicago.edu University of Chicago 773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924 Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html ********************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 17 17:49:42 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 09:49:42 -0800 Subject: another etymological urban legend? Message-ID: on "son of a gun": there are two really obvious (and not incompatible) sources, both involving metonymy - "gun" the weapon extended to the wielder of the weapon, that is, a soldier; and the metaphorical "gun" 'penis' extended to *its* wielder, a virile man. the first would be only mildly pejorative, the second not at all. in current usage, "son of a gun" is exclamatory and scarcely pejorative, if at all. its use in exclamations like "well, i'll be a son of a gun!" (or just plain "son of a gun!" 'wow!') and in affectionate address forms like "how are you, you ol' son of a gun?" make it very different from "son of a bitch". "he's a real son of a gun" is just perplexing to me, certainly not an insulting reference (the way "he's a real son of a bitch" is). what's the history of its uses? can we tell from the context of the earlier citations? the boy-born-on-ship story sounds quite far-fetched to me, and i'm not even sure about the euphemism account ("gun" is good as a rhyme for "son", but an extremely poor substitute for "bitch", to which it bears no phonological *or* semantic relationship). maybe the history is pretty prosaic. [by the way, aren't there insulting/pejorative occurrences of "son of a dog" from the 19th century or earlier? or is this just bad-movie dialogue?] arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Wed Jan 17 17:16:28 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:16:28 -0600 Subject: MLK tidbit Message-ID: According to the A&E Biography, Poitier was "Born in Miami in 1924 and raised on a tomato farm in the Bahamas." For more info, see http://www.amctv.com/behind/stars/poitier.html Elizabeth Gregory >>> lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU 01/17/01 10:17AM >>> I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my aunt taped the interview. On there, he talks about how he came to the U.S. in his late teens. I've bought his book so I'll check there. --Sonja >For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE >rhoticity. > >In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, >115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a >stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier >in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at >62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. > > >Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still >79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - >187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, >it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as >'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast >to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% >(27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and >'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the >DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC >speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. > > >Happy Martin Luther King Day, > >Nancy Elliott >Southern Oregon University *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 17 17:59:43 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 12:59:43 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes [irritating MIME artefacts removed]: >>>>> big-endian versus little endian: a term picked up from Gulliver's Travels. Describes whether numbers are stored in a computer high-end first or low-end first (a headache in certain types of programming) <<<<< I have seen these terms as "big Indian" and "little Indian", presumably thanks to people who heard them with no idea of where they came from or the details of what they referred to. Pfaugh! Yes, yes, dInIs et al., prenasal raising could have been involved. But I don't recall that there was any reason or need to invoke it when simple ignorance sufficed. BTW, I would not call this (and some other terms James cites) a proverb, but rather a term, an expression, a piece of jargon, a specialized lexical item. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 17 18:03:27 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:03:27 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: Larry replies to my speculation: >>>>> >I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the >(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the >inception of an expected future state: > > His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. > >I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: > > Is there yet turkey? > >Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. >But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) I think they're at least slightly different. I can get Mark's example but only if I stress the "yet". The Wisconsinite "yet" was unstressed and lacks the rhetorical effect of the stressed "yet" = 'still' examples ("I remember it yet", "They can win it yet"). For those of us not in the relevant dialect group, the unstressed ("Is there turkey yet?") struck us as really deviant. <<<<< I agree that they're different in prosody, and the unstressed construction being asked about sounds bizarre to me too. I'm not saying they're the same; I'm speculating about a historical precedent and origin, wondering whether this construction *could have arisen from* a use of "yet" = 'still'. -- Mark From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 17 18:04:57 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:04:57 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: "Peter A. McGraw" writes: >>>>> How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? <<<<< I'm really getting to dislike dis. -- Mark From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:44:38 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 10:44:38 -0800 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: mark mandel: >I'm really getting to dislike dis. are you dissing us? arnold From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:48:13 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:48:13 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I have also seen Big and Little Indian used by non-native speakers >(in published documentation, in fact) who know the computer details >verry well. Don't "Pfaugh" too quickly. dInIs >"James A. Landau" writes [irritating MIME artefacts >removed]: > >>>>>> >big-endian versus little endian: >a term picked up from Gulliver's Travels. >Describes whether numbers are stored in a computer high-end first or low-end >first (a headache in certain types of programming) ><<<<< > >I have seen these terms as "big Indian" and "little Indian", presumably >thanks to people who heard them with no idea of where they came from or the >details of what they referred to. Pfaugh! > >Yes, yes, dInIs et al., prenasal raising could have been involved. But I >don't recall that there was any reason or need to invoke it when simple >ignorance sufficed. > >BTW, I would not call this (and some other terms James cites) a proverb, >but rather a term, an expression, a piece of jargon, a specialized lexical >item. > >-- Mark A. Mandel -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:49:49 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:49:49 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Are you really getting to dislike dis tread ob de conbersation, or >are you really getting to dislike the item "dis"? dInIs (asleep in MI) >"Peter A. McGraw" writes: > >>>>>> >How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? ><<<<< > >I'm really getting to dislike dis. > >-- Mark -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 06:00:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 14:00:58 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Larry replies to my speculation: > >>>>>> >>I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the >>(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the >>inception of an expected future state: >> >> His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. >> >>I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: >> >> Is there yet turkey? >> >>Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. >>But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) > >I think they're at least slightly different. I can get Mark's >example but only if I stress the "yet". The Wisconsinite "yet" was >unstressed and lacks the rhetorical effect of the stressed "yet" = >'still' examples ("I remember it yet", "They can win it yet"). For >those of us not in the relevant dialect group, the unstressed ("Is >there turkey yet?") struck us as really deviant. ><<<<< > >I agree that they're different in prosody, and the unstressed construction >being asked about sounds bizarre to me too. I'm not saying they're the >same; I'm speculating about a historical precedent and origin, wondering >whether this construction *could have arisen from* a use of "yet" >= 'still'. >-- Mark Maybe so, but if there's influence from German "nokh" and Yiddish "noch" in the former (unstressed) 'still'-type of "yet", it's not simply an extension of meaning/use. larry From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 17 19:10:55 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:10:55 -0800 Subject: "is, is" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Quote from a meeting this morning: "The thing is, is it takes too much time..." Here the second _is_ seems to be a conjunction; but then it could also plausibly have been followed by _that_: "The thing is, is that it takes..." I'm sorry to get us back to the _that_ topic, but here it's a bother again in an absent way; or, rather, in the first sentence it's present to a negative degree. Can anything other than _is_ and silence replace _that_? ("I know it's hard...") Peter R. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 20:20:33 2001 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 15:20:33 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <200101171844.KAA11333@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky wrote: >mark mandel: > >I'm really getting to dislike dis. > >are you dissing us? > No way. He's dissing dis. Alice -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 21:49:57 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 16:49:57 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Yeah, but is he dissing "dis" or is he dissing the "dis" which is >synonymous with" this"? That is, is he dissing things lexical or >things phonetic. dInIs (whose fricatives are all in place) >Arnold Zwicky wrote: >>mark mandel: >>>I'm really getting to dislike dis. >> >>are you dissing us? >> >No way. He's dissing dis. > >Alice >-- >============================================================================== >Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu >Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 >New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 22:03:21 2001 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 17:03:21 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ain't ambiguity grand! Dennis R. Preston wrote: >Yeah, but is he dissing "dis" or is he dissing the "dis" which is >synonymous with" this"? That is, is he dissing things lexical or >things phonetic. > >dInIs (whose fricatives are all in place) > > > >>Arnold Zwicky wrote: >>>mark mandel: >>>>I'm really getting to dislike dis. >>> >>>are you dissing us? >>> >>No way. He's dissing dis. -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From m0470386 at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Thu Jan 18 00:25:20 2001 From: m0470386 at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (Jarrid Deaton) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 19:25:20 -0500 Subject: help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: quick question, how do I get off this list? Thanks From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 00:40:25 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 19:40:25 EST Subject: Keep Your Shirt On; Stream-Lined Proverbs Message-ID: KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON I was looking for my "boxer" shorts. From INSTITUTE NEWS (Underwear Institute), 15 May 1939, pg. 4, col. 1: "You will be cooler if you KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON." The idea is for the underwear manufacturers to distribute these buttons to retail knitted cotton underwear clerks throughout the country to be worn during Cotton Week. -------------------------------------------------------- STREAM-LINED PROVERBS "STREAM-LINED PROVERBS" ran in several issues. 15 July 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 2, col. 1: A word to the wife is insufficient. 15 September 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 11, col. 1: Early to bed and early to rise, and your girl goes out with other guys. 15 October 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 5, col. 1: Time, tide and auto trucks wait for no man. All work and no play makes jack. Where there's a road there's a detour (autoists' version). A brain is only as strong as its weakest think. 15 October 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 8, col. 1: It is better to have loved a short man than never to have loved a tall. Children should be seen and not hurried. People who live near gas houses should not throw matches. 15 October 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 9, col. 1: The fool and his joke are soon started. Everything comes to him who orders hash. 15 November 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 7, col. 1: No backbone is stronger than its weakest vertebra (chiropractic version). A sock on the foot is worth two on the jaw. Sufficient unto the day is the drivel thereof. Look before you lip. If at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again (recommended for wives). A rolling pin gathers no husbands. Distance makes the heart grow fonder (radio version). What fools these mortals think other mortals be! A nose should be seen and not heard. He who laughs last has told the joke. He who courts and does not wed has to come to court instead. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 01:03:20 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:03:20 EST Subject: Western Union publications Message-ID: DOTS AND DASHES I was looking through Western Union publications for "chad." DOT AND DASHES is a Western Union publication of "interesting stories of progress in the telegraph industry." However, it's all fluff. May 1929, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 3: "May your LINES fall in pleasant places, your CIRCUIT abound in loyal friends; your CURRENT continue without BREAK, CROSS or JAR until '30' is called and you receive the glad message, 'Well done thou good and faithful servant.'" January 1930, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1: ...Wall Street, and who date everything "Before Crash" or "After Decline" these tidings should bring great joy. July 1931, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 2: "(Cyrus--ed.) Field knew no such word as fail," Captain Napper declares, in times "when people thought he was a crank." July 1932, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 2, col. 2: There are no "ifs," "ands" or "buts" about it... January 1935, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1: _When You Want to Know Ask Western Union_ (Arthur Miller's play ALL MY SONS has "When you want to know, ask Joe"--ed.) March-April 1938, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1: _"If You Want a Boy--Call Western Union"_ "IF you want a boy," say the funsters, "call Western Union." This, one of the vintage telegraph jokes, the hardy perennial in the garden of gags, older than the hoariest stories about the defunct Tin Lizzie and as ancient as the wheezes about post office pens, has not only outlived them all but is now going stronger than ever before. 1942, DOTS AND DASHES, vol. XVIII, no. 4, pg. 1, col. 1: "Does our Jean Gabin...have what it takes?" 1943, DOTS AND DASHES, vol. XIX, no. 2, pg. 1, col. 1: _Womanpower Speeds War Messages._ -------------------------------------------------------- INSIDE WESTERN UNION by M. J. (Mike) Rivise Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1950 Pg. 86: "73" meant "greetings, hello, best regards, good wishes." "20" meant "kiss." "84" meant "kiss my--hand." "30" meant "farewell." It also meant "death." It was the telegraph operators' own mystic symbol of conclusion, later adopted by newspaper reporters who had worked closely with the operators. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 01:44:13 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:44:13 EST Subject: Jazzerati Message-ID: I've seen this recently. JAZZERATI--29 hits on Dow Jones, from 1996. (It was the name of a horse in the earliest hits.) JAZZERATTI--3 hits on Dow Jones, all recent. JAZZARATI--1 recent hit on Dow Jones. From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 18 03:34:41 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 21:34:41 -0600 Subject: like conflated Message-ID: >From an AP release. Aaron Hunter, chief of staff for freshman Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif): "In San Diego, I was, like, shorts. Here you have to wear these," thumbing stylish pleated pants. "It's the uniform." DMLance From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Thu Jan 18 03:47:36 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:47:36 -0500 Subject: AH-CHOO! Message-ID: Fred, What would we do without someone like you to track things down! I am familiar with "Atishoo" but it never occurred to me to look it up. Curiously enough, "atchoo" is listed in the OED as a variant of "atishoo." The eternal problem of English dictionary users is finding the spelling of a word one has only heard, not seen: If you can't spell a word how can you look it up in the dictionary? The best solution that I know of so far is Marvin Morrison's _Word City_ inspired by Hebrew (consonants only). Thus, if you don't know the spelling of the sound made by clearing the throat, look under HM in _Word City_ and you have the choice of ahem, ham, hem, him . . . whom. "Atishoo" is interesting in several other respects. OED calls it "imitative." I think it is as imitative as "cock-a-doodle-doo." Secondly, what is the "i" doing in "Atishoo"? I don't ever recall hearing a trisyllabic sneeze. But then words and spellings can be very arbitrary. And are there syllables in every utterance? Thirdly, how come "Atishoo" is not entered in desk dictionaries like the CANADIAN OXFORD and the CONCISE OXFORD? (Cf. the Websters). It cannot be that the sneeze has a lesser frequency of occurrence in Britain than in America. (Just kidding!) Some of the questions that remain: Is body language nonvocal or nonverbal communication? Voluntary or involuntary? (The questions posed about the lady shown seated on Julius Fast's cover, it seems to me, have nothing to do with body language). Are interjections of the imitative kind part of the vocabulary of body language? If communication is essential to body language, does the sneeze communicate anything beyond the state of the environment or the condition of one's body? (Just thinking aloud). Comments (private or to the List) will be gratefully received. T.M.P. THOMAS M. PAIKEDAY, lexicographer since 1964 Latest work: The User's(R) Webster, A unique dictionary that shows idiomatic and typical usage ISBN 0-920865-03-8 ---------------------------------- Fred Shapiro wrote: > > On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Thomas Paikeday wrote: > > > I just checked the OED disk (1988) and it has neither "ah-choo" nor > > "achoo." "Ahem" is in, though, and occurs 18 times in the text; "humph" > > It is in the OED under the spelling "atishoo." > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 18 03:58:57 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 21:58:57 -0600 Subject: Slang in Court Message-ID: Last night, attempting to raise my IQ by channel-surfing, I came across "Power of Attorney" on the Fox channel (where else?). A lady was suing her erstwhile paramour for $143. He claimed she was only his "booty call" and consequently it wasn't a loan. For the court record, the lawyers asked for a definition of this technical term. He said a booty call was someone who comes over to your place just to have sex. She agreed to that definition and to that characterization of their activity. Both seemed to be OK with this booty call situation until (a) she said she'd like to change matters to a "relationship" and then (b) she caught him with a "hoochin mamma" the next night. Another request for a definition of a technical term -- "a woman who is dirty and don't care about theyself at all." There was an off-hand reference to the hoochin mamma preferring to give oral sex. The lady defined "relationship" as a situation in which each lover "don't go out wit nobody else." Now I've given away the ethnic identity, which the lawyers [one black, one white; hispanic judge] seemed to be celebrating by messin' around with AAVE. The guy never called the lady by name -- just referred to her as his booty call. In the deliberation, the white lawyer (representing the lady) turned the guy's words back on him and referred to each one of them being a boot. It takes two boots for a booty call to occur. (One of the regular lawyers on this courtroom show is Mr. Feiger, who represented Dr. Death in his non-suicide trials.) BTW, the I in the first line stands for "idiot." DMLance From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 13:07:21 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:07:21 +0000 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to the newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 13:08:55 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:08:55 +0000 Subject: desk rage Message-ID: From Carina Chocano's column in Salon today: For now, the new rage in white-collar wilding, according to psychotherapist and "rage expert" Deborah Cooper, is "desk rage" (read: murderous workplace rampages). Death by insane, gun-toting co-worker is now the second most common form of workplace expiration, and Cooper predicts that instances of this trendy new scourge will only increase from now until Valentine's Day, a period of time apparently chock-full of "trigger events" such as the presidential inauguration and the Super Bowl. Full article at: http://salon.com/people/feature/2001/01/18/rage/index.html M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Thu Jan 18 09:50:01 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 03:50:01 -0600 Subject: Keep Your Shirt On Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON > > I was looking for my "boxer" shorts. > From INSTITUTE NEWS (Underwear Institute), 15 May 1939, pg. 4, col. 1: > > "You will be cooler if you > KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON." > The idea is for the underwear manufacturers to distribute these buttons to retail knitted cotton underwear clerks throughout the country to be worn during Cotton Week. -------------------------------------------------------- Barry: 1939 sounds a little late for the origin of such a campaign by underwear manufacturers. "Keep your shirt on", for them, most likely was a reaction to the 1934 Frank Capra movie "It happened one night", starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The best-known bit in the film is usually called the "wall of Jericho" scene: Gable and Colbert go to bed separated by a sheet hanging upright between them. As he sets up the sheet, Gable calls it the wall of Jericho. That insubstantial barrier was somehow supposed to protect Colbert's innocence, or something. In the scene, Gable removes his shirt and -- (shock!) -- he is not wearing an undershirt! WOW!!! Immediately after the film's release, sales of undershirts plummeted all over the country. The film came a little late to have caused the Depression for the rest of the nation, but it sure was depressing for folks in the underwear trade. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 11:12:46 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 06:12:46 EST Subject: "is, is" Message-ID: In "The thing is, is it takes too much time," the second instance of "is" is the "main verb. The original structure probably is "[What] the [problem]/thing is, is [that] it takes too much time." Not only has "that" been deleted in the surface structure, but so has"what". P-A-T -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 18 12:09:05 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 06:09:05 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) Message-ID: Note the dates. Southern linguists will surely all be in Knoxville at that time -- at SECOL. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 18 12:11:45 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 06:11:45 -0600 Subject: MLK tidbit Message-ID: Sonja wrote: > > I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not > U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my I think he was accidentally born in Miami while his mother was visiting there, but you're right that he didn't grew up in the US. He grew up in the Bahamas. I've forgotten which island. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 18 09:26:20 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 04:26:20 -0500 Subject: Slang in Court Message-ID: DMLance wrote: (b) she caught him with a "hoochin mamma" the next night. Another request for a definition of a technical term -- "a woman who is dirty and don't care about theyself at all." hoochin' mamma.... An interesting formal and semantic variation of _hoochie mama_ (DC Vol. 11.3), defined as "a black woman, especially one who is flirtatious, enthusiastic, or who freely expresses her joy in African-American culture." Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 18 01:16:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:16:19 +0800 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) In-Reply-To: <200101181209.GAA21201@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 6:09 AM -0600 1/18/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: >Note the dates. Southern linguists will surely all be in Knoxville >at that time -- at SECOL. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) I asked a linguist friend at the University of Florida (i.e. a faculty member in Linguistics, as opposed to English), and apparently they knew nothing about this conference. Talk about your failure to communicate... larry From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 18 14:28:01 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:28:01 -0500 Subject: GBS 'yet' Message-ID: Lady Britomart [daughter of an earl] announcing the visit of her estranged husband to meet his children: "It is ten minutes to nine yet; and I have to prepare the girls. I asked Charles Lomax and Adolphus to dinner on purpose that they might be here. Andrew had better see them in case he should cherish any delusions as to their being capable of supporting their wives." Act I -- Major Barbara, written 1906 ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From N270053 at VM.SC.EDU Thu Jan 18 14:31:58 2001 From: N270053 at VM.SC.EDU (Michael Montgomery) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:31:58 EST Subject: whenever Message-ID: Dear ADS-Listers: I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ and dealing with sentences like the following that feature unconventional uses of the word: For a one-time occurrence in the past: Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas For an extended-period in the past: Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school as we did at home. (Tennessee) Has anyone else observed such usages? I am particularly interested to know of examples from outside the Midland, especially from the Lower South. Thanks for any help, Michael Montgomery Department of English University of South Carolina Columbia SC 29208 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 18 01:56:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:56:15 +0800 Subject: GBS 'yet' In-Reply-To: <3A66FD70.3E338263@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 9:28 AM -0500 1/18/01, David Bergdahl wrote: >Lady Britomart [daughter of an earl] announcing the visit of her >estranged husband to meet his children: "It is ten minutes to nine yet; >and I have to prepare the girls. I asked Charles Lomax and Adolphus to >dinner on purpose that they might be here. Andrew had better see them >in case he should cherish any delusions as to their being capable of >supporting their wives." Act I > >-- Major Barbara, written 1906 >____________________________________________________________________ this "yet" = 'already' rather than 'still' From jpparker at ISERV.NET Thu Jan 18 14:43:23 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane P Parker) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:43:23 -0500 Subject: God whacked? Message-ID: Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the atlantic. I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic inquiries? The faq did not address this. Jane P Parker Woodland MI From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 18 15:02:34 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:02:34 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <521792.3188812041@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to the >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. Tony Glaser From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 18 15:04:52 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:04:52 -0500 Subject: God whacked? In-Reply-To: <3A670103.ADB417F9@iserv.net> Message-ID: >Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline >Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. >I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the >atlantic. > >I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic >inquiries? The faq did not address this. > >Jane P Parker > >Woodland MI It's "gobsmacked" - a British phrase (gob = mouth), implying that you were as just as surprised as if someone had smacked you across the mouth. Tony Glaser From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 18 15:16:47 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:16:47 -0500 Subject: "is, is" Message-ID: Related to this is the nominative absolute construction , . . . the point being that this is not a finite clause. I hear fairly often as The point being is that this is now a finite clause. where "being" seems to take on a focus function. Herb >>> P2052 at AOL.COM 01/18/01 06:12AM >>> In "The thing is, is it takes too much time," the second instance of "is" is the "main verb. The original structure probably is "[What] the [problem]/thing is, is [that] it takes too much time." Not only has "that" been deleted in the surface structure, but so has"what". P-A-T From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 15:20:34 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:20:34 EST Subject: desk rage Message-ID: "Desk rage" was also in yesterday's WALL STREET JOURNAL. I didn't mention it because I don't know all the "rages" that David Barnhart has. It's a lot. It's been pointed out that "If you want to know, ask Joe" is not in Arthur Miller's play, ALL MY SONS. It is in the 1948 ALL MY SONS movie version with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster. Ronbinson player Joe Keller, who sold defective aircraft parts during the war. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 15:21:16 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:21:16 +0000 Subject: God whacked? In-Reply-To: <3A670103.ADB417F9@iserv.net> Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:43 am -0500 Jane P Parker wrote: > Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline > Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. > I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the > atlantic. Are you sure it wasn't 'gobsmacked'? If not, I'd guess this is an American reanalysis of 'gobsmacked'. The only 'god whacked' things I can find on the web are actually about God whacking somebody, or one in a sort of poem that refers to 'your god-whacked beliefs', which I take again to be actual reference to God. "Gobsmacked", as I think has been discussed here before, is a British expression meaning something like 'flattened by surprise'. It's creeping into American English more and more. > I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic > inquiries? The faq did not address this. No, it's all kinds of people/inquiries. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 15:26:46 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:26:46 +0000 Subject: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:02 am -0500 Tony Glaser wrote: >> I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >> came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >> whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to >> the newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. > > > Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) I go to the train station all the time here. What else should I call it here? >> Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >> translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. > > I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to > defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others > who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. That reasoning is backward: It was changed from _philosopher's_ in the UK to _sorcerer's_ in the US. (The UK version came first.) Instead, it would seem that the US publisher felt that 'philosopher' was too uninviting a word for a title. M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Thu Jan 18 16:11:00 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:11:00 -0500 Subject: [Fwd: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy,Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.]] Message-ID: An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Thomas Paikeday Subject: Re: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy,Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:48:18 -0500 Size: 1966 URL: From jpparker at ISERV.NET Thu Jan 18 16:28:48 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane P Parker) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:28:48 -0500 Subject: God whacked? Message-ID: Thanks for the replys on godwhacked/gobsmacked. I was listening to a radio show and could easily have misheard. I kinda liked godwhacked though. jane P Parker Lynne Murphy wrote: > --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:43 am -0500 Jane P Parker > wrote: > > > Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline > > Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. > > I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the > > atlantic. > > Are you sure it wasn't 'gobsmacked'? If not, I'd guess this is an American > reanalysis of 'gobsmacked'. The only 'god whacked' things I can find on > the web are actually about God whacking somebody, or one in a sort of poem > that refers to 'your god-whacked beliefs', which I take again to be actual > reference to God. > > "Gobsmacked", as I think has been discussed here before, is a British > expression meaning something like 'flattened by surprise'. It's creeping > into American English more and more. > > > I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic > > inquiries? The faq did not address this. > > No, it's all kinds of people/inquiries. > > Lynne > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Thu Jan 18 16:34:54 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:34:54 -0500 Subject: God whacked? Message-ID: There is also a rock band--heavy metal I think--with the title "godsmack," so this may play a part in gobsmacked > godsmacked. It could be that godsmack got its name from the word, not the other way around. Joe Lynne Murphy @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/18/2001 10:21:16 AM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: Re: God whacked? --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:43 am -0500 Jane P Parker wrote: > Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline > Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. > I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the > atlantic. Are you sure it wasn't 'gobsmacked'? If not, I'd guess this is an American reanalysis of 'gobsmacked'. The only 'god whacked' things I can find on the web are actually about God whacking somebody, or one in a sort of poem that refers to 'your god-whacked beliefs', which I take again to be actual reference to God. "Gobsmacked", as I think has been discussed here before, is a British expression meaning something like 'flattened by surprise'. It's creeping into American English more and more. > I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic > inquiries? The faq did not address this. No, it's all kinds of people/inquiries. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 18 17:33:50 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 12:33:50 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: arnold writes: >>>>> mark mandel: >I'm really getting to dislike dis. are you dissing us? <<<<< No, but I was wondering who would be the first to say that. -- Mark From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Thu Jan 18 18:42:26 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:42:26 -0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they promote Satanism. There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! Lina Barbara Hawkins Project Coordinator Berlitz GlobalNET Translation and Localization Services 525 Broadway Santa Monica, CA 90401 -----Original Message----- From: Tony Glaser [mailto:tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:03 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to the >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. Tony Glaser From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 18 19:43:17 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:43:17 -0600 Subject: whenever Message-ID: Michael Montgomery wrote: > Dear ADS-Listers: > > I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ > and dealing with sentences like the following that feature > unconventional uses of the word: > > For a one-time occurrence in the past: > > Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas Very widespread in both South and North Midland speech in Missouri. I don't have specific cites to forward but will be on the lookout. > For an extended-period in the past: > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > as we did at home. (Tennessee) Also widespread here. DMLance From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 18 19:47:16 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:47:16 -0800 Subject: whenever In-Reply-To: <3A67474C.800B8CDE@missouri.edu> Message-ID: Also widespread among my mother-in-law, who's from Big Creek, Arkansas. PR > Very widespread in both South and North Midland speech in Missouri. I don't have specific > cites to forward but will be on the lookout. > > > For an extended-period in the past: > > > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > > as we did at home. (Tennessee) > > Also widespread here. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 18 07:32:36 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:32:36 +0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <808C7231DCCBD2118A4700A0C9D8BD0202BF5CFD@SM_X> Message-ID: >I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a >philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > >Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest >saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they >promote Satanism. > >There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > There was a nice Op-Ed piece in the Times on the dumbing-down of the Potter books just after the new one came out--the idea was that publishers assume today's children are far less capable than their parents and grandparents at coping with the fact that not everyone uses exactly the same terms, and wondering if Dickens and other British authors would now be Americanized so our kids can pretend that the whole world is just one big U.S. But I don't think it was that Harry Potter is called a sorcerer rather than a philosopher but rather that the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was adapted to "...Sorcerer's Stone". Guess they figured American children are more familiar with the Sorcerer's Apprentice (from Disney's Fantasia) than with their Aristotle and Schopenhauer. I think the Satanism/censorship issue is a rather different one, even if ultimately related via xenophobia. larry From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Thu Jan 18 21:01:27 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:01:27 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: The Americanization of the Potter books is even stranger, given the fact that most American kids are raised on Disney Britophilia such as Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone (though recall the American-accented Arthur), The Great Mouse Detective (one of my favorites), and many others. If kids can get the Caterpillar and Mad Hatter, why not the philosopher's stone? But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. Joe Laurence Horn @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/18/2001 02:32:36 AM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins >I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a >philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > >Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest >saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they >promote Satanism. > >There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > There was a nice Op-Ed piece in the Times on the dumbing-down of the Potter books just after the new one came out--the idea was that publishers assume today's children are far less capable than their parents and grandparents at coping with the fact that not everyone uses exactly the same terms, and wondering if Dickens and other British authors would now be Americanized so our kids can pretend that the whole world is just one big U.S. But I don't think it was that Harry Potter is called a sorcerer rather than a philosopher but rather that the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was adapted to "...Sorcerer's Stone". Guess they figured American children are more familiar with the Sorcerer's Apprentice (from Disney's Fantasia) than with their Aristotle and Schopenhauer. I think the Satanism/censorship issue is a rather different one, even if ultimately related via xenophobia. larry From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 18 21:04:21 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:04:21 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: In the Harry Potter books, men and boys with magical ability, including Harry, are called wizards, while magical women and girls are called witches. Non-magical people are called muggles. The original book, published in the UK, was entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in reference to the mythical substance that alchemists believed would transmute base metals into gold. When the American publisher, Scholastic, brought the book out in the U.S., it changed the book's name to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone in the belief that American children would be confused by the apparent reference to philosophy. The controversy over the Harry Potter books is a bit bizarre, considering that the books are simple fantasies that have nothing to say about Christianity, pro or con. Religion plays little role in the books and the characters do not seem to be particularly observant, but the wizards and witches do celebrate Christmas. Other children's fantasies take non-Christian or even anti-Christian approaches (notably Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy), but those somehow attract little attention. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Your Name [SMTP:Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 1:42 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a > philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > > Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest > saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they > promote Satanism. > > There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > > > > Lina Barbara Hawkins > Project Coordinator > Berlitz GlobalNET > Translation and Localization Services > 525 Broadway > Santa Monica, CA 90401 > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tony Glaser [mailto:tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:03 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > > >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and > >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder > >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to > the > >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. > > > Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > > > > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US > >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. > > I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to > defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others > who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. > > Tony Glaser From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Thu Jan 18 21:10:56 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:10:56 -0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins (ON HARRY POTTER) Message-ID: The following article appeared in "Teachers in Focus" magazine. PARENTAL OBJECTIONS Parents in South Carolina, California, Nebraska, Georgia and Minnesota have complained to public school administrators about the Harry Potter series's inclusion of gore, evil and death. Among the concerns about the first installment, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Witchcraft The book's main characters engage in occultic and Wiccan-style exercises. Harry and his colleagues routinely practice sorcery, cast spells, fly on broomsticks and talk with spirits of the dead. Gruesome Imagery Author J.K. Rowling incorporates graphic depictions, including a professor whose leg is mangled by a three-headed dog; a mysterious figure who is caught drinking blood from a unicorn carcass; Lord Voldemort's horrific appearance as a ghastly face on the back of a professor's head; and Nearly Headless Nick-a ghost whose head is barely attached. Disrespect Harry frequently-and unapologetically-lies, breaks rules and disobeys authority figures, including the professors at Hogwarts. He specifically disregards a direct order from one of his teachers and takes off on a broom. Instead of being punished, Harry is honored for his riding skills. Vengeance Harry resents his cruel relatives and-rather than extending forgiveness-is eager for retribution. Upon returning to family members at the end of the school year, Harry is pleased at the opportunity to torment them. Family Friendly Libraries (FFL), which keeps parents informed about questionable content in popular books, has a detailed analysis of the Harry Potter series available on its Web site (www.fflibraries.org). In response, the American Library Association has denounced FFL's supposed efforts to "ban" Harry Potter. At presstime, the ALA reportedly had plans to laud Rowling at an upcoming meeting in San Antonio. For her part, Rowling doesn't believe her books should be off limits to anyone. "I don't think you should censor kids' reading material," she told reporters. "It's important just to let them go do what they need to do." John Andrew Murray is Headmaster at St. Timothy's-Hale in Raleigh, N.C. This article appeared in Teachers in Focus magazine. -----Original Message----- From: Baker, John [mailto:JBaker at STRADLEY.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 1:04 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins In the Harry Potter books, men and boys with magical ability, including Harry, are called wizards, while magical women and girls are called witches. Non-magical people are called muggles. The original book, published in the UK, was entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in reference to the mythical substance that alchemists believed would transmute base metals into gold. When the American publisher, Scholastic, brought the book out in the U.S., it changed the book's name to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone in the belief that American children would be confused by the apparent reference to philosophy. The controversy over the Harry Potter books is a bit bizarre, considering that the books are simple fantasies that have nothing to say about Christianity, pro or con. Religion plays little role in the books and the characters do not seem to be particularly observant, but the wizards and witches do celebrate Christmas. Other children's fantasies take non-Christian or even anti-Christian approaches (notably Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy), but those somehow attract little attention. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Your Name [SMTP:Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 1:42 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a > philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > > Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest > saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they > promote Satanism. > > There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > > > > Lina Barbara Hawkins > Project Coordinator > Berlitz GlobalNET > Translation and Localization Services > 525 Broadway > Santa Monica, CA 90401 > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tony Glaser [mailto:tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:03 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > > >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and > >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder > >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to > the > >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. > > > Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > > > > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US > >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. > > I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to > defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others > who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. > > Tony Glaser From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 21:38:12 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:38:12 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: In a message dated Wed, 17 Jan 2001 12:59:43 Eastern Standard Time, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM writes: >"James A. Landau" writes [irritating MIME artefacts >removed]: Hmmm. That makes it sound "as if" I have developed a technique for sending obscene gestures via e-mail. > I would not call this (and some other terms James cites) a proverb, >but rather a term, an expression, a piece of jargon, a specialized lexical item. You are correct. A proverb is a maxim, which Webster's 10th Collegiate defines as "a general truth, fundamental principle, or rule of conduct". What I supplied were "pieces of jargon" that I thought were particularly colorful or off-the-wall. Fred Shapiro asked for "catch-phrases" as well as for "proverbs". BTW, I find it difficult to imagine a proverb that does not have a verb in it. Fred Shapiro is going to have two problems (at least) with his collection. First, he is going to have to try to weed out ringers. There is a cottage industry of supplying lists of humorous sayings, with computers being a favorite target. However, the compilers of the lists feel themselves under no obligation to restrict themselves to already existing sayings but feel free to invent their own. Second, there is the problem of sayings, legitimate or otherwise, that actually arise from other fields and which are attributed pseudopigraphically to computer people. For instance, I have on my desk a 19-page listing of computer sayings. Some are thoughtful and some are amusing, but the list includes items from Erma Bombeck (who probably never wrote a computer program in her life) and Lord Acton (who definitely never did). (A photocopy of this listing will be sent to Fred Shapiro as soon as someone supplies me with his snail-mail address.) Let's consider the term "black box". On first glance it sounds facetious, perhaps something found in the "Dilbert" comic strip. However, it is a serious term with a specific meaning: a piece of hardware or software for which you that input x always gives output y but for which you have no knowledge of how the output is generated from the input. Example: "black box testing" in which you test a program by entering a variety of inputs and writing bug reports on any outputs that are wrong or suspicious or ambiguous or whatever, but in which you are not given the source code of the program so that you are restricted to analyzing the outputs. Obviously some computer person invented the term "black box"? Probably not. I first encountered this term in 1963 in a math class (the instructor gave us the continued-fraction algorithm for solving Diophantine equations and called it "a black box", and later spent the several lectures needed to explain how this less-than-obvious algorithm works). The following year in a chemistry class we were given actual sealed boxes (yes, they were painted black) with the assignment of trying to determine what was in the box without opening it. Actually the concept, though not the term "black box", goes back to that poem about the blind men trying to describe an elephant. Some more computer sayings: in a Government office I once worked in, it was popular to say "Close enough for government work." One day somebody's program failed because an "m" was typed for an "n". He said "close enough for government work" and was promptly told, "You don't work for the government. You work for the computer." The latest fashion in computer hardware is the RISC ("Reduced Instruction Set Computer", which actually was invented by Seymour Cray with the CDC 6600 of circa 1962). A satirical but quite accurate jibe at RISC is that the acronym stands for "Really Interesting Stuff is in the Compiler"). "spaghetti code"---badly written source code that is too complicated to follow easily. I have seen, but only once, the term "pretzel-bending" applied to the same. "number crunching"---a program that performs large amounts of numerical computation. Microsoft gets a lot of negative comments from inside the computer profession. There is a software package named "Microsoft Works." I once saw this name iincluded in a list of oxymorons. Or the following technically-accurate insult: "Windows 98 is a 32-bit enhancement of a 16-bit front end to an 8-bit operating system originally written for a 4-bit computer by a 2-bit company that cannot stand 1 bit of criticism." (The preceding statement contains the following pieces of technical jargon: "front end", "operating system", "n-bit", and "bit" meaning "binary digit".) If I may be permitted a limerick of my own invention: Professor Niklaus Wirth Said, "A programming language's worth Depends on its syntax And its handling of IN stacks And how well its procedures recurth." - Jim Landau -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM Thu Jan 18 21:49:01 2001 From: Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM (Wilcox, Rose (ZB5646)) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 14:49:01 -0700 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: <<"spaghetti code"---badly written source code that is too complicated to follow easily. I have seen, but only once, the term "pretzel-bending" applied to the same. >> Veering off topic into a personal story. I have been a technical writer for over 16 years. In the past, not only were project coded quickly, badly, and without regard to specifications, but often writers were put on the project at the very end to create manuals that would supposedly help the users navigate their way through the mess. Since the programs barely did what the users had specified, it was hoped that the creation of user documentation would make the application useful to the users long enough to be fixed in future versions, rather than completely discarded. During this time, M*A*S*H was still on TV, and supplied the term "meatball" surgery for operations performed quickly mainly to sew the patient together long enough to live until they were evacuated to a "real hospital". Therefore I created a slogan for my tech-writing team with a little sign that said, "Meatball documentation for Spaghetti Code". It didn't really catch on though. :-) Rosie Wilcox From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 22:16:55 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:16:55 EST Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: Everything's going badly today. Just another day, I guess. -------------------------------------------------------- QUICHE LORRAINE (continued) From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, November 1926, pg. 37, col. 1: Then came Quiche Lorraine. It is a sort of ham and eggs pie, prepared after one of M. Escoffier's 79 ways of preparing ham and (Col. 2--ed.) eggs. This pie was very popular with the doughboys while over in France. (See ADS-L archives for "quiche." It is also in Larousse from about 1895--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- BLT (continued) From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, July 1924, pg. 50, col. 2: _Hot Bacon Sandwich_ Cook the bacon until it is crisp. Butter slices of bread and spread lightly with salad dressing. Add a little chopped lettuce and chopped tomato which has been seasoned with salt and pepper. Add crisp bacon, put the remaining slice of bread on top, and then serve. The salad dressing and chopped lettuce may be omitted and the whole sandwich toasted in the oven. -------------------------------------------------------- CRAN-APPLE Ocean Spray has this registed from 1963. See: www.oceanspray.com/about/company-innovation.htm From THE STEWARD, November 1943, pg. 19, col. 2: CRANBERRY-APPLE RELISH (recipe follows--ed.) Pg. 20, col. 2: CRAN-APPLE SAUCE (recipe follows--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- KID-GLOVE ORANGES (TANGERINES) I don't have DARE handy here in SIBL. From THE STEWARD, December 1942, pg. 22, col. 1: Tangerines are coming up from the South and will continue to flow in until early Spring. Known in Florida as "kid glove" oranges, these tiny members of the citrus family make an acceptable substitute... From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 19 00:19:04 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 19:19:04 -0500 Subject: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <1024920.3188820406@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >--On Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:02 am -0500 Tony Glaser > wrote: > >>>I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >>>came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >>>whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to >>>the newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. >> >> >>Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > >I go to the train station all the time here. What else should I call it >here? I don't think I had ever heard of a "train station" until I came to the US. In the UK it would surely be called a "railway station" or just "station". > >>>Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >>>translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. >> >>I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to >>defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others >>who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. > >That reasoning is backward: It was changed from _philosopher's_ in the UK >to _sorcerer's_ in the US. (The UK version came first.) Instead, it would >seem that the US publisher felt that 'philosopher' was too uninviting a >word for a title. You're quite right. Was there another Harry Potter book which got its title changed perhaps? Tony Glaser From cabbagelooper at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 01:37:34 2001 From: cabbagelooper at YAHOO.COM (taylor j) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:37:34 -0800 Subject: whenever Message-ID: I've noticed this used by native Floridians. I overheard a Plant City (interior South Florida) born and bred woman use this several times. Two other Floridians (interior North Florida) that I queried ("Yesterday whenever I went to the store I bought eggs. How many times did I go to the store?") disagreed, but still that's two out of three. I'm from the coast, and am not aware of using it that way. JLT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From dmsnake at USIT.NET Fri Jan 19 02:23:47 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 21:23:47 -0500 Subject: whenever Message-ID: When I was in the Navy, I worked for a while (1971) with a guy from Bay Minette, Alabama (across the bay from Mobile), and I was very interested in and amused by the fact that the word "when" was not in his vocabulary. He always used "whenever" whenever I would have used "when." I have seldom heard "whenever" used this way in Virginia, and when(ever) I do it is in the extended-period sense. Snake Michael Montgomery wrote: > Dear ADS-Listers: > > I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ > and dealing with sentences like the following that feature > unconventional uses of the word: > > For a one-time occurrence in the past: > > Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas > > For an extended-period in the past: > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > as we did at home. (Tennessee) > > Has anyone else observed such usages? I am particularly interested > to know of examples from outside the Midland, especially from the > Lower South. > > Thanks for any help, > > Michael Montgomery > Department of English > University of South Carolina > Columbia SC 29208 From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 19 03:20:32 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 20:20:32 -0700 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > From: Tony Glaser > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 19:19:04 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins > Was there another Harry Potter book which got its > title changed perhaps? > > Tony Glaser The titles of the other Harry Potter books are the same in Britain and the U.S. Scenes for the film-in-progress of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone" which contain the expression we Americans were supposedly too ignorant to feel comfortable with, and which therefore had to be changed, are being shot both ways, and there will be two versions of the film. The Spanish translation of the book has the title "Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal" and the Italian book is "Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale." The French and German translations also use the expression 'philosopher's stone.' I bet the American publishers are sorry now that they doubted the American public's willingness to handle a children's book with the word 'philosopher' in it, but it's too late to change that. As for J.K. Rowling changing other vocabulary for the American versions, here is an excerpt from an interview with her: "...what's this about changing some of the words in the U.S. edition so American children could understand them? Rowling pretended to bang her head against the sofa in mock frustration. ``SO much has been made of that,'' she groans, noting that it was only done where words had been used that really meant something very different to Americans. Her American editor pointed out that the word ``jumper'' - British for pullover sweater - means a kind of dress in American. She had had no idea. ``He asked, 'Can we change it to sweater?' which is just as British.'' That was fine with Rowling." --- from "Success Stuns Harry Potter Author" by Audrey Woods (Associated Press, July 6, 2000) Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 03:49:18 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 22:49:18 EST Subject: David Shulman & Steve Brodie research Message-ID: David Shulman called me today. He's in Victory Memorial Hospital, (718) 567-1234, Room 564. Over a week ago, he had a hard fall on the ice. Because of the MLK, Jr. holiday, Shulman had a mixup receiving his heart medication, and he felt weak. Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn is just awful. Shulman (about 90 years old) was admitted to the emergency ward. He waited there on a stretcher for 20 hours! I spoke to him just now on the phone, and he seems much stronger than when he phoned my answering machine. He should be released soon to the St. Nicholas Home, (718) 238-8141. Don Foster of Vassar hasn't contacted him or me about (Washington Irving's?) CRIES OF NEW YORK. While going through the Western Union stuff, I found two pieces on Steve Brodie--one in DOTS AND DASHES and one in INSIDE WESTERN UNION. Both stated that Brodie--then a Western Union employee--did make the Brooklyn Bridge jump. Shulman's research didn't have Western Union. Shulman wants to put a plaque up on or near the Brooklyn Bridge for Steve Brodie. In two weeks, it will be the 100th anniversary of Brodie's death. Shulman appeared in a Douglas Martin piece in the NY Times and in a NY Post piece about this (see ADS-L archives for cites). I told him that I'd put up the money for any plaque. Shulman also wants the press and possibly the mayor to attend a dedication ceremony. He told me to call Douglas Martin at the Times, (212) 556-1950. I once told Douglas Martin that I was going before the City Council on "the Big Apple." I mailed him a ton of information. He never responded. I don't want to speak to this guy again. How can I tell David Shulman that this is New York City--it doesn't care about its history, nor does it care if you're alive or dead? From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 19 04:49:21 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 22:49:21 -0600 Subject: Bay Ridge [was Re: David Shulman & Steve Brodie research] Message-ID: Barry's posting of phone numbers in the Bay Ridge exchange, as well as the reference to St. Nicholas Home (Ovington Avenue, as I recall) come close to home. My prefix was 238 (it's BEachview, for those who care to know, or who can remember back that far). I lived in the older apartment building on Gelston Ave. between 88th and 90th (not the Lexington). I now live in the far northeast corner of Iowa, which is not that much change, actually. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 06:18:00 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:18:00 EST Subject: Boxers or Briefs? Message-ID: BOXERS OR BRIEFS? "Heh, heh." --Bill Clinton on MTV, 1992 10 January 1940, MEN'S WEAR, pg. 47, col. 1 photo caption: The shorts on left are made like fight trunks, pull-on with elastic waistband. Boxing glove print, available in dark blue, light blue and green, ties in with this theme. 5 March 1941, MEN'S WEAR, pg. 46, col. 1 ad: Also in Popular "BOXER" Model Wanted boxer style in tailored gabardine. Sanforized. Built-in athletic type elastic supporter and belt. Draw string adjustment. Zippered pocket. Colors: Beige, Pine, Maroon, Cream, Navy. Men's sizes 30-42. ROBERT BRUCE KNITWEAR COMPANY 418 Collom St., Philadelphia, Pa. 347 Fifth Ave., New York City . 742 Market St., San Francisco July 1943, APPAREL ARTS (ESQUIRE), pg. 91, col. 2: First in importance, however, in today's swimwear selling, are solid-colored woven trunks. These are most popular in the "boxer" model, so called because of the shirred waistline. They are made chiefly in worsted gabardine, lightweight worsteds, cotton gabardines, and poplins. (Col. 3 photo caption--ed.) THE BOXER MODEL scores a knockout in this season's round with men who like their trunks made with a generous cut. -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. FROM MEN'S APPAREL MAGAZINES 7 August 1940, MEN'S WEAR, pg. 61, col. 2 ad: SMOOTHIE WRINKLE RESISTANT TIES A. Schreter & Sons Co., Inc. 16 S. EUTAW STREET Baltimore, Maryland March 1942, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 79, col. 1: _sandwich stripes for frail bait_ This campus beanie is dressed plenty fancy considering it's one of those "My-God-It's-Monday" mornings... (My "Thank God It's Friday" postings which also mention "Monday" are not in the ADS-L archives and have been destroyed--ed.) June 1943, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 87, col. 2: _so you'd like to live in New York!_ WHERE, NO MATTER HOW MANY languages you know, you'd still have to learn a very special brand of English...Where pronunciations are switched, like in--_"Hello, Pheel, how do you (Col. 3--ed.) fill?"_...Where a _"bird"_ is a _"boid"_--yet _"oil"_ comes out _"erl"_...Where _"Whyncha faggetit?"_ can be translated, with some difficulty, to _"Why don't you forget it?"_ (Not fuggedaboutit, but close--ed.) August 1943, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 53, col. 3: IN ATLANTA, cafeterias are called _"tray shops"_--or were, the last time I was there...Traveling men call the Southern route to the Coast the _"jam belt"_--because most restaurants serve huge assortments of jam and jelly at all meals. September 1943, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 75, col. 2: _Making your "day"_ This type of merchandising has been a controversial subject in the men's trade for years. Most department stores advertise heaviest on the days when they feel they can get the most business. Store owners have felt they must make their "figures" for the day... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 06:39:36 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:39:36 EST Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) Message-ID: One recent article called director Guy Ritchie ("Mr. Madonna") a "mockney." This is a mock cockney. Ritchie's new film, SNATCH, supposedly has mockney dialect. Does OED have this in its "M" file? From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 19 08:06:52 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 02:06:52 -0600 Subject: Boxers or Briefs? Message-ID: I think Barry has pushed back the OED/M-W citation dates. Barry: what do the illustrations illustrate? Your topic line suggests you are uncertain. As we men all know, boxers are not briefs, and a bikini is a countably singular non-leg-enclosing form of briefs. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 19 08:56:38 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:56:38 +0000 Subject: Harry Potter WAS: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <808C7231DCCBD2118A4700A0C9D8BD0202BF5CFD@SM_X> Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:42 am -0800 Your Name wrote: > I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a > philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > > Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest > saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they > promote Satanism. No, Harry's not called a sorcerer or a philosopher, he's called a wizard. The name of the book is _Harry Potter and the {Philosopher's/Sorcerer's} Stone_. The philosopher's/sorcerer's stone is an alchemist's invention. No one in the book is called a philosopher, only witches and wizards. I'm reserving comment about the priest. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 19 09:02:28 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:02:28 +0000 Subject: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:19 pm -0500 Tony Glaser wrote: >> >> I go to the train station all the time here. What else should I call it >> here? > > I don't think I had ever heard of a "train station" until I came to > the US. In the UK it would surely be called a "railway station" or > just "station". Ah, 'railway station'--you're right. > > You're quite right. Was there another Harry Potter book which got its > title changed perhaps? No. The others are common to UK and US. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 19 09:13:08 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:13:08 +0000 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 8:20 pm -0700 Nancy Elliott wrote: > > "...what's this about changing some of the words in the U.S. edition so > American children could understand them? > Rowling pretended to bang her head against the sofa in mock frustration. > ``SO much has been made of that,'' she groans, noting that it was only > done where words had been used that really meant something very different > to Americans. > Her American editor pointed out that the word ``jumper'' - British for > pullover sweater - means a kind of dress in American. She had had no idea. > ``He asked, 'Can we change it to sweater?' which is just as British.'' > That was fine with Rowling." > > --- from "Success Stuns Harry Potter Author" by Audrey Woods > (Associated Press, July 6, 2000) Incidentally, like many other fantasy or scifi series, Harry Potter has spawned a fan literature--including the subgenre composed by Harry/Hermione 'shippers' (people who like to imagine Harry and Hermione in a romantic relationship). A friend pointed out one to me, which I read with some amusement because it was by an American trying to sound British. She used 'jumper' for 'sweater' and such, but thought that 'naff' meant 'cool' (when it means the opposite) and had men wearing vests over their shirts (instead of under them). (The ease with which one can make such errors--as made evident by my train/railway station slip yesterday-- is why I only accept editing jobs from British into American and not vice versa!) You can find some of these stories at: http://www.egroups.com/files/ParadigmOfUncertainty/ but you might need to sign up for egroups first. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Fri Jan 19 11:31:36 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 06:31:36 -0500 Subject: Drug terms Message-ID: The White House Drug Policy Office (now starring in the feature film 'Traffic) has a guide to 'Street Terms: Drugs and the Drug Trade' on their website: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/streetterms/Default.asp Unfortunately, it's not very useful, as they make no attempt to designate context. F'rinstance, while they define 'smack' simply as heroin, they also define 'Black Tar' and 'Bart Simpson' simply as heroin, without noting that those are specific subtypes of heroin. They also include the incredibly street-savvy 'crap', which they define as 'low quality heroin', and 'serial speedballing', which I can't believe was ever used outside either a medical/clinical or law enforcement environment. From tb0exc1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Fri Jan 19 13:37:00 2001 From: tb0exc1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (callary ed) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 07:37:00 -0600 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: u.s. news and world report, jan 8 01, citing john simpson of the oed, says mockney dates from 1989 and refers to 'educated middle-classers ditching posh accents for a working-class dialect. pop culture stars speak mockney "to acquire instant street cred, to appear blokey,"' (quoting simpson.' examples given are dropping of initial h, substituting v for th (voiced) medially, using guv'nor for boss and the missus for wife. *********************************************************************** Edward Callary, Editor Phone: 815-753-6627 NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics Fax: 815-753-0606 English Department email: ecallary at niu.edu Northern Illinois University DeKalb, Il 60115-2863 *********************************************************************** Visit the American Name Society Homepage: http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/ans/ From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 19 00:45:30 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:45:30 +0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >The Americanization of the Potter books is even stranger, given the fact >that most American kids are raised on Disney Britophilia such as Peter Pan, >Alice in Wonderland, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone >(though recall the American-accented Arthur), The Great Mouse Detective >(one of my favorites), and many others. If kids can get the Caterpillar >and Mad Hatter, why not the philosopher's stone? > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. > >Joe > Luckily for some of those parents, the Beatles used "stupid git" in at least one of their songs, so it's not totally unknown to us. Larry From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Fri Jan 19 13:48:02 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:48:02 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: The Beatles song is "I'm So Tired" on the White Album. John Lennon says "get," referring to Sir Walter Raleigh, who has gotten him addicted to cigarettes. Joe Laurence Horn @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/18/2001 07:45:30 PM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins >The Americanization of the Potter books is even stranger, given the fact >that most American kids are raised on Disney Britophilia such as Peter Pan, >Alice in Wonderland, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone >(though recall the American-accented Arthur), The Great Mouse Detective >(one of my favorites), and many others. If kids can get the Caterpillar >and Mad Hatter, why not the philosopher's stone? > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. > >Joe > Luckily for some of those parents, the Beatles used "stupid git" in at least one of their songs, so it's not totally unknown to us. Larry From lvonschn at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Fri Jan 19 17:08:13 2001 From: lvonschn at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Luanne von Schneidemesser) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:08:13 -0600 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: Could someone help with this question? Thanks. Luanne > >>I would like to know when the abbreviation "inc." for incorporated began >>being pronounced as "ink" as opposed to "incorporated". >> > From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 19 17:03:15 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:03:15 -0500 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Good cite. I have no citation for this much earlier demonstration of the phenomenon (although I'm sure that some industrious student/scholar could find one), but Mick Jagger has been affecting a mock street accent for so long, I'm sure that its become ingrained into his very fiber. Although he speaks with a rougher English accent, he was very much upper middle class and was a student at the London School of Economics. (I have no idea whether he graduated.) I think I've got the name of the school correct, and I believe that Brian Jones might have been a schoolmate of his, as well. Now, I'm not absolutely sure that the accent is totally fake, but I recall that I've read that Mick used it to give himself some credibility among the rabid R&B crowds in London in the early 1960s. Many of the other popular bands of the era were comprised of actual working class fellows who didn't have to put on an accent. > From: callary ed > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 07:37:00 -0600 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Mockney (mock cockney) > > u.s. news and world report, jan 8 01, citing john simpson of the oed, says > mockney dates from 1989 and refers to 'educated middle-classers ditching > posh accents for a working-class dialect. pop culture stars speak mockney > "to acquire instant street cred, to appear blokey,"' (quoting simpson.' > examples given are dropping of initial h, substituting v for th (voiced) > medially, using guv'nor for boss and the missus for wife. From pzinn at GRANTSMANAGEMENT.COM Fri Jan 19 16:58:18 2001 From: pzinn at GRANTSMANAGEMENT.COM (Prentice Zinn) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:58:18 -0500 Subject: Funding Available for Research and Social Action Projects Message-ID: Funding Available for Research and Social Action Projects The Sociological Initiatives Foundation provides grants of $5,000 to $15,000 to support research and social action projects. Areas of interest include but are not limited to social welfare, human rights, literacy, language learning and use, dialect use and curricular issues in teaching second languages and non-native languages. The Foundation is also interested in supporting research by sociologists and linguists whose work may provide practical documentation of initiatives that may be useful to communities. Guidelines for the September 2001 application deadline are available at http://www.grantsmanagement.com/sifguide.html. For more information, contact Prentice Zinn at pzinn at grantsmanagement.com or 617-426-7172. From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 19 17:22:25 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:22:25 -0500 Subject: A question for a linguist Message-ID: The earliest example with which I am familiar is in W.H. Auden's poem, The Unknown Citizen, which I believe is from March 1939: >>Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.<< I believe that the current tendency to pronounce "inc." as "ink" derives from the need of lawyers (like myself) to be clear as to whether they mean "incorporated" in the full or the abbreviated form. I don't know of any good reason to say "ink" unless you are in law or a related field, and I usually heard it in the full form until I began practising in 1985. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Luanne von Schneidemesser [SMTP:lvonschn at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU] > Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 12:08 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist > > Could someone help with this question? > > Thanks. > > Luanne > > > > >>I would like to know when the abbreviation "inc." for incorporated began > >>being pronounced as "ink" as opposed to "incorporated". > >> > > From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Fri Jan 19 17:38:36 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:38:36 -0500 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:16:55 EST Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > KID-GLOVE ORANGES (TANGERINES) > > I don't have DARE handy here in SIBL. > From THE STEWARD, December 1942, pg. 22, col. 1: > > Tangerines are coming up from the South and will continue to flow > in until early Spring. Known in Florida as "kid glove" oranges, > these tiny members of the citrus family make an acceptable > substitute... As a garden writer, this is an area where I can perhaps add to the confusion. Growing up in the 50s in Pennsylvania, I remember tangerines as a Christmas treat. They were like small oranges, but with a very loose skin. This year my wife came home with a demi case of 'Clementines' from Spain which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin of an orange. I had never heard of Clementines. Sturdevant's Edible Plants of the World (1909) lists them under Citrus aurantium, using the names tangerine and Mandarin as synonymous It cites Gallesio (1811) and Loudon (1860), the latter specifically mentioning the loose rind. (If you want full citations, let me know privately) Bailey's _Manual of Cultivated Plants_(1924 rev 1949) lists Citrus reticulata as either Mandarin or Tangerine. Hortus III agrees and lists a cultivar 'Clementine'. The HP book on Citrus pictures a dozen varieties of "Mandarin", one of which is called 'Clementine'. It goes on to say, "Some mandarins are called tangerines. The word tangerine seems to have developed with 'Dancy' which has a more brightly colored, ornage-red peel than most mandarins. Since the introduction of 'Dancy', the varieties with a deeper red coloration have been labeled tangerines, although they are all technically mandarins." It notes that 'Dancy' is the traditional Christmas tangerine and came to Florida from Morocco. Clear? D From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 17:58:13 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:58:13 -0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: --- Joe Pickett wrote: ... > > But I think the Americanization of the Potter books > actually was fairly > limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses > the word "git" for > schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in > most American dictionaries > and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of > their parents as well. Not if they watch Red Dwarf! ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 18:21:18 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:21:18 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: --- Duane Campbell wrote: ... > Growing up in the 50s in Pennsylvania, I remember > tangerines as a > Christmas treat. They were like small oranges, but > with a very loose > skin. > > This year my wife came home with a demi case of > 'Clementines' from Spain > which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin > of an orange. I had > never heard of Clementines. > In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose skin, seedless, and delicious. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Fri Jan 19 18:25:37 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:25:37 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: Sweet tangerines are called "Clementines" in GREECE too! But the word is only used by grocers and the upper middle class of Athens. Lina Barbara Hawkins Project Coordinator BERLITZ GlobalNET 525 Broadway Santa Monica, CA 90401 310.260.7138 tel 310.576.6086 fax -----Original Message----- From: James Smith [mailto:jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM] Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 10:21 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Quiche Lorraine, etc. --- Duane Campbell wrote: ... > Growing up in the 50s in Pennsylvania, I remember > tangerines as a > Christmas treat. They were like small oranges, but > with a very loose > skin. > > This year my wife came home with a demi case of > 'Clementines' from Spain > which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin > of an orange. I had > never heard of Clementines. > In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose skin, seedless, and delicious. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From dumasb at UTK.EDU Fri Jan 19 18:32:23 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:32:23 -0500 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: It was said: >In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >skin, seedless, and delicious. In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I have ever eaten. From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 19 18:57:29 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:57:29 -0500 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) Message-ID: Is Mockney a folk term for Estuary English like Ebonics for AAVE? -- db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Fri Jan 19 20:28:27 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:28:27 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: It was said: >In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >skin, seedless, and delicious. In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I have ever eaten. As a grower of both mandarins and tangerines in the home garden I can tell you there are major differences in the varieties. I grow 3: mandarins that are small with seeds and loose, thin rind; tangerines that are like large oranges with a thin, very loose skin and seedless; tangerines with thick puffy loose skin and occasional seeds. They all ripen in December in Southern CA. In our markets are two entirely different fruits, "blood tangerines" (bigger than blood oranges) and "tangerines" that are large, thin smooth skinned, and seedless but a much darker orange color. Sharyn storknurse From pulliam at IIT.EDU Fri Jan 19 21:42:27 2001 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 15:42:27 -0600 Subject: "come with" going national? Message-ID: I heard "Can I come with?" today on a radio ad for Marriot Hotels--the ad seemed to me like it might have been for national distribution, but I can't be sure. I heard it on WGN radio, Chicago. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Jan 19 21:49:18 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:49:18 -0800 Subject: "come with" going national? Message-ID: there was also an occurrence on Gilmore Girls last night - from the (main) character Lorelai. arnold From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Fri Jan 19 22:37:27 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 16:37:27 -0600 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books Message-ID: Thanks to Nancy Elliott for citing the following: > As for J.K. Rowling changing other vocabulary for the American versions, > here is an excerpt from an interview with her: > > "...what's this about changing some of the words in the U.S. edition so > American children could understand them? > Rowling pretended to bang her head against the sofa in mock frustration. > ``SO much has been made of that,'' she groans, noting that it was only done > where words had been used that really meant something very different to > Americans. > Her American editor pointed out that the word ``jumper'' - British for > pullover sweater - means a kind of dress in American. She had had no idea. > ``He asked, 'Can we change it to sweater?' which is just as British.'' That > was fine with Rowling." > > --- from "Success Stuns Harry Potter Author" by Audrey Woods > (Associated Press, July 6, 2000) Two comments: 1) Pardon me for taking an even dimmer view than those already expressed in this thread. I think the change of "philosopher's stone" to "sorceror's stone" in the Harry Potter title could only have happened because of mass historical ignorance throughout the publisher's editorial offices. The historical importance of the Philosopher's Stone is in no way weakened by the fact that this object of great power was entirely mythical. (It's a delightful irony that the mythical Dr. Faustus was said to be one of those who searched for the mythical Philosopher's Stone.) Eventually, this Holy Grail of the medieval alchemists played a part in the development of chemistry as a modern science. Calling THE Philosopher's Stone some kind of "sorceror's stone" isn't really an instance of the dumbing down of books intended for kids in the U.S. It's a demonstration that dumbing down has already succeeded in corrupting the publishing business in this country. 2) ADS-L has already considered the trans-Atlantic split in the meanings of the word "jumper". When we did, I commented on the fact that my dedicated use of cis-Atlantic, rather than trans- Atlantic, English blinded me to the origins of an obvious loan word in Guatemalan Spanish. "Chumpa" is Guatemalan Spanish for an item of clothing much like what might be called a "baseball jacket" in the U.S. I (mis-)guessed that the word must have come from one of the 23 or so Mayan languages still spoken in Guatemala. One of my students (an English-speaking South African who spent several years in England), on hearing me identify a garment made of a distinctively Guatemalan fabric as a "chumpa", immediately said "Oh, a jumper". When I checked with some knowledgeable Guatemalans, they confirmed my student's impression. Chumpa is a simple loan from British English. I doubt that any native speaker of U.S. English with no experience of the language of our trans-Atlantic cousins would ever have made that connection. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: Being an anthropologist heightens my awareness of casual ethnocentrisms in ordinary speech. My use of trans- and cis- in reference to that big pond to our east doesn't really fall into that class. After all, we're connected through the AMERICAN Dialect Society. (I eschew comment on the ethnocentrism of that word "American".) From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 19 22:15:38 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:15:38 -0500 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > u.s. news and world report, jan 8 01, citing john simpson of the oed, says > > mockney dates from 1989 and refers to 'educated middle-classers ditching > > posh accents for a working-class dialect. pop culture stars speak mockney > > "to acquire instant street cred, to appear blokey,"' (quoting simpson.' > > examples given are dropping of initial h, substituting v for th (voiced) > > medially, using guv'nor for boss and the missus for wife. Interestingly enough a piece in this week's British Medical Journal http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7279/181/a makes exactly the same observations - and it is not just pop culture icons needing street cred, but politicians and doctors too: "As every television presenter knows, credibility in the new millennium means having an accent. This varies with the target audience. For the young, Essex is the linguistic place to be. The middle aged prefer Ireland, Wales, or Barnsley. Traditional BBC English is aimed at the over 70s. The public is being conditioned to mistrust upper class speech, not just in Britain, where it is mocked, but worldwide. The archetypal villain in a Hollywood movie sounds like George Sanders. The baddie in The Lion King was suavely voiced by Jeremy Irons. Bob the builder, by contrast, is the laddish Neil Morrissey. Our politicians understand this. The health secretary keeps his speech just this side of Paul Gascoigne and even the prime minister affects vaguely regional consonants. Imagine how well the Social Democrats might have done if Lord Jenkins had remained a boyo from the valleys and Lord Owen had retained his Devon burr. Medicine has always been a way for clever people of humble origins to better themselves, and one of the first things we did was to learn to talk proper. Sadly, we have overdone it. Nowadays the popular stereotype of the hospital consultant is someone who talks like a 1950s government information film. We need to rethink our vocal image. This includes the Scots, I'm afraid. People are wising up to the fact that Educated Scottish is the equivalent of Oxford English. Edinburgh graduates are starting to pretend they come from Glasgow. They sit up and take notice whenever Sir Alex Ferguson gives a soundbite. There are limits, of course. The Queen may have famously toned down her cut glass accent over a lifetime of Christmas broadcasts but she has not yet become an eastender. The medical profession, to regain the top spot in public esteem, needs to relocate from Harley Street but no further than the North Circular Road. Our leaders should start practising their glottal stops before their next meeting with those influential government advisers. And when they talk to the media, the aim should be to sound fractionally more downmarket than the interviewer. What about the rest of us, and our patients? No worries, mate. According to all the evidence, patients are far too busy reading our body language to care about our vowels." From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 19 22:48:43 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 14:48:43 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. In-Reply-To: <3A718952@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: >It was said: > >>In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >>skin, seedless, and delicious. > >In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had >seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I >have ever eaten. In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et al.? Rima From stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 23:23:21 2001 From: stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM (Stephen Roti) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 15:23:21 -0800 Subject: Snye (Definition + Citations) Message-ID: Still concerning "snye": Whoever is interested can read the following definition of the word, which is offered by the 1998 Canadian Oxford Dictionary (ed., Katherine Barber; Oxford University Press). According to the COD, "sny" is a regional Canadianism that is prevalently heard or seen in the eastern part of Ontario (apparently, not in the Maritime provinces): snye = n. 1 (Eastern Ontario) a side channel, especially one that bypasses a falls or rapids and rejoins the main river downstream, creating an island. 2 a narrow or meandering side channel, especially one that comes to a dead end. 2 b such a channel used by bush pilots for landing aircraft. [Canadian French chenail, French 'chenal' (channel)] FWIW, I also made a little search in my lexical Canadian corpus, and I have come up with a couple of citations [here in CAPITALS]. They are both taken from newspaper articles published in 1997 in the Ottawa Citizen, the major daily circulating in the country's capital region. Here they are: TITLE: Discover history, natural wonder BY: Katharine Fletcher SOURCE: The Ottawa Citizen, October 18, 1997, p. B8 "(...) And further west on Highway 148, there's a turnoff to the Coulonge Chutes -- a spectacular natural phenomenon. The falls drop 48 metres to a narrow, 750-metre rock-walled canyon. A Scottish entrepreneur, Mr. Bryson was 22 when he ventured to the Pontiac in 1835. He obtained the timber rights to the area and, by 1843, was operating the first sawmill at the chutes. By 1854, he and his wife, Robina Cobb, had started construction on an imposing neo-classic post-and-beam home that overlooks the covered bridge. The clapboard facade hides the insulation of lime and sand that fills the walls. (...) The third stone mansion is the Rabb House, built for Mr. Bryson's daughter at 224 Rue Principale. It overlooks the SNYE (backwater arm) of the Coulonge River and, in 1938, became the home of Dr. Rabb and family. (...)" TITLE: Victorian Glory: Guests journey through time and elegance BY: Collette Blain SOURCE: The Ottawa Citizen, July 12, 1997, p. J1 "(...) We lingered a long time in the lounge, until our appetites lured us to the dining room. Morgan showed us to a table by the window that offered an excellent front lawn view of the white pines and St.Andrew's Presbyterian. Next to it, there is a path that leads to a dock on the "SNYE'', an inlet of the Ottawa River, more like a canal or "chenail'' in French. (...)" * Some ADS listers previously thus wrote or commented on "snye": "'Snye' or 'sny' is a Canadianism meaning a side channel of a stream (Gage Canadian Dict., 1983). Etym: "From Canadian French chenail; cf French chenal channel" I don't have my Dict of Canadianisms (1967) on hand so can't check the dates or cites, but I seem to associate it with the Maritimes, for some reason (?)" ~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~ Sorry it's taken me so long to track down this citation, for what it's worth. "Sni, Sny French chenal, appearing in American French as chenail, as a generic for a natural, narrow passageway of water, became Sny in American usage, and appears as a specific in a few names, chiefly in Mo. Sniabar Creek Mo.; either from chenail-a-barre, 'sny with a bar (blockage),' or from chenail-a-Hubert (Hebert) from the name of a local French family." George R. Stewart, American Place-Names (1970) *~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~ "Earlier I said that the roadmaps had the "Sny" on the Illinois side of the Mississippi opposite Hannible MO or just below. I must have misremembered. It's not on the Rand McNally roadmap. It IS on the DeLorme "Illinois Atlas and Gazeteer" maps 57 & 66 (2nd ed. 1996), but it is not a bayou. It looks like a creek that runs parallel to the big river, meandering through the bottoms between the river and the bluffs, in both Pike and Calhoun counties. Victoria's and other notes indicate it is likely a voyageur place name, since it seems to be Canadian." ~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~ (Dr.) Stephen Roti Lexical researcher __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Fri Jan 19 23:53:00 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:53:00 -0600 Subject: "come with" going national? Message-ID: Greg Pulliam wrote: > > I heard "Can I come with?" today on a radio ad for Marriot > Hotels--the ad seemed to me like it might have been for national > distribution, but I can't be sure. I heard it on WGN radio, Chicago. WGN has long been a "clear channel" station. No other radio station can operate legally on its frequency, indicated as 720 on most radio dials. When conditions are right, WGN can be heard clearly in most parts of the 48 contiguous states -- and, in my experience, in Mexico and Central America as well. What they broadcast is intended for national consumption, and needs no redistribution. WGN's companion station, WGN-TV, is a "super station" distributed by satellite and frequently recirculated by local cable TV services everywhere. (WGN-TV actually reaches more of the cable-TV audience in Central America than CNN, despite CNN's transmissions in Spanish.) WGN-TV's impact thus parallels the reach of WGN radio. Despite their wide national and international audiences, the WGN stations persist in acting as if Chicago is the center of the world. This maintains the traditions of their original owner, Col. Robert McCormick, long the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. (WGN was an acronym for "World's Greatest Newspaper", which is what Col. McCormick called the paper everybody else called "the Trib".) I cite the narrow parochialism of both the WGN stations and the Chicago Tribune as a caution against taking their practices as reflecting any nation-wide tendencies. "Come with" is a well-established item in several major varieties of Chicago English. Editors well inured to the practices of the Trib or the WGN stations would be inclined to accept that usage without change, if indeed they noticed anything unusual in the phrase. Col. McCormick's general theory was that God intended the whole universe to do things the way they are done in Chicago. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: In furtherance of Barry's current concern with food and drink, it's true that Chicago's taste clearly reflects what God would have intended if he'd thought about two major culinary items. In their separate genres, the Chicago-style hot dog and Chicago-style pizza are as close as human cookery can come to divine perfection. Only a misguided soul given to the ultimate barbarism of putting ketchup on a hot dog would disagree. (That kind of ignoramus would probably spell it "catsup", or even "catchup", anyhow.) From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Sat Jan 20 00:08:40 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 19:08:40 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>It was said: >> >>>In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >>>skin, seedless, and delicious. >> >>In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had >>seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I >>have ever eaten. > >In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I >read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in >Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the >States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the >same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are >different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et >al.? > >Rima In some parts of the English-speaking Caribbean certain bitter oranges are called "swivel sweets" - "swivel" being a corruption of "Seville". There are also some extremely thick-skinned grapefruit which are known as "shaddocks" - I have heard it said that this is from the name of the sea captain who first brought them to the Caribbean, a Captain Shattuck, who is supposedly also the man behind the name of Shattuck Street in Boston. I'd be interested if anyone has knowledge of that. Tony Glaser From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Sat Jan 20 03:36:47 2001 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 21:36:47 -0600 Subject: whenever In-Reply-To: <200101181432.JAA30025@pasta.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: My brother-in-law, age about 60, who has lived all his life in central Saskatchewan, Canada uses this, at least for the "extended-period" meaning. I'm not sure about the "one-time occurrence" use. I remember noticing his usage quite a few years ago, because it surprised me; I hadn't known it before as typical in Saskatchewan. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada On January 18, 2001, 8:32 a.m., Michael Montgomery wrote: > Dear ADS-Listers: > > I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ > and dealing with sentences like the following that feature > unconventional uses of the word: > > For a one-time occurrence in the past: > > Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas > > For an extended-period in the past: > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > as we did at home. (Tennessee) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 04:17:02 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 23:17:02 EST Subject: Minute Steak; Angel Tip Message-ID: MINUTE STEAK OED cites Webster (1934). See ADS-L archives. From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, "Last Dinner in Delmonico's," September 1925, pg. 50, col. 1: It was in Delmonico's, according to E. H. Nies, that chicken and lobster salad first made their appearance, that chicken a la King and the lobster Newburg were invented, that French fried potatoes, Russian dressing and terrapin were first served in New York, and the minute steak was invented by Edwin Gould. (This is not all correct--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- ANGEL TIP Drinks such as "Angel's Tip" or "Angel's Tit" were popular in the 1920s. From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, October 1923, pg. 48, col. 1: _Angel Tip_ Sweet grape-juice; crushed ice; Sweetened whipped cream; mint. Fill tall glasses such as are used for ice-tea one-third full of crushed ice. Pour over this the grape-juice till the glasses are two-thirds full. The ice is usually sufficient to dilute it. Pile on each serving a spoonful of the cream, and top it with a sprig of mint. Serve with straws or long-handled spoons. If desired, mint-leaves may be crushed with the ice. Homemade grape-juice is preferable for this drink, but the commercial varieties may be used successfully if sugar is added. John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK has only, on pg. 6: _angel's tit._ Also, "King Alphonse." A cocktail made by floating heavy cream on creme de cacao and topping it with a cherry (1984). -------------------------------------------------------- MANHATTAN CLAM CHOWDER (continued) FWIW, from THE STEWARD, July 1943, pg. 8, col. 1: Manhattan clam chowder, when first devised, (Col. 2--ed.) was known as Coney Island chowder. As one restaurateur explained, "We call it Manhattan now, because that sounds a little better." -------------------------------------------------------- CHADLESS (continued) FWIW, from TELEPRINTER SWITCHING (D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., Princeton, NJ, 1960) by Ehrhard A. Rossberg and Helmut E. Korta, pg. 220: Fig. 150 depicts the typing reperforator of the American Teletype Corporation. This machine receives messages in the form of so-called chadless tapes, where the perforations are not punched out completely but rather remain linked to the tape in the form of "scales". This is due to the fact that the punches merely apply a crescent-shaped cut to the tape. From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Sat Jan 20 04:51:27 2001 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:51:27 -0600 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <502460.3188144585@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Merriam-Webster has a form letter to reply to -gry queries. If all the letters received over the years have been kept, there must be a separate basement full of them, somewhere. The letters (and now e-mails as well, of course) often come in batches, apparently the result of teachers' or professors' misguided attempts to come up with linguistic assignments for students. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Lynne Murphy > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 1:43 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: query > > > --On Wednesday, January 10, 2001 2:20 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan > wrote: > > > A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry > > are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone > remind me > > what the third one is? > > There is no third one. Here's Jesse S's note from the archives. I must > say, I'm as sick of the query as he was then! Hard to believe how often > this goes around. > > Lynne > > > Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 10:38:50 -0400 > From: Jesse T Sheidlower jester at PANIX.COM > Subject: Re: Words that end in GRY > > > In the past few weeks I've seen this unanswered puzzler pop > up in three > different circles. So excuse me while I introduce it to this circle > which > might be able to answer it. > > The English language has (at least) three words that end in GRY. > "Angry" and > "hungry" are two of them. What is the third, which purportedly is an > everyday > word? > > AAAAaaaaargh! > > Does _every corner_ of the Internet have to be saturated with this? > > The answer to the riddle in the form you heard it (as opposed to the > form you're quoting) is either "what" or "three." It's a shaggy-dog > riddle. ("There are three words..." the question begins, and when the > question asks "what is the third word?" it's really asking "what is > the third word of the riddle?" Alternately, the question is asked > earlier in the riddle, and then the last line is "'What' is the > word.", declaratively--this version only works when heard orally.) > > As for words that end in -gry, there are a whole bunch, none of them > common, including puggry, maugry, iggry, aggry, gry, and others, but > the best is _nugry,_ coined on rec.games.puzzles to mean 'the sort of > person who will ask the words ending in -gry question without > checking to see if five billion people have already asked it here > before'. > > JTS > > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > From rkm at SLIP.NET Sat Jan 20 06:11:19 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:11:19 -0800 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >There are also some extremely thick-skinned grapefruit which are >known as "shaddocks" - I have heard it said that this is from the >name of the sea captain who first brought them to the Caribbean, a >Captain Shattuck, who is supposedly also the man behind the name of >Shattuck Street in Boston. I'd be interested if anyone has knowledge >of that. And Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley? Rima From rkm at SLIP.NET Sat Jan 20 06:11:19 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:11:19 -0800 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question Message-ID: Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy situation. However, the articles have said that the California couple named the 6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? Rima From pulliam at IIT.EDU Sat Jan 20 06:23:44 2001 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 00:23:44 -0600 Subject: "come with" going national? In-Reply-To: <3A68D35C.6D64F2D7@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: When I said it seemed like the ad might have been meant for national distribution, I meant that the copy and production values led me to this speculation. It did not seem like a spot produced just for local broadcast. I'm hoping that other ads-l-ers will be alert to their local radio outlets for this Marriot ad. Still, Mike's point is well-taken. He may be right. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 20 14:28:01 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 09:28:01 -0500 Subject: "Wads" = "chads"? Message-ID: US Patent # 732,279 (1903) (H. L. Davis: "Electrically-controlled Perforating-machine") deals with the punching of paper for use in automatic musical instruments -- like player-piano rolls, I guess. In the specifications, I find <> Clearly the word "wads" is used here exactly as the word "chads" is employed in a number of much later patents and other documents. The OED shows under "wad" a definition including "a disk of felt or cardboard", with a citation from 1881 reading "Wads are punched out of sheets of various materials ...." This is in reference to wadding for firearms. How could "wad" = "punched-out flat fragment" be related to "chad" = "punched-out flat fragment"? One possibility is that "wad" was conflated with "chaff" (I don't find this entirely natural/convincing but I await further evidence). Early paper punches produced troublesome waste which included chad(s) (i.e., disks or chips) and also finer material (fibers, "paper dust"), and the composite residue may have needed a name -- perhaps "chad(s)" = "chaff and wads", the union of the countable and uncountable elements perhaps leading to the countable/uncountable ambiguity of "chad(s)"? Then again, perhaps it's just a coincidence .... Note that from its earliest citations (so far), "chad" has referred to a punched-out fragment AS RESIDUE -- like "chaff" -- and not to the punched-out disk simply as a disk. The tape in which the disks are not fully detached is referred to as "chadless" -- i.e., without residue/debris -- rather than as "retained-chad", "attached-chad", etc. Although the disk (later called a "hanging chad") of course was present in early "chadless" tapes (and in fact caused problems in rolling and storing these tapes!), it didn't qualify as "chad"! The 1944 citation can be read this way: the chad is said to be ELIMINATED, not simply retained on the tape. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 05:11:35 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 13:11:35 +0800 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >situation. > >However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? > >Rima Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 06:04:43 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 14:04:43 +0800 Subject: cross-posting Message-ID: I almost hate to do this on an otherwise relaxing weekend, but (from Linguist List)... Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:09:04 EST From: Vocabula at aol.com Subject: New Article: Grammar and Disputation Hello The January issue of "The Vocabula Review" contains an article that might be of interest to some of you: "Grammar and Disputation -- A Summary of Methods and Arguments from Ten Grammatical Errors in the American Heritage Dictionary" Here's the link if you want to take a look: http://www.vocabula.com/VRJan01Corey.htm Regards, Robert Hartwell Fiske The Vocabula Review www.vocabula.com/vocabulareview.htm =================== -larry (I expect Geoff Nunberg, the primary trashee, has already seen this via Linguist, but I suppose Steve K. and Joe P. should see what (else) they're up against.) From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Sat Jan 20 19:30:46 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 14:30:46 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: from "Joe Pickett" at Jan 18, 2001 04:01:27 PM Message-ID: Joe Pickett wrote: > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. I think "git" might be catching on, which is good because I like it. The Americanization has been more limited as the series has progressed. By the fourth boothey changed pretty much only thehe spelling and left a lot of British words. I thought the Americanization effort was pretty weak. I can't think of specific examples since it's been months since I read the books, but a lot of times there'd be a sentence that had a very British feel to it, with a bunch of American words tossed in. The end result was awkward. At some point in the series the word choice got confusing. Some of the words were American and some were English, so it was difficult to know what was meant by references to people eating "chips" and carrying "torches". It was more annoying than anything. -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 20:10:55 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:10:55 EST Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (Rio Grande Valley, 1976) Message-ID: "The Round-up Restaurant, now closed, in tiny Pharr, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley is generally credited with having been the first establishment, in 1969, to put fajitas on its menu when it was just a drive-in eatery." --NEW YORK TIMES, 1 May 1994, section 5, pg. 26, col.4. The Bell & Howell phonebook fiche starts in 1976. March 1976, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 367, col. 2 ad: OLD MEXICO RESTAURANT HOME OF THE AUTHENTIC CHILE RELLENO & TAMPIQUENA STEAKS "SERVING CAFETERIA STYLE" WITH REAL HOMEMADE FLOUR TORTILLAS OUR MENU INCLUDES: CHAR-BROILED FAJITAS--STEAKS Carne Guisada Tacos Rice Beans Guacamole Picadillo Variety of Salads Homemade Pies EL CENTRO MALL 500 N. Jackson--Pharr 787-2601 February 1977, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 418, col. 1 ad: ROUND UP DRIVE IN "SPECIALIZING IN FINE, FRESH SEAFOOD" ALASKA KING CRAB LEGS INDIA FROG LEGS NICARAGUA & S. AFRICA LOBSTER TAILS CHINA SHRIMP MEXICO SHRIMP BRAZIL RED SNAPPER SEA FOOD PLATTER FAJITAS--MEXICAN FOOD CHARCOAL BROILED STEAKS 787-9052 709 WEST HIGHWAY 83--PHARR From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 07:19:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:19:00 +0800 Subject: more computer-related lingo Message-ID: From the Times "On the Net, Love Really Is Blind, With Offline Pitfalls", 1/18/01, emphasis added: Storm King [presumably his real name], a doctoral student at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto, Calif., said online romances create a false intimacy among couples. "Text-based relationships are very deceptive", Mr. King said. "People know only the good stuff, and none of the bad." =============== I suppose if they were really to catch on, we'd be calling them TBRs. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 20:27:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:27:19 EST Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: A few days ago, I again suggested to people on this list a way to end this. E-mail Elizabeth Phillips at phille at nytimes.com. Ask her to join the ADS and ANS for free. Ask her to correct my words. Tell me if you get a response (that I've never gotten). Did anyone do that? What would it take, a mouse click? How difficult is that???? Whatever. The fact is, I still have no response. My work has been incorrect for over four months now. Again, if you want to stop this (as I want to), please do this. My profession work has been murdered and I feel pretty bad about that. This past week, I told the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay Guaridan, and the San Francisco Examiner about Peter Tamony's work on "jazz." Tamony was an ADS member for over 50 years. Now, a person in Safire's position can just call up Ken Burns, ask if he's ever heard of Peter Tamony, ask why the "jazz" work isn't correct, and then rake Burns over the coals in his column. But I've got to defend Peter Tamony without any help. Thanks a bunch. Which brings us, again, to this week's "On Language" column. It's another winner. You can look up "titular" in the dictionary. Safire gets a column out of it. Elizabeth Phillips is mentioned and given credit for finding the first "shrinking violet" in SYLVIA (1827) by Geroge Darley. Nice job. Then I checked Literature Online. The first citation is SYLIVA (1827) by George Darley. There's a little line at the bottom of Literature Online, and it reads like this: Copyright c 1996-2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All Rights Reserved. Don't these things apply to William Safire's columns? From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 20 20:16:12 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:16:12 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? dInIs >At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>situation. >> >>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >> >>Rima >Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Sat Jan 20 21:32:24 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:32:24 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Kimberley and Belinda--ugh! At 03:16 PM 1/20/01 -0500, you wrote: >Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? > >dInIs > > >>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>situation. >>> >>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>> >>>Rima >>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >> >>larry > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 08:54:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:54:42 +0800 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? > >dInIs Actually, a bit of research reveals that it was the birth mother (nice retronym) herself who named them Kiara and Keyara, and then put them up on the web for adoption, presumably because they couldn't tell them apart with the neutralized vowels and all. The British couple, the Kilshaws, re-named them Kimberley and Belinda, which have the virtue of being phonologically distinct. The California couple, the Allens, evidently are willing to retain the girls' birth names, but maybe that factor shouldn't be absolutely decisive in itself. larry > > >>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>situation. >>> >>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>> >>>Rima >>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >> >>larry > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 20 23:46:18 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 18:46:18 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20010120163224.00f14990@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >larry told you so dInIs >Kimberley and Belinda--ugh! > > >At 03:16 PM 1/20/01 -0500, you wrote: >>Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? >> >>dInIs >> >> >>>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>>situation. >>>> >>>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>>> >>>>Rima >>>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >>> >>>larry >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Department of Linguistics and Languages >>Michigan State University > >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA > >preston at pilot.msu.edu > >Office: (517)353-0740 > >Fax: (517)432-2736 > > -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 21 01:17:31 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 20:17:31 -0500 Subject: Shrinking Violet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As pointed out by Barry, Elizabeth Phillips did a fine job in unearthing an 1827 occurrence of "shrinking violet" for William Safire's column. This is a literal usage. The OED has 1915 as its earliest citation for "shrinking violet" as a metaphor for a shy person. Here are some earlier examples of that sense: 1892 _Century Mag._ Feb. The drooping violet of Maverick, that's what you were -- the shy little Denver daisy....We've got to make you swat somewhere for that shrinking violet business -- eh, boys? 1913 Marvin Dana _Within the Law_ 290 "You can't do anything to us," Aggie declared, strongly. There remained no trace of the shrinking violet that had been Miss Helen Travers West. Now, she revealed merely the business woman engaged in a fight against the law, which was opposed definitely to her peculiar from of buisness. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dsgood at VISI.COM Sun Jan 21 01:53:02 2001 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 19:53:02 -0600 Subject: summary: Brit writing sf need New Orleans accent help Message-ID: What he specifically asked for was Internet radio stations with good samples of talk. However, I suspect there are other useful resources. Note: rec.arts.sf.composition is the Usenet group devoted to writing speculative fiction. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: Re: Usage of thee, thou, etc. In article , Supermouse wrote: >In article , Dan Goodman > writes >>More precisely, there are two major dialect areas in the South: Southern >>and South Midlands (or Upper South -- depending on whether the linguist >>applying the label considers it more closely related to North Midlands or >>to Southern). > >Speaking of which, can anybody give me the url of an Internet- >broadcasting radio station that will give me a handle on the sort of >accent to be found in New Orleans? If you give permission, I'll pass your query on to the American Dialect Society mailing list. It's quite possible that someone there will say something like "There's the Ketcham archive of recordings of New Orleans residents in London". There are recordings intended for actors who need to learn various accents. A US library in a largish city would have them; I don't know about the UK. One factor: New Orleans's accent has a lot in common with the dialects of New York City, Boston, and Baltimore -- possibly transmitted by boids or ersters. (Not the upperclass Boston accent, but the one most Bostonians use.) These cities have at least these things in common: they're seaports on the Atlantic, and they got large numbers of immigrants from Ireland. I don't know how much either of these has to do with the similarities. >I've searched for, and found, a multitude of stations so far but they >either don't load, don't broadcast on the Internet or just do straight >music with no talk. And, as I don't really know what I'm listening for >I've been limited to stations in New Orleans itself to be on the safe >side. > >I'll of course keep on searching, but any help with this would be >appreciated greatly. I would suggest trying to find someone from New Orleans to read your manuscript, to see if you've got that accent right. -- Dan Goodman dsgood at visi.com http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 03:51:25 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 22:51:25 EST Subject: Shitcom Message-ID: I saw Steven Berkoff's one-man show, SHAKESPEARE'S VILLAINS: A MASTERCLASS IN EVIL, today at the Public Theater. Go see it--it's been extended. The guy is funny. His web site is: www.east-productions.demon.co.uk My companion this time was an actress from Australia (wherever that is). Unfortunately, I didn't take her to COPENHAGEN so we could sleep together on the first date. Berkoff said that you often see "star" actors doing Shakespeare, such as those from "shitcoms." Shitcoms? I very rarely hear "shitcom"--perhaps because you can't say "shit" on tv. My date told me that it isn't used in Australia. It's not in the GB-leaning CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG. Anybody run across it before? FWIW, Berkoff things that "Puck" is a little euphemism that his audiences recognized. From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Sun Jan 21 06:20:03 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 00:20:03 -0600 Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (Rio Grande Valley, 1976) Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > "The Round-up Restaurant, now closed, in tiny Pharr, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley is generally credited with having been the first establishment, in 1969, to put fajitas on its menu when it was just a drive-in eatery." I grew up in the Valley, and I very much doubt that The Round-Up Restaurant was the first. What gringos world-wide know as fajitas are various kinds of meats seasoned with spices that generations of mamacitas and 'buelitas have put on flank steaks (fajas) in feeding their families -- the tough meat in the muscles under the bellies of bovine critters. Butchers would give away the fajas covered with fat or sell them for a pittance, so this was a good way for the poor to get a solid source of protein. In the 1950s one could get botana platters of fajitas in lots of eateries along the Texas border. After gringuification of this food item, butchers could sell flank steaks for more $$$ and this traditional item was soon no longer a staple for less affluent families. "Chicken fajitas," in a "technical" sense, is a misnomer, because the fajas in a chicken's belly are so thin that they wouldn't make much of a meal. Anyway, Pharr was hardly "tiny" in 1969 -- rather, had a population more like 12 -15,000. The 1994 estimated population was 36,576. The 1990 population of Hidalgo County, where Pharr is located, was 383,545 in 1990 and is now over 500,000. Whoever credited The Round-Up with this "innovation" was certainly not the kind of researcher that we have in our own Barry Popik. DMLance From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 06:33:43 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 01:33:43 EST Subject: Dope Opera Message-ID: TRAFFIC could very well win the Oscar as Best Picture. From the VILLAGE VOICE Choices, 23 January 2001, pg. 78, col. 7: TRAFFIC Not just an ultra-procedural but the Whole Enchilada, Steven Soderbergh's prize-winning dope opera puts a heavy arm on the audience to demonstrate that drugs touch us all. There have been a few hits for "dope opera"--a "soap opera" involving drugs ("dope"). Sometimes, however, a "dope opera" is a "soap opera" for "dopes." Whether that's better or worse than a "shitcom," I dunno. From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 21 07:11:13 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 01:11:13 -0600 Subject: Dope Opera Message-ID: Re: dope opera and "shitcom". Dope opera and shitcom is the drink you buy at the Metropolitan Opera, between the acts. The current work was Busoni's Faust, which is a rather dreadful work. You just have your whiskey, and smoke the cigarette out on the balcony with it. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 21 13:34:54 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 08:34:54 -0500 Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (Rio Grande Valley, 1976) In-Reply-To: <3A6A7F86.C8AF4358@missouri.edu> Message-ID: >"ginguification" or "gringofication" or "gringoification"? What's up Don? dInIs >Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> "The Round-up Restaurant, now closed, in tiny Pharr, Texas, in the >>Rio Grande Valley is generally credited with having been the first >>establishment, in 1969, to put fajitas on its menu when it was just >>a drive-in eatery." > >I grew up in the Valley, and I very much doubt that The Round-Up >Restaurant was the first. What gringos world-wide know as fajitas >are various kinds of meats seasoned with spices that generations of >mamacitas and 'buelitas >have put on flank steaks (fajas) in feeding their families -- the >tough meat in the muscles under the bellies of bovine critters. >Butchers would give away the fajas covered with fat or sell them for >a pittance, so this was >a good way for the poor to get a solid source of protein. In the >1950s one could get botana platters of fajitas in lots of eateries >along the Texas border. After gringuification of this food item, >butchers could sell flank >steaks for more $$$ and this traditional item was soon no longer a >staple for less affluent families. "Chicken fajitas," in a >"technical" sense, is a misnomer, because the fajas in a chicken's >belly are so thin that they >wouldn't make much of a meal. > >Anyway, Pharr was hardly "tiny" in 1969 -- rather, had a population >more like 12 -15,000. The 1994 estimated population was 36,576. >The 1990 population of Hidalgo County, where Pharr is located, was >383,545 in 1990 and is >now over 500,000. > >Whoever credited The Round-Up with this "innovation" was certainly >not the kind of researcher that we have in our own Barry Popik. > >DMLance -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 18:25:10 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 13:25:10 EST Subject: What's up with y'all? (Lingua franca, Feb. 2001) Message-ID: "What's up with y'all?" is on the cover of LINGUA FRANCA, February 2001. "Welcome to the y'all house," by Michael Erard, is on pages 8-9. The story mentions Dennis Preston, Michael Montgomery, DARE, and the Sept. 2000 article in JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 21 22:08:23 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 16:08:23 -0600 Subject: "son of a gun" Message-ID: On Jan. 17 Douglas Wilson sent a message about "son of a gun," which says in part: >The Cassell slang dictionary says it's euphemistic for "son of a bitch" ... >but derives the "gun" from "gonnof", which strikes me as unlikely. Actually, I believe Cassell (which I do not have before me) is on the right track. "Gun" besides referring to a firearm, was also a cant term for "thief," at least in the 19th century. For example, one can read about "the guns and their molls," i.e., the thieves and their women/wives. And this "gun" is known to derive from Yiddish "gonnof" (thief). Both "gun" (thief) and "gonnof" were present in British cant. If someone were called a "son of a gun," the original idea was probably: "Your father is a thief, and you're a younger version of him." ---Gerald Cohen From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 23:27:53 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 18:27:53 EST Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:08:13 Luanne von Schneidemesser asked: >I would like to know when the abbreviation "inc." for incorporated began >being pronounced as "ink" as opposed to "incorporated". I don't know if the following will be helpful, but here goes: A man I was acquainted with in the late 1970's, one Neil "Bear" Belsky, was a science fiction fan and like many such in that pre-Internet age was in the habit of printing "zines" (i.e. things he wrote that he felt like distributing to friends). I have in front of me one such zine he distributed in April 1978. In it he wrote "This is a product of Bearly Adequate Inc." (It was printed, rather poorly, by mimeograph, and the printing job was indeed "barely adequate"). In another zine of February 1979, this one photocopied, he wrote "This zine is a production of Bearly Adequate Ink." Conclusion: in 1978 "ink" and "Inc." was an obvious pun. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Jan 21 23:35:23 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 15:35:23 -0800 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: the Printers Inc. bookstores (in palo alto and mountain view, ca.) - pronounced, of course, like "printer's ink" - date back to the late 1970s. arnold From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 01:21:33 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:21:33 -0500 Subject: "son of a gun" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: yOn Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Gerald Cohen wrote: > Actually, I believe Cassell (which I do not have before me) is on > the right track. "Gun" besides referring to a firearm, was also a > cant term for "thief," at least in the 19th century. For example, one > can read about "the guns and their molls," i.e., the thieves and > their women/wives. And this "gun" is known to derive from Yiddish > "gonnof" (thief). Both "gun" (thief) and "gonnof" were present in > British cant. Then why is "son of a gun" attested 150 years before this usage of "gun"? Was English influenced by Yiddish in 1700? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 22 02:23:39 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:23:39 -0600 Subject: "son of a gun" Message-ID: Whoops. Fred Shapiro correctly points to a chronological discrepancy in what I said about "gun" in "son of a gun" deriving from British cant "gun" (thief). A check of Eric Partridge's _A Dictionary of the Underworld_ shows that "gun" (thief) is first attested in 1857, too late to appear in "son of a gun." I withdraw my suggestion. ---Gerald Cohen >On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Gerald Cohen wrote: > > Actually, I believe Cassell (which I do not have before me) is on >> the right track. "Gun" besides referring to a firearm, was also a >> cant term for "thief," at least in the 19th century. For example, one >> can read about "the guns and their molls," i.e., the thieves and >> their women/wives. And this "gun" is known to derive from Yiddish >> "gonnof" (thief). Both "gun" (thief) and "gonnof" were present in >> British cant. > >Then why is "son of a gun" attested 150 years before this usage of "gun"? >Was English influenced by Yiddish in 1700? > >Fred Shapiro From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 04:11:43 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:11:43 EST Subject: Floribbean/New World/Gold Coast/Nuevo Latino/ Nuevo Cubano/Fusion Message-ID: The New York Post has a Florida edition, so it perhaps knows the cuisine. From the NEW YORK POST, 16 January 2001, pg. 50, col. 2: _Welcome to the New World of cuisine_ By JOANN BIONDI A blend of classic European techniques, the freshest of exotic ingredients, and a liberal dash of Caribbean and Latin flavorings, New World cuisine continues to be one of the most acclaimed gourmet styles around today. Also referred to as Floribbean, Tropical Fusion, and Nuevo Latino, it is fun, vibrant, and surprisingly healthy. It is also a visual delight. Some of its staples include melon salad with kumquat dressing, Jamaican jerk rack-of-lamb with mango chutney, corn-crusted snapper, coconut rice, grouper Creole, papaya-carrot cake,and passion fruit sorbet. Can't we settle on a name by now? Like Tex-Mex? Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK has Nuevo Latino and Fusion, but not Floribbean/Gold Coast/Nuevo Cubano/New World. A check of the Dow Jones database for "Floribbean" shows this from THE BATON ROUGE MORNING ADVOCATE, 9-12-1991, pg. 1F FLORIBBEAN CUISINE. Don't try to find the term in Webster's Dictionary or in any of the culinary encyclopedias or reference guides. Ask Louisianians about it and they'll probably respond, "Flori what?" Although it's still too young and trendy now, in the next few months, Floribbean style foods could become one of the most popular cuisines of the '90s. (...) And recent issues of "The New York Times," "Time Magazine" and "The National Culinary Review," a publication of the American Culinary Federation, extol the virtues of the Floribbean trend. "Floribbean" is a coined term often used by Florida culinarians to describe a combination of classical cooking techniques with a light, fruity style. The May 1991 issue of "The National Culinary Review" claims this new world cuisine is inspired by the cultures of South America, Central America and Africa, as well as the Caribbean Islands. How could this have been the first Dow Jones hit if "Floribbean" has already been mentioned in the New York Times? -------------------------------------------------------- I visited the Victory Memorial Hospital today. David Shulman seemed in good spirits. When I chatted with the nurses about the twenty-hour wait, no one was shocked. Heck, a flight to Australia takes 19 hours, but you get five movies. From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Mon Jan 22 04:26:16 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:26:16 -0800 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in mysteries, known as Murder Ink. J Foster ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arnold Zwicky" To: Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 3:35 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: A question for a linguist > the Printers Inc. bookstores (in palo alto and mountain view, ca.) > - pronounced, of course, like "printer's ink" - date back to the > late 1970s. > > arnold > > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 22 04:39:06 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:39:06 -0800 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: j foster: >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty years ago. this too can be checked. arnold From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 04:49:05 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:49:05 -0500 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist In-Reply-To: <200101220439.UAA06808@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky said: >j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > >was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they >published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty >years ago. this too can be checked. The surprise is not that I remember this book, but that it took me under a minute to locate it on one of my bookshelves. _Murder Ink: The Mystery Reader's Companion_, Perpetrated by Dilys Winn. New York: Workman Publishing, 1977. According to the introduction, they bookstore by the same name (without the subtitle!) opened in 1972, June, to be exact. -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From stevek at SHORE.NET Mon Jan 22 04:42:09 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:42:09 -0500 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist In-Reply-To: <200101220439.UAA06808@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Arnold Zwicky wrote: > j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > > was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they > published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty > years ago. this too can be checked. 24 years ago. I have the hardcover edition (c 1977) on my shelf. I was a big Agatha Christie fan, and my parents got it for me as a present. It's a great book! --- Steve K. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 04:47:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:47:21 EST Subject: "Hopefuller" George W. Bush; Dumbocrat Message-ID: "HOPEFULLER" GEORGE W. BUSH "...a more literate country and a hopefuller country." --George W. Bush, 11 January 2001 This is way too easy. "Hopefuller" has been much ridiculed this past week. Today's Bushism (found on Deja.com) shows that President George W. Bush is still hopeful--even if he's not making much sense: Bushism of the Day "I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure." -- Interview with the Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001 -------------------------------------------------------- DUMBOCRAT "Dumbocrat" (for "Democrat") is much used on Deja.com. I could have sworn that I posted this here in 1998 or 1999. Did the ADS-L archives have to lose everything? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 04:59:53 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:59:53 EST Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: I have _three_ of these things. Manhattan is (212). From YellowBook.com 2000-2001, MANHATTAN (fingers illustration): Murder Ink 2486 Broadway at 93 St...362-8905 From THE COMPLETE 2001 MANHATTAN YELLOW PAGES (Ambassador Publishing): Murder Inc 2486 Broadway...362-8905 Murder Ink 2486 Broadway...362-8905 Murder Ink 2486 Broadway...873-1908 From BELL ATLANTIC YELLOW PAGES MANHATTAN, May 2000-April 2001: Murder Ink 2486 Broadway...212 362-8905 From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 22 07:07:52 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 02:07:52 -0500 Subject: Query: Shot himself in the foot Message-ID: [Please reply to the original sender, not to me, although you may want to reply to the list as well.] I'm trying to track down the origin of the term "He shot himself in the foot." I think that it's commonly misused nowadays, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I'd appreciate any help that you can provide. Charles B. (Chuck) Williams From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 22 07:31:01 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 08:31:01 +0100 Subject: A question for a linguist Message-ID: On lundi 22 janvier 2001 05:39, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > >was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they >published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty >years ago. this too can be checked. It was still there in May of last year, Upper West Side on Broadway, somewhere between 86th and 96th Streets. Grant Barrett http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 09:52:51 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:52:51 +0000 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> >> In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I >> read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in >> Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the >> States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the >> same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are >> different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et >> al.? Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a subtype of mandarin orange that's seedless. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From dumasb at UTK.EDU Mon Jan 22 11:59:51 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 06:59:51 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: >Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a subtype of >mandarin orange that's seedless. The clementines I have eaten are quite different from the mandarin oranges I have eaten. Bethany From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 22 13:01:43 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 08:01:43 -0500 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist In-Reply-To: <200101220439.UAA06808@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >Wadn't there a movie? dInIs (less inclined to reading) >j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > >was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they >published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty >years ago. this too can be checked. > >arnold -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Mon Jan 22 13:55:39 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 14:55:39 +0100 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: According to the Swedish National Encyclopaedia, the oldest of the words is "mandarin" (after the color of the Chinese mandarin's clothing, "mandarin" originally from Sanskrit "mantrin", counsellor, via Portugese "mandarim"), documented in Swedish since 1881. It usually has seeds. "Tangerin" (after the city of Tanger) is documented as another name for "mandarin" since 1894. "Clementin" (an almost seedless mandarin) is named after the Père Clément, who around 1900 improved the species. "Satsuma" is another variant of the same seedless mandarin, named after the Japanese province, documented in Swedish since 1970. All the variants have in common that they are easily peeled. Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lynne Murphy" To: Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 10:52 AM Subject: Re: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) > >> > >> In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I > >> read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in > >> Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the > >> States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the > >> same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are > >> different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et > >> al.? > > Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a subtype of > mandarin orange that's seedless. > > Lynne > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 14:09:58 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:09:58 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? I always thought it was to rhyme with "red" because of the spelling, but I swear I just heard Michaela Majoun (who may be nationally known) say something about sending in $60 to "read up your membership" on WXPN radio. Is this possible? Or did I just mishear her saying "renew"? Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From dumasb at UTK.EDU Mon Jan 22 14:07:09 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:07:09 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: >According to the Swedish National Encyclopaedia ...< Am I the only one who wonders why we are looking in dictionaries and encyclopedias instead of eating samples? Bethany From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Mon Jan 22 14:18:55 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:18:55 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: "D. Ezra Johnson" wrote: > > How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? > > I always thought it was to rhyme with "red" because of the spelling, but I > swear I just heard Michaela Majoun (who may be nationally known) say > something about sending in $60 to > > "read up your membership" > > on WXPN radio. It's "red up", as in "get ready". "Read up" is what you do to become familiar with the literature on a particular topic. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 14:23:11 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:23:11 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "Eat your own dog food!" Translation: When you are developing software, use the part of the software that is already written as your "platform" for further development. E.g. if you are adding additional features to a word processor, use that word processor as your tool for entering new source code, etc. More simply: use your own software The theory (probably correct) is that if you have to use your own software you'll do a better job of writing it and making it easy to use. If memory serves, this slogan comes from Microsoft where it is company policy, and was cited in the weekly newspaper Computerworld in the last year or two. - James A. Landau -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 22 14:34:54 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:34:54 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? The word is properly written "redd", according to the dictionaries,and pronounced the same as "red". I have seen it written as "red", "rett", "ret", and I've heard it pronounced "ret" (a very small distinction). I don't remember hearing anything like "reed up" or "reet up" but it wouldn't surprise me if I did. Possibly the radio expression was a version of "re-up" = "sign up again"? -- Doug Wilson From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 15:03:17 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:03:17 EST Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan Metcalf From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Mon Jan 22 15:12:39 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:12:39 -0500 Subject: cross-posting Message-ID: Thanks, Larry, for alerting me to this. I looked at this last week, and Geoff Nunberg is aware of this too. The author of this article, Peter Corey, is an extreme traditionalist, whose quest seems to be logical consistency in language. An "epilogue" to his book is entitled "How Linguistics Killed Grammar." A couple of the "mistakes" that he observes in AHD are that "like" is identified as a preposition, and "none" as a pronoun. Among the reasons he gives for "like" not being a preposition is that, unlike any other preposition, "like" can be negated by the prefix un-. (The AHD deals with this by listing "unlike" as a preposition as well as an adjective.) "None" is not a pronoun, in Corey's view, because it can be "modified" by "almost," and pronouns cannot be modified by definition, ergo . . . Far be it from me to say that the categorization of words into traditional parts of speech is unencumbered by ambiguity, but I can't see investing a lot of time to refute such assertions. Joe Laurence Horn @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/20/2001 01:04:43 AM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: cross-posting I almost hate to do this on an otherwise relaxing weekend, but (from Linguist List)... Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:09:04 EST From: Vocabula at aol.com Subject: New Article: Grammar and Disputation Hello The January issue of "The Vocabula Review" contains an article that might be of interest to some of you: "Grammar and Disputation -- A Summary of Methods and Arguments from Ten Grammatical Errors in the American Heritage Dictionary" Here's the link if you want to take a look: http://www.vocabula.com/VRJan01Corey.htm Regards, Robert Hartwell Fiske The Vocabula Review www.vocabula.com/vocabulareview.htm =================== -larry (I expect Geoff Nunberg, the primary trashee, has already seen this via Linguist, but I suppose Steve K. and Joe P. should see what (else) they're up against.) From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 22 15:01:14 2001 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:01:14 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: FWIW, my family (in northeastern Massachusetts) uses "garbage." Joanne Despres Merriam-Webster, Inc. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 02:31:38 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:31:38 +0800 Subject: cross-posting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Thanks, Larry, for alerting me to this. I looked at this last week, and >Geoff Nunberg is aware of this too. > >The author of this article, Peter Corey, is an extreme traditionalist, >whose quest seems to be logical consistency in language. An "epilogue" to >his book is entitled "How Linguistics Killed Grammar." > >A couple of the "mistakes" that he observes in AHD are that "like" is >identified as a preposition, and "none" as a pronoun. >Among the reasons he gives for "like" not being a preposition is that, >unlike any other preposition, "like" can be negated by the prefix un-. >(The AHD deals with this by listing "unlike" as a preposition as well as an >adjective.) "None" is not a pronoun, in Corey's view, because it can be >"modified" by "almost," and pronouns cannot be modified by definition, ergo >. . . > >Far be it from me to say that the categorization of words into traditional >parts of speech is unencumbered by ambiguity, but I can't see investing a >lot of time to refute such assertions. > >Joe > Hi, Joe. I did notice the references in his web site to _How Linguistics Killed Grammar_, and figured he was Mrs. Grundy personified, which he has certainly done nothing to dispel with his current crusade. So presumably "everybody" can't be a pronoun either according to Corey? It's nice that at least one preposition can be un-prefixed, since un- can also attach to all the other major categories (adjectives, verbs, nouns). Makes for a more symmetric system, in fact. (Most U.S. dictionaries seem to share this "error" of classifying "unlike" as a preposition.) larry From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Mon Jan 22 15:28:49 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:28:49 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: ...or did she say "re-up," casual military for "reenlist"? > -----Original Message----- > From: D. Ezra Johnson [mailto:ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 9:10 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? > > > How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? > > I always thought it was to rhyme with "red" because of the > spelling, but I > swear I just heard Michaela Majoun (who may be nationally known) say > something about sending in $60 to > > "read up your membership" > > on WXPN radio. > > Is this possible? Or did I just mishear her saying "renew"? > > Daniel > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Mon Jan 22 15:48:45 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:48:45 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note 'garbage disposal'. Bob Wachal At 10:03 AM 1/22/01 EST, you wrote: >Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans >or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan >Metcalf > > From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 22 15:00:14 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:00:14 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Dear Allan, There is an entry for both _garbage_ and _trash_ in Wentworth (_American Dialect Dictionary): garbage, n. 1900 e. Va. Richmond. garbage M'Cormic in Atla. Mon. 447. 1909 Va. Perhaps I said 'geearbage.' In Va., we argue for its correctness...Anon. Va. woman in Atlan. Mon. 137 trash, 1. n. 1925 s.w.S.C.-e.Ga. Savannah R. _Negro_ tresh. Everyday speech. 2. = poor white trash. 3. n. Foolery; nonsense. 1921 Newfoundland. 4. n. Seet food, as candy. 1942 n.W.Va. Preston Col. I don't eat trash between meals. 5. v.t. to hide (a trail) by going in water. 1934 Local U.S. Web. Regards, David David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From st17 at YORK.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 16:33:59 2001 From: st17 at YORK.AC.UK (Sali Tagliamonte) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:33:59 +0000 Subject: 2nd Call for Papers, 3rd UK Language Variation Conference In-Reply-To: Message-ID: 3rd UK LANGUAGE VARIATION CONFERENCE Call for papers: The 3rd UK Language Variation Conference will take place at the University of York from July 19th to 22nd, 2001. Invited speakers will be: Lesley Milroy (University of Michigan & University of York), Jane Stuart-Smith (University of Glasgow) Peter Trudgill (University of Fribourg) This series of meetings was inaugurated at the University of Reading in 1997, with the second at the University of Essex in 2000. It aims to provide a forum in the United Kingdom where the focus will be on the quantitative study of language variation and change. Proposals are invited for 20-minute contributions (plus 10 minutes¹ discussion) on topics falling within the proposed focus area. Abstracts (max. 500 words) should be sent within the text of an email to uklvc3 at york.ac.uk, stating author¹s name, address (electronic and postal) and institutional affiliation. ***REVISED DEADLINE *** Submission of abstracts: February 16th, 2001. All abstracts will be refereed and replies will be sent out by April 1st, 2001. ORGANISING COMMITTEE: Sali Tagliamonte, Paul Foulkes, Helen Lawrence, Jennifer Smith, Rosalind Temple and Dominic Watt. ****************************************************************** Sali Tagliamonte E-mail: st17 at york.ac.uk Department of Language URL: http://www.york.ac.uk/~st17/ and Linguistic Science Office phone:+44 (0)1904 432 656 University of York Dept. phone: +44 (0)1904 432 652 Heslington, YORK, YO10 5DD Dept. Fax: +44 (0)1904 432 673 Home phone: +44 (0)1904 635 812 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 16:57:45 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:57:45 +0000 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122094845.007e5b20@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: --On Monday, January 22, 2001 9:48 am -0600 "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note > 'garbage disposal'. I wouldn't say that garbage is only foodstuff, but I agree that garbage contains food. Trash is more paper-y. Which is not to say that I always make this distinction, but it's how I think of the words. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From bapopik at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 16:47:29 2001 From: bapopik at JUNO.COM (Barry Popik) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:47:29 -0500 Subject: Fajitas, Chimichangas (Rio Grande Valey, 1974) Message-ID: Greetings once again from the Library of Congress. The New York Public Library gave me a heap of trouble finding the Western Union Technical Review that's somehow completely missing, so I came here. AOL is not working. Such is life. I requested the Rio Grande Valley (TX) phone books from 1971-1974. Only 1974 arrived. Maybe I can ask some librarian in Pharr to give a quick look. March 1974, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 327, col. 2 ad: OLD MEXICO RESTAURANT HOME OF THE AUTHENTIC CHILE RELLENO & TAPIQUENO STEAKS OUR MENU INCLUDES: . Char-Broiled Steaks . Carne Guisada . Tacos . Enchiladas . Rice . Beans . Guacamole . Fajitas . Picadillo . Variety of Slads . Homemade Pies 787-2601 El Centro Mall 500 N. Jackson--Pharr (No ROUND-UP DRIVE IN RESTAURANT ad. FWIW, there's a place called OKIE FRIJOLE--ed.) March 1974, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 328, col. 1 ad: "Taco Boy Has It All In Mexican Food" TACO BOY TACOS--BURRITOS-- CHALUPAS--ENCHILADAS DRAFT BEER--NACHOS-- TRY OUR "CHIMICHANGAS" 425-2828 (ACROSS FROM WOOLCO) 634 N. 13 HARL From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 22 17:01:10 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:01:10 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: Gabage and garbage can, for me. Trash has no food waste component, trash pile = junk pile. Trash is, or was, usually burnable, often in a small stove called "a trash burner". allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans > or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > Metcalf > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 22 17:02:05 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:02:05 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122094845.007e5b20@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: When I was a kid growing up in S. California in the 40s-early 50s, we made the same distinction. So did the local waste haulers: the collection of the two was strictly separated. You had a trash can and a garbage can, and if some food got in with your trash (paper, cans, etc.), or vice-versa, they wouldn't take it. I remember hearing at some point that now garbage and trash would be put in the same container and collected together, but I don't remember where I lived when this change took place. Since then, it has seemed to me that everywhere else I have lived, "trash" referred to all refuse without distinction, and "garbage" was mostly relegated to figurative usage (though I've never heard of the unit in the sink referred to as a *"trash disposal"). I personally have never quite adjusted to this amalgamation. Peter Mc. --On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 9:48 AM -0600 "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note > 'garbage disposal'. > > Bob Wachal > > At 10:03 AM 1/22/01 EST, you wrote: >> Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in >> cans or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - >> Allan Metcalf >> >> **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Mon Jan 22 17:23:16 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:23:16 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: For me, a wastepaper basket can be a trash can but not a garbage can. The container under the sink can be called either, but is usually a garbage can. (I definitely interpret people saying both "take out the trash" and "take out the garbage" to mean the same thing though the latter is more common.) The cans outside where the garbage is stored until they come and pick it up are garbage cans (not trash cans) and recycling bins. I think the word recycling *bin* has been forced on us by the government, because two of my bins are identical to garbage cans. Benjamin Barrett Seattle > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:03 AM > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs > "trash," as in cans > or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > Metcalf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:27:28 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 12:27:28 EST Subject: Kimmelweck (1936-1937) Message-ID: AOL decided to work again. For some reason, LOC gives you three phonebooks at a time (if, indeed, you receive three). This plan works out real well. The first I received for Buffalo was 1936/1937, and I went straight to "Bakers." 1936-1937, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 24, col. 1: Franz Frank J Rye Bread--Kimmelwecks--Our Specialty 240 High...LIncln-7773 1938-1939, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 25, col. 1: Strasburger's Bakery Dinner Rolls--Kummel Wecks A Specialty 165 Goodell...WAshgtn-0565 (Same "Franz" entry in later years--ed.) From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:36:47 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:36:47 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: >Garbage and garbage can, for me. Trash has no food waste component,trash >pile = junk pile. Trash is, or was, usually burnable, often in a small >stove called "a trash burner". Yes. Another way of saying it is that garbage is the wet smelly stuff. The distinction may indeed date from when people burned their trash, in the little kitchen trash burner, or in the barrel out in the back yard. I'm old enough to just remember when such kitchen units were still sold; in fact, you could buy one built into your kitchen range. Air pollution legislation ended these. We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be incombustible. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:41:16 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:41:16 -0600 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: >The word is properly written "redd", according to the dictionaries,and >pronounced the same as "red". > >I have seen it written as "red", "rett", "ret", and I've heard it >pronounced "ret" (a very small distinction). I don't remember hearing >anything like "reed up" or "reet up" but it wouldn't surprise me if I did. > >Possibly the radio expression was a version of "re-up" = "sign up again"? > >-- Doug Wilson I've never heard 'redd up', and my natural tendency would have been to interpret it as 'rev up', to increase the number of revolutions of an engine, to warm up an engine: to energize. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 22 17:43:49 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 12:43:49 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: But who's "they" who couldn't tell the twins apart--surely not the mother? Actually, the twins are either African American or biracial, so I suspect the Brits just didn't want those "black-sounding" names. Yes, the mixed race couple in California apparently agreed to keep the original names. At 04:54 PM 1/20/01 +0800, you wrote: >>Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? >> >>dInIs > >Actually, a bit of research reveals that it was the birth mother >(nice retronym) herself who named them Kiara and Keyara, and then put >them up on the web for adoption, presumably because they couldn't >tell them apart with the neutralized vowels and all. The British >couple, the Kilshaws, re-named them Kimberley and Belinda, which have >the virtue of being phonologically distinct. The >California couple, the Allens, evidently are willing to retain the >girls' birth names, but maybe that factor shouldn't be absolutely >decisive in itself. > >larry > >> >> >>>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>>situation. >>>> >>>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>>> >>>>Rima >>>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >>> >>>larry >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Department of Linguistics and Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >>preston at pilot.msu.edu >>Office: (517)353-0740 >>Fax: (517)432-2736 _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 18:12:23 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:12:23 +0000 Subject: Kimmelweck (1936-1937) In-Reply-To: <9d.1037e709.279dc780@aol.com> Message-ID: May I hereby express my disappointment that AHD4 has deleted 'weck' and 'kummelweck' (and neither it nor its predecessors have kimmelweck). Alas, alack! My people! My language! Lynne of Western New York --On Monday, January 22, 2001 12:27 pm +0000 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > AOL decided to work again. > For some reason, LOC gives you three phonebooks at a time (if, indeed, > you receive three). This plan works out real well. The first I > received for Buffalo was 1936/1937, and I went straight to "Bakers." > > 1936-1937, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 24, col. 1: > Franz Frank J > Rye Bread--Kimmelwecks--Our Specialty > 240 High...LIncln-7773 > > 1938-1939, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 25, col. 1: > Strasburger's Bakery > Dinner Rolls--Kummel Wecks A Specialty > 165 Goodell...WAshgtn-0565 > > (Same "Franz" entry in later years--ed.) M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 18:14:41 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:14:41 +0000 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 22, 2001 11:36 am -0600 Mark Odegard wrote: > We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a > construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be > incombustible. Now, here our intuitions vary. To me, rubbish would be paper waste or rags, not construction waste. And it would definitely be burnable. But maybe I've lived outside the US too long to have American 'rubbish' intuitions. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 05:48:59 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:48:59 +0800 Subject: Kimmelweck (1936-1937) In-Reply-To: <475638.3189175943@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 6:12 PM +0000 1/22/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >May I hereby express my disappointment that AHD4 has deleted 'weck' and >'kummelweck' (and neither it nor its predecessors have kimmelweck). > >Alas, alack! My people! My language! > >Lynne of Western New York > Buffaloed into doing so, no doubt. larry From bapopik at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 18:59:07 2001 From: bapopik at JUNO.COM (Barry Popik) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:59:07 -0500 Subject: Poor Boy's Sandwich (1932) Message-ID: AOL decided not to work again...Almost 2 p.m., and I need caffeine here or something. The RIO GRANDE VALLEY phone books from 1961, 1965, and 1970 are nothing special. The BUFFALO phone books of 1934-1935 and 1935-1936 are nothing special, either. Which doesn't mean, of course, that "fajitas" and "kimmelwecks" were or were not made. I'll return the books unless I hear otherwise. The BAR & BUFFET (Cincinnati, 1900s) looks like a gem...The WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW mentions "punchings" and "wood chips" from 1947-1950. The earliest New Orleans book brought out is 1932. June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 103, col. 3 ad: _French Market_ _Coffee and Lunch Stand_ A. BATTISTELLA, Prop. Originator of the _"Poor Boy's Sandwich"_ Lower (River) End of Fish Market Ursuline and N. Peters Sts. AUTO SERVICE RAymond 3015 June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 103, col. 3 ad: TRY OUR GREEN WAVE SPECIAL "PIGS AND CLOVER" 10 cents Sandwich Nothing Like It--It's Delicious Telephone CRescent 9496 Green Wave Coffee and Sandwich Shop 1001 Esplanade Ave Cor Burgundy St. June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 104, col. 1: O K Poor Boy Lunch Room 3328 Baronne...JAckson-9180 June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 104, col. 1: Poor Boy Lunch Room 131 Exchange Pl...MAin-4539 (No "Big Apple/Big Easy" in white pages--ed.) From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 05:23:15 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 00:23:15 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:52:51 +0000 Lynne Murphy > Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a > subtype of > mandarin orange that's seedless. It would be interesting to lock a linguist and a taxonomist in a room with an assortment of citrus fruits. D From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 22 19:22:27 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:22:27 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Peter McGraw wrote: > When I was a kid growing up in S. California in the 40s-early 50s, we made > the same distinction. So did the local waste haulers: the collection of > the two was strictly separated. In today's Starkville, Mississippi, trash pickup means leaves and branches and such, while garbage pickup is whatever you put into the city-provided garbage bags that you put on the curb twice a week. I'm trying to decide now whether my own distinction between the terms is based entirely on the type of stuff being thrown away. I think that's at least part of it -- paper-type stuff vs messier stuff. But I think size of the container may also be related. My office has a trash can, but outside in the halls of my office building, there are large garbage cans -- with the same type contents. > has seemed to me that everywhere else I have lived, "trash" referred to all > refuse without distinction, and "garbage" was mostly relegated to > figurative usage (though I've never heard of the unit in the sink referred > to as a *"trash disposal"). I personally have never quite adjusted to this The figurative uses of the terms are interesting. E.g., "talking trash" and "talking garbage" don't mean the same thing to me. And one can be trashy but not garbagy. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 22 19:25:57 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:25:57 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Lynne Murphy wrote: > > We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a > > construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be > > incombustible. > > Now, here our intuitions vary. To me, rubbish would be paper waste or > rags, not construction waste. And it would definitely be burnable. But > maybe I've lived outside the US too long to have American 'rubbish' > intuitions. I can't remember ever having heard anybody in the USA use the word "rubbish" except figuratively. Calling trash or garbage rubbish strikes me as very British. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Mon Jan 22 19:24:20 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:24:20 -0800 Subject: Shitcom Message-ID: SIT-COM: SITUATIONAL COMEDY. right? -----Original Message----- From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 7:51 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Shitcom I saw Steven Berkoff's one-man show, SHAKESPEARE'S VILLAINS: A MASTERCLASS IN EVIL, today at the Public Theater. Go see it--it's been extended. The guy is funny. His web site is: www.east-productions.demon.co.uk My companion this time was an actress from Australia (wherever that is). Unfortunately, I didn't take her to COPENHAGEN so we could sleep together on the first date. Berkoff said that you often see "star" actors doing Shakespeare, such as those from "shitcoms." Shitcoms? I very rarely hear "shitcom"--perhaps because you can't say "shit" on tv. My date told me that it isn't used in Australia. It's not in the GB-leaning CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG. Anybody run across it before? FWIW, Berkoff things that "Puck" is a little euphemism that his audiences recognized. From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 22 19:50:06 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:50:06 -0600 Subject: How Linguistics Killed Grammar Message-ID: Laurence Horn and Joe Pickett have been discussing a posting with this claim: > >The author of this article, Peter Corey, is an extreme traditionalist, > >whose quest seems to be logical consistency in language. An "epilogue" to > >his book is entitled "How Linguistics Killed Grammar." > .................. > > > Hi, Joe. I did notice the references in his web site to _How > Linguistics Killed Grammar_, and figured he was Mrs. Grundy > personified, which he has certainly done nothing to dispel with his > current crusade. >From my experience in working with colleagues in English education and reading education, I would say that it was compositionists who killed grammar study. A study in the 1960s by Braddock claimed that there was no carryover from the teaching of formal grammar to teaching/learning writing skills in the classroom. That was all the English teachers needed to say, "Well, now we don't have to do THAT any more! Good riddance!" Then they espoused the myth that reading lots and lots of books that English teachers like ( = fiction) will make a good writer of any student. Yeah, really good for budding biologists and medical doctors! One result is that computer programmers assume that the term "syntax" originated in their field. Maybe I exaggerate. (I served on about 20 dissertations in English ed and that many in reading ed. I've also attended some CCC and NCTE annual meetings.) DMLance From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 07:00:55 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 15:00:55 +0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <200101221922.NAA12839@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: > >The figurative uses of the terms are interesting. E.g., "talking >trash" and "talking garbage" don't mean the same thing to me. And >one can be trashy but not garbagy. Nor do we insult people by calling 'em "poor white garbage". From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Mon Jan 22 20:06:44 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 12:06:44 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On second thought, the garbage cans we take out to the curb every week can be called trash cans, too, though I don't think it's as common as garbage cans. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On > Behalf Of Benjamin Barrett > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 9:23 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: garbage vs. trash > > > For me, a wastepaper basket can be a trash can but not a garbage can. The > container under the sink can be called either, but is usually a > garbage can. > (I definitely interpret people saying both "take out the trash" and "take > out the garbage" to mean the same thing though the latter is more common.) > > The cans outside where the garbage is stored until they come and > pick it up > are garbage cans (not trash cans) and recycling bins. I think the word > recycling *bin* has been forced on us by the government, because two of my > bins are identical to garbage cans. > > Benjamin Barrett > Seattle > > > -----Original Message----- > > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:03 AM > > > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs > > "trash," as in cans > > or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > > Metcalf From jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM Mon Jan 22 18:27:37 2001 From: jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM (Jimmy Mullan) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:27:37 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 09:09 1/22/01 -0500, you wrote: >How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? It's not just a "Pennsylvania expression"; I come from rural Northern Ireland, in which it is alleged that the local dialect is Elizabethan (the 1st one, that is) and the term "redd up" is frequently used to imply "clean up", "get ready", as in: "Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" Am I the only one on the list who knows what that means, in the present-day Queen's English? ;-). Jimmy From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 21:19:23 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:19:23 -0500 Subject: trash vs. garbage Message-ID: And of course in the computing domain we have Mac. "Trash", cognate with Win. "Recycle Bin", but could we imagine an OS with a "Garbage"? Putting something in the Trash simply means you don't want it anymore, but putting a file in the Garbage would carry more negative connotations. DEJ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 22 21:20:10 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:20:10 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122132737.007ddc00@pop3.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: I'm quite sure Michael Montgomery could translate the entire sentence! But we have "redd up" in southern Ohio too, though the young people tend not to use it. The Scots Irish tradition is strong here, migrating westward from Pennsylvania, Maryland, etc. (it's not really "Elizabethan" anymore, of course, in No. Ireland or here, but there are some continuing influences). Pennsylvania speech isn't "unique" either; the folks there just think it is! At 01:27 PM 1/22/01 -0500, you wrote: >At 09:09 1/22/01 -0500, you wrote: > >How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? > >It's not just a "Pennsylvania expression"; I come from rural Northern >Ireland, in which it is alleged that the local dialect is Elizabethan (the >1st one, that is) and the term "redd up" is frequently used to imply "clean >up", "get ready", as in: > >"Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" > >Am I the only one on the list who knows what that means, in the present-day >Queen's English? ;-). >Jimmy _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 22 21:34:05 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:34:05 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122132737.007ddc00@pop3.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: >"Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" People in Pittsburgh -- and especially in Elizabeth PA -- talk just about like that. I'm an immigrant to the area, so I may be a little weak at the local dialect, but I'd say: "Hey, girl, sweep up the floor with that broom over against the chimney." Most likely I'd have to sweep it myself. I don't know much about Queens English, since I've never lived in New York. -- Doug Wilson From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Mon Jan 22 22:27:37 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:27:37 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat Message-ID: I've heard "kleptocrat" used recently in reference to Laurent Kabila. The OED has "kleptocracy" ("a ruling body or order of thieves"), which it dates to 1819. However, it doesn't have "kleptocrat." Nexis.com reports that its earliest citation is an abstract of a Wall Street Journal article from 1986, which is surprisingly new considering the antiquity of kleptocracy. Does anyone know of any earlier cites for "kleptocrat"? Thanks. Paul wordspy.com From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 05:51:56 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 00:51:56 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:03:17 EST AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as > in cans > or the contents thereof? Just to complicate things, here (in NE Pennsylvania) the garbage man picks up the trash. D From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 06:04:43 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 01:04:43 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:52:51 +0000 Lynne Murphy > Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a > subtype of > mandarin orange that's seedless. And indeed the fruit we had for Christmas, labeled "Clementines", was seedless. Unfortunately my book on citrus shows a full page photo of a dozen mandarin varieties arranged in a clock formation, and the clementine is just full of seeds. D From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 05:55:15 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 00:55:15 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:09:58 -0500 "D. Ezra Johnson" : > How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? It's redd up here. Though my wife and I grew up in the same NE PA community, I had never heard the word until I was thrown in with her family, which comes from only 50 miles south. I mentioned the phrase once on a private list that included one person from Scotland. He said his mother had used the term regularly, but he had never heard it outside of Fife, just north of Edenboro. D From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Mon Jan 22 22:51:57 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 14:51:57 -0800 Subject: Trash vs garbage Message-ID: Growing up in Connecticut in the 50's and 60's I had the distinction I've seen others mention here of trash = burnable waste (which we burned in the kerosene stove or outdoors in a trash can) and garbage = food waste placed in a metal can to be picked up by the "garbage man". Here in So. CA we are charged for "trash disposal" which we put in a "trash can" which is emptied weekly by the "waste disposal company". This "trash" consists of anything we don't care to keep. When I have too much unwanted trash I go to the store and buy "trash bags" which have a picture on the box showing them used for leaves and grass clippings, but "green waste", which may not include paper, plastic, or food, must be placed in a "green waste container" to be picked up. BTW, kids here "trash" each other verbally but a reply by the trashee would be to call the person a "garbage mouth". Sharyn Hay, RNC, MSN (storknurse) From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Mon Jan 22 23:14:44 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:14:44 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: This evening at a local family restaurant in a Central Indiana small town, the server, a local woman in her late 30s, asked if my chili was hot (spicy) enough. When I said it was, she replied, "I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." My wife and I disagreed on what she meant, so when she returned with more coffee I said, "So you like your chili hot." She responded, "Oh no! I can't eat it that way. It does awful things to my ulcer." Is this a unique use of unless or has it been observed elsewhere? Herb Stahlke From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 19 18:31:12 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:31:12 -0600 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: -- This year my wife came home with a demi case of 'Clementines' from Spain which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin of an orange. I had never heard of Clementines. -- I've been aware of these for, oh, almost 20 years, where they were available in New York City specialty shops (Fairway, etc). I would not characterize the clementine's skin as 'tight', tho' we may be speaking of different qualities. My experience is that, once you puncture the skin, the whole rind comes off easily, almost as a single unit, leaving absolutely no pith against the meat. Clementines are super-sweet, almost like candy. They are not 'keepers' in the sense oranges are. They go bad quick. This perhaps deterred American growers from raising them, tho' I've seen elsewhere on the net that the penetration of the European fruit (mostly from Spain) has sent the American citrus industry into overdrive: clementines are killing the market for tangerines. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 22 23:40:21 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 15:40:21 -0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: herb stahlke records an occurrence of >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 22 23:23:17 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:23:17 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat Message-ID: keptocrat, n., is an entry in AHD4 and RHWC. Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 01:09:12 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 20:09:12 EST Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books Message-ID: In a message dated Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:45:30, Laurence Horn writes/quotes: > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly > >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for > >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries > >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. > > > >Joe > > Luckily for some of those parents, the Beatles used "stupid git" in > at least one of their songs, so it's not totally unknown to us. I found one usage of "git" in this sense by a US author, the science fiction writer Lois McMaster Bujold, in _Vor Game_ (New York: Baen Books, 1990, ISBN 0-671-72014-7, page 261: "...The Barrayaran emperor, Gregor Vorbarra, was kidnapped. I found him, lost him, and mow I've got to get him back. As you can imagine, I expect the reward for his safe return to be substantial." Tung's face was a study in appalled enlightenment. "That skinny neurasthenic git you had in tow before---that wasn't him, was it?" - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 23 01:54:15 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 20:54:15 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: And, some browsers refer to deleted mail as being placed into the Trash folder, although some of it might be referred to as being garbage. And, one operating system places most deleted files into the Recycle Bin. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 23 02:07:09 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 20:07:09 -0600 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > herb stahlke records an occurrence of > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > > i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania > dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? 2) I've heard "without" used as Arnold reports . . . I'm fairly sure that I heard the usage in rural central Missouri, in a corner of Shannon County where a fair proportion of the population had German ancestors who arrived well before World War I. Maybe that's a kind of link to what might be heard in Pennsylvania Dutch country -- but I'd say it's tenuous. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 13:50:02 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 21:50:02 +0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <200101222340.PAA09566@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: At 3:40 PM -0800 1/22/01, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >herb stahlke records an occurrence of > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > >i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania >dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > This is interesting, because this "or else" use of "unless" is not so much a new sense for the connective (vis-a-vis the majority usage) but an extension of the majority usage, in somewhat the same way that positive "anymore" extends the majority (negative polarity) "anymore" by lopping off an arbitrary constraint on distribution. So here, compare I can't eat 4-alarm chili without taking Alka-Seltzer. I can't eat 4-alarm chili without getting heartburn. %I can't eat 4-alarm chili without I take Alka-Seltzer. (OK in MO, PA., etc.) %I can't eat 4-alarm chili without I get heartburn. ( " " " " " ) I can't eat 4-alarm chili unless I take Alka-Seltzer. %I can't eat 4-alarm chili unless I get heartburn. (OK for Herb's speaker) Actually, the last one will be OK for everyone if we could somehow see getting heartburn all night as a means to allow one to eat the chili, and even then the tense might be off. The idea (if I may wax speculative) is that the two sentences are on a par logically--if I eat the chili, it inevitably follows that I (have to) take Alka-Seltzer or that I get heartburn, as the case may be--but "unless" for most of us, as distinct from "without", must be followed by a "remedy" rather than simply a result. Actually, that won't generalize in the right way, but in any case there's a pragmatic requirement for most of us on "unless" that can be waived for the dialect or idiolect of Herb's speaker. larry From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Tue Jan 23 04:34:54 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 23:34:54 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: What Bob says below is what I learned in 1962 when I came to the U.S. and lived in Boston. I found the same distinction observed in a Canadian college residence the other day. They have two bins, one for "wet" stuff and another for "dry" stuff. The dry stuff is recyclable, at least most of it, I suppose, but the wet stuff is composted. T.M.P. "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > > For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note > 'garbage disposal'. > > Bob Wachal > > At 10:03 AM 1/22/01 EST, you wrote: > >Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans > >or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > >Metcalf > > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 08:21:54 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 03:21:54 EST Subject: Poor Boy (1931); Elizabeth Gibbens Message-ID: POOR BOY (1931) The LOC had no New Orleans telephone book before 1932. I found some more stuff in 1932 under "sandwiches" and used a City Directory. The name "poor boy" seems to have taken off after 1929. 1931 SOARDS' NEW ORLEANS CITY DIRECTORY (microfilmed in CITY DIRECTORIES OF THE U.S., Segment IV, 1902-1935), pg. 1139, col. 2: Poor Boy Sandwich Shop (Mrs Amelia Weidenbacher) 605 Dyades 1932, NEW ORLEANS CLASSIFIED TELEPHONE DIRECTORY, pg. 108, col. 2: PO BOI SANDWICH SHOPPE INC. (...) 3115 Calhoun...WAlnut-2314 Poor Boy Sandwich Shop 1414 N. Claiborne...FRanklin-6404 -------------------------------------------------------- ELIZABETH GIBBENS This is from the January/February 2001 ARRIVE (a magazine of Amtrak), pg. 38, col. 1: Are you clueless about clothes? Do the fashion police have you on their "Most Wanted" list? Elizabeth Gibbens wants to help you. Could it be? Elizabeth Gibbens was once William Safire's assistant. Unlike Safire's current assistant, she actually talked to me and even joined the ADS. She once posted here about "vintage clothing." The computer databases show she's written for publications such as GQ. Gibbens said that she was from Louisiana, but was living in Washington, D.C. This article states that Pennington Style Consultants is based in DC, and the e-mail is BayouMuse at earthlink.net. From pg. 39, col. 1: At $650-$1,000 a pop for guided tours of New York's fashion corridors, and $50 an hour for personal shopping trips in your home town, Elizabeth's services don't come cheap. (Maybe I don't need the answer to "boxers or briefs" THAT much--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 08:38:56 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 03:38:56 EST Subject: "Chad" in WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW Message-ID: The LOC has the WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW, 1947-1961. I went through the whole run, but didn't find much. In addition to this and DOTS AND DASHES, Western Union also put out BLAZED TRAIL, but that was a one-page, non-technical thing. I also went through TELEGRAPH WORLD, but that's an employee magazine. I'll go through the JOURNAL OF THE TELEGRAPH later, but that ended in 1919 and I'll be looking for "30" there. "Chad" appears in articles that mention "code holes." Possible acronym after all? April 1953 WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW, "Perforated Creasing Devices." Pg. 52, col. 2: Because of the roughened surface it presents, chadless tape introduces a further hazard in that configuration of stored tape in the accumulator may cause the entering tape to touch the tape being drawn out. The outgoing chadless tape tends to engage the entering tape and interfere with its free downward movement. Pg. 53, col. 1: However, removal of the static charge from chadless tape did not overcome the frictional problem and accumulators at positions using the tape were therefore equipped with exhaust blowers. July 1956, WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW, "Control System for Integrated Data Processing." Pg. 109, col. 2: The 5-wire reperforator used at the data storage position, in addition to punching code holes, is equipped with five read-back transmitter contacts located five characters to the left of the tape punch block that perforates the chad-type holes. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 09:09:27 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 04:09:27 EST Subject: Stuffed Pizza; Tequila Mockingbird; Harvey Wallbanger Message-ID: STUFFED PIZZA The claim as to the invention of the tart-like "stuffed pizza," with fillings of cheese, meats, vegetables or other combinations of ingredients, in January of 1974 is made by Nancy's Restaurant of Chicago, whose owners, Nancy and Rocco Palese, based the idea on an Italian Easter cake called _scarciedda_. --John Mariani, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK (1999) January 1977, CHICAGO. (No "stuffed pizza" ads--ed.) January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1139, col. 4: ARMINIO'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE STUFFED PIZZA & THIN CRUST January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1142, col. 1: PETE'S PIZZA THICK--PAN--STUFFED January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1142, col. 1: LA VILLA PIZZA "STUFFED" PIZZA & ALL VARIETIES January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1143, col. 4: VINCE'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT STUFFED PIZZA July 1981, CHICAGO, pg. 92, col. 1 ad: GIORDANO'S Stuffed Pizza IN THE PAN Originators of the Fabulous Stuffed Spinach Pizza 436-2969 3214 W. 63rd (In January 1978, Giordano's advertised "Home of Pizza in the Pan." Nancy's had no ad, but would, in the 1980s, be called Nancy's Stuffed Pizza. I'll be continuing with NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS in the 1970s for "stuffed pizza," "Hawaiian pizza," "California roll," "(yogurt) smoothie," and others--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD I just like the name. From THE SERVER, January 1967, pg. 30, col. 1: Another recipe we'd like to pass along, courtesy of Pepe Lopez tequila is: Tequila Mockingbird 1 jigger tequila 1/2 jigger green creme de menthe juice 1 lime Shake well with crushed ice, strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with lime. -------------------------------------------------------- HARVEY WALLBANGER I just like the name. From BAR SERVER, July-August 1970, pg. 31, col. 1: _Have a Harvey Wallbanger_ PROFIT: What? You don't know what a Harvey Wallbanger is? Just the greatest drink refresher (it restores the spirits) for Sunday morning...although we do know for a fact that it tastes great on a sunny Saturday afternoon. As this table tent points out (Illustration to right--ed.), here's how: Harvey Wallbanger 1 oz. Vodka 6 oz. orange juice Stir with ice and then splash in 1/2 oz. Galiano. Serve on-the-rocks or straight up. -------------------------------------------------------- PINA COLADA (continued) From BAR SERVER, May-June 1968, pg. 32, col. 1: Everyone returning from the Islands (Col. 2--ed.) has a remembrance of palm trees and coconuts. The Caribe Hilton serves a drink that is sure to bring back the flavor of Puerto Rico, because it has the coconut right in it. Its name is the Pina Colada, and it is as unforgettable as the island breezes. _Pina Colada_ 2 oz. coconut cream 6 oz. pineapple juice 2 oz. gold rum Shake well in crushed ice in a blender. Serve in a Collins glass and garnish with pineapple sticks. (I should have mentioned that the 1966 cite in this publication from a Su Casa restaurant was from Chicago. It had questions marks on the menu. This cites the Caribe Hilton, but I did not find "pina colada" on 1950s Caribe Hilton drinks lists--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 09:35:38 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 04:35:38 EST Subject: Bar & Buffet Message-ID: I read through the entire run of BAR & BUFFET in the LOC, from 1906-1909. This publication is not properly indexed; it should turn up with BAR SERVER and MIXER & SERVER. But they're all under different subject heads! -------------------------------------------------------- HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU Humphrey Bogart's famous statement about a goat. From a full-page ad in BAR & BUFFET, October 1908, pg. 30: _Saloon Show Cards_ Hand Painted on Beveled Edge Fine Gray Cardboard (...) HERES (sic) LOOKING AT YOU -------------------------------------------------------- QUICK LUNCH LANGUAGE From BAR & BUFFET, January 1909, pg. 10, col. 2: _A New Line of Talk._ "Say," said the Quick-Lunch Sage, whom the Editor met in one of his philosophic moods, "the chair lunches have brought a new lingo into the language, have you noticed it? It would confuse a stranger to the vernacular. For instance, you hear the lunch clerk shout an order 'Egg with,' and you see a man get an egg with a big slice of Bermuda onion on top. Then you hear an order, 'Beans with,' and you would naturally expect to see the customer get onions with his beans, but he doesn't. 'With' means bread on a bean order, while it means onions on an egg order. Then you'll hear an order, 'One egg, lots of with,' that means an extra dose of onion. Then a fellow comes in and orders a (Col. 3--ed.) 'double egg sandwich' and the innocent bystander looks to see two egg sandwiches served out, but he doesn't; he sees one sandwich with two eggs between the lids. A couple saunter up and order 'two clucks.' Is the lunch clerk feazed? He is not. He simply throws two chicken pies o! ut of the warming oven. Then a couple more Smart Alecks come in and order 'two cackle-berries on bread.' They get two egg sandwiches on bread for, if you don't specify 'bread,' you get the regular roll instead of sliced bread. Then you hear the lunch clerk throw back an order, 'Ham-chopped-bread-with,' and you wonder, with a good deal of curiousity, what will come forth, and how the ham can be served on chopped bread. What you see come out is a chopped-ham sandwich on bread with onion. I tell you, it's a great language." -------------------------------------------------------- RICKEY (continued) From BAR & BUFFET, June 1907, pg. 5, col. 2: _THE FIRST RICKEY._ An American drink of world-wide reputation is the Rickey. The first Rickey was made in 1891 by George Williamson, who is still quenching assorted thirsts at Shoomaker's, Washington barroom, Toledo, O., (Toledo?--ed.) which has been famous since 1858. Colonel Jos. R. Rickey, of Fulton, Missouri, was a celebrated character about the National Capital in those days. He drifted into Shoomaker's one hot day and asked for a cooling drink. Mr. Williamson put a piece of ice in a long glass, poured some whiskey over it and added mineral water. The crowd had several "rounds" of them. Then the suggestion was made that a drop of lime juice would be an improvement. Mr. Williamson supplied the limes. The new drink was called "Colonel Rickey's brand." A few weeks later a Washingtonian dropped into the Hoffman House bar in New York and asked for a "Colonel Rickey." The barkeeper confessed ignorance and was enlightened. From that time the Rickey began to grow in favor, and it has ! endured to this day. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 00:17:37 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 08:17:37 +0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <3A6D09EE.D6559449@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: At 11:34 PM -0500 1/22/01, Thomas Paikeday wrote: >What Bob says below is what I learned in 1962 when I came to the U.S. >and lived in Boston. I found the same distinction observed in a Canadian >college residence the other day. They have two bins, one for "wet" stuff >and another for "dry" stuff. The dry stuff is recyclable, at least most >of it, I suppose, but the wet stuff is composted. >T.M.P. > Composted vs. compacted in some quarters: we have trash compactors but not garbage compactors. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Tue Jan 23 14:02:13 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 09:02:13 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: Mike Salovesh wrote: > > Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > > > herb stahlke records an occurrence of > > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > > > > i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania > > dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > > > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > > 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? I have heard people in Central PA use "unlest" in this context. From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 23 14:07:43 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 09:07:43 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: And, both Novell's GroupWise and some browsers refer to deleted mail as being placed into the Trash folder, although some of it might be referred to as being garbage. One operating system places most deleted files into the Recycle Bin. [Apologies if you received two copies of the above message; only one was intended to be sent.] George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM Tue Jan 23 12:19:39 2001 From: jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM (Jimmy Mullan) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 07:19:39 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010122162425.01d25b80@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 16:34 1/22/01 -0500, Doug Wilson wrote: >>"Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" > >People in Pittsburgh -- and especially in Elizabeth PA -- talk just about >like that. I'm an immigrant to the area, so I may be a little weak at the >local dialect, but I'd say: > >"Hey, girl, sweep up the floor with that broom over against the chimney." Bang on, Doug. Guess I'd feel very well at home in Elizabeth PA, if I ever wanted to feel at home anywhere ;-). [snip] >I don't know much about Queens English, since I've never lived in New York. LOL ;-). Jimmy From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 23 15:36:41 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 10:36:41 -0500 Subject: Shitcom Message-ID: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM writes: >>>>> SIT-COM: SITUATIONAL COMEDY. right? <<<<< "Situation comedy", no "-al", in the days before it was always abbreviated. The humor, such as it is, basically arises from the situations, not from human interaction, wit, slapstick, etc. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 23 15:38:53 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 10:38:53 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: Jimmy Mullan writes: >>>>> It's not just a "Pennsylvania expression"; I come from rural Northern Ireland, in which it is alleged that the local dialect is Elizabethan (the 1st one, that is) and the term "redd up" is frequently used to imply "clean up", "get ready", as in: "Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" Am I the only one on the list who knows what that means, in the present-day Queen's English? ;-). <<<<< I would hazard a translation as follows: "Yo, peewee! Clean the floor with that broom by the chimney." Nu? -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 23 15:48:39 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 10:48:39 -0500 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> I found one usage of "git" in this sense by a US author, the science fiction writer Lois McMaster Bujold, in _Vor Game_ (New York: Baen Books, 1990, ISBN 0-671-72014-7, page 261: "...The Barrayaran emperor, Gregor Vorbarra, was kidnapped. I found him, lost him, and mow I've got to get him back. As you can imagine, I expect the reward for his safe return to be substantial." Tung's face was a study in appalled enlightenment. "That skinny neurasthenic git you had in tow before---that wasn't him, was it?" <<<<< And for what it's worth, Tung doesn't use other Briticisms, IIRC. Although Bujold describes characteristic accents, in what is presumably English, of different planets (and Barrayar has four official languages: English, Russian, French, and Greek), I don't recall her generally using vocabulary as a distinguishing mark of origin so much as of individuals. (There are exceptions, such as Ethan of Athos asking "What's a wife?": with the aid of uterine replicator technology, Athos, founded by religious fanatics, has no women at all.) For info on this author, see http://www.dendarii.com/. -- Mark A. Mandel Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 23 16:10:07 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:10:07 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <3A6D8EE5.8A49BD85@cmu.edu> Message-ID: At 09:02 AM 1/23/01 -0500, you wrote: >Mike Salovesh wrote: > > > > Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > > > > > herb stahlke records an occurrence of > > > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > > > > > > i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania > > > dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > > > > > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > > > > 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? > > >I have heard people in Central PA use "unlest" in this context. I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following vowel, as in "acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the Midland. But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, which suggests the usage of both has a long history. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 03:27:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:27:19 +0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010123110716.01c1d580@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 11:10 AM -0500 1/23/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> > 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? >> >> >>I have heard people in Central PA use "unlest" in this context. > >I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following vowel, as in >"acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the Midland. > >But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, >which suggests the usage of both has a long history. > >_____________________________________________ The evidence seems to indicate otherwise. Both "lest" and "unless" ultimately derive from "less", but "lest" was around for four centuries before "unless", and according to the OED the "un-" in the latter is really a reanalysis of destressed "on". "Lest" is attested in 1000, "unless" in the 15th c., and unlest(e) (with three citations from the 16th century) is given as an obsolete variant of the latter. This would be one of many cases where the OED's "obs." should really be "obs. and dial." I don't think "lest" necessarily figures in "unlest". larry From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Tue Jan 23 16:25:53 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:25:53 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: At 11:10 AM 1/23/2001 -0500, Beverly Olson Flanigan wrote: >[re "unlest"]: I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following >vowel, as in "acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the Midland. > >But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, >which suggests the usage of both has a long history. > OED2 traces "lest" to an OE phrase that contains the ancestor of "less," and traces "unless" to a ME phrase containing "less" that looks as if it collapsed into a single word during the 15th century. So, "lest" and "unless" are, strictly speaking, cousins rather than parent/child. OED2 has entries for "unlest" and "unleast." All citations seems to be from the 16th century, so the phenomenon of speakers fusing unless/unle(a)st/lest is probably not new, and may well have persisted for centuries in the spoken rather than the formal written language. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Tue Jan 23 16:47:16 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:47:16 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: At 11:27 AM 1/23/2001 +0800, you wrote: >This would be one of many cases where the OED's "obs." should really >be "obs. and dial." I don't think "lest" necessarily figures in >"unlest". > >larry [horn] > The English Dialect Dictionary might help with the possible history of nonstandard "unle(a)st" between 1600 and 1900, but I don't have a copy here with me. It's hard to be sure where the "t" comes in. It could be liaison, as suggested earlier, and/or a natural enough (con)fusion of two conjunctions having similar sounds and not unrelated meanings, due (after all) to a geunine genetic link. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 23 17:09:23 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:09:23 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <200101231625.LAA08355@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 11:25 AM 1/23/01 -0500, you wrote: >At 11:10 AM 1/23/2001 -0500, Beverly Olson Flanigan wrote: > >[re "unlest"]: I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following > >vowel, as in "acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the > Midland. > > > >But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, > >which suggests the usage of both has a long history. > > > >OED2 traces "lest" to an OE phrase that contains the ancestor of "less," and >traces "unless" to a ME phrase containing "less" that looks as if it >collapsed into a single word during the 15th century. So, "lest" and >"unless" are, strictly speaking, cousins rather than parent/child. > >OED2 has entries for "unlest" and "unleast." All citations seems to be from >the 16th century, so the phenomenon of speakers fusing unless/unle(a)st/lest >is probably not new, and may well have persisted for centuries in the spoken >rather than the formal written language. > > >Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu Oops! Thanks to you and Larry for pointing this out--I was shooting from the hip, obviously. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 17:23:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:23:51 EST Subject: Driving While Female (DWF); Investorwords.com Message-ID: DRIVING WHILE FEMALE (DWF) In case you haven't been watching your tabloid news: police on Long Island have been pulling over vehicles driven by attractive women and ordering the drivers to take off their clothes. "Driving While Female" turned up today, as expected. -------------------------------------------------------- INVESTORWORDS.COM From the NEW YORK POST, 22 January 2001, pg. 44, col. 1: site of the week Talking the talk www.investorwords.com "ABANDONMENTS options" got you down? What about "backward integration?" Maybe you're confused by "ladder strategy" or "Laffer Curve." The definitions to these--and 5,000 or so other terms--are at your fingertips at www.investorwords.com. A lot of financial sites have accompanying glossaries to reference, but this one is more definitive than most. It calls itself the best financial glossary to be found, online or off. (...) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 23 17:31:05 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:31:05 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Americans, including me, certainly DO use the word "rubbish" in the 'trash' sense. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Natalie Maynor" To: Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 2:25 PM Subject: Re: garbage vs. trash > Lynne Murphy wrote: > > > > We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a > > > construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be > > > incombustible. > > > > Now, here our intuitions vary. To me, rubbish would be paper waste or > > rags, not construction waste. And it would definitely be burnable. But > > maybe I've lived outside the US too long to have American 'rubbish' > > intuitions. > > I can't remember ever having heard anybody in the USA use the word > "rubbish" except figuratively. Calling trash or garbage rubbish > strikes me as very British. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 05:24:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:24:42 +0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <200101231647.LAA18799@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 11:47 AM -0500 1/23/01, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: >At 11:27 AM 1/23/2001 +0800, you wrote: >>This would be one of many cases where the OED's "obs." should really >>be "obs. and dial." I don't think "lest" necessarily figures in >>"unlest". >> >>larry [horn] >> > >The English Dialect Dictionary might help with the possible history of >nonstandard "unle(a)st" between 1600 and 1900, but I don't have a copy here >with me. No listings; the only variants are "onless" and "unlessen". No "unlest" or "unleast" at all in Wright. >It's hard to be sure where the "t" comes in. It could be liaison, as >suggested earlier, and/or a natural enough (con)fusion of two conjunctions >having similar sounds and not unrelated meanings, due (after all) to a >geunine genetic link. > Again, I have to dissent. I think it's more likely that, as Beverly suggested, "unlest" is related (phonologically) to "acrosst" and "oncet". There's no sign that "lest" ('so that not', 'for fear that') and "unless"--whether cousins or siblings--were ever usable interchangeably; I've mostly used the former when I was translating Lat. "ne" + subjunctive in high school but even those who do use it seem to use it in a register-restricted way. larry From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 23 18:48:44 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:48:44 -0600 Subject: Fazed [was Bar & Buffet] Message-ID: > From BAR & BUFFET, January 1909, pg. 10, col. 2: [...] >Is the lunch clerk feazed? I assume this is 'fazed'. Is this a typo, or just an early eye-spelling? M-W say 1830 for 'faze', and, with AHD4 links it to ME 'fesen', 'frighten drive away'. You often see it spelled 'phased'. AHD4 gives a better definition for the current sense than does M-W. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 19:01:14 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:01:14 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: L. Horn: >... I think it's more likely that ... "unlest" is related (phonologically) >to "acrosst" and >"oncet". .... Web search provides a number of modern instances of "unlest"; they all seem to = "unless". Is the standard word "lest" heard (outside 'fixed expressions') in casual speech anywhere? If so, one might expect it to become confused with "unless", which has reasonably common spoken versions "unlest" and "'less". For example, if my great-uncle from Dogpatch used "lest" in its standard sense in casual conversation when I was young, I might have misinterpreted it and adopted it as "unless"/"unlest" in the same sense in my speech. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 06:08:39 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:08:39 +0800 Subject: Fazed [was Bar & Buffet] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:48 PM -0600 1/23/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >> From BAR & BUFFET, January 1909, pg. 10, col. 2: >[...] >>Is the lunch clerk feazed? > >I assume this is 'fazed'. Is this a typo, or just an early eye-spelling? M-W >say 1830 for 'faze', and, with AHD4 links it to ME 'fesen', 'frighten drive >away'. You often see it spelled 'phased'. > >AHD4 gives a better definition for the current sense than does M-W. > My bartleby.com connection is acting up so I can't try to confirm this, but I suspect those who spell it as "phased" may be influenced by that well-known sci-fi weapon, the phaser, which is depicted as leaving the phasee looking...well, [feizd]. larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 23 19:05:48 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:05:48 -0500 Subject: Need to reach Terry Irons Message-ID: Can someone give me a tel. no. or email address for Terry Irons? Thanks, Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 23 19:19:06 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:19:06 -0500 Subject: Need to reach Terry Irons In-Reply-To: ; from dumasb@UTK.EDU on Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 02:05:48PM -0500 Message-ID: > Can someone give me a tel. no. or email address for Terry Irons? Should be t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU JTS From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 23 19:26:14 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:26:14 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: Doug Wilson writes: >Is the standard word "lest" heard (outside 'fixed expressions') in casual speech anywhere?< I should think the opening (solemn tones), "Lest We Forget...." would be so familiar to everyone that "lest" could easily slip into common speech on the appropriate occasion. A. Murie From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 23 19:31:01 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:31:01 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: This, I think, is where the variant "least" comes in. I do hear things like I have to get home early least I get in trouble. While not common, I hear it enough to believe that it's active in local speech. It may, of course, be a hypercorrection or a case of dental paragoge. Herb >>> douglas at NB.NET 01/23/01 02:01PM >>> L. Horn: >... I think it's more likely that ... "unlest" is related (phonologically) >to "acrosst" and >"oncet". .... Web search provides a number of modern instances of "unlest"; they all seem to = "unless". Is the standard word "lest" heard (outside 'fixed expressions') in casual speech anywhere? If so, one might expect it to become confused with "unless", which has reasonably common spoken versions "unlest" and "'less". For example, if my great-uncle from Dogpatch used "lest" in its standard sense in casual conversation when I was young, I might have misinterpreted it and adopted it as "unless"/"unlest" in the same sense in my speech. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 19:36:43 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:36:43 -0500 Subject: "Chad" in WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW In-Reply-To: <42.fb83151.279e9d21@aol.com> Message-ID: > "Chad" appears in articles that mention "code holes." Possible > acronym after all? Not impossible, but (1) the apocryphal acronym for "card hole aggregate debris" is doubtful since the earliest chads seem to have been from telegraphy tape; (2) even with "card" replaced with "code", the "aggregate" remains doubtful since the earliest chads seem to have been countable; (3) acronyms were much less usual before WW II than they are now, generally, I think. I have been reading patents. Pre-1950, I don't find "chads" except in telegraphy. I find in the same sense "chips", "clippings", "punchings", "wads", "discs", "slugs", "pieces". Even in telegraphy, "discs" and "chips" turn up more often than "chads", based on cursory (but still very tedious) examination of a few hundred documents. I think I can explain the "Mr. Chadless" story now: the term "chadless tape" apparently preceded the term "chad tape", and "chadless tape" may have been common before "chad(s)" became common, "chad(s)" being something noticeable by virtue of its absence. But "chadless tape" clearly < "chad(s)". And I have another tentative -- so far unsubstantiated -- etymology/explanation for "chad" itself. If I should recover solid information, might I consider publishing it somewhere? "American Speech"? "Notes and Queries"? Send it to Safire? Send it to Quinion? Anybody interested in collaborating? -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 07:12:54 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:12:54 +0800 Subject: "break a leg" Message-ID: Another "true fact" or folk etymology, as the case may be. This time I couldn't find anything at all in Brewer's Phrase & Fable or the OED, but again it strikes me as an unlikely, post-hoc rationalization. I don't find the purported meaning of "leg" in the OED either, FWIW. Any educated guesses? (There's a variety of speculative derivations at a web site on theatrical terminology, http://www.ex.ac.uk/drama/tech/morebreakaleg.html, but none of these involve a reference to the difficult task of "mak[ing] it successfully out on to the stage" posited below. I'd think the default derivation is the one invoking a superstition or taboo, but that's sheer speculation too.) larry =========================== Fact: The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and then giving a good performance. It has nothing to do with actual legs or stomping instead of clapping. From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 23 20:23:48 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:23:48 -0500 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From my theatre background, it would seem that the simple solution is maybe the best -- in theatre superstition, it's bad luck to wish someone good luck. It would be interesting to know why 'break a leg' developed instead of 'break an arm', but I'm pretty sure that the leg is just a leg. To accord this to some other kind of leg seems pushing it. Perhaps a source that explains why it's bad luck to whistle in a theatre, why you never say the final line of a play at the dress rehearsal, why you never utter the name of the Scottish king, etc. would have more insight, as opposed to folk etymology sources. --- Steve K. From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 23 20:27:05 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:27:05 -0500 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > then giving a good performance. Incidentally, as I alluded to in my other message, I think this is wrong simply from the standpoint that it's unlikely that an actor would wish someone good luck, as that would be bad luck. (I have witnessed superstitous actors walk under ladders backstage without a qualm, with the rationale that since that's bad luck, it's therefore good luck. [Although it's pretty stupid, since a technician could accidently drop something on your head if you bump the ladder.]) --- Steve K. From michael at RFA.ORG Tue Jan 23 20:38:32 2001 From: michael at RFA.ORG (Michael) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:38:32 -0500 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > then giving a good performance. gosh -- and all this time i thought it was because if you broke a leg, you got in a cast. michael From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 20:59:39 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:59:39 EST Subject: Mulling over mullet again Message-ID: Metro, Silicon Valley's weekly newspaper, in its January 18-24 2001 issue has this article: Hair-Raising History From Neanderthal man to the Beastie Boys, the legendary mullet boasts a long evolution with roots confused by its elusive etymology By Mary Spicuzza THE MULLET PHENOMENON proves once and for all that a visionary musical trio known as the Beastie Boys were cultural watchdogs far ahead of their time. Long before the web birthed its sites devoted to mullet mania, the Beasties released "Mullet Head," a 1994 B-side single celebrating the bad-hair legend of the '80s. Besides paying homage to bad hair legends like Joey Buttafuoco, Kenny G and Van Damme, Beastie Boys Mike D, AdRock and MCA even provide a mullet-making formula with the lyrics, "Number 1 on the side and don't touch the back/Number 6 on the topand don't cut it wack, Jack." The Beastie Boys magazine, Grand Royal, also devoted an entire issue to bad hair, beginning with the prophetic words, "There's nothing quite as bad as a bad haircut. And perhaps the worst haircut of all is the cut we call 'The Mullet.'" And mullet history was made. "A while back we got a letter from the Oxford English Dictionary saying that we had the first printed use of the word [to describe bad hair]," Grand Royal staffer Ian Rogers boasts. . . . The whole article is on the Web at http://www.metroactive.com:80/metro/cover/mullet2-0103.html - Allan Metcalf From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 23 21:17:49 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:17:49 -0600 Subject: Compilation of "chad" material Message-ID: Doug Wilson asks in his Jan. 23 e-mail concerning his research on "chad": >If I should recover solid information, might I consider publishing it >somewhere? "American Speech"? "Notes and Queries"? Send it to Safire? Send >it to Quinion? Anybody interested in collaborating? In reply: I am currently compiling all the ADS-L material on "chad" for publication in the April issue of my _Comments on Etymology_, a scholarly, non-profit series of working papers. Due credit is given throughout the article to everyone whose material is used. If more material on "chad" emerges afterwards (as is very likely), I will have follow-ups on "chad" in subsequent issues. Individual contributors retain the rights to their material and may reprint it at their own discretion any time and anywhere they choose. I'll be in touch with everyone whose material I incorporate into the working paper (I suppose that's everyone who has sent an ADS-L message on the subject). The working papers are received by various scholars, lexicographers, and educated laymen. Ultimately they appear in formal publications, but even in the working paper stage they receive attention. ---Gerald Cohen From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 21:18:30 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 16:18:30 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks it was around before that. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Tue Jan 23 21:38:45 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 22:38:45 +0100 Subject: "break a leg" Message-ID: I've heard actors say "break a leg" meaning "good luck", and I have always thought it was a kind of translation of the German "Hals- und Beinbruch", used in the same way, not only in the theatre. Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve K." To: Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 9:27 PM Subject: Re: "break a leg" > On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > > > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > > then giving a good performance. > > Incidentally, as I alluded to in my other message, I think this is wrong > simply from the standpoint that it's unlikely that an actor would wish > someone good luck, as that would be bad luck. > > (I have witnessed superstitous actors walk under ladders backstage without > a qualm, with the rationale that since that's bad luck, it's therefore > good luck. [Although it's pretty stupid, since a technician could > accidently drop something on your head if you bump the ladder.]) > > --- Steve K. From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 21:37:32 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 16:37:32 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... origins of the slogan "Information wants to be free." Here's one item: http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link9809/0102.html -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 21:39:50 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 16:39:50 -0500 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: <3A68C1A7.39E469CB@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: M. Salovesh: >Calling THE Philosopher's Stone some kind of "sorcerer's stone" isn't >really an instance of the dumbing down of books intended for kids in the >U.S. It's a demonstration that dumbing down has already succeeded in >corrupting the publishing business in this country. "Corrupted"? I agree. But I suspect that the replacement of "philosopher" with "sorcerer" was unrelated to the degree of erudition of the editors. If all of the editorial staff agreed that "philosopher" was clearly correct, for example, but a marketing survey showed that an additional 100,000 copies probably would be sold if the word "sorcerer" appeared in the title, what would have been the chosen title? If I had been the author (not a wealthy person until recently AFAIK), I might have approved this corrupt/cynical title change. Was the change made throughout the text? If so, that's somewhat another story. -- Doug Wilson From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Tue Jan 23 21:49:31 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 22:49:31 +0100 Subject: "break a leg" Message-ID: Nigel Rees' Dictionary of Phrase & Allusion (Bloomsbury 1993) has the phrase and confirms my opinion: "This traditional greeting is said before a performance, especially a first night (...) Morris (Dict. of Word and Phrase Origins, 1977) has it based on a German good luck expression, Hals- und Beinbruch." Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve K." To: Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 9:27 PM Subject: Re: "break a leg" > On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > > > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > > then giving a good performance. > > Incidentally, as I alluded to in my other message, I think this is wrong > simply from the standpoint that it's unlikely that an actor would wish > someone good luck, as that would be bad luck. > > (I have witnessed superstitous actors walk under ladders backstage without > a qualm, with the rationale that since that's bad luck, it's therefore > good luck. [Although it's pretty stupid, since a technician could > accidently drop something on your head if you bump the ladder.]) > > --- Steve K. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 23 23:13:26 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 17:13:26 -0600 Subject: Hals- und Beinbruch (was "break a leg") Message-ID: Jan Ivarsson (Jan. 23) writes: > >Nigel Rees' Dictionary of Phrase & Allusion (Bloomsbury 1993) has >the phrase and confirms my opinion: >"This traditional greeting is said before a performance, especially >a first night (...) Morris (Dict. of Word and Phrase Origins, 1977) >has it based on a German good luck expression, Hals- und Beinbruch." I'd just like to clarify the rationale behind this strange expression of good luck. (German: Hals = neck; Bein = leg; Bruch = break; so one is literally wishing that the person break his/her neck and leg). A medieval superstition was that devils exist and are particularly eager to strike down someone who is happy or optimistic. But precautions could be taken. One was noise, which was believed to have the power to frighten away devils, and this explains the clinking of glasses at a happy occasion, like a party It also explains the still modern custom of breaking dishes the night before a German wedding (Polterabend, literally "rumpus evening"), which survives in the Jewish custom of the groom smashing a glass with his foot just before he kisses the bride. The other precaution was to outwit the devil (Fortunately, so goes the belief) devils are unbelievably stupid). So if I want to wish someone good luck, I actually wish him bad luck (May you break your neck and leg.) The person to whom I am saying this knows that I really wish him good luck but am saying Hals- und Beinbruch just in case a devil is in the vicinity and might overhear us. Now, of course, we deal merely with traditional expressions of good luck, with no thought given to devils. ---Gerald Cohen From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 12:36:27 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 20:36:27 +0800 Subject: Hals- und Beinbruch (was "break a leg") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The principal elements of the Jan Ivarsson/Jerry Cohen explanation concur with those of Cecil Adams' consultant (below), but I confess I like some of the outlier theories found on the web. Besides the John Wilkes Booth one mentioned below, there are, in no particular order ----------------------- The rather terrible curse may have had a more benign origin. Much earlier in stage history, when superstition had a less frightening hold on the craft, actors and their followers used a more gracious greeting: "May you break your leg," by which it was meant that the evening's performance would be of such grandeur that the actor would be obliged to break his leg - that is bend his knee - in a deep bow acknowledging the audience's applause. ----------------------- Evidently, in the days of early vaudeville, the producers would book more performers than could possibly perform in the given time of the show - since "bad" acts could be pulled before their completion... so, in order to insure that the show didn't start paying people who don't actually perform, there was a general policy that a performer did NOT get paid unless they actually performed on-stage. So the phrase "break a leg" referred to breaking the visual plane of the legs that lined the side of the stage. i.e. "Hope you break a leg and get on-stage so that you get paid." ------------------------ I've run into considerable debate over the origin of this one. My favorite (having understudied a few times) is that it came from the understudies telling the primaries to "break a leg" enough times that it came to be considered bad luck if they didn't say it. A more likely origin is from Shakespeare's time when "to break a leg" meant to "take a bow". ------------------------ I always heard that in the Greek times, people didn't applaud--they stomped for their appreciation. So if they stomped long enough, they would break a leg. -------------------------- and my personal favorite: In the nineteenth century theatre, when it was the norm for actors like Keen, Tree, and Irving to be actor managers. They would perform a role many times and for many years. When a new actor would take over a particular role that had become closely associated with one of these legendary actors he was told "break the legend". Over time this gradually got changed to "break a leg". ==================== and now, here's Cecil: What's the origin of "break a leg" in show business? 08-Aug-2000 Dear Straight Dope: Where did the term "break a leg" originate in theater, and why is it considered a better alternative than "good luck"? --Luke Johnson-Wyoming SDSTAFF Ken replies: There are a number of theories about the origin. The most colorful is that the phrase refers to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by actor John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theater, when Booth jumped from Lincoln's box to the stage, breaking his leg. However, the phrase was first recorded in print in the early 1900s, and is unlikely to refer to an incident half a century earlier. Eric Partridge, in his Dictionary of Catchphrases, suggests that "break a leg" originated as a translation of a similar expression used by German actors: Hals- und Beinbruch (literally, "a broken neck and a broken leg.") The German phrase traces back to early aviators, possibly during World War I, spreading gradually to the German stage and then to British and American theaters. Why would people twist a wish for dreadful injury into one for good luck? Evan Morris, of www.word-detective.com, suggests that, "Popular folklore down through the ages is full of warnings against wishing your friends good luck. To do so is to tempt evil spirits or demons to do your friend harm. Better to outwit the demons (who must be rather dim, it seems to me) by wishing your friend bad fortune." Morris goes on to cite the stage directions for the opening night a few years ago of the reconstructed Globe Theater in London, which "supposedly called for two actors to swing dramatically from a balcony down to the stage on ropes. One of the actors slipped and, you guessed it, broke his leg." Straight Dope Staff Dex wants to add that it's not wise to use the phrase outside of the theatre. He was having a conversation with a cantor, about to lead a religious service for 1,000 people, and he smiled, "Break a leg." The cantor wasn't familiar with the phrase or with the theatre tradition, and Dex says the look he got would have withered an artichoke. --SDSTAFF Ken Straight Dope Science Advisory Board From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 23 00:09:01 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 19:09:01 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of its nuances. Now it seems to be inserted in almost every proposition. Is this an increased usage, or am I just getting ypersensitive to it? D From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 24 01:47:09 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 17:47:09 -0800 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: <002f01c08586$603a01a0$80a6b2c3@oemcomputer> Message-ID: This expression is similar to one in Japanese - hone-o ore - which means to break a bone. I've always wondered if it is related or simply an expression common in many languages. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Jan Ivarsson > Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 1:50 PM > > Nigel Rees' Dictionary of Phrase & Allusion (Bloomsbury 1993) has > the phrase and confirms my opinion: > "This traditional greeting is said before a performance, > especially a first night (...) Morris (Dict. of Word and Phrase > Origins, 1977) has it based on a German good luck expression, > Hals- und Beinbruch." From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 02:46:48 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 20:46:48 -0600 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: It would seem almost a rule in English that any noun in -ation can backform a verb in -ate. To the point, perhaps, that it supplants the original verb stem which formed the noun. Orient, orientation > orientate. One can also carry it in other directions. Converse, conversation, conversational, conversationalistical conversationalize, conversationalisticalization, conversationalizationism, etc. It's easy to noun verbs and verb nouns, with various parts of speech inbetween: it can be done to quite nearly *any* word, whatever the word's origin. It's my opinion this is the ultimate explanation for English's huge vocabulary. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 24 05:05:59 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 21:05:59 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <20010122.193237.-302153.1.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Duane Campbell > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 4:09 PM > > In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for > converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the > pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I > have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a > life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 24 05:20:12 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 21:20:12 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". now this is not part of my dialect, which has "almost" and "nearly" in this function (presumably, these are also available in parton's tennessee mountain dialect). *however*, "just about" is fine for me: "I just about fainted". this is an odd little wrinkle. there is a further aspectual wrinkle to approximative adverbial "about": for me, unmodified "about" is ok in rather constrained aspectual contexts. "I about finished it" is out for me (presumably ok in appalachian english), but plain "about" is fine in perfects: "I've/I'd about finished it." appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on (approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when "about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about my variety? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From pulliam at IIT.EDU Wed Jan 24 07:27:12 2001 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 01:27:12 -0600 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" exemplified in "We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will be a problem." (where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming more and more common in written correspondence? This is the third or fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to think that it may be moving toward respectability. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 08:37:13 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 02:37:13 -0600 Subject: Politics of Personal Destruction. Message-ID: I don't know where this might fit in the word of the year/decade category, but here goes: Ron Kampeas, an Associated Press writer, has a bylined AP newsfeed story (dated 24 Jan 2001, apparently) that should echo here and there around the net. He notes how Republicans have picked up the term 'politics of personal destruction', even though it was coined by Clinton in 1994. Quoting Clinton, he writes: --start quote-- "I do not believe that the politics of personal destruction is what the American people are interested in," he said at a news conference on March 8 of that year. Evidently, he liked it: Within days, he was using the phrase at Democratic fund-raisers. --end quote-- He then quotes Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania": --start quote-- Jamieson, who analyzes American political rhetoric, said the phrase was one of the more notable presidential legacies to the American language - although it fell far short of Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" quote. Clinton had tapped into frustration with tabloid politics. "People were saying, we should not be engaging in politics to destroy other persons or ideas," she said. "We should be forcefully designating areas of disagreement." She traces Republican appropriation of the phrase to late 1998, around the time a slew of extramarital revelations surfaced about members of Congress prosecuting Clinton during the impeachment hearings. It was a rare occurrence. "We'd just coined a political phrase both sides are comfortable with,'" she said. --end quote-- Yes. Term may be here to stay. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 24 09:12:57 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 04:12:57 -0500 Subject: "Chad", "chadless", "chatts" Message-ID: I have found an instance of "chadless" dated 1940. I don't think "chadless" goes back much farther, since I've reviewed what I think are the patent documents for the chadless punching process, filed in 1939. Needless to say, there's no Mr. Chadless involved. The specifications from 1939 apparently don't include the word "chadless", but they do include "chads", meaning "pieces of waste [from a perforated tape]" (no quotation marks are employed in the specs.). It is clear that "chadless" = "producing no chads". The alternative to chadless tape was not called "chad tape" but IIRC "perforated tape". This (apparently 1939) is the earliest instance of "chad(s)" which I've found. But the word was already familiar in telegraphy circles by/before 1939, judging from 1939-1942 documents. I'm still looking. Now the USPTO Web-site seems to have developed a "bug", so I'm stalled on the patents. More later. I had pictured chad(s) as inert material lying on the floor or filling a waste bin. But apparently under conditions of high-speed punch operation all kinds of paper debris tended to fly about, and some tended to stick to things and people by static electricity. I think high-speed high-volume telegraphy tape punching might date from roughly the 1920's. Now we're getting close to WW I, not WW II, maybe. I pointed out en passant that "chat(t)" = "louse" a while back. Evan Morris forwarded a letter from a correspondent ("Bob Kamman"?) who speculatively derived "chad" from "chat" = "louse". This correspondent (1) took "chat" as military slang (wrong, I think), (2) related "chat" = "conversate" to "chat" = "(de)louse" (wrong, I think), and (3) supported the louse-chad connection with a reference to punched-card chips being thrown in one's hair at a party (irrelevant, surely). It is apparently true, however, that "chat" = "louse" was current among British and allied troops during WW I, when lice proliferated in the trenches (Partridge mentions this, and several Web pages give glimpses). Now one might picture the telegraph-office workers at the end of their work day, say circa 1930-35, picking the chads off themselves and each other, and one might consider that some of them might have served in the trenches in WW I -- where they spent a lot of time picking chats (lice) off their clothes .... Can anyone show "chad" = "louse"? -- Doug Wilson From rkm at SLIP.NET Wed Jan 24 08:54:39 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 00:54:39 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: <200101240520.VAA26633@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >...is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? My Oklahoma born and bred mother-in-law surprised me with her use of about in that way. I'm comfortable with "just about" in most of those environments. RIma From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Wed Jan 24 10:14:29 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:14:29 +0100 Subject: Naff Message-ID: We've discussed this Britishism before, but this comes from today's New York Observer. What are the odds it's true? http://www.observer.com/pages/simon.asp "I recently found out the origin of the word naff. Now widely used in the U.K. to mean "a depressing lack of style," naff was originally a gay slang acronym for "Not Available For Fucking," i.e., "straight" (i.e., "dreary"). Naff is a great word with no American translation. Remember, tacky means "cheap or glitzy," whereas naff is about stylistic shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and pathetically un-groovy. Use the word naff and become a connoisseur of naff. After all, it is a vanishing commodity" -- Grant Barrett http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From tcf at MACOMB.COM Tue Jan 23 12:39:56 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 06:39:56 -0600 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 2:08 PM Subject: Re: South Dakotan 'yet' > Larry Horn writes: > > >>>>> > funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a > well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and > adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) > that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include > > Is there turkey yet? > > on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the > utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping > some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives > early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. > <<<<< > > I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the > (putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the > inception of an expected future state: > > His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. > > I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: > > Is there yet turkey? > > Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. > But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) > > > -- Mark A. Mandel From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 11:32:49 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:32:49 +0000 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010122210626.01d2fb60@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 23, 2001 4:39 pm -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > "Corrupted"? I agree. But I suspect that the replacement of "philosopher" > with "sorcerer" was unrelated to the degree of erudition of the editors. > If all of the editorial staff agreed that "philosopher" was clearly > correct, for example, but a marketing survey showed that an additional > 100,000 copies probably would be sold if the word "sorcerer" appeared in > the title, what would have been the chosen title? If I had been the > author (not a wealthy person until recently AFAIK), I might have approved > this > corrupt/cynical title change. Was the change made throughout the text? If > so, that's somewhat another story. Yes, it was made throughout the text, and that's why they have to film two versions of every scene where the philosopher's/sorcerer's stone is mentioned. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 12:00:34 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 12:00:34 +0000 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <915695690gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: It's a good description of 'naff', I think, but the meaning extends beyond fashion-style to anything life-stylish. E.g., a grad student was talking about how she wished she had someone to go swimming with, but she didn't want to join a swim club because "That's a bit naff, innit?" Lynne --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 11:14 am +0100 Grant Barrett wrote: > We've discussed this Britishism before, but this comes from today's New > York Observer. What are the odds it's true? > > http://www.observer.com/pages/simon.asp > > "I recently found out the origin of the word naff. Now widely used in the > U.K. to mean "a depressing lack of style," naff was originally a gay > slang acronym for "Not Available For Fucking," i.e., "straight" (i.e., > "dreary"). Naff is a great word with no American translation. Remember, > tacky means "cheap or glitzy," whereas naff is about stylistic > shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and pathetically un-groovy. > Use the word naff and become a connoisseur of naff. After all, it is a > vanishing commodity" > > -- > Grant Barrett > > http://www.worldnewyork.org/ M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:47:07 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:47:07 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <20010122.193237.-302153.1.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: >I'm so fond of the presupposition(s) behind the phrase "Is this a >mistake or growing usage?" that I have printed it out on the spot. dInIs >In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for >converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the >pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I >have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a >life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? > >I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a >filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of >its nuances. Now it seems to be inserted in almost every proposition. Is >this an increased usage, or am I just getting ypersensitive to it? > >D -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:49:59 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:49:59 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? dInIs >Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. > >It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. > >Benjamin Barrett >gogaku at ix.netcom.com > >> -----Original Message----- >> Behalf Of Duane Campbell >> Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 4:09 PM >> >> In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for >> converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the >> pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I >> have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a >> life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 00:51:17 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:51:17 +0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:54 AM -0800 1/24/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>...is there a characterization of >>this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >>"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >>my variety? > >My Oklahoma born and bred mother-in-law surprised me with her use of >about in that way. I'm comfortable with "just about" in most of >those environments. > >RIma I share the judgments Arnold (and Rima) report (for their own varieties) with respect to "about" vs. "just about", and the lack of an explanation for them. larry From stevek at SHORE.NET Wed Jan 24 13:47:09 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:47:09 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't know if it arose as a locution in valleyspeak, or what, but "I about died" I've heard a lot. I about fainted, screamed, etc. sounds unusual to me, but "I about died" seems idiomatic. (That's not literal, but as in "I was so embarrassed, I about died.") --- Steve K. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:59:23 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:59:23 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: <200101240520.VAA26633@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >arnold, My "near-Appalachian" reactions are similar to yours, but I wonder if "I 'bout fianted' and "I 'bout finished it" are perfects with some phonological processes at work? Unstressed "a" dropping (from "about") inevitably brings it in contact with the also vulnerable 'v' and 'z' forms of the perfect. Loss of those (in ugly 'vb' and 'zb' clusters) might make perfects look like nonperfects. Perhpas "careful speech" would result in a "reanalysis" such as "I about ..." if that is in fact what you heard. I'm not against your more delicate aspectual inmterpretation, but I wonder if these processes might not be involved. dInIs >listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught >an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" >in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". > >now this is not part of my dialect, which has "almost" and "nearly" in >this function (presumably, these are also available in parton's >tennessee mountain dialect). *however*, "just about" is fine for me: >"I just about fainted". this is an odd little wrinkle. > >there is a further aspectual wrinkle to approximative adverbial >"about": for me, unmodified "about" is ok in rather constrained >aspectual contexts. "I about finished it" is out for me (presumably >ok in appalachian english), but plain "about" is fine in perfects: >"I've/I'd about finished it." > >appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on >(approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone >know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? > >arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From ramt1 at YORK.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 13:50:12 2001 From: ramt1 at YORK.AC.UK (Ros Temple) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:50:12 +0000 Subject: Second Call for Papers - UK-LVC3 Message-ID: 3rd UK LANGUAGE VARIATION CONFERENCE Call for papers: The 3rd UK Language Variation Conference will take place at the University of York from July 19th to 22nd, 2001. Invited speakers will be: Lesley Milroy (University of Michigan & University of York), Jane Stuart-Smith (University of Glasgow) Peter Trudgill (University of Fribourg) This series of meetings was inaugurated at the University of Reading in 1997, with the second at the University of Essex in 2000. It aims to provide a forum in the United Kingdom where the focus will be on the quantitative study of language variation and change. Proposals are invited for 20-minute contributions (plus 10 minutes¹ discussion) on topics falling within the proposed focus area. Abstracts (max. 500 words) should be sent within the text of an email to uklvc3 at york.ac.uk, stating author¹s name, address (electronic and postal) and institutional affiliation. ***REVISED DEADLINE *** Submission of abstracts: February 16th, 2001. All abstracts will be refereed and replies will be sent out by April 1st, 2001. ORGANISING COMMITTEE: Sali Tagliamonte, Paul Foulkes, Helen Lawrence, Jennifer Smith, Rosalind Temple and Dominic Watt. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:02:59 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:02:59 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: Mark Odegard wrote: > > It's easy to noun verbs and verb nouns, with various parts of speech > inbetween: it can be done to quite nearly *any* word, whatever the word's > origin. It's my opinion this is the ultimate explanation for English's huge > vocabulary. Funny, I always mentated that the immensosity of the English vocabulary was due to British and American colonializaticalation and adoptation of indigenical and aboriginaterical lexicalational elements. :) [Dubya's got nothin' on me, vocabularizationally.] From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 01:05:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:05:58 +0800 Subject: Politics of Personal Destruction. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:37 AM -0600 1/24/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >I don't know where this might fit in the word of the year/decade category, >but here goes: > >Ron Kampeas, an Associated Press writer, has a bylined AP newsfeed story >(dated 24 Jan 2001, apparently) that should echo here and there around the >net. He notes how Republicans have picked up the term 'politics of personal >destruction', even though it was coined by Clinton in 1994. Quoting Clinton, >he writes: > >--start quote-- >"I do not believe that the politics of personal destruction is what >the American people are interested in," he said at a news >conference on March 8 of that year. Evidently, he liked it: Within >days, he was using the phrase at Democratic fund-raisers. >--end quote-- > The odd aspect of the current usage is that the meaning has changed 180 or so degrees from Clinton's intended usage. The current "culprits" are Democrats who laud Ashcroft for his personal integrity and oppose his nomination as Attorney General because they don't agree with his statements and record on issues ranging from abortion to the judiciary to civil rights to the relations of church and state to the death penalty. So "politics of personal destruction" has come to mean 'politics of ideological opposition'. larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:10:41 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:10:41 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > > >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? According to the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet database service: Erzsebet P Dombi, Grammatical Forms of Synesthesia [Original Title, A szinesztezia grammatikai formai], Nyelv-es Irodalomtudomanyi Kozlemenyek, 1972, 16, 1, 37-50. Abstract: Synesthesia in the works of the Hungarian lyric impressionists is manifested in linguistic elements of varying complexity: compound words, syntagmas, phrases, compositional unities, or in the entire poem. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:16:47 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:16:47 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <3A6EE261.5403F96D@cmu.edu> Message-ID: >Köszönöm szépen. dInIs >"Dennis R. Preston" wrote: >> >> >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? > >According to the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet database >service: > >Erzsebet P Dombi, Grammatical Forms of Synesthesia [Original Title, A >szinesztezia grammatikai formai], Nyelv-es Irodalomtudomanyi >Kozlemenyek, 1972, 16, 1, 37-50. > >Abstract: >Synesthesia in the works of the Hungarian lyric impressionists is >manifested in linguistic elements of varying complexity: compound words, >syntagmas, phrases, compositional unities, or in the entire poem. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 01:34:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:34:00 +0800 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <915695690gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: >We've discussed this Britishism before, but this comes from today's New York >Observer. What are the odds it's true? > >http://www.observer.com/pages/simon.asp > >"I recently found out the origin of the word naff. Now widely used >in the U.K. to >mean "a depressing lack of style," naff was originally a gay slang >acronym for "Not >Available For Fucking," i.e., "straight" (i.e., "dreary"). Naff is a >great word with no >American translation. Remember, tacky means "cheap or glitzy," >whereas naff is about >stylistic shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and >pathetically un-groovy. Use >the word naff and become a connoisseur of naff. After all, it is a vanishing >commodity" > >-- >Grant Barrett Looks to me like another candidate for the pseudo-acronym files. Is there any evidence for this derivation? Might as well opt (to take a few random possibilities suggested by google.com) for the "National Association For Fathers", the "North Alabama Fishing Forum", or the "North Atlantic Folk Festival". OK, pretty unlikely, but I don't see the proposed source as any more plausible. "Naff" doesn't appear in Bruce Rodgers's Gay Talk, one of the standard lexicons of gay slang, and and while at least one dictionary of polari/parlare, the now evanescent British "secret" gay lingo includes the above etymology, it also derives "camp" as an acronym for Known As Male Prostitute, so that's not terribly convincing. The much more authoritative polari lexicon at http://www.nz.com/NZ/Queer/Polari/polari.html, compiled by Hugh Young, provides "Not Available For Fucking" along with "Normal As Fuck" and "Naffuckinggood" as dubious sources and comments "acronyms probably back-formed". Indeed. Since it does appear that naff may have (not did, but may have) originated in polari/British gay slangI'll cross-post this query on OUTiL and see if anyone there has a more likely story. As for the standard sources, AHD4 has naff as "of unknown origin", the OED refers to related entries in the English Dialect Dictionary (naffhead, naffy, naffin) and Scots naffy as an analogous term of contempt, but also has "origin unknown". Farmer & Henley has no listing for naff or naffy but has one for naf: (back-slang [from fan(ny)]) 'the female pudendum'. I'd wager that's unrelated too. The OED's definition for naff is Unfashionable, outmoded, or vulgar; unselfconsciously lacking style, socially inept; also, worthless, faulty, `dud' larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:57:27 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:57:27 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: arnold zwicky wrote: [snip] >appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on >(approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone >know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? I can't answer your question, but I suggest that the the Ap/Ozark approximator "like to" seems to have identical occurrence patterns - e.g.,"I like to [liketa] died," meaning approximately "I was embarrassed." I have also heard "I just like to died." However, "like to" is also used to mean "nearly" (see CGEL 8.112 n.). Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 24 15:46:51 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:46:51 -0500 Subject: "Chad", "chadless", "chatts" In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010123232037.01d3add0@127.0.0.1>; from douglas@NB.NET on Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 04:12:57AM -0500 Message-ID: > I have found an instance of "chadless" dated 1940. I don't think "chadless" > goes back much farther, since I've reviewed what I think are the patent > documents for the chadless punching process, filed in 1939. Needless to > say, there's no Mr. Chadless involved. The specifications from 1939 > apparently don't include the word "chadless", but they do include "chads", > meaning "pieces of waste [from a perforated tape]" (no quotation marks are > employed in the specs.). It is clear that "chadless" = "producing no > chads". The alternative to chadless tape was not called "chad tape" but > IIRC "perforated tape". > > This (apparently 1939) is the earliest instance of "chad(s)" which I've > found. But the word was already familiar in telegraphy circles by/before > 1939, judging from 1939-1942 documents. I'm still looking. Now the USPTO > Web-site seems to have developed a "bug", so I'm stalled on the patents. > More later. Would you consider posting citations from these documents? I can't find any examples of _chad_ 'louse', though _chat(t)_ is, as has been pointed out, very common in the Wars--though only among British and ANZAC troops, not among Americans. Jesse Sheidlower From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 15:52:21 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? At 09:05 PM 1/23/01 -0800, you wrote: >Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. > >It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. > >Benjamin Barrett >gogaku at ix.netcom.com > > > -----Original Message----- > > Behalf Of Duane Campbell > > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 4:09 PM > > > > In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for > > converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the > > pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I > > have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a > > life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From elizabethpg at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 16:54:42 2001 From: elizabethpg at YAHOO.COM (Elizabeth Gibbens) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:54:42 -0800 Subject: garconne pants Message-ID: Thanks to Barry for publicizing the ARRIVE article. This month�s BAZAAR used the phrase "garconne pants." I�m interested in anyone�s opinions on the derivation and meaning of that phrase. I�d particularly like to discuss the topic of separate nomenclature for men�s and boys� clothing. Thank you again! Elizabeth Gibbens __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 16:19:49 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:19:49 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: I've heard "about" in this construction many times in SE/Appalachian Ohio, but never in the perfect. For me, too, "I've about [=almost] finished my work" is quite different from "I about fainted"; the latter seems always to be used metaphorically, not literally (this apparently is the case with Bethany's "liketa" also). I might use "just about" either literally or figuratively, but if the latter never in the perfect: *I've just about fainted." Similarly, I suspect Bethany wouldn't say "I've liketa died"? But I'm sure App Eng speakers, at least in my area, might say "I've about finished," with literal meaning. Might the nonperfective usage be limited to figurative uses, i.e., as a lexical restriction? At 09:20 PM 1/23/01 -0800, you wrote: >listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught >an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" >in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". > >now this is not part of my dialect, which has "almost" and "nearly" in >this function (presumably, these are also available in parton's >tennessee mountain dialect). *however*, "just about" is fine for me: >"I just about fainted". this is an odd little wrinkle. > >there is a further aspectual wrinkle to approximative adverbial >"about": for me, unmodified "about" is ok in rather constrained >aspectual contexts. "I about finished it" is out for me (presumably >ok in appalachian english), but plain "about" is fine in perfects: >"I've/I'd about finished it." > >appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on >(approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone >know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? > >arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 24 16:25:43 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:25:43 -0800 Subject: basically In-Reply-To: <20010122.193237.-302153.1.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: > > I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a > filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of > its nuances. Now it seems to be inserted in almost every proposition. Is > this an increased usage, or am I just getting ypersensitive to it? "Conversate" seemed to attract all the attention here, but no one has taken aim at "basically." I agree that it strips an idea of its nuances; more pernicious, though, is the notion that the speaker cares not a whit for the listener's ability to deal with complexity, and that the speaker--well, you know, like, basically--has no time to waste explaining an issue to an obtuse or presumably disinterested listener. There is the implication that the "basically"-monger has already sorted out all the side issues that might confuse the listener, thank you. "What happened last night?" "Well...basically, we had an earthquake." (One could muster sympathy for "Basically, e=mc2," though.) For my taste, the offensiveness of "basically" is directly proportional to the simplicity of the statement. Note the parallel to the popularity, in a time-obsessed age, of "cut to the chase" and "bottom line." Peter R. From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 24 16:38:05 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:38:05 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010124104814.00cfc1b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I guess because I believe it to mean the same thing as converse. Does it have a different meaning? Ashcroft used it so it doesn't seem like it would be a feature of a particular ethnic group. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Beverly Flanigan > Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 7:52 AM > > "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in > our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? > > At 09:05 PM 1/23/01 -0800, you wrote: > >Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. > > > >It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. > > > >Benjamin Barrett > >gogaku at ix.netcom.com From davemarc at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 24 16:08:45 2001 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:08:45 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." David From buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET Wed Jan 24 15:54:09 2001 From: buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET (Buchmann) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:54:09 -0400 Subject: basically Message-ID: Besides "in lowest terms" 'basically' also means "fundamentally." I have (over-)used it in this guise for at least thirty years. Peter Richardson wrote: > > I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a > > filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of > > its nuances. > "Conversate" seemed to attract all the attention here, but no one has > taken aim at "basically." I agree that it strips an idea of its nuances; > more pernicious, though, is the notion that the speaker cares not a whit > for the listener's ability to deal with complexity, and that the > speaker--well, you know, like, basically--has no time to waste explaining > Peter R. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 16:57:22 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:57:22 -0800 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: Maybe it's just not knowing how to use a colon. I think "..." or a dash would also work if the writing is approximating speech. --- Greg Pulliam wrote: > Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma > splice" exemplified in > > "We can probably wait on the software for now, I > don't think it will > be a problem." > > (where the comma takes the place of "because" or > "since") is becoming > more and more common in written correspondence? > This is the third or > fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, > leading me to think > that it may be moving toward respectability. > > -- > - > Greg > > greg at pulliam.org > http://www.pulliam.org ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Wed Jan 24 17:03:20 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:03:20 +0100 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: On mercredi 24 janvier 2001 08:27, Greg Pulliam wrote: >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" >exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? This is the third or >fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to think >that it may be moving toward respectability. I've been reading like a madman over the past few weeks, catching up on all the English-language books a and lit I put off while reading French this past semester, and I gotta say, except in email and online forums (that is to say, excepting all material that could not reasonably have been said to pass before an editor), the only place I've seen the dreaded comma splice lately is in French. If I ever become a fluent French writer, I vow to never use the comma splice. It makes my skin crawl and my hand creep up to tick in a fat, round period every time. Split infinitives are okay, however. -- Grant Barrett http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 17:17:28 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:17:28 +0000 Subject: comma=because In-Reply-To: <20010124165722.15020.qmail@web9507.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I think a semicolon would be more appropriate. Lynne --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 8:57 am -0800 James Smith wrote: > Maybe it's just not knowing how to use a colon. I > think "..." or a dash would also work if the writing > is approximating speech. > > > --- Greg Pulliam wrote: >> Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma >> splice" exemplified in >> >> "We can probably wait on the software for now, I >> don't think it will >> be a problem." >> >> (where the comma takes the place of "because" or >> "since") is becoming >> more and more common in written correspondence? >> This is the third or >> fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, >> leading me to think >> that it may be moving toward respectability. >> >> -- >> - >> Greg >> >> greg at pulliam.org >> http://www.pulliam.org > > > ===== > James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything > SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. > http://auctions.yahoo.com/ M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 17:49:55 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 12:49:55 EST Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! Message-ID: In a new book I find the following allusion to a very familiar expression, referring to the fact that Anne Perry, the mystery writer, had been identified as having been involved in a murder when a teen-ager in Australia: "Perry was terrified that the revelation of her past . . . would destroy her career, but as it turned out, the ensuing wave of interest actually increased her sales, confirming the old wisdom that there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426. This is one of those popular expressions which are very hard to document because they are very variable in their formulation. It exists in both a negative form, as above, and a positive one: all publicity is good publicity. I find in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th ed., 1999 and the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying and Quotation, 1997, the same citation, attributed to Brendan Behan: all publicity is good publicity, except your own obituary. I think that this is obviously Behan's elaboration of a previously familiar expression. The ODQ further dates the idea to the early 20th century. The 1986 edition of Partridge's Dictionary of Catchphrases gives it with the concluding qualification "so long as they spell your name right" and dates it to the mid 1930s. This is the form familiar to me. Hamilton's Dictionary of Canadian Quotations cites a minor-league Canadian politician as expressing the idea without using either canonical formulation. He says, in effect, that since people only read the headlines in the newspaper, the trick is to get your name mentioned, and whether the reference in favorable or otherwise in immaterial. I well remember that a prizefight promoter from Boston, who staged well club fights in Portland, Maine in the late 1960s expressed the thought in another formulation: every knock is a boost. (I was living in Portland at the time, attended most of the fight shows, and read this in the Portland Press-Herald.) How early can this be dated? GAT From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 24 15:49:46 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:49:46 -0500 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>...Naff ... >Looks to me like another candidate for the pseudo-acronym files. ... Partridge (8th ed.) gives several lines to this word. It is given as distinct from another "naff" [= (1) female privates, (2) nothing, (3) euphemism as in "Naff off!" etc.]. The adjective "naff" = "tacky"/"vulgar" supposedly comes from theatrical slang, from the 1960's according to a Paul Beale correspondent. This apparently was attached to the backronym by the 1980's. Thorne says "naff" dates from the 1930's, but I think he's combining what are separate entries in Partridge (the early use given as prostitutes' slang for "nothing" [this one has an acronym/backronym too, something like "not a f*cking fart"]). The origins appear to be obscure. It's not clear whether the different words "naff" are related. -- Doug Wilson From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 18:11:45 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: This sort of error is as common as it is because English punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks very nicely. If you say this sentence with the because meaning, you will probably have normal declarative sentence intonation with a slight rise on the end of "now", and then the second clause will be in a generally lower intonation, indicating that its content is presupposed to be true. The content will then invite the causal interpretation. We do this a lot in speech. However, writing doesn't mark intonation so efficiently, and so we can't do it in writing. I think that students--and the rest of us--who write sentences like the one question are trying to express just that presuppositional relationship, not realizing that English punctuation can't handle that meaning. That's what makes the comma splice such a problem in English. As speakers we feel we ought to be able to write things like that. As writers, we learn that we can't and after a while stop trying to. Herb Stahlke >>> pulliam at IIT.EDU 01/24/01 02:27AM >>> Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" exemplified in "We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will be a problem." (where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming more and more common in written correspondence? This is the third or fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to think that it may be moving toward respectability. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Wed Jan 24 18:19:40 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:19:40 -0800 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: This came into the ADS web site. Please reply to the sender as well as the list, but not to me. I'm lookin for the word(s) that mean (something like) the solution to the problem will recreate the problem. I believe the ending of the movie the French Connection was an indication of the situation??? Marie MReier at dsc.smcs.noacsc.org From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 18:11:59 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:59 -0500 Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" (Was Re: It's a case for Fred Shapiro!) Message-ID: At 12:49 PM 1/24/2001 EST, George Thompson wrote: >"...there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha >Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426.... > > How early can this be dated? > A quick scroll through the 291 occurrences of "publicity" in OED2 reveals one example of this saying, not an especially early one I suppose, but perhaps of interest. It's part of the entry for knock v.: 1958 Spectator 12 Dec. 865/1 On the last page he protests about `the growing tendency in some newspapers today to write only "knocking" stories about stars as big as Tommy'. But..almost any publicity is good publicity: you can knock around the clock and the moon-faced masses will only hear applause. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 18:27:22 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:27:22 +0000 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010124102857.0260abd0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 10:49 am -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > Partridge (8th ed.) gives several lines to this word. It is given as > distinct from another "naff" [= (1) female privates, (2) nothing, (3) > euphemism as in "Naff off!" etc.]. > > The adjective "naff" = "tacky"/"vulgar" supposedly comes from theatrical > slang, from the 1960's according to a Paul Beale correspondent. This > apparently was attached to the backronym by the 1980's. > > Thorne says "naff" dates from the 1930's, but I think he's combining what > are separate entries in Partridge (the early use given as prostitutes' > slang for "nothing" [this one has an acronym/backronym too, something like > "not a f*cking fart"]). > > The origins appear to be obscure. It's not clear whether the different > words "naff" are related. New Oxford D of E treats naff=go away (euphemism) and naff=lacking style as homonyms. The former may be related to 'eff off', the latter is 'of unknown origin'. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 18:37:44 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:37:44 -0800 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: Or that old military bugaboo, orientate. --- davemarc wrote: > FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." > > David ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From Amcolph at AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 19:12:10 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:12:10 EST Subject: Naff Message-ID: Hoving some vulgar Brit connections of my own and being familiar with the term, I always took it for granted as a corruption of the French for "naive": naif=>naff. Ray Ott From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 06:16:50 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:16:50 +0800 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010124102857.0260abd0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 10:49 AM -0500 1/24/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>...Naff ... > >>Looks to me like another candidate for the pseudo-acronym files. ... > >Partridge (8th ed.) gives several lines to this word. It is given as >distinct from another "naff" [= (1) female privates, (2) nothing, (3) >euphemism as in "Naff off!" etc.]. > >The adjective "naff" = "tacky"/"vulgar" supposedly comes from theatrical >slang, from the 1960's according to a Paul Beale correspondent. This >apparently was attached to the backronym by the 1980's. > >Thorne says "naff" dates from the 1930's, but I think he's combining what >are separate entries in Partridge (the early use given as prostitutes' >slang for "nothing" [this one has an acronym/backronym too, something like >"not a f*cking fart"]). > >The origins appear to be obscure. It's not clear whether the different >words "naff" are related. > I *love* "backronym". Is that an established label for these (we've discussed dozens on this list over the last few years) or your coinage, Doug? By the way, John Wells notes the Collins entry (Millennium edition, 1998)-- ========== *naff* (næf) _adj_ _Brit. slang_ inferior; in poor taste. [C19: perhaps back slang for _fan_, short for FANNY] > *'naffness* *naff off* _sentence substitute._ _Brit. slang._ a forceful expression of dismissal or contempt. =========== --so maybe my wager that the Farmer & Henley item "naf" (back-slang from "fan(ny)", with the usual British as opposed to U.S. geographical value) 'female pudendum' was ill-advised. Maybe not, though, if Partridge is right in finding these two "naff"s distinct. larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 19:19:28 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:19:28 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: James Smith wrote: > > Or that old military bugaboo, orientate. > > --- davemarc wrote: > > FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." > > Or, "solicitate", which I just read in a proposal review. It looks like it falls into this category of neologisms, but both OED & Webster's list it (Webster's calls it obsolete). From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 06:22:48 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:22:48 +0800 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! In-Reply-To: <31CD30D44C9@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 12:49 PM -0500 1/24/01, GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: > In a new book I find the following allusion to a very familiar >expression, referring to the fact that Anne Perry, the mystery >writer, had been identified as having been involved in a murder when >a teen-ager in Australia: "Perry was terrified that the revelation of >her past . . . would destroy her career, but as it turned out, the >ensuing wave of interest actually increased her sales, confirming the >old wisdom that there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha >Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426. > > This is one of those popular expressions which are very hard to >document because they are very variable in their formulation. It >exists in both a negative form, as above, and a positive one: all >publicity is good publicity. > > I find in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th ed., 1999 and the >Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying and Quotation, 1997, the same >citation, attributed to Brendan Behan: all publicity is good >publicity, except your own obituary. I think that this is obviously >Behan's elaboration of a previously familiar expression. The ODQ >further dates the idea to the early 20th century. The 1986 edition >of Partridge's Dictionary of Catchphrases gives it with the >concluding qualification "so long as they spell your name right" and >dates it to the mid 1930s. This is the form familiar to me. Then there's the related "Call me whatever you want, as long as it's not late for dinner" larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 19:31:08 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:31:08 -0500 Subject: comma splice (run-on clauses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As an old comp teacher (now I occasionally teach the teaching of writing in ESL), I was a stickler for the semi-colon--not prescriptively, but because it should, and when used correctly does, mark in print the very pauses and intonation changes you mention. This half-pause helps in fast and accurate reading (=decoding), so that one doesn't have to backtrack and mentally readjust the parsing of the sentence. Conjunctions can substitute, of course, but sometimes a pause alone is sufficient, as in the sentence cited below; yet I still want a clear signal of the degree of pausing (or intonational rise) that would presumably be marked in speech, and the semi-colon provides that (a period is a bit too definite). Unfortunately, my grad students (and many colleagues!) seem not to have ever heard this rationale and think I'm just being "fussy." At 01:11 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >This sort of error is as common as it is because English >punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks >very nicely. If you say this sentence with the because meaning, >you will probably have normal declarative sentence intonation with >a slight rise on the end of "now", and then the second clause will >be in a generally lower intonation, indicating that its content is >presupposed to be true. The content will then invite the causal >interpretation. We do this a lot in speech. However, writing >doesn't mark intonation so efficiently, and so we can't do it in >writing. I think that students--and the rest of us--who write >sentences like the one question are trying to express just that >presuppositional relationship, not realizing that English >punctuation can't handle that meaning. That's what makes the >comma splice such a problem in English. As speakers we feel we >ought to be able to write things like that. As writers, we learn >that we can't and after a while stop trying to. > >Herb Stahlke > > >>> pulliam at IIT.EDU 01/24/01 02:27AM >>> >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" >exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it >will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is >becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? This is the >third or >fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to >think >that it may be moving toward respectability. > >-- >- >Greg > >greg at pulliam.org >http://www.pulliam.org _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 24 19:47:24 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:47:24 -0500 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... "backronym". I got this from the "Jargon Dictionary" -- for example, http://info.astrian.net/jargon/ -- Doug Wilson From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Wed Jan 24 20:03:07 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 12:03:07 -0800 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: Or administrate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Drew Danielson" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 11:19 AM Subject: Re: Conversate > James Smith wrote: > > > > Or that old military bugaboo, orientate. > > > > --- davemarc wrote: > > > FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." > > > > > Or, "solicitate", which I just read in a proposal review. It looks like > it falls into this category of neologisms, but both OED & Webster's list > it (Webster's calls it obsolete). > > From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 20:05:30 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:05:30 -0500 Subject: comma splice (run-on clauses) Message-ID: You're right about the semi-colon. The semantic relationship between the clauses is really their content and context. In "Sammy ate five green apples; he got a belly ache" the second clause is a consequence, not a cause. In "The town conserved water; the reservoir ran dry" the first clause has a concessive meaning. This is a set of facts that neither traditional grammar nor formalist syntax handles well. The fact that one clause may function subordinately to the other seems to violate the meaning of the semicolon or of "and" if that is used. But in a sentence like "He ate five green apples(;/, and) Sammy got a belly ache", where "he" refers cataphorically to "Sammy", the cataphoric reference of "he" is something normally found only in subordinate clauses and a few other structures, so the pragmatics forces a subordinate interpretation on what is otherwise syntactically coordinate. Herb >>> flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 01/24/01 02:31PM >>> As an old comp teacher (now I occasionally teach the teaching of writing in ESL), I was a stickler for the semi-colon--not prescriptively, but because it should, and when used correctly does, mark in print the very pauses and intonation changes you mention. This half-pause helps in fast and accurate reading (=decoding), so that one doesn't have to backtrack and mentally readjust the parsing of the sentence. Conjunctions can substitute, of course, but sometimes a pause alone is sufficient, as in the sentence cited below; yet I still want a clear signal of the degree of pausing (or intonational rise) that would presumably be marked in speech, and the semi-colon provides that (a period is a bit too definite). Unfortunately, my grad students (and many colleagues!) seem not to have ever heard this rationale and think I'm just being "fussy." At 01:11 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >This sort of error is as common as it is because English >punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks >very nicely. If you say this sentence with the because meaning, >you will probably have normal declarative sentence intonation with >a slight rise on the end of "now", and then the second clause will >be in a generally lower intonation, indicating that its content is >presupposed to be true. The content will then invite the causal >interpretation. We do this a lot in speech. However, writing >doesn't mark intonation so efficiently, and so we can't do it in >writing. I think that students--and the rest of us--who write >sentences like the one question are trying to express just that >presuppositional relationship, not realizing that English >punctuation can't handle that meaning. That's what makes the >comma splice such a problem in English. As speakers we feel we >ought to be able to write things like that. As writers, we learn >that we can't and after a while stop trying to. > >Herb Stahlke > > >>> pulliam at IIT.EDU 01/24/01 02:27AM >>> >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" >exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it >will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is >becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? This is the >third or >fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to >think >that it may be moving toward respectability. > >-- >- >Greg > >greg at pulliam.org >http://www.pulliam.org _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 24 20:02:16 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:02:16 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan suggested: >fainted." Similarly, I suspect Bethany wouldn't say "I've liketa >died"? I am, alas, not a native speaker of "like to" - I am quoting Ozark and Appalachian speakers. It is true, however, that I am a native speaker of some features - double modals, for instance. Not all the features made the rtip into lower East TX. Bethany From suri at ESURI.COM Wed Jan 24 20:18:23 2001 From: suri at ESURI.COM (Siddharth Suri) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:18:23 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: "Let me noodle it" Someone said this to me today and I was curious if anyone knows where this expression originated from. thanks suri. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 07:58:50 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:58:50 +0800 Subject: "Let me noodle it" In-Reply-To: <009101c08642$dfb3cd00$266238cc@SSURI> Message-ID: At 3:18 PM -0500 1/24/01, Siddharth Suri wrote: >"Let me noodle it" > >Someone said this to me today and I was curious if anyone knows >where this expression originated from. > >thanks >suri. I'd guess it means 'consider, think about', and that it's a zero-derivation from "noodle" as a noun = 'head, brain, mind'. Now as for the origin of this, the AHD4 suggests it was an alteration of "noddle", which is a Middle English word for the head. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Wed Jan 24 20:46:09 2001 From: WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Nichols, Wendalyn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:46:09 -0500 Subject: English muffins = crumpets Message-ID: The original muffin--as in 'do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane?'-- is a round flat 'cake' (not sweet, though) that was usually griddled on both sides. What they sell now in the UK as a muffin is still similar to this, and tends to vary in interior texture. When I lived in the UK (1987-1996) I didn't see them on sale nearly as much as crumpets (made by pouring batter into a metal ring on a griddle and cooking on one side), and neither as much as scones. The American version of this flat, round, 'English' muffin has a more open, less delicate texture than the things I ate in England. What we call a muffin--the sweet raised cake--is indeed an 'American muffin' in the UK--but there is also a chain called The Canadian Muffin Company that sells them (very good, Lynne--if you're in London, they're on the Islington High Street opposite the Angel tube station). A scone, on both sides of the Atlantic, is basically what in the US we know of as a baking powder biscuit but with sugar in the batter. The dough is shaped into rounds, cut in wedges, then baked. As an aside, some friends of mine had me to stay at their home once, and decided to cook me an American breakfast to make me feel at home. They made 'buckwheat pancakes'--thin crepes served with icing sugar and wedges of lime. -----Original Message----- From: Lynne Murphy [mailto:lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK] Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 12:23 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: English muffins = crumpets I should trust my instincts more often--or use dictionaries more often. To me, English muffins look more like crumpets than like UK muffins (I've never actually eaten either). But when I looked up 'crumpet' in the New Oxford dictionary, it told me that 'crumpets' are made on a griddle. I assumed that English muffins were baked, but I've just looked up 'English muffin' in AHD4 and--whaddyaknow--they're made on a griddle. So, I was wrong (not for the first or last time) when I said that US English muffins = UK muffins. I've checked some on-line grocery stores to try to find you some pictures, but no luck. Perhaps Americans would call UK muffins 'biscuits' or 'rolls'--I'm not sure. Just remember, that this is a country where pancakes come already cooked in plastic wrap and are eaten cold, and where a 'flapjack' is sort of like a granola bar, except it's made out of oats. So anything's possible in how we differ in names of (and attitudes toward) bready things. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 24 21:31:27 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:31:27 -0800 Subject: Countable folks Message-ID: Our college PR director recently commented to me that our president, who is not especially folksy, had suddenly become fond of using "folks" in letters, speeches and the like. My response was that I'd noticed lots of people using "folks" a lot lately (in preference to "people"), but that the main thing I'd noticed was a trend toward making "folks" countable. I think it was probably about 7-8 years ago that I began to notice other people using the word in ways that at least came awfully close to countability. I can't remember actual quotes, but these new usages seemed to at least test the boundaries that constrain my own uses of the word. Lately I've actually heard people (oops, sorry--folks) refer to "three or four folks," which definitely goes beyond my boundaries. Has anybody else noticed this? Or has it been around for a long time and I'm only now noticing it? Or have other folks always been able to count "folks"? Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 24 21:24:20 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:24:20 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010124104814.00cfc1b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: It's yucky because it's not standard English, Beverly. That doesn't necessarily make it bad or evil or the first step down the slippery slope to ruin for the language, but it does indicate that the speaker has neither the time nor the inclination to discover the traditional term which he or she is aiming for. I find it charming and disarming in folks who've not had extended educational opportunities. I find it disturbing and reprehensible and outright hilarious when it comes from folks who--I'm sorry to say it--should know better. Hey, I enjoy and love a fluid and lively language, one that is dynamic and open to change. But this, at least for me, is not that type of change. It's just careless, and it smacks of the type of thinking that anytime one can add a syllable to a term, whether it's valid or not, it's good. Our students don't need to see this type of hooey coming from either their fellows, who set themselves up as semi-experts when they become writers, or from the man who wants to become the nation's attorney general. He should know better, as well. It's yucky. Sorry--I'm not feeling very tolerant today. bob > From: Beverly Flanigan > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Conversate and basically > > "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in > our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? > > > _____________________________________________ > Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics > Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 > Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 > http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 21:47:59 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:47:59 EST Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" Message-ID: The 1958 quote below is not really the same aa the quote in question, I first heard the exact phrase "there is no such thing as bad publicity" from the mouth of STanley Fish in the later 1980s, though I can't prove it with any written cite. I always assumed that Stanley made up the phrase himself. Her certainly believed it. In a message dated 1/24/2001 1:22:29 PM, gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU writes: << At 12:49 PM 1/24/2001 EST, George Thompson wrote: >"...there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha >Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426.... > > How early can this be dated? > A quick scroll through the 291 occurrences of "publicity" in OED2 reveals one example of this saying, not an especially early one I suppose, but perhaps of interest. It's part of the entry for knock v.: 1958 Spectator 12 Dec. 865/1 On the last page he protests about `the growing tendency in some newspapers today to write only "knocking" stories about stars as big as Tommy'. But..almost any publicity is good publicity: you can knock around the clock and the moon-faced masses will only hear applause. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu >> From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 21:45:47 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:45:47 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: At 03:58 PM 1/24/2001 +0800, Larry wrote: >At 3:18 PM -0500 1/24/01, Siddharth Suri wrote: >>"Let me noodle it" >> >>Someone said this to me today and I was curious if anyone knows >>where this expression originated from. >> >>thanks >>suri. > >I'd guess it means 'consider, think about', and that it's a >zero-derivation from "noodle" as a noun = 'head, brain, mind'. Now >as for the origin of this, the AHD4 suggests it was an alteration of >"noddle", which is a Middle English word for the head. > Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, informally experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, people often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of the verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in technical, mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are nothing but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) The one thing that strikes me about Siddharth's example is that I do not happen to have heard the verb construed as transitive. But there's no reason why a transitive contruction wouldn't have emerged quite naturally. And now I bet someone will now post tons of evidence to the list of "to noodle" taking a direct object! Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 22:02:35 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:02:35 -0600 Subject: English muffins = crumpets Message-ID: >I've checked some on-line grocery stores to try to find you >some pictures, but no luck. Crumpet picture: http://www.viewimages.com/viewimage/?imageid=70055&promotionid=1&partnerid=2&type=results It looks like an English muffin, but this is a *toasted* crumpet. English muffins are split before being toasted, while a crumpet (apparently) is not. An amendment to my earlier posting of crumpet and English muffin recipes. I've seen homemade English muffins being made. You put a scant amount of raw cornmeal onto the griddle before putting the dough on the griddle. This adds to the external firmness, and also seems to help prevent sticking. Another distinction between an English muffin and a crumpet is that an English muffin is made from a dough, whereas a crumpet is made from a batter (but both are made with yeast). As has been stated, a crumpet is cooked on only one side, while an English muffin is cooked on both sides. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 22:04:30 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:04:30 -0800 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: I read the second clause as an explanation of the first, therefore I would use a colon. I can see using a semicolon if you read the statement as "We can probably wait on the software for now, (but)I don't think it will be a problem." --- Lynne Murphy wrote: > I think a semicolon would be more appropriate. > > Lynne > > --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 8:57 am -0800 James > Smith > wrote: > > > Maybe it's just not knowing how to use a colon. I > > think "..." or a dash would also work if the > writing > > is approximating speech. > > > > > > --- Greg Pulliam wrote: > >> Does it seem to anyone else that the type of > "comma > >> splice" exemplified in > >> > >> "We can probably wait on the software for now, I > >> don't think it will > >> be a problem." > >> > >> (where the comma takes the place of "because" or > >> "since") is becoming > >> more and more common in written correspondence? > >> This is the third or > >> fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, > >> leading me to think > >> that it may be moving toward respectability. > >> > >> -- > >> - > >> Greg > >> > >> greg at pulliam.org > >> http://www.pulliam.org > > > > > > ===== > > James D. SMITH |If history teaches > anything > > SLC, UT |it is that we will > be sued > > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act > quickly and decisively > > |or slowly and > cautiously. > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great > prices. > > http://auctions.yahoo.com/ > > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 24 22:05:14 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:05:14 -0800 Subject: Countable folks In-Reply-To: <1140937.3189331887@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: ...and I'm beginning to hear "folk" as well as the plural, e.g. "all the good folk over in Melrose Hall." Perhaps the generators of the singular have been boning up on their Howard Pyle or Dover editions of the Pink Fairy book. Is this happening elsewhere? Peter R. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 21:58:42 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:58:42 -0500 Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" In-Reply-To: <2f.10071fde.27a0a78f@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > The 1958 quote below is not really the same aa the quote in question, I first > heard the exact phrase "there is no such thing as bad publicity" from the > mouth of STanley Fish in the later 1980s, though I can't prove it with any > written cite. > > I always assumed that Stanley made up the phrase himself. Her certainly > believed it. The famous formulation, which has attained proverbial status, is "The only bad publicity is no publicity." This has been around for many decades, I am sure. I'll try to research it. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 22:00:56 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:00:56 -0500 Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" Message-ID: At 04:47 PM 1/24/2001 EST, Ron Butters wrote: >The 1958 quote below is not really the same aa the quote in question.... > In the post that initiated this thread, the observation was made (accurately, I suspect), that "[t]his is one of those popular expressions which are very hard to document because they are very variable in their formulation. It exists in both a negative form, as above, and a positive one: all publicity is good publicity." In that light, it's hard to make the claim that "there is no such thing as bad publicity" and the other phrase cited in that first post, i.e., "all publicity is good publicity," are sharply distinct, for the purposes of exmaining the history of this cluster of variable expressions, from "almost any publicity is good publicity." But I am sure that perceptions could vary! >I always assumed that Stanley [Fish] made up the phrase himself. Her certainly >believed it. > But was he right? Sorry, skip the cosmic questions...! Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 24 22:00:02 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:00:02 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" In-Reply-To: <200101242145.QAA10213@is2.nyu.edu>; from gd2@IS2.NYU.EDU on Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 04:45:47PM -0500 Message-ID: > The one thing that strikes me about Siddharth's example is that I do not > happen to have heard the verb construed as transitive. But there's no reason > why a transitive contruction wouldn't have emerged quite naturally. And now > I bet someone will now post tons of evidence to the list of "to noodle" > taking a direct object! I'll just direct people to HDAS, which has evidence of transitive _noodle_ from 1950 onwards. Jesse Sheidlower From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 22:20:48 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:20:48 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: Szívesen. "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > > >Köszönöm szépen. > > dInIs > > >"Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > >> > >> >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? > > > >According to the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet database > >service: > > > >Erzsebet P Dombi, Grammatical Forms of Synesthesia [Original Title, A > >szinesztezia grammatikai formai], Nyelv-es Irodalomtudomanyi > >Kozlemenyek, 1972, 16, 1, 37-50. > > > >Abstract: > >Synesthesia in the works of the Hungarian lyric impressionists is > >manifested in linguistic elements of varying complexity: compound words, > >syntagmas, phrases, compositional unities, or in the entire poem. > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > Department of Linguistics and Languages > Michigan State University > East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA > preston at pilot.msu.edu > Office: (517)353-0740 > Fax: (517)432-2736 From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 22:28:21 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:28:21 -0600 Subject: Countable folks Message-ID: In my father's family 'folks' meant my grandparents, i.e., it meant 'parents'; but you cannot refer to one parent or the other as 'a folk'. This is an early 20c version of the Northern California accent (the one that used 'chesterfield' for 'sofa'); this may have been influenced by a Norwegian substratum. Another usage is not so much that of 'people', but 'community', and can be either with or without the s. "That community has good folk[s]." You can also refer to another family/household, but always with the s: 'the folks living on the corner'. You also see 'folk' used to describe the bearers of a particular archaeological horizon, as in 'Bell Beaker folk'. 'Three or four folks' for 'three or four persons/people/individuals' is strange sounding. >Our college PR director recently commented to me that our president, who is >not especially folksy, had suddenly become fond of using "folks" in >letters, speeches and the like. My response was that I'd noticed lots of >people using "folks" a lot lately (in preference to "people"), but that the >main thing I'd noticed was a trend toward making "folks" countable. I >think it was probably about 7-8 years ago that I began to notice other >people using the word in ways that at least came awfully close to >countability. I can't remember actual quotes, but these new usages seemed >to at least test the boundaries that constrain my own uses of the word. >Lately I've actually heard people (oops, sorry--folks) refer to "three or >four folks," which definitely goes beyond my boundaries. > >Has anybody else noticed this? Or has it been around for a long time and >I'm only now noticing it? Or have other folks always been able to count >"folks"? > >Peter Mc. > >**************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 23:16:49 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:16:49 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As Mark Odegard pointed out, forms like "conversate" proliferate, and while I might not personally use them (partly because of age, partly because of stylistic "fussiness"), I hate to put labels on them and especially to lump them under "standard" and "nonstandard" heads. I'm also reluctant to project personal motivations (or lack thereof) from such usage; neither "charming" nor "lazy" has any place in such discussions, it seems to me. (I had to chide one of my TAs just today for telling his class people are naturally "lazy" in their speech; the problem is that some students will inevitably accuse certain groups, but never their own, as "lazy" speakers.) So "de gustibus..." notwithstanding, I reject taste-based labels like "yucky," or "it sticks in my craw," or "it makes me want to vomit." And even I can change: I used to say I'd _never_ use "finalize," and now I catch myself doing so! At 04:24 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >It's yucky because it's not standard English, Beverly. That doesn't >necessarily make it bad or evil or the first step down the slippery slope to >ruin for the language, but it does indicate that the speaker has neither the >time nor the inclination to discover the traditional term which he or she is >aiming for. I find it charming and disarming in folks who've not had >extended educational opportunities. I find it disturbing and reprehensible >and outright hilarious when it comes from folks who--I'm sorry to say >it--should know better. > >Hey, I enjoy and love a fluid and lively language, one that is dynamic and >open to change. But this, at least for me, is not that type of change. >It's just careless, and it smacks of the type of thinking that anytime one >can add a syllable to a term, whether it's valid or not, it's good. Our >students don't need to see this type of hooey coming from either their >fellows, who set themselves up as semi-experts when they become writers, or >from the man who wants to become the nation's attorney general. He should >know better, as well. > >It's yucky. > >Sorry--I'm not feeling very tolerant today. > >bob > > > From: Beverly Flanigan > > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: Conversate and basically > > > > "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in > > our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? > > > > _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 25 00:10:43 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:10:43 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010124180008.00d21bd0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've come to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, "That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Beverly Flanigan > Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 3:17 PM > > So "de gustibus..." notwithstanding, I reject taste-based labels like > "yucky," or "it sticks in my craw," or "it makes me want to vomit." And > even I can change: I used to say I'd _never_ use "finalize," and now I > catch myself doing so! From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 00:17:21 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 19:17:21 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. dInIs >It's yucky because it's not standard English, Beverly. That doesn't >necessarily make it bad or evil or the first step down the slippery slope to >ruin for the language, but it does indicate that the speaker has neither the >time nor the inclination to discover the traditional term which he or she is >aiming for. I find it charming and disarming in folks who've not had >extended educational opportunities. I find it disturbing and reprehensible >and outright hilarious when it comes from folks who--I'm sorry to say >it--should know better. > >Hey, I enjoy and love a fluid and lively language, one that is dynamic and >open to change. But this, at least for me, is not that type of change. >It's just careless, and it smacks of the type of thinking that anytime one >can add a syllable to a term, whether it's valid or not, it's good. Our >students don't need to see this type of hooey coming from either their >fellows, who set themselves up as semi-experts when they become writers, or >from the man who wants to become the nation's attorney general. He should >know better, as well. > >It's yucky. > >Sorry--I'm not feeling very tolerant today. > >bob > >> From: Beverly Flanigan >> Reply-To: American Dialect Society >> Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> Subject: Re: Conversate and basically >> >> "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in >> our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? >> >> >> _____________________________________________ >> Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics >> Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 >> Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 >> http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 23 07:43:54 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 02:43:54 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Herb Stahlke writes: > This sort of error is as common as it is because English > punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks > very nicely. I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is deliberately -- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- conversational. And I have always believed that if you know the rules, in the absence of an American Academy, you are free to break them. So I occasionally separate two independent clauses with a comma as a break weaker than a semicolon. For example: "I didn't do anything in particular, it just happened." It is sort of the grammatical equivalent of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. D From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 00:30:49 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:30:49 -0600 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: >Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it >becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've >come >to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. >Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, >"That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. > >Benjamin Barrett Rather like orientate and commentate. In this case, they actually have a different sense than the shorter verb. Orientate is what companies and colleges do to new employees/students. Commentate is what talking-heads do off the tops of their heads, vs the thoughtful stuff you get in other contexts. Conversate, tho', does not have a distinct meaning from 'converse'. It's an unnecessary word. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 12:15:41 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:15:41 +0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 6:30 PM -0600 1/24/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >>Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it >>becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've >>come >>to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. >>Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, >>"That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. >> >>Benjamin Barrett > >Rather like orientate and commentate. In this case, they actually have a >different sense than the shorter verb. Orientate is what companies and >colleges do to new employees/students. Commentate is what talking-heads do >off the tops of their heads, vs the thoughtful stuff you get in other >contexts. > and adminstrators administrate--or at least they definitely don't administer. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 12:17:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:17:19 +0800 Subject: "Let me noodle it" In-Reply-To: <200101242145.QAA10213@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 4:45 PM -0500 1/24/01, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: >Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, informally >experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the >disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, people >often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of the >verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in technical, >mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are nothing >but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) > from "noodle" = 'head' again, no doubt ;-) From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 25 01:25:05 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:25:05 -0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? Peter R. From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 01:53:09 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 19:53:09 -0600 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Umm. For some reason, this sense of 'noodle' would sound 'more correct' as 'doodle'. Doodling on the piano is much like doodling on paper: aimless designs. I don't use either of them in this sense. >From: Laurence Horn >At 4:45 PM -0500 1/24/01, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: >>Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, >>informally >>experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the >>disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, >>people >>often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of >>the >>verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in >>technical, >>mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are >>nothing >>but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) >> >from "noodle" = 'head' again, no doubt ;-) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 02:07:47 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:07:47 -0600 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: >This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one >indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use >this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? > >Peter R. Truth to be told, I've only seen this sense in writing, and then, only in contexts that call attention to the problem. I've never heard PhysEd people use it at all, but then I'm never around such people. If the word really is in use, and M-W suggests it is (but without giving any guide to pronunciation), an acute accent (or maybe, a grave on the pattern of learn�d) over the C would be disambiguative. Curiously, M-W does not note what I regard as the main sense, that of 'create anew, replicate'; AHD4 requires a hyphen for this latter sense. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:22:48 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:22:48 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:07 PM -0600 1/24/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >>This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one >>indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use >>this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? >> >>Peter R. > >Truth to be told, I've only seen this sense in writing, and then, only in >contexts that call attention to the problem. I've never heard PhysEd people >use it at all, but then I'm never around such people. > >If the word really is in use, and M-W suggests it is (but without giving any >guide to pronunciation), an acute accent (or maybe, a grave on the pattern >of learnèd) over the C would be disambiguative. Curiously, M-W does not note >what I regard as the main sense, that of 'create anew, replicate'; AHD4 >requires a hyphen for this latter sense. Nice minimal pair, in that "recreate" [= to work out or whatever] is a back-formation from "recreation", while "re-creation" is a front-formation from "re-create" [= to create anew]. larry From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:12:38 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:12:38 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: At 07:53 PM 1/24/2001 -0600, Mark Odegard wrote: >Umm. For some reason, this sense of 'noodle' would sound 'more correct' as >'doodle'. Doodling on the piano is much like doodling on paper: aimless >designs. I don't use either of them in this sense. > In the post to which you're responding here, I was simply describing, to the best of my ability, and given limited time and my own particular level of information. I wasn't making a prescriptive evaluation. But all of us are entitled to our tastes! (And I've noticed that all of us have them, even when they are expressed not as overtly prescriptivist attitudes but instead as disapproval of the prescriptivistic tastes of others!) In any event, here's one of scores if not hundreds of cites I could offer from music-related emails in my old inboxes. I only had to search six days' worth of posts before hitting this (emphasis added): >Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 21:44:36 -0400 >From: Rob ----------- > >Transatlantic is made up of Roine Stolt (guitar/mellotron/vocals, from >Flower Kings), Neal Morse (keyboard/guitar/vocals, from Spock's Beard), >Pete Trevawas (bass/bv's, from Marillion) and Mike Portnoy (drums/bv's, >from Dream Theater). Basically, if you're familiar with Morse's obsession >with the hook, Stolt's tendency towards semi-psychedelic **noodling**, >Trevawas' non-presence in Marillion, and Portnoy's custom of extreme >overplaying, you may be pleasantly surprised by how well they worked >together. > Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From dumasb at UTK.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:16:23 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:16:23 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: dInIs said: >>Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >>list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >>I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. dInIs, I think I am in love with you! Bethany From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 02:46:58 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:46:58 EST Subject: comma=because Message-ID: Some grammar books allow for a comma when two clauses are brief and so closely related that the second seems to be uttered almost in the same breath (e.g. He's not a person, he's a monster (p.284, The Little, Brown Handbook, 5th ed. [HarperCollins 1992). Personally, I prefer a semicolon. In the example you cite, more than the comma seems to be the problem. Does "it" refer to the software or the waiting? The phrasing indicates that the referent is the software; logic indicates that it's the waiting. >Pulliam's example. "We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will be a problem." PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 25 02:45:26 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:45:26 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It was a visceral reaction, Dennis, but I'm not certain that I'd categorize it as a prejudice, and I certainly hope that you'd not categorize me as prejudiced. I did and do find "conversate" yucky, but I also find that other words and other writing have the power to make me laugh or cry or grow angry or any of several other reactions. Are those the result of prejudice? Humm, I hope not, especially since I encourage my comp students to embrace their own dialect and learn how to express it on paper. But I also encourage them to learn how to express themselves in a more standard fashion when the writing situation call for it. That's the mission that I've been given as a comp teacher, and I think that it serves my students fairly well. I think that a columnist, unless he or she is using "conversate" in an ironic fashion, would do better to avoid the term. I think that a politician, and a national one at that, might do better, but I could be wrong. It's my reaction to the word and what it implies to me. But I think it's an honest reaction, and I've tried to be honest about my reasons--the ones that come to mind--for such a reaction. If my tone was too lively or heated for some, please excuse me, but I had a fairly long day today and perhaps felt a bit too itchy. I really do attempt to be the paragon of tolerance with regards to non-standard words and idiom. And Beverly, please don't think that I'm being patronizing when I say I find something charming. I don't deem it as laziness, necessarily. I do to some extent, in this specific case, but at other times, I find different usage to be . . . well, charming. Isn't that a good thing? I appreciate your position as a language scientist, but am I not allowed to be moved by language simply because I'm an academic? Thanks for the sounding board. -- Bob Haas Department of English The University of North Carolina at Greensboro High Point University "Shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" > From: "Dennis R. Preston" > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 19:17:21 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Conversate and basically > >> Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >> list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >> I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. > > dInIs > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 25 03:51:49 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:51:49 -0600 Subject: "chad" apparently did not fly about Message-ID: Douglas Wilson's e-mail today (Jan. 24) speculates that the chad might have flown all over and may therefore be likened to lice ("chats"). Hence (so the theory) "chad" may derive from this "chats" or better yet from "chads" (same meaning), assuming that this latter form actually existed. However, on Jan. 14 I received a reply from Chris Jensen, who had earlier told me of his familiarity with the term "chad" from 1952. His Jan. 14 e-mail responded to a general question I had asked him about whether chad had ever been a nuisance. His reply is now relevant to Douglas Wilson's speculation about "chad" from "chat" (=louse). Evidently this speculation is unlikely to pan out, because the chad did not fly around all over but was neatly caught in a chad-catcher. But even if Mr. Wilson's "chat" (louse) speculation turns out to be incorrect, his discovery of the earliest attestation thus far (1940) is a source of congratulation and celebration. We of course all await the opportunity to learn the details. Meanwhile, here is Mr. Jenson's e-mail to me, followed by Douglas Wilson's: >Subject: Re: Question >Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 > >Dear Mr. Cohen, > >In your message about the 1944 journal article the reference to the fact >that chadless machines also printed on the surface of the tape resurrected >that fact in my memory. I had forgotten. > >In my experience the real chad wasn't a nuisance. Mechanically, the machines >that made chadless tape and the machines that made totally perforated tape >and thus produced chad differed only in organization. So the two types of >machines differed in that the chadless had a printer, but the 'chad' >machines had a chad-catcher (smaller than, but equivalent to the Chip Box of >the punched card equipment.) I don't recall that the chad ever wandered far >from the chad-catcher. Chadless machines cost more, and presented more >maintenance (ink or ribbon) and repair costs. > >Perhaps chad was a nuisance in the machines the British used, either because >of the machines' design, or because of the way the telegraphers managed the >chad. It also could have been a problem with the US forces, but not in my >experience. Now that I think of it, we used chad machines in training, which >forced us to become proficient in interpreting the code, and we used a few >chad machines where that was what the unit had, but in the larger message >centers we used chadless tape because of the printing and the ease with >which two pieces of tape could be spliced. > >For several months I was detached from my unit (an Infantry division's >signal company) and attached to a paratroop regiment. That unit had a >"portable" receiver-transmitter with an integrated paper-tape reperforator. >That was a chad machine, a lighter weight component than a chadless machine. >When the operator punched a tape the machine's page printer showed what was >on the tape, so printing on the tape was unnecessary. > >I do not remember that the character drawn on walls all over the world was >known as Chad. Hmm. I think of him as Kilroy. There's something new to learn >every day. > >Regards, > >Chris Jensen ****** >X-Sender: douglas/nb.net at 127.0.0.1 >Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 04:12:57 -0500 >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >Sender: American Dialect Society >From: "Douglas G. Wilson" >Subject: "Chad", "chadless", "chatts" >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >I have found an instance of "chadless" dated 1940. I don't think "chadless" >goes back much farther, since I've reviewed what I think are the patent >documents for the chadless punching process, filed in 1939. Needless to >say, there's no Mr. Chadless involved. The specifications from 1939 >apparently don't include the word "chadless", but they do include "chads", >meaning "pieces of waste [from a perforated tape]" (no quotation marks are >employed in the specs.). It is clear that "chadless" = "producing no >chads". The alternative to chadless tape was not called "chad tape" but >IIRC "perforated tape". > >This (apparently 1939) is the earliest instance of "chad(s)" which I've >found. But the word was already familiar in telegraphy circles by/before >1939, judging from 1939-1942 documents. I'm still looking. Now the USPTO >Web-site seems to have developed a "bug", so I'm stalled on the patents. >More later. > >I had pictured chad(s) as inert material lying on the floor or filling a >waste bin. But apparently under conditions of high-speed punch operation >all kinds of paper debris tended to fly about, and some tended to stick to >things and people by static electricity. I think high-speed high-volume >telegraphy tape punching might date from roughly the 1920's. Now we're >getting close to WW I, not WW II, maybe. > >I pointed out en passant that "chat(t)" = "louse" a while back. Evan Morris >forwarded a letter from a correspondent ("Bob Kamman"?) who speculatively >derived "chad" from "chat" = "louse". This correspondent (1) took "chat" as >military slang (wrong, I think), (2) related "chat" = "conversate" to >"chat" = "(de)louse" (wrong, I think), and (3) supported the louse-chad >connection with a reference to punched-card chips being thrown in one's >hair at a party (irrelevant, surely). It is apparently true, however, that >"chat" = "louse" was current among British and allied troops during WW I, >when lice proliferated in the trenches (Partridge mentions this, and >several Web pages give glimpses). > >Now one might picture the telegraph-office workers at the end of their work >day, say circa 1930-35, picking the chads off themselves and each other, >and one might consider that some of them might have served in the trenches >in WW I -- where they spent a lot of time picking chats (lice) off their >clothes .... > >Can anyone show "chad" = "louse"? > >-- Doug Wilson From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 03:56:43 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:56:43 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: As another writer reported, some style manuals allow this sort of punctuation. Obviously, as we all know, the rules are flexible and a sensitive writer uses them flexibly. The coarse grain of English punctuation doesn't allow us to write a lot of things we can say, but your example shows how close we can come. Herb <<< dcamp911 at JUNO.COM 1/24 7:30p >>> On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Herb Stahlke writes: > This sort of error is as common as it is because English > punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks > very nicely. I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is deliberately -- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- conversational. And I have always believed that if you know the rules, in the absence of an American Academy, you are free to break them. So I occasionally separate two independent clauses with a comma as a break weaker than a semicolon. For example: "I didn't do anything in particular, it just happened." It is sort of the grammatical equivalent of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. D From tcf at MACOMB.COM Thu Jan 25 04:13:09 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:13:09 -0600 Subject: Countable folks Message-ID: I first noticed this use of "folks" in CNN Gulf War coverage about 10 years ago. In military briefings, a general would say about the Iraqis, "the Iraqis still have some of their folks in this area," or the like. The "folks" would then get hit with firebombs and other heavy munitions. ----- Original Message ----- From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 04:44:19 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:44:19 -0600 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote >I only had to search six days' >worth of posts before hitting this I believe you! Pop music is not something I know much about. If noodling is what musicians do, then, indeed that's what they do! _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 04:44:27 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 23:44:27 EST Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: BAR & BUFFET I must confess--I discovered this by accident. It's published in Cincinnati, 1906-1909, and the LOC call number is TX950.A5. It's under BOOKS, nor JOURNALS. It's not in OCLC WorldCat at all! Drink lists are given "by John H. Considine, author of 'The Buffet Blue Book.'" This doesn't show up anywhere, either! June 1906, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 11, col. 4: _A LITTLE WIENER HISTORY_ The little sausage known as "Frankfurter" and "Wiener" was offered for sale for the first time in 1805, and the centennial was observed in Vienna by the butcher's guild. The inventor of the sausage was Johann Lahner, who named it for his birthplace, Frankfurt. The business founded 100 years ago by a poor man has yielded a fortune in its various heads. It has alwyas remained in the same family, and is now conducted in Vienna by Franz Lahner, a grand nephew of the original Frankfurter sausage man. August/September 1907, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 19, col. 1: _Dog-sausage no Joke_ _Seven Thousand Canines Devoured in Germany Last Year._ The old joke about eating "hot dog" is no joke in Germany any more... August 1906, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 5, col. 1: Without doubt a great many readers have seen signs which read: "In God WeTrust--All Others Cash"... December 1906, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 14, col. 1 ad: Bull Dog SUSPENDERS (Related to "bulldog edition"?--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- From BAR & BUFFET, August 1906, pg. 9, col. 1: _"HORSE TALK."_ _Peculiar Words and Definitions Used by Sports of The Turf._ Aged Horse--One that is six years old or over. Colt--An immature stallion; in racing and trotting, one that is under six years old. Filly--An immature mare; in racing and trotting, one that is under six years old. Foal--A colt, filly or gelding under one year old. Full Brother (or Sister)--One having the same sire and dam. Half Brother (or Sister)--One having the same dam but not the same sire. Sometimes used to denote a horse having the same sire but not the same dam. Brother in Blood--One having common ancestors in the male and female lines, but not the same sire and dam. Second Dam (or Third, etc.)--The maternal granddam (or great-granddam, etc.) Jack--A male ass. Jenny--A female ass. Mule--A hybrid resulting from the cross between a jack and a mare. Hinny--A hybrid resulting from the cross between a stallion and a jenny. Jennet--A small ambling Spanish saddle horse of the sixteenth century. Hackney--Originally a utility horse for riding or driving; especially one kept for hire. Adopted in 1883 by the English Hackney Horse Society as the name for a breed or carriage horses then being formed from the old Norfolk trotters and other foundation stock. Cob--A low, thick-set, short-legged, compact harness or saddle horse; especially one not exceeding 15 hands. Pony--A horse not exceeding 14.2 hands. Originally poney, and denoted a horse under 13 hands. Hobby--An ancient breed or type of Irish ponies that were fast runners and pacers. Punch--An extremely thick-set, short, blocky horse. The term is now rarely used except to designate a breed of English draught horses known as the Suffolk Punch. Mustang, Bronco, Cayuse--A small, hardy, range-bred horse of the far West, descended from Indian pony stock. Lunkhead--A dull, stupid, clumsy horse. Plug--A worthless, low-bred horse. Weed--An inferior horse of rank growth, lacking conspicuously in quality and substance. Crab--A sore-toed, worn-out horse. Crock--A broken down, worn out horse. Skate--A very inferior horse; especially a worthless thoroughbred or trotter. Lobster--A coarse, awkward, ungainly horse. Bull--A lymphatic lobster. Cherrypicker--A tall, long-legged horse. Stargazer--A long-necked horse that carries his head extremely high. Kill Devil--A vicious horse. Crack, Crack-a-jack, Corncracker--A horse of superior excellence, especially a superior race horse, trotter, hunter or show horse. Soft Horse--One lacking stamina or endurance, especially a race horse or trotter. Washy Horse--One that is lacking in constitution or stamina. Gibber--A balky horse. Roarer, Whistler, Grunter--A horse that is not sound in his wind; i.e., one whose respiratory passages are obstructed or contracted in such a way as to cause a wheezing sound when the animal exerts himself. Cribber--A horse that habitually bites his manager or other object, and while doing so sucks in air. Cockhorse--One used to help a four-in-hand team in pulling a coach up a hill or over a hard stage. Timber Topper, Fencer, Leaper--A hunter or high jumper. Nag--Said to be the oldest surviving appellation in the English language for a riding horse. Commonly used to denote a driving horse. Palfrey, Pad--Old English terms for saddle horse, especially an easy riding horse for a woman. Hack--A horse for riding. Originally a drudge hackneyed or hired for riding or driving. Synonymous with hackney, of which term is an abbreviation. Blood Hack--A thoroughbred saddle horse or one having the appearance of being a thoroughbred. (Col. 2--ed.) Remount--A horse intended for calvary service in the army. Mount--A horse of any type that is ridden. Jade--An inferior horse, especially a tired or worn-out horse. Welter Horse--A race horse, hunter or saddle horse capable or carrying the heaviest weight. Galloway--A small horse used for riding. The name originally was applied to a breed or tribe of small pacing horses in Scotland, and was later used to denote riding horses over 13 hands nad under fourteen hands. Now commonly used to denote a racer not exceeding 15 hands. Bonesetter--A rough gaited riding horse. Colloquial in some parts of the United States. Novice--A show horse that has never won. _Terms Used in Racing._ Thoroughbred--A horse having six uncontaminated crosses of the blood of the British race horse. Blood Horse--A horse having the appearance of being a thoroughbred. Sometimes used as a synonym for thoroughbred. Cocktail--A race horse or hunter not strictly a thoroughbred, but having a predominance of thoroughbred blood. Courser--A race horse of Arabian or thoroughbred blood. Cup Horse--A race horse having the speed and endurance to compete at a cup distance (usually not less than a mile and a half). Stake Horse--A superior race horse or trotter, good enough to go against the best in his class. Selling Plater, Leather Plater--A third-rate race horse, good only for short distance races in inferior company. Stayer--A horse that can carry his speed a long distance and repeat. (Col. 3--ed.) Sprinter--A fast race horse, good only for a short distance (under one mile). Quitter--A horse that gives it up when pinched in a hard-fought race. Sucker--A faint-hearted horse that is usually both a sprinter and a quitter. Dog, Hound--A horse lacking the essential qualities of a racer. Counterfeit--The type of horse that Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote: "Horses hot at hand make gallant show and promise of their mettle, but when they should endure the bloody spur they fall their crests and like deceitful jades sink in the trial." Rogue--A race horse that can not be depended on to do his best. Bolter--A race horse that habitually bolts or tries to fly the course. Stout Horse--As used by racing men this term has no significance as to conformation. It means enduring, strong, courageous, which was its original signification, according to early English writers. High Stomach Horse--Old John Lawrence wrote in 1806: "There are also high stomached horses that, being severely whipped when all abroad and at their best, will instantly slacken instead of endeavoring to increase their speed." Such horses are now called sulkers. Pacemaker--A horse used to set the pace for another horse in a race or a performance against time. Plodder--A race horse or trotter that lacks brushes of extreme speed, but rates along at a fairly even pace from start to finish. Rater--The same as a plodder. This term is used also to denote a pacemaker or prompter in a performance against time. Trial Horse--One of known racing capacity used in trying out a runner or trotter whose racing qualities are being tested in private. (Col. 4--ed.) Dark Horse--A dangerous horse in a race whose chances of success are unknown or known to but few. Long Shot--A horse against which the odds are longest in the betting on a race. Favorite--The horse against which the odds are shortest in the betting on a race. Outsider--The opposite of a favorite. Dead One--A race horse not meant to win. Dope Horse--A race horse, trotter or show horse, that performs best under the influence of a drug. Sunday Horse--An in and out, or uncertain performer. Morning Glory (OED?--ed.)--A race horse that runs fast in his work against time, but fails in actual contest. Mud Lark (Pre-dates RHHDAS--ed.)--A horse that excels on a muddy track. Quarter Horse--A horse that is used for short distance running races; one that can go a quarter of a mile at a high rate of speed. Maiden--A horse that has never won. Placed Horse--One that wins any part of the purse or stake in racing, or that wins a ribbon in the show ring. Place Horse--One that is placed second in a running race. Flyer--A high-class race horse or trotter. Standard Horse--One that is eligible to registration under the rules governing admission to Wallace's American Trotting Register. Sidewheeler--A pacer. Green Horse--One that have never started in a race. This term is often erroneously used to designate a horse that started but has never won. Running Mate--A running horse harnessed to pole with a trotter to help him along in a race or performance against time. Pole Horse--The horse that has the inside track in a trotting race; also a trotter driven to pole; that is, in double harness. Runner in Front--A running horse driven ahead of a trotter in a performance against time for the purpose of forming a wind shield to aid the trotter. Bad Actor--A trotter that habitually breaks or otherwise misbehaves in races. (Notice that "ringer" is not here--ed.) From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Thu Jan 25 08:11:17 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 02:11:17 -0600 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: Grant Barrett passed on this query from the ADS web site: > I'm lookin for the word(s) that mean (something like) the solution to the > problem will recreate the problem. I believe the ending of the movie the French > Connection was an indication of the situation??? > > Marie > MReier at dsc.smcs.noacsc.org In medical circles, the word "iatrogenic" comes close. OED defines it as "Induced unintentionally by a physician through his diagnosis, manner, or treatment; of or pertaining to the induction of (mental or bodily) disorders, symptoms, etc., in this way." The etymology goes back to two elements meaning "physician-caused". Med-school lore sometimes "explains" the word by saying that "iatrogenic disease is caused by its own diagnosis." (Now I'm stuck for a word: that sentence is not what I would call an oxymoron, but I can't recall a more appropriate label for this kind of statement of impossible circular causality. Help, anyone?) Illustration: It is sometimes argued that stuttering is iatrogenic. Those who believe that conclusion point out that normal speech usually includes many instances in which a speaker involuntarily fixes on repeating an utterance-initial phoneme, syllable, or word. That particular pattern fits very well with common stereotypes about the nature of stuttering, but in fact that's not the only way stuttering may manifest itself. Not only that: some confirmed stutterers never exhibit that particular behavioral pattern. In any event, it's pretty easy to demonstrate that virtually all normal speakers put utterances together that sound just like stuttering in one way or another. Normally, that behavior is ignored. >From time to time, however, people who hear a speaker make sounds that are normal speech events perceive that the speaker has a problem. Close attention to what any normal speaker actually does as part of talking will turn up many more instances of stuttering than are casually apparent, thus seeming to confirm the presence of a problem. When the speaker is a child and the observer is a parent or a teacher, the observer might go beyond being conscious of patterns that usually are ignored and put them together as evidence that the child "is a stutterer". Often, this conclusion hardens into a diagnosis that demands that something be done to "cure" the alleged difficulty. At this point, so the argument goes, the speaker is made more and more aware that some normal vocal patterns are, in fact, dangerous recidivism into habits that must be changed. The tensions actually lead to intensification of the undesired behavior. In the end, the occasional lapses of normal speech take over as insurmountable patterns of interference with normal communication. The diagnosis has produced the disease -- at least in the eyes of those who believe in the argument I've just presented. It took me a long time to fix the word "iatrogenic" in my working vocabulary. Iatrogenic didn't become an ordinary word for me until several of my close relatives went into hospitals for treatment of some disease or medical condition. Each of them got much sicker by picking up a new antibiotic-resistant disease that was a permanent resident of the operating rooms or intensive care units. That sure was a solid demonstration of the dangers of iatrogenic diseases! There's a common thread in Marie's question and my memory of having lost the word "iatrogenic" time and again until events finally fixed it in my head. I'd love to head what some of our leading dictionary experts have to say about something no dictionary ever solves for me. What do you do when you know there's a word for something, but have no memory of the word itself? I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than once. What do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one direction until it comes to the other side of the writing surface, then turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to right, the next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do with the way oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I won't need to look it up. There just doesn't seem to be any way a dictionary could help me with that kind of problem. The only way I can think of that might produce an answer would be to ask anybody and everybody I can talk to if they happen to know the word. . . If I ever found someone claiming to know, then I'd have something to take to a dictionary for verification. But where is there a dictionary equivalent of a criss-cross (or reverse) telephone directory? -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and check it out in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off this system. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 08:22:09 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 03:22:09 EST Subject: "Don't Ask, Don't Get" Message-ID: From the DAILY NEWS EXPRESS, Personal Finance (cbs.marketwatch.com), 24 January 2001, pg. 14, col. 1: _"DON'T ASK, DON'T GET":_ _NEGOTIATING FINANCIAL FEES_ (...) Wall Street has a "don't ask, don't get" policy. At most firms, you can negotiate the price of your investments products. Asking can lower breakpoints, costs and management fees. This is not in www.investorwords.com. It's not really an investor term. It's more like an ancient Jewish mother proverb. It pre-dates "don't ask, don't tell." I don't know what Fred Shapiro has. From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 25 10:00:11 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 05:00:11 -0500 Subject: "chad" apparently did not fly about In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Douglas Wilson's e-mail today (Jan. 24) speculates that the chad >might have flown all over and may therefore be likened to lice >("chats"). Hence (so the theory) "chad" may derive from this "chats" >or better yet from "chads" (same meaning), assuming that this latter >form actually existed. Actually the theory is more or less due to Evan Morris's correspondent (message in Nov. 2000). >... from 1952 ... the chad did not fly around all over but was neatly >caught in a >chad-catcher. I have limited experience with paper tape punching, only from about 1967. I did not find any problem with loose material either. But 1930's equipment may have been much different from 1952 in this respect. I know only what I see in my patent skimming, and of course it may be biased: for example the proud inventor who is patenting a new chad-catcher is likely to maximize the problem which his invention addresses. Punched tape was used at least since 1860. Patents for early machines mostly ignored the paper residue, and the diagrams for some clearly show a lack of any provision for collection of chads: apparently they just fell on the floor; in practice I suppose a bucket or something was placed under the punch. I've skimmed thousands of pages on the Web, and I can't remember clearly a lot of what I saw. But -- just as one example, and not the most germane -- US Patent # 3,602,080 ("Chad Removal Means") (1977), dealing not with telegraphy tape but with rotary printers, states: "The chad becomes a nuisance because they tend to fly about in the room space, attach themselves to the clothes of the operator, and sometimes accumulate on the moving parts of the machine in sufficient quantities to block the machine." [Note the confusion about the countability of the word "chad"!] [Searching old (pre-1976) patents through the USPTO site on the Web is like using a microfilm reader. You can't search text; you only get images of the documents -- some of them only marginally legible. You can't even search by title or inventor, only by patent # and by a "classification number" which may or may not have relevance to the subject of interest. For example, the above-mentioned patent is indexed under three of the hundreds of subcategories of "cutting": if you search the whole "cutting" category, you get tens of thousands of patent numbers (without titles); if you search under "punching" or "waste removal" or anything else separate from "cutting", or if you enter the wrong subcategory of "cutting", you don't find it.] From advice given on the Web (1999) for someone moving a "Model 19" teletype machine (machine maybe from circa 1945?): "That is the Chad Box. Be sure it is empty. If it is not, you may become very unpopular very fast when you start moving the table, particularly if you do use a hand truck. Chads, though made out of paper, are magnetic. They stick to everything. Vacuum cleaners ignore them. They make you look like you need Industrial Strength Selsun-Blue if you get them on your clothing." More later. -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 25 10:09:48 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:09:48 +0000 Subject: politics of personal destruction Message-ID: Associated Press article on the Republican takeover of "politics of personal destruction": http://salon.com/politics/wire/2001/01/24/ppd/index.html M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:18:42 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:18:42 -0500 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Shakespeare, Julius Caesar as I recall. dInIs >This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one >indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use >this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? > >Peter R. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:21:45 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:21:45 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <3A7077D7@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: >Damn Bethany! Carol uses this address too. Let's be more circumspect. dInIs >dInIs said: > >>>Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >>>list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >>>I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. > >dInIs, I think I am in love with you! > >Bethany -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 25 11:16:44 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 06:16:44 -0500 Subject: politics of personal destruction Message-ID: politics of personal destruction.... See Barnhart Dictionary Companion (Vol. 12.1, Fall 1999). The earliest quote is St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 13, 1992, in a Clinton context. Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From dumasb at UTK.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:37:48 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:37:48 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: dInIs said: >Damn Bethany! Carol uses this address too. Let's be more circumspect. That's okay. Carol knows I love her too! (Hi, Carol!) Now back to circumspection. Bethany From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 14:35:27 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:35:27 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: On CNN this morning a snipet from a newspaper criticizing the Clinton "gifts" used the word administrate rather than administer: the newsreader said the piece sounded like it was written by a lawyer! -- db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Thu Jan 25 14:37:17 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:37:17 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: Seems to me that Skakespeare used it in Julius Caesar. Bob Peter Richardson wrote: > > This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one > indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use > this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? > > Peter R. From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 14:52:12 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:52:12 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: As a 60-yr old American I can attest that no one in my generation or younger uses 'shall' for any purpose whatsoever except to sound posh: "will" or "gonna" ~ "going to" or BE + V+ing is all the future we need in informal usage. -- db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:08:25 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:08:25 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: <3A703A1D.ABC0EA14@voyager.net> Message-ID: At 9:37 AM -0500 1/25/01, Bob Fitzke wrote: >Seems to me that Skakespeare used it in Julius Caesar. > >Bob > Yes, you and dInIs are right: ANTONY Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours and new-planted orchards, On this side Tiber; he hath left them you, And to your heirs for ever, common pleasures, To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. Here was a Caesar! when comes such another? Julius Caesar III.ii In fact, the OED makes it clear that "recreate" in the sense of 'refresh' or 'enliven' (as opposed to the more specialized and now much more American 'take recreation', the OED's sense 5) has a much longer history than that. Contrary to what I was claiming for the 'take recreation' sense, it's much less clear that the 'refresh, renew' sense of "recreate" is a back-formation from "recreation". (All of this applies to the [rEkriyeyt] item, not the essentially unrelated transparent re-create/re-creation near-homograph.) larry From AAllan at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 15:14:32 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:14:32 EST Subject: Tsk Message-ID: >dInIs, I think I am in love with you! >> Ahem, let's not turn ADS-L into a venue for virtual love. - Allan Metcalf From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:25:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:25:58 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: <3A703D9D.84CEA19@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 9:52 AM -0500 1/25/01, David Bergdahl wrote: >As a 60-yr old American I can attest that no one in my generation or >younger uses 'shall' for any purpose whatsoever except to sound posh: >"will" or "gonna" ~ "going to" or BE + V+ing is all the future we need >in informal usage. > >-- db >____________________________________________________________________ Even in suggestions with interrogative syntax, where it doesn't alternate with "will"? Shall we leave? #Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] Of course, "Let's leave" is another possibility, but it's more definitive; the "shall" interrogative really does ask for confirmation. I also say, and hear, the elliptical "Shall we?", with the action recoverable from context. I agree that "shall" in declaratives sounds archaic, posh, or British (if these are distinct), but "shall" in 1st person interrogatives is alive and not entirely unwell. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 15:29:35 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:29:35 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie Message-ID: Does anyone have any dirt on mud? From John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK: _Mississippi mud pie._ A very dense chocolate pie that takes its name from the thick mud along the banks of the Mississippi River. According to Nathalie Dupree in _New Southern Cooking_ (1986), the top of what she calls "Mississippi Mud Cake" should also be "cracked and dry-looking like Mississippi mud in the hot, dry summer." It does, however, seem to be of fairly recent origin; according to Mississippi-born food authority Craig Claiborne, writing in 1987, "I never heard of a Mississippi mud pie or Mississippi mud cake until I moved North." It's not mentioned in: SOUTHERN FOOD: AT HOME, ON THE ROAD, IN HISTORY (1987) by John Egerton JAMES BEARD'S AMERICAN COOKERY (1972) by James Beard An OCLC WorldCat search didn't turn up anything old, except a "Mississippi Mud" song that Bing Crosby crooned. Dow Jones has the early 1980s. From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 15:34:38 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:34:38 -0500 Subject: Tsk Message-ID: >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/25/01 10:14AM >>> >dInIs, I think I am in love with you! >> Ahem, let's not turn ADS-L into a venue for virtual love. - Allan Metcalf >>>>>>>> That, of course, requires a [p!], not a [t!]. Herb From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 15:36:18 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:36:18 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we leave", unless I was being posh. Herb >>> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU 01/24/01 09:25PM >>> At 9:52 AM -0500 1/25/01, David Bergdahl wrote: >As a 60-yr old American I can attest that no one in my generation or >younger uses 'shall' for any purpose whatsoever except to sound posh: >"will" or "gonna" ~ "going to" or BE + V+ing is all the future we need >in informal usage. > >-- db >____________________________________________________________________ Even in suggestions with interrogative syntax, where it doesn't alternate with "will"? Shall we leave? #Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] Of course, "Let's leave" is another possibility, but it's more definitive; the "shall" interrogative really does ask for confirmation. I also say, and hear, the elliptical "Shall we?", with the action recoverable from context. I agree that "shall" in declaratives sounds archaic, posh, or British (if these are distinct), but "shall" in 1st person interrogatives is alive and not entirely unwell. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 03:05:23 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:05:23 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:36 AM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we >leave", unless I was being posh. > >Herb > Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, when the speaker intends it as a suggestion (or vice versa), while "Shall we go" clearly indicates that the speaker would like to go if the addressee is willing to. Still, the former (or even the more reduced form, "Wanna go?") is probably more likely than "Shall we go?". But my point is that the "shall" in this case is less stylistically marked than in the simple future uses. Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 16:09:18 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:09:18 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: DARE has nothing at all. OED (Jesse has just told me) has 1990. A bit of checking around the old studio apartment here has turned up: THE NASHVILLE COOKBOOK: SPECIALTIES OF THE CUMBERLAND REGION By Nashville Area Home Economics Association 1976, 1977 (See catnyp.nypl.org for full cite) Cakes: Mississippi Mud, 161 So, based on my investigation, the Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie possibly comes from Tennessee, possibly from a secret recipe of Bethany Dumas. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 16:14:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:14:48 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: Oops. I just checked, and this cookbook is not in the NYPL. See www.loc.gov instead. From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Thu Jan 25 16:23:01 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:23:01 +0100 Subject: garconne pants Message-ID: "Garconne pants" (the "c" should have a cedilla, of course, but I think the e-mail refuses such letters) are fairly wide, usually rather slinky pants that came "en vogue" in the early 1920s, when young women often dressed rather like boys. They got their name after a novel by Colette's husband Victor Margueritte, "La Garconne" (1922). Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Elizabeth Gibbens" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 5:54 PM Subject: garconne pants > Thanks to Barry for publicizing the ARRIVE article. > > This month's BAZAAR used the phrase "garconne pants." > I'm interested in anyone's opinions on the derivation > and meaning of that phrase. I'd particularly like to > discuss the topic of separate nomenclature for men's > and boys' clothing. > > Thank you again! > > Elizabeth Gibbens From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:25:33 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:25:33 EST Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky writes: listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". I frequently find in the newspapers of the 1820s expressions involving "about" and a participle, used when I would write "just about to". Some examples follow: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:29:09 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 08:29:09 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: george (thompson), the message i got was lacking the examples! arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:35:10 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:35:10 EST Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: Let me try this again. Arnold Zwicky writes: listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". I have been struck by rather frequent occurences in the NYC newspapers of the 1820s of sentences constucted with "about" and a particicple, used when I would write "just about to". Some examples follow. [This one is from a pretty funny story of a law-suit between a respectable gentleman (i.e., ha had money) and an incompetent portrait painter. The gentleman had commissioned a painting, was displeased with it when it was done, and refused to pay. The painter added long ears and exhibited it in the guise of a picture of the legendary figure Midas. The gentleman sued.] ". . . as they were about leaving the room, he took chalk and sketched Ass's ears on the head of the picture, threatening to paint them thereon and expose it on Broadway." New-York City-Hall Recorder, 2 (1817):113-18 [This one is about a sailor who is trying to avoid arrest.] After Jack had maintained his position at the mast head for nearly two hours, occasionally relieving his apprehensions by a bottle of grog which his messmates below had fastened to a rope for him to draw up, a sloop laying alongside being about getting under weigh, by the aid of his brother tars, the two vessels were locked in such a manner as to bring the rigging into contact, when he stepped from his roost in the mast-head of the smack over to that of the sloop, and sailed securely off, amidst the cheers of a great number of persons who had collected on the docks and wit ssed the diverting scene, and left the minister of justice to return his writ non est inventus. New-York Evening Post, May 13, 1819, p. 2, col. 1 . . . the Police Magistrates had in some way obtained information that a certain Rufus Severence was about coming to the City, with a large quantity of counterfeit money . . . N-Y American, February 8, 1822, p. 2, col. 6 On Sunday, a strapping black was about chastizing a genteel well behaved young white man, because he took the wall of him; and in their walks in Broadway there is no enduring their insolence. National Advocate, July 9, 1822, p. 2, cols. 2-3. GAT From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:37:46 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 08:37:46 -0800 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: larry horn, about "Shall we go?": >my point is that the "shall" in this case is less stylistically >marked than in the simple future uses. true, but i believe there are very large numbers of american speakers who don't use "shall" at all, even in these interrogative suggestions, for which they use one of the other options people (should i say "folks"?) have pointed out: "Let's go" or "D'ya wanna go?" - or "Wanna go?" or "How about going?" or "Why don't we go?" or various other possibilities. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From mssmith at BOONE.NET Fri Jan 26 16:47:16 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 11:47:16 -0500 Subject: Fish Message-ID: Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:46:21 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:46:21 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: At 11:35 AM 1/25/2001 EST, George Thompson wrote: > I have been struck by rather frequent occurences in the NYC >newspapers of the 1820s of sentences constucted with "about" and a >particicple, used when I would write "just about to". > The "about to" construction more familiar today is treated at OED2 about, meaning 12, attested back to the 16th cent. The construction with a verbal noun rather than the infinitive is treated as meaning 13, from late in the 18th cent.: 13. By further extension it is used with the verbal n. in the same sense. 1793 Smeaton Edystone Lightho. [sec.] 254 The season we were then about concluding. 1865 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. ix. 169 (1873) England seems about deserting him. Ibid. 88 The celestial sign of the balance just about canting. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:06:36 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:06:36 EST Subject: a complete 360 Message-ID: Laurence Horn, in a comment under the rubric "Politics of Personal Destruction" writes in part: The odd aspect of the current usage is that the meaning has changed 180 or so degrees from Clinton's intended usage. This puts me in mind of something I have been meaning to post a query about, and that is, the expression "he made a complete 360", meaning a reversal of direction. I believe I hear this mostly from athletes in post-game interviews, used in a literal sence of bodily motion or direction: He was moving one way, turned quickly and moved in just the opposite direction. I have also heard it used figuratively, as of a politician who reverses his position on a controversial issue. I suppose that this expression is most used by the geometrically challenged (unlike Larry). However, to do a complete 360 for a moment by defending the grasp of the mensuration of a circle on the part of at least those athletes who use the term in the sense of physical motion, there are circumstances when a baseball shortstop will do a complete 270, more or less -- I have seen Derek Jeter do this. Moving toward his left, behind second base, moving in the direction of right field, the shortstop catches a ball in his left (gloved) hand, transfers it to his right hand and needs to throw to first base. However, running as he is at a right angle to the line toward first base, to make the short turn toward first would involve turning the right side of his body away from the direction in which he will throw, thereby decreasing the force and accuracy of the throw. Instead, he may make a long turn, turning past centerfield, right field, third base and the pitcher and then throw to first. Whatever time is lost in making a such a spin will be, he hopes, regained in the better speed and accuracy coming from having his body twisting in the direction of his throwing motion. And, indeed, he may wind up, after making the throw, facing right field again, thus completing a full 360. Still, I think that this expression is most often found in the simple sense of "make an about-face." GAT From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:19:56 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:19:56 -0600 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: > THE NASHVILLE COOKBOOK: > SPECIALTIES OF THE CUMBERLAND REGION > By Nashville Area Home Economics Association ... > So, based on my investigation, the Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie possibly comes from Tennessee, possibly from a secret recipe of Bethany Dumas. I don't think the Cumberland region is a likely source for it. The Mississippi Delta strikes me as more likely. (The Delta, btw, doesn't mean the river's actual delta. Mississippi children introduced to the term "delta" in geography/geology books learn that our delta is in fact an "alluvial plain." Whatever *a* delta is, *The* Delta is the flat land along the Mississippi River, stretching from the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis to Catfish Row in Vicksburg.) I carried a whole backback stuffed with Mississippi Mud Puppies to Japan last May as gifts to friends there -- thirty or forty mud puppies. My shoulders ache in memory of that every time I pass the mud-puppy shelf in our campus bookstore. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 17:32:18 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:32:18 EST Subject: Conversate Message-ID: It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make anew), as used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:36:29 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:36:29 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: <38DC82434@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: I wonder whether these instances of "about" are really the same as Dolly Parton's. My sense is that their meaning is that of "to be about something" rather than "to be just about to" do something. I.e., "as they were about leaving the room" could be alternatively expressed as: "as they were occupied with the action of leaving the room." The other cites all seem consistent with this interpretation. Peter Mc. --On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 11:35 AM +0000 GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: > Let me try this again. > > Arnold Zwicky writes: listening to an interview of dolly parton on > Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the > approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along > the lines of "I about fainted". > > I have been struck by rather frequent occurences in the NYC > newspapers of the 1820s of sentences constucted with "about" and a > particicple, used when I would write "just about to". Some examples > follow. > > [This one is from a pretty funny story of a law-suit between a > respectable gentleman (i.e., ha had money) and an incompetent > portrait painter. The gentleman had commissioned a painting, was > displeased with it when it was done, and refused to pay. The > painter added long ears and exhibited it in the guise of a picture > of the legendary figure Midas. The gentleman sued.] > ". . . as they were about leaving the room, he took chalk and > sketched Ass's ears on the head of the picture, threatening to paint > them thereon and expose it on Broadway." > New-York City-Hall Recorder, 2 (1817):113-18 > > [This one is about a sailor who is trying to avoid arrest.] > After Jack had maintained his position at the mast head for nearly > two hours, occasionally relieving his apprehensions by a bottle of > grog which his messmates below had fastened to a rope for him to draw > up, a sloop laying alongside being about getting under weigh, by the > aid of his brother tars, the two vessels were locked in such a manner > as to bring the rigging into contact, when he stepped from his roost > in the mast-head of the smack over to that of the sloop, and sailed > securely off, amidst the cheers of a great number of persons who had > collected on the docks and wit ssed the diverting scene, and left the > minister of justice to return his writ non est inventus. > New-York Evening Post, May 13, 1819, p. 2, col. 1 > > . . . the Police Magistrates had in some way obtained information that > a certain Rufus Severence was about coming to the City, with a large > quantity of counterfeit money . . . > N-Y American, February 8, 1822, p. 2, col. 6 > > On Sunday, a strapping black was about chastizing a genteel well behaved > young white man, because he took the wall of him; and in their walks > in Broadway there is no enduring their insolence. > National Advocate, July 9, 1822, p. 2, cols. 2-3. > > GAT **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:48:39 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:48:39 EST Subject: more on "Inc" Message-ID: I have deleted all previous notes on "inc." pronounced as "ink", so I can't give credit to previous contributors. Someone noted the crime fiction bookstore/publisher "Murder Ink": according to the Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing (1999), this was founded in June, 1972. (sv article "Bookstores, specialized") In 1936, Count Basie and certain members of his band made some recordings. Because a conniver named Jack Kapp had induced Basie to sign a disadvantageous exclusive contract with Decca Records, these records could not be released under Basie's name. (After the Decca contract expired, such groups would be called Count Basie and His Kansas City Five, &c.) One of the bandmen at the session was Jo Jones, another was Carl Smith, so the records were released as by "Jones, Smith, Inc". I do not believe that I have ever heard this pronounced "Jones, Smith, Incorporated". This disk jockey I have most often heard announce this group's name is Phil Schaap, whose father was and is a fervent jazz hound and a close friend of many jazz musicians. Basie, Jo Jones, and most of the other participants in this session knew Phil Schaap when he was in diapers, and this is exactly the sort of detail he likes to get right, so when he says Jones-Smith Inc I think we can assume that that is what his father and Basie said. Still, the next time he is on the air, I will call and check with him. Stay tuned. GAT From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 17:51:14 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:51:14 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake (GOURMET, June 1978) Message-ID: A quick check of GOURMET from the 1960s and 1970s first shows June 1978: Fudge Cake (Mississippi Mud Cake Front Street)...81 As I've said, these "mud cakes/pies" are now all over distant Australia (not Japan?), but they like to leave out "Mississippi." There's also no entry in Merriam-Webster, I believe. From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 17:51:53 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:51:53 EST Subject: will/shall Message-ID: According to some grammar/style manuals, "shall" is used almost exclusively with first person pronouns, "I" and "we". PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 18:05:55 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:05:55 EST Subject: Maki-Zushi; Carrot Bread Message-ID: Some more stuff from GOURMET. MAKI-ZUSHI--OED is doing "m," but I don't see this. GOURMET has May 1975, "Sushi Wrapped in Seaweed (Maki-Zushi)...78." CARROT BREAD--Carrot bread/cake is not too old (it was popular in the 1960s/1970s), and Mariani/OED doesn't have it at all. GOURMET has September 1965, "Carrot Bread...76." From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 25 18:08:38 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:08:38 -0500 Subject: Maki-Zushi; Carrot Bread In-Reply-To: ; from Bapopik@AOL.COM on Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 01:05:55PM -0500 Message-ID: > > MAKI-ZUSHI--OED is doing "m," but I don't see this. GOURMET has May 1975, "Sushi Wrapped in Seaweed (Maki-Zushi)...78." There is an entry in OED3 for "maki zushi," with citations going back to 1914. "Carrot bread" is, unaccountably, not in. Jesse Sheidlower From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Thu Jan 25 18:10:36 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:10:36 -0500 Subject: Cancrine (palindromic) Message-ID: The OED lists "cancrine" (crab-like) in the sense of "cancrine (or palindromic) verse." They list it as being in Johnson's Dictionary and they have a citation from 1846 ("a curious cancrine inscription"). Is cancrine an obsolete term in lingustics circles? Paul www.mcfedries.com From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 18:19:19 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:19:19 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: As recently as 1933, Jespersen wrote (Essentials of English Grammar 274-5): "In the first person _will_ does not lend itself so well as in the others to the expression of mere futurity, as _I will_ and _we will_ are so extensively and so naturally put in requisition to express volition, and as the other auxiliary, _shall_, has ome to be much used with _i_ and )we_ to express mere futurity. Still _I (we) will_ is gaining ground in this function where strict grammarians prefer _shall_, and this cannot be thought unnatural, . . . The Scotch and Irish, hence also the Scotch-Irish parts of American, use constantly _I (we) will_." Quirk et al. (CGEL) say (p. 230): "_Shall_ is a substitue for the future use of _will_ in formal style. It is only in . . . questions that _shall- cannot regularly be replaced by _will_. Note that (1) illustrates the exlcusive use of _we_, while (2) illustrates the inclusive use, _ie_ the use of _we_ which includes reference to the addressee(s). (1) Shall I/we deliver the goods to your home address? (2) What shall we do this evening? Shall we go to the theatre?" Earlier they note that "will" occurs fourtime per thousand in spoken BrE and "shall" three times per ten thousand in written English. I think the different comparative sets speak for themselves. The style manuals PAT refers to may simply be restating the prescriptive rule most of us learned at some time and never applied to our speech or writing. Herb >>> P2052 at AOL.COM 01/25/01 12:51PM >>> According to some grammar/style manuals, "shall" is used almost exclusively with first person pronouns, "I" and "we". PAT From WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Thu Jan 25 17:22:53 2001 From: WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Nichols, Wendalyn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:22:53 -0500 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: Regarding Mike's query copied below: Get yourself a copy of Stephen Glazier's Word Menu. You look things up by categories, and he gives you words with definitions to fit those categories. If you look up 'writing' in the index, it tells you to go to the Linguistics and Writing Systems category. That category lists _boustrophedon_, 'ancient form of writing in which lines alternate running right to left and left to right'. >>>There's a common thread in Marie's question and my memory of having lost the word "iatrogenic" time and again until events finally fixed it in my head. I'd love to head what some of our leading dictionary experts have to say about something no dictionary ever solves for me. What do you do when you know there's a word for something, but have no memory of the word itself? I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than once. What do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one direction until it comes to the other side of the writing surface, then turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to right, the next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do with the way oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I won't need to look it up. There just doesn't seem to be any way a dictionary could help me with that kind of problem. The only way I can think of that might produce an answer would be to ask anybody and everybody I can talk to if they happen to know the word. . . If I ever found someone claiming to know, then I'd have something to take to a dictionary for verification. But where is there a dictionary equivalent of a criss-cross (or reverse) telephone directory? -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and check it out in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off this system. From indigo at WELL.COM Thu Jan 25 18:25:02 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:25:02 -0800 Subject: comma splice/ noodling/ "-making" In-Reply-To: <200101250501.VAA21321@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? >I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is deliberately >-- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- >conversational. It is sort of the grammatical equivalent >of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. Yes, conversational! I say blame it on email! I'm 34. Started emailing in 1992. Outside of email I am sort of a grammar purist -- I mean, I don't even split infinitives even though it's been legalized for a while now. (Of course now everybody is finding all the grammatical errors in this post... gosh how self-conscious-making!) My emails are *filled* w/ comma splices & run-on sentences, not to mention an overabundance of parenthetical remarks (as you can see). It's the conversational/casual thing. I have always said that I have no linguistic spine, meaning that I start talking like anybody I hang around long enough, especially if they have particularly strong personality, speech patterns, mannerisms, &c. I have noticed this spinelessness extends to email. I've noticed that people younger than me &/or "cooler" than me are extremely casual in email (using "u" for "you", no caps, &c.). When replying to that kind of thing my grammar just flies out the window -- although I absolutely refuse to use "u" -- I mean a girl's gotta hold on to *some* sense of self! Now that I've bared all my linguistic/grammatical insecurities, I might as well go on ahead & admit my Deadhead-ness. Probably 90% of references to "noodling" I've heard in my life were in the form of people complaining about Jerry Garcia's guitarplaying. Occasionally noodling was extrapolated to describe the way Deadheads dance. All of it meant to be mildly insulting, w/ connotations like: aimless, undisciplined, formless, self-indulgent, stoned, spacy (or is that spacey?), &c... Having said "self-conscious-making" above, I'm wondering where/when/how did "-making" show up? I first heard it as "crazy-making" 10 to 15 years ago, & at the time it struck me as sort of feminist therapy talk. Since then I've heard lots of "crazy-making" but also some variations, the formula usually being [any emotion or feeling] + -making. Happy-making, mad-making, stupid-making, &c. Do you folks know anything about it? Indigo Som From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 25 18:45:01 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:45:01 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: > > It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make > anew), as > used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take > recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT Whenever I crash a computer program I am using (e.g., anything from Microsoft), I try to /ri kri et'/ the circumstances that created the original problem before calling the computer folks at work. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:10:07 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:10:07 +0800 Subject: a complete 360 In-Reply-To: <413C326AD@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 12:06 PM -0500 1/25/01, GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: >... > This puts me in mind of something I have been meaning to post a >query about, and that is, the expression "he made a complete 360", >meaning a reversal of direction. I believe I hear this mostly from >athletes in post-game interviews, used in a literal sence of bodily >motion or direction: He was moving one way, turned quickly and moved >in just the opposite direction. I have also heard it used >figuratively, as of a politician who reverses his position on a >controversial issue. > > I suppose that this expression is most used by the geometrically >challenged (unlike Larry). However, to do a complete 360 for a >moment by defending the grasp of the mensuration of a circle on the >part of at least those athletes who use the term in the sense of >physical motion, there are circumstances when a baseball shortstop >will do a complete 270, more or less -- I have seen Derek Jeter do >this. Moving toward his left, behind second base, moving in the >direction of right field, the shortstop catches a ball in his left >(gloved) hand, transfers it to his right hand and needs to throw to >first base. However, running as he is at a right angle to the line >toward first base, to make the short turn toward first would involve >turning the right side of his body away from the direction in which >he will throw, thereby decreasing the force and accuracy of the >throw. Instead, he may make a long turn, turning past centerfield, >right field, third base and the pitcher and then throw to first. >Whatever time is lost in making a such a spin will be, he hopes, >regained in the better speed and accuracy coming from having his >body twisting in the direction of his throwing motion. And, indeed, >he may wind up, after making the throw, facing right field again, >thus completing a full 360. > > Still, I think that this expression is most often found in the >simple sense of "make an about-face." > I've heard it used for both situations too. Last night I saw a replay of a great run by Tony Dorsett of the Cowboys a couple of decades ago in which he really did do a complete 360, and as you say it happens in baseball as well, but as you say it's also used for broken-field runs in which the player simply reverses direction to do a 180 and someone calls it a 360. Athletes' and sportscasters' lingo is clearly a matter of degree. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:12:40 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:12:40 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: <36.1126b42d.27a1bd22@aol.com> Message-ID: At 12:32 PM -0500 1/25/01, P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: >It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make anew), as >used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take >recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT I don't think so; certainly the OED, which as I mentioned treats the latter as sense 5 of a general group of senses relating to the 'refresh' notion, doesn't describe any phonological distinction. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From prez234 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 08:16:39 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 02:16:39 CST Subject: a complete 360 Message-ID: Then the meaning of "making a complete 360," for politicians, should be "to stop, make motions as though one is changing philosophy/policy, and proceed in the original direction." This term might describe the Ashcroft deliberations after all. National Review once claimed that the meaning of the word "factoid" ought to be "something that resembles a fact, but isn't." I don't think it specifically mentioned CNN. For instance, "raising the minimum wage helps the poor" is a factoid. A spheroid is a malformed sphere (such as a football), a cuboid is a malformed cube, etc., all of any size. CNN means "factoid" as "a fact small enough that it may be displayed on a TV screen during the break to commercial." In analytic geometry, we have the unfortunate term "ellipsoid." Rather than being a malformed ellipse, the term indicates an ellipse of 3 or more dimensions. A better term would have been "hyperellipse," because we have the terms "hypercube" and "hypersphere" indicate a cube or sphere of 4 or more dimensions. There is also the term "hyperboloid," meaning a hyperbola extended to at least a third dimension. I suppose "hyper-hyperbola" would have an unpleasant echo. The last of the conic sections (the others being circle, ellipse, and hyperbola) is the parabola. Its 3-dimensional analog is called the "paraboloid." Again, a better term would have been "hyperparabola." I have never heard a hypersphere called a circloid. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:25:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:25:15 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 1:19 PM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >As recently as 1933, Jespersen wrote (Essentials of English >Grammar 274-5): > >"In the first person _will_ does not lend itself so well as in >the others to the expression of mere futurity, as _I will_ and _we >will_ are so extensively and so naturally put in requisition to >express volition, and as the other auxiliary, _shall_, has ome to >be much used with _i_ and )we_ to express mere futurity. Still _I >(we) will_ is gaining ground in this function where strict >grammarians prefer _shall_, and this cannot be thought unnatural >...The style manuals PAT refers to may simply be restating the >prescriptive rule most of us learned at some time and never >applied to our speech or writing. > Talk about the stars being aligned. an hour ago I received a message from Georgia Green, who is not an ads-l subscriber and has no idea we've been talking about will/shall, that contains the following information about Bishop Lowth, the famed 18th century British prescriptivist: ================ Robert Lowth was a grumpy old man, worse than Kilpatrick or Safire on their worst days, and he as much as admits making up the shall/will rule: "_Will_ in the first Person singular and plural promises or threatens; in the second and third Persons only foretells: _shall_ on the contrary, in the first Person simply fortells; in the second and third Persons commands or threatens." Then there is a footnote: This distinction was not observed formerly as to the word _shall_, which was used in the Second and Third Persons to express simply the event. So, he's making it up! ================= Sof if Georgia is right, and I have no reason to doubt her, it is Bishop Lowth who...er, whom we have to thank for that immortal contrast between "I shall drown; no one will save me!" [despairing accidental drownee] "I will drown; no one shall save me!" [determined suicide] larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:13:58 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:13:58 -0500 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> Then there's the related "Call me whatever you want, as long as it's not late for dinner" <<<<< Distinguo, Larry. I've only ever heard it as something like Call me anything you like,* just don't call me late for dinner. If you don't have "call" in the second clause, you risk losing the pun that is the whole point of the line. * punctuate at will -- Mark From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 19:27:04 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:27:04 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: >>> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU 01/25/01 01:25AM >>> Talk about the stars being aligned. an hour ago I received a message from Georgia Green, who is not an ads-l subscriber and has no idea we've been talking about will/shall, that contains the following information about Bishop Lowth, the famed 18th century British prescriptivist: ================ Robert Lowth was a grumpy old man, worse than Kilpatrick or Safire on their worst days, and he as much as admits making up the shall/will rule: "_Will_ in the first Person singular and plural promises or threatens; in the second and third Persons only foretells: _shall_ on the contrary, in the first Person simply fortells; in the second and third Persons commands or threatens." Then there is a footnote: This distinction was not observed formerly as to the word _shall_, which was used in the Second and Third Persons to express simply the event. So, he's making it up! ================= Sof if Georgia is right, and I have no reason to doubt her, it is Bishop Lowth who...er, whom we have to thank for that immortal contrast between "I shall drown; no one will save me!" [despairing accidental drownee] "I will drown; no one shall save me!" [determined suicide] Herb writes: Bishop Lowth should have drowned; no one would have saved him. Bishop Lowth would have drowned; no one should have saved him. Herb From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:16:50 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:16:50 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> At 3:18 PM -0500 1/24/01, Siddharth Suri wrote: >"Let me noodle it" [...] I'd guess it means 'consider, think about', and that it's a zero-derivation from "noodle" as a noun = 'head, brain, mind'. *************** <<<<< I move we call these things "zero-derives". -- Mark From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:39:31 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:39:31 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: <3A70742D.769F456D@cmu.edu> Message-ID: At 1:45 PM -0500 1/25/01, Drew Danielson wrote: >P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: >> >> It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make >> anew), as >> used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take >> recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT > > >Whenever I crash a computer program I am using (e.g., anything from >Microsoft), I try to /ri kri et'/ the circumstances that created the >original problem before calling the computer folks at work. I read the example from Shakespeare as involving the /'rE kri et/ sense of 'refreshing oneself' or 'chilling out', not as creating oneself anew. Clearly, the sense in your computer example involves the transparent 'create again' sense that I'd pronounce with a /ri/ and spell with a hyphen, which I wouldn't for Shakespeare's. From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:26:50 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:26:50 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Gregory {Greg} Downing writes: >>>>> Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, informally experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, people often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of the verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in technical, mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are nothing but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) <<<<< In my experience, noodling on the guitar ... well, as I write this I perceive an analogy to doodling with a pen or pencil, and the rhyme may have affected the sound and/or the meaning. You're playing with familiar structures, not giving the activity your concentration but not necessarily totally on automatic either. You're sort of poking around, doing things partly at random, and maybe seeing what will come up or suggest itself. It can be part of a creative process, or it can be just time-filling. At the monthly housefilks* I attend, if person A is playing a guitar softly during conversation or a break between songs, person B may ask "Have you got something?", and A reply "No, I'm just noodling". In other words, No, I'm not preparing to sing, I'm not playing to claim the floor; I'm just occupying my fingers and a small portion of my mind with this instrument while waiting for something to happen. * see http://www.massfilc.org/ -- Mark A. Mandel FIJAGH! Now, *filking*, on the other hand... http://world.std.com/~mam/filk.html From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:31:21 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:31:21 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: dInIs quoth: >>>>> >Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. <<<<< Kishka with relish, anyone? -- Subcommander Markemm, the Klingon Chef From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:46:01 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:46:01 +0800 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:13 PM -0500 1/25/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Laurence Horn writes: > >>>>>> >Then there's the related "Call me whatever you want, as long as it's >not late for dinner" ><<<<< > >Distinguo, Larry. > >I've only ever heard it as something like > Call me anything you like,* just don't call me late for dinner. I agree you have to work a bit harder in my version, but I have heard it this way, e.g. from Steve Somers of WFAN sports radio. >If you don't have "call" in the second clause, you risk losing the pun that >is the whole point of the line. > >* punctuate at will > Cross-threading indeed. I had the analogous hesitation in punctuating the "I shall drown,* no one will save me" pair a few minutes ago. L From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Thu Jan 25 15:50:34 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:50:34 -0500 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Salovesh [mailto:t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU] > Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 3:11 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the > problem > > > I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than > once. What do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one > direction until it comes to the other side of the writing > surface, then turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to > right, the next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for > that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do > with the way oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a > field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I > won't need to look it up. ....... > > P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression > that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with > something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and > check it out in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off > this system. > You're soooooo close. The word is: bou·stro·phe·don , n. -- an ancient method of writing in which the lines run alternately from right to left and from left to right. [1775-85; ... like ox-turning (in plowing)...] Don't ask how or why I remembered that. Enid From jessie at SIRSI.COM Thu Jan 25 21:28:11 2001 From: jessie at SIRSI.COM (Jessie Emerson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 15:28:11 -0600 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: I have memories of Mississippi Mud Cake and Seven-Up Cake from family reunions in the 70s. I am almost certain the recipes came from locally produced cookbooks much like the one described below. Jessie Emerson From: > A bit of checking around the old studio apartment here has turned up: > > THE NASHVILLE COOKBOOK: > SPECIALTIES OF THE CUMBERLAND REGION > By Nashville Area Home Economics Association 1976, 1977 > (See catnyp.nypl.org for full cite) > Cakes: > Mississippi Mud, 161 From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 21:39:54 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 16:39:54 EST Subject: factoid? Message-ID: I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. From rkm at SLIP.NET Thu Jan 25 22:20:38 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:20:38 -0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Shall we leave? >#Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] "Shall we leave?" sounds odd to me, but "Shall we go?" does not. And right off hand I can't think of any other situation in which shall would be used in normal conversation. Rima From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 22:17:58 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:17:58 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat In-Reply-To: <006701c084c2$86bc8ec0$8321d0d8@mcfedries.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Paul McFedries wrote: > I've heard "kleptocrat" used recently in reference to Laurent Kabila. The > OED has "kleptocracy" ("a ruling body or order of thieves"), which it dates > to 1819. However, it doesn't have "kleptocrat." Nexis.com reports that its > earliest citation is an abstract of a Wall Street Journal article from 1986, > which is surprisingly new considering the antiquity of kleptocracy. Does > anyone know of any earlier cites for "kleptocrat"? 1975 _Transition_ (no. 47) 59 In the case of western Nigeria, there is also good evidence that the deterioration of political conditions in that state after 1963, and later, elsewhere in the Federation, was in no small part abetted by the activities of what Stanislas Andreski has aptly called "kleptocrats," that is, thieves in public office. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 25 22:58:44 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:58:44 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: Brand is usually credited with the coinage. If my memory servers (WARNING: I just got back from a conference in Vegas and haven;t slept in 28 hours!) it was first used in a special publication of the Whole Earth Review called Two Cybernetic Frontiers (on computer tech circa the early '70s). But that seems too early for the quote, so maybe it was a later article in Whole Earth Review. I've exchanged some email with Brand over the years, I'll ask him directly. BTW: The full quote from Brand is: Information wants to be free - because it is now so easy to copy and distribute casually - and information wants to be expensive - because in an Information Age, nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time." The meaning of the statement (minus the second half) is often misinterpreted. Fred Shapiro wrote: > > I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan > "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart > Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks > it was around before that. > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 22:51:20 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:51:20 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 06:30 PM 1/24/01 -0600, you wrote: >>Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it >>becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've >>come >>to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. >>Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, >>"That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. >> >>Benjamin Barrett > >Rather like orientate and commentate. In this case, they actually have a >different sense than the shorter verb. Orientate is what companies and >colleges do to new employees/students. Commentate is what talking-heads do >off the tops of their heads, vs the thoughtful stuff you get in other >contexts. > >Conversate, tho', does not have a distinct meaning from 'converse'. It's an >unnecessary word. > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com Well, no word is "necessary," and likewise all words are "unnecessary." But I want to clarify that the use of "conversate" I saw in our student newspaper was by an African American student writer, not a professional columnist. My impression (maybe wrong) is that this is an AAE usage which is not yet common in other speech communities. I read the first message to say that Judge Ronnie White, not John Ashcroft, used the word, but later someone wrote that Ashcroft used it. Did both use it? This wouldn't be surprising, of course, since usages spread--and maybe "conversate" already has. BTW, it is my understanding that "orientate" is the preferred Brit Eng for Am Eng "orient," though I've heard both here too. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 25 22:45:15 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:45:15 -0500 Subject: factoid? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. > >Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. Absolutely. This is one of my pet peeves - the use of "factoid" by CNN etc. They are presumably implying that it is a small fact, but what they are saying is that it's not actually a fact (just as a humanoid is not a human) . . . or maybe they're being accurate, as a lot of their "factoids" don't seem particularly factual! Tony Glaser From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Thu Jan 25 22:58:42 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:58:42 -0800 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: Which conference was held in Vegas? Was UNLV involved? -----Original Message----- From: Gareth Branwyn [mailto:garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET] Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 2:59 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: "Information Wants to be Free" Brand is usually credited with the coinage. If my memory servers (WARNING: I just got back from a conference in Vegas and haven;t slept in 28 hours!) it was first used in a special publication of the Whole Earth Review called Two Cybernetic Frontiers (on computer tech circa the early '70s). But that seems too early for the quote, so maybe it was a later article in Whole Earth Review. I've exchanged some email with Brand over the years, I'll ask him directly. BTW: The full quote from Brand is: Information wants to be free - because it is now so easy to copy and distribute casually - and information wants to be expensive - because in an Information Age, nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time." The meaning of the statement (minus the second half) is often misinterpreted. Fred Shapiro wrote: > > I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan > "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart > Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks > it was around before that. > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 23:00:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 18:00:45 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (both 1975) Message-ID: MARSHALL COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY BICENTENNIAL COOK BOOK HOLLY SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI (1975) Pg. 117, col. 1: MISSISSIPPI MUD PIE 16 chocolate sandwich cookies, crushed 1/4 C. melted butter 1 1/2 pints softened coffee flavored ice cream 1/4 C. chocolate fudge sauce Mix cookie crumbs and melted butter. Line bottom of pie plate and put in freezer for 20 minutes. Spoon ice cream into pie shell. Cover with fudge sauce. Return to freezer until sauce hardens. A deluze company pie. Olive Mae Fore Chulahoma Pg. 146, col. 2: MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE 1 C. butter 1/2 C. cocoa 2 C. sugar 4 eggs, slightly beaten 1 1/2 C. chopped nuts 1 1/2 C. flour 1 tsp. vanilla Pinch salt Temp. 350 degrees Cooking Time 35-45 min. Melt butter and cocoa together. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar and mix well. Add beaten eggs, flour, salt, nuts and vanilla. Mix well and pour into 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan. When cake is done, sprinkle miniature marshmallows on hot cake and make chocolate frosting below. CHOCOLATE FROSTING 1 lb. confectioners sugar 1/2 C. whole milk 1/3 C. cocoa 1/2 stick butter Combine all ingredients and mix until smooth and creamy and of spreading consistency--and pour over marshmallow topping. Olive Mae Fore Chulahoma June 1978, GOURMET magazine, pg. 81, col. 2: Q. We recently dined at a charming restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts, called Front Street. For dessert we had Mississippi mud cake, a memorable chocolate treat. Do you think you could satisfy my sweet tooth with the recipe? MRS. GEORGE DALSHEIMER BALTIMORE, MARYLAND A. Edmond Di Stasi and Howard Gruber were pleased to send this recipe down by the riverside. _Mississippi Mud Cake Front Street_ _(Fudge Cake)_ (Long recipe follows--ed.) From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 22:58:43 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:58:43 -0500 Subject: comma=because In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:56 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >As another writer reported, some style manuals allow this sort of >punctuation. Obviously, as we all know, the rules are flexible >and a sensitive writer uses them flexibly. The coarse grain of >English punctuation doesn't allow us to write a lot of things we >can say, but your example shows how close we can come. > >Herb > ><<< dcamp911 at JUNO.COM 1/24 7:30p >>> >On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Herb Stahlke > >writes: > > This sort of error is as common as it is because English > > punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech >marks > > very nicely. > >I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is >deliberately >-- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- >conversational. And I have always believed that if you know the >rules, in >the absence of an American Academy, you are free to break them. So >I >occasionally separate two independent clauses with a comma as a >break >weaker than a semicolon. For example: "I didn't do anything in >particular, it just happened." It is sort of the grammatical >equivalent >of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. > >D And I do this too, especially, as you say, with short, "rolling" clauses. My favorite college mentor insisted we never begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "so"--but now I often do in informal writing. (He wouldn't like that dash/two hyphens either.) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 25 23:16:45 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 18:16:45 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: It was a non-language-related conference. I was speaking at the annual cigar smoke-in known as the National Assoc. of TV Producers and Execs (NATPE). Your Name wrote: > > Which conference was held in Vegas? Was UNLV involved? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Gareth Branwyn [mailto:garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET] > Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 2:59 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "Information Wants to be Free" > > Brand is usually credited with the coinage. If my memory servers > (WARNING: I just got back from a conference in Vegas and haven;t slept > in 28 hours!) it was first used in a special publication of the Whole > Earth Review called Two Cybernetic Frontiers (on computer tech circa the > early '70s). But that seems too early for the quote, so maybe it was a > later article in Whole Earth Review. I've exchanged some email with > Brand over the years, I'll ask him directly. > > BTW: The full quote from Brand is: > Information wants to be free - because it is now so easy to copy and > distribute casually - and information wants to be expensive - because > in an Information Age, nothing is so valuable as the right information > at the right time." > > The meaning of the statement (minus the second half) is often > misinterpreted. > > Fred Shapiro wrote: > > > > I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan > > "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart > > Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks > > it was around before that. > > > > Fred Shapiro > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > > Yale Law School forthcoming > > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 23 18:14:09 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:14:09 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:05:23 +0800 Laurence Horn > Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that > the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may > feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, In which case, according to Tannen, a He would answer either Yes or No and a She would respond, "I don't care. What do you want to do?" Or is that Dave Barry I'm thinking of. D From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 23:58:13 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:58:13 -0600 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (both 1975) Message-ID: >Pg. 146, col. 2: > MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE The recipe given is essentially one for brownies, rather dry ones at that. I've been watching this topic with some interest. Mississippi mud seems to be a very rich brownie served with some sort of ultra sweet, ultra-rich, ultra-chocolate sauce. The homemade American varieties seem to base the sauce on pudding, and (yuck) melted marshmallows. My one memory from a restaurant's version is that the sauce was like a chocolate mousse or a "chocolate mayonnaise" (there did not seem to be whipped cream or egg white in the sauce, but I suspect there was egg yolk). _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From mssmith at BOONE.NET Sat Jan 27 01:11:47 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 20:11:47 -0500 Subject: Fw: Fish Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Fri Jan 26 01:39:08 2001 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (lesa.dill) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 19:39:08 -0600 Subject: FWD: Fish Message-ID: It may be merely folk etymology, but I've heard "fresh fish" > "fish" as in newly caught. I don't know if "jail bait" works into that or not. Lesa Dill >===== Original Message From susan ===== >----- Original Message ----- >From: susan >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:47 AM >Subject: Fish > > >Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? >Thank you very much, >Susan Gilbert From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:40:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 20:40:00 +0800 Subject: factoid? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:39 PM -0500 1/25/01, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. > >Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. as opposed to AFFAIRO for a fling with a dynastic tyrant or someone who acts as though s/he were From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:49:07 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 20:49:07 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:20 PM -0800 1/25/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>Shall we leave? >>#Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] > >"Shall we leave?" sounds odd to me, but "Shall we go?" does not. And >right off hand I can't think of any other situation in which shall >would be used in normal conversation. > >Rima "Shall we dance?", uttered when you're bar-hopping just after attending a performance of "The King and I"? And as mentioned, I've used it and heard it used with null complement anaphora: "Shall we?" tout court. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gcohen at UMR.EDU Fri Jan 26 01:52:41 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 19:52:41 -0600 Subject: "the whole nine yards"; an army officer writes Message-ID: Another pleasant development from the Jan. 2 WSJ article about Barry Popik is that he was contacted by an army officer who has long been interested in "the whole nine yards." Barry forwarded his e-mail to me, and with permission granted from both parties, I now share the message with ADS-L. Its main importance is that it places "the whole nine yards" back into a an Air Force context, even though there are still no attestations from World War II. --Gerald Cohen >Fort Bliss, Texas > 18 January 2001 >Mr. Barry Popik > >Re: The Whole Nine Yards > >Barry, > > I read your feature in the 2 January 2001 issue of The >Wall Street Journal and was immediately attracted to you quest for >the origin of 'The Whole Nine Yards." > > I am a soldier the United States Army Sergeants Major >Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas and this has also become a quest for >several of my fellow senior NCOs. Internet searches include the >size of cement mixers that you mentioned, stationary ones, used in >the late 1940s, not trucks, the length of a bolt of cloth, and the >distance between masts on sailing ships. > > One of my fellow soldiers said he read about the term >in a book on WWII, Guadalcanal, maybe. Since the printing of your >feature I have researched the Battle of the Aleutian Islands, great >reading about brave soldiers, but no cigar. No Whole Nine Yards, >either. > > On the down side, my father was an armorer for a P-51 >Mustang unit during WWII and I never heard him use the term. But >then he never talked shop about his army experience, only upbeat >stories relating to off duty activities. My father died in 1985 and >I don't know if any of his comrades are still living. I'll have to >ask my mother. > > Now, here is where I can help you, and it fits into the >small world department. In the fall of 1964 I was a freshmen at the >University of Missouri and sitting in an ROTC classroom, the >building was (still is) Crowder Hall, the instructor was a Captain >Samples, he got a promotion to major a few weeks later and the >Professor of Military Science a colonel( full bird) named Carlisle, >or Carwile, memory is a little foggy on that. We had a briefing by >a young air force officer (pilot). Here again, I don't remember if >he was a 2nd lieutenant, 1st lieutenant, or captain, and I don't >remember if he was on his way to Vietnam or had just returned, but >he was a graduate of Missouri University (MU). A 2lt would have >made him a 1992 or 1993 graduate while a captain would roll him all >the way back to around 1960. I wasn't too focused on the military >Š..yet. For me Vietnam was still four years away. > > During his briefing this young officer used the term, >'The Whole Nine Yards,' not just once but repeatedly. At the time I >thought he was referring to University of Missouri football. > > To get back to business, that was in the fall of 1964. >The young pilot had to have picked up the term somewhere and I would >think Air Force flight gunnery school, which would move the >appearance of the term back from the date of 1966 you mentioned in >your feature. > > I don't know Professor Gerald Cohen but I'll probable >try to contact Him. I graduated from MU in June 1968 and went of >active duty for what was to be a two-year obligation. That was >almost 33 years ago. I think my two-year obligation is up two years >from June of this year. > > Good Luck. > >Thomas L. McRoberts >Sergeant Major >United States Army > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jpparker at ISERV.NET Fri Jan 26 02:50:11 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane Parker) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:50:11 -0500 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (both 1975) Message-ID: I read recently in cooks magazine latest issue that mississippi mud cake is texas sheet cake with marshmellow cream on top. Texas sheet cake is a simple inexpensive chocolate sheet cake that used cocoa instead of chocolate and has a simple cocoa based glaze. This is a very moist cake definately not a brownie. Jane P Parker Woodland MI From jpparker at ISERV.NET Fri Jan 26 02:57:18 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane Parker) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:57:18 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was commonly used instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to gradschool in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and automaton. Jane P Parker From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 13:21:32 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:21:32 +0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <3A70E78D.84336342@iserv.net> Message-ID: At 9:57 PM -0500 1/25/01, Jane Parker wrote: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went >to gradschool >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and >automaton. > >Jane P Parker I hadn't come across it that early, but here's a message I sent (in reply to another message, as you'll see) concerning "waitron" as part of a thread on another list a few years ago: Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 10:32:46 -0500 Subject: waitron > Waitron, an American pc >barbarism?? I thought it was a joke, with that kind of >robotic-space-computer type sounding suffix making a wry comment on the >job. In any case, no one I know would say such a thing seriously. In >Ohio, I've heard "server" used and in NY "waiter" for women sounds possible, >though I can't swear I've actually heard it here. On the other hand, 'to >waitress' is about the only sex-related verb, as in: "Oh, I spent about a >year waitressing before finding a job as a linguist." As waitress >disappears so will that verb. Well, the first time I came across "waitron", on a Help Wanted sign posted on the Yale cafeteria door several years ago, I mentioned it in my Words and Meaning class and one student provided the citation "I'm tronning for Senior Dinner". A great verb, I thought--while 'waitressing' would work in this con- text, that doesn't help if you're the wrong sex (or gender), and for me neither 'waitering' nor 'waiting' would, salva sensu. Evidently, intuitions on this differ, though. In any case, I always thought 'waitron' was cute too; for me it evokes both the robots others have brought up and subatomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons, and waitrons). Unless the plural is waitra... --Larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 02:19:38 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:19:38 EST Subject: Szhoosh Message-ID: Simon Doonan--he, of the "naff" citation--is now giving us "szhoosh." I'm not sold. I think he's trying to pull our legs to get a ridiculous slang term introduced. But still, that's how some terms are introduced. From the NEW YORK OBSERVER, 29 January 2001, pg. 15, col. 1: _The Winter Antiques Szhoosh_ New York has always been the epicenter of _szhoosh_. What's szhoosh? It's interior decorating vernacular meaning "to gussie up lavishly" or, as a noun, "that which has been gussied up lavishly." (Long article follows--ed.) From buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET Fri Jan 26 01:28:13 2001 From: buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET (Buchmann) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:28:13 -0400 Subject: factoid? Message-ID: Perhaps 'fact-like thing' ? -AB Tony Glaser wrote: > >I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. > >Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. > Absolutely. This is one of my pet peeves - the use of "factoid" by > CNN etc. They are presumably implying that it is a small fact, but > what they are saying is that it's not actually a fact (just as a > humanoid is not a human) . . . or maybe they're being accurate, as a > lot of their "factoids" don't seem particularly factual! > Tony Glaser From dumasb at UTK.EDU Fri Jan 26 02:28:13 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:28:13 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Jane Parker wrote: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went >to gradschool >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and >automaton. I am sure I heard it approximately twice ... in the mid-to-late 70s. Bethany From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 02:47:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:47:19 EST Subject: MMC; Jackson(MS) phonebook food Message-ID: MMC OK. From GOURMET, June 1978, pg. 81, col. 2: _Mississippi Mud Cake Front Street_ _(Fudge Cake)_ Into a bowl sift together 2 cups flout, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and a pinch of salt. In the top of a double boiler set over simmering water heat 1 3/4 cups coffee and 1/4 cup bourbon for 5 minutes. Add 5 ounces (Col. 3--ed.) unsweetned chocolate and 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, all cut into pieces, and heat the mixture, stirring, until the chocolate and butter are melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in 2 cups sugar. Let the mixture cool for 3 minutes and transfer it to the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, beating at medium speed, and continue to beat the mixture for 1 minute. Add 2 eggs, lightly beaten, and 1 teaspon vanilla and beat the batter until it is smooth. Butter a 9-inch tube pan, 3 1/2 inches deep, and dust it with cocoa. Pour in the batter and bake the cake in a pre-heated very slow oven (275 degrees F.) for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted i! n the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely in the pan on a rack and turn it out onto a serving plate. Serve the cake with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with white creme de cacao to taste. It must be added that MMC/MMP probably does not go back much more than 1975. A large number of excellent books just don't have it. THE MISSISSIPPI COOKBOOK (Hattiesburg, 1972), compiled by the Home Economics Division of the Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service. This excellent cookbook has no "mud" at all. BETTY CROCKER/FAMILY CIRCLE/BETTER HOMES & GARDENS/LADIES' HOME JOURNAL/SUNSET/FARM JOURNAL--not one of these dessert cookbooks from the 1950s/1960s/1970s has MMC/MMP. -------------------------------------------------------- JACKSON (MS) PHONEBOOK FOOD I went through the Jackson (MS) phonebooks, as well as Nashville (TN) and others. March 1976, JACKSON (MS), pg. 346, col. 2 ad: EL BURRITO Authentic MEXICAN FOOD Served in a true MEXICAN ATMOSPHERE TACOS . ENCHILADAS . TAMALES CHILI . TORTILLAS . BURRITO SPANISH RICE . REFRIED BEANS CHIMICHANGAS TWO PLACES TO SERVE YOU 982-8808 373-2383 March 1976, JACKSON (MS), pg. 347, col. 1 ad: Gibbs' PIZZA PALACE RESTAURANTS 13 VARIETIES PIZZA 6 KINDS OF PO-BOYS TACOS MUFFULETTAS RED BEANS & RICE SPAGHETTI 4 VARIETIES SALADS PIZZA BURGERS WATCHAMACALLIT (Anybody know what this is?--ed.) 956-5048 366-1834 353-1798 March 1976, JACKSON (MS), pg. 353, col. 1: TROY'S FISH HOUSE CATFISH "ALL YOU CAN EAT" Shrimp--Oysters--Steak Chicken Nuggets--Burgers (...) Old Hwy 51-N Ridgeland Ms...856-6251 (I forget when McDonald's introduced its McNuggets--ed.) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:07:01 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:07:01 -0600 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Jane Parker wrote: > Is anyone else familiar with > this term? Yes. I thought of it as a semi-joking fad word, though. I'm not sure that I ever heard it used seriously. (And I haven't heard it in a good while.) --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From johannaf+ at ANDREW.CMU.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:08:57 2001 From: johannaf+ at ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Johanna N Franklin) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:08:57 -0500 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <200101260307.VAA26383@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: I read it in a PC dictionary in 1992. I don't know how long the book had been in circulation, but it was still being read then. Johanna Excerpts from mail: 25-Jan-101 Re: Waitron by Natalie Maynor at CS.MSSTAT > Jane Parker wrote: > > Is anyone else familiar with > > this term? > > Yes. I thought of it as a semi-joking fad word, though. I'm not sure > that I ever heard it used seriously. (And I haven't heard it in a good > while.) > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Combination of the Discoveries of Einstein and Pythagoras: E = m c^2 = m(a^2 + b^2) From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 26 03:09:21 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:09:21 -0500 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <3A70E78D.84336342@iserv.net> Message-ID: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to >gradschool >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and >automaton. I heard it in the 1990's, can't remember where, might even have been Minneapolis. I assumed it to have been conceived -- as a deliberately sexless term -- by analogy with "patron" [of the restaurant]. It was pronounced to rhyme with "patron" on the very few occasions when I heard it, so it did not evoke images of subatomic particles, cyclotrons, automata, etc. It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently agrees with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. -- Doug Wilson From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:09:20 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:09:20 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: I've asked a fair number of K12 and college writing teachers about the prohibition on beginning sentences with conjunctions or with "because", and the reason I most regularly get is that it's a time-saver. Instead of trying to explain why this is wrong but not always, they'd rather just ban the structures and thereby avoid fragments and other horros of English composition. Herb <<< flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 1/25 6:06p And I do this too, especially, as you say, with short, "rolling" clauses. My favorite college mentor insisted we never begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "so"--but now I often do in informal writing. (He wouldn't like that dash/two hyphens either.) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 26 03:22:28 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:22:28 -0500 Subject: factoid? In-Reply-To: <3A70D2AB.5B19016F@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: >Perhaps 'fact-like thing' ? -AB Exactly. The RH dictionary gives this definition: "something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised esp. to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition." A variation which I heard from somebody recently -- possibly a personal coinage -- is "falsoid", apparently = "a factoid which is clearly false". -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 15:00:59 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 23:00:59 +0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010125210936.01d48810@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: > >I heard it in the 1990's, can't remember where, might even have been >Minneapolis. > >I assumed it to have been conceived -- as a deliberately sexless term -- by >analogy with "patron" [of the restaurant]. It was pronounced to rhyme with >"patron" on the very few occasions when I heard it, so it did not evoke >images of subatomic particles, cyclotrons, automata, etc. > >It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently agrees >with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. > >-- Doug Wilson Notice though that the first listed AHD4 pronunciation is with secondary stress on the "tron", thus paralleling "neutron" and "automatron". This is the way I've always heard it pronounced (granted, usually in mention rather than use contexts), and I never thought of a parallel with "patron" of the kind that would correlate with reduced stress on the second syllable. The unstressed "patron" version would also be much less likely to yield that useful verb I mentioned (as in "tronning for senior dinner"). larry From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Fri Jan 26 04:34:00 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 20:34:00 -0800 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: waitron/patron ----- Original Message ----- From: "dumasb" To: Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 6:28 PM Subject: Re: Waitron > Jane Parker wrote: > >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was > >commonly used > >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. > >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went > >to gradschool > >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with > >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and > >automaton. > > I am sure I heard it approximately twice ... in the mid-to-late 70s. > > Bethany > > From davemarc at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 26 04:12:16 2001 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 23:12:16 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: There was a minor "New Wave" hit with lyrics along the lines of "I am a waitron./I live in Washing-ton." My guess is that it was recorded c. 1982. I'm trying to get more details. David From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 26 08:17:01 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 00:17:01 -0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <3A70E78D.84336342@iserv.net> Message-ID: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads... I remember it from at least the mid-80s if not before. It was during that period when gender neutral terms were beginning to be used, e.g., firefighter, police officer. Most thought waitron was ridiculous - and it was dropped in favor of "server." Rima From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Fri Jan 26 11:19:10 2001 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 06:19:10 -0500 Subject: WAITRON in .... Message-ID: Doug Wilson wrote: >It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently >agrees >with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. This thread is very interesting. Waitron is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 4.4, Winter 1985, p 152). The earliest date I had at the time was 1980. I agree that the pronunciation that I prefer is with a low back vowel; I have never heard examples that would be represented with a schwa, as in "Washington." Incidently, some dictionary pronunciation editors have opted for an implied tertiary stress. In such systems, "neutron" would have a low back vowel (often represented by "o") without a secondary stress mark, as I recall. Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From stevek at SHORE.NET Fri Jan 26 13:00:53 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:00:53 -0500 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <022501c0874f$20ef6560$2fc654a6@gmsc20b> Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, davemarc wrote: > There was a minor "New Wave" hit with lyrics along the lines of "I am a > waitron./I live in Washing-ton." My guess is that it was recorded c. 1982. > I'm trying to get more details. That would be Tru Fax & The Insaniacs; the song, "Washington" See: http://www.trufax.com/trufaxmem.html --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 00:47:34 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:47:34 +0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:00 AM -0500 1/26/01, Steve K. wrote: >On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, davemarc wrote: > >> There was a minor "New Wave" hit with lyrics along the lines of "I am a >> waitron./I live in Washing-ton." My guess is that it was recorded c. 1982. >> I'm trying to get more details. > >That would be Tru Fax & The Insaniacs; the song, "Washington" > >See: http://www.trufax.com/trufaxmem.html > >--- Steve K. But from the web site, it appears that they rhymed "waitron" with "Washingtron", not with "Washington", which provides independent support for reconstructing secondary-stress [a] rather than unstressed schwa in the second syllable of "waitron". (Provided, of course, that "Washingtron" was pronounced as in "neutron" too, an assumption that I find inescapable.) larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Fri Jan 26 13:46:57 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:46:57 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: I like the automaton connection as well - it's the image that the word "waitron" has always brought to my mind, and to me it has a pejorative sense. We used it sometimes exclusively in the late-80s/early-90s in the service-job-rich town of State College PA. I was a cook then, so anything that disparaged the wait staff was OK by me :) Laurence Horn wrote: > > > > >I heard it in the 1990's, can't remember where, might even have been > >Minneapolis. > > > >I assumed it to have been conceived -- as a deliberately sexless term -- by > >analogy with "patron" [of the restaurant]. It was pronounced to rhyme with > >"patron" on the very few occasions when I heard it, so it did not evoke > >images of subatomic particles, cyclotrons, automata, etc. > > > >It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently agrees > >with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. > > > >-- Doug Wilson > > Notice though that the first listed AHD4 pronunciation is with > secondary stress on the "tron", thus paralleling "neutron" and > "automatron". This is the way I've always heard it pronounced > (granted, usually in mention rather than use contexts), and I never > thought of a parallel with "patron" of the kind that would correlate > with reduced stress on the second syllable. The unstressed "patron" > version would also be much less likely to yield that useful verb I > mentioned (as in "tronning for senior dinner"). > > larry -- ___________________________________________________________________ Andrew Danielson Admin for Profs. Fedder, Gabriel Carnegie Mellon University Krogh, & Rajkumar Electrical & Computer +1 412 268-2188 Voice Engineering Department +1 412 268-3890 Fax 5000 Forbes Ave. http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~dmunk Pittsburgh, PA 15213 drew.danielson at cmu.edu ___________________________________________________________________ From cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU Fri Jan 26 13:53:51 2001 From: cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU (Cynthia Bernstein) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 07:53:51 -0600 Subject: Fish Message-ID: Texas A&M Univ has "fish camp" for students before their freshman year. Cynthia Bernstein cbernstn at memphis.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM Fri Jan 26 14:29:09 2001 From: bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM (Beverly Feldt) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:29:09 -0600 Subject: "-making" Message-ID: >Having said "self-conscious-making" above, I'm wondering where/when/how did "-making" show up? I first heard it as "crazy-making" 10 to 15 years ago, & at the time it struck me as sort of feminist therapy talk. Since then I've heard lots of "crazy-making" but also some variations, the formula usually being [any emotion or feeling] + -making. Happy-making, mad-making,stupid-making, &c. Do you folks know anything about it? >Indigo Som In Dorothy Sayers' _Murder Must Advertise_ (1933), a bright young thing, Dian de Momerie, says, "Too mirth-making," and "Too mystery-making" (Chapter 9), "too yawn-making" (Chapter 11). I also remember her saying, "Too, too sick-making," but I can't find the reference. Beverly From bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM Fri Jan 26 14:39:03 2001 From: bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM (Beverly Feldt) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:39:03 -0600 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: >My favorite college mentor insisted we never begin a sentencewith "and," "but," or "so"--but now I often do in informal writing. (He wouldn't like that dash/two hyphens either.) >Beverly Olson Flanigan >From one Beverly to another, I too am a devotee of the dash. If it was good enough for Jane Austen, it should be good enough for any of us. Beverly From davemarc at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 26 14:39:25 2001 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 09:39:25 -0500 Subject: WAITRON in .... Message-ID: From: Barnhart > > Waitron is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 4.4, Winter 1985, p > 152). The earliest date I had at the time was 1980. > > I agree that the pronunciation that I prefer is with a low back vowel; I > have never heard examples that would be represented with a schwa, as in > "Washington." I'd like to clarify my previous post. I meant to say (in my layperson way) that the pronunciation in the lyrics that go something like "I am a waitron./I live in Washington." is something like "weigh-TRAHN....washing-TAHN," with a pause before those last syllables. Now that I've heard the audio file at the site found by Steve K. (thanks!), I still believe that a pronunciation like "weight-TRAHN" (corresponding to "washing-TRAHN") can be heard in the refrain. At least that's my recollection after nearly 20 years. I didn't recall the word "Washingtron," after all. And at least group members such as Diana Quinn seem available. David From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 26 15:48:32 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:48:32 -0500 Subject: Tron Message-ID: I had a teacher in elementary school (late '80's) who, somewhat jokingly, used "Walktron" to avoid the gender implications of "Walkman". How did this morpheme "Tron" acquire the approximate meaning of "gender-neutral, not to say robotic, agent"? If it originates in "automaton" we need to explain the "r". I think the origin of the form is "electron" (and "neutron") -- from there we got other formations like "positron" and of course "electronic". But these don't have any "agentive" sense to them. I feel embarrassed now because this suffix is in the dictionary. -tron "a combining form extracted from ELECTRON, used in the names of electron tubes (magnetron) and of devices for accelerating subatomic particles (cyclotron); also, more generally, in the names of any kind of chamber or apparatus for conducting experiments (biotron)." (Random House) No date is given, but the first magnetron is apparently 1921, the first cyclotron 1929, and the first biotron 1966. This from quick Web searches. Another quick Web search revealed forms like "Name-o-Tron", "Abuse-a-Tron", "Tune-o-Tron", and "Phrase-o-Tron" -- showing the productiveness of this suffix in a slightly different sense, that of an automatic device performing a certain specific function. Although robots are stereotypically male (e.g. the trademark low monotone), I think the shift from "robotic" to "gender-neutral" makes some sense. With "waitron", there is additional support from the form "waitress" which already has the 'r'. There is also the 1982 Disney film Tron, which featured an "Electronic World" populated by characters such as RAM, BIT, CROM, and of course TRON. Although they rode around on light cycles, any connection there to "cyclotron" is surely too far-fetched. The success of this movie could have helped the meaning evolve. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 26 15:56:39 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 07:56:39 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: > BTW, it is my understanding that "orientate" is the > preferred Brit Eng for > Am Eng "orient," though I've heard both here too. > > _____________________________________________ > Beverly Olson Flanigan Then "orientate" crops up in the US military (the only place I've ever encountered it in the US, as in "Orientate this map.") because of cross-cultural dissemination through NATO? JIM __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Fri Jan 26 15:38:33 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 09:38:33 -0600 Subject: Fish Message-ID: At Texas A&M, calling freshmen "fish" seems to derive from the vocabulary of the Corps of Cadets: http://outfits.tamu.edu/aggieband/vocab.html Because of A&M's long history as a military school--and the originally military traditions that have been enthusiastically adopted by the entire student body--almost everyone knows at least some "Corps-speak." Elizabeth Gregory Texas A&M University <<< cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU 1/26 8:18a >>> Texas A&M Univ has "fish camp" for students before their freshman year. Cynthia Bernstein cbernstn at memphis.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Fri Jan 26 16:16:39 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 11:16:39 EST Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:57:18 -0500 From: Jane Parker Subject: Re: Waitron When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was commonly used instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to gradschool in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and automaton. Jane P Parker I recall reading an anecdote in some local (NYC) source, probably in the mid 1980s. [Recreated:] The writer goes into a restaurant, takes a table that hasn't been red up since the last customer. A female appears, announces "I'm Melissa, and I'll be your waitron tonight." "Waitron?" "Yes. Waitress and waiter are sexist terms. The busboy will clean your table right away." The point to the anecdote, to the extent that it had one, is that her consciousness was not raised sufficiently to keep her from using the sex-bound term "busboy". I believe that I now see the word "wait-person" on cards in restaurant windows notifying the world of a job-opening. The gophers, in introducing themselves, tend to say "I'll be your server." "red up" appears in homage to my connections in Elizabeth, Pa. GAT From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:49:04 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 11:49:04 +0800 Subject: Tron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:48 AM -0500 1/26/01, D. Ezra Johnson wrote: >I had a teacher in elementary school (late '80's) who, somewhat jokingly, >used "Walktron" to avoid the gender implications of "Walkman". > >How did this morpheme "Tron" acquire the approximate meaning of >"gender-neutral, not to say robotic, agent"? > >If it originates in "automaton" we need to explain the "r". > >I think the origin of the form is "electron" (and "neutron") -- from there >we got other formations like "positron" and of course "electronic". > I realized after I sent my earlier message linking "waitron" to "electron", "neutron", and "automatron" [sic] that I had blended these other -trons with "automaton". But a quick check of google turns up 42 other hits on "automatron", so I'm not alone. For those in the rhotic dialect of "automat(r)on", there's no -r- (in "waitron") to explain. larry P.S. for me, but not for all those responsible for the google hits, an automatron is more like a robot, or at least a concrete reification of the idea. I would never refer to a "finite state automatron" or to the theory of "automatra". From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Fri Jan 26 17:05:24 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 09:05:24 -0800 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Melissa ignores, not only the sexism of busboy but probably also its ageism since there's a good probability that the busboy is older than she is and most likely not a "boy." ----- Original Message ----- From: "GEORGE THOMPSON" To: Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 8:16 AM Subject: Re: Waitron > Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:57:18 -0500 > From: Jane Parker > Subject: Re: Waitron > > When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was commonly used > instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. > People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to gradschool > in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with > this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and > automaton. > > Jane P Parker > > > I recall reading an anecdote in some local (NYC) source, probably in > the mid 1980s. > > [Recreated:] The writer goes into a restaurant, takes a table that > hasn't been red up since the last customer. A female appears, > announces "I'm Melissa, and I'll be your waitron tonight." > "Waitron?" "Yes. Waitress and waiter are sexist terms. The busboy > will clean your table right away." > > The point to the anecdote, to the extent that it had one, is that her > consciousness was not raised sufficiently to keep her from using the > sex-bound term "busboy". I believe that I now see the word > "wait-person" on cards in restaurant windows notifying the world of a > job-opening. The gophers, in introducing themselves, tend to say > "I'll be your server." > > "red up" appears in homage to my connections in Elizabeth, Pa. > > GAT > > From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Fri Jan 26 17:05:25 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 12:05:25 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> At 10:36 AM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we >leave", unless I was being posh. > >Herb > Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, when the speaker intends it as a suggestion (or vice versa), while "Shall we go" clearly indicates that the speaker would like to go if the addressee is willing to. Still, the former (or even the more reduced form, "Wanna go?") is probably more likely than "Shall we go?". But my point is that the "shall" in this case is less stylistically marked than in the simple future uses. <<<<< Agreed. I call this form the (first person plural) imperative interrogative, and that's not just a joke, even though the notion of "imperative interrogative" is funny because it seems contradictory. The speaker is asking for/about the concurrence of the addressee(s) in declaring an imperative from the group to the group. IMHO, this curious, rather anomalous form reflects the use of "shall" as performative in giving an order, or in establishing a law: He shall/*will be taken to the gallows, there to be hanged by the neck until dead. Any dog found on public property without leash or collar shall/*will be deemed a stray and shall/*will be captured and taken to the Town Kennel by the Animal Control Officer. -- Mark A. Mandel From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 26 18:36:10 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:36:10 -0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <1B3FA1468F@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: I'm sorry, but what this conjures up for me is a scene in an imaginary sci-fi film: (Stiffly moving creature with metallic-sounding voice approaches couple seated at table and announces in a monotone:) "Hello--I am Zorg--I--will--be--your--waitron--tonight--" Peter Mc. --On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 11:16 AM +0000 GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: > [Recreated:] The writer goes into a restaurant, takes a table that > hasn't been red up since the last customer. A female appears, > announces "I'm Melissa, and I'll be your waitron tonight." **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Fri Jan 26 18:59:57 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:59:57 -0800 Subject: Fish Message-ID: In Greek slang "fish" is the label used for anyone who is new. LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER. After a few trials, the old timers (:military, college, a group of people, the regular customers of a coffee shop etc) determine whether the "fish" is a "big fish" meaning he is a "fish ... big time" or he's not a fish at all (because he knows better and more). A "fish" is someone who doesn't fight back (no hands to fight back) and/or someone who trembles (like a fish out of water). Cheers, Lina Hawkins Project Coordinator Berlitz GlobalNET Translations 525 Broadway Santa Monica, CA 90401 310.260.7138 tel 310.576.6086 fax -----Original Message----- From: Elizabeth Gregory [mailto:e-gregory at TAMU.EDU] Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 7:39 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Fish At Texas A&M, calling freshmen "fish" seems to derive from the vocabulary of the Corps of Cadets: http://outfits.tamu.edu/aggieband/vocab.html Because of A&M's long history as a military school--and the originally military traditions that have been enthusiastically adopted by the entire student body--almost everyone knows at least some "Corps-speak." Elizabeth Gregory Texas A&M University <<< cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU 1/26 8:18a >>> Texas A&M Univ has "fish camp" for students before their freshman year. Cynthia Bernstein cbernstn at memphis.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 06:56:05 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 14:56:05 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:05 PM -0500 1/26/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Laurence Horn writes: > >>>>>> >At 10:36 AM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >>I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we >>leave", unless I was being posh. >> >>Herb >> >Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that >the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may >feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, >when the speaker intends it as a suggestion (or vice versa), while >"Shall we go" clearly indicates that the speaker would like to go if >the addressee is willing to. Still, the former (or even the more >reduced form, "Wanna go?") is probably more likely than "Shall we >go?". But my point is that the "shall" in this case is less >stylistically marked than in the simple future uses. ><<<<< > >Agreed. I call this form the (first person plural) imperative >interrogative, and that's not just a joke, even though the notion of >"imperative interrogative" is funny because it seems contradictory. The >speaker is asking for/about the concurrence of the addressee(s) in >declaring an imperative from the group to the group. I'm not sure why an imperative in interrogative clothing is any more contradictory than a queclarative (Who the hell asked you? = 'nobody did') or a declarative question (So you're going over there after dinner(?)), or for that matter a 2d person "whimperative" (Why not call her yourself?). Just one more (partially conventionalized) indirect speech act. > >IMHO, this curious, rather anomalous form reflects the use of "shall" as >performative in giving an order, or in establishing a law: > > He shall/*will be taken to the gallows, there to be hanged by the neck > until dead. > > Any dog found on public property without leash or collar shall/*will >be > deemed a stray and shall/*will be captured and taken to the Town >Kennel > by the Animal Control Officer. Not to mention "Thou shalt/#wilt not kill." (assuming the Lord intended the ever-broken commandment rather than a hopelessly incorrect prediction) larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 26 21:17:50 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 21:17:50 +0000 Subject: Random House dictionary Message-ID: Writing about American dictionaries in England is a pain. I'd like to share my pain with someone who has a copy of the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. If someone with a copy of this dictionary and a little time would look up and answer my queries on fewer than 10 words, then they would have my relentless gratitude. (Happy to do a favor in kind as well.) Rather than e-mailing my list of queries to the whole list (and possibly get several people doing what one could do alone), I ask that any volunteer e-mail me privately, and I'll e-mail back my requests. TIA, Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 26 22:28:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:28:05 +0000 Subject: RH -- mission accomplished Message-ID: I no longer need a volunteer to look up words in the Random House dictionary. Many thanks to all those who offered. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Fri Jan 26 22:15:06 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 16:15:06 -0600 Subject: Random House dictionary In-Reply-To: <21931771.3189532670@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Sure, Lynne, if I have the right edition. Bob At 09:17 PM 1/26/01 +0000, you wrote: >Writing about American dictionaries in England is a pain. I'd like to >share my pain with someone who has a copy of the Random House Webster's >Unabridged Dictionary. If someone with a copy of this dictionary and a >little time would look up and answer my queries on fewer than 10 words, >then they would have my relentless gratitude. (Happy to do a favor in kind >as well.) > >Rather than e-mailing my list of queries to the whole list (and possibly >get several people doing what one could do alone), I ask that any volunteer >e-mail me privately, and I'll e-mail back my requests. > >TIA, >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 26 22:30:36 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:30:36 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Fri Jan 26 22:47:52 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:47:52 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <22194367.3189537036@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood by their claim and none of the other students objected to their claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. --SL >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... > >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Fri Jan 26 22:26:51 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:26:51 -0500 Subject: something frumious this way comes Message-ID: See the second paragraph. ---------------------- Forwarded by Mark Mandel/Dragon Systems USA on 01/26/2001 05:27 PM --------------------------- Alexandria Digital Literature Patron Newsletter, January 2001, Issue #2 --- http://www.alexlit.com --- Hello, Everyone. This week we're pleased to draw your attention to Inscriptions Magazine's four-star review of _Sleeping Planet_ by William R. Burkett, Jr. Of course, we at AlexLit already know that we have fabulous stories by talented authors, but it's nice to let someone else do the bragging for us. And speaking of talented writers, in this issue we're happy to announce that AlexLit has a new novel available from A. R. Morlan, one of our favorite horror authors. On a (nearly) completely unrelated subject, it has come to my attention that our vocabularies are falling victim to Darwinism. Darwin himself pointed out that "[t]he survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection." In a small effort to stem the flow of words into oblivion, and in honor of Lewis Carroll's birthday, I've founded The Society For the Preservation of the Bandersnatch (SFPB). Contributions can be sent directly to me. As always, Happy reading! Emily Larson, scribe at alexlit.com From mssmith at BOONE.NET Sat Jan 27 22:33:19 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 17:33:19 -0500 Subject: Fish Message-ID: Thank you all for your responses. Best, Susan Dean Gilbert ----- Original Message ----- From: "lesa.dill" To: Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 8:39 PM Subject: Re: FWD: Fish > It may be merely folk etymology, but I've heard "fresh fish" > "fish" as in > newly caught. I don't know if "jail bait" works into that or not. > Lesa Dill > > >===== Original Message From susan ===== > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: susan > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:47 AM > >Subject: Fish > > > > > >Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block > originated? > >Thank you very much, > >Susan Gilbert > From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Fri Jan 26 22:25:16 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 16:25:16 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <22194367.3189537036@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" At 10:30 PM 1/26/01 +0000, you wrote: >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... > >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Fri Jan 26 23:13:24 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:13:24 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: FYI The word "shall' in the law is not always imperative. Context may make it discretionary. Bob > > IMHO, this curious, rather anomalous form reflects the use of "shall" as > performative in giving an order, or in establishing a law: > > From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Fri Jan 26 23:16:43 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:16:43 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Seems to me I've heard people from Michigan's Upper Peninsula use shedule, a not unsurprising factette give our proximity to Canada and all the Canadian kids playing hockey for US colleges, etc. GO GREEN. Bob "Sonja L. Lanehart" wrote: > > In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English > Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students > said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I > was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic > transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood > by their claim and none of the other students objected to their > claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support > from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. --SL > > >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? > >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? > > > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... > > > >Lynne > > > >M Lynne Murphy > >Lecturer in Linguistics > >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > >University of Sussex > >Brighton BN1 9QH > >UK > > > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > *************************************************** > Sonja L. Lanehart > Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) > University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) > 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) > Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu > *************************************************** From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 26 23:14:53 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:14:53 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Captain Picard says 'skedule' in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." When I first heard it, I assumed someone had told Patrick Stewart he ought to pronounce it that way for his American audience. Lynne, tell me more about Britons who say 'skedule.' Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University ------Original Message------ From: Lynne Murphy To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: January 26, 2001 10:30:36 PM GMT Subject: schedule --pronunciation Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Jan 27 00:31:16 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 19:31:16 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Nancy Elliott writes: > Captain Picard says 'skedule' in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." When I first heard it, I assumed someone had told Patrick Stewart he ought to pronounce it that way for his American audience. > Captain Picard is supposed to be French, right? So maybe he doesn't have to conform to British norms. The other possiblity is diffusion of the [sk] pronunciation over the next three centuries... DEJ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 01:09:26 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 20:09:26 EST Subject: Boyer's Law Message-ID: The following sounds like a candidate for Fred Shapiro's collection of computer-related provers: Boyer's Law, named after the mathematician and mathematical historian Carl Boyer: "Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original discoverers." This "law" was discussed on the Historia Matematica mailing list. It appears on page 469 of [Boyer's] History of Mathematics [1968]. After discussing the anticipation of the so-called Maclaurin's series by earlier workers, Boyer observed, "Clio, the muse of history, often is fickle in the matter of attaching names to theorems!" It was H.C. Kennedy who first called this "Boyer's Law: Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original discoverers." Amer. Math. Monthly, 79:1 (1972), 66-67. Kennedy also noted that "this is probably a rare instance of a law whose statement confirms its own validity." This is also known as ...Stigler's Law of Eponymy. This law, which in its simplest form states that "no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer," was so dubbed by Stephen Stigler in his recent book Statistics on the Table (Harvard). An immodest act of nomenclature? Not really. If Stigler's law is true, its very name implies that Stigler himself did not discover it. By explaining that the credit belongs instead to the great sociologist of science Robert K. Merton, Stigler not only wins marks for humility; he makes the law to which he has lent his name self-confirming. [reference: url http://www.linguafranca.com/0003/hypo.html] The discussion can be viewed in the HM archives at http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/historia_matematica/ select month March 2000 and the applicable threads are "Boyer's Law" (26 March 2000) and "L'Hopital, Pythagoras, Ptolemy and Hilbert" 17 March 2000. I have the entire (I think) discussion on my hard drive and I'll be happy to forward it to anyone who asks. Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 14:36:23 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:36:23 +0800 Subject: Fish In-Reply-To: <00e201c088b1$29c5ed40$e54e5c40@ast> Message-ID: There's a lengthy entry in RHHDAS, dating "fish" as prisoner slang (= 'a new and inexperienced inmate') with the first cite in 1864. In this sense, "fish" is "often--in early use usually--construed with "fresh". By the end of the 19th c. "(fresh) fish" had spread beyond the prison context to apply to anyone new at the job or situation (= 'a naive newcomer or beginner').* "Fish" for 'freshman' is attested from 1898 at the U. of Tennessee. It's also used by gamblers, prostitutes, carnies, etc. for 'sucker', 'rube', 'easy mark', but this is basically still the same meaning in a different context. *"fish" as 'newbie' larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 03:35:04 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:35:04 EST Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles Message-ID: The Los Angeles Lakers have hit hard times. One story calls the city "Lost Angeles." (The RHHDAS has "Lost Wages" (Las Vegas) only.) During the Los Angeles Lakers-Seattle Supersonics basketball game on TBS, LA guard Kobe Bryant handed a pass to LA center Shaquille O'Neal, who scored the basket. "Kobe could have taken that himself," pointed out announcer John Thompson. "That's a love pass to Shaq." Thompson repeated "love pass, love pass, loooove pass" on about three replays. The Lakers play my hapless New Jersey Nets tonight, so consider "Lost Angeles" found. (FWIW, I'm interested in the thesis below. Anybody else familiar with it, or any other Air Force terminology lists of the 1950s and 1960s?) -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: 1957 MA thesis needed Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:01:46 EST Size: 845 URL: From ghutson at FIDNET.COM Sat Jan 27 03:28:56 2001 From: ghutson at FIDNET.COM (gloria hutson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 21:28:56 -0600 Subject: Don't tear up Jack. Message-ID: Has anyone heard the expression, "don't tear up Jack"? My grandmother used it whenever the grandkids would play inside the house. We knew it meant not to break anything or mess up the house. I live in the Missouri Ozarks approximately 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. Thanks, gloria hutson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jpparker at ISERV.NET Sat Jan 27 06:17:16 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane P Parker) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 01:17:16 -0500 Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles Message-ID: sounds like a morphed B-52's Love Shack, Love Shack, Looooove Shack Jane P Parker Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > The Los Angeles Lakers have hit hard times. One story calls the city "Lost Angeles." (The RHHDAS has "Lost Wages" (Las Vegas) only.) > During the Los Angeles Lakers-Seattle Supersonics basketball game on TBS, LA guard Kobe Bryant handed a pass to LA center Shaquille O'Neal, who scored the basket. > "Kobe could have taken that himself," pointed out announcer John Thompson. "That's a love pass to Shaq." > Thompson repeated "love pass, love pass, loooove pass" on about three replays. > The Lakers play my hapless New Jersey Nets tonight, so consider "Lost Angeles" found. > > (FWIW, I'm interested in the thesis below. Anybody else familiar with it, or any other Air Force terminology lists of the 1950s and 1960s?) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: 1957 MA thesis needed > Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:01:46 EST > From: Bapopik at aol.com > To: > > I called UMI dissertations, but they said to go directly to you. > I'd like a copy of: > > THE SPECIAL VOCABULARY OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE > Rule, George Lloyd > 1957 > 68 pages > Thesis (M.A.), Stanford University > > How can I purchase it? > > Barry Popik > 225 East 57th Street, Apt. 7P > New York, NY 10022 > Bapopik at aol.com > (212) 308-2635 From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Sat Jan 27 12:08:28 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 13:08:28 +0100 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: This article has me stumped. I'm probably about to be embarrassed, but what the hell is a "spot"? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1136000/1136252.stm A Bupa spokeswoman said: "A colleague found the nurses squeezing the spots of a patient who was in the surgery recovery room "The colleague suggested that it wasn't a good thing to do and reported them to the general manager. They were suspended while the complaint was investigated. "They were reprimanded but are now back at work. The patient was put in no danger and there was no harm done. "The nurses are really, really, embarrassed and so is the hospital." -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Sat Jan 27 14:22:55 2001 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Houston Hall) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 08:22:55 -0600 Subject: Don't tear up Jack. In-Reply-To: <001c01c08811$483183c0$5c41e5d8@ghutson> Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 666 bytes Desc: not available URL: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 27 14:22:28 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 09:22:28 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Paul McFedries wrote: > > > I've heard "kleptocrat" used recently in reference to Laurent Kabila. The > > OED has "kleptocracy" ("a ruling body or order of thieves"), which it dates > > to 1819. However, it doesn't have "kleptocrat." Nexis.com reports that its > > earliest citation is an abstract of a Wall Street Journal article from 1986, > > which is surprisingly new considering the antiquity of kleptocracy. Does > > anyone know of any earlier cites for "kleptocrat"? Here's a still earlier one than my previous posting: 1968 Stanislav Andreski _The African Predicament_ 77 Corruption appears even more rampant than in the opulent days of the arch kleptocrat Okotie-Iboh. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 14:45:40 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 09:45:40 EST Subject: Al McGuire speech in ADS-L archives; Safire Watch Message-ID: AL McGUIRE Basketball legend Al McGuire has died. Look for the "Al McGuire glossary" in the old ADS-L archives, from March of 1997. The glossary is taken from a sports publication of 1980. -------------------------------------------------------- SAFIRE WATCH Unlike the New York Times, most people are actually kind to me. On January 17th, the Toronto Star got "the Big Apple" wrong. I found this during a routine search on Dow Jones, and I sent the newspaper an e-mail. The Toronto Star called me the next day. I wasn't in. I was told to call the Toronto Star collect. My letter to the editor was published within seven days of the original piece. I've received responses from the Dear Abby (who published Gerald Cohen's letter and called me), the New York Post (which did a new Big Apple article), the Christian Science Monitor (which published a letter), the ABA Journal (which published a letter), the Guardian (which published an e-mail), the Financial Times, and others. Only ADS member William Safire refuses to talk to me at all. For the fourth straight month, I beg him to correctly spell a dead man's name and correctly quote his words. For the second straight week, I beg ADS members to e-mail his assistant, Elizabeth Phillips, at phille at nytimes.com, and request that she talk to me. This week, William Safire's column discusses "Gotcha!"--something he's done before. Yet he neglects to mention my important work on "Gotcha!" that I posted here on 4-4-2000. This goes with my work on "La-La-Land" and "Put Up Or Shut Up" and "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff"--my work will simply never be mentioned. My corrections will never be published. If an ADS member ignores work by African-Americans or Jews, people would speak up. But if it's me, hey, I'm garbage. And if I die tomorrow, it's OK with everyone that the New York Times has errors permanently associated with my name and work. I have done everything right. I've written letters. I've enclosed self-addressed stamped envelopes. I've waited nine years. I've even tried bribes with ADS and ANS memberships. (The ANS is turning 50, by the way. A Safire column would be nice. But it won't happen. It starts with joining the darn thing.) Again, I beg (what other professional must constantly BEG?) all ADS members for help. E-mail Elizabeth Phillips. Get her to talk to me. This request is pretty darn reasonable. From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Sat Jan 27 14:54:16 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:54:16 +0100 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: On vendredi 26 janvier 2001 23:47, Sonja L. Lanehart wrote: >In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English >Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students >said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I >was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic >transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood >by their claim and none of the other students objected to their >claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support >from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. I don't know about schedule, but scheme for me was always skeem until probably around age 13. One of those words, like many, that I'd read but never, for whatever reason, heard aloud. That one seemed like such a sure thing, not that I've never been known to look a word up in the dictionary for pronunciation (ducking flying volumes). -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Sat Jan 27 14:59:51 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:59:51 +0100 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: On samedi 27 janvier 2001 15:54, Grant Barrett wrote: >On vendredi 26 janvier 2001 23:47, Sonja L. Lanehart >wrote: >>In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English >>Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students >>said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I >>was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic >>transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood >>by their claim and none of the other students objected to their >>claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support >>from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. > >I don't know about schedule, but scheme for me was always skeem until probably >around age 13. One of those words, like many, that I'd read but never, for whatever >reason, heard aloud. That one seemed like such a sure thing, not that I've never been known >to look a word up in the dictionary for pronunciation (ducking >flying volumes). No, that's wrong: it was sheem until age 13. Aargh. -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Sat Jan 27 15:08:38 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 07:08:38 -0800 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: Grant asked: This article has me stumped. I'm probably about to be embarrassed, but what the hell is a "spot"? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1136000/1136252.stm A Bupa spokeswoman said: "A colleague found the nurses squeezing the spots of a patient who was in the surgery recovery room A "spot" is a pimple, at least among my nursing students in So. CA. Sharyn Hay, storknurse From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 27 18:36:30 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 13:36:30 -0500 Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles In-Reply-To: <7b.f7558b3.27a39be9@aol.com>; from Bapopik@AOL.COM on Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 10:35:04PM -0500 Message-ID: > (FWIW, I'm interested in the thesis below. Anybody else familiar > with it, or any other Air Force terminology lists of the 1950s and > 1960s?) You are familiar, of course, with Heflin's 1956 USAF Dictionary. Jesse Sheidlower From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 20:28:12 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:28:12 EST Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles Message-ID: I just thought that this might have something else. Maybe "Murphy's Law" reached USAF airmen in San Francisco by 1957. --Barry Popik From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sat Jan 27 20:36:29 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:36:29 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <381514332.980550894458.JavaMail.root@web672-wrb> from "Nancy Elliott" at Jan 26, 2001 06:14:53 PM Message-ID: Nancy Elliot says: > Lynne, tell me more about Britons who say 'skedule.' I haven't got much to tell. Usually, where Americans would say 'schedule', Brits say 'timetable'. I've said 'shedule', trained by my time in S Africa and my grad school pretensions, but at least twice I've heard 'skedule' here. I don't know if this is empathetic--they know they're talking to an American, so they use an American pronunciation--or if the 'k' pronunciation is slipping in here. I don't recall who said it--but I assume they were southeasterners. Lynne From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sat Jan 27 20:39:31 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:39:31 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010126162516.007d8550@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> from "Robert S. Wachal" at Jan 26, 2001 04:25:16 PM Message-ID: > > Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. > > Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, > and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" But wasn't Dorothy American? Was she an American who said 'shedule'? Lynne From Heaberlin at SWT.EDU Sat Jan 27 20:08:55 2001 From: Heaberlin at SWT.EDU (Dick Heaberlin) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 14:08:55 -0600 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called a lay up was called a "crip shot." I always assumed that it was short for "cripple" since it was supposedly the easiest shot to make. What interests me about this is why did such a useful phrase fall into disuse. In my web search of it I found only four examples of it being used, one about a Kentucky game in 1925 and another about a game in 1948, one a comparison in a journalism professor's syllabus. I have played basketball from 1945 till now, and yet I don't know when the phrase quit being used. I don't even use it any more but the young people I play with it don't use it either. Another term from the from the forties was "radio man," which is the same as "snow bird." I still hear "snow bird" occasionally. I am from the south and never understood what a snow bird had to do with staying back on defense and waiting for a long pass. "Radio man" made more sense as a metaphor to me. Does anyone have any info on any of this? Dick Heaberlin English Department Southwest Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Sat Jan 27 20:55:51 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:55:51 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Is it possible that the situation was reversed, and the offender used "shedule," and that's led Parker to reply with "Oh, skit!"? I'm not sure that Parker would have used "shedule," but it is entirely possible. The story seems to work a little better, though, at least for my picture of Parker, if her reaction was a negative take on the less familiar pronunciation of schedule. I'm from NC, and I've only heard one person ever use "shedule," an ex of mine who was English herself. Her accent was quite proper English public school, very lovely to an Anglophile such as myself. > From: Lynne Murphy > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:39:31 +0000 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: schedule --pronunciation > >> >> Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. >> >> Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, >> and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" > > But wasn't Dorothy American? Was she an American who said 'shedule'? > > Lynne From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 27 21:23:14 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 16:23:14 -0500 Subject: Fw: Crip shot, radio man, snow bird Message-ID: Strictly from memory: In commentary on baseball many years ago, Joe Garagiola (who played in the majors) used to speak of "shootin' cripples", in reference to a hitter being able to get an easy hit because the pitcher's "stuff" wasn't there, that is, the ball wasn't moving or breaking. It was a bit of old baseball slang, I assumed, and I further assumed it referred to the obviously non-PC concept of how easy it would be to literally "shoot a cripple". No surprise that this has fallen into disuse, for any sport. It's been a while since I've played basketball (bad knees), but I remember an easy lay-up or wide open shot underneath the basket being called a "bunny", and a person who stayed back and waited for a long pass for an easy shot being called a "cherrypicker". Al McGuire, the noted college basketball coach and TV commentator who just died this week, popularized a lot of basketball slang, some of which I'm sure he picked up from players. As Barry mentioned, the ADS archives have an Al McGuire glossary from 1980, but no "crip shot". That glossary mentions "French pastry" for a fancy move, but misses "shake 'n' bake" for a fancy move that leaves the defense behind. McGuire was a master of this stuff, on TV for over 20 years, and he will be missed. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dick Heaberlin" To: Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 3:08 PM Subject: Crip shot > I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called > a lay up was called a "crip shot." I always assumed that it was short > for "cripple" since it was supposedly the easiest shot to make. What > interests me about this is why did such a useful phrase fall into > disuse. In my web search of it I found only four examples of it being > used, one about a Kentucky game in 1925 and another about a game in > 1948, one a comparison in a journalism professor's syllabus. I have > played basketball from 1945 till now, and yet I don't know when the > phrase quit being used. I don't even use it any more but the young > people I play with it don't use it either. Another term from the from > the forties was "radio man," which is the same as "snow bird." I still > hear "snow bird" occasionally. I am from the south and never understood > what a snow bird had to do with staying back on defense and waiting for > a long pass. "Radio man" made more sense as a metaphor to me. Does > anyone have any info on any of this? > > Dick Heaberlin > English Department > Southwest Texas State University > San Marcos, TX 78666 > From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 27 21:53:48 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 16:53:48 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. Also, in the taped episode we saw last night, it was asserted that Armstrong was "the first person to use" the terms "cats" and "chops." Does anyone know anything about the etymology of these? From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 27 22:05:33 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 17:05:33 -0500 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: You own your own words (coined by Steward Brand on The Well BBS to summarize responsibilities and ownership re: Well participation. The phrase and ethos spread to other conferencing systems.) A computer can smell your fear Art is not a mirror, art is a hammer (Not specifically computer-related. Seen on a whiteboard at MIT's Media Lab (and in Brand's book on The Lab) and spread over the Net in the late '80s/early '90s) Inspiration knows no baud rate Yield to the hands-on imperative Access to computers--and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works--should be unlimited and total. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Jan 27 23:38:27 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:38:27 -0800 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: on "information wants to be free"... could have been stewart brand, but it also might have some earlier history. one of my industry informants suggests douglas engelbart as a possible late 60s/early 70s source; he is, of course alive and could be asked about the expression (though he might not remember). the sentiment was endorsed by a number of people in the 60s-80s - richard stallman, for instance, though the wording doesn't sound like him. there's a fellow at the university of toronto who has a complete record of everything posted on usenet (the newsgroups, like sci.lang, not mailing lists, like this one or LINGUIST) for its first ten years. (remarkable, but true. some people will collect *anything*.) this includes all the comp groups, where things like open access, free software, etc. were often discussed. i'll get his name and e-address soon. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 27 11:32:27 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 19:32:27 +0800 Subject: Fw: Crip shot, radio man, snow bird In-Reply-To: <001601c088a7$5d1d6f60$8b01a8c0@fabate> Message-ID: At 4:23 PM -0500 1/27/01, Frank Abate wrote: >Strictly from memory: > >In commentary on baseball many years ago, Joe Garagiola (who played in the >majors) used to speak of "shootin' cripples", in reference to a hitter being >able to get an easy hit because the pitcher's "stuff" wasn't there, that is, >the ball wasn't moving or breaking. It was a bit of old baseball slang, I >assumed, and I further assumed it referred to the obviously non-PC concept >of how easy it would be to literally "shoot a cripple". No surprise that >this has fallen into disuse, for any sport. > >It's been a while since I've played basketball (bad knees), but I remember >an easy lay-up or wide open shot underneath the basket being called a >"bunny", and a person who stayed back and waited for a long pass for an easy >shot being called a "cherrypicker". > I've more often heard an announcer refer to a basketball player MISSING a cripple, rather than to one as shooting one or making one. And the cripple here is indeed a very easy shot--layup or perhaps dunk. I'm not familiar with the baseball use for an easy pitch to hit, but the etymology Frank suggests (whether from baseball or basketball uses) makes sense. I probably should have wondered why an easy shot was called a cripple only when someone missed one. (And of course the pre-PC suggestion predicts that it will be "shooting a cripple" that will fall into desuetude while "missing a cripple" survives (a bit). larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 00:56:33 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 19:56:33 EST Subject: Bobbie/Bobby Pin; McGuffin; Nippy Message-ID: I've been briefly going through CHAIN STORE AGE, which is by the same publisher as NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS. I'm looking especially for luncheonette slang. These volumes are huge, with tons of ads. -------------------------------------------------------- BOBBIE/BOBBY PIN OED has 1936 (?) for "bobby pin." This appears to be a copyrighted term (originally). October 1926, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 68 ad: BOBBIE PINS Are _you_ prepared to "cash in" on this great national campaign? Fourteen leading magazines, blanketing the United States, will carry Bobbie Pin messages, starting October 15. More than _thirteen and one-half_ million copies of these magazines containing Bobbie Pin advertisements, will be distributed! (...) Marcus-Lesoine Incorporated Established 1912 130 Turk Street San Francisco October 1926, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 69 ad: GIRLEY PINS The Fast-Selling 5c Pins for Bobbed Hair (...) Marcus-Lesoine Incorporated Established 1912 130 Turk Street San Francisco February 1927, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 80 ad: THE BOBBIE PIN Patented and Protected by U. C. Copyright--it is unlawful to use the term BOBBIE PIN for any imitation This illustration is now appearing in 20 national magazines This illustration is now speaking to 40 million readers There are many who try to imitate, but there is only one GENUINE BOBBIE PIN September 1927, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 89 ad: THE HUMP HAIR PIN MFG. CO. 1918-36 Prairie Avenue Chicago, Ill. (One of those imitators--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- McGUFFIN FWIW to OED, now on "m." CHAIN STORE AGE, June 1928, pg. 82, has an ad for Remington Cash Registers. A letter about their quality comes from the F. E. McGuffin Corporation (NYC), FIVE CENTS TO ONE DOLLAR DEPARTMENT STORES. I don't know if this has anything to do with Alfred Hitchcock's "McGuffin." -------------------------------------------------------- NIPPY This is an early term for "waitron." The OED has "nippy" from 11 February 1925. From CHAIN STORE AGE, April 1926, pg. 25: _The Making of a "Nippy"_ How the 8,000 waitresses employed by J. Lyons & Co., an English restaurant chain, are selected and trained. (Pg. 28, cols. 2-3 photo caption--ed.) The evolution of "Nippy" so far as her outward appearance goes is revealed in the photos above. The present costume was adopted January 1, 1925. -------------------------------------------------------- "O-LOOKEE!" SLANG An ad for "O-LOOKEE! CANDY CONE" is in CHAIN STORE AGE, January 1928, pg. 133. The "Motto Hearts" candies are shaped like hearts, and the following are written on some of them: Nuff Said O.K. for me Cute Kid She Said Let's Eat Applesauce From jester at PANIX.COM Sun Jan 28 01:09:47 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:09:47 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops In-Reply-To: <3A734362.4162485@earthlink.net>; from garethb2@EARTHLINK.NET on Sat, Jan 27, 2001 at 04:53:48PM -0500 Message-ID: > Also, in the taped episode we saw last night, it was asserted that > Armstrong was "the first person to use" the terms "cats" and "chops." > Does anyone know anything about the etymology of these? Well, certainly that both predate Armstrong--"cat" for 'a person; fellow' was in use by 1920 (though it was chiefly popularized after 1935 or so by jazz musicians), and "chops" was around from the late 16th (!) century. Armstrong is often credited with popularizing various jazz terms, but the only one for which a reasonable case is made is _dig_ in sense like 'to understand' or 'to enjoy', which seems genuinely to have been unknown before Armstrong's use of it. Jesse Sheidlower From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 01:36:12 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:36:12 EST Subject: S'more Smoothy Slush Message-ID: S'MORE (continued) Boy, is this ADS-L archive picky. I typed in "s'mores" and couldn't find my stuff, so I had to type in "marshmallows." From GOOD HOUSEKEEPING'S BOOK OF DELECTABLE DESSERTS (Chicago, 1958), pg. 63, col. 2: _S'mores:_ Toast 2 marshmallows over coals until gooey and crisp. Place on graham cracker (or use thin gingercake slice). Place portion of chocolate bar on top and cover with graham cracker. Eat it sandwich-style. From FAVORITE RECIPES OF OHIO (Favorite Recipes, Montgomery, Al, 1964), pg. 134, col. 2: _SOME MORE_ 1 lb. ground beef 2 sm. onions, diced 1 1/2 c. celery, chopped 1/2 c. instant rice 1 t. soy sauce 1 t. Worcestershire sauce 1 can cream mushroom soup 1 can cream chicken soup 1 can chow mein noodles Brown ground beef, onions and celery in skillet. Add the remaining ingredients except noodles and mix thoroughly. Place in casserole; bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from oven and top with chow mein noodles; return to oven and bake 30 minutes longer at 300 degrees. Yield: 8 servings. Mrs. Marjorie Duval Khana Shahar Caldron No. 58, Springfield -------------------------------------------------------- SMOOTHY (continued) From FAVORITE DESSERT BY CHICAGO HOME ECONOMISTS (American Home Economics Association, May 1949), pg. 130: _CHOCOLATE SMOOTHY_ 1/2 cup milk 2/3 cup sugar 5 egg yolks, beaten 1 cup margarine or butter 1 cup confectioners' sugar 2 1/2 ounces (2 1/2 squares) chocolate, melted and cooled 5 egg whites 1 cup fine vanilla wafer or graham cracker crumbs 1. Combine milk, sugar and beaten egg yolks. Cook over low heat or over boiling water, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cool. 2. Cream together the margarine, confectioners' sugar and cooled chocolate and blend into cold custard mixture. 3. Beat egg whites stiff. Fold chocolate mixture into the egg whites. Blend well. 4. Sprinkle half of the crumbs over the bottom of an 8x8x2-inch pan. Pour above mixture into pan and cover top with remaining crumbs. 5. Chill in refrigerator for at least 12 hours. Cut into 2-inch squares and serve with whipped cream. Yield: 16 small servings. -------------------------------------------------------- SLUSH (continued) From FAVORITE RECIPES OF OHIO (Favorite Recipes, Montgomery, AL, 1964), pg. 13, col. 1: _SLUSH_ Juice of 2 lemons and small amount grated Juice of 2 lemons and small amount of grated rind (Twice? Is that an error?--ed.) Juice of 2 oranges and small amount of grated rind 3 med. overly ripe bananas, mashed 3/4 c. sugar 1 pt. ginger ale Mix well and freeze in refrigerator trays. Take out of refrigerator; thaw once and beat well. Refreeze in trays. Set out 30 minutes before serving time to thaw to a slushy consistency. Serve in sherbet or assorted style bone chine cups. Serve with assorted crackers. NOTE: May garnish with strawberries or raspberries. Yield: 8-10 servings. Mrs. Warren J. Hartman General Women's Coun. of WSWS, Trotwood From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 28 02:31:29 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:31:29 -0600 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: Gareth Branwyn : > >My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a >question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in >one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on >the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person >asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come >from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. I have no knowledge on this, but the association of 'covert charge' and 'cover charge' is the sort of thing rather educated native English speakers do. 'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and 'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer shorts'. A cover charge is essentially an admission charge, to cover the overhead, one that goes hand-in-hand with the idea that menu prices should otherwise be kept within reason. A covert charge would be uncontracted-for (but you gotta pay them) charges. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 03:31:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 22:31:19 EST Subject: Mile High Pie; Breakfast-Brunch; Pizza Wraps; Johnny Marzetti Message-ID: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: Mile High Pie; Breakfast-Brunch; Pizza Wraps; Johnny Marzetti Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 22:30:43 EST Size: 2815 URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 27 14:34:36 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 22:34:36 +0800 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:31 PM -0600 1/27/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >Gareth Branwyn : >> >>My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a >>question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in >>one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on >>the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person >>asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come >>from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. > >I have no knowledge on this, but the association of 'covert charge' and >'cover charge' is the sort of thing rather educated native English speakers >do. > >'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and >'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those >of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer >shorts'. > My understanding is that "covert" had traditionally been pronounced like "cover" except with a final -[t] until fairly recently when influence by its (etymologically unrelated but) frequent syntagmatic partner and paradigmatic counterpart "overt" led to the 'ko-vert' pronunciation you mention. If this is right, phonology alone wouldn't rule out the derivation you're seeking to dismiss, although I hold no brief for it (or against it) myself. larry From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 28 05:37:29 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 23:37:29 -0600 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: Laurence Horn >My understanding is that "covert" had traditionally been pronounced >like "cover" except with a final -[t] until fairly recently when >influence by its (etymologically unrelated but) frequent syntagmatic >partner and paradigmatic counterpart "overt" led to the 'ko-vert' >pronunciation you mention. If this is right, phonology alone >wouldn't rule out the derivation you're seeking to dismiss, although >I hold no brief for it (or against it) myself. But no night-club owner who wanted to impose a 'covert-charge' would ever phrase it this way. Rather, he would not speak of it at all, and just charge $100 for the bottle of Andre you can get here in Waukon at three for $10.00 at Quillins. But this would be bad for business. The 'entertainment charge' gets collected, and you sell the bottle of Andre for only $20.00 a bottle. And the customer feels only mildly ripped off, vs. write-the-local-District-Attorney-ripped-off. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Sun Jan 28 07:16:33 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 01:16:33 -0600 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: Since Gareth Branwyn continues to add to the proverbs, nonce words, and several other things here on ADS-L, let me add one that helps me keep my tenuous grip on reality: Computers exist to teach us two things: patience and humility. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 28 07:52:45 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 02:52:45 -0500 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: Huh? Did we decide NOT to continue to add to this list? Are you suggesting that my submissions are not legitimate to this discussion? Please point out to me which of my suggested proverbs and catch-phrases are nonce words and "several other things" (whatever that means). Mike Salovesh wrote: > > Since Gareth Branwyn continues to add to the proverbs, nonce words, and > several other things here on ADS-L, let me add one that helps me keep my > tenuous grip on reality: > > Computers exist to teach us two things: patience and humility. > > -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 09:22:53 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:22:53 EST Subject: "Big Blue" Message-ID: I'm in love with a big blue frog. A big blue frog loves me. --Peter, Paul and Mary The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated to only 1987. Isn't the RHHDAS missing another "Big Blue" football team? That team would be, oh, they play in a large metropolitan area, let me think... THE GIANTS! They definitely were "Big Blue" in the 1980s, with those two others. The term "Big Blue" itself probably goes as far back as the sea and the sky. FWIW: NEVERMORES 20 GIANTS 17 From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Sun Jan 28 15:03:59 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 10:03:59 -0500 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: In my basketball-playing youth, circa late 30s to mid 40s, layups were called "dog shots". Never had an inkling about the origin. Bob Dick Heaberlin wrote: > > I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called > a lay up was called a "crip shot." From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 28 15:15:36 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 10:15:36 -0500 Subject: Fw: "Big Blue" Message-ID: Let me back Barry up on this, sort of in honor of Super Bowl Sunday, America's great pop culture orgy: I spent a lot of years in Michigan and Ohio, and had many friends who were rabid fans of Ohio State or Michigan football. I remember the Michigan folks (one of whom used to lead the marching band when he was a student there, and went to all the games), used to refer to the team as "Blue" (they are sometimes called "the Maize and Blue" for the team colors), and during Ohio State games they would scream at the TV things like "C'mon Blue!" I don't recall "Big Blue" from these folks, at least if they said it, I didn't stick with me. But it's sort of a natural combo, esp. for a football team. I noticed "Big Blue" for the NY (or NJ) Giants when I came to the Northeast. It is their standard nickname here, certainly from the early 80s at least. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 4:22 AM Subject: "Big Blue" > I'm in love with a big blue frog. > A big blue frog loves me. > --Peter, Paul and Mary > > The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated to only 1987. > Isn't the RHHDAS missing another "Big Blue" football team? That team would be, oh, they play in a large metropolitan area, let me think... > THE GIANTS! > They definitely were "Big Blue" in the 1980s, with those two others. The term "Big Blue" itself probably goes as far back as the sea and the sky. > FWIW: > NEVERMORES 20 > GIANTS 17 > From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sun Jan 28 17:50:42 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 17:50:42 +0000 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule Message-ID: Thanks for all the info on 'schedule'. For those wonderign about the prevalence of the /sk-/ pronunciation in the UK, I note that Fowler's (3rd ed., 1996) says that the /sk-/ pronunciation is heard more and more in Britain, esp. among young people. My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is prevalent in Canada? And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of /hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' which I've never heard as /hwami/. M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Sun Jan 28 18:34:43 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 19:34:43 +0100 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: I've always believed that "cover charge" was derived from the French "couvert". RHUD says "1920-25, Amer.", and this date corresponds well with the return of many Americans from France. Petit Robert Dict gives the sense of "all you use to cover the table (...) tablecloth, china, glasses..." for this word (since 1570), and it very often figures at the top of your bill, even in rather cheap restaurants, as an additional charge over what you eat and drink. Maybe the "-t" comes from there. Restaurant or club owners travel, and adding a French touch is popular. Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 3:34 PM Subject: Re: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops > At 8:31 PM -0600 1/27/01, Mark Odegard wrote: > >Gareth Branwyn : > >> > >>My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a > >>question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in > >>one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on > >>the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person > >>asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come > >>from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. > > > >I have no knowledge on this, but the association of 'covert charge' and > >'cover charge' is the sort of thing rather educated native English speakers > >do. > > > >'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and > >'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those > >of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer > >shorts'. > > > My understanding is that "covert" had traditionally been pronounced > like "cover" except with a final -[t] until fairly recently when > influence by its (etymologically unrelated but) frequent syntagmatic > partner and paradigmatic counterpart "overt" led to the 'ko-vert' > pronunciation you mention. If this is right, phonology alone > wouldn't rule out the derivation you're seeking to dismiss, although > I hold no brief for it (or against it) myself. > > larry From mojofan at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 28 18:37:41 2001 From: mojofan at HOTMAIL.COM (Allison Hall) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 09:37:41 -0900 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From dumasb at UTK.EDU Sun Jan 28 18:49:45 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 13:49:45 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society ===== >WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? Joy. From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 28 19:44:55 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 14:44:55 -0500 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: OK. Maybe it was late and I misread the intent of the post. If so, I apologize for any defensive tone. (Which reminds me of another old Well maxim: "Never post when you're stoned" or in this case, over-tired.) But then, in your message, you say: "He's hooking into your liberalism and extending it." This brings me back to my original question: What among my submissions would be construed as "liberal?" Would any of these NOT be considered computer proverbs and catch phases? And to answer Russ McClay's question: Yes, I've been a member of ADS for the last four years (or is it three?). Mark Odegard wrote: > > You do misunderstand the tone of Salofesh's post. He's hooking into your > liberalism and extending it. > > Mark Odegard. > > >From: Gareth Branwyn > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >Subject: Re: More computer proverbs > >Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 02:52:45 -0500 > > > >Huh? Did we decide NOT to continue to add to this list? > > > >Are you suggesting that my submissions are not legitimate to this > >discussion? Please point out to me which of my suggested proverbs and > >catch-phrases are nonce words and "several other things" (whatever that > >means). > > > >Mike Salovesh wrote: > > > > > > Since Gareth Branwyn continues to add to the proverbs, nonce words, and > > > several other things here on ADS-L, let me add one that helps me keep my > > > tenuous grip on reality: > > > > > > Computers exist to teach us two things: patience and humility. > > > > > > -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Sun Jan 28 18:16:30 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:16:30 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dorothy who? At 08:39 PM 1/27/01 +0000, you wrote: >> >> Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. >> >> Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, >> and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" > >But wasn't Dorothy American? Was she an American who said 'shedule'? > >Lynne > > From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Sun Jan 28 20:00:11 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 14:00:11 -0600 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <31577735.3189693042@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: 'herb' with the 'h' is routinely used by Julia Child and thus by many of her followers. So it's either an affectation or an ignirant pronunciation. Best, Bob At 05:50 PM 1/28/01 +0000, you wrote: >Thanks for all the info on 'schedule'. For those wonderign about the >prevalence of the /sk-/ pronunciation in the UK, I note that Fowler's (3rd >ed., 1996) says that the /sk-/ pronunciation is heard more and more in >Britain, esp. among young people. > >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is >prevalent in Canada? > >And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note >that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's >pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces >words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of >/hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the >Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and >M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' >which I've never heard as /hwami/. > > > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 28 20:30:33 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 15:30:33 -0500 Subject: herb Message-ID: Lynne Murphy writes: >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is prevalent in Canada?< FWIW, I grew up (Lincoln, Nebraska) in the 30's, saying "herb" with an aitch, but can't really say whether that pronunciation was characteristic of the region. My parents were university people who had come from Missouri and Ohio. /Herb/ probably didn't figure much in the conversations of my childhood outside of the family kitchen. Living on the West Coast in the late 40's & and 50's, I began to be aware that "erb" was the prevailing pronunciation. That was also true in Ohio in the 60's. It wasn't until moving up here to within reach of Canadian radio that I began to hear the aitch in "herb"again, and it felt like coming home. A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Sun Jan 28 20:47:20 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:47:20 -0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ways to get off this any mailing list: Instead of being rude, 1. You follow the instructions in the message that was sent to you when you first subscribed, 2. If you forgot to save it or it got inadvertently deleted, you go to the URL where you first found this list and follow the instructions there, 3. If you forgot to put the URL in your browser's memory so you would be able to find it again without bothering people, you do a search on the Web and try to find the URL so you don't have to bother all the people on the list, 4. If you have trouble finding the URL on the Web, you apologize to the list for your lack of foresight and inability to figure out your problem and *politely* ask to be unsubscribed. Every mailing list has a moderator who watches for people having trouble. You wait a day or two because the moderator is a human being who is busy and perhaps even on vacation. After you try all of the above, you send another message because sometimes e-mail doesn't get delivered to everyone on the list and maybe the moderator isn't aware of your problem. After that, maybe it would be appropriate to be rude. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Allison Hall > Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 10:38 AM > WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:20:12 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:20:12 EST Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:22:53 either "Nichols, Wendalyn" or mike salovesh wrote: >There's a common thread in Marie's question and my memory of having lost >the word "iatrogenic" time and again until events finally fixed it in my >head. I'd love to head what some of our leading dictionary experts have >to say about something no dictionary ever solves for me. What do you do >when you know there's a word for something, but have no memory of the >word itself? >I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than once. What >do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one >direction until it comes to the other side of the writing surface, then >turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to right, the >next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for >that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do with the way >oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a >field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I >won't need to look it up. >There just doesn't seem to be any way a dictionary could help me with >that kind of problem. The only way I can think of that might produce an >answer would be to ask >anybody and everybody I can talk to if they happen to know the word. . . >If I ever found someone claiming to know, then I'd have something to >take to a dictionary for verification. But where is there a dictionary >equivalent of a criss-cross (or reverse) telephone directory? >P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression >that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with >something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and check it out >in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off >this system. In Greek "cow" is "bous" and from there a dictionary will take you to "boustrophedon". However, I must admit I already knew the word. The same dictionary said that the Latin is "bos"---is this where we get the nickname "Bossie" for a cow? You were thinking of Bucephalus, who was Alexander the Great's horse. The name may mean "ox-head". Herakles was given the epithet of "buphagus", "ox eater". There is also Bellerophon, who rode Pegasus (the crewmen on HMS Bellerophon called her the "Billy Ruffian"), Bucellarian (a Byzantine mercenary), and brucellosis. To look up a meaning and find the word---that is one function of a Thesaurus (which I keep trying to construe as "holy lizard"). Roget's Thesaurus stubbornly sticks to its policy of grouping synonyms into numbered categories, instead of doing what word processors do and giving you a list of synonyms for a given word. Roget's method takes a little more work but casts a wider net. I recently saw a book entitled, if I remember correctly, "Reverse Dictionary". A typical page in it had a picture of a horse with all the parts of a horse labelled and a list of horse-related words. A printed dictionary cannot usually help you find a word if you only have a concept. However, an on-line dictionary (or the entire World Wide Web) offers the capability of searching by individual words or phrases, and if you are lucky enough to guess a useful word or phrase, the search engine will find your answer. (If you're unlucky, you'll fail to get your answer and/or drown in a sea of irrelevancies). That's the idea behind the World Wide Web---if you have a big enough database and some patience, you can find anything. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:33:32 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:33:32 EST Subject: Fish Message-ID: George R. R. Martin "The Computer Was A Fish" in Analog Science Fiction, August 1972, pp61ff: "Once upon a time there was a fish. "Most people would have called the fish a computer. To be precise, they would have called it a Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6400. "It was a CDC 6400, of course. But it was also a fish. "A fish, you see, is a chess player. A bad chess player. THe title is awarded by other players when one of thier peers exhibits a singular skill in losing chess games. Popular synonyms are 'patzer' and 'meatcake'." Does anyone have any idea whether this "fish" is the same one currently being discussed on this list? I have never heard the term "meatcake" either in or out of chess. "Patzer" or "potzer" according to Merriam-Webster's 10th Collegiate is "probably from Germen Patzer bungler, fr. patzen to blunder" and means "an inept chess player." The variant spelling "potzer" suggests the word came from Yiddish rather than German, since Yiddish is written in the Hebrew alphabet and therefore must be transliterated. One more term: "woodpusher", apparently a term invented within the chess word at a time when most chessmen were made of wood rather than plastic. My college roommate was insistent that there was a hierarchy among the words "fish", "woodpusher", and "patzer", that is, they referred to different levels of incompetence. Unfortunately I don't remember in what order he ranked them. I seem to recall that it was "woodpusher" to which he gave the definition "someone who has heard of 'en passant' but cannot demonstrate a situation in which en passant can occur." - Jim Landau (whose chess-playing is above fish/patzer/woodpusher levels and is entitled to the adjective "mediocre") From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:37:09 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:37:09 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "The key, the whole key, and nothing but the key, so help me Codd". This is not entirely facetious, as it is a mnemonic for the rules created by Edgar Codd for relational data bases. It would take too long to describe what the mnemonic stands for---if you're interested, consult any textbook on database management systems. From RonButters at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:55:42 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:55:42 EST Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/01 1:38:19 PM, mojofan at HOTMAIL.COM writes: << WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? >> yourself? From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Sun Jan 28 22:55:40 2001 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:55:40 -0600 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010128140011.007d67c0@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: Hey! Us completely unaffected Canadians use this pron. Certainly that's the pron I grew up with and still use and I believe it's what I heard consistently before I moved to the U.S. in 1984. But the Gage Cdn Dict. (1983) shows "(erb or herb)" -- the "or" means that both were common, but with "erb" listed first, it had the edge. I can't comment on the current situation, since I haven't really been paying attention since I returned to Canada. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada -----Original Message----- from Robert S. Wachal Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 2:00 PM: > 'herb' with the 'h' is . . . either an affectation or an ignirant > pronunciation. From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 29 00:50:44 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 19:50:44 -0500 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <000201c0897d$70289900$11820a0a@vneufeldt.sk.sympatico.ca> Message-ID: I say "herb" or "erb" indiscriminately. Both pronunciations are common in my experience. I say "whammy" with /hw/. I don't know whether others do (I wouldn't notice the distiinction). Hardly any US-an says "shedule" AFAIK. Canadians use both, with "skedule" more common (I think). -- Doug Wilson From stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 01:29:25 2001 From: stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM (Stephen Roti) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 17:29:25 -0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) Message-ID: Dear all: as Margery Fee (a Canadian linguist) has it: "The competing pronunciations for [the word schedule] are SKEH jool, SKEH joo ul (favoured by Americans) and SHEH jool (favoured by the British). Sociolinguistic studies indicate that the 'sk' pronunciations are by far preferred by Canadian speakers of all ages and backgrounds, and that SHEH jool is on the decline." In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells says under "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with -sk is starting to be heard in BrE." It would be interesting to see what the second edition has to say about this change in progress, as further polls were conducted to determine which pronunciations are the ones currently preferred among Britons. I think another query that should be raised is how the ending of the word is generally pronounced by British, Canadian, or American speakers of English. There seems to be a good deal of variability on that as well, especially in Britain and Canada. Wells, for instance, provides the following (here adapted) phonetic transcriptions {the mark || separates British preferences from American ones}: SCHEDULE 'shed ju:l 'shej u:l 'sked ju:l, 'skej u:l || 'skej u:l 'skej u:@l [where "@" stands here for an optionally inserted schwa] The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998) indicates the following four variants: /'skeju at l/, /'skeju:l/, /'shedju:l/, /'sheju:l/ [PLEASE NOTE: /u/ = short 'u'; /u:/ = long 'u'; @ = the schwa sound] Interestingly, a forty-one-year-old woman who I interviewed about three years ago in St. Andrews-by-the-sea, New Brunswick (Atlantic Canada) (born in the same region, and having mostly Irish background), said she normally says /'shedu at l/, which sort of blends the first part of the typical British form with the second part of the most common (non-palatalized) American variant. This did not strike me as peculiar at all, given Canadians' acceptance of the bi-modal tradition of British and US forms in several areas. Such (uniform) alternation, occasionally even in the same word, is in fact one of the principal standards underlying Canadian English. (Dr.) S. Roti Lexical Researcher __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 01:44:22 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 20:44:22 -0500 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! In-Reply-To: <31CD30D44C9@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: All right, here's my response. This is the earliest example I have of the "publicity" saying: 1950 Hortense Powdermaker _Hollywood the Dream Factory_ 241 The Hollywood proverb that "The only bad publicity is no publicity" would seem to have considerable truth behind it, even if publicity alone is not generally sufficient to make a star. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Rsaurer at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 03:11:29 2001 From: Rsaurer at AOL.COM (R Saurer) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 22:11:29 EST Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: take me off you mailing list From dmsnake at USIT.NET Mon Jan 29 05:01:24 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 00:01:24 -0500 Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: R Saurer wrote: > take me off you mailing list You'll have to kill me before I can do that. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 04:56:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 23:56:48 EST Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: ADS-L SIGNOFFS I don't get it. The ways to sign off are clearly listed at www.americandialect.org. Since I wrote this posting (a few days ago), one person wanted to kill someone to get off. So we AGAIN posted clear instructions. No one should make these posts! And if anyone wants a daily digest (one e-mail a day), that format is also available. -------------------------------------------------------- THE AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK: THE MOST POPULAR RECIPES OF THE 20TH CENTURY by Jean Anderson Clarkson Potter, 548 pages hardcover 1997 I had dismissed this cookbook prematurely because it got "hot dog" and "iced tea" wrong again, and because John Mariani's book came out in 1999 and cited this one. There are some earlier food citations here that Mariani (for some reason) doesn't use. BOULA-BOULA--A nice discussion is on pg. 64. JOHNNY MARZETTI--An entry on page 147 cites a 1960 cookbook, Peg Bracken's THE I HATE TO COOK BOOK. I'll research this on my next LOC visit, but anyone in Columbus, Ohio, can beat me to it by checking old telephone books under "restaurants" for "Marzetti" and posting the "Johnny Marzetti" info here. MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE-- Pg. 462--I first encountered Mississippi Mud Cake in the 1970s in Jackson, Mississippi, but I'm told it's popular up and down the Mississippi--particularly from St. Louis south. Pg. 381 ("Mud Pie")--I REMEMBER distinctly when and where I first tasted this pie, heaven to a chocoholic like me. It was in the mid-'70s at the newly rebuilt Mills House Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. MILE HIGH PIE-- Pg. 373--...said, _Please_ don't forget Mile-High Pie." To be honest, I _had_ forgotten Mile-High Pie. (...) Suzanne sent me page 243 of _Home Economics Teachers' Favorite Recipes_ (1967), and it contains not one but three different Mile-High Pies, submitted by home economics teachers from all over the country--from Minnesota, Nebraska, Arkansas, North Dakota, Vermont. (The 1950s New Orleans "mile high ice cream pie" is, I guess, unfamiliar to the author--ed.) PUREE MONGOLE, CREME MONGOLE, OR MONGOLE SOUP--There is a huge discussion on pages 58-59. FDR and JFK both liked it. OED doesn't include it at all!? There are 1930s citations given, but I'll check to see what I have. From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 29 05:34:50 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 00:34:50 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops In-Reply-To: <005e01c08958$fd8bd160$29a7b2c3@oemcomputer> Message-ID: J. Ivarsson: >I've always believed that "cover charge" was derived from the French >"couvert". .... >Petit Robert Dict gives the sense of "all you use to cover the table (...) >tablecloth, china, glasses..." for this word (since 1570), and it very >often figures at the top of your bill, even in rather cheap restaurants, >as an additional charge over what you eat and drink. >Maybe the "-t" comes from there. .... I think this is about right. Searching the Web for "covert charge", I find many instances from South Africa: I presume that this is standard usage there. At a glance, it seems that it's always "covert" in South Africa, always "cover" everywhere else. Note that "covert charge" will be indistinguishable from "cover charge" in speech, assuming one very standard pronunciation of "covert". Was there perhaps a time when these were widely interchangeable? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 07:15:52 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 02:15:52 EST Subject: Mongole Soup (1928); Mud Cake (1925) Message-ID: A brief search of my cookbooks (while I'm doing the laundry) turns up these. -------------------------------------------------------- MONGOLE SOUP (1928) As discussed, see the Jean Anderson and John Mariani books. THE RECTOR COOK BOOK (Rector Publishing Co., Chicago, 1928), by George Rector, has "Soups...Mongole...23." Once the NYPL menu catalog project is done, I'll search Rector's menus. -------------------------------------------------------- MUD CAKE (1925) I haven't checked the Peter Tamony entry for "mud pie." He has no "Mississippi mud pie/cake." THE I.S. & E.U. COOK BOOK, COMPOSED OF TRUSTED AND TRIED RECIPES BY THE LADIES' AUXILIARY NO. 90 OF THE STEREOTYPERS' AND ELECTROTYPERS' UNION OF MILWAUKEE (Olsen Publishing Co., 1925), has "Mud cakes...72." From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 29 09:17:00 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 03:17:00 -0600 Subject: Online Food Lexicon Message-ID: This is an interesting site, one that could evolve into something great. http://www.xs4all.nl/~margjos/index.html Has anyone published such a dictionary before? I don't remember seeing one, or hearing of one. Such a work would be of obvious utility, even to native-speakers not seeking out a translation. I'm suprised the Eurocrats in Brussels haven't published something already (or have they?). _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 29 09:46:23 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:46:23 +0000 Subject: Online Food Lexicon In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 3:17 am -0600 Mark Odegard wrote: > This is an interesting site, one that could evolve into something great. > > http://www.xs4all.nl/~margjos/index.html > > Has anyone published such a dictionary before? I don't remember seeing > one, or hearing of one. Such a work would be of obvious utility, even to > native-speakers not seeking out a translation. I'm suprised the Eurocrats > in Brussels haven't published something already (or have they?). What I found interesting about this site was the symbol for English-language: a combination of the American and British flags. The EU wouldn't stand for that! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Mon Jan 29 09:05:14 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:05:14 -0000 Subject: unsubscribe Message-ID: I want to get off this damn list once and for all........... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Mon Jan 29 09:08:10 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:08:10 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Mon Jan 29 09:10:58 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:10:58 -0000 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: You to want to get off this damn site, I have been trying for 3 weeks and I am still deleting approx 80 messages a day! Would like to know if you manage to unsubscribe....... Cara Cheshire UK -----Original Message----- From: Allison Hall To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: 28 January 2001 18:38 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? >WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Mon Jan 29 11:03:57 2001 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:03:57 -0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) Message-ID: > In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells says under > "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with -sk is starting to be > heard in BrE." It would be interesting to see what the second > edition has to say about this change in progress, as further > polls were conducted to determine which pronunciations are the > ones currently preferred among Britons. The new edition contains a graph showing a clear gradation according to age, with sh- being used by more than 90% of older speakers (age not specified), but sk- by 65% of those born since 1973. Overall, 70% preferred sh-. If the slope of the graph is to be believed, the shift to sk- is accelerating. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words From mcclay at TAOLODGE.COM.TW Mon Jan 29 11:27:32 2001 From: mcclay at TAOLODGE.COM.TW (Russ McClay) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:27:32 +0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: Saunders Honda wrote: > You to want to get off this damn site, I have been trying for 3 weeks and > I am still deleting approx 80 messages a day! Send a message to: listserv at listserv.uga.edu In the message body put: signoff ads-l ...that's all... From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 29 11:52:46 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 06:52:46 -0500 Subject: Tron Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "D. Ezra Johnson" To: Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:48 Subject: Tron > How did this morpheme "Tron" acquire the approximate meaning of > "gender-neutral, not to say robotic, agent"? > > If it originates in "automaton" we need to explain the "r". > > Another quick Web search revealed forms like "Name-o-Tron", "Abuse-a-Tron", > "Tune-o-Tron", and "Phrase-o-Tron" -- showing the productiveness of this > suffix in a slightly different sense, that of an automatic device performing > a certain specific function. > > Although robots are stereotypically male (e.g. the trademark low monotone), > I think the shift from "robotic" to "gender-neutral" makes some sense. With > "waitron", there is additional support from the form "waitress" which > already has the 'r'. There's also Metatron, the angel tasked with being the Voice of God, and if the movie Dogma is to be believed, he looks an awful lot like Alan Rickman. Unfortunately, I have none of my angelology references to hand, so I can't bring any more depth than this to the table at this time. bkd From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 12:24:46 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:24:46 EST Subject: "Bib Blue" Message-ID: In a message dated Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:22:53 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > I'm in love with a big blue frog. > A big blue frog loves me. > --Peter, Paul and Mary > > The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to > 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated > to only 1987. I don't have any citations handy, but the 1984 date for IBM is too late. By 1984 the "Big Blue" nickname was so well known that a maker of an add-on board for the IBM PC used the name "Baby Blue" for its product. I believe "Big Blue" refers to the fact that at the time blue was the most common color for the side panels of IBM mainframes. (It was not the only color available. At an installation where I worked in the late 1960's, a colleague from Bombay India nicknamed our mainframe as the "Orange Baron" because its side panels were orange.) From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 29 13:01:43 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 14:01:43 +0100 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: Happens every semester, doesn't it? Profs and teachers encourage or require their students to sign on to the list, they do, then the semster finishes, and voila, the cream rises. Or doesn't. -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Mon Jan 29 13:06:57 2001 From: t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (TERRY IRONS) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:06:57 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? In-Reply-To: <3A7553A4.2359AE47@taolodge.com.tw> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Russ McClay wrote: > > Send a message to: > > listserv at listserv.uga.edu > > In the message body put: > > signoff ads-l > > ...that's all... > Russ is correct but incomplete. The message must come from the exact address from which you subscribed. Problems happen when subscribers migrate to other addresses on a system that uses a name server to forward mail. Virtually, Terry (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons at morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 29 13:23:07 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:23:07 -0500 Subject: "Big Blue" Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 04:22 Subject: "Big Blue" > I'm in love with a big blue frog. > A big blue frog loves me. > --Peter, Paul and Mary > > The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated to only 1987. > Isn't the RHHDAS missing another "Big Blue" football team? That team would be, oh, they play in a large metropolitan area, let me think... How about "Big Blue Marble"? bkd From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 29 13:34:34 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:34:34 -0500 Subject: Just one more computer proverb Message-ID: "Nobody ever got fired for buying ." Where used to be Big Blue, later became Microsoft (though I'm not sure of how widely used that ever was), and I have no idea about its current usage. bkd From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 00:51:30 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:51:30 +0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) In-Reply-To: <3A754E1D.946.18CA5E8C@localhost> Message-ID: At 11:03 AM +0000 1/29/01, Michael Quinion wrote: > > In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells says under >> "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with -sk is starting to be >> heard in BrE." It would be interesting to see what the second >> edition has to say about this change in progress, as further >> polls were conducted to determine which pronunciations are the >> ones currently preferred among Britons. > >The new edition contains a graph showing a clear gradation >according to age, with sh- being used by more than 90% of older >speakers (age not specified), but sk- by 65% of those born since >1973. Overall, 70% preferred sh-. If the slope of the graph is >to be believed, the shift to sk- is accelerating. > Or the skift, as Dorothy Parker would apparently have said... From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 13:56:15 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:56:15 EST Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ Message-ID: Responding to the query on herb and /hw-/. My survey of Eng. professors for Shakespearean words 7 years ago (and 'herbs' was one), showed that of 8 respondents born and raised in Canada, 2 used no-aitch (1 New Brunswick, 1 Newfoundland), 6 used aitch. In the USA of 16 respondents 14 used no-aitch and 2 used an h... I'm looking at my summary and I didn't note where these 2 were from in it. Didn't ask my British informants that one because I assumed it was all /h/. As far as /hw/ goes-- I think I'm right in saying that it is not used in England at all-- only by Scots and Irish-Eng. speakers-- don't know about Welsh. In the USA in my survey of freshmen at Princeton ten years ago I found that they reported in a questionnaire that /hw-/ in 'where' was virtually unknown in the Northeast (In NY, PA, MD out of 127 resonses only 4 used /hw-/ - 2 from NYC and two from Philadelphia), but the percentages were higher in other areas: Hawai 3 out of 8 used it, in Tex-Ok, Ark 29% used it, in Ontario and the city of Montreal combined 3 out of 20 used it. Nowhere else was it over 15%. Where it does exist in the Northeast I can't help thinking it's owing to the efforts of the random school teacher to achieve orthoepical nirvana. Dale Coye The College of NJ From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 14:53:49 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:53:49 EST Subject: "Big Blue" Message-ID: According to Byte magazine, September 1985, article "A Microcomputer Timeline", page 205, "April [1982] Xedex Corp. builds the Baby Blue card (a Z80 coprocessor card) to ease the lack of software for the 9-month-old IBM PC." James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Mon Jan 29 15:01:53 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:01:53 -0500 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: Once again, I hate knowing this, but back when I was a tortured adolescent I learned that in England a "spot" was what we in the U.S. call a "pimple." The kind with little white heads sometimes get squeezed by unknowing people, who don't realize that doing that can leave scars. Or so my dermatologist told me. Enid Pearsons Senior Editor, Reference Random House, Inc. > -----Original Message----- > From: Grant Barrett [mailto:gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM] > Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 7:08 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Spot? > > > This article has me stumped. I'm probably about to be > embarrassed, but what the hell > is a "spot"? > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1136000/1136252.stm > > A Bupa spokeswoman said: "A colleague found the nurses > squeezing the spots of a > patient who was in the surgery recovery room > > "The colleague suggested that it wasn't a good thing to do > and reported them to the > general manager. They were suspended while the complaint was > investigated. > > "They were reprimanded but are now back at work. The patient > was put in no danger > and there was no harm done. > > "The nurses are really, really, embarrassed and so is the hospital." > > -- > Grant Barrett > New York loves you back. > http://www.worldnewyork.org/ > From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 15:21:44 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:21:44 -0800 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: My wife, born and raised Utah, has always used "sh" rather than "sk" to pronounce "schedule"; however, "sk" is the typical pronunciation in Utah. --- "Sonja L. Lanehart" wrote: > In discussing phonetics and morphology in my > Introduction to English > Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and > raised students > said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' > and not 'sk'. I > was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and > their phonemic > transcriptions were important to winning the prize. > Still, they stood > by their claim and none of the other students > objected to their > claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some > level of support > from their classmates--even the ones on competing > teams. --SL > > > >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do > Canadians use it? > >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom > I used to affect it? > > > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much > of the time... > > > >Lynne > > > >M Lynne Murphy > >Lecturer in Linguistics > >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > >University of Sussex > >Brighton BN1 9QH > >UK > > > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > > *************************************************** > Sonja L. Lanehart > Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) > University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) > 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) > Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu > *************************************************** __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 15:41:01 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:41:01 -0800 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule Message-ID: Martha Stewart pronounces the "h" also. --- "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > 'herb' with the 'h' is routinely used by Julia Child > and thus by many of > her followers. So it's either an affectation or an > ignirant pronunciation. > > Best, > > Bob > > At 05:50 PM 1/28/01 +0000, you wrote: > >Thanks for all the info on 'schedule'. For those > wonderign about the > >prevalence of the /sk-/ pronunciation in the UK, I > note that Fowler's (3rd > >ed., 1996) says that the /sk-/ pronunciation is > heard more and more in > >Britain, esp. among young people. > > > >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US > use the Brit > >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which > pronunciation is > >prevalent in Canada? > > > >And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE > pronunciation issues, I'll note > >that my students were discussing my fellow American > colleague's > >pronunciation before class the other day, and asked > me why he pronounces > >words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal > that the downfall of > >/hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? > Fowler's notes that the > >Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ > pronunciations, while AHD4 and > >M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for > words like 'whammy' > >which I've never heard as /hwami/. > > > > > > > > > >M Lynne Murphy > >Lecturer in Linguistics > >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > >University of Sussex > >Brighton BN1 9QH > >UK > > > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > > > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From Simon at IPFW.EDU Mon Jan 29 15:45:31 2001 From: Simon at IPFW.EDU (Simon,Beth) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:45:31 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: I wonder whether these are spam or "jokes" -- these are all being sent from an address post at Saunders-Honda with a UK origin. beth American Dialect Society wrote: > You to want to get off this damn site, I have been trying for 3 weeks and > I am still deleting approx 80 messages a day! > > Would like to know if you manage to unsubscribe....... > Cara > Cheshire > UK > > -----Original Message----- > From: Allison Hall > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Date: 28 January 2001 18:38 > Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? > > >WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Received: from nt10.ipfw.edu (nt10.ipfw.edu [149.164.187.16]) by > smtplink.ipfw.edu with SMTP > (IMA Internet Exchange 3.14) id 002AA078; Mon, 29 Jan 2001 05:22:04 -0500 > Received: from listmail.cc.uga.edu ([128.192.1.102]) by nt10.ipfw.edu > (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-54891U3000L1600S0V35) > with ESMTP id edu for ; > Mon, 29 Jan 2001 05:22:02 -0500 > Received: from listserv (listserv.uga.edu) by listmail.cc.uga.edu (LSMTP for > Windows NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <0.00F775A7 at listmail.cc.uga.edu>; Mon, 29 Jan > 2001 5:21:59 -0500 > Received: from LISTSERV.UGA.EDU by LISTSERV.UGA.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release > 1.8d) with spool id 1149571 for ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU; Mon, 29 Jan > 2001 05:21:58 -0500 > Received: from rincewind.virtual-chester.com (rincewind.virtual-chester.com > [193.164.166.2]) by listserv.cc.uga.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) with SMTP id > f0TABj6178284 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 2001 05:11:48 > -0500 > Received: from host213-120-37-84.host.btclick.com > (host213-120-37-84.host.btclick.com [213.120.37.84]) by > rincewind.virtual-chester.com (NTMail 3.03.0014/1.ajxz) with ESMTP id > xa053401 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:04:52 +0000 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > X-Priority: 3 > X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 > X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 > Message-ID: <00a201c089d3$6555cb00$542578d5 at oemcomputer> > Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:10:58 -0000 > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Sender: American Dialect Society > From: Saunders Honda > Subject: Re: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 15:51:37 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:51:37 -0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: Firewalls can produce similar problems. Been there...done that. --- TERRY IRONS wrote: > On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Russ McClay wrote: > > > > > Send a message to: > > > > listserv at listserv.uga.edu > > > > In the message body put: > > > > signoff ads-l > > > > ...that's all... > > > > Russ is correct but incomplete. The message must > come from the exact > address from which you subscribed. Problems happen > when subscribers > migrate to other addresses on a system that uses a > name server to forward > mail. > > Virtually, Terry > (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) > Terry Lynn Irons t.irons at morehead-st.edu > Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 > Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 > (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 29 15:53:37 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:53:37 -0500 Subject: Online Food Lexicon Message-ID: The idea is a good one (multilingual dictionary of food and cooking terms), but the execution seems very uneven at first glance. I scanned listings in B, C, and L, and there are many errors and confusions. For instance, it seems to equate baking powder and baking soda. It looks like the compilers did not have sound advice on English, anyway. And there are a good number of variations in cooking/cookery and general food terms between US and UK, which this site does not duly reflect. Frank Abate From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 16:06:18 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:06:18 -0600 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: What I'm wondering is how these people who can't figure out how to unsubscribe managed to subscribe. The process is the same except for the difference between 'sub' and 'unsub' (and adding a name when subbing). It seems to me that somebody who can send a message to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying 'sub ADS-L Jane Doe' can figure out how to send a message to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying 'unsub ADS-L'. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 03:08:34 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:08:34 +0800 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <20010129154101.79482.qmail@web9505.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 7:41 AM -0800 1/29/01, James Smith wrote: >Martha Stewart pronounces the "h" also. > > she would From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 16:16:39 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:16:39 -0600 Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ Message-ID: Dale Coye wrote: > In the USA in my survey of freshmen at Princeton ten years ago I found that > they reported in a questionnaire that /hw-/ in 'where' was virtually unknown > in the Northeast (In NY, PA, MD out of 127 resonses only 4 used /hw-/ - 2 > from NYC and two from Philadelphia), but the percentages were higher in other > areas: Hawai 3 out of 8 used it, in Tex-Ok, Ark 29% used it, in Ontario and > the city of Montreal combined 3 out of 20 used it. Nowhere else was it over > 15%. Where it does exist in the Northeast I can't help thinking it's owing I think I've mentioned before that /hw/ seems to be fading rapidly in the U.S. South. Old people like me (57) still have it, but each year I find that fewer and fewer of my students have it. It was down to zero in a class I asked about it a week or so ago except for one student who said that he has /hw/ when the wh word is at the beginning of a sentence but not in other places. It was interesting -- I had just asked the class about /hw/, asking how many of them distinguished between "which" and "witch." Not a single hand went up. Right after that this student said something that started with "when," and I definitely heard a /hw/. When I commented on it, he said that it was because "when" was the first word in the sentence. Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 16:20:39 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:20:39 -0600 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. Is there an answer? --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 03:28:03 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:28:03 +0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? In-Reply-To: <200101291606.KAA01044@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 10:06 AM -0600 1/29/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: >What I'm wondering is how these people who can't figure out how to >unsubscribe managed to subscribe. The process is the same except >for the difference between 'sub' and 'unsub' (and adding a name >when subbing). It seems to me that somebody who can send a message >to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying 'sub ADS-L Jane Doe' can figure >out how to send a message to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying >'unsub ADS-L'. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) Well, negation can be difficult. Larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 29 16:28:01 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:28:01 +0000 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <200101291620.KAA01379@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 10:20 am -0600 Natalie Maynor wrote: > A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is > usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. > Is there an answer? > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) My hypothesis for why it's one word: it means something different if it's two words. I cannot sing. = I am not able to sing. I can not sing (if you like). = I am able to not sing. No one seemed to do spell it as one word in South Africa, and a lot of people don't in the UK either. NODE says that both forms are acceptable, but 'cannot' is more common. Whereas in US English, I'd say that a sentence like "I can not fit into this dress anymore" is wrong. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 16:39:30 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:39:30 EST Subject: Carrot Cake Message-ID: BIG BLUE II The Giants are also known as the "Big Blue Wrecking Crew." Hey, I thought Baltimore would win a low-scoring game. -------------------------------------------------------- CARROT CAKE Jean Anderson's AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK has a "carrot cake" entry on page 435: Before developing its new pudding-including carrot and spice cake mix, Pillsbury researched carrot cake in depth, even staged a nationwide contest to locate America's first-published carrot cake recipe. Their finding: A carrot cake in _The 20th Century Bride's Cookbook_ published in 1929 by a Wichita, Kansas, woman's club. From EVERY WOMAN'S COOK BOOK (Cupples & Leon Co., NY, 1926) by Mrs. Chas. F. Moritz: Carrot and Celery Salad, 242 Cakes, 192 Torte, 434 WHAT DO I WIN? -------------------------------------------------------- BACHELLOR BUTTONS (continued) See ADS-L archives, DARE. I thought this was a cookie. HANOVER COOK BOOK (3rd. ed., 1922) has "bachellor buttons" under "cakes." -------------------------------------------------------- CHINESE CHEWS Jean Anderson says on page 485: I remember Chinese Chews from the '50s and don't believe they date much further back than that. If so, I haven't been able to find any earlier recipes for them. Her earliest cite was 1953. PILLSBURY'S THOUSAND DOLLAR BAKERY FORMULA BOOK (1950) has, under "pies--specialties," "Chinese Choos-Choos." -------------------------------------------------------- FOOD FOR THE GODS (DATE-NUT DESSERT) Not to be confused with ambrosia ("food OF the gods"). Jean Anderson has: THIS IS the sort of dessert that became so popular in the late '40s and early '50s and cropped up in community cookbooks across the country. I have: AUNT CAROLINE'S DIXIELAND RECIPES (Gold Seal Corp., Chicago, 1922), by Emma and William McKinney, "Food For The Gods...95." OUT OF VERMONT KITCHENS (Trinity Mission, Burlington, VT, 1939), "Food for the Gods...201." Probably not to be served with a "Poor Boy." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 03:58:47 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:58:47 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <1401964.3189774481@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 4:28 PM +0000 1/29/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Monday, January 29, 2001 10:20 am -0600 Natalie Maynor > wrote: > >>A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is >>usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. >>Is there an answer? >> --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) > > > >My hypothesis for why it's one word: it means something different if it's >two words. > >I cannot sing. = I am not able to sing. >I can not sing (if you like). = I am able to not sing. > >No one seemed to do spell it as one word in South Africa, and a lot of >people don't in the UK either. NODE says that both forms are acceptable, >but 'cannot' is more common. Whereas in US English, I'd say that a >sentence like "I can not fit into this dress anymore" is wrong. > >Lynne > > My 1972 UCLA dissertation is, as far as I know, the first place in which this observation is made, or at least "explained", but only insofar as the impossibility of "cannot" (and of course "can't") allowing wide scope for the negative. For me, "can not" allows both scopes in principle (and I think you'll find that a text count will turn up more occurrences with the same NOT CAN meaning that "cannot" or "can't" must have), but in practice writers may avoid the two-word spelling for this meaning since the one-word spelling is available. This is an instance of the general Elsewhere Principle and in this case not something fixed by the lexical entry itself. (Note that the standard dictionary entry for "cannot" simply glosses it as 'can not', which is wrong for the reason Lynne cites.) What I was trying to argue for in my thesis was a general tendency to avoid lexicalization of modal-negation complexes with the semantics of [possible/permitted [not]] or [not [necessary/obligatory]] as opposed to the more readily lexicalized [not [possible/permitted]] and [obligatory [not]], an asymmetry that partakes in a much more general conspiracy reflected in e.g. the fact that no natural language lexicalizes "nall" [ = 'not all'] while many lexicalize 'not some' or 'all not' (Eng. "no", "none"). I propose a Gricean/pragmatic explanation for this asymmetry that I'll spare you here. Within this general framework, I characterized "cannot" as an orthographic lexicalization that obeys the same semantic constraints as the morphologically lexicalized "can't". But to respond to Natalie's question, there's no simple answer to her students's query, since exactly the same asymmetry is found with "couldn't" as with "can't"--the former too is possible only when the negation takes scope over the modal, with the meaning 'not possible/permitted/able', never with the meaning [could [not]]--yet no "orthographic lexicalization" of the form *couldnot occurs. That is, even though we can predict that "couldnot" could only mean what "couldn't" means--[not [could]]--we cannot predict that it does not, in fact, occur. I suspect the difference between "cannot" and *"couldnot" is a matter of frequency and phonology, but I won't try to speculate how, or why--as she notes--"cannot" is the only orthographic-only contraction we have. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 04:15:53 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 12:15:53 +0800 Subject: (h/n)umble (was: Some data on herb, /hw-/) In-Reply-To: <200101291616.KAA01285@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 10:16 AM -0600 1/29/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: > >Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the >h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) I've never heard "umble", except of course in contexts like "The Ravens forced the Giants to eat umble pie", referring of course to deer's innards. Actually I see on checking in the OED that "(eat) humble pie" is a nice illustration of metanalysis as well as folk etymology, since the 'innards' or, as the OED puts it, 'inward parts' meaning was originally associated with the form "numbles", which only later turned into "umbles". There's a cite for "numble pie" as late as 1822 (Robin Hood is the eater, and the meaning is still literal). It looks as though this metanalysis requires the shift in the context a numble-pie > an umble pie > a(n) humble pie since otherwise it's hard to know why a plural noun like "numbles" would have undergone this reanalysis, which typically affects singular count nouns (newt, nickname, nuncle, nother; orange, apron, umpire). But how DID "numbles" lose its n-? larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 29 17:07:44 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 12:07:44 -0500 Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ In-Reply-To: <200101291616.KAA01285@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 10:16 AM 1/29/01 -0600, you wrote: >Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the >h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) I had a former colleague (65-ish) from southern Indiana named Humbles--and he had a dickens of a time getting people to pronounce his name without an /h/. (That ref. to "dickens" just reminded me that many of Dickens' characters were h-less--and I didn't even intend the pun!) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:07:28 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:07:28 -0500 Subject: "-making" Message-ID: I've been using "nervous-making" for many years. I don't remember picking up either the compound or the suffix usage; it's certainly possible that I did, but I have the impression of having coined it myself ex nihilo, or at least ex verbis. -- Mark A. Mandel From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 29 18:20:03 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:20:03 -0500 Subject: (h/n)umble (was: Some data on herb, /hw-/) Message-ID: At 12:15 PM 1/29/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 10:16 AM -0600 1/29/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: >> >>Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the >>h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. >> --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) > >I've never heard "umble", except of course in contexts like "The >Ravens forced the Giants to eat umble pie", referring of course to >deer's innards. Actually I see on checking in the OED that "(eat) >humble pie" is a nice illustration of metanalysis as well as folk >etymology, since the 'innards' or, as the OED puts it, 'inward parts' >meaning was originally associated with the form "numbles", which only >later turned into "umbles". There's a cite for "numble pie" as late >as 1822 (Robin Hood is the eater, and the meaning is still literal). >It looks as though this metanalysis requires the shift in the context > >a numble-pie > an umble pie > a(n) humble pie > >since otherwise it's hard to know why a plural noun like "numbles" >would have undergone this reanalysis, which typically affects >singular count nouns (newt, nickname, nuncle, nother; orange, apron, >umpire). But how DID "numbles" lose its n-? > >larry This adds a new wrinkle to my comment on Humbles as a surname. Since the name ends in -s, it presumably came from the deer-innards meaning (but what a name!). The orthographic 'h' was added by analogy with adj. 'humble', I assume, but his English-descended family continued to drop the /h/. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:16:52 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:16:52 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: I wrote: >Agreed. I call this form the (first person plural) imperative >interrogative, and that's not just a joke, even though the notion of >"imperative interrogative" is funny because it seems contradictory. The >speaker is asking for/about the concurrence of the addressee(s) in >declaring an imperative from the group to the group. Larry demurred: >>>>> I'm not sure why an imperative in interrogative clothing is any more contradictory than a queclarative (Who the hell asked you? = 'nobody did') or a declarative question (So you're going over there after dinner(?)), or for that matter a 2d person "whimperative" (Why not call her yourself?). Just one more (partially conventionalized) indirect speech act. <<<<< Good point. At first blush I was going to deny the asserted similarity to "Who the hell asked you?" on the grounds that the latter does not expect an answer (to put it mildly) while "Shall we go?" is at least willing to consider a negative one. But "Why not call her yourself?" neatly points up a middle ground. So I'm willing to concede a spectrum: the nature of the speech act (mand, inquiry, assertion...) implemented by one of these "X in form of Y" utterances can range, at least, from very-X-scarcely-Y to somewhat-X-rather-Y. -- Mark From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:19:48 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:19:48 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: "D. Ezra Johnson" writes: >>>>> Nancy Elliott writes: > Captain Picard says 'skedule' in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." When I first heard it, I assumed someone had told Patrick Stewart he ought to pronounce it that way for his American audience. > Captain Picard is supposed to be French, right? So maybe he doesn't have to conform to British norms. The other possiblity is diffusion of the [sk] pronunciation over the next three centuries... <<<<< I don't know what the official line is on Picard; culturally he's a lot more English. ST has never been noted for background consistency. I'll ask around, though. marqem, tlhIngan veQbeq la'Hom -- Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'! Subcmdr. Marke'm, Klingon Sanitation Corps -- Death to Litterbugs! http://world.std.com/~mam/ http://world.std.com/~mam/klingon/Klingon.html From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 29 18:53:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 18:53:05 +0000 Subject: schedule --getting off topic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 1:19 pm -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >>>>>> > Nancy Elliott writes: > > Captain Picard is supposed to be French, right? So maybe he doesn't have > to conform to British norms. > > I don't know what the official line is on Picard; culturally he's a lot > more English. ST has never been noted for background consistency. I'll ask > around, though. > Picard grew up in France (he goes home in one episode and fights with his brother). But with the Universal Translator they have in Star Trek, you don't know...maybe he's speaking French all the time, but we're hearing it as English (and it translates 'shedule' into 'skedule' for us Americans). The one thing that always bothers me about the Universal Translator is that even though some character is speaking Ferengi or something, their lips move as if they're speaking English. Something like the McGurk effect going on? Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:41:09 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:41:09 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge Message-ID: Mark Odegard writes: >>>>> 'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and 'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer shorts'. A cover charge is essentially an admission charge, to cover the overhead, one that goes hand-in-hand with the idea that menu prices should otherwise be kept within reason. A covert charge would be uncontracted-for (but you gotta pay them) charges. <<<<< The origin I had heard was that it referred to the tablecloth(?) and table settings: the things that cover the table, which have to be renewed for each party that uses a table. The counterargument about stress would not apply to speakers who know the word only in print; and for that matter _Amer.Her.Dict._ 3rd edn. lists 'k^v. at rt , 'ko.v at rt , ko.'v at rt (@ = schwa, o = high-mid round vowel; stress-mark preposed), implying that the "cover"-like pron is most common of the three. *"Covert charge" with stress on the "cov" would be almost or actually homophonous with "cover charge", the final /t/ merging with the [t] onset of the /C/. Someone who knew the expression "cover charge" and was trying to figure out/invent its origin could folk-etymologize it in this way. And that's my guess for what happened -- the other Mark, Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:47:43 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:47:43 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb Message-ID: Lynne Murphy writes: >>>>> My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is prevalent in Canada? <<<<< Not that I can recall, except just possibly for some individual speakers who I can't make a pattern out of. /h at rb/ is a man's name here, period. Pronouncing the "h" in "herb" is a setup for a gag. >>>>> And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of /hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' which I've never heard as /hwami/. <<<<< At one point in my work I proposed /hw/ for the UK prons of words with written "wh", only to be corrected by my UK-native co-workers with exactly that assertion: that /hw/ is dead, dead, dead in the UK even if it's still hanging on by its fingernails this side the Water. Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Mon Jan 29 19:04:22 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 14:04:22 -0500 Subject: schedule --getting off topic Message-ID: Lynne Murphy wrote: > > Picard grew up in France (he goes home in one episode and fights with his > brother). But with the Universal Translator they have in Star Trek, you > don't know...maybe he's speaking French all the time, but we're hearing it > as English (and it translates 'shedule' into 'skedule' for us Americans). In a book I once read about an escapade had by the original ST crew (Kirk's bunch) during the interrum between the series & the movies, they refer to a Federation Standard language. I am pretty sure I have heard or read about Standard in other ST sources as well. Perhaps this is the language that is most often spoken aboard Federation ships and space stations, and therefore the language that Picard speaks? Otherwise, he certainly has a very well-developed & out-of-place English accent for a Frenchman. Not that _all_ of the writers of the ST universe would be consistent on a point like this.... From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:52:00 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:52:00 -0500 Subject: Schedule: the Ending Message-ID: I've heard /'skej.u. at l/ pretty often in the US. I attribute the ending pron to the many words ending in "-ual", such as "eventual" and "gradual". -- Mark A. Mandel From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 19:29:45 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:29:45 -0600 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: Thanks, Lynne and Larry. I'll forward your responses to the colleague whose student inquired about it. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 29 19:58:00 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 14:58:00 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >If you confuse the UK with England, /hw/ is deader (at least for >many parts) than in the US, but if you take a somewhat larger (and >politically correct) view, it's not even slightly ill (or should I >say sick). dInIs \ >Lynne Murphy writes: > >>>>>> >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is >prevalent in Canada? ><<<<< > >Not that I can recall, except just possibly for some individual speakers >who I can't make a pattern out of. /h at rb/ is a man's name here, period. >Pronouncing the "h" in "herb" is a setup for a gag. > >>>>>> >And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note >that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's >pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces >words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of >/hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the >Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and >M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' >which I've never heard as /hwami/. ><<<<< > >At one point in my work I proposed /hw/ for the UK prons of words with >written "wh", only to be corrected by my UK-native co-workers with exactly >that assertion: that /hw/ is dead, dead, dead in the UK even if it's still >hanging on by its fingernails this side the Water. > > Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company > Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist > 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 29 21:52:17 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:52:17 -0500 Subject: Boyer's Law Message-ID: FYI: The New Hacker's Dictionary (3rd Ed) does not list either Boyer's Law or Stigler's Law. It does have a number of Laws popular among hacker/comp sci types (such as Godwin's Law, Hanlon's Razor and Parkinson's Law of Data already mentioned in this discussion). "James A. Landau" wrote: > > The following sounds like a candidate for Fred Shapiro's collection of > computer-related provers: > > Boyer's Law, named after the mathematician and mathematical historian Carl > Boyer: > > "Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually > not named after their original discoverers." > > This "law" was discussed on the Historia Matematica mailing list. > > > It appears on page 469 of [Boyer's] History of Mathematics > [1968]. After discussing the anticipation of the so-called Maclaurin's > series by earlier workers, Boyer observed, "Clio, the muse of history, > often is fickle in the matter of attaching names to theorems!" > > It was H.C. Kennedy who first called this "Boyer's Law: Mathematical > formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original > discoverers." Amer. Math. Monthly, 79:1 (1972), 66-67. Kennedy also > noted that "this is probably a rare instance of a law whose statement > confirms its own validity." > > > > This is also known as > > > ...Stigler's Law of Eponymy. This law, which in its simplest form states that > "no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer," was so > dubbed by Stephen > Stigler in his recent book Statistics on the Table (Harvard). An immodest > act of nomenclature? Not really. If Stigler's law is true, its very name > implies that Stigler himself did not discover it. By explaining that the > credit belongs instead to the great sociologist of science Robert K. Merton, > Stigler not only wins marks for humility; he makes the law to which he has > lent his name self-confirming. > > [reference: url http://www.linguafranca.com/0003/hypo.html] > > > The discussion can be viewed in the HM archives at > http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/historia_matematica/ > > select month March 2000 and the applicable threads are "Boyer's Law" (26 > March 2000) and "L'Hopital, Pythagoras, Ptolemy and Hilbert" 17 March 2000. > I have the entire (I think) discussion on my hard drive and I'll be happy to > forward it to anyone who asks. > > Jim Landau From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 29 22:30:00 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 17:30:00 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:47 PM 1/29/01 -0500, you wrote: >Lynne Murphy writes: > > >>>>> >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is >prevalent in Canada? ><<<<< > >Not that I can recall, except just possibly for some individual speakers >who I can't make a pattern out of. /h at rb/ is a man's name here, period. >Pronouncing the "h" in "herb" is a setup for a gag. > > Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company > Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist > 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com I'm not so sure the /h/ in 'herb' is totally gone or simply idiolectal. I've heard it here in southern Ohio occasionally. In any case, I've asked a native of the region to ask around and will report. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 29 17:42:58 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 12:42:58 -0500 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:41:01 -0800 James Smith writes: > Martha Stewart pronounces the "h" also. Well, THAT should settle it. I speak to a lot of garden clubs. If the fee os over a hundred bucks, I use the "h". Less than that, I drop it. D From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 00:54:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:54:45 EST Subject: Mostaccioli Mystery in Milwaukee; Mud Cake Message-ID: MUD CAKE Here is that entry from the I.S. & E. U. COOKBOOK (1925), pg. 72: MUD CAKE 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, Butter, size of egg, 1/2 cup sour milk, 1 t. saleratus in 1/2 cup hot water, 1 1/2 cups flour, 3 squares chocolate, Frosting. Boil one cup sugar and enough water to moisten it, boil until it strings, then beat the white of an egg stiff, then pour the syrup in slowly, beating all the time until (Pg. 73--ed.) nice and creamy. Spread over cake and let cool, then spread bitter chocolate on top of white. Another recipe is given in MUD PIES AND OTHER RECIPES (Macmillan Company, NY, 1961), by Marjorie Winslow (no page numbers): MUD PIES To a coffee can filled 3/4 full of rich dirt, add just enough water to make a very firm mud. Pack this mud into the cups in the bottom half of a heavy cardboard egg carton. Set in the sun to dry slightly, then turn the carton over and unmold on a sunny terrace or sidewalk. When the pies are hard, they are done. Serves 12. These mud pies keep indefinitely and are good to have on hand for impromptu entertaining. (There are also "sandwich" recipes here you don't want to see--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- MOSTACCIOLI MYSTERY IN MILWAUKEE I checked the restaurants in the phonebook fiche for St. Louis and Milwaukee. No Mississippi Mud Pies. There were several "bombers" in Milwaukee in, for example, May 1978, pg. 1010, col. 1: MEATBALL BOMBERS--Jerry's Pizza, 10th & Lincoln. ITALIAN SANDWICHES (BOMBERS)--Little Italy, 925 N. 27th Street. PIZZA BOMBERS--Pizza by Dave, 800 E. Lincoln Ave. Most interesting is the Milwaukee "Mostaccioli" Mystery. "Mostaccioli" is not in OED. "Mostaccioli" is not in DARE. "Mostaccioli" is not in Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. "Mostaccioli" was not offered in ANY other Italian restaurant that I've checked, in various phone books. So why is "mostaccioli" all over Milwaukee? May 1976, MILWAUKEE, pg. 934 ("pizza"), col. 1 ad: THE ORIGINAL BARBIERE'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT PIZZA SPAGHETTI--MOSTOCHOLLI--LASAGNE SCALPINI--RAVIOLI--CHICKEN WITH HOME MADE GARLIC BREAD May 1976, MILWAUKEE, pg. 936, col. 3 ad: CAPRI PIZZA RESTAURANT LASAGNA CHICKEN CACCIATORE VEAL SCALOPPINE RAVIOLI SPAGHETTI MOSTACCIOLI May 1976, MILWAUKEE, pg. 937, col. 2 ad: THE ORIGINAL GIUSEPPE'S ON TEUTONIA Has Fed the Hungry Since 1953 PIZZA--SPAGHETTI LASAGNA--RAVIOLI MOSTACCIOLI SEA FOOD--CHICKEN SANDWICHES ITALIAN--AMERICAN May 1976, MILWAUKEE, Pg. 1058 ("restaurants"), col. 2 ad: CARADARO CLUB Authentic Old World Pizza Since 1945 Complete Italian Menu Including Spaghetii--Ravioli--Mostaccioli Lasagna--Italian Sandwiches May 1978, MILWAUKEE, pg. 1012, col. 2 ad: SCAFFIDI'S HOUSE OF PIZZA "KING OF THE DOUBLE CRUST PIZZA" LASAGNA . SPAGHETTI . RAVIOLI MOSTACCOLI . SEAFOODS . STEAKS . CHICKEN This is from THE DICTIONARY OF ITALIAN FOOD AND DRINK (Broadway Books, NY, 1998) by John Mariani, pg. 159: _mostaccioli_ (moh-stah-CH'YOH-lee) Small cakes of southern Italy made of honey, flour, orange peel, almonds, and spices. They are cut into diamond shapes and baked, then covered with chocolate icing. Also _mustazzoli_ and _mustazzuoli_. In Piedmont, a cookie called _mostaceu_ is made with cornmeal and sweet wine. Both names probably derive from Latin _mustaceum_, meaning a cake made with must. _Mostaccioli_ is also the name for a tubular pasta shape similar to _penne_. Will OED include it? Why did all the "mostaccioli" guys go to Wisconsin and all the "apizza" guys go to Connecticut? From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Tue Jan 30 00:01:34 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:01:34 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <20010129012925.49048.qmail@web10111.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: One group of Britons has used the "sk" pronunciation for a long time - amateur radio operators, who refer to a "sked" (in writing and verbally) as a prescheduled radio contact. Also on the ham radio front, someone referred to various telegraphers' abbreviations; 73 is best wishes, 88 is love and kisses, and 55 is one only used (as far as I know) by German radio hams, meaning "Hals- und Beinbruch" (cf. the "break a leg" discussion). A different topic: I was just at a fairly upmarket hotel in the Georgia Sea Islands - the room service flyer was headed "Breakfast at your beckon". Is this a wide use of the term, or a local one, or just an error. I wonder if they meant to say "at your beckoning" or "at your beck and call"? And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in England, or the former in the US. Tony Glaser From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 30 01:21:38 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:21:38 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Apology: I am sometimes bitten by a pathological urge to say the obvious just to get it on record. Well, at least my urges in that direction have the advantage of letting everybody else say something new or incisive or whatever. Illustration: This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much as his better-known contributions to linguistics. Addendum: Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps even a dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts save basketball. An additional handful of Hamp- influenced scholars may not go quite that far, but still use the s/k alternation in "celtic" as a case of the kentum/chentum/sentum/tsentum lines of dialect separation in European languages. The instructor who uses this example is spared the labor of explaining such obsolete titles as Kaiser, Cesare (with ch), Caesar (with s), and Tsar. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the obvious? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 01:29:23 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 20:29:23 EST Subject: Mostaccioli Message-ID: A quick check of Google show tons of "mostaccioli" hits. The most frequent etymology (not mentioned by Mariani) is "little moustaches." The Milwaukee restaurants were serving the pasta, not the cookie. LEONE'S ITALIAN COOKBOOK (1967) does NOT have it, but I'll keep looking. OED must add this. One site describes Giordano's of Chicago as "mostaccioli heaven." See, for example: http://www.nwpasta.com/ronzoni/glossary/mostaccioli.html From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 01:30:53 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:30:53 -0600 Subject: On Being Folks' Amissed. Message-ID: OK. Cover/covert/couvert charge caught me. It was a false friend, a faux amis, a folks' amiss. Cover and hide are semantically related, but for 'cover charge', and 'hidden charge' you have to keep them separate, at least in English. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 01:38:54 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 20:38:54 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: The following I have only seen once (it was a homemade poster in an office I inhabited in 1984): If it's there and you can see it, it's REAL If it's there and you can't see it, it's TRANSPARENT If it's not there and you can see it, it's VIRTUAL If it's not there and you can't see it, it's DELETED --------------------------------------------- Boyer's/Stigler's Law is unlikely to appear in a Computer Science book, since it applies to mathematics, not comp sci. Relatively few programmers have even been exposed to Maclaurin Series, either as a formula or by name, so the reference is over their heads. Yes, I have heard "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" (probably in several minor variants) on more than one occasion, although not since IBM lost its dominance of the industry that it held into the 1980's. I have not heard the phrase applied to Microsoft, but it's not surprising. James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA P.S. On a different topic. I once perpetrated the following sentence: [In reference to the Historia Matematica mailing list] "I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? If so, then it is possible to have the word "is" twice in a row without it having to be in quotes. However, it must be admitted that in response to that sentence I received an e-mail from Germany politely requesting me to translate it into English. From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 02:11:43 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 21:11:43 EST Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: Every year I'm amazed at how many of my freshmen and sophomores do not seem to ever have heard that 'cannot' is written as one word. I can only conclude that many high school teachers aren't aware of it either... so maybe we're in the midst of a change-- I don't think any dictionaries list it as two words? (Too lazy to look right now) Dale Coye Dept of Eng. The College of NJ From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 02:20:12 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 20:20:12 -0600 Subject: Mostaccioli Message-ID: >The Milwaukee restaurants were serving the pasta, not the cookie. Yes, mosta-etc is a kind of pasta, on the model of ziti. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From mssmith at BOONE.NET Wed Jan 31 02:45:50 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:45:50 -0500 Subject: Esperanto Message-ID: What is Esperanto? Thanks, Susan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 30 03:38:53 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 21:38:53 -0600 Subject: /hw/, herb & hw- Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: > I'm not so sure the /h/ in 'herb' is totally gone or simply > idiolectal. I've heard it here in southern Ohio occasionally. In any > case, I've asked a native of the region to ask around and will report. I wonder whether those who want to declare h- and hw- dead, dead, dead are engaging in a little wishful thinking so that they won't have to be concerned about being "wrong" themselves. At least one hopes they aren't also wishing dead, dead, dead to apply to the producers of this quaint little spirant. (Just kidding.) When we've had discussions of hw- before on ads-l, and now too, it's pretty clear that this one (but maybe not hherb) is evanescing in a generalized language change that transcends regional dialect boundaries. I don't think for a New York minute that the media are the initiators of the change, because they would promote conservative usage if they could. When I hear relatives in Tennessee say the h- in the 3rd person neuter singular pronoun it seems like the articulation of this initial consonant is a little different from mine when I imitate their pronunciation. DMLance From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 14:41:11 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 22:41:11 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <32.fe8da4a.27a77cdf@aol.com> Message-ID: >Every year I'm amazed at how many of my freshmen and sophomores do not seem >to ever have heard that 'cannot' is written as one word. I can only >conclude that many high school teachers aren't aware of it either... so maybe >we're in the midst of a change-- I don't think any dictionaries list it as >two words? (Too lazy to look right now) > I'm not sure what you mean. When "can not" is two words, it wouldn't be listed in the dictionary any more than "could not" is. They do all list "cannot", often with (as I mentioned) the misleading gloss 'can not'. Not always, though--the AHD4 slyly glosses it as 'the negative form of "can".' "shouldn't", on the other hand, is glossed as 'the contraction of should not', which is right as far as it goes. (In particular, shouldn't is not normally the negative form of should, since both "You should do it" and "You shouldn't do it" can be simultaneously false, if it doesn't matter whether you do it or not.) As far as spelling "cannot" as one word with no spaces, that is I believe a somewhat higher-register thing to do, and as I was arguing earlier today it's never really obligatory, so if your students aren't doing it, it's hard to know what to conclude. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 30 05:08:17 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 00:08:17 -0500 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: When I played basketball in grade school, south-central Kentucky, 1970 to 1973, we called these crib shots (or possibly crip shots; I never saw it spelled). John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Dick Heaberlin [SMTP:Heaberlin at SWT.EDU] > Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 3:09 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Crip shot > > I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called > a lay up was called a "crip shot." I always assumed that it was short > for "cripple" since it was supposedly the easiest shot to make. What > interests me about this is why did such a useful phrase fall into > disuse. In my web search of it I found only four examples of it being > used, one about a Kentucky game in 1925 and another about a game in > 1948, one a comparison in a journalism professor's syllabus. I have > played basketball from 1945 till now, and yet I don't know when the > phrase quit being used. I don't even use it any more but the young > people I play with it don't use it either. Another term from the from > the forties was "radio man," which is the same as "snow bird." I still > hear "snow bird" occasionally. I am from the south and never understood > what a snow bird had to do with staying back on defense and waiting for > a long pass. "Radio man" made more sense as a metaphor to me. Does > anyone have any info on any of this? > > Dick Heaberlin > English Department > Southwest Texas State University > San Marcos, TX 78666 From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 06:00:51 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 00:00:51 -0600 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: I am doing English with Laurence Horn's remarks. My usual explanation of 'cannot' is that of a blackbird vs. a black bird. The practical explanation is about the emphasis on 'not'. I can not vs I cannot. I have another English language net group that is questioning 'cannot'. I do not have the ability to instruct no-ness. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 06:11:36 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 01:11:36 EST Subject: Milk Tea Message-ID: MILK TEA When I was in Japan, there were vending machines all over. Each one sold "milk tea." OED is revising "m," but I still don't see "milk tea." Most all of the Google hits come from Japan. "Milk tea" is about as rare in Australia as "iced tea." From CHEF D'OEUVRE (England; later titled THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY), Autumn 1955, pg. 37, col. 2: Here are some less orthodox but delightful ways of serving tea: ICED TEA (...) RUSSIAN TEA (...) TEA ICE (...) TEA PUNCH (...) TEA PARFAIT (...) MILK TEA Place 2 cups milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil. When bubbles appear at the edges, add 1 tsp. of tea. Do not allow it to boil for more than 1 minute, before straining it into a hot teapot. -------------------------------------------------------- EPICUREAN MONTHLY More from the same 1950s publication. Spring 1955. CHEF D'OEUVRE, pg. 66, col. 2--MONKEY GLAND STEAK. (Recipe follows--ed.) Spring 1955, CHEF D'OEUVRE, pg. 78, col. 1--Gloria (coffee with brandy in the place of milk)... (Pg. 77, col. 2 has "Gaelic Coffee"--ed.) January 1957, THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY, pg. 24 ad: ESPRESSO COFFEE This is where it started! Almost everyone in the country prefers Gaggia Espresso Coffee Machines. (...) THE ESPRESSO COMPANY (GAGGIA) LTD. 10 DEAN STREET LONDON W1 GERRARD June 1957, THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY, pg. 24, col. 2: LOBSTER A LA NEWBURG In spite of the "a la" connotation this is not a French dish. It is strictly of American origin. The story goes that around the turn of the century when Delmonico's was one of the few top restaurants in New York City where gourmets, connoisseurs of fine food, made their headquarters, this dish saw light of day. One of the discriminating patrons was a physician whose wealthy clients enabled him to dine there regularly. The menus in Delmonico's were in French as was customary in metropolitan cities all over the civilized world in that era. The good doctor was very fond of lobster and instructed his waiter one day how he would like his favourite crustacean prepared and served, previously cooked, lobster tail cut in slices, sauteed in butter and served in a sauce similar to Terrapin Maryland sauce. This request was duly passed on to the chef who instructed the fish cook accordingly. The order was made with meticulous care and the lobster tail chunks were served in a rich sauce consisting of sweet cream, thickened with egg yolks and finished with a dash of dry sherry. The chef promptly added the new concotion on the menu as "Homard a la Neuberg" because that was the doctor's name. However, Doctor Neuberg strenuously objected to having his name identified on the menu in connection with a dish. Therefore it was changed to Newburg. There is a town by the name of Newburgh in New York state so no objections could be made. Now we find Lobster Newburg, which should be served in a chafing dish all over the country. Of course some unavoidable changes have been made, the cut up lobster claws are also used and cream sauce is used to prevent curdling, particularly when made in advance as a du jour dish, or for parties. A sprinkling of paprika is used to effect a pinkish colour and hot toast is always served with this dish. We also find Shrimps a la Newburg and other seafood served Newburg style. (THIS IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY! The familiar one is about patron Ben Wenburg, and how the dish was changed to Newburg after an argument. Doctor "Neuberg" is a new variation to me--ed.) September 1957, THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY, pg. 11, col. 2: VICHYSSOISE SOUP'S CREATOR DIES AT 72 (Story about Louis Diat, reprinted from the DAILY TELEGRAPH, 31 August 1957--ed.) From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 06:59:42 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 00:59:42 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: >From: James Smith >My wife, born and raised Utah, has always used "sh" >rather than "sk" to pronounce "schedule"; however, >"sk" is the typical pronunciation in Utah. Such things are possible when you are Mormon. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From rkm at SLIP.NET Tue Jan 30 07:31:08 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 23:31:08 -0800 Subject: Milk Tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Has "bubble" tea been going around? It's tea and milk and sugar and tapioca balls about half an inch in diameter. One drinks it through a very large straw, big enough to suck up the tapioca balls. There is an Asian mall near me that sells a lot of it - but since it's a Pan-Asian mall, I think it's Taiwanese primarily, but I'm not sure. Rima From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Tue Jan 30 07:50:15 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 23:50:15 -0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <200101291620.KAA01379@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: Is it because cannot is the only one where the vowel in the modal verb becomes (can become) a schwa? This would make it more natural to spell it as one word. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Of Natalie Maynor > Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:21 AM > > A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is > usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. > Is there an answer? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 09:09:27 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 04:09:27 EST Subject: Personal Computer (May/June 1959); Magic Brains; MRO Message-ID: PERSONAL COMPUTER OED has the late 1970s for "personal computer." "Your 'Personal Computer' for Higher Creativity" is in an ad by EAI Electronic Associates Inc., Long Branch, NJ, in DATAMATION, May/June 1959, pg. 29. DATAMATION ran a series called "All About Paper Tape" in July/August and September/October 1959. No "chad," but all of the tape machines are shown. -------------------------------------------------------- MAGIC BRAINS & COMPOSERS OF SAUSAGE RECIPES From DATAMATION, May 1961, pg. 17: As a national voice for information processing, it is hoped that the public image of the profession will be swayed from "magic brains" and "composers of sausage recipes" to a more realistic concept of the contributions of computing. -------------------------------------------------------- MRO MRO=Maintenance, Repair, and Operations. Another "m" not in the OED. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 09:44:45 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:44:45 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <3A761722.B0E48E52@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 7:21 pm -0600 Mike Salovesh wrote: > Illustration: > This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned > that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about > half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant > tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world > around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much > as his better-known contributions to linguistics. I assume that by 'Chicago' you mean 'the University of Chicago' (or maybe 'the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago). Hamp may be influential, but I doubt he's _that_ influential! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From wells at PHONETICS.UCL.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 10:23:25 2001 From: wells at PHONETICS.UCL.AC.UK (John Wells) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:23:25 +0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Tony Glaser kindly forwarded me a posting from ads-l. > In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells >says under "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with >-sk is starting to be heard in BrE." It would be >interesting to see what the second edition has to >say about this change in progress Easy! Consult the second edition. It has been on the market for nine months. It reports that in the 1998 British poll /sk-/ was preferred by two-thirds of the under-25 respondents. But for all age-groups combined it remains a minority preference, with less than a third of the votes. More at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/poll98.htm and at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/lpd2.htm . John Wells From barry at MS12.URL.COM.TW Sun Jan 28 12:19:20 2001 From: barry at MS12.URL.COM.TW (=?big5?B?tsCnu7hT?=) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 20:19:20 +0800 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE Message-ID: UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Tue Jan 30 12:37:32 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 07:37:32 -0500 Subject: still more tron Message-ID: Roger Ebert's latest missive from Sundance includes a bit about Errol Morris, the documentarian, and the upgrade to his "Interrotron", the "Megatron": http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-feature/sun30.html bkd From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 30 13:16:34 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:16:34 -0500 Subject: Milk Tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: > Has "bubble" tea been going around? I think I saw an article in some Boston paper about how that's the rage out in California now... I don't think the actual drink has made it here yet (still?). --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 00:46:05 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:46:05 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:00 AM -0600 1/30/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >I am doing English with Laurence Horn's remarks. > >My usual explanation of 'cannot' is that of a blackbird vs. a black bird. > >The practical explanation is about the emphasis on 'not'. I can not vs I >cannot. > >I have another English language net group that is questioning 'cannot'. I do >not have the ability to instruct no-ness. > >_________________________________________________________________ I apologize if my remarks were un-Engliah or otherwise unnecessarily obscure. I do not, however, see that "cannot" has the invariant primary stress of "blackbird". The "emphasis" on 'not' will come and go dependiing on the speaker and the following material (in particular, the stress pattern on the main verb), while "blackbird" (the species noun) always has primary (compound) stress. In fact, the only reliable parallel between "cannot" and "blackbird" on the one hand and between "can not" and "black bird" on the other is the space in the spelling. Larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 13:43:21 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:43:21 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE Message-ID: >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society ===== >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE New word? Bethany From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 00:59:28 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:59:28 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:50 PM -0800 1/29/01, Benjamin Barrett wrote: >?Is it because cannot is the only one where the vowel in the modal verb >becomes (can become) a schwa? This would make it more natural to spell it as >one word. > >Benjamin Barrett >gogaku at ix.netcom.com Sounds plausible--we should probably also worry about the variants in Scotland (esp. in Shetland) of the form "shouldna", "wouldna", "dinna", "canna", etc., all with schwas and spelled as one word. larry (Checking the OED for "cannot", we find 'the ordinary modern writing of can not', which is clearly not quite sufficient.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 13:56:54 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:56:54 -0500 Subject: Personal Computer (May/June 1959); Magic Brains; MRO In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > PERSONAL COMPUTER > > OED has the late 1970s for "personal computer." > "Your 'Personal Computer' for Higher Creativity" is in an ad by EAI > Electronic Associates Inc., Long Branch, NJ, in DATAMATION, May/June > 1959, pg. 29. This is an outstanding antedating. I recently published an article in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, entitled "Origin of the Term _Personal Computer_," in which I traced the term back to 1968. Barry's citation above is obviously a major advance. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Tue Jan 30 14:25:23 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:25:23 +0100 Subject: Esperanto Message-ID: On mercredi 31 janvier 2001 03:45, susan wrote: > >What is Esperanto? >Thanks, >Susan It's a drink made of coffee, tea, rum, milk, cocoa and water that pilots use to stay awake on the Hong Kong-New York nonstop run, invented by Chinese-Jamaican Qu Williams Shankang in 1968 when he misread the instructions on a packet of Swiss Miss. It has the simultaneous effects of keeping a pilot awake, drunk and thinking about his mother. Yahoo, amazingly enough, has a whole section devoted to it: http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=esperanto -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 30 14:33:22 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:33:22 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: <3A7AB2B0@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society > ===== > >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE > > New word? Unsubscribe is in AHD4. --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 01:56:23 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:56:23 +0800 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:33 AM -0500 1/30/01, Steve K. wrote: >On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >> >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society >> >> ===== >> >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE >> >> New word? > >Unsubscribe is in AHD4. > >--- Steve K. Ah, but not "unsubsribe". larry From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 30 15:01:03 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:01:03 -0500 Subject: "Chain shift" defined Message-ID: ...by a student taking my Language and Society course: chain shift is what happens when "a word is mispronounced and over time it gets worse". I trust all you people participating in the Northern Cities or in the Southern shifts will take note and mend your ways. -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From P2052 at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 15:05:26 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:05:26 EST Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: To distinguish it from the emphatic "can NOT"? e.g. A) "She cannot sing." [neg. ASSERTION] vs. B) "She can not [NOT] sing." (1.DENIAL [She does not have my permission to do so] or 2. DISAGREEMENT [I disagree with your assertion that she can.]) I think, thus, that this spelling distinction (cannot/can not) reflects, or, rather, parallels the pragmatic distinction between asserted (new) vs. presupposed (familiar) information and, most importantly, the scope of negation. In (A), the scope is the lexical verb, "sing." The presupposed or familiar information, the subject "she," is not included; only the singing is under the scope of negation . The subject, "she," might have the ability, or permission, to do engage in other activities. In (B), the scope of negation is ambiguous in that its boundary can be any or all of the affirmative statement [both presupposed and asserted information]. Consequently, the scope of negation can be either the presupposed information [subject, "she,"] as in, NOT She can sing [Someone else is able to or has permission to'], or the entire proposition [The speaker disagrees with the assertion that "she" can sing], or only the new, asserted information, e.g. NOT can sing [The subject either does not have the ability or has not been granted permission to do so]. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 30 15:11:31 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:11:31 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > Ah, but not "unsubsribe". D'OH! And I do so want to be subsribben. --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 02:31:04 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:31:04 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <78.fdbf395.27a83236@aol.com> Message-ID: At 10:05 AM -0500 1/30/01, P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: >To distinguish it from the emphatic "can NOT"? >e.g. A) "She cannot sing." [neg. ASSERTION] > vs. > B) "She can not [NOT] sing." (1.DENIAL [She does not have my >permission to > do so] or 2. DISAGREEMENT [I disagree with your assertion that she >can.]) > >I think, thus, that this spelling distinction (cannot/can not) reflects, or, >rather, parallels the pragmatic distinction between asserted (new) vs. >presupposed (familiar) information and, most importantly, the scope of >negation. In (A), the scope is the lexical verb, "sing." The presupposed or >familiar information, the subject "she," is not included; only the singing is >under the scope of negation . The subject, "she," might have the ability, or >permission, to do engage in other activities. In (B), the scope of negation >is ambiguous in that its boundary can be any or all of the affirmative >statement [both presupposed and asserted information]. Consequently, the >scope of negation can be either the presupposed information [subject, >"she,"] as in, NOT She can sing [Someone else is able to or has permission >to'], or the entire proposition [The speaker disagrees with the assertion >that "she" can sing], or only the new, asserted information, e.g. NOT can >sing [The subject either does not have the ability or has not been granted >permission to do so]. Let's assume these observations are all correct. I still don't see how they are more applicable to "CAN + NOT" than they are to "COULD + NOT", but we can't spell the latter as a single item "couldnot". That's why I think there's a certain amount of arbitrariness here. The one persistent difference is the phonology--the fact that "cannot" can, but "could not" cannot, be pronounced with stress on the first syllable and, when it is, with the second vowel reduced to schwa. (Not that it MUST be, but that it CAN be.) But what led to these possibilities? larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 15:47:20 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:47:20 EST Subject: Esperanto Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/01 9:53:25 PM, mssmith at BOONE.NET writes: << What is Esperanto? Thanks, Susan >> Esperanto is a town in Baja California, as I am sure your DESKTOP dictionary will tell you. From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Tue Jan 30 15:54:14 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:54:14 -0500 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 21:31 Subject: Re: The Spelling of Cannot > Let's assume these observations are all correct. I still don't see > how they are more applicable to "CAN + NOT" than they are to "COULD + > NOT", but we can't spell the latter as a single item "couldnot". > That's why I think there's a certain amount of arbitrariness here. > The one persistent difference is the phonology--the fact that > "cannot" can, but "could not" cannot, be pronounced with stress on > the first syllable and, when it is, with the second vowel reduced to > schwa. (Not that it MUST be, but that it CAN be.) But what led to > these possibilities? There's also the presence of various letter doublings in English spelling: ll,ss,tt,oo,ee, and of course, nn. Perhaps it's less a matter of phonetics and meanings than following already present spelling conventions? And I haven't seen many -ldn- or -lln- letter combinations... bkd From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 16:15:16 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:15:16 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE Message-ID: >> >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE >> >> New word? > >Unsubscribe is in AHD4. > >--- Steve K. How about "unsubsribe"? Bethany From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Tue Jan 30 16:19:56 2001 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:19:56 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <49.6bf2cab.27a7752e@aol.com> Message-ID: Are we still doing computer proverbs/phrases? I ran across a good one this morning: DNFTEC: "Do Not Feed The Energy Creature" i.e., don't respond to someone who is obviously trolling or looking for argument. I think this might have a SF background; it sounds vaguely Trekkerish. Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Tue Jan 30 16:34:08 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:34:08 -0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Non-prestige dialects can (probably) be disregarded as they don't set the spelling standards. Benjamin Barrett -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Laurence Horn At 11:50 PM -0800 1/29/01, I wrote: Is it because cannot is the only one where the vowel in the modal verb becomes (can become) a schwa? This would make it more natural to spell it as one word. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com Sounds plausible--we should probably also worry about the variants in Scotland (esp. in Shetland) of the form "shouldna", "wouldna", "dinna", "canna", etc., all with schwas and spelled as one word. larry From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 30 16:48:16 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:48:16 -0500 Subject: "Chain shift" defined Message-ID: I'm sure glad I escaped Michigan before the NCVS spread into rural areas south of Detroit. I can only feel sorry for Dennis, who grew up in one and is surrounded by the other. Herb >>> mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU 01/30/01 10:01AM >>> ...by a student taking my Language and Society course: chain shift is what happens when "a word is mispronounced and over time it gets worse". I trust all you people participating in the Northern Cities or in the Southern shifts will take note and mend your ways. -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 03:51:24 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:51:24 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <045f01c08ad4$e5773ab0$8a70cec0@graphnet.com> Message-ID: At 10:54 AM -0500 1/30/01, Bruce Dykes wrote: >There's also the presence of various letter doublings in English spelling: >ll,ss,tt,oo,ee, and of course, nn. Perhaps it's less a matter of phonetics >and meanings than following already present spelling conventions? > >And I haven't seen many -ldn- or -lln- letter combinations... > >bkd unless you count "couldn't", "wouldn't", "shouldn't", etc., but of course these wear their contraction status on their sleeves. (Although there's a convincing case made by Zwicky and Pullum back in their 1983 Language article that these are all inflected negatives rather than true contractions or clitic combos.) larry From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 30 16:58:24 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:58:24 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Erin's finding is similar to the "Please do not feed the trolls" statement at Steve Gibson's site: [emphasis is on DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS] http://grc.com/discussions.htm George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 17:17:41 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:17:41 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <26445.3189836685@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 09:44 AM 1/30/01 +0000, you wrote: >--On Monday, January 29, 2001 7:21 pm -0600 Mike Salovesh > wrote: >>Illustration: >>This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned >>that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about >>half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant >>tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world >>around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much >>as his better-known contributions to linguistics. > >I assume that by 'Chicago' you mean 'the University of Chicago' (or maybe >'the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago). Hamp may be >influential, but I doubt he's _that_ influential! > >Lynne >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 And why would Hamp's promotion of /SH/ "merit recognition and congratulation"? I assume you're just joshing. . . . Incidentally, a former grad student from England e-mailed me to say she's "a /sk/ gal" (24 or 25 yrs old, London-born, daughter of an ESL teacher who's ultra-prescriptive, and an ESL teacher herself). _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 17:33:26 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:33:26 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:59 AM 1/30/01 -0600, you wrote: >>From: James Smith > >>My wife, born and raised Utah, has always used "sh" >>rather than "sk" to pronounce "schedule"; however, >>"sk" is the typical pronunciation in Utah. > >Such things are possible when you are Mormon. >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com What does this mean??? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 17:47:26 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:47:26 -0500 Subject: Big Blue Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> I don't have any citations handy, but the 1984 date for IBM is too late. By 1984 the "Big Blue" nickname was so well known that a maker of an add-on board for the IBM PC used the name "Baby Blue" for its product. I believe "Big Blue" refers to the fact that at the time blue was the most common color for the side panels of IBM mainframes. (It was not the only color available. At an installation where I worked in the late 1960's, a colleague from Bombay India nicknamed our mainframe as the "Orange Baron" because its side panels were orange.) <<<<< I always associated it with the IBM logotype, which was always printed in blue when color was available (as opposed to, say, b&w newspaper ads). -- Mark A. Mandel From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 17:58:32 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:58:32 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb & hw- In-Reply-To: <3A76374C.A47E1151@missouri.edu> Message-ID: At 09:38 PM 1/29/01 -0600, you wrote: >Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > I'm not so sure the /h/ in 'herb' is totally gone or simply > > idiolectal. I've heard it here in southern Ohio occasionally. In any > > case, I've asked a native of the region to ask around and will report. > >I wonder whether those who want to declare h- and hw- dead, dead, dead are >engaging in a >little wishful thinking so that they won't have to be concerned about >being "wrong" >themselves. At least one hopes they aren't also wishing dead, dead, dead >to apply to the >producers of this quaint little spirant. (Just kidding.) When we've had >discussions of >hw- before on ads-l, and now too, it's pretty clear that this one (but >maybe not hherb) is >evanescing in a generalized language change that transcends regional >dialect boundaries. >I don't think for a New York minute that the media are the initiators of >the change, >because they would promote conservative usage if they could. When I hear >relatives in >Tennessee say the h- in the 3rd person neuter singular pronoun it seems >like the >articulation of this initial consonant is a little different from mine >when I imitate >their pronunciation. >DMLance To follow up on this: I too occasionally hear "hit" here in southern Ohio, from older/rural/males generally, but I won't be absolute on this. When I ask about it in class, my students admit with some embarrassment that their "grandpa or uncle" says it. It seems to me I've only heard it sentence-initially or after a pause; is the /h/ pretty generally lost mid-sentence, or only after a consonant? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 17:56:24 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:56:24 -0500 Subject: No subject Message-ID: dInIs corrects me thus: >>>>> >If you confuse the UK with England, /hw/ is deader (at least for >many parts) than in the US, but if you take a somewhat larger (and >politically correct) view, it's not even slightly ill (or should I >say sick). <<<<< Mngph. All right, right you are. Serves me right, I suppose, for confusing the norms we had at the time for what we internally called our "UK" product with the actual breadth of UK speech. -- Mark From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 18:01:42 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:01:42 -0500 Subject: "Like to" revisited Message-ID: I require many of my students to write "linguistic autobiographies" (an idea I borrowed from RIM many years ago). I just read this sentence from an undergradaate ("here" is Knoxville, TN): "Everybody here talks so differently than they do in Virginia. At times I have difficulty understanding certain sayings and words. For example, I'm fixen to, I ain't gonna, I reckon, and I liked to died." Bethany From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 17:59:59 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:59:59 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: James Landau writes: >>>>> P.S. On a different topic. I once perpetrated the following sentence: [In reference to the Historia Matematica mailing list] "I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? If so, then it is possible to have the word "is" twice in a row without it having to be in quotes. However, it must be admitted that in response to that sentence I received an e-mail from Germany politely requesting me to translate it into English. <<<<< IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat challenging to the reader. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 18:01:43 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:01:43 -0500 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: Dale Coye writes: >>>>> Every year I'm amazed at how many of my freshmen and sophomores do not seem to ever have heard that 'cannot' is written as one word. I can only conclude that many high school teachers aren't aware of it either... so maybe we're in the midst of a change-- I don't think any dictionaries list it as two words? (Too lazy to look right now) <<<<< Some of the blame may belong to the popular fantasy writer Piers Anthony, who always spells it "can not". That is among the many habits of his that have ceased to bother me since I quit reading him. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 18:05:38 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:05:38 -0500 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) Message-ID: Mike Salovesh writes: >>>>> Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps even a dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts save basketball. An additional handful of Hamp- influenced scholars may not go quite that far, but still use the s/k alternation in "celtic" as a case of the kentum/chentum/sentum/tsentum lines of dialect separation in European languages. <<<<< Well, here in the Boston area there is plenty of Celtic music on the radio, always /'kEl.tIk/. But, of course, this *is* the home of the Boston /'sEl.tIks/. >>>>> P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the obvious? <<<<< */'kEl.tIs/ ??????? -- Mark From Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM Tue Jan 30 18:34:56 2001 From: Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM (Wilcox, Rose (ZB5646)) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:34:56 -0700 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: I remember in Highschool in central east Illinois we call them crib shots too. That would be 1972-1976. I thought then that it was related to "cribbing" such as cribbing on a test... something that made the shot easier, kind of mild cheating. Rosie << When I played basketball in grade school, south-central Kentucky, 1970 to 1973, we called these crib shots (or possibly crip shots; I never saw it spelled). John Baker >> From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 18:48:25 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:48:25 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. Message-ID: Tony Glaser wrote: > And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care > less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even > when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in > England, or the former in the US. > > Tony Glaser Now isn't that funny... I've always thought "I could care less" was the original Yiddishism or Yinglish, with the negative inserted by people who didn't know the 22421 intonation pattern (using the old Trager-Smith notation). --db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 30 18:50:08 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:50:08 -0500 Subject: Big Blue Message-ID: IBM either sued or talked about suing a software distribution organization that was known as Big Blue Software, with the time period being late-1980s to early-1990s. Should be a discussion of the issue in some database. IBM's contention was that it was widely known as Big Blue, even though it frowned on the use of that phrase in reference to IBM. Several computer news columnists noted that when they had used Big Blue, as a reference to IBM, there was usually a quick response from IBM, to the effect that the columnist was incorrect in the use of such a phrase. It was felt that 'Big Blue' did not present the image of a small personal organization, as much as it presented the image of a large omnivorous entity. Apparently, IBM had never formally filed paperwork on the Big Blue trademark. I seem to remember that IBM based its claim on the Big Blue name on prior usage, in which Big Blue was used in reference to IBM. IBM provided numerous citations of such earlier usage. I don't know if IBM has a bulletin that provides the history of Big Blue, but there should be a database, somewhere, that contains information about the legal claims. In one of those Big Company vs. Tiny Company legal situations, I think that Big Blue Software agreed to discontinue its use of the Big Blue name, and IBM agreed to let them do that. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 18:56:21 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:56:21 +0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <3A770C6F.6481DC64@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:48 pm -0500 David Bergdahl wrote: > Tony Glaser wrote: > >> And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care >> less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even >> when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in >> England, or the former in the US. Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most (I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when they come across it. M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 30 19:36:45 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:36:45 -0500 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) Message-ID: I've long wondered about the pronunciation of "celtic" with an initial k. Why should "celtic" be pronounced differently from any other word anglicized from Latin? Of course, regardless of the pronunciation, there was no justification for the basketball team's nouning of an adjective. The Boston team should have been named the Celts. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM [SMTP:Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:06 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) > > Mike Salovesh writes: > > >>>>> > Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps even a > dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is > properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts save basketball. > An additional handful of Hamp- influenced scholars may not go quite that > far, but still use the s/k alternation in "celtic" as a case of the > kentum/chentum/sentum/tsentum lines of dialect separation in European > languages. > <<<<< > > Well, here in the Boston area there is plenty of Celtic music on the > radio, > always /'kEl.tIk/. But, of course, this *is* the home of the Boston > /'sEl.tIks/. > > >>>>> > P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", > unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic > is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the > obvious? > <<<<< > > */'kEl.tIs/ ??????? > > -- Mark From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 06:43:35 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:43:35 +0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <2017239.3189869781@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 6:56 PM +0000 1/30/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:48 pm -0500 David Bergdahl > wrote: > >>Tony Glaser wrote: >> >>>And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care >>>less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even >>>when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in >>>England, or the former in the US. > >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >they come across it. Now, now, Lynne, your prescriptivism's showing. What's wrong with a little creative (if by now conventionalized) irony? As David Bergdahl just pointed out (and as Pinker discusses in _The Language Instinct_), 'could care less' isn't just 'couldn't care less' with a forgotten negation, it has a completely different intonation contour (conveying irony/sarcasm) and, if anything, corresponds more closely to "As if I could care less". American English teachers might point this out rather than simply "correcting" it, but they may be too busy convincing the same students that "As if" is not a full sentence. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 06:51:28 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:51:28 +0800 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:36 PM -0500 1/30/01, Baker, John wrote: > I've long wondered about the pronunciation of "celtic" with an >initial k. Why should "celtic" be pronounced differently from any other >word anglicized from Latin? > > Of course, regardless of the pronunciation, there was no >justification for the basketball team's nouning of an adjective. The Boston >team should have been named the Celts. > >John Baker > FWIW, the Catholic football (= soccer) team in Glasgow is the Celtic (not the Celts, and not a plural noun), pronounced [KEL-tIk]. (The Protestant team is the Rangers.) larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 20:19:05 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:19:05 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. Message-ID: >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >they come across it. Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence containing /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. Bethany From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 20:25:28 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:25:28 EST Subject: query--dictionaries and heterosexism Message-ID: A query from someone on another list: I've just finished reading 'Language and Desire', a selection of essays edited by Keith Harvey and Celia Shalom and published by Routledge in 1997. One of the essays is by Harvey himself: '"Everybody loves a lover": gay men, straight men, and a problem of lexical choice'. It discusses and contrasts the terms gay and straight men use to describe their partners/SOs/boyfriends, etc. I was struck by Harvey's statement that "unsurprisingly, in no dictionary that I have consulted does a gay example occur under the headwords 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'lover', 'partner', etc.". Is that still the case? From natebrown1 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 30 20:38:37 2001 From: natebrown1 at JUNO.COM (Nathan H Brown) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:38:37 -0500 Subject: herb; /hw/ Message-ID: Here in Schenectady New York, I've heard a few people saying "herb" with the "h;" it seems to be a half-educated spelling pronunciation. The majority of people say "erb." Most well-educated people here say "erb;" some people seem to be conscious that saying /h3Rb/ is "wrong," and correct people who say it. Apparently the high-priced garden club influence hasn't helped disseminate the "h" pronunciation here. I can remember, as a child, that I said "erb" before I learned to read. Around age six or seven, I started to sound the "h;" I had seen it in writing and I thought that it was more correct to say the "h." But then my mom corrected me, and I went back to "erb." As for the /hw/ cluster, in Schenectady and Utica NY, and in New York City, as far as I can tell, everyone of all ages uses a plain /w/ in all styles of speech. Most people aren't even conscious that it's possible to say these words with /hw/, and many people can't hear the difference. Further north, in the Adirondacks, there's some generational differences--older people say /hw/, younger ones say /w/. I've noticed that ex-President Clinton usually sounds the /h/ in these words. However, with "what," he often just uses /w/. Hillary just uses /w/, as do (or did) all of the Kennedys. Most Californians I've talked to or heard talk also use a plain /w/; almost all of the younger ones do. I can't really speak for northern California, though; almost all of the Californians I've listened to are from southern California. From rkm at SLIP.NET Tue Jan 30 21:42:53 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:42:53 -0800 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > >> Ah, but not "unsubsribe". > >D'OH! > >And I do so want to be subsribben. > >--- Steve K But, I trust, not in public... Rima From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 30 21:58:36 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:58:36 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Which somehow reminded me of one of my all-time favorite comp sci sayings: "Always mount a scratch monkey." The backstory goes like this: In the late '70s (?), a research monkey at the Univ. of Toronto was hooked up to a regulator inside of a water tank (testing the effects of different gas mixtures on the animal's physiology). A tech, working on a computer connected to the monkey, inadvertantly damaged something associated with the experiment and the monkey died. The moral of the story is that you should always make sure you know what you're doing to things "downstream" when you're working on something "upstream." Erin McKean wrote: > > Are we still doing computer proverbs/phrases? I ran across a good one > this morning: > > DNFTEC: "Do Not Feed The Energy Creature" i.e., don't respond to > someone who is obviously trolling or looking for argument. I think > this might have a SF background; it sounds vaguely Trekkerish. > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:12:33 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:12:33 -0500 Subject: Big Blue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: > I don't have any citations handy, but the 1984 date for IBM is too late. > By > 1984 the "Big Blue" nickname was so well known that a maker of an add-on > board for the IBM PC used the name "Baby Blue" for its product. I believe > "Big Blue" refers to the fact that at the time blue was the most common > color > for the side panels of IBM mainframes. (It was not the only color > available. This is the earliest citation from Nexis: 1981 _Business Week_ 8 June (Nexis) "I don't want to be saying I should have stuck with 'Big Blue,'" says one IBM loyalist. The nickname comes from the pervasiveness of IBM's blue computers. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Simon at IPFW.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:21:05 2001 From: Simon at IPFW.EDU (Simon,Beth) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:21:05 -0500 Subject: Call for abstract, ADS @ M/MLA Message-ID: Dear ADS Members and Interested Others, CALL FOR ABSTRACTS AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY SESSION 43nd Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association November 1-3, 2001 Sheraton Cleveland City Centre Cleveland, OH Submit abstracts, 250 word maximum, for presentations at the American Dialect Society session. Topic: Current Research Submission deadline: March 5 Email submission preferred. Email to simon at ipfw.edu Fax: 219-481-6985 Mail: Professor Beth Simon, Dept of English & Linguistics, IPFW, Fort Wayne, IN 46805-1499 Cordially, Beth Simon, Midwest Regional Secretary, ADS Associate Professor, Linguistics and English Indiana University Purdue University simon at ipfw.edu For information about the M/MLA and the 2001 meeting see www.uiowa.edu\~mmla From Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:36:01 2001 From: Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:36:01 -0600 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: I've heard it used that way in the Southern US. In fact I think I may have used "spot" as "pimple." Maybe I shouldn't admit it. I'll ask my mostly Southern linguistics class tonight. Lesa Dill Western Kentucky University From Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:50:58 2001 From: Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:50:58 -0600 Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ Message-ID: I've always thought it was strange that the Southern expression "Why!" as in "Why, bless my soul!" was pronounced [waI] but the question was [hwaI]. That distinction has been around for a long time. And I too have observed that hw is disappearing in the South, but I'm 43 and still have it--always have. Lesa Dill Western Kentucky Univ. From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 30 20:18:08 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:18:08 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:59:59 -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM writes: > > IMHO, grammatical beyond question, I concur. But how do I convince my Spell Checker? D From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 30 18:41:27 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:41:27 -0500 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:05:38 -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM writes:\ > Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps > even a > dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is > properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts Almost all. I have sitting on my desk a celt -- always pronounced selt -- which is a mesolithic stone tool like an ax head, used to gouge out wood as in making a dugout canoe. Different etymology from the Celts, one of which is also sitting at my desk. D From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:57:16 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:57:16 -0500 Subject: herb; /hw/ In-Reply-To: <20010130.153838.-3964389.0.natebrown1@juno.com> Message-ID: At 03:38 PM 1/30/01 -0500, you wrote: >Here in Schenectady New York, I've heard a few people saying "herb" with >the "h;" it seems to be a half-educated spelling pronunciation. The >majority of people say "erb." Most well-educated people here say "erb;" >some people seem to be conscious that saying /h3Rb/ is "wrong," and >correct people who say it. Apparently the high-priced garden club >influence hasn't helped disseminate the "h" pronunciation here. I can >remember, as a child, that I said "erb" before I learned to read. Around >age six or seven, I started to sound the "h;" I had seen it in writing >and I thought that it was more correct to say the "h." But then my mom >corrected me, and I went back to "erb." > >As for the /hw/ cluster, in Schenectady and Utica NY, and in New York >City, as far as I can tell, everyone of all ages uses a plain /w/ in all >styles of speech. Most people aren't even conscious that it's possible to >say these words with /hw/, and many people can't hear the difference. >Further north, in the Adirondacks, there's some generational >differences--older people say /hw/, younger ones say /w/. I've noticed >that ex-President Clinton usually sounds the /h/ in these words. However, >with "what," he often just uses /w/. Hillary just uses /w/, as do (or >did) all of the Kennedys. Most Californians I've talked to or heard talk >also use a plain /w/; almost all of the younger ones do. I can't really >speak for northern California, though; almost all of the Californians >I've listened to are from southern California. I want to make clear that the /h/ pronunciation for 'herb' that I hear in southern Ohio is not an issue of educated vs. uneducated people, or even of pseudo-sophisticated (the Martha Stewart type) vs. not hip. This is basically a regional feature, and while it may be disappearing, it can still be mapped, I think. I'm also not surprised that older people in the Adirondacks still have /hw/, as do some yet in these Appalachian foothills. Clinton's 50-something generation (in the Ozark extension of the mountains) has lost it but inconsistently (a student just reminded me that Dan Rather, 65-ish, has /hw/ pretty consistently, so much so that he once generalized it to speak of Diana, Princess of /hwelz/). Hillary, as a Chicagoan, never had it; nor do New Englanders or those in the vast general West. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 23:54:35 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:54:35 +0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <3A7ED178@webmail.utk.edu> from "Bethany K. Dumas" at Jan 30, 2001 03:19:05 PM Message-ID: > > >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most > >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when > >they come across it. > > Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence > containing > /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't spell phonetically in English most of the time. But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you mean "I couldn't carry it". As Hans Hock was fond of saying in my historical lx class, phonological reduction has to be balanced with semantic preservation, else all languages would evolve toward expressing everything as "uh" (for lack of a schwa on my keyboard). Lynne M From patty0278 at FAST.NET Wed Jan 31 00:13:27 2001 From: patty0278 at FAST.NET (Patty Jones) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:13:27 -0500 Subject: mailings Message-ID: Please remove my name from futher mailings. I don't know how I got on in the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 31 00:23:23 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:23:23 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member Message-ID: Elizabeth Bogner and Jesse Sheidlower take great pleasure in announcing the birth of Noa Catherine Sheidlower 30 January 2001 6 lb., 8 oz., 19" long Mother, daughter, father, and sister Maisie are all doing fine. Best, Jesse Sheidlower OED From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 11:38:10 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:38:10 +0800 Subject: herb; /hw/ In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010130174105.020be4b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 5:57 PM -0500 1/30/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> > >I want to make clear that the /h/ pronunciation for 'herb' that I hear in >southern Ohio is not an issue of educated vs. uneducated people, or even of >pseudo-sophisticated (the Martha Stewart type) vs. not hip. This is >basically a regional feature, and while it may be disappearing, it can >still be mapped, I think. I'm also not surprised that older people in the >Adirondacks still have /hw/, as do some yet in these Appalachian >foothills. Clinton's 50-something generation (in the Ozark extension of >the mountains) has lost it but inconsistently (a student just reminded me >that Dan Rather, 65-ish, has /hw/ pretty consistently, so much so that he >once generalized it to speak of Diana, Princess of /hwelz/). Hillary, as a >Chicagoan, never had it; nor do New Englanders or those in the vast general >West. > >_____________________________________________ This is a bit over-generalized. My wife, a 50-something New Englander, has hw- consistently. I, a 50-something New Yorker, do not (except in self-conscious correction contexts: "Was that [WE-dh at r] or [HWE-dh at r]?") larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 11:47:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:47:42 +0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:54 PM +0000 1/30/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: > > >> >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >> >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >> >they come across it. >> >> Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >> containing >> /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. > >Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't >spell phonetically in English most of the time. > >But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a >good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this >logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you >mean "I couldn't carry it". > >As Hans Hock was fond of saying in my historical lx class, phonological >reduction has to be balanced with semantic preservation, else all languages >would evolve toward expressing everything as "uh" (for lack of a schwa on >my keyboard). > I dispute the assumption that this IS a least-effort reduction, or you wouldn't have the difference in intonation patterns we were alluding to earlier today (again, see Pinker's anti-Safire chapter for a detailed account of this). Your objection here would be analogous not to a true least effort reduction (phone for telephone, bus for omnibus, OSU for The Ohio State University, PC for either personal communication or personal computer or politically correct, depending on the context), but to the use of "That was a great idea" or "You're a fine friend". Yes, in writing there may be some confusion, but not generally in spoken language or when there's a real context. And I'm not sure there's ever a context in which "I could care less" would be uttered when it would be intended literally rather than sarcastically. In any case, semantically relevant information is regularly omitted--think of anaphora, involving both null and overt pronouns. As you say (and as Paul, Zipf, Martinet, and other functionalists were fond of pointing out), there is a balance between speaker and hearer, but that balance isn't violated in the "I could care less" case. larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 31 00:43:36 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:43:36 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member Message-ID: Congratulations, Jesse et al! When do we get a photo of Noa Catherine? And what does Maisie look like now? Bethany From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:01:01 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:01:01 -0500 Subject: mailings In-Reply-To: <000a01c08b1a$a2feec00$fb0c5cd1@oemcomputer> Message-ID: Patty Jones said: >Please remove my name from futher mailings. I don't know how I got on in >the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net There's been a recent spate of these, from non-edu addresses. I know we all had a lot of fun speculating about general clue level, but is it possible that someone's forge-subscribing people to ADS-L? Jesse, Grant? Alice -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:03:34 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:03:34 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower said: >Elizabeth Bogner and Jesse Sheidlower take great pleasure in >announcing the birth of > >Noa Catherine Sheidlower > >30 January 2001 >6 lb., 8 oz., 19" long > >Mother, daughter, father, and sister Maisie are all doing >fine. Mega-congratulations! Alice -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:10:11 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:10:11 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. Message-ID: Lynne weote: >> >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >> >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >> >they come across it. >> >> Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >> containing >> /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. > >Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't >spell phonetically in English most of the time. I was not thinking of writing, I was thinking of epeech. I have seldom seen "I could care less" in writing except in quoted dialogue. And: >But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a >good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this >logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you >mean "I couldn't carry it". A friend of mine (a linguist who does hang out here, so far as I know) tells the story of proposing to his wife and being momentarily uncerain whether she had said (softly), "I want to" or something like "I won't do it." Some of us do not need an excuse to leave out semantically relevant information! Bethany From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 01:49:41 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:49:41 EST Subject: Mostaccioli (1904); Creamed Spaghetti Message-ID: MOSTACCIOLI (1904) OED editors should note that little kids love "mostaccioli." The NYPL picks up with THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL in volume II (1904). July 1904, THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL, pg. 30, col. 2: LORENZ BROS. MACARONI CO., Milwaukee, Wis. (...) Mostaccioli or Cut Macaroni...6 1/4 cents (per lb.--ed.) July 1904, THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL, pg. 32, col. 1: MEMPHIS MACARONI CO., Memphis, Tenn. (...) Mostacioli, or short cut Macaroni, bulk...1.35 (per box--ed.) (...) Mostacioli, "Romeo," Short Cut Macaroni, 20 lb. box, bulk...1.10 Mostacioli, "Romeo," Short Cut Macaroni, 25 lb. box, bulk...1.37 1/2 -------------------------------------------------------- CREAMED SPAGHETTI ON TOAST From THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL, June 1908, pg. 6, col. 2: At one of the well-known and fashionable New York restaurants recently, the chef served creamed spaghetti on toast and the "new" dish met with such a cordial welcome, it is likely it will be served in a number of public eating houses. The recipe for creamed spaghetti on toast is as follows:--Put a good-sized kettle over the fire and partly fill it with boiling water. Weigh six ounces of spaghetti; take a few pieces at a time, hold the ends in the boiling water for a moment; as soon as they soften, press slightly, so that all will be softened and in the water. Cover the kettle and boil rapidly for twenty minutes. Drain in a colander. Cut the spaghetti into tiny pieces. Put one rounding tablespoonful of flour and one of butter into a small sauce pan and mix over the fire until smooth, but do not brown. Add one-half of a pint of cream, stir (Pg. 7, col. 1--ed.) continually until boiling, take from the fire, add one-half of a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper and the! spaghetti. Place the saucepan over boiling water until the whole is well heated. Toast--and do not burn--the bread, butter it and pour over it the creamed spaghetti. Dust with grated cheese and serve. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:53:22 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:53:22 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <3A7ED178@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: >I hope some of them English teachers come over to my house and make >me and my friends try to stop saying "I could care less" some >afternoon. dInIs (feelin his oats and could care less) > >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >>(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >>they come across it. > >Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >containing >/dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. > >Bethany -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 02:56:39 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:56:39 EST Subject: Beef Stroganoff Message-ID: OED has "Beef Stroganoff" from 1932, but the details of its origin are not given. This article indicates it first rose to fame from a Russian chef in Paris (1920s?). From THE INTERNATIONAL STEWARD, December 1935, pg. 70, col. 2: _St. Regis Hotel Boasts of Rival_ _for Fame of Chefs_ SEMPLICH IGNATOVICH CLAIMED BY HOTEL TO BE "FIND" OF COOKERY FIELD A RIVAL for the fame of Ranhofer, of Monselet and of Brillat-Savarin, in the realm of distinguished cookery, is Semplich Ignatovich (Not a single trace on a web search--ed.), whose dishes as created in the Maisonette Russe of the Hotel St. Regis would be difficult to surpass in any kitchen in the world today, according to the hotel. Once chef to the late Czar Nicholas II, this Russian's name, only three months known on these shores, has come to be synonymous with exotic, tantalizing cookery, in the opinion of B. S. Bercovici. His cooking is full of violent contrasts and discords, and yet it fascinates the American palate once it has become familiar with it. The name of Ignatovich's dishes are to be murmured by gourmet like a recitative of sweet symphonies. There are his Shashlik Caucasien, baby lamb brought in on a flaming skewer (originally a sword); Boeuf a la Stroganoff, a finely chopped filet mignon mixed with mushrooms, cream, fresh tomato puree, all cooked to a delicate rose tint; Poussin a la Broche, the most succulent of all small whole chickens, served also in flame; and blini, buckwheat pancakes served with melted butter, sour cream and caviar. Ignatovich came to New York when Madame Olga Tokaroff (Also no hits on NY Times Personal Name Index--ed.) brought the Maisonette Russe from Rue du Mont Thabor to Fifth Avenue. This boite, as it was first established in Paris, was the Russian woman refugee's dream of a grand salon to succor her exiled countrymen. That it fulfilled its mission is history in Paris. In October, the Maisonette Russe was brought in toto (chef, entertainers, atmosphere) to the Hotel St. Regis and was ensconced in the basement in a Scheherezade setting, inspired by designs from Leon (Col. 3--ed.) Bakst and by decorations from Colwell and Peferle. The distinguished chef suggests the method for preparing some of his more famous dishes: _Boeuf Strogonoff_ (Beef a la Strogonoff) 1 lb. lean beef (preferably the fillet) 1 pint of stock 2 tablespoons of sour cream 1 tablespoon tomato juice 1 tablespoon flour 1 tablespoon butter Onion, salt and pepper Cut the meat into inch squares, sprinkle freely with salt and a little pepper and let it stand for 2 hours. Brown the flour in the butter, work to a smooth paste, add the hot stock gradually, bring to the boil and strain. Then stir in the tomato juice and sour cream. Fry the meat in butter on a very quick fire with a little chopped onion. When brown put the pieces of meat in the sauce and simmer for 15 minutes. Bring to the boil, stirring well and serve at once. (Recipes for "Caucasian Shashlik" and "Blinis" follow--ed.) From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 31 03:07:39 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:07:39 -0800 Subject: mailings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Like Alice, I have wondered the same thing from time to time. I don't read a lot of lists, but, I've never seen one where so many people get subscribed apparently unwillingly and then have no clue how to get unsubscribed--especially when you get an acknowledgement when you subscribe that contains explicit instructions on how to leave the list. The recent spate of postings is unusual but I think we've had episodes like this before, if memory serves. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Alice Faber wrote: > Patty Jones said: > >Please remove my name from futher mailings. I don't know how I got on in > >the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net > > There's been a recent spate of these, from non-edu addresses. I know we all > had a lot of fun speculating about general clue level, but is it possible > that someone's forge-subscribing people to ADS-L? Jesse, Grant? > > Alice > -- > Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 > Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 > 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu > New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu > From dmsnake at USIT.NET Wed Jan 31 03:22:22 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 22:22:22 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: Wouldn't it be better to replace the "is is" with "was was"? But "is was" might be OK as well. Either way, it might be stylistically better to make it "I thought that a requirement for joining this list was knowing who Tartaglia was." (To speak for myself, I didn't know who Tartaglia was until just a few minutes ago.) Snake Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: > James Landau writes: > > >>>>> > P.S. On a different topic. I once perpetrated the following sentence: [In > reference to the Historia Matematica mailing list] "I thought that knowing > who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list". [Tartaglia was a > Medieval Italian mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? If so, then > it is possible to have the word "is" twice in a row without it having to be > in quotes. However, it must be admitted that in response to that sentence I > received an e-mail from Germany politely requesting me to translate it into > English. > <<<<< > > IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat challenging to the reader. > > -- Mark A. Mandel From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 31 02:51:46 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:51:46 -0500 Subject: could care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At 11:54 PM +0000 1/30/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >> > >>> >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >>> >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >>> >they come across it. >>> >>>Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >>>containing >>>/dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. >> >>Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't >>spell phonetically in English most of the time. >> >>But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a >>good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this >>logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you >>mean "I couldn't carry it". >> >>As Hans Hock was fond of saying in my historical lx class, phonological >>reduction has to be balanced with semantic preservation, else all languages >>would evolve toward expressing everything as "uh" (for lack of a schwa on >>my keyboard). >> Larry said: (edited) >And I'm not sure there's ever a context in which "I >could care less" would be uttered when it would be intended literally rather than sarcastically. All the technicalities are far beyond me, but at a gut level I just don't buy the notion that when Americans say "I could care less" they are adopting a sarcastic version of "I couldn't care less". I think it is just said as a dismissive comment. Next time someone says it to me I will point it out, and I'll be interested to see if they say something along the lines of "Well, obviously, what I _really_ mean is that I could _not_ care less" or if there is an uncomprehending response implying "I just mean that I don't care". Not that the speaker's interpretation of what he or she says necessarily proves its origin at all . . . . Tony Glaser From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 04:30:42 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:30:42 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: >>"I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for >>joining >>this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian >>mathematician.] Is this >>sentence grammatical? > >IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat >challenging to the reader. > > IMH idiolect, ungrammatical, but for a different reason. "Think" has to agree in tense with the clause following it. So I can't say "I thought that he is from France" or the above quote. But the following are both OK by me: I think that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list. I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is was a requirement for joining this list. The embedded part, about Tartaglia, is free to be "is" or "was", and would almost certainly come out "was" in the second sentence. Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 04:55:34 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:55:34 -0500 Subject: I could care less Message-ID: >I dispute the assumption that this IS a least-effort reduction, or >you wouldn't have the difference in intonation patterns we were >alluding to earlier today (again, see Pinker's anti-Safire chapter >for a detailed account of this). I enjoyed Pinker's anti-Safire chapter as much as I do Barry Popik's bimonthly invective directed at the same target, but I must confess that in my younger and more innocent years, I would say things like "I could care less about X" or "I could really care less about X" without using the sarcastic intonation. I can use a straight, declarative intonation, or more likely a sort of emphatic, impatient intonation (accompanied by wrist-twisting gesture -- anybody with me?). You can tell I haven't been trained in the Trager-Smith numerical system. Now I don't know if the sarcastic care-lessers ever would, but I wouldn't have ever said "Like I could care less about X" or "As if I could care less about X" So I think some speakers are indeed guilty of the (God forbid) illogic that Safire et al. attack. It could have started sarcastically, and transferred over to speakers who lack the specific (Yiddish?) intonation pattern alluded to earlier: an interesting kind of shift where pragmatics (sarcasm) is replaced by a sort of marked, backward semantics. What I'm trying to say is that it ends up like one of those expressions where you just have to know it means the opposite of what it sounds like, such as the alleged Bostonianism "So don't I." "Same difference" is similar, and there must be others. Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 05:35:32 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 00:35:32 -0500 Subject: Double Scoop Message-ID: I posted a reply regarding "is is" and one regarding "could care less" and was scooped on both of them! My problem is that I use Hotmail, and as I go through the messages I delete them one by one (or move them to a Folder if truly memorable). So if I want to reply to a message, I'm taking a risk that later in my Inbox, someone hasn't already made the same point that I'm about to. I suppose I could hit "Next" instead of "Delete" if I think I want to respond, and read through all new messages before writing any replies. Any insights on what the best way to proceed might be would be greatly appreciated. So the reason for my redundant postings is that I was careless, not that I care less. Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From indigo at WELL.COM Wed Jan 31 07:12:44 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:12:44 -0800 Subject: bubble tea/milk tea In-Reply-To: <200101310501.VAA20890@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: >Has "bubble" tea been going around? It's tea and milk and sugar and >tapioca balls about half an inch in diameter. One drinks it through >a very large straw, big enough to suck up the tapioca balls. There >is an Asian mall near me that sells a lot of it - but since it's a >Pan-Asian mall, I think it's Taiwanese primarily, but I'm not sure. Bubble tea, aka tapioca tea, aka pearl tea is Taiwanese in origin. Here in the SF Bay Area I think it hasn't quite caught on among non-Asians, except in places like Berkeley near UC campus where there is such a massive Asian influence. (Within a couple blocks of campus are at least half a dozen shops selling tapioca.) Also it seems like mostly younger people are into tapioca. Anyway, the most common forms involve tea -- "pearl milk tea" -- but you can also get fruit &/or ice cream versions. Sort of like a smoothie or a milkshake w/ tapioca. Some places sell drinks w/ or w/o pearls, so when ordering you'd say, "& I'd like pearls (or tapioca) w/ that". I think "pearl" and "tapioca" are both much more common than "bubble". There are also hot pearl drinks, but those are significantly less common than cold ones. Indigo, who prefers a lychee pearl drink with no dairy Indigo Som indigo at well.com Come on home, little darlin Everything's gonna be just fine We got ice, we got a front porch & all the girls have big ol dreams like mine ---Freakwater From rkm at SLIP.NET Wed Jan 31 07:43:44 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:43:44 -0800 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: >Elizabeth Bogner and Jesse Sheidlower take great pleasure in >announcing the birth of > >Noa Catherine Sheidlower Mazel Tov!! Will everyone be coming to DSNA then? How is Maisie reacting? Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 09:02:53 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 04:02:53 EST Subject: I could care less (Safire Watch is ended) Message-ID: I have decided to retire the "Safire Watch." This has been prompted the thought that the man might be ill. Also, Allan Metcalf wrote to me privately to end it. In law or in medicine, I would have gone to professional committees. I would not have had to beg all ADS members for help. This would have been corrected years ago. Errors would not be allowed to stand as fact. For anyone who is new to this, I'll briefly re-state what happened: I work as a low-paid parking ticket judge. I have no employment protections and I get no benefits. I make no money from etymology, no one pays for my expenses (they're not even tax-deductible), and I always give my work away for free. Gerald Cohen and I solved "the Big Apple" about nine years ago. I expected to see it in The New York Times, which has both a metro section and a weekly column on language. I work with William Safire's cousin, Jeff Panish. On his cousin's advice, I sent a mountain of stuff to Safire, including an invitation to the 1992 American Name Society annual dinner (attended by the late Fred Cassidy). I told Safire the importance of finding living witnesses, and how he could really help. Safire never replied. A year later, SAFIRE'S NEW POLITICAL DICTIONARY came out and got "the Big Apple" all wrong. Safire subsequently apologized to Gerald Cohen--but not to me. Week after week, year after year, Safire's cousin would cut out Safire's column and laugh at me. Finally, a mere eight years later, while I was vacationing in Norway in August 2000, Safire's assistant told me that Safire would write a "Big Apple column." I was led to believe that John J. Fitz Gerald's important words would finally make the New York Times. Out of respect for John J. Fitz Gerald (I always correctly spelled the name) and the stable hands to whom his words gave credit, I cooperated. We were all double-crossed. My corrections were censored. His new assistant refused to speak to me, and censored other my work as well. All of that awful stuff still remains until there is some apology and some correction. I don't regret any of my anger, which I feel is justifiable. I'm just saying that I think the guy may be ill, and I don't want to beat a dead horse, so the Safire Watch is officially closed. From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Wed Jan 31 09:08:03 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 03:08:03 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: Mike Salovesh wrote: >>This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned >>that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about >>half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant >>tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world >>around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much >>as his better-known contributions to linguistics. > And why would Hamp's promotion of /SH/ "merit recognition and > congratulation"? I assume you're just joshing. . . . Good heavens, no -- in the distinguished company of ADS-L, I wouldn't dare. I've admired Eric ever since I took his "Introduction to linguistics" course in 1955, and I'm perfectly willing to use any excuse to congratulate him. What's really valiant about Eric's retention of the SH schedule lies precisely in the fact that he has been steadfast in his pronunciation despite the fact that his is a lone voice in an ocean of SK. That faithful service to a distant community of SH users surely is a triumph of conviction in the face of massive opposition. Lynne Murphy commented: >I assume that by 'Chicago' you mean 'the University of Chicago' (or maybe >'the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago). Hamp may be >influential, but I doubt he's _that_ influential! Contrariwise: The University of Chicago is densely (almost exclusively) inhabited by contrarians. "Chicago style debate" is based on the premise that disagreement is the only proper road to wisdom. At the U of C, the greater the scholar, the greater the disagreement. Eric P. Hamp constitutes a majority all by himself. It's the fact that nobody at The University of Chicago follows him in his SH schedule that proves precisely how influential he is there. When I said Chicago, I meant to be inclusive. I wouldn't even object to being interpreted as having said something about the entire Chicago metropolitan area. Hamp is the only half-century resident of Chicago I've ever met who uses SH in schedule, but one case still makes a dot on a distribution map. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Wed Jan 31 09:58:52 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 03:58:52 -0600 Subject: Pronouncing Celtic Message-ID: My thanks to Mark Mandel, who called attention to my error in the following: >>>>> P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the obvious? <<<<< Of course what I meant to say was "The second C in celtic is NEVER phonemic /s/." I'm sorry that I made an S of myself. Mark is quite right about /k/ appearing as both the initial and the final consonant in Celtic as the word is pronounced by many in Boston. Hamp himself used to attribute his pronunciation of both schedule and Celtic to the lingering influence of his Bostonian background. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 10:10:33 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:10:33 EST Subject: "Like to" revisited Message-ID: I've heard all of those. In fact, I've heard speakers "correct" (basilect vs. mesolect?) the "liked to died" to "liked to have died." PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 10:13:43 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:13:43 EST Subject: "is is" Message-ID: Many (most?) style manuals/grammar books suggest putting a comma between the two (probably to reflect the pause, and, thus, to avoid confusion). PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 11:47:06 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:47:06 +0000 Subject: query--dictionaries and heterosexism In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 30, 2001 3:25 pm +0000 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > A query from someone on another list: > I was struck by Harvey's statement that "unsurprisingly, in no > dictionary that I have consulted does a gay example occur under the > headwords 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'lover', 'partner', etc.". > > Is that still the case? I don't find that unsurprising at all. Most dictionaries are not going to bother with examples for (relatively) concrete nouns at all, and those who do are not going to give a rainbow of examples. (Every major dictionary that I've seen reviewed in the popular press in the past decade has taken a beating for being 'too PC'.) I'm not going to look up these words in all the dictionaries I have, since I don't expect to find examples to comment upon (and the original querier could do this him/herself). But I have looked in the Collins Cobuild, which does have examples fror just about every definition. All the romantic/sexual examples for 'boyfriend' involve a female partner, for 'girlfriend' involve a male partner, for 'lover' involve mixed-sex couples, and for 'partner' are gender-neutral ('Wanting other friends doesn't mean you don't love your partner.') Now, whether the definitions are neutral regarding the sex of the (other) partner is another matter, and any dictionary worth its salt will reflect this sort-of-complementary gender neutrality. So, e.g., NODE's definition for 'girlfriend' is 'a person's regular female companion with whom they have a romantic or sexual relationship.' (Way to go, NODE, using the gender-neutral, number-neutral 3rd person!) AHD4 does mention same-sex couples at 'marriage' and in the Usage Note for 'domestic partner'. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 13:07:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:07:05 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just want to assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty one: there are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with (e.g., anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical categories); my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form in specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued here before, deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot support); and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those prescriptions, but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined behavior generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the prize for January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily count e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also recognize that not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them either) is not a sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have a certain respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that metalinguistic awareness of them is never a bad thing. OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of Americans say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers are particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular as well as my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt your supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's something ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just an unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree with you that its phonological reduction is not really semantically damaging. But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a necessary first step. Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the 'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an idiolectal fantasyland? Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Glenmtz505 at CS.COM Wed Jan 31 12:56:43 2001 From: Glenmtz505 at CS.COM (Glenn Martinez) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:56:43 EST Subject: Call for Papers - ADS/RMMLA Message-ID: FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS The American Dialect Society is now accepting proposals for papers to be delivered at its annual conjoint meeting with the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. The Convention will be held in Vancouver, BC Canada and will run from October 11 - 13, 2001. Papers dealing with any aspect of the dialects of English or other languages spoken in the United States will be considered and those dealing with Canadian dialects, language contact in Canada, and dialect contact in Canada or along the US/Canada border are especially welcome. Please send one 150 word abstract by e-mail or two abstracts by regular mail (one with author's name, the other anonymous) to the address listed below no later than March 15, 2001. Glenn A. Martinez Department of Modern Languages The University of Texas at Brownsville 80 Fort Brown Brownsville, TX 78520 gamartinez1 at utb1.utb.edu From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 13:35:40 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:35:40 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: Lynne, Just before the Christmas break, the ATEG list had a longish discussion of prescriptivism. These are largely college and high school grammar teachers, many of them linguistically trained and aware of the issues. A point widely held among them is that, while it's very important for students to master prescriptive rules and write accordingly, the rules themselves should be recognized as the social norms they are, rather like table manners and dress codes. My students respond well to this analogy. It allows us to talk about the rules and see where they don't make sense linguistically at the same time as we are observing language use at multiple social levels and in different dialect contexts. Students tend to be pretty bright about this. The hard part is getting them to see the relevance of in-depth study of the structure of English. As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true today of "fast" Don't walk so fast. where "fastly" doesn't even exist, but it's also true of "slow". The difference is that prescriptivists will insist on "Walk slowly", not "walk slow". There is no historical basis for their judgment. Could it be that "good" is going the way of "fast" slow? Herb >>> lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK 01/31/01 08:07AM >>> OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just want to assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty one: there are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with (e.g., anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical categories); my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form in specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued here before, deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot support); and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those prescriptions, but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined behavior generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the prize for January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily count e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also recognize that not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them either) is not a sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have a certain respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that metalinguistic awareness of them is never a bad thing. OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of Americans say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers are particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular as well as my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt your supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's something ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just an unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree with you that its phonological reduction is not really semantically damaging. But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a necessary first step. Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the 'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an idiolectal fantasyland? Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 00:44:04 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:44:04 +0800 Subject: I could care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:55 PM -0500 1/30/01, D. Ezra Johnson wrote: > >It could have started sarcastically, and transferred over to speakers who >lack the specific (Yiddish?) intonation pattern alluded to earlier: an >interesting kind of shift where pragmatics (sarcasm) is replaced by a sort >of marked, backward semantics. What I'm trying to say is that it ends up >like one of those expressions where you just have to know it means the >opposite of what it sounds like, such as the alleged Bostonianism > >"So don't I." > >"Same difference" is similar, and there must be others. > I think it is a lot like "So don't/can't I" (which, for those not familiar with the New Englandism, means "So do I"). This too is most plausibly reconstructed as a sarcasm that became conventionalized, although here we end up with an "extra" negative instead of a missing one. In pushing a sarcastic origin for "could care less" I was trying to draw a contrast with cases of true least-effort reductions of negation, as in the ongoing loss of preverbal "ne" in French now that the post-verbal reinforcer "pas" (originally = 'step', as in "I didn't walk a step") has taken on negative force. (This reflects the so-called "Jespersen's Cycle"; something very similar happened to the Middle English pre-verbal particle "ne" and the Middle Dutch "en".) In such cases, we have a real least-effort-based reduction and no sarcasm was ever involved. I think Dan (and earlier Tony) is right in noting that there's no conscious, on-line sarcasm involved (or, I would say, necessarily involved) in current uses of "I could care less", but this sort of conventionalization is not unknown; for many speakers "You're a fine friend", with any intonation contour, can only mean the opposite of what it seems to mean. larry From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 13:50:53 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:50:53 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At our own ADS meeting earlier this month Tagliamonte and Ito gave a >very intereting paper on both the backgrounds and current >distribution of the -ly monster. dInIs >Lynne, > >Just before the Christmas break, the ATEG list had a longish >discussion of prescriptivism. These are largely college and high >school grammar teachers, many of them linguistically trained and >aware of the issues. A point widely held among them is that, >while it's very important for students to master prescriptive >rules and write accordingly, the rules themselves should be >recognized as the social norms they are, rather like table manners >and dress codes. My students respond well to this analogy. It >allows us to talk about the rules and see where they don't make >sense linguistically at the same time as we are observing language >use at multiple social levels and in different dialect contexts. >Students tend to be pretty bright about this. The hard part is >getting them to see the relevance of in-depth study of the >structure of English. > >As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of >adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true >today of "fast" > >Don't walk so fast. > >where "fastly" doesn't even exist, but it's also true of "slow". >The difference is that prescriptivists will insist on "Walk >slowly", not "walk slow". There is no historical basis for their >judgment. Could it be that "good" is going the way of "fast" >slow? > >Herb > >>>> lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK 01/31/01 08:07AM >>> >OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just >want to >assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty >one: there >are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with >(e.g., >anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical >categories); >my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form >in >specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued >here before, >deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot >support); >and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those >prescriptions, >but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined >behavior >generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having >conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the >prize for >January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily >count >e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also >recognize that >not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them >either) is not a >sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have >a certain >respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that >metalinguistic >awareness of them is never a bad thing. > >OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of >Americans >say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers >are >particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular >as well as >my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt >your >supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's >something >ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just >an >unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree >with you >that its phonological reduction is not really semantically >damaging. But >this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story >for why >it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a >necessary >first step. > >Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that >Englishfolk >frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of >non-standard >forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or >the >'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of >Englishpeople have >complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, >they can't >take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives >where they >should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that >this is >coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done >good" (as >heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say >"you done >good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly >encouragement as well >as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. >Now,this is >not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is >a >difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning >involved when >one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living >in an >idiolectal fantasyland? > >Lynne > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 14:01:24 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:01:24 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. Exasperated 1:16" I have only seen the above once, but I seem to recall that it was professionally printed and may have been for sale, therefore not a one-shot. The following are from outside the computer field, but I have encountered them frequently when discussing computer programming: "Never reinvent the wheel" "Close only counts in horseshoes" (I prefer the variant "Close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades") Eric S. Raymond (author of _The New Hacker's Dicitonary_) in Byte magazine, January 1992, page 406 had the following: 1. Don't ever commit to a standard until you see at least three different conforming products from different vendors. 2. Don't ever believe a standards announcment made solo by the market leader in any product category, especially if it happens to be IBM. 3. the value of a standard is inversely proportional to the weight of its documentation...Be suspicious of any standard that your best techie can't grasp in a week. 3. is a variation on an old saying in aircraft manufacturing: "no airplane is ready to fly until the weight of the plans equals the weight of the plane." 2. is not universal but was specific to circa 1992. IBM used to be able to release products and everyone else would adopt them as a standard (e.g. the original PC architecture, the 102-key keyboard, the floppy disk, etc.) but by 1992 many vendors were deliberately ignoring IBM. Currently Microsoft has the power to unilaterally create standards, but this too may change. Finally, a cliche in a long-ago staff meeting that seems apt to this mailing list: "Everyone wants to say his dog was in the fight." - Jim Landau From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 14:04:41 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:04:41 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 8:35 am -0500 Herb Stahlke wrote: > Just before the Christmas break, the ATEG list had a longish > discussion of prescriptivism. These are largely college and high > school grammar teachers, many of them linguistically trained and > aware of the issues. A point widely held among them is that, > while it's very important for students to master prescriptive > rules and write accordingly, the rules themselves should be > recognized as the social norms they are, rather like table manners > and dress codes. My students respond well to this analogy. It > allows us to talk about the rules and see where they don't make > sense linguistically at the same time as we are observing language > use at multiple social levels and in different dialect contexts. > Students tend to be pretty bright about this. The hard part is > getting them to see the relevance of in-depth study of the > structure of English. yes, this is the position that I was trying to express with the discussion of 'arbitrary cultural conventions'. > As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of > adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true > today of "fast" > > Don't walk so fast. Yes, but 'fast' has long been considered to be an adverb in its own right, in the UK as well as the US. I agree with my British interlocutors that you often hear adjectives doing adverbial work in US English--but that their evidence is 'ya done good' makes me think that they're misinterpreting a set phrase with some humorous affect (that UK English doesn't have) as a part of a more general pseudo-standard pattern that they therefore interpret to be foreign to UK English. I'm neither convinced that 'ya done good' is only found in adv/adj-conflating varieties, nor that adjectives-as-adverbs are unheard of in UK non-standard dialects (which my interlocutors seemed to be claiming--that it's only Americans who would say things like "I walked slow" or "I feel good"). Certainly, the pattern of adj-to-adv is not so widespread as one of my more American-disparaging acquaintances would have it--I can't imagine anyone saying "I can't come, unfortunate." Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:28:05 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:28:05 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <229870.3189935225@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 1:07 PM +0000 1/31/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: [skipping over the "could(n't) care" stuff on which we've spoken our respective pieces by now] >Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk >frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard >forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the >'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have >complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't >take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they >should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is >coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as >heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done >good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well >as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is >not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a >difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when >one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an >idiolectal fantasyland? > While the adverbial use of "good" and other adverbs-in-adjectival-clothing ("You played real good") relates to the prescriptivism thread, I think there's something else going on in the mainstreaming of "You done good", which is covert prestige dialect borrowing, where a particular construction from what is perceived as a lower-class dialect than the one the speaker normally employs is imported wholesale for various sociolinguistic reasons. So the importation of "You done good" into "middle-class" U.S. speech is more like that of "If it ain't broke don't fix it" or "You ain't seen nothin' yet" or even "No problemo" or, once upon a time, "Long time no see" than a simple matter of adverbializing an adjective. I've heard "You done good, Sam" on a commercial for life insurance (the voice-over is by Sam's widow, for whom Sam considerately took out a generous policy before kicking the bucket), and I can imagine borrowing e.g. "She done him wrong" or possibly "You done me proud" but not, say, "You done the laundry without new Turbo-action Stainsoff". larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:30:14 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:30:14 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <437777.3189938681@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 2:04 PM +0000 1/31/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: > the pattern of >adj-to-adv is not so widespread as one of my more American-disparaging >acquaintances would have it--I can't imagine anyone saying "I can't come, >unfortunate." > only for manner (or VP?) adverbs but not sentence adverbs? From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 14:34:11 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:34:11 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 9:28 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > While the adverbial use of "good" and other > adverbs-in-adjectival-clothing ("You played real good") relates to > the prescriptivism thread, I think there's something else going on in > the mainstreaming of "You done good", which is covert prestige > dialect borrowing, where a particular construction from what is > perceived as a lower-class dialect than the one the speaker normally > employs is imported wholesale for various sociolinguistic reasons. Yes, I agree, and this has to do with the 'humor' and 'self-deprecation' that I referred to. I'm not sure if English listeners don't 'get it' (a) because such covert prestige borrowing is something an Englishperson wouldn't think to do, or (b) because they don't have enough sense of US dialects to recognize the interdialectal borrowing when they hear it. Either (or both) is (or are!) likely, so far as I can tell. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 14:44:22 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:44:22 -0500 Subject: could care less Message-ID: Tony Glaser wrote: > All the technicalities are far beyond me, but at a gut level I just > don't buy the notion that when Americans say "I could care less" they > are adopting a sarcastic version of "I couldn't care less". I think > it is just said as a dismissive comment. Next time someone says it to > me I will point it out, and I'll be interested to see if they say > something along the lines of "Well, obviously, what I _really_ mean > is that I could _not_ care less" or if there is an uncomprehending > response implying "I just mean that I don't care". Not that the > speaker's interpretation of what he or she says necessarily proves > its origin at all . . . . > > Tony Glaser I'll try again: "I could care less" is the original Yinglish, sarcastic with proper intonation, and "I couldn't care less" is a goyische attempt to make it sound waspish. :-) Your reluctance to accept the facts of usage and history suggests a misplaced belief that logic rules language, a misconception for which there are many, many books and articles available to help you get over it. Larry has already mentioned Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. (additional bibliography on request) --db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Wed Jan 31 14:48:34 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:48:34 -0600 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: Herb wrote: > As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of > adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true > today of "fast" > > Don't walk so fast. > > where "fastly" doesn't even exist, but it's also true of "slow". > The difference is that prescriptivists will insist on "Walk > slowly", not "walk slow". There is no historical basis for their > judgment. Could it be that "good" is going the way of "fast" > slow? I don't think that's what's happening in "ya done good." It's a set phrase, intentionally "wrong," used in informal settings. Sort of like the French use of "beaucoup, beaucoup" -- use by a French person, that is -- a foreigner who said "beaucoup, beaucoup" would sound simply wrong. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 14:48:55 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:48:55 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 9:30 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 2:04 PM +0000 1/31/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >> the pattern of >> adj-to-adv is not so widespread as one of my more American-disparaging >> acquaintances would have it--I can't imagine anyone saying "I can't come, >> unfortunate." >> > only for manner (or VP?) adverbs but not sentence adverbs? Well, "I cried sad" sounds undoable to me (or "I sad cried"), and I would take the 'sad' there to be a manner adverb for 'cry' (there is a S-adv interpretation, of course, but neither sounds likely to me). But I suppose someone who has fewer 'ly's than me would be a better judge. Lynnely M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 31 15:20:35 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:20:35 -0800 Subject: mailings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Probably unrelated, but maybe it is...I've been receiving two, sometimes three, copies of most ADS-L posts for a week or so. Anyone else having this problem? --- "A. Maberry" wrote: > Like Alice, I have wondered the same thing from time > to time. I don't read > a lot of lists, but, I've never seen one where so > many people get > subscribed apparently unwillingly and then have no > clue how to get > unsubscribed--especially when you get an > acknowledgement when you > subscribe that contains explicit instructions on how > to leave the list. > > The recent spate of postings is unusual but I think > we've had episodes > like this before, if memory serves. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu > > > On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Alice Faber wrote: > > > Patty Jones said: > > >Please remove my name from futher mailings. I > don't know how I got on in > > >the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net > > > > There's been a recent spate of these, from non-edu > addresses. I know we all > > had a lot of fun speculating about general clue > level, but is it possible > > that someone's forge-subscribing people to ADS-L? > Jesse, Grant? > > > > Alice > > -- > > Alice Faber > tel. (203) 865-6163 > > Haskins Laboratories > fax (203) 865-8963 > > 270 Crown St > faber at haskins.yale.edu > > New Haven, CT 06511 > afaber at wesleyan.edu > > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Wed Jan 31 15:24:01 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:24:01 -0800 Subject: Mailings Message-ID: On 1/31 James Smith said: Probably unrelated, but maybe it is...I've been receiving two, sometimes three, copies of most ADS-L posts for a week or so. Anyone else having this problem? Yes, I have also been getting duplicates. Is it possible that these annoyed people are in the same boat we were when people on this list got onto that Spanish list and couldn't get off, no matter how well we followed directions, because we were not individually subscribed? Is it possible someone subscribed a whole list to ADS-L and that's why individuals can't get off? Sharyn Hay storknurse From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:16:43 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:16:43 EST Subject: (Fwd) a comrade Message-ID: The following book passed through my hands yesterday, here at the library: Bert Peeters, ed., "The Lexicon-Encyclopedia Interface", Elsevier. It contains an essay by our M. Lynne Murphy. The book is expensive, though perhaps not by the standard of titles on linguistics, but it must obviously be worth every penny. GAT From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 31 16:10:29 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:10:29 -0500 Subject: I could care less (was: schedule) Message-ID: David Bergdahl writes: >>>>> Tony Glaser wrote: > And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care > less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even > when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in > England, or the former in the US. Now isn't that funny... I've always thought "I could care less" was the original Yiddishism or Yinglish, with the negative inserted by people who didn't know the 22421 intonation pattern (using the old Trager-Smith notation). <<<<< How about "As if I could care less"? -- Mark From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 16:25:02 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:25:02 EST Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: In the case of "Take it slow," can I assume that this is an elliptical construction, as in "Take it slow and easy"? Also, I often hear "I am well" in response to "How are you? For me, "I am well" has a different meaning than "I am good." The former connotes the physical/psychological/social well-being of the person while the latter connotes the behavior? PAT P.S. On another note, I can count on one hand the times I've heard people use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage dictate that "spat" be dropped? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:47:39 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:47:39 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: Congratulations!! This must be quite a time-period for you, what with moving back to New York plus the baby. But maybe moving to New York makes things easier for you in some ways? Fred -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:48:50 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:48:50 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: Sorry that I just sent a private message to Jesse to the list by mistake. Luckily I didn't say anything embarrassing! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:34:22 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 10:34:22 -0600 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <229870.3189935225@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Good on ya, Lynne. I'm with you 110 percent. Bob Wachal At 01:07 PM 1/31/01 +0000, you wrote: >OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just want to >assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty one: there >are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with (e.g., >anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical categories); >my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form in >specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued here before, >deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot support); >and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those prescriptions, >but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined behavior >generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having >conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the prize for >January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily count >e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also recognize that >not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them either) is not a >sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have a certain >respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that metalinguistic >awareness of them is never a bad thing. > >OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of Americans >say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers are >particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular as well as >my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt your >supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's something >ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just an >unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree with you >that its phonological reduction is not really semantically damaging. But >this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for why >it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a necessary >first step. > >Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk >frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard >forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the >'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have >complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't >take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they >should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is >coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as >heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done >good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well >as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is >not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a >difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when >one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an >idiolectal fantasyland? > >Lynne > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 17:02:40 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:02:40 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:25 AM 1/31/01 -0500, you wrote: >In the case of "Take it slow," can I assume that this is an elliptical >construction, as in "Take it slow and easy"? Also, I often hear "I am well" >in response to "How are you? For me, "I am well" has a different meaning than >"I am good." The former connotes the physical/psychological/social >well-being of the person while the latter connotes the behavior? PAT > >P.S. On another note, I can count on one hand the times I've heard people >use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've >consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including >educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage >dictate that "spat" be dropped? I increasingly hear "I'm well" as well, meaning (presumably) "Everything's good/fine." I've assumed the change to be a hypercorrection, similar to the spread of "whomever" after every preposition even if it functions as a subject (heard twice just yesterday, on NPR and TV news). The latter may also reflect a tendency toward liaison between vowels (as someone suggested here some time back?), but I suspect hypercorrection is the real culprit, esp. since I seldom hear it from "ordinary" folk. Has anyone else noticed the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? Even our student newspaper is using it more, and it invariably sounds stilted. On p.t. of 'spit': My dictionary (an old Webster's New World) lists both 'spat' and 'spit' (in that order). I still hear, and use, 'spat', but it will go when it goes. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 17:18:56 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:18:56 +0000 Subject: missing "n't"! In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010131103422.007c0800@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: I'm replying to myself this time. (Don't I have some work to do...?) I found it particularly ironic that in my zeal for the "n't" in "couldn't care less", I lost the "n't" in "isn't"! >> But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for >> why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a >> necessary first step. (That should be "isn't the whole story".) BTW, it was kind of George to mention my chapter in the Lex/Encyclo volume. I've already changed my mind about some of the things I said in it! Wait for the book--or better yet, the movie. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 17:23:08 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:23:08 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010131114739.020d4ae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 12:02 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > Has > anyone else noticed the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in > the media? Even our student newspaper is using it more, and it > invariably sounds stilted. One person's 'stilted' is another's 'melodious'. While we claim that all varieties are equally complex and potentially lovely, there does seem to be a bias against the 'overt prestige' forms on the list! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 17:21:47 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:21:47 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... I can count on one hand the times I've heard people >use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've >consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including >educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage >dictate that "spat" be dropped? No. "Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): "The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either _spat_ or _spit_. "The British prefer _spat_, but both forms are widespread in American English. ... "Nonstandard variants are _spitted_ and _spitten_: "... like someone had spitten tobacco into it --Dave Godfrey, in _Canadian Short Stories, Second Series_, ed. Robert Weaver, 1968" I use spit, spat, spat, BTW. I can't think of five examples of ANY spoken past form of "spit" from my own experience right now (although my impression is that "spit" and "spat" are both common). Maybe my friends don't chew much tobacco .... -- Doug Wilson From Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM Wed Jan 31 17:42:35 2001 From: Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM (Wilcox, Rose (ZB5646)) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 10:42:35 -0700 Subject: Double Scoop Message-ID: Consider sorting on subject head (I think hotmail does this, but it's been a long time since I had a hotmail address), reading all the related posts, then replying. Still a risk that you will miss a related post, since people change subject headers all the time (except when it would be helpful to do so), but then you can just blame them for changing the subject header. I think hotmail also allows you to mark a bunch of emails and delete them all at once, so following your reading binge (and erudite or pointed reply to the subject), you could mark the entire thread and delete. Forgive me if I remember hotmail capabilities incorrectly. And continue with your regularly scheduled life. Sinc., Rosie << I suppose I could hit "Next" instead of "Delete" if I think I want to respond, and read through all new messages before writing any replies. Any insights on what the best way to proceed might be would be greatly appreciated. >> From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 18:01:10 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:01:10 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010131114739.020d4ae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >>... I often hear "I am well" >>in response to "How are you? > >I increasingly hear "I'm well" as well, meaning (presumably) "Everything's >good/fine." It seems to me that "How are you [doing]?" is a formalized inquiry regarding one's health (could be prosperity, "financial health", etc.) and not one's inherent quality or moral condition. It seems to me that "I am [doing] well" is simply an exactly correct (not hypercorrect) response, although "I am [doing] fine" is more conventional. The usual Pittsburgh answer -- which was a minority usage in other places where I've resided -- is "I am [doing] good", which strikes me as inapposite/erroneous, since the question is basically "Are you [doing] well or poorly/ill?" rather than "Are you good or evil/bad?" or "Are you performing good or evil acts?" .... What do other folks perceive? -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 18:10:25 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:10:25 +0000 Subject: oronym Message-ID: And now for something completely different... Does anyone know when the term 'oronym' was coined? (It's a synonym for 'mondegreen'.) Gyles Brandreth uses it in _The Joy of Lex_ (1980) (did he coin it?) and I've seen it a lot since Pinker used it in _The Language Instinct_. It's not in the OED and none of my dictionaries has it. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 18:11:52 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:11:52 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131124321.01d69d70@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:01 pm -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: >>> ... I often hear "I am well" >>> in response to "How are you? >> >> I increasingly hear "I'm well" as well, meaning (presumably) >> "Everything's good/fine." > > It seems to me that "How are you [doing]?" is a formalized inquiry > regarding one's health (could be prosperity, "financial health", etc.) and > not one's inherent quality or moral condition. It seems to me that "I am > [doing] well" is simply an exactly correct (not hypercorrect) response, > although "I am [doing] fine" is more conventional. ... > > What do other folks perceive? Well, since you asked, I agree completely. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Jan 31 18:49:07 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:49:07 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, &c. Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan writes: >...'a hypercorrection, similar to the spread of "whomever" after every >preposition even if it functions as a subject (heard twice just yesterday, >on NPR and TV news)..... Has anyone else noticed the (seemingly) >increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? '< Indeed, yes. Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from teachers. A. Murie From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 31 18:45:29 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:45:29 -0500 Subject: oronym Message-ID: At 06:10 PM 1/31/2001 +0000, you wrote: >Does anyone know when the term 'oronym' was coined? (It's a synonym for >'mondegreen'.) Gyles Brandreth uses it in _The Joy of Lex_ (1980) (did he >coin it?) and I've seen it a lot since Pinker used it in _The Language >Instinct_. > >It's not in the OED and none of my dictionaries has it. > >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy > According to a website listing oronyms, Brandreth discusses the possible origin right in that book: Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and Co., pp. 58-59 on who coined the word "oronym" Maybe someone has a copy handy, FWIW.... Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 31 18:47:25 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:47:25 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: "D. Ezra Johnson" writes: >>>>> >>"I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for >>joining this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian >>mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? >IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat >challenging to the reader. IMH idiolect, ungrammatical, but for a different reason. "Think" has to agree in tense with the clause following it. <<<<< For me too, but that was beside the point. Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 31 19:03:25 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:03:25 -0800 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <200101311845.NAA23661@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: > According to a website listing oronyms, Brandreth discusses the possible > origin right in that book: > > Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and Co., > pp. 58-59 on who coined the word "oronym" > > Maybe someone has a copy handy, FWIW.... > Nothing about the origin is on those 2 pages. And the examples Brandreth gives wouldn't really pass muster: e.g. "Where is the spice center?" vs. "Where is the spy center?" Maybe oronyms work on the "close, aber keine Zigarre" principle. Peter R. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:06:20 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:06:20 +0800 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:48 AM -0500 1/31/01, Fred Shapiro wrote: >Sorry that I just sent a private message to Jesse to the list by mistake. >Luckily I didn't say anything embarrassing! > >Fred Shapiro Oh, durn it. Here I thought I'd moved back to New York without realizing it. I was just about to go out for a knish and an egg cream too... larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:09:13 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:09:13 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010131114739.020d4ae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 12:02 PM -0500 1/31/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Has anyone else noticed >the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? Even our >student newspaper is using it more, and it invariably sounds stilted. and not infrequently "wrong", i.e. hypercorrectly used for the subject (the candidate whom I think is going to win...) > >On p.t. of 'spit': My dictionary (an old Webster's New World) lists both >'spat' and 'spit' (in that order). I still hear, and use, 'spat', but it >will go when it goes. > I'm still holding out for a revival of 'spitten' as the past participle. larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 19:08:35 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 19:08:35 +0000 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <200101311845.NAA23661@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:45 pm -0500 Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: > > According to a website listing oronyms, Brandreth discusses the possible > origin right in that book: > > Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and > Co., pp. 58-59 on who coined the word "oronym" > > Maybe someone has a copy handy, FWIW.... I do have a copy. He doesn't say anything like "Let's call these things 'oronyms'", but just "Oronyms are sentences that can be read in two ways with the same sound. To inspire you to cook up some oronyms of your own, here are a dozen of my favorites." So, it's unclear whether he really did coin it there or whether that website just thinks he coined it because he popularized it. There's nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no indication of why 'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for 'mouth). Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:12:02 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:12:02 +0800 Subject: missing "n't"! In-Reply-To: <1138769.3189950336@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >I'm replying to myself this time. (Don't I have some work to do...?) > >I found it particularly ironic that in my zeal for the "n't" in "couldn't >care less", I lost the "n't" in "isn't"! > >>>But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for >>>why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a >>>necessary first step. > >(That should be "isn't the whole story".) I was wondering. Paranoid that I am I figured I STILL hadn't convinced you about the insufficiency of least-effort-based explanation here. > >BTW, it was kind of George to mention my chapter in the Lex/Encyclo volume. >I've already changed my mind about some of the things I said in it! Wait >for the book--or better yet, the movie. > >Lynne > I will--at least for the book, which I hope to be able to dip from when i break in "Lexical Pragmatics" at dInIs's 2003 Institute in East Lansing. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:16:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:16:58 +0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131115857.01d3d300@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 12:21 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>... I can count on one hand the times I've heard people >>use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've >>consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including >>educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage >>dictate that "spat" be dropped? > >No. > >"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): > >"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >_spat_ or _spit_. > But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and 'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. >"Nonstandard variants are _spitted_ and _spitten_: > >"... like someone had spitten tobacco into it --Dave Godfrey, in _Canadian >Short Stories, Second Series_, ed. Robert Weaver, 1968" This part I like. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:20:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:20:19 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131124321.01d69d70@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 1:01 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >[re responses to "How are you?"] The usual Pittsburgh >answer -- which was a minority usage in other places where I've resided -- >is "I am [doing] good", which strikes me as inapposite/erroneous, since the >question is basically "Are you [doing] well or poorly/ill?" rather than >"Are you good or evil/bad?" or "Are you performing good or evil acts?" .... > >What do other folks perceive? > I don't take "I'm good" in a moral sense here. Perhaps the respondent is imagining s/he's playing draw poker and has been dealt a pat hand. larry From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 31 19:17:30 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:17:30 -0500 Subject: oronym Message-ID: At 07:08 PM 1/31/2001 +0000, you wrote: >So, it's unclear whether he really did coin it there or whether that >website just thinks he coined it because he popularized it. There's >nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no indication of why >'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the >coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for >'mouth). > >Lynne > Yes, actually, since you mention it -- My cursory web search called up several germanophone sites that seemed to suggest that _Oronym_ is used in German as a term for names applied to elevated sites. I figured that this _Oronoym_ might well be a completely independent word. Several examples occur in the scholarly bibliography found at this URL: http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/~fischeg4/HDP.htm Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 20:01:34 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:01:34 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): >> >>"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >>_spat_ or _spit_. > >But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' >as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and >'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. >I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur >as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. I think the book is saying both "spit, spat, spat" and "spit, spit, spit" are usual. As far as I can tell, it's silent on the possibilities "spit, spat, spit" and "spit, spit, spat": these must be quite rare, I think, especially the latter one. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 20:15:23 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:15:23 -0500 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <1534447.3189956915@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >... There's nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no >indication of why >'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the >coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for >'mouth'). I suspect he's mixing roots worse than that: "oro-" < English "or": the item can be read either this way OR that way. It's like "backronym", probably. -- Doug Wilson From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 31 20:19:03 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:19:03 -0800 Subject: Columbinitis Message-ID: Alta Vista doesn't get any hits for this word yet, but the Seattle Times had it in a story from Reuters and the Associated Press out of Ottawa. "...'What is at work here is acute "Columbinitis,"' said Canadian novelist Tim Wynne-Jones, referring to the 1999 massacre of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo..." The word refers to an overreaction to a student talking about bombing a school. Probably not a word to stay, though... Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 07:28:51 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:28:51 +0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131145612.01d6c040@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 3:01 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): >>> >>>"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >>>_spat_ or _spit_. >> >>But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' >>as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and >>'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. >>I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur >>as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. > >I think the book is saying both "spit, spat, spat" and "spit, spit, spit" >are usual. > You're right; I misread it. L From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 20:36:48 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 20:36:48 +0000 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131151120.01d6ba40@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 3:15 pm -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: >> ... There's nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no >> indication of why >> 'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the >> coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for >> 'mouth'). > > I suspect he's mixing roots worse than that: "oro-" < English "or": the > item can be read either this way OR that way. > > It's like "backronym", probably. Ah, clever work! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 21:03:43 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 16:03:43 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 02:09 PM 1/31/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 12:02 PM -0500 1/31/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>Has anyone else noticed >>the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? Even our >>student newspaper is using it more, and it invariably sounds stilted. > >and not infrequently "wrong", i.e. hypercorrectly used for the >subject (the candidate whom I think is going to win...) > >> >>On p.t. of 'spit': My dictionary (an old Webster's New World) lists both >>'spat' and 'spit' (in that order). I still hear, and use, 'spat', but it >>will go when it goes. >I'm still holding out for a revival of 'spitten' as the past participle. > >larry I was going to add my dictionary's entries on that! Mine lists both "spit and image" and "spitting image," with the latter presumed to be a variant of the former. No explanation as to why it should take the pres. part. form (as if the image is what's doing the spitting rather than what's spit/spat). I suppose the -ing is a hypercorrection from a presumed spoken -in'/'n' -- resulting of course in the loss of the past participle meaning, as you pointed out in your ADS paper. Now I'll bet we've opened up a whole nother can of worms. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 21:26:01 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:26:01 -0600 Subject: Columbinitis Message-ID: >The word refers to an overreaction to a student talking about bombing a >school. Probably not a word to stay, though... > >Benjamin Barrett The use of -itis in the sense of 'condition caused by a reaction to something', is common enough, but they all seem to be nonce formation, with none of them becoming permanent. It's probably because enough people know that -itis means 'inflammation', as with arthritis or dermatitis. One of my favorite all-time bizarre plurals is arthritides for arthritis. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Wed Jan 31 20:10:41 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:10:41 -0600 Subject: address needed In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131145612.01d6c040@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: My computer crashed and I lost the e-mail address of Steve Kleinedler. Can someone please supply it? Bob Wachal From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 21:21:46 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 16:21:46 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 03:28 PM 1/31/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 3:01 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): >>>> >>>>"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >>>>_spat_ or _spit_. >>> >>>But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' >>>as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and >>>'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. >>>I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur >>>as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. >> >>I think the book is saying both "spit, spat, spat" and "spit, spit, spit" >>are usual. >You're right; I misread it. > >L OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use "shat" for p.t. and p.p.? (Horrors, did I really write that??) My dictionary doesn't even include the base word! _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 21:48:31 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:48:31 -0600 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten Message-ID: >OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the >first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use >"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? >(Horrors, did I really write that??) My >dictionary doesn't even include the base word! Well, if I were doing a to-be-staged version of Aristophanes _Frogs_, that lake Dionysus has to cross would be called shitten. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Wed Jan 31 22:06:17 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:06:17 -0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten Message-ID: My friend uses "shat" for p.t. all the time. It drives me crazy because I prefer the "poop" word. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Odegard [mailto:markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:49 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Spit, spat, spitten >OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the >first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use >"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? >(Horrors, did I really write that??) My >dictionary doesn't even include the base word! Well, if I were doing a to-be-staged version of Aristophanes _Frogs_, that lake Dionysus has to cross would be called shitten. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 22:31:30 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:31:30 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, & JFK Jr. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, sagehen wrote: > ... Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only > hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 > and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and > I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive > *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from > teachers. > A. Murie This reminds me of a question I've wanted to ask for some time. During the media attention immediately following JFK Jr's plane crash, I saw an excerpt from a previously recorded interview in which he says "Caroline and I" in object position. I didn't know what to make of that, because I'd thought that: 1. "X and I" in object position is an example of hypercorrection, 2. hypercorretion is what the linguistically insecure middle class does, and 3. JFK Jr. was not a representative of the middle class. This doesn't add up. What part is wrong? -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 31 22:40:57 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:40:57 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten (off topic) Message-ID: The direction this thread is taking reminded me of a question I had a while back. At The Alternative Dictionaries - a hotbed of international scatology - there is the phrase, "merde a la puissance treize" in the French section. It claims that the phrase's acronym, "MALPT!" is used "to wish someone tremendous good luck." Can any francophile out there verify this? I am not finding a high incidence of this acronym in web searches. Your Name wrote: > > My friend uses "shat" for p.t. all the time. It drives me crazy because I > prefer the "poop" word. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Odegard [mailto:markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM] > Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:49 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Spit, spat, spitten > > >OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the > >first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use > >"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? > >(Horrors, did I really write that??) My > >dictionary doesn't even include the base word! > > Well, if I were doing a to-be-staged version of Aristophanes _Frogs_, that > lake Dionysus has to cross would be called shitten. > > _________________________________________________________________ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 23:06:29 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:06:29 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, & JFK Jr. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 05:31 PM 1/31/01 -0500, you wrote: >On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, sagehen wrote: > > > ... Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only > > hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 > > and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and > > I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive > > *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from > > teachers. > > A. Murie > >This reminds me of a question I've wanted to ask for some time. During the >media attention immediately following JFK Jr's plane crash, I saw an >excerpt from a previously recorded interview in which he says "Caroline >and I" in object position. I didn't know what to make of that, because >I'd thought that: > >1. "X and I" in object position is an example of hypercorrection, >2. hypercorretion is what the linguistically insecure middle class does, >and >3. JFK Jr. was not a representative of the middle class. > >This doesn't add up. What part is wrong? > >-Mai >_____________________________________________ >Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu >Department of English (765) 285-8410 >Ball State University The upper classes aren't necessarily insecure, but they too learn to hypercorrect from their teachers, the media, and equally gullible peers! (Besides, JFK Jr. was no paragon of super-intelligence or super-education. . . .) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 12:59:24 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 20:59:24 +0800 Subject: Columbinitis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:26 PM -0600 1/31/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >>The word refers to an overreaction to a student talking about bombing a >>school. Probably not a word to stay, though... >> >>Benjamin Barrett > >The use of -itis in the sense of 'condition caused by a reaction to >something', is common enough, but they all seem to be nonce formation, with >none of them becoming permanent. > >It's probably because enough people know that -itis means 'inflammation', as >with arthritis or dermatitis. > >_________________________________________________________________ Yes, it occurred to me when I read the earlier posting that the disorder in the subject line looks as though it ought to refer to an inflammation of the doves (not to be confused with the silence of the lambs). larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 13:40:57 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 21:40:57 +0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:09 PM -0500 1/31/01, sagehen wrote: > > >>OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the >>first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use >>"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? > >As I recall, one of the characters in Mary McCarthy's /The Group/ also uses >this form. >A. Murie I'm in the shat/spat group too, for the preterit. I find all possible forms awkward for the participle. I'd like to say I would actually use "shitten" and "spitten" (or even "beshitten" and "bespitten") but somehow I would feel uncomfortable doing so without first growing a long, scraggly, and unwashed beard. larry From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 31 19:59:57 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:59:57 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, &c. Message-ID: Another common hypercorrection in the same vein as mentioned below is "between you and I". Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "sagehen" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:49 PM Subject: Re: prescriptivism, conventions, &c. > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >...'a hypercorrection, similar to the spread of "whomever" after every > >preposition even if it functions as a subject (heard twice just yesterday, > >on NPR and TV news)..... Has anyone else noticed the (seemingly) > >increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? '< > > Indeed, yes. Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only > hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 > and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and > I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive > *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from > teachers. > A. Murie > From tcf at MACOMB.COM Wed Jan 31 15:46:20 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:46:20 -0600 Subject: Sp bien/bueno (was:prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: I have a hard time responding to Sp "como estas?" My prescriptivist upbringing makes me want to say "bueno" (using an adj to describe myself), but idiomatic Sp demands "bien." For some reason I feel better if I say "bien, y tu?" but that may have more to do self image than grammatical categories. From prez234 at JUNO.COM Sat Jan 6 11:38:24 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 05:38:24 CST Subject: Banned Words Message-ID: >True Freshmen -- "As opposed to a false or three-year freshman, or >what?" - Barry Campbell, Luther, Mich. "In my 76 years, I have yet to >see a false freshman." - Thaddeus Poprawa, Fraser, Mich. As opposed to a red-shirt freshman. A true freshman is one who is on campus for the very first year; a red-shirt freshman was on campus last year but was injured (perhaps in some very minor fashion), did not play for the college, but still has four years of eligibility. From prez234 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 18 07:46:15 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 01:46:15 CST Subject: "jimmying" Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2000 22:06:18 -0500 Anne Lambert writes: >Has anybody heard the word "jimmying" as in "I was jimmying around all >day, driving from one errand to another" or "I was jimmying around >trying to find the place"? My mother(born Missouri 1894 of New >England >family) used it, but I have never heard anyone else who did/does, and >it >is not in DARE. The only context in which I've heard it has been "to jimmy a lock," meaning "to pick a lock." I doubt it would have anything to do with GMC, although I understand a device that auto mechanics and car thieves use to open locked car doors is called a "Slim Jim." From prez234 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 12:57:13 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 06:57:13 CST Subject: And while we're on the subject.... Message-ID: >2. Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand? The original terms derive from Latin, which were: pars minuta prima -- "the first little part" of an hour pars minuta secunda -- "the second little part" of an hour. Of course the second hand is not the 2nd hand, but the hand that marks seconds. Now why didn't they say the hour was the first little part of the day and the minute was the second little part of the day and the second was the third little part of the day -- and is 'day' 24 hours or the time from dawn until dusk? >14. Why do 'overlook and 'oversee' mean opposite things? Hmm...my boss is supposed to oversee my work, but I think he usually does the former. Also, consider 'look over' and 'overlook.' >>> It's from the Greek words, porne', "prostitute" and graphein, "to write." Was it Pat Buchanan who called politicians who supported NAFTA "Trade Whores?" If we stretch the metaphor, it was Pat who was being pornographic, not the supporters of NAFTA. I've noticed the same thing happening to "cynical" -- a cynic is one who believes that others are selfish, but many people are using "cynical" as a synonym of "selfish." I have not heard or seen the word used in the way James Smith cites, but I do find the citations bothersome. From tcf at MACOMB.COM Mon Jan 1 00:18:36 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 18:18:36 -0600 Subject: sny--oops! Message-ID: Earlier I said that the roadmaps had the "Sny" on the Illinois side of the Mississippi opposite Hannible MO or just below. I must have misremembered. It's not on the Rand McNally roadmap. It IS on the DeLorme "Illinois Atlas and Gazeteer" maps 57 & 66 (2nd ed. 1996), but it is not a bayou. It looks like a creek that runs parallel to the big river, meandering through the bottoms between the river and the bluffs, in both Pike and Calhoun counties. Victoria's and other notes indicate it is likely a voyageur place name, since it seems to be Canadian. ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Neufeldt To: Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2000 10:44 PM Subject: Re: sny > 'Snye' or 'sny' is a Canadianism meaning a side channel of a stream (Gage > Canadian Dict., 1983). Etym: "From Canadian French chenail; cf French > chenal channel" I don't have my Dict of Canadianisms (1967) on hand so > can't check the dates or cites, but I seem to associate it with the > Maritimes, for some reason (?) > > Victoria > > Victoria Neufeldt > 1533 Early Drive > Saskatoon, Sask. > S7H 3K1 > Canada > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > > Of Grant Barrett > > Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 2:22 PM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: sny > > > > > > >To this very day there is a stretch of bayou along the Miss. near > > >Hannibal > > >called "The Sny." It is I think even on road maps. > > > > and > > > > > Sni Island is a separate occurrence and is identified as "A > > >portion of the former river bottom on the Mississippi River that > > today is exposed > > because > > >of a change of course in the river." > > > > Sni Island in Marion County Missouri, of which Hannibal is the > > largest town, may be > > the same thing Tim Frazer refers to, as per this extract from the > > book"Lighting Out > > for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American > > Culture" by Shelley Fisher > > Fishkin. > > http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/lighti > > ngoutfortheterritor > > y.htm > > > > "In 1847, when Twain was eleven, a runaway slave who belonged to > > a man named Neriam > > Todd swam across the river and hid in the swampy thickets of Sny > > Island, on the > > Illinois side of the Mississippi... Some woodchoppers chased the > > slave into a part of the > > swamp called Bird Slough..." > > > > On the other hand, Tim Frazer is talking about *swampy land on > > the Missouri side*, > > not a real island on the Illinois side (although with the > > Mississippi River farms, > > islands, swamps and river bottom change roles often enough to > > make the county clerk's > > job difficult). > > > > In looking further at the USGS site, I see that there is also The > > Sny Basin (the The > > appears always capitalized) which refers to a rather large > > drainage area (watershed) > > in eastern Missouri including five counties and 13 water drainage > > measurement > > stations. This, I gather, is an extension of the Tim's Sny bayou. > > The map below shows, > > finally, that The Sny, in fact, spans the Mississippi. > > > http://www.epa.gov/surf2/hucs/07110004/ > > I didn't turn up The Sny in my first search at the USGS and this had me a > bit > confused. The capital T on The should have been a clue. A search at > http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/gnisform.html under "The Sny" turns up: > > Feature Name: The Sny > Feature Type: channel > State: Illinois > County: Adams > USGS 7.5' x 7.5' Map: Marblehead > Latitude: 394714N > Longitude: 0912108W > > Feature Name: The Sny Cutoff > Feature Type: canal > State: Illinois > County: Pike > USGS 7.5' x 7.5' Map: Summer Hill > Latitude: 393011N > Longitude: 0905918W > > More Sny: > > Missouri NWIS-W Data Retrieval page > http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis-w/MO/ > > The Sny Levee District > http://www.geo.mtu.edu/department/classes/ge404/flood/day3/sny/ > > Newspaper Extracts from 1880 that mention The Sny Levee > http://www.outfitters.com/~melissa/genealogy/beadles/leonind2.html From emckean at ENTERACT.COM Mon Jan 1 00:37:33 2001 From: emckean at ENTERACT.COM (emckean at ENTERACT.COM) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 18:37:33 -0600 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: <002401c07388$b4a606e0$bc040640@wiu.edu> Message-ID: I heard a DJ on the teenybopper "alternative" radio station tonight say "And we'll be hearing more from them in the 2K1" meaning "2001". This is the first I've heard of "2K1" (even considering it doesn't start until tomorrow). I don't think it's all that novel, but has anyone else been hearing this? Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com I miss the old rap station, where the djs would talk about things "back in the nine-trey." (1993, a million years ago in rap time. . .) From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 1 02:07:53 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 21:07:53 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: A search on http://www.topclick.com/ brings up a number of sites, most of which seem to involve a discussion of sports activity, as in NFL 2k1 strategy. Usually found in gaming discussion sites, not sure if it is a copyrighted phrase or not. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 1 02:18:39 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 21:18:39 -0500 Subject: juvenile delinquent Message-ID: The context may differ, but in a book from 1862, by Richard Francis Burton, titled The city of the saints, and across the Rocky mountains to California, on p. 12, is "This juvenile delinquent stated with unblushing front, . . ." http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000015%2F0244city%2Fv0000%2Fi000&tif=00280012.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DAFK4700 Again, I didn't read enough of the publication to compare context usage. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 1 03:12:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 22:12:22 EST Subject: Federation Day greetings Message-ID: Happy Federation Day in the new millennium! My air ticket cannot be changed without a big increase in price, so I can't have an extra day in Sydney to do research...I'm carrying home some vegemite. I better not be stopped at the airport for bringing back "food." I toured the Cairns Central Shopping Centre (it has a food court) and have more food items. _JAMAICA BLUE CAFE_ Also at www.jamaicablue.com.au. COFFEES: Cappuccino, Mugaccino, Megaccino, Babyccino, Melloccino. MILKSHAKES THICKSHAKES OMELETTES: Kingston (ham, tomato, mushroom & cheese), Jamaican (cheese, capsicum, Spanish onion & pineapple), Carribean (cheese, chicken, chives & mushroom). JAMAICAN CLUB SANDWICH--bacon, pineapple, banana, cheese, lettuce & tomato. MELTS: Calypso (bacon, tomato, onion, cheese), Bermuda (chicken, asparagus, mayo, cheese), Caribbean (Yes, two different spellings--ed.)(bacon, banana, pineapple, cheese), Bahama (sundried tomato, capsicum, onion, cheese), Kingston (ham, pineapple, cheese). _RED ROOSTER_ ORIGINAL STRIP SUB--2 chicken strips, lettuce & creamy herb sauce in a freshly baked roll. _COAST ROAST COFFEE_ FRAPPECINO--frozen espresso, ice cream and choice of flavour. _ROYAL COPENHAGEN_ FRUIT WHIP--lite ice cream or yoghurt blended with a choice of fruits. _GRANARY GOURMET DELI_ CAPPUCCINO SKINNYCINO SOYACINO DECAFACINO ECCOCINO--made with Ecco. DRYACINO--counter woman had no clue. _BAKERY_ HUMMINGBIRD CAKE MELTING MOMENTS--two cookies with cream in the middle. I've seen this several places now. Willl OED record it? BROWN-EYED SUSAN--cookies with chocolate in the middle. Why not Black-Eyed Susan? POPPERS--juice drinks in little boxes are called this. _BI-LO SUPERMARKETS_ ROCK CAKES WHITE SNOWDROPS VIETNAMESE BREAD ROLLS--these are hot dog rolls! I've asked several people--both customers and employees--and no one had ever heard it called "Vietnamese" before. But it's on the label, and these things take up an entire shelf. _CAFE PACIFICO_ At the Pacifico Hotel. From the drink menu: ZESTI--Combination of smooth hazelnut frangelico, with added hit of fresh lime juice. Shaken and poured over ice. LOVE JUNK--Erotic mix of melon and peach liquors. Topped with refreshing apple juice. JO JO IVERY--Smooth and delicious combination of banana liquor, Kaluaha and rich smooth taste of Baileys Irishcream. PACIFICO ICE TEA--Based on the famous Long Island Ice Tea (sic), with the Pacifico twist--Blue Curacao and lemonade. ICED COFFEE--AUSTRALIAN--milk, vanilla ice cream, espresso, cream. REEF 'N' BEEF--usually "surf 'n' turf," but one restaurant has it as this. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 1 04:30:36 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 23:30:36 -0500 Subject: juvenile delinquent In-Reply-To: <002301c07388$b4276100$bc040640@wiu.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 31 Dec 2000, Tim Frazer wrote: > What is the earliest citation anyone can give me of "juvenile delinquent"? > I am guessing late 1940s, but I want to be on firmer ground. The OED has 1817 as its earliest citation, but law is not one of the OED's stronger areas, so it probably goes back to the 1700s. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 1 07:26:07 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 02:26:07 EST Subject: Banished Words List Message-ID: Lake Superior State University students have their Banished Words List, as they do every year. "Chad" is on this year's list. See Nexis or: http://www.lssu.edu http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Banish-Words-List.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Banished-Words.html -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. THE LOT--Appears to be an Australian sandwich name for "the works" or "the kitchen sink." One "The Lot" burger contained eggs, bacon, and cheese. MY FLIGHT--I told Qantas that there's a little snowstorm in NYC, all flights are being delayed, and I would be happy to spend an extra day or two in paradise. If I fly tomorrow, the flight is probably fully booked to NYC and they'd probably have to pay people to give up their seats. I got no call back to my hotel about any change. It's leaving as scheduled! If I do have an extra day in Sydney, make your Australian slang requests to me now. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 1 18:28:51 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 13:28:51 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20001227130232.00a72080@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if other users were as naive as we were? ] At 01:37 PM 12/27/00 -0500, you wrote: >Three origin-candidates (none invented by me): > >(1) from "nook" (referring to the vagina) >(2) from the old verb "nug" = (a) "copulate" or (b) "fondle" (see Farmer >and Henley) >(3) from Dutch "neuken" = "f*ck" > >[My Dutch friends find it humorous when someone speaks of "nuking" food in >the microwave oven.] > >There is also French "noc" = "vagina" (an anagram, apparently used by >Rabelais). > >In my experience "nooky" usually approx. = "sex" -- a mild and ambiguous >word, sometimes used for sexual activities other than coitus -- including >necking, petting, groping, grubbling, and nugging (b) .... The books also >show "nooky" = "vagina" (I haven't heard this one) and = "woman"/"women" >(I've heard it rarely). > >-- Doug Wilson _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From sagehen at SLIC.COM Mon Jan 1 20:03:29 2001 From: sagehen at SLIC.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 15:03:29 -0500 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if other users were as naive as we were?< Naive? Yes, perhaps. This was the only use current among the young people we knew in the past 20 years or so. I had only encountered its other meanings in books, and never connected the two. But I don't think I was aware of the brand name of the pacifiers, just thought of it as a slang term. A. Murie From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 1 20:10:56 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 14:10:56 -0600 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Didn't Benny Hill use/popularize the word 'nooky'? Or is my memory incorrect? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 1 21:08:04 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 16:08:04 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Not among pre-teens in the Louisville area in the late 1940's. dInIs >Didn't Benny Hill use/popularize the word 'nooky'? Or is my memory >incorrect? >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From bapopik at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 2 01:38:06 2001 From: bapopik at HOTMAIL.COM (Barry Popik) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 01:38:06 -0000 Subject: Milk Bar Message-ID: Big Apple Milk Bar --store in the center of Cairns, Australia Greetings from a free terminal in the Sydney Airport. I couldn't find any earlier "milk bar" in a quick check of the phonebooks. From the SYDENY MORNING HERALD August 3, 1936, pg. 16a Opened in Fleet Street by Hugh D. McIntosh _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From t-k.comerfo at WORLDNET.ATT.NET Tue Jan 2 14:26:15 2001 From: t-k.comerfo at WORLDNET.ATT.NET (Thomas Comerford) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 08:26:15 -0600 Subject: Doughboy Message-ID: Brewer's says that the word as applied to US soldiers derived from the similarity of the cake of that name to the uniform buttons on a soldier c WW I & earlier. Any other thoughts? T. Comerford -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 2 14:41:36 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 09:41:36 -0500 Subject: Doughboy In-Reply-To: <001301c074c7$f868b720$9d784a0c@default>; from t-k.comerfo@WORLDNET.ATT.NET on Tue, Jan 02, 2001 at 08:26:15AM -0600 Message-ID: > Brewer's says that the word as applied to US soldiers derived from > the similarity of the cake of that name to the uniform buttons on a > soldier c WW I & earlier. Any other thoughts? Yes, that the word actually dates to the Mexican-American War of the 1840s, and that the origin is unknown. Jesse Sheidlower From mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Tue Jan 2 17:12:14 2001 From: mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Salikoko Mufwene) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 09:12:14 -0800 Subject: Kenneth Pike Message-ID: Dear colleagues: I am sad to share with you the following news which I just received this morning from the LSA's Secretariat. Happy new year, Sali. > >This mornings email brought the sad news of Kenneth Pike's death on 31 >December. I have no details other than he had been in poor health and was >hospitalized at the time of his death. >Maggie > ********************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene at uchicago.edu University of Chicago 773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924 Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html ********************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Tue Jan 2 16:08:23 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 11:08:23 -0500 Subject: Fwd: RA announcement Message-ID: >The University of Georgia >Working Group for the Study of Languages, Discourse, and Communicative >Practices > >Position: >The interdisciplinary Working Group for the Study of Languages, Discourse, >and Communicative Practices, sponsored by the Institute for Behavioral >Research at the University of Georgia, seeks to hire a Research Associate >to manage a newly funded digital language research laboratory. The position >is a 12-month appointment, renewable for up to three years, to begin July >2001. Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and >experience. > >Qualifications: >A doctorate or ABD in applied linguistics, communication sciences, new >media production or related field by July 2001 is required. Also required >is expertise in using digital audio and video technological tools for >conducting research on language as well as a potential for or record of >success in publishing scholarship and obtaining external funding for >research. > >Responsibilities: >Duties include managing the research laboratory, conducting regular >training sessions for faculty and students, developing a clearinghouse of >technology-based resources, maintaining a language data bank, coordinating >the Invited Speaker Seminar Series, and identifying and securing extramural >funding to support laboratory activities and faculty research. > >Procedure: >Submit a letter of application, a curriculum vita, transcripts, and 3 >reference letters to the address below. > >Applications received by February 15, 2001 are assured of full consideration. > >Dr. Joan Kelly Hall >Chair, Search Committee >Department of Language Education >125 Aderhold Hall >Athens, GA 30602 >e-mail: jkhall at arches.uga.edu >Fax: 706-542-4509 > >The University of Georgia is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action >Institution. *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 2 17:29:54 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 12:29:54 -0500 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan writes: >>>>> Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if other users were as naive as we were? <<<<< And that's probably the right pronunciation, same as obsolescent (IMHO) English "nook" 'corner'. What bothered me was when people added a diminutive /i/ ~= "-ie" to it (prob. from its use with babies and baby-talk)! -- Mark From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 2 17:40:44 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 12:40:44 -0500 Subject: ox-bow Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan writes: >>>>> Relatedly, what's the origin of "ox-bow"? We have an Oxbow Trail, and of course there's _The Oxbow Incident_ (afraid I never read it). Does it come from the shape of an ox yoke (which I do know, having preserved my grandfather's)? <<<<< Ayup. As I recall reading in geography class or somethin' like it, it starts with a bend in a river. The dynamics of water flow cause the water to move faster along the outside of the curve than it does along the inside, so the river tends to undercut the bank on that side. The bank falls in and the river widens a bit in that direction. Meanwhile, the slow flow on the inner edge leads to silting-up and *that* bank tends to expand into the river. As a result, the course of the river migrates outward and the bend gradually grows into a bulge, then a meander, then maybe even a near-loop running over 180 degrees. This is an ox-bow. (AmHer 3ed: U-shaped bend in a river.) So is the land within the curve. -- Mark From Amcolph at AOL.COM Tue Jan 2 18:37:19 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 13:37:19 EST Subject: Doughboy Message-ID: US troops in Mexico quickly became dust colored, and were called "adobe boys=>dobie boys=>doughboys. Don't have a source for it, but I think the fried-cake version is apocryphal, as only the officer's coats had muffin-shaped buttons. In the 1840's enlisted infantry buttons were flat and made of pewter. Ray Ott From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 2 20:18:54 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 15:18:54 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:29 PM 1/2/01 -0500, you wrote: >Beverly Flanigan writes: > > >>>>> >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if >other users were as naive as we were? ><<<<< > >And that's probably the right pronunciation, same as obsolescent (IMHO) >English "nook" 'corner'. What bothered me was when people added a >diminutive /i/ ~= "-ie" to it (prob. from its use with babies and >baby-talk)! > > >-- Mark "Nook" isn't obsolescent for me--but I'll be more careful how I use it in the future! _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 2 08:02:32 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:02:32 +0800 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Beverly Flanigan writes: > >>>>>> >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if >other users were as naive as we were? ><<<<< > >And that's probably the right pronunciation, same as obsolescent (IMHO) >English "nook" 'corner'. What bothered me was when people added a >diminutive /i/ ~= "-ie" to it (prob. from its use with babies and >baby-talk)! > > >-- Mark Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not grossly, exaggerated. Now, CRANNY... larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Tue Jan 2 21:14:43 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:14:43 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: GSCole wrote: > > A search on http://www.topclick.com/ brings up a number of sites, most > of which seem to involve a discussion of sports activity, as in NFL 2k1 > strategy. Usually found in gaming discussion sites, not sure if it is a > copyrighted phrase or not. I think the 2K1 you were finding were discussions of Sega Dreamcast pro-sports videogames - they have several titles for 2001 that are called a "2K1" something. It's probably only copyrighted as used in the various titles. I would guess there was discussion about this around this time last year, but I don't much care for the use of 2K to mean 2000. As a number, K is most often used to signify quantities of bits or bytes. Since these critters live in a binary universe, K is a rough decimal translation: 2^10 = 1024, not 1000. So, Y2K would be the year 2048. The only other example that I can think of the number K being used with an elliptic unit is in foot racing - 5K or 10K races, where K = 1000 (meters). While both uses of K are current, the former is by far much more common. Since "Y2K" was most often used in reference to the potential date-related computer problems, I feel this adds more weight to the argument that in this case K should properly be used to refer to 1024, not 1000 (and that Y2K is a misapplication of the number K). How about other words or letters that are used to mean 1000, like "grand" or "G" or "large" (e.g., Y2G)? Unfortunately these 3 examples represent both quantity and units (i.e., forty large = $40,000), so they wouldn't work either. From annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET Tue Jan 2 21:25:55 2001 From: annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET (Anne Lambert) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:25:55 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe Message-ID: "Unsubscribe." From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 2 21:31:34 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 15:31:34 -0600 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: > Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our > apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady > nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". > It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer > to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not > grossly, exaggerated. Now, CRANNY... > > larry Oh, come on now . . . "cranny" itself isn't obsolete. It only becomes so when combined with the obsolete observation that "it's the berries". Then there was the stroke of genius that created the great title for a mystery novel: "Every crook and nanny". -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET Tue Jan 2 21:30:44 2001 From: annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET (Anne Lambert) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:30:44 -0500 Subject: Milk Bar Message-ID: Actually, this isn't about MIlk Bar, but a notice to all: I can no longer handle the volume of mail that comes with this list. I am leaving town tomorrow and am canceling my e-mail for four months. I have been unable to unsubscribe, though I have tried every way I can think of. I leave tomorrow morning. Can anyone please send me advice on how to unsubscribe before 9 PM Eastern Standard Time tonight? I realize this is an imposition, and I thank you in advance. Anne Lambert Barry Popik wrote: > Big Apple Milk Bar > --store in the center of Cairns, Australia > > Greetings from a free terminal in the Sydney Airport. > I couldn't find any earlier "milk bar" in a quick check of the > phonebooks. > From the SYDENY MORNING HERALD > > August 3, 1936, pg. 16a > Opened in Fleet Street by Hugh D. McIntosh > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 2 21:45:22 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 13:45:22 -0800 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010102151755.00afd1a0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: > >Beverly Flanigan writes: > > > > >>>>> > >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son > >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if > >other users were as naive as we were? We did too, as did others who had babies in Germany. It's from _nuckeln_ 'suck slowly,' perhaps connected with _suckle_, which German has in _suckeln_, belonging to _saugen_ 'suck.' Pons (Wb. d.dt. Ugs.) notes that _Nuckel_ is also the breast of a breast-feeding mother and says it (the word, not the breast) has been in use since ca. 1700. I don't have Grimm Dt. Wb. at hand, but could check on that if you like. Peter R. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Tue Jan 2 20:46:25 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 15:46:25 -0500 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Just a reminder to folks Washington-bound, bring your WOTYs with you. I suppose there is a category for _chad_, but I'm not inclined to nominate it for WOTY. It has some derivatives that might be considered. Happy New Year to all. See you in D.C. David Barnhart From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 2 22:08:26 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:08:26 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:45 PM 1/2/01 -0800, you wrote: > > >Beverly Flanigan writes: > > > > > > >>>>> > > >Oh dear--we used to pronounce the name of the German-made pacifier our son > > >used (a Nuk) as [nUk]. I wonder where the brand name came from, and if > > >other users were as naive as we were? > >We did too, as did others who had babies in Germany. It's from _nuckeln_ >'suck slowly,' perhaps connected with _suckle_, which German has in >_suckeln_, belonging to _saugen_ 'suck.' Pons (Wb. d.dt. Ugs.) notes that >_Nuckel_ is also the breast of a breast-feeding mother and says it (the >word, not the breast) has been in use since ca. 1700. I don't have Grimm >Dt. Wb. at hand, but could check on that if you like. > >Peter R. What a relief! And it's good to know the word has a positive reference, i.e., to something above the waist. . . . _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Tue Jan 2 22:10:30 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:10:30 -0600 Subject: ads signoff Message-ID: from the web site http://www.americandialect.org *************** To Unsubscribe To leave the list at any time, send the following as the complete body of an email message to listserv at uga.cc.uga.edu or listserv at uga.bitnet : SIGNOFF ADS-L *********************** Hope this helps! Elizabeth Gregory <<< annelamb at GNV.FDT.NET 1/ 2 3:55p >>> Actually, this isn't about MIlk Bar, but a notice to all: I can no longer handle the volume of mail that comes with this list. I am leaving town tomorrow and am canceling my e-mail for four months. I have been unable to unsubscribe, though I have tried every way I can think of. I leave tomorrow morning. Can anyone please send me advice on how to unsubscribe before 9 PM Eastern Standard Time tonight? I realize this is an imposition, and I thank you in advance. Anne Lambert Barry Popik wrote: > Big Apple Milk Bar > --store in the center of Cairns, Australia > > Greetings from a free terminal in the Sydney Airport. > I couldn't find any earlier "milk bar" in a quick check of the > phonebooks. > From the SYDENY MORNING HERALD > > August 3, 1936, pg. 16a > Opened in Fleet Street by Hugh D. McIntosh > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From kfpastore at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 2 22:31:13 2001 From: kfpastore at JUNO.COM (kfpastore at JUNO.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:31:13 -0500 Subject: Word Origin Message-ID: To Whom It May Ring A Bell, I enjoyed reading about your society and Barry Popik in today's Wall Street Journal, and I hope someone can help me with a word origin and meaning question that has hounded me for years. In the 1930s movie "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" starring W C Fields and written by him, the word "tar-tupple" (this is the phonetic spelling) is used by a high society person whose wedding party Fields had just crashed. The word is repeated several times, pejoratively I believe. I have researched dictionaries, including Oxford, at the New York Public Library and I have sent e-mails to Yale, Harvard and to others for the meaning and origin of the word to no avail. The closest word to it in the dictionary is "Tartuffe". Does anyone have a better answer? Gratefully Yours, Fred Pastore (kfpastore at juno.com) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 2 23:06:25 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:06:25 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: All ADSers, Here is a link to the GREAT article about Barry Popik in today's Wall Street Journal: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB97838868937716381.djm If you cannot get to it with this link, try searching wsj.com for "Popik" under "Article search". The article is well done, and a fine public recognition of Barry's amazing work. Included are praising quotes by others about Barry, and even a reference to ADS. Finally, the truth about hot dog and Big Apple in print, in a big way! Congratulations, Barry! Frank Abate -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 2 23:22:33 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:22:33 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <005d01c07510$a19fb9e0$b101a8c0@fabate> Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Frank Abate wrote: >Here is a link to the GREAT article about Barry Popik in today's Wall Street Journal: > >http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB97838868937716381.djm This link requires that one be a subscriber - at least it required that I be one. For those of us who are not subscribers, can you give us the page no(s) of the article so that we can get it from our libraries? Thanks, Bethany From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Tue Jan 2 23:38:44 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 00:38:44 +0100 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: Full text, courtesy of Dow Jones News Retrieval. Fair use applies, I believe. LEISURE & ARTS Hot Dog! `Big Apple' Explained By Ed Zotti 01/02/2001 The Wall Street Journal A20 (Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) SO, MR. OR MS. Urban Literary Sophisticate, you think you know your word and phrase origins, do you? Try this pop quiz. 1. New York's nickname, "the Big Apple," originated with (a) 1930s jazz musicians who said, "There are many apples on the tree, but only one Big Apple," referring to New York's preeminence as an entertainment center; or (b) 1920s horse-racing insiders, who considered the city the top racing venue. 2. Chicago is called "the Windy City" because (a) New York Sun editor Charles Dana urged New Yorkers to ignore the "nonsensical claims of that windy city," referring to Chicago's noisy efforts to land the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; or (b) it's windy. You said (a) for both, didn't you? Wrong -- although you'd have been accounted right 10 years ago. The correct answer in each case is (b). For this turnabout in the conventional wisdom you can thank Barry Popik, the restless genius of American etymology. A part-time New York City parking judge, the 39-year-old Mr. Popik spends his off hours unearthing the past of American English -- a task he performs with uncommon zeal. Word detectives tend to be an eccentric breed. The classic case is W. C. Minor, who dug up more than 10,000 citations for the Oxford English Dictionary, a project he had a lot of time for since he was a deranged murderer who spent his life in an institution for the criminally insane. Barry (everyone calls him Barry) isn't round the bend like Minor, but he brings a similar manic energy to his task. Take his "Big Apple" research. He started it in 1990 after a chance meeting at the New York Public Library with Gerald Cohen, a language scholar from the University of Missouri, who was researching the New York City nickname. Mr. Cohen was certain horse-racing writer John J. Fitz Gerald was a key figure in popularizing the term, but despite extensive work hadn't found the "smoking gun" -- a citation establishing that Fitz Gerald was the first to introduce "Big Apple" to the wider world. Barry immediately made Mr. Cohen's quest his own. He spent weeks reeling through a decade's worth of microfilm to find two columns in the New York Morning Telegraph in which Fitz Gerald explained that he'd first heard the term used by two New Orleans stable hands in 1920. Your average etymologist would have been content to publish his findings in a scholarly journal and leave it at that. Not Barry. He wanted the rest of the world to accept the truth. Having written the requisite learned articles with Mr. Cohen as co-author, he began pestering newspaper editors, museum curators and New York city officials for public acknowledgment of his findings. In 1997, he was able to talk the New York City Council into declaring the southwest corner of 54th and Broadway in Manhattan, where Fitz Gerald had lived for many years, Big Apple Corner. Barry has since devoted countless hours to researching a long list of Americanisms, among them "hot dog," "Thousand Island dressing," "dude," "jinx," "danish," "chicken a la king," "Murphy's Law" and many others. Barry now distributes his research over the Internet, where much of it is available in the ADS-L archive at the American Dialect Society Web site, www.americandialect.org. Over the past year and a half he has posted 1,000 messages. Barry's output continues to be prodigious. On a single recent (and typical) day, his postings to the ADS mailing list included: a citation for the traders' term "teeny," one-sixteenth of a dollar, taken from a recent edition of the Daily News Express; citations for "Rueben [sic in the original, Barry says] sandwich," "French dip sandwich," "kaiser roll" and numerous other food terms from a restaurant publication, 1935-37; a discussion of the nonappearance of "chad," the infamous hole-punching detritus, in a 1950s computer publication and in a review of patents, 1937-60; and citations for "everything but the kitchen sink," "learn by doing" and other popular expressions from Popular Mechanics, 1947. "There's no question that Barry is one of the greatest researchers alive, and the stuff he manages to find -- about everything, every topic -- is just absolutely remarkable," says Jesse Sheidlower, principal North American editor for the Oxford English Dictionary. Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, calls him "a wonder, a one-man band." With praise like this, you'd think Barry would be the picture of serenity. Alas, no. On the evidence of his voluminous correspondence, his life is a roller coaster of triumph and despair, his discoveries punctuated with exclamation marks, his snubs and rejections recorded with Dostoyevskian gloom. Much of Barry's pessimism stems from the difficulty of dislodging entrenched beliefs. Example: "Hot dog." The commonly told story is that "hot dog" began on a cold day in New York's Polo Grounds in the early 1900s, when food concessionaire Harry Stevens began selling sausages in long buns to warm up his shivering customers. Supposedly sports cartoonist T. A. Dorgan captured the event in a drawing, depicting the sausages as dachshunds and calling them "hot dogs" because he couldn't spell "frankfurter." Nice story, but it's just (sorry) baloney. Popik established that the term was current at Yale in the fall of 1894, when "dog wagons" sold hot dogs at the dorms, the name a sarcastic comment on the provenance of the meat. Did the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council embrace these findings, which Barry sent to them? No. We might have predicted this. But he took it hard just the same. Now Barry has embarked on what arguably is his greatest challenge -- tracking down the origin of "the whole nine yards," which has eluded researchers for decades. Numerous possible sources have been advanced, ranging from the length of a shroud to the capacity of a cement truck, most of which are demonstrably wrong. The most popular explanation at the moment is that it refers to the length of the .50-caliber ammunition belt used during World War II. Whether or not this is true, the common sentiment among etymologists is that it can't be the source of the phrase -- for one thing, the earliest known citation is from 1966, 21 years after the war's end. "Give me a month," says Barry. I'm not holding my breath. But 10 bucks says he gets to the bottom of it before anybody else. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Tue Jan 2 23:40:31 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:40:31 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Any chance that "the whole nine yards" came out of American football jargon? Just speculation, but it's been my impression since I was a kid that the phrase is somehow related to football (maybe cos my family was big into football). OK, I read the WSJ article and thought I'd put in my 2?, Barry. From Amcolph at AOL.COM Tue Jan 2 23:49:52 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:49:52 EST Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: British imposed sumptuary laws limited scottish highlanders to no more than nine yards of tartan cloth each. If they had as much as they were allowed, they had "the whole nine yards". This strip of home woven cloth was then folded in a certain way, wrapped around and secured with a waist belt to form both the kilt and the "over-the-shoulder" part of the outfit: a belted plaid. Ray Ott From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 2 23:59:29 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:59:29 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: The page in the hard-copy version of WSJ for Jan 2, 2001 is A20. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bethany K. Dumas" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 6:22 PM Subject: Re: Barry Popik in WSJ > On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Frank Abate wrote: > > >Here is a link to the GREAT article about Barry Popik in today's Wall > Street Journal: > > > >http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB97838868937716381.djm > > This link requires that one be a subscriber - at least it required > that I be one. For those of us who are not subscribers, can you give us > the page no(s) of the article so that we can get it from our libraries? > > Thanks, > Bethany > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 00:40:30 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 19:40:30 -0500 Subject: WOTY In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >What has put Barnhart in an unchaddish modd? dInIs >Just a reminder to folks Washington-bound, bring your WOTYs with you. >I suppose there is a category for _chad_, but I'm not inclined to >nominate it for WOTY. It has some derivatives that might be considered. > >Happy New Year to all. > >See you in D.C. >David Barnhart -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 00:48:36 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 19:48:36 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: <3A5266EF.39DA2335@cmu.edu> Message-ID: >What nine yards (in football)? dInIs (a former blocking back) >Any chance that "the whole nine yards" came out of American football >jargon? Just speculation, but it's been my impression since I was a kid >that the phrase is somehow related to football (maybe cos my family was >big into football). > >OK, I read the WSJ article and thought I'd put in my 2?, Barry. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 3 00:41:32 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 19:41:32 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <006b01c07518$0b635ce0$b101a8c0@fabate> Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Frank Abate wrote: >The page in the hard-copy version of WSJ for Jan 2, 2001 is A20. Thanks! Bethany From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 2 12:15:43 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:15:43 +0800 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <913842600gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: On behalf of non-subscribers everywhere, thanks very much for posting the article, Grant. (And of course thanks to you, Barry.) Something to keep in one's mailer for the next time someone (not an ads-l regular, needless to say) posts with ignorance and misplaced confidence on "hot dog" or "the Big Apple". I'm not sure Barry will relish the comparison to the mad Mr. Minor, but on the whole a nice treatment. larry From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 3 01:20:17 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:20:17 -0800 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: dInIs asks: >What has put Barnhart in an unchaddish modd? modd? as in artists and moddles? as for this anti-chad sentiment, perhaps he's decided the issue is dead and done with. but at least we could show some respect. it would be only right to say chaddish. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 2 12:24:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:24:15 +0800 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:48 PM -0500 1/2/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>What nine yards (in football)? > >dInIs (a former blocking back) > >>Any chance that "the whole nine yards" came out of American football >>jargon? Just speculation, but it's been my impression since I was a kid >>that the phrase is somehow related to football (maybe cos my family was >>big into football). >> Well, with inflation, it's up to ten yards (in football). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 01:23:17 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:23:17 EST Subject: Milk Bar (corrected) Message-ID: Greetings from New York City. The "Milk Bar" posting was rushed (hey, I made my plane) and I wrote 1936 instead of 1935. Here goes again: >From OED: 20 November 1935, FORRES GAZ--The milk bar, or place where milk drinks are sold, is a popular institution all over Australia and plans are on foot for installing them in Britain. November 1934 Melbourne telephone directory I didn't see "Milk Bar" in a quick check of it. >From SYDNEY MORNING HERALD index ("Milk Bar" head): 3 August 1935, pg. 16a--Opened in Fleet-street by Hugh D. McIntosh. 28 November 1935, pg. 12c--Mr. Hugh D. McIntosh opens a second milk bar in the stock exchange building (London). UPCOMING: I'll try to meet Frank Abate for lunch when I head up to CT to research the "grinder." I'll continue my nationwide yellow pages "phonebook food" series and check for California sushi roll (Los Angeles 1970s), Buffalo wings (Buffalo, 1960s-1970s), chimichanga (Tucson, 1960s), hoagie (Philadelphia, 1940s), grinder (New London and New Haven, CT, 1950s)and more. From words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM Wed Jan 3 01:54:03 2001 From: words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM (Evan Morris) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:54:03 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <913842600gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: At 06:38 PM 1/2/01, Grant Barrett wrote: >Full text, courtesy of Dow Jones News Retrieval. Fair use applies, I believe. > >LEISURE & ARTS > >Hot Dog! `Big Apple' Explained >By Ed Zotti > >01/02/2001 >The Wall Street Journal Ed Zotti? As in the Ed Zotti who writes (it is said) The Straight Dope column under the name Cecil Adams? Cool. In any case, it is GREAT to see Barry get this well-deserved recognition. -- Evan Morris words1 at word-detective.com http://www.word-detective.com From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 3 01:00:45 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:00:45 -0500 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Dear Dennis: I don't like old words for WOTY. Never have and probably never will. Happy New Year! Regards, Dave Barnhart From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 03:06:01 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 22:06:01 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ In-Reply-To: <913842600gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: Good to see the Wall Street Journal promulgate the straight dope on Barry. Congratulations on the well-deserved recognition! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Wed Jan 3 10:29:36 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 05:29:36 -0500 Subject: Barry Popik in WSJ Message-ID: > On behalf of non-subscribers everywhere, thanks very much for posting > the article The WSJ copyright statement accompanying that article states that "reproduction or redistribution of WSJ.com content requires permission from us." I would have thought that scholars (which seem to form the bulk of this list's membership) would be acutely aware of copyright concerns and embarrassed (not glad) to see such an obvious (albeit minor) violation. My views of copyright may be old-fashioned in the Internet age, but I honestly believe that if we turn a blind eye to (or, worse, actively encourage) these smaller copyright infringements, then eventually larger acts of intellectual theft won't seem all that bad. And when that day comes, this being one of the slipperier of slopes, it surely won't be long before the whole notion of intellectual property is toast. Sorry for the off-topic soapboxian rant, but (as you've no doubt guessed) we're into Pet Peeve territory here. Paul From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 13:21:23 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 08:21:23 -0500 Subject: Milk Bar (corrected) In-Reply-To: <70.68f1193.2783d906@aol.com> Message-ID: >Is there any chance that Milk Bar is a calque from Polish (Bar >Mleczny)? Milk Bars ("plain food joints" - not just milk products) >are so designated there. dInIs > Greetings from New York City. The "Milk Bar" posting was rushed (hey, I >made my plane) and I wrote 1936 instead of 1935. Here goes again: > >>>From OED: >20 November 1935, FORRES GAZ--The milk bar, or place where milk drinks are >sold, is a popular institution all over Australia and plans are on foot for >installing them in Britain. > >November 1934 Melbourne telephone directory > I didn't see "Milk Bar" in a quick check of it. > >>>From SYDNEY MORNING HERALD index ("Milk Bar" head): >3 August 1935, pg. 16a--Opened in Fleet-street by Hugh D. McIntosh. >28 November 1935, pg. 12c--Mr. Hugh D. McIntosh opens a second milk bar in >the stock exchange building (London). > >UPCOMING: I'll try to meet Frank Abate for lunch when I head up to CT to >research the "grinder." > I'll continue my nationwide yellow pages "phonebook food" series and check >for California sushi roll (Los Angeles 1970s), Buffalo wings (Buffalo, >1960s-1970s), chimichanga (Tucson, 1960s), hoagie (Philadelphia, 1940s), >grinder (New London and New Haven, CT, 1950s)and more. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From stevek at SHORE.NET Wed Jan 3 13:48:05 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 08:48:05 -0500 Subject: WOTY In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > Dear Dennis: > > I don't like old words for WOTY. Never have and probably never will. Wouldn't that technically make the category NWOTY then? I didn't realize the N was implied, but I'm relatively new to the process. --- Steve K. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:10:16 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 09:10:16 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: > > At 7:48 PM -0500 1/2/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>What nine yards (in football)? > > > >dInIs (a former blocking back) > Well, with inflation, it's up to ten yards (in football). I didn't say it made any sense, I've just always associated that phrase with football, since I was pretty young. Third down and nine yards to go, they got the whole nine yards, hooray! - that sort of thing. If my six-year-old self could, he'd explain it to you :-) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:16:14 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 09:16:14 -0500 Subject: WOTY In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Our definition (which has grown with the process) has for some time >now noted that words which "have come to prominence" in a year (not >just those manufactured in that year) are worthy candidates. My >learned colleague David Barnhart has not been a strong supporter of >this turn, but, then, he is not athletic. dInIs PS: My apologies to the sharp-eyed Arnold Zwicky who noted my "modd" typo in my earlier contribution to this thread. >On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > >> Dear Dennis: >> >> I don't like old words for WOTY. Never have and probably never will. > >Wouldn't that technically make the category NWOTY then? > >I didn't realize the N was implied, but I'm relatively new to the process. > >--- Steve K. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:20:06 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 09:20:06 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: <3A5332C8.27DE7863@cmu.edu> Message-ID: >Aha! Associations, not etymology. Fine with me. Such associations >are part of the backbone of folk linguistics. Far be it from me to >trash any of that! dInIs (who more often remembers third and twelve, third and eigthteen, third and twenty-six, etc...; hell, I was just waiting for basketball season anyway) >Laurence Horn wrote: >> >> At 7:48 PM -0500 1/2/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>What nine yards (in football)? >> > >> >dInIs (a former blocking back) > >> Well, with inflation, it's up to ten yards (in football). > >I didn't say it made any sense, I've just always associated that phrase >with football, since I was pretty young. Third down and nine yards to >go, they got the whole nine yards, hooray! - that sort of thing. If my >six-year-old self could, he'd explain it to you :-) -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Wed Jan 3 14:35:33 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:35:33 +0100 Subject: Milk Bar (corrected) Message-ID: The Swedish word "mj?lkbar" (a place where one can get milk drinks and simple food) is attested in an article in the Svenska Dagbladet in 1930. The Dictionary of the Swedish Academy http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/saob4.shtml says the word is a loan from the English "milk bar", but gives no source. Jan Ivarsson, Sweden ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis R. Preston" To: Sent: den 3 januari 2001 14:21 Subject: Re: Milk Bar (corrected) > >Is there any chance that Milk Bar is a calque from Polish (Bar > >Mleczny)? Milk Bars ("plain food joints" - not just milk products) > >are so designated there. > > dInIs > > > Greetings from New York City. The "Milk Bar" posting was rushed (hey, I > >made my plane) and I wrote 1936 instead of 1935. Here goes again: > > > >>From OED: > >20 November 1935, FORRES GAZ--The milk bar, or place where milk drinks are > >sold, is a popular institution all over Australia and plans are on foot for > >installing them in Britain. > > > >November 1934 Melbourne telephone directory > > I didn't see "Milk Bar" in a quick check of it. > > > >>From SYDNEY MORNING HERALD index ("Milk Bar" head): > >3 August 1935, pg. 16a--Opened in Fleet-street by Hugh D. McIntosh. > >28 November 1935, pg. 12c--Mr. Hugh D. McIntosh opens a second milk bar in > >the stock exchange building (London). > > > >UPCOMING: I'll try to meet Frank Abate for lunch when I head up to CT to > >research the "grinder." > > I'll continue my nationwide yellow pages "phonebook food" series and check > >for California sushi roll (Los Angeles 1970s), Buffalo wings (Buffalo, > >1960s-1970s), chimichanga (Tucson, 1960s), hoagie (Philadelphia, 1940s), > >grinder (New London and New Haven, CT, 1950s)and more. > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > Department of Linguistics and Languages > Michigan State University > East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA > preston at pilot.msu.edu > Office: (517)353-0740 > Fax: (517)432-2736 From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 3 16:52:24 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 10:52:24 -0600 Subject: "chad" in 1952 Message-ID: One of the pleasant developments from the WSJ article on Barry Popik yesterday is an e-mail I received pertaining to "chad." The writer (Mr. Chris Jensen) remembers the word from 1952 and directs attention to the US Army's teletype machines. This jibes with the observations of Fred Shapiro to the already noticed earliest attestation (1947) from the Merriam-Webster files. Perhaps the most significant part of the e-mail is Mr. Jensen's mentioning the manufacturer of the teletype machines (approximate name; "The Teletype Corporation."). It's a lead to locating who might have introduced "chad" into teletype jargon. Here now is Mr. Jensen's Jan. 2 e-mail message, followed by material on 1947 "chad" from notes I have made in preparation for a "chad" compilation (no conclusive etymology yet). >If you are interested in the word Chad and its origin, you might >have information pre-dating this, but if not: > >I trained in the US Army's teletype school in 1952. We pre-packaged >the messages we had to send onto paper tape. When we were satisfied >with our accuracy, we sent the message by "reading" the tape through >the same machine that perforated it. > >The paper tape perforators came in two models, chad and chadless. >The chad perforators punched out the paper, leaving a hole. The >chadless perforators deliberately punched about 80% of the hole, >leaving the now-illreputed "hanging chad." Chadless was attractive >because we could edit it - patching in corrections in the form of >other chadless stretches of tape by making its hanging chad push >through the partial holes in the base document's tape. Sort of like >editing cellulose movie film, except without the glue. > >Those machines had been in the Army since shortly after World War >II, if not before. They were supplied by "The Teletype Corporation." >or some supplier like that. You might get more of a 'final' answer >from that corporation or its successor about where they learned >about the expression 'chad.' (from notes for a compilation, containing contributions of various individuals; due credit will of course be given): > 1947 (EARLIEST ATTESTATION) COMES FROM MERRIAM-WEBSTER FILES > > The earliest attestation for chad is 1947 and comes from the >files of Merriam-Webster. The following [ADS-L] Nov. 20, 2000 >message was sent by Joanne Despres (jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM): > > '...the 1947 citation for "chad" in our files reads as follows: > > "The sample tape shown in Figure 2 is of the form produced by the > typing reperforator. It is known as chadless tape because the > small discs, called chads, which are perforated to form the code > combinations are not cut completely from the tape but are > perforated only sufficiently to permit the chads to rise like small > hinged lids in response to the sensing pins of a transmitter. > > RCA Review > Radio Corp. of America Vol. 8 No. 3 > RCA Lab. Div. Sept. 1947 > > 'This same citation also provides our earliest evidence for >"chadless." Every other early source I've looked at defines >"chadless" in the same way, i.e., in terms of a tape-punching >method resulting in a lack of chads. The absence of any reference >to the name "Chadless" in these cites would seem to cast doubt >on the back-formation hypothesis posited as an explanation for >"chad." Jim Rader mentioned to me that he'd investigated this >hypothesis some time ago by checking patent records for the >name, but came up with nothing. The "perhaps" derivation in W3 >from a Scots word meaning "gravel" appeared to him to be pure >guesswork.' > > FRED SHAPIRO LOOKS AT THE ABOVE 1947 QUOTE IN CONTEXT > (Nov. 21, 2000 ADS-L message) > > For those of you who are eagerly awaiting more findings in >the Great Chad Quest, I have checked the original source of the 1947 >Merriam-Webster citation. The context does not, alas, shed any >further light on the >etymological question. The one thing I glean from examining the original >article in the RCA Review is that the milieu of this earliest known usage >is not computers, but rather radiotelegraphy. (The second oldest source, >the 1959 cite in the OED Addition Series, is also from a telegraphy >source.) > I also looked for other articles mentioning "chad" in the RCA >Review and other engineering journals from the late 1940s, but found >nothing. > >Fred Shapiro, Editor >YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS, forthcoming. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 17:00:02 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 12:00:02 EST Subject: Submarine Sandwich (January 1940) Message-ID: Greetings from the Library of Congress. Should I take time off and watch the swearing in? The Wilmington Library had a gap in the phone books, and I wanted to go back to the LOC anyway. There was nothing in the April 1939 phone book, but then again the ads and listings were double in number just a few months later. From the Wilmington, Delaware, Classified Telelphone Directory, January 1940, pg. 104, col. 2: _ARSENIOS DANIEL_ Spaghetti and Submarine Sandwiches 721 S Van Buren...Wilmgtn-2-9302 (...) De Matteis John Italian Food A Specialty Spaghetti--Ravioli--Pizza Submarine Sandwiches To Take Out 520 N Union...Wilmgtn-2-9241 From N270053 at VM.SC.EDU Wed Jan 3 16:55:24 2001 From: N270053 at VM.SC.EDU (Michael Montgomery) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 11:55:24 EST Subject: ADS meeting Message-ID: Dear Dennis I won't make it to Washington this weekend but will look forward to seing everyone a year hence in San Francisco and to conferring with you in the spring about advice on organizing the ADS program for next year. Already I have asked Patricia Cukor-Avila to think about organizing a panel on accent and employability. If it is not on the Executive Committee agenda fro Friday morning, I would like for someone to raise the matter of the society doing something to mark the life and contributions of Fred Cassidy. Perhaps there would be time to form an ad hoc committee of 2-3 people who knew him well andt to suggest a few ideas at the meeting that the committee might want to consider. A special issue of American Speech_ comes to mind as one possibility. A bonnie new year to you and Carol, Michael M From iatros at WWA.COM Wed Jan 3 18:14:51 2001 From: iatros at WWA.COM (Austin J. Gibbons) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 12:14:51 -0600 Subject: Kelsey's nuts Message-ID: Looking for the origin of the phrase "Kelesy's nuts". It is the title of a blues song. I don't know where I first heard it. Have mostly heard it used as ". . .dead as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . cold as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . flat as Kelsey's nuts" etc. Thank you -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 18:33:50 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 13:33:50 EST Subject: Word Origin Message-ID: In a message dated 1/2/2001 5:45:09 PM, kfpastore at JUNO.COM writes: << "tar-tupple" >> not tart-able? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 3 19:01:11 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 14:01:11 EST Subject: Tucson's Chimichangas, 1970-- Message-ID: Is Tucson the home of the chimichanga? The earliest I could find in the yellow pages was 1970. Various restaurants that later advertised "chimichanga" did not have large ads in the 1960s, unfortunately. July 1970, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 405, col. 1: _EL DORADO TAVERN_ Homemade Mexican Food--Icy Beer--Wine ALL FOOD TO GO Our Specialty--Chimichanga 1949 S 4 Av...622-9171 (NOTE: Restaurant was not listed in 1969--ed.) July 1971--same El Dorado Tavern ad. July 1972--same El Dorado Tavern ad. July 1973--larger El Dorado Tavern ad. July 1973, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 577, col. 1: _DON JUAN'S FINE MEXICAN FOOD_ SPECIALIZING CHIMICHANGA . FLAUTA 1120 A Wilmot Rd...298-9905 (NOTE: This restaurant did not have an extended ad before--ed.) July 1973, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 580, col. 2: _GUERRERO'S PLACE_ Specializing AUTHENTIC MEXICAN FOOD including FLAUTAS . CHIMICHANGAS CONE TACOS ORDERS TO GO Open 11 A.M. to 10 P.M. (Across from Randolph) 3326 E 22...325-9272 (NOTE: This restaurant also didn't have a larger ad before--ed.) July 1973, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 512, col. 3: _LERUA'S MEXICAN FOOD NO 1_ (...) Featuring Green Corn Tamales (NOTE: No chimichanga--ed.) July 1974--various chimichanga ads repeated. July 1974, TUCSON YELLOW PAGES, pg. 620, col. 3: _LERUA'S FINE MEXICAN FOOD_ SERVING TUCSON SINCE 1922 GREEN CORN TAMALES CHIMICHANGAS ENCHILADAS TOSTADAS TORTILLAS TACOS CHORIZO CARNE SECA MENUDO RELLENOS 2005 E Broadway...624-0322 From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 3 19:50:33 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 14:50:33 EST Subject: nookie Message-ID: Larry Horn writes, referring to the treatment of "nooky" in HDAS: "And if anyone's wondering,"nookie/nookey/ nooky/nucky" is origin unknown." I would have supposed that it was from "nook", as in "nook and cranny", alluding to the female organ of generation. This must have been considered and rejected? GAT From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 3 19:53:28 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 14:53:28 -0500 Subject: nookie Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not grossly, exaggerated. <<<<< Yes to all those fixed phrases. I was careful to say "obsolescent", not "obsolete". Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? -- Mark From indigo at WELL.COM Wed Jan 3 20:01:11 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 12:01:11 -0800 Subject: 2K1 & hello In-Reply-To: <200101030505.VAA07576@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: snip >number, K is most often used to signify quantities of bits or bytes. >Since these critters live in a binary universe, K is a rough decimal >translation: 2^10 = 1024, not 1000. So, Y2K would be the year 2048. > >The only other example that I can think of the number K being used with >an elliptic unit is in foot racing - 5K or 10K races, where K = 1000 >(meters). snip >How about other words or letters that are used to mean 1000, like >"grand" or "G" or "large" (e.g., Y2G)? Unfortunately these 3 examples >represent both quantity and units (i.e., forty large = $40,000), so they >wouldn't work either. Hello to the list, This is my 1st posting after lurking for a while. I'm an artist & writer; my art frequently includes text or other reference to language & language structures (most currently sentence diagrams). So I'm a sort of language professional, but in a *very* different way, I'm assuming, than most folks on this list. So I ask your patience & indulgence if I inadvertently stumble over any academic conventions, &c. I am definitely here to learn & don't anticipate posting very often anyway. Anyway, as a tangent to the above post, I wonder if anybody else was using Roman numerals MM in their dates last year, eg 31/12/MM. I did it all year but never saw anybody else do it. A few store clerks expressed confusion (until I said "Roman numerals") but otherwise I never got any comment one way or the other about it. I don't think I will extend it into this year. MMI seems like a slippery slope into that Roman numeral awkwardness, which is what made me so appreciative of the simple MM in the 1st place. Indigo Som indigo at well.com Poets don't have hobbies; they have obsessions --Leonard Nathan From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 3 20:16:14 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:16:14 EST Subject: juvenile delinquent Message-ID: Tim Frazer asks: "What is the earliest citation anyone can give me of "juvenile delinquent"? I am guessing late 1940s, but I want to be on firmer ground." 1825: Meeting of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents. [held to open the House of Refuge] . . . a group of young vagrants of both sexes, was introduced by Messrs Hays, Conklin and other peace officers. Their destitute situation, being without shoes, stockings, and other necessary covering, and their vacant and squalid countenances, the combined result of poverty and ignorance, of idleness and vicious examples. . . . Commercial Advertiser, January 4, 1825, p. 2, col. 2 The House of Refuge was what is not called a "juvy", for JUVEnile detention center. When I first heard "juvy" I heard it as "judy", thinking it was for JUvenile DEtention center. Is "judy" used at all? By the way, the referent of "their", as in "their vacant and squalid countenances", &c. is the young vagrants, not the cops. GAT From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 07:53:07 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:53:07 +0800 Subject: Kelsey's nuts In-Reply-To: <002401c075b1$11aff7e0$3948ee9d@DJTBF10B> Message-ID: At 12:14 PM -0600 1/3/01, Austin J. Gibbons wrote: >Looking for the origin of the phrase "Kelesy's nuts". It is the >title of a blues song. I don't know where I first heard it. Have >mostly heard it used as ". . .dead as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . cold >as Kelsey's nuts" -- ". . . flat as Kelsey's nuts" etc. >Thank you There's a substantial entry in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, with cites back to 1933 and this comment on the origin: perh. orig. alluding (with pun on slang NUT 'testicle') to the permanency of welded nuts and bolts on wheels manufactured by the Kelsey Wheel Co., prominent in the U. S. automotive industry in the 1920's; see P. Tamony, "Like Kelsey's Nuts...", Forum Anglicum XIV (1985), pp. 120-33. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 3 21:04:18 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:04:18 -0600 Subject: Cranny hole. Message-ID: >Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of 'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of space in a building. This can include space under stairs or odd corners of an attic. It's not really a 'crevice' a la MW; in a house, a crevice is very small, something you clean with the vacuum cleaner's crevice tool. A cranny is larger. A nook tends to be useable space, as with breakfast nook, but I wonder if anyone else gets the feeling that 'niche' overlaps. 'Wall nook' does not sound strange; it would be an oversized niche set into the wall, often containing cabinets or shelves: the presenting side would have to be flush with the surrounding wall, I think. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 08:19:46 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:19:46 +0800 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:53 PM -0500 1/3/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Laurence Horn writes: > >>>>>> >Is "nook" really obsolescent? We had a "breakfast nook" in our >apartment when I was growing up and I've come across various "shady >nooks" and "quiet nooks" since, not to mention "nooks and crannies". >It's a lovely old word, going back to the 14th century, and I prefer >to think that rumors of its obsolescence are somewhat, if not >grossly, exaggerated. ><<<<< > >Yes to all those fixed phrases. I was careful to say "obsolescent", not >"obsolete". > >Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? > I think it's fairly productive, in commercial contexts inter alia. A quick google search turns up "Santa's nook", "recipe nook", "nannies' nook", "users nook", "pumpkin nook", "kids' nook", and many "book nook"s, and the total number of hits is "about 374,000". It may be somewhat register-restricted, but endangered it's not. I agree that it's not as likely as its synonyms to appear unmodified, but even then I can imagine commenting on an out-of-the-way spot (indoor or outdoor) that I came upon with someone, "This is really a lovely nook." I'm not saying I WOULD say it, but I can IMAGINE saying it. larry From Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM Wed Jan 3 21:23:54 2001 From: Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM (Sallie Lemons) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:23:54 -0500 Subject: Cranny hole. Message-ID: In the pre-WWII building I live in (NYC), virtually all apartments have "wall nooks." They have rounded tops, mirrored backs and contain two or three shelves. Mark Odegard wrote: > >Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? > > As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a > dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of > 'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of > space in a building. This can include space under stairs or odd corners of > an attic. It's not really a 'crevice' a la MW; in a house, a crevice is very > small, something you clean with the vacuum cleaner's crevice tool. A cranny > is larger. > > A nook tends to be useable space, as with breakfast nook, but I wonder if > anyone else gets the feeling that 'niche' overlaps. 'Wall nook' does not > sound strange; it would be an oversized niche set into the wall, often > containing cabinets or shelves: the presenting side would have to be flush > with the surrounding wall, I think. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 3 22:17:29 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:17:29 -0600 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik Message-ID: Earlier today I posted an e-mail I had received Mr. Chris Jensen and commented that his mention of "The Teletype Corporation" might furnish a lead as to who introduced "chad" into telegraphy jargon. I just noticed that Barry Popik had already drawn attention to the Teletype Corporation a month ago. So Jensen's information jibes with Barry's and brings the date of Teletype usage back to 1952, while Barry had already taken the lead a step further (recommending that authors Adams and Butler be contacted). ---Gerald Cohen >Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 23:03:02 EST >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >Sender: American Dialect Society >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM >Subject: Teletype Corp. & "Chad" >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Try Teletype Corp.? > Several ads for the Teletype Corp. ran in BUSINESS AUTOMATION. >One ad, July 1961, pg. 61: "Tape Readers--Will read chadless or >fully perforated tape. (...) Teletype Corporation manufactures this >equipment for the Bell System and others who require the utmost >reliability from their data communications facilities." > Teletype Corp. was a subsidiary of Western Electric Co., Inc. >(now Lucent Technologies--or whatever). Its address was 555 Touhy >Avenue, Skokie, Illinois. I have no idea when Teletype Corp. >started, but Western Electric was around for a long while. > For further information on Teletype and "chad," perhaps someone >can get in touch with Stephen B. Adams & Orville R. Butler, authors >of MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE: A HISTORY OF WESTERN ELECTRIC >(Cambridge University Press, 1999). > >MISC. > >August 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 50. Systematics tape punch >has a "jam-proof chad disposal box." > >October 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 6, col. 1 ad for Avery Label Company: >4. Clean punched pin-feed holes--no "confetti." >5. No bent edges or "dog-ears." From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 3 23:05:16 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:05:16 -0800 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: <3A5244C3.D618C4CD@cmu.edu> Message-ID: > Behalf Of Drew Danielson > Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 1:15 PM > I would guess there was discussion about this around this time last > year, but I don't much care for the use of 2K to mean 2000. As a > number, K is most often used to signify quantities of bits or bytes. > Since these critters live in a binary universe, K is a rough decimal > translation: 2^10 = 1024, not 1000. So, Y2K would be the year 2048. > > The only other example that I can think of the number K being used with > an elliptic unit is in foot racing - 5K or 10K races, where K = 1000 > (meters). > > While both uses of K are current, the former is by far much more > common. Since "Y2K" was most often used in reference to the potential > date-related computer problems, I feel this adds more weight to the > argument that in this case K should properly be used to refer to 1024, > not 1000 (and that Y2K is a misapplication of the number K). K is common as an abbreviation for kilo (=1000) in the metric system. It is widely used in km and kg among others. While many online glossaries dedicated to computer jargon such as http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/acronyms/masterlist.html http://www.fasterimage.com/faq.htm http://www.sisnaaz.com/support/DB/glossary.html http://sislands.com/javascript/appendix/glossary.htm agree that a KB is 1024 bytes or that it is generally rounded off to 1000, others do not: http://data-direct.com/glossary.htm http://www.pcwebopaedia.com/TERM/K/KB.html The last in this list explicitly draws a line between data storage Ks (usually 1024) and data transfer rate Ks (1000). In any case, it would seem that the usage of K for 1000 (metric system) far outdates using it for 1024, which is a 20th century development to make things simple. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 3 23:24:56 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 18:24:56 -0500 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik Message-ID: Further to Gerald Cohen's below, I can report from research I did on the US Patent and Trademark Office website (a wonderful resource, btw, at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/search.html) that the name of the company is (or was) definitely the Teletype Corporation. Before the advent of faxes, email, etc., teletype machines were a very important means of long-distance communication for written data, used by all major businesses and governments worldwide, esp. after WWII. Teletype machines looked like a very large electric typewriter on a stand, and many had paper-tape recording devices along with them. Beneath the tape-punching device was a bin to catch the punched-out holes. However, punched-tape technology is much older than even teletypes. There are US patents for paper-punching devices for telegraphy dating back to the early 1920s. Some google.com searching revealed that the idea of coded paper tape goes back to the British engineer and inventor Sir Charles Wheatstone, who described the concept in 1857 as a way to record Morse code. Then Frenchman Emile Baudot (eponymous source of "baud") developed the Baudot code, a 5-bit system for encoding characters. This was used on paper tape for decades, until it was replaced by an 8-bit system in the 1960s. Then there are punch cards, which go back at least to the 1890 US Census and its Hollerith machines. The point is that people have been creating (if not saying) chad or chips for many, many years, and the search for earlier uses may take us very far back before 1947. I have not found an earlier cite as yet, but I suspect there may be good evidence from people who can access written records about telegraphy and the teletype. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 5:17 PM Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik > Earlier today I posted an e-mail I had received Mr. Chris Jensen > and commented that his mention of "The Teletype Corporation" might > furnish a lead as to who introduced "chad" into telegraphy jargon. > > I just noticed that Barry Popik had already drawn attention to the > Teletype Corporation a month ago. So Jensen's information jibes with > Barry's and brings the date of Teletype usage back to 1952, while > Barry had already taken the lead a step further (recommending that > authors Adams and Butler be contacted). > > ---Gerald Cohen > > >Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 23:03:02 EST > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society > >Sender: American Dialect Society > >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM > >Subject: Teletype Corp. & "Chad" > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > > > Try Teletype Corp.? > > Several ads for the Teletype Corp. ran in BUSINESS AUTOMATION. > >One ad, July 1961, pg. 61: "Tape Readers--Will read chadless or > >fully perforated tape. (...) Teletype Corporation manufactures this > >equipment for the Bell System and others who require the utmost > >reliability from their data communications facilities." > > Teletype Corp. was a subsidiary of Western Electric Co., Inc. > >(now Lucent Technologies--or whatever). Its address was 555 Touhy > >Avenue, Skokie, Illinois. I have no idea when Teletype Corp. > >started, but Western Electric was around for a long while. > > For further information on Teletype and "chad," perhaps someone > >can get in touch with Stephen B. Adams & Orville R. Butler, authors > >of MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE: A HISTORY OF WESTERN ELECTRIC > >(Cambridge University Press, 1999). > > > >MISC. > > > >August 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 50. Systematics tape punch > >has a "jam-proof chad disposal box." > > > >October 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 6, col. 1 ad for Avery Label Company: > >4. Clean punched pin-feed holes--no "confetti." > >5. No bent edges or "dog-ears." > From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 4 00:03:16 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 19:03:16 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: > K is common as an abbreviation for kilo (=1000) in the metric system. It is > widely used in km and kg among others. ... > In any case, it would seem that the usage of K for 1000 (metric system) far > outdates using it for 1024, which is a 20th century development to make > things simple. But K as a stand-alone "number", not coupled with a unit, is used in popular culture _almost_ exclusively in computer terminology - like "Meg" or "Gig". The only example I can think of K being used as a stand-alone value outside of computer-speak is the foot racing example I mentioned before. Are there other examples of this? From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Thu Jan 4 00:29:03 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 16:29:03 -0800 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: Drew Danielson wrote: But K as a stand-alone "number", not coupled with a unit, is used in popular culture _almost_ exclusively in computer terminology - like "Meg" or "Gig". The only example I can think of K being used as a stand-alone value outside of computer-speak is the foot racing example I mentioned before. Are there other examples of this? In medical-speak we talk about K calories but usually as Kcal per kilo (Kcal/Kg) though some do say K calories in writing about the "concept" as opposed to the actual measurement. Sharyn Hay storknurse From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 4 01:00:40 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 17:00:40 -0800 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. this has been around for some time - exactly how long i don't know - and has been adopted in other abbreviated written contexts, and then into speech as well ("they're offering us 250k!"). arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 02:13:12 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 21:13:12 EST Subject: Buffalo food (Beef-on-Weck, Surf-n-Turf, Buffalo Wings) Message-ID: I was looking for "Buffalo Wings" and requested 1963-1964, 1964-1965, and then 1967-1968 and others. I'll have to check the two phonebooks in between at a later date (no requests after 7:30 p.m.). 1963-1964 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, back cover. "Home Of The Famous 'REVOLVING BAR'" is in the CHez Ami ad, 311 Delaware Avenue. 1963-1964 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES. Pg. 438, col. 3--Art's Lounge has "ROAST BEEF ON KUMMELWECK." (See Lynne Murphy's posting on Kimmelweck in old ADS-L archives--ed.) Pg. 438, col. 4--Bordeaux's Grill has "ROAST BEEF ON KUMMELWECK." Pg. 443, col. 3--Ad for the Surf 'n Sirloin restaurant, 2443 Niagara Falls Blvd. Pg. 445, col. 2--Rusty's Grille has "Roast Beef Kummelweck." Pg. 447, col. 3--Blue Eagle Cafe has "Roast Beef Kummelweck." 1964-1965 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 455, col. 1: _SANTA LUCIA'S RESTRNT_ (...) BOMBER SANDWICHES (...) 2447 Niagara Falls Blvd. 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 483, col. 3. ANCHOR BAR ad states "Barbequed Chicken Wings." 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 483, cols. 2-3: _Syracuse Restaurant_ OUR SPECIALTY "TURF & SURF DINNERS" (...) 4346 Bailey Av. 835-5060 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 487, col. 3: SCHUPER HOUSE BIG "BEEF-ON-WECK" ALWAYS (...) 1802 NIAGARA ST. 877-9287 1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 489, col. 4: _MICHAEL'S HOUSE OF STEAKS_ SUPERB STEAKS--LOBSTER--CHICKEN SURF 'N' TURF (Cor Niagara & Prospect) 949 Prospect Av...886-8929 From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 4 01:50:11 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 20:50:11 -0500 Subject: Cranny hole. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? > >As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a >dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of >'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of >space in a building. This can include space under stairs In England at least a space under the stairs could also be called a "glory-hole" rather than "cranny hole". Tony Glaser From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 4 02:55:33 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 18:55:33 -0800 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: <200101040100.RAA28770@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Along with this is income. It's pretty common to say (or even write on a job application/resume): $50K. (Although this generally falls outside of the US) what do metric users say for kilograms? I weigh 60 kilos or 60 Ks? Benjamin Barrett > -----Original Message----- > Of Arnold Zwicky > > many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures > (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the > corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Thu Jan 4 02:58:46 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 18:58:46 -0800 Subject: 2K1 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And, MST3K = Mystery Science Theater 3000. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Benjamin Barrett wrote: > Along with this is income. It's pretty common to say (or even write on a job > application/resume): $50K. (Although this generally falls outside of the US) > what do metric users say for kilograms? I weigh 60 kilos or 60 Ks? > > Benjamin Barrett > > > -----Original Message----- > > Of Arnold Zwicky > > > > many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures > > (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the > > corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 3 14:02:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 22:02:58 +0800 Subject: Cranny hole. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:50 PM -0500 1/3/01, Tony Glaser wrote: >>>Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them? >> >>As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a >>dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of >>'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of >>space in a building. This can include space under stairs > >In England at least a space under the stairs could also be called a >"glory-hole" rather than "cranny hole". > One wouldn't want to try using that variant with that meaning in the U.S. The term is already taken for a more...technical meaning. (Check on google.com if you want a handle on the denotation.) larry From lynneguist at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 4 04:32:07 2001 From: lynneguist at HOTMAIL.COM (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 04:32:07 -0000 Subject: Buffalo food (Beef-on-Weck, Surf-n-Turf, Buffalo Wings) Message-ID: >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM >1967-1968 BUFFALO YELLOW PAGES, pg. 483, col. 3. >ANCHOR BAR ad states "Barbequed Chicken Wings." Anchor Bar is the 'original' Buffalo wings place--all other wings are supposedly judged against the Anchor Bar's. But I'd suspect that they weren't called 'Buffalo wings' until people outside Buffalo started making them. I didn't first eat them until 1979 in Niagara Falls, but they were well established in the area by this time--although only served in locally owned places, not in every bar/restaurant in town. But I recall us calling them "Buffalo chicken wings" and the shortening to "Buffalo wings" coming slightly later. Lynne, corresponding this week from western NY, where I've had my fill of wings and beef on weck (and just plain beef, beef, beef so long as it's safe to eat it) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 07:54:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 02:54:21 EST Subject: Hoggies (Philadelphia, October 1945); Submarine (Baltimore, 1941) Message-ID: Greetings from NYC and a few hours of Amtrak sleep. The Library of Congress was very frustrating. Some phone books were microfilmed, and some were in the original in the local history/genealogy division. But you don't know what is where, or if it's anywhere. I couldn't get Boston, Mass., phonebooks at all. I couldn't get New London, CT, and New Haven, CT, phonebooks at all. I went through Baltimore phonebooks to check for "submarine." I also went through Philly phonebooks in 1949 and 1953 and found a heaven of hoggies (usually that spelling). I then requested 1939-1945. I was brought 1939 & 1945. "Sandwiches" are there in 1939 and "hoggie" is there in 1945. When I went to request 1940-1944 again, I was told it's past 7:30 p.m. to make requests. Whatever. Here goes: October 1945, PHILADELPHIA YELLOW PAGES Pg. 754, col. 1: Bertha's Oyster House Spaghetti--Delicious Hoggie Sandwiches 3828 Eastwick av...BELgrde-1777 pg. 755, col. 1: _CAPPY'S STEAK & HOGGIE SHOP_ Delicious Hoggie And Steak Sandwiches Bet 18th And 19th Passyunk 2152 S Dorrance...DEWey-9313 Pg. 756, col. 1 (large ad): DE PALMA's RESTAURANT AL DE PALMA The Original Hoggie Man Hoggies 37 KINDS OF SANDWICHES orders made up to go out... OPEN ALL NITE 5142 MARKET ST. CALL GRAnite 5702 Pg. 760, col. 3: Jen's Hoggie Shop 1527 Jackson...FULton-4461 Pg. 762, col. 3: _MARY'S HOGGIE SHOPPE_ 1258 S 20 FULton-1353 Pg. 762, col. 4: Neff's Hogies 5515 Woodlnd av. ...SARatga-2363 Pg. 763, col. 2: _PEARLINGI JAS_ Hoggie's--Steaks--Sodas--Ice Cream 6216 Lansdowne av...GREnwd-9924 Pg. 764, col. 4: _STONEHURST SANDWICH SHOP_ _SO. WEST PHILA._ _Stonehurst Sandwich Shops_ Submarine (Hogies) & Other Tasty Sandwiches to Take Out 438 Long Lane Upper Darby...Madison-6303 7016 Elmwood Av...SARatga-4155 Pg. 765, col. 1: _TONY'S HOGIE SHOP_ _TONY'S HOGIE SHOP_ ANTHONY ZENONE, Prop. Specializing in Real Italian Hogies Exclusively SERVING CLUBS--MEETINGS SOCIAL FUNCTIONS LUNCHES TO TAKE OUT 6709 Woodland Av. 6214 Woodland Av. 6709 Woodland Av...BELgrde-4362 -------------------------------------------------------- This store wasn't even in the previous phonebook before this, so what are we to make of this ad? Winter/Spring 1941, BALTIMORE (MD) CLASSIFIED TELEPHONE DIRECTORY, pg. 326, col. 2: _ABRUZZESE AL_ Originator of Steak Sandwich on Italian Roll STEAK SANDWICH KING Submarine Sandwiches Catering to Parties, Picnics and Banquets OPEN 24 HOURS DAILY 803 E Baltimore...CAlvert-6742 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 11:21:47 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 06:21:47 EST Subject: Broadcaster Marty Glickman dies at age 83 Message-ID: Sports broadcaster Marty Glickman, 83, has died. See the following stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/04/sports/04GLIC.html http://www.nypost.com/sports/20455htm The New York Times story mentions Glickman and the word "swish!" in basketball. See the ADS-L archives (1998?), where I discussed Marty Glickman's words & phrases in detail. The New York Post story has: "The fellow who, as the original voice of the Knicks, had coined the expression 'key' (as in keyhole as in 'top of the key')..." From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 4 16:19:26 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:19:26 -0500 Subject: MM (was: 2K1 & hello) Message-ID: Indigo Som writes: >>>>> Anyway, as a tangent to the above post, I wonder if anybody else was using Roman numerals MM in their dates last year, eg 31/12/MM. I did it all year but never saw anybody else do it. A few store clerks expressed confusion (until I said "Roman numerals") but otherwise I never got any comment one way or the other about it. <<<<< I had a special interest in last year's Roman designation, since MM is also my initials. I write a lot of songs and often post them to lists or a newsgroup (rec.music.filk) or my web site ( http://world.std.com/~mam/filks/), and on some of them I put the copyright notice like this: Copyright MM MM Though I didn't use that formulation with it, this song, written just after last New Year's Eve, is appropriate to the topic. ("Ttto" is standard in this subculture for "to the tune of".) =================================== As I write this (in the year 2000), we are very close to the end of the second millennium of the Gregorian Era. Some folks believe we're already out of it and into the third. Regardless, we can all agree that the fun on New Year's Eve lies in watching the digits turn over on the odometer, and in that spirit I offer An Odometer Toast. (Chosen Best Humorous Song in the "Looking Forward, Looking Back" theme contest at Conterpoint Three.) An Odometer Toast (For New Year's Eve 2000) Mark A. Mandel, copyright 2000 ttto "The Marines' Hymn" ("From the halls of Montezuma...") From the day that each of us was born To the shores of Triple-Oh We have never known quite where we were Or just which way to go. As we stagger on from year to year At our ragged, stumbling pace Let us raise a glass and drink the health Of the struggling human race. Here's to those who make and move the stuff That keeps us all alive And to those whose charge is all our good That the common weal may thrive And to every woman, man, and child Born of Eve and Adam's line: May we all be doing twice as well In twenty-ninety-nine! =================================== And a very happy New Year, Decade, Century, and Millennium to one and all! -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 4 16:29:51 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:29:51 -0500 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad" Message-ID: Frank Abate writes: >>>>> Then there are punch cards, which go back at least to the 1890 US Census and its Hollerith machines. The point is that people have been creating (if not saying) chad or chips for many, many years, and the search for earlier uses may take us very far back before 1947. I have not found an earlier cite as yet, but I suspect there may be good evidence from people who can access written records about telegraphy and the teletype. <<<<< The Jacquard loom (1804*) used punched cards to define the patterns to be woven. It is regarded as an important influence on Babbage and Hollerith.** That may not be directly relevant to the etymology of "chad", but it sure looks like a hell of an antedate for punched cards! * http://dept.kent.edu/museum/anne/KSUM/paisley/Jac.html ** http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~ped/teachadmin/histsci/htmlform/lect4.html Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 4 16:58:56 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:58:56 -0500 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures > (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the > corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. In these cases, the unit is not elliptical - the convention is to include the unit symbol, "$", as in $50K. > this has been around for some time - exactly how long i don't > know - and has been adopted in other abbreviated written contexts, > and then into speech as well ("they're offering us 250k!"). Point taken. From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Thu Jan 4 17:06:08 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 18:06:08 +0100 Subject: MM (was: 2K1 & hello) Message-ID: It is common in media-buying to use M for thousands, as in CPM "cost per thousand." From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Thu Jan 4 17:10:15 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 11:10:15 -0600 Subject: netizen Message-ID: What is the second part of 'netizen' formed from? 'citizen' or 'denizen'? Bob Wachal From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 4 17:24:13 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 09:24:13 -0800 Subject: MM (was: 2K1 & hello) Message-ID: grant barrett: >It is common in media-buying to use M for thousands, as in CPM "cost >per thousand." ah, another lesson about the importance of context, given the use of "ppm" to mean 'parts per million'. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Thu Jan 4 18:10:00 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 13:10:00 -0500 Subject: 2K stuff Message-ID: View from the non-professional hinterland. I like 2K, since it gives us a handy moniker for the whole first decade of this century: 2KO's. A. Murie From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 4 18:19:20 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 13:19:20 -0500 Subject: netizen Message-ID: "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > > What is the second part of 'netizen' formed from? 'citizen' or 'denizen'? According to http://www.netizen.com.au/ n. a resident or inhabitant of the net. [from net (abbrev. Internet) and citizen (OE citisein, OF citeain)] From Amcolph at AOL.COM Thu Jan 4 21:45:40 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 16:45:40 EST Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad" Message-ID: So "chad" may actually be a French word? From ttm2 at USWEST.NET Thu Jan 4 22:58:27 2001 From: ttm2 at USWEST.NET (Tymkovich) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 15:58:27 -0700 Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: Does anyone know when the word "jock" first was used to describe a person skilled in sports? Specifically, was it in use in the 1910-1930 era? Thank you, Sue Lyon From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 5 00:14:37 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 19:14:37 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <000501c076a1$e09ef560$e555e43f@uswest.net> Message-ID: yOn Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Tymkovich wrote: > Does anyone know when the word "jock" first was used to describe a person > skilled in sports? Specifically, was it in use in the 1910-1930 era? No, I don't think so. I believe that "preppie," "jock" and "wonk" all originated as part of a tripartite division of Harvard students in the 1950s, perhaps a little earlier. The earliest citation I have found for "jock" is from the Harvard Crimson, 21 Feb. 1958; I contributed this to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which printed it as their first use. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 01:17:38 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 20:17:38 EST Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: It seems to me that "jock" derives from "jockey strap", "jockey" being the trade name of a company which manufacters athletic supporters. No date, must be early 20th. Ray Ott From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Fri Jan 5 04:52:41 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 23:52:41 -0500 Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: Having heard 'jock' used in reference to a brutish person, not necessarily an athlete, I would like to know of a stronger connection to [jock = athlete]. As an 'arm chair researcher', I looked to see what I could find in the U. of Michigan MOA database. ================== ================== The brutish context may be hinted at in a reference to "Jock the teamster" at: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000001%2F0041plai%2Fv0000%2Fi000&tif=00560056.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DAFY0696 Supposedly the quote is from Emerson, and may have been familiar to those at Harvard. Per the quote, Jock was a wearer of iron shoes. The quote appears on p. 52 of Plain words to young men, by Augustus Woodbury, in 1858. ==================== At: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000036%2F0750teny%2Fv0000%2Fi000&tif=02350217.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DAEC9697 "k'jock" is noted as a come-along call to a horse. It appears as though k'jock is representative of a sound, rather than a word, per se. The phrase is from Ten years among the mail bags..., by James Holbrook, 1855, on p. 217. ====================== In other references in the U. of Michigan MOA database, there are at least two uses of jock as a name in Scotland. One source notes that Jack = Jock (Scottish). ====================== In The Primevel Man's Pastoral, the first line reads: My grandfather Jock was an ape. The poem is presented in Buffalo land...., by William Edward Webb, 1872, p. 349. ===================== Jock the woodsman is noted in Ceadmon the Cow-Herd, by Aubrey de Vere, in Feb 1878, published in Catholic world, 26, issue 155, on p. 579. At: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=75&root=mm000072%2F1429cath%2Fv0026%2Fi155&tif=05830579.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DBAC8387-1429CATH-60 ====================== One source uses jock in an apparent reference to jockey. ======================= Again, merely some skepticism as to the Jockey shorts ==> jock derivation. I've been wrong before, and might be with the suggestion that brute = jock. But, with the supposed relationship from the Harvard 1950s usage, we're talking about a time when professional athletes often had off-season jobs that were less than genteel. Perhaps there was a difference in the use of jock for college athletes, vs. professional athletes? George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 5 08:50:00 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 00:50:00 -0800 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >British imposed sumptuary laws limited scottish highlanders to no more than >nine yards of tartan cloth each. If they had as much as they were allowed, >they had "the whole nine yards". This strip of home woven cloth was then >folded in a certain way, wrapped around and secured with a waist belt to >form both the kilt and the "over-the-shoulder" part of the outfit: a belted >plaid. I've heard that theory, too, but it also isn't true. The "great plaid" was at most 3-4 yards. One puts one's wide belt on the floor, centers the cloth on it, and pleats the whole thing until the belt is visible on either side. You lie down on the pleated fabric so that the belt is at your waist and then close the belt around you. This then creates a pleated, skirt-like bottom (i.e., the kilt) and a looser top portion which can then be used as carrier/blanket/cloak/etc. Rima From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 5 08:50:00 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 00:50:00 -0800 Subject: juvenile delinquent In-Reply-To: <1273449310E@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >The House of Refuge was what is not called a "juvy", for JUVEnile >detention center. When I first heard "juvy" I heard it as "judy", >thinking it was for JUvenile DEtention center. Is "judy" used at >all? In California (as far as I know) it isn't Juvenile Detention Center, it's Juvenile Hall - and referred to as "juvie." Rima From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 5 14:14:31 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:14:31 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <27.fa26e4e.27867ab2@aol.com> Message-ID: >It seems to me that "jock" derives from "jockey strap", "jockey" being the >trade name of a company which manufacters athletic supporters. No date, must >be early 20th. I agree in part: "jock" = "athlete" < "jock" = "jockstrap" = "athletic supporter". This transference occurred by the 1950's but I suppose it could be older. But "jockstrap" probably < "jock" = "penis", and "jockstrap" is old -- MW says 1886. "Jockey" as an underwear brand dates from 1934, I think (from a casual glance at the USPTO database). -- Doug Wilson From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 14:17:41 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:17:41 EST Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: Humbug! The American usage of "jock" has a definite association with an article of apparel called the athletic supporter or "jockstrap". Ray Ott From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 14:26:00 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:26:00 EST Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Exactly right. Mind you, I only put forward the explanation for this derivation of the term "the whole nine yards" as a possibility. In fact, however, the plaid was a strip of cloth about nine yards long, cut and sewed together to make a wider piece than could be produced on a typical highlander's home loom. Ray Ott From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 5 14:34:59 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 09:34:59 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:50 AM 1/5/01 -0800, you wrote: >>British imposed sumptuary laws limited scottish highlanders to no more than >>nine yards of tartan cloth each. ... > >I've heard that theory, too, but .... But nine yards is a standard length for an Indian sari, I believe (which is not to say that all or most saris are of this length). I can provide references old and new if anyone is interested, but I doubt that the origin of the phrase has anything to do with plaids or saris. A favorite etymology involves the length of an ammunition belt, and it is commonly thought that the expression has a military origin. I can't say that the ammunition-belt theory is unbelievable, but has it been substantiated? Certainly "Give him the whole nine yards [of ammo]" sounds good -- maybe too good. I have another (very speculative) proposal, probably put forth by someone else somewhere already -- very possibly originally military, but a little rude .... If there's any interest, I can expatiate. -- Doug Wilson From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Fri Jan 5 15:15:55 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 16:15:55 +0100 Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik Message-ID: It might be paying to look also at another American firm, Morkrum-Kleinschmidt, producing equipment of the same type as Teletype's. Jan Ivarsson Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-272 31 SIMRISHAMN Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st Tel. +46 414 10620 Fax +46 414 13633 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Abate" To: Sent: den 4 januari 2001 00:24 Subject: Re: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik > Further to Gerald Cohen's below, I can report from research I did on the US > Patent and Trademark Office website (a wonderful resource, btw, at: > http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/search.html) that the name of the company is > (or was) definitely the Teletype Corporation. Before the advent of faxes, > email, etc., teletype machines were a very important means of long-distance > communication for written data, used by all major businesses and governments > worldwide, esp. after WWII. Teletype machines looked like a very large > electric typewriter on a stand, and many had paper-tape recording devices > along with them. Beneath the tape-punching device was a bin to catch the > punched-out holes. > > However, punched-tape technology is much older than even teletypes. There > are US patents for paper-punching devices for telegraphy dating back to the > early 1920s. Some google.com searching revealed that the idea of coded > paper tape goes back to the British engineer and inventor Sir Charles > Wheatstone, who described the concept in 1857 as a way to record Morse code. > Then Frenchman Emile Baudot (eponymous source of "baud") developed the > Baudot code, a 5-bit system for encoding characters. This was used on paper > tape for decades, until it was replaced by an 8-bit system in the 1960s. > > Then there are punch cards, which go back at least to the 1890 US Census and > its Hollerith machines. > > The point is that people have been creating (if not saying) chad or chips > for many, many years, and the search for earlier uses may take us very far > back before 1947. I have not found an earlier cite as yet, but I suspect > there may be good evidence from people who can access written records about > telegraphy and the teletype. > > Frank Abate > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Gerald Cohen" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 5:17 PM > Subject: Teletype Corp.,"chad," B. Popik > > > > Earlier today I posted an e-mail I had received Mr. Chris Jensen > > and commented that his mention of "The Teletype Corporation" might > > furnish a lead as to who introduced "chad" into telegraphy jargon. > > > > I just noticed that Barry Popik had already drawn attention to the > > Teletype Corporation a month ago. So Jensen's information jibes with > > Barry's and brings the date of Teletype usage back to 1952, while > > Barry had already taken the lead a step further (recommending that > > authors Adams and Butler be contacted). > > > > ---Gerald Cohen > > > > >Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 23:03:02 EST > > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society > > >Sender: American Dialect Society > > >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM > > >Subject: Teletype Corp. & "Chad" > > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > > > > > Try Teletype Corp.? > > > Several ads for the Teletype Corp. ran in BUSINESS AUTOMATION. > > >One ad, July 1961, pg. 61: "Tape Readers--Will read chadless or > > >fully perforated tape. (...) Teletype Corporation manufactures this > > >equipment for the Bell System and others who require the utmost > > >reliability from their data communications facilities." > > > Teletype Corp. was a subsidiary of Western Electric Co., Inc. > > >(now Lucent Technologies--or whatever). Its address was 555 Touhy > > >Avenue, Skokie, Illinois. I have no idea when Teletype Corp. > > >started, but Western Electric was around for a long while. > > > For further information on Teletype and "chad," perhaps someone > > >can get in touch with Stephen B. Adams & Orville R. Butler, authors > > >of MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE: A HISTORY OF WESTERN ELECTRIC > > >(Cambridge University Press, 1999). > > > > > >MISC. > > > > > >August 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 50. Systematics tape punch > > >has a "jam-proof chad disposal box." > > > > > >October 1961, BUSINESS AUTOMATION, pg. 6, col. 1 ad for Avery Label > Company: > > >4. Clean punched pin-feed holes--no "confetti." > > >5. No bent edges or "dog-ears." > > From Amcolph at AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 15:23:25 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 10:23:25 EST Subject: the whole nine yards Message-ID: Would have to be a belt of machine gun ammo, which would put it at late 19thcc at the earliest. As regards the other possible explanation, for shame, sir! That you would let mere fear of rudeness stand in the way of Science! Ray Ott From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Fri Jan 5 14:14:08 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 14:14:08 -0000 Subject: 2K1 Message-ID: WHY DO YOU KEEP SENDING MAIL TO OUR ADDRESS??????? post at saunders_honda.co.uk PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SENDING ANYMORE Cara Hughes Saunders Honda United Kingdom -----Original Message----- From: Drew Danielson To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: 04 January 2001 16:59 Subject: Re: 2K1 >Arnold Zwicky wrote: >> >> many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures >> (salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines. the >> corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m. > >In these cases, the unit is not elliptical - the convention is to >include the unit symbol, "$", as in $50K. > >> this has been around for some time - exactly how long i don't >> know - and has been adopted in other abbreviated written contexts, >> and then into speech as well ("they're offering us 250k!"). > >Point taken. > From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 5 19:26:28 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 11:26:28 -0800 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <3A555319.DC1D872B@ark.ship.edu> Message-ID: I remember working on our high-school yearbook in about '58, when we managed to sneak past the faculty censor this racy little addition to the common "Best of..." category that is a staple of HS yearbooks: Best athletic supporter: Jacques Strappe The connection to _jock_ 'athlete' isn't manifest here, I'll admit, but at least the word has entered the human sphere as someone who supports athletics. I'm not absolutely certain, but it seems to me that at that time we did use _jock_ to mean 'athlete.' This was in northern Illinois. Peter R. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 5 19:54:48 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 11:54:48 -0800 Subject: milch cow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Peter McGraw and I were wondering the other day about the pronunciation of _milch cow_--that is of the _milch_ part. The DARE gives milks. Having seen it in print before hearing it, I always assumed the ch was an affricate: Miltsch. Then I heard it as Miltsch, but I can't attest to the authority of the speaker. I'd like to say it was from my grandmother, who was from Scranton, PA and had all sorts of PaGerman words floating about, but I can't. Does anyone out there have an affricate hook to hang this on? Or does anyone who wants to talk about a cow that's giving milk just say "milk cow" ? Peter R. From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Fri Jan 5 20:21:16 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 15:21:16 -0500 Subject: milch cow Message-ID: Relatives of mine, with large dairy farms, and those with small farms for that matter, speak of a 'milk cow'. I've never asked them to write down the word, but they pronounce the word much as they would in reference to a glass of milk. Speakers are from both Delaware and Northeast Maryland. Milking cows is the phrase for a group of milk cows. I don't know why; of course, I've never understood the in-print use of milch cow either. Perhaps 'milking cows' is the phrase to use for those cows giving milk that can be (or is) sold to a dairy co-op? Sort of a balance sheet term, in reference to the asset base of a farm. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Fri Jan 5 20:42:43 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 14:42:43 -0600 Subject: milch cow Message-ID: Winburne's _Dictionary of Agricultural and Allied Terminology_ (1962) defines "Milk cow" as: "A cow bred and used for milk production, in contrast to one bred for beef production. Also called _milch cow_." "Milking cow" is "a cow in milk; a lactating cow. Also called _milch cow_." However, under "milch," it says only "See _milk cow_." FWIW, "dairy cow" is defined as "a milk-producing cow which shows predominant characteristics of one of the dairy breeds." Elizabeth Gregory Agricultural Communications Texas A&M University e-gregory at tamu.edu From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 6 03:35:10 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 21:35:10 -0600 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: I have come across a term "yeloting," which is apparently not listed in the dictionaries. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems to refer to running of some sort. It appears in a baseball article in the _San Francisco Bulletin_, May 2, 1913, p.20, col. 5; 'Williams Is Puzzle To Seals' "Cac" [Henley] Easy For Wolves': 'Cac Henley's Oakland luck, or whatever you want to call it, deserted him yesterday, and Wolverton's bunch [the Sacramento Wolves] came to the fore for the second time in two days. The score was 4 to 0. Honolulu John Williams held the local boys practically helpless, allowing them only three hits,... On the other hand Henley was touched up for nine safeties, all of a nature to send the Wolves yeloting along on the road toward victory.' ---Gerald Cohen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Jan 6 04:43:10 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 22:43:10 -0600 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: It occurs to me that if one could find a copy of the layout of the Linotype keyboard (different from Qwerty!), this query, or ones like it, might resolve themselves as a 'typo'. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Sat Jan 6 11:29:58 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 12:29:58 +0100 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: Strangely enough, there seems to be no "map" of the Linotype 90-key keyboard available on the Internet. There is a photo, though, at http://typewriter.rydia.net/linotype.JPG but not very clear, at least not on my screen. But the first two vertical lines at least can be completed: the well-known mysterious words ETAOIN SHDRLU used by typographers to fill out lines by running their fingers down the rows. I hope someone can find a keyboard map and put it out on the Net - I am certain that it could help in many cases, if not in this. Jan Ivarsson Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-272 31 SIMRISHAMN Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st Tel. +46 414 10620 Fax +46 414 13633 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Odegard" To: Sent: den 6 januari 2001 05:43 Subject: Re: "yeloting" query > It occurs to me that if one could find a copy of the layout of the Linotype > keyboard (different from Qwerty!), this query, or ones like it, might > resolve themselves as a 'typo'. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 11:53:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 06:53:22 EST Subject: Frederic Cassidy remembered in NY Times Magazine Message-ID: The New York Times Magazine theme issue this week (Sunday, January 7th) is about people who passed away in the year 2000. See the article about Frederic Cassidy at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20010107mag-cassidy.html The article is written by Lorrie Moore, "the author, most recently, of 'Birds of America,' a collection of stories." Lorrie Moore attended the University of Wisconsin, but states that while Cassidy "was a colleague of mine, I didn't really know him." Yeesh. So why is she writing this rather than your average DARE fieldworker and ADS member? Why doesn't some like Donald Lance write this? Because Lorrie Moore is "an approved Times writer" and Lance is not? -------------------------------------------------------- SAFIRE WATCH (continued) One mild reservation about my Wall Street Journal article is that I "pestered" people about "the Big Apple." I "pestered" people to do their jobs. I wanted to find living witnesses. William Safire and the New York Times went out of their way not to help me. I've been "pestering" Safire for three months now to correct errors in his column--errors that involve my words. No one will speak to me. Obviously, nothing has changed for me, or will change. William Safire's column this week is another winner. It mentions "don't sweat the small stuff." I discussed that phrase right here on ADS-L. But you'd never know that, would you? From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 6 13:03:43 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 08:03:43 -0500 Subject: "yeloting" query In-Reply-To: <003c01c077d4$0a3e48c0$5aa7b2c3@janivars> Message-ID: Linotype keyboard seems to be (right side): E S C V X T H M B Z A R F G O D W K I L Y Q N U P J On the left are the lower-case letters with the same arrangement. In the middle, I suppose, other characters. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 6 16:01:37 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 11:01:37 -0500 Subject: the whole nine yards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I did a little Web-surching. My casual effort probably doesn't merit the term "research", and my computer/desk chair has only short arms, so instead of "armchair research" we can call it a "short-arm inspection". Numerous Web pages refer to "nine yards"; most of them refer to the phrase in question; but in the older material at Making of America, "whole nine yards" presumably didn't exist yet. Several MoA items tend to suggest that nine yards was considered ample fabric for a woman's dress; perhaps it was a conventional quantity. I found mention of the procurement of nine yards for a dress; I also found an instance of a woman's purchase of eight yards for a dress (maybe a petite woman, or a summer dress). If one searches the Cornell MoA site (http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/index.html) for the phrase "nine yards to the dollar", one finds a humorous passage from 1870 which I take to imply that this phrase was taken from an advertisement -- I speculate that the idea was that a woman (or man?) could be clothed for one dollar [at somebody's store or whatever]. I highly recommend perusal of this item, which also has some classical scholarship of a high order. (^_^) There are also references to specifically nine yards of cloth apparently used in a sari, in a drapery for a (Christian) cross, in a sort of napkin used by Moslems, etc. I had never (until my current inspection) heard of any of these things. I'd also never heard of the nine yards of cement, ammunition, etc., etc., which are cited in speculative etymology of the phrase in question. And I don't find mention of any of these except in connection with "the WHOLE nine yards". Chapman's dictionary gives the phrase origin as 1960's military, and I don't see anyone explicitly disputing this. This might favor the "ammo-belt" theory, IF there really was a "nine-yard" conventional belt ... it seems to me that the length need not have been exactly nine yards; it would suffice that it was conventionally referred to as "nine yards". However, I found one "nine-yard" conventionalism which I have actually heard in my life (and which therefore I speculate some 1960's military joker might have heard too): "nine yards" is sometimes given as the length of the human intestine (or alimentary canal). I found this in MoA (Michigan) and elsewhere. (Note that I do not assert that this is an accurate or precise measurement or that it's used by gastroenterologists or anatomists: it's not, AFAIK. It's only a conventional expression used by laymen.) My rude speculation develops as follows. The "ammo-belt" proponents would (I guess) favor a phrase origin like: "I got that Zero in my sights, and I gave him the whole nine yards!" Not entirely unbelievable, but that's WW II, not the 1960's. A possible (still military) development for the 1960's: "Did the sergeant complain about the sorry state of your weapon at inspection?" "Yeah, he gave me the whole nine yards!" (with the ammo-belt metaphor). But suppose it was like this: "Did the sergeant give you any shit about your weapon?" "Yeah, he gave me the whole nine yards!" Nine yards of intestinal contents, or "all the shit"/"as much shit as possible." The expression is very portable ("Wow, look at all this shit!" "Yep, they ordered the whole nine yards."). Just one more item to add to the long list ... if someone else hasn't presented the speculation already. -- Doug Wilson From Heaberlin at SWT.EDU Sat Jan 6 15:50:44 2001 From: Heaberlin at SWT.EDU (Dick Heaberlin) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 09:50:44 -0600 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: Isn't this a coinage by the writer to replace "howling" with something that sounds like the howling. Dick Heaberlin Southwest Texas State University Gerald Cohen wrote: > I have come across a term "yeloting," which is apparently not listed > in the dictionaries. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems to refer to > running of some sort. It appears in a baseball article in the _San > Francisco Bulletin_, May 2, 1913, p.20, col. 5; 'Williams Is Puzzle To > Seals' "Cac" [Henley] Easy For Wolves': 'Cac Henley's Oakland luck, > or whatever you want to call it, deserted him yesterday, and > Wolverton's bunch [the Sacramento Wolves] came to the fore for the > second time in two days. The score was 4 to 0. Honolulu John Williams > held the local boys practically helpless, allowing them only three > hits,... On the other hand Henley was touched up for nine safeties, > all of a nature to send the Wolves yeloting along on the road toward > victory.' ---Gerald Cohen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Sat Jan 6 16:36:53 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 08:36:53 -0800 Subject: "yeloting" query Message-ID: Gerald Cohen wrote: I have come across a term "yeloting," which is apparently not listed in the dictionaries. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems to refer to running of some sort. It appears in a baseball article in the _San Francisco Bulletin_, May 2, 1913, p.20, col. 5; 'Williams Is Puzzle To Seals' "Cac" [Henley] Easy For Wolves': On the other hand Henley was touched up for nine safeties, all of a nature to send the Wolves yeloting along on the road toward victory. " Wolves and coyotes are known for their "yodeling" calls. Could that be the answer? Sharyn Hay, storknurse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 6 17:30:13 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 11:30:13 -0600 Subject: chad--background info from C. Jensen Message-ID: Several days ago I posted a message from Mr. Chris Jensen about his hearing the term "chad" in 1952 when training in the US Army's teletype school. On Jan. 4 I received another message from him with some interesting background information and will now present excerpts (beneath my signature). ---Gerald Cohen >(...) I later worked for IBM, selling punch-card processing systems. >The current press attributes the word to the punch-card culture that >resides in ballots and voting machines. Interestingly, at no time in >my 24-year IBM career did I hear anyone use the word "chad." We >always used 'chip' and 'chips.' The piece of any machine that >collected the chips was called the "chip box." That was both common >usage and the name of the box in manuals, parts lists, etc. > >Rectangular punch-card chips collected in chip boxes until the box >was manually dumped. Users were cautioned to be careful with chips >because they could injure an eye if lodged there. That admonishment >was directed to those who would playfully dump the contents of the >chip box on another person as though it were confetti. Chips with >their pointed corners were potentially hazardous, while I've never >heard the same of confetti. > >My vocational path diverged from that of the people in IBM who sold >and support voting machine systems and I didn't have reason or >opportunity to keep up with that segment of the business. Possibly >they got to know the word 'chad' as defining chips from ballots. If >so, I don't know why they adopted that usage. > >In the Army we carefully disposed of the chad from perforators so as >to not leave anything behind a moving field unit that could identify >that unit's purpose or equipment. Chadless perforators didn't leave >chad. In either case, we had to manage the disposition of the >perforated tape in equal fashion. (...) > T -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 6 17:57:08 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 12:57:08 -0500 Subject: Fw: chad--background info from C. Jensen Message-ID: chad--background info from C. JensenMore on "chip(s)", following up on G Cohen's quote of Jensen below. The inventor who testified in the Bush v. Gore Florida trial about voting machines (I forget his name) made a point of saying that he called the waste matter "chips", not "chads". He was in the industry, and clearly very familiar with punch cards and their use. His invention of those voting machines dates back to the 1970s at least -- I came across one of his patents in searching the US patent site. This and what Jensen says below suggests that in the IBM-centered punch-card community, "chips" was the word for the waste from the cards. Given the possible origin of "chad" from a Scottish dialect word, and the fact that no one (despite much searching) has found an earlier US cite of "chad" than 1947, I have thought that the origin might be from the UK, transferred to US speakers during WWII, perhaps via contacts in the military or intelligence communities, where teletype and paper tapes were in regular use. I did some searching of patents on the UK govt site (in the UK, patents are handled by a sub-department of the Dept of Trade and Industry), but have found nothing earlier yet. That site, btw, is pretty good -- not as easy to use as the USPTO, but it does search patents worldwide, including European, Japanese, and US patents, and searchable by language. I expect someone will find "the missing chad" at some point. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: Gerald Cohen To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 12:30 PM Subject: chad--background info from C. Jensen Several days ago I posted a message from Mr. Chris Jensen about his hearing the term "chad" in 1952 when training in the US Army's teletype school. On Jan. 4 I received another message from him with some interesting background information and will now present excerpts (beneath my signature). ---Gerald Cohen (...) I later worked for IBM, selling punch-card processing systems. The current press attributes the word to the punch-card culture that resides in ballots and voting machines. Interestingly, at no time in my 24-year IBM career did I hear anyone use the word "chad." We always used 'chip' and 'chips.' The piece of any machine that collected the chips was called the "chip box." That was both common usage and the name of the box in manuals, parts lists, etc. Rectangular punch-card chips collected in chip boxes until the box was manually dumped. Users were cautioned to be careful with chips because they could injure an eye if lodged there. That admonishment was directed to those who would playfully dump the contents of the chip box on another person as though it were confetti. Chips with their pointed corners were potentially hazardous, while I've never heard the same of confetti. My vocational path diverged from that of the people in IBM who sold and support voting machine systems and I didn't have reason or opportunity to keep up with that segment of the business. Possibly they got to know the word 'chad' as defining chips from ballots. If so, I don't know why they adopted that usage. In the Army we carefully disposed of the chad from perforators so as to not leave anything behind a moving field unit that could identify that unit's purpose or equipment. Chadless perforators didn't leave chad. In either case, we had to manage the disposition of the perforated tape in equal fashion. (...) T -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 21:39:56 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 16:39:56 EST Subject: milch cow Message-ID: My father (b. 1917central NY) would use the word milch cow occasionally and could give it either pronunciation /ts/ or affricate. But it's very old-fashioned, 'dairy cow' would be the more common term today. In the old days of course, people used to just have a single cow. I'd find it hard to imagine applying the term 'dairy cow' to one of these loners. Dale Coye The College of NJ From buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET Sat Jan 6 21:49:07 2001 From: buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET (Buchmann) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 17:49:07 -0400 Subject: milch cow Message-ID: My understanding of midwestern farming usage circa 1950 was : MILK COWS = 'cows of milk giving breeds' = DAIRY CATTLE; MILKING COW = 'a cow kept to provide milk for a family' [of non dairy farmers]; MILCH COW = 'a milk cow actually giving milk.' - Alois Buchmann GSCole wrote: > Relatives of mine, with large dairy farms, and those with small farms > for that matter, speak of a 'milk cow'. I've never asked them to write > down the word, but they pronounce the word much as they would in > reference to a glass of milk. Speakers are from both Delaware and > Northeast Maryland. > Milking cows is the phrase for a group of milk cows. I don't know why; > of course, I've never understood the in-print use of milch cow either. > Perhaps 'milking cows' is the phrase to use for those cows giving milk > that can be (or is) sold to a dairy co-op? Sort of a balance sheet > term, in reference to the asset base of a farm. > George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu > Shippensburg University From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Sat Jan 6 22:46:29 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 17:46:29 -0500 Subject: milch cow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There's another example of a foreign word which is (mis?-) used in a particular setting and yet is pronounced in the standard English way: "bleu cheese". Is this pure marketing, trying to give a product a French cachet, or what? (Or is it a particular kind of cheese made only from the milk of milch cows, I wonder? :) ) Tony Glaser >My father (b. 1917central NY) would use the word milch cow occasionally and >could give it either pronunciation /ts/ or affricate. But it's very >old-fashioned, 'dairy cow' would be the more common term today. In the old >days of course, people used to just have a single cow. I'd find it hard to >imagine applying the term 'dairy cow' to one of these loners. > >Dale Coye >The College of NJ From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 7 02:12:31 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 20:12:31 -0600 Subject: Allan Metcalf & M-W in newspaper Message-ID: Allan Metcalf was quoted in an article in today's _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_, January 6, 2001, p.34, cols. 4-5: "New Collegiate Dictionary Truly Reflects the Times," by Ivelisse DeJesus (of _The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J._). Presumably it appeared elsewhere too. Here are a few excerpts: 'According to Allan Metcalf, a member of the American Dialect Society, a scholarly linguistic organization, the English language sires relatively few new words a year. At most, lexicons might see 200 new words a year, but it takes about 50 years to determine a word's enduring power. "It's very difficult to get new words into the dictionary. It's almost easier to win an Acadmey Award," Metcalf said. 'Slow to change, the English language is composed of approximately a half-million words that have for the most part been used for some time, give or take the few hundred that surge into vogue for a time, Metcalf said. "'Chad' in fact is a term that was widely used by teletype operators," Metcalf said. "It was sort of a specialized word used by few people. Now, it has widespread use."' **** Also, Merriam-Webster comes in for special attention in the article, with a quote from company president and publisher, John Morse: "People are interested in these [i.e. new] words [e.g. fashionista] and want to look them up and learn more about them," said John Morse... 'Since Nov. 7, Election Day, the most frequently looked-up word on the dictionary's on-line edition (www.m-w.com) has been "chad." Trailing it was "per curiam" (a brief, usually unanimous court decision).' ---Gerald Cohen From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 06:10:50 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 01:10:50 EST Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (1976-1979) Message-ID: The Bell & Howell Phonebook Fiche has most US cities, but from about 1976. I checked the large Texas towns (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso) for "fajita." There sure weren't a lot of hits. None in Dallas. None in El Paso. None in San Antonio. I hope I have the month correct. It took me a while to realize that the date of the white pages (usually December) isn't always the same as the date of the yellow pages (usually earlier, such as June or October). The year is correct. December 1976, AUSTIN, pg. 716, col. 1: Gilberto's Restaurant HUEVOS RANCHEROS . FAJITAS . DINNERS CARNE GUISADA . MENUDO . STEAKS . CHICHARONES 1500 E 1st 476-7215 ("Fajita" in ad was continued other years--ed.) December 1977, AUSTIN, pg. 760, col. 1: PARRIA TAPATIA CARNE QUESADA TACOS AL CARBON FLOUR TORTILLAS CARNE ASADA FLAUTAS BAR-B-Q FAJITAS QUESOS MEXICAN MEATS 1509 E 6 478-0475 June 1978, HOUSTON, pg. 1942, col. 1: LARRY PICO'S SPANISH VILLAGE RESTAURANT TACOS AL CARBON FAJITAS AL CARBON QUESO'S SIZZLING CHARBROILED STEAKS CHARBROILED OR FRIED CHICKEN 25th Anniversary 4720 Almeda 523-1727 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2143, col. 2: Don Arturo's Restaurant TACOS AL CARBON TACOS DE BARBACOA FAJITAS A LA PARRILLA CARNE ASADA BEEF SOUP 806 76TH 926-0337 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2163, col. 2: Primo's FAJITAS--VERACRUZANAS 519 Rosalie At Smith 528-9158 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2166, col. 2: LOS TACOS AMERICAN & MEXICAN BEER TACOS BURRITOS CHALUPAS TACOS AL CARBON FAJITAS CHILI RELLENOS 1308 MONTROSE 524-1458 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 06:57:16 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 01:57:16 EST Subject: Mongolian BBQ, Margarita & more Message-ID: More phonebook food from Texas. OFF TOPIC TIP: See the 2000 Tony-awarding winning play, COPENHAGEN. Especially after eight hours of judging parking tickets. When you fall asleep--and you will--tell your date: "I just flew in from the Australian outback, and boy, are my arms tired." -------------------------------------------------------- MONGOLIAN BARBEQUE From DALLAS YELLOW PAGES, October 1976, pg. 1266, col. 4: Genghis Khan Mongolia Feast SERVING MOGOLIAN BARBEQUE ORIGINAL DISH DEVELOPED BY NOMADIC MONGOLIANS 361-0280 4830 Greenville Genghis Khan had Mongolian barbeque? He didn't even know the word "barbeque." How come OED has "Mongolian hot pot" from--1967? Were the 1960s the Genghis Khan years? Does "Mongolian" really come from ancient Mongolia? This ad may have appeared earlier than 1976...I never saw "Mongolian" in any of the 1950s New York City phonebooks, and NYC has food from everywhere. -------------------------------------------------------- MARGARITA (continued) Perhaps this deserves a call to San Antonio. From SAN ANTONIO YELLOW PAGES, Setpember 1978, pg. 787, col. 3: THE ORIGINAL Pan American Restaurant OUR 39TH YEAR SPECIALIZING IN ORIGINAL MEXICAN FOOD (...) Pan American Cocktail Room Home of the Giant Margarita -COCKTAILS- FEATURING OUR FAMOUS MARGARITA (Two Margarita drawings are shown. I guess the place serves Margaritas--ed.) 924-5691 720 PLEASANTON RD -------------------------------------------------------- CHIMICHANGAS/CHIMICHANGOS (continued) From AUSTIN, December 1976, pg. 726, col. 1: La Hacienda "HOME OF THE CHIMICHANGO" (OUR OWN 3/4 LB BEEF BURRITO) 266-1322 1 mi. West of Mansfield Dam -------------------------------------------------------- SMOOTHIE (continued) September 1976, SAN ANTONIO, pg. 736, col. 3: the greenwood NATURAL FOOD STORE Delicious Fresh Salads Fruit Smoothies Sandwiches Of Every Description FAMOUS DESSERTS 1708 N Main 223-6937 September 1977, SAN ANTONIO, pg. 798, col. 1: FRUIT SMOOTHIES SIDEWALK CAFE Specializing in Poor Boys Natural Fruit Drink Dieter's Delight 342-3782 131 Central Park (lower level) -------------------------------------------------------- STUFFED PIZZA John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK states that "stuffed pizza" may come from Nancy's Pizzerias of Chicago, January 1974. I won't believe it until I hear it from Mike Salovesh. June 1978, HOUSTON, pg. 1931, col. 2: Little Italianos Family Restaurant "Some Of The Tastiest Pizza In The World" New York Style Sicilian Stuff Pizza Round Pizza Thick Chicago Style Detroit Style 465-4012 467-1745 935 N. WEST BELT DR AT I-10 June 1979, HOUSTON, pg. 2159, col. 2: Eddie's HOMEMADE PIZZA DEEP-DISH SICILIAN "STUFT" & ROUND PIZZA LASAGNA & SPAGHETTI SUBS--SALADS 5176 RICHMOND 871-1822 -------------------------------------------------------- ROTISSERIE CHICKEN I can't find "rotisserie" in Mariani at all! April 1977, EL PASO, pg. 494, col. 2: CHICKEN FIESTA Charbroiled Tacos (In a box on the left--is this the name?--ed.) ROTISSERIE CHICKEN (In very large type at the top--ed.) CHARBROILED TACOS TORTAS . MENUDO 562-0409 3701 MONTANA -------------------------------------------------------- BREAKFAST TACOS I wasn't aware that anyone ate "breakfast tacos" until American Airlines served one to me. September 1979, SAN ANTONIO, pg. 868, col. 3: EL NORTE MEXICAN RESTAURANT Original Home Made Mexican Plates Breakfast Tacos "The Family Place To Eat" 691-1890 3511 OAKGATE In The Oakgate Center From rkm at SLIP.NET Sun Jan 7 07:26:25 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 23:26:25 -0800 Subject: Mongolian BBQ, Margarita & more In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... How come OED has "Mongolian hot pot" from--1967? Were the 1960s >the Genghis Khan years? I bought a Mongolian hot pot around 1967 in the Bay Area, so it was indeed around then. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 07:42:59 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 02:42:59 EST Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: This may be of interest to etymologists from Missouri (who need to be shown). John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK cites the WPA GUIDE TO MISSOURI (1941), which attributes the "highball" to The Planter's Hotel in St. Louis. From THE STEWARD, September 1948, pg. 11, col. 1: _"Highball" Christened In St. Louis_ ------------------------------------ Originated at University Club Back in 1888 According to R. C. Magill Who Went to Work at St. Louis Club as Boy But Now Manages Raquet Club in Missouri City--Naming of Popular Drink Erroneously Ascribed to Others THE Highball, avers R. C. Magill, manager of the Raquet Club in St. Louis, and himself a venerable institution in that city, originated at the St. Louis University Club back in 1888 (My earliest cites are 1895. See archives--ed.), which was situated three blocks from the St. Louis Club, where he started his career as a boy. In that year, he says, the younger members favored a drink concocted in an 8-oz. glass, consisting of 1-oz. of bourbon and club soda as desired. In each glass was also placed an "ice ball". The drink was usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, wanted a bigger drink and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a High Ball." Later, the St. Louis Club, which has stone spheres on either side of its entrance, occupied new quarters which had a private lane connecting with a thoroughfare where street cars ran. For a long time streetcar conductors at the stop called "St. Louis Club", but some long forgotten wit among them started calling it "Highball Alley." Incidentally, the original Highball was a tall drink worthy of its name and not the niggardly shorty that nowdays passes in some places as a Highball. Magill's explanation of the christening of the Highball is the most convincing that has been advanced, although the naming of this drink has heretofore been ascribed to others. For instance, H. L. Mencken in "The American Language" says that the Highball was variously credited to an unidentified bartender in the Parker House in Boston, and to Patrick Gavin Duffy who, in his "Official Mixer's Manual", asserts that the New York Times officially certified his claim. (Col. 2--ed.) "Table Topics", snappy and informative bimonthly house organ ofBellows & Co., importers and purveyors of fine wines, whiskies, brandies, etc., of 67 East 52nd street, New York City, which originally raised the question as to the "father" of the Highball, mentions the legend that this drink was named by Lilburn McNair, a social luminary of St. Louis, who is said to have borrowed the term from the lingo of railroaders. However, McNair's role in Highball history, says Table Topics in a subsequent issue, seems to have been that of a lusterlender and popularizer in best circles. Small-mustached, dapper, sartorially magnificent, he entered upon the Club scene at the turn of the century, took this hitherto local drink under his wing, and was presently asking for it at Chicago's old Palmer House and New York's old Waldorf--scoring a first in each instance. Hence the legend that it was his baby instead of just a hobby. The claim of Magill that the actual naming of the drink occurred at the St. Louis University Club, has attracted the attention of writers in the newspaper and trade press from Coast to Coast, including, to mention only a few, Ralph T. Jones, brilliant columnist in the Atlanta Constitution, the editorial writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Mid-West Hotel Reporter of Omaha, and Club Management of Chicago. (...) -------------------------------------------------------- (Previous posting should have read "Genghis Khan Mongolian Feast...Serving Mongolian Barbeque." I want to be right on Genghis Khan, although I'm always to the left of him--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 07:48:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 02:48:21 EST Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: Oops. "Racquet Club" on both. From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 7 12:48:09 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 07:48:09 -0500 Subject: milch cow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... a foreign word which is (mis?-) used in a >particular setting .... "Milch cow" apparently is not an adoption from German, although that's what I would have guessed myself offhand ... apparently it's from Middle English. The OED shows "milch-cow" from 1424, based on the adjective "milch" from ca. 1290. "Milch" (adjective) approx. = "milk" (attributive), meaning "used for milking", "kept for milk production" (as opposed e.g. to a beef cow). The adjective is/was applied to domestic animals kept for milking and also to humans (i.e., wet nurses). -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sun Jan 7 15:31:01 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 15:31:01 +0000 Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Sunday, January 7, 2001 2:42 am +0000 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >> _"Highball" Christened In St. Louis_ > ------------------------------------ > In that year, he says, the younger members favored a drink concocted > in an 8-oz. glass, consisting of 1-oz. of bourbon and club soda as > desired. In each glass was also placed an "ice ball". The drink was > usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, wanted a bigger drink > and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a High Ball." I may have mentioned this on this list before, but my family has a peculiar meaning for highball, which I've never seen elsewhere. To us, a highball is whiskey (I'm not sure if it matters which kind) and ginger ale. I'd chalked this up to the fact that my grandmother drank whisky and ginger ale, so maybe we just limited our use of 'highball' thusly because we had no use for the other meaning. But Grandma's been dead for nearly 20 years, and my mother (related to aforementioned grandmother by marriage only) said to me last week "we can't have highballs because we don't have any ginger ale" (we did have club soda). My family is all from western NY--paternal side from Attica, maternal from Niagara Falls area. My mom might've learned the term from my father's family. Are we the only people in the world who think that a highball has to have ginger ale? Lynne P.S. Slightly amusing story: While in the US last week, a hairdresser, upon finding out that I live in England said: "Do they make fun of you there because you don't have an accent?" M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Mon Jan 8 00:47:49 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:47:49 -0500 Subject: BODY LANGUAGE Message-ID: Any recent books on this subject (kinesics) including proxemics? Or should I be asking some other group like LSA? I don't happen to have any other address except ADS-L. Please help. The books I have or know of include BODY LANGUAGE by Julius Fast, 1970, and R. L. Birdwhistell's INTRODUCTION TO KINESICS (1952) and EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN (1963). I am actually more interested in WOMAN, as the one seated cross-legged on the cover of Fast's 1970 book. Humph. Thanks for helping. TOM PAIKEDAY From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 00:43:23 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:43:23 EST Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: The ADS web page www.americandialect.org currently includes the following: For Word of the Decade, web received 45 votes, the prefix e- 10, way meaning yes (4), the prefix Franken meaning genetically modified as in Frankenfood (2), ethnic cleansing (0) and senior moment (0). First, "genetically modified" is an inadequate synonym if not an incorrect definition. The "Franken-" part means "potentially if not active harmful" or perhaps "frightening". It just happens that this particular citation was about genetically modified food. Second, I have found a 1967 citation for "Franken-". It is in a science fiction story "To Love Another" by James Blish and Norman L. Knight that was published in the April 1967 issue of Analog Science Fiction. A sideplot in the story concerns the raising of something called "slimes" (presumably fungi, but it is not made clear). One of these slimes has something go wrong with it and turns carnivorous. At the bottom of page 23 column 2 somebody says "we have a Frankenslio deal with." James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 8 01:04:04 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:04:04 -0600 Subject: "chad"--verifying C. Jensen's 1952 date Message-ID: I have shared a few earlier messages from Mr. Chris Jensen concerning his 1952 familiarity with the term "chad." (The earliest attestation remains the 1947 one in the Merriam-Webster files.) Just to be sure, I double-checked with Mr. Jensen about whether 1952 was the year he encountered "chad" in his army training. Here is an excerpt from his reply: "Good idea to double-check dates. I was a Korean war draftee. I entered the Army in late 1952 and was home in graduate school in 1954. In deference to sheer accuracy, I went through Teletype school in December, 1952, and January, 1953. What little published material we had in Teletype school was from the vendor, the Teletype Corporation, and was old and well-used." ---Gerald Cohen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 8 01:43:47 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 20:43:47 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Fred, Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" sense) sense. dInIs >yOn Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Tymkovich wrote: > >> Does anyone know when the word "jock" first was used to describe a person >> skilled in sports? Specifically, was it in use in the 1910-1930 era? > >No, I don't think so. I believe that "preppie," "jock" and "wonk" all >originated as part of a tripartite division of Harvard students in the >1950s, perhaps a little earlier. The earliest citation I have found for >"jock" is from the Harvard Crimson, 21 Feb. 1958; I contributed this to >the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which printed it >as their first use. > >Fred Shapiro > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Fred R. Shapiro Editor >Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >Yale Law School forthcoming >e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 02:42:37 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 21:42:37 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This > is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" > sense) sense. I'm not sure what you mean. The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was referring to -- what is the "later preppie" sense? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 8 03:14:22 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 19:14:22 -0800 Subject: "Jock" Message-ID: fred shapiro: >The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was referring to -- what is >the "later preppie" sense? the sense in eckert's 1989 book title, Jocks and Burnouts. the reference is to a jocks/preps vs. burnouts/freaks/druggies distinction in a great many u.s. high schools. the "jocks" aren't necessarily athletes (nor are all athletes "jocks"), but they are school- and college-oriented types in contrast to the "burnouts", who are inclined to opt out and oppose "school values". (many students are neither, of course. these are just the highly polarized value sets.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 8 05:00:47 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 00:00:47 -0500 Subject: chad--background info from C. Jensen Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Frank Abate To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: Saturday, January 06, 2001 1:07 PM Subject: Fw: chad--background info from C. Jensen chad--background info from C. JensenMore on "chip(s)", following up on G Cohen's quote of Jensen below. The inventor who testified in the Bush v. Gore Florida trial about voting machines (I forget his name) made a point of saying that he called the waste matter "chips", not "chads". He was in the industry, and clearly very familiar with punch cards and their use. His invention of those voting machines dates back to the 1970s at least -- I came across one of his patents in searching the US patent site. This and what Jensen says below suggests that in the IBM-centered punch-card community, "chips" was the word for the waste from the cards. ------------------------------ One noteworthy consideration, IBM (their computer division at least) historically disregarded many industry standard terms and usages in favor of their own coinings. Whether that's true in this case or not, I can't say, but it is something to keep in mind... bkd From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 8 05:38:39 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 23:38:39 -0600 Subject: Boxer shorts. Message-ID: I did do a cursory search of the archives to see if anything had been said on this. M-W gives 1944. I don't have fuller etymological details at hand (no OED). I see in C.D. Buck (A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal IE Languages), at 6.48 'Trousers', in para 4: -start quote- Dan. buxer, Sw. byxor (pl), fr. MLG buxe, boxe, contracted from *buck-hose, i.e., 'trousers of buckskin' -end quote- This is tantalizing. I've always assumed boxer shorts are named after boxing shorts, but am now quite curious. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 06:01:14 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 01:01:14 EST Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger Message-ID: The New Haven Free Public Library was open 1-5 p.m. this Sunday. Everything else was closed, so I took a trip up. New Haven has a school of higher learning called Yale University--famous for teaching our next president everything he knows. Unfortunately, the New Haven Library has almost no Yale material. I'll probably go to New London, CT, for my "grinder" search next Wednesday--after the MLK, Jr. holiday when the colleges are in session. The New Haven Library had only the 1959-1960 telephone book, and 1920s phonebooks before that. (The city directories are not much help.) The librarian there was very kind and said he'd ask around (New Haven Colony Historical Society, telephone company) for earlier phonebooks for me and for his library. "Apizza"--not entered in OED or DARE--is everywhere (see also old ADS-L archive) in 1959-1960: Al's Restaurant (..."Grinders"...) Big Apple Restaurant, 164 Wooster (since about 1948--ed.) Bobbie's Apizza Cappie's Apizza & Restaurant...Apizza & Grinders Capri Bakery & Restaurant...Apizza...Grinders DePalma's Apizza F&H Apizza Gag's Apizza The Grand Apizza (Ad advertises "grinders" and has the winking chef giving the "OK" sign--ed.) High Ridge Gardens Apizza and Restaurant Johnnie's Apizza Restaurant Lew's Apizza Luigi's Apizza Restaurant (ad has "grinders"--ed.) Mike's Restaurant and Spaghetti House (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) Modern Apizza Place (Ad has "grinders"--ed.) Nicky's Apizza Spaghetti House North Haven Pizza House (Gotta be a typo--ed.) Palm Beach Apizza & Restaurant Paul's Bakery (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) Raccio's Apizza Ralph's Pizza (Probably another typo--ed.) Sam's Apizza & Restaurant Shorty's Apizza (Ad has "submarines"--ed.) Sloppy's Joe's 466BeachWH Smitty's Drive-In...Hamburger & Pepperburger Specialties Soundview Apizza Restaurant Tontine Restaurant (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) Tony's Apizza Restaurant Vece Peter Apizza Zuppardi's Apizza I checked the handwritten card index and found this from the NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 6 June 1979, pg. 40, col. 1: _Did New Haven Grind Out The First Hamburger In America?_ (...)(This UPI story is from Dallas. The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair claim is detailed--ed.) Other claims exist. Yankees in New Haven are convinced Louis Lassen served the first burger in America at his establishment there in 1895. Tolbert admits Lassen served something--but not a hamburger. "That was sliced beef," Tolbert said. Kenneth Lassen, who now presides over the cubbyhole that is Louis Lunch--seating capacity 28--emphatically says it was not sliced beef. He says the burgers served there today were cloned from the 1895 model. (...) (See 1880s "hamburgers" in the ADS-L archive--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 06:28:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 01:28:51 EST Subject: Boxer shorts. Message-ID: BOXERS (briefly) OED also has 1944 and "Special comb. boxer shorts, orig. _U.S._, long loose-fitting underpants for men, similar in design to the shorts worn by boxers in the ring." -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. NOT YOUR FATHER'S OLDSMOBILE--Ellen Goodman's syndicated column today on the Bush Cabinet discusses the "D-Word" (diversity). "This is not Bush's father's Cabinet," Goodman writes. Let's stop this cliche right now. It comes from the "Not your father's Oldsmobile" ads--and Olds is dead! CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING--From NEWSDAY, 7 January 2001, pg. B7, col. 1: "Jeremy Simon is a graduate student in creative nonfiction writing at Columbia University." What is creative nonfiction writing? Is he trying to land a job at the New York Times? UFO ROLLS--From NEWSDAY, 7 January 2001, pg. G9, col. 4: "KOTOBUKI, 86 Deer Park Ave., Babylon, 631-321-8387. Home of the 'UFO' rolls, combining salmon, tuna and yellowtail." IVY LEAGUER--From Grantland Rice's "The Sportlight," a syndicated column also in the NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 26 October 1939: "Ivy Leaguers and Big Ten to Clash on Saturday." INCLUDE ME OUT!--From NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 25 October 1939, pg. 13, col. 5, Walter Winchell column: "The numberous oldies in the 'On Your Toes' film (among them) 'Include me out!'--a line frequently credited to Goldwyn) make some of us wonder if a more suitable title wouldn't be 'On Your Heels.'" CARRYING A TORCH--From NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 31 October 1939, pg. 12, col. 2, Walter Winchell column: "Damon Runyon first put us hep as to how the phrase 'carryin' the torch' got into everybody's typewriter...It was in ballad Tommy Lyman sang, entitled: 'Gee, But It's Tough When the Gang's All Gone,' and had the line: 'When your thoughts start to scorch and you're carryin' the torch'..." From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 8 10:54:04 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:54:04 +0100 Subject: Franken- meaning genetically modified Message-ID: On lundi 8 janvier 2001 01:43, James A. Landau wrote: >For Word of the Decade, web received 45 votes, the prefix e- 10, way meaning >yes (4), the prefix Franken meaning genetically modified as in Frankenfood >(2), ethnic cleansing (0) and senior moment (0). > > >First, "genetically modified" is an inadequate synonym if not an incorrect >definition. The "Franken-" part means "potentially if not active harmful" or >perhaps "frightening". It just happens that this particular citation was >about genetically modified food. > >Second, I have found a 1967 citation for "Franken-". It is in a science >fiction story "To Love Another" by James Blish and Norman L. Knight that was >published in the April 1967 issue of Analog Science Fiction. A sideplot in >the story concerns the raising of something called "slimes" (presumably >fungi, but it is not made clear). One of these slimes has something go wrong >with it and turns carnivorous. At the bottom of page 23 column 2 somebody >says "we have a Frankenslio deal with." As I'm sure others will point out, first, the Word of the Decade doesn't meant the usage, word or phrase was *coined* during that decade (although I think we strive for that), merely that it became popular. Second, while I agree that "potentially if not actively harmful" could be a valid definition of the prefix "franken", the "genetically modified" usage is also valid and widespread. Anecdotally, and as far as I can tell, the "genetically modified" usage is currently more widespread, if only because popular belief is that "genetically modified" equals "potentially if not actively harmful." Grant Barrett gbarrett at monickels.com From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 11:51:23 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 06:51:23 -0500 Subject: Boxer shorts. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Mark Odegard wrote: > Dan. buxer, Sw. byxor (pl), fr. MLG buxe, boxe, contracted from *buck-hose, > i.e., 'trousers of buckskin' > -end quote- > > This is tantalizing. > > I've always assumed boxer shorts are named after boxing shorts, but am now > quite curious. The OED's definition notes, "similar in design to the shorts worn by boxers in the rign." There's no reason to look to Scandinavian roots. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 8 12:48:00 2001 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 07:48:00 -0500 Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) In-Reply-To: <743856.3187870261@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: No, your family isn't the only one to define highball in that way. Interestingly, my paternal grandmother used to make exactly the same drink, and call it by the same name. She lived in Lawrence, MA during my childhood, was born in Brooklyn, and grew up in Danby, VT (which on my map looks to be about 30 miles east of Glens Falls, NY) . From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 8 13:37:11 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 08:37:11 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >This was a big error in recent school-shooting episodes. Old guys >like us were misunderstabnding the current use of "jock" (usually >pretty academically oriented, well-groomed, soft drug and alcohol >using, mainstream kids, only some of whom are involved in sports). >The use from my time was sports-involvement exclusivly, although I >believe the connection with the semantic change is pretty >straightforward. dInIs >yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >> Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This >> is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" >> sense) sense. > >I'm not sure what you mean. The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was >referring to -- what is the "later preppie" sense? > >Fred Shapiro > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Fred R. Shapiro Editor >Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >Yale Law School forthcoming >e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 8 13:43:08 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 08:43:08 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>Since Arnold has done it (and I didn't see his message first), I >>will only apologize for not citing Penny Eckert's "Jocks and >>Burnouts" for the prime academic treatment of this label in its >>newer sense. Sorry Penny, dInIs >>This was a big error in recent school-shooting episodes. Old guys >>like us were misunderstabnding the current use of "jock" (usually >>pretty academically oriented, well-groomed, soft drug and alcohol >>using, mainstream kids, only some of whom are involved in sports). >>The use from my time was sports-involvement exclusivly, although I >>believe the connection with the semantic change is pretty >>straightforward. > > >dInIs > > >>yOn Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>> Certainly not. Us Louisville-area jocks were jocks in the 40's. This >>> is the "athlete" sense of jock, not the later preppie (or non "hood" >>> sense) sense. >> >>I'm not sure what you mean. The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was >>referring to -- what is the "later preppie" sense? >> >>Fred Shapiro >> >> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>Fred R. Shapiro Editor >>Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS >> and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >>Yale Law School forthcoming >>e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 8 14:11:50 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 09:11:50 -0500 Subject: "Jock" In-Reply-To: <200101080314.TAA29651@Turing.Stanford.EDU>; from zwicky@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU on Sun, Jan 07, 2001 at 07:14:22PM -0800 Message-ID: > fred shapiro: >The "athlete" sense of jock is the one I was referring to -- what is >the "later preppie" sense? This would presumably be HDAS _jock_ n.(1) def. 4.b. JTS From bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM Mon Jan 8 14:14:51 2001 From: bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM (Beverly Feldt) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 08:14:51 -0600 Subject: Body Language Message-ID: For books on proxemics (not terribly recent, but magnificent), anything by Edward T. Hall, including _The Silent Language_, _The Hidden Dimension_, _Beyond Culture_ and _The Dance of Life._ Fast is garbage. Hall is the real thing. Beverly Feldt From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 15:36:53 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:36:53 EST Subject: Words of the Year 2000 Message-ID: Here's our preliminary announcement: "Chad" perfused the voting for overall Word of the Year 2000 at the American Dialect Society's meeting in Washington, D.C. January 5. In the annual choice of the word or phrase that was most notable or prominent in the year gone by, "chad" earned 43 votes, compared to just 6 for "muggle," not only the Harry Potter term for a non-wizard but more broadly a mundane, unimaginative person, and just 3 for "dot bomb," defined as "a failed dot-com." Before that final vote, Words of the Year were chosen in eight categories: Most Outrageous was "wall humping," rubbing a thigh against a security card scanner to allow access without the inconvenience of removing the card from one's pocket. Other candidates were "starter castle," a dot-commer's first home, and "McMansion," a big new home in incredibly bad taste. Most Euphemistic was "courtesy call," an uninvited call from a telemarketer. Other candidates were "Supreme Court justice," reflecting the politics of the presidential election, and "klabokeys" (see below). Most Likely to Succeed was "muggle." Other candidates were "m-commerce," buying and selling over a cell phone, and "WAP," Wireless Application Protocol. Most Useful was "civil union," legal same-sex marriage. Other candidates were "bricks-and-clicks," a traditional business with a website, and "c.u.," to join a couple in civil union. Most Creative was "dot bomb." Other candidates were "blobject," a product like the iMac with curvilinear design, and "dot snot," a young dot-com millionaire. Most Unnecessary was "sudden loss of wealth syndrome," which pretty well defines itself. Another candidate was "scootermania," obsession with foot-powered scooters. Least Likely to Succeed was "kablokeys," a hard-to-pronounce word used in phrases like "It scared the kablokeys out of me." Other candidates were "subliminable," invented inadvertently by George W. Bush, and "malaphrophesizing," predictions phrased in malapropisms. Most of the candidates for Word of the Year have been around for some time but not particularly well known. "Chad" is a good example: Teletype operators used the term more than 50 years ago, but only in the Florida recount did the word become generally recognized. There are, however, some brand new words every year. The winner in the Brand-Spanking New category was "unconcede," to rescind a concession. Another candidate was "cell yell," loud talking on a cell phone. The American Dialect Society, an association of scholars who study American English, has chosen Words of the Year since 1990. They are listed on the Society's website, www.americandialect.org. Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 2001. From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 15:48:51 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:48:51 EST Subject: WOTY correction Message-ID: >>Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 2001.<< Make that January 4, 2002, of course. - Allan Metcalf From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 15:58:44 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:58:44 -0500 Subject: Words of the Year 2000 In-Reply-To: <43.efea741.278b3895@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Jan 2001 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > The winner in the Brand-Spanking New category was "unconcede," to > rescind a concession. Another candidate was "cell yell," loud talking on a > cell phone. "Unconcede" is not really Brand-Spanking New: 1996 _San Francisco Chronicle_ 6 Nov. In a final mishap of a campaign marred by strategic error, Dole conceded the race more than an hour before the polls closed in the West -- only to turn around and "unconcede" later, after vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp and other GOP leaders in California protested the effect the early concession might have on highly contested congressional races. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 16:03:33 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:03:33 -0500 Subject: Words of the Year 2000 (II) In-Reply-To: <43.efea741.278b3895@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Jan 2001 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > every year. The winner in the Brand-Spanking New category was "unconcede," to > rescind a concession. Another candidate was "cell yell," loud talking on a > cell phone. If Brand-Spanking New means coined in 2000, "cell-yell" is also not b.s.n.: 1999 _S.F. Chronicle_ 16 July Ed Moose's joint has gone cell free, because Ed found that many diners are annoyed by Mr. Bigshot at the next table speaking in typical cell-yell, closing a deal. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 16:24:10 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:24:10 EST Subject: Words of the Year 2000 (II) Message-ID: Memo for January 2002: Let's run b.s.n. candidates by Fred Shapiro before authorizing them for the ballot. - Allan Metcalf From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Mon Jan 8 16:45:12 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 10:45:12 -0600 Subject: Words of the Year 2000 Message-ID: Should the last line read: "Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 200_2_"? Elizabeth Gregory >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/08/01 09:36AM >>> Here's our preliminary announcement: "Chad" perfused the voting for overall Word of the Year 2000 at the American Dialect Society's meeting in Washington, D.C. January 5. >>>>>>>>>>snip<<<<<<<<<<<<< Words of the Year 2001 will be chosen in San Francisco on January 4, 2001. From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 8 16:52:16 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:52:16 -0500 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> First, "genetically modified" is an inadequate synonym if not an incorrect definition. The "Franken-" part means "potentially if not active harmful" or perhaps "frightening". It just happens that this particular citation was about genetically modified food. Second, I have found a 1967 citation for "Franken-". It is in a science fiction story "To Love Another" by James Blish and Norman L. Knight that was published in the April 1967 issue of Analog Science Fiction. A sideplot in the story concerns the raising of something called "slimes" (presumably fungi, but it is not made clear). One of these slimes has something go wrong with it and turns carnivorous. At the bottom of page 23 column 2 somebody says "we have a Frankenslio deal with." *********** <<<<< (Just to get it out of the way, I assume that "Frankenslio" is a slip of the finger or Net for "Frankenslime to".) I disagree with your analysis of "Franken-" as merely "'potentially if not active harmful' or perhaps 'frightening'". IMHO, a basic semantic component of the prefix is parallel to the difference between Frankenstein's monster and, say, King Kong or Dracula: a result of Meddling In Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Dr. Frankenstein's sin of hubris was his desire to create life, a power which in the story/legend rightfully belongs only to God and which no mortal can aspire to without disaster. That, to my mind, is the direct link between the Monster and genetic engineering. In the Blish/Knight citation it is not completely clear from your description whether these slimes are a product of human meddling in the stuff of life (whether intentional or otherwise). If they are and one of them goes bad (as a human "goes bad" rather than as an apple does!), the parallel with Mary Shelley's premiss is established, and my case is supported. Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com (speaking for myself) From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jan 8 18:24:25 2001 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:24:25 -0700 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: FYA, when I shared Lynne's "accentless" story with my colleagues here, I got the following response: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 11:19:23 -0700 From: Ed White To: ENGLISH at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: Linguistic laugh of the day: "no accent" (fwd) This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed White -- Original Message -- >------------------------------ >Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 15:31:01 +0000 >From: Lynne Murphy > >My family is all from western NY--paternal side from Attica, maternal from >Niagara Falls area. > >Lynne > >P.S. Slightly amusing story: While in the US last week, a hairdresser, >upon finding out that I live in England said: "Do they make fun of you >there because you don't have an accent?" > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >------------------------------ > From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 8 20:41:53 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 15:41:53 -0500 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: Jim Landau wrote to me: >>>>> I find your argument rather convincing. Are there other uses of "Franken-" and if so do they support your argument? <<<<< I found myself inspired to do some lazy research, and replied to him as follows: ========================================= Let's see. AFAIR, "Frankenfood" is used exclusively for genetically engineered food. I don't think I can put a finger on any other uses of the prefix, though I'm sure I've seen them. So I'll make a Web search with Altavista Advanced search: franken* & not (frankenstein or Franken or Frankenmuth or frankenia or Germany or ".de") (weeding out a lot of the false positives) search in English only About 10,999 pages found. Hmph! Adding more AND NOTs to take out more false positives.... Stopping "Frankenberry" (name of a breakfast cereal, marketed alongside Count Chocula) and "Frankenstien" (misspelling) cuts it by several thousand. About 1300 hits for Frankenfood or Frankenfoods. The first of them is at http://www.acfs.org/mtfnd9901.htm . Here's an explicit one (Institute of Food Technologists: The Society for Food Science and Technology. Food Laws and Regulations Division: http://ift.micronexx.com/INDEX.SEARCH/divisions/food_law/nl_v10n1.htm): "Worldwide there are several very determined protest groups organized to voice their objections to the use of GM-derived ingredients in the general food supply. These groups have adopted the term "Frankenfoods" to describe genetically modified foods." ["GM" = "genetically modified" -- MAM] There are a number of dog names, including German place names (von Such-and-such) but also Frankendog and Frankenbull. Here I think your gloss 'terrifying' is correct. In Frankenbiker, referring to a weight-training regimen ( http://www.powerbear.com/weights.htm), it seems to mean 'big and muscular'. Frankenbeans are "Beanie Baby"-type toys of cutely scary critters: spider, rat, etc., as near as I can judge by the pictures at http://www.markv.com/frankenbeans.com/ . All of the other hits are either surnames (Frankenfeld...; of course, Frankenstein is itself a surname in Shelley's story), German place names or words, as far as I could tell. I stopped all hits from domains in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as well as texts containing the names of those countries. I have not inspected all of these sites!!! Rather, I have taken them as guidance for the stoplist. Anyone wishing to check them out is certainly welcome to do so, as far as I'm concerned; better you than me. Here is my final search specification, which yielded no hits, meaning that the exclusions covered all occurrences of "franken*" (i.e., "franken" and any word beginning with "franken", in any combination of capital and lowercase) in the search space: franken* & not (frankenstein |franken |frankenmuth |frankenia |Germany |".de" |frankenberg |frankenberry |frankenfield | frankenburg |frankenstien |frankenthal |frankena |frankenbach | frankenfood* |frankenfeld |frankenjura |frankenforst | frankenwald |frankenheim |Austria* |frankens |frankenpost | frankenland |frankental |Switzerland |".at" |".ch" |frankenbiker | frankenmarkt |frankenne |frankenreich |frankenau |frankenbeans |frankenalb |frankenhalle) [search pages in English only] [no date limitation] So we seem to have - Frankenfood: genetically modified, potentially dangerous, hubris of meddling with life - Frankenberry: direct reference to the Monster, as a funny-scary creature, for marketing purposes - Frankenbeans: similar to Frankenberry: frightening, monstrous (but offset by the "beans" and the referent toys themselves) - Frankenbiker: big and muscular - Frankendog, Frankenbull...: (dog names) strong, dangerous, and scary (maybe given as a joke) . (Misspellings of Frankenstein are as numerous as they are meaningless here.) Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 8 07:58:55 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 15:58:55 +0800 Subject: unconcede In-Reply-To: <61.a44e2e1.278b43aa@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:24 AM -0500 1/8/01, AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Memo for January 2002: >Let's run b.s.n. candidates by Fred Shapiro before authorizing them for the >ballot. - Allan Metcalf Absolutely correct. As the sponsor of "unconcede", I offer my mea culpa. I should have gone with "unconcession". The nominating message I sent to ads-l on 12/20 read =============== A column appearing in the on-line Modern Humorist immediately after The Phone Call from Gore to Bush in the wee hours post-election is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek re-creation of this Great Moment in American Political History: "On Second Thought: Al Gore's Un-concession" http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0011/call/ This column, posted on 11/8/00 or 11/9/00 at the latest, provides what appears to be the first use of this word in print, and if e-print doesn't count, the Times' Week in Review column last Sunday (12/17/00) by Jenny Lyn Bader, "Finally, Nap Time in America", refers to "Mr. Bush's snippy response during the 3:45 a.m. un-concession". There are only a few other hits on "unconcession" or "un-concession" on google.com or Nexis, if we eliminate the irrelevant ones involving "U.N. concessions" or the French NP "un concession", and they all refer to the Gore phone call. So I nominate this word (preferably without the hyphen, to promote its lexical legitimacy) for the Brand-Spanking-New category in the WOTY vote. ========= When we held our nominations at the meeting, I somehow (mis)remembered checking both "unconcession" and "unconcede", when clearly I must have only checked the former. If we can't amend the vote (as far as I know, "unconcession" really IS brand-spanking-new as of 11/8/00, but we didn't really vote for it), we should retroactively un-vote for it and delete the category from the press release. Sorry about that--my bad. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 8 21:49:30 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 13:49:30 -0800 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: note on mark mandel's list: "Frankenbeans" might well be influenced by "franks 'n' beans" and have nothing particularly monstrous in its connotations. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Mon Jan 8 23:15:57 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 18:15:57 EST Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: With reference to Barry's recent posting on "highball": "In each glass was also placed an "ice ball"." I have never encountered the word "ice ball"; the only word I am familiar with is the now-standard ice-cube. I can't picture how one would freeze ice into balls, and would have supposed that in the 1880s ice would have to have been formed in cubes, (or at least rectangular solids more likely to be called cubes than balls,) or be fragments chopped from a block of ice. "The drink was usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, wanted a bigger drink and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a High Ball." It is my impression that the Irish use the word "ball" for a glass of whiskey. I believe that one of the boozers in Ulysses refers to a "ball of malt". If so, would this have a connection? A highball being a ball of liquor in a high glass? Despite having grown up in the company of my father, I was not a habitue of barroom when a toddler. Other hand, neither was I unfamiliar with them. When I got to college, I took a room in a working class neighborhood in Allston, within walking distance of Boston Univ. The bar in my neighborhood -- the Brighton Avenue Cafe -- was a working man's joint, exactly the sort of place my father would take me into, if he needed a beer. Or even if he didn't need one, but he hardly ever didn't need one. My friends from college would have me take them there, and they would be goggle-eyed at being in a place where drinkers at the bar wore paint-speckled overalls. The bar-tender, Les, who claimed to have pitched in the majors in the 1920s, was a cut-up. One of his standard gags was to bet someone that he could throw a ball into the phonebooth in the corner. If the bet was taken, he would go into a cramped windup, with empty hands, and mimic a throw toward the booth; then he'd send his foil to look in the booth, when he would have planted a glass of whiskey -- a ball. (You were wondering how this would be relevant, weren't you.) To become irrelevant, or even more irrelevant than usual, the first time I went into the Cafe, Les tried one of his gags on me. I might have been from a working class family, and raised to be at home in low saloons, but I also had "college kid" written all over me. After Les served me, he said, "Listen, you're a baseball fan, right, know the game? Tell me this, who would you say is the greatest ball-player who ever lived." I don't remember noticing the other bar-flies nudging each other and saying "watch Les give it to this kid", but I figured I was being set up for something. So I said, "Gee, that's a tough one, the greatest ever. I guess I would have to say, Big Ed Delehanty." Les didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then said, "Where in the hell did you ever hear of him?" The script, you see, called for me to say Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams, or some other player of the day, and then Les would say, "Shit, they don't teach you young punks nothing about history in school. You never heard of a man named Babe Ruth?" and he'd be off. But when he had been a kid himself, I think, his uncles and his father's friends would ask him "who's the greatest ball play of all time" and he's say, Babe Ruth, and they'd say, "Shit, you young punks don't know nothing about history. Ruth is nothing compared to Big Ed Delehanty." End of irrelevancy. Actually, not quite. I used to say frequently that the best advice that my father had ever given me, indeed the only good advice he'd ever given, was that if I ever saw the sign "Tables for Ladies" in the window of a bar, I could know that it was a low dive, and I should stay out of it. I tested this advice frequently when I got to college, and it proved valid every time. I remember one of my friends coming to me bubbling: she and her boy friend had actually seen a bar with that sign in the window, and she had wanted him to take her in, but he wouldn't. Perhaps his father had known my father. GAT From jasanders at CSUPOMONA.EDU Tue Jan 9 01:23:54 2001 From: jasanders at CSUPOMONA.EDU (Judi Sanders) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 17:23:54 -0800 Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. In-Reply-To: <20001214062637.3952.qmail@web4205.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The best source would be the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. Judi -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of prem kumar Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:27 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. Respected Sir/Madam: We are working on a project called ?The American Slang?. We need to collect the definition of slang, nature and origin of American Slang , Words or Phrases or Sentences used as slang and general rules for th usage of slang . Give their meaning and their correct usage along with some twenty examples. I could get some information about ?what is slang??. But regarding history, nature, origin, rules to use slang and things like that, I could hardly collect any data. If you can help me in this regard, it would be very generous. May be if you have some data regarding this, you can send it to me through e-mail. You can also send me the name of websites from where I can collect the information relating to ?American Slang?. Thank You for your help in advance. Prem Kumar. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 01:44:29 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 20:44:29 EST Subject: Phoenix (AZ) Chimichangas (1976-1979) Message-ID: I checked the phonebook fiche for Phoenix (AZ), 1976-1979. The 1976 ads may have appeared in earlier phonebooks. January 1976, PHOENIX, pg. 1197, col. 2: _EL MOLINO_ GREEN CORN TAMALES CHIMICHANGAS 244-0364 117 SOUTH 22nd ST. January 1976, PHOENIX, pg. 1199, col. 2: _La Pinata_ RESTAURANTE Home of the Chimichanga (This thing has more homes than O. J. Simpson houseguest Kato Kaelin--ed.) 279-1763 3330 N. 19th AV. January 1976, PHOENIX, pg. 1201, col. 1: JORDAN'S MEXICAN FOOD JORDAN'S 6247 N 7 St. SERVING PHX FOR 30 YEARS New: Margaritas & Cocktails CHIMICHANGAS, A SPECIALTY 6247 N 7 st...274-6836, 248-9522 January 1979, PHOENIX, pg. 1512, col. 1: el Don Quixote "CHIMICHANGAS A SPECIALTY" 944-3333 12838 N 19 AV January 1979, PHOENIX, pg. 1514, col. 2: La Canasta Mexican Food CHIMICHANGAS TAMALES TACOS, ETC. 252-9147, 278-7097 2501 W. VAN BUREN -------------------------------------------------------- MONGOLIAN BARBECUE (continued) This was in the LA (airport area) phone fiche. I'll have to check earlier phonebooks when I visit the Library of Congress again. October 1976, LOS ANGELES-AIRPORT AREA, pg. 398, col. 2: A centuries-Old Chinese Feast Authentic...Unique...Exciting ONLY AT COLONEL LEE'S Mongolian Barbecue 5608 W. MANCHESTER WESTCHESTER 641-6868 From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Tue Jan 9 00:38:54 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 19:38:54 -0500 Subject: unconcede Message-ID: For Larry and others: The problem of this year?s b.s.n. terms is troubling from one point of view. I simply did not do as much research as I should have. A Nexis search produced the following profile: 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1984 unconcede 6 2 unconceded 15 1 1 1 1 unconcession 1 1 A detailed examination of OED shows: unconceded OED 1674 A look at "Making of America" shows: To insist that the union was such as to destroy the separate existence and unconceded rights of the constituent parts of the body, is to maintain that the church is consolidated, and to establish a complete spiritual despotism. That no such union really exists between the several parts of the Presbyterian church is plain, because a member of one presbytery or congregation does not become ipso facto a member of every co-ordinate body. ?The General Assembly of 1835,? The Princeton Review, July 1835, p 465 Clearly, this is more than consulting any individual. It is a matter of the principals doing their homework. My undertaking was incomplete to say the least. Please accept my apologies for my failings in this matter. Regards, David Barnhart -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: The problem of this yea Type: application/octet-stream Size: 20480 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 01:51:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 20:51:45 EST Subject: Eye of the Storm (2000, from 1861-1865) Message-ID: EYE OF THE STORM: A CIVIL WAR ODYSSEY written and illustrated by Private Robert Knox Sneden Edited by Charles F. Bryan, Jr. and Nelson D. Lankford hardcover, 329 pages, $37.50 The Free Press, 2000 See the article in today's NEWSDAY, 8 January 2000, part 2, pg. B3, col. 2, "Civil War 'Treasure.'" The article has a nice illustration of the "dead line" that's on page 221, from April 8-20, 1864. I'll have more to say on this Civil War book, but it's now about time for me to throw up watching Ken Burns's JAZZ. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 05:35:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 00:35:19 EST Subject: Fwd: "Jazz" and Ken Burns Message-ID: I just sent this letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. Perhaps other people might want to send letters to support it. Peter Tamony (a longtime ADS member and a San Francisco resident) deserves mention in any 19-hour JAZZ documentary! FWIW, I checked the old archives, and most of my work on "jazz" (Jazz in San Francisco 1913-1919, Jazz in Chicago 1914-1917, Jazz in New Orleans 1916-1918, Jazz in Wisconsin 1916-1917, Jazz in New York 1917) is gone! --Barry Popik -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: "Jazz" and Ken Burns Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 00:29:16 EST Size: 5637 URL: From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 9 05:42:50 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 23:42:50 -0600 Subject: Eye of the Storm (2000, from 1861-1865) Message-ID: Since Barry has mentioned this book, let me add my hosannas. This book ranks with U.S. Grant and Sam Watkins as *definitive* memoirs of the US Civil War. In the case of Pvt Sneden, it's his illustrations which make his reputation. Yes: these three are in the same category of war memoirs as those of Caesar and Xenophon. My ggg-grandfather (pvt Wesley Graham, Co C, 25th Tn Inf, CSA) got himself killed-in-action at the Battle of Mill Springs, KY, 19 Jan 1862. He left a house full of fatherless kids. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Tue Jan 9 13:57:16 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 14:57:16 +0100 Subject: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) Message-ID: Ice can be frozen into balls by using a metal mold, consisting of two half-spheres joined by a hinge. The two parts can be filled with ground ice and then closed together and deep frozen in an ice-cream freezer, using salt and ice in the traditional way. This method is described (for making ice-cream balls) in an old Swedish cooking manual (Hagdahl, 1879, new ed. 1891). Jan Ivarsson Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-272 31 SIMRISHAMN Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st Tel. +46 414 10620 Fax +46 414 13633 ----- Original Message ----- From: "GEORGE THOMPSON" To: Sent: den 9 januari 2001 00:15 Subject: Re: Highball (St. Louis, 1888?) > With reference to Barry's recent posting on "highball": > "In each glass was also placed an "ice ball"." > I have never encountered the word "ice ball"; the only word I am > familiar with is the now-standard ice-cube. I can't picture how one > would freeze ice into balls, and would have supposed that in the > 1880s ice would have to have been formed in cubes, (or at least > rectangular solids more likely to be called cubes than balls,) or be > fragments chopped from a block of ice. > > "The drink was usually called a "Ball". Many members, however, > wanted a bigger drink and they would tell the bartender, "Make it a > High Ball." > It is my impression that the Irish use the word "ball" for a glass > of whiskey. I believe that one of the boozers in Ulysses refers to a > "ball of malt". If so, would this have a connection? A highball > being a ball of liquor in a high glass? > > Despite having grown up in the company of my father, I was not a > habitue of barroom when a toddler. Other hand, neither was I > unfamiliar with them. When I got to college, I took a room in a > working class neighborhood in Allston, within walking distance of > Boston Univ. The bar in my neighborhood -- the Brighton Avenue Cafe > -- was a working man's joint, exactly the sort of place my father > would take me into, if he needed a beer. Or even if he didn't need > one, but he hardly ever didn't need one. My friends from college > would have me take them there, and they would be goggle-eyed at being > in a place where drinkers at the bar wore paint-speckled overalls. > The bar-tender, Les, who claimed to have pitched in the majors in the > 1920s, was a cut-up. One of his standard gags was to bet someone > that he could throw a ball into the phonebooth in the corner. If the > bet was taken, he would go into a cramped windup, with empty hands, > and mimic a throw toward the booth; then he'd send his foil to look > in the booth, when he would have planted a glass of whiskey -- a > ball. (You were wondering how this would be relevant, weren't you.) > > To become irrelevant, or even more irrelevant than usual, the first > time I went into the Cafe, Les tried one of his gags on me. I might > have been from a working class family, and raised to be at home in > low saloons, but I also had "college kid" written all over me. After > Les served me, he said, "Listen, you're a baseball fan, right, know > the game? Tell me this, who would you say is the greatest > ball-player who ever lived." I don't remember noticing the other > bar-flies nudging each other and saying "watch Les give it to this > kid", but I figured I was being set up for something. So I said, > "Gee, that's a tough one, the greatest ever. I guess I would have to > say, Big Ed Delehanty." Les didn't say anything for a few seconds, > and then said, "Where in the hell did you ever hear of him?" The > script, you see, called for me to say Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams, > or some other player of the day, and then Les would say, "Shit, they > don't teach you young punks nothing about history in school. You > never heard of a man named Babe Ruth?" and he'd be off. But when he > had been a kid himself, I think, his uncles and his father's friends > would ask him "who's the greatest ball play of all time" and he's > say, Babe Ruth, and they'd say, "Shit, you young punks don't know > nothing about history. Ruth is nothing compared to Big Ed > Delehanty." > > End of irrelevancy. > > Actually, not quite. I used to say frequently that the best advice > that my father had ever given me, indeed the only good advice he'd > ever given, was that if I ever saw the sign "Tables for Ladies" in > the window of a bar, I could know that it was a low dive, and I > should stay out of it. I tested this advice frequently when I got to > college, and it proved valid every time. I remember one of my > friends coming to me bubbling: she and her boy friend had actually > seen a bar with that sign in the window, and she had wanted him to > take her in, but he wouldn't. Perhaps his father had known my > father. > > GAT From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 9 04:36:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:36:15 +0800 Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:23 PM -0800 1/8/01, Judi Sanders wrote: >The best source would be the Random House Historical Dictionary of >American Slang. > >Judi Assuming all items investigated are from A-O, of course. larry >-----Original Message----- >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On >Behalf Of prem kumar >Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:27 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Hello! Help Needed.................. > >Respected Sir/Madam: > >We are working on a project called "The American Slang". We need to >collect the definition of slang, nature and origin of American Slang >, Words or Phrases or Sentences used as slang and general rules for >th usage of slang . Give their meaning and their correct usage along >with some twenty examples. I could get some information about "what >is slang?". But regarding history, nature, origin, rules to use >slang and things like that, I could hardly collect any data. If you >can help me in this regard, it would be very generous. May be if you >have some data regarding this, you can send it to me through e-mail. >You can also send me the name of websites from where I can collect >the information relating to "American Slang". > >Thank You for your help in advance. > >Prem Kumar. mgpremkumar at yahoo.com > > > > >Do You Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. >Millions of Products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 17:51:26 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:51:26 EST Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN Message-ID: In a message dated 12/14/2000 12:48:35 AM, LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU writes: << "Indian" is definitely unPC and is now avoided. >> well, this is of some controversy among the folks themselves, as I undrstand it: some folks prefer "Indian" and think of "Native American" as a bit of PC jargon created by patronizing white folks. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 9 18:21:26 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 13:21:26 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:51 PM 1/9/01 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 12/14/2000 12:48:35 AM, LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU writes: > ><< "Indian" is definitely unPC and is now avoided. >> > >well, this is of some controversy among the folks themselves, as I undrstand >it: some folks prefer "Indian" and think of "Native American" as a bit of PC >jargon created by patronizing white folks. My impression agrees with Ron's: Even in the early '80s, when I was doing research on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, natives called themselves "Indian" and smiled at whites' use of N.A. (I don't think the term PC was around yet, but I knew what they were implying). After all, one said, "Indian" has been used for 500 years in both English and Spanish forms, so we might as well accept it. However, it is definitely unPC among whites, to the point where I'm frowned at by my students if I use "Indian." _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Tue Jan 9 17:09:22 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:09:22 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN Message-ID: There is also, Ron, the matter of all the long-established compounds dependent upon Indian: Indian agent Indian club Indian corn Indian file Indian giver Indian meal Indian paintbrush Indian pipe Indian pudding Indian summer Indian tobacco Indian wrestling These are a selection from M-W10. Regards, David David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 9 18:35:57 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 12:35:57 -0600 Subject: "Jazz" and Ken Burns Message-ID: Re: Barry Popik's letter to the San Francisco Chronicle: The S.F. Chronicle may or may not print his letter. But it is only a matter of time until the San Francisco newspapers pick up on the story about San Francisco's role in the "jazz" story. What concerns me most now is Barry's mention that much of his work on "jazz" has disappeared from the old ADS archives: > FWIW, I checked the old archives, and most of my work on >"jazz" (Jazz in San Francisco 1913-1919, Jazz in Chicago 1914-1917, >Jazz in New Orleans >1916-1918, Jazz in Wisconsin 1916-1917, Jazz in New York 1917) is gone! Fortunately, I have already written up some (most?) of Barry's San Francisco 1913-1919 material. But if he has copies of his other "jazz" material missing from the archives, I will print it this spring in my _Comments on Etymology_ to be sure it is preserved. ---Gerald Cohen From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Tue Jan 9 19:05:32 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 20:05:32 +0100 Subject: Jazz and Ken Burns Message-ID: On mardi 9 janvier 2001 19:35, Gerald Cohen wrote: > What concerns me most now is Barry's mention that much of his work >on "jazz" has disappeared from the old ADS archives: As I responded to Barry personally, there were months missing in the archives when I took them over, though I still haven't nailed down the exact dates. I wouldn't imagine he was expecting to save his work for posterity in an email format, anyhow. From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 20:25:02 2001 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 15:25:02 EST Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified Message-ID: Perhaps "franken-" only takes the negative connotation by people who are leery of technology to begin with. Here's an example of the use of "franken-" as a good thing from T3 magazine, November 2000: "MP3 Player/Phone >>Frankenphone! >>Finally, Samsung plans to bring one of its Frankenphones to the U.S., with a planned November release for the SPH-M100 Uproar MP3 player/phone. The Uproar offers all the modern conveniences associated with current phones, plus e-mail/fax access and an hour of MP3 playback. Intended to de-clutter the tech-savvy person on the go, its "two for the price of one-ness" should play well with those wanting to save dough for luxuries. . . like gas." Pardon any broken style conventions, I'm only a student. -dsb From mlisecki at POLBOX.COM Tue Jan 9 21:04:43 2001 From: mlisecki at POLBOX.COM (Michal Lisecki) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 22:04:43 +0100 Subject: body language Message-ID: Dear Thomas, for the sake of my thesis on computer-mediated communication in text-based only environments I investigated non-verbal communication, among these the body language. the publications I came across are far from being up-to-date but I might give you some hints on where to find some more materials on the web. perhaps you could find some more latest findings in the field there. i am sorry i am not directing you straight to the body-language pages because i've just gathered the links to the main sites. you will surely have to dig deeper in the archives of the sites to find some specifics. most of the recent publications I am familiar with are in Polish and thus I guess they would not be of any help to you :-> or am I wrong? Center for Nonverbal Studies http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/index.htm Exploring Nonverbal Communication http://zzyx.ucsc.edu/~archer/ Facial Analysis - links on the web http://mambo.ucsc.edu/psl/fanl.html Nonverbal Communication Research Page http://socpsych.lacollege.edu/nonverbal.html Nonverbal Communication Links http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/speech/commcentral/mgnonverbal.html http://zen.sunderland.ac.uk/~hb5jma/pam.htm you should also find it interesting that there are some online journals on nonverbal communication. when it comes to proxemics specifically i know nothing but some not-so-recent works by Edward Hall. all of them mentioned were mentioned by Beverly. you might also have a lok at the following article... Hall, E. (1968). Proxemics. Current Anthropology, 9, 83-95, 106-108. tafn -- Michal Lisecki finger me 4 my pgp 'Linguistics is a quest for meaning' Benjamin Lee Whorf From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 01:23:48 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 20:23:48 -0500 Subject: "Franken-" meaning genetically modified In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Isn't there a breakfast cereal called something like Frankenberry >(made by the same people who sell Count Chokula or some other such >horror)? If all "Franken-" prefixed items were "negative," surely >they wouldn't have done this (although this obviously does not speak >to the genetic modification issue directly). dInIs (whose broken style conventions usually exceed dsb's, but I'm only a professor) >Perhaps "franken-" only takes the negative connotation by people who are >leery of technology to begin with. Here's an example of the use of >"franken-" as a good thing from T3 magazine, November 2000: > >"MP3 Player/Phone >>Frankenphone! >>Finally, Samsung plans to bring one of >its Frankenphones to the U.S., with a planned November release for the >SPH-M100 Uproar MP3 player/phone. The Uproar offers all the modern >conveniences associated with current phones, plus e-mail/fax access and an >hour of MP3 playback. Intended to de-clutter the tech-savvy person on the >go, its "two for the price of one-ness" should play well with those wanting >to save dough for luxuries. . . like gas." > >Pardon any broken style conventions, I'm only a student. > >-dsb -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 10 01:31:53 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 17:31:53 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ...not to mention Indian rub or all the expressions with Injun. Now: talk about un-PC... Peter R. On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > There is also, Ron, the matter of all the long-established compounds > dependent upon Indian: > > Indian agent > Indian club > Indian corn > Indian file > Indian giver > Indian meal > Indian paintbrush > Indian pipe > Indian pudding > Indian summer > Indian tobacco > Indian wrestling > > These are a selection from M-W10. > > Regards, > David > > David K. Barnhart, Editor > The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] > barnhart at highlands.com > www.highlands.com/Lexik > > "Necessity obliges us to neologize." > Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 > From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 02:19:25 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: In a message dated 1/9/2001 8:32:42 PM, prichard at LINFIELD.EDU writes: << ...not to mention Indian rub or all the expressions with Injun. Now: talk about un-PC... >> well, I don't THINK that Barnhart's point was that compounds in/derivatives of INDIAN are by definition perjorative. Indian Summer? Indiana? Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : INDIAN = NIGGER : NEGRO (in the days when NEGRO was the self-reference term of preference, of course). In other words, the status of INJUN does not in any way illuminate the status of INDIAN. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 10 02:26:42 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 18:26:42 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <99.f1c6c38.278d20ad@aol.com> Message-ID: > << ...not to mention Indian rub or all the expressions with Injun. Now: talk > about un-PC... >> > > well, I don't THINK that Barnhart's point was that compounds in/derivatives > of INDIAN are by definition perjorative. Indian Summer? Indiana? No, I don't think so either. But there seem to be a few expressions out there that don't go down quite as easily as those on the list: Indian giver and Indian burn come to mind. (And does anyone else have Dutch rub and Indian rub [knuckles on the top of the head] as synonyms, whereas an Indian burn is a two-handed twist of the skin on a forearm? I'll apologize if it's in DARE, which is safely at home out of the rain.) Is there a Dutch burn? (barn, yes...) PR From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Wed Jan 10 03:40:21 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 22:40:21 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > INDIAN = > NIGGER : NEGRO Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? From indigo at WELL.COM Wed Jan 10 08:26:06 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:26:06 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN In-Reply-To: <200101100501.VAA25661@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: >>well, this is of some controversy among the folks themselves, as I undrstand >>it: some folks prefer "Indian" and think of "Native American" as a bit of PC >>jargon created by patronizing white folks. > >My impression agrees with Ron's: Even in the early '80s, when I was doing >research on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, natives called >themselves "Indian" and smiled at whites' use of N.A. I think it often depends on context. Being one of those PC people myself (undergrad degree in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley & still live in Berkeley) & being around plenty of PC people (of all colors) all the time, I can report that some of the same people who say "Indian", "black" or "Asian" in casual contexts, especially among friends, will steadfastly insist upon "Native American" (or "indigenous" or "First Nations", or sometimes "American Indian"), "African American" and "Asian American" (or "Asian Pacific American" or "Asian and Pacific Islander") in more formal, mixed &/or "unfriendly" contexts. Then there are those who argue passionately in favor of "Indian" for general use, notably the famous writer Sherman Alexie. & then there are those who would ideally identify everybody more specifically, i.e. Ojibwe, Lakota, Menominee, &c. &c. Also there's the class/education angle on all of this. Ethnic Studies college students get into splitting these hairs. fwiw, I'm Chinese American & those formative undergrad years were in the late 80s. Indigo Som indigo at well.com Poets don't have hobbies; they have obsessions --Leonard Nathan From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 11:04:59 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 06:04:59 EST Subject: Great Scott! (1864; EYE OF THE STORM gems) Message-ID: From EYE OF THE STORM. Pg. 147, November 26 and 27, 1863: ...and the Sanitary Commission camp at a half demolished house known as "The Shebang." Pg. 167, November 30, 1863: ..up all night cooking "scouse"*... *"Scouse" was slang for a soldier-cooked dish. Pg. 167, November 30, 1863: I awake stiff and sore enough, and for the first time in prison found out what "sleeping on the soft side of a plank" meant! Pg. 169, December 2, 1863: The sinks*... *Sink was the name for a latrine. Pg. 225, May 3 to 5, 1864: "Great Scott," who would have thought that this would be the destiny of the Union Volunteer in 1861-2 while marching down Broadway to the tune of "John Brown's Body," etc! Pg. 239, July 4, 1864: ...all went "on the double"... Pg. 242, July 5 to 10, 1864: Each had thirty-two pound balls riveted to his legs with a heavy ox chain. These Wirz playfully termed "Confederate watches." Pg. 273, November 24, 1864: Dr. White acknowledged that "he had a white elephant" on his hands... Pg. 296, December 20, 1864: At the sinks, which are a long way from the barracks, many men were "mugged" and robbed. From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 10 12:26:22 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 07:26:22 -0500 Subject: Indian vs Native American, etc. Message-ID: Indigo Som said: >> I think it often depends on context. Being one of those PC people myself (undergrad degree in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley & still live in Berkeley) & being around plenty of PC people (of all colors) all the time, I can report that some of the same people who say "Indian", "black" or "Asian" in casual contexts, especially among friends, will steadfastly insist upon "Native American" (or "indigenous" or "First Nations", or sometimes "American Indian"), "African American" and "Asian American" (or "Asian Pacific American" or "Asian and Pacific Islander") in more formal, mixed &/or "unfriendly" contexts. << This is an excellent point. In formal settings, as on the floor of Congress or such, one hears African American almost exclusively (as one hears "gentlelady" there -- where else?). And if one does not know one's audience well ("unfriendly" contexts), it is wise to err in favor of formal register vs. the casual (akin to the polite/familiar forms in French, etc.). Thanks for pointing this out. It is more than PC vs. traditional; it is, or is becoming formal vs. colloquial. Frank Abate Dictionary & Reference Specialists (DRS) Consulting & Lexicographic Services (860) 510-0100, ext 2311 abatefr at earthlink.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mdkgottlieb at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 10 12:50:00 2001 From: mdkgottlieb at YAHOO.COM (=?iso-8859-1?q?Michael=20Gottlieb?=) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 04:50:00 -0800 Subject: "Popney" rhyming slang Message-ID: Inspired by Cockney rhyming slang, "Popney" rhyming slang terms have been collected on London-based www.music365.com since the site's owner overheard a man in a pub ask for "Britney Spears" instead of "a few beers." Jay Kay, for instance, of Jamiroquai fame, means takeaway. "What with practicing his quirky dance moves and keeping up with his banging social life, Jay doesn't always have time to prepare a properly balanced meal. Luckily cosmic Kay likes to keep one step ahead of himself..." Sample sentence: "I really can't be bothered to cook tonight. Let's just grab a Jay on the way home." RICKY MARTIN = SIDE PARTING Sample sentence: "Just a little off the top, please barber, and do us a Ricky Martin." TINA TURNER = NICE LITTLE EARNER Sample sentence: "I picked up ten videos for a ton and sold 'em for a monkey each - how's that for a Tina Turner?" BARRY WHITE = FRIGHT Sample sentence: "Crikey, that 'Blair Witch Project' gave me a right old Barry!" Sinead O'Conner -- doner George Michael -- cycle (v.) Fatboy Slim -- gym Gary Barlow -- Monte Carlo __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ From stevek at SHORE.NET Wed Jan 10 13:12:33 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 08:12:33 -0500 Subject: franken-cite In-Reply-To: <20010109.224122.-324609.3.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: >From today's Boston Globe (1/10/01) Section F, p 1 "A perverse fantasy 'Island'" Matthew Gilbert --- Not surprisingly, it's [Temptation Island] on Fox, the same network that brought us last year's cultural nadir, "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?," and its bride of Franken-groom, Darva Conger. ----- Yes, the ?," series is as in print, and Franken-groom is hyphenated. The globe is at www.boston.com/globe and you can look at articles free the day of or day after publication. --- Steve K. From m.laounodji at VOILA.FR Wed Jan 10 13:10:35 2001 From: m.laounodji at VOILA.FR (mbairessem LAOUNODJI) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:10:35 +0100 Subject: scholarship request for black studies Message-ID: Dear sirs, Best wishes fro the New Year 2001. I thank you all for you quick responses to my query about Black English or Ebonics forwarded by Peter Patrick on the linguistpost last year.My query was to have a backgound information about B.E because i lacked the materials.I have already defended my project on B.E for an M.A in linguistics. I would like to further my studies in linguistics,and mainly in Ebonics or B.E.So i send you this query to inquire if you could help me or to refer me to any institutions or Black institutions that could help me with any scholarship to achieve that aim.I love to know the deepest structures and the functionning of B.E.I hope you will be of some help or refer me to any helping hand.I am looking forward to sending you any information you may need.By the way,i am a Chadian student .I live and study in Central African Republic,Africa,which is a francophone country.And it is not easy to be in touch with anglophone world.I hope to hear from you soon. Best, Laounodji Mbairessem Monza University of Bangui po box 1450 Bangui,C.A.R From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 10 13:26:23 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:26:23 +0000 Subject: "Popney" rhyming slang In-Reply-To: <20010110125000.31760.qmail@web9901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: My students don't call this 'popney'--they call it 'Cockney rhyming slang' ('Britney' is their favourite example). I have some suspicion that "popney" is a marketing invention of the music site--it's the only place that seems to use that term. Lynne --On Wednesday, January 10, 2001 4:50 am -0800 Michael Gottlieb wrote: > Inspired by Cockney rhyming slang, "Popney" rhyming > slang terms have been collected on London-based > www.music365.com since the site's owner overheard a > man in a pub ask for "Britney Spears" instead of "a > few beers." > > Jay Kay, for instance, of Jamiroquai fame, means > takeaway. "What with practicing his quirky dance > moves and keeping up with his banging social life, Jay > doesn't always have time to prepare a properly > balanced meal. Luckily cosmic Kay likes to keep one > step ahead of himself..." > > Sample sentence: "I really can't be bothered to cook > tonight. Let's just grab a Jay on the way home." > > RICKY MARTIN = SIDE PARTING > > Sample sentence: "Just a little off the top, please > barber, and do us a Ricky Martin." > > TINA TURNER = NICE LITTLE EARNER > > Sample sentence: "I picked up ten videos for a ton and > sold 'em for a monkey each - how's that for a Tina > Turner?" > > BARRY WHITE = FRIGHT > > Sample sentence: "Crikey, that 'Blair Witch Project' > gave me a right old Barry!" > > > Sinead O'Conner -- doner > George Michael -- cycle (v.) > Fatboy Slim -- gym > Gary Barlow -- Monte Carlo > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! > http://photos.yahoo.com/ M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 13:57:31 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 08:57:31 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <20010109.224122.-324609.3.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. dInIs >On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > >> Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : >> INDIAN = >> NIGGER : NEGRO > >Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the >contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 14:05:08 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 09:05:08 EST Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof Message-ID: In a message dated 12/14/2000 12:48:35 AM, LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU writes: << "Indian" is definitely unPC and is now avoided. >> When I visited Alaska in 1974 I was informed that one did not ask a Caucasian if s/he were a "native Alaskan" because in Alaska the word "native" referred specifically to members of the three aboriginal races, namely the Eskimo, the Aleuts, and those people who in the lower 48 are and were generally referred to as "Indians". (I am not trying to be PC; rather I am trying to avoid ambiguity. I work for a company owned by a "real" Indian---a Gujarati from Bombay.) Incidentally, in Alaska in 1974, specifically in the city of Anchorage, "Texan" was a strongly perjorative word. At the time there were a number of unemployed people who came to Anchorage in hopes of getting jobs in the Prudhoe Bay oil boom. These people were collectively referred to as "Texans" although certainly some came from other states than Texas. I do not not know what events led to it, but these so-called Texans had acquired a reputation among the existing Alaskan residents as thieves/vagabonds/no-goods/etc. Hence "Texan" was perjorative. I received an eyewitness account of a black cabdriver in Anchorage who delivered a diatribe about "those dirty Texans who moved in and ruined the neighborhood." The eyewitness (who was from Baltimore) described that black cabdriver as "sounding just like a member of the White Citizen's Councils". James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) (Basic Commerce and Industries, Inc.) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 14:37:17 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 09:37:17 -0500 Subject: Italian Message-ID: DINIS wrote "Dialect forms which have had a similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example." I would think Carter's EYE-tal-yun is more similar to his EYE-ran for ear-RAN, a choice of one of two GVS possibilities, as root vs rout for . --db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 10 16:04:49 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 11:04:49 -0500 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: Does anybody here know the origin and significance of the saying "The postman [always] rings twice"? This seems to be some sort of aphorism or metaphor. It was the title of a famous novel, which I read long ago ... I don't remember a postman in the novel, but .... I looked through some reference books (books of proverbs, sayings, etc., at a small library) without any luck. Can somebody suggest a reference? -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 16:59:56 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 11:59:56 EST Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: << >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? From Amcolph at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 17:00:24 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:00:24 EST Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: James M. Cain, wasn't it, and a couple of movie versions (the better one with Lana Turner)? But did any actual postman ever ring twice? So you would not rush to the door expecting a visitor, but know instead that you could go get your mail when convenient? Who is old enough to remember such a thing? Ray Ott From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 04:03:09 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:03:09 +0800 Subject: Postman rings twice In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010110105951.028e2c40@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 11:04 AM -0500 1/10/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >Does anybody here know the origin and significance of the saying "The >postman [always] rings twice"? > >This seems to be some sort of aphorism or metaphor. It was the title of a >famous novel, which I read long ago ... James M. Cain, 1934 (and the celebrated 1946 film noir therefrom, starring Lana Turner and John Garfield) > I don't remember a postman in the >novel, but .... > >I looked through some reference books (books of proverbs, sayings, etc., at >a small library) without any luck. Can somebody suggest a reference? > >-- Doug Wilson My guess is that it wasn't really a saying, but a fact (presumably postmen back then really DID ring twice, to let you it was the postman and not someone else) that Cain used as a metaphor for a crucial plot element that didn't refer directly to postmen but alluded to foreshadowing of events, twists, etc. I would wager that to the extent it became a "saying", Cain is responsible. Fred? larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 04:09:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:09:42 +0800 Subject: Postman rings twice In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This is from a web site, http://www.educeth.ethz.ch/english/readinglist/cainj/ A Note on the Title of James M. Cain's Novel 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' In "Murder on the Love Rack," the tenth chapter of CAIN: The Biography of James M. Cain (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), Roy Hoopes details the history of Cain's famously enigmatic title for his first novel. According to Hoopes, Cain originally titled the work Bar-B-Que, but the publisher Alfred Knopf who was considering publishing the novel objected to the title and suggested For Love or Money instead. Cain hated Knopf's title because he found it generic, the sort of title that seems designed to market any sensationalistic book or movie. In return, Cain offered to call the book Black Puma or The Devil's Checkbook, but Knopf rejected these as well. Hoopes reports that finally, during a conversation with the playwright and screenwriter Vincent Lawrence--Cain's best friend in Hollywood, and the person to whom he ultimately dedicated this novel--came up with the title The Postman Always Rings Twice. The two writers had been commiserating over the agonies of waiting for the postman each day to find out the latest news on their submitted manuscripts. Lawrence said that he would sometimes go out into his backyard to avoid hearing the postman come but complained that the postman always rang twice to make sure he was heard. This anecdote put Cain in mind of an old English and Irish tradition according to which the postman always rang (or knocked) twice to announce himself. Cain pitched the title to his friend and Lawrence agreed that this metaphor was well suited as a description for the fate of Frank Chambers. Knopf, of course, accepted the title, and Hoopes notes that this title, with its rather obscure meaning, may in fact have contributed to the controversy that fueled the novel's huge success. J.C. Caruso University of Washington From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 04:10:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:10:58 +0800 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <13.fe2d20d.278def0c@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:59 AM -0500 1/10/01, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: > ><< >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >>fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >>of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >>form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >>similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >>would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> > >And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? No, if you say "Who's yer daddy?" fast enough. From RFelton at ISA.ORG Wed Jan 10 17:30:36 2001 From: RFelton at ISA.ORG (Felton, Robert) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:30:36 -0500 Subject: Sewer-pipe sailors Message-ID: An acquaintance who was once a naval officer tells me that submariners were known in his day as "sewer-pipe sailors." I don't know if this slang is known to everybody but me, but I thought I'd pass it along. Robert M. Felton, P.E. Technical Editor, InTech Magazine ISA - The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society 67 Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 E-Mail: rfelton at isa.org Phone: (919) 990-9223 Fax: (919) 549-8288 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 18:09:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:09:22 EST Subject: President-Select; Pay-If-I-Play Message-ID: PRESIDENT-SELECT From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 31, col. 2, "Why the Right Can't Win" by Michael Kelly: We'll (the left--ed.) never, no never, no never, quit hollering from the rooftops that the president-select, as we like to call him, was and forever will be entirely and utterly illegitimate... -------------------------------------------------------- PAY-IF-I-PLAY From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 3, col. 1: _ZETA WIN$ IF MICHAEL SINS_ _Douglas to pay $5M if unfaithful: report_ Michael Douglas has reportedly agreed to pay Catherine Zeta-Jones a whopping $5 million if he's ever unfaithful during their marriage. The 56-year-old star--once treated for sex addiction--inked the amazing "pay-if-I play" deal as part of the prenuptial agreement he made with his new bride, the London Daily Mail says. (But the question is, what if SHE strays? Not that she's going to do that--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- E-CLINER From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 34, col. 1: _JOE 6-PACK IS WIRED_ _New La-Z-Boy "e-cliner" has M'soft WebTV_ (...) The Explorer "e-cliner," which made its debut at the CES in Las Vegas yesterday, has a built-in airplane-style tray table designed to fit the infrared keyboard for a Web TV made by Sony. -------------------------------------------------------- PANINOTECAS From the NEW YORK POST, 10 January 2001, pg. 55, col. 2, Food: _IN: Paninotecas_--Hotter than a sandwich press is a panino plus a quartino (sandwich and wine--Italian style). They come with good vibes at Via Quadronno uptown and Il Posto Accanto in the East Village. From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 10 18:00:55 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:00:55 -0500 Subject: unconcede Message-ID: David Barnhart writes: >>>>> The problem of this year's b.s.n. terms is troubling from one point of view. I simply did not do as much research as I should have. [...] unconceded OED 1674 A look at "Making of America" shows: To insist that the union was such as to destroy the separate existence and unconceded rights of the constituent parts of the body, [...] The General Assembly of 1835, The Princeton Review, July 1835, p 465 Clearly, this is more than consulting any individual. It is a matter of the principals doing their homework. My undertaking was incomplete to say the least. Please accept my apologies for my failings in this matter. <<<<< The 1835 cite is irrelevant to the sense in question. It is un + (concede + ed) i.e., a negation of the past participle "conceded", rather than (un + concede) + ed the past participle of the negation of "concede". IOW, it is not derived from "unconcede", which is the lemma that people were discussing. I can't tell about the 1674 OED cite without looking, and my OED's at home whereas I'm at work, but I regard it as suspect for the same reason until examined in context. So, Dave, you've got less to apologize about than you think you do! -- Mark A. Mandel From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 18:21:40 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:21:40 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: <13.fe2d20d.278def0c@aol.com> Message-ID: >Hmmmmmmmm. dInIs >In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: > ><< >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >>fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >>of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >>form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >>similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >>would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> > >And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 10 18:22:56 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:22:56 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >AAAAARGH! dInIs >At 11:59 AM -0500 1/10/01, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >>In a message dated 1/10/2001 8:55:28 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: >> >><< >This is a really interesting observation. It would appear that the >>>fast (allegro) speech pronunciation (not "dialect" I suspect) form >>>of "Indian" has given rise to a new "ordinary" (i.e., non-allegro) >>>form (which has become pejorative). Dialect forms which have had a >>>similar fate (but which better fit the definition suggested here) >>>would include Jimmy Carter's EYE-talian, for example. >> >> >>And if you say INDIANAN fast enough, it comes uot HOOSIER? > >No, if you say "Who's yer daddy?" fast enough. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 10 18:13:23 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:13:23 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: Duane Campbell writes: >>>>> On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > INDIAN = > NIGGER : NEGRO Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? <<<<< For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white man for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | African-American | ... } person, and he used it without pejoration or insult. "Negro" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was in the summer of 1966, in rural Kentucky near Corbin. There was certainly a lot of racism in that region, but as far as I could tell there was none in him. -- Mark From jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU Wed Jan 10 18:47:54 2001 From: jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU (Miller, Jerry) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:47:54 -0500 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: Doug: This is coming off the top of my head, but my recollection is that the reference in the Cain novel (and movie based on it, twice) was to explain away a ringing doorbell that "interrupted" the two illicit lovers at the center of the story (she had a husband, who met an unfortunate end, of course). I haven't found a reference yet that pre-dates the expression before Cain's novel. I have a hunch the double-ringing was a "signature" for postal deliveries in the '40s and perhaps earlier but can't offer any concrete evidence of same -- maybe a postal historian could help? I know this doesn't help much, but I thought I would throw it into the discussion for what it's worth. Jerry Miller jmiller at franklincollege.edu > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas G. Wilson [SMTP:douglas at NB.NET] > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 11:05 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Postman rings twice > > Does anybody here know the origin and significance of the saying "The > postman [always] rings twice"? > > This seems to be some sort of aphorism or metaphor. It was the title of a > famous novel, which I read long ago ... I don't remember a postman in the > novel, but .... > > I looked through some reference books (books of proverbs, sayings, etc., > at > a small library) without any luck. Can somebody suggest a reference? > > -- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 19:18:19 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:18:19 -0500 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:13 PM 1/10/01 -0500, you wrote: >Duane Campbell writes: > > >>>>> >On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > > > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > > INDIAN = > > NIGGER : NEGRO > >Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the >contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? ><<<<< > >For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white man >for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | African-American | ... >} person, and he used it without pejoration or insult. "Negro" wasn't in >his vocabulary. This was in the summer of 1966, in rural Kentucky near >Corbin. There was certainly a lot of racism in that region, but as far as I >could tell there was none in him. > >-- Mark "Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. Other phonological processes were historically at work in the change of "negro" to "negra/negger/nigger", I assume; but again, the use of "nigger" today would seem, like "Injun," inexcusable, at least once the speaker has been so told. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 19:20:17 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:20:17 -0500 Subject: query Message-ID: A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what the third one is? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 10 19:29:13 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:29:13 -0500 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110141904.01cde7d0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, >and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what >the third one is? There isn't really a good answer AFAIK. http://www.alt-usage-english.org/full_faq_with_int_links.shtml#fxwordse has a good discussion of this subject. -- Doug Wilson From bkane at TIGGER.JVNC.NET Wed Jan 10 19:51:42 2001 From: bkane at TIGGER.JVNC.NET (Bernard W. Kane) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:51:42 -0500 Subject: recent book reviewed Message-ID: The New Yorker (issue of January 15, 2001, p. 72 col. 3) brackets ADSer Allan Metcalf with Henry James as cataloguers of regional quirks in a brief notice of Mr Metcalf's "How We Talk" (Houghton Mifflin). Bernie Kane word-finder From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 10 19:43:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 19:43:05 +0000 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110141904.01cde7d0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 10, 2001 2:20 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry > are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me > what the third one is? There is no third one. Here's Jesse S's note from the archives. I must say, I'm as sick of the query as he was then! Hard to believe how often this goes around. Lynne Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 10:38:50 -0400 From: Jesse T Sheidlower jester at PANIX.COM Subject: Re: Words that end in GRY In the past few weeks I've seen this unanswered puzzler pop up in three different circles. So excuse me while I introduce it to this circle which might be able to answer it. The English language has (at least) three words that end in GRY. "Angry" and "hungry" are two of them. What is the third, which purportedly is an everyday word? AAAAaaaaargh! Does _every corner_ of the Internet have to be saturated with this? The answer to the riddle in the form you heard it (as opposed to the form you're quoting) is either "what" or "three." It's a shaggy-dog riddle. ("There are three words..." the question begins, and when the question asks "what is the third word?" it's really asking "what is the third word of the riddle?" Alternately, the question is asked earlier in the riddle, and then the last line is "'What' is the word.", declaratively--this version only works when heard orally.) As for words that end in -gry, there are a whole bunch, none of them common, including puggry, maugry, iggry, aggry, gry, and others, but the best is _nugry,_ coined on rec.games.puzzles to mean 'the sort of person who will ask the words ending in -gry question without checking to see if five billion people have already asked it here before'. JTS M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 10 06:49:45 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:49:45 +0800 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110141904.01cde7d0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 2:20 PM -0500 1/10/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, >and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what >the third one is? > >_____________________________________________ The short answer is that there isn't any. We've talked about this on the list--this is a trick question, usually posed along the following lines, or a variation: "Not many common words end in -gry, but there are three in the English language. Can you name them?" and of course the answer is "the", "English", and "language". Various posters (on this and countless other lists) have come up with nominees for words ending in -gry, but beyond "angry" and "hungry", none are even close to common. And that means you too, "aggry" beads. larry From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Jan 10 19:46:23 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:46:23 -0500 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: As one who does remember the 40's (& 30's, too, for that matter), I can say that in Lincoln Nebraska, at least, the postman on our route (Mr. Beggs) neither rang nor knocked, but simply put the mail through the letter slot. What he DID do twice, was deliver the mail each day. There were both morning and afternoon deliveries in those days. The second delivery was stopped sometime during the war. A. Murie From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 10 22:03:40 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:03:40 -0800 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: mark mandel: >For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white >man for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | >African-American | ... } person, and he used it without pejoration >or insult. "Negro" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was in the summer >of 1966, in rural Kentucky near Corbin. There was certainly a lot of >racism in that region, but as far as I could tell there was none in >him. i've heard any number of such reports, about people of considerable age or geographical isolation or both. at one level, this is just like my grandmother's continuing to refer to cars/automobiles as "machines", and refrigerators as "iceboxes", all her life, long after everyone else around her had either shifted their usages or had never acquired hers in the first place. she was entirely aware that other people used different words, but then we all know that different people talk differently, so as long as she was understood there was no particular reason for her to change. but there's the problem with "nigger". no one, even in rural kentucky in 1966, is so isolated as not to have come into contact with plenty of speakers for whom the word is pejorative, indeed strongly so, so that if you use the word you risk being misunderstood. perhaps you have a tin ear, and don't notice how other people use this word. perhaps you are socially incurious and unobservant. perhaps you are resistant to change, to the point where your linguistic inertia is stronger than your concern for being understood. perhaps you just don't care if other people think you're talking pejoratively; *you* know what you think. but it's not *just* a matter of your continuing to use a word the way you learned as a child. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 22:35:33 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 17:35:33 EST Subject: Ind'an (was INDIAN vs. INJUN) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/10/2001 2:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes: << Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. This version may be the result of influences within Lakota, but it could also be the way they first heard it pronounced by whites. Historically this sort of ending sometimes lost the high front vowel before schwa (and I can't recall more details without Dobson)... but Lydia for example was Lydda for my grandfather (b. 1893), and Shakespeare has a spelling somewhere that indicates 'ruffian' was 'ruffin'. There's lots of other examples, notably the -iage group, marriage, carriage, and for some foliage, though lots of us put the /i/ back in on that one. Dale Coye The College of NJ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 10 23:56:24 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 18:56:24 -0500 Subject: Ind'an (was INDIAN vs. INJUN) In-Reply-To: <81.557f04a.278e3db5@aol.com> Message-ID: Very good points--thanks, Dale. In fact, two of us were talking about "fol(i)age" just the other day (was it with you, Alice Faber?). I do not think Lakota is the main influence in the "Ind'an" case, and I didn't mean to imply that. At 05:35 PM 1/10/01 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 01/10/2001 2:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, >flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes: > ><< Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng > "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this > pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux > (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], > reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. > >This version may be the result of influences within Lakota, but it could also >be the way they first heard it pronounced by whites. Historically this sort >of ending sometimes lost the high front vowel before schwa (and I can't >recall more details without Dobson)... but Lydia for example was Lydda for my >grandfather (b. 1893), and Shakespeare has a spelling somewhere that >indicates 'ruffian' was 'ruffin'. There's lots of other examples, notably >the -iage group, marriage, carriage, and for some foliage, though lots of us >put the /i/ back in on that one. > >Dale Coye >The College of NJ _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 00:09:17 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 19:09:17 -0500 Subject: Ind'an (was INDIAN vs. INJUN) In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010110185232.01dec5e0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: 'Tweren't me. I was too busy expounding on the possible influence of southern baseball radio announcers on NYC speech. Beverly Flanigan said: >Very good points--thanks, Dale. In fact, two of us were talking about >"fol(i)age" just the other day (was it with you, Alice Faber?). I do not >think Lakota is the main influence in the "Ind'an" case, and I didn't mean >to imply that. > >At 05:35 PM 1/10/01 -0500, you wrote: >>In a message dated 01/10/2001 2:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, >>flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes: >> >><< Injun" originated as a palatalization of "Indian," as in Brit Eng >> "immedjate." Of course, there's no excuse for continuing this >> pronunciation into Am Eng, at least today. Interestingly, Lakota Sioux >> (and other tribes as well, I'm told) pronounce the word "Ind'an" [IndEn], >> reducing the medial vowel instead of palatalizing it. >> >>This version may be the result of influences within Lakota, but it could also >>be the way they first heard it pronounced by whites. Historically this sort >>of ending sometimes lost the high front vowel before schwa (and I can't >>recall more details without Dobson)... but Lydia for example was Lydda for my >>grandfather (b. 1893), and Shakespeare has a spelling somewhere that >>indicates 'ruffian' was 'ruffin'. There's lots of other examples, notably >>the -iage group, marriage, carriage, and for some foliage, though lots of us >>put the /i/ back in on that one. >> >>Dale Coye >>The College of NJ > > >_____________________________________________ >Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics >Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 >Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 >http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 11 04:52:42 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:52:42 -0600 Subject: Postman rings twice Message-ID: Adding to the thread ... You coulda looked it up at barnesandnoble. James M. Cain wrote some *torrid* novels (even for today, but especially for then). The ones made into movies were Postman (twice, the second time with Nicholson, as I remember), Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford's Oscar) and Double Indemnity (Fred MacMurray, Cecil Kellaway, Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck). Cain is the exemplar a certain kind of literary 'noir'. It's secular sin being rewarded with secular hellfire. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Thu Jan 11 08:39:48 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 03:39:48 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: from "Rudolph C Troike" at Jan 08, 2001 11:24:25 AM Message-ID: Rudolph C Troike quotes Ed White: > >This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a >pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were >called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," >I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came >the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed >White I ran this by an English friend, who said that what we call "English muffins" in America are just called "muffins" in England. (And in a nice bit of symmetry, what we call "muffins" she says are called "American muffins".) Her take was that the person in the pastry shop knew that "English muffins" were muffins, and that the pastry in question REALLY WAS a glazed bun, which is not a muffin, English or American. -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 11:24:45 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:24:45 +0000 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: <200101110839.DAA06755@ursolaris.spdcc.com> Message-ID: Like JW McKeogh, I found it a bit odd that glazed buns and English muffins had been equated. A glazed bun is a sweet thing--buns are sweet in UK English--except for hamburger buns, which are a relatively recent borrowing from US. US has this sense of 'bun' in 'hot crossed bun' or possibly 'cinnamon bun'--but I think you hear 'cinnamon roll' more there now. (I have my students do semantic field analyses of breads and cakes, so I've had a lot of discussion on this in UK and South Africa.) As JWK notes, a UK muffin is comparable to the US 'English muffin'. Here's the New Oxford's definition: [chiefly Brit] a flat circular spongy bread roll make from yeast dough and eaten split, toasted, and buttered. They also have a 'chiefly N Amer' definition that describes 'a small domed spongy cake...'. My students, when asked to define 'muffin' give both definitions but note that the American sense has only come into UK English in recent years, with the importation of American muffins (the recipes at least, if not the actual baked goods). You can now buy packaged blueberry and other muffins at coffee stands and supermarkets. Since Wal-Mart now owns one of the major supermarket chains here, we may see more importing of American food-concepts. Lynne --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 3:39 am -0500 Jeffrey William McKeough wrote: > Rudolph C Troike quotes Ed White: >> >> This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a >> pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were >> called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," >> I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came >> the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed >> White > > I ran this by an English friend, who said that what we call "English > muffins" in America are just called "muffins" in England. (And in a > nice bit of symmetry, what we call "muffins" she says are called > "American muffins".) > > Her take was that the person in the pastry shop knew that "English > muffins" were muffins, and that the pastry in question REALLY WAS a > glazed bun, which is not a muffin, English or American. > > -- > Jeffrey William McKeough > jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 12:27:44 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 07:27:44 EST Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: It might be interesting to quote from the "Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act", which is probably about as politcally correct an Act as Congress ever passed [following quote is from a Web site whose URL I failed to record. This may be an earlier draft than the one enacted into law.]. Section 2 contains the following definitions: (7) "Indian tribe" shall have the meaning given such term in section 4 of the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 450b). (9) "Native American" means of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is indigenous to the United States. (10) "Native Hawaiian" means any individual who is a descendant of the aboriginal people who, prior to 1778, occupied and exercised sovereignty in the area that now constitutes the State of Hawaii. (15) "tribal land" means (A) all lands within the exterior boundaries of any Indian reservation; (B) al l dependent Indian communities; (C) lands conveyed to, or subject to an interim conveyance of, Native Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; and (D) any lands administered for the benefit of Native Hawaiians pursuant to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, and section 4 of Public Law 86-3. The words "Eskimo", "Inuit", and "Aleut" do not occur in the text. It is interesting that the word "Indian" occurs without definition in (15) (B) when the text could easily have been more politically correct and read "all dependent Native American communities." Or is the Act specifically excluding Eskimo and Native Hawaiian tribal lands from (15)(B)? The earliest usage of "Native American" that I know of occurs in "Native American Church", which according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (15th edition, 1987, volume 8 page 554 article "Native American Church") took that name in 1918. James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are known as "Inuit" in Canada. From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 11 13:07:39 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 08:07:39 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <67.e379e08.278f00c0@aol.com> Message-ID: >The earliest usage of "Native American" that I know of occurs in "Native >American Church", which according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (15th >edition, 1987, volume 8 page 554 article "Native American Church") took that >name in 1918. "Native American" used as = "American Indian": this is older than one might suppose. From a casual glance at MoA (Cornell): ---------- Noun: <> -- W. J. Harsha, "Law for Indians", in "The North American Review", 134:288, March 1882. ---------- Adjective: <> -- "Origin and Characteristics of the American Aborigines", in "The United States Democratic review", 11:617, December 1842. ---------- I would speculate that one might find instances MUCH earlier still .... -- Doug Wilson From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 13:15:03 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 08:15:03 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010111073649.009f5b00@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >The earliest usage of "Native American" that I know of occurs in "Native > >American Church", which according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (15th > >edition, 1987, volume 8 page 554 article "Native American Church") took that > >name in 1918. > > "Native American" used as = "American Indian": this is older than one might > suppose. From a casual glance at MoA (Cornell): I have an article forthcoming in American Speech concerning the origins of the term "Native American." The earliest citation I was able to find was 1737. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 00:45:34 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 08:45:34 +0800 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010111073649.009f5b00@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 8:07 AM -0500 1/11/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >Adjective: > ><Lord Kingsborough, author of _Mexican Antiquities_), which refers the >entire native American population to the ten lost tribes of Israel ...>> > >-- "Origin and Characteristics of the American Aborigines", in "The United >States Democratic review", 11:617, December 1842. > So that's not just the Mormon view, as I always thought. As for Eskimo and Inuit (in James Landau's earlier P.S.-- >P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are >known as "Inuit" in Canada. --I've been "corrected" on at least one occasion in the U.S. when I used the (presumably non-approved) "Eskimo". Maybe the Canadians are just in the vanguard here.I'm not sure whether the objection to "Eskimo" is that it's too broad in its application or that it's too closely associated with tales of blubber-eating, nose-rubbing, wife-sharing and the like. larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 14:15:56 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:15:56 +0000 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 8:45 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > in James Landau's earlier P.S.-- > >> P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States >> are known as "Inuit" in Canada. > > --I've been "corrected" on at least one occasion in the U.S. when I > used the (presumably non-approved) "Eskimo". Maybe the Canadians are > just in the vanguard here.I'm not sure whether the objection to > "Eskimo" is that it's too broad in its application or that it's too > closely associated with tales of blubber-eating, nose-rubbing, > wife-sharing and the like. To quote from Rosalie Maggio's _Talking about people_: "in 1977 at the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Barrow, Alaska, the term 'Inuit' ('the people') was officially adopted as a preferred designation for collectively referring to the group of peoples of nothern Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and eastern Siberia known as Eskimos. 'Eskimo' has long been considered (perhaps incorrectly) to come from a term meaning 'raw meat eaters.' Some Inuit, but not all, would rather it not be used. [Info on Aleuts and Athabaskans deleted.] Inuk (or Innuk) is the singular of Inuit (or Innuit). In Alaska, 'Natives' and 'Alaska natives' are the accepted terms for the Inuit, Aleuts, and Athabaskans, when referring to the areas indigenous peoples in the aggregate." Note that the OED on-line prefers the spelling "Innuit". Not sure if this is a UK preference or general historical spelling. 'Inuit' is used on the argument that 'it's what the people call themselves', but, like many other ethnonyms, in that people's native language 'Inuit', it just means 'people'. It's likely that they didn't have a name for themselves before European explorers interrupted them. (You only need a name for yourself if you have someone to contrast yourself to and the realization that you are as much an aberration as they are. I discuss this a bit in my article on 'Race' in the new Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women. (At least I assume it's there--I haven't seen the volume in the flesh yet.) One can imagine how such 'people'-designating ethnonyms have come to be. Initially, outside groups gave the group whatever name they pleased. E.g., "Hottentot". Then it was decided, either within the group or by well-meaning advocates for the group that the foreign name is inappropriate. So, one needs a new name, but the language doesn't offer a clear one, but what it does offer is a distinction between unmarked 'people' and marked 'others/foreigners'. The unmarked term becomes a marked term referring specifically to the group. ("Hottentot" --> "Khoi" = 'people, men'). Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Thu Jan 11 14:32:29 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:32:29 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: Just for the record, AHD4 has usage notes on the words native, Native American, American Indian, Amerindian, First Nation, Indian, Eskimo. They discuss related terms like Alaska(n Native (and Native Alaskan) and Inuit. They were written mainly by my colleague David Pritchard, who has studied these, and other "people" names, for about 15 years. Joe From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 11 14:53:43 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:53:43 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Just for the record, AHD4 has usage notes on the words native, Native >American, American Indian, Amerindian, First Nation, Indian, >Eskimo. .... In AHD4, it is asserted -- http://www.bartleby.com/61/24/E0212400.html -- that "eskimo" remains the only inclusive term for "eskimo". The Yupik (non-Inuit Eskimos) are heavily 'outvoted' by the Inuit worldwide, I think. -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 15:40:11 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:40:11 +0000 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: The below is from a transplanted Texan friend of mine in Sioux Falls. AHD4 doesn't cover this 'yet'--can anyone else tell me anything about it? Lynne ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:29 am -0600 From: Kevin Cole By the way, people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For instance, "I need to go to the bank yet," "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" "Let's eat dinner at eight yet." The mood of the verb does not matter...yet. ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Thu Jan 11 16:18:27 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:18:27 -0500 Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger Message-ID: "Apizza" (or some spelling variation of that, but certainly with the initial "a") hit Bridgeport with a bang around 1948, as I dimly recall. I do remember the pronunciation, though: ah-BEETS. In spite of the restaurant signs, the more frequent designation was just plain "pie." > -----Original Message----- > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 1:01 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger > > > The New Haven Free Public Library was open 1-5 p.m. this Sunday. > Everything else was closed, so I took a trip up. > New Haven has a school of higher learning called Yale > University--famous > for teaching our next president everything he knows. > Unfortunately, the New > Haven Library has almost no Yale material. > I'll probably go to New London, CT, for my "grinder" search next > Wednesday--after the MLK, Jr. holiday when the colleges are > in session. > The New Haven Library had only the 1959-1960 telephone > book, and 1920s > phonebooks before that. (The city directories are not much > help.) The > librarian there was very kind and said he'd ask around (New > Haven Colony > Historical Society, telephone company) for earlier phonebooks > for me and for > his library. > "Apizza"--not entered in OED or DARE--is everywhere (see > also old ADS-L > archive) in 1959-1960: > > Al's Restaurant (..."Grinders"...) > Big Apple Restaurant, 164 Wooster (since about 1948--ed.) > Bobbie's Apizza > Cappie's Apizza & Restaurant...Apizza & Grinders > Capri Bakery & Restaurant...Apizza...Grinders > DePalma's Apizza > F&H Apizza > Gag's Apizza > The Grand Apizza (Ad advertises "grinders" and has the > winking chef giving > the "OK" sign--ed.) > High Ridge Gardens Apizza and Restaurant > Johnnie's Apizza Restaurant > Lew's Apizza > Luigi's Apizza Restaurant (ad has "grinders"--ed.) > Mike's Restaurant and Spaghetti House (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) > Modern Apizza Place (Ad has "grinders"--ed.) > Nicky's Apizza Spaghetti House > North Haven Pizza House (Gotta be a typo--ed.) > Palm Beach Apizza & Restaurant > Paul's Bakery (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) > Raccio's Apizza > Ralph's Pizza (Probably another typo--ed.) > Sam's Apizza & Restaurant > Shorty's Apizza (Ad has "submarines"--ed.) > Sloppy's Joe's 466BeachWH > Smitty's Drive-In...Hamburger & Pepperburger Specialties > Soundview Apizza Restaurant > Tontine Restaurant (Ad has "apizza"--ed.) > Tony's Apizza Restaurant > Vece Peter Apizza > Zuppardi's Apizza > > I checked the handwritten card index and found this from > the NEW HAVEN > REGISTER, 6 June 1979, pg. 40, col. 1: > > _Did New Haven Grind Out The First Hamburger In America?_ > (...)(This UPI story is from Dallas. The 1904 St. Louis > World's Fair claim > is detailed--ed.) > Other claims exist. > Yankees in New Haven are convinced Louis Lassen served the > first burger in > America at his establishment there in 1895. > Tolbert admits Lassen served something--but not a hamburger. > "That was sliced beef," Tolbert said. > Kenneth Lassen, who now presides over the cubbyhole that is Louis > Lunch--seating capacity 28--emphatically says it was not > sliced beef. He > says the burgers served there today were cloned from the 1895 model. > (...) > > (See 1880s "hamburgers" in the ADS-L archive--ed.) > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 03:35:36 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:35:36 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <4822521.3188216411@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 3:40 PM +0000 1/11/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >The below is from a transplanted Texan friend of mine in Sioux Falls. AHD4 >doesn't cover this 'yet'--can anyone else tell me anything about it? > >Lynne > >---------- Forwarded Message ---------- >Date: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:29 am -0600 >From: Kevin Cole > >By the >way, people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For >instance, "I need to go to the bank yet," "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" >"Let's eat dinner at eight yet." The mood of the verb does not >matter...yet. > >---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- > funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include Is there turkey yet? on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. The first of the South Dakotan "yet"s is consistent with this, but the latter two aren't. (I'm not sure WHAT they are: if "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" the drunkard's equivalent to "Is it soup yet?", uttered plaintively while staring at a bottle of Poland Spring, then it's just the AHD4's sense 1 or 2, but I suspect something else was intended.) larry *I know there's an AHD4 sense of "yet" given as 'still more', used with comparatives, but that's distinct (yet again related to) the 'still' sense I'm describing. I'd cite DARE, but I fear it will be a while (yet) before we hit the Y's. Any data on the distribution, Joan? From Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM Thu Jan 11 16:37:30 2001 From: Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM (Sallie Lemons) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:37:30 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: How does the English Muffin compare to scones and crumpets? Lynne Murphy wrote: > Like JW McKeogh, I found it a bit odd that glazed buns and English muffins > had been equated. A glazed bun is a sweet thing--buns are sweet in UK > English--except for hamburger buns, which are a relatively recent borrowing > from US. US has this sense of 'bun' in 'hot crossed bun' or possibly > 'cinnamon bun'--but I think you hear 'cinnamon roll' more there now. (I > have my students do semantic field analyses of breads and cakes, so I've > had a lot of discussion on this in UK and South Africa.) > > As JWK notes, a UK muffin is comparable to the US 'English muffin'. Here's > the New Oxford's definition: > > [chiefly Brit] a flat circular spongy bread roll make from yeast dough and > eaten split, toasted, and buttered. > > They also have a 'chiefly N Amer' definition that describes 'a small domed > spongy cake...'. My students, when asked to define 'muffin' give both > definitions but note that the American sense has only come into UK English > in recent years, with the importation of American muffins (the recipes at > least, if not the actual baked goods). You can now buy packaged blueberry > and other muffins at coffee stands and supermarkets. > > Since Wal-Mart now owns one of the major supermarket chains here, we may > see more importing of American food-concepts. > > Lynne > > --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 3:39 am -0500 Jeffrey William McKeough > wrote: > > > Rudolph C Troike quotes Ed White: > >> > >> This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in England, at a > >> pastry shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items were > >> called, to be informed that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," > >> I replied; in the US we call them "English muffins." "Really," came > >> the cool reply, "How odd. Since they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed > >> White > > > > I ran this by an English friend, who said that what we call "English > > muffins" in America are just called "muffins" in England. (And in a > > nice bit of symmetry, what we call "muffins" she says are called > > "American muffins".) > > > > Her take was that the person in the pastry shop knew that "English > > muffins" were muffins, and that the pastry in question REALLY WAS a > > glazed bun, which is not a muffin, English or American. > > > > -- > > Jeffrey William McKeough > > jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 03:39:27 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:39:27 +0800 Subject: New Haven's Apizza, Grinder & Hamburger In-Reply-To: <7BC5E7B79DD1D2119BCC0008C7E9653E02C44AE2@nyexch_3.na.randomhouse.com> Message-ID: At 11:18 AM -0500 1/11/01, Pearsons, Enid wrote: >"Apizza" (or some spelling variation of that, but certainly with the initial >"a") hit Bridgeport with a bang around 1948, as I dimly recall. I do >remember the pronunciation, though: ah-BEETS. ah-BEETS indeed; obviously a case of colonialization from up here. (Technically, that would have required a voiceless unaspirated [p], but in practice it always seems to be just plain [b].) larry From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 11 16:26:52 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:26:52 -0500 Subject: nigger vs. negro (was: INDIAN vs. INJUN) Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky writes: >>>>> mark mandel: >For that matter, I once stayed for a week with the family of a white >man for whom "nigger" was simply the word for a {Black | >African-American | ... } person, and he used it without pejoration >or insult. "Negro" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was in the summer >of 1966, in rural Kentucky near Corbin. There was certainly a lot of >racism in that region, but as far as I could tell there was none in >him. [...] but there's the problem with "nigger". no one, even in rural kentucky in 1966, is so isolated as not to have come into contact with plenty of speakers for whom the word is pejorative, indeed strongly so, so that if you use the word you risk being misunderstood. perhaps you have a tin ear, and don't notice how other people use this word. perhaps you are socially incurious and unobservant. perhaps you are resistant to change, to the point where your linguistic inertia is stronger than your concern for being understood. perhaps you just don't care if other people think you're talking pejoratively; *you* know what you think. but it's not *just* a matter of your continuing to use a word the way you learned as a child. <<<<< I agree with you in general, and certainly concerning the kind of folks (educated and in touch with a wider world) who are likely to be on this list. But Taylor Smith was illiterate and had only been out of his home region for two years, working in Chicago(?) in his youth, and maybe also a stint in the Army. That might have widened his horizons somewhat; I think I remember his talking about some of the good fellows he'd met in those days who were "niggers". (That was also the only period in his life when he had worn shoes. He invited me to stick a straight pin into his callused sole to show how thick and hard it was.) If he knew the word "Negro" at all, it was as an educated pronunciation as likely to be heard from a white racist (perhaps a politician) as not-- or more likely, considering the prevalence of racism there and then. So I think that, in that community, the distinction between /'niy.grow/ and /'nig.R/ was one of education and register, not of attitude. I was 17 at the time and participating in a youth program of the Ethical Culture Society called the Encampment for Citizenship. Our bi- or multi-racial group was housed on a college campus for most of the summer, but we lived with local residents for one week. One meeting we were in at a local group or movement office of some kind, the adult counselors quietly came in and told us to go out to the bus, staying together, looking straight ahead, and not saying anything: some of the locals were angry at the "niggerlovers" and were gathering outside. I mention this to provide some social context. Taylor Smith (he must be long gone, God rest his soul) had no problem with taking a Northern "niggerlover" -- as he did NOT call us -- of a kid into his household. -- Mark A. Mandel From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 16:50:33 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:50:33 +0000 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: <3A5DE149.3CE644BD@msdw.com> Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 11:37 am -0500 Sallie Lemons wrote: > How does the English Muffin compare to scones and crumpets? A scone is a much denser thing than a muffin or crumpet. They're usually thicker, too, and not toasted, but eaten with butter or clotted cream and jam. Scones also often have stuff in them (cheese, currants). Crumpets look like (English) muffins but are made on a griddle, not baked. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From stevek at SHORE.NET Thu Jan 11 16:48:29 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:48:29 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > Is there turkey yet? > > on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the > utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping > some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives > early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. The first of the South > Dakotan "yet"s is consistent with this, but the latter two aren't. > (I'm not sure WHAT they are: if "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" the > drunkard's equivalent to "Is it soup yet?", uttered plaintively while > staring at a bottle of Poland Spring, then it's just the AHD4's sense > 1 or 2, but I suspect something else was intended.) I've been chewed out in the Northeast for saying the following: "Are you awake yet?" to someone at midnight when they have not been to bed already and I've woken up for a glass of water and find them still at work at their computer. It seems natural and normal to me, but I've had that usage shamed out of me. --- Steve K. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 11 17:12:46 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:12:46 -0600 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene Message-ID: This is a bit off-topic, but here goes. I've heard several times on Ken Burns' "Jazz" series that there was strict segregation in the NYC jazz scene of the 1920's and '30's. There certainly was segregation, but Burns evidently overlooked Benny Goodman's interesting way of getting around it. The reference is Henry Anton Steig,"Profiles: Alligators' Idol" (on Benny Goodman). _ New Yorker_, April 17, 1937, pp.27-34. (I mention this in my 1991 book _Origin of New York City's Nickname, "The Big Apple"_, p.95; the book, btw, does not yet contain Barry Popik's valuable research). Page 27 of Steig's article begins: "Benny considers the colored outfits of Count Basie and Chick Webb 'real swing bands,' which is the greatest compliment he can pay. He has a high regard for colored musicians in general. They are better natural swingmen than whites, and Benny would like his own to be a mixed one." The article continues: "The managers of most hotels and dance halls won't stand for a mixed band, however, and Benny gets around this rather neatly. His official band--the men you see when the program starts--is all white, but the swing quartet, which plays special numbers and which has overshadowed the band in popularity, is half colored. The colored pianist, Teddy Wilson, and the colored vibraphone player Lionel Hampton, just step onto the platform when they are ready to play in the band, and there have been no complaints. Benny with his clarinet, and Gene Krupa with his drums, are two other members of the group." I don't have Steig's article in front of me, but if I remember right, the band's final number would be played by only the white musicians. So, as long as the beginning and end of the program were played by whites, the middle of the program could be integrated without producing any problems. ---Gerald Cohen From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Thu Jan 11 16:56:59 2001 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 10:56:59 -0600 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Folks, I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in 1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing their memoirs in great numbers.) 1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was founded. I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word "linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this would be? Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . Thanks! Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 11 17:22:32 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:22:32 +0000 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Frederick (Fritz) Newmeyer's books would be a very good source for your query: _The politics of linguistics_ and _Linguistic theory in America_. Also, the COSWL compilation _Women in the Linguistic Profession_ (ed. by Penny Eckert, Cornell U Press) has some autobiographical essays, I think. Lynne (who hadn't yet heard of linguistics in 1974) --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 10:56 am -0600 Erin McKean wrote: > Folks, > > I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would > anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in > 1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics > wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any > pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read > about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing > their memoirs in great numbers.) > > 1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was > founded. > > I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word > "linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in > frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this > would be? > > Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the > LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . > > Thanks! > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:14:45 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:14:45 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:35 AM 1/11/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 3:40 PM +0000 1/11/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >>The below is from a transplanted Texan friend of mine in Sioux Falls. AHD4 >>doesn't cover this 'yet'--can anyone else tell me anything about it? >> >>Lynne >> >>---------- Forwarded Message ---------- >>Date: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:29 am -0600 >>From: Kevin Cole >> >>By the >>way, people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For >>instance, "I need to go to the bank yet," "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" >>"Let's eat dinner at eight yet." The mood of the verb does not >>matter...yet. >> >>---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- >funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a >well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and >adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) >that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include > >Is there turkey yet? > >on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the >utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping >some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives >early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. The first of the South >Dakotan "yet"s is consistent with this, but the latter two aren't. >(I'm not sure WHAT they are: if "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" the >drunkard's equivalent to "Is it soup yet?", uttered plaintively while >staring at a bottle of Poland Spring, then it's just the AHD4's sense >1 or 2, but I suspect something else was intended.) > >larry > >*I know there's an AHD4 sense of "yet" given as 'still more', used >with comparatives, but that's distinct (yet again related to) the >'still' sense I'm describing. I'd cite DARE, but I fear it will be a >while (yet) before we hit the Y's. Any data on the distribution, >Joan? And then there's the (apparently) redundant form "still yet," used along the Ohio River. A student of mine who uses it natively elicited responses in her hometown of Portsmouth (or "Porchmouth"), Ohio to this sentence: "He still yet owns that old car." Maximum responses in three categories ranged from 20% personal use to 63% denial of personal use but recognition of others' use of it to 90% non-recognition--the last by teenagers. So it's disappearing in this area (I've only heard it a couple of times in Athens). Has anyone else heard it, and where? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 11 05:23:22 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:23:22 +0800 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:56 AM -0600 1/11/01, Erin McKean wrote: >Folks, > >I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would >anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in >1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics >wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any >pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read >about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing >their memoirs in great numbers.) > >1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was founded. > >I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word >"linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in >frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this >would be? > >Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the >LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . > >Thanks! > >Erin McKean >editor at verbatimmag.com You may want to look at Robin Tolmach Lakoff's paper "The Way We Were", a memoir (published, if I'm not mistaken, in the Journal of Pragmatics) of the era of the late 1960's and early 1970's from the perspective of a generative semanticist. There's also a lot of stuff in the histories of the Linguistics Wars written by Newmeyer, Harris, and Goldsmith & Huck. larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:27:53 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:27:53 -0500 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene Message-ID: I believe the segment next Monday night is going to deal with Goodman, so maybe the story will come out. BTW, I'm thoroughly enjoying the "Jazz" series, if only for the chance to hear two hours of jazz almost non-stop--and despite the historical and lexical problems. So I'd recommend we cavil less and recognize the overall contribution of the show, as when Wynton Marsalis movingly discussed the race issue the other night. I held my breath as he held his breath--and then he boldly plunged in on the ugly reality of the times. At 11:12 AM 1/11/01 -0600, you wrote: > This is a bit off-topic, but here goes. > > I've heard several times on Ken Burns' "Jazz" series that there >was strict segregation in the NYC jazz scene of the 1920's and '30's. >There certainly was segregation, but Burns evidently overlooked Benny >Goodman's interesting way of getting around it. > > The reference is Henry Anton Steig,"Profiles: Alligators' Idol" >(on Benny Goodman). _ New Yorker_, April 17, 1937, pp.27-34. (I >mention this in my 1991 book _Origin of New York City's Nickname, >"The Big Apple"_, p.95; the book, btw, does not yet contain Barry >Popik's valuable research). Page 27 of Steig's article begins: > > "Benny considers the colored outfits of Count Basie and Chick Webb >'real swing bands,' which is the greatest compliment he can pay. He >has a high regard for colored musicians in general. They are better >natural swingmen than whites, and Benny would like his own to be a >mixed one." > > The article continues: > > "The managers of most hotels and dance halls won't stand for a >mixed band, however, and Benny gets around this rather neatly. His >official band--the men you see when the program starts--is all white, >but the swing quartet, which plays special numbers and which has >overshadowed the band in popularity, is half colored. The colored >pianist, Teddy Wilson, and the colored vibraphone player >Lionel Hampton, just step onto the platform when they are ready to >play in the band, and there have been no complaints. Benny with his >clarinet, and Gene Krupa with his drums, are two other members of the >group." > > I don't have Steig's article in front of me, but if I remember >right, the band's final number would be played by only the white >musicians. So, as long as the beginning and end of the program were >played by whites, the middle of the program could be integrated >without producing any problems. > >---Gerald Cohen _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:59:12 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:59:12 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010111130408.01cc7100@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: This one may not fit any of the previously mentioned uses: while I was living in Bloomington, IN, a vet asked while examining my cat: "How old is she?" "10 next month," I answered. "Next month, yet," he said. I thought that meant he was impressed that I knew my cat's exact age. -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:59:01 2001 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Houston Hall) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:59:01 -0600 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There's also _First Person Singular: Papers from the Conference on an Oral Archive for the History of American Linguistics (Charlotte, NC 9-10 March, 1979)_. Edited by Boyd H. Davis and Raymond K. O'Cain, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1980. From paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU Thu Jan 11 18:55:53 2001 From: paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU (Paul Frank) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:55:53 +0100 Subject: Verbatim In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >Erin McKean > >editor at verbatimmag.com Dear Mr. McKean, (Or ist everybody in this forum on a first name basis?) I live in a small village in the French Alps a million miles away from the nearest research library. Would you tell me a little about verbatim? I went to www.verbatim.com and was intrigued, but I'm still don't really know what your magazine is all about, because there were no back issues on line and the archives weren't accessible. Paul _________________________________________ Paul Frank English translation from German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Snailmail: 74500 Thollon-les-Memises, France PaulFrank at post.harvard.edu | Fax +1 509-752-9444 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 19:37:38 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:37:38 EST Subject: Beef-on-Weck; Chicken in the Rough Message-ID: Greetings again from the Library of Congress. Amtrak was only one hour late today...I checked the Labor Deparment's library, but they had THE MIXER AND SERVER for the same years as the NYPL. No one seems to have 1890-1900 (where I can find Manhattan & Martini). I couldn't find an earlier "surf & turf" or "fajita" in the Buffalo and Austin phonebooks here. 1951-1952, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 365, col. 1: _BRIDGE INN_ (...) SANDWICHES Beef on Kummelwick 1671 Seneca...WOodlwn-9887 (DARE has 1952 for Kummelweck. Want me to check earlier?--ed.) 1951-1952, BUFFALO (NY): Pg. 368, col. 2: The Royal Pheasant has "CHICKEN IN THE RUFF." Pg. 368, col. 3: Six-Nine-Eight Grill has "Chicken in the Ruff." Pg. 369, col. 1: Kaczary Grill & Restaurant has "Chicken in the Rough." Pg. 370, col. 2: Mann's Restaurant has "Our Specialty: 'CHICKEN-IN-THE-RUFF.'" 1965-1966, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 465, col. 2: SCHUPER HOUSE Try Our Famous Giant Size Beef On Weck 1802 NIAGARA ST. 877-9287 December 1975, AUSTIN (TX), pg. 687, col. 2: _La Hacienda_ "HOME OF THE CHIMICHANGO" (MEAT-FILLED BURRITO) 266-1322 Ranch Road 620 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Seth Subject: New Haven Phone Directories 1949-1954 Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 11:40:39 -0500 Size: 1337 URL: From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 11 19:49:30 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:49:30 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' (never mind) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Actually, I just realized it was "Next month, even." Sorry. mk On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Mai Kuha wrote: > This one may not fit any of the previously mentioned uses: while I was > living in Bloomington, IN, a vet asked while examining my cat: "How old > is she?" "10 next month," I answered. "Next month, yet," he said. I > thought that meant he was impressed that I knew my cat's exact age. > > -Mai > _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU Thu Jan 11 20:15:49 2001 From: paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU (Paul Frank) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 21:15:49 +0100 Subject: Verbatim In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > << Dear Mr. McKean, > > (Or ist everybody in this forum on a first name basis?) >> > > If you want to be formal then it should be Ms. McKean. > :-) Oops. Sorry Erin! No, I don't want to be formal at all. And I would like to learn something about Verbatim. Paul _________________________________________ Paul Frank English translation from German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Snailmail: 74500 Thollon-les-Memises, France PaulFrank at post.harvard.edu | Fax +1 509-752-9444 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 20:59:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:59:48 EST Subject: Hoggie (October 1944) Message-ID: Now the LOC tells me that Philadelphia 1940-1943 is missing! Last time I was here, there were no CT directories; now they have New Haven and I'll get it soon. Ah! October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 687, col. 1: Bertha's Oyster House Spaghetti--Delicious Hoggie Sandwiches 3828 Eastwick av...BELgrde-1777 October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 692, col. 4: Hoogie Shop 37 & Firmt...BARing-9764 (Hoogie? It's under that spelling the next year, also--ed.) October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 696, col. 2: _STONEHUST SANDWICH SHOP_ Stonehurst Sandwich Shops Submarine (Hogies) & Other Tasty Sandwiches to take out 7016 Elmwood Ave. SARatga 4155 October 1944, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 696, col. 3: Tony's Hogie Shop 6709 Woodlnd av...BELgrde-4 (Copy cut off. Don't call-ed.) (BTW: Various shops sell "Italian Tomato Pies." These would be "apizza."--ed.) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 11 21:28:26 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:28:26 -0600 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene Message-ID: I hope it's not caviling to point out the very interesting way that Benny Goodman skirted the absurd segregation rules of his time. This reminds me of an observation made by someone (Harry Golden, I believe) in the 1950s. He pointed out that the only time Southern whites objected to being together with blacks was when they had to sit down together ( e.g., buses, restaurants, bathrooms). His novel suggestion: Have a restaurant where no one sits down. Some (many?) restaurants were in fact tried along this line, and to everyone's pleasant surprise, there was no objection to the integration. This should all be grist for the mill of psychologists and sociologists. But I'm aware this is off-topic for a linguistic discussion, and so my next message (whatever it is) will be back on track. ---Gerald Cohen > So I'd recommend we cavil less and recognize the overall >contribution of the show,as when Wynton Marsalis movingly discussed >the race issue the other >night. From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 21:47:11 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:47:11 EST Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: I'm surprised to find 'yet' disparaged in the sense of 'Are you awake yet?' = Are you still awake. n, too dumb to get inside "...and I'll bet he's there yet, standing in the rain" ?? I guess not. Dale Coye The College of NJ From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 11 21:55:35 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:55:35 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <4822521.3188216411@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >... people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For instance, >"I need to go to the bank yet," This is perfectly natural to me, with "yet" = "still". I use this type of expression. I would not use "Is there turkey yet?" with "yet" = "still" simply because it's ambiguous as Larry Horn pointed out -- but either interpretation seems natural to me. I'm from Detroit. >"Is that a bottle of gin yet?" Seems odd to me; I would take the "yet" here as the 'ironic intensive' sentence termination (I think supposedly based on Yiddish "noch"?) -- maybe roughly = "after all". >"Let's eat dinner at eight yet." .... I don't remember ever hearing such a thing. I guess I would interpret "yet" = "still", with the implication that a suggestion of changing the dinner schedule from eight to something else is being rejected. I've lived in WI but not SD. -- Doug Wilson From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Thu Jan 11 22:38:54 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:38:54 -0500 Subject: Only Nixon could go to China Message-ID: I just heard the phrase "Only Nixon could go to China" attributed to Mr. Spock in Star Trek 6 for the millionth time. (When Captain Kirk asks Spock why Kirk was chosen to be the envoy to the Klingons, who killed his son, Spock says this to him and claims that it's an ancient Vulcan saying.) I once did some research on the saying and I found a bunch of references over the years, but I couldn't find out who first said it. Does anyone know? -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 11 22:42:05 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:42:05 -0800 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: <5191872.3188222552@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: SOMEBODY had to rub it in! Peter M. (Motto: "1974? Lessee--was that two years ago--or is it three by now?") --On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 5:22 PM +0000 Lynne Murphy wrote: > Lynne (who hadn't yet heard of linguistics in 1974) **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 11 22:41:56 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:41:56 EST Subject: query Message-ID: This is a question that wanders into the library every few years. The answer depends on which reverse dictionary one consults. One, I forget which, gives "puggry", a type of cloth; another gives a different answer, or perhaps several. If anyone really cares, speak out, and I will go downstairs to the reference room and get the precise references. GAT Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:20:17 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: query A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone remind me what the third one is? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 22:42:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:42:48 EST Subject: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) Message-ID: June 1946, NEW HAVEN (CT), pg. 186, col. 3: _TASTY SANDWICH SHOP_ Italian Cooking Our Specialty Delicious Sandwiches & Grinders To Take Out 25 E. Main...Clinton-688 August 1946, NEW LONDON (CT), pg. 103, col. 1: ANDY'S DELICATESSEN LUNCHEONETTE ANDREW SPESA, Prop. Specializing in HOME MADE SALADS--FISH AND CHIPS--SOUTHERN FRIED CHICK- EN--ITALIAN GRINDERS-- SPAGHETTI AND MEAT BALLS, ITALIAN STYLE Tel. 6371 467 WILLIAMS ST., NEW LONDON August 1949, NEW LONDON, pg. 116, col. 2: _MIKE'S HOTDOG STAND_ Specializing In Grinders--Hot Dogs 328 Mitchell Gtn...2-6854 August 1950, NEW LONDON, pg. 116, col. 2: _KEN'S DRIVE-IN_ Curb Service--Open Daily & Evenings Specializing Grinders--Hot Dogs--Spaghetti Poquonnock Brdge...New London-3-0041 May 1951, NEW LONDON, pg. 126, col. 1: LITTLE JOE'S RESTAURANT Specializing in SPAGHETTI--SANDWICHES GRINDERS--PIZZA (Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton at all!--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 22:51:41 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:51:41 EST Subject: Apizza (New Haven, January 1942); Gelati Message-ID: APIZZA January 1942, NEW HAVEN (CT), pg. 130, col. 2: Tony's Apizza Place 874 State...7-5641 January 1942, NEW HAVEN, pg. 128, col. 1: Eddie-App-Pizzeria 208 Washington Av...8-9684 (Col. 3--ed.) Frank App Pizzeria Restaurant 446 Chapel 8-9207 January 1942, NEW HAVEN, pg. 127, col. 3: THE ORIGINAL EST. 1925 _FRANK PEPE_ Old Reliable NEAPOLITAN TOMATO PIES (used more than pizza/apizza--ed.) 157 Wooster St. 8-7774 August 1944, NEW LONDON (CT), pg. 113, col. 2: LA PIZZA APIZZA . SPAGHETTI 42 Jefferson Av. TEL. 2-3928 August 1944, NEW LONDON (CT), pg. 113, col. 2: GLORY RESTAURANT APIZZA . SPAGHETTI . RAVIOLI Call NEW LONDON 2-4583 639 BANK ST. NEW LONDON June 1946, NEW HAVEN, pg. 179, col. 1: _CAMPOSANO'S APPIZZA One of the oldest appizza places in NH 73Whiting...6-1861 -------------------------------------------------------- GELATI January 1942, NEW HAVEN, pg. 10, col. 2: _BERARDESCA UMBERTO_ Italian & French Pastries & Confections Dolci, Gelati & SPumoni---Est. 1903 112 Franklin...New Haven 7-3835 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 11 23:02:38 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 18:02:38 -0500 Subject: segregation/integration in the NYC jazz scene In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No, I didn't mean to imply you were caviling at all; in fact, it was a nice commentary. I'm concerned about talk of "vomiting" etc. while watching the show just because the city of origin might be wrong, or the etymology of the word might be wrong, or whatever. I don't wear my linguist's (or dialectologist's, or lexicographer's) hat all the time, and this is one time I'm happy to take it off. At 03:28 PM 1/11/01 -0600, you wrote: > I hope it's not caviling to point out the very interesting way >that Benny Goodman skirted the absurd segregation rules of his time. >This reminds me of an observation made by someone (Harry Golden, I >believe) in the 1950s. He pointed out that the only time Southern >whites objected to being together with blacks was when they had to >sit down together ( e.g., buses, restaurants, bathrooms). His novel >suggestion: Have a restaurant where no one sits down. Some (many?) >restaurants were in fact tried along this line, and to everyone's >pleasant surprise, there was no objection to the integration. > > This should all be grist for the mill of psychologists and sociologists. >But I'm aware this is off-topic for a linguistic discussion, and so >my next message (whatever it is) will be back on track. > >---Gerald Cohen > >> So I'd recommend we cavil less and recognize the overall >>contribution of the show,as when Wynton Marsalis movingly discussed >>the race issue the other >>night. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 12 00:32:09 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:32:09 -0800 Subject: nigger vs. negro (was: INDIAN vs. INJUN) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm also aware of a class distinction involving the n-word, but I don't think it's quite the same as the one Mark alludes to. My grandmother, a wealthy society matron in Oklahoma City in the days long before Brown vs. Board of Education, didn't have a malicious bone in her body but lived in a world where the Order of the Universe was that whites and "colored people" lived and moved in separate spheres and the twain met only in very specific settings. She employed a succession of black domestics, each of whom worked for her for a very long time--that was one of the main settings where interaction between the races was appropriate. She spoke of her maid's husband warmly as "such a nice colored man." Well, you get the idea. I think for her to utter the word "nigger" would have been as unthinkable as to sit down for a meal at the same table as a "colored" man or woman, for a different but somehow related reason. It would have been seen as a "bad word," perhaps similar to saying "damn"--something only trash, or maybe "hicks", would say. Peter Mc. --On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 11:26 AM -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: > If he knew the word "Negro" at all, it was > as an educated pronunciation as likely to be heard from a white racist > (perhaps a politician) as not-- or more likely, considering the prevalence > of racism there and then. So I think that, in that community, the > distinction between /'niy.grow/ and /'nig.R/ was one of education and > register, not of attitude. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 00:32:04 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:32:04 -0500 Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word > >"linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in > >frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this > >would be? Very unuseful. Nexis has very little material before 1975, and doesn't really hit its stride until 1980. Even after 1980, the size of the database grows substantially over time. Any frequency study over time needs to be adjusted to reflect the growth in database size. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 00:50:21 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:50:21 -0500 Subject: Only Nixon could go to China In-Reply-To: <200101112238.RAA19577@ursolaris.spdcc.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Jeffrey William McKeough wrote: > I just heard the phrase "Only Nixon could go to China" attributed to > Mr. Spock in Star Trek 6 for the millionth time. (When Captain Kirk > asks Spock why Kirk was chosen to be the envoy to the Klingons, who > killed his son, Spock says this to him and claims that it's an ancient > Vulcan saying.) > > I once did some research on the saying and I found a bunch of > references over the years, but I couldn't find out who first said it. > Does anyone know? This is proverbial in nature, and I doubt there is a traceable coiner. The earliest use on Nexis is New York Tiems, 29 Dec. 1984. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 01:16:52 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:16:52 EST Subject: Kimmelweck (1940) Message-ID: The earliest telephone directory I requested was 1940-1941. 1940-1941, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 25, col. 2: Franz Frank J Rye Bread--Kimmelwecks--Our Specialty 240 High...LIncln-7773 (...) Heldmann's Walden Home Bakery Sheet Cakes Our Specialty--Open Evenings-- Real Homemade Rye--Kimmelweck 630 Walden av...TAylr-2975 1950-1951, BUFFALO, pg. 364, col. 3: _AMROCK GRILL_ GOOD FOOD OUR SPECIALTY Roast Beef on Kimmelwick--Fish Frys--All Legal Beverages--Jos. Zawistowski, Prop. 471 Amherst...RIvrside-9642 -------------------------------------------------------- HAM & CHEESE ON RYE 1949-1950, BUFFALO, pg. 357, col. 1: _COPPER KETTLE RESTAURANT_ GERMAN STYLE DINNERS and LUNCHEONS Try our Ham & Cheese on Thin Rye We're Famous For It! 2295 Main...UNvrsty-9764 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 01:25:18 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:25:18 EST Subject: Grinder (Hartford, April 1946) Message-ID: GRINDER (continued) April 1946, HARTFORD (CT), pg. 183, col. 1: Snack Shop Pasquale DeParolis--Raphaela LaBadia Grinders & spaghetti 71PlainvilleAvUnvle...Farmington-144-4 -------------------------------------------------------- POOR BOY (continued) November 1955, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 57, col. 2: _GENDUSA JOHN_ Originators of Poor Boy Bread Rolls--Doughnuts 1315 Touro...FRanklin-8238 -------------------------------------------------------- PIZZA (continued) March 1953, GREATER LITTLE ROCK (ARK), pg. 183, col. 2: "THE ORIGINAL HOME OF ITALIAN FOOD" Bruno's LITTLE ITALY 1903--Fiftieth Anniversary--1953 In America JIMMY BRUNO GIVES ARKANSAS ITS FIRST PIZZERIA LITTLE ROCK'S FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT FEATURING _AUTHENTIC_ ITALIAN FOODS. ACTIVELY PRESIDING IN THE KITCHEN AND PIZZA OVENS IS JIMMY BRUNO, WHOSE FATHER GIOVANNI CAME TO AMERICA IN 1903 TO INTRODUCE PIZZA 3400 W. ROOSEVELT Call MOhawk 3-9907 The Best Are Always Imitated BEWARE OF OUR COPY CATS From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 01:36:47 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:36:47 EST Subject: Chicken-In-The-Ruff (1942) Message-ID: 1942-1943, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 248, col. 2: Casper's Russell Restaurant Chicken-In-The-Ruff 1112KenmoreAv...RIvrside-9855 1945-1946, BUFFALO, pg. 237, col. 2: Six-Nine-Eight Grill Chicken On The Rough--Spaghetti-- Fish Fry Friday And Saturday Nights 689NorthIndAv...HUmbldt-9498 December 1949, BIRMINGHAM (ALABAMA), pg. 234, col. 2: VULCAN RESTAURANT STEAK AND CHICKEN DINNERS Dial 2-5723 2510 S. 18th CHICKEN IN THE ROUGH--DRIVE IN 2800 7th AVE, S. (Drawing of "Chicken in the Rough" shows a chicken with a golf club. "REG U.S. PAT. OFF" is written beside it, R-118--ed.) From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Fri Jan 12 03:22:26 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:22:26 -0800 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <67.e379e08.278f00c0@aol.com> Message-ID: > Behalf Of James A. Landau > > P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are > known as "Inuit" in Canada. I don't call them Eskimos and I live in the United States. I say Inuit or Athabaskan or whatever applies. Benjamin Barrett From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 12 03:14:04 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:14:04 -0700 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: <5076488.3188220633@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: And what's a crumpet, compared to a scone? Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University > From: Lynne Murphy > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:50:33 +0000 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: English muffins = glazed buns > > --On Thursday, January 11, 2001 11:37 am -0500 Sallie Lemons > wrote: > >> How does the English Muffin compare to scones and crumpets? > > A scone is a much denser thing than a muffin or crumpet. They're usually > thicker, too, and not toasted, but eaten with butter or clotted cream and > jam. Scones also often have stuff in them (cheese, currants). > > Crumpets look like (English) muffins but are made on a griddle, not baked. > > Lynne > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Fri Jan 12 03:45:45 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 22:45:45 -0500 Subject: ``Native American`` and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: Isn't calling a Koyukon or a Chipweyan an Athabaskan rather like calling an Englishman or a German an Indo-European? Herb Stahlke <<< gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM 1/11 10:21p >>> > Behalf Of James A. Landau > > P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are > known as "Inuit" in Canada. I don't call them Eskimos and I live in the United States. I say Inuit or Athabaskan or whatever applies. Benjamin Barrett From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 12 03:53:52 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 21:53:52 -0600 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: >I don't call them Eskimos and I live in the United States. I say Inuit or >Athabaskan or whatever applies. > >Benjamin Barrett My understanding is that the Eskimos themselves use the word 'Eskimo', at least in English. As a linguistic classification, it is still in effect, as demonstrated at the ethnologue data base: http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/families/Eskimo-Aleut.html _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 12 04:25:35 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:25:35 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > P.S. I do not know why the people called "Eskimo" in the United States are > > known as "Inuit" in Canada. This is probably the reason: "The Arctic peoples of Canada and Greenland in general prefer the term Inuit, while those of Alaska still generally favour the term Eskimo." -- E. Britannica (Web) "The term Eskimo, refused by other Inuit groups, is currently used with no despective [sic] sense in Alaska." -- "Inuit" ("Inupiaq/Yupik") Web page No surprise, since the Inuit constitute the vast majority of Canadian and Greenland Eskimos, while the Yupik (who are Eskimos but not Inuit) are numerous (a majority I think) among Eskimos in the US (Alaska). Eskimos in Russia are relatively few. After Greenland, US, Canada, I think the country with the most Eskimos is Denmark? [I use 'Inuit' and 'Yupik' and 'Eskimo' as used by "Ethnologue".] Aleuts are not Eskimos, although closely related. Athabaskans are not Eskimos, and are not closely related to Eskimos. -- Doug Wilson From tcf at MACOMB.COM Fri Jan 12 04:49:30 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 22:49:30 -0600 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: Linguistics in 1974. I went to the Linguistics Institute in Amherst, Mass. The Generative vs. Interpretive Semantics debate was hot and heavy. Noam Chomsky gave a lecture which might as well have been in Martian as well as I was concerned. He was very much worshipped there. I felt very intimidated! Robin Lakhoff gave a talk arguing that linguists needed to get out of ivory tower and pay more attention to the needs of ordinary people, e.g. issues in education, etc. Oh, and Bill Labov gave a very nice paper where he showed, empirically, that many native speakers of English did not much agree with Chomsky and his followers about which sentences were "ungrammatical." As it turned out, I ended up spending a lot of that summer watchng the Senate Committee's Watergate hearings on TV. Someone, I think it was Emmon Bach, taught a neat course in field methods. He brought in a native speaker of Mbo (?) and we had to transcribe on the spot. For me, a rare exposure to a non Indo European language. A few years before (71-72) I was interviewing for jobs. My only claim to being anywhere near linguistics was that I liked to draw dialect maps. But at all the interiviews I went to, I was asked about Chomsky, and I usually panicked. I am lucky to be employed. People were publishing high school textbooks on transformation grammar, full of tree diagrams. DARE was still moving forward. The fieldwork was complete, the operation was housed in White Hall in Madison after moving from univeristy drive next to the Octopus Carwash., and Mr. Cassidy was looking for funding. vol. I was still 11 years away. SJ Keyser was doing stuff in phonology. In one job interview I was asked if I knew about his work on Chaucer's prosody. Of course I had never heard of it. Still not sure how I ever got a job. I can't remember the exact year of Dilliard's BLACK ENGLISH, but that was certainly a hot topic then. Dilliard says some impolite things in that book about Raven McDavid and other dialect geographers, and Raven was very upset. I remember his joy when Sandra De'Eloia (sp?) published what a remember to be a solid critique of Dilliard's book in JENGL. That might have been a year or two earlier, tho. Most of the stuff back then was in books and journals; we didn't have Web sites. I didn't think I would ever need to learn anything about computers. ----- Original Message ----- From: Erin McKean To: Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 10:56 AM Subject: Another query--linguistics in 1974? > Folks, > > I'm really, really not trying to make anyone feel old, but would > anyone like to post about what it was like to work in linguistics in > 1974, or the mid-seventies in general? I'm assuming that linguistics > wasn't well-known to the general public then. I'd welcome any > pointers to off-line history-of-the-discipline stuff I could read > about that time. (For some reason, linguists don't seem to be writing > their memoirs in great numbers.) > > 1974 (in case you're wondering "why then?") was the year VERBATIM was founded. > > I was thinking about trying to do a Nexus search on the word > "linguist(ic)(s)" to see what I hope would be an increase in > frequency from 1970-2000. How useful do you db mavens think this > would be? > > Hoping this isn't too off-topic; I probably should post on the > LinguistList but y'all are so friendly. . . > > Thanks! > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Fri Jan 12 05:41:58 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 00:41:58 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns In-Reply-To: from "Nancy Elliott" at Jan 11, 2001 08:14:04 PM Message-ID: Nancy Elliott wrote: > >And what's a crumpet, compared to a scone? That's a question for philosophers and poets, I'd imagine. :-) -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 07:38:00 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 02:38:00 EST Subject: Pina Colada Message-ID: THE SERVER (also, THE BAR SERVER) is a bartending magazine. The LOC has it from 1962-1971. I briefly looked through it for "pina colada." A Mexican menu from "Su Casa" (no fajitas or chimichangas, unfortunately) is given in THE SERVER, November-December 1966, pg. 37, col. 2: _MEXICAN DRINKS_ MARGARITA 1.00 TEQUILA, CONTREAU, FRESH LIME JUICE PINA COLADA 1.00 ??RUM?? TEQUILA SOUR 1.00 TEQUILA, FRESH LIME JUICE CAFE CHIAPAS 1.00 A SU CASA SPECIALTY MEXITINI 1.00 (Muy Seco) TEQUILA, DRY VERMOUTH, WHOLE MEXICAN PEPPER TEQUILA COCKTAIL 1.00 SANGRITA DE LA VIUDA 1.00 A MEXICAN BLOODY MARY TEQUILA, STRAIGHT .85 FRESH LIME WEDGE AND SALT DANIEL DE ORO 1.00 A MEXICAN SCREWDRIVER BANDERA 1.25 A FLAMING TOAST TO MEXICO PECHUGA ALMENDRADA 1.00 ALMOND FLAVORED BRANDY IMPORTED FROM MEXICO WET BACK 1.00 KAHLUA AND TEQUILA ON THE ROCKS BERTA 1.00 Why is "pina colada" on this list, with those question marks? From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Fri Jan 12 09:01:03 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 04:01:03 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: If you don't mind a bit of indecent exposure to another non Indo European language, there is a proverb that sounds somewhat like this: "Ottakaththinu [to the camel] sthalam [room] koduththathupohlay [like having given]." Of course any linguist can identify the language or at least the language group from the proverb's structure. My question: Recently I said, "You know the story (I mean fable, Aesop's, if I remember right) of the Arab and the camel." It drew a blank from a Missourian spiritual director at a Jesuit retreat house (he is an MSW besides professional qualifications) and a few days later the same blank from a Chicagoan Carmelite prior. Of course something was bothering me. The question (anthropologists, folklorists, please help) is about the blank. TOM. Tim Frazer wrote: > . . . For me, a rare exposure to a non Indo European language. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 01:40:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:40:15 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010111162421.025c87a0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 2:49 PM -0500 1/11/01, Mai Kuha wrote: >Actually, I just realized it was "Next month, even." Sorry. >mk >On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Mai Kuha wrote: > >> This one may not fit any of the previously mentioned uses: while I was >> living in Bloomington, IN, a vet asked while examining my cat: "How old >> is she?" "10 next month," I answered. "Next month, yet," he said. I >> thought that meant he was impressed that I knew my cat's exact age. >> >> -Mai >> and At 4:55 PM -0500 1/11/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >>"Is that a bottle of gin yet?" > >Seems odd to me; I would take the "yet" here as the 'ironic intensive' >sentence termination (I think supposedly based on Yiddish "noch"?) -- maybe >roughly = "after all". > I was going to say that Mai's vet's "yet" sounded Yiddish to me, and indeed it does, in exactly the sense Doug nicely captures ('ironic intensive'), and I was also going to say it's closer to 'even' in this sense than to either the standard "yet" or the Midwestern 'still' "yet". ("noch" is indeed a better fit than 'even', in fact.) I'll still say it, even though it's really Mai's "yet" rather than Mai's vet's "yet". I'm sure if she tried some vets in Brooklyn (NY, not Iowa), she'd catch some "Next month, yet!"s. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 01:51:30 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:51:30 +0800 Subject: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:42 PM -0500 1/11/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >E'S RESTAURANT >Specializing in >SPAGHETTI--SANDWICHES >GRINDERS--PIZZA > >(Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton >at all!--ed.) Well yes (if this a real question), in the same way that sandals and boots are shoes (SHOES -- SANDALS -- BOOTS) and chowders are soups (SOUPS AND CHOWDERS). L From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 12 15:14:08 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:14:08 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: If you don't mind a bit of indecent exposure to another non Indo European language, there is a proverb that sounds somewhat like this: "Ottakaththinu [to the camel] sthalam [room] koduththathupohlay [like having given]." Of course any linguist can identify the language or at least the language group from the proverb's structure. No doubt ... but some of us blue-collar types may be a little weak in Dravidian proverb morphology, and some of us have limited acquaintance with the Coromandel Coast area. Are there a lot of camels over there? (^_^) My question: Recently I said, "You know the story (I mean fable, Aesop's, if I remember right) of the Arab and the camel." It drew a blank from a Missourian spiritual director at a Jesuit retreat house (he is an MSW besides professional qualifications) and a few days later the same blank from a Chicagoan Carmelite prior. Of course something was bothering me. The question (anthropologists, folklorists, please help) is about the blank. The blank I think is self-explanatory. (^_^) Is this the one like "Don't let the camel stick his nose into the tent"? Good advice for Arabs and non-Arabs alike, I suppose. Give a camel a rupee, and he'll take a crore! -- Doug Wilson From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 16:20:54 2001 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 11:20:54 EST Subject: nigger vs. negro (was: INDIAN vs. INJUN) Message-ID: Speaking of grandmothers. . . My grandmother (2nd generation Irish-Scottish), who was born (~1912) and raised in Southern Illinois (below I-64)uses "nigra" and sometimes says "of the nigra tribe". I've also heard her use "colored" but when she does it's very informal, like in jokes. I don't think that there's any racist intent behind what she says. In fact, I think "nigra tribe" is her attempt to be PC, hence using "colored" for jokes. -dsb From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 12 03:40:56 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 11:40:56 +0800 Subject: another first for New Haven? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:59 PM -0500 1/11/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Now the LOC tells me that Philadelphia 1940-1943 is missing! Last time I >was here, there were no CT directories; now they have New Haven and I'll get >it soon. Ah! It may (or may not) be worth noting that just as New Haven claims to own the first citing/sighting of (i) (American-style main course) pizza (@ Frank Pepe's of Wooster St., mentioned earlier by Barry) (ii) hamburgers (@ Louis Lunch, mentioned earlier by Barry and others--no ketchup allowed) (iii) frisbees (supposedly from Yale students tossing pie plates from pies manufactured by the Frisbie Co. in Bridgeport) --we also claim to have originated the telephone book, called The Book of Names (as our modern directories continued to be titled until a decade or so ago). I have no idea which year that would have been, nor am I necessarily endorsing any of these theories, but then I'm not a native of these parts. larry From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 12 17:00:02 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:00:02 -0800 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: > This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in > England, at a pastry > shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items > were called, to be informed > that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," I > replied; in the US we call > them "English muffins." "Really," came the cool > reply, "How odd. Since > they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed White During an extended stay in England, the hotel where my brother-in-law stayed asked if there was anything he wanted regularly for breakfast. His request for English muffins was met with confused looks. They finally understood he meant crumpets, and thought it novel that he wanted a tea pastry for breakfast. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ From Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM Fri Jan 12 17:07:43 2001 From: Sallie.Lemons at MSDW.COM (Sallie Lemons) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 12:07:43 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: I'm so glad we speak the same language. :) James Smith wrote: > > This reminds me of a similar conversation I had in > > England, at a pastry > > shop. I asked what certain familiar looking items > > were called, to be informed > > that they were "glazed buns." "Interesting," I > > replied; in the US we call > > them "English muffins." "Really," came the cool > > reply, "How odd. Since > > they REALLY ARE glazed buns." --Ed White > > During an extended stay in England, the hotel where my > brother-in-law stayed asked if there was anything he > wanted regularly for breakfast. His request for > English muffins was met with confused looks. They > finally understood he meant crumpets, and thought it > novel that he wanted a tea pastry for breakfast. > > ===== > James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything > SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! > http://photos.yahoo.com/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 12 17:22:34 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 17:22:34 +0000 Subject: English muffins = crumpets Message-ID: I should trust my instincts more often--or use dictionaries more often. To me, English muffins look more like crumpets than like UK muffins (I've never actually eaten either). But when I looked up 'crumpet' in the New Oxford dictionary, it told me that 'crumpets' are made on a griddle. I assumed that English muffins were baked, but I've just looked up 'English muffin' in AHD4 and--whaddyaknow--they're made on a griddle. So, I was wrong (not for the first or last time) when I said that US English muffins = UK muffins. I've checked some on-line grocery stores to try to find you some pictures, but no luck. Perhaps Americans would call UK muffins 'biscuits' or 'rolls'--I'm not sure. Just remember, that this is a country where pancakes come already cooked in plastic wrap and are eaten cold, and where a 'flapjack' is sort of like a granola bar, except it's made out of oats. So anything's possible in how we differ in names of (and attitudes toward) bready things. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 12 17:29:20 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 17:29:20 +0000 Subject: UK flapjacks Message-ID: Anticipating a demand for 'flapjack' info, here are some websites: Recipe and cartoon picture: http://www.botham.co.uk/flapjack.htm Pictures of packaged flapjacks: http://www.hoppers.co.uk/Products/oatslices.htm M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 12 21:42:23 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:42:23 -0600 Subject: sny Message-ID: I was away while the sni / sny interchange took place. Sni-a-Bar Creek is in eastern Jackson County, which isn't far from where Greg Pulliam's father lives (the first posting on this item). USGS gives these variant names for the stream: Big Sni-A-Bar Creek, Sniabar Creek. The headwaters are in the southwest corner of Lafayette County. It flows into Jackson County and back into Lafayette County. Its mouth on the Missouri is just east of the town of Wellington. The highway sign on I-70 has SNI-A-BAR CREEK. Robert L. Ramsay (OUR STOREHOUSE OF MISSOURI PLACE NAMES, University of Missouri Press, 1952, 1973, pp. 9, 45, 47, 49, 121) speculated that the"popular etymology" of this name ((NOT corruption!!)) is an Americanized pronunciation of a French name given to the stream by French-speaking fur trappers or traders. He speculates that the name might have been Chenal Hubert, named for or by Antoine Hubert, a St. Louis merchant who traded there in 1768, or for or by Francis H?bert (1750-1780), a well-known St. Louis landowner. For the current pronunciation, the name Chenal H?bert is the more likely. Ramsay also suggests that the dialectal form 'chenail' for 'chenal' ('channel') may have led to the current name. It's not much of a stretch to imagine an early semi-literate English-speaking Missourian trying to "reduce to writing" the name 'Chenail H?bert' spoken in Canadian or Missouri French and writing 'SNI-A-BAR'. Ramsay also mentions Snicarty in Lewis County, the next county upriver from Marion County MO (Hannibal) and Adams County IL (Quincy), the location of The Sny discussed by Tim Frazer and others. USGS has this: Feature Name: Snicarty Slough Feature Type: gut State: Missouri County: Lewis Variant Name(s): Sny Carte Latitude: UNKNOWN Longitude: UNKNOWN Ramsay speculates that this name may have come from 'chenal ?cart?' (separated channel) for this narrow channel that is/was not the main channel of the Mississippi at this point. It is also possible that the English-speaking name-givers in both northeastern and western Missouri were aware of the boatbuilder's use of the word 'sny' cited by Mark Odegard. DMLance Steve Hicks wrote: > Having grown up near the Sni-a-Bar area in western Jackson County, Mo., I remember > reading that it is one of those rough frontier anglicizations of an original French name > (as "Chemin Couver" became mangled to "Smackover"). I'll check on that, and see what > the French original is said to be. > > Steve Hicks From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 12 21:59:29 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:59:29 -0600 Subject: OK, a joke But it's about dialect Message-ID: I just finished posting an e-mail reeking of scholarliness, so may I now be excused for violating protocol and dumping a dialect joke on you? Warning: PG, offensive language. DMLance A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a New Yorker. "I'm not hiring any wise-ass New Yorker," the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a test hoping that the New Yorker wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and he'd be able to refuse him the job without getting into an argument" Here's your first question" the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9." "Without numbiz?" the New Yorker says. "Dat's easy'" and proceeds to draw three trees. "What's this?" the boss asks. "Ain't you got no brains? Tree 'n tree n' tree makes nine." "Fair enough," says the boss "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99." "Dare ya go," he says. The New Yorker stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Dare ya go," he says. The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99" "Each a da tree's is dirty now! So it's dirty tree, 'n dirty tree, 'n dirty tree. Dat's 99." The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire him, so he says "Alright, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100." Mr. New York stares into space again, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Dare ya go. A hunnert." The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred." The New Yorker leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? A little dog comes along and craps by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree an' a turd, dirty tree an' a turd, an' dirty tree an' a turd, which makes one hundred. When do I freakin' start? From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 12 22:20:11 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:20:11 -0600 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: True story. Back when I lived in Brooklyn, NY, I heard a pair coming out of the subway ahead of me say "Good; it's not raining still". There is also the 'shut up/hurry up already' locution. With the mentioned usage of 'yet', it seems to me we have a set of peculiar-sounding time markerd that seem used for states, that of not-raining, being hurried-up, or even 'being turkey-dinnered'. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 12 22:25:13 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:25:13 -0600 Subject: INDIAN vs. INJUN Message-ID: Nigra is dialectal for Negro. In some Southern lects, the vowel in Negro shortens before the consonant cluster, and schwa is the unmarked pronunciation of final vowels of all spellings, The people who say Nigra think they are saying Negro, and they are, but naysayers want to insist on the nay. DMLance Duane Campbell wrote: > On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 21:19:25 EST RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > > > Yes, INJUN has indeed a long history as a slur. I'd say that INJUN : > > INDIAN = > > NIGGER : NEGRO > > Might it be more like Nigra:Negro, i.e., a non-pejorative (given the > contingencies of time and place) dialect difference? From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Sat Jan 13 00:21:39 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:21:39 -0800 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: An inquiry has come from a Chinese Malaysian friend in Panang asking the origin and meaning of "bless your socks off". I hear it often and assume it to be a superlative for "blessings" but have no idea other than that! Answers to the ADS-L would be appreciated as I do not have any of the reference works you folks use (just a lurker enjoying your company and learning). Sharyn Hay storkrn at msn.com From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 00:40:50 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 19:40:50 -0500 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: I inadvertantly sent this just to Tim last night, instead of the list... AF Tim Frazer said: >Linguistics in 1974. I went to the Linguistics Institute in Amherst, Mass. Hey...I was at that Institute too. It was the summer before I entered graduate school. >The Generative vs. Interpretive Semantics debate was hot and heavy. Noam >Chomsky gave a lecture which might as well have been in Martian as well as I >was concerned. He was very much worshipped there. Not completely. One of the things I vividly remember about that lecture series was Barbara Partee's anguish at giving a critical followup to one lecture. Oh, yes, and happening to get in the same elevator as Chomsky *and* Halle after another Chomsky lecture and having a friend stage-whisper to me "any questions?" There was lots of other stuff in the air suggesting that Chomsky didn't have the complete story. I had read the Keenan and Comrie Accessibility Hierarchy paper in mimeo (faded, at that) form for an undergraduate class. At the institute, I audited a class that Steve Anderson taught on ergativity. I think I audited something by Keenan also on grammatical relations and the AH. Or perhaps that was for credit. I also took (and greatly enjoyed) the course that Arnold Zwicky and Geoff Pullum taught on interconnections between phonology and syntax. I also was one of six students in a seminar on Generative Phonology with Halle and Keyser. There were so many auditors that the class met in a very large lecture hall (probably seated 250 or 300), and it was pretty full. It was a very intimidating setting for giving an oral presentation on my term paper. > I felt very intimidated! >Robin Lakhoff gave a talk arguing that linguists needed to get out of ivory >tower and pay more attention to the needs of ordinary people, e.g. issues in >education, etc. Oh, and Bill Labov gave a very nice paper where he showed, >empirically, that many native speakers of English did not much agree with >Chomsky and his followers about which sentences were "ungrammatical." I don't remember these. But I remember a talk by Bob King on rule loss, specifically final devoicing in Yiddish. That talk made me very glad I had already decided to go to Texas for grad school. Bob ended up being my dissertation adviser, and the provocative questions he asked about final devoicing have indirectly influenced my work on near mergers. > >As it turned out, I ended up spending a lot of that summer watchng the >Senate Committee's Watergate hearings on TV. Yup. I was sharing an apartment off campus with two UMASS students. One was in the process of divorcing her husband, and she was thrilled that I wanted to watch the hearings, as it gave her an excuse to demand the TV from him. I wrote two fairly decent term papers to the sound of the hearings, both house and senate. If there were any problems with my paper, Arnold, can I blame it on Barbara Jordan and Hamilton Fish? It's not Linguistics, but I have three other Watergate, etc. memories from that summer. The first was buying an "I Am Not A Crook" t-shirt at the student union. I still have the t-shirt, but have never worn it; Nixon resigned that night. The second was the reverberations from the fireworks set off at the grad student apartment complex after the resignation speech. Finally, the only place I knew in Amherst to get the NY Times was a drugstore a block or two from my apartment. Bundles of newspapers were dropped off in front of the store early in the morning, and they opened around 9 AM. The morning after the resignation, I got there around 8:45. The bundles had been torn open, and there were only a few papers left. But there was a pile of money on the sidewalk. I added my 50? to the pile and took two copies of the paper, which I still have, at my parents' house. Bringing it back to Linguistics, one of my professors (either at the Institute or back at Cornell) referred to certain of the evasive political utterances of that era as "circumlocutionary acts". Or something like that. For another take on the Zeitgeist of the early to mid 70's in Linguistics, have a look at _Studies out in Left Field: Defamatory Essays Presented to James D. McCawley on the Occasion of his 33rd or 34th Birthday_. Arnold and Larry may be able to contribute further insights. Alice -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 02:10:57 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 21:10:57 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: Hi Douglas Wilson, I have inserted my reactions below in square brackets. I hope you find them satisfactory. Thanks for bothering to comment. Tom Paikeday "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > > > > No doubt ... but some of us blue-collar types may be a little weak in > Dravidian proverb morphology, and some of us have limited acquaintance with > the Coromandel Coast area. [Quite correct! Thanks] Are there a lot of camels over there? (^_^) [None that I know of. Good question though. How did such a proverb get into Malayalam? But then I am barely literate in my mother tongue, having had only five years of elementary school]. > > My question: Recently I said, "You know the story (I mean fable, > Aesop's, if I remember right) of the Arab and the camel." It drew a > blank from a Missourian spiritual director at a Jesuit retreat house (he > is an MSW besides professional qualifications) and a few days later the > same blank from a Chicagoan Carmelite prior. Of course something was > bothering me. > > The question (anthropologists, folklorists, please help) is about the > blank. > > The blank I think is self-explanatory. (^_^) [I don't get this. Perhaps it doesn't matter. My own explanation is that the MSW not being from Oregon (as in A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS), he cannot be blamed for making me explain the fable to him, but the prior being from Illinois should probably have known better. But then no one is omniscient even with the best linguistic library in the world. Sorry if I seem to be preaching to a prior]. > > Is this the one like "Don't let the camel stick his nose into the tent"? [Yes indeed, as in op. cit.] > Good advice for Arabs and non-Arabs alike, I suppose. Give a camel a rupee, > and he'll take a crore! [Thanks for some creative proverb-making. I enjoyed this exchange]. > > -- Doug Wilson From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 11 18:20:55 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:20:55 -0500 Subject: English muffins = glazed buns Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Jan 2001 12:07:43 -0500 Sallie Lemons writes: > I'm so glad we speak the same language. :) Two nations divided bya common language? You may quote me if you like. D From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 13 04:13:02 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 23:13:02 -0500 Subject: Bless your socks off In-Reply-To: <000701c07cf6$cd7b9000$32e1183f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >An inquiry has come from a Chinese Malaysian friend in Penang asking the >origin and meaning of "bless your socks off". I hear >it often and assume it to be a superlative for "blessings" .... It seems a little old-fashioned, but I have heard (rarely) "Bless your socks!" as an alternative to "Bless your heart!", meaning either "Thank you" or just "Bless you" (affectionate expression). I assume "Bless your socks" < "Bless your soul" but I don't have firm information. My books show only "Bless your (little) cotton socks", which would seem to be an elaboration with unchanged meaning (my own casual speculation: < "Bless your [little] heart and soul"). "Bless your socks off" appears likely to be a conflation of "Bless your socks" with "knock your socks off" (= "thrill/amaze you" or "have an overwhelming effect on you"). I have never heard "bless your socks off". I suspect that it is used mostly in an evangelical [Christian] context; there are a number of Web occurrences. There is a recent book by this title. Apparently the sense is "bless you forcefully" as in "[May] God bless your socks off" or "This [spiritual] music will bless your socks off" or "Doing this [good deed] will bless your socks off", etc. ... judging from Web items. [Web quotation: "It is better to bless your socks than to darn them." (^_^)] -- Doug Wilson From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Jan 13 04:30:40 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 22:30:40 -0600 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: I think Doug Wilson was being sweet. The term I'm aware of is 'drop your cocks and grab your socks', something a USMC drill sergeant is presumed to say when the fussy officer shows up for a snap inspection. The sexual politics of this term remain to be untangled. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Jan 13 05:09:33 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 21:09:33 -0800 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: alice faber reminisces about the 1974 linguistic institute, and in passing asks: >If there were any problems with my paper, Arnold, can I blame it on >Barbara Jordan and Hamilton Fish? as i recall, there was nothing whatsoever to blame on anyone. both classes i taught at that institute (intro to discrete mathematics for linguists was the other) were lots of fun. ellen prince and rochelle lieber (then an undergraduate) were in the math class. the syntax/phonology course had a lot of auditors, including rob robinson, who's now my colleague at stanford (head of german studies and now also of the intro to humanities program). the 70s involved a lot of travel for me - teaching at the linguistic institute (at north carolina) and a month in europe (the international phonology congress in vienna, and more) in 1972; the california summer school in linguistics (at santa cruz), a workshop on pragmatics at the linguistic institute (at michigan), and a month visiting the theoretical psychology program at edinburgh, all in 1973; teaching at the u.mass. institute in 1974; a summer visiting the experimental psychology unit at sussex in 1976; a return there for the autumn of 1977; several weeks at the linguistic institute at illinois in 1978. by 1970 i was embarked on the study of syntax/phonology interactions (pullum joined me in this enterprise in 1973), a project that led me into extensive work on morphology and on clitics and has provided me with wonderful puzzles for the past thirty years. increasingly, this work (and other projects on argumentation, on variation, on speech errors, and on stylistics and poetics, all of which i got into through teaching introductory linguistics classes) moved me far away from what was happening at mit, a process that had begun with my sympathies for "generative semantics" in the late 60s and blossomed into an enthusiasm for generalized phrase structure grammar in the late 70s. that was linguistics in the 70s, in a nutshell, for me. i wouldn't imagine there's anyone else whose experiences were much like this. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 13:20:18 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:20:18 -0500 Subject: OK, a joke But it's about dialect Message-ID: Very unscholarly/unacademic, but quite delightful, I must say. I have printed it out to pass around to a special-interest group of mine, without infringing copyright, if any claimed. Tom Paikeday ================================== "Donald M. Lance" wrote: > > I just finished posting an e-mail reeking of scholarliness, so may I now be excused for > violating protocol and dumping a dialect joke on you? Warning: PG, offensive language. > DMLance > > A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a New Yorker. > "I'm not hiring any wise-ass New Yorker," the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a > test hoping that the New Yorker wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and he'd be able > to refuse him the job without getting into an argument" > > Here's your first question" the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number > 9." > > "Without numbiz?" the New Yorker says. "Dat's easy'" and proceeds to draw three trees. > > "What's this?" the boss asks. > > "Ain't you got no brains? Tree 'n tree n' tree makes nine." > > "Fair enough," says the boss "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this > time the number is 99." > > "Dare ya go," he says. > > The New Yorker stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just > drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Dare ya go," he says. > > The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99" > > "Each a da tree's is dirty now! So it's dirty tree, 'n dirty tree, 'n dirty tree. Dat's > 99." > > The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire him, so he says "Alright, last > question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100." > > Mr. New York stares into space again, then he picks up the picture again and makes a > little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Dare ya go. A hunnert." > > The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred." > > The New Yorker leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says, . . . . > . . . . > > . . . . . . . . . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? > > A little dog comes along and craps by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree an' a turd, > dirty tree an' a turd, an' dirty tree an' a turd, which makes one hundred. When do I > freakin' start? From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 13 13:18:02 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:18:02 -0500 Subject: Bless your socks off In-Reply-To: <000701c07cf6$cd7b9000$32e1183f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >I have used "verb+possessive pronoun+socks" off my entire life, and >I suspect it is that "frame" which is productive. I confess never >having used the verb "bless" before in this context. My tendancy >(and the one I learned I am rather sure) has been for more "active" >verbs - work, beat, others I won't bother to mention. dInIs (working his danged socks off here in the cold of MI) >An inquiry has come from a Chinese Malaysian friend in Panang asking >the origin and meaning of "bless your socks off". I hear >it often and assume it to be a superlative for "blessings" but have >no idea other than that! > >Answers to the ADS-L would be appreciated as I do not have any of >the reference works you folks use (just a lurker enjoying >your company and learning). > >Sharyn Hay storkrn at msn.com -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 13:59:08 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:59:08 -0500 Subject: Body Language Message-ID: Many thanks for all the tips received about the latest on BL. The amazon.com site was especially charming with titles such as A LANGUAGE OLDER THAN WORDS by Derrick Jensen (2000). But I have decided to let the literature be and do some thinking of my own first. At least, I won't be accused of softcore plagiarism (that's passing off paid-for stuff, as in some student essays, hardcore being passing off stolen stuff. As in a recent paper of YT - sorry to go so off-topic). I am drawing up a scheme or model based on the human anatomy and getting a naive-informant group to help by running an ad in THE NIAGARA SHOPPING NEWS (a very unacademic paper as you can see). A scholarly question if I may and there's no leg-pulling here, just plain ignorance of elementary grammar: Is the part-of-speech called interj. verbal or nonverbal? (Please see RHD def. of BL). I appreciate it is vocal, as in "Ah-choo!" Is that kinesics or proxemics, especially when the subject sneezes close to the object? But I will read Edward T. Hall just as I have read Julius Fast's pioneering work. As if anyone cared! Seriously, THOMAS M. PAIKEDAY (_The Native Speaker Is Dead!_, Toronto & New York, 1985; Tokyo (Maruzen), 1990). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 14:05:39 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:05:39 EST Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: William Safire plagiarizes the OED once again. In this week's "On Language" column, he mentions two quotations in discussing "sidekick." Both can be found in the OED. Safire never mentions the OED. One quotation from O. Henry ("Billy was my _side-kicker_ in New York") Safire identifies as 1904. The OED has 1903. Also, in the OED, the term does not have italics. He can't even plagiarize correctly! Safire takes another dig at the family Bush (yes, politics in a Language column) by stating that Bush the Elder liked to quote Woody Allen as saying "Ninety percent of success is showing up." No Bush citations are provided. Safire called Woody Allen, who says he said "80%." Safire doesn't reveal that this "80%" is nothing new. Even the awful ENCARTA BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (2000) has "Eighty percent of success is showing up." Most troubling, of course, is that Safire's assistant came on the list, got a citation from Fred Shapiro, and has used it in this week's column. His assistant won't even respond to me about joining the ADS for free. Again, I ask Elizabeth Phillips to join the ADS for free. Again, I ask her correct the errors that William Safire made of my work. She owes it to me and to this organization. She used us! I demand (as I have for a mere NINE YEARS now) Safire to respond. From tcf at MACOMB.COM Sat Jan 13 14:50:38 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:50:38 -0600 Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: If other people want to buy ad space in Safire's paper to air Barry's complaints, I might contribute. (However, the urge to do this comes from my dark side -- to be honest, it would be less to do sg. for Barry than to have a good fight. So maybe it's not a good impulse.) ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 8:05 AM Subject: Safire Watch (continued) > William Safire plagiarizes the OED once again. > In this week's "On Language" column, he mentions two quotations in discussing "sidekick." Both can be found in the OED. Safire never mentions the OED. > One quotation from O. Henry ("Billy was my _side-kicker_ in New York") Safire identifies as 1904. The OED has 1903. Also, in the OED, the term does not have italics. > He can't even plagiarize correctly! > Safire takes another dig at the family Bush (yes, politics in a Language column) by stating that Bush the Elder liked to quote Woody Allen as saying "Ninety percent of success is showing up." No Bush citations are provided. > Safire called Woody Allen, who says he said "80%." Safire doesn't reveal that this "80%" is nothing new. Even the awful ENCARTA BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (2000) has "Eighty percent of success is showing up." > Most troubling, of course, is that Safire's assistant came on the list, got a citation from Fred Shapiro, and has used it in this week's column. His assistant won't even respond to me about joining the ADS for free. > Again, I ask Elizabeth Phillips to join the ADS for free. Again, I ask her correct the errors that William Safire made of my work. She owes it to me and to this organization. > She used us! > I demand (as I have for a mere NINE YEARS now) Safire to respond. From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Sat Jan 13 14:59:03 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:59:03 -0500 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: The standard answer, I suppose, is that the people themselves prefer to be called the Inuit, as in "The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada," as in all people and personal names, and especially because they are our neighbours. One reason surely is that "eaters of raw flesh" is derogatory in this day and age ("sushi" may be a status question) when most Inuit may be ordering their steaks done medium rare. TOM PAIKEDAY (PYE.kuh.day, not PAY-) P.S. Just read Doug Wilson's posting of Jan. 11. Laurence Horn wrote: > . . . Maybe the Canadians are > just in the vanguard here.I'm not sure whether the objection to > "Eskimo" is that it's too broad in its application or that it's too > closely associated with tales of blubber-eating, nose-rubbing, > wife-sharing and the like. > > larry From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 16:59:07 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 11:59:07 -0500 Subject: Quotative "like" Message-ID: I forget who gave the paper on this at the ADS/LSA meeting last week, and my program is at the lab. But there's a lovely example of quotative "like" in tomorrow's NY Times Magazine Section, in an interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin. Here's the context, with punctuation: "Someone was talking to people who had watched me, and they were like, She's the one with the normal hair. Which means that it was sometimes sticking out." The interview's on page 15. I'm not sure exactly how old Goodwin is, but, she's old enough to have been traumatized when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, which would make her at least 50. -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Sat Jan 13 17:08:04 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 11:08:04 -0600 Subject: Comments on the Joke Message-ID: The "thirty-three dirty trees" joke I inflicted on Listees yesterday has some interesting phonological dimensions. It doesn't focus on the stereotypical -er- --> -oi- vowel nucleus of New Yorkese to make its point. So, what is it in these words that makes the joke work so well? Relying solely on my own fuzzy memory and fuzzy math (even suspect data are always better than none), I suspect it's a package of lenis/fortis and aspiration stuff in the initial consonants. How does "dirty tree" work so well as "thirty-three"? The lower stress on the first word (dirty, t'irty) tends to neutralize the voicing opposition in the initial consonant in this dialect. If I say the words in my own variety of South Midland, the d- ~ t- < th- phonology just seems silly, but if I fake a Nuw Yawka accent, tirty-tree and dirty-tree have initial consonants that are much more alike. It's also interesting that the boss's assumption of NY wise-ass-ness isn't confirmed until the very last sentence (When do I freakin' start?). Until then, we get only the slightly macho-istic braggadocio New Yorker 'tude in "Dat's easy" and "Dare ya go," and then the freakin' Bam! at the end. The discoursal feature that the joke-writer capitalizes on is seemingly intentional flouting of register expectations in a job interview. Ya'd be a piss pooa New Yawka if ya followed all da prissy rules! It's kinda like what transpired on this List when a certain Iowan accused a certain Louavillian of having only one register, a register that one might label South Midland chutzpa, but the Iowan was too North Midlandly courteous to engage in such overt name-calling. That same Iowan said in DC that we might oughta spend some of our energies looking at chunks of discourse, so I thought I'd better do some serious homework to make up for violating protocol yesterday. On a somewhat related topic.... Bethany Dumas quoted one of my better e-mails in DC (about dialects of TV news anchors) and later told me that she wished I had expanded on my reference to 'register'. OK, Bethany, I've now given you some more on register (supra). What I meant in implying that the phenomenon of register is what in effect (for many Americans) "neutralizes" regional dialect in the broadcast presentations of the Inland Northerner, the South-South Midlander, the Canadian, and Babwa Wawa is that we have certain expectations of how one should behave linguistically in reading the news on national TV, and all of these announcers handle the register of news-announcing very well. Register is the set of linguistic features (diction, vocabulary, syntax, morphology, intonation, sincerity-marking, etc.) that one uses (or one expects to hear or read) in linguistic interchanges in specific socio-psycho-politico-informational situations. As I've indicated above, some of these expectations may differ from one cultural region of the country to another, and some expectations do not vary, or should not range far from expectations, as in broadcasting the news. Yes, Mr. Iowan, I think that even the Louavillian could clean up his language, if he chose, and be a successful newscaster, never giving away his N'abny IN provenance. Readers may notice that I did not include 'pronunciation' or 'accent' in the parenthetical list of features above. As long as the other features are held constant, regional accent (or even a speech impediment) is essentially, but not totally, irrelevant to successful performance in a register, including the telling of jokes. Sorry about all the in-group references, but Hey! this is e-mail, and the ADS Listserve. If you want to know more, join ADS and come to the annual meetings. DMLance ==================== A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a New Yorker. "I'm not hiring any wise-ass New Yorker," the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a test hoping that the New Yorker wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and he'd be able to refuse him the job without getting into an argument" Here's your first question" the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9." "Without numbiz?" the New Yorker says. "Dat's easy'" and proceeds to draw three trees. "What's this?" the boss asks. "Ain't you got no brains? Tree 'n tree n' tree makes nine." "Fair enough," says the boss "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99." "Dare ya go," he says. The New Yorker stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Dare ya go," he says. The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99" "Each a da tree's is dirty now! So it's dirty tree, 'n dirty tree, 'n dirty tree. Dat's 99." The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire him, so he says "Alright, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100." Mr. New York stares into space again, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Dare ya go. A hunnert." The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred." The New Yorker leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? A little dog comes along and craps by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree an' a turd, dirty tree an' a turd, an' dirty tree an' a turd, which makes one hundred. When do I freakin' start? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 17:48:13 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:48:13 EST Subject: Fwd: Washington Irving & CRIES OF NEW YORK Message-ID: FYI. Don Foster is the guy who unmasked Joe Klein as the anonymous author of the book PRIMARY COLORS. Foster recently got much publicity from the New York Times that Clement Clarke Moore did not write "A Visit from St. Nicholas"--although that had been rumored for many years. --Barry Popik -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: Washington Irving & CRIES OF NEW YORK Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:45:39 EST Size: 1270 URL: From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 13 18:14:31 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:14:31 -0600 Subject: "chad"--1944 attestation Message-ID: The earliest attestation thus far for "chad" is 1947 (from the files of Merriam-Webster). Here now is one from a few years earlier: _American Telegraphy After 100 Years_, by F. E. d'Humy, Vice-President and Chief Engineer, and P.J. Howe, Assistant Chief Engineer in Charge of Engineering Economics, The Western Union Telegraph Company. Published in Supplement to the "Transactions of the A.I.E.E.," volume 63, 1944, pages 1014-1032. Later reprinted separately. --(A.I.E.E. = American Institute of Electrical Engineers). The copy I obtained is the reprinted one. Page 16, col. 3 says: 'One of the equipment differences between the Western Union and Postal Telegraph switching systems is that the printer-perforator used in the latter is essentially a "typing reperforator," which uses a narrow tape and prints the characters right over the code perforations. In order to obtain readability,the holes in the tape are punched only part way,eliminating the "chad" and thus providing a complete surface to receive printing, although still leaving the holes free for entrance of the transmitter pins.' My thanks to the material from Merriam-Webster, Fred Shapiro, Chris Jensen and Barry Popik, which headed me in the right direction of radiotelegraphy. ---Gerald Cohen From Allynherna at AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 19:07:10 2001 From: Allynherna at AOL.COM (Allynherna at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:07:10 EST Subject: INDIAN vs NATIVE AMERICAN Message-ID: My Rosebud Souix in-laws call thenmselves either "Souix" or just "Indian" and think that "Native American" is silly. Allyn Partin From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sat Jan 13 19:25:34 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 19:25:34 +0000 Subject: taylor on safire on clinton Message-ID: >From Charles Taylor's farewell to Clinton in today's Salon.com: "An esthetic Southerner like Jimmy Carter was acceptable as president. But a gregarious one of obvious (and hidden) appetites just had to be Lil' Abner playing dress-up. Here's William Safire a few weeks ago in the New York Times Magazine, talking about what he'll miss most about Clinton: "The Ozarkian's free-and-easy use of the American idiom." In other words, those hicks may not know how to speak English, but they sure are cute when they try. Imagine something similar being written about a black president. (And try to imagine taking language instruction from a former Nixon speechwriter.)" M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 07:56:31 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 15:56:31 +0800 Subject: Quotative "like" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:59 AM -0500 1/13/01, Alice Faber wrote: >I forget who gave the paper on this at the ADS/LSA meeting last week, and >my program is at the lab. But there's a lovely example of quotative "like" >in tomorrow's NY Times Magazine Section, in an interview with Doris Kearns >Goodwin. Here's the context, with punctuation: > >"Someone was talking to people who had watched me, and they were like, >She's the one with the normal hair. Which means that it was sometimes >sticking out." > >The interview's on page 15. > >I'm not sure exactly how old Goodwin is, but, she's old enough to have been >traumatized when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, which would make her at least >50. I seem to recall (from evidence provided in her book about growing up in Rockville Centre and bleeding for the Brooklyn Dodgers) that she's pretty much my age, 55, give or take a year. She's probably just been around a lot of Gen-Xers, her own or others. Of course, I have too, and I rooted just as hard for the Brooklyn Dodgers as she did, and yet "be like" is likely to remain trapped in my passive vocabulary. But that's me. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 08:25:48 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 16:25:48 +0800 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I inadvertantly sent this just to Tim last night, instead of the list... > >AF >Tim Frazer said: >>Linguistics in 1974. I went to the Linguistics Institute in Amherst, Mass. > >Hey...I was at that Institute too. It was the summer before I entered >graduate school. > >>The Generative vs. Interpretive Semantics debate was hot and heavy. Noam >>Chomsky gave a lecture which might as well have been in Martian as well as I >>was concerned. He was very much worshipped there. > >Not completely. One of the things I vividly remember about that lecture >series was Barbara Partee's anguish at giving a critical followup to one >lecture. Oh, yes, and happening to get in the same elevator as Chomsky >*and* Halle after another Chomsky lecture and having a friend stage-whisper >to me "any questions?" > >There was lots of other stuff in the air suggesting that Chomsky didn't >have the complete story. The 1974 institute was perhaps best known for being the launching pad of a syntactic theory that set itself up as a fairly major rival to what was then called the Revised Extended Standard Theory of generative grammar (i.e. Chomsky's then current model). This rival theory was Relational Grammar, and was advanced by David Perlmutter and Paul Postal in their joint course at the institute. While other LSA institutes have been associated with particular theoretical frameworks (the Generative Semantics institute at Illinois in the previous decade comes to mind), I can't remember any other theory that was really launched by an institute course in just this way, partly because P&P had eschewed the normal publication avenues up to that point and somewhat beyond. (There was an earlier CLS paper that was never written up and some provocative but inchoate hints by Postal in _On Raising_ (published in 1974 but written several years earlier), but really nothing in print up to that point. So for several years thereafter those of us who taught RG, either in a self-contained course or incorporated into an eclectic syntax course or seminar, did so using our notes from P&P's UMass Institute lectures as a text. Myself, I was really happy with a Pragmatics course offered by Bob Stalnaker and one on presupposition by Janet Fodor. Amherst in 1974 was also the first institute (or maybe the second--I can't remember the details about the 1973 'toot at Ann Arbor) at which Ivan Sag arranged for the rental of fraternity and sorority houses so that graduate students and faculty who were attending but didn't opt to live in the official dorms could pretend we were in summer camp, a practice that has extended through the 1999 Institute at Urbana. Partly as a result, there was also a lot of other stuff going on that summer that was only indirectly connected to academic linguistics and that can't really be mentioned on a family listserv. Ah, youth! larry From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Sat Jan 13 22:53:31 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 17:53:31 -0500 Subject: Quotative "like" Message-ID: Since she is a die hard Boston Red Sox fan, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn probably wasn't all that traumatic. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) ----- Original Message ----- From: Alice Faber To: Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 11:59 AM Subject: Quotative "like" > I forget who gave the paper on this at the ADS/LSA meeting last week, and > my program is at the lab. But there's a lovely example of quotative "like" > in tomorrow's NY Times Magazine Section, in an interview with Doris Kearns > Goodwin. Here's the context, with punctuation: > > "Someone was talking to people who had watched me, and they were like, > She's the one with the normal hair. Which means that it was sometimes > sticking out." > > The interview's on page 15. > > I'm not sure exactly how old Goodwin is, but, she's old enough to have been > traumatized when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, which would make her at least > 50. > -- > Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 > Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 > 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu > New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 23:14:37 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 18:14:37 -0500 Subject: Quotative "like" In-Reply-To: <001601c07db3$a7ce3160$2dcc35d8@oemcomputer> Message-ID: Tom Fenton said: >Since she is a die hard Boston Red Sox fan, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn >probably wasn't all that traumatic. *Now* she (Doris Kearns Goodwin)'s a Red Sox fan, but she grew up in a New York suburb. Larry Horn posted which one, but I don't remember, other than that it was on Long Island. -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Sun Jan 14 00:37:02 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 16:37:02 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Has anything appeared recently on the double conjunction "like that," e.g. "I feel like that they all ought to just leave me alone." It reminds me a bit of Spanish "de que," but it's clearly a horse of a different color. Peter R. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 00:43:24 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 19:43:24 EST Subject: "Chad" isn't going postal Message-ID: Congratulations to Jerry for finding that 1944 "chad." A friend of mine gave me a "chad" article from LINN'S STAMP NEWS. I checked philatelic dictionaries in the NYPL. It's not here. 1911--THE DICTIONARY OF PHILATELIC TERMS AND PHRASES (London). No "chad." 1922--THE STANDARD PHILATELIC DICTIONARY by W. H. Poole and Willard O. Wylie. "Chad"--See "Oubangi--Chari--Tchad." 1933--THE STANDARD PHILATELIC DICTIONARY by Willard C. Jackson. Has "Chad" as "A French colony in Central Africa." 1949--THE AMERICAN STAMP COLLECTOR'S DICTIONARY by Harry M. Konwiser. No "chad." 1950--STANDARD PHILATELIC DICTIONARY by Vijay Krishna (Barnaras, India). No "chad." From dmsnake at USIT.NET Sun Jan 14 01:40:17 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 20:40:17 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: Peter Richardson wrote: > Has anything appeared recently on the double conjunction "like that," e.g. > "I feel like that they all ought to just leave me alone." It reminds me a > bit of Spanish "de que," but it's clearly a horse of a different color. > > Peter R. I remember occasionally hearing this usage for many years, but never hearng it widely used. My theory is that the speaker is someone who would normally be inclined to say "I feel like they should leave me alone." But he remembers that his teachers or parents have told him to say "I feel that they should leave me alone." Yet the "like" is hard to give up, so he uses both. Snake From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 01:52:00 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 20:52:00 -0500 Subject: "Chad" isn't going postal In-Reply-To: <22.107dff1d.2792502d@aol.com> Message-ID: "Chad" is not a standard term in philately. But check "Stamping Our History: The Story of the United States Portrayed on its Postage Stamps", by Charles Davidson and Lincoln Diamant (a Lyle Stuart Book, Carol Publishing Group, New York, 1990) -- supposedly quoted in "American Heritage", Dec. 1990, Vol. 41 (Issue 8), p.109. I couldn't find this book at the local library. I haven't checked the magazine. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 13 13:08:59 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:08:59 +0800 Subject: Quotative "like" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 6:14 PM -0500 1/13/01, Alice Faber wrote: >Tom Fenton said: >>Since she is a die hard Boston Red Sox fan, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn >>probably wasn't all that traumatic. > >*Now* she (Doris Kearns Goodwin)'s a Red Sox fan, but she grew up in a New >York suburb. Larry Horn posted which one, but I don't remember, other than >that it was on Long Island. >-- Rockville Centre, just three towns north of where I went to high school in Long Beach, Long Island. And she was a devout Dodgers fan, as Alice and I have been saying and as she makes clear in her 1997 memoir of her Catholic (and Dodger) girlhood, Wait Till Next Year (us old Brooklyn Dodger fans can't miss THAT reference). Her moment of supreme grace was the year the Bums finally didn't have to wait till next year--1955-- and she also has a lot of nice things to say about Jackie Robinson, and her two traumas were of course--in order of importance but not chronology--(i) the traitor O'Malley's moving the team to L.A. in 1957 (shattering her allegiance, along with mine and most other fans I knew at the time--she eventually took up with the Bosox, presumably partly because they were poetically doomed to just miss (and usually to the Yankees) too and partly because she was living in the Hub) and (ii) Bobby Thomson's "shot heard round the world" wiping out the Dodgers in the playoff for the 1951 pennant. There was a lot of controversy on local New York sports talk radio when her book came out with her memories (as a six-year-old) of how she just KNEW the Dodger manager was making a fatal mistake bringing Ralph Branca in to pitch to Thomson--that couldn't possibly have been the a real memory of a six-year-old, the local talk show hosts (Mike and the Mad Dog) insisted. They also don't believe DKG could really have been that die hard a Dodger fan then and that die hard a Red Sox fan now, as she insists on the Ken Burns "Baseball" documentary. (Of course, Barry would no doubt remind us, every fact presented in a Ken Burns documentary is ipso facto suspect.) larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 02:15:15 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:15:15 EST Subject: Calamari; Banana Nut Bread; Do you serve crabs? Message-ID: CALAMARI The OED and Merriam-Webster have the 1950s and 1960s for the dish. From a European food tour described in THE STEWARD, January 1938, pg. 12, col. 1: Calamaria (squids), In Palermo, Italy, ... -------------------------------------------------------- BANANA NUT BREAD From THE STEWARD, May 1937, pg. 26, col. 2: BANANA-NUT BREAD 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs, beaten light 3 large bananas 1 1/2 tbs. sour milk 1 ts. lemon juice 2 cups soft wheat flour 1 1/2 ts. baking powder 1/2 ts. soda 1/4 ts. salt 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, bananas (put through sieve) and liquid ingredients. Add nuts and sifted dry ingredients. Blend thoroughly and bake 45 minutes in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) --_Service_. -------------------------------------------------------- DO YOU SERVE CRABS? An old joke, but how old? From THE STEWARD, December 1937, pg. 18, col. 1: One evening a diner unfamiliar with Schultz's viands(Schultz's Sandwich Shop, Grill and Stop-in Restaurant--ed.) asked of her "do you serve crabs here?" "Oh yes," answered Judith "we serve everyone." -------------------------------------------------------- CRIES OF NEW YORK & WASHINGTON IRVING (continued) David Shulman gave me the cite. From SPIRIT OF THE TIMES, 6 June 1840, pg. 157, col. 2: _Cries of New York._ AN UNPUBLISHED CHAPTER OF MRS. TROLLOPE. (...) The most profitable book that Washington Irving ever wrote was entitled "Cries of New York." It was embellished with pictures, (which are very taking in America,) of a man crying "Clams! clams! Rockaway clams!"... From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 02:27:50 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:27:50 -0500 Subject: "chad"--1944 attestation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > The earliest attestation thus far for "chad" is 1947 (from the >files of Merriam-Webster). Here now is one from a few years earlier: > >_American Telegraphy After 100 Years_, by F. E. d'Humy, >Vice-President and Chief Engineer, and P.J. Howe, Assistant Chief >Engineer in Charge of Engineering Economics, The Western Union >Telegraph Company. Published in Supplement to the "Transactions of >the A.I.E.E.," volume 63, 1944, pages 1014-1032. Later reprinted >separately. --(A.I.E.E. = American Institute of Electrical Engineers). > > The copy I obtained is the reprinted one. Page 16, col. 3 says: > > 'One of the equipment differences between the Western Union >and Postal Telegraph switching systems is that the printer-perforator >used in the latter is essentially a "typing reperforator," which uses >a narrow tape and prints the characters right over the code >perforations. In order to obtain readability,the holes in the tape >are punched only part way,eliminating the "chad" and thus providing a >complete surface to receive printing, although still leaving the >holes free for entrance of the transmitter pins.' Good show! I reviewed that volume of AIEE Trans. today, and it's about the same in the original journal form. Note that there's no explanation of the meaning of "chad", suggesting that the term was already familiar in the industry at the time -- but there are quotation marks! There seem to be no useful references. Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it didn't include that part. The technology was remarkably stable way back. Paper tape (Wheatstone tape [with chads!]) was virtually unchanged from ca. 1860 to the late 1920's, apparently, and the subsequent tapes weren't all that different. >... which headed me in the right direction of radiotelegraphy. But it doesn't need to be "radio-": wired telegraphy used the same sort of tape. The subject indices in AIEE Trans. and elsewhere tend to list this sort of thing under "telegraph", "telegraphy", "telegraph equipment", "teletype" (back to about 1930), etc. If anyone has some other good terms to look for in the indices, please let me know. -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 02:35:28 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:35:28 EST Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) Message-ID: Pain de Mie is not in OED (revising "M"). OK, so it's French. We have an ADS member in France, you know. From "Fancy Breads Taboo in France," THE STEWARD, pg. 11, col. 1: ...the breakfast "Croissant," the dinner and luncheon "pain riche" or "petit pain" or the simple "pain de manage" of our schoolboy days. (Pg. 12, col. 1--ed.) Au revoir to "Pain Riche" in all its marvelous forms and shapes, for which there can be no translation (OED take note--ed.); to the Pain Marchand-de-Vin, the Baguette Anglaise (alas!); the Baguette Gruau, the Joko Court and the Joko Long; the Baguette Ficelle (thin as a string) and the Couronne (crown); the Pain de Mie (sandwich bread) in six different (Col. 2--ed.) sizes, from the Mie ordinaire to the Mie Royale and the Royal Sandwich; the Pain de Seigle a Huitres; the Pain Gibier (for game) and the seigle Russe, the Boule de Seigle and the Miche de Seigle. Au revoir--and perhaps farewell--to the "Croissant" (crescent). And au revoir to all the little lunch and dinner breads which in all time have been the best part of the meal in Paris; the Empereur; the Galette; the Benoiston; the "Pistolet," large and small; the "Grand Opera" in four sizes and the "Opera Simple"; the "Lunch"; the "Brillat-Savarin"; the "Pain Buda"; the "Boule de fromage," and the "Galette." Au revoir, merci, et Vive la France! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 02:39:31 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:39:31 EST Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) Message-ID: THE STEWARD, August 1940 (wartime). Sorry. From rkm at SLIP.NET Sun Jan 14 02:56:03 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 18:56:03 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <3A610381.2FEF7D56@usit.net> Message-ID: >I remember occasionally hearing this usage for many years, but never hearng it >widely used.... I've heard it too, occasionally. Although many years ago I knew a guy who, instead of the annoying "ya know" after every other word, he'd put in the annoying "and like that" - but that, too, is different. Rima From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 03:35:48 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 22:35:48 -0500 Subject: Safire Watch (continued) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't want to get into the middle of Barry's vendetta against William Safire, but let me say this: I think it is wrong that the New York Times generally will not print letters correcting errors in the "On Language" column. But Barry's criticism of Safire is clearly excessive. As is his criticism of Safire's assistant, who presumably doesn't respond to Barry because of the latter's relentless attacks. As the person whose posting about "even a dog" is quoted in tomorrow's "On Language" column, I also want to note that I don't feel Ms. Phillips "used" ADS-L. Barry calls her actions "Most troubling, of course," but I don't see how they are troubling at all. Quite the contrary -- her inquiries and Mr. Safire's use of responses thereto are one of the most interesting aspects of this list. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU Sun Jan 14 08:09:38 2001 From: paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU (Paul Frank) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 09:09:38 +0100 Subject: taylor on safire on clinton In-Reply-To: <276197.3188402734@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: > From Charles Taylor's farewell to Clinton in today's Salon.com: > > "An esthetic Southerner like Jimmy Carter was acceptable as > president. But a > gregarious one of obvious (and hidden) appetites just had to be Lil' Abner > playing dress-up. Here's William Safire a few weeks ago in the New York > Times Magazine, talking about what he'll miss most about Clinton: "The > Ozarkian's free-and-easy use of the American idiom." In other words, those > hicks may not know how to speak English, but they sure are cute when they > try. Imagine something similar being written about a black president. (And > try to imagine taking language instruction from a former Nixon > speechwriter.)" > > M Lynne Murphy Has Safire commented on George W. Bush's almost daily assaults on the English language? Here is the latest: "I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be?a more literate country and a hopefuller country."?Washington, D.C., Jan. 11, 2001 Slate magazine has a long list of Bushisms: http://slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.asp Paul _______________________________________________ Paul Frank Business, financial and legal translation from German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch into English paulfrank at post.harvard.edu | Thollon, Haute-Savoie, France From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Sun Jan 14 12:27:25 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 13:27:25 +0100 Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) Message-ID: As far as I know, "pain riche" is not a specific kind of bread, but rather used as a synonym of "pain blanc", white bread, made from wheat. The term does not figure in the "Petit Robert" Dictionary, neither under "pain" nor under "riche". (It was curiously enough imported into Swedish as the name for what the French call "baguette" around 1940 - maybe this happened also in other languages.) "Pain de manage" must be a misprint for "pain de m?nage", meaning simply "home-made bread". Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 3:35 AM Subject: French Bread (Pain de Mie) > Pain de Mie is not in OED (revising "M"). OK, so it's French. We have an ADS member in France, you know. > From "Fancy Breads Taboo in France," THE STEWARD, pg. 11, col. 1: > > ...the breakfast "Croissant," the dinner and luncheon "pain riche" or "petit pain" or the simple "pain de manage" of our schoolboy days. > > (Pg. 12, col. 1--ed.) > > Au revoir to "Pain Riche" in all its marvelous forms and shapes, for which there can be no translation (OED take note--ed.); to the Pain Marchand-de-Vin, the Baguette Anglaise (alas!); the Baguette Gruau, the Joko Court and the Joko Long; the Baguette Ficelle (thin as a string) and the Couronne (crown); the Pain de Mie (sandwich bread) in six different (Col. 2--ed.) sizes, from the Mie ordinaire to the Mie Royale and the Royal Sandwich; the Pain de Seigle a Huitres; the Pain Gibier (for game) and the seigle Russe, the Boule de Seigle and the Miche de Seigle. > Au revoir--and perhaps farewell--to the "Croissant" (crescent). And au revoir to all the little lunch and dinner breads which in all time have been the best part of the meal in Paris; the Empereur; the Galette; the Benoiston; the "Pistolet," large and small; the "Grand Opera" in four sizes and the "Opera Simple"; the "Lunch"; the "Brillat-Savarin"; the "Pain Buda"; the "Boule de fromage," and the "Galette." Au revoir, merci, et Vive la France! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 14:10:00 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 09:10:00 EST Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: If anyone (such as Fred or Jerry) wants to see this end, it's really very simple. Write to Elizabeth Phillips, William's Safire's assistant who came on this list. She won't ever grace me with even a response, but perhaps any one of you can get lucky. The address she last used is phille at nytimes.com. Ask her: 1. WHY WON'T YOU JOIN THE AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY FOR FREE, OR EVEN RESPOND TO THE OFFER? 2. WHY WON'T YOU CORRECT PRINTED ERRORS IN BARRY POPIK'S WORK, AND WHY HAS NO ONE EVEN RESPONDED TO HIM IN THE PAST FOUR MONTHS? Again, maybe any one of you will be more successful. From mlisecki at POLBOX.COM Sun Jan 14 15:42:41 2001 From: mlisecki at POLBOX.COM (Michal Lisecki) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:42:41 +0100 Subject: gender differences in non-verbal communication Message-ID: Dear ADS subscribers, I've been trying to gather materials for a paper on non-verbal language use by different sexes. Although I am going to concentrate in the paper mainly on the Internet communication (any communication systems within the medium) I would be interested in any hints on the latest writings/findings in the field. I find it very hard to access both the specific materials that I have the references for, as well as the materials themselves in Poland. I managed to track down some conference materials, however, it is impossible to get them in any Polish libraries. Before setting off for the any inter-library loan systems which take a lot of time to get the desired materials I thought perhaps some of you could point me to any other internet-based sources of the writings on the subject of gender differences in non-verbal language use (esp. the case of online communication). Perhaps somebody knows of any access to an electronic version of the following works or perhaps of a way I could contact the author(s): Epstein, C. F. (1986) Symbolic segregation: Similarities and differences in the language and non-verbal communication of women and men. Sociological Forum, 1(1): 27-49 Ivy, D. K. and Backlund, P. (1994) Exploring GenderSpeak: Personal effectiveness in gender communication. New York: McGraw-Hill Kramarae, C. and Taylor, J. (1993) Women and men on electronic networks: a conversation or a monologue? In _Women, Information Technology, and Scholarship_, 52-61. Urbana, IL: Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Any issues of _Computers in Human Behavior_, best accessible online. Should anybody be interested in the subject I can share the references/bibliography on the subject or post it to the list if there is a considerable interest in it. Thank you for any help, Michal Lisecki -- Michal Lisecki [lisu] From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 03:57:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 11:57:00 +0800 Subject: gender differences in non-verbal communication In-Reply-To: <200101141642410100.001015EA@smtp.polbox.com> Message-ID: At 4:42 PM +0100 1/14/01, Michal Lisecki wrote: >Dear ADS subscribers, > >I've been trying to gather materials for a paper on non-verbal >language use by different sexes. Although I am going to concentrate >in the paper mainly on the Internet communication (any communication >systems within the medium) I would be interested in any hints on the >latest writings/findings in the field. When I was teaching a course in language and gender last year, I posted a request on fling (a list on feminist linguistics) for pointers on gender differences in computer-mediated/on-line conversation. I reproduce here the replies I received; note that as you asked some of these do involve web sites where you can track down some recent research on the topic. Perhaps Vicky Bergvall's note of warning will also be useful. larry =================== >Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 15:25:52 -0600 >Sender: Feminists in Linguistics >From: Susan Herring >Subject: Re: two requests for research pointers > >Hi Larry, > >A recent overview of my own and others' research on gender >and CMC is available online: > >2000. "Gender differences in CMC: Findings and implications." _Computer >Professionals for Social Responsibility Newsletter_, Winter 2000. >http://www.cpsr.org/ >publications/newsletters/issues/2000/Winter2000/index.html > >It contains a number of references. > >Regards, > >Susan > >============================================================ >Susan C. Herring, Ph.D. (817) 272-5234 office >Associate Professor (817) 272-2731 fax >Program in Linguistics susan at ling.uta.edu >University of Texas http://ling.uta.edu/~susan/ >Arlington, TX 76019 USA >============================================================ ============================================================= >Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 17:58:11 -0500 >Sender: Feminists in Linguistics >From: "Victoria L. Bergvall" > >I just saw Larry Horn's query on computer-mediated communication (CMC) and >sex differences, and Susan Herring's reply (she has provided an excellent >bib and paper there, so do check them out). Thanks Susan--your work comes >just as I was doing a web search for the same material. You've been a >pioneer for all of us in this field. Thanks for your great work! > >Also,the latest volume of Berkeley Women and Language Conference Papers >(just out) (http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/BWLG/Conf98.html), has two >interesting papers on gender and CMC by James Waldinger and Ben Smith. > >However, I'd like to inject a plea, again, not to immediately cast the >question as one of "sex *differences*" (repeating Janet Bing's and my plea >in our chapter in *Rethinking language and gender research* (Bergvall, >Bing, & Freed, eds, Longman 1996). I realize that society often casts >"women" and "men" into seemingly dichotomous and opposed groups, but real >people--and real language--is often much more complicated, and needs to be >treated as such (as Susan and others, in fact, acknowledge). > >I will be presenting a paper (The continuum of gender construction in >on-line discourse) at the coming IGALA conference, which shows that gender >behavior in discourse forms a continuum on-line as it does off-line, and >that starting with assumptions about "female" and "male" speech forms can >cast the whole debate as dichotomous to begin with, and thus, perhaps >overlook the critical overlaps. > >I agree, strongly, that the nature of social construction of gender in >discourse on-line often exaggerates gender differences into virtual >burlesques of off-line gendered discourse patterns. But there are still >critical overlaps both on- and off-line; data in my IGALA paper will >illustrate that where the orientation of the talk is not to SOCIAL issues, >but more to TASK issues, gender is much less salient and virtually >invisible, and thus, gender "differences" are less obvious than the >similarities and continuities. That paper is still very much in process, >but I will be happy to share it and discuss it when it gets done. > >It is all a complex issue that demands more attention. So, my best wishes >to your students! > >Vicky >>___________________________________________________________________ >Victoria L. Bergvall Associate Professor of Linguistics >Director of Graduate Programs in Rhetoric & Technical Communication >Department of Humanities Michigan Technological University >1400 Townsend Drive Houghton Michigan 49931-1295 USA >vbergval at mtu.edu Phone: (906)487-3248 Fax: (906)487-3559 >___________________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 14 17:08:47 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 12:08:47 -0500 Subject: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) Message-ID: For the "grinder" record: 1. A grinder is made with a long bread roll (12 inches or so), like a baguette, but wider and with softer crust. It is synonymous with "sub(marine sandwich)". People who use "grinder" also are aware of "sub", and "sub" is sometimes used in the "grinder" area. There are "Subway" sandwich shops (the chain) in the "grinder" area, FWIW. 2. A sandwich (in the "grinder" area) is on sliced bread, a round hard roll, or such. 3. "Grinder" is still widely used from Connecticut up through the Conn. River valley into Western Mass. I first encountered it in the Amherst, Mass., area, in the late 1970s, and had never heard of it before (I came to this area from Ohio). It seems not to be actively used in eastern Mass., but respondents who live there may want to weigh in on this. 4. I don't have DARE handy -- is the distribution and etym in DARE? Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 8:51 PM Subject: Re: Grinder (New Haven, June 1946) > At 5:42 PM -0500 1/11/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >E'S RESTAURANT > >Specializing in > >SPAGHETTI--SANDWICHES > >GRINDERS--PIZZA > > > >(Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton > >at all!--ed.) > > Well yes (if this a real question), in the same way that sandals and > boots are shoes (SHOES -- SANDALS -- BOOTS) and chowders are soups > (SOUPS AND CHOWDERS). > > L > From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 14 19:47:23 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 14:47:23 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: >I've heard it too, occasionally. Although many years ago I knew a guy who, >instead of the annoying "ya know" after every other >word, he'd put in the annoying "and like that" - but that, too, is >different. > >Rima Sounds like the Pittsburghese "n' at" -- which got a lot of hits in Swedish when I spelled it "annat" Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 20:00:19 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:00:19 -0500 Subject: "Chad" goes postal Message-ID: From "Stamping Our History: The Story of the United States Portrayed on its Postage Stamps", by Charles Davidson and Lincoln Diamant (a Lyle Stuart Book, Carol Publishing Group, New York, 1990), p. xi: <<(Each year, more than 75 tons of those minuscule punched-out wastepaper dots---called "chad"---fuel a special boiler at the Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing.)>> -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 20:13:58 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:13:58 -0500 Subject: Murphy's Law Message-ID: FWIW, Edward A. Murphy, Jr., appeared in "People" (weekly) on 31 January 1983 (pp. 81-2). There are pictures of him at age 65, (1) talking with Laurence Peter ("Peter Principle") and (2) "dropping his groceries" (of course the expensive wine breaks but not the cheap soda-pop, ha ha). Murphy is quoted here as stating that his "Law" has been misconstrued: "My original statement was to warn people to be sure that they cover all the bases ... It was never meant to be fatalistic." -- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Sun Jan 14 20:27:01 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:27:01 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 02:47 PM 1/14/01 -0500, you wrote: >>I've heard it too, occasionally. Although many years ago I knew a guy who, >>instead of the annoying "ya know" after every other >>word, he'd put in the annoying "and like that" - but that, too, is >>different. >> >>Rima > >Sounds like the Pittsburghese "n' at" -- which got a lot of hits in Swedish >when I spelled it "annat" > >Daniel >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com It isn't the same at all. It's simply a double complementizer, like "as if" and "so that." It's regionally restricted, as far as I know, to the central South (Tennessee and southward, maybe in Texas also--I've hear GW Bush use it); Bethany Dumas, Don Lance, and others should be able to pinpoint it better than I can. When I give it in questionnaires, in a sentence like "It seems like that no one writes letters anymore," very few of my students from Ohio accept it. The old "as if" is disappearing too, of course, giving way to "like" as both preposition and conjunction/complementizer. Thus, if "that" were dropped from the above sentence, leaving "It seems like" alone, no one would have a problem; nor would they if "like" were dropped leaving "that" alone. (I'm still an old "as if" user, but I seldom hear it now.) Such double forms go way back in the history of English, by the way. And the pronunciation would be [thEt] (no eth available), not the [thaet] of Rima's and Daniel's examples. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 14 20:38:08 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:38:08 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] In-Reply-To: <3A5FB931.7ED5F93F@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: >My own explanation is that >the MSW not being from Oregon (as in A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS), >he cannot be blamed for making me explain the fable to him, but the >prior being from Illinois should probably have known better. Now I see (I went to the library). The book gives Illinois and Oregon as the distribution of the story. I think this must be wrong or perhaps outdated. I can't remember where I heard it long ago but I think Michigan. I showed the glossed passage in Tom Paikeday's e-mail to my son (a young Pennsylvanian with no Malayalam) and he recognized it instantly, told the story and interpreted it as "Even slight evil should not be permitted" or so. I didn't tell it to him. I suppose this story has been broadcast; maybe it's been used in churches and schools all over; maybe it was on "Sesame Street" or something. What do the scholars say? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 21:01:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:01:51 EST Subject: Kummel Rye Bread (Philadelphia, June 1924) Message-ID: Greetings from Philadelphia, the only library that I saw open Sunday/Monday. June 1924, PHILADELPHIA CLASSIFIED TELEPHONE DIRECTORY, pg. 45, col. 4: Telephone COLumbia 4420 _Incomparable Bakery Co._ Famous Kummel Rye Bread and Rolls of All Kinds HOTELS AND INSTITUTIONS OUR SPECIALTY 2125-27 E. Dauphin Street PHILADELPHIA (This ad ran for at least 30 years--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 21:11:09 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:11:09 EST Subject: Hoogie (January 1941), Hogie (September 1943) Message-ID: HOOGIE/HOGIE January 1941, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 578, col. 3: Hoogie Shop 17 & Fairmt...BARing-9983 September 1943, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 598, col. 3: Tony's Hogie Shop 6709 Woodlnd av...BELgrde-4362 -------------------------------------------------------- STEAK SANDWICH April 1940, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 556, col. 1: Pat's Sandwich Shop Steak Sandwiches Our Specialty--Delivery 3251 Ridge av...SAGamor-9526 -------------------------------------------------------- SELL THE SIZZLE (continued) May 1937, PHILADELPHIA, pg. 619, col. 2: _LITTLETON'S RESTAURANT_ WEST PHILA.'S Most Outstanding Place to Dine TRY OUR SPECIAL "SIZZLING STEAK" 40th & Lancaster Av...BARing-8524 From mssmith at BOONE.NET Mon Jan 15 22:26:47 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:26:47 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic Message-ID: Greetings Linguists, Can anyone help me on a definition of the words deixis and deictic? Yes, I have looked them up in the dictionary, but I would like your input on these words. I ran across them in an article explaining the essence of the transformative nature of technology and literacy--or the deictic relationships between them. I begin to see the light, to grasp the meaning and then it skitters away from me! I am getting frustrated! Also, can you suggest the proper pronunciation for these words? Thank you all very, very much. Susan Gilbert mssmith at boone.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From prez234 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 11 12:06:53 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 06:06:53 CST Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) Message-ID: I've always thought that anyone born in the USA was a Native American. Is Cajun (from Acadian) formed the same way as Injun? I had a friend who disagreed with this theory and cited a Michener novel as proof. I tried reading the novel (now I don't even remember the title) but did not see any reference to the formation of "Injun" in it. Quotative "like": I think this originated during the 1970's from the cartoon "Scooby Doo." Shaggy used the expression quite a bit. I picked up the habit myself and it grated on my father's ears. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 23:28:48 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 18:28:48 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010114150616.025d8dd0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other sayings of this nature? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 00:11:47 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 19:11:47 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Here are a few off the top of my head. I'll go through my files and send others ASAP: RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) Your mileage may vary Off the grid The blue screen of death (a dead computer) Imminent death of the Net predicted! (a running joke about the perennial stories of the Net's pending demise. Used when someone starts doomsaying on a Net bulletin board) Information wants to be free The Net perceives censorship as damage and routes around it. Waving a dead chicken (having exhausted all the obvious fixes to a computer problem and starting on more irrational measures, i.e. resorting to voodoo) Problem exists between chair and keyboard, or PEBCAK (tech support slang for user error) Plate o' shrimp! (Used in online discussion when a strong coincidence occurs. Taken from a scene in the movie Repo Man.) Fred Shapiro wrote: > I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples > would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" > or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other > sayings of this nature? > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 15 01:46:38 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 19:46:38 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: The trouble with computers is that they do exactly what you tell them to do. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 14 12:48:16 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 20:48:16 +0800 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: <000e01c07f42$45a6c3e0$944d5c40@ast> Message-ID: At 5:26 PM -0500 1/15/01, susan wrote: >Greetings Linguists, >Can anyone help me on a definition of the words deixis and deictic? >Yes, I have looked them up in the dictionary, but I would like your >input on these words. I ran across them in an article explaining the >essence of the transformative nature of technology and literacy--or >the deictic relationships between them. I begin to see the light, to >grasp the meaning and then it skitters away from me! I am getting >frustrated! Also, can you suggest the proper pronunciation for these >words? >Thank you all very, very much. >Susan Gilbert >mssmith at boone.net As used in the philosophy of language and linguistic pragmatics, deixis refers to the phenomenon of linguistic expressions whose reference is determined (at least in part) by the context of utterance. Classic examples of deictic expressions include "shifters" like I, you, he, she, here, now, yesterday, ago, and so on, but also definite descriptions (the President of the U.S.) and tensed verbs. "Deixis" and "deictic(s)" come from the Greek word for pointing, and often a distinction is made between deictic and anaphoric uses of pronouns, e.g. "They're winning the game" (pointing to the Giants, or to their image on TV) vs. I bet on the Giants, and sure enough they're winning the game". Others would say that anaphora is in fact a special case of deixis, where the "pointing" works via the discourse context. The usual pronunciation is ['daiksIs] (DIE-ksis) ['daiktIk] (DIKE-tick) larry horn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 03:50:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 22:50:51 EST Subject: Drive-by-Wire; Names; How to Speak Minnnesotan Message-ID: DRIVE-BY-WIRE From the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 12 January 2001, pg. B1, col. 2: _"Drive-by-Wire" Technology Promises Simpler and Safer Car Control_ (...) Rather than moving the steering wheel to manually turn the wheels, the driver moves it--or a joystick--to transmit an electronic signal to a computer, which tells the wheels what to do. Drive-by-wire, used in jetliners for years, creates a car that handles like nothing else. BMW has already equipped two test cars... -------------------------------------------------------- NAMES A filler piece on 1999 New York City's Baby Names made the front page of THE NEW YORK TIMES, 12 January 2001, pg. B1, col. 2. The June 2000 issue of NAMES (the Journal of the American Name Society) arrived yesterday. It is "Dedicated to the Memory of Frederic G. Cassidy." See pages 151-152. Everyone here should also be ANS members. (I have also offered free ANS membership to Safire assistant Elizabeth Phillips, but she won't reply to that, either.) -------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO SPEAK MINNESOTAN The governors of New York and Minnesota had a bet on today's Giants-Vikings football game. NY won. Jesse Ventura is paying up, in part, with the book HOW TO SPEAK MINNESOTAN. Jah! From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 15 10:01:16 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:01:16 +0000 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Sunday, January 14, 2001 8:48 pm +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > ['daiksIs] (DIE-ksis) > ['daiktIk] (DIKE-tick) This is certainly how I pronounce these words, and it's like nails on a chalkboard when peole pronounce deixis as "dee-ex-iss" or some such thing. But I find that that's how my colleagues here pronounce it. At first I thought it was British pronunciation, but the New Oxford lists (I'm translating their phonetic symbols into pseudoEnglish) DAY-ksis and then DAY-ksis. So, I suspect that the three-syllable pronunciation is what people untrained in semantics make of the word--but then, of course I hear it from the students they teach as well. Not sure if this is limited to my university. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Mon Jan 15 10:45:59 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 05:45:59 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Never let a computer know you're in a hurry. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (Hanlon's Razor) I can write the program quickly, cheaply, or well. Pick two. All programmers are playwrights and all computers are bad actors. Every bug you find is the last one. There's always one more bug. That's not a bug, that's a feature. The number of bugs in a program is directly proportional to the number and importance of the people present at the first public demo. The amount of data expands to fill the storage space available. (Parkinson's Law of Data) Read the fucking manual. In cyberspace no one can hear you scream. No matter how fast your computer runs, you will eventually come to think of it as slow. Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it. To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. Paul From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Mon Jan 15 11:35:12 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:35:12 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: RTFM and RTFQ were used in the services long before the widespread use of computers. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) ----- Original Message ----- From: Gareth Branwyn To: Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 7:11 PM Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > > RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Mon Jan 15 11:36:34 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:36:34 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: SMOP - small matter of programming. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 14:11:49 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:11:49 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <3A624042.404FCF3F@earthlink.net> Message-ID: >Don't forget us Macpeople's 'chimes of death.' dInIs >Here are a few off the top of my head. I'll go through my files and send >others ASAP: > >RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > >Your mileage may vary > >Off the grid > >The blue screen of death (a dead computer) > >Imminent death of the Net predicted! (a running joke about the perennial >stories of the Net's pending demise. Used when someone starts doomsaying on a >Net bulletin board) > >Information wants to be free > >The Net perceives censorship as damage and routes around it. > >Waving a dead chicken (having exhausted all the obvious fixes to a computer >problem and starting on more irrational measures, i.e. resorting to voodoo) > >Problem exists between chair and keyboard, or PEBCAK (tech support slang for >user error) > >Plate o' shrimp! (Used in online discussion when a strong coincidence occurs. >Taken from a scene in the movie Repo Man.) > > >Fred Shapiro wrote: > >> I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples >> would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" >> or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other >> sayings of this nature? >> >> Fred Shapiro >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Fred R. Shapiro Editor >> Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS >> and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, >> Yale Law School forthcoming >> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 14:10:14 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:10:14 EST Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) Message-ID: I just heard on the news that the Earth Liberation Front takes credit for burning down a house on Long Island. Some people call it "eco-terrorism." There was an article about ELF in the New York Times on 1-11-2001. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 14:14:02 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:14:02 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry, Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick dInIs >At 5:26 PM -0500 1/15/01, susan wrote: >>Greetings Linguists, >>Can anyone help me on a definition of the words deixis and deictic? >>Yes, I have looked them up in the dictionary, but I would like your >>input on these words. I ran across them in an article >>explaining the essence of the transformative nature of technology >>and literacy--or the deictic relationships between them. I begin to >>see the light, to grasp the meaning and then it skitters away from >>me! I am getting frustrated! Also, can you suggest the proper >>pronunciation for these words? >>Thank you all very, very much. >>Susan Gilbert >>mssmith at boone.net > >As used in the philosophy of language and linguistic pragmatics, >deixis refers to the phenomenon of linguistic expressions whose >reference is determined (at least in part) by the context of >utterance. Classic examples of deictic expressions include >"shifters" like I, you, he, she, here, now, yesterday, ago, and so >on, but also definite descriptions (the President of the U.S.) and >tensed verbs. "Deixis" and "deictic(s)" come from the Greek word >for pointing, and often a distinction is made between deictic and >anaphoric uses of pronouns, e.g. "They're winning the game" >(pointing to the Giants, or to their image on TV) vs. I bet on the >Giants, and sure enough they're winning the game". Others would say >that anaphora is in fact a special case of deixis, where the >"pointing" works via the discourse context. The usual pronunciation >is > >['daiksIs] (DIE-ksis) >['daiktIk] (DIKE-tick) > >larry horn -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Mon Jan 15 14:13:24 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:13:24 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <005b01c07ee0$5922c980$8321d0d8@mcfedries.com> Message-ID: A watched website never downloads Tony Glaser From Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 15:39:45 2001 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:39:45 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity." (posted on my wall) "Nothing is foolproof: fools are too ingenious." (general use, but especially applicable to computer-situations) Steve Hicks From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 02:48:32 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:48:32 +0800 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>larry, > >Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick > >dInIs > OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the nominal form. There you go. larry From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 15 14:46:19 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:46:19 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) Message-ID: ecoterrorism is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 6.2). It goes back at least to 1989. There's ecoterrorist (n.,adj.) too. There are variants, too: environmental terrorism, ~ist ecological terrorism, ~ist Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 16:02:42 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:02:42 -0700 Subject: MLK tidbit In-Reply-To: <005b01c07ee0$5922c980$8321d0d8@mcfedries.com> Message-ID: For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE rhoticity. In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, 115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at 62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still 79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - 187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as 'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% (27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and 'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. Happy Martin Luther King Day, Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:17:01 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:17:01 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry, minima indeed, but a gotcha is gotcha. dInIs >At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>larry, >> >>Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick >> >>dInIs >> >OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and >there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English >words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I >thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but >now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more >well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the >nominal form. There you go. > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:08:52 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:08:52 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Barnhart wrote: > ecoterrorism is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 6.2). It > goes back at least to 1989. Here's a 1987 cite for "ecoterrorism" and "ecoterrorist": 1987 _Star Tribune_ (Minneapolis-St. Paul) 20 Aug. (Dow Jones) A wave of "ecoterrorism" by militant environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest has the timber industry preparing itself for a modern equivalent of the 19th-century range wars between farmers and cattlemen. ... Last month Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, called for harsh penalties for "ecoterrorists" and introduced a bill outlawing the spiking of trees. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:16:15 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:16:15 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here's a still earlier cite for "ecoterrorist": 1986 _St. Petersburg Times_ (Dow Jones) 4 July Forget the image of the friendly U.S. park ranger in his campaign hat giving a nature talk around the campfire. This may come as a terrible shock to you, but those guys are deadly eco-terrorists in disguise. For most of this century, they've been slowly and secretly exterminating the wildlife, ravaging the natural areas and destroying the national treasures entrusted to their care. The above uses the term oppositely to the common usage. Later in 1986 is the following usage in the conventional sense: 1986 _S.F. Chronicle_ (Dow Jones) 29 Dec. This month, unsigned "Wanted" posters appeared in store windows in town [Mount Shasta, California], calling two of the most prominent environmentalists "eco terrorists" and accusing them of "serious crimes against the people of Mount Shasta ... by attempting to destroy the economy, growth, recreationa nd enjoyment of thousands of residents and visitors therein, by locking up our natural resources and holding the public hostage to their selfish beliefs and demands." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:55:01 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 10:55:01 -0600 Subject: "chad" 1944 Message-ID: On Jan.13 I sent an ADS-L message with a 1944 attestation of "chad." Douglas Wilson then responded: >Good show! I reviewed that volume of AIEE Trans. today, and it's about the >same in the original journal form. Note that there's no explanation of the >meaning of "chad", suggesting that the term was already familiar in the >industry at the time -- but there are quotation marks! There seem to be no >useful references. Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it >didn't include that part. I am particularly interested in the last sentence just above. Would D. Wilson be able to provide the exact bibliographical reference(s). If the 1943 discussions about perforation contained no mention of "chad," this might indicate that the authors of the 1944 article were the ones who officially introduced "chad" into telegraphy parlance. They were not only distinguished engineers but important administrators at Western Union, and their article was no doubt read by many of the telegraphers there. My interpretation of the quotation marks is that the term "chad" was not yet a part of standard telegraphy parlance. In my work on the origin of the term "shyster" (two monographs) I noticed that the 1840s editor who first used this term put it in quotes--but only in the first article. Afterwards it appeared without quotation marks. He did the same with one other term, although I no longer remember which one. The point is that quotation marks around a term can indicate that a slang/dialectal term is being introduced into standard writing for the first time. The two Western Union engineers, d'Humy and Howe, may therefore deserve credit for introducing "chad" into telegraphy parlance (and thence into other technical fields). This is only a hypothesis, of course. There's a 1940 book on telegraphy I'm trying to get ahold of (available only in Carlisle,PA, non-lending), and it would be good to learn more about d'Humy and Howe. But if we hit bedrock with their 1944 article, then these two engineers represent the official starting point of the term in the U.S. And they almost certainly would have learned the term from British colleagues familiar with English dialectal "chat" or "chad" (=heaps of small objects). Maybe one or the other was British himself. ---Gerald Cohen > >Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:27:50 -0500 >From: "Douglas G. Wilson" >Subject: Re: "chad"--1944 attestation >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >> The earliest attestation thus far for "chad" is 1947 (from the >>files of Merriam-Webster). Here now is one from a few years earlier: >> >>_American Telegraphy After 100 Years_, by F. E. d'Humy, >>Vice-President and Chief Engineer, and P.J. Howe, Assistant Chief >>Engineer in Charge of Engineering Economics, The Western Union >>Telegraph Company. Published in Supplement to the "Transactions of >>the A.I.E.E.," volume 63, 1944, pages 1014-1032. Later reprinted >>separately. --(A.I.E.E. = American Institute of Electrical Engineers). >> >> The copy I obtained is the reprinted one. Page 16, col. 3 says: >> >> 'One of the equipment differences between the Western Union >>and Postal Telegraph switching systems is that the printer-perforator >>used in the latter is essentially a "typing reperforator," which uses >>a narrow tape and prints the characters right over the code >>perforations. In order to obtain readability,the holes in the tape >>are punched only part way,eliminating the "chad" and thus providing a >>complete surface to receive printing, although still leaving the >>holes free for entrance of the transmitter pins.' > >Good show! I reviewed that volume of AIEE Trans. today, and it's about the >same in the original journal form. Note that there's no explanation of the >meaning of "chad", suggesting that the term was already familiar in the >industry at the time -- but there are quotation marks! There seem to be no >useful references. Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it >didn't include that part. > >The technology was remarkably stable way back. Paper tape (Wheatstone tape >[with chads!]) was virtually unchanged from ca. 1860 to the late 1920's, >apparently, and the subsequent tapes weren't all that different. > >>... which headed me in the right direction of radiotelegraphy. > >But it doesn't need to be "radio-": wired telegraphy used the same sort of >tape. The subject indices in AIEE Trans. and elsewhere tend to list this >sort of thing under "telegraph", "telegraphy", "telegraph equipment", >"teletype" (back to about 1930), etc. If anyone has some other good terms >to look for in the indices, please let me know. > >-- Doug Wilson From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:56:35 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:56:35 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: There are a number of variants of the following: With a computer, we can make mistakes twice as fast as before. ===================== George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 15 16:57:51 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 08:57:51 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010114151415.00b02460@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > It isn't the same at all. It's simply a double complementizer, like "as > if" and "so that." It's regionally restricted, as far as I know, to the > central South (Tennessee and southward, maybe in Texas also--I've hear GW > Bush use it) Well, it's rampant up here in the Northwest, even among them what one would think don't, like, do it. PR From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 17:00:04 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:00:04 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: I wasn't aware of that, Tom. Do you know the etymology? Tom Fenton wrote: > RTFM and RTFQ were used in the services long before the widespread use of > computers. > -- > Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Gareth Branwyn > To: > Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 7:11 PM > Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > > > > > RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 04:09:45 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:09:45 +0800 Subject: new datum on the grammar of doughnut Message-ID: Randy Moss, star Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, bemoaning his team's shellacking in the championship game yesterday at the hands of the surprisingly intrepid New York Football Giants (as we used to call them): "41 to doughnut, I think that's probably the worst defeat I've ever been in in my life." More prosaically, the final score was 41-0. I've seen and heard "doughnut" used like "goose egg" or occasionally "bagel" to denote zero, with obvious iconic motivation, but always as a garden-variety count noun: "We thought we had a great offense and we ended up with a (big) doughnut". But this use as a mass noun (= "zip" or "squat") is a new one on me. (Moss is from West Virginia, if that's relevant.) larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 15 17:21:10 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:21:10 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: dInIs, wassup with your 'whuzzup'?! Maybe the voiced form is used by some? At 11:17 AM 1/15/01 -0500, you wrote: >>larry, > >minima indeed, but a gotcha is gotcha. > >dInIs > > > >>At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>>larry, >>> >>>Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick >>> >>>dInIs >>OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and >>there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English >>words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I >>thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but >>now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more >>well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the >>nominal form. There you go. >> >>larry > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 17:29:00 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:29:00 -0500 Subject: deixis and deictic In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010115121617.01c16380@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >Beverly, Indeed more than some. The fate of many intervocalics I reckon. dInIs >dInIs, wassup with your 'whuzzup'?! Maybe the voiced form is used by some? > >At 11:17 AM 1/15/01 -0500, you wrote: >>>larry, >> >>minima indeed, but a gotcha is gotcha. >> >>dInIs >> >> >>>At 9:14 AM -0500 1/15/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>>>larry, >>>> >>>>Whuzzup with your syllable divisions today? DIE-ksis ~ DIKE-tick >>>> >>>>dInIs >>>OK, mea minima culpa. DIKE-tick is an actual syllable division (and >>>there's the bonus of two syllables that correspond to actual English >>>words, always a nice trade-off when you're stuck in ascii). I >>>thought I'd go with DIE-ksis for the "die" on the same grounds, but >>>now I realize that I COULD have gone with the even more >>>well-motivated (if potentially more offensive) DIKE-sis for the >>>nominal form. There you go. >>> >>>larry >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Department of Linguistics and Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >>preston at pilot.msu.edu >>Office: (517)353-0740 >>Fax: (517)432-2736 > > >_____________________________________________ >Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics >Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 >Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 >http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET Mon Jan 15 17:28:59 2001 From: tom_fenton at ATTGLOBAL.NET (Tom Fenton) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:28:59 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: My experience is early 60's and I had the impression that they had been use for a while. About the same time, in an engineering class in college, an instructor wrote RTFQ on the board and then turned beet red when he saw the lone women in the class. A kinder, gentler time. The only reason I pointed this out was the original poster didn't indicate originated or prevalent in the computer world. -- Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) ----- Original Message ----- From: Gareth Branwyn To: Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 12:00 PM Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > I wasn't aware of that, Tom. Do you know the etymology? > > Tom Fenton wrote: > > > RTFM and RTFQ were used in the services long before the widespread use of > > computers. > > -- > > Tom Fenton ( tom_fenton at attglobal.net ) > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Gareth Branwyn > > To: > > Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 7:11 PM > > Subject: Re: Computer Proverbs > > > > > > > > RTFM! (Read the Fucking Manual) > > > From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 15 17:31:48 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:31:48 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:57 AM 1/15/01 -0800, you wrote: >On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > It isn't the same at all. It's simply a double complementizer, like "as > > if" and "so that." It's regionally restricted, as far as I know, to the > > central South (Tennessee and southward, maybe in Texas also--I've hear GW > > Bush use it) > >Well, it's rampant up here in the Northwest, even among them what one >would think don't, like, do it. > >PR But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 15 19:13:47 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:13:47 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010115122342.00cee600@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or > intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic > interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing > an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, > quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and > conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double > 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. Gosh, Beverly, I'd like to confirm your notion here, but I'm absolutely sure this is a double conjunction. It's most often used after _feel_: "I feel like that we ought to stop for groceries." It's all over the place up/out here, and not used exclusively by Southern emigres. Most other speakers would say either "like" or "that" after "feel"; perhaps the double conjunction is used to underscore the speaker's opinion or feeling about something, used in place of (or--horrors!--in addition to) "really": "I really feel like that the entire city council should just resign." _That_ is definitely not pronominal: "I feel like that sometimes." Peter R. From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Mon Jan 15 20:07:44 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:07:44 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: I posted something on this last week that didn't get through the server, apparently. Maybe didn't even get to it. AAR, the fact that "like that", where "that" is clearly a complementizer and not a deictic, is coming back into SE strikes me as a syntactic analog of the 16th and 17th c. "meet/meat/mate" problem that Labov has written about, a case where change is apparently reversed but what has really happened is that a dialect as lost a distinction that persists in another dialect and later borrows that distinction back from the other dialect. Maybe Labov's New York /r/ study is a better analogy, since this isn't really a reversal of a merger. SE has been losing "X+that" constructions for several centuries. About the only ones that have survived are "except that", "in that", "now that", and the rare "but that". Herb From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Mon Jan 15 17:41:30 2001 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:41:30 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <29.f2232e8.279473c1@aol.com> Message-ID: The three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris. (I think this is from one of the O'Reilly Perl programming books.) What's the one about the first comparison of someone to a Nazi means the thread (or discussion) is over? Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 15 20:27:20 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:27:20 -0500 Subject: "chad" 1944 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>... Similar material was published in 1943 (IIRC) but it >>didn't include that part. > > I am particularly interested in the last sentence just above. >Would D. Wilson be able to provide the exact bibliographical >reference(s). I can, the next time I get to the appropriate library. I don't think there's anything useful, though. I was noting that the 1944 article was similar to earlier material (although not NECESSARILY regarding the word in question). >If the 1943 discussions about perforation contained no >mention of "chad," this might indicate that the authors of the 1944 >article were the ones who officially introduced "chad" into >telegraphy parlance. ... The 1943 (?) material IIRC was by the same author(s), addressing only some of the same material ... it's not that the part with "chad" was discussed without the word in question -- I would have copied it in such a case -- but that the part about the printing and perforation of the tape wasn't in the earlier article (IIRC). AIEE Trans. has/had an annual author index. > My interpretation of the quotation marks is that the term "chad" >was not yet a part of standard telegraphy parlance. But the lack of an explanatory passage tends to indicate that the word was already considered understandable ... even though perhaps "figurative" or "colloquial". For example, imagine the same passage but with 'chad' replaced by 'chaff' or 'gravel' ... the quotation marks might be the equivalent of adding "so-called". If an engineering paper included a completely new coinage, I would expect a footnote or a parenthesized explanation. Two possibilities: (1) "Chad" = "paper residue" was already well known but considered a casual usage ... hence the quotes. I tend to prefer this one; "chad" could have been telegraphers' jargon for a year or for fifty years before 1944. (2) "Chad" = "paper residue" was not yet usual but "chad" was immediately recognizable as meaning "gravel". This possibility seems odd, I guess, but I have found three independent instances where "chad" (without quotes, and without explanation AFAIK) is used = "gravel", in technical contexts, all since 1977! I'll post the references later. Perhaps this word for "gravel" was much more usual in 1944 ... although this is hard to believe given the absence of the word in this sense from the OED, Webster's Third, etc. Some words might be common among engineers (or other specialized groups) but very rare in general use. (I also find an instance of the word used technically with respect to paper [but not punched, and not in a telegraphy or computer connection] and another technical use which MAY refer to seeds [remember the "chats" from the EDD?]). -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 15 07:29:50 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:29:50 +0800 Subject: "Native American" and variations thereof (2) In-Reply-To: <20010111.060710.8487.4.prez234@juno.com> Message-ID: At 6:06 AM -0600 1/11/01, Joseph McCollum wrote: > >Quotative "like": I think this originated during the 1970's from the >cartoon "Scooby Doo." Shaggy used the expression quite a bit. I picked >up the habit myself and it grated on my father's ears. Without knowing the details, I'm willing to be that whatever popularity boost Scooby Doo may have provided for quotative "like", the cartoon did not originate this construction, any more than Saturday Night Live (either Wayne and Garth or the much earlier Steve Martin skit) originated retro-NOT (which, as discussed here and in AS, goes back at least to the 1890's). larry From tcf at MACOMB.COM Mon Jan 15 20:29:00 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:29:00 -0600 Subject: non-rhotic ( MLK tidbit) Message-ID: Maybe AAE varies along the lines of more r-lessness among southerners than among those who grew up in the North. One bit of evidence that AAE speakers in Chicago were self-conscious about r-less ness 30 years ago: in 1967, 68 and 69 I used to see these gang graffiti all over the Chicago "L": "Blackstone Rangers. All Up in Heah." (sic). "59th St. D's. Hey Heah!" I would also see the same graffiti else where with conventional spelling, that is, with the <> where it normally would appear in "here." (I don't remember an r-less spelling for "Rangers" tho.) Unfortuantely, I didn't have the foresight to go around the city and take systematic notes. ----- Original Message ----- From: Nancy Elliott To: Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 10:02 AM Subject: MLK tidbit > For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE > rhoticity. > > In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, > 115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a > stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier > in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at > 62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. > > > Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still > 79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - > 187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, > it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as > 'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast > to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% > (27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and > 'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the > DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC > speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. > > > Happy Martin Luther King Day, > > Nancy Elliott > Southern Oregon University From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 15 20:42:18 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:42:18 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Erin McKean wrote: > What's the one about the first comparison of someone to a Nazi means > the thread (or discussion) is over? Godwin's Law, named after Mike Godwin, well-known cyberspace rights lawyer. The law states: "As an online discussion grows, the probability of a comparison with the Nazis and/or Hitler approaches one." Usually associated with USENET, but I think Godwin coined it on The Well BBS. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 15 20:52:03 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:52:03 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:13 AM 1/15/01 -0800, you wrote: >On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or > > intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic > > interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing > > an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, > > quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and > > conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double > > 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. > >Gosh, Beverly, I'd like to confirm your notion here, but I'm absolutely >sure this is a double conjunction. It's most often used after _feel_: "I >feel like that we ought to stop for groceries." It's all over the place >up/out here, and not used exclusively by Southern emigres. Most other >speakers would say either "like" or "that" after "feel"; perhaps the >double conjunction is used to underscore the speaker's opinion or feeling >about something, used in place of (or--horrors!--in addition to) "really": >"I really feel like that the entire city council should just resign." > >_That_ is definitely not pronominal: "I feel like that sometimes." > >Peter R. This is interesting! From your previous note, I didn't catch this usage. Maybe other Westerners have heard this too? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 15 23:02:20 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:02:20 -0600 Subject: English Muffin & Crumpet recipes; also Bagle, Tea Ball. Message-ID: If Barry can do this, so can I. 8-). From: _The Bread Basket_, Standard Brands Incorporated (1942); 40 pages. It's one of those cookbooks put out by the food companies. In this case, it highlights Fleischmann's yeast. p. 36 -- ENGLISH MUFFINS 1 cup milk : 1 cake Fleischmann's Yeast 2 tablespoons sugar : 1 cup lukewarm water 1 teaspoon salt : 6 cups sifted flour 4 tablespoons melted shortening Scald milk, add sugar and salt; cool to lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water and add to lukewarm milk. Add half the flour; beat until smooth. Add shortening and remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic. Place in well-greased bowl. Cover and let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours. Divide into 18 portions and shape into round biscuits. Cover and let rise on lightly floured board about 1/2 hour. Roll each biscuit about 1/4 inch thick, keeping round in shape. Bake on hot, uncreasted giddle for about 10 minutes. As they brown, reduce heat and bake more slowly. Serve warm with marmalade or honey, or split and toast. -- p. 37 -- CRUMPETS 2 cakes Fleischmann's Yeast : 4 cups sifted flour 4 cups lukewarm water : 1 tablespoon salt Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water; add flour and salt; beat well. Cover and let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Beat well. Half fill greased muffin rings which have been placed on a slightly greased griddle heated to a medium heat. When the bubbles in the batter rise to the top and break, making holes through the crumpet from top to bottom, reduce to a slow heat and bake until dry on top and beginning to shrink at the edges. To serve, toast on the unbrowned side and spread with butter. -- This crumpet recipe agrees with what I've seen commercially marketed as a crumpet. English muffins have the holes only on the inside and are browned all-round. p. 9 gives 'bagles', spelled thus, calling for milk instead of the more usual water. p. 40 gives the Standard Brands family of brands. Fleischmann's Yeast and the 'Royal' brand of gelatin and pudding are still around. I have not seen Royal baking powder or Chase and Sanborn coffee in years. They show _Tender Leaf Tea_ "in the new filter paper Tea Balls, Individually wrapped in a sanitary envelope." These 'tea balls' don't sound like tea bags, but rather, individually wrapped portions of loose tea, but this is just a guess. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Tue Jan 16 00:07:17 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:07:17 -0500 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: Any truth to this tale? While the expression, "It Was Cold Enough to Freeze the Balls Off a Brass Monkey!" is still commonly used by sailors in extremely cold weather, the origin of the phrase has been largely forgotten. And now, the rest of the story . . . Virtually every sailing ship in the 1700-1800s had cannon for protection. Cannon of the times required round iron cannonballs. The Ship's Master usually wanted to store the cannonballs such that they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around the gun deck. The solution was to stack them up in a square-based pyramid next to the cannon. The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four, the next had nine, the next had sixteen, and so on. Four levels would provide a stack of 30 cannonballs. The only real problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels. To do this, they devised a small brass plate called, of course a "brass monkey", with 16 round indentations, one for each cannonball, in the bottom layer. Brass was used because the cannonballs wouldn't rust to the "brass monkey,"but would rust to an iron one. When temperature falls, brass contracts in size faster than iron. As it got cold on the gun decks, the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the indentations spilling the entire pyramid over the deck. Thus it was, quite literally, "It Was Cold Enough to Freeze the Balls Off a Brass Monkey!" From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 16 01:00:41 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:00:41 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010115155048.00cda750@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I haven't heard "like that" around the Seattle area, but it may be generational for this area. I can't believe there is a huge difference between speech patterns in Portland and Seattle, although when I moved here 26+ years ago, there were some noticeable differences in vocabulary. >From now on, though, I'll be listening for it. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > At 11:13 AM 1/15/01 -0800, you wrote: > >On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > > > But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or > > > intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic > > > interrupter). In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing > > > an embedded (subordinate) clause. "Like" has many functions: focuser, > > > quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and > > > conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double > > > 'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken. > > > >Gosh, Beverly, I'd like to confirm your notion here, but I'm absolutely > >sure this is a double conjunction. It's most often used after _feel_: "I > >feel like that we ought to stop for groceries." It's all over the place > >up/out here, and not used exclusively by Southern emigres. Most other > >speakers would say either "like" or "that" after "feel"; perhaps the > >double conjunction is used to underscore the speaker's opinion or feeling > >about something, used in place of (or--horrors!--in addition to) "really": > >"I really feel like that the entire city council should just resign." > > > >_That_ is definitely not pronominal: "I feel like that sometimes." > > > >Peter R. > > This is interesting! From your previous note, I didn't catch this > usage. Maybe other Westerners have heard this too? > > _____________________________________________ > Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics > Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 > Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 > http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm > From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 16 01:48:49 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 20:48:49 -0500 Subject: "chad" Message-ID: Please excuse my ignorance, but when a sprocket hole is punched in the material used for movie film, or regular camera film, is the punch-removed material also referenced by the word chad? Or, is the sprocket hole the result of a process other than a punch/knife removing material from the film? George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 02:41:22 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 21:41:22 EST Subject: Portfolio Pumping; Breathing While Republican; Balkan War Syndrome Message-ID: PORTFOLIO PUMPING Not new, but a good article is in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 15 January 2001, pg. C21, col. 1: _F.C.C. Probes "Portfolio Pumping"_ (...) Portfolio pumping refers to end-of-quarter trading designed to lift a fund's quarterly performance results. (...) (Col. 2--ed.) ...portfolio pumping, known in Canada as "high-close trading"... -------------------------------------------------------- BREATHING WHILE REPUBLICAN (BWR) Yet another catch political phrase. "Breathing While Republican (BWR)" is mentioned in a letter to the editor about the faults of George W. Bush's new Cabinet nominees in today's WALL STREET JOURNAL, 15 January 2001, pg. A23, col. 1. -------------------------------------------------------- BALKAN WAR SYNDROME "Balkan War Syndrome" has made a number of recent articles. A skeptic's view is in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 15 January 2001, pg. A22, col. 3. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 03:24:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 22:24:45 EST Subject: Off-Color British Slang (FWIW, from Deja.com) Message-ID: Abra-Kebabra: A magic act performed on Saturday night, where fast food vanishes down the performer's throat, and then shortly afterwards, it suddenly reappears on the taxi floor. Spanish Kiss: Similar to a French Kiss, but given a bit further south of the border. Back End of the Batmobile: The state of your Brass Eye soon after you eat a really hot curry. "I had a Ring Stinger in the Benghazi restaurant last night, and now I've got a dose of Gandhi's Revenge. My arse feels like the back end of the Batmobile." Beaver Leaver: or Vagina Decliner. A homosexual. Beer Coat: The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3 in the morning. Beer Compass: The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after a Booze cruise, even though you're too pissed to remember where you live, how you get there, and where you've come from. BOBFOC: Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch. Boiler Suit: The prosecution charge that you did wilfully, and with phallus aforethought, score with a Bobfoc last night. This charge is usually brought by a kangaroo court of your friends in the pub on Saturday night. Bone of Contention: A hard-on that causes an argument. e.g. one that arises when a man is watching Olympic beach volleyball on TV with his girlfriend. Breaking the Seal: Your 1st piss in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night. Budgie's Tongue or Small Man In A Boat, or Tongue Punchbag: The female erection. BVH: Blue-Veined Hooligan. The 1-eyed skinhead. Cider Visor: Beer Goggles for the young drinker. Cliterature: 1-handed reading material. Cock-A-Doodle-Poo: The bowel movement that, needing to come out urgently, wakes you up in the morning to get to the toilet quick. Crappuccino: The particularly frothy type of diarrhoea that you get when abroad. Double Bass: A sexual position in which the man enters the woman from behind, and then fiddles with the woman's nipples with one hand and her Budgie's Tongue with the other. The position is similar to that used when playing a double bass instrument, but the sound produced is slightly different. Etch-A-Sketch: Trying to draw a smile on a woman's face by twiddling both of her nipples simultaneously. Fizzy Gravy or Rusty Water. Diarrhoea. Flogging On: Surfing the Internet for some left-handed websites. Free the Tadpoles: Liberate the residents of Wank Tanks. Frigmarole: Unnecessarily time-consuming foreplay. FuckShitFuckShitFuckShit: The sound made when driving through too narrow a gap at too high a speed. Going For a McShit: Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the bog. If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is a McShit With Lies. Greyhound: A very short skirt, only an inch from the hare. Hand-to-Gland Combat: A vigorous masturbation session. Hefty Cleft or Horse's Collar, or Welly Top. Description of a very large vagina. McSplurry: The type of bowel movement you experience after dining for a week in fast food restaurants. Millennium Domes: The contents of a Wonderbra. i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there's actually fuck-all in there worth seeing. Monkey Bath: A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa! Aa! Aa!". Mystery Bus: The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in. Mystery Taxi: The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you Wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead. NBR: No Beers Required. Someone that you'd chat up instantly in the pub. The opposite of a 10-Pinter. Picasso Arse: A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she's got 4 buttocks. Sperm Wail or Spuphemism. A verbal outburst during the male orgasm. Starfish Trooper or Arsetronaut. A homosexual. 10-Pinter: Someone that you'd only chat up after drinking at least 10 pints. 2-Bagger: Someone that you'd need 2 paper bags to have sex with. (1 to cover their head, and 1 to cover yours, in case their bag falls off.) Titanic: A lady who goes down first time out. Todger Dodger: A lesbian. Wank Seance: During a masturbation session, the eerie feeling that you're being watched with disgust by your dead relatives. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 16 03:35:17 2001 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:35:17 -0800 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: To all: > I haven't heard "like that" around the Seattle area, but it may be > generational for this area. I can't believe there is a huge difference > between speech patterns in Portland and Seattle, although when I moved > here 26+ years ago, there were some noticeable differences in vocabulary. > From now on, though, I'll be listening for it. I live in Seattle, and I've never heard anybody around here(of any generation)say anything remotely resembling "I feel like that we ought to go shopping". I've heard a lot of people say something like "Is this, like, soap?" meaning something like "You're referring to soap?" or "She was, like, let's go dancing"(mostly among people a generation younger than me). But I've never heard anybody use the above construction. Maybe I'm just too fuddy-duddy to hear it. Anne G From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 16 09:49:19 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 03:49:19 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Fred Shapiro wrote: > I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples > would be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" > or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other > sayings of this nature? There's one that provides a direct answer to GIGO: "Sparrows make a living by finding the good stuff that's packaged in horseshit". The short form is "Some good things come in horseshit packages". -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Tue Jan 16 10:00:34 2001 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 10:00:34 -0000 Subject: Bless your socks off Message-ID: This story about the origin of the brass monkey story is widely told and believed. But there are immense difficulties with it. Firstly, warships of the period stored their immediate stock of round shot for the guns in wooden racks fixed to the ship's sides (cut with holes slightly smaller than the shot, very like an egg rack). These were called garlands and can be seen in illustrations of the period. It is impossible to imagine any sensible commander permitting shot to be piled in heaps on a deck that might be pitching at an angle of forty degrees or more at times. Secondly, there is no reference extant that I can find of the term 'monkey' being applied to any such construction. There was an eighteenth century gun called that, and the ships' boys who brought gunpowder up from the magazine were called powder monkeys, but that's all. But the clincher is basic physics: the coefficients of expansion of iron and brass are not so different; over the range of temperatures likely to be encountered on the deck of a warship at sea the differential movement is a fraction of a millimetre, not enough to cause a whisker of a problem. The story is obviously daft. Now to the interesting part: where did it really come from? My guess is that it was a bit of evocative British Indian Army slang relating to cold night temperatures in the hills, with thoughts of temple statues in mind. But there's no evidence for that either, alas. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 16 10:48:13 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 04:48:13 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Appropriate, but not originally about computers: Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. Something over 30 years ago, I added three lemmas: 1. It ain't 90, it's 99. 2. It ain't crap, it's shit. 3. The remaining 1% makes life worth living. The original Law is usually attributed to Theodore Sturgeon, one of the immortals of the Golden Age of science fiction. Secondary sources in the world of science fiction agree on that attribution, but so far I haven't found any that cite an alleged place of first publication. (I have a fleeting, partial recollection that the Law was mentioned favorably in the editor's column of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. The author was John W. Campbell, Jr.; the date probably was around 1950; the attribution was there without citation of the original.) In the same general epoch, Astounding Science Fiction provided a version of the laws of thermodynamics that should be as well known as Murphy's Law: First Law of Thermodynamics: You can't win. Second Law of Thermodynamics: You can't even break even. Third Law of Thermodynamics: You can't get out of the game. I'm sure that the first place where I read this reformulation gave full credit to the original author. I just don't remember who that was. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 16 13:07:26 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 07:07:26 -0600 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) Message-ID: Fred Shapiro wrote: > Here's a 1987 cite for "ecoterrorism" and "ecoterrorist": > > 1987 _Star Tribune_ (Minneapolis-St. Paul) 20 Aug. (Dow Jones) A wave of > "ecoterrorism" by militant environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest has > the timber industry preparing itself for a modern equivalent of the > 19th-century range wars between farmers and cattlemen. ... Last month Sen. > James McClure, R-Idaho, called for harsh penalties for "ecoterrorists" and > introduced a bill outlawing the spiking of trees. The word "ecoterrorism" gained currency as part of a disinformation campaign based on false accusations. It's a pity that the word "ecoterrorism" has settled into dictionaries without background information about the purposes behind its original use. Lack of that background points to the ultimate success of an orchestrated attempt to neutralize activists on one side of a public debate. It's worrisome that dictionaries can become the vehicles of political propaganda even when their editors have no intent of producing that outcome. The alleged ecoterrorism wave of 1987 was largely a creation of publicists aligned with the timber industry. The excerpt quoted above abounds with loaded words but presents no substantive facts about what the timber industry was preparing for. The source cited, the Minneapolis/St. Paul _Star Tribune_, is not a likely place to look for information about the Pacific Northwest. The Dow Jones news service isn't famous for showing any sympathy for environmentalist causes, either. It's important to note that virtually no allegations of "ecoterrorism" in 1987 were substantiated by citations giving verifiable details about specific incidents, known perpetrators, or actual locations. The word was frequently used in disinformation campaigns against environmentalists who had no association with criminal acts or terrorism of any kind. The most egregious case of the label "ecoterrorist" being used for propaganda purposes came in the 1990 carbomb assassination attempt against Earth First! organizers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. The evidence presented in a series of court cases related to that event clearly shows that the environmentalists were double victims: first of a carbomb, then of a disinformation campaign and frameup that tried to make it appear that the victims were the perpetrators. There is a strong preponderance of evidence that the criminal frameup after the bombing was carried out by members of the Oakland, California police in conjunction with agents of the FBI. The victims were alleged to be "ecoterrorists" without any corroborative evidence. In fact, there never was any proof that Earth First had been involved in any criminal activities, despite repeated attempts of agents provocateurs to encourage them to use dynamite to emphasize their messages. Extensive documentation of the facts in the Earth First! case is available at http://www.judibari.org A simple definition of "ecoterrorism" without this background creates the impression that the word arose because there was a widespread outbreak of activities that fit the label. That hands a propaganda triumph to one side on an issue which is still a matter of great public concern. I get a terribly uncomfortable feeling when I recognize the slanted implications of words that are semi-covert weapons in a war I never wanted to be in. Propagandists for and against many kinds of activist movements have been honing their skills for a long time. I hope I've learned not to take on the conclusions they would foist on me without getting solid, independent, and convincing evidence first. It's no help when respectable dictionaries lend their weight to only one side in a multi-sided debate. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: This message is in not intended as a commentary on the alleged activities in 2000 or 2001 of a group called the Earth Liberation Front. It's not at all clear whether incidents attributed to that group have any connections with anyone who has taken any public stand about the environment. There's not enough evidence in the public record to demonstrate that ELF has any real existence outside the world of propaganda. Neither is there any definitive evidence that they are somebody's deliberate fake. I'd rather not get agitated for or against positions that are supposed to have the support of groups whose very existence (or non- existence!) marks an attempt to manipulate public opinion. I can't know what to think until I know lots more about who they are and where they think they're going. From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 16 13:30:06 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 08:30:06 -0500 Subject: Eco-Terrorism (Earth Liberation Front) In-Reply-To: <3A64478E.BD2C8EE6@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Mike Salovesh wrote: > It's a pity that the word > "ecoterrorism" has settled into dictionaries without background > information about the purposes behind its original use. Lack of that > background points to the ultimate success of an orchestrated attempt to > neutralize activists on one side of a public debate. It's worrisome that > dictionaries can become the vehicles of political propaganda even when > their editors have no intent of producing that outcome. Isn't this like asking that dictionaries only define words as they were used in Shakespeare's time? If the media "distort" the original vision of a term, and that is the way the term comes to be used in citation after citation, don't lexicographers have a duty to impart how the term sees use? > Propagandists for and against many kinds of activist movements have been > honing their skills for a long time. In this regard, wouldn't then the 'pro'-faction's definition of the term be as skewed as the 'anti'-faction's? This does highlight the difficulty in defining politcally charged words, though. --- Steve K. From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 16 14:56:09 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 09:56:09 -0500 Subject: Sturgeon's Law Message-ID: Sturgeon's Law in its original form stated stated "90% of everything is crud," but the last word is usually altered to "crap." I had always heard that it came up in a casual conversation between the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon and some fans. While that may be the case, Sturgeon apparently made it available to the broader world in a talk to the World Science Fiction Convention in 1953. That's according to an account by James Gunn in The New York Review of Science Fiction #85, September 1995. According to the Theodore Sturgeon FAQ, Sturgeon then wrote about "Sturgeon's Revelation" (as he then called it) in the March 1958 issue of Venture Science Fiction. The FAQ, with a link to the relevant portion of the Gunn account, is available at http://glinda.lrsm.upenn.edu/~weeks/misc/faq.html#slaw John Baker From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 16 15:21:54 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 10:21:54 -0500 Subject: Chad on the airstrip Message-ID: On the Web, I find http://www.airnav.com/airport/INS -- a description of the Indian Springs AF Aux. Airport in Nevada. The runway has a "smooth packed chad surface"! Is it an alternative spelling of "chat" = "gravel"? Or an erroneous spelling thereof? Or a joke (the page is dated 30 Nov. 2000)? Or is the runway covered with confetti? Or does someone use "chad" = "gravel" currently in the US? ["Packed chat surface" is found on the Web here and there.] -- Doug Wilson From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Tue Jan 16 15:18:50 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:18:50 -0000 Subject: Sturgeon's Law Message-ID: Please stop e-mailing this address, it is a business address and no one has requested to join your American Dialect Society please refrain from sending this JUNK!!! -----Original Message----- From: Baker, John To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: 16 January 2001 15:06 Subject: Sturgeon's Law > Sturgeon's Law in its original form stated stated "90% of everything >is crud," but the last word is usually altered to "crap." I had always >heard that it came up in a casual conversation between the science fiction >writer Theodore Sturgeon and some fans. While that may be the case, >Sturgeon apparently made it available to the broader world in a talk to the >World Science Fiction Convention in 1953. That's according to an account by >James Gunn in The New York Review of Science Fiction #85, September 1995. >According to the Theodore Sturgeon FAQ, Sturgeon then wrote about >"Sturgeon's Revelation" (as he then called it) in the March 1958 issue of >Venture Science Fiction. The FAQ, with a link to the relevant portion of >the Gunn account, is available at > >http://glinda.lrsm.upenn.edu/~weeks/misc/faq.html#slaw > > >John Baker > From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 16 16:44:01 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 11:44:01 -0500 Subject: Chad in China and Hungary Message-ID: Thanks to Frank Abate for the tip on the UK patent site. Only the English-language title is listed for Chinese patent # CN2032249U (1989): "ANCHOR FILLED WITH CERAMIC GRAVEL SAND HAYDITE AND CHAD". It seems likely that "chad" more or less = "gravel" here, rather than "paper residue". What is happening here? What was the Chinese word translated as "chad"? Maybe it was "chad" itself (loan-word transcribed as a phonetic like "cha-du") -- or "chat" or "chert" or ...? Or does somebody think "chad" is a good English translation of some Chinese word denoting a certain type of gravel or aggregate? Does "chad" appear = "gravel" or so in some Chinese/English dictionary? Or did somebody ask a Scots tourist or visiting engineer "What do you call this stuff?" ...? [Haydite appears to be a trade name for a shale aggregate, like gravel.] Only the English-language title is listed for Hungarian patent # HU171647 (1977): "MOVING TRACK TREATING MACHINE FOR PACKING CHAD UNDER SLEEPERS OF TRACK". Here it is clear what is being translated, since equivalent patents from other countries are available in text. The word being translated as "chad" is the German word "Schotter" [perhaps a cognate of "chad"?] = "gravel"/"ballast", translated "ballast" in the UK and US versions of the patent, "pierraille" in the French version, and of course "barasuto" in the Japanese one. I don't know whether "Schotter" was translated directly to "chad" or whether it was translated through Hungarian. I am entirely ignorant of Hungarian (and I don't have the Hungarian text anyway). Does "chad" = "gravel" appear in some German/English or Hungarian/English dictionary? [BTW, one Hungarian translation of "Schotter" might be "s?der" = "gravel" -- which is possibly a loan-word from German ("Schotter")? -- and I find Hungarian "s?derol" = something like "gab" or "chatter" -- could this be a loan-word too, perhaps from English ("chat"/"chatter")? Just a coincidence? Any of the local scholars familiar with Hungarian?] -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 17:20:21 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 12:20:21 EST Subject: "like that" Message-ID: I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 16 05:16:28 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 13:16:28 +0800 Subject: another etymological urban legend? Message-ID: These come from an e-mail list; the former derivation we KNOW is wrong, and I assume the latter is as well, although I don't specifically know this for a fact, and this IS the exact story (or a paraphrase of it) that Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable offers. Is it in fact a fable? (I would have wagered, in a very small denomination, that "son of a gun" was a euphemistic replacement for "sun of a bitch", but most such substitutions are alliterative, so this isn't terribly plausible either.) larry =============== Fact: Why do we say a computer or computer program has a "bug" in it when it malfunctions? Because once the problem really WAS a bug. In 1945, a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and a woman investigated and found a moth in one of the circuits. She removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer, it is said to have a bug in it. <><><><> Fact: Where did the expression "son of a gun" originate? "Son of a gun" has its origins with sailors. When a ship was in port for an extended period of time, wives and other women were permitted to live on board with the ship's crew. Occasionally, children would be born on board and a convenient place for the birth to happen was between guns on the gun deck. If the child's father was unknown, the child was entered in the ship's log as "Son of a gun." From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Tue Jan 16 19:23:36 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:23:36 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Second Call for Papers for the 7th Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture Message-ID: FYI >X-Authentication-Warning: galileo.cc.rochester.edu: majord set >sender to owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu using -f >From: "LD Linton" >To: , , > , , > , , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , , > , >Subject: Second Call for Papers for the 7th Conference on Language, >Interaction, and Culture >Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 08:09:37 -0800 >X-Priority: 3 >Sender: owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu >Status: > >Hello, > > I would appreciate your posting of the call for papers below on >any lists that may be relevant to the study of language, >interaction, and culture? >LD Linton > >Seventh Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture > >SECOND Call for Papers > >(PLEASE NOTE EXTENSION OF SUBMISSION DEADLINE TO FEB. 1, 2001!) > > > >Date: April 12-14, 2001 > >Location: University of California, Santa Barbara > >Plenary Speaker: Michael Lynch, Cornell University > >Website: http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/liso > > > >The annual conference promotes interdisciplinary research and >discussion in the analysis of naturally occurring human interaction. >Submissions from national, international, and University of >California scholars are encouraged. Research papers should address >topics in the study of language, interaction, and culture, and >should consist of naturally occurring data. Potential methods >include, but are not limited to, conversation analysis, discourse >analysis, ethnographic methods, ethnomethodology, interactional >linguistics, and interactional sociolinguistics. > >The Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture is jointly >organized and sponsored by the Language, Interaction, and Social >Organization (LISO) group and the Center for Language, Interaction, >and Culture (CLIC). LISO is an interdisciplinary faculty and >graduate student organization located on the campus of the >University of California, Santa Barbara. CLIC is a center comprised >of interdisciplinary faculty and graduate students located on the >campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. LISO and CLIC >are composed of researchers from the departments of Anthropology, >Applied Linguistics, Education, English, Linguistics, Psychology, >and Sociology. > > > >Submission Guidelines > >Presentations will be 20 minutes in length followed by a 10-minute >discussion period. Submissions from graduate students and junior >faculty are especially encouraged. > > > >Submission of abstracts must be in hard copy and should contain: > > > >1) A hard copy detachable title page that includes: > >a) the title of the paper > >b) the author's name, affiliation, postal address, e-mail, and >phone number > >c) a list of equipment needed for the presentation (subject to >availability) > > > >2) THREE HARD COPIES of a 500-1,000 word maximum extended >abstract of the paper that includes: > >a) the title of the paper and description of the project > >b) a brief description of methodology > >c) a description of the data > > > >3) An email sent to >lisograd at alishaw.sscf.ucsb.edu >with "Submission" in the subject line and Title Page and Extended >Abstract attached in a Rich Text Format (.rtf) formatted document. >Electronic submissions will not be considered unless accompanied by >hard copies. > > No information identifying the author may appear in the abstract. > > > >Three (hard) copies of submitted abstracts and the electronic >submission must be received no later than FEBRUARY 1, 2001. >Submissions not received in triplicate or by the FEBRUARY 1, 2001 >deadline will not be considered. > > >Papers selected from conference presentations, with the permission >of the author, will be published in the volume of conference >proceedings. > > >Further inquiries can be addressed via e-mail to: >lisograd at alishaw.sscf.ucsb.edu > >All submissions should be mailed to: > > >LISO Graduate Student Association >Department of Sociology >Ellison Hall, Room 2834 >University of California, Santa Barbara >Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9430 > > > > > *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 5250 bytes Desc: not available URL: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Jan 16 19:33:27 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 11:33:27 -0800 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: ron butters: >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 19:33:54 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:33:54 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: In a message dated Sun, 14 Jan 2001 18:28:48 Eastern Standard Time, Fred Shapiro writes: >I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers. Examples would >be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" >or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Can anyone suggest other >sayings of this nature?s That should have been "Do not bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate." WYSIWYG (acronym for "What you see is what you get") sounds like a proverb but it isn't. Rather it is a descriptive adjectival phrase, stating that what is displayed on the monitor matches what will appear on the printer. "to boot" a computer has nothing to do with footwear, kicking a malfunctioning machine, or the apocryphal German training film for PC users "DOS Boot". Instead it is a shortening of "bootstrap", itself extracted from the old saying "to pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps". When a computer is first brought into operation (known as a "cold start", as opposed to a "warm start", in which software is still running from a previous use) a small program known as a "bootstrap loader" has to be run to bring in a bigger program which brought in etc. until all the necessary software was in the computer's memory and ready to run. In punch-card days bootstrapping a computer could be a major effort. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is in ROM and almost invisible. "three-finger salute" sounds obscene but isn't. Instead it is the Control-Alt-Delete key sequence needed to boot a PC-compatible. By the way, those three keys were chosen because with the original IBM PC keyboard it was impossible to hit those three keys simultaneously by accident with one hand. "hard reset" (to fix a problem by turning the power off and back on) "deadly embrace" a type of computer gridlock e.g. program A is using tape drive 1 and wants tape drive 2; program B is using drive 2 and wants drive 1; neither can proceed until one program is cancelled "race condition" situation in which two or more programs are running and the outcome depends on which one gets started first "aomic operation" a computer operation that cannot be interrupted before it is completed big-endian versus little endian?a term picked up from Gulliver's Travels. Describes whether numbers are stored in a computer high-end first or low-end first (a headache in certain types of programming) FUD or "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" in the old days what IBM salesmen were said to create in the mind of users contemplating using a competitor's product. "iron" computer hardware, with the connotation of either 1) mainframe hardware or 2) obsolescence "IBM and the Seven Dwarfs" IBM and its domestic competitors Burroughs, Univac, National Cash Register, Control Data, Honeywell, General Electric and RCA. After the last two dropped out, the competitors became "the BUNCH". "bit bucket" the mythical but much-cited destination for data that gets lost during processing. A one-time supervisor of mine preferred "that big database in the sky". "write-only memory" euphemism for not being able to remember something "daisy-wheel" a type of printer common in the early 1980's but no longer seen "golf ball" the type element for the once-omnipresent IBM Selectric typewriter. I had a friend who was descended from a long line of Marine sergeants and habitually spoke as such. He also owned a Selectric. I unintentionally left him speechless one day when I needed some typewriter cleaner and asked him, "Do you have any of that stuff you clean your balls with?" "gender-changer" or "gender-bender" a piece of equipment to join two male plugs or two female plugs. I requisitioned a gender-changer once and Purchasing called me long-distance to ask if this were a joke? "Winchester" the original name for what is now prosaically called a "hard disk." Named after the Winchester .30-30 rifle because the original model stored 30 megabytes of data with an access time of 30 milliseconds. James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA P,.S. to Bapopil at AOL.COM: Airplanes do not have "drive by wire". Instead they use "fly-by-wire", a term cited in Merriam-Webster's Tenth Collegiate as dating from 1968 (the technique goes back at least to the Boeing B-17) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 19:44:44 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:44:44 EST Subject: Hoogie (January 1941), Hogie (September 1943) Message-ID: In Philadelphia the Franklin Institute had for several years an exhibit on "Shipbuilding in Philadelphia". One of the displays was about the Hog Island Shipyard and included the information that the "hoagie" was invented and named for Hog Island. Unfortunately the exhibit has been removed sometime in the last year or so so I can't quote the exact text. Someone might want to contact the Franklin Institute for the evidence behind this claim. Also, somebody said > >(Isn't a grinder a sandwich?...No submarine sandwiches in New London/Groton > >at all!--ed.) This statement implies the theory that a "submarine sandwich" was so called because it was consumed by sailors on submarines. I was under the impression the name originated because of the shape of the sandwich (I have heard the bread used called a "torpedo roll"), in which case submariners and their relatives in New London might not feel possessive about the name. Jim Landau -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 16 20:08:20 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:08:20 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: Larry Horn writes: >>>>> funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include Is there turkey yet? on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. <<<<< I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the (putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the inception of an expected future state: His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: Is there yet turkey? Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) -- Mark A. Mandel From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 20:31:38 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:31:38 EST Subject: "like that" Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/01 2:34:00 PM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: << yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? >> yup From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 16 20:21:01 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:21:01 -0500 Subject: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy, Lakhoff, Dilliard, McDavid, Nixon in 1974. Message-ID: Alice Faber remembers: >>>>> [...] buying an "I Am Not A Crook" t-shirt at the student union. I still have the t-shirt, but have never worn it; Nixon resigned that night. <<<<< I had an IMPEACH NIXON button. When he resigned, I wrote INOPERATIVE on a little slip of paper and taped it diagonally across the button, which I still have. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 16 20:32:37 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 15:32:37 -0500 Subject: s -> z /V_V (was: deixis and deictic) Message-ID: "Dennis R. Preston" writes: >>>>> [from Beverly:] >dInIs, wassup with your 'whuzzup'?! Maybe the voiced form is used by some? Indeed more than some. The fate of many intervocalics I reckon. <<<<< I have often noticed "electri[z]ity". On my whiteboard right now is the grandfathered list scissors possess dessert Any more contributions? -- Mark From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 16 11:41:20 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:41:20 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:08 PM -0500 1/16/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Larry Horn writes: > >>>>>> >funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a >well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and >adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) >that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include > >Is there turkey yet? > >on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the >utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping >some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives >early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. ><<<<< > >I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the >(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the >inception of an expected future state: > > His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. > >I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: > > Is there yet turkey? > >Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. >But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) I think they're at least slightly different. I can get Mark's example but only if I stress the "yet". The Wisconsinite "yet" was unstressed and lacks the rhetorical effect of the stressed "yet" = 'still' examples ("I remember it yet", "They can win it yet"). For those of us not in the relevant dialect group, the unstressed ("Is there turkey yet?") struck us as really deviant. larry From Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 00:39:43 2001 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:39:43 EST Subject: "sny" Message-ID: Sorry it's taken me so long to track down this citation, for what it's worth. "Sni, Sny French chenal, appearing in American French as chenail, as a generic for a natural, narrow passageway of water, became Sny in American usage, and appears as a specific in a few names, chiefly in Mo. Sniabar Creek Mo.; either from chenail-a-barre, 'sny with a bar (blockage),' or from chenail-a-Hubert (Hebert) from the name of a local French family." George R. Stewart, American Place-Names (1970) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 00:45:06 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:45:06 -0500 Subject: Sturgeon's Law In-Reply-To: <000701c07fcf$a29b04c0$721c78d5@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >Tsk Tsk. What if we called your Hondas JUNK? dInIs >Please stop e-mailing this address, it is a business address >and no one has requested to join your American Dialect Society >please refrain from sending this JUNK!!! > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Baker, John >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Date: 16 January 2001 15:06 >Subject: Sturgeon's Law > > >> Sturgeon's Law in its original form stated stated "90% of >everything >>is crud," but the last word is usually altered to "crap." I had always >>heard that it came up in a casual conversation between the science fiction >>writer Theodore Sturgeon and some fans. While that may be the case, >>Sturgeon apparently made it available to the broader world in a talk to the >>World Science Fiction Convention in 1953. That's according to an account >by >>James Gunn in The New York Review of Science Fiction #85, September 1995. >>According to the Theodore Sturgeon FAQ, Sturgeon then wrote about >>"Sturgeon's Revelation" (as he then called it) in the March 1958 issue of >>Venture Science Fiction. The FAQ, with a link to the relevant portion of >>the Gunn account, is available at > > > >http://glinda.lrsm.upenn.edu/~weeks/misc/faq.html#slaw > > > > > >John Baker > > -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 00:51:10 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:51:10 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <200101161933.LAA05628@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >Thanks Arnold; it's about time somebody taught Ron what a pronoun is. dInIs >ron butters: > >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." > >yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? > >arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 17 00:59:48 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 16:59:48 -0800 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <200101161933.LAA05628@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? --On Tue, Jan 16, 2001 11:33 AM -0800 Arnold Zwicky wrote: > ron butters: > >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." > > yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Wed Jan 17 02:02:11 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:02:11 -0500 Subject: AH-CHOO! Message-ID: Friends, Linguists, Grammarians, I could spend some time poring over my Longman's COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR (1985), but if anyone has an answer off the top of his head to the question at the bottom, please help. I just checked the OED disk (1988) and it has neither "ah-choo" nor "achoo." "Ahem" is in, though, and occurs 18 times in the text; "humph" 11 times; "zzz," the last entry in the OXFORD CANADIAN/CONCISE OXFORD, occurs a couple of times in the OED in the sawing and snoring senses. There are 42 occurrences of "interj." in the OED text but none has the sneeze as headword in any shape or form. "No sneezing please, we are British?" And no "Gesundheit" (an OED entry) or "Bless you" either? When I am in London next month, I hope to gather first-hand evidence on the subject. The main question for help from the List: If body language is "nonverbal," as the Random House Dictionary and all the literature cited by Michal Lisecki (Jan. 9) seem to say, does the sneeze (which is vocal, with its vocal/verbal counterpart as "Ah-choo") qualify as body language in some sense? If it does, I would like to use it as a checkpoint with my informant group since sneezing exists in all cultures with only very minor variations. A suppressed sneeze, I suppose, doesn't qualify as a sneeze. But I could benefit very much from your comments on the grammar side. TOM PAIKEDAY (trying not to sound dumb) Thomas Paikeday wrote: . . . Is the part-of-speech called > interj. verbal or nonverbal? (Please see RHD def. of BODY LANGUAGE). I appreciate > it is vocal, as in "Ah-choo!" . . . > From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Wed Jan 17 02:03:38 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:03:38 -0500 Subject: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy,Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Message-ID: Doug Wilson, Many thanks for going out of your way to research this. I just checked the 1990 database of contemporary American English I used in my _User's(R) Webster_ and there is evidence of the story's being a broadcast item, like "[The regulators] fear the federal camel will stick its nose into the states' tent" (Best's Review, Dec. 1990). Oral testimony, of course, is much better on this issue. I too think the Proverbs book (DAP, 1992) missed a whole lot of evidence (Well, it's not exactly DARE, e&oe). As for a Greek fable becoming a Malayalam proverb, my speculation is Greek influence. Ancient Greeks used to trade for spices on the Malabar coast. Cheers! Tom Paikeday ========================== "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > > >My own explanation is that > >the MSW not being from Oregon (as in A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS), > >he cannot be blamed for making me explain the fable to him, but the > >prior being from Illinois should probably have known better. > > Now I see (I went to the library). The book gives Illinois and Oregon as > the distribution of the story. I think this must be wrong or perhaps > outdated. I can't remember where I heard it long ago but I think Michigan. > I showed the glossed passage in Tom Paikeday's e-mail to my son (a young > Pennsylvanian with no Malayalam) and he recognized it instantly, told the > story and interpreted it as "Even slight evil should not be permitted" or > so. I didn't tell it to him. I suppose this story has been broadcast; maybe > it's been used in churches and schools all over; maybe it was on "Sesame > Street" or something. What do the scholars say? > > -- Doug Wilson From dmsnake at USIT.NET Wed Jan 17 02:48:37 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:48:37 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: I heard that, like, she was like, "Some people think he's like that, but he's not really 'like that' like that. But, like, it's like he just acts like that he's like that." Peter A. McGraw wrote: > How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? > > --On Tue, Jan 16, 2001 11:33 AM -0800 Arnold Zwicky > wrote: > > > ron butters: > > >I remember hearing "He's like that" in the 1960s--meant "He is gay." > > > > yes, but did you also hear "It seems like that he's like that"? > > > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 03:19:42 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 22:19:42 -0500 Subject: AH-CHOO! In-Reply-To: <3A64FD23.6229B22@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Thomas Paikeday wrote: > I just checked the OED disk (1988) and it has neither "ah-choo" nor > "achoo." "Ahem" is in, though, and occurs 18 times in the text; "humph" It is in the OED under the spelling "atishoo." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 05:10:23 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 00:10:23 EST Subject: "like that" Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/2001 7:49:00 PM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: << >Thanks Arnold; it's about time somebody taught Ron what a pronoun is. dInIs >> From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 08:42:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 03:42:21 EST Subject: Jump the Shark; Turf Legend Pat Lynch Is Dead Message-ID: JUMP THE SHARK From the NEW YORK PRESS, January 17-23, 2001, pg. 86, col. 3: Maureen Dowd, as the latest Internet witticism proclaims, has truly "jumped the shark" at a very young age. That is, it's all downhill. See www.jumptheshark.com. The phrase is usually associated with TV programs. It supposedly comes from Fonzi's jumping a shark motorcycle in HAPPY DAYS. -------------------------------------------------------- TURF LEGEND PAT LYNCH IS DEAD There was no mention in the NEW YORK TIMES. This is from the NEW YORK POST, 16 January 2001, pg. 65, col. 3: _Turf Legend Lynch dead at 84_ By ED FOUNTAINE Pat Lynch, a mainstay in the press box of New York racing for more than a half-century, died yesterday after a long illness at age 84. A New York native, Lynch worked for the Hearst newspapers for more than 30 years, at one point running copy for the legendary Damon Runyon. As the racing columnist for the World Telegram and Sun, Lynch won two Eclipse Awards for outstanding turf writing. (...) After his retirement he continued to attend the races on a near-daily basis. Almost ten years years ago, I called the New York Racing Association and asked if anyone knew who John J. Fitz Gerald was. Everyone associated with racing told me to call Pat Lynch. Everyone said that Lynch knew everything. They told me that he could be found every day in the press box. "No, Fitz didn't coin the Big Apple," Lynch told me. "We called him Jack Fitz." "He couldn't even write his own name!" I gave great weight to this and thought that perhaps Gerald Cohen and I had gotten the wrong guy. Ultimately, I found the Fitz Gerald columns where he discussed "the Big Apple." These were written before Lynch was ten years old. Lynch had known Fitz Gerald on the downside, when he was, perhaps, a drunk. Now dead are Pat Lynch; Cab Calloway (who helped bring "the Big Apple" to Harlem); Gene Ward (the Daily News columnist who called Aqueduct "the Big A"); Charles Gillett (the NY Convention and Visitors Bureau President who popularized the term in the 1970s); and Shirley Povich (the legendary Washington Post sportswriter who was hired by Fitz Gerald's brother). The New York Times has yet to write the story. I ask once again for William Safire and his assistant to talk to me and to correct the errors associated with my name. I have waited a long time. From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 17 13:04:04 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 08:04:04 -0500 Subject: another etymological urban legend? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Son of a gun": Isn't a rhyme as good as an alliteration? The Cassell slang dictionary says it's euphemistic for "son of a bitch" ... but derives the "gun" from "gonnof", which strikes me as unlikely. Partridge doesn't give an etymology but dates it from early 1700's, and points out a second meaning "soldier's bastard" [now obsolete, I think] with an 1823 reference. Farmer and Henley give the "soldier's bastard" definition and also the general one, and quotes an 1867 reference which gives the "boy born on ship" story. Random House dates it from 1700-10 and says it's perhaps originally "soldier's bastard". MW (Web) gives 1708 and considers it a euphemism although without giving explicit etymology. Chapman considers it euphemistic but quotes the "boy born on ship" story. I'm agnostic. Possibly there was a separate origin but even if so I think the expression quickly found a career as a euphemism. -- Doug Wilson From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Wed Jan 17 15:03:04 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 10:03:04 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) Message-ID: FYI. Although it doesn't mention language in the South, that topic does not seem to be excluded. --SL >Call for Papers: >"Souths, Global and Local: An Interdisciplinary Conference" >April 5-7, 2001 >University of Florida >Gainesville, Florida > > >What have been, and continue to be, the connotations of "the South?" Why >and how are regional spaces marked, mapped and/or constructed? How >might southern regions be studied in juxtaposition with one another? How >might >these questions intersect with work in regional studies, cultural studies, >critical theory, foreign languages, literature, history, >architecture, environmental studies, economics, political science, gender >studies, film and media studies, sociology, >anthropology, music and fine arts? > >We invite papers and/or presentations which examine the identifications >and significations of southern regions from local and/or global contexts >(and also contexts which interrogate the global/local opposition). >Creative works and performances along with panel presentations will be >considered. > >Possible topics may include but are not limited to: > >Southern Regionalisms in the Arts >The Two Birminghams: England's Center for Cultural Studies and Birmingham, >Alabama >The "Global South" and Late Capitalism >Modernity and Development in "the South" >The South of Which North? >Roundtable: Editing Journals in/about southern regions >Travel and Tourism >Artistic and Cultural Representations of "the South" >Southern Cartographies and (Post)Colonialism >Nostalgia and/or Primitivism >Nationalisms and "the South" >Southern Identities (Ethnic, Gendered, Classed) >Geographies and the Digital >Craft and Design >Regionalism and/in Popular Culture >Comparative Southern Regionalisms > >Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes each. > >Please send two copies of a one-page abstract or proposal by February 1, >2001 to: > >ego at clas.ufl.edu > >or > >EGO >c/o Department of English. >PO BOX 117310 >University of Florida >Gainesville, FL 32611-117310 > >This conference is sponsored by the Department of English, ACCENT, and the >College >of Liberal Arts and Science Student Council and organized by the English >Graduate >Organization. > >For further information, visit: http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/EGO/ > > > > >-------------------------------------- >"To be eaten by a sandwich..." > >J.Rice >University of Florida >http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jrice > >Yellow Dog: >http://www.ydog.net *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Wed Jan 17 16:17:39 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:17:39 -0500 Subject: MLK tidbit In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my aunt taped the interview. On there, he talks about how he came to the U.S. in his late teens. I've bought his book so I'll check there. --Sonja >For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE >rhoticity. > >In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, >115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a >stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier >in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at >62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. > > >Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still >79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - >187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, >it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as >'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast >to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% >(27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and >'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the >DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC >speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. > > >Happy Martin Luther King Day, > >Nancy Elliott >Southern Oregon University *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 16:19:07 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:19:07 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Our thanks to Sonja for sending this around, but it is a pretty sad >commentary - either on us (for not letting people know that >linguists are interested in, have been interested in, and have >important things to say about such topics) or on the University of >Florida's English Department [sic] which apparently wants to sponsor >a conference on "Southern Identity" but "forgot" language. (Well, >maybe they just "gave it" to the local linguists so they could get >down to their more important work.) dInIs (harumph) >FYI. Although it doesn't mention language in the South, that topic >does not seem to be excluded. --SL > >>Call for Papers: >>"Souths, Global and Local: An Interdisciplinary Conference" >>April 5-7, 2001 >>University of Florida >>Gainesville, Florida >> >> >>What have been, and continue to be, the connotations of "the South?" Why >>and how are regional spaces marked, mapped and/or constructed? How >>might southern regions be studied in juxtaposition with one another? How >>might >>these questions intersect with work in regional studies, cultural studies, >>critical theory, foreign languages, literature, history, >>architecture, environmental studies, economics, political science, gender >>studies, film and media studies, sociology, >>anthropology, music and fine arts? >> >>We invite papers and/or presentations which examine the identifications >>and significations of southern regions from local and/or global contexts >>(and also contexts which interrogate the global/local opposition). >>Creative works and performances along with panel presentations will be >>considered. >> >>Possible topics may include but are not limited to: >> >>Southern Regionalisms in the Arts >>The Two Birminghams: England's Center for Cultural Studies and Birmingham, >>Alabama >>The "Global South" and Late Capitalism >>Modernity and Development in "the South" >>The South of Which North? >>Roundtable: Editing Journals in/about southern regions >>Travel and Tourism >>Artistic and Cultural Representations of "the South" >>Southern Cartographies and (Post)Colonialism >>Nostalgia and/or Primitivism >>Nationalisms and "the South" >>Southern Identities (Ethnic, Gendered, Classed) >>Geographies and the Digital >>Craft and Design >>Regionalism and/in Popular Culture >>Comparative Southern Regionalisms >> >>Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes each. >> >>Please send two copies of a one-page abstract or proposal by February 1, >>2001 to: >> >>ego at clas.ufl.edu >> >>or >> >>EGO >>c/o Department of English. >>PO BOX 117310 >>University of Florida >>Gainesville, FL 32611-117310 >> >>This conference is sponsored by the Department of English, ACCENT, and the >>College >>of Liberal Arts and Science Student Council and organized by the English >>Graduate >>Organization. >> >>For further information, visit: http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/EGO/ >> >> >> >> >>-------------------------------------- >>"To be eaten by a sandwich..." >> >>J.Rice >>University of Florida >>http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jrice >> >>Yellow Dog: >>http://www.ydog.net > > >*************************************************** >Sonja L. Lanehart >Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) >University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) >300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) >Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu >*************************************************** -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:37:36 2001 From: mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Salikoko Mufwene) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 10:37:36 -0800 Subject: MLK tidbit In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:17 AM 1/17/2001 -0500, you wrote: >I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not >U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my >aunt taped the interview. On there, he talks about how he came to the >U.S. in his late teens. I've bought his book so I'll check there. >--Sonja > That was my impression too. I was shocked to learn otherwise. I suspect that being born and partly raised in the Bahamas was one of his qualifications to become the Ambassador Plenipontentiary of the Islands. Sali. ********************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene at uchicago.edu University of Chicago 773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924 Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html ********************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 17 17:49:42 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 09:49:42 -0800 Subject: another etymological urban legend? Message-ID: on "son of a gun": there are two really obvious (and not incompatible) sources, both involving metonymy - "gun" the weapon extended to the wielder of the weapon, that is, a soldier; and the metaphorical "gun" 'penis' extended to *its* wielder, a virile man. the first would be only mildly pejorative, the second not at all. in current usage, "son of a gun" is exclamatory and scarcely pejorative, if at all. its use in exclamations like "well, i'll be a son of a gun!" (or just plain "son of a gun!" 'wow!') and in affectionate address forms like "how are you, you ol' son of a gun?" make it very different from "son of a bitch". "he's a real son of a gun" is just perplexing to me, certainly not an insulting reference (the way "he's a real son of a bitch" is). what's the history of its uses? can we tell from the context of the earlier citations? the boy-born-on-ship story sounds quite far-fetched to me, and i'm not even sure about the euphemism account ("gun" is good as a rhyme for "son", but an extremely poor substitute for "bitch", to which it bears no phonological *or* semantic relationship). maybe the history is pretty prosaic. [by the way, aren't there insulting/pejorative occurrences of "son of a dog" from the 19th century or earlier? or is this just bad-movie dialogue?] arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Wed Jan 17 17:16:28 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:16:28 -0600 Subject: MLK tidbit Message-ID: According to the A&E Biography, Poitier was "Born in Miami in 1924 and raised on a tomato farm in the Bahamas." For more info, see http://www.amctv.com/behind/stars/poitier.html Elizabeth Gregory >>> lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU 01/17/01 10:17AM >>> I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my aunt taped the interview. On there, he talks about how he came to the U.S. in his late teens. I've bought his book so I'll check there. --Sonja >For Martin Luther King Day, here's a linguistic tidbit about Southern AAVE >rhoticity. > >In MLK's 1963 "I have a dream" speech, King (born in Atlanta) is 85% r-less, >115 out of 135 tokens (the rhotic pronunciations are virtually all in a >stressed or unstressed central V). Compare Miami-born actor Sydney Poitier >in Patch of Blue (1965) at 69% and in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) at >62%... versus Philadelphian Bill Cosby in Mother Jugs & Speed (1976) at 11%. > > >Thirty-seven years later, Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina) was still >79% r-less in his speech at the 2000 Democratic National Convention - >187/237 tokens - (but rather than being purely phonologically conditioned, >it looks like his rhotic tokens are mainly a few lexical items such as >'workers' - both syllables, 'center, deferred, surplus'). A fun contrast >to him is Ted Kennedy, whose r-less rate in his DNC-2000 speech was 11% >(27/252 tokens), confined mainly to the words 'mother,' 'brother(s),' and >'seniors' - but not 'father.' (Oh, and Caroline Kennedy's address at the >DNC was 0% r-less.) I'll eventually get to the other African-American DNC >speakers (M and F) so I can compare them. > > >Happy Martin Luther King Day, > >Nancy Elliott >Southern Oregon University *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 17 17:59:43 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 12:59:43 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes [irritating MIME artefacts removed]: >>>>> big-endian versus little endian: a term picked up from Gulliver's Travels. Describes whether numbers are stored in a computer high-end first or low-end first (a headache in certain types of programming) <<<<< I have seen these terms as "big Indian" and "little Indian", presumably thanks to people who heard them with no idea of where they came from or the details of what they referred to. Pfaugh! Yes, yes, dInIs et al., prenasal raising could have been involved. But I don't recall that there was any reason or need to invoke it when simple ignorance sufficed. BTW, I would not call this (and some other terms James cites) a proverb, but rather a term, an expression, a piece of jargon, a specialized lexical item. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 17 18:03:27 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:03:27 -0500 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: Larry replies to my speculation: >>>>> >I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the >(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the >inception of an expected future state: > > His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. > >I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: > > Is there yet turkey? > >Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. >But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) I think they're at least slightly different. I can get Mark's example but only if I stress the "yet". The Wisconsinite "yet" was unstressed and lacks the rhetorical effect of the stressed "yet" = 'still' examples ("I remember it yet", "They can win it yet"). For those of us not in the relevant dialect group, the unstressed ("Is there turkey yet?") struck us as really deviant. <<<<< I agree that they're different in prosody, and the unstressed construction being asked about sounds bizarre to me too. I'm not saying they're the same; I'm speculating about a historical precedent and origin, wondering whether this construction *could have arisen from* a use of "yet" = 'still'. -- Mark From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 17 18:04:57 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:04:57 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: "Peter A. McGraw" writes: >>>>> How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? <<<<< I'm really getting to dislike dis. -- Mark From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:44:38 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 10:44:38 -0800 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: mark mandel: >I'm really getting to dislike dis. are you dissing us? arnold From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:48:13 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:48:13 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I have also seen Big and Little Indian used by non-native speakers >(in published documentation, in fact) who know the computer details >verry well. Don't "Pfaugh" too quickly. dInIs >"James A. Landau" writes [irritating MIME artefacts >removed]: > >>>>>> >big-endian versus little endian: >a term picked up from Gulliver's Travels. >Describes whether numbers are stored in a computer high-end first or low-end >first (a headache in certain types of programming) ><<<<< > >I have seen these terms as "big Indian" and "little Indian", presumably >thanks to people who heard them with no idea of where they came from or the >details of what they referred to. Pfaugh! > >Yes, yes, dInIs et al., prenasal raising could have been involved. But I >don't recall that there was any reason or need to invoke it when simple >ignorance sufficed. > >BTW, I would not call this (and some other terms James cites) a proverb, >but rather a term, an expression, a piece of jargon, a specialized lexical >item. > >-- Mark A. Mandel -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 18:49:49 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:49:49 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Are you really getting to dislike dis tread ob de conbersation, or >are you really getting to dislike the item "dis"? dInIs (asleep in MI) >"Peter A. McGraw" writes: > >>>>>> >How about, "Like, it seems like that he's like, like that"? ><<<<< > >I'm really getting to dislike dis. > >-- Mark -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 06:00:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 14:00:58 +0800 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Larry replies to my speculation: > >>>>>> >>I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the >>(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the >>inception of an expected future state: >> >> His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. >> >>I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: >> >> Is there yet turkey? >> >>Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. >>But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) > >I think they're at least slightly different. I can get Mark's >example but only if I stress the "yet". The Wisconsinite "yet" was >unstressed and lacks the rhetorical effect of the stressed "yet" = >'still' examples ("I remember it yet", "They can win it yet"). For >those of us not in the relevant dialect group, the unstressed ("Is >there turkey yet?") struck us as really deviant. ><<<<< > >I agree that they're different in prosody, and the unstressed construction >being asked about sounds bizarre to me too. I'm not saying they're the >same; I'm speculating about a historical precedent and origin, wondering >whether this construction *could have arisen from* a use of "yet" >= 'still'. >-- Mark Maybe so, but if there's influence from German "nokh" and Yiddish "noch" in the former (unstressed) 'still'-type of "yet", it's not simply an extension of meaning/use. larry From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 17 19:10:55 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:10:55 -0800 Subject: "is, is" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Quote from a meeting this morning: "The thing is, is it takes too much time..." Here the second _is_ seems to be a conjunction; but then it could also plausibly have been followed by _that_: "The thing is, is that it takes..." I'm sorry to get us back to the _that_ topic, but here it's a bother again in an absent way; or, rather, in the first sentence it's present to a negative degree. Can anything other than _is_ and silence replace _that_? ("I know it's hard...") Peter R. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 20:20:33 2001 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 15:20:33 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: <200101171844.KAA11333@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky wrote: >mark mandel: > >I'm really getting to dislike dis. > >are you dissing us? > No way. He's dissing dis. Alice -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 17 21:49:57 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 16:49:57 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Yeah, but is he dissing "dis" or is he dissing the "dis" which is >synonymous with" this"? That is, is he dissing things lexical or >things phonetic. dInIs (whose fricatives are all in place) >Arnold Zwicky wrote: >>mark mandel: >>>I'm really getting to dislike dis. >> >>are you dissing us? >> >No way. He's dissing dis. > >Alice >-- >============================================================================== >Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu >Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 >New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 17 22:03:21 2001 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 17:03:21 -0500 Subject: "like that" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ain't ambiguity grand! Dennis R. Preston wrote: >Yeah, but is he dissing "dis" or is he dissing the "dis" which is >synonymous with" this"? That is, is he dissing things lexical or >things phonetic. > >dInIs (whose fricatives are all in place) > > > >>Arnold Zwicky wrote: >>>mark mandel: >>>>I'm really getting to dislike dis. >>> >>>are you dissing us? >>> >>No way. He's dissing dis. -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From m0470386 at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Thu Jan 18 00:25:20 2001 From: m0470386 at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (Jarrid Deaton) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 19:25:20 -0500 Subject: help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: quick question, how do I get off this list? Thanks From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 00:40:25 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 19:40:25 EST Subject: Keep Your Shirt On; Stream-Lined Proverbs Message-ID: KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON I was looking for my "boxer" shorts. From INSTITUTE NEWS (Underwear Institute), 15 May 1939, pg. 4, col. 1: "You will be cooler if you KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON." The idea is for the underwear manufacturers to distribute these buttons to retail knitted cotton underwear clerks throughout the country to be worn during Cotton Week. -------------------------------------------------------- STREAM-LINED PROVERBS "STREAM-LINED PROVERBS" ran in several issues. 15 July 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 2, col. 1: A word to the wife is insufficient. 15 September 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 11, col. 1: Early to bed and early to rise, and your girl goes out with other guys. 15 October 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 5, col. 1: Time, tide and auto trucks wait for no man. All work and no play makes jack. Where there's a road there's a detour (autoists' version). A brain is only as strong as its weakest think. 15 October 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 8, col. 1: It is better to have loved a short man than never to have loved a tall. Children should be seen and not hurried. People who live near gas houses should not throw matches. 15 October 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 9, col. 1: The fool and his joke are soon started. Everything comes to him who orders hash. 15 November 1939, INSTITUTE NEWS, pg. 7, col. 1: No backbone is stronger than its weakest vertebra (chiropractic version). A sock on the foot is worth two on the jaw. Sufficient unto the day is the drivel thereof. Look before you lip. If at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again (recommended for wives). A rolling pin gathers no husbands. Distance makes the heart grow fonder (radio version). What fools these mortals think other mortals be! A nose should be seen and not heard. He who laughs last has told the joke. He who courts and does not wed has to come to court instead. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 01:03:20 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:03:20 EST Subject: Western Union publications Message-ID: DOTS AND DASHES I was looking through Western Union publications for "chad." DOT AND DASHES is a Western Union publication of "interesting stories of progress in the telegraph industry." However, it's all fluff. May 1929, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 3: "May your LINES fall in pleasant places, your CIRCUIT abound in loyal friends; your CURRENT continue without BREAK, CROSS or JAR until '30' is called and you receive the glad message, 'Well done thou good and faithful servant.'" January 1930, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1: ...Wall Street, and who date everything "Before Crash" or "After Decline" these tidings should bring great joy. July 1931, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 2: "(Cyrus--ed.) Field knew no such word as fail," Captain Napper declares, in times "when people thought he was a crank." July 1932, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 2, col. 2: There are no "ifs," "ands" or "buts" about it... January 1935, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1: _When You Want to Know Ask Western Union_ (Arthur Miller's play ALL MY SONS has "When you want to know, ask Joe"--ed.) March-April 1938, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1: _"If You Want a Boy--Call Western Union"_ "IF you want a boy," say the funsters, "call Western Union." This, one of the vintage telegraph jokes, the hardy perennial in the garden of gags, older than the hoariest stories about the defunct Tin Lizzie and as ancient as the wheezes about post office pens, has not only outlived them all but is now going stronger than ever before. 1942, DOTS AND DASHES, vol. XVIII, no. 4, pg. 1, col. 1: "Does our Jean Gabin...have what it takes?" 1943, DOTS AND DASHES, vol. XIX, no. 2, pg. 1, col. 1: _Womanpower Speeds War Messages._ -------------------------------------------------------- INSIDE WESTERN UNION by M. J. (Mike) Rivise Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1950 Pg. 86: "73" meant "greetings, hello, best regards, good wishes." "20" meant "kiss." "84" meant "kiss my--hand." "30" meant "farewell." It also meant "death." It was the telegraph operators' own mystic symbol of conclusion, later adopted by newspaper reporters who had worked closely with the operators. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 01:44:13 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:44:13 EST Subject: Jazzerati Message-ID: I've seen this recently. JAZZERATI--29 hits on Dow Jones, from 1996. (It was the name of a horse in the earliest hits.) JAZZERATTI--3 hits on Dow Jones, all recent. JAZZARATI--1 recent hit on Dow Jones. From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 18 03:34:41 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 21:34:41 -0600 Subject: like conflated Message-ID: >From an AP release. Aaron Hunter, chief of staff for freshman Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif): "In San Diego, I was, like, shorts. Here you have to wear these," thumbing stylish pleated pants. "It's the uniform." DMLance From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Thu Jan 18 03:47:36 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:47:36 -0500 Subject: AH-CHOO! Message-ID: Fred, What would we do without someone like you to track things down! I am familiar with "Atishoo" but it never occurred to me to look it up. Curiously enough, "atchoo" is listed in the OED as a variant of "atishoo." The eternal problem of English dictionary users is finding the spelling of a word one has only heard, not seen: If you can't spell a word how can you look it up in the dictionary? The best solution that I know of so far is Marvin Morrison's _Word City_ inspired by Hebrew (consonants only). Thus, if you don't know the spelling of the sound made by clearing the throat, look under HM in _Word City_ and you have the choice of ahem, ham, hem, him . . . whom. "Atishoo" is interesting in several other respects. OED calls it "imitative." I think it is as imitative as "cock-a-doodle-doo." Secondly, what is the "i" doing in "Atishoo"? I don't ever recall hearing a trisyllabic sneeze. But then words and spellings can be very arbitrary. And are there syllables in every utterance? Thirdly, how come "Atishoo" is not entered in desk dictionaries like the CANADIAN OXFORD and the CONCISE OXFORD? (Cf. the Websters). It cannot be that the sneeze has a lesser frequency of occurrence in Britain than in America. (Just kidding!) Some of the questions that remain: Is body language nonvocal or nonverbal communication? Voluntary or involuntary? (The questions posed about the lady shown seated on Julius Fast's cover, it seems to me, have nothing to do with body language). Are interjections of the imitative kind part of the vocabulary of body language? If communication is essential to body language, does the sneeze communicate anything beyond the state of the environment or the condition of one's body? (Just thinking aloud). Comments (private or to the List) will be gratefully received. T.M.P. THOMAS M. PAIKEDAY, lexicographer since 1964 Latest work: The User's(R) Webster, A unique dictionary that shows idiomatic and typical usage ISBN 0-920865-03-8 ---------------------------------- Fred Shapiro wrote: > > On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Thomas Paikeday wrote: > > > I just checked the OED disk (1988) and it has neither "ah-choo" nor > > "achoo." "Ahem" is in, though, and occurs 18 times in the text; "humph" > > It is in the OED under the spelling "atishoo." > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 18 03:58:57 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 21:58:57 -0600 Subject: Slang in Court Message-ID: Last night, attempting to raise my IQ by channel-surfing, I came across "Power of Attorney" on the Fox channel (where else?). A lady was suing her erstwhile paramour for $143. He claimed she was only his "booty call" and consequently it wasn't a loan. For the court record, the lawyers asked for a definition of this technical term. He said a booty call was someone who comes over to your place just to have sex. She agreed to that definition and to that characterization of their activity. Both seemed to be OK with this booty call situation until (a) she said she'd like to change matters to a "relationship" and then (b) she caught him with a "hoochin mamma" the next night. Another request for a definition of a technical term -- "a woman who is dirty and don't care about theyself at all." There was an off-hand reference to the hoochin mamma preferring to give oral sex. The lady defined "relationship" as a situation in which each lover "don't go out wit nobody else." Now I've given away the ethnic identity, which the lawyers [one black, one white; hispanic judge] seemed to be celebrating by messin' around with AAVE. The guy never called the lady by name -- just referred to her as his booty call. In the deliberation, the white lawyer (representing the lady) turned the guy's words back on him and referred to each one of them being a boot. It takes two boots for a booty call to occur. (One of the regular lawyers on this courtroom show is Mr. Feiger, who represented Dr. Death in his non-suicide trials.) BTW, the I in the first line stands for "idiot." DMLance From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 13:07:21 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:07:21 +0000 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to the newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 13:08:55 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:08:55 +0000 Subject: desk rage Message-ID: From Carina Chocano's column in Salon today: For now, the new rage in white-collar wilding, according to psychotherapist and "rage expert" Deborah Cooper, is "desk rage" (read: murderous workplace rampages). Death by insane, gun-toting co-worker is now the second most common form of workplace expiration, and Cooper predicts that instances of this trendy new scourge will only increase from now until Valentine's Day, a period of time apparently chock-full of "trigger events" such as the presidential inauguration and the Super Bowl. Full article at: http://salon.com/people/feature/2001/01/18/rage/index.html M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Thu Jan 18 09:50:01 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 03:50:01 -0600 Subject: Keep Your Shirt On Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON > > I was looking for my "boxer" shorts. > From INSTITUTE NEWS (Underwear Institute), 15 May 1939, pg. 4, col. 1: > > "You will be cooler if you > KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON." > The idea is for the underwear manufacturers to distribute these buttons to retail knitted cotton underwear clerks throughout the country to be worn during Cotton Week. -------------------------------------------------------- Barry: 1939 sounds a little late for the origin of such a campaign by underwear manufacturers. "Keep your shirt on", for them, most likely was a reaction to the 1934 Frank Capra movie "It happened one night", starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The best-known bit in the film is usually called the "wall of Jericho" scene: Gable and Colbert go to bed separated by a sheet hanging upright between them. As he sets up the sheet, Gable calls it the wall of Jericho. That insubstantial barrier was somehow supposed to protect Colbert's innocence, or something. In the scene, Gable removes his shirt and -- (shock!) -- he is not wearing an undershirt! WOW!!! Immediately after the film's release, sales of undershirts plummeted all over the country. The film came a little late to have caused the Depression for the rest of the nation, but it sure was depressing for folks in the underwear trade. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 11:12:46 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 06:12:46 EST Subject: "is, is" Message-ID: In "The thing is, is it takes too much time," the second instance of "is" is the "main verb. The original structure probably is "[What] the [problem]/thing is, is [that] it takes too much time." Not only has "that" been deleted in the surface structure, but so has"what". P-A-T -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 18 12:09:05 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 06:09:05 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) Message-ID: Note the dates. Southern linguists will surely all be in Knoxville at that time -- at SECOL. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 18 12:11:45 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 06:11:45 -0600 Subject: MLK tidbit Message-ID: Sonja wrote: > > I don't recall exactly where, but I thought Sydney Poitier was not > U.S. born and raised. I saw him on Oprah a few months ago because my I think he was accidentally born in Miami while his mother was visiting there, but you're right that he didn't grew up in the US. He grew up in the Bahamas. I've forgotten which island. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 18 09:26:20 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 04:26:20 -0500 Subject: Slang in Court Message-ID: DMLance wrote: (b) she caught him with a "hoochin mamma" the next night. Another request for a definition of a technical term -- "a woman who is dirty and don't care about theyself at all." hoochin' mamma.... An interesting formal and semantic variation of _hoochie mama_ (DC Vol. 11.3), defined as "a black woman, especially one who is flirtatious, enthusiastic, or who freely expresses her joy in African-American culture." Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 18 01:16:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:16:19 +0800 Subject: Fwd: Conference CFP (Souths, Global and Local) In-Reply-To: <200101181209.GAA21201@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 6:09 AM -0600 1/18/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: >Note the dates. Southern linguists will surely all be in Knoxville >at that time -- at SECOL. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) I asked a linguist friend at the University of Florida (i.e. a faculty member in Linguistics, as opposed to English), and apparently they knew nothing about this conference. Talk about your failure to communicate... larry From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 18 14:28:01 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:28:01 -0500 Subject: GBS 'yet' Message-ID: Lady Britomart [daughter of an earl] announcing the visit of her estranged husband to meet his children: "It is ten minutes to nine yet; and I have to prepare the girls. I asked Charles Lomax and Adolphus to dinner on purpose that they might be here. Andrew had better see them in case he should cherish any delusions as to their being capable of supporting their wives." Act I -- Major Barbara, written 1906 ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From N270053 at VM.SC.EDU Thu Jan 18 14:31:58 2001 From: N270053 at VM.SC.EDU (Michael Montgomery) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:31:58 EST Subject: whenever Message-ID: Dear ADS-Listers: I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ and dealing with sentences like the following that feature unconventional uses of the word: For a one-time occurrence in the past: Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas For an extended-period in the past: Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school as we did at home. (Tennessee) Has anyone else observed such usages? I am particularly interested to know of examples from outside the Midland, especially from the Lower South. Thanks for any help, Michael Montgomery Department of English University of South Carolina Columbia SC 29208 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 18 01:56:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:56:15 +0800 Subject: GBS 'yet' In-Reply-To: <3A66FD70.3E338263@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 9:28 AM -0500 1/18/01, David Bergdahl wrote: >Lady Britomart [daughter of an earl] announcing the visit of her >estranged husband to meet his children: "It is ten minutes to nine yet; >and I have to prepare the girls. I asked Charles Lomax and Adolphus to >dinner on purpose that they might be here. Andrew had better see them >in case he should cherish any delusions as to their being capable of >supporting their wives." Act I > >-- Major Barbara, written 1906 >____________________________________________________________________ this "yet" = 'already' rather than 'still' From jpparker at ISERV.NET Thu Jan 18 14:43:23 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane P Parker) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:43:23 -0500 Subject: God whacked? Message-ID: Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the atlantic. I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic inquiries? The faq did not address this. Jane P Parker Woodland MI From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 18 15:02:34 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:02:34 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <521792.3188812041@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to the >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. Tony Glaser From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 18 15:04:52 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:04:52 -0500 Subject: God whacked? In-Reply-To: <3A670103.ADB417F9@iserv.net> Message-ID: >Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline >Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. >I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the >atlantic. > >I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic >inquiries? The faq did not address this. > >Jane P Parker > >Woodland MI It's "gobsmacked" - a British phrase (gob = mouth), implying that you were as just as surprised as if someone had smacked you across the mouth. Tony Glaser From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 18 15:16:47 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:16:47 -0500 Subject: "is, is" Message-ID: Related to this is the nominative absolute construction , . . . the point being that this is not a finite clause. I hear fairly often as The point being is that this is now a finite clause. where "being" seems to take on a focus function. Herb >>> P2052 at AOL.COM 01/18/01 06:12AM >>> In "The thing is, is it takes too much time," the second instance of "is" is the "main verb. The original structure probably is "[What] the [problem]/thing is, is [that] it takes too much time." Not only has "that" been deleted in the surface structure, but so has"what". P-A-T From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 15:20:34 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:20:34 EST Subject: desk rage Message-ID: "Desk rage" was also in yesterday's WALL STREET JOURNAL. I didn't mention it because I don't know all the "rages" that David Barnhart has. It's a lot. It's been pointed out that "If you want to know, ask Joe" is not in Arthur Miller's play, ALL MY SONS. It is in the 1948 ALL MY SONS movie version with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster. Ronbinson player Joe Keller, who sold defective aircraft parts during the war. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 15:21:16 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:21:16 +0000 Subject: God whacked? In-Reply-To: <3A670103.ADB417F9@iserv.net> Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:43 am -0500 Jane P Parker wrote: > Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline > Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. > I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the > atlantic. Are you sure it wasn't 'gobsmacked'? If not, I'd guess this is an American reanalysis of 'gobsmacked'. The only 'god whacked' things I can find on the web are actually about God whacking somebody, or one in a sort of poem that refers to 'your god-whacked beliefs', which I take again to be actual reference to God. "Gobsmacked", as I think has been discussed here before, is a British expression meaning something like 'flattened by surprise'. It's creeping into American English more and more. > I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic > inquiries? The faq did not address this. No, it's all kinds of people/inquiries. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 18 15:26:46 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:26:46 +0000 Subject: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:02 am -0500 Tony Glaser wrote: >> I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >> came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >> whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to >> the newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. > > > Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) I go to the train station all the time here. What else should I call it here? >> Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >> translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. > > I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to > defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others > who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. That reasoning is backward: It was changed from _philosopher's_ in the UK to _sorcerer's_ in the US. (The UK version came first.) Instead, it would seem that the US publisher felt that 'philosopher' was too uninviting a word for a title. M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Thu Jan 18 16:11:00 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:11:00 -0500 Subject: [Fwd: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy,Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.]] Message-ID: An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Thomas Paikeday Subject: Re: Arab & the camel [was Re: Chomsky, Labov, Cassidy,Lakhoff,Dilliard, McDavid,Nixon in 1974.] Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:48:18 -0500 Size: 1966 URL: From jpparker at ISERV.NET Thu Jan 18 16:28:48 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane P Parker) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:28:48 -0500 Subject: God whacked? Message-ID: Thanks for the replys on godwhacked/gobsmacked. I was listening to a radio show and could easily have misheard. I kinda liked godwhacked though. jane P Parker Lynne Murphy wrote: > --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:43 am -0500 Jane P Parker > wrote: > > > Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline > > Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. > > I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the > > atlantic. > > Are you sure it wasn't 'gobsmacked'? If not, I'd guess this is an American > reanalysis of 'gobsmacked'. The only 'god whacked' things I can find on > the web are actually about God whacking somebody, or one in a sort of poem > that refers to 'your god-whacked beliefs', which I take again to be actual > reference to God. > > "Gobsmacked", as I think has been discussed here before, is a British > expression meaning something like 'flattened by surprise'. It's creeping > into American English more and more. > > > I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic > > inquiries? The faq did not address this. > > No, it's all kinds of people/inquiries. > > Lynne > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Thu Jan 18 16:34:54 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:34:54 -0500 Subject: God whacked? Message-ID: There is also a rock band--heavy metal I think--with the title "godsmack," so this may play a part in gobsmacked > godsmacked. It could be that godsmack got its name from the word, not the other way around. Joe Lynne Murphy @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/18/2001 10:21:16 AM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: Re: God whacked? --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:43 am -0500 Jane P Parker wrote: > Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before? As in Madeline > Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives. > I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the > atlantic. Are you sure it wasn't 'gobsmacked'? If not, I'd guess this is an American reanalysis of 'gobsmacked'. The only 'god whacked' things I can find on the web are actually about God whacking somebody, or one in a sort of poem that refers to 'your god-whacked beliefs', which I take again to be actual reference to God. "Gobsmacked", as I think has been discussed here before, is a British expression meaning something like 'flattened by surprise'. It's creeping into American English more and more. > I am not an academic person. Is this group only for academic > inquiries? The faq did not address this. No, it's all kinds of people/inquiries. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 18 17:33:50 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 12:33:50 -0500 Subject: "like that" Message-ID: arnold writes: >>>>> mark mandel: >I'm really getting to dislike dis. are you dissing us? <<<<< No, but I was wondering who would be the first to say that. -- Mark From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Thu Jan 18 18:42:26 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:42:26 -0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they promote Satanism. There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! Lina Barbara Hawkins Project Coordinator Berlitz GlobalNET Translation and Localization Services 525 Broadway Santa Monica, CA 90401 -----Original Message----- From: Tony Glaser [mailto:tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:03 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to the >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. Tony Glaser From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 18 19:43:17 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:43:17 -0600 Subject: whenever Message-ID: Michael Montgomery wrote: > Dear ADS-Listers: > > I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ > and dealing with sentences like the following that feature > unconventional uses of the word: > > For a one-time occurrence in the past: > > Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas Very widespread in both South and North Midland speech in Missouri. I don't have specific cites to forward but will be on the lookout. > For an extended-period in the past: > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > as we did at home. (Tennessee) Also widespread here. DMLance From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 18 19:47:16 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:47:16 -0800 Subject: whenever In-Reply-To: <3A67474C.800B8CDE@missouri.edu> Message-ID: Also widespread among my mother-in-law, who's from Big Creek, Arkansas. PR > Very widespread in both South and North Midland speech in Missouri. I don't have specific > cites to forward but will be on the lookout. > > > For an extended-period in the past: > > > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > > as we did at home. (Tennessee) > > Also widespread here. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 18 07:32:36 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:32:36 +0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <808C7231DCCBD2118A4700A0C9D8BD0202BF5CFD@SM_X> Message-ID: >I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a >philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > >Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest >saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they >promote Satanism. > >There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > There was a nice Op-Ed piece in the Times on the dumbing-down of the Potter books just after the new one came out--the idea was that publishers assume today's children are far less capable than their parents and grandparents at coping with the fact that not everyone uses exactly the same terms, and wondering if Dickens and other British authors would now be Americanized so our kids can pretend that the whole world is just one big U.S. But I don't think it was that Harry Potter is called a sorcerer rather than a philosopher but rather that the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was adapted to "...Sorcerer's Stone". Guess they figured American children are more familiar with the Sorcerer's Apprentice (from Disney's Fantasia) than with their Aristotle and Schopenhauer. I think the Satanism/censorship issue is a rather different one, even if ultimately related via xenophobia. larry From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Thu Jan 18 21:01:27 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:01:27 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: The Americanization of the Potter books is even stranger, given the fact that most American kids are raised on Disney Britophilia such as Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone (though recall the American-accented Arthur), The Great Mouse Detective (one of my favorites), and many others. If kids can get the Caterpillar and Mad Hatter, why not the philosopher's stone? But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. Joe Laurence Horn @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/18/2001 02:32:36 AM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins >I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a >philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > >Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest >saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they >promote Satanism. > >There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > There was a nice Op-Ed piece in the Times on the dumbing-down of the Potter books just after the new one came out--the idea was that publishers assume today's children are far less capable than their parents and grandparents at coping with the fact that not everyone uses exactly the same terms, and wondering if Dickens and other British authors would now be Americanized so our kids can pretend that the whole world is just one big U.S. But I don't think it was that Harry Potter is called a sorcerer rather than a philosopher but rather that the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was adapted to "...Sorcerer's Stone". Guess they figured American children are more familiar with the Sorcerer's Apprentice (from Disney's Fantasia) than with their Aristotle and Schopenhauer. I think the Satanism/censorship issue is a rather different one, even if ultimately related via xenophobia. larry From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 18 21:04:21 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:04:21 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: In the Harry Potter books, men and boys with magical ability, including Harry, are called wizards, while magical women and girls are called witches. Non-magical people are called muggles. The original book, published in the UK, was entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in reference to the mythical substance that alchemists believed would transmute base metals into gold. When the American publisher, Scholastic, brought the book out in the U.S., it changed the book's name to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone in the belief that American children would be confused by the apparent reference to philosophy. The controversy over the Harry Potter books is a bit bizarre, considering that the books are simple fantasies that have nothing to say about Christianity, pro or con. Religion plays little role in the books and the characters do not seem to be particularly observant, but the wizards and witches do celebrate Christmas. Other children's fantasies take non-Christian or even anti-Christian approaches (notably Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy), but those somehow attract little attention. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Your Name [SMTP:Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 1:42 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a > philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > > Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest > saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they > promote Satanism. > > There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > > > > Lina Barbara Hawkins > Project Coordinator > Berlitz GlobalNET > Translation and Localization Services > 525 Broadway > Santa Monica, CA 90401 > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tony Glaser [mailto:tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:03 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > > >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and > >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder > >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to > the > >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. > > > Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > > > > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US > >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. > > I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to > defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others > who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. > > Tony Glaser From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Thu Jan 18 21:10:56 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 13:10:56 -0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins (ON HARRY POTTER) Message-ID: The following article appeared in "Teachers in Focus" magazine. PARENTAL OBJECTIONS Parents in South Carolina, California, Nebraska, Georgia and Minnesota have complained to public school administrators about the Harry Potter series's inclusion of gore, evil and death. Among the concerns about the first installment, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Witchcraft The book's main characters engage in occultic and Wiccan-style exercises. Harry and his colleagues routinely practice sorcery, cast spells, fly on broomsticks and talk with spirits of the dead. Gruesome Imagery Author J.K. Rowling incorporates graphic depictions, including a professor whose leg is mangled by a three-headed dog; a mysterious figure who is caught drinking blood from a unicorn carcass; Lord Voldemort's horrific appearance as a ghastly face on the back of a professor's head; and Nearly Headless Nick-a ghost whose head is barely attached. Disrespect Harry frequently-and unapologetically-lies, breaks rules and disobeys authority figures, including the professors at Hogwarts. He specifically disregards a direct order from one of his teachers and takes off on a broom. Instead of being punished, Harry is honored for his riding skills. Vengeance Harry resents his cruel relatives and-rather than extending forgiveness-is eager for retribution. Upon returning to family members at the end of the school year, Harry is pleased at the opportunity to torment them. Family Friendly Libraries (FFL), which keeps parents informed about questionable content in popular books, has a detailed analysis of the Harry Potter series available on its Web site (www.fflibraries.org). In response, the American Library Association has denounced FFL's supposed efforts to "ban" Harry Potter. At presstime, the ALA reportedly had plans to laud Rowling at an upcoming meeting in San Antonio. For her part, Rowling doesn't believe her books should be off limits to anyone. "I don't think you should censor kids' reading material," she told reporters. "It's important just to let them go do what they need to do." John Andrew Murray is Headmaster at St. Timothy's-Hale in Raleigh, N.C. This article appeared in Teachers in Focus magazine. -----Original Message----- From: Baker, John [mailto:JBaker at STRADLEY.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 1:04 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins In the Harry Potter books, men and boys with magical ability, including Harry, are called wizards, while magical women and girls are called witches. Non-magical people are called muggles. The original book, published in the UK, was entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in reference to the mythical substance that alchemists believed would transmute base metals into gold. When the American publisher, Scholastic, brought the book out in the U.S., it changed the book's name to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone in the belief that American children would be confused by the apparent reference to philosophy. The controversy over the Harry Potter books is a bit bizarre, considering that the books are simple fantasies that have nothing to say about Christianity, pro or con. Religion plays little role in the books and the characters do not seem to be particularly observant, but the wizards and witches do celebrate Christmas. Other children's fantasies take non-Christian or even anti-Christian approaches (notably Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy), but those somehow attract little attention. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Your Name [SMTP:Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 1:42 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a > philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > > Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest > saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they > promote Satanism. > > There have been a lot of arguments on this issue! > > > > Lina Barbara Hawkins > Project Coordinator > Berlitz GlobalNET > Translation and Localization Services > 525 Broadway > Santa Monica, CA 90401 > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tony Glaser [mailto:tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:03 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins > > > >I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and > >came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder > >whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to > the > >newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. > > > Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > > > > >Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US > >translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. > > I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to > defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others > who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. > > Tony Glaser From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 21:38:12 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:38:12 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: In a message dated Wed, 17 Jan 2001 12:59:43 Eastern Standard Time, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM writes: >"James A. Landau" writes [irritating MIME artefacts >removed]: Hmmm. That makes it sound "as if" I have developed a technique for sending obscene gestures via e-mail. > I would not call this (and some other terms James cites) a proverb, >but rather a term, an expression, a piece of jargon, a specialized lexical item. You are correct. A proverb is a maxim, which Webster's 10th Collegiate defines as "a general truth, fundamental principle, or rule of conduct". What I supplied were "pieces of jargon" that I thought were particularly colorful or off-the-wall. Fred Shapiro asked for "catch-phrases" as well as for "proverbs". BTW, I find it difficult to imagine a proverb that does not have a verb in it. Fred Shapiro is going to have two problems (at least) with his collection. First, he is going to have to try to weed out ringers. There is a cottage industry of supplying lists of humorous sayings, with computers being a favorite target. However, the compilers of the lists feel themselves under no obligation to restrict themselves to already existing sayings but feel free to invent their own. Second, there is the problem of sayings, legitimate or otherwise, that actually arise from other fields and which are attributed pseudopigraphically to computer people. For instance, I have on my desk a 19-page listing of computer sayings. Some are thoughtful and some are amusing, but the list includes items from Erma Bombeck (who probably never wrote a computer program in her life) and Lord Acton (who definitely never did). (A photocopy of this listing will be sent to Fred Shapiro as soon as someone supplies me with his snail-mail address.) Let's consider the term "black box". On first glance it sounds facetious, perhaps something found in the "Dilbert" comic strip. However, it is a serious term with a specific meaning: a piece of hardware or software for which you that input x always gives output y but for which you have no knowledge of how the output is generated from the input. Example: "black box testing" in which you test a program by entering a variety of inputs and writing bug reports on any outputs that are wrong or suspicious or ambiguous or whatever, but in which you are not given the source code of the program so that you are restricted to analyzing the outputs. Obviously some computer person invented the term "black box"? Probably not. I first encountered this term in 1963 in a math class (the instructor gave us the continued-fraction algorithm for solving Diophantine equations and called it "a black box", and later spent the several lectures needed to explain how this less-than-obvious algorithm works). The following year in a chemistry class we were given actual sealed boxes (yes, they were painted black) with the assignment of trying to determine what was in the box without opening it. Actually the concept, though not the term "black box", goes back to that poem about the blind men trying to describe an elephant. Some more computer sayings: in a Government office I once worked in, it was popular to say "Close enough for government work." One day somebody's program failed because an "m" was typed for an "n". He said "close enough for government work" and was promptly told, "You don't work for the government. You work for the computer." The latest fashion in computer hardware is the RISC ("Reduced Instruction Set Computer", which actually was invented by Seymour Cray with the CDC 6600 of circa 1962). A satirical but quite accurate jibe at RISC is that the acronym stands for "Really Interesting Stuff is in the Compiler"). "spaghetti code"---badly written source code that is too complicated to follow easily. I have seen, but only once, the term "pretzel-bending" applied to the same. "number crunching"---a program that performs large amounts of numerical computation. Microsoft gets a lot of negative comments from inside the computer profession. There is a software package named "Microsoft Works." I once saw this name iincluded in a list of oxymorons. Or the following technically-accurate insult: "Windows 98 is a 32-bit enhancement of a 16-bit front end to an 8-bit operating system originally written for a 4-bit computer by a 2-bit company that cannot stand 1 bit of criticism." (The preceding statement contains the following pieces of technical jargon: "front end", "operating system", "n-bit", and "bit" meaning "binary digit".) If I may be permitted a limerick of my own invention: Professor Niklaus Wirth Said, "A programming language's worth Depends on its syntax And its handling of IN stacks And how well its procedures recurth." - Jim Landau -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM Thu Jan 18 21:49:01 2001 From: Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM (Wilcox, Rose (ZB5646)) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 14:49:01 -0700 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: <<"spaghetti code"---badly written source code that is too complicated to follow easily. I have seen, but only once, the term "pretzel-bending" applied to the same. >> Veering off topic into a personal story. I have been a technical writer for over 16 years. In the past, not only were project coded quickly, badly, and without regard to specifications, but often writers were put on the project at the very end to create manuals that would supposedly help the users navigate their way through the mess. Since the programs barely did what the users had specified, it was hoped that the creation of user documentation would make the application useful to the users long enough to be fixed in future versions, rather than completely discarded. During this time, M*A*S*H was still on TV, and supplied the term "meatball" surgery for operations performed quickly mainly to sew the patient together long enough to live until they were evacuated to a "real hospital". Therefore I created a slogan for my tech-writing team with a little sign that said, "Meatball documentation for Spaghetti Code". It didn't really catch on though. :-) Rosie Wilcox From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 22:16:55 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:16:55 EST Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: Everything's going badly today. Just another day, I guess. -------------------------------------------------------- QUICHE LORRAINE (continued) From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, November 1926, pg. 37, col. 1: Then came Quiche Lorraine. It is a sort of ham and eggs pie, prepared after one of M. Escoffier's 79 ways of preparing ham and (Col. 2--ed.) eggs. This pie was very popular with the doughboys while over in France. (See ADS-L archives for "quiche." It is also in Larousse from about 1895--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- BLT (continued) From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, July 1924, pg. 50, col. 2: _Hot Bacon Sandwich_ Cook the bacon until it is crisp. Butter slices of bread and spread lightly with salad dressing. Add a little chopped lettuce and chopped tomato which has been seasoned with salt and pepper. Add crisp bacon, put the remaining slice of bread on top, and then serve. The salad dressing and chopped lettuce may be omitted and the whole sandwich toasted in the oven. -------------------------------------------------------- CRAN-APPLE Ocean Spray has this registed from 1963. See: www.oceanspray.com/about/company-innovation.htm From THE STEWARD, November 1943, pg. 19, col. 2: CRANBERRY-APPLE RELISH (recipe follows--ed.) Pg. 20, col. 2: CRAN-APPLE SAUCE (recipe follows--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- KID-GLOVE ORANGES (TANGERINES) I don't have DARE handy here in SIBL. From THE STEWARD, December 1942, pg. 22, col. 1: Tangerines are coming up from the South and will continue to flow in until early Spring. Known in Florida as "kid glove" oranges, these tiny members of the citrus family make an acceptable substitute... From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 19 00:19:04 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 19:19:04 -0500 Subject: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <1024920.3188820406@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >--On Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:02 am -0500 Tony Glaser > wrote: > >>>I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and >>>came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins. I thought "I wonder >>>whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'." So, went to >>>the newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer: crumpets. >> >> >>Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :) > >I go to the train station all the time here. What else should I call it >here? I don't think I had ever heard of a "train station" until I came to the US. In the UK it would surely be called a "railway station" or just "station". > >>>Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US >>>translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter. >> >>I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to >>defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others >>who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc. > >That reasoning is backward: It was changed from _philosopher's_ in the UK >to _sorcerer's_ in the US. (The UK version came first.) Instead, it would >seem that the US publisher felt that 'philosopher' was too uninviting a >word for a title. You're quite right. Was there another Harry Potter book which got its title changed perhaps? Tony Glaser From cabbagelooper at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 01:37:34 2001 From: cabbagelooper at YAHOO.COM (taylor j) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:37:34 -0800 Subject: whenever Message-ID: I've noticed this used by native Floridians. I overheard a Plant City (interior South Florida) born and bred woman use this several times. Two other Floridians (interior North Florida) that I queried ("Yesterday whenever I went to the store I bought eggs. How many times did I go to the store?") disagreed, but still that's two out of three. I'm from the coast, and am not aware of using it that way. JLT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From dmsnake at USIT.NET Fri Jan 19 02:23:47 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 21:23:47 -0500 Subject: whenever Message-ID: When I was in the Navy, I worked for a while (1971) with a guy from Bay Minette, Alabama (across the bay from Mobile), and I was very interested in and amused by the fact that the word "when" was not in his vocabulary. He always used "whenever" whenever I would have used "when." I have seldom heard "whenever" used this way in Virginia, and when(ever) I do it is in the extended-period sense. Snake Michael Montgomery wrote: > Dear ADS-Listers: > > I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ > and dealing with sentences like the following that feature > unconventional uses of the word: > > For a one-time occurrence in the past: > > Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas > > For an extended-period in the past: > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > as we did at home. (Tennessee) > > Has anyone else observed such usages? I am particularly interested > to know of examples from outside the Midland, especially from the > Lower South. > > Thanks for any help, > > Michael Montgomery > Department of English > University of South Carolina > Columbia SC 29208 From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 19 03:20:32 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 20:20:32 -0700 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > From: Tony Glaser > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 19:19:04 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins > Was there another Harry Potter book which got its > title changed perhaps? > > Tony Glaser The titles of the other Harry Potter books are the same in Britain and the U.S. Scenes for the film-in-progress of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone" which contain the expression we Americans were supposedly too ignorant to feel comfortable with, and which therefore had to be changed, are being shot both ways, and there will be two versions of the film. The Spanish translation of the book has the title "Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal" and the Italian book is "Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale." The French and German translations also use the expression 'philosopher's stone.' I bet the American publishers are sorry now that they doubted the American public's willingness to handle a children's book with the word 'philosopher' in it, but it's too late to change that. As for J.K. Rowling changing other vocabulary for the American versions, here is an excerpt from an interview with her: "...what's this about changing some of the words in the U.S. edition so American children could understand them? Rowling pretended to bang her head against the sofa in mock frustration. ``SO much has been made of that,'' she groans, noting that it was only done where words had been used that really meant something very different to Americans. Her American editor pointed out that the word ``jumper'' - British for pullover sweater - means a kind of dress in American. She had had no idea. ``He asked, 'Can we change it to sweater?' which is just as British.'' That was fine with Rowling." --- from "Success Stuns Harry Potter Author" by Audrey Woods (Associated Press, July 6, 2000) Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 03:49:18 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 22:49:18 EST Subject: David Shulman & Steve Brodie research Message-ID: David Shulman called me today. He's in Victory Memorial Hospital, (718) 567-1234, Room 564. Over a week ago, he had a hard fall on the ice. Because of the MLK, Jr. holiday, Shulman had a mixup receiving his heart medication, and he felt weak. Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn is just awful. Shulman (about 90 years old) was admitted to the emergency ward. He waited there on a stretcher for 20 hours! I spoke to him just now on the phone, and he seems much stronger than when he phoned my answering machine. He should be released soon to the St. Nicholas Home, (718) 238-8141. Don Foster of Vassar hasn't contacted him or me about (Washington Irving's?) CRIES OF NEW YORK. While going through the Western Union stuff, I found two pieces on Steve Brodie--one in DOTS AND DASHES and one in INSIDE WESTERN UNION. Both stated that Brodie--then a Western Union employee--did make the Brooklyn Bridge jump. Shulman's research didn't have Western Union. Shulman wants to put a plaque up on or near the Brooklyn Bridge for Steve Brodie. In two weeks, it will be the 100th anniversary of Brodie's death. Shulman appeared in a Douglas Martin piece in the NY Times and in a NY Post piece about this (see ADS-L archives for cites). I told him that I'd put up the money for any plaque. Shulman also wants the press and possibly the mayor to attend a dedication ceremony. He told me to call Douglas Martin at the Times, (212) 556-1950. I once told Douglas Martin that I was going before the City Council on "the Big Apple." I mailed him a ton of information. He never responded. I don't want to speak to this guy again. How can I tell David Shulman that this is New York City--it doesn't care about its history, nor does it care if you're alive or dead? From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 19 04:49:21 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 22:49:21 -0600 Subject: Bay Ridge [was Re: David Shulman & Steve Brodie research] Message-ID: Barry's posting of phone numbers in the Bay Ridge exchange, as well as the reference to St. Nicholas Home (Ovington Avenue, as I recall) come close to home. My prefix was 238 (it's BEachview, for those who care to know, or who can remember back that far). I lived in the older apartment building on Gelston Ave. between 88th and 90th (not the Lexington). I now live in the far northeast corner of Iowa, which is not that much change, actually. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 06:18:00 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:18:00 EST Subject: Boxers or Briefs? Message-ID: BOXERS OR BRIEFS? "Heh, heh." --Bill Clinton on MTV, 1992 10 January 1940, MEN'S WEAR, pg. 47, col. 1 photo caption: The shorts on left are made like fight trunks, pull-on with elastic waistband. Boxing glove print, available in dark blue, light blue and green, ties in with this theme. 5 March 1941, MEN'S WEAR, pg. 46, col. 1 ad: Also in Popular "BOXER" Model Wanted boxer style in tailored gabardine. Sanforized. Built-in athletic type elastic supporter and belt. Draw string adjustment. Zippered pocket. Colors: Beige, Pine, Maroon, Cream, Navy. Men's sizes 30-42. ROBERT BRUCE KNITWEAR COMPANY 418 Collom St., Philadelphia, Pa. 347 Fifth Ave., New York City . 742 Market St., San Francisco July 1943, APPAREL ARTS (ESQUIRE), pg. 91, col. 2: First in importance, however, in today's swimwear selling, are solid-colored woven trunks. These are most popular in the "boxer" model, so called because of the shirred waistline. They are made chiefly in worsted gabardine, lightweight worsteds, cotton gabardines, and poplins. (Col. 3 photo caption--ed.) THE BOXER MODEL scores a knockout in this season's round with men who like their trunks made with a generous cut. -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. FROM MEN'S APPAREL MAGAZINES 7 August 1940, MEN'S WEAR, pg. 61, col. 2 ad: SMOOTHIE WRINKLE RESISTANT TIES A. Schreter & Sons Co., Inc. 16 S. EUTAW STREET Baltimore, Maryland March 1942, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 79, col. 1: _sandwich stripes for frail bait_ This campus beanie is dressed plenty fancy considering it's one of those "My-God-It's-Monday" mornings... (My "Thank God It's Friday" postings which also mention "Monday" are not in the ADS-L archives and have been destroyed--ed.) June 1943, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 87, col. 2: _so you'd like to live in New York!_ WHERE, NO MATTER HOW MANY languages you know, you'd still have to learn a very special brand of English...Where pronunciations are switched, like in--_"Hello, Pheel, how do you (Col. 3--ed.) fill?"_...Where a _"bird"_ is a _"boid"_--yet _"oil"_ comes out _"erl"_...Where _"Whyncha faggetit?"_ can be translated, with some difficulty, to _"Why don't you forget it?"_ (Not fuggedaboutit, but close--ed.) August 1943, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 53, col. 3: IN ATLANTA, cafeterias are called _"tray shops"_--or were, the last time I was there...Traveling men call the Southern route to the Coast the _"jam belt"_--because most restaurants serve huge assortments of jam and jelly at all meals. September 1943, APPAREL ARTS, pg. 75, col. 2: _Making your "day"_ This type of merchandising has been a controversial subject in the men's trade for years. Most department stores advertise heaviest on the days when they feel they can get the most business. Store owners have felt they must make their "figures" for the day... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 06:39:36 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:39:36 EST Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) Message-ID: One recent article called director Guy Ritchie ("Mr. Madonna") a "mockney." This is a mock cockney. Ritchie's new film, SNATCH, supposedly has mockney dialect. Does OED have this in its "M" file? From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 19 08:06:52 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 02:06:52 -0600 Subject: Boxers or Briefs? Message-ID: I think Barry has pushed back the OED/M-W citation dates. Barry: what do the illustrations illustrate? Your topic line suggests you are uncertain. As we men all know, boxers are not briefs, and a bikini is a countably singular non-leg-enclosing form of briefs. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 19 08:56:38 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:56:38 +0000 Subject: Harry Potter WAS: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: <808C7231DCCBD2118A4700A0C9D8BD0202BF5CFD@SM_X> Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:42 am -0800 Your Name wrote: > I am astonished to find out that the UK edition calls Harry Potter a > philosopher and the US edition calls him a sorcerer. > > Not too long ago, I received a letter from a Christian Orthodox priest > saying not to buy Harry Potter's books because they are evil and they > promote Satanism. No, Harry's not called a sorcerer or a philosopher, he's called a wizard. The name of the book is _Harry Potter and the {Philosopher's/Sorcerer's} Stone_. The philosopher's/sorcerer's stone is an alchemist's invention. No one in the book is called a philosopher, only witches and wizards. I'm reserving comment about the priest. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 19 09:02:28 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:02:28 +0000 Subject: trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:19 pm -0500 Tony Glaser wrote: >> >> I go to the train station all the time here. What else should I call it >> here? > > I don't think I had ever heard of a "train station" until I came to > the US. In the UK it would surely be called a "railway station" or > just "station". Ah, 'railway station'--you're right. > > You're quite right. Was there another Harry Potter book which got its > title changed perhaps? No. The others are common to UK and US. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 19 09:13:08 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:13:08 +0000 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 18, 2001 8:20 pm -0700 Nancy Elliott wrote: > > "...what's this about changing some of the words in the U.S. edition so > American children could understand them? > Rowling pretended to bang her head against the sofa in mock frustration. > ``SO much has been made of that,'' she groans, noting that it was only > done where words had been used that really meant something very different > to Americans. > Her American editor pointed out that the word ``jumper'' - British for > pullover sweater - means a kind of dress in American. She had had no idea. > ``He asked, 'Can we change it to sweater?' which is just as British.'' > That was fine with Rowling." > > --- from "Success Stuns Harry Potter Author" by Audrey Woods > (Associated Press, July 6, 2000) Incidentally, like many other fantasy or scifi series, Harry Potter has spawned a fan literature--including the subgenre composed by Harry/Hermione 'shippers' (people who like to imagine Harry and Hermione in a romantic relationship). A friend pointed out one to me, which I read with some amusement because it was by an American trying to sound British. She used 'jumper' for 'sweater' and such, but thought that 'naff' meant 'cool' (when it means the opposite) and had men wearing vests over their shirts (instead of under them). (The ease with which one can make such errors--as made evident by my train/railway station slip yesterday-- is why I only accept editing jobs from British into American and not vice versa!) You can find some of these stories at: http://www.egroups.com/files/ParadigmOfUncertainty/ but you might need to sign up for egroups first. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Fri Jan 19 11:31:36 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 06:31:36 -0500 Subject: Drug terms Message-ID: The White House Drug Policy Office (now starring in the feature film 'Traffic) has a guide to 'Street Terms: Drugs and the Drug Trade' on their website: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/streetterms/Default.asp Unfortunately, it's not very useful, as they make no attempt to designate context. F'rinstance, while they define 'smack' simply as heroin, they also define 'Black Tar' and 'Bart Simpson' simply as heroin, without noting that those are specific subtypes of heroin. They also include the incredibly street-savvy 'crap', which they define as 'low quality heroin', and 'serial speedballing', which I can't believe was ever used outside either a medical/clinical or law enforcement environment. From tb0exc1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Fri Jan 19 13:37:00 2001 From: tb0exc1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (callary ed) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 07:37:00 -0600 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: u.s. news and world report, jan 8 01, citing john simpson of the oed, says mockney dates from 1989 and refers to 'educated middle-classers ditching posh accents for a working-class dialect. pop culture stars speak mockney "to acquire instant street cred, to appear blokey,"' (quoting simpson.' examples given are dropping of initial h, substituting v for th (voiced) medially, using guv'nor for boss and the missus for wife. *********************************************************************** Edward Callary, Editor Phone: 815-753-6627 NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics Fax: 815-753-0606 English Department email: ecallary at niu.edu Northern Illinois University DeKalb, Il 60115-2863 *********************************************************************** Visit the American Name Society Homepage: http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/ans/ From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 19 00:45:30 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:45:30 +0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >The Americanization of the Potter books is even stranger, given the fact >that most American kids are raised on Disney Britophilia such as Peter Pan, >Alice in Wonderland, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone >(though recall the American-accented Arthur), The Great Mouse Detective >(one of my favorites), and many others. If kids can get the Caterpillar >and Mad Hatter, why not the philosopher's stone? > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. > >Joe > Luckily for some of those parents, the Beatles used "stupid git" in at least one of their songs, so it's not totally unknown to us. Larry From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Fri Jan 19 13:48:02 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:48:02 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: The Beatles song is "I'm So Tired" on the White Album. John Lennon says "get," referring to Sir Walter Raleigh, who has gotten him addicted to cigarettes. Joe Laurence Horn @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/18/2001 07:45:30 PM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: Re: crumpets & muffins >The Americanization of the Potter books is even stranger, given the fact >that most American kids are raised on Disney Britophilia such as Peter Pan, >Alice in Wonderland, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone >(though recall the American-accented Arthur), The Great Mouse Detective >(one of my favorites), and many others. If kids can get the Caterpillar >and Mad Hatter, why not the philosopher's stone? > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. > >Joe > Luckily for some of those parents, the Beatles used "stupid git" in at least one of their songs, so it's not totally unknown to us. Larry From lvonschn at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Fri Jan 19 17:08:13 2001 From: lvonschn at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Luanne von Schneidemesser) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:08:13 -0600 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: Could someone help with this question? Thanks. Luanne > >>I would like to know when the abbreviation "inc." for incorporated began >>being pronounced as "ink" as opposed to "incorporated". >> > From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 19 17:03:15 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:03:15 -0500 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Good cite. I have no citation for this much earlier demonstration of the phenomenon (although I'm sure that some industrious student/scholar could find one), but Mick Jagger has been affecting a mock street accent for so long, I'm sure that its become ingrained into his very fiber. Although he speaks with a rougher English accent, he was very much upper middle class and was a student at the London School of Economics. (I have no idea whether he graduated.) I think I've got the name of the school correct, and I believe that Brian Jones might have been a schoolmate of his, as well. Now, I'm not absolutely sure that the accent is totally fake, but I recall that I've read that Mick used it to give himself some credibility among the rabid R&B crowds in London in the early 1960s. Many of the other popular bands of the era were comprised of actual working class fellows who didn't have to put on an accent. > From: callary ed > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 07:37:00 -0600 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Mockney (mock cockney) > > u.s. news and world report, jan 8 01, citing john simpson of the oed, says > mockney dates from 1989 and refers to 'educated middle-classers ditching > posh accents for a working-class dialect. pop culture stars speak mockney > "to acquire instant street cred, to appear blokey,"' (quoting simpson.' > examples given are dropping of initial h, substituting v for th (voiced) > medially, using guv'nor for boss and the missus for wife. From pzinn at GRANTSMANAGEMENT.COM Fri Jan 19 16:58:18 2001 From: pzinn at GRANTSMANAGEMENT.COM (Prentice Zinn) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:58:18 -0500 Subject: Funding Available for Research and Social Action Projects Message-ID: Funding Available for Research and Social Action Projects The Sociological Initiatives Foundation provides grants of $5,000 to $15,000 to support research and social action projects. Areas of interest include but are not limited to social welfare, human rights, literacy, language learning and use, dialect use and curricular issues in teaching second languages and non-native languages. The Foundation is also interested in supporting research by sociologists and linguists whose work may provide practical documentation of initiatives that may be useful to communities. Guidelines for the September 2001 application deadline are available at http://www.grantsmanagement.com/sifguide.html. For more information, contact Prentice Zinn at pzinn at grantsmanagement.com or 617-426-7172. From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 19 17:22:25 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:22:25 -0500 Subject: A question for a linguist Message-ID: The earliest example with which I am familiar is in W.H. Auden's poem, The Unknown Citizen, which I believe is from March 1939: >>Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.<< I believe that the current tendency to pronounce "inc." as "ink" derives from the need of lawyers (like myself) to be clear as to whether they mean "incorporated" in the full or the abbreviated form. I don't know of any good reason to say "ink" unless you are in law or a related field, and I usually heard it in the full form until I began practising in 1985. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Luanne von Schneidemesser [SMTP:lvonschn at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU] > Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 12:08 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist > > Could someone help with this question? > > Thanks. > > Luanne > > > > >>I would like to know when the abbreviation "inc." for incorporated began > >>being pronounced as "ink" as opposed to "incorporated". > >> > > From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Fri Jan 19 17:38:36 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:38:36 -0500 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:16:55 EST Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > KID-GLOVE ORANGES (TANGERINES) > > I don't have DARE handy here in SIBL. > From THE STEWARD, December 1942, pg. 22, col. 1: > > Tangerines are coming up from the South and will continue to flow > in until early Spring. Known in Florida as "kid glove" oranges, > these tiny members of the citrus family make an acceptable > substitute... As a garden writer, this is an area where I can perhaps add to the confusion. Growing up in the 50s in Pennsylvania, I remember tangerines as a Christmas treat. They were like small oranges, but with a very loose skin. This year my wife came home with a demi case of 'Clementines' from Spain which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin of an orange. I had never heard of Clementines. Sturdevant's Edible Plants of the World (1909) lists them under Citrus aurantium, using the names tangerine and Mandarin as synonymous It cites Gallesio (1811) and Loudon (1860), the latter specifically mentioning the loose rind. (If you want full citations, let me know privately) Bailey's _Manual of Cultivated Plants_(1924 rev 1949) lists Citrus reticulata as either Mandarin or Tangerine. Hortus III agrees and lists a cultivar 'Clementine'. The HP book on Citrus pictures a dozen varieties of "Mandarin", one of which is called 'Clementine'. It goes on to say, "Some mandarins are called tangerines. The word tangerine seems to have developed with 'Dancy' which has a more brightly colored, ornage-red peel than most mandarins. Since the introduction of 'Dancy', the varieties with a deeper red coloration have been labeled tangerines, although they are all technically mandarins." It notes that 'Dancy' is the traditional Christmas tangerine and came to Florida from Morocco. Clear? D From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 17:58:13 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:58:13 -0800 Subject: crumpets & muffins Message-ID: --- Joe Pickett wrote: ... > > But I think the Americanization of the Potter books > actually was fairly > limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses > the word "git" for > schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in > most American dictionaries > and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of > their parents as well. Not if they watch Red Dwarf! ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 18:21:18 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:21:18 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: --- Duane Campbell wrote: ... > Growing up in the 50s in Pennsylvania, I remember > tangerines as a > Christmas treat. They were like small oranges, but > with a very loose > skin. > > This year my wife came home with a demi case of > 'Clementines' from Spain > which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin > of an orange. I had > never heard of Clementines. > In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose skin, seedless, and delicious. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Fri Jan 19 18:25:37 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:25:37 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: Sweet tangerines are called "Clementines" in GREECE too! But the word is only used by grocers and the upper middle class of Athens. Lina Barbara Hawkins Project Coordinator BERLITZ GlobalNET 525 Broadway Santa Monica, CA 90401 310.260.7138 tel 310.576.6086 fax -----Original Message----- From: James Smith [mailto:jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM] Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 10:21 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Quiche Lorraine, etc. --- Duane Campbell wrote: ... > Growing up in the 50s in Pennsylvania, I remember > tangerines as a > Christmas treat. They were like small oranges, but > with a very loose > skin. > > This year my wife came home with a demi case of > 'Clementines' from Spain > which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin > of an orange. I had > never heard of Clementines. > In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose skin, seedless, and delicious. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From dumasb at UTK.EDU Fri Jan 19 18:32:23 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:32:23 -0500 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: It was said: >In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >skin, seedless, and delicious. In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I have ever eaten. From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 19 18:57:29 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:57:29 -0500 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) Message-ID: Is Mockney a folk term for Estuary English like Ebonics for AAVE? -- db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Fri Jan 19 20:28:27 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:28:27 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: It was said: >In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >skin, seedless, and delicious. In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I have ever eaten. As a grower of both mandarins and tangerines in the home garden I can tell you there are major differences in the varieties. I grow 3: mandarins that are small with seeds and loose, thin rind; tangerines that are like large oranges with a thin, very loose skin and seedless; tangerines with thick puffy loose skin and occasional seeds. They all ripen in December in Southern CA. In our markets are two entirely different fruits, "blood tangerines" (bigger than blood oranges) and "tangerines" that are large, thin smooth skinned, and seedless but a much darker orange color. Sharyn storknurse From pulliam at IIT.EDU Fri Jan 19 21:42:27 2001 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 15:42:27 -0600 Subject: "come with" going national? Message-ID: I heard "Can I come with?" today on a radio ad for Marriot Hotels--the ad seemed to me like it might have been for national distribution, but I can't be sure. I heard it on WGN radio, Chicago. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Jan 19 21:49:18 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:49:18 -0800 Subject: "come with" going national? Message-ID: there was also an occurrence on Gilmore Girls last night - from the (main) character Lorelai. arnold From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Fri Jan 19 22:37:27 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 16:37:27 -0600 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books Message-ID: Thanks to Nancy Elliott for citing the following: > As for J.K. Rowling changing other vocabulary for the American versions, > here is an excerpt from an interview with her: > > "...what's this about changing some of the words in the U.S. edition so > American children could understand them? > Rowling pretended to bang her head against the sofa in mock frustration. > ``SO much has been made of that,'' she groans, noting that it was only done > where words had been used that really meant something very different to > Americans. > Her American editor pointed out that the word ``jumper'' - British for > pullover sweater - means a kind of dress in American. She had had no idea. > ``He asked, 'Can we change it to sweater?' which is just as British.'' That > was fine with Rowling." > > --- from "Success Stuns Harry Potter Author" by Audrey Woods > (Associated Press, July 6, 2000) Two comments: 1) Pardon me for taking an even dimmer view than those already expressed in this thread. I think the change of "philosopher's stone" to "sorceror's stone" in the Harry Potter title could only have happened because of mass historical ignorance throughout the publisher's editorial offices. The historical importance of the Philosopher's Stone is in no way weakened by the fact that this object of great power was entirely mythical. (It's a delightful irony that the mythical Dr. Faustus was said to be one of those who searched for the mythical Philosopher's Stone.) Eventually, this Holy Grail of the medieval alchemists played a part in the development of chemistry as a modern science. Calling THE Philosopher's Stone some kind of "sorceror's stone" isn't really an instance of the dumbing down of books intended for kids in the U.S. It's a demonstration that dumbing down has already succeeded in corrupting the publishing business in this country. 2) ADS-L has already considered the trans-Atlantic split in the meanings of the word "jumper". When we did, I commented on the fact that my dedicated use of cis-Atlantic, rather than trans- Atlantic, English blinded me to the origins of an obvious loan word in Guatemalan Spanish. "Chumpa" is Guatemalan Spanish for an item of clothing much like what might be called a "baseball jacket" in the U.S. I (mis-)guessed that the word must have come from one of the 23 or so Mayan languages still spoken in Guatemala. One of my students (an English-speaking South African who spent several years in England), on hearing me identify a garment made of a distinctively Guatemalan fabric as a "chumpa", immediately said "Oh, a jumper". When I checked with some knowledgeable Guatemalans, they confirmed my student's impression. Chumpa is a simple loan from British English. I doubt that any native speaker of U.S. English with no experience of the language of our trans-Atlantic cousins would ever have made that connection. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: Being an anthropologist heightens my awareness of casual ethnocentrisms in ordinary speech. My use of trans- and cis- in reference to that big pond to our east doesn't really fall into that class. After all, we're connected through the AMERICAN Dialect Society. (I eschew comment on the ethnocentrism of that word "American".) From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 19 22:15:38 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:15:38 -0500 Subject: Mockney (mock cockney) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > u.s. news and world report, jan 8 01, citing john simpson of the oed, says > > mockney dates from 1989 and refers to 'educated middle-classers ditching > > posh accents for a working-class dialect. pop culture stars speak mockney > > "to acquire instant street cred, to appear blokey,"' (quoting simpson.' > > examples given are dropping of initial h, substituting v for th (voiced) > > medially, using guv'nor for boss and the missus for wife. Interestingly enough a piece in this week's British Medical Journal http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7279/181/a makes exactly the same observations - and it is not just pop culture icons needing street cred, but politicians and doctors too: "As every television presenter knows, credibility in the new millennium means having an accent. This varies with the target audience. For the young, Essex is the linguistic place to be. The middle aged prefer Ireland, Wales, or Barnsley. Traditional BBC English is aimed at the over 70s. The public is being conditioned to mistrust upper class speech, not just in Britain, where it is mocked, but worldwide. The archetypal villain in a Hollywood movie sounds like George Sanders. The baddie in The Lion King was suavely voiced by Jeremy Irons. Bob the builder, by contrast, is the laddish Neil Morrissey. Our politicians understand this. The health secretary keeps his speech just this side of Paul Gascoigne and even the prime minister affects vaguely regional consonants. Imagine how well the Social Democrats might have done if Lord Jenkins had remained a boyo from the valleys and Lord Owen had retained his Devon burr. Medicine has always been a way for clever people of humble origins to better themselves, and one of the first things we did was to learn to talk proper. Sadly, we have overdone it. Nowadays the popular stereotype of the hospital consultant is someone who talks like a 1950s government information film. We need to rethink our vocal image. This includes the Scots, I'm afraid. People are wising up to the fact that Educated Scottish is the equivalent of Oxford English. Edinburgh graduates are starting to pretend they come from Glasgow. They sit up and take notice whenever Sir Alex Ferguson gives a soundbite. There are limits, of course. The Queen may have famously toned down her cut glass accent over a lifetime of Christmas broadcasts but she has not yet become an eastender. The medical profession, to regain the top spot in public esteem, needs to relocate from Harley Street but no further than the North Circular Road. Our leaders should start practising their glottal stops before their next meeting with those influential government advisers. And when they talk to the media, the aim should be to sound fractionally more downmarket than the interviewer. What about the rest of us, and our patients? No worries, mate. According to all the evidence, patients are far too busy reading our body language to care about our vowels." From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 19 22:48:43 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 14:48:43 -0800 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. In-Reply-To: <3A718952@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: >It was said: > >>In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >>skin, seedless, and delicious. > >In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had >seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I >have ever eaten. In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et al.? Rima From stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 19 23:23:21 2001 From: stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM (Stephen Roti) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 15:23:21 -0800 Subject: Snye (Definition + Citations) Message-ID: Still concerning "snye": Whoever is interested can read the following definition of the word, which is offered by the 1998 Canadian Oxford Dictionary (ed., Katherine Barber; Oxford University Press). According to the COD, "sny" is a regional Canadianism that is prevalently heard or seen in the eastern part of Ontario (apparently, not in the Maritime provinces): snye = n. 1 (Eastern Ontario) a side channel, especially one that bypasses a falls or rapids and rejoins the main river downstream, creating an island. 2 a narrow or meandering side channel, especially one that comes to a dead end. 2 b such a channel used by bush pilots for landing aircraft. [Canadian French chenail, French 'chenal' (channel)] FWIW, I also made a little search in my lexical Canadian corpus, and I have come up with a couple of citations [here in CAPITALS]. They are both taken from newspaper articles published in 1997 in the Ottawa Citizen, the major daily circulating in the country's capital region. Here they are: TITLE: Discover history, natural wonder BY: Katharine Fletcher SOURCE: The Ottawa Citizen, October 18, 1997, p. B8 "(...) And further west on Highway 148, there's a turnoff to the Coulonge Chutes -- a spectacular natural phenomenon. The falls drop 48 metres to a narrow, 750-metre rock-walled canyon. A Scottish entrepreneur, Mr. Bryson was 22 when he ventured to the Pontiac in 1835. He obtained the timber rights to the area and, by 1843, was operating the first sawmill at the chutes. By 1854, he and his wife, Robina Cobb, had started construction on an imposing neo-classic post-and-beam home that overlooks the covered bridge. The clapboard facade hides the insulation of lime and sand that fills the walls. (...) The third stone mansion is the Rabb House, built for Mr. Bryson's daughter at 224 Rue Principale. It overlooks the SNYE (backwater arm) of the Coulonge River and, in 1938, became the home of Dr. Rabb and family. (...)" TITLE: Victorian Glory: Guests journey through time and elegance BY: Collette Blain SOURCE: The Ottawa Citizen, July 12, 1997, p. J1 "(...) We lingered a long time in the lounge, until our appetites lured us to the dining room. Morgan showed us to a table by the window that offered an excellent front lawn view of the white pines and St.Andrew's Presbyterian. Next to it, there is a path that leads to a dock on the "SNYE'', an inlet of the Ottawa River, more like a canal or "chenail'' in French. (...)" * Some ADS listers previously thus wrote or commented on "snye": "'Snye' or 'sny' is a Canadianism meaning a side channel of a stream (Gage Canadian Dict., 1983). Etym: "From Canadian French chenail; cf French chenal channel" I don't have my Dict of Canadianisms (1967) on hand so can't check the dates or cites, but I seem to associate it with the Maritimes, for some reason (?)" ~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~ Sorry it's taken me so long to track down this citation, for what it's worth. "Sni, Sny French chenal, appearing in American French as chenail, as a generic for a natural, narrow passageway of water, became Sny in American usage, and appears as a specific in a few names, chiefly in Mo. Sniabar Creek Mo.; either from chenail-a-barre, 'sny with a bar (blockage),' or from chenail-a-Hubert (Hebert) from the name of a local French family." George R. Stewart, American Place-Names (1970) *~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~ "Earlier I said that the roadmaps had the "Sny" on the Illinois side of the Mississippi opposite Hannible MO or just below. I must have misremembered. It's not on the Rand McNally roadmap. It IS on the DeLorme "Illinois Atlas and Gazeteer" maps 57 & 66 (2nd ed. 1996), but it is not a bayou. It looks like a creek that runs parallel to the big river, meandering through the bottoms between the river and the bluffs, in both Pike and Calhoun counties. Victoria's and other notes indicate it is likely a voyageur place name, since it seems to be Canadian." ~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~ (Dr.) Stephen Roti Lexical researcher __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Fri Jan 19 23:53:00 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:53:00 -0600 Subject: "come with" going national? Message-ID: Greg Pulliam wrote: > > I heard "Can I come with?" today on a radio ad for Marriot > Hotels--the ad seemed to me like it might have been for national > distribution, but I can't be sure. I heard it on WGN radio, Chicago. WGN has long been a "clear channel" station. No other radio station can operate legally on its frequency, indicated as 720 on most radio dials. When conditions are right, WGN can be heard clearly in most parts of the 48 contiguous states -- and, in my experience, in Mexico and Central America as well. What they broadcast is intended for national consumption, and needs no redistribution. WGN's companion station, WGN-TV, is a "super station" distributed by satellite and frequently recirculated by local cable TV services everywhere. (WGN-TV actually reaches more of the cable-TV audience in Central America than CNN, despite CNN's transmissions in Spanish.) WGN-TV's impact thus parallels the reach of WGN radio. Despite their wide national and international audiences, the WGN stations persist in acting as if Chicago is the center of the world. This maintains the traditions of their original owner, Col. Robert McCormick, long the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. (WGN was an acronym for "World's Greatest Newspaper", which is what Col. McCormick called the paper everybody else called "the Trib".) I cite the narrow parochialism of both the WGN stations and the Chicago Tribune as a caution against taking their practices as reflecting any nation-wide tendencies. "Come with" is a well-established item in several major varieties of Chicago English. Editors well inured to the practices of the Trib or the WGN stations would be inclined to accept that usage without change, if indeed they noticed anything unusual in the phrase. Col. McCormick's general theory was that God intended the whole universe to do things the way they are done in Chicago. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: In furtherance of Barry's current concern with food and drink, it's true that Chicago's taste clearly reflects what God would have intended if he'd thought about two major culinary items. In their separate genres, the Chicago-style hot dog and Chicago-style pizza are as close as human cookery can come to divine perfection. Only a misguided soul given to the ultimate barbarism of putting ketchup on a hot dog would disagree. (That kind of ignoramus would probably spell it "catsup", or even "catchup", anyhow.) From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Sat Jan 20 00:08:40 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 19:08:40 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>It was said: >> >>>In France tangerines are sold as clementines - loose >>>skin, seedless, and delicious. >> >>In my experience, those are two different entities. Last weekend I had >>seedless clementines - they were radically different from any tangerines I >>have ever eaten. > >In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I >read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in >Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the >States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the >same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are >different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et >al.? > >Rima In some parts of the English-speaking Caribbean certain bitter oranges are called "swivel sweets" - "swivel" being a corruption of "Seville". There are also some extremely thick-skinned grapefruit which are known as "shaddocks" - I have heard it said that this is from the name of the sea captain who first brought them to the Caribbean, a Captain Shattuck, who is supposedly also the man behind the name of Shattuck Street in Boston. I'd be interested if anyone has knowledge of that. Tony Glaser From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Sat Jan 20 03:36:47 2001 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 21:36:47 -0600 Subject: whenever In-Reply-To: <200101181432.JAA30025@pasta.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: My brother-in-law, age about 60, who has lived all his life in central Saskatchewan, Canada uses this, at least for the "extended-period" meaning. I'm not sure about the "one-time occurrence" use. I remember noticing his usage quite a few years ago, because it surprised me; I hadn't known it before as typical in Saskatchewan. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada On January 18, 2001, 8:32 a.m., Michael Montgomery wrote: > Dear ADS-Listers: > > I am working on a paper on the subordinate conjunction _whenever_ > and dealing with sentences like the following that feature > unconventional uses of the word: > > For a one-time occurrence in the past: > > Whenever his Daddy died, he took over the farm. (Arkansas > > For an extended-period in the past: > > Whenever I was growing up, we didn't talk the same way at school > as we did at home. (Tennessee) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 04:17:02 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 23:17:02 EST Subject: Minute Steak; Angel Tip Message-ID: MINUTE STEAK OED cites Webster (1934). See ADS-L archives. From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, "Last Dinner in Delmonico's," September 1925, pg. 50, col. 1: It was in Delmonico's, according to E. H. Nies, that chicken and lobster salad first made their appearance, that chicken a la King and the lobster Newburg were invented, that French fried potatoes, Russian dressing and terrapin were first served in New York, and the minute steak was invented by Edwin Gould. (This is not all correct--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- ANGEL TIP Drinks such as "Angel's Tip" or "Angel's Tit" were popular in the 1920s. From THE CATERER AND HOTEL PROPRIETOR'S GAZETTE, October 1923, pg. 48, col. 1: _Angel Tip_ Sweet grape-juice; crushed ice; Sweetened whipped cream; mint. Fill tall glasses such as are used for ice-tea one-third full of crushed ice. Pour over this the grape-juice till the glasses are two-thirds full. The ice is usually sufficient to dilute it. Pile on each serving a spoonful of the cream, and top it with a sprig of mint. Serve with straws or long-handled spoons. If desired, mint-leaves may be crushed with the ice. Homemade grape-juice is preferable for this drink, but the commercial varieties may be used successfully if sugar is added. John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK has only, on pg. 6: _angel's tit._ Also, "King Alphonse." A cocktail made by floating heavy cream on creme de cacao and topping it with a cherry (1984). -------------------------------------------------------- MANHATTAN CLAM CHOWDER (continued) FWIW, from THE STEWARD, July 1943, pg. 8, col. 1: Manhattan clam chowder, when first devised, (Col. 2--ed.) was known as Coney Island chowder. As one restaurateur explained, "We call it Manhattan now, because that sounds a little better." -------------------------------------------------------- CHADLESS (continued) FWIW, from TELEPRINTER SWITCHING (D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., Princeton, NJ, 1960) by Ehrhard A. Rossberg and Helmut E. Korta, pg. 220: Fig. 150 depicts the typing reperforator of the American Teletype Corporation. This machine receives messages in the form of so-called chadless tapes, where the perforations are not punched out completely but rather remain linked to the tape in the form of "scales". This is due to the fact that the punches merely apply a crescent-shaped cut to the tape. From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Sat Jan 20 04:51:27 2001 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:51:27 -0600 Subject: query In-Reply-To: <502460.3188144585@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Merriam-Webster has a form letter to reply to -gry queries. If all the letters received over the years have been kept, there must be a separate basement full of them, somewhere. The letters (and now e-mails as well, of course) often come in batches, apparently the result of teachers' or professors' misguided attempts to come up with linguistic assignments for students. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Lynne Murphy > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 1:43 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: query > > > --On Wednesday, January 10, 2001 2:20 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan > wrote: > > > A TA of mine just asked me what the three English words ending in -gry > > are, and I could only recall "angry" and "hungry." Can someone > remind me > > what the third one is? > > There is no third one. Here's Jesse S's note from the archives. I must > say, I'm as sick of the query as he was then! Hard to believe how often > this goes around. > > Lynne > > > Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 10:38:50 -0400 > From: Jesse T Sheidlower jester at PANIX.COM > Subject: Re: Words that end in GRY > > > In the past few weeks I've seen this unanswered puzzler pop > up in three > different circles. So excuse me while I introduce it to this circle > which > might be able to answer it. > > The English language has (at least) three words that end in GRY. > "Angry" and > "hungry" are two of them. What is the third, which purportedly is an > everyday > word? > > AAAAaaaaargh! > > Does _every corner_ of the Internet have to be saturated with this? > > The answer to the riddle in the form you heard it (as opposed to the > form you're quoting) is either "what" or "three." It's a shaggy-dog > riddle. ("There are three words..." the question begins, and when the > question asks "what is the third word?" it's really asking "what is > the third word of the riddle?" Alternately, the question is asked > earlier in the riddle, and then the last line is "'What' is the > word.", declaratively--this version only works when heard orally.) > > As for words that end in -gry, there are a whole bunch, none of them > common, including puggry, maugry, iggry, aggry, gry, and others, but > the best is _nugry,_ coined on rec.games.puzzles to mean 'the sort of > person who will ask the words ending in -gry question without > checking to see if five billion people have already asked it here > before'. > > JTS > > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > From rkm at SLIP.NET Sat Jan 20 06:11:19 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:11:19 -0800 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >There are also some extremely thick-skinned grapefruit which are >known as "shaddocks" - I have heard it said that this is from the >name of the sea captain who first brought them to the Caribbean, a >Captain Shattuck, who is supposedly also the man behind the name of >Shattuck Street in Boston. I'd be interested if anyone has knowledge >of that. And Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley? Rima From rkm at SLIP.NET Sat Jan 20 06:11:19 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:11:19 -0800 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question Message-ID: Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy situation. However, the articles have said that the California couple named the 6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? Rima From pulliam at IIT.EDU Sat Jan 20 06:23:44 2001 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 00:23:44 -0600 Subject: "come with" going national? In-Reply-To: <3A68D35C.6D64F2D7@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: When I said it seemed like the ad might have been meant for national distribution, I meant that the copy and production values led me to this speculation. It did not seem like a spot produced just for local broadcast. I'm hoping that other ads-l-ers will be alert to their local radio outlets for this Marriot ad. Still, Mike's point is well-taken. He may be right. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 20 14:28:01 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 09:28:01 -0500 Subject: "Wads" = "chads"? Message-ID: US Patent # 732,279 (1903) (H. L. Davis: "Electrically-controlled Perforating-machine") deals with the punching of paper for use in automatic musical instruments -- like player-piano rolls, I guess. In the specifications, I find <> Clearly the word "wads" is used here exactly as the word "chads" is employed in a number of much later patents and other documents. The OED shows under "wad" a definition including "a disk of felt or cardboard", with a citation from 1881 reading "Wads are punched out of sheets of various materials ...." This is in reference to wadding for firearms. How could "wad" = "punched-out flat fragment" be related to "chad" = "punched-out flat fragment"? One possibility is that "wad" was conflated with "chaff" (I don't find this entirely natural/convincing but I await further evidence). Early paper punches produced troublesome waste which included chad(s) (i.e., disks or chips) and also finer material (fibers, "paper dust"), and the composite residue may have needed a name -- perhaps "chad(s)" = "chaff and wads", the union of the countable and uncountable elements perhaps leading to the countable/uncountable ambiguity of "chad(s)"? Then again, perhaps it's just a coincidence .... Note that from its earliest citations (so far), "chad" has referred to a punched-out fragment AS RESIDUE -- like "chaff" -- and not to the punched-out disk simply as a disk. The tape in which the disks are not fully detached is referred to as "chadless" -- i.e., without residue/debris -- rather than as "retained-chad", "attached-chad", etc. Although the disk (later called a "hanging chad") of course was present in early "chadless" tapes (and in fact caused problems in rolling and storing these tapes!), it didn't qualify as "chad"! The 1944 citation can be read this way: the chad is said to be ELIMINATED, not simply retained on the tape. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 05:11:35 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 13:11:35 +0800 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >situation. > >However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? > >Rima Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 06:04:43 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 14:04:43 +0800 Subject: cross-posting Message-ID: I almost hate to do this on an otherwise relaxing weekend, but (from Linguist List)... Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:09:04 EST From: Vocabula at aol.com Subject: New Article: Grammar and Disputation Hello The January issue of "The Vocabula Review" contains an article that might be of interest to some of you: "Grammar and Disputation -- A Summary of Methods and Arguments from Ten Grammatical Errors in the American Heritage Dictionary" Here's the link if you want to take a look: http://www.vocabula.com/VRJan01Corey.htm Regards, Robert Hartwell Fiske The Vocabula Review www.vocabula.com/vocabulareview.htm =================== -larry (I expect Geoff Nunberg, the primary trashee, has already seen this via Linguist, but I suppose Steve K. and Joe P. should see what (else) they're up against.) From jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM Sat Jan 20 19:30:46 2001 From: jwm at URSOLARIS.SPDCC.COM (Jeffrey William McKeough) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 14:30:46 -0500 Subject: crumpets & muffins In-Reply-To: from "Joe Pickett" at Jan 18, 2001 04:01:27 PM Message-ID: Joe Pickett wrote: > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. I think "git" might be catching on, which is good because I like it. The Americanization has been more limited as the series has progressed. By the fourth boothey changed pretty much only thehe spelling and left a lot of British words. I thought the Americanization effort was pretty weak. I can't think of specific examples since it's been months since I read the books, but a lot of times there'd be a sentence that had a very British feel to it, with a bunch of American words tossed in. The end result was awkward. At some point in the series the word choice got confusing. Some of the words were American and some were English, so it was difficult to know what was meant by references to people eating "chips" and carrying "torches". It was more annoying than anything. -- Jeffrey William McKeough jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 20:10:55 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:10:55 EST Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (Rio Grande Valley, 1976) Message-ID: "The Round-up Restaurant, now closed, in tiny Pharr, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley is generally credited with having been the first establishment, in 1969, to put fajitas on its menu when it was just a drive-in eatery." --NEW YORK TIMES, 1 May 1994, section 5, pg. 26, col.4. The Bell & Howell phonebook fiche starts in 1976. March 1976, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 367, col. 2 ad: OLD MEXICO RESTAURANT HOME OF THE AUTHENTIC CHILE RELLENO & TAMPIQUENA STEAKS "SERVING CAFETERIA STYLE" WITH REAL HOMEMADE FLOUR TORTILLAS OUR MENU INCLUDES: CHAR-BROILED FAJITAS--STEAKS Carne Guisada Tacos Rice Beans Guacamole Picadillo Variety of Salads Homemade Pies EL CENTRO MALL 500 N. Jackson--Pharr 787-2601 February 1977, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 418, col. 1 ad: ROUND UP DRIVE IN "SPECIALIZING IN FINE, FRESH SEAFOOD" ALASKA KING CRAB LEGS INDIA FROG LEGS NICARAGUA & S. AFRICA LOBSTER TAILS CHINA SHRIMP MEXICO SHRIMP BRAZIL RED SNAPPER SEA FOOD PLATTER FAJITAS--MEXICAN FOOD CHARCOAL BROILED STEAKS 787-9052 709 WEST HIGHWAY 83--PHARR From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 07:19:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:19:00 +0800 Subject: more computer-related lingo Message-ID: From the Times "On the Net, Love Really Is Blind, With Offline Pitfalls", 1/18/01, emphasis added: Storm King [presumably his real name], a doctoral student at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto, Calif., said online romances create a false intimacy among couples. "Text-based relationships are very deceptive", Mr. King said. "People know only the good stuff, and none of the bad." =============== I suppose if they were really to catch on, we'd be calling them TBRs. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 20:27:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:27:19 EST Subject: Safire Watch (continued) Message-ID: A few days ago, I again suggested to people on this list a way to end this. E-mail Elizabeth Phillips at phille at nytimes.com. Ask her to join the ADS and ANS for free. Ask her to correct my words. Tell me if you get a response (that I've never gotten). Did anyone do that? What would it take, a mouse click? How difficult is that???? Whatever. The fact is, I still have no response. My work has been incorrect for over four months now. Again, if you want to stop this (as I want to), please do this. My profession work has been murdered and I feel pretty bad about that. This past week, I told the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay Guaridan, and the San Francisco Examiner about Peter Tamony's work on "jazz." Tamony was an ADS member for over 50 years. Now, a person in Safire's position can just call up Ken Burns, ask if he's ever heard of Peter Tamony, ask why the "jazz" work isn't correct, and then rake Burns over the coals in his column. But I've got to defend Peter Tamony without any help. Thanks a bunch. Which brings us, again, to this week's "On Language" column. It's another winner. You can look up "titular" in the dictionary. Safire gets a column out of it. Elizabeth Phillips is mentioned and given credit for finding the first "shrinking violet" in SYLVIA (1827) by Geroge Darley. Nice job. Then I checked Literature Online. The first citation is SYLIVA (1827) by George Darley. There's a little line at the bottom of Literature Online, and it reads like this: Copyright c 1996-2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All Rights Reserved. Don't these things apply to William Safire's columns? From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 20 20:16:12 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:16:12 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? dInIs >At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>situation. >> >>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >> >>Rima >Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Sat Jan 20 21:32:24 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:32:24 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Kimberley and Belinda--ugh! At 03:16 PM 1/20/01 -0500, you wrote: >Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? > >dInIs > > >>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>situation. >>> >>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>> >>>Rima >>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >> >>larry > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 20 08:54:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:54:42 +0800 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? > >dInIs Actually, a bit of research reveals that it was the birth mother (nice retronym) herself who named them Kiara and Keyara, and then put them up on the web for adoption, presumably because they couldn't tell them apart with the neutralized vowels and all. The British couple, the Kilshaws, re-named them Kimberley and Belinda, which have the virtue of being phonologically distinct. The California couple, the Allens, evidently are willing to retain the girls' birth names, but maybe that factor shouldn't be absolutely decisive in itself. larry > > >>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>situation. >>> >>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>> >>>Rima >>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >> >>larry > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston at pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 20 23:46:18 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 18:46:18 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20010120163224.00f14990@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >larry told you so dInIs >Kimberley and Belinda--ugh! > > >At 03:16 PM 1/20/01 -0500, you wrote: >>Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? >> >>dInIs >> >> >>>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>>situation. >>>> >>>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>>> >>>>Rima >>>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >>> >>>larry >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Department of Linguistics and Languages >>Michigan State University > >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA > >preston at pilot.msu.edu > >Office: (517)353-0740 > >Fax: (517)432-2736 > > -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 21 01:17:31 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 20:17:31 -0500 Subject: Shrinking Violet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As pointed out by Barry, Elizabeth Phillips did a fine job in unearthing an 1827 occurrence of "shrinking violet" for William Safire's column. This is a literal usage. The OED has 1915 as its earliest citation for "shrinking violet" as a metaphor for a shy person. Here are some earlier examples of that sense: 1892 _Century Mag._ Feb. The drooping violet of Maverick, that's what you were -- the shy little Denver daisy....We've got to make you swat somewhere for that shrinking violet business -- eh, boys? 1913 Marvin Dana _Within the Law_ 290 "You can't do anything to us," Aggie declared, strongly. There remained no trace of the shrinking violet that had been Miss Helen Travers West. Now, she revealed merely the business woman engaged in a fight against the law, which was opposed definitely to her peculiar from of buisness. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dsgood at VISI.COM Sun Jan 21 01:53:02 2001 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 19:53:02 -0600 Subject: summary: Brit writing sf need New Orleans accent help Message-ID: What he specifically asked for was Internet radio stations with good samples of talk. However, I suspect there are other useful resources. Note: rec.arts.sf.composition is the Usenet group devoted to writing speculative fiction. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: Re: Usage of thee, thou, etc. In article , Supermouse wrote: >In article , Dan Goodman > writes >>More precisely, there are two major dialect areas in the South: Southern >>and South Midlands (or Upper South -- depending on whether the linguist >>applying the label considers it more closely related to North Midlands or >>to Southern). > >Speaking of which, can anybody give me the url of an Internet- >broadcasting radio station that will give me a handle on the sort of >accent to be found in New Orleans? If you give permission, I'll pass your query on to the American Dialect Society mailing list. It's quite possible that someone there will say something like "There's the Ketcham archive of recordings of New Orleans residents in London". There are recordings intended for actors who need to learn various accents. A US library in a largish city would have them; I don't know about the UK. One factor: New Orleans's accent has a lot in common with the dialects of New York City, Boston, and Baltimore -- possibly transmitted by boids or ersters. (Not the upperclass Boston accent, but the one most Bostonians use.) These cities have at least these things in common: they're seaports on the Atlantic, and they got large numbers of immigrants from Ireland. I don't know how much either of these has to do with the similarities. >I've searched for, and found, a multitude of stations so far but they >either don't load, don't broadcast on the Internet or just do straight >music with no talk. And, as I don't really know what I'm listening for >I've been limited to stations in New Orleans itself to be on the safe >side. > >I'll of course keep on searching, but any help with this would be >appreciated greatly. I would suggest trying to find someone from New Orleans to read your manuscript, to see if you've got that accent right. -- Dan Goodman dsgood at visi.com http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 03:51:25 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 22:51:25 EST Subject: Shitcom Message-ID: I saw Steven Berkoff's one-man show, SHAKESPEARE'S VILLAINS: A MASTERCLASS IN EVIL, today at the Public Theater. Go see it--it's been extended. The guy is funny. His web site is: www.east-productions.demon.co.uk My companion this time was an actress from Australia (wherever that is). Unfortunately, I didn't take her to COPENHAGEN so we could sleep together on the first date. Berkoff said that you often see "star" actors doing Shakespeare, such as those from "shitcoms." Shitcoms? I very rarely hear "shitcom"--perhaps because you can't say "shit" on tv. My date told me that it isn't used in Australia. It's not in the GB-leaning CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG. Anybody run across it before? FWIW, Berkoff things that "Puck" is a little euphemism that his audiences recognized. From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Sun Jan 21 06:20:03 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 00:20:03 -0600 Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (Rio Grande Valley, 1976) Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > "The Round-up Restaurant, now closed, in tiny Pharr, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley is generally credited with having been the first establishment, in 1969, to put fajitas on its menu when it was just a drive-in eatery." I grew up in the Valley, and I very much doubt that The Round-Up Restaurant was the first. What gringos world-wide know as fajitas are various kinds of meats seasoned with spices that generations of mamacitas and 'buelitas have put on flank steaks (fajas) in feeding their families -- the tough meat in the muscles under the bellies of bovine critters. Butchers would give away the fajas covered with fat or sell them for a pittance, so this was a good way for the poor to get a solid source of protein. In the 1950s one could get botana platters of fajitas in lots of eateries along the Texas border. After gringuification of this food item, butchers could sell flank steaks for more $$$ and this traditional item was soon no longer a staple for less affluent families. "Chicken fajitas," in a "technical" sense, is a misnomer, because the fajas in a chicken's belly are so thin that they wouldn't make much of a meal. Anyway, Pharr was hardly "tiny" in 1969 -- rather, had a population more like 12 -15,000. The 1994 estimated population was 36,576. The 1990 population of Hidalgo County, where Pharr is located, was 383,545 in 1990 and is now over 500,000. Whoever credited The Round-Up with this "innovation" was certainly not the kind of researcher that we have in our own Barry Popik. DMLance From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 06:33:43 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 01:33:43 EST Subject: Dope Opera Message-ID: TRAFFIC could very well win the Oscar as Best Picture. From the VILLAGE VOICE Choices, 23 January 2001, pg. 78, col. 7: TRAFFIC Not just an ultra-procedural but the Whole Enchilada, Steven Soderbergh's prize-winning dope opera puts a heavy arm on the audience to demonstrate that drugs touch us all. There have been a few hits for "dope opera"--a "soap opera" involving drugs ("dope"). Sometimes, however, a "dope opera" is a "soap opera" for "dopes." Whether that's better or worse than a "shitcom," I dunno. From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 21 07:11:13 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 01:11:13 -0600 Subject: Dope Opera Message-ID: Re: dope opera and "shitcom". Dope opera and shitcom is the drink you buy at the Metropolitan Opera, between the acts. The current work was Busoni's Faust, which is a rather dreadful work. You just have your whiskey, and smoke the cigarette out on the balcony with it. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 21 13:34:54 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 08:34:54 -0500 Subject: Phonebook Fajitas (Rio Grande Valley, 1976) In-Reply-To: <3A6A7F86.C8AF4358@missouri.edu> Message-ID: >"ginguification" or "gringofication" or "gringoification"? What's up Don? dInIs >Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> "The Round-up Restaurant, now closed, in tiny Pharr, Texas, in the >>Rio Grande Valley is generally credited with having been the first >>establishment, in 1969, to put fajitas on its menu when it was just >>a drive-in eatery." > >I grew up in the Valley, and I very much doubt that The Round-Up >Restaurant was the first. What gringos world-wide know as fajitas >are various kinds of meats seasoned with spices that generations of >mamacitas and 'buelitas >have put on flank steaks (fajas) in feeding their families -- the >tough meat in the muscles under the bellies of bovine critters. >Butchers would give away the fajas covered with fat or sell them for >a pittance, so this was >a good way for the poor to get a solid source of protein. In the >1950s one could get botana platters of fajitas in lots of eateries >along the Texas border. After gringuification of this food item, >butchers could sell flank >steaks for more $$$ and this traditional item was soon no longer a >staple for less affluent families. "Chicken fajitas," in a >"technical" sense, is a misnomer, because the fajas in a chicken's >belly are so thin that they >wouldn't make much of a meal. > >Anyway, Pharr was hardly "tiny" in 1969 -- rather, had a population >more like 12 -15,000. The 1994 estimated population was 36,576. >The 1990 population of Hidalgo County, where Pharr is located, was >383,545 in 1990 and is >now over 500,000. > >Whoever credited The Round-Up with this "innovation" was certainly >not the kind of researcher that we have in our own Barry Popik. > >DMLance -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 18:25:10 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 13:25:10 EST Subject: What's up with y'all? (Lingua franca, Feb. 2001) Message-ID: "What's up with y'all?" is on the cover of LINGUA FRANCA, February 2001. "Welcome to the y'all house," by Michael Erard, is on pages 8-9. The story mentions Dennis Preston, Michael Montgomery, DARE, and the Sept. 2000 article in JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 21 22:08:23 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 16:08:23 -0600 Subject: "son of a gun" Message-ID: On Jan. 17 Douglas Wilson sent a message about "son of a gun," which says in part: >The Cassell slang dictionary says it's euphemistic for "son of a bitch" ... >but derives the "gun" from "gonnof", which strikes me as unlikely. Actually, I believe Cassell (which I do not have before me) is on the right track. "Gun" besides referring to a firearm, was also a cant term for "thief," at least in the 19th century. For example, one can read about "the guns and their molls," i.e., the thieves and their women/wives. And this "gun" is known to derive from Yiddish "gonnof" (thief). Both "gun" (thief) and "gonnof" were present in British cant. If someone were called a "son of a gun," the original idea was probably: "Your father is a thief, and you're a younger version of him." ---Gerald Cohen From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 23:27:53 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 18:27:53 EST Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:08:13 Luanne von Schneidemesser asked: >I would like to know when the abbreviation "inc." for incorporated began >being pronounced as "ink" as opposed to "incorporated". I don't know if the following will be helpful, but here goes: A man I was acquainted with in the late 1970's, one Neil "Bear" Belsky, was a science fiction fan and like many such in that pre-Internet age was in the habit of printing "zines" (i.e. things he wrote that he felt like distributing to friends). I have in front of me one such zine he distributed in April 1978. In it he wrote "This is a product of Bearly Adequate Inc." (It was printed, rather poorly, by mimeograph, and the printing job was indeed "barely adequate"). In another zine of February 1979, this one photocopied, he wrote "This zine is a production of Bearly Adequate Ink." Conclusion: in 1978 "ink" and "Inc." was an obvious pun. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Jan 21 23:35:23 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 15:35:23 -0800 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: the Printers Inc. bookstores (in palo alto and mountain view, ca.) - pronounced, of course, like "printer's ink" - date back to the late 1970s. arnold From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 01:21:33 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:21:33 -0500 Subject: "son of a gun" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: yOn Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Gerald Cohen wrote: > Actually, I believe Cassell (which I do not have before me) is on > the right track. "Gun" besides referring to a firearm, was also a > cant term for "thief," at least in the 19th century. For example, one > can read about "the guns and their molls," i.e., the thieves and > their women/wives. And this "gun" is known to derive from Yiddish > "gonnof" (thief). Both "gun" (thief) and "gonnof" were present in > British cant. Then why is "son of a gun" attested 150 years before this usage of "gun"? Was English influenced by Yiddish in 1700? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 22 02:23:39 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:23:39 -0600 Subject: "son of a gun" Message-ID: Whoops. Fred Shapiro correctly points to a chronological discrepancy in what I said about "gun" in "son of a gun" deriving from British cant "gun" (thief). A check of Eric Partridge's _A Dictionary of the Underworld_ shows that "gun" (thief) is first attested in 1857, too late to appear in "son of a gun." I withdraw my suggestion. ---Gerald Cohen >On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Gerald Cohen wrote: > > Actually, I believe Cassell (which I do not have before me) is on >> the right track. "Gun" besides referring to a firearm, was also a >> cant term for "thief," at least in the 19th century. For example, one >> can read about "the guns and their molls," i.e., the thieves and >> their women/wives. And this "gun" is known to derive from Yiddish >> "gonnof" (thief). Both "gun" (thief) and "gonnof" were present in >> British cant. > >Then why is "son of a gun" attested 150 years before this usage of "gun"? >Was English influenced by Yiddish in 1700? > >Fred Shapiro From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 04:11:43 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:11:43 EST Subject: Floribbean/New World/Gold Coast/Nuevo Latino/ Nuevo Cubano/Fusion Message-ID: The New York Post has a Florida edition, so it perhaps knows the cuisine. From the NEW YORK POST, 16 January 2001, pg. 50, col. 2: _Welcome to the New World of cuisine_ By JOANN BIONDI A blend of classic European techniques, the freshest of exotic ingredients, and a liberal dash of Caribbean and Latin flavorings, New World cuisine continues to be one of the most acclaimed gourmet styles around today. Also referred to as Floribbean, Tropical Fusion, and Nuevo Latino, it is fun, vibrant, and surprisingly healthy. It is also a visual delight. Some of its staples include melon salad with kumquat dressing, Jamaican jerk rack-of-lamb with mango chutney, corn-crusted snapper, coconut rice, grouper Creole, papaya-carrot cake,and passion fruit sorbet. Can't we settle on a name by now? Like Tex-Mex? Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK has Nuevo Latino and Fusion, but not Floribbean/Gold Coast/Nuevo Cubano/New World. A check of the Dow Jones database for "Floribbean" shows this from THE BATON ROUGE MORNING ADVOCATE, 9-12-1991, pg. 1F FLORIBBEAN CUISINE. Don't try to find the term in Webster's Dictionary or in any of the culinary encyclopedias or reference guides. Ask Louisianians about it and they'll probably respond, "Flori what?" Although it's still too young and trendy now, in the next few months, Floribbean style foods could become one of the most popular cuisines of the '90s. (...) And recent issues of "The New York Times," "Time Magazine" and "The National Culinary Review," a publication of the American Culinary Federation, extol the virtues of the Floribbean trend. "Floribbean" is a coined term often used by Florida culinarians to describe a combination of classical cooking techniques with a light, fruity style. The May 1991 issue of "The National Culinary Review" claims this new world cuisine is inspired by the cultures of South America, Central America and Africa, as well as the Caribbean Islands. How could this have been the first Dow Jones hit if "Floribbean" has already been mentioned in the New York Times? -------------------------------------------------------- I visited the Victory Memorial Hospital today. David Shulman seemed in good spirits. When I chatted with the nurses about the twenty-hour wait, no one was shocked. Heck, a flight to Australia takes 19 hours, but you get five movies. From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Mon Jan 22 04:26:16 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:26:16 -0800 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in mysteries, known as Murder Ink. J Foster ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arnold Zwicky" To: Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 3:35 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: A question for a linguist > the Printers Inc. bookstores (in palo alto and mountain view, ca.) > - pronounced, of course, like "printer's ink" - date back to the > late 1970s. > > arnold > > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 22 04:39:06 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:39:06 -0800 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: j foster: >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty years ago. this too can be checked. arnold From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 04:49:05 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:49:05 -0500 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist In-Reply-To: <200101220439.UAA06808@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky said: >j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > >was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they >published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty >years ago. this too can be checked. The surprise is not that I remember this book, but that it took me under a minute to locate it on one of my bookshelves. _Murder Ink: The Mystery Reader's Companion_, Perpetrated by Dilys Winn. New York: Workman Publishing, 1977. According to the introduction, they bookstore by the same name (without the subtitle!) opened in 1972, June, to be exact. -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From stevek at SHORE.NET Mon Jan 22 04:42:09 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:42:09 -0500 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist In-Reply-To: <200101220439.UAA06808@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Arnold Zwicky wrote: > j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > > was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they > published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty > years ago. this too can be checked. 24 years ago. I have the hardcover edition (c 1977) on my shelf. I was a big Agatha Christie fan, and my parents got it for me as a present. It's a great book! --- Steve K. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 04:47:21 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:47:21 EST Subject: "Hopefuller" George W. Bush; Dumbocrat Message-ID: "HOPEFULLER" GEORGE W. BUSH "...a more literate country and a hopefuller country." --George W. Bush, 11 January 2001 This is way too easy. "Hopefuller" has been much ridiculed this past week. Today's Bushism (found on Deja.com) shows that President George W. Bush is still hopeful--even if he's not making much sense: Bushism of the Day "I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure." -- Interview with the Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001 -------------------------------------------------------- DUMBOCRAT "Dumbocrat" (for "Democrat") is much used on Deja.com. I could have sworn that I posted this here in 1998 or 1999. Did the ADS-L archives have to lose everything? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 04:59:53 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:59:53 EST Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist Message-ID: I have _three_ of these things. Manhattan is (212). From YellowBook.com 2000-2001, MANHATTAN (fingers illustration): Murder Ink 2486 Broadway at 93 St...362-8905 From THE COMPLETE 2001 MANHATTAN YELLOW PAGES (Ambassador Publishing): Murder Inc 2486 Broadway...362-8905 Murder Ink 2486 Broadway...362-8905 Murder Ink 2486 Broadway...873-1908 From BELL ATLANTIC YELLOW PAGES MANHATTAN, May 2000-April 2001: Murder Ink 2486 Broadway...212 362-8905 From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 22 07:07:52 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 02:07:52 -0500 Subject: Query: Shot himself in the foot Message-ID: [Please reply to the original sender, not to me, although you may want to reply to the list as well.] I'm trying to track down the origin of the term "He shot himself in the foot." I think that it's commonly misused nowadays, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I'd appreciate any help that you can provide. Charles B. (Chuck) Williams From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 22 07:31:01 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 08:31:01 +0100 Subject: A question for a linguist Message-ID: On lundi 22 janvier 2001 05:39, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > >was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they >published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty >years ago. this too can be checked. It was still there in May of last year, Upper West Side on Broadway, somewhere between 86th and 96th Streets. Grant Barrett http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 09:52:51 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:52:51 +0000 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> >> In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I >> read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in >> Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the >> States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the >> same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are >> different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et >> al.? Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a subtype of mandarin orange that's seedless. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From dumasb at UTK.EDU Mon Jan 22 11:59:51 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 06:59:51 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: >Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a subtype of >mandarin orange that's seedless. The clementines I have eaten are quite different from the mandarin oranges I have eaten. Bethany From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 22 13:01:43 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 08:01:43 -0500 Subject: Fwd: A question for a linguist In-Reply-To: <200101220439.UAA06808@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >Wadn't there a movie? dInIs (less inclined to reading) >j foster: > >There is or was a bookstore and publisher in NYC , spoecializing in > >mysteries, known as Murder Ink. > >was, i believe, alas. but barry can check this quickly. it/they >published a big paperback book entitled Murder Ink, about thirty >years ago. this too can be checked. > >arnold -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Mon Jan 22 13:55:39 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 14:55:39 +0100 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: According to the Swedish National Encyclopaedia, the oldest of the words is "mandarin" (after the color of the Chinese mandarin's clothing, "mandarin" originally from Sanskrit "mantrin", counsellor, via Portugese "mandarim"), documented in Swedish since 1881. It usually has seeds. "Tangerin" (after the city of Tanger) is documented as another name for "mandarin" since 1894. "Clementin" (an almost seedless mandarin) is named after the P?re Cl?ment, who around 1900 improved the species. "Satsuma" is another variant of the same seedless mandarin, named after the Japanese province, documented in Swedish since 1970. All the variants have in common that they are easily peeled. Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lynne Murphy" To: Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 10:52 AM Subject: Re: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) > >> > >> In my experience as well (and I was just going to write that when I > >> read this last posting). I had "clementinos" for the first time in > >> Israel in 1961 - and they were unheard of when I returned to the > >> States. Tangerines were common, however. Still all clearly in the > >> same family, but maybe different in the way mandarin oranges are > >> different from naval oranges are different from Valencia oranges, et > >> al.? > > Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a subtype of > mandarin orange that's seedless. > > Lynne > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 14:09:58 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:09:58 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? I always thought it was to rhyme with "red" because of the spelling, but I swear I just heard Michaela Majoun (who may be nationally known) say something about sending in $60 to "read up your membership" on WXPN radio. Is this possible? Or did I just mishear her saying "renew"? Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From dumasb at UTK.EDU Mon Jan 22 14:07:09 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:07:09 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: >According to the Swedish National Encyclopaedia ...< Am I the only one who wonders why we are looking in dictionaries and encyclopedias instead of eating samples? Bethany From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Mon Jan 22 14:18:55 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:18:55 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: "D. Ezra Johnson" wrote: > > How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? > > I always thought it was to rhyme with "red" because of the spelling, but I > swear I just heard Michaela Majoun (who may be nationally known) say > something about sending in $60 to > > "read up your membership" > > on WXPN radio. It's "red up", as in "get ready". "Read up" is what you do to become familiar with the literature on a particular topic. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 14:23:11 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:23:11 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "Eat your own dog food!" Translation: When you are developing software, use the part of the software that is already written as your "platform" for further development. E.g. if you are adding additional features to a word processor, use that word processor as your tool for entering new source code, etc. More simply: use your own software The theory (probably correct) is that if you have to use your own software you'll do a better job of writing it and making it easy to use. If memory serves, this slogan comes from Microsoft where it is company policy, and was cited in the weekly newspaper Computerworld in the last year or two. - James A. Landau -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 22 14:34:54 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:34:54 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? The word is properly written "redd", according to the dictionaries,and pronounced the same as "red". I have seen it written as "red", "rett", "ret", and I've heard it pronounced "ret" (a very small distinction). I don't remember hearing anything like "reed up" or "reet up" but it wouldn't surprise me if I did. Possibly the radio expression was a version of "re-up" = "sign up again"? -- Doug Wilson From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 15:03:17 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:03:17 EST Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan Metcalf From Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM Mon Jan 22 15:12:39 2001 From: Joe_Pickett at HMCO.COM (Joe Pickett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:12:39 -0500 Subject: cross-posting Message-ID: Thanks, Larry, for alerting me to this. I looked at this last week, and Geoff Nunberg is aware of this too. The author of this article, Peter Corey, is an extreme traditionalist, whose quest seems to be logical consistency in language. An "epilogue" to his book is entitled "How Linguistics Killed Grammar." A couple of the "mistakes" that he observes in AHD are that "like" is identified as a preposition, and "none" as a pronoun. Among the reasons he gives for "like" not being a preposition is that, unlike any other preposition, "like" can be negated by the prefix un-. (The AHD deals with this by listing "unlike" as a preposition as well as an adjective.) "None" is not a pronoun, in Corey's view, because it can be "modified" by "almost," and pronouns cannot be modified by definition, ergo . . . Far be it from me to say that the categorization of words into traditional parts of speech is unencumbered by ambiguity, but I can't see investing a lot of time to refute such assertions. Joe Laurence Horn @LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/20/2001 01:04:43 AM Please respond to American Dialect Society Sent by: American Dialect Society To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU cc: Subject: cross-posting I almost hate to do this on an otherwise relaxing weekend, but (from Linguist List)... Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:09:04 EST From: Vocabula at aol.com Subject: New Article: Grammar and Disputation Hello The January issue of "The Vocabula Review" contains an article that might be of interest to some of you: "Grammar and Disputation -- A Summary of Methods and Arguments from Ten Grammatical Errors in the American Heritage Dictionary" Here's the link if you want to take a look: http://www.vocabula.com/VRJan01Corey.htm Regards, Robert Hartwell Fiske The Vocabula Review www.vocabula.com/vocabulareview.htm =================== -larry (I expect Geoff Nunberg, the primary trashee, has already seen this via Linguist, but I suppose Steve K. and Joe P. should see what (else) they're up against.) From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 22 15:01:14 2001 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:01:14 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: FWIW, my family (in northeastern Massachusetts) uses "garbage." Joanne Despres Merriam-Webster, Inc. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 02:31:38 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:31:38 +0800 Subject: cross-posting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Thanks, Larry, for alerting me to this. I looked at this last week, and >Geoff Nunberg is aware of this too. > >The author of this article, Peter Corey, is an extreme traditionalist, >whose quest seems to be logical consistency in language. An "epilogue" to >his book is entitled "How Linguistics Killed Grammar." > >A couple of the "mistakes" that he observes in AHD are that "like" is >identified as a preposition, and "none" as a pronoun. >Among the reasons he gives for "like" not being a preposition is that, >unlike any other preposition, "like" can be negated by the prefix un-. >(The AHD deals with this by listing "unlike" as a preposition as well as an >adjective.) "None" is not a pronoun, in Corey's view, because it can be >"modified" by "almost," and pronouns cannot be modified by definition, ergo >. . . > >Far be it from me to say that the categorization of words into traditional >parts of speech is unencumbered by ambiguity, but I can't see investing a >lot of time to refute such assertions. > >Joe > Hi, Joe. I did notice the references in his web site to _How Linguistics Killed Grammar_, and figured he was Mrs. Grundy personified, which he has certainly done nothing to dispel with his current crusade. So presumably "everybody" can't be a pronoun either according to Corey? It's nice that at least one preposition can be un-prefixed, since un- can also attach to all the other major categories (adjectives, verbs, nouns). Makes for a more symmetric system, in fact. (Most U.S. dictionaries seem to share this "error" of classifying "unlike" as a preposition.) larry From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Mon Jan 22 15:28:49 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:28:49 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: ...or did she say "re-up," casual military for "reenlist"? > -----Original Message----- > From: D. Ezra Johnson [mailto:ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 9:10 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? > > > How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? > > I always thought it was to rhyme with "red" because of the > spelling, but I > swear I just heard Michaela Majoun (who may be nationally known) say > something about sending in $60 to > > "read up your membership" > > on WXPN radio. > > Is this possible? Or did I just mishear her saying "renew"? > > Daniel > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Mon Jan 22 15:48:45 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:48:45 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note 'garbage disposal'. Bob Wachal At 10:03 AM 1/22/01 EST, you wrote: >Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans >or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan >Metcalf > > From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 22 15:00:14 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:00:14 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Dear Allan, There is an entry for both _garbage_ and _trash_ in Wentworth (_American Dialect Dictionary): garbage, n. 1900 e. Va. Richmond. garbage M'Cormic in Atla. Mon. 447. 1909 Va. Perhaps I said 'geearbage.' In Va., we argue for its correctness...Anon. Va. woman in Atlan. Mon. 137 trash, 1. n. 1925 s.w.S.C.-e.Ga. Savannah R. _Negro_ tresh. Everyday speech. 2. = poor white trash. 3. n. Foolery; nonsense. 1921 Newfoundland. 4. n. Seet food, as candy. 1942 n.W.Va. Preston Col. I don't eat trash between meals. 5. v.t. to hide (a trail) by going in water. 1934 Local U.S. Web. Regards, David David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From st17 at YORK.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 16:33:59 2001 From: st17 at YORK.AC.UK (Sali Tagliamonte) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:33:59 +0000 Subject: 2nd Call for Papers, 3rd UK Language Variation Conference In-Reply-To: Message-ID: 3rd UK LANGUAGE VARIATION CONFERENCE Call for papers: The 3rd UK Language Variation Conference will take place at the University of York from July 19th to 22nd, 2001. Invited speakers will be: Lesley Milroy (University of Michigan & University of York), Jane Stuart-Smith (University of Glasgow) Peter Trudgill (University of Fribourg) This series of meetings was inaugurated at the University of Reading in 1997, with the second at the University of Essex in 2000. It aims to provide a forum in the United Kingdom where the focus will be on the quantitative study of language variation and change. Proposals are invited for 20-minute contributions (plus 10 minutes? discussion) on topics falling within the proposed focus area. Abstracts (max. 500 words) should be sent within the text of an email to uklvc3 at york.ac.uk, stating author?s name, address (electronic and postal) and institutional affiliation. ***REVISED DEADLINE *** Submission of abstracts: February 16th, 2001. All abstracts will be refereed and replies will be sent out by April 1st, 2001. ORGANISING COMMITTEE: Sali Tagliamonte, Paul Foulkes, Helen Lawrence, Jennifer Smith, Rosalind Temple and Dominic Watt. ****************************************************************** Sali Tagliamonte E-mail: st17 at york.ac.uk Department of Language URL: http://www.york.ac.uk/~st17/ and Linguistic Science Office phone:+44 (0)1904 432 656 University of York Dept. phone: +44 (0)1904 432 652 Heslington, YORK, YO10 5DD Dept. Fax: +44 (0)1904 432 673 Home phone: +44 (0)1904 635 812 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 16:57:45 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:57:45 +0000 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122094845.007e5b20@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: --On Monday, January 22, 2001 9:48 am -0600 "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note > 'garbage disposal'. I wouldn't say that garbage is only foodstuff, but I agree that garbage contains food. Trash is more paper-y. Which is not to say that I always make this distinction, but it's how I think of the words. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From bapopik at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 16:47:29 2001 From: bapopik at JUNO.COM (Barry Popik) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:47:29 -0500 Subject: Fajitas, Chimichangas (Rio Grande Valey, 1974) Message-ID: Greetings once again from the Library of Congress. The New York Public Library gave me a heap of trouble finding the Western Union Technical Review that's somehow completely missing, so I came here. AOL is not working. Such is life. I requested the Rio Grande Valley (TX) phone books from 1971-1974. Only 1974 arrived. Maybe I can ask some librarian in Pharr to give a quick look. March 1974, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 327, col. 2 ad: OLD MEXICO RESTAURANT HOME OF THE AUTHENTIC CHILE RELLENO & TAPIQUENO STEAKS OUR MENU INCLUDES: . Char-Broiled Steaks . Carne Guisada . Tacos . Enchiladas . Rice . Beans . Guacamole . Fajitas . Picadillo . Variety of Slads . Homemade Pies 787-2601 El Centro Mall 500 N. Jackson--Pharr (No ROUND-UP DRIVE IN RESTAURANT ad. FWIW, there's a place called OKIE FRIJOLE--ed.) March 1974, RIO GRANDE VALLEY (TX), pg. 328, col. 1 ad: "Taco Boy Has It All In Mexican Food" TACO BOY TACOS--BURRITOS-- CHALUPAS--ENCHILADAS DRAFT BEER--NACHOS-- TRY OUR "CHIMICHANGAS" 425-2828 (ACROSS FROM WOOLCO) 634 N. 13 HARL From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 22 17:01:10 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:01:10 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: Gabage and garbage can, for me. Trash has no food waste component, trash pile = junk pile. Trash is, or was, usually burnable, often in a small stove called "a trash burner". allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans > or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > Metcalf > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 22 17:02:05 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:02:05 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122094845.007e5b20@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: When I was a kid growing up in S. California in the 40s-early 50s, we made the same distinction. So did the local waste haulers: the collection of the two was strictly separated. You had a trash can and a garbage can, and if some food got in with your trash (paper, cans, etc.), or vice-versa, they wouldn't take it. I remember hearing at some point that now garbage and trash would be put in the same container and collected together, but I don't remember where I lived when this change took place. Since then, it has seemed to me that everywhere else I have lived, "trash" referred to all refuse without distinction, and "garbage" was mostly relegated to figurative usage (though I've never heard of the unit in the sink referred to as a *"trash disposal"). I personally have never quite adjusted to this amalgamation. Peter Mc. --On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 9:48 AM -0600 "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note > 'garbage disposal'. > > Bob Wachal > > At 10:03 AM 1/22/01 EST, you wrote: >> Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in >> cans or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - >> Allan Metcalf >> >> **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Mon Jan 22 17:23:16 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:23:16 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <59.5d582ec.279da5b5@aol.com> Message-ID: For me, a wastepaper basket can be a trash can but not a garbage can. The container under the sink can be called either, but is usually a garbage can. (I definitely interpret people saying both "take out the trash" and "take out the garbage" to mean the same thing though the latter is more common.) The cans outside where the garbage is stored until they come and pick it up are garbage cans (not trash cans) and recycling bins. I think the word recycling *bin* has been forced on us by the government, because two of my bins are identical to garbage cans. Benjamin Barrett Seattle > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:03 AM > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs > "trash," as in cans > or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > Metcalf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:27:28 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 12:27:28 EST Subject: Kimmelweck (1936-1937) Message-ID: AOL decided to work again. For some reason, LOC gives you three phonebooks at a time (if, indeed, you receive three). This plan works out real well. The first I received for Buffalo was 1936/1937, and I went straight to "Bakers." 1936-1937, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 24, col. 1: Franz Frank J Rye Bread--Kimmelwecks--Our Specialty 240 High...LIncln-7773 1938-1939, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 25, col. 1: Strasburger's Bakery Dinner Rolls--Kummel Wecks A Specialty 165 Goodell...WAshgtn-0565 (Same "Franz" entry in later years--ed.) From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:36:47 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:36:47 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: >Garbage and garbage can, for me. Trash has no food waste component,trash >pile = junk pile. Trash is, or was, usually burnable, often in a small >stove called "a trash burner". Yes. Another way of saying it is that garbage is the wet smelly stuff. The distinction may indeed date from when people burned their trash, in the little kitchen trash burner, or in the barrel out in the back yard. I'm old enough to just remember when such kitchen units were still sold; in fact, you could buy one built into your kitchen range. Air pollution legislation ended these. We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be incombustible. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:41:16 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:41:16 -0600 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: >The word is properly written "redd", according to the dictionaries,and >pronounced the same as "red". > >I have seen it written as "red", "rett", "ret", and I've heard it >pronounced "ret" (a very small distinction). I don't remember hearing >anything like "reed up" or "reet up" but it wouldn't surprise me if I did. > >Possibly the radio expression was a version of "re-up" = "sign up again"? > >-- Doug Wilson I've never heard 'redd up', and my natural tendency would have been to interpret it as 'rev up', to increase the number of revolutions of an engine, to warm up an engine: to energize. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 22 17:43:49 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 12:43:49 -0500 Subject: Strictly a pronunciation question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: But who's "they" who couldn't tell the twins apart--surely not the mother? Actually, the twins are either African American or biracial, so I suspect the Brits just didn't want those "black-sounding" names. Yes, the mixed race couple in California apparently agreed to keep the original names. At 04:54 PM 1/20/01 +0800, you wrote: >>Now now larry. What did the Brits name them? >> >>dInIs > >Actually, a bit of research reveals that it was the birth mother >(nice retronym) herself who named them Kiara and Keyara, and then put >them up on the web for adoption, presumably because they couldn't >tell them apart with the neutralized vowels and all. The British >couple, the Kilshaws, re-named them Kimberley and Belinda, which have >the virtue of being phonologically distinct. The >California couple, the Allens, evidently are willing to retain the >girls' birth names, but maybe that factor shouldn't be absolutely >decisive in itself. > >larry > >> >> >>>At 10:11 PM -0800 1/19/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>>>Have you been following the transatlantic adoption mess? If not, >>>>there are twin girls who were given up for adoption by their birth >>>>mother. A couple in California adopted them after paying $6000 with >>>>a promise of another $2500 when they had it. After having the girls >>>>for a little while, the birth mother came to visit and supposedly to >>>>say goodby. She took them and never returned. Turns out she then >>>>gave them to a British couple who paid $12,200. Definitely a lousy >>>>situation. >>>> >>>>However, the articles have said that the California couple named the >>>>6 month old girls Kiara and Keyara. How do you pronounce these??? >>>>At first glance they would seem to be identical, but maybe one has an >>>>i macron in first syllable and the other an e macron? Maybe one has >>>>an ash as second vowel and the other a broad a? >>>> >>>>Rima >>>Strictly a pronunciation question my foot--this is prima facie >>>evidence for a judgment in favor of the British couple. >>> >>>larry >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Department of Linguistics and Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >>preston at pilot.msu.edu >>Office: (517)353-0740 >>Fax: (517)432-2736 _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 18:12:23 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:12:23 +0000 Subject: Kimmelweck (1936-1937) In-Reply-To: <9d.1037e709.279dc780@aol.com> Message-ID: May I hereby express my disappointment that AHD4 has deleted 'weck' and 'kummelweck' (and neither it nor its predecessors have kimmelweck). Alas, alack! My people! My language! Lynne of Western New York --On Monday, January 22, 2001 12:27 pm +0000 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > AOL decided to work again. > For some reason, LOC gives you three phonebooks at a time (if, indeed, > you receive three). This plan works out real well. The first I > received for Buffalo was 1936/1937, and I went straight to "Bakers." > > 1936-1937, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 24, col. 1: > Franz Frank J > Rye Bread--Kimmelwecks--Our Specialty > 240 High...LIncln-7773 > > 1938-1939, BUFFALO (NY), pg. 25, col. 1: > Strasburger's Bakery > Dinner Rolls--Kummel Wecks A Specialty > 165 Goodell...WAshgtn-0565 > > (Same "Franz" entry in later years--ed.) M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 22 18:14:41 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:14:41 +0000 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 22, 2001 11:36 am -0600 Mark Odegard wrote: > We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a > construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be > incombustible. Now, here our intuitions vary. To me, rubbish would be paper waste or rags, not construction waste. And it would definitely be burnable. But maybe I've lived outside the US too long to have American 'rubbish' intuitions. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 05:48:59 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:48:59 +0800 Subject: Kimmelweck (1936-1937) In-Reply-To: <475638.3189175943@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 6:12 PM +0000 1/22/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >May I hereby express my disappointment that AHD4 has deleted 'weck' and >'kummelweck' (and neither it nor its predecessors have kimmelweck). > >Alas, alack! My people! My language! > >Lynne of Western New York > Buffaloed into doing so, no doubt. larry From bapopik at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 18:59:07 2001 From: bapopik at JUNO.COM (Barry Popik) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:59:07 -0500 Subject: Poor Boy's Sandwich (1932) Message-ID: AOL decided not to work again...Almost 2 p.m., and I need caffeine here or something. The RIO GRANDE VALLEY phone books from 1961, 1965, and 1970 are nothing special. The BUFFALO phone books of 1934-1935 and 1935-1936 are nothing special, either. Which doesn't mean, of course, that "fajitas" and "kimmelwecks" were or were not made. I'll return the books unless I hear otherwise. The BAR & BUFFET (Cincinnati, 1900s) looks like a gem...The WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW mentions "punchings" and "wood chips" from 1947-1950. The earliest New Orleans book brought out is 1932. June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 103, col. 3 ad: _French Market_ _Coffee and Lunch Stand_ A. BATTISTELLA, Prop. Originator of the _"Poor Boy's Sandwich"_ Lower (River) End of Fish Market Ursuline and N. Peters Sts. AUTO SERVICE RAymond 3015 June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 103, col. 3 ad: TRY OUR GREEN WAVE SPECIAL "PIGS AND CLOVER" 10 cents Sandwich Nothing Like It--It's Delicious Telephone CRescent 9496 Green Wave Coffee and Sandwich Shop 1001 Esplanade Ave Cor Burgundy St. June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 104, col. 1: O K Poor Boy Lunch Room 3328 Baronne...JAckson-9180 June 1932, NEW ORLEANS (LA), pg. 104, col. 1: Poor Boy Lunch Room 131 Exchange Pl...MAin-4539 (No "Big Apple/Big Easy" in white pages--ed.) From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 05:23:15 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 00:23:15 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:52:51 +0000 Lynne Murphy > Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a > subtype of > mandarin orange that's seedless. It would be interesting to lock a linguist and a taxonomist in a room with an assortment of citrus fruits. D From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 22 19:22:27 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:22:27 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Peter McGraw wrote: > When I was a kid growing up in S. California in the 40s-early 50s, we made > the same distinction. So did the local waste haulers: the collection of > the two was strictly separated. In today's Starkville, Mississippi, trash pickup means leaves and branches and such, while garbage pickup is whatever you put into the city-provided garbage bags that you put on the curb twice a week. I'm trying to decide now whether my own distinction between the terms is based entirely on the type of stuff being thrown away. I think that's at least part of it -- paper-type stuff vs messier stuff. But I think size of the container may also be related. My office has a trash can, but outside in the halls of my office building, there are large garbage cans -- with the same type contents. > has seemed to me that everywhere else I have lived, "trash" referred to all > refuse without distinction, and "garbage" was mostly relegated to > figurative usage (though I've never heard of the unit in the sink referred > to as a *"trash disposal"). I personally have never quite adjusted to this The figurative uses of the terms are interesting. E.g., "talking trash" and "talking garbage" don't mean the same thing to me. And one can be trashy but not garbagy. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 22 19:25:57 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:25:57 -0600 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Lynne Murphy wrote: > > We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a > > construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be > > incombustible. > > Now, here our intuitions vary. To me, rubbish would be paper waste or > rags, not construction waste. And it would definitely be burnable. But > maybe I've lived outside the US too long to have American 'rubbish' > intuitions. I can't remember ever having heard anybody in the USA use the word "rubbish" except figuratively. Calling trash or garbage rubbish strikes me as very British. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Mon Jan 22 19:24:20 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:24:20 -0800 Subject: Shitcom Message-ID: SIT-COM: SITUATIONAL COMEDY. right? -----Original Message----- From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 7:51 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Shitcom I saw Steven Berkoff's one-man show, SHAKESPEARE'S VILLAINS: A MASTERCLASS IN EVIL, today at the Public Theater. Go see it--it's been extended. The guy is funny. His web site is: www.east-productions.demon.co.uk My companion this time was an actress from Australia (wherever that is). Unfortunately, I didn't take her to COPENHAGEN so we could sleep together on the first date. Berkoff said that you often see "star" actors doing Shakespeare, such as those from "shitcoms." Shitcoms? I very rarely hear "shitcom"--perhaps because you can't say "shit" on tv. My date told me that it isn't used in Australia. It's not in the GB-leaning CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG. Anybody run across it before? FWIW, Berkoff things that "Puck" is a little euphemism that his audiences recognized. From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 22 19:50:06 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:50:06 -0600 Subject: How Linguistics Killed Grammar Message-ID: Laurence Horn and Joe Pickett have been discussing a posting with this claim: > >The author of this article, Peter Corey, is an extreme traditionalist, > >whose quest seems to be logical consistency in language. An "epilogue" to > >his book is entitled "How Linguistics Killed Grammar." > .................. > > > Hi, Joe. I did notice the references in his web site to _How > Linguistics Killed Grammar_, and figured he was Mrs. Grundy > personified, which he has certainly done nothing to dispel with his > current crusade. >From my experience in working with colleagues in English education and reading education, I would say that it was compositionists who killed grammar study. A study in the 1960s by Braddock claimed that there was no carryover from the teaching of formal grammar to teaching/learning writing skills in the classroom. That was all the English teachers needed to say, "Well, now we don't have to do THAT any more! Good riddance!" Then they espoused the myth that reading lots and lots of books that English teachers like ( = fiction) will make a good writer of any student. Yeah, really good for budding biologists and medical doctors! One result is that computer programmers assume that the term "syntax" originated in their field. Maybe I exaggerate. (I served on about 20 dissertations in English ed and that many in reading ed. I've also attended some CCC and NCTE annual meetings.) DMLance From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 07:00:55 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 15:00:55 +0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <200101221922.NAA12839@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: > >The figurative uses of the terms are interesting. E.g., "talking >trash" and "talking garbage" don't mean the same thing to me. And >one can be trashy but not garbagy. Nor do we insult people by calling 'em "poor white garbage". From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Mon Jan 22 20:06:44 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 12:06:44 -0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On second thought, the garbage cans we take out to the curb every week can be called trash cans, too, though I don't think it's as common as garbage cans. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On > Behalf Of Benjamin Barrett > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 9:23 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: garbage vs. trash > > > For me, a wastepaper basket can be a trash can but not a garbage can. The > container under the sink can be called either, but is usually a > garbage can. > (I definitely interpret people saying both "take out the trash" and "take > out the garbage" to mean the same thing though the latter is more common.) > > The cans outside where the garbage is stored until they come and > pick it up > are garbage cans (not trash cans) and recycling bins. I think the word > recycling *bin* has been forced on us by the government, because two of my > bins are identical to garbage cans. > > Benjamin Barrett > Seattle > > > -----Original Message----- > > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:03 AM > > > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs > > "trash," as in cans > > or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > > Metcalf From jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM Mon Jan 22 18:27:37 2001 From: jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM (Jimmy Mullan) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:27:37 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 09:09 1/22/01 -0500, you wrote: >How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? It's not just a "Pennsylvania expression"; I come from rural Northern Ireland, in which it is alleged that the local dialect is Elizabethan (the 1st one, that is) and the term "redd up" is frequently used to imply "clean up", "get ready", as in: "Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" Am I the only one on the list who knows what that means, in the present-day Queen's English? ;-). Jimmy From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 22 21:19:23 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:19:23 -0500 Subject: trash vs. garbage Message-ID: And of course in the computing domain we have Mac. "Trash", cognate with Win. "Recycle Bin", but could we imagine an OS with a "Garbage"? Putting something in the Trash simply means you don't want it anymore, but putting a file in the Garbage would carry more negative connotations. DEJ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 22 21:20:10 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:20:10 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122132737.007ddc00@pop3.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: I'm quite sure Michael Montgomery could translate the entire sentence! But we have "redd up" in southern Ohio too, though the young people tend not to use it. The Scots Irish tradition is strong here, migrating westward from Pennsylvania, Maryland, etc. (it's not really "Elizabethan" anymore, of course, in No. Ireland or here, but there are some continuing influences). Pennsylvania speech isn't "unique" either; the folks there just think it is! At 01:27 PM 1/22/01 -0500, you wrote: >At 09:09 1/22/01 -0500, you wrote: > >How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? > >It's not just a "Pennsylvania expression"; I come from rural Northern >Ireland, in which it is alleged that the local dialect is Elizabethan (the >1st one, that is) and the term "redd up" is frequently used to imply "clean >up", "get ready", as in: > >"Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" > >Am I the only one on the list who knows what that means, in the present-day >Queen's English? ;-). >Jimmy _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 22 21:34:05 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:34:05 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010122132737.007ddc00@pop3.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: >"Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" People in Pittsburgh -- and especially in Elizabeth PA -- talk just about like that. I'm an immigrant to the area, so I may be a little weak at the local dialect, but I'd say: "Hey, girl, sweep up the floor with that broom over against the chimney." Most likely I'd have to sweep it myself. I don't know much about Queens English, since I've never lived in New York. -- Doug Wilson From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Mon Jan 22 22:27:37 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:27:37 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat Message-ID: I've heard "kleptocrat" used recently in reference to Laurent Kabila. The OED has "kleptocracy" ("a ruling body or order of thieves"), which it dates to 1819. However, it doesn't have "kleptocrat." Nexis.com reports that its earliest citation is an abstract of a Wall Street Journal article from 1986, which is surprisingly new considering the antiquity of kleptocracy. Does anyone know of any earlier cites for "kleptocrat"? Thanks. Paul wordspy.com From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 05:51:56 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 00:51:56 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:03:17 EST AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as > in cans > or the contents thereof? Just to complicate things, here (in NE Pennsylvania) the garbage man picks up the trash. D From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 06:04:43 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 01:04:43 -0500 Subject: Tangerines etc. (was: Quiche Lorraine, etc.) Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:52:51 +0000 Lynne Murphy > Clementines are mandarin oranges. According to AHD4, they're a > subtype of > mandarin orange that's seedless. And indeed the fruit we had for Christmas, labeled "Clementines", was seedless. Unfortunately my book on citrus shows a full page photo of a dozen mandarin varieties arranged in a clock formation, and the clementine is just full of seeds. D From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 05:55:15 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 00:55:15 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:09:58 -0500 "D. Ezra Johnson" : > How is this Pennsylvania expression pronounced? It's redd up here. Though my wife and I grew up in the same NE PA community, I had never heard the word until I was thrown in with her family, which comes from only 50 miles south. I mentioned the phrase once on a private list that included one person from Scotland. He said his mother had used the term regularly, but he had never heard it outside of Fife, just north of Edenboro. D From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Mon Jan 22 22:51:57 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 14:51:57 -0800 Subject: Trash vs garbage Message-ID: Growing up in Connecticut in the 50's and 60's I had the distinction I've seen others mention here of trash = burnable waste (which we burned in the kerosene stove or outdoors in a trash can) and garbage = food waste placed in a metal can to be picked up by the "garbage man". Here in So. CA we are charged for "trash disposal" which we put in a "trash can" which is emptied weekly by the "waste disposal company". This "trash" consists of anything we don't care to keep. When I have too much unwanted trash I go to the store and buy "trash bags" which have a picture on the box showing them used for leaves and grass clippings, but "green waste", which may not include paper, plastic, or food, must be placed in a "green waste container" to be picked up. BTW, kids here "trash" each other verbally but a reply by the trashee would be to call the person a "garbage mouth". Sharyn Hay, RNC, MSN (storknurse) From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Mon Jan 22 23:14:44 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:14:44 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: This evening at a local family restaurant in a Central Indiana small town, the server, a local woman in her late 30s, asked if my chili was hot (spicy) enough. When I said it was, she replied, "I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." My wife and I disagreed on what she meant, so when she returned with more coffee I said, "So you like your chili hot." She responded, "Oh no! I can't eat it that way. It does awful things to my ulcer." Is this a unique use of unless or has it been observed elsewhere? Herb Stahlke From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 19 18:31:12 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:31:12 -0600 Subject: Quiche Lorraine, etc. Message-ID: -- This year my wife came home with a demi case of 'Clementines' from Spain which looked like tangerines but with the tight skin of an orange. I had never heard of Clementines. -- I've been aware of these for, oh, almost 20 years, where they were available in New York City specialty shops (Fairway, etc). I would not characterize the clementine's skin as 'tight', tho' we may be speaking of different qualities. My experience is that, once you puncture the skin, the whole rind comes off easily, almost as a single unit, leaving absolutely no pith against the meat. Clementines are super-sweet, almost like candy. They are not 'keepers' in the sense oranges are. They go bad quick. This perhaps deterred American growers from raising them, tho' I've seen elsewhere on the net that the penetration of the European fruit (mostly from Spain) has sent the American citrus industry into overdrive: clementines are killing the market for tangerines. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 22 23:40:21 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 15:40:21 -0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: herb stahlke records an occurrence of >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 22 23:23:17 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:23:17 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat Message-ID: keptocrat, n., is an entry in AHD4 and RHWC. Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 01:09:12 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 20:09:12 EST Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books Message-ID: In a message dated Fri, 19 Jan 2001 08:45:30, Laurence Horn writes/quotes: > >But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly > >limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for > >schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries > >and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well. > > > >Joe > > Luckily for some of those parents, the Beatles used "stupid git" in > at least one of their songs, so it's not totally unknown to us. I found one usage of "git" in this sense by a US author, the science fiction writer Lois McMaster Bujold, in _Vor Game_ (New York: Baen Books, 1990, ISBN 0-671-72014-7, page 261: "...The Barrayaran emperor, Gregor Vorbarra, was kidnapped. I found him, lost him, and mow I've got to get him back. As you can imagine, I expect the reward for his safe return to be substantial." Tung's face was a study in appalled enlightenment. "That skinny neurasthenic git you had in tow before---that wasn't him, was it?" - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 23 01:54:15 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 20:54:15 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: And, some browsers refer to deleted mail as being placed into the Trash folder, although some of it might be referred to as being garbage. And, one operating system places most deleted files into the Recycle Bin. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 23 02:07:09 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 20:07:09 -0600 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > herb stahlke records an occurrence of > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > > i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania > dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? 2) I've heard "without" used as Arnold reports . . . I'm fairly sure that I heard the usage in rural central Missouri, in a corner of Shannon County where a fair proportion of the population had German ancestors who arrived well before World War I. Maybe that's a kind of link to what might be heard in Pennsylvania Dutch country -- but I'd say it's tenuous. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 22 13:50:02 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 21:50:02 +0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <200101222340.PAA09566@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: At 3:40 PM -0800 1/22/01, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >herb stahlke records an occurrence of > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > >i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania >dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > This is interesting, because this "or else" use of "unless" is not so much a new sense for the connective (vis-a-vis the majority usage) but an extension of the majority usage, in somewhat the same way that positive "anymore" extends the majority (negative polarity) "anymore" by lopping off an arbitrary constraint on distribution. So here, compare I can't eat 4-alarm chili without taking Alka-Seltzer. I can't eat 4-alarm chili without getting heartburn. %I can't eat 4-alarm chili without I take Alka-Seltzer. (OK in MO, PA., etc.) %I can't eat 4-alarm chili without I get heartburn. ( " " " " " ) I can't eat 4-alarm chili unless I take Alka-Seltzer. %I can't eat 4-alarm chili unless I get heartburn. (OK for Herb's speaker) Actually, the last one will be OK for everyone if we could somehow see getting heartburn all night as a means to allow one to eat the chili, and even then the tense might be off. The idea (if I may wax speculative) is that the two sentences are on a par logically--if I eat the chili, it inevitably follows that I (have to) take Alka-Seltzer or that I get heartburn, as the case may be--but "unless" for most of us, as distinct from "without", must be followed by a "remedy" rather than simply a result. Actually, that won't generalize in the right way, but in any case there's a pragmatic requirement for most of us on "unless" that can be waived for the dialect or idiolect of Herb's speaker. larry From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Tue Jan 23 04:34:54 2001 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 23:34:54 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: What Bob says below is what I learned in 1962 when I came to the U.S. and lived in Boston. I found the same distinction observed in a Canadian college residence the other day. They have two bins, one for "wet" stuff and another for "dry" stuff. The dry stuff is recyclable, at least most of it, I suppose, but the wet stuff is composted. T.M.P. "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > > For me, trash contains no foodstuff. and garbage is only foodstuff. Note > 'garbage disposal'. > > Bob Wachal > > At 10:03 AM 1/22/01 EST, you wrote: > >Is there regional distribution in the use of "garbage" vs "trash," as in cans > >or the contents thereof? FWIW, DARE has no entry for "garbage." - Allan > >Metcalf > > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 08:21:54 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 03:21:54 EST Subject: Poor Boy (1931); Elizabeth Gibbens Message-ID: POOR BOY (1931) The LOC had no New Orleans telephone book before 1932. I found some more stuff in 1932 under "sandwiches" and used a City Directory. The name "poor boy" seems to have taken off after 1929. 1931 SOARDS' NEW ORLEANS CITY DIRECTORY (microfilmed in CITY DIRECTORIES OF THE U.S., Segment IV, 1902-1935), pg. 1139, col. 2: Poor Boy Sandwich Shop (Mrs Amelia Weidenbacher) 605 Dyades 1932, NEW ORLEANS CLASSIFIED TELEPHONE DIRECTORY, pg. 108, col. 2: PO BOI SANDWICH SHOPPE INC. (...) 3115 Calhoun...WAlnut-2314 Poor Boy Sandwich Shop 1414 N. Claiborne...FRanklin-6404 -------------------------------------------------------- ELIZABETH GIBBENS This is from the January/February 2001 ARRIVE (a magazine of Amtrak), pg. 38, col. 1: Are you clueless about clothes? Do the fashion police have you on their "Most Wanted" list? Elizabeth Gibbens wants to help you. Could it be? Elizabeth Gibbens was once William Safire's assistant. Unlike Safire's current assistant, she actually talked to me and even joined the ADS. She once posted here about "vintage clothing." The computer databases show she's written for publications such as GQ. Gibbens said that she was from Louisiana, but was living in Washington, D.C. This article states that Pennington Style Consultants is based in DC, and the e-mail is BayouMuse at earthlink.net. From pg. 39, col. 1: At $650-$1,000 a pop for guided tours of New York's fashion corridors, and $50 an hour for personal shopping trips in your home town, Elizabeth's services don't come cheap. (Maybe I don't need the answer to "boxers or briefs" THAT much--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 08:38:56 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 03:38:56 EST Subject: "Chad" in WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW Message-ID: The LOC has the WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW, 1947-1961. I went through the whole run, but didn't find much. In addition to this and DOTS AND DASHES, Western Union also put out BLAZED TRAIL, but that was a one-page, non-technical thing. I also went through TELEGRAPH WORLD, but that's an employee magazine. I'll go through the JOURNAL OF THE TELEGRAPH later, but that ended in 1919 and I'll be looking for "30" there. "Chad" appears in articles that mention "code holes." Possible acronym after all? April 1953 WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW, "Perforated Creasing Devices." Pg. 52, col. 2: Because of the roughened surface it presents, chadless tape introduces a further hazard in that configuration of stored tape in the accumulator may cause the entering tape to touch the tape being drawn out. The outgoing chadless tape tends to engage the entering tape and interfere with its free downward movement. Pg. 53, col. 1: However, removal of the static charge from chadless tape did not overcome the frictional problem and accumulators at positions using the tape were therefore equipped with exhaust blowers. July 1956, WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW, "Control System for Integrated Data Processing." Pg. 109, col. 2: The 5-wire reperforator used at the data storage position, in addition to punching code holes, is equipped with five read-back transmitter contacts located five characters to the left of the tape punch block that perforates the chad-type holes. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 09:09:27 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 04:09:27 EST Subject: Stuffed Pizza; Tequila Mockingbird; Harvey Wallbanger Message-ID: STUFFED PIZZA The claim as to the invention of the tart-like "stuffed pizza," with fillings of cheese, meats, vegetables or other combinations of ingredients, in January of 1974 is made by Nancy's Restaurant of Chicago, whose owners, Nancy and Rocco Palese, based the idea on an Italian Easter cake called _scarciedda_. --John Mariani, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK (1999) January 1977, CHICAGO. (No "stuffed pizza" ads--ed.) January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1139, col. 4: ARMINIO'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE STUFFED PIZZA & THIN CRUST January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1142, col. 1: PETE'S PIZZA THICK--PAN--STUFFED January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1142, col. 1: LA VILLA PIZZA "STUFFED" PIZZA & ALL VARIETIES January 1978, CHICAGO, pg. 1143, col. 4: VINCE'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT STUFFED PIZZA July 1981, CHICAGO, pg. 92, col. 1 ad: GIORDANO'S Stuffed Pizza IN THE PAN Originators of the Fabulous Stuffed Spinach Pizza 436-2969 3214 W. 63rd (In January 1978, Giordano's advertised "Home of Pizza in the Pan." Nancy's had no ad, but would, in the 1980s, be called Nancy's Stuffed Pizza. I'll be continuing with NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS in the 1970s for "stuffed pizza," "Hawaiian pizza," "California roll," "(yogurt) smoothie," and others--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD I just like the name. From THE SERVER, January 1967, pg. 30, col. 1: Another recipe we'd like to pass along, courtesy of Pepe Lopez tequila is: Tequila Mockingbird 1 jigger tequila 1/2 jigger green creme de menthe juice 1 lime Shake well with crushed ice, strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with lime. -------------------------------------------------------- HARVEY WALLBANGER I just like the name. From BAR SERVER, July-August 1970, pg. 31, col. 1: _Have a Harvey Wallbanger_ PROFIT: What? You don't know what a Harvey Wallbanger is? Just the greatest drink refresher (it restores the spirits) for Sunday morning...although we do know for a fact that it tastes great on a sunny Saturday afternoon. As this table tent points out (Illustration to right--ed.), here's how: Harvey Wallbanger 1 oz. Vodka 6 oz. orange juice Stir with ice and then splash in 1/2 oz. Galiano. Serve on-the-rocks or straight up. -------------------------------------------------------- PINA COLADA (continued) From BAR SERVER, May-June 1968, pg. 32, col. 1: Everyone returning from the Islands (Col. 2--ed.) has a remembrance of palm trees and coconuts. The Caribe Hilton serves a drink that is sure to bring back the flavor of Puerto Rico, because it has the coconut right in it. Its name is the Pina Colada, and it is as unforgettable as the island breezes. _Pina Colada_ 2 oz. coconut cream 6 oz. pineapple juice 2 oz. gold rum Shake well in crushed ice in a blender. Serve in a Collins glass and garnish with pineapple sticks. (I should have mentioned that the 1966 cite in this publication from a Su Casa restaurant was from Chicago. It had questions marks on the menu. This cites the Caribe Hilton, but I did not find "pina colada" on 1950s Caribe Hilton drinks lists--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 09:35:38 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 04:35:38 EST Subject: Bar & Buffet Message-ID: I read through the entire run of BAR & BUFFET in the LOC, from 1906-1909. This publication is not properly indexed; it should turn up with BAR SERVER and MIXER & SERVER. But they're all under different subject heads! -------------------------------------------------------- HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU Humphrey Bogart's famous statement about a goat. From a full-page ad in BAR & BUFFET, October 1908, pg. 30: _Saloon Show Cards_ Hand Painted on Beveled Edge Fine Gray Cardboard (...) HERES (sic) LOOKING AT YOU -------------------------------------------------------- QUICK LUNCH LANGUAGE From BAR & BUFFET, January 1909, pg. 10, col. 2: _A New Line of Talk._ "Say," said the Quick-Lunch Sage, whom the Editor met in one of his philosophic moods, "the chair lunches have brought a new lingo into the language, have you noticed it? It would confuse a stranger to the vernacular. For instance, you hear the lunch clerk shout an order 'Egg with,' and you see a man get an egg with a big slice of Bermuda onion on top. Then you hear an order, 'Beans with,' and you would naturally expect to see the customer get onions with his beans, but he doesn't. 'With' means bread on a bean order, while it means onions on an egg order. Then you'll hear an order, 'One egg, lots of with,' that means an extra dose of onion. Then a fellow comes in and orders a (Col. 3--ed.) 'double egg sandwich' and the innocent bystander looks to see two egg sandwiches served out, but he doesn't; he sees one sandwich with two eggs between the lids. A couple saunter up and order 'two clucks.' Is the lunch clerk feazed? He is not. He simply throws two chicken pies o! ut of the warming oven. Then a couple more Smart Alecks come in and order 'two cackle-berries on bread.' They get two egg sandwiches on bread for, if you don't specify 'bread,' you get the regular roll instead of sliced bread. Then you hear the lunch clerk throw back an order, 'Ham-chopped-bread-with,' and you wonder, with a good deal of curiousity, what will come forth, and how the ham can be served on chopped bread. What you see come out is a chopped-ham sandwich on bread with onion. I tell you, it's a great language." -------------------------------------------------------- RICKEY (continued) From BAR & BUFFET, June 1907, pg. 5, col. 2: _THE FIRST RICKEY._ An American drink of world-wide reputation is the Rickey. The first Rickey was made in 1891 by George Williamson, who is still quenching assorted thirsts at Shoomaker's, Washington barroom, Toledo, O., (Toledo?--ed.) which has been famous since 1858. Colonel Jos. R. Rickey, of Fulton, Missouri, was a celebrated character about the National Capital in those days. He drifted into Shoomaker's one hot day and asked for a cooling drink. Mr. Williamson put a piece of ice in a long glass, poured some whiskey over it and added mineral water. The crowd had several "rounds" of them. Then the suggestion was made that a drop of lime juice would be an improvement. Mr. Williamson supplied the limes. The new drink was called "Colonel Rickey's brand." A few weeks later a Washingtonian dropped into the Hoffman House bar in New York and asked for a "Colonel Rickey." The barkeeper confessed ignorance and was enlightened. From that time the Rickey began to grow in favor, and it has ! endured to this day. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 00:17:37 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 08:17:37 +0800 Subject: garbage vs. trash In-Reply-To: <3A6D09EE.D6559449@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: At 11:34 PM -0500 1/22/01, Thomas Paikeday wrote: >What Bob says below is what I learned in 1962 when I came to the U.S. >and lived in Boston. I found the same distinction observed in a Canadian >college residence the other day. They have two bins, one for "wet" stuff >and another for "dry" stuff. The dry stuff is recyclable, at least most >of it, I suppose, but the wet stuff is composted. >T.M.P. > Composted vs. compacted in some quarters: we have trash compactors but not garbage compactors. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Tue Jan 23 14:02:13 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 09:02:13 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: Mike Salovesh wrote: > > Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > > > herb stahlke records an occurrence of > > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > > > > i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania > > dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > > > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > > 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? I have heard people in Central PA use "unlest" in this context. From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 23 14:07:43 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 09:07:43 -0500 Subject: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: And, both Novell's GroupWise and some browsers refer to deleted mail as being placed into the Trash folder, although some of it might be referred to as being garbage. One operating system places most deleted files into the Recycle Bin. [Apologies if you received two copies of the above message; only one was intended to be sent.] George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM Tue Jan 23 12:19:39 2001 From: jimmy at MULLAN.UK.COM (Jimmy Mullan) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 07:19:39 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010122162425.01d25b80@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 16:34 1/22/01 -0500, Doug Wilson wrote: >>"Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" > >People in Pittsburgh -- and especially in Elizabeth PA -- talk just about >like that. I'm an immigrant to the area, so I may be a little weak at the >local dialect, but I'd say: > >"Hey, girl, sweep up the floor with that broom over against the chimney." Bang on, Doug. Guess I'd feel very well at home in Elizabeth PA, if I ever wanted to feel at home anywhere ;-). [snip] >I don't know much about Queens English, since I've never lived in New York. LOL ;-). Jimmy From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 23 15:36:41 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 10:36:41 -0500 Subject: Shitcom Message-ID: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM writes: >>>>> SIT-COM: SITUATIONAL COMEDY. right? <<<<< "Situation comedy", no "-al", in the days before it was always abbreviated. The humor, such as it is, basically arises from the situations, not from human interaction, wit, slapstick, etc. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 23 15:38:53 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 10:38:53 -0500 Subject: Redd Up / Read Up? Message-ID: Jimmy Mullan writes: >>>>> It's not just a "Pennsylvania expression"; I come from rural Northern Ireland, in which it is alleged that the local dialect is Elizabethan (the 1st one, that is) and the term "redd up" is frequently used to imply "clean up", "get ready", as in: "Hey, wee cutty, redd up the flure with thon bizzim fornenst the chumley" Am I the only one on the list who knows what that means, in the present-day Queen's English? ;-). <<<<< I would hazard a translation as follows: "Yo, peewee! Clean the floor with that broom by the chimney." Nu? -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 23 15:48:39 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 10:48:39 -0500 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> I found one usage of "git" in this sense by a US author, the science fiction writer Lois McMaster Bujold, in _Vor Game_ (New York: Baen Books, 1990, ISBN 0-671-72014-7, page 261: "...The Barrayaran emperor, Gregor Vorbarra, was kidnapped. I found him, lost him, and mow I've got to get him back. As you can imagine, I expect the reward for his safe return to be substantial." Tung's face was a study in appalled enlightenment. "That skinny neurasthenic git you had in tow before---that wasn't him, was it?" <<<<< And for what it's worth, Tung doesn't use other Briticisms, IIRC. Although Bujold describes characteristic accents, in what is presumably English, of different planets (and Barrayar has four official languages: English, Russian, French, and Greek), I don't recall her generally using vocabulary as a distinguishing mark of origin so much as of individuals. (There are exceptions, such as Ethan of Athos asking "What's a wife?": with the aid of uterine replicator technology, Athos, founded by religious fanatics, has no women at all.) For info on this author, see http://www.dendarii.com/. -- Mark A. Mandel Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 23 16:10:07 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:10:07 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <3A6D8EE5.8A49BD85@cmu.edu> Message-ID: At 09:02 AM 1/23/01 -0500, you wrote: >Mike Salovesh wrote: > > > > Arnold Zwicky wrote: > > > > > > herb stahlke records an occurrence of > > > >"I can't eat it like that unless I have heartburn all night." > > > > > > i'm fairly sure i've heard "without" used this way in pennsylvania > > > dutch country, but i don't think i've heard "unless". > > > > > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > > > > 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? > > >I have heard people in Central PA use "unlest" in this context. I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following vowel, as in "acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the Midland. But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, which suggests the usage of both has a long history. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 03:27:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:27:19 +0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010123110716.01c1d580@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 11:10 AM -0500 1/23/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> > 1) Could "unless" in this context be a substitute for "lest"? >> >> >>I have heard people in Central PA use "unlest" in this context. > >I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following vowel, as in >"acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the Midland. > >But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, >which suggests the usage of both has a long history. > >_____________________________________________ The evidence seems to indicate otherwise. Both "lest" and "unless" ultimately derive from "less", but "lest" was around for four centuries before "unless", and according to the OED the "un-" in the latter is really a reanalysis of destressed "on". "Lest" is attested in 1000, "unless" in the 15th c., and unlest(e) (with three citations from the 16th century) is given as an obsolete variant of the latter. This would be one of many cases where the OED's "obs." should really be "obs. and dial." I don't think "lest" necessarily figures in "unlest". larry From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Tue Jan 23 16:25:53 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:25:53 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: At 11:10 AM 1/23/2001 -0500, Beverly Olson Flanigan wrote: >[re "unlest"]: I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following >vowel, as in "acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the Midland. > >But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, >which suggests the usage of both has a long history. > OED2 traces "lest" to an OE phrase that contains the ancestor of "less," and traces "unless" to a ME phrase containing "less" that looks as if it collapsed into a single word during the 15th century. So, "lest" and "unless" are, strictly speaking, cousins rather than parent/child. OED2 has entries for "unlest" and "unleast." All citations seems to be from the 16th century, so the phenomenon of speakers fusing unless/unle(a)st/lest is probably not new, and may well have persisted for centuries in the spoken rather than the formal written language. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Tue Jan 23 16:47:16 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:47:16 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: At 11:27 AM 1/23/2001 +0800, you wrote: >This would be one of many cases where the OED's "obs." should really >be "obs. and dial." I don't think "lest" necessarily figures in >"unlest". > >larry [horn] > The English Dialect Dictionary might help with the possible history of nonstandard "unle(a)st" between 1600 and 1900, but I don't have a copy here with me. It's hard to be sure where the "t" comes in. It could be liaison, as suggested earlier, and/or a natural enough (con)fusion of two conjunctions having similar sounds and not unrelated meanings, due (after all) to a geunine genetic link. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 23 17:09:23 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:09:23 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <200101231625.LAA08355@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 11:25 AM 1/23/01 -0500, you wrote: >At 11:10 AM 1/23/2001 -0500, Beverly Olson Flanigan wrote: > >[re "unlest"]: I would assume the /t/ is added as liaison with the following > >vowel, as in "acrosst", "oncet", "twicet," etc.--common in much of the > Midland. > > > >But I suppose "lest" alone (re: Salovesh) is derived from "unless" too, > >which suggests the usage of both has a long history. > > > >OED2 traces "lest" to an OE phrase that contains the ancestor of "less," and >traces "unless" to a ME phrase containing "less" that looks as if it >collapsed into a single word during the 15th century. So, "lest" and >"unless" are, strictly speaking, cousins rather than parent/child. > >OED2 has entries for "unlest" and "unleast." All citations seems to be from >the 16th century, so the phenomenon of speakers fusing unless/unle(a)st/lest >is probably not new, and may well have persisted for centuries in the spoken >rather than the formal written language. > > >Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu Oops! Thanks to you and Larry for pointing this out--I was shooting from the hip, obviously. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 17:23:51 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:23:51 EST Subject: Driving While Female (DWF); Investorwords.com Message-ID: DRIVING WHILE FEMALE (DWF) In case you haven't been watching your tabloid news: police on Long Island have been pulling over vehicles driven by attractive women and ordering the drivers to take off their clothes. "Driving While Female" turned up today, as expected. -------------------------------------------------------- INVESTORWORDS.COM From the NEW YORK POST, 22 January 2001, pg. 44, col. 1: site of the week Talking the talk www.investorwords.com "ABANDONMENTS options" got you down? What about "backward integration?" Maybe you're confused by "ladder strategy" or "Laffer Curve." The definitions to these--and 5,000 or so other terms--are at your fingertips at www.investorwords.com. A lot of financial sites have accompanying glossaries to reference, but this one is more definitive than most. It calls itself the best financial glossary to be found, online or off. (...) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 23 17:31:05 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:31:05 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: garbage vs. trash Message-ID: Americans, including me, certainly DO use the word "rubbish" in the 'trash' sense. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Natalie Maynor" To: Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 2:25 PM Subject: Re: garbage vs. trash > Lynne Murphy wrote: > > > > We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a > > > construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be > > > incombustible. > > > > Now, here our intuitions vary. To me, rubbish would be paper waste or > > rags, not construction waste. And it would definitely be burnable. But > > maybe I've lived outside the US too long to have American 'rubbish' > > intuitions. > > I can't remember ever having heard anybody in the USA use the word > "rubbish" except figuratively. Calling trash or garbage rubbish > strikes me as very British. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 05:24:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:24:42 +0800 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: <200101231647.LAA18799@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 11:47 AM -0500 1/23/01, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: >At 11:27 AM 1/23/2001 +0800, you wrote: >>This would be one of many cases where the OED's "obs." should really >>be "obs. and dial." I don't think "lest" necessarily figures in >>"unlest". >> >>larry [horn] >> > >The English Dialect Dictionary might help with the possible history of >nonstandard "unle(a)st" between 1600 and 1900, but I don't have a copy here >with me. No listings; the only variants are "onless" and "unlessen". No "unlest" or "unleast" at all in Wright. >It's hard to be sure where the "t" comes in. It could be liaison, as >suggested earlier, and/or a natural enough (con)fusion of two conjunctions >having similar sounds and not unrelated meanings, due (after all) to a >geunine genetic link. > Again, I have to dissent. I think it's more likely that, as Beverly suggested, "unlest" is related (phonologically) to "acrosst" and "oncet". There's no sign that "lest" ('so that not', 'for fear that') and "unless"--whether cousins or siblings--were ever usable interchangeably; I've mostly used the former when I was translating Lat. "ne" + subjunctive in high school but even those who do use it seem to use it in a register-restricted way. larry From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 23 18:48:44 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:48:44 -0600 Subject: Fazed [was Bar & Buffet] Message-ID: > From BAR & BUFFET, January 1909, pg. 10, col. 2: [...] >Is the lunch clerk feazed? I assume this is 'fazed'. Is this a typo, or just an early eye-spelling? M-W say 1830 for 'faze', and, with AHD4 links it to ME 'fesen', 'frighten drive away'. You often see it spelled 'phased'. AHD4 gives a better definition for the current sense than does M-W. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 19:01:14 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:01:14 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: L. Horn: >... I think it's more likely that ... "unlest" is related (phonologically) >to "acrosst" and >"oncet". .... Web search provides a number of modern instances of "unlest"; they all seem to = "unless". Is the standard word "lest" heard (outside 'fixed expressions') in casual speech anywhere? If so, one might expect it to become confused with "unless", which has reasonably common spoken versions "unlest" and "'less". For example, if my great-uncle from Dogpatch used "lest" in its standard sense in casual conversation when I was young, I might have misinterpreted it and adopted it as "unless"/"unlest" in the same sense in my speech. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 06:08:39 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:08:39 +0800 Subject: Fazed [was Bar & Buffet] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:48 PM -0600 1/23/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >> From BAR & BUFFET, January 1909, pg. 10, col. 2: >[...] >>Is the lunch clerk feazed? > >I assume this is 'fazed'. Is this a typo, or just an early eye-spelling? M-W >say 1830 for 'faze', and, with AHD4 links it to ME 'fesen', 'frighten drive >away'. You often see it spelled 'phased'. > >AHD4 gives a better definition for the current sense than does M-W. > My bartleby.com connection is acting up so I can't try to confirm this, but I suspect those who spell it as "phased" may be influenced by that well-known sci-fi weapon, the phaser, which is depicted as leaving the phasee looking...well, [feizd]. larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 23 19:05:48 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:05:48 -0500 Subject: Need to reach Terry Irons Message-ID: Can someone give me a tel. no. or email address for Terry Irons? Thanks, Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 23 19:19:06 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:19:06 -0500 Subject: Need to reach Terry Irons In-Reply-To: ; from dumasb@UTK.EDU on Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 02:05:48PM -0500 Message-ID: > Can someone give me a tel. no. or email address for Terry Irons? Should be t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU JTS From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 23 19:26:14 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:26:14 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: Doug Wilson writes: >Is the standard word "lest" heard (outside 'fixed expressions') in casual speech anywhere?< I should think the opening (solemn tones), "Lest We Forget...." would be so familiar to everyone that "lest" could easily slip into common speech on the appropriate occasion. A. Murie From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 23 19:31:01 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:31:01 -0500 Subject: New use of "unless"? Message-ID: This, I think, is where the variant "least" comes in. I do hear things like I have to get home early least I get in trouble. While not common, I hear it enough to believe that it's active in local speech. It may, of course, be a hypercorrection or a case of dental paragoge. Herb >>> douglas at NB.NET 01/23/01 02:01PM >>> L. Horn: >... I think it's more likely that ... "unlest" is related (phonologically) >to "acrosst" and >"oncet". .... Web search provides a number of modern instances of "unlest"; they all seem to = "unless". Is the standard word "lest" heard (outside 'fixed expressions') in casual speech anywhere? If so, one might expect it to become confused with "unless", which has reasonably common spoken versions "unlest" and "'less". For example, if my great-uncle from Dogpatch used "lest" in its standard sense in casual conversation when I was young, I might have misinterpreted it and adopted it as "unless"/"unlest" in the same sense in my speech. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 19:36:43 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:36:43 -0500 Subject: "Chad" in WESTERN UNION TECHNICAL REVIEW In-Reply-To: <42.fb83151.279e9d21@aol.com> Message-ID: > "Chad" appears in articles that mention "code holes." Possible > acronym after all? Not impossible, but (1) the apocryphal acronym for "card hole aggregate debris" is doubtful since the earliest chads seem to have been from telegraphy tape; (2) even with "card" replaced with "code", the "aggregate" remains doubtful since the earliest chads seem to have been countable; (3) acronyms were much less usual before WW II than they are now, generally, I think. I have been reading patents. Pre-1950, I don't find "chads" except in telegraphy. I find in the same sense "chips", "clippings", "punchings", "wads", "discs", "slugs", "pieces". Even in telegraphy, "discs" and "chips" turn up more often than "chads", based on cursory (but still very tedious) examination of a few hundred documents. I think I can explain the "Mr. Chadless" story now: the term "chadless tape" apparently preceded the term "chad tape", and "chadless tape" may have been common before "chad(s)" became common, "chad(s)" being something noticeable by virtue of its absence. But "chadless tape" clearly < "chad(s)". And I have another tentative -- so far unsubstantiated -- etymology/explanation for "chad" itself. If I should recover solid information, might I consider publishing it somewhere? "American Speech"? "Notes and Queries"? Send it to Safire? Send it to Quinion? Anybody interested in collaborating? -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 07:12:54 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:12:54 +0800 Subject: "break a leg" Message-ID: Another "true fact" or folk etymology, as the case may be. This time I couldn't find anything at all in Brewer's Phrase & Fable or the OED, but again it strikes me as an unlikely, post-hoc rationalization. I don't find the purported meaning of "leg" in the OED either, FWIW. Any educated guesses? (There's a variety of speculative derivations at a web site on theatrical terminology, http://www.ex.ac.uk/drama/tech/morebreakaleg.html, but none of these involve a reference to the difficult task of "mak[ing] it successfully out on to the stage" posited below. I'd think the default derivation is the one invoking a superstition or taboo, but that's sheer speculation too.) larry =========================== Fact: The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and then giving a good performance. It has nothing to do with actual legs or stomping instead of clapping. From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 23 20:23:48 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:23:48 -0500 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From my theatre background, it would seem that the simple solution is maybe the best -- in theatre superstition, it's bad luck to wish someone good luck. It would be interesting to know why 'break a leg' developed instead of 'break an arm', but I'm pretty sure that the leg is just a leg. To accord this to some other kind of leg seems pushing it. Perhaps a source that explains why it's bad luck to whistle in a theatre, why you never say the final line of a play at the dress rehearsal, why you never utter the name of the Scottish king, etc. would have more insight, as opposed to folk etymology sources. --- Steve K. From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 23 20:27:05 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:27:05 -0500 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > then giving a good performance. Incidentally, as I alluded to in my other message, I think this is wrong simply from the standpoint that it's unlikely that an actor would wish someone good luck, as that would be bad luck. (I have witnessed superstitous actors walk under ladders backstage without a qualm, with the rationale that since that's bad luck, it's therefore good luck. [Although it's pretty stupid, since a technician could accidently drop something on your head if you bump the ladder.]) --- Steve K. From michael at RFA.ORG Tue Jan 23 20:38:32 2001 From: michael at RFA.ORG (Michael) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:38:32 -0500 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > then giving a good performance. gosh -- and all this time i thought it was because if you broke a leg, you got in a cast. michael From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 20:59:39 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:59:39 EST Subject: Mulling over mullet again Message-ID: Metro, Silicon Valley's weekly newspaper, in its January 18-24 2001 issue has this article: Hair-Raising History From Neanderthal man to the Beastie Boys, the legendary mullet boasts a long evolution with roots confused by its elusive etymology By Mary Spicuzza THE MULLET PHENOMENON proves once and for all that a visionary musical trio known as the Beastie Boys were cultural watchdogs far ahead of their time. Long before the web birthed its sites devoted to mullet mania, the Beasties released "Mullet Head," a 1994 B-side single celebrating the bad-hair legend of the '80s. Besides paying homage to bad hair legends like Joey Buttafuoco, Kenny G and Van Damme, Beastie Boys Mike D, AdRock and MCA even provide a mullet-making formula with the lyrics, "Number 1 on the side and don't touch the back/Number 6 on the topand don't cut it wack, Jack." The Beastie Boys magazine, Grand Royal, also devoted an entire issue to bad hair, beginning with the prophetic words, "There's nothing quite as bad as a bad haircut. And perhaps the worst haircut of all is the cut we call 'The Mullet.'" And mullet history was made. "A while back we got a letter from the Oxford English Dictionary saying that we had the first printed use of the word [to describe bad hair]," Grand Royal staffer Ian Rogers boasts. . . . The whole article is on the Web at http://www.metroactive.com:80/metro/cover/mullet2-0103.html - Allan Metcalf From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 23 21:17:49 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:17:49 -0600 Subject: Compilation of "chad" material Message-ID: Doug Wilson asks in his Jan. 23 e-mail concerning his research on "chad": >If I should recover solid information, might I consider publishing it >somewhere? "American Speech"? "Notes and Queries"? Send it to Safire? Send >it to Quinion? Anybody interested in collaborating? In reply: I am currently compiling all the ADS-L material on "chad" for publication in the April issue of my _Comments on Etymology_, a scholarly, non-profit series of working papers. Due credit is given throughout the article to everyone whose material is used. If more material on "chad" emerges afterwards (as is very likely), I will have follow-ups on "chad" in subsequent issues. Individual contributors retain the rights to their material and may reprint it at their own discretion any time and anywhere they choose. I'll be in touch with everyone whose material I incorporate into the working paper (I suppose that's everyone who has sent an ADS-L message on the subject). The working papers are received by various scholars, lexicographers, and educated laymen. Ultimately they appear in formal publications, but even in the working paper stage they receive attention. ---Gerald Cohen From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 21:18:30 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 16:18:30 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks it was around before that. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Tue Jan 23 21:38:45 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 22:38:45 +0100 Subject: "break a leg" Message-ID: I've heard actors say "break a leg" meaning "good luck", and I have always thought it was a kind of translation of the German "Hals- und Beinbruch", used in the same way, not only in the theatre. Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve K." To: Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 9:27 PM Subject: Re: "break a leg" > On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > > > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > > then giving a good performance. > > Incidentally, as I alluded to in my other message, I think this is wrong > simply from the standpoint that it's unlikely that an actor would wish > someone good luck, as that would be bad luck. > > (I have witnessed superstitous actors walk under ladders backstage without > a qualm, with the rationale that since that's bad luck, it's therefore > good luck. [Although it's pretty stupid, since a technician could > accidently drop something on your head if you bump the ladder.]) > > --- Steve K. From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 21:37:32 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 16:37:32 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... origins of the slogan "Information wants to be free." Here's one item: http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link9809/0102.html -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 23 21:39:50 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 16:39:50 -0500 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: <3A68C1A7.39E469CB@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: M. Salovesh: >Calling THE Philosopher's Stone some kind of "sorcerer's stone" isn't >really an instance of the dumbing down of books intended for kids in the >U.S. It's a demonstration that dumbing down has already succeeded in >corrupting the publishing business in this country. "Corrupted"? I agree. But I suspect that the replacement of "philosopher" with "sorcerer" was unrelated to the degree of erudition of the editors. If all of the editorial staff agreed that "philosopher" was clearly correct, for example, but a marketing survey showed that an additional 100,000 copies probably would be sold if the word "sorcerer" appeared in the title, what would have been the chosen title? If I had been the author (not a wealthy person until recently AFAIK), I might have approved this corrupt/cynical title change. Was the change made throughout the text? If so, that's somewhat another story. -- Doug Wilson From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Tue Jan 23 21:49:31 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 22:49:31 +0100 Subject: "break a leg" Message-ID: Nigel Rees' Dictionary of Phrase & Allusion (Bloomsbury 1993) has the phrase and confirms my opinion: "This traditional greeting is said before a performance, especially a first night (...) Morris (Dict. of Word and Phrase Origins, 1977) has it based on a German good luck expression, Hals- und Beinbruch." Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve K." To: Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 9:27 PM Subject: Re: "break a leg" > On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > > > The term break a leg is referring to the curtains on the side of the > > stage, which are behind the main curtain. These are the "legs" so > > breaking a leg means to make it successfully out on to the stage, and > > then giving a good performance. > > Incidentally, as I alluded to in my other message, I think this is wrong > simply from the standpoint that it's unlikely that an actor would wish > someone good luck, as that would be bad luck. > > (I have witnessed superstitous actors walk under ladders backstage without > a qualm, with the rationale that since that's bad luck, it's therefore > good luck. [Although it's pretty stupid, since a technician could > accidently drop something on your head if you bump the ladder.]) > > --- Steve K. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 23 23:13:26 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 17:13:26 -0600 Subject: Hals- und Beinbruch (was "break a leg") Message-ID: Jan Ivarsson (Jan. 23) writes: > >Nigel Rees' Dictionary of Phrase & Allusion (Bloomsbury 1993) has >the phrase and confirms my opinion: >"This traditional greeting is said before a performance, especially >a first night (...) Morris (Dict. of Word and Phrase Origins, 1977) >has it based on a German good luck expression, Hals- und Beinbruch." I'd just like to clarify the rationale behind this strange expression of good luck. (German: Hals = neck; Bein = leg; Bruch = break; so one is literally wishing that the person break his/her neck and leg). A medieval superstition was that devils exist and are particularly eager to strike down someone who is happy or optimistic. But precautions could be taken. One was noise, which was believed to have the power to frighten away devils, and this explains the clinking of glasses at a happy occasion, like a party It also explains the still modern custom of breaking dishes the night before a German wedding (Polterabend, literally "rumpus evening"), which survives in the Jewish custom of the groom smashing a glass with his foot just before he kisses the bride. The other precaution was to outwit the devil (Fortunately, so goes the belief) devils are unbelievably stupid). So if I want to wish someone good luck, I actually wish him bad luck (May you break your neck and leg.) The person to whom I am saying this knows that I really wish him good luck but am saying Hals- und Beinbruch just in case a devil is in the vicinity and might overhear us. Now, of course, we deal merely with traditional expressions of good luck, with no thought given to devils. ---Gerald Cohen From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 23 12:36:27 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 20:36:27 +0800 Subject: Hals- und Beinbruch (was "break a leg") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The principal elements of the Jan Ivarsson/Jerry Cohen explanation concur with those of Cecil Adams' consultant (below), but I confess I like some of the outlier theories found on the web. Besides the John Wilkes Booth one mentioned below, there are, in no particular order ----------------------- The rather terrible curse may have had a more benign origin. Much earlier in stage history, when superstition had a less frightening hold on the craft, actors and their followers used a more gracious greeting: "May you break your leg," by which it was meant that the evening's performance would be of such grandeur that the actor would be obliged to break his leg - that is bend his knee - in a deep bow acknowledging the audience's applause. ----------------------- Evidently, in the days of early vaudeville, the producers would book more performers than could possibly perform in the given time of the show - since "bad" acts could be pulled before their completion... so, in order to insure that the show didn't start paying people who don't actually perform, there was a general policy that a performer did NOT get paid unless they actually performed on-stage. So the phrase "break a leg" referred to breaking the visual plane of the legs that lined the side of the stage. i.e. "Hope you break a leg and get on-stage so that you get paid." ------------------------ I've run into considerable debate over the origin of this one. My favorite (having understudied a few times) is that it came from the understudies telling the primaries to "break a leg" enough times that it came to be considered bad luck if they didn't say it. A more likely origin is from Shakespeare's time when "to break a leg" meant to "take a bow". ------------------------ I always heard that in the Greek times, people didn't applaud--they stomped for their appreciation. So if they stomped long enough, they would break a leg. -------------------------- and my personal favorite: In the nineteenth century theatre, when it was the norm for actors like Keen, Tree, and Irving to be actor managers. They would perform a role many times and for many years. When a new actor would take over a particular role that had become closely associated with one of these legendary actors he was told "break the legend". Over time this gradually got changed to "break a leg". ==================== and now, here's Cecil: What's the origin of "break a leg" in show business? 08-Aug-2000 Dear Straight Dope: Where did the term "break a leg" originate in theater, and why is it considered a better alternative than "good luck"? --Luke Johnson-Wyoming SDSTAFF Ken replies: There are a number of theories about the origin. The most colorful is that the phrase refers to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by actor John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theater, when Booth jumped from Lincoln's box to the stage, breaking his leg. However, the phrase was first recorded in print in the early 1900s, and is unlikely to refer to an incident half a century earlier. Eric Partridge, in his Dictionary of Catchphrases, suggests that "break a leg" originated as a translation of a similar expression used by German actors: Hals- und Beinbruch (literally, "a broken neck and a broken leg.") The German phrase traces back to early aviators, possibly during World War I, spreading gradually to the German stage and then to British and American theaters. Why would people twist a wish for dreadful injury into one for good luck? Evan Morris, of www.word-detective.com, suggests that, "Popular folklore down through the ages is full of warnings against wishing your friends good luck. To do so is to tempt evil spirits or demons to do your friend harm. Better to outwit the demons (who must be rather dim, it seems to me) by wishing your friend bad fortune." Morris goes on to cite the stage directions for the opening night a few years ago of the reconstructed Globe Theater in London, which "supposedly called for two actors to swing dramatically from a balcony down to the stage on ropes. One of the actors slipped and, you guessed it, broke his leg." Straight Dope Staff Dex wants to add that it's not wise to use the phrase outside of the theatre. He was having a conversation with a cantor, about to lead a religious service for 1,000 people, and he smiled, "Break a leg." The cantor wasn't familiar with the phrase or with the theatre tradition, and Dex says the look he got would have withered an artichoke. --SDSTAFF Ken Straight Dope Science Advisory Board From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 23 00:09:01 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 19:09:01 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of its nuances. Now it seems to be inserted in almost every proposition. Is this an increased usage, or am I just getting ypersensitive to it? D From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 24 01:47:09 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 17:47:09 -0800 Subject: "break a leg" In-Reply-To: <002f01c08586$603a01a0$80a6b2c3@oemcomputer> Message-ID: This expression is similar to one in Japanese - hone-o ore - which means to break a bone. I've always wondered if it is related or simply an expression common in many languages. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Jan Ivarsson > Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 1:50 PM > > Nigel Rees' Dictionary of Phrase & Allusion (Bloomsbury 1993) has > the phrase and confirms my opinion: > "This traditional greeting is said before a performance, > especially a first night (...) Morris (Dict. of Word and Phrase > Origins, 1977) has it based on a German good luck expression, > Hals- und Beinbruch." From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 02:46:48 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 20:46:48 -0600 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: It would seem almost a rule in English that any noun in -ation can backform a verb in -ate. To the point, perhaps, that it supplants the original verb stem which formed the noun. Orient, orientation > orientate. One can also carry it in other directions. Converse, conversation, conversational, conversationalistical conversationalize, conversationalisticalization, conversationalizationism, etc. It's easy to noun verbs and verb nouns, with various parts of speech inbetween: it can be done to quite nearly *any* word, whatever the word's origin. It's my opinion this is the ultimate explanation for English's huge vocabulary. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 24 05:05:59 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 21:05:59 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <20010122.193237.-302153.1.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Duane Campbell > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 4:09 PM > > In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for > converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the > pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I > have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a > life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 24 05:20:12 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 21:20:12 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". now this is not part of my dialect, which has "almost" and "nearly" in this function (presumably, these are also available in parton's tennessee mountain dialect). *however*, "just about" is fine for me: "I just about fainted". this is an odd little wrinkle. there is a further aspectual wrinkle to approximative adverbial "about": for me, unmodified "about" is ok in rather constrained aspectual contexts. "I about finished it" is out for me (presumably ok in appalachian english), but plain "about" is fine in perfects: "I've/I'd about finished it." appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on (approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when "about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about my variety? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From pulliam at IIT.EDU Wed Jan 24 07:27:12 2001 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 01:27:12 -0600 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" exemplified in "We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will be a problem." (where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming more and more common in written correspondence? This is the third or fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to think that it may be moving toward respectability. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 08:37:13 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 02:37:13 -0600 Subject: Politics of Personal Destruction. Message-ID: I don't know where this might fit in the word of the year/decade category, but here goes: Ron Kampeas, an Associated Press writer, has a bylined AP newsfeed story (dated 24 Jan 2001, apparently) that should echo here and there around the net. He notes how Republicans have picked up the term 'politics of personal destruction', even though it was coined by Clinton in 1994. Quoting Clinton, he writes: --start quote-- "I do not believe that the politics of personal destruction is what the American people are interested in," he said at a news conference on March 8 of that year. Evidently, he liked it: Within days, he was using the phrase at Democratic fund-raisers. --end quote-- He then quotes Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania": --start quote-- Jamieson, who analyzes American political rhetoric, said the phrase was one of the more notable presidential legacies to the American language - although it fell far short of Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" quote. Clinton had tapped into frustration with tabloid politics. "People were saying, we should not be engaging in politics to destroy other persons or ideas," she said. "We should be forcefully designating areas of disagreement." She traces Republican appropriation of the phrase to late 1998, around the time a slew of extramarital revelations surfaced about members of Congress prosecuting Clinton during the impeachment hearings. It was a rare occurrence. "We'd just coined a political phrase both sides are comfortable with,'" she said. --end quote-- Yes. Term may be here to stay. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 24 09:12:57 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 04:12:57 -0500 Subject: "Chad", "chadless", "chatts" Message-ID: I have found an instance of "chadless" dated 1940. I don't think "chadless" goes back much farther, since I've reviewed what I think are the patent documents for the chadless punching process, filed in 1939. Needless to say, there's no Mr. Chadless involved. The specifications from 1939 apparently don't include the word "chadless", but they do include "chads", meaning "pieces of waste [from a perforated tape]" (no quotation marks are employed in the specs.). It is clear that "chadless" = "producing no chads". The alternative to chadless tape was not called "chad tape" but IIRC "perforated tape". This (apparently 1939) is the earliest instance of "chad(s)" which I've found. But the word was already familiar in telegraphy circles by/before 1939, judging from 1939-1942 documents. I'm still looking. Now the USPTO Web-site seems to have developed a "bug", so I'm stalled on the patents. More later. I had pictured chad(s) as inert material lying on the floor or filling a waste bin. But apparently under conditions of high-speed punch operation all kinds of paper debris tended to fly about, and some tended to stick to things and people by static electricity. I think high-speed high-volume telegraphy tape punching might date from roughly the 1920's. Now we're getting close to WW I, not WW II, maybe. I pointed out en passant that "chat(t)" = "louse" a while back. Evan Morris forwarded a letter from a correspondent ("Bob Kamman"?) who speculatively derived "chad" from "chat" = "louse". This correspondent (1) took "chat" as military slang (wrong, I think), (2) related "chat" = "conversate" to "chat" = "(de)louse" (wrong, I think), and (3) supported the louse-chad connection with a reference to punched-card chips being thrown in one's hair at a party (irrelevant, surely). It is apparently true, however, that "chat" = "louse" was current among British and allied troops during WW I, when lice proliferated in the trenches (Partridge mentions this, and several Web pages give glimpses). Now one might picture the telegraph-office workers at the end of their work day, say circa 1930-35, picking the chads off themselves and each other, and one might consider that some of them might have served in the trenches in WW I -- where they spent a lot of time picking chats (lice) off their clothes .... Can anyone show "chad" = "louse"? -- Doug Wilson From rkm at SLIP.NET Wed Jan 24 08:54:39 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 00:54:39 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: <200101240520.VAA26633@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >...is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? My Oklahoma born and bred mother-in-law surprised me with her use of about in that way. I'm comfortable with "just about" in most of those environments. RIma From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Wed Jan 24 10:14:29 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:14:29 +0100 Subject: Naff Message-ID: We've discussed this Britishism before, but this comes from today's New York Observer. What are the odds it's true? http://www.observer.com/pages/simon.asp "I recently found out the origin of the word naff. Now widely used in the U.K. to mean "a depressing lack of style," naff was originally a gay slang acronym for "Not Available For Fucking," i.e., "straight" (i.e., "dreary"). Naff is a great word with no American translation. Remember, tacky means "cheap or glitzy," whereas naff is about stylistic shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and pathetically un-groovy. Use the word naff and become a connoisseur of naff. After all, it is a vanishing commodity" -- Grant Barrett http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From tcf at MACOMB.COM Tue Jan 23 12:39:56 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 06:39:56 -0600 Subject: South Dakotan 'yet' Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 2:08 PM Subject: Re: South Dakotan 'yet' > Larry Horn writes: > > >>>>> > funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a > well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and > adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence) > that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.* We used to include > > Is there turkey yet? > > on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense: the > utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping > some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives > early hoping to start stuffing him/herself. > <<<<< > > I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the > (putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the > inception of an expected future state: > > His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing. > > I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left: > > Is there yet turkey? > > Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses. > But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.) > > > -- Mark A. Mandel From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 11:32:49 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:32:49 +0000 Subject: changed words in Harry Potter books In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010122210626.01d2fb60@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 23, 2001 4:39 pm -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > "Corrupted"? I agree. But I suspect that the replacement of "philosopher" > with "sorcerer" was unrelated to the degree of erudition of the editors. > If all of the editorial staff agreed that "philosopher" was clearly > correct, for example, but a marketing survey showed that an additional > 100,000 copies probably would be sold if the word "sorcerer" appeared in > the title, what would have been the chosen title? If I had been the > author (not a wealthy person until recently AFAIK), I might have approved > this > corrupt/cynical title change. Was the change made throughout the text? If > so, that's somewhat another story. Yes, it was made throughout the text, and that's why they have to film two versions of every scene where the philosopher's/sorcerer's stone is mentioned. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 12:00:34 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 12:00:34 +0000 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <915695690gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: It's a good description of 'naff', I think, but the meaning extends beyond fashion-style to anything life-stylish. E.g., a grad student was talking about how she wished she had someone to go swimming with, but she didn't want to join a swim club because "That's a bit naff, innit?" Lynne --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 11:14 am +0100 Grant Barrett wrote: > We've discussed this Britishism before, but this comes from today's New > York Observer. What are the odds it's true? > > http://www.observer.com/pages/simon.asp > > "I recently found out the origin of the word naff. Now widely used in the > U.K. to mean "a depressing lack of style," naff was originally a gay > slang acronym for "Not Available For Fucking," i.e., "straight" (i.e., > "dreary"). Naff is a great word with no American translation. Remember, > tacky means "cheap or glitzy," whereas naff is about stylistic > shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and pathetically un-groovy. > Use the word naff and become a connoisseur of naff. After all, it is a > vanishing commodity" > > -- > Grant Barrett > > http://www.worldnewyork.org/ M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:47:07 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:47:07 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <20010122.193237.-302153.1.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: >I'm so fond of the presupposition(s) behind the phrase "Is this a >mistake or growing usage?" that I have printed it out on the spot. dInIs >In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for >converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the >pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I >have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a >life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? > >I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a >filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of >its nuances. Now it seems to be inserted in almost every proposition. Is >this an increased usage, or am I just getting ypersensitive to it? > >D -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:49:59 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:49:59 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? dInIs >Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. > >It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. > >Benjamin Barrett >gogaku at ix.netcom.com > >> -----Original Message----- >> Behalf Of Duane Campbell >> Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 4:09 PM >> >> In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for >> converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the >> pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I >> have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a >> life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 00:51:17 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:51:17 +0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:54 AM -0800 1/24/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>...is there a characterization of >>this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >>"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >>my variety? > >My Oklahoma born and bred mother-in-law surprised me with her use of >about in that way. I'm comfortable with "just about" in most of >those environments. > >RIma I share the judgments Arnold (and Rima) report (for their own varieties) with respect to "about" vs. "just about", and the lack of an explanation for them. larry From stevek at SHORE.NET Wed Jan 24 13:47:09 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:47:09 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't know if it arose as a locution in valleyspeak, or what, but "I about died" I've heard a lot. I about fainted, screamed, etc. sounds unusual to me, but "I about died" seems idiomatic. (That's not literal, but as in "I was so embarrassed, I about died.") --- Steve K. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:59:23 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:59:23 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: <200101240520.VAA26633@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >arnold, My "near-Appalachian" reactions are similar to yours, but I wonder if "I 'bout fianted' and "I 'bout finished it" are perfects with some phonological processes at work? Unstressed "a" dropping (from "about") inevitably brings it in contact with the also vulnerable 'v' and 'z' forms of the perfect. Loss of those (in ugly 'vb' and 'zb' clusters) might make perfects look like nonperfects. Perhpas "careful speech" would result in a "reanalysis" such as "I about ..." if that is in fact what you heard. I'm not against your more delicate aspectual inmterpretation, but I wonder if these processes might not be involved. dInIs >listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught >an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" >in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". > >now this is not part of my dialect, which has "almost" and "nearly" in >this function (presumably, these are also available in parton's >tennessee mountain dialect). *however*, "just about" is fine for me: >"I just about fainted". this is an odd little wrinkle. > >there is a further aspectual wrinkle to approximative adverbial >"about": for me, unmodified "about" is ok in rather constrained >aspectual contexts. "I about finished it" is out for me (presumably >ok in appalachian english), but plain "about" is fine in perfects: >"I've/I'd about finished it." > >appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on >(approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone >know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? > >arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From ramt1 at YORK.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 13:50:12 2001 From: ramt1 at YORK.AC.UK (Ros Temple) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:50:12 +0000 Subject: Second Call for Papers - UK-LVC3 Message-ID: 3rd UK LANGUAGE VARIATION CONFERENCE Call for papers: The 3rd UK Language Variation Conference will take place at the University of York from July 19th to 22nd, 2001. Invited speakers will be: Lesley Milroy (University of Michigan & University of York), Jane Stuart-Smith (University of Glasgow) Peter Trudgill (University of Fribourg) This series of meetings was inaugurated at the University of Reading in 1997, with the second at the University of Essex in 2000. It aims to provide a forum in the United Kingdom where the focus will be on the quantitative study of language variation and change. Proposals are invited for 20-minute contributions (plus 10 minutes? discussion) on topics falling within the proposed focus area. Abstracts (max. 500 words) should be sent within the text of an email to uklvc3 at york.ac.uk, stating author?s name, address (electronic and postal) and institutional affiliation. ***REVISED DEADLINE *** Submission of abstracts: February 16th, 2001. All abstracts will be refereed and replies will be sent out by April 1st, 2001. ORGANISING COMMITTEE: Sali Tagliamonte, Paul Foulkes, Helen Lawrence, Jennifer Smith, Rosalind Temple and Dominic Watt. From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:02:59 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:02:59 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: Mark Odegard wrote: > > It's easy to noun verbs and verb nouns, with various parts of speech > inbetween: it can be done to quite nearly *any* word, whatever the word's > origin. It's my opinion this is the ultimate explanation for English's huge > vocabulary. Funny, I always mentated that the immensosity of the English vocabulary was due to British and American colonializaticalation and adoptation of indigenical and aboriginaterical lexicalational elements. :) [Dubya's got nothin' on me, vocabularizationally.] From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 01:05:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:05:58 +0800 Subject: Politics of Personal Destruction. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:37 AM -0600 1/24/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >I don't know where this might fit in the word of the year/decade category, >but here goes: > >Ron Kampeas, an Associated Press writer, has a bylined AP newsfeed story >(dated 24 Jan 2001, apparently) that should echo here and there around the >net. He notes how Republicans have picked up the term 'politics of personal >destruction', even though it was coined by Clinton in 1994. Quoting Clinton, >he writes: > >--start quote-- >"I do not believe that the politics of personal destruction is what >the American people are interested in," he said at a news >conference on March 8 of that year. Evidently, he liked it: Within >days, he was using the phrase at Democratic fund-raisers. >--end quote-- > The odd aspect of the current usage is that the meaning has changed 180 or so degrees from Clinton's intended usage. The current "culprits" are Democrats who laud Ashcroft for his personal integrity and oppose his nomination as Attorney General because they don't agree with his statements and record on issues ranging from abortion to the judiciary to civil rights to the relations of church and state to the death penalty. So "politics of personal destruction" has come to mean 'politics of ideological opposition'. larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:10:41 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:10:41 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > > >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? According to the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet database service: Erzsebet P Dombi, Grammatical Forms of Synesthesia [Original Title, A szinesztezia grammatikai formai], Nyelv-es Irodalomtudomanyi Kozlemenyek, 1972, 16, 1, 37-50. Abstract: Synesthesia in the works of the Hungarian lyric impressionists is manifested in linguistic elements of varying complexity: compound words, syntagmas, phrases, compositional unities, or in the entire poem. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:16:47 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:16:47 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <3A6EE261.5403F96D@cmu.edu> Message-ID: >K?sz?n?m sz?pen. dInIs >"Dennis R. Preston" wrote: >> >> >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? > >According to the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet database >service: > >Erzsebet P Dombi, Grammatical Forms of Synesthesia [Original Title, A >szinesztezia grammatikai formai], Nyelv-es Irodalomtudomanyi >Kozlemenyek, 1972, 16, 1, 37-50. > >Abstract: >Synesthesia in the works of the Hungarian lyric impressionists is >manifested in linguistic elements of varying complexity: compound words, >syntagmas, phrases, compositional unities, or in the entire poem. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 01:34:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:34:00 +0800 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <915695690gbarrett@monickels.com> Message-ID: >We've discussed this Britishism before, but this comes from today's New York >Observer. What are the odds it's true? > >http://www.observer.com/pages/simon.asp > >"I recently found out the origin of the word naff. Now widely used >in the U.K. to >mean "a depressing lack of style," naff was originally a gay slang >acronym for "Not >Available For Fucking," i.e., "straight" (i.e., "dreary"). Naff is a >great word with no >American translation. Remember, tacky means "cheap or glitzy," >whereas naff is about >stylistic shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and >pathetically un-groovy. Use >the word naff and become a connoisseur of naff. After all, it is a vanishing >commodity" > >-- >Grant Barrett Looks to me like another candidate for the pseudo-acronym files. Is there any evidence for this derivation? Might as well opt (to take a few random possibilities suggested by google.com) for the "National Association For Fathers", the "North Alabama Fishing Forum", or the "North Atlantic Folk Festival". OK, pretty unlikely, but I don't see the proposed source as any more plausible. "Naff" doesn't appear in Bruce Rodgers's Gay Talk, one of the standard lexicons of gay slang, and and while at least one dictionary of polari/parlare, the now evanescent British "secret" gay lingo includes the above etymology, it also derives "camp" as an acronym for Known As Male Prostitute, so that's not terribly convincing. The much more authoritative polari lexicon at http://www.nz.com/NZ/Queer/Polari/polari.html, compiled by Hugh Young, provides "Not Available For Fucking" along with "Normal As Fuck" and "Naffuckinggood" as dubious sources and comments "acronyms probably back-formed". Indeed. Since it does appear that naff may have (not did, but may have) originated in polari/British gay slangI'll cross-post this query on OUTiL and see if anyone there has a more likely story. As for the standard sources, AHD4 has naff as "of unknown origin", the OED refers to related entries in the English Dialect Dictionary (naffhead, naffy, naffin) and Scots naffy as an analogous term of contempt, but also has "origin unknown". Farmer & Henley has no listing for naff or naffy but has one for naf: (back-slang [from fan(ny)]) 'the female pudendum'. I'd wager that's unrelated too. The OED's definition for naff is Unfashionable, outmoded, or vulgar; unselfconsciously lacking style, socially inept; also, worthless, faulty, `dud' larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 24 14:57:27 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 09:57:27 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: arnold zwicky wrote: [snip] >appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on >(approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone >know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? I can't answer your question, but I suggest that the the Ap/Ozark approximator "like to" seems to have identical occurrence patterns - e.g.,"I like to [liketa] died," meaning approximately "I was embarrassed." I have also heard "I just like to died." However, "like to" is also used to mean "nearly" (see CGEL 8.112 n.). Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 24 15:46:51 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:46:51 -0500 Subject: "Chad", "chadless", "chatts" In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010123232037.01d3add0@127.0.0.1>; from douglas@NB.NET on Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 04:12:57AM -0500 Message-ID: > I have found an instance of "chadless" dated 1940. I don't think "chadless" > goes back much farther, since I've reviewed what I think are the patent > documents for the chadless punching process, filed in 1939. Needless to > say, there's no Mr. Chadless involved. The specifications from 1939 > apparently don't include the word "chadless", but they do include "chads", > meaning "pieces of waste [from a perforated tape]" (no quotation marks are > employed in the specs.). It is clear that "chadless" = "producing no > chads". The alternative to chadless tape was not called "chad tape" but > IIRC "perforated tape". > > This (apparently 1939) is the earliest instance of "chad(s)" which I've > found. But the word was already familiar in telegraphy circles by/before > 1939, judging from 1939-1942 documents. I'm still looking. Now the USPTO > Web-site seems to have developed a "bug", so I'm stalled on the patents. > More later. Would you consider posting citations from these documents? I can't find any examples of _chad_ 'louse', though _chat(t)_ is, as has been pointed out, very common in the Wars--though only among British and ANZAC troops, not among Americans. Jesse Sheidlower From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 15:52:21 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? At 09:05 PM 1/23/01 -0800, you wrote: >Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. > >It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. > >Benjamin Barrett >gogaku at ix.netcom.com > > > -----Original Message----- > > Behalf Of Duane Campbell > > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 4:09 PM > > > > In the Ashcroft hearings Judge White used the word "conversate" for > > converse. I didn't think much about it -- a slip brought on by the > > pressures of lights, cameras and obstreperous Senators. But since then I > > have heard it twice more on C-SPAN call ins. (I don't have much of a > > life.) Is this a mistake or growing usage? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From elizabethpg at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 16:54:42 2001 From: elizabethpg at YAHOO.COM (Elizabeth Gibbens) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:54:42 -0800 Subject: garconne pants Message-ID: Thanks to Barry for publicizing the ARRIVE article. This month?s BAZAAR used the phrase "garconne pants." I?m interested in anyone?s opinions on the derivation and meaning of that phrase. I?d particularly like to discuss the topic of separate nomenclature for men?s and boys? clothing. Thank you again! Elizabeth Gibbens __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 16:19:49 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:19:49 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: I've heard "about" in this construction many times in SE/Appalachian Ohio, but never in the perfect. For me, too, "I've about [=almost] finished my work" is quite different from "I about fainted"; the latter seems always to be used metaphorically, not literally (this apparently is the case with Bethany's "liketa" also). I might use "just about" either literally or figuratively, but if the latter never in the perfect: *I've just about fainted." Similarly, I suspect Bethany wouldn't say "I've liketa died"? But I'm sure App Eng speakers, at least in my area, might say "I've about finished," with literal meaning. Might the nonperfective usage be limited to figurative uses, i.e., as a lexical restriction? At 09:20 PM 1/23/01 -0800, you wrote: >listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught >an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" >in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". > >now this is not part of my dialect, which has "almost" and "nearly" in >this function (presumably, these are also available in parton's >tennessee mountain dialect). *however*, "just about" is fine for me: >"I just about fainted". this is an odd little wrinkle. > >there is a further aspectual wrinkle to approximative adverbial >"about": for me, unmodified "about" is ok in rather constrained >aspectual contexts. "I about finished it" is out for me (presumably >ok in appalachian english), but plain "about" is fine in perfects: >"I've/I'd about finished it." > >appalachian varieties presumably lack an aspectual condition on >(approximative adverbial) "about" that my variety has. does anyone >know of any discussion of these facts? is there a characterization of >this aspectual condition that would predict that it's lifted when >"about" is modified by "just", or is this just a arbitrary fact about >my variety? > >arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 24 16:25:43 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:25:43 -0800 Subject: basically In-Reply-To: <20010122.193237.-302153.1.dcamp911@juno.com> Message-ID: > > I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a > filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of > its nuances. Now it seems to be inserted in almost every proposition. Is > this an increased usage, or am I just getting ypersensitive to it? "Conversate" seemed to attract all the attention here, but no one has taken aim at "basically." I agree that it strips an idea of its nuances; more pernicious, though, is the notion that the speaker cares not a whit for the listener's ability to deal with complexity, and that the speaker--well, you know, like, basically--has no time to waste explaining an issue to an obtuse or presumably disinterested listener. There is the implication that the "basically"-monger has already sorted out all the side issues that might confuse the listener, thank you. "What happened last night?" "Well...basically, we had an earthquake." (One could muster sympathy for "Basically, e=mc2," though.) For my taste, the offensiveness of "basically" is directly proportional to the simplicity of the statement. Note the parallel to the popularity, in a time-obsessed age, of "cut to the chase" and "bottom line." Peter R. From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 24 16:38:05 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:38:05 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010124104814.00cfc1b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I guess because I believe it to mean the same thing as converse. Does it have a different meaning? Ashcroft used it so it doesn't seem like it would be a feature of a particular ethnic group. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Beverly Flanigan > Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 7:52 AM > > "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in > our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? > > At 09:05 PM 1/23/01 -0800, you wrote: > >Conversate gets 668 hits on Alta Vista. > > > >It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth, though. > > > >Benjamin Barrett > >gogaku at ix.netcom.com From davemarc at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 24 16:08:45 2001 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:08:45 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." David From buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET Wed Jan 24 15:54:09 2001 From: buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET (Buchmann) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:54:09 -0400 Subject: basically Message-ID: Besides "in lowest terms" 'basically' also means "fundamentally." I have (over-)used it in this guise for at least thirty years. Peter Richardson wrote: > > I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a > > filler I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of > > its nuances. > "Conversate" seemed to attract all the attention here, but no one has > taken aim at "basically." I agree that it strips an idea of its nuances; > more pernicious, though, is the notion that the speaker cares not a whit > for the listener's ability to deal with complexity, and that the > speaker--well, you know, like, basically--has no time to waste explaining > Peter R. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 16:57:22 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:57:22 -0800 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: Maybe it's just not knowing how to use a colon. I think "..." or a dash would also work if the writing is approximating speech. --- Greg Pulliam wrote: > Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma > splice" exemplified in > > "We can probably wait on the software for now, I > don't think it will > be a problem." > > (where the comma takes the place of "because" or > "since") is becoming > more and more common in written correspondence? > This is the third or > fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, > leading me to think > that it may be moving toward respectability. > > -- > - > Greg > > greg at pulliam.org > http://www.pulliam.org ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Wed Jan 24 17:03:20 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:03:20 +0100 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: On mercredi 24 janvier 2001 08:27, Greg Pulliam wrote: >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" >exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? This is the third or >fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to think >that it may be moving toward respectability. I've been reading like a madman over the past few weeks, catching up on all the English-language books a and lit I put off while reading French this past semester, and I gotta say, except in email and online forums (that is to say, excepting all material that could not reasonably have been said to pass before an editor), the only place I've seen the dreaded comma splice lately is in French. If I ever become a fluent French writer, I vow to never use the comma splice. It makes my skin crawl and my hand creep up to tick in a fat, round period every time. Split infinitives are okay, however. -- Grant Barrett http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 17:17:28 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:17:28 +0000 Subject: comma=because In-Reply-To: <20010124165722.15020.qmail@web9507.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I think a semicolon would be more appropriate. Lynne --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 8:57 am -0800 James Smith wrote: > Maybe it's just not knowing how to use a colon. I > think "..." or a dash would also work if the writing > is approximating speech. > > > --- Greg Pulliam wrote: >> Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma >> splice" exemplified in >> >> "We can probably wait on the software for now, I >> don't think it will >> be a problem." >> >> (where the comma takes the place of "because" or >> "since") is becoming >> more and more common in written correspondence? >> This is the third or >> fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, >> leading me to think >> that it may be moving toward respectability. >> >> -- >> - >> Greg >> >> greg at pulliam.org >> http://www.pulliam.org > > > ===== > James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything > SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. > http://auctions.yahoo.com/ M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 17:49:55 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 12:49:55 EST Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! Message-ID: In a new book I find the following allusion to a very familiar expression, referring to the fact that Anne Perry, the mystery writer, had been identified as having been involved in a murder when a teen-ager in Australia: "Perry was terrified that the revelation of her past . . . would destroy her career, but as it turned out, the ensuing wave of interest actually increased her sales, confirming the old wisdom that there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426. This is one of those popular expressions which are very hard to document because they are very variable in their formulation. It exists in both a negative form, as above, and a positive one: all publicity is good publicity. I find in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th ed., 1999 and the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying and Quotation, 1997, the same citation, attributed to Brendan Behan: all publicity is good publicity, except your own obituary. I think that this is obviously Behan's elaboration of a previously familiar expression. The ODQ further dates the idea to the early 20th century. The 1986 edition of Partridge's Dictionary of Catchphrases gives it with the concluding qualification "so long as they spell your name right" and dates it to the mid 1930s. This is the form familiar to me. Hamilton's Dictionary of Canadian Quotations cites a minor-league Canadian politician as expressing the idea without using either canonical formulation. He says, in effect, that since people only read the headlines in the newspaper, the trick is to get your name mentioned, and whether the reference in favorable or otherwise in immaterial. I well remember that a prizefight promoter from Boston, who staged well club fights in Portland, Maine in the late 1960s expressed the thought in another formulation: every knock is a boost. (I was living in Portland at the time, attended most of the fight shows, and read this in the Portland Press-Herald.) How early can this be dated? GAT From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 24 15:49:46 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:49:46 -0500 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>...Naff ... >Looks to me like another candidate for the pseudo-acronym files. ... Partridge (8th ed.) gives several lines to this word. It is given as distinct from another "naff" [= (1) female privates, (2) nothing, (3) euphemism as in "Naff off!" etc.]. The adjective "naff" = "tacky"/"vulgar" supposedly comes from theatrical slang, from the 1960's according to a Paul Beale correspondent. This apparently was attached to the backronym by the 1980's. Thorne says "naff" dates from the 1930's, but I think he's combining what are separate entries in Partridge (the early use given as prostitutes' slang for "nothing" [this one has an acronym/backronym too, something like "not a f*cking fart"]). The origins appear to be obscure. It's not clear whether the different words "naff" are related. -- Doug Wilson From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 18:11:45 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: This sort of error is as common as it is because English punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks very nicely. If you say this sentence with the because meaning, you will probably have normal declarative sentence intonation with a slight rise on the end of "now", and then the second clause will be in a generally lower intonation, indicating that its content is presupposed to be true. The content will then invite the causal interpretation. We do this a lot in speech. However, writing doesn't mark intonation so efficiently, and so we can't do it in writing. I think that students--and the rest of us--who write sentences like the one question are trying to express just that presuppositional relationship, not realizing that English punctuation can't handle that meaning. That's what makes the comma splice such a problem in English. As speakers we feel we ought to be able to write things like that. As writers, we learn that we can't and after a while stop trying to. Herb Stahlke >>> pulliam at IIT.EDU 01/24/01 02:27AM >>> Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" exemplified in "We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will be a problem." (where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming more and more common in written correspondence? This is the third or fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to think that it may be moving toward respectability. -- - Greg greg at pulliam.org http://www.pulliam.org From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Wed Jan 24 18:19:40 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:19:40 -0800 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: This came into the ADS web site. Please reply to the sender as well as the list, but not to me. I'm lookin for the word(s) that mean (something like) the solution to the problem will recreate the problem. I believe the ending of the movie the French Connection was an indication of the situation??? Marie MReier at dsc.smcs.noacsc.org From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 18:11:59 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:59 -0500 Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" (Was Re: It's a case for Fred Shapiro!) Message-ID: At 12:49 PM 1/24/2001 EST, George Thompson wrote: >"...there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha >Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426.... > > How early can this be dated? > A quick scroll through the 291 occurrences of "publicity" in OED2 reveals one example of this saying, not an especially early one I suppose, but perhaps of interest. It's part of the entry for knock v.: 1958 Spectator 12 Dec. 865/1 On the last page he protests about `the growing tendency in some newspapers today to write only "knocking" stories about stars as big as Tommy'. But..almost any publicity is good publicity: you can knock around the clock and the moon-faced masses will only hear applause. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 24 18:27:22 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:27:22 +0000 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010124102857.0260abd0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 10:49 am -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > Partridge (8th ed.) gives several lines to this word. It is given as > distinct from another "naff" [= (1) female privates, (2) nothing, (3) > euphemism as in "Naff off!" etc.]. > > The adjective "naff" = "tacky"/"vulgar" supposedly comes from theatrical > slang, from the 1960's according to a Paul Beale correspondent. This > apparently was attached to the backronym by the 1980's. > > Thorne says "naff" dates from the 1930's, but I think he's combining what > are separate entries in Partridge (the early use given as prostitutes' > slang for "nothing" [this one has an acronym/backronym too, something like > "not a f*cking fart"]). > > The origins appear to be obscure. It's not clear whether the different > words "naff" are related. New Oxford D of E treats naff=go away (euphemism) and naff=lacking style as homonyms. The former may be related to 'eff off', the latter is 'of unknown origin'. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 18:37:44 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:37:44 -0800 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: Or that old military bugaboo, orientate. --- davemarc wrote: > FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." > > David ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From Amcolph at AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 19:12:10 2001 From: Amcolph at AOL.COM (Ray Ott) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:12:10 EST Subject: Naff Message-ID: Hoving some vulgar Brit connections of my own and being familiar with the term, I always took it for granted as a corruption of the French for "naive": naif=>naff. Ray Ott From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 06:16:50 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:16:50 +0800 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010124102857.0260abd0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 10:49 AM -0500 1/24/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>...Naff ... > >>Looks to me like another candidate for the pseudo-acronym files. ... > >Partridge (8th ed.) gives several lines to this word. It is given as >distinct from another "naff" [= (1) female privates, (2) nothing, (3) >euphemism as in "Naff off!" etc.]. > >The adjective "naff" = "tacky"/"vulgar" supposedly comes from theatrical >slang, from the 1960's according to a Paul Beale correspondent. This >apparently was attached to the backronym by the 1980's. > >Thorne says "naff" dates from the 1930's, but I think he's combining what >are separate entries in Partridge (the early use given as prostitutes' >slang for "nothing" [this one has an acronym/backronym too, something like >"not a f*cking fart"]). > >The origins appear to be obscure. It's not clear whether the different >words "naff" are related. > I *love* "backronym". Is that an established label for these (we've discussed dozens on this list over the last few years) or your coinage, Doug? By the way, John Wells notes the Collins entry (Millennium edition, 1998)-- ========== *naff* (n?f) _adj_ _Brit. slang_ inferior; in poor taste. [C19: perhaps back slang for _fan_, short for FANNY] > *'naffness* *naff off* _sentence substitute._ _Brit. slang._ a forceful expression of dismissal or contempt. =========== --so maybe my wager that the Farmer & Henley item "naf" (back-slang from "fan(ny)", with the usual British as opposed to U.S. geographical value) 'female pudendum' was ill-advised. Maybe not, though, if Partridge is right in finding these two "naff"s distinct. larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 19:19:28 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:19:28 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: James Smith wrote: > > Or that old military bugaboo, orientate. > > --- davemarc wrote: > > FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." > > Or, "solicitate", which I just read in a proposal review. It looks like it falls into this category of neologisms, but both OED & Webster's list it (Webster's calls it obsolete). From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 06:22:48 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:22:48 +0800 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! In-Reply-To: <31CD30D44C9@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 12:49 PM -0500 1/24/01, GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: > In a new book I find the following allusion to a very familiar >expression, referring to the fact that Anne Perry, the mystery >writer, had been identified as having been involved in a murder when >a teen-ager in Australia: "Perry was terrified that the revelation of >her past . . . would destroy her career, but as it turned out, the >ensuing wave of interest actually increased her sales, confirming the >old wisdom that there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha >Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426. > > This is one of those popular expressions which are very hard to >document because they are very variable in their formulation. It >exists in both a negative form, as above, and a positive one: all >publicity is good publicity. > > I find in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th ed., 1999 and the >Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying and Quotation, 1997, the same >citation, attributed to Brendan Behan: all publicity is good >publicity, except your own obituary. I think that this is obviously >Behan's elaboration of a previously familiar expression. The ODQ >further dates the idea to the early 20th century. The 1986 edition >of Partridge's Dictionary of Catchphrases gives it with the >concluding qualification "so long as they spell your name right" and >dates it to the mid 1930s. This is the form familiar to me. Then there's the related "Call me whatever you want, as long as it's not late for dinner" larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 19:31:08 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:31:08 -0500 Subject: comma splice (run-on clauses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As an old comp teacher (now I occasionally teach the teaching of writing in ESL), I was a stickler for the semi-colon--not prescriptively, but because it should, and when used correctly does, mark in print the very pauses and intonation changes you mention. This half-pause helps in fast and accurate reading (=decoding), so that one doesn't have to backtrack and mentally readjust the parsing of the sentence. Conjunctions can substitute, of course, but sometimes a pause alone is sufficient, as in the sentence cited below; yet I still want a clear signal of the degree of pausing (or intonational rise) that would presumably be marked in speech, and the semi-colon provides that (a period is a bit too definite). Unfortunately, my grad students (and many colleagues!) seem not to have ever heard this rationale and think I'm just being "fussy." At 01:11 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >This sort of error is as common as it is because English >punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks >very nicely. If you say this sentence with the because meaning, >you will probably have normal declarative sentence intonation with >a slight rise on the end of "now", and then the second clause will >be in a generally lower intonation, indicating that its content is >presupposed to be true. The content will then invite the causal >interpretation. We do this a lot in speech. However, writing >doesn't mark intonation so efficiently, and so we can't do it in >writing. I think that students--and the rest of us--who write >sentences like the one question are trying to express just that >presuppositional relationship, not realizing that English >punctuation can't handle that meaning. That's what makes the >comma splice such a problem in English. As speakers we feel we >ought to be able to write things like that. As writers, we learn >that we can't and after a while stop trying to. > >Herb Stahlke > > >>> pulliam at IIT.EDU 01/24/01 02:27AM >>> >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" >exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it >will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is >becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? This is the >third or >fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to >think >that it may be moving toward respectability. > >-- >- >Greg > >greg at pulliam.org >http://www.pulliam.org _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 24 19:47:24 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:47:24 -0500 Subject: Naff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... "backronym". I got this from the "Jargon Dictionary" -- for example, http://info.astrian.net/jargon/ -- Doug Wilson From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Wed Jan 24 20:03:07 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 12:03:07 -0800 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: Or administrate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Drew Danielson" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 11:19 AM Subject: Re: Conversate > James Smith wrote: > > > > Or that old military bugaboo, orientate. > > > > --- davemarc wrote: > > > FWIW, "conversate" makes me think of "commentate." > > > > > Or, "solicitate", which I just read in a proposal review. It looks like > it falls into this category of neologisms, but both OED & Webster's list > it (Webster's calls it obsolete). > > From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 24 20:05:30 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:05:30 -0500 Subject: comma splice (run-on clauses) Message-ID: You're right about the semi-colon. The semantic relationship between the clauses is really their content and context. In "Sammy ate five green apples; he got a belly ache" the second clause is a consequence, not a cause. In "The town conserved water; the reservoir ran dry" the first clause has a concessive meaning. This is a set of facts that neither traditional grammar nor formalist syntax handles well. The fact that one clause may function subordinately to the other seems to violate the meaning of the semicolon or of "and" if that is used. But in a sentence like "He ate five green apples(;/, and) Sammy got a belly ache", where "he" refers cataphorically to "Sammy", the cataphoric reference of "he" is something normally found only in subordinate clauses and a few other structures, so the pragmatics forces a subordinate interpretation on what is otherwise syntactically coordinate. Herb >>> flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 01/24/01 02:31PM >>> As an old comp teacher (now I occasionally teach the teaching of writing in ESL), I was a stickler for the semi-colon--not prescriptively, but because it should, and when used correctly does, mark in print the very pauses and intonation changes you mention. This half-pause helps in fast and accurate reading (=decoding), so that one doesn't have to backtrack and mentally readjust the parsing of the sentence. Conjunctions can substitute, of course, but sometimes a pause alone is sufficient, as in the sentence cited below; yet I still want a clear signal of the degree of pausing (or intonational rise) that would presumably be marked in speech, and the semi-colon provides that (a period is a bit too definite). Unfortunately, my grad students (and many colleagues!) seem not to have ever heard this rationale and think I'm just being "fussy." At 01:11 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >This sort of error is as common as it is because English >punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks >very nicely. If you say this sentence with the because meaning, >you will probably have normal declarative sentence intonation with >a slight rise on the end of "now", and then the second clause will >be in a generally lower intonation, indicating that its content is >presupposed to be true. The content will then invite the causal >interpretation. We do this a lot in speech. However, writing >doesn't mark intonation so efficiently, and so we can't do it in >writing. I think that students--and the rest of us--who write >sentences like the one question are trying to express just that >presuppositional relationship, not realizing that English >punctuation can't handle that meaning. That's what makes the >comma splice such a problem in English. As speakers we feel we >ought to be able to write things like that. As writers, we learn >that we can't and after a while stop trying to. > >Herb Stahlke > > >>> pulliam at IIT.EDU 01/24/01 02:27AM >>> >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" >exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it >will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is >becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? This is the >third or >fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, leading me to >think >that it may be moving toward respectability. > >-- >- >Greg > >greg at pulliam.org >http://www.pulliam.org _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 24 20:02:16 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:02:16 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan suggested: >fainted." Similarly, I suspect Bethany wouldn't say "I've liketa >died"? I am, alas, not a native speaker of "like to" - I am quoting Ozark and Appalachian speakers. It is true, however, that I am a native speaker of some features - double modals, for instance. Not all the features made the rtip into lower East TX. Bethany From suri at ESURI.COM Wed Jan 24 20:18:23 2001 From: suri at ESURI.COM (Siddharth Suri) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:18:23 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: "Let me noodle it" Someone said this to me today and I was curious if anyone knows where this expression originated from. thanks suri. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 07:58:50 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:58:50 +0800 Subject: "Let me noodle it" In-Reply-To: <009101c08642$dfb3cd00$266238cc@SSURI> Message-ID: At 3:18 PM -0500 1/24/01, Siddharth Suri wrote: >"Let me noodle it" > >Someone said this to me today and I was curious if anyone knows >where this expression originated from. > >thanks >suri. I'd guess it means 'consider, think about', and that it's a zero-derivation from "noodle" as a noun = 'head, brain, mind'. Now as for the origin of this, the AHD4 suggests it was an alteration of "noddle", which is a Middle English word for the head. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Wed Jan 24 20:46:09 2001 From: WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Nichols, Wendalyn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:46:09 -0500 Subject: English muffins = crumpets Message-ID: The original muffin--as in 'do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane?'-- is a round flat 'cake' (not sweet, though) that was usually griddled on both sides. What they sell now in the UK as a muffin is still similar to this, and tends to vary in interior texture. When I lived in the UK (1987-1996) I didn't see them on sale nearly as much as crumpets (made by pouring batter into a metal ring on a griddle and cooking on one side), and neither as much as scones. The American version of this flat, round, 'English' muffin has a more open, less delicate texture than the things I ate in England. What we call a muffin--the sweet raised cake--is indeed an 'American muffin' in the UK--but there is also a chain called The Canadian Muffin Company that sells them (very good, Lynne--if you're in London, they're on the Islington High Street opposite the Angel tube station). A scone, on both sides of the Atlantic, is basically what in the US we know of as a baking powder biscuit but with sugar in the batter. The dough is shaped into rounds, cut in wedges, then baked. As an aside, some friends of mine had me to stay at their home once, and decided to cook me an American breakfast to make me feel at home. They made 'buckwheat pancakes'--thin crepes served with icing sugar and wedges of lime. -----Original Message----- From: Lynne Murphy [mailto:lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK] Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 12:23 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: English muffins = crumpets I should trust my instincts more often--or use dictionaries more often. To me, English muffins look more like crumpets than like UK muffins (I've never actually eaten either). But when I looked up 'crumpet' in the New Oxford dictionary, it told me that 'crumpets' are made on a griddle. I assumed that English muffins were baked, but I've just looked up 'English muffin' in AHD4 and--whaddyaknow--they're made on a griddle. So, I was wrong (not for the first or last time) when I said that US English muffins = UK muffins. I've checked some on-line grocery stores to try to find you some pictures, but no luck. Perhaps Americans would call UK muffins 'biscuits' or 'rolls'--I'm not sure. Just remember, that this is a country where pancakes come already cooked in plastic wrap and are eaten cold, and where a 'flapjack' is sort of like a granola bar, except it's made out of oats. So anything's possible in how we differ in names of (and attitudes toward) bready things. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 24 21:31:27 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:31:27 -0800 Subject: Countable folks Message-ID: Our college PR director recently commented to me that our president, who is not especially folksy, had suddenly become fond of using "folks" in letters, speeches and the like. My response was that I'd noticed lots of people using "folks" a lot lately (in preference to "people"), but that the main thing I'd noticed was a trend toward making "folks" countable. I think it was probably about 7-8 years ago that I began to notice other people using the word in ways that at least came awfully close to countability. I can't remember actual quotes, but these new usages seemed to at least test the boundaries that constrain my own uses of the word. Lately I've actually heard people (oops, sorry--folks) refer to "three or four folks," which definitely goes beyond my boundaries. Has anybody else noticed this? Or has it been around for a long time and I'm only now noticing it? Or have other folks always been able to count "folks"? Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 24 21:24:20 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:24:20 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010124104814.00cfc1b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: It's yucky because it's not standard English, Beverly. That doesn't necessarily make it bad or evil or the first step down the slippery slope to ruin for the language, but it does indicate that the speaker has neither the time nor the inclination to discover the traditional term which he or she is aiming for. I find it charming and disarming in folks who've not had extended educational opportunities. I find it disturbing and reprehensible and outright hilarious when it comes from folks who--I'm sorry to say it--should know better. Hey, I enjoy and love a fluid and lively language, one that is dynamic and open to change. But this, at least for me, is not that type of change. It's just careless, and it smacks of the type of thinking that anytime one can add a syllable to a term, whether it's valid or not, it's good. Our students don't need to see this type of hooey coming from either their fellows, who set themselves up as semi-experts when they become writers, or from the man who wants to become the nation's attorney general. He should know better, as well. It's yucky. Sorry--I'm not feeling very tolerant today. bob > From: Beverly Flanigan > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Conversate and basically > > "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in > our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? > > > _____________________________________________ > Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics > Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 > Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 > http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 21:47:59 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:47:59 EST Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" Message-ID: The 1958 quote below is not really the same aa the quote in question, I first heard the exact phrase "there is no such thing as bad publicity" from the mouth of STanley Fish in the later 1980s, though I can't prove it with any written cite. I always assumed that Stanley made up the phrase himself. Her certainly believed it. In a message dated 1/24/2001 1:22:29 PM, gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU writes: << At 12:49 PM 1/24/2001 EST, George Thompson wrote: >"...there is no such thing as bad publicity." Martha >Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426.... > > How early can this be dated? > A quick scroll through the 291 occurrences of "publicity" in OED2 reveals one example of this saying, not an especially early one I suppose, but perhaps of interest. It's part of the entry for knock v.: 1958 Spectator 12 Dec. 865/1 On the last page he protests about `the growing tendency in some newspapers today to write only "knocking" stories about stars as big as Tommy'. But..almost any publicity is good publicity: you can knock around the clock and the moon-faced masses will only hear applause. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu >> From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 21:45:47 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:45:47 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: At 03:58 PM 1/24/2001 +0800, Larry wrote: >At 3:18 PM -0500 1/24/01, Siddharth Suri wrote: >>"Let me noodle it" >> >>Someone said this to me today and I was curious if anyone knows >>where this expression originated from. >> >>thanks >>suri. > >I'd guess it means 'consider, think about', and that it's a >zero-derivation from "noodle" as a noun = 'head, brain, mind'. Now >as for the origin of this, the AHD4 suggests it was an alteration of >"noddle", which is a Middle English word for the head. > Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, informally experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, people often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of the verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in technical, mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are nothing but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) The one thing that strikes me about Siddharth's example is that I do not happen to have heard the verb construed as transitive. But there's no reason why a transitive contruction wouldn't have emerged quite naturally. And now I bet someone will now post tons of evidence to the list of "to noodle" taking a direct object! Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 22:02:35 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:02:35 -0600 Subject: English muffins = crumpets Message-ID: >I've checked some on-line grocery stores to try to find you >some pictures, but no luck. Crumpet picture: http://www.viewimages.com/viewimage/?imageid=70055&promotionid=1&partnerid=2&type=results It looks like an English muffin, but this is a *toasted* crumpet. English muffins are split before being toasted, while a crumpet (apparently) is not. An amendment to my earlier posting of crumpet and English muffin recipes. I've seen homemade English muffins being made. You put a scant amount of raw cornmeal onto the griddle before putting the dough on the griddle. This adds to the external firmness, and also seems to help prevent sticking. Another distinction between an English muffin and a crumpet is that an English muffin is made from a dough, whereas a crumpet is made from a batter (but both are made with yeast). As has been stated, a crumpet is cooked on only one side, while an English muffin is cooked on both sides. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 24 22:04:30 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:04:30 -0800 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: I read the second clause as an explanation of the first, therefore I would use a colon. I can see using a semicolon if you read the statement as "We can probably wait on the software for now, (but)I don't think it will be a problem." --- Lynne Murphy wrote: > I think a semicolon would be more appropriate. > > Lynne > > --On Wednesday, January 24, 2001 8:57 am -0800 James > Smith > wrote: > > > Maybe it's just not knowing how to use a colon. I > > think "..." or a dash would also work if the > writing > > is approximating speech. > > > > > > --- Greg Pulliam wrote: > >> Does it seem to anyone else that the type of > "comma > >> splice" exemplified in > >> > >> "We can probably wait on the software for now, I > >> don't think it will > >> be a problem." > >> > >> (where the comma takes the place of "because" or > >> "since") is becoming > >> more and more common in written correspondence? > >> This is the third or > >> fourth instance I've seen in less than a week, > >> leading me to think > >> that it may be moving toward respectability. > >> > >> -- > >> - > >> Greg > >> > >> greg at pulliam.org > >> http://www.pulliam.org > > > > > > ===== > > James D. SMITH |If history teaches > anything > > SLC, UT |it is that we will > be sued > > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act > quickly and decisively > > |or slowly and > cautiously. > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great > prices. > > http://auctions.yahoo.com/ > > > > M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > University of Sussex > Brighton BN1 9QH > UK > > phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > fax +44-(0)1273-671320 ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 24 22:05:14 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:05:14 -0800 Subject: Countable folks In-Reply-To: <1140937.3189331887@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: ...and I'm beginning to hear "folk" as well as the plural, e.g. "all the good folk over in Melrose Hall." Perhaps the generators of the singular have been boning up on their Howard Pyle or Dover editions of the Pink Fairy book. Is this happening elsewhere? Peter R. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 21:58:42 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:58:42 -0500 Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" In-Reply-To: <2f.10071fde.27a0a78f@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > The 1958 quote below is not really the same aa the quote in question, I first > heard the exact phrase "there is no such thing as bad publicity" from the > mouth of STanley Fish in the later 1980s, though I can't prove it with any > written cite. > > I always assumed that Stanley made up the phrase himself. Her certainly > believed it. The famous formulation, which has attained proverbial status, is "The only bad publicity is no publicity." This has been around for many decades, I am sure. I'll try to research it. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 24 22:00:56 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:00:56 -0500 Subject: "there is no such thing as bad publicity" Message-ID: At 04:47 PM 1/24/2001 EST, Ron Butters wrote: >The 1958 quote below is not really the same aa the quote in question.... > In the post that initiated this thread, the observation was made (accurately, I suspect), that "[t]his is one of those popular expressions which are very hard to document because they are very variable in their formulation. It exists in both a negative form, as above, and a positive one: all publicity is good publicity." In that light, it's hard to make the claim that "there is no such thing as bad publicity" and the other phrase cited in that first post, i.e., "all publicity is good publicity," are sharply distinct, for the purposes of exmaining the history of this cluster of variable expressions, from "almost any publicity is good publicity." But I am sure that perceptions could vary! >I always assumed that Stanley [Fish] made up the phrase himself. Her certainly >believed it. > But was he right? Sorry, skip the cosmic questions...! Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 24 22:00:02 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:00:02 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" In-Reply-To: <200101242145.QAA10213@is2.nyu.edu>; from gd2@IS2.NYU.EDU on Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 04:45:47PM -0500 Message-ID: > The one thing that strikes me about Siddharth's example is that I do not > happen to have heard the verb construed as transitive. But there's no reason > why a transitive contruction wouldn't have emerged quite naturally. And now > I bet someone will now post tons of evidence to the list of "to noodle" > taking a direct object! I'll just direct people to HDAS, which has evidence of transitive _noodle_ from 1950 onwards. Jesse Sheidlower From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 24 22:20:48 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:20:48 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: Sz?vesen. "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > > >K?sz?n?m sz?pen. > > dInIs > > >"Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > >> > >> >Has a paper on grammatical synesthesia ever been written? > > > >According to the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet database > >service: > > > >Erzsebet P Dombi, Grammatical Forms of Synesthesia [Original Title, A > >szinesztezia grammatikai formai], Nyelv-es Irodalomtudomanyi > >Kozlemenyek, 1972, 16, 1, 37-50. > > > >Abstract: > >Synesthesia in the works of the Hungarian lyric impressionists is > >manifested in linguistic elements of varying complexity: compound words, > >syntagmas, phrases, compositional unities, or in the entire poem. > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > Department of Linguistics and Languages > Michigan State University > East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA > preston at pilot.msu.edu > Office: (517)353-0740 > Fax: (517)432-2736 From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 24 22:28:21 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:28:21 -0600 Subject: Countable folks Message-ID: In my father's family 'folks' meant my grandparents, i.e., it meant 'parents'; but you cannot refer to one parent or the other as 'a folk'. This is an early 20c version of the Northern California accent (the one that used 'chesterfield' for 'sofa'); this may have been influenced by a Norwegian substratum. Another usage is not so much that of 'people', but 'community', and can be either with or without the s. "That community has good folk[s]." You can also refer to another family/household, but always with the s: 'the folks living on the corner'. You also see 'folk' used to describe the bearers of a particular archaeological horizon, as in 'Bell Beaker folk'. 'Three or four folks' for 'three or four persons/people/individuals' is strange sounding. >Our college PR director recently commented to me that our president, who is >not especially folksy, had suddenly become fond of using "folks" in >letters, speeches and the like. My response was that I'd noticed lots of >people using "folks" a lot lately (in preference to "people"), but that the >main thing I'd noticed was a trend toward making "folks" countable. I >think it was probably about 7-8 years ago that I began to notice other >people using the word in ways that at least came awfully close to >countability. I can't remember actual quotes, but these new usages seemed >to at least test the boundaries that constrain my own uses of the word. >Lately I've actually heard people (oops, sorry--folks) refer to "three or >four folks," which definitely goes beyond my boundaries. > >Has anybody else noticed this? Or has it been around for a long time and >I'm only now noticing it? Or have other folks always been able to count >"folks"? > >Peter Mc. > >**************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 24 23:16:49 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:16:49 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As Mark Odegard pointed out, forms like "conversate" proliferate, and while I might not personally use them (partly because of age, partly because of stylistic "fussiness"), I hate to put labels on them and especially to lump them under "standard" and "nonstandard" heads. I'm also reluctant to project personal motivations (or lack thereof) from such usage; neither "charming" nor "lazy" has any place in such discussions, it seems to me. (I had to chide one of my TAs just today for telling his class people are naturally "lazy" in their speech; the problem is that some students will inevitably accuse certain groups, but never their own, as "lazy" speakers.) So "de gustibus..." notwithstanding, I reject taste-based labels like "yucky," or "it sticks in my craw," or "it makes me want to vomit." And even I can change: I used to say I'd _never_ use "finalize," and now I catch myself doing so! At 04:24 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >It's yucky because it's not standard English, Beverly. That doesn't >necessarily make it bad or evil or the first step down the slippery slope to >ruin for the language, but it does indicate that the speaker has neither the >time nor the inclination to discover the traditional term which he or she is >aiming for. I find it charming and disarming in folks who've not had >extended educational opportunities. I find it disturbing and reprehensible >and outright hilarious when it comes from folks who--I'm sorry to say >it--should know better. > >Hey, I enjoy and love a fluid and lively language, one that is dynamic and >open to change. But this, at least for me, is not that type of change. >It's just careless, and it smacks of the type of thinking that anytime one >can add a syllable to a term, whether it's valid or not, it's good. Our >students don't need to see this type of hooey coming from either their >fellows, who set themselves up as semi-experts when they become writers, or >from the man who wants to become the nation's attorney general. He should >know better, as well. > >It's yucky. > >Sorry--I'm not feeling very tolerant today. > >bob > > > From: Beverly Flanigan > > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: Conversate and basically > > > > "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in > > our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? > > > > _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 25 00:10:43 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:10:43 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010124180008.00d21bd0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've come to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, "That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Beverly Flanigan > Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 3:17 PM > > So "de gustibus..." notwithstanding, I reject taste-based labels like > "yucky," or "it sticks in my craw," or "it makes me want to vomit." And > even I can change: I used to say I'd _never_ use "finalize," and now I > catch myself doing so! From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 00:17:21 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 19:17:21 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. dInIs >It's yucky because it's not standard English, Beverly. That doesn't >necessarily make it bad or evil or the first step down the slippery slope to >ruin for the language, but it does indicate that the speaker has neither the >time nor the inclination to discover the traditional term which he or she is >aiming for. I find it charming and disarming in folks who've not had >extended educational opportunities. I find it disturbing and reprehensible >and outright hilarious when it comes from folks who--I'm sorry to say >it--should know better. > >Hey, I enjoy and love a fluid and lively language, one that is dynamic and >open to change. But this, at least for me, is not that type of change. >It's just careless, and it smacks of the type of thinking that anytime one >can add a syllable to a term, whether it's valid or not, it's good. Our >students don't need to see this type of hooey coming from either their >fellows, who set themselves up as semi-experts when they become writers, or >from the man who wants to become the nation's attorney general. He should >know better, as well. > >It's yucky. > >Sorry--I'm not feeling very tolerant today. > >bob > >> From: Beverly Flanigan >> Reply-To: American Dialect Society >> Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 10:52:21 -0500 >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> Subject: Re: Conversate and basically >> >> "Conversate" was used over a year ago by an African American columnist in >> our student newspaper. What's yucky about it? >> >> >> _____________________________________________ >> Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics >> Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 >> Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 >> http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 23 07:43:54 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 02:43:54 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Herb Stahlke writes: > This sort of error is as common as it is because English > punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks > very nicely. I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is deliberately -- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- conversational. And I have always believed that if you know the rules, in the absence of an American Academy, you are free to break them. So I occasionally separate two independent clauses with a comma as a break weaker than a semicolon. For example: "I didn't do anything in particular, it just happened." It is sort of the grammatical equivalent of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. D From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 00:30:49 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 18:30:49 -0600 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: >Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it >becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've >come >to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. >Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, >"That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. > >Benjamin Barrett Rather like orientate and commentate. In this case, they actually have a different sense than the shorter verb. Orientate is what companies and colleges do to new employees/students. Commentate is what talking-heads do off the tops of their heads, vs the thoughtful stuff you get in other contexts. Conversate, tho', does not have a distinct meaning from 'converse'. It's an unnecessary word. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 12:15:41 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:15:41 +0800 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 6:30 PM -0600 1/24/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >>Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it >>becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've >>come >>to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. >>Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, >>"That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. >> >>Benjamin Barrett > >Rather like orientate and commentate. In this case, they actually have a >different sense than the shorter verb. Orientate is what companies and >colleges do to new employees/students. Commentate is what talking-heads do >off the tops of their heads, vs the thoughtful stuff you get in other >contexts. > and adminstrators administrate--or at least they definitely don't administer. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 12:17:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:17:19 +0800 Subject: "Let me noodle it" In-Reply-To: <200101242145.QAA10213@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 4:45 PM -0500 1/24/01, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: >Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, informally >experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the >disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, people >often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of the >verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in technical, >mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are nothing >but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) > from "noodle" = 'head' again, no doubt ;-) From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 25 01:25:05 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:25:05 -0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? Peter R. From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 01:53:09 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 19:53:09 -0600 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Umm. For some reason, this sense of 'noodle' would sound 'more correct' as 'doodle'. Doodling on the piano is much like doodling on paper: aimless designs. I don't use either of them in this sense. >From: Laurence Horn >At 4:45 PM -0500 1/24/01, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: >>Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, >>informally >>experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the >>disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, >>people >>often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of >>the >>verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in >>technical, >>mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are >>nothing >>but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) >> >from "noodle" = 'head' again, no doubt ;-) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 02:07:47 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:07:47 -0600 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: >This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one >indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use >this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? > >Peter R. Truth to be told, I've only seen this sense in writing, and then, only in contexts that call attention to the problem. I've never heard PhysEd people use it at all, but then I'm never around such people. If the word really is in use, and M-W suggests it is (but without giving any guide to pronunciation), an acute accent (or maybe, a grave on the pattern of learn?d) over the C would be disambiguative. Curiously, M-W does not note what I regard as the main sense, that of 'create anew, replicate'; AHD4 requires a hyphen for this latter sense. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 24 13:22:48 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:22:48 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:07 PM -0600 1/24/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >>This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one >>indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use >>this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? >> >>Peter R. > >Truth to be told, I've only seen this sense in writing, and then, only in >contexts that call attention to the problem. I've never heard PhysEd people >use it at all, but then I'm never around such people. > >If the word really is in use, and M-W suggests it is (but without giving any >guide to pronunciation), an acute accent (or maybe, a grave on the pattern >of learn?d) over the C would be disambiguative. Curiously, M-W does not note >what I regard as the main sense, that of 'create anew, replicate'; AHD4 >requires a hyphen for this latter sense. Nice minimal pair, in that "recreate" [= to work out or whatever] is a back-formation from "recreation", while "re-creation" is a front-formation from "re-create" [= to create anew]. larry From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:12:38 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:12:38 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: At 07:53 PM 1/24/2001 -0600, Mark Odegard wrote: >Umm. For some reason, this sense of 'noodle' would sound 'more correct' as >'doodle'. Doodling on the piano is much like doodling on paper: aimless >designs. I don't use either of them in this sense. > In the post to which you're responding here, I was simply describing, to the best of my ability, and given limited time and my own particular level of information. I wasn't making a prescriptive evaluation. But all of us are entitled to our tastes! (And I've noticed that all of us have them, even when they are expressed not as overtly prescriptivist attitudes but instead as disapproval of the prescriptivistic tastes of others!) In any event, here's one of scores if not hundreds of cites I could offer from music-related emails in my old inboxes. I only had to search six days' worth of posts before hitting this (emphasis added): >Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 21:44:36 -0400 >From: Rob ----------- > >Transatlantic is made up of Roine Stolt (guitar/mellotron/vocals, from >Flower Kings), Neal Morse (keyboard/guitar/vocals, from Spock's Beard), >Pete Trevawas (bass/bv's, from Marillion) and Mike Portnoy (drums/bv's, >from Dream Theater). Basically, if you're familiar with Morse's obsession >with the hook, Stolt's tendency towards semi-psychedelic **noodling**, >Trevawas' non-presence in Marillion, and Portnoy's custom of extreme >overplaying, you may be pleasantly surprised by how well they worked >together. > Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From dumasb at UTK.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:16:23 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:16:23 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: dInIs said: >>Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >>list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >>I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. dInIs, I think I am in love with you! Bethany From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 02:46:58 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:46:58 EST Subject: comma=because Message-ID: Some grammar books allow for a comma when two clauses are brief and so closely related that the second seems to be uttered almost in the same breath (e.g. He's not a person, he's a monster (p.284, The Little, Brown Handbook, 5th ed. [HarperCollins 1992). Personally, I prefer a semicolon. In the example you cite, more than the comma seems to be the problem. Does "it" refer to the software or the waiting? The phrasing indicates that the referent is the software; logic indicates that it's the waiting. >Pulliam's example. "We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will be a problem." PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 25 02:45:26 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:45:26 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It was a visceral reaction, Dennis, but I'm not certain that I'd categorize it as a prejudice, and I certainly hope that you'd not categorize me as prejudiced. I did and do find "conversate" yucky, but I also find that other words and other writing have the power to make me laugh or cry or grow angry or any of several other reactions. Are those the result of prejudice? Humm, I hope not, especially since I encourage my comp students to embrace their own dialect and learn how to express it on paper. But I also encourage them to learn how to express themselves in a more standard fashion when the writing situation call for it. That's the mission that I've been given as a comp teacher, and I think that it serves my students fairly well. I think that a columnist, unless he or she is using "conversate" in an ironic fashion, would do better to avoid the term. I think that a politician, and a national one at that, might do better, but I could be wrong. It's my reaction to the word and what it implies to me. But I think it's an honest reaction, and I've tried to be honest about my reasons--the ones that come to mind--for such a reaction. If my tone was too lively or heated for some, please excuse me, but I had a fairly long day today and perhaps felt a bit too itchy. I really do attempt to be the paragon of tolerance with regards to non-standard words and idiom. And Beverly, please don't think that I'm being patronizing when I say I find something charming. I don't deem it as laziness, necessarily. I do to some extent, in this specific case, but at other times, I find different usage to be . . . well, charming. Isn't that a good thing? I appreciate your position as a language scientist, but am I not allowed to be moved by language simply because I'm an academic? Thanks for the sounding board. -- Bob Haas Department of English The University of North Carolina at Greensboro High Point University "Shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" > From: "Dennis R. Preston" > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 19:17:21 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Conversate and basically > >> Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >> list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >> I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. > > dInIs > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 25 03:51:49 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:51:49 -0600 Subject: "chad" apparently did not fly about Message-ID: Douglas Wilson's e-mail today (Jan. 24) speculates that the chad might have flown all over and may therefore be likened to lice ("chats"). Hence (so the theory) "chad" may derive from this "chats" or better yet from "chads" (same meaning), assuming that this latter form actually existed. However, on Jan. 14 I received a reply from Chris Jensen, who had earlier told me of his familiarity with the term "chad" from 1952. His Jan. 14 e-mail responded to a general question I had asked him about whether chad had ever been a nuisance. His reply is now relevant to Douglas Wilson's speculation about "chad" from "chat" (=louse). Evidently this speculation is unlikely to pan out, because the chad did not fly around all over but was neatly caught in a chad-catcher. But even if Mr. Wilson's "chat" (louse) speculation turns out to be incorrect, his discovery of the earliest attestation thus far (1940) is a source of congratulation and celebration. We of course all await the opportunity to learn the details. Meanwhile, here is Mr. Jenson's e-mail to me, followed by Douglas Wilson's: >Subject: Re: Question >Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 > >Dear Mr. Cohen, > >In your message about the 1944 journal article the reference to the fact >that chadless machines also printed on the surface of the tape resurrected >that fact in my memory. I had forgotten. > >In my experience the real chad wasn't a nuisance. Mechanically, the machines >that made chadless tape and the machines that made totally perforated tape >and thus produced chad differed only in organization. So the two types of >machines differed in that the chadless had a printer, but the 'chad' >machines had a chad-catcher (smaller than, but equivalent to the Chip Box of >the punched card equipment.) I don't recall that the chad ever wandered far >from the chad-catcher. Chadless machines cost more, and presented more >maintenance (ink or ribbon) and repair costs. > >Perhaps chad was a nuisance in the machines the British used, either because >of the machines' design, or because of the way the telegraphers managed the >chad. It also could have been a problem with the US forces, but not in my >experience. Now that I think of it, we used chad machines in training, which >forced us to become proficient in interpreting the code, and we used a few >chad machines where that was what the unit had, but in the larger message >centers we used chadless tape because of the printing and the ease with >which two pieces of tape could be spliced. > >For several months I was detached from my unit (an Infantry division's >signal company) and attached to a paratroop regiment. That unit had a >"portable" receiver-transmitter with an integrated paper-tape reperforator. >That was a chad machine, a lighter weight component than a chadless machine. >When the operator punched a tape the machine's page printer showed what was >on the tape, so printing on the tape was unnecessary. > >I do not remember that the character drawn on walls all over the world was >known as Chad. Hmm. I think of him as Kilroy. There's something new to learn >every day. > >Regards, > >Chris Jensen ****** >X-Sender: douglas/nb.net at 127.0.0.1 >Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 04:12:57 -0500 >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >Sender: American Dialect Society >From: "Douglas G. Wilson" >Subject: "Chad", "chadless", "chatts" >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >I have found an instance of "chadless" dated 1940. I don't think "chadless" >goes back much farther, since I've reviewed what I think are the patent >documents for the chadless punching process, filed in 1939. Needless to >say, there's no Mr. Chadless involved. The specifications from 1939 >apparently don't include the word "chadless", but they do include "chads", >meaning "pieces of waste [from a perforated tape]" (no quotation marks are >employed in the specs.). It is clear that "chadless" = "producing no >chads". The alternative to chadless tape was not called "chad tape" but >IIRC "perforated tape". > >This (apparently 1939) is the earliest instance of "chad(s)" which I've >found. But the word was already familiar in telegraphy circles by/before >1939, judging from 1939-1942 documents. I'm still looking. Now the USPTO >Web-site seems to have developed a "bug", so I'm stalled on the patents. >More later. > >I had pictured chad(s) as inert material lying on the floor or filling a >waste bin. But apparently under conditions of high-speed punch operation >all kinds of paper debris tended to fly about, and some tended to stick to >things and people by static electricity. I think high-speed high-volume >telegraphy tape punching might date from roughly the 1920's. Now we're >getting close to WW I, not WW II, maybe. > >I pointed out en passant that "chat(t)" = "louse" a while back. Evan Morris >forwarded a letter from a correspondent ("Bob Kamman"?) who speculatively >derived "chad" from "chat" = "louse". This correspondent (1) took "chat" as >military slang (wrong, I think), (2) related "chat" = "conversate" to >"chat" = "(de)louse" (wrong, I think), and (3) supported the louse-chad >connection with a reference to punched-card chips being thrown in one's >hair at a party (irrelevant, surely). It is apparently true, however, that >"chat" = "louse" was current among British and allied troops during WW I, >when lice proliferated in the trenches (Partridge mentions this, and >several Web pages give glimpses). > >Now one might picture the telegraph-office workers at the end of their work >day, say circa 1930-35, picking the chads off themselves and each other, >and one might consider that some of them might have served in the trenches >in WW I -- where they spent a lot of time picking chats (lice) off their >clothes .... > >Can anyone show "chad" = "louse"? > >-- Doug Wilson From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 03:56:43 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:56:43 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: As another writer reported, some style manuals allow this sort of punctuation. Obviously, as we all know, the rules are flexible and a sensitive writer uses them flexibly. The coarse grain of English punctuation doesn't allow us to write a lot of things we can say, but your example shows how close we can come. Herb <<< dcamp911 at JUNO.COM 1/24 7:30p >>> On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Herb Stahlke writes: > This sort of error is as common as it is because English > punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks > very nicely. I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is deliberately -- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- conversational. And I have always believed that if you know the rules, in the absence of an American Academy, you are free to break them. So I occasionally separate two independent clauses with a comma as a break weaker than a semicolon. For example: "I didn't do anything in particular, it just happened." It is sort of the grammatical equivalent of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. D From tcf at MACOMB.COM Thu Jan 25 04:13:09 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:13:09 -0600 Subject: Countable folks Message-ID: I first noticed this use of "folks" in CNN Gulf War coverage about 10 years ago. In military briefings, a general would say about the Iraqis, "the Iraqis still have some of their folks in this area," or the like. The "folks" would then get hit with firebombs and other heavy munitions. ----- Original Message ----- From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 04:44:19 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:44:19 -0600 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote >I only had to search six days' >worth of posts before hitting this I believe you! Pop music is not something I know much about. If noodling is what musicians do, then, indeed that's what they do! _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 04:44:27 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 23:44:27 EST Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: BAR & BUFFET I must confess--I discovered this by accident. It's published in Cincinnati, 1906-1909, and the LOC call number is TX950.A5. It's under BOOKS, nor JOURNALS. It's not in OCLC WorldCat at all! Drink lists are given "by John H. Considine, author of 'The Buffet Blue Book.'" This doesn't show up anywhere, either! June 1906, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 11, col. 4: _A LITTLE WIENER HISTORY_ The little sausage known as "Frankfurter" and "Wiener" was offered for sale for the first time in 1805, and the centennial was observed in Vienna by the butcher's guild. The inventor of the sausage was Johann Lahner, who named it for his birthplace, Frankfurt. The business founded 100 years ago by a poor man has yielded a fortune in its various heads. It has alwyas remained in the same family, and is now conducted in Vienna by Franz Lahner, a grand nephew of the original Frankfurter sausage man. August/September 1907, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 19, col. 1: _Dog-sausage no Joke_ _Seven Thousand Canines Devoured in Germany Last Year._ The old joke about eating "hot dog" is no joke in Germany any more... August 1906, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 5, col. 1: Without doubt a great many readers have seen signs which read: "In God WeTrust--All Others Cash"... December 1906, BAR & BUFFET, pg. 14, col. 1 ad: Bull Dog SUSPENDERS (Related to "bulldog edition"?--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- From BAR & BUFFET, August 1906, pg. 9, col. 1: _"HORSE TALK."_ _Peculiar Words and Definitions Used by Sports of The Turf._ Aged Horse--One that is six years old or over. Colt--An immature stallion; in racing and trotting, one that is under six years old. Filly--An immature mare; in racing and trotting, one that is under six years old. Foal--A colt, filly or gelding under one year old. Full Brother (or Sister)--One having the same sire and dam. Half Brother (or Sister)--One having the same dam but not the same sire. Sometimes used to denote a horse having the same sire but not the same dam. Brother in Blood--One having common ancestors in the male and female lines, but not the same sire and dam. Second Dam (or Third, etc.)--The maternal granddam (or great-granddam, etc.) Jack--A male ass. Jenny--A female ass. Mule--A hybrid resulting from the cross between a jack and a mare. Hinny--A hybrid resulting from the cross between a stallion and a jenny. Jennet--A small ambling Spanish saddle horse of the sixteenth century. Hackney--Originally a utility horse for riding or driving; especially one kept for hire. Adopted in 1883 by the English Hackney Horse Society as the name for a breed or carriage horses then being formed from the old Norfolk trotters and other foundation stock. Cob--A low, thick-set, short-legged, compact harness or saddle horse; especially one not exceeding 15 hands. Pony--A horse not exceeding 14.2 hands. Originally poney, and denoted a horse under 13 hands. Hobby--An ancient breed or type of Irish ponies that were fast runners and pacers. Punch--An extremely thick-set, short, blocky horse. The term is now rarely used except to designate a breed of English draught horses known as the Suffolk Punch. Mustang, Bronco, Cayuse--A small, hardy, range-bred horse of the far West, descended from Indian pony stock. Lunkhead--A dull, stupid, clumsy horse. Plug--A worthless, low-bred horse. Weed--An inferior horse of rank growth, lacking conspicuously in quality and substance. Crab--A sore-toed, worn-out horse. Crock--A broken down, worn out horse. Skate--A very inferior horse; especially a worthless thoroughbred or trotter. Lobster--A coarse, awkward, ungainly horse. Bull--A lymphatic lobster. Cherrypicker--A tall, long-legged horse. Stargazer--A long-necked horse that carries his head extremely high. Kill Devil--A vicious horse. Crack, Crack-a-jack, Corncracker--A horse of superior excellence, especially a superior race horse, trotter, hunter or show horse. Soft Horse--One lacking stamina or endurance, especially a race horse or trotter. Washy Horse--One that is lacking in constitution or stamina. Gibber--A balky horse. Roarer, Whistler, Grunter--A horse that is not sound in his wind; i.e., one whose respiratory passages are obstructed or contracted in such a way as to cause a wheezing sound when the animal exerts himself. Cribber--A horse that habitually bites his manager or other object, and while doing so sucks in air. Cockhorse--One used to help a four-in-hand team in pulling a coach up a hill or over a hard stage. Timber Topper, Fencer, Leaper--A hunter or high jumper. Nag--Said to be the oldest surviving appellation in the English language for a riding horse. Commonly used to denote a driving horse. Palfrey, Pad--Old English terms for saddle horse, especially an easy riding horse for a woman. Hack--A horse for riding. Originally a drudge hackneyed or hired for riding or driving. Synonymous with hackney, of which term is an abbreviation. Blood Hack--A thoroughbred saddle horse or one having the appearance of being a thoroughbred. (Col. 2--ed.) Remount--A horse intended for calvary service in the army. Mount--A horse of any type that is ridden. Jade--An inferior horse, especially a tired or worn-out horse. Welter Horse--A race horse, hunter or saddle horse capable or carrying the heaviest weight. Galloway--A small horse used for riding. The name originally was applied to a breed or tribe of small pacing horses in Scotland, and was later used to denote riding horses over 13 hands nad under fourteen hands. Now commonly used to denote a racer not exceeding 15 hands. Bonesetter--A rough gaited riding horse. Colloquial in some parts of the United States. Novice--A show horse that has never won. _Terms Used in Racing._ Thoroughbred--A horse having six uncontaminated crosses of the blood of the British race horse. Blood Horse--A horse having the appearance of being a thoroughbred. Sometimes used as a synonym for thoroughbred. Cocktail--A race horse or hunter not strictly a thoroughbred, but having a predominance of thoroughbred blood. Courser--A race horse of Arabian or thoroughbred blood. Cup Horse--A race horse having the speed and endurance to compete at a cup distance (usually not less than a mile and a half). Stake Horse--A superior race horse or trotter, good enough to go against the best in his class. Selling Plater, Leather Plater--A third-rate race horse, good only for short distance races in inferior company. Stayer--A horse that can carry his speed a long distance and repeat. (Col. 3--ed.) Sprinter--A fast race horse, good only for a short distance (under one mile). Quitter--A horse that gives it up when pinched in a hard-fought race. Sucker--A faint-hearted horse that is usually both a sprinter and a quitter. Dog, Hound--A horse lacking the essential qualities of a racer. Counterfeit--The type of horse that Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote: "Horses hot at hand make gallant show and promise of their mettle, but when they should endure the bloody spur they fall their crests and like deceitful jades sink in the trial." Rogue--A race horse that can not be depended on to do his best. Bolter--A race horse that habitually bolts or tries to fly the course. Stout Horse--As used by racing men this term has no significance as to conformation. It means enduring, strong, courageous, which was its original signification, according to early English writers. High Stomach Horse--Old John Lawrence wrote in 1806: "There are also high stomached horses that, being severely whipped when all abroad and at their best, will instantly slacken instead of endeavoring to increase their speed." Such horses are now called sulkers. Pacemaker--A horse used to set the pace for another horse in a race or a performance against time. Plodder--A race horse or trotter that lacks brushes of extreme speed, but rates along at a fairly even pace from start to finish. Rater--The same as a plodder. This term is used also to denote a pacemaker or prompter in a performance against time. Trial Horse--One of known racing capacity used in trying out a runner or trotter whose racing qualities are being tested in private. (Col. 4--ed.) Dark Horse--A dangerous horse in a race whose chances of success are unknown or known to but few. Long Shot--A horse against which the odds are longest in the betting on a race. Favorite--The horse against which the odds are shortest in the betting on a race. Outsider--The opposite of a favorite. Dead One--A race horse not meant to win. Dope Horse--A race horse, trotter or show horse, that performs best under the influence of a drug. Sunday Horse--An in and out, or uncertain performer. Morning Glory (OED?--ed.)--A race horse that runs fast in his work against time, but fails in actual contest. Mud Lark (Pre-dates RHHDAS--ed.)--A horse that excels on a muddy track. Quarter Horse--A horse that is used for short distance running races; one that can go a quarter of a mile at a high rate of speed. Maiden--A horse that has never won. Placed Horse--One that wins any part of the purse or stake in racing, or that wins a ribbon in the show ring. Place Horse--One that is placed second in a running race. Flyer--A high-class race horse or trotter. Standard Horse--One that is eligible to registration under the rules governing admission to Wallace's American Trotting Register. Sidewheeler--A pacer. Green Horse--One that have never started in a race. This term is often erroneously used to designate a horse that started but has never won. Running Mate--A running horse harnessed to pole with a trotter to help him along in a race or performance against time. Pole Horse--The horse that has the inside track in a trotting race; also a trotter driven to pole; that is, in double harness. Runner in Front--A running horse driven ahead of a trotter in a performance against time for the purpose of forming a wind shield to aid the trotter. Bad Actor--A trotter that habitually breaks or otherwise misbehaves in races. (Notice that "ringer" is not here--ed.) From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Thu Jan 25 08:11:17 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 02:11:17 -0600 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: Grant Barrett passed on this query from the ADS web site: > I'm lookin for the word(s) that mean (something like) the solution to the > problem will recreate the problem. I believe the ending of the movie the French > Connection was an indication of the situation??? > > Marie > MReier at dsc.smcs.noacsc.org In medical circles, the word "iatrogenic" comes close. OED defines it as "Induced unintentionally by a physician through his diagnosis, manner, or treatment; of or pertaining to the induction of (mental or bodily) disorders, symptoms, etc., in this way." The etymology goes back to two elements meaning "physician-caused". Med-school lore sometimes "explains" the word by saying that "iatrogenic disease is caused by its own diagnosis." (Now I'm stuck for a word: that sentence is not what I would call an oxymoron, but I can't recall a more appropriate label for this kind of statement of impossible circular causality. Help, anyone?) Illustration: It is sometimes argued that stuttering is iatrogenic. Those who believe that conclusion point out that normal speech usually includes many instances in which a speaker involuntarily fixes on repeating an utterance-initial phoneme, syllable, or word. That particular pattern fits very well with common stereotypes about the nature of stuttering, but in fact that's not the only way stuttering may manifest itself. Not only that: some confirmed stutterers never exhibit that particular behavioral pattern. In any event, it's pretty easy to demonstrate that virtually all normal speakers put utterances together that sound just like stuttering in one way or another. Normally, that behavior is ignored. >From time to time, however, people who hear a speaker make sounds that are normal speech events perceive that the speaker has a problem. Close attention to what any normal speaker actually does as part of talking will turn up many more instances of stuttering than are casually apparent, thus seeming to confirm the presence of a problem. When the speaker is a child and the observer is a parent or a teacher, the observer might go beyond being conscious of patterns that usually are ignored and put them together as evidence that the child "is a stutterer". Often, this conclusion hardens into a diagnosis that demands that something be done to "cure" the alleged difficulty. At this point, so the argument goes, the speaker is made more and more aware that some normal vocal patterns are, in fact, dangerous recidivism into habits that must be changed. The tensions actually lead to intensification of the undesired behavior. In the end, the occasional lapses of normal speech take over as insurmountable patterns of interference with normal communication. The diagnosis has produced the disease -- at least in the eyes of those who believe in the argument I've just presented. It took me a long time to fix the word "iatrogenic" in my working vocabulary. Iatrogenic didn't become an ordinary word for me until several of my close relatives went into hospitals for treatment of some disease or medical condition. Each of them got much sicker by picking up a new antibiotic-resistant disease that was a permanent resident of the operating rooms or intensive care units. That sure was a solid demonstration of the dangers of iatrogenic diseases! There's a common thread in Marie's question and my memory of having lost the word "iatrogenic" time and again until events finally fixed it in my head. I'd love to head what some of our leading dictionary experts have to say about something no dictionary ever solves for me. What do you do when you know there's a word for something, but have no memory of the word itself? I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than once. What do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one direction until it comes to the other side of the writing surface, then turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to right, the next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do with the way oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I won't need to look it up. There just doesn't seem to be any way a dictionary could help me with that kind of problem. The only way I can think of that might produce an answer would be to ask anybody and everybody I can talk to if they happen to know the word. . . If I ever found someone claiming to know, then I'd have something to take to a dictionary for verification. But where is there a dictionary equivalent of a criss-cross (or reverse) telephone directory? -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and check it out in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off this system. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 08:22:09 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 03:22:09 EST Subject: "Don't Ask, Don't Get" Message-ID: From the DAILY NEWS EXPRESS, Personal Finance (cbs.marketwatch.com), 24 January 2001, pg. 14, col. 1: _"DON'T ASK, DON'T GET":_ _NEGOTIATING FINANCIAL FEES_ (...) Wall Street has a "don't ask, don't get" policy. At most firms, you can negotiate the price of your investments products. Asking can lower breakpoints, costs and management fees. This is not in www.investorwords.com. It's not really an investor term. It's more like an ancient Jewish mother proverb. It pre-dates "don't ask, don't tell." I don't know what Fred Shapiro has. From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 25 10:00:11 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 05:00:11 -0500 Subject: "chad" apparently did not fly about In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Douglas Wilson's e-mail today (Jan. 24) speculates that the chad >might have flown all over and may therefore be likened to lice >("chats"). Hence (so the theory) "chad" may derive from this "chats" >or better yet from "chads" (same meaning), assuming that this latter >form actually existed. Actually the theory is more or less due to Evan Morris's correspondent (message in Nov. 2000). >... from 1952 ... the chad did not fly around all over but was neatly >caught in a >chad-catcher. I have limited experience with paper tape punching, only from about 1967. I did not find any problem with loose material either. But 1930's equipment may have been much different from 1952 in this respect. I know only what I see in my patent skimming, and of course it may be biased: for example the proud inventor who is patenting a new chad-catcher is likely to maximize the problem which his invention addresses. Punched tape was used at least since 1860. Patents for early machines mostly ignored the paper residue, and the diagrams for some clearly show a lack of any provision for collection of chads: apparently they just fell on the floor; in practice I suppose a bucket or something was placed under the punch. I've skimmed thousands of pages on the Web, and I can't remember clearly a lot of what I saw. But -- just as one example, and not the most germane -- US Patent # 3,602,080 ("Chad Removal Means") (1977), dealing not with telegraphy tape but with rotary printers, states: "The chad becomes a nuisance because they tend to fly about in the room space, attach themselves to the clothes of the operator, and sometimes accumulate on the moving parts of the machine in sufficient quantities to block the machine." [Note the confusion about the countability of the word "chad"!] [Searching old (pre-1976) patents through the USPTO site on the Web is like using a microfilm reader. You can't search text; you only get images of the documents -- some of them only marginally legible. You can't even search by title or inventor, only by patent # and by a "classification number" which may or may not have relevance to the subject of interest. For example, the above-mentioned patent is indexed under three of the hundreds of subcategories of "cutting": if you search the whole "cutting" category, you get tens of thousands of patent numbers (without titles); if you search under "punching" or "waste removal" or anything else separate from "cutting", or if you enter the wrong subcategory of "cutting", you don't find it.] From advice given on the Web (1999) for someone moving a "Model 19" teletype machine (machine maybe from circa 1945?): "That is the Chad Box. Be sure it is empty. If it is not, you may become very unpopular very fast when you start moving the table, particularly if you do use a hand truck. Chads, though made out of paper, are magnetic. They stick to everything. Vacuum cleaners ignore them. They make you look like you need Industrial Strength Selsun-Blue if you get them on your clothing." More later. -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 25 10:09:48 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:09:48 +0000 Subject: politics of personal destruction Message-ID: Associated Press article on the Republican takeover of "politics of personal destruction": http://salon.com/politics/wire/2001/01/24/ppd/index.html M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:18:42 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:18:42 -0500 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Shakespeare, Julius Caesar as I recall. dInIs >This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one >indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use >this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? > >Peter R. -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:21:45 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:21:45 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: <3A7077D7@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: >Damn Bethany! Carol uses this address too. Let's be more circumspect. dInIs >dInIs said: > >>>Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >>>list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >>>I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. > >dInIs, I think I am in love with you! > >Bethany -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 25 11:16:44 2001 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 06:16:44 -0500 Subject: politics of personal destruction Message-ID: politics of personal destruction.... See Barnhart Dictionary Companion (Vol. 12.1, Fall 1999). The earliest quote is St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 13, 1992, in a Clinton context. Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From dumasb at UTK.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:37:48 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:37:48 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: dInIs said: >Damn Bethany! Carol uses this address too. Let's be more circumspect. That's okay. Carol knows I love her too! (Hi, Carol!) Now back to circumspection. Bethany From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 14:35:27 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:35:27 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: On CNN this morning a snipet from a newspaper criticizing the Clinton "gifts" used the word administrate rather than administer: the newsreader said the piece sounded like it was written by a lawyer! -- db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Thu Jan 25 14:37:17 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:37:17 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: Seems to me that Skakespeare used it in Julius Caesar. Bob Peter Richardson wrote: > > This line of inquiry hasn't mentioned _recreate_, what one does when one > indulges in recreation, not the act of re-creation. The P.E. people use > this word all the time; is it otherwise visible/audible? > > Peter R. From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 14:52:12 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:52:12 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: As a 60-yr old American I can attest that no one in my generation or younger uses 'shall' for any purpose whatsoever except to sound posh: "will" or "gonna" ~ "going to" or BE + V+ing is all the future we need in informal usage. -- db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:08:25 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:08:25 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: <3A703A1D.ABC0EA14@voyager.net> Message-ID: At 9:37 AM -0500 1/25/01, Bob Fitzke wrote: >Seems to me that Skakespeare used it in Julius Caesar. > >Bob > Yes, you and dInIs are right: ANTONY Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours and new-planted orchards, On this side Tiber; he hath left them you, And to your heirs for ever, common pleasures, To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. Here was a Caesar! when comes such another? Julius Caesar III.ii In fact, the OED makes it clear that "recreate" in the sense of 'refresh' or 'enliven' (as opposed to the more specialized and now much more American 'take recreation', the OED's sense 5) has a much longer history than that. Contrary to what I was claiming for the 'take recreation' sense, it's much less clear that the 'refresh, renew' sense of "recreate" is a back-formation from "recreation". (All of this applies to the [rEkriyeyt] item, not the essentially unrelated transparent re-create/re-creation near-homograph.) larry From AAllan at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 15:14:32 2001 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:14:32 EST Subject: Tsk Message-ID: >dInIs, I think I am in love with you! >> Ahem, let's not turn ADS-L into a venue for virtual love. - Allan Metcalf From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 02:25:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:25:58 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: <3A703D9D.84CEA19@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 9:52 AM -0500 1/25/01, David Bergdahl wrote: >As a 60-yr old American I can attest that no one in my generation or >younger uses 'shall' for any purpose whatsoever except to sound posh: >"will" or "gonna" ~ "going to" or BE + V+ing is all the future we need >in informal usage. > >-- db >____________________________________________________________________ Even in suggestions with interrogative syntax, where it doesn't alternate with "will"? Shall we leave? #Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] Of course, "Let's leave" is another possibility, but it's more definitive; the "shall" interrogative really does ask for confirmation. I also say, and hear, the elliptical "Shall we?", with the action recoverable from context. I agree that "shall" in declaratives sounds archaic, posh, or British (if these are distinct), but "shall" in 1st person interrogatives is alive and not entirely unwell. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 15:29:35 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:29:35 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie Message-ID: Does anyone have any dirt on mud? From John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK: _Mississippi mud pie._ A very dense chocolate pie that takes its name from the thick mud along the banks of the Mississippi River. According to Nathalie Dupree in _New Southern Cooking_ (1986), the top of what she calls "Mississippi Mud Cake" should also be "cracked and dry-looking like Mississippi mud in the hot, dry summer." It does, however, seem to be of fairly recent origin; according to Mississippi-born food authority Craig Claiborne, writing in 1987, "I never heard of a Mississippi mud pie or Mississippi mud cake until I moved North." It's not mentioned in: SOUTHERN FOOD: AT HOME, ON THE ROAD, IN HISTORY (1987) by John Egerton JAMES BEARD'S AMERICAN COOKERY (1972) by James Beard An OCLC WorldCat search didn't turn up anything old, except a "Mississippi Mud" song that Bing Crosby crooned. Dow Jones has the early 1980s. From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 15:34:38 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:34:38 -0500 Subject: Tsk Message-ID: >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/25/01 10:14AM >>> >dInIs, I think I am in love with you! >> Ahem, let's not turn ADS-L into a venue for virtual love. - Allan Metcalf >>>>>>>> That, of course, requires a [p!], not a [t!]. Herb From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 15:36:18 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:36:18 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we leave", unless I was being posh. Herb >>> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU 01/24/01 09:25PM >>> At 9:52 AM -0500 1/25/01, David Bergdahl wrote: >As a 60-yr old American I can attest that no one in my generation or >younger uses 'shall' for any purpose whatsoever except to sound posh: >"will" or "gonna" ~ "going to" or BE + V+ing is all the future we need >in informal usage. > >-- db >____________________________________________________________________ Even in suggestions with interrogative syntax, where it doesn't alternate with "will"? Shall we leave? #Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] Of course, "Let's leave" is another possibility, but it's more definitive; the "shall" interrogative really does ask for confirmation. I also say, and hear, the elliptical "Shall we?", with the action recoverable from context. I agree that "shall" in declaratives sounds archaic, posh, or British (if these are distinct), but "shall" in 1st person interrogatives is alive and not entirely unwell. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 03:05:23 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:05:23 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:36 AM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we >leave", unless I was being posh. > >Herb > Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, when the speaker intends it as a suggestion (or vice versa), while "Shall we go" clearly indicates that the speaker would like to go if the addressee is willing to. Still, the former (or even the more reduced form, "Wanna go?") is probably more likely than "Shall we go?". But my point is that the "shall" in this case is less stylistically marked than in the simple future uses. Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 16:09:18 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:09:18 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: DARE has nothing at all. OED (Jesse has just told me) has 1990. A bit of checking around the old studio apartment here has turned up: THE NASHVILLE COOKBOOK: SPECIALTIES OF THE CUMBERLAND REGION By Nashville Area Home Economics Association 1976, 1977 (See catnyp.nypl.org for full cite) Cakes: Mississippi Mud, 161 So, based on my investigation, the Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie possibly comes from Tennessee, possibly from a secret recipe of Bethany Dumas. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 16:14:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:14:48 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: Oops. I just checked, and this cookbook is not in the NYPL. See www.loc.gov instead. From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Thu Jan 25 16:23:01 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:23:01 +0100 Subject: garconne pants Message-ID: "Garconne pants" (the "c" should have a cedilla, of course, but I think the e-mail refuses such letters) are fairly wide, usually rather slinky pants that came "en vogue" in the early 1920s, when young women often dressed rather like boys. They got their name after a novel by Colette's husband Victor Margueritte, "La Garconne" (1922). Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Elizabeth Gibbens" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 5:54 PM Subject: garconne pants > Thanks to Barry for publicizing the ARRIVE article. > > This month's BAZAAR used the phrase "garconne pants." > I'm interested in anyone's opinions on the derivation > and meaning of that phrase. I'd particularly like to > discuss the topic of separate nomenclature for men's > and boys' clothing. > > Thank you again! > > Elizabeth Gibbens From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:25:33 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:25:33 EST Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: Arnold Zwicky writes: listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". I frequently find in the newspapers of the 1820s expressions involving "about" and a participle, used when I would write "just about to". Some examples follow: From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:29:09 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 08:29:09 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: george (thompson), the message i got was lacking the examples! arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:35:10 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:35:10 EST Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: Let me try this again. Arnold Zwicky writes: listening to an interview of dolly parton on Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along the lines of "I about fainted". I have been struck by rather frequent occurences in the NYC newspapers of the 1820s of sentences constucted with "about" and a particicple, used when I would write "just about to". Some examples follow. [This one is from a pretty funny story of a law-suit between a respectable gentleman (i.e., ha had money) and an incompetent portrait painter. The gentleman had commissioned a painting, was displeased with it when it was done, and refused to pay. The painter added long ears and exhibited it in the guise of a picture of the legendary figure Midas. The gentleman sued.] ". . . as they were about leaving the room, he took chalk and sketched Ass's ears on the head of the picture, threatening to paint them thereon and expose it on Broadway." New-York City-Hall Recorder, 2 (1817):113-18 [This one is about a sailor who is trying to avoid arrest.] After Jack had maintained his position at the mast head for nearly two hours, occasionally relieving his apprehensions by a bottle of grog which his messmates below had fastened to a rope for him to draw up, a sloop laying alongside being about getting under weigh, by the aid of his brother tars, the two vessels were locked in such a manner as to bring the rigging into contact, when he stepped from his roost in the mast-head of the smack over to that of the sloop, and sailed securely off, amidst the cheers of a great number of persons who had collected on the docks and wit ssed the diverting scene, and left the minister of justice to return his writ non est inventus. New-York Evening Post, May 13, 1819, p. 2, col. 1 . . . the Police Magistrates had in some way obtained information that a certain Rufus Severence was about coming to the City, with a large quantity of counterfeit money . . . N-Y American, February 8, 1822, p. 2, col. 6 On Sunday, a strapping black was about chastizing a genteel well behaved young white man, because he took the wall of him; and in their walks in Broadway there is no enduring their insolence. National Advocate, July 9, 1822, p. 2, cols. 2-3. GAT From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:37:46 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 08:37:46 -0800 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: larry horn, about "Shall we go?": >my point is that the "shall" in this case is less stylistically >marked than in the simple future uses. true, but i believe there are very large numbers of american speakers who don't use "shall" at all, even in these interrogative suggestions, for which they use one of the other options people (should i say "folks"?) have pointed out: "Let's go" or "D'ya wanna go?" - or "Wanna go?" or "How about going?" or "Why don't we go?" or various other possibilities. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From mssmith at BOONE.NET Fri Jan 26 16:47:16 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 11:47:16 -0500 Subject: Fish Message-ID: Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 16:46:21 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:46:21 -0500 Subject: approximative VP adverbials Message-ID: At 11:35 AM 1/25/2001 EST, George Thompson wrote: > I have been struck by rather frequent occurences in the NYC >newspapers of the 1820s of sentences constucted with "about" and a >particicple, used when I would write "just about to". > The "about to" construction more familiar today is treated at OED2 about, meaning 12, attested back to the 16th cent. The construction with a verbal noun rather than the infinitive is treated as meaning 13, from late in the 18th cent.: 13. By further extension it is used with the verbal n. in the same sense. 1793 Smeaton Edystone Lightho. [sec.] 254 The season we were then about concluding. 1865 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. ix. 169 (1873) England seems about deserting him. Ibid. 88 The celestial sign of the balance just about canting. Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:06:36 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:06:36 EST Subject: a complete 360 Message-ID: Laurence Horn, in a comment under the rubric "Politics of Personal Destruction" writes in part: The odd aspect of the current usage is that the meaning has changed 180 or so degrees from Clinton's intended usage. This puts me in mind of something I have been meaning to post a query about, and that is, the expression "he made a complete 360", meaning a reversal of direction. I believe I hear this mostly from athletes in post-game interviews, used in a literal sence of bodily motion or direction: He was moving one way, turned quickly and moved in just the opposite direction. I have also heard it used figuratively, as of a politician who reverses his position on a controversial issue. I suppose that this expression is most used by the geometrically challenged (unlike Larry). However, to do a complete 360 for a moment by defending the grasp of the mensuration of a circle on the part of at least those athletes who use the term in the sense of physical motion, there are circumstances when a baseball shortstop will do a complete 270, more or less -- I have seen Derek Jeter do this. Moving toward his left, behind second base, moving in the direction of right field, the shortstop catches a ball in his left (gloved) hand, transfers it to his right hand and needs to throw to first base. However, running as he is at a right angle to the line toward first base, to make the short turn toward first would involve turning the right side of his body away from the direction in which he will throw, thereby decreasing the force and accuracy of the throw. Instead, he may make a long turn, turning past centerfield, right field, third base and the pitcher and then throw to first. Whatever time is lost in making a such a spin will be, he hopes, regained in the better speed and accuracy coming from having his body twisting in the direction of his throwing motion. And, indeed, he may wind up, after making the throw, facing right field again, thus completing a full 360. Still, I think that this expression is most often found in the simple sense of "make an about-face." GAT From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:19:56 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:19:56 -0600 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: > THE NASHVILLE COOKBOOK: > SPECIALTIES OF THE CUMBERLAND REGION > By Nashville Area Home Economics Association ... > So, based on my investigation, the Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie possibly comes from Tennessee, possibly from a secret recipe of Bethany Dumas. I don't think the Cumberland region is a likely source for it. The Mississippi Delta strikes me as more likely. (The Delta, btw, doesn't mean the river's actual delta. Mississippi children introduced to the term "delta" in geography/geology books learn that our delta is in fact an "alluvial plain." Whatever *a* delta is, *The* Delta is the flat land along the Mississippi River, stretching from the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis to Catfish Row in Vicksburg.) I carried a whole backback stuffed with Mississippi Mud Puppies to Japan last May as gifts to friends there -- thirty or forty mud puppies. My shoulders ache in memory of that every time I pass the mud-puppy shelf in our campus bookstore. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 17:32:18 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:32:18 EST Subject: Conversate Message-ID: It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make anew), as used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:36:29 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:36:29 -0800 Subject: approximative VP adverbials In-Reply-To: <38DC82434@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: I wonder whether these instances of "about" are really the same as Dolly Parton's. My sense is that their meaning is that of "to be about something" rather than "to be just about to" do something. I.e., "as they were about leaving the room" could be alternatively expressed as: "as they were occupied with the action of leaving the room." The other cites all seem consistent with this interpretation. Peter Mc. --On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 11:35 AM +0000 GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: > Let me try this again. > > Arnold Zwicky writes: listening to an interview of dolly parton on > Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the > approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along > the lines of "I about fainted". > > I have been struck by rather frequent occurences in the NYC > newspapers of the 1820s of sentences constucted with "about" and a > particicple, used when I would write "just about to". Some examples > follow. > > [This one is from a pretty funny story of a law-suit between a > respectable gentleman (i.e., ha had money) and an incompetent > portrait painter. The gentleman had commissioned a painting, was > displeased with it when it was done, and refused to pay. The > painter added long ears and exhibited it in the guise of a picture > of the legendary figure Midas. The gentleman sued.] > ". . . as they were about leaving the room, he took chalk and > sketched Ass's ears on the head of the picture, threatening to paint > them thereon and expose it on Broadway." > New-York City-Hall Recorder, 2 (1817):113-18 > > [This one is about a sailor who is trying to avoid arrest.] > After Jack had maintained his position at the mast head for nearly > two hours, occasionally relieving his apprehensions by a bottle of > grog which his messmates below had fastened to a rope for him to draw > up, a sloop laying alongside being about getting under weigh, by the > aid of his brother tars, the two vessels were locked in such a manner > as to bring the rigging into contact, when he stepped from his roost > in the mast-head of the smack over to that of the sloop, and sailed > securely off, amidst the cheers of a great number of persons who had > collected on the docks and wit ssed the diverting scene, and left the > minister of justice to return his writ non est inventus. > New-York Evening Post, May 13, 1819, p. 2, col. 1 > > . . . the Police Magistrates had in some way obtained information that > a certain Rufus Severence was about coming to the City, with a large > quantity of counterfeit money . . . > N-Y American, February 8, 1822, p. 2, col. 6 > > On Sunday, a strapping black was about chastizing a genteel well behaved > young white man, because he took the wall of him; and in their walks > in Broadway there is no enduring their insolence. > National Advocate, July 9, 1822, p. 2, cols. 2-3. > > GAT **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Thu Jan 25 17:48:39 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:48:39 EST Subject: more on "Inc" Message-ID: I have deleted all previous notes on "inc." pronounced as "ink", so I can't give credit to previous contributors. Someone noted the crime fiction bookstore/publisher "Murder Ink": according to the Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing (1999), this was founded in June, 1972. (sv article "Bookstores, specialized") In 1936, Count Basie and certain members of his band made some recordings. Because a conniver named Jack Kapp had induced Basie to sign a disadvantageous exclusive contract with Decca Records, these records could not be released under Basie's name. (After the Decca contract expired, such groups would be called Count Basie and His Kansas City Five, &c.) One of the bandmen at the session was Jo Jones, another was Carl Smith, so the records were released as by "Jones, Smith, Inc". I do not believe that I have ever heard this pronounced "Jones, Smith, Incorporated". This disk jockey I have most often heard announce this group's name is Phil Schaap, whose father was and is a fervent jazz hound and a close friend of many jazz musicians. Basie, Jo Jones, and most of the other participants in this session knew Phil Schaap when he was in diapers, and this is exactly the sort of detail he likes to get right, so when he says Jones-Smith Inc I think we can assume that that is what his father and Basie said. Still, the next time he is on the air, I will call and check with him. Stay tuned. GAT From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 17:51:14 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:51:14 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake (GOURMET, June 1978) Message-ID: A quick check of GOURMET from the 1960s and 1970s first shows June 1978: Fudge Cake (Mississippi Mud Cake Front Street)...81 As I've said, these "mud cakes/pies" are now all over distant Australia (not Japan?), but they like to leave out "Mississippi." There's also no entry in Merriam-Webster, I believe. From P2052 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 17:51:53 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:51:53 EST Subject: will/shall Message-ID: According to some grammar/style manuals, "shall" is used almost exclusively with first person pronouns, "I" and "we". PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 18:05:55 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:05:55 EST Subject: Maki-Zushi; Carrot Bread Message-ID: Some more stuff from GOURMET. MAKI-ZUSHI--OED is doing "m," but I don't see this. GOURMET has May 1975, "Sushi Wrapped in Seaweed (Maki-Zushi)...78." CARROT BREAD--Carrot bread/cake is not too old (it was popular in the 1960s/1970s), and Mariani/OED doesn't have it at all. GOURMET has September 1965, "Carrot Bread...76." From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 25 18:08:38 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:08:38 -0500 Subject: Maki-Zushi; Carrot Bread In-Reply-To: ; from Bapopik@AOL.COM on Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 01:05:55PM -0500 Message-ID: > > MAKI-ZUSHI--OED is doing "m," but I don't see this. GOURMET has May 1975, "Sushi Wrapped in Seaweed (Maki-Zushi)...78." There is an entry in OED3 for "maki zushi," with citations going back to 1914. "Carrot bread" is, unaccountably, not in. Jesse Sheidlower From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Thu Jan 25 18:10:36 2001 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:10:36 -0500 Subject: Cancrine (palindromic) Message-ID: The OED lists "cancrine" (crab-like) in the sense of "cancrine (or palindromic) verse." They list it as being in Johnson's Dictionary and they have a citation from 1846 ("a curious cancrine inscription"). Is cancrine an obsolete term in lingustics circles? Paul www.mcfedries.com From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 18:19:19 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:19:19 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: As recently as 1933, Jespersen wrote (Essentials of English Grammar 274-5): "In the first person _will_ does not lend itself so well as in the others to the expression of mere futurity, as _I will_ and _we will_ are so extensively and so naturally put in requisition to express volition, and as the other auxiliary, _shall_, has ome to be much used with _i_ and )we_ to express mere futurity. Still _I (we) will_ is gaining ground in this function where strict grammarians prefer _shall_, and this cannot be thought unnatural, . . . The Scotch and Irish, hence also the Scotch-Irish parts of American, use constantly _I (we) will_." Quirk et al. (CGEL) say (p. 230): "_Shall_ is a substitue for the future use of _will_ in formal style. It is only in . . . questions that _shall- cannot regularly be replaced by _will_. Note that (1) illustrates the exlcusive use of _we_, while (2) illustrates the inclusive use, _ie_ the use of _we_ which includes reference to the addressee(s). (1) Shall I/we deliver the goods to your home address? (2) What shall we do this evening? Shall we go to the theatre?" Earlier they note that "will" occurs fourtime per thousand in spoken BrE and "shall" three times per ten thousand in written English. I think the different comparative sets speak for themselves. The style manuals PAT refers to may simply be restating the prescriptive rule most of us learned at some time and never applied to our speech or writing. Herb >>> P2052 at AOL.COM 01/25/01 12:51PM >>> According to some grammar/style manuals, "shall" is used almost exclusively with first person pronouns, "I" and "we". PAT From WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Thu Jan 25 17:22:53 2001 From: WNichols at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Nichols, Wendalyn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:22:53 -0500 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: Regarding Mike's query copied below: Get yourself a copy of Stephen Glazier's Word Menu. You look things up by categories, and he gives you words with definitions to fit those categories. If you look up 'writing' in the index, it tells you to go to the Linguistics and Writing Systems category. That category lists _boustrophedon_, 'ancient form of writing in which lines alternate running right to left and left to right'. >>>There's a common thread in Marie's question and my memory of having lost the word "iatrogenic" time and again until events finally fixed it in my head. I'd love to head what some of our leading dictionary experts have to say about something no dictionary ever solves for me. What do you do when you know there's a word for something, but have no memory of the word itself? I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than once. What do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one direction until it comes to the other side of the writing surface, then turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to right, the next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do with the way oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I won't need to look it up. There just doesn't seem to be any way a dictionary could help me with that kind of problem. The only way I can think of that might produce an answer would be to ask anybody and everybody I can talk to if they happen to know the word. . . If I ever found someone claiming to know, then I'd have something to take to a dictionary for verification. But where is there a dictionary equivalent of a criss-cross (or reverse) telephone directory? -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and check it out in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off this system. From indigo at WELL.COM Thu Jan 25 18:25:02 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:25:02 -0800 Subject: comma splice/ noodling/ "-making" In-Reply-To: <200101250501.VAA21321@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: >Does it seem to anyone else that the type of "comma splice" exemplified in > >"We can probably wait on the software for now, I don't think it will >be a problem." > >(where the comma takes the place of "because" or "since") is becoming >more and more common in written correspondence? >I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is deliberately >-- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- >conversational. It is sort of the grammatical equivalent >of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. Yes, conversational! I say blame it on email! I'm 34. Started emailing in 1992. Outside of email I am sort of a grammar purist -- I mean, I don't even split infinitives even though it's been legalized for a while now. (Of course now everybody is finding all the grammatical errors in this post... gosh how self-conscious-making!) My emails are *filled* w/ comma splices & run-on sentences, not to mention an overabundance of parenthetical remarks (as you can see). It's the conversational/casual thing. I have always said that I have no linguistic spine, meaning that I start talking like anybody I hang around long enough, especially if they have particularly strong personality, speech patterns, mannerisms, &c. I have noticed this spinelessness extends to email. I've noticed that people younger than me &/or "cooler" than me are extremely casual in email (using "u" for "you", no caps, &c.). When replying to that kind of thing my grammar just flies out the window -- although I absolutely refuse to use "u" -- I mean a girl's gotta hold on to *some* sense of self! Now that I've bared all my linguistic/grammatical insecurities, I might as well go on ahead & admit my Deadhead-ness. Probably 90% of references to "noodling" I've heard in my life were in the form of people complaining about Jerry Garcia's guitarplaying. Occasionally noodling was extrapolated to describe the way Deadheads dance. All of it meant to be mildly insulting, w/ connotations like: aimless, undisciplined, formless, self-indulgent, stoned, spacy (or is that spacey?), &c... Having said "self-conscious-making" above, I'm wondering where/when/how did "-making" show up? I first heard it as "crazy-making" 10 to 15 years ago, & at the time it struck me as sort of feminist therapy talk. Since then I've heard lots of "crazy-making" but also some variations, the formula usually being [any emotion or feeling] + -making. Happy-making, mad-making, stupid-making, &c. Do you folks know anything about it? Indigo Som From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Thu Jan 25 18:45:01 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:45:01 -0500 Subject: Conversate Message-ID: P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: > > It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make > anew), as > used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take > recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT Whenever I crash a computer program I am using (e.g., anything from Microsoft), I try to /ri kri et'/ the circumstances that created the original problem before calling the computer folks at work. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:10:07 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:10:07 +0800 Subject: a complete 360 In-Reply-To: <413C326AD@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 12:06 PM -0500 1/25/01, GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: >... > This puts me in mind of something I have been meaning to post a >query about, and that is, the expression "he made a complete 360", >meaning a reversal of direction. I believe I hear this mostly from >athletes in post-game interviews, used in a literal sence of bodily >motion or direction: He was moving one way, turned quickly and moved >in just the opposite direction. I have also heard it used >figuratively, as of a politician who reverses his position on a >controversial issue. > > I suppose that this expression is most used by the geometrically >challenged (unlike Larry). However, to do a complete 360 for a >moment by defending the grasp of the mensuration of a circle on the >part of at least those athletes who use the term in the sense of >physical motion, there are circumstances when a baseball shortstop >will do a complete 270, more or less -- I have seen Derek Jeter do >this. Moving toward his left, behind second base, moving in the >direction of right field, the shortstop catches a ball in his left >(gloved) hand, transfers it to his right hand and needs to throw to >first base. However, running as he is at a right angle to the line >toward first base, to make the short turn toward first would involve >turning the right side of his body away from the direction in which >he will throw, thereby decreasing the force and accuracy of the >throw. Instead, he may make a long turn, turning past centerfield, >right field, third base and the pitcher and then throw to first. >Whatever time is lost in making a such a spin will be, he hopes, >regained in the better speed and accuracy coming from having his >body twisting in the direction of his throwing motion. And, indeed, >he may wind up, after making the throw, facing right field again, >thus completing a full 360. > > Still, I think that this expression is most often found in the >simple sense of "make an about-face." > I've heard it used for both situations too. Last night I saw a replay of a great run by Tony Dorsett of the Cowboys a couple of decades ago in which he really did do a complete 360, and as you say it happens in baseball as well, but as you say it's also used for broken-field runs in which the player simply reverses direction to do a 180 and someone calls it a 360. Athletes' and sportscasters' lingo is clearly a matter of degree. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:12:40 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:12:40 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: <36.1126b42d.27a1bd22@aol.com> Message-ID: At 12:32 PM -0500 1/25/01, P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: >It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make anew), as >used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take >recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT I don't think so; certainly the OED, which as I mentioned treats the latter as sense 5 of a general group of senses relating to the 'refresh' notion, doesn't describe any phonological distinction. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From prez234 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 22 08:16:39 2001 From: prez234 at JUNO.COM (Joseph McCollum) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 02:16:39 CST Subject: a complete 360 Message-ID: Then the meaning of "making a complete 360," for politicians, should be "to stop, make motions as though one is changing philosophy/policy, and proceed in the original direction." This term might describe the Ashcroft deliberations after all. National Review once claimed that the meaning of the word "factoid" ought to be "something that resembles a fact, but isn't." I don't think it specifically mentioned CNN. For instance, "raising the minimum wage helps the poor" is a factoid. A spheroid is a malformed sphere (such as a football), a cuboid is a malformed cube, etc., all of any size. CNN means "factoid" as "a fact small enough that it may be displayed on a TV screen during the break to commercial." In analytic geometry, we have the unfortunate term "ellipsoid." Rather than being a malformed ellipse, the term indicates an ellipse of 3 or more dimensions. A better term would have been "hyperellipse," because we have the terms "hypercube" and "hypersphere" indicate a cube or sphere of 4 or more dimensions. There is also the term "hyperboloid," meaning a hyperbola extended to at least a third dimension. I suppose "hyper-hyperbola" would have an unpleasant echo. The last of the conic sections (the others being circle, ellipse, and hyperbola) is the parabola. Its 3-dimensional analog is called the "paraboloid." Again, a better term would have been "hyperparabola." I have never heard a hypersphere called a circloid. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:25:15 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:25:15 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 1:19 PM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >As recently as 1933, Jespersen wrote (Essentials of English >Grammar 274-5): > >"In the first person _will_ does not lend itself so well as in >the others to the expression of mere futurity, as _I will_ and _we >will_ are so extensively and so naturally put in requisition to >express volition, and as the other auxiliary, _shall_, has ome to >be much used with _i_ and )we_ to express mere futurity. Still _I >(we) will_ is gaining ground in this function where strict >grammarians prefer _shall_, and this cannot be thought unnatural >...The style manuals PAT refers to may simply be restating the >prescriptive rule most of us learned at some time and never >applied to our speech or writing. > Talk about the stars being aligned. an hour ago I received a message from Georgia Green, who is not an ads-l subscriber and has no idea we've been talking about will/shall, that contains the following information about Bishop Lowth, the famed 18th century British prescriptivist: ================ Robert Lowth was a grumpy old man, worse than Kilpatrick or Safire on their worst days, and he as much as admits making up the shall/will rule: "_Will_ in the first Person singular and plural promises or threatens; in the second and third Persons only foretells: _shall_ on the contrary, in the first Person simply fortells; in the second and third Persons commands or threatens." Then there is a footnote: This distinction was not observed formerly as to the word _shall_, which was used in the Second and Third Persons to express simply the event. So, he's making it up! ================= Sof if Georgia is right, and I have no reason to doubt her, it is Bishop Lowth who...er, whom we have to thank for that immortal contrast between "I shall drown; no one will save me!" [despairing accidental drownee] "I will drown; no one shall save me!" [determined suicide] larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:13:58 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:13:58 -0500 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> Then there's the related "Call me whatever you want, as long as it's not late for dinner" <<<<< Distinguo, Larry. I've only ever heard it as something like Call me anything you like,* just don't call me late for dinner. If you don't have "call" in the second clause, you risk losing the pun that is the whole point of the line. * punctuate at will -- Mark From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Thu Jan 25 19:27:04 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:27:04 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: >>> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU 01/25/01 01:25AM >>> Talk about the stars being aligned. an hour ago I received a message from Georgia Green, who is not an ads-l subscriber and has no idea we've been talking about will/shall, that contains the following information about Bishop Lowth, the famed 18th century British prescriptivist: ================ Robert Lowth was a grumpy old man, worse than Kilpatrick or Safire on their worst days, and he as much as admits making up the shall/will rule: "_Will_ in the first Person singular and plural promises or threatens; in the second and third Persons only foretells: _shall_ on the contrary, in the first Person simply fortells; in the second and third Persons commands or threatens." Then there is a footnote: This distinction was not observed formerly as to the word _shall_, which was used in the Second and Third Persons to express simply the event. So, he's making it up! ================= Sof if Georgia is right, and I have no reason to doubt her, it is Bishop Lowth who...er, whom we have to thank for that immortal contrast between "I shall drown; no one will save me!" [despairing accidental drownee] "I will drown; no one shall save me!" [determined suicide] Herb writes: Bishop Lowth should have drowned; no one would have saved him. Bishop Lowth would have drowned; no one should have saved him. Herb From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:16:50 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:16:50 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> At 3:18 PM -0500 1/24/01, Siddharth Suri wrote: >"Let me noodle it" [...] I'd guess it means 'consider, think about', and that it's a zero-derivation from "noodle" as a noun = 'head, brain, mind'. *************** <<<<< I move we call these things "zero-derives". -- Mark From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:39:31 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:39:31 +0800 Subject: Conversate In-Reply-To: <3A70742D.769F456D@cmu.edu> Message-ID: At 1:45 PM -0500 1/25/01, Drew Danielson wrote: >P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: >> >> It seems that there would be a distinction between re-create (make >> anew), as >> used in the example from Shakespeare, and recreate [rEK ri et], "take >> recreation." Is there a difference in pronunciation? PAT > > >Whenever I crash a computer program I am using (e.g., anything from >Microsoft), I try to /ri kri et'/ the circumstances that created the >original problem before calling the computer folks at work. I read the example from Shakespeare as involving the /'rE kri et/ sense of 'refreshing oneself' or 'chilling out', not as creating oneself anew. Clearly, the sense in your computer example involves the transparent 'create again' sense that I'd pronounce with a /ri/ and spell with a hyphen, which I wouldn't for Shakespeare's. From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:26:50 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:26:50 -0500 Subject: "Let me noodle it" Message-ID: Gregory {Greg} Downing writes: >>>>> Hence one hears "to noodle (around) with" = to mess around with, informally experiment with, tinker with, i.e., I've always assumed (note the disclaimer), using one's *head* to do so. In more specialized usage, people often use "to noodle" in application to musical playing that the user of the verb views as aimless or unmusical, if perhaps highly skillful in technical, mechanical ways. E.g.: "He can really play guitar, but his solos are nothing but noodling." (Synonym: to wank, which we all know from elsewhere.) <<<<< In my experience, noodling on the guitar ... well, as I write this I perceive an analogy to doodling with a pen or pencil, and the rhyme may have affected the sound and/or the meaning. You're playing with familiar structures, not giving the activity your concentration but not necessarily totally on automatic either. You're sort of poking around, doing things partly at random, and maybe seeing what will come up or suggest itself. It can be part of a creative process, or it can be just time-filling. At the monthly housefilks* I attend, if person A is playing a guitar softly during conversation or a break between songs, person B may ask "Have you got something?", and A reply "No, I'm just noodling". In other words, No, I'm not preparing to sing, I'm not playing to claim the floor; I'm just occupying my fingers and a small portion of my mind with this instrument while waiting for something to happen. * see http://www.massfilc.org/ -- Mark A. Mandel FIJAGH! Now, *filking*, on the other hand... http://world.std.com/~mam/filk.html From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Thu Jan 25 19:31:21 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:31:21 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: dInIs quoth: >>>>> >Please continue to expose your prejudices about language on this >list. I copy them down for folk linguistic work with great relish. >I'm especially fond of particularly visceral reactions. <<<<< Kishka with relish, anyone? -- Subcommander Markemm, the Klingon Chef From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 06:46:01 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:46:01 +0800 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:13 PM -0500 1/25/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Laurence Horn writes: > >>>>>> >Then there's the related "Call me whatever you want, as long as it's >not late for dinner" ><<<<< > >Distinguo, Larry. > >I've only ever heard it as something like > Call me anything you like,* just don't call me late for dinner. I agree you have to work a bit harder in my version, but I have heard it this way, e.g. from Steve Somers of WFAN sports radio. >If you don't have "call" in the second clause, you risk losing the pun that >is the whole point of the line. > >* punctuate at will > Cross-threading indeed. I had the analogous hesitation in punctuating the "I shall drown,* no one will save me" pair a few minutes ago. L From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Thu Jan 25 15:50:34 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:50:34 -0500 Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Salovesh [mailto:t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU] > Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 3:11 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the > problem > > > I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than > once. What do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one > direction until it comes to the other side of the writing > surface, then turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to > right, the next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for > that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do > with the way oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a > field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I > won't need to look it up. ....... > > P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression > that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with > something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and > check it out in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off > this system. > You're soooooo close. The word is: bou?stro?phe?don , n. -- an ancient method of writing in which the lines run alternately from right to left and from left to right. [1775-85; ... like ox-turning (in plowing)...] Don't ask how or why I remembered that. Enid From jessie at SIRSI.COM Thu Jan 25 21:28:11 2001 From: jessie at SIRSI.COM (Jessie Emerson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 15:28:11 -0600 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?) Message-ID: I have memories of Mississippi Mud Cake and Seven-Up Cake from family reunions in the 70s. I am almost certain the recipes came from locally produced cookbooks much like the one described below. Jessie Emerson From: > A bit of checking around the old studio apartment here has turned up: > > THE NASHVILLE COOKBOOK: > SPECIALTIES OF THE CUMBERLAND REGION > By Nashville Area Home Economics Association 1976, 1977 > (See catnyp.nypl.org for full cite) > Cakes: > Mississippi Mud, 161 From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 21:39:54 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 16:39:54 EST Subject: factoid? Message-ID: I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. From rkm at SLIP.NET Thu Jan 25 22:20:38 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:20:38 -0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Shall we leave? >#Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] "Shall we leave?" sounds odd to me, but "Shall we go?" does not. And right off hand I can't think of any other situation in which shall would be used in normal conversation. Rima From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 22:17:58 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:17:58 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat In-Reply-To: <006701c084c2$86bc8ec0$8321d0d8@mcfedries.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Paul McFedries wrote: > I've heard "kleptocrat" used recently in reference to Laurent Kabila. The > OED has "kleptocracy" ("a ruling body or order of thieves"), which it dates > to 1819. However, it doesn't have "kleptocrat." Nexis.com reports that its > earliest citation is an abstract of a Wall Street Journal article from 1986, > which is surprisingly new considering the antiquity of kleptocracy. Does > anyone know of any earlier cites for "kleptocrat"? 1975 _Transition_ (no. 47) 59 In the case of western Nigeria, there is also good evidence that the deterioration of political conditions in that state after 1963, and later, elsewhere in the Federation, was in no small part abetted by the activities of what Stanislas Andreski has aptly called "kleptocrats," that is, thieves in public office. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 25 22:58:44 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:58:44 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: Brand is usually credited with the coinage. If my memory servers (WARNING: I just got back from a conference in Vegas and haven;t slept in 28 hours!) it was first used in a special publication of the Whole Earth Review called Two Cybernetic Frontiers (on computer tech circa the early '70s). But that seems too early for the quote, so maybe it was a later article in Whole Earth Review. I've exchanged some email with Brand over the years, I'll ask him directly. BTW: The full quote from Brand is: Information wants to be free - because it is now so easy to copy and distribute casually - and information wants to be expensive - because in an Information Age, nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time." The meaning of the statement (minus the second half) is often misinterpreted. Fred Shapiro wrote: > > I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan > "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart > Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks > it was around before that. > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 22:51:20 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:51:20 -0500 Subject: Conversate and basically In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 06:30 PM 1/24/01 -0600, you wrote: >>Personally, the word conversate leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. If it >>becomes more popular, then it probably will stop doing so. Just as I've >>come >>to like asparagus and broccoli, one day I might come to like conversate. >>Right now, however, I don't. And even though I think it still sounds silly, >>"That's not my fortay," no longer sounds yucky to me. >> >>Benjamin Barrett > >Rather like orientate and commentate. In this case, they actually have a >different sense than the shorter verb. Orientate is what companies and >colleges do to new employees/students. Commentate is what talking-heads do >off the tops of their heads, vs the thoughtful stuff you get in other >contexts. > >Conversate, tho', does not have a distinct meaning from 'converse'. It's an >unnecessary word. > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com Well, no word is "necessary," and likewise all words are "unnecessary." But I want to clarify that the use of "conversate" I saw in our student newspaper was by an African American student writer, not a professional columnist. My impression (maybe wrong) is that this is an AAE usage which is not yet common in other speech communities. I read the first message to say that Judge Ronnie White, not John Ashcroft, used the word, but later someone wrote that Ashcroft used it. Did both use it? This wouldn't be surprising, of course, since usages spread--and maybe "conversate" already has. BTW, it is my understanding that "orientate" is the preferred Brit Eng for Am Eng "orient," though I've heard both here too. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 25 22:45:15 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:45:15 -0500 Subject: factoid? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. > >Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. Absolutely. This is one of my pet peeves - the use of "factoid" by CNN etc. They are presumably implying that it is a small fact, but what they are saying is that it's not actually a fact (just as a humanoid is not a human) . . . or maybe they're being accurate, as a lot of their "factoids" don't seem particularly factual! Tony Glaser From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Thu Jan 25 22:58:42 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:58:42 -0800 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: Which conference was held in Vegas? Was UNLV involved? -----Original Message----- From: Gareth Branwyn [mailto:garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET] Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 2:59 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: "Information Wants to be Free" Brand is usually credited with the coinage. If my memory servers (WARNING: I just got back from a conference in Vegas and haven;t slept in 28 hours!) it was first used in a special publication of the Whole Earth Review called Two Cybernetic Frontiers (on computer tech circa the early '70s). But that seems too early for the quote, so maybe it was a later article in Whole Earth Review. I've exchanged some email with Brand over the years, I'll ask him directly. BTW: The full quote from Brand is: Information wants to be free - because it is now so easy to copy and distribute casually - and information wants to be expensive - because in an Information Age, nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time." The meaning of the statement (minus the second half) is often misinterpreted. Fred Shapiro wrote: > > I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan > "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart > Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks > it was around before that. > > Fred Shapiro > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 23:00:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 18:00:45 EST Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (both 1975) Message-ID: MARSHALL COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY BICENTENNIAL COOK BOOK HOLLY SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI (1975) Pg. 117, col. 1: MISSISSIPPI MUD PIE 16 chocolate sandwich cookies, crushed 1/4 C. melted butter 1 1/2 pints softened coffee flavored ice cream 1/4 C. chocolate fudge sauce Mix cookie crumbs and melted butter. Line bottom of pie plate and put in freezer for 20 minutes. Spoon ice cream into pie shell. Cover with fudge sauce. Return to freezer until sauce hardens. A deluze company pie. Olive Mae Fore Chulahoma Pg. 146, col. 2: MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE 1 C. butter 1/2 C. cocoa 2 C. sugar 4 eggs, slightly beaten 1 1/2 C. chopped nuts 1 1/2 C. flour 1 tsp. vanilla Pinch salt Temp. 350 degrees Cooking Time 35-45 min. Melt butter and cocoa together. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar and mix well. Add beaten eggs, flour, salt, nuts and vanilla. Mix well and pour into 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan. When cake is done, sprinkle miniature marshmallows on hot cake and make chocolate frosting below. CHOCOLATE FROSTING 1 lb. confectioners sugar 1/2 C. whole milk 1/3 C. cocoa 1/2 stick butter Combine all ingredients and mix until smooth and creamy and of spreading consistency--and pour over marshmallow topping. Olive Mae Fore Chulahoma June 1978, GOURMET magazine, pg. 81, col. 2: Q. We recently dined at a charming restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts, called Front Street. For dessert we had Mississippi mud cake, a memorable chocolate treat. Do you think you could satisfy my sweet tooth with the recipe? MRS. GEORGE DALSHEIMER BALTIMORE, MARYLAND A. Edmond Di Stasi and Howard Gruber were pleased to send this recipe down by the riverside. _Mississippi Mud Cake Front Street_ _(Fudge Cake)_ (Long recipe follows--ed.) From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 25 22:58:43 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:58:43 -0500 Subject: comma=because In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:56 PM 1/24/01 -0500, you wrote: >As another writer reported, some style manuals allow this sort of >punctuation. Obviously, as we all know, the rules are flexible >and a sensitive writer uses them flexibly. The coarse grain of >English punctuation doesn't allow us to write a lot of things we >can say, but your example shows how close we can come. > >Herb > ><<< dcamp911 at JUNO.COM 1/24 7:30p >>> >On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Herb Stahlke > >writes: > > This sort of error is as common as it is because English > > punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech >marks > > very nicely. > >I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is >deliberately >-- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) -- >conversational. And I have always believed that if you know the >rules, in >the absence of an American Academy, you are free to break them. So >I >occasionally separate two independent clauses with a comma as a >break >weaker than a semicolon. For example: "I didn't do anything in >particular, it just happened." It is sort of the grammatical >equivalent >of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign. > >D And I do this too, especially, as you say, with short, "rolling" clauses. My favorite college mentor insisted we never begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "so"--but now I often do in informal writing. (He wouldn't like that dash/two hyphens either.) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 25 23:16:45 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 18:16:45 -0500 Subject: "Information Wants to be Free" Message-ID: It was a non-language-related conference. I was speaking at the annual cigar smoke-in known as the National Assoc. of TV Producers and Execs (NATPE). Your Name wrote: > > Which conference was held in Vegas? Was UNLV involved? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Gareth Branwyn [mailto:garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET] > Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 2:59 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "Information Wants to be Free" > > Brand is usually credited with the coinage. If my memory servers > (WARNING: I just got back from a conference in Vegas and haven;t slept > in 28 hours!) it was first used in a special publication of the Whole > Earth Review called Two Cybernetic Frontiers (on computer tech circa the > early '70s). But that seems too early for the quote, so maybe it was a > later article in Whole Earth Review. I've exchanged some email with > Brand over the years, I'll ask him directly. > > BTW: The full quote from Brand is: > Information wants to be free - because it is now so easy to copy and > distribute casually - and information wants to be expensive - because > in an Information Age, nothing is so valuable as the right information > at the right time." > > The meaning of the statement (minus the second half) is often > misinterpreted. > > Fred Shapiro wrote: > > > > I would be grateful for any information as to the origins of the slogan > > "Information wants to be free." The earliest I find on Nexis is Stewart > > Brand in 1984, but an extremely knowledgeable person tells me she thinks > > it was around before that. > > > > Fred Shapiro > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > > Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > > and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, > > Yale Law School forthcoming > > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 23 18:14:09 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:14:09 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 11:05:23 +0800 Laurence Horn > Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that > the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may > feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, In which case, according to Tannen, a He would answer either Yes or No and a She would respond, "I don't care. What do you want to do?" Or is that Dave Barry I'm thinking of. D From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 25 23:58:13 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:58:13 -0600 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (both 1975) Message-ID: >Pg. 146, col. 2: > MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE The recipe given is essentially one for brownies, rather dry ones at that. I've been watching this topic with some interest. Mississippi mud seems to be a very rich brownie served with some sort of ultra sweet, ultra-rich, ultra-chocolate sauce. The homemade American varieties seem to base the sauce on pudding, and (yuck) melted marshmallows. My one memory from a restaurant's version is that the sauce was like a chocolate mousse or a "chocolate mayonnaise" (there did not seem to be whipped cream or egg white in the sauce, but I suspect there was egg yolk). _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From mssmith at BOONE.NET Sat Jan 27 01:11:47 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 20:11:47 -0500 Subject: Fw: Fish Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Fri Jan 26 01:39:08 2001 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (lesa.dill) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 19:39:08 -0600 Subject: FWD: Fish Message-ID: It may be merely folk etymology, but I've heard "fresh fish" > "fish" as in newly caught. I don't know if "jail bait" works into that or not. Lesa Dill >===== Original Message From susan ===== >----- Original Message ----- >From: susan >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:47 AM >Subject: Fish > > >Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? >Thank you very much, >Susan Gilbert From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:40:00 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 20:40:00 +0800 Subject: factoid? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:39 PM -0500 1/25/01, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. > >Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. as opposed to AFFAIRO for a fling with a dynastic tyrant or someone who acts as though s/he were From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 12:49:07 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 20:49:07 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:20 PM -0800 1/25/01, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>Shall we leave? >>#Will we leave? [OK, but not as a suggestion] > >"Shall we leave?" sounds odd to me, but "Shall we go?" does not. And >right off hand I can't think of any other situation in which shall >would be used in normal conversation. > >Rima "Shall we dance?", uttered when you're bar-hopping just after attending a performance of "The King and I"? And as mentioned, I've used it and heard it used with null complement anaphora: "Shall we?" tout court. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gcohen at UMR.EDU Fri Jan 26 01:52:41 2001 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 19:52:41 -0600 Subject: "the whole nine yards"; an army officer writes Message-ID: Another pleasant development from the Jan. 2 WSJ article about Barry Popik is that he was contacted by an army officer who has long been interested in "the whole nine yards." Barry forwarded his e-mail to me, and with permission granted from both parties, I now share the message with ADS-L. Its main importance is that it places "the whole nine yards" back into a an Air Force context, even though there are still no attestations from World War II. --Gerald Cohen >Fort Bliss, Texas > 18 January 2001 >Mr. Barry Popik > >Re: The Whole Nine Yards > >Barry, > > I read your feature in the 2 January 2001 issue of The >Wall Street Journal and was immediately attracted to you quest for >the origin of 'The Whole Nine Yards." > > I am a soldier the United States Army Sergeants Major >Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas and this has also become a quest for >several of my fellow senior NCOs. Internet searches include the >size of cement mixers that you mentioned, stationary ones, used in >the late 1940s, not trucks, the length of a bolt of cloth, and the >distance between masts on sailing ships. > > One of my fellow soldiers said he read about the term >in a book on WWII, Guadalcanal, maybe. Since the printing of your >feature I have researched the Battle of the Aleutian Islands, great >reading about brave soldiers, but no cigar. No Whole Nine Yards, >either. > > On the down side, my father was an armorer for a P-51 >Mustang unit during WWII and I never heard him use the term. But >then he never talked shop about his army experience, only upbeat >stories relating to off duty activities. My father died in 1985 and >I don't know if any of his comrades are still living. I'll have to >ask my mother. > > Now, here is where I can help you, and it fits into the >small world department. In the fall of 1964 I was a freshmen at the >University of Missouri and sitting in an ROTC classroom, the >building was (still is) Crowder Hall, the instructor was a Captain >Samples, he got a promotion to major a few weeks later and the >Professor of Military Science a colonel( full bird) named Carlisle, >or Carwile, memory is a little foggy on that. We had a briefing by >a young air force officer (pilot). Here again, I don't remember if >he was a 2nd lieutenant, 1st lieutenant, or captain, and I don't >remember if he was on his way to Vietnam or had just returned, but >he was a graduate of Missouri University (MU). A 2lt would have >made him a 1992 or 1993 graduate while a captain would roll him all >the way back to around 1960. I wasn't too focused on the military >?..yet. For me Vietnam was still four years away. > > During his briefing this young officer used the term, >'The Whole Nine Yards,' not just once but repeatedly. At the time I >thought he was referring to University of Missouri football. > > To get back to business, that was in the fall of 1964. >The young pilot had to have picked up the term somewhere and I would >think Air Force flight gunnery school, which would move the >appearance of the term back from the date of 1966 you mentioned in >your feature. > > I don't know Professor Gerald Cohen but I'll probable >try to contact Him. I graduated from MU in June 1968 and went of >active duty for what was to be a two-year obligation. That was >almost 33 years ago. I think my two-year obligation is up two years >from June of this year. > > Good Luck. > >Thomas L. McRoberts >Sergeant Major >United States Army > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jpparker at ISERV.NET Fri Jan 26 02:50:11 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane Parker) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:50:11 -0500 Subject: Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (both 1975) Message-ID: I read recently in cooks magazine latest issue that mississippi mud cake is texas sheet cake with marshmellow cream on top. Texas sheet cake is a simple inexpensive chocolate sheet cake that used cocoa instead of chocolate and has a simple cocoa based glaze. This is a very moist cake definately not a brownie. Jane P Parker Woodland MI From jpparker at ISERV.NET Fri Jan 26 02:57:18 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane Parker) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:57:18 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was commonly used instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to gradschool in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and automaton. Jane P Parker From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 13:21:32 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:21:32 +0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <3A70E78D.84336342@iserv.net> Message-ID: At 9:57 PM -0500 1/25/01, Jane Parker wrote: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went >to gradschool >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and >automaton. > >Jane P Parker I hadn't come across it that early, but here's a message I sent (in reply to another message, as you'll see) concerning "waitron" as part of a thread on another list a few years ago: Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 10:32:46 -0500 Subject: waitron > Waitron, an American pc >barbarism?? I thought it was a joke, with that kind of >robotic-space-computer type sounding suffix making a wry comment on the >job. In any case, no one I know would say such a thing seriously. In >Ohio, I've heard "server" used and in NY "waiter" for women sounds possible, >though I can't swear I've actually heard it here. On the other hand, 'to >waitress' is about the only sex-related verb, as in: "Oh, I spent about a >year waitressing before finding a job as a linguist." As waitress >disappears so will that verb. Well, the first time I came across "waitron", on a Help Wanted sign posted on the Yale cafeteria door several years ago, I mentioned it in my Words and Meaning class and one student provided the citation "I'm tronning for Senior Dinner". A great verb, I thought--while 'waitressing' would work in this con- text, that doesn't help if you're the wrong sex (or gender), and for me neither 'waitering' nor 'waiting' would, salva sensu. Evidently, intuitions on this differ, though. In any case, I always thought 'waitron' was cute too; for me it evokes both the robots others have brought up and subatomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons, and waitrons). Unless the plural is waitra... --Larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 02:19:38 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:19:38 EST Subject: Szhoosh Message-ID: Simon Doonan--he, of the "naff" citation--is now giving us "szhoosh." I'm not sold. I think he's trying to pull our legs to get a ridiculous slang term introduced. But still, that's how some terms are introduced. From the NEW YORK OBSERVER, 29 January 2001, pg. 15, col. 1: _The Winter Antiques Szhoosh_ New York has always been the epicenter of _szhoosh_. What's szhoosh? It's interior decorating vernacular meaning "to gussie up lavishly" or, as a noun, "that which has been gussied up lavishly." (Long article follows--ed.) From buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET Fri Jan 26 01:28:13 2001 From: buchmann at BELLSOUTH.NET (Buchmann) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:28:13 -0400 Subject: factoid? Message-ID: Perhaps 'fact-like thing' ? -AB Tony Glaser wrote: > >I'm convinced: it should be FACTETTE, not FACTOID. > >Like AFFAIRETTE for a short-term romance. > Absolutely. This is one of my pet peeves - the use of "factoid" by > CNN etc. They are presumably implying that it is a small fact, but > what they are saying is that it's not actually a fact (just as a > humanoid is not a human) . . . or maybe they're being accurate, as a > lot of their "factoids" don't seem particularly factual! > Tony Glaser From dumasb at UTK.EDU Fri Jan 26 02:28:13 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (dumasb) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:28:13 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Jane Parker wrote: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went >to gradschool >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and >automaton. I am sure I heard it approximately twice ... in the mid-to-late 70s. Bethany From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 02:47:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:47:19 EST Subject: MMC; Jackson(MS) phonebook food Message-ID: MMC OK. From GOURMET, June 1978, pg. 81, col. 2: _Mississippi Mud Cake Front Street_ _(Fudge Cake)_ Into a bowl sift together 2 cups flout, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and a pinch of salt. In the top of a double boiler set over simmering water heat 1 3/4 cups coffee and 1/4 cup bourbon for 5 minutes. Add 5 ounces (Col. 3--ed.) unsweetned chocolate and 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, all cut into pieces, and heat the mixture, stirring, until the chocolate and butter are melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in 2 cups sugar. Let the mixture cool for 3 minutes and transfer it to the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, beating at medium speed, and continue to beat the mixture for 1 minute. Add 2 eggs, lightly beaten, and 1 teaspon vanilla and beat the batter until it is smooth. Butter a 9-inch tube pan, 3 1/2 inches deep, and dust it with cocoa. Pour in the batter and bake the cake in a pre-heated very slow oven (275 degrees F.) for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted i! n the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely in the pan on a rack and turn it out onto a serving plate. Serve the cake with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with white creme de cacao to taste. It must be added that MMC/MMP probably does not go back much more than 1975. A large number of excellent books just don't have it. THE MISSISSIPPI COOKBOOK (Hattiesburg, 1972), compiled by the Home Economics Division of the Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service. This excellent cookbook has no "mud" at all. BETTY CROCKER/FAMILY CIRCLE/BETTER HOMES & GARDENS/LADIES' HOME JOURNAL/SUNSET/FARM JOURNAL--not one of these dessert cookbooks from the 1950s/1960s/1970s has MMC/MMP. -------------------------------------------------------- JACKSON (MS) PHONEBOOK FOOD I went through the Jackson (MS) phonebooks, as well as Nashville (TN) and others. March 1976, JACKSON (MS), pg. 346, col. 2 ad: EL BURRITO Authentic MEXICAN FOOD Served in a true MEXICAN ATMOSPHERE TACOS . ENCHILADAS . TAMALES CHILI . TORTILLAS . BURRITO SPANISH RICE . REFRIED BEANS CHIMICHANGAS TWO PLACES TO SERVE YOU 982-8808 373-2383 March 1976, JACKSON (MS), pg. 347, col. 1 ad: Gibbs' PIZZA PALACE RESTAURANTS 13 VARIETIES PIZZA 6 KINDS OF PO-BOYS TACOS MUFFULETTAS RED BEANS & RICE SPAGHETTI 4 VARIETIES SALADS PIZZA BURGERS WATCHAMACALLIT (Anybody know what this is?--ed.) 956-5048 366-1834 353-1798 March 1976, JACKSON (MS), pg. 353, col. 1: TROY'S FISH HOUSE CATFISH "ALL YOU CAN EAT" Shrimp--Oysters--Steak Chicken Nuggets--Burgers (...) Old Hwy 51-N Ridgeland Ms...856-6251 (I forget when McDonald's introduced its McNuggets--ed.) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:07:01 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:07:01 -0600 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Jane Parker wrote: > Is anyone else familiar with > this term? Yes. I thought of it as a semi-joking fad word, though. I'm not sure that I ever heard it used seriously. (And I haven't heard it in a good while.) --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From johannaf+ at ANDREW.CMU.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:08:57 2001 From: johannaf+ at ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Johanna N Franklin) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:08:57 -0500 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <200101260307.VAA26383@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: I read it in a PC dictionary in 1992. I don't know how long the book had been in circulation, but it was still being read then. Johanna Excerpts from mail: 25-Jan-101 Re: Waitron by Natalie Maynor at CS.MSSTAT > Jane Parker wrote: > > Is anyone else familiar with > > this term? > > Yes. I thought of it as a semi-joking fad word, though. I'm not sure > that I ever heard it used seriously. (And I haven't heard it in a good > while.) > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Combination of the Discoveries of Einstein and Pythagoras: E = m c^2 = m(a^2 + b^2) From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 26 03:09:21 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:09:21 -0500 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <3A70E78D.84336342@iserv.net> Message-ID: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to >gradschool >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and >automaton. I heard it in the 1990's, can't remember where, might even have been Minneapolis. I assumed it to have been conceived -- as a deliberately sexless term -- by analogy with "patron" [of the restaurant]. It was pronounced to rhyme with "patron" on the very few occasions when I heard it, so it did not evoke images of subatomic particles, cyclotrons, automata, etc. It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently agrees with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. -- Doug Wilson From hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:09:20 2001 From: hstahlke at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:09:20 -0500 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: I've asked a fair number of K12 and college writing teachers about the prohibition on beginning sentences with conjunctions or with "because", and the reason I most regularly get is that it's a time-saver. Instead of trying to explain why this is wrong but not always, they'd rather just ban the structures and thereby avoid fragments and other horros of English composition. Herb <<< flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 1/25 6:06p And I do this too, especially, as you say, with short, "rolling" clauses. My favorite college mentor insisted we never begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "so"--but now I often do in informal writing. (He wouldn't like that dash/two hyphens either.) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 26 03:22:28 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:22:28 -0500 Subject: factoid? In-Reply-To: <3A70D2AB.5B19016F@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: >Perhaps 'fact-like thing' ? -AB Exactly. The RH dictionary gives this definition: "something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised esp. to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition." A variation which I heard from somebody recently -- possibly a personal coinage -- is "falsoid", apparently = "a factoid which is clearly false". -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 25 15:00:59 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 23:00:59 +0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010125210936.01d48810@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: > >I heard it in the 1990's, can't remember where, might even have been >Minneapolis. > >I assumed it to have been conceived -- as a deliberately sexless term -- by >analogy with "patron" [of the restaurant]. It was pronounced to rhyme with >"patron" on the very few occasions when I heard it, so it did not evoke >images of subatomic particles, cyclotrons, automata, etc. > >It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently agrees >with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. > >-- Doug Wilson Notice though that the first listed AHD4 pronunciation is with secondary stress on the "tron", thus paralleling "neutron" and "automatron". This is the way I've always heard it pronounced (granted, usually in mention rather than use contexts), and I never thought of a parallel with "patron" of the kind that would correlate with reduced stress on the second syllable. The unstressed "patron" version would also be much less likely to yield that useful verb I mentioned (as in "tronning for senior dinner"). larry From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Fri Jan 26 04:34:00 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 20:34:00 -0800 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: waitron/patron ----- Original Message ----- From: "dumasb" To: Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 6:28 PM Subject: Re: Waitron > Jane Parker wrote: > >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was > >commonly used > >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. > >People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went > >to gradschool > >in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with > >this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and > >automaton. > > I am sure I heard it approximately twice ... in the mid-to-late 70s. > > Bethany > > From davemarc at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 26 04:12:16 2001 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 23:12:16 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: There was a minor "New Wave" hit with lyrics along the lines of "I am a waitron./I live in Washing-ton." My guess is that it was recorded c. 1982. I'm trying to get more details. David From rkm at SLIP.NET Fri Jan 26 08:17:01 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 00:17:01 -0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <3A70E78D.84336342@iserv.net> Message-ID: >When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was >commonly used >instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads... I remember it from at least the mid-80s if not before. It was during that period when gender neutral terms were beginning to be used, e.g., firefighter, police officer. Most thought waitron was ridiculous - and it was dropped in favor of "server." Rima From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Fri Jan 26 11:19:10 2001 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 06:19:10 -0500 Subject: WAITRON in .... Message-ID: Doug Wilson wrote: >It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently >agrees >with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. This thread is very interesting. Waitron is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 4.4, Winter 1985, p 152). The earliest date I had at the time was 1980. I agree that the pronunciation that I prefer is with a low back vowel; I have never heard examples that would be represented with a schwa, as in "Washington." Incidently, some dictionary pronunciation editors have opted for an implied tertiary stress. In such systems, "neutron" would have a low back vowel (often represented by "o") without a secondary stress mark, as I recall. Regards, David Barnhart David K. Barnhart, Editor The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly] barnhart at highlands.com www.highlands.com/Lexik "Necessity obliges us to neologize." Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813 From stevek at SHORE.NET Fri Jan 26 13:00:53 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:00:53 -0500 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <022501c0874f$20ef6560$2fc654a6@gmsc20b> Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, davemarc wrote: > There was a minor "New Wave" hit with lyrics along the lines of "I am a > waitron./I live in Washing-ton." My guess is that it was recorded c. 1982. > I'm trying to get more details. That would be Tru Fax & The Insaniacs; the song, "Washington" See: http://www.trufax.com/trufaxmem.html --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 00:47:34 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:47:34 +0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:00 AM -0500 1/26/01, Steve K. wrote: >On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, davemarc wrote: > >> There was a minor "New Wave" hit with lyrics along the lines of "I am a >> waitron./I live in Washing-ton." My guess is that it was recorded c. 1982. >> I'm trying to get more details. > >That would be Tru Fax & The Insaniacs; the song, "Washington" > >See: http://www.trufax.com/trufaxmem.html > >--- Steve K. But from the web site, it appears that they rhymed "waitron" with "Washingtron", not with "Washington", which provides independent support for reconstructing secondary-stress [a] rather than unstressed schwa in the second syllable of "waitron". (Provided, of course, that "Washingtron" was pronounced as in "neutron" too, an assumption that I find inescapable.) larry From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Fri Jan 26 13:46:57 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:46:57 -0500 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: I like the automaton connection as well - it's the image that the word "waitron" has always brought to my mind, and to me it has a pejorative sense. We used it sometimes exclusively in the late-80s/early-90s in the service-job-rich town of State College PA. I was a cook then, so anything that disparaged the wait staff was OK by me :) Laurence Horn wrote: > > > > >I heard it in the 1990's, can't remember where, might even have been > >Minneapolis. > > > >I assumed it to have been conceived -- as a deliberately sexless term -- by > >analogy with "patron" [of the restaurant]. It was pronounced to rhyme with > >"patron" on the very few occasions when I heard it, so it did not evoke > >images of subatomic particles, cyclotrons, automata, etc. > > > >It appears in AHD4 and in the Random House dictionary (RH apparently agrees > >with my etymology). There are plenty of instances on the Web. > > > >-- Doug Wilson > > Notice though that the first listed AHD4 pronunciation is with > secondary stress on the "tron", thus paralleling "neutron" and > "automatron". This is the way I've always heard it pronounced > (granted, usually in mention rather than use contexts), and I never > thought of a parallel with "patron" of the kind that would correlate > with reduced stress on the second syllable. The unstressed "patron" > version would also be much less likely to yield that useful verb I > mentioned (as in "tronning for senior dinner"). > > larry -- ___________________________________________________________________ Andrew Danielson Admin for Profs. Fedder, Gabriel Carnegie Mellon University Krogh, & Rajkumar Electrical & Computer +1 412 268-2188 Voice Engineering Department +1 412 268-3890 Fax 5000 Forbes Ave. http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~dmunk Pittsburgh, PA 15213 drew.danielson at cmu.edu ___________________________________________________________________ From cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU Fri Jan 26 13:53:51 2001 From: cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU (Cynthia Bernstein) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 07:53:51 -0600 Subject: Fish Message-ID: Texas A&M Univ has "fish camp" for students before their freshman year. Cynthia Bernstein cbernstn at memphis.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM Fri Jan 26 14:29:09 2001 From: bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM (Beverly Feldt) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:29:09 -0600 Subject: "-making" Message-ID: >Having said "self-conscious-making" above, I'm wondering where/when/how did "-making" show up? I first heard it as "crazy-making" 10 to 15 years ago, & at the time it struck me as sort of feminist therapy talk. Since then I've heard lots of "crazy-making" but also some variations, the formula usually being [any emotion or feeling] + -making. Happy-making, mad-making,stupid-making, &c. Do you folks know anything about it? >Indigo Som In Dorothy Sayers' _Murder Must Advertise_ (1933), a bright young thing, Dian de Momerie, says, "Too mirth-making," and "Too mystery-making" (Chapter 9), "too yawn-making" (Chapter 11). I also remember her saying, "Too, too sick-making," but I can't find the reference. Beverly From bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM Fri Jan 26 14:39:03 2001 From: bfeldt at WORKPLACEPRODUCTIONS.COM (Beverly Feldt) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:39:03 -0600 Subject: comma=because Message-ID: >My favorite college mentor insisted we never begin a sentencewith "and," "but," or "so"--but now I often do in informal writing. (He wouldn't like that dash/two hyphens either.) >Beverly Olson Flanigan >From one Beverly to another, I too am a devotee of the dash. If it was good enough for Jane Austen, it should be good enough for any of us. Beverly From davemarc at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 26 14:39:25 2001 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 09:39:25 -0500 Subject: WAITRON in .... Message-ID: From: Barnhart > > Waitron is an entry in the Dictionary Companion (Vol. 4.4, Winter 1985, p > 152). The earliest date I had at the time was 1980. > > I agree that the pronunciation that I prefer is with a low back vowel; I > have never heard examples that would be represented with a schwa, as in > "Washington." I'd like to clarify my previous post. I meant to say (in my layperson way) that the pronunciation in the lyrics that go something like "I am a waitron./I live in Washington." is something like "weigh-TRAHN....washing-TAHN," with a pause before those last syllables. Now that I've heard the audio file at the site found by Steve K. (thanks!), I still believe that a pronunciation like "weight-TRAHN" (corresponding to "washing-TRAHN") can be heard in the refrain. At least that's my recollection after nearly 20 years. I didn't recall the word "Washingtron," after all. And at least group members such as Diana Quinn seem available. David From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 26 15:48:32 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:48:32 -0500 Subject: Tron Message-ID: I had a teacher in elementary school (late '80's) who, somewhat jokingly, used "Walktron" to avoid the gender implications of "Walkman". How did this morpheme "Tron" acquire the approximate meaning of "gender-neutral, not to say robotic, agent"? If it originates in "automaton" we need to explain the "r". I think the origin of the form is "electron" (and "neutron") -- from there we got other formations like "positron" and of course "electronic". But these don't have any "agentive" sense to them. I feel embarrassed now because this suffix is in the dictionary. -tron "a combining form extracted from ELECTRON, used in the names of electron tubes (magnetron) and of devices for accelerating subatomic particles (cyclotron); also, more generally, in the names of any kind of chamber or apparatus for conducting experiments (biotron)." (Random House) No date is given, but the first magnetron is apparently 1921, the first cyclotron 1929, and the first biotron 1966. This from quick Web searches. Another quick Web search revealed forms like "Name-o-Tron", "Abuse-a-Tron", "Tune-o-Tron", and "Phrase-o-Tron" -- showing the productiveness of this suffix in a slightly different sense, that of an automatic device performing a certain specific function. Although robots are stereotypically male (e.g. the trademark low monotone), I think the shift from "robotic" to "gender-neutral" makes some sense. With "waitron", there is additional support from the form "waitress" which already has the 'r'. There is also the 1982 Disney film Tron, which featured an "Electronic World" populated by characters such as RAM, BIT, CROM, and of course TRON. Although they rode around on light cycles, any connection there to "cyclotron" is surely too far-fetched. The success of this movie could have helped the meaning evolve. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 26 15:56:39 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 07:56:39 -0800 Subject: Conversate and basically Message-ID: > BTW, it is my understanding that "orientate" is the > preferred Brit Eng for > Am Eng "orient," though I've heard both here too. > > _____________________________________________ > Beverly Olson Flanigan Then "orientate" crops up in the US military (the only place I've ever encountered it in the US, as in "Orientate this map.") because of cross-cultural dissemination through NATO? JIM __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From e-gregory at TAMU.EDU Fri Jan 26 15:38:33 2001 From: e-gregory at TAMU.EDU (Elizabeth Gregory) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 09:38:33 -0600 Subject: Fish Message-ID: At Texas A&M, calling freshmen "fish" seems to derive from the vocabulary of the Corps of Cadets: http://outfits.tamu.edu/aggieband/vocab.html Because of A&M's long history as a military school--and the originally military traditions that have been enthusiastically adopted by the entire student body--almost everyone knows at least some "Corps-speak." Elizabeth Gregory Texas A&M University <<< cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU 1/26 8:18a >>> Texas A&M Univ has "fish camp" for students before their freshman year. Cynthia Bernstein cbernstn at memphis.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Fri Jan 26 16:16:39 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 11:16:39 EST Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:57:18 -0500 From: Jane Parker Subject: Re: Waitron When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was commonly used instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to gradschool in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and automaton. Jane P Parker I recall reading an anecdote in some local (NYC) source, probably in the mid 1980s. [Recreated:] The writer goes into a restaurant, takes a table that hasn't been red up since the last customer. A female appears, announces "I'm Melissa, and I'll be your waitron tonight." "Waitron?" "Yes. Waitress and waiter are sexist terms. The busboy will clean your table right away." The point to the anecdote, to the extent that it had one, is that her consciousness was not raised sufficiently to keep her from using the sex-bound term "busboy". I believe that I now see the word "wait-person" on cards in restaurant windows notifying the world of a job-opening. The gophers, in introducing themselves, tend to say "I'll be your server." "red up" appears in homage to my connections in Elizabeth, Pa. GAT From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 03:49:04 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 11:49:04 +0800 Subject: Tron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:48 AM -0500 1/26/01, D. Ezra Johnson wrote: >I had a teacher in elementary school (late '80's) who, somewhat jokingly, >used "Walktron" to avoid the gender implications of "Walkman". > >How did this morpheme "Tron" acquire the approximate meaning of >"gender-neutral, not to say robotic, agent"? > >If it originates in "automaton" we need to explain the "r". > >I think the origin of the form is "electron" (and "neutron") -- from there >we got other formations like "positron" and of course "electronic". > I realized after I sent my earlier message linking "waitron" to "electron", "neutron", and "automatron" [sic] that I had blended these other -trons with "automaton". But a quick check of google turns up 42 other hits on "automatron", so I'm not alone. For those in the rhotic dialect of "automat(r)on", there's no -r- (in "waitron") to explain. larry P.S. for me, but not for all those responsible for the google hits, an automatron is more like a robot, or at least a concrete reification of the idea. I would never refer to a "finite state automatron" or to the theory of "automatra". From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Fri Jan 26 17:05:24 2001 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 09:05:24 -0800 Subject: Waitron Message-ID: Melissa ignores, not only the sexism of busboy but probably also its ageism since there's a good probability that the busboy is older than she is and most likely not a "boy." ----- Original Message ----- From: "GEORGE THOMPSON" To: Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 8:16 AM Subject: Re: Waitron > Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:57:18 -0500 > From: Jane Parker > Subject: Re: Waitron > > When I lived in Minneapolis MN in the mid-'80 the term waitron was commonly used > instead of waiter/waitress in the want ads and by the waitrons themselves. > People laughed at me (even some linguistic professors) when I went to gradschool > in IN. I have not seen or heard it used since. Is anyone else familiar with > this term? I think is was sort of a gender neutral combo of waitress and > automaton. > > Jane P Parker > > > I recall reading an anecdote in some local (NYC) source, probably in > the mid 1980s. > > [Recreated:] The writer goes into a restaurant, takes a table that > hasn't been red up since the last customer. A female appears, > announces "I'm Melissa, and I'll be your waitron tonight." > "Waitron?" "Yes. Waitress and waiter are sexist terms. The busboy > will clean your table right away." > > The point to the anecdote, to the extent that it had one, is that her > consciousness was not raised sufficiently to keep her from using the > sex-bound term "busboy". I believe that I now see the word > "wait-person" on cards in restaurant windows notifying the world of a > job-opening. The gophers, in introducing themselves, tend to say > "I'll be your server." > > "red up" appears in homage to my connections in Elizabeth, Pa. > > GAT > > From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Fri Jan 26 17:05:25 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 12:05:25 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: Laurence Horn writes: >>>>> At 10:36 AM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we >leave", unless I was being posh. > >Herb > Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, when the speaker intends it as a suggestion (or vice versa), while "Shall we go" clearly indicates that the speaker would like to go if the addressee is willing to. Still, the former (or even the more reduced form, "Wanna go?") is probably more likely than "Shall we go?". But my point is that the "shall" in this case is less stylistically marked than in the simple future uses. <<<<< Agreed. I call this form the (first person plural) imperative interrogative, and that's not just a joke, even though the notion of "imperative interrogative" is funny because it seems contradictory. The speaker is asking for/about the concurrence of the addressee(s) in declaring an imperative from the group to the group. IMHO, this curious, rather anomalous form reflects the use of "shall" as performative in giving an order, or in establishing a law: He shall/*will be taken to the gallows, there to be hanged by the neck until dead. Any dog found on public property without leash or collar shall/*will be deemed a stray and shall/*will be captured and taken to the Town Kennel by the Animal Control Officer. -- Mark A. Mandel From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 26 18:36:10 2001 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:36:10 -0800 Subject: Waitron In-Reply-To: <1B3FA1468F@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: I'm sorry, but what this conjures up for me is a scene in an imaginary sci-fi film: (Stiffly moving creature with metallic-sounding voice approaches couple seated at table and announces in a monotone:) "Hello--I am Zorg--I--will--be--your--waitron--tonight--" Peter Mc. --On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 11:16 AM +0000 GEORGE THOMPSON wrote: > [Recreated:] The writer goes into a restaurant, takes a table that > hasn't been red up since the last customer. A female appears, > announces "I'm Melissa, and I'll be your waitron tonight." **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Fri Jan 26 18:59:57 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:59:57 -0800 Subject: Fish Message-ID: In Greek slang "fish" is the label used for anyone who is new. LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER. After a few trials, the old timers (:military, college, a group of people, the regular customers of a coffee shop etc) determine whether the "fish" is a "big fish" meaning he is a "fish ... big time" or he's not a fish at all (because he knows better and more). A "fish" is someone who doesn't fight back (no hands to fight back) and/or someone who trembles (like a fish out of water). Cheers, Lina Hawkins Project Coordinator Berlitz GlobalNET Translations 525 Broadway Santa Monica, CA 90401 310.260.7138 tel 310.576.6086 fax -----Original Message----- From: Elizabeth Gregory [mailto:e-gregory at TAMU.EDU] Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 7:39 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Fish At Texas A&M, calling freshmen "fish" seems to derive from the vocabulary of the Corps of Cadets: http://outfits.tamu.edu/aggieband/vocab.html Because of A&M's long history as a military school--and the originally military traditions that have been enthusiastically adopted by the entire student body--almost everyone knows at least some "Corps-speak." Elizabeth Gregory Texas A&M University <<< cbernstn at MEMPHIS.EDU 1/26 8:18a >>> Texas A&M Univ has "fish camp" for students before their freshman year. Cynthia Bernstein cbernstn at memphis.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: susan To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:47 AM Subject: Fish Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block originated? Thank you very much, Susan Gilbert From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 06:56:05 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 14:56:05 +0800 Subject: will/shall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:05 PM -0500 1/26/01, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >Laurence Horn writes: > >>>>>> >At 10:36 AM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote: >>I think I'd probably say "d'ya wanna go" instead of "shall we >>leave", unless I was being posh. >> >>Herb >> >Well, there is the danger, as Deborah Tannen has pointed out, that >the recipient of "d'ya wanna go?" (whatever intonation is used) may >feel s/he is literally being asked whether or not s/he wants to go, >when the speaker intends it as a suggestion (or vice versa), while >"Shall we go" clearly indicates that the speaker would like to go if >the addressee is willing to. Still, the former (or even the more >reduced form, "Wanna go?") is probably more likely than "Shall we >go?". But my point is that the "shall" in this case is less >stylistically marked than in the simple future uses. ><<<<< > >Agreed. I call this form the (first person plural) imperative >interrogative, and that's not just a joke, even though the notion of >"imperative interrogative" is funny because it seems contradictory. The >speaker is asking for/about the concurrence of the addressee(s) in >declaring an imperative from the group to the group. I'm not sure why an imperative in interrogative clothing is any more contradictory than a queclarative (Who the hell asked you? = 'nobody did') or a declarative question (So you're going over there after dinner(?)), or for that matter a 2d person "whimperative" (Why not call her yourself?). Just one more (partially conventionalized) indirect speech act. > >IMHO, this curious, rather anomalous form reflects the use of "shall" as >performative in giving an order, or in establishing a law: > > He shall/*will be taken to the gallows, there to be hanged by the neck > until dead. > > Any dog found on public property without leash or collar shall/*will >be > deemed a stray and shall/*will be captured and taken to the Town >Kennel > by the Animal Control Officer. Not to mention "Thou shalt/#wilt not kill." (assuming the Lord intended the ever-broken commandment rather than a hopelessly incorrect prediction) larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 26 21:17:50 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 21:17:50 +0000 Subject: Random House dictionary Message-ID: Writing about American dictionaries in England is a pain. I'd like to share my pain with someone who has a copy of the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. If someone with a copy of this dictionary and a little time would look up and answer my queries on fewer than 10 words, then they would have my relentless gratitude. (Happy to do a favor in kind as well.) Rather than e-mailing my list of queries to the whole list (and possibly get several people doing what one could do alone), I ask that any volunteer e-mail me privately, and I'll e-mail back my requests. TIA, Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 26 22:28:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:28:05 +0000 Subject: RH -- mission accomplished Message-ID: I no longer need a volunteer to look up words in the Random House dictionary. Many thanks to all those who offered. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Fri Jan 26 22:15:06 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 16:15:06 -0600 Subject: Random House dictionary In-Reply-To: <21931771.3189532670@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Sure, Lynne, if I have the right edition. Bob At 09:17 PM 1/26/01 +0000, you wrote: >Writing about American dictionaries in England is a pain. I'd like to >share my pain with someone who has a copy of the Random House Webster's >Unabridged Dictionary. If someone with a copy of this dictionary and a >little time would look up and answer my queries on fewer than 10 words, >then they would have my relentless gratitude. (Happy to do a favor in kind >as well.) > >Rather than e-mailing my list of queries to the whole list (and possibly >get several people doing what one could do alone), I ask that any volunteer >e-mail me privately, and I'll e-mail back my requests. > >TIA, >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 26 22:30:36 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:30:36 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Fri Jan 26 22:47:52 2001 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:47:52 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <22194367.3189537036@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood by their claim and none of the other students objected to their claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. --SL >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... > >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 *************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu *************************************************** From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Fri Jan 26 22:26:51 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:26:51 -0500 Subject: something frumious this way comes Message-ID: See the second paragraph. ---------------------- Forwarded by Mark Mandel/Dragon Systems USA on 01/26/2001 05:27 PM --------------------------- Alexandria Digital Literature Patron Newsletter, January 2001, Issue #2 --- http://www.alexlit.com --- Hello, Everyone. This week we're pleased to draw your attention to Inscriptions Magazine's four-star review of _Sleeping Planet_ by William R. Burkett, Jr. Of course, we at AlexLit already know that we have fabulous stories by talented authors, but it's nice to let someone else do the bragging for us. And speaking of talented writers, in this issue we're happy to announce that AlexLit has a new novel available from A. R. Morlan, one of our favorite horror authors. On a (nearly) completely unrelated subject, it has come to my attention that our vocabularies are falling victim to Darwinism. Darwin himself pointed out that "[t]he survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection." In a small effort to stem the flow of words into oblivion, and in honor of Lewis Carroll's birthday, I've founded The Society For the Preservation of the Bandersnatch (SFPB). Contributions can be sent directly to me. As always, Happy reading! Emily Larson, scribe at alexlit.com From mssmith at BOONE.NET Sat Jan 27 22:33:19 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 17:33:19 -0500 Subject: Fish Message-ID: Thank you all for your responses. Best, Susan Dean Gilbert ----- Original Message ----- From: "lesa.dill" To: Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 8:39 PM Subject: Re: FWD: Fish > It may be merely folk etymology, but I've heard "fresh fish" > "fish" as in > newly caught. I don't know if "jail bait" works into that or not. > Lesa Dill > > >===== Original Message From susan ===== > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: susan > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:47 AM > >Subject: Fish > > > > > >Any ideas on where the prison term "fish" for the new man on the cell-block > originated? > >Thank you very much, > >Susan Gilbert > From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Fri Jan 26 22:25:16 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 16:25:16 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <22194367.3189537036@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" At 10:30 PM 1/26/01 +0000, you wrote: >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... > >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Fri Jan 26 23:13:24 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:13:24 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: FYI The word "shall' in the law is not always imperative. Context may make it discretionary. Bob > > IMHO, this curious, rather anomalous form reflects the use of "shall" as > performative in giving an order, or in establishing a law: > > From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Fri Jan 26 23:16:43 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:16:43 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Seems to me I've heard people from Michigan's Upper Peninsula use shedule, a not unsurprising factette give our proximity to Canada and all the Canadian kids playing hockey for US colleges, etc. GO GREEN. Bob "Sonja L. Lanehart" wrote: > > In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English > Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students > said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I > was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic > transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood > by their claim and none of the other students objected to their > claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support > from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. --SL > > >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? > >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? > > > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... > > > >Lynne > > > >M Lynne Murphy > >Lecturer in Linguistics > >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > >University of Sussex > >Brighton BN1 9QH > >UK > > > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > *************************************************** > Sonja L. Lanehart > Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) > University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) > 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) > Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu > *************************************************** From nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 26 23:14:53 2001 From: nelliott1 at EARTHLINK.NET (Nancy Elliott) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:14:53 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Captain Picard says 'skedule' in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." When I first heard it, I assumed someone had told Patrick Stewart he ought to pronounce it that way for his American audience. Lynne, tell me more about Britons who say 'skedule.' Nancy Elliott Southern Oregon University ------Original Message------ From: Lynne Murphy To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: January 26, 2001 10:30:36 PM GMT Subject: schedule --pronunciation Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do Canadians use it? Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom I used to affect it? FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much of the time... Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Jan 27 00:31:16 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 19:31:16 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Nancy Elliott writes: > Captain Picard says 'skedule' in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." When I first heard it, I assumed someone had told Patrick Stewart he ought to pronounce it that way for his American audience. > Captain Picard is supposed to be French, right? So maybe he doesn't have to conform to British norms. The other possiblity is diffusion of the [sk] pronunciation over the next three centuries... DEJ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 01:09:26 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 20:09:26 EST Subject: Boyer's Law Message-ID: The following sounds like a candidate for Fred Shapiro's collection of computer-related provers: Boyer's Law, named after the mathematician and mathematical historian Carl Boyer: "Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original discoverers." This "law" was discussed on the Historia Matematica mailing list. It appears on page 469 of [Boyer's] History of Mathematics [1968]. After discussing the anticipation of the so-called Maclaurin's series by earlier workers, Boyer observed, "Clio, the muse of history, often is fickle in the matter of attaching names to theorems!" It was H.C. Kennedy who first called this "Boyer's Law: Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original discoverers." Amer. Math. Monthly, 79:1 (1972), 66-67. Kennedy also noted that "this is probably a rare instance of a law whose statement confirms its own validity." This is also known as ...Stigler's Law of Eponymy. This law, which in its simplest form states that "no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer," was so dubbed by Stephen Stigler in his recent book Statistics on the Table (Harvard). An immodest act of nomenclature? Not really. If Stigler's law is true, its very name implies that Stigler himself did not discover it. By explaining that the credit belongs instead to the great sociologist of science Robert K. Merton, Stigler not only wins marks for humility; he makes the law to which he has lent his name self-confirming. [reference: url http://www.linguafranca.com/0003/hypo.html] The discussion can be viewed in the HM archives at http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/historia_matematica/ select month March 2000 and the applicable threads are "Boyer's Law" (26 March 2000) and "L'Hopital, Pythagoras, Ptolemy and Hilbert" 17 March 2000. I have the entire (I think) discussion on my hard drive and I'll be happy to forward it to anyone who asks. Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 26 14:36:23 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:36:23 +0800 Subject: Fish In-Reply-To: <00e201c088b1$29c5ed40$e54e5c40@ast> Message-ID: There's a lengthy entry in RHHDAS, dating "fish" as prisoner slang (= 'a new and inexperienced inmate') with the first cite in 1864. In this sense, "fish" is "often--in early use usually--construed with "fresh". By the end of the 19th c. "(fresh) fish" had spread beyond the prison context to apply to anyone new at the job or situation (= 'a naive newcomer or beginner').* "Fish" for 'freshman' is attested from 1898 at the U. of Tennessee. It's also used by gamblers, prostitutes, carnies, etc. for 'sucker', 'rube', 'easy mark', but this is basically still the same meaning in a different context. *"fish" as 'newbie' larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 03:35:04 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:35:04 EST Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles Message-ID: The Los Angeles Lakers have hit hard times. One story calls the city "Lost Angeles." (The RHHDAS has "Lost Wages" (Las Vegas) only.) During the Los Angeles Lakers-Seattle Supersonics basketball game on TBS, LA guard Kobe Bryant handed a pass to LA center Shaquille O'Neal, who scored the basket. "Kobe could have taken that himself," pointed out announcer John Thompson. "That's a love pass to Shaq." Thompson repeated "love pass, love pass, loooove pass" on about three replays. The Lakers play my hapless New Jersey Nets tonight, so consider "Lost Angeles" found. (FWIW, I'm interested in the thesis below. Anybody else familiar with it, or any other Air Force terminology lists of the 1950s and 1960s?) -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: 1957 MA thesis needed Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:01:46 EST Size: 845 URL: From ghutson at FIDNET.COM Sat Jan 27 03:28:56 2001 From: ghutson at FIDNET.COM (gloria hutson) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 21:28:56 -0600 Subject: Don't tear up Jack. Message-ID: Has anyone heard the expression, "don't tear up Jack"? My grandmother used it whenever the grandkids would play inside the house. We knew it meant not to break anything or mess up the house. I live in the Missouri Ozarks approximately 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. Thanks, gloria hutson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jpparker at ISERV.NET Sat Jan 27 06:17:16 2001 From: jpparker at ISERV.NET (Jane P Parker) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 01:17:16 -0500 Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles Message-ID: sounds like a morphed B-52's Love Shack, Love Shack, Looooove Shack Jane P Parker Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > The Los Angeles Lakers have hit hard times. One story calls the city "Lost Angeles." (The RHHDAS has "Lost Wages" (Las Vegas) only.) > During the Los Angeles Lakers-Seattle Supersonics basketball game on TBS, LA guard Kobe Bryant handed a pass to LA center Shaquille O'Neal, who scored the basket. > "Kobe could have taken that himself," pointed out announcer John Thompson. "That's a love pass to Shaq." > Thompson repeated "love pass, love pass, loooove pass" on about three replays. > The Lakers play my hapless New Jersey Nets tonight, so consider "Lost Angeles" found. > > (FWIW, I'm interested in the thesis below. Anybody else familiar with it, or any other Air Force terminology lists of the 1950s and 1960s?) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: 1957 MA thesis needed > Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 22:01:46 EST > From: Bapopik at aol.com > To: > > I called UMI dissertations, but they said to go directly to you. > I'd like a copy of: > > THE SPECIAL VOCABULARY OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE > Rule, George Lloyd > 1957 > 68 pages > Thesis (M.A.), Stanford University > > How can I purchase it? > > Barry Popik > 225 East 57th Street, Apt. 7P > New York, NY 10022 > Bapopik at aol.com > (212) 308-2635 From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Sat Jan 27 12:08:28 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 13:08:28 +0100 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: This article has me stumped. I'm probably about to be embarrassed, but what the hell is a "spot"? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1136000/1136252.stm A Bupa spokeswoman said: "A colleague found the nurses squeezing the spots of a patient who was in the surgery recovery room "The colleague suggested that it wasn't a good thing to do and reported them to the general manager. They were suspended while the complaint was investigated. "They were reprimanded but are now back at work. The patient was put in no danger and there was no harm done. "The nurses are really, really, embarrassed and so is the hospital." -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Sat Jan 27 14:22:55 2001 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Houston Hall) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 08:22:55 -0600 Subject: Don't tear up Jack. In-Reply-To: <001c01c08811$483183c0$5c41e5d8@ghutson> Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 666 bytes Desc: not available URL: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 27 14:22:28 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 09:22:28 -0500 Subject: Kleptocrat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Paul McFedries wrote: > > > I've heard "kleptocrat" used recently in reference to Laurent Kabila. The > > OED has "kleptocracy" ("a ruling body or order of thieves"), which it dates > > to 1819. However, it doesn't have "kleptocrat." Nexis.com reports that its > > earliest citation is an abstract of a Wall Street Journal article from 1986, > > which is surprisingly new considering the antiquity of kleptocracy. Does > > anyone know of any earlier cites for "kleptocrat"? Here's a still earlier one than my previous posting: 1968 Stanislav Andreski _The African Predicament_ 77 Corruption appears even more rampant than in the opulent days of the arch kleptocrat Okotie-Iboh. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 14:45:40 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 09:45:40 EST Subject: Al McGuire speech in ADS-L archives; Safire Watch Message-ID: AL McGUIRE Basketball legend Al McGuire has died. Look for the "Al McGuire glossary" in the old ADS-L archives, from March of 1997. The glossary is taken from a sports publication of 1980. -------------------------------------------------------- SAFIRE WATCH Unlike the New York Times, most people are actually kind to me. On January 17th, the Toronto Star got "the Big Apple" wrong. I found this during a routine search on Dow Jones, and I sent the newspaper an e-mail. The Toronto Star called me the next day. I wasn't in. I was told to call the Toronto Star collect. My letter to the editor was published within seven days of the original piece. I've received responses from the Dear Abby (who published Gerald Cohen's letter and called me), the New York Post (which did a new Big Apple article), the Christian Science Monitor (which published a letter), the ABA Journal (which published a letter), the Guardian (which published an e-mail), the Financial Times, and others. Only ADS member William Safire refuses to talk to me at all. For the fourth straight month, I beg him to correctly spell a dead man's name and correctly quote his words. For the second straight week, I beg ADS members to e-mail his assistant, Elizabeth Phillips, at phille at nytimes.com, and request that she talk to me. This week, William Safire's column discusses "Gotcha!"--something he's done before. Yet he neglects to mention my important work on "Gotcha!" that I posted here on 4-4-2000. This goes with my work on "La-La-Land" and "Put Up Or Shut Up" and "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff"--my work will simply never be mentioned. My corrections will never be published. If an ADS member ignores work by African-Americans or Jews, people would speak up. But if it's me, hey, I'm garbage. And if I die tomorrow, it's OK with everyone that the New York Times has errors permanently associated with my name and work. I have done everything right. I've written letters. I've enclosed self-addressed stamped envelopes. I've waited nine years. I've even tried bribes with ADS and ANS memberships. (The ANS is turning 50, by the way. A Safire column would be nice. But it won't happen. It starts with joining the darn thing.) Again, I beg (what other professional must constantly BEG?) all ADS members for help. E-mail Elizabeth Phillips. Get her to talk to me. This request is pretty darn reasonable. From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Sat Jan 27 14:54:16 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:54:16 +0100 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: On vendredi 26 janvier 2001 23:47, Sonja L. Lanehart wrote: >In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English >Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students >said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I >was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic >transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood >by their claim and none of the other students objected to their >claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support >from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. I don't know about schedule, but scheme for me was always skeem until probably around age 13. One of those words, like many, that I'd read but never, for whatever reason, heard aloud. That one seemed like such a sure thing, not that I've never been known to look a word up in the dictionary for pronunciation (ducking flying volumes). -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Sat Jan 27 14:59:51 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:59:51 +0100 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: On samedi 27 janvier 2001 15:54, Grant Barrett wrote: >On vendredi 26 janvier 2001 23:47, Sonja L. Lanehart >wrote: >>In discussing phonetics and morphology in my Introduction to English >>Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and raised students >>said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' and not 'sk'. I >>was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and their phonemic >>transcriptions were important to winning the prize. Still, they stood >>by their claim and none of the other students objected to their >>claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some level of support >>from their classmates--even the ones on competing teams. > >I don't know about schedule, but scheme for me was always skeem until probably >around age 13. One of those words, like many, that I'd read but never, for whatever >reason, heard aloud. That one seemed like such a sure thing, not that I've never been known >to look a word up in the dictionary for pronunciation (ducking >flying volumes). No, that's wrong: it was sheem until age 13. Aargh. -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Sat Jan 27 15:08:38 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 07:08:38 -0800 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: Grant asked: This article has me stumped. I'm probably about to be embarrassed, but what the hell is a "spot"? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1136000/1136252.stm A Bupa spokeswoman said: "A colleague found the nurses squeezing the spots of a patient who was in the surgery recovery room A "spot" is a pimple, at least among my nursing students in So. CA. Sharyn Hay, storknurse From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 27 18:36:30 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 13:36:30 -0500 Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles In-Reply-To: <7b.f7558b3.27a39be9@aol.com>; from Bapopik@AOL.COM on Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 10:35:04PM -0500 Message-ID: > (FWIW, I'm interested in the thesis below. Anybody else familiar > with it, or any other Air Force terminology lists of the 1950s and > 1960s?) You are familiar, of course, with Heflin's 1956 USAF Dictionary. Jesse Sheidlower From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 27 20:28:12 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:28:12 EST Subject: "Love pass" by Lost Angeles Message-ID: I just thought that this might have something else. Maybe "Murphy's Law" reached USAF airmen in San Francisco by 1957. --Barry Popik From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sat Jan 27 20:36:29 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:36:29 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <381514332.980550894458.JavaMail.root@web672-wrb> from "Nancy Elliott" at Jan 26, 2001 06:14:53 PM Message-ID: Nancy Elliot says: > Lynne, tell me more about Britons who say 'skedule.' I haven't got much to tell. Usually, where Americans would say 'schedule', Brits say 'timetable'. I've said 'shedule', trained by my time in S Africa and my grad school pretensions, but at least twice I've heard 'skedule' here. I don't know if this is empathetic--they know they're talking to an American, so they use an American pronunciation--or if the 'k' pronunciation is slipping in here. I don't recall who said it--but I assume they were southeasterners. Lynne From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sat Jan 27 20:39:31 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:39:31 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010126162516.007d8550@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> from "Robert S. Wachal" at Jan 26, 2001 04:25:16 PM Message-ID: > > Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. > > Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, > and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" But wasn't Dorothy American? Was she an American who said 'shedule'? Lynne From Heaberlin at SWT.EDU Sat Jan 27 20:08:55 2001 From: Heaberlin at SWT.EDU (Dick Heaberlin) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 14:08:55 -0600 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called a lay up was called a "crip shot." I always assumed that it was short for "cripple" since it was supposedly the easiest shot to make. What interests me about this is why did such a useful phrase fall into disuse. In my web search of it I found only four examples of it being used, one about a Kentucky game in 1925 and another about a game in 1948, one a comparison in a journalism professor's syllabus. I have played basketball from 1945 till now, and yet I don't know when the phrase quit being used. I don't even use it any more but the young people I play with it don't use it either. Another term from the from the forties was "radio man," which is the same as "snow bird." I still hear "snow bird" occasionally. I am from the south and never understood what a snow bird had to do with staying back on defense and waiting for a long pass. "Radio man" made more sense as a metaphor to me. Does anyone have any info on any of this? Dick Heaberlin English Department Southwest Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Sat Jan 27 20:55:51 2001 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:55:51 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Is it possible that the situation was reversed, and the offender used "shedule," and that's led Parker to reply with "Oh, skit!"? I'm not sure that Parker would have used "shedule," but it is entirely possible. The story seems to work a little better, though, at least for my picture of Parker, if her reaction was a negative take on the less familiar pronunciation of schedule. I'm from NC, and I've only heard one person ever use "shedule," an ex of mine who was English herself. Her accent was quite proper English public school, very lovely to an Anglophile such as myself. > From: Lynne Murphy > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:39:31 +0000 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: schedule --pronunciation > >> >> Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. >> >> Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, >> and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" > > But wasn't Dorothy American? Was she an American who said 'shedule'? > > Lynne From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 27 21:23:14 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 16:23:14 -0500 Subject: Fw: Crip shot, radio man, snow bird Message-ID: Strictly from memory: In commentary on baseball many years ago, Joe Garagiola (who played in the majors) used to speak of "shootin' cripples", in reference to a hitter being able to get an easy hit because the pitcher's "stuff" wasn't there, that is, the ball wasn't moving or breaking. It was a bit of old baseball slang, I assumed, and I further assumed it referred to the obviously non-PC concept of how easy it would be to literally "shoot a cripple". No surprise that this has fallen into disuse, for any sport. It's been a while since I've played basketball (bad knees), but I remember an easy lay-up or wide open shot underneath the basket being called a "bunny", and a person who stayed back and waited for a long pass for an easy shot being called a "cherrypicker". Al McGuire, the noted college basketball coach and TV commentator who just died this week, popularized a lot of basketball slang, some of which I'm sure he picked up from players. As Barry mentioned, the ADS archives have an Al McGuire glossary from 1980, but no "crip shot". That glossary mentions "French pastry" for a fancy move, but misses "shake 'n' bake" for a fancy move that leaves the defense behind. McGuire was a master of this stuff, on TV for over 20 years, and he will be missed. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dick Heaberlin" To: Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 3:08 PM Subject: Crip shot > I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called > a lay up was called a "crip shot." I always assumed that it was short > for "cripple" since it was supposedly the easiest shot to make. What > interests me about this is why did such a useful phrase fall into > disuse. In my web search of it I found only four examples of it being > used, one about a Kentucky game in 1925 and another about a game in > 1948, one a comparison in a journalism professor's syllabus. I have > played basketball from 1945 till now, and yet I don't know when the > phrase quit being used. I don't even use it any more but the young > people I play with it don't use it either. Another term from the from > the forties was "radio man," which is the same as "snow bird." I still > hear "snow bird" occasionally. I am from the south and never understood > what a snow bird had to do with staying back on defense and waiting for > a long pass. "Radio man" made more sense as a metaphor to me. Does > anyone have any info on any of this? > > Dick Heaberlin > English Department > Southwest Texas State University > San Marcos, TX 78666 > From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 27 21:53:48 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 16:53:48 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. Also, in the taped episode we saw last night, it was asserted that Armstrong was "the first person to use" the terms "cats" and "chops." Does anyone know anything about the etymology of these? From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 27 22:05:33 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 17:05:33 -0500 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: You own your own words (coined by Steward Brand on The Well BBS to summarize responsibilities and ownership re: Well participation. The phrase and ethos spread to other conferencing systems.) A computer can smell your fear Art is not a mirror, art is a hammer (Not specifically computer-related. Seen on a whiteboard at MIT's Media Lab (and in Brand's book on The Lab) and spread over the Net in the late '80s/early '90s) Inspiration knows no baud rate Yield to the hands-on imperative Access to computers--and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works--should be unlimited and total. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Jan 27 23:38:27 2001 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:38:27 -0800 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: on "information wants to be free"... could have been stewart brand, but it also might have some earlier history. one of my industry informants suggests douglas engelbart as a possible late 60s/early 70s source; he is, of course alive and could be asked about the expression (though he might not remember). the sentiment was endorsed by a number of people in the 60s-80s - richard stallman, for instance, though the wording doesn't sound like him. there's a fellow at the university of toronto who has a complete record of everything posted on usenet (the newsgroups, like sci.lang, not mailing lists, like this one or LINGUIST) for its first ten years. (remarkable, but true. some people will collect *anything*.) this includes all the comp groups, where things like open access, free software, etc. were often discussed. i'll get his name and e-address soon. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 27 11:32:27 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 19:32:27 +0800 Subject: Fw: Crip shot, radio man, snow bird In-Reply-To: <001601c088a7$5d1d6f60$8b01a8c0@fabate> Message-ID: At 4:23 PM -0500 1/27/01, Frank Abate wrote: >Strictly from memory: > >In commentary on baseball many years ago, Joe Garagiola (who played in the >majors) used to speak of "shootin' cripples", in reference to a hitter being >able to get an easy hit because the pitcher's "stuff" wasn't there, that is, >the ball wasn't moving or breaking. It was a bit of old baseball slang, I >assumed, and I further assumed it referred to the obviously non-PC concept >of how easy it would be to literally "shoot a cripple". No surprise that >this has fallen into disuse, for any sport. > >It's been a while since I've played basketball (bad knees), but I remember >an easy lay-up or wide open shot underneath the basket being called a >"bunny", and a person who stayed back and waited for a long pass for an easy >shot being called a "cherrypicker". > I've more often heard an announcer refer to a basketball player MISSING a cripple, rather than to one as shooting one or making one. And the cripple here is indeed a very easy shot--layup or perhaps dunk. I'm not familiar with the baseball use for an easy pitch to hit, but the etymology Frank suggests (whether from baseball or basketball uses) makes sense. I probably should have wondered why an easy shot was called a cripple only when someone missed one. (And of course the pre-PC suggestion predicts that it will be "shooting a cripple" that will fall into desuetude while "missing a cripple" survives (a bit). larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 00:56:33 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 19:56:33 EST Subject: Bobbie/Bobby Pin; McGuffin; Nippy Message-ID: I've been briefly going through CHAIN STORE AGE, which is by the same publisher as NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS. I'm looking especially for luncheonette slang. These volumes are huge, with tons of ads. -------------------------------------------------------- BOBBIE/BOBBY PIN OED has 1936 (?) for "bobby pin." This appears to be a copyrighted term (originally). October 1926, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 68 ad: BOBBIE PINS Are _you_ prepared to "cash in" on this great national campaign? Fourteen leading magazines, blanketing the United States, will carry Bobbie Pin messages, starting October 15. More than _thirteen and one-half_ million copies of these magazines containing Bobbie Pin advertisements, will be distributed! (...) Marcus-Lesoine Incorporated Established 1912 130 Turk Street San Francisco October 1926, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 69 ad: GIRLEY PINS The Fast-Selling 5c Pins for Bobbed Hair (...) Marcus-Lesoine Incorporated Established 1912 130 Turk Street San Francisco February 1927, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 80 ad: THE BOBBIE PIN Patented and Protected by U. C. Copyright--it is unlawful to use the term BOBBIE PIN for any imitation This illustration is now appearing in 20 national magazines This illustration is now speaking to 40 million readers There are many who try to imitate, but there is only one GENUINE BOBBIE PIN September 1927, CHAIN STORE AGE, pg. 89 ad: THE HUMP HAIR PIN MFG. CO. 1918-36 Prairie Avenue Chicago, Ill. (One of those imitators--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- McGUFFIN FWIW to OED, now on "m." CHAIN STORE AGE, June 1928, pg. 82, has an ad for Remington Cash Registers. A letter about their quality comes from the F. E. McGuffin Corporation (NYC), FIVE CENTS TO ONE DOLLAR DEPARTMENT STORES. I don't know if this has anything to do with Alfred Hitchcock's "McGuffin." -------------------------------------------------------- NIPPY This is an early term for "waitron." The OED has "nippy" from 11 February 1925. From CHAIN STORE AGE, April 1926, pg. 25: _The Making of a "Nippy"_ How the 8,000 waitresses employed by J. Lyons & Co., an English restaurant chain, are selected and trained. (Pg. 28, cols. 2-3 photo caption--ed.) The evolution of "Nippy" so far as her outward appearance goes is revealed in the photos above. The present costume was adopted January 1, 1925. -------------------------------------------------------- "O-LOOKEE!" SLANG An ad for "O-LOOKEE! CANDY CONE" is in CHAIN STORE AGE, January 1928, pg. 133. The "Motto Hearts" candies are shaped like hearts, and the following are written on some of them: Nuff Said O.K. for me Cute Kid She Said Let's Eat Applesauce From jester at PANIX.COM Sun Jan 28 01:09:47 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:09:47 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops In-Reply-To: <3A734362.4162485@earthlink.net>; from garethb2@EARTHLINK.NET on Sat, Jan 27, 2001 at 04:53:48PM -0500 Message-ID: > Also, in the taped episode we saw last night, it was asserted that > Armstrong was "the first person to use" the terms "cats" and "chops." > Does anyone know anything about the etymology of these? Well, certainly that both predate Armstrong--"cat" for 'a person; fellow' was in use by 1920 (though it was chiefly popularized after 1935 or so by jazz musicians), and "chops" was around from the late 16th (!) century. Armstrong is often credited with popularizing various jazz terms, but the only one for which a reasonable case is made is _dig_ in sense like 'to understand' or 'to enjoy', which seems genuinely to have been unknown before Armstrong's use of it. Jesse Sheidlower From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 01:36:12 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:36:12 EST Subject: S'more Smoothy Slush Message-ID: S'MORE (continued) Boy, is this ADS-L archive picky. I typed in "s'mores" and couldn't find my stuff, so I had to type in "marshmallows." From GOOD HOUSEKEEPING'S BOOK OF DELECTABLE DESSERTS (Chicago, 1958), pg. 63, col. 2: _S'mores:_ Toast 2 marshmallows over coals until gooey and crisp. Place on graham cracker (or use thin gingercake slice). Place portion of chocolate bar on top and cover with graham cracker. Eat it sandwich-style. From FAVORITE RECIPES OF OHIO (Favorite Recipes, Montgomery, Al, 1964), pg. 134, col. 2: _SOME MORE_ 1 lb. ground beef 2 sm. onions, diced 1 1/2 c. celery, chopped 1/2 c. instant rice 1 t. soy sauce 1 t. Worcestershire sauce 1 can cream mushroom soup 1 can cream chicken soup 1 can chow mein noodles Brown ground beef, onions and celery in skillet. Add the remaining ingredients except noodles and mix thoroughly. Place in casserole; bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from oven and top with chow mein noodles; return to oven and bake 30 minutes longer at 300 degrees. Yield: 8 servings. Mrs. Marjorie Duval Khana Shahar Caldron No. 58, Springfield -------------------------------------------------------- SMOOTHY (continued) From FAVORITE DESSERT BY CHICAGO HOME ECONOMISTS (American Home Economics Association, May 1949), pg. 130: _CHOCOLATE SMOOTHY_ 1/2 cup milk 2/3 cup sugar 5 egg yolks, beaten 1 cup margarine or butter 1 cup confectioners' sugar 2 1/2 ounces (2 1/2 squares) chocolate, melted and cooled 5 egg whites 1 cup fine vanilla wafer or graham cracker crumbs 1. Combine milk, sugar and beaten egg yolks. Cook over low heat or over boiling water, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cool. 2. Cream together the margarine, confectioners' sugar and cooled chocolate and blend into cold custard mixture. 3. Beat egg whites stiff. Fold chocolate mixture into the egg whites. Blend well. 4. Sprinkle half of the crumbs over the bottom of an 8x8x2-inch pan. Pour above mixture into pan and cover top with remaining crumbs. 5. Chill in refrigerator for at least 12 hours. Cut into 2-inch squares and serve with whipped cream. Yield: 16 small servings. -------------------------------------------------------- SLUSH (continued) From FAVORITE RECIPES OF OHIO (Favorite Recipes, Montgomery, AL, 1964), pg. 13, col. 1: _SLUSH_ Juice of 2 lemons and small amount grated Juice of 2 lemons and small amount of grated rind (Twice? Is that an error?--ed.) Juice of 2 oranges and small amount of grated rind 3 med. overly ripe bananas, mashed 3/4 c. sugar 1 pt. ginger ale Mix well and freeze in refrigerator trays. Take out of refrigerator; thaw once and beat well. Refreeze in trays. Set out 30 minutes before serving time to thaw to a slushy consistency. Serve in sherbet or assorted style bone chine cups. Serve with assorted crackers. NOTE: May garnish with strawberries or raspberries. Yield: 8-10 servings. Mrs. Warren J. Hartman General Women's Coun. of WSWS, Trotwood From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 28 02:31:29 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:31:29 -0600 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: Gareth Branwyn : > >My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a >question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in >one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on >the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person >asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come >from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. I have no knowledge on this, but the association of 'covert charge' and 'cover charge' is the sort of thing rather educated native English speakers do. 'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and 'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer shorts'. A cover charge is essentially an admission charge, to cover the overhead, one that goes hand-in-hand with the idea that menu prices should otherwise be kept within reason. A covert charge would be uncontracted-for (but you gotta pay them) charges. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 03:31:19 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 22:31:19 EST Subject: Mile High Pie; Breakfast-Brunch; Pizza Wraps; Johnny Marzetti Message-ID: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: Mile High Pie; Breakfast-Brunch; Pizza Wraps; Johnny Marzetti Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 22:30:43 EST Size: 2815 URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 27 14:34:36 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 22:34:36 +0800 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:31 PM -0600 1/27/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >Gareth Branwyn : >> >>My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a >>question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in >>one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on >>the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person >>asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come >>from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. > >I have no knowledge on this, but the association of 'covert charge' and >'cover charge' is the sort of thing rather educated native English speakers >do. > >'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and >'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those >of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer >shorts'. > My understanding is that "covert" had traditionally been pronounced like "cover" except with a final -[t] until fairly recently when influence by its (etymologically unrelated but) frequent syntagmatic partner and paradigmatic counterpart "overt" led to the 'ko-vert' pronunciation you mention. If this is right, phonology alone wouldn't rule out the derivation you're seeking to dismiss, although I hold no brief for it (or against it) myself. larry From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 28 05:37:29 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 23:37:29 -0600 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: Laurence Horn >My understanding is that "covert" had traditionally been pronounced >like "cover" except with a final -[t] until fairly recently when >influence by its (etymologically unrelated but) frequent syntagmatic >partner and paradigmatic counterpart "overt" led to the 'ko-vert' >pronunciation you mention. If this is right, phonology alone >wouldn't rule out the derivation you're seeking to dismiss, although >I hold no brief for it (or against it) myself. But no night-club owner who wanted to impose a 'covert-charge' would ever phrase it this way. Rather, he would not speak of it at all, and just charge $100 for the bottle of Andre you can get here in Waukon at three for $10.00 at Quillins. But this would be bad for business. The 'entertainment charge' gets collected, and you sell the bottle of Andre for only $20.00 a bottle. And the customer feels only mildly ripped off, vs. write-the-local-District-Attorney-ripped-off. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Sun Jan 28 07:16:33 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 01:16:33 -0600 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: Since Gareth Branwyn continues to add to the proverbs, nonce words, and several other things here on ADS-L, let me add one that helps me keep my tenuous grip on reality: Computers exist to teach us two things: patience and humility. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 28 07:52:45 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 02:52:45 -0500 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: Huh? Did we decide NOT to continue to add to this list? Are you suggesting that my submissions are not legitimate to this discussion? Please point out to me which of my suggested proverbs and catch-phrases are nonce words and "several other things" (whatever that means). Mike Salovesh wrote: > > Since Gareth Branwyn continues to add to the proverbs, nonce words, and > several other things here on ADS-L, let me add one that helps me keep my > tenuous grip on reality: > > Computers exist to teach us two things: patience and humility. > > -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 09:22:53 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:22:53 EST Subject: "Big Blue" Message-ID: I'm in love with a big blue frog. A big blue frog loves me. --Peter, Paul and Mary The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated to only 1987. Isn't the RHHDAS missing another "Big Blue" football team? That team would be, oh, they play in a large metropolitan area, let me think... THE GIANTS! They definitely were "Big Blue" in the 1980s, with those two others. The term "Big Blue" itself probably goes as far back as the sea and the sky. FWIW: NEVERMORES 20 GIANTS 17 From fitzke at VOYAGER.NET Sun Jan 28 15:03:59 2001 From: fitzke at VOYAGER.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 10:03:59 -0500 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: In my basketball-playing youth, circa late 30s to mid 40s, layups were called "dog shots". Never had an inkling about the origin. Bob Dick Heaberlin wrote: > > I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called > a lay up was called a "crip shot." From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 28 15:15:36 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 10:15:36 -0500 Subject: Fw: "Big Blue" Message-ID: Let me back Barry up on this, sort of in honor of Super Bowl Sunday, America's great pop culture orgy: I spent a lot of years in Michigan and Ohio, and had many friends who were rabid fans of Ohio State or Michigan football. I remember the Michigan folks (one of whom used to lead the marching band when he was a student there, and went to all the games), used to refer to the team as "Blue" (they are sometimes called "the Maize and Blue" for the team colors), and during Ohio State games they would scream at the TV things like "C'mon Blue!" I don't recall "Big Blue" from these folks, at least if they said it, I didn't stick with me. But it's sort of a natural combo, esp. for a football team. I noticed "Big Blue" for the NY (or NJ) Giants when I came to the Northeast. It is their standard nickname here, certainly from the early 80s at least. Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 4:22 AM Subject: "Big Blue" > I'm in love with a big blue frog. > A big blue frog loves me. > --Peter, Paul and Mary > > The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated to only 1987. > Isn't the RHHDAS missing another "Big Blue" football team? That team would be, oh, they play in a large metropolitan area, let me think... > THE GIANTS! > They definitely were "Big Blue" in the 1980s, with those two others. The term "Big Blue" itself probably goes as far back as the sea and the sky. > FWIW: > NEVERMORES 20 > GIANTS 17 > From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sun Jan 28 17:50:42 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 17:50:42 +0000 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule Message-ID: Thanks for all the info on 'schedule'. For those wonderign about the prevalence of the /sk-/ pronunciation in the UK, I note that Fowler's (3rd ed., 1996) says that the /sk-/ pronunciation is heard more and more in Britain, esp. among young people. My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is prevalent in Canada? And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of /hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' which I've never heard as /hwami/. M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From janivars at BAHNHOF.SE Sun Jan 28 18:34:43 2001 From: janivars at BAHNHOF.SE (Jan Ivarsson) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 19:34:43 +0100 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops Message-ID: I've always believed that "cover charge" was derived from the French "couvert". RHUD says "1920-25, Amer.", and this date corresponds well with the return of many Americans from France. Petit Robert Dict gives the sense of "all you use to cover the table (...) tablecloth, china, glasses..." for this word (since 1570), and it very often figures at the top of your bill, even in rather cheap restaurants, as an additional charge over what you eat and drink. Maybe the "-t" comes from there. Restaurant or club owners travel, and adding a French touch is popular. Jan Ivarsson, TransEdit Translator, Subtitler Storgatan 2 SE-27231 Simrishamn, Sweden Tel. +46 (0)414 106 20 Fax +46 (0)414 136 33 jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 3:34 PM Subject: Re: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops > At 8:31 PM -0600 1/27/01, Mark Odegard wrote: > >Gareth Branwyn : > >> > >>My wife (the jazz singer) came home from a gig the other night with a > >>question she wanted me to address to the list: A patron told her that in > >>one of the episodes of Ken Burn's Jazz, there is a sign that's visible on > >>the door of a club that says: "No Minimum or Covert Charges." This person > >>asked my wife if, despite the obvious, "cover charge" might come > >>from "covert charge." Seems unlikely, but I told her I'd ask. > > > >I have no knowledge on this, but the association of 'covert charge' and > >'cover charge' is the sort of thing rather educated native English speakers > >do. > > > >'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and > >'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those > >of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer > >shorts'. > > > My understanding is that "covert" had traditionally been pronounced > like "cover" except with a final -[t] until fairly recently when > influence by its (etymologically unrelated but) frequent syntagmatic > partner and paradigmatic counterpart "overt" led to the 'ko-vert' > pronunciation you mention. If this is right, phonology alone > wouldn't rule out the derivation you're seeking to dismiss, although > I hold no brief for it (or against it) myself. > > larry From mojofan at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 28 18:37:41 2001 From: mojofan at HOTMAIL.COM (Allison Hall) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 09:37:41 -0900 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From dumasb at UTK.EDU Sun Jan 28 18:49:45 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 13:49:45 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society ===== >WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? Joy. From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 28 19:44:55 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 14:44:55 -0500 Subject: More computer proverbs Message-ID: OK. Maybe it was late and I misread the intent of the post. If so, I apologize for any defensive tone. (Which reminds me of another old Well maxim: "Never post when you're stoned" or in this case, over-tired.) But then, in your message, you say: "He's hooking into your liberalism and extending it." This brings me back to my original question: What among my submissions would be construed as "liberal?" Would any of these NOT be considered computer proverbs and catch phases? And to answer Russ McClay's question: Yes, I've been a member of ADS for the last four years (or is it three?). Mark Odegard wrote: > > You do misunderstand the tone of Salofesh's post. He's hooking into your > liberalism and extending it. > > Mark Odegard. > > >From: Gareth Branwyn > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >Subject: Re: More computer proverbs > >Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 02:52:45 -0500 > > > >Huh? Did we decide NOT to continue to add to this list? > > > >Are you suggesting that my submissions are not legitimate to this > >discussion? Please point out to me which of my suggested proverbs and > >catch-phrases are nonce words and "several other things" (whatever that > >means). > > > >Mike Salovesh wrote: > > > > > > Since Gareth Branwyn continues to add to the proverbs, nonce words, and > > > several other things here on ADS-L, let me add one that helps me keep my > > > tenuous grip on reality: > > > > > > Computers exist to teach us two things: patience and humility. > > > > > > -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Sun Jan 28 18:16:30 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:16:30 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dorothy who? At 08:39 PM 1/27/01 +0000, you wrote: >> >> Yes, Canadians use it, US'uns don't. >> >> Some American once used the 'sk' pronunciatio in front of Dorothy Parker, >> and she replied, "Oh, Skit!" > >But wasn't Dorothy American? Was she an American who said 'shedule'? > >Lynne > > From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Sun Jan 28 20:00:11 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 14:00:11 -0600 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <31577735.3189693042@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: 'herb' with the 'h' is routinely used by Julia Child and thus by many of her followers. So it's either an affectation or an ignirant pronunciation. Best, Bob At 05:50 PM 1/28/01 +0000, you wrote: >Thanks for all the info on 'schedule'. For those wonderign about the >prevalence of the /sk-/ pronunciation in the UK, I note that Fowler's (3rd >ed., 1996) says that the /sk-/ pronunciation is heard more and more in >Britain, esp. among young people. > >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is >prevalent in Canada? > >And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note >that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's >pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces >words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of >/hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the >Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and >M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' >which I've never heard as /hwami/. > > > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 28 20:30:33 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 15:30:33 -0500 Subject: herb Message-ID: Lynne Murphy writes: >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is prevalent in Canada?< FWIW, I grew up (Lincoln, Nebraska) in the 30's, saying "herb" with an aitch, but can't really say whether that pronunciation was characteristic of the region. My parents were university people who had come from Missouri and Ohio. /Herb/ probably didn't figure much in the conversations of my childhood outside of the family kitchen. Living on the West Coast in the late 40's & and 50's, I began to be aware that "erb" was the prevailing pronunciation. That was also true in Ohio in the 60's. It wasn't until moving up here to within reach of Canadian radio that I began to hear the aitch in "herb"again, and it felt like coming home. A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Sun Jan 28 20:47:20 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:47:20 -0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ways to get off this any mailing list: Instead of being rude, 1. You follow the instructions in the message that was sent to you when you first subscribed, 2. If you forgot to save it or it got inadvertently deleted, you go to the URL where you first found this list and follow the instructions there, 3. If you forgot to put the URL in your browser's memory so you would be able to find it again without bothering people, you do a search on the Web and try to find the URL so you don't have to bother all the people on the list, 4. If you have trouble finding the URL on the Web, you apologize to the list for your lack of foresight and inability to figure out your problem and *politely* ask to be unsubscribed. Every mailing list has a moderator who watches for people having trouble. You wait a day or two because the moderator is a human being who is busy and perhaps even on vacation. After you try all of the above, you send another message because sometimes e-mail doesn't get delivered to everyone on the list and maybe the moderator isn't aware of your problem. After that, maybe it would be appropriate to be rude. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Allison Hall > Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 10:38 AM > WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:20:12 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:20:12 EST Subject: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:22:53 either "Nichols, Wendalyn" or mike salovesh wrote: >There's a common thread in Marie's question and my memory of having lost >the word "iatrogenic" time and again until events finally fixed it in my >head. I'd love to head what some of our leading dictionary experts have >to say about something no dictionary ever solves for me. What do you do >when you know there's a word for something, but have no memory of the >word itself? >I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than once. What >do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in one >direction until it comes to the other side of the writing surface, then >turns around and goes back? One line is written from left to right, the >next from right to left, and so on. I know that there is a word for >that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do with the way >oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow across a >field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I >won't need to look it up. >There just doesn't seem to be any way a dictionary could help me with >that kind of problem. The only way I can think of that might produce an >answer would be to ask >anybody and everybody I can talk to if they happen to know the word. . . >If I ever found someone claiming to know, then I'd have something to >take to a dictionary for verification. But where is there a dictionary >equivalent of a criss-cross (or reverse) telephone directory? >P.S.: Funny how memory works. All of a sudden I have the impression >that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with >something like "bucepholo- " I'll go to the next room and check it out >in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after I log off >this system. In Greek "cow" is "bous" and from there a dictionary will take you to "boustrophedon". However, I must admit I already knew the word. The same dictionary said that the Latin is "bos"---is this where we get the nickname "Bossie" for a cow? You were thinking of Bucephalus, who was Alexander the Great's horse. The name may mean "ox-head". Herakles was given the epithet of "buphagus", "ox eater". There is also Bellerophon, who rode Pegasus (the crewmen on HMS Bellerophon called her the "Billy Ruffian"), Bucellarian (a Byzantine mercenary), and brucellosis. To look up a meaning and find the word---that is one function of a Thesaurus (which I keep trying to construe as "holy lizard"). Roget's Thesaurus stubbornly sticks to its policy of grouping synonyms into numbered categories, instead of doing what word processors do and giving you a list of synonyms for a given word. Roget's method takes a little more work but casts a wider net. I recently saw a book entitled, if I remember correctly, "Reverse Dictionary". A typical page in it had a picture of a horse with all the parts of a horse labelled and a list of horse-related words. A printed dictionary cannot usually help you find a word if you only have a concept. However, an on-line dictionary (or the entire World Wide Web) offers the capability of searching by individual words or phrases, and if you are lucky enough to guess a useful word or phrase, the search engine will find your answer. (If you're unlucky, you'll fail to get your answer and/or drown in a sea of irrelevancies). That's the idea behind the World Wide Web---if you have a big enough database and some patience, you can find anything. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:33:32 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:33:32 EST Subject: Fish Message-ID: George R. R. Martin "The Computer Was A Fish" in Analog Science Fiction, August 1972, pp61ff: "Once upon a time there was a fish. "Most people would have called the fish a computer. To be precise, they would have called it a Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6400. "It was a CDC 6400, of course. But it was also a fish. "A fish, you see, is a chess player. A bad chess player. THe title is awarded by other players when one of thier peers exhibits a singular skill in losing chess games. Popular synonyms are 'patzer' and 'meatcake'." Does anyone have any idea whether this "fish" is the same one currently being discussed on this list? I have never heard the term "meatcake" either in or out of chess. "Patzer" or "potzer" according to Merriam-Webster's 10th Collegiate is "probably from Germen Patzer bungler, fr. patzen to blunder" and means "an inept chess player." The variant spelling "potzer" suggests the word came from Yiddish rather than German, since Yiddish is written in the Hebrew alphabet and therefore must be transliterated. One more term: "woodpusher", apparently a term invented within the chess word at a time when most chessmen were made of wood rather than plastic. My college roommate was insistent that there was a hierarchy among the words "fish", "woodpusher", and "patzer", that is, they referred to different levels of incompetence. Unfortunately I don't remember in what order he ranked them. I seem to recall that it was "woodpusher" to which he gave the definition "someone who has heard of 'en passant' but cannot demonstrate a situation in which en passant can occur." - Jim Landau (whose chess-playing is above fish/patzer/woodpusher levels and is entitled to the adjective "mediocre") From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:37:09 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:37:09 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "The key, the whole key, and nothing but the key, so help me Codd". This is not entirely facetious, as it is a mnemonic for the rules created by Edgar Codd for relational data bases. It would take too long to describe what the mnemonic stands for---if you're interested, consult any textbook on database management systems. From RonButters at AOL.COM Sun Jan 28 21:55:42 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:55:42 EST Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/01 1:38:19 PM, mojofan at HOTMAIL.COM writes: << WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? >> yourself? From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Sun Jan 28 22:55:40 2001 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 16:55:40 -0600 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010128140011.007d67c0@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: Hey! Us completely unaffected Canadians use this pron. Certainly that's the pron I grew up with and still use and I believe it's what I heard consistently before I moved to the U.S. in 1984. But the Gage Cdn Dict. (1983) shows "(erb or herb)" -- the "or" means that both were common, but with "erb" listed first, it had the edge. I can't comment on the current situation, since I haven't really been paying attention since I returned to Canada. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada -----Original Message----- from Robert S. Wachal Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 2:00 PM: > 'herb' with the 'h' is . . . either an affectation or an ignirant > pronunciation. From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 29 00:50:44 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 19:50:44 -0500 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <000201c0897d$70289900$11820a0a@vneufeldt.sk.sympatico.ca> Message-ID: I say "herb" or "erb" indiscriminately. Both pronunciations are common in my experience. I say "whammy" with /hw/. I don't know whether others do (I wouldn't notice the distiinction). Hardly any US-an says "shedule" AFAIK. Canadians use both, with "skedule" more common (I think). -- Doug Wilson From stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 01:29:25 2001 From: stephen_roti1 at YAHOO.COM (Stephen Roti) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 17:29:25 -0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) Message-ID: Dear all: as Margery Fee (a Canadian linguist) has it: "The competing pronunciations for [the word schedule] are SKEH jool, SKEH joo ul (favoured by Americans) and SHEH jool (favoured by the British). Sociolinguistic studies indicate that the 'sk' pronunciations are by far preferred by Canadian speakers of all ages and backgrounds, and that SHEH jool is on the decline." In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells says under "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with -sk is starting to be heard in BrE." It would be interesting to see what the second edition has to say about this change in progress, as further polls were conducted to determine which pronunciations are the ones currently preferred among Britons. I think another query that should be raised is how the ending of the word is generally pronounced by British, Canadian, or American speakers of English. There seems to be a good deal of variability on that as well, especially in Britain and Canada. Wells, for instance, provides the following (here adapted) phonetic transcriptions {the mark || separates British preferences from American ones}: SCHEDULE 'shed ju:l 'shej u:l 'sked ju:l, 'skej u:l || 'skej u:l 'skej u:@l [where "@" stands here for an optionally inserted schwa] The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998) indicates the following four variants: /'skeju at l/, /'skeju:l/, /'shedju:l/, /'sheju:l/ [PLEASE NOTE: /u/ = short 'u'; /u:/ = long 'u'; @ = the schwa sound] Interestingly, a forty-one-year-old woman who I interviewed about three years ago in St. Andrews-by-the-sea, New Brunswick (Atlantic Canada) (born in the same region, and having mostly Irish background), said she normally says /'shedu at l/, which sort of blends the first part of the typical British form with the second part of the most common (non-palatalized) American variant. This did not strike me as peculiar at all, given Canadians' acceptance of the bi-modal tradition of British and US forms in several areas. Such (uniform) alternation, occasionally even in the same word, is in fact one of the principal standards underlying Canadian English. (Dr.) S. Roti Lexical Researcher __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 01:44:22 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 20:44:22 -0500 Subject: It's a case for Fred Shapiro! In-Reply-To: <31CD30D44C9@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> Message-ID: All right, here's my response. This is the earliest example I have of the "publicity" saying: 1950 Hortense Powdermaker _Hollywood the Dream Factory_ 241 The Hollywood proverb that "The only bad publicity is no publicity" would seem to have considerable truth behind it, even if publicity alone is not generally sufficient to make a star. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Rsaurer at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 03:11:29 2001 From: Rsaurer at AOL.COM (R Saurer) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 22:11:29 EST Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: take me off you mailing list From dmsnake at USIT.NET Mon Jan 29 05:01:24 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 00:01:24 -0500 Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: R Saurer wrote: > take me off you mailing list You'll have to kill me before I can do that. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 04:56:48 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 23:56:48 EST Subject: "Horse Talk" in BAR & BUFFET Message-ID: ADS-L SIGNOFFS I don't get it. The ways to sign off are clearly listed at www.americandialect.org. Since I wrote this posting (a few days ago), one person wanted to kill someone to get off. So we AGAIN posted clear instructions. No one should make these posts! And if anyone wants a daily digest (one e-mail a day), that format is also available. -------------------------------------------------------- THE AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK: THE MOST POPULAR RECIPES OF THE 20TH CENTURY by Jean Anderson Clarkson Potter, 548 pages hardcover 1997 I had dismissed this cookbook prematurely because it got "hot dog" and "iced tea" wrong again, and because John Mariani's book came out in 1999 and cited this one. There are some earlier food citations here that Mariani (for some reason) doesn't use. BOULA-BOULA--A nice discussion is on pg. 64. JOHNNY MARZETTI--An entry on page 147 cites a 1960 cookbook, Peg Bracken's THE I HATE TO COOK BOOK. I'll research this on my next LOC visit, but anyone in Columbus, Ohio, can beat me to it by checking old telephone books under "restaurants" for "Marzetti" and posting the "Johnny Marzetti" info here. MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE-- Pg. 462--I first encountered Mississippi Mud Cake in the 1970s in Jackson, Mississippi, but I'm told it's popular up and down the Mississippi--particularly from St. Louis south. Pg. 381 ("Mud Pie")--I REMEMBER distinctly when and where I first tasted this pie, heaven to a chocoholic like me. It was in the mid-'70s at the newly rebuilt Mills House Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. MILE HIGH PIE-- Pg. 373--...said, _Please_ don't forget Mile-High Pie." To be honest, I _had_ forgotten Mile-High Pie. (...) Suzanne sent me page 243 of _Home Economics Teachers' Favorite Recipes_ (1967), and it contains not one but three different Mile-High Pies, submitted by home economics teachers from all over the country--from Minnesota, Nebraska, Arkansas, North Dakota, Vermont. (The 1950s New Orleans "mile high ice cream pie" is, I guess, unfamiliar to the author--ed.) PUREE MONGOLE, CREME MONGOLE, OR MONGOLE SOUP--There is a huge discussion on pages 58-59. FDR and JFK both liked it. OED doesn't include it at all!? There are 1930s citations given, but I'll check to see what I have. From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 29 05:34:50 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 00:34:50 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge/Cats/Chops In-Reply-To: <005e01c08958$fd8bd160$29a7b2c3@oemcomputer> Message-ID: J. Ivarsson: >I've always believed that "cover charge" was derived from the French >"couvert". .... >Petit Robert Dict gives the sense of "all you use to cover the table (...) >tablecloth, china, glasses..." for this word (since 1570), and it very >often figures at the top of your bill, even in rather cheap restaurants, >as an additional charge over what you eat and drink. >Maybe the "-t" comes from there. .... I think this is about right. Searching the Web for "covert charge", I find many instances from South Africa: I presume that this is standard usage there. At a glance, it seems that it's always "covert" in South Africa, always "cover" everywhere else. Note that "covert charge" will be indistinguishable from "cover charge" in speech, assuming one very standard pronunciation of "covert". Was there perhaps a time when these were widely interchangeable? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 07:15:52 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 02:15:52 EST Subject: Mongole Soup (1928); Mud Cake (1925) Message-ID: A brief search of my cookbooks (while I'm doing the laundry) turns up these. -------------------------------------------------------- MONGOLE SOUP (1928) As discussed, see the Jean Anderson and John Mariani books. THE RECTOR COOK BOOK (Rector Publishing Co., Chicago, 1928), by George Rector, has "Soups...Mongole...23." Once the NYPL menu catalog project is done, I'll search Rector's menus. -------------------------------------------------------- MUD CAKE (1925) I haven't checked the Peter Tamony entry for "mud pie." He has no "Mississippi mud pie/cake." THE I.S. & E.U. COOK BOOK, COMPOSED OF TRUSTED AND TRIED RECIPES BY THE LADIES' AUXILIARY NO. 90 OF THE STEREOTYPERS' AND ELECTROTYPERS' UNION OF MILWAUKEE (Olsen Publishing Co., 1925), has "Mud cakes...72." From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 29 09:17:00 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 03:17:00 -0600 Subject: Online Food Lexicon Message-ID: This is an interesting site, one that could evolve into something great. http://www.xs4all.nl/~margjos/index.html Has anyone published such a dictionary before? I don't remember seeing one, or hearing of one. Such a work would be of obvious utility, even to native-speakers not seeking out a translation. I'm suprised the Eurocrats in Brussels haven't published something already (or have they?). _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 29 09:46:23 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:46:23 +0000 Subject: Online Food Lexicon In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 3:17 am -0600 Mark Odegard wrote: > This is an interesting site, one that could evolve into something great. > > http://www.xs4all.nl/~margjos/index.html > > Has anyone published such a dictionary before? I don't remember seeing > one, or hearing of one. Such a work would be of obvious utility, even to > native-speakers not seeking out a translation. I'm suprised the Eurocrats > in Brussels haven't published something already (or have they?). What I found interesting about this site was the symbol for English-language: a combination of the American and British flags. The EU wouldn't stand for that! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Mon Jan 29 09:05:14 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:05:14 -0000 Subject: unsubscribe Message-ID: I want to get off this damn list once and for all........... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Mon Jan 29 09:08:10 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:08:10 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE UNSUBSRIBE US PLEASE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK Mon Jan 29 09:10:58 2001 From: post at SAUNDERS-HONDA.CO.UK (Saunders Honda) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:10:58 -0000 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: You to want to get off this damn site, I have been trying for 3 weeks and I am still deleting approx 80 messages a day! Would like to know if you manage to unsubscribe....... Cara Cheshire UK -----Original Message----- From: Allison Hall To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Date: 28 January 2001 18:38 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? >WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Mon Jan 29 11:03:57 2001 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:03:57 -0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) Message-ID: > In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells says under > "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with -sk is starting to be > heard in BrE." It would be interesting to see what the second > edition has to say about this change in progress, as further > polls were conducted to determine which pronunciations are the > ones currently preferred among Britons. The new edition contains a graph showing a clear gradation according to age, with sh- being used by more than 90% of older speakers (age not specified), but sk- by 65% of those born since 1973. Overall, 70% preferred sh-. If the slope of the graph is to be believed, the shift to sk- is accelerating. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words From mcclay at TAOLODGE.COM.TW Mon Jan 29 11:27:32 2001 From: mcclay at TAOLODGE.COM.TW (Russ McClay) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:27:32 +0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: Saunders Honda wrote: > You to want to get off this damn site, I have been trying for 3 weeks and > I am still deleting approx 80 messages a day! Send a message to: listserv at listserv.uga.edu In the message body put: signoff ads-l ...that's all... From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 29 11:52:46 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 06:52:46 -0500 Subject: Tron Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "D. Ezra Johnson" To: Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 10:48 Subject: Tron > How did this morpheme "Tron" acquire the approximate meaning of > "gender-neutral, not to say robotic, agent"? > > If it originates in "automaton" we need to explain the "r". > > Another quick Web search revealed forms like "Name-o-Tron", "Abuse-a-Tron", > "Tune-o-Tron", and "Phrase-o-Tron" -- showing the productiveness of this > suffix in a slightly different sense, that of an automatic device performing > a certain specific function. > > Although robots are stereotypically male (e.g. the trademark low monotone), > I think the shift from "robotic" to "gender-neutral" makes some sense. With > "waitron", there is additional support from the form "waitress" which > already has the 'r'. There's also Metatron, the angel tasked with being the Voice of God, and if the movie Dogma is to be believed, he looks an awful lot like Alan Rickman. Unfortunately, I have none of my angelology references to hand, so I can't bring any more depth than this to the table at this time. bkd From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 12:24:46 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:24:46 EST Subject: "Bib Blue" Message-ID: In a message dated Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:22:53 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > I'm in love with a big blue frog. > A big blue frog loves me. > --Peter, Paul and Mary > > The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to > 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated > to only 1987. I don't have any citations handy, but the 1984 date for IBM is too late. By 1984 the "Big Blue" nickname was so well known that a maker of an add-on board for the IBM PC used the name "Baby Blue" for its product. I believe "Big Blue" refers to the fact that at the time blue was the most common color for the side panels of IBM mainframes. (It was not the only color available. At an installation where I worked in the late 1960's, a colleague from Bombay India nicknamed our mainframe as the "Orange Baron" because its side panels were orange.) From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Mon Jan 29 13:01:43 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 14:01:43 +0100 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: Happens every semester, doesn't it? Profs and teachers encourage or require their students to sign on to the list, they do, then the semster finishes, and voila, the cream rises. Or doesn't. -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Mon Jan 29 13:06:57 2001 From: t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (TERRY IRONS) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:06:57 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? In-Reply-To: <3A7553A4.2359AE47@taolodge.com.tw> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Russ McClay wrote: > > Send a message to: > > listserv at listserv.uga.edu > > In the message body put: > > signoff ads-l > > ...that's all... > Russ is correct but incomplete. The message must come from the exact address from which you subscribed. Problems happen when subscribers migrate to other addresses on a system that uses a name server to forward mail. Virtually, Terry (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons at morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 29 13:23:07 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:23:07 -0500 Subject: "Big Blue" Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 04:22 Subject: "Big Blue" > I'm in love with a big blue frog. > A big blue frog loves me. > --Peter, Paul and Mary > > The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue." One is IBM, which is dated to 1984. The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is dated to only 1987. > Isn't the RHHDAS missing another "Big Blue" football team? That team would be, oh, they play in a large metropolitan area, let me think... How about "Big Blue Marble"? bkd From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 29 13:34:34 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:34:34 -0500 Subject: Just one more computer proverb Message-ID: "Nobody ever got fired for buying ." Where used to be Big Blue, later became Microsoft (though I'm not sure of how widely used that ever was), and I have no idea about its current usage. bkd From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 00:51:30 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:51:30 +0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) In-Reply-To: <3A754E1D.946.18CA5E8C@localhost> Message-ID: At 11:03 AM +0000 1/29/01, Michael Quinion wrote: > > In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells says under >> "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with -sk is starting to be >> heard in BrE." It would be interesting to see what the second >> edition has to say about this change in progress, as further >> polls were conducted to determine which pronunciations are the >> ones currently preferred among Britons. > >The new edition contains a graph showing a clear gradation >according to age, with sh- being used by more than 90% of older >speakers (age not specified), but sk- by 65% of those born since >1973. Overall, 70% preferred sh-. If the slope of the graph is >to be believed, the shift to sk- is accelerating. > Or the skift, as Dorothy Parker would apparently have said... From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 13:56:15 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:56:15 EST Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ Message-ID: Responding to the query on herb and /hw-/. My survey of Eng. professors for Shakespearean words 7 years ago (and 'herbs' was one), showed that of 8 respondents born and raised in Canada, 2 used no-aitch (1 New Brunswick, 1 Newfoundland), 6 used aitch. In the USA of 16 respondents 14 used no-aitch and 2 used an h... I'm looking at my summary and I didn't note where these 2 were from in it. Didn't ask my British informants that one because I assumed it was all /h/. As far as /hw/ goes-- I think I'm right in saying that it is not used in England at all-- only by Scots and Irish-Eng. speakers-- don't know about Welsh. In the USA in my survey of freshmen at Princeton ten years ago I found that they reported in a questionnaire that /hw-/ in 'where' was virtually unknown in the Northeast (In NY, PA, MD out of 127 resonses only 4 used /hw-/ - 2 from NYC and two from Philadelphia), but the percentages were higher in other areas: Hawai 3 out of 8 used it, in Tex-Ok, Ark 29% used it, in Ontario and the city of Montreal combined 3 out of 20 used it. Nowhere else was it over 15%. Where it does exist in the Northeast I can't help thinking it's owing to the efforts of the random school teacher to achieve orthoepical nirvana. Dale Coye The College of NJ From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 14:53:49 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:53:49 EST Subject: "Big Blue" Message-ID: According to Byte magazine, September 1985, article "A Microcomputer Timeline", page 205, "April [1982] Xedex Corp. builds the Baby Blue card (a Z80 coprocessor card) to ease the lack of software for the 9-month-old IBM PC." James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM Mon Jan 29 15:01:53 2001 From: epearsons at RANDOMHOUSE.COM (Pearsons, Enid) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:01:53 -0500 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: Once again, I hate knowing this, but back when I was a tortured adolescent I learned that in England a "spot" was what we in the U.S. call a "pimple." The kind with little white heads sometimes get squeezed by unknowing people, who don't realize that doing that can leave scars. Or so my dermatologist told me. Enid Pearsons Senior Editor, Reference Random House, Inc. > -----Original Message----- > From: Grant Barrett [mailto:gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM] > Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 7:08 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Spot? > > > This article has me stumped. I'm probably about to be > embarrassed, but what the hell > is a "spot"? > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1136000/1136252.stm > > A Bupa spokeswoman said: "A colleague found the nurses > squeezing the spots of a > patient who was in the surgery recovery room > > "The colleague suggested that it wasn't a good thing to do > and reported them to the > general manager. They were suspended while the complaint was > investigated. > > "They were reprimanded but are now back at work. The patient > was put in no danger > and there was no harm done. > > "The nurses are really, really, embarrassed and so is the hospital." > > -- > Grant Barrett > New York loves you back. > http://www.worldnewyork.org/ > From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 15:21:44 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:21:44 -0800 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: My wife, born and raised Utah, has always used "sh" rather than "sk" to pronounce "schedule"; however, "sk" is the typical pronunciation in Utah. --- "Sonja L. Lanehart" wrote: > In discussing phonetics and morphology in my > Introduction to English > Language class yesterday, at least 2 U.S. born and > raised students > said their pronunciation of 'schedule' is with 'sh' > and not 'sk'. I > was a bit skeptical since we were playing a game and > their phonemic > transcriptions were important to winning the prize. > Still, they stood > by their claim and none of the other students > objected to their > claims. In fact, they seemed to actually have some > level of support > from their classmates--even the ones on competing > teams. --SL > > > >Schedule with a 'sh', rather than a 'sk'--do > Canadians use it? > >Do any Americans use it besides the crowd with whom > I used to affect it? > > > >FWIW, I seem to hear Britons saying 'skedule' much > of the time... > > > >Lynne > > > >M Lynne Murphy > >Lecturer in Linguistics > >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > >University of Sussex > >Brighton BN1 9QH > >UK > > > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > > *************************************************** > Sonja L. Lanehart > Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) > University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (messages) > 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) > Athens, GA 30605-6205 lanehart at arches.uga.edu > *************************************************** __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 15:41:01 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:41:01 -0800 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule Message-ID: Martha Stewart pronounces the "h" also. --- "Robert S. Wachal" wrote: > 'herb' with the 'h' is routinely used by Julia Child > and thus by many of > her followers. So it's either an affectation or an > ignirant pronunciation. > > Best, > > Bob > > At 05:50 PM 1/28/01 +0000, you wrote: > >Thanks for all the info on 'schedule'. For those > wonderign about the > >prevalence of the /sk-/ pronunciation in the UK, I > note that Fowler's (3rd > >ed., 1996) says that the /sk-/ pronunciation is > heard more and more in > >Britain, esp. among young people. > > > >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US > use the Brit > >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which > pronunciation is > >prevalent in Canada? > > > >And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE > pronunciation issues, I'll note > >that my students were discussing my fellow American > colleague's > >pronunciation before class the other day, and asked > me why he pronounces > >words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal > that the downfall of > >/hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? > Fowler's notes that the > >Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ > pronunciations, while AHD4 and > >M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for > words like 'whammy' > >which I've never heard as /hwami/. > > > > > > > > > >M Lynne Murphy > >Lecturer in Linguistics > >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences > >University of Sussex > >Brighton BN1 9QH > >UK > > > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 > >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > > > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From Simon at IPFW.EDU Mon Jan 29 15:45:31 2001 From: Simon at IPFW.EDU (Simon,Beth) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:45:31 -0500 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: I wonder whether these are spam or "jokes" -- these are all being sent from an address post at Saunders-Honda with a UK origin. beth American Dialect Society wrote: > You to want to get off this damn site, I have been trying for 3 weeks and > I am still deleting approx 80 messages a day! > > Would like to know if you manage to unsubscribe....... > Cara > Cheshire > UK > > -----Original Message----- > From: Allison Hall > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Date: 28 January 2001 18:38 > Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? > > >WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KILL TO GET OFF OF THIS DISCUSSION LIST?????? > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Received: from nt10.ipfw.edu (nt10.ipfw.edu [149.164.187.16]) by > smtplink.ipfw.edu with SMTP > (IMA Internet Exchange 3.14) id 002AA078; Mon, 29 Jan 2001 05:22:04 -0500 > Received: from listmail.cc.uga.edu ([128.192.1.102]) by nt10.ipfw.edu > (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-54891U3000L1600S0V35) > with ESMTP id edu for ; > Mon, 29 Jan 2001 05:22:02 -0500 > Received: from listserv (listserv.uga.edu) by listmail.cc.uga.edu (LSMTP for > Windows NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <0.00F775A7 at listmail.cc.uga.edu>; Mon, 29 Jan > 2001 5:21:59 -0500 > Received: from LISTSERV.UGA.EDU by LISTSERV.UGA.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release > 1.8d) with spool id 1149571 for ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU; Mon, 29 Jan > 2001 05:21:58 -0500 > Received: from rincewind.virtual-chester.com (rincewind.virtual-chester.com > [193.164.166.2]) by listserv.cc.uga.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) with SMTP id > f0TABj6178284 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 2001 05:11:48 > -0500 > Received: from host213-120-37-84.host.btclick.com > (host213-120-37-84.host.btclick.com [213.120.37.84]) by > rincewind.virtual-chester.com (NTMail 3.03.0014/1.ajxz) with ESMTP id > xa053401 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:04:52 +0000 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > X-Priority: 3 > X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 > X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 > Message-ID: <00a201c089d3$6555cb00$542578d5 at oemcomputer> > Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:10:58 -0000 > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Sender: American Dialect Society > From: Saunders Honda > Subject: Re: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 29 15:51:37 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:51:37 -0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: Firewalls can produce similar problems. Been there...done that. --- TERRY IRONS wrote: > On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Russ McClay wrote: > > > > > Send a message to: > > > > listserv at listserv.uga.edu > > > > In the message body put: > > > > signoff ads-l > > > > ...that's all... > > > > Russ is correct but incomplete. The message must > come from the exact > address from which you subscribed. Problems happen > when subscribers > migrate to other addresses on a system that uses a > name server to forward > mail. > > Virtually, Terry > (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) > Terry Lynn Irons t.irons at morehead-st.edu > Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 > Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 > (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 29 15:53:37 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:53:37 -0500 Subject: Online Food Lexicon Message-ID: The idea is a good one (multilingual dictionary of food and cooking terms), but the execution seems very uneven at first glance. I scanned listings in B, C, and L, and there are many errors and confusions. For instance, it seems to equate baking powder and baking soda. It looks like the compilers did not have sound advice on English, anyway. And there are a good number of variations in cooking/cookery and general food terms between US and UK, which this site does not duly reflect. Frank Abate From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 16:06:18 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:06:18 -0600 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? Message-ID: What I'm wondering is how these people who can't figure out how to unsubscribe managed to subscribe. The process is the same except for the difference between 'sub' and 'unsub' (and adding a name when subbing). It seems to me that somebody who can send a message to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying 'sub ADS-L Jane Doe' can figure out how to send a message to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying 'unsub ADS-L'. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 03:08:34 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:08:34 +0800 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule In-Reply-To: <20010129154101.79482.qmail@web9505.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 7:41 AM -0800 1/29/01, James Smith wrote: >Martha Stewart pronounces the "h" also. > > she would From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 16:16:39 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:16:39 -0600 Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ Message-ID: Dale Coye wrote: > In the USA in my survey of freshmen at Princeton ten years ago I found that > they reported in a questionnaire that /hw-/ in 'where' was virtually unknown > in the Northeast (In NY, PA, MD out of 127 resonses only 4 used /hw-/ - 2 > from NYC and two from Philadelphia), but the percentages were higher in other > areas: Hawai 3 out of 8 used it, in Tex-Ok, Ark 29% used it, in Ontario and > the city of Montreal combined 3 out of 20 used it. Nowhere else was it over > 15%. Where it does exist in the Northeast I can't help thinking it's owing I think I've mentioned before that /hw/ seems to be fading rapidly in the U.S. South. Old people like me (57) still have it, but each year I find that fewer and fewer of my students have it. It was down to zero in a class I asked about it a week or so ago except for one student who said that he has /hw/ when the wh word is at the beginning of a sentence but not in other places. It was interesting -- I had just asked the class about /hw/, asking how many of them distinguished between "which" and "witch." Not a single hand went up. Right after that this student said something that started with "when," and I definitely heard a /hw/. When I commented on it, he said that it was because "when" was the first word in the sentence. Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 16:20:39 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 10:20:39 -0600 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. Is there an answer? --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 03:28:03 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:28:03 +0800 Subject: Unsubscribe, for the love of God?!!? In-Reply-To: <200101291606.KAA01044@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 10:06 AM -0600 1/29/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: >What I'm wondering is how these people who can't figure out how to >unsubscribe managed to subscribe. The process is the same except >for the difference between 'sub' and 'unsub' (and adding a name >when subbing). It seems to me that somebody who can send a message >to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying 'sub ADS-L Jane Doe' can figure >out how to send a message to listserv at listserv.uga.edu saying >'unsub ADS-L'. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) Well, negation can be difficult. Larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 29 16:28:01 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:28:01 +0000 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <200101291620.KAA01379@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 10:20 am -0600 Natalie Maynor wrote: > A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is > usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. > Is there an answer? > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) My hypothesis for why it's one word: it means something different if it's two words. I cannot sing. = I am not able to sing. I can not sing (if you like). = I am able to not sing. No one seemed to do spell it as one word in South Africa, and a lot of people don't in the UK either. NODE says that both forms are acceptable, but 'cannot' is more common. Whereas in US English, I'd say that a sentence like "I can not fit into this dress anymore" is wrong. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 29 16:39:30 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:39:30 EST Subject: Carrot Cake Message-ID: BIG BLUE II The Giants are also known as the "Big Blue Wrecking Crew." Hey, I thought Baltimore would win a low-scoring game. -------------------------------------------------------- CARROT CAKE Jean Anderson's AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK has a "carrot cake" entry on page 435: Before developing its new pudding-including carrot and spice cake mix, Pillsbury researched carrot cake in depth, even staged a nationwide contest to locate America's first-published carrot cake recipe. Their finding: A carrot cake in _The 20th Century Bride's Cookbook_ published in 1929 by a Wichita, Kansas, woman's club. From EVERY WOMAN'S COOK BOOK (Cupples & Leon Co., NY, 1926) by Mrs. Chas. F. Moritz: Carrot and Celery Salad, 242 Cakes, 192 Torte, 434 WHAT DO I WIN? -------------------------------------------------------- BACHELLOR BUTTONS (continued) See ADS-L archives, DARE. I thought this was a cookie. HANOVER COOK BOOK (3rd. ed., 1922) has "bachellor buttons" under "cakes." -------------------------------------------------------- CHINESE CHEWS Jean Anderson says on page 485: I remember Chinese Chews from the '50s and don't believe they date much further back than that. If so, I haven't been able to find any earlier recipes for them. Her earliest cite was 1953. PILLSBURY'S THOUSAND DOLLAR BAKERY FORMULA BOOK (1950) has, under "pies--specialties," "Chinese Choos-Choos." -------------------------------------------------------- FOOD FOR THE GODS (DATE-NUT DESSERT) Not to be confused with ambrosia ("food OF the gods"). Jean Anderson has: THIS IS the sort of dessert that became so popular in the late '40s and early '50s and cropped up in community cookbooks across the country. I have: AUNT CAROLINE'S DIXIELAND RECIPES (Gold Seal Corp., Chicago, 1922), by Emma and William McKinney, "Food For The Gods...95." OUT OF VERMONT KITCHENS (Trinity Mission, Burlington, VT, 1939), "Food for the Gods...201." Probably not to be served with a "Poor Boy." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 03:58:47 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 11:58:47 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <1401964.3189774481@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 4:28 PM +0000 1/29/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Monday, January 29, 2001 10:20 am -0600 Natalie Maynor > wrote: > >>A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is >>usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. >>Is there an answer? >> --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) > > > >My hypothesis for why it's one word: it means something different if it's >two words. > >I cannot sing. = I am not able to sing. >I can not sing (if you like). = I am able to not sing. > >No one seemed to do spell it as one word in South Africa, and a lot of >people don't in the UK either. NODE says that both forms are acceptable, >but 'cannot' is more common. Whereas in US English, I'd say that a >sentence like "I can not fit into this dress anymore" is wrong. > >Lynne > > My 1972 UCLA dissertation is, as far as I know, the first place in which this observation is made, or at least "explained", but only insofar as the impossibility of "cannot" (and of course "can't") allowing wide scope for the negative. For me, "can not" allows both scopes in principle (and I think you'll find that a text count will turn up more occurrences with the same NOT CAN meaning that "cannot" or "can't" must have), but in practice writers may avoid the two-word spelling for this meaning since the one-word spelling is available. This is an instance of the general Elsewhere Principle and in this case not something fixed by the lexical entry itself. (Note that the standard dictionary entry for "cannot" simply glosses it as 'can not', which is wrong for the reason Lynne cites.) What I was trying to argue for in my thesis was a general tendency to avoid lexicalization of modal-negation complexes with the semantics of [possible/permitted [not]] or [not [necessary/obligatory]] as opposed to the more readily lexicalized [not [possible/permitted]] and [obligatory [not]], an asymmetry that partakes in a much more general conspiracy reflected in e.g. the fact that no natural language lexicalizes "nall" [ = 'not all'] while many lexicalize 'not some' or 'all not' (Eng. "no", "none"). I propose a Gricean/pragmatic explanation for this asymmetry that I'll spare you here. Within this general framework, I characterized "cannot" as an orthographic lexicalization that obeys the same semantic constraints as the morphologically lexicalized "can't". But to respond to Natalie's question, there's no simple answer to her students's query, since exactly the same asymmetry is found with "couldn't" as with "can't"--the former too is possible only when the negation takes scope over the modal, with the meaning 'not possible/permitted/able', never with the meaning [could [not]]--yet no "orthographic lexicalization" of the form *couldnot occurs. That is, even though we can predict that "couldnot" could only mean what "couldn't" means--[not [could]]--we cannot predict that it does not, in fact, occur. I suspect the difference between "cannot" and *"couldnot" is a matter of frequency and phonology, but I won't try to speculate how, or why--as she notes--"cannot" is the only orthographic-only contraction we have. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 04:15:53 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 12:15:53 +0800 Subject: (h/n)umble (was: Some data on herb, /hw-/) In-Reply-To: <200101291616.KAA01285@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 10:16 AM -0600 1/29/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: > >Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the >h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) I've never heard "umble", except of course in contexts like "The Ravens forced the Giants to eat umble pie", referring of course to deer's innards. Actually I see on checking in the OED that "(eat) humble pie" is a nice illustration of metanalysis as well as folk etymology, since the 'innards' or, as the OED puts it, 'inward parts' meaning was originally associated with the form "numbles", which only later turned into "umbles". There's a cite for "numble pie" as late as 1822 (Robin Hood is the eater, and the meaning is still literal). It looks as though this metanalysis requires the shift in the context a numble-pie > an umble pie > a(n) humble pie since otherwise it's hard to know why a plural noun like "numbles" would have undergone this reanalysis, which typically affects singular count nouns (newt, nickname, nuncle, nother; orange, apron, umpire). But how DID "numbles" lose its n-? larry From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 29 17:07:44 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 12:07:44 -0500 Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ In-Reply-To: <200101291616.KAA01285@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: At 10:16 AM 1/29/01 -0600, you wrote: >Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the >h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. > --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) I had a former colleague (65-ish) from southern Indiana named Humbles--and he had a dickens of a time getting people to pronounce his name without an /h/. (That ref. to "dickens" just reminded me that many of Dickens' characters were h-less--and I didn't even intend the pun!) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:07:28 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:07:28 -0500 Subject: "-making" Message-ID: I've been using "nervous-making" for many years. I don't remember picking up either the compound or the suffix usage; it's certainly possible that I did, but I have the impression of having coined it myself ex nihilo, or at least ex verbis. -- Mark A. Mandel From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 29 18:20:03 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:20:03 -0500 Subject: (h/n)umble (was: Some data on herb, /hw-/) Message-ID: At 12:15 PM 1/29/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 10:16 AM -0600 1/29/01, Natalie Maynor wrote: >> >>Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"? With the >>h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be. >> --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) > >I've never heard "umble", except of course in contexts like "The >Ravens forced the Giants to eat umble pie", referring of course to >deer's innards. Actually I see on checking in the OED that "(eat) >humble pie" is a nice illustration of metanalysis as well as folk >etymology, since the 'innards' or, as the OED puts it, 'inward parts' >meaning was originally associated with the form "numbles", which only >later turned into "umbles". There's a cite for "numble pie" as late >as 1822 (Robin Hood is the eater, and the meaning is still literal). >It looks as though this metanalysis requires the shift in the context > >a numble-pie > an umble pie > a(n) humble pie > >since otherwise it's hard to know why a plural noun like "numbles" >would have undergone this reanalysis, which typically affects >singular count nouns (newt, nickname, nuncle, nother; orange, apron, >umpire). But how DID "numbles" lose its n-? > >larry This adds a new wrinkle to my comment on Humbles as a surname. Since the name ends in -s, it presumably came from the deer-innards meaning (but what a name!). The orthographic 'h' was added by analogy with adj. 'humble', I assume, but his English-descended family continued to drop the /h/. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:16:52 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:16:52 -0500 Subject: will/shall Message-ID: I wrote: >Agreed. I call this form the (first person plural) imperative >interrogative, and that's not just a joke, even though the notion of >"imperative interrogative" is funny because it seems contradictory. The >speaker is asking for/about the concurrence of the addressee(s) in >declaring an imperative from the group to the group. Larry demurred: >>>>> I'm not sure why an imperative in interrogative clothing is any more contradictory than a queclarative (Who the hell asked you? = 'nobody did') or a declarative question (So you're going over there after dinner(?)), or for that matter a 2d person "whimperative" (Why not call her yourself?). Just one more (partially conventionalized) indirect speech act. <<<<< Good point. At first blush I was going to deny the asserted similarity to "Who the hell asked you?" on the grounds that the latter does not expect an answer (to put it mildly) while "Shall we go?" is at least willing to consider a negative one. But "Why not call her yourself?" neatly points up a middle ground. So I'm willing to concede a spectrum: the nature of the speech act (mand, inquiry, assertion...) implemented by one of these "X in form of Y" utterances can range, at least, from very-X-scarcely-Y to somewhat-X-rather-Y. -- Mark From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:19:48 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:19:48 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: "D. Ezra Johnson" writes: >>>>> Nancy Elliott writes: > Captain Picard says 'skedule' in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." When I first heard it, I assumed someone had told Patrick Stewart he ought to pronounce it that way for his American audience. > Captain Picard is supposed to be French, right? So maybe he doesn't have to conform to British norms. The other possiblity is diffusion of the [sk] pronunciation over the next three centuries... <<<<< I don't know what the official line is on Picard; culturally he's a lot more English. ST has never been noted for background consistency. I'll ask around, though. marqem, tlhIngan veQbeq la'Hom -- Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'! Subcmdr. Marke'm, Klingon Sanitation Corps -- Death to Litterbugs! http://world.std.com/~mam/ http://world.std.com/~mam/klingon/Klingon.html From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 29 18:53:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 18:53:05 +0000 Subject: schedule --getting off topic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 1:19 pm -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: >>>>>> > Nancy Elliott writes: > > Captain Picard is supposed to be French, right? So maybe he doesn't have > to conform to British norms. > > I don't know what the official line is on Picard; culturally he's a lot > more English. ST has never been noted for background consistency. I'll ask > around, though. > Picard grew up in France (he goes home in one episode and fights with his brother). But with the Universal Translator they have in Star Trek, you don't know...maybe he's speaking French all the time, but we're hearing it as English (and it translates 'shedule' into 'skedule' for us Americans). The one thing that always bothers me about the Universal Translator is that even though some character is speaking Ferengi or something, their lips move as if they're speaking English. Something like the McGurk effect going on? Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:41:09 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:41:09 -0500 Subject: Covert Charge Message-ID: Mark Odegard writes: >>>>> 'Cover' and 'covert' are differently stressed. I don't see how 'k at -v@r' and 'ko-VURT' could possibly be confused -- except in the minds of us'uns, those of us here on this list who search out ancient Scandic cognates for 'boxer shorts'. A cover charge is essentially an admission charge, to cover the overhead, one that goes hand-in-hand with the idea that menu prices should otherwise be kept within reason. A covert charge would be uncontracted-for (but you gotta pay them) charges. <<<<< The origin I had heard was that it referred to the tablecloth(?) and table settings: the things that cover the table, which have to be renewed for each party that uses a table. The counterargument about stress would not apply to speakers who know the word only in print; and for that matter _Amer.Her.Dict._ 3rd edn. lists 'k^v. at rt , 'ko.v at rt , ko.'v at rt (@ = schwa, o = high-mid round vowel; stress-mark preposed), implying that the "cover"-like pron is most common of the three. *"Covert charge" with stress on the "cov" would be almost or actually homophonous with "cover charge", the final /t/ merging with the [t] onset of the /C/. Someone who knew the expression "cover charge" and was trying to figure out/invent its origin could folk-etymologize it in this way. And that's my guess for what happened -- the other Mark, Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:47:43 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:47:43 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb Message-ID: Lynne Murphy writes: >>>>> My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is prevalent in Canada? <<<<< Not that I can recall, except just possibly for some individual speakers who I can't make a pattern out of. /h at rb/ is a man's name here, period. Pronouncing the "h" in "herb" is a setup for a gag. >>>>> And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of /hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' which I've never heard as /hwami/. <<<<< At one point in my work I proposed /hw/ for the UK prons of words with written "wh", only to be corrected by my UK-native co-workers with exactly that assertion: that /hw/ is dead, dead, dead in the UK even if it's still hanging on by its fingernails this side the Water. Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Mon Jan 29 19:04:22 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 14:04:22 -0500 Subject: schedule --getting off topic Message-ID: Lynne Murphy wrote: > > Picard grew up in France (he goes home in one episode and fights with his > brother). But with the Universal Translator they have in Star Trek, you > don't know...maybe he's speaking French all the time, but we're hearing it > as English (and it translates 'shedule' into 'skedule' for us Americans). In a book I once read about an escapade had by the original ST crew (Kirk's bunch) during the interrum between the series & the movies, they refer to a Federation Standard language. I am pretty sure I have heard or read about Standard in other ST sources as well. Perhaps this is the language that is most often spoken aboard Federation ships and space stations, and therefore the language that Picard speaks? Otherwise, he certainly has a very well-developed & out-of-place English accent for a Frenchman. Not that _all_ of the writers of the ST universe would be consistent on a point like this.... From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mon Jan 29 18:52:00 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:52:00 -0500 Subject: Schedule: the Ending Message-ID: I've heard /'skej.u. at l/ pretty often in the US. I attribute the ending pron to the many words ending in "-ual", such as "eventual" and "gradual". -- Mark A. Mandel From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 29 19:29:45 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:29:45 -0600 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: Thanks, Lynne and Larry. I'll forward your responses to the colleague whose student inquired about it. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 29 19:58:00 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 14:58:00 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >If you confuse the UK with England, /hw/ is deader (at least for >many parts) than in the US, but if you take a somewhat larger (and >politically correct) view, it's not even slightly ill (or should I >say sick). dInIs \ >Lynne Murphy writes: > >>>>>> >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is >prevalent in Canada? ><<<<< > >Not that I can recall, except just possibly for some individual speakers >who I can't make a pattern out of. /h at rb/ is a man's name here, period. >Pronouncing the "h" in "herb" is a setup for a gag. > >>>>>> >And as long as I'm throwing out BrE/AmE pronunciation issues, I'll note >that my students were discussing my fellow American colleague's >pronunciation before class the other day, and asked me why he pronounces >words like 'where' with a /hw/. This might signal that the downfall of >/hw/ is progressing faster in the UK than the US? Fowler's notes that the >Concise Oxford of 1995 left out all the /hw/ pronunciations, while AHD4 and >M-W10 still put /hw/ pronunciations first--even for words like 'whammy' >which I've never heard as /hwami/. ><<<<< > >At one point in my work I proposed /hw/ for the UK prons of words with >written "wh", only to be corrected by my UK-native co-workers with exactly >that assertion: that /hw/ is dead, dead, dead in the UK even if it's still >hanging on by its fingernails this side the Water. > > Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company > Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist > 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 29 21:52:17 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:52:17 -0500 Subject: Boyer's Law Message-ID: FYI: The New Hacker's Dictionary (3rd Ed) does not list either Boyer's Law or Stigler's Law. It does have a number of Laws popular among hacker/comp sci types (such as Godwin's Law, Hanlon's Razor and Parkinson's Law of Data already mentioned in this discussion). "James A. Landau" wrote: > > The following sounds like a candidate for Fred Shapiro's collection of > computer-related provers: > > Boyer's Law, named after the mathematician and mathematical historian Carl > Boyer: > > "Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually > not named after their original discoverers." > > This "law" was discussed on the Historia Matematica mailing list. > > > It appears on page 469 of [Boyer's] History of Mathematics > [1968]. After discussing the anticipation of the so-called Maclaurin's > series by earlier workers, Boyer observed, "Clio, the muse of history, > often is fickle in the matter of attaching names to theorems!" > > It was H.C. Kennedy who first called this "Boyer's Law: Mathematical > formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original > discoverers." Amer. Math. Monthly, 79:1 (1972), 66-67. Kennedy also > noted that "this is probably a rare instance of a law whose statement > confirms its own validity." > > > > This is also known as > > > ...Stigler's Law of Eponymy. This law, which in its simplest form states that > "no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer," was so > dubbed by Stephen > Stigler in his recent book Statistics on the Table (Harvard). An immodest > act of nomenclature? Not really. If Stigler's law is true, its very name > implies that Stigler himself did not discover it. By explaining that the > credit belongs instead to the great sociologist of science Robert K. Merton, > Stigler not only wins marks for humility; he makes the law to which he has > lent his name self-confirming. > > [reference: url http://www.linguafranca.com/0003/hypo.html] > > > The discussion can be viewed in the HM archives at > http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/historia_matematica/ > > select month March 2000 and the applicable threads are "Boyer's Law" (26 > March 2000) and "L'Hopital, Pythagoras, Ptolemy and Hilbert" 17 March 2000. > I have the entire (I think) discussion on my hard drive and I'll be happy to > forward it to anyone who asks. > > Jim Landau From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 29 22:30:00 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 17:30:00 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:47 PM 1/29/01 -0500, you wrote: >Lynne Murphy writes: > > >>>>> >My next question: does anyone/any region in the US use the Brit >pronunciation of 'herb' (with the /h/), and which pronunciation is >prevalent in Canada? ><<<<< > >Not that I can recall, except just possibly for some individual speakers >who I can't make a pattern out of. /h at rb/ is a man's name here, period. >Pronouncing the "h" in "herb" is a setup for a gag. > > Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company > Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist > 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com I'm not so sure the /h/ in 'herb' is totally gone or simply idiolectal. I've heard it here in southern Ohio occasionally. In any case, I've asked a native of the region to ask around and will report. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 29 17:42:58 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 12:42:58 -0500 Subject: herb, /hw/, and shedule Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:41:01 -0800 James Smith writes: > Martha Stewart pronounces the "h" also. Well, THAT should settle it. I speak to a lot of garden clubs. If the fee os over a hundred bucks, I use the "h". Less than that, I drop it. D From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 00:54:45 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:54:45 EST Subject: Mostaccioli Mystery in Milwaukee; Mud Cake Message-ID: MUD CAKE Here is that entry from the I.S. & E. U. COOKBOOK (1925), pg. 72: MUD CAKE 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, Butter, size of egg, 1/2 cup sour milk, 1 t. saleratus in 1/2 cup hot water, 1 1/2 cups flour, 3 squares chocolate, Frosting. Boil one cup sugar and enough water to moisten it, boil until it strings, then beat the white of an egg stiff, then pour the syrup in slowly, beating all the time until (Pg. 73--ed.) nice and creamy. Spread over cake and let cool, then spread bitter chocolate on top of white. Another recipe is given in MUD PIES AND OTHER RECIPES (Macmillan Company, NY, 1961), by Marjorie Winslow (no page numbers): MUD PIES To a coffee can filled 3/4 full of rich dirt, add just enough water to make a very firm mud. Pack this mud into the cups in the bottom half of a heavy cardboard egg carton. Set in the sun to dry slightly, then turn the carton over and unmold on a sunny terrace or sidewalk. When the pies are hard, they are done. Serves 12. These mud pies keep indefinitely and are good to have on hand for impromptu entertaining. (There are also "sandwich" recipes here you don't want to see--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- MOSTACCIOLI MYSTERY IN MILWAUKEE I checked the restaurants in the phonebook fiche for St. Louis and Milwaukee. No Mississippi Mud Pies. There were several "bombers" in Milwaukee in, for example, May 1978, pg. 1010, col. 1: MEATBALL BOMBERS--Jerry's Pizza, 10th & Lincoln. ITALIAN SANDWICHES (BOMBERS)--Little Italy, 925 N. 27th Street. PIZZA BOMBERS--Pizza by Dave, 800 E. Lincoln Ave. Most interesting is the Milwaukee "Mostaccioli" Mystery. "Mostaccioli" is not in OED. "Mostaccioli" is not in DARE. "Mostaccioli" is not in Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. "Mostaccioli" was not offered in ANY other Italian restaurant that I've checked, in various phone books. So why is "mostaccioli" all over Milwaukee? May 1976, MILWAUKEE, pg. 934 ("pizza"), col. 1 ad: THE ORIGINAL BARBIERE'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT PIZZA SPAGHETTI--MOSTOCHOLLI--LASAGNE SCALPINI--RAVIOLI--CHICKEN WITH HOME MADE GARLIC BREAD May 1976, MILWAUKEE, pg. 936, col. 3 ad: CAPRI PIZZA RESTAURANT LASAGNA CHICKEN CACCIATORE VEAL SCALOPPINE RAVIOLI SPAGHETTI MOSTACCIOLI May 1976, MILWAUKEE, pg. 937, col. 2 ad: THE ORIGINAL GIUSEPPE'S ON TEUTONIA Has Fed the Hungry Since 1953 PIZZA--SPAGHETTI LASAGNA--RAVIOLI MOSTACCIOLI SEA FOOD--CHICKEN SANDWICHES ITALIAN--AMERICAN May 1976, MILWAUKEE, Pg. 1058 ("restaurants"), col. 2 ad: CARADARO CLUB Authentic Old World Pizza Since 1945 Complete Italian Menu Including Spaghetii--Ravioli--Mostaccioli Lasagna--Italian Sandwiches May 1978, MILWAUKEE, pg. 1012, col. 2 ad: SCAFFIDI'S HOUSE OF PIZZA "KING OF THE DOUBLE CRUST PIZZA" LASAGNA . SPAGHETTI . RAVIOLI MOSTACCOLI . SEAFOODS . STEAKS . CHICKEN This is from THE DICTIONARY OF ITALIAN FOOD AND DRINK (Broadway Books, NY, 1998) by John Mariani, pg. 159: _mostaccioli_ (moh-stah-CH'YOH-lee) Small cakes of southern Italy made of honey, flour, orange peel, almonds, and spices. They are cut into diamond shapes and baked, then covered with chocolate icing. Also _mustazzoli_ and _mustazzuoli_. In Piedmont, a cookie called _mostaceu_ is made with cornmeal and sweet wine. Both names probably derive from Latin _mustaceum_, meaning a cake made with must. _Mostaccioli_ is also the name for a tubular pasta shape similar to _penne_. Will OED include it? Why did all the "mostaccioli" guys go to Wisconsin and all the "apizza" guys go to Connecticut? From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Tue Jan 30 00:01:34 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:01:34 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <20010129012925.49048.qmail@web10111.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: One group of Britons has used the "sk" pronunciation for a long time - amateur radio operators, who refer to a "sked" (in writing and verbally) as a prescheduled radio contact. Also on the ham radio front, someone referred to various telegraphers' abbreviations; 73 is best wishes, 88 is love and kisses, and 55 is one only used (as far as I know) by German radio hams, meaning "Hals- und Beinbruch" (cf. the "break a leg" discussion). A different topic: I was just at a fairly upmarket hotel in the Georgia Sea Islands - the room service flyer was headed "Breakfast at your beckon". Is this a wide use of the term, or a local one, or just an error. I wonder if they meant to say "at your beckoning" or "at your beck and call"? And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in England, or the former in the US. Tony Glaser From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Tue Jan 30 01:21:38 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:21:38 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Apology: I am sometimes bitten by a pathological urge to say the obvious just to get it on record. Well, at least my urges in that direction have the advantage of letting everybody else say something new or incisive or whatever. Illustration: This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much as his better-known contributions to linguistics. Addendum: Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps even a dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts save basketball. An additional handful of Hamp- influenced scholars may not go quite that far, but still use the s/k alternation in "celtic" as a case of the kentum/chentum/sentum/tsentum lines of dialect separation in European languages. The instructor who uses this example is spared the labor of explaining such obsolete titles as Kaiser, Cesare (with ch), Caesar (with s), and Tsar. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the obvious? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 01:29:23 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 20:29:23 EST Subject: Mostaccioli Message-ID: A quick check of Google show tons of "mostaccioli" hits. The most frequent etymology (not mentioned by Mariani) is "little moustaches." The Milwaukee restaurants were serving the pasta, not the cookie. LEONE'S ITALIAN COOKBOOK (1967) does NOT have it, but I'll keep looking. OED must add this. One site describes Giordano's of Chicago as "mostaccioli heaven." See, for example: http://www.nwpasta.com/ronzoni/glossary/mostaccioli.html From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 01:30:53 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:30:53 -0600 Subject: On Being Folks' Amissed. Message-ID: OK. Cover/covert/couvert charge caught me. It was a false friend, a faux amis, a folks' amiss. Cover and hide are semantically related, but for 'cover charge', and 'hidden charge' you have to keep them separate, at least in English. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 01:38:54 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 20:38:54 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: The following I have only seen once (it was a homemade poster in an office I inhabited in 1984): If it's there and you can see it, it's REAL If it's there and you can't see it, it's TRANSPARENT If it's not there and you can see it, it's VIRTUAL If it's not there and you can't see it, it's DELETED --------------------------------------------- Boyer's/Stigler's Law is unlikely to appear in a Computer Science book, since it applies to mathematics, not comp sci. Relatively few programmers have even been exposed to Maclaurin Series, either as a formula or by name, so the reference is over their heads. Yes, I have heard "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" (probably in several minor variants) on more than one occasion, although not since IBM lost its dominance of the industry that it held into the 1980's. I have not heard the phrase applied to Microsoft, but it's not surprising. James A. Landau Systems Engineer FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI) Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA P.S. On a different topic. I once perpetrated the following sentence: [In reference to the Historia Matematica mailing list] "I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? If so, then it is possible to have the word "is" twice in a row without it having to be in quotes. However, it must be admitted that in response to that sentence I received an e-mail from Germany politely requesting me to translate it into English. From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 02:11:43 2001 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 21:11:43 EST Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: Every year I'm amazed at how many of my freshmen and sophomores do not seem to ever have heard that 'cannot' is written as one word. I can only conclude that many high school teachers aren't aware of it either... so maybe we're in the midst of a change-- I don't think any dictionaries list it as two words? (Too lazy to look right now) Dale Coye Dept of Eng. The College of NJ From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 02:20:12 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 20:20:12 -0600 Subject: Mostaccioli Message-ID: >The Milwaukee restaurants were serving the pasta, not the cookie. Yes, mosta-etc is a kind of pasta, on the model of ziti. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From mssmith at BOONE.NET Wed Jan 31 02:45:50 2001 From: mssmith at BOONE.NET (susan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:45:50 -0500 Subject: Esperanto Message-ID: What is Esperanto? Thanks, Susan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 30 03:38:53 2001 From: LanceDM at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M. Lance) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 21:38:53 -0600 Subject: /hw/, herb & hw- Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: > I'm not so sure the /h/ in 'herb' is totally gone or simply > idiolectal. I've heard it here in southern Ohio occasionally. In any > case, I've asked a native of the region to ask around and will report. I wonder whether those who want to declare h- and hw- dead, dead, dead are engaging in a little wishful thinking so that they won't have to be concerned about being "wrong" themselves. At least one hopes they aren't also wishing dead, dead, dead to apply to the producers of this quaint little spirant. (Just kidding.) When we've had discussions of hw- before on ads-l, and now too, it's pretty clear that this one (but maybe not hherb) is evanescing in a generalized language change that transcends regional dialect boundaries. I don't think for a New York minute that the media are the initiators of the change, because they would promote conservative usage if they could. When I hear relatives in Tennessee say the h- in the 3rd person neuter singular pronoun it seems like the articulation of this initial consonant is a little different from mine when I imitate their pronunciation. DMLance From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 29 14:41:11 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 22:41:11 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <32.fe8da4a.27a77cdf@aol.com> Message-ID: >Every year I'm amazed at how many of my freshmen and sophomores do not seem >to ever have heard that 'cannot' is written as one word. I can only >conclude that many high school teachers aren't aware of it either... so maybe >we're in the midst of a change-- I don't think any dictionaries list it as >two words? (Too lazy to look right now) > I'm not sure what you mean. When "can not" is two words, it wouldn't be listed in the dictionary any more than "could not" is. They do all list "cannot", often with (as I mentioned) the misleading gloss 'can not'. Not always, though--the AHD4 slyly glosses it as 'the negative form of "can".' "shouldn't", on the other hand, is glossed as 'the contraction of should not', which is right as far as it goes. (In particular, shouldn't is not normally the negative form of should, since both "You should do it" and "You shouldn't do it" can be simultaneously false, if it doesn't matter whether you do it or not.) As far as spelling "cannot" as one word with no spaces, that is I believe a somewhat higher-register thing to do, and as I was arguing earlier today it's never really obligatory, so if your students aren't doing it, it's hard to know what to conclude. larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 30 05:08:17 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 00:08:17 -0500 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: When I played basketball in grade school, south-central Kentucky, 1970 to 1973, we called these crib shots (or possibly crip shots; I never saw it spelled). John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Dick Heaberlin [SMTP:Heaberlin at SWT.EDU] > Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 3:09 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Crip shot > > I started playing basketball in 1945 and at that time what is now called > a lay up was called a "crip shot." I always assumed that it was short > for "cripple" since it was supposedly the easiest shot to make. What > interests me about this is why did such a useful phrase fall into > disuse. In my web search of it I found only four examples of it being > used, one about a Kentucky game in 1925 and another about a game in > 1948, one a comparison in a journalism professor's syllabus. I have > played basketball from 1945 till now, and yet I don't know when the > phrase quit being used. I don't even use it any more but the young > people I play with it don't use it either. Another term from the from > the forties was "radio man," which is the same as "snow bird." I still > hear "snow bird" occasionally. I am from the south and never understood > what a snow bird had to do with staying back on defense and waiting for > a long pass. "Radio man" made more sense as a metaphor to me. Does > anyone have any info on any of this? > > Dick Heaberlin > English Department > Southwest Texas State University > San Marcos, TX 78666 From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 06:00:51 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 00:00:51 -0600 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: I am doing English with Laurence Horn's remarks. My usual explanation of 'cannot' is that of a blackbird vs. a black bird. The practical explanation is about the emphasis on 'not'. I can not vs I cannot. I have another English language net group that is questioning 'cannot'. I do not have the ability to instruct no-ness. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 06:11:36 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 01:11:36 EST Subject: Milk Tea Message-ID: MILK TEA When I was in Japan, there were vending machines all over. Each one sold "milk tea." OED is revising "m," but I still don't see "milk tea." Most all of the Google hits come from Japan. "Milk tea" is about as rare in Australia as "iced tea." From CHEF D'OEUVRE (England; later titled THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY), Autumn 1955, pg. 37, col. 2: Here are some less orthodox but delightful ways of serving tea: ICED TEA (...) RUSSIAN TEA (...) TEA ICE (...) TEA PUNCH (...) TEA PARFAIT (...) MILK TEA Place 2 cups milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil. When bubbles appear at the edges, add 1 tsp. of tea. Do not allow it to boil for more than 1 minute, before straining it into a hot teapot. -------------------------------------------------------- EPICUREAN MONTHLY More from the same 1950s publication. Spring 1955. CHEF D'OEUVRE, pg. 66, col. 2--MONKEY GLAND STEAK. (Recipe follows--ed.) Spring 1955, CHEF D'OEUVRE, pg. 78, col. 1--Gloria (coffee with brandy in the place of milk)... (Pg. 77, col. 2 has "Gaelic Coffee"--ed.) January 1957, THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY, pg. 24 ad: ESPRESSO COFFEE This is where it started! Almost everyone in the country prefers Gaggia Espresso Coffee Machines. (...) THE ESPRESSO COMPANY (GAGGIA) LTD. 10 DEAN STREET LONDON W1 GERRARD June 1957, THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY, pg. 24, col. 2: LOBSTER A LA NEWBURG In spite of the "a la" connotation this is not a French dish. It is strictly of American origin. The story goes that around the turn of the century when Delmonico's was one of the few top restaurants in New York City where gourmets, connoisseurs of fine food, made their headquarters, this dish saw light of day. One of the discriminating patrons was a physician whose wealthy clients enabled him to dine there regularly. The menus in Delmonico's were in French as was customary in metropolitan cities all over the civilized world in that era. The good doctor was very fond of lobster and instructed his waiter one day how he would like his favourite crustacean prepared and served, previously cooked, lobster tail cut in slices, sauteed in butter and served in a sauce similar to Terrapin Maryland sauce. This request was duly passed on to the chef who instructed the fish cook accordingly. The order was made with meticulous care and the lobster tail chunks were served in a rich sauce consisting of sweet cream, thickened with egg yolks and finished with a dash of dry sherry. The chef promptly added the new concotion on the menu as "Homard a la Neuberg" because that was the doctor's name. However, Doctor Neuberg strenuously objected to having his name identified on the menu in connection with a dish. Therefore it was changed to Newburg. There is a town by the name of Newburgh in New York state so no objections could be made. Now we find Lobster Newburg, which should be served in a chafing dish all over the country. Of course some unavoidable changes have been made, the cut up lobster claws are also used and cream sauce is used to prevent curdling, particularly when made in advance as a du jour dish, or for parties. A sprinkling of paprika is used to effect a pinkish colour and hot toast is always served with this dish. We also find Shrimps a la Newburg and other seafood served Newburg style. (THIS IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY! The familiar one is about patron Ben Wenburg, and how the dish was changed to Newburg after an argument. Doctor "Neuberg" is a new variation to me--ed.) September 1957, THE EPICUREAN MONTHLY, pg. 11, col. 2: VICHYSSOISE SOUP'S CREATOR DIES AT 72 (Story about Louis Diat, reprinted from the DAILY TELEGRAPH, 31 August 1957--ed.) From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 30 06:59:42 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 00:59:42 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: >From: James Smith >My wife, born and raised Utah, has always used "sh" >rather than "sk" to pronounce "schedule"; however, >"sk" is the typical pronunciation in Utah. Such things are possible when you are Mormon. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From rkm at SLIP.NET Tue Jan 30 07:31:08 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 23:31:08 -0800 Subject: Milk Tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Has "bubble" tea been going around? It's tea and milk and sugar and tapioca balls about half an inch in diameter. One drinks it through a very large straw, big enough to suck up the tapioca balls. There is an Asian mall near me that sells a lot of it - but since it's a Pan-Asian mall, I think it's Taiwanese primarily, but I'm not sure. Rima From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Tue Jan 30 07:50:15 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 23:50:15 -0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <200101291620.KAA01379@disney.cs.msstate.edu> Message-ID: Is it because cannot is the only one where the vowel in the modal verb becomes (can become) a schwa? This would make it more natural to spell it as one word. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > Of Natalie Maynor > Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:21 AM > > A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is > usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't. > Is there an answer? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 09:09:27 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 04:09:27 EST Subject: Personal Computer (May/June 1959); Magic Brains; MRO Message-ID: PERSONAL COMPUTER OED has the late 1970s for "personal computer." "Your 'Personal Computer' for Higher Creativity" is in an ad by EAI Electronic Associates Inc., Long Branch, NJ, in DATAMATION, May/June 1959, pg. 29. DATAMATION ran a series called "All About Paper Tape" in July/August and September/October 1959. No "chad," but all of the tape machines are shown. -------------------------------------------------------- MAGIC BRAINS & COMPOSERS OF SAUSAGE RECIPES From DATAMATION, May 1961, pg. 17: As a national voice for information processing, it is hoped that the public image of the profession will be swayed from "magic brains" and "composers of sausage recipes" to a more realistic concept of the contributions of computing. -------------------------------------------------------- MRO MRO=Maintenance, Repair, and Operations. Another "m" not in the OED. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 09:44:45 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:44:45 +0000 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <3A761722.B0E48E52@corn.cso.niu.edu> Message-ID: --On Monday, January 29, 2001 7:21 pm -0600 Mike Salovesh wrote: > Illustration: > This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned > that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about > half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant > tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world > around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much > as his better-known contributions to linguistics. I assume that by 'Chicago' you mean 'the University of Chicago' (or maybe 'the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago). Hamp may be influential, but I doubt he's _that_ influential! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From wells at PHONETICS.UCL.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 10:23:25 2001 From: wells at PHONETICS.UCL.AC.UK (John Wells) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:23:25 +0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Tony Glaser kindly forwarded me a posting from ads-l. > In his Pronouncing Dictionary of 1990, J.C. Wells >says under "schedule": "The AmE pronunciation with >-sk is starting to be heard in BrE." It would be >interesting to see what the second edition has to >say about this change in progress Easy! Consult the second edition. It has been on the market for nine months. It reports that in the 1998 British poll /sk-/ was preferred by two-thirds of the under-25 respondents. But for all age-groups combined it remains a minority preference, with less than a third of the votes. More at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/poll98.htm and at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/lpd2.htm . John Wells From barry at MS12.URL.COM.TW Sun Jan 28 12:19:20 2001 From: barry at MS12.URL.COM.TW (=?big5?B?tsCnu7hT?=) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 20:19:20 +0800 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE Message-ID: UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Tue Jan 30 12:37:32 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 07:37:32 -0500 Subject: still more tron Message-ID: Roger Ebert's latest missive from Sundance includes a bit about Errol Morris, the documentarian, and the upgrade to his "Interrotron", the "Megatron": http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-feature/sun30.html bkd From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 30 13:16:34 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:16:34 -0500 Subject: Milk Tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: > Has "bubble" tea been going around? I think I saw an article in some Boston paper about how that's the rage out in California now... I don't think the actual drink has made it here yet (still?). --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 00:46:05 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:46:05 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:00 AM -0600 1/30/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >I am doing English with Laurence Horn's remarks. > >My usual explanation of 'cannot' is that of a blackbird vs. a black bird. > >The practical explanation is about the emphasis on 'not'. I can not vs I >cannot. > >I have another English language net group that is questioning 'cannot'. I do >not have the ability to instruct no-ness. > >_________________________________________________________________ I apologize if my remarks were un-Engliah or otherwise unnecessarily obscure. I do not, however, see that "cannot" has the invariant primary stress of "blackbird". The "emphasis" on 'not' will come and go dependiing on the speaker and the following material (in particular, the stress pattern on the main verb), while "blackbird" (the species noun) always has primary (compound) stress. In fact, the only reliable parallel between "cannot" and "blackbird" on the one hand and between "can not" and "black bird" on the other is the space in the spelling. Larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 13:43:21 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:43:21 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE Message-ID: >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society ===== >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE New word? Bethany From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 00:59:28 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:59:28 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:50 PM -0800 1/29/01, Benjamin Barrett wrote: >?Is it because cannot is the only one where the vowel in the modal verb >becomes (can become) a schwa? This would make it more natural to spell it as >one word. > >Benjamin Barrett >gogaku at ix.netcom.com Sounds plausible--we should probably also worry about the variants in Scotland (esp. in Shetland) of the form "shouldna", "wouldna", "dinna", "canna", etc., all with schwas and spelled as one word. larry (Checking the OED for "cannot", we find 'the ordinary modern writing of can not', which is clearly not quite sufficient.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 13:56:54 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:56:54 -0500 Subject: Personal Computer (May/June 1959); Magic Brains; MRO In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > PERSONAL COMPUTER > > OED has the late 1970s for "personal computer." > "Your 'Personal Computer' for Higher Creativity" is in an ad by EAI > Electronic Associates Inc., Long Branch, NJ, in DATAMATION, May/June > 1959, pg. 29. This is an outstanding antedating. I recently published an article in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, entitled "Origin of the Term _Personal Computer_," in which I traced the term back to 1968. Barry's citation above is obviously a major advance. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM Tue Jan 30 14:25:23 2001 From: gbarrett at MONICKELS.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:25:23 +0100 Subject: Esperanto Message-ID: On mercredi 31 janvier 2001 03:45, susan wrote: > >What is Esperanto? >Thanks, >Susan It's a drink made of coffee, tea, rum, milk, cocoa and water that pilots use to stay awake on the Hong Kong-New York nonstop run, invented by Chinese-Jamaican Qu Williams Shankang in 1968 when he misread the instructions on a packet of Swiss Miss. It has the simultaneous effects of keeping a pilot awake, drunk and thinking about his mother. Yahoo, amazingly enough, has a whole section devoted to it: http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=esperanto -- Grant Barrett New York loves you back. http://www.worldnewyork.org/ From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 30 14:33:22 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:33:22 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: <3A7AB2B0@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society > ===== > >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE > > New word? Unsubscribe is in AHD4. --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 01:56:23 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:56:23 +0800 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:33 AM -0500 1/30/01, Steve K. wrote: >On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >> >===== Original Message From American Dialect Society >> >> ===== >> >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE >> >> New word? > >Unsubscribe is in AHD4. > >--- Steve K. Ah, but not "unsubsribe". larry From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 30 15:01:03 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:01:03 -0500 Subject: "Chain shift" defined Message-ID: ...by a student taking my Language and Society course: chain shift is what happens when "a word is mispronounced and over time it gets worse". I trust all you people participating in the Northern Cities or in the Southern shifts will take note and mend your ways. -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From P2052 at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 15:05:26 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:05:26 EST Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: To distinguish it from the emphatic "can NOT"? e.g. A) "She cannot sing." [neg. ASSERTION] vs. B) "She can not [NOT] sing." (1.DENIAL [She does not have my permission to do so] or 2. DISAGREEMENT [I disagree with your assertion that she can.]) I think, thus, that this spelling distinction (cannot/can not) reflects, or, rather, parallels the pragmatic distinction between asserted (new) vs. presupposed (familiar) information and, most importantly, the scope of negation. In (A), the scope is the lexical verb, "sing." The presupposed or familiar information, the subject "she," is not included; only the singing is under the scope of negation . The subject, "she," might have the ability, or permission, to do engage in other activities. In (B), the scope of negation is ambiguous in that its boundary can be any or all of the affirmative statement [both presupposed and asserted information]. Consequently, the scope of negation can be either the presupposed information [subject, "she,"] as in, NOT She can sing [Someone else is able to or has permission to'], or the entire proposition [The speaker disagrees with the assertion that "she" can sing], or only the new, asserted information, e.g. NOT can sing [The subject either does not have the ability or has not been granted permission to do so]. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stevek at SHORE.NET Tue Jan 30 15:11:31 2001 From: stevek at SHORE.NET (Steve K.) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:11:31 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > Ah, but not "unsubsribe". D'OH! And I do so want to be subsribben. --- Steve K. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 02:31:04 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:31:04 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <78.fdbf395.27a83236@aol.com> Message-ID: At 10:05 AM -0500 1/30/01, P2052 at AOL.COM wrote: >To distinguish it from the emphatic "can NOT"? >e.g. A) "She cannot sing." [neg. ASSERTION] > vs. > B) "She can not [NOT] sing." (1.DENIAL [She does not have my >permission to > do so] or 2. DISAGREEMENT [I disagree with your assertion that she >can.]) > >I think, thus, that this spelling distinction (cannot/can not) reflects, or, >rather, parallels the pragmatic distinction between asserted (new) vs. >presupposed (familiar) information and, most importantly, the scope of >negation. In (A), the scope is the lexical verb, "sing." The presupposed or >familiar information, the subject "she," is not included; only the singing is >under the scope of negation . The subject, "she," might have the ability, or >permission, to do engage in other activities. In (B), the scope of negation >is ambiguous in that its boundary can be any or all of the affirmative >statement [both presupposed and asserted information]. Consequently, the >scope of negation can be either the presupposed information [subject, >"she,"] as in, NOT She can sing [Someone else is able to or has permission >to'], or the entire proposition [The speaker disagrees with the assertion >that "she" can sing], or only the new, asserted information, e.g. NOT can >sing [The subject either does not have the ability or has not been granted >permission to do so]. Let's assume these observations are all correct. I still don't see how they are more applicable to "CAN + NOT" than they are to "COULD + NOT", but we can't spell the latter as a single item "couldnot". That's why I think there's a certain amount of arbitrariness here. The one persistent difference is the phonology--the fact that "cannot" can, but "could not" cannot, be pronounced with stress on the first syllable and, when it is, with the second vowel reduced to schwa. (Not that it MUST be, but that it CAN be.) But what led to these possibilities? larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 15:47:20 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:47:20 EST Subject: Esperanto Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/01 9:53:25 PM, mssmith at BOONE.NET writes: << What is Esperanto? Thanks, Susan >> Esperanto is a town in Baja California, as I am sure your DESKTOP dictionary will tell you. From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Tue Jan 30 15:54:14 2001 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:54:14 -0500 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 21:31 Subject: Re: The Spelling of Cannot > Let's assume these observations are all correct. I still don't see > how they are more applicable to "CAN + NOT" than they are to "COULD + > NOT", but we can't spell the latter as a single item "couldnot". > That's why I think there's a certain amount of arbitrariness here. > The one persistent difference is the phonology--the fact that > "cannot" can, but "could not" cannot, be pronounced with stress on > the first syllable and, when it is, with the second vowel reduced to > schwa. (Not that it MUST be, but that it CAN be.) But what led to > these possibilities? There's also the presence of various letter doublings in English spelling: ll,ss,tt,oo,ee, and of course, nn. Perhaps it's less a matter of phonetics and meanings than following already present spelling conventions? And I haven't seen many -ldn- or -lln- letter combinations... bkd From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 16:15:16 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:15:16 -0500 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE Message-ID: >> >UNSUBSRIBE ME PLEASE >> >> New word? > >Unsubscribe is in AHD4. > >--- Steve K. How about "unsubsribe"? Bethany From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Tue Jan 30 16:19:56 2001 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:19:56 -0600 Subject: Computer Proverbs In-Reply-To: <49.6bf2cab.27a7752e@aol.com> Message-ID: Are we still doing computer proverbs/phrases? I ran across a good one this morning: DNFTEC: "Do Not Feed The Energy Creature" i.e., don't respond to someone who is obviously trolling or looking for argument. I think this might have a SF background; it sounds vaguely Trekkerish. Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Tue Jan 30 16:34:08 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:34:08 -0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Non-prestige dialects can (probably) be disregarded as they don't set the spelling standards. Benjamin Barrett -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Laurence Horn At 11:50 PM -0800 1/29/01, I wrote: Is it because cannot is the only one where the vowel in the modal verb becomes (can become) a schwa? This would make it more natural to spell it as one word. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com Sounds plausible--we should probably also worry about the variants in Scotland (esp. in Shetland) of the form "shouldna", "wouldna", "dinna", "canna", etc., all with schwas and spelled as one word. larry From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 30 16:48:16 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:48:16 -0500 Subject: "Chain shift" defined Message-ID: I'm sure glad I escaped Michigan before the NCVS spread into rural areas south of Detroit. I can only feel sorry for Dennis, who grew up in one and is surrounded by the other. Herb >>> mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU 01/30/01 10:01AM >>> ...by a student taking my Language and Society course: chain shift is what happens when "a word is mispronounced and over time it gets worse". I trust all you people participating in the Northern Cities or in the Southern shifts will take note and mend your ways. -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 03:51:24 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:51:24 +0800 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot In-Reply-To: <045f01c08ad4$e5773ab0$8a70cec0@graphnet.com> Message-ID: At 10:54 AM -0500 1/30/01, Bruce Dykes wrote: >There's also the presence of various letter doublings in English spelling: >ll,ss,tt,oo,ee, and of course, nn. Perhaps it's less a matter of phonetics >and meanings than following already present spelling conventions? > >And I haven't seen many -ldn- or -lln- letter combinations... > >bkd unless you count "couldn't", "wouldn't", "shouldn't", etc., but of course these wear their contraction status on their sleeves. (Although there's a convincing case made by Zwicky and Pullum back in their 1983 Language article that these are all inflected negatives rather than true contractions or clitic combos.) larry From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 30 16:58:24 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:58:24 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Erin's finding is similar to the "Please do not feed the trolls" statement at Steve Gibson's site: [emphasis is on DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS] http://grc.com/discussions.htm George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 17:17:41 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:17:41 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: <26445.3189836685@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 09:44 AM 1/30/01 +0000, you wrote: >--On Monday, January 29, 2001 7:21 pm -0600 Mike Salovesh > wrote: >>Illustration: >>This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned >>that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about >>half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant >>tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world >>around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much >>as his better-known contributions to linguistics. > >I assume that by 'Chicago' you mean 'the University of Chicago' (or maybe >'the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago). Hamp may be >influential, but I doubt he's _that_ influential! > >Lynne >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 And why would Hamp's promotion of /SH/ "merit recognition and congratulation"? I assume you're just joshing. . . . Incidentally, a former grad student from England e-mailed me to say she's "a /sk/ gal" (24 or 25 yrs old, London-born, daughter of an ESL teacher who's ultra-prescriptive, and an ESL teacher herself). _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 17:33:26 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:33:26 -0500 Subject: schedule --pronunciation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:59 AM 1/30/01 -0600, you wrote: >>From: James Smith > >>My wife, born and raised Utah, has always used "sh" >>rather than "sk" to pronounce "schedule"; however, >>"sk" is the typical pronunciation in Utah. > >Such things are possible when you are Mormon. >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com What does this mean??? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 17:47:26 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:47:26 -0500 Subject: Big Blue Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> I don't have any citations handy, but the 1984 date for IBM is too late. By 1984 the "Big Blue" nickname was so well known that a maker of an add-on board for the IBM PC used the name "Baby Blue" for its product. I believe "Big Blue" refers to the fact that at the time blue was the most common color for the side panels of IBM mainframes. (It was not the only color available. At an installation where I worked in the late 1960's, a colleague from Bombay India nicknamed our mainframe as the "Orange Baron" because its side panels were orange.) <<<<< I always associated it with the IBM logotype, which was always printed in blue when color was available (as opposed to, say, b&w newspaper ads). -- Mark A. Mandel From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 17:58:32 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:58:32 -0500 Subject: /hw/, herb & hw- In-Reply-To: <3A76374C.A47E1151@missouri.edu> Message-ID: At 09:38 PM 1/29/01 -0600, you wrote: >Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > I'm not so sure the /h/ in 'herb' is totally gone or simply > > idiolectal. I've heard it here in southern Ohio occasionally. In any > > case, I've asked a native of the region to ask around and will report. > >I wonder whether those who want to declare h- and hw- dead, dead, dead are >engaging in a >little wishful thinking so that they won't have to be concerned about >being "wrong" >themselves. At least one hopes they aren't also wishing dead, dead, dead >to apply to the >producers of this quaint little spirant. (Just kidding.) When we've had >discussions of >hw- before on ads-l, and now too, it's pretty clear that this one (but >maybe not hherb) is >evanescing in a generalized language change that transcends regional >dialect boundaries. >I don't think for a New York minute that the media are the initiators of >the change, >because they would promote conservative usage if they could. When I hear >relatives in >Tennessee say the h- in the 3rd person neuter singular pronoun it seems >like the >articulation of this initial consonant is a little different from mine >when I imitate >their pronunciation. >DMLance To follow up on this: I too occasionally hear "hit" here in southern Ohio, from older/rural/males generally, but I won't be absolute on this. When I ask about it in class, my students admit with some embarrassment that their "grandpa or uncle" says it. It seems to me I've only heard it sentence-initially or after a pause; is the /h/ pretty generally lost mid-sentence, or only after a consonant? _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 17:56:24 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:56:24 -0500 Subject: No subject Message-ID: dInIs corrects me thus: >>>>> >If you confuse the UK with England, /hw/ is deader (at least for >many parts) than in the US, but if you take a somewhat larger (and >politically correct) view, it's not even slightly ill (or should I >say sick). <<<<< Mngph. All right, right you are. Serves me right, I suppose, for confusing the norms we had at the time for what we internally called our "UK" product with the actual breadth of UK speech. -- Mark From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 18:01:42 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:01:42 -0500 Subject: "Like to" revisited Message-ID: I require many of my students to write "linguistic autobiographies" (an idea I borrowed from RIM many years ago). I just read this sentence from an undergradaate ("here" is Knoxville, TN): "Everybody here talks so differently than they do in Virginia. At times I have difficulty understanding certain sayings and words. For example, I'm fixen to, I ain't gonna, I reckon, and I liked to died." Bethany From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 17:59:59 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:59:59 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: James Landau writes: >>>>> P.S. On a different topic. I once perpetrated the following sentence: [In reference to the Historia Matematica mailing list] "I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? If so, then it is possible to have the word "is" twice in a row without it having to be in quotes. However, it must be admitted that in response to that sentence I received an e-mail from Germany politely requesting me to translate it into English. <<<<< IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat challenging to the reader. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 18:01:43 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:01:43 -0500 Subject: The Spelling of Cannot Message-ID: Dale Coye writes: >>>>> Every year I'm amazed at how many of my freshmen and sophomores do not seem to ever have heard that 'cannot' is written as one word. I can only conclude that many high school teachers aren't aware of it either... so maybe we're in the midst of a change-- I don't think any dictionaries list it as two words? (Too lazy to look right now) <<<<< Some of the blame may belong to the popular fantasy writer Piers Anthony, who always spells it "can not". That is among the many habits of his that have ceased to bother me since I quit reading him. -- Mark A. Mandel From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Tue Jan 30 18:05:38 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:05:38 -0500 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) Message-ID: Mike Salovesh writes: >>>>> Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps even a dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts save basketball. An additional handful of Hamp- influenced scholars may not go quite that far, but still use the s/k alternation in "celtic" as a case of the kentum/chentum/sentum/tsentum lines of dialect separation in European languages. <<<<< Well, here in the Boston area there is plenty of Celtic music on the radio, always /'kEl.tIk/. But, of course, this *is* the home of the Boston /'sEl.tIks/. >>>>> P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the obvious? <<<<< */'kEl.tIs/ ??????? -- Mark From Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM Tue Jan 30 18:34:56 2001 From: Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM (Wilcox, Rose (ZB5646)) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:34:56 -0700 Subject: Crip shot Message-ID: I remember in Highschool in central east Illinois we call them crib shots too. That would be 1972-1976. I thought then that it was related to "cribbing" such as cribbing on a test... something that made the shot easier, kind of mild cheating. Rosie << When I played basketball in grade school, south-central Kentucky, 1970 to 1973, we called these crib shots (or possibly crip shots; I never saw it spelled). John Baker >> From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 18:48:25 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:48:25 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. Message-ID: Tony Glaser wrote: > And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care > less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even > when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in > England, or the former in the US. > > Tony Glaser Now isn't that funny... I've always thought "I could care less" was the original Yiddishism or Yinglish, with the negative inserted by people who didn't know the 22421 intonation pattern (using the old Trager-Smith notation). --db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 30 18:50:08 2001 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:50:08 -0500 Subject: Big Blue Message-ID: IBM either sued or talked about suing a software distribution organization that was known as Big Blue Software, with the time period being late-1980s to early-1990s. Should be a discussion of the issue in some database. IBM's contention was that it was widely known as Big Blue, even though it frowned on the use of that phrase in reference to IBM. Several computer news columnists noted that when they had used Big Blue, as a reference to IBM, there was usually a quick response from IBM, to the effect that the columnist was incorrect in the use of such a phrase. It was felt that 'Big Blue' did not present the image of a small personal organization, as much as it presented the image of a large omnivorous entity. Apparently, IBM had never formally filed paperwork on the Big Blue trademark. I seem to remember that IBM based its claim on the Big Blue name on prior usage, in which Big Blue was used in reference to IBM. IBM provided numerous citations of such earlier usage. I don't know if IBM has a bulletin that provides the history of Big Blue, but there should be a database, somewhere, that contains information about the legal claims. In one of those Big Company vs. Tiny Company legal situations, I think that Big Blue Software agreed to discontinue its use of the Big Blue name, and IBM agreed to let them do that. George S. Cole gscole at ark.ship.edu Shippensburg University From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 18:56:21 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:56:21 +0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <3A770C6F.6481DC64@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:48 pm -0500 David Bergdahl wrote: > Tony Glaser wrote: > >> And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care >> less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even >> when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in >> England, or the former in the US. Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most (I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when they come across it. M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 30 19:36:45 2001 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:36:45 -0500 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) Message-ID: I've long wondered about the pronunciation of "celtic" with an initial k. Why should "celtic" be pronounced differently from any other word anglicized from Latin? Of course, regardless of the pronunciation, there was no justification for the basketball team's nouning of an adjective. The Boston team should have been named the Celts. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM [SMTP:Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:06 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) > > Mike Salovesh writes: > > >>>>> > Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps even a > dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is > properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts save basketball. > An additional handful of Hamp- influenced scholars may not go quite that > far, but still use the s/k alternation in "celtic" as a case of the > kentum/chentum/sentum/tsentum lines of dialect separation in European > languages. > <<<<< > > Well, here in the Boston area there is plenty of Celtic music on the > radio, > always /'kEl.tIk/. But, of course, this *is* the home of the Boston > /'sEl.tIks/. > > >>>>> > P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", > unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic > is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the > obvious? > <<<<< > > */'kEl.tIs/ ??????? > > -- Mark From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 06:43:35 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:43:35 +0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <2017239.3189869781@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 6:56 PM +0000 1/30/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:48 pm -0500 David Bergdahl > wrote: > >>Tony Glaser wrote: >> >>>And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care >>>less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even >>>when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in >>>England, or the former in the US. > >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >they come across it. Now, now, Lynne, your prescriptivism's showing. What's wrong with a little creative (if by now conventionalized) irony? As David Bergdahl just pointed out (and as Pinker discusses in _The Language Instinct_), 'could care less' isn't just 'couldn't care less' with a forgotten negation, it has a completely different intonation contour (conveying irony/sarcasm) and, if anything, corresponds more closely to "As if I could care less". American English teachers might point this out rather than simply "correcting" it, but they may be too busy convincing the same students that "As if" is not a full sentence. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 06:51:28 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:51:28 +0800 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:36 PM -0500 1/30/01, Baker, John wrote: > I've long wondered about the pronunciation of "celtic" with an >initial k. Why should "celtic" be pronounced differently from any other >word anglicized from Latin? > > Of course, regardless of the pronunciation, there was no >justification for the basketball team's nouning of an adjective. The Boston >team should have been named the Celts. > >John Baker > FWIW, the Catholic football (= soccer) team in Glasgow is the Celtic (not the Celts, and not a plural noun), pronounced [KEL-tIk]. (The Protestant team is the Rangers.) larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Tue Jan 30 20:19:05 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:19:05 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. Message-ID: >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >they come across it. Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence containing /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. Bethany From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 30 20:25:28 2001 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:25:28 EST Subject: query--dictionaries and heterosexism Message-ID: A query from someone on another list: I've just finished reading 'Language and Desire', a selection of essays edited by Keith Harvey and Celia Shalom and published by Routledge in 1997. One of the essays is by Harvey himself: '"Everybody loves a lover": gay men, straight men, and a problem of lexical choice'. It discusses and contrasts the terms gay and straight men use to describe their partners/SOs/boyfriends, etc. I was struck by Harvey's statement that "unsurprisingly, in no dictionary that I have consulted does a gay example occur under the headwords 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'lover', 'partner', etc.". Is that still the case? From natebrown1 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 30 20:38:37 2001 From: natebrown1 at JUNO.COM (Nathan H Brown) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:38:37 -0500 Subject: herb; /hw/ Message-ID: Here in Schenectady New York, I've heard a few people saying "herb" with the "h;" it seems to be a half-educated spelling pronunciation. The majority of people say "erb." Most well-educated people here say "erb;" some people seem to be conscious that saying /h3Rb/ is "wrong," and correct people who say it. Apparently the high-priced garden club influence hasn't helped disseminate the "h" pronunciation here. I can remember, as a child, that I said "erb" before I learned to read. Around age six or seven, I started to sound the "h;" I had seen it in writing and I thought that it was more correct to say the "h." But then my mom corrected me, and I went back to "erb." As for the /hw/ cluster, in Schenectady and Utica NY, and in New York City, as far as I can tell, everyone of all ages uses a plain /w/ in all styles of speech. Most people aren't even conscious that it's possible to say these words with /hw/, and many people can't hear the difference. Further north, in the Adirondacks, there's some generational differences--older people say /hw/, younger ones say /w/. I've noticed that ex-President Clinton usually sounds the /h/ in these words. However, with "what," he often just uses /w/. Hillary just uses /w/, as do (or did) all of the Kennedys. Most Californians I've talked to or heard talk also use a plain /w/; almost all of the younger ones do. I can't really speak for northern California, though; almost all of the Californians I've listened to are from southern California. From rkm at SLIP.NET Tue Jan 30 21:42:53 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:42:53 -0800 Subject: UNSUBSRIBE In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote: > >> Ah, but not "unsubsribe". > >D'OH! > >And I do so want to be subsribben. > >--- Steve K But, I trust, not in public... Rima From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 30 21:58:36 2001 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:58:36 -0500 Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: Which somehow reminded me of one of my all-time favorite comp sci sayings: "Always mount a scratch monkey." The backstory goes like this: In the late '70s (?), a research monkey at the Univ. of Toronto was hooked up to a regulator inside of a water tank (testing the effects of different gas mixtures on the animal's physiology). A tech, working on a computer connected to the monkey, inadvertantly damaged something associated with the experiment and the monkey died. The moral of the story is that you should always make sure you know what you're doing to things "downstream" when you're working on something "upstream." Erin McKean wrote: > > Are we still doing computer proverbs/phrases? I ran across a good one > this morning: > > DNFTEC: "Do Not Feed The Energy Creature" i.e., don't respond to > someone who is obviously trolling or looking for argument. I think > this might have a SF background; it sounds vaguely Trekkerish. > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:12:33 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:12:33 -0500 Subject: Big Blue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: > I don't have any citations handy, but the 1984 date for IBM is too late. > By > 1984 the "Big Blue" nickname was so well known that a maker of an add-on > board for the IBM PC used the name "Baby Blue" for its product. I believe > "Big Blue" refers to the fact that at the time blue was the most common > color > for the side panels of IBM mainframes. (It was not the only color > available. This is the earliest citation from Nexis: 1981 _Business Week_ 8 June (Nexis) "I don't want to be saying I should have stuck with 'Big Blue,'" says one IBM loyalist. The nickname comes from the pervasiveness of IBM's blue computers. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Simon at IPFW.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:21:05 2001 From: Simon at IPFW.EDU (Simon,Beth) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:21:05 -0500 Subject: Call for abstract, ADS @ M/MLA Message-ID: Dear ADS Members and Interested Others, CALL FOR ABSTRACTS AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY SESSION 43nd Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association November 1-3, 2001 Sheraton Cleveland City Centre Cleveland, OH Submit abstracts, 250 word maximum, for presentations at the American Dialect Society session. Topic: Current Research Submission deadline: March 5 Email submission preferred. Email to simon at ipfw.edu Fax: 219-481-6985 Mail: Professor Beth Simon, Dept of English & Linguistics, IPFW, Fort Wayne, IN 46805-1499 Cordially, Beth Simon, Midwest Regional Secretary, ADS Associate Professor, Linguistics and English Indiana University Purdue University simon at ipfw.edu For information about the M/MLA and the 2001 meeting see www.uiowa.edu\~mmla From Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:36:01 2001 From: Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:36:01 -0600 Subject: Spot? Message-ID: I've heard it used that way in the Southern US. In fact I think I may have used "spot" as "pimple." Maybe I shouldn't admit it. I'll ask my mostly Southern linguistics class tonight. Lesa Dill Western Kentucky University From Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:50:58 2001 From: Lesa.Dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:50:58 -0600 Subject: Some data on herb, /hw-/ Message-ID: I've always thought it was strange that the Southern expression "Why!" as in "Why, bless my soul!" was pronounced [waI] but the question was [hwaI]. That distinction has been around for a long time. And I too have observed that hw is disappearing in the South, but I'm 43 and still have it--always have. Lesa Dill Western Kentucky Univ. From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 30 20:18:08 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:18:08 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:59:59 -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM writes: > > IMHO, grammatical beyond question, I concur. But how do I convince my Spell Checker? D From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 30 18:41:27 2001 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:41:27 -0500 Subject: Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation) Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:05:38 -0500 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM writes:\ > Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps > even a > dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is > properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts Almost all. I have sitting on my desk a celt -- always pronounced selt -- which is a mesolithic stone tool like an ax head, used to gouge out wood as in making a dugout canoe. Different etymology from the Celts, one of which is also sitting at my desk. D From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 30 22:57:16 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:57:16 -0500 Subject: herb; /hw/ In-Reply-To: <20010130.153838.-3964389.0.natebrown1@juno.com> Message-ID: At 03:38 PM 1/30/01 -0500, you wrote: >Here in Schenectady New York, I've heard a few people saying "herb" with >the "h;" it seems to be a half-educated spelling pronunciation. The >majority of people say "erb." Most well-educated people here say "erb;" >some people seem to be conscious that saying /h3Rb/ is "wrong," and >correct people who say it. Apparently the high-priced garden club >influence hasn't helped disseminate the "h" pronunciation here. I can >remember, as a child, that I said "erb" before I learned to read. Around >age six or seven, I started to sound the "h;" I had seen it in writing >and I thought that it was more correct to say the "h." But then my mom >corrected me, and I went back to "erb." > >As for the /hw/ cluster, in Schenectady and Utica NY, and in New York >City, as far as I can tell, everyone of all ages uses a plain /w/ in all >styles of speech. Most people aren't even conscious that it's possible to >say these words with /hw/, and many people can't hear the difference. >Further north, in the Adirondacks, there's some generational >differences--older people say /hw/, younger ones say /w/. I've noticed >that ex-President Clinton usually sounds the /h/ in these words. However, >with "what," he often just uses /w/. Hillary just uses /w/, as do (or >did) all of the Kennedys. Most Californians I've talked to or heard talk >also use a plain /w/; almost all of the younger ones do. I can't really >speak for northern California, though; almost all of the Californians >I've listened to are from southern California. I want to make clear that the /h/ pronunciation for 'herb' that I hear in southern Ohio is not an issue of educated vs. uneducated people, or even of pseudo-sophisticated (the Martha Stewart type) vs. not hip. This is basically a regional feature, and while it may be disappearing, it can still be mapped, I think. I'm also not surprised that older people in the Adirondacks still have /hw/, as do some yet in these Appalachian foothills. Clinton's 50-something generation (in the Ozark extension of the mountains) has lost it but inconsistently (a student just reminded me that Dan Rather, 65-ish, has /hw/ pretty consistently, so much so that he once generalized it to speak of Diana, Princess of /hwelz/). Hillary, as a Chicagoan, never had it; nor do New Englanders or those in the vast general West. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Tue Jan 30 23:54:35 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:54:35 +0000 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <3A7ED178@webmail.utk.edu> from "Bethany K. Dumas" at Jan 30, 2001 03:19:05 PM Message-ID: > > >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most > >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when > >they come across it. > > Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence > containing > /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't spell phonetically in English most of the time. But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you mean "I couldn't carry it". As Hans Hock was fond of saying in my historical lx class, phonological reduction has to be balanced with semantic preservation, else all languages would evolve toward expressing everything as "uh" (for lack of a schwa on my keyboard). Lynne M From patty0278 at FAST.NET Wed Jan 31 00:13:27 2001 From: patty0278 at FAST.NET (Patty Jones) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:13:27 -0500 Subject: mailings Message-ID: Please remove my name from futher mailings. I don't know how I got on in the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 31 00:23:23 2001 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:23:23 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member Message-ID: Elizabeth Bogner and Jesse Sheidlower take great pleasure in announcing the birth of Noa Catherine Sheidlower 30 January 2001 6 lb., 8 oz., 19" long Mother, daughter, father, and sister Maisie are all doing fine. Best, Jesse Sheidlower OED From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 11:38:10 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:38:10 +0800 Subject: herb; /hw/ In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010130174105.020be4b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 5:57 PM -0500 1/30/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> > >I want to make clear that the /h/ pronunciation for 'herb' that I hear in >southern Ohio is not an issue of educated vs. uneducated people, or even of >pseudo-sophisticated (the Martha Stewart type) vs. not hip. This is >basically a regional feature, and while it may be disappearing, it can >still be mapped, I think. I'm also not surprised that older people in the >Adirondacks still have /hw/, as do some yet in these Appalachian >foothills. Clinton's 50-something generation (in the Ozark extension of >the mountains) has lost it but inconsistently (a student just reminded me >that Dan Rather, 65-ish, has /hw/ pretty consistently, so much so that he >once generalized it to speak of Diana, Princess of /hwelz/). Hillary, as a >Chicagoan, never had it; nor do New Englanders or those in the vast general >West. > >_____________________________________________ This is a bit over-generalized. My wife, a 50-something New Englander, has hw- consistently. I, a 50-something New Yorker, do not (except in self-conscious correction contexts: "Was that [WE-dh at r] or [HWE-dh at r]?") larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 30 11:47:42 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:47:42 +0800 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:54 PM +0000 1/30/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: > > >> >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >> >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >> >they come across it. >> >> Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >> containing >> /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. > >Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't >spell phonetically in English most of the time. > >But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a >good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this >logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you >mean "I couldn't carry it". > >As Hans Hock was fond of saying in my historical lx class, phonological >reduction has to be balanced with semantic preservation, else all languages >would evolve toward expressing everything as "uh" (for lack of a schwa on >my keyboard). > I dispute the assumption that this IS a least-effort reduction, or you wouldn't have the difference in intonation patterns we were alluding to earlier today (again, see Pinker's anti-Safire chapter for a detailed account of this). Your objection here would be analogous not to a true least effort reduction (phone for telephone, bus for omnibus, OSU for The Ohio State University, PC for either personal communication or personal computer or politically correct, depending on the context), but to the use of "That was a great idea" or "You're a fine friend". Yes, in writing there may be some confusion, but not generally in spoken language or when there's a real context. And I'm not sure there's ever a context in which "I could care less" would be uttered when it would be intended literally rather than sarcastically. In any case, semantically relevant information is regularly omitted--think of anaphora, involving both null and overt pronouns. As you say (and as Paul, Zipf, Martinet, and other functionalists were fond of pointing out), there is a balance between speaker and hearer, but that balance isn't violated in the "I could care less" case. larry From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 31 00:43:36 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:43:36 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member Message-ID: Congratulations, Jesse et al! When do we get a photo of Noa Catherine? And what does Maisie look like now? Bethany From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:01:01 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:01:01 -0500 Subject: mailings In-Reply-To: <000a01c08b1a$a2feec00$fb0c5cd1@oemcomputer> Message-ID: Patty Jones said: >Please remove my name from futher mailings. I don't know how I got on in >the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net There's been a recent spate of these, from non-edu addresses. I know we all had a lot of fun speculating about general clue level, but is it possible that someone's forge-subscribing people to ADS-L? Jesse, Grant? Alice -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:03:34 2001 From: faber at ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:03:34 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower said: >Elizabeth Bogner and Jesse Sheidlower take great pleasure in >announcing the birth of > >Noa Catherine Sheidlower > >30 January 2001 >6 lb., 8 oz., 19" long > >Mother, daughter, father, and sister Maisie are all doing >fine. Mega-congratulations! Alice -- Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu From dumasb at UTK.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:10:11 2001 From: dumasb at UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:10:11 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. Message-ID: Lynne weote: >> >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >> >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >> >they come across it. >> >> Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >> containing >> /dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. > >Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't >spell phonetically in English most of the time. I was not thinking of writing, I was thinking of epeech. I have seldom seen "I could care less" in writing except in quoted dialogue. And: >But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a >good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this >logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you >mean "I couldn't carry it". A friend of mine (a linguist who does hang out here, so far as I know) tells the story of proposing to his wife and being momentarily uncerain whether she had said (softly), "I want to" or something like "I won't do it." Some of us do not need an excuse to leave out semantically relevant information! Bethany From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 01:49:41 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:49:41 EST Subject: Mostaccioli (1904); Creamed Spaghetti Message-ID: MOSTACCIOLI (1904) OED editors should note that little kids love "mostaccioli." The NYPL picks up with THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL in volume II (1904). July 1904, THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL, pg. 30, col. 2: LORENZ BROS. MACARONI CO., Milwaukee, Wis. (...) Mostaccioli or Cut Macaroni...6 1/4 cents (per lb.--ed.) July 1904, THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL, pg. 32, col. 1: MEMPHIS MACARONI CO., Memphis, Tenn. (...) Mostacioli, or short cut Macaroni, bulk...1.35 (per box--ed.) (...) Mostacioli, "Romeo," Short Cut Macaroni, 20 lb. box, bulk...1.10 Mostacioli, "Romeo," Short Cut Macaroni, 25 lb. box, bulk...1.37 1/2 -------------------------------------------------------- CREAMED SPAGHETTI ON TOAST From THE MACARONI AND NOODLE MANUFACTURERS' JOURNAL, June 1908, pg. 6, col. 2: At one of the well-known and fashionable New York restaurants recently, the chef served creamed spaghetti on toast and the "new" dish met with such a cordial welcome, it is likely it will be served in a number of public eating houses. The recipe for creamed spaghetti on toast is as follows:--Put a good-sized kettle over the fire and partly fill it with boiling water. Weigh six ounces of spaghetti; take a few pieces at a time, hold the ends in the boiling water for a moment; as soon as they soften, press slightly, so that all will be softened and in the water. Cover the kettle and boil rapidly for twenty minutes. Drain in a colander. Cut the spaghetti into tiny pieces. Put one rounding tablespoonful of flour and one of butter into a small sauce pan and mix over the fire until smooth, but do not brown. Add one-half of a pint of cream, stir (Pg. 7, col. 1--ed.) continually until boiling, take from the fire, add one-half of a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper and the! spaghetti. Place the saucepan over boiling water until the whole is well heated. Toast--and do not burn--the bread, butter it and pour over it the creamed spaghetti. Dust with grated cheese and serve. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:53:22 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:53:22 -0500 Subject: Schedule (sk-/sh-?) etc. etc. In-Reply-To: <3A7ED178@webmail.utk.edu> Message-ID: >I hope some of them English teachers come over to my house and make >me and my friends try to stop saying "I could care less" some >afternoon. dInIs (feelin his oats and could care less) > >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >>(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >>they come across it. > >Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >containing >/dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. > >Bethany -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 02:56:39 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:56:39 EST Subject: Beef Stroganoff Message-ID: OED has "Beef Stroganoff" from 1932, but the details of its origin are not given. This article indicates it first rose to fame from a Russian chef in Paris (1920s?). From THE INTERNATIONAL STEWARD, December 1935, pg. 70, col. 2: _St. Regis Hotel Boasts of Rival_ _for Fame of Chefs_ SEMPLICH IGNATOVICH CLAIMED BY HOTEL TO BE "FIND" OF COOKERY FIELD A RIVAL for the fame of Ranhofer, of Monselet and of Brillat-Savarin, in the realm of distinguished cookery, is Semplich Ignatovich (Not a single trace on a web search--ed.), whose dishes as created in the Maisonette Russe of the Hotel St. Regis would be difficult to surpass in any kitchen in the world today, according to the hotel. Once chef to the late Czar Nicholas II, this Russian's name, only three months known on these shores, has come to be synonymous with exotic, tantalizing cookery, in the opinion of B. S. Bercovici. His cooking is full of violent contrasts and discords, and yet it fascinates the American palate once it has become familiar with it. The name of Ignatovich's dishes are to be murmured by gourmet like a recitative of sweet symphonies. There are his Shashlik Caucasien, baby lamb brought in on a flaming skewer (originally a sword); Boeuf a la Stroganoff, a finely chopped filet mignon mixed with mushrooms, cream, fresh tomato puree, all cooked to a delicate rose tint; Poussin a la Broche, the most succulent of all small whole chickens, served also in flame; and blini, buckwheat pancakes served with melted butter, sour cream and caviar. Ignatovich came to New York when Madame Olga Tokaroff (Also no hits on NY Times Personal Name Index--ed.) brought the Maisonette Russe from Rue du Mont Thabor to Fifth Avenue. This boite, as it was first established in Paris, was the Russian woman refugee's dream of a grand salon to succor her exiled countrymen. That it fulfilled its mission is history in Paris. In October, the Maisonette Russe was brought in toto (chef, entertainers, atmosphere) to the Hotel St. Regis and was ensconced in the basement in a Scheherezade setting, inspired by designs from Leon (Col. 3--ed.) Bakst and by decorations from Colwell and Peferle. The distinguished chef suggests the method for preparing some of his more famous dishes: _Boeuf Strogonoff_ (Beef a la Strogonoff) 1 lb. lean beef (preferably the fillet) 1 pint of stock 2 tablespoons of sour cream 1 tablespoon tomato juice 1 tablespoon flour 1 tablespoon butter Onion, salt and pepper Cut the meat into inch squares, sprinkle freely with salt and a little pepper and let it stand for 2 hours. Brown the flour in the butter, work to a smooth paste, add the hot stock gradually, bring to the boil and strain. Then stir in the tomato juice and sour cream. Fry the meat in butter on a very quick fire with a little chopped onion. When brown put the pieces of meat in the sauce and simmer for 15 minutes. Bring to the boil, stirring well and serve at once. (Recipes for "Caucasian Shashlik" and "Blinis" follow--ed.) From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 31 03:07:39 2001 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:07:39 -0800 Subject: mailings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Like Alice, I have wondered the same thing from time to time. I don't read a lot of lists, but, I've never seen one where so many people get subscribed apparently unwillingly and then have no clue how to get unsubscribed--especially when you get an acknowledgement when you subscribe that contains explicit instructions on how to leave the list. The recent spate of postings is unusual but I think we've had episodes like this before, if memory serves. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Alice Faber wrote: > Patty Jones said: > >Please remove my name from futher mailings. I don't know how I got on in > >the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net > > There's been a recent spate of these, from non-edu addresses. I know we all > had a lot of fun speculating about general clue level, but is it possible > that someone's forge-subscribing people to ADS-L? Jesse, Grant? > > Alice > -- > Alice Faber tel. (203) 865-6163 > Haskins Laboratories fax (203) 865-8963 > 270 Crown St faber at haskins.yale.edu > New Haven, CT 06511 afaber at wesleyan.edu > From dmsnake at USIT.NET Wed Jan 31 03:22:22 2001 From: dmsnake at USIT.NET (David M. Robertson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 22:22:22 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: Wouldn't it be better to replace the "is is" with "was was"? But "is was" might be OK as well. Either way, it might be stylistically better to make it "I thought that a requirement for joining this list was knowing who Tartaglia was." (To speak for myself, I didn't know who Tartaglia was until just a few minutes ago.) Snake Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote: > James Landau writes: > > >>>>> > P.S. On a different topic. I once perpetrated the following sentence: [In > reference to the Historia Matematica mailing list] "I thought that knowing > who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list". [Tartaglia was a > Medieval Italian mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? If so, then > it is possible to have the word "is" twice in a row without it having to be > in quotes. However, it must be admitted that in response to that sentence I > received an e-mail from Germany politely requesting me to translate it into > English. > <<<<< > > IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat challenging to the reader. > > -- Mark A. Mandel From tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 31 02:51:46 2001 From: tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM (Tony Glaser) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:51:46 -0500 Subject: could care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At 11:54 PM +0000 1/30/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >> > >>> >Rest assured that plenty of Americans say 'I couldn't care less', and most >>> >(I hope all) American English teachers correct 'I could care less' when >>> >they come across it. >>> >>>Why? It represents a natural and predictable reduction of a sequence >>>containing >>>/dntk/, not exactly an ordinary English sequence. >> >>Well, in writing the phonological reduction is not quite relevant--we don't >>spell phonetically in English most of the time. >> >>But even in writing, the 'naturalness' of phonological reduction is not a >>good excuse for leaving out semantically relevant information. On this >>logic, it would be permissible to pronounce "I could carry that" when you >>mean "I couldn't carry it". >> >>As Hans Hock was fond of saying in my historical lx class, phonological >>reduction has to be balanced with semantic preservation, else all languages >>would evolve toward expressing everything as "uh" (for lack of a schwa on >>my keyboard). >> Larry said: (edited) >And I'm not sure there's ever a context in which "I >could care less" would be uttered when it would be intended literally rather than sarcastically. All the technicalities are far beyond me, but at a gut level I just don't buy the notion that when Americans say "I could care less" they are adopting a sarcastic version of "I couldn't care less". I think it is just said as a dismissive comment. Next time someone says it to me I will point it out, and I'll be interested to see if they say something along the lines of "Well, obviously, what I _really_ mean is that I could _not_ care less" or if there is an uncomprehending response implying "I just mean that I don't care". Not that the speaker's interpretation of what he or she says necessarily proves its origin at all . . . . Tony Glaser From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 04:30:42 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:30:42 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: >>"I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for >>joining >>this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian >>mathematician.] Is this >>sentence grammatical? > >IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat >challenging to the reader. > > IMH idiolect, ungrammatical, but for a different reason. "Think" has to agree in tense with the clause following it. So I can't say "I thought that he is from France" or the above quote. But the following are both OK by me: I think that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for joining this list. I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is was a requirement for joining this list. The embedded part, about Tartaglia, is free to be "is" or "was", and would almost certainly come out "was" in the second sentence. Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 04:55:34 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:55:34 -0500 Subject: I could care less Message-ID: >I dispute the assumption that this IS a least-effort reduction, or >you wouldn't have the difference in intonation patterns we were >alluding to earlier today (again, see Pinker's anti-Safire chapter >for a detailed account of this). I enjoyed Pinker's anti-Safire chapter as much as I do Barry Popik's bimonthly invective directed at the same target, but I must confess that in my younger and more innocent years, I would say things like "I could care less about X" or "I could really care less about X" without using the sarcastic intonation. I can use a straight, declarative intonation, or more likely a sort of emphatic, impatient intonation (accompanied by wrist-twisting gesture -- anybody with me?). You can tell I haven't been trained in the Trager-Smith numerical system. Now I don't know if the sarcastic care-lessers ever would, but I wouldn't have ever said "Like I could care less about X" or "As if I could care less about X" So I think some speakers are indeed guilty of the (God forbid) illogic that Safire et al. attack. It could have started sarcastically, and transferred over to speakers who lack the specific (Yiddish?) intonation pattern alluded to earlier: an interesting kind of shift where pragmatics (sarcasm) is replaced by a sort of marked, backward semantics. What I'm trying to say is that it ends up like one of those expressions where you just have to know it means the opposite of what it sounds like, such as the alleged Bostonianism "So don't I." "Same difference" is similar, and there must be others. Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 05:35:32 2001 From: ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM (D. Ezra Johnson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 00:35:32 -0500 Subject: Double Scoop Message-ID: I posted a reply regarding "is is" and one regarding "could care less" and was scooped on both of them! My problem is that I use Hotmail, and as I go through the messages I delete them one by one (or move them to a Folder if truly memorable). So if I want to reply to a message, I'm taking a risk that later in my Inbox, someone hasn't already made the same point that I'm about to. I suppose I could hit "Next" instead of "Delete" if I think I want to respond, and read through all new messages before writing any replies. Any insights on what the best way to proceed might be would be greatly appreciated. So the reason for my redundant postings is that I was careless, not that I care less. Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From indigo at WELL.COM Wed Jan 31 07:12:44 2001 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:12:44 -0800 Subject: bubble tea/milk tea In-Reply-To: <200101310501.VAA20890@smtp.well.com> Message-ID: >Has "bubble" tea been going around? It's tea and milk and sugar and >tapioca balls about half an inch in diameter. One drinks it through >a very large straw, big enough to suck up the tapioca balls. There >is an Asian mall near me that sells a lot of it - but since it's a >Pan-Asian mall, I think it's Taiwanese primarily, but I'm not sure. Bubble tea, aka tapioca tea, aka pearl tea is Taiwanese in origin. Here in the SF Bay Area I think it hasn't quite caught on among non-Asians, except in places like Berkeley near UC campus where there is such a massive Asian influence. (Within a couple blocks of campus are at least half a dozen shops selling tapioca.) Also it seems like mostly younger people are into tapioca. Anyway, the most common forms involve tea -- "pearl milk tea" -- but you can also get fruit &/or ice cream versions. Sort of like a smoothie or a milkshake w/ tapioca. Some places sell drinks w/ or w/o pearls, so when ordering you'd say, "& I'd like pearls (or tapioca) w/ that". I think "pearl" and "tapioca" are both much more common than "bubble". There are also hot pearl drinks, but those are significantly less common than cold ones. Indigo, who prefers a lychee pearl drink with no dairy Indigo Som indigo at well.com Come on home, little darlin Everything's gonna be just fine We got ice, we got a front porch & all the girls have big ol dreams like mine ---Freakwater From rkm at SLIP.NET Wed Jan 31 07:43:44 2001 From: rkm at SLIP.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 23:43:44 -0800 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: >Elizabeth Bogner and Jesse Sheidlower take great pleasure in >announcing the birth of > >Noa Catherine Sheidlower Mazel Tov!! Will everyone be coming to DSNA then? How is Maisie reacting? Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 09:02:53 2001 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 04:02:53 EST Subject: I could care less (Safire Watch is ended) Message-ID: I have decided to retire the "Safire Watch." This has been prompted the thought that the man might be ill. Also, Allan Metcalf wrote to me privately to end it. In law or in medicine, I would have gone to professional committees. I would not have had to beg all ADS members for help. This would have been corrected years ago. Errors would not be allowed to stand as fact. For anyone who is new to this, I'll briefly re-state what happened: I work as a low-paid parking ticket judge. I have no employment protections and I get no benefits. I make no money from etymology, no one pays for my expenses (they're not even tax-deductible), and I always give my work away for free. Gerald Cohen and I solved "the Big Apple" about nine years ago. I expected to see it in The New York Times, which has both a metro section and a weekly column on language. I work with William Safire's cousin, Jeff Panish. On his cousin's advice, I sent a mountain of stuff to Safire, including an invitation to the 1992 American Name Society annual dinner (attended by the late Fred Cassidy). I told Safire the importance of finding living witnesses, and how he could really help. Safire never replied. A year later, SAFIRE'S NEW POLITICAL DICTIONARY came out and got "the Big Apple" all wrong. Safire subsequently apologized to Gerald Cohen--but not to me. Week after week, year after year, Safire's cousin would cut out Safire's column and laugh at me. Finally, a mere eight years later, while I was vacationing in Norway in August 2000, Safire's assistant told me that Safire would write a "Big Apple column." I was led to believe that John J. Fitz Gerald's important words would finally make the New York Times. Out of respect for John J. Fitz Gerald (I always correctly spelled the name) and the stable hands to whom his words gave credit, I cooperated. We were all double-crossed. My corrections were censored. His new assistant refused to speak to me, and censored other my work as well. All of that awful stuff still remains until there is some apology and some correction. I don't regret any of my anger, which I feel is justifiable. I'm just saying that I think the guy may be ill, and I don't want to beat a dead horse, so the Safire Watch is officially closed. From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Wed Jan 31 09:08:03 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 03:08:03 -0600 Subject: schedule --pronunciation Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: Mike Salovesh wrote: >>This thread has reached respectable length, yet nobody has mentioned >>that Chicago has been an outpost of initial "sh" in "schedule" for about >>half a century. This is largely the result of Eric P. Hamp's valiant >>tenacity in siding with sh. Hamp's dedication to SH while all the world >>around him uses S merits recognition and congratulation almost as much >>as his better-known contributions to linguistics. > And why would Hamp's promotion of /SH/ "merit recognition and > congratulation"? I assume you're just joshing. . . . Good heavens, no -- in the distinguished company of ADS-L, I wouldn't dare. I've admired Eric ever since I took his "Introduction to linguistics" course in 1955, and I'm perfectly willing to use any excuse to congratulate him. What's really valiant about Eric's retention of the SH schedule lies precisely in the fact that he has been steadfast in his pronunciation despite the fact that his is a lone voice in an ocean of SK. That faithful service to a distant community of SH users surely is a triumph of conviction in the face of massive opposition. Lynne Murphy commented: >I assume that by 'Chicago' you mean 'the University of Chicago' (or maybe >'the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago). Hamp may be >influential, but I doubt he's _that_ influential! Contrariwise: The University of Chicago is densely (almost exclusively) inhabited by contrarians. "Chicago style debate" is based on the premise that disagreement is the only proper road to wisdom. At the U of C, the greater the scholar, the greater the disagreement. Eric P. Hamp constitutes a majority all by himself. It's the fact that nobody at The University of Chicago follows him in his SH schedule that proves precisely how influential he is there. When I said Chicago, I meant to be inclusive. I wouldn't even object to being interpreted as having said something about the entire Chicago metropolitan area. Hamp is the only half-century resident of Chicago I've ever met who uses SH in schedule, but one case still makes a dot on a distribution map. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Wed Jan 31 09:58:52 2001 From: t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU (Mike Salovesh) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 03:58:52 -0600 Subject: Pronouncing Celtic Message-ID: My thanks to Mark Mandel, who called attention to my error in the following: >>>>> P.S.: I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic", unlike America, does not go from C to shining C. The second C in celtic is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the obvious? <<<<< Of course what I meant to say was "The second C in celtic is NEVER phonemic /s/." I'm sorry that I made an S of myself. Mark is quite right about /k/ appearing as both the initial and the final consonant in Celtic as the word is pronounced by many in Boston. Hamp himself used to attribute his pronunciation of both schedule and Celtic to the lingering influence of his Bostonian background. -- mike salovesh PEACE !!! From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 10:10:33 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:10:33 EST Subject: "Like to" revisited Message-ID: I've heard all of those. In fact, I've heard speakers "correct" (basilect vs. mesolect?) the "liked to died" to "liked to have died." PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 10:13:43 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:13:43 EST Subject: "is is" Message-ID: Many (most?) style manuals/grammar books suggest putting a comma between the two (probably to reflect the pause, and, thus, to avoid confusion). PAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 11:47:06 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:47:06 +0000 Subject: query--dictionaries and heterosexism In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 30, 2001 3:25 pm +0000 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > A query from someone on another list: > I was struck by Harvey's statement that "unsurprisingly, in no > dictionary that I have consulted does a gay example occur under the > headwords 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'lover', 'partner', etc.". > > Is that still the case? I don't find that unsurprising at all. Most dictionaries are not going to bother with examples for (relatively) concrete nouns at all, and those who do are not going to give a rainbow of examples. (Every major dictionary that I've seen reviewed in the popular press in the past decade has taken a beating for being 'too PC'.) I'm not going to look up these words in all the dictionaries I have, since I don't expect to find examples to comment upon (and the original querier could do this him/herself). But I have looked in the Collins Cobuild, which does have examples fror just about every definition. All the romantic/sexual examples for 'boyfriend' involve a female partner, for 'girlfriend' involve a male partner, for 'lover' involve mixed-sex couples, and for 'partner' are gender-neutral ('Wanting other friends doesn't mean you don't love your partner.') Now, whether the definitions are neutral regarding the sex of the (other) partner is another matter, and any dictionary worth its salt will reflect this sort-of-complementary gender neutrality. So, e.g., NODE's definition for 'girlfriend' is 'a person's regular female companion with whom they have a romantic or sexual relationship.' (Way to go, NODE, using the gender-neutral, number-neutral 3rd person!) AHD4 does mention same-sex couples at 'marriage' and in the Usage Note for 'domestic partner'. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 13:07:05 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:07:05 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just want to assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty one: there are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with (e.g., anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical categories); my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form in specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued here before, deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot support); and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those prescriptions, but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined behavior generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the prize for January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily count e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also recognize that not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them either) is not a sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have a certain respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that metalinguistic awareness of them is never a bad thing. OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of Americans say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers are particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular as well as my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt your supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's something ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just an unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree with you that its phonological reduction is not really semantically damaging. But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a necessary first step. Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the 'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an idiolectal fantasyland? Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From Glenmtz505 at CS.COM Wed Jan 31 12:56:43 2001 From: Glenmtz505 at CS.COM (Glenn Martinez) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:56:43 EST Subject: Call for Papers - ADS/RMMLA Message-ID: FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS The American Dialect Society is now accepting proposals for papers to be delivered at its annual conjoint meeting with the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. The Convention will be held in Vancouver, BC Canada and will run from October 11 - 13, 2001. Papers dealing with any aspect of the dialects of English or other languages spoken in the United States will be considered and those dealing with Canadian dialects, language contact in Canada, and dialect contact in Canada or along the US/Canada border are especially welcome. Please send one 150 word abstract by e-mail or two abstracts by regular mail (one with author's name, the other anonymous) to the address listed below no later than March 15, 2001. Glenn A. Martinez Department of Modern Languages The University of Texas at Brownsville 80 Fort Brown Brownsville, TX 78520 gamartinez1 at utb1.utb.edu From HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 13:35:40 2001 From: HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU (Herb Stahlke) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:35:40 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: Lynne, Just before the Christmas break, the ATEG list had a longish discussion of prescriptivism. These are largely college and high school grammar teachers, many of them linguistically trained and aware of the issues. A point widely held among them is that, while it's very important for students to master prescriptive rules and write accordingly, the rules themselves should be recognized as the social norms they are, rather like table manners and dress codes. My students respond well to this analogy. It allows us to talk about the rules and see where they don't make sense linguistically at the same time as we are observing language use at multiple social levels and in different dialect contexts. Students tend to be pretty bright about this. The hard part is getting them to see the relevance of in-depth study of the structure of English. As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true today of "fast" Don't walk so fast. where "fastly" doesn't even exist, but it's also true of "slow". The difference is that prescriptivists will insist on "Walk slowly", not "walk slow". There is no historical basis for their judgment. Could it be that "good" is going the way of "fast" slow? Herb >>> lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK 01/31/01 08:07AM >>> OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just want to assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty one: there are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with (e.g., anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical categories); my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form in specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued here before, deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot support); and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those prescriptions, but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined behavior generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the prize for January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily count e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also recognize that not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them either) is not a sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have a certain respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that metalinguistic awareness of them is never a bad thing. OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of Americans say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers are particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular as well as my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt your supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's something ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just an unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree with you that its phonological reduction is not really semantically damaging. But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a necessary first step. Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the 'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an idiolectal fantasyland? Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 00:44:04 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:44:04 +0800 Subject: I could care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:55 PM -0500 1/30/01, D. Ezra Johnson wrote: > >It could have started sarcastically, and transferred over to speakers who >lack the specific (Yiddish?) intonation pattern alluded to earlier: an >interesting kind of shift where pragmatics (sarcasm) is replaced by a sort >of marked, backward semantics. What I'm trying to say is that it ends up >like one of those expressions where you just have to know it means the >opposite of what it sounds like, such as the alleged Bostonianism > >"So don't I." > >"Same difference" is similar, and there must be others. > I think it is a lot like "So don't/can't I" (which, for those not familiar with the New Englandism, means "So do I"). This too is most plausibly reconstructed as a sarcasm that became conventionalized, although here we end up with an "extra" negative instead of a missing one. In pushing a sarcastic origin for "could care less" I was trying to draw a contrast with cases of true least-effort reductions of negation, as in the ongoing loss of preverbal "ne" in French now that the post-verbal reinforcer "pas" (originally = 'step', as in "I didn't walk a step") has taken on negative force. (This reflects the so-called "Jespersen's Cycle"; something very similar happened to the Middle English pre-verbal particle "ne" and the Middle Dutch "en".) In such cases, we have a real least-effort-based reduction and no sarcasm was ever involved. I think Dan (and earlier Tony) is right in noting that there's no conscious, on-line sarcasm involved (or, I would say, necessarily involved) in current uses of "I could care less", but this sort of conventionalization is not unknown; for many speakers "You're a fine friend", with any intonation contour, can only mean the opposite of what it seems to mean. larry From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 13:50:53 2001 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:50:53 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At our own ADS meeting earlier this month Tagliamonte and Ito gave a >very intereting paper on both the backgrounds and current >distribution of the -ly monster. dInIs >Lynne, > >Just before the Christmas break, the ATEG list had a longish >discussion of prescriptivism. These are largely college and high >school grammar teachers, many of them linguistically trained and >aware of the issues. A point widely held among them is that, >while it's very important for students to master prescriptive >rules and write accordingly, the rules themselves should be >recognized as the social norms they are, rather like table manners >and dress codes. My students respond well to this analogy. It >allows us to talk about the rules and see where they don't make >sense linguistically at the same time as we are observing language >use at multiple social levels and in different dialect contexts. >Students tend to be pretty bright about this. The hard part is >getting them to see the relevance of in-depth study of the >structure of English. > >As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of >adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true >today of "fast" > >Don't walk so fast. > >where "fastly" doesn't even exist, but it's also true of "slow". >The difference is that prescriptivists will insist on "Walk >slowly", not "walk slow". There is no historical basis for their >judgment. Could it be that "good" is going the way of "fast" >slow? > >Herb > >>>> lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK 01/31/01 08:07AM >>> >OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just >want to >assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty >one: there >are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with >(e.g., >anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical >categories); >my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form >in >specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued >here before, >deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot >support); >and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those >prescriptions, >but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined >behavior >generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having >conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the >prize for >January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily >count >e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also >recognize that >not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them >either) is not a >sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have >a certain >respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that >metalinguistic >awareness of them is never a bad thing. > >OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of >Americans >say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers >are >particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular >as well as >my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt >your >supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's >something >ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just >an >unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree >with you >that its phonological reduction is not really semantically >damaging. But >this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story >for why >it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a >necessary >first step. > >Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that >Englishfolk >frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of >non-standard >forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or >the >'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of >Englishpeople have >complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, >they can't >take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives >where they >should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that >this is >coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done >good" (as >heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say >"you done >good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly >encouragement as well >as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. >Now,this is >not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is >a >difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning >involved when >one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living >in an >idiolectal fantasyland? > >Lynne > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 -- Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston at pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 14:01:24 2001 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:01:24 EST Subject: Computer Proverbs Message-ID: "Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. Exasperated 1:16" I have only seen the above once, but I seem to recall that it was professionally printed and may have been for sale, therefore not a one-shot. The following are from outside the computer field, but I have encountered them frequently when discussing computer programming: "Never reinvent the wheel" "Close only counts in horseshoes" (I prefer the variant "Close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades") Eric S. Raymond (author of _The New Hacker's Dicitonary_) in Byte magazine, January 1992, page 406 had the following: 1. Don't ever commit to a standard until you see at least three different conforming products from different vendors. 2. Don't ever believe a standards announcment made solo by the market leader in any product category, especially if it happens to be IBM. 3. the value of a standard is inversely proportional to the weight of its documentation...Be suspicious of any standard that your best techie can't grasp in a week. 3. is a variation on an old saying in aircraft manufacturing: "no airplane is ready to fly until the weight of the plans equals the weight of the plane." 2. is not universal but was specific to circa 1992. IBM used to be able to release products and everyone else would adopt them as a standard (e.g. the original PC architecture, the 102-key keyboard, the floppy disk, etc.) but by 1992 many vendors were deliberately ignoring IBM. Currently Microsoft has the power to unilaterally create standards, but this too may change. Finally, a cliche in a long-ago staff meeting that seems apt to this mailing list: "Everyone wants to say his dog was in the fight." - Jim Landau From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 14:04:41 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:04:41 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 8:35 am -0500 Herb Stahlke wrote: > Just before the Christmas break, the ATEG list had a longish > discussion of prescriptivism. These are largely college and high > school grammar teachers, many of them linguistically trained and > aware of the issues. A point widely held among them is that, > while it's very important for students to master prescriptive > rules and write accordingly, the rules themselves should be > recognized as the social norms they are, rather like table manners > and dress codes. My students respond well to this analogy. It > allows us to talk about the rules and see where they don't make > sense linguistically at the same time as we are observing language > use at multiple social levels and in different dialect contexts. > Students tend to be pretty bright about this. The hard part is > getting them to see the relevance of in-depth study of the > structure of English. yes, this is the position that I was trying to express with the discussion of 'arbitrary cultural conventions'. > As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of > adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true > today of "fast" > > Don't walk so fast. Yes, but 'fast' has long been considered to be an adverb in its own right, in the UK as well as the US. I agree with my British interlocutors that you often hear adjectives doing adverbial work in US English--but that their evidence is 'ya done good' makes me think that they're misinterpreting a set phrase with some humorous affect (that UK English doesn't have) as a part of a more general pseudo-standard pattern that they therefore interpret to be foreign to UK English. I'm neither convinced that 'ya done good' is only found in adv/adj-conflating varieties, nor that adjectives-as-adverbs are unheard of in UK non-standard dialects (which my interlocutors seemed to be claiming--that it's only Americans who would say things like "I walked slow" or "I feel good"). Certainly, the pattern of adj-to-adv is not so widespread as one of my more American-disparaging acquaintances would have it--I can't imagine anyone saying "I can't come, unfortunate." Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:28:05 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:28:05 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <229870.3189935225@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 1:07 PM +0000 1/31/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: [skipping over the "could(n't) care" stuff on which we've spoken our respective pieces by now] >Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk >frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard >forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the >'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have >complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't >take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they >should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is >coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as >heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done >good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well >as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is >not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a >difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when >one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an >idiolectal fantasyland? > While the adverbial use of "good" and other adverbs-in-adjectival-clothing ("You played real good") relates to the prescriptivism thread, I think there's something else going on in the mainstreaming of "You done good", which is covert prestige dialect borrowing, where a particular construction from what is perceived as a lower-class dialect than the one the speaker normally employs is imported wholesale for various sociolinguistic reasons. So the importation of "You done good" into "middle-class" U.S. speech is more like that of "If it ain't broke don't fix it" or "You ain't seen nothin' yet" or even "No problemo" or, once upon a time, "Long time no see" than a simple matter of adverbializing an adjective. I've heard "You done good, Sam" on a commercial for life insurance (the voice-over is by Sam's widow, for whom Sam considerately took out a generous policy before kicking the bucket), and I can imagine borrowing e.g. "She done him wrong" or possibly "You done me proud" but not, say, "You done the laundry without new Turbo-action Stainsoff". larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 01:30:14 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:30:14 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <437777.3189938681@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 2:04 PM +0000 1/31/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: > the pattern of >adj-to-adv is not so widespread as one of my more American-disparaging >acquaintances would have it--I can't imagine anyone saying "I can't come, >unfortunate." > only for manner (or VP?) adverbs but not sentence adverbs? From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 14:34:11 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:34:11 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 9:28 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > While the adverbial use of "good" and other > adverbs-in-adjectival-clothing ("You played real good") relates to > the prescriptivism thread, I think there's something else going on in > the mainstreaming of "You done good", which is covert prestige > dialect borrowing, where a particular construction from what is > perceived as a lower-class dialect than the one the speaker normally > employs is imported wholesale for various sociolinguistic reasons. Yes, I agree, and this has to do with the 'humor' and 'self-deprecation' that I referred to. I'm not sure if English listeners don't 'get it' (a) because such covert prestige borrowing is something an Englishperson wouldn't think to do, or (b) because they don't have enough sense of US dialects to recognize the interdialectal borrowing when they hear it. Either (or both) is (or are!) likely, so far as I can tell. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 14:44:22 2001 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:44:22 -0500 Subject: could care less Message-ID: Tony Glaser wrote: > All the technicalities are far beyond me, but at a gut level I just > don't buy the notion that when Americans say "I could care less" they > are adopting a sarcastic version of "I couldn't care less". I think > it is just said as a dismissive comment. Next time someone says it to > me I will point it out, and I'll be interested to see if they say > something along the lines of "Well, obviously, what I _really_ mean > is that I could _not_ care less" or if there is an uncomprehending > response implying "I just mean that I don't care". Not that the > speaker's interpretation of what he or she says necessarily proves > its origin at all . . . . > > Tony Glaser I'll try again: "I could care less" is the original Yinglish, sarcastic with proper intonation, and "I couldn't care less" is a goyische attempt to make it sound waspish. :-) Your reluctance to accept the facts of usage and history suggests a misplaced belief that logic rules language, a misconception for which there are many, many books and articles available to help you get over it. Larry has already mentioned Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. (additional bibliography on request) --db ____________________________________________________________________ David Bergdahl http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl tel: (740) 593-2783 366 Ellis Hall Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701-2979 fax: (740) 593-2818 From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Wed Jan 31 14:48:34 2001 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:48:34 -0600 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: Herb wrote: > As to "Ya done good," there is a long history in English of > adjectives and adverbs having the same form. This is clearly true > today of "fast" > > Don't walk so fast. > > where "fastly" doesn't even exist, but it's also true of "slow". > The difference is that prescriptivists will insist on "Walk > slowly", not "walk slow". There is no historical basis for their > judgment. Could it be that "good" is going the way of "fast" > slow? I don't think that's what's happening in "ya done good." It's a set phrase, intentionally "wrong," used in informal settings. Sort of like the French use of "beaucoup, beaucoup" -- use by a French person, that is -- a foreigner who said "beaucoup, beaucoup" would sound simply wrong. --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 14:48:55 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:48:55 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 9:30 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 2:04 PM +0000 1/31/01, Lynne Murphy wrote: >> the pattern of >> adj-to-adv is not so widespread as one of my more American-disparaging >> acquaintances would have it--I can't imagine anyone saying "I can't come, >> unfortunate." >> > only for manner (or VP?) adverbs but not sentence adverbs? Well, "I cried sad" sounds undoable to me (or "I sad cried"), and I would take the 'sad' there to be a manner adverb for 'cry' (there is a S-adv interpretation, of course, but neither sounds likely to me). But I suppose someone who has fewer 'ly's than me would be a better judge. Lynnely M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 31 15:20:35 2001 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:20:35 -0800 Subject: mailings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Probably unrelated, but maybe it is...I've been receiving two, sometimes three, copies of most ADS-L posts for a week or so. Anyone else having this problem? --- "A. Maberry" wrote: > Like Alice, I have wondered the same thing from time > to time. I don't read > a lot of lists, but, I've never seen one where so > many people get > subscribed apparently unwillingly and then have no > clue how to get > unsubscribed--especially when you get an > acknowledgement when you > subscribe that contains explicit instructions on how > to leave the list. > > The recent spate of postings is unusual but I think > we've had episodes > like this before, if memory serves. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu > > > On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Alice Faber wrote: > > > Patty Jones said: > > >Please remove my name from futher mailings. I > don't know how I got on in > > >the first place!!! patty0278 at fast.net > > > > There's been a recent spate of these, from non-edu > addresses. I know we all > > had a lot of fun speculating about general clue > level, but is it possible > > that someone's forge-subscribing people to ADS-L? > Jesse, Grant? > > > > Alice > > -- > > Alice Faber > tel. (203) 865-6163 > > Haskins Laboratories > fax (203) 865-8963 > > 270 Crown St > faber at haskins.yale.edu > > New Haven, CT 06511 > afaber at wesleyan.edu > > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM Wed Jan 31 15:24:01 2001 From: storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM (storkrn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:24:01 -0800 Subject: Mailings Message-ID: On 1/31 James Smith said: Probably unrelated, but maybe it is...I've been receiving two, sometimes three, copies of most ADS-L posts for a week or so. Anyone else having this problem? Yes, I have also been getting duplicates. Is it possible that these annoyed people are in the same boat we were when people on this list got onto that Spanish list and couldn't get off, no matter how well we followed directions, because we were not individually subscribed? Is it possible someone subscribed a whole list to ADS-L and that's why individuals can't get off? Sharyn Hay storknurse From thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:16:43 2001 From: thompsng at ELMER4.BOBST.NYU.EDU (GEORGE THOMPSON) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:16:43 EST Subject: (Fwd) a comrade Message-ID: The following book passed through my hands yesterday, here at the library: Bert Peeters, ed., "The Lexicon-Encyclopedia Interface", Elsevier. It contains an essay by our M. Lynne Murphy. The book is expensive, though perhaps not by the standard of titles on linguistics, but it must obviously be worth every penny. GAT From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 31 16:10:29 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:10:29 -0500 Subject: I could care less (was: schedule) Message-ID: David Bergdahl writes: >>>>> Tony Glaser wrote: > And another Americanism vs. Englishism - when did "I couldn't care > less" get turned into it's exact opposite "I could care less" even > when the speaker means the former. I have never heard the latter in > England, or the former in the US. Now isn't that funny... I've always thought "I could care less" was the original Yiddishism or Yinglish, with the negative inserted by people who didn't know the 22421 intonation pattern (using the old Trager-Smith notation). <<<<< How about "As if I could care less"? -- Mark From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 31 16:25:02 2001 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:25:02 EST Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: In the case of "Take it slow," can I assume that this is an elliptical construction, as in "Take it slow and easy"? Also, I often hear "I am well" in response to "How are you? For me, "I am well" has a different meaning than "I am good." The former connotes the physical/psychological/social well-being of the person while the latter connotes the behavior? PAT P.S. On another note, I can count on one hand the times I've heard people use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage dictate that "spat" be dropped? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:47:39 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:47:39 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: Congratulations!! This must be quite a time-period for you, what with moving back to New York plus the baby. But maybe moving to New York makes things easier for you in some ways? Fred -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:48:50 2001 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:48:50 -0500 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: <20010130192323.A28111@panix.com> Message-ID: Sorry that I just sent a private message to Jesse to the list by mistake. Luckily I didn't say anything embarrassing! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Public Services YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Wed Jan 31 16:34:22 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 10:34:22 -0600 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <229870.3189935225@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Good on ya, Lynne. I'm with you 110 percent. Bob Wachal At 01:07 PM 1/31/01 +0000, you wrote: >OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist. I just want to >assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty one: there >are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with (e.g., >anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical categories); >my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form in >specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued here before, >deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot support); >and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those prescriptions, >but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined behavior >generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having >conventions allows you to exploit and flout them. (Do I get the prize for >January's longest sentence on ADS? Note that I don't necessarily count >e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!) I also recognize that >not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them either) is not a >sign of defective thinking. But as a teacher and editor, I have a certain >respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that metalinguistic >awareness of them is never a bad thing. > >OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of Americans >say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers are >particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular as well as >my colleagues there). Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt your >supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's something >ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'. I think it's just an >unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree with you >that its phonological reduction is not really semantically damaging. But >this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for why >it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a necessary >first step. > >Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk >frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard >forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the >'degradation' of the standard in the US). A couple of Englishpeople have >complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't >take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they >should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is >coming into US English). The example they cite? "You did/done good" (as >heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever). Now, when I say "you done >good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well >as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment. Now,this is >not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a >difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when >one says "you did/done good" and "you did well". Or am I living in an >idiolectal fantasyland? > >Lynne > > >M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 > > From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 17:02:40 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:02:40 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:25 AM 1/31/01 -0500, you wrote: >In the case of "Take it slow," can I assume that this is an elliptical >construction, as in "Take it slow and easy"? Also, I often hear "I am well" >in response to "How are you? For me, "I am well" has a different meaning than >"I am good." The former connotes the physical/psychological/social >well-being of the person while the latter connotes the behavior? PAT > >P.S. On another note, I can count on one hand the times I've heard people >use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've >consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including >educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage >dictate that "spat" be dropped? I increasingly hear "I'm well" as well, meaning (presumably) "Everything's good/fine." I've assumed the change to be a hypercorrection, similar to the spread of "whomever" after every preposition even if it functions as a subject (heard twice just yesterday, on NPR and TV news). The latter may also reflect a tendency toward liaison between vowels (as someone suggested here some time back?), but I suspect hypercorrection is the real culprit, esp. since I seldom hear it from "ordinary" folk. Has anyone else noticed the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? Even our student newspaper is using it more, and it invariably sounds stilted. On p.t. of 'spit': My dictionary (an old Webster's New World) lists both 'spat' and 'spit' (in that order). I still hear, and use, 'spat', but it will go when it goes. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 17:18:56 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:18:56 +0000 Subject: missing "n't"! In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010131103422.007c0800@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Message-ID: I'm replying to myself this time. (Don't I have some work to do...?) I found it particularly ironic that in my zeal for the "n't" in "couldn't care less", I lost the "n't" in "isn't"! >> But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for >> why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a >> necessary first step. (That should be "isn't the whole story".) BTW, it was kind of George to mention my chapter in the Lex/Encyclo volume. I've already changed my mind about some of the things I said in it! Wait for the book--or better yet, the movie. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 17:23:08 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:23:08 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010131114739.020d4ae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 12:02 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > Has > anyone else noticed the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in > the media? Even our student newspaper is using it more, and it > invariably sounds stilted. One person's 'stilted' is another's 'melodious'. While we claim that all varieties are equally complex and potentially lovely, there does seem to be a bias against the 'overt prestige' forms on the list! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 17:21:47 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:21:47 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >... I can count on one hand the times I've heard people >use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've >consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including >educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage >dictate that "spat" be dropped? No. "Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): "The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either _spat_ or _spit_. "The British prefer _spat_, but both forms are widespread in American English. ... "Nonstandard variants are _spitted_ and _spitten_: "... like someone had spitten tobacco into it --Dave Godfrey, in _Canadian Short Stories, Second Series_, ed. Robert Weaver, 1968" I use spit, spat, spat, BTW. I can't think of five examples of ANY spoken past form of "spit" from my own experience right now (although my impression is that "spit" and "spat" are both common). Maybe my friends don't chew much tobacco .... -- Doug Wilson From Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM Wed Jan 31 17:42:35 2001 From: Rose.Wilcox at PINNACLEWEST.COM (Wilcox, Rose (ZB5646)) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 10:42:35 -0700 Subject: Double Scoop Message-ID: Consider sorting on subject head (I think hotmail does this, but it's been a long time since I had a hotmail address), reading all the related posts, then replying. Still a risk that you will miss a related post, since people change subject headers all the time (except when it would be helpful to do so), but then you can just blame them for changing the subject header. I think hotmail also allows you to mark a bunch of emails and delete them all at once, so following your reading binge (and erudite or pointed reply to the subject), you could mark the entire thread and delete. Forgive me if I remember hotmail capabilities incorrectly. And continue with your regularly scheduled life. Sinc., Rosie << I suppose I could hit "Next" instead of "Delete" if I think I want to respond, and read through all new messages before writing any replies. Any insights on what the best way to proceed might be would be greatly appreciated. >> From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 18:01:10 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:01:10 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010131114739.020d4ae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >>... I often hear "I am well" >>in response to "How are you? > >I increasingly hear "I'm well" as well, meaning (presumably) "Everything's >good/fine." It seems to me that "How are you [doing]?" is a formalized inquiry regarding one's health (could be prosperity, "financial health", etc.) and not one's inherent quality or moral condition. It seems to me that "I am [doing] well" is simply an exactly correct (not hypercorrect) response, although "I am [doing] fine" is more conventional. The usual Pittsburgh answer -- which was a minority usage in other places where I've resided -- is "I am [doing] good", which strikes me as inapposite/erroneous, since the question is basically "Are you [doing] well or poorly/ill?" rather than "Are you good or evil/bad?" or "Are you performing good or evil acts?" .... What do other folks perceive? -- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 18:10:25 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:10:25 +0000 Subject: oronym Message-ID: And now for something completely different... Does anyone know when the term 'oronym' was coined? (It's a synonym for 'mondegreen'.) Gyles Brandreth uses it in _The Joy of Lex_ (1980) (did he coin it?) and I've seen it a lot since Pinker used it in _The Language Instinct_. It's not in the OED and none of my dictionaries has it. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 18:11:52 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:11:52 +0000 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131124321.01d69d70@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:01 pm -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: >>> ... I often hear "I am well" >>> in response to "How are you? >> >> I increasingly hear "I'm well" as well, meaning (presumably) >> "Everything's good/fine." > > It seems to me that "How are you [doing]?" is a formalized inquiry > regarding one's health (could be prosperity, "financial health", etc.) and > not one's inherent quality or moral condition. It seems to me that "I am > [doing] well" is simply an exactly correct (not hypercorrect) response, > although "I am [doing] fine" is more conventional. ... > > What do other folks perceive? Well, since you asked, I agree completely. Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Jan 31 18:49:07 2001 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:49:07 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, &c. Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan writes: >...'a hypercorrection, similar to the spread of "whomever" after every >preposition even if it functions as a subject (heard twice just yesterday, >on NPR and TV news)..... Has anyone else noticed the (seemingly) >increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? '< Indeed, yes. Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from teachers. A. Murie From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 31 18:45:29 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:45:29 -0500 Subject: oronym Message-ID: At 06:10 PM 1/31/2001 +0000, you wrote: >Does anyone know when the term 'oronym' was coined? (It's a synonym for >'mondegreen'.) Gyles Brandreth uses it in _The Joy of Lex_ (1980) (did he >coin it?) and I've seen it a lot since Pinker used it in _The Language >Instinct_. > >It's not in the OED and none of my dictionaries has it. > >Lynne > >M Lynne Murphy > According to a website listing oronyms, Brandreth discusses the possible origin right in that book: Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and Co., pp. 58-59 on who coined the word "oronym" Maybe someone has a copy handy, FWIW.... Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Wed Jan 31 18:47:25 2001 From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:47:25 -0500 Subject: "is is" Message-ID: "D. Ezra Johnson" writes: >>>>> >>"I thought that knowing who Tartaglia is is a requirement for >>joining this list". [Tartaglia was a Medieval Italian >>mathematician.] Is this sentence grammatical? >IMHO, grammatical beyond question, although prosodically somewhat >challenging to the reader. IMH idiolect, ungrammatical, but for a different reason. "Think" has to agree in tense with the clause following it. <<<<< For me too, but that was beside the point. Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 31 19:03:25 2001 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:03:25 -0800 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <200101311845.NAA23661@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: > According to a website listing oronyms, Brandreth discusses the possible > origin right in that book: > > Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and Co., > pp. 58-59 on who coined the word "oronym" > > Maybe someone has a copy handy, FWIW.... > Nothing about the origin is on those 2 pages. And the examples Brandreth gives wouldn't really pass muster: e.g. "Where is the spice center?" vs. "Where is the spy center?" Maybe oronyms work on the "close, aber keine Zigarre" principle. Peter R. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:06:20 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:06:20 +0800 Subject: Newest ADS member In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:48 AM -0500 1/31/01, Fred Shapiro wrote: >Sorry that I just sent a private message to Jesse to the list by mistake. >Luckily I didn't say anything embarrassing! > >Fred Shapiro Oh, durn it. Here I thought I'd moved back to New York without realizing it. I was just about to go out for a knish and an egg cream too... larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:09:13 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:09:13 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010131114739.020d4ae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 12:02 PM -0500 1/31/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Has anyone else noticed >the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? Even our >student newspaper is using it more, and it invariably sounds stilted. and not infrequently "wrong", i.e. hypercorrectly used for the subject (the candidate whom I think is going to win...) > >On p.t. of 'spit': My dictionary (an old Webster's New World) lists both >'spat' and 'spit' (in that order). I still hear, and use, 'spat', but it >will go when it goes. > I'm still holding out for a revival of 'spitten' as the past participle. larry From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 19:08:35 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 19:08:35 +0000 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <200101311845.NAA23661@is2.nyu.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:45 pm -0500 Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: > > According to a website listing oronyms, Brandreth discusses the possible > origin right in that book: > > Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and > Co., pp. 58-59 on who coined the word "oronym" > > Maybe someone has a copy handy, FWIW.... I do have a copy. He doesn't say anything like "Let's call these things 'oronyms'", but just "Oronyms are sentences that can be read in two ways with the same sound. To inspire you to cook up some oronyms of your own, here are a dozen of my favorites." So, it's unclear whether he really did coin it there or whether that website just thinks he coined it because he popularized it. There's nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no indication of why 'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for 'mouth). Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:12:02 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:12:02 +0800 Subject: missing "n't"! In-Reply-To: <1138769.3189950336@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >I'm replying to myself this time. (Don't I have some work to do...?) > >I found it particularly ironic that in my zeal for the "n't" in "couldn't >care less", I lost the "n't" in "isn't"! > >>>But this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for >>>why it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a >>>necessary first step. > >(That should be "isn't the whole story".) I was wondering. Paranoid that I am I figured I STILL hadn't convinced you about the insufficiency of least-effort-based explanation here. > >BTW, it was kind of George to mention my chapter in the Lex/Encyclo volume. >I've already changed my mind about some of the things I said in it! Wait >for the book--or better yet, the movie. > >Lynne > I will--at least for the book, which I hope to be able to dip from when i break in "Lexical Pragmatics" at dInIs's 2003 Institute in East Lansing. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:16:58 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:16:58 +0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131115857.01d3d300@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 12:21 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>... I can count on one hand the times I've heard people >>use "spat" as the past tense/participle of "spit". While dictionaries I've >>consulted still list "spat" as the past tense, very few people (including >>educated speakers) use it; they use "spit" as past and present. Does usage >>dictate that "spat" be dropped? > >No. > >"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): > >"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >_spat_ or _spit_. > But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and 'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. >"Nonstandard variants are _spitted_ and _spitten_: > >"... like someone had spitten tobacco into it --Dave Godfrey, in _Canadian >Short Stories, Second Series_, ed. Robert Weaver, 1968" This part I like. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 06:20:19 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:20:19 +0800 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131124321.01d69d70@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 1:01 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >[re responses to "How are you?"] The usual Pittsburgh >answer -- which was a minority usage in other places where I've resided -- >is "I am [doing] good", which strikes me as inapposite/erroneous, since the >question is basically "Are you [doing] well or poorly/ill?" rather than >"Are you good or evil/bad?" or "Are you performing good or evil acts?" .... > >What do other folks perceive? > I don't take "I'm good" in a moral sense here. Perhaps the respondent is imagining s/he's playing draw poker and has been dealt a pat hand. larry From gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU Wed Jan 31 19:17:30 2001 From: gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU (Gregory {Greg} Downing) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:17:30 -0500 Subject: oronym Message-ID: At 07:08 PM 1/31/2001 +0000, you wrote: >So, it's unclear whether he really did coin it there or whether that >website just thinks he coined it because he popularized it. There's >nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no indication of why >'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the >coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for >'mouth). > >Lynne > Yes, actually, since you mention it -- My cursory web search called up several germanophone sites that seemed to suggest that _Oronym_ is used in German as a term for names applied to elevated sites. I figured that this _Oronoym_ might well be a completely independent word. Several examples occur in the scholarly bibliography found at this URL: http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/~fischeg4/HDP.htm Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 20:01:34 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:01:34 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): >> >>"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >>_spat_ or _spit_. > >But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' >as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and >'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. >I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur >as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. I think the book is saying both "spit, spat, spat" and "spit, spit, spit" are usual. As far as I can tell, it's silent on the possibilities "spit, spat, spit" and "spit, spit, spat": these must be quite rare, I think, especially the latter one. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 31 20:15:23 2001 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:15:23 -0500 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <1534447.3189956915@lynnem.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >... There's nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no >indication of why >'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the >coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for >'mouth'). I suspect he's mixing roots worse than that: "oro-" < English "or": the item can be read either this way OR that way. It's like "backronym", probably. -- Doug Wilson From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 31 20:19:03 2001 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:19:03 -0800 Subject: Columbinitis Message-ID: Alta Vista doesn't get any hits for this word yet, but the Seattle Times had it in a story from Reuters and the Associated Press out of Ottawa. "...'What is at work here is acute "Columbinitis,"' said Canadian novelist Tim Wynne-Jones, referring to the 1999 massacre of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo..." The word refers to an overreaction to a student talking about bombing a school. Probably not a word to stay, though... Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 07:28:51 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:28:51 +0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131145612.01d6c040@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: At 3:01 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): >>> >>>"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >>>_spat_ or _spit_. >> >>But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' >>as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and >>'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. >>I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur >>as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. > >I think the book is saying both "spit, spat, spat" and "spit, spit, spit" >are usual. > You're right; I misread it. L From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 31 20:36:48 2001 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 20:36:48 +0000 Subject: oronym In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131151120.01d6ba40@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 3:15 pm -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: >> ... There's nothing in the style that marks it as a new word, and no >> indication of why >> 'oro' (which AHD4 lists as the Greek prefix for 'mountain'; unless the >> coiner was mixing classical roots and meant this to be the Latin for >> 'mouth'). > > I suspect he's mixing roots worse than that: "oro-" < English "or": the > item can be read either this way OR that way. > > It's like "backronym", probably. Ah, clever work! Lynne M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK phone +44-(0)1273-678844 fax +44-(0)1273-671320 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 21:03:43 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 16:03:43 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 02:09 PM 1/31/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 12:02 PM -0500 1/31/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>Has anyone else noticed >>the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? Even our >>student newspaper is using it more, and it invariably sounds stilted. > >and not infrequently "wrong", i.e. hypercorrectly used for the >subject (the candidate whom I think is going to win...) > >> >>On p.t. of 'spit': My dictionary (an old Webster's New World) lists both >>'spat' and 'spit' (in that order). I still hear, and use, 'spat', but it >>will go when it goes. >I'm still holding out for a revival of 'spitten' as the past participle. > >larry I was going to add my dictionary's entries on that! Mine lists both "spit and image" and "spitting image," with the latter presumed to be a variant of the former. No explanation as to why it should take the pres. part. form (as if the image is what's doing the spitting rather than what's spit/spat). I suppose the -ing is a hypercorrection from a presumed spoken -in'/'n' -- resulting of course in the loss of the past participle meaning, as you pointed out in your ADS paper. Now I'll bet we've opened up a whole nother can of worms. _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 21:26:01 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:26:01 -0600 Subject: Columbinitis Message-ID: >The word refers to an overreaction to a student talking about bombing a >school. Probably not a word to stay, though... > >Benjamin Barrett The use of -itis in the sense of 'condition caused by a reaction to something', is common enough, but they all seem to be nonce formation, with none of them becoming permanent. It's probably because enough people know that -itis means 'inflammation', as with arthritis or dermatitis. One of my favorite all-time bizarre plurals is arthritides for arthritis. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU Wed Jan 31 20:10:41 2001 From: robert-wachal at UIOWA.EDU (Robert S. Wachal) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:10:41 -0600 Subject: address needed In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010131145612.01d6c040@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: My computer crashed and I lost the e-mail address of Steve Kleinedler. Can someone please supply it? Bob Wachal From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 21:21:46 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 16:21:46 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 03:28 PM 1/31/01 +0800, you wrote: >At 3:01 PM -0500 1/31/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>"Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage" (1989): >>>> >>>>"The common verb _spit_ has as its past tense and past participle either >>>>_spat_ or _spit_. >>> >>>But this suggests Beverly is the last hold-out in her use of 'spat' >>>as the past/preterite, which is surely false. I hear both 'spat' and >>>'spit' and if anything would vote for the former as more frequent. >>>I'd also have guessed that 'spat' is if anything MORE likely to occur >>>as the simple past than as the participle, contra the MWDEU. >> >>I think the book is saying both "spit, spat, spat" and "spit, spit, spit" >>are usual. >You're right; I misread it. > >L OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use "shat" for p.t. and p.p.? (Horrors, did I really write that??) My dictionary doesn't even include the base word! _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 31 21:48:31 2001 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:48:31 -0600 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten Message-ID: >OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the >first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use >"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? >(Horrors, did I really write that??) My >dictionary doesn't even include the base word! Well, if I were doing a to-be-staged version of Aristophanes _Frogs_, that lake Dionysus has to cross would be called shitten. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM Wed Jan 31 22:06:17 2001 From: Lina.Hawkins at BERLITZGLOBALNET.COM (Your Name) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:06:17 -0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten Message-ID: My friend uses "shat" for p.t. all the time. It drives me crazy because I prefer the "poop" word. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Odegard [mailto:markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:49 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Spit, spat, spitten >OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the >first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use >"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? >(Horrors, did I really write that??) My >dictionary doesn't even include the base word! Well, if I were doing a to-be-staged version of Aristophanes _Frogs_, that lake Dionysus has to cross would be called shitten. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Wed Jan 31 22:31:30 2001 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:31:30 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, & JFK Jr. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, sagehen wrote: > ... Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only > hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 > and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and > I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive > *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from > teachers. > A. Murie This reminds me of a question I've wanted to ask for some time. During the media attention immediately following JFK Jr's plane crash, I saw an excerpt from a previously recorded interview in which he says "Caroline and I" in object position. I didn't know what to make of that, because I'd thought that: 1. "X and I" in object position is an example of hypercorrection, 2. hypercorretion is what the linguistically insecure middle class does, and 3. JFK Jr. was not a representative of the middle class. This doesn't add up. What part is wrong? -Mai _____________________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From drew.danielson at CMU.EDU Wed Jan 31 22:40:57 2001 From: drew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:40:57 -0500 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten (off topic) Message-ID: The direction this thread is taking reminded me of a question I had a while back. At The Alternative Dictionaries - a hotbed of international scatology - there is the phrase, "merde a la puissance treize" in the French section. It claims that the phrase's acronym, "MALPT!" is used "to wish someone tremendous good luck." Can any francophile out there verify this? I am not finding a high incidence of this acronym in web searches. Your Name wrote: > > My friend uses "shat" for p.t. all the time. It drives me crazy because I > prefer the "poop" word. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Odegard [mailto:markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM] > Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:49 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Spit, spat, spitten > > >OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the > >first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use > >"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? > >(Horrors, did I really write that??) My > >dictionary doesn't even include the base word! > > Well, if I were doing a to-be-staged version of Aristophanes _Frogs_, that > lake Dionysus has to cross would be called shitten. > > _________________________________________________________________ From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 31 23:06:29 2001 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:06:29 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, & JFK Jr. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 05:31 PM 1/31/01 -0500, you wrote: >On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, sagehen wrote: > > > ... Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only > > hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 > > and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and > > I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive > > *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from > > teachers. > > A. Murie > >This reminds me of a question I've wanted to ask for some time. During the >media attention immediately following JFK Jr's plane crash, I saw an >excerpt from a previously recorded interview in which he says "Caroline >and I" in object position. I didn't know what to make of that, because >I'd thought that: > >1. "X and I" in object position is an example of hypercorrection, >2. hypercorretion is what the linguistically insecure middle class does, >and >3. JFK Jr. was not a representative of the middle class. > >This doesn't add up. What part is wrong? > >-Mai >_____________________________________________ >Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu >Department of English (765) 285-8410 >Ball State University The upper classes aren't necessarily insecure, but they too learn to hypercorrect from their teachers, the media, and equally gullible peers! (Besides, JFK Jr. was no paragon of super-intelligence or super-education. . . .) _____________________________________________ Beverly Olson Flanigan Department of Linguistics Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 Ph.: (740) 593-4568 Fax: (740) 593-2967 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 12:59:24 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 20:59:24 +0800 Subject: Columbinitis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:26 PM -0600 1/31/01, Mark Odegard wrote: >>The word refers to an overreaction to a student talking about bombing a >>school. Probably not a word to stay, though... >> >>Benjamin Barrett > >The use of -itis in the sense of 'condition caused by a reaction to >something', is common enough, but they all seem to be nonce formation, with >none of them becoming permanent. > >It's probably because enough people know that -itis means 'inflammation', as >with arthritis or dermatitis. > >_________________________________________________________________ Yes, it occurred to me when I read the earlier posting that the disorder in the subject line looks as though it ought to refer to an inflammation of the doves (not to be confused with the silence of the lambs). larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 31 13:40:57 2001 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 21:40:57 +0800 Subject: Spit, spat, spitten In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:09 PM -0500 1/31/01, sagehen wrote: > > >>OK, at the risk of soiling my pristine reputation, I'm going to ask if the >>first paradigm above also works for the verb "shit": Does anyone use >>"shat" for p.t. and p.p.? > >As I recall, one of the characters in Mary McCarthy's /The Group/ also uses >this form. >A. Murie I'm in the shat/spat group too, for the preterit. I find all possible forms awkward for the participle. I'd like to say I would actually use "shitten" and "spitten" (or even "beshitten" and "bespitten") but somehow I would feel uncomfortable doing so without first growing a long, scraggly, and unwashed beard. larry From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 31 19:59:57 2001 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:59:57 -0500 Subject: prescriptivism, conventions, &c. Message-ID: Another common hypercorrection in the same vein as mentioned below is "between you and I". Frank Abate ----- Original Message ----- From: "sagehen" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:49 PM Subject: Re: prescriptivism, conventions, &c. > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >...'a hypercorrection, similar to the spread of "whomever" after every > >preposition even if it functions as a subject (heard twice just yesterday, > >on NPR and TV news)..... Has anyone else noticed the (seemingly) > >increasing use of "whom" generally in the media? '< > > Indeed, yes. Another hypercorrection of the reverse kind that I not only > hear but see in print increasingly is: "So-&-so and I" instead of "So-&-s0 > and me" as objects of verbs or prepositions. "She spoke to Bob and > I"...."He invited Mary and I." The "and" seems to kick in a reflexive > *don't-use-/me/* that I attribute to ill-understood corrections from > teachers. > A. Murie > From tcf at MACOMB.COM Wed Jan 31 15:46:20 2001 From: tcf at MACOMB.COM (Tim Frazer) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:46:20 -0600 Subject: Sp bien/bueno (was:prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less Message-ID: I have a hard time responding to Sp "como estas?" My prescriptivist upbringing makes me want to say "bueno" (using an adj to describe myself), but idiomatic Sp demands "bien." For some reason I feel better if I say "bien, y tu?" but that may have more to do self image than grammatical categories.