From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 1 13:42:27 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 08:42:27 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <475ade47814a.47814a475ade@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >... now I wonder whether there was a pre-existing word "binky". .... A good question. I don't find this in any of my books. One might check the English Dialect Dictionary and maybe the big Scottish National Dictionary (I don't have these myself ... maybe next time I drop by the big library ...). In Scots there's apparently "bink" = "bench"/"shelf"/"cupboard"/etc. ... not very promising. There's also "whistle-binkie", which I see defined as a peripheral attendee at a penny wedding [i.e., a wedding with an admission charge ... which he has not paid], an idle spectator ... here presumably "binkie" has/had some meaning, but I don't know for sure what (but see below). My casual conjecture is that "binky" originally meant something small, either "baby" or "little finger". I see Binky/Binkie as a nickname on the Web and as a name for small pets: Binky the Bunny or Binky the Kitty perhaps (not Binky the Killer Whale). I wonder whether this could have been a version of "pinkie", Scots for small things including the little finger, and similar to older English words along the line of "pinkeny" used as pet names or so. [A wild speculation which may be instantly disprovable by an expert: could "pink" and its relatives such as this one come (through Dutch) from Spanish "pequeño"?] "Binky" might be a baby-talk version. Also note that one's pinkie can serve as a binky in an emergency. I note the Scots expression "whustle one's thoum" = "whistle [on] one's thumb" = "twiddle one's thumbs" = "be idle" or so ... very similar to the activities of the whistle-binkie at the penny wedding ... maybe he's whistling on his pinkie? -- Doug Wilson From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 1 14:42:28 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 14:42:28 -0000 Subject: binky Message-ID: The EDD lists _binkie_ as Scottish (Tweed) and defines it as 'gaudy, trimly-dressed, smart'. Jonathon Green From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 1 15:02:28 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 10:02:28 EST Subject: Perro Caliente (hot dog) Message-ID: PERRO CALIENTE--"Hot dog." Everywhere I've traveled in the Spanish-speaking world it's "hot dog," and here I see "perro caliente." Whatever. DOLLAR SHOP--Places where dollars are accepted instead of pesos. (Where items may or may not be sold for exactly $1.) It's so bizarre that the Cuban economy uses dollars! BISTEC URUGUALLO--Beefsteak with cheese inside. Possibly from Uruguay. PAPAS LIONESA--Lion potatoes? Seen at several shops. CAJITAS--Their chicken-in-a-basket. MARY PICKFORD--This cocktail is served all over town. Does OED have Mary? (The fireworks over our building were strange. It didn't celebrate the new year--no!--but the "43rd year of the Revolution!"...Gotta go. Be home soon--ed.) From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 1 15:19:04 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 10:19:04 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020101075325.00ac55d0@nb.net> Message-ID: Douglas G. Wilson said: >>... now I wonder whether there was a pre-existing word "binky". .... > >My casual conjecture is that "binky" originally meant something small, >either "baby" or "little finger". I see Binky/Binkie as a nickname on the >Web and as a name for small pets: Binky the Bunny or Binky the Kitty >perhaps (not Binky the Killer Whale). Friend of mine have a small, annoying dog named Binky. I'll ask them where the name came from, and report back. From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 1 17:52:30 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 11:52:30 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology_Notes:_=22-stan=22?= Message-ID: Etymology Notes: "-stan" Carl Jeffrey Weber "-STAN" I STill remember the IE "st(a)-" morpheme is among the literal handful of most productive in the IE languages. It's found all over the place -- its general sense is "STationary," or "STanding." It's in AveSTan and HinduSTani cognates. It's in state, Stuttgart, constitution, staff, obstinate, stall, constipate, stool, understand, post (as a back formation from Latin postis) - the list goes on forever. /////////////// When Afganistan was named in 1747, two hundred years before Pakistan, it was translated into English, "Land of the Afghans" (compare "Land of the Angles"). The word, "-land," it seems, has a primal association "solid subSTance". I decided to do some fieldwork, and went to Dunkin' Donuts. My informant (notwithstanding, not a Muslim), after I asked, "what does '-stan' mean, like in Afganistan, Pakistan," gave his quick response: "country". Of note, the "-gan-" of the name chosen in 1747 looks suspiciously like the most common name in the area - Khan. One list gentleman's comment on the problem was that in 1947 at the Partition of India, the name Pakistan was totally named by the geo-ethnicities (my word) who contributed letters to the naming process. P(ersia), A(fgan.), K(ashmir), I(ndia). That much is good. These are the four, and only four, bordering countries. But the gentleman continues with S(ind), T(urk.). The device of the first four letters he inordinately applies beyond historical credibility, because "-stan", meaning "land of" in English, was known to many people in the area for two centuries, as stated already. Pakistan at the partition seems to have been named with the four letters of the bordering countries, + stan. I heard something like that ten years ago from a Punjabi friend. Why not Pakistan, the "Land of Four Letters", in its way, the way the Punjab is, the "Land of Five Rivers" in its. (The name is derived from two Persian words: 'Panj' meaning five with 'Aab' meaning water - the internet reminds me.) I looked on the web page for the Pakistani student organization, to seek some source documentation - 1947 was not that long ago. I'd say somebody in 1947 thought up that letter-device in a committee, and then they put the old "-stan" on it. The Pakistani Student organization has a different etymology for the Pakistan-word. They say the first part of the word is Urdu for "pure". http://members.tripod.com/pakonline/intro_hist.html. This gives "Land of the Pure". I'm skepical about use of an Urdu word here. Where are the 1947 foundation documents? What's this Urdu root about? Maybe the Student group will get back to me. My donut man informed me with great confidence that "Paki-" doesn't mean anything - "it's just a name", he said, with sympathetic understanding. (Back to "-stan".) I said "America-stan". We laughed about it, but no extra, free, boston crème - like the dayshift donut lady used to give me until our relationship soured. Carl Jeffrey Weber From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Tue Jan 1 18:33:09 2002 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 13:33:09 -0500 Subject: INORDINATE [was #1 "motherfucker" transparent?]; was #2 "Etymological Notes: 'Love'" Message-ID: Sorry, some transmission error got in the way of my earlier response (I don't see it in my Inbox), but here is something briefer and better thought-out. In examples such as the ones below, the connotations of "inordinate" are NEGATIVE. As Doug Wilson and Carl J. Weber point out, "inordinate" could mean "excessive or abusive" or it could be a merely self-deprecatory use. As Carl says, it could be "a euphemism for the polite/opprobrious bad: 'inappropriate'." I think such usage could also be tongue-in-cheek or ironical as in Addison's 1716 use of "inordinate love of pudding" (OED) or somewhat patronizing, as in "a mother's inordinate love for her son or daughter" (Doug's second quote) Let's forget about sexual connotations for a moment. The evidence shows 181 instances of "inordinate" in the OED text, 24 s.v. inordinate, adj. Our writer was using OED first edition and his son still uses the Shorter Oxford, 1931. The preponderance of all the evidence shows meanings that are clearly NEGATIVE. When a dedication says "my mother's inordinate love/affection for me" (I read the book circa 1980 at the home of the writer's son; I don't recall the exact words and I don't have any bibliographic particulars), it has to be understood as the author trying to pay a compliment to his mother, not making a critique. A dedication is a brief eulogy, not a dissertation. In such a piece of writing there should be absolutely no room for ambiguities and variant interpretations; cf. "For my beloved wife / Elizabeth Austin Burchfield." In current usage, according to the corpus I used for the last dictionary (several hundred books and periodicals published 1989-1990), the standard collocations are "an inordinate amount of (70%), an inordinate delay, demand, expenditure, an inordinate number of (16%)," etc. A good English user, I believe, would go for these and similar collocations. I think the writer in question committed an honest mistake. This is reinforced by my knowledge of the mother tongue of the writer and the possibility that he was translating a phrase that is idiomatic in that language: "athiru katanna sneham" ("unbounded/limitless love" in Malayalam). TOM PAIKEDAY, lexicographer The User's(R) Webster Dictionary, 2000 ISBN: 0-920865-03-8 (cservice at genpub.com) Doug Wilson wrote (Sunday, 12:17): TMP wrote: >This professor, may he rest in peace, had a doctorate in English from >the University of London. His dissertation on a minor Victorian author >was published by the author's cousin who ran a book publishing company >in Australia. His editors apparently did a good copy-editing job on the >manuscript. The text was flawless as far as I could see, but for obvious >reasons, they dared not touch the Dedication, which read: "To my mother >for her inordinate affection [to me]..." The editors probably thought, >Hey, if something had been going on between mother and son, who are we >to put in our two cents worth? > >Now, as all English experts and others (including learners beyond a >certain grade level) know, "inordinate affection/love," is a >collocational phrase that means something bad, very bad, in the contexts >in which it is used. (Questions of sexual orientation would not be >relevant). It occurs frequently in ascetical Christian religious >literature, as in the socalled "Rodriguez" (Rodrigues?) volumes. >"Inordinate," by morphology and definition, is negative in meaning >("disorderly or immoderate") and Rodriguez would be referring to >homosexual and such affections, as betwen religious who have taken the >vow of chastity; "particular friendship" is another term referring to >the same concept in the above contexts. Incestuous love is included in >the meaning of the term. > >When the phrase is applied to one's mother, I suppose the >uncollocational semi-transparent idiomatic term "mother fucker" comes to >mind. .... Now, just a moment. I'm a learner of English at a relatively high grade level, and I don't have any problem at all with that dedication as quoted. Perhaps the restriction on "inordinate love/affection" is itself restricted, perhaps to certain religious contexts with which I'm not very familiar. My quick Web search does turn up a lot of religiously-oriented material in which "inordinate" means "improper" or worse. But in the above quotation it seems perfectly innocent to me, with "inordinate" at most meaning something like "excessive" (here perhaps used for 'mild self-deprecation' as in "You are too kind", "This is more than I deserve", etc.) and possibly meaning merely "unrestrained". Had I been the editor, I would have passed it without a thought; had I (as editor) received a specific query about it, I would have said that it looked perfectly fine (although "inordinate" would not be my own first-choice word here). Here are a few other examples: Anne Bronte, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (Ch. 43): <<'She [the new governess] is a very estimable, pious young person,' said he; 'you needn't be afraid. Her name is Myers, I believe; and she was recommended to me by a respectable old dowager: a lady of high repute in the religious world. I have not seen her myself, and therefore cannot give you a particular account of her person and conversation, and so forth; but, if the old lady's eulogies are correct, you will find her to possess all desirable qualifications for her position: an inordinate love of children among the rest.'>> Autobiography of Konrad Lorenz (Nobel Prize, 1973): <> Web column in "Al-Ahram Weekly On-line" (Egypt) [referring to the "mother-in-law" stereotype]: <> I think "inordinate" = "immoderate"/"unrestrained" or so in all of these and I do not think there are any sexual connotations. -- Doug Wilson Etymological Notes: "Love" (semi-long) Carl Jeffrey Weber wrote (Sunday, 15:32) LOVE We pick up with a dedication <<< "To my mother for her inordinate affection [to me]..." The editors probably thought, Hey, if something had been going on between mother and son, who are we to put in our two cents worth? >>> The pick up continues, <<< "inordinate affection/love," is a collocational phrase that means something bad, very bad, in the contexts in which it is used. (Questions of sexual orientation would not be relevant). It occurs frequently in ascetical Christian religious literature. "Inordinate," by morphology and definition, is negative in meaning >>> . I suspect something going on here like "heads you win, tails I lose". "Inordinate love" is NOT equivalent to "inordinate affection" in historical English. Pop usage be what it may. It seems "inordinate" can be a euphemism for the polite/opprobrious "bad". We use a different word today for the opprobrious bad: "Inappropriate". (And the word "inappropriate" collocates better with the word "touching".) "Inordinate/inappropriate" can each suggest "excessive" or "abusive," or "to a fault." Of note - "not being ordered or ordinary", and also, "not being apropos", are not necessarily bad. But here they are linguistically marked for bad, as when someone has an "attitude". Everybody knows you can have a good OR bad attitude, but if someone says you have one, they always mean a bad one -- like a person has a "condition". It is always a bad thing. The topic though, analyzes the language of a DEDICATION. Wouldn't this suggest a polite and courteous register of language use? <<< . Hey, if something had been going on between mother and son, who are we to put in our two cents worth? >>> Douglas Wilson: <<< Now, just a moment. I'm a learner of English at a relatively high grade level, and I don't have any problem at all with that dedication as quoted.>>> Doug says the expression "inordinate love/affection" is <<< perhaps used for 'mild self-deprecation' as in "You are too kind", "This is more than I deserve", etc.) and possibly meaning merely "unrestrained". Had I been the editor, I would have passed it without a thought; had I (as editor) received a specific query about it, I would have said that it looked perfectly fine (although "inordinate" would not be my own first-choice word here) >>> Doug then goes on to give usage data from Anne Bronte and Konrad Lorenz to show two examples of "inordinate love" as a good thing, and then gives an example of a bad meaning, "a possessive mother's inordinate love" which has the negative sense of excessive to a fault, etc. (Notwithstanding the original was "inordinate affection", not "love"), Doug says "inordinate love" = "immoderate" or "unrestrained love". It "doesn't have any sexual connotations." The register of language in the topic example accords it the register that is, among other things, polite and courteous. This seems right to me, and the Lack of Sexual Connotation School of linguistic interpretation wins over the Saturday Night Live School. The topic opened with "inordinate AFFECTION". An intermediary comment then associated "AFFECTION with LOVE", as equivalents, and next Doug gaves examples of "inordinate LOVE". ///////////////////////////// Are not "love" and "affection" inappropriately associated here? Our modern word "love" is a blend of two Old English roots. One meant "to like", the other meant "to praise". The modern word "love" is a blend of those two words, which is why you can speak of the "love" of the most trivial thing, and then of the "love" of God. It's in the first instance that "to love" means "to like" and in the second that "to love" means "to praise" (God). Now, accepted as an English word, "praise" was borrowed from the French subsequent to the Norman Conquest in 1066. In historical English usage, the "lover" was always the boy. The girl's "lover" was not so named because he "made love" to her -- "made love" today is a euphemism for either, 1., technical medical words, or 2., ones straight out of society's linguistic gutter. The language's most famous four letter word is allowed as a synonym for "make love". And then, that same four letter word is used as possibly equivalent to "rot" as a condemnative, I'll call it, as in "rotten idiot". "Love" as it comes from our basic Old English has nothing to do with sex - sex being what the boy and the girl, as expressed in the English language of today, HAVE with each other. "Love", here means, "to really really REALLY like a whole lot, and nothing more than like to the tenth power. "Praise be to God", was in Old English, "Love God!" "To love God" does not mean "to like Him a whole whole lot". One can show love (i.e., that you "like" something or somebody a whole lot) affectively, and this "affection" is externalizing behavior. This is not implied in the English word "love". "Affection" is warm and fuzzy affect, whereas "to really like, a whole lot, more than anything or anybody in the whole world," is all there is, and nothing more. But what of the word "love" as the "real special bond" the boy and girl have for each other? It seems an extension of the meaning "to mega-like". There is no special word. We must go to the Romance languages for the words of special bonding between the sexes, with a Western Valentines kind of love that is perhaps in the "mar-' roots. English has words for bonding between the sexes, like "betroth" and "wed". The "mar", though, I strongly suspect, did more than simply come through Latin for "young girl" - i.e., probably maiden (cf. Pallas Athena, Joan of Arc, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc.). In Mexico today they can say "All the little Maria's all over Mexico". Perhaps "mar" is same sourced in "marry" and "martial" - seen in the second millennium BC as the "oh my hero" theme, going way back on the IE Oriental side, and eventually spread with the Pax Romana But, on the Occidental side, consider the song, "What's Love Got to Do with It". It's about a female sexual availability script in which the guys immediately proceed to home plate sometime between sundown and sunrise. Presumably everybody would be externalizing behaviors of warm and fuzzy affect, affectionate "shows" of "love" - "yes darling.", or, "yea baby, I DO love you". Isn't "love" erroneously equated with "affection", and "love and affection" are both synonymized with "sex". Our language is being synonymized through guilt by association. Even makin' "whoopee" never got far beyond first base before it fell in the gutter.Too bad. The boys and girls should learn good definitions in middle school - the usage in pop culture be what it may. They hear more standard English and three syllable words on the Simpsons than they get all day in Chicago schools. Conclusion: When he says thank you for your "inordinate love" it is good with no sexual connotations in the identified register. It is not bad!!! "Inordinate affection", however, could be good, could be bad, and doesn't strictly have to do with the word "love" that developed from two Old English roots meaning "like" and "praise". "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote (Sunday, 17:55): > > It has been suggested that "love" might be a little different from > "affection". In the context of the book dedication in question, I believe > these words are virtually synonymous. Still, here are a few examples with > "inordinate affection", all without any carnal implications IMHO: > > "The Bishop and His Cats", in "The New-England Magazine" (1834): > > < perfect; and, be it known to the reader that the reverend bishop had one > fault. Charitable, humble, merciful, religious, as he was, he had one > ridiculous fault. This was an inordinate affection for the feline race. > Wild cats, tame cats, Maltese cats, Angora cats; cats, in short, of every > sort and kind found an asylum in his house.>> > > "The Blackfeet Indians", in "Appletons' Journal" (1877): > > < words of feeling eulogy, assures the officer of his inordinate affection > for the white race in general and his person in particular, and avows his > intention of conducting the ensuing trade in a strictly honorable and > orderly manner ....>> > > Web discussion of Protestant versus Catholic 'extremisms': > > < but nothing more excessive than the inordinate affection that extreme Roman > Catholics exhibit towards the Pope ....>> > > -- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 1 20:20:35 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 15:20:35 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020101075325.00ac55d0@nb.net> Message-ID: As I recall, my sister-in-law used "binky" with her kids (and they did with their kids, I believe), and I think I've heard it elsewhere too. When my son was born, the "in" brand was Nuk, from Germany? So the Binky brand (generalized to binky) may have preceded the Nuk (and presumably others). By the way, "pickanniny" (which you may have meant by 'pinkeny'?) did indeed come from Spanish "pequeno" (assume tilde) or its Portuguese equivalent, to mean "little one," and it was adopted by English-based creoles. But I don't think we have to stretch this to include "pink" (and why a Dutch link?). The "binkie/pinkie" connection makes some sense though. At 08:42 AM 1/1/02 -0500, you wrote: >>... now I wonder whether there was a pre-existing word "binky". .... > >A good question. I don't find this in any of my books. One might check the >English Dialect Dictionary and maybe the big Scottish National Dictionary >(I don't have these myself ... maybe next time I drop by the big library ...). > >In Scots there's apparently "bink" = "bench"/"shelf"/"cupboard"/etc. ... >not very promising. There's also "whistle-binkie", which I see defined as a >peripheral attendee at a penny wedding [i.e., a wedding with an admission >charge ... which he has not paid], an idle spectator ... here presumably >"binkie" has/had some meaning, but I don't know for sure what (but see below). > >My casual conjecture is that "binky" originally meant something small, >either "baby" or "little finger". I see Binky/Binkie as a nickname on the >Web and as a name for small pets: Binky the Bunny or Binky the Kitty >perhaps (not Binky the Killer Whale). I wonder whether this could have been >a version of "pinkie", Scots for small things including the little finger, >and similar to older English words along the line of "pinkeny" used as pet >names or so. [A wild speculation which may be instantly disprovable by an >expert: could "pink" and its relatives such as this one come (through >Dutch) from Spanish "pequeño"?] "Binky" might be a baby-talk version. Also >note that one's pinkie can serve as a binky in an emergency. > >I note the Scots expression "whustle one's thoum" = "whistle [on] one's >thumb" = "twiddle one's thumbs" = "be idle" or so ... very similar to the >activities of the whistle-binkie at the penny wedding ... maybe he's >whistling on his pinkie? > >-- 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 mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 1 21:08:30 2002 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 16:08:30 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This thread is triggering an exasperating memory for me. When I lived in Cincinnati, a very popular person by this name evidently had a phone number similar to mine, because for an entire year the phone rang almost daily with "Yo, Binky dere?" (Obviously, I mention this as evidence that human beings can be called Binky.) -Mai _________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 2 00:44:44 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 19:44:44 EST Subject: Annual Banished Word List Message-ID: I found the following on AOL News: '9-11' Tops Annual Banished Word List By BREE FOWLER .c The Associated Press DETROIT (Jan. 11) - The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks should be referred to as just that and not ``9-11'' or ``nine-eleven,'' according to the annual list of banished words compiled by Lake Superior State University. The authors of the ``List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness'' at the Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., school say they received numerous nominations for the abbreviations to be included in the 27th annual list. Most people nominating ``9-11'' and ``nine-eleven'' said they were not trying to make light of the attacks, but asked if finding a ``cute'' abbreviation for the day makes them any easier to accept. But others objected strongly. ``I can't believe people are abbreviating the worst act of war this country has seen since Pearl Harbor,'' wrote a nominator from Colorado Springs, Colo. ``I've never heard anybody refer to the attack on Pearl Harbor as Twelve-Seven or 12-7.'' Lake Superior, the smallest public university in Michigan with just over 3,000 students, releases the list each Jan. 1 from submissions gathered around the world from academia, advertising, business, journalism, the military, politics and sports. The list was born out of a New Year's Eve party in 1976 and sent out as a publicity ploy for the Upper Peninsula school. Then-public relations director W.T. (Bill) Rabe started the list, in part because he thought the school needed more name recognition. Among the other words included on this year's list: ``friendly fire,'' once popular during the Gulf War and revived by the recent military action in Afghanistan. Several other terrorism-related terms made the list, including ``surgical strike'' and ``bring the evildoers to justice.'' ``Practically every news reporter and our president has uttered these words,'' wrote a nominator from the Queens borough of New York City. ``Now, hearing this phrase is almost comical, even under these most serious circumstances that profoundly affect my hometown.'' Among the other words and phrases on this year's list: ``in the wake of,'' ``synergy'' and ``faith-based.'' ``Reality TV'' and ``Reality-based TV'' also made the list. ``Banish the words, banish the shows, banish the people who came up with the idea for the shows, because there is nothing real about this form of television,'' wrote Mary Li of Toronto. My comment on the above: unlike "9-11", several items listed in the article have specific meanings but have no synonyms, so if they get banned we will have trouble discussing the topics. Specifically: friendly fire - is also called "fratricide". Friendly fire has been much discussed since the Gulf War, but is nothing new. Item: in the 1948 battle for Jerusalem, the commanders on both sides (Abdul Kadar el Huseinni and David Marcus) were killed by friendly fire, as was Stonewall Jackson in 1863. It can be argued that at Waterloo more British soldiers were killed by friendly fire than by enemy fire. faith-based - no available synonyms, and if you happen to dislike Bush's ideas on faith-based initiatives, your desire is that they be killed after public debate, which will be difficult if the term is banished. Hence banishing the term would be a politically biased activity! synergy - no available synonyms reality TV - probably an oxymoron, but again no available synonyms sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something less than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, bombs do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a statement of reality). - Jim Landau From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 2 00:49:47 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 19:49:47 -0500 Subject: Annual Banished Word List In-Reply-To: <94.1f2cffe8.2963b1fc@aol.com> Message-ID: The press release is available here: http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current/default.html Somebody on another site had this to say about the list: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/13469#197798 This list was thought up by the late Bill Rabe, who was the long-time head of publicity for Lake Superior State, which is a tiny college (3000 students) in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Rabe was a favorite of columnists and editors around Michigan, because he could always be counted on for a wacky and humorous quote about some issue of the day. Most of these had nothing to do with Lake Superior State, but when they were printed, they always said "Bill Rabe from Lake Superior State at the Soo says..." He probably did more for LSS's name recognition than every other person associated with it, including the hockey program, did put together. So while the Banished Words List and the Unicorn Hunters are legendary in the annals of PR, they shouldn't be confused with anything worth serious "pondering." From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Jan 2 02:18:23 2002 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 20:18:23 -0600 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020101151028.03c61530@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >As I recall, my sister-in-law used "binky" with her kids (and they did with >their kids, I believe), and I think I've heard it elsewhere too. When my >son was born, the "in" brand was Nuk, from Germany? So the Binky brand >(generalized to binky) may have preceded the Nuk (and presumably others). Well, and I have heard of parents who talked about "nuking" the kid, i.e., giving the child the Nuk brand pacifier! Barbara Need UChicago--Linguistics From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 2 07:21:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 02:21:32 EST Subject: My Cuban Cocktail Recipe Book (2000); Bacardi Message-ID: BACARDI The Bacardi Building ("Edificio Bacardi") was near my hotel. It's an impressive landmark building, and it's being renovated. In Cuba, that could take forever. I walked by, and then stepped inside. I was a sad sight. Bacardi still exists; it should have its own building. -------------------------------------------------------- MY CUBAN COCKTAIL RECIPE BOOK by Ramon Pedreira Rodriguez 84 pages, paperback, $6 Editorial Arte y Literatura, Havana First English-language edition: 1997 Second English-language edition: 2000 I bought the 1998 Spanish edition for $4, then saw the English language edition for the first time at the airport just as I was leaving Cuba. Pg. 43: ALMENDARES... This cocktail was named after a famous Havana hotel located on the banks of the Almendares river in the 1920s. ALTA COCINA (HAUTE CUISINE)... Alta Cocina was the school of gastronomy where Cuban technicians were trained in the 1960s. It was located in the premises of the Tropicana nightclub. Pg. 44: ARCO IRIS (RAINBOW)... ARENAS DE ORO (GOLDEN SANDS)... Pg. 45: AVISPA (WASP)... BABALU (Ricky Ricardo never met my tour group--ed.) Pg. 46: BARACOA ESPECIAL (BARACOA SPECIAL)... BELLOMONTE... Pg. 47: BESO (KISS)... BOLA ROJA (RED BALL)... Pg. 48: BRUJA BLANCA (WHITE WITCH)... BUENAS NOCHES (GOOD NIGHT)... Pg. 49: CABALLITO (LITTLE PONY)... CACIQUE (CHIEFTAIN)... Pg. 50: CANCHANCHARA... CARIBENO (CARIBBEAN)... COCTEL CUBANO (CUBAN COCKTAIL)... Pg. 51: COCTEL INFANTIL (COCKTAIL FOR CHILDREN)... This cocktail was created for children and teetotallers. COLONIAL... This cocktail was the hallmark of El Colonial, on Prado Avenue, one of the oldest and most exclusive restaurants in Havana. Pg. 52: XIII CONGRESSO (13TH CONGRESS)... This cocktail won the contest held on the occasion of the 13th Congress of the Cuban workers. Pg. 53: CONTACTO (CONTACT)... This cocktail was named after and dedicated to a famous Cuban TV show. COSTA SUR (SOUTH COAST)... This cocktail is the hallmark of the Costa Sur Hotel, in the city of Trinidad. Pg. 54: CUBA BELLA (BEAUTIFUL CUBA)... The Cuba Bella cocktail won the first prize in a contest held in the 1960s. CUBA LIBRE... "Viva Cuba Libre" (Long Live Free Cuba) was the war cry of the _mambises_--the combatants of the independence army--who fought to free Cuba from the Spanish colonial yoke in the wars of independence waged from 1868 to 1878 and from 1885 to 1898. Cuba Libre was one of the first cocktails to be mixed by Cuban bartenders. Despite the fact--or perhaps due to it--that it is a simple formula, it has attained worldwide fame. Pg. 55: CUBANITO... Pg. 56: CUBATABACO... CUBATABACO is also the name of the export enterprise in charge of commercializing the superb Havana cigars. CHAPARRA... This is an old Cuban cocktail, dedicated to the famous Chaparra sugar mill. Pg. 57: CHICLET'S... DAIQUIRI FRAPPE... This cocktail was created at the Daiquiri mines, located in Cuba's easternmost region, by an engineer who suffered from the intense heat that characterizes the area. Years later--in 1920--it was improved by Constantino Ribalaigua, known as Constante, the famous bartender at the Floridita bar in Havana. This is the exquisite and worldwide famous cocktail that Hemingway always drank at the Floridita, which he described in his novel _Islands in the Stream_. Pg. 58: DAIQUIRI NAURAL (DAIQUIRI AU NATUREL)... DAIQUIRI PLATANO (BANANA DAIQUIRI)... Pg. 59: DAIQUIRI DE PINA (PINEAPPLE DAIQUIRI)... DAIQUIRI REBELDE (REBEL DAIQUIRI)... Rebel Daiquiri takes its name after the cocktail's olive-green hue, which is the color of the Cuban Armed Forces' uniform. It was created in 1959, after the triumph of the Revolution. Pg. 60: ENROQUE (CASTLING)... This cocktail was created on the occasion of the Capablanca (My hero--ed.) In Memoriam Chess Tournaments, held in Cuba for many years since the 1960s. ERNEST HEMINGWAY ESPECIAL (ERNEST HEMINGWAY SPECIAL)... This cocktail has no sugar. That is how the famous writer liked to drink it at the Floridita restaurant's bar. Pg. 61: ENSALADA DE FRUTAS (FRUIT SALAD)... This cocktail is welcomed by teetotallers on hot summer afternoons. ESPERANZA (HOPE)... Pg. 62: FLAMENCO... In the 1960s, this cocktail was the hallmark of the famous Flamenco Bar at the Sevilla Hotel. FLAMINGO... This cocktail represented the Flamingo Hotel in Havana. Pg. 63: FLORIDITA ESPECIAL (FLORIDITA SPECIAL)... FOGATA (BONFIRE)... Pg. 64: GINEBRA COMPUESTA (GIN MIX)... When ice was not yet manufactured in Cuba, this cocktail was very popular among cardrivers, who drank it in the early morning. Currently, the flavor of angostura and the freshness of the "cooling stone," like someone once called ice, have turned this cocktail into a veritable delight. HAVANA CLUB... HAVANA ESPECIAL (HAVANA SPECIAL)... Pg. 65: HAVANNA ROCA (HAVANA ROCK)... This cocktail was specially created for the restaurant La Roca (The Rock), in Havana. HASTA LUEGO (SO LONG)... Pg. 66: IDEAL... This cocktail was very popular in restaurants' bars in the 1950s. ISLA AZUL (BLUE ISLAND)... Pg. 67: ISLA DE PINOS (ISLE OF PINES)... The Isle of Pines is currently called the Isle of Youth. It is said it was the island that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write his novel _Treasure Island_. Pg. 68: JAI ALAI... This cocktail was very popular among professional jai alai players since colonial times. LIMONADA CLARETE (CLARET LEMONADE)... LOBO DE MAR (OLD SALT)... Pg. 69: MARY PICKFORD... Although this cocktail was named after the famous North American actress, it was created in Cuba. (NOT IN OED?--ed.) MOJITO... This cocktail, together with the Cuba Libre and the Daiquiri, ranks among the most famous Cuban cocktails. It is a very popular drink among the patrons and visitors of Havana's restaurant La Bodeguita del Medio. (NOT IN OED? NOT IN MERRIAM-WEBSTER?--ed.) Pg. 70: MULATA... NINA BONITA... Nina Bonita is the name of a well known cattle breeding center in Cuba. Pg. 71: NUBE ROSADA (PINK CLOUD)... OIP (INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISTS' ORGANIZATION)... This cocktail won the first prize in a contest held on the occasion of the Congress of the International Journalists' Organization held in Cuba in the 1960s. Pg. 72: PALOMA BLANCA (WHITE DOVE)... PECHO DE DONCELLA (MAIDEN'S BOSOM)... Pg. 73: PETALO (PETAL)... PINARENO... Guayabita del Pinar is a liquor produced only in the westernmost Cuban province of Pinar del Rio. (I visited the factory. My group didn't much care for the stuff. The sweet is slightly better than the dry, IMHO--ed.) Pg. 74: PINERITO... PONCHE DE FRUTAS (FRUIT PUNCH)... PRESIDENTE (PRESIDENT)... Pg. 75: PRESIDENTE DULCE (SWEET PRESIDENT)... PRESIDENTE SECO (DRY PRESIDENT)... Pg. 76: PRIMERO DE MAYO (FIRST OF MAY)... PUNCH DEAUVILLE... This cocktail represents the famous Deauville Hotel, located on the Malecon, Havana's seaside drive. Pg. 77: RESCATE (RESCUE)... Pg. 78: SANTIAGO... SAOCO... Pg. 79: SIERRA ORIENTAL (EASTERN SIERRA)... Pg. 80: SOLDADOR (WELDER)... SOL Y SOMBRA (SUNSHINE AND SHADOW)... TESOROR (TREASURE)... Pg. 81: TIPICO (TYPICAL)... TORONJIL (GRAPEFRUIT BALM)... TRICONTINENTAL... This cocktail won the prize awarded in a competition held in Cuba in the 1960s to choose the cocktail that would represent the gastronomy sector at the Tricontinental Conference, in which figures from Asia, Africa and Latin America participated. Pg. 82: TROPICAL... Pg. 83: TROPICANA ESPECIAL (TROPICANA SPECIAL)... This cocktail was named after the famous Tropicana nightclub, also known as Paradise Under the Stars. TURQUINO... This cocktail was named after the highest mountain in the Cuban archipelago. Turquino is in Cuba's easternmost region. Pg. 84: VARADERO (VARADERO BEACH)... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 2 07:43:30 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 02:43:30 EST Subject: The Triumph of English (ECONOMIST); Precool Message-ID: TRIUMPH OF ENGLISH "Christmas Special: The triumph of English" is in THE ECONOMIST, December 22, 2001-January 4, 2001, pages 65-67. Not much new here. From pg. 66, col. 2: On the whole the Brits do not complain. Some may regret...the arrival of "hopefully" at the start of every sentence.... (See Fred Shapiro's "hopefully" article in AMERICAN SPEECH...The "Tango" is on the cover, and the origin of "tango" is discussed. Maybe I should write in and tell THE ECONOMIST about the Making of America database (Cornell)--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- PRECOOL From DELTA SKY magazine, December 2001, interview with Neal Friedman of Fisher-Price, pg. 28, col. 3: _What about other trends?_ There are two areas--learning and (Pg. 30, col. 1--ed.) "precool." Those are two major trends in the industry right now. We call precool things like the scooter a preschooler sees everyone riding. We've done what we call the Roll 2 Pro Scooter--it has training wheels on it so that a younger child can emulate the older child safely. We've done that with skates. We've put together a precool section that the retailers have been very positive about for these aspirational (Col. 2--ed.) toys that a preschooler would love to do and (that) allow them to do it safely. ("Precool" is useful for our youngest ADS members. Might as well help them on slang and jargon, too--ed.) From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 2 15:27:32 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 10:27:32 -0500 Subject: surgical strike Message-ID: For what it's worth, my brother-in-law in Jerusalem refers tto surgical strikes as "dovecot bombing"; apparently a term familiar to Israelis. "sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something less than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, bombs do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a statement of reality)." ___________________ "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" --Leon Wieseltier From carljweber at MSN.COM Wed Jan 2 16:00:54 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 10:00:54 -0600 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query Message-ID: SEX Lex Survey Query Carl Jeffrey Weber Dear Linguists and Philologists, Please help identify the phenomenon behind the statistics. "Media bias" has recently been discussed in the news. I devised a simple method to generate data, perhaps relevant to personal pronoun etymology, demographic trends, cultural change, etc. What do the following data support, prove, and/or disprove? Are you surprised -- would you have predicted the data? ///////////////////// My search engine, MSN, shows the following inputs/hits: spokesman, 41 ; spokeswoman 374,090 chairman, 362 ; chairwoman, 80,878 fireman, 25 ; firewoman 1443 postman, 50 ; postwoman, 405 alderman, 19 ; alderwoman, 1121 /////////////////// Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. /////////////////// When your comments are unposted to public discussion, all correspondence sent to me is confidential in this survey. In your SEX Lex Survey Query response, comment on anything. Note the following: The American Dialect Society voted the word "she" to be "Word of the Millennium." Would you say that the tremendously increased workload of this pronoun suggested by the search/hits data supports and confirms the choice? Why? How do you, as a sociolinguist, interpret this data? How would sex and gender experts in linguistics, who monitor such things, interpret it? Carl Jeffrey Weber, Linguistics Investigator Chicago From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 2 03:22:51 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 11:22:51 +0800 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query In-Reply-To: <002001c193a6$aa039420$3c351342@computer> Message-ID: At 10:00 AM -0600 1/2/02, carljweber wrote: >SEX Lex Survey Query > >Carl Jeffrey Weber > >Dear Linguists and Philologists, > >Please help identify the phenomenon behind the statistics. "Media bias" has >recently been discussed in the news. I devised a simple method to generate >data, perhaps relevant to personal pronoun etymology, demographic trends, >cultural change, etc. What do the following data support, prove, and/or >disprove? Are you surprised -- would you have predicted the data? They prove that something's weird about your search engines. Google shows e.g spokesman, 2,040,000 spokeswoman, 540,000 chairman, 7,520,000 chairwoman, 137,000 fireman, 304,000 firewoman, 2,040 alderman, 234,000 alderwoman, 3,300 all of which is basically what I'd have predicted. maybe your search engines are pre-edited for sexism? I prefer unedited search engines myself. larry > >///////////////////// > >My search engine, MSN, shows the following inputs/hits: > >spokesman, 41 ; spokeswoman 374,090 > >chairman, 362 ; chairwoman, 80,878 > >fireman, 25 ; firewoman 1443 > >postman, 50 ; postwoman, 405 > >alderman, 19 ; alderwoman, 1121 > >/////////////////// > >Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. > >/////////////////// > From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 2 16:18:43 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 11:18:43 -0500 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query In-Reply-To: <002001c193a6$aa039420$3c351342@computer> Message-ID: My first response is: Use a better search engine, such as Google. My second response is: Used the advanced pane of MSN Search. Using these methods, there is no apparent discrepancy in the hits returned on the gendered search terms. Google: spokesman: 2,110,00 ; spokeswoman: 556,000 chairman: 7,640,000 ; chairwoman: 140,000 etc. MSN Advanced Search: spokesman: 1,167,334 ; spokeswoman: 373,029 chairman: 3,942,588 ; chairwoman: 80,538 etc. From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Wed Jan 2 16:36:50 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 11:36:50 -0500 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query Message-ID: They prove, rather, that you still have a bit to learn about how to read search engines. You said: Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. That's not 21 hits for "spokesman", but rather 21 web site matches. The web page matches total 1,470,000. Look on the upper right side of the page for the following list of links. Categories | Web Sites | Web Pages | News The thing about "spokeswoman" is that, most likely, there are currently no web sites with the term in their titles. You are therefore shifted over to the "Web Pages", where there are 341,000 hits. Don > They prove that something's weird about your search engines. Google shows > e.g > spokesman, 2,040,000 > spokeswoman, 540,000 > > chairman, 7,520,000 > chairwoman, 137,000 > > fireman, 304,000 > firewoman, 2,040 > > alderman, 234,000 > alderwoman, 3,300 > > all of which is basically what I'd have predicted. maybe your search > engines are pre-edited for sexism? I prefer unedited search engines > myself. > > larry > > > > >///////////////////// > > > >My search engine, MSN, shows the following inputs/hits: > > > >spokesman, 41 ; spokeswoman 374,090 > > > >chairman, 362 ; chairwoman, 80,878 > > > >fireman, 25 ; firewoman 1443 > > > >postman, 50 ; postwoman, 405 > > > >alderman, 19 ; alderwoman, 1121 > > > >/////////////////// > > > >Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. > > > >/////////////////// > > From carljweber at MSN.COM Wed Jan 2 16:37:13 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 10:37:13 -0600 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query Message-ID: I'm wrong, everyone is right. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Jan 2 17:29:13 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 12:29:13 -0500 Subject: cantharides Message-ID: I see this word is in the OED from 1541, with 1579, 1611, 1831 and 1847. Of these, only the 1611 citation refers to cantharides as a sexual stimulant: "Before she was common talk; now, none dare say, cantharides can stir her." (from a play by Beaumont & Fletcher) The 1831 source is from a magazine of horse-doctoring. The 1847 citation refers to cantharides as a stimulant when taken orally by a human, and is from a poem by Emerson. (!) There are also three citations showing a figurative use, from 1598, 1601 and 1790. The latter is from Burke' French Revolution: "Swallowing down repeated provocatives of cantharides to our love of liberty." (Can "provocatives of cantharides" be a typo for "provocatives or cantharides"?) In any event, this is a word not often documented, especially in the sexual sense, so here we go: 1835: A Disgraceful Act. -- A respectable married female, residing in Water street, made an application to the magistrate yesterday, for a warrant against a sailor, whom she charged with having inserted into an orange which he had given her to eat, a large quantity of cantharides, thereby seriously injuring her, and placing her life in jeopardy. *** NY Transcript, December 24, 1835, p. 2, col. 5 GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Wed Jan 2 14:46:05 2002 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 14:46:05 -0000 Subject: Percentage point--missed word in dictionaries Message-ID: In response to Victoria's comment: >Bilingual and learners' dictionaries, especially, need to >provide information about collocations. Of course, their number is legion >and no dictionary could possibly include them all in any way that would be >meaningful to a user who didn't want to devote his entire life to reading >it. And to David's comment: > This is surely a part--albeit a small part--of the art of lexicography. > Indeed, those publishers who think that computer programs or > inexperienced editors can replace experienced lexicographers will end > up with less artfully crafted lexicons. If you're talking about machine translation, David, I certainly agree with you--but not if you meant computer-based tools as a whole. The art of lexicography can and should encompass the skilled use of computer analysis, and the identification and inclusion of collocations is a great case in point. Corpus analysis, routinely used outside of the US by houses that specialize in bilingual and learners' dictionaries, is an invaluable tool that enables lexicographers to spot the most common collocations and to make decisions about including them (usually in example sentences) or excluding them based on frequency of occurrence, which renders the choice less subjective and less subject to gross omissions.. Allowing data to overrule common sense becomes its own species of lexicographic error, of course, which simply proves David's point about inexperienced lexicographers. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 01:38:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 20:38:17 EST Subject: Lake Effect Snow Message-ID: There's a diagram explaining "lake-effect" snow on CNN.com. It's not in OED, but there are many web hits. Unless an OED editor lives in Buffalo, it won't make the OED for another 12 years, I guess. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 02:26:18 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 21:26:18 EST Subject: Media Noche (1929); Moro crab; Perritos Calientes Message-ID: MEDIA NOCHE (MIDNIGHT SANDWICH) Not in the OED. Not in DARE. John Mariani's ENYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK, without any dates or cites, has on page 154: A "Cuban sandwich" is a popular Cuban-American version made with pork, smoked ham, Swiss cheese, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, and other condiments, while a "medianoche" (Spanish for "midnight") is served on an egg roll there. From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 26 January 1929, pg. 29, col. 1: The frequent sight, "Hay Sandwich" doesn't spell dry indigestion. It tells you that at that place you can buy a sandwich, right now. Incidentally, the sandwich may be called a "media noche," which translates "midnight." Try one of these soft buns layered with different cold cuts and cheese and pickles with the last bottle of beer before turning in, and see how well it has been named. -------------------------------------------------------- MORO CRAB Not in the OED. Isn't "M" being worked on???? From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 28 February 1930, pg. 16, col. 3: THE GASTRONOMIC DELIGHT The Moro crab is perhaps the outstanding delight of Havana. Of all the various sea foods that are to be found here it is the most distinctive--both in flavor and appearance. Its claws, with their black marking, are highly decorative and unlike those of any other crabs in the world. Its flavor is almost indescribable, its meat being sweeter and of a finer texture than the soft shell crabs of North America. (More on the "Moro crab" when I type up a Cuban cookbook in perhaps a few minutes--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- PERRITOS CALIENTES (HOT DOG!) From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 30 January 1930, pg. 62, col. 1: On the outskirts of Havana, near La Playa, is a cluster of hot-dog stands (they call them _perritos calientes_, i. e., hot puppies) ranged in a hollow square, with wooden tables where one can eat and drink. This spot is a favorite assembly place for native orchestras and dancers, and all sorts of bizarre native musical instruments are to be seen there. From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 28 February 1930, pg. 41, col. 3: Charles L. Feltman, who is reputed to have made America "hot dog minded," has returned to the states after an extended stay here. Although he is said to have made millions in hot dogs--and probably millions of them--he maintains that his mammoth restaurant at Coney Island--"Feltman's"--is the big interest. However the perritos calientes are not to be sneezed at, he will admit, and moreover if a person pins him down, he will tell what goes into those fat rascals. Somehow or other, a hot dog seems sort of closer to you, friendlier, don't you think, if you know what has gone into him. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 3 03:10:32 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:10:32 -0800 Subject: Annual Banished Word List Message-ID: Jim: This is an interesting "take" on things. > > friendly fire - is also called "fratricide". Friendly fire has been much > discussed since the Gulf War, but is nothing new. Item: in the 1948 battle > for Jerusalem, the commanders on both sides (Abdul Kadar el Huseinni and > David Marcus) were killed by friendly fire, as was Stonewall Jackson in 1863. > It can be argued that at Waterloo more British soldiers were killed by > friendly fire than by enemy fire. I agree with you that "friendly fire" is nothing new. I remember hearing back in the dear old days when the Vietnam War was going on. I just assumed that the term came from that period. I'm no doubt mistaken, as I am about a great many things. > > faith-based - no available synonyms, and if you happen to dislike Bush's > ideas on faith-based initiatives, your desire is that they be killed after > public debate, which will be difficult if the term is banished. Hence > banishing the term would be a politically biased activity! "Faith based" is definitely new, and IMHO overused, but since there's no real synonym, we're probably stuck with it, unless people come up with something else. > > synergy - no available synonyms "Synergy" is a word borrowed, I think, from physics, but it doesn't mean in popular parlance what it means in physics.Basically it's used(again, I think)in business situations to describe a kind of ebb and flow between two groups or two ideas. > sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. > Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart > bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as > opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something less > than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will > admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, bombs > do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a statement > of reality). "Surgical strike" is another military term that's been around for a long, long time, not just in recent wars, and it's been around long before "smart bombs" were invented, so I doubt that this phrase will get banned any time soon. Anne G From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 03:17:36 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 22:17:36 EST Subject: Cuban Cookery (1931); Ajiaco (1912) Message-ID: CUBAN COOKERY: GASTRONOMIC SECRETS OF THE TROPICS, WITH AN APPENDIX ON CUBAN DRINKS by Blanche Z. De Baralt Editorial "Hermes," Havana 1931 It's in the NYPL, and as good as anything I saw in the Cuban National Library. It's in English. Pg. 9: Thus the national Olla of Spain is converted here into the Cuban Ajiaco; a thick soup, of course, but composed of entirely different ingredients. Instead of beef and ham, we find pork. Instead of potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbage, garbanzos (chick peas) etc. we have sweet potatoes, yams, malangas, bananas, corn &. Pg. 19: AJIACO This is the national dish of Cuba, especially in the country. It is a thick soup full of vegetables. Some of each kind should be served in every plate. Pg. 32: _SHELL FISH_ MORO CRABS If there is one thing for which Havana has a well founded reputation, it is certainly for its moro crabs (not Morro like the Morro Castle, if you please, but moro, meaning Moorish). They are simply insuperable. Pg. 38: REVOLTILLO. (Cuban scrambled eggs). Pg. 43: PICADILLO. (Cuban hash). Pg. 46: ROPA VIEJA. (Rags). Pg. 48: EMPANADAS. (Fritters with minced meat). Pg. 50: CHIVIRICOS. Pg. 57: _BEANS_ FRIJOLES NEGROS. (black beans). Pg. 58: RED BEANS. (Frijoles coloradas). Pg. 59: JUDIAS. (White beans). JUDIAS EN MUNYETAS. (Fried white beans). Pg. 60: MOROS Y CRISTIANOS. (Moors and Christians). Pg. 61: CONGRIS. GARBANZOS. (chick peas). Pg. 72: FRIED PLANTAINS. Pg. 73: BANANA CHIPS. (Galleticas). Pg. 86: GUACAMOLE. Pg. 87: QUIMBOMBO. (Okra). Pg. 106: BREAD FRITTERS. (Torrejas). HULA-HULA. COQUIMOL OR COCONUT MILK. Pg. 107: CAFIROLETA. COCO QUEMADO. (Toasted coconut). Pg. 121: ORIGINAL DAIQUIRI COCKTAIL CUBAN MANHATTAN COCKTAIL PRESIDENTE COCKTAIL Pg. 122: MARY PICKFORD COCKTAIL ISLE OF PINES COCKTAIL HAVANA YACHT CLUB COCKTAIL Pg. 123: GIN COCKTAIL MANHATTAN COCKTAIL BRIDGE COCKTAIL Pg. 124: MAH JONG COCKTAIL FRENCH CANADIAN COCKTAIL VERMOUTH COCKTAIL Pg. 125: SHERRY COCKTAIL CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL (Dry) CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL (Sweet) Pg. 126: CREOLE COCKTAIL (Old fashioned) GRAPEFRUIT BLOSSOM Pg. 127: BACARDI BLOSSOM CLOVER CLUB COCKTAIL CLOVER LEAF COCKTAIL Pg. 128: MERRY WIDOW COCKTAIL DUBONNET COCKTAIL HAVANNA COOLER Pg. 129: PLANTER'S PUNCH RUM COCKTAIL (Cuban mojo) ("Mojito" anyone?--ed.) Pg. 130: _OTHER DRINKS_ BACARDI FIZZ BACARDI SILVER FIZZ GOLDEN FIZZ Pg. 131: BACARDI PINEAPPLE FIZZ SHERRY FLIP PORT WINE FLIP Pg. 132: SHANDY GAFF CUBAN MILK PUNCH HOT ITALIAN LEMONADE Pg. 133: OLD SOUTHERN MINT JULEP SHERRY COBBLER Pg. 134: COFFEE FRAPPE CUBAN POUSSE. POUSSE CAFE Pg. 138: PINA FRIA (Pineapple juice) Pg. 139: CHAMPOLA (Guanabana refresco) ANON REFRESCO ENSALADA (Salad) Pg. 141: TAMARIND BUL A very popular drink. Juice of half a lime One tablespoonful sugar Half a glassful light beer Half a glassful water Shake with cracked ice. -------------------------------------------------------- AJIACO (continued) A long article is in THE CUBA MAGAZINE, October 1912, pg. 81, col. 1: _Ajiaco_ _A Cuban Dish, Fearfully_ _and Wonderfully Made._ A GENERAL favorite among Cuban dishes is a marvellous concoction called _ajiaco_. The following recipes for its fabrication were translated from a cook book called _El Cocinero Criollo_. The author of this volume is a very well known Havana physician and his critics have cruelly intimated that he had an eye out for business when he published it. _Ajiaco de Puerto Principe_... _Ajiaco de Monte_... _Ajiaco Campestre_... (Col. 2--ed.) _Ajiaco Bayames_... _Ajiaco Cardenense_... Ajiaco is served in all the restaurants of Havana; but where it is dished up properly and in all its pristine glory, is in the bohios of the interior, where it is the most substantial part of the guajiro's daily fare. From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Thu Jan 3 05:07:09 2002 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 21:07:09 -0800 Subject: Annual Banished Word List Message-ID: At least we don't hear much about "pinpoint bombing" anymore.... ----- Original Message ----- From: "ANNE V. GILBERT" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 7:10 PM Subject: Re: Annual Banished Word List > Jim: > This is an interesting "take" on things. > > > > friendly fire - is also called "fratricide". Friendly fire has been much > > discussed since the Gulf War, but is nothing new. Item: in the 1948 > battle > > for Jerusalem, the commanders on both sides (Abdul Kadar el Huseinni and > > David Marcus) were killed by friendly fire, as was Stonewall Jackson in > 1863. > > It can be argued that at Waterloo more British soldiers were killed by > > friendly fire than by enemy fire. > > I agree with you that "friendly fire" is nothing new. I remember hearing > back in the dear old days when the Vietnam War was going on. I just assumed > that the term came from that period. I'm no doubt mistaken, as I am about a > great many things. > > > > faith-based - no available synonyms, and if you happen to dislike Bush's > > ideas on faith-based initiatives, your desire is that they be killed after > > public debate, which will be difficult if the term is banished. Hence > > banishing the term would be a politically biased activity! > > "Faith based" is definitely new, and IMHO overused, but since there's no > real synonym, we're probably stuck with it, unless people come up with > something else. > > > > synergy - no available synonyms > > "Synergy" is a word borrowed, I think, from physics, but it doesn't mean in > popular parlance what it means in physics.Basically it's used(again, I > think)in business situations to describe a kind of ebb and flow between two > groups or two ideas. > > > sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. > > Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart > > bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as > > opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something > less > > than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will > > admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, > bombs > > do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a > statement > > of reality). > > "Surgical strike" is another military term that's been around for a long, > long time, not just in recent wars, and it's been around long before "smart > bombs" were invented, so I doubt that this phrase will get banned any time > soon. > Anne G > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 05:16:22 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 00:16:22 EST Subject: HAVANA magazine cocktails & food (1929-1930) Message-ID: I'd like to put a nasty rumor to rest. I did not room with boxer Mike Tyson in Cuba. We did not both get Che Guevara tattoos. From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 26 January 1929, pg. 45, col. 1: _A LESSON IN COCKTAILS_ (...) The exclusively Cuban cocktail, the "Daiquiri," may not be. It was just coming into vogue in the States when Prohibition fell on the country. It is nothing but the juice of fresh limes, Bacardi rum and sugar, shaken with much ice until frosted. Nothing to beat it has ever been concocted. It was named after the town where it was invented, a Cuban mining town that contributed much to Bethlehem Steel. The "Presidente" is also strictly Cuban. It is Bacardi and vermouth, with a dash of orange and a cherry. The "Alexander" is a cocktail of a fashionable beige shade, and is popular with the ladies; the joke is often on the ladies, however, for it is potent under its innocent white-of-egg face. The "Zazerac" is a wicked one, blended with (Col. 2--ed.) absinthe and Bourbon whiskey; the "Ideal" is rather like a Bronx, with grapefruit juice instead of orange. The "Douglas Fairbanks" is similar to the "Ideal," but the "Mary Pickford" is a swell pink ceremony in a slim glass, made of pineapple, Bacardi, orange juice and grenadine. Post-prandial cocktails include the "Stinger," always popular in the States, being made of brandy and mint. "Stinger" is right. The "Blue Moon" is another, but it is not the infrequent thing that a blue moon is generally supposed to be. It combines white mint, gin, and that beautiful violet liquid. Any liqueur in the world may be had, too, for the close of dinner. The exclusively Cuban potion is the delicious Bacardi "Elixir." The old-fashioned cocktail is made of Bourbon or Rye in a distinctive, heavy-bottomed, small tumbler, combined with bitters, fruit, lump sugar, ice, mint, and a cherry. Its local name is "Dulce Maria"--Sweet Marie! Somewhat similar to it is the "Planter's Punch," in its nice, fat goblet, which is properly of Bacardi with a Jamaica rum float, and the fruits. (...) From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 30 January 1930, pg. 64, col. 1: Havana has its tea hour, and two or more days a week its tea dansant. But it also has its cocktail hour, when the patios are filled with gay little groups seated in the shade of huge umbrellas, drinking anything for _pina_, a delicious non-alcoholic drink made from the juice of fresh pineapple, to planters' punch, or _Daiquiri_, or _Presidente_ cocktails. (...) There are numerous restaurants where one can enjoy the _cangrejo Moro_, _langosta_, or _arroz con calamares_, for which Havana is justly famous. And there are other delicious dishes like red snapper cooked in bags, vegetable soup Spanish style, _ajiaco Criollo_, and a fish chowder comparable only with the bouillabaise of Marseilles. From HAVANA, 20 March 1930, pg. 13, col. 1: _Cangrejos Moros:_ Moorish Crabs which, in Spanish, is pronounced, more or less, like this: "Canned-gray-hose morose." From HAVANA, 20 March 1930, pg. 9, col. 2: Another Daiquiri...and a Presidente and a Mahree Pickford for my old friend Dr. Ebra. From HAVANA, 19 February 1929, pg. 7, col. 1: I prefer the "Mary Pickfords" at the Florida bar to those brewed at any other establishment I know of. (...) I regard the patio of the Hotel Inglaterra as the most pleasing in town wherein to sip a frozen Daiquiri. I am of the opinion that the filet of _pargo almondine_ and _crongrejo gratin_ at the Restaurant Paris are two of the most luscious dishes ever confected. (...)(Col. 2--ed.) I consider Bacardi the finest rum in all the world. From HAVANA, 28 February 1930, pg. 30, col. 1: "Marolo," I sex to the concoctioneer, "fix me up a Jai-Alai." This is the kind of drink that you don't know what's in it and after four drinks you don't care what is in it. From HAVANA, 28 February 1930, pg. 10, col. 2: Good Lord! It's half past five and I've a cocktail guzzling date with two other fellers. Have you, by the way, ever tried a Cunard Special? It's awfully potent, ah! Did I say _potent_? Yours till we regain consciousness. From HAVANA, 28 January 1929, pg. 18, col. 1, "MY BODEGA" by Marie Oberlander: BEFORE the days of my initiation into the mysteries of the "bodega" or Cuban bar, I was often puzzled by the phrase, "my bodega," which I heard on all sides. How could anyone distinguish one bodega from another? They all looked alike to me. From HAVANA, 28 February 1930, pg. 58, col. 1: Bacardi is the finest rum in the world--and I have drunk it in all combinations from Cuba Libres--with Coca Cola--to Presidente cocktails. From HAVANA, 10 January 1930, pg. 24, col. 1: The names of Brown, Flynn, Bruen, Milton, Baccioco and other pioneers, will ever linger in the memory of true lovers of the sport of kings in "The Island of Bacardi." (See my Bacardi Building comments on an earlier post--ed.) From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 3 05:48:29 2002 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 23:48:29 -0600 Subject: Lake Effect Snow Message-ID: Barry writes: > There's a diagram explaining "lake-effect" snow on CNN.com. It's not >in OED, but there are many web hits. > Unless an OED editor lives in Buffalo, it won't make the OED for >another 12 years, I guess. Oh, yes, Barry. This is a collocation that needs to be formally lexically distinguished. A great lake is warmer than the land adjoining it, apparently even when it has some ice across it, but certainly in terms of the 'first freeze'. Once the air moves from over the lake to over the land, it loses its moisture, and generates vast, near-instantaneous quantities of snow (as with Buffalo's current six meters). And how's that for considered capitalization? A great lake. I wonder what cold air masses coming down from the Caucasus and onto the Caspian do in Turkmenistan. Umm. Is the term 'phase transition'? _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 05:58:51 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 00:58:51 EST Subject: Mary Pickford cocktail (1928) & Hotel Nacional (1930) Message-ID: "Dale DeGroff, the Jerry Thomas of the present age, has been a valuable resource." --William Grimes, STRAIGHT UP OR ON THE ROCKS (2001), acknowledgments. Dale DeGroff--the John Mariani/Robert Hendrickson of the cocktail. Does Grimes even know who I am? I was searching "Mary Pickford" on the web and I found DeGroff's website, www.kingcocktail.com. This is at www.kingcocktail.com/DrinkM-R.html: _MARY PICKFORD_ Created at the Hotel National de Cuba in Havana during Prohibition for the famous silent film star and co-founder of United Artists. "Mary Pickford" is mentioned in Basil Woon's WHEN IT'S COCKTAIL TIME IN CUBA (1928). (Woon discussed his book a year later in HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA.) "Mary Pickford" was mentioned many times in HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 1929-1930. The Hotel Nacional de Cuba opened on December 30, 1930. (www.hotelnacionaldecuba.com) OUP doesn't pay me the big bucks for nothin'. From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 3 06:12:11 2002 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 00:12:11 -0600 Subject: surgical strike Message-ID: I spell it dovecote. I remember a brand-name of a house out in Contra-Costa County (California) that had dovecotes, on Hamlet Lane. And apparently, we have 3D bombs, helicoper-style bombs, bombs that jazz themselves on the x-y-z axes. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 3 08:35:14 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 03:35:14 -0500 Subject: sports rage Message-ID: Here is another rage-word that deserves consideration for WOTY: sportsrage or sports rage sports rage or sportsrage, n. {W} uncontrollable rage at a sports event by either the contestants or the viewers. Youth sports rage is a growing phenomenon among parents with children involved in competitive sports. Psychologists compare it to the aggression displayed by angry drivers. The challenge for parents is to promote a recreational atmosphere for their kids that is fun and educational. �Keeping Sports Rage Off The Playing Field,� http://www.medialink.com/medialink/r00-164.shtml In the aftermath of an incident in Boston in which one father allegedly beat another to death after the two argued over their sons' hockey game, sports psychologists and others are searching for ways to stop parental violence at youth sporting events. Denise Mann, �Experts Suggest Ways to Stop Parents' 'Sports Rage',� WebMed Health [http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1676.51381], July 12, 2000 Not brand-spanking new (cf. 2000 dates), but this is a current topic even post-9/11 worth consideration, don't you think? Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 3 13:27:26 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 08:27:26 -0500 Subject: cantharides In-Reply-To: <64abc564d095.64d09564abc5@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: When I was young, all the boys knew of the aphrodisiac "Spanish fly" = cantharides. When I was still young (and gullible) my doctor (apparently a practical joker) prescribed topical cantharidin collodion for my wart: the first application raised a horrendous painful blood blister; I decided to live with the wart. "Harper's New Monthly Magazine" 41(241):158 (1870) [MoA Cornell]: <<"The counsel for the plaintiff," said a gay and festive attorney of the Superior Court, "has been somewhat discursive in his remarks to you. He has alluded to almost every thing in the pages of history, ancient and modern. He has socked with old Socrates, roamed with old Romulus, ripped with old Euripides, and canted with old Cantharides. But, gentlemen of the jury, what has that got to do with this case? All his allegations are false, and the old alligator knows it himself. My client don't need any of this fine talk. Look at him, gentlemen, and say, if you can, that he hasn't done the honest thing by the plaintiff! From his youth up he has been as you now find him -- A No. 1, extra inspected, scaled and screened, copper-fastened, free from scoots, silver-steel, buck-horn handle, nine yards to the dollar, thread thrown in!">> -- Doug Wilson From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Thu Jan 3 13:55:17 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 13:55:17 -0000 Subject: cantharides Message-ID: >A No. 1, extra inspected, scaled and screened, copper-fastened, > free from scoots, silver-steel, buck-horn handle, nine yards to the dollar, > thread thrown in!">> Forgive my ignorance, if such is the case, but does anyone else hear bells ringing when reading 'nine yards to the dollar' in this list of congratulatory images and wonder as to a possible link to the oft-debated/disputed 'whole nine yards.' I assume, however, that this has been considered already. That said, I can't find a 'whole nine yards' thread in ADS-L Archives (the main ref is to Jesse Sheidlower expounding on the Full Monte) but maybe I searched incorrectly. I find it hard to believe that the assembled expertise has not been focussed in that direction already. Jonathon Green From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 3 14:50:12 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 09:50:12 -0500 Subject: cantharides In-Reply-To: <000801c1945e$474c8b80$023264c0@green> Message-ID: >... 'nine yards to the dollar' .... I mentioned this passage on this list some time ago, in the "nine yards" context. I believe that the implication is that nine yards was a somewhat standard quantity of cloth which one might buy for a dress, etc. ... there are other such citations .... In this case I think the speaker is imitating advertisements, particularly one for a store offering nine yards of cloth for a dollar. I still think "nine yards of cloth" is one of the viable candidates for the ancestry of the recent "whole nine yards"; at least there are a few citations to back it up ... where are the corresponding old (pre-1965) citations to support the fashionable (and viable, I suppose) alternatives involving ammo belts and concrete mixers? On the other hand there's quite an interval of time between 1870 and 1965 .... -- Doug Wilson From Heaberlin at SWT.EDU Thu Jan 3 18:10:44 2002 From: Heaberlin at SWT.EDU (Dick Heaberlin) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 12:10:44 -0600 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Set Mail From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 3 17:56:54 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 12:56:54 -0500 Subject: Whole Nine Yards In-Reply-To: <000801c1945e$474c8b80$023264c0@green> Message-ID: On 1/3/02 08:55, "Jonathon Green" wrote: >That said, I can't find a 'whole nine yards' thread > in ADS-L Archives (the main ref is to Jesse Sheidlower expounding on the > Full Monte) but maybe I searched incorrectly. I find it hard to believe that > the assembled expertise has not been focussed in that direction already. You're right; our experts have been hard at work on this one (or at least hard at the keyboard). If you search the archives for "nine yards" you'll find what looks like everything we've every posted on the topic. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S2=ads-l&q=nine+yards&s=&f=&a=&b = From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 19:56:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 14:56:04 EST Subject: Pina Colada (1922); Typical Cuban Dishes (1940) Message-ID: PINA COLADA (continued) Merriam-Webster has 1923. What cite is that? Is it from Cuba? The "pina colada" of the "pina colada song" is different, however. That "pina colada" is believed to have been first mixed at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I recently e-mailed the food service there about their historic menus; the man in charge said he'd look, but never responded again. From TRAVEL, December 1922, pg. 14, col. 1: Havana has learned the art of mixed drinks from her nothern (Col. 2--ed.) neighbor, and has contributed some original creations. In Cuba the ingredients of every known drink are to be had--even those of the South Seas. At the end of almost every bar is a heap of ripe pineapples and green cocoanuts. An excellent drink is made by mixing the milk of the latter with a little gin and a _panal_, a cake of sugar-foam. But best of all is a _pina colada_, the juice of a perfectly ripe pineapple--a delicious drink in itself--rapidly shaken up with ice, sugar, lime and Bacardi rum in delicate proportions. What could be more luscious, more mellow and more fragrant? -------------------------------------------------------- TYPICAL CUBAN DISHES From the HAVANA CHRONICLE, June 1940, pg. 4, col. 1: _Typical Cuban Dishes_ ARROZ CON POLLO... PAELLA Is the same as the above dish, with the addition of shellfish, shrimps preferred. FILETE DE PARGO CON ALMENDRAS A filete of this fish--peculiar to Cuban waters--blanched with crumbled almonds and accompanied by a sauce, is one of the most delicious dishes served in Cuba. CANGREJOS MOROS (Moorish Crabs) The Moorish crab is the leading crustacean of all the Seven Seas. It has enormous, black-tipped claws, the meat of which is more delicious than that of lobster claws. Served cold with mayonnaise is the favorite way of preparing boiled Moorish crabs. BEANS AND RICE No Cuban midday meal is complete without beans and rice, red beans, chick peas and the most popular of all, black beans, the latter combined with rice, is familiarly known as Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians). From pulliam at IIT.EDU Thu Jan 3 20:00:48 2002 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 14:00:48 -0600 Subject: A resident of Provo? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Would that it were Provolone. Greg > >DINIS > >>I figure that *somebody* on this list may know this one. >> >>I am in need of the one-word term for a resident of Provo (the town in Utah >>where Brigham Young University is located). Since i work in Provo, i figured >>i could just informally ask some natives of Provo what they call themselves, >>but i've gotten conflicting answers from them. So far i've gotten >>(approximately in order of descending frequency): Provoan, Provoite, >>Provonian, Provan, Provoer. About half the respondents have given Provoan, >>but some of the others have explicitly and spontaneously told me that >>whatever it is, it's *not* Provoan. >> >>I've looked in a few places where i'd expect to find answers to this sort of >>thing, and i've come up blank. >> >>(I don't even *want* to try to know what residents of Skull Valley, Utah are >>called! :-] ) >> >>Is this just a situation where i get to roll my own? >> >>David, who uses Waldorfian for residents of Waldorf, Maryland >>-- >>David Bowie Department of Linguistics >>Assistant Professor Brigham Young University >>db.list at pmpkn.net http://pmpkn.net/lx >> The opinions stated here are not necessarily those of my employer -- - Greg Pulliam Department of Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago From brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM Thu Jan 3 20:31:03 2002 From: brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM (brian faler) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 12:31:03 -0800 Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: I am a reporter for National Journal, a politics and government magazine based in Washington, and am working on an article on the language and rhetoric of the war on terrorism. I was wondering if anyone knew where the phrase "draining the swamp" comes from. The Bush administration has used the phrase repeatedly, over the last three or four months. I've heard that its an adaptation of something Mao Tse-tung said during the Chinese Civil War - that he referred, at one point, to "draining the sea" in order to kill the fish more efficiently. But I would guess that it predates that - that the phrase somehow refers to the fight against malaria. Or maybe it comes from American colonials moving west into forbidding lands. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, I would certainly appreciate their opinions. Brian Faler --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online at Yahoo! Greetings. From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 3 20:50:45 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 14:50:45 -0600 Subject: Lake Effect Snow Message-ID: In Chicago, when you're near the lake in the summer, it is always cooler (some say also kewler) than outlying areas -- the western suburbs. When you're near the lake in the winter, it is always warmer than outlying areas. It's not linked with any significant variation in snowfall, although the meltaway would be faster nearer the lake. As I've recently learned in these electronic haunts, the cool breeze off the lake in summer -- the lake effect -- is the source of "Windy City". Carl Jeffrey Weber From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 3 21:21:37 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:21:37 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp In-Reply-To: <20020103203103.63107.qmail@web20702.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: (My Lexis-Nexis access is down; but this is what I've come up with on Dow Jones. This is just some supporting information, not a claim at antedating, sourcing or of finding a coinage). It could have originated as an engineering phrase: >From the Australian Financial Review, 06/08/1984: "ENGINEERS HAVE A SAYING WHICH RUNS ALONG THE LINES THAT WHEN YOU ARE UP TO A CRITICAL PART OF YOUR ANATOMY IN SNAPPING ALLIGATORS IT IS HARD TO REMEMBER THAT THE ORIGINAL OBJECT OF THE EXERCISE WAS TO DRAIN THE SWAMP." Another version: http://home.att.net/~erobatino/y2kfix.htm "Exactly how high will the "alligator index" (as in 'When you're up to your butt in them, it's long past time to drain the swamp.") get?" In some circles, it may be related to the "Alligator Allegory," which is supposedly affiliated with Murphy's Law: http://www.public.asu.edu/~ykutkut/murphy.htm (and many other sites) "{Alligator Allegory: The objective of all dedicated product support employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp." I suspect the malaria connection is also likely. The phrase itself is not used, but the idea is clear in this army document "THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT 1865-1917." But as it concerns that large engineering feat, the Panama Canal, it might be worth looking at. http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/history/booksdocs/spanam/gillett3/ch10.htm "Because destroying all infected mosquitoes in the entire Canal Zone was impossible, the fight to reduce malaria rates required eternal vigilance and considerable ingenuity. Any time a district physician reported a significant rise in the number of malaria cases, Le Prince was required to send experts to assess the situation and pinpoint the cause of the increase. Sometimes it was determined that the mosquitoes were breeding in a swamp too large to be dealt with by ordinary methods. " Standard methods included draining standing water, pouring oil over containers to smother oil and introducing salt wather that is inhospitable for the insects. The earliest citation of "drain the swamp" I can find in the popular news media in connection to the events of Sept. 11 is from The Times of London, 09/13/2001 , by Michael Gove: First paragraph: "YOU don't eliminate malaria by swatting mosquitoes. And the violence unleashed on America yesterday will not be contained, let alone eradicated, by measures taken against individual terrorists. Tough action is now required by the West not just against groups of politically motivated criminals but against the causes of the world's greatest single crime." Then, near the end of the article: "Which brings us to the third key point. The only way to end malaria is to deprive the mosquitoes of their breeding ground. To drain the swamp. "The marshland in which Islamist terror, including Saddam's prospers, is a consequence of the wetness of the West. As the Middle East scholar David Wurmser has pointed out, Islamism was never weaker than after the Gulf War." The earliest citation I can find in relation to terrorists is from USA Today, 12/02/1987, by Jim Phillips: "The USA should learn from Jefferson's example: Punish terrorists, don't reward them. Military action may not be a realistic option given the ability of terrorists to conceal themselves within Lebanon's anarchy, but it mustn't be ruled out. We must help Lebanon's government regain control of its territory and deny sanctuary to terrorists. To get all the alligators, we must drain the swamp. " From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 3 21:32:18 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:32:18 -0500 Subject: My WOTY List Message-ID: If anyone reading this is at the ADS meeting, can you please print out this message and give it to Allan or Wayne Glowka? I sent it (late as usual) to Allan and haven't heard back. He may not be checking his mail in SF. Many thanks, Gareth Gareth Branwyn's Jargon Watching 2001 Here are my selections for new words 2001. As always, I've not only included a list of interesting jargon and slang from the realms of technology, science and online culture, but I've also tried to connect the dots on some of the terms in search of emerging trends. Not surprisingly, terms related to terrorism and surveillance technologies were prevalent, as were words relating to the continued tech sector plummet. A new semantic field emerged around the growing popularity of volunteer wireless networks ("parasitic grids") being built in many large cities based around the "Wi-Fi" wireless networking standard. Look for more terms related to this technology (and the rapidly growing subculture around it) in 2002, especially as it begins to impact the telephone companies' very expensive answer to it, third-generation (or "3G") high-speed wireless. - Gareth Branwyn advergame A downloadable or Web-based game made for the express purpose of product placement. See: pop-unders, gatored. All You Base Are Belong to Us This Japenglish phrase from a late '80s video game became the absurdist meme-du-jour, showing up on college campuses, on websites, in "webeos" (Web-only videos), on T-shirts, etc. The profusion of images and other media featuring the phrase led to the term "AYB content." apology bonus Money paid by technology companies to students who they promised to hire but couldn't afford to because of a slowed economy. See: post-crash realism, dot-orging. assoline Slang term for methane when used as a fuel source. Spotted on an online discussion board about alternative energy sources. [Note: Obviously a stunt word, and one I've heard used only in this forum. Included here for comic relief.] bio-surveillance The practice of monitoring a city's hospital admission records, especially in an effort to detect spikes in symptoms that could provide early indication of a bio-weapon attack. A.k.a. "hospital surveillance." See: powder jobs, terror sex. dot-orging Leaving the white water rapids of the dot-com sector for the calmer waters of a dot-org. See: apology bonus, post-crash realism. facial profiling The use of surveillance cameras, "faceprinting" software and law enforcement databases to secretly videotape and attempt to identify known criminals and terrorists in a crowd, such as one entering a sports arena or other public space. See: passface. gatored Being bombarded by pop-up ads, often from a competitor of the site you're viewing (e.g., an FTD.com coupon pops up while you're shopping at 1-800-Flowers.com). The term gets its name from Gator, the ad-feeding application that's increasingly being bundled with popular file-sharing programs. See: advergame, pop-unders. hit my clip Synonymous with "page me," "clip" being youth/street slang for a pager. See: impoverished display. impoverished display A small, low-quality screen on a handheld device that is too cramped to be useful. See: hit my clip. obliteration application Name given to a copy-protection scheme Hollywood would like built into future digital TVs and recording devices. The software would control how often content could be copied to another machine ("copy once," "copy never," etc.). See: PVR. overconnectedness Term coined by Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times for the growing cultural anxiety over being connected everywhere, all the time. [via Paul McFedries' WordSpy] parasitic grids The controversial name given to the ad hoc wireless networks being set up in many major metropolitan areas. Computer users with broadband Net connections set up a wireless access node using 802.11b (a.k.a. "Wi-Fi") technology and offer free high-speed Internet to anyone within wireless range (who has a Wi-Fi card in his/her computer). The phone companies, who are going to be spending millions on a new high-speed wireless infrastructure, are understandably nervous about this new brand of volunteerism. A.k.a. "community wireless" (probably the term that will stick) and "personal telco." See: Wi-Fi 5, wilding. passface A scan of a human face that is used instead of a password as part of a biometric security system. See: facial profiling. [via Paul McFedries' WordSpy] pop-under ads As the dot-com marketplace dot-bombed, and advertisers and websites became desperate for ad exposure, aggressive advertising in the form of pop-under ads became commonplace. These ads tuck under your main browser window so that you encounter them as you're closing other active windows. See: advergame, gatored post-crash realism The bracing sobriety that has swept the dot-com world, leading many to be more cautious about their online projects and techno-utopian prognostications. Coined by editors at Esquire to help define a shift in editorial approach, the term took on an even deeper significance after 9-11. [Note: This term has not been seen outside of Esquire, I just thought it was an interesting neologism.] See: dot-orging, sneakers-up. powder jobs What "Hammer Teams" (Hazardous Materials Emergency Response") dubbed the calls they were making to check out suspicious envelopes and white substances during the Anthrax attacks and subsequent hysteria. See: bio-surveillance, terror sex. PVR [Personal Video Recorder] The name that finally stuck for hard drive-based TV recording devices such as TiVo and ReplayTV, beating out several other terms like "Hard Disk Recorder" (HDR) and "Personal TV" (PTV). See: obliteration application. sneakers-up Said of a dot-com that has died. A play on the idiom "belly-up" and reminiscent of the older hacker slang "casters-up," used to describe a broken or dead computer. See: apology bonus, dot-orging, post-crash realism. [via Paul McFedries' WordSpy] terror sex The "booty calls," relationship reunions, and comfort sex that reportedly occurred after 9-11. Some have posited that a 9-11 baby boom may even result. Also dubbed "post-disaster sex," "end-of-the-world sex," "Apocalypse sex," and "Armageddon sex." See: bio-surveillance, powder jobs. Warhol worm A piece of malicious software (theoretical, for now), that could infect every vulnerable server on the Net within fifteen minutes. Wi-Fi 5 (802.11a) The Wi-Fi ("Wireless Fidelity") standard grew steadily in '01, with the first iteration of it, 802.11b being pushed as a wireless home networking solution. This version of the standard operates in the 2.4GHz radio range (which can interfere with 2.4GHz telephones and microwave ovens). By year's end, a new version, 802.11b was demonstrated. This flavor of Wi-Fi works in the less crowded 5GHz range and is much faster than its 11b sibling. See: parasitic grids, wilding. wilding [Short for "Wireless Internet LAN Discovery"] The practice by wireless hackers (a.k.a. "whackers") of traveling around a neighborhood looking for Wi-Fi (802.11b) networks to access (or attack). A.k.a. "war driving," a variation on the earlier hacker term "war dialing" (the automated dialing of phone numbers looking for venerable computer networks to attack). See: parasitic grids, Wi-Fi 5. women of cover Islamic women who wear traditional dress, i.e. head coverings and modest clothing. The phrase was apparently coined by President Bush (or one of his speechwriters). There is an older, more established phrase, "women who cover," which he may have meant. [I think this is a prime candidate for Word of the Year. Unlike more obvious choices such as "ground zero" and "9-11," this term beautifully data-compresses many of the complexities of our post-9-11 world. It is a fitting coinage in a world where we drop food and bombs at the same time, where late-night talk show hosts make "Dude, where's my camel?" and Gore-has-a-Taliban beard jokes while the President is speaking from a Mosque about the peace-loving religion of Islam, and where a conservative president uses such a painfully PC expression in the same speech is which he vigorously rattles the American sabre.] From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 3 21:43:57 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:43:57 -0500 Subject: My WOTY List In-Reply-To: <3C34CDE2.A22D2E2C@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Because the language in that meme is already stilted, I just want to make a tiny correction and add in that missing R on "you": > All Your Base Are Belong to Us From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Jan 3 21:14:15 2002 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:14:15 -0500 Subject: Pina Colada (1922); Typical Cuban Dishes (1940) In-Reply-To: <68.193c19c2.29661154@aol.com> Message-ID: Here's our 1923 cite for pina colada: ...a pina colado -- a glass, nearly as large and quite as thin as possible, of the chilled essence of pineapple. Page 44 San Cristobal de la Habana Hergesheimer Knopf 1923 >From the look of it, this source also (like Barry Popik's) associates the drink with Cuba (unless there's a San Cristobal de la Habana somewhere else -- but I haven't found one in my geographical dictionary). But this pina colada doesn't seem to be the mixed drink with coconut, lime juice, rum etc. Thanks for the antedate, Barry -- I'd have had to assign a later date to the entry otherwise, since this cite doesn't fit the definition we enter. Joanne From jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU Thu Jan 3 22:41:33 2002 From: jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU (Miller, Jerry) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 17:41:33 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: Brian: One context for the "draining the swamp" phrase that I've heard is in a humorous sense (or semi-humorous?). I remember hearing the "joke" but most clearly recall it from a sign an Indiana prison warden, who was under huge political pressure at the time, had on his office wall (and a colleague of mine used as the lead for his story on the warden): "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember you are only there to drain the swamp." (This was probably 30 years ago or so.) Not totally irrelevant in the current context, perhaps? Jerry Miller Pulliam School of Journalism jmiller at franklincollege.edu > -----Original Message----- > From: brian faler [SMTP:brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 3:31 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: draining the swamp > > I am a reporter for National Journal, a politics and government magazine > based in Washington, and am working on an article on the language and > rhetoric of the war on terrorism. I was wondering if anyone knew where > the phrase "draining the swamp" comes from. The Bush administration has > used the phrase repeatedly, over the last three or four months. I've > heard that its an adaptation of something Mao Tse-tung said during the > Chinese Civil War - that he referred, at one point, to "draining the sea" > in order to kill the fish more efficiently. But I would guess that it > predates that - that the phrase somehow refers to the fight against > malaria. Or maybe it comes from American colonials moving west into > forbidding lands. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, I would certainly > appreciate their opinions. > > Brian Faler > > > > --------------------------------- > Do You Yahoo!? > Send your FREE holiday greetings online at Yahoo! Greetings. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 4 01:00:09 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 20:00:09 -0500 Subject: A resident of Provo? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Greg Pulliam wrote: #Would that it were Provolone. [David B] #>>I figure that *somebody* on this list may know this one. #>> #>>I am in need of the one-word term for a resident of Provo (the town in Utah #>>where Brigham Young University is located). Since i work in Provo, i figured #>>i could just informally ask some natives of Provo what they call themselves, #>>but i've gotten conflicting answers from them. So far i've gotten #>>(approximately in order of descending frequency): Provoan, Provoite, #>>Provonian, Provan, Provoer. About half the respondents have given Provoan, #>>but some of the others have explicitly and spontaneously told me that #>>whatever it is, it's *not* Provoan. What do you expect, from a state whose dwellers call themselves "Utahns"?! -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 4 05:24:26 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 00:24:26 -0500 Subject: Media Noche (1929); Moro crab; Perritos Calientes In-Reply-To: <105.ee160bc.29651b4a@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry Popik wrote: > -------------------------------------------------------- > MORO CRAB > > Not in the OED. Isn't "M" being worked on???? Yes, but we weren't planning on including this; the evidence is sparse, and there isn't even too much on Google. JTS OED From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 08:20:46 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 03:20:46 EST Subject: Moro crab; Mary Pickford Cocktail Message-ID: I gotta fight the OED for these things. Watch out--I know Mike Tyson. -------------------------------------------------------- MARY PICKFORD COCKTAIL (continued) It's been around for over 70 years and is still going strong in Cuba. It's legit. I returned to the newly renovated Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library. The electronic book request system still doesn't work. The place still doesn't have a clock. The librarian there said the library is "still being worked on." I didn't see "Mary Pickford Cocktail" in the biographies; the clippings files were basically just movie reviews. www.marypickford.com received my query, and I'll relay any relevant response. -------------------------------------------------------- MORO CRAB (continued) From John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK (1999), pg. 310: _stone crab_ (_Menippe mercenaria_, although _Lithodes maja_ is also called by this name). Also, "moro" or "morro" crab. It's true that "cangrejo moros" is most popular in Cuba, whose citizens lack the computers to enter it on Google. But again, this is a word over 70 years old and that won't disappear. Next time, I'll go with OED editors to a seafood restaurant.... From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 4 12:32:26 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 07:32:26 -0500 Subject: Media Noche (1929); Moro crab; Perritos Calientes In-Reply-To: <20020104002426.C10766@panix.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > Barry Popik wrote: > > -------------------------------------------------------- > > MORO CRAB > > > > Not in the OED. Isn't "M" being worked on???? > > Yes, but we weren't planning on including this; the evidence is sparse, > and there isn't even too much on Google. What is this concept of not including? My impression from reading Barry's postings is that the OED is supposed to include every term and phrase from the English language, Spanish language, Central Asian languages, presumably every other language in the world... 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 Fri Jan 4 12:48:47 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 07:48:47 -0500 Subject: Eunoia Message-ID: One of my more interesting Christmas presents this season was a book called "Eunoia.". It's written by Canadian poet Christian Bok, and it contains a series of univocalic prose poems (each about 100 words). The first 20 or so poems use only the letter A, the next 20 use only E, and so on through I, O, and U. You can see an example here: http://www.chbooks.com/online/eunoia/index.html The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. However, I can't find it anywhere, even in the OED. Is it a real word? Paul From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 13:27:12 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 08:27:12 EST Subject: Eunoia Message-ID: In a message dated 1/4/02 7:48:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, lists at MCFEDRIES.COM writes: > One of my more interesting Christmas presents this season was a book called > "Eunoia.". > > The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful > thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. from Jeff Miller's Web site "A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia" URL http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words3.html "IOUEA (a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges)" - Jim Landau From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 4 14:19:48 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 09:19:48 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp In-Reply-To: <20020103203103.63107.qmail@web20702.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I don't think one needs to refer to Mao or any other modern source; I think the metaphor is transparent. In order to suppress vermin (usually insects, I suppose, and probably snakes, etc.), one drains any nearby swamp. As long as there is a breeding-place, there will be vermin. I presume this was as true and as obvious several hundred years ago as it is now; I can't be sure how the ancient Egyptians looked at the subject, but it wouldn't amaze me if they had the same approach: if there's a swamp on your property, even if you have sufficient useful land aside from it, drain it if possible and minimize the bugs and varmints. -- Doug Wilson From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 4 15:26:43 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 10:26:43 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: Then there was the NY State political faction of the 1840s called (by others, probably) the Barnburners, in honor of the farmer who got rid of the rats on his property by burning down his barn. I also recall a couple of sports broadcasters bantering. One said to the other something to the effect "in order to get you out of high school they had to set fire to the building." GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" Date: Friday, January 4, 2002 9:19 am Subject: Re: draining the swamp > I don't think one needs to refer to Mao or any other modern > source; I think > the metaphor is transparent. In order to suppress vermin (usually > insects,I suppose, and probably snakes, etc.), one drains any > nearby swamp. As long > as there is a breeding-place, there will be vermin. I presume this > was as > true and as obvious several hundred years ago as it is now; I > can't be sure > how the ancient Egyptians looked at the subject, but it wouldn't > amaze me > if they had the same approach: if there's a swamp on your > property, even if > you have sufficient useful land aside from it, drain it if > possible and > minimize the bugs and varmints. > > -- Doug Wilson > From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 4 16:39:09 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:39:09 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology_Notes:_=22-stan=22?= In-Reply-To: <001b01c192ed$16510f00$36351342@computer> Message-ID: Two minor etymological notes on Carl's message, for what they're worth: the -sta- of "Avestan" is not from the root *sta:- (see AHD4 for details, s.v. Zend Avesta), and there's really no debate about the origin of "Pakistan", which was deliberately coined from P(unjab) + A(fghan) + K(ashmir) + (Baluch)ISTAN by C. Rahmat Ali in 1933 and taken up by Mohammed Ali Jinna's Muslim League in 1940. Ben Fortson On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: > Etymology Notes: "-stan" > > Carl Jeffrey Weber > > "-STAN" > > I STill remember the IE "st(a)-" morpheme is among the literal handful of > most productive in the IE languages. It's found all over the place -- its > general sense is "STationary," or "STanding." It's in AveSTan and HinduSTani > cognates. It's in state, Stuttgart, constitution, staff, obstinate, stall, > constipate, stool, understand, post (as a back formation from Latin > postis) - the list goes on forever. > > /////////////// > > When Afganistan was named in 1747, two hundred years before Pakistan, it was > translated into English, "Land of the Afghans" (compare "Land of the > Angles"). The word, "-land," it seems, has a primal association "solid > subSTance". I decided to do some fieldwork, and went to Dunkin' Donuts. My > informant (notwithstanding, not a Muslim), after I asked, "what does '-stan' > mean, like in Afganistan, Pakistan," gave his quick response: "country". Of > note, the "-gan-" of the name chosen in 1747 looks suspiciously like the > most common name in the area - Khan. > > One list gentleman's comment on the problem was that in 1947 at the > Partition of India, the name Pakistan was totally named by the > geo-ethnicities (my word) who contributed letters to the naming process. > P(ersia), A(fgan.), K(ashmir), I(ndia). That much is good. These are the > four, and only four, bordering countries. But the gentleman continues with > S(ind), T(urk.). The device of the first four letters he inordinately > applies beyond historical credibility, because "-stan", meaning "land of" > in English, was known to many people in the area for two centuries, as > stated already. Pakistan at the partition seems to have been named with the > four letters of the bordering countries, + stan. I heard something like that > ten years ago from a Punjabi friend. Why not Pakistan, the "Land of Four > Letters", in its way, the way the Punjab is, the "Land of Five Rivers" in > its. (The name is derived from two Persian words: 'Panj' meaning five with > 'Aab' meaning water - the internet reminds me.) > > I looked on the web page for the Pakistani student organization, to seek > some source documentation - 1947 was not that long ago. I'd say somebody in > 1947 thought up that letter-device in a committee, and then they put the old > "-stan" on it. > > The Pakistani Student organization has a different etymology for the > Pakistan-word. They say the first part of the word is Urdu for "pure". > http://members.tripod.com/pakonline/intro_hist.html. This gives "Land of the > Pure". I'm skepical about use of an Urdu word here. Where are the 1947 > foundation documents? What's this Urdu root about? Maybe the Student group > will get back to me. > > My donut man informed me with great confidence that "Paki-" doesn't mean > anything - "it's just a name", he said, with sympathetic understanding. > (Back to "-stan".) I said "America-stan". We laughed about it, but no extra, > free, boston cr�me - like the dayshift donut lady used to give me until our > relationship soured. > > Carl Jeffrey Weber > From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Fri Jan 4 16:44:54 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:44:54 -0500 Subject: sports rage Message-ID: The Junta trial (concerning the father who is accused of killing his son's hockey coach) has brought a closely related term into the light: sideline rage. This refers specifically to rage exhibited at a sporting event by parents, coaches, and other non-participants: Violence among parents and coaches is a problem that has worsened over the last decade, according to the National Alliance For Youth Sports, a nonprofit organization based in West Palm Beach, Fla. 'In our society, the violence has grown, so where we've seen airplane rage and road rage, of course we've seen sideline rage. It's the parent that doesn't have the ability to step back and just let the child be a child,' said Fred Engh, president and chief executive officer. "Hockey dad heads to trial in killing," The Associated Press, December 27, 2001 Nexis.com has around 90 hits, about 60 of which are from 2001. The earliest is from 1979 (and refers, fittingly, to former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes.) Paul http://www.logophilia.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barnhart" To: Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 3:35 AM Subject: sports rage > Here is another rage-word that deserves consideration for WOTY: > > sportsrage or sports rage > > > sports rage or sportsrage, n. {W} uncontrollable rage at a sports > event by either the contestants or the viewers. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 4 16:50:35 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 08:50:35 -0800 Subject: Eunoia In-Reply-To: <270901c1951e$277ff7e0$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful > thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. > However, I can't find it anywhere, even in the OED. Is it a real word? It's a legitimate Greek word per Liddell-Scott's Greek English lexicon, but it means: "I. good will, favour, kindness, deeds of kindness. II. gift or present in token of good will" not "beautiful thinking". In what is probably a *very* gross simplification, I think Gk. "eu" = "good"; Gk. "kallos/a/on" = "beautiful". I don't find any reference to *kallinoia in the older Liddell and Scott. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 17:18:49 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 12:18:49 EST Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: Sometime circa 1960 the syndicated columnist Inez Robb wrote a column aboutthe "Popocatepetl" and "Ixtaccihuatl" (names of Mexican volcanoes) showing up on a spelling test and how they would have had to burn the school down to get her out if that had happened to her. If you can somewhere find a indexed collection of Inez Robb columns, you might be able to locate this particular piece of whimsey and thereby get a dating. The quote "The objective of all dedicated product support employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp." (frequently reduced to the final sentence) was popular in the Pentagon when I was there (1969-1975) and I recall seeing it posted in several offices. I don't recall if the signs were commercially distributed or hand-lettered. Other popular signs in the Pentagon in those days: "You want it by when?" illustrated by a carticature of several people laughing hysterically. I am pretty sure this one was commercially distributed. "No job is finished until the paperwork is done" illustrated by a picture of someone sitting on a toilet or potty. There were at least two versions of the illustration; one, which used a photograph, was commercially distributed. "I must be a mushroom. They keep me in the dark and feed me nothing but bullshit". I seem to recall hand-printed versions and at least one version commercially available as a poster. - Jim Landau my then signature block CSAM-SSD-E U.S. Army Management Systems Support Agency The Pentagon Washington DC 20310 Note that the Pentagon is in Arlington County, Virginia, but has a DC mailing address. If Congress had not absent-mindedly given what is now Arlington County to Virginia (it was until then part of DC), then the Custis-Lee plantation would have been in DC and Robert E. Lee would have stayed with the Union Army. P.S. to Fred Shapiro: since the outfit I was with in the Pentagon was a computer installation, you are welcome to add the above to your collection of computer proverbs. From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 4 17:54:33 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:54:33 -0600 Subject: Etymology Notes: "-stan" Message-ID: Re: -stan I appreciate Ben Fortson's help getting to a deeper bottom. He wrote: <<< Two minor etymological notes on Carl's message, for what they're worth: the -sta- of "Avestan" is not from the root *sta:- (see AHD4 for details, s.v. Zend Avesta), and there's really no debate about the origin of "Pakistan", which was deliberately coined from P(unjab) + A(fghan) + K(ashmir) + (Baluch)ISTAN by C. Rahmat Ali in 1933 and taken up by Mohammed Ali Jinna's Muslim League in 1940. <<< On the following site is a paragraph about Mr. C. Rahmat Ali, and after the paragraph, another by Mr. Ali himself. http://www.slam33.freeserve.co.uk/pakistan.htm Rahmat Ali first published the word 'PAKSTAN' on January 28, 1933 in the pamphlet 'Now or Never'. By the end of 1933, the word had become common vocabulary through the efforts of Rahmat Ali's Pakistan National Movement. An ''I' was added to ease pronouncement (like Afghan-i-stan). In his book 'Pakistan: the Fatherland of the Pak Nation', Rahmat Ali gives a fuller explanation of the word. The originator of the name, Rahmat Ali, says: " 'Pakistan' is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands- 'Indian' and 'Asian'. That is, Panjab, Afghania (North West Frontier Province), Kashmir, Iran, Sindh (including Kach and Kathiawar), Tukharistan, Afghanistan, and Balochistan. It means the land of the Paks- the spiritually pure and clean. It symbolizes the religious beliefs and ethnical stocks of our people; and it stands for all the territorial constituents of our original Fatherland. It has no other origin and no other meaning; and it does not admit of any other interpretation. Those writers who have tried to interpret it in more than way have done so either through the love of casuistry, or through ignorance of its inspiration, origin and composition" (C.R. Ali, 1947, "Pakistan: the Fatherland of the Pak Nation", Cambridge). ////////////////////////// If you look at the chart at the site, and the above, it shows where the students I mentioned came up with "pure". It also is accurate to say that the "-stan" meant "land of" to C.R. Ali when he used the letters for an extended purpose. He says: It both 1. "is composed of letters taken from the names...", 2 "It means the land of the Paks- the spiritually pure and clean." ///////////////////////// I have no reason to doubt Ben's understanding, better than mine I guarantee, of the source of "Avestan." However, if I could be directed more specifically to the evidence under *sta, it would help. My AHD of IE Roots is the slim volume copyrighted in 1985. Carl Jeffrey Weber From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 4 18:32:50 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 12:32:50 -0600 Subject: straight up thug Message-ID: Surf-lingering a daytime talkshow... the 13 year old girls who wanted to have a baby -- be husbandless mothers to fatherless children. "Don't nobody gonna' tell me what to do -- it's my body." The host says, "How ya gonna raise the baby?" She says, "Straight up thug." elsewhere on the web >>>>> Yukmouth (a.k.a. Jerold Ellis Jr., Smoke-A-Lot). He explains why he is called Yukmouth "My mouth if full of filth, flin, filth - that's why they call me Yukmouth." He was born in the Bay and then raised in the East Oakland streets. He has released one solo album called Thugged Out: Abulation. He says what it is about "This is more grimy - it's straight for the streets, straight up thug." Yukmouth has also had two album's with the Luniz called Lunitik Music and Operation Stackola. Yukmouth is due to release a new album called "Thug Lord" From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 23:01:12 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 18:01:12 EST Subject: "the Supremes" Message-ID: 1. I would have thought "the Supremes" meaning the US Supreme Court or the Justices thereof was an artifact of the post-campaign campaign after the last Presidential election. However, I just discovered the same usage in 1994 in, of all places, Analog Science Fiction magazine. Does anyone have an earlier cite? 2. Probably hopeless, but does anyone have evidence that this expression was, or was not, derived from the name of the Motown group "Diana Ross and the Supremes"? - Jim Landau From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Fri Jan 4 23:17:44 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 18:17:44 -0500 Subject: "the Supremes" Message-ID: Here's one: That Supreme Court justices are no more hallowed and haloed than the rest of us should come as a surprise to no one except perhaps these justices themselves. They are equally human in their contradictory conclusions, meanness, pettiness and occasional greatness. Among the current saintless Supremes, Burger, Whizzer White and Rehnquist weigh the least. Forbes, March 3, 1980 Here's an earlier one that refers to a state Supreme Court: The judge disparagingly refers to the West Virginia Supreme Court, which frequently overturns his rulings, as "the supremes." The Washington Post, November 2, 1979 Paul http://www.logophilia.com/ > 1. I would have thought "the Supremes" meaning the US Supreme Court or the > Justices thereof was an artifact of the post-campaign campaign after the last > Presidential election. However, I just discovered the same usage in 1994 in, > of all places, Analog Science Fiction magazine. Does anyone have an earlier > cite? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 5 19:18:35 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 14:18:35 EST Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: one more Pentagon quote: "Never start a vast project with half-vast ideas" Caveat: I recall seeing this quote only once, and that was on a hand-lettered sign. - Jim Landau From IncreaseSales at BIGCASHTODAY.COM Thu Jan 3 15:56:16 2002 From: IncreaseSales at BIGCASHTODAY.COM (IncreaseSales at BIGCASHTODAY.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 10:56:16 EST Subject: Over 12,000,000 Fresh Email Addresses...$2,000 in FREE Software! Message-ID: Dear ads-l at uga.cc.uga.edu, Would you like to send an Email Advertisement to OVER 12,000,000 PEOPLE DAILY for FREE? Do you have a product or service to sell? Do you want an extra 100 orders per week? NOTE: (If you do not already have a product or service to sell, we can supply you with one). ========================================================= 1) Let's say you... Sell a $24.95 PRODUCT or SERVICE. 2) Let's say you... Broadcast Email to only 500,000 PEOPLE. 3) Let's say you... Receive JUST 1 ORDER for EVERY 2,500 EMAILS. CALCULATION OF YOUR EARNINGS BASED ON THE ABOVE STATISTICS: [Day 1]: $4,990 [Week 1]: $34,930 [Month 1]: $139,720 ======================================================== To find out more information, Do not respond by email. Instead, Please visit our web site at: http://www.bigcashtoday.com List Removal Instructions: We hope you enjoyed receiving this message. However, if you'd rather not receive future e-mails of this sort from Internet Specialists, send an email to listremovalstoday at yahoo.com and type "remove" in the "subject" line and you will be removed from any future mailings. We hope you have a great day! Internet Specialists From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 5 20:42:37 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 15:42:37 -0500 Subject: FW: Eunoia Message-ID: Sort of in reply to the following, I must share with you all the first name of the baseball player who has all five vowels in his name: Aurelio Rodriguez, former 3rd baseman for the Detroit Tigers (in some of the glory years of the 70s, for Tiger fans) Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of A. Maberry Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 11:51 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Eunoia On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful > thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. > However, I can't find it anywhere, even in the OED. Is it a real word? It's a legitimate Greek word per Liddell-Scott's Greek English lexicon, but it means: "I. good will, favour, kindness, deeds of kindness. II. gift or present in token of good will" not "beautiful thinking". In what is probably a *very* gross simplification, I think Gk. "eu" = "good"; Gk. "kallos/a/on" = "beautiful". I don't find any reference to *kallinoia in the older Liddell and Scott. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 00:54:26 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 19:54:26 EST Subject: Pinata (1868) Message-ID: THE STRANGER IN THE TROPICS: BEING A HAND-BOOK FOR HAVANA AND GUIDE BOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN CUBA, PUERTO RICO, AND ST. THOMAS; WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTS OF INTEREST, SUGGESTIONS TO INVALIDS, BY A PHYSICIAN. HINTS FOR TOURS AND GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR TRAVELLERS by C. D. Tyng American News Co., NY 1868 Pg. 100 (CARNIVAL): When these are over, comes the lottery, the _pinata_, or whatever else forms the special attraction of the ball. After this, staid people retire, while the more vivacious resume the dances and the fun. The _pinata_ is a large globe of paper, filled with a variety of objects, suspended over the ball-room floor. At an appointed hour, usually about midnight, this is lowered sufficiently to be reached by sticks provided for the purpose, and is struck at by volunteers blindfolded for the attempt. Many fail to hit it at all, and are rewarded with laughter and jests; while the successful striker fractures the paper globe, and brings down with applause the multitude of its contents for a general scramble. (OED and Merriam-Webster both have 1887--ed.) Pg. 51: The yellow fever, or "black vomit".... Pg. 56: For the conveyance of persons, the _volante_, a vehicle peculiar to Cuba.... Pg. 70 (restaurant menu): Fish a la Minuta...Tatare...Mayonesa...Holandesa...Sebastopol...Milanesa...Gratin...Normanda...Catalan. Pg. 71: Chicken a la marengo. Pg. 95: The _panal_ is a mixture of sugar and the white of an egg, dried in rolls about six inches long. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 01:17:23 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 20:17:23 EST Subject: Cuban Sandwich & Medianoche (1903) Message-ID: From "HAVANA'S HOTELS AND CAFES," part of a series of Cuban dispatches from Dorothy Stanhope, in THE NEW YORK TIMES, 18 January 1903, pg. 26, col. 6: On the counters of restaurants are all kinds of baked meats and fowl. The Cubans are all (Illegible. Old NY Times microfilms are horrible!--ed.) spiced. Sandwiches are piled up high, but they are not the kind we know, with a simple layer of meat, or nuts (?--ed.), or lettuce. The Cuban sandwich is made of a roll and has three or four things between the sides. The kind known as "medianoche," suggesting that it is usually eaten late at night, is of a very delicious roll, with chicken and bits of pickle between the sides. Ham, cheese, and pickle are the ordinary filling for a native sandwich. Whatever may be lacking among the edibles displayed on the counters, sweet cakes are not. They are unprotected by bars of glass; still people eat them with great relish apparently. Cubans have a liking for very sweet things, and the cakes are made to suit them. To Americans they seem far too sweet. Many of them are filled with custard, "flan," it is called here. There are some small meat pies that are very p alatable. Other kinds of pies are unknown. Large cakes are likewise uncounted among Cuban pastries. From "CUBA'S CAPITOL IS GAY" by Dorothy Stanhope, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 1 March 1903, pg. 4, col. 6: There have been many luncheons; these differ very little from the ones to which we are accustomed in our own land either in service or the dishes offered. The one exception is the fish course, which usually consists of the most delicious little dried fish--pargitos they are called. One of them is about the right quatity for a person. Of all Cuban delicacies, none excels this. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 02:15:14 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 21:15:14 EST Subject: Havana (1953) (more "Moro" crabs) Message-ID: HAVANA: THE PORTRAIT OF A CITY by W. Adolphe Roberts Coward-McCann, Inc., NY 1953 Pg. 234: Chapter 41 NANIGO, OR CUBAN HOCUS-POCUS Pg. 245: Chapter 44 FAMOUS RESTAURANTS AND BARS Pg. 246: _La Zaragozana_, on Monserrate opposite the Centro Asturiano. THis is the oldest high-class restaurant in Havana. It was founded in 1830 and there is some resemblance to the celebrated Antoine's, of New Orleans, founded ten years later. Calmly old-fashioned, La Zaragozana maintains its standards in the face of modern competition, charges high prices and is approved by Cubans and foreigners alike. It specializes in fish and shellfish dishes. Better Moro crab, natural or stuffed, is not to be found anywhere. (It still exists, right next to Floridita--ed.) Pg. 249: _La Florida_, often called _la Floridita_, is an exception. This bar is famous for its Daiquiri cocktails, which many drinkers aver to be the best in the city. Pg. 250: Chapter 45 TYPICAL CUBAN DISHES ..._arroza con pollo_... Pg. 251: _Cangrejo_ Moro (Moro crab), a name that has nothing to do with Morro Castle, as some tourists imagine. Moro means "Moorish." This is a variety of stone crab with very large black-tipped claws. If ordered _natural_, the claw-meat only is served cold, with mayonnaise. But the masterpiece is stuffed Moro crab, the titbits of several crustaceans being used to pack one of the large shells and the result baked. Different restaurants treat in different ways, the least imaginative of which is _au gratin_. _Langosta_ (rock lobster), really a giant crawfish. Pg. 252: _Pargo_ (red snapper, also called in English muttonfish). (...) One of the best styles is _almendrina_, which means a covering of crushed almonds with a butter sauce. Other popular fish are _serrucho_ (kingfish), _aguja_ (sailfish), _atun_ (tuna), _pampano_ (pampano), and all the small, succulent species known in southern Florida. If you want a mixed seafood grill, order _rancho de mariscos_. _Ajiaco_. This is the down-to-earth native thick soup, a large helping of which is a meal. All the tropical vegetables are used--plantain, yam, taro, sweet potato, yuca (cassava), tomato, green pepper, onion, and corn-on-the-cob sliced into counters--and pork as the basic enrichment. The ajiaco of a poor country family may contain no meat except scraps of crackling. In a good city restaurant there will be salt pork and pieces of smoked ham. (...) _Congri_ (rice and black beans) is often listed as a soup, though more resembling an hors d'oeuvre. Pg. 254: Chapter 46 CUBAN FRUITS AND FRUIT DRINKS 1: _Pina_ (pineapple). 2. _Guanabana_ (soup-sop). Pg. 255: 3. _Anon_ (sweet-sop). 4. _Chirimoya_ (custard apple). 5. _Mamey_ (Cuban mammee). 6. _Caimito_ (star apple). 7. _Zapote_ (naseberry). 8. _Guayaba_ (guava). 9. _Fruta Bomba_ (papaya). Only in Havana, where _papaya_ has a vulgar connotation, is this fruit called fruta bomba. (David Shulman told me the same thing about when he was in Havana. I didn't know he liked papaya--ed.) Pg. 256: 10. _Sandia_ (watermelon). 11. _Naranja_ (orange). 12. _Toronja_ (grapefruit). 13. _Limon_ (lemon). 14. _Lima_ (lime). 15. _Tamarindo_ (tamarind). 16. _Granada_ (pomegranate). 17. _Granadilla_ (passion flower fruit, or granadilla). 18. _Mango_ (mango). 19. _Maranon_ (cashew). Pg. 257: 20. _Platano_ (plantain). 21. _Platanillo_ or _Platanito_ (banana). 22. _Uva_ (grape). 23. _Higo_ (fig). 24. _Tuna_ or _Higo Chumba_ (prickly pear). 25. _Pomarosa_ (rose apple). 26. _Mamoncillo_ (guinep). 27. _Aguacate_ (avocado pear). 28. _Coco_ (coconut). Pg. 258: 29. _Almendra_ (almond). 30. _Cana_ (sugar cane). -------------------------------------------------------- HAVANA: CINDERELLA'S CITY by Hugh Bradley Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. Garden City, NY 1941 Pg. 427: This also is the Havana where _pisto manchego_, Spanish scrambled eggs mixed with shrimp, peas, asparagus, tomato sauce, and ham is food for the gods and where the _cangrejos moros_, stone crabs, may be examined with fork far better than with pen. -------------------------------------------------------- STANDARD GUIDE TO HAVANA New York: Foster & Reynolds, Publishers Havana: Diamond News Company 1906 Pg. 82: Among the popular drinks is one called panal (honeycomb) or aucarillo, which is made from a mixture of sugar and white of egg, dried in rolls about six inches long, which look like spongy white candy; the rolls are served with a glass of water and with or without a lemon; when panal is dissolved it produces a sweetish drink like the eau sucre of the French. There are many refrescos, or refreshments, made from the nativ fruits. Pina fria is fresh pineapple, crushed and served in a glass with sugar and ice. Pg. 83: The drink called ensalada (salad) is a beverage composed of verious ingredients, the choice of which is determined by the fancy and skill of the composer. -------------------------------------------------------- From NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, September 1933, pg. 365, col. 1: For the thirsty there is the "pineapple refreshment," made of freshly crushed pineapple, sugar, and water. Some order it _colada_, which means strained; others like food and drink together, and order it _sin colar_ (without straining), with the pieces of crushed pineapple in the glass, a real treat. Pg. 380, col. 1: I have sat at a sidewalk cafe table, surrounded by well-dressed, well-fed people, sipping a pina colada (see text, page 365), and listening to an orchestra of flashing-eyed beauties play and sing their native music with its strange, yearning rhythm. Pg. 380, col. 2: In a cafe the sign on the wall which reads "Hay sandwiches," doesn't mean what it says in English, but means "There are (we have) sandwiches." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 06:17:28 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 01:17:28 EST Subject: Cocinero Cubano y Espanol (1857(LONG!)); Afro-Cuban Cuisine (1998) Message-ID: AFRO-CUBAN CUISINE: ITS MYTHS AND LEGENDS by Natalia Bolivar Arostegui and Carmen Gonzalez Diaz de Villegas Editorial Jose Marti, Havana 111 pages, paperback 1998 I found this book at the airport. It has a Glossary on pages 105-109, but it's all very confusing. Are these food terms Spanish or African? What do these words mean in English in a literal translation? How old do these go back? There's no clue. The most useful part is the bibliography on pages 110-111, which includes: AROSTEGUI, MARIA TERESA. _Recetas de dulce, helados, sandwiches y postres (Recipes for Sweets, Ice Cream, Sandwiches and Desserts). 1937 (Manuscript). MENDOZA DE AROSTEGUI, FELICIA. _Arte culinario_ (The Art of Cooking). 1896 (Manuscript). REYES GAVILAN, HORTENSIA. _Delicias de la mesa_. La Habana, 1923. -------------------------------------------------------- NUEVO MANUAL DEL COCINERO CUBANO Y ESPANOL, CON UN TRATADO ESCOJIDO DE DULCERIA, PASTELERIA, BOTELLERIA, AL ESTILO DE CUBA. INDESPENSABLE PARA APRENDER A COMPONER DE COMER CON LA MAYOR PERFECCION Y ECONOMIA, Y NECESARIO A TODAS LAS CLASES DE LA SOCIEDAD Y EN PARTICULAR A LOS GASTRONOMOS, MADRES DE FAMILIA, PONDISTAS, &c. DIVIDO EN TRES PARTES POR J. P. LEGRAN HABANA--1857. Imprenta de la Sociedad de Operarios, Aguila numero 146. A gem. The NYPL has this, but it's almost nowhere else. It's the earliest Cuban cookbook I can find. "Ajiaco" and "Ropa Vieja" (Old Clothes), two dishes that should have made it into English dictionaries a long time ago, are here. I'll type up the lengthy index--probably in several parts--so it's searchable on the web. Let me know if anyone wants the whole recipe. Delete as you wish. _INDICE._ _PARTE PRIMERA._ Caldo...1 Caldo de gallina...4 Caldo compuesto...4 Sopa gorda de pan...4 Sopa de Fideos...5 Sopa sencilla de pan...5 Sopa compuesta...5 Sopa Cubana...5 Sopa de arroz...6 Sopa de camarones...6 Sopa francesa comun...6 Sopa de arroz con leche...6 Sopa de chicharos...7 Sopa de leche batida...7 Sopa de Semola...7 Sopa matancera...8 Sopa mejicana...8 Sopa de platanos...8 Sopa de ajos, cubana...8 Sopa de cebollas y arroz...9 Sopa a la polka...9 Sustancia de enfermos...9 Sopa de tortuga...10 Papillas para ninos...10 Cocido de vaca...11 Termilla de vaca asada...11 Puchero confun...11 Olla podrida...12 Guisados de carne...12 Conejo guisado...13 Chuletas de terna...13 Olla espanola...13 Cocido de cuaresma...14 Cocido mayor...14 Cocido comun...14 Olla Cubana o ajiaco...15 Ajiaco de tierra-adentro...15 Ajiaco de Puerto-Principe...16 Estofado de vaca...16 Estofado de vaca a la Cubana...16 Estofado de ternera...17 Ternera mechada...17 Sesos...18 Sesos a la Cubana...18 Guisado madrileno...18 Gallina encebollada a la matancera...19 Bifteck...19 Bifsteck ingles...19 Criadillas guisadas...20 Vaca con verbas...20 Lengua a la criolla...20 Chuletas tostados a lo guajiro...20 Conejo guisado a lo tierra-adentro...21 Conejo a la espanola...21 Picadillo de conejo...22 Guanajo relleno..22 Revoltillo de guanajo...22 Gallina a la manchega...23 Pato a la criolla...23 Gallo con arroz...24 Ropa vieja a la americana...24 Picadillo a la matancera...24 Mondongo...24 Mondongo a la criolla...25 Pichones estofados...25 Pollos a la americana de scelente gusto...25 Patas a la Cubana...26 Sesos rebozados...26 Manos de cabrito...27 Costillas fritas de carnero...27 Criadillas de carnero...27 Pepitoria de menudillo...27 Cabrito en pebre...28 Albondigas cubanas...28 Huevos estrellados a la turca...28 Huevos guisados...29 Huevos pasados por agua...29 Huevo con leche...29 Huevos rellenos a la habanera...29 Huevos dritos a la francesa...30 Huevos con leche...31 Bacalao guisado...31 Bacalao a la islena...31 Bacalao a la americana..31 Albondigas de bacalao...32 Bacalao con huevos...32 Bacalao a la Vizcaina...32 Higado a la italiana...33 Salchichon de cerdo...33 Cochinillo de leche asado...33 Patas de conejo cocidas...34 Las mismas en papel...34 Chorizos de Espana...34 Mollejas de ternera fritas...34 Vaca frita a la cubana...35 Vaca frita a la americana...35 Criadillas fritas...35 Mollejas en fricando...35 Manos de ternera al natural...36 Orejas de ternera...36 Rinones de ternera a la francesa...37 Albondigas de carnero...37 Chuletas de carnero...37 Chuletas empanadas...37 Salchichas comunes...38 Pernil cocido...38 Salchichon...38 Pavos rellenos...39 Pollos a la rusa...39 Adobo...40 Butifarras a la cubana...40 Longanizas...41 Morcillas a la americana...41 Morcilla espanola...41 Longua a la mejicana...42 Carne de puerco frita a la criolla...42 Fritos...43 Ternera con almejas...44 Costillas de cerdo a la inglesa...44 Guisado criollo...44 Aporreado criollo...45 Guiso italiano...45 Platanos rellenos...45 Perdices con coles...46 Aves en adobo...46 Rinones con vino...47 Pichones con chicharos...47 Fricase de pollos...47 Pollos a la turca...48 Salpicon...48 Sesos de ternera a la cubana...48 Higado a la inglesa...49 Manteca de papas...49 Torta de higado...49 Pierna de carnero...50 Jigote cubano...50 Relleno de carne aves...50 Relleno compuesto...51 Pollos con salsa de pobres...51 _PARTE SEGUNDA._ M(?)ENESTRAS, SALSAS, LEGUMBRES, FRITURAS Y MENUDENCIAS. Salsa general...53 Salsa espanola...53 Salsa de tomates a la jitana...54 Salsa para legumbres...54 Salsa a la italiana...54 Salsa a lo guajiro...55 Salsa verde...55 Salsa picante...55 Cebollas rellenas...55 Lentejas...56 Maiz a la habanera...56 Fricase de pollo...56 Cebollas rellenas con carne...57 Esparragos...57 Judias verdes...57 Alcachofas rellenas...58 Papas a la cubana...58 Chicharos a la americana...58 Chicharos en ensalada...58 Salsa madrilena...59 Salsa habanera...59 Tomates rellenos...59 Patas estofadas a la cubana...60 Papas a la espanola...60 Papas a la valenciana...60 Papas fritas...61 Papas a lo fondista...61 Papas rellenas...61 Papas en ensalada...61 Papas a la francesa...62 Albondiguillas de papas...62 Name a lo guajiro...62 Coles en ensalada...63 Coliflor en ensalada...63 Name a lo trinitario...63 Platanos salcochados...63 Tortilla de malanga...63 Coles en ensalada...64 Quimbombo habanero...64 Berengenas asadas...64 Chayote en ensalada...65 Calabaza en ensalada..65 Ajies dulces asados...65 Chicharos con huevos...65 Torte de casabe...66 Gazpacho andaluz...66 Garbanzos con arroz...66 Arroz con almejas...67 Almejas a la criolla...67 Frijoles negros...67 Frijoles negros a la islena...67 Tortilla de garbanzos...67 Garbanzos a la americana...68 Arroz a la valenciana...68 Arroz a la cubana...68 Calabaza estofada a la italiana...69 Coles con tocino...69 Pepinos de vigilia....69 Pepinos rellenos...70 Calabaza a la madrilena...70 Yuca rebozada con huevo...70 Judias verdes a lo costafirmeno....70 Lechuga de vigilia...71 Lechuga rellena...71 Potage de garbanzos con arroz...72 Malanga a la criolla...72 Platanos fritos a lo tierra adentro...72 Habichuelas a la espanola...72 Potage de chicharos...73 Remolacha a la habanera...73 Nabos a la inglesa...73 Patatas a lo pobre-espanol...73 Yuca a la andaluza-criolla...74 Cardos a la espanola...74 Condimento o salsa general...74 Pasta para toda clase do cosas...75 Cebollas con huevos a la portuguesa...75 Tortilla con queso...75 Tortilla con rinones...75 Tortilla de esparragos...76 Salsa de ostras...76 Coliflor a la habanera...76 Habichuelas a la cubana...76 Apio a lo criollo...76 Brocoles...77 Criadillas de tierra...77 Arroz con leche...77 Habichuelas blancas...78 Habichuelas a la aldeana...78 Criollada...78 Tortillas yucatecas...78 Acelgas cocidas en ensalada...79 Nabos a la vizcaina...79 Raya guisada...79 Picadillo de puerros...80 Judias con vino a la catalana...80 Bunuelos cubanos...81 Pudin de arroz...81 Salchicha guinera...81 Higado de cerdo a la inlgesa...82 Apio en ensalada a lo bayames...82 Apio con chicaros...82 Esparragos con chicharos...83 Apio guisado a la italiana...83 Berengenas asadas...83 Sustancia de calabaza...83 Sustancia de chicharos secos...83 Sustancia de habichuelas...84 Sustancia de lentejas...84 Sustancia de zanahorias...84 Hongos guisados...85 Esparragos con huevos a la matancera criolla...85 Esparragos guisados a la madrilena...85 Frijoles negros en ensalada...86 Coles en ensalada...86 Calabaza en ensalada...86 Coliflor en ensalada...86 Judias blancas en ensalada...86 Name en ensalada...87 Chayotes en ensalada...87 Quimbombo en ensalada...87 Judias secas a lo guajiro...87 Salsa de cebollas a lo marragato...87 Esparragos en revoltillo...88 Guisado de venado...88 Costillas de venado...88 Esencia de aves...89 Gelatina...89 Pebre de pimiento a la inglesa...89 Papas en ajete a la islena...89 Sangre de carnero...90 Tocino fresco a la cubana-guagira...90 Queso de Italia...90 Queso de cerdo...91 Compnesto a lo republicano...91 Potage de chalotas...92 Relleno a la camegueyana...92 Arroz con carne de aves...92 Tuetano de ternera...93 Tortilla de menestras puerto-riquenas...93 Revoltillo de huevos...93 Cazuela catalana...94 Crestas de gallos...94 Cardos con queso...94 Salsa cubana general...95 Gallina guinea...95 Pajaritos diversos a lo tierra-adentro...96 Garbanzos a lo pinero...96 Frijoles encarnados a la habanera...96 Bofes de ternera a lo natural...96 Ensalada de sesos...97 Lenguas de buey o ternera...97 Rinones de cerdo a la vizcaina...98 Colas de cerdo con lentejas a lo guajiro...99 Salchichon de cerdo...99 Ensalada general de legumbres...99 Colas de carnero a la inglesa...100 Frijoles de carita a la habanera...100 Fritura de cebollas...101 Papas con mantequilla...101 Chicaros a la inglesa...101 Conejo a la portuguesa...101 Perdices en cazuela...102 Ensalada de escarola...102 Guisantes cocidos...102 Tocino...102 Calabacines en ensalada...103 Sustancia de papas...103 Espinacas a la espanola...103 Espinacas al natural...103 Coliflor frita...104 Platanos asados...104 Huevos a la americana...104 Huevos con jamon...104 Papas al vapor...104 Pelota a la catalana...105 PESCADOS.--Pargo a la americana...105 Serrucho asado a la matancera...106 Serrucho guisado a lo principeno...106 Cangrejos guisados...106 Anguilas fritas...107 Morcillas de cangrjos...107 Cherna a la habanera...108 Almejas a lo natural...108 Camarones a lo puerto-principeno...108 Rabi-rubias a lo reglano...109 Langostas a la cubana...109 Cabrillas a la americana...109 Cherna guisada...109 Huevos de lisa en tortilla...110 Sardinas...110 Salmon a la espanola...111 Truchas guisadas a la catalana...111 Truchas a la oriental...111 Sardinas saladas...112 Pescado en tortilla...112 Calamares en salsa negra...112 Calamares rellenos a la vizcaina...113 Picadillo cubano con pescado...113 Ostras...113 Caldo de cangrejo...114 Caldo de cangrejos de vigilia...114 Coronado con salsa...115 Cocido de pescado a la cubana...115 Cocimiento blaco para pescado...115 Arenques...116 Arenques curados o ahumados...116 Arenques curados de diferente modo...116 Arenques salados...116 Aporreado de cangrejos...117 Bacalao a la americana...117 Arenques a la gallega...117 Sardinilla con mostaza...118 Anchoas en ensalada...118 Atun escabechado...118 Atun fresco...118 Abadejo o bacalao a la escocesa...118 Abadejo a la portuguese...119 Abadejo con papas...119 Pescado cocido a la yucateca...119 Salmon en salsa...120 Aguja de paladar en fricando...120 Salmon a la espanola...120 Ensalada de salmon...120 Ensalada de ronco...121 Salmon con vino...122 (TO BE CONTINUED) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 07:12:23 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 02:12:23 EST Subject: Cocinero Cubano y Espanol (1857)(LONG!) Message-ID: (The index of the earliest Cuban cookbook I can find. Delete as you wish--ed.) _PARTE TERCERA._ PASTELERIA, DULCERIA Y REPOSTERIA. Bizcochos de monja...123 Bizcochos mantecados...124 Empanadas de sesos...124 Empanadas de aves...125 Bizcochos de chocolate...125 Almendras tostadas...125 Bizcochos catalanes...126 Bizcochos de limon...126 Huevos en espuma...126 Torrijas...126 Cidra en almibar...127 Jalea de grosella...127 Conserva de membrillo...127 Postres de huevos a la italiana...127 Dulce de coco...128 Dulce de casabe...128 Mazapan de almendras...128 Garapina de cafe...128 Merengues...129 Mazapanes...129 Turron...130 Compota de naranjas...130 Compota de manzana...130 Compota de naranja a la habanera...131 Compota de limones...131 Dulce de icacoa...131 Dulce de naranjas...132 Dulce de guanabana...132 Bunuelos de harina de maiz...132 Bunuelos de patatas...132 Bunuelos de name...133 Bunuelos de arroz...133 Crema de cafe...133 Crema de almendras dulces...133 Creme criolla...134 Crema francesa...134 Almibar...135 Dulce de papaya...135 Majarete habanero...135 Platanos en almibar...136 Dulce de cabellos de angel...136 Dulce de cidra...136 Manzanas en almibar...136 Mata-hambre...137 Tomates en almibar...137 Helado de crema con avellanas...137 Helado de crema de cafe...138 Ponche de rom...138 Manjar blanco...138 Punche de leche...139 Ponche de huevos...139 Zambumbia...139 Helado de agraz...140 Helado de naranjas...140 Empanadas...140 Pastelillos y empanadas...141 Pastel real...141 Pastel caliente a lo tierra-adentro...142 Pastel drio...142 Pastel con queso...143 Torta de almendras...143 Pastillas para el pecho...143 Pastel de hojaldre...144 Crema tostada con leche...144 Pudin casero...145 Barquillos...145 Sopa de angel...146 Bara conocer si el vino tiena agua...146 Bizcochos de crema...146 Bizcochos garapinados de naranja...147 Vinagre de platanos...147 Turron de Alicante...148 Merengues americanos...148 Ratafias...148 Ratafia estomacal...148 Para tenir licores de rosa...149 Pastel de pescado...149 Empanadas de pescado...149 Torta de arroz...149 Palanqueta criolla...150 Bizcochos a la italiana...150 Leche cuajada...151 Pudin a la inglesa...151 Tetas de vaca...151 Panecillos de avellanas...152 Melon de Castilla...152 Azucar quemado...152 Dulce de guayaba...153 Bizcochos a la Magdalena...153 Bizcochos merengados...153 Almibar de horchata...154 Clarificacion del azucar...154 Coco helado...155 Jalea de mamey de Santo Domingo...155 Toronjas en almibar...155 Corojo en almibar...155 Dulce compuesto...155 Panetelas principenas...156 Torta de almendras...156 Torticas sabrosas de anis...157 Torta de papas...157 Mariquitas...157 Torta a la francesa...158 Pastel de polla...158 Papas con nata...159 Torta italiana...159 Torta de arroz a la madrilena...159 Tortilla de cebolla con leche...160 Tortilla confitada...160 Natilla a la habanera...160 Bocado de cardenal...161 Bocadillos de dama...161 Dulce de flor de espino...162 Guayabitas del pinal...162 Turron de Gijon...162 Turrones de yema...162 Castanas carameladas...163 Otra clase natural de castanas...163 Barquillos de limon...163 Barquillos de leche...164 Barquillos borrachos...164 Barquillos de Francia...164 Dulce de guanabana...165 Jalea de guayaba...165 Panecillos de yema...165 Molleticos a la espanola...166 Torta real andaluza...166 Tamarindos cubanos en almibar...167 Macarrones soplados...167 Macarrones de dulce...167 Macarrones de crema...167 Turron cubano...168 Helado de crema de pistachos...168 Helado de crema flor de naranja...169 Creme de te...169 Crema de vino...169 Torta de calabaza...170 Sopa de leche azucarada...170 Tortilla soplada...171 Jarabe de horchata...171 Jarabe de naranja...172 Jarabe de menta...172 Jarabe de granadas...173 Jarabe de higos chumbos...173 Gragea menuda...173 Gragea o sean anises...174 Merengues de almendra...174 Flores de naranja tostadas...174 Bollos de flor de naranja...175 Pasta de almendras...175 Torta de maiz cubana...175 Pudin de Sto. Domingo...175 Coco con panetela a lo tierra-adentro...176 Rosquillas de almendras...176 Pudin de guayaba...177 Azucar blanqueado...177 Flan...177 Requesones...178 Esponjados...178 Otra clase de esponjados...179 Pudin de yuca criolla...180 Pasta frotada...181 Pasta con queso...181 Crema de avellanas...181 Crema de pina...182 Pudin de malanga...182 Pudin de papas...182 Albondiga colonial...182 Pastillas de flor de naranja...183 Pastillas de cafe...184 Pastillas frias de licor...184 Manzanas a la alemana...185 Peras a la alemana...185 Manzanas con arroz a la inglesa...185 Farro...186 Soplado de arroz...186 Soplado de papas...186 Bunuelos de garbanzos...187 Huevos con azucar a la puritana...187 Tortilla habanera...187 Pan perdido...187 Garapina a la cubana...188 Agua loja a la cubana...188 Coles habaneras sopladas...188 Compota de castanas...189 Rosquetes de Cuba...189 Zapotes en almibar...190 Pinas en almibar...190 Molletes cubanos...190 Limonada para viajes...190 Pastillas de cafe...191 Torta de leche criolla...191 Pastelillos de guayaba...192 Tortilla de amor...192 Torta cubierta...192 Torta americana...193 Pastelillos de mamey...193 Dulce de casabe...193 Panetela...194 Sopa imperial...194 Torta de huevos...195 Yemas acarameladas...195 Yemas cubiertas...196 Pastel de albondigas...196 Nueces en almibar...197 Conserva de yuca...197 Conservacion del pescado fresco...197 De otro modo...198 Conservacion de la leche...198 Otro modo...198 Huevos...199 Conservacion general de las carnes...199 Cebollas en vinagre...200 Pimentoncillos en vinagre...200 Vinagre de aseo...200 Vinagre de platanos...200 De otro modo...201 Vinagre de mostaza...201 Berengenas...201 (TO BE CONTINUED) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 07:31:53 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 02:31:53 EST Subject: Cocinero Cubano y Espanol (1857)(Last part) Message-ID: (The final part of the index--ed.) FABRICACION DE LICORES.--Vino de Burdeos...202 Moscatel...203 Vino de Jerez...203 Vino generoso de esquisito gusto...203 Vinos espumosos que imitan la Champana...204 Vino gascado espumoso...204 Vino moscatel de primera...204 Rom Imitado...205 Aguardiente de conac fiugido...205 Hipocras...205 Regla general para fabricar licores superfinos...206 Modo de filtrar...206 Licor fino...207 Licor entrefino...207 Marrasquino de Zara...207 Curazao de Holanda...207 Anisete de Burdeos...208 Aguardiente de Dantzik...208 Divisa del papa...208 Aguardiente de Andaya...208 Crema de vainilla...209 Elixir de Garus...209 Crema de menta...209 Vespetro...209 Crema de las Barbadas...209 China china...209 Anisete de Holanda...209 Licor de cartujos...210 Modo de preparar el licor...210 Conea...210 Vermont de Turin...210 RECETAS PARA PREPARAR TODOS LOS COLORES.--Color de rosa...210 Color amarillo...211 Color verde...211 Regla general para toda clase de jarabes...211 Jarabe de horchata...211 Jarabe de goma...211 Jarabe de limon...211 Modo de preparar la leche de almendras...212 Vino de Bisoph...212 Aceite de rom...212 Receta para fabricar la crema de te...212 Crema de rom...212 Crema de anonas...213 Agua de nueces...213 Ponche de rom...213 Ponche de kirsch...213 Receta para fabricar limonada gaseosa...213 Receta para fabricar cien botellas de cerbeza (primera calidad de los Paises Bajos)...214 Vino griego...214 Delicia de las Damas...215 Perfecto amor...215 Leche de las viejas...215 Crema de azahar...215 Agua de las hermosas...215 Agua de plata...215 Agua de las doncellas...215 Crema de apio...215 Aceite de Venus...216 Crema de aleli...216 Crema de jazmin...216 Crema de ajenjo...216 Agua del paraiso...216 Aceite de rom...216 Crema de cidra...216 Noyo...216 Anisete...217 Te...217 Licor de rosas habanero...217 Crema del serrallo...218 CREMAS PARA COMPONER VINOS ESTRANGEROS.--Rosolio de Breslau...218 Crema de lacrima christi...218 Crema de Champana de Silery...218 Crema de Burdeos Chateau-Laffite...218 Crema de Chipre...218 Estractos de ajenjo suizo...218 Sustancias para clarificar el vino...219 Para la cerbeza...219 Para el aguardiente...219 Para el aceite...219 Para el sebo...220 Cidra sin manzanas...220 Vinagre hecho en poco tiempo...220 Advertencia...221 From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jan 6 08:54:56 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 01:54:56 -0700 Subject: Pin~ata Message-ID: I saw an item on CNN (I think it was) the other day that said the pin~ata, which in this country is quintessentially associated with Mexico, was originally brought to Europe from China, and found its way to Spain and thence to the colonies. Given this history, unless it goes by a different name in Spain, one would expect a much earlier citation in some British source (unless travel writing did not come into vogue until the 19th century). Rudy From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 17:15:49 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 12:15:49 EST Subject: Up-Selling Message-ID: The excellent WordSpy has "upsell," but it's defined there as a retailer trying to sell a more expensive item ("movin' on up"). This involves a "free offer," where customers have to call up to cancel credit card charges. From today's NEW YORK POST, 6 January 2002, pg. 7, col. 3: _Ticket to deception: Ducat-buyers_ _duped by "free" magazine offer_ (...) According to (Attorney General Eliot--ed.) Spitzer, Ticketmaster operators would offer an eight-week, free trial subscription to either Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly. Thousands who accepted the offer were later shocked to find that when the trial period ended, their credit cards had been automatically (Col. 4--ed.) charged for an additional 27-week subscription, Spitzer said. Ticketmaster had passed on the credit-card account information to Time Inc., which is a division of AOL Time Warner. "Most people thought they'd get the free issues and that would be it," said a Spitzer spokeswoman. But under the practice, known as up-selling, a consumer who accepted the trial subscription from Ticketmaster had to specifically call Time Inc. before the trial period ended to let them know they didn't want a paid subscription. (TICKETMASTER, OFF TOPIC: I wanted to see an Off-Off-Broadway show; the only number given in the ad was Ticketmaster. "What city?" I was asked. Uh, New York. Ticketmaster charged $7 a ticket, or about 25% of the ticket price. I bought tickets at the theater--ed.) From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 6 17:15:35 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 12:15:35 -0500 Subject: Pi=?ISO-8859-1?B?8Q==?=ata In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/6/02 03:54, "Rudolph C Troike" wrote: > I saw an item on CNN (I think it was) the other day that said the pin~ata, > which in this country is quintessentially associated with Mexico, was > originally brought to Europe from China, and found its way to Spain and > thence to the colonies. Given this history, unless it goes by a different > name in Spain, one would expect a much earlier citation in some British > source (unless travel writing did not come into vogue until the 19th > century). Considering that trade was established between China and Mexico (usually via Manila) as early as the 16th century, this could have happened without the concept passing through Europe. From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 6 17:45:05 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 12:45:05 -0500 Subject: Up-Selling Message-ID: I've always heard it in the sense that Paul defines it on WordSpy. Neither _Barron's Dictionary of Marketing Terms_ or _Dictionary of Business Terms_ has it. When I was doing a piece for the dearly departed "Industry Standard" on online business practices in the porno biz, upselling was defined by several analysts and porn purveyors as (basically) sucking a customer in via a cheaper (or free) product and then selling them a more expensive product once you've gotten their attention. This is an extremely common practice in porno-land, as is the practice defined in the NYPost piece (automatically charging a person's credit card for a full subscription after a trail has expired w/o the card owner's expressed consent). Maybe, since the two practices occur so frequently together, the latter is now being defined by the former, or at least, that may be where the Post's confusion lies. Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > The excellent WordSpy has "upsell," but it's defined there as a retailer trying to sell a more expensive item ("movin' on up"). > This involves a "free offer," where customers have to call up to cancel credit card charges. > From today's NEW YORK POST, 6 January 2002, pg. 7, col. 3: > > _Ticket to deception: Ducat-buyers_ > _duped by "free" magazine offer_ > (...) According to (Attorney General Eliot--ed.) Spitzer, Ticketmaster operators would offer an eight-week, free trial subscription to either Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly. > Thousands who accepted the offer were later shocked to find that when the trial period ended, their credit cards had been automatically (Col. 4--ed.) charged for an additional 27-week subscription, Spitzer said. > Ticketmaster had passed on the credit-card account information to Time Inc., which is a division of AOL Time Warner. > "Most people thought they'd get the free issues and that would be it," said a Spitzer spokeswoman. > But under the practice, known as up-selling, a consumer who accepted the trial subscription from Ticketmaster had to specifically call Time Inc. before the trial period ended to let them know they didn't want a paid subscription. > > (TICKETMASTER, OFF TOPIC: I wanted to see an Off-Off-Broadway show; the only number given in the ad was Ticketmaster. "What city?" I was asked. Uh, New York. Ticketmaster charged $7 a ticket, or about 25% of the ticket price. I bought tickets at the theater--ed.) From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 6 18:02:20 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 13:02:20 -0500 Subject: Upselling Message-ID: BTW: A related term (told to me during my porn biz research) is "cross-selling" (Barron's Business Terms has this as "cross merchandising"). This is the vertical answer to upselling. If the customer doesn't like the direct offering, similar products or services (by the same or a partnered company) can be found right next to it. Or perhaps the customer REALLY likes the product or service, so here are a number of related items he/she will LOVE. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 6 20:25:38 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 14:25:38 -0600 Subject: Request for 1857 ajiaco recipe Message-ID: I'd be grateful if Barry would share the 1857 recipe for ajiaco. ---Gerald Cohen At 12:17 AM -0600 1/6/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >NUEVO MANUAL >DEL >COCINERO >CUBANO Y ESPANOL, > >CON UN TRATADO ESCOJIDO >DE DULCERIA, PASTELERIA, BOTELLERIA, >AL ESTILO DE CUBA. > >INDESPENSABLE PARA APRENDER A COMPONER DE COMER CON >LA MAYOR PERFECCION Y ECONOMIA, Y NECESARIO A TODAS >LAS CLASES DE LA SOCIEDAD Y EN PARTICULAR A LOS >GASTRONOMOS, MADRES DE FAMILIA, PONDISTAS, &c. > >DIVIDO EN TRES PARTES > >POR >J. P. LEGRAN > >HABANA--1857. >Imprenta de la Sociedad de Operarios, Aguila numero 146. > > A gem. > The NYPL has this, but it's almost nowhere else. It's the >earliest Cuban cookbook I can find. > "Ajiaco" and "Ropa Vieja" (Old Clothes), two dishes that should >have made it into English dictionaries a long time ago, are here. > > I'll type up the lengthy index--probably in several parts--so >it's searchable on the web. Let me know if anyone wants the whole >recipe. From brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 6 22:28:29 2002 From: brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM (brian faler) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 14:28:29 -0800 Subject: 9-11 Message-ID: does anyone know who first used the phrase "9-11" to describe the Sept. 11 attacks? -brian --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail. From carljweber at MSN.COM Sun Jan 6 22:42:10 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 16:42:10 -0600 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" Message-ID: Etymology Query: "They" Carl Jeffrey Weber (I couldn't find anything by searching the archives.) Given all that the OED says about "they" (and other pronouns) -- I have for years carried around two questions: 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of forms only? 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during the period of Norman dominance? This "they" pronoun seems to have been the only trespasser into "basic" English (with the other th-plurals later following). Has any native source been suggested? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 02:14:34 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 21:14:34 EST Subject: 9-11 Message-ID: Probably it occurred to many people simultaneously. I thought of it right away. A search of the web shows that the first "911" call was made in Haleyville, Alabama, on February 16, 1968. The call was made between two congressmen; the "911" system had been discussed in 1967. Anybody want me to find earlier? Hm, maybe a JSTOR search.... From n.ames at EMAIL.CZ Mon Jan 7 11:21:11 2002 From: n.ames at EMAIL.CZ (n.ames at EMAIL.CZ) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 12:21:11 +0100 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: Europe Forms of Place Names URL: http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/europe.html Do You know the one-word name of the Czech Republic? No ? So see to: Jeleček L.: On the geographic name of the Czech Republic (článek je na 1. adrese v angličtině, na 2. adrese je v češtině) http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko1.htm http://klaudyan.psomart.cz/clanky/jelecek001.asp Horová E.: "Where are you from?" - "I am from Czechia." http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko2.htm The name of Czechia in various languages http://sites.netscape.net/sandiberk/Drzave/cz_eng.html --- ** CREATED BY EMAIL.CZ ** http://www.email.cz <--- Get Your Free Email From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 7 15:10:16 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 10:10:16 -0500 Subject: "the Supremes" In-Reply-To: <73.18a9ee83.29678e38@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: #1. I would have thought "the Supremes" meaning the US Supreme Court or the #Justices thereof was an artifact of the post-campaign campaign after the last #Presidential election. However, I just discovered the same usage in 1994 in, #of all places, Analog Science Fiction magazine. Does anyone have an earlier #cite? Not offhand, but I'm pretty sure I remember it from earlier. #2. Probably hopeless, but does anyone have evidence that this expression #was, or was not, derived from the name of the Motown group "Diana Ross and #the Supremes"? Similarly: although without evidence, that was exactly how I thought of the expression in this usage the first time I heard it, and I have always thought that was the derivation. It is, of course, obvious and striking for those of us who had Motown in the music of our teens in a way that cannot be so strong for later generations. -- Mark M. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 7 15:21:11 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 10:21:11 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp In-Reply-To: <6d.202c876c.2968ab8b@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: #one more Pentagon quote: # #"Never start a vast project with half-vast ideas" # #Caveat: I recall seeing this quote only once, and that was on a hand-lettered #sign. An expression I recently learned: "monogluteal", referring to ideas, plans, etc. -- Mark M. From stevekl at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 7 15:29:21 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 10:29:21 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <3C3984A7.000001.16222@file1> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 n.ames at EMAIL.CZ wrote: > Horov� E.: "Where are you from?" - "I am from Czechia." Fat chance getting the Moravians to accept this. (I've seen literature suggesting the use of what would translate as "Czechomoravia" even...) -- Steve Kleinedler (5/8 Moravian; 2/8 Bohemian; 1/8 Slovak) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 7 14:42:00 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 09:42:00 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: stevekl at PANIX.COM,Net writes: >-- Steve Kleinedler >(5/8 Moravian; 2/8 Bohemian; 1/8 Slovak) And, I presume, 100% American. Regards, David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 7 16:05:49 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 11:05:49 -0500 Subject: "the supremes" Message-ID: Although not used in a legal or musical context, MOA-Cornell has several instances of Supremes/supremes, the earliest being from 1834. "Principles and laws . . . come only from the Deity. To contend that they come from any other source, would be to assert the existence of more Creators and Supremes than one." >From Thoughts on Optimism, by An Optimist, p.27. In The New-England magazine, 7 #1, July 1834. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnwen%2Fnwen0007%2F&tif=00035.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABS8100-0007-4 ======= A quoted earlier use may be noted in the following, but I have to deal with the task of snow shoveling, and can't further verify the usage by Sir William Berkeley (~1660), as quoted in Campbell and Stevens: History of Virginia and Georgia, p.302. In The North American Review, 67, Issue 141, October 1848. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0067%2F&tif=00310.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABQ7578-0067-16 George Cole Shippensburg University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 16:46:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 11:46:32 EST Subject: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: I was going through NEW YORK magazine, but didn't spot "tiramisu" through August 1981. DEATH BY CHOCOLATE--4 May 1981, pg. 53, col. 1, "'Death by Chocolate' is the winning name of a losing item--a block of baked mousse (or so it seems) in a watery creme anglaise, and a couple of hopelessly misplaced strawberries." At Auctions, 1406 Third Avenue at 80th Street. A check of U.S. Patent and Trademarks shows the earliest "Death By Chocolate" from 1985. A book with that title was published in 1992. Turkey Hill used it as the name of an ice cream flavor. I ate it and survived. PENNE--3 August 1981, pg. 45, col. 1, "Penne (those oversize macaroni) with vodka and cream ($3.95) has a Hot-as Hades kick one night." BACON CHEESEBURGER--11 May 1981, pg. 48, col. 2, "...$4.95 for a bacon cheeseburger...." "...tiropitta ('little cheese pies with salad, $4) turned out to be two very large cheese pies with flaking, steaming crust." At the Wild Bunch Wine Bar, 82 Bank Street. BAKED POTATO SKINS--20 April 1981, pg. 74, col. 3, "The graveyard menu (from 11:30 P.M. on) artfully caters to after-theater whims with baked potato skins...." PARTYWARE--3 November 1980, pg. 37, col. 3, "The Gifford Philosophy of Partyware." CHINESE FOOD NAMES--27 October 1980, pg. 70, col. 2, "...with such names as 'Hundred Birds Worshipping the Queen Phoenix' or 'Pandas at Play.'" PIGWHICH--15 September 1980, pg. 35, col. 1, "The contents of an unfortunate grilled sandwich, unfortunately named 'pigwhich,' are a slice of ham cut from a waterlogged block, Swiss Cheese from Brooklyn (or Austria), and slices of tomato--the dish is almost rescued by the toasted bron bread within which it is assembled." GOAT'S MILK ICE CREAM--15 September 1980, pg. 42, col. 3, "Goat's milk ice cream is a health-food atrocity. Imagine feta-cheese ice cream and you have imagined goat's milk ice cream." ZUCCHINI CHIPS--15 September 1980, pg. 54, col. 3, "Don't forget to order the perfect, grease-free fried zucchini chips ($3.75)." Usually zucchini "sticks." OREO MILK SHAKE--25 August 1980, pg. 65, col. 1, "And while you fork into French pastry, they can indulge in Yvonne's latest discovery: the Oreo milk shake." Nah, I'll wait until Oreo ice cream is discovered. DENVER CHOCOLATE CAKE--29 October 1979, pg. 81, col. 3, "The Denver chocolate cake was a puddle by the time it arrived, but even that was good." From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 7 17:03:28 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 12:03:28 -0500 Subject: My WOTY List In-Reply-To: <3C34CDE2.A22D2E2C@earthlink.net> Message-ID: >>>>> assoline Slang term for methane when used as a fuel source. Spotted on an online discussion board about alternative energy sources. [Note: Obviously a stunt word, and one I've heard used only in this forum. Included here for comic relief.] <<<<< "Stunt word"! Perspicuous and concise. Have I just not run into this expression ("stunt word") before? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From monickels at MAC.COM Mon Jan 7 17:06:59 2002 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 12:06:59 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/7/02 10:29, "Steve Kl." wrote: > On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 n.ames at EMAIL.CZ wrote: > >> Horová E.: "Where are you from?" - "I am from Czechia." > > Fat chance getting the Moravians to accept this. > > (I've seen literature suggesting the use of what would translate as > "Czechomoravia" even...) It is interesting, however, that the terms offered as equivalents to "Czechia" in other languages ("Tschechien in German, Tchéquie in French, Chequía in Spanish, Cecchia in Italian") on one of the pages ( http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko2.htm ) seem to be well accepted, at least if you believe their frequency as returned from a Google search. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 7 18:05:40 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 13:05:40 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) Message-ID: Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA Mon Jan 7 19:29:45 2002 From: jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA (James McIntosh) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 14:29:45 -0500 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: At 11:46 AM 1/7/02 EST, you wrote: >PENNE--3 August 1981, pg. 45, col. 1, "Penne (those oversize macaroni) with vodka and cream ($3.95) has a Hot-as Hades kick one night." People in New York refer to "penne" and "penne rigate" ("penne", with ridges), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. People in Chicago refer to "mostaccioli", (spelling uncertain), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. They are the same thing. In a boundary region between the two, you can sometimes see in groceries and supermarkets packages of pasta labelled as both "penne" and "mostaccioli". What is the history of these words, and why do some people of Italian descent use one but not the other ? From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 7 19:54:34 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 11:54:34 -0800 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.20020107142941.198f2954@idirect.ca> Message-ID: I see both in Seattle. They appear to be the same to me. I'm not sure that either is a regionalism in the US, but they might be in Italy. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, James McIntosh wrote: > At 11:46 AM 1/7/02 EST, you wrote: > > >PENNE--3 August 1981, pg. 45, col. 1, "Penne (those oversize macaroni) with > vodka and cream ($3.95) has a Hot-as Hades kick one night." > > People in New York refer to "penne" and "penne rigate" ("penne", with > ridges), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. > > People in Chicago refer to "mostaccioli", (spelling uncertain), yet do not > think of this as a regionalism. > > They are the same thing. > > In a boundary region between the two, you can sometimes see in groceries and > supermarkets packages of pasta labelled as both "penne" and "mostaccioli". > > What is the history of these words, and why do some people of Italian > descent use one but not the other ? > From jproperzio at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 7 20:03:43 2002 From: jproperzio at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (James di Properzio) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:03:43 -0500 Subject: cantharides Message-ID: Here's a surprise: while I was surveying usage of "apothecary weight" (as opp. to "apothecaries' weight"), I happened upon _Pharmacognosy_ by H.W. Youngken; Blakiston: Philadelphia,1921, in which I found: Cantharis U.S.P. (Cantharides) Synonyms.--Spanish Flies, Russian Flies, etc. Note the U.S.P (United States Pharmacopoeia) standard drug designation! There is a page and a half of description of the powdered drug, the beetle from which it is derived (including a description of its anatomy, and of the insect's taste), "Production and Commerce," etc., including a photo of a pile of dead bugs (legend: Spanish Flies (Cantharis Vesicatoria)). It claims that they are often found on olive trees in Spain. Lamentably, uses and dosage are not described. -James di Properzio From Ittaob at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 19:58:41 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 14:58:41 EST Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: Italy has many regional dialects and food variations. Without having done any research, I suspect "penne" and "mostaciolli" are names deriving from different parts of Italy. Probably, the immigrants from those different regions settled in Chicago and New York, respectively. Steve Boatti From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:08:56 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:08:56 EST Subject: Death By Media; Odor Bomb Message-ID: DEATH BY MEDIA--The headline of John Ringo's column in today's NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 27, col. 4. Also used by Charles Krauthammer in the WASHINGTON POST, 31 January 1992, about the Clinton critics. Not used much since then. ODOR BOMB--From the same NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 24, col. 2, "_Pentagon forms 'stink tank' to develop offensive smells_." "The Pentagon has asked a group of scientists to develop an 'odor bomb'--a device that would emit a smell so putrid, it could clear crowds." (I have my doubts. Haven't some terrorists lived in caves with goats?--ed.) From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 7 20:17:47 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:17:47 -0500 Subject: Death By Media; Odor Bomb Message-ID: Dang, Barry beat me to "odor bomb." Heard it on CNN this morning. Hadn't heard "stink tank." Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > DEATH BY MEDIA--The headline of John Ringo's column in today's NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 27, col. 4. Also used by Charles Krauthammer in the WASHINGTON POST, 31 January 1992, about the Clinton critics. Not used much since then. > > ODOR BOMB--From the same NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 24, col. 2, "_Pentagon forms 'stink tank' to develop offensive smells_." > "The Pentagon has asked a group of scientists to develop an 'odor bomb'--a device that would emit a smell so putrid, it could clear crowds." > (I have my doubts. Haven't some terrorists lived in caves with goats?--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:19:12 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:19:12 EST Subject: Penne Pasta (1972, 1973) Message-ID: OED has asked for some "penne" pasta. Merriam-Webster has 1974. THE INTERNATIONAL WINE AND FOOD SOCIETY'S GUIDE TO REGIONAL ITALIAN COOKERY by Robin Howe The International Wine and Food Society's Publishing Company David & Charles, London 1972 Pg. 84: 2. Those used for boiling and baking: tubular forms such as macaroni, _maniche_, _zita_, _occhi di lupo_, wolves' eyes, or _zitone_, _penne_, _grosso rigato_, _rigatoni_, etc. Pg. 86 (minutes to cook): Penne 11 Pennette 10 Pennini 10 Pennini piccoli 11 IL CODICE DELLA PASTA: 1001 RICETTA PER PREPARE by Vincenzo Buonassi Rizzoli Editore, Milano 1973 A huge book of 690 pasta pages, in Italian, however. From the index: penne all'arrabbiata 804 (Recipe number--ed.) all'arrabbiata, all fredda 818 alla provenzale 215 alla Salvatore Fiume 153 all'ulivetta 841 con i carciofi 83 204 con le cipolle 45 con le olive nere 210 con le olive verdi 40 211 con salsa de olive 35 mik mak 876 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:29:34 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:29:34 EST Subject: Ajiaco (1857) Message-ID: NUEVO MANUAL DEL COCINERO CUBANO Y ESPANOL POR J. P. LEGRAN HABANA.--1857 Pg. 15: 37. OLLA CUBANA O AJIACO. Pongase agua en una cazuela, la suficiente para contener carne salada, ahuja de puerco, carne de vaca, tocineta y tasajo de vaca; pongase a hervir todo junto con garbanzos puestos a remojar desde el dia anterior; anadase despues boniato, dos o tres platanos que empiecen a masdurar, sin perlarlos, malanga, yuca, chayote, berengenas, y si se quiere una mazorca de maiz verde, calabaza y unas papas, se deja que hierva como una hora, triturese en el mortero toda clase de especias, sin que falte comino que es muy esencial; desliese con un poco de caldo del mismo ajiaco, majese un poco de azafran, el cual, revuelto con un poco de zumo se echara dentro, dejandole hervir por un cuarto de hora. Cualquiera clase de sopas puede hacerse con este caldo, siendo muy gustosa la hecha con semola. 38. AJIACO DE TIERRA--ADENTRO. Se hace en un todo como el anterior, sin echarle carne de vaca, maiz ni ninguna clase de especias; solo sal y aji (Pg. 16) con ajos fritos con manteca, de donde viena derivado el nombre de _ajiaco_. 39. AJIACO DE PUERTO-PRINCIPE. (Kicked off NYPL computer! Half hour over!--ed.) From Ittaob at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:37:22 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:37:22 EST Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: While US commercial producers and their customers make no distinction beween penne and mostaccioli, a Google search yelded the information that mostaccioli are properly somewhat larger than penne. See, e.g., http://www.moccagatta.com/prod2.html (This is the online catalog of a pasta company in Italy.) BTW, "penne" means "quills" and "mostaccioli" means "mustaches." Steve Boatti From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 21:26:05 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 16:26:05 EST Subject: Baked Potato Skins Message-ID: In a message dated 1/7/02 11:47:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > I was going through NEW YORK magazine > > BAKED POTATO SKINS--20 April 1981, pg. 74, col. 3, "The graveyard menu > (from 11:30 P.M. on) artfully caters to after-theater whims with baked potato skins. > ..." Circa 1980 there was an overpriced restaurant in Roslyn, Virginia named "The Pawn Shop". (At one time Roslyn was the pawnshop district for Washington DC). A restaurant reporter for one of the local newspapers (I don't remember if it were the Post or the now-defunct Star) went there and reported that while they served potato skins, there was nothing on the menu that seemed to use the rest of the potatoes. Upon further checking s/he discovered that the Pawn Shop bought already-prepared potato skins (presumably frozen) from some supplier. (I am fairly sure of the date since my wife and I went there while we were still dating and we both agreed not to return.) Hence circa 1980 "baked potato skins" were available from restaurant suppliers and it might be possible to find ads or other mentions in food-service magazines from that era. - Jim Landau From apugima at APUGIMA.COM Mon Jan 7 21:47:58 2002 From: apugima at APUGIMA.COM () Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 06:47:58 +0900 Subject: []ο ǰġ ߵǾϴ. Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 7 22:22:40 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 17:22:40 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. -- Doug Wilson From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 7 22:24:56 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 17:24:56 -0500 Subject: bad publicity Message-ID: In January of 2001 I set off a train of discussion among us regarding the antiquity of the expression "There's no such thing as bad publicity". I then had only a very recent citation to contribute, along with the statement that I had heard it or variants of it at one time or another in the past, going back to the mid-1960s. Fred Shapiro was able to produce a version from 1950 and a passage from 1943 that seemed to allude to it. Others also chipped in. I can now contribute this inversion of the phrase, from 1934: Without publicity it is doubtful if Alphonse Capone ever would have been sent to prison. It is axiomatic among all intelligent criminals that all publicity is bad publicity. Stanley Walker, City Editor, N. Y.: Frederick A. Stokes, 1934, p. 31. This is one of those expressions that are so highly variable in form that they are very difficult to trace. I associate it with show business, and in that racket, publicity is always good, but the expression can be phrased either as an affirmative or a negative: "there's no such thing as bad publicity" (or a variant) as opposed to "all publicity is good publicity"/"every knock is a boost" (or variants). In criminal circles, publicity = heat, and heat is always bad. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 7 22:29:51 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 17:29:51 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch Message-ID: [From a brief sketch of Frank Ward O'Malley ("O'Malley of the Sun"), a newspaperman] He is supposed to have coined the phrase "Life is just one damned thing after another," and the word "brunch," to describe the morning newspaper man's breakfast-luncheon combination. Stanley Walker, City Editor. N. Y.: Frederick A. Stokes, 1934, pp. 292-93. The American Heritage Dictionary of American Proverbs credits the saying to a 1923 book of aphorisms by Elbert Hubbard. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Sayings & Quotations and the Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotations also say Hubbard. They note that it is also frequently attributed to O'Malley. The OED has "brunch" from 1896 (an English quotation in which it is attributed to one Mr. Guy Beringer) and 2 from 1900, at least one of which is also English. O'Malley was born in 1875 (and died in 1932), and so is unlikely to have coined this word, although he may have introduced it to New York or coined it independently. George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Mon Jan 7 23:05:24 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 18:05:24 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: The earliest reference I see is from an editorial in the Jerusalem Post, Sept. 8, 1991: "Slovakia will celebrate its separation from Czechia as Wales and Scotland declare theirs from England." Several of the early citations are discussions of what to call the Czech Republic. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas G. Wilson [SMTP:douglas at NB.NET] > Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 5:23 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Czechia (new word!!!) > > "Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, > certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or > Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made > official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. > > -- Doug Wilson > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 7 23:18:59 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:18:59 -0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020107171853.00af4c20@nb.net> Message-ID: Odd--clunky and artificial though "The Czech Republic" is, "Czechia" feels highly unnatural to me (for reasons I don't understand), and I can't see it catching on. Peter Mc. --On Monday, January 7, 2002 5:22 PM -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > "Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, > certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or > Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made > official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. > > -- Doug Wilson **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 8 00:14:07 2002 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 19:14:07 -0500 Subject: wanders Message-ID: A page from a frantic Southwest Airlines employee at the Oakland airport yesterday: "All available wanders to gate 21, please!" (That was my gate, by the way. We must have been a sinister-looking bunch.) I only had time for a quick check at google, so if "wander" isn't new, apologies for this posting. Has anyone been referred to as a wandee? -Mai _________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 8 00:55:02 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 19:55:02 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch In-Reply-To: <37c66537d905.37d90537c665@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >[From a brief sketch of Frank Ward O'Malley ("O'Malley of the Sun"), a >newspaperman] He is supposed to have coined the phrase "Life is just >one damned thing after another," and the word "brunch," to describe the >morning newspaper man's breakfast-luncheon combination. Stanley >Walker, City Editor. N. Y.: Frederick A. Stokes, 1934, pp. 292-93. > > The American Heritage Dictionary of American Proverbs credits the >saying to a 1923 book of aphorisms by Elbert Hubbard. The Oxford >Dictionary of Proverbs, Sayings & Quotations and the Oxford Dictionary >of 20th Century Quotations also say Hubbard. They note that it is also >frequently attributed to O'Malley. > > The OED has "brunch" from 1896 (an English quotation in which it is >attributed to one Mr. Guy Beringer) and 2 from 1900, at least one of >which is also English. O'Malley was born in 1875 (and died in 1932), >and so is unlikely to have coined this word, although he may have >introduced it to New York or coined it independently. > > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998. >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John Masefield wrote a book titled / ODTAA/ (meaning one damned thing after another), but I don't have a date for it. I'd tentatively put it around 1915. In any case, the expression would have to have been well-enough known by then that it could be expected that it would be understood. A. Murie From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 01:51:22 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 20:51:22 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: > John Masefield wrote a book titled / ODTAA/ (meaning one damned thing > after another), but I don't have a date for it. I'd tentatively put it > around 1915. In any case, the expression would have to have been > well-enough known by then that it could be expected that it would be > understood. And I would definitively date it 1926. 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 Mon Jan 7 13:23:43 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 21:23:43 +0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <1542327.3219405539@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: At 3:18 PM -0800 1/7/02, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >Odd--clunky and artificial though "The Czech Republic" is, "Czechia" feels >highly unnatural to me (for reasons I don't understand), and I can't see it >catching on. > >Peter Mc. > I agree with both sentiments. I don't suppose either "Czechononslovakia" or "Czechosansslovakia" would catch on... larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 7 13:39:52 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 21:39:52 +0800 Subject: [penne vs. mostaccioli] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:54 AM -0800 1/7/02, A. Maberry wrote: >I see both in Seattle. They appear to be the same to me. I'm not sure that >either is a regionalism in the US, but they might be in Italy. > >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu Ditto in New Haven, which has a very large Italian substrate. Most upscale cookbooks and restaurants seem to opt for "penne". Larry > >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, James McIntosh wrote: > >...> >> What is the history of these words, and why do some people of Italian >> descent use one but not the other ? >> From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 8 03:09:04 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:09:04 -0500 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank Message-ID: >From another list I'm on. I'm not sure from the quoting pattern whether the first paragraph of text ("Um, around here...") was written by (name 2), who lives in the West of Canada, or by (name 1), whose location I don't remember. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: (name 2) (name 1) wrote: Um, around here, a "policy wank" is an _event_, not a person. And yes, it means what you'd think. A truly stupid policy meeting. See also, 'departmental wank' -- as in, "I'd love to, but I have to go to the monthly ~ that night." Also, "tented wank", a) an act of self-abuse concealed by a sheet; b) a party that takes place out-of-doors under a pavillion. cf. Jilly Cooper. > When speaking of a person who likes to distinguish > trivial details of an obscure subject, is the > correct form "subject wAnk" or "subject wOnk" ? My personal feeling is that the latter is the original idiom, and the former probably an inspired bit of play intended as a derogatory version. (name 2), who for example can think of some people (s/he) would call policy wonks and also some (s/he) would designate policy wanks. From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 8 03:43:22 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:43:22 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > stevekl at PANIX.COM,Net writes: > > >-- Steve Kleinedler > >(5/8 Moravian; 2/8 Bohemian; 1/8 Slovak) > > And, I presume, 100% American. Indeed! -- Steve Kl. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 8 03:47:24 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:47:24 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: > >> John Masefield wrote a book titled / ODTAA/ (meaning one damned thing >> after another), but I don't have a date for it. I'd tentatively put it >> around 1915. >And I would definitively date it 1926. > >Fred Shapiro ~~~~~~~~~ Well, I suppose I _could_ have tried a little harder to find it. I checked one reference, where it wasn't listed, & made a wild guess! AM From monickels at MAC.COM Tue Jan 8 03:50:24 2002 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:50:24 -0500 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.20020107142941.198f2954@idirect.ca> Message-ID: On 1/7/02 14:29, "James McIntosh" wrote: > People in New York refer to "penne" and "penne rigate" ("penne", with > ridges), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. > > People in Chicago refer to "mostaccioli", (spelling uncertain), yet do not > think of this as a regionalism. > > They are the same thing. > > In a boundary region between the two, you can sometimes see in groceries and > supermarkets packages of pasta labelled as both "penne" and "mostaccioli". While it may be true the penne and mostaccioli (which is the correct spelling, as far as I can tell), are often the same thing, the *dish* mostaccioli (pronounced something like /musk- at -choe-lee/ in St. Louis), is not necessarily made with penne/mostaccioli. This picture illustrates the way I have often seen it (it's very akin to lasagna, but without as much cheese and with tubular rather than flat noodles): http://www.bathroommess.com/012301/most.htm This page calls them "stovepipe noodles": http://grazis.micronpcweb.com/page3.html From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 04:00:27 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:00:27 EST Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) Message-ID: THE MEANING OF LIFE Check the Library of Congress's American Memory database for "thing after another." ("Damn" is not always there.) There was a song by Arthur Denvir, "Life's Just One (Bong) Thing After Another" (1914). Also, in a letter dated 30 November 1914, is: "Some one has said that 'Life is just one damn thing after another.'" 1914 is earlier than 1926. -------------------------------------------------------- AIDS I was going through NEW YORK magazine and had to pause when I saw this, 31 May 1982, pg. 52: _The Gay Plague_ By Michael VerMeulen _A mysterious immune disorder is spreading like wildfire._ (...)(Pg. 53, col. 1--ed.) For want of a better name, the acronym A.I.D. has stuck. I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. This seems late. The NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE is mentioned in the NEW YORK article. The NEJOM issue of 10 December 1981 was devoted to the disease, and it probably pays to look at the full text, specifically pages 1439-1444. A letter on 11 February 1982 was titled "Family secrets: who is to know about AID?" (Medline gave this abstract, but not full text for 1981/1982.) From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 8 04:06:02 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:06:02 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If > the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? 'ch' is an affricate. However, the adjective is (in nom sing masc form) cesky (with a hacek over the c and a long y). Czech republic is "Ceska' republika" with the stop [k]. The Bohemian parts are "Cechy" with that affricate. Also, in Czech, you don't really see the place names ending in -ia: Czechoslovakia = Ceskoslovensko Slovakia = Slovensko Slovenia = Slovinsko Poland = Polsko Hungary = Madarsko Silesia = Slezsko (or something similar, I don't recall exactly) Italy = Italsko Spain = Spanielsko So it would be weird, in Czech, to use the word Czechia. The equivalent would be along the lines of Cesko. -- Steve From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 04:35:05 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:35:05 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Steve Kl. said: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > >> Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If >> the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? > >'ch' is an affricate. > >However, the adjective is (in nom sing masc form) cesky (with a hacek over >the c and a long y). Czech republic is "Ceska' republika" with the stop >[k]. The Bohemian parts are "Cechy" with that affricate. > >Also, in Czech, you don't really see the place names ending in -ia: > >Czechoslovakia = Ceskoslovensko >Slovakia = Slovensko >Slovenia = Slovinsko >Poland = Polsko >Hungary = Madarsko >Silesia = Slezsko (or something similar, I don't recall exactly) >Italy = Italsko >Spain = Spanielsko > >So it would be weird, in Czech, to use the word Czechia. The equivalent >would be along the lines of Cesko. I think it's odd that the earliest English language citation for the form Czechia that anyone could find was from the Jerusalem Post. My Hebrew dictionaries are rather incomplete when it comes to European place names, but I'm pretty sure that, in Hebrew, Czechia referred to Czechoslovakia in its entirety. Of course the only citation I can find, in a list of coins of different countries, is for Czechoslovakia. Go figure. From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 8 05:26:17 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 00:26:17 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If > > the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? > >'ch' is an affricate. In Czech it's /x/, I think (like "ch" in German, or in Scots "loch"). But what is it in English? "Czechia" is not a Czech word or name but rather an 'English' word/name promulgated by the Czech government and some other bodies for use in English. I would guess that the "ch" in "Czechia" is probably intended/assumed to be /k/. Like in "Czechoslovakia"; like in "Wallachia". I can't find this explicitly addressed on the Web. Perhaps it's assumed that /x/ can be used instead of /k/ by nonconformist, 'cosmopolitan', 'fussy', and/or Scottish persons. >The equivalent would be along the lines of Cesko. Which is the current Czech name (with initial hacek of course) equivalent to English Czechia. Not all Czechs approve of this, apparently, but I guess many do. Here is a discussion (from the 'pro' side): http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko2.htm Note that in languages without /x/ the second consonant is more or less /k/ ... in fact in Spanish it's "Chequía" (not "Chejía"). -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 07:31:56 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 02:31:56 EST Subject: Maitre d'ess; Cuisinier; Lucky Family; Ants on the Tree Message-ID: NEW YORK LUNCH BOOK by Joan Hamburg and Faye Hammel World Publishing Co, NY 1972 Pg. 113: It's cafeteria style, but you are served by a maitre d'ess (a liberated maitre d'). (At La Potagerie, 554 Fifth Avenue--ed.) Pg. 138: Ask if they have the green tea ice cream (it may not be on the menu) for a special dessert treat. (At Kegon, 80 East 56th Street. See my Japan notes from last year on "green tea ice cream"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- WORD OF MOUTH: A COMPLETELY NEW KIND OF GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY RESTAURANTS by Jim Quinn Mixed Media, Philadelphia 1972 Quinn is not afraid to give bad reviews. He destroys Tad's Steak, for example, and gives it an "F" grade. He destroys Nathan's, too. Lutece gets an "A." Shocking! Pg. 47: ...a tasteless icecream roll covered with something called "chocolate whipped cream" (which tastes like jello pudding). (At Riverboat, 34th Street in the Empire State Building. Some company is now making "chocolate whipped cream"--ed.) Pg. 63: Lucky Family is extremely large, filled with pork and shrimp balls, excellent Chinese ham, lots of snow peas, tasty chicken slices and abalone which does not seem to have come from the same can as most Chinatown abalone. (At Chi Mer, 12 Chatham Square--ed.) Pg. 68: Ants on the Tree ($3) is a combination of translucent noodles, stewed brown and soft in beef broth, and little little flecks of well done roast beef; it's interesting but small. (At Lotus Eater, a Chinese chain--ed.) Pg. 134: Saketini... Kobe cocktail ($1.25) is Suntory whiskey and quinine water, another excellent and unusual drink. (At Kobe Steak House, 10 East 52nd Street--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- NEW YORK MAGAZINE More food items from NEW YORK magazine. CUISINIER: 5 July 1982, pg. 63, col. 1, "And though Lawrence P. Forgione will grill only a Michigan steak, his position is for some reason not 'cook,' but '_cuisinier_.' (At the River Cafe--ed.) SANKAPUCCINO: 3 May 1982, pg. 45, col. 1, "...and the waiter offering Sankapuccino." (At La Gamelle, 59 Grand Street--ed.) POTATO SKINS: 8 March 1982, pg. 40, col. 2, "These days almost everybody starts with potato skins, a recent Manhattan island rage here rendered in one of its best version." (At The Ginger Man, 51 West 64th Street--ed.) POWER BREAKFASTS: 12 April 1982, cover, "Power Breakfasts, By Gael Greene." (Long article. Supposedly, it began in 1976--ed.) From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Tue Jan 8 09:25:35 2002 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 04:25:35 -0500 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark A Mandel" To: Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 22:09 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank > > When speaking of a person who likes to distinguish > > trivial details of an obscure subject, is the > > correct form "subject wAnk" or "subject wOnk" ? In thinking on this, I find I make a clear distinction wonk and geek...wonks deal with abstracts, and geeks deal with the concrete...economic policy vs. beer... bkd From kbenson at IREX.ORG Tue Jan 8 14:03:36 2002 From: kbenson at IREX.ORG (Kaia Benson) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 09:03:36 -0500 Subject: IREX's Short-term Travel Grants Program Message-ID: IREX announces an open competition for the Short-Term Travel Grants Program. Application deadline: February 1, 2002 The Short-Term Travel Grants program provides fellowships for up to eight weeks to US holders of graduate degrees for independent or collaborative research projects at institutions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the New Independent States (NIS), Turkey, and Iran that do not require administrative assistance or logistical support. Fellowships in Policy Research and Development are available to successful applicants who demonstrate how their research will make a substantive contribution to knowledge of the contemporary political, economic, historical, or cultural developments in the region, and how such knowledge is relevant to US foreign policy. Note: Fellowships to Turkey and Iran are not available in this category. Fellowships in the Humanities are available to successful applicants in the humanities who demonstrate how their research will advance and disseminate knowledge within the humanities and to successful applicants in the social sciences who employ humanistic methods and have humanistic content. Grant Provisions: · Grants do not exceed $3,000. · Airfare on a US flag carrier is provided through IREX/Travel only. · Per diem to cover in-country costs for meals, lodging, and local transportation. · Miscellaneous research expenses directly related to your project including but not limited to: visa expenses, photocopying, and medical evacuation insurance. Application and Review Process: · Application deadline: February 1, 2002. · Review by a peer review panel. · Applicants will be notified of award decisions approximately eight weeks after the application deadline. STG applications can be obtained by contacting IREX at: irex at irex.org. Applications and more information are also available online at www.irex.org. *********************************************** Kaia Benson Program Associate International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) 1616 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 Email: kbenson at irex.org Phone: 202-628-8188 ext. 523 Fax: 202-628-8189 From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 8 07:54:19 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:54:19 -0800 Subject: wanders In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >A page from a frantic Southwest Airlines employee at the Oakland airport >yesterday: "All available wanders to gate 21, please!" Perhaps that sounded gentler and a bit more magical than screaming for all security personnel to descend on gate 21? Harry Potter wannabes? Rima From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 8 14:39:35 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 09:39:35 -0500 Subject: Origin of "warmedy" Message-ID: I'm trying to trace the origin of the term "warmedy," a sitcom (or comedic movie) that features warm-hearted, family-oriented content. The closest I've come is the following hint: The 'creative team' that set out in the fall of 1978 to put Shirley together began with commensurate ambitions. The show was to be at once witty, happily emotional, and dramatic -- a sort of classy example of the genre that one TV Critic has dubbed 'warmedy.' --Walter Kiechel III, Fortune, December 31, 1979 Does anyone have any idea who the above-mentioned "TV Critic" is? Thanks. Paul From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 8 17:13:48 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 09:13:48 -0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 7, 2002 9:23 PM +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > I don't suppose either > "Czechononslovakia" or "Czechosansslovakia" would catch on... I suppose not. Too bad, because I could get really attached to either one. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 8 18:26:48 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 10:26:48 -0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: Larry: > I agree with both sentiments. I don't suppose either > "Czechononslovakia" or "Czechosansslovakia" would catch on... Agreed that "Czechia" sounds kinda weird. It certainly does to me. But OTOH, if there's a Slovakia, why not a Czechia? They're not Czechoslovakia any more. Anne G From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 8 18:30:22 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 10:30:22 -0800 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: Allen: > I see both in Seattle. They appear to be the same to me. I'm not sure that > either is a regionalism in the US, but they might be in Italy. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu I second that! I can do this because i live right here in Little Old Rain City Otherwise Known as Seattle, and I've seen both "penne" and "mostacchioli"(sp?). I just assumed they were two different things. But what do I know? Anne G From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 8 18:33:57 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 12:33:57 -0600 Subject: Pronunciation of the sort "amnejia" (= amnesia) Message-ID: I recently was channel-surfing and came across an old Gomer Pyle movie. Gomer was talking in his typical Gomer Pyle fashion (does anyone really talk like that?), and I was startled to hear him pronounce the word "amnesia" as "amnejia." This has bearing on an interesting speculation advanced by Douglas Wilson, viz.that "jasm" (= energy, enthusiasm; 19th-early 20th cent.; possible source of "jazz") might derive from a variant pronunciation of "(enthu)siasm." I have encountered the objection (personal letter from an eminent U.S. linguist) that "enthusiasm" is pronounced only with a -z- (after the u), not the sound of the -s- of "leisure" or "pleasure." But if Gomer Pyle can pronounce "amnesia" as "amnejia," perhaps some people also pronounce "enthusiasm" as "enthujiasm" or something close to this. So, might anyone be familiar with the pronunciation of the sort "amnejia" or "enthujiasm"? Have there been any dialectal studies on this point? ---Gerald Cohen From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 8 18:53:16 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 10:53:16 -0800 Subject: Pronunciation of the sort "amnejia" (= amnesia) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: FWIW, according to the "Official Jim Nabors" website (http://www.jimnabors.com/) he was born in Sylacauga, Alabama, graduated from the University of Alabama. I often wondered if Gomer Pyle's accent was a exaggeration of some accent he had heard while growing up. Allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Gerald Cohen wrote: > I recently was channel-surfing and came across an old Gomer Pyle movie. > Gomer was talking in his typical Gomer Pyle fashion (does anyone > really talk like that?), and I was startled to hear him pronounce the > word "amnesia" as "amnejia." > > This has bearing on an interesting speculation advanced by Douglas > Wilson, viz.that "jasm" (= energy, enthusiasm; 19th-early 20th cent.; > possible source of "jazz") might derive from a variant pronunciation > of "(enthu)siasm." > > I have encountered the objection (personal letter from an eminent > U.S. linguist) that "enthusiasm" is pronounced only with a -z- (after > the u), not the sound of the -s- of "leisure" or "pleasure." But if > Gomer Pyle can pronounce "amnesia" as "amnejia," perhaps some people > also pronounce "enthusiasm" as "enthujiasm" or something close to > this. > > So, might anyone be familiar with the pronunciation of the sort > "amnejia" or "enthujiasm"? Have there been any dialectal studies on > this point? > > ---Gerald Cohen > From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 8 19:52:50 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 11:52:50 -0800 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From a different sphere, there is the term "fanwank" common among internet discussion groups devoted to popular TV shows, movies, etc. A definition taken from the alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer FAQ (http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ra_forti/FAQ) is: "A fanwank is an explanation made up by fans to cover something left unexplained by the creators, or to cover up an seeming inconsistancy in the stories." I don't know the origin, but I have a suspicion that it goes back to "Dr. Who" or "Star Trek" fan fiction/clubs. So could the practitioner be a "wonk" and the output be "wank?" From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 08:15:03 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 16:15:03 +0800 Subject: Fwd: ADS in Le Monde online Message-ID: Forwarded by a colleague. Hope the accents make their way through. (By the way, thanks to everyone who contributed to the Anchor Steam Beer thread, which reminded me to sample the local product during the meetings.) larry --- begin forwarded text L'attaque sur les tours jumelles est à l'origine de la plupart des néologismes aux Etats-Unis 9-11 : néologisme américain de l'année Depuis quelques années, la France avait son "9-3", la façon "sauvageonne" de désigner le département de Seine-Saint-Denis, le 93. Désormais, les Etats-Unis ont leur "9-11". Cette transcription numérique de la date (les Anglo-Saxons indiquent d'abord le mois, ensuite le jour) des attaques-suicides sur New York et Washington est passée dans le langage courant outre-Alantique et vient de surcroît d'être élue mot de l'année 2001. Chaque début d'année, une assemblée d'éminents linguistes, l'American Dialect Society, élit le néologisme le plus marquant de l'année écoulée. Des expressions qui se périment aussi vite qu'elles se sont répandues ou qui, au contraire, restent gravées dans les mémoires. Tandis que "Y2K" ("year/2/kilos", soit l'an 2000) inventé pour désigner le nouveau millénaire en 1999, a toujours les faveurs des Américains, et se décline depuis en "Y2K1" et "Y2K2", on devine que le mot de l'année 1991, "bushlips" (soit les lèvres de Bush père), qui s'employait à propos d'une rhétorique politique malhonnête, n'a au contraire plus vraiment cours depuis les attaques. L'immense majorité des expressions retenues pour 2001 découlent directement du 11 septembre. En lice, on trouve notamment "hyperterrorism", définissant un terrorisme de destruction massive, "theoterrorism", en référence aux attaques contre des civils pour des motifs religieux, ou encore "ground zero", une expression qui qualifiait l'espace situé sous l'explosion d'une bombe nucléaire, mais qui a été réinvestie dans le drame pour nommer l'emplacement de ce qui fut le World Trade Center. Dans les néologismes encore plus récents, on trouve "daisy cutter", soit "faucheuse de marguerites", en référence à une bombe américaine particulièrement puissante utilisée en Afghanistan et élu "plus grand euphémisme" de l'année par le jury. "Shoe-icide bomber", qui joue sur la proximité phonétique avec "suicide bomber" (kamikaze), renvoie bien sûr à >Richard Reid, le passager du vol Paris-Miami qui avait réussi à s'introduire à bord avec des chaussures remplies d'explosifs. Le terme a été élu néologisme "le plus créatif" de l'année. Dans la veine sexuelle, on trouve l'amusant "Armageddon sex" et sa variante "Apocalypse sex" pour évoquer les rapprochements affectifs et sexuels suscités par la catastrophe new-yorkaise, et, enfin, le peu connu "osamaniacs" qui désigne les femmes attirées sexuellement par Oussama Ben Laden. On retiendra de toutes ces créations linguistiques un adjectif assez étonnant : "10-septembre". A employer à propos de quelqu'un d'un peu égocentrique, dont les préoccupations sont superficielles et qui en oublie l'essentiel, comme par exemple que les hommes sont bien peu de chose. "Il perd son temps avec ces histoires sans importance... C'est tellement 10-septembre de sa part !" Evidemment, ça sonne mieux en anglais. Emmanuelle Jardonnet --- end forwarded text From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 8 21:58:26 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 16:58:26 -0500 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Lawrence Horn forwarded: ....> "Il perd son temps avec ces histoires sans importance... C'est tellement >10-septembre de sa part !" Evidemment, ça sonne mieux en anglais. >Emmanuelle Jardonnet ~~~~~~~~~~~ That is SO 9/10! Is this our new expression for antediluvian? A. Murie From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 22:02:33 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 17:02:33 EST Subject: Word of the Year Message-ID: '9-11' Voted America's 'Word of the Year' for 2001 By Andrew Quinn Reuters SAN FRANCISCO (Jan. 4) - After a tumultuous 12 months, American linguist experts agreed Friday that 2001's "word of the year" was actually a number -- 9-11, shorthand for the Sept. 11 attacks. The American Dialect Society, in an annual ritual marking the newest words, phrases and expressions to enter American English over the past year, waved away contenders ranging from "assoline" to "second-hand speech" to hand the crown to "9-11" which -- before the hijacked aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon -- was just another date. "In America it is now the way of referring to the most horrendous event of the century," said Prof. Robert Stockwell of the University of California, Los Angeles. Previous words of the year selected by the Dialect Society have ranged from the obscure (1991's "bushlips", referring to insincere political rhetoric) to the omnipresent (1999's "Y2K", referring to the new millennium). But this year's candidates were clearly colored by the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, which have launched countless new terms into the nation's linguistic pool. "Daisy cutter," military shorthand for a powerful U.S. bomb used in the war in Afghanistan, was voted the "most euphemistic" new word while "shoe-icide bomber," a reference to a man who allegedly sought to bring down an aircraft with explosives hidden in his sneakers, was dubbed "most creative." Other candidates mentioned at Friday's meeting in San Francisco included "Osamaniac," for women sexually attracted to militant Islamic leader Osama bin Laden, "theoterrorism", referring to attacks on civilians for religious purposes, and "women of cover" for Muslim women who wear traditional dress. Wayne Glowka, an English professor at Georgia College and State University and head of the Dialect Society's new words committee, said the media has become a primary conduit for new words entering the language. "When CNN broadcasts a word, millions of people hear it," he said. "People then begin using it to show that they are part of the group." 'WEAPONS-GRADE' SALSA Not all of the words debated at Friday's meeting carried grim connotations of America's "war on terrorism" -- although the linguistic echo of Sept. 11 was hard to ignore. Along with "weaponize," nominated as a word "most likely to succeed" after its repeated use in reference to anthrax attacks in the United States, some dialect experts also suggested "weapons-grade" as a new catch-all superlative. "Weapons-grade salsa would mean really hot," said Allan Metcalf, the society's executive secretary and a member of the English Department at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. "Assoline" -- meaning fuel made from methane -- was voted as the year's "most outrageous" word while "second-hand speech" was given the nod as a useful term for referring to the din of strangers talking on cellphones. The experts agreed the most unnecessary word or phrase of the year was "impeachment nostalgia," meaning a longing for the superficial news of the Clinton era. President Bush, who may have liked last year's new word winner "chad," was cited as the source for one of this year's candidates -- "misunderestimate" -- although it failed to garner sufficient votes to make the slate. The term "9-11" presented some confusion as dialect specialists disagreed on whether it was pronounced "Nine-Eleven," "Nine One One" or simply "September 11th." But most agreed it should be named the word of the year, outstripping even the "ground zero" reference to the World Trade Center ruins as a clear and simple addition to the national vocabulary that will stand the test of time. "It is going to be like the 4th of July or Pearl Harbor," Glowka said. Reuters 22:45 01-04-02 Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 22:02:23 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 17:02:23 -0500 Subject: Fwd: ADS in Le Monde online In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: >On retiendra de toutes ces créations linguistiques un adjectif assez >étonnant : "10-septembre". A employer à propos de quelqu'un d'un peu >égocentrique, dont les préoccupations sont superficielles et qui en oublie >l'essentiel, comme par exemple que les hommes sont bien peu de chose. "Il >perd son temps avec ces histoires sans importance... C'est tellement >10-septembre de sa part !" Evidemment, ça sonne mieux en anglais. No comment on the 9/11 or 9/10 tropes. However... perhaps my French Sprachgefühl is in need of recalibration, but "ça sonne mieux en anglais" sure sounds to me like a calque FROM anglais rather than echt-français. -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 8 23:08:29 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:08:29 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020107171853.00af4c20@nb.net> Message-ID: I heard the name when I was in Prague in Summer 2000--sounded sensible and natural to me too. At 05:22 PM 1/7/02 -0500, you wrote: >"Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, >certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or >Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made >official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. > >-- 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 stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 8 23:25:08 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:25:08 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <243805.3219470028@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > I suppose not. Too bad, because I could get really attached to either one. Oh. One more thing. In 1993 when I was there, I saw advocacy of what would translate as "Czechomoravia" and "Czechomoravosilesia". Every now and again you hear noise from Moravians who think Moravia should splinter off from Bohemia. Ceskomoravsko actually gets 17 hits. :) -- Steve From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 8 23:55:57 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 15:55:57 -0800 Subject: Modalization Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Monday, January 7, 2002 5:20 PM -0600rrom: Mary Elizabeth Collins To: CFRNET discussion list Subject: [cfrnet] Readiness programs for first-generation college aspirants Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist first-generation college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- A-HA! I finally find this construction in print (at least electronic print). I don't think the omission of the "to" (assist...prepare) is a mere typo, because I notice the folks on NPR using constructions like this all the time. In most instances (though not in this one) the construction could also be expressed as a "that" clause (with optional deletion of the "that"), so that what looks at first glance like the omission of a "to" might also be interpreted as an instance of an apparent journalese taboo against EVER using "that" as a conjunction. Here, though, it seems an unambiguous case of extending the modal-like grammar of "help" to the synonymous but (for me at least) nonmodal "assist." Sorry I can't offer a citation for the ambiguous construction. Every time I hear it on my car radio, I make a mental note to remember it exactly (since it would be bad form to grab a piece of paper and write it down while also navigating through traffic), but by the time I get to work I've forgotten it. Has anyone else noticed this? I presume the "that" phobia originated with some style book somewhere, but I can't quite see a style book as the source of true "modalization" such as we seem to have here. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 23:58:05 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:58:05 EST Subject: Jury-Mander; She-E-O; Warmedy Message-ID: JURY-MANDER A pun on "gerrymander." In New York City, we had something called the Crown Heights riots, where a Black killed a Jew (in 1991). The Black man's conviction got over turned because, actually in an attempt to be fair, one Black and one Jew were added to the jury. From today's NEW YORK POST, 8 January 2002, pg. 6, col. 2: That "jury-mandering" by Trager "violates even the most minimal standards of the (jury-selection) process," two judges, Guido Calabresi and Fred Parker, wrote in the 109-page decision. -------------------------------------------------------- SHE-E-O Patricio Russo was named CEO of Lucent Technologies. Carly Fiorina and others are mentioned in the story. The NEW YORK POST headline? From 8 January 2002, pg. 3, col. 1: _MEET THE "SHE"-E-O_ -------------------------------------------------------- WARMEDY My guess is the tv critic of the WASHINGTON POST, but e-mail Marvin Kitman of NEWSDAY. I gave him credit for "begathon," and he might know "warmedy." From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 23:55:51 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:55:51 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Baker, John wrote: > The earliest reference I see is from an editorial in the Jerusalem > Post, Sept. 8, 1991: "Slovakia will celebrate its separation from Czechia > as Wales and Scotland declare theirs from England." Several of the early > citations are discussions of what to call the Czech Republic. Here's a much earlier citation: 1957 _Amer. Historical Rev._ 62: 622 There is confirmation, if that is needed, of the fundamental change in attitude in the West produced when the Germans seized "Czechia." I think "Czechia" here is a translation of a German name, perhaps "Tschechien." 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 Wed Jan 9 00:03:31 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 19:03:31 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: <12f.a6c42d6.296bc8dc@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. > This seems late. Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). 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 Tue Jan 8 11:55:17 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 19:55:17 +0800 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:03 PM -0500 1/8/02, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. >> This seems late. > >Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). > >Fred Shapiro > That article makes it clear that the term must have already been well established by 8 Aug. '82, with its references to the A.I.D.S. Project (note the dots still used; the acronym hadn't yet become AIDS) at the Center for Disease Control. Perhaps the chronicles of the disease (Randy Shilts's _And the Band Played On_, or one of the more scholarly books) would have earlier cites, and a history of how the term evolved. larry From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 9 02:07:43 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 21:07:43 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>> I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. >>> This seems late. >> >>Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). >> >>Fred Shapiro >That article makes it clear that the term must have already been well >established by 8 Aug. '82, with its references to the A.I.D.S. >Project (note the dots still used; the acronym hadn't yet become >AIDS) at the Center for Disease Control. Perhaps the chronicles of >the disease (Randy Shilts's _And the Band Played On_, or one of the >more scholarly books) would have earlier cites, and a history of how >the term evolved. The acronym is for "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome". This was/is a label attached to a constellation of odd diseases associated with depressed T-cell count etc. Even the components of AIDS were not noticed/reported until June 1981 (IIRC), although in retrospect isolated instances were found in earlier records. The earliest use in print might be sought by "Med-Line" or other search of the medical literature. The CDC made its "official" definition of AIDS in late 1982, I think, but the expression was used earlier, probably early 1982, surely not before mid-1981 since the entity was not known nor even suspected earlier. The acronym and the pronunciation "aids" appeared in print and speech virtually immediately upon the introduction of the full name of the syndrome, as I recall ... as is frequent in medicine and other fields. I think the printed form "AIDS" without dots probably appeared at the same time as the full syndrome name: this would be the typical medical-journal approach (define the long expression in the first paragraph, give it an abbreviation/acronym, and use the short form throughout the text). [It is my impression that acronyms without dots are much more common than dotted ones in the pertinent literature although I haven't really thought about this; one could check "JAMA" or the "New England Journal of Medicine" for examples of the prevailing style.] -- Doug Wilson From webmaster at MBCMOVIEENGLISH.CO.KR Wed Jan 9 02:02:17 2002 From: webmaster at MBCMOVIEENGLISH.CO.KR (=?ks_c_5601-1987?B?vK2/77nMtfC+7g==?=) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:02:17 +0900 Subject: =?ks_c_5601-1987?B?W7GksO1dbWJjuau68cDXsdu4rr2sLbv5x8NDRLnfvNst?= Message-ID: 아래의메일에관심이없으신분은즉시메일을삭제하여주시기바랍니다.A:link { COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none}A:visited { COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none}A:active { COLOR: #ff0033}A:hover { COLOR: #ff0033}BODY { COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 9pt}TD { COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 9pt}.eun { TEXT-DECORATION: underline}.text { COLOR: #333333} 허락없이 메일을 보내게 돼어 죄송합니다. 귀하의 이메일 정보는 게시판에서 발췌한것으로 원치 않으시면 수신거부를 해주십시오. MBC 아카데미 무비잉글리쉬는? 안녕하세요? MBC 아카데미 무비잉글리쉬입니다. MBC무비잉글리쉬는 세계적인 기업 월트 디즈니사와 제휴로 멀티미디어 통합기술을 이용한 최첨단디지털 교재로 데이터압축방식인 M-PEG를 구현하여 만들었습니다.여기에는 캡션 기능이 첨가되어 (영문자막, 한글자막, 무자막)선택과 DICTATION 기능이 첨가되어 즉석에서 듣기능력 평가를할 수 있도록 기획되었습니다. MBC 아카데미 무비잉글리쉬는 올바른 영어교육의 방향 제시를 통하여 학회나 학교, SK나 한국통신등에서 효율적인 학습체계로손쉽고 재미있게 실질적인 영어실력을 키울 수 있으므로, 전국의많은 기업에서 활용을 하고 있습니다. 무료 샘플 CD 신청. 무비잉글리쉬는 무료 SampleCDw를 원하는분께 발송해 드리고 있습니다. 관심있는분은 여기 를 클릭해 주세요~ 교재 엿보기. 영화 대본이 학습서? 미국 현지에서 사용되는 영어에 대한 풍부한 지식을 얻을 수 있는 학습지침서 생활영어.. 유학갈까? 재미있게 영어를 익힐 수 있도록 생활 속의 자연스러운 영어를 학습 히는 입체영어 학습 교재 영화속 대화. 포카혼타스가 돌아가는 화살에 대해서 버드나무 할머니와 이야기하는 동안 라트클리프 총독의 지휘 아래, 존 스미스 선장이 이끄는 배는 포카혼타스가 살고 있는 미대륙에 도착한다. 라트클리프 총독은 배에서 내려 다음과 같이 공포한다. Ratcliffe : I hereby claim this land and all its riches 나는 이 땅과 모든 부에 대한 소유권을 주장한다 in the name of His Majesty King James the First, 제임스 1세 황제 폐하의 이름으로, and do so name this settlement Jamestown. 그리고 이 정착지 이름을 제임스타운이라 명하노라. Wiggins : Bravo! Bravo! Beautifully spoken, sir. 브라보! 브라보! 멋지게 선포하셨습니다, 각하. 라트클리프 총독은 영국의 왕제임스 1세의 이름으로 모든 소유권이 있음을 선포하면서, 도착한 곳의 이름을 제임스타운이라고 명한다. 생각이 조금 모자라고 언제나 밝기만한 라트클리프의 비서, 위긴스는 훌륭한 연설이었다면서 호들갑을 떤다. in the name of 의 뒤에 사람의 이름을 써서 ‘~의 이름으로’라는 의미로 사용한다. ■ hereby : 이로써, 이에 의하여 ■ weapon : 무기 ■ settlement : 정착지, 개척지, 이주지 ■ claim : 주장하다 ■ beautifully : 아름답게, 멋지게, 훌륭하게 교재 문의 전화. 문의전화 : 0 2 - 3 6 7 5 - 7 2 3 6 FAX : 0 2 - 3 6 7 5 - 7 2 3 8 홈페이지 : http://www.mbcmovieenglish.co.kr (주)아이맷 서울본부llllllllllllll TEL(代) : 3675-7326 FAX : (02)3675-7238 서울특별시 종로구 연지동 136-56 기독교 연합회관 12층 1203호 Copyright(c) 1999 Integrated Multimedia Application Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. If you have any questions or comments, contact webmaster at mbcmovieenglish.co.kr From dave at WILTON.NET Wed Jan 9 03:53:12 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 19:53:12 -0800 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Shilts credits the coining of the acronym to a 27 July 1982 meeting between various government agencies (including the CDC), the Red Cross and other blood industry representatives, and various gay community groups. (And The Band Played On, Penguin, p. 171) Prior to this, the term most often used was GRID, standing for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Given the outbreak among hemophiliacs and those other than gay men, this older term was no longer deemed accurate. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Laurence Horn Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 3:55 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) At 7:03 PM -0500 1/8/02, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. >> This seems late. > >Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). > >Fred Shapiro > That article makes it clear that the term must have already been well established by 8 Aug. '82, with its references to the A.I.D.S. Project (note the dots still used; the acronym hadn't yet become AIDS) at the Center for Disease Control. Perhaps the chronicles of the disease (Randy Shilts's _And the Band Played On_, or one of the more scholarly books) would have earlier cites, and a history of how the term evolved. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 04:32:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 23:32:04 EST Subject: General Tso's Chicken Message-ID: A New York City dish? This would probably be news to General Tso. The "General Tso's Chicken Page" on the web states that it probably comes from Peng's restaurant in New York City, about 1974. The page is cited in a note by "The Straight Dope." "General Tso's Chicken" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD. NEW YORK magazine, 2 April 1979, had a long feature article, "New York's Chinese Restaurants." I didn't spot the General anywhere else but on page 51, col. 1: * & 1/2* PENG'S (...) ...General Tso's chicken ($7.95*), in a crisp, sweet, garlic-studded coat with scallions and ginger, is wonderful. (...)(Col. 2--ed.) It's 2:40 now and for all I know it may be the number-four chef manning the wok, but General Tso's chicken is garlicked to transcendence. (...) Peng's, 219 East 44th Street, 682-8050. The General's chicken (the name, at least) was probably inspired by the Colonel Sanders. It should be noted that there were other Chinese generals. Hunam, 845 Second Avenue, at 45th Street, on page 48, col. 2, served "General Gau's duckling ($7.95*)." I'll see if I can find an earlier cite in the CUEs and NEW YORKs. From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jan 9 09:06:50 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 02:06:50 -0700 Subject: Query re "wer" Message-ID: My learned Anglo-Saxonist colleague Carl Berkhout provides this information in regard to the replacement of "wer" and "guma" by "man": Predictably most studies of "wer" have to do with its IE cognates (Latin "vir," etc.) or its use in compounds such as "wergeld," "werewolf," etc., but this item is of some limited relevance: J. P. Stanley and C. McGowan. "_Woman_ and _wife_: Social and Semantic Shifts in English." _Papers in Linguistics_ 12 (1979), 491-502. The word pretty well died out in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, no doubt in large part because of the narrowed meaning of "man" once the "-man" element in OE "wifman" had become weakened. But by this time the existence of so many monosyllabic words, both native and Norman French, looking or sounding roughly like "wer," "were," "wher," "war," etc., might also have contributed to the word�s demise. As for "guma," one really wouldn't want to say that that word was ever replaced by "man," for it was almost exclusively a poetic word. It survived as such, usually in the form "gome" until about the end of the Middle English period and occasionally thereafter as a deliberate archaism. c P.S. And of course "guma" survives in folk-reinterpreted form as the second element of "bride-groom". --RCT From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 09:21:17 2002 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 04:21:17 EST Subject: Modalization Message-ID: In a message dated 1/8/02 5:56:47 PM Central Standard Time, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential > funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist first-generation > college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. > > Interesting interpretation! However, I have never heard or read "assist . . . to." I would translate the passage as follows: Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential funders now than a few years ago [of] programs that assist first-generation college aspirants [in] prepar[ing] for and succeed[ing] [at/]in post-secondary education. {OR} Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential fund[s] now than a few years ago for programs [that/to help] first-generation college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. In both cases, ("that" clause or infinitive phrase [to help] ), the word group functions as a modifier of the noun, "programs." However, the verb, "assists," selects for the prepositional phrase ("assists . . . in [VERB'g]") whereas the infinitive, "help," co-occurs most often with the infinitive ("help . . . to"), but can also select for the prepositional phrase, ["help . . . in [VERB'g], P-A-T From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 9 13:50:13 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 08:50:13 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) Message-ID: My father-in-law was a dermatologist with a specialty in STD: when he first began seeing clients in the early 80s with what we'd now call AIDS I remember that he conferred with colleagues about these unusual cases--e.g. young men with Karposi's sarcoma, a disease hitherfore restricted to Mediterranean men in their 80s and 90s--but no one had a name for it. I would look to professional journals (JAMA &c.) for early mentions. ___________________ "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" --Leon Wieseltier From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 9 14:24:41 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 09:24:41 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: <000701c198c1$29f77d80$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On 1/8/02 22:53, "Dave Wilton" wrote: > Shilts credits the coining of the acronym to a 27 July 1982 meeting between > various government agencies (including the CDC), the Red Cross and other > blood industry representatives, and various gay community groups. (And The > Band Played On, Penguin, p. 171) > > Prior to this, the term most often used was GRID, standing for Gay-Related > Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Given the outbreak among hemophiliacs and those > other than gay men, this older term was no longer deemed accurate. I was typing up an entry to say exactly that. I'll add that acronyms for the disease are discussed on page 138 of that edition of the book, under the date entry of April 2, 1982. Other candidates for the acronym that, according to the entry, had been discussed by that point in history were ACIDS (Acquired Community Immune Deficiency Syndrome), CAIDS (Community Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), GRIDs as mentioned, but not AIDS. [The Shilts book is worthy of all praise it has ever received and holds up very well 15 years after having first been published. Its only shortcoming is a lack of a bibliography.] From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 9 14:39:06 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 09:39:06 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: <000601c19914$9036f140$4563c0cc@dbergdah1> Message-ID: "Hitherfore"? Was that a lapsus, or is that a real form? Just curious... On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, David Bergdahl wrote: > My father-in-law was a dermatologist with a specialty in STD: when he first > began seeing clients in the early 80s with what we'd now call AIDS I > remember that he conferred with colleagues about these unusual cases--e.g. > young men with Karposi's sarcoma, a disease hitherfore restricted to > Mediterranean men in their 80s and 90s--but no one had a name for it. I > would look to professional journals (JAMA &c.) for early mentions. > ___________________ > "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" > --Leon Wieseltier > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 9 02:29:49 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 10:29:49 +0800 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:39 AM -0500 1/9/02, Benjamin Fortson wrote: >"Hitherfore"? Was that a lapsus, or is that a real form? Just curious... David must have intended "thitherfore" or perhaps "theretofore". (I think it's also Kaposi's.) L > >On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, David Bergdahl wrote: > >> My father-in-law was a dermatologist with a specialty in STD: when he first >> began seeing clients in the early 80s with what we'd now call AIDS I >> remember that he conferred with colleagues about these unusual cases--e.g. >> young men with Karposi's sarcoma, a disease hitherfore restricted to >> Mediterranean men in their 80s and 90s--but no one had a name for it. I >> would look to professional journals (JAMA &c.) for early mentions. >> ___________________ >> "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" >> --Leon Wieseltier >> From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 9 16:00:01 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:00:01 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore Message-ID: See the google search at http://www.google.com/search?q=hitherfore&btnG=Google+Search for citations; I didn't think I'd made it up! ___________________ David Bergdahl From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 9 03:19:46 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:19:46 +0800 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: <000501c19926$b313a2a0$f10503d8@dbergdah1> Message-ID: At 11:00 AM -0500 1/9/02, David Bergdahl wrote: >See the google search at >http://www.google.com/search?q=hitherfore&btnG=Google+Search for citations; >I didn't think I'd made it up! No, but for me the "hither" version would have to be deictic = 'before now/here/this', as in "heretofore", while your use was referential = 'before then/there/that', whence "thitherfore". Of course, there are no hits for that on google or anywhere else, but there's no time like the present... L From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Wed Jan 9 16:27:10 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:27:10 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) Message-ID: It sounds as if the widespread public use of the term must date from the CDC's announcements in August 1982. The earliest reference in Science is Research News: New Disease Baffles Medical Community: "AIDS" is a serious public health hazard, but may also provide insights into the workings of the immune system and the origin of cancer (Aug. 13, 1982). Here's the first paragraph: >>Within the past 4 years, a new disease of unknown cause and high virulence has afflicted more than 470 people, killing almost half of them. "It is a serious public health problem," says Harry Haverkos of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), referring to what is known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). "So far 184 people have died, which is more than the combined total of deaths attributed to toxic shock and the Philadelphia outbreak of Legionnaire's disease." Moreover, the toll continues to mount as 15 to 20 new cases are reported every week.<< One gets a sense that the full extent of the problem was not immediately realized. John Baker From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Wed Jan 9 16:23:12 2002 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 10:23:12 -0600 Subject: Modalization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I agree. 'Assist' has not usually been used with an infinitive, either with or without 'to'. Both "assist aspirants prepare for college" and "assist aspirants to prepare for college" sound odd to me, and the former sounds *really* odd. Victoria On Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:21 AM, P-A-T wrote: > > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are > fewer potential > > funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist > first-generation > > college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. > > > > Interesting interpretation! However, I have never heard or read > "assist . . > . to." I would translate the passage as follows: > > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential > funders now than a few years ago [of] programs that assist > first-generation > college aspirants [in] prepar[ing] for and succeed[ing] [at/]in > post-secondary education. > > {OR} > > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential > fund[s] now than a few years ago for programs [that/to help] > first-generation > college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. > > > In both cases, ("that" clause or infinitive phrase [to help] ), the word > group functions as a modifier of the noun, "programs." However, the verb, > "assists," selects for the prepositional phrase ("assists . . . > in [VERB'g]") > whereas the infinitive, "help," co-occurs most often with the infinitive > ("help . . . to"), but can also select for the prepositional > phrase, ["help > . . . in [VERB'g], > P-A-T > Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 9 17:06:58 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 12:06:58 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: <000501c19926$b313a2a0$f10503d8@dbergdah1> Message-ID: "Irrespective" + "regardless" = "irregardless". "Hitherto" + "heretofore" = "hitherfore". -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 17:54:20 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 12:54:20 EST Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, has passed to Burger Heaven (no, not the chain restaurant). From the NEW YORK POST, 9 January 2001, pg. 20, col. 1: _Farewell to the tru burger king_ _Wendy's CEO mourned as a bizman and a star_ (...) It was Iacocca who pioneered the role of the CEO pitchman, and it was Kiam who came up with the phrase everyone remembers... This is wrong! There have been many other pitchmen in the food business, such as Roy Rogers. Paul Newman also pitches his own brand. Tom Carvel is another. However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. He pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. People remember Orville even today, although he's been dead a few years now. Towards the end, his son was featured in some ads. OFF TOPIC: Buy Andrew Smith's book on popcorn! It's like butter! From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 19:20:29 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 14:20:29 EST Subject: Web page woes Message-ID: The ADS web page is in dire need of updating. I mentioned this several months ago, and nothing has been done in the interim. I'm delighted that we have been able--in just a few days--to get posted the information about our latest word-of-the-year. However: •I think it is at least as important that the web page indicate that PADS is one of our publications (so far as I can see, PADS is not listed anywhere)! There should be a sidebar listing of "Monograph Series" along with "American Speech" "Calls" "Etc." (clicking on "Monograph Series" should link the seeker to a list of current and projected PADS, and a further link to a list of ALL past PADS) together with information on how to acquire them separately, perhaps through a link with Duke Press)--AND PADS SHOULD AT LEAST BE LISTED UNDER "Publications"! •I think it is also at least as important that the web page indicate who are officers are (e.g., I have not been president for over a year now, but I'm still listed as president). •I think it is at least as important that the price of dues for membership be correctly listed (it is not). •I think it is at least as important that the listing of Calls for Papers be up to date (We currently list ONLY [1] VIEW 2000: Variation Is Everywhere 14-16 September, 2000; [2] Gullah: A Linguistic Legacy of Africans in America *A Conference on the 50th Anniversary of Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect, Friday, November 3, 2000; [3] the 2000 NWAV conference at Michigan State University); and [4] the MLA Present-Day English Discussion Group is seeking papers for its session at the 2000 MLA Conference, Dec. 27-30, in Washington, DC.). Apparently we didn't have any information here about the 2002 meeting before it happened--and there is certainly no information about important upcoming meetings. I suggest that the Executive Secretary find a volunteer to act as Director of Content for the Web page. Our web page is now the chief way that the public sees us. Presenting misinformation, no information, and out-fo-date information really makes us look foolish. From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 19:31:20 2002 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 14:31:20 EST Subject: Web page woes Message-ID: I am happy to report that, during informal conversations at our Annual Meeting, and recognizing the importance of keeping the website up to date, Steve Kleinedler agreed to be the very volunteer that Ron proposes. Steve is already communicating with Grant Barrett, and I expect you'll start seeing significant improvement soon - I've just sent the two of them some suggestions regarding dues and membership information. If anyone has suggestions or requests for the website, they should be addressed to stevekl at panix.com Of course, I'm forwarding Ron's suggestions, just in case Steve and Grant haven't seen them already. - Allan Metcalf From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 9 19:28:59 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:28:59 -0800 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" Message-ID: >>> carljweber 01/06/02 02:42PM >>> Etymology Query: "They" Carl Jeffrey Weber (I couldn't find anything by searching the archives.) Given all that the OED says about "they" (and other pronouns) -- I have for years carried around two questions: 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? 'They, them, their' (with various spellings) are found in Old Norse, but not in Old English or any other Germanic language. 'They' enters English at the same time and place as many other Norse words (of course after the Vikings settled in England) (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of forms only? No, not 'probably', it's certain. 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during the period of Norman dominance? No one really knows why the pronoun changed, altho some people have suggested that there was confusion with the 3 person masculine 'he.' I do not find that a convincing argument at all. It did not have anything to do with the Normans. Another puzzle is why native English 'aeg', pronounced something like modern English 'eye,' was replaced by Scandinavian 'egg.' There does not seem to be any good reason for this type of change. (We do have remnants of Old English 'aeg' in Modern English--cock-eyed and Cockney.) This "they" pronoun seems to have been the only trespasser into "basic" English (with the other th-plurals later following). Some scholars have thought that 'she' (which is much more interesting than 'they') is from Scandinavian 'sja.' In a forthcoming article on the etymology of 'she,' I discuss what is wrong with this theory (and propose my own.) Has any native source been suggested? No. Fritz Juengling PhD Germanic Philology From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 9 19:35:52 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 14:35:52 -0500 Subject: hitherfore In-Reply-To: <194.dc7393.296df1fd@aol.com> Message-ID: Quoth the Raven: "Hitherfore!" All very interesting. No evidence for a "thitherfore", as far as I can tell--but with only 21 hits on Google for "hitherto", that's not very surprising, esp. given how much more common "hither" is than "thither" (and compounds). I wonder how common "hitherfore" really is... From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 9 19:36:24 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:36:24 -0800 Subject: query Message-ID: I was involved in a discussion yesterday concerning "medical culture" which broadened into "x culture" ("legal culture", "military culture", etc.). This led to a check of the usage in the American Heritage Dictionary (online version) 4th ed. 2000, which has the following: "Ever since C.P. Snow wrote of the gap between the two cultures (the humanities and science) in the 1950s, the notion that culture can refer to smaller segments of society has seemed implicit. Its usage in the corporate world may also have been facilitated by increased awareness of the importance of genuine cultural differences in a global economy, as between Americans and the Japanese, that have a broad effect on business practices." My questions are: is there any evidence for the usage of "x culture" before 1950, has there been anything published on this, and is this usage more American than British? (American Heritage dates "corporate culture" to "business jargon of the late 1980s and early 1990s". A Google search turned up: "medical culture" 2,050 hits, "military culture" 6,080 hits, "cowboy culture" 2,790 hits, "beer culture" 1,650 hits, "software engineering culture" 790 hits and "six-pack culture" 7 hits. I'm guessing the software one is comparatively recent. Since it is not strictly about dialect, please feel free to respond to me personally unless you think it of interest to the list. Thanks very much. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From Ittaob at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 20:06:16 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:06:16 EST Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: In a message dated 1/9/02 12:55:24 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: << However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. He pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. >> Don't you mean "was Orville Redenbacher"? Orville Wright was one of the Wright brothers. Steve From stevekl at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 9 20:17:18 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: Web page woes In-Reply-To: <10e.a7f1267.296df488@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > If anyone has suggestions or requests for the website, they should be > addressed to > > stevekl at panix.com Let me explicitly repeat, send them to my email account and not to the listserv, because there are long stretches in which I don't have the time to read the listserv. Seocndly, please put "website" somewhere in the subject field. I will be prioritizing my PINE so that I see such messages sooner. Thanks, Steve From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 9 20:20:33 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:20:33 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Laurence Horn wrote: #No, but for me the "hither" version would have to be deictic = #'before now/here/this', as in "heretofore", while your use was #referential = 'before then/there/that', whence "thitherfore". Of #course, there are no hits for that on google or anywhere else, but #there's no time like the present... Now I see what I don't like about that word: It can't decide what direction it's pointing in. "Hitherto" = 'up until here/now', and the movement of both elements is is in the direction of the arrow of time, forward. (Likewise "thitherto", of course.) Its normal counterpart, "henceforward", follows the arrow forward from here/now, again consistently. But in "hitherfore" the "hither" moves forward to the present while the "fore" looks backward from it. It bites. I can only think it was coined by somebody who knew a little bit about "hither" and "hence" and "fore", but not enough. "Drink deep, or taste not!" -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large (not hired by the company that bought the surviving fragment of Dragon research) From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 9 20:23:24 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:23:24 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020109120549.00b08050@nb.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: #"Irrespective" + "regardless" = "irregardless". # #"Hitherto" + "heretofore" = "hitherfore". You're probably right. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 9 20:38:11 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:38:11 -0500 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: #Another puzzle is why native English 'aeg', pronounced #something like modern English 'eye,' was replaced by #Scandinavian 'egg.' There does not seem to be any good #reason for this type of change. (We do have remnants of #Old English 'aeg' in Modern English--cock-eyed and #Cockney.) "Cock-eyed"? Please explain why < 'egg' not 'eye'. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 9 21:11:49 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 16:11:49 -0500 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Note that "cock-eyed", unlike "Cockney", does not continue OE aeg 'egg'. I don't know of any attestations prior to the 1820's, and it's always referred to eyes and not eggs. On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > >>> carljweber 01/06/02 02:42PM >>> > Etymology Query: "They" > > Carl Jeffrey Weber > > (I couldn't find anything by searching the archives.) > Given all that the OED says about "they" (and other pronouns) -- I have for > years carried around two questions: > > 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? > > 'They, them, their' (with various spellings) are found in Old Norse, but not in Old English or any other Germanic language. 'They' enters English at the same time and place as many other Norse words (of course after the Vikings settled in England) > > (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of > forms only? > > No, not 'probably', it's certain. > > 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? > Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during > the period of Norman dominance? > > No one really knows why the pronoun changed, altho some people have suggested that there was confusion with the 3 person masculine 'he.' I do not find that a convincing argument at all. > It did not have anything to do with the Normans. > Another puzzle is why native English 'aeg', pronounced something like modern English 'eye,' was replaced by Scandinavian 'egg.' There does not seem to be any good reason for this type of change. (We do have remnants > of Old English 'aeg' in Modern English--cock-eyed and Cockney.) > > This "they" pronoun seems to have been the only trespasser into "basic" > English (with the other th-plurals later following). > > Some scholars have thought that 'she' (which is much more interesting than 'they') is from Scandinavian 'sja.' In a forthcoming article on the etymology of 'she,' I discuss what is wrong with this theory (and propose my own.) > > Has any native source > been suggested? > > No. > > > Fritz Juengling > PhD Germanic Philology > From jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU Wed Jan 9 22:18:58 2002 From: jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU (Miller, Jerry) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 17:18:58 -0500 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Steve: You mean you never heard of "Orville's Flying Popcorn"? Jerry > -----Original Message----- > From: Ittaob at AOL.COM [SMTP:Ittaob at AOL.COM] > Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:06 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn > > In a message dated 1/9/02 12:55:24 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: > > << However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. > He > pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. >> > > Don't you mean "was Orville Redenbacher"? Orville Wright was one of the > Wright brothers. > > Steve From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Wed Jan 9 22:54:57 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 16:54:57 -0600 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Would that be in Orvillian Sci-Fi? You know; the guy that wrote 2084? "Miller, Jerry" wrote: > > Steve: You mean you never heard of "Orville's Flying Popcorn"? > > Jerry > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Ittaob at AOL.COM [SMTP:Ittaob at AOL.COM] > > Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:06 PM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn > > > > In a message dated 1/9/02 12:55:24 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: > > > > << However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. > > He > > pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. >> > > > > Don't you mean "was Orville Redenbacher"? Orville Wright was one of the > > Wright brothers. > > > > Steve From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 23:11:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 18:11:17 EST Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Orville REDENBACHER, not Wright. Yeah, that's what I get for quickly surfing the internet on a Kinko's computer on my lunch hour. "Let's Talk Food: Give Orville a Kernel of Credit for Promoting His Popcorn" mentioned both Orvilles. Now, I've got an hour to look up "General Tso" and solve "AIDS".... From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 00:00:49 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 16:00:49 -0800 Subject: Modalization Message-ID: Peter, for years I have been taking notice of whether people write "help...to + verb" or simply "help ...verb." I do not know what grammar books suggest, but the 'to' seems wordy and unnecessary and I leave it out of both my writing and speech. On the other hand, I often hear this curious construction that always baffles me: ....'try AND do (something) I always 'try TO do (something) The first construction makes it sound as if there are two things to accomplish: try and something else, as if to try were separate from the something else. Fritz J >>> "Peter A. McGraw" 01/08/02 03:55PM >>> ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Monday, January 7, 2002 5:20 PM -0600rrom: Mary Elizabeth Collins To: CFRNET discussion list Subject: [cfrnet] Readiness programs for first-generation college aspirants Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist first-generation college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- A-HA! I finally find this construction in print (at least electronic print). I don't think the omission of the "to" (assist...prepare) is a mere typo, because I notice the folks on NPR using constructions like this all the time. In most instances (though not in this one) the construction could also be expressed as a "that" clause (with optional deletion of the "that"), so that what looks at first glance like the omission of a "to" might also be interpreted as an instance of an apparent journalese taboo against EVER using "that" as a conjunction. Here, though, it seems an unambiguous case of extending the modal-like grammar of "help" to the synonymous but (for me at least) nonmodal "assist." Sorry I can't offer a citation for the ambiguous construction. Every time I hear it on my car radio, I make a mental note to remember it exactly (since it would be bad form to grab a piece of paper and write it down while also navigating through traffic), but by the time I get to work I've forgotten it. Has anyone else noticed this? I presume the "that" phobia originated with some style book somewhere, but I can't quite see a style book as the source of true "modalization" such as we seem to have here. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From leecyqqq at YAHOO.CO.KR Thu Jan 10 00:25:23 2002 From: leecyqqq at YAHOO.CO.KR (â) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 09:25:23 +0900 Subject: No subject Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 10 02:00:20 2002 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 18:00:20 -0800 Subject: FW: [Fwd: Oxford English Dictionary wants you!] Message-ID: > The Oxford English Dictionary is looking for some help with sci-fi words. > Not definitions, but examples of usage. > > Check out: http://www.jessesword.com/SF/sf_citations.shtml From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 10 03:42:00 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 22:42:00 -0500 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn In-Reply-To: <7CD653105654D411A74900508B6904E92183EC@bravo.franklincollege.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Miller, Jerry wrote: #Steve: You mean you never heard of "Orville's Flying Popcorn"? Is that a filk* ttto** "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? -- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname http://world.std.com/~mam/filk.html * In this usage, a parody or a song using the tune & structure of another. More generally, music of sf/fantasy fandom. ** to the tune of From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 10 08:04:37 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 02:04:37 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) Message-ID: Etymology: "They" Carl Jeffrey Weber I had asked two questions, I'd like to comment on the second one first. 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during the period of Norman dominance? Fritz Juengling responded >No one really knows why the pronoun changed, altho some people have suggested that >there was confusion with the 3 person masculine 'he.' I do not find that a convincing >argument at all. It did not have anything to do with the Normans. I'd like to offer a simple explanation why the pronoun changed. I worked on the problems of the pronouns ten years ago, doing my extremely labor intensive masters thesis on it - unfortunately, although they gave me the degree, no one ever looked at my paper. I'm grateful, therefore, for the chance to present some of my findings. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? When the preterit plural disappeared from the language, and the preterit was no longer marked for number, the disappearance was balanced by the development of an unambiguous written plural pronoun (because the feminine/plural no longer expressed concord). A perfectly elegant example of this is seen in the following lines from La3amons Brut, from about 1200. Eneas nom Lauine; leofliche to wife. he wes king & heo quen; & kine-lond heo welden. "Eneas took Lavine lovingly to wife. He was king, and she queen, and (the) kingdom they governed." - from Sir Frederic Maddon. If the preterit (welden) were not marked for plural, the sentence would have to be refashioned because the reader would not know if it was "she" or "they" that "governed". Incidentally, in the one other extant manuscript of La3amons Brut, from later in the century, there is NO preterit plural, and so there is no single "feminine/plural" form as in the example. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? Fritz Juengling responded >'They, them, their' (with various spellings) are found in Old Norse, but not in Old >English or any other Germanic language. 'They' enters English at the same time and >place as many other Norse words (of course after the Vikings settled in England) [Actually, and albeit of small significance, there DO seem to be morphological identities with Swedish and Norwegian (th = d); and with Old and Modern Icelandic in the oblique cases (of each of the three plural genders)! CJW] I had asked (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of forms only? >No, not 'probably', it's certain. I'm very aware of the obvious advanced knowledge of others in these general areas, and I admittedly confine my expertise to a very narrow focus. Getting to the point -- I took from the OED all the h-stem forms, the th- forms, and others as well, and made many pages of exhibits, organizing them in various ways - mapping over the centuries the persistence of their grammatical and orthographical forms. No small task. The real surprise, however, came with comparative analysis of the seventeen manuscripts of the A-Version of Piers Plowman. Across the lines of the manuscripts I extracted thirty-six hundred examples (another no small task), and then constructed the personal pronoun paradigms for each of the written dialects of the seventeen manuscripts. My conclusions follow from my primary assumption that the paradigms of Piers Plowman are highly representative of the general dialects in 15th century England. My observations are not restricted to the status/prestige dialects from which Standard English developed. (Fernand Mossé says that Piers was closer to the common people than any other, and more English than Chaucer.) My major conclusion, based on the seventeen paradigms (granting special conditions for "they", as mentioned above, and other conditions for "she") - it was PRINTING that was the most significant event in the restructuring of the historical personal pronouns. Printing, with only a few qualifications, CAUSED (strong word) the demise of the h-stem pronouns. Printing set the standard of the King's English throughout the land - at least insofar as the written personal pronouns were concerned. The H-stems had been alive and well in all the dialects of Piers until printing! The seventeen manuscripts of Piers show this in unmistakable terms. Why did Caxton, England's first printer, make certain changes? - as students of the language are well aware, he began using "them" and "their" mid-career, replacing the h-stems. It was not "diffusion" that explains it. Examining the seventeen paradigms shows why. There were many orthographical h-stem forms of "her". There were many orthographical h-stems forms for "their". In many instances, the singular and plural shared the same orthographies. As examples, were in some dialects singular, in some plural. The same situation existed among the many forms of "him" and "them". What was singular-masculine/neuter-object in some dialects was the all-genders plural object in others. Caxton solved the problem and created a standardized universal written concord through settling on the use of the unambiguous written th-plural, apparently patterned on the plural th-nominative, already in the language for several centuries, but adopted for other reasons. The "th-" was added to the "-m" (the "-m" was the mark of the dative turned object) and to the "-r" (genitive) morphologies. The OED has been the authority of final resort and authority in understanding these pronouns. Everybody quotes the OED, and well they should. And conservatism in scholarship should be a primary value. Not available at the time the OED made its observations, however, was the monumental compilation in George Kane's Piers Plowman (1960), which had built on the inspiring, and none the less monumental, scholarship of Walter W. Skeat. The seventeen paradigms of the A Version of Piers Plowman show the h-stem feminine and the h-stem plurals were thriving in the 15th century. Printing swept them away and established a new universal standard. Even the h-stem nominative plural was to be found, although almost undetectable, in 15th century English - but, amazingly, it is seen in five manuscripts of Piers, in Prologue Line 63. I assume John Langland, the author, could have done it differently, but the h-stem nominative plural RIMES Langland's original "h-" alliteration in that line. An amazing prize of a find! Except for the status/prestige dialects, the "she" pronoun had not made the gain so quickly into the language after 1200 as one might be lead to believe by everything that has in modern times been written about it. Feminine [hi] is found far and wide across the manuscripts of Piers. It is often in variation in the same manuscript with the sh- form. I must accept the general validity of Eric John Dobson's sound shift data (that by 1400 the rising front diphthong settled to [i]), and the observation of the OED that <-o> at the end of in 1400 had long since been dropped from general speech. (I've seen "heo" rimed with "se"!). In Passus X, Line 46, the h-stem feminine is seen in a majority of the seventeen manuscripts - [hi]. Printing swept the h-stem feminine aside, too, at least from the printed word. Depending if one is talking about the orthography or the phonology, there is a good argument that [hi] WAS indeed the much-disparaged "so called generic" pronoun of modern times - and of course, [hi] was not a masculine pronoun for most of the history of the English Language! As the feminine, it had been originally the singular accusative, and then became widely used as a feminine subject pronoun, spelled with its Roman value, , and pronounced exactly as the modern masculine singular! (For my OE paradigms, I used Pyles, Marckwardt, Baugh, Bloomfield, and Campbell). This is not to say there were not other forms. This [hi] was also the plural of the nominative and accusative, and continued to be widely found (even after the general displacement of the accusative by the dative in "-m"). Simply put, my current understanding, a sociolinguistic one, is that "sh-" seems to have been preferred as the written and status/prestige form -- no doubt the preferred form of address by the ladies of the court -- based, apparently, on the French model of distinct pronouns for the masculine and feminine. Among the common folk of the 15th century, as seen in Piers, [hi] often served quite adequately for man and woman alike. ///////////////////// As far as the source of "they", lacking an alternative explanation, the Danish source has served well for an impressively long time. Whether it was in fact Danish or not, it filled the role, it seems, that I earlier presented - providing an unambiguous written plural when the preterit plural (except "to be") was dropped. What seems to me to be a good "source" candidate, an improvement on the Danish theory, is that it is one of the developments of the same lexical item that gives us "the" - a demonstrative from WITHIN the language. (The "þe" orthography is an article, personal pronoun, demonstrative adjective, demonstrative pronoun, relative, and also a second person object!!) The "þe" pronoun as a singular is often translated as "who". Why not just call it singular "they"? It is many times, especially with plural or uninflected verbs, easily interpreted as the relative, "that", and often interchangeable with it with no loss of meaning. Why not call it the incipient "they". The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". \\\\\\\\\\\\ Whatever you may think -- whether edified, entertained, or exasperated -- of the various observations made above, please note that I have never had an opportunity, since I spent several years doing this work ten years ago, to present, vent, or discuss it with anybody having a knowledge of the subject area, or the technicalities involved -- and it's a heartfelt cathartic experience that I will have had been able to tell it before turning to dust. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 10 08:27:30 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 03:27:30 -0500 Subject: Ruth Brend dies Message-ID: I am not sure how many members of ADS knew her. Ruth Brend was a longstanding member of the International Linguistic Association (formerly the Linguistic Circle of New York). It is with sadness that I pass along the notice of her death last Tuesday evening. David barnhart at highlands.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 10 12:44:03 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 07:44:03 -0500 Subject: Ruth Brend dies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ADS Colleagues, Here at Michigan State, Ruth's old home, we were sad indeed to learn of her death. She was, until her death, a very active person in linguistics. When I came here more than a decade ago, I found a little badge in my desk drawer with a green ribbon and a typed ID. It read "Ruth Brend, Secretary to Kenneth L. Pike." I knew my new desk had been Ruth's old one. I got to know her very well during my early Michigan days, and I admired her very much. Dennis >I am not sure how many members of ADS knew her. Ruth Brend was a >longstanding member of the International Linguistic Association >(formerly the Linguistic Circle of New York). It is with sadness that >I pass along the notice of her death last Tuesday evening. > >David > >barnhart at highlands.com -- From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 16:23:32 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:23:32 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) Message-ID: Carl, intersting note. About 4 or 5 years ago there appeared a book, based on someone's dissertation I believe, that is a description of 'all' the pronouns in all the Germanic languages. It came out about the same time that I was investigating pronouns. Unfortunately, I do not remember the author's name nor the exact title of the book. I want to say it was 'stephan' somebody, but I am not sure about that. The title is predictably something like "The Pronouns of the Germanic Languages." I think it may have been published by de Gruyter. Have you seen this book? I'd be interested to see your paper Incidentally, in the one other extant manuscript of La3amons Brut, from later in the century, there is NO preterit plural, and so there is no single "feminine/plural" form as in the example. How does it read? What seems to me to be a good "source" candidate, an improvement on the Danish theory, is that it is one of the developments of the same lexical item that gives us "the" - a demonstrative from WITHIN the language. (The "þe" orthography is an article, personal pronoun, demonstrative adjective, demonstrative pronoun, relative, and also a second person object!!) The "þe" pronoun as a singular is often translated as "who". Why not just call it singular "they"? It is many times, especially with plural or uninflected verbs, easily interpreted as the relative, "that", and often interchangeable with it with no loss of meaning. Why not call it the incipient "they". The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". Interesting idea. I do not believe I have come across this before. Have you been able to find 'þe' used as 'they' (i.e.nom, pl, sentence subject--that last one is crucial!)? You will also need to explain the modern pronunciation with the diphthong [ei]. I do not think 'þe', if stressed and it were a long vowel, would have rendered the diphthong; we would have [þi:] (that's really voiced, but I cannot produce the voiced symbol). "They" as a single is, of course, very old--at least Early Modern English, but I am not sure when we find its 'first' occurrence. Is it as old as Piers? that would be an interesting investigation. Fritz \\\\\\\\\\\\ Whatever you may think -- whether edified, entertained, or exasperated -- of the various observations made above, please note that I have never had an opportunity, since I spent several years doing this work ten years ago, to present, vent, or discuss it with anybody having a knowledge of the subject area, or the technicalities involved -- and it's a heartfelt cathartic experience that I will have had been able to tell it before turning to dust. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Thu Jan 10 16:40:55 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:40:55 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here is the reference to the book: Howe, Stephen, 1964- The personal pronouns in the Germanic languages : b a study of personal pronoun morphology and change in the Germanic languages from the first records to the present day / c Stephen Howe. New York : b Walter de Gruyter, 1996. xxii, 390 : ill., maps ; 25 cm. (Studia linguistica Germanica ; 43) Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of London, 1995. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 16:59:21 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:59:21 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) Message-ID: That's it! Thanks Allen. Fritz >>> "A. Maberry" 01/10/02 08:40AM >>> Here is the reference to the book: Howe, Stephen, 1964- The personal pronouns in the Germanic languages : b a study of personal pronoun morphology and change in the Germanic languages from the first records to the present day / c Stephen Howe. New York : b Walter de Gruyter, 1996. xxii, 390 : ill., maps ; 25 cm. (Studia linguistica Germanica ; 43) Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of London, 1995. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 10 18:47:54 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 12:47:54 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) Message-ID: Fritz, I said: The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". Fritz Juengling said, Interesting idea. I do not believe I have come across this before. Have you been able to find 'þe' used as 'they' (i.e.nom, pl, sentence subject--that last one is crucial!)? ///////////// If I'm not mistaken, the following shows the "incipient plural they", again, from about 1200: ...Noe & Sem Japhet & Cham & heore four wives þe mid heom weren on archen. ...Noah & Shem Japheth & Ham (,) & their four wives (;) they [that, who] were with them on (the) ark. A curious thing is how quickly /they/ was adopted into writing -- although far from being universally so. The OE feminine/plural could no longer be invariable used when the preterit plural fell from use. (Many forms of h-stems for the plural, differentiated from the feminine singular within the same written dialect, were also used.) I imagine there was, as an aside at a national convocation of the Church hierarchy, the "correct" written plural proposed. /////////////// Fritz Juengling said, You will also need to explain the modern pronunciation with the diphthong [ei]. I do not think 'þe', if stressed and it were a long vowel, would have rendered the diphthong; we would have [þi:] (that's really voiced, but I cannot produce the voiced symbol). //////////////// As I understand it, modern "they" retains the OE pronunciation of <þe>. Perhaps shedding some light on this, the second person "thee" shows before 1400 the spelling <þe> also -- BEFORE the rising diphthong went to [i]. The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation. The emphatic modern article "the" [thi] shows the same pronunciation, the raised diphthong. How this makes sense to me is explained by one of the characteristics of English -- its drift, in some cases, from the phonetic principle; variant spellings produce the same phonological shape -- I, eye, aye. What makes sense to me is that "they" (th-y) and its spelling variations represent a written form to distinguish it from the many other uses of "þe". I've also considered, in passing, that the overload on <þe> influenced the adoption of "you" instead of the "th-" forms. Carl From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 10 19:09:43 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 13:09:43 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) revised Message-ID: Etymology: "They" (short) revised Carl Jeffrey Weber //////////// Fritz, I said: The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". Fritz Juengling said, Interesting idea. I do not believe I have come across this before. Have you been able to find used as 'they' (i.e.nom, pl, sentence subject--that last one is crucial!)? ///////////// If I'm not mistaken, the following shows the "incipient plural they", again, from about 1200: ...Noe & Sem Japhet & Cham & heore four wives [thorn+e] mid heom weren on archen. ...Noah & Shem Japheth & Ham (,) & their four wives (;) they [that, who] were with them on (the) ark. A curious thing is how quickly /they/ was adopted into writing -- although far from being universally so. The OE feminine/plural could no longer be invariable used when the preterit plural fell from use. (Many forms of h-stems for the plural, differentiated from the feminine singular within the same written dialect, were also used.) I imagine there was, as an aside at a national convocation of the Church hierarchy, the "correct" written plural proposed. /////////////// Fritz Juengling said, You will also need to explain the modern pronunciation with the diphthong [ei]. I do not think [thorn+e] if stressed and it were a long vowel, would have rendered the diphthong; we would have [thorn+i:] (that's really voiced, but I cannot produce the voiced symbol). //////////////// As I understand it, modern "they" retains the OE pronunciation of [thorn+e]. Perhaps shedding some light on this, the second person "thee" shows before 1400 the spelling [thorn+e] also -- BEFORE the rising diphthong went to [i]. The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation. The emphatic modern article "the" /thi/ shows the same pronunciation, the raised diphthong. How this makes sense to me is explained by one of the characteristics of English -- its drift, in some cases, from the phonetic principle; variant spellings produce the same phonological shape -- I, eye, aye. What makes sense to me is that "they" (th-y) and its spelling variations represent a written form to distinguish it from the many other uses of [thorn+e]. I've also considered, in passing, that the overload on [thorn+e] influenced the adoption of "you" instead of the "th-" forms. Carl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main ADS-L page ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Back to the LISTSERV home page at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 10 19:32:16 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 11:32:16 -0800 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: To all I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made up" word? Anne G > > On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Larry Trask wrote: > > > --On Tuesday, January 8, 2002 5:23 pm +0000 Paul Gross > > wrote: > > > > [LT] > > > > > Well, there's another possibility. Perhaps Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida > > > and company were not such profound thinkers after all. Perhaps, in fact, > > > they were hopelessly shallow but grotesquely overrated. Has anyone > > > explored *this* possibility? ;-) > > > > > Nobody with any hope of academic standing or advancement. But that is no > > > reason to conclude that *this* possibility has a low probability. Even > > > today, five years after the final nosedive of post-structuralism, to > > > suggest that Foucault (for example) was not only a moral cretin but also > > > an erudite bullshit artist is to assure yourself, if you are still > > > employed in a university, of at least a pitifully small pay raise or none > > > next year, and to the loss of your parking place. Even the president of > > > Harvard has to learn quickly, if he wants to stay in the job and get > > > someting done, that there are strict limits to telling the truth (called > > > "bluntness") and heavy penalties for exceeding them. > > > > Yes; I've heard something about the African Studies kerfuffle at Harvard, > > but not much. I simply don't know whether African Studies at Harvard is > > respectable, or merely one more outpost of Afro-centric drivel. Anybody > > know? > > > Afro-American studies at Harvard are the very antithesis of Afro-centric > drivel. > > C. L. Brace > > > > To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology > > Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day > http://human-nature.com/nibbs > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 10 19:43:20 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:43:20 -0500 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) In-Reply-To: <002d01c19a07$52221b20$cabfdccf@computer> Message-ID: I would like to ask everyone either to avoid using non-ASCII characters in posts to this list or to annotate them in ASCII. This discussion has acquired a lot of references to "*e", where the asterisk represents something that I see as a rectangle which indicates a code that my computer has no representation for. I suppose that represents an edh, but it might as easily be a thorn, or even a yogh in somebody's font. And please remember that there is no such thing as "eight-bit ASCII", even if your program lists it as an option: ASCII is a seven-bit code. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 10 19:47:31 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:47:31 EST Subject: General Tso; Happy/Lucky Family; and more Chinese Message-ID: GENERAL TSO (continued) "The Real General Tso Was No Chicken," by Anthony Ramirez, is in the City section, NEW YORK TIMES, 24 May 1998, pg. 6, col. 1. The web sites given are: http://recipes.wenzel.net/ http://www.echonyc.com/~jkarpf/home/tso.htm Both Peng's and Uncle Tai's are mentioned. MYRA WALDO'S RESTAURANT GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY (Second Revised Edition, Collier Books, NY, 1976), pg. 190: ***Hunan Yuan, Uncle Tai's 1059 Third Avenue (between 62nd and 63rd Streets) (...) For dessert I couldn't resist ordering something listed on the menu as Screw Rolls; it's a sort of steamed, sweetened noodle dough. (No "General Tso's chicken"--ed.) (FWIW: On September 6, 1998, also in the TIMES City section, the same Anthony Ramirez would write that "Big Apple" comes from New Orleans--without that story ever having appeared in the newspaper, then or now.) -------------------------------------------------------- HAPPY/LUCKY FAMILY Again from WORD OF MOUTH (Mixed Media, 1972) by Jim Quinn, pg. 64 (Flower Drum Restaurant, 856 2nd Avenue, near 45th Street): Happy family ($4.75), a big disorderly pile of vegetables, lobster, chicken and pork with a slightly more spicy sauce than usual, is extremely good--and one of the few recommended entrees. Pg. 70 (name of restaurant is on page 69, which I forgot to copy): Happy family ($4.25) gets its name because it is supposed to feed a mob, and in most Chinese restaurants it does. Here it is barely enough for one, though part of the difference is that it is completely without chopped vegetables to make up lots of quickly digested bulk. A combination of shrimp balls, meat balls, chicken, abalone and mushrooms, with or without snowpeas, depending on your luck, it is tasty but not worth the money. Besides, the shrimp balls taste like gefilte fish. -------------------------------------------------------- THE NEW YORK TIMES GUIDE TO DINING OUT IN NEW YORK NEW 1976 EDITION by John Canaday Atheneum, NY 1975 No "General Tso." A few other Chinese items: Pg. 68 (Bruce Ho's Four Seasons, 116 East 57th Street): ...the Po-Hai gimlet, a cocktail "Confucius couldn't resist." Pg. 116 (Hunan in the Village, 163 Bleecker Street, at Sullivan Street): The most expensive dish on the menu (at this writing) is a chef's specialty, Dragon and Phoenix, which, at $6.95, is also plenty for two--the dragon being spicy lobster, and the phoneix bland chicken sauteed with snow peas, bamboo shoots, and Chinese mushrooms. Pg. 177 (Mandarin House, 133 West 13th Street): Mandarin House has a garden that is available to fairly large parties in fall and winter for a kind of cook-out called Mongolian barbecue, where food is prepared on the spot on an outdoor Chinese stove, with an array of Chinese sauces as accompaniment. -------------------------------------------------------- CANTONESE, SHANGHAI AND PEKING RESTAURANT DISHES Published and written by Chan Sow Lin Kuala Lumpur, Malaya June 1960 Pg. 9: HUNDRED BIRDS IN NEST (Shanghai Dish) "Pak Liew Kwai Chow" Pg. 12: BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (Shanghai Dish) "Kew Far Kai" or "Hut Yee Kai" Pg. 13: CHESTNUT CHICKEN (Cantonese Dish) "Lut Chee Mun Kai" Pg. 16: ORANGE CHICKEN (Cantonese Dish) "Heong Chang Kook Fei Kai" Pg. 18: CHILLY CHICKEN (Shanghai Dish) "Lart Chee Kai Ting" Pg. 47: PRAWN CUTLET "PHOENIX" "Char Foong Mei Har" or "Hai Kim Chow Yip" (No "General Tso's Chicken"--ed.) From john at FENIKS.COM Thu Jan 10 20:42:27 2002 From: john at FENIKS.COM (John Blower) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 15:42:27 -0500 Subject: kerfuffle In-Reply-To: <002801c19a0d$88936d20$eefbfd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: At 11:32 AM 1/10/02 -0800, you wrote: >To all > >I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, >apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance >outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of >argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made >up" word? >Anne G I have no notion of its origins (Concise OED: fuss, commotion (colloq.)), but it was a not uncommon word when I was growing up in the UK in the 50s. It was generally used to mean a storm in a teacup - or, indeed, much ado about nothing... Cheers! John Blower/FeNiKs Business Communications 795 Mammoth Rd, #23, Manchester, NH 03104 V: 603 668 5601 F: 707 220 7490 Trainer at Large/Ace Copywriter http://www.feniks.com/ mailto:john at feniks.com From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Thu Jan 10 21:28:04 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 16:28:04 -0500 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: The Word Detective, as usual, handles this one with aplomb: http://www.word-detective.com/back-c2.html#kefuffle I see that a variant of this word is "gefuffle." So could the preparation of a certain Jewish dish in a particularly chaotic kitchen end up being a gefullte fish gefuffle? Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From qpwpeprp_2000 at YAHOO.CO.KR Thu Jan 10 21:20:51 2002 From: qpwpeprp_2000 at YAHOO.CO.KR (ð) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 06:20:51 +0900 Subject: No subject Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mnewman at QC.EDU Thu Jan 10 16:03:02 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:03:02 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) In-Reply-To: <000b01c199ad$746a4cc0$72345fcf@computer> Message-ID: I have little knowledge of the historical background, but a lot on singular they (my diss), which has led me to bump into some historical issues. So, let me say a couple of things on Carl's comments. 1) It's possible to get too caught up with the apparent novelty of the use of 3pp pronouns with 3ps antecedents, as some kind of distortion in the paradigm, but that is an artifact of a theoretical idea that pronouns match antecedents in number and gender. In fact, cross linguistically the agreement rules between pronouns and antecedents are loose and often obey semantic/pragmatic principles as much as mere feature matching. 2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex happens to be unknown. 3) When I looked at different ms.s of Chaucer's Prologue to the Pardoner's Tale, which contains a good number of generic referents, I found tremendous variation between tendencies to use He, him, etc. and They, hem, etc. I presented this once at a conference, and someone who works on Old English said that she found equivalent examples in OE. She was supposed to send me the citations, and never did, and I never followed up. -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 10 22:11:01 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 17:11:01 EST Subject: AIDS/GRID (1982) Message-ID: This continues discussion of the term. "A.I.D." in the "Gay Plague" article in the May 1982 NEW YORK magazine still stands out as pretty early. 11 February 1982, NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, "FAMILY SECRETS: WHO IS TO KNOW ABOUT AID?" AID=artificial insemination of donor's semen. False alarm. 18 March 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 17, "IS OUR LIFESTYLE HAZARDOUS TO OUR HEALTH?" First of a two-part article. "GRID" is on page 18, cols. 3-4. 24 June 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 12, col. 2, "Founder of Cockettes, Hibiscus, Dead of GRID." 29 June 1982, VILLAGE VOICE, Pg. 1, col. 4, "Where Gays Are Going." The NEW YORK article is mentioned. Pg. 15, col. 2: "_The Gay Men's Health Crisis_: 'More people are affected by the acquired immunity deficiency syndrome than toxic shock, swine flu, and legionnaire's disease, but the press attention that any of those got absolutely dwarfs any intelligent discussion that this gets.'" 8 July 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 13, cols. 1-2, "REPORT ON NYC GRID BRIEFING." No "AIDS." 24 September 1982, JAMA, pg. 1423, "Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome cause(s) still elusive." A long, important article that uses "AIDS" many times. Pg. 1424, col. 2: "...have been reported and may be related to AIDS (MMWR 1982; 31: 277-279)." It would be nice to check out MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT (MMWR), published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). OFF-TOPIC: 27 April 1982, VILLAGE VOICE, pg. 16, cols. 2-3 photo: "GAY // GOOD AND YOUTHFULL (sic)." 14 October 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 81--"Gay Drinks" described here are the Cape Cod, the Scarlett O'Hara, Anita's Downfall, Ballbuster, Rough Trade, Boodle-y Mary, and Harvey Milk (with Harvey's Bristol Cream). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 10 23:02:02 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 18:02:02 EST Subject: AIDS (MMWR, 3 September 1982) Message-ID: George Thompson spotted me in the NYU Bobst Library--one of the world's better libraries--and urged me to go to the 6th floor. The OED's first "AIDS" citation is from the MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT, published by the Centers for Disease Control, on 24 September 1982. The NYU Bobst Library has: REPORTS ON AIDS PUBLISHED IN THE _MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT_ JUNE 1981 THROUGH MAY 1986 From Page 15: 1982 Sept. 3; 31:465-67 (...) Beginning in 1978, a disease or group of diseases was recognized, manifested by Kaposi's sarcoma and opportunistic infections, associated with a specific defect in cell-mediated immunity. This group of entities, along with its specific immune deficiency, is now called acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 22:52:34 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:52:34 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) Message-ID: ...Noe & Sem Japhet & Cham & heore four wives þe mid heom weren on archen. ...Noah & Shem Japheth & Ham (,) & their four wives (;) they [that, who] were with them on (the) ark. I think it's 'who' not 'they.' As I understand it, modern "they" retains the OE pronunciation of <þe>. Perhaps shedding some light on this, the second person "thee" shows before 1400 the spelling <þe> also -- BEFORE the rising diphthong went to [i]. The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation. The emphatic modern article "the" [thi] shows the same pronunciation, the raised diphthong. This is where you are in trouble. First, neither 'the' (I will use only regular Mod Eng characters) the relative pronoun (RP), nor 'thee' the 2 person pronoun (2PP), had a diphthong. They both had monophthongs. The spelllings do not necessarily indicate the same pronunciation. The RP may have been pronounced something like modern unstressed 'the' when it was unstressed. The stressed RP may have been nearly identical in pronunciation with the 2PP. However, both had monophthongs and the normal development of both words would have been [thi:]. Neither would have give the diphthong that we find in 'they.' "they' does not retain the pronunciation of OE 'the.' Also, I am not exactly sure what you mean by, "The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation." The double -ee probably just represents a long vowel, not the 'new' pronunciation. How this makes sense to me is explained by one of the characteristics of English -- its drift, in some cases, from the phonetic principle; variant spellings produce the same phonological shape -- I, eye, aye. What makes sense to me is that "they" (th-y) and its spelling variations represent a written form to distinguish it from the many other uses of "þe". I've also considered, in passing, that the overload on <þe> influenced the adoption of "you" instead of the "th-" forms. Probably not. 'Overload' does not have the impact that one would think. I wish I had all my articles and books here at work; I have a good article on homonyms that would be interesting to look at. Also, 'thou' hung around (and is still around in some dialects/situations) for centuries longer than you would want. Fritz From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 11 02:03:11 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 20:03:11 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology:_=22They=22_revised_continued?= Message-ID: Etymology: "They" revised continued Carl Jeffrey Weber Michael Newman said: 1) It's possible to get too caught up with the apparent novelty of the use of 3pp pronouns with 3ps antecedents, as some kind of distortion in the paradigm, but that is an artifact of a theoretical idea that pronouns match antecedents in number and gender. In fact, cross linguistically the agreement rules between pronouns and antecedents are loose and often obey semantic/pragmatic principles as much as mere feature matching. I think: Very nicely put. I'm surprised, almost chagrined, that you interpret what I said this way, Michael. I'm not talking about "everybody.their" and artifacts of theoretical ideas. And I'm not talking about distortions of the paradigm. I'm talking about the paradigm shift and reorganization itself!! And, in introspect, I don't believe that I've been overly caught up in anything (maybe a bit) -- but merely appropriately caught up in (1) the plausible explanation that the "th-" nominative plural developed to fill the need in the preterit for an unambiguous plural when the preterit plural disappeared and (2) a suggestion of a NATIVE source of "they" as a duplet with "the" of the OE singular instrumental demonstrative -- a suggestion which might explain the singular morphology of "they". Michael Newman said: 2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex happens to be unknown. I think: It would be nice to see one or two of your favorite examples, Michael. The "hot" parts of the pronouns in question are the "-ey", the "-m", and the "-r". Case seems to be more significant than number when there is no ambiguity for number involved. I think I'm trying to make different points than you are commenting on. I'm trying to understand the historical paradigm shift itself. I can show example after example, in Late Middle English, of the spelling "he" being used for a female referent; similarly, I can show "he" used for today's "they" - in which cases, both are the feminine/plural. The late survival of the feminine/plural has escaped modern scholarship to a large extent. In the year of Chaucer's birth, 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwit (Morris 1866) we find "[hi] wes a uayr wifman" (She was a fair woman). As I' ve written, what swept all this away was Caxton's standardization of the pronouns of the King's English - that it might be more uniformly understood in its written representation throughout the realm. A very good argument can be made that there WAS a generic pronoun. It seems absurd -- but the so-called generic pronoun, not only was real, but seems to have developed, in its singular morphology, from the feminine(/plural) - notwithstanding that these historical developments seem to have been veiled to modern perception. Michael Newman Said: 3) When I looked at different ms.s of Chaucer's Prologue to the Pardoner's Tale, which contains a good number of generic referents, I found tremendous variation between tendencies to use He, him, etc. and They, hem, etc. I presented this once at a conference, and someone who works on Old English said that she found equivalent examples in OE. She was supposed to send me the citations, and never did, and I never followed up. I think: (We have to agree whether we are talking about contemporary English, Middle English, of both -- let's talk about it all.) Chaucer's written dialect can 't be discounted, but as the status/prestige dialect, it was only one very very small part of Late Middle English, albeit of grand celebrity to modern eyes. Chaucer cannot be considered to represent the generalized English of the time. In addition, if Caxton, a century after Chaucer, is to be believed, the upper classes in England held in contempt those of lower station and the way they spoke the language. Also, the problem of "they" has different historical implications than those of "them" and "their" - as I've indicated before. I would like to see some of your examples to see if we are considering same page phenomena. The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular and the neuter singular - in which instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his book". "His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. (The feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from the wider language family). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 11 02:41:59 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 21:41:59 EST Subject: "I Am the Greatest"; Poker, Smoke (1907) Message-ID: "I AM THE GREATEST" From the NEW YORK PRESS, January 9-15, 2002, pg. 8, col. 4: (Gary Belkin wrote for Sid Caesar, Carol Burnett, MAD magazine, others--ed.) (...) According to Belkin, he's also one of the world's most popular poets. Muhammad Ali just gets all the credit. It's 1962, and Columbia Records hires Belkin to work on _I Am the Greatest_. The Cassius Clay album is set for release in '63, just in time to capitalize on Clay's upcoming championship bout against Sonny Liston. "The idea was that I would write 60 percent of the album," Belkin says, "but I ended up writing the whole thing. My poems pushed his image a little further. It wasn't 'I am the prettiest,' but more about 'I am the greatest.' I hated that they put in rim shots at the end of every joke, but I couldn't change that. I was just the ghostwriter." (...) (George Plimpton didn't believe Beklin was the ghost. David Remnick, the NEW YORKER editor who did a book on Ali, got it wrong--ed.) "You know," Belkin adds, "writers are supposed to stay behind the scenes. It's part of my job. The only thing I really resent is the smugness of the literati. I don't mind when Muhammad Ali says he wrote my poems. I mind when David Remnick says I don't exist." (The RHHDAS cites "the greatest" from Robert Gold's JAZZ TALK (1946)--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- POKER, SMOKE AND OTHER THINGS Designed by W. M. RHOADS Fun by PERCY HAMMOND and GEORGE C. WHARTON Abbetted in Pictures, by ALBERT OLSON Rules of poker by the banker Recipes by many friends Toasts from everywhere Mixed drinks by the bar-fan The Reilly & Britton Co., Chicago 1907 I looked for this book at the NYPL, which said it had it, but didn't have it. So then I looked at the Library of Congress, which said it had it, but didn't have it. So then some wag suggested that I buy it used on the internet, even though it would cost me MORE MONEY THAN I'VE EVER MADE FROM WRITING IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. (Which is, of course, about $100.) So then I order it, and it's sent 3-day air, and it arrives FOUR WEEKS LATER. Anyway.... (NOT PAGINATED!--ed.) "'Twenty-Three for you,' said the King." (Cartoon--ed.) TECHNICAL TERMS: Age, Ante, Blind, Bluff, Call, Chips, Coming In, Draw, Foul Hand, Going Better, Going In, In the Pot, Jack Pot, Limit, Making Good, Open, Original Hand, Pat Hand, Pass, Pot, Raise, Say, See, Stay, Straddle. "Four of a Kind." (Cartoon of a card of four black babies, or "spades"--ed.) "Staying In." (Cartoon of a card of a man with a baby--ed.) "Two Pair." (Cartoon of a card of a man and a woman--ed.) "Calling for a Sight." (Cartoon of a card of a beautiful woman--ed.) "Standing Pat." (Cartoon of a card of a policeman--Patrick?--with a "23" star on his chest--ed.) SARDINE SANDWICHES. SPANISH PEPPER SANDWICHES. CHICKEN LIVER SANDWICHES. CHICKEN SANDWICHES. CLUB HOUSE SANDWICHES. APPLE AND CELERY SANDWICHES. LETTUCE SANDWICHES. ENGLISH SANDWICHES. SWISS CHEESE SANDWICHES. MAYONNAISE DRESSING. CHICKEN SALAD. "Cold Feet." (Cartoon card--ed.) SHRIMP SALAD. POTATO SALAD. FRUIT SALADS. "Sweetening the Pot." (Cartoon card--ed.) LOBSTER NEWBURG. ROYAL ESCALOP. OYSTERS AND CELERY. "Feeding the Kitty." (Cartoon page--ed.) CHICKEN HASH WITH MUSHROOMS. WELCH RAREBIT. DRINKS: "CHATHAM ARTILLERY PUNCH." Savannah, Ga. BLUE GRASS PUNCH. REGENT'S PUNCH. (Stansberry's Recipe.) KENTUCKY MINT JULEP. Harry Hoffman, Louisville. GEORGIA MINT JULEP. A. S. H. NEW ORLEANS MINT JULEP. COCKTAILS: WHISKEY. MANHATTAN. DRY MANHATTAN. MARTINI. DRY MARTINI. OLD FASHIONED WHISKEY. GIN. ORANGE BLOSSOM. SCOTCH WHISKEY. MISCELLANEOUS: GIN FIZZ. HIGH-BALLS. CLARET PUNCH. RICKEYS. WHISKEY SOUR. HORSE'S NECK. MAMIE TAYLOR. (A famous drink. Not in OED?--ed.) "To smoke a cigar through a mouthpiece is equivalent to kissing a lady through a respirator." "It's wrong to play poker--the way some men play it." "One Jack pot doesn't make a winner." "A loser has bad luck; a winner good judgment." "Tell me how a man plays poker, and I will tell you what he is." "May bad luck follow you all your days--and never overtake you." "Here's to Man, God's First thought; Here's to Woman, God's second thought; And, as second thoughts are always best! Here's to Woman!" "Here's to the three keys of friendship--Drink, Steal and Lie. When you drink, drink with friends; when you steal, steal away from bad company, and when you lie, lie to save trouble." (This last, in varying forms, is famous. I saw it attributed to Jack London, but this is the earliest cite I have for it--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 11 06:29:40 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 01:29:40 EST Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: QUEER COFFEE A "queer coffee" was announced in one of my e-mail messages. Is this common enough to be recorded? I saw "queer coffee" and thought it meant they were serving Sanka. -------------------------------------------------------- LOW SIGNATURE Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as the LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than "high signature"? Does John Hancock come into play here? From 1605002 at HANMAIL.NET Fri Jan 11 10:24:01 2002 From: 1605002 at HANMAIL.NET (1605002 at HANMAIL.NET) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:24:01 +0900 Subject: ߰Ʈ(õǾ) Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Fri Jan 11 11:23:13 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 05:23:13 -0600 Subject: playing "the sevens"? Message-ID: Doing the "sevens"? Has there been some deflation? When I grew up, it was "playing the dozens" First time I heard that. Ken Nolley wrote: > From: Carol Tarlen > > Mike, who cares if Ali said, "I'm the greatest." In an African cultural context, I think this is doing the sevens--bragging and expecting one upsmanship. (snip) From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Fri Jan 11 11:51:16 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 06:51:16 -0500 Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: Nexis has no hits for queer coffee. It has a couple of close calls -- "queer coffee mug" (queer modifying "coffee mug") and "queer coffee-inspired antics" (queer as in "not usual") -- but no actual cigars. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 1:29 AM Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature > QUEER COFFEE > > A "queer coffee" was announced in one of my e-mail messages. Is this common enough to be recorded? > I saw "queer coffee" and thought it meant they were serving Sanka. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 11 12:08:32 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 07:08:32 EST Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: In a message dated 01/11/2002 1:30:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to > be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as the > LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. > Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than " > high signature"? Nightline probably intended to say "low profile" and got their jargon mixed up. "Low signature" is a technical military term, dating back at least to the late 1970's (when I encountered it) and quite possibly World War II. A major headquarters has to send out a lot of radio messages, and to the enemy these radio transmissions are the headquarters' "signature". Similarly for other imortant military targets. Hence in battle you want to disguise your signature, perhaps by locating all the transmitting antenna somewhere away from your command post. That is to say, on a modern battlefield you want to be "low signature". Similarly tanks, due to their engines and to the fact that they absorb heat during the day and radiate it at night at different rates than sand dunes, have an infra-red signature problem, and if you're a tanker and the enemy has an air force, you definitely want to have a low-signature tank. Hence Nightline used entirely the wrong term. If our presence in Afghanistan were to be "low signature" then it would be hard to detect by electromagnetic means, presumably including watching Nighline on TV. Definitely Nightline should have said "low profile". - Jim Landau From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Fri Jan 11 14:40:01 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 09:40:01 -0500 Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: Google has a number of hits on 'queer coffee'. About 38 'results', including the following URLs. http://www.google.com/advanced_search George Cole Shippensburg University =========================== http://www.funmaps.com/vancouver.htm "Check out Davie Street and its adjacent blocks when you're ready for some queer coffee, a good meal, a new outfit. . . ." http://www.ukans.edu/~qanda/html/minutes/2000_11_09.html ". . . Global Grounds, a Queer coffee event held the first Sunday of every month. . . ." http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/record2031.12.html "Queer Coffee Hour", listed on a calendar. http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/3503/cruise.html Places to see; the Coffee Table, "One of the oldest established queer coffee joints in Columbus. Recently remodeled." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 11 02:36:50 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 10:36:50 +0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" revised continued In-Reply-To: <003501c19a44$2090d1e0$acbddccf@computer> Message-ID: At 8:03 PM -0600 1/10/02, carljweber wrote: >Etymology: "They" revised continued > >Michael Newman said: >2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing >pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal >generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the >singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible >to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a >variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also >difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex >happens to be unknown. > >I think: >It would be nice to see one or two of your favorite examples, Michael. I'm sure Michael has his own examples, but I've been collecting a few in which "they" is used for sex-known but nonspecific antecedents. I posted a few here the last time we were discussing this, back in April 2001, but they're germane to this point raised by Carl, so here's an excerpt from that post: ============== In a paper Steve Kleinedler and I gave a couple of LSAs ago [Jan. 2000], "Parasitic Reference vs. R-based Narrowing: Lexical Pragmatics Meets He-Man", we noted the tendency to use THEY/THEIR as "increasingly the pronoun of choice even for non-specific singular antecedents of known sex", as in the Grunfeld example ["A player has to be responsible for their actions in this league." -- Ernie Grunfeld, then general manager of the all-male New York Knicks] or these (where "their" is female in reference): "I can't help it if somebody doesn't want their husband and then somebody besides them decides they do." -"Serial mistress" Pamela Harriman, quoted in The Mistress, by Victoria Griffin [the 'their', 'them' and 'they' are all sex-known but non-specific] "No mother should be forced by federal prosecutors to testify against their child." -Monica Lewinsky's mother's attorney On the other hand, as we also argued, "when the sex is unknown but the referent sufficiently specific or individuated, the they often seems not entirely successful, even when it would come in handy", as in my (constructed) example (#)I've met this hot Transcendental Grammarian, Chris Jones, in my bi chat room and I'm totally smitten with them. ================ --larry From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 11 17:49:47 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 12:49:47 -0500 Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature In-Reply-To: <138.79153ae.296fe055@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry Popik said: >> LOW SIGNATURE Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as the LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than "high signature"? Does John Hancock come into play here? << Don't know about an opposite, but given the military hits for this, the usage seems an extension of the use of signature in "radar signature", the appearance that an aircraft makes on a radar screen. I believe stealth aircraft are said to have a low radar signature. Frank Abate From gcohen at UMR.EDU Fri Jan 11 18:17:29 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 12:17:29 -0600 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: >I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, >apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance >outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of >argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made >up" word?... >Anne G I've treated "kerfuffle" in an article: "Origin Of _Ker-_ in _Kerflop_, Kerplunk, Etc_.", in _Studies in Slang, Part I_, by Gerald Leonard Cohen (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang), 1985, pp. 1-28. See pp.6-7, 18-20. The word is not simply "made up"; it is attested already (as "carfuffle") in Joseph Wright's _The English Dialect Dictionary_, vol. 1, 1898. --Gerald Cohen From simon at IPFW.EDU Fri Jan 11 18:27:49 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 13:27:49 -0500 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: See also in Vol II of DARE. beth simon >>> gcohen at UMR.EDU 01/11/02 13:25 PM >>> >I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, >apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance >outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of >argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made >up" word?... >Anne G I've treated "kerfuffle" in an article: "Origin Of _Ker-_ in _Kerflop_, Kerplunk, Etc_.", in _Studies in Slang, Part I_, by Gerald Leonard Cohen (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang), 1985, pp. 1-28. See pp.6-7, 18-20. The word is not simply "made up"; it is attested already (as "carfuffle") in Joseph Wright's _The English Dialect Dictionary_, vol. 1, 1898. --Gerald Cohen From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 11 19:22:15 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 14:22:15 -0500 Subject: Skulduggery Message-ID: I am working on the etymology of this odd word. Does anyone have any evidence of its use prior to 1859? I am referring to the US word with "gg", meaning something like "official corruption", NOT to the old Scots word "sculduddery" = "fornication"/"adultery"/"obscenity"/etc. Any random insights? TIA .... -- Doug Wilson From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 11 19:44:24 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 13:44:24 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" revised continued Message-ID: Etymology: "They" revised continued Carl Jeffrey Weber The pronoun uses presented by Michael and Larry are interesting to me, and later I'd like to say a few words about them. My current focus, though, is indirectly related -- I'm looking at the paradigm shift in Middle English that has given Modern English these at-first look incongruities -- and how the generic "he" and the singular "they" are two aspects of the development of the OE (and wider family group) "feminine/plural". Right now, I'm working on furthering my discussion with Fritz -- studying up on some of these things for my next post. Carl From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 11 23:15:49 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 18:15:49 -0500 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn In-Reply-To: <123.9de8a8a.296dddcd@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > There have been many other pitchmen in the food business, such as Roy > Rogers. Paul Newman also pitches his own brand. Tom Carvel is another. I think Frank Perdue was a pioneer in this regard. 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 12 00:33:51 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:33:51 EST Subject: "An Uplifting Origin of 86" (Dundes, AMERICAN SPEECH) Message-ID: I just received AMERICAN SPEECH, vol. 76, no. 4, Winter 2001. I was shocked when I saw, on pages 437-440: AN UPLIFTING ORIGIN OF 86 ALAN DUNDES, _University of California, Berkeley_ I put things on ADS-L. And, just recently, I posted a Walter Winchell citation from the Soda Jerk language of California, dated in 1933. Thus, wrong on Page 439 is: "Inasmuch as _eighty-six_ 'menu item not on hand' was first documented in 1936 by Bentley in _American Speech_...." Dundes goes on: The Empire State Building was completed and open to the public in May 1931 (Tauranac 1995, 19). In the Empire State Building, the first observation point is located on the 86th floor. Even if one wished to go up to the 102d-floor observatory, one would still have to first exit the elevator at the 86th floor. Hence, _eighty-six_ meant "Everybody out!" And that, I suggest, is the origin of _eighty-six_! Ahhhhhhh! If Dundes has a _new_ historical citation--which he doesn't have in this note--that's one thing. But guessing stuff like this has just got to be stopped. You can't make up stuff! Why was this published in AMERICAN SPEECH? If "86" was from New York City--the Empire State Building, or anywhere else--Walter Winchell would have had it. Tauranac, who wrote the book on that building, would have mentioned it, with a good, solid cite. Our best evidence (several citations now) shows "86" in the soda jerk slang of the West. If anyone has any more cards, then show them on the table. But this folk etymology guessing in AMERICAN SPEECH, ahhh...! From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 12 00:47:50 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:47:50 -0500 Subject: "An Uplifting Origin of 86" (Dundes, AMERICAN SPEECH) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 11 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > I just received AMERICAN SPEECH, vol. 76, no. 4, Winter 2001. I was > shocked when I saw, on pages 437-440: > > I put things on ADS-L. And, just recently, I posted a Walter > Winchell citation from the Soda Jerk language of California, dated in > 1933. Thus, wrong on Page 439 is: "Inasmuch as _eighty-six_ 'menu item > not on hand' was first documented in 1936 by Bentley in _American > Speech_...." I agree with all your other points, but let me get this straight: you're criticizing Dundes for not incorporating the results of your December 29, 2001 posting in his American Speech article that is coming out in January 2002? 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 avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Sat Jan 12 03:22:33 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:22:33 -0800 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: Paul: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul McFedries" To: Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 1:28 PM Subject: Re: kerfuffle > The Word Detective, as usual, handles this one with aplomb: > > http://www.word-detective.com/back-c2.html#kefuffle > > I see that a variant of this word is "gefuffle." So could the preparation of > a certain Jewish dish in a particularly chaotic kitchen end up being a > gefullte fish gefuffle? Chaotic *gefilte fish*?????? Anne G From nfogli at IOL.IT Sat Jan 12 14:46:41 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 15:46:41 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_kerfuffle_>_kafuffle?= Message-ID: English Canadians sometimes use an informal variant of "kerfuffle" ( = fuss, commotion), which is proper to their dialect. They say "kafuffle." Here is just a written example from a print article published in 1995: "The Brockville flag incident only involved a few senior citizens, but it was blown into a national KAFUFFLE" (My emphasis) ~ Gazette (Montreal), May 20, 1995 Etymologically, the word may derive from Scots ("curfuffle"), from the imitative word "fuffle" = to disorder. Dr. S. Roti Lexicographer From jbass3354b at USA.NET Sat Jan 12 10:39:42 2002 From: jbass3354b at USA.NET (jbass3354b at USA.NET) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 05:39:42 -0500 Subject: SPECIAL REPORT! NEW PILL WORKS BETTER THEN VIAGRA Message-ID: These products will change your life ! Herbal Viagra,Extreme Power Plus,Extreme Colon Cleanser,Fat-N-Emy, ALL AT THE LOWEST PRICES ON THE WEB ! EARN EXTRA INCOME ! RESELLERS WANTED ! To order NOW visit http://209.190.76.56/Affiliate1/index.shtml Removes: seagress2001 at yahoo.com with "R" in the subuject line These products will change your life ! Herbal Viagra,Extreme Power Plus,Extreme Colon Cleanser,Fat-N-Emy, ALL AT THE LOWEST PRICES ON THE WEB ! EARN EXTRA INCOME ! RESELLERS WANTED ! From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:09:20 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:09:20 EST Subject: RUGGEDIZED; SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC Message-ID: I found RUGGEDIZED in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE for 1/7/02 (E-1/1) used to describe a process whereby electronic equipment is made very sturdy. Also in the CHRONICLE I noted SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC, a synonym for GRIDLOCK. Are these just nonce usages? If not, how long have they been around? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:21:25 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:21:25 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Jack Douglas (1908-?) is an interesting humor writer. NO NAVEL TO GUIDE HIM by Jack Douglas Oxford Press, Inc., Hollywood, CA 1947 Pg. 12: It was early one morning and I was just sitting down to a bowl of buffalo chips (They're shot from buffalo) when in walked my father. Pg. 18: *Duncan Hines slept here. Pg. 63: CHAPTER 29. _How to Make a Zombie_ (Lots of white space on page, then this at bottom--ed.) Get her drunk. Pg. 72: Once a taxi driver took exception to him and Thaddeus called the man a vile name with his index finger. The driver promptly slammed the taxicab door on it, and to this day that finger (Pg. 73--ed.) has a slight lisp. At another time the loquaciou Thaddeus exposed his fingers so much on an open top bus that he was laid up for weeks with some mysterious malady, later diagnosed as digitalis. Time went on and so did Thaddeus. Finally his wife could stand it no longer. She flew to Reno and obtained a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, incompatibility and cold hands. MORAL: If you're deaf and dumb, don't talk out of turn or someone will give you the finger. Pg. 84: _Sadie Thompson, or, The Chinese Water Torture_ (Rain--ed.) THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY HASHIMOTO by Jack Douglas E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1964 Pg. 11: Just in passing, a "roomette" is a phone booth with a bed that pulls down out of the wall and covers up your overnight bag. Pg. 28: Actually, in "real life," as they say at the daily police line-up, things are different. Pg. 35: Before turning in this night I had a little talk with one of the crew who is a Tahitian. He told me that the sucker tourists are known as "banana tourists." I couldn't get any connection at all, but he _did_ explain how the tourists are suckered. Pg. 36: B.B. and I had quite a talk about racial problems, and he told me of a club they have in the South called the "Blue Veiners." This means if a Negro is light enough, so the blue veins in his arm can be seen, he can become a member. If not--he can't. (Still reading the book in the NYPL. Half hour almost up--ed.) From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:24:12 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:24:12 EST Subject: RUGGEDIZED; SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC Message-ID: In a message dated 01/12/2002 1:10:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > I found RUGGEDIZED in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE for 1/7/02 (E-1/1) > used to describe a process whereby electronic equipment is made very sturdy. > Also in the CHRONICLE I noted SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC, a synonym for GRIDLOCK. > > Are these just nonce usages? If not, how long have they been around? "ruggedize" is in the OED2 with a first citation of 1954, referring not to solid-state electronics but to vacuum tubes. Within the hardware field it is a common term and I cannot offhand think of any decent synonym for it. "Solid-state traffic" is almost certainly a nonce usage, someone's play on words, since taken literally it is meaningless (traffic that uses transisteros rather than vacuum tubes??) - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:28:50 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:28:50 EST Subject: Low Signature Message-ID: In a message dated 01/11/2002 12:50:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET writes: > LOW SIGNATURE > > Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to > be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as > the LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. > Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than > "high signature"? Does John Hancock come into play here? > << > > Don't know about an opposite, but given the military hits for this, the > usage seems an extension of the use of signature in "radar signature", the > appearance that an aircraft makes on a radar screen. I believe stealth > aircraft are said to have a low radar signature. not an "extension". "signature" refers to any electromagnetic signal (or possibly sonic, olfactory, etc. signal) that can give away something's location. A radar signature is only part of the total signature of a vehicle, headquarters, etc. At least in air traffic control, it is a "radar display" not a "radar screen". Calling it anything other than a "display" is a giveaway that you're an outsider. Yes, by definition, "stealth" = "low radar signature" - Jim Landau From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 12 08:43:09 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 00:43:09 -0800 Subject: ?? Message-ID: What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? Rima From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Sat Jan 12 23:11:12 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 18:11:12 -0500 Subject: ?? Message-ID: They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If you have Korean encoding capability you will be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd want to!). _______________________ Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo "A Billion Bridges" Chinese<>English Translation Services Tel: 905-308-9389 Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) Web: www.billionbridges.com Email: translation at billionbridges.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" To: Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM Subject: ?? > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 13 00:22:28 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 19:22:28 EST Subject: "Merry Christmas--SECOND NOTICE!!" (1964) Message-ID: Also, "Happy Holidays--SECOND NOTICE!!" Or, "Happy New Year--SECOND NOTICE!!" There are a number of hits, most recently Andy Rooney in TOWN & COUNTRY (December 2001, Proquest database). From THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY HASHIMOTO (E. P. Dutton, Inc., NY, 1964) by Jack Douglas, pg. 105: As I write this, it's the Christmas season here in New York. The time of Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men. I know this because we have just received another card from the superintendent of the apartment building we live in. It reads: "Merry Christmas--_second notice!_" (Jack Douglas also wrote a 1962 autobiography starting with "A Funny Thing Happened...," but I don't know if he's responsible for that one--ed.) From mizunohide at MSN.COM Sun Jan 13 05:57:19 2002 From: mizunohide at MSN.COM (mizunohide) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 22:57:19 -0700 Subject: Hello, I have a question Message-ID: Hello everyone, I have an urgent question for anyone who can answer this. I have sent e-mails to Terry and Jesse, but I won't probably get an answer anytime soon, so please help me! I am doing a translation work in Japan, and I was told by my colleague that in the southern part of the United States, people use"donky" instead of "donkey." Of course you cannot find a word "donky"in a dictionary, but he believes that it exists. Is this a case of misspelling or a dialect specifically found in the southern part of the United States? I would greatly appreciate if you can help me on this. Sincerely, Hide Mizuno From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 13 07:00:36 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 02:00:36 -0500 Subject: Hello, I have a question In-Reply-To: <001301c19bf7$2adf7700$27bfe83f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >I am doing a translation work in Japan, and I was told by my colleague >that in the southern part of the United States, people use"donky" instead >of "donkey." "Donky" is an obsolete spelling variant of "donkey". I find it used as an alternative to "donkey" up to about 1870. It is shown as an alternative spelling in the Century Dictionary (Web) from 1889. Nowadays, I would regard it as presumptively a spelling ERROR (although perhaps a frequent one), and not regional. Certainly it is not a standard or usual spelling today. There is some variation in pronunciation /dONki/, /daNki/, /dVNki/ [i.e., with IPA reversed-c, italic-a, inverted-v] but I think the spelling is universally "donkey", north or south, east or west. -- Doug Wilson From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Jan 13 12:19:29 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 07:19:29 -0500 Subject: Hello, I have a question In-Reply-To: <001301c19bf7$2adf7700$27bfe83f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >I am doing a translation work in Japan, and I was told by my colleague that >in the southern part of the United States, people use"donky" instead of >"donkey." Of course you cannot find a word "donky"in a dictionary, but he >believes that it exists. Is this a case of misspelling or a dialect >specifically found in the southern part of the United States? I have lived in the southern U.S. for 64 years, and I have never seen . Since the pronunication would presumably be identical, there is no way to it. Bethany From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Jan 13 12:23:19 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 07:23:19 -0500 Subject: Hello, I have a question In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020113013322.00b25680@nb.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >spelling in the Century Dictionary (Web) from 1889. Nowadays, I would >regard it as presumptively a spelling ERROR (although perhaps a frequent Or a typo. Bethany From ASmith1946 at AOL.COM Sun Jan 13 17:38:22 2002 From: ASmith1946 at AOL.COM (Andrew F. Smith) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 12:38:22 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: I'm looking for examples of culinary words/terms associated with national/cultural/religious/racial/ethnic/sex/age/class groups, such as the following US examples: 1) food terms applied (usually in a derogatory manner) to groups, such as: limeys (British sailors), frogs (French speakers), krauts (German soldiers), greasers (Mexican Americans), tio tacos (Mexican-Americans who sell out to Anglos), mackerel snappers (Catholics), tomatoes (attractive women), pineapples (Hawaiians), peanut (young person) or Oreos (African-Americans who sell out to Anglos --Oh, those terrible Anglos!). 2) common food metaphors, such as "melting pot," and "salad bowl" (does anyone know where/when this originated?), and other common food-related terms/phrases, such as "greased lighting," "he's chicken," "it's a turkey," "where's the beef," etc. 3) examples of group attributions of specific foods/dishes, such as: Belgian waffles Boston beans Chicken Kiev Chilean sea bass Chinese cabbage, gooseberry, parsley, pear Danish French beans, bread, dressing, fries, toast German chocolate cake, potato salad Frankfurters Greek coffee, salad Hamburgers Hungarian goulash Indian fry bread Irish coffee, potatoes, stew Italian dressing Mexican beans Peking (should this now be Beijing?) duck Russian dressing Scotch broth, whisky Turkish coffee, delight Vienna sausage More broadly, has anyone written an article/book/dissertation on culinary linguistics? Many thanks, Andy Smith From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 13 18:59:18 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 13:59:18 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) In-Reply-To: <10c.b33ce11.2973200e@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 ASmith1946 at AOL.COM wrote: > 2) common food metaphors, such as "melting pot," and "salad bowl" (does > anyone know where/when this originated?), and other common food-related "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical "salad bowl." 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 avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Sun Jan 13 19:16:40 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 11:16:40 -0800 Subject: ?? Message-ID: To all: They're also Chinese and Japanese. Some of them are porn sites. I just block anything in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, on general principles. Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Billionbridges.com" To: Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:11 PM Subject: Re: ?? > They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If > you have Korean encoding capability you will > be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd > want to!). > _______________________ > Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo > "A Billion Bridges" > Chinese<>English Translation Services > Tel: 905-308-9389 > Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) > Web: www.billionbridges.com > Email: translation at billionbridges.com > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > To: > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM > Subject: ?? > > > > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > > > Rima From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Sun Jan 13 21:33:39 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 16:33:39 -0500 Subject: ?? Message-ID: Actually, in the slight chance it matters to the administrator of the list, the junk email in the last few months has been in Korean only. > They're also Chinese and Japanese. Some of them are porn sites. I just > block anything in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, on general principles. > Anne G > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Billionbridges.com" > To: > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:11 PM > Subject: Re: ?? > > > > They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If > > you have Korean encoding capability you will > > be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd > > want to!). > > _______________________ > > Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo > > "A Billion Bridges" > > Chinese<>English Translation Services > > Tel: 905-308-9389 > > Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) > > Web: www.billionbridges.com > > Email: translation at billionbridges.com > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > > To: > > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM > > Subject: ?? > > > > > > > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > > > > > Rima From mnewman at QC.EDU Mon Jan 14 00:55:54 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 16:55:54 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" revised continued In-Reply-To: <003501c19a44$2090d1e0$acbddccf@computer> Message-ID: >Etymology: "They" revised continued > >Carl Jeffrey Weber > > >Michael Newman said: >1) It's possible to get too caught up with the apparent novelty of >the use of 3pp pronouns with 3ps antecedents, as some kind of >distortion in the paradigm, but that is an artifact of a theoretical >idea that pronouns match antecedents in number and gender. In fact, >cross linguistically the agreement rules between pronouns and >antecedents are loose and often obey semantic/pragmatic principles as >much as mere feature matching. > >I think: >Very nicely put. I'm surprised, almost chagrined, that you interpret what I >said this way, Michael. I'm not talking about "everybody.their" and >artifacts of theoretical ideas. And I'm not talking about distortions of the >paradigm. I'm talking about the paradigm shift and reorganization itself!! Obviously, that's what happened in the middle ages to the extent that the th forms replaced the West Germanic ones. However, beyond that there is no sharp paradigm shift because there is flexibility in the semantics. There is and never has been a strict semantically singular = formally singular correspondence. >And, in introspect, I don't believe that I've been overly caught up in >anything (maybe a bit) -- but merely appropriately caught up in (1) the >plausible explanation that the "th-" nominative plural developed to fill the >need in the preterit for an unambiguous plural when the preterit plural >disappeared and (2) a suggestion of a NATIVE source of "they" as a duplet >with "the" of the OE singular instrumental demonstrative -- a suggestion >which might explain the singular morphology of "they". > >Michael Newman said: >2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing >pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal >generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the >singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible >to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a >variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also >difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex >happens to be unknown. > >I think: >It would be nice to see one or two of your favorite examples, Michael. Larry supplied some fine ones. I have them in my diss (published as Epicene Pronouns, in Garland 1997) and an article in Studies in Language in 1998, but I haven't thought about it in a while and can't remember them off hand. I'm away from home now. >The >"hot" parts of the pronouns in question are the "-ey", the "-m", and the > "-r". Case seems to be more significant than number when there is no >ambiguity for number involved. I think I'm trying to make different points >than you are commenting on. I'm trying to understand the historical paradigm >shift itself. I can show example after example, in Late Middle English, of >the spelling "he" being used for a female referent; similarly, I can show >"he" used for today's "they" - in which cases, both are the feminine/plural. >The late survival of the feminine/plural has escaped modern scholarship to a >large extent. In the year of Chaucer's birth, 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwit >(Morris 1866) we find "[hi] wes a uayr wifman" (She was a fair woman). As I' >ve written, what swept all this away was Caxton's standardization of the >pronouns of the King's English - that it might be more uniformly understood >in its written representation throughout the realm. > >A very good argument can be made that there WAS a generic pronoun. It seems >absurd -- but the so-called generic pronoun, not only was real, but seems to >have developed, in its singular morphology, from the feminine(/plural) - >notwithstanding that these historical developments seem to have been veiled >to modern perception. First, I'd say "generic" isn't a great term because it has a specific semantic meaning for type-class, something which gets involved in the issue. I called it 'epicene' which has also brought complaints because it refers to dual gender in Greek. Still, that's less confusing since there is no gender at all in English, only sex reference. That's an issue that's important. If there is no gender then there can be no epicene gender. Epicene is not a formal category in English. One of the points in my diss was that the search for an epicene pronoun made no sense because there was no such category natural to the language. He refers to a specific (or individuated) male human being, she to an individuated female female, it to a nonhuman, and they to generics and plurals, but as prototypes not categorically. Anything that doesn't fit into the prototype, including not just epicenes, but animals, collectives, and collections are characterized by variation, not the use of a single pronoun. The variation is not a mystery or problem so much as a tool that speakers use to indicate qualities that they impute to the referent, be it individuation, genericness, humanity (in the case of animals and babies), plurality and singularity in the case of collections and collectives. In this way, English pronouns are not equivalent to, say, Spanish el or ella, for example, which do exhibit categorical qualities. But Spanish has gender. English does not. >Michael Newman Said: >3) When I looked at different ms.s of Chaucer's Prologue to the >Pardoner's Tale, which contains a good number of generic referents, I >found tremendous variation between tendencies to use He, him, etc. >and They, hem, etc. I presented this once at a conference, and >someone who works on Old English said that she found equivalent >examples in OE. She was supposed to send me the citations, and never >did, and I never followed up. > >I think: >(We have to agree whether we are talking about contemporary English, Middle >English, of both -- let's talk about it all.) Chaucer's written dialect can >'t be discounted, but as the status/prestige dialect, it was only one very >very small part of Late Middle English, albeit of grand celebrity to modern >eyes. Chaucer cannot be considered to represent the generalized English of >the time. In addition, if Caxton, a century after Chaucer, is to be >believed, the upper classes in England held in contempt those of lower >station and the way they spoke the language. Also, the problem of "they" has >different historical implications than those of "them" and "their" - as I've >indicated before. I would like to see some of your examples to see if we are >considering same page phenomena. > >The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular > "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE >feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, >is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular and the neuter singular - >in which instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the >morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his book". >"His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. (The >feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from >the wider language family). I don't think so for the reasons above. Nice theory though. -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 14 02:03:45 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 21:03:45 EST Subject: "I Love New York" (December 1975) Message-ID: Milton Glaser gets a lot of credit for "I (heart) New York," now everywhere once again. He didn't think up the words--which were given to him for a 1977 campaign. He came up with the "heart symbol." I coulda done that! This was around the time of New York's fiscal crisis of 1975. "Big Apple" grew in popularity at this time also. Where did the buttons and the idea come from? From NEW YORK magazine, 1 December 1975, pg. 79, col. 1: I LOVE NEW YORK (On a white button--ed.) _How Much Is That City_ _In the Window?_ Designer Norma Kamali was so sickened by the anti-New York commercials on L.A. television that she came home determined to do _something_. So she picked herself up and went around inspiring the shopkeepers near her--on Madison between 60th and 72nd, on First between 50th and 51st, and on 60th between Second and Third--to do pro-New York windows for two weeks. They agreed. They also agreed to give away the I LOVE NEW YORK buttons that Norma designed and Halston has been handing out. _WINDOWS/November 24-December 6_ From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 14 04:18:46 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 23:18:46 EST Subject: Hungering for America (2002); Food books Message-ID: HUNGERING FOR AMERICA: ITALIAN, IRISH & JEWISH FOODWAYS IN THE AGE OF MIGRATION by Hasia R. Diner Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 320 pages, paperback, $39.95 2001 Jesse Sheidlower told me about this book. I saw a reviewer's copy for half price, and bought it from Amazon. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an index! No bibliography, either! The binding says "January 2002," but the copyright is 2001. Diner is Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, and she says she worked ten years on this book. There are about fifty pages of footnotes. For me, the book is worthless. There are no food recipes cited. Zero! The illustrations are very few; there are hundreds of wonderful classic illustrations (cartoons, song covers, extensive photos of period products) that could have been used. It's very hard to go through without an index, but I didn't see a single citation that I can use for a single food. "Notes" are on pages 232-283. Hardly a cookbook is cited. Where are publications like THE JEWISH BAKERS' VOICE? Instead, we get the JOURNAL OF SOCIAL HISTORY and AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST. Buy this, if you must, used at the Strand. Or read it if it comes to NYU's Bobst Library (one of the world's better libraries). -------------------------------------------------------- DIRTY RICE (1962?) IIRC, DARE has 1966 or 1968. THE NEW YORK TIMES SOUTHERN HERITAGE COOKBOOK (G. P. Putnam's Sons, NY 1972) by Jean Hewitt, has on page 164, "DIRTY RICE (LOUISIANA)." HOLIDAY INN INTERNATIONAL COOK BOOK by Ruth Malone Copyright 1962 Copyright 1972, revised seventh edition Pg. 52: Fort Smith, Ark.--South DIRTY RICE Pg. 156: Lake Charles, La. CAJUN DIRTY RICE (Anyone have the 1962 edition?--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- PENNE (1968)(continued) LUIGI CARNACINA'S GREAT ITALIAN COOKING (LA GRANDE CUCINA INTERNATIONALE) edited by Michael Sonino Abradale Press, NY 1968 Pg. 189: Penne or Maltagliati with Ricotta Penne o maltagliati con la ricotta -------------------------------------------------------- GOLD COIN CHICKEN (1953); GOLDEN DOLLARS (1962) CHOW! SECRETS OF CHINESE COOKING by Dolly Chow (Mrs. C. T. Wang) Charles C. Tuttle Co, Rutland, Vermont 1953 Pages 58-59: Gold Coin Chicken (Chin Ch'iem Chi) THE FINE ART OF CHINESE COOKING by Dr. Lee Su Jan Gramercy Publishing COmpany, NY 1962 Pg. 77: GOLDEN DOLLARS Pg. 83: GOLDEN HOOKS (Shrimp--ed.) Pg. 163: DRUNKEN DUCK OR CHICKEN Pg. 164: DRUNKEN PORK Pg. 224: HIDDEN TREASURE RICE PUDDING -------------------------------------------------------- ANTS ON THE TREE (1975, 1977) FLORENCE LIN'S CHINESE REGIONAL COOKBOOK by Florence Lin Hawthorn Books, NY 1975 Pg. 66: Chiao Hua Chi BEGGAR'S CHICKEN Pg. 71: Lung Ch'uan Feng Yi PRINCESS CHICKEN Pg. 134: Ma Yi Shang Shu ANTS ON THE TREE Pg. 200: Lo Han Chai BUDDHA'S DELIGHT Buddha's Delight is one of the most popular vegetarian dishes in China. Pg. 302: Pa Pao Fan EIGHT PRECIOUS RICE PUDDING THE SCRTUABLE FEAST: A GUIDE TO EATING AUTHENTICALLY IN CHINESE RESTAURANTS by Dorothy Farris Lapidus Dodd, Mead & Co., NY 1977 Pg. 153: 9. ANTS CLIMBING TREE (ma i shang shu) Chopped pork seasoned with onions, ginger root, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper is combined with fried or boiled bean thread (cellophane noodles). The piled-up bean thread resembles a tree and the bits of pork look like ants. Can be very hot to taste. This dish is sometimes called Chopped Meat with Mung Bean Stick. (Pg. 137 has "Kung Pao Diced Chicken," for example. "General Tso's Chicken" is nowhere to be found, despite a large Szechuan index--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- VICEROY'S (KUNG PAO) CHICKEN, SLIPPERY CHICKEN (1976) THE GOURMET CHINESE REGIONAL COOKBOOK by Calvin B. T. Lee and Audrey Evans Lee Castle Books, Secaucus, NY 1976 Pg. 129: PEKING DUST Pg. 137: KUNG PAO CHICKEN Also known as Viceroy's Chicken, this dish honors a Peking bureaucrat who was either exiled or sent as an emissary to distant Szechuan. It has become deserved popular along with the quite different Kung Pao Shrimp. Pg. 142: SLIPPERY CHICKEN This spicy and aromatic dish plays up the smooth texture of bean curd with chicken meat. The effect is truly one of slippery chicken and quite novel. (No "General Tso's Chicken" here, either--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- BUDDHA'S DELIGHT, HAPPY FAMILY (1962) THE PLEASURES OF CHINESE COOKING by Grace Zia Chu Cornerstone Library, NY 1962; reprinted 1969 Pg. 69: _Fortune Cookies_ Fortune cookies are unknown in China, but they have become as popular in America as chop suey. Pg. 90: _Millionaire Chicken_ Pg. 105: _Individual Eight Precious Pudding_ Pg. 131: _Buddha's Delight_ Pg. 137: _Gold Coin Mushrooms_ Pg. 138: _Happy Family_ -------------------------------------------------------- THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGGS, BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (1969) TREASURED RECIPES FROM TWO CULTURES-- AMERICAN AND CHINESE Women's Society of Christian Service St. Mark's United Methodist Church Stockton, CA First printing, 1966 Second printing, 1967 Revised Third Printing, 1969 (Not paginated--ed.) THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGGS (Pay Don) These are preserved eggs wrapped in dried mud and have been kept for some time--not a thousand years! One acquires a taste for these eggs. Remove the mud, wash egg, shell. Slice with egg slicer. The egg white is dark and the yolk a greenish color. Pour a little salad oil over the sliced eggs. Serve with sliced pickled scallions. (...) BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (...) THE STORY OF THE BEGGAR'S CHICKEN A beggar had stolen a chicken from a farmer's house by using a handful of mud paste to choke the chicken so that it would not make any noise. Then he carried the chicken back home, but he was so poor that he had nothing to use for cooking the chicken nor killing it. So he made more mud paste and coated the whole chicken, feather and everything, into a mud ball; he put this mud ball chicken over the coal fire that he had stolen to keep himself warm. He kept turning the chicken for hours. When the mud got all dried near dawn, he split and crushed the dried mud and found all the feather was stuck onto the mud. Then he had a delicious meal. --From a Formosan Cook Book -------------------------------------------------------- DIM SUM, PEKING DUST (1950) NOODLES AND RICE AND EVERYTHING NICE by the Hong Kong Young Women's Christian Association Local Printing Press, Ltd., Hong Kong 1950 Pg. 4: Around one o'clock came "dim sum," "touch the hearts," which are small prepared delicacies such as crisp egg rolls, steamed filled dumplings, fried yam patties, noodles, chow mein, etc. Pg. 34: FROG MEAT AND CHICKEN "Double Phoenix Facing the Sun" Pg. 36: CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI "Gold and Jade Chicken" Pg. 44: SWEET AND SOUR PORK Pg. 57: WANTON SOUP (...) EGG DROP SOUP Pg. 65: FRIED SPRING ROLLS Pg. 68: PEKING DOILIES Pg. 71: EIGHT PRECIOUS GLUTINOUS RICE PUDDING Pg. 72: PEKING DUST Anyone who has visited Peking knows that "Peking dust" is no idle talk. That cold dry area is well known for its dust storms. When the wind blows, anyone on the street can have plenty of Peking dust to eat. This pudding, so facetiously named, is most easily prepared in a climate where these cold dry conditions prevail. It is a dramatic finale to any meal, either Chinese or Western. -------------------------------------------------------- MUFFULETTAS, MOON SANDWICHES (1973) THE NEW ORLEANS UNDERGROUND GOURMET by Richard H. Collin Simon and Schuster, NY 1973 Pg. 213: CHARLIE'S NEW YORK DELICATESSEN METAIRIE 2023 Metarie Rd. (...) Charlie's carries--and indeed proudly features--local specialties that most New Yorkers have never dreamed of, such as oyster poor boys, Muffulettas, and moon sandwiches (they are "out of this world," and consist of ham, cheese, and roast beef). (FWIW: My next trip is to Hawaii and New Zealand. I'll try to have some "surf-playing" and "macadamia" nuts tomorrow--ed.) From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 14 09:31:52 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 01:31:52 -0800 Subject: The Finger (1947?) In-Reply-To: <10c.b33ce11.2973200e@aol.com> Message-ID: >...or Oreos (African-Americans who >sell out to Anglos --Oh, those terrible Anglos!). And there's bananas - for Asian-Americans - the same symbology as Oreos. Rima From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Mon Jan 14 11:39:51 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 06:39:51 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). The underlying idea is that when you combine salad ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, etc. It's a voguish metaphor right now, but LexisNexis has cites back to 1975: Robert Rangel, director of bilingual programs in Los Angeles city schools, described America today as a "salad bowl" rather than a melting pot. "Ethnic pride is very strong," he said. "Today everyone needs to find a place in the sun. Our country is strong because of the diversity it has." --U.S. News & World Report, July 7, 1975 Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ > > 2) common food metaphors, such as "melting pot," and "salad bowl" (does > > anyone know where/when this originated?), and other common food-related > > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. I am not sure > what you mean by a metaphorical "salad bowl." From sylvar at VAXER.NET Mon Jan 14 13:38:14 2002 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 05:38:14 -0800 Subject: SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC In-Reply-To: <200201130457.g0D4vXP13391@maple.vaxer.net> Message-ID: Jim Landau wrote: > "Solid-state traffic" is almost certainly a nonce usage, someone's > play on words, since taken literally it is meaningless (traffic that > uses transisteros rather than vacuum tubes??) It does, however, make sense in the context of the analogy between states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma) and road traffic. There's been some work on stretching this analogy to see how far it'll go, but it seems there are 'phase transitions' between gridlock, traffic, light traffic, and practically empty roads. This may have been part of the intent of the speaker/writer. Ben, delurking -- barbifry: (v.t.) To barbeque and fry simultaneously. "The mage used a huge fireball spell in the 10 by 10 room. We all got barbifried. 17 intelligence, my ass." -- www.everything2.com From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Mon Jan 14 15:36:53 2002 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Houston Hall) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 09:36:53 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Re: Message-ID: Can anyone help him? >Return-Path: dearment at hotmail.com >X-Originating-IP: [202.103.211.92] >From: "Eric DeArment" >To: jdhall at facstaff.wisc.edu >Subject: Re: >Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 22:43:14 -0800 >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 Jan 2002 06:43:15.0042 (UTC) >FILETIME=[BE21AC20:01C19CC6] > >I'm interested in learning more about dialects of the Pacific Northwest, >particularly the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Do you know of any >good Web-based resources? > >-Eric > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 14 16:04:23 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:04:23 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) In-Reply-To: <015201c19cf0$2edc05e0$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: #The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in #which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than #being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). [...] Whoever Paul was replying to (sorry) had said about the latter: > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food >metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical >"salad bowl." Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was deliberately coined in response to such a culinary interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", just as you describe and cite: #The underlying idea is that when you combine salad #ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is #still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, #etc. [snip citation] -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Mon Jan 14 16:37:00 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:37:00 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: I think these guesses are correct. Every example I've seen of "salad bowl" contrasts it to "melting pot," with one speaker (Alex Haley, author of "Roots") saying that a melting pot suggests oatmeal. The earliest use I saw was from the 6/13/83 issue of Time: "The new metaphor is not the melting pot but the salad bowl, with each element distinct." John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark A Mandel [SMTP:mam at THEWORLD.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 11:04 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) > > > Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) > imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was > culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar > with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in > cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or > possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I > have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen > also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." > > I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was > deliberately coined in response to such a culinary > interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I > can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad > bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by > an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", > just as you describe and cite: > > From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Mon Jan 14 16:57:57 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:57:57 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: was reading in the newest Nat'l Geographic last night about the New Europe and the metaphors people were using were a bouquet of flowers (the tulips are still tulips) and an orchestra (the violins are still violins) seemed much more appealing to me than the salad bowl metaphor for some reason. Ellen Ellen Johnson Assistant Professor of Linguistics Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing Berry College, Box 350 Mt. Berry, GA 30149 706-368-5638 http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ ejohnson at berry.edu -----Original Message----- From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at THEWORLD.COM] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 11:04 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: #The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in #which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than #being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). [...] Whoever Paul was replying to (sorry) had said about the latter: > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food >metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical >"salad bowl." Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was deliberately coined in response to such a culinary interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", just as you describe and cite: #The underlying idea is that when you combine salad #ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is #still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, #etc. [snip citation] -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 14 17:15:50 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:15:50 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:04 AM 1/14/02 -0500, you wrote: >On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > >#The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in >#which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than >#being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). > [...] > >Whoever Paul was replying to (sorry) had said about the >latter: > > > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food > >metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical > >"salad bowl." > >Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) >imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was >culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar >with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in >cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or >possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I >have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen >also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." > >I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was >deliberately coined in response to such a culinary >interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I >can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad >bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by >an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", >just as you describe and cite: > >#The underlying idea is that when you combine salad >#ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is >#still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, >#etc. > > [snip citation] > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse Jackson (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is quaintly domestic, with the separate pieces idea. _____________________________________________ 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 pskuhlman at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 14 17:35:00 2002 From: pskuhlman at JUNO.COM (pskuhlman at JUNO.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:35:00 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl Message-ID: > And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse > Jackson > (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is > quaintly > domestic, with the separate pieces idea. I've also heard "mosaic" used this way in New York City. Someone in the public arena (don't recall who) said that New York is not a melting pot, but a mosaic. Patricia Kuhlman pskuhlman at juno.com Brooklyn, NY > _____________________________________________ From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 14 17:55:53 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:55:53 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Fred Shapiro on Sun, 13 Jan 2002 13:59:18 wrote: >"Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. < Even though this expression seems to have developed a culinary association, I agree with Fred about its original meaning. This later association probably reflects our diminishing experience of industrial processes. Even middle class kids would still 50 & 60 years ago be familiar with the images of heavy industry, through educational films. [What a lark that was, when the shades would be drawn, the projector rolled in & the classroom darkened for some instructive movie!] A. Murie From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 14 18:04:58 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:04:58 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: A melting pot was also used in glass making. A search of MOA Cornell results in items that refer to either glass making or metal work. In glue making, there was the glue-pot, in which a variety of items might be placed, but I don't know that the process could be termed melting. Probably wouldn't have caught on to say that a given culture or society was a glue-pot. George Cole Shippensburg University From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:09:49 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:09:49 -0800 Subject: Fwd: Re: Message-ID: Eric: > > > >I'm interested in learning more about dialects of the Pacific Northwest, > >particularly the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Do you know of any > >good Web-based resources? What, in particular, are you interested in. I live in Seattle, so I guess I'm an "expert". Anne G From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:11:25 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:11:25 -0800 Subject: ?? Message-ID: To all: I get a lot of this mail personally, and it's in Japanese and Chinese, too. Lately I've been blocking it. I *think* I got something in Chines supposedly via you folks, yesterday. Just FYI. Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Billionbridges.com" To: Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 1:33 PM Subject: Re: ?? > Actually, in the slight chance it matters to the administrator > of the list, the junk email in the last few months has been in > Korean only. > > > They're also Chinese and Japanese. Some of them are porn sites. I just > > block anything in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, on general principles. > > Anne G > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Billionbridges.com" > > To: > > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:11 PM > > Subject: Re: ?? > > > > > > > They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If > > > you have Korean encoding capability you will > > > be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd > > > want to!). > > > _______________________ > > > Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo > > > "A Billion Bridges" > > > Chinese<>English Translation Services > > > Tel: 905-308-9389 > > > Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) > > > Web: www.billionbridges.com > > > Email: translation at billionbridges.com > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > > > To: > > > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM > > > Subject: ?? > > > > > > > > > > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > > > > > > > Rima From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:14:52 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:14:52 -0800 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: Ellen: Bouquets of flowers and orchestras are nice, but I still kinda like the "patchwork quilt" metaphor. Too bad it never caught on. Anne G > was reading in the newest Nat'l Geographic last night about the New Europe and the metaphors people were using were > > a bouquet of flowers (the tulips are still tulips) and > an orchestra (the violins are still violins) > > seemed much more appealing to me than the salad bowl metaphor for some reason. Ellen From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:16:12 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:16:12 -0800 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Rima: > > And there's bananas - for Asian-Americans - the same symbology as Oreos. Well, there's also "apples", applied to certain Native Americans, same analogy as Oreos. Anne G From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 14 05:16:37 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:16:37 +0800 Subject: Salad bowl In-Reply-To: <20020114.123507.-194931.0.pskuhlman@juno.com> Message-ID: At 12:35 PM -0500 1/14/02, pskuhlman at JUNO.COM wrote: > > And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse >> Jackson >> (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is >> quaintly >> domestic, with the separate pieces idea. > > >I've also heard "mosaic" used this way in New York City. Someone in the >public arena (don't recall who) said that New York is not a melting pot, >but a mosaic. > A wonderful mosaic, in fact--but was it NYC or America in general? I haven't tracked down the original cite via google or Nexis yet, but I'm sure someone has it. Fred, is it in your Quotations files? larry From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:19:58 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:19:58 -0800 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: To all: > > >"Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. < > > Even though this expression seems to have developed a culinary association, > I agree with Fred about its original meaning. This later association > probably reflects our diminishing experience of industrial processes. > Even middle class kids would still 50 & 60 years ago be familiar with the > images of heavy industry, through educational films. [What a lark that was, > when the shades would be drawn, the projector rolled in & the classroom > darkened for some Well, I must be about the same age, because I remember those "instructional" movies, too. I also remember "melting pot" describing America and Americans(supposedly, anyway). I just accepted the metaphof and I never thought about where it came from. I had no idea whatever that it was a metaphor borrowed from heavy industry. Anne G From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 14 18:29:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:29:32 EST Subject: General Tso & Yale; Chinese Menus Message-ID: CHINESE MENUS A wonderful article in FLAVOR & FORTUNE, Spring 2001, page 5+, is "TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR TAKE-OUT MENU: A VIEW OF CHINESE HISTORY," by Harley Spiller. His collection now numbers 6,000 menus--mostly Chinese-American. Pg. 26, col. 2: Harley Spiller's collection contains many old CHinese Menus that people have donated from their scrapbooks. Please feel free to contact him to conduct research, and do consider making donations of menus to this important and unique collection. Contact this magazine and they'll get you together to do so. (FLAVOR AND FORTUNE, a magazine of the Institute of the Science and Art of Chjinese Cuisine, P. O. Box 91, Kings Park, NY 11754, www.flavorandfortune.com--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- GENERAL TSO AND YALE From GOURMET, October 1982, pg. 129, col. 3: Q. Everything at the Peng Teng restaurant in New York City is delectable, but for me the outstanding dish is General Tso's chicken. WOuld you lbe so kind as to prcure the recipe? RITA SCHWARTZ CENTERREACH, NEW YORK A. Chef Peng gladly revealed one of the secrets of the Orient. _General Tso's Chicken Peng Teng_ _(Chicken with Red Peppers)_ (...) From FLAVOR & FORTUNE, December 1996, volume 3, no. 4, pg. 5, col. 1: _GENERAL TSO--THE MYSTERY MAN_ BY IRVING BEILIN CHANG One of the most tasty, sumptuous, and well balanced dishes found on most CHinese restaurant menus is General Tso's CHicken. If you have never had it, try it at your next opportunity. TO make this dish, the chef takes selected cuts of the leg and thigh meat of the chicken, coats it with an egg and flour mixture, then deep fries it in oil to insure that its juices are retained. This gives the chicken morsels a slightly crispy crunch. A few sprigs of green broccoli florets are blanched in boiling water for garnish and a brown sweet and sour sauce is poured over the chicken. THe sauce is made from garlic, ginger, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, whole red peppers, and some cornstarch and stock or water mixed in as a thickener. THis combination of flavors gives General Tso's chicken its unique and tasty appeal. Why was this dish named after the general? Who was this man? My wife and I knew that his name was Tso Tsung TOng, a famous Hunan general, but nothing else. So we decided to research this question and find out more about this military man. We had an inside track. I asked my sister who in the 1920's as a young girl had gone with my mother to a local YWCA meeting at the invitation of Madam Tso (No. 3 wife) at the general's home in Changsa, in Hunana, China. My sister remembered visiting this venerable old lady and having some tea there. When she was there, the general had long passed away and Madam Tso, many years his junior, was then the "first lady" in town. Unfortunately, that was all my sister recalled. Changsa (the capital of the Hunan province), situated in central CHina, was the general's home base. My mother, an AMerican born CHinese, was a much sought after guest in this town. Madam Tso, although old, enjoyed hosting the YWCA meetings at her home. My father, at that time was dean of Yali, the Yale-in-China School. Yali, funded by the Yale-in-China Association of New Haven, was situated in that city. THe fact that Yali could be located there I am sure had the blessings of the Tso family. So those associated with Yali were the American connection in this mid-Yangtze-River-valley city. TO find out more about the general, my wife suggested that I write to our local CHinese magazine, _Sino Monthly New Jersey_, for information on General Tso. THeir editor kindly wrote bacl weith the following timely information. General Tso Tsung Tong (1812-1885) was born in Xiang Yin, thirty-five miles north of Changsa. He was a very famous General under the Manchu Dynasty and his military activities took him to many parts of CHina. He was a very active person and loved his food, especially meat. Everywhere he went, the local magistrates, in order to cultivate his favor, would prepare special feasts in his honor, perhaps to solicit favors and at least so that he would think kindly of them. He was a hard person to please, but try they did. (...) (Kicked off the computer!...My trip to China this fall had better be tax-deductible--ed.) From sale at KOSO.NET Mon Jan 14 18:31:07 2002 From: sale at KOSO.NET (=?ks_c_5601-1987?B?wdYpxNq80rPd?=) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 03:31:07 +0900 Subject: =?ks_c_5601-1987?B?KLGksO0pIMDOxc2z3SC87sfOuPQgsbjD4CA1Nbi4v/g=?= Message-ID: 2002년 창업과 부업의 성공비지니스 인터넷쇼핑몰 - 만물상A:link {text-decoration:none; color: #3333cc}A:visited {text-decoration:none; color:#990099}A:hover {text-decoration:none; color: red}body {font-family:돋움,굴림,seoul,verdana; font-size:9pt;}td {font-family:돋움,굴림,seoul,verdana; font-size:9pt;line-height:16px;}.select { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.password { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.file { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.button { font-size:9pt; color:white; background-color:red; border-width:1; border-color:#AAAAAA; }.base { text-decoration:none; font-size:9pt; line-height:2.2 }.textarea { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.title {font-family:seoul,돋움,Arial;font-size:10pt;font-weight:bold;color:#B82200;text-decoration:none;letter-spacing:1px;} "55만원이면 정말 괜찮은 인터넷쇼핑몰을 꾸미실 수 있습니다!!" 02-3431-8100 (대표) 02-404-6288/9 (직통) 담당자 : 최광웅팀장 > 공동구매 / PHP,Mysql DB / 무한카테고리생성 / 카테고리별 배너등록 / 게시판,자료실 추가생성 / 회원타겟메일 /빠른 처리 속도 /쉽고편한 운영관리 /다양한 기술지원 /저렴한 설치비용 / 꼼꼼한 회원관리 /전자결제시스템 / 안전한 거래 /지속적인 AS * 만물상으로 제작된사이트 안내 ( 지면 관계상 전부 실어드리지 못하였습니다. ) 유니캄디지털 [http://unicam.co.kr] - 폴라로이드 전문몰 고객과의 활발한 커뮤니케이션을 통해 성공적인 쇼핑몰로 성장하고 있습니다. 모디쉬 [http://modish.co.kr] - 전문 여성제화 쇼핑몰 정장화, 단화, 통굽, 샌달등 여성화를 종류별로 판매하는 여성화전문쇼핑몰입니다.. 다미스 [http://damiss.co.kr] - Sports wear 전문몰 기존의 홈페이지에 만물상을 이용한 쇼핑몰을 운영함으로써 신뢰와 매출을 동시에 추구합니다. 위농다이어리 [http://ouinon.co.kr] - 시스템다이어리 전문몰 회사 홈페이지에 만물상으로 쇼핑몰 기능을 도입해 고객들에게 편의를 제공하고 있습니다. 개성인삼농협 [http://ginsam.com] - 전통의약품 전문몰 우리나라의 전통 인삼을 이용한 건강식품을 이제 인터넷에서 만나 보실 수 있습니다. 메디칼4989 [http://medical4989.com] - 의료용품 전문몰 많은 의료기기를 구비하고 있습니다. MPWIZ [http://mpwiz.com] - Mp3 player 전문몰(영문사이트) 외국에서 호평받는 mp3 player 전문 매장입니다. 연락처만 남겨주시면 바로 연락드리겠습니다. 전화번호 ? : email ? : * 만물상을 취급하셔서 온라인비지니스을 꿈을 펼칠 업체 및 개인리셀러를 모집합니다. * 수신을 원하시지 않으시면 우측수신거부버튼을 눌러 주세요. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 14 18:40:05 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:40:05 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) In-Reply-To: <007a01c19d27$61eb9900$5dfcfd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: I can give you the exact quote from Jesse Jackson, dated June-July 1992 in _Modern Maturity_ (!), p. 23, and with a colorful quilt-like graphic next to it: "America is not like a blanket--one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt--many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread." Nice, huh? I use it in my intro. to my Language in America course for undergrads, where we spend the first week on the role of immigrant languages before moving on to dialect variation. At 10:14 AM 1/14/02 -0800, you wrote: >Ellen: > >Bouquets of flowers and orchestras are nice, but I still kinda like the >"patchwork quilt" metaphor. Too bad it never caught on. >Anne G > > > was reading in the newest Nat'l Geographic last night about the New Europe >and the metaphors people were using were > > > > a bouquet of flowers (the tulips are still tulips) and > > an orchestra (the violins are still violins) > > > > seemed much more appealing to me than the salad bowl metaphor for some >reason. Ellen _____________________________________________ 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 carljweber at MSN.COM Mon Jan 14 19:06:48 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:06:48 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology:_=22They=22:_Earliest_Use?= Message-ID: Etymology : "They" : Earliest Use Carl Jeffrey Weber No thorns, "th-" used instead. Apparently, the earliest identified "unambiguous plural" pronoun is seen in the Peterborough Chronicle, of the year 1137 (Mosse Handbook). The need for an unambiguous plural pronoun arose when the past tense plural marker moved from the verb-proper into the "to be" auxiliary. Another developmental stage in English third person pronominals is seen in how "they" is expressed in Layamons Brut, in the earlier and later, of two versions. "They" arises full-blown in the later version. These are great sagas, intended to be read aloud. They are of heroic scale epic peradventure. Of the poet's manuscripts, which are usually rescribings of earlier scribings, with changes made to fit the audience written dialect. It is assumed the practice of the day demanded of the story teller a well exercised spontaneity for rendering the manuscript in the colloquial idiom. One text is from about 1200, the other, a few decades later. Each manuscript, more voluminous than the average modern novel, shows many many pronoun experimentations, particularly in the h-stem and deictic pronouns. They were, eight hundred years ago, "squaring off" in grammatical competition to be the correct form of last resort. Incidentally, in discussing the pronoun as a "relative pronoun", it should be mentioned there are three instances of "who" as a relative pronouns in the earlier version, about seventy in the later. (On another interrogative: "tha. tha", can signal "when.then", as in the Peterborough Chronicle example given above. In the Chronicle, the markedness for "personal" + "plural" of "they" is created by "the" + "hi". The h-stem pronoun gives a personal/plural marker to deictic "th-". The interrogatively marked "wh-" of "when" or "who" was not used as a shape in a relative pronoun . In the earlier Layamons Brut the grammaticality of "they" was expressed by the two words "the" + "aer". The "th-" seems to be pollinated for plural number by the verb particle. A full blown "they" plural appears in these decades opening the 13th century in several medieval manuscripts. I have identified the full-blown form of "they" in the later Layamons Brut, apparently not previously indentified: "thaie" (with futharc thorn instead of Roman digraph "th-"). I. LINE 19 Petersborough Chronicles 1137 : They = the + hi (my translations follow) <<<<<<<<<<< Tha the casltes waren maked, tha fylden hi mid deovles and yvele men. The namen hi tha men the hi wenden that ani god hefden, bathe be nightes and be daeies. <<<<<<<<<< "When the castles were built, then they filled them with devils and evil men. Then they took the men they governed. They took everything they had, both by night and by day." Mosse isn't sure about the "the" in "the hi" next to "wenden". He says: "It may represent the relative particle of Old English, but also may be a particular use of the new definite article." My idea of the development of the paradigm suggests an answer to what "it may represent". In addition, it appears that , the incipient "they", is the subject of "hefden", whereas Mosse says the subject is unexpressed. II About 1200, in the earlier Layamons Brute: They = the aer >>>>>>>>>>> Brutus hit herde siggen; thurh his sæ-monnen. the aer weoren on than londe; & tha lawen wusten. Brutus heard it said through his seamen were landed & keeping the law. >>>>>>>>>> The same lines roughly twenty years later: The "they" of earlier Layamon (i.e. "the aer"), survives as "the er": >>>>>>>>>>> Brutus hit ihorde; thorth his see-mannen. the er weren in that lond; and the lawes wiste. (In some instances the "er" is easily misidentified as "her" or "here".) III About 1220, the later Layamons Brute: They = thaie (full-blown form) The new full-blown form, "thaie", identified here, is in the later manuscript. Regardless whether or not the h-stem is gone or just hiding: Could the vowel carry the ghost of nominative morphology from the displaced paradigm? IV Anomalous forms. 1. In the earlier version tha[i] appears one time. 2. In the later version "thaye" appears one time. 1. Credit for the earliest identification of the form pregnant with the incipient "they" belongs to Sir Frederic Madden, 1847. He put the editorial bracketed letter in the following. there quene; and tha[i] that mid hire weoren. Their queen and they that were with her. 2. A modern looking form: thar the gode cnihtes; cometh to strange fihtes. that thaye that her bi-3eteþ; eft hii leoseth. When the good knights cometh (vague accord) to mighty battles. Then they that joineth (vague accord) here, again they loseth (vague accord). (The apparent lack of concord here seems to show "they" in its singular morphology, notwithstanding attested plural -th in some written dialects.) From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 14 19:23:19 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:23:19 -0800 Subject: Eric and PNW dialect Message-ID: Eric, I can give you several items. These are all very old, but there really has not been much published on the PNW. Reed, Carroll E. "The Pronunciation of English in the Pacific Northwest." Language 37:4 (1961): 559-564. -----. 'The Pronunciation of English in the State of Washington.' American Speech 27:2 (1952): 186-189. -----. "The Pronunciation of English in the Pacific Northwest." Orbis 6 (1957). I will have to find the page numbers -----. The Dialects of American English. 1977. Amhurst: University of Massachusetts Press. Reed also did an article on vocab, the citation of which I do not have here. The atlas of the PNW has been divided into two parts-Washington/Idaho and Oregon. I am working on the Oregon part, so may not have exactly what you want. I also have a stack of worksheets that I had folks do about 2 years ago. For Websites, have a look at this site (I think this is the name): the Phonological Atlas of North America. Of course, you will want to consider the Chinook Jargon. I have an article in preparation on Chinook Jargon in Modern English. I hope this helps. What are you looking for specifically? Fritz Juengling >>> Joan Houston Hall 01/14/02 07:36AM >>> Can anyone help him? >I'm interested in learning more about dialects of the Pacific Northwest, >particularly the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Do you know of any >good Web-based resources? > >-Eric > From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 14 19:36:06 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 14:36:06 -0500 Subject: Etymology: "They": Earliest Use In-Reply-To: <002b01c19d2e$9f3cc160$5347ddcf@computer> Message-ID: Carl, I hope you're sending this thread to the HEL listserv too, where you might get some valuable feedback (in addition to ours, of course). At 01:06 PM 1/14/02 -0600, you wrote: >Etymology : "They" : Earliest Use > >Carl Jeffrey Weber > >No thorns, "th-" used instead. >Apparently, the earliest identified "unambiguous plural" pronoun is seen in >the Peterborough Chronicle, of the year 1137 (Mosse Handbook). The need for >an unambiguous plural pronoun arose when the past tense plural marker moved >from the verb-proper into the "to be" auxiliary. > >Another developmental stage in English third person pronominals is seen in >how "they" is expressed in Layamons Brut, in the earlier and later, of two >versions. "They" arises full-blown in the later version. These are great >sagas, intended to be read aloud. They are of heroic scale epic >peradventure. Of the poet's manuscripts, which are usually rescribings of >earlier scribings, with changes made to fit the audience written dialect. It >is assumed the practice of the day demanded of the story teller a well >exercised spontaneity for rendering the manuscript in the colloquial idiom. >One text is from about 1200, the other, a few decades later. Each >manuscript, more voluminous than the average modern novel, shows many many >pronoun experimentations, particularly in the h-stem and deictic pronouns. >They were, eight hundred years ago, "squaring off" in grammatical >competition to be the correct form of last resort. Incidentally, in >discussing the pronoun as a "relative pronoun", it should be mentioned there >are three instances of "who" as a relative pronouns in the earlier version, >about seventy in the later. (On another interrogative: "tha. tha", can >signal "when.then", as in the Peterborough Chronicle example given above. In >the Chronicle, the markedness for "personal" + "plural" of "they" is created >by "the" + "hi". The h-stem pronoun gives a personal/plural marker to >deictic "th-". The interrogatively marked "wh-" of "when" or "who" was not >used as a shape in a relative pronoun . > >In the earlier Layamons Brut the grammaticality of "they" was expressed by >the two words "the" + "aer". The "th-" seems to be pollinated for plural >number by the verb particle. > >A full blown "they" plural appears in these decades opening the 13th century >in several medieval manuscripts. I have identified the full-blown form of >"they" in the later Layamons Brut, apparently not previously indentified: >"thaie" (with futharc thorn instead of Roman digraph "th-"). > >I. >LINE 19 >Petersborough Chronicles 1137 : They = the + hi >(my translations follow) > ><<<<<<<<<<< >Tha the casltes waren maked, tha fylden hi mid deovles and yvele men. The >namen hi tha men the hi wenden that ani god hefden, bathe be nightes and be >daeies. ><<<<<<<<<< > >"When the castles were built, then they filled them with devils and evil >men. Then they took the men they governed. They took everything they had, >both by night and by day." > >Mosse isn't sure about the "the" in "the hi" next to "wenden". He says: >"It may represent the relative particle of Old English, but also may be a >particular use of the new definite article." My idea of the development of >the paradigm suggests an answer to what "it may represent". > > In addition, it appears that , the incipient "they", is the subject >of "hefden", whereas Mosse says the subject is unexpressed. > >II >About 1200, in the earlier Layamons Brute: They = the aer > > >>>>>>>>>>> >Brutus hit herde siggen; thurh his sæ-monnen. >the aer weoren on than londe; & tha lawen wusten. > >Brutus heard it said through his seamen were landed & keeping the >law. > >>>>>>>>>> > >The same lines roughly twenty years later: The "they" of earlier Layamon >(i.e. "the aer"), survives as "the er": > > >>>>>>>>>>> >Brutus hit ihorde; thorth his see-mannen. >the er weren in that lond; and the lawes wiste. > >(In some instances the "er" is easily misidentified as "her" or "here".) > >III >About 1220, the later Layamons Brute: They = thaie (full-blown form) > >The new full-blown form, "thaie", identified here, is in the later >manuscript. Regardless whether or not the h-stem is gone or just hiding: >Could the vowel carry the ghost of nominative morphology from the displaced >paradigm? > >IV >Anomalous forms. > >1. In the earlier version tha[i] appears one time. >2. In the later version "thaye" appears one time. > >1. Credit for the earliest identification of the form pregnant with the >incipient "they" belongs to Sir Frederic Madden, 1847. He put the editorial >bracketed letter in the following. > >there quene; and tha[i] that mid hire weoren. >Their queen and they that were with her. > >2. A modern looking form: > >thar the gode cnihtes; cometh to strange fihtes. >that thaye that her bi-3eteþ; eft hii leoseth. > >When the good knights cometh (vague accord) to mighty battles. >Then they that joineth (vague accord) here, again they loseth (vague >accord). > >(The apparent lack of concord here seems to show "they" in its singular >morphology, notwithstanding attested plural -th in some written dialects.) _____________________________________________ 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 14 20:30:51 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:30:51 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) In-Reply-To: <008201c19d27$91affdc0$5dfcfd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: In the good-ole communist days we had the following riddle: Q: Why is Poland like a radish? A: Cause it has only a thin red layer on the outside. dInIs >Rima: >> >> And there's bananas - for Asian-Americans - the same symbology as Oreos. > >Well, there's also "apples", applied to certain Native Americans, same >analogy as Oreos. >Anne G -- From carljweber at MSN.COM Mon Jan 14 21:17:53 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:17:53 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Message-ID: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Carl Jeffrey Weber Michael Newman said > First, I'd say "generic" isn't a great term because it has a specific > semantic meaning for type-class, something which gets involved in the > issue. CJW It's the problem of the "gen-" morpheme. I use "genre" instead of gender, keeping the root but moving it away from anatomy and physiology in the direction of "kind". MN >I called it 'epicene' which has also brought complaints > because it refers to dual gender in Greek. Still, that's less > confusing since there is no gender at all in English, only sex > reference. CJW English, in its west-Germanic development, gave English three genre (of nouns). Genre is marked in the pronouns. In pre 15th century English, in the non-oblique cases, the feminine singular was linked morphologically with the all genders plural. These are the feminine/plural h-stems -- /heo/ and /hi/, etc. --. The "-o"in heo is orthographic only, and no one has proposed that it was pronounced except in dialect. The evolution of th- plural forms was with finality sealed and enforced on the language by our first printer (with consent of the King), William Caxton. The paradigm shuffle was taking place nearly three centuries before Caxton. Prior to the paradigm blends of the h-forms with the th- forms, the all-genders plural shared the same morphology as the singular feminine in the non-oblique cases (her , they/ them) > (she/her, they/them). In the 15th century this changed because the h-stems were not marked for number sufficiently to serve the demands of unambiguous plurality. The Old English dative ( in "-m" ) became in the 15th century the new "object" in the singular and plural, him/them. singular object-pronouns shared by masculine-object and all-genders object. The feminine/plural pronoun, of the non-oblique cases, because it was not marked for number, disappeared -- or perhaps went into hiding. On the non-distaff side, the masculine singular is morphologically related to the neuter obliques ("not one or the other"). Says the OED, the dative singular/plural "ousted" (an interesting technical term to describe it) the accusative. (The ousting didn't take with emphatic "hit".) The loss of the accusative entailed loss of those forms for (1.) the singular masculine, feminine, but not the neuter, and (2) the all genders plural. This shuffle resulted from the deprivation in the verb-proper of the possibility of a preterit plural marker. A new synthesis was required, and the morphologies of the h-stems and the th-forms seemed to have merged to show unambiguous number in past tense plural. MN says English has no "genre" (my word) of nouns: "That's an issue that's important. If there is no gender then there can be no epicene gender. Epicene is not a formal category ....be it individuation, genericness, humanity (in the case of animals and babies) (Note: "child" in English carries neuter morphology. CJW) I said: The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular, forms shared with the neuter singular. In such instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his [i.e., "neither" of the other two noun genre] book". "His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. The feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from the wider language family. MN said: > I don't think so for the reasons above. Nice theory though. Perhaps it isn't, but the theory might offer a working grammatic framework for studying historical English during the paradigm shift. And the whys and whens. Because modern English developed from historical English, noun genre is -- perhaps not unreasonably -- still carried in the language. In this particular, carried as markedness in the pronouns, parallel to the preterit plural having found a home eight hundred years ago in the "were" auxiliary, when markedness in the verb-proper went into hiding there. Carl Jeffrey Weber Chicago Ontology Recapitulates Philology From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 14 22:45:23 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 14:45:23 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Message-ID: CJW It's the problem of the "gen-" morpheme. I use "genre" instead of gender, keeping the root but moving it away from anatomy and physiology in the direction of "kind". "Gender" does mean 'kind.' It's generally not a good idea to replace terms that have been around for a long time and are standard. This has nothing to do with anatomy and physiology. CJW English, in its west-Germanic development, gave English three genre (of nouns). Genre is marked in the pronouns. In pre 15th century English, in the non-oblique cases, the feminine singular was linked morphologically with the all genders plural. These are the feminine/plural h-stems -- /heo/ and /hi/, etc. --. The "-o"in heo is orthographic only, and no one has proposed that it was pronounced except in dialect. Maybe I have missed something, but most scholars have claimed that the -o in heo was pronounced. There are numerous spellings and forms that show conclusively that the word must have been he-o at one time. Else how would we get 'sho'? The question of 'dialect' is really irrelevant for Old English--everything was 'dialect'. Only with the rise of London as the power center of England do we come across what was to become the standard. I think you need to be more specific with the term 'dialect.' Fritz The evolution of th- plural forms was with finality sealed and enforced on the language by our first printer (with consent of the King), William Caxton. The paradigm shuffle was taking place nearly three centuries before Caxton. Prior to the paradigm blends of the h-forms with the th- forms, the all-genders plural shared the same morphology as the singular feminine in the non-oblique cases (her , they/ them) > (she/her, they/them). In the 15th century this changed because the h-stems were not marked for number sufficiently to serve the demands of unambiguous plurality. The Old English dative ( in "-m" ) became in the 15th century the new "object" in the singular and plural, him/them. singular object-pronouns shared by masculine-object and all-genders object. The feminine/plural pronoun, of the non-oblique cases, because it was not marked for number, disappeared -- or perhaps went into hiding. On the non-distaff side, the masculine singular is morphologically related to the neuter obliques ("not one or the other"). Says the OED, the dative singular/plural "ousted" (an interesting technical term to describe it) the accusative. (The ousting didn't take with emphatic "hit".) The loss of the accusative entailed loss of those forms for (1.) the singular masculine, feminine, but not the neuter, and (2) the all genders plural. This shuffle resulted from the deprivation in the verb-proper of the possibility of a preterit plural marker. A new synthesis was required, and the morphologies of the h-stems and the th-forms seemed to have merged to show unambiguous number in past tense plural. MN says English has no "genre" (my word) of nouns: "That's an issue that's important. If there is no gender then there can be no epicene gender. Epicene is not a formal category ....be it individuation, genericness, humanity (in the case of animals and babies) (Note: "child" in English carries neuter morphology. CJW) I said: The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular, forms shared with the neuter singular. In such instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his [i.e., "neither" of the other two noun genre] book". "His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. The feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from the wider language family. MN said: > I don't think so for the reasons above. Nice theory though. Perhaps it isn't, but the theory might offer a working grammatic framework for studying historical English during the paradigm shift. And the whys and whens. Because modern English developed from historical English, noun genre is -- perhaps not unreasonably -- still carried in the language. In this particular, carried as markedness in the pronouns, parallel to the preterit plural having found a home eight hundred years ago in the "were" auxiliary, when markedness in the verb-proper went into hiding there. Carl Jeffrey Weber Chicago Ontology Recapitulates Philology From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 00:25:06 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 19:25:06 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/13/2002 12:49:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, ASmith1946 at AOL.COM writes: > I'm looking for examples of culinary words/terms associated with > national/cultural/religious/racial/ethnic/sex/age/class groups, If I remember correctly, certain cavalry in the Byzantine army were known as "biscuit eaters" . A couple of other military/naval examples: "Limey" originally meant a British sailor, after the lime juice he drank to ward off scurvy. The "Beefeaters" (allegedly because they held the job of royal food-tasters and ate more than their share of the entrees.) And of course the "buccaneers", named after their practice of jerking meat and barbecueing it. (From "boucan", "a wooden framework or hurlde on which meat was roasted or smoked over a fire" - OED2). Civilian: the "sourdoughs" of Alaska. "cornpone and magnolia" to describe Southern accents etc. "Cracker" (a poor white in the South, redneck, white trash) "according to some, short for CORN-CRACKER, but early quots. leave this doubtful" (OED2). I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). Tom Paikeday wrote on Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:59:03 [The "Eskimo" or "Inuit"] prefer to be called the Inuit 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. And of course you can go way back to Homer and his "Lotus eaters". - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 00:46:58 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 19:46:58 EST Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso Message-ID: PASTRAMI (1831?) This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained with us, and served us both during the plague.... See the book STUFFED: ADVENTURES OF A RESTAURANT FAMILY (Alfred A. Knopf, October 2001) by Patricia Volk. Volk claims that her great-grandfather, Sussman Volk, came to New York City from Vilna in 1887. In 1888, at a deli on 86 1/2 Delancey Street, he introduced "pastrami" to the New World. At least, so says Patricia Volk. I haven't read the book to see her documentation. She also says that his was the first "delicatessen"--something that's plainly not true. (See "delicatessen" in ADS-L archives.) -------------------------------------------------------- YAC & RAC I was watching the Jets lose a football game to the Raiders last Saturday. ESPN Sportscenter said that wide receiver Jerry Rice was piling up the "yak" yards. Jerry Rice, a yak? A bit of web searching shows YAC (yards after catch), RAC (run after catch), and Y at C (yards at catch) on some football web sites, such as www.allmadden.com. YAC yards? _Yards_ after catch _yards_? -------------------------------------------------------- HERONNER/HIZZONER See "hizzoner" in the ADS-L archives. New York City has never had a woman become mayor, so it's always been "his honor." There's talk of a change of succession, from the Public Advocate (now Betsy Gotbaum) to a deputy mayor. From the NEW YORK POST, 14 January 2002, pg. 8, cols. 2-5: _Mike agrees: Betsy shouldn't be_ _Heronner if he's out of picture_ -------------------------------------------------------- GENERAL TSO This continues the typing of this item. Perhaps someone at Yale can forward this to the Yale branch in China? Surely, they would know something. Maybe something's even been written by them? From FLAVOR & FORTUNE, December 1996, pg. 5, col. 1: Once he was sent to Xinjang on a military expedition. The people of this western border-province were mainly Muslims whose religion did not allow them to eat pork; so the general's diet was severely curtailed. Three months later when he got back, specifically to (Col. 2--ed.) Lanzhour, a big feast was served in celebration of his successful expedition. He told his associates that although he was not entertained with song and dance, this elaborate and bountiful meal more than made up for the very long and tough expedition where he had no pork to eat. In 1875, the Dowager Tse Xi promoted him to the royal court. She held a banquest in his honor in the capital, Beijing. At that banquet, they made sure that he had double servings of all the entrees. The general would always finish his portion with one sweep of his chopsticks, as if to say, he was not impressed. After the above banquet, one of his compatriots asked him "Old friend, at one seating you can devour so much meat. It is as the old saying goes: A general's fame is as big as his appetite. I hope that stomach of yours can live up to your fame." The general smiled and retorted: "Your people love to put words in other people's mouths. What do you know? Instead of meat you can only eat the roots of vegetables. I am lucky that I enjoy meat. Maybe one day I will be stigmatized and might even be called: The Meat Eating General." Everyone surmises that the chicken recipe in question was probably the general's favorite so the chef who prepared it named it after him. I am supplying my wife's version of this dish for your reference. (Recipe follows--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 14 13:33:07 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 21:33:07 +0800 Subject: YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: <11b.a057b6e.2974d604@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:46 PM -0500 1/14/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >-------------------------------------------------------- >YAC & RAC > > I was watching the Jets lose a football game to the Raiders last >Saturday. ESPN Sportscenter said that wide receiver Jerry Rice was >piling up the "yak" yards. Jerry Rice, a yak? > A bit of web searching shows YAC (yards after catch), RAC (run >after catch), and Y at C (yards at catch) on some football web sites, >such as www.allmadden.com. Mebbe so, but I usually hear it explicated as yards after *contact*, especially for running backs, who are usually not catching passes first. The idea is that they don't go down after someone tries to tackle them. Maybe it really is yards after catch for receivers and yards after contact for running backs--if so, a nice reanalysis, sort of like NELS starting out as the New England Linguistic Society and then (after its first meeting in Montreal) turning into the North Eastern Linguistic Society. > YAC yards? _Yards_ after catch _yards_? Why not, if we have PIN numbers and HIV viruses? What's a little loss of transparency among friends? >GENERAL TSO > > This continues the typing of this item. > Perhaps someone at Yale can forward this to the Yale branch in >China? Surely, they would know something. Maybe something's even >been written by them? I'll try to check, assuming I can get some info on Yale in China's e-mail address. A colleague in Chinese linguistics (who's also a Chinese food aficionado) might know more. L From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 02:48:43 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 21:48:43 -0500 Subject: YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn said: >At 7:46 PM -0500 1/14/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >>-------------------------------------------------------- >>YAC & RAC >> >> I was watching the Jets lose a football game to the Raiders last >>Saturday. ESPN Sportscenter said that wide receiver Jerry Rice was >>piling up the "yak" yards. Jerry Rice, a yak? >> A bit of web searching shows YAC (yards after catch), RAC (run >>after catch), and Y at C (yards at catch) on some football web sites, >>such as www.allmadden.com. > >Mebbe so, but I usually hear it explicated as yards after *contact*, >especially for running backs, who are usually not catching passes >first. The idea is that they don't go down after someone tries to >tackle them. Maybe it really is yards after catch for receivers and >yards after contact for running backs--if so, a nice reanalysis, sort >of like NELS starting out as the New England Linguistic Society and >then (after its first meeting in Montreal) turning into the North >Eastern Linguistic Society. Actually...I was listening to the Mike and Mike in the Morning show on ESPN Radio this morning, and they proposed exactly this dual interpretation (without using the term "reanalysis" of course): yards after catch for receivers and yards after contact for running backs. From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 15 03:12:00 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 21:12:00 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Message-ID: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Carl Jeffrey Weber > CJW > It's the problem of the "gen-" morpheme. I use "genre" instead of gender, > keeping the root but moving it away from anatomy and physiology in the direction of "kind". FJ "Gender" does mean 'kind.' It's generally not a good idea to replace terms that have been around for a long time and are standard. This has nothing to do with anatomy and physiology. CJW I know. That's why I used the example "kind". "Genre" does mean "kind" too. "Gender" has too many associations with other "gen-" words -- "gen-" coming into English in ten-or-so different basic senses of the root . When "gender" was adopted for grammatic use, it meant "genre", i.e., "kind" -- if memory serves. F J Maybe I have missed something, but most scholars have claimed that the -o in heo was pronounced. There are numerous spellings and forms that show conclusively that the word must have been he-o at one time. CJW There are a profusion of feminine "he" and "hi" in the 15th century. This has been often overlooked. When Roman orthography was put to the task of representing the English language, the final letter of "heo" is presumed to have been pronounced and written down. This second syllable is also seen in other Germanic languages sharing the same morphology in the pronouns as the feminine/plural. But in English, after 1200, it seems to be a shakier picture as the pronouns in "h-" and those in "th-" suffle out. Things changed. I don't believe I've come across any scholarship that says "heo" was not basically a spelling form by the 15th century. I have many examples from the manuscripts of Piers Plowman showing feminine "heo". I have, as I said, looked at every form in the OED. In the Piers manuscripts, in addition to the "heo" form, there are many instances of feminine "he" and "hi" right up to the historical edge of printing. "He" and "hi" as feminine pronouns were in much wider use until a much later time than standard histories seemed to tell. The OED set the tone for this when it said "heo" was beginning to sound like "he" in 1200. This is the whole theory behind the Alysoun Poem (c1200). The boy calls the girl "he", and now, we just can't have that, can we. That's the orthodox position of the "need" for "she". FJ Else how would we get 'sho'? The question of 'dialect' is really irrelevant for Old English--everything was 'dialect'. Only with the rise of London as the power center of England do we come across what was to become the standard. I think you need to be more specific with the term 'dialect.' CJW I couldn't be sure. I try to be consistent and always mean "written dialect" as demonstrated in a particular text. "Written dialect" is useful for me as basically naming the consistency of forms in a particular representation. I'm interested in the developing standard, also in the dead ends. The OED says the forms of masc and fem Message-ID: I believe it was David Dinkins who said NYC was a "gorgeous mosaic." > From: pskuhlman at JUNO.COM > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:35:00 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Salad bowl > >> And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse >> Jackson >> (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is >> quaintly >> domestic, with the separate pieces idea. > > > I've also heard "mosaic" used this way in New York City. Someone in the > public arena (don't recall who) said that New York is not a melting pot, > but a mosaic. > > Patricia Kuhlman > pskuhlman at juno.com > Brooklyn, NY > > > >> _____________________________________________ From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 03:52:10 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 22:52:10 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: (resubmitted since the first submission seems to have vanished into the bit bucket) In a message dated 01/13/2002 12:49:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, ASmith1946 at AOL.COM writes: > I'm looking for examples of culinary words/terms associated with > national/cultural/religious/racial/ethnic/sex/age/class groups, If I remember correctly, certain cavalry in the Byzantine army were known as "biscuit eaters" . A couple of other military/naval examples: "Limey" originally meant a British sailor, after the lime juice he drank to ward off scurvy. The "Beefeaters" (allegedly because they held the job of royal food-tasters and ate more than their share of the entrees.) And of course the "buccaneers", named after their practice of jerking meat and barbecueing it. (From "boucan", "a wooden framework or hurlde on which meat was roasted or smoked over a fire" - OED2). Civilian: the "sourdoughs" of Alaska. "cornpone and magnolia" to describe Southern accents etc. "Cracker" (a poor white in the South, redneck, white trash) "according to some, short for CORN-CRACKER, but early quots. leave this doubtful" (OED2). I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). Tom Paikeday wrote on Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:59:03 [The "Eskimo" or "Inuit"] prefer to be called the Inuit 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. And of course you can go way back to Homer and his "Lotus eaters". - Jim Landau From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 15 04:49:23 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 22:49:23 -0600 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Among other things, James A. Landau said: > I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the > Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. The word "cannibal" itself was brought back to Europe by the Spanish at first contact in about 1500. It's another form of the word "carrib". The Mohawks, as one of the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederaation, where known to the Algonquians and the French for their rabid ferocity from the time of Champlain, about 1600. The name "Eire" and the name "Huron" are proported to be insulting European loanwords. In the case of "Huron", the second part of the word looks very much like the well-known morpheme for "people" in Huron/Algonquian, and the "hor" looks alot like the first part of "Iroquois". The Iroquois brought genicide to the Huron tribes in the 1630s, and the Wyndotes, the modern Hurons, are the only non-extinct Huron tribe. Speaking of anthropophagy and the Mohawks, there was the tremendous scene of merciless human torment, mutilation, and cannibalism in 1683, when the Iroquois wrought their yearly cycle of genocide on the tribes to their east. These tribes would usually escape. But the most peaceful tribe of all the Illinois tribes, the Tamarora, in trusting innocence, chose not to flee to the safety of the western shores of the Mississippi. And four hundred were barbariszed, and the Iroquois, including the Mohawk, took four hundred slaves back to their eastern home. CJW From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 04:57:34 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 23:57:34 EST Subject: Surfboard & Kahuna Message-ID: I'm planning to go to Hawaii to escape this brutal winter weather we're having in New York. OED has a "c. 1826" "surf-board," and then the next cite is 1931. "Kahuna" is from 1886. NARRATIVE OF A TOUR THROUGH HAWAII, OR, OWHYHEE by William Ellis H. Fisher, Son, and P. Jackson; London 1826 Pg. 49: ..._hura_, (song and dance)... Opp. Pg. 74: "A Hura, or Native Dance, performed in prsence of the Governor of Kairua." (Illustration--ed.) Pg. 241: This latter article, with their poe and sweet potatoes, constitutes nearly the entire support of the inhabitants.... ("Poe" with two dots over "e," see "poi"--ed.) Pg. 287: They said they had heard that in several countries where foreigners had intermingled with the original natives, the latter had soon disappeared; and should missionaries come to live at Waiakea, perhaps the land would ultimately become theirs, and the _kanaka maore_ (aborigines) cease to be its occupiers. (OED has "Maori" from 1843?--ed.) Pg. 306: ...who, I supposed, was a _kahuna_, (doctor,)... Pg. 306: Maaro was attended by two or three natives, who were called _kahuna rapaau mai_, the name given to those who undertake to cure their diseases, from _kahuna_, a priest, or one expert in his profession, _rapaau_, to heal, or to apply medicine, and _mai_, disease. Pg. 345: ...the most general and frequent game is swimming in the surf. The higher the sea and the larger the waves, in their opinion the better the sport. On these occasions they use a board, which they call _papa he naru_, (wave sliding board,) generally five or six feet long, and rather more than a foot wide, sometimes flat, but more frequently slightly convex on both sides. Pg. 371: A tradition preserved among them states, that in the reign of _Kahoukapu_, a _kahuna_ (priest) arrived at Hawaii from a foreign country; that he was a white man, and brought with him two idols or gods.... JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, DURING THE YEARS 1823, 1824 and 1825 by C. S. Stewart THIRD EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED John P. Haven, NY 1828 VOLUME I Pg. 126: ...a calabash of _raw fish_, and a calabash of _poe_, and the other a _dish of baked dog_, for the refreshment of the young favourites. VOLUME II Pg. 25 (Jan. 24. 1824?): The surf, for some days past, has been uncommonly heavy, affording a fine opportunity to the islanders for the enjoyment of their favourite sport of the surf-board. HISTORY OF THE HAWAIIAN OR SANDWICH ISLANDS by James J. Jarves Tappan & Dennet, Boston 1843 Pg. 70: Multitudes could be seen when the surf was highest, pushing boldly seaward, with their surf-baord in advance, diving beneath the huge combers, as they broke in succession over them, until they reached the outer line of breakers. Pg. 72: Dances, _hula_, were of various character, sometimes interspersed with chants relating to the achievements of the past or present rulers, or in honor of the gods. Such was the _hula ala-apupa_. Pg. 72: ...necklaces of shells, and _leis_... (OED has this cite--ed.) Pg. 76: _Poi_, the principal aricle of diet, was prepaed from the kalo plant. LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS OR, THE HEAT OF THE PACIFIC by Rev. Henry T. Cheever A. S. Barnes, NY 1851 Pg. 66: It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the evolutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players. Pg. 67: Even the huge Premier (Auhea) has been known to commit her bulky person to a surf-board.... Opp. Pg. 68: "HAWAIIAN SPORT OF SURF PLAYING." (Illustration--ed.) THE REAL HAWAII: ITS HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION by Lucien Young, U.S.N. Doubleday & McClure, NY 1899 (copyright 1898) Pg. 74: ...the kahunas, or native "medicine men," who teach that diseases are due to some offended deity that must be propitiated. Pg. 85: One of their most popular and delightful sports was surf-riding. Opp. Pg. 86: "SURF-RIDING--WAIKIKI, HONOLULU." (Photo--ed.) Pg. 117: The young leaves of this plant are cooked either separately or with meats, making a delicious green, (Pg. 118--ed.) known as "luau." The method of preparing the root by the natives is by cooking it in a stone oven or pit in the ground. The stones are first heated red-hot and then, after brushing off the dust and ashes atthe bottom, the taro is laid in the oven till it is full, and a few leaves spread on top. From Davidhwaet at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 05:06:52 2002 From: Davidhwaet at AOL.COM (David Carlson) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:06:52 EST Subject: No subject Message-ID: Eric, I have Carroll Reed's files for Washington, Idaho, and one Montana informant. Please let me know what you need, and I'll be happy to supply it for you. In addition to my files, I sent both lexical and phonological information to the Atlas site at the University of Georgia. Eric Rochester is the webmeister there, and he might be able to get you the information quicker than I can. David R. Carlson David R. Carlson 34 Spaulding St. Amherst MA 01002 413-256-6046 From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 15 09:28:31 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:28:31 -0000 Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:46 AM Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso > PASTRAMI (1831?) > > This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. > For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): > > When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained with us, and served us both during the plague.... > If this has already been noted, apologies. However: might this _pastourma_ not, given the geography, more likely be some local version of the Greek (and I think Turkish) _bastourma_ (sp.?) which is a dry lamb (beef?) sausage, I believe with red wine as an ingredient. Despite my ignorance as to the detail of the ingredients I've often bought them from Greek delis in London. They have nothing, other than being meat-based and flavoursome (and eaten without the need for further cooking), in common with pastrami. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 01:58:48 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:58:48 +0800 Subject: Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: <11b.a057b6e.2974d604@aol.com> Message-ID: On a TV show last night set in Boston someone was praising a dish they had just had at a Chinese restaurant called "General Tso's Great Wall of Beef". The good general gets around. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 02:03:01 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:03:01 +0800 Subject: Salad bowl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:13 PM -0700 1/14/02, Nancy Elliott wrote: >I believe it was David Dinkins who said NYC was a "gorgeous mosaic." > Of course! That was the modifier--and the source--I kept trying to think of yesterday. And the metaphor is still very much alive for its originator: ============ DAVID N. DINKINS: Our Town The Christian Science Monitor NEW YORK (September 28, 2001 8:21 a.m. EDT) - As the World Trade Center collapsed, the gorgeous mosaic that is New York City cracked but did not crumble... From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 02:09:12 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:09:12 +0800 Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: <002e01c19da7$002357a0$023264c0@green> Message-ID: At 9:28 AM +0000 1/15/02, Jonathon Green wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:46 AM >Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso > > >> PASTRAMI (1831?) >> >> This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it >on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. >> For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD >DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. >Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): >> >> When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in >this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained >with us, and served us both during the plague.... >> > >If this has already been noted, apologies. However: might this _pastourma_ >not, given the geography, more likely be some local version of the Greek >(and I think Turkish) _bastourma_ (sp.?) which is a dry lamb (beef?) >sausage, I believe with red wine as an ingredient. Despite my ignorance as >to the detail of the ingredients I've often bought them from Greek delis in >London. They have nothing, other than being meat-based and flavoursome (and >eaten without the need for further cooking), in common with pastrami. > >Jonathon Green recall our thread on this in the last century, including my own supposition: Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 12:10:13 -0400 From: Laurence Horn Subject: Re: "pastrami" To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Status: At 4:17 AM -0400 6/27/99, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >--------------------------------------------- >PASTRAMI > > David Shulman told me today that he found a "pastromi" citation from >1927. As everyone knows, "pastrami" is our greatest etymological mystery >since the Reuben sandwich and the Caesar salad. I suppose it might be my own local folk etymology, but I've wondered about the relation (if any) between pastrami and the Turkish dried meat delicacy known as pastIrmI (back [i]). Given the long Ottoman occupation of the relevant parts of Eastern Europe, home of Romanian Jews and others, it's not inconceivable (even if it's probably mistaken) to posit such a relation... From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 15 15:20:37 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:20:37 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology:_=22Chicago=22_Semi-final?= Message-ID: Etymology: "Chicago" Semi-final Carl Jeffrey Weber 1. "Chicago" < "Ch8ca8a", Miami/Illinois, 1720, "il passé dans l'eau marche" < French, "Choucagoua/Choucaoua/ Choucaou": great river < Spanish, "Chucagua": great river. 2. Spanish "Chucagua", used by French for Mobile River (Sanson's Royal map, 1673/4). Later, "Choucagoua". Misidentified river, thought to be the river of De Soto. Later (1690s-1720s), "Chicagua", reverting to Spanish "-agua". Apparently original form comprised two Indo-European water morphemes, the first of which is a phonestheme (sound symbol) with the sense of "discharge" . Earliest attested Spanish definition, "great river", De Soto narrative, 1600. 3. Word from which city was named, "Checagou"earliest attested, La Salle, 1679-80. Franquelin map, 1684, "Chekagou". Significance, "great river route" . Summary "Chicago" is attested in Miami/Illinois, 1720: "Ch8ca8a" (il passé dans l' eau marche). The Indians had borrowed it from the French, who had used also the more generalized meaning, "great river", for the Ohio and Mobile Rivers. The French had in 1673/4 borrowed it from the Spanish, "great river", attested in Spanish from 1600. La Salle designated cartographic Checagou the fifty-mile corridor from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River, and the significance of the word seems to have been "way to the great river". From words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM Tue Jan 15 15:29:05 2002 From: words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM (Evan Morris) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:29:05 -0500 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary Message-ID: Reposting a question that may have been lost in the holiday shuffle: Given the untimely demise of the Random House Dictionary Division, does anyone know what is to become of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang project? From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Tue Jan 15 16:53:38 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:53:38 -0600 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: <31.20f039dc.297512ec@aol.com> Message-ID: Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one that comes up on Google?) I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) Thanks! Erin Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 15 17:17:17 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:17:17 -0500 Subject: "popcorn windows" Message-ID: I hadn't heard this one, Erin. I'll look into it. Could be a good JW candidate. Thanks. Erin McKean wrote: > > Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one > that comes up on Google?) > > I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that > spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. > > (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) > > Thanks! > > Erin > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 15 17:30:29 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:30:29 -0800 Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Laurence Horn wrote: > > I suppose it might be my own local folk etymology, but I've wondered about > the relation (if any) between pastrami and the Turkish dried meat delicacy > known as pastIrmI (back [i]). Given the long Ottoman occupation of the > relevant parts of Eastern Europe, home of Romanian Jews and others, it's > not inconceivable (even if it's probably mistaken) to posit such a > relation... FWIW, Redhouse Turkish (Ottoman Turkish) Dictionary has "basdIrma" (back [i]) "vulg. pasdIrma, meat flavored with spices and garlic and cured under pressure" which makes sense, as the root bas- = "press". Unfortunately I won't have access to a Turkish dictionary that has some historical information and usage until I'm on the main campus tomorrow. Allen maberry at u.washington.edu From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Tue Jan 15 18:26:48 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 13:26:48 -0500 Subject: mohawks etc Message-ID: I forwarded the message from Weber about Mohawks, etc (appended) to my friend, the American Indian expert, and got this in return. Ellen -----Original Message----- From: Kathryn Abbott [mailto:kathryn.abbott at wku.edu] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 10:46 AM To: Johnson, Ellen Subject: Re: FW: Re: The Finger (1947?) Wow! That's taking some things are quasi-true and distorting them terribly. First, the Mohawk work for themselves is not Mohawk--it is something akin to Akwesasne, so saying that the Mohawks would willingly call themselves "cannibals" is absurd. It is true that the Mohawks--and other Iroquois tribes--occasionally and ritualistic--ate parts of captives' bodies--often their hearts. As part of ritualized torture (which was quite gruesome at times to be sure), they cut off body parts and might consume them, just to scare the crap out of the captive being tortured (or those watching). As for their "genocide" of the Hurons (not sure of the etymology of that word, but "Wyandot" or some version thereof was the Huron name for themselves, I am pretty sure), there was indeed a conflict between them, in part over access to beaver skins and hunting territory. But it also true that the French presence exacerbated this conflict considerably, and that in the early 1630s, many of the Hurons succumbed to a smallpox epidemic, which allowed the Mohawks (and other Iroquois) to conquer and capture many of the Hurons. As for "attacking tribes to the East," Landau has his direction wrong--he means west, and it is true that the Iroquois (though not the Mohawks), effectively kept the lower Ohio Valley in a state of high pique in the second 1/2 of the 17th century, until they were more-or-less defeated by the French and their native allies and signed a Treaty of Neutrality in 1701, agreeing not to attack the French or their allies in the interior. But all of this warfare almost certainly was exacerbated and intensified by the French and British presence and the competition over trade. The French encouraged their Indian allies to attach British settlements, and both French and British paid bounties for scalps and heads (quite high bounties) throughout the colonial era. Finally, re: the Iroquois taking Illinois as "slaves," captivity among the Iroquois was fluid and contingent. Yes, some would be used as slaves, but their offspring--especially if born to an Iroquois parent (mother esp.) could become full tribal members. Some captives--particularly young children--were most likely to be adopted outright to replace a lost family member, part of the mourning ritual accepted by the Iroquois. The evidence strongly suggests that many captive Hurons from the 1630s were thus adopted into the Mohawks, who had also suffered devastating losses in the smallpox epidemic and Beaver War. Culturally and linguistically, there were strong similarities between the two groups, so adoption would make even more sense. Older women might be adopted, might be enslaved. Men--warriors--would most likely be killed, either scalped on the spot (the warriors essence being contained in his scalplock) or ritually killed. By the way, the practice of scalping came from the Southeast tribes (remnants of the Mississippians) and was introduced to the Iroquois by the English. Landau is perpetuating myths by using half-truths that are historically and culturally decontextualized. As for Caribs and the islands, there is no evidence that the Arawaks, Tainos, or other Caribbean peoples ever practiced cannibalism, while it is certainly true that the Aztecs did (again, ritualistically). later, k > -----Original Message----- > From: carljweber [mailto:carljweber at MSN.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 11:49 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: The Finger (1947?) > > Among other things, James A. Landau said: > > > I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the > > Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). > > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. The word "cannibal" itself was > brought back to Europe by the Spanish at first contact in about 1500. It's > another form of the word "carrib". The Mohawks, as one of the five tribes of > the Iroquois Confederaation, where known to the Algonquians and the French > for their rabid ferocity from the time of Champlain, about 1600. The name > "Eire" and the name "Huron" are proported to be insulting European > loanwords. In the case of "Huron", the second part of the word looks very > much like the well-known morpheme for "people" in Huron/Algonquian, and the > "hor" looks alot like the first part of "Iroquois". The Iroquois brought > genicide to the Huron tribes in the 1630s, and the Wyndotes, the modern > Hurons, are the only non-extinct Huron tribe. > > Speaking of anthropophagy and the Mohawks, there was the tremendous scene of > merciless human torment, mutilation, and cannibalism in 1683, when the > Iroquois wrought their yearly cycle of genocide on the tribes to their > east. These tribes would usually escape. But the most peaceful tribe of all > the Illinois tribes, the Tamarora, in trusting innocence, chose not to flee > to the safety of the western shores of the Mississippi. And four hundred > were barbariszed, and the Iroquois, including the Mohawk, took four hundred > slaves back to their eastern home. > > CJW From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Tue Jan 15 18:33:17 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 13:33:17 -0500 Subject: readings Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Kathryn Abbott [mailto:kathryn.abbott at wku.edu] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 10:51 AM To: Johnson, Ellen Subject: Re: FW: Re: The Finger (1947?) By the way, good readings: Daniel Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (1991) James B. Seaver, ed., Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison (an adoptee) (first published 1824) ka "Johnson, Ellen" wrote: > hey. this came on the american dialect society list and seems somewhat suspect, so I figured I'd ask the expert. > From nfogli at IOL.IT Tue Jan 15 23:15:56 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 00:15:56 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_“Melting_pot”_vs._“ Canadian_mosaic”_?= Message-ID: In Canada, the “melting pot” has long been contrasted with the “Canadian mosaic.” This conventional implicature was apparently coined by Porter, a Canadian sociologist, in the mid-sixties. Stateside, I heard someone use the expression “American stew.” Is anyone familiar with it? I wonder where and how it was created. Dr. S. Roti Lexicographer From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 16 02:04:32 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 21:04:32 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: First, a note to Kathryn Abbott: the statements you were objecting to were made by carljweber, not by myself. I merely passed on something I once read about the name "Mohawk" and qualified it by saying "I am told". My source was a book entitled "Man's Rise to Civilization" which is currently AWOL from my home library, so I cannot confirm that I even quoted it correctly. This same source, as I recall, made the statement that the Iroquois, at least the ones that formed the Five Nations, were masters of psychological warfare, so it was a reasonable conclusion that the Mohawk, whether or not they actually were cannibals, were quite happy to have other Native Americans thinking they were. In a message dated 01/15/2002 5:09:32 PM Eastern Standard Time, carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. This statement to me sounds suspiciously like a blood libel. Aside from the Aztecs, whose ritual cannibalism seems to be well attested, I will insist on reasonably good evidence on Native American anthropophagy. (This includes the Caribs, for whom I have never seen any well-attested evidence for cannibalism. The Caribs must have had a reputation among their neighbors resembling that of the Iroquois among theirs, and both sets of neighbors appear to have accepted the legend of cannibalism. That legend could have been due either to fear or to denigration of enemies---the Native American equivalent of "gook"!) Also a correction to myself---"Corn-cracker" does not refer to a type of food. As I should have remembered from the folk song "Jemmy crack corn", a corn-cracker was someone who converted kernels of corn into corn meal. - James A. Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 16 02:44:30 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 21:44:30 EST Subject: Macadamia (1893) Message-ID: Merriam-Webster has 1929 for "macadamia," and that's just nuts. The revised OED entry has that 1929 cite, but added a 1904 citation. I checked out: HISTORY OF THE MACADAMIA NUT INDUSTRY IN HAWAI'I, 1881-1981: FROM BUSH NUT TO GOURMET'S DELIGHT by Sandra Wagner-Wright The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter 1995 There are some nice publications mentioned in the notes. Pre-1900 cites seem kind of sketchy, however. "Macadamia" was also called "Queensland nut" and "Bush nut" and "Australian hazelnut" and "Monkey nut." A big commercial boost came from Ernest van Tassel (1881-1943), founder of the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company, Limited. (FWIW, Tassel was a graduate from Yale. Many of the books I've read on Hawaii were written by Yale missionaries.) The best hits came from the Periodical Contents Index, which references the AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE OF NEW SOUTH WALES (the NYPL has this in the annex). From the AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE OF NEW SOUTH WALES, vol. 4 (1893): Pg. 2 (Plate II illustration): Macadamia ternifolia, F.v.M. "Australian Nut." Pg. 5: _Reference to Plate._--The drawing was made from a photograph of a tree growing in the Sydney Botanic Gardens. Pg. 3: THE CULTIVATION OF THE "AUSTRALIAN NUT." (_Macadamia ternifolia_, F.v.M.) By FRED TURNER. THE "Australian nut," or, as it is frequently called, the "Queensland nut," is a very ornamental evergreen tree. In its natural state it is mostly found growing on rich alluvial soils bordering rivers or creeks in the coastal districts of southern Queensland, and in the north-eastern portion of New South Wales. (...) The nuts, however, are very hard, and it requires some force to break them before the edible portion can be got at. It is probably owing to this circumstance that the tree is not so well and widely known amongst cultivators as it ought to be, considered from an economic point of view. Pg. 529: _Notes on Economic Plants._ A VERY great deal of interest has been taken in the "Australian Nut"* since it was figured and described in Part I, Vol. IV, of the _Agricultural Gazette_. The article and also the illustration have been republished in a number of Australian journals. (...) *NOTE.--The "Australian Nut" better known as the "Queensland Nut" grows with great freedom in the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, where some fine specimen trees produce nuts freely, and also in many suburban gardens. (The University of Adelaide, Australia, has a centre for the study of food. Is there an early cite there for the Queensland/Macadamia nut?...The Sydney Botanic Gardens were indeed nice. Perhaps Sydney has some 19th century info?...The macadamias that I ate in Australia seem inferior to the Hawaiian macadamias. I still have some nuts in this apartment, right next to some vegemite--ed.) From carljweber at MSN.COM Wed Jan 16 03:12:37 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 21:12:37 -0600 Subject: Cannibal : Carib Message-ID: Cannibal : Carib A thread was picked up. "Mohawk', as someone heard, might mean "cannibal". I said there was no early record of that, and that all the Amerindians were anthropophagite, and I made some rarely heard assertions. Ellen Johnson sent it, she said, "to my friend, the American Indian expert, and got this in return." Friend Wow! That's taking some things are quasi-true and distorting them terribly. First, the Mohawk work for themselves is not Mohawk--it is something akin to Akwesasne, so saying that the Mohawks would willingly call themselves "cannibals" is absurd. CJW No one suggested this absurdity in earnest. Friend It is true that the Mohawks--and other Iroquois tribes--occasionally and ritualistic--ate parts of captives' bodies--often their hearts. As part of ritualized torture (which was quite gruesome at times to be sure), they cut off body parts and might consume them, just to scare the crap out of the captive being tortured (or those watching). CJW The story of "ritual torture" and "ritual cannibalism" can not be cosmetized. The word "ritual" doesn't clean it up, nor should it mask the merciless barbarism of Amerindians against each other. "Ritualized" torture was more than "just a way to scare the crap out of [i.e., it's called merciless torment -- CJW] the captive being tortured (or those watching)" - I ask, is the point that there is some exoneration due here? This is not the story we like. It's by no means the story we tell the boys and girls. Original narratives tell the story. Find cannibalism in the index of Twaits' 73 Volume set, Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610 - 1780. Or for a historical approach, see Francis Parkman's works. Look in index. I agree with the idea recognized in the UN Charter Preamble: that of the inherent dignity of all members of the human family. But that's no reason to keep some members of the family in the closet. Friend As for their "genocide" of the Hurons (not sure of the etymology of that word, but "Wyandot" or some version thereof was the Huron name for themselves, I am pretty sure), there was indeed a conflict between them, in part over access to beaver skins and hunting territory. But it also true that the French presence exacerbated this conflict considerably, and that in the early 1630s, many of the Hurons succumbed to a smallpox epidemic, which allowed the Mohawks (and other Iroquois) to conquer and capture many of the Hurons. CJW Le Jeune, Relation, 1633 "Quelles hures!" exclaimed some astonished Frenchman. Hence the name Hurons (from Parkman). French "hure" is for the wild boar and the Huron hair do. In the year 1649 the Iroquois, through their genocidal war against the Huron, destroyed them as a nation. (There are not good guys and bad guys in this story). Those Huron who escaped did so only with protection of the French. Most of the tribes were exterminated. To forefront the epidemic, and background the genocide, I believe shortchanges truth. If the French hadn't stepped in, in the early 1600s, the Iroquois would have exterminated many of the Algonquian languages tribes of the St. Laurence and the Upper Great Lakes. This is common history. This is the well known story of the Iroquois Confederacy, and it was the Iroquois pressure from the east and above the Great Lakes, that pushed the Illinois and other peoples below the Great Lakes. I thought this was generally accepted history? Friend Iroquois (though not the Mohawks), effectively kept the lower Ohio Valley [and St. Laurence and northern Great Lakes - CJW] in a state of high pique in the second 1/2 of the 17th century, until they were more-or-less defeated by the French and their native allies and signed a Treaty of Neutrality in 1701, agreeing not to attack the French or their allies in the interior. CJW The most historically consequential cessation of hostilities between the French/Algonquians and the Iroquois was in the year 1665. Intendant Talon, in Quebec, as part of a large plan backed by the King, had a thousand man Army sent from France, under Tracy, to teach the Iroquois a lesson. They did (for a while). The newly gained safety insured the success of the expeditions of 1665, 1669, 1673, and finally, the object sought (made possible by the quelling of the Iroquois) the 1683 navigation of the Mississippi to the Gulf, and the Proces Verbal on April 9, 1682, declaring the land that was drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries thenceforth belonged to Europe. Friend The French encouraged their Indian allies to attach British settlements, and both French and British paid bounties for scalps and heads (quite high bounties) throughout the colonial era. CJW Scalping was an Amerindian practice. You can't put it on the European for paying such "quite high bounties" --and accordingly owning responsibility. History should not be writ as morality play. Friend Finally, re: the Iroquois taking Illinois as "slaves," captivity among the Iroquois was fluid and contingent. Yes, some would be used as slaves, but their offspring--especially if born to an Iroquois parent (mother esp.) could become full tribal members. CJW This sounds like an apologetic for slavery. "Fluid" and "contingent" to dress up "slavery" works no better than "ritual" to try to clean up "cannibalism" and "protracted human torture" . This is what the first hand accounts describe. Friend Some captives--particularly young children--were most likely to be adopted outright. CJW Yes, perhaps after butchering, and perhaps eating, the parents. Benevolent slavery? As well you know, I'm sure, the adopted "new member of the family" was not allowed to leave. By this reasoning, the ante bellum black slave child, separated from his mother, if put in a good home, . it might be kind of OK. Friend By the way, the practice of scalping came from the Southeast tribes (remnants of the Mississippians) and was introduced to the Iroquois by the English. CJW No. The earliest reference was far north, when Jacques Cartier went 1000 miles up the St. Laurence River, on the second of his four expeditions of discovery, in 1534 -- to meet and describe the Indians of Hochelaga. Cartier (as I recall) noted the pride taken by the leaders, pointing out all the scalps adorning their domicle walls, as reminders of great deeds of warriorship. Friend Landau [he means Weber] is perpetuating myths by using half-truths that are historically and culturally decontextualized. CJW What myths? Half-truths? Of Cannibalism, protracted human torture, and scalping? Culturally and Historically decontextualized? It is difficult to face the historical truths about these matters, and interpreting them away can only go so far. Friend As for Caribs and the islands, there is no evidence that the Arawaks, Tainos, or other Caribbean peoples ever practiced cannibalism, while it is certainly true that the Aztecs did (again, ritualistically). later, CJW The word "cannibal" comes from Carib. And it is also certainly true that, on the contrary, all the Amerindians were anthropophagous. Calling it "ritual" (as opposed to what?) is no exoneration or mitigation. We need to accept these truths of history while at the same time recognizing the inherent dignity of all members of the human family. Here's an image of the word "Canibalis" written on a map in one of the Carib areas - on the north east coast of South America, where famous cannibals lived . http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/2-8.htm CJW From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Wed Jan 16 08:40:59 2002 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:40:59 +0100 Subject: Pastrami Message-ID: The Dictionary of the Swedish National Encyclopedia has for "pastrami" (my translation): pastra´mi subst. [- - -] smoked entrecôte [- - -] by way of Yiddish from Romanian pastrama with the same sense, from pastra "to preserve". Jan Ivarsson, Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:46 AM Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso > PASTRAMI (1831?) > > This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. > For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): > > When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained with us, and served us both during the plague.... > If this has already been noted, apologies. However: might this _pastourma_ not, given the geography, more likely be some local version of the Greek (and I think Turkish) _bastourma_ (sp.?) which is a dry lamb (beef?) sausage, I believe with red wine as an ingredient. Despite my ignorance as to the detail of the ingredients I've often bought them from Greek delis in London. They have nothing, other than being meat-based and flavoursome (and eaten without the need for further cooking), in common with pastrami. Jonathon Green From stevekl at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 16 14:15:02 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:15:02 -0500 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Erin McKean wrote: > Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one > that comes up on Google?) > > I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that > spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. > > (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) Erin: Is this the same phenomenon as "whack-a-mole" (which I belive Gareth's covered? That is, does it refer to the steady barrage of windows that pop up when one surfs, usually unwittingly, onto such a site? -- Steve Kl. From JFodor at BROOKLYN.CUNY.EDU Wed Jan 16 14:01:48 2002 From: JFodor at BROOKLYN.CUNY.EDU (Joe Fodor) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:01:48 -0500 Subject: The Finger Message-ID: Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for anyone? --Joe F. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 16 14:56:37 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:56:37 -0500 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: <6F70906B3EB0D311845900508B937A5202139C9B@gemini.brooklyn.cuny.edu> Message-ID: Joe; I think you have this backwards. One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with new findings I haven't followed. dInIs >Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" > >According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the English >settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who populated >the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for anyone? --Joe >F. -- From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Wed Jan 16 14:44:24 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 08:44:24 -0600 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't think it necessarily means the incessant "whack-a-mole" windows; rather, I think he wanted to use a word that meant both pop-up and pop-under. Here's the quote: Consequently I am a BIG fan of web pages that don't waste my precious bandwidth--which is to say, my time. I like sites which are NOT top-heavy with dancing chickens (animated graphics, java routines, Quicktime movies, popcorn windows, etc) that take forever to download, supply no useful information...and not uncommonly crash my archaic (vintage 1995) browser. it's from http://www.baen.com/press.htm (where incidentally they have the first chapter up of the new Miles Vorkosigan book that's due out in May). --Erin >On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Erin McKean wrote: > >> Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one >> that comes up on Google?) >> >> I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that >> spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. >> >> (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) > >Erin: Is this the same phenomenon as "whack-a-mole" (which I belive >Gareth's covered? That is, does it refer to the steady barrage of windows >that pop up when one surfs, usually unwittingly, onto such a site? > >-- Steve Kl. From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Wed Jan 16 15:14:23 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 10:14:23 -0500 Subject: "popcorn windows" Message-ID: I can't find any other references to this so I'm thinking Robinson either made it up or he used it erroneously instead of pop-up or pop-under. On a related note, John Walston's "Buzzword of the Day" today is "pop-off," a browser window that pops up (or, I guess, under) in such a way that the "Close" button in the top right corner of the window is off the screen. Apparently the modern Web advertiser believes that user apoplexy is the way to win new customers. And, yes, we now have yet another item to add to the ever-growing "X rage" list: "As the intrusive box springs up across the Web at the behest of marketers, 'pop-up rage' is breaking out in its wake." -- The Sydney Morning Herald, July 3, 2001 The same article also mentions the "piss-off factor": http://www.smh.com.au/news/0107/03/pageone/pageone9.html LexisNexis reports 8 unique citations for this fun phrase, the earliest of which is 1990. I'm going to add it to the Word Spy database. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Wed Jan 16 15:27:24 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 10:27:24 -0500 Subject: Angsty Message-ID: It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet (well, I checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness are obvious. From a story on E! Online today: >>Felicity, starring Russell as angsty New York college gal Felicity Porter and costarring Scott Speedman and Scott Foley, has had its brushes with cancellation since its 1998 debut. << The link is http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/eo/20020115/en/_quot_felicity_quot_bidding_fare well__1.html Alltheweb.com (it's boring to use Google all the time) lists 10,976 web pages using the term in English. John Baker From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 16 02:52:09 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 10:52:09 +0800 Subject: The Finger In-Reply-To: <6F70906B3EB0D311845900508B937A5202139C9B@gemini.brooklyn.cuny.edu> Message-ID: At 9:01 AM -0500 1/16/02, Joe Fodor wrote: >Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" > >According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the English >settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who populated >the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for anyone? --Joe >F. Well, yes, as an almost certain folk etymology, although the "Jan" part may be right (especially based on its hypocoristic variant "Janke"). Still, it's something of a relief to turn from ritual torture and cannibalism to pastrami and cheese. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 16 03:01:53 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:01:53 +0800 Subject: Angsty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:27 AM -0500 1/16/02, Baker, John wrote: > It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet (well, I >checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness are obvious. From >a story on E! Online today: > > >>Felicity, starring Russell as angsty New York college gal Felicity >Porter and costarring Scott Speedman and Scott Foley, has had its brushes >with cancellation since its 1998 debut. << > Useful, but subject to misparsing (with final stress and long "y"). From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 16 16:03:34 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 16:03:34 -0000 Subject: Angsty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 11:01 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 10:27 AM -0500 1/16/02, Baker, John wrote: >> It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet (well, >> I checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness are >> obvious. From a story on E! Online today: >> >> >> Felicity, starring Russell as angsty New York college gal >> >> Felicity >> Porter and costarring Scott Speedman and Scott Foley, has had its brushes >> with cancellation since its 1998 debut. << >> > Useful, but subject to misparsing (with final stress and long "y"). Contrasts with 'angst-ridden'. Sylvia Plath was 'angst-ridden'--Felicity is simply angsty. Does this work: young person : angsty :: middle-aged person : neurotic? Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Wed Jan 16 16:06:50 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:06:50 EST Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary Message-ID: RHHDAS The last I heard was what I read in the WALL STREET JOURNAL about two years ago. I thought Jesse Sheidlower or Bethany Dumas would add an answer here. -------------------------------------------------------- PASTA FAZOOLE (continued) FWIW, a spelling of this dish is in the NEW YORK DAILY MIRROR, 26 January 1940, pg. 31, col. 1: He is slipping like a fly in a glue pot and the sale of pasta fazoole in Naples. -------------------------------------------------------- O.K. SIGN (continued) When I checked the book stand at the airport in Cuba, a book had the "O.K." sign on the cover. The sign, shifted 90 degrees, is in the NEW YORK DAILY MIRROR, 23 January 1940, pg. 26, col. 1 (illustration above this): "Certainment!" snapped the late Champs de Elysses boulevardier, holding up his thumb and two fingers in a snuff-pinching attitude to impress on me the full import of his words. (...) "Ixnay on the double talk?" he said. From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 16 16:14:15 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:14:15 -0500 Subject: Angsty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:27 AM -0500 1/16/02, Baker, John wrote: > > It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet > (well, I checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness > are obvious. OED has drafted an entry for this; I believe the first cite is from the 1950s, but can't tell right now, as I'm in the middle of an office move and my computers are disassembled. Jesse Sheidlower OED From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 16 16:36:11 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:36:11 -0500 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary In-Reply-To: <61.195cc922.2976ff1b@aol.com> Message-ID: >RHHDAS > >The last I heard was what I read in the WALL STREET JOURNAL about two years ago. I thought Jesse Sheidlower or Bethany Dumas would add an answer here. If I knew anything, I would reply. If I learn anything, I will post it. Bethany From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 16 17:48:54 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:48:54 -0800 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted vowel, I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > Joe; I think you have this backwards. > > One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John > Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The > explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding > English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" > label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. > > What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned > it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy > and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we > made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with > new findings I haven't followed. > > dInIs > > > >> Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >> >> According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >> English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >> populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >> anyone? --Joe F. > > > -- **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM Wed Jan 16 18:48:42 2002 From: words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM (Evan Morris) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 13:48:42 -0500 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:36 AM 1/16/2002, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >RHHDAS > > > >The last I heard was what I read in the WALL STREET JOURNAL about two >years ago. I thought Jesse Sheidlower or Bethany Dumas would add an >answer here. > >If I knew anything, I would reply. If I learn anything, I will post it. > >Bethany Thanks. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 16 19:30:28 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 14:30:28 -0500 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: <353781.3220163334@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: Another interpretation of "yankee" derives it from the Algonquian pronunciation of "Englishmen" (applied, by extension, to all white Europeans): [iNk at l@Sm at n], cited by Ives Goddard (1977) as Munsee. Leechman and Hall, who collected samples of the Indian English used in native-white contact situations, found the spelling "Ingismon" in early records, and Armstrong (1971) found "Yengees man" and "Yengees," the latter adopted by Fenimore Cooper. With initial palatalization, the transition to "Yengee" and ultimately "Yankee" makes sense. I've discussed this debate and the general history of native-white contact English (a pidgin, in effect) in my dissertation (Indiana, 1981)--available from Ann Arbor, if anyone's interested. BTW, cf. the Amish use (and others?) of "English" for all non-Amish Euro-Americans. At 09:48 AM 1/16/02 -0800, you wrote: >Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a >source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for >cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a >common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric >figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with >cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a >connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: >given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted vowel, >I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form >kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big >Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) > >Peter Mc. > >--On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" > wrote: > >>Joe; I think you have this backwards. >> >>One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John >>Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The >>explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding >>English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" >>label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. >> >>What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned >>it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy >>and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we >>made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with >>new findings I haven't followed. >> >>dInIs >> >> >> >>>Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >>> >>>According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >>>English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >>>populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >>>anyone? --Joe F. >> >> >>-- > > > >**************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.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 stephen_lombardo at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 16 23:13:03 2002 From: stephen_lombardo at YAHOO.COM (s. . .) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 15:13:03 -0800 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? Message-ID: Hi, everyone. Can you please help me paraphrase the following in current English (read the part between arrows >>> <<<): "[A lone policeman on his rounds], >>> the clanging bell of some owl car anxious to be off the street, <<< [the tread of a man hurrying...] Thanks for your insights. Peter Lombardo __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 00:24:39 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:24:39 EST Subject: 401(k) "Lockdown"; "Macadamia" nutty Message-ID: 401(K) "LOCKDOWN" From today's WALL STREET JOURNAL, 16 January 2002, pg. C1, col. 2: _"Lockdowns" of 401(k) Plans Draw Scrutiny_ (...) Last fall, amid the growing news of financial woes at the energy-trading company, Enron officials "locked down" the employee retirement-savings plan to make administrative changes. (...) ...Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), a ranking member of the Finance Committee, says his staff is exmining lockdowns, which also are known as "blackouts" and "quiet periods." -------------------------------------------------------- MACADAMIA (continued) OED supposedly has revised "m," so I assumed that its "macadamia" entry was perfect. I didn't look anywhere else. But what the hay, I turned to THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DICTIONARY (Oxford University Press, 1988). My 1893 citation isn't there, but "macadamia" has citations from 1857, 1880, and 1927. These couldn't make the OED? Who revised this OED entry? From bboling at UNM.EDU Thu Jan 17 00:47:23 2002 From: bboling at UNM.EDU (bruce d. boling) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 17:47:23 -0700 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? In-Reply-To: <20020116231303.28440.qmail@web13205.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: An owl car was a streetcar that ran through the night (as opposed to those that ceased their runs at, say, midnight) . Certain heavily patronized streetcar lines typically provided all-night service. Often owl cars might run slightly different routes from those they ran during the day; separate routes might also be combined for owl car service. Bruce D. Boling Assoc. Professor University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM bboling at unm.edu --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002, 3:13 PM -0800 "s. . ." wrote: > Hi, everyone. > Can you please help me paraphrase the following in > current English (read the part between arrows >>>> <<<): > > "[A lone policeman on his rounds], >>> the clanging > bell of some owl car anxious to be off the street, <<< > [the tread of a man hurrying...] > > Thanks for your insights. > > Peter Lombardo > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! > http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Thu Jan 17 00:51:23 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:51:23 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in bringing down the plane"..... To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been pretty confused about the outcome. A. Murie From einstein at FROGNET.NET Thu Jan 17 00:45:51 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:45:51 -0500 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? Message-ID: [night] owl, therefore a lone [street] car late at night...bell clanging ___________________ David Bergdahl From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 17 00:57:46 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:57:46 -0500 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? In-Reply-To: <1885928780.1011203243@sr-208-0027.unm.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, bruce d. boling wrote: #An owl car was a streetcar that ran through the night (as opposed to those #that ceased their runs at, say, midnight) . Certain heavily patronized #streetcar lines typically provided all-night service. Often owl cars might #run slightly different routes from those they ran during the day; separate #routes might also be combined for owl car service. Ping! Connection!! Just today or yesterday I saw a sign at a Boston "T" (public transit) streetcar stop with an owl perched on the stylized "T" and a text something like "The night shuttle stops here too!" I don't remember if the text used the word "owl", but of course the owl is a standard symbol of nighttime activity, and a "night owl" a person who is active at night. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 17 01:00:10 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:00:10 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: #AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to #say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane #prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in #bringing down the plane"..... #To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on #Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been #pretty confused about the outcome. Yes, but.... While I feel the same way you do, the language is changing under our feet. As you point out, the replacement of "might" by "may" as the past or contrary-to-fact form of "may" is "increasingly common", and it is you and I whose blank or irritated looks are becoming the exception. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 01:02:51 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:02:51 -0500 Subject: 401(k) "Lockdown"; "Macadamia" nutty In-Reply-To: <37.213aac68.297773c7@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > OED supposedly has revised "m," so I assumed that its "macadamia" > entry was perfect. I didn't look anywhere else. > But what the hay, I turned to THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DICTIONARY > (Oxford University Press, 1988). My 1893 citation isn't there, but > "macadamia" has citations from 1857, 1880, and 1927. These couldn't > make the OED? > Who revised this OED entry? When I look in the OED I see an 1858 quotation -- perhaps this is the same as the 1857 citation you mention, differently dated -- and a 1927 citation -- perhaps this is the same as the 1927 citation in the AND. 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 wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Wed Jan 16 21:00:13 2002 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 21:00:13 -0000 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary Message-ID: Jon Lighter's agent is currently negotiating a sale of the project to another publisher. I can't give out any details because they're not finalized, but Jon's in capable hands. Wendalyn Nichols ----- Original Message ----- From: "Evan Morris" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 3:29 PM Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary > Reposting a question that may have been lost in the holiday shuffle: > > > > > Given the untimely demise of the Random House Dictionary Division, does > anyone know what is to become of the Historical Dictionary of American > Slang project? From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 17 02:17:35 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:17:35 -0600 Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: Cannibal 2 James A. Landau said: This same source, as I recall, made the statement that the Iroquois, at least the ones that formed the Five Nations, were masters of psychological warfare, so it was a reasonable conclusion that the Mohawk, whether or not they actually were cannibals, were quite happy to have other Native Americans thinking they were. Carl Jeffrey Weber had written: > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. JAL This statement to me sounds suspiciously like a blood libel. Aside from the Aztecs, whose ritual cannibalism seems to be well attested, I will insist on reasonably good evidence on Native American anthropophagy. (This includes the Caribs, for whom I have never seen any well-attested evidence for cannibalism. The Caribs must have had a reputation among their neighbors resembling that of the Iroquois among theirs, and both sets of neighbors appear to have accepted the legend of cannibalism. That legend could have been due either to fear or to denigration of enemies---the Native American equivalent of "gook"!) CJW (Rhetorical question:) Why the collocation "ritual" cannibalism?? For all the prayers of the Conquistadors, shouldn't they not be granted the same courtesy, i.e., ritual "conquest and annihilation"?? One problem is determining WHAT exactly, or more or less, constitutes "reasonably good evidence"; and another problem is the epistemological quagmire that beckons when there are irreconcilable differences - the majority of Black Americans believe that OJ is innocent. Regarding athropophagic tendencies -- In studying how language grows out of culture, and how culture grows out of language, who - I ask -- would object that truth demands attention to, or at least acknowledgement of, the gamut of proclivities in the smorgasbord of human behaviors - from pastrami to, well, whatever else is on the menu/womenu. Going back to original sources - first hand information -- is the only way one will encounter "good evidence" documentation -- if one's argument is to be believed. The circumstances, the motives of the players, and the temper of the times - all need consideration, and I think I have been considerate. I would very much like to know why I am mis-appraising this, if I am. ///////////////// These are from Parkman's mention of cannibalism in his French Colonial history, the best seller for low and high brow alike since 1865. All his material is referenced with original source narratives - many of which I have read, if not exhaustively, at least representatively. Fascinating adventure and human ordeal! The real stuff of the opening to Europe of the North American interior. Cannibalism is encountered frequently. There's no big deal made about it. Life in the state of nature was nasty, short, and brutish, as said one contemporary commentor. One of the institutions of paleolithic society seems to have been cannibalism. It's part of the human story. Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer of evidence, but maybe there are others. --------------- Historians like Parkman have fallen into disfavor in academia - I suppose for harboring those deep values of the Western canon, like a "truth" that is not relative and contingent. Like Friend's "contingent slavery". "Contingent" making it - kind a', sort a', not too not OK. --------------- These are from Parkman, and he cites the sources. 1024 in reference to Henri Joutel, "like nearly all the early observers of Indian manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism" 265 [from Champlain's volumes] That night, the torture fires blazed along the shore. Champlain saved one prisoner from their clutches, but nothing could save the rest. One body was quartered and eaten. "As for the rest of the prisoners, "says Champlain, "they were kept to be put to death by the women and girls, who in this respect are no less inhuman than the men, and indeed, much more so; for by their subtlety they invented more cruel tortures, and take pleasure in it." 361-62 Re Huron Religious festivals, councils, the entertainment of an envoy, the inauguration of a chief, were all occasions of festivity, in which social pleasure was joined with matters of grave import, and which at times gathered nearly all the nation into one great and harmonious concourse. Warlike expeditions, too, were always preceded by feasting, at which the warriors vaunted the fame of their ancestors, and their own past and prospective exploits. A hideous scene of feasting followed the torture of the prisoners. Like the torture itself, it was, among the Hurons, partly an act of vengeance, and partly a religious rite. If the victim had shown courage, the heart was first roasted, cut into small pieces, and given to the young men and boys, who devoured it to increase their own courage. The body was then divided, thrown into the kettles and eaten by the assembly, the head being the portion of the chief. Many of the Hurons joined in the feast with reluctance and horror, while others took pleasure in it. This was the only form of cannibalism among them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely under the desperation of extreme famine. 496 Lalemant, Relations des Hurons, 1639. The Hurons, this year, had had unwonted success in their war with the Iroquois, and had taken, at various times, nearly a hundred prisoners. Many of these were brought to the seat of the new mission of St. Joseph, and put to death with frightful tortures, though not before several had been converted and baptized. The torture was followed, in spite of the remonstrances of the priests, by those cannibal feasts customary with Hurons on such occasions. Once, when the Fathers had been strenuous in their denunciations, a hand of the victim, duly prepared, was flung in at their door, as an invitation to join in the festivity. As the owner of the severed member had been baptized, they dug a hole in their chapel, and buried it with solemn rites of sepulture. 572-3 A band of Algonquins, late in the autumn of 1641, set forth from Three Rivers on their winter hunt, and, fearful of the Iroquois, made their way far northward, into the depths of the forests that border the Ottawa. Here they thought themselves safe, built their lodges, and began to hunt the moose and beaver. But a large party of their enemies, with a persistent ferocity that is truly astonishing, had penetrated even here, found the traces of the snowshoe, followed up their human prey, and hid at nightfall among the rocks and thickets around the encampment. At midnight, their yells and blows of their war-clubs awakened their sleeping victims. In a few minutes all were in their power. They bound the prisoners hand and foot, rekindled the fire, slung the kettles, cut the bodies of the slain to pieces, and boiled and devoured them before the eyes of the wretched survivors. "in a word," said the narrator, "they ate men with as much appetite and more pleasure than hunters eat a boar or a stag." 573 ... with their prisoners. Among these were three women, of whom the narrator was one, who had each a child of a few weeks or months old. At the first halt, their captors took their infants from them, tied them to wooden spits, placed them to die slowly before a fire, and feasted on them before the eyes of the agonized mothers, whose shrieks, supplications, and frantic efforts to break the cords that bound them were met with mockery and laughter. "They are not men, they are wolves!" sobbed the wretched woman, as she told what had befallen her to the pitying Jesuit. 955 La Salle made five journeys of upwards of five thousand leagues, in great part on foot; and traversed more than six hundred leagues of unknown country, among savages and cannibals.... More Parkman: Traces of cannibalism may be found among most of the North American tribes, though they are rarely very conspicuous. Sometimes the practice arose, as in the present instance, from revenge or ferocity; sometimes it bore a religious character, as with the Miamis, among whom there existed a secret religious fraternity of man-eaters, sometimes the heart of a brave enemy was devoured in the idea that it made the eater brave. This last practice was common. The ferocious threat, used in speaking of an enemy, "I will eat his heart," is by no means a figure of speech. The roving hunter-tribes, in their winter wanderings, were not infrequently impelled to cannibalism by famine. ------------------------------ There are many description available like the above, either the actual sources themselves, or a clear reference in paraphrase. ----------------------------- As far as the Carib being cannibals, I posted the URL of Munster's map (early 16th century) with Canibalis written where the Carib are http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/2-8.htm. These are the people the word came from. Of course that is not proof - but only one item in the preponderance of evidence. Some of what has been said here by other participants has its thread going way back : "The natives live in great fear of the cannibals (i.e., Caribals, or people of Cariba)" -- Columbus. (cited in E. C. Brewer). ////////////////////////////////////////////// There is plenty of evidence, in plenty of in those dusty old books at the library. However, for some people, this kind of evidence would not be sufficient to convince. I can accept that. Furthermore,, I hope the suspicion about "blood libel" is assuaged. CJW Chicago Ontology Recapitulates Philology From angelus at TRUTHMAIL.COM Thu Jan 17 06:49:24 2002 From: angelus at TRUTHMAIL.COM (Administrator) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 01:49:24 -0500 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Notification: You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. at http://www.getabortion.info What you will never see on TV. Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for abortion, will tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join there is human life. Why won't the media show you this? They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other operations on tv and cable. Why not an abortion? You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about abortion. Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of pregnancy, including the day of birth? Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an abortion without their parents knowing? Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US alone kills over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent unborn human murdered every 22 seconds! An entire genertion has been slaughtered. Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated by the money mongers of the industry. See it for yourself. http://getabortion.info From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 09:26:30 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 04:26:30 EST Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: SI COVER JINX The January 21, 2002 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED cover story is: The Cover that _No One_ Would Pose for Is the _SI Jinx_ for Real? I did both "jinx" and "cover jinx" in the old ADS-L archives; the latter citation has been destroyed. The "cover jinx" unquestionably comes from TIME magazine, SI's parent company. The author of the article was on NY1 "Sports on 1" cable television tonight. I tried to call in but didn't get on. -------------------------------------------------------- O.T.: NEW YORK FOOD MUSEUM Another lecture of the New York Culinary Historians is tonight, Thursday, January 17th, 6:30 p.m. registration, Grace Church, East 86th Street (south side) between Lexington and Park. The speaker is Anne Houk-Lawson from the New York Food Museum, and she'll talk about NY food. Food is included in the admission. David Shulman was interested in going, but I couldn't promise him pastrami with an egg cream. Next month's speaker is William Woys Weaver, who's working on SCRIBNER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD. -------------------------------------------------------- "MACADAMIA" IN OED I'm a little confused with Fred's results. Type in "macadamia" on the left side and the hits all show "1904," supposedly the date of the first "macadamia." You do get the 1858 cite, but _only_ if you pull down "etymology" on the "macadamia" entry. The 1858 cite is also noted as "1857" in the AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DICTIONARY. The 1880 AND cite and the 1893 Periodicals Contents Index hit (both before 1904) weren't used. This is just one, corrected food entry.... -------------------------------------------------------- ANTS ON A LOG I was chatting with a woman about "Ants on a Tree," the Chinese menu item. She confused it with "Ants on a Log," the Girl Scouts menu item. Cookbook.com shows a lot of "ants" recipes, most of the "log" variety. "Ants on a Log" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK. I'll try to work on it today. My first guess is the POOH COOK BOOK (1969), then I'll continue with juvenile cookery. A Google/Deja check shows (chime in with any more): Ants on a log Ants climbing a log Bugs on a log Fire ants on a log Salmon going upstream Gnats on a log Cockroaches on a log Caterpillers on a log Poopy on a log -------------------------------------------------------- DELICATESSEN MERCHANT The NYPL has a magazine called DELICATESSEN MERCHANT, from 1933 to 1946. "Assorted Cold Cuts" is in June 1934, pg. 20. (Mariani: "The first printed reference to the term appeared in 1940.") What did the industry shorten the name to? From November 1933, pg. 27, col. 2: "The Astoria Grocers tried to raise Hell, But kept far away from Eric's Del." And from January 1946, pg. 8, cols. 1-2 headline: "_Yankee-style dishes popularize Boston del_." A "DO YOU KNOW THAT" cartoon, March 1934, pg. 6: THE _FIRST_ DELICATESSEN STORE IN AMERICA WAS ESTABLISHED IN NEW YORK CITY, BACK IN 1801......AND NOW THERE ARE _OVER 8000_ IN THE U.S.A.!!! From February 1946, pg. 8, col. 2: _"Dated beverages"_ are a sales appeal that may find wide popularity after awhile, as it has already with coffee. One Eastern soft drink manufacturer now uses the "date" technique. His advertising features this label statement: "This beverage is at its best when used before the date punched on this label." (We don't need no stinking dates. Over at Parking, our Coke cans advertise the Radio City Christmas Show--ed.) From sylvar at VAXER.NET Thu Jan 17 12:04:44 2002 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 04:04:44 -0800 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: <200201170502.g0H52SP18629@maple.vaxer.net> Message-ID: > Apparently the modern Web advertiser believes that user apoplexy Or should we call it apopuplexy? Ben From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 12:39:50 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 07:39:50 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log In-Reply-To: <16b.742e7d2.2977f2c8@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > The 1858 cite is also noted as "1857" in the AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL > DICTIONARY. The 1880 AND cite and the 1893 Periodicals Contents Index > hit (both before 1904) weren't used. Just as the OED does not include every term and phrase from the English language and other languages, it also does not include every early citation. Beyond the earliest use they can find, they pick and choose a small number of other citations that they think are illustrative of the word's usage. They probably intentionally avoid just repeating all the citations from other historical dictionaries. 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 fitzke at MICHCOM.NET Thu Jan 17 14:12:37 2002 From: fitzke at MICHCOM.NET (Robert Fitzke) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 09:12:37 -0500 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake up to reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. ----- Original Message ----- From: Administrator To: Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > Notification: > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > What you will never see on TV. > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for abortion, will > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join there > is human life. > > Why won't the media show you this? > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other operations on tv > and cable. > > Why not an abortion? > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about abortion. > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an > abortion without their parents knowing? > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US alone kills > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent unborn human > murdered every 22 seconds! > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated by > the money mongers of the industry. > > See it for yourself. > > http://getabortion.info > From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 17 14:01:53 2002 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 09:01:53 -0500 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... In-Reply-To: <1011250164.699@0.0.1> Message-ID: Uh, first it was the ??? Messages that originated somewhere in Asia, and now it's this stuff. Is anybody aware of what's making its way to the list. FWIW, I don't find this last message all that germane to the larger concerns of ADS. My two cents. On 1/17/02 1:49 AM, "Administrator" wrote: > Notification: > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > at http://www.getabortion.info > -- Bob Haas Department of English High Point University "Wherever you go, there you are." From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Thu Jan 17 14:15:37 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 16:15:37 +0200 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... In-Reply-To: <017901c19f61$2856b620$24d513d0@rjiredff> Message-ID: I may understand those who support abortions and those who do not. I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the ADS-L. Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > Of Robert Fitzke > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake up to > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Administrator > To: > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > Notification: > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > abortion, will > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join > there > > is human life. > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > operations on tv > > and cable. > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about > abortion. > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US > alone kills > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > unborn human > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated > by > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 15:12:05 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:12:05 EST Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry is bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than 1858 or 1880 or 1893. And I never said that every word from everywhere in the world must be in the OED. And yes, I know that AMERICAN SPEECH note on "86" was prepared before I posted on "86" in December. But it's a bad note anytime. From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 17 15:22:33 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:22:33 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: Barry, I think you're missing something here. When I log into the OED (which I access on a cost-effective basis through the Quality Paperback Book Club, qpb.com) and search for Macadamia, it presents a listing beginning with the 1904 cite, but there is also a button marked "Later" at the upper right corner of the screen. When I click that button, it presents a "NEW EDITION: draft entry Mar. 2000," and the draft entry includes cites from 1857 and 1927. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [SMTP:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 10:12 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log > > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry is > bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than 1858 or > 1880 or 1893. > And I never said that every word from everywhere in the world must be > in the OED. > And yes, I know that AMERICAN SPEECH note on "86" was prepared before I > posted on "86" in December. But it's a bad note anytime. > > From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 17 15:32:45 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:32:45 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry > is bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than > 1858 or 1880 or 1893. Barry, you're not looking at the revised OED entry, you're looking at OED2. The revised OED entry does have cites from 1858, 1904, and 1927. If you look at the top right portion of the screen I'm quite sure you'll see "SECOND EDITION 1989" there, with a button labelled "LATER" that will bring you to the revised OED. Jesse Sheidlower OED From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 15:35:08 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:35:08 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry is > bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than 1858 > or 1880 or 1893. I think your point boils down to the fact that the basic searches in the OED Online point to the second edition, with new material as a somewhat hidden "add-on". I agree that that is confusing to the user. > And I never said that every word from everywhere in the world must be > in the OED. When you seem to criticize the OED for omitting uncommon, unnaturalized words from other languages, it is hard for the reader of your postings not to conclude that you think all words from all languages should be in the OED (all food words, at least!). > And yes, I know that AMERICAN SPEECH note on "86" was prepared before > I posted on "86" in December. But it's a bad note anytime. Agreed. But I think your valid points would be more credible if they were not so mixed with seemingly invalid points. (I mean this in a friendly spirit -- your valid points deserve more publicity than they get, and I am trying to suggest how you might get more of a hearing.) 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 mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 17 16:05:44 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 11:05:44 -0500 Subject: Yankee (was: The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, Laurence Horn wrote: #Well, yes, as an almost certain folk etymology, although the "Jan" #part may be right (especially based on its hypocoristic variant #"Janke"). Still, it's something of a relief to turn from ritual #torture and cannibalism to pastrami and cheese. (Urp!) 'Scuse me! -- Tasty thread, this... but not under the subject line of "the finger"! -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 17 16:38:19 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 08:38:19 -0800 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: <353781.3220163334@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: Indeed I should have checked my Dutch dictionary first. The name of the figure is in fact Jan Kaas, which my Nederlands Koenen (M.J. Koenen-J.B. Drewes, Verklarend Handwoordenboek der Nederlandse Taal) defines as "verpersoonlijking van Nederland, van de Nederlander, z. John Bull" (personification of the Netherlands, of the Dutchman, cf. John Bull). Confusion about the pronunciation could have arisen from an earlier spelling "ae" to indicate /a:/, still to be found in a few place and family names. But I doubt that English-speaking colonial Americans could have picked up a form /jan ke:s/ directly from the pronunciation of Dutch-speaking neighbors. Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:48 AM -0800 "Peter A. McGraw" wrote: > Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a > source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for > cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a > common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric > figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with > cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a > connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: > given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted > vowel, I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form > kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big > Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) > > Peter Mc. > > --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" > wrote: > >> Joe; I think you have this backwards. >> >> One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John >> Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The >> explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding >> English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" >> label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. >> >> What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned >> it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy >> and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we >> made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with >> new findings I haven't followed. >> >> dInIs >> >> >> >>> Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >>> >>> According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >>> English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >>> populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >>> anyone? --Joe F. >> >> >> -- > > > > ************************************************************************* > *** Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 04:02:37 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 12:02:37 +0800 Subject: Fwd: crosspost of possible interest Message-ID: As usual, responses should be directed to the poster, Mr. Lee, as well as copying us. larry --- begin forwarded text LINGUIST List: Vol-13-98. Thu Jan 17 2002. ISSN: 1068-4875. Subject: 13.98, Qs: "Standard American" Accent Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 12:17:58 +0800 (CST) From: clee at cc.NCTU.edu.tw Subject: Standard American accent? Dear Linguists, Someone recently asked me if there was a "standard" American accent. I responded by saying that there are many different American accents and no standard one. But I also mentioned that there was a general concensus among Americans that the northwest accent, seemed to be special among all of them in that it: 1. is the one most people have no problems understanding, 2. is the one that seems to have the least noticable accent, 3. is the one that is the most nondescript, is the one people made least fun of, etc. I recall being told something to this effect 20 years ago and I think they said this was due to some research (anybody know if this is true?). But the research also suggested that this may not be due to anything special about the northwest accent but simply because the national TV newscasters spoke with this accent. But the research also left open the possibility that the TV networks used this accent because they also knew or discovered that it was the most understandable accent. REQUEST I want to make sure that my own bias (I grew up in the northwest) is not influencing me, so what I want to ask this list is if there has really been any research in this area, regardless of whether it was from 20 years ago or more recently? If so, what research has been done and what were their conclusions? Also, other questions that come to mind are: * Is there a way to "objectively" determine in a linguistic way which accent should be the most understandable apart from other factors such as accent exposure or social norms? * Is there a way to quatify what is the most nondescript (i.e. central) accent? - Charles Lee, Ph.D Linguistics --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-13-98 --- end forwarded text From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 18:17:28 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:17:28 EST Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/2002 7:49:19 PM, sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM writes: << AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in bringing down the plane"..... To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been pretty confused about the outcome. A. Murie >> There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some environments. I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the sociolinguistic literature. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 17 18:40:06 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:40:06 -0800 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Alexey: Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. Frankly, I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexey Fuchs" To: Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:15 AM Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > I may understand those who support abortions and those who do not. > I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. > > What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the ADS-L. > > Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > > Of Robert Fitzke > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake up to > > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Administrator > > To: > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > Notification: > > > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > > abortion, will > > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join > > there > > > is human life. > > > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > > operations on tv > > > and cable. > > > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have > > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about > > abortion. > > > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of > > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an > > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US > > alone kills > > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > > unborn human > > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated > > by > > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > > > From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 17 18:42:24 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:42:24 -0800 Subject: Yankee (was: The Finger) Message-ID: To all: > #Well, yes, as an almost certain folk etymology, although the "Jan" > #part may be right (especially based on its hypocoristic variant > #"Janke"). Still, it's something of a relief to turn from ritual > #torture and cannibalism to pastrami and cheese. > > (Urp!) 'Scuse me! -- Tasty thread, this... but not under the > subject line of "the finger"! Wouldn't "Janke" be kind of like "Johnny" in English? Anne G From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Thu Jan 17 18:53:17 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:53:17 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might could"? I think so. Ellen Ellen Johnson Assistant Professor of Linguistics Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing Berry College, Box 350 Mt. Berry, GA 30149 706-368-5638 http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ ejohnson at berry.edu Ron Butters: There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some environments. I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the sociolinguistic literature. From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 19:01:09 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:01:09 EST Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: In a message dated 1/17/2002 1:52:32 PM, ejohnson at BERRY.EDU writes: << do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might could"? I think so. Ellen >> I never thought about that--might be. Or should I say "may be"? From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 19:15:56 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:15:56 EST Subject: EXTREME LIFE form Message-ID: I came across the phrase EXTREME LIFE in today's DURHAM MORNING HERALD (1/17/ 02, pA7/1&3); not sure from the context if it is a nonce form, a mistake, or some established form that I knew nothing about before: <> The article refers to a an article published today in the journal NATURE. From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 17 19:27:43 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:27:43 -0500 Subject: EXTREME LIFE form Message-ID: Extreme life has been around for a few years at least. I believe it was first coined to label the various plant and animal forms discovered living around deep ocean volcanic vents. RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > I came across the phrase EXTREME LIFE in today's DURHAM MORNING HERALD (1/17/ > 02, pA7/1&3); not sure from the context if it is a nonce form, a mistake, or > some established form that I knew nothing about before: > > < without sunlight or oxygen. ... In the light of the findings, researchers > said the question should no longer be whether extreme life exists on Mars and > elsewhere.>> > > The article refers to a an article published today in the journal NATURE. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 17 19:48:28 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 11:48:28 -0800 Subject: EXTREME LIFE form Message-ID: Ron: > I came across the phrase EXTREME LIFE in today's DURHAM MORNING HERALD (1/17/ > 02, pA7/1&3); not sure from the context if it is a nonce form, a mistake, or > some established form that I knew nothing about before: > > < without sunlight or oxygen. ... In the light of the findings, researchers > said the question should no longer be whether extreme life exists on Mars and > elsewhere.>> I"ve never seen "extreme" used in this sense, for a biological life form, but "extreme" used as a kind of substitute for "ultimate" or "dangerous" or "risky" has been around for some years now(think of the phrase "extreme sports"). Anne g From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 06:50:05 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:50:05 +0800 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <28.20ab1e55.29786f38@aol.com> Message-ID: At 1:17 PM -0500 1/17/02, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >In a message dated 1/16/2002 7:49:19 PM, sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM writes: > ><< AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to >say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane >prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in >bringing down the plane"..... >To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on >Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been >pretty confused about the outcome. >A. Murie >> > >There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >environments. I agree with almost everything Ron says about this merger, except that (i) while there is the age correlation he mentions, it's not absolute. (Actually Ron does say "most", which is probably right.) I check this with my students annually when I teach semantics, and there's always a (non-age-correlated) split among them. The half (or so) who retain the distinction between epistemic 'may' vs. metalinguistic 'might' are as incredulous about the other half (or so) as positive "anymore" speakers are at the fact that not everyone is one. (ii) I don't think it's AS significant a variable as invariant "be", as Ron opines below, but it's one I'm more interested in. > >I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >sociolinguistic literature. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 17 20:41:35 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:41:35 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <04075613166AF949913A8094A388272A119FA3@FSMAIL.AD.Berry.edu> Message-ID: Certainly not for me. I can say 'might could' but have never been able to say 'may can.' dInIs >do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might >could"? I think so. Ellen > >Ellen Johnson >Assistant Professor of Linguistics >Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing >Berry College, Box 350 >Mt. Berry, GA 30149 >706-368-5638 >http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ >ejohnson at berry.edu > > > >Ron Butters: >There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >environments. > >I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >sociolinguistic literature. -- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 20:48:23 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:48:23 EST Subject: S'Mores, Migas (1934) Message-ID: THE OUTDOOR BOOK by Gladys Snyder and C. Frances Loomis Book Number Eight of the Library of the Seven Crafts of the Camp Fire Girls Camp Fire Outfitting Company New York City c. 1934 Pg. 63: BACON AND EGGS ON A STONE... BREAD TWIST... Pg. 66: IMU... Pg. 74: MIGAS From Fort Worth, Texas, comes this recipe which is a favorite among Camp Fire Girls in the southwest: 1 dozen tortillas 1/4 lb. cheese 1 onion 1 can tomatoes 1 small can tomato sauce 1/2 can Wesson oil 1 teaspoon chili powder 2 cloves of garlic 1 teaspoon salt Cut tortillas into twelve parts. Pour oil into pan and heat very hot. Drop pieces of tortillas into fat and, when crisp, drain on paper. Put 1/2 cup of hot fat back in pan (set other aside; do not throw away.) Add onion and garlic which have been chopped fine together, to hot fat. Brown well, add tomatoes, and tomato sauce and bring to a boil. THen add cheese. Season with chili powder and salt. Add tortilla chips. Stir and heat. Serve. TAFFY APPLES... Pg. 79: NOOCHEETO 2 boxes noodles (wide) 2 packages snappy cheese 8 slices toast 2 picnic size cans tomato soup or equivalent 1 teaspoon salt.... BLUSHING BUNNY 3 picnic size cans tomato soup 1 lb. American cheese, cut in small pieces 2 eggs toast.... Pg. 80: CAMPERS' DELIGHT... CHINESE MYSTERY... WILDERNESS HASH... Pg. 81: SQUAW DISH (bacon, onions, tomatoes, corn--ed.) Pg. 96: HEAVENLY CRISP _(Also known as "S'mores")_ 8 bars of plain chocolate (Hershey's or any of the good plain brands of chocolate) 16 graham crackers 16 marshmallows Toast two marshmallows over the coals to a crisp, gooey state and then put them inside a graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich. The heat of the marshmallow between the halves of chocolate bar will melt the chocolate just enough, and the graham crackers on the outside are nice to hold on to, as well as tasy. Though it tastes like "some more," one is really enough. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 20:56:21 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:56:21 EST Subject: Chow Mien (1889?)(1892?) Message-ID: HOW TO BUY FOOD, HOW TO COOK IT, AND HOW TO SERVE IT by Alessandro Filippini REVISED EDITION, WITH SUPPLEMENTS Charles L. Wester & Company, NY 1892 (First published 1889) Pg. 414 (Hongkong Menu): Bow Ha Mai. Boiled Prawns in Oil. Chow Chop Suey. Bits of Pork Chops. (...) Pg. 415: Chow Gai Pien. Fried Chicken Wings. (...) Dein Som. Sweetmeats and Jellies. (...) Pg. 416 (Yokahama Menu): Sashimi. Raw Sliced Fish. Teriyaki. Roast Fish. Shiwoyaki. Roasted Fish. (...) Shoyu. Sauce. Saki. Rice Whiskey. Pg. 417 (Corea Menu): Chow Mien. A Kind of Boiled Macaroni, Fried with Thin Strips of Chicken, Pork, Mushrooms, and Celery. ("Ants" later tonight! Gotta go!--ed.) From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Thu Jan 17 21:36:56 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 16:36:56 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: Although might could was once my only acceptable double modal, I find myself saying may can more and more. but then, I'm younger than you! still in Ron's under-45 age group, in fact. Ellen -----Original Message----- From: Dennis R. Preston [mailto:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 3:42 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: may/might confusion Certainly not for me. I can say 'might could' but have never been able to say 'may can.' dInIs >do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might >could"? I think so. Ellen > >Ellen Johnson >Assistant Professor of Linguistics >Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing >Berry College, Box 350 >Mt. Berry, GA 30149 >706-368-5638 >http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ >ejohnson at berry.edu > > > >Ron Butters: >There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >environments. > >I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >sociolinguistic literature. -- From ging at HANMAIL.NET Thu Jan 17 21:44:16 2002 From: ging at HANMAIL.NET (ging) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 06:44:16 +0900 Subject: []ε Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 17 23:46:12 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 18:46:12 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <107.b73f8a0.29787975@aol.com> Message-ID: This would explain the "seeming" lack of verb sequencing in a line in "American Tongues," where a boot seller in Kentucky tells the buyer "he may could wear it in a(n) 8 and a half." I've listened closely many times and I'm sure it's "may could." So perhaps the can/could distinction still holds, even while the may/might one is being lost. "May can" would be distinct from "may could" then, right? At 02:01 PM 1/17/02 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 1/17/2002 1:52:32 PM, ejohnson at BERRY.EDU writes: > ><< do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might could"? > I think so. Ellen >> > >I never thought about that--might be. Or should I say "may be"? _____________________________________________ 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 abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 18 02:32:51 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:32:51 -0500 Subject: FW: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: RE what Jesse says below, i believe it is also OED policy to give the earliest dated citation that seems reliable. The evidence (that can be trusted) is the evidence. Jesse? Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Jesse Sheidlower Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 10:33 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry > is bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than > 1858 or 1880 or 1893. Barry, you're not looking at the revised OED entry, you're looking at OED2. The revised OED entry does have cites from 1858, 1904, and 1927. If you look at the top right portion of the screen I'm quite sure you'll see "SECOND EDITION 1989" there, with a button labelled "LATER" that will bring you to the revised OED. Jesse Sheidlower OED From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 18 02:42:57 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:42:57 -0500 Subject: Standard American accent? Message-ID: Not to be contrary, but in my view the most "neutral" American dialect is that heard from those raised in, or longtime denizens of Nebraska. I myself (from northern Ohio/SE Michigan) find the northwest dialect marked, at least in terms of intonational patterns. Examples of native Nebraskans in the media are Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett (influenced, no doubt, by his NE education and long habitation), and Tom Brokaw (overlooking his trouble with saying the letter L). Frank Abate Dictionary & Reference Specialists (DRS) Consulting & Lexicographic Services (860) 349-5400 abatefr at earthlink.net From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 18 02:58:29 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:58:29 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: > RE what Jesse says below, i believe it is also OED policy to give the > earliest dated citation that seems reliable. > > The evidence (that can be trusted) is the evidence. > > Jesse? Quite right. We do check all the historical dictionaries, among many other works, and we would very much hope we didn't miss anything in something like the AND. If one of the dictionaries had an early citation that OED felt was _not_ reliable, we'd probably say so in a note just so no one would think we missed it. (This does not apply to slightly differing bibliographical standards that cause AND's 1857 quote to appear as 1858 in OED3.) Jesse Sheidlower OED From pjs7353 at LYCOS.CO.KR Fri Jan 18 01:57:13 2002 From: pjs7353 at LYCOS.CO.KR (DC90) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:57:13 +0900 Subject: []BMW 7980,Ʈ 2250, 6500 常Ͻ ֽϴ Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Fri Jan 18 07:30:39 2002 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 02:30:39 EST Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: I also think the age factor in "may" vs. "might" isn't so clear. For me, "may" has never existed outside of a polite form of "can" (yeah, I know may isn't a FORM of can, still...). As in "May I go to the bathroom?" vs. "Can I go to the bathroom." That's it. Everywhere else I have "might". My roommate, however, (whom I have known since kindergarten, same town, etc.) makes a hard distinction between "may" and "might" (as well as "can" and "could", which I'm not sure I do). She's asleep. I'll ask the difference tomorrow. Then again, "might could" etc. are completely foreign to her, whereas I have some of them. I do not have "may can" or "may could", the second sounding absolutely ridiculous to me. Incidentally, we were both taught in jr. high that "might" was the past tense of "may" and that was that. -dsb Douglas S. Bigham Southern Illinois University - Carbondale From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 18 09:21:17 2002 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:21:17 -0000 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: > Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. > Frankly, I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. The ADS-L list is set so anybody can post messages to it. In the past this has not caused problems, but now the spammers have discovered it (recent Korean messages, abortion tracts), it is likely that the number of unwanted postings will increase rapidly. It might be worth the list owners considering a revision of the policy on who can post to the list. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From mlee303 at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 18 10:16:40 2002 From: mlee303 at YAHOO.COM (Margaret Lee) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 02:16:40 -0800 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... In-Reply-To: <007701c19f86$63b93240$4cfafd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: It's not surprising that this message was sent to this list, given the fact that mass e-mail addresses are available to anyone who seeks them. --- "ANNE V. GILBERT" wrote: > Alexey: > > Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. > Frankly, > I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. > Anne G > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Alexey Fuchs" > To: > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:15 AM > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > I may understand those who support abortions and those who do > not. > > I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. > > > > What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the > ADS-L. > > > > Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > > > Of Robert Fitzke > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > > > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake > up to > > > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: Administrator > > > To: > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > > > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > > Notification: > > > > > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want > you to > know. > > > > > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > > > abortion, will > > > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and > sperm join > > > there > > > > is human life. > > > > > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > > > operations on tv > > > > and cable. > > > > > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors > who have > > > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say > about > > > abortion. > > > > > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all > nine months > of > > > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 > can get > an > > > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the > US > > > alone kills > > > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > > > unborn human > > > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood > propagated > > > by > > > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > > > > > ===== Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D. Associate Professor - English and Linguistics & University Editor Department of English Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668 (757)727-5769(voice);(757)727-5084(fax);(757)851-5773(home) e-mail: margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu or mlee303 at yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 18 11:05:49 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:05:49 -0000 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:30 am +0000 Douglas Bigham wrote: > I also think the age factor in "may" vs. "might" isn't so clear. Ditto. I (30-something) definitely have a may-might division, but when I teach modals, I find that some of my students don't have half the distinctions I have (and I'm not just talking Brit-American differences--same problems in US). Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Fri Jan 18 14:30:51 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:30:51 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <04075613166AF949913A8094A388272A119FA7@FSMAIL.AD.Berry.edu> Message-ID: I'm pretty sure you mean "the age group mentioned by Ron," not "Ron's age group." dInIs (who is two days older than Ron) >Although might could was once my only acceptable double modal, I >find myself saying may can more and more. but then, I'm younger >than you! still in Ron's under-45 age group, in fact. Ellen > >-----Original Message----- >From: Dennis R. Preston [mailto:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] >Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 3:42 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: may/might confusion > > >Certainly not for me. I can say 'might could' but have never been >able to say 'may can.' > >dInIs > > > >>do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might >>could"? I think so. Ellen >> >>Ellen Johnson >>Assistant Professor of Linguistics >>Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing >>Berry College, Box 350 >>Mt. Berry, GA 30149 >>706-368-5638 >>http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ >>ejohnson at berry.edu >> >> >> >>Ron Butters: >>There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >>people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >>distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >>with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >>case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >>had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >>to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >>is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >>which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >>castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >>really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >>its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >>though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >>environments. >> >>I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >>extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >>sociolinguistic literature. > > >-- From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Fri Jan 18 14:42:13 2002 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:42:13 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans Message-ID: Brokaw's from Yankton, which is spitting distance from Nebraska, but in S. Dakota. From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Fri Jan 18 15:11:23 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:11:23 -0600 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: <158.765af6f.29789475@aol.com> Message-ID: The Chicago Tribune had as a headline in the Tempo section on Wednesday the phrase "weapons-grade charisma" (in a story about Elvis impersonators). I've also finally seen in print (as opposed to Internet postings) the use of the word "heart" (or sometimes ) to stand for the heart symbol (as in "I heart NY"). The use was in a Jane mag advertorial and was something like "I heart these jeans!" I've also seen "" used in place of "heart," I think to signify desire (often facetious) rather than love. "I Russell Crowe" would be a typical use. Anyone else seen this? --Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 03:03:53 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:03:53 +0800 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:30 AM -0500 1/18/02, Douglas Bigham wrote: >I also think the age factor in "may" vs. "might" isn't so clear. For me, >"may" has never existed outside of a polite form of "can" (yeah, I know may >isn't a FORM of can, still...). As in "May I go to the bathroom?" vs. "Can I >go to the bathroom." That's it. Everywhere else I have "might". My >roommate, however, (whom I have known since kindergarten, same town, etc.) >makes a hard distinction between "may" and "might" (as well as "can" and >"could", which I'm not sure I do). She's asleep. I'll ask the difference >tomorrow. Well, I doubt you ALWAYS have "might" where others have "may". "You might not take one giant step" doesn't paraphrase "You may not...", where the negation takes scope over the permission modal. "Might" and "may" are much closer in the epistemic possibility use (It {may/might} rain) than they are in the deontic (permission) use or the related logical use (Parallel lines {may/#might} not meet). If "may not" is to be replaced here it would have to be with "can't", not with "might not". larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 03:12:01 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:12:01 +0800 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:11 AM -0600 1/18/02, Erin McKean wrote: >The Chicago Tribune had as a headline in the Tempo section on >Wednesday the phrase "weapons-grade charisma" (in a story about Elvis >impersonators). > >I've also finally seen in print (as opposed to Internet postings) the >use of the word "heart" (or sometimes ) to stand for the heart >symbol (as in "I heart NY"). The use was in a Jane mag advertorial >and was something like "I heart these jeans!" > >I've also seen "" used in place of "heart," I think to signify >desire (often facetious) rather than love. "I Russell Crowe" >would be a typical use. > Maybe it's just me, but another possible interpretation of the relation (especially with Russell Crowe as object) is that it's the antonym (rather than southerly intensifier) of . Of course, in a graphic representation, this could be alternately and unambiguously indicated by the appearance of a heart with a slash through it, but that's kind of hard to represent non-graphically. larry From dave at WILTON.NET Fri Jan 18 16:27:57 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 08:27:57 -0800 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Erin McKean Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 7:11 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" >The Chicago Tribune had as a headline in the Tempo section >on Wednesday the phrase "weapons-grade charisma" (in a >story about Elvis impersonators). Just a note on "weapons-grade." Having spent 1985-98 as an Army chemical officer and arms control negotiator for the Pentagon, I never heard the term "weapons-grade" applied to biological or chemical agents until journalists did so during the recent anthrax crisis. The term was used solely as in the OED2 definition, i.e., applied to fissile (nuclear) material. As for the figurative use, "Weapons-grade salsa" actually makes more sense associated with nuclear rather than biological material, which is also quite literally "hot." Our group in the Pentagon referred to salsa as being either "Schedule 1, 2, or 3," a reference to classes of chemicals in the Chemical Weapons Convention (Schedule 1 being the hottest/most lethal). But I am sure that was a local use and not adopted outside our small circle. "Weaponize" was commonly used for biological agents, less so for chemical (probably because that isn't such a daunting technical challenge and therefore not much of an issue). I don't recall it ever being used for nuclear material, where "enrich" is the common term. The sense is a bit vague, but it meant putting the agent in a device for effective dissemination. It did not mean, as the journalists tended to use it, treating the agent so that it was more virulent, of the proper particle size, etc. Although those steps could be part of "weaponization," that process wasn't complete until the complete weapon was ready for use. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 18 16:28:08 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:28:08 -0000 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Friday, January 18, 2002 11:12 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > Maybe it's just me, but another possible interpretation of the > relation (especially with Russell Crowe as object) is that it's the > antonym (rather than southerly intensifier) of . Of course, Hmmm...can a picture have an 'antonym'? Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Fri Jan 18 03:51:26 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:51:26 +0800 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: <385766.3220360088@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 4:28 PM +0000 1/18/02, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Friday, January 18, 2002 11:12 am +0800 Laurence Horn > wrote: > >>Maybe it's just me, but another possible interpretation of the >>relation (especially with Russell Crowe as object) is that it's the >>antonym (rather than southerly intensifier) of . Of course, > >Hmmm...can a picture have an 'antonym'? > Probably not, but a relation (whether it's represented lexically or graphically) can. larry From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 18 18:07:54 2002 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 18:07:54 -0000 Subject: Thisclose Message-ID: A World Wide Words subscriber has asked in some puzzlement about "thisclose", written as one word. I started off by thinking this was an obvious typo, but a quick newspaper archive search turned up more than a hundred examples in US periodicals, some of which had the word in quotes, suggesting that the writer was marking a known colloquialism. The ADS archives show that Barry Popik noted it about a year ago as a Wall Street usage. Does anyone have any information about its provenance, parentage, and probable distribution? If it is spoken, how is it distinguished from the two words said separately? (I have a mental image of the speaker holding up a hand with the first and second fingers pressed together, but is it augmented by some vocal emphasis?) -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Fri Jan 18 18:20:46 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:20:46 -0800 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Margaret: About all I can say to that is, I'm getting kinda tired of all these Korean-language e-mails in my inbox. I've blocked them, of course, but they keep coming . . . . . Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margaret Lee" To: Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 2:16 AM Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > It's not surprising that this message was sent to this list, given > the fact that mass e-mail addresses are available to anyone who seeks > them. > > --- "ANNE V. GILBERT" wrote: > > Alexey: > > > > Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. > > Frankly, > > I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. > > Anne G > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Alexey Fuchs" > > To: > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:15 AM > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > I may understand those who support abortions and those who do > > not. > > > I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. > > > > > > What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the > > ADS-L. > > > > > > Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: American Dialect Society > > [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > > > > Of Robert Fitzke > > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > > > > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > > > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake > > up to > > > > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > > From: Administrator > > > > To: > > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > > > > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > > > > > Notification: > > > > > > > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want > > you to > > know. > > > > > > > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > > > > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > > > > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > > > > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > > > > abortion, will > > > > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and > > sperm join > > > > there > > > > > is human life. > > > > > > > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > > > > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > > > > operations on tv > > > > > and cable. > > > > > > > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > > > > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors > > who have > > > > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say > > about > > > > abortion. > > > > > > > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all > > nine months > > of > > > > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > > > > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 > > can get > > an > > > > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > > > > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > > > > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the > > US > > > > alone kills > > > > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > > > > unborn human > > > > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > > > > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > > > > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood > > propagated > > > > by > > > > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > > > > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > > > > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > > > > > > > > > > ===== > Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D. > Associate Professor - English and Linguistics > & University Editor > Department of English > Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668 > (757)727-5769(voice);(757)727-5084(fax);(757)851-5773(home) > e-mail: margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu or mlee303 at yahoo.com > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! > http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 18 18:31:58 2002 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 12:31:58 -0600 Subject: Standard American accent? Message-ID: Many of us native Nebraskans have the low back vowel merger (cot = caught; Don = dawn). Does that disqualify us from being "Standard"? Frank Abate wrote: > Not to be contrary, but in my view the most "neutral" American dialect is > that heard from those raised in, or longtime denizens of Nebraska. > > I myself (from northern Ohio/SE Michigan) find the northwest dialect marked, > at least in terms of intonational patterns. > > Examples of native Nebraskans in the media are Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett > (influenced, no doubt, by his NE education and long habitation), and Tom > Brokaw (overlooking his trouble with saying the letter L). > > Frank Abate > Dictionary & Reference Specialists (DRS) > Consulting & Lexicographic Services > (860) 349-5400 > abatefr at earthlink.net From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jan 18 18:47:21 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:47:21 -0700 Subject: Biennial plea/reminder Message-ID: Howdy folks, Back again with the request/reminder to please not hit the "include previous message" with every response. Much as I enjoy Ron Butters' comments (and don't relish the abortion message), it gets a bit tiresome reading them five or six times, and my mailbox is almost at its limit from the 70,000 lines of text (2/3 repeated) that comes in the daily collection. It takes a few seconds to snip and select relevant previous comments that are being commented on, but it will save a lot of annoyance for listmembers not to have to page through many lines of repeated messages. I don't know how the archive operates, but it must certainly put a strain on it if all of the repeatedly included messages are also archived. Thanks to all, Rudy From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 19:25:09 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:25:09 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020118094144.00a1e530@mail> Message-ID: At 09:42 AM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >Brokaw's from Yankton, which is spitting distance from Nebraska, but in >[South] >Dakota. Yankton's not far from my home area in SW Minnesota, and Brokaw's not TOO much younger than I; yet I don't think we sound quite the same. The Northern/North Midland dialect boundary swerves upward as it crosses the Mississippi into Iowa, so that South Dakota is virtually split in two. Yankton is in the SE corner and essentially on the line, which is why I've always heard South Dakotans (and I've driven all across the state) as different from Minnesotans. Nebraska and points west are in this fanned out (North) Midland belt too, of course. This would suggest that the old North Midland designation may be what people are identifying as the "best" American English--mainly because it's simply spread so far from East to West. In other words, the majority speak it now, so ergo, it's the "best." The same ridiculous but common notion prevails in our Journalism school, where students are told that Columbus speech represents the "ideal" speech of their profession. (Here in SE Ohio the natives _don't_ speak that variety, which of course is why they're mocked, esp. by journalism and telecommunications students.) And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these fields. _____________________________________________ 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 Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Fri Jan 18 19:45:03 2002 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:45:03 EST Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: As far as "best" speech relates to news-anchors: Walter Cronkite's from Leavenworth, Kansas (and we Kansans always thought the "purity" of Kansas speech had something to do with his success. LOL...or maybe Kansas is simply too close to Nebraska....?) Or....what regional variety did Dan Rather learn when he jettisoned his "Texas" accent ? Maybe that points to what journalists themselves con- sider "best" ? Did Peter Jennings make any adjustments of his speech when he came from the CBC ? If not, is a "Canadian" accent the best "American" accent ? Steve Hicks From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 18 19:52:33 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:52:33 -0800 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020118140743.01790b30@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. Peter Mc. --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these > fields. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 18 20:19:55 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:19:55 EST Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: (apologies if I sent a blank e-mail ahead of this time---I hit the wrong button) "Collateral damage" supposedly is a US Armed Forces term (although in my experience it is used almost exclusively by reporters) meaning "civilian casualties." The phrase became well-known with the Gulf War (actually during Desert Shield, the build-up for the Gulf War). Since the US Armed Forces have not been deliberately targeting civilians (else there would have been a lot more civilian dead in the last decade!), the implication of "collateral damage" is "unintentional casualties" or "unfortunate casualties". >From two news articles on the collapse of Enron: David Wessel "The America That Says 'No'" _Wall Street Journal_ January 17, 2002, page A1 column 5: "Enron...was more like junk-bond pioneer Drexel Burnham Lambert, a case in which the Treasury and Fed [Federal Reserve] coped with collateral damage but didn't save the firm." Allan Sloan "Who Killed Enron" _Newsweek_ January 21, 1902, page 19 column 3: "The collateral damage keeps spreading." followed by sentences describing victims, presumably of the collateral damage in the quoted sentence (Arthur Andersen, Wall Street's credibility, utility deregulation, and "impoverished, unemployed Enronians". Two observations: 1) "collateral damage" is being used, not as a euphemism, but as a descriptive phrase, meaning (financial) damage to those collaterally involved in the business collapse (lenders, stockholders, other creditors, i.e. people who did not cause the business collapse but who ended up suffering financial losses because of it) 2) the people who suffer the "collateral damage" are not the innocent bystanders implied by the (alleged) military use of the term, but rather people who were involved in the company as lenders, stockholders, etc. They were not random victims of a war that was not supposed to come to them, but rather had made of their own free will the decision to put money into or to accept employment from Enron. - Jim Landau P.S. I doubt if either of the quoted authors realized it, but there is a far-fetched play on words. The victims who had loaned money to Enron suffered damage (or destruction) to their "collateral". From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 18 20:43:59 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:43:59 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <125.a6de7c2.2979d53f@aol.com> Message-ID: Ah cain;t detect this jettisoning mahsef. dInIs >As far as "best" speech relates to >news-anchors: > >Walter Cronkite's from Leavenworth, Kansas >(and we Kansans always thought the "purity" >of Kansas speech had something to do with >his success. LOL...or maybe Kansas is simply >too close to Nebraska....?) > >Or....what regional variety did Dan Rather learn >when he jettisoned his "Texas" accent ? Maybe >that points to what journalists themselves con- >sider "best" ? > >Did Peter Jennings make any adjustments of his >speech when he came from the CBC ? If not, is >a "Canadian" accent the best "American" accent ? > > > Steve Hicks From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 18 20:45:19 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:45:19 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <804437.3220343553@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: You've spent time in peculiar places then. It's very general everywhere west of of the Mississippi (expect in the southwest and the peculiar LA and SF metro areas). See the latest TELSUR maps from UPenn. dInIs >Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. > >Peter Mc. > >--On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan > wrote: > >>And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland >>and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" >>variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these >>fields. > > > >**************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Fri Jan 18 20:44:12 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 12:44:12 -0800 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: James: > "Collateral damage" supposedly is a US Armed Forces term (although in my > experience it is used almost exclusively by reporters) meaning "civilian > casualties." The phrase became well-known with the Gulf War (actually during > Desert Shield, the build-up for the Gulf War). Since the US Armed Forces > have not been deliberately targeting civilians (else there would have been a > lot more civilian dead in the last decade!), the implication of "collateral > damage" is "unintentional casualties" or "unfortunate casualties". > I think "collateral damage" dates back to the Vietnam period. Anne G From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 20:59:22 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:59:22 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: My colleague, who's from Spokane, Washington and is 61 years old, has the complete merger, including Dawn=Don. (And he hasn't picked it up here in SE Ohio.) At 03:45 PM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >You've spent time in peculiar places then. It's very general >everywhere west of of the Mississippi (expect in the southwest and >the peculiar LA and SF metro areas). See the latest TELSUR maps from >UPenn. > >dInIs > > > >>Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. >> >>Peter Mc. >> >>--On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan >> wrote: >> >>>And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland >>>and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" >>>variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these >>>fields. >> >> >> >>**************************************************************************** >> Peter A. McGraw >> Linfield College * McMinnville, OR >> pmcgraw at linfield.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 flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 21:03:39 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:03:39 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <125.a6de7c2.2979d53f@aol.com> Message-ID: I don't think anyone tries to emulate Peter Jennings, who is distinctly eastern Canadian. In fact, I think the idea that newscasters try to emulate any of these bigwigs is a myth put forward by the schools of journalism and broadcasting. At 02:45 PM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >As far as "best" speech relates to >news-anchors: > >Walter Cronkite's from Leavenworth, Kansas >(and we Kansans always thought the "purity" >of Kansas speech had something to do with >his success. LOL...or maybe Kansas is simply >too close to Nebraska....?) > >Or....what regional variety did Dan Rather learn >when he jettisoned his "Texas" accent ? Maybe >that points to what journalists themselves con- >sider "best" ? > >Did Peter Jennings make any adjustments of his >speech when he came from the CBC ? If not, is >a "Canadian" accent the best "American" accent ? > > > Steve Hicks _____________________________________________ 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 mnewman at QC.EDU Fri Jan 18 21:43:23 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:43:23 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <804437.3220343553@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city "have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually don't. All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less speech has been labeled "aristocratic." -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 18 22:05:10 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:05:10 -0800 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: >>> "Peter A. McGraw" 01/18/02 11:52AM >>> Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. Really? I think the vast majority of people in Oregon have caught/cot merger. I have it and a quick poll of one of my classes-24 students- came out 22-2 in favor of merger. One of the non-mergerers is from New jersey, the other is from LA. Also, in the worksheets that I did for LAPNW about 2 years ago, the majority had merger. So, I think the merger is pretty much the norm in Oregon. Fritz Juengling Peter Mc. --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these > fields. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 18 22:26:56 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:26:56 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their idiolect. The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of their speech. But is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as having the least amount of regional marking, such that a speaker of this variety would be difficult to place as to origin? Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Michael Newman Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 4:43 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Nebraskans/Standard English As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city "have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually don't. All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less speech has been labeled "aristocratic." -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 18 22:35:32 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:35:32 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: As one who was born and grew up in Lincoln NE, I'm not sure just what this Nebraskan accent is. There was a fair amount of variation in the speech I heard around me as a child. Some people, e.g., said "crick," others said "creek," I said "warsh" for wash. Is that Standard American? I don't know. At some point I realized that "the rest of the world" said "wash" and made an effort to suppress that /r/. A. Murie From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 22:40:58 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:40:58 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Frank Abate wrote: >Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- > >The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >idiolect. > >The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a >particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to >debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. > >What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal >amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be >clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many >parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, >for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of >their speech. > >But is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as >having the least amount of regional marking, such that a speaker of this >variety would be difficult to place as to origin? I think you're obscuring the question by your use of passive voice. Even with my dialectological savvy, there are accents of American English that *I* can't place (we won't say how many...). Elsewhere in this discussion, for instance, Beverly referred to several different Columbus (OH) accents, and I'm sure I'd be helpless at interpreting any kind of nuanced difference among them. But Beverly obviously can use these differences to place people. I'll generalize from that: for *any* accent of American English, I'd venture to say that there are some people out there, not necessarily dialectologists, who can identify speakers' origins based on that accent. What's non-descript to me isn't necessarily non-descript to others. Note that this is just an extension of the idea, *very* roughly put that many Americans have difficulty distinguishing South African, Australian, and New Zealand accents, even if these are *very* different to denizens of these areas. -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From mnewman at QC.EDU Fri Jan 18 22:56:31 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:56:31 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- > >The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >idiolect. Obviously, but in folk linguistics this is how it is expressed. You can't separate a supposedly neutral one from people's positive evaluation of such perception. People notice European-American NY or Boston (less Philly) and southern, but not as frequently Northern cities. They believe that Midwesterners speak similarly despite the fact that several dialect regions cross that area. All of which is to say that in the area of dialect perceptions, Americans do not map features to dialects with any consistency. So the question, is not really doesn't workable. Think of your question: "is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as having the least amount of regional marking." Once you've established a dialect, you've established a social group that speaks that way. Dialect is language variation by social group, by definition. So the only way the question makes sense is to say is there a dialect that people don't notice much. And the answer is that there are many because Americans aren't generally very good at noticing dialects. As Labov pointed out, how else is that Hollywood can get away with having a supposed NY cop on NYPD Blue speak with a strong Chicago accent? Ironically, there may be a dialect that really covers broad swaths of the US without great geographic varation: AAVE, according to Labov, although it seems clear that AAVE speakers in NY vary considerably from those in Chicago, for instance, phonologically. >The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a >particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to >debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. > >What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal >amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be >clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many >parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, >for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of >their speech. > >But, such that a speaker of this >variety would be difficult to place as to origin? > >Frank Abate > >-----Original Message----- >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf >Of Michael Newman >Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 4:43 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Nebraskans/Standard English > > >As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to >say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any >number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite >differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city >"have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, >and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not >South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas >that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or >another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, >anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various >Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern >cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to >apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually >don't. > >All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have >much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often >condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the >voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less >speech has been labeled "aristocratic." > > >-- >Michael Newman >Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics >Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders >Queens College/CUNY >Flushing, NY 11367 -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 23:14:55 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 18:14:55 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: When merged cot/caught, or 'warsh,' or "needs wa(r)shed," or positive "anymore" becomes general and widespread enough, they'll no longer be "marked" as to region or origin. And since (North) Midland speech seems to be moving toward "general and widespread enough," this is likely to become what we used to call General American--it just won't be the same old General American as 50 years ago. At 05:26 PM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- > >The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >idiolect. > >The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a >particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to >debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. > >What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal >amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be >clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many >parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, >for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of >their speech. > >But is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as >having the least amount of regional marking, such that a speaker of this >variety would be difficult to place as to origin? > >Frank Abate > >-----Original Message----- >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf >Of Michael Newman >Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 4:43 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Nebraskans/Standard English > > >As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to >say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any >number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite >differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city >"have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, >and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not >South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas >that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or >another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, >anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various >Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern >cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to >apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually >don't. > >All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have >much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often >condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the >voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less >speech has been labeled "aristocratic." > > >-- >Michael Newman >Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics >Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders >Queens College/CUNY >Flushing, NY 11367 _____________________________________________ 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 juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 18 23:57:52 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:57:52 -0800 Subject: Yankee Message-ID: Peter, in het boek _Nederlandse Dialectkunde_ blz. 210 lezen wij over WGERM. a^ :" Voorts heeft men een lange scherpe ee in een deel van Zuid-Beveland (bijv. Kruiningen), eej, ee, ei en ai in Noord-Holland benoorden het IJ, Tessel en Vlieland, een klank tussen ee en ae in Het Gooi en N.-Utrecht." Men ik weet niet, van welke gebied de kolonisten gekomen zijn. Natuurlijk heeft 'kaas' geen WGERM. a^, omdat dat en leenwoord is, maar het is met WGERM a^ tesammengevallen. met vriendelijke groeten, Fritz >>> "Peter A. McGraw" 01/16/02 09:48AM >>> Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted vowel, I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > Joe; I think you have this backwards. > > One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John > Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The > explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding > English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" > label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. > > What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned > it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy > and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we > made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with > new findings I haven't followed. > > dInIs > > > >> Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >> >> According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >> English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >> populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >> anyone? --Joe F. > > > -- **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 11:35:58 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 19:35:58 +0800 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:56 PM -0500 1/18/02, Michael Newman wrote: >>Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- >> >>The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >>has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >>idiolect. > >Obviously, but in folk linguistics this is how it is expressed. You >can't separate a supposedly neutral one from people's positive >evaluation of such perception. People notice European-American NY or >Boston (less Philly) and southern, but not as frequently Northern >cities. As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") "HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted /ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). It's the same vowel, only more blatant, that Dennis Franz consistently employs as the Andy Sipowicz character uses as a supposed New York cop on NYPD Blue (others have pointed out that this character must have been transplanted to NYC from Chicago without retaining any conscious memory of his Midwestern roots). Anyway, for the reporter in question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning shibboleth. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 01:39:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 20:39:32 EST Subject: Margarita (1953? 1956?); Dirty Rice (1954) Message-ID: MARGARITA (continued) Thanks for clearing up how OED online works. I didn't know that the "simple search" doesn't include any of the new material. Who designed the computer program like that? Why? I tested the revised entry of "Margarita," and pressed the "LATER" button. The first citation is 1956. However, when I posted it on ADS-L, I clearly said 1953. Huh?? -------------------------------------------------------- DIRTY RICE (continued) I re-checked DARE, and it has 1967 for "dirty rice." So, I brief check of Louisiana cookbooks in this apartment, and: MARY LAND'S LOUISIANA COOKERY Bonanza Books, NY 1954 (Maryland's Louisiana Cookery? Isn't that like New York's Texas Toast?--ed.) Pg. 206: CAJUN DIRTY RICE Cook one cup of rice for fifteen minutes in fowl stock. Add to it cooked, chopped fowl liver or a generous slice of chopped, cooked calf liver. Add four sliced hard-boiled eggs. (Serves four.) Pg. 346 (Appendix): Dirty rice A Cajun dish of rice cooked with bits of liver. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 19 02:05:41 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 21:05:41 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn said: > >As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to >play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last >night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the >Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") >"HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted >/ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). It's the >same vowel, only more blatant, that Dennis Franz consistently employs >as the Andy Sipowicz character uses as a supposed New York cop on >NYPD Blue (others have pointed out that this character must have been >transplanted to NYC from Chicago without retaining any conscious >memory of his Midwestern roots). Anyway, for the reporter in >question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning >shibboleth. Steve Rushin's column in this week's Sports Illustrated (cover date Jan 21, 2002) has a similar Northern Cities awareness. The column is entitled "Cheesehead Nation" and is about Green Bay Packers fans. It contains the following description of one fan: "Van Nguyen is a Midwesterner by way of Vietnam, from which he emigrated to Green Bay at age 15. Now 32, he speaks in a disarmingly hard-voweled Wiscansin accent." (The "can" in Wisconsin is italicized.) From Davidhwaet at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 05:05:20 2002 From: Davidhwaet at AOL.COM (David Carlson) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 00:05:20 EST Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: I'd have to give my vote to Lebanon, Kansas. It's close to Nebraska and as "central" as you can get in the lower 48. Dave Carlson Amherst MA From Barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Sat Jan 19 09:06:10 2002 From: Barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 04:06:10 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM,Net writes: > >>From two news articles on the collapse of Enron: >P.S. I doubt if either of the quoted authors realized it, but there is a >far-fetched play on words. The victims who had loaned money to Enron >suffered damage (or destruction) to their "collateral". > Very interesting. The Dictionary Companion had an entry in Spring 2000 (Vol. 12.3) with two definitions extending the military usage, one for medical operations and one for "investigations" or "supervision." collateral damage, {M} 1. injury to anything near the site of an attack, such as brain cells near the location of a stroke. Standard (used in contexts dealing especially with biochemistry or medicine; frequency?) Dr. David Pinsky, a researcher at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said the drug appears to stop two neuron-killing reactions that usually follow a stroke caused by a blocked blood vessel. "After a stroke, there is an immune system reaction that acts like a cluster bomb attack in the brain," said Pinsky, the senior author of the Science study. The reactions involve immune system cells that kill neurons directly, and an inflammation in vessels that slows the flow of blood and oxygen to the stroke site. Both of these actions cause "collateral damage," killing neurons that may not have been involved in the original stroke, said Pinsky. Paul Recer, "Today In AOL Health: New Drug May Help Stroke Victims," AOL [America On Line] News, July 22, 1999 2. death, injury or risk to people, animals, activities, or the like, near or loosely associated with others under investigation, supervision, or attack. What he takes from nature is for his personal use and that of those close to him, and not for commercial profit." Not so with loggers. Of course, to a logger owls are not actual quarry, but collateral damage. To be fair, for every hunter on a spiritual quest there's another in search of the perfect six-pack, but that's a different story. Asta Bowen, "Owls Unlimited Would Save Bird," an editorial in the Seattle [Wash.] Post-Intelligencer (Nexis), March 3, 1992, p A9 Kennedy found that in a strict causation sense, it was true that plaintiff's termination resulted from the conspiracy, "but collateral damages to persons outside the competitive area aggrandized by antitrust defendants are inconsistent with the orderly administration of the antitrust laws." In short, the dissent emphasized that the antitrust laws are directed at the preservation of competition, "not employee coercion or discharge," and that while plaintiff had an intimate connection with defendant's alleged anticompetitive scheme, he had little or no relationship to the scheme's anticompetitive effects. William A. Cerillo, "Circuits Disagree on Antitrust Claims by Employees," Legal Times (Nexis), Sept. 13, 1982, p 15 Semantic shift (specialization): from collateral damage (DC 6.3: 1991?), meaning "injury of civilians or damage to civilian property because of proximity to a military target which has been destroyed." Collateral damage may give us the "meaning of the year 2002." Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 19 13:56:54 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 08:56:54 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In quite a lot of the perceptual work we have done with non-northern Cities Shifters, the /a/ fronting (resulting in the "Wiscansin" caricature) is more salient than the /ae/ raising. It would be interesting to know more about the dialect background of the reporter larry reports on. dInIs >Laurence Horn said: >> >>As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to >>play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last >>night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the >>Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") >>"HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted >>/ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). It's the >>same vowel, only more blatant, that Dennis Franz consistently employs >>as the Andy Sipowicz character uses as a supposed New York cop on >>NYPD Blue (others have pointed out that this character must have been >>transplanted to NYC from Chicago without retaining any conscious >>memory of his Midwestern roots). Anyway, for the reporter in >>question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning >>shibboleth. > >Steve Rushin's column in this week's Sports Illustrated (cover date Jan 21, >2002) has a similar Northern Cities awareness. The column is entitled >"Cheesehead Nation" and is about Green Bay Packers fans. It contains the >following description of one fan: "Van Nguyen is a Midwesterner by way of >Vietnam, from which he emigrated to Green Bay at age 15. Now 32, he speaks >in a disarmingly hard-voweled Wiscansin accent." (The "can" in Wisconsin is >italicized.) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 19 16:20:50 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 10:20:50 -0600 Subject: "loose as a goose" Message-ID: A colleague recently passed along the suggestion below about "loose as a goose." A check of _Historical Dictionary of American Slang_ shows the meaning of the expression to be "extremely loose (in any sense)", and the first attestation comes in 1930: Botkin, _Folk-Say_, 106: "There, she's loose as a goose." But nothing is said about the origin of the expression. So the question arises: In what way is a goose loose? Right below my signoff is the suggestion I received. --Gerald Cohen > In the New York Times Crossword no. 1203 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch >1-14-02), "loose as a goose" is the answer to the clue, "completely >relaxed". When I was a boy in the 1930's, my father used the >phrase,"loose as a goose", in a different way. He meant, "having >loose bowels". > I raised geese for several years while I was growing up. From >my observations of them I believe that "loose as a goose" was first >used the way that my father did. When geese walk about they >generally move in a slow, stately manner. They don't dart about >chasing insects like chickens, ducks, or turkeys do, and when they >are resting they do not appear any more relaxed than other poultry. >On the other hand, they tend to have much looser stools than other >domestic fowls. > > > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 19 16:50:15 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 11:50:15 -0500 Subject: "loose as a goose" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The "on the other hand" was always my childhood folk (and not necessarily false) etymology. Loose as a goose was first applied to the runs. (I'm at my office without a dictionary and don't know how to spell the D-word.) Later I heard it to mean other "looses" (relaxed, for example), but that was not my earliest encounter. dInIs > A colleague recently passed along the suggestion below about >"loose as a goose." A check of _Historical Dictionary of American >Slang_ shows the meaning of the expression to be "extremely loose (in >any sense)", and the first attestation comes in 1930: Botkin, >_Folk-Say_, 106: "There, she's loose as a goose." But nothing is said >about the origin of the expression. > > So the question arises: In what way is a goose loose? Right below >my signoff is the suggestion I received. > >--Gerald Cohen > >> In the New York Times Crossword no. 1203 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch >>1-14-02), "loose as a goose" is the answer to the clue, "completely >>relaxed". When I was a boy in the 1930's, my father used the >>phrase,"loose as a goose", in a different way. He meant, "having >>loose bowels". >> I raised geese for several years while I was growing up. From >>my observations of them I believe that "loose as a goose" was first >>used the way that my father did. When geese walk about they >>generally move in a slow, stately manner. They don't dart about >>chasing insects like chickens, ducks, or turkeys do, and when they >>are resting they do not appear any more relaxed than other poultry. >>On the other hand, they tend to have much looser stools than other >>domestic fowls. -- 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 douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 19 18:07:07 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 13:07:07 -0500 Subject: "loose as a goose" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Cf. "like shit through a goose" = "rapidly, without any obstruction" or so. "Now if Ike stops holding Monty's hand and gives me the supplies, I'll go through the Siegfried Line like shit through a goose." -- attributed to Gen. George Patton. The perception is that the goose has rapid intestinal passage. (Thus it's not "loose as a moose".) OTOH, "loose as a goose" is clearly favored by its rhyme: cf. "snug as a bug in a rug". (Thus it's not "loose as a duck".) -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 19:21:10 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 14:21:10 EST Subject: Borsch (1808) Message-ID: OED has 1884. Merriam-Webster has 1829. (O.T.: This is why I get paid the big bucks--$100 eight years ago. NINE HOURS of judging parking tickets yesterday, and it'll be worse on Tuesday--ed.) TRAVELS THROUGH SEVERAL PROVINCES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: WITH AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ZAPOROG COSSACKS, AND OF BESSARABIA, MOLDAVIA, WALLACHIA, AND THE CRIMEA, by Baron Campenhausen London: printed for Richard Phillips 1808 Pg. 28 (KREMENTSCHUK): The inhabitants live almost entirely on flesh; it rarely (Pg. 29--ed.) happens that they have fish or vegetables to be served on their tables. They have a kind of soup, however, which is made of groats and vegetables, of which they are very fond: this soup is rather sour, and is called borsch, from the name of the carrot which is boiled in it. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 19:27:18 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 14:27:18 EST Subject: Burka (1808) Message-ID: Same book (1808) as "borsch." This is in several places in the book. I just checked and got confused with OED's other "burka." OED has 1898. Pg. 35: He was then clothed in the coarse woollen dress of the Cossacks, and was presented with the square felt cloak (burka) which the Cossacks always hang on their shoulder, on the side from whence the wind blows. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 20:20:45 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 15:20:45 EST Subject: Mammaliga (1808) Message-ID: LOOSE AS A GOOSE When baseball relief pitchers warm up, they get their arms loose. I've heard "loose-y goose-y" there. -------------------------------------------------------- MAMMALIGA (1808) The revised OED has 1820, and then 1878. From the same CAMPENHAUSEN'S TRAVELS (1808), pg. 54: The daily food of the peasants in Moldavia and Bessarabia, consists of a dish made of meal mixed with butter, fat, or milk, which is called Mammaliga. Such of them as are at their ease, make this dish more palatable by mixing balls of boiled millet with it, and it is then called Malay. They have a kind of vegetable soup, which is called poreryack. The bread which the peasants and Tatars eat is made of barley, which, in Moldavian, is called kyta, and, in the language of the Tatars, arpaetmeck. From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 21:55:53 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 16:55:53 EST Subject: "loose as a xoose" Message-ID: In a message dated 1/19/2002 11:48:47 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: << The "on the other hand" was always my childhood folk (and not necessarily false) etymology. Loose as a goose was first applied to the runs. (I'm at my office without a dictionary and don't know how to spell the D-word.) Later I heard it to mean other "looses" (relaxed, for example), but that was not my earliest encounter. dInIs >> My father always said, "Loose as a moose" ... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 20 00:54:49 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 19:54:49 EST Subject: Hora (dance, 1853) Message-ID: HORA TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA AND THE CRIMEA; THROUGH HUNGARY, WALLACHIA, & MOLDOVIA DURING THE YEAR 1837 by ANATOLE DE DEMIDOFF ("Demidov" was handwritten--ed.) John Mitchell, printer, London 1853 VOLUME I Pg. 158: After dinner, Wallachian dances were executed, and we (Pg. 159--ed.) were so charmed with the severe precision and perfect _ensemble_ of the dancers, that the prince was kind enough to prolong these diversions in our favour, and to procure us copies of the airs, so full of originality and simple grace, which we here insert, and which accompany this Roman dance, _Hora Roumaniaska_, as it is called by the people of Wallachia. (OED has 1878 for "hora"--ed.) VOLUME II Pg. 126: The samowar is without gainsay, the most characteristic utensil to be found in the country. The species of kettle which bears this name, consists of a shining copper case... Pg. 270: ...men on horseback, wrapped in their _bourkas_. These are capital Circassian cloaks, perfectly _impermeables_, as they say in Paris. -------------------------------------------------------- BRAGA OED has something almost like "braga" in "braga-beaker." My Romanian doorman read the "mammaliga" entry and smiled knowingly at "braga," so perhaps it's worth adding. From the same CAMPENHAUSEN'S TRAVELS (1808): Pg. 54: Their usual drink is a mixture of millet-meal and water, which is left for some time to ferment till acidulated, and called braga. -------------------------------------------------------- THROUGH MACEDONIA TO THE ALBANIAN LAKES by Mary Adelaide Walker 1864 Pg. 252: ..."ekmek-adaif" (pancakes with clotted cream inside), "baklava" (pastry floating in syrup), "mohalibe" (milk and rice-flour), "ou-halva" (a paste of flour, sugar, and butter), "yaourt," and other sweet things. (Not quite antedates, but a nice food group--ed.) From carljweber at MSN.COM Sun Jan 20 00:56:51 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 18:56:51 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: Goose/The Finger A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. Yet in English it's the "stork" as the water fowl that answers the question, "where do babies come from?" For some languages without "stork," its the gans/goose that serves as a popular water foul. CJW Ontology Recapitulates Philology From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 19 12:44:38 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:44:38 +0800 Subject: Borsch (1808) In-Reply-To: <17e.2559507.297b2126@aol.com> Message-ID: At 2:21 PM -0500 1/19/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > OED has 1884. > Merriam-Webster has 1829. > >TRAVELS THROUGH SEVERAL PROVINCES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: >WITH AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ZAPOROG COSSACKS, >AND OF BESSARABIA, MOLDAVIA, WALLACHIA, AND THE CRIMEA, >by Baron Campenhausen >London: printed for Richard Phillips >1808 > >Pg. 28 (KREMENTSCHUK): > The inhabitants live almost entirely on flesh; it rarely (Pg. >29--ed.) happens that they have fish or vegetables to be served on >their tables. They have a kind of soup, however, which is made of >groats and vegetables, of which they are very fond: this soup is >rather sour, and is called borsch, from the name of the carrot which >is boiled in it. From the carrot? I've always thought beet was obligatory and accompanying veggies more or less interchangeable, although there's the cabbage variant (which sometimes has another name). Obviously I'm swimming in cloudy red soup here; anyone else able to (dis)confirm the Baron's etymology? The OED is no help, and AHD4 derives it from a word glossed as 'cow parsnip', whatever that is. (Evidently, that's what borsch(t) used to be made out of before they realized it would be more colorful with beets. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 19 12:52:39 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:52:39 +0800 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:05 PM -0500 1/18/02, Alice Faber wrote: > >Steve Rushin's column in this week's Sports Illustrated (cover date Jan 21, >2002) has a similar Northern Cities awareness. The column is entitled >"Cheesehead Nation" and is about Green Bay Packers fans. It contains the >following description of one fan: "Van Nguyen is a Midwesterner by way of >Vietnam, from which he emigrated to Green Bay at age 15. Now 32, he speaks >in a disarmingly hard-voweled Wiscansin accent." (The "can" in Wisconsin is >italicized.) Yes, but to really capture *this* shibboleth, Rushin should render it not as Wis-CAN-sin but Wi-SCAN-sin or even 'SCANsin. Crucially, the local pronounciation resyllabifies the state name (as we've discussed here before, among other local reduction phenomena from Clumps, Ohio to TuhRAHNuh. (As I type this, Dennis ("Sipowicz") Franz is reminding us (in an ad) "I don't do eee-uhds") larry From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Sun Jan 20 03:23:18 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 22:23:18 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: Toronto is rarely pronounced "TuhRAHNuh" by locals. It's usually rendered as "TRAHno". Less often, a slight nod is given to the first syllable so that it sounds like "TuhRAHno". In both cases the "o" preserves clearly its long vowel sound. The "n" is distinctly part of the last syllable as well. Don >(as we've discussed here before, among other local > reduction phenomena from Clumps, Ohio to TuhRAHNuh. > > (As I type this, Dennis ("Sipowicz") Franz is reminding us (in an ad) > "I don't do eee-uhds") > > larry From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 20 03:20:38 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 22:20:38 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" In-Reply-To: <012d01c1a060$e3985380$c3fafd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, ANNE V. GILBERT wrote: > I think "collateral damage" dates back to the Vietnam period. It seems to me that the military usage probably derives from old legal usage. Below is the earliest I have found: 1839 _Edwards' Reports of Chancery Cases_ (N.Y.) III. 290 ff. (Westlaw) Mr. Lawrence...objects, on account of collateral damage not being allowed, i.e., furture damage from a supposed obstruction to the navigation of Harlem river. 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 Sun Jan 20 07:53:49 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 02:53:49 EST Subject: Jo Mazotti (1942); Ants-on-a-Log (1995); Tiramisu Message-ID: JO MAZOTTI I spent a day going through "cookery--juvenile" looking for "ants-on-a-log" and other fanciful names. I found "s'mores" and this instead. This "Jo Mazotti" (1942) adds to Johnny Marzetti/Mazetti and other names for this dish. DARE's first citation is Fannie Farmer's BOSTON COOK BOOK (1946), where it's "Jo Mazzotti." THE FANNIE FARMER JUNIOR COOK BOOK by Wilma Lord Perkins Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1942 Pg. 91: _Jo Mazotti_ 1 1/2 pounds lean pork, ground 8 large onions, sliced 3 cans tomato soup (concentrated) 1 bunch celery, diced 1 large can mushrooms, sliced 2 green peppers, cut fine Juice 1/2 lemon Salt and pepper 1 pound sharp cheese, cut small 1 large package broad noodles 2 tablespoons butter ("Jo Mazotti" has made the reputation of an Italian restaurant.) Melt the butter, add the pork and onions and cook until brown. Add all but the noodles and simmer 15 minutes to make a rich sauce. Cook the noodles (page 105) while the meat is cooking. Drain and mix with the sauce. Cover closely and cook slowly 1 hour on top of the stove or in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.). This is enough to serve 16 persons generously. -------------------------------------------------------- ANTS-ON-A-LOG Ants analog. Not to be confused with digital ants. Useful, perhaps, to anyone writing a book on "peanut butter." I tried to concentrate on the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. I looked at the juvenile cookbooks, but also any articles on "peanut butter" and "celery." I thought I remember it in BETTER HOMES & GARDENS, but it'll take a while to check the monthly index of over 30 years. THE PEANUT BUTTER COOKBOOK FOR KIDS by Judy Ralph and Ray Gompf Hyperion Books for Children, NY 1995 Pg. 14: _Ants on a Log_ _and_ _PB Flowers_ INGREDIENTS 1 medium apple 1 celery stalk4 cup peanut butter Raisins -------------------------------------------------------- TIRAMISU OED has 1982. I'll look more in some travel articles (for Venice, Italy). The earliest GOURMET magazine article I could find is September 1986, pg. 134, col. 1: Q. During a visit to Italy I had a heavenly dessert called _tiramisu_. I would love to duplicate this at home and would greatly appreciate the recipe. ADELE H. BACKS MADISON, WISCONSIN A. Literally "pick-me-up," this dessert will go down well anytime. _Tiramisu_ _(Italian Cake, Cheese, and Chocolate Dessert)_ a 10 3/4-ounce pound cake, sliced horizontally into 6 layers and the layers cut crosswise into slices 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup Grand Marnier, or to taste 3 ounces cream cheese, softened 16 ounces whole-milk ricotta 6 ounces semisweet chocolate, grated (...) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Sun Jan 20 17:29:13 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 12:29:13 -0500 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida Message-ID: These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 20 18:50:40 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 12:50:40 -0600 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: Thanx for the responses on "loose as a goose." BTW, I'm curious about the source of Patton's quote. Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. "The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in the financial community in NYC. Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the quarterback? Something else? Any information/insight/leads would be very much appreciated. --Gerald Cohen From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 20 06:32:07 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 14:32:07 +0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:50 PM -0600 1/20/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: > Thanx for the responses on "loose as a goose." BTW, I'm curious >about the source of Patton's quote. > > Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" >as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. >"The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., >even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it >used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in >the financial community in NYC. > > Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" >Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the >quarterback? >Something else? > I've only ever heard "out of pocket" in the pants pocket sense: one is forced to pay for something out of (one's own) pocket absent reimbursement. The football sense to my knowledge always involves a quarterback being "out of THE pocket", never "out of pocket" except possibly in an attributive use like "an out-of-pocket quarterback can throw the ball away without getting called for intentional grounding". The unreachable-by-cell-phone use is an odd one to me; I wonder if it results from a nonce re (or mis)interpretation. larry From dave at WILTON.NET Sun Jan 20 19:54:01 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 11:54:01 -0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This sense of "out of pocket" was in common use among my compatriots at the Pentagon, 1994-5. I always assumed it was a football reference, but I have no evidence to support that. Others have suggested to me that it evolved from travel and "out of pocket expenses," but again no evidence was ever presented. I've found a few usenet citations from January 1995. These were the earliest I turned up doing a search of the Google usenet archives: "I have been out of pocket for a few days. Can anyone tell me who beat Alabama?" --ST33410 at vm.cc.latech.edu, Subject: A Techster with a Few Questions, Newsgroups rec.sport.basketball.women, 1995-01-07 16:25:44 PST "No, actually I'll be out of pocket for about five days starting in about five minutes." --Leona Freeman (lcfreema at leona.b8.ingr.com), Subject: I'm outta here!, Newsgroup: soc.singles, 1995-01-12 12:04:31 PST "(..and with Leona out of pocket you'd be on your own...)" --Craig Wall (cwall at swri.edu), Subject: Re: Being Single SUCKS!, Newsgroup: soc.singles, 1995-01-16 07:18:01 PST "If not, is there a way of rnning [sic] lpc without being root? i [sic] need my users to be able to effect their own restarts when I'm out of pocket." --Robert Eskridge (bryny at netcom.com), Subject: SunOS 4.1.2/Annex/WP5.0 print stall, Newsgroup: comp.sys.sun.admin, 1995-01-17 13:52:43 PST "I've had several good penpals--some of whom I met "on the Net," but most are currently out of pocket--or, rather, out of reach of Internet, which is making email just a tad tricky." --Martin Young, martiny at delphi.com, Subject: SWM ISO F Penpal, Newsgroup: soc.penpals, 1995-01-17 20:50:00 PST -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Gerald Cohen Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 10:51 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Thanx for the responses on "loose as a goose." BTW, I'm curious about the source of Patton's quote. Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. "The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in the financial community in NYC. Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the quarterback? Something else? Any information/insight/leads would be very much appreciated. --Gerald Cohen From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 20 20:00:24 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 15:00:24 -0500 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This was discussed on the list in May 1996. There are perhaps a dozen messages on the topic in the old archives. http://www.americandialect.org/adslarchive.shtml From pds at VISI.COM Sun Jan 20 20:17:20 2002 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 14:17:20 -0600 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I wonder if the reporter's remark was an imitative allusion to the trailer for POLTERGEIST II (or some other horror flic?), and thus not reflective of her other /ae/s. At 07:35 PM 1/18/2002 +0800, Laurence Horn wrote: >As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to >play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last >night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the >Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") >"HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted >/ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). [snip] > Anyway, for the reporter in >question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning >shibboleth. Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From Ittaob at AOL.COM Sun Jan 20 20:30:18 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 15:30:18 EST Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/20/02 2:30:28 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: << The unreachable-by-cell-phone use is an odd one to me; I wonder if it results from a nonce re (or mis)interpretation. >> As an attorney who's worked for many years with New York law firm lawyers, investment bankers, etc., I can tell you that "out of pocket" to mean "not available" has been used in these circles for years. I have heard almost daily. No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." Steve Boatti From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Sun Jan 20 20:58:24 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 14:58:24 -0600 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For years and years I have used 'out of pocket' to refer to unavailability, and I've never associated it with football, nor directly with pants pockets. I've also heard it frequently from all kinds of people. It's simply another sense of this concatenation of words, with the pocket being metaphorical rather than literal. DMLance > From: Laurence Horn .......... > > At 12:50 PM -0600 1/20/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: ................ >> Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" >> as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. >> "The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., >> even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it >> used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in >> the financial community in NYC. >> >> Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" >> Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the >> quarterback? >> Something else? >> > I've only ever heard "out of pocket" in the pants pocket sense: one > is forced to pay for something out of (one's own) pocket absent > reimbursement. The football sense to my knowledge always involves a > quarterback being "out of THE pocket", never "out of pocket" except > possibly in an attributive use like "an out-of-pocket quarterback can > throw the ball away without getting called for intentional > grounding". The unreachable-by-cell-phone use is an odd one to me; I > wonder if it results from a nonce re (or mis)interpretation. > > larry > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 20 21:19:17 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 16:19:17 -0500 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: Steve Boatti wrote: >No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." ~~~~~~~~ Not "lacking money," just paying for it out of one's own resources, instead of on an expense account or qualifying for reimbursement. That, to me, suggests a possible path of development: being on one's own -> being OFF on one's own -> being out of reach. A. Murie From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Sun Jan 20 22:56:01 2002 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 17:56:01 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: I believe that Fred is right in supposing that "collateral damage" comes from or is at least influenced by the older legal usage. >>The judge rightly excluded evidence of the four matters of damage which the plaintiff offered to prove. Without inquiring whether they would, under any form of declaration, have been legal grounds of damage, it is sufficient for the decision of this case, that they were not the necessary consequences of the defendant's breach of agreement, which are implied by law; and were not alleged in the declaration. Nor were they consequences which (in the language sometimes used by judges) "in all probability" might follow, or would be "very likely to follow," from that breach. [Citations omitted.] "Mere collateral damage," says Holroyd, J., "must be stated in the declaration, in order to entitle the plaintiff to give it in evidence, lest otherwise the defendant might be taken by surprise." Battley v. Faulkner, 3 B. & Ald. 294.<< Warner v. Bacon, 8 Gray 397, 74 Mass. 397, 69 Am.Dec. 253 (1857). The Battley v. Faulkner case quoted in this passage appears to be an English case that is older than the 1839 case Fred found, although I have not been able to find its text or determine its exact date (sometime between 1810 and 1830). John Baker From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 21 00:58:03 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 16:58:03 -0800 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <804437.3220343553@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: Both Peter and I must have missed the parts of the West where it's general ... allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan > wrote: > > > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland > > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" > > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these > > fields. > > > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 20 12:22:59 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 20:22:59 +0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:19 PM -0500 1/20/02, sagehen wrote: >Steve Boatti wrote: > >No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." >~~~~~~~~ >Not "lacking money," just paying for it out of one's own resources, instead >of on an expense account or qualifying for reimbursement. exactly. Sorry for not knowing any other senses, and for having evidently forgotten completely about our earlier thread on the topic from '96. (Now where did I leave those brain cells?) >That, to me, suggests a possible path of development: being on one's own >-> being OFF on one's own -> being out of reach. >A. Murie Maybe, or maybe if the basic meaning is that one doesn't have a cell phone (turned on), it really does allude to the phone being out of one's pocket. I still find it a puzzling metaphoric transfer, if that's what it is. But I'm (almost) positive that flushed-out quarterbacks are not relevant. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 02:08:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:08:04 EST Subject: Piroghi (1811) Message-ID: OED has 1854. Merriam-Webster has 1927. (Is that right?) TRAVELS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE, ASIA AND AFRICA by Edward Daniel Clarke Part the First: Russia, Tartary, and Turkey Lorenzo Press, Philadelphia 1811 Pg. 505: Of all the dishes known in Russia, there is nothing in such general esteem from the peasant to the prince, as a kind of _Patee_, which are called _Piroghi_. Pg. 506: These, at the tables of the great, are served with the soup in the first course. In the streets of Moscow and Petersburg, they are sold upon stalls. They are well-tasted, but extremely greasy, and often full of oil; consisting of minced meat, or brains, rolled up in pancakes, which are afterwards fried in butter, or oil, and served hot. The rolls described by Bruce, with which women, in a certain part of Ethiopia, feed their husbands, are nearly similar; only the meat is raw, and the roll is of dough; yet the mouth of a Russian prince would water at the sight of the Ethiopian _piroghi_. From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 21 02:16:05 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 18:16:05 -0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: <154.7972919.297c82da@aol.com> Message-ID: >...As an attorney who's worked for many years with New York law firm lawyers, >investment bankers, etc., I can tell you that "out of pocket" to mean "not >available" has been used in these circles for years. I have heard almost >daily. No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." I, too, was surprised the first time I heard out of pocket meaning unavailable/unreachable - and I grew up in NYC, so either all these bankers, et al. came from somewhere else or ? The first time I heard it used this way was from my Oklahoma born and bred mother-in-law. I'd previously only heard meaning having to pay for something yourself, not lacking money. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 02:28:24 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:28:24 EST Subject: Lumps of ("Turkish") Delight (1860) Message-ID: OED has: RAHAT LOKUM--1856, 1861 LUMPS OF DELIGHT--1870 TURKISH DELIGHT--1870, 1877 LOCOUM--1887 I haven't checked the Making of America database. TURKISH LIFE AND CHARACTER by Walter Thornbury Smith, Elder and Co., London 1860 VOLUME I Ill. opp. Pg. 102: SELLER OF SHERBET. Pg. 133: ...or deals with a mahabiji, or street sweetseller, for that delicious sort of rice blancmange he sells, yellow all through, powdered with white sugar, and eaten with a brass spoon of delightfully antique shape; or he is discussing a shovelful of burnt chesnuts, or a head of maize boiled to a flowery pulp, eaten with a ring of bread, and washed down with a draught from the nearest fountain.... Pg. 136: The walls of the shop are hung with long walking-sticks, (cudgels, shall I say?) of that precious and fragrant sweetmeat known in hareems as "rahat li koum," or "lumps of delight," which is a glutinous sort of jelly of a pale lemon or rose colour, floured with sugar, and knotted and veined with the whitest and curdiest of almonds. It is a delicious, paradisaical gluey business, and horribly indigestible, as I found to my cost. Pg. 138: ...smoking black coffee (half grounds, as the Turks drink it).... Pg. 142: I--I eat lamb, pistachio-nut. I eat kibob (very nice kibob)--I drink shirab and champagney wine. Pg. 184: Recruited with cherry sherbet, Grimani, armed with about a yard of "rahat likoum" (lumps of delight), stuffed with pistachio-nuts, and the doctor's pocket filled with scorched nuts, we made straight for the Zaptie, or second prison of Stamboul, and arrived in a few streets at the door of the "house of detention" as the Turkish word Zaptie means. From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 21 05:10:12 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 00:10:12 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Bapopik@aol.com: Macadamia (1857) Message-ID: Forwarded on behalf of Barry Popik. --Jesse Sheidlower ----- Forwarded message from Bapopik at aol.com ----- Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 20:52:54 EST From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: Macadamia (1857) To: Cc: , , X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version) I hope this attachment makes ADS-L--it's text! --Barry Popik X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.3 Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 11:06:05 +1100 From: "Ian Innes" To: Subject: Re: Fwd: Macadamia (1893) Dear Barry, My name is Ian Innes and I am the Horticultural Planning Officer here at the RBG Sydney. The Curator has asked me to investigate your query regarding Macadamia. I found the following references in Australian Plant Name Index, Australian Flora and Fauna Series #14, Arthur Chapman, AGPS 1991: 1. Ferdinand von Mueller in Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria v.2,p.72 [30 Sept. 1857] regarding Macadamia ternifolia 2. Maiden, Joseph Henry and Betche, Ernest in Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales v.21,p.624 [31 May 1896] regarding Macadamia integrifolia The RBG library holds both journals however the imprints are rather fragile and the Librarian is a little cagey about photocopying. Von Mueller's is the first known published citation, part of "Article X- Account of Some New Australian Plants [read before the Institute 5th August 1857]", pp62-77. In it von Mueller comments on the naming of the genus being "dedicated to John Macadam, Esq., M.D., the talented and deserving Secretary of our Institute". However there is no reference to a common name. Von Mueller was director of the Melbourne Botanic Garden 1857-1873. Maiden's is the next accepted citation. He was the Director of these Gardens 1896-1927. It is in an article in Proc. Linn. Soc. NSW, "ON A NEW SPECIES OF MACADAMIA, TOGETHER WITH NOTES ON TWO PLANTS NEW TO THE COLONY" regarding Macadamia integrifolia another species, but referring to M. ternifolia F.von Muell. as "the Nut-tree". The type specimen was collected from Camden Haven on the New South Wales mid-north coast. After 1900 there are many references in the literature, enough for a diligent honours student to spend a couple of weeks researching! W.D. Francis,1929 in Australian Rainforest Trees refers to Macadamia integrifolia as "Bush Nut, Queensland Nut, Nut Oak" but does not quote a source. Let me know if I can dig for further specific details for you. I suspect common names are going to be hard to trace accurately as the colonists and early settlers invented all sorts of local variants for new plants they were unfamiliar with, and scientists are attached to their Latin nomenclature!! Ian Innes Horticulture and Landscape Planning Officer Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify the sender. Views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, and are not necessarily the views of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust. >>> 14:11:22 16/01/02 >>> Bruce Rann Curator, Sydney Gardens and Domain I'm researching the origin of the name "macadamia"/"Queensland" nut. Sydney planted this in the 1800s. Do you have a citation in an early publication anywhere? Barry Popik (consultant to the OED; member of American Dialect Society) 225 East 57th Street, Apt. 7P New York, NY 10022 (The attached was sent to the ADS listserve.) ----- End forwarded message ----- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 06:53:31 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 01:53:31 EST Subject: Caviar (1555); Dolma (1831); Kebab (1800;1824) Message-ID: CAVIAR THE TURKISH LETTERS OF OGIER GHISELIN DE BUSBECQ Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople, 1554-1562 translated from the Latin of the Elzevir Edition of 1633 by Edward Seymour Forster Oxford: Clarendon Press 1927 (reprinted 1968) Pg. 21 (Vienna, 1 September 1555): During this period of our journey we ate bread baked under ashes; the natives call it _fugacia_. Pg. 36 (Vienna, 1 September 1555): ...nor about the pickled delicacies which are brought to Constantinople from the Sea of Azof and are called by the Italians _moronella_, _botarga_, and _caviare_. Pg. 221: In the next place to him but one was seated an old man of the class which they call Hodja, that is, men of learning. (OED has 1591 and M-W circa 1560 for "caviar." OED has 1598 for "botargo." OED has 1625 for "hodja" or "Khoja"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- DOLMA NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ENGLAND by the Rev. R. Walsh Fourth edition London: Frederick Westley and A. H. Davis 1831 Pg. 4: Next, a canister of Mocha coffee. The greater part of the coffee used in Turkey is sent from our West India plantations, and Mocha coffee is as great a rarity in Constantinople as in London. Pg. 96: ...who daily make cheese, youart, curds, kaimac, and sundry other preparations of milk.... Pg. 110: Their only manufacture is a confection in great request among the Turks; it consists of walnuts enclosed in a sweet gelatinous substance, made from the inspissated juice of grapes: it is formed into long cylindrical rolls, like black-puddings, and so transported (Pg. 111-ed.) to Constantinople, where it is eaten in great quantities. We saw some cart-loads of this confection leaving the town. As we could get nothing to eat at our inn, we entered the shop of a Turkish traiteur, and ordered a supper to the khan. When it arrived, we found it consisted of a dish of broiled ribs of mutton, a dish of dolmas, or young gourds,* stuffed with forced meat, boiled; a dish of sheep's feet, and the cartiliginous parts of the head, stewed; and, finally, a dish of sour cabbage and pickled cucumbers, as large as any of the former. *Cucurbita Pepo. Pg. 154: In this way, a third large dish of kolokithias, or boiled gourds, and a fourth of lachani, or boiled cabbage, were dispatched; and the feast ended in six minutes. Pg. 189 Here were a number of scampavias lying, and Wallachian waggons unloading the produce of the country, to supply the other side. It principally consisted of flakes of buffaloes' flesh, dried in the sun, called bastermans; a kind of flat sausage, like a horse-shoe; and blocks of rock salt, which several boats were taking from the waggons. (Bastermans? Basturma? Pastroma?...OED and M-W have 1889 for "dolma"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- KEBAB JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN ASIA MINOR, WITH COMPARATIVE REMARKS ON THE ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY OF THAT COUNTRY by William Martin Leake London: John Murray 1824 Pg. 41: While the horses are preparing, we eat our _kebab_ in the burying-ground, and take shelter from the cold of the evening in the tent of some camel-drivers, who were enjoying their pipes and coffee over a fire. (The journal entry appears to be from 29 January 1800...OED has 1813 and M-W has 1673 for "kebab"--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 08:50:57 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 03:50:57 EST Subject: Mai-Tai (1961) Message-ID: MAI-TAI As everyone knows, "Trader Vic" (Victor Bergeron) created the "Mai-Tai" in 1944. It says so in his 1972 book. I checked the revised OED entry, and the first cite is 1963! Under "etymology," OED notes that Mai Tai is not in Trader Vic's 1947 drink book. I got out my GOURMET index. The following should be checked ("Mai Tai" could have been mentioned without a full recipe): September 1952, GOURMET _Trader Vic's Recipes_ Coconut Cream...55 Laulaus...54 Lonu-Lonu...54 Roast Pig...55 Scorpion Punch...53 July 1959, GOURMET _Trader Vic's Drinks_ (No "Mai Tai"--ed.) Babalu...27 Daiquiri, Trader Vic's...26 Pino Pepe...27 Punch, Gin Club...26 Punch, Tonga...26 Scorpion...27 Shark's Tooth...27 Syrup, Bar...27 Tahitian Pearl...27 Wahine...27 July 1961, GOURMET _Drinks_ Mai-Tai Royal Hawaiian...44 -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. JOHNNY MAZETTE--This spelling is in CASSEROLE TREASURY by Lousene Rousseau Brunner (Harper & Row, NY, 1964), pg. 197. CHICKEN JERSUSALEM--In GOURMET, October 1955, pg. 69. CHICKEN TAJ MAHAL--In GOURMET, September 1958, pg. 59. MOCHA--Jesse Sheidlower asked about this. "Mocha" is a separate heading in the recipe index in GOURMET, March 1958. From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 21 13:28:12 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 08:28:12 -0500 Subject: Thisclose In-Reply-To: <3C48647A.1517.20B5BA3@localhost> Message-ID: >Does anyone have any information about its provenance, parentage, and >probable distribution? If it is spoken, how is it distinguished from >the two words said separately? (I have a mental image of the speaker >holding up a hand with the first and second fingers pressed together, >but is it augmented by some vocal emphasis?) I don't have any real information but I agree that "thisclose" meaning "very close" is meant to accompany some kind of minimizing gesture. Both syllables would be expected to be stressed relative to context ... and about equally, I think. Quick Web search shows numerous examples: e.g., http://www.thisclose.org/ -- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 21 14:05:12 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 09:05:12 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Not too be too harsh, but there is also the chance, especially in one's own area, that "missed noticing" is also very likely. People in Michigan don't notice the Northern Cities Chain Shift, but us hillbillies who come here (and East Coasters as well I hear tell) find that it sticks out like a sore tongue. dInIs >Both Peter and I must have missed the parts of the West where it's general >... > >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu > >On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > >> Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. >> >> Peter Mc. >> >> --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan >> wrote: >> >> > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland >> > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" >> > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these >> > fields. >> >> >> >> **************************************************************************** >> Peter A. McGraw >> Linfield College * McMinnville, OR >> pmcgraw at linfield.edu >> From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 21 14:13:18 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 09:13:18 -0500 Subject: Thisclose In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020121081828.04591bf0@nb.net> Message-ID: "This close" is a bit more precise (and a bit closer) than "yea close" (or "bout yea close"). dInIs >>Does anyone have any information about its provenance, parentage, and >>probable distribution? If it is spoken, how is it distinguished from >>the two words said separately? (I have a mental image of the speaker >>holding up a hand with the first and second fingers pressed together, >>but is it augmented by some vocal emphasis?) > >I don't have any real information but I agree that "thisclose" meaning >"very close" is meant to accompany some kind of minimizing gesture. Both >syllables would be expected to be stressed relative to context ... and >about equally, I think. Quick Web search shows numerous examples: e.g., >http://www.thisclose.org/ > >-- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 21 16:27:32 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:27:32 -0000 Subject: n-word Message-ID: There's a review of Randall Kennedy's book: _Nigger: the strange career of a troublesome word_ at: http://salon.com/books/feature/2002/01/22/kennedy/index.html Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Mon Jan 21 16:50:47 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 11:50:47 EST Subject: anecdotal Message-ID: In a message dated 01/16/2002 9:26:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not > representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer > of evidence, but maybe there are others. This is an interesting use of the word "anecdotal". OED2 has no meaning for either "anecdotal" or "anecdote" that comes close (OED2 has three definitions for "anecdote": 1) hitherto unpublished narrative 2) narrative of a single event told as being in itself interesting or striking 3) from art: a painting etc that depicts a small incident). M-W 10th Collegiate has one additional definition: "based on or consisting of reports or obsdervations of usu. unscientific observers (~ evidence)" which is a common usage in scientific reports but does not really fit here. (a citation for the M-W definition, from the Feb 2002 Scientific American page 80 column 1) In experiments, families have volunteered or been paid to stop viewing, typically for a week or a month. Many could not complete the period of abstinence. Some fought, verbally and physically. Anecdotal reports from some families that have tried the annual "TV turn off" week in the U.S. tell a similar story. ) (citation is from the article "Television Addiction is no mere metaphor" by Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) What does carljweber mean by "anecdotal". The context here is tricky, since he is rebutting statements in a previous letter that do not contain the word "anecdotal". Apparently he means to describe reports as being second- or third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability. I.e. "mere anecdotes rather than reliable first-hand reports". Has anyone else seen a similar usage of "anecdotal"? - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 17:06:56 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 12:06:56 EST Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: Hoping to terminate an anthropophagological thread in which I have no interest... In a message dated 01/16/2002 9:26:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. You have presented evidence that a number of Northeastern Amerindian nations, plus the Caribs and Aztecs, practiced cannibalism. However, you are exceeding your own evidence to state "ALL of the Amerindians..." > (Rhetorical question:) Why the collocation "ritual" cannibalism?? Not rhetorical, since I have an answer. Simply, I made a mistake. Thinking about it later, I realized that "ritual cannibalism" is the appropriate term to describe the Catholic mass. > Going back to original sources - first hand information -- is the only way > one will encounter "good evidence" documentation -- if one's argument is to > be believed. The circumstances, the motives of the players, and the temper > of the times - all need consideration Agree. > Ontology Recapitulates Philology An interesting philosophical statement. Unlike ontogeny and philogeny, there is no evident cause-and-effect relationship. Ontology is the study of being and existence; philology is the study of descriptions, the things being described being either real or fictitious. Hence you are claiming that (wo)man cannot contemplate existence but is restricted to rehashing descriptions (not necessarily accuate) of existence. - Jim Landau From ekaqo60 at SAYCLUB.COM Mon Jan 21 18:05:47 2002 From: ekaqo60 at SAYCLUB.COM () Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 03:05:47 +0900 Subject: []̴(eNews) Խ ! İ 50% ΰ! Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 21 05:29:29 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 13:29:29 +0800 Subject: anecdotal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:50 AM -0500 1/21/02, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 01/16/2002 9:26:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, >carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > >> Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not >> representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer >> of evidence, but maybe there are others. > >This is an interesting use of the word "anecdotal". OED2 has no meaning for >either "anecdotal" or "anecdote" that comes close (OED2 has three definitions >for "anecdote": 1) hitherto unpublished narrative 2) narrative of a single >event told as being in itself interesting or striking 3) from art: a painting >etc that depicts a small incident). M-W 10th Collegiate has one additional >definition: "based on or consisting of reports or obsdervations of usu. >unscientific observers (~ evidence)" which is a common usage in scientific >reports but does not really fit here. > >... > >What does carljweber mean by "anecdotal". The context here is tricky, since >he is rebutting statements in a previous letter that do not contain the word >"anecdotal". Apparently he means to describe reports as being second- or >third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, >or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability. I.e. "mere anecdotes >rather than reliable first-hand reports". > Is this use really different from the one from M-W 10 above? Similarly, AHD4 has 2. Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis: "There are anecdotal reports of children poisoned by hot dogs roasted over a fire of the [oleander] stems" (C. Claiborne Ray, New York Times October 10, 1995). which is pretty lively as cites go. I don't see that 'describ[ing] reports as being second- or third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability' is really a distinct sense from these, it's just one way in which an unsystematic, unrigorous and therefore (relatively) unreliable observation can be made. It's true that this sense should be given (and tracked) in the OED, but I think the other dictionaries have carlj's use covered, at least implicitly. From mnewman at QC.EDU Mon Jan 21 20:42:10 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 15:42:10 -0500 Subject: n-word In-Reply-To: <4055942.3220619252@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >There's a review of Randall Kennedy's book: _Nigger: the strange career of >a troublesome word_ at: > >http://salon.com/books/feature/2002/01/22/kennedy/index.html > >Dr M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 Glancing through the book, I noticed that he barely mentions the r-less form, and then only with the briefest citation from Geneva Smitherman. He also only has White people using it and non-racial reference use as an insult. He needed to have hung out at some high school for a few days before going to print, either that or bought The Source once or twice. -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 21 21:43:36 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:43:36 -0500 Subject: "loose as a goose" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020119124356.04909c80@nb.net> Message-ID: I've sometimes heard/seen "loose as a goose on grass". Does that clarify or confuse? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Ittaob at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 21:35:04 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:35:04 EST Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/20/02 8:21:07 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: << Maybe, or maybe if the basic meaning is that one doesn't have a cell phone (turned on), it really does allude to the phone being out of one's pocket. >> My and others' usage of the term well predates the wide availability of cell phones. Steve Boatti From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 21 22:20:52 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:20:52 -0800 Subject: from/for? Message-ID: In today's SF Chronicle, an article about the San Francisco prosecutor chosen for the Enron probe, has the following quote: "She can see the forest from the trees." I know this is a twist on the "can't see the forest... - but isn't it FOR the trees? Is this another of those changes (like eating your cake and having it too, or could care less) due to someone thinking you had to climb the tree to see the forest, maybe? Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 23:03:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 18:03:04 EST Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown Message-ID: COMFORT CAMP I thought that I had posted this, but I had posted "comfort homes." There's a group seeking to get the kids of 9-11 together for a "comfort camp." There's a web site, www.campcomfort.org. -------------------------------------------------------- EDITRIX TALK magazine folded in a sea of red ink. Several stories mentioned "editrix" Tina Brown. OED doesn't have it. Merriam-Webster doesn't have it, either, but suggests searching "editress." FWIW: David Shulman brought "editrix" to my attention. He was supposed to meet with Ralph Carlson of OUP about a Steve Brodie book, but Carlson never showed up. Shulman is friends with a table-tennis guy who's writing a book for Harold Evans who's married to Tina Brown. Shulman wants to meet with Evans this week. From carljweber at MSN.COM Mon Jan 21 23:28:16 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 17:28:16 -0600 Subject: "loose as a goose" Message-ID: I've heard "loose as a goose in a noose" CJW > I've sometimes heard/seen "loose as a goose on grass". Does > that clarify or confuse? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large > From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 22 01:29:49 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:29:49 -0500 Subject: Plaino instead of "plain old/plain ol'" Message-ID: The administrator of another list I subscribe to had to set up the list on a different server temporarily. When announcing this, he included the following note: "There is no online database or a file area or even a picture gallery. Just a plaino list server." I found some newsgroup citations where the word "plaino" is used instead of "plain old" or "plain ol'." Has anyone else encountered this usage? If so, I'm wondering whether it's use is ironic or if it's just an honest (albeit chuckle-inducing) mistake. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 01:33:23 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:33:23 -0500 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown In-Reply-To: <9.21fe8e56.297df829@aol.com> Message-ID: > TALK magazine folded in a sea of red ink. Several stories > mentioned "editrix" Tina Brown. OED doesn't have it. > Merriam-Webster doesn't have it, either, but suggests searching > "editress." I wrote a short article about this word in Esquire a few years ago. I think OED has an early twentieth century quote in the files, and I'd be surprised if we couldn't find a much earlier one now. > FWIW: David Shulman brought "editrix" to my attention. He was >supposed to meet with Ralph Carlson of OUP about a Steve Brodie book, >but Carlson never showed up. Shulman is friends with a table-tennis >guy who's writing a book for Harold Evans who's married to Tina >Brown. Shulman wants to meet with Evans this week. Carlson has been trying to get in touch with Shulman but Shulman is never in and his residence won't take messages. If Popik knows a good way to get in touch with him Shulman would be grateful. JTS From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 22 01:48:30 2002 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:48:30 -0500 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown Message-ID: Most of the cites for "editrix" seem to be from recent years. Is it just my imagination, or has it become more common in the last few years to use feminine forms previously thought unnecessary, such as "editrix" and "comedienne"? John Baker From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 02:53:25 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 21:53:25 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <001901c1a151$fae7c240$b6345fcf@computer> Message-ID: On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: #Goose/The Finger # #A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the #bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? -- Mark A. Mandel From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 03:38:20 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:38:20 -0500 Subject: 'heart' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last week. In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but if anyone taped or Tivo'ed it, it's there for the taking. It's the episode where Marge goes on a crusade against sugar. -- Steve From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 05:19:24 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 23:19:24 -0600 Subject: from/for? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Maybe it was intentional -- that this prosecutor is capable of climbing up trees from which she can see the forest. DMLance > From: Kim & Rima McKinzey > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:20:52 -0800 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: from/for? > > In today's SF Chronicle, an article about the San Francisco > prosecutor chosen for the Enron probe, has the following quote: > > "She can see the forest from the trees." > > I know this is a twist on the "can't see the forest... - but isn't > it FOR the trees? > > Is this another of those changes (like eating your cake and having it > too, or could care less) due to someone thinking you had to climb the > tree to see the forest, maybe? > > Rima > From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 05:35:36 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 23:35:36 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I associate goosing with the thumb or index finger. But in Texas when I was growing up in the 1940s the goosing was done to the ribs and had only risibility connotations. DMLance > From: Mark A Mandel > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 21:53:25 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > > On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: > > #Goose/The Finger > # > #A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the > #bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. > > Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, > was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the > goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you > prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 06:45:27 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 00:45:27 -0600 Subject: Out of Pocket Message-ID: People keep looking for a literal source of 'out of pocket' = unavailable. If you want a sports source, maybe billiards would be better than American football, since it is older. Maybe cricket. I don't think it's a new term. DMLance > From: sagehen .............. > Steve Boatti wrote: >> No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." > ~~~~~~~~ > Not "lacking money," just paying for it out of one's own resources, instead > of on an expense account or qualifying for reimbursement. > That, to me, suggests a possible path of development: being on one's own > -> being OFF on one's own -> being out of reach. > A. Murie > From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 22 10:22:59 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:22:59 -0000 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown Message-ID: In re editrix. Rowan Pelling, my editor at the Erotic Review in London, for which I write a monthly words column, styles herself 'Editrice.' Jonathon Green From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 12:25:47 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:25:47 -0500 Subject: Ooops. (Was: Re: 'heart') In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 21 Jan 2002, Steve Kl. wrote: > I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the > characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last week. > In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" Matthew Gordon emailed me, saying: >Are you sure it wasn't Will and Grace? There was a scene in which (just) >Jack said something like "I don't heart prison." Matthew's right. I got back from Chicago last night and watched four shows. I knew at the time I should have written it down, but I was sitting on a comfy couch and didn't want to get up. It was Will & Grace, not the Simpsons. Mea culpa. -- Steve From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 12:35:48 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:35:48 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? dInIs >On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: > >#Goose/The Finger ># >#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. > >Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, >was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the >goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you >prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? > >-- 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 betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 22 13:03:11 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 13:03:11 +0000 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: WORD >From: "Dennis R. Preston" >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:35:48 -0500 > >I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? > >dInIs > >>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: >> >>#Goose/The Finger >># >>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. >> >>Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, >>was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the >>goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you >>prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? >> >>-- 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 _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 22 13:03:32 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 13:03:32 +0000 Subject: Ooops. (Was: Re: 'heart') Message-ID: word >From: "Steve Kl." >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Ooops. (Was: Re: 'heart') >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:25:47 -0500 > >On Mon, 21 Jan 2002, Steve Kl. wrote: > > > I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the > > characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last >week. > > In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" > >Matthew Gordon emailed me, saying: > > >Are you sure it wasn't Will and Grace? There was a scene in which (just) > >Jack said something like "I don't heart prison." > >Matthew's right. > >I got back from Chicago last night and watched four shows. I knew at the >time I should have written it down, but I was sitting on a comfy couch and >didn't want to get up. It was Will & Grace, not the Simpsons. > >Mea culpa. > >-- Steve _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 22 13:14:29 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 08:14:29 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >.... What bird? Why bird at all? "Give [someone] the bird" = "make a sound or gesture of derision toward [someone]". Apparently the original "bird" (also "big bird", "goose") (early 19th C. or earlier) was a goose-hiss (used in the theater), later (late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx cheer, and finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. At least this is my impression from a glance at HDAS, Partridge, Cassell/Green, etc. -- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 13:41:56 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 08:41:56 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020122080338.04cf8d50@nb.net> Message-ID: Interesting that Partridge is cited for etymology. Remember him? He's the guy who said tochas meant testicles (sic) and was derived from the tock part of tick-tock, since the items in question reminded him of a swinging pendulum. I've been a little suspicious of his etymologies (especially since he apparently has no Hebrew and very little sense of the nether parts of his own anatomy). dInIs >>.... What bird? Why bird at all? > >"Give [someone] the bird" = "make a sound or gesture of derision toward >[someone]". Apparently the original "bird" (also "big bird", "goose") >(early 19th C. or earlier) was a goose-hiss (used in the theater), later >(late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx cheer, and >finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. At >least this is my impression from a glance at HDAS, Partridge, >Cassell/Green, etc. > >-- Doug Wilson -- 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 Tue Jan 22 13:53:49 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 08:53:49 EST Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/02 8:17:53 AM Eastern Standard Time, douglas at NB.NET writes: > later (late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx cheer, and > finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. Does anyone know if the following anecdote be true: Casey Stengel, when he was an active baseball player rather than a manager, once while playing in Brooklyn took his cap off and a bird flew out. This made Stengel the first man ever to give the bird back to Brooklyn. I read this story in a long-ago newspaper article about Stengel, probably while Stengel was manager of the Mets. Considering that Stengel was in his 70's while with the Mets, his playing days must have been the around the 1910's. - Jim Landau From test at TEST.COM Tue Jan 22 13:47:05 2002 From: test at TEST.COM (Ȩ) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:47:05 +0900 Subject: Ȩ 弼. [] Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 01:14:31 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:14:31 +0800 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown In-Reply-To: <003f01c1a32e$c469dda0$023264c0@green> Message-ID: At 10:22 AM +0000 1/22/02, Jonathon Green wrote: >In re editrix. Rowan Pelling, my editor at the Erotic Review in London, for >which I write a monthly words column, styles herself 'Editrice.' > Hmm-- I'd think if *any* editor of the female persuasion self-styled as an editrix it would be one who does so at the Erotic Review ;-) From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 22 14:23:24 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:23:24 -0000 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis R. Preston" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 1:41 PM Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > Interesting that Partridge is cited for etymology. Remember him? He's > the guy who said tochas meant testicles (sic) and was derived from > the tock part of tick-tock, since the items in question reminded him > of a swinging pendulum. > > I've been a little suspicious of his etymologies (especially since he > apparently has no Hebrew and very little sense of the nether parts of > his own anatomy). > > dInIs He also believed, in his first edition of 1937, that _nafka_, a whore and as such another 'steal' from Yiddish/Hebrew, was an elision of 'naughty girl'. And there are others, hardly surprising in a man who would always rather try for _some_ kind of etymology rather than settle for the OED's often correct but unexciting, 'ety. unknown'. Slang etymology is notoriously elusive - in which context one tips the hat to the on-going efforts of Gerald Cohen and Barry Popik - and while one may fault Partridge for such derelictions of lexicographical exactitude he remains one of the great slang collectors of the last century. In any case by the 1970 edn. (it may have been earlier, but I lack the edns. of 1949 and 1961)he had amended his error - I would imagine one or more of his extensive range of correspondents put him right. And he did not, after all, unlike Webster, believe that all language came from Ur of the Chaldees. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 01:33:51 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:33:51 +0800 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:53 AM -0500 1/22/02, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 1/22/02 8:17:53 AM Eastern Standard Time, douglas at NB.NET >writes: > >> later (late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx >cheer, and >> finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. > >Does anyone know if the following anecdote be true: Casey Stengel, when he >was an active baseball player rather than a manager, once while playing in >Brooklyn took his cap off and a bird flew out. This made Stengel the first >man ever to give the bird back to Brooklyn. > >I read this story in a long-ago newspaper article about Stengel, probably >while Stengel was manager of the Mets. Considering that Stengel was in his >70's while with the Mets, his playing days must have been the around the >1910's. > Casey played (as an outfielder in the National League) from 1912 to 1925 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Philadelphia Phillies, the New York Giants, and the Boston Braves. He was known as a good fielder and adequate hitter, but did hit the first two World Series home runs in Yankee Stadium. The bird-out-of-the-cap story was already often told in the 1950's when The Ol' Perfesser was the genius who managed the Yankees (as opposed to the 1930's when he was an incompetent manager for the Dodgers and Braves, and the 1960's when he was a buffoon for the Mets) and I assume it's true. Never seen it debunked, anyway. Here's one recounting, courtesy BaseballLibrary.com: ============== He sat on the bench for Pittsburgh in 1918 and 1919. It was during 1919 that one of Stengel's most famous antics took place. During the course of a rough Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn against his old teammates, Stengel had received a small bird from one of the Dodger pitchers in the bullpen and when he came up to bat, Stengel tipped his hat to the jeering crowd; out flew the bird, to the delight of the fans. =============== History doesn't record the species of the bird. larry From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 14:55:31 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:55:31 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Dennis R. Preston wrote: #I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? #>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: #> #>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the #>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. "Give so. the bird" = "give so. the finger" in NYC and Boston-area, at least. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 14:58:57 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:58:57 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: #WORD [Snip dInIs's seconding of my question and the entire rest of Jeremy's post. BTW, I (again) add my voice to the plea not to quote threads in full. And doing so to add literally a single word of comment is egregious.] WTH does this mean, anyway? "Ditto"? My kids (ages 20 and 24) use it, but they haven't been able to define it for me. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 22 15:01:10 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 15:01:10 +0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD >From: Mark A Mandel >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:58:57 -0500 > >On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: > >#WORD > >[Snip dInIs's seconding of my question and the entire rest >of Jeremy's post. BTW, I (again) add my voice to the plea >not to quote threads in full. And doing so to add literally >a single word of comment is egregious.] > >WTH does this mean, anyway? "Ditto"? My kids (ages 20 and >24) use it, but they haven't been able to define it for me. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 15:10:47 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:10:47 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: #WORD #WORD #WORD #WORD [snip about 100 more of this b.s.] *plonk* From davemarc at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 15:50:18 2002 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:50:18 -0500 Subject: 'heart' Message-ID: I have the episode on tape. If someone actually wants more of a citation, I could look for it. d. ----- Original Message ----- From: Steve Kl. To: Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 10:38 PM Subject: 'heart' > I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the > characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last week. > In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" > > I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but if anyone taped or > Tivo'ed it, it's there for the taking. > > It's the episode where Marge goes on a crusade against sugar. > > -- Steve > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 22 16:10:15 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 11:10:15 EST Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/02 1:18:17 AM Eastern Standard Time, lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU writes: << I associate goosing with the thumb or index finger. But in Texas when I was growing up in the 1940s the goosing was done to the ribs and had only risibility connotations. >> In my own experience, "goose" has always meant to poke someone in the buttocks. cf the spoonerism "Will John goose Sadie's cook?" There is another use of "to goose", which I strongly suspect is related. "To goose someone into action" means "to take some unspecified action to get someone to start doing what s/he is supposed to do" with the implication that obscene methods were not ruled out or that the methods to be used were equivalent to kicking the defaulter in the buttocks. The object of "to goose" could also be an inanimate object, e.g. a computer. Then there is the phrase "three-finger salute" meaning to use the CTL-ALT-DEL keys to reboot a PC. One strongly suspects this is derived from the middle finger salute. There exists a once-world-famous nonce synonym for "the finger". After the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo, they published a photograph showing the Pueblo crew, each member of which was displaying an upraised middle finger. It seems the crew had informed the North Koreans that this was "the Hawaiian good-luck symbol." (This is the same crew that said "we would like to paean North Korea".) Aside to Mark Mandel---the abbreviation "so." is ambiguous, because it could mean either "someone" or "something". - Jim Landau From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:19:21 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:19:21 -0800 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That would be my guess. I've seen al-Qaida and al-Qaeda but not Quida. They are all trying to represent q [velar]-a [as in "father" but longer in duration]-"ayin" [glottal stop not found in English]- i [short as in "it" but sometimes heard as "e" or schwa- d- a [as in "father" but short- final -h is silent but present. The above is probably as clear as mud, as the saying goes. I heard someone pronounce it correctly last week on NPR but can't remember who it was. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This > seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less > frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions > concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of > transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? > > Regards, > David > > barnhart at highlands.com > From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:09:40 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:09:40 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: With reference to Douglas G. Wilson's recent comment that "Apparently the original "bird" (also "big bird", "goose")(early 19th C. or earlier) was a goose-hiss (used in the theater). . . ." Early 19th century newspapers were very personal publications, and the editors were continually bickering with each other. The following bicker is from W. L. Stone of the Evening Post, and is aimed at Mordecai Noah, who was a playwright and also the editor of the National Advocate. Theatrical. -- Last evening, Mr. Noah's last new play of Marion, was performed for the second time; not having been present, nor seeing any account of it in the Advocate of this morning, we should like to know something about it. If we are correctly informed, there was not enough in the house to defray on half the expenses, and it is added, that the curtain fell to the music of a flock of geese. Is it so? New-York Evening Post, December 18, 1821, p. 2, cols. 4 George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:42:49 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:42:49 -0500 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The q is a uvular stop, not a velar, and the "ayin" is not a glottal stop (which is found in English--alif in Arabic) but a voiced pharyngeal fricative. The "silent but present" h is an h written at the end of the word in Arabic but not pronounced; it sometimes shows up in Roman transliterations of other words, sometimes not. Ben Fortson On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, A. Maberry wrote: > That would be my guess. I've seen al-Qaida and al-Qaeda but not Quida. > They are all trying to represent q [velar]-a [as in "father" but longer in > duration]-"ayin" [glottal stop not found in English]- i [short as in "it" > but sometimes heard as "e" or schwa- d- a [as in "father" but short- > final -h is silent but present. > > The above is probably as clear as mud, as the saying goes. > > I heard someone pronounce it correctly last week on NPR but can't remember > who it was. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu > > On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > > > These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This > > seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less > > frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions > > concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of > > transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? > > > > Regards, > > David > > > > barnhart at highlands.com > > > From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:50:46 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:50:46 -0800 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida In-Reply-To: Message-ID: True enough. I wish I could find a URL or some link to an audio of someone pronouncing it correctly. On the basis of a description of the phonetics, I doubt that anyone could get more than a vague notion of it. The Library of Congress transliteration scheme retains the final, silent h, so in US library catalogs it will be al-Qa'idah [the ' looking like a superscript small "c". allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Benjamin Fortson wrote: > The q is a uvular stop, not a velar, and the "ayin" is not a glottal stop > (which is found in English--alif in Arabic) but a voiced pharyngeal > fricative. The "silent but present" h is an h written at the end of the > word in Arabic but not pronounced; it sometimes shows up in Roman > transliterations of other words, sometimes not. > > Ben Fortson > > On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, A. Maberry wrote: > > > That would be my guess. I've seen al-Qaida and al-Qaeda but not Quida. > > They are all trying to represent q [velar]-a [as in "father" but longer in > > duration]-"ayin" [glottal stop not found in English]- i [short as in "it" > > but sometimes heard as "e" or schwa- d- a [as in "father" but short- > > final -h is silent but present. > > > > The above is probably as clear as mud, as the saying goes. > > > > I heard someone pronounce it correctly last week on NPR but can't remember > > who it was. > > > > allen > > maberry at u.washington.edu > > > > On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > > > > > These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This > > > seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less > > > frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions > > > concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of > > > transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? > > > > > > Regards, > > > David > > > > > > barnhart at highlands.com > > > > > > From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 22 17:52:25 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 11:52:25 -0600 Subject: anecdotal Message-ID: Upon request, I had presented evidence for Amerindian cannibalism and said, > Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not > representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer > of evidence, but maybe there are others. Jim Landau said >This is an interesting use of the word "anecdotal". OED2 has no meaning for either "anecdotal" or "anecdote" that comes close (OED2 has three definitions for "anecdote": 1) hitherto unpublished narrative 2) narrative of a single event told as being in itself interesting or striking 3) from art: a painting etc that depicts a small incident). M-W 10th Collegiate has one additional definition: "based on or consisting of reports or obsdervations of usu. unscientific observers (~ evidence)" which is a common usage in scientific reports but does not really fit here. > Jim Landau said, >What does carljweber mean by "anecdotal". The context here is tricky, since he is rebutting statements in a previous letter that do not contain the word "anecdotal". Apparently he means to describe reports as being second- or third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability. I.e. "mere anecdotes rather than reliable first-hand reports". > I say, Suggesting I mean by "anecdotal" that my evidence is unreliable is whacky. I have read many 17th century first hand accounts. The evidence I offered by Parkman was summary or paraphrase of some of those early accounts. Recapitulating the OED definitions is not without its interst. OED definition 2 presents no problem as the one that comes close. I use the general common meaning with the aspect of isolated event. Perhaps easier is the definition in (M) Webster's 1892 High School Dictionary, having to do with "a short story or incident," i.e., self contained and not a pattern or trend. Carl Jeffrey Weber From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 22 18:18:46 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:18:46 -0600 Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: The subject arose -- more or less -- it having been said that the Mohawk Indians -- experts at psychological warfare -- were happy to have their neighbors believe they, the Mohawks, would like to have them for lunch -- not really, but to keep them in check. I said < All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. Others contributed that cannibalism was used simply to "scare the crap out of " other captives. The term "ritual" cannibalism came up, as if saying grace before dinner was a mitigation. And slavery as "contingent slavery" entered the exchange -- somehow "contingent" tenderizing the practice of Indian slavery. And then to cover another base, cannibalism might be explained, it was said, as what one tribe might attribute to their neighbors to demonize them. This all denies a collective historical closet full of bones. The facts of this practice as widespread among the Amerindians has been swept under history's carpet. Maybe in general it should be. Do we tell the boys and girls in fifth grade about this? No. Should we dwell on it? No. However, to characterize, for example, the Conquistadors solely by their atrocity, is an equal miscarriage of history. The barbarisms of our human forebears is there for all to see. I was challenged to show evidence. I did. Jim Landau said >Jim Landau said >about it later, I realized that "ritual cannibalism" is the appropriate term >to describe the Catholic mass. >I (CJWeber) say: >"rites" of "symbolic" cannibalism is better. ~~~~~~~ It seems to me whether "symbolic" or not all depends on where you stand. Presumably to believers it *is* ritual cannibalism. Otherwise, what would transubstantiation mean? A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Tue Jan 22 18:51:53 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 13:51:53 -0500 Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: Carl Weber said: < All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. I didn't mean to start a major argument over cannibalism on this list. I know next to nothing about the subject, but a statement like the above struck me as highly unlikely. There were thousands of Amerindian languages and, one would guess, at least as many cultural groups, from the Yupik in Alaska to the Araucanians in southern Chile. To say anything that applied to ALL of them would have to be very difficult, indeed. Since my knowledge was limited, I asked a Ph.D. historian friend (whose specialty is North American Indian history) to comment. You may continue the discussion with her if you wish. kathryn.abbott at wku.edu Ellen Johnson Assistant Professor of Linguistics Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing Berry College, Box 350 Mt. Berry, GA 30149 706-368-5638 http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ ejohnson at berry.edu From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 19:36:32 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:36:32 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As I grow older, I lack clarity. Yes, I know that to give somebody the bird is to give somebody the finger. Why do we say bird instead of finger? And is it really the case that everybody except Mark and me knows the identity of the bird being referred to? Kiwi, tit, jay, robin? dInIs >On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >#I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? > >#>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: >#> >#>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >#>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. > >"Give so. the bird" = "give so. the finger" in NYC and >Boston-area, at least. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large -- 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 TlhovwI at AOL.COM Tue Jan 22 19:34:50 2002 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:34:50 EST Subject: from/for? Message-ID: Sounds fine to me. I can't see the forest from (all) the trees (that are in my way). Both ways are perfectly rational to me. My roommate check, however, told me I was crazy. Both roommates rejected the basic line with "from" but got sketchy when I added the parentheticals. But, if "for" = "because of" in the trees' example, then compare: I got an A from my hard work. Maybe I'm just wrong. I guess I should of thought before I spoke (haha). -dsb Douglas S. Bigham Southern Illinois University - Carbondale From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 20:16:59 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:16:59 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: DInIs, I think they're trying to tell you the bird is the goose, but my South Midland doubting Thomas also wonders if that's right. Geese have been known to peck people's behinds as well as other parts of the anatomy, so that's the connection they're trying to make--I think. Probably not a peckerwood or woodpecker. DMLance > From: "Dennis R. Preston" > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:36:32 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > > As I grow older, I lack clarity. Yes, I know that to give somebody > the bird is to give somebody the finger. Why do we say bird instead > of finger? And is it really the case that everybody except Mark and > me knows the identity of the bird being referred to? Kiwi, tit, jay, > robin? > > dInIs > > > >> On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >> #I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? >> >> #>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: >> #> >> #>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >> #>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. >> >> "Give so. the bird" = "give so. the finger" in NYC and >> Boston-area, at least. >> >> -- Mark A. Mandel >> Linguist at Large > > -- > 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 paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Tue Jan 22 20:26:40 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:26:40 -0600 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi Message-ID: Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the "finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying together bird and finger. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 23:03:17 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:03:17 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <17e.275daad.297ee8e7@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: #In my own experience, "goose" has always meant to poke someone in the #buttocks. cf the spoonerism "Will John goose Sadie's cook?" That's a metathesis, but not a spoonerism. A spoonerism is a metathesis at the phoneme or syllable level, usually between two words: "May I sew you to another sheet?" (show...seat). This metathesis exchanges two words intact. #Aside to Mark Mandel---the abbreviation "so." is ambiguous, because it could #mean either "someone" or "something". Urk. Right you are. I was thinking of SomeOne, but of course there's another 'o' in there. I shoulda used "smn." or "smb.". -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 23:30:01 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:30:01 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well I'll be hornswaggled. I never knew the bird = the finger) was a goose , but, I'm sorry to say, looking at the evidence presented so far, I still don't. dInIs (who ain't even from Mo.) >DInIs, >I think they're trying to tell you the bird is the goose, but my South >Midland doubting Thomas also wonders if that's right. Geese have been known >to peck people's behinds as well as other parts of the anatomy, so that's >the connection they're trying to make--I think. Probably not a peckerwood >or woodpecker. >DMLance > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 23:36:27 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:36:27 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: <3C4DCB00.8090402@mtnhome.com> Message-ID: Good one Paul! Not just Chicago, Louisville too. There's that dang bird! dInIs >Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the >"finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying >together bird and finger. From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 22 23:56:00 2002 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:56:00 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi Message-ID: Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the perch? John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Dennis R. Preston [SMTP:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] > Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 6:36 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: The Finger/the birdbi > > Good one Paul! Not just Chicago, Louisville too. There's that dang bird! > > dInIs > > > > >Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the > >"finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying > >together bird and finger. From laurieOwens at MSN.COM Wed Jan 23 00:01:58 2002 From: laurieOwens at MSN.COM (laurie owens) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 16:01:58 -0800 Subject: "sounding black" Message-ID: HELP! I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted testimony of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". The only man that was black in a house was arrested based on the police officers "description". The police officer never saw the defendant until trial. The defendant was convicted based on this "identification". Outrageous, no!?! My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites (specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really means). Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Laurie Owens From simon at IPFW.EDU Wed Jan 23 00:20:25 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 19:20:25 -0500 Subject: "sounding black" Message-ID: "sounding black" came up in the O.J. trial beth simon >>> laurieOwens at MSN.COM 01/22/02 19:15 PM >>> HELP! I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted testimony of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". The only man that was black in a house was arrested based on the police officers "description". The police officer never saw the defendant until trial. The defendant was convicted based on this "identification". Outrageous, no!?! My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites (specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really means). Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Laurie Owens From simon at IPFW.EDU Wed Jan 23 00:23:08 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 19:23:08 -0500 Subject: for the listmaster(s?) Message-ID: Sorry to post to the list but I'm not sure whose listermastering nowadays, and also, if this has been discussed, again, sorry, Can/could you block the spam/posts from the @(#$@%(@*$ poster? I checked with my university helpdesk folks and they say they can't do it because it's always posted to the list. thanks, beth From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 22 23:07:54 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 17:07:54 -0600 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi Message-ID: Paul M. Johnson said, < Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the "finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying together bird and finger. < That's me. In addition there was a little word-play on "perch" (as the familiar fish you go down and catch off Navy Pier, among other places). "Do ya like to fish? Perch on this." Are there any languages where a "gan-" named bird brings the baby instead of the stork? Isn't Ganz* = bastard? I see that I was a bit geo-centric in thinking "the bird" was well known to be the goose. CJW From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 23 01:46:24 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 20:46:24 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes >this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I >first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the >perch? The finger gesture is old ... compared to young me, that is. I did not know "the bird" in this sense ca. 1960; I think I heard it around 1970. Before that I heard usually "the finger" IIRC. HDAS shows this "bird" from 1966. As for the perch, that's a fish, not a bird. The way I recall it, when I was young(er) -- too young for the "dozens" or even the "sevens", maybe doing the "half-dozens" -- before I knew "the bird" as a gesture -- one line was something like "Do you like fish?" If answered "No", then of course one put forth something like "Then here's some meat for you"; if answered "Yes", one could say "Then perch on this." (With rude gesture [usually not exactly the one-finger salute, though] in either case, followed by [optional] yuk-yuk, arm-punch, palm-slap, etc.) I'm sure there were other versions just as witty and elegant. -- Doug Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 23 03:11:55 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 21:11:55 -0600 Subject: Naming the Euro Message-ID: It wasn't a foregone conclusion that the term "euro" would be chosen to designate the new European currency, and the German news magazine _Spiegel_, Dec. 29, 2001 tells how the selection was made. Here first is the German text, followed by an English translation. p.29, col. 3: 'Auch Theo Waigel, der Mann, der dem Euro später seinen Namen gab...' p.31 cols.1-2: 'Hart bis aufs Messer waren zudem die Verhandlungen, die der Finanzminister in Europa durchstehen musste. Selbst das Gezerre um den Namen der Währung auf dem Gipfel 1995 in Madrid ging bis tief in die Nacht. Thaler, Franken, Mark -- alles schien denkbar. Bloß nicht Ecu, das hörte sich für Waigel zu technisch. Am Ende warf er den Vorschlag Euro in die Runde. Klingt nicht sonderlich erotisch, entgegnete Luxemburgs Premier Jean-Claude Juncker. "Nein, aber es klingt eurotisch [euro- here is italicized]" konterte Waigel. Der Euro hatte seine[n] Namen.' *** translation: (p.29) 'Even Theo Waigel, the man who later gave the euro its name.' p.31: 'In addition, the negotiations which the [German] finance minister had to endure in Europe [i.e., as well as in Germany] were extremely tough. Even the arguing [literally: tugging] about the name of the currency at the 1995 summit talks went deep into the night. Thaler, frank, mark -- all were possible. Only not ecu, that sounded too technical for Waigel. Finally he tossed in the suggestion euro. Doesn't sound especially sexy ["erotic"] replied Luxemburg's premier Jean-Claude Juncker. "No, but it sounds 'EUROtic'", countered Waigel. The euro had its name.' --Gerald Cohen From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 04:02:30 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 23:02:30 -0500 Subject: Change in ADS-L posting options Message-ID: I have changed the posting options for ADS-L so that messages may only be posted by people who are subscribed to the list; previously anyone could post a message just by sending e-mail to the list address. The subscription option is still open; that is, anyone may subscribe without being approved. However, most spammers would not bother to subscribe just to send spam. I do not want to change this option since the effort of approving every request to join the list would be very large, and Terry and I have enough to do already, but there are intermediate options if necessary. Please let Terry or me know if this change causes some difficulty. Best, Jesse Sheidlower co-listowner, ADS-L From pds at VISI.COM Wed Jan 23 04:47:24 2002 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:47:24 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <17e.275daad.297ee8e7@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:10 AM 1/22/2002 EST, James A. Landau wrote: > >Then there is the phrase "three-finger salute" meaning to use the CTL-ALT-DEL >keys to reboot a PC. One strongly suspects this is derived from the middle >finger salute. I first encountered "three-finger(ed) salute" in the Boy Scouts, and "two-finger(ed) salute" in Cub Scouts. Goes back way before my time. Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 15:59:56 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 23:59:56 +0800 Subject: Change in ADS-L posting options In-Reply-To: <20020123040230.GA26477@panix.com> Message-ID: At 11:02 PM -0500 1/22/02, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >I have changed the posting options for ADS-L so that messages may >only be posted by people who are subscribed to the list; previously >anyone could post a message just by sending e-mail to the list >address. > >The subscription option is still open; that is, anyone may subscribe >without being approved. However, most spammers would not bother to >subscribe just to send spam. I do not want to change this option >since the effort of approving every request to join the list would >be very large, and Terry and I have enough to do already, but there >are intermediate options if necessary. Thanks from all of us, Jesse. Those messages have gotten tiresome, even for those of us for whom bandwidth isn't a problem in itself. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 16:13:22 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 00:13:22 +0800 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: <006801c1a399$a12eb0c0$0100007f@computer> Message-ID: At 5:07 PM -0600 1/22/02, carljweber wrote: > >Are there any languages where a "gan-" named bird brings the baby instead of >the stork? Isn't Ganz* = bastard? I see that I was a bit geo-centric in >thinking "the bird" was well known to be the goose. > There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. "Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive homosexual--but the form has shifted to "gunsel" and the meaning to 'gunman, hood, thug', e.g. in The Maltese Falcon (early 1940's). It's been reconfigured to evoke a a firearm rather than a waterfowl. larry From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 23 05:34:51 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 23:34:51 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20020122224724.00a3cb90@pop.visi.com> Message-ID: When I was in elementary and junior high school in South Texas in the 1940s, Chicano boys had their way of forming the hand and gesturing with the middle finger. They also would give a double insult by curling the index and little fingers and jabbing the middle and ring fingers toward the insultee. Using both hands made it even stronger. The verbal accompaniment would hardly have been considered a salute. What gringos and yankees do these days is puny compared with "the olden days." And 'pájaro' (bird) would never have come up unless there were some side reference to a zopilote (buzzard) eating the remains of the person who had been chingado. DMLance > From: Tom Kysilko > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:47:24 -0600 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > > At 11:10 AM 1/22/2002 EST, James A. Landau wrote: >> >> Then there is the phrase "three-finger salute" meaning to use the CTL-ALT-DEL >> keys to reboot a PC. One strongly suspects this is derived from the middle >> finger salute. > > I first encountered "three-finger(ed) salute" in the Boy Scouts, and > "two-finger(ed) salute" in Cub Scouts. Goes back way before my time. > > > Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services > pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 23 07:34:14 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 02:34:14 EST Subject: Egyptians/Gypsies (1487); Pistachio; Kvass Message-ID: TRAVELS TO TANA AND PERSIA by Josafa (Giosafat--ed.) Barbaro and Amrogio Contarini Translated from the Italian by William Thomas, Clerk of the Countil to Edward VI, and by S. A. Roy, Esq. And edited, with an introduction, by Lord Stanley of Alderley London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society 1873 (The book appears to have been finished on 21 December 1487--ed.) Pg. 7: ...bread made of MIGLIO.... (Margin note--ed.) Miglio is a graine almost as small as mustard seed. Pg. 18: And if it shulde be demaunded wheather they go, like the Egiptians or no?* * This perhaps is one of the earliest occasions of gipsies being mentioned. (OED has 1514 for "Egyptian" meaning "gypsy"--ed.) Pg. 31: This countrey is verie fertyle of corne, fleshe, honye, and divers other things: and their drynke is called BOSSA,* which signifieth ale. * Buzah, Turkish and Persian, a kind of beer; here it means Kwass. (OED has c.1553 for "kvass"--ed.) Pg. 79 (margin note): Pistacchi is a kynde of delicate nuttes. Pg. 152: We took a little rice with which a mixture is made with milk dried in the sun, and called thur, which becomes very hard, tastes rather sour, and is said to e very nourishing. We also had onions and garlic, besides which I obtained with much trouble a quart of biscuits made of very good wheaten flour, and a slated sheep's tail. TRAVELS OF A MERCHANT IN PERSIA (1500s--ed.) (Same Hakluyt Society book on same NYU microfilm reel as above--ed.) Pg. 145: Round the castle is a town of houses dug into the mountain like grottoes, in which the peasants live: a low race like gipsies. -------------------------------------------------------- A JOURNEY FROM ST PETERSBURG TO PEKIN, 1719-22 by John Bell Barnes & Noble, Inc., NY; Edinburgh University Press 1966 Pg. 56: The lakes abound with various kinds of fishes; such as pikes, perches, breams, eels; and, particularly, a fish called karrass, of an uncommon bigness, and very fat. Pg. 62: A zimovy is a house or two, built in a place at a grea distance from any town or village, for the convenience of travellers; and is a sort of inn, where you generally find a warm room, fresh bread, and a wholesome and agreeable liquor, (Pg. 63--ed.) called quass, made of malt, or rye-meal, steeped and fermented; with hay and oats, at easy rates. (I was looking for Pekin duck. Maybe I missed it--ed.) From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Wed Jan 23 08:20:20 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 10:20:20 +0200 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Larry wrote: > There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. > "Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for > a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm > told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive > homosexual--but the form has shifted to "gunsel" and the meaning to > 'gunman, hood, thug', e.g. in The Maltese Falcon (early 1940's). > It's been reconfigured to evoke a a firearm rather than a waterfowl. In Russian prison lingo, a passive homosexual is called "the cock" ('petukh'); it maybe a borrowing from yiddish with a shift from goose to cock (perhaps because the russian 'goose' is more frequently associated with a VIP), the russian prison lingo is full of yiddish words. But, if it's not a borrowing, it must indicate that the 'goose' together with the 'cock' and their gay meaning come from another direction and have little to do with all the geese that were previously discussed, methinks. A.F. From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Wed Jan 23 12:05:23 2002 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 07:05:23 -0500 Subject: "sounding black" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ABC News did a story on this issue based on John Baugh's research on housing discrimination. The term used by Baugh is linguistic profiling. There is a web site address you can go to at abcnews.com that has more information. Baugh is part of a defendant's lawsuit concerning housing discrimination based on his linguistic profiling argument; i.e., he didn't get the house because the realtors didn't want to sell to a Black person (they knew he was Black by the way he sounded on the phone alone). The url is: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/WorldNewsTonight/linguistic_profili ng011206.html > >>> laurieOwens at MSN.COM 01/22/02 19:15 PM >>> >HELP! > >I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am >currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted testimony >of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". The only man >that was black in a house was arrested based on the police officers >"description". The police officer never saw the defendant until trial. >The defendant was convicted based on this "identification". Outrageous, >no!?! > >My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded >inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to >identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated >articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites >(specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really >means). > >Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly >appreciated. > >Sincerely, > >Laurie Owens ************************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (dept.) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30602-6205 http://www.arches.uga.edu/~lanehart ************************************************************** From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 23 13:14:09 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:14:09 +0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! 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FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! >From: Mark A Mandel >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:10:47 -0500 > >On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: > >#WORD >#WORD >#WORD >#WORD > > [snip about 100 more of this b.s.] > >*plonk* _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Wed Jan 23 13:21:26 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:21:26 +0200 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Jeremy Diggz wrote, quite insistently: > Subject: Re: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) > > > FUCK SHIT! Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, I sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far behind. Alexey From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 23 12:24:11 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 07:24:11 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL,Net writes: >Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? >Truly, I >sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain >topic, >but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far behind. Some people can't resist displaying their obsessions, no matter how off-color or off-target. David From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 23 13:56:16 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 08:56:16 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I have the accompanying "perch" command from at least the mid-50's. I didn't hear "the bird" until the late 60's. dInIs > Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes >this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I >first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the >perch? > >John Baker > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Dennis R. Preston [SMTP:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] >> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 6:36 PM >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> Subject: Re: The Finger/the birdbi >> >> Good one Paul! Not just Chicago, Louisville too. There's that dang bird! >> >> dInIs >> >> >> >> >Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the >> >"finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying >> >together bird and finger. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 23 13:52:24 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:52:24 -0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:21 pm +0200 Alexey Fuchs wrote: > > Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, I > sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain > topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far > behind. Jeremy Diggz is someone who I think is on his way to being banned from this list. Or at least I hope so. I'm writing to his ISP to complain. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 23 13:59:05 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 08:59:05 -0500 Subject: "sounding black" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Get in touch with John Baugh (at Stanford) who can give you a complete report of his experimental as well as "call in" tests on what he calls "linguistic profiling." dInIs >HELP! > >I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am >currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted >testimony of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". >The only man that was black in a house was arrested based on the >police officers "description". The police officer never saw the >defendant until trial. The defendant was convicted based on this >"identification". Outrageous, no!?! > >My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded >inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to >identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated >articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites >(specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really >means). > >Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly >appreciated. > >Sincerely, > >Laurie Owens From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 23 14:00:48 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 09:00:48 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020122201524.04d129b0@nb.net> Message-ID: Where's the fish? dInIs >> Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes >>this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I >>first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the >>perch? > >The finger gesture is old ... compared to young me, that is. I did not know >"the bird" in this sense ca. 1960; I think I heard it around 1970. Before >that I heard usually "the finger" IIRC. HDAS shows this "bird" from 1966. > >As for the perch, that's a fish, not a bird. The way I recall it, when I >was young(er) -- too young for the "dozens" or even the "sevens", maybe >doing the "half-dozens" -- before I knew "the bird" as a gesture -- one >line was something like "Do you like fish?" If answered "No", then of >course one put forth something like "Then here's some meat for you"; if >answered "Yes", one could say "Then perch on this." (With rude gesture >[usually not exactly the one-finger salute, though] in either case, >followed by [optional] yuk-yuk, arm-punch, palm-slap, etc.) I'm sure there >were other versions just as witty and elegant. > >-- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 23 14:08:32 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 09:08:32 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: <4324260.3220782744@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Now now folks. Jeremy has lexicosis, and his state is simply more advanced than many of our honored list members who also prefer words to the near exclusion of other linguistic levels. dInIs >--On Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:21 pm +0200 Alexey Fuchs > wrote: > >> >>Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, I >>sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain >>topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far >>behind. > >Jeremy Diggz is someone who I think is on his way to being banned from this >list. Or at least I hope so. I'm writing to his ISP to complain. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 23 02:37:32 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 10:37:32 +0800 Subject: from "The DISH" Message-ID: I assume someone, if not everyone, on the list received an unsolicited memo from something called "the DISH" at the above address, which inter alia offers some pretentious, self-impressed words on the WOTY vote in San Francisco, along with some incorrect chronology (it depicts the Banned Words release from Lake Superior State as responding to the ADS vote for "9-11", when in fact our vote followed their release by several weeks). Toward the end, this memo also contains the following claim: ====== DISHing It Up Hot! On Words by Dot On 4 January 2002, the American Dialect Society (http://www.americandialect.org/) selected 9-11 as word of the year. Before the hijacked aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the numbers 9-11 formed a date understood only in North America. According to Dr. Wayne Glowka, an English professor at Georgia College and State University and head of the Dialect Society's new words committee, "9-11 is going to be like the 4th of July or Pearl Harbor." Glowka credits the media with being a primary conduit for new words. Presumably, this is the case for 9-11, because readers are left with the impression that media giant CNN coined the term chosen for this year. The DISH would like to take exception to this assumption. A review of The DISH archives shows that mere days after the 9-11 tragedy, "On 9-11" appeared in DISHing It Up Hot! (The DISH Vol. 4 No 37). Published September 21, 2001, "On 9-11" is a DISH original. And, until evidence to the contrary is presented, The DISH is the most likely media source of the word of the year for 2001. The DISH was not mentioned in any of the news reports covering the 2001 word of the year selection or ensuing controversy. ========== This is of course nonsense. A quick search of Nexis shows, among others, this cite: The Tampa Tribune September 13, 2001, Thursday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: NATION/WORLD, Pg. 18 HEADLINE: Flags Express Patriotic Support BYLINE: GEORGE WILKENS, gwilkens at tampatrib.com BODY: AREA RESIDENTS, BUSINESSES DISPLAY AMERICAN SYMBOL Not since Operation Desert Storm in 1991 has there been such a rush to buy American flags, owner John Kennedy said. Realtor Nicole Troupe, 26, improvised after visiting a Tampa Wal-Mart and finding the flags sold out. "I made it last night," she said proudly, displaying a T-shirt decorated with a flag and the words: "In remembrance of those fallen on 9-11, you will never be forgotten." ============= Notice that this appeared in print on 13 September, 8 days before The DISH's "original". I suppose this counts as "evidence to the contrary", although I'm not sure why the author of the memo assumes that "on 9-11" is the WOTY, rather than "9-11" itself, or for that matter why the quote from Wayne is seen as implicitly giving CNN credit for the first use of the WOTY. In any case, I hope the above quote from the Tampa Tribune, which is NOT the first use of "9-11" in the relevant sense (a number of papers published on September 12 used "9/11" or "9-11" to denote the attacks on the previous day, nor is either Mr. Wilkens or the T-shirt manufacturer claiming credit for inventing the term), should dispel the nonsense being dished out. Larry From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 23 17:40:21 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 17:40:21 +0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! 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I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! >From: "Dennis R. Preston" >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) >Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 09:08:32 -0500 > >Now now folks. Jeremy has lexicosis, and his state is simply more >advanced than many of our honored list members who also prefer words >to the near exclusion of other linguistic levels. > >dInIs > >>--On Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:21 pm +0200 Alexey Fuchs >> wrote: >> >>> >>>Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, >>>I >>>sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain >>>topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far >>>behind. >> >>Jeremy Diggz is someone who I think is on his way to being banned from >>this >>list. Or at least I hope so. I'm writing to his ISP to complain. >> _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 23 18:05:11 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 18:05:11 -0000 Subject: 9-11 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > ====== > DISHing It Up Hot! > On Words > by Dot > > On 4 January 2002, the American Dialect Society > (http://www.americandialect.org/) selected 9-11 as word of the year. > Before the hijacked aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and > Pentagon, the numbers 9-11 formed a date understood only in North America. > > According to Dr. Wayne Glowka, an English professor at Georgia College and > State University and head of the Dialect Society's new words committee, > "9-11 is going to be like the 4th of July or Pearl Harbor." Glowka > credits the media with being a primary conduit for new words. > Presumably, this is the case for 9-11, because readers are left with the > impression that media giant CNN coined the term chosen for this year. Ignoring the bits about 'the Dish' (whatever), I'd take some issue with Wayne Glowka's claim about the universality of 9-11. In spite of the close US/UK ties since then, I've not heard anyone here call it 9-11, it's always "11th of September" or "September 11th". When I was in the US over cmas, I was struck by how uninformly it's called '9-11' there, when we don't hear it at all over here. An example: A student yesterday was giving a presentation on Koko the gorilla. Koko apparently has made a statement on how she feels about the events. Anyhow, the student clearly had no idea what the site was referring to. She said something like "Patterson asked Koko about something called 9-11 or something, where some people died or something." I had to point out that that meant September 11th in "American"... Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 23 18:09:39 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 18:09:39 -0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The way to report Jeremy Diggz's behaviour is to abuse at hotmail.com. I've done so, forwarding his last missive, but it probably wouldn't hurt for others to complain as well. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 18:41:18 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:41:18 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz Message-ID: I've taken the unusual step of unsubscribing Jeremy Diggz from ADS-L without bothering to contact him first. He hasn't contributed anything apart from his spewings so I didn't think it was worth too much discussion/ruminating, but I wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this is a suppression of free exchange, etc. After all, it wasn't specifically spam. Jesse Sheidlower co-listowner, ADS-L From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 23 20:05:35 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 14:05:35 -0600 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: <20020123184118.GA11459@panix.com> Message-ID: Thank you !!! DMLance > From: Jesse Sheidlower > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:41:18 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Mr. Diggz > > I've taken the unusual step of unsubscribing Jeremy Diggz > from ADS-L without bothering to contact him first. He hasn't > contributed anything apart from his spewings so I didn't > think it was worth too much discussion/ruminating, but I > wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this > is a suppression of free exchange, etc. After all, it wasn't > specifically spam. > > Jesse Sheidlower > co-listowner, ADS-L > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 23 20:36:46 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:36:46 -0500 Subject: Test message - please ignore Message-ID: [all will be explained] Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 20:51:04 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:51:04 -0500 Subject: Posting problems Message-ID: Yesterday I announced that I had restricted the posting rights on ADS-L to people who were subscribed to the list. This has had some unfortunate consequences for some people who are genuine members of the list but who have been unable to post. The general reason for this is that the Listserv program looks to see if the originating account is exactly the same as the subscribed account. If there are differences, even slight ones, the post will be rejected. For example, if your basic mail address is something like john at university.edu, and you subscribe with that address, but you actually post from an English department server that gives you the address john at english.university.edu, the post will be rejected. Similarly, if you have aliasing of your name, so that your account is under "jts24 at university.edu" but you usually use "john.smith at university.edu" for convenience, the post will be rejected. If your post is rejected, the rejection message will go to you only, and not to me or Terry. The best solution is for you to unsubscribe under the current address and resubscribe under the correct address. If you have difficulty doing this or are uncertain about the process, please e-mail me or Terry. Sorry for any confusion. I do think that the change will have a real affect on the amount of spam on the list. There is, as I mentioned, an intermediate solution that we can try if this change causes too many problems with posting. Best, Jesse Sheidlower co-listowner, ADS-L From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 23 20:52:42 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:52:42 -0500 Subject: Test message - please ignore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >[all will be explained] Jesse has done it for me. Thanks, Jesse. Bethany From stevekl at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 21:02:44 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 16:02:44 -0500 Subject: coney dogs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well, those of you in Michigan know about coney dogs: hot dogs with a savory meat sauce, served with chopped onion and mustard. There's the wet, Detroit variety, and the dry Flint variety, and if you want to try them side by side, the Coney restaurant off of US-23 in Fenton serves both the Flint and the Detroit style. I recall this discussion from the past. The wet Detroit sauce is chili-esque, but the dry Flint one I've never seen anywhere else. Anyhow, I found out the 'secret ingredient' that makes that gives the Flint style coneys their unusual texture: it's ground beef heart. -- Steve From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 23 21:49:20 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 16:49:20 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: <20020123184118.GA11459@panix.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: #I've taken the unusual step of unsubscribing Jeremy Diggz #from ADS-L without bothering to contact him first. He hasn't #contributed anything apart from his spewings so I didn't #think it was worth too much discussion/ruminating, but I #wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this #is a suppression of free exchange, etc. After all, it wasn't #specifically spam. Thank you. It was worse than spam, which at least, sometimes, offers some content that someone, somewhere, may value. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 23 21:17:48 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 16:17:48 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz Message-ID: jester at PANIX.COM,Net writes: >I >wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this >is a suppression of free exchange Dear Jesse and the rest of the listers: I have been on a number of radio interview programs where callers were screened with a time delay. When an "unacceptable" or "inappropriate" comment justified cutting off the caller, there was no hesitation. I would suggest that you, Jesse, were certainly justified in cutting off Mr. Diggz. "Free exchanges" should not be so free as to allow for offense. People have gone to jail for verbal assaults. I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 24 04:05:51 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 23:05:51 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: #I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. Oh, certainly. And, to get this on topic (not that list policy is off-topic), such people on the Internet are known as trolls. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 24 05:03:40 2002 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 21:03:40 -0800 Subject: Posting problems Message-ID: a test to see if this works. (mail goes out @turing.stanford.edu, but @csli.stanford.edu is the standard address for incoming mail, though "turing" will work too.) there's going to be a problem at places with dynamic selection of servers, and for people who use different physical machines on different occasions. i suppose the solution for the latter problem is that people will have to remember which machine they're subscribed under, and then avoid posting to ADS from any of the other machines. arnold From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 24 11:37:00 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 06:37:00 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>Are there any languages where a "gan-" named bird brings the baby instead of >>the stork? Isn't Ganz* = bastard? I see that I was a bit geo-centric in >>thinking "the bird" was well known to be the goose. >There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. >"Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for >a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm >told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive >homosexual--but the form has shifted to "gunsel" and the meaning to >'gunman, hood, thug', e.g. in The Maltese Falcon (early 1940's). >It's been reconfigured to evoke a a firearm rather than a waterfowl. Mencken mentioned "guntzel" in 1936, I think, as tramps' slang for what we might gloss "punk", i.e., a tramp's boy companion, presumably usually or often a catamite; "guntzel" was also (later?) used for "fool" in carny slang. I think this indeed looks like "gosling" in Yiddish or perhaps some other German dialect, although why/how the word was adopted into English isn't clear to me. It seems to me that the original picture might have been of a gosling following behind its mother. A synonym was "prushun", and I've seen this more often, in tramp studies (from ca. 1920 and later), This word seems somewhat mysterious, sometimes said to be derived from "impression" (perhaps in the sense of "impressionable"; or perhaps originally something like [the older tramp's] "[spitten] image" or "protegé"), although it's tempting to equate it to "Prussian" (with what implication I don't know). Perhaps some Germanicist can explain why the umlaut is omitted ... i.e. (in my primitive conception) why it's like "gansel"/"gunsel" rather than "gänsel"/"gensel". -- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 24 12:30:12 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 07:30:12 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And people who live in Lower Michigan (i.e., people who are not "Yoopers") are known as "trolls" because they live "below the bridge." At least here's a form we can date with some better accuracy since we know when the bridge was built. dInIs >On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > >#I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. > >Oh, certainly. And, to get this on topic (not that list policy is >off-topic), such people on the Internet are known as trolls. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large -- 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 24 11:51:14 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 06:51:14 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz Message-ID: mam at THEWORLD.COM,Net writes: >#I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. >Oh, certainly. And, to get this on topic (not that list policy is >off-topic), such people on the Internet are known as trolls. Trolls, perhaps. This one is the same breed as the obscene phone caller and deserves the same punishment. Suspension from the list is all we can do short of making a federal case out of it. But, it's likely he'll just find another victim--or set of victims. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 24 13:12:42 2002 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 07:12:42 -0600 Subject: Posting problems In-Reply-To: <200201240503.g0O53e311945@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: At 09:03 PM 1/23/02 -0800, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >will have to remember which machine >they're subscribed under, and then avoid posting to ADS from any >of the other machines. A better solution, imho, is to subscribe from all of the addresses you're likely to use and then set all but one of them to nomail. This isn't the first time ADS-L has been "send=private" -- we did this at some point back when I was listowner. I can't remember now when and why we went back to "send=public." -- Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 24 14:01:31 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:01:31 -0500 Subject: donut/doughnut effect [Fwd from Paul Frank] Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from Paul Frank ----- From: "Paul Frank" To: Subject: Re: Posting problems Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 07:37:12 +0100 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Subject: donut/doughnut effect >>From this week's Economist: "Whilst the centre [of Birmingham, West Midlands not Alabama] has prospered, those parts of the city that planners call the 'inner suburb' have crumbled, leaving many stranded in the no-man's land between the booming centre and the plush outer suburbs. Planners call this the 'doughnut effect', which confusingly describes the opposite phenomenon to the 'donut effect' that American planners talk of. The American donut, a sugary ring with an empty centre, is a fine metaphor for the rich suburbs around a collapsed inner city. The British doughnut, a lump of indifferent carbohydrate with jam in the middle, describes rich inner-city development surrounded by acres of doom." Paul _________________________________ Paul Frank English translation from Chinese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Cell phone: +33 681 146 755 - France E-mail: paulfrank at post.harvard.edu From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 24 14:06:25 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:06:25 -0500 Subject: Posting problems In-Reply-To: <200201240503.g0O53e311945@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 09:03:40PM -0800, Arnold Zwicky wrote: > a test to see if this works. (mail goes out @turing.stanford.edu, > but @csli.stanford.edu is the standard address for incoming mail, > though "turing" will work too.) It works. > there's going to be a problem at places with dynamic selection > of servers, and for people who use different physical machines > on different occasions. i suppose the solution for the latter > problem is that people will have to remember which machine > they're subscribed under, and then avoid posting to ADS from any > of the other machines. As Natalie suggests, the best solution for this would be to subscribe under every reasonable address, and set all but one to nomail. That way you'll only get mail delivered to a single address, and won't get multiple copies of things, but you'll be a listmember from any address so can send without worrying about it. Jesse Sheidlower From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 01:51:56 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:51:56 +0800 Subject: gunsel In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020124055630.04913b20@nb.net> Message-ID: At 6:37 AM -0500 1/24/02, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. >>"Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for >>a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man >... > >Perhaps some Germanicist can explain why the umlaut is omitted ... i.e. (in >my primitive conception) why it's like "gansel"/"gunsel" rather than >"gänsel"/"gensel". > >-- Doug Wilson Note that based on the derivation I cited above, borrowed from the HDAS, the English version really *ought* to be "genzel" or "gentsel" rather than "ganzel" > "gunsel", and while the current version reflects folk etymology, it's harder to imagine that having happened if the vowel really were [E] before the reanalysis. So as Doug says, it's puzzling--unless there was a spelling pronunciation, which seems unlikely, how and why would "gendzl" have turned into (back-voweled) "ganzel"? larry From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 15:18:36 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 10:18:36 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Baker, John wrote: > Warner v. Bacon, 8 Gray 397, 74 Mass. 397, 69 Am.Dec. 253 (1857). The > Battley v. Faulkner case quoted in this passage appears to be an English > case that is older than the 1839 case Fred found, although I have not been > able to find its text or determine its exact date (sometime between 1810 and > 1830). Here is the citation, verified from the book: 1820 Richard V. Barnewall & Edward H. Alderson _Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of King's Bench_ III. 294 Mere collateral damage must be stated in the declaration, in order to entitle the plaintiff to give it in evidence, lest otherwise the defendant might be taken by surprise. 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 editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Thu Jan 24 15:54:35 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:54:35 -0600 Subject: Posting problems Message-ID: >As Natalie suggests, the best solution for this would be to >subscribe under every reasonable address, and set all but one >to nomail. That way you'll only get mail delivered to a single >address, and won't get multiple copies of things, but you'll >be a listmember from any address so can send without worrying >about it. > If you need to set nomail, the command is SET ADS-L NOMAIL, sent to the subscription address (listserv at uga.cc.uga.edu), from the address you're setting to nomail. Don't send this to the list! I'd like to ask that we add the instructions for subbing from multiple addresses and setting nomail to the ADS-L list information page on the ADS website. (Steve?) Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 24 16:22:59 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 11:22:59 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings Message-ID: Someone posted: "I first encountered "three-finger(ed) salute" in the Boy Scouts, and "two-finger(ed) salute" in Cub Scouts. Goes back way before my time." I was a Cub Scout in the late 1940s, and recall that the Cubs used a two-finger salute, and that we were promised that if we persevered and became Boy Scouts, we would be allowed to give a salute with three fingers. I might point out that Archer Taylor wrote a short book in the mid 1950s on the "Shanghai Gesture", aka cocking a snoot. (Published in Helsinki in 1956 as FF Communication 66.1) I read it many years ago, and was fascinated by the means Prof. Taylor used to document the history of a hand-gesture. Also: there are two chapters in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel in which characters "debate" in obscene and insulting gestures. Someone raised the question of the species of the bird under Casey Stengel's hat. I looked in the index of Robert Creamer's bio of Stengel, fruitlessly. It needs to be a bird likely to be found in a baseball stadium and small enough to fit under a hat. I have seen Black-crowned Night Herons while at Yankee Stadium, but they are too big. Plus, they were just flying past. (For you birdwatchers out there: no, I didn't see the marks that distinguish them from Yellow- crowned Night Herons, but the latter are even less common around NYC than the Black-crowned.) Dave Winfield notoriously hit and killed a gull with a throw from the outfield, and was arrested for cruelty to animals; but gulls, though sometimes common in ballparks, are also large. I speculate a sparrow. Dashiell Hammett's use of "Gunsel". I remember having read many years ago that Hammett had bet someone that he would put an indecent word into the Maltese Falcon. A quick check of several Hammett bios doesn't entirely confirm this, but William F. Nolan's Hammett: A Life at the Edge says: "Strong editorial censorship existed in the popular magazines during this period. *** Sex was a problem. Brigid's line, "I'm not ashamed to be naked before you" was dropped. . . . *** Hammett's line from Spade "How long have you been off the gooseberry lay, son?" was changed to "How long have you been off the lay?" since [his editor] was certain Hammett had something gamy in mind. He was mistaken. A "gooseberry lay" was crook slang for stealing wash form a clothesline. However, [his editor] did not touch the line "Keep that gunsel away from me. . . ." He assumed that the word "gunsel" meant gunman. Actually, it was a homosexual term that meant "kept boy." (pp. 93-94) GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 16:51:07 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 11:51:07 -0500 Subject: Military Usage of "Collateral Damage" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower tells me that the earliest military citation in the OED's files for "collateral damage" is dated 1975. Here's an earlier one: 1961 Thomas C. Schelling in _Operations Research_ IX. 365 Measures to locate and design our strategic forces so as to minimize collateral damage...would not have, or would have only to a very small extent, this 'destabilizing' influence. 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 24 04:20:45 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:20:45 +0800 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: <19388c819360c7.19360c719388c8@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 11:22 AM -0500 1/24/02, George Thompson wrote: > >Dashiell Hammett's use of "Gunsel". I remember having read many years >ago that Hammett had bet someone that he would put an indecent word >into the Maltese Falcon. A quick check of several Hammett bios doesn't >entirely confirm this, but William F. Nolan's Hammett: A Life at the >Edge says: "Strong editorial censorship existed in the popular >magazines during this period. *** Sex was a problem. Brigid's >line, "I'm not ashamed to be naked before you" was dropped. . . . *** >Hammett's line from Spade "How long have you been off the gooseberry >lay, son?" was changed to "How long have you been off the lay?" since >[his editor] was certain Hammett had something gamy in mind. He was >mistaken. A "gooseberry lay" was crook slang for stealing wash form a >clothesline. However, [his editor] did not touch the line "Keep that >gunsel away from me. . . ." He assumed that the word "gunsel" meant >gunman. Actually, it was a homosexual term that meant "kept boy." >(pp. 93-94) > Interesting story, but I wonder. The Hammett use of "gunsel" appears in the OED listing as one of several cites, of which it is not the first, under the Sense 1 heading 'a (naïve) youth; a tramp's young companion, male lover; a homosexual youth' rather than the Sense 2 heading of 'an informer, a criminal, a gunman', but the problem is that these categories are not entirely disjoint, since some criminals are youths and vice versa. The fact that the first cite in the OED is 1914 JACKSON & HELLYER Vocab. Criminal Slang 40 Gunshel, current amongst yeggs chiefly. A boy; a youth; a neophyte of trampdom. makes one wonder whether it's accurate to say that as of 1930 "actually, it was a homosexual term that meant 'kept boy'". True, the kid in The Maltese Falcon referred to above is a gunman, but he's also a youth; and we've seen that the first sense glossed above doesn't invariably imply 'kept boy'. Further, the version in TMF, published by Knopf in 1930, wasn't the first time Hammett used the term in print; the OED cite of the line is 1929 D. HAMMETT in Black Mask Nov. 43/1 Keep that gunsel away from me while you're making up your mind Assuming this is an earlier version in "a popular magazine" of what would be published in book form as TMF a year later, it makes one wonder whether the above story (putting an indecent word into TMF to win a bet, and assuming it would be read as 'gunman' rather than in the more general "yegg" use as 'boy, youth, neophyte') is really accurate. Still, it's at least possible that Hammett (especially via the 1941 Huston/Bogart movie version) helped move "gunsel" from OED's sense 1 to its sense 2. Larry From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 24 17:30:46 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:30:46 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The HDAS entry may be more useful here than the OED. For etymology, it speculates that the vowel is probably from a blend with English _gun_; this speculation would have come from David Gold, who knows more about the etymologizing of Yiddish words in English than anyone else. > Interesting story, but I wonder. The Hammett use of "gunsel" appears > in the OED listing as one of several cites, of which it is not the > first, under the Sense 1 heading 'a (naïve) youth; a tramp's young > companion, male lover; a homosexual youth' rather than the Sense 2 > heading of 'an informer, a criminal, a gunman', but the problem is > that these categories are not entirely disjoint, since some criminals > are youths and vice versa. The fact that the first cite in the OED is > > 1914 JACKSON & HELLYER Vocab. Criminal Slang 40 Gunshel, current > amongst yeggs chiefly. A boy; a youth; a neophyte of trampdom. > > makes one wonder whether it's accurate to say that as of 1930 > "actually, it was a homosexual term that meant 'kept boy'". True, HDAS has a 1910 example for the 'raw youth' sense. It also has a separate entry for the specific 'catamite' sense, with two clear pre-1930 cites, one from American Speech. > Assuming this is an earlier version in "a popular magazine" of what > would be published in book form as TMF a year later, it makes one > wonder whether the above story (putting an indecent word into TMF to > win a bet, and assuming it would be read as 'gunman' rather than in > the more general "yegg" use as 'boy, youth, neophyte') is really > accurate. Still, it's at least possible that Hammett (especially via > the 1941 Huston/Bogart movie version) helped move "gunsel" from OED's > sense 1 to its sense 2. I do think that the 'gunman' sense derives from a misunderstanding of the word specifically as used in the movie version of TMF. Jesse Sheidlower OED From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 24 19:40:11 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 14:40:11 EST Subject: GUNSEL: definition Message-ID: I think Mencken's definition is better than the first one given. GUNSELs were not "gay" or even necessarily "homosexual," though persons so designated may have been forced into anal intercourse by circumstances such as surviving in prison or in the world of tramps in the 1920s and 1930s. Or relationship may not even have been sexual--Robin is sort of Batman's gunsel. In a message dated 1/24/02 6:40:32 AM, douglas at NB.NET writes: << >"Gunsel" was originally ... >a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm >told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive >homosexual Mencken mentioned "guntzel" in 1936, I think, as tramps' slang for what we might gloss "punk", i.e., a tramp's boy companion, presumably usually or often a catamite>> From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 07:14:01 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 15:14:01 +0800 Subject: GUNSEL: definition In-Reply-To: <2d.1750e9d3.2981bd1b@aol.com> Message-ID: At 2:40 PM -0500 1/24/02, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >I think Mencken's definition is better than the first one given. GUNSELs were >not "gay" or even necessarily "homosexual," though persons so designated may >have been forced into anal intercourse by circumstances such as surviving in >prison or in the world of tramps in the 1920s and 1930s. Or relationship may >not even have been sexual--Robin is sort of Batman's gunsel. > may not have been KNOWN TO BE sexual; there's been a lot of speculation about those two. Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 00:53:15 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 19:53:15 EST Subject: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants Message-ID: CANE JUICE: A STORY OF SOUTHERN LOUISIANA by James Earle Uhler Century Co., NY 1931 This book supposedly got its author fired from LSU...Another person by this name (his son?) wrote a bibliography of Louisiana cookbooks. I was looking for LA food in this novel. Pg. 35: "Is everybody happy?" he called. Pg. 46: "I'd hate to get hog-lawed," (Pg. 47--ed.) he'd say. The "hog-law" was dismissal from the university because of deficiency in studies. Pg. 46: He knew how to hand-shake the professors, how to "get their leg" as the expression runs. Pg. 68: "Have you ever tried a sazerak?" Frank asked. Pg. 108: "Judas' priest! L.S.U.'s a lousy school." Pg. 109: "Judas' priest!" (As in "Judas's priest"?--ed.) Pg. 119: ...--the "you-and-me-both" spirit--... Pg. 192: "...he's a flea-bitten, mangy, wall-eyed, swaybacked wallapaloosis!" (Related to "lallapaloosa"?--ed.) Pg. 257: Football, bull sessions, dances, liquor, women!--it was not for him. Pg. 273: ...--and moochers and snowbirds?--... Pg. 290: Cocktails and high-balls flowed freely--and cafe brule, a mixture of coffee and whisky and spices burned in a large silver dish--and sangaree punch. Pg. 329: "You think I'm a Cajun red-neck, _hein_?" he snapped. -------------------------------------------------------- SAN FRANCISCO RESTAURANTS I've been going through 1980s books on San Francisco restaurants, looking for "General Tso's Chicken" in Chinatown and "tiramisu" in the Italian restaurants. The Jinx Morgan book on SF Chinese Restaurants (1976) resulted in a typical NYPL screwup--two books with the same call number, and the NYPL can find only the wrong book. TWO HUNDRED GOOD RESTAURANTS: A GUIDE TO EATING IN SAN FRANCISCO & THE BAY AREA by Russell S. Riera and CHris Smith Moss Publications, CA 1981 (first edition 1980) This book contains some food history from Robert Hendrickson's FOODS FOR LOVE (1974) that's just awful. Pg. 22 (Tai Chi, 2031 Polk Street, near Broadway): _Menu Specialties_...General Tsuo's Chicken (a country-style dish. Pieces of chicken encased in a golden crust, and served in a light, reddish sauce that looks like liquid jewels.) Pg. 182 (The Royal Mandarin, 234 Northgate Shopping Center): _Menu Specialties_...General Cho Chicken (the menu says it's "Diced Chicken Breast with Special Sauce." And the menu is very accurate--the dish's spicy sherry and ginger-scented sauce is special.) RESTAURANTS OF SAN FRANCISCO by Patricia Unterman and Stan Sesser Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1984 Pg. 153 (Taiwan Restaurant): Another rich chicken dish is _General Tsuo chicken_, a dish from Hunan, described as "Mao Tse-Tung's hometown famous dish." RESTAURANTS OF SAN FRANCISCO: NEW REVIEWS FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE by Patricia Unerman and Stan Sesser Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1988 Pg. 74 (E'Angelo, 2234 Chestnut Street): For dessert there's Stella Bakery's lovely sacripantina cake, with its delicate layers of genoise and zabaglione cream, and a house-made _tiramisu_, that generic dessert of coffee-soaked cake with mascarpone or Italian creme fraiche. Served in a goblet here, the _tiramisu_ was a little joy. (...) --Patricia Unterman, June 28, 1987 Pg. 82 (Ristorante Firenze, 1421 Stockton): For dessert, the restaurant makes its own _tiramisu_ with layers of coffee-soaked sponge cake and mascarpone, or Italian creme fraiche. (...) --Patricia Unterman, September 6, 1987 From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 25 03:16:52 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 22:16:52 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: <19388c819360c7.19360c719388c8@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, 24 Jan 2002, George Thompson wrote: #I might point out that Archer Taylor wrote a short book in the mid #1950s on the "Shanghai Gesture", aka cocking a snoot. Hmm. I know this only as "cocking a snook" (and mostly from British text, at that), but I'm not surprised at the final k->t, esp. since it's done on the nose (snout, snoot). --- Or was "cocking a snoot" the earlier form? -- Mark A. Mandel From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 07:27:06 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, Bulgur, Dolma (1803? 1812?) Message-ID: TRAVELS THROUGH THE SOUTHERN PROVINCES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, IN THE YEARS 1793 AND 1794. translated from the German of P. S. Pallas second edition, in two volumes London: John Stockdale 1812 Arno Press and The New York Times, NY 1970 OED cites this book for "fez" and "vodka." "1812" is given, along with "1802-1803." However, how could OED miss everything else? "Dolma," which it has for 1889? And "bulgur"! OED has 1934!!!! Merriam-Webster has 1926!!!! VOLUME ONE Pg. 496: ...the Russians import dried fruits, marmelade made of boiled grapes, called Bekmess, and that of other fruit, called (Pg. 497--ed.) Nardenk; Anadolian nuts, which are sent to the interior of the country; gall nuts, called Balamut.... Pg. 412: The excellent honey which they produce, is partly made into mead after having been diluted with boiling water, partly used with a fermented liquor made of millet, and called _Busa_, and partly consumed at the table. Pg. 410: Their principal species of grain is millet, of which they make cakes, hasty puddings, and prepare various kinds of pastry, as well as their common beverage, by the natives called _Hantkups_, and by the Kozaks of Terek, _Yantzokh_. VOLUME TWO Pg. 347: ..._Fez_.... Pg. 359 (CRIMEA): Among the most esteemed delicacies are, forced-meat-balls wrapped in green vine or sorrel-leaves, and called Sarma; various fruits, as cucumbers, quinces, or apples, filled with minced meat, _Dolma_; stuffed cucumbers; dishes of melons, _Badilshan_, and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _Bamia_, prepared in various ways with spices or saffron; all of which are served up with rice; also _Pelaw_, or rice, boiled in meat-broth, till it becomes dry; fat mutton and lamb, both boiled and roasted, &c. Pg. 360: ...a kind of pelaw, made either of dried or bruised unripe wheat, and which they call _Bulgur_; and, lastly, their bread is generally composed of mixed grain. Their ordinary beverage is made by triturating and dissolving cheese in water; the former of which is called _Yasma_, being prepared from coagulated milk, or _Yugurt_; but the fashionale intoxicating drink is an ill-tasted and very strong beer, or _Busa_, brewed of ground millet. Many persons also drink a spiritous liquor, _Arraki_.... Pg. 429: Formerly, the Tartars prepared large quantities of _Bekmess_, or marmalade, and _Misseless_, or syrup, from their grapes. Pg. 484: ..._Sekiskaya-Vodka_, or brandy distilled from fruit, and the lees of grapes.... Pg. 486: ...such commerce might be still farther extended by importing Brusian silk, Angora-goats' hair, and many simple drugs, which can be procured at a lower rate directly from the Levant, as well as fafflower ("S" or "F"?--ed.), madder, and saffron. (OED has 1819 and 1867 entries for "angora"--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 07:58:22 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 02:58:22 EST Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) Message-ID: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens) From NEW YORK magazine, 28 August 1978, pg. 107, col. 1: The place has become vastly popular from the sad day of its grand opening, for it is the perfect attraction for tourists and for what certain Manhattan restaurant staffs refer to as BBQ people (Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens). (I haven't heard this used by Manhattan restaurant staffs--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- JEEP, SHUTTERBUG (1939) I've been going through BOYS' LIFE looking for "trick or treat" and soda jerk slang ("86"). I'll have more on Saturday. A check for BOYS' LIFE in OED shows zero hits. No one has read it? "SHUTTERBUG!" is a title for a story in September 1939, pg. 10. OED's first citation is AMERICAN SPEECH (1940). See "THE JEEP SPECIAL" in May 1939. It's about a model airplane(?). From July 1939, pg. 30: "The Chinese wall is the only structure made by human hands that would be visible by the astronomers of the moon." (I thought this--is it true?--began with space flight in the 1960s.--ed.) From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 25 13:27:49 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 08:27:49 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Hmm. I know this only as "cocking a snook" (and mostly from British >text, at that), but I'm not surprised at the final k->t, esp. since it's >done on the nose (snout, snoot). --- Or was "cocking a snoot" the >earlier form? Apparently it was either "cock" or "cut" and either "a snook" or "a snooks" back in the 19th C. ... I don't know for sure what the "snook" means/meant ... there is a Scots verb "snoke"/"snook" = "nose"/"prowl"/"snort"/etc.; I wonder whether there was once a noun form something like "nose" ... now that I think of it, I wonder whether "snoop" in its modern sense might be a descendent of this "snook" (the putative Dutch ancestor "snoepen" seems far removed in sense). "Snooks" is of course a surname too. There was also something like "take a sight" = "cock a snook" ... I suppose this might liken the nose-gesture to the use of a sextant or so? -- Doug Wilson From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 25 14:21:12 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:21:12 -0500 Subject: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants In-Reply-To: <132.7eeecd6.2982067c@aol.com> Message-ID: Minor reaction: I guess I've never paid extremely close attention, but the spelling "Judas' priest" with apostrophe seems odd to me. As a fairly ordinary taboo-deformation of "Jesus Christ" it seems entirely unnecessary (for want of a better word) to make "Judas" possessive, either in the orthography or in pronunciation with an extra syllable (a pronunciation I've never heard, myself--anybody else heard it?). On Thu, 24 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Pg. 108: "Judas' priest! L.S.U.'s a lousy school." > Pg. 109: "Judas' priest!" (As in "Judas's priest"?--ed.) From AAllan at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 14:59:19 2002 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:59:19 EST Subject: Words of the Year 2001: Newsletter report Message-ID: This is the report that will go in the ADS newsletter. - Allan Metcalf SEPT. 11 ATTACKS OVERWHELM 2001 WORDS OF THE YEAR Dominating the American Dialect Society choices for words of the year 2001 were words for the terrorist attacks of September 11, as the attacks themselves dominated the conversation of Americans after that date. In San Francisco January 4, members and friends of the society voted "9-11" or "September 11" in its various written and spoken forms--including "9/11," "9.11," "nine-one-one" and "nine-eleven"--as the word (or in this case, expression) of the year. In the final show of hands there were 29 votes for "9-11," 10 for "burka," the garment worn by Muslim women in Afghanistan and elsewhere; 5 for "homeland" as in "homeland security"; 4 for "theoterrorism," attacks on civilians for a religious purpose; 4 for "misunderestimate," President Bush's coinage; and 2 for "ground zero," the site of the collapsed World Trade Towers after the attack. Since 1990, the society has chosen words of the year at its annual meeting. They are words that are new or newly prominent, reflecting the concerns and conversations of speakers of American English during the preceding year. All voting is open by show of hands, and participants are invited to speak for or against particular choices before the vote. In the eight categories leading to the final vote on words of the year, post-9-11 terms were likewise dominant. These were the winners, with approximate votes for each: 1. Most outrageous: "assoline" (44) methane used as fuel. Other candidates: "burka blue" (11) the color of the head-to-toe garment worn by some Afghan women. Preliminary vote "assoline" (23), "burka blue" (15), "Osamaniac" (10) woman sexually attracted to Osama bin Laden, "cuddle puddle" (3) pile of Ecstasy users on the floor. 2. Most euphemistic: "daisy cutter" (45) large bomb that explodes a few feet above the ground. Others: "women of cover" (9) Bushism for Muslim women who wear traditional dress, "sneakers-up" (1) a dot-com that goes belly-up. 3. Most likely to succeed: "9-11" (50). Others: "weaponize" (10) adapt anthrax, shoes, etc. for use as a weapon, "ground zero" (5) site of the collapsed World Trade Center towers, "pop-under" (3) Internet ad appearing under the main browser window. 4. Most useful (tie): "facial profiling" (29) scanning video "faceprints" to identify terrorists and criminals, and "second-hand speech" (28) cell phone conversations heard by others in public places. Others in preliminary votes: "linguistic profiling" (15) using language clues to identify a person's ethnicity and other characteristics, "theoterrorism" (9), "weapons-grade" (4) potent as in weapons-grade salsa, "annoyicon" (3) logo in bottom corner of a TV screen, "overconnectedness" (3) being connected everywhere all the time, "debris surge" or "debris storm" (1) spread of debris from a collapsing building, "to table" (1) to staff an informational table. 5. Most creative: "shuicide bomber" (26) terrorist with bomb in shoes. Others: "orthorexia nervosa" (11) obsession with eating the right foods, "second-hand speech" (8), "_so_ September 10" (5) petty or oblivious to possible danger, "Netwallah" (3) website administrator, "assoline" (1). 6. Most unnecessary: "impeachment nostalgia" (27) longing for the superficial news of the Clinton era. Others: "the terrorists will have already won if--" (15), "E.C." (15) emotionally correct as in properly responding to tragedy. Preliminary vote "desk rage" (2) tantrum in the office. 7. Least likely to succeed: "Osamaniac" (50). Others: "dot-orging" (4) changing employment from a dot-com to a nonprofit dot-org, "interruptible" (0) an energy customer allowing interruption of service for a lower rate. There was one additional special category this year: 8. Most inspirational: "Let's roll!" (unanimous) the words of Todd Beamer on United Flight 93 before the attack that foiled the hijackers on September 11, words later repeated by President Bush and put into a song by Neil Young. The next words of the year vote, for the year 2002, will take place in Atlanta January 3, 2003, at the society's annual meeting. Nominations may be sent to the chair of the society's New Words Committee, Professor Wayne Glowka, Department of English and Speech, Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville Georgia 31061, wglowka at mail.gcsu.edu. From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 25 15:40:38 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:40:38 -0600 Subject: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I've always been puzzled by the construction. Is it "the priest of Judas" (possessive), which would anachronistically be Jesus himself? Or does the expression ironically bestow priesthood on Judas? Or is it just a complex set of phonetic metatheses and substitutions (z --> d; k --> p, [ai] --> [i]? I assume the latter, with no apostrophe. DMLance > From: Benjamin Fortson > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:21:12 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants > > Minor reaction: I guess I've never paid extremely close attention, but the > spelling "Judas' priest" with apostrophe seems odd to me. As a fairly ordinary > taboo-deformation of "Jesus Christ" it seems entirely unnecessary (for > want of a better word) to make "Judas" possessive, either in the > orthography or in pronunciation with an extra syllable (a pronunciation > I've never heard, myself--anybody else heard it?). > > On Thu, 24 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> Pg. 108: "Judas' priest! L.S.U.'s a lousy school." >> Pg. 109: "Judas' priest!" (As in "Judas's priest"?--ed.) > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 25 16:10:59 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:10:59 -0500 Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, &c Message-ID: >>From Barry Popik's 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST post: " and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _" Another case where ("S" or "F"?--ed.) might well have been inserted. A. Murie From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Fri Jan 25 15:52:41 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:52:41 -0600 Subject: Weird Words of Wall Street In-Reply-To: <1e.220f87ab.2982ccc7@aol.com> Message-ID: Found while looking up other things, as usual: http://www.schwabon.com/Article.asp?article_id=108&category_code=4&partner_id=4 There are two other lists, links to which are in the sidebar on the right, near the bottom. --Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Fri Jan 25 16:00:13 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:00:13 -0600 Subject: GUNSEL: batman/robin Message-ID: snip > >not even have been sexual--Robin is sort of Batman's gunsel. > > > may not have been KNOWN TO BE sexual; there's been a lot of > speculation about those two. > > Larry Old Johnnie Carson question man joke: Answer: Cockrobin Question: "What's that in my mouth, Batman?" From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Fri Jan 25 16:13:06 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:13:06 -0600 Subject: Professor Single's Hip Vocabulary Guide In-Reply-To: Message-ID: from yesterday's Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0201240017jan24.story --Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 25 16:44:03 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:44:03 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings Message-ID: Mark A Mandel questions whether "cocking a snoot" isn't properly "cocking a snook". Actually, neither phrase is in my active vocabulary, and I may have been mistaken. Douglas G. Wilson suggests a possible association with one's hand- position while using a sextant: It has been 30+ years since I read his book, but as I recall Prof. Taylor's conclusion, it was that the gesture could not be documented before relatively recent times, perhaps the beginning of the 19th C., and that he supposed that it was a parody of a military salute, which, it seems, also came into use relatively recently. In "anecdotal" support of this supposition, my father, when in his cups -- not an infrequent state of affairs -- would sometimes give a brisk salute to no one in particular, then cry, "Ah, but don't turn your head", turning his head toward his right shoulder as he spoke, which changed the salute into a nose-thumbing gesture. He was a veteran of the WWI army. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 25 16:59:36 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:59:36 -0500 Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, &c In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Should be "esculentus"; must be the old-style s that looks nearly like a lower-case f. (You can always tell the difference, unless badly smudged, by the horizontal stroke, which is only on the left side of the stem in the s and does not cross through it as in the f.) Presumably "Hibiscus" was recognized as not being "Hibifcus" because of its familiarity... Ben On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: > >From Barry Popik's 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST post: > > " and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _" > Another case where ("S" or "F"?--ed.) might well have been inserted. > A. Murie > From dave at WILTON.NET Fri Jan 25 17:50:50 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:50:50 -0800 Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) In-Reply-To: <31.2179ac19.29826a1f@aol.com> Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Bapopik at AOL.COM Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 11:58 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) >See "THE JEEP SPECIAL" in May 1939. It's about a model airplane(?). Not surprising. "Jeep" was used in aviation circles in the '30s and '40s. Mencken (Sup. II, p. 784) records that "jeep" was a slang term for the Link trainer in the late-1930s. (Actually, he doesn't mention a date, but I infer from the context that this is the period.) The Link trainer, patented 1931, was the first true flight simulator. HDAS records a 1941 American Speech citation for this sense. HDAS also records the term's use 1942-7 for a small observation plane. There are also current references to 1940 uses of "jeep" to refer to the Northrop N-1M, an mockup of an early flying wing design (HDAS & http://www.nasm.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/northN1M.htm). From simon at IPFW.EDU Fri Jan 25 18:32:20 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 13:32:20 -0500 Subject: Words of the Year 2001: Newsletter report Message-ID: Hi Allan, Great WOTY session! I'd like to propose adding a category: Scariest word of the year. thanks, beth From acurzan at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 25 18:36:39 2002 From: acurzan at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Anne Curzan) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:36:39 -0800 Subject: Conference Circular: SHEL-2 Message-ID: A notice for all interested participants in SHEL-2: Studies in the History of the English Language II (SHEL-2) Registration forms are available on the web site for SHEL-2, and the conference program will be available on the web site by the end of January: . Place: University of Washington in Seattle Date: March 22-24, 2002 Paper Sessions and Plenary Talks: Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 23 Conference Banquet: Saturday Evening, March 23 Pedagogy Workshop: Sunday Morning (9 AM - 1 PM), March 24 Website: http://staff.washington.edu/kke/shel2 Plenary speakers: Douglas Biber (Northern Arizona University) David Lightfoot (Georgetown University) Donka Minkova (UCLA) We encourage interested participants to register and book rooms early, and we look forward to welcoming many of you to Seattle for this conference in March. You can find information about hotels, etc., on the web site. If you have any questions, please contact Anne Curzan (acurzan at u.washington.edu). Purpose and Objectives: The first Studies in the History of the English Language Conference (SHEL-1), organized by Donka Minkova and Robert Stockwell and held at UCLA in May 2000, brought together many of the top scholars in English historical linguistics, as well as promising new scholars, for a fascinating and wide-ranging program highlighting exciting developments in the field. The conference proved a successful first step in fostering conversation and energy around the research in this field in the United States, and we look forward to an equally exciting SHEL-2 conference in Seattle in March, 2002. By way of background: in Europe the biennial conferences known as ICEHL (International Conference on English Historical Linguistics) have served the field of English Language Studies extremely well, giving the field both focus and recognition that it almost certainly would not have achieved otherwise. In North America, despite the presence of many major scholars in the field, Historical English Linguistics -- the History of the English Language told in the light of contemporary linguistic sophistication – has not emerged with the same kind of recognizable personality. Many scholars who do this kind of work are to a significant extent also working in other fields such as general linguistics, English medieval studies, American dialectology, applied linguistics and teacher training. Our goal in organizing SHEL is to begin to provide the same kind of focus for English Historical Linguistics in North America as the focus achieved in Europe by the ICEHL series, in North America for Germanic Linguistics by GLAC (Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference), for American Dialectology by the American Dialect Society, for Social Dialectology by NWAVE, and of course for General Linguistics by the LSA. We are not in competition with any of these series or organizations; we believe, however, that a weekend meeting dedicated entirely to linguistic issues in the History of English will continue to be an energizing and useful academic experience for both established and emerging scholars in the field. And we hope that the pedagogy workshop devoted to issues in teaching History of English will be engaging and inspiring for teachers in the field. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 25 20:19:05 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:19:05 -0500 Subject: ADS t-shirts Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I am happy to announce that there are still a number of the new ADS t-shirts, #3 in the "Pioneer Series," this one honoring Lorenzo Dow Turner. The shirt depicts Turner on the front, holding up two African masks, and the back shows everything known about eastern US dialects (lexically, at least, as calculated for us by Don Lance). Naturally, since this is an academic shirt, it comes with a handout, providing some information about Turner and bibliographical references for the studies Lance used to construct his map. Here's how you can be the proud owner of one of these handsome shirts: 1) Send an e-mail message to Ms. Chunhua Ma at machunhu at msu.edu in which you tell her how many shirts you want and the size(s) - we have Medium, Large, Extra Large, and Double Extra Large - and provide the snail mail address where you would like the shirt(s) mailed. 3) Ms. Ma will respond, indicating whether the number and sizes you asked for are available, and will tell you how much you owe. Prices are $10 per shirt plus $5.00 shipping and handling. We will calculate different shipping and handling prices for more than one shirt and for non-US delivery. 4) Send your check, made out to "American Dialect Society," to Ms. Ma at Chunhua Ma Department of Languages and Linguistics Wells A 740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 Please do not send money until you have an e-mail response from Ms. Ma indicating that we have what you asked for. All proceeds swell the coffers of ADS. Act now, or you may be disappointed. I am sorry to have to announce that no more shirts honoring our first two pioneers (Charles Grandgent and Louise Pound) are available. -- 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 Fri Jan 25 20:41:13 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:41:13 EST Subject: Ground Zero Message-ID: In a message dated 01/25/2002 10:00:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > members and friends of the society voted "9-11" > as the word (or in this case,expression) of the year. In the final show of hands > there were 2 [votes] for "ground zero," the site of the collapsed > World Trade Towers after the attack. > > 3. Most likely to succeed: "ground zero" (5 [votes]) site of the > collapsed World Trade Center towers, "Ground Zero" is not a new term. Both the OED2 and the M-W 10th Collegiate give a date of 1946. I was able to antedate the OED2 entry by one week. reference: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (published in multiple volumes) Section dated 30 June 1946 on "The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki", as quoted on URL http://home.att.net/~armageddon_watch/stratbda.html some reinforced concrete buildings collapsed and suffered structural damage when within 2,000 feet of ground zero, and some internal wall paneling was demolished even up to 3,800 feet. (For convenience, the term "ground zero" will be used to designate the point on the ground directly beneath the point of detonation, or "air zero.") In addition, the Strategic Bombing Survey also uses a different expression: "The zero area, where the damage was most severe, " Two variations: In the 1950's the Defense Department (or maybe the Atomic Energy Commission) did some research on how soon soldiers could reoccupy an area after a nuclear blast. One soldier who participated in this research had a short-lived fame as "the Mayor of Ground Zero" The book _And the Band Played On_ about AIDS describes "Patient Zero". - Jim Landau From pskuhlman at JUNO.COM Fri Jan 25 21:04:54 2002 From: pskuhlman at JUNO.COM (pskuhlman at JUNO.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:04:54 -0500 Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, &c Message-ID: "Hibiscus esculentus" is the old scientific name for okra. (The current name is "Abelmoschus esculentus" according to Hortus III.) The specific epithet "esculentus" means edible. Patricia Kuhlman Brooklyn, NY pskuhlman at juno.com On Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:10:59 -0500 sagehen writes: > >From Barry Popik's 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST post: > > " and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _" > Another case where ("S" or "F"?--ed.) might well have been > inserted. > A. Murie > From stevekl at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 25 21:23:25 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:23:25 -0500 Subject: Posting problems In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 24 Jan 2002, Erin McKean wrote: > > I'd like to ask that we add the instructions for subbing from > multiple addresses and setting nomail to the ADS-L list information > page on the ADS website. (Steve?) > Will look into this. Thanks. (reminder -- i don't always read ADS posts thoroughly and just happened to catch this -- if you have a specific website concern, be sure to email me) -- Steve From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 25 21:33:26 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:33:26 -0500 Subject: Ground Zero In-Reply-To: <46.216ef429.29831ce9@aol.com> Message-ID: Is there no evidence of "Ground Zero" being used already during the pre-Hiroshima desert A-bomb tests? I vaguely recall this being the case from somewhere, but I could be completely wrong. Ben From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 25 21:45:42 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:45:42 -0500 Subject: Ground Zero In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Benjamin Fortson wrote: #Is there no evidence of "Ground Zero" being used already during the #pre-Hiroshima desert A-bomb tests? I vaguely recall this being the case #from somewhere, but I could be completely wrong. The difference for me between this Ground Zero and those Ground Zeroes is that up till now, "ground zero" with or without caps, was a general term for the ground location at or directly under the detonation of an atomic bomb (fission [A-] or fusion [H-]): (1) the devastating event was an explosion, and (2) the term was generic and needed to be contextualized to a specific explosion in order to acquire specific reference. Now, in the US, "Ground Zero" refers to the -- former -- site of the World Trade Center: (1) the damage was not caused by a bomb or other explosion, and (2) the specific reference needs no context, even if the NY Times still refuses to capitalize the term. To me these are good and sufficient reasons for "Ground Zero" to have been in the WOTY running, and for this definition of it to be be given lexical notice. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 26 02:04:01 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 21:04:01 EST Subject: Ground Zero Message-ID: resubmission - apparently did not make it to the List the first time In a message dated 01/25/2002 10:00:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > members and friends of the society voted "9-11" > as the word (or in this case,expression) of the year. In the final show of hands > there were 2 [votes] for "ground zero," the site of the collapsed > World Trade Towers after the attack. > > 3. Most likely to succeed: "ground zero" (5 [votes]) site of the > collapsed World Trade Center towers, "Ground Zero" is not a new term. Both the OED2 and the M-W 10th Collegiate give a date of 1946. I was able to antedate the OED2 entry by one week. reference: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (published in multiple volumes) Section dated 30 June 1946 on "The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki", as quoted on URL http://home.att.net/~armageddon_watch/stratbda.html some reinforced concrete buildings collapsed and suffered structural damage when within 2,000 feet of ground zero, and some internal wall paneling was demolished even up to 3,800 feet. (For convenience, the term "ground zero" will be used to designate the point on the ground directly beneath the point of detonation, or "air zero.") In addition, the Strategic Bombing Survey also uses a different expression: "The zero area, where the damage was most severe, " Two variations: In the 1950's the Defense Department (or maybe the Atomic Energy Commission) did some research on how soon soldiers could reoccupy an area after a nuclear blast. One soldier who participated in this research had a short-lived fame as "the Mayor of Ground Zero" The book _And the Band Played On_ about AIDS describes "Patient Zero". - Jim Landau From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 26 05:03:41 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 21:03:41 -0800 Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) In-Reply-To: <31.2179ac19.29826a1f@aol.com> Message-ID: >...certain Manhattan restaurant staffs refer to as BBQ people >(Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens). I've heard non-Manhattan residents of NY referred to as the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, but hadn't heard BBQ. Maybe it's specifically a restaurant term? Rima From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 26 16:00:45 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 11:00:45 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in the Times Message-ID: Tomorrow's New York Times (Real Estate section, page 7) has a really large article about George Thompson's researches. Congratulations, George! 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 Sat Jan 26 03:11:41 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 11:11:41 +0800 Subject: Gunsel again Message-ID: For those of you who don't subscribe to Michael Quinion's World Wide Words (http://www.worldwidewords.org), this week's issue has a comment on the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/) for the worst first sentence of an imaginary novel, which prompts Michael to cite a memorable sentence from an actual novel, Anthony Burgess's _Earthly Powers_: "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me". Now we know we can replace "catamite" with "gunsel" and modify the ambience while leaving the denotation unaffected. larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 26 17:03:59 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 12:03:59 EST Subject: Ground Zero Message-ID: In a message dated 1/25/2002 9:05:19 PM, JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: << "Ground Zero" is not a new term. Both the OED2 and the M-W 10th Collegiate give a date of 1946. I was able to antedate the OED2 entry by one week. >> 1. Words of the Year need not necessarily be new, right? For that matter, "9/11" is not really "new"--it just took on a new significance (cf. "Fourth of July"). 2. In any case, the use of "Ground Zero" as a proper noun is new, it seems, especially with the reference it will have in New York City. 3. My vote for "9/11" over "Ground Zero" was based in part on the general significance of the term as it relates to the entire terrifying series of events that took place on 11 September and the media obsession with those events for weeks thereafter. "9/11" refers to it all, not just the New York City locus of those events. My own prediction is that "9/11" will continue to be used widely for years to come, whereas "Ground Zero" will be less important lexicographically. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 27 00:13:10 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 19:13:10 EST Subject: Big-Bang toys (1915); ADS-L miss-ages Message-ID: ADS-L MISS-AGES I checked the ADS web site. I still haven't received over half of Friday's mail--including the messages that I sent on Thursday. O.T.: The snail mail doesn't work, either. I'm ordering some used cookbooks. I live in NYC. Things _used_ to get here almost immediately. Now it takes 7 days, 8 days, 9 days, 10 days, two weeks. Are they coming here on really slow planes? -------------------------------------------------------- BIG-BANG This continues discussion of "Big Bang." Fred Hoyle died a few months ago, and "Big Bang" was in his obituary. A check of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows "Big-Bang" as of September 1915, registered 1917. "Big-Bang" heavily advertised in BOYS' LIFE. From June 1929, pg. 70, col. 1: Big-Bang artillery Big-Bang heavy artillery Big-Bang bombing plane Big-Bang navy gun-boat Big-Bang army tank Big-Bang safety pistol For celebrating, firing salutes, playing at war. A real flash--a real BANG. THE CONESTOGA CORPORATION Bethlehem, Pa. ("Okay, Junior, back to your room! Play with your toys! Do you need more ammo?"--ed.) From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Sun Jan 27 07:28:43 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 09:28:43 +0200 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings (snook/snoot) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Hmm. I know this only as "cocking a snook" (and mostly from British > text, at that), but I'm not surprised at the final k->t, esp. since it's > done on the nose (snout, snoot). --- Or was "cocking a snoot" the > earlier form? > > -- Mark A. Mandel It seems that "t" must have been in the earlier form, and then t->k. Semantically 'snoot' is much closer to 'cock a snook' than the 'snook', isn't it? 'To cock a snook' is almost interchangeable with 'snoot', it seems, whereas it is not clear how to tie the 'snook' there. A.Fuchs From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 26 18:15:27 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:15:27 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT (resend) Message-ID: I sent this earlier today, but it doesn't seem to have made it to the list, so I'm trying again. Sorry for any duplication: Our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York Society Library, the article discusses his researches in early newspapers. It can be seen at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/realestate/27SCAP.html Jesse Sheidlower OED From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 26 14:50:13 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 09:50:13 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT Message-ID: Our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York Society Library, the article discusses his researches in early newspapers. It can be seen at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/realestate/27SCAP.html Jesse Sheidlower OED From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 27 17:17:00 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 12:17:00 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: <1d99e2b1d9818d.1d9818d1d99e2b@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >Douglas G. Wilson suggests a possible association with one's hand- >position while using a sextant: It has been 30+ years since I read his >book, but as I recall Prof. Taylor's conclusion, it was that the >gesture could not be documented before relatively recent times, perhaps >the beginning of the 19th C., and that he supposed that it was a parody >of a military salute, which, it seems, also came into use relatively >recently. I don't suggest that the gesture itself is based on use of a sextant or similar device, only that the word "sight" in connection with the nose-thumbing gesture might be so based. Here is an example dated 1702, in Farmer and Henley (under "sight", quoting "Eng. Theophrastus"): <<... there are four little satyrs, one of whom is taking a single sight, or making "a nose" at the lady; whilst a second is taking a double sight, or "long nose," towards the spectator. [N. & Q., 5 S., iii.298.]>> Farmer and Henley give "sight" = "a gesture of derision: the thumb on the nose-tip and the fingers spread fan-wise ... A double sight is made by joining the tip of the little finger (already in position) to the thumb of the other hand, the fingers being similarly extended." Equivalents (in Farmer and Henley) include "making a nose", "cocking/cutting snooks/a snook", "[making (?)] Queen Anne's fan", "taking a sight", "taking a grinder", "working the coffee-mill" [these last two apparently involving pantomiming the operation of an imaginary nose-crank], "pulling bacon". One might speculate as to whether there might be some phallic symbolism .... -- Doug Wilson From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Sun Jan 27 17:23:07 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:23:07 -0600 Subject: Enron Message-ID: Sam & Bud Walton and Kenneth Lay grew up in Boone County MO and attended the same high school and university. I don't think Bud Walton finished college, but he might have. Sam and Ken had the same economics professor, who was later appointed by Richard Nixon to head the Federal Power Commission. There is now a Kenneth L. Lay Chair of international economics at the University of Missouri for which they are now taking applications (and a chair honoring their professor, also funded by Lay). No Walton chair yet, but one will surely come. Bud's daughters' husbands are big into sports, one with the St. Louis Rams, the other having recently given 25 mil to the University of Missouri to build a second basketball arena, which will no doubt match the Walton Arena down in Fayetteville AR. As for what these guys learned in classes at MU, you might ask former mom & pop store owners about one and ask former employees about the other, he said walayingly. Now for the language part of the posting. As treasurer of an organization, at a Board meeting yesterday, I had occasion to say something about taking an Enron around some problem. Which made me wonder whether you word sleuths have searched for such uses in print by people whose coinages are more likely than mine to make their way into general use. DMLance From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 27 17:39:16 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:39:16 -0600 Subject: Request: Andrew E. Drews' thesis Message-ID: I've been working through the ads-l material on "Bob's your uncle" and noticed Aaron E. Drews' (U of Edinburgh) 6 July 2000 mention of his thesis. I'd be grateful--and I'm sure many other ads-l members would also appreciate it--if he would share with us the title and date of the thesis and its main contributions. Anything else the author feels we should know about his work would of course also be welcome. --Gerald Cohen >'...As for working-class, the only working-class folk I've encountered are Scots, and I've never heard it used. Might be a north-south thing. I have heard it used by some of the participants in my thesis, very clearly *not* working-class. ...' From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Sun Jan 27 18:12:07 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:12:07 -0500 Subject: Enron Message-ID: See my work-in-progress list of Enron-related terms: http://www.logophilia.com/WordSpy/enronomics.asp Paul From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Sun Jan 27 18:29:55 2002 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:29:55 -0500 Subject: Enron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Frank DeFord's NPR spot on a Wednesday mornings two Wednesdays ago, he used the word 'Enronized', but I can't now recall in reference to what.It was during his 100th or 1000th show or something where he was reflecting on his years in journalism. It immediately struck me as a new word and I figured it would just be one among many based on the tragic events of the company. If you go to their archives, you can probably find it on their web site. --Sonja >Sam & Bud Walton and Kenneth Lay grew up in Boone County MO and attended the >same high school and university. I don't think Bud Walton finished college, >but he might have. Sam and Ken had the same economics professor, who was >later appointed by Richard Nixon to head the Federal Power Commission. >There is now a Kenneth L. Lay Chair of international economics at the >University of Missouri for which they are now taking applications (and a >chair honoring their professor, also funded by Lay). No Walton chair yet, >but one will surely come. Bud's daughters' husbands are big into sports, >one with the St. Louis Rams, the other having recently given 25 mil to the >University of Missouri to build a second basketball arena, which will no >doubt match the Walton Arena down in Fayetteville AR. As for what these >guys learned in classes at MU, you might ask former mom & pop store owners >about one and ask former employees about the other, he said walayingly. > >Now for the language part of the posting. As treasurer of an organization, >at a Board meeting yesterday, I had occasion to say something about taking >an Enron around some problem. Which made me wonder whether you word sleuths >have searched for such uses in print by people whose coinages are more >likely than mine to make their way into general use. > >DMLance ************************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (dept.) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30602-6205 http://www.arches.uga.edu/~lanehart ************************************************************** From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 27 18:38:47 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:38:47 -0500 Subject: Request: Reference Resource Suggestions Message-ID: I am chugging my way through re-doing the ADS web site and I need your suggestions for the following in order to bring our reference suggestions up-to-date. Full cites (or sites) are appreciated! What dictionaries would you recommend to someone seeking more than a definition? What videos do you use in your courses or would you otherwise recommend? What general language-related books would you recommend? What academic language-related books (including textbooks) would you recommend? What language-related periodicals would you recommend? What language-related CD-ROMs or multimedia materials would you recommend? What language-related books have you edited or written? Thanks. Grant American Dialect Society Web Geek From dave at WILTON.NET Sun Jan 27 19:01:30 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:01:30 -0800 Subject: Enron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 25 January, Paul Solman, financial report for PBS's "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" made a pun off of "take the money and Enron." "...there may be nothing worse than a generation of executives who may be able, in effect, to 'take the money and run' - or should we say - 'Enron.'" See http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june02/watchdogs_1-25.html -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Donald M Lance Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 9:23 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Enron Sam & Bud Walton and Kenneth Lay grew up in Boone County MO and attended the same high school and university. I don't think Bud Walton finished college, but he might have. Sam and Ken had the same economics professor, who was later appointed by Richard Nixon to head the Federal Power Commission. There is now a Kenneth L. Lay Chair of international economics at the University of Missouri for which they are now taking applications (and a chair honoring their professor, also funded by Lay). No Walton chair yet, but one will surely come. Bud's daughters' husbands are big into sports, one with the St. Louis Rams, the other having recently given 25 mil to the University of Missouri to build a second basketball arena, which will no doubt match the Walton Arena down in Fayetteville AR. As for what these guys learned in classes at MU, you might ask former mom & pop store owners about one and ask former employees about the other, he said walayingly. Now for the language part of the posting. As treasurer of an organization, at a Board meeting yesterday, I had occasion to say something about taking an Enron around some problem. Which made me wonder whether you word sleuths have searched for such uses in print by people whose coinages are more likely than mine to make their way into general use. DMLance From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 27 19:06:39 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:06:39 -0500 Subject: Request: Your Home Page Message-ID: Also for the new ADS site, I'm looking for web sites run by members, including publications and personal sites. Sites with nothing but a CV or a list of published works are welcome. My intention is to link to them from the ADS web site. Please reply to me directly, not to the list. Thanks. Grant From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sun Jan 27 19:13:12 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 19:13:12 -0000 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a count noun? Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 27 19:42:36 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:42:36 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > count noun? It was a count noun before it was ever a mass noun, and is still well established as a count noun. 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 Sun Jan 27 20:07:33 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:07:33 -0600 Subject: "Bob's your uncle" revisited Message-ID: As I mentioned in an earlier message today, I've been working through the ads-l messages on "Bob's your uncle" (= everything's all right).And I now have a general observation: If (as seems plausible) the expression derives from the 1887 nepotism of Alfred Balfour being appointed as chief secretary of Ireland by his 'Uncle Bob' (Prime Minister Robert Cecil), and if this unwarranted appointment stirred an uproar, do any contemporary accounts record instances of the dissatisfaction? So even though the ads-l messages may be compiled (a useful step), there's evidently some further checking waiting to be done. ---Gerald Cohen P.S. Here is a helpful excerpt from Michael Quinion's World Wide Words (first presented to ads-l by Lynne Murphy): >'...The most attractive theory is that it derives from a prolonged >act of political nepotism. The prime minister Lord Salisbury (family >name Robert Cecil, pronounced /'SISIL/) appointed his rather less >than popular nephew Arthur Balfour (later himself to be PM from >1902-11) to a succession of posts. The first in 1887 was chief >secretary of Ireland, a post for which Balfour was considered >unsuitable. The consensus among the irreverent in Britain seems to >have been that to have Bob as your uncle guaranteed success, hence >the expression and the common meaning it preserves of something that >is easy to achieve.' From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Sun Jan 27 20:20:33 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:20:33 -0600 Subject: starchitect In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: This showed up in the (Chicago) Tribune Arts section today and I was all set to put it on my list for WOTY next year until a quick Google search showed it to have quite a few hits, some from a year or so back. Anyone got a good first cite for this? It means 'star architect' and seems to be used derogatively as well (in much the same way as 'diva' when not talking about opera singers). I quite like it. Thanks! Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 27 21:05:35 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 16:05:35 EST Subject: Apees (1785) Message-ID: I was doing research on the Pennsylvania Gazette CD-ROM in NYU just now when the screen when dead and couldn't be revived. Nothing works this week. DARE's first citation for "apee" is in 1830. It's from ANNALS OF PHILADELPHIA AND PENNSYLVANIA, and if you type all that with "Ann Page" you'll find it easily enough on the web. Various food sites (including Foodtv.com, which of course will never have me on) have "apee" and state "dating from the 1800s." 23 November 1785, PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE ...Cheese-cakes, Puddings, Jumbles, Jellies, Pies, Tarts, Custards, Sugar Biscuit, Rusk, Apees, Pound Cake, Queen Cake, and every thing of the kind, at the lowest rates, and in the best manner. (...) Margaret Woodby November 17, 1785 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 27 23:24:40 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:24:40 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: 'Well-established' can be 'on its way out.' Me and Lynne can't use it. dInIs >On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > >> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us >> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a >> count noun? > >It was a count noun before it was ever a mass noun, and is still well >established as a count noun. > >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 Sun Jan 27 23:55:01 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:55:01 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The only time I hear it as countable is from non-native speakers (understandably); they also say "informations," among other mass-to-count nouns. At 06:24 PM 1/27/02 -0500, you wrote: >'Well-established' can be 'on its way out.' Me and Lynne can't use it. > >dInIs > >>On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: >> >>> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us >>> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a >>> count noun? >> >>It was a count noun before it was ever a mass noun, and is still well >>established as a count noun. >> >>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 >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____________________________________________ 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 mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 28 00:22:31 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 19:22:31 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020127185309.03c35100@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #The only time I hear it as countable is from non-native speakers #(understandably); they also say "informations," among other mass-to-count #nouns. "Born In the U.S.A.", and I use "research" as count, as well as mass. But "informations" is * for me. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 28 01:06:32 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 20:06:32 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches Message-ID: Mark A. Mandel, Linguist at Large: "Born In the U.S.A.", and I use "research" as count, as well as mass. Alison Murie, 7th or 8th generation No. American of Irish & Scottish extraction, native speaker of English says: "Me too." I find both forms usable and useful. It surprises me that the question arises. It may be, as dInIs says, on the way out, but it ain't dead yet. AM A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 01:42:46 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 20:42:46 EST Subject: confused Message-ID: In a message dated 01/26/2002 4:08:58 PM Eastern Standard Time, RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > Words of the Year need not necessarily be new, right? For that matter, > "9/11" is not really "new"--it just took on a new significance (cf. "Fourth > of July"). In a message dated 01/27/2002 3:21:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM writes: > ["starchitect"] showed up in the (Chicago) Tribune Arts section today and I was > all set to put it on my list for WOTY next year until a quick Google > search showed it to have quite a few hits, some from a year or so > back. Now I'm confused. -Jim Landau P.S. In case anyone be interested, I posted my post about "Ground Zero" because I somehow got the impression that people thought "ground zero" was a new coinage rather than having been around for over half a century. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:00:44 2002 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:00:44 -0800 Subject: George Thompson in NYT (resend) Message-ID: jesse sheidlower writes: >our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive >article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New >York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York >Society Library... not, alas, available in the national edition. you have to go on-line and register to view it. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 28 01:58:52 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 19:58:52 -0600 Subject: "wicket ball" query Message-ID: >From: "John S. Bowman" >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >Subject: Re: [19cBB] Digest Number 111 >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:18:19 -0600 >List-Unsubscribe: > >While SABR members are all occupied with coming up with names for >bat-and-ball games of their youth (in the regular on-line forum) I have a >more specilized query for students of 19th century bat-and ball game. >Again in connection with an exhibit I and a fellow SABR member are >organizing on the early decades of baseball in our town, we are coming >across references to "wicket ball." These references range from the late >1700s at least to the 1850s. They sometimes appear in contexts that seem to >confirm that it is a separate game from baseball and cricket. On the other >hand, the games allowed for large cricket-like scores (over 100). Does >anyone know about "wicket ball" and its rules? From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:21:05 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:21:05 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online In-Reply-To: <200201280200.g0S20iR18859@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >jesse sheidlower writes: > >our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive > >article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New > >York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York > >Society Library... > >not, alas, available in the national edition. you have to go on-line >and register to view it. I am not sure what you mean by the national edition - or are you talking about the print edition? - anyway, the online edition is fre. You just have to register. Bethany From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:22:27 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:22:27 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >about the print edition? - anyway, the online edition is fre. You just >have to register. As we know, I cannot type. Make that free, not fre. Bethany From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:41:23 2002 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:41:23 -0800 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online Message-ID: bethany dumas writes, in reply to me: >I am not sure what you mean by the national edition - or are you >talking about the print edition? - anyway, the online edition is >fre[e]. You just have to register. by "national edition" i mean what the NYT labels its "National Edition", the edition(s) of the paper distributed outside the new york area. and yes, old troll that i am, i meant print editions. i never said the online edition wasn't free. i just said you had to register. i admit to being wary of registration; once you register, either they start sending you other stuff, or, eventually, they ask for money to go on. (otherwise, what's the point of registration?) i'm not particularly happy registering in order to get [apparently] simple access. for one thing, each registration means a userid and a password, and i already have between two and three hundred of these to keep track of. [only a few years ago it was 50-100. i expect that soon it will approach a thousand. well, by then, we'll all just use our social security numbers, i guess.] grumbly, the eighth dwarf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 02:49:59 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:49:59 EST Subject: Hey, Rube! Hector was a pup (1891) Message-ID: "SHORT SIXES" STORIES TO BE READ WHILE THE CANDLE BURNS by H. C. Bunner Puck, Keppler & Schwarzmann, NY 1891 H. C. Bunner was an editor of the humor magazine PUCK. His novels are on microfilm in an American Fiction series. One source said that he's noted for slang, so I'm giving him a read. OED already cites some terms from this book of short stories, but not these phrases. FWIW: Candles were sold six to a pound. Pages 163-178 HECTOR Pg. 170: In conclave assembled, the Misses Pellicoe decided to name the dog Hector. (Ah! Probably the first "Since Hector was a pup" is to be found in the pages of PUCK! Unfortunately, it's not online in the MOA database--ed.) Pg. 100: ..."if the boys was here, and I hollered 'Hey Rube!...." (RHHDAS has 1899. I have a song titled "Hey, Rube!" Did I post that it's from 1893?--ed.) Pg. 157: "But, my dear Mitts, where did he get the Latin and Greek?" "He had to learn _something_ at Yale." From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 28 02:57:48 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:57:48 -0500 Subject: "starchitect" Message-ID: Since Fred hasn't yet chipped in with a citation from the account books of James Knox Polk, I figured I'd say that ProQuest shows a 1988 citation from _House and Garden_ for _starchitect,_ in reference to Frank Gehry. Jesse Sheidlower OED From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 04:13:50 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 23:13:50 EST Subject: Kimchee (1889) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster both have 1898 for "kimchee" or "kimchi," a national dish of Korea. Harper's Weekly online has 12 January 1889: If labor in Corea is cheap, so also is living. A meal of soup, meat, kimchee, a sort of _sauer-kraut_, with a compote of persimmon, can be procured for fifty cash--scarcely more than four cents! -------------------------------------------------------- HEY, RUBE!--I just noticed that OED has 1882. For some reason, the RHHDAS didn't pick this up. HAROLD EVANS--David Shulman is meeting with him at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow at the NYPL. I don't want to see Evans. It was ten years ago that I approached Tina Brown's NEW YORKER with "the Big Apple." No one would speak to me. Then I did "New Yorker." Still, no one at the NEW YORKER would speak to me. Then it occurred to me that no matter what I did or how hard I worked, I would never make any money at all. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 07:06:29 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 02:06:29 EST Subject: Incidents of a Whaling Voyage (1841)(LONG!) Message-ID: INCIDENTS OF A WHALING VOYAGE: TO WHICH ARE ADDED OBSERVATIONS ON THE SCENERY, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, AND MISSIONARY STATIONS OF THE SANDWICH AND SOCIETY ISLANDS Accompanied by numerous lithographic prints by Francis Allyn Olmsted 1841 Charles E. Tuttle, Publishers, Rutland, VT 1969 A masterpiece. OED has zero citations from this book. It's a crime! A check of "Olmsted" has 291 hits, most all from the book SLAVE STATES (1856). I didn't find "luau" or "mahimahi" in a very quick search, but so much else is here--in convenient quotes. It's fabulous for whaling terms, and they should make OED whether or not these are the very first cites. Olmsted wanted to be a doctor. He graduated Yale Medical School (that's a school in New Haven, CT), but he passed away at about age 25. Pg. 15: "So much for sailing on Friday," an old salt would say. Pg. 73: There is also in these latitudes a gelatinous substance, a species of the medusae, called by the seamen the "_sea cucumber_," from a resemblance to the garden cucumber in size and shape. Pg. 77: We did so much against our will, as the promise of "fresh grub," was exceedingly tempting, after the liberal exercise we have had upon "salt junk," for some time before. (Junk food?--ed.) Pg. 88: During the hours of work, no trifling of any kind is allowed, and any one seen indulging in "skylarking," subjects himself to the danger of being sent aloft, or stationed at the wheel for many tedious hours, besides going without his usual allowance. Pg. 89: ...are smoking their pipes, "spinning yarns," or listening to a song.... Pg. 92: This evening we partook of rather a novel dish--"flippers" flavored with porpoise's brains! Pg. 93: The natives of some of the Pacific Islands consider _baked dog_ a great luxury.... Pg. 104: There are two kinds, the _baboon jacket_, a short coat without any skirts, and the _monkey jacket_, differing from the other in having a kind of ruffle around the lower edge answering to skirts. Pg. 105: My fingers too are swollen with that annoying complaint the "chilblains," so common an occurrence at home, although usually confined to another part of the system. Pg. 110: Calm and beautiful day, with occasional "catpaws" or puffs of wind sweeping over the ocean in every direction. Pg. 111: A young albatross was captured this morning which made an excellent "sea pie," or fricassee for supper, resembling veal in taste, although one or two of the officers refused to partake of the dish, inasmuch as the bird has no gizzard. Pg. 114: ..."chock pin".... Pg. 115: The usual cry is "Ho! Ho! Hoi!" or "Ho! Ho! Heavo!" which is sung by some one of them, while the rest keep time. (See "heave-ho" in ADS-L archives--ed.) Pg. 118: The most numerous variety was the "Booby," as he is called by the sailors, a bird about the size of a goose. Pg. 146: There are several varieties of fish that accompany ships, the most common of which, are the _albacore_ and _bonetta_, or "skip jack," as he is called by the sailors. Pg. 152: On Monday, corn and beans and pork, sans potatoes; on Tuesday, codfish and potatoes; on Wednesday _mush_ and beef; on Thursday, corn and beans and pork again; on Friday, rice and beef; on Saturday, codfish and potatoes again; and Sunday, beef and _duff_, a sort of pudding known universally to sailors. A ship without her _duff_ on Sunday, would be considered by all sailors, as certainly heterodox, as would the celebration of Christmas appear to an Englishman without his plumb pudding, or of thanksgiving in New England without pumpkin pies. The receipt for duff, used by Mr. Freeman our _primum mobile_ in such things, is as follows: "To a quantity of flour, more or less, (_more_ would be prefereable in Mr. F's opinion,) wet up with equal parts of salt and fresh water and well stirred, add a quantity of "slush" or lard, and yeast; the mixture to be boiled in a bag, until it can be dropped from the top-gallant cross-trees upon deck, without breaking, when it is cooked." This has been the bill of fare for all on board, and (Pg. 153--ed.) such has been its regularity, that our calendar is determined by it, and the days of the week are fancifully named, "mush day," "duff day," corresponding to Wednesday and Sunday old style. With the failure of potatoes, our bill of fare has met with sundry important changes, and we have had to adopt another mode of reckoning time. Our breakfasts and suppers are somewhat similar to our dinners, with the addition in the cabin and steerage of "flippers," or "slapjacks," for breakfast, and occasionally for supper. Pg. 158: ..."square the yards!" shouts the captain.... Pg. 158: ...and "breeching," or "fan-tailing," i. e. displaying their flukes in the air. Pg. 159: ...the "planksheer," or the level of the deck. Pg. 173: The _Cocoa-nut tree_.... The _Pine Apple_.... Pg. 182: "Mother Carey's chickens," as the sailors call these birds, are found in every latitudeall over the globe. (...) The "Mother Carey's chicken," was formerly regarded with superstitious fancies by the mariner. Pg. 207: *The process of _lomi-lomi_, consists in rubbing and kneading with the hands the person who subjects himself to the operation, and it is extremely reviving when one is fatigued. Pg. 222: Each of them had a _surf board_, a smooth, flat board from six to eight feet long, by telve to fifteen inches broad. Illustration Opp. Pg. 223: SANDWICH ISLANDERS PLAYING IN THE SURF. Pg. 230: ...the _pancho_, an oblong blanket of various brilliant colors, having a hole in the middle through which the head is thrust. Pg. 232: The feather and flower _leis_ which are also obnoxious to some of the missionaries, are brilliant garlands of gay feathers and flowers, with which, many of the native women enrich the head and neck, and are very tasteful and pretty ornaments in my opinion, for which they ought to be commended rather than censured. Pg. 233: The _lasso_, the principal instrument in their capture, is made of braided thongs, upon one end of which is a ring forming a slip noose, which is thrown with astonishing precision around any part of the animal. Pg. 234: The pommel is surmounted by a large flat knot, termed the "loggerhead," from which the lasso of the hunter depends. Pg. 340: The condition of our stores may be inferred from the fact, that for several days we have subsisted upon "salt junk, and hard tack,"* with beans for variety at regular intervals.... *Salt meat and sea-bread. Pg. 358: Sometimes, for variety, a preparation of hard bread and beef and pork is served up, which with some slight variation, is known by the elegant denominations of "lobscouse" and "lobdominion." Pg. 359: The tea which sailors drink, is not always the growth of the celestial empire. One variety is said to flourish in North Carolina, and from the huge sticks entangled with the herb, which rise upon the surface of the fluid as they are successively disengaged, receives the appellation of "studding-sail boom tea," a very expressive soubriquet. It has nearly as delicate a flavor as might be expected from a decoction of mullen stalks. Pg. 359: Cape Hatteras, opposite which we crossed the Gulf Stream, like most high headlands, is famous for sudden gusts of wind, called by seamen "white squalls," that without any warning, strike a ship in all their fury, and the first intimation the navigator has of their presence, is indicated by the falling of the spars over the side of the vessel. (...) Hence this admonitory distich is treasured up in the mind of the mariner as he navigates these seas: "If Bermuda let you pass, Then look out for Hatteras." (There's probably more good stuff, but the library was closing--ed.) From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Mon Jan 28 09:09:09 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:09:09 -0000 Subject: "wicket ball" query Message-ID: Whether or not he can help, I cannot say, but I would reccomend contacting John Eddowes, author of _The Language of Cricket_. (London 1997). His address is 35 Anhalt Road, London SW11 4NZ, and by all means mention that I suggested you write. He has reasearched extensively as to the origins of the game and word 'cricket', and I have little doubt that he would have come across 'wicket ball' somewhere along the way. Jonathon Green ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" To: Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 1:58 AM Subject: "wicket ball" query > >From: "John S. Bowman" > >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com > >To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com > >Subject: Re: [19cBB] Digest Number 111 > >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:18:19 -0600 > >List-Unsubscribe: > > > >While SABR members are all occupied with coming up with names for > >bat-and-ball games of their youth (in the regular on-line forum) I have a > >more specilized query for students of 19th century bat-and ball game. > >Again in connection with an exhibit I and a fellow SABR member are > >organizing on the early decades of baseball in our town, we are coming > >across references to "wicket ball." These references range from the late > >1700s at least to the 1850s. They sometimes appear in contexts that seem to > >confirm that it is a separate game from baseball and cricket. On the other > >hand, the games allowed for large cricket-like scores (over 100). Does > >anyone know about "wicket ball" and its rules? > From michael at QUINION.COM Mon Jan 28 11:14:39 2002 From: michael at QUINION.COM (Michael B Quinion) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:14:39 -0000 Subject: Marilyze? In-Reply-To: <200201280906.g0S96h2J024836@jupiter.nildram.co.uk> Message-ID: A World Wide Words subscriber has queried an expression as follows: "My mother used to threaten to 'marilyze' (spelling?) us when we were kids. I can't find it in any dictionary under any spelling I can contrive." Neither can I. Can anyone decode this one? Additional information: both the subscriber and her husband know it separately from their childhoods, suggesting that it is at least a regional expression. One mother grew up in Philadelphia and the other in rural southern New Jersey, both of English-Irish ancestry. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 12:16:24 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 07:16:24 -0500 Subject: Starchitect Message-ID: The account books of James Knox Polk were of no help with "starchitect." Below is an earlier citation than Jesse's 1988 one: Chicago Tribune January 18, 1987 Sunday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: SUNDAY MAGAZINE; Pg. 8; ZONE: C LENGTH: 11396 words HEADLINE: EGO BUILDING; NAME-BRAND ARCHITECTS MAY DRAW TENANTS, BUT WILL THEIR SIGNATURE SKYLINES STAND THE TEST OF TIME? BYLINE: Article by Jeff Lyon. BODY: ...in the era of the big name," observes architect Burgee. "You wear a designer's name on your shirt, and the same thing is happening to an extent with buildings." Chicago's Harry Weese, himself a starchitect, disapproves of the trend. "It's becoming a personality cult," he sneers. "People are trying to slap 'Calvin Klein' on a building's rump." But Robert Belcaster, a managing director of Tishman Speyer ... ...corporate headquarters in Evanston, the peak-roofed, octagonal Oakbrook Terrace Tower and the luminescent, glass-block station at the terminus of the O'Hare rapid transit line. But they city is alive with the work of other starchitects. Pedersen and his colleagues, for example. Their first Chicago entry was the curvilinear, green-tinted, river-dominating 333 W. Wacker Drive Building, which always elicits gasps of admiration from passersby and which won an American ... ...Drive that looks for all the world like a hounds tooth suit. It will house the Leo Burnett advertising agency and be an anchor of the new North Loop project. The trend toward starchitects is not peculiar to Chicago, of course. The same cachet-laden firms are being signed up by developers in cities all over the world. Jahn currently has more projects underway in New ... ...an architect is less important than his reputation for working within budgets, for being flexible and open to design changes and for being sensitive to the needs of users. But here, too, according to insiders, commissioning a starchitect is good insurance. "These guys have a track record," says one knowledgeable source. "They're more likely to give you a great design. They're more likely to give it to you the first time. And they're ... PAGE 2 Chicago Tribune, January 18, 1987 ...at the foot of Manhattan near Battery Park. Jahn's entry called for an Eiffel-styled tower that would dominate New York harbor like a lighthouse. Jahn's emergence as Chicago's premier starchitect has paralleled a decline in the fortune of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the nation's largest architectural firm with offices in nine cites and some 1,500 employees. For years, SOM had a virtual lock ... From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 28 13:01:59 2002 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 08:01:59 -0500 Subject: Marilyze? Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael B Quinion" To: Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 06:14 Subject: Marilyze? > A World Wide Words subscriber has queried an expression as follows: > "My mother used to threaten to 'marilyze' (spelling?) us when we were > kids. I can't find it in any dictionary under any spelling I can > contrive." Neither can I. Can anyone decode this one? > > Additional information: both the subscriber and her husband know it > separately from their childhoods, suggesting that it is at least a > regional expression. One mother grew up in Philadelphia and the other > in rural southern New Jersey, both of English-Irish ancestry. Maybe it's "murdelize"? A further corruption of "murderize", as heard from Bugs Bunny. At least, that's who I heard it from... bkd From john at FENIKS.COM Mon Jan 28 13:32:56 2002 From: john at FENIKS.COM (John Blower) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 08:32:56 -0500 Subject: Marilyze? In-Reply-To: <3C55329F.7813.90F4AA@localhost> Message-ID: At 11:14 AM 1/28/02 +0000, Michael B Quinion wrote: >A World Wide Words subscriber has queried an expression as follows: >"My mother used to threaten to 'marilyze' (spelling?) us when we were >kids. I can't find it in any dictionary under any spelling I can >contrive." Neither can I. Can anyone decode this one? > >Additional information: both the subscriber and her husband know it >separately from their childhoods, suggesting that it is at least a >regional expression. One mother grew up in Philadelphia and the other >in rural southern New Jersey, both of English-Irish ancestry. > >-- >Michael Quinion >Editor, World Wide Words >E-mail: >Web: Perhaps it's a corruption of "marmalize", which was popularised by Liverpool (Liverpool-Irish?) comedian Ken Dodd (and his Diddymen, if I remember correctly) in the 1960s (?). Now, the roots of "marmalize"... Cheers! John Blower/FeNiKs Business Communications 795 Mammoth Rd, #23, Manchester, NH 03104 V: 603 668 5601 F: 707 220 7490 Trainer at Large/Ace Copywriter http://www.feniks.com/ mailto:john at feniks.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 00:39:03 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 08:39:03 +0800 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online In-Reply-To: <200201280241.g0S2fN819143@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: You can also find in on Nexis. Here's the version appearing there; I haven't adjusted the line lengths, which make these read like free verse. No graphics, unfortunately. larry =================================== The New York Times January 27, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 11; Page 7; Column 1; Real Estate Desk HEADLINE: Streetscapes/Early-19th-Century New York; The Streets Are Familiar, but the Way of Life Is Gone BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER GRAY BODY: LIKE a few other New Yorkers, George A. Thompson methodically reads multiple daily New York newspapers -- but they don't arrive on his doorstep. Over the last decade, Mr. Thompson has been gradually reading dozens of different New York newspapers from the early days of the republic to World War I; last summer he happened upon the earliest recorded use of the term baseball, in 1823. Wading through a twilight zone of sources -- unindexed, uncatalogued, often long forgotten -- he is gradually reconstructing a New York City that seems like a foreign country -- a place where citizens could see the aurora borealis, where Midtown farmers complained of tree rustling and where ribboned steers paraded down Pine Street, Born in Connecticut in 1941 to a Brooklyn-born father, Mr. Thompson got a master's degree in English literature and then a temporary library job in Boston that led to a career in library service. A reference librarian at New York University since 1972, "I have been fascinated for all of my life with time past -- worlds that have disappeared," he said. He said that what strikes him about early photographs is not the vanished buildings, but the evidences of human life visible in the margins -- blurry pedestrians or passers-by somehow caught by the lens. "These people were intent on something," he said. "Our past lives are a succession of moments that absorb us at the time but have faded or been entirely forgotten. The newspapers record what was once the latest moment, and reading them lets me slip back into that time." About 10 years ago Mr. Thompson began scanning early 19th century newspapers for no particular purpose. He ran across notices in a newspaper called The National Advocate about a black man named William A. Brown, who organized a company of black actors in 1821. Their first play was Shakespeare's "Richard III," but Brown also had them perform a play he composed based on his life on the island of St. Vincent. Although players in Brown's "African Theatre" were occasionally harassed by some white New Yorkers, in 1822 Brown built a playhouse on Mercer between Bleecker and Houston Streets. By 1824 it was used by the actor James Hewlett, who billed himself as "the New-York and London colored comedian" and as "Shakespeare's proud representative." Hewlett went to jail in 1834 for theft, and the last reference Mr. Thompson can find has Hewlett attempting a comeback in Trinidad, in a white-managed theater there. Mr. Thompson wrote "A Documentary History of the African Theatre" (Northwestern University Press, 1998) on Brown and Hewlett's efforts. "They mark the fountainhead of one of the main streams of black creativity in this country," he said. His intensive research about the 1820's led him to a discovery that made news worldwide. While double-checking The National Advocate, he saw a story from 1823 that he had missed before: the announcement of a "base ball" game on Broadway south of Eighth Street, pushing the origins of the game far earlier than the traditional story of Abner Doubleday in 1839. Last summer, the discovery was reported on the front page of The New York Times. Now, a decade into his project, Mr. Thompson has read large runs of New York City newspapers in almost every year of the 19th century, especially the period 1815-1835, and the material he has collected presents a New York that is hard to relate to. In 1826 The New-York National Advocate commented on what was apparently a familiar springtime ritual: "A pair of fine steers, bedizened with the usual quantity of cocliquot ribbands, and oranges on the tips of their horns, were paraded yesterday through Pearl, Pine and other streets, with music. They are to be dead and cut up, ornamenting the stall No. 7 Franklin-market, on the 4th of March." Mr. Thompson believes this annual event marked the breaking up of ice on the Hudson, after which upstate farmers could ship their cattle to New York for sale. In a city free of smog and tall buildings, The New-York Evening Post gave an account of an aurora borealis seen from 9 to 11 p.m. in 1830, described as "a vivid flush of light in the sky, extending from east to west, in a long low arch." The article continued: "The light was of a greenish tint, and contrasted beautifully with the dark blue of the heavens, while at intervals the stars were seen faintly twinkling through it. South of the principal arch, luminous spots, like portions of the galaxy, occasionally showed themselves and disappeared." The condition of the streets was a constant annoyance. In 1818 The New-York Evening Post reported in outrage: "A respectable elderly lady, while crossing the intersection of Chambers and Chatham Streets yesterday afternoon, was thrown completely prostrate by a large hog and seriously injured by the fall. The rude boys, who set the drove in full speed among the crowds returning from church, immediately ran off." And in 1825 The Commercial Advertiser lamented on the city's failure to clean the streets, invoking the names of two strikingly unequal mountains: "There is now a pile of manure in William-street, along side of which that of Maiden-lane would dwindle like Butter Hill by the side of Chimborazo. On the highest peak of this heap, some wicked wag this morning erected a monument, inscribed, 'Sacred to the memory of the Street Inspector.' " The Commercial Advertiser expressed annoyance with the 1825 equivalent of scooters: "The driving of hoops upon the side-walks, has become an annoyance. It is now very common to meet three or four boys, of from 10 to 16 years, even in Broadway and Pearl-street, coming full tilt, one after the other, with a hoop rattling along before them. Kites are a dangerous annoyance, too." And in 1829 The Morning Courier chimed in with a satirical plea from the usually unlit "Lamp-Post #10", which lamented in "the voice of one crying in the darkness, 'I will be heard since I cannot be seen.' " IN 1835 The New York Daily Advertiser reported that 14 "valuable oak and hickory trees" on a farm somewhere between 14th and 57th Street had been cut down during the night and stolen. After a chase of about a half mile, a policeman found and arrested one of the thieves "near the windmill," and the paper attributed the crime to a group of "dirt cartmen and laborers, living in the outskirts of the city." On a recent day at the New York Society Library on East 79th Street, Mr. Thompson was scanning The New-York Evening Post, looking up citations he had previously noted and copying them in longhand onto tightly filled notebook pages. He uses microfilm when necessary, but he also checks hard-copy issues of newspapers. "Looking at microfilm is a pain, and often the filmed version misses issues or pages or is illegible," he said. The library has a nearly full run of original copies of The Post from 1804 to 1929. Mr. Thompson is now working on a book-length compilation of early 19th-century newspaper articles, with crime news, a sports page, a travel page, a real estate page, restaurant reviews and similar features. He said he hoped that "readers will finish one story, shake their heads and say, 'I can't believe that New York was ever like that,' then read the next story and shake their heads and say, 'I can't believe that New York has always been like that.' " Mr. Thompson does read current newspapers, but not with the same care he devotes to the old ones: "I sort of leaf through The Times and The News" he said, explaining, "The tragedies I read about in the 1820's are easier to deal with than today's." http://www.nytimes.com GRAPHIC: Photo: George A. Thompson and a very old newspaper in the reference room at the New York Society Library. (Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times) From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Jan 28 14:31:55 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:31:55 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches" In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: "Researches" is a bit funny for me too, but somewhere along the way I think I incorporated it into my grammar as a calque on Fr. "recherches" or something. Ben On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > count noun? > > Lynne > > Dr M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Jan 28 14:48:42 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:48:42 -0500 Subject: Marilyze? In-Reply-To: <04a301c1a7fb$fbe2a8d0$5102020a@graphnet.com> Message-ID: I came across "moidelize" (i.e., "murdelize") in an editorial cartoon depicting the Three Stooges--I don't remember if they themselves used it in any of their episodes. As for "marilyze", presumably we should spell it "maralyze" since presumably "paralyze" plays a role here somewhere...? Ben On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Bruce Dykes wrote: > > Maybe it's "murdelize"? A further corruption of "murderize", as heard from > Bugs Bunny. At least, that's who I heard it from... > > bkd > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:40:05 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 10:40:05 +0800 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" Message-ID: Today's lead headline of the New Haven Register reads as above, in a rather large font. And in case you weren't sure (I wasn't), it does indeed involve the "new" sort of counterfactual/subjunctive "may" we've been discussing. The subhead is "Hospital deaths avoidable, doc says", and the article begins: ======= A new method of making sure that sedated patients are breathing might have averted this months's dual tragedy, experts say. Two women undergoing cardiac catheterization at St. Raphael's died in mid-January when they were inadvertently given anesthesia rather than oxygen. A lunchbox-sized device called a capnograph possibly could have warned doctors and nurses sooner that the two women were not receiving enough air, a prominent physician said. ======== [Note the switch to "could" in the text of the article.] I know subjunctive "may" has been spreading, much to the consternation of some of us crypto-prescriptivists (I regret not being able to use may vs. might to illustrate an important semantic distinction), but to see it in a 3 inch headline is sobering indeed. Reminds me of when I first came across the following, in a headline of the Boston Herald sports section in 1971: Colts Want This One? So Don't the Pats --larry P.S. I wonder how long it will take before someone recalls the Marlon Brando line from On the Waterfront as "I may uh been a contender." From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 16:45:49 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:45:49 EST Subject: How New M ay/Might the Word of the Year Not Be? Message-ID: Concerning the criterion of "newness", I consulted this year's organizer of the ADS Words of the Year spectacular; he replies as below: In a message dated 1/28/02 11:01:55 AM, wglowka at mail.gcsu.edu writes: I tried to limit my nominations to words that were fairly new or had new meanings, but things came from the floor that were old. Our out is always "newly prominent." "Daisy cutter" really is from the sixties. Wayne Glowka From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 28 18:08:34 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 10:08:34 -0800 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: I can't either. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > count noun? > > Lynne > > Dr M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Mon Jan 28 18:34:06 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:34:06 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I said I couldn't say "researches" either, but to raise the ghost of "degrees of grammaticality," I am much happier with "researches" than "informations" and with "informations" than "furnitures." I'd say it was because I know to parcel out the latter two in "bits and pieces," respectively, but that would only raise the ire of anti-punsters like larry. But seriously folks, I don't have a "classifier" for "research" as readily at hand as I do for the others. Could that have anything to with it? I doubt it; I've got handy classifiers for "beer," (cans, bottles), but that doesn't stop me from asking for "two beers." But, come to think of it, I have handy classifiers for wine too (bottle, glass), but I would never say give me "five wines," although I am sure waitpersons have no difficulty with this. dInIs >I can't either. > >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu > >On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > >> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us >> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a >> count noun? >> >> Lynne From johnson4 at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Mon Jan 28 18:32:45 2002 From: johnson4 at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Daniel Ezra Johnson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:32:45 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Along the same line, I've noticed "mails" recently, referring to email, where I would (still) have to use "messages". Daniel > I said I couldn't say "researches" either, but to raise the ghost of > "degrees of grammaticality," I am much happier with "researches" than > "informations" and with "informations" than "furnitures." > > dInIs > > > >I can't either. > > > >allen > >maberry at u.washington.edu > > > >> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > >> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > >> count noun? > >> > >> Lynne > From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 28 18:43:24 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:43:24 -0000 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 28, 2002 1:34 pm -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > But seriously folks, I don't have a "classifier" for "research" as > readily at hand as I do for the others. Could that have anything to > with it? I doubt it; I've got handy classifiers for "beer," (cans, > bottles), but that doesn't stop me from asking for "two beers." But, > come to think of it, I have handy classifiers for wine too (bottle, > glass), but I would never say give me "five wines," although I am > sure waitpersons have no difficulty with this. I suppose part of the reason that count 'researches' strikes me as odd is because I have a range of ways of making 'research' countable that are semantically more transparent--and so 'researches' confuses me as to what's being counted. There's pieces of research --- 'I've seen a few pieces of research that contradict that claim'--in this case, research = the output of researching streams/programs of research -- 'I've got two streams of research going at the moment: lexical relations and social labeling'. but if it's the sum of all the little projects I've done, it's my (mass) research, not my researches. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU Mon Jan 28 20:10:26 2002 From: andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:10:26 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches Message-ID: Lynne Murphy wrote: > > I suppose part of the reason that count 'researches' strikes me as odd is > because I have a range of ways of making 'research' countable that are > semantically more transparent--and so 'researches' confuses me as to what's > being counted. > > There's > > pieces of research --- 'I've seen a few pieces of research that > contradict that claim'--in this case, research = the output of researching > > streams/programs of research -- 'I've got two streams of research going at > the moment: lexical relations and social labeling'. > > but if it's the sum of all the little projects I've done, it's my (mass) > research, not my researches. With this in mind, and even without, 'researches' implies to me separate forays. George Thompson's research into, "Feathers without much chicken," plus George Thompson's research into, "Coniack," comprise two of George Thompson's researches. Not the output of researching, but research activity. That's at least how it seems to me. FWIW, I don't have this one, but I like the way it feels :) From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 28 20:44:33 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:44:33 -0500 Subject: Peter Tamony Message-ID: A book just received in the library here is "Torching the Fink Books and Other Essays on Venacular Culture" by Archie Green. (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.) It contains a memoir of Peter Tamony on pp. 183-98. It appears that this memoir has not been published previously: it's not mentioned in the acknowledgements and it does not appear in the bibliography of Green's writings, which I skimmed for the years after 1985. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 28 20:49:27 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:49:27 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "New device may have prevented tragedies" This is a beautiful example of may/might confusion that produces a very bad result. We read the headline & think, "Whew! tragedy averted; glad to hear it," and move on to the next item. In the case of "Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats,"at least the ambiguity (if not opacity) leads us to check the text to see what's meant. A. Murie ~~~~~~~~~~ Original Message: >Today's lead headline of the New Haven Register reads as above, in a >rather large font. And in case you weren't sure (I wasn't), it does >indeed involve the "new" sort of counterfactual/subjunctive "may" >we've been discussing. The subhead is "Hospital deaths avoidable, >doc says", and the article begins: >======= > A new method of making sure that sedated patients are breathing >might have averted this months's dual tragedy, experts say. Two >women undergoing cardiac catheterization at St. Raphael's died in >mid-January when they were inadvertently given anesthesia rather than >oxygen. A lunchbox-sized device called a capnograph possibly could >have warned doctors and nurses sooner that the two women were not >receiving enough air, a prominent physician said. >======== >[Note the switch to "could" in the text of the article.] >I know subjunctive "may" has been spreading, much to the >consternation of some of us crypto-prescriptivists (I regret not >being able to use may vs. might to illustrate an important semantic >distinction), but to see it in a 3 inch headline is sobering indeed. >Reminds me of when I first came across the following, in a headline >of the Boston Herald sports section in 1971: > >Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats > >--larry > >P.S. I wonder how long it will take before someone recalls the >Marlon Brando line from On the Waterfront as "I may uh been a >contender." ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...or, "Of all sad words of mouth or pen, The saddest are these: It may have been." From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 28 21:03:56 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:03:56 -0500 Subject: Request: Andrew E. Drews' thesis Message-ID: If one searches Google for "edinburgh theses", the 2nd item retrieved will permit a connection with the catalog of the U. of Edinburgh's library. "Edinburgh University theses presented since 1985 are listed in the Library's Catalogue, and can be searched for by author, title or keyword". However, I found nothing under Andrew or Aaron Drew, Drewe, Drewes, or Drews. There is a print publication called "Index to Theses with AbstractsAccepted for Higher Degrees by the Universities of Great Britian and Ireland" This appears 6 times a year. I don't see Drew, &c. in the indexes to the issues of 2000 or 2001. It claims to be searchable on line, at the address "www.theses.com" Subscribers to the print version are said to be eligible for a password. Bobst is a subscriber, but I doubt that we have ever applied for a password. Otherwise, one may "sample" one year, for free, at that address, but the sample year is evidently from the mid-1990s. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Gerald Cohen Date: Sunday, January 27, 2002 12:39 pm Subject: Request: Andrew E. Drews' thesis > I've been working through the ads-l material on "Bob's your uncle" > and noticed Aaron E. Drews' (U of Edinburgh) 6 July 2000 mention of > his thesis. > I'd be grateful--and I'm sure many other ads-l members would also > appreciate it--if he would share with us the title and date of the > thesis and its main contributions. Anything else the author feels we > should know about his work would of course also be welcome. > > --Gerald Cohen > > > >'...As for working-class, the only working-class folk I've > encountered are > Scots, and I've never heard it used. Might be a north-south thing. > I have heard it used by some of the participants in my thesis, very > clearly *not* working-class. ...' > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 28 21:14:51 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:14:51 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Finally something an old codger like me can get into. I say "e-mails" (but not "mails"). dInIs >Along the same line, I've noticed "mails" recently, referring to email, >where I would (still) have to use "messages". > >Daniel > From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 28 21:09:26 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:09:26 -0600 Subject: Peter Tamony In-Reply-To: <2622a642625bc2.2625bc22622a64@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: This article is a later and expanded version on Archie Green's presentation in April 1988 at the University of Missouri for the 3rd Annual Peter Tamony Memorial Lecture on American Language. The title he used here was "'Fink': The Labor Connection" and was part of a panel on labor lore and language. DMLance > From: George Thompson > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:44:33 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Peter Tamony > > A book just received in the library here is "Torching the Fink Books > and Other Essays on Venacular Culture" by Archie Green. (Chapel Hill & > London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.) It contains a > memoir of Peter Tamony on pp. 183-98. It appears that this memoir has > not been published previously: it's not mentioned in the > acknowledgements and it does not appear in the bibliography of Green's > writings, which I skimmed for the years after 1985. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 22:38:18 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 17:38:18 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Monday, January 28, 2002, at 03:49 PM, sagehen wrote: > "New device may have prevented tragedies" > > This is a beautiful example of may/might confusion that produces a very > bad result. We read the headline & think, "Whew! tragedy averted; glad to > hear it," and move on to the next item. > > In the case of "Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats,"at least the > ambiguity (if not opacity) leads us to check the text to see what's meant. > A. Murie > I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, even in Boston. -- Alice Faber Haskins Laboratories Tel: (203) 865-6163 270 Crown St FAX: (203) 865-8163 New Haven, CT 06511 USA faber at haskins.yale.edu From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 29 00:51:31 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 19:51:31 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: <20020128223507.F0FD6792C@alvin.haskins.yale.edu> Message-ID: >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that >in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. > It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, > even in Boston. >-- >Alice Faber ~~~~~~~~ Aren't arresting, slangy headlines the norm, especially on the sports pages? Would this have been clear to New Englanders because this particular inverted syntax was common, or because they'd have known the Pats' motives? A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 01:10:37 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:10:37 EST Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) Message-ID: A SKETCHER'S TOUR ROUND THE WORLD by Robert Elwes London: Hurst and Blackett 1854 This is a very enjoyable book. Gee, it sure would be great to travel around the world. "Piranha" and "Cueca" are antedates of 15+ years. Pg. 45: The _cuisine_, however, was not well furnished, so I had to make acquaintance with the regular Brazilian dishes, farinha and fajao, which are to the natives here what potatoes are to the Irish. Farinha is Mandioco flour, and fajao a sort of small black bean, neither of them bad when eaten as vegetables, but poor fare alone. (OED has "farinha," but "fajao"?--ed.) Pg. 62: ...dried beef, carne sertao (country meat) as it is called.... Pg. 63: ...piranhos (Myletes macropomus).... (OED/M-W have 1869 for "piranha." I didn't copy the page because I didn' think it was an antedate--ed.) Pg. 65: ..._carne seco_ (jerked beef).... Pg. 113: The flakes of meat are put by to make jerked beef, so called from he native name "charqui"... Pg. 142: Felipe Dominguez gave us a very good supper: a large dish of fowls, potatoes, onions and tomatoes, stewed up and garnished with chillies, was placed on the table, and each taking his plate, helped himself. This is the national Chili dish called "Casuela," and will almost bear comparison with Meg Merriles' famous soup. (OED has "cazuela" in "cassolette"--ed.) Pg. 145: ..._puna_, shortness of breath.... Pg. 155: The national dance, the Samuqueca, seemed to be the favourite. (OED has "Cueca" or "Zamacueca" from 1917--ed.) Pg. 228: The missionaries have taught the natives a new game at football, and at this they are always playing, and think of nothing else. Pg. 263: "Hi!" Pg. 287 (Australia): Convicts, transported for life, are called "bellowsers".... Pg. 322: One of the delicacies was _beche-la-mar_ soup, which I tasted for the first time. Pg. 343: Joss being he word for God. Pg. 344: "Pigeon" is the Chinese imitation of the difficult word "business." Pg. 350: Bird's-nest soup is rather an expensive luxury.... -------------------------------------------------------- NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE IN HIS MAJESTY'S LATE SHIP ALCESTE, TO THE YELLOW SEA, ALONG THE COAST OF COREA by John McLeod (also "M'Leod"--ed.) Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son 1818 Pg. 114: Bird-nest soup is also handed round as a great treat, to which the Chinese attribute very extraordinary and invigorating qualities. (OED has a Chinese "Bird's nest" dish in the 1700s, but it's not clear it's a soup--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 01:18:19 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:18:19 EST Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) Message-ID: A re-check of OED shows that "feijao" is 1857, so I've antedated that term, too. (Pg. 45: "fajao") From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 13:00:30 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 21:00:30 +0800 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: <20020128223507.F0FD6792C@alvin.haskins.yale.edu> Message-ID: At 5:38 PM -0500 1/28/02, Alice Faber wrote: >On Monday, January 28, 2002, at 03:49 PM, sagehen wrote: > >>"New device may have prevented tragedies" >> >>This is a beautiful example of may/might confusion that produces a very >>bad result. We read the headline & think, "Whew! tragedy averted; glad to >>hear it," and move on to the next item. >> >>In the case of "Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats,"at least the >>ambiguity (if not opacity) leads us to check the text to see what's meant. >>A. Murie >> >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that >in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. > It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, > even in Boston. What she said. L From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 29 02:28:09 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:28:09 -0600 Subject: Query: Creek don't rise Message-ID: I've received a second request from a colleague for information on the expression "Good Lord willin' an' the Creek don't rise." He had heard (as did I, independently) that the expression originally referred to the Creek Indians, not to a creek with water. But I no longer remember who gave me that information and which U.S. presidential candidate in the 19th century supposedly started the expression. Before I tell my colleague that I can provide no additional information, I thought I'd run the query by ads-l once more. So, might anyone have any idea about which 19th century political figure first used the expression? ---Gerald Cohen From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 29 02:35:42 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:35:42 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Re: wicket ball Message-ID: >From: David Ball >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >Subject: [19cBB] wicket ball lives?? >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:33:42 -0600 >List-Unsubscribe: > >I've been trolling the net for references to wicket ball, finding four or >five, but all frustratingly vague. Mostly what I've found is that it was >still played in 1865 and probably later, and that in the 1840's it could be >played by at least 30 or 40 people. I haven't seen anything to rule it out >being an informal version fo cricket, but nothing to prove that it is such, >of course. > >Then I encountered the web site of an osteopath in Lake Havasu City, >Arizona, which gives a testimonial from an elderly woman named Helen (no >last name given), written in July, 2000, who says that after three joint >replacements, including both shoulders, "Now I can swing a wicket ball bat." > >In fact, there's a picture of her, and she actually does appear to be >swinging a bat, but the angle of the picture is such that you can't see it >at all. > >I don't know what to think of this, except that perhaps wicket ball has >survived as a living fossil on the shores of Lake Havasu, like the monster >in Loch Ness. Here's the site. Take a look for yourself. > > >http://www.havasubonedoc.com/helen.htm > >------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> >Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck >Monitoring Service trial >http://us.click.yahoo.com/ACHqaB/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/9rHolB/TM >---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> > >In order to unsubscribe, send any message (even a blank) to > 19cBB-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to >http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 29 03:33:14 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 22:33:14 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: sagehen said: > >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that >>in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. >> It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, >> even in Boston. >>-- >>Alice Faber > ~~~~~~~~ >Aren't arresting, slangy headlines the norm, especially on the sports pages? >Would this have been clear to New Englanders because this particular >inverted syntax was common, or because they'd have known the Pats' >motives? This construction with a pleonastic negative is reasonably widely used, though I associate it more with Western Massachusetts than with the Boston area. I haven't heard it commented on they way expressions like "I could care less" are (where people who argue that it's illogical are clearly familiar with the intended meaning but have decided, for whatever reason, to be obstreperous about it), but I'd imagine that more people are familiar with it than use it. As for sports headlines in general, there's a certain "dog bites man" quality to a headline asserting that a team wants to win, so (without seeing the story, of course), I'd have to suspect some Gricean subtext--why are we asserting that which is obviously true? But I couldn't say what use of this casual, pleonastic construction contributes to such a subtext. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 29 04:06:51 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 23:06:51 -0500 Subject: Query: Creek don't rise In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Good Lord willin' an' the Creek don't rise." > > Before I tell my colleague that I can provide no additional >information, I thought I'd run the query by ads-l once more. So, >might anyone have any idea about which 19th century political figure >first used the expression? > >---Gerald Cohen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More'n likely Andrew Jackson, according to my informant. A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 04:44:44 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 23:44:44 EST Subject: Tamal, Pisco (1829); Oh, Fudge Message-ID: HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NARRATIVE OF TWENTY YEARS' RESIDENCE IN SOUTH AMERICA by W. B. Stevenson London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green 1829 In three volumes VOLUME ONE Pg. 369: After the paste is made from the boiled maize it is seasoned with salt and an abundance of (Pg. 370--ed.) capsicum, and a portion of lard is added: a quantity of this paste is then laid on a piece of plantain leaf, and some meat is put among it, after which it is rolled up in the leaf, and boiled for several hours. This kind of pudding is called _tamal_, a _Quichua_ word, which inclines me to believe, that it is a dish known to the ancient inhabitants of the country. (This beats OED's 1856 "tamal," from that other Olmsted fellow--ed.) VOLUME TWO Pg. 136: ...a roasted kid hot, boiled turkey cold, collared pig, ham and tongue, with butter, cheese and olives, besides which, wine and brandy, _pisco_, and several _liquers_ were on the table.... Pg. 315: The truth is, that the distilling of rum is a royal monopoly in Quito; whereas that of brandy is not so in Peru: thus, for the purpose of increasing the consumption of rum, which augments the royal revenue, brandy is one of the _pisco_ or _aguardiente_, contraband articles. (OED has 1849 for "pisco"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- OH, FUDGE Tomorrow, I'll take a day trip to Massachusetts to visit Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges. I won't have much time--leave at five a.m., arrive at 10 a.m., leave at 5 p.m., get home 10 p.m. However, if anyone has any research requests, please e-mail me. I'll be looking for Smith fudge, Deacon Porter's hat, and whether women are sexually satisfied by milk and crackers. (Oh sure, replace me with little elves from a hollow tree....) From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jan 29 05:27:14 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 22:27:14 -0700 Subject: Researches Message-ID: Back in the stone age of 1962 I published an article naively titled "Researches in Coahuiltecan Ethnography", which was a collection of separate research studies from various sources brought together under one roof. It seemed not unnatural to title it thus, though I agree that like other normally noncount nouns, it has a different meaning (like "sugars") when pluralized, i.e. of differentiated instantiations of whatever, and is not commonly used. I hope this doesn't still violate dInIs' and Lynne's Sprachgefuhl. Rudy From michael at QUINION.COM Tue Jan 29 10:15:58 2002 From: michael at QUINION.COM (Michael B Quinion) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:15:58 -0000 Subject: Sunday throat Message-ID: Thanks to everyone who had a go at explaining 'marilyze'. Could I trouble the list again? Another subscriber has asked about the phrase "Sunday throat" for windpipe. My draft reply says: > It's hardly common, to judge from the few references that have > turned up, though it does still seem to be known today, and it's > certainly American in origin. > > The two places in which I've definitively managed to track it down > are both books from the early part of the twentieth century. One > is The Lure Of The Dim Trails by B M Bower, dated 1907: "Hank was > taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. > Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his > Sunday throat - and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's > Sunday throat, eyed him with suspicion". The other is from The > Eskimo Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins (1914): "The water went down > his 'Sunday-throat' and choked him!". > > Apart from this, I'm at a total and complete loss. Why "Sunday"? > Can anybody explain? Can anyone add anything to this? -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 29 12:52:35 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 07:52:35 -0500 Subject: Researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Not any more than "rices" and "furnitures" do in such sentences as "The various rices used in cooking." dInIs >Back in the stone age of 1962 I published an article naively titled >"Researches in Coahuiltecan Ethnography", which was a collection of >separate research studies from various sources brought together under one >roof. It seemed not unnatural to title it thus, though I agree that like >other normally noncount nouns, it has a different meaning (like "sugars") >when pluralized, i.e. of differentiated instantiations of whatever, and is >not commonly used. I hope this doesn't still violate dInIs' and Lynne's >Sprachgefuhl. > > Rudy -- 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 Tue Jan 29 01:19:26 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:19:26 +0800 Subject: Fwd: Re: wicket ball In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:35 PM -0600 1/28/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: >>From: David Ball >>Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >>To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >>Subject: [19cBB] wicket ball lives?? >>Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:33:42 -0600 >>List-Unsubscribe: >> >>I've been trolling the net for references to wicket ball, finding four or >>five, but all frustratingly vague. Mostly what I've found is that it was >>still played in 1865 and probably later, and that in the 1840's it could be >>played by at least 30 or 40 people. I haven't seen anything to rule it out >>being an informal version fo cricket, but nothing to prove that it is such, >>of course. >> >>Then I encountered the web site of an osteopath in Lake Havasu City, >>Arizona, which gives a testimonial from an elderly woman named Helen (no >>last name given), written in July, 2000, who says that after three joint >>replacements, including both shoulders, "Now I can swing a wicket ball bat." >> >>In fact, there's a picture of her, and she actually does appear to be >>swinging a bat, but the angle of the picture is such that you can't see it >>at all. >> >>I don't know what to think of this, except that perhaps wicket ball has >>survived as a living fossil on the shores of Lake Havasu, like the monster >>in Loch Ness. Here's the site. Take a look for yourself. Maybe wicket ball came over to Lake Havasu along with the London Bridge, as a package deal. larry From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Jan 29 15:01:42 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:01:42 -0500 Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) In-Reply-To: <10f.b40f572.2987508e@aol.com> Message-ID: >Pg. 63: ...piranhos (Myletes macropomus).... Re piranha/piranho, something's a little funny (fishy?) about this. The genus of the piranha is Serassalmus. Myletes is a genus of related characin fishes, though I've had a hard time finding Myletes macropomus specifically (it may be the tambaqui). There's a Colossoma macropomus (or macropomum), the black-finned pacu, that is also related (and looks awful piranha-like). Anyway, it may not be relevant for OED purposes, but it might be worth looking into precisely what "piranho" referred to (possibly, of course, several similar fishes, including the piranha). Ben From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Jan 29 15:14:46 2002 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:14:46 -0500 Subject: query - laser-focused In-Reply-To: Message-ID: From one of the umpteen Enron articles, "The key to understanding its collapse is contained in its annual report for 2000. The company, the report says, "is laser-focused on earnings per share (EPS), and we expect to continue strong earnings performance." I am assuming it means being focused upon something as a laser would focus on a target - giving it more emphasis than merely "focusing." But, I need proof. Anyone know of any? Thanks, Kathleen E. Miller Safire's "On Language" From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 29 15:32:00 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:32:00 -0500 Subject: query - laser-focused In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020129100509.00a3a910@mail> Message-ID: > From one of the umpteen Enron articles, "The key to understanding its > collapse is contained in its annual report for 2000. The company, the > report says, "is laser-focused on earnings per share (EPS), and we expect > to continue strong earnings performance." > > I am assuming it means being focused upon something as a laser would focus > on a target - giving it more emphasis than merely "focusing." But, I need > proof. Anyone know of any? This seems to be a very common expression, and we have a lot of examples at hand-- 1996 S.F. Chronicle 26 Feb., After 22 visits to California -- including a two-day trip yesterday and today -- the president is "laser-focused" on California, Mulholland said. 1996 Economist 16 Nov., Web surfing is a laser-focused process of picking exactly what you want, when you want it. 2001 N.Y. Times Mag. 18 Nov., How many college students, laser-focused on landing a job on Wall Street or a slot in law school, want to put their G.P.A.'s at risk by studying, say, Urdu? to pick only a few. Jesse Sheidlower OED From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 29 15:40:34 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:40:34 -0500 Subject: Lost positives Message-ID: A correspondent asked me if I knew where he could find a list of lost postives (such as gruntled, kempt, and sheveled). Since (if I understand the term correctly) you can just make up any old lost positive by chopping off an existing word's negative prefix, then a complete list would be silly. However, what about a list of lost positives that were once actual members of the lexicon (such as kempt)? Does anyone know of any books or other resources that have such a list? Thanks. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 29 16:04:43 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:04:43 -0500 Subject: query - laser-focused Message-ID: Here's the earliest LexisNexis cite: It's just real interesting, and it began rattling around in my head and for some reason, the notion of a kid who by virtue of very specific circumstances had all of those prodigious abilities kind of laser-focused onto medicine. --The Baltimore Sun (via The Record), July 23, 1989 (In case you're wondering, the above is Stephen Bochco talking about creating the character of Doogie Howser.) I'm not sure if you're interested in this, but the metaphor itself appears to be a bit older: Throughout those years, political power in Chicago was focused like a laser beam on Daley himself, as he held the offices of both mayor and chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee. --Fortune, September 11, 1978 Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 29 16:11:47 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:11:47 -0500 Subject: Sunday throat In-Reply-To: <3C56765E.23053.52DD8B@localhost> Message-ID: >Could I trouble the list again? Another subscriber has asked about >the phrase "Sunday throat" for windpipe. My draft reply says: > > > It's hardly common, to judge from the few references that have > > turned up, though it does still seem to be known today, and it's > > certainly American in origin. > > > > The two places in which I've definitively managed to track it down > > are both books from the early part of the twentieth century. One > > is The Lure Of The Dim Trails by B M Bower, dated 1907: "Hank was > > taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. > > Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his > > Sunday throat - and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's > > Sunday throat, eyed him with suspicion". The other is from The > > Eskimo Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins (1914): "The water went down > > his 'Sunday-throat' and choked him!". > > > > Apart from this, I'm at a total and complete loss. Why "Sunday"? > > Can anybody explain? > >Can anyone add anything to this? There are a very few current examples on the Internet. Here is one from Usenet, Nov. 2001: <> Why "Sunday"? I can make a speculative explanation, although I've never heard the expression and I can't find it in any of my handy books. Attributive "Sunday" = "special", as in "Sunday best [clothes]", "Sunday shirt" = "special/clean shirt [for church]", "Sunday name" (esp. Scots) = "formal name" ... also "Sunday face" = "sanctimonious face/expression". The sense extends from "special" to "alternative". Thus the Sunday suit is distinct from the everyday suit. Also note "Sunday face" (e.g., in Farmer and Henley) = "buttocks" (slang), i.e., the "other face". So the "Sunday throat" is the "other throat", i.e., the trachea rather than the (o)esophagus ... i.e., the throat which is less usually employed in eating. MY mother would say "the wrong pipe". -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 16:15:09 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:15:09 EST Subject: Deacon Porter's Hat & Freshman's Tears (1939) Message-ID: Greetings from South Hadley, Massachusetts. At least, I think that's where I am. I woke up from the bus and it wasn't Hawaii and it wasn't Cuba. SUNDAY THROAT--Preachers do their business on Sunday. They talk a lot. It's a throat necessary for the "big one"--or the problems as a result of it. It probably relates to that. THE YANKEE COOK BOOK: AN ANTHOLOGY OF INCOMPARABLE RECIPES FROM THE SIX NEW ENGLAND STATES by Imogene Wolcott from the files of YANKEE magazine Coward-McCann, Inc., NY 1939 Pg. 182: "FRESHMAN'S TEARS" (A cream tapioca pudding popular in Western Massachusetts) 3 tablespoons pearl tapioca 1 cup water 1/8 teaspoon salt 3 eggs, separated 3 1/2 cups milk, scalded 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla (...) Tapioca pudding was appropriately named "Freshman's Tears" by the undergraduates at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass. This particularly delicious version is from Mrs. Silas Snow, Williamsburg, Mass. In the home of Mrs. Clifton Johnson, Hockanum, Hadley, Mass., "grandma" made this pudding until she was nearly ninety. Pg. 202: DEACON PORTER'S HAT (Recipe from the Office of the Steward, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass.) 1 cup ground suet 1 cup molasses 1 cup raisins 1 cup currants 3 cups flour, sifted 1 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cloves 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 1/2 cups milk 3/4 cup chopped nuts (optional) Combine suet, molasses, raisins, and currants. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add the suet mixture alternately with milk, beating until smooth after each addition. Turn into a greased 2-quart mold, cover tightly, and steam 3 hours. Serve hot with hard sauce. Send to the table whole. Serves 10 to 12. This dessert is well known to students of Mount Holyoke College. Deacon Porter, an early trustee of the college, wore a stovepipe hat, style 1837. This pudding, when it came to the table whole, was given this epithet by some college wag. A light-colored steamed pudding, made in a similar mold, was called Deacon Porter's Summer Hat. Mount Holyoke College, when it was Mount Holyoke Seminary, used to be called "The Minister's Rib Factory" because it turned out so many wives for ministers and missionaries. (The yearbooks here start at 1896, which is too late for "fudge"...Any "Deacon Porter's Hat" in the papers of James Knox Polk?--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 16:17:19 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:17:19 EST Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) Message-ID: The passage mentioned "dreaded piranhos" and their sharp teeth. Seems like "piranha" to me. I'll copy the passage here tomorrow if anyone makes a request. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 16:36:36 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:36:36 EST Subject: Milk & Crackers (M&C) Message-ID: From the UNION-NEWS, 11 April 1997, Pg. C3, col. 3 box: _Hampshire:_ "Continuous" dining makes it possible to get a meal any time of the day or night. _Mount Holyoke:_ M&C ("milk and cookies"). Students take a study break at 9:30 p.m., converging on the dining rooms in their respective dorms to nibble on specially-made desserts. From a note card: "Milk and Crackers" letter of Lucy S. Barlow x-class of 1847 December 10, 1844 (p. 2) "There is a recess of 15 minutes in the forenoon and evening at which times if we like we can go down to the middle room...and take luncheon which consists of cake and crackers." Useful for "Temperance Cake" and "Indian Pudding" is this, by Douglass, Mrs. Helen Maria (Graves), Extracts from personal journal, 1848-1849, pg. 8: "We have the old fashioned sponge cake once a week. Every Saturday night and Sabbath morning we have fried cakes. These kinds of cake are made every week and we have them on the table alternately. The temperance cake is the best. In my recipe book I have a particular recipe for Indian Pudding and apple and pumpkin pie crust." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 17:01:50 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:01:50 EST Subject: Sociology of Milk and Crackers (1981) Message-ID: SOCIOLOGY OF MILK AND CRACKERS Jeanne Grout April 22, 1981 Sociology 103 Mr. Smith (11 pages--ed.) Pg. 1: In Mary Lyon's day, preparing simple, nutritious food in the kitchen was part of domestic training at Mount Holyoke Seminary.(1) 1. Lansing, Marion. _Mary Lyon: Through Her Letters_. Books, Inc. (Boston: 1937), p. 231. Pg. 1: In 1912, the home-made "College Cracker" was available at every hour of the day or night....(2) 2. Warner, Frances Lester. _On a New England Campus_. Houghton Mifflin Co. (Boston: 1937), p. 176. Pg. 1: From 1962 to the present, Milk and Crackers (later (Pg. 2--ed.) shortened to M&C's) is mentioned in the freshman handbook along with the "freshman ten" as one MHC ritual.(8) 8. MHC Freshman Handbook, 1962-63 through 1969-70. (The rest of the paper is a survey of current--1981--M&Cs...I posted "freshman ten" here before. That goes back to MHC of 1962??--ed.) From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 17:16:33 2002 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:16:33 EST Subject: Lost positives Message-ID: Here's an enjoyable romp through lost positives: How I met my wife by Jack Winter Published 25 July 1994 in the New Yorker It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. (etc.) . . . . - Allan Metcalf From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 29 04:41:55 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:41:55 +0800 Subject: Lost positives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:16 PM -0500 1/29/02, AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Here's an enjoyable romp through lost positives: > > How I met my wife > by Jack Winter > Published 25 July 1994 in the New Yorker > >It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, >despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. > >I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing >alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total >array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly >way. > >(etc.) And if you want the whole caboodle as well as the kit... It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads and tails of. I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated---as if this were something I was great shakes at---and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 29 17:44:32 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:44:32 -0500 Subject: "so don't I" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Whereas "I could care less" is transparent, even out of context (to most of us anyway), "so don't I" isn't. When I first heard it years ago, I assumed it meant "Neither do I," until context made this obviously wrong. It's dialectal (extending into New York State too?), and like many dialect features might not be considered stylistically inappropriate in the home area, even in headlines. A similarly non-noticed feature in the South Midland is the much-discussed p.p. + -ed/-en (needs washed, needs done), which appears regularly in headlines in southern Ohio. At 10:33 PM 1/28/02 -0500, you wrote: >sagehen said: > > >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that > >>in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. > >> It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, > >> even in Boston. > >>-- > >>Alice Faber > > ~~~~~~~~ > >Aren't arresting, slangy headlines the norm, especially on the sports > pages? > >Would this have been clear to New Englanders because this particular > >inverted syntax was common, or because they'd have known the Pats' > >motives? > >This construction with a pleonastic negative is reasonably widely used, >though I associate it more with Western Massachusetts than with the Boston >area. I haven't heard it commented on they way expressions like "I could >care less" are (where people who argue that it's illogical are clearly >familiar with the intended meaning but have decided, for whatever reason, >to be obstreperous about it), but I'd imagine that more people are familiar >with it than use it. > >As for sports headlines in general, there's a certain "dog bites man" >quality to a headline asserting that a team wants to win, so (without >seeing the story, of course), I'd have to suspect some Gricean subtext--why >are we asserting that which is obviously true? But I couldn't say what use >of this casual, pleonastic construction contributes to such a subtext. _____________________________________________ 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 bboling at UNM.EDU Tue Jan 29 18:05:29 2002 From: bboling at UNM.EDU (bruce d. boling) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:05:29 -0700 Subject: Sunday throat In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020129105323.024d7ec0@nb.net> Message-ID: The expression is alive and thriving in my everyday speech (ultimately NW Missouri), where it refers to matter going down the windpipe when it should have gone down the "other throat." The resultant gagging and sputtering evokes the comment "it/something went down my/your Sunday throat." The explanation proposed below (Sunday : weekday :: special, unusual : ordinary) I think is correct--it certainly corresponds to the explanation given me by my mother in the far-off days of childhood when I asked her "what's a Sunday throat?" Bruce D. Boling University of New Mexico bboling at unm.edu --On Tuesday, January 29, 2002, 11:11 AM -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: >> Could I trouble the list again? Another subscriber has asked about >> the phrase "Sunday throat" for windpipe. My draft reply says: >> >> > It's hardly common, to judge from the few references that have >> > turned up, though it does still seem to be known today, and it's >> > certainly American in origin. >> > >> > The two places in which I've definitively managed to track it down >> > are both books from the early part of the twentieth century. One >> > is The Lure Of The Dim Trails by B M Bower, dated 1907: "Hank was >> > taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. >> > Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his >> > Sunday throat - and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's >> > Sunday throat, eyed him with suspicion". The other is from The >> > Eskimo Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins (1914): "The water went down >> > his 'Sunday-throat' and choked him!". >> > >> > Apart from this, I'm at a total and complete loss. Why "Sunday"? >> > Can anybody explain? >> >> Can anyone add anything to this? > > There are a very few current examples on the Internet. Here is one from > Usenet, Nov. 2001: > > < fucking chicken bone. Damn thing gets stuck edgewise about half way down > my Sunday throat.>> > > Why "Sunday"? I can make a speculative explanation, although I've never > heard the expression and I can't find it in any of my handy books. > > Attributive "Sunday" = "special", as in "Sunday best [clothes]", "Sunday > shirt" = "special/clean shirt [for church]", "Sunday name" (esp. Scots) = > "formal name" ... also "Sunday face" = "sanctimonious face/expression". > > The sense extends from "special" to "alternative". Thus the Sunday suit is > distinct from the everyday suit. Also note "Sunday face" (e.g., in Farmer > and Henley) = "buttocks" (slang), i.e., the "other face". So the "Sunday > throat" is the "other throat", i.e., the trachea rather than the > (o)esophagus ... i.e., the throat which is less usually employed in > eating. > > MY mother would say "the wrong pipe". > > -- Doug Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 29 18:05:30 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:05:30 -0600 Subject: wicket bat Message-ID: Here is a message I received today on "wicket bat"---Gerald Cohen >From: Larry McCray >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >To: 19th Century Egroup <19cBB at yahoogroups.com> >Subject: [19cBB] Helen and the Wicket Bat >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 21:58:11 -0600 > > >Gentle Nineteeners -- > >I laughed and laughed when I stumbled on >the site that shows Helen and her wicket >bat a couple of nights ago, and thank >Dave Ball for posting it. The site, >by the way, advertises a physician in >the Arizona area. Go figure. > >Let's see. She lives in Lake Havasu. >Isn't that where they uncrated London >Bridge and rebuilt it across a fake >pond? Do you think the wicket bat >had been put in the crate in merrie >old England? [There can be no truth, >of course, to any rumor that Helen >herself came with the crates.] > >[Nor, one assumes, can there me any >truth to any speculation that the >whole notion of a wicket bat came to >Helen's husband, who could not have >become tired of hearing, late at >night, Helen saying she's sorry but >she had a "wicket bat headache." >But we digress.] > >I also googled a now broken site that >apparently claimed that an old alum >of Hobart College in Geneva, NY, >recalled that all they used to have >on campus for activity was swimming >in nearby Seneca Lake and playing >wicket ball on campus. [Now, how >exactly does one cite a broken www >link? > >And, google, says, there is such a >thing as a "wicket bat willow" tree. > >Ya gotta love google. > >G'night, Helen. > >Larry McCray >--------------- >Baseball in Washington in my daughter's lifetime! >email:mccrayL at bellatlantic.net >Arlington, Virginia >BR/TL, NTIM From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 18:47:11 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 13:47:11 EST Subject: "Freshman Ten" (1962) Message-ID: A few more Mount Holyoke notes before I visit Smith. MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE FRESHMAN HANDBOOK FOR THE CLASS OF 1966 FROM THEIR SISTER CLASS, 1964 1962 Pg. 17: CANDLELIGHT, COFFEE AND CONVERSATION The meals on Wednesday evening and Sunday noon are known as "Gracious Living." These are times of metamorphosis from the perpetual bermudas and sweatshirt to stockings, heels, and more formal attire. (...) TEA AND CRUMPETS; MILK AND CRACKERS To help you add those extra freshman ten pounds, milk and crackers are set out each night at 9:45, a welcome break in the study routine. (Now "freshman five" or "freshman fifteen"...First mention of "Gracious Living" is in the Freshman Handbook for 1950/51, pg. 34, although the term is first formally used here--ed.) DIPLOMATIC DISHES: A BOOKLET OF FAVORITE AND TRADITIONAL RECIPES CONTRIBUTED BY MRS. TRUMAN AND LADIES OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS Mount Holyoke Alumnae Club, Washington, D. C. 1949 Pg. 1: Bisschop (Embassy of the Netherlands) Pg. 7: Chestnut Dressing for Turkey (Bess Truman, The White House) Pg. 21: Chippolata (An old-time favorite sweet)(Embassy of the Union of South Africa) Pg. 23: Melopeta (Embassy of Greece) Pg. 24: Melty Moments (Embassy of New Zealand) Pg. 29: Peking Dust (Chinese Embassy) COLLEGE COOKERY Compiled for the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association of Philadelphia (No Date; War recipes are here and there's "'16," so it's about 1918--ed.) Pg. 104: SNICKERDOODLE RECIPE REUNION: A COLLECTION OF FAVORITE RECIPES FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE ALUMNAE 1949 Pg. 55: LINGUA FRANCA. Pg. 63: POMPADOUR PUDDING. Pg. 118: HAYSTACKS. 1 package chocolate bits 2 1/2 cups Rice Krispies Melt chocolate in double boiler. Stir in Rice Krispies. Mix well and drop by teaspoonful on wax paper. Let harden. MOUNT HOLYOKE EMPLOYEES SOCIAL COMMITTEE COOK BOOK Copyright 1968-1978 Pg. 100: HEDGEHOGS 2 c. walnuts 1 c. dates 1 c. brown sugar 2 c. shredded coconut 2 eggs (unbeaten) Grind walnuts and dates. Mix in 1 1/2 cups coconut. Add remaining ingredients. Shape into balls and roll in remaining coconut. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 29 18:51:13 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 13:51:13 -0500 Subject: ..archival sites.. Message-ID: In a message that was forwarded by Gerald Cohen, a question is posed about citing a broken www link. Perhaps the question could be amended to read, "how exactly does one cite a broken www link, if it is archived?" Sometimes, it is possible to resurrect a broken link by pasting it into the following site's 'http' window. http://www.archive.org/ I've had some success with the site, pasting broken links that were found in a Google search, i.e., once I receive a notice that the link is nonexistent, I paste the address of the page into the archive search window. Thus far, for citation purposes, I note that the site was located through an archive search. I'm not aware of any other archival sites, but would like to know about any that might exist. George Cole Shippensburg University From hwilliams at IIE.ORG Tue Jan 29 19:00:01 2002 From: hwilliams at IIE.ORG (Williams, Holly) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:00:01 -0500 Subject: 2003-04 FULBRIGHT DISTINGUISHED CHAIRS IN LINGUISTICS: APPLY NOW Message-ID: The following Fulbright awards are viewed as among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Program. Lecturing is usually in English. Candidates must be U.S. citizens and have a prominent record of scholarly accomplishment. Consult CIES Web site for information about application procedure and current updates. To apply, send a letter of interest (up to 3 pages), c.v. (up to 8 pages) and a sample syllabus (up to 4 pages) to Daria Teutonico, Fulbright Distinguished Chairs Program; Council for International Exchange of Scholars; 3007 Tilden Street, NW; Ste. 5-L; Washington, DC 20008-3009 (phone 202/686-6245, e-mail: dteutonico at cies.iie.org). Materials must arrive on or before the May 1 deadline. AUSTRIA: FULBRIGHT-UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN LINGUISTICS: Grantee will offer two lecture courses and one seminar to undergraduate and graduate students. The University of Innsbruck Faculty of Humanities cultivates an interdisciplinary approach to linguistics and is particularly interested in soliciting applications from scholars of applied linguistics, whose fields of specialization are related to language acquisition and/or the teaching of languages. Lecturing in English. Some knowledge of German is advantageous but not required. Faculty of Humanities. One semester, beginning October 2003 or March 2004. www.uibk.ac.at AUSTRIA: FULBRIGHT-UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN THE HUMANITIES OR SOCIAL SCIENCES: Grantee will offer three courses at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. Course level and content are to be arranged in consultation with the host institution. This chair rotates between faculties and will be hosted by the Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies in 2003-04, which has departments in classical and modern languages and literatures, comparative literature, linguistics and translating, American studies, all fields of history from ancient to contemporary, archaeology, art history, ethnology, musicology, and area studies. Open to any specialization in humanities or area studies at the Faculty. Lecturing in English. Some knowledge of German is desirable. Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies in 2003-04 and Faculty of Human and Social Sciences in 2004-05. Four months, starting October 2003 or March 2004. www.univie.ac.at CANADA: FULBRIGHT-YORK UNIVERSITY CHAIR: Fulbright-York University Chair: Lecture at graduate and undergraduate levels in any field that fits the programs at York University. Academic and scholarly prominence required. York University, Toronto. Scholars are encouraged to include a letter of invitation from a host department at York University. Four and a half months, starting September 2003 or January 2004. www.yorku.ca ITALY: TRIESTE CHAIR IN LINGUISTICS: Full professor to offer one lecturing course and tutorials at graduate level. Subject expertise desired is syntax, semantics or formal history of linguistics. Three months, March-June 2004. University of Trieste. www.univ.trieste.it ITALY: VENICE CHAIR IN PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE/LINGUISTICS: Grantee will teach one course to masters/doctoral students, and will provide some tutorial assistance. Subject expertise desired is theoretical linguistics, with specializations in syntax and semantics. Academic rank open. Three months, beginning March or April 2004. www.unive.it From Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 19:31:00 2002 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:31:00 EST Subject: ..archival sites.. Message-ID: Hi, George: I use the archival site you mentioned (also called the "Wayback Machine," for you Rocky and Bullwinkle fans), and have had good luck finding anything I've ever searched for. The one caveat is that sites that queried a database (for example) cannot do so: only the HTML front-page is available: but the archive seems to be total, at least as far back as 1996. Don't know of any other archival site that even comes close. Steve Hicks Hicks Information From elaine at CHAOS.WUSTL.EDU Tue Jan 29 21:06:34 2002 From: elaine at CHAOS.WUSTL.EDU (Elaine -HFB- Ashton) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 15:06:34 -0600 Subject: Kook d'etat Message-ID: http://dailynews.philly.com/content/daily_news/2002/01/29/local/WITE29C.htm "We're calling it a 'kook d'etat,' " said Joe Roy, director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group in Montgomery, Ala. "It's been in the making for some time now." --- Amusing and fitting twist on coup d'etat...possibly a first usage of it. e. From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Jan 29 21:13:14 2002 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 16:13:14 -0500 Subject: Weapons Grade In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Safire has had me working on weapons-grade since 1/22 - here's some of the pairings my search has come up with in case anyone is really interested. This year alone: Comedy Charisma Mascara Anthrax Pharmaceuticals/drugs Perkiness Basketball Slap Shot (GO Bobby Hull) Since around 1985: Laser Torque Sarcasm Mozzarella Explosives Authenticity Grumpus Cheddar cheese Hypocrites Swoon Heartwarmer Sports drinks Nikes Irascibility Hostility Crush Noise Coffee Maple sap Application And I'm sure there's more. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 00:07:07 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 19:07:07 -0500 Subject: "so don't I" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020129123651.03c9fa20@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #Whereas "I could care less" is transparent, even out of context (to most of #us anyway) Transparent only if the irony is evident or otherwise understood. I have always understood this idiom as ultimately derived from "As if I could care less" (by deletion), or "I couldn't care less" (by ironic negation). The latter source may be the only reconstructable one for speakers who didn't grow up with Yiddish-influenced NYC English. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 00:52:09 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 19:52:09 -0500 Subject: Lost positives In-Reply-To: <0b2101c1a8db$4d2f6360$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: #A correspondent asked me if I knew where he could find a list of lost #postives (such as gruntled, kempt, and sheveled). Since (if I understand the #term correctly) you can just make up any old lost positive by chopping off #an existing word's negative prefix, then a complete list would be silly. I think you may be missing the point. If the decapitation yields a word that is in the current vocabulary with the expected meaning, the positive isn't lost. E.g., every native speaker analyzes "unhappy" as the negative of the equally familiar "happy", so it's not of interest to your correspondent. The interesting ones are those such as "(un)beknownst" and the ones you mention, whose de-negated forms are *not* part of modern English. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 30 04:46:25 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 23:46:25 EST Subject: Deacon Porter's Hat & Smith Fudge notes Message-ID: I'm back from Massachusetts...I rode past the Yiddish book center at Hampshire College. Forgot that was there. -------------------------------------------------------- DEACON PORTER'S HAT (continued) Andrew Wood Porter, 1795-1877. Mount Holyoke, founded 1837. From the WASHINGTON POST, 12 December 1954: _Here is a Yankee Yummy_ Ever since 1837, this pudding has been a favorite dessert with the students at Mount Holyoke.... From MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE NEWS, 12-3-75: In the 1880's, a cylindrical steamed pudding which was often served at the College was named by the students for the Deacon's legendary headgear. Since then, Deacon Porter's Hat has been traditionally served on special occasions at Mount Holyoke and by alumnae groups around the nation. From the Smith Family Papers, Clara E. Smith (1885): 10-3-83 Miss Blanchard does not wish girls to dance "round dances" Deacon Porters Hat. (So it appears that the dish was eaten much earlier, but named about 1883, after his death--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- SMITH FUDGE I'd been to the Smith College archives a few years before, researching 1890s "basket ball" and 1890s "ivy" songs and orations (for "Ivy League"). I didn't research food at that time. Not much is here. The faculty cookbooks have nothing surprising. No "fudge" found in the yearbooks, which date from 1897. "Smith College Fudge" recipes from Baker's Chocolate are in the file, but no dates are attached. CHOCOLATE AND COCOA RECIPES by Miss Parloa and HOME MADE CANDY RECIPES by Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill Compliments of Walter Baker & Co., Ltd. (The books date from 1909 and 1916) SIX TABLETS BAKER'S CARACAS SWEET CHOCOLATE TABLETS Made by Walter Baker & Co., Ltd. Dorchester, Mass. Established 1780 Net Weight 1 1/4 ounces ("SMITH COLLEGE FUDGE" recipe is on the box. Baker's was bought by General Foods, which merged into Kraft. I'll visit Kraft one of these days; Andrew Smith surely beat me to it--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 03:16:12 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 11:16:12 +0800 Subject: Weapons Grade In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020129160805.00a32570@mail> Message-ID: At 4:13 PM -0500 1/29/02, Kathleen E. Miller wrote: >Safire has had me working on weapons-grade since 1/22 - here's some of the >pairings my search has come up with in case anyone is really interested. what, no salsa? >This year alone: >Comedy >Charisma >Mascara >Anthrax >Pharmaceuticals/drugs >Perkiness >Basketball >Slap Shot (GO Bobby Hull) > >Since around 1985: > >Laser >Torque >Sarcasm >Mozzarella >Explosives >Authenticity >Grumpus >Cheddar cheese >Hypocrites >Swoon >Heartwarmer >Sports drinks >Nikes >Irascibility >Hostility >Crush >Noise >Coffee >Maple sap >Application > >And I'm sure there's more. From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 30 17:52:44 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 09:52:44 -0800 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020124055630.04913b20@nb.net> Message-ID: Sorry if this reply is a bit stale by now, but I'm slowly digging myself out of a mountain of e-mail that has piled up over the last couple of weeks when I had no time to read it. Just in case anybody cares: I-umlaut is strongest in the north of the German-speaking area and it weakens to the south. The situation in the dialects is reflected in place names such as Innsbruck (cf. standard German Bruecke) and in some words in colloquial Austrian standard. The combination of this with the fact that the -l diminutive is a southern phenomenon accounts for dialectal and colloquial Austrian forms like madl (cf. standard German Maedchen), 'girl'. ("Sauberes Madl," says an Austrian officer approvingly of the main character's lover in J. Strauss's "Gypsy Baron.") So the step from a southern-derived gansl to gunsel (if the u is pronounced as a mid central vowel) would not be a big one. Peter Mc. --On Thursday, January 24, 2002 6:37 AM -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > Perhaps some Germanicist can explain why the umlaut is omitted ... i.e. > (in my primitive conception) why it's like "gansel"/"gunsel" rather than > "gänsel"/"gensel". **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 05:10:42 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:10:42 +0800 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: <361157.3221373164@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: At 9:52 AM -0800 1/30/02, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >Sorry if this reply is a bit stale by now, but I'm slowly digging >myself out of a mountain of e-mail that has piled up over the last >couple of weeks >when I had no time to read it. Just in case anybody cares: > >I-umlaut is strongest in the north of the German-speaking area and >it weakens to the south. The situation in the dialects is reflected >in place names such as Innsbruck (cf. standard German Bruecke) and >in some words in colloquial Austrian standard. The combination of >this with the fact that the -l diminutive is a southern phenomenon >accounts for dialectal and colloquial Austrian forms like madl (cf. >standard German Maedchen), 'girl'. >("Sauberes Madl," says an Austrian officer approvingly of the main >character's lover in J. Strauss's "Gypsy Baron.") > >So the step from a southern-derived gansl to gunsel (if the u is pronounced >as a mid central vowel) would not be a big one. > And since the immediate source was the (cited) Yiddish form "gantzel" (and not "gentzel"), it's plausible that the diminutive crossed the Atlantic with a back vowel in place, before the (minor) folk-etymologized adjustment to "gunsel" (with a wedge/carat/schwa). larry From davemarc at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 30 18:07:13 2002 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:07:13 -0500 Subject: Pitch Perfect? Message-ID: Lately I've noticed the term "pitch perfect" turning up again and again, often in an entertainment context (i.e. Sissy Spacek gives a pitch perfect performance in In the Bedroom). From my point of view, it seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Has this term been defined and/or documented yet? David From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 30 19:53:16 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 14:53:16 EST Subject: Mahimahi (1901-02); Big Apple "whore theory" disappears Message-ID: MAHIMAHI The revised OED has 1905. (Is the second citation the same work?) Merriam-Webster has 1943. (O.T.: I saw an HBO poster for Janet Jackson's concert from Hawaii, on February 17th. At that time, I will also be in Hawaii. Celebrities follow me wherever I go.) U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries THE FISHES AND FISHERIES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. A PRELIMINARY REPORT by David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann COMMERCIAL FISHERIES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS by John N. Cobb Extracted from the U.S. Fish Commission Report for 1901. Pages 353 to 499. Plates 21 to 27. Washington: Government Printing Office 1902 Pg. 358: Mahimahi...Coryphaena hippurus. Pg. 424 (Cobb, cited by OED for 1905?): In fishing for mahimahi (dolphin) young akule (called agi by the Japanese) are used. -------------------------------------------------------- BIG APPLE "WHORE THEORY" DISAPPEARS I went to the Peter Salwen "Why is New York Called the Big Apple?" link on several different computers. It no longer shows up. The link worked earlier in the week. Salwen added his bit of misinformation in 1995, when he stated that "Big Apple" comes from an early 19th-century prostitute named Evelyn, or Eve. I soon wrote to him that there isn't a single piece of evidence to support this theory, and I asked him to take it off the web. He never responded. After September 11th, I wrote to the Internet Public Library not to use this link. The IPL never replied, but added, on its list of "Big Apple" links, that this theory was "very controversial." I met Richard McDermott, also a member of Salwen's Society for New York City History, in the New-York Historical Society after September 11th, and I told McDermott to tell Salwen it's time to take the site down. I don't know what did it, but it's now down. The next part is, _ten years_ after I found the "Big Apple" quotes in the NEW YORK MORNING TELEGRAPH, to publish them in full in the NEW YORK TIMES. I had told William Safire's assistant to publish this in 2000 and I thought this would happen then. I was double-crossed. This disgrace now enters its second decade. No good deed goes unpunished. From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 30 19:58:30 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 14:58:30 -0500 Subject: [Bapopik@aol.com: Baker's "Fudge" date (1901)] Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from Bapopik at aol.com ----- From: "Kinkade, Mary J" To: "'bapopik at aol.com'" Cc: "Wenner, Elisabeth" Subject: Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:36:28 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) X-OriginalArrivalTime: 30 Jan 2002 19:36:19.0312 (UTC) FILETIME=[63EB9700:01C1A9C5] Unfortunately, we are not able to give you access to our Archives Facility, but I can confirm that the earliest BAKER'S recipe for fudge appeared in a 1901 recipe booklet. It was for "Cocoa Fudge. Best of luck to you. Mary Jane Kinkade ----- End forwarded message ----- From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 20:20:52 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:20:52 -0500 Subject: cold turkey Message-ID: I just saw "cold turkey" used in the context of beginning an undertaking with no preparation, rather than ending a habit or addiction by stopping abruptly, as I have always seen it used before. If I can find the quote I'll post it. Is this a new usage? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 20:21:32 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:21:32 -0500 Subject: box set Message-ID: I see references to "box sets" of books and CDs rather than the "boxed sets" I'm used to, and likewise "bottle water" instead of "bottled water". Is there a trend to simplifying such expressions? The generalization from these two examples would be N1+-ed N2 => N1 N2 substituting N1, an attributive noun, for the older N1+-ed, an adjective in the form of the past participle of the verb that is zero-derived from the noun. To put a set of volumes in a box is to "box" them, creating a boxed set; similarly, to "bottle" water. In fact, this type of N+-ed adjective meaning 'provided or equipped with N(s)' is a productive derivation independent of the existence of any other form of the putative verb: a tasseled curtain, many-pillared halls. The latter example is IMHO especially difficult to explain as a deverbal form. Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 30 20:45:27 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:45:27 -0000 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 3:21 pm -0500 Mark A Mandel wrote: > I see references to "box sets" of books and CDs rather than the "boxed > sets" I'm used to, and likewise "bottle water" instead of "bottled > water". Is there a trend to simplifying such expressions? The > generalization from these two examples would be > > N1+-ed N2 => N1 N2 > > substituting N1, an attributive noun, for the older N1+-ed, an adjective > in the form of the past participle of the verb that is zero-derived from > the noun. To put a set of volumes in a box is to "box" them, creating a > boxed set; similarly, to "bottle" water. .... > Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I can't find that on the archives. I also could've sworn that we'd discussed (because of my recidivist/prescriptive tendencies) things like man-size versus man-sized. But I can't find that either. So maybe I'm imagining things... Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 30 21:01:03 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:01:03 -0800 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <31489262.3221412327@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > > I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I > can't find that on the archives. I also could've sworn that we'd discussed > (because of my recidivist/prescriptive tendencies) things like man-size > versus man-sized. But I can't find that either. > > So maybe I'm imagining things... > > Lynne > No imagination involved here. Messages involving ice/iced and the related cube/cubed had a spectacularly long run. It looks like the thread started in July 1999 and finally wound down in March 2000. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 30 21:21:47 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 16:21:47 -0500 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If there is a "trend" towards simplifying these expressions, it's not a new one. This was the subject of part of a lecture in the intro historical linguistics course I took in 1987. Given the various dialects with word-final cluster simplification it's probably arisen in lots of places at lots of different times. Ben From nfogli at IOL.IT Wed Jan 30 21:21:11 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 22:21:11 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_"researches"_citations?= Message-ID: FWIW, I came up with a few citations of "researches" while looking through a database of Canadian print articles dating back to the mid- and late-Nineties: - According to researchers at Yale University, the two smells American adults recognize most easily are coffee and peanut butter,which isn't surprising considering North American dietary habits. No. 18 on that list of familiar smells shouldn't come as any surprise, either. It's that unmistakable waxy odour of Crayola crayons. Those Yale intellectuals didn't extend their RESEARCHES north of the border, but it's probably pretty safe to say that that Crayola smell is just as recognizable to Canadians. - The RESEARCHES have found that, while some large male bears will seek out human habitation, feeding at garbage dumps and scavenging rom camp sites, others can be classified as back-country bears, which avoid human contact. - What shocked Zavaglia in his RESEARCHES was "the way so many people turned on their Italian-Canadian neighbors and friends." - Holden's RESEARCHES took him three times to Russia where he discovered continuing roadblocks despite the new climate of freedom following the fall of Communism. - Trusting this evidently naive but enthusiastic visitor, Calvert allowed Schliemann the benefit of all his RESEARCHES. Best, Dr. S. Roti From nfogli at IOL.IT Wed Jan 30 21:31:51 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 22:31:51 +0100 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Hi, I have no idea how the expression originated exactly (especially as a modifier applied to entertainment contexts), but I think this definition will give you a little hint. Hope that helps, Dr. S. Roti From: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th Ed.) 2000 absolute pitch NOUN: 1. The precise pitch of an isolated tone, as established by its rate of vibration measured on a standard scale. 2. Music The ability to identify any pitch heard or produce any pitch referred to by name. Also called PERFECT PITCH. davemarc wrote: Lately I've noticed the term "pitch perfect" turning up again and again, often in an entertainment context (i.e. Sissy Spacek gives a pitch perfect performance in In the Bedroom). From my point of view, it seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Has this term been defined and/or documented yet? David From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 30 21:41:17 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 16:41:17 -0500 Subject: Compered Message-ID: What is "compered"? The OED suggests obsolete for compared or compeered. A Google search turns up about 5,000 results, most of which used it like "hosted by" or "emceed by" (such as in "John will be compering an evening if light comedy" or "The show was compered by Martina") or are mispellings for "compared." It's clearly a Britishism. http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,2763,641918,00.html "Up in the roof, explains Nicola Stephenson from the Huddersfield-based arts group Culture Company, a hidden camera spots the colour of a waiting passenger's clothes and then triggers an audio sequence piped out of hidden speakers in the scarlet walls. "Each segment is compered by a woman's voice, sometimes soothing, sometimes testy, just like the commuters below." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 09:11:28 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 17:11:28 +0800 Subject: Compered In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:41 PM -0500 1/30/02, Grant Barrett wrote: >What is "compered"? The OED suggests obsolete for compared or compeered. A >Google search turns up about 5,000 results, most of which used it like >"hosted by" or "emceed by" (such as in "John will be compering an evening if >light comedy" or "The show was compered by Martina") or are mispellings for >"compared." It's clearly a Britishism. > >http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,2763,641918,00.html > >"Up in the roof, explains Nicola Stephenson from the Huddersfield-based arts >group Culture Company, a hidden camera spots the colour of a waiting >passenger's clothes and then triggers an audio sequence piped out of hidden >speakers in the scarlet walls. > >"Each segment is compered by a woman's voice, sometimes soothing, sometimes >testy, just like the commuters below." Wonder if there's any relation to the Fr. noun "compère" (that's a grave accent), which denotes a confederate (as of a magician or con-man, i.e. someone pulling a scam) or, more generally, a crony. Maybe not. larry From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 30 22:17:58 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 17:17:58 -0500 Subject: box set Message-ID: There are a number of well-established noun adjuncts like "baby carriage," gas station," "government agency" which may be used as the models for "can food drive," "L. I. ice tea" and the like. They are gaining acceptance although the individual ones like "box set" or "bottle water" may strike us as novel. ___________________ David Bergdahl From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Wed Jan 30 23:21:54 2002 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 18:21:54 EST Subject: box set Message-ID: Maybe it has nothing to do with re-analyzing the words. For example, with "box set", you buy a set of CD's that come in a box... a "box set". Nothing got "boxed", all (most) CD's are inherently "boxed" in their jewel cases. "Box sets", however, are more often coming in an actual wooden(ish) box. Even if it's only one CD, it can be a "box set". REM's special edition of "Automatic for the People" was described as a "box set" on the packaging just because it came in wooden box. I'm not saying "box set" and "boxed set" are necessarily two different terms for different things, but the latter is possibily growing redundant. Maybe when LP's came in sleeves, it made more sense. I have no opinion on "bottle water" except that it could be an effort to distinguish from "tap water". After all, bottled tap water could be "bottled water". -dsb Douglas S. Bigham Southern Illinois University - Carbondale From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 30 23:33:45 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 18:33:45 -0500 Subject: missing Message-ID: I'll add my own query about a new form--new to me at least: CNN (I think) had a topic line recently about the journalist who "went missing" in Pakistan. Just a few days later I saw an article in our local paper about someone who would periodically "go to missing"--just leaving home for a while, apparently. Has this form been around long? 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 maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 30 23:37:33 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:37:33 -0800 Subject: missing In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020130182903.03ca0580@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Isn't "go missing" pretty standard British English for "lost"? However "go to missing" is new to me. Does it occur more than once in the article? If not, maybe just a printing error for "go missing." allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > I'll add my own query about a new form--new to me at least: > CNN (I think) had a topic line recently about the journalist who "went > missing" in Pakistan. Just a few days later I saw an article in our local > paper about someone who would periodically "go to missing"--just leaving > home for a while, apparently. > > Has this form been around long? 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 lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 30 23:41:09 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 23:41:09 -0000 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <76.168d4752.2989da12@aol.com> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:21 pm +0000 Douglas Bigham wrote: > Maybe it has nothing to do with re-analyzing the words. For example, with > "box set", you buy a set of CD's that come in a box... a "box set". But to me, 'box set' would mean 'a set of boxes'. I'd have to go through the 'boxed set' stage to get to that 'in' meaning. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 30 11:29:31 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 19:29:31 +0800 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <32123371.3221422869@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 11:41 PM +0000 1/30/02, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:21 pm +0000 Douglas Bigham > wrote: > >>Maybe it has nothing to do with re-analyzing the words. For example, with >>"box set", you buy a set of CD's that come in a box... a "box set". > >But to me, 'box set' would mean 'a set of boxes'. I'd have to go through >the 'boxed set' stage to get to that 'in' meaning. > Different intonation, of course: BOX set 'set of boxes' vs. box SET 'boxed set' From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 00:59:38 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 19:59:38 EST Subject: box set Message-ID: In a message dated 01/30/2002 5:24:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, einstein at FROGNET.NET writes: > There are a number of well-established noun adjuncts like "baby carriage," > gas station," "government agency" which may be used as the models for "can > food drive," "L. I. ice tea" and the like. They are gaining acceptance > although the individual ones like "box set" or "bottle water" may strike us > as novel. I think that there are three separate processes that can contribute to the dropping of the past participle suffix. 1) phonetic. There is a limit to what even native speakers of English can accomplish. In "boxed set", even by English language standards, the phonetic combination /ksts/ is preposterous. Try saying it out loud. You will either say /bahkset/ or have to insert a noticeable pause before the /s/ of set. Similarly with "iced tea". To pronounce it as /aisdtee/ requires you to quit voicing a stop (plosive) halfway through, which I suppose can be done but which is not a normal phonetic pattern in English. 2) doubt on the speaker's part about the putative verb. "iced cream", by analogy with ice tea, would be cream with ice cubes floating in it. "Ice cream", on the other hand, is a once-liquid dairy product that has been frozen solid. Or consider "corned beef", which many people, I am sure, render as "corn beef" becasue they are unaware of the meaning, or even the existence, of the verb "to corn". Or "chipped beef", which might become "chip beef" if the speaker did not realize that beef, like tree trunks, can be "chipped." (I have even heard "cream chip beef".) 3) occasionally there is the influence of a similar-sounding expression. For "box set" the speaker may unwittingly draw an analogy with "box seat". - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 12:13:35 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:13:35 +0800 Subject: cold turkey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:20 PM -0500 1/30/02, Mark A Mandel wrote: >I just saw "cold turkey" used in the context of beginning an undertaking >with no preparation, rather than ending a habit or addiction by stopping >abruptly, as I have always seen it used before. If I can find the quote >I'll post it. Is this a new usage? > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large It struck me that this generalized "cold turkey" wasn't entirely foreign to my ear (although I hasn't to add it *is* to my tongue), so I checked google for "go into it cold turkey", and came up with three hits: http://www.smc.edu/schedules/archives/profiles/1993/930_931/ostrom_j.html John Ostrom never thought about much about the sciences and math while in high school..."SMC has opened all the doors for me to Math and Science." It was tough. "I had to go into it 'cold turkey'," he recalls with a chuckle. "But now I've progressed all the way to linear algebra, and I'm liking it." ============ http://www.kissingbooth.com/october.htm Question Hi Sheila! I am a 14 year old girl and I met this really nice 16 year old guy at rugby yesterday. I got his phone number and I called him today and we are going out next Saturday. The problem is I don't know him and I don't know what he expects on the first date and I don't know what to talk about and I don't know what to wear!!! Please help me!!!! Answer It depends on where the two of you are going. If you're going out to dinner, dress up a little more. If you are going some place casual, like to a friend's house, a movie or to the mall, dress nicely but don't overdo it. Dresses are nice for more intimate occasions like dinners or lunches, but I prefer jeans when going some place more casual. A nice sweater and a pair of jeans, do your hair nicely and wear a bit of make-up and you're set. As for talking, think of some things you would like to find out about him. Maybe write them down on a piece of paper and go over them. Think of a scenario the day before so you have some time to think of some things to say. Ask him what he did the night before, or if it is the evening, ask him what he did during the day. Ask him what he normally does on the weekend. Focus your attention and topics on him. Guys don't like it when you talk alot about yourself, unless he specifically asks you some things. But don't go into it cold turkey. Think of some things you'd like to talk about, write them down and get a better idea of where you'd like the conversation to start. =============== [PDF] JUNE FM Hi-RES 2001 A_W ...How many times have we heard that? Any brother wishing to take on this challenging work, don't go into it `cold turkey'. It's kinda neat, I think, a little like positive vs. "normal" "anymore", but it looks from HDAS as though it's not necessarily new, in that adverbial/adjectival "cold turkey" is glossed as 'outright; directly; without preparation or warning', with cites back to 1910 or this one from 1920 that TAD (T. A. Dorgan) produced with all that free time he had because he wasn't drawing hot dog cartoons: "Now tell me on the square--can I get by with this for the wedding--don't string me--tell me cold turkey." Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a turkey? larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 12:25:54 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:25:54 +0800 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <181.2ebdd52.2989f0fa@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:59 PM -0500 1/30/02, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 01/30/2002 5:24:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, >einstein at FROGNET.NET writes: > >> There are a number of well-established noun adjuncts like "baby carriage," >> gas station," "government agency" which may be used as the models for "can >> food drive," "L. I. ice tea" and the like. They are gaining acceptance >> although the individual ones like "box set" or "bottle water" may strike us >> as novel. > >I think that there are three separate processes that can contribute to the >dropping of the past participle suffix. > >1) phonetic. There is a limit to what even native speakers of English can >accomplish. In "boxed set", even by English language standards, the phonetic >combination /ksts/ is preposterous. Try saying it out loud. You will either >say /bahkset/ or have to insert a noticeable pause before the /s/ of set. >Similarly with "iced tea". To pronounce it as /aisdtee/ requires you to quit >voicing a stop (plosive) halfway through, which I suppose can be done but >which is not a normal phonetic pattern in English. > You're right about the phonetics, of course, but there's a stage of reanalysis needed. I would always have referred to those three-in-one Vox Boxes some of my fellow ancients may remember as "boxed sets" in writing, but I'm sure I'd have pronounced them as "box sets" for the reason Jim gives. >3) occasionally there is the influence of a similar-sounding expression. For >"box set" the speaker may unwittingly draw an analogy with "box seat". > Good point, as is the one not copied here about the semantic grounds for reanalysis. I'm just saying that there are speakers who delete the /t/ in production but still have the participle in their mental (and orthographic) representation. Incidentally, I think the undeleted version would have to be /aistti:/ with a geminate, not /aisd/ with voicing: compare "I'd like my coffee iced", which can only be /aist/. larry From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 31 01:34:07 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:34:07 -0500 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <31489262.3221412327@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: #--On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 3:21 pm -0500 Mark A Mandel # wrote: # #> I see references to "box sets" of books and CDs rather than the "boxed #> sets" I'm used to, and likewise "bottle water" instead of "bottled #> water". [...] #> Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? # # #I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I #can't find that on the archives. *That's* what I was thinking of! And if two of us think so, then we probably did. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 31 01:39:16 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 19:39:16 -0600 Subject: ice(d) tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > > #--On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 3:21 pm -0500 Mark A Mandel > # wrote: > # (snip) > [...] > #> Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? > # > # > #I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I > #can't find that on the archives. > > *That's* what I was thinking of! And if two of us think so, then we > probably did. I am absolutely sure the discussion DID take place. The Subject line probably had some other term in it and was repeated and repeated and repeated because the thread lasted a fair amount of time. DMLance From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 01:44:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:44:17 EST Subject: 911 (1968) and 311 (2002) Message-ID: From the NEW YORK POST, 30 January 2002, pg. 7, col. 2: Mayor Bloomberg will propose a new 311 phone service to divert non-emergency calls from the overburdened 911 system in his first State of the City speech today, aides said. MANHATTAN WHITE PAGES (1967): fire OPERATOR police 440-1234 ambulance 440-1234 doctor 879-1000* coast guard 264-8770 FBI 535-7700 (...) Service Representative Dial 811 Repairman Dial 611 Information--Manhattan Dial 411 MANHATTAN WHITE PAGES (1968): fire "0" (Operator) police, ambulance dial 911 (...) 911--A FIRST FOR NEW YORK: New York is the first major city in the nation to have this new Universal Emergency Number--911, the fastest way to get help in an emergency. Easy to remember, quick to dial, 911 puts you right through to the high-speed communications network of New York City's Police Department. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 01:59:12 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:59:12 EST Subject: Tamale & Mole (1552?) Message-ID: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT MEXICO (1547-1577) by Fray Bernardino de Sahagun Translated by Fanny R. Bandelier from the Spanish version of Carlos Maria de Bustamante Fisk University Press, Nashville 1932 Republished by Blaine Ethridge Books, Detroit 1971 Pg. 218: They also gave food to everyone present, consisting of diverse kinds of tamales and moles as explained here.(1) 1. This may be so in the original; here no further explanation is given. Pg. 228: ...your tamales mouldy.... (I got that "mahimahi" thing backwards. OED cites the first of the two selections, but dates it to 1905 rather than to 1901 or 1902...I have a really bad cold...NYC is hosting an economic summit and there's police everywhere today--ed.) From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 31 02:01:54 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:01:54 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_"researches"_citations?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, [iso-8859-1] -- wrote: #FWIW, I came up with a few citations of "researches" while looking #through a database of Canadian print articles dating back to the mid- #and late-Nineties: # [...] #- The RESEARCHES have found that, while some large male bears will seek #out human habitation, feeding at garbage dumps and scavenging rom camp #sites, others can be classified as back-country bears, which avoid #human contact. This looks more like a typo for "researches". The others all look legit. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 02:18:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:18:17 EST Subject: "So long!" (1854) Message-ID: NA MOTU: REEF ROVINGS IN THE SOUTH SEAS. A NARRATIVE OF ADVENTURES AT THE HAWAIIAN, GEORGIAN AND SOCIETY ISLANDS by Edward T. Perkins New York: Pudney & Russell 1854 A fantastic book. I ran out of time and got sick and didn't finish it. Pg. 52: "O Moses!" Pg. 55: ...and let us be friends again ere exchanging "So long" forever. (See ADS-L archive, where I found someone claim it's Australian. OED has 1865; M-W has c. 1861--ed.) Pg. 71: ...among his invectives, the words "Jupiter!" "Moses!" and "Mince-meat!" were conspicuous. Pg. 78: ...the usual "so'-long".... Pg. 80: ...indulge me with "soft tack." From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 31 02:26:14 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:26:14 -0500 Subject: ice(d) tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> #> Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? >> # >> # >> #I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I >> #can't find that on the archives. I dunno what you were looking under, but the discussion is there and findable. There are at least 84 messages that match the search term "iced tea." http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S2=ads-l&q=iced+tea&s=&f=&a=&b= From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 31 03:02:37 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:02:37 -0600 Subject: cold turkey Message-ID: At 6:13 AM -0600 1/30/02, Laurence Horn wrote: >...Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal >sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a >turkey? > ***** I've compiled material on "cold turkey" in the article: "Material From the Tamony Files On _Cold Turkey_", _Studies in Slang, IV,ed.: Gerald Leonard Cohen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1995; pp. 89-97.----On page 89 I quote from the _San Francisco Examiner_, May 28, 19978,Sunday Punch, p.1, col. 1, Herb Caen's column: "Meanwhile: Thanks to all the ex-junkies who've filled me in on the origin of the term 'cold turkey,' something I wondered about a few columns ago. It derives from the hideous combination of goosepimples and what Wm. Burroughs calls 'the cold burn' that addicts suffer as they kick the habit. Hasn't a thing to do with what's still in the fridge four days after Thanksgiving." ---Gerald Cohen From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 03:49:48 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 22:49:48 EST Subject: "Windy CIty" wrong again! (JUST SHOOT ME!) Message-ID: Neither the Dow Jones service nor Lexis/Nexis Universe seems to have full text of CHICAGO TRIBUNE. The Tribune web site requires you to pay for over one week old articles. The NYPL main branch told me to check for the latest Tribune across the street. The Mid-Manhattan Library's latest Chicago Tribune is from January 4th. I told them that it's now January 30th. Anyway, a ProQuest (not full text, either) check of "Windy City" and "1893" or "nickname" turned up a January 22nd Chicago Tribune story by Jim Kirk (What context?) and this: WEATHER FACT _Chicago Tribune_, Chicago, Ill.; January 18, 2002 Metro Pg. 12 Abstract: Dana, Charles: (1819-1897) Editor if the New York City Sun who, in 1893, weary... Carl Weber believes that I'll get redemption. I don't believe that's possible after all these years. By the way, remember the Chicago Public Library? Where "Windy City" is wrong on its web site in two places? Remember, months ago, when I was told that the site would be corrected? It hasn't been changed at all. Please, somebody, anybody, maybe Oprah, in the City of Chicago, buy a gun and shoot me. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 11:55:46 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 06:55:46 EST Subject: box set Message-ID: In a message dated 01/30/2002 8:25:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > I think the > undeleted version would have to be /aistti:/ with a geminate, not > /aisd/ with voicing: compare "I'd like my coffee iced", which can > only be /aist/. Yes, I was mistaken. I pronounce "iced" as /aist/ not /aisd/ and I suppose most people do so. Second mistake on my part: English speakers can indeed voice halfway through a stop. Go into your local Plaid (Duncan) Donut shoppe and ask for a "vanilla-iced donut" and you will probably say /aistdo/. I hope you don't mind my amateur phonetic transcriptions. An an amateur, I know OF the IPA alphabet but I am also aware that when it comes to IPA, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. - Jim Landau From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 31 12:49:55 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 12:49:55 -0000 Subject: missing In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020130182903.03ca0580@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:33 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > I'll add my own query about a new form--new to me at least: > CNN (I think) had a topic line recently about the journalist who "went > missing" in Pakistan. Just a few days later I saw an article in our local > paper about someone who would periodically "go to missing"--just leaving > home for a while, apparently. > > Has this form been around long? and where? It's pretty standard British, although I've had it for a long time before I moved here--I don't know if I picked it up from South Africa or earlier than that from movies/books/friends with affectations. I always like it when I can find proof of recent UKEng crossing over to the US, since I take such hell for all the Americanisms coming into the UK! Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Thu Jan 31 12:51:20 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 07:51:20 -0500 Subject: Timewaster alert: Googlewhacking Message-ID: Today's USA Today reports on a new pastime called "Googlewhacking." The idea is that you use Google to search for sites that contain two words that you specify (not a phrase; two separate words). The goal is to come up with a two-word combination that's found on one and only one site. There are other "rules" that make the game a bit more challenging: 1. The words must be in the dictionary.com dictionary (Google tells you this by underlining the search terms on the left side of the blue "Results" bar). 2. Word lists don't count. That is, if you find only one site, but one or both words exist only as part of a word list, the site is rejected. 3. Google sometimes "groups" similar pages, so make sure the Results bar says "Results 1-1 of 1". It's apparently quite addictive, so approach with caution. Here's the Googlewhack page: http://www.unblinking.com/heh/googlewhack.htm Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 01:00:52 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:00:52 +0800 Subject: cold turkey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:02 PM -0600 1/30/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: >At 6:13 AM -0600 1/30/02, Laurence Horn wrote: >>...Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal >>sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a >>turkey? >> >***** > >I've compiled material on "cold turkey" in the article: "Material >>From the Tamony Files On _Cold Turkey_", _Studies in Slang, IV,ed.: >Gerald Leonard Cohen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1995; pp. >89-97.----On page 89 I quote from the _San Francisco Examiner_, May >28, 19978,Sunday Punch, p.1, col. 1, Herb Caen's column: > "Meanwhile: Thanks to all the ex-junkies who've filled me in >on the origin of the term 'cold turkey,' something I wondered about a >few columns ago. >It derives from the hideous combination of goosepimples and what Wm. >Burroughs calls 'the cold burn' that addicts suffer as they kick the >habit. Hasn't a thing to do with what's still in the fridge four >days after Thanksgiving." > >---Gerald Cohen Interesting, although Herb Caen can't always be entirely trusted. But it still doesn't really answer the question "why turkey?", although it does provide a line on the "cold" part. After all, a turkey isn't a goose, let alone a goosepimple. larry From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 31 14:16:18 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:16:18 -0500 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At 9:52 AM -0800 1/30/02, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >>Sorry if this reply is a bit stale by now, but I'm slowly digging >>myself out of a mountain of e-mail that has piled up over the last >>couple of weeks >>when I had no time to read it. Just in case anybody cares: >> >>I-umlaut is strongest in the north of the German-speaking area and >>it weakens to the south. The situation in the dialects is reflected >>in place names such as Innsbruck (cf. standard German Bruecke) and >>in some words in colloquial Austrian standard. The combination of >>this with the fact that the -l diminutive is a southern phenomenon >>accounts for dialectal and colloquial Austrian forms like madl (cf. >>standard German Maedchen), 'girl'. >>("Sauberes Madl," says an Austrian officer approvingly of the main >>character's lover in J. Strauss's "Gypsy Baron.") >> >>So the step from a southern-derived gansl to gunsel (if the u is pronounced >>as a mid central vowel) would not be a big one. >And since the immediate source was the (cited) Yiddish form "gantzel" >(and not "gentzel"), it's plausible that the diminutive crossed the >Atlantic with a back vowel in place, before the (minor) >folk-etymologized adjustment to "gunsel" (with a wedge/carat/schwa). That's about what I would have thought, although I wouldn't have known north/south from east/west. BTW "Mädel" (i.e., "Maedel" I guess) seems natural enough to me from my slight acquaintance with standard German. My ignorance of Yiddish (also Swiss, Austrian, etc.) is somewhat more profound. Let me ask another two questions. (1) In this case [and in other similar ones] where a Yiddish origin is cited, is it known that the origin is Yiddish as opposed to general [or (say) southern] German, or is it just a guess? (2) Do northern and southern Yiddish varieties have the same variations/relations as do northern and southern German varieties in general, or does the designation "Yiddish" narrow things down in this respect? M-W (Web), AHD4 (Web), and Lighter's HDAS show the putative Yiddish ancestor as "gendzl"; my OED and RHUD show it as "genzel". -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 01:46:15 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:46:15 +0800 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020131085515.023cb3d0@nb.net> Message-ID: At 9:16 AM -0500 1/31/02, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >M-W (Web), AHD4 (Web), and Lighter's HDAS show the putative Yiddish >ancestor as "gendzl"; my OED and RHUD show it as "genzel". > Oops, you're right. I think I even cited some of those sources earlier, with the front vowel. Ach! So this casts doubt either on the chronology or on the actual form of the immediate Yiddish (if it was Yiddish) source. What remains hard to imagine is a front vowel de-umlauting to a back (or mid) one without diphthongization, as in a move from "gendzl" to "gantzel" (and thence "gunsel"). larry From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Thu Jan 31 14:46:16 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:46:16 -0500 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <177.2f40c3d.298a8ac2@aol.com> Message-ID: Well, even in "iced donut" you're not *really* "voicing halfway through a stop", since the main difference between voiced and voiceless stops is voice onset time, i.e., how long after release of the stop closure you start vibrating your vocal folds: it's quicker in the case of voiced stops. Thus what one writes or thinks of as a geminate d is no different from a geminate t until a few milliseconds after the closure. Ben On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: > > Yes, I was mistaken. I pronounce "iced" as /aist/ not /aisd/ and I suppose > most people do so. Second mistake on my part: English speakers can indeed > voice halfway through a stop. Go into your local Plaid (Duncan) Donut shoppe > and ask for a "vanilla-iced donut" and you will probably say /aistdo/. > From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 31 15:24:46 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 10:24:46 -0500 Subject: cold turkey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal >sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a >turkey? A very good question IMHO. Just from a glance at HDAS one would tend to doubt that the drug-withdrawal sense is primary. "Cold turkey" has been used with the sense "abrupt"/"without preparation" since ca. 1910, and the sense is very similar to the use of "cold" in other combinations such as a salesman's "cold call", or perhaps even the modern computer-related "cold boot" (apparently a version of the older automobile-etc.-related "cold start") ... indeed even now "I used to smoke but I quit cold in 1999" is about the same as "I used to smoke but I quit cold turkey in 1999". It looks like "cold turkey" might be an elaboration of "cold" in this sense. One casual thought (perhaps infelicitous): could "turkey" be a stand-in (an alternative for "rooster") for the taboo "cock"? "Cold-cock" (verb) is often equated to "knock unconscious", but in my own experience it often has more the sense of "sucker-punch" or "strike without warning" .... Alternatively, it might be that turkey was/is generally considered a food well suited to eating cold .... A perhaps irrelevant observation: the expression "turkey on one's back" was once used in reference to drunkenness ... this seems strikingly similar to "monkey on one's back" used for drug addiction (and earlier for possession by anger, apparently) .... -- Doug Wilson From nfogli at IOL.IT Thu Jan 31 15:34:33 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 16:34:33 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Error_spotted?= Message-ID: > This looks more like a typo for "researches". The others all look > legit. Dear Mark: thanks for spotting the typo. My mistake. I double-checked my database and I found out that the same error is repeated previously: - "The researches use aircraft to locate the bears..." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 16:46:45 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:46:45 EST Subject: "Let off steam" (1826) Message-ID: RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST TEN YEARS, PASSED IN OCCASIONAL RESIDENCES AND JOURNEYINGS IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI, FROM PITTSBURG AND THE MISSOURI TO THE GULF OF MEXICO, AND FROM FLORIDA TO THE SPANISH FRONTIER; IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO THE REV. JAMES FLINT, OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS by Timothy Flint Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company 1826 Johnson Reprint Corporation, NY 1968 Another great book. I'm not finished with it. These writings date from 1824. Pg. 13: Next in order are the Kentucky flats, or in the vernacular phrase, "broadhorns," a species of ark, very nearly resembling a New England pig-style. (DARE has 1832--ed.) Pg. 29: Grain requires little labour in the cultivation, and the children only need a _pone_ of corn bread, and a bowl of milk. ("Pone" and "Corn-Pone" have widely different OED dates--ed.) Pg. 35: ...he had often tried to "get religion," as the phrase is here.... Pg. 63: ...designate their own state, with the veneration due to age, by the name of "Old Kentucky." Pg. 78: Much of his language is figurative and drawn from the power of a steam-boat. To get ardent and zealous, is to "raise the steam." To get angry, and give vent and scope to these feelings, is to "let off the steam." To encounter any disaster, or meet with a great catastrophe, is to "burst the boiler." (OED has 1831 for "let off steam." Harold Evans, I was told, is researching steamboats and early technology--ed.) Pg. 98: I found, on father inquiry, that the "best" man was understood to be the best fighter, he who had beaten, or, in the Kentucky phrase, had "whipped" all the rest. From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 31 17:04:31 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:04:31 -0600 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <177.2f40c3d.298a8ac2@aol.com> Message-ID: > From: "James A. Landau" ... > Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 06:55:46 EST ... > In a message dated 01/30/2002 8:25:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, > laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > >> I think the >> undeleted version would have to be /aistti:/ with a geminate, not >> /aisd/ with voicing: compare "I'd like my coffee iced", which can >> only be /aist/. > > Yes, I was mistaken. I pronounce "iced" as /aist/ not /aisd/ and I suppose > most people do so. Second mistake on my part: English speakers can indeed > voice halfway through a stop. Go into your local Plaid (Duncan) Donut shoppe > and ask for a "vanilla-iced donut" and you will probably say /aistdo/. ... > From: Benjamin Fortson ..... > Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:46:16 -0500 ...... > Well, even in "iced donut" you're not *really* "voicing halfway through a > stop", since the main difference between voiced and voiceless stops is > voice onset time, i.e., how long after release of the stop closure you > start vibrating your vocal folds: it's quicker in the case of voiced > stops. Thus what one writes or thinks of as a geminate d is no different > from a geminate t until a few milliseconds after the closure. My ear and my speech mechanisms tell me that the /t/ at the end of the first syllable is glottalized and the first syllable is temporally short, as English demands, before the voiceless stop. And then, as Ben points out, the voice onset follows immediately after release of the stop in the second syllable, thereby indicating a preceding "voiced" stop -- phonotactic rules of English. So the gemination here is emic rather than etic. DMLance From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 31 19:37:12 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 14:37:12 -0500 Subject: score = '20' in headline Message-ID: I was pleased (only linguistically!) to see this morning's top headline in the Boston _Globe_: Scores of priests involved in sex abuse cases It's always refreshing to find a good old word popping up in a register where it has been obsolescent. The lede (sic, 'first sentence of the article') specifies the number as "at least 70". -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 06:56:05 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 14:56:05 +0800 Subject: score = '20' in headline In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:37 PM -0500 1/31/02, Mark A Mandel wrote: >I was pleased (only linguistically!) to see this morning's top headline >in the Boston _Globe_: > Scores of priests involved in sex abuse cases > >It's always refreshing to find a good old word popping up in a register >where it has been obsolescent. The lede (sic, 'first sentence of the >article') specifies the number as "at least 70". > Assuming the intention here wasn't to create a somewhat off-color pun, I would guess the use of "scores" rather than "dozens" here was motivated by the informality of the latter and/or the greater cardinality of the former. Obviously if there had been 300 involved, "Hundreds of..." would have been used, but since "scores" is the next approximator down from "hundreds", it's more felicitious for evoking an approximated value in the 60-90 range. The hard part is NOT thinking about the pun once you've thought of it. larry From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 31 20:23:02 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:23:02 -0500 Subject: 911 (1968) and 311 (2002) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: FYI, 311 is older than 2002 -- other cities have used it for non-emergency services already. See http://www.911dispatch.com/information/311map.html for a listing of those cities. -- Steve Kl. From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 31 20:26:16 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:26:16 -0500 Subject: Timewaster alert: Googlewhacking In-Reply-To: <0f4f01c1aa55$fe26c3e0$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > Today's USA Today reports on a new pastime called "Googlewhacking." I once tried to find an online script for the movie Heathers. Searching on Heather /script etc, got me alot of sites *about* the script, but by searching one two salient words in the script (myriad, Eskimo) and long with Heather, I got one and only one hit -- the script to Heathers. I was quite pleased with myself. (Now, many, many more pop up.) -- Steve From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 20:47:15 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:47:15 EST Subject: cold turkey Message-ID: In a message dated Thu, 31 Jan 2002 10:25:43 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Douglas G. Wilson" writes: >the modern computer-related "cold > boot" (apparently a version of the older automobile- >etc.-related "cold start") I have no idea whether it is related to automobiles, but "cold-boot" has a complicated history. When you first turn the power on for a computer, what happens? Nothing. The computer's memory (RAM) is blank and no program is running. So how do you get the computer started? There used to be several means. By far the most user-friendly was the "bootstrap loader". The computer was rigged so that when power was turned on (or the LOAD button pushed), one read operation was performed on a specified input device. That read brought in a very small program called the "bootstrap loader" which then proceeded to read in bigger programs etc., that is, the computer was "loaded by its bootstraps", a variation of the older phrase "to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." cf Puerto Rico's "Operation Bootstrap". Eventually, of course, "bootstrap loader" was shortened to "boot loader" and spawned the verb "to boot" or "to boot up". In the 1970's circuitry became cheap enough that computers could have as much as needed, so that a loader program could be permanently installed in the computer, bypassing the old bootstrap process with its need for sleight-of-hand tricks. However, by habit this permanently-resident program was still called the "boot loader" although it no longer performed the gyrations required of the older boot programs. A "cold" boot was one that occurred when the computer was first turned on and had no software in RAM memory. A "warm" boot occurred when the computer had already been cold-booted and some software was running, but the user decided to restart. I have no idea whether "cold" and "warm" were inspired by sutomobiles (starting cold, crank, crank, crank; starting warm, touch the starter button and off you go), but it is possible. An analogy---the thread was about "cold turkey" and you cold-booted (or cold-started) a new thread about other frigid compounds. >"Cold-cock" (verb) is > often equated to "knock unconscious", but in my own > experience it often has more the sense of > "sucker-punch" or "strike without warning" .... In your own experience? I don't think I want to meet you in a dark alley. I have never heard "cold-cock" used to mean "to knock cold (unconscious)". Instead to cold-cock is to punch someone without any preliminaries. Frequently it means "to punch without warning" but sometimes not, e.g. in "the bouncer cold-cocked the unruly patron" one might assume the bouncer merely performed his office in a most direct manner and the patron cannot legitimately complain of being taken by surprise. - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 07:57:26 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:57:26 +0800 Subject: Timewaster alert: Googlewhacking In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:26 PM -0500 1/31/02, Steve Kl. wrote: >On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > >> Today's USA Today reports on a new pastime called "Googlewhacking." > >I once tried to find an online script for the movie Heathers. Searching on >Heather /script etc, got me alot of sites *about* the script, but by >searching one two salient words in the script (myriad, Eskimo) and long >with Heather, I got one and only one hit -- the script to Heathers. I was >quite pleased with myself. > >(Now, many, many more pop up.) > Indeed, the first "myriad Eskimo" site that pops up on google is a 1994 Linguist List posting on the purported myriad Eskimo words for snow. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 22:49:55 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 17:49:55 -0500 Subject: Early Example of "Wop" In-Reply-To: <165.7a984c0.298b0754@aol.com> Message-ID: I don't know what Jon Lighter has in his files for "wop," but the OED has 1914 meaning a foreigner in general and 1915 specifically for a person of Italian extraction. In looking through the lyrics of Irving Berlin I see that he had a 1914 song entitled "Hey, Wop": 1914 Irving Berlin _Hey, Wop_ (song) in _Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin_ (2001) 94 "Hey, wop, it's seven o'clock, get up, Sleep-a no more, sleep-a no more, You wake-a da kids when you make-a da snore. The lyrics seem to be a caricature of Italian-American speech. 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 Thu Jan 31 22:57:54 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 17:57:54 -0500 Subject: Earlier Example of "Wop" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: OK, I looked a little further in the lyrics of Irving Berlin, and found an earlier example of "wop": 1912 Irving Berlin _My Sweet Italian Man_ (song) in _Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin_ (2001) 59 "My sweet Italian man, I'm-a sick, I'm-a sick, Love-a me much-a quick, Come here and squeeze-a my hand; Say you love me, wop-a, Like you love your barbar shop-a. 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 Thu Jan 31 23:05:16 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 18:05:16 -0500 Subject: "Wop" in 1908? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: After sending my last posting, I noticed in W10 that Merriam-Webster dates "wop" 1908. Perhaps Joanne Despres might post the 1908 citation from M-W's files? 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 douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 1 13:42:27 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 08:42:27 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <475ade47814a.47814a475ade@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >... now I wonder whether there was a pre-existing word "binky". .... A good question. I don't find this in any of my books. One might check the English Dialect Dictionary and maybe the big Scottish National Dictionary (I don't have these myself ... maybe next time I drop by the big library ...). In Scots there's apparently "bink" = "bench"/"shelf"/"cupboard"/etc. ... not very promising. There's also "whistle-binkie", which I see defined as a peripheral attendee at a penny wedding [i.e., a wedding with an admission charge ... which he has not paid], an idle spectator ... here presumably "binkie" has/had some meaning, but I don't know for sure what (but see below). My casual conjecture is that "binky" originally meant something small, either "baby" or "little finger". I see Binky/Binkie as a nickname on the Web and as a name for small pets: Binky the Bunny or Binky the Kitty perhaps (not Binky the Killer Whale). I wonder whether this could have been a version of "pinkie", Scots for small things including the little finger, and similar to older English words along the line of "pinkeny" used as pet names or so. [A wild speculation which may be instantly disprovable by an expert: could "pink" and its relatives such as this one come (through Dutch) from Spanish "peque?o"?] "Binky" might be a baby-talk version. Also note that one's pinkie can serve as a binky in an emergency. I note the Scots expression "whustle one's thoum" = "whistle [on] one's thumb" = "twiddle one's thumbs" = "be idle" or so ... very similar to the activities of the whistle-binkie at the penny wedding ... maybe he's whistling on his pinkie? -- Doug Wilson From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 1 14:42:28 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 14:42:28 -0000 Subject: binky Message-ID: The EDD lists _binkie_ as Scottish (Tweed) and defines it as 'gaudy, trimly-dressed, smart'. Jonathon Green From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 1 15:02:28 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 10:02:28 EST Subject: Perro Caliente (hot dog) Message-ID: PERRO CALIENTE--"Hot dog." Everywhere I've traveled in the Spanish-speaking world it's "hot dog," and here I see "perro caliente." Whatever. DOLLAR SHOP--Places where dollars are accepted instead of pesos. (Where items may or may not be sold for exactly $1.) It's so bizarre that the Cuban economy uses dollars! BISTEC URUGUALLO--Beefsteak with cheese inside. Possibly from Uruguay. PAPAS LIONESA--Lion potatoes? Seen at several shops. CAJITAS--Their chicken-in-a-basket. MARY PICKFORD--This cocktail is served all over town. Does OED have Mary? (The fireworks over our building were strange. It didn't celebrate the new year--no!--but the "43rd year of the Revolution!"...Gotta go. Be home soon--ed.) From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 1 15:19:04 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 10:19:04 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020101075325.00ac55d0@nb.net> Message-ID: Douglas G. Wilson said: >>... now I wonder whether there was a pre-existing word "binky". .... > >My casual conjecture is that "binky" originally meant something small, >either "baby" or "little finger". I see Binky/Binkie as a nickname on the >Web and as a name for small pets: Binky the Bunny or Binky the Kitty >perhaps (not Binky the Killer Whale). Friend of mine have a small, annoying dog named Binky. I'll ask them where the name came from, and report back. From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 1 17:52:30 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 11:52:30 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology_Notes:_=22-stan=22?= Message-ID: Etymology Notes: "-stan" Carl Jeffrey Weber "-STAN" I STill remember the IE "st(a)-" morpheme is among the literal handful of most productive in the IE languages. It's found all over the place -- its general sense is "STationary," or "STanding." It's in AveSTan and HinduSTani cognates. It's in state, Stuttgart, constitution, staff, obstinate, stall, constipate, stool, understand, post (as a back formation from Latin postis) - the list goes on forever. /////////////// When Afganistan was named in 1747, two hundred years before Pakistan, it was translated into English, "Land of the Afghans" (compare "Land of the Angles"). The word, "-land," it seems, has a primal association "solid subSTance". I decided to do some fieldwork, and went to Dunkin' Donuts. My informant (notwithstanding, not a Muslim), after I asked, "what does '-stan' mean, like in Afganistan, Pakistan," gave his quick response: "country". Of note, the "-gan-" of the name chosen in 1747 looks suspiciously like the most common name in the area - Khan. One list gentleman's comment on the problem was that in 1947 at the Partition of India, the name Pakistan was totally named by the geo-ethnicities (my word) who contributed letters to the naming process. P(ersia), A(fgan.), K(ashmir), I(ndia). That much is good. These are the four, and only four, bordering countries. But the gentleman continues with S(ind), T(urk.). The device of the first four letters he inordinately applies beyond historical credibility, because "-stan", meaning "land of" in English, was known to many people in the area for two centuries, as stated already. Pakistan at the partition seems to have been named with the four letters of the bordering countries, + stan. I heard something like that ten years ago from a Punjabi friend. Why not Pakistan, the "Land of Four Letters", in its way, the way the Punjab is, the "Land of Five Rivers" in its. (The name is derived from two Persian words: 'Panj' meaning five with 'Aab' meaning water - the internet reminds me.) I looked on the web page for the Pakistani student organization, to seek some source documentation - 1947 was not that long ago. I'd say somebody in 1947 thought up that letter-device in a committee, and then they put the old "-stan" on it. The Pakistani Student organization has a different etymology for the Pakistan-word. They say the first part of the word is Urdu for "pure". http://members.tripod.com/pakonline/intro_hist.html. This gives "Land of the Pure". I'm skepical about use of an Urdu word here. Where are the 1947 foundation documents? What's this Urdu root about? Maybe the Student group will get back to me. My donut man informed me with great confidence that "Paki-" doesn't mean anything - "it's just a name", he said, with sympathetic understanding. (Back to "-stan".) I said "America-stan". We laughed about it, but no extra, free, boston cr?me - like the dayshift donut lady used to give me until our relationship soured. Carl Jeffrey Weber From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Tue Jan 1 18:33:09 2002 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 13:33:09 -0500 Subject: INORDINATE [was #1 "motherfucker" transparent?]; was #2 "Etymological Notes: 'Love'" Message-ID: Sorry, some transmission error got in the way of my earlier response (I don't see it in my Inbox), but here is something briefer and better thought-out. In examples such as the ones below, the connotations of "inordinate" are NEGATIVE. As Doug Wilson and Carl J. Weber point out, "inordinate" could mean "excessive or abusive" or it could be a merely self-deprecatory use. As Carl says, it could be "a euphemism for the polite/opprobrious bad: 'inappropriate'." I think such usage could also be tongue-in-cheek or ironical as in Addison's 1716 use of "inordinate love of pudding" (OED) or somewhat patronizing, as in "a mother's inordinate love for her son or daughter" (Doug's second quote) Let's forget about sexual connotations for a moment. The evidence shows 181 instances of "inordinate" in the OED text, 24 s.v. inordinate, adj. Our writer was using OED first edition and his son still uses the Shorter Oxford, 1931. The preponderance of all the evidence shows meanings that are clearly NEGATIVE. When a dedication says "my mother's inordinate love/affection for me" (I read the book circa 1980 at the home of the writer's son; I don't recall the exact words and I don't have any bibliographic particulars), it has to be understood as the author trying to pay a compliment to his mother, not making a critique. A dedication is a brief eulogy, not a dissertation. In such a piece of writing there should be absolutely no room for ambiguities and variant interpretations; cf. "For my beloved wife / Elizabeth Austin Burchfield." In current usage, according to the corpus I used for the last dictionary (several hundred books and periodicals published 1989-1990), the standard collocations are "an inordinate amount of (70%), an inordinate delay, demand, expenditure, an inordinate number of (16%)," etc. A good English user, I believe, would go for these and similar collocations. I think the writer in question committed an honest mistake. This is reinforced by my knowledge of the mother tongue of the writer and the possibility that he was translating a phrase that is idiomatic in that language: "athiru katanna sneham" ("unbounded/limitless love" in Malayalam). TOM PAIKEDAY, lexicographer The User's(R) Webster Dictionary, 2000 ISBN: 0-920865-03-8 (cservice at genpub.com) Doug Wilson wrote (Sunday, 12:17): TMP wrote: >This professor, may he rest in peace, had a doctorate in English from >the University of London. His dissertation on a minor Victorian author >was published by the author's cousin who ran a book publishing company >in Australia. His editors apparently did a good copy-editing job on the >manuscript. The text was flawless as far as I could see, but for obvious >reasons, they dared not touch the Dedication, which read: "To my mother >for her inordinate affection [to me]..." The editors probably thought, >Hey, if something had been going on between mother and son, who are we >to put in our two cents worth? > >Now, as all English experts and others (including learners beyond a >certain grade level) know, "inordinate affection/love," is a >collocational phrase that means something bad, very bad, in the contexts >in which it is used. (Questions of sexual orientation would not be >relevant). It occurs frequently in ascetical Christian religious >literature, as in the socalled "Rodriguez" (Rodrigues?) volumes. >"Inordinate," by morphology and definition, is negative in meaning >("disorderly or immoderate") and Rodriguez would be referring to >homosexual and such affections, as betwen religious who have taken the >vow of chastity; "particular friendship" is another term referring to >the same concept in the above contexts. Incestuous love is included in >the meaning of the term. > >When the phrase is applied to one's mother, I suppose the >uncollocational semi-transparent idiomatic term "mother fucker" comes to >mind. .... Now, just a moment. I'm a learner of English at a relatively high grade level, and I don't have any problem at all with that dedication as quoted. Perhaps the restriction on "inordinate love/affection" is itself restricted, perhaps to certain religious contexts with which I'm not very familiar. My quick Web search does turn up a lot of religiously-oriented material in which "inordinate" means "improper" or worse. But in the above quotation it seems perfectly innocent to me, with "inordinate" at most meaning something like "excessive" (here perhaps used for 'mild self-deprecation' as in "You are too kind", "This is more than I deserve", etc.) and possibly meaning merely "unrestrained". Had I been the editor, I would have passed it without a thought; had I (as editor) received a specific query about it, I would have said that it looked perfectly fine (although "inordinate" would not be my own first-choice word here). Here are a few other examples: Anne Bronte, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (Ch. 43): <<'She [the new governess] is a very estimable, pious young person,' said he; 'you needn't be afraid. Her name is Myers, I believe; and she was recommended to me by a respectable old dowager: a lady of high repute in the religious world. I have not seen her myself, and therefore cannot give you a particular account of her person and conversation, and so forth; but, if the old lady's eulogies are correct, you will find her to possess all desirable qualifications for her position: an inordinate love of children among the rest.'>> Autobiography of Konrad Lorenz (Nobel Prize, 1973): <> Web column in "Al-Ahram Weekly On-line" (Egypt) [referring to the "mother-in-law" stereotype]: <> I think "inordinate" = "immoderate"/"unrestrained" or so in all of these and I do not think there are any sexual connotations. -- Doug Wilson Etymological Notes: "Love" (semi-long) Carl Jeffrey Weber wrote (Sunday, 15:32) LOVE We pick up with a dedication <<< "To my mother for her inordinate affection [to me]..." The editors probably thought, Hey, if something had been going on between mother and son, who are we to put in our two cents worth? >>> The pick up continues, <<< "inordinate affection/love," is a collocational phrase that means something bad, very bad, in the contexts in which it is used. (Questions of sexual orientation would not be relevant). It occurs frequently in ascetical Christian religious literature. "Inordinate," by morphology and definition, is negative in meaning >>> . I suspect something going on here like "heads you win, tails I lose". "Inordinate love" is NOT equivalent to "inordinate affection" in historical English. Pop usage be what it may. It seems "inordinate" can be a euphemism for the polite/opprobrious "bad". We use a different word today for the opprobrious bad: "Inappropriate". (And the word "inappropriate" collocates better with the word "touching".) "Inordinate/inappropriate" can each suggest "excessive" or "abusive," or "to a fault." Of note - "not being ordered or ordinary", and also, "not being apropos", are not necessarily bad. But here they are linguistically marked for bad, as when someone has an "attitude". Everybody knows you can have a good OR bad attitude, but if someone says you have one, they always mean a bad one -- like a person has a "condition". It is always a bad thing. The topic though, analyzes the language of a DEDICATION. Wouldn't this suggest a polite and courteous register of language use? <<< . Hey, if something had been going on between mother and son, who are we to put in our two cents worth? >>> Douglas Wilson: <<< Now, just a moment. I'm a learner of English at a relatively high grade level, and I don't have any problem at all with that dedication as quoted.>>> Doug says the expression "inordinate love/affection" is <<< perhaps used for 'mild self-deprecation' as in "You are too kind", "This is more than I deserve", etc.) and possibly meaning merely "unrestrained". Had I been the editor, I would have passed it without a thought; had I (as editor) received a specific query about it, I would have said that it looked perfectly fine (although "inordinate" would not be my own first-choice word here) >>> Doug then goes on to give usage data from Anne Bronte and Konrad Lorenz to show two examples of "inordinate love" as a good thing, and then gives an example of a bad meaning, "a possessive mother's inordinate love" which has the negative sense of excessive to a fault, etc. (Notwithstanding the original was "inordinate affection", not "love"), Doug says "inordinate love" = "immoderate" or "unrestrained love". It "doesn't have any sexual connotations." The register of language in the topic example accords it the register that is, among other things, polite and courteous. This seems right to me, and the Lack of Sexual Connotation School of linguistic interpretation wins over the Saturday Night Live School. The topic opened with "inordinate AFFECTION". An intermediary comment then associated "AFFECTION with LOVE", as equivalents, and next Doug gaves examples of "inordinate LOVE". ///////////////////////////// Are not "love" and "affection" inappropriately associated here? Our modern word "love" is a blend of two Old English roots. One meant "to like", the other meant "to praise". The modern word "love" is a blend of those two words, which is why you can speak of the "love" of the most trivial thing, and then of the "love" of God. It's in the first instance that "to love" means "to like" and in the second that "to love" means "to praise" (God). Now, accepted as an English word, "praise" was borrowed from the French subsequent to the Norman Conquest in 1066. In historical English usage, the "lover" was always the boy. The girl's "lover" was not so named because he "made love" to her -- "made love" today is a euphemism for either, 1., technical medical words, or 2., ones straight out of society's linguistic gutter. The language's most famous four letter word is allowed as a synonym for "make love". And then, that same four letter word is used as possibly equivalent to "rot" as a condemnative, I'll call it, as in "rotten idiot". "Love" as it comes from our basic Old English has nothing to do with sex - sex being what the boy and the girl, as expressed in the English language of today, HAVE with each other. "Love", here means, "to really really REALLY like a whole lot, and nothing more than like to the tenth power. "Praise be to God", was in Old English, "Love God!" "To love God" does not mean "to like Him a whole whole lot". One can show love (i.e., that you "like" something or somebody a whole lot) affectively, and this "affection" is externalizing behavior. This is not implied in the English word "love". "Affection" is warm and fuzzy affect, whereas "to really like, a whole lot, more than anything or anybody in the whole world," is all there is, and nothing more. But what of the word "love" as the "real special bond" the boy and girl have for each other? It seems an extension of the meaning "to mega-like". There is no special word. We must go to the Romance languages for the words of special bonding between the sexes, with a Western Valentines kind of love that is perhaps in the "mar-' roots. English has words for bonding between the sexes, like "betroth" and "wed". The "mar", though, I strongly suspect, did more than simply come through Latin for "young girl" - i.e., probably maiden (cf. Pallas Athena, Joan of Arc, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc.). In Mexico today they can say "All the little Maria's all over Mexico". Perhaps "mar" is same sourced in "marry" and "martial" - seen in the second millennium BC as the "oh my hero" theme, going way back on the IE Oriental side, and eventually spread with the Pax Romana But, on the Occidental side, consider the song, "What's Love Got to Do with It". It's about a female sexual availability script in which the guys immediately proceed to home plate sometime between sundown and sunrise. Presumably everybody would be externalizing behaviors of warm and fuzzy affect, affectionate "shows" of "love" - "yes darling.", or, "yea baby, I DO love you". Isn't "love" erroneously equated with "affection", and "love and affection" are both synonymized with "sex". Our language is being synonymized through guilt by association. Even makin' "whoopee" never got far beyond first base before it fell in the gutter.Too bad. The boys and girls should learn good definitions in middle school - the usage in pop culture be what it may. They hear more standard English and three syllable words on the Simpsons than they get all day in Chicago schools. Conclusion: When he says thank you for your "inordinate love" it is good with no sexual connotations in the identified register. It is not bad!!! "Inordinate affection", however, could be good, could be bad, and doesn't strictly have to do with the word "love" that developed from two Old English roots meaning "like" and "praise". "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote (Sunday, 17:55): > > It has been suggested that "love" might be a little different from > "affection". In the context of the book dedication in question, I believe > these words are virtually synonymous. Still, here are a few examples with > "inordinate affection", all without any carnal implications IMHO: > > "The Bishop and His Cats", in "The New-England Magazine" (1834): > > < perfect; and, be it known to the reader that the reverend bishop had one > fault. Charitable, humble, merciful, religious, as he was, he had one > ridiculous fault. This was an inordinate affection for the feline race. > Wild cats, tame cats, Maltese cats, Angora cats; cats, in short, of every > sort and kind found an asylum in his house.>> > > "The Blackfeet Indians", in "Appletons' Journal" (1877): > > < words of feeling eulogy, assures the officer of his inordinate affection > for the white race in general and his person in particular, and avows his > intention of conducting the ensuing trade in a strictly honorable and > orderly manner ....>> > > Web discussion of Protestant versus Catholic 'extremisms': > > < but nothing more excessive than the inordinate affection that extreme Roman > Catholics exhibit towards the Pope ....>> > > -- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 1 20:20:35 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 15:20:35 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020101075325.00ac55d0@nb.net> Message-ID: As I recall, my sister-in-law used "binky" with her kids (and they did with their kids, I believe), and I think I've heard it elsewhere too. When my son was born, the "in" brand was Nuk, from Germany? So the Binky brand (generalized to binky) may have preceded the Nuk (and presumably others). By the way, "pickanniny" (which you may have meant by 'pinkeny'?) did indeed come from Spanish "pequeno" (assume tilde) or its Portuguese equivalent, to mean "little one," and it was adopted by English-based creoles. But I don't think we have to stretch this to include "pink" (and why a Dutch link?). The "binkie/pinkie" connection makes some sense though. At 08:42 AM 1/1/02 -0500, you wrote: >>... now I wonder whether there was a pre-existing word "binky". .... > >A good question. I don't find this in any of my books. One might check the >English Dialect Dictionary and maybe the big Scottish National Dictionary >(I don't have these myself ... maybe next time I drop by the big library ...). > >In Scots there's apparently "bink" = "bench"/"shelf"/"cupboard"/etc. ... >not very promising. There's also "whistle-binkie", which I see defined as a >peripheral attendee at a penny wedding [i.e., a wedding with an admission >charge ... which he has not paid], an idle spectator ... here presumably >"binkie" has/had some meaning, but I don't know for sure what (but see below). > >My casual conjecture is that "binky" originally meant something small, >either "baby" or "little finger". I see Binky/Binkie as a nickname on the >Web and as a name for small pets: Binky the Bunny or Binky the Kitty >perhaps (not Binky the Killer Whale). I wonder whether this could have been >a version of "pinkie", Scots for small things including the little finger, >and similar to older English words along the line of "pinkeny" used as pet >names or so. [A wild speculation which may be instantly disprovable by an >expert: could "pink" and its relatives such as this one come (through >Dutch) from Spanish "peque?o"?] "Binky" might be a baby-talk version. Also >note that one's pinkie can serve as a binky in an emergency. > >I note the Scots expression "whustle one's thoum" = "whistle [on] one's >thumb" = "twiddle one's thumbs" = "be idle" or so ... very similar to the >activities of the whistle-binkie at the penny wedding ... maybe he's >whistling on his pinkie? > >-- 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 mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 1 21:08:30 2002 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 16:08:30 -0500 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This thread is triggering an exasperating memory for me. When I lived in Cincinnati, a very popular person by this name evidently had a phone number similar to mine, because for an entire year the phone rang almost daily with "Yo, Binky dere?" (Obviously, I mention this as evidence that human beings can be called Binky.) -Mai _________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 2 00:44:44 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 19:44:44 EST Subject: Annual Banished Word List Message-ID: I found the following on AOL News: '9-11' Tops Annual Banished Word List By BREE FOWLER .c The Associated Press DETROIT (Jan. 11) - The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks should be referred to as just that and not ``9-11'' or ``nine-eleven,'' according to the annual list of banished words compiled by Lake Superior State University. The authors of the ``List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness'' at the Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., school say they received numerous nominations for the abbreviations to be included in the 27th annual list. Most people nominating ``9-11'' and ``nine-eleven'' said they were not trying to make light of the attacks, but asked if finding a ``cute'' abbreviation for the day makes them any easier to accept. But others objected strongly. ``I can't believe people are abbreviating the worst act of war this country has seen since Pearl Harbor,'' wrote a nominator from Colorado Springs, Colo. ``I've never heard anybody refer to the attack on Pearl Harbor as Twelve-Seven or 12-7.'' Lake Superior, the smallest public university in Michigan with just over 3,000 students, releases the list each Jan. 1 from submissions gathered around the world from academia, advertising, business, journalism, the military, politics and sports. The list was born out of a New Year's Eve party in 1976 and sent out as a publicity ploy for the Upper Peninsula school. Then-public relations director W.T. (Bill) Rabe started the list, in part because he thought the school needed more name recognition. Among the other words included on this year's list: ``friendly fire,'' once popular during the Gulf War and revived by the recent military action in Afghanistan. Several other terrorism-related terms made the list, including ``surgical strike'' and ``bring the evildoers to justice.'' ``Practically every news reporter and our president has uttered these words,'' wrote a nominator from the Queens borough of New York City. ``Now, hearing this phrase is almost comical, even under these most serious circumstances that profoundly affect my hometown.'' Among the other words and phrases on this year's list: ``in the wake of,'' ``synergy'' and ``faith-based.'' ``Reality TV'' and ``Reality-based TV'' also made the list. ``Banish the words, banish the shows, banish the people who came up with the idea for the shows, because there is nothing real about this form of television,'' wrote Mary Li of Toronto. My comment on the above: unlike "9-11", several items listed in the article have specific meanings but have no synonyms, so if they get banned we will have trouble discussing the topics. Specifically: friendly fire - is also called "fratricide". Friendly fire has been much discussed since the Gulf War, but is nothing new. Item: in the 1948 battle for Jerusalem, the commanders on both sides (Abdul Kadar el Huseinni and David Marcus) were killed by friendly fire, as was Stonewall Jackson in 1863. It can be argued that at Waterloo more British soldiers were killed by friendly fire than by enemy fire. faith-based - no available synonyms, and if you happen to dislike Bush's ideas on faith-based initiatives, your desire is that they be killed after public debate, which will be difficult if the term is banished. Hence banishing the term would be a politically biased activity! synergy - no available synonyms reality TV - probably an oxymoron, but again no available synonyms sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something less than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, bombs do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a statement of reality). - Jim Landau From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 2 00:49:47 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 19:49:47 -0500 Subject: Annual Banished Word List In-Reply-To: <94.1f2cffe8.2963b1fc@aol.com> Message-ID: The press release is available here: http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current/default.html Somebody on another site had this to say about the list: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/13469#197798 This list was thought up by the late Bill Rabe, who was the long-time head of publicity for Lake Superior State, which is a tiny college (3000 students) in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Rabe was a favorite of columnists and editors around Michigan, because he could always be counted on for a wacky and humorous quote about some issue of the day. Most of these had nothing to do with Lake Superior State, but when they were printed, they always said "Bill Rabe from Lake Superior State at the Soo says..." He probably did more for LSS's name recognition than every other person associated with it, including the hockey program, did put together. So while the Banished Words List and the Unicorn Hunters are legendary in the annals of PR, they shouldn't be confused with anything worth serious "pondering." From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Jan 2 02:18:23 2002 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 20:18:23 -0600 Subject: binky In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020101151028.03c61530@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >As I recall, my sister-in-law used "binky" with her kids (and they did with >their kids, I believe), and I think I've heard it elsewhere too. When my >son was born, the "in" brand was Nuk, from Germany? So the Binky brand >(generalized to binky) may have preceded the Nuk (and presumably others). Well, and I have heard of parents who talked about "nuking" the kid, i.e., giving the child the Nuk brand pacifier! Barbara Need UChicago--Linguistics From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 2 07:21:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 02:21:32 EST Subject: My Cuban Cocktail Recipe Book (2000); Bacardi Message-ID: BACARDI The Bacardi Building ("Edificio Bacardi") was near my hotel. It's an impressive landmark building, and it's being renovated. In Cuba, that could take forever. I walked by, and then stepped inside. I was a sad sight. Bacardi still exists; it should have its own building. -------------------------------------------------------- MY CUBAN COCKTAIL RECIPE BOOK by Ramon Pedreira Rodriguez 84 pages, paperback, $6 Editorial Arte y Literatura, Havana First English-language edition: 1997 Second English-language edition: 2000 I bought the 1998 Spanish edition for $4, then saw the English language edition for the first time at the airport just as I was leaving Cuba. Pg. 43: ALMENDARES... This cocktail was named after a famous Havana hotel located on the banks of the Almendares river in the 1920s. ALTA COCINA (HAUTE CUISINE)... Alta Cocina was the school of gastronomy where Cuban technicians were trained in the 1960s. It was located in the premises of the Tropicana nightclub. Pg. 44: ARCO IRIS (RAINBOW)... ARENAS DE ORO (GOLDEN SANDS)... Pg. 45: AVISPA (WASP)... BABALU (Ricky Ricardo never met my tour group--ed.) Pg. 46: BARACOA ESPECIAL (BARACOA SPECIAL)... BELLOMONTE... Pg. 47: BESO (KISS)... BOLA ROJA (RED BALL)... Pg. 48: BRUJA BLANCA (WHITE WITCH)... BUENAS NOCHES (GOOD NIGHT)... Pg. 49: CABALLITO (LITTLE PONY)... CACIQUE (CHIEFTAIN)... Pg. 50: CANCHANCHARA... CARIBENO (CARIBBEAN)... COCTEL CUBANO (CUBAN COCKTAIL)... Pg. 51: COCTEL INFANTIL (COCKTAIL FOR CHILDREN)... This cocktail was created for children and teetotallers. COLONIAL... This cocktail was the hallmark of El Colonial, on Prado Avenue, one of the oldest and most exclusive restaurants in Havana. Pg. 52: XIII CONGRESSO (13TH CONGRESS)... This cocktail won the contest held on the occasion of the 13th Congress of the Cuban workers. Pg. 53: CONTACTO (CONTACT)... This cocktail was named after and dedicated to a famous Cuban TV show. COSTA SUR (SOUTH COAST)... This cocktail is the hallmark of the Costa Sur Hotel, in the city of Trinidad. Pg. 54: CUBA BELLA (BEAUTIFUL CUBA)... The Cuba Bella cocktail won the first prize in a contest held in the 1960s. CUBA LIBRE... "Viva Cuba Libre" (Long Live Free Cuba) was the war cry of the _mambises_--the combatants of the independence army--who fought to free Cuba from the Spanish colonial yoke in the wars of independence waged from 1868 to 1878 and from 1885 to 1898. Cuba Libre was one of the first cocktails to be mixed by Cuban bartenders. Despite the fact--or perhaps due to it--that it is a simple formula, it has attained worldwide fame. Pg. 55: CUBANITO... Pg. 56: CUBATABACO... CUBATABACO is also the name of the export enterprise in charge of commercializing the superb Havana cigars. CHAPARRA... This is an old Cuban cocktail, dedicated to the famous Chaparra sugar mill. Pg. 57: CHICLET'S... DAIQUIRI FRAPPE... This cocktail was created at the Daiquiri mines, located in Cuba's easternmost region, by an engineer who suffered from the intense heat that characterizes the area. Years later--in 1920--it was improved by Constantino Ribalaigua, known as Constante, the famous bartender at the Floridita bar in Havana. This is the exquisite and worldwide famous cocktail that Hemingway always drank at the Floridita, which he described in his novel _Islands in the Stream_. Pg. 58: DAIQUIRI NAURAL (DAIQUIRI AU NATUREL)... DAIQUIRI PLATANO (BANANA DAIQUIRI)... Pg. 59: DAIQUIRI DE PINA (PINEAPPLE DAIQUIRI)... DAIQUIRI REBELDE (REBEL DAIQUIRI)... Rebel Daiquiri takes its name after the cocktail's olive-green hue, which is the color of the Cuban Armed Forces' uniform. It was created in 1959, after the triumph of the Revolution. Pg. 60: ENROQUE (CASTLING)... This cocktail was created on the occasion of the Capablanca (My hero--ed.) In Memoriam Chess Tournaments, held in Cuba for many years since the 1960s. ERNEST HEMINGWAY ESPECIAL (ERNEST HEMINGWAY SPECIAL)... This cocktail has no sugar. That is how the famous writer liked to drink it at the Floridita restaurant's bar. Pg. 61: ENSALADA DE FRUTAS (FRUIT SALAD)... This cocktail is welcomed by teetotallers on hot summer afternoons. ESPERANZA (HOPE)... Pg. 62: FLAMENCO... In the 1960s, this cocktail was the hallmark of the famous Flamenco Bar at the Sevilla Hotel. FLAMINGO... This cocktail represented the Flamingo Hotel in Havana. Pg. 63: FLORIDITA ESPECIAL (FLORIDITA SPECIAL)... FOGATA (BONFIRE)... Pg. 64: GINEBRA COMPUESTA (GIN MIX)... When ice was not yet manufactured in Cuba, this cocktail was very popular among cardrivers, who drank it in the early morning. Currently, the flavor of angostura and the freshness of the "cooling stone," like someone once called ice, have turned this cocktail into a veritable delight. HAVANA CLUB... HAVANA ESPECIAL (HAVANA SPECIAL)... Pg. 65: HAVANNA ROCA (HAVANA ROCK)... This cocktail was specially created for the restaurant La Roca (The Rock), in Havana. HASTA LUEGO (SO LONG)... Pg. 66: IDEAL... This cocktail was very popular in restaurants' bars in the 1950s. ISLA AZUL (BLUE ISLAND)... Pg. 67: ISLA DE PINOS (ISLE OF PINES)... The Isle of Pines is currently called the Isle of Youth. It is said it was the island that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write his novel _Treasure Island_. Pg. 68: JAI ALAI... This cocktail was very popular among professional jai alai players since colonial times. LIMONADA CLARETE (CLARET LEMONADE)... LOBO DE MAR (OLD SALT)... Pg. 69: MARY PICKFORD... Although this cocktail was named after the famous North American actress, it was created in Cuba. (NOT IN OED?--ed.) MOJITO... This cocktail, together with the Cuba Libre and the Daiquiri, ranks among the most famous Cuban cocktails. It is a very popular drink among the patrons and visitors of Havana's restaurant La Bodeguita del Medio. (NOT IN OED? NOT IN MERRIAM-WEBSTER?--ed.) Pg. 70: MULATA... NINA BONITA... Nina Bonita is the name of a well known cattle breeding center in Cuba. Pg. 71: NUBE ROSADA (PINK CLOUD)... OIP (INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISTS' ORGANIZATION)... This cocktail won the first prize in a contest held on the occasion of the Congress of the International Journalists' Organization held in Cuba in the 1960s. Pg. 72: PALOMA BLANCA (WHITE DOVE)... PECHO DE DONCELLA (MAIDEN'S BOSOM)... Pg. 73: PETALO (PETAL)... PINARENO... Guayabita del Pinar is a liquor produced only in the westernmost Cuban province of Pinar del Rio. (I visited the factory. My group didn't much care for the stuff. The sweet is slightly better than the dry, IMHO--ed.) Pg. 74: PINERITO... PONCHE DE FRUTAS (FRUIT PUNCH)... PRESIDENTE (PRESIDENT)... Pg. 75: PRESIDENTE DULCE (SWEET PRESIDENT)... PRESIDENTE SECO (DRY PRESIDENT)... Pg. 76: PRIMERO DE MAYO (FIRST OF MAY)... PUNCH DEAUVILLE... This cocktail represents the famous Deauville Hotel, located on the Malecon, Havana's seaside drive. Pg. 77: RESCATE (RESCUE)... Pg. 78: SANTIAGO... SAOCO... Pg. 79: SIERRA ORIENTAL (EASTERN SIERRA)... Pg. 80: SOLDADOR (WELDER)... SOL Y SOMBRA (SUNSHINE AND SHADOW)... TESOROR (TREASURE)... Pg. 81: TIPICO (TYPICAL)... TORONJIL (GRAPEFRUIT BALM)... TRICONTINENTAL... This cocktail won the prize awarded in a competition held in Cuba in the 1960s to choose the cocktail that would represent the gastronomy sector at the Tricontinental Conference, in which figures from Asia, Africa and Latin America participated. Pg. 82: TROPICAL... Pg. 83: TROPICANA ESPECIAL (TROPICANA SPECIAL)... This cocktail was named after the famous Tropicana nightclub, also known as Paradise Under the Stars. TURQUINO... This cocktail was named after the highest mountain in the Cuban archipelago. Turquino is in Cuba's easternmost region. Pg. 84: VARADERO (VARADERO BEACH)... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 2 07:43:30 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 02:43:30 EST Subject: The Triumph of English (ECONOMIST); Precool Message-ID: TRIUMPH OF ENGLISH "Christmas Special: The triumph of English" is in THE ECONOMIST, December 22, 2001-January 4, 2001, pages 65-67. Not much new here. From pg. 66, col. 2: On the whole the Brits do not complain. Some may regret...the arrival of "hopefully" at the start of every sentence.... (See Fred Shapiro's "hopefully" article in AMERICAN SPEECH...The "Tango" is on the cover, and the origin of "tango" is discussed. Maybe I should write in and tell THE ECONOMIST about the Making of America database (Cornell)--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- PRECOOL From DELTA SKY magazine, December 2001, interview with Neal Friedman of Fisher-Price, pg. 28, col. 3: _What about other trends?_ There are two areas--learning and (Pg. 30, col. 1--ed.) "precool." Those are two major trends in the industry right now. We call precool things like the scooter a preschooler sees everyone riding. We've done what we call the Roll 2 Pro Scooter--it has training wheels on it so that a younger child can emulate the older child safely. We've done that with skates. We've put together a precool section that the retailers have been very positive about for these aspirational (Col. 2--ed.) toys that a preschooler would love to do and (that) allow them to do it safely. ("Precool" is useful for our youngest ADS members. Might as well help them on slang and jargon, too--ed.) From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 2 15:27:32 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 10:27:32 -0500 Subject: surgical strike Message-ID: For what it's worth, my brother-in-law in Jerusalem refers tto surgical strikes as "dovecot bombing"; apparently a term familiar to Israelis. "sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something less than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, bombs do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a statement of reality)." ___________________ "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" --Leon Wieseltier From carljweber at MSN.COM Wed Jan 2 16:00:54 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 10:00:54 -0600 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query Message-ID: SEX Lex Survey Query Carl Jeffrey Weber Dear Linguists and Philologists, Please help identify the phenomenon behind the statistics. "Media bias" has recently been discussed in the news. I devised a simple method to generate data, perhaps relevant to personal pronoun etymology, demographic trends, cultural change, etc. What do the following data support, prove, and/or disprove? Are you surprised -- would you have predicted the data? ///////////////////// My search engine, MSN, shows the following inputs/hits: spokesman, 41 ; spokeswoman 374,090 chairman, 362 ; chairwoman, 80,878 fireman, 25 ; firewoman 1443 postman, 50 ; postwoman, 405 alderman, 19 ; alderwoman, 1121 /////////////////// Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. /////////////////// When your comments are unposted to public discussion, all correspondence sent to me is confidential in this survey. In your SEX Lex Survey Query response, comment on anything. Note the following: The American Dialect Society voted the word "she" to be "Word of the Millennium." Would you say that the tremendously increased workload of this pronoun suggested by the search/hits data supports and confirms the choice? Why? How do you, as a sociolinguist, interpret this data? How would sex and gender experts in linguistics, who monitor such things, interpret it? Carl Jeffrey Weber, Linguistics Investigator Chicago From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 2 03:22:51 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 11:22:51 +0800 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query In-Reply-To: <002001c193a6$aa039420$3c351342@computer> Message-ID: At 10:00 AM -0600 1/2/02, carljweber wrote: >SEX Lex Survey Query > >Carl Jeffrey Weber > >Dear Linguists and Philologists, > >Please help identify the phenomenon behind the statistics. "Media bias" has >recently been discussed in the news. I devised a simple method to generate >data, perhaps relevant to personal pronoun etymology, demographic trends, >cultural change, etc. What do the following data support, prove, and/or >disprove? Are you surprised -- would you have predicted the data? They prove that something's weird about your search engines. Google shows e.g spokesman, 2,040,000 spokeswoman, 540,000 chairman, 7,520,000 chairwoman, 137,000 fireman, 304,000 firewoman, 2,040 alderman, 234,000 alderwoman, 3,300 all of which is basically what I'd have predicted. maybe your search engines are pre-edited for sexism? I prefer unedited search engines myself. larry > >///////////////////// > >My search engine, MSN, shows the following inputs/hits: > >spokesman, 41 ; spokeswoman 374,090 > >chairman, 362 ; chairwoman, 80,878 > >fireman, 25 ; firewoman 1443 > >postman, 50 ; postwoman, 405 > >alderman, 19 ; alderwoman, 1121 > >/////////////////// > >Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. > >/////////////////// > From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 2 16:18:43 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 11:18:43 -0500 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query In-Reply-To: <002001c193a6$aa039420$3c351342@computer> Message-ID: My first response is: Use a better search engine, such as Google. My second response is: Used the advanced pane of MSN Search. Using these methods, there is no apparent discrepancy in the hits returned on the gendered search terms. Google: spokesman: 2,110,00 ; spokeswoman: 556,000 chairman: 7,640,000 ; chairwoman: 140,000 etc. MSN Advanced Search: spokesman: 1,167,334 ; spokeswoman: 373,029 chairman: 3,942,588 ; chairwoman: 80,538 etc. From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Wed Jan 2 16:36:50 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 11:36:50 -0500 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query Message-ID: They prove, rather, that you still have a bit to learn about how to read search engines. You said: Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. That's not 21 hits for "spokesman", but rather 21 web site matches. The web page matches total 1,470,000. Look on the upper right side of the page for the following list of links. Categories | Web Sites | Web Pages | News The thing about "spokeswoman" is that, most likely, there are currently no web sites with the term in their titles. You are therefore shifted over to the "Web Pages", where there are 341,000 hits. Don > They prove that something's weird about your search engines. Google shows > e.g > spokesman, 2,040,000 > spokeswoman, 540,000 > > chairman, 7,520,000 > chairwoman, 137,000 > > fireman, 304,000 > firewoman, 2,040 > > alderman, 234,000 > alderwoman, 3,300 > > all of which is basically what I'd have predicted. maybe your search > engines are pre-edited for sexism? I prefer unedited search engines > myself. > > larry > > > > >///////////////////// > > > >My search engine, MSN, shows the following inputs/hits: > > > >spokesman, 41 ; spokeswoman 374,090 > > > >chairman, 362 ; chairwoman, 80,878 > > > >fireman, 25 ; firewoman 1443 > > > >postman, 50 ; postwoman, 405 > > > >alderman, 19 ; alderwoman, 1121 > > > >/////////////////// > > > >Yahoo search: spokesman, 21 ; spokeswoman, 341,000, etc. > > > >/////////////////// > > From carljweber at MSN.COM Wed Jan 2 16:37:13 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 10:37:13 -0600 Subject: SEX Lex Survey Query Message-ID: I'm wrong, everyone is right. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Jan 2 17:29:13 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 12:29:13 -0500 Subject: cantharides Message-ID: I see this word is in the OED from 1541, with 1579, 1611, 1831 and 1847. Of these, only the 1611 citation refers to cantharides as a sexual stimulant: "Before she was common talk; now, none dare say, cantharides can stir her." (from a play by Beaumont & Fletcher) The 1831 source is from a magazine of horse-doctoring. The 1847 citation refers to cantharides as a stimulant when taken orally by a human, and is from a poem by Emerson. (!) There are also three citations showing a figurative use, from 1598, 1601 and 1790. The latter is from Burke' French Revolution: "Swallowing down repeated provocatives of cantharides to our love of liberty." (Can "provocatives of cantharides" be a typo for "provocatives or cantharides"?) In any event, this is a word not often documented, especially in the sexual sense, so here we go: 1835: A Disgraceful Act. -- A respectable married female, residing in Water street, made an application to the magistrate yesterday, for a warrant against a sailor, whom she charged with having inserted into an orange which he had given her to eat, a large quantity of cantharides, thereby seriously injuring her, and placing her life in jeopardy. *** NY Transcript, December 24, 1835, p. 2, col. 5 GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Wed Jan 2 14:46:05 2002 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 14:46:05 -0000 Subject: Percentage point--missed word in dictionaries Message-ID: In response to Victoria's comment: >Bilingual and learners' dictionaries, especially, need to >provide information about collocations. Of course, their number is legion >and no dictionary could possibly include them all in any way that would be >meaningful to a user who didn't want to devote his entire life to reading >it. And to David's comment: > This is surely a part--albeit a small part--of the art of lexicography. > Indeed, those publishers who think that computer programs or > inexperienced editors can replace experienced lexicographers will end > up with less artfully crafted lexicons. If you're talking about machine translation, David, I certainly agree with you--but not if you meant computer-based tools as a whole. The art of lexicography can and should encompass the skilled use of computer analysis, and the identification and inclusion of collocations is a great case in point. Corpus analysis, routinely used outside of the US by houses that specialize in bilingual and learners' dictionaries, is an invaluable tool that enables lexicographers to spot the most common collocations and to make decisions about including them (usually in example sentences) or excluding them based on frequency of occurrence, which renders the choice less subjective and less subject to gross omissions.. Allowing data to overrule common sense becomes its own species of lexicographic error, of course, which simply proves David's point about inexperienced lexicographers. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 01:38:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 20:38:17 EST Subject: Lake Effect Snow Message-ID: There's a diagram explaining "lake-effect" snow on CNN.com. It's not in OED, but there are many web hits. Unless an OED editor lives in Buffalo, it won't make the OED for another 12 years, I guess. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 02:26:18 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 21:26:18 EST Subject: Media Noche (1929); Moro crab; Perritos Calientes Message-ID: MEDIA NOCHE (MIDNIGHT SANDWICH) Not in the OED. Not in DARE. John Mariani's ENYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK, without any dates or cites, has on page 154: A "Cuban sandwich" is a popular Cuban-American version made with pork, smoked ham, Swiss cheese, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, and other condiments, while a "medianoche" (Spanish for "midnight") is served on an egg roll there. From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 26 January 1929, pg. 29, col. 1: The frequent sight, "Hay Sandwich" doesn't spell dry indigestion. It tells you that at that place you can buy a sandwich, right now. Incidentally, the sandwich may be called a "media noche," which translates "midnight." Try one of these soft buns layered with different cold cuts and cheese and pickles with the last bottle of beer before turning in, and see how well it has been named. -------------------------------------------------------- MORO CRAB Not in the OED. Isn't "M" being worked on???? From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 28 February 1930, pg. 16, col. 3: THE GASTRONOMIC DELIGHT The Moro crab is perhaps the outstanding delight of Havana. Of all the various sea foods that are to be found here it is the most distinctive--both in flavor and appearance. Its claws, with their black marking, are highly decorative and unlike those of any other crabs in the world. Its flavor is almost indescribable, its meat being sweeter and of a finer texture than the soft shell crabs of North America. (More on the "Moro crab" when I type up a Cuban cookbook in perhaps a few minutes--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- PERRITOS CALIENTES (HOT DOG!) From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 30 January 1930, pg. 62, col. 1: On the outskirts of Havana, near La Playa, is a cluster of hot-dog stands (they call them _perritos calientes_, i. e., hot puppies) ranged in a hollow square, with wooden tables where one can eat and drink. This spot is a favorite assembly place for native orchestras and dancers, and all sorts of bizarre native musical instruments are to be seen there. From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 28 February 1930, pg. 41, col. 3: Charles L. Feltman, who is reputed to have made America "hot dog minded," has returned to the states after an extended stay here. Although he is said to have made millions in hot dogs--and probably millions of them--he maintains that his mammoth restaurant at Coney Island--"Feltman's"--is the big interest. However the perritos calientes are not to be sneezed at, he will admit, and moreover if a person pins him down, he will tell what goes into those fat rascals. Somehow or other, a hot dog seems sort of closer to you, friendlier, don't you think, if you know what has gone into him. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 3 03:10:32 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 19:10:32 -0800 Subject: Annual Banished Word List Message-ID: Jim: This is an interesting "take" on things. > > friendly fire - is also called "fratricide". Friendly fire has been much > discussed since the Gulf War, but is nothing new. Item: in the 1948 battle > for Jerusalem, the commanders on both sides (Abdul Kadar el Huseinni and > David Marcus) were killed by friendly fire, as was Stonewall Jackson in 1863. > It can be argued that at Waterloo more British soldiers were killed by > friendly fire than by enemy fire. I agree with you that "friendly fire" is nothing new. I remember hearing back in the dear old days when the Vietnam War was going on. I just assumed that the term came from that period. I'm no doubt mistaken, as I am about a great many things. > > faith-based - no available synonyms, and if you happen to dislike Bush's > ideas on faith-based initiatives, your desire is that they be killed after > public debate, which will be difficult if the term is banished. Hence > banishing the term would be a politically biased activity! "Faith based" is definitely new, and IMHO overused, but since there's no real synonym, we're probably stuck with it, unless people come up with something else. > > synergy - no available synonyms "Synergy" is a word borrowed, I think, from physics, but it doesn't mean in popular parlance what it means in physics.Basically it's used(again, I think)in business situations to describe a kind of ebb and flow between two groups or two ideas. > sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. > Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart > bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as > opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something less > than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will > admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, bombs > do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a statement > of reality). "Surgical strike" is another military term that's been around for a long, long time, not just in recent wars, and it's been around long before "smart bombs" were invented, so I doubt that this phrase will get banned any time soon. Anne G From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 03:17:36 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 22:17:36 EST Subject: Cuban Cookery (1931); Ajiaco (1912) Message-ID: CUBAN COOKERY: GASTRONOMIC SECRETS OF THE TROPICS, WITH AN APPENDIX ON CUBAN DRINKS by Blanche Z. De Baralt Editorial "Hermes," Havana 1931 It's in the NYPL, and as good as anything I saw in the Cuban National Library. It's in English. Pg. 9: Thus the national Olla of Spain is converted here into the Cuban Ajiaco; a thick soup, of course, but composed of entirely different ingredients. Instead of beef and ham, we find pork. Instead of potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbage, garbanzos (chick peas) etc. we have sweet potatoes, yams, malangas, bananas, corn &. Pg. 19: AJIACO This is the national dish of Cuba, especially in the country. It is a thick soup full of vegetables. Some of each kind should be served in every plate. Pg. 32: _SHELL FISH_ MORO CRABS If there is one thing for which Havana has a well founded reputation, it is certainly for its moro crabs (not Morro like the Morro Castle, if you please, but moro, meaning Moorish). They are simply insuperable. Pg. 38: REVOLTILLO. (Cuban scrambled eggs). Pg. 43: PICADILLO. (Cuban hash). Pg. 46: ROPA VIEJA. (Rags). Pg. 48: EMPANADAS. (Fritters with minced meat). Pg. 50: CHIVIRICOS. Pg. 57: _BEANS_ FRIJOLES NEGROS. (black beans). Pg. 58: RED BEANS. (Frijoles coloradas). Pg. 59: JUDIAS. (White beans). JUDIAS EN MUNYETAS. (Fried white beans). Pg. 60: MOROS Y CRISTIANOS. (Moors and Christians). Pg. 61: CONGRIS. GARBANZOS. (chick peas). Pg. 72: FRIED PLANTAINS. Pg. 73: BANANA CHIPS. (Galleticas). Pg. 86: GUACAMOLE. Pg. 87: QUIMBOMBO. (Okra). Pg. 106: BREAD FRITTERS. (Torrejas). HULA-HULA. COQUIMOL OR COCONUT MILK. Pg. 107: CAFIROLETA. COCO QUEMADO. (Toasted coconut). Pg. 121: ORIGINAL DAIQUIRI COCKTAIL CUBAN MANHATTAN COCKTAIL PRESIDENTE COCKTAIL Pg. 122: MARY PICKFORD COCKTAIL ISLE OF PINES COCKTAIL HAVANA YACHT CLUB COCKTAIL Pg. 123: GIN COCKTAIL MANHATTAN COCKTAIL BRIDGE COCKTAIL Pg. 124: MAH JONG COCKTAIL FRENCH CANADIAN COCKTAIL VERMOUTH COCKTAIL Pg. 125: SHERRY COCKTAIL CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL (Dry) CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL (Sweet) Pg. 126: CREOLE COCKTAIL (Old fashioned) GRAPEFRUIT BLOSSOM Pg. 127: BACARDI BLOSSOM CLOVER CLUB COCKTAIL CLOVER LEAF COCKTAIL Pg. 128: MERRY WIDOW COCKTAIL DUBONNET COCKTAIL HAVANNA COOLER Pg. 129: PLANTER'S PUNCH RUM COCKTAIL (Cuban mojo) ("Mojito" anyone?--ed.) Pg. 130: _OTHER DRINKS_ BACARDI FIZZ BACARDI SILVER FIZZ GOLDEN FIZZ Pg. 131: BACARDI PINEAPPLE FIZZ SHERRY FLIP PORT WINE FLIP Pg. 132: SHANDY GAFF CUBAN MILK PUNCH HOT ITALIAN LEMONADE Pg. 133: OLD SOUTHERN MINT JULEP SHERRY COBBLER Pg. 134: COFFEE FRAPPE CUBAN POUSSE. POUSSE CAFE Pg. 138: PINA FRIA (Pineapple juice) Pg. 139: CHAMPOLA (Guanabana refresco) ANON REFRESCO ENSALADA (Salad) Pg. 141: TAMARIND BUL A very popular drink. Juice of half a lime One tablespoonful sugar Half a glassful light beer Half a glassful water Shake with cracked ice. -------------------------------------------------------- AJIACO (continued) A long article is in THE CUBA MAGAZINE, October 1912, pg. 81, col. 1: _Ajiaco_ _A Cuban Dish, Fearfully_ _and Wonderfully Made._ A GENERAL favorite among Cuban dishes is a marvellous concoction called _ajiaco_. The following recipes for its fabrication were translated from a cook book called _El Cocinero Criollo_. The author of this volume is a very well known Havana physician and his critics have cruelly intimated that he had an eye out for business when he published it. _Ajiaco de Puerto Principe_... _Ajiaco de Monte_... _Ajiaco Campestre_... (Col. 2--ed.) _Ajiaco Bayames_... _Ajiaco Cardenense_... Ajiaco is served in all the restaurants of Havana; but where it is dished up properly and in all its pristine glory, is in the bohios of the interior, where it is the most substantial part of the guajiro's daily fare. From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Thu Jan 3 05:07:09 2002 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 21:07:09 -0800 Subject: Annual Banished Word List Message-ID: At least we don't hear much about "pinpoint bombing" anymore.... ----- Original Message ----- From: "ANNE V. GILBERT" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 7:10 PM Subject: Re: Annual Banished Word List > Jim: > This is an interesting "take" on things. > > > > friendly fire - is also called "fratricide". Friendly fire has been much > > discussed since the Gulf War, but is nothing new. Item: in the 1948 > battle > > for Jerusalem, the commanders on both sides (Abdul Kadar el Huseinni and > > David Marcus) were killed by friendly fire, as was Stonewall Jackson in > 1863. > > It can be argued that at Waterloo more British soldiers were killed by > > friendly fire than by enemy fire. > > I agree with you that "friendly fire" is nothing new. I remember hearing > back in the dear old days when the Vietnam War was going on. I just assumed > that the term came from that period. I'm no doubt mistaken, as I am about a > great many things. > > > > faith-based - no available synonyms, and if you happen to dislike Bush's > > ideas on faith-based initiatives, your desire is that they be killed after > > public debate, which will be difficult if the term is banished. Hence > > banishing the term would be a politically biased activity! > > "Faith based" is definitely new, and IMHO overused, but since there's no > real synonym, we're probably stuck with it, unless people come up with > something else. > > > > synergy - no available synonyms > > "Synergy" is a word borrowed, I think, from physics, but it doesn't mean in > popular parlance what it means in physics.Basically it's used(again, I > think)in business situations to describe a kind of ebb and flow between two > groups or two ideas. > > > sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished. > > Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart > > bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as > > opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something > less > > than 1%. Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will > > admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words, > bombs > > do not always do what you intend. (Not a political comment, just a > statement > > of reality). > > "Surgical strike" is another military term that's been around for a long, > long time, not just in recent wars, and it's been around long before "smart > bombs" were invented, so I doubt that this phrase will get banned any time > soon. > Anne G > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 05:16:22 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 00:16:22 EST Subject: HAVANA magazine cocktails & food (1929-1930) Message-ID: I'd like to put a nasty rumor to rest. I did not room with boxer Mike Tyson in Cuba. We did not both get Che Guevara tattoos. From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 26 January 1929, pg. 45, col. 1: _A LESSON IN COCKTAILS_ (...) The exclusively Cuban cocktail, the "Daiquiri," may not be. It was just coming into vogue in the States when Prohibition fell on the country. It is nothing but the juice of fresh limes, Bacardi rum and sugar, shaken with much ice until frosted. Nothing to beat it has ever been concocted. It was named after the town where it was invented, a Cuban mining town that contributed much to Bethlehem Steel. The "Presidente" is also strictly Cuban. It is Bacardi and vermouth, with a dash of orange and a cherry. The "Alexander" is a cocktail of a fashionable beige shade, and is popular with the ladies; the joke is often on the ladies, however, for it is potent under its innocent white-of-egg face. The "Zazerac" is a wicked one, blended with (Col. 2--ed.) absinthe and Bourbon whiskey; the "Ideal" is rather like a Bronx, with grapefruit juice instead of orange. The "Douglas Fairbanks" is similar to the "Ideal," but the "Mary Pickford" is a swell pink ceremony in a slim glass, made of pineapple, Bacardi, orange juice and grenadine. Post-prandial cocktails include the "Stinger," always popular in the States, being made of brandy and mint. "Stinger" is right. The "Blue Moon" is another, but it is not the infrequent thing that a blue moon is generally supposed to be. It combines white mint, gin, and that beautiful violet liquid. Any liqueur in the world may be had, too, for the close of dinner. The exclusively Cuban potion is the delicious Bacardi "Elixir." The old-fashioned cocktail is made of Bourbon or Rye in a distinctive, heavy-bottomed, small tumbler, combined with bitters, fruit, lump sugar, ice, mint, and a cherry. Its local name is "Dulce Maria"--Sweet Marie! Somewhat similar to it is the "Planter's Punch," in its nice, fat goblet, which is properly of Bacardi with a Jamaica rum float, and the fruits. (...) From HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 30 January 1930, pg. 64, col. 1: Havana has its tea hour, and two or more days a week its tea dansant. But it also has its cocktail hour, when the patios are filled with gay little groups seated in the shade of huge umbrellas, drinking anything for _pina_, a delicious non-alcoholic drink made from the juice of fresh pineapple, to planters' punch, or _Daiquiri_, or _Presidente_ cocktails. (...) There are numerous restaurants where one can enjoy the _cangrejo Moro_, _langosta_, or _arroz con calamares_, for which Havana is justly famous. And there are other delicious dishes like red snapper cooked in bags, vegetable soup Spanish style, _ajiaco Criollo_, and a fish chowder comparable only with the bouillabaise of Marseilles. From HAVANA, 20 March 1930, pg. 13, col. 1: _Cangrejos Moros:_ Moorish Crabs which, in Spanish, is pronounced, more or less, like this: "Canned-gray-hose morose." From HAVANA, 20 March 1930, pg. 9, col. 2: Another Daiquiri...and a Presidente and a Mahree Pickford for my old friend Dr. Ebra. From HAVANA, 19 February 1929, pg. 7, col. 1: I prefer the "Mary Pickfords" at the Florida bar to those brewed at any other establishment I know of. (...) I regard the patio of the Hotel Inglaterra as the most pleasing in town wherein to sip a frozen Daiquiri. I am of the opinion that the filet of _pargo almondine_ and _crongrejo gratin_ at the Restaurant Paris are two of the most luscious dishes ever confected. (...)(Col. 2--ed.) I consider Bacardi the finest rum in all the world. From HAVANA, 28 February 1930, pg. 30, col. 1: "Marolo," I sex to the concoctioneer, "fix me up a Jai-Alai." This is the kind of drink that you don't know what's in it and after four drinks you don't care what is in it. From HAVANA, 28 February 1930, pg. 10, col. 2: Good Lord! It's half past five and I've a cocktail guzzling date with two other fellers. Have you, by the way, ever tried a Cunard Special? It's awfully potent, ah! Did I say _potent_? Yours till we regain consciousness. From HAVANA, 28 January 1929, pg. 18, col. 1, "MY BODEGA" by Marie Oberlander: BEFORE the days of my initiation into the mysteries of the "bodega" or Cuban bar, I was often puzzled by the phrase, "my bodega," which I heard on all sides. How could anyone distinguish one bodega from another? They all looked alike to me. From HAVANA, 28 February 1930, pg. 58, col. 1: Bacardi is the finest rum in the world--and I have drunk it in all combinations from Cuba Libres--with Coca Cola--to Presidente cocktails. From HAVANA, 10 January 1930, pg. 24, col. 1: The names of Brown, Flynn, Bruen, Milton, Baccioco and other pioneers, will ever linger in the memory of true lovers of the sport of kings in "The Island of Bacardi." (See my Bacardi Building comments on an earlier post--ed.) From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 3 05:48:29 2002 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 23:48:29 -0600 Subject: Lake Effect Snow Message-ID: Barry writes: > There's a diagram explaining "lake-effect" snow on CNN.com. It's not >in OED, but there are many web hits. > Unless an OED editor lives in Buffalo, it won't make the OED for >another 12 years, I guess. Oh, yes, Barry. This is a collocation that needs to be formally lexically distinguished. A great lake is warmer than the land adjoining it, apparently even when it has some ice across it, but certainly in terms of the 'first freeze'. Once the air moves from over the lake to over the land, it loses its moisture, and generates vast, near-instantaneous quantities of snow (as with Buffalo's current six meters). And how's that for considered capitalization? A great lake. I wonder what cold air masses coming down from the Caucasus and onto the Caspian do in Turkmenistan. Umm. Is the term 'phase transition'? _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 05:58:51 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 00:58:51 EST Subject: Mary Pickford cocktail (1928) & Hotel Nacional (1930) Message-ID: "Dale DeGroff, the Jerry Thomas of the present age, has been a valuable resource." --William Grimes, STRAIGHT UP OR ON THE ROCKS (2001), acknowledgments. Dale DeGroff--the John Mariani/Robert Hendrickson of the cocktail. Does Grimes even know who I am? I was searching "Mary Pickford" on the web and I found DeGroff's website, www.kingcocktail.com. This is at www.kingcocktail.com/DrinkM-R.html: _MARY PICKFORD_ Created at the Hotel National de Cuba in Havana during Prohibition for the famous silent film star and co-founder of United Artists. "Mary Pickford" is mentioned in Basil Woon's WHEN IT'S COCKTAIL TIME IN CUBA (1928). (Woon discussed his book a year later in HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA.) "Mary Pickford" was mentioned many times in HAVANA: THE MAGAZINE OF CUBA, 1929-1930. The Hotel Nacional de Cuba opened on December 30, 1930. (www.hotelnacionaldecuba.com) OUP doesn't pay me the big bucks for nothin'. From markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM Thu Jan 3 06:12:11 2002 From: markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 00:12:11 -0600 Subject: surgical strike Message-ID: I spell it dovecote. I remember a brand-name of a house out in Contra-Costa County (California) that had dovecotes, on Hamlet Lane. And apparently, we have 3D bombs, helicoper-style bombs, bombs that jazz themselves on the x-y-z axes. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 3 08:35:14 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 03:35:14 -0500 Subject: sports rage Message-ID: Here is another rage-word that deserves consideration for WOTY: sportsrage or sports rage sports rage or sportsrage, n. {W} uncontrollable rage at a sports event by either the contestants or the viewers. Youth sports rage is a growing phenomenon among parents with children involved in competitive sports. Psychologists compare it to the aggression displayed by angry drivers. The challenge for parents is to promote a recreational atmosphere for their kids that is fun and educational. ?Keeping Sports Rage Off The Playing Field,? http://www.medialink.com/medialink/r00-164.shtml In the aftermath of an incident in Boston in which one father allegedly beat another to death after the two argued over their sons' hockey game, sports psychologists and others are searching for ways to stop parental violence at youth sporting events. Denise Mann, ?Experts Suggest Ways to Stop Parents' 'Sports Rage',? WebMed Health [http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1676.51381], July 12, 2000 Not brand-spanking new (cf. 2000 dates), but this is a current topic even post-9/11 worth consideration, don't you think? Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 3 13:27:26 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 08:27:26 -0500 Subject: cantharides In-Reply-To: <64abc564d095.64d09564abc5@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: When I was young, all the boys knew of the aphrodisiac "Spanish fly" = cantharides. When I was still young (and gullible) my doctor (apparently a practical joker) prescribed topical cantharidin collodion for my wart: the first application raised a horrendous painful blood blister; I decided to live with the wart. "Harper's New Monthly Magazine" 41(241):158 (1870) [MoA Cornell]: <<"The counsel for the plaintiff," said a gay and festive attorney of the Superior Court, "has been somewhat discursive in his remarks to you. He has alluded to almost every thing in the pages of history, ancient and modern. He has socked with old Socrates, roamed with old Romulus, ripped with old Euripides, and canted with old Cantharides. But, gentlemen of the jury, what has that got to do with this case? All his allegations are false, and the old alligator knows it himself. My client don't need any of this fine talk. Look at him, gentlemen, and say, if you can, that he hasn't done the honest thing by the plaintiff! From his youth up he has been as you now find him -- A No. 1, extra inspected, scaled and screened, copper-fastened, free from scoots, silver-steel, buck-horn handle, nine yards to the dollar, thread thrown in!">> -- Doug Wilson From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Thu Jan 3 13:55:17 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 13:55:17 -0000 Subject: cantharides Message-ID: >A No. 1, extra inspected, scaled and screened, copper-fastened, > free from scoots, silver-steel, buck-horn handle, nine yards to the dollar, > thread thrown in!">> Forgive my ignorance, if such is the case, but does anyone else hear bells ringing when reading 'nine yards to the dollar' in this list of congratulatory images and wonder as to a possible link to the oft-debated/disputed 'whole nine yards.' I assume, however, that this has been considered already. That said, I can't find a 'whole nine yards' thread in ADS-L Archives (the main ref is to Jesse Sheidlower expounding on the Full Monte) but maybe I searched incorrectly. I find it hard to believe that the assembled expertise has not been focussed in that direction already. Jonathon Green From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 3 14:50:12 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 09:50:12 -0500 Subject: cantharides In-Reply-To: <000801c1945e$474c8b80$023264c0@green> Message-ID: >... 'nine yards to the dollar' .... I mentioned this passage on this list some time ago, in the "nine yards" context. I believe that the implication is that nine yards was a somewhat standard quantity of cloth which one might buy for a dress, etc. ... there are other such citations .... In this case I think the speaker is imitating advertisements, particularly one for a store offering nine yards of cloth for a dollar. I still think "nine yards of cloth" is one of the viable candidates for the ancestry of the recent "whole nine yards"; at least there are a few citations to back it up ... where are the corresponding old (pre-1965) citations to support the fashionable (and viable, I suppose) alternatives involving ammo belts and concrete mixers? On the other hand there's quite an interval of time between 1870 and 1965 .... -- Doug Wilson From Heaberlin at SWT.EDU Thu Jan 3 18:10:44 2002 From: Heaberlin at SWT.EDU (Dick Heaberlin) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 12:10:44 -0600 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Set Mail From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 3 17:56:54 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 12:56:54 -0500 Subject: Whole Nine Yards In-Reply-To: <000801c1945e$474c8b80$023264c0@green> Message-ID: On 1/3/02 08:55, "Jonathon Green" wrote: >That said, I can't find a 'whole nine yards' thread > in ADS-L Archives (the main ref is to Jesse Sheidlower expounding on the > Full Monte) but maybe I searched incorrectly. I find it hard to believe that > the assembled expertise has not been focussed in that direction already. You're right; our experts have been hard at work on this one (or at least hard at the keyboard). If you search the archives for "nine yards" you'll find what looks like everything we've every posted on the topic. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S2=ads-l&q=nine+yards&s=&f=&a=&b = From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 3 19:56:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 14:56:04 EST Subject: Pina Colada (1922); Typical Cuban Dishes (1940) Message-ID: PINA COLADA (continued) Merriam-Webster has 1923. What cite is that? Is it from Cuba? The "pina colada" of the "pina colada song" is different, however. That "pina colada" is believed to have been first mixed at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I recently e-mailed the food service there about their historic menus; the man in charge said he'd look, but never responded again. From TRAVEL, December 1922, pg. 14, col. 1: Havana has learned the art of mixed drinks from her nothern (Col. 2--ed.) neighbor, and has contributed some original creations. In Cuba the ingredients of every known drink are to be had--even those of the South Seas. At the end of almost every bar is a heap of ripe pineapples and green cocoanuts. An excellent drink is made by mixing the milk of the latter with a little gin and a _panal_, a cake of sugar-foam. But best of all is a _pina colada_, the juice of a perfectly ripe pineapple--a delicious drink in itself--rapidly shaken up with ice, sugar, lime and Bacardi rum in delicate proportions. What could be more luscious, more mellow and more fragrant? -------------------------------------------------------- TYPICAL CUBAN DISHES From the HAVANA CHRONICLE, June 1940, pg. 4, col. 1: _Typical Cuban Dishes_ ARROZ CON POLLO... PAELLA Is the same as the above dish, with the addition of shellfish, shrimps preferred. FILETE DE PARGO CON ALMENDRAS A filete of this fish--peculiar to Cuban waters--blanched with crumbled almonds and accompanied by a sauce, is one of the most delicious dishes served in Cuba. CANGREJOS MOROS (Moorish Crabs) The Moorish crab is the leading crustacean of all the Seven Seas. It has enormous, black-tipped claws, the meat of which is more delicious than that of lobster claws. Served cold with mayonnaise is the favorite way of preparing boiled Moorish crabs. BEANS AND RICE No Cuban midday meal is complete without beans and rice, red beans, chick peas and the most popular of all, black beans, the latter combined with rice, is familiarly known as Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians). From pulliam at IIT.EDU Thu Jan 3 20:00:48 2002 From: pulliam at IIT.EDU (Greg Pulliam) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 14:00:48 -0600 Subject: A resident of Provo? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Would that it were Provolone. Greg > >DINIS > >>I figure that *somebody* on this list may know this one. >> >>I am in need of the one-word term for a resident of Provo (the town in Utah >>where Brigham Young University is located). Since i work in Provo, i figured >>i could just informally ask some natives of Provo what they call themselves, >>but i've gotten conflicting answers from them. So far i've gotten >>(approximately in order of descending frequency): Provoan, Provoite, >>Provonian, Provan, Provoer. About half the respondents have given Provoan, >>but some of the others have explicitly and spontaneously told me that >>whatever it is, it's *not* Provoan. >> >>I've looked in a few places where i'd expect to find answers to this sort of >>thing, and i've come up blank. >> >>(I don't even *want* to try to know what residents of Skull Valley, Utah are >>called! :-] ) >> >>Is this just a situation where i get to roll my own? >> >>David, who uses Waldorfian for residents of Waldorf, Maryland >>-- >>David Bowie Department of Linguistics >>Assistant Professor Brigham Young University >>db.list at pmpkn.net http://pmpkn.net/lx >> The opinions stated here are not necessarily those of my employer -- - Greg Pulliam Department of Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago From brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM Thu Jan 3 20:31:03 2002 From: brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM (brian faler) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 12:31:03 -0800 Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: I am a reporter for National Journal, a politics and government magazine based in Washington, and am working on an article on the language and rhetoric of the war on terrorism. I was wondering if anyone knew where the phrase "draining the swamp" comes from. The Bush administration has used the phrase repeatedly, over the last three or four months. I've heard that its an adaptation of something Mao Tse-tung said during the Chinese Civil War - that he referred, at one point, to "draining the sea" in order to kill the fish more efficiently. But I would guess that it predates that - that the phrase somehow refers to the fight against malaria. Or maybe it comes from American colonials moving west into forbidding lands. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, I would certainly appreciate their opinions. Brian Faler --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online at Yahoo! Greetings. From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 3 20:50:45 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 14:50:45 -0600 Subject: Lake Effect Snow Message-ID: In Chicago, when you're near the lake in the summer, it is always cooler (some say also kewler) than outlying areas -- the western suburbs. When you're near the lake in the winter, it is always warmer than outlying areas. It's not linked with any significant variation in snowfall, although the meltaway would be faster nearer the lake. As I've recently learned in these electronic haunts, the cool breeze off the lake in summer -- the lake effect -- is the source of "Windy City". Carl Jeffrey Weber From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 3 21:21:37 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:21:37 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp In-Reply-To: <20020103203103.63107.qmail@web20702.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: (My Lexis-Nexis access is down; but this is what I've come up with on Dow Jones. This is just some supporting information, not a claim at antedating, sourcing or of finding a coinage). It could have originated as an engineering phrase: >From the Australian Financial Review, 06/08/1984: "ENGINEERS HAVE A SAYING WHICH RUNS ALONG THE LINES THAT WHEN YOU ARE UP TO A CRITICAL PART OF YOUR ANATOMY IN SNAPPING ALLIGATORS IT IS HARD TO REMEMBER THAT THE ORIGINAL OBJECT OF THE EXERCISE WAS TO DRAIN THE SWAMP." Another version: http://home.att.net/~erobatino/y2kfix.htm "Exactly how high will the "alligator index" (as in 'When you're up to your butt in them, it's long past time to drain the swamp.") get?" In some circles, it may be related to the "Alligator Allegory," which is supposedly affiliated with Murphy's Law: http://www.public.asu.edu/~ykutkut/murphy.htm (and many other sites) "{Alligator Allegory: The objective of all dedicated product support employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp." I suspect the malaria connection is also likely. The phrase itself is not used, but the idea is clear in this army document "THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT 1865-1917." But as it concerns that large engineering feat, the Panama Canal, it might be worth looking at. http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/history/booksdocs/spanam/gillett3/ch10.htm "Because destroying all infected mosquitoes in the entire Canal Zone was impossible, the fight to reduce malaria rates required eternal vigilance and considerable ingenuity. Any time a district physician reported a significant rise in the number of malaria cases, Le Prince was required to send experts to assess the situation and pinpoint the cause of the increase. Sometimes it was determined that the mosquitoes were breeding in a swamp too large to be dealt with by ordinary methods. " Standard methods included draining standing water, pouring oil over containers to smother oil and introducing salt wather that is inhospitable for the insects. The earliest citation of "drain the swamp" I can find in the popular news media in connection to the events of Sept. 11 is from The Times of London, 09/13/2001 , by Michael Gove: First paragraph: "YOU don't eliminate malaria by swatting mosquitoes. And the violence unleashed on America yesterday will not be contained, let alone eradicated, by measures taken against individual terrorists. Tough action is now required by the West not just against groups of politically motivated criminals but against the causes of the world's greatest single crime." Then, near the end of the article: "Which brings us to the third key point. The only way to end malaria is to deprive the mosquitoes of their breeding ground. To drain the swamp. "The marshland in which Islamist terror, including Saddam's prospers, is a consequence of the wetness of the West. As the Middle East scholar David Wurmser has pointed out, Islamism was never weaker than after the Gulf War." The earliest citation I can find in relation to terrorists is from USA Today, 12/02/1987, by Jim Phillips: "The USA should learn from Jefferson's example: Punish terrorists, don't reward them. Military action may not be a realistic option given the ability of terrorists to conceal themselves within Lebanon's anarchy, but it mustn't be ruled out. We must help Lebanon's government regain control of its territory and deny sanctuary to terrorists. To get all the alligators, we must drain the swamp. " From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 3 21:32:18 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:32:18 -0500 Subject: My WOTY List Message-ID: If anyone reading this is at the ADS meeting, can you please print out this message and give it to Allan or Wayne Glowka? I sent it (late as usual) to Allan and haven't heard back. He may not be checking his mail in SF. Many thanks, Gareth Gareth Branwyn's Jargon Watching 2001 Here are my selections for new words 2001. As always, I've not only included a list of interesting jargon and slang from the realms of technology, science and online culture, but I've also tried to connect the dots on some of the terms in search of emerging trends. Not surprisingly, terms related to terrorism and surveillance technologies were prevalent, as were words relating to the continued tech sector plummet. A new semantic field emerged around the growing popularity of volunteer wireless networks ("parasitic grids") being built in many large cities based around the "Wi-Fi" wireless networking standard. Look for more terms related to this technology (and the rapidly growing subculture around it) in 2002, especially as it begins to impact the telephone companies' very expensive answer to it, third-generation (or "3G") high-speed wireless. - Gareth Branwyn advergame A downloadable or Web-based game made for the express purpose of product placement. See: pop-unders, gatored. All You Base Are Belong to Us This Japenglish phrase from a late '80s video game became the absurdist meme-du-jour, showing up on college campuses, on websites, in "webeos" (Web-only videos), on T-shirts, etc. The profusion of images and other media featuring the phrase led to the term "AYB content." apology bonus Money paid by technology companies to students who they promised to hire but couldn't afford to because of a slowed economy. See: post-crash realism, dot-orging. assoline Slang term for methane when used as a fuel source. Spotted on an online discussion board about alternative energy sources. [Note: Obviously a stunt word, and one I've heard used only in this forum. Included here for comic relief.] bio-surveillance The practice of monitoring a city's hospital admission records, especially in an effort to detect spikes in symptoms that could provide early indication of a bio-weapon attack. A.k.a. "hospital surveillance." See: powder jobs, terror sex. dot-orging Leaving the white water rapids of the dot-com sector for the calmer waters of a dot-org. See: apology bonus, post-crash realism. facial profiling The use of surveillance cameras, "faceprinting" software and law enforcement databases to secretly videotape and attempt to identify known criminals and terrorists in a crowd, such as one entering a sports arena or other public space. See: passface. gatored Being bombarded by pop-up ads, often from a competitor of the site you're viewing (e.g., an FTD.com coupon pops up while you're shopping at 1-800-Flowers.com). The term gets its name from Gator, the ad-feeding application that's increasingly being bundled with popular file-sharing programs. See: advergame, pop-unders. hit my clip Synonymous with "page me," "clip" being youth/street slang for a pager. See: impoverished display. impoverished display A small, low-quality screen on a handheld device that is too cramped to be useful. See: hit my clip. obliteration application Name given to a copy-protection scheme Hollywood would like built into future digital TVs and recording devices. The software would control how often content could be copied to another machine ("copy once," "copy never," etc.). See: PVR. overconnectedness Term coined by Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times for the growing cultural anxiety over being connected everywhere, all the time. [via Paul McFedries' WordSpy] parasitic grids The controversial name given to the ad hoc wireless networks being set up in many major metropolitan areas. Computer users with broadband Net connections set up a wireless access node using 802.11b (a.k.a. "Wi-Fi") technology and offer free high-speed Internet to anyone within wireless range (who has a Wi-Fi card in his/her computer). The phone companies, who are going to be spending millions on a new high-speed wireless infrastructure, are understandably nervous about this new brand of volunteerism. A.k.a. "community wireless" (probably the term that will stick) and "personal telco." See: Wi-Fi 5, wilding. passface A scan of a human face that is used instead of a password as part of a biometric security system. See: facial profiling. [via Paul McFedries' WordSpy] pop-under ads As the dot-com marketplace dot-bombed, and advertisers and websites became desperate for ad exposure, aggressive advertising in the form of pop-under ads became commonplace. These ads tuck under your main browser window so that you encounter them as you're closing other active windows. See: advergame, gatored post-crash realism The bracing sobriety that has swept the dot-com world, leading many to be more cautious about their online projects and techno-utopian prognostications. Coined by editors at Esquire to help define a shift in editorial approach, the term took on an even deeper significance after 9-11. [Note: This term has not been seen outside of Esquire, I just thought it was an interesting neologism.] See: dot-orging, sneakers-up. powder jobs What "Hammer Teams" (Hazardous Materials Emergency Response") dubbed the calls they were making to check out suspicious envelopes and white substances during the Anthrax attacks and subsequent hysteria. See: bio-surveillance, terror sex. PVR [Personal Video Recorder] The name that finally stuck for hard drive-based TV recording devices such as TiVo and ReplayTV, beating out several other terms like "Hard Disk Recorder" (HDR) and "Personal TV" (PTV). See: obliteration application. sneakers-up Said of a dot-com that has died. A play on the idiom "belly-up" and reminiscent of the older hacker slang "casters-up," used to describe a broken or dead computer. See: apology bonus, dot-orging, post-crash realism. [via Paul McFedries' WordSpy] terror sex The "booty calls," relationship reunions, and comfort sex that reportedly occurred after 9-11. Some have posited that a 9-11 baby boom may even result. Also dubbed "post-disaster sex," "end-of-the-world sex," "Apocalypse sex," and "Armageddon sex." See: bio-surveillance, powder jobs. Warhol worm A piece of malicious software (theoretical, for now), that could infect every vulnerable server on the Net within fifteen minutes. Wi-Fi 5 (802.11a) The Wi-Fi ("Wireless Fidelity") standard grew steadily in '01, with the first iteration of it, 802.11b being pushed as a wireless home networking solution. This version of the standard operates in the 2.4GHz radio range (which can interfere with 2.4GHz telephones and microwave ovens). By year's end, a new version, 802.11b was demonstrated. This flavor of Wi-Fi works in the less crowded 5GHz range and is much faster than its 11b sibling. See: parasitic grids, wilding. wilding [Short for "Wireless Internet LAN Discovery"] The practice by wireless hackers (a.k.a. "whackers") of traveling around a neighborhood looking for Wi-Fi (802.11b) networks to access (or attack). A.k.a. "war driving," a variation on the earlier hacker term "war dialing" (the automated dialing of phone numbers looking for venerable computer networks to attack). See: parasitic grids, Wi-Fi 5. women of cover Islamic women who wear traditional dress, i.e. head coverings and modest clothing. The phrase was apparently coined by President Bush (or one of his speechwriters). There is an older, more established phrase, "women who cover," which he may have meant. [I think this is a prime candidate for Word of the Year. Unlike more obvious choices such as "ground zero" and "9-11," this term beautifully data-compresses many of the complexities of our post-9-11 world. It is a fitting coinage in a world where we drop food and bombs at the same time, where late-night talk show hosts make "Dude, where's my camel?" and Gore-has-a-Taliban beard jokes while the President is speaking from a Mosque about the peace-loving religion of Islam, and where a conservative president uses such a painfully PC expression in the same speech is which he vigorously rattles the American sabre.] From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 3 21:43:57 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:43:57 -0500 Subject: My WOTY List In-Reply-To: <3C34CDE2.A22D2E2C@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Because the language in that meme is already stilted, I just want to make a tiny correction and add in that missing R on "you": > All Your Base Are Belong to Us From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Jan 3 21:14:15 2002 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:14:15 -0500 Subject: Pina Colada (1922); Typical Cuban Dishes (1940) In-Reply-To: <68.193c19c2.29661154@aol.com> Message-ID: Here's our 1923 cite for pina colada: ...a pina colado -- a glass, nearly as large and quite as thin as possible, of the chilled essence of pineapple. Page 44 San Cristobal de la Habana Hergesheimer Knopf 1923 >From the look of it, this source also (like Barry Popik's) associates the drink with Cuba (unless there's a San Cristobal de la Habana somewhere else -- but I haven't found one in my geographical dictionary). But this pina colada doesn't seem to be the mixed drink with coconut, lime juice, rum etc. Thanks for the antedate, Barry -- I'd have had to assign a later date to the entry otherwise, since this cite doesn't fit the definition we enter. Joanne From jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU Thu Jan 3 22:41:33 2002 From: jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU (Miller, Jerry) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 17:41:33 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: Brian: One context for the "draining the swamp" phrase that I've heard is in a humorous sense (or semi-humorous?). I remember hearing the "joke" but most clearly recall it from a sign an Indiana prison warden, who was under huge political pressure at the time, had on his office wall (and a colleague of mine used as the lead for his story on the warden): "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember you are only there to drain the swamp." (This was probably 30 years ago or so.) Not totally irrelevant in the current context, perhaps? Jerry Miller Pulliam School of Journalism jmiller at franklincollege.edu > -----Original Message----- > From: brian faler [SMTP:brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 3:31 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: draining the swamp > > I am a reporter for National Journal, a politics and government magazine > based in Washington, and am working on an article on the language and > rhetoric of the war on terrorism. I was wondering if anyone knew where > the phrase "draining the swamp" comes from. The Bush administration has > used the phrase repeatedly, over the last three or four months. I've > heard that its an adaptation of something Mao Tse-tung said during the > Chinese Civil War - that he referred, at one point, to "draining the sea" > in order to kill the fish more efficiently. But I would guess that it > predates that - that the phrase somehow refers to the fight against > malaria. Or maybe it comes from American colonials moving west into > forbidding lands. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, I would certainly > appreciate their opinions. > > Brian Faler > > > > --------------------------------- > Do You Yahoo!? > Send your FREE holiday greetings online at Yahoo! Greetings. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 4 01:00:09 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 20:00:09 -0500 Subject: A resident of Provo? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Greg Pulliam wrote: #Would that it were Provolone. [David B] #>>I figure that *somebody* on this list may know this one. #>> #>>I am in need of the one-word term for a resident of Provo (the town in Utah #>>where Brigham Young University is located). Since i work in Provo, i figured #>>i could just informally ask some natives of Provo what they call themselves, #>>but i've gotten conflicting answers from them. So far i've gotten #>>(approximately in order of descending frequency): Provoan, Provoite, #>>Provonian, Provan, Provoer. About half the respondents have given Provoan, #>>but some of the others have explicitly and spontaneously told me that #>>whatever it is, it's *not* Provoan. What do you expect, from a state whose dwellers call themselves "Utahns"?! -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 4 05:24:26 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 00:24:26 -0500 Subject: Media Noche (1929); Moro crab; Perritos Calientes In-Reply-To: <105.ee160bc.29651b4a@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry Popik wrote: > -------------------------------------------------------- > MORO CRAB > > Not in the OED. Isn't "M" being worked on???? Yes, but we weren't planning on including this; the evidence is sparse, and there isn't even too much on Google. JTS OED From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 08:20:46 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 03:20:46 EST Subject: Moro crab; Mary Pickford Cocktail Message-ID: I gotta fight the OED for these things. Watch out--I know Mike Tyson. -------------------------------------------------------- MARY PICKFORD COCKTAIL (continued) It's been around for over 70 years and is still going strong in Cuba. It's legit. I returned to the newly renovated Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library. The electronic book request system still doesn't work. The place still doesn't have a clock. The librarian there said the library is "still being worked on." I didn't see "Mary Pickford Cocktail" in the biographies; the clippings files were basically just movie reviews. www.marypickford.com received my query, and I'll relay any relevant response. -------------------------------------------------------- MORO CRAB (continued) From John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK (1999), pg. 310: _stone crab_ (_Menippe mercenaria_, although _Lithodes maja_ is also called by this name). Also, "moro" or "morro" crab. It's true that "cangrejo moros" is most popular in Cuba, whose citizens lack the computers to enter it on Google. But again, this is a word over 70 years old and that won't disappear. Next time, I'll go with OED editors to a seafood restaurant.... From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 4 12:32:26 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 07:32:26 -0500 Subject: Media Noche (1929); Moro crab; Perritos Calientes In-Reply-To: <20020104002426.C10766@panix.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > Barry Popik wrote: > > -------------------------------------------------------- > > MORO CRAB > > > > Not in the OED. Isn't "M" being worked on???? > > Yes, but we weren't planning on including this; the evidence is sparse, > and there isn't even too much on Google. What is this concept of not including? My impression from reading Barry's postings is that the OED is supposed to include every term and phrase from the English language, Spanish language, Central Asian languages, presumably every other language in the world... 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 Fri Jan 4 12:48:47 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 07:48:47 -0500 Subject: Eunoia Message-ID: One of my more interesting Christmas presents this season was a book called "Eunoia.". It's written by Canadian poet Christian Bok, and it contains a series of univocalic prose poems (each about 100 words). The first 20 or so poems use only the letter A, the next 20 use only E, and so on through I, O, and U. You can see an example here: http://www.chbooks.com/online/eunoia/index.html The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. However, I can't find it anywhere, even in the OED. Is it a real word? Paul From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 13:27:12 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 08:27:12 EST Subject: Eunoia Message-ID: In a message dated 1/4/02 7:48:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, lists at MCFEDRIES.COM writes: > One of my more interesting Christmas presents this season was a book called > "Eunoia.". > > The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful > thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. from Jeff Miller's Web site "A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia" URL http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words3.html "IOUEA (a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges)" - Jim Landau From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 4 14:19:48 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 09:19:48 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp In-Reply-To: <20020103203103.63107.qmail@web20702.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I don't think one needs to refer to Mao or any other modern source; I think the metaphor is transparent. In order to suppress vermin (usually insects, I suppose, and probably snakes, etc.), one drains any nearby swamp. As long as there is a breeding-place, there will be vermin. I presume this was as true and as obvious several hundred years ago as it is now; I can't be sure how the ancient Egyptians looked at the subject, but it wouldn't amaze me if they had the same approach: if there's a swamp on your property, even if you have sufficient useful land aside from it, drain it if possible and minimize the bugs and varmints. -- Doug Wilson From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 4 15:26:43 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 10:26:43 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: Then there was the NY State political faction of the 1840s called (by others, probably) the Barnburners, in honor of the farmer who got rid of the rats on his property by burning down his barn. I also recall a couple of sports broadcasters bantering. One said to the other something to the effect "in order to get you out of high school they had to set fire to the building." GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" Date: Friday, January 4, 2002 9:19 am Subject: Re: draining the swamp > I don't think one needs to refer to Mao or any other modern > source; I think > the metaphor is transparent. In order to suppress vermin (usually > insects,I suppose, and probably snakes, etc.), one drains any > nearby swamp. As long > as there is a breeding-place, there will be vermin. I presume this > was as > true and as obvious several hundred years ago as it is now; I > can't be sure > how the ancient Egyptians looked at the subject, but it wouldn't > amaze me > if they had the same approach: if there's a swamp on your > property, even if > you have sufficient useful land aside from it, drain it if > possible and > minimize the bugs and varmints. > > -- Doug Wilson > From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 4 16:39:09 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:39:09 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology_Notes:_=22-stan=22?= In-Reply-To: <001b01c192ed$16510f00$36351342@computer> Message-ID: Two minor etymological notes on Carl's message, for what they're worth: the -sta- of "Avestan" is not from the root *sta:- (see AHD4 for details, s.v. Zend Avesta), and there's really no debate about the origin of "Pakistan", which was deliberately coined from P(unjab) + A(fghan) + K(ashmir) + (Baluch)ISTAN by C. Rahmat Ali in 1933 and taken up by Mohammed Ali Jinna's Muslim League in 1940. Ben Fortson On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: > Etymology Notes: "-stan" > > Carl Jeffrey Weber > > "-STAN" > > I STill remember the IE "st(a)-" morpheme is among the literal handful of > most productive in the IE languages. It's found all over the place -- its > general sense is "STationary," or "STanding." It's in AveSTan and HinduSTani > cognates. It's in state, Stuttgart, constitution, staff, obstinate, stall, > constipate, stool, understand, post (as a back formation from Latin > postis) - the list goes on forever. > > /////////////// > > When Afganistan was named in 1747, two hundred years before Pakistan, it was > translated into English, "Land of the Afghans" (compare "Land of the > Angles"). The word, "-land," it seems, has a primal association "solid > subSTance". I decided to do some fieldwork, and went to Dunkin' Donuts. My > informant (notwithstanding, not a Muslim), after I asked, "what does '-stan' > mean, like in Afganistan, Pakistan," gave his quick response: "country". Of > note, the "-gan-" of the name chosen in 1747 looks suspiciously like the > most common name in the area - Khan. > > One list gentleman's comment on the problem was that in 1947 at the > Partition of India, the name Pakistan was totally named by the > geo-ethnicities (my word) who contributed letters to the naming process. > P(ersia), A(fgan.), K(ashmir), I(ndia). That much is good. These are the > four, and only four, bordering countries. But the gentleman continues with > S(ind), T(urk.). The device of the first four letters he inordinately > applies beyond historical credibility, because "-stan", meaning "land of" > in English, was known to many people in the area for two centuries, as > stated already. Pakistan at the partition seems to have been named with the > four letters of the bordering countries, + stan. I heard something like that > ten years ago from a Punjabi friend. Why not Pakistan, the "Land of Four > Letters", in its way, the way the Punjab is, the "Land of Five Rivers" in > its. (The name is derived from two Persian words: 'Panj' meaning five with > 'Aab' meaning water - the internet reminds me.) > > I looked on the web page for the Pakistani student organization, to seek > some source documentation - 1947 was not that long ago. I'd say somebody in > 1947 thought up that letter-device in a committee, and then they put the old > "-stan" on it. > > The Pakistani Student organization has a different etymology for the > Pakistan-word. They say the first part of the word is Urdu for "pure". > http://members.tripod.com/pakonline/intro_hist.html. This gives "Land of the > Pure". I'm skepical about use of an Urdu word here. Where are the 1947 > foundation documents? What's this Urdu root about? Maybe the Student group > will get back to me. > > My donut man informed me with great confidence that "Paki-" doesn't mean > anything - "it's just a name", he said, with sympathetic understanding. > (Back to "-stan".) I said "America-stan". We laughed about it, but no extra, > free, boston cr?me - like the dayshift donut lady used to give me until our > relationship soured. > > Carl Jeffrey Weber > From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Fri Jan 4 16:44:54 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:44:54 -0500 Subject: sports rage Message-ID: The Junta trial (concerning the father who is accused of killing his son's hockey coach) has brought a closely related term into the light: sideline rage. This refers specifically to rage exhibited at a sporting event by parents, coaches, and other non-participants: Violence among parents and coaches is a problem that has worsened over the last decade, according to the National Alliance For Youth Sports, a nonprofit organization based in West Palm Beach, Fla. 'In our society, the violence has grown, so where we've seen airplane rage and road rage, of course we've seen sideline rage. It's the parent that doesn't have the ability to step back and just let the child be a child,' said Fred Engh, president and chief executive officer. "Hockey dad heads to trial in killing," The Associated Press, December 27, 2001 Nexis.com has around 90 hits, about 60 of which are from 2001. The earliest is from 1979 (and refers, fittingly, to former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes.) Paul http://www.logophilia.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barnhart" To: Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 3:35 AM Subject: sports rage > Here is another rage-word that deserves consideration for WOTY: > > sportsrage or sports rage > > > sports rage or sportsrage, n. {W} uncontrollable rage at a sports > event by either the contestants or the viewers. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 4 16:50:35 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 08:50:35 -0800 Subject: Eunoia In-Reply-To: <270901c1951e$277ff7e0$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful > thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. > However, I can't find it anywhere, even in the OED. Is it a real word? It's a legitimate Greek word per Liddell-Scott's Greek English lexicon, but it means: "I. good will, favour, kindness, deeds of kindness. II. gift or present in token of good will" not "beautiful thinking". In what is probably a *very* gross simplification, I think Gk. "eu" = "good"; Gk. "kallos/a/on" = "beautiful". I don't find any reference to *kallinoia in the older Liddell and Scott. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 17:18:49 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 12:18:49 EST Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: Sometime circa 1960 the syndicated columnist Inez Robb wrote a column aboutthe "Popocatepetl" and "Ixtaccihuatl" (names of Mexican volcanoes) showing up on a spelling test and how they would have had to burn the school down to get her out if that had happened to her. If you can somewhere find a indexed collection of Inez Robb columns, you might be able to locate this particular piece of whimsey and thereby get a dating. The quote "The objective of all dedicated product support employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp." (frequently reduced to the final sentence) was popular in the Pentagon when I was there (1969-1975) and I recall seeing it posted in several offices. I don't recall if the signs were commercially distributed or hand-lettered. Other popular signs in the Pentagon in those days: "You want it by when?" illustrated by a carticature of several people laughing hysterically. I am pretty sure this one was commercially distributed. "No job is finished until the paperwork is done" illustrated by a picture of someone sitting on a toilet or potty. There were at least two versions of the illustration; one, which used a photograph, was commercially distributed. "I must be a mushroom. They keep me in the dark and feed me nothing but bullshit". I seem to recall hand-printed versions and at least one version commercially available as a poster. - Jim Landau my then signature block CSAM-SSD-E U.S. Army Management Systems Support Agency The Pentagon Washington DC 20310 Note that the Pentagon is in Arlington County, Virginia, but has a DC mailing address. If Congress had not absent-mindedly given what is now Arlington County to Virginia (it was until then part of DC), then the Custis-Lee plantation would have been in DC and Robert E. Lee would have stayed with the Union Army. P.S. to Fred Shapiro: since the outfit I was with in the Pentagon was a computer installation, you are welcome to add the above to your collection of computer proverbs. From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 4 17:54:33 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:54:33 -0600 Subject: Etymology Notes: "-stan" Message-ID: Re: -stan I appreciate Ben Fortson's help getting to a deeper bottom. He wrote: <<< Two minor etymological notes on Carl's message, for what they're worth: the -sta- of "Avestan" is not from the root *sta:- (see AHD4 for details, s.v. Zend Avesta), and there's really no debate about the origin of "Pakistan", which was deliberately coined from P(unjab) + A(fghan) + K(ashmir) + (Baluch)ISTAN by C. Rahmat Ali in 1933 and taken up by Mohammed Ali Jinna's Muslim League in 1940. <<< On the following site is a paragraph about Mr. C. Rahmat Ali, and after the paragraph, another by Mr. Ali himself. http://www.slam33.freeserve.co.uk/pakistan.htm Rahmat Ali first published the word 'PAKSTAN' on January 28, 1933 in the pamphlet 'Now or Never'. By the end of 1933, the word had become common vocabulary through the efforts of Rahmat Ali's Pakistan National Movement. An ''I' was added to ease pronouncement (like Afghan-i-stan). In his book 'Pakistan: the Fatherland of the Pak Nation', Rahmat Ali gives a fuller explanation of the word. The originator of the name, Rahmat Ali, says: " 'Pakistan' is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands- 'Indian' and 'Asian'. That is, Panjab, Afghania (North West Frontier Province), Kashmir, Iran, Sindh (including Kach and Kathiawar), Tukharistan, Afghanistan, and Balochistan. It means the land of the Paks- the spiritually pure and clean. It symbolizes the religious beliefs and ethnical stocks of our people; and it stands for all the territorial constituents of our original Fatherland. It has no other origin and no other meaning; and it does not admit of any other interpretation. Those writers who have tried to interpret it in more than way have done so either through the love of casuistry, or through ignorance of its inspiration, origin and composition" (C.R. Ali, 1947, "Pakistan: the Fatherland of the Pak Nation", Cambridge). ////////////////////////// If you look at the chart at the site, and the above, it shows where the students I mentioned came up with "pure". It also is accurate to say that the "-stan" meant "land of" to C.R. Ali when he used the letters for an extended purpose. He says: It both 1. "is composed of letters taken from the names...", 2 "It means the land of the Paks- the spiritually pure and clean." ///////////////////////// I have no reason to doubt Ben's understanding, better than mine I guarantee, of the source of "Avestan." However, if I could be directed more specifically to the evidence under *sta, it would help. My AHD of IE Roots is the slim volume copyrighted in 1985. Carl Jeffrey Weber From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 4 18:32:50 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 12:32:50 -0600 Subject: straight up thug Message-ID: Surf-lingering a daytime talkshow... the 13 year old girls who wanted to have a baby -- be husbandless mothers to fatherless children. "Don't nobody gonna' tell me what to do -- it's my body." The host says, "How ya gonna raise the baby?" She says, "Straight up thug." elsewhere on the web >>>>> Yukmouth (a.k.a. Jerold Ellis Jr., Smoke-A-Lot). He explains why he is called Yukmouth "My mouth if full of filth, flin, filth - that's why they call me Yukmouth." He was born in the Bay and then raised in the East Oakland streets. He has released one solo album called Thugged Out: Abulation. He says what it is about "This is more grimy - it's straight for the streets, straight up thug." Yukmouth has also had two album's with the Luniz called Lunitik Music and Operation Stackola. Yukmouth is due to release a new album called "Thug Lord" From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 4 23:01:12 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 18:01:12 EST Subject: "the Supremes" Message-ID: 1. I would have thought "the Supremes" meaning the US Supreme Court or the Justices thereof was an artifact of the post-campaign campaign after the last Presidential election. However, I just discovered the same usage in 1994 in, of all places, Analog Science Fiction magazine. Does anyone have an earlier cite? 2. Probably hopeless, but does anyone have evidence that this expression was, or was not, derived from the name of the Motown group "Diana Ross and the Supremes"? - Jim Landau From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Fri Jan 4 23:17:44 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 18:17:44 -0500 Subject: "the Supremes" Message-ID: Here's one: That Supreme Court justices are no more hallowed and haloed than the rest of us should come as a surprise to no one except perhaps these justices themselves. They are equally human in their contradictory conclusions, meanness, pettiness and occasional greatness. Among the current saintless Supremes, Burger, Whizzer White and Rehnquist weigh the least. Forbes, March 3, 1980 Here's an earlier one that refers to a state Supreme Court: The judge disparagingly refers to the West Virginia Supreme Court, which frequently overturns his rulings, as "the supremes." The Washington Post, November 2, 1979 Paul http://www.logophilia.com/ > 1. I would have thought "the Supremes" meaning the US Supreme Court or the > Justices thereof was an artifact of the post-campaign campaign after the last > Presidential election. However, I just discovered the same usage in 1994 in, > of all places, Analog Science Fiction magazine. Does anyone have an earlier > cite? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 5 19:18:35 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 14:18:35 EST Subject: draining the swamp Message-ID: one more Pentagon quote: "Never start a vast project with half-vast ideas" Caveat: I recall seeing this quote only once, and that was on a hand-lettered sign. - Jim Landau From IncreaseSales at BIGCASHTODAY.COM Thu Jan 3 15:56:16 2002 From: IncreaseSales at BIGCASHTODAY.COM (IncreaseSales at BIGCASHTODAY.COM) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 10:56:16 EST Subject: Over 12,000,000 Fresh Email Addresses...$2,000 in FREE Software! Message-ID: Dear ads-l at uga.cc.uga.edu, Would you like to send an Email Advertisement to OVER 12,000,000 PEOPLE DAILY for FREE? Do you have a product or service to sell? Do you want an extra 100 orders per week? NOTE: (If you do not already have a product or service to sell, we can supply you with one). ========================================================= 1) Let's say you... Sell a $24.95 PRODUCT or SERVICE. 2) Let's say you... Broadcast Email to only 500,000 PEOPLE. 3) Let's say you... Receive JUST 1 ORDER for EVERY 2,500 EMAILS. CALCULATION OF YOUR EARNINGS BASED ON THE ABOVE STATISTICS: [Day 1]: $4,990 [Week 1]: $34,930 [Month 1]: $139,720 ======================================================== To find out more information, Do not respond by email. Instead, Please visit our web site at: http://www.bigcashtoday.com List Removal Instructions: We hope you enjoyed receiving this message. However, if you'd rather not receive future e-mails of this sort from Internet Specialists, send an email to listremovalstoday at yahoo.com and type "remove" in the "subject" line and you will be removed from any future mailings. We hope you have a great day! Internet Specialists From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 5 20:42:37 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 15:42:37 -0500 Subject: FW: Eunoia Message-ID: Sort of in reply to the following, I must share with you all the first name of the baseball player who has all five vowels in his name: Aurelio Rodriguez, former 3rd baseman for the Detroit Tigers (in some of the glory years of the 70s, for Tiger fans) Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of A. Maberry Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 11:51 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Eunoia On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > The back-cover copy claims not only that "eunoia" means "beautiful > thinking," but that it's the shortest word that uses all five vowels. > However, I can't find it anywhere, even in the OED. Is it a real word? It's a legitimate Greek word per Liddell-Scott's Greek English lexicon, but it means: "I. good will, favour, kindness, deeds of kindness. II. gift or present in token of good will" not "beautiful thinking". In what is probably a *very* gross simplification, I think Gk. "eu" = "good"; Gk. "kallos/a/on" = "beautiful". I don't find any reference to *kallinoia in the older Liddell and Scott. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 00:54:26 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 19:54:26 EST Subject: Pinata (1868) Message-ID: THE STRANGER IN THE TROPICS: BEING A HAND-BOOK FOR HAVANA AND GUIDE BOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN CUBA, PUERTO RICO, AND ST. THOMAS; WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTS OF INTEREST, SUGGESTIONS TO INVALIDS, BY A PHYSICIAN. HINTS FOR TOURS AND GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR TRAVELLERS by C. D. Tyng American News Co., NY 1868 Pg. 100 (CARNIVAL): When these are over, comes the lottery, the _pinata_, or whatever else forms the special attraction of the ball. After this, staid people retire, while the more vivacious resume the dances and the fun. The _pinata_ is a large globe of paper, filled with a variety of objects, suspended over the ball-room floor. At an appointed hour, usually about midnight, this is lowered sufficiently to be reached by sticks provided for the purpose, and is struck at by volunteers blindfolded for the attempt. Many fail to hit it at all, and are rewarded with laughter and jests; while the successful striker fractures the paper globe, and brings down with applause the multitude of its contents for a general scramble. (OED and Merriam-Webster both have 1887--ed.) Pg. 51: The yellow fever, or "black vomit".... Pg. 56: For the conveyance of persons, the _volante_, a vehicle peculiar to Cuba.... Pg. 70 (restaurant menu): Fish a la Minuta...Tatare...Mayonesa...Holandesa...Sebastopol...Milanesa...Gratin...Normanda...Catalan. Pg. 71: Chicken a la marengo. Pg. 95: The _panal_ is a mixture of sugar and the white of an egg, dried in rolls about six inches long. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 01:17:23 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 20:17:23 EST Subject: Cuban Sandwich & Medianoche (1903) Message-ID: From "HAVANA'S HOTELS AND CAFES," part of a series of Cuban dispatches from Dorothy Stanhope, in THE NEW YORK TIMES, 18 January 1903, pg. 26, col. 6: On the counters of restaurants are all kinds of baked meats and fowl. The Cubans are all (Illegible. Old NY Times microfilms are horrible!--ed.) spiced. Sandwiches are piled up high, but they are not the kind we know, with a simple layer of meat, or nuts (?--ed.), or lettuce. The Cuban sandwich is made of a roll and has three or four things between the sides. The kind known as "medianoche," suggesting that it is usually eaten late at night, is of a very delicious roll, with chicken and bits of pickle between the sides. Ham, cheese, and pickle are the ordinary filling for a native sandwich. Whatever may be lacking among the edibles displayed on the counters, sweet cakes are not. They are unprotected by bars of glass; still people eat them with great relish apparently. Cubans have a liking for very sweet things, and the cakes are made to suit them. To Americans they seem far too sweet. Many of them are filled with custard, "flan," it is called here. There are some small meat pies that are very p alatable. Other kinds of pies are unknown. Large cakes are likewise uncounted among Cuban pastries. From "CUBA'S CAPITOL IS GAY" by Dorothy Stanhope, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 1 March 1903, pg. 4, col. 6: There have been many luncheons; these differ very little from the ones to which we are accustomed in our own land either in service or the dishes offered. The one exception is the fish course, which usually consists of the most delicious little dried fish--pargitos they are called. One of them is about the right quatity for a person. Of all Cuban delicacies, none excels this. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 02:15:14 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 21:15:14 EST Subject: Havana (1953) (more "Moro" crabs) Message-ID: HAVANA: THE PORTRAIT OF A CITY by W. Adolphe Roberts Coward-McCann, Inc., NY 1953 Pg. 234: Chapter 41 NANIGO, OR CUBAN HOCUS-POCUS Pg. 245: Chapter 44 FAMOUS RESTAURANTS AND BARS Pg. 246: _La Zaragozana_, on Monserrate opposite the Centro Asturiano. THis is the oldest high-class restaurant in Havana. It was founded in 1830 and there is some resemblance to the celebrated Antoine's, of New Orleans, founded ten years later. Calmly old-fashioned, La Zaragozana maintains its standards in the face of modern competition, charges high prices and is approved by Cubans and foreigners alike. It specializes in fish and shellfish dishes. Better Moro crab, natural or stuffed, is not to be found anywhere. (It still exists, right next to Floridita--ed.) Pg. 249: _La Florida_, often called _la Floridita_, is an exception. This bar is famous for its Daiquiri cocktails, which many drinkers aver to be the best in the city. Pg. 250: Chapter 45 TYPICAL CUBAN DISHES ..._arroza con pollo_... Pg. 251: _Cangrejo_ Moro (Moro crab), a name that has nothing to do with Morro Castle, as some tourists imagine. Moro means "Moorish." This is a variety of stone crab with very large black-tipped claws. If ordered _natural_, the claw-meat only is served cold, with mayonnaise. But the masterpiece is stuffed Moro crab, the titbits of several crustaceans being used to pack one of the large shells and the result baked. Different restaurants treat in different ways, the least imaginative of which is _au gratin_. _Langosta_ (rock lobster), really a giant crawfish. Pg. 252: _Pargo_ (red snapper, also called in English muttonfish). (...) One of the best styles is _almendrina_, which means a covering of crushed almonds with a butter sauce. Other popular fish are _serrucho_ (kingfish), _aguja_ (sailfish), _atun_ (tuna), _pampano_ (pampano), and all the small, succulent species known in southern Florida. If you want a mixed seafood grill, order _rancho de mariscos_. _Ajiaco_. This is the down-to-earth native thick soup, a large helping of which is a meal. All the tropical vegetables are used--plantain, yam, taro, sweet potato, yuca (cassava), tomato, green pepper, onion, and corn-on-the-cob sliced into counters--and pork as the basic enrichment. The ajiaco of a poor country family may contain no meat except scraps of crackling. In a good city restaurant there will be salt pork and pieces of smoked ham. (...) _Congri_ (rice and black beans) is often listed as a soup, though more resembling an hors d'oeuvre. Pg. 254: Chapter 46 CUBAN FRUITS AND FRUIT DRINKS 1: _Pina_ (pineapple). 2. _Guanabana_ (soup-sop). Pg. 255: 3. _Anon_ (sweet-sop). 4. _Chirimoya_ (custard apple). 5. _Mamey_ (Cuban mammee). 6. _Caimito_ (star apple). 7. _Zapote_ (naseberry). 8. _Guayaba_ (guava). 9. _Fruta Bomba_ (papaya). Only in Havana, where _papaya_ has a vulgar connotation, is this fruit called fruta bomba. (David Shulman told me the same thing about when he was in Havana. I didn't know he liked papaya--ed.) Pg. 256: 10. _Sandia_ (watermelon). 11. _Naranja_ (orange). 12. _Toronja_ (grapefruit). 13. _Limon_ (lemon). 14. _Lima_ (lime). 15. _Tamarindo_ (tamarind). 16. _Granada_ (pomegranate). 17. _Granadilla_ (passion flower fruit, or granadilla). 18. _Mango_ (mango). 19. _Maranon_ (cashew). Pg. 257: 20. _Platano_ (plantain). 21. _Platanillo_ or _Platanito_ (banana). 22. _Uva_ (grape). 23. _Higo_ (fig). 24. _Tuna_ or _Higo Chumba_ (prickly pear). 25. _Pomarosa_ (rose apple). 26. _Mamoncillo_ (guinep). 27. _Aguacate_ (avocado pear). 28. _Coco_ (coconut). Pg. 258: 29. _Almendra_ (almond). 30. _Cana_ (sugar cane). -------------------------------------------------------- HAVANA: CINDERELLA'S CITY by Hugh Bradley Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. Garden City, NY 1941 Pg. 427: This also is the Havana where _pisto manchego_, Spanish scrambled eggs mixed with shrimp, peas, asparagus, tomato sauce, and ham is food for the gods and where the _cangrejos moros_, stone crabs, may be examined with fork far better than with pen. -------------------------------------------------------- STANDARD GUIDE TO HAVANA New York: Foster & Reynolds, Publishers Havana: Diamond News Company 1906 Pg. 82: Among the popular drinks is one called panal (honeycomb) or aucarillo, which is made from a mixture of sugar and white of egg, dried in rolls about six inches long, which look like spongy white candy; the rolls are served with a glass of water and with or without a lemon; when panal is dissolved it produces a sweetish drink like the eau sucre of the French. There are many refrescos, or refreshments, made from the nativ fruits. Pina fria is fresh pineapple, crushed and served in a glass with sugar and ice. Pg. 83: The drink called ensalada (salad) is a beverage composed of verious ingredients, the choice of which is determined by the fancy and skill of the composer. -------------------------------------------------------- From NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, September 1933, pg. 365, col. 1: For the thirsty there is the "pineapple refreshment," made of freshly crushed pineapple, sugar, and water. Some order it _colada_, which means strained; others like food and drink together, and order it _sin colar_ (without straining), with the pieces of crushed pineapple in the glass, a real treat. Pg. 380, col. 1: I have sat at a sidewalk cafe table, surrounded by well-dressed, well-fed people, sipping a pina colada (see text, page 365), and listening to an orchestra of flashing-eyed beauties play and sing their native music with its strange, yearning rhythm. Pg. 380, col. 2: In a cafe the sign on the wall which reads "Hay sandwiches," doesn't mean what it says in English, but means "There are (we have) sandwiches." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 06:17:28 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 01:17:28 EST Subject: Cocinero Cubano y Espanol (1857(LONG!)); Afro-Cuban Cuisine (1998) Message-ID: AFRO-CUBAN CUISINE: ITS MYTHS AND LEGENDS by Natalia Bolivar Arostegui and Carmen Gonzalez Diaz de Villegas Editorial Jose Marti, Havana 111 pages, paperback 1998 I found this book at the airport. It has a Glossary on pages 105-109, but it's all very confusing. Are these food terms Spanish or African? What do these words mean in English in a literal translation? How old do these go back? There's no clue. The most useful part is the bibliography on pages 110-111, which includes: AROSTEGUI, MARIA TERESA. _Recetas de dulce, helados, sandwiches y postres (Recipes for Sweets, Ice Cream, Sandwiches and Desserts). 1937 (Manuscript). MENDOZA DE AROSTEGUI, FELICIA. _Arte culinario_ (The Art of Cooking). 1896 (Manuscript). REYES GAVILAN, HORTENSIA. _Delicias de la mesa_. La Habana, 1923. -------------------------------------------------------- NUEVO MANUAL DEL COCINERO CUBANO Y ESPANOL, CON UN TRATADO ESCOJIDO DE DULCERIA, PASTELERIA, BOTELLERIA, AL ESTILO DE CUBA. INDESPENSABLE PARA APRENDER A COMPONER DE COMER CON LA MAYOR PERFECCION Y ECONOMIA, Y NECESARIO A TODAS LAS CLASES DE LA SOCIEDAD Y EN PARTICULAR A LOS GASTRONOMOS, MADRES DE FAMILIA, PONDISTAS, &c. DIVIDO EN TRES PARTES POR J. P. LEGRAN HABANA--1857. Imprenta de la Sociedad de Operarios, Aguila numero 146. A gem. The NYPL has this, but it's almost nowhere else. It's the earliest Cuban cookbook I can find. "Ajiaco" and "Ropa Vieja" (Old Clothes), two dishes that should have made it into English dictionaries a long time ago, are here. I'll type up the lengthy index--probably in several parts--so it's searchable on the web. Let me know if anyone wants the whole recipe. Delete as you wish. _INDICE._ _PARTE PRIMERA._ Caldo...1 Caldo de gallina...4 Caldo compuesto...4 Sopa gorda de pan...4 Sopa de Fideos...5 Sopa sencilla de pan...5 Sopa compuesta...5 Sopa Cubana...5 Sopa de arroz...6 Sopa de camarones...6 Sopa francesa comun...6 Sopa de arroz con leche...6 Sopa de chicharos...7 Sopa de leche batida...7 Sopa de Semola...7 Sopa matancera...8 Sopa mejicana...8 Sopa de platanos...8 Sopa de ajos, cubana...8 Sopa de cebollas y arroz...9 Sopa a la polka...9 Sustancia de enfermos...9 Sopa de tortuga...10 Papillas para ninos...10 Cocido de vaca...11 Termilla de vaca asada...11 Puchero confun...11 Olla podrida...12 Guisados de carne...12 Conejo guisado...13 Chuletas de terna...13 Olla espanola...13 Cocido de cuaresma...14 Cocido mayor...14 Cocido comun...14 Olla Cubana o ajiaco...15 Ajiaco de tierra-adentro...15 Ajiaco de Puerto-Principe...16 Estofado de vaca...16 Estofado de vaca a la Cubana...16 Estofado de ternera...17 Ternera mechada...17 Sesos...18 Sesos a la Cubana...18 Guisado madrileno...18 Gallina encebollada a la matancera...19 Bifteck...19 Bifsteck ingles...19 Criadillas guisadas...20 Vaca con verbas...20 Lengua a la criolla...20 Chuletas tostados a lo guajiro...20 Conejo guisado a lo tierra-adentro...21 Conejo a la espanola...21 Picadillo de conejo...22 Guanajo relleno..22 Revoltillo de guanajo...22 Gallina a la manchega...23 Pato a la criolla...23 Gallo con arroz...24 Ropa vieja a la americana...24 Picadillo a la matancera...24 Mondongo...24 Mondongo a la criolla...25 Pichones estofados...25 Pollos a la americana de scelente gusto...25 Patas a la Cubana...26 Sesos rebozados...26 Manos de cabrito...27 Costillas fritas de carnero...27 Criadillas de carnero...27 Pepitoria de menudillo...27 Cabrito en pebre...28 Albondigas cubanas...28 Huevos estrellados a la turca...28 Huevos guisados...29 Huevos pasados por agua...29 Huevo con leche...29 Huevos rellenos a la habanera...29 Huevos dritos a la francesa...30 Huevos con leche...31 Bacalao guisado...31 Bacalao a la islena...31 Bacalao a la americana..31 Albondigas de bacalao...32 Bacalao con huevos...32 Bacalao a la Vizcaina...32 Higado a la italiana...33 Salchichon de cerdo...33 Cochinillo de leche asado...33 Patas de conejo cocidas...34 Las mismas en papel...34 Chorizos de Espana...34 Mollejas de ternera fritas...34 Vaca frita a la cubana...35 Vaca frita a la americana...35 Criadillas fritas...35 Mollejas en fricando...35 Manos de ternera al natural...36 Orejas de ternera...36 Rinones de ternera a la francesa...37 Albondigas de carnero...37 Chuletas de carnero...37 Chuletas empanadas...37 Salchichas comunes...38 Pernil cocido...38 Salchichon...38 Pavos rellenos...39 Pollos a la rusa...39 Adobo...40 Butifarras a la cubana...40 Longanizas...41 Morcillas a la americana...41 Morcilla espanola...41 Longua a la mejicana...42 Carne de puerco frita a la criolla...42 Fritos...43 Ternera con almejas...44 Costillas de cerdo a la inglesa...44 Guisado criollo...44 Aporreado criollo...45 Guiso italiano...45 Platanos rellenos...45 Perdices con coles...46 Aves en adobo...46 Rinones con vino...47 Pichones con chicharos...47 Fricase de pollos...47 Pollos a la turca...48 Salpicon...48 Sesos de ternera a la cubana...48 Higado a la inglesa...49 Manteca de papas...49 Torta de higado...49 Pierna de carnero...50 Jigote cubano...50 Relleno de carne aves...50 Relleno compuesto...51 Pollos con salsa de pobres...51 _PARTE SEGUNDA._ M(?)ENESTRAS, SALSAS, LEGUMBRES, FRITURAS Y MENUDENCIAS. Salsa general...53 Salsa espanola...53 Salsa de tomates a la jitana...54 Salsa para legumbres...54 Salsa a la italiana...54 Salsa a lo guajiro...55 Salsa verde...55 Salsa picante...55 Cebollas rellenas...55 Lentejas...56 Maiz a la habanera...56 Fricase de pollo...56 Cebollas rellenas con carne...57 Esparragos...57 Judias verdes...57 Alcachofas rellenas...58 Papas a la cubana...58 Chicharos a la americana...58 Chicharos en ensalada...58 Salsa madrilena...59 Salsa habanera...59 Tomates rellenos...59 Patas estofadas a la cubana...60 Papas a la espanola...60 Papas a la valenciana...60 Papas fritas...61 Papas a lo fondista...61 Papas rellenas...61 Papas en ensalada...61 Papas a la francesa...62 Albondiguillas de papas...62 Name a lo guajiro...62 Coles en ensalada...63 Coliflor en ensalada...63 Name a lo trinitario...63 Platanos salcochados...63 Tortilla de malanga...63 Coles en ensalada...64 Quimbombo habanero...64 Berengenas asadas...64 Chayote en ensalada...65 Calabaza en ensalada..65 Ajies dulces asados...65 Chicharos con huevos...65 Torte de casabe...66 Gazpacho andaluz...66 Garbanzos con arroz...66 Arroz con almejas...67 Almejas a la criolla...67 Frijoles negros...67 Frijoles negros a la islena...67 Tortilla de garbanzos...67 Garbanzos a la americana...68 Arroz a la valenciana...68 Arroz a la cubana...68 Calabaza estofada a la italiana...69 Coles con tocino...69 Pepinos de vigilia....69 Pepinos rellenos...70 Calabaza a la madrilena...70 Yuca rebozada con huevo...70 Judias verdes a lo costafirmeno....70 Lechuga de vigilia...71 Lechuga rellena...71 Potage de garbanzos con arroz...72 Malanga a la criolla...72 Platanos fritos a lo tierra adentro...72 Habichuelas a la espanola...72 Potage de chicharos...73 Remolacha a la habanera...73 Nabos a la inglesa...73 Patatas a lo pobre-espanol...73 Yuca a la andaluza-criolla...74 Cardos a la espanola...74 Condimento o salsa general...74 Pasta para toda clase do cosas...75 Cebollas con huevos a la portuguesa...75 Tortilla con queso...75 Tortilla con rinones...75 Tortilla de esparragos...76 Salsa de ostras...76 Coliflor a la habanera...76 Habichuelas a la cubana...76 Apio a lo criollo...76 Brocoles...77 Criadillas de tierra...77 Arroz con leche...77 Habichuelas blancas...78 Habichuelas a la aldeana...78 Criollada...78 Tortillas yucatecas...78 Acelgas cocidas en ensalada...79 Nabos a la vizcaina...79 Raya guisada...79 Picadillo de puerros...80 Judias con vino a la catalana...80 Bunuelos cubanos...81 Pudin de arroz...81 Salchicha guinera...81 Higado de cerdo a la inlgesa...82 Apio en ensalada a lo bayames...82 Apio con chicaros...82 Esparragos con chicharos...83 Apio guisado a la italiana...83 Berengenas asadas...83 Sustancia de calabaza...83 Sustancia de chicharos secos...83 Sustancia de habichuelas...84 Sustancia de lentejas...84 Sustancia de zanahorias...84 Hongos guisados...85 Esparragos con huevos a la matancera criolla...85 Esparragos guisados a la madrilena...85 Frijoles negros en ensalada...86 Coles en ensalada...86 Calabaza en ensalada...86 Coliflor en ensalada...86 Judias blancas en ensalada...86 Name en ensalada...87 Chayotes en ensalada...87 Quimbombo en ensalada...87 Judias secas a lo guajiro...87 Salsa de cebollas a lo marragato...87 Esparragos en revoltillo...88 Guisado de venado...88 Costillas de venado...88 Esencia de aves...89 Gelatina...89 Pebre de pimiento a la inglesa...89 Papas en ajete a la islena...89 Sangre de carnero...90 Tocino fresco a la cubana-guagira...90 Queso de Italia...90 Queso de cerdo...91 Compnesto a lo republicano...91 Potage de chalotas...92 Relleno a la camegueyana...92 Arroz con carne de aves...92 Tuetano de ternera...93 Tortilla de menestras puerto-riquenas...93 Revoltillo de huevos...93 Cazuela catalana...94 Crestas de gallos...94 Cardos con queso...94 Salsa cubana general...95 Gallina guinea...95 Pajaritos diversos a lo tierra-adentro...96 Garbanzos a lo pinero...96 Frijoles encarnados a la habanera...96 Bofes de ternera a lo natural...96 Ensalada de sesos...97 Lenguas de buey o ternera...97 Rinones de cerdo a la vizcaina...98 Colas de cerdo con lentejas a lo guajiro...99 Salchichon de cerdo...99 Ensalada general de legumbres...99 Colas de carnero a la inglesa...100 Frijoles de carita a la habanera...100 Fritura de cebollas...101 Papas con mantequilla...101 Chicaros a la inglesa...101 Conejo a la portuguesa...101 Perdices en cazuela...102 Ensalada de escarola...102 Guisantes cocidos...102 Tocino...102 Calabacines en ensalada...103 Sustancia de papas...103 Espinacas a la espanola...103 Espinacas al natural...103 Coliflor frita...104 Platanos asados...104 Huevos a la americana...104 Huevos con jamon...104 Papas al vapor...104 Pelota a la catalana...105 PESCADOS.--Pargo a la americana...105 Serrucho asado a la matancera...106 Serrucho guisado a lo principeno...106 Cangrejos guisados...106 Anguilas fritas...107 Morcillas de cangrjos...107 Cherna a la habanera...108 Almejas a lo natural...108 Camarones a lo puerto-principeno...108 Rabi-rubias a lo reglano...109 Langostas a la cubana...109 Cabrillas a la americana...109 Cherna guisada...109 Huevos de lisa en tortilla...110 Sardinas...110 Salmon a la espanola...111 Truchas guisadas a la catalana...111 Truchas a la oriental...111 Sardinas saladas...112 Pescado en tortilla...112 Calamares en salsa negra...112 Calamares rellenos a la vizcaina...113 Picadillo cubano con pescado...113 Ostras...113 Caldo de cangrejo...114 Caldo de cangrejos de vigilia...114 Coronado con salsa...115 Cocido de pescado a la cubana...115 Cocimiento blaco para pescado...115 Arenques...116 Arenques curados o ahumados...116 Arenques curados de diferente modo...116 Arenques salados...116 Aporreado de cangrejos...117 Bacalao a la americana...117 Arenques a la gallega...117 Sardinilla con mostaza...118 Anchoas en ensalada...118 Atun escabechado...118 Atun fresco...118 Abadejo o bacalao a la escocesa...118 Abadejo a la portuguese...119 Abadejo con papas...119 Pescado cocido a la yucateca...119 Salmon en salsa...120 Aguja de paladar en fricando...120 Salmon a la espanola...120 Ensalada de salmon...120 Ensalada de ronco...121 Salmon con vino...122 (TO BE CONTINUED) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 07:12:23 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 02:12:23 EST Subject: Cocinero Cubano y Espanol (1857)(LONG!) Message-ID: (The index of the earliest Cuban cookbook I can find. Delete as you wish--ed.) _PARTE TERCERA._ PASTELERIA, DULCERIA Y REPOSTERIA. Bizcochos de monja...123 Bizcochos mantecados...124 Empanadas de sesos...124 Empanadas de aves...125 Bizcochos de chocolate...125 Almendras tostadas...125 Bizcochos catalanes...126 Bizcochos de limon...126 Huevos en espuma...126 Torrijas...126 Cidra en almibar...127 Jalea de grosella...127 Conserva de membrillo...127 Postres de huevos a la italiana...127 Dulce de coco...128 Dulce de casabe...128 Mazapan de almendras...128 Garapina de cafe...128 Merengues...129 Mazapanes...129 Turron...130 Compota de naranjas...130 Compota de manzana...130 Compota de naranja a la habanera...131 Compota de limones...131 Dulce de icacoa...131 Dulce de naranjas...132 Dulce de guanabana...132 Bunuelos de harina de maiz...132 Bunuelos de patatas...132 Bunuelos de name...133 Bunuelos de arroz...133 Crema de cafe...133 Crema de almendras dulces...133 Creme criolla...134 Crema francesa...134 Almibar...135 Dulce de papaya...135 Majarete habanero...135 Platanos en almibar...136 Dulce de cabellos de angel...136 Dulce de cidra...136 Manzanas en almibar...136 Mata-hambre...137 Tomates en almibar...137 Helado de crema con avellanas...137 Helado de crema de cafe...138 Ponche de rom...138 Manjar blanco...138 Punche de leche...139 Ponche de huevos...139 Zambumbia...139 Helado de agraz...140 Helado de naranjas...140 Empanadas...140 Pastelillos y empanadas...141 Pastel real...141 Pastel caliente a lo tierra-adentro...142 Pastel drio...142 Pastel con queso...143 Torta de almendras...143 Pastillas para el pecho...143 Pastel de hojaldre...144 Crema tostada con leche...144 Pudin casero...145 Barquillos...145 Sopa de angel...146 Bara conocer si el vino tiena agua...146 Bizcochos de crema...146 Bizcochos garapinados de naranja...147 Vinagre de platanos...147 Turron de Alicante...148 Merengues americanos...148 Ratafias...148 Ratafia estomacal...148 Para tenir licores de rosa...149 Pastel de pescado...149 Empanadas de pescado...149 Torta de arroz...149 Palanqueta criolla...150 Bizcochos a la italiana...150 Leche cuajada...151 Pudin a la inglesa...151 Tetas de vaca...151 Panecillos de avellanas...152 Melon de Castilla...152 Azucar quemado...152 Dulce de guayaba...153 Bizcochos a la Magdalena...153 Bizcochos merengados...153 Almibar de horchata...154 Clarificacion del azucar...154 Coco helado...155 Jalea de mamey de Santo Domingo...155 Toronjas en almibar...155 Corojo en almibar...155 Dulce compuesto...155 Panetelas principenas...156 Torta de almendras...156 Torticas sabrosas de anis...157 Torta de papas...157 Mariquitas...157 Torta a la francesa...158 Pastel de polla...158 Papas con nata...159 Torta italiana...159 Torta de arroz a la madrilena...159 Tortilla de cebolla con leche...160 Tortilla confitada...160 Natilla a la habanera...160 Bocado de cardenal...161 Bocadillos de dama...161 Dulce de flor de espino...162 Guayabitas del pinal...162 Turron de Gijon...162 Turrones de yema...162 Castanas carameladas...163 Otra clase natural de castanas...163 Barquillos de limon...163 Barquillos de leche...164 Barquillos borrachos...164 Barquillos de Francia...164 Dulce de guanabana...165 Jalea de guayaba...165 Panecillos de yema...165 Molleticos a la espanola...166 Torta real andaluza...166 Tamarindos cubanos en almibar...167 Macarrones soplados...167 Macarrones de dulce...167 Macarrones de crema...167 Turron cubano...168 Helado de crema de pistachos...168 Helado de crema flor de naranja...169 Creme de te...169 Crema de vino...169 Torta de calabaza...170 Sopa de leche azucarada...170 Tortilla soplada...171 Jarabe de horchata...171 Jarabe de naranja...172 Jarabe de menta...172 Jarabe de granadas...173 Jarabe de higos chumbos...173 Gragea menuda...173 Gragea o sean anises...174 Merengues de almendra...174 Flores de naranja tostadas...174 Bollos de flor de naranja...175 Pasta de almendras...175 Torta de maiz cubana...175 Pudin de Sto. Domingo...175 Coco con panetela a lo tierra-adentro...176 Rosquillas de almendras...176 Pudin de guayaba...177 Azucar blanqueado...177 Flan...177 Requesones...178 Esponjados...178 Otra clase de esponjados...179 Pudin de yuca criolla...180 Pasta frotada...181 Pasta con queso...181 Crema de avellanas...181 Crema de pina...182 Pudin de malanga...182 Pudin de papas...182 Albondiga colonial...182 Pastillas de flor de naranja...183 Pastillas de cafe...184 Pastillas frias de licor...184 Manzanas a la alemana...185 Peras a la alemana...185 Manzanas con arroz a la inglesa...185 Farro...186 Soplado de arroz...186 Soplado de papas...186 Bunuelos de garbanzos...187 Huevos con azucar a la puritana...187 Tortilla habanera...187 Pan perdido...187 Garapina a la cubana...188 Agua loja a la cubana...188 Coles habaneras sopladas...188 Compota de castanas...189 Rosquetes de Cuba...189 Zapotes en almibar...190 Pinas en almibar...190 Molletes cubanos...190 Limonada para viajes...190 Pastillas de cafe...191 Torta de leche criolla...191 Pastelillos de guayaba...192 Tortilla de amor...192 Torta cubierta...192 Torta americana...193 Pastelillos de mamey...193 Dulce de casabe...193 Panetela...194 Sopa imperial...194 Torta de huevos...195 Yemas acarameladas...195 Yemas cubiertas...196 Pastel de albondigas...196 Nueces en almibar...197 Conserva de yuca...197 Conservacion del pescado fresco...197 De otro modo...198 Conservacion de la leche...198 Otro modo...198 Huevos...199 Conservacion general de las carnes...199 Cebollas en vinagre...200 Pimentoncillos en vinagre...200 Vinagre de aseo...200 Vinagre de platanos...200 De otro modo...201 Vinagre de mostaza...201 Berengenas...201 (TO BE CONTINUED) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 07:31:53 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 02:31:53 EST Subject: Cocinero Cubano y Espanol (1857)(Last part) Message-ID: (The final part of the index--ed.) FABRICACION DE LICORES.--Vino de Burdeos...202 Moscatel...203 Vino de Jerez...203 Vino generoso de esquisito gusto...203 Vinos espumosos que imitan la Champana...204 Vino gascado espumoso...204 Vino moscatel de primera...204 Rom Imitado...205 Aguardiente de conac fiugido...205 Hipocras...205 Regla general para fabricar licores superfinos...206 Modo de filtrar...206 Licor fino...207 Licor entrefino...207 Marrasquino de Zara...207 Curazao de Holanda...207 Anisete de Burdeos...208 Aguardiente de Dantzik...208 Divisa del papa...208 Aguardiente de Andaya...208 Crema de vainilla...209 Elixir de Garus...209 Crema de menta...209 Vespetro...209 Crema de las Barbadas...209 China china...209 Anisete de Holanda...209 Licor de cartujos...210 Modo de preparar el licor...210 Conea...210 Vermont de Turin...210 RECETAS PARA PREPARAR TODOS LOS COLORES.--Color de rosa...210 Color amarillo...211 Color verde...211 Regla general para toda clase de jarabes...211 Jarabe de horchata...211 Jarabe de goma...211 Jarabe de limon...211 Modo de preparar la leche de almendras...212 Vino de Bisoph...212 Aceite de rom...212 Receta para fabricar la crema de te...212 Crema de rom...212 Crema de anonas...213 Agua de nueces...213 Ponche de rom...213 Ponche de kirsch...213 Receta para fabricar limonada gaseosa...213 Receta para fabricar cien botellas de cerbeza (primera calidad de los Paises Bajos)...214 Vino griego...214 Delicia de las Damas...215 Perfecto amor...215 Leche de las viejas...215 Crema de azahar...215 Agua de las hermosas...215 Agua de plata...215 Agua de las doncellas...215 Crema de apio...215 Aceite de Venus...216 Crema de aleli...216 Crema de jazmin...216 Crema de ajenjo...216 Agua del paraiso...216 Aceite de rom...216 Crema de cidra...216 Noyo...216 Anisete...217 Te...217 Licor de rosas habanero...217 Crema del serrallo...218 CREMAS PARA COMPONER VINOS ESTRANGEROS.--Rosolio de Breslau...218 Crema de lacrima christi...218 Crema de Champana de Silery...218 Crema de Burdeos Chateau-Laffite...218 Crema de Chipre...218 Estractos de ajenjo suizo...218 Sustancias para clarificar el vino...219 Para la cerbeza...219 Para el aguardiente...219 Para el aceite...219 Para el sebo...220 Cidra sin manzanas...220 Vinagre hecho en poco tiempo...220 Advertencia...221 From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jan 6 08:54:56 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 01:54:56 -0700 Subject: Pin~ata Message-ID: I saw an item on CNN (I think it was) the other day that said the pin~ata, which in this country is quintessentially associated with Mexico, was originally brought to Europe from China, and found its way to Spain and thence to the colonies. Given this history, unless it goes by a different name in Spain, one would expect a much earlier citation in some British source (unless travel writing did not come into vogue until the 19th century). Rudy From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 6 17:15:49 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 12:15:49 EST Subject: Up-Selling Message-ID: The excellent WordSpy has "upsell," but it's defined there as a retailer trying to sell a more expensive item ("movin' on up"). This involves a "free offer," where customers have to call up to cancel credit card charges. From today's NEW YORK POST, 6 January 2002, pg. 7, col. 3: _Ticket to deception: Ducat-buyers_ _duped by "free" magazine offer_ (...) According to (Attorney General Eliot--ed.) Spitzer, Ticketmaster operators would offer an eight-week, free trial subscription to either Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly. Thousands who accepted the offer were later shocked to find that when the trial period ended, their credit cards had been automatically (Col. 4--ed.) charged for an additional 27-week subscription, Spitzer said. Ticketmaster had passed on the credit-card account information to Time Inc., which is a division of AOL Time Warner. "Most people thought they'd get the free issues and that would be it," said a Spitzer spokeswoman. But under the practice, known as up-selling, a consumer who accepted the trial subscription from Ticketmaster had to specifically call Time Inc. before the trial period ended to let them know they didn't want a paid subscription. (TICKETMASTER, OFF TOPIC: I wanted to see an Off-Off-Broadway show; the only number given in the ad was Ticketmaster. "What city?" I was asked. Uh, New York. Ticketmaster charged $7 a ticket, or about 25% of the ticket price. I bought tickets at the theater--ed.) From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 6 17:15:35 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 12:15:35 -0500 Subject: Pi=?ISO-8859-1?B?8Q==?=ata In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/6/02 03:54, "Rudolph C Troike" wrote: > I saw an item on CNN (I think it was) the other day that said the pin~ata, > which in this country is quintessentially associated with Mexico, was > originally brought to Europe from China, and found its way to Spain and > thence to the colonies. Given this history, unless it goes by a different > name in Spain, one would expect a much earlier citation in some British > source (unless travel writing did not come into vogue until the 19th > century). Considering that trade was established between China and Mexico (usually via Manila) as early as the 16th century, this could have happened without the concept passing through Europe. From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 6 17:45:05 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 12:45:05 -0500 Subject: Up-Selling Message-ID: I've always heard it in the sense that Paul defines it on WordSpy. Neither _Barron's Dictionary of Marketing Terms_ or _Dictionary of Business Terms_ has it. When I was doing a piece for the dearly departed "Industry Standard" on online business practices in the porno biz, upselling was defined by several analysts and porn purveyors as (basically) sucking a customer in via a cheaper (or free) product and then selling them a more expensive product once you've gotten their attention. This is an extremely common practice in porno-land, as is the practice defined in the NYPost piece (automatically charging a person's credit card for a full subscription after a trail has expired w/o the card owner's expressed consent). Maybe, since the two practices occur so frequently together, the latter is now being defined by the former, or at least, that may be where the Post's confusion lies. Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > The excellent WordSpy has "upsell," but it's defined there as a retailer trying to sell a more expensive item ("movin' on up"). > This involves a "free offer," where customers have to call up to cancel credit card charges. > From today's NEW YORK POST, 6 January 2002, pg. 7, col. 3: > > _Ticket to deception: Ducat-buyers_ > _duped by "free" magazine offer_ > (...) According to (Attorney General Eliot--ed.) Spitzer, Ticketmaster operators would offer an eight-week, free trial subscription to either Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly. > Thousands who accepted the offer were later shocked to find that when the trial period ended, their credit cards had been automatically (Col. 4--ed.) charged for an additional 27-week subscription, Spitzer said. > Ticketmaster had passed on the credit-card account information to Time Inc., which is a division of AOL Time Warner. > "Most people thought they'd get the free issues and that would be it," said a Spitzer spokeswoman. > But under the practice, known as up-selling, a consumer who accepted the trial subscription from Ticketmaster had to specifically call Time Inc. before the trial period ended to let them know they didn't want a paid subscription. > > (TICKETMASTER, OFF TOPIC: I wanted to see an Off-Off-Broadway show; the only number given in the ad was Ticketmaster. "What city?" I was asked. Uh, New York. Ticketmaster charged $7 a ticket, or about 25% of the ticket price. I bought tickets at the theater--ed.) From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 6 18:02:20 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 13:02:20 -0500 Subject: Upselling Message-ID: BTW: A related term (told to me during my porn biz research) is "cross-selling" (Barron's Business Terms has this as "cross merchandising"). This is the vertical answer to upselling. If the customer doesn't like the direct offering, similar products or services (by the same or a partnered company) can be found right next to it. Or perhaps the customer REALLY likes the product or service, so here are a number of related items he/she will LOVE. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 6 20:25:38 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 14:25:38 -0600 Subject: Request for 1857 ajiaco recipe Message-ID: I'd be grateful if Barry would share the 1857 recipe for ajiaco. ---Gerald Cohen At 12:17 AM -0600 1/6/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >NUEVO MANUAL >DEL >COCINERO >CUBANO Y ESPANOL, > >CON UN TRATADO ESCOJIDO >DE DULCERIA, PASTELERIA, BOTELLERIA, >AL ESTILO DE CUBA. > >INDESPENSABLE PARA APRENDER A COMPONER DE COMER CON >LA MAYOR PERFECCION Y ECONOMIA, Y NECESARIO A TODAS >LAS CLASES DE LA SOCIEDAD Y EN PARTICULAR A LOS >GASTRONOMOS, MADRES DE FAMILIA, PONDISTAS, &c. > >DIVIDO EN TRES PARTES > >POR >J. P. LEGRAN > >HABANA--1857. >Imprenta de la Sociedad de Operarios, Aguila numero 146. > > A gem. > The NYPL has this, but it's almost nowhere else. It's the >earliest Cuban cookbook I can find. > "Ajiaco" and "Ropa Vieja" (Old Clothes), two dishes that should >have made it into English dictionaries a long time ago, are here. > > I'll type up the lengthy index--probably in several parts--so >it's searchable on the web. Let me know if anyone wants the whole >recipe. From brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 6 22:28:29 2002 From: brianfaler13 at YAHOO.COM (brian faler) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 14:28:29 -0800 Subject: 9-11 Message-ID: does anyone know who first used the phrase "9-11" to describe the Sept. 11 attacks? -brian --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail. From carljweber at MSN.COM Sun Jan 6 22:42:10 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 16:42:10 -0600 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" Message-ID: Etymology Query: "They" Carl Jeffrey Weber (I couldn't find anything by searching the archives.) Given all that the OED says about "they" (and other pronouns) -- I have for years carried around two questions: 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of forms only? 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during the period of Norman dominance? This "they" pronoun seems to have been the only trespasser into "basic" English (with the other th-plurals later following). Has any native source been suggested? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 02:14:34 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 21:14:34 EST Subject: 9-11 Message-ID: Probably it occurred to many people simultaneously. I thought of it right away. A search of the web shows that the first "911" call was made in Haleyville, Alabama, on February 16, 1968. The call was made between two congressmen; the "911" system had been discussed in 1967. Anybody want me to find earlier? Hm, maybe a JSTOR search.... From n.ames at EMAIL.CZ Mon Jan 7 11:21:11 2002 From: n.ames at EMAIL.CZ (n.ames at EMAIL.CZ) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 12:21:11 +0100 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: Europe Forms of Place Names URL: http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/europe.html Do You know the one-word name of the Czech Republic? No ? So see to: Jele?ek L.: On the geographic name of the Czech Republic (?l?nek je na 1. adrese v angli?tin?, na 2. adrese je v ?e?tin?) http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko1.htm http://klaudyan.psomart.cz/clanky/jelecek001.asp Horov? E.: "Where are you from?" - "I am from Czechia." http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko2.htm The name of Czechia in various languages http://sites.netscape.net/sandiberk/Drzave/cz_eng.html --- ** CREATED BY EMAIL.CZ ** http://www.email.cz <--- Get Your Free Email From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 7 15:10:16 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 10:10:16 -0500 Subject: "the Supremes" In-Reply-To: <73.18a9ee83.29678e38@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: #1. I would have thought "the Supremes" meaning the US Supreme Court or the #Justices thereof was an artifact of the post-campaign campaign after the last #Presidential election. However, I just discovered the same usage in 1994 in, #of all places, Analog Science Fiction magazine. Does anyone have an earlier #cite? Not offhand, but I'm pretty sure I remember it from earlier. #2. Probably hopeless, but does anyone have evidence that this expression #was, or was not, derived from the name of the Motown group "Diana Ross and #the Supremes"? Similarly: although without evidence, that was exactly how I thought of the expression in this usage the first time I heard it, and I have always thought that was the derivation. It is, of course, obvious and striking for those of us who had Motown in the music of our teens in a way that cannot be so strong for later generations. -- Mark M. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 7 15:21:11 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 10:21:11 -0500 Subject: draining the swamp In-Reply-To: <6d.202c876c.2968ab8b@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: #one more Pentagon quote: # #"Never start a vast project with half-vast ideas" # #Caveat: I recall seeing this quote only once, and that was on a hand-lettered #sign. An expression I recently learned: "monogluteal", referring to ideas, plans, etc. -- Mark M. From stevekl at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 7 15:29:21 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 10:29:21 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <3C3984A7.000001.16222@file1> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 n.ames at EMAIL.CZ wrote: > Horov? E.: "Where are you from?" - "I am from Czechia." Fat chance getting the Moravians to accept this. (I've seen literature suggesting the use of what would translate as "Czechomoravia" even...) -- Steve Kleinedler (5/8 Moravian; 2/8 Bohemian; 1/8 Slovak) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 7 14:42:00 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 09:42:00 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: stevekl at PANIX.COM,Net writes: >-- Steve Kleinedler >(5/8 Moravian; 2/8 Bohemian; 1/8 Slovak) And, I presume, 100% American. Regards, David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 7 16:05:49 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 11:05:49 -0500 Subject: "the supremes" Message-ID: Although not used in a legal or musical context, MOA-Cornell has several instances of Supremes/supremes, the earliest being from 1834. "Principles and laws . . . come only from the Deity. To contend that they come from any other source, would be to assert the existence of more Creators and Supremes than one." >From Thoughts on Optimism, by An Optimist, p.27. In The New-England magazine, 7 #1, July 1834. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnwen%2Fnwen0007%2F&tif=00035.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABS8100-0007-4 ======= A quoted earlier use may be noted in the following, but I have to deal with the task of snow shoveling, and can't further verify the usage by Sir William Berkeley (~1660), as quoted in Campbell and Stevens: History of Virginia and Georgia, p.302. In The North American Review, 67, Issue 141, October 1848. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0067%2F&tif=00310.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABQ7578-0067-16 George Cole Shippensburg University From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 16:46:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 11:46:32 EST Subject: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: I was going through NEW YORK magazine, but didn't spot "tiramisu" through August 1981. DEATH BY CHOCOLATE--4 May 1981, pg. 53, col. 1, "'Death by Chocolate' is the winning name of a losing item--a block of baked mousse (or so it seems) in a watery creme anglaise, and a couple of hopelessly misplaced strawberries." At Auctions, 1406 Third Avenue at 80th Street. A check of U.S. Patent and Trademarks shows the earliest "Death By Chocolate" from 1985. A book with that title was published in 1992. Turkey Hill used it as the name of an ice cream flavor. I ate it and survived. PENNE--3 August 1981, pg. 45, col. 1, "Penne (those oversize macaroni) with vodka and cream ($3.95) has a Hot-as Hades kick one night." BACON CHEESEBURGER--11 May 1981, pg. 48, col. 2, "...$4.95 for a bacon cheeseburger...." "...tiropitta ('little cheese pies with salad, $4) turned out to be two very large cheese pies with flaking, steaming crust." At the Wild Bunch Wine Bar, 82 Bank Street. BAKED POTATO SKINS--20 April 1981, pg. 74, col. 3, "The graveyard menu (from 11:30 P.M. on) artfully caters to after-theater whims with baked potato skins...." PARTYWARE--3 November 1980, pg. 37, col. 3, "The Gifford Philosophy of Partyware." CHINESE FOOD NAMES--27 October 1980, pg. 70, col. 2, "...with such names as 'Hundred Birds Worshipping the Queen Phoenix' or 'Pandas at Play.'" PIGWHICH--15 September 1980, pg. 35, col. 1, "The contents of an unfortunate grilled sandwich, unfortunately named 'pigwhich,' are a slice of ham cut from a waterlogged block, Swiss Cheese from Brooklyn (or Austria), and slices of tomato--the dish is almost rescued by the toasted bron bread within which it is assembled." GOAT'S MILK ICE CREAM--15 September 1980, pg. 42, col. 3, "Goat's milk ice cream is a health-food atrocity. Imagine feta-cheese ice cream and you have imagined goat's milk ice cream." ZUCCHINI CHIPS--15 September 1980, pg. 54, col. 3, "Don't forget to order the perfect, grease-free fried zucchini chips ($3.75)." Usually zucchini "sticks." OREO MILK SHAKE--25 August 1980, pg. 65, col. 1, "And while you fork into French pastry, they can indulge in Yvonne's latest discovery: the Oreo milk shake." Nah, I'll wait until Oreo ice cream is discovered. DENVER CHOCOLATE CAKE--29 October 1979, pg. 81, col. 3, "The Denver chocolate cake was a puddle by the time it arrived, but even that was good." From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 7 17:03:28 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 12:03:28 -0500 Subject: My WOTY List In-Reply-To: <3C34CDE2.A22D2E2C@earthlink.net> Message-ID: >>>>> assoline Slang term for methane when used as a fuel source. Spotted on an online discussion board about alternative energy sources. [Note: Obviously a stunt word, and one I've heard used only in this forum. Included here for comic relief.] <<<<< "Stunt word"! Perspicuous and concise. Have I just not run into this expression ("stunt word") before? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From monickels at MAC.COM Mon Jan 7 17:06:59 2002 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 12:06:59 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/7/02 10:29, "Steve Kl." wrote: > On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 n.ames at EMAIL.CZ wrote: > >> Horov? E.: "Where are you from?" - "I am from Czechia." > > Fat chance getting the Moravians to accept this. > > (I've seen literature suggesting the use of what would translate as > "Czechomoravia" even...) It is interesting, however, that the terms offered as equivalents to "Czechia" in other languages ("Tschechien in German, Tch?quie in French, Chequ?a in Spanish, Cecchia in Italian") on one of the pages ( http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko2.htm ) seem to be well accepted, at least if you believe their frequency as returned from a Google search. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 7 18:05:40 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 13:05:40 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) Message-ID: Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA Mon Jan 7 19:29:45 2002 From: jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA (James McIntosh) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 14:29:45 -0500 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: At 11:46 AM 1/7/02 EST, you wrote: >PENNE--3 August 1981, pg. 45, col. 1, "Penne (those oversize macaroni) with vodka and cream ($3.95) has a Hot-as Hades kick one night." People in New York refer to "penne" and "penne rigate" ("penne", with ridges), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. People in Chicago refer to "mostaccioli", (spelling uncertain), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. They are the same thing. In a boundary region between the two, you can sometimes see in groceries and supermarkets packages of pasta labelled as both "penne" and "mostaccioli". What is the history of these words, and why do some people of Italian descent use one but not the other ? From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 7 19:54:34 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 11:54:34 -0800 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.20020107142941.198f2954@idirect.ca> Message-ID: I see both in Seattle. They appear to be the same to me. I'm not sure that either is a regionalism in the US, but they might be in Italy. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, James McIntosh wrote: > At 11:46 AM 1/7/02 EST, you wrote: > > >PENNE--3 August 1981, pg. 45, col. 1, "Penne (those oversize macaroni) with > vodka and cream ($3.95) has a Hot-as Hades kick one night." > > People in New York refer to "penne" and "penne rigate" ("penne", with > ridges), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. > > People in Chicago refer to "mostaccioli", (spelling uncertain), yet do not > think of this as a regionalism. > > They are the same thing. > > In a boundary region between the two, you can sometimes see in groceries and > supermarkets packages of pasta labelled as both "penne" and "mostaccioli". > > What is the history of these words, and why do some people of Italian > descent use one but not the other ? > From jproperzio at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 7 20:03:43 2002 From: jproperzio at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (James di Properzio) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:03:43 -0500 Subject: cantharides Message-ID: Here's a surprise: while I was surveying usage of "apothecary weight" (as opp. to "apothecaries' weight"), I happened upon _Pharmacognosy_ by H.W. Youngken; Blakiston: Philadelphia,1921, in which I found: Cantharis U.S.P. (Cantharides) Synonyms.--Spanish Flies, Russian Flies, etc. Note the U.S.P (United States Pharmacopoeia) standard drug designation! There is a page and a half of description of the powdered drug, the beetle from which it is derived (including a description of its anatomy, and of the insect's taste), "Production and Commerce," etc., including a photo of a pile of dead bugs (legend: Spanish Flies (Cantharis Vesicatoria)). It claims that they are often found on olive trees in Spain. Lamentably, uses and dosage are not described. -James di Properzio From Ittaob at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 19:58:41 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 14:58:41 EST Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: Italy has many regional dialects and food variations. Without having done any research, I suspect "penne" and "mostaciolli" are names deriving from different parts of Italy. Probably, the immigrants from those different regions settled in Chicago and New York, respectively. Steve Boatti From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:08:56 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:08:56 EST Subject: Death By Media; Odor Bomb Message-ID: DEATH BY MEDIA--The headline of John Ringo's column in today's NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 27, col. 4. Also used by Charles Krauthammer in the WASHINGTON POST, 31 January 1992, about the Clinton critics. Not used much since then. ODOR BOMB--From the same NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 24, col. 2, "_Pentagon forms 'stink tank' to develop offensive smells_." "The Pentagon has asked a group of scientists to develop an 'odor bomb'--a device that would emit a smell so putrid, it could clear crowds." (I have my doubts. Haven't some terrorists lived in caves with goats?--ed.) From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 7 20:17:47 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:17:47 -0500 Subject: Death By Media; Odor Bomb Message-ID: Dang, Barry beat me to "odor bomb." Heard it on CNN this morning. Hadn't heard "stink tank." Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > DEATH BY MEDIA--The headline of John Ringo's column in today's NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 27, col. 4. Also used by Charles Krauthammer in the WASHINGTON POST, 31 January 1992, about the Clinton critics. Not used much since then. > > ODOR BOMB--From the same NEW YORK POST, 7 January 2002, pg. 24, col. 2, "_Pentagon forms 'stink tank' to develop offensive smells_." > "The Pentagon has asked a group of scientists to develop an 'odor bomb'--a device that would emit a smell so putrid, it could clear crowds." > (I have my doubts. Haven't some terrorists lived in caves with goats?--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:19:12 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:19:12 EST Subject: Penne Pasta (1972, 1973) Message-ID: OED has asked for some "penne" pasta. Merriam-Webster has 1974. THE INTERNATIONAL WINE AND FOOD SOCIETY'S GUIDE TO REGIONAL ITALIAN COOKERY by Robin Howe The International Wine and Food Society's Publishing Company David & Charles, London 1972 Pg. 84: 2. Those used for boiling and baking: tubular forms such as macaroni, _maniche_, _zita_, _occhi di lupo_, wolves' eyes, or _zitone_, _penne_, _grosso rigato_, _rigatoni_, etc. Pg. 86 (minutes to cook): Penne 11 Pennette 10 Pennini 10 Pennini piccoli 11 IL CODICE DELLA PASTA: 1001 RICETTA PER PREPARE by Vincenzo Buonassi Rizzoli Editore, Milano 1973 A huge book of 690 pasta pages, in Italian, however. From the index: penne all'arrabbiata 804 (Recipe number--ed.) all'arrabbiata, all fredda 818 alla provenzale 215 alla Salvatore Fiume 153 all'ulivetta 841 con i carciofi 83 204 con le cipolle 45 con le olive nere 210 con le olive verdi 40 211 con salsa de olive 35 mik mak 876 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:29:34 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:29:34 EST Subject: Ajiaco (1857) Message-ID: NUEVO MANUAL DEL COCINERO CUBANO Y ESPANOL POR J. P. LEGRAN HABANA.--1857 Pg. 15: 37. OLLA CUBANA O AJIACO. Pongase agua en una cazuela, la suficiente para contener carne salada, ahuja de puerco, carne de vaca, tocineta y tasajo de vaca; pongase a hervir todo junto con garbanzos puestos a remojar desde el dia anterior; anadase despues boniato, dos o tres platanos que empiecen a masdurar, sin perlarlos, malanga, yuca, chayote, berengenas, y si se quiere una mazorca de maiz verde, calabaza y unas papas, se deja que hierva como una hora, triturese en el mortero toda clase de especias, sin que falte comino que es muy esencial; desliese con un poco de caldo del mismo ajiaco, majese un poco de azafran, el cual, revuelto con un poco de zumo se echara dentro, dejandole hervir por un cuarto de hora. Cualquiera clase de sopas puede hacerse con este caldo, siendo muy gustosa la hecha con semola. 38. AJIACO DE TIERRA--ADENTRO. Se hace en un todo como el anterior, sin echarle carne de vaca, maiz ni ninguna clase de especias; solo sal y aji (Pg. 16) con ajos fritos con manteca, de donde viena derivado el nombre de _ajiaco_. 39. AJIACO DE PUERTO-PRINCIPE. (Kicked off NYPL computer! Half hour over!--ed.) From Ittaob at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 20:37:22 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:37:22 EST Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: While US commercial producers and their customers make no distinction beween penne and mostaccioli, a Google search yelded the information that mostaccioli are properly somewhat larger than penne. See, e.g., http://www.moccagatta.com/prod2.html (This is the online catalog of a pasta company in Italy.) BTW, "penne" means "quills" and "mostaccioli" means "mustaches." Steve Boatti From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 7 21:26:05 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 16:26:05 EST Subject: Baked Potato Skins Message-ID: In a message dated 1/7/02 11:47:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > I was going through NEW YORK magazine > > BAKED POTATO SKINS--20 April 1981, pg. 74, col. 3, "The graveyard menu > (from 11:30 P.M. on) artfully caters to after-theater whims with baked potato skins. > ..." Circa 1980 there was an overpriced restaurant in Roslyn, Virginia named "The Pawn Shop". (At one time Roslyn was the pawnshop district for Washington DC). A restaurant reporter for one of the local newspapers (I don't remember if it were the Post or the now-defunct Star) went there and reported that while they served potato skins, there was nothing on the menu that seemed to use the rest of the potatoes. Upon further checking s/he discovered that the Pawn Shop bought already-prepared potato skins (presumably frozen) from some supplier. (I am fairly sure of the date since my wife and I went there while we were still dating and we both agreed not to return.) Hence circa 1980 "baked potato skins" were available from restaurant suppliers and it might be possible to find ads or other mentions in food-service magazines from that era. - Jim Landau From apugima at APUGIMA.COM Mon Jan 7 21:47:58 2002 From: apugima at APUGIMA.COM () Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 06:47:58 +0900 Subject: []ο ǰġ ߵǾϴ. Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 7 22:22:40 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 17:22:40 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. -- Doug Wilson From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 7 22:24:56 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 17:24:56 -0500 Subject: bad publicity Message-ID: In January of 2001 I set off a train of discussion among us regarding the antiquity of the expression "There's no such thing as bad publicity". I then had only a very recent citation to contribute, along with the statement that I had heard it or variants of it at one time or another in the past, going back to the mid-1960s. Fred Shapiro was able to produce a version from 1950 and a passage from 1943 that seemed to allude to it. Others also chipped in. I can now contribute this inversion of the phrase, from 1934: Without publicity it is doubtful if Alphonse Capone ever would have been sent to prison. It is axiomatic among all intelligent criminals that all publicity is bad publicity. Stanley Walker, City Editor, N. Y.: Frederick A. Stokes, 1934, p. 31. This is one of those expressions that are so highly variable in form that they are very difficult to trace. I associate it with show business, and in that racket, publicity is always good, but the expression can be phrased either as an affirmative or a negative: "there's no such thing as bad publicity" (or a variant) as opposed to "all publicity is good publicity"/"every knock is a boost" (or variants). In criminal circles, publicity = heat, and heat is always bad. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 7 22:29:51 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 17:29:51 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch Message-ID: [From a brief sketch of Frank Ward O'Malley ("O'Malley of the Sun"), a newspaperman] He is supposed to have coined the phrase "Life is just one damned thing after another," and the word "brunch," to describe the morning newspaper man's breakfast-luncheon combination. Stanley Walker, City Editor. N. Y.: Frederick A. Stokes, 1934, pp. 292-93. The American Heritage Dictionary of American Proverbs credits the saying to a 1923 book of aphorisms by Elbert Hubbard. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Sayings & Quotations and the Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotations also say Hubbard. They note that it is also frequently attributed to O'Malley. The OED has "brunch" from 1896 (an English quotation in which it is attributed to one Mr. Guy Beringer) and 2 from 1900, at least one of which is also English. O'Malley was born in 1875 (and died in 1932), and so is unlikely to have coined this word, although he may have introduced it to New York or coined it independently. George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Mon Jan 7 23:05:24 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 18:05:24 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: The earliest reference I see is from an editorial in the Jerusalem Post, Sept. 8, 1991: "Slovakia will celebrate its separation from Czechia as Wales and Scotland declare theirs from England." Several of the early citations are discussions of what to call the Czech Republic. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas G. Wilson [SMTP:douglas at NB.NET] > Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 5:23 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Czechia (new word!!!) > > "Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, > certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or > Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made > official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. > > -- Doug Wilson > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 7 23:18:59 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:18:59 -0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020107171853.00af4c20@nb.net> Message-ID: Odd--clunky and artificial though "The Czech Republic" is, "Czechia" feels highly unnatural to me (for reasons I don't understand), and I can't see it catching on. Peter Mc. --On Monday, January 7, 2002 5:22 PM -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > "Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, > certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or > Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made > official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. > > -- Doug Wilson **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU Tue Jan 8 00:14:07 2002 From: mkuha at BSUVC.BSU.EDU (Mai Kuha) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 19:14:07 -0500 Subject: wanders Message-ID: A page from a frantic Southwest Airlines employee at the Oakland airport yesterday: "All available wanders to gate 21, please!" (That was my gate, by the way. We must have been a sinister-looking bunch.) I only had time for a quick check at google, so if "wander" isn't new, apologies for this posting. Has anyone been referred to as a wandee? -Mai _________________________________ Mai Kuha mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu Department of English (765) 285-8410 Ball State University From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 8 00:55:02 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 19:55:02 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch In-Reply-To: <37c66537d905.37d90537c665@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >[From a brief sketch of Frank Ward O'Malley ("O'Malley of the Sun"), a >newspaperman] He is supposed to have coined the phrase "Life is just >one damned thing after another," and the word "brunch," to describe the >morning newspaper man's breakfast-luncheon combination. Stanley >Walker, City Editor. N. Y.: Frederick A. Stokes, 1934, pp. 292-93. > > The American Heritage Dictionary of American Proverbs credits the >saying to a 1923 book of aphorisms by Elbert Hubbard. The Oxford >Dictionary of Proverbs, Sayings & Quotations and the Oxford Dictionary >of 20th Century Quotations also say Hubbard. They note that it is also >frequently attributed to O'Malley. > > The OED has "brunch" from 1896 (an English quotation in which it is >attributed to one Mr. Guy Beringer) and 2 from 1900, at least one of >which is also English. O'Malley was born in 1875 (and died in 1932), >and so is unlikely to have coined this word, although he may have >introduced it to New York or coined it independently. > > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998. >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John Masefield wrote a book titled / ODTAA/ (meaning one damned thing after another), but I don't have a date for it. I'd tentatively put it around 1915. In any case, the expression would have to have been well-enough known by then that it could be expected that it would be understood. A. Murie From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 01:51:22 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 20:51:22 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: > John Masefield wrote a book titled / ODTAA/ (meaning one damned thing > after another), but I don't have a date for it. I'd tentatively put it > around 1915. In any case, the expression would have to have been > well-enough known by then that it could be expected that it would be > understood. And I would definitively date it 1926. 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 Mon Jan 7 13:23:43 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 21:23:43 +0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <1542327.3219405539@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: At 3:18 PM -0800 1/7/02, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >Odd--clunky and artificial though "The Czech Republic" is, "Czechia" feels >highly unnatural to me (for reasons I don't understand), and I can't see it >catching on. > >Peter Mc. > I agree with both sentiments. I don't suppose either "Czechononslovakia" or "Czechosansslovakia" would catch on... larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 7 13:39:52 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 21:39:52 +0800 Subject: [penne vs. mostaccioli] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:54 AM -0800 1/7/02, A. Maberry wrote: >I see both in Seattle. They appear to be the same to me. I'm not sure that >either is a regionalism in the US, but they might be in Italy. > >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu Ditto in New Haven, which has a very large Italian substrate. Most upscale cookbooks and restaurants seem to opt for "penne". Larry > >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, James McIntosh wrote: > >...> >> What is the history of these words, and why do some people of Italian >> descent use one but not the other ? >> From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 8 03:09:04 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:09:04 -0500 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank Message-ID: >From another list I'm on. I'm not sure from the quoting pattern whether the first paragraph of text ("Um, around here...") was written by (name 2), who lives in the West of Canada, or by (name 1), whose location I don't remember. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: (name 2) (name 1) wrote: Um, around here, a "policy wank" is an _event_, not a person. And yes, it means what you'd think. A truly stupid policy meeting. See also, 'departmental wank' -- as in, "I'd love to, but I have to go to the monthly ~ that night." Also, "tented wank", a) an act of self-abuse concealed by a sheet; b) a party that takes place out-of-doors under a pavillion. cf. Jilly Cooper. > When speaking of a person who likes to distinguish > trivial details of an obscure subject, is the > correct form "subject wAnk" or "subject wOnk" ? My personal feeling is that the latter is the original idiom, and the former probably an inspired bit of play intended as a derogatory version. (name 2), who for example can think of some people (s/he) would call policy wonks and also some (s/he) would designate policy wanks. From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 8 03:43:22 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:43:22 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > stevekl at PANIX.COM,Net writes: > > >-- Steve Kleinedler > >(5/8 Moravian; 2/8 Bohemian; 1/8 Slovak) > > And, I presume, 100% American. Indeed! -- Steve Kl. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 8 03:47:24 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:47:24 -0500 Subject: the meaning of life; & brunch In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: > >> John Masefield wrote a book titled / ODTAA/ (meaning one damned thing >> after another), but I don't have a date for it. I'd tentatively put it >> around 1915. >And I would definitively date it 1926. > >Fred Shapiro ~~~~~~~~~ Well, I suppose I _could_ have tried a little harder to find it. I checked one reference, where it wasn't listed, & made a wild guess! AM From monickels at MAC.COM Tue Jan 8 03:50:24 2002 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:50:24 -0500 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.20020107142941.198f2954@idirect.ca> Message-ID: On 1/7/02 14:29, "James McIntosh" wrote: > People in New York refer to "penne" and "penne rigate" ("penne", with > ridges), yet do not think of this as a regionalism. > > People in Chicago refer to "mostaccioli", (spelling uncertain), yet do not > think of this as a regionalism. > > They are the same thing. > > In a boundary region between the two, you can sometimes see in groceries and > supermarkets packages of pasta labelled as both "penne" and "mostaccioli". While it may be true the penne and mostaccioli (which is the correct spelling, as far as I can tell), are often the same thing, the *dish* mostaccioli (pronounced something like /musk- at -choe-lee/ in St. Louis), is not necessarily made with penne/mostaccioli. This picture illustrates the way I have often seen it (it's very akin to lasagna, but without as much cheese and with tubular rather than flat noodles): http://www.bathroommess.com/012301/most.htm This page calls them "stovepipe noodles": http://grazis.micronpcweb.com/page3.html From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 04:00:27 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:00:27 EST Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) Message-ID: THE MEANING OF LIFE Check the Library of Congress's American Memory database for "thing after another." ("Damn" is not always there.) There was a song by Arthur Denvir, "Life's Just One (Bong) Thing After Another" (1914). Also, in a letter dated 30 November 1914, is: "Some one has said that 'Life is just one damn thing after another.'" 1914 is earlier than 1926. -------------------------------------------------------- AIDS I was going through NEW YORK magazine and had to pause when I saw this, 31 May 1982, pg. 52: _The Gay Plague_ By Michael VerMeulen _A mysterious immune disorder is spreading like wildfire._ (...)(Pg. 53, col. 1--ed.) For want of a better name, the acronym A.I.D. has stuck. I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. This seems late. The NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE is mentioned in the NEW YORK article. The NEJOM issue of 10 December 1981 was devoted to the disease, and it probably pays to look at the full text, specifically pages 1439-1444. A letter on 11 February 1982 was titled "Family secrets: who is to know about AID?" (Medline gave this abstract, but not full text for 1981/1982.) From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 8 04:06:02 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:06:02 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If > the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? 'ch' is an affricate. However, the adjective is (in nom sing masc form) cesky (with a hacek over the c and a long y). Czech republic is "Ceska' republika" with the stop [k]. The Bohemian parts are "Cechy" with that affricate. Also, in Czech, you don't really see the place names ending in -ia: Czechoslovakia = Ceskoslovensko Slovakia = Slovensko Slovenia = Slovinsko Poland = Polsko Hungary = Madarsko Silesia = Slezsko (or something similar, I don't recall exactly) Italy = Italsko Spain = Spanielsko So it would be weird, in Czech, to use the word Czechia. The equivalent would be along the lines of Cesko. -- Steve From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 04:35:05 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:35:05 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Steve Kl. said: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > >> Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If >> the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? > >'ch' is an affricate. > >However, the adjective is (in nom sing masc form) cesky (with a hacek over >the c and a long y). Czech republic is "Ceska' republika" with the stop >[k]. The Bohemian parts are "Cechy" with that affricate. > >Also, in Czech, you don't really see the place names ending in -ia: > >Czechoslovakia = Ceskoslovensko >Slovakia = Slovensko >Slovenia = Slovinsko >Poland = Polsko >Hungary = Madarsko >Silesia = Slezsko (or something similar, I don't recall exactly) >Italy = Italsko >Spain = Spanielsko > >So it would be weird, in Czech, to use the word Czechia. The equivalent >would be along the lines of Cesko. I think it's odd that the earliest English language citation for the form Czechia that anyone could find was from the Jerusalem Post. My Hebrew dictionaries are rather incomplete when it comes to European place names, but I'm pretty sure that, in Hebrew, Czechia referred to Czechoslovakia in its entirety. Of course the only citation I can find, in a list of coins of different countries, is for Czechoslovakia. Go figure. From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 8 05:26:17 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 00:26:17 -0500 Subject: Czechia (pronunciation?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Is the second consonant cluster pronounced as an affricate or stop? If > > the former it may be dangerously close to Chechnya, mightn't it? > >'ch' is an affricate. In Czech it's /x/, I think (like "ch" in German, or in Scots "loch"). But what is it in English? "Czechia" is not a Czech word or name but rather an 'English' word/name promulgated by the Czech government and some other bodies for use in English. I would guess that the "ch" in "Czechia" is probably intended/assumed to be /k/. Like in "Czechoslovakia"; like in "Wallachia". I can't find this explicitly addressed on the Web. Perhaps it's assumed that /x/ can be used instead of /k/ by nonconformist, 'cosmopolitan', 'fussy', and/or Scottish persons. >The equivalent would be along the lines of Cesko. Which is the current Czech name (with initial hacek of course) equivalent to English Czechia. Not all Czechs approve of this, apparently, but I guess many do. Here is a discussion (from the 'pro' side): http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/cesko2.htm Note that in languages without /x/ the second consonant is more or less /k/ ... in fact in Spanish it's "Chequ?a" (not "Chej?a"). -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 07:31:56 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 02:31:56 EST Subject: Maitre d'ess; Cuisinier; Lucky Family; Ants on the Tree Message-ID: NEW YORK LUNCH BOOK by Joan Hamburg and Faye Hammel World Publishing Co, NY 1972 Pg. 113: It's cafeteria style, but you are served by a maitre d'ess (a liberated maitre d'). (At La Potagerie, 554 Fifth Avenue--ed.) Pg. 138: Ask if they have the green tea ice cream (it may not be on the menu) for a special dessert treat. (At Kegon, 80 East 56th Street. See my Japan notes from last year on "green tea ice cream"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- WORD OF MOUTH: A COMPLETELY NEW KIND OF GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY RESTAURANTS by Jim Quinn Mixed Media, Philadelphia 1972 Quinn is not afraid to give bad reviews. He destroys Tad's Steak, for example, and gives it an "F" grade. He destroys Nathan's, too. Lutece gets an "A." Shocking! Pg. 47: ...a tasteless icecream roll covered with something called "chocolate whipped cream" (which tastes like jello pudding). (At Riverboat, 34th Street in the Empire State Building. Some company is now making "chocolate whipped cream"--ed.) Pg. 63: Lucky Family is extremely large, filled with pork and shrimp balls, excellent Chinese ham, lots of snow peas, tasty chicken slices and abalone which does not seem to have come from the same can as most Chinatown abalone. (At Chi Mer, 12 Chatham Square--ed.) Pg. 68: Ants on the Tree ($3) is a combination of translucent noodles, stewed brown and soft in beef broth, and little little flecks of well done roast beef; it's interesting but small. (At Lotus Eater, a Chinese chain--ed.) Pg. 134: Saketini... Kobe cocktail ($1.25) is Suntory whiskey and quinine water, another excellent and unusual drink. (At Kobe Steak House, 10 East 52nd Street--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- NEW YORK MAGAZINE More food items from NEW YORK magazine. CUISINIER: 5 July 1982, pg. 63, col. 1, "And though Lawrence P. Forgione will grill only a Michigan steak, his position is for some reason not 'cook,' but '_cuisinier_.' (At the River Cafe--ed.) SANKAPUCCINO: 3 May 1982, pg. 45, col. 1, "...and the waiter offering Sankapuccino." (At La Gamelle, 59 Grand Street--ed.) POTATO SKINS: 8 March 1982, pg. 40, col. 2, "These days almost everybody starts with potato skins, a recent Manhattan island rage here rendered in one of its best version." (At The Ginger Man, 51 West 64th Street--ed.) POWER BREAKFASTS: 12 April 1982, cover, "Power Breakfasts, By Gael Greene." (Long article. Supposedly, it began in 1976--ed.) From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Tue Jan 8 09:25:35 2002 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 04:25:35 -0500 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark A Mandel" To: Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 22:09 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank > > When speaking of a person who likes to distinguish > > trivial details of an obscure subject, is the > > correct form "subject wAnk" or "subject wOnk" ? In thinking on this, I find I make a clear distinction wonk and geek...wonks deal with abstracts, and geeks deal with the concrete...economic policy vs. beer... bkd From kbenson at IREX.ORG Tue Jan 8 14:03:36 2002 From: kbenson at IREX.ORG (Kaia Benson) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 09:03:36 -0500 Subject: IREX's Short-term Travel Grants Program Message-ID: IREX announces an open competition for the Short-Term Travel Grants Program. Application deadline: February 1, 2002 The Short-Term Travel Grants program provides fellowships for up to eight weeks to US holders of graduate degrees for independent or collaborative research projects at institutions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the New Independent States (NIS), Turkey, and Iran that do not require administrative assistance or logistical support. Fellowships in Policy Research and Development are available to successful applicants who demonstrate how their research will make a substantive contribution to knowledge of the contemporary political, economic, historical, or cultural developments in the region, and how such knowledge is relevant to US foreign policy. Note: Fellowships to Turkey and Iran are not available in this category. Fellowships in the Humanities are available to successful applicants in the humanities who demonstrate how their research will advance and disseminate knowledge within the humanities and to successful applicants in the social sciences who employ humanistic methods and have humanistic content. Grant Provisions: ? Grants do not exceed $3,000. ? Airfare on a US flag carrier is provided through IREX/Travel only. ? Per diem to cover in-country costs for meals, lodging, and local transportation. ? Miscellaneous research expenses directly related to your project including but not limited to: visa expenses, photocopying, and medical evacuation insurance. Application and Review Process: ? Application deadline: February 1, 2002. ? Review by a peer review panel. ? Applicants will be notified of award decisions approximately eight weeks after the application deadline. STG applications can be obtained by contacting IREX at: irex at irex.org. Applications and more information are also available online at www.irex.org. *********************************************** Kaia Benson Program Associate International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) 1616 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 Email: kbenson at irex.org Phone: 202-628-8188 ext. 523 Fax: 202-628-8189 From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 8 07:54:19 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 23:54:19 -0800 Subject: wanders In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >A page from a frantic Southwest Airlines employee at the Oakland airport >yesterday: "All available wanders to gate 21, please!" Perhaps that sounded gentler and a bit more magical than screaming for all security personnel to descend on gate 21? Harry Potter wannabes? Rima From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 8 14:39:35 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 09:39:35 -0500 Subject: Origin of "warmedy" Message-ID: I'm trying to trace the origin of the term "warmedy," a sitcom (or comedic movie) that features warm-hearted, family-oriented content. The closest I've come is the following hint: The 'creative team' that set out in the fall of 1978 to put Shirley together began with commensurate ambitions. The show was to be at once witty, happily emotional, and dramatic -- a sort of classy example of the genre that one TV Critic has dubbed 'warmedy.' --Walter Kiechel III, Fortune, December 31, 1979 Does anyone have any idea who the above-mentioned "TV Critic" is? Thanks. Paul From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 8 17:13:48 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 09:13:48 -0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 7, 2002 9:23 PM +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > I don't suppose either > "Czechononslovakia" or "Czechosansslovakia" would catch on... I suppose not. Too bad, because I could get really attached to either one. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 8 18:26:48 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 10:26:48 -0800 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) Message-ID: Larry: > I agree with both sentiments. I don't suppose either > "Czechononslovakia" or "Czechosansslovakia" would catch on... Agreed that "Czechia" sounds kinda weird. It certainly does to me. But OTOH, if there's a Slovakia, why not a Czechia? They're not Czechoslovakia any more. Anne G From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 8 18:30:22 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 10:30:22 -0800 Subject: Regionalisms, New York vs. Chicago - Re: Death by Chocolate Message-ID: Allen: > I see both in Seattle. They appear to be the same to me. I'm not sure that > either is a regionalism in the US, but they might be in Italy. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu I second that! I can do this because i live right here in Little Old Rain City Otherwise Known as Seattle, and I've seen both "penne" and "mostacchioli"(sp?). I just assumed they were two different things. But what do I know? Anne G From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 8 18:33:57 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 12:33:57 -0600 Subject: Pronunciation of the sort "amnejia" (= amnesia) Message-ID: I recently was channel-surfing and came across an old Gomer Pyle movie. Gomer was talking in his typical Gomer Pyle fashion (does anyone really talk like that?), and I was startled to hear him pronounce the word "amnesia" as "amnejia." This has bearing on an interesting speculation advanced by Douglas Wilson, viz.that "jasm" (= energy, enthusiasm; 19th-early 20th cent.; possible source of "jazz") might derive from a variant pronunciation of "(enthu)siasm." I have encountered the objection (personal letter from an eminent U.S. linguist) that "enthusiasm" is pronounced only with a -z- (after the u), not the sound of the -s- of "leisure" or "pleasure." But if Gomer Pyle can pronounce "amnesia" as "amnejia," perhaps some people also pronounce "enthusiasm" as "enthujiasm" or something close to this. So, might anyone be familiar with the pronunciation of the sort "amnejia" or "enthujiasm"? Have there been any dialectal studies on this point? ---Gerald Cohen From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 8 18:53:16 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 10:53:16 -0800 Subject: Pronunciation of the sort "amnejia" (= amnesia) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: FWIW, according to the "Official Jim Nabors" website (http://www.jimnabors.com/) he was born in Sylacauga, Alabama, graduated from the University of Alabama. I often wondered if Gomer Pyle's accent was a exaggeration of some accent he had heard while growing up. Allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Gerald Cohen wrote: > I recently was channel-surfing and came across an old Gomer Pyle movie. > Gomer was talking in his typical Gomer Pyle fashion (does anyone > really talk like that?), and I was startled to hear him pronounce the > word "amnesia" as "amnejia." > > This has bearing on an interesting speculation advanced by Douglas > Wilson, viz.that "jasm" (= energy, enthusiasm; 19th-early 20th cent.; > possible source of "jazz") might derive from a variant pronunciation > of "(enthu)siasm." > > I have encountered the objection (personal letter from an eminent > U.S. linguist) that "enthusiasm" is pronounced only with a -z- (after > the u), not the sound of the -s- of "leisure" or "pleasure." But if > Gomer Pyle can pronounce "amnesia" as "amnejia," perhaps some people > also pronounce "enthusiasm" as "enthujiasm" or something close to > this. > > So, might anyone be familiar with the pronunciation of the sort > "amnejia" or "enthujiasm"? Have there been any dialectal studies on > this point? > > ---Gerald Cohen > From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 8 19:52:50 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 11:52:50 -0800 Subject: policy wonk / policy wank In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From a different sphere, there is the term "fanwank" common among internet discussion groups devoted to popular TV shows, movies, etc. A definition taken from the alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer FAQ (http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ra_forti/FAQ) is: "A fanwank is an explanation made up by fans to cover something left unexplained by the creators, or to cover up an seeming inconsistancy in the stories." I don't know the origin, but I have a suspicion that it goes back to "Dr. Who" or "Star Trek" fan fiction/clubs. So could the practitioner be a "wonk" and the output be "wank?" From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 08:15:03 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 16:15:03 +0800 Subject: Fwd: ADS in Le Monde online Message-ID: Forwarded by a colleague. Hope the accents make their way through. (By the way, thanks to everyone who contributed to the Anchor Steam Beer thread, which reminded me to sample the local product during the meetings.) larry --- begin forwarded text L'attaque sur les tours jumelles est ? l'origine de la plupart des n?ologismes aux Etats-Unis 9-11 : n?ologisme am?ricain de l'ann?e Depuis quelques ann?es, la France avait son "9-3", la fa?on "sauvageonne" de d?signer le d?partement de Seine-Saint-Denis, le 93. D?sormais, les Etats-Unis ont leur "9-11". Cette transcription num?rique de la date (les Anglo-Saxons indiquent d'abord le mois, ensuite le jour) des attaques-suicides sur New York et Washington est pass?e dans le langage courant outre-Alantique et vient de surcro?t d'?tre ?lue mot de l'ann?e 2001. Chaque d?but d'ann?e, une assembl?e d'?minents linguistes, l'American Dialect Society, ?lit le n?ologisme le plus marquant de l'ann?e ?coul?e. Des expressions qui se p?riment aussi vite qu'elles se sont r?pandues ou qui, au contraire, restent grav?es dans les m?moires. Tandis que "Y2K" ("year/2/kilos", soit l'an 2000) invent? pour d?signer le nouveau mill?naire en 1999, a toujours les faveurs des Am?ricains, et se d?cline depuis en "Y2K1" et "Y2K2", on devine que le mot de l'ann?e 1991, "bushlips" (soit les l?vres de Bush p?re), qui s'employait ? propos d'une rh?torique politique malhonn?te, n'a au contraire plus vraiment cours depuis les attaques. L'immense majorit? des expressions retenues pour 2001 d?coulent directement du 11 septembre. En lice, on trouve notamment "hyperterrorism", d?finissant un terrorisme de destruction massive, "theoterrorism", en r?f?rence aux attaques contre des civils pour des motifs religieux, ou encore "ground zero", une expression qui qualifiait l'espace situ? sous l'explosion d'une bombe nucl?aire, mais qui a ?t? r?investie dans le drame pour nommer l'emplacement de ce qui fut le World Trade Center. Dans les n?ologismes encore plus r?cents, on trouve "daisy cutter", soit "faucheuse de marguerites", en r?f?rence ? une bombe am?ricaine particuli?rement puissante utilis?e en Afghanistan et ?lu "plus grand euph?misme" de l'ann?e par le jury. "Shoe-icide bomber", qui joue sur la proximit? phon?tique avec "suicide bomber" (kamikaze), renvoie bien s?r ? >Richard Reid, le passager du vol Paris-Miami qui avait r?ussi ? s'introduire ? bord avec des chaussures remplies d'explosifs. Le terme a ?t? ?lu n?ologisme "le plus cr?atif" de l'ann?e. Dans la veine sexuelle, on trouve l'amusant "Armageddon sex" et sa variante "Apocalypse sex" pour ?voquer les rapprochements affectifs et sexuels suscit?s par la catastrophe new-yorkaise, et, enfin, le peu connu "osamaniacs" qui d?signe les femmes attir?es sexuellement par Oussama Ben Laden. On retiendra de toutes ces cr?ations linguistiques un adjectif assez ?tonnant : "10-septembre". A employer ? propos de quelqu'un d'un peu ?gocentrique, dont les pr?occupations sont superficielles et qui en oublie l'essentiel, comme par exemple que les hommes sont bien peu de chose. "Il perd son temps avec ces histoires sans importance... C'est tellement 10-septembre de sa part !" Evidemment, ?a sonne mieux en anglais. Emmanuelle Jardonnet --- end forwarded text From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 8 21:58:26 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 16:58:26 -0500 Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Lawrence Horn forwarded: ....> "Il perd son temps avec ces histoires sans importance... C'est tellement >10-septembre de sa part !" Evidemment, ?a sonne mieux en anglais. >Emmanuelle Jardonnet ~~~~~~~~~~~ That is SO 9/10! Is this our new expression for antediluvian? A. Murie From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 22:02:33 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 17:02:33 EST Subject: Word of the Year Message-ID: '9-11' Voted America's 'Word of the Year' for 2001 By Andrew Quinn Reuters SAN FRANCISCO (Jan. 4) - After a tumultuous 12 months, American linguist experts agreed Friday that 2001's "word of the year" was actually a number -- 9-11, shorthand for the Sept. 11 attacks. The American Dialect Society, in an annual ritual marking the newest words, phrases and expressions to enter American English over the past year, waved away contenders ranging from "assoline" to "second-hand speech" to hand the crown to "9-11" which -- before the hijacked aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon -- was just another date. "In America it is now the way of referring to the most horrendous event of the century," said Prof. Robert Stockwell of the University of California, Los Angeles. Previous words of the year selected by the Dialect Society have ranged from the obscure (1991's "bushlips", referring to insincere political rhetoric) to the omnipresent (1999's "Y2K", referring to the new millennium). But this year's candidates were clearly colored by the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, which have launched countless new terms into the nation's linguistic pool. "Daisy cutter," military shorthand for a powerful U.S. bomb used in the war in Afghanistan, was voted the "most euphemistic" new word while "shoe-icide bomber," a reference to a man who allegedly sought to bring down an aircraft with explosives hidden in his sneakers, was dubbed "most creative." Other candidates mentioned at Friday's meeting in San Francisco included "Osamaniac," for women sexually attracted to militant Islamic leader Osama bin Laden, "theoterrorism", referring to attacks on civilians for religious purposes, and "women of cover" for Muslim women who wear traditional dress. Wayne Glowka, an English professor at Georgia College and State University and head of the Dialect Society's new words committee, said the media has become a primary conduit for new words entering the language. "When CNN broadcasts a word, millions of people hear it," he said. "People then begin using it to show that they are part of the group." 'WEAPONS-GRADE' SALSA Not all of the words debated at Friday's meeting carried grim connotations of America's "war on terrorism" -- although the linguistic echo of Sept. 11 was hard to ignore. Along with "weaponize," nominated as a word "most likely to succeed" after its repeated use in reference to anthrax attacks in the United States, some dialect experts also suggested "weapons-grade" as a new catch-all superlative. "Weapons-grade salsa would mean really hot," said Allan Metcalf, the society's executive secretary and a member of the English Department at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. "Assoline" -- meaning fuel made from methane -- was voted as the year's "most outrageous" word while "second-hand speech" was given the nod as a useful term for referring to the din of strangers talking on cellphones. The experts agreed the most unnecessary word or phrase of the year was "impeachment nostalgia," meaning a longing for the superficial news of the Clinton era. President Bush, who may have liked last year's new word winner "chad," was cited as the source for one of this year's candidates -- "misunderestimate" -- although it failed to garner sufficient votes to make the slate. The term "9-11" presented some confusion as dialect specialists disagreed on whether it was pronounced "Nine-Eleven," "Nine One One" or simply "September 11th." But most agreed it should be named the word of the year, outstripping even the "ground zero" reference to the World Trade Center ruins as a clear and simple addition to the national vocabulary that will stand the test of time. "It is going to be like the 4th of July or Pearl Harbor," Glowka said. Reuters 22:45 01-04-02 Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 22:02:23 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 17:02:23 -0500 Subject: Fwd: ADS in Le Monde online In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: >On retiendra de toutes ces cr?ations linguistiques un adjectif assez >?tonnant : "10-septembre". A employer ? propos de quelqu'un d'un peu >?gocentrique, dont les pr?occupations sont superficielles et qui en oublie >l'essentiel, comme par exemple que les hommes sont bien peu de chose. "Il >perd son temps avec ces histoires sans importance... C'est tellement >10-septembre de sa part !" Evidemment, ?a sonne mieux en anglais. No comment on the 9/11 or 9/10 tropes. However... perhaps my French Sprachgef?hl is in need of recalibration, but "?a sonne mieux en anglais" sure sounds to me like a calque FROM anglais rather than echt-fran?ais. -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 8 23:08:29 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:08:29 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020107171853.00af4c20@nb.net> Message-ID: I heard the name when I was in Prague in Summer 2000--sounded sensible and natural to me too. At 05:22 PM 1/7/02 -0500, you wrote: >"Czechia" was being used in the media and on the Internet in 1992 or so, >certainly ... sometimes = Bohemia, sometimes = Bohemia + Moravia, or >Czechoslovakia - Slovakia. One Web site claims that the name was made >official by the Czech government in 1993. Seems natural to me. > >-- 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 stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 8 23:25:08 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:25:08 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: <243805.3219470028@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > I suppose not. Too bad, because I could get really attached to either one. Oh. One more thing. In 1993 when I was there, I saw advocacy of what would translate as "Czechomoravia" and "Czechomoravosilesia". Every now and again you hear noise from Moravians who think Moravia should splinter off from Bohemia. Ceskomoravsko actually gets 17 hits. :) -- Steve From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 8 23:55:57 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 15:55:57 -0800 Subject: Modalization Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Monday, January 7, 2002 5:20 PM -0600rrom: Mary Elizabeth Collins To: CFRNET discussion list Subject: [cfrnet] Readiness programs for first-generation college aspirants Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist first-generation college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- A-HA! I finally find this construction in print (at least electronic print). I don't think the omission of the "to" (assist...prepare) is a mere typo, because I notice the folks on NPR using constructions like this all the time. In most instances (though not in this one) the construction could also be expressed as a "that" clause (with optional deletion of the "that"), so that what looks at first glance like the omission of a "to" might also be interpreted as an instance of an apparent journalese taboo against EVER using "that" as a conjunction. Here, though, it seems an unambiguous case of extending the modal-like grammar of "help" to the synonymous but (for me at least) nonmodal "assist." Sorry I can't offer a citation for the ambiguous construction. Every time I hear it on my car radio, I make a mental note to remember it exactly (since it would be bad form to grab a piece of paper and write it down while also navigating through traffic), but by the time I get to work I've forgotten it. Has anyone else noticed this? I presume the "that" phobia originated with some style book somewhere, but I can't quite see a style book as the source of true "modalization" such as we seem to have here. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 8 23:58:05 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:58:05 EST Subject: Jury-Mander; She-E-O; Warmedy Message-ID: JURY-MANDER A pun on "gerrymander." In New York City, we had something called the Crown Heights riots, where a Black killed a Jew (in 1991). The Black man's conviction got over turned because, actually in an attempt to be fair, one Black and one Jew were added to the jury. From today's NEW YORK POST, 8 January 2002, pg. 6, col. 2: That "jury-mandering" by Trager "violates even the most minimal standards of the (jury-selection) process," two judges, Guido Calabresi and Fred Parker, wrote in the 109-page decision. -------------------------------------------------------- SHE-E-O Patricio Russo was named CEO of Lucent Technologies. Carly Fiorina and others are mentioned in the story. The NEW YORK POST headline? From 8 January 2002, pg. 3, col. 1: _MEET THE "SHE"-E-O_ -------------------------------------------------------- WARMEDY My guess is the tv critic of the WASHINGTON POST, but e-mail Marvin Kitman of NEWSDAY. I gave him credit for "begathon," and he might know "warmedy." From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 8 23:55:51 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:55:51 -0500 Subject: Czechia (new word!!!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Baker, John wrote: > The earliest reference I see is from an editorial in the Jerusalem > Post, Sept. 8, 1991: "Slovakia will celebrate its separation from Czechia > as Wales and Scotland declare theirs from England." Several of the early > citations are discussions of what to call the Czech Republic. Here's a much earlier citation: 1957 _Amer. Historical Rev._ 62: 622 There is confirmation, if that is needed, of the fundamental change in attitude in the West produced when the Germans seized "Czechia." I think "Czechia" here is a translation of a German name, perhaps "Tschechien." 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 Wed Jan 9 00:03:31 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 19:03:31 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: <12f.a6c42d6.296bc8dc@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. > This seems late. Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). 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 Tue Jan 8 11:55:17 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 19:55:17 +0800 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:03 PM -0500 1/8/02, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. >> This seems late. > >Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). > >Fred Shapiro > That article makes it clear that the term must have already been well established by 8 Aug. '82, with its references to the A.I.D.S. Project (note the dots still used; the acronym hadn't yet become AIDS) at the Center for Disease Control. Perhaps the chronicles of the disease (Randy Shilts's _And the Band Played On_, or one of the more scholarly books) would have earlier cites, and a history of how the term evolved. larry From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 9 02:07:43 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 21:07:43 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>> I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. >>> This seems late. >> >>Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). >> >>Fred Shapiro >That article makes it clear that the term must have already been well >established by 8 Aug. '82, with its references to the A.I.D.S. >Project (note the dots still used; the acronym hadn't yet become >AIDS) at the Center for Disease Control. Perhaps the chronicles of >the disease (Randy Shilts's _And the Band Played On_, or one of the >more scholarly books) would have earlier cites, and a history of how >the term evolved. The acronym is for "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome". This was/is a label attached to a constellation of odd diseases associated with depressed T-cell count etc. Even the components of AIDS were not noticed/reported until June 1981 (IIRC), although in retrospect isolated instances were found in earlier records. The earliest use in print might be sought by "Med-Line" or other search of the medical literature. The CDC made its "official" definition of AIDS in late 1982, I think, but the expression was used earlier, probably early 1982, surely not before mid-1981 since the entity was not known nor even suspected earlier. The acronym and the pronunciation "aids" appeared in print and speech virtually immediately upon the introduction of the full name of the syndrome, as I recall ... as is frequent in medicine and other fields. I think the printed form "AIDS" without dots probably appeared at the same time as the full syndrome name: this would be the typical medical-journal approach (define the long expression in the first paragraph, give it an abbreviation/acronym, and use the short form throughout the text). [It is my impression that acronyms without dots are much more common than dotted ones in the pertinent literature although I haven't really thought about this; one could check "JAMA" or the "New England Journal of Medicine" for examples of the prevailing style.] -- Doug Wilson From webmaster at MBCMOVIEENGLISH.CO.KR Wed Jan 9 02:02:17 2002 From: webmaster at MBCMOVIEENGLISH.CO.KR (=?ks_c_5601-1987?B?vK2/77nMtfC+7g==?=) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:02:17 +0900 Subject: =?ks_c_5601-1987?B?W7GksO1dbWJjuau68cDXsdu4rr2sLbv5x8NDRLnfvNst?= Message-ID: ??????????????????????????????.A:link { COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none}A:visited { COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none}A:active { COLOR: #ff0033}A:hover { COLOR: #ff0033}BODY { COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 9pt}TD { COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 9pt}.eun { TEXT-DECORATION: underline}.text { COLOR: #333333} ???? ??? ??? ?? ?????. ??? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ?????. MBC ???? ???????? ?????? MBC ???? ?????????. MBC??????? ???? ?? ?? ????? ??? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? M-PEG? ???? ??????.???? ?? ??? ???? (????, ????, ???)??? DICTATION ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ? ??? ???????. MBC ???? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??? ??? ??, SK? ??????? ???? ???????? ???? ???? ????? ?? ? ????, ????? ???? ??? ?? ????. ?? ?? CD ??. ??????? ?? SampleCDw? ????? ??? ??? ????. ?????? ?? ? ??? ???~ ?? ???. ?? ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ?? ??? ??? ?? ? ?? ????? ????.. ????? ???? ??? ?? ? ??? ?? ?? ????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ??? ??. ?????? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ????? ??? ?? ??, ? ??? ??? ??? ?? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ????. ????? ??? ??? ?? ??? ?? ????. Ratcliffe : I hereby claim this land and all its riches ?? ? ?? ?? ?? ?? ???? ???? in the name of His Majesty King James the First, ??? 1? ?? ??? ????, and do so name this settlement Jamestown. ??? ? ??? ??? ??????? ????. Wiggins : Bravo! Bravo! Beautifully spoken, sir. ???! ???! ??? ???????, ??. ????? ??? ??? ???? 1?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ?????, ??? ?? ??? ???????? ???. ??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ??, ???? ??? ??????? ???? ??. in the name of ? ?? ??? ??? ?? ?~? ??????? ??? ????. ? hereby : ???, ?? ??? ? weapon : ?? ? settlement : ???, ???, ??? ? claim : ???? ? beautifully : ????, ???, ???? ?? ?? ??. ???? : 0 2 - 3 6 7 5 - 7 2 3 6 FAX : 0 2 - 3 6 7 5 - 7 2 3 8 ???? : http://www.mbcmovieenglish.co.kr (?)??? ????llllllllllllll TEL(?) : 3675-7326 FAX : (02)3675-7238 ????? ??? ??? 136-56 ??? ???? 12? 1203? Copyright(c) 1999 Integrated Multimedia Application Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. If you have any questions or comments, contact webmaster at mbcmovieenglish.co.kr From dave at WILTON.NET Wed Jan 9 03:53:12 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 19:53:12 -0800 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Shilts credits the coining of the acronym to a 27 July 1982 meeting between various government agencies (including the CDC), the Red Cross and other blood industry representatives, and various gay community groups. (And The Band Played On, Penguin, p. 171) Prior to this, the term most often used was GRID, standing for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Given the outbreak among hemophiliacs and those other than gay men, this older term was no longer deemed accurate. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Laurence Horn Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 3:55 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) At 7:03 PM -0500 1/8/02, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> I checked "AIDS" in OED, and the first citation is 24 September 1982. >> This seems late. > >Nexis has a slightly earlier citation (New York Times, 8 Aug. 1982). > >Fred Shapiro > That article makes it clear that the term must have already been well established by 8 Aug. '82, with its references to the A.I.D.S. Project (note the dots still used; the acronym hadn't yet become AIDS) at the Center for Disease Control. Perhaps the chronicles of the disease (Randy Shilts's _And the Band Played On_, or one of the more scholarly books) would have earlier cites, and a history of how the term evolved. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 04:32:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 23:32:04 EST Subject: General Tso's Chicken Message-ID: A New York City dish? This would probably be news to General Tso. The "General Tso's Chicken Page" on the web states that it probably comes from Peng's restaurant in New York City, about 1974. The page is cited in a note by "The Straight Dope." "General Tso's Chicken" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD. NEW YORK magazine, 2 April 1979, had a long feature article, "New York's Chinese Restaurants." I didn't spot the General anywhere else but on page 51, col. 1: * & 1/2* PENG'S (...) ...General Tso's chicken ($7.95*), in a crisp, sweet, garlic-studded coat with scallions and ginger, is wonderful. (...)(Col. 2--ed.) It's 2:40 now and for all I know it may be the number-four chef manning the wok, but General Tso's chicken is garlicked to transcendence. (...) Peng's, 219 East 44th Street, 682-8050. The General's chicken (the name, at least) was probably inspired by the Colonel Sanders. It should be noted that there were other Chinese generals. Hunam, 845 Second Avenue, at 45th Street, on page 48, col. 2, served "General Gau's duckling ($7.95*)." I'll see if I can find an earlier cite in the CUEs and NEW YORKs. From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jan 9 09:06:50 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 02:06:50 -0700 Subject: Query re "wer" Message-ID: My learned Anglo-Saxonist colleague Carl Berkhout provides this information in regard to the replacement of "wer" and "guma" by "man": Predictably most studies of "wer" have to do with its IE cognates (Latin "vir," etc.) or its use in compounds such as "wergeld," "werewolf," etc., but this item is of some limited relevance: J. P. Stanley and C. McGowan. "_Woman_ and _wife_: Social and Semantic Shifts in English." _Papers in Linguistics_ 12 (1979), 491-502. The word pretty well died out in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, no doubt in large part because of the narrowed meaning of "man" once the "-man" element in OE "wifman" had become weakened. But by this time the existence of so many monosyllabic words, both native and Norman French, looking or sounding roughly like "wer," "were," "wher," "war," etc., might also have contributed to the word?s demise. As for "guma," one really wouldn't want to say that that word was ever replaced by "man," for it was almost exclusively a poetic word. It survived as such, usually in the form "gome" until about the end of the Middle English period and occasionally thereafter as a deliberate archaism. c P.S. And of course "guma" survives in folk-reinterpreted form as the second element of "bride-groom". --RCT From P2052 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 09:21:17 2002 From: P2052 at AOL.COM (P2052 at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 04:21:17 EST Subject: Modalization Message-ID: In a message dated 1/8/02 5:56:47 PM Central Standard Time, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential > funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist first-generation > college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. > > Interesting interpretation! However, I have never heard or read "assist . . . to." I would translate the passage as follows: Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential funders now than a few years ago [of] programs that assist first-generation college aspirants [in] prepar[ing] for and succeed[ing] [at/]in post-secondary education. {OR} Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential fund[s] now than a few years ago for programs [that/to help] first-generation college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. In both cases, ("that" clause or infinitive phrase [to help] ), the word group functions as a modifier of the noun, "programs." However, the verb, "assists," selects for the prepositional phrase ("assists . . . in [VERB'g]") whereas the infinitive, "help," co-occurs most often with the infinitive ("help . . . to"), but can also select for the prepositional phrase, ["help . . . in [VERB'g], P-A-T From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 9 13:50:13 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 08:50:13 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) Message-ID: My father-in-law was a dermatologist with a specialty in STD: when he first began seeing clients in the early 80s with what we'd now call AIDS I remember that he conferred with colleagues about these unusual cases--e.g. young men with Karposi's sarcoma, a disease hitherfore restricted to Mediterranean men in their 80s and 90s--but no one had a name for it. I would look to professional journals (JAMA &c.) for early mentions. ___________________ "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" --Leon Wieseltier From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 9 14:24:41 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 09:24:41 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: <000701c198c1$29f77d80$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On 1/8/02 22:53, "Dave Wilton" wrote: > Shilts credits the coining of the acronym to a 27 July 1982 meeting between > various government agencies (including the CDC), the Red Cross and other > blood industry representatives, and various gay community groups. (And The > Band Played On, Penguin, p. 171) > > Prior to this, the term most often used was GRID, standing for Gay-Related > Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Given the outbreak among hemophiliacs and those > other than gay men, this older term was no longer deemed accurate. I was typing up an entry to say exactly that. I'll add that acronyms for the disease are discussed on page 138 of that edition of the book, under the date entry of April 2, 1982. Other candidates for the acronym that, according to the entry, had been discussed by that point in history were ACIDS (Acquired Community Immune Deficiency Syndrome), CAIDS (Community Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), GRIDs as mentioned, but not AIDS. [The Shilts book is worthy of all praise it has ever received and holds up very well 15 years after having first been published. Its only shortcoming is a lack of a bibliography.] From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 9 14:39:06 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 09:39:06 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: <000601c19914$9036f140$4563c0cc@dbergdah1> Message-ID: "Hitherfore"? Was that a lapsus, or is that a real form? Just curious... On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, David Bergdahl wrote: > My father-in-law was a dermatologist with a specialty in STD: when he first > began seeing clients in the early 80s with what we'd now call AIDS I > remember that he conferred with colleagues about these unusual cases--e.g. > young men with Karposi's sarcoma, a disease hitherfore restricted to > Mediterranean men in their 80s and 90s--but no one had a name for it. I > would look to professional journals (JAMA &c.) for early mentions. > ___________________ > "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" > --Leon Wieseltier > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 9 02:29:49 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 10:29:49 +0800 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:39 AM -0500 1/9/02, Benjamin Fortson wrote: >"Hitherfore"? Was that a lapsus, or is that a real form? Just curious... David must have intended "thitherfore" or perhaps "theretofore". (I think it's also Kaposi's.) L > >On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, David Bergdahl wrote: > >> My father-in-law was a dermatologist with a specialty in STD: when he first >> began seeing clients in the early 80s with what we'd now call AIDS I >> remember that he conferred with colleagues about these unusual cases--e.g. >> young men with Karposi's sarcoma, a disease hitherfore restricted to >> Mediterranean men in their 80s and 90s--but no one had a name for it. I >> would look to professional journals (JAMA &c.) for early mentions. >> ___________________ >> "The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly" >> --Leon Wieseltier >> From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 9 16:00:01 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:00:01 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore Message-ID: See the google search at http://www.google.com/search?q=hitherfore&btnG=Google+Search for citations; I didn't think I'd made it up! ___________________ David Bergdahl From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 9 03:19:46 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:19:46 +0800 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: <000501c19926$b313a2a0$f10503d8@dbergdah1> Message-ID: At 11:00 AM -0500 1/9/02, David Bergdahl wrote: >See the google search at >http://www.google.com/search?q=hitherfore&btnG=Google+Search for citations; >I didn't think I'd made it up! No, but for me the "hither" version would have to be deictic = 'before now/here/this', as in "heretofore", while your use was referential = 'before then/there/that', whence "thitherfore". Of course, there are no hits for that on google or anywhere else, but there's no time like the present... L From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Wed Jan 9 16:27:10 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:27:10 -0500 Subject: The Meaning of Life (1914) & AIDS (1981-1982) Message-ID: It sounds as if the widespread public use of the term must date from the CDC's announcements in August 1982. The earliest reference in Science is Research News: New Disease Baffles Medical Community: "AIDS" is a serious public health hazard, but may also provide insights into the workings of the immune system and the origin of cancer (Aug. 13, 1982). Here's the first paragraph: >>Within the past 4 years, a new disease of unknown cause and high virulence has afflicted more than 470 people, killing almost half of them. "It is a serious public health problem," says Harry Haverkos of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), referring to what is known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). "So far 184 people have died, which is more than the combined total of deaths attributed to toxic shock and the Philadelphia outbreak of Legionnaire's disease." Moreover, the toll continues to mount as 15 to 20 new cases are reported every week.<< One gets a sense that the full extent of the problem was not immediately realized. John Baker From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Wed Jan 9 16:23:12 2002 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 10:23:12 -0600 Subject: Modalization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I agree. 'Assist' has not usually been used with an infinitive, either with or without 'to'. Both "assist aspirants prepare for college" and "assist aspirants to prepare for college" sound odd to me, and the former sounds *really* odd. Victoria On Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:21 AM, P-A-T wrote: > > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are > fewer potential > > funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist > first-generation > > college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. > > > > Interesting interpretation! However, I have never heard or read > "assist . . > . to." I would translate the passage as follows: > > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential > funders now than a few years ago [of] programs that assist > first-generation > college aspirants [in] prepar[ing] for and succeed[ing] [at/]in > post-secondary education. > > {OR} > > Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential > fund[s] now than a few years ago for programs [that/to help] > first-generation > college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. > > > In both cases, ("that" clause or infinitive phrase [to help] ), the word > group functions as a modifier of the noun, "programs." However, the verb, > "assists," selects for the prepositional phrase ("assists . . . > in [VERB'g]") > whereas the infinitive, "help," co-occurs most often with the infinitive > ("help . . . to"), but can also select for the prepositional > phrase, ["help > . . . in [VERB'g], > P-A-T > Victoria Neufeldt 1533 Early Drive Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 3K1 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 9 17:06:58 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 12:06:58 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: <000501c19926$b313a2a0$f10503d8@dbergdah1> Message-ID: "Irrespective" + "regardless" = "irregardless". "Hitherto" + "heretofore" = "hitherfore". -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 17:54:20 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 12:54:20 EST Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, has passed to Burger Heaven (no, not the chain restaurant). From the NEW YORK POST, 9 January 2001, pg. 20, col. 1: _Farewell to the tru burger king_ _Wendy's CEO mourned as a bizman and a star_ (...) It was Iacocca who pioneered the role of the CEO pitchman, and it was Kiam who came up with the phrase everyone remembers... This is wrong! There have been many other pitchmen in the food business, such as Roy Rogers. Paul Newman also pitches his own brand. Tom Carvel is another. However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. He pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. People remember Orville even today, although he's been dead a few years now. Towards the end, his son was featured in some ads. OFF TOPIC: Buy Andrew Smith's book on popcorn! It's like butter! From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 19:20:29 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 14:20:29 EST Subject: Web page woes Message-ID: The ADS web page is in dire need of updating. I mentioned this several months ago, and nothing has been done in the interim. I'm delighted that we have been able--in just a few days--to get posted the information about our latest word-of-the-year. However: ?I think it is at least as important that the web page indicate that PADS is one of our publications (so far as I can see, PADS is not listed anywhere)! There should be a sidebar listing of "Monograph Series" along with "American Speech" "Calls" "Etc." (clicking on "Monograph Series" should link the seeker to a list of current and projected PADS, and a further link to a list of ALL past PADS) together with information on how to acquire them separately, perhaps through a link with Duke Press)--AND PADS SHOULD AT LEAST BE LISTED UNDER "Publications"! ?I think it is also at least as important that the web page indicate who are officers are (e.g., I have not been president for over a year now, but I'm still listed as president). ?I think it is at least as important that the price of dues for membership be correctly listed (it is not). ?I think it is at least as important that the listing of Calls for Papers be up to date (We currently list ONLY [1] VIEW 2000: Variation Is Everywhere 14-16 September, 2000; [2] Gullah: A Linguistic Legacy of Africans in America *A Conference on the 50th Anniversary of Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect, Friday, November 3, 2000; [3] the 2000 NWAV conference at Michigan State University); and [4] the MLA Present-Day English Discussion Group is seeking papers for its session at the 2000 MLA Conference, Dec. 27-30, in Washington, DC.). Apparently we didn't have any information here about the 2002 meeting before it happened--and there is certainly no information about important upcoming meetings. I suggest that the Executive Secretary find a volunteer to act as Director of Content for the Web page. Our web page is now the chief way that the public sees us. Presenting misinformation, no information, and out-fo-date information really makes us look foolish. From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 19:31:20 2002 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 14:31:20 EST Subject: Web page woes Message-ID: I am happy to report that, during informal conversations at our Annual Meeting, and recognizing the importance of keeping the website up to date, Steve Kleinedler agreed to be the very volunteer that Ron proposes. Steve is already communicating with Grant Barrett, and I expect you'll start seeing significant improvement soon - I've just sent the two of them some suggestions regarding dues and membership information. If anyone has suggestions or requests for the website, they should be addressed to stevekl at panix.com Of course, I'm forwarding Ron's suggestions, just in case Steve and Grant haven't seen them already. - Allan Metcalf From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 9 19:28:59 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:28:59 -0800 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" Message-ID: >>> carljweber 01/06/02 02:42PM >>> Etymology Query: "They" Carl Jeffrey Weber (I couldn't find anything by searching the archives.) Given all that the OED says about "they" (and other pronouns) -- I have for years carried around two questions: 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? 'They, them, their' (with various spellings) are found in Old Norse, but not in Old English or any other Germanic language. 'They' enters English at the same time and place as many other Norse words (of course after the Vikings settled in England) (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of forms only? No, not 'probably', it's certain. 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during the period of Norman dominance? No one really knows why the pronoun changed, altho some people have suggested that there was confusion with the 3 person masculine 'he.' I do not find that a convincing argument at all. It did not have anything to do with the Normans. Another puzzle is why native English 'aeg', pronounced something like modern English 'eye,' was replaced by Scandinavian 'egg.' There does not seem to be any good reason for this type of change. (We do have remnants of Old English 'aeg' in Modern English--cock-eyed and Cockney.) This "they" pronoun seems to have been the only trespasser into "basic" English (with the other th-plurals later following). Some scholars have thought that 'she' (which is much more interesting than 'they') is from Scandinavian 'sja.' In a forthcoming article on the etymology of 'she,' I discuss what is wrong with this theory (and propose my own.) Has any native source been suggested? No. Fritz Juengling PhD Germanic Philology From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 9 19:35:52 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 14:35:52 -0500 Subject: hitherfore In-Reply-To: <194.dc7393.296df1fd@aol.com> Message-ID: Quoth the Raven: "Hitherfore!" All very interesting. No evidence for a "thitherfore", as far as I can tell--but with only 21 hits on Google for "hitherto", that's not very surprising, esp. given how much more common "hither" is than "thither" (and compounds). I wonder how common "hitherfore" really is... From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 9 19:36:24 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:36:24 -0800 Subject: query Message-ID: I was involved in a discussion yesterday concerning "medical culture" which broadened into "x culture" ("legal culture", "military culture", etc.). This led to a check of the usage in the American Heritage Dictionary (online version) 4th ed. 2000, which has the following: "Ever since C.P. Snow wrote of the gap between the two cultures (the humanities and science) in the 1950s, the notion that culture can refer to smaller segments of society has seemed implicit. Its usage in the corporate world may also have been facilitated by increased awareness of the importance of genuine cultural differences in a global economy, as between Americans and the Japanese, that have a broad effect on business practices." My questions are: is there any evidence for the usage of "x culture" before 1950, has there been anything published on this, and is this usage more American than British? (American Heritage dates "corporate culture" to "business jargon of the late 1980s and early 1990s". A Google search turned up: "medical culture" 2,050 hits, "military culture" 6,080 hits, "cowboy culture" 2,790 hits, "beer culture" 1,650 hits, "software engineering culture" 790 hits and "six-pack culture" 7 hits. I'm guessing the software one is comparatively recent. Since it is not strictly about dialect, please feel free to respond to me personally unless you think it of interest to the list. Thanks very much. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From Ittaob at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 20:06:16 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:06:16 EST Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: In a message dated 1/9/02 12:55:24 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: << However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. He pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. >> Don't you mean "was Orville Redenbacher"? Orville Wright was one of the Wright brothers. Steve From stevekl at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 9 20:17:18 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: Web page woes In-Reply-To: <10e.a7f1267.296df488@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > If anyone has suggestions or requests for the website, they should be > addressed to > > stevekl at panix.com Let me explicitly repeat, send them to my email account and not to the listserv, because there are long stretches in which I don't have the time to read the listserv. Seocndly, please put "website" somewhere in the subject field. I will be prioritizing my PINE so that I see such messages sooner. Thanks, Steve From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 9 20:20:33 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:20:33 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Laurence Horn wrote: #No, but for me the "hither" version would have to be deictic = #'before now/here/this', as in "heretofore", while your use was #referential = 'before then/there/that', whence "thitherfore". Of #course, there are no hits for that on google or anywhere else, but #there's no time like the present... Now I see what I don't like about that word: It can't decide what direction it's pointing in. "Hitherto" = 'up until here/now', and the movement of both elements is is in the direction of the arrow of time, forward. (Likewise "thitherto", of course.) Its normal counterpart, "henceforward", follows the arrow forward from here/now, again consistently. But in "hitherfore" the "hither" moves forward to the present while the "fore" looks backward from it. It bites. I can only think it was coined by somebody who knew a little bit about "hither" and "hence" and "fore", but not enough. "Drink deep, or taste not!" -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large (not hired by the company that bought the surviving fragment of Dragon research) From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 9 20:23:24 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:23:24 -0500 Subject: s.v. hitherfore In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020109120549.00b08050@nb.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: #"Irrespective" + "regardless" = "irregardless". # #"Hitherto" + "heretofore" = "hitherfore". You're probably right. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 9 20:38:11 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 15:38:11 -0500 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: #Another puzzle is why native English 'aeg', pronounced #something like modern English 'eye,' was replaced by #Scandinavian 'egg.' There does not seem to be any good #reason for this type of change. (We do have remnants of #Old English 'aeg' in Modern English--cock-eyed and #Cockney.) "Cock-eyed"? Please explain why < 'egg' not 'eye'. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 9 21:11:49 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 16:11:49 -0500 Subject: Etymology Query: "They" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Note that "cock-eyed", unlike "Cockney", does not continue OE aeg 'egg'. I don't know of any attestations prior to the 1820's, and it's always referred to eyes and not eggs. On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > >>> carljweber 01/06/02 02:42PM >>> > Etymology Query: "They" > > Carl Jeffrey Weber > > (I couldn't find anything by searching the archives.) > Given all that the OED says about "they" (and other pronouns) -- I have for > years carried around two questions: > > 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? > > 'They, them, their' (with various spellings) are found in Old Norse, but not in Old English or any other Germanic language. 'They' enters English at the same time and place as many other Norse words (of course after the Vikings settled in England) > > (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of > forms only? > > No, not 'probably', it's certain. > > 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? > Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during > the period of Norman dominance? > > No one really knows why the pronoun changed, altho some people have suggested that there was confusion with the 3 person masculine 'he.' I do not find that a convincing argument at all. > It did not have anything to do with the Normans. > Another puzzle is why native English 'aeg', pronounced something like modern English 'eye,' was replaced by Scandinavian 'egg.' There does not seem to be any good reason for this type of change. (We do have remnants > of Old English 'aeg' in Modern English--cock-eyed and Cockney.) > > This "they" pronoun seems to have been the only trespasser into "basic" > English (with the other th-plurals later following). > > Some scholars have thought that 'she' (which is much more interesting than 'they') is from Scandinavian 'sja.' In a forthcoming article on the etymology of 'she,' I discuss what is wrong with this theory (and propose my own.) > > Has any native source > been suggested? > > No. > > > Fritz Juengling > PhD Germanic Philology > From jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU Wed Jan 9 22:18:58 2002 From: jmiller at FRANKLINCOLLEGE.EDU (Miller, Jerry) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 17:18:58 -0500 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Steve: You mean you never heard of "Orville's Flying Popcorn"? Jerry > -----Original Message----- > From: Ittaob at AOL.COM [SMTP:Ittaob at AOL.COM] > Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:06 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn > > In a message dated 1/9/02 12:55:24 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: > > << However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. > He > pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. >> > > Don't you mean "was Orville Redenbacher"? Orville Wright was one of the > Wright brothers. > > Steve From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Wed Jan 9 22:54:57 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 16:54:57 -0600 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Would that be in Orvillian Sci-Fi? You know; the guy that wrote 2084? "Miller, Jerry" wrote: > > Steve: You mean you never heard of "Orville's Flying Popcorn"? > > Jerry > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Ittaob at AOL.COM [SMTP:Ittaob at AOL.COM] > > Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:06 PM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn > > > > In a message dated 1/9/02 12:55:24 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: > > > > << However, easily before Iacocca and before Thomas, was Orville Wright. > > He > > pitched Orville-Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn. >> > > > > Don't you mean "was Orville Redenbacher"? Orville Wright was one of the > > Wright brothers. > > > > Steve From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 9 23:11:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 18:11:17 EST Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn Message-ID: Orville REDENBACHER, not Wright. Yeah, that's what I get for quickly surfing the internet on a Kinko's computer on my lunch hour. "Let's Talk Food: Give Orville a Kernel of Credit for Promoting His Popcorn" mentioned both Orvilles. Now, I've got an hour to look up "General Tso" and solve "AIDS".... From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 00:00:49 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 16:00:49 -0800 Subject: Modalization Message-ID: Peter, for years I have been taking notice of whether people write "help...to + verb" or simply "help ...verb." I do not know what grammar books suggest, but the 'to' seems wordy and unnecessary and I leave it out of both my writing and speech. On the other hand, I often hear this curious construction that always baffles me: ....'try AND do (something) I always 'try TO do (something) The first construction makes it sound as if there are two things to accomplish: try and something else, as if to try were separate from the something else. Fritz J >>> "Peter A. McGraw" 01/08/02 03:55PM >>> ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Monday, January 7, 2002 5:20 PM -0600rrom: Mary Elizabeth Collins To: CFRNET discussion list Subject: [cfrnet] Readiness programs for first-generation college aspirants Here's a conversational gambit: Seems to me that there are fewer potential funders now than a few years ago for programs that assist first-generation college aspirants prepare for and succeed in post-secondary education. ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- A-HA! I finally find this construction in print (at least electronic print). I don't think the omission of the "to" (assist...prepare) is a mere typo, because I notice the folks on NPR using constructions like this all the time. In most instances (though not in this one) the construction could also be expressed as a "that" clause (with optional deletion of the "that"), so that what looks at first glance like the omission of a "to" might also be interpreted as an instance of an apparent journalese taboo against EVER using "that" as a conjunction. Here, though, it seems an unambiguous case of extending the modal-like grammar of "help" to the synonymous but (for me at least) nonmodal "assist." Sorry I can't offer a citation for the ambiguous construction. Every time I hear it on my car radio, I make a mental note to remember it exactly (since it would be bad form to grab a piece of paper and write it down while also navigating through traffic), but by the time I get to work I've forgotten it. Has anyone else noticed this? I presume the "that" phobia originated with some style book somewhere, but I can't quite see a style book as the source of true "modalization" such as we seem to have here. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From leecyqqq at YAHOO.CO.KR Thu Jan 10 00:25:23 2002 From: leecyqqq at YAHOO.CO.KR (â) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 09:25:23 +0900 Subject: No subject Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 10 02:00:20 2002 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 18:00:20 -0800 Subject: FW: [Fwd: Oxford English Dictionary wants you!] Message-ID: > The Oxford English Dictionary is looking for some help with sci-fi words. > Not definitions, but examples of usage. > > Check out: http://www.jessesword.com/SF/sf_citations.shtml From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 10 03:42:00 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 22:42:00 -0500 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn In-Reply-To: <7CD653105654D411A74900508B6904E92183EC@bravo.franklincollege.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Miller, Jerry wrote: #Steve: You mean you never heard of "Orville's Flying Popcorn"? Is that a filk* ttto** "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? -- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname http://world.std.com/~mam/filk.html * In this usage, a parody or a song using the tune & structure of another. More generally, music of sf/fantasy fandom. ** to the tune of From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 10 08:04:37 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 02:04:37 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) Message-ID: Etymology: "They" Carl Jeffrey Weber I had asked two questions, I'd like to comment on the second one first. 2. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? Were there developmental constraints, the result of reorganization during the period of Norman dominance? Fritz Juengling responded >No one really knows why the pronoun changed, altho some people have suggested that >there was confusion with the 3 person masculine 'he.' I do not find that a convincing >argument at all. It did not have anything to do with the Normans. I'd like to offer a simple explanation why the pronoun changed. I worked on the problems of the pronouns ten years ago, doing my extremely labor intensive masters thesis on it - unfortunately, although they gave me the degree, no one ever looked at my paper. I'm grateful, therefore, for the chance to present some of my findings. Why was the older nominative all-genders plural pronoun replaced at all? When the preterit plural disappeared from the language, and the preterit was no longer marked for number, the disappearance was balanced by the development of an unambiguous written plural pronoun (because the feminine/plural no longer expressed concord). A perfectly elegant example of this is seen in the following lines from La3amons Brut, from about 1200. Eneas nom Lauine; leofliche to wife. he wes king & heo quen; & kine-lond heo welden. "Eneas took Lavine lovingly to wife. He was king, and she queen, and (the) kingdom they governed." - from Sir Frederic Maddon. If the preterit (welden) were not marked for plural, the sentence would have to be refashioned because the reader would not know if it was "she" or "they" that "governed". Incidentally, in the one other extant manuscript of La3amons Brut, from later in the century, there is NO preterit plural, and so there is no single "feminine/plural" form as in the example. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 1. What is the evidence behind the OED's presentation that "they" is Danish? Fritz Juengling responded >'They, them, their' (with various spellings) are found in Old Norse, but not in Old >English or any other Germanic language. 'They' enters English at the same time and >place as many other Norse words (of course after the Vikings settled in England) [Actually, and albeit of small significance, there DO seem to be morphological identities with Swedish and Norwegian (th = d); and with Old and Modern Icelandic in the oblique cases (of each of the three plural genders)! CJW] I had asked (a) Is it a "probably" type conclusion? (b) Is it based on similarity of forms only? >No, not 'probably', it's certain. I'm very aware of the obvious advanced knowledge of others in these general areas, and I admittedly confine my expertise to a very narrow focus. Getting to the point -- I took from the OED all the h-stem forms, the th- forms, and others as well, and made many pages of exhibits, organizing them in various ways - mapping over the centuries the persistence of their grammatical and orthographical forms. No small task. The real surprise, however, came with comparative analysis of the seventeen manuscripts of the A-Version of Piers Plowman. Across the lines of the manuscripts I extracted thirty-six hundred examples (another no small task), and then constructed the personal pronoun paradigms for each of the written dialects of the seventeen manuscripts. My conclusions follow from my primary assumption that the paradigms of Piers Plowman are highly representative of the general dialects in 15th century England. My observations are not restricted to the status/prestige dialects from which Standard English developed. (Fernand Moss? says that Piers was closer to the common people than any other, and more English than Chaucer.) My major conclusion, based on the seventeen paradigms (granting special conditions for "they", as mentioned above, and other conditions for "she") - it was PRINTING that was the most significant event in the restructuring of the historical personal pronouns. Printing, with only a few qualifications, CAUSED (strong word) the demise of the h-stem pronouns. Printing set the standard of the King's English throughout the land - at least insofar as the written personal pronouns were concerned. The H-stems had been alive and well in all the dialects of Piers until printing! The seventeen manuscripts of Piers show this in unmistakable terms. Why did Caxton, England's first printer, make certain changes? - as students of the language are well aware, he began using "them" and "their" mid-career, replacing the h-stems. It was not "diffusion" that explains it. Examining the seventeen paradigms shows why. There were many orthographical h-stem forms of "her". There were many orthographical h-stems forms for "their". In many instances, the singular and plural shared the same orthographies. As examples, were in some dialects singular, in some plural. The same situation existed among the many forms of "him" and "them". What was singular-masculine/neuter-object in some dialects was the all-genders plural object in others. Caxton solved the problem and created a standardized universal written concord through settling on the use of the unambiguous written th-plural, apparently patterned on the plural th-nominative, already in the language for several centuries, but adopted for other reasons. The "th-" was added to the "-m" (the "-m" was the mark of the dative turned object) and to the "-r" (genitive) morphologies. The OED has been the authority of final resort and authority in understanding these pronouns. Everybody quotes the OED, and well they should. And conservatism in scholarship should be a primary value. Not available at the time the OED made its observations, however, was the monumental compilation in George Kane's Piers Plowman (1960), which had built on the inspiring, and none the less monumental, scholarship of Walter W. Skeat. The seventeen paradigms of the A Version of Piers Plowman show the h-stem feminine and the h-stem plurals were thriving in the 15th century. Printing swept them away and established a new universal standard. Even the h-stem nominative plural was to be found, although almost undetectable, in 15th century English - but, amazingly, it is seen in five manuscripts of Piers, in Prologue Line 63. I assume John Langland, the author, could have done it differently, but the h-stem nominative plural RIMES Langland's original "h-" alliteration in that line. An amazing prize of a find! Except for the status/prestige dialects, the "she" pronoun had not made the gain so quickly into the language after 1200 as one might be lead to believe by everything that has in modern times been written about it. Feminine [hi] is found far and wide across the manuscripts of Piers. It is often in variation in the same manuscript with the sh- form. I must accept the general validity of Eric John Dobson's sound shift data (that by 1400 the rising front diphthong settled to [i]), and the observation of the OED that <-o> at the end of in 1400 had long since been dropped from general speech. (I've seen "heo" rimed with "se"!). In Passus X, Line 46, the h-stem feminine is seen in a majority of the seventeen manuscripts - [hi]. Printing swept the h-stem feminine aside, too, at least from the printed word. Depending if one is talking about the orthography or the phonology, there is a good argument that [hi] WAS indeed the much-disparaged "so called generic" pronoun of modern times - and of course, [hi] was not a masculine pronoun for most of the history of the English Language! As the feminine, it had been originally the singular accusative, and then became widely used as a feminine subject pronoun, spelled with its Roman value, , and pronounced exactly as the modern masculine singular! (For my OE paradigms, I used Pyles, Marckwardt, Baugh, Bloomfield, and Campbell). This is not to say there were not other forms. This [hi] was also the plural of the nominative and accusative, and continued to be widely found (even after the general displacement of the accusative by the dative in "-m"). Simply put, my current understanding, a sociolinguistic one, is that "sh-" seems to have been preferred as the written and status/prestige form -- no doubt the preferred form of address by the ladies of the court -- based, apparently, on the French model of distinct pronouns for the masculine and feminine. Among the common folk of the 15th century, as seen in Piers, [hi] often served quite adequately for man and woman alike. ///////////////////// As far as the source of "they", lacking an alternative explanation, the Danish source has served well for an impressively long time. Whether it was in fact Danish or not, it filled the role, it seems, that I earlier presented - providing an unambiguous written plural when the preterit plural (except "to be") was dropped. What seems to me to be a good "source" candidate, an improvement on the Danish theory, is that it is one of the developments of the same lexical item that gives us "the" - a demonstrative from WITHIN the language. (The "?e" orthography is an article, personal pronoun, demonstrative adjective, demonstrative pronoun, relative, and also a second person object!!) The "?e" pronoun as a singular is often translated as "who". Why not just call it singular "they"? It is many times, especially with plural or uninflected verbs, easily interpreted as the relative, "that", and often interchangeable with it with no loss of meaning. Why not call it the incipient "they". The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". \\\\\\\\\\\\ Whatever you may think -- whether edified, entertained, or exasperated -- of the various observations made above, please note that I have never had an opportunity, since I spent several years doing this work ten years ago, to present, vent, or discuss it with anybody having a knowledge of the subject area, or the technicalities involved -- and it's a heartfelt cathartic experience that I will have had been able to tell it before turning to dust. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 10 08:27:30 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 03:27:30 -0500 Subject: Ruth Brend dies Message-ID: I am not sure how many members of ADS knew her. Ruth Brend was a longstanding member of the International Linguistic Association (formerly the Linguistic Circle of New York). It is with sadness that I pass along the notice of her death last Tuesday evening. David barnhart at highlands.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 10 12:44:03 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 07:44:03 -0500 Subject: Ruth Brend dies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ADS Colleagues, Here at Michigan State, Ruth's old home, we were sad indeed to learn of her death. She was, until her death, a very active person in linguistics. When I came here more than a decade ago, I found a little badge in my desk drawer with a green ribbon and a typed ID. It read "Ruth Brend, Secretary to Kenneth L. Pike." I knew my new desk had been Ruth's old one. I got to know her very well during my early Michigan days, and I admired her very much. Dennis >I am not sure how many members of ADS knew her. Ruth Brend was a >longstanding member of the International Linguistic Association >(formerly the Linguistic Circle of New York). It is with sadness that >I pass along the notice of her death last Tuesday evening. > >David > >barnhart at highlands.com -- From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 16:23:32 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:23:32 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) Message-ID: Carl, intersting note. About 4 or 5 years ago there appeared a book, based on someone's dissertation I believe, that is a description of 'all' the pronouns in all the Germanic languages. It came out about the same time that I was investigating pronouns. Unfortunately, I do not remember the author's name nor the exact title of the book. I want to say it was 'stephan' somebody, but I am not sure about that. The title is predictably something like "The Pronouns of the Germanic Languages." I think it may have been published by de Gruyter. Have you seen this book? I'd be interested to see your paper Incidentally, in the one other extant manuscript of La3amons Brut, from later in the century, there is NO preterit plural, and so there is no single "feminine/plural" form as in the example. How does it read? What seems to me to be a good "source" candidate, an improvement on the Danish theory, is that it is one of the developments of the same lexical item that gives us "the" - a demonstrative from WITHIN the language. (The "?e" orthography is an article, personal pronoun, demonstrative adjective, demonstrative pronoun, relative, and also a second person object!!) The "?e" pronoun as a singular is often translated as "who". Why not just call it singular "they"? It is many times, especially with plural or uninflected verbs, easily interpreted as the relative, "that", and often interchangeable with it with no loss of meaning. Why not call it the incipient "they". The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". Interesting idea. I do not believe I have come across this before. Have you been able to find '?e' used as 'they' (i.e.nom, pl, sentence subject--that last one is crucial!)? You will also need to explain the modern pronunciation with the diphthong [ei]. I do not think '?e', if stressed and it were a long vowel, would have rendered the diphthong; we would have [?i:] (that's really voiced, but I cannot produce the voiced symbol). "They" as a single is, of course, very old--at least Early Modern English, but I am not sure when we find its 'first' occurrence. Is it as old as Piers? that would be an interesting investigation. Fritz \\\\\\\\\\\\ Whatever you may think -- whether edified, entertained, or exasperated -- of the various observations made above, please note that I have never had an opportunity, since I spent several years doing this work ten years ago, to present, vent, or discuss it with anybody having a knowledge of the subject area, or the technicalities involved -- and it's a heartfelt cathartic experience that I will have had been able to tell it before turning to dust. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Thu Jan 10 16:40:55 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:40:55 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here is the reference to the book: Howe, Stephen, 1964- The personal pronouns in the Germanic languages : b a study of personal pronoun morphology and change in the Germanic languages from the first records to the present day / c Stephen Howe. New York : b Walter de Gruyter, 1996. xxii, 390 : ill., maps ; 25 cm. (Studia linguistica Germanica ; 43) Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of London, 1995. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 16:59:21 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:59:21 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) Message-ID: That's it! Thanks Allen. Fritz >>> "A. Maberry" 01/10/02 08:40AM >>> Here is the reference to the book: Howe, Stephen, 1964- The personal pronouns in the Germanic languages : b a study of personal pronoun morphology and change in the Germanic languages from the first records to the present day / c Stephen Howe. New York : b Walter de Gruyter, 1996. xxii, 390 : ill., maps ; 25 cm. (Studia linguistica Germanica ; 43) Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of London, 1995. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 10 18:47:54 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 12:47:54 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) Message-ID: Fritz, I said: The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". Fritz Juengling said, Interesting idea. I do not believe I have come across this before. Have you been able to find '?e' used as 'they' (i.e.nom, pl, sentence subject--that last one is crucial!)? ///////////// If I'm not mistaken, the following shows the "incipient plural they", again, from about 1200: ...Noe & Sem Japhet & Cham & heore four wives ?e mid heom weren on archen. ...Noah & Shem Japheth & Ham (,) & their four wives (;) they [that, who] were with them on (the) ark. A curious thing is how quickly /they/ was adopted into writing -- although far from being universally so. The OE feminine/plural could no longer be invariable used when the preterit plural fell from use. (Many forms of h-stems for the plural, differentiated from the feminine singular within the same written dialect, were also used.) I imagine there was, as an aside at a national convocation of the Church hierarchy, the "correct" written plural proposed. /////////////// Fritz Juengling said, You will also need to explain the modern pronunciation with the diphthong [ei]. I do not think '?e', if stressed and it were a long vowel, would have rendered the diphthong; we would have [?i:] (that's really voiced, but I cannot produce the voiced symbol). //////////////// As I understand it, modern "they" retains the OE pronunciation of . Perhaps shedding some light on this, the second person "thee" shows before 1400 the spelling also -- BEFORE the rising diphthong went to [i]. The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation. The emphatic modern article "the" [thi] shows the same pronunciation, the raised diphthong. How this makes sense to me is explained by one of the characteristics of English -- its drift, in some cases, from the phonetic principle; variant spellings produce the same phonological shape -- I, eye, aye. What makes sense to me is that "they" (th-y) and its spelling variations represent a written form to distinguish it from the many other uses of "?e". I've also considered, in passing, that the overload on influenced the adoption of "you" instead of the "th-" forms. Carl From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 10 19:09:43 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 13:09:43 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) revised Message-ID: Etymology: "They" (short) revised Carl Jeffrey Weber //////////// Fritz, I said: The theory here presented, "they" as native and a duplet with "the", also offers to explain the SINGLE NUMBER morphology of "they". Fritz Juengling said, Interesting idea. I do not believe I have come across this before. Have you been able to find used as 'they' (i.e.nom, pl, sentence subject--that last one is crucial!)? ///////////// If I'm not mistaken, the following shows the "incipient plural they", again, from about 1200: ...Noe & Sem Japhet & Cham & heore four wives [thorn+e] mid heom weren on archen. ...Noah & Shem Japheth & Ham (,) & their four wives (;) they [that, who] were with them on (the) ark. A curious thing is how quickly /they/ was adopted into writing -- although far from being universally so. The OE feminine/plural could no longer be invariable used when the preterit plural fell from use. (Many forms of h-stems for the plural, differentiated from the feminine singular within the same written dialect, were also used.) I imagine there was, as an aside at a national convocation of the Church hierarchy, the "correct" written plural proposed. /////////////// Fritz Juengling said, You will also need to explain the modern pronunciation with the diphthong [ei]. I do not think [thorn+e] if stressed and it were a long vowel, would have rendered the diphthong; we would have [thorn+i:] (that's really voiced, but I cannot produce the voiced symbol). //////////////// As I understand it, modern "they" retains the OE pronunciation of [thorn+e]. Perhaps shedding some light on this, the second person "thee" shows before 1400 the spelling [thorn+e] also -- BEFORE the rising diphthong went to [i]. The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation. The emphatic modern article "the" /thi/ shows the same pronunciation, the raised diphthong. How this makes sense to me is explained by one of the characteristics of English -- its drift, in some cases, from the phonetic principle; variant spellings produce the same phonological shape -- I, eye, aye. What makes sense to me is that "they" (th-y) and its spelling variations represent a written form to distinguish it from the many other uses of [thorn+e]. I've also considered, in passing, that the overload on [thorn+e] influenced the adoption of "you" instead of the "th-" forms. Carl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main ADS-L page ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Back to the LISTSERV home page at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 10 19:32:16 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 11:32:16 -0800 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: To all I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made up" word? Anne G > > On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Larry Trask wrote: > > > --On Tuesday, January 8, 2002 5:23 pm +0000 Paul Gross > > wrote: > > > > [LT] > > > > > Well, there's another possibility. Perhaps Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida > > > and company were not such profound thinkers after all. Perhaps, in fact, > > > they were hopelessly shallow but grotesquely overrated. Has anyone > > > explored *this* possibility? ;-) > > > > > Nobody with any hope of academic standing or advancement. But that is no > > > reason to conclude that *this* possibility has a low probability. Even > > > today, five years after the final nosedive of post-structuralism, to > > > suggest that Foucault (for example) was not only a moral cretin but also > > > an erudite bullshit artist is to assure yourself, if you are still > > > employed in a university, of at least a pitifully small pay raise or none > > > next year, and to the loss of your parking place. Even the president of > > > Harvard has to learn quickly, if he wants to stay in the job and get > > > someting done, that there are strict limits to telling the truth (called > > > "bluntness") and heavy penalties for exceeding them. > > > > Yes; I've heard something about the African Studies kerfuffle at Harvard, > > but not much. I simply don't know whether African Studies at Harvard is > > respectable, or merely one more outpost of Afro-centric drivel. Anybody > > know? > > > Afro-American studies at Harvard are the very antithesis of Afro-centric > drivel. > > C. L. Brace > > > > To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology > > Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day > http://human-nature.com/nibbs > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 10 19:43:20 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:43:20 -0500 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) In-Reply-To: <002d01c19a07$52221b20$cabfdccf@computer> Message-ID: I would like to ask everyone either to avoid using non-ASCII characters in posts to this list or to annotate them in ASCII. This discussion has acquired a lot of references to "*e", where the asterisk represents something that I see as a rectangle which indicates a code that my computer has no representation for. I suppose that represents an edh, but it might as easily be a thorn, or even a yogh in somebody's font. And please remember that there is no such thing as "eight-bit ASCII", even if your program lists it as an option: ASCII is a seven-bit code. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 10 19:47:31 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:47:31 EST Subject: General Tso; Happy/Lucky Family; and more Chinese Message-ID: GENERAL TSO (continued) "The Real General Tso Was No Chicken," by Anthony Ramirez, is in the City section, NEW YORK TIMES, 24 May 1998, pg. 6, col. 1. The web sites given are: http://recipes.wenzel.net/ http://www.echonyc.com/~jkarpf/home/tso.htm Both Peng's and Uncle Tai's are mentioned. MYRA WALDO'S RESTAURANT GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY (Second Revised Edition, Collier Books, NY, 1976), pg. 190: ***Hunan Yuan, Uncle Tai's 1059 Third Avenue (between 62nd and 63rd Streets) (...) For dessert I couldn't resist ordering something listed on the menu as Screw Rolls; it's a sort of steamed, sweetened noodle dough. (No "General Tso's chicken"--ed.) (FWIW: On September 6, 1998, also in the TIMES City section, the same Anthony Ramirez would write that "Big Apple" comes from New Orleans--without that story ever having appeared in the newspaper, then or now.) -------------------------------------------------------- HAPPY/LUCKY FAMILY Again from WORD OF MOUTH (Mixed Media, 1972) by Jim Quinn, pg. 64 (Flower Drum Restaurant, 856 2nd Avenue, near 45th Street): Happy family ($4.75), a big disorderly pile of vegetables, lobster, chicken and pork with a slightly more spicy sauce than usual, is extremely good--and one of the few recommended entrees. Pg. 70 (name of restaurant is on page 69, which I forgot to copy): Happy family ($4.25) gets its name because it is supposed to feed a mob, and in most Chinese restaurants it does. Here it is barely enough for one, though part of the difference is that it is completely without chopped vegetables to make up lots of quickly digested bulk. A combination of shrimp balls, meat balls, chicken, abalone and mushrooms, with or without snowpeas, depending on your luck, it is tasty but not worth the money. Besides, the shrimp balls taste like gefilte fish. -------------------------------------------------------- THE NEW YORK TIMES GUIDE TO DINING OUT IN NEW YORK NEW 1976 EDITION by John Canaday Atheneum, NY 1975 No "General Tso." A few other Chinese items: Pg. 68 (Bruce Ho's Four Seasons, 116 East 57th Street): ...the Po-Hai gimlet, a cocktail "Confucius couldn't resist." Pg. 116 (Hunan in the Village, 163 Bleecker Street, at Sullivan Street): The most expensive dish on the menu (at this writing) is a chef's specialty, Dragon and Phoenix, which, at $6.95, is also plenty for two--the dragon being spicy lobster, and the phoneix bland chicken sauteed with snow peas, bamboo shoots, and Chinese mushrooms. Pg. 177 (Mandarin House, 133 West 13th Street): Mandarin House has a garden that is available to fairly large parties in fall and winter for a kind of cook-out called Mongolian barbecue, where food is prepared on the spot on an outdoor Chinese stove, with an array of Chinese sauces as accompaniment. -------------------------------------------------------- CANTONESE, SHANGHAI AND PEKING RESTAURANT DISHES Published and written by Chan Sow Lin Kuala Lumpur, Malaya June 1960 Pg. 9: HUNDRED BIRDS IN NEST (Shanghai Dish) "Pak Liew Kwai Chow" Pg. 12: BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (Shanghai Dish) "Kew Far Kai" or "Hut Yee Kai" Pg. 13: CHESTNUT CHICKEN (Cantonese Dish) "Lut Chee Mun Kai" Pg. 16: ORANGE CHICKEN (Cantonese Dish) "Heong Chang Kook Fei Kai" Pg. 18: CHILLY CHICKEN (Shanghai Dish) "Lart Chee Kai Ting" Pg. 47: PRAWN CUTLET "PHOENIX" "Char Foong Mei Har" or "Hai Kim Chow Yip" (No "General Tso's Chicken"--ed.) From john at FENIKS.COM Thu Jan 10 20:42:27 2002 From: john at FENIKS.COM (John Blower) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 15:42:27 -0500 Subject: kerfuffle In-Reply-To: <002801c19a0d$88936d20$eefbfd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: At 11:32 AM 1/10/02 -0800, you wrote: >To all > >I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, >apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance >outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of >argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made >up" word? >Anne G I have no notion of its origins (Concise OED: fuss, commotion (colloq.)), but it was a not uncommon word when I was growing up in the UK in the 50s. It was generally used to mean a storm in a teacup - or, indeed, much ado about nothing... Cheers! John Blower/FeNiKs Business Communications 795 Mammoth Rd, #23, Manchester, NH 03104 V: 603 668 5601 F: 707 220 7490 Trainer at Large/Ace Copywriter http://www.feniks.com/ mailto:john at feniks.com From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Thu Jan 10 21:28:04 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 16:28:04 -0500 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: The Word Detective, as usual, handles this one with aplomb: http://www.word-detective.com/back-c2.html#kefuffle I see that a variant of this word is "gefuffle." So could the preparation of a certain Jewish dish in a particularly chaotic kitchen end up being a gefullte fish gefuffle? Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From qpwpeprp_2000 at YAHOO.CO.KR Thu Jan 10 21:20:51 2002 From: qpwpeprp_2000 at YAHOO.CO.KR (ð) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 06:20:51 +0900 Subject: No subject Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mnewman at QC.EDU Thu Jan 10 16:03:02 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 08:03:02 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (long) In-Reply-To: <000b01c199ad$746a4cc0$72345fcf@computer> Message-ID: I have little knowledge of the historical background, but a lot on singular they (my diss), which has led me to bump into some historical issues. So, let me say a couple of things on Carl's comments. 1) It's possible to get too caught up with the apparent novelty of the use of 3pp pronouns with 3ps antecedents, as some kind of distortion in the paradigm, but that is an artifact of a theoretical idea that pronouns match antecedents in number and gender. In fact, cross linguistically the agreement rules between pronouns and antecedents are loose and often obey semantic/pragmatic principles as much as mere feature matching. 2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex happens to be unknown. 3) When I looked at different ms.s of Chaucer's Prologue to the Pardoner's Tale, which contains a good number of generic referents, I found tremendous variation between tendencies to use He, him, etc. and They, hem, etc. I presented this once at a conference, and someone who works on Old English said that she found equivalent examples in OE. She was supposed to send me the citations, and never did, and I never followed up. -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 10 22:11:01 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 17:11:01 EST Subject: AIDS/GRID (1982) Message-ID: This continues discussion of the term. "A.I.D." in the "Gay Plague" article in the May 1982 NEW YORK magazine still stands out as pretty early. 11 February 1982, NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, "FAMILY SECRETS: WHO IS TO KNOW ABOUT AID?" AID=artificial insemination of donor's semen. False alarm. 18 March 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 17, "IS OUR LIFESTYLE HAZARDOUS TO OUR HEALTH?" First of a two-part article. "GRID" is on page 18, cols. 3-4. 24 June 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 12, col. 2, "Founder of Cockettes, Hibiscus, Dead of GRID." 29 June 1982, VILLAGE VOICE, Pg. 1, col. 4, "Where Gays Are Going." The NEW YORK article is mentioned. Pg. 15, col. 2: "_The Gay Men's Health Crisis_: 'More people are affected by the acquired immunity deficiency syndrome than toxic shock, swine flu, and legionnaire's disease, but the press attention that any of those got absolutely dwarfs any intelligent discussion that this gets.'" 8 July 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 13, cols. 1-2, "REPORT ON NYC GRID BRIEFING." No "AIDS." 24 September 1982, JAMA, pg. 1423, "Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome cause(s) still elusive." A long, important article that uses "AIDS" many times. Pg. 1424, col. 2: "...have been reported and may be related to AIDS (MMWR 1982; 31: 277-279)." It would be nice to check out MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT (MMWR), published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). OFF-TOPIC: 27 April 1982, VILLAGE VOICE, pg. 16, cols. 2-3 photo: "GAY // GOOD AND YOUTHFULL (sic)." 14 October 1982, THE ADVOCATE, pg. 81--"Gay Drinks" described here are the Cape Cod, the Scarlett O'Hara, Anita's Downfall, Ballbuster, Rough Trade, Boodle-y Mary, and Harvey Milk (with Harvey's Bristol Cream). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 10 23:02:02 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 18:02:02 EST Subject: AIDS (MMWR, 3 September 1982) Message-ID: George Thompson spotted me in the NYU Bobst Library--one of the world's better libraries--and urged me to go to the 6th floor. The OED's first "AIDS" citation is from the MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT, published by the Centers for Disease Control, on 24 September 1982. The NYU Bobst Library has: REPORTS ON AIDS PUBLISHED IN THE _MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT_ JUNE 1981 THROUGH MAY 1986 From Page 15: 1982 Sept. 3; 31:465-67 (...) Beginning in 1978, a disease or group of diseases was recognized, manifested by Kaposi's sarcoma and opportunistic infections, associated with a specific defect in cell-mediated immunity. This group of entities, along with its specific immune deficiency, is now called acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 10 22:52:34 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:52:34 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" (short) Message-ID: ...Noe & Sem Japhet & Cham & heore four wives ?e mid heom weren on archen. ...Noah & Shem Japheth & Ham (,) & their four wives (;) they [that, who] were with them on (the) ark. I think it's 'who' not 'they.' As I understand it, modern "they" retains the OE pronunciation of . Perhaps shedding some light on this, the second person "thee" shows before 1400 the spelling also -- BEFORE the rising diphthong went to [i]. The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation. The emphatic modern article "the" [thi] shows the same pronunciation, the raised diphthong. This is where you are in trouble. First, neither 'the' (I will use only regular Mod Eng characters) the relative pronoun (RP), nor 'thee' the 2 person pronoun (2PP), had a diphthong. They both had monophthongs. The spelllings do not necessarily indicate the same pronunciation. The RP may have been pronounced something like modern unstressed 'the' when it was unstressed. The stressed RP may have been nearly identical in pronunciation with the 2PP. However, both had monophthongs and the normal development of both words would have been [thi:]. Neither would have give the diphthong that we find in 'they.' "they' does not retain the pronunciation of OE 'the.' Also, I am not exactly sure what you mean by, "The spelling "-ee" shows the orthographic accommodation to the new pronunciation." The double -ee probably just represents a long vowel, not the 'new' pronunciation. How this makes sense to me is explained by one of the characteristics of English -- its drift, in some cases, from the phonetic principle; variant spellings produce the same phonological shape -- I, eye, aye. What makes sense to me is that "they" (th-y) and its spelling variations represent a written form to distinguish it from the many other uses of "?e". I've also considered, in passing, that the overload on influenced the adoption of "you" instead of the "th-" forms. Probably not. 'Overload' does not have the impact that one would think. I wish I had all my articles and books here at work; I have a good article on homonyms that would be interesting to look at. Also, 'thou' hung around (and is still around in some dialects/situations) for centuries longer than you would want. Fritz From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 11 02:03:11 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 20:03:11 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology:_=22They=22_revised_continued?= Message-ID: Etymology: "They" revised continued Carl Jeffrey Weber Michael Newman said: 1) It's possible to get too caught up with the apparent novelty of the use of 3pp pronouns with 3ps antecedents, as some kind of distortion in the paradigm, but that is an artifact of a theoretical idea that pronouns match antecedents in number and gender. In fact, cross linguistically the agreement rules between pronouns and antecedents are loose and often obey semantic/pragmatic principles as much as mere feature matching. I think: Very nicely put. I'm surprised, almost chagrined, that you interpret what I said this way, Michael. I'm not talking about "everybody.their" and artifacts of theoretical ideas. And I'm not talking about distortions of the paradigm. I'm talking about the paradigm shift and reorganization itself!! And, in introspect, I don't believe that I've been overly caught up in anything (maybe a bit) -- but merely appropriately caught up in (1) the plausible explanation that the "th-" nominative plural developed to fill the need in the preterit for an unambiguous plural when the preterit plural disappeared and (2) a suggestion of a NATIVE source of "they" as a duplet with "the" of the OE singular instrumental demonstrative -- a suggestion which might explain the singular morphology of "they". Michael Newman said: 2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex happens to be unknown. I think: It would be nice to see one or two of your favorite examples, Michael. The "hot" parts of the pronouns in question are the "-ey", the "-m", and the "-r". Case seems to be more significant than number when there is no ambiguity for number involved. I think I'm trying to make different points than you are commenting on. I'm trying to understand the historical paradigm shift itself. I can show example after example, in Late Middle English, of the spelling "he" being used for a female referent; similarly, I can show "he" used for today's "they" - in which cases, both are the feminine/plural. The late survival of the feminine/plural has escaped modern scholarship to a large extent. In the year of Chaucer's birth, 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwit (Morris 1866) we find "[hi] wes a uayr wifman" (She was a fair woman). As I' ve written, what swept all this away was Caxton's standardization of the pronouns of the King's English - that it might be more uniformly understood in its written representation throughout the realm. A very good argument can be made that there WAS a generic pronoun. It seems absurd -- but the so-called generic pronoun, not only was real, but seems to have developed, in its singular morphology, from the feminine(/plural) - notwithstanding that these historical developments seem to have been veiled to modern perception. Michael Newman Said: 3) When I looked at different ms.s of Chaucer's Prologue to the Pardoner's Tale, which contains a good number of generic referents, I found tremendous variation between tendencies to use He, him, etc. and They, hem, etc. I presented this once at a conference, and someone who works on Old English said that she found equivalent examples in OE. She was supposed to send me the citations, and never did, and I never followed up. I think: (We have to agree whether we are talking about contemporary English, Middle English, of both -- let's talk about it all.) Chaucer's written dialect can 't be discounted, but as the status/prestige dialect, it was only one very very small part of Late Middle English, albeit of grand celebrity to modern eyes. Chaucer cannot be considered to represent the generalized English of the time. In addition, if Caxton, a century after Chaucer, is to be believed, the upper classes in England held in contempt those of lower station and the way they spoke the language. Also, the problem of "they" has different historical implications than those of "them" and "their" - as I've indicated before. I would like to see some of your examples to see if we are considering same page phenomena. The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular and the neuter singular - in which instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his book". "His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. (The feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from the wider language family). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 11 02:41:59 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 21:41:59 EST Subject: "I Am the Greatest"; Poker, Smoke (1907) Message-ID: "I AM THE GREATEST" From the NEW YORK PRESS, January 9-15, 2002, pg. 8, col. 4: (Gary Belkin wrote for Sid Caesar, Carol Burnett, MAD magazine, others--ed.) (...) According to Belkin, he's also one of the world's most popular poets. Muhammad Ali just gets all the credit. It's 1962, and Columbia Records hires Belkin to work on _I Am the Greatest_. The Cassius Clay album is set for release in '63, just in time to capitalize on Clay's upcoming championship bout against Sonny Liston. "The idea was that I would write 60 percent of the album," Belkin says, "but I ended up writing the whole thing. My poems pushed his image a little further. It wasn't 'I am the prettiest,' but more about 'I am the greatest.' I hated that they put in rim shots at the end of every joke, but I couldn't change that. I was just the ghostwriter." (...) (George Plimpton didn't believe Beklin was the ghost. David Remnick, the NEW YORKER editor who did a book on Ali, got it wrong--ed.) "You know," Belkin adds, "writers are supposed to stay behind the scenes. It's part of my job. The only thing I really resent is the smugness of the literati. I don't mind when Muhammad Ali says he wrote my poems. I mind when David Remnick says I don't exist." (The RHHDAS cites "the greatest" from Robert Gold's JAZZ TALK (1946)--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- POKER, SMOKE AND OTHER THINGS Designed by W. M. RHOADS Fun by PERCY HAMMOND and GEORGE C. WHARTON Abbetted in Pictures, by ALBERT OLSON Rules of poker by the banker Recipes by many friends Toasts from everywhere Mixed drinks by the bar-fan The Reilly & Britton Co., Chicago 1907 I looked for this book at the NYPL, which said it had it, but didn't have it. So then I looked at the Library of Congress, which said it had it, but didn't have it. So then some wag suggested that I buy it used on the internet, even though it would cost me MORE MONEY THAN I'VE EVER MADE FROM WRITING IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. (Which is, of course, about $100.) So then I order it, and it's sent 3-day air, and it arrives FOUR WEEKS LATER. Anyway.... (NOT PAGINATED!--ed.) "'Twenty-Three for you,' said the King." (Cartoon--ed.) TECHNICAL TERMS: Age, Ante, Blind, Bluff, Call, Chips, Coming In, Draw, Foul Hand, Going Better, Going In, In the Pot, Jack Pot, Limit, Making Good, Open, Original Hand, Pat Hand, Pass, Pot, Raise, Say, See, Stay, Straddle. "Four of a Kind." (Cartoon of a card of four black babies, or "spades"--ed.) "Staying In." (Cartoon of a card of a man with a baby--ed.) "Two Pair." (Cartoon of a card of a man and a woman--ed.) "Calling for a Sight." (Cartoon of a card of a beautiful woman--ed.) "Standing Pat." (Cartoon of a card of a policeman--Patrick?--with a "23" star on his chest--ed.) SARDINE SANDWICHES. SPANISH PEPPER SANDWICHES. CHICKEN LIVER SANDWICHES. CHICKEN SANDWICHES. CLUB HOUSE SANDWICHES. APPLE AND CELERY SANDWICHES. LETTUCE SANDWICHES. ENGLISH SANDWICHES. SWISS CHEESE SANDWICHES. MAYONNAISE DRESSING. CHICKEN SALAD. "Cold Feet." (Cartoon card--ed.) SHRIMP SALAD. POTATO SALAD. FRUIT SALADS. "Sweetening the Pot." (Cartoon card--ed.) LOBSTER NEWBURG. ROYAL ESCALOP. OYSTERS AND CELERY. "Feeding the Kitty." (Cartoon page--ed.) CHICKEN HASH WITH MUSHROOMS. WELCH RAREBIT. DRINKS: "CHATHAM ARTILLERY PUNCH." Savannah, Ga. BLUE GRASS PUNCH. REGENT'S PUNCH. (Stansberry's Recipe.) KENTUCKY MINT JULEP. Harry Hoffman, Louisville. GEORGIA MINT JULEP. A. S. H. NEW ORLEANS MINT JULEP. COCKTAILS: WHISKEY. MANHATTAN. DRY MANHATTAN. MARTINI. DRY MARTINI. OLD FASHIONED WHISKEY. GIN. ORANGE BLOSSOM. SCOTCH WHISKEY. MISCELLANEOUS: GIN FIZZ. HIGH-BALLS. CLARET PUNCH. RICKEYS. WHISKEY SOUR. HORSE'S NECK. MAMIE TAYLOR. (A famous drink. Not in OED?--ed.) "To smoke a cigar through a mouthpiece is equivalent to kissing a lady through a respirator." "It's wrong to play poker--the way some men play it." "One Jack pot doesn't make a winner." "A loser has bad luck; a winner good judgment." "Tell me how a man plays poker, and I will tell you what he is." "May bad luck follow you all your days--and never overtake you." "Here's to Man, God's First thought; Here's to Woman, God's second thought; And, as second thoughts are always best! Here's to Woman!" "Here's to the three keys of friendship--Drink, Steal and Lie. When you drink, drink with friends; when you steal, steal away from bad company, and when you lie, lie to save trouble." (This last, in varying forms, is famous. I saw it attributed to Jack London, but this is the earliest cite I have for it--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 11 06:29:40 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 01:29:40 EST Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: QUEER COFFEE A "queer coffee" was announced in one of my e-mail messages. Is this common enough to be recorded? I saw "queer coffee" and thought it meant they were serving Sanka. -------------------------------------------------------- LOW SIGNATURE Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as the LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than "high signature"? Does John Hancock come into play here? From 1605002 at HANMAIL.NET Fri Jan 11 10:24:01 2002 From: 1605002 at HANMAIL.NET (1605002 at HANMAIL.NET) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:24:01 +0900 Subject: ߰Ʈ(õǾ) Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Fri Jan 11 11:23:13 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 05:23:13 -0600 Subject: playing "the sevens"? Message-ID: Doing the "sevens"? Has there been some deflation? When I grew up, it was "playing the dozens" First time I heard that. Ken Nolley wrote: > From: Carol Tarlen > > Mike, who cares if Ali said, "I'm the greatest." In an African cultural context, I think this is doing the sevens--bragging and expecting one upsmanship. (snip) From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Fri Jan 11 11:51:16 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 06:51:16 -0500 Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: Nexis has no hits for queer coffee. It has a couple of close calls -- "queer coffee mug" (queer modifying "coffee mug") and "queer coffee-inspired antics" (queer as in "not usual") -- but no actual cigars. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 1:29 AM Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature > QUEER COFFEE > > A "queer coffee" was announced in one of my e-mail messages. Is this common enough to be recorded? > I saw "queer coffee" and thought it meant they were serving Sanka. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 11 12:08:32 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 07:08:32 EST Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: In a message dated 01/11/2002 1:30:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to > be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as the > LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. > Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than " > high signature"? Nightline probably intended to say "low profile" and got their jargon mixed up. "Low signature" is a technical military term, dating back at least to the late 1970's (when I encountered it) and quite possibly World War II. A major headquarters has to send out a lot of radio messages, and to the enemy these radio transmissions are the headquarters' "signature". Similarly for other imortant military targets. Hence in battle you want to disguise your signature, perhaps by locating all the transmitting antenna somewhere away from your command post. That is to say, on a modern battlefield you want to be "low signature". Similarly tanks, due to their engines and to the fact that they absorb heat during the day and radiate it at night at different rates than sand dunes, have an infra-red signature problem, and if you're a tanker and the enemy has an air force, you definitely want to have a low-signature tank. Hence Nightline used entirely the wrong term. If our presence in Afghanistan were to be "low signature" then it would be hard to detect by electromagnetic means, presumably including watching Nighline on TV. Definitely Nightline should have said "low profile". - Jim Landau From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Fri Jan 11 14:40:01 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 09:40:01 -0500 Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature Message-ID: Google has a number of hits on 'queer coffee'. About 38 'results', including the following URLs. http://www.google.com/advanced_search George Cole Shippensburg University =========================== http://www.funmaps.com/vancouver.htm "Check out Davie Street and its adjacent blocks when you're ready for some queer coffee, a good meal, a new outfit. . . ." http://www.ukans.edu/~qanda/html/minutes/2000_11_09.html ". . . Global Grounds, a Queer coffee event held the first Sunday of every month. . . ." http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/record2031.12.html "Queer Coffee Hour", listed on a calendar. http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/3503/cruise.html Places to see; the Coffee Table, "One of the oldest established queer coffee joints in Columbus. Recently remodeled." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 11 02:36:50 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 10:36:50 +0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" revised continued In-Reply-To: <003501c19a44$2090d1e0$acbddccf@computer> Message-ID: At 8:03 PM -0600 1/10/02, carljweber wrote: >Etymology: "They" revised continued > >Michael Newman said: >2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing >pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal >generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the >singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible >to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a >variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also >difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex >happens to be unknown. > >I think: >It would be nice to see one or two of your favorite examples, Michael. I'm sure Michael has his own examples, but I've been collecting a few in which "they" is used for sex-known but nonspecific antecedents. I posted a few here the last time we were discussing this, back in April 2001, but they're germane to this point raised by Carl, so here's an excerpt from that post: ============== In a paper Steve Kleinedler and I gave a couple of LSAs ago [Jan. 2000], "Parasitic Reference vs. R-based Narrowing: Lexical Pragmatics Meets He-Man", we noted the tendency to use THEY/THEIR as "increasingly the pronoun of choice even for non-specific singular antecedents of known sex", as in the Grunfeld example ["A player has to be responsible for their actions in this league." -- Ernie Grunfeld, then general manager of the all-male New York Knicks] or these (where "their" is female in reference): "I can't help it if somebody doesn't want their husband and then somebody besides them decides they do." -"Serial mistress" Pamela Harriman, quoted in The Mistress, by Victoria Griffin [the 'their', 'them' and 'they' are all sex-known but non-specific] "No mother should be forced by federal prosecutors to testify against their child." -Monica Lewinsky's mother's attorney On the other hand, as we also argued, "when the sex is unknown but the referent sufficiently specific or individuated, the they often seems not entirely successful, even when it would come in handy", as in my (constructed) example (#)I've met this hot Transcendental Grammarian, Chris Jones, in my bi chat room and I'm totally smitten with them. ================ --larry From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 11 17:49:47 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 12:49:47 -0500 Subject: Queer Coffee; Low Signature In-Reply-To: <138.79153ae.296fe055@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry Popik said: >> LOW SIGNATURE Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as the LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than "high signature"? Does John Hancock come into play here? << Don't know about an opposite, but given the military hits for this, the usage seems an extension of the use of signature in "radar signature", the appearance that an aircraft makes on a radar screen. I believe stealth aircraft are said to have a low radar signature. Frank Abate From gcohen at UMR.EDU Fri Jan 11 18:17:29 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 12:17:29 -0600 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: >I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, >apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance >outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of >argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made >up" word?... >Anne G I've treated "kerfuffle" in an article: "Origin Of _Ker-_ in _Kerflop_, Kerplunk, Etc_.", in _Studies in Slang, Part I_, by Gerald Leonard Cohen (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang), 1985, pp. 1-28. See pp.6-7, 18-20. The word is not simply "made up"; it is attested already (as "carfuffle") in Joseph Wright's _The English Dialect Dictionary_, vol. 1, 1898. --Gerald Cohen From simon at IPFW.EDU Fri Jan 11 18:27:49 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 13:27:49 -0500 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: See also in Vol II of DARE. beth simon >>> gcohen at UMR.EDU 01/11/02 13:25 PM >>> >I got this from another list, and somebody mentioned "kerfuffle", meaning, >apparently, a sort of strong academic argument of little significance >outside that discipline. I've seen "kerfuffle" used for this kind of >argument for about 10 years or so. Where did it originate? Is it a "made >up" word?... >Anne G I've treated "kerfuffle" in an article: "Origin Of _Ker-_ in _Kerflop_, Kerplunk, Etc_.", in _Studies in Slang, Part I_, by Gerald Leonard Cohen (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang), 1985, pp. 1-28. See pp.6-7, 18-20. The word is not simply "made up"; it is attested already (as "carfuffle") in Joseph Wright's _The English Dialect Dictionary_, vol. 1, 1898. --Gerald Cohen From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 11 19:22:15 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 14:22:15 -0500 Subject: Skulduggery Message-ID: I am working on the etymology of this odd word. Does anyone have any evidence of its use prior to 1859? I am referring to the US word with "gg", meaning something like "official corruption", NOT to the old Scots word "sculduddery" = "fornication"/"adultery"/"obscenity"/etc. Any random insights? TIA .... -- Doug Wilson From carljweber at MSN.COM Fri Jan 11 19:44:24 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 13:44:24 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" revised continued Message-ID: Etymology: "They" revised continued Carl Jeffrey Weber The pronoun uses presented by Michael and Larry are interesting to me, and later I'd like to say a few words about them. My current focus, though, is indirectly related -- I'm looking at the paradigm shift in Middle English that has given Modern English these at-first look incongruities -- and how the generic "he" and the singular "they" are two aspects of the development of the OE (and wider family group) "feminine/plural". Right now, I'm working on furthering my discussion with Fritz -- studying up on some of these things for my next post. Carl From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 11 23:15:49 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 18:15:49 -0500 Subject: Dave Thomas & Orville's popcorn In-Reply-To: <123.9de8a8a.296dddcd@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > There have been many other pitchmen in the food business, such as Roy > Rogers. Paul Newman also pitches his own brand. Tom Carvel is another. I think Frank Perdue was a pioneer in this regard. 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 12 00:33:51 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:33:51 EST Subject: "An Uplifting Origin of 86" (Dundes, AMERICAN SPEECH) Message-ID: I just received AMERICAN SPEECH, vol. 76, no. 4, Winter 2001. I was shocked when I saw, on pages 437-440: AN UPLIFTING ORIGIN OF 86 ALAN DUNDES, _University of California, Berkeley_ I put things on ADS-L. And, just recently, I posted a Walter Winchell citation from the Soda Jerk language of California, dated in 1933. Thus, wrong on Page 439 is: "Inasmuch as _eighty-six_ 'menu item not on hand' was first documented in 1936 by Bentley in _American Speech_...." Dundes goes on: The Empire State Building was completed and open to the public in May 1931 (Tauranac 1995, 19). In the Empire State Building, the first observation point is located on the 86th floor. Even if one wished to go up to the 102d-floor observatory, one would still have to first exit the elevator at the 86th floor. Hence, _eighty-six_ meant "Everybody out!" And that, I suggest, is the origin of _eighty-six_! Ahhhhhhh! If Dundes has a _new_ historical citation--which he doesn't have in this note--that's one thing. But guessing stuff like this has just got to be stopped. You can't make up stuff! Why was this published in AMERICAN SPEECH? If "86" was from New York City--the Empire State Building, or anywhere else--Walter Winchell would have had it. Tauranac, who wrote the book on that building, would have mentioned it, with a good, solid cite. Our best evidence (several citations now) shows "86" in the soda jerk slang of the West. If anyone has any more cards, then show them on the table. But this folk etymology guessing in AMERICAN SPEECH, ahhh...! From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 12 00:47:50 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:47:50 -0500 Subject: "An Uplifting Origin of 86" (Dundes, AMERICAN SPEECH) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 11 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > I just received AMERICAN SPEECH, vol. 76, no. 4, Winter 2001. I was > shocked when I saw, on pages 437-440: > > I put things on ADS-L. And, just recently, I posted a Walter > Winchell citation from the Soda Jerk language of California, dated in > 1933. Thus, wrong on Page 439 is: "Inasmuch as _eighty-six_ 'menu item > not on hand' was first documented in 1936 by Bentley in _American > Speech_...." I agree with all your other points, but let me get this straight: you're criticizing Dundes for not incorporating the results of your December 29, 2001 posting in his American Speech article that is coming out in January 2002? 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 avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Sat Jan 12 03:22:33 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:22:33 -0800 Subject: kerfuffle Message-ID: Paul: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul McFedries" To: Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 1:28 PM Subject: Re: kerfuffle > The Word Detective, as usual, handles this one with aplomb: > > http://www.word-detective.com/back-c2.html#kefuffle > > I see that a variant of this word is "gefuffle." So could the preparation of > a certain Jewish dish in a particularly chaotic kitchen end up being a > gefullte fish gefuffle? Chaotic *gefilte fish*?????? Anne G From nfogli at IOL.IT Sat Jan 12 14:46:41 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 15:46:41 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_kerfuffle_>_kafuffle?= Message-ID: English Canadians sometimes use an informal variant of "kerfuffle" ( = fuss, commotion), which is proper to their dialect. They say "kafuffle." Here is just a written example from a print article published in 1995: "The Brockville flag incident only involved a few senior citizens, but it was blown into a national KAFUFFLE" (My emphasis) ~ Gazette (Montreal), May 20, 1995 Etymologically, the word may derive from Scots ("curfuffle"), from the imitative word "fuffle" = to disorder. Dr. S. Roti Lexicographer From jbass3354b at USA.NET Sat Jan 12 10:39:42 2002 From: jbass3354b at USA.NET (jbass3354b at USA.NET) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 05:39:42 -0500 Subject: SPECIAL REPORT! NEW PILL WORKS BETTER THEN VIAGRA Message-ID: These products will change your life ! Herbal Viagra,Extreme Power Plus,Extreme Colon Cleanser,Fat-N-Emy, ALL AT THE LOWEST PRICES ON THE WEB ! EARN EXTRA INCOME ! RESELLERS WANTED ! To order NOW visit http://209.190.76.56/Affiliate1/index.shtml Removes: seagress2001 at yahoo.com with "R" in the subuject line These products will change your life ! Herbal Viagra,Extreme Power Plus,Extreme Colon Cleanser,Fat-N-Emy, ALL AT THE LOWEST PRICES ON THE WEB ! EARN EXTRA INCOME ! RESELLERS WANTED ! From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:09:20 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:09:20 EST Subject: RUGGEDIZED; SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC Message-ID: I found RUGGEDIZED in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE for 1/7/02 (E-1/1) used to describe a process whereby electronic equipment is made very sturdy. Also in the CHRONICLE I noted SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC, a synonym for GRIDLOCK. Are these just nonce usages? If not, how long have they been around? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:21:25 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:21:25 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Jack Douglas (1908-?) is an interesting humor writer. NO NAVEL TO GUIDE HIM by Jack Douglas Oxford Press, Inc., Hollywood, CA 1947 Pg. 12: It was early one morning and I was just sitting down to a bowl of buffalo chips (They're shot from buffalo) when in walked my father. Pg. 18: *Duncan Hines slept here. Pg. 63: CHAPTER 29. _How to Make a Zombie_ (Lots of white space on page, then this at bottom--ed.) Get her drunk. Pg. 72: Once a taxi driver took exception to him and Thaddeus called the man a vile name with his index finger. The driver promptly slammed the taxicab door on it, and to this day that finger (Pg. 73--ed.) has a slight lisp. At another time the loquaciou Thaddeus exposed his fingers so much on an open top bus that he was laid up for weeks with some mysterious malady, later diagnosed as digitalis. Time went on and so did Thaddeus. Finally his wife could stand it no longer. She flew to Reno and obtained a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, incompatibility and cold hands. MORAL: If you're deaf and dumb, don't talk out of turn or someone will give you the finger. Pg. 84: _Sadie Thompson, or, The Chinese Water Torture_ (Rain--ed.) THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY HASHIMOTO by Jack Douglas E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1964 Pg. 11: Just in passing, a "roomette" is a phone booth with a bed that pulls down out of the wall and covers up your overnight bag. Pg. 28: Actually, in "real life," as they say at the daily police line-up, things are different. Pg. 35: Before turning in this night I had a little talk with one of the crew who is a Tahitian. He told me that the sucker tourists are known as "banana tourists." I couldn't get any connection at all, but he _did_ explain how the tourists are suckered. Pg. 36: B.B. and I had quite a talk about racial problems, and he told me of a club they have in the South called the "Blue Veiners." This means if a Negro is light enough, so the blue veins in his arm can be seen, he can become a member. If not--he can't. (Still reading the book in the NYPL. Half hour almost up--ed.) From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:24:12 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:24:12 EST Subject: RUGGEDIZED; SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC Message-ID: In a message dated 01/12/2002 1:10:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > I found RUGGEDIZED in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE for 1/7/02 (E-1/1) > used to describe a process whereby electronic equipment is made very sturdy. > Also in the CHRONICLE I noted SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC, a synonym for GRIDLOCK. > > Are these just nonce usages? If not, how long have they been around? "ruggedize" is in the OED2 with a first citation of 1954, referring not to solid-state electronics but to vacuum tubes. Within the hardware field it is a common term and I cannot offhand think of any decent synonym for it. "Solid-state traffic" is almost certainly a nonce usage, someone's play on words, since taken literally it is meaningless (traffic that uses transisteros rather than vacuum tubes??) - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 12 18:28:50 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:28:50 EST Subject: Low Signature Message-ID: In a message dated 01/11/2002 12:50:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET writes: > LOW SIGNATURE > > Used on tonight's NIGHTLINE. Our presence in Afghanistan was intended to > be "low signature." A Google check shows a lot of military hits, such as > the LSV--Low Signature Vehicle. > Is there an opposite for "low signature," perhaps something other than > "high signature"? Does John Hancock come into play here? > << > > Don't know about an opposite, but given the military hits for this, the > usage seems an extension of the use of signature in "radar signature", the > appearance that an aircraft makes on a radar screen. I believe stealth > aircraft are said to have a low radar signature. not an "extension". "signature" refers to any electromagnetic signal (or possibly sonic, olfactory, etc. signal) that can give away something's location. A radar signature is only part of the total signature of a vehicle, headquarters, etc. At least in air traffic control, it is a "radar display" not a "radar screen". Calling it anything other than a "display" is a giveaway that you're an outsider. Yes, by definition, "stealth" = "low radar signature" - Jim Landau From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 12 08:43:09 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 00:43:09 -0800 Subject: ?? Message-ID: What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? Rima From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Sat Jan 12 23:11:12 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 18:11:12 -0500 Subject: ?? Message-ID: They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If you have Korean encoding capability you will be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd want to!). _______________________ Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo "A Billion Bridges" Chinese<>English Translation Services Tel: 905-308-9389 Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) Web: www.billionbridges.com Email: translation at billionbridges.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" To: Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM Subject: ?? > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 13 00:22:28 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 19:22:28 EST Subject: "Merry Christmas--SECOND NOTICE!!" (1964) Message-ID: Also, "Happy Holidays--SECOND NOTICE!!" Or, "Happy New Year--SECOND NOTICE!!" There are a number of hits, most recently Andy Rooney in TOWN & COUNTRY (December 2001, Proquest database). From THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY HASHIMOTO (E. P. Dutton, Inc., NY, 1964) by Jack Douglas, pg. 105: As I write this, it's the Christmas season here in New York. The time of Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men. I know this because we have just received another card from the superintendent of the apartment building we live in. It reads: "Merry Christmas--_second notice!_" (Jack Douglas also wrote a 1962 autobiography starting with "A Funny Thing Happened...," but I don't know if he's responsible for that one--ed.) From mizunohide at MSN.COM Sun Jan 13 05:57:19 2002 From: mizunohide at MSN.COM (mizunohide) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 22:57:19 -0700 Subject: Hello, I have a question Message-ID: Hello everyone, I have an urgent question for anyone who can answer this. I have sent e-mails to Terry and Jesse, but I won't probably get an answer anytime soon, so please help me! I am doing a translation work in Japan, and I was told by my colleague that in the southern part of the United States, people use"donky" instead of "donkey." Of course you cannot find a word "donky"in a dictionary, but he believes that it exists. Is this a case of misspelling or a dialect specifically found in the southern part of the United States? I would greatly appreciate if you can help me on this. Sincerely, Hide Mizuno From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 13 07:00:36 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 02:00:36 -0500 Subject: Hello, I have a question In-Reply-To: <001301c19bf7$2adf7700$27bfe83f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >I am doing a translation work in Japan, and I was told by my colleague >that in the southern part of the United States, people use"donky" instead >of "donkey." "Donky" is an obsolete spelling variant of "donkey". I find it used as an alternative to "donkey" up to about 1870. It is shown as an alternative spelling in the Century Dictionary (Web) from 1889. Nowadays, I would regard it as presumptively a spelling ERROR (although perhaps a frequent one), and not regional. Certainly it is not a standard or usual spelling today. There is some variation in pronunciation /dONki/, /daNki/, /dVNki/ [i.e., with IPA reversed-c, italic-a, inverted-v] but I think the spelling is universally "donkey", north or south, east or west. -- Doug Wilson From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Jan 13 12:19:29 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 07:19:29 -0500 Subject: Hello, I have a question In-Reply-To: <001301c19bf7$2adf7700$27bfe83f@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >I am doing a translation work in Japan, and I was told by my colleague that >in the southern part of the United States, people use"donky" instead of >"donkey." Of course you cannot find a word "donky"in a dictionary, but he >believes that it exists. Is this a case of misspelling or a dialect >specifically found in the southern part of the United States? I have lived in the southern U.S. for 64 years, and I have never seen . Since the pronunication would presumably be identical, there is no way to it. Bethany From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Jan 13 12:23:19 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 07:23:19 -0500 Subject: Hello, I have a question In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020113013322.00b25680@nb.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >spelling in the Century Dictionary (Web) from 1889. Nowadays, I would >regard it as presumptively a spelling ERROR (although perhaps a frequent Or a typo. Bethany From ASmith1946 at AOL.COM Sun Jan 13 17:38:22 2002 From: ASmith1946 at AOL.COM (Andrew F. Smith) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 12:38:22 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: I'm looking for examples of culinary words/terms associated with national/cultural/religious/racial/ethnic/sex/age/class groups, such as the following US examples: 1) food terms applied (usually in a derogatory manner) to groups, such as: limeys (British sailors), frogs (French speakers), krauts (German soldiers), greasers (Mexican Americans), tio tacos (Mexican-Americans who sell out to Anglos), mackerel snappers (Catholics), tomatoes (attractive women), pineapples (Hawaiians), peanut (young person) or Oreos (African-Americans who sell out to Anglos --Oh, those terrible Anglos!). 2) common food metaphors, such as "melting pot," and "salad bowl" (does anyone know where/when this originated?), and other common food-related terms/phrases, such as "greased lighting," "he's chicken," "it's a turkey," "where's the beef," etc. 3) examples of group attributions of specific foods/dishes, such as: Belgian waffles Boston beans Chicken Kiev Chilean sea bass Chinese cabbage, gooseberry, parsley, pear Danish French beans, bread, dressing, fries, toast German chocolate cake, potato salad Frankfurters Greek coffee, salad Hamburgers Hungarian goulash Indian fry bread Irish coffee, potatoes, stew Italian dressing Mexican beans Peking (should this now be Beijing?) duck Russian dressing Scotch broth, whisky Turkish coffee, delight Vienna sausage More broadly, has anyone written an article/book/dissertation on culinary linguistics? Many thanks, Andy Smith From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 13 18:59:18 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 13:59:18 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) In-Reply-To: <10c.b33ce11.2973200e@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 ASmith1946 at AOL.COM wrote: > 2) common food metaphors, such as "melting pot," and "salad bowl" (does > anyone know where/when this originated?), and other common food-related "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical "salad bowl." 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 avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Sun Jan 13 19:16:40 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 11:16:40 -0800 Subject: ?? Message-ID: To all: They're also Chinese and Japanese. Some of them are porn sites. I just block anything in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, on general principles. Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Billionbridges.com" To: Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:11 PM Subject: Re: ?? > They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If > you have Korean encoding capability you will > be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd > want to!). > _______________________ > Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo > "A Billion Bridges" > Chinese<>English Translation Services > Tel: 905-308-9389 > Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) > Web: www.billionbridges.com > Email: translation at billionbridges.com > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > To: > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM > Subject: ?? > > > > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > > > Rima From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Sun Jan 13 21:33:39 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 16:33:39 -0500 Subject: ?? Message-ID: Actually, in the slight chance it matters to the administrator of the list, the junk email in the last few months has been in Korean only. > They're also Chinese and Japanese. Some of them are porn sites. I just > block anything in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, on general principles. > Anne G > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Billionbridges.com" > To: > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:11 PM > Subject: Re: ?? > > > > They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If > > you have Korean encoding capability you will > > be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd > > want to!). > > _______________________ > > Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo > > "A Billion Bridges" > > Chinese<>English Translation Services > > Tel: 905-308-9389 > > Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) > > Web: www.billionbridges.com > > Email: translation at billionbridges.com > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > > To: > > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM > > Subject: ?? > > > > > > > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > > > > > Rima From mnewman at QC.EDU Mon Jan 14 00:55:54 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 16:55:54 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" revised continued In-Reply-To: <003501c19a44$2090d1e0$acbddccf@computer> Message-ID: >Etymology: "They" revised continued > >Carl Jeffrey Weber > > >Michael Newman said: >1) It's possible to get too caught up with the apparent novelty of >the use of 3pp pronouns with 3ps antecedents, as some kind of >distortion in the paradigm, but that is an artifact of a theoretical >idea that pronouns match antecedents in number and gender. In fact, >cross linguistically the agreement rules between pronouns and >antecedents are loose and often obey semantic/pragmatic principles as >much as mere feature matching. > >I think: >Very nicely put. I'm surprised, almost chagrined, that you interpret what I >said this way, Michael. I'm not talking about "everybody.their" and >artifacts of theoretical ideas. And I'm not talking about distortions of the >paradigm. I'm talking about the paradigm shift and reorganization itself!! Obviously, that's what happened in the middle ages to the extent that the th forms replaced the West Germanic ones. However, beyond that there is no sharp paradigm shift because there is flexibility in the semantics. There is and never has been a strict semantically singular = formally singular correspondence. >And, in introspect, I don't believe that I've been overly caught up in >anything (maybe a bit) -- but merely appropriately caught up in (1) the >plausible explanation that the "th-" nominative plural developed to fill the >need in the preterit for an unambiguous plural when the preterit plural >disappeared and (2) a suggestion of a NATIVE source of "they" as a duplet >with "the" of the OE singular instrumental demonstrative -- a suggestion >which might explain the singular morphology of "they". > >Michael Newman said: >2) In contemporary English, one of a number of principles governing >pronoun agreement is that use of the they, them, etc. tend to signal >generic (i.e., general, abstract, nonspecific) referents. Use of the >singular forms signal individuated ones. This is why it is possible >to find singular they with sex-definite referents, as indeed I have from a >variety of places when that referent is clearly generic. It is also >difficult to get sex-indefinite ones with specific referents whose sex >happens to be unknown. > >I think: >It would be nice to see one or two of your favorite examples, Michael. Larry supplied some fine ones. I have them in my diss (published as Epicene Pronouns, in Garland 1997) and an article in Studies in Language in 1998, but I haven't thought about it in a while and can't remember them off hand. I'm away from home now. >The >"hot" parts of the pronouns in question are the "-ey", the "-m", and the > "-r". Case seems to be more significant than number when there is no >ambiguity for number involved. I think I'm trying to make different points >than you are commenting on. I'm trying to understand the historical paradigm >shift itself. I can show example after example, in Late Middle English, of >the spelling "he" being used for a female referent; similarly, I can show >"he" used for today's "they" - in which cases, both are the feminine/plural. >The late survival of the feminine/plural has escaped modern scholarship to a >large extent. In the year of Chaucer's birth, 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwit >(Morris 1866) we find "[hi] wes a uayr wifman" (She was a fair woman). As I' >ve written, what swept all this away was Caxton's standardization of the >pronouns of the King's English - that it might be more uniformly understood >in its written representation throughout the realm. > >A very good argument can be made that there WAS a generic pronoun. It seems >absurd -- but the so-called generic pronoun, not only was real, but seems to >have developed, in its singular morphology, from the feminine(/plural) - >notwithstanding that these historical developments seem to have been veiled >to modern perception. First, I'd say "generic" isn't a great term because it has a specific semantic meaning for type-class, something which gets involved in the issue. I called it 'epicene' which has also brought complaints because it refers to dual gender in Greek. Still, that's less confusing since there is no gender at all in English, only sex reference. That's an issue that's important. If there is no gender then there can be no epicene gender. Epicene is not a formal category in English. One of the points in my diss was that the search for an epicene pronoun made no sense because there was no such category natural to the language. He refers to a specific (or individuated) male human being, she to an individuated female female, it to a nonhuman, and they to generics and plurals, but as prototypes not categorically. Anything that doesn't fit into the prototype, including not just epicenes, but animals, collectives, and collections are characterized by variation, not the use of a single pronoun. The variation is not a mystery or problem so much as a tool that speakers use to indicate qualities that they impute to the referent, be it individuation, genericness, humanity (in the case of animals and babies), plurality and singularity in the case of collections and collectives. In this way, English pronouns are not equivalent to, say, Spanish el or ella, for example, which do exhibit categorical qualities. But Spanish has gender. English does not. >Michael Newman Said: >3) When I looked at different ms.s of Chaucer's Prologue to the >Pardoner's Tale, which contains a good number of generic referents, I >found tremendous variation between tendencies to use He, him, etc. >and They, hem, etc. I presented this once at a conference, and >someone who works on Old English said that she found equivalent >examples in OE. She was supposed to send me the citations, and never >did, and I never followed up. > >I think: >(We have to agree whether we are talking about contemporary English, Middle >English, of both -- let's talk about it all.) Chaucer's written dialect can >'t be discounted, but as the status/prestige dialect, it was only one very >very small part of Late Middle English, albeit of grand celebrity to modern >eyes. Chaucer cannot be considered to represent the generalized English of >the time. In addition, if Caxton, a century after Chaucer, is to be >believed, the upper classes in England held in contempt those of lower >station and the way they spoke the language. Also, the problem of "they" has >different historical implications than those of "them" and "their" - as I've >indicated before. I would like to see some of your examples to see if we are >considering same page phenomena. > >The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular > "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE >feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, >is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular and the neuter singular - >in which instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the >morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his book". >"His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. (The >feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from >the wider language family). I don't think so for the reasons above. Nice theory though. -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 14 02:03:45 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 21:03:45 EST Subject: "I Love New York" (December 1975) Message-ID: Milton Glaser gets a lot of credit for "I (heart) New York," now everywhere once again. He didn't think up the words--which were given to him for a 1977 campaign. He came up with the "heart symbol." I coulda done that! This was around the time of New York's fiscal crisis of 1975. "Big Apple" grew in popularity at this time also. Where did the buttons and the idea come from? From NEW YORK magazine, 1 December 1975, pg. 79, col. 1: I LOVE NEW YORK (On a white button--ed.) _How Much Is That City_ _In the Window?_ Designer Norma Kamali was so sickened by the anti-New York commercials on L.A. television that she came home determined to do _something_. So she picked herself up and went around inspiring the shopkeepers near her--on Madison between 60th and 72nd, on First between 50th and 51st, and on 60th between Second and Third--to do pro-New York windows for two weeks. They agreed. They also agreed to give away the I LOVE NEW YORK buttons that Norma designed and Halston has been handing out. _WINDOWS/November 24-December 6_ From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 14 04:18:46 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 23:18:46 EST Subject: Hungering for America (2002); Food books Message-ID: HUNGERING FOR AMERICA: ITALIAN, IRISH & JEWISH FOODWAYS IN THE AGE OF MIGRATION by Hasia R. Diner Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 320 pages, paperback, $39.95 2001 Jesse Sheidlower told me about this book. I saw a reviewer's copy for half price, and bought it from Amazon. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an index! No bibliography, either! The binding says "January 2002," but the copyright is 2001. Diner is Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, and she says she worked ten years on this book. There are about fifty pages of footnotes. For me, the book is worthless. There are no food recipes cited. Zero! The illustrations are very few; there are hundreds of wonderful classic illustrations (cartoons, song covers, extensive photos of period products) that could have been used. It's very hard to go through without an index, but I didn't see a single citation that I can use for a single food. "Notes" are on pages 232-283. Hardly a cookbook is cited. Where are publications like THE JEWISH BAKERS' VOICE? Instead, we get the JOURNAL OF SOCIAL HISTORY and AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST. Buy this, if you must, used at the Strand. Or read it if it comes to NYU's Bobst Library (one of the world's better libraries). -------------------------------------------------------- DIRTY RICE (1962?) IIRC, DARE has 1966 or 1968. THE NEW YORK TIMES SOUTHERN HERITAGE COOKBOOK (G. P. Putnam's Sons, NY 1972) by Jean Hewitt, has on page 164, "DIRTY RICE (LOUISIANA)." HOLIDAY INN INTERNATIONAL COOK BOOK by Ruth Malone Copyright 1962 Copyright 1972, revised seventh edition Pg. 52: Fort Smith, Ark.--South DIRTY RICE Pg. 156: Lake Charles, La. CAJUN DIRTY RICE (Anyone have the 1962 edition?--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- PENNE (1968)(continued) LUIGI CARNACINA'S GREAT ITALIAN COOKING (LA GRANDE CUCINA INTERNATIONALE) edited by Michael Sonino Abradale Press, NY 1968 Pg. 189: Penne or Maltagliati with Ricotta Penne o maltagliati con la ricotta -------------------------------------------------------- GOLD COIN CHICKEN (1953); GOLDEN DOLLARS (1962) CHOW! SECRETS OF CHINESE COOKING by Dolly Chow (Mrs. C. T. Wang) Charles C. Tuttle Co, Rutland, Vermont 1953 Pages 58-59: Gold Coin Chicken (Chin Ch'iem Chi) THE FINE ART OF CHINESE COOKING by Dr. Lee Su Jan Gramercy Publishing COmpany, NY 1962 Pg. 77: GOLDEN DOLLARS Pg. 83: GOLDEN HOOKS (Shrimp--ed.) Pg. 163: DRUNKEN DUCK OR CHICKEN Pg. 164: DRUNKEN PORK Pg. 224: HIDDEN TREASURE RICE PUDDING -------------------------------------------------------- ANTS ON THE TREE (1975, 1977) FLORENCE LIN'S CHINESE REGIONAL COOKBOOK by Florence Lin Hawthorn Books, NY 1975 Pg. 66: Chiao Hua Chi BEGGAR'S CHICKEN Pg. 71: Lung Ch'uan Feng Yi PRINCESS CHICKEN Pg. 134: Ma Yi Shang Shu ANTS ON THE TREE Pg. 200: Lo Han Chai BUDDHA'S DELIGHT Buddha's Delight is one of the most popular vegetarian dishes in China. Pg. 302: Pa Pao Fan EIGHT PRECIOUS RICE PUDDING THE SCRTUABLE FEAST: A GUIDE TO EATING AUTHENTICALLY IN CHINESE RESTAURANTS by Dorothy Farris Lapidus Dodd, Mead & Co., NY 1977 Pg. 153: 9. ANTS CLIMBING TREE (ma i shang shu) Chopped pork seasoned with onions, ginger root, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper is combined with fried or boiled bean thread (cellophane noodles). The piled-up bean thread resembles a tree and the bits of pork look like ants. Can be very hot to taste. This dish is sometimes called Chopped Meat with Mung Bean Stick. (Pg. 137 has "Kung Pao Diced Chicken," for example. "General Tso's Chicken" is nowhere to be found, despite a large Szechuan index--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- VICEROY'S (KUNG PAO) CHICKEN, SLIPPERY CHICKEN (1976) THE GOURMET CHINESE REGIONAL COOKBOOK by Calvin B. T. Lee and Audrey Evans Lee Castle Books, Secaucus, NY 1976 Pg. 129: PEKING DUST Pg. 137: KUNG PAO CHICKEN Also known as Viceroy's Chicken, this dish honors a Peking bureaucrat who was either exiled or sent as an emissary to distant Szechuan. It has become deserved popular along with the quite different Kung Pao Shrimp. Pg. 142: SLIPPERY CHICKEN This spicy and aromatic dish plays up the smooth texture of bean curd with chicken meat. The effect is truly one of slippery chicken and quite novel. (No "General Tso's Chicken" here, either--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- BUDDHA'S DELIGHT, HAPPY FAMILY (1962) THE PLEASURES OF CHINESE COOKING by Grace Zia Chu Cornerstone Library, NY 1962; reprinted 1969 Pg. 69: _Fortune Cookies_ Fortune cookies are unknown in China, but they have become as popular in America as chop suey. Pg. 90: _Millionaire Chicken_ Pg. 105: _Individual Eight Precious Pudding_ Pg. 131: _Buddha's Delight_ Pg. 137: _Gold Coin Mushrooms_ Pg. 138: _Happy Family_ -------------------------------------------------------- THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGGS, BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (1969) TREASURED RECIPES FROM TWO CULTURES-- AMERICAN AND CHINESE Women's Society of Christian Service St. Mark's United Methodist Church Stockton, CA First printing, 1966 Second printing, 1967 Revised Third Printing, 1969 (Not paginated--ed.) THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGGS (Pay Don) These are preserved eggs wrapped in dried mud and have been kept for some time--not a thousand years! One acquires a taste for these eggs. Remove the mud, wash egg, shell. Slice with egg slicer. The egg white is dark and the yolk a greenish color. Pour a little salad oil over the sliced eggs. Serve with sliced pickled scallions. (...) BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (...) THE STORY OF THE BEGGAR'S CHICKEN A beggar had stolen a chicken from a farmer's house by using a handful of mud paste to choke the chicken so that it would not make any noise. Then he carried the chicken back home, but he was so poor that he had nothing to use for cooking the chicken nor killing it. So he made more mud paste and coated the whole chicken, feather and everything, into a mud ball; he put this mud ball chicken over the coal fire that he had stolen to keep himself warm. He kept turning the chicken for hours. When the mud got all dried near dawn, he split and crushed the dried mud and found all the feather was stuck onto the mud. Then he had a delicious meal. --From a Formosan Cook Book -------------------------------------------------------- DIM SUM, PEKING DUST (1950) NOODLES AND RICE AND EVERYTHING NICE by the Hong Kong Young Women's Christian Association Local Printing Press, Ltd., Hong Kong 1950 Pg. 4: Around one o'clock came "dim sum," "touch the hearts," which are small prepared delicacies such as crisp egg rolls, steamed filled dumplings, fried yam patties, noodles, chow mein, etc. Pg. 34: FROG MEAT AND CHICKEN "Double Phoenix Facing the Sun" Pg. 36: CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI "Gold and Jade Chicken" Pg. 44: SWEET AND SOUR PORK Pg. 57: WANTON SOUP (...) EGG DROP SOUP Pg. 65: FRIED SPRING ROLLS Pg. 68: PEKING DOILIES Pg. 71: EIGHT PRECIOUS GLUTINOUS RICE PUDDING Pg. 72: PEKING DUST Anyone who has visited Peking knows that "Peking dust" is no idle talk. That cold dry area is well known for its dust storms. When the wind blows, anyone on the street can have plenty of Peking dust to eat. This pudding, so facetiously named, is most easily prepared in a climate where these cold dry conditions prevail. It is a dramatic finale to any meal, either Chinese or Western. -------------------------------------------------------- MUFFULETTAS, MOON SANDWICHES (1973) THE NEW ORLEANS UNDERGROUND GOURMET by Richard H. Collin Simon and Schuster, NY 1973 Pg. 213: CHARLIE'S NEW YORK DELICATESSEN METAIRIE 2023 Metarie Rd. (...) Charlie's carries--and indeed proudly features--local specialties that most New Yorkers have never dreamed of, such as oyster poor boys, Muffulettas, and moon sandwiches (they are "out of this world," and consist of ham, cheese, and roast beef). (FWIW: My next trip is to Hawaii and New Zealand. I'll try to have some "surf-playing" and "macadamia" nuts tomorrow--ed.) From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 14 09:31:52 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 01:31:52 -0800 Subject: The Finger (1947?) In-Reply-To: <10c.b33ce11.2973200e@aol.com> Message-ID: >...or Oreos (African-Americans who >sell out to Anglos --Oh, those terrible Anglos!). And there's bananas - for Asian-Americans - the same symbology as Oreos. Rima From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Mon Jan 14 11:39:51 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 06:39:51 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). The underlying idea is that when you combine salad ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, etc. It's a voguish metaphor right now, but LexisNexis has cites back to 1975: Robert Rangel, director of bilingual programs in Los Angeles city schools, described America today as a "salad bowl" rather than a melting pot. "Ethnic pride is very strong," he said. "Today everyone needs to find a place in the sun. Our country is strong because of the diversity it has." --U.S. News & World Report, July 7, 1975 Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ > > 2) common food metaphors, such as "melting pot," and "salad bowl" (does > > anyone know where/when this originated?), and other common food-related > > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. I am not sure > what you mean by a metaphorical "salad bowl." From sylvar at VAXER.NET Mon Jan 14 13:38:14 2002 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 05:38:14 -0800 Subject: SOLID-STATE TRAFFIC In-Reply-To: <200201130457.g0D4vXP13391@maple.vaxer.net> Message-ID: Jim Landau wrote: > "Solid-state traffic" is almost certainly a nonce usage, someone's > play on words, since taken literally it is meaningless (traffic that > uses transisteros rather than vacuum tubes??) It does, however, make sense in the context of the analogy between states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma) and road traffic. There's been some work on stretching this analogy to see how far it'll go, but it seems there are 'phase transitions' between gridlock, traffic, light traffic, and practically empty roads. This may have been part of the intent of the speaker/writer. Ben, delurking -- barbifry: (v.t.) To barbeque and fry simultaneously. "The mage used a huge fireball spell in the 10 by 10 room. We all got barbifried. 17 intelligence, my ass." -- www.everything2.com From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Mon Jan 14 15:36:53 2002 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Houston Hall) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 09:36:53 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Re: Message-ID: Can anyone help him? >Return-Path: dearment at hotmail.com >X-Originating-IP: [202.103.211.92] >From: "Eric DeArment" >To: jdhall at facstaff.wisc.edu >Subject: Re: >Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 22:43:14 -0800 >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 Jan 2002 06:43:15.0042 (UTC) >FILETIME=[BE21AC20:01C19CC6] > >I'm interested in learning more about dialects of the Pacific Northwest, >particularly the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Do you know of any >good Web-based resources? > >-Eric > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 14 16:04:23 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:04:23 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) In-Reply-To: <015201c19cf0$2edc05e0$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: #The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in #which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than #being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). [...] Whoever Paul was replying to (sorry) had said about the latter: > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food >metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical >"salad bowl." Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was deliberately coined in response to such a culinary interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", just as you describe and cite: #The underlying idea is that when you combine salad #ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is #still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, #etc. [snip citation] -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Mon Jan 14 16:37:00 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:37:00 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: I think these guesses are correct. Every example I've seen of "salad bowl" contrasts it to "melting pot," with one speaker (Alex Haley, author of "Roots") saying that a melting pot suggests oatmeal. The earliest use I saw was from the 6/13/83 issue of Time: "The new metaphor is not the melting pot but the salad bowl, with each element distinct." John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark A Mandel [SMTP:mam at THEWORLD.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 11:04 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) > > > Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) > imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was > culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar > with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in > cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or > possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I > have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen > also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." > > I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was > deliberately coined in response to such a culinary > interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I > can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad > bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by > an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", > just as you describe and cite: > > From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Mon Jan 14 16:57:57 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:57:57 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: was reading in the newest Nat'l Geographic last night about the New Europe and the metaphors people were using were a bouquet of flowers (the tulips are still tulips) and an orchestra (the violins are still violins) seemed much more appealing to me than the salad bowl metaphor for some reason. Ellen Ellen Johnson Assistant Professor of Linguistics Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing Berry College, Box 350 Mt. Berry, GA 30149 706-368-5638 http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ ejohnson at berry.edu -----Original Message----- From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at THEWORLD.COM] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 11:04 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: #The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in #which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than #being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). [...] Whoever Paul was replying to (sorry) had said about the latter: > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food >metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical >"salad bowl." Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was deliberately coined in response to such a culinary interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", just as you describe and cite: #The underlying idea is that when you combine salad #ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is #still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, #etc. [snip citation] -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 14 17:15:50 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:15:50 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:04 AM 1/14/02 -0500, you wrote: >On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > >#The "salad bowl" metaphor is used to describe a multicultural society in >#which each ethnic group maintains its own cultural identity rather than >#being assimilated into a larger, common culture (the "melting pot"). > [...] > >Whoever Paul was replying to (sorry) had said about the >latter: > > > "Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food > >metaphor. I am not sure what you mean by a metaphorical > >"salad bowl." > >Most people are not familiar with hot-metal (industrial) >imagery. I had always assumed that "melting pot" was >culinary, without examining it closely. I'm not so familiar >with the kitchen that I could say "there's no such thing in >cooking", and I associated it with a stew or soup, or >possibly a fondue (which does melt, as the name implies). I >have a vague sense that the explanations of it that I'd seen >also referred to cooking; maybe "flavors melting together." > >I suspect, though I can't prove it, that "salad bowl" was >deliberately coined in response to such a culinary >interpretation of "melting pot". And I'm certain, though I >can't give a citation, that the first time I saw "salad >bowl", or one of the very first times, it was accompanied by >an explicit assertion of that contrast to the "melting pot", >just as you describe and cite: > >#The underlying idea is that when you combine salad >#ingredients they retain their "identity": the lettuce is >#still recognizable as lettuce, the carrots as carrots, >#etc. > > [snip citation] > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse Jackson (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is quaintly domestic, with the separate pieces idea. _____________________________________________ 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 pskuhlman at JUNO.COM Mon Jan 14 17:35:00 2002 From: pskuhlman at JUNO.COM (pskuhlman at JUNO.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:35:00 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl Message-ID: > And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse > Jackson > (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is > quaintly > domestic, with the separate pieces idea. I've also heard "mosaic" used this way in New York City. Someone in the public arena (don't recall who) said that New York is not a melting pot, but a mosaic. Patricia Kuhlman pskuhlman at juno.com Brooklyn, NY > _____________________________________________ From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 14 17:55:53 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:55:53 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Fred Shapiro on Sun, 13 Jan 2002 13:59:18 wrote: >"Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. < Even though this expression seems to have developed a culinary association, I agree with Fred about its original meaning. This later association probably reflects our diminishing experience of industrial processes. Even middle class kids would still 50 & 60 years ago be familiar with the images of heavy industry, through educational films. [What a lark that was, when the shades would be drawn, the projector rolled in & the classroom darkened for some instructive movie!] A. Murie From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Mon Jan 14 18:04:58 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:04:58 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: A melting pot was also used in glass making. A search of MOA Cornell results in items that refer to either glass making or metal work. In glue making, there was the glue-pot, in which a variety of items might be placed, but I don't know that the process could be termed melting. Probably wouldn't have caught on to say that a given culture or society was a glue-pot. George Cole Shippensburg University From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:09:49 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:09:49 -0800 Subject: Fwd: Re: Message-ID: Eric: > > > >I'm interested in learning more about dialects of the Pacific Northwest, > >particularly the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Do you know of any > >good Web-based resources? What, in particular, are you interested in. I live in Seattle, so I guess I'm an "expert". Anne G From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:11:25 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:11:25 -0800 Subject: ?? Message-ID: To all: I get a lot of this mail personally, and it's in Japanese and Chinese, too. Lately I've been blocking it. I *think* I got something in Chines supposedly via you folks, yesterday. Just FYI. Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Billionbridges.com" To: Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 1:33 PM Subject: Re: ?? > Actually, in the slight chance it matters to the administrator > of the list, the junk email in the last few months has been in > Korean only. > > > They're also Chinese and Japanese. Some of them are porn sites. I just > > block anything in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, on general principles. > > Anne G > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Billionbridges.com" > > To: > > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:11 PM > > Subject: Re: ?? > > > > > > > They're coming from Korean junk emailers. If > > > you have Korean encoding capability you will > > > be able to view the Korean text (not that you'd > > > want to!). > > > _______________________ > > > Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo > > > "A Billion Bridges" > > > Chinese<>English Translation Services > > > Tel: 905-308-9389 > > > Fax: 801-881-0914 (24 hrs) > > > Web: www.billionbridges.com > > > Email: translation at billionbridges.com > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > > > To: > > > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 3:43 AM > > > Subject: ?? > > > > > > > > > > What is with all these e-mails that are just full of question marks? > > > > > > > > Rima From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:14:52 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:14:52 -0800 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) Message-ID: Ellen: Bouquets of flowers and orchestras are nice, but I still kinda like the "patchwork quilt" metaphor. Too bad it never caught on. Anne G > was reading in the newest Nat'l Geographic last night about the New Europe and the metaphors people were using were > > a bouquet of flowers (the tulips are still tulips) and > an orchestra (the violins are still violins) > > seemed much more appealing to me than the salad bowl metaphor for some reason. Ellen From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:16:12 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:16:12 -0800 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Rima: > > And there's bananas - for Asian-Americans - the same symbology as Oreos. Well, there's also "apples", applied to certain Native Americans, same analogy as Oreos. Anne G From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 14 05:16:37 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:16:37 +0800 Subject: Salad bowl In-Reply-To: <20020114.123507.-194931.0.pskuhlman@juno.com> Message-ID: At 12:35 PM -0500 1/14/02, pskuhlman at JUNO.COM wrote: > > And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse >> Jackson >> (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is >> quaintly >> domestic, with the separate pieces idea. > > >I've also heard "mosaic" used this way in New York City. Someone in the >public arena (don't recall who) said that New York is not a melting pot, >but a mosaic. > A wonderful mosaic, in fact--but was it NYC or America in general? I haven't tracked down the original cite via google or Nexis yet, but I'm sure someone has it. Fred, is it in your Quotations files? larry From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Mon Jan 14 18:19:58 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:19:58 -0800 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: To all: > > >"Melting pot" is a hot-metal metaphor, not a food metaphor. < > > Even though this expression seems to have developed a culinary association, > I agree with Fred about its original meaning. This later association > probably reflects our diminishing experience of industrial processes. > Even middle class kids would still 50 & 60 years ago be familiar with the > images of heavy industry, through educational films. [What a lark that was, > when the shades would be drawn, the projector rolled in & the classroom > darkened for some Well, I must be about the same age, because I remember those "instructional" movies, too. I also remember "melting pot" describing America and Americans(supposedly, anyway). I just accepted the metaphof and I never thought about where it came from. I had no idea whatever that it was a metaphor borrowed from heavy industry. Anne G From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 14 18:29:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:29:32 EST Subject: General Tso & Yale; Chinese Menus Message-ID: CHINESE MENUS A wonderful article in FLAVOR & FORTUNE, Spring 2001, page 5+, is "TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR TAKE-OUT MENU: A VIEW OF CHINESE HISTORY," by Harley Spiller. His collection now numbers 6,000 menus--mostly Chinese-American. Pg. 26, col. 2: Harley Spiller's collection contains many old CHinese Menus that people have donated from their scrapbooks. Please feel free to contact him to conduct research, and do consider making donations of menus to this important and unique collection. Contact this magazine and they'll get you together to do so. (FLAVOR AND FORTUNE, a magazine of the Institute of the Science and Art of Chjinese Cuisine, P. O. Box 91, Kings Park, NY 11754, www.flavorandfortune.com--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- GENERAL TSO AND YALE From GOURMET, October 1982, pg. 129, col. 3: Q. Everything at the Peng Teng restaurant in New York City is delectable, but for me the outstanding dish is General Tso's chicken. WOuld you lbe so kind as to prcure the recipe? RITA SCHWARTZ CENTERREACH, NEW YORK A. Chef Peng gladly revealed one of the secrets of the Orient. _General Tso's Chicken Peng Teng_ _(Chicken with Red Peppers)_ (...) From FLAVOR & FORTUNE, December 1996, volume 3, no. 4, pg. 5, col. 1: _GENERAL TSO--THE MYSTERY MAN_ BY IRVING BEILIN CHANG One of the most tasty, sumptuous, and well balanced dishes found on most CHinese restaurant menus is General Tso's CHicken. If you have never had it, try it at your next opportunity. TO make this dish, the chef takes selected cuts of the leg and thigh meat of the chicken, coats it with an egg and flour mixture, then deep fries it in oil to insure that its juices are retained. This gives the chicken morsels a slightly crispy crunch. A few sprigs of green broccoli florets are blanched in boiling water for garnish and a brown sweet and sour sauce is poured over the chicken. THe sauce is made from garlic, ginger, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, whole red peppers, and some cornstarch and stock or water mixed in as a thickener. THis combination of flavors gives General Tso's chicken its unique and tasty appeal. Why was this dish named after the general? Who was this man? My wife and I knew that his name was Tso Tsung TOng, a famous Hunan general, but nothing else. So we decided to research this question and find out more about this military man. We had an inside track. I asked my sister who in the 1920's as a young girl had gone with my mother to a local YWCA meeting at the invitation of Madam Tso (No. 3 wife) at the general's home in Changsa, in Hunana, China. My sister remembered visiting this venerable old lady and having some tea there. When she was there, the general had long passed away and Madam Tso, many years his junior, was then the "first lady" in town. Unfortunately, that was all my sister recalled. Changsa (the capital of the Hunan province), situated in central CHina, was the general's home base. My mother, an AMerican born CHinese, was a much sought after guest in this town. Madam Tso, although old, enjoyed hosting the YWCA meetings at her home. My father, at that time was dean of Yali, the Yale-in-China School. Yali, funded by the Yale-in-China Association of New Haven, was situated in that city. THe fact that Yali could be located there I am sure had the blessings of the Tso family. So those associated with Yali were the American connection in this mid-Yangtze-River-valley city. TO find out more about the general, my wife suggested that I write to our local CHinese magazine, _Sino Monthly New Jersey_, for information on General Tso. THeir editor kindly wrote bacl weith the following timely information. General Tso Tsung Tong (1812-1885) was born in Xiang Yin, thirty-five miles north of Changsa. He was a very famous General under the Manchu Dynasty and his military activities took him to many parts of CHina. He was a very active person and loved his food, especially meat. Everywhere he went, the local magistrates, in order to cultivate his favor, would prepare special feasts in his honor, perhaps to solicit favors and at least so that he would think kindly of them. He was a hard person to please, but try they did. (...) (Kicked off the computer!...My trip to China this fall had better be tax-deductible--ed.) From sale at KOSO.NET Mon Jan 14 18:31:07 2002 From: sale at KOSO.NET (=?ks_c_5601-1987?B?wdYpxNq80rPd?=) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 03:31:07 +0900 Subject: =?ks_c_5601-1987?B?KLGksO0pIMDOxc2z3SC87sfOuPQgsbjD4CA1Nbi4v/g=?= Message-ID: 2002? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???A:link {text-decoration:none; color: #3333cc}A:visited {text-decoration:none; color:#990099}A:hover {text-decoration:none; color: red}body {font-family:??,??,seoul,verdana; font-size:9pt;}td {font-family:??,??,seoul,verdana; font-size:9pt;line-height:16px;}.select { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.password { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.file { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.button { font-size:9pt; color:white; background-color:red; border-width:1; border-color:#AAAAAA; }.base { text-decoration:none; font-size:9pt; line-height:2.2 }.textarea { font-size:9pt; color:navy; background-color:#F0F0F0; border-width:1; border-color:#777777; border-style:solid; }.title {font-family:seoul,??,Arial;font-size:10pt;font-weight:bold;color:#B82200;text-decoration:none;letter-spacing:1px;} "55???? ?? ??? ??????? ??? ? ????!!" 02-3431-8100 (??) 02-404-6288/9 (??) ??? : ????? > ???? / PHP,Mysql DB / ???????? / ????? ???? / ???,??? ???? / ?????? /?? ?? ?? /???? ???? /??? ???? /??? ???? / ??? ???? /??????? / ??? ?? /???? AS * ????? ?????? ?? ( ?? ??? ?? ????? ??????. ) ?????? [http://unicam.co.kr] - ????? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ????. ??? [http://modish.co.kr] - ?? ???? ??? ???, ??, ??, ??? ???? ???? ???? ???????????.. ??? [http://damiss.co.kr] - Sports wear ??? ??? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ??? ??? ??? ?????. ?????? [http://ouinon.co.kr] - ??????? ??? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ??? ???? ????. ?????? [http://ginsam.com] - ????? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??? ????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ? ????. ???4989 [http://medical4989.com] - ???? ??? ?? ????? ???? ????. MPWIZ [http://mpwiz.com] - Mp3 player ???(?????) ???? ???? mp3 player ?? ?????. ???? ????? ?? ????????. ???? ? : email ? : * ???? ????? ???????? ?? ?? ?? ? ?????? ?????. * ??? ???? ???? ????????? ?? ???. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 14 18:40:05 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:40:05 -0500 Subject: Salad bowl (was Re: The Finger (1947?)) In-Reply-To: <007a01c19d27$61eb9900$5dfcfd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: I can give you the exact quote from Jesse Jackson, dated June-July 1992 in _Modern Maturity_ (!), p. 23, and with a colorful quilt-like graphic next to it: "America is not like a blanket--one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt--many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread." Nice, huh? I use it in my intro. to my Language in America course for undergrads, where we spend the first week on the role of immigrant languages before moving on to dialect variation. At 10:14 AM 1/14/02 -0800, you wrote: >Ellen: > >Bouquets of flowers and orchestras are nice, but I still kinda like the >"patchwork quilt" metaphor. Too bad it never caught on. >Anne G > > > was reading in the newest Nat'l Geographic last night about the New Europe >and the metaphors people were using were > > > > a bouquet of flowers (the tulips are still tulips) and > > an orchestra (the violins are still violins) > > > > seemed much more appealing to me than the salad bowl metaphor for some >reason. Ellen _____________________________________________ 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 carljweber at MSN.COM Mon Jan 14 19:06:48 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:06:48 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology:_=22They=22:_Earliest_Use?= Message-ID: Etymology : "They" : Earliest Use Carl Jeffrey Weber No thorns, "th-" used instead. Apparently, the earliest identified "unambiguous plural" pronoun is seen in the Peterborough Chronicle, of the year 1137 (Mosse Handbook). The need for an unambiguous plural pronoun arose when the past tense plural marker moved from the verb-proper into the "to be" auxiliary. Another developmental stage in English third person pronominals is seen in how "they" is expressed in Layamons Brut, in the earlier and later, of two versions. "They" arises full-blown in the later version. These are great sagas, intended to be read aloud. They are of heroic scale epic peradventure. Of the poet's manuscripts, which are usually rescribings of earlier scribings, with changes made to fit the audience written dialect. It is assumed the practice of the day demanded of the story teller a well exercised spontaneity for rendering the manuscript in the colloquial idiom. One text is from about 1200, the other, a few decades later. Each manuscript, more voluminous than the average modern novel, shows many many pronoun experimentations, particularly in the h-stem and deictic pronouns. They were, eight hundred years ago, "squaring off" in grammatical competition to be the correct form of last resort. Incidentally, in discussing the pronoun as a "relative pronoun", it should be mentioned there are three instances of "who" as a relative pronouns in the earlier version, about seventy in the later. (On another interrogative: "tha. tha", can signal "when.then", as in the Peterborough Chronicle example given above. In the Chronicle, the markedness for "personal" + "plural" of "they" is created by "the" + "hi". The h-stem pronoun gives a personal/plural marker to deictic "th-". The interrogatively marked "wh-" of "when" or "who" was not used as a shape in a relative pronoun . In the earlier Layamons Brut the grammaticality of "they" was expressed by the two words "the" + "aer". The "th-" seems to be pollinated for plural number by the verb particle. A full blown "they" plural appears in these decades opening the 13th century in several medieval manuscripts. I have identified the full-blown form of "they" in the later Layamons Brut, apparently not previously indentified: "thaie" (with futharc thorn instead of Roman digraph "th-"). I. LINE 19 Petersborough Chronicles 1137 : They = the + hi (my translations follow) <<<<<<<<<<< Tha the casltes waren maked, tha fylden hi mid deovles and yvele men. The namen hi tha men the hi wenden that ani god hefden, bathe be nightes and be daeies. <<<<<<<<<< "When the castles were built, then they filled them with devils and evil men. Then they took the men they governed. They took everything they had, both by night and by day." Mosse isn't sure about the "the" in "the hi" next to "wenden". He says: "It may represent the relative particle of Old English, but also may be a particular use of the new definite article." My idea of the development of the paradigm suggests an answer to what "it may represent". In addition, it appears that , the incipient "they", is the subject of "hefden", whereas Mosse says the subject is unexpressed. II About 1200, in the earlier Layamons Brute: They = the aer >>>>>>>>>>> Brutus hit herde siggen; thurh his s?-monnen. the aer weoren on than londe; & tha lawen wusten. Brutus heard it said through his seamen were landed & keeping the law. >>>>>>>>>> The same lines roughly twenty years later: The "they" of earlier Layamon (i.e. "the aer"), survives as "the er": >>>>>>>>>>> Brutus hit ihorde; thorth his see-mannen. the er weren in that lond; and the lawes wiste. (In some instances the "er" is easily misidentified as "her" or "here".) III About 1220, the later Layamons Brute: They = thaie (full-blown form) The new full-blown form, "thaie", identified here, is in the later manuscript. Regardless whether or not the h-stem is gone or just hiding: Could the vowel carry the ghost of nominative morphology from the displaced paradigm? IV Anomalous forms. 1. In the earlier version tha[i] appears one time. 2. In the later version "thaye" appears one time. 1. Credit for the earliest identification of the form pregnant with the incipient "they" belongs to Sir Frederic Madden, 1847. He put the editorial bracketed letter in the following. there quene; and tha[i] that mid hire weoren. Their queen and they that were with her. 2. A modern looking form: thar the gode cnihtes; cometh to strange fihtes. that thaye that her bi-3ete?; eft hii leoseth. When the good knights cometh (vague accord) to mighty battles. Then they that joineth (vague accord) here, again they loseth (vague accord). (The apparent lack of concord here seems to show "they" in its singular morphology, notwithstanding attested plural -th in some written dialects.) From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 14 19:23:19 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 11:23:19 -0800 Subject: Eric and PNW dialect Message-ID: Eric, I can give you several items. These are all very old, but there really has not been much published on the PNW. Reed, Carroll E. "The Pronunciation of English in the Pacific Northwest." Language 37:4 (1961): 559-564. -----. 'The Pronunciation of English in the State of Washington.' American Speech 27:2 (1952): 186-189. -----. "The Pronunciation of English in the Pacific Northwest." Orbis 6 (1957). I will have to find the page numbers -----. The Dialects of American English. 1977. Amhurst: University of Massachusetts Press. Reed also did an article on vocab, the citation of which I do not have here. The atlas of the PNW has been divided into two parts-Washington/Idaho and Oregon. I am working on the Oregon part, so may not have exactly what you want. I also have a stack of worksheets that I had folks do about 2 years ago. For Websites, have a look at this site (I think this is the name): the Phonological Atlas of North America. Of course, you will want to consider the Chinook Jargon. I have an article in preparation on Chinook Jargon in Modern English. I hope this helps. What are you looking for specifically? Fritz Juengling >>> Joan Houston Hall 01/14/02 07:36AM >>> Can anyone help him? >I'm interested in learning more about dialects of the Pacific Northwest, >particularly the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Do you know of any >good Web-based resources? > >-Eric > From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 14 19:36:06 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 14:36:06 -0500 Subject: Etymology: "They": Earliest Use In-Reply-To: <002b01c19d2e$9f3cc160$5347ddcf@computer> Message-ID: Carl, I hope you're sending this thread to the HEL listserv too, where you might get some valuable feedback (in addition to ours, of course). At 01:06 PM 1/14/02 -0600, you wrote: >Etymology : "They" : Earliest Use > >Carl Jeffrey Weber > >No thorns, "th-" used instead. >Apparently, the earliest identified "unambiguous plural" pronoun is seen in >the Peterborough Chronicle, of the year 1137 (Mosse Handbook). The need for >an unambiguous plural pronoun arose when the past tense plural marker moved >from the verb-proper into the "to be" auxiliary. > >Another developmental stage in English third person pronominals is seen in >how "they" is expressed in Layamons Brut, in the earlier and later, of two >versions. "They" arises full-blown in the later version. These are great >sagas, intended to be read aloud. They are of heroic scale epic >peradventure. Of the poet's manuscripts, which are usually rescribings of >earlier scribings, with changes made to fit the audience written dialect. It >is assumed the practice of the day demanded of the story teller a well >exercised spontaneity for rendering the manuscript in the colloquial idiom. >One text is from about 1200, the other, a few decades later. Each >manuscript, more voluminous than the average modern novel, shows many many >pronoun experimentations, particularly in the h-stem and deictic pronouns. >They were, eight hundred years ago, "squaring off" in grammatical >competition to be the correct form of last resort. Incidentally, in >discussing the pronoun as a "relative pronoun", it should be mentioned there >are three instances of "who" as a relative pronouns in the earlier version, >about seventy in the later. (On another interrogative: "tha. tha", can >signal "when.then", as in the Peterborough Chronicle example given above. In >the Chronicle, the markedness for "personal" + "plural" of "they" is created >by "the" + "hi". The h-stem pronoun gives a personal/plural marker to >deictic "th-". The interrogatively marked "wh-" of "when" or "who" was not >used as a shape in a relative pronoun . > >In the earlier Layamons Brut the grammaticality of "they" was expressed by >the two words "the" + "aer". The "th-" seems to be pollinated for plural >number by the verb particle. > >A full blown "they" plural appears in these decades opening the 13th century >in several medieval manuscripts. I have identified the full-blown form of >"they" in the later Layamons Brut, apparently not previously indentified: >"thaie" (with futharc thorn instead of Roman digraph "th-"). > >I. >LINE 19 >Petersborough Chronicles 1137 : They = the + hi >(my translations follow) > ><<<<<<<<<<< >Tha the casltes waren maked, tha fylden hi mid deovles and yvele men. The >namen hi tha men the hi wenden that ani god hefden, bathe be nightes and be >daeies. ><<<<<<<<<< > >"When the castles were built, then they filled them with devils and evil >men. Then they took the men they governed. They took everything they had, >both by night and by day." > >Mosse isn't sure about the "the" in "the hi" next to "wenden". He says: >"It may represent the relative particle of Old English, but also may be a >particular use of the new definite article." My idea of the development of >the paradigm suggests an answer to what "it may represent". > > In addition, it appears that , the incipient "they", is the subject >of "hefden", whereas Mosse says the subject is unexpressed. > >II >About 1200, in the earlier Layamons Brute: They = the aer > > >>>>>>>>>>> >Brutus hit herde siggen; thurh his s?-monnen. >the aer weoren on than londe; & tha lawen wusten. > >Brutus heard it said through his seamen were landed & keeping the >law. > >>>>>>>>>> > >The same lines roughly twenty years later: The "they" of earlier Layamon >(i.e. "the aer"), survives as "the er": > > >>>>>>>>>>> >Brutus hit ihorde; thorth his see-mannen. >the er weren in that lond; and the lawes wiste. > >(In some instances the "er" is easily misidentified as "her" or "here".) > >III >About 1220, the later Layamons Brute: They = thaie (full-blown form) > >The new full-blown form, "thaie", identified here, is in the later >manuscript. Regardless whether or not the h-stem is gone or just hiding: >Could the vowel carry the ghost of nominative morphology from the displaced >paradigm? > >IV >Anomalous forms. > >1. In the earlier version tha[i] appears one time. >2. In the later version "thaye" appears one time. > >1. Credit for the earliest identification of the form pregnant with the >incipient "they" belongs to Sir Frederic Madden, 1847. He put the editorial >bracketed letter in the following. > >there quene; and tha[i] that mid hire weoren. >Their queen and they that were with her. > >2. A modern looking form: > >thar the gode cnihtes; cometh to strange fihtes. >that thaye that her bi-3ete?; eft hii leoseth. > >When the good knights cometh (vague accord) to mighty battles. >Then they that joineth (vague accord) here, again they loseth (vague >accord). > >(The apparent lack of concord here seems to show "they" in its singular >morphology, notwithstanding attested plural -th in some written dialects.) _____________________________________________ 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 14 20:30:51 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:30:51 -0500 Subject: The Finger (1947?) In-Reply-To: <008201c19d27$91affdc0$5dfcfd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: In the good-ole communist days we had the following riddle: Q: Why is Poland like a radish? A: Cause it has only a thin red layer on the outside. dInIs >Rima: >> >> And there's bananas - for Asian-Americans - the same symbology as Oreos. > >Well, there's also "apples", applied to certain Native Americans, same >analogy as Oreos. >Anne G -- From carljweber at MSN.COM Mon Jan 14 21:17:53 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:17:53 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Message-ID: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Carl Jeffrey Weber Michael Newman said > First, I'd say "generic" isn't a great term because it has a specific > semantic meaning for type-class, something which gets involved in the > issue. CJW It's the problem of the "gen-" morpheme. I use "genre" instead of gender, keeping the root but moving it away from anatomy and physiology in the direction of "kind". MN >I called it 'epicene' which has also brought complaints > because it refers to dual gender in Greek. Still, that's less > confusing since there is no gender at all in English, only sex > reference. CJW English, in its west-Germanic development, gave English three genre (of nouns). Genre is marked in the pronouns. In pre 15th century English, in the non-oblique cases, the feminine singular was linked morphologically with the all genders plural. These are the feminine/plural h-stems -- /heo/ and /hi/, etc. --. The "-o"in heo is orthographic only, and no one has proposed that it was pronounced except in dialect. The evolution of th- plural forms was with finality sealed and enforced on the language by our first printer (with consent of the King), William Caxton. The paradigm shuffle was taking place nearly three centuries before Caxton. Prior to the paradigm blends of the h-forms with the th- forms, the all-genders plural shared the same morphology as the singular feminine in the non-oblique cases (her , they/ them) > (she/her, they/them). In the 15th century this changed because the h-stems were not marked for number sufficiently to serve the demands of unambiguous plurality. The Old English dative ( in "-m" ) became in the 15th century the new "object" in the singular and plural, him/them. singular object-pronouns shared by masculine-object and all-genders object. The feminine/plural pronoun, of the non-oblique cases, because it was not marked for number, disappeared -- or perhaps went into hiding. On the non-distaff side, the masculine singular is morphologically related to the neuter obliques ("not one or the other"). Says the OED, the dative singular/plural "ousted" (an interesting technical term to describe it) the accusative. (The ousting didn't take with emphatic "hit".) The loss of the accusative entailed loss of those forms for (1.) the singular masculine, feminine, but not the neuter, and (2) the all genders plural. This shuffle resulted from the deprivation in the verb-proper of the possibility of a preterit plural marker. A new synthesis was required, and the morphologies of the h-stems and the th-forms seemed to have merged to show unambiguous number in past tense plural. MN says English has no "genre" (my word) of nouns: "That's an issue that's important. If there is no gender then there can be no epicene gender. Epicene is not a formal category ....be it individuation, genericness, humanity (in the case of animals and babies) (Note: "child" in English carries neuter morphology. CJW) I said: The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular, forms shared with the neuter singular. In such instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his [i.e., "neither" of the other two noun genre] book". "His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. The feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from the wider language family. MN said: > I don't think so for the reasons above. Nice theory though. Perhaps it isn't, but the theory might offer a working grammatic framework for studying historical English during the paradigm shift. And the whys and whens. Because modern English developed from historical English, noun genre is -- perhaps not unreasonably -- still carried in the language. In this particular, carried as markedness in the pronouns, parallel to the preterit plural having found a home eight hundred years ago in the "were" auxiliary, when markedness in the verb-proper went into hiding there. Carl Jeffrey Weber Chicago Ontology Recapitulates Philology From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 14 22:45:23 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 14:45:23 -0800 Subject: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Message-ID: CJW It's the problem of the "gen-" morpheme. I use "genre" instead of gender, keeping the root but moving it away from anatomy and physiology in the direction of "kind". "Gender" does mean 'kind.' It's generally not a good idea to replace terms that have been around for a long time and are standard. This has nothing to do with anatomy and physiology. CJW English, in its west-Germanic development, gave English three genre (of nouns). Genre is marked in the pronouns. In pre 15th century English, in the non-oblique cases, the feminine singular was linked morphologically with the all genders plural. These are the feminine/plural h-stems -- /heo/ and /hi/, etc. --. The "-o"in heo is orthographic only, and no one has proposed that it was pronounced except in dialect. Maybe I have missed something, but most scholars have claimed that the -o in heo was pronounced. There are numerous spellings and forms that show conclusively that the word must have been he-o at one time. Else how would we get 'sho'? The question of 'dialect' is really irrelevant for Old English--everything was 'dialect'. Only with the rise of London as the power center of England do we come across what was to become the standard. I think you need to be more specific with the term 'dialect.' Fritz The evolution of th- plural forms was with finality sealed and enforced on the language by our first printer (with consent of the King), William Caxton. The paradigm shuffle was taking place nearly three centuries before Caxton. Prior to the paradigm blends of the h-forms with the th- forms, the all-genders plural shared the same morphology as the singular feminine in the non-oblique cases (her , they/ them) > (she/her, they/them). In the 15th century this changed because the h-stems were not marked for number sufficiently to serve the demands of unambiguous plurality. The Old English dative ( in "-m" ) became in the 15th century the new "object" in the singular and plural, him/them. singular object-pronouns shared by masculine-object and all-genders object. The feminine/plural pronoun, of the non-oblique cases, because it was not marked for number, disappeared -- or perhaps went into hiding. On the non-distaff side, the masculine singular is morphologically related to the neuter obliques ("not one or the other"). Says the OED, the dative singular/plural "ousted" (an interesting technical term to describe it) the accusative. (The ousting didn't take with emphatic "hit".) The loss of the accusative entailed loss of those forms for (1.) the singular masculine, feminine, but not the neuter, and (2) the all genders plural. This shuffle resulted from the deprivation in the verb-proper of the possibility of a preterit plural marker. A new synthesis was required, and the morphologies of the h-stems and the th-forms seemed to have merged to show unambiguous number in past tense plural. MN says English has no "genre" (my word) of nouns: "That's an issue that's important. If there is no gender then there can be no epicene gender. Epicene is not a formal category ....be it individuation, genericness, humanity (in the case of animals and babies) (Note: "child" in English carries neuter morphology. CJW) I said: The very common enigmas of English - the generic "he" and the singular "they" are aspects of the same thing -- the development of the OE feminine/plural. Another side to this, that I haven't said anything about, is the affinity of forms of the masculine singular, forms shared with the neuter singular. In such instance the (apparent) masculine singular carried also the morphology of "neither one or the other" -- as in "somebody lost his [i.e., "neither" of the other two noun genre] book". "His" can't be interpreted as a strictly masculine genitive. The feminine/plural and the masc/neut singular were inherited by English from the wider language family. MN said: > I don't think so for the reasons above. Nice theory though. Perhaps it isn't, but the theory might offer a working grammatic framework for studying historical English during the paradigm shift. And the whys and whens. Because modern English developed from historical English, noun genre is -- perhaps not unreasonably -- still carried in the language. In this particular, carried as markedness in the pronouns, parallel to the preterit plural having found a home eight hundred years ago in the "were" auxiliary, when markedness in the verb-proper went into hiding there. Carl Jeffrey Weber Chicago Ontology Recapitulates Philology From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 00:25:06 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 19:25:06 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/13/2002 12:49:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, ASmith1946 at AOL.COM writes: > I'm looking for examples of culinary words/terms associated with > national/cultural/religious/racial/ethnic/sex/age/class groups, If I remember correctly, certain cavalry in the Byzantine army were known as "biscuit eaters" . A couple of other military/naval examples: "Limey" originally meant a British sailor, after the lime juice he drank to ward off scurvy. The "Beefeaters" (allegedly because they held the job of royal food-tasters and ate more than their share of the entrees.) And of course the "buccaneers", named after their practice of jerking meat and barbecueing it. (From "boucan", "a wooden framework or hurlde on which meat was roasted or smoked over a fire" - OED2). Civilian: the "sourdoughs" of Alaska. "cornpone and magnolia" to describe Southern accents etc. "Cracker" (a poor white in the South, redneck, white trash) "according to some, short for CORN-CRACKER, but early quots. leave this doubtful" (OED2). I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). Tom Paikeday wrote on Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:59:03 [The "Eskimo" or "Inuit"] prefer to be called the Inuit 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. And of course you can go way back to Homer and his "Lotus eaters". - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 00:46:58 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 19:46:58 EST Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso Message-ID: PASTRAMI (1831?) This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained with us, and served us both during the plague.... See the book STUFFED: ADVENTURES OF A RESTAURANT FAMILY (Alfred A. Knopf, October 2001) by Patricia Volk. Volk claims that her great-grandfather, Sussman Volk, came to New York City from Vilna in 1887. In 1888, at a deli on 86 1/2 Delancey Street, he introduced "pastrami" to the New World. At least, so says Patricia Volk. I haven't read the book to see her documentation. She also says that his was the first "delicatessen"--something that's plainly not true. (See "delicatessen" in ADS-L archives.) -------------------------------------------------------- YAC & RAC I was watching the Jets lose a football game to the Raiders last Saturday. ESPN Sportscenter said that wide receiver Jerry Rice was piling up the "yak" yards. Jerry Rice, a yak? A bit of web searching shows YAC (yards after catch), RAC (run after catch), and Y at C (yards at catch) on some football web sites, such as www.allmadden.com. YAC yards? _Yards_ after catch _yards_? -------------------------------------------------------- HERONNER/HIZZONER See "hizzoner" in the ADS-L archives. New York City has never had a woman become mayor, so it's always been "his honor." There's talk of a change of succession, from the Public Advocate (now Betsy Gotbaum) to a deputy mayor. From the NEW YORK POST, 14 January 2002, pg. 8, cols. 2-5: _Mike agrees: Betsy shouldn't be_ _Heronner if he's out of picture_ -------------------------------------------------------- GENERAL TSO This continues the typing of this item. Perhaps someone at Yale can forward this to the Yale branch in China? Surely, they would know something. Maybe something's even been written by them? From FLAVOR & FORTUNE, December 1996, pg. 5, col. 1: Once he was sent to Xinjang on a military expedition. The people of this western border-province were mainly Muslims whose religion did not allow them to eat pork; so the general's diet was severely curtailed. Three months later when he got back, specifically to (Col. 2--ed.) Lanzhour, a big feast was served in celebration of his successful expedition. He told his associates that although he was not entertained with song and dance, this elaborate and bountiful meal more than made up for the very long and tough expedition where he had no pork to eat. In 1875, the Dowager Tse Xi promoted him to the royal court. She held a banquest in his honor in the capital, Beijing. At that banquet, they made sure that he had double servings of all the entrees. The general would always finish his portion with one sweep of his chopsticks, as if to say, he was not impressed. After the above banquet, one of his compatriots asked him "Old friend, at one seating you can devour so much meat. It is as the old saying goes: A general's fame is as big as his appetite. I hope that stomach of yours can live up to your fame." The general smiled and retorted: "Your people love to put words in other people's mouths. What do you know? Instead of meat you can only eat the roots of vegetables. I am lucky that I enjoy meat. Maybe one day I will be stigmatized and might even be called: The Meat Eating General." Everyone surmises that the chicken recipe in question was probably the general's favorite so the chef who prepared it named it after him. I am supplying my wife's version of this dish for your reference. (Recipe follows--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 14 13:33:07 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 21:33:07 +0800 Subject: YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: <11b.a057b6e.2974d604@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:46 PM -0500 1/14/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >-------------------------------------------------------- >YAC & RAC > > I was watching the Jets lose a football game to the Raiders last >Saturday. ESPN Sportscenter said that wide receiver Jerry Rice was >piling up the "yak" yards. Jerry Rice, a yak? > A bit of web searching shows YAC (yards after catch), RAC (run >after catch), and Y at C (yards at catch) on some football web sites, >such as www.allmadden.com. Mebbe so, but I usually hear it explicated as yards after *contact*, especially for running backs, who are usually not catching passes first. The idea is that they don't go down after someone tries to tackle them. Maybe it really is yards after catch for receivers and yards after contact for running backs--if so, a nice reanalysis, sort of like NELS starting out as the New England Linguistic Society and then (after its first meeting in Montreal) turning into the North Eastern Linguistic Society. > YAC yards? _Yards_ after catch _yards_? Why not, if we have PIN numbers and HIV viruses? What's a little loss of transparency among friends? >GENERAL TSO > > This continues the typing of this item. > Perhaps someone at Yale can forward this to the Yale branch in >China? Surely, they would know something. Maybe something's even >been written by them? I'll try to check, assuming I can get some info on Yale in China's e-mail address. A colleague in Chinese linguistics (who's also a Chinese food aficionado) might know more. L From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 02:48:43 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 21:48:43 -0500 Subject: YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn said: >At 7:46 PM -0500 1/14/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >>-------------------------------------------------------- >>YAC & RAC >> >> I was watching the Jets lose a football game to the Raiders last >>Saturday. ESPN Sportscenter said that wide receiver Jerry Rice was >>piling up the "yak" yards. Jerry Rice, a yak? >> A bit of web searching shows YAC (yards after catch), RAC (run >>after catch), and Y at C (yards at catch) on some football web sites, >>such as www.allmadden.com. > >Mebbe so, but I usually hear it explicated as yards after *contact*, >especially for running backs, who are usually not catching passes >first. The idea is that they don't go down after someone tries to >tackle them. Maybe it really is yards after catch for receivers and >yards after contact for running backs--if so, a nice reanalysis, sort >of like NELS starting out as the New England Linguistic Society and >then (after its first meeting in Montreal) turning into the North >Eastern Linguistic Society. Actually...I was listening to the Mike and Mike in the Morning show on ESPN Radio this morning, and they proposed exactly this dual interpretation (without using the term "reanalysis" of course): yards after catch for receivers and yards after contact for running backs. From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 15 03:12:00 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 21:12:00 -0600 Subject: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Message-ID: Etymology: "They" Re Michael Newman Carl Jeffrey Weber > CJW > It's the problem of the "gen-" morpheme. I use "genre" instead of gender, > keeping the root but moving it away from anatomy and physiology in the direction of "kind". FJ "Gender" does mean 'kind.' It's generally not a good idea to replace terms that have been around for a long time and are standard. This has nothing to do with anatomy and physiology. CJW I know. That's why I used the example "kind". "Genre" does mean "kind" too. "Gender" has too many associations with other "gen-" words -- "gen-" coming into English in ten-or-so different basic senses of the root . When "gender" was adopted for grammatic use, it meant "genre", i.e., "kind" -- if memory serves. F J Maybe I have missed something, but most scholars have claimed that the -o in heo was pronounced. There are numerous spellings and forms that show conclusively that the word must have been he-o at one time. CJW There are a profusion of feminine "he" and "hi" in the 15th century. This has been often overlooked. When Roman orthography was put to the task of representing the English language, the final letter of "heo" is presumed to have been pronounced and written down. This second syllable is also seen in other Germanic languages sharing the same morphology in the pronouns as the feminine/plural. But in English, after 1200, it seems to be a shakier picture as the pronouns in "h-" and those in "th-" suffle out. Things changed. I don't believe I've come across any scholarship that says "heo" was not basically a spelling form by the 15th century. I have many examples from the manuscripts of Piers Plowman showing feminine "heo". I have, as I said, looked at every form in the OED. In the Piers manuscripts, in addition to the "heo" form, there are many instances of feminine "he" and "hi" right up to the historical edge of printing. "He" and "hi" as feminine pronouns were in much wider use until a much later time than standard histories seemed to tell. The OED set the tone for this when it said "heo" was beginning to sound like "he" in 1200. This is the whole theory behind the Alysoun Poem (c1200). The boy calls the girl "he", and now, we just can't have that, can we. That's the orthodox position of the "need" for "she". FJ Else how would we get 'sho'? The question of 'dialect' is really irrelevant for Old English--everything was 'dialect'. Only with the rise of London as the power center of England do we come across what was to become the standard. I think you need to be more specific with the term 'dialect.' CJW I couldn't be sure. I try to be consistent and always mean "written dialect" as demonstrated in a particular text. "Written dialect" is useful for me as basically naming the consistency of forms in a particular representation. I'm interested in the developing standard, also in the dead ends. The OED says the forms of masc and fem Message-ID: I believe it was David Dinkins who said NYC was a "gorgeous mosaic." > From: pskuhlman at JUNO.COM > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:35:00 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Salad bowl > >> And a third metaphor is the "patchwork quilt," used by Jesse >> Jackson >> (though perhaps not coined by him?). It's not culinary but is >> quaintly >> domestic, with the separate pieces idea. > > > I've also heard "mosaic" used this way in New York City. Someone in the > public arena (don't recall who) said that New York is not a melting pot, > but a mosaic. > > Patricia Kuhlman > pskuhlman at juno.com > Brooklyn, NY > > > >> _____________________________________________ From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 03:52:10 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 22:52:10 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: (resubmitted since the first submission seems to have vanished into the bit bucket) In a message dated 01/13/2002 12:49:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, ASmith1946 at AOL.COM writes: > I'm looking for examples of culinary words/terms associated with > national/cultural/religious/racial/ethnic/sex/age/class groups, If I remember correctly, certain cavalry in the Byzantine army were known as "biscuit eaters" . A couple of other military/naval examples: "Limey" originally meant a British sailor, after the lime juice he drank to ward off scurvy. The "Beefeaters" (allegedly because they held the job of royal food-tasters and ate more than their share of the entrees.) And of course the "buccaneers", named after their practice of jerking meat and barbecueing it. (From "boucan", "a wooden framework or hurlde on which meat was roasted or smoked over a fire" - OED2). Civilian: the "sourdoughs" of Alaska. "cornpone and magnolia" to describe Southern accents etc. "Cracker" (a poor white in the South, redneck, white trash) "according to some, short for CORN-CRACKER, but early quots. leave this doubtful" (OED2). I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). Tom Paikeday wrote on Sat, 13 Jan 2001 09:59:03 [The "Eskimo" or "Inuit"] prefer to be called the Inuit 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. And of course you can go way back to Homer and his "Lotus eaters". - Jim Landau From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 15 04:49:23 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 22:49:23 -0600 Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: Among other things, James A. Landau said: > I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the > Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. The word "cannibal" itself was brought back to Europe by the Spanish at first contact in about 1500. It's another form of the word "carrib". The Mohawks, as one of the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederaation, where known to the Algonquians and the French for their rabid ferocity from the time of Champlain, about 1600. The name "Eire" and the name "Huron" are proported to be insulting European loanwords. In the case of "Huron", the second part of the word looks very much like the well-known morpheme for "people" in Huron/Algonquian, and the "hor" looks alot like the first part of "Iroquois". The Iroquois brought genicide to the Huron tribes in the 1630s, and the Wyndotes, the modern Hurons, are the only non-extinct Huron tribe. Speaking of anthropophagy and the Mohawks, there was the tremendous scene of merciless human torment, mutilation, and cannibalism in 1683, when the Iroquois wrought their yearly cycle of genocide on the tribes to their east. These tribes would usually escape. But the most peaceful tribe of all the Illinois tribes, the Tamarora, in trusting innocence, chose not to flee to the safety of the western shores of the Mississippi. And four hundred were barbariszed, and the Iroquois, including the Mohawk, took four hundred slaves back to their eastern home. CJW From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 04:57:34 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 23:57:34 EST Subject: Surfboard & Kahuna Message-ID: I'm planning to go to Hawaii to escape this brutal winter weather we're having in New York. OED has a "c. 1826" "surf-board," and then the next cite is 1931. "Kahuna" is from 1886. NARRATIVE OF A TOUR THROUGH HAWAII, OR, OWHYHEE by William Ellis H. Fisher, Son, and P. Jackson; London 1826 Pg. 49: ..._hura_, (song and dance)... Opp. Pg. 74: "A Hura, or Native Dance, performed in prsence of the Governor of Kairua." (Illustration--ed.) Pg. 241: This latter article, with their poe and sweet potatoes, constitutes nearly the entire support of the inhabitants.... ("Poe" with two dots over "e," see "poi"--ed.) Pg. 287: They said they had heard that in several countries where foreigners had intermingled with the original natives, the latter had soon disappeared; and should missionaries come to live at Waiakea, perhaps the land would ultimately become theirs, and the _kanaka maore_ (aborigines) cease to be its occupiers. (OED has "Maori" from 1843?--ed.) Pg. 306: ...who, I supposed, was a _kahuna_, (doctor,)... Pg. 306: Maaro was attended by two or three natives, who were called _kahuna rapaau mai_, the name given to those who undertake to cure their diseases, from _kahuna_, a priest, or one expert in his profession, _rapaau_, to heal, or to apply medicine, and _mai_, disease. Pg. 345: ...the most general and frequent game is swimming in the surf. The higher the sea and the larger the waves, in their opinion the better the sport. On these occasions they use a board, which they call _papa he naru_, (wave sliding board,) generally five or six feet long, and rather more than a foot wide, sometimes flat, but more frequently slightly convex on both sides. Pg. 371: A tradition preserved among them states, that in the reign of _Kahoukapu_, a _kahuna_ (priest) arrived at Hawaii from a foreign country; that he was a white man, and brought with him two idols or gods.... JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, DURING THE YEARS 1823, 1824 and 1825 by C. S. Stewart THIRD EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED John P. Haven, NY 1828 VOLUME I Pg. 126: ...a calabash of _raw fish_, and a calabash of _poe_, and the other a _dish of baked dog_, for the refreshment of the young favourites. VOLUME II Pg. 25 (Jan. 24. 1824?): The surf, for some days past, has been uncommonly heavy, affording a fine opportunity to the islanders for the enjoyment of their favourite sport of the surf-board. HISTORY OF THE HAWAIIAN OR SANDWICH ISLANDS by James J. Jarves Tappan & Dennet, Boston 1843 Pg. 70: Multitudes could be seen when the surf was highest, pushing boldly seaward, with their surf-baord in advance, diving beneath the huge combers, as they broke in succession over them, until they reached the outer line of breakers. Pg. 72: Dances, _hula_, were of various character, sometimes interspersed with chants relating to the achievements of the past or present rulers, or in honor of the gods. Such was the _hula ala-apupa_. Pg. 72: ...necklaces of shells, and _leis_... (OED has this cite--ed.) Pg. 76: _Poi_, the principal aricle of diet, was prepaed from the kalo plant. LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS OR, THE HEAT OF THE PACIFIC by Rev. Henry T. Cheever A. S. Barnes, NY 1851 Pg. 66: It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the evolutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players. Pg. 67: Even the huge Premier (Auhea) has been known to commit her bulky person to a surf-board.... Opp. Pg. 68: "HAWAIIAN SPORT OF SURF PLAYING." (Illustration--ed.) THE REAL HAWAII: ITS HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION by Lucien Young, U.S.N. Doubleday & McClure, NY 1899 (copyright 1898) Pg. 74: ...the kahunas, or native "medicine men," who teach that diseases are due to some offended deity that must be propitiated. Pg. 85: One of their most popular and delightful sports was surf-riding. Opp. Pg. 86: "SURF-RIDING--WAIKIKI, HONOLULU." (Photo--ed.) Pg. 117: The young leaves of this plant are cooked either separately or with meats, making a delicious green, (Pg. 118--ed.) known as "luau." The method of preparing the root by the natives is by cooking it in a stone oven or pit in the ground. The stones are first heated red-hot and then, after brushing off the dust and ashes atthe bottom, the taro is laid in the oven till it is full, and a few leaves spread on top. From Davidhwaet at AOL.COM Tue Jan 15 05:06:52 2002 From: Davidhwaet at AOL.COM (David Carlson) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:06:52 EST Subject: No subject Message-ID: Eric, I have Carroll Reed's files for Washington, Idaho, and one Montana informant. Please let me know what you need, and I'll be happy to supply it for you. In addition to my files, I sent both lexical and phonological information to the Atlas site at the University of Georgia. Eric Rochester is the webmeister there, and he might be able to get you the information quicker than I can. David R. Carlson David R. Carlson 34 Spaulding St. Amherst MA 01002 413-256-6046 From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 15 09:28:31 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:28:31 -0000 Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:46 AM Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso > PASTRAMI (1831?) > > This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. > For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): > > When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained with us, and served us both during the plague.... > If this has already been noted, apologies. However: might this _pastourma_ not, given the geography, more likely be some local version of the Greek (and I think Turkish) _bastourma_ (sp.?) which is a dry lamb (beef?) sausage, I believe with red wine as an ingredient. Despite my ignorance as to the detail of the ingredients I've often bought them from Greek delis in London. They have nothing, other than being meat-based and flavoursome (and eaten without the need for further cooking), in common with pastrami. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 01:58:48 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:58:48 +0800 Subject: Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: <11b.a057b6e.2974d604@aol.com> Message-ID: On a TV show last night set in Boston someone was praising a dish they had just had at a Chinese restaurant called "General Tso's Great Wall of Beef". The good general gets around. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 02:03:01 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:03:01 +0800 Subject: Salad bowl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:13 PM -0700 1/14/02, Nancy Elliott wrote: >I believe it was David Dinkins who said NYC was a "gorgeous mosaic." > Of course! That was the modifier--and the source--I kept trying to think of yesterday. And the metaphor is still very much alive for its originator: ============ DAVID N. DINKINS: Our Town The Christian Science Monitor NEW YORK (September 28, 2001 8:21 a.m. EDT) - As the World Trade Center collapsed, the gorgeous mosaic that is New York City cracked but did not crumble... From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 15 02:09:12 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:09:12 +0800 Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: <002e01c19da7$002357a0$023264c0@green> Message-ID: At 9:28 AM +0000 1/15/02, Jonathon Green wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:46 AM >Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso > > >> PASTRAMI (1831?) >> >> This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it >on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. >> For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD >DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. >Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): >> >> When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in >this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained >with us, and served us both during the plague.... >> > >If this has already been noted, apologies. However: might this _pastourma_ >not, given the geography, more likely be some local version of the Greek >(and I think Turkish) _bastourma_ (sp.?) which is a dry lamb (beef?) >sausage, I believe with red wine as an ingredient. Despite my ignorance as >to the detail of the ingredients I've often bought them from Greek delis in >London. They have nothing, other than being meat-based and flavoursome (and >eaten without the need for further cooking), in common with pastrami. > >Jonathon Green recall our thread on this in the last century, including my own supposition: Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 12:10:13 -0400 From: Laurence Horn Subject: Re: "pastrami" To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Status: At 4:17 AM -0400 6/27/99, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >--------------------------------------------- >PASTRAMI > > David Shulman told me today that he found a "pastromi" citation from >1927. As everyone knows, "pastrami" is our greatest etymological mystery >since the Reuben sandwich and the Caesar salad. I suppose it might be my own local folk etymology, but I've wondered about the relation (if any) between pastrami and the Turkish dried meat delicacy known as pastIrmI (back [i]). Given the long Ottoman occupation of the relevant parts of Eastern Europe, home of Romanian Jews and others, it's not inconceivable (even if it's probably mistaken) to posit such a relation... From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 15 15:20:37 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:20:37 -0600 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Etymology:_=22Chicago=22_Semi-final?= Message-ID: Etymology: "Chicago" Semi-final Carl Jeffrey Weber 1. "Chicago" < "Ch8ca8a", Miami/Illinois, 1720, "il pass? dans l'eau marche" < French, "Choucagoua/Choucaoua/ Choucaou": great river < Spanish, "Chucagua": great river. 2. Spanish "Chucagua", used by French for Mobile River (Sanson's Royal map, 1673/4). Later, "Choucagoua". Misidentified river, thought to be the river of De Soto. Later (1690s-1720s), "Chicagua", reverting to Spanish "-agua". Apparently original form comprised two Indo-European water morphemes, the first of which is a phonestheme (sound symbol) with the sense of "discharge" . Earliest attested Spanish definition, "great river", De Soto narrative, 1600. 3. Word from which city was named, "Checagou"earliest attested, La Salle, 1679-80. Franquelin map, 1684, "Chekagou". Significance, "great river route" . Summary "Chicago" is attested in Miami/Illinois, 1720: "Ch8ca8a" (il pass? dans l' eau marche). The Indians had borrowed it from the French, who had used also the more generalized meaning, "great river", for the Ohio and Mobile Rivers. The French had in 1673/4 borrowed it from the Spanish, "great river", attested in Spanish from 1600. La Salle designated cartographic Checagou the fifty-mile corridor from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River, and the significance of the word seems to have been "way to the great river". From words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM Tue Jan 15 15:29:05 2002 From: words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM (Evan Morris) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:29:05 -0500 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary Message-ID: Reposting a question that may have been lost in the holiday shuffle: Given the untimely demise of the Random House Dictionary Division, does anyone know what is to become of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang project? From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Tue Jan 15 16:53:38 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:53:38 -0600 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: <31.20f039dc.297512ec@aol.com> Message-ID: Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one that comes up on Google?) I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) Thanks! Erin Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 15 17:17:17 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:17:17 -0500 Subject: "popcorn windows" Message-ID: I hadn't heard this one, Erin. I'll look into it. Could be a good JW candidate. Thanks. Erin McKean wrote: > > Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one > that comes up on Google?) > > I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that > spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. > > (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) > > Thanks! > > Erin > > Erin McKean > editor at verbatimmag.com From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 15 17:30:29 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:30:29 -0800 Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Laurence Horn wrote: > > I suppose it might be my own local folk etymology, but I've wondered about > the relation (if any) between pastrami and the Turkish dried meat delicacy > known as pastIrmI (back [i]). Given the long Ottoman occupation of the > relevant parts of Eastern Europe, home of Romanian Jews and others, it's > not inconceivable (even if it's probably mistaken) to posit such a > relation... FWIW, Redhouse Turkish (Ottoman Turkish) Dictionary has "basdIrma" (back [i]) "vulg. pasdIrma, meat flavored with spices and garlic and cured under pressure" which makes sense, as the root bas- = "press". Unfortunately I won't have access to a Turkish dictionary that has some historical information and usage until I'm on the main campus tomorrow. Allen maberry at u.washington.edu From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Tue Jan 15 18:26:48 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 13:26:48 -0500 Subject: mohawks etc Message-ID: I forwarded the message from Weber about Mohawks, etc (appended) to my friend, the American Indian expert, and got this in return. Ellen -----Original Message----- From: Kathryn Abbott [mailto:kathryn.abbott at wku.edu] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 10:46 AM To: Johnson, Ellen Subject: Re: FW: Re: The Finger (1947?) Wow! That's taking some things are quasi-true and distorting them terribly. First, the Mohawk work for themselves is not Mohawk--it is something akin to Akwesasne, so saying that the Mohawks would willingly call themselves "cannibals" is absurd. It is true that the Mohawks--and other Iroquois tribes--occasionally and ritualistic--ate parts of captives' bodies--often their hearts. As part of ritualized torture (which was quite gruesome at times to be sure), they cut off body parts and might consume them, just to scare the crap out of the captive being tortured (or those watching). As for their "genocide" of the Hurons (not sure of the etymology of that word, but "Wyandot" or some version thereof was the Huron name for themselves, I am pretty sure), there was indeed a conflict between them, in part over access to beaver skins and hunting territory. But it also true that the French presence exacerbated this conflict considerably, and that in the early 1630s, many of the Hurons succumbed to a smallpox epidemic, which allowed the Mohawks (and other Iroquois) to conquer and capture many of the Hurons. As for "attacking tribes to the East," Landau has his direction wrong--he means west, and it is true that the Iroquois (though not the Mohawks), effectively kept the lower Ohio Valley in a state of high pique in the second 1/2 of the 17th century, until they were more-or-less defeated by the French and their native allies and signed a Treaty of Neutrality in 1701, agreeing not to attack the French or their allies in the interior. But all of this warfare almost certainly was exacerbated and intensified by the French and British presence and the competition over trade. The French encouraged their Indian allies to attach British settlements, and both French and British paid bounties for scalps and heads (quite high bounties) throughout the colonial era. Finally, re: the Iroquois taking Illinois as "slaves," captivity among the Iroquois was fluid and contingent. Yes, some would be used as slaves, but their offspring--especially if born to an Iroquois parent (mother esp.) could become full tribal members. Some captives--particularly young children--were most likely to be adopted outright to replace a lost family member, part of the mourning ritual accepted by the Iroquois. The evidence strongly suggests that many captive Hurons from the 1630s were thus adopted into the Mohawks, who had also suffered devastating losses in the smallpox epidemic and Beaver War. Culturally and linguistically, there were strong similarities between the two groups, so adoption would make even more sense. Older women might be adopted, might be enslaved. Men--warriors--would most likely be killed, either scalped on the spot (the warriors essence being contained in his scalplock) or ritually killed. By the way, the practice of scalping came from the Southeast tribes (remnants of the Mississippians) and was introduced to the Iroquois by the English. Landau is perpetuating myths by using half-truths that are historically and culturally decontextualized. As for Caribs and the islands, there is no evidence that the Arawaks, Tainos, or other Caribbean peoples ever practiced cannibalism, while it is certainly true that the Aztecs did (again, ritualistically). later, k > -----Original Message----- > From: carljweber [mailto:carljweber at MSN.COM] > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 11:49 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: The Finger (1947?) > > Among other things, James A. Landau said: > > > I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the > > Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare). > > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. The word "cannibal" itself was > brought back to Europe by the Spanish at first contact in about 1500. It's > another form of the word "carrib". The Mohawks, as one of the five tribes of > the Iroquois Confederaation, where known to the Algonquians and the French > for their rabid ferocity from the time of Champlain, about 1600. The name > "Eire" and the name "Huron" are proported to be insulting European > loanwords. In the case of "Huron", the second part of the word looks very > much like the well-known morpheme for "people" in Huron/Algonquian, and the > "hor" looks alot like the first part of "Iroquois". The Iroquois brought > genicide to the Huron tribes in the 1630s, and the Wyndotes, the modern > Hurons, are the only non-extinct Huron tribe. > > Speaking of anthropophagy and the Mohawks, there was the tremendous scene of > merciless human torment, mutilation, and cannibalism in 1683, when the > Iroquois wrought their yearly cycle of genocide on the tribes to their > east. These tribes would usually escape. But the most peaceful tribe of all > the Illinois tribes, the Tamarora, in trusting innocence, chose not to flee > to the safety of the western shores of the Mississippi. And four hundred > were barbariszed, and the Iroquois, including the Mohawk, took four hundred > slaves back to their eastern home. > > CJW From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Tue Jan 15 18:33:17 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 13:33:17 -0500 Subject: readings Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Kathryn Abbott [mailto:kathryn.abbott at wku.edu] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 10:51 AM To: Johnson, Ellen Subject: Re: FW: Re: The Finger (1947?) By the way, good readings: Daniel Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (1991) James B. Seaver, ed., Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison (an adoptee) (first published 1824) ka "Johnson, Ellen" wrote: > hey. this came on the american dialect society list and seems somewhat suspect, so I figured I'd ask the expert. > From nfogli at IOL.IT Tue Jan 15 23:15:56 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 00:15:56 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_“Melting_pot”_vs._“ Canadian_mosaic”_?= Message-ID: In Canada, the “melting pot” has long been contrasted with the “Canadian mosaic.” This conventional implicature was apparently coined by Porter, a Canadian sociologist, in the mid-sixties. Stateside, I heard someone use the expression “American stew.” Is anyone familiar with it? I wonder where and how it was created. Dr. S. Roti Lexicographer From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 16 02:04:32 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 21:04:32 EST Subject: The Finger (1947?) Message-ID: First, a note to Kathryn Abbott: the statements you were objecting to were made by carljweber, not by myself. I merely passed on something I once read about the name "Mohawk" and qualified it by saying "I am told". My source was a book entitled "Man's Rise to Civilization" which is currently AWOL from my home library, so I cannot confirm that I even quoted it correctly. This same source, as I recall, made the statement that the Iroquois, at least the ones that formed the Five Nations, were masters of psychological warfare, so it was a reasonable conclusion that the Mohawk, whether or not they actually were cannibals, were quite happy to have other Native Americans thinking they were. In a message dated 01/15/2002 5:09:32 PM Eastern Standard Time, carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. This statement to me sounds suspiciously like a blood libel. Aside from the Aztecs, whose ritual cannibalism seems to be well attested, I will insist on reasonably good evidence on Native American anthropophagy. (This includes the Caribs, for whom I have never seen any well-attested evidence for cannibalism. The Caribs must have had a reputation among their neighbors resembling that of the Iroquois among theirs, and both sets of neighbors appear to have accepted the legend of cannibalism. That legend could have been due either to fear or to denigration of enemies---the Native American equivalent of "gook"!) Also a correction to myself---"Corn-cracker" does not refer to a type of food. As I should have remembered from the folk song "Jemmy crack corn", a corn-cracker was someone who converted kernels of corn into corn meal. - James A. Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 16 02:44:30 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 21:44:30 EST Subject: Macadamia (1893) Message-ID: Merriam-Webster has 1929 for "macadamia," and that's just nuts. The revised OED entry has that 1929 cite, but added a 1904 citation. I checked out: HISTORY OF THE MACADAMIA NUT INDUSTRY IN HAWAI'I, 1881-1981: FROM BUSH NUT TO GOURMET'S DELIGHT by Sandra Wagner-Wright The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter 1995 There are some nice publications mentioned in the notes. Pre-1900 cites seem kind of sketchy, however. "Macadamia" was also called "Queensland nut" and "Bush nut" and "Australian hazelnut" and "Monkey nut." A big commercial boost came from Ernest van Tassel (1881-1943), founder of the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company, Limited. (FWIW, Tassel was a graduate from Yale. Many of the books I've read on Hawaii were written by Yale missionaries.) The best hits came from the Periodical Contents Index, which references the AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE OF NEW SOUTH WALES (the NYPL has this in the annex). From the AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE OF NEW SOUTH WALES, vol. 4 (1893): Pg. 2 (Plate II illustration): Macadamia ternifolia, F.v.M. "Australian Nut." Pg. 5: _Reference to Plate._--The drawing was made from a photograph of a tree growing in the Sydney Botanic Gardens. Pg. 3: THE CULTIVATION OF THE "AUSTRALIAN NUT." (_Macadamia ternifolia_, F.v.M.) By FRED TURNER. THE "Australian nut," or, as it is frequently called, the "Queensland nut," is a very ornamental evergreen tree. In its natural state it is mostly found growing on rich alluvial soils bordering rivers or creeks in the coastal districts of southern Queensland, and in the north-eastern portion of New South Wales. (...) The nuts, however, are very hard, and it requires some force to break them before the edible portion can be got at. It is probably owing to this circumstance that the tree is not so well and widely known amongst cultivators as it ought to be, considered from an economic point of view. Pg. 529: _Notes on Economic Plants._ A VERY great deal of interest has been taken in the "Australian Nut"* since it was figured and described in Part I, Vol. IV, of the _Agricultural Gazette_. The article and also the illustration have been republished in a number of Australian journals. (...) *NOTE.--The "Australian Nut" better known as the "Queensland Nut" grows with great freedom in the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, where some fine specimen trees produce nuts freely, and also in many suburban gardens. (The University of Adelaide, Australia, has a centre for the study of food. Is there an early cite there for the Queensland/Macadamia nut?...The Sydney Botanic Gardens were indeed nice. Perhaps Sydney has some 19th century info?...The macadamias that I ate in Australia seem inferior to the Hawaiian macadamias. I still have some nuts in this apartment, right next to some vegemite--ed.) From carljweber at MSN.COM Wed Jan 16 03:12:37 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 21:12:37 -0600 Subject: Cannibal : Carib Message-ID: Cannibal : Carib A thread was picked up. "Mohawk', as someone heard, might mean "cannibal". I said there was no early record of that, and that all the Amerindians were anthropophagite, and I made some rarely heard assertions. Ellen Johnson sent it, she said, "to my friend, the American Indian expert, and got this in return." Friend Wow! That's taking some things are quasi-true and distorting them terribly. First, the Mohawk work for themselves is not Mohawk--it is something akin to Akwesasne, so saying that the Mohawks would willingly call themselves "cannibals" is absurd. CJW No one suggested this absurdity in earnest. Friend It is true that the Mohawks--and other Iroquois tribes--occasionally and ritualistic--ate parts of captives' bodies--often their hearts. As part of ritualized torture (which was quite gruesome at times to be sure), they cut off body parts and might consume them, just to scare the crap out of the captive being tortured (or those watching). CJW The story of "ritual torture" and "ritual cannibalism" can not be cosmetized. The word "ritual" doesn't clean it up, nor should it mask the merciless barbarism of Amerindians against each other. "Ritualized" torture was more than "just a way to scare the crap out of [i.e., it's called merciless torment -- CJW] the captive being tortured (or those watching)" - I ask, is the point that there is some exoneration due here? This is not the story we like. It's by no means the story we tell the boys and girls. Original narratives tell the story. Find cannibalism in the index of Twaits' 73 Volume set, Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610 - 1780. Or for a historical approach, see Francis Parkman's works. Look in index. I agree with the idea recognized in the UN Charter Preamble: that of the inherent dignity of all members of the human family. But that's no reason to keep some members of the family in the closet. Friend As for their "genocide" of the Hurons (not sure of the etymology of that word, but "Wyandot" or some version thereof was the Huron name for themselves, I am pretty sure), there was indeed a conflict between them, in part over access to beaver skins and hunting territory. But it also true that the French presence exacerbated this conflict considerably, and that in the early 1630s, many of the Hurons succumbed to a smallpox epidemic, which allowed the Mohawks (and other Iroquois) to conquer and capture many of the Hurons. CJW Le Jeune, Relation, 1633 "Quelles hures!" exclaimed some astonished Frenchman. Hence the name Hurons (from Parkman). French "hure" is for the wild boar and the Huron hair do. In the year 1649 the Iroquois, through their genocidal war against the Huron, destroyed them as a nation. (There are not good guys and bad guys in this story). Those Huron who escaped did so only with protection of the French. Most of the tribes were exterminated. To forefront the epidemic, and background the genocide, I believe shortchanges truth. If the French hadn't stepped in, in the early 1600s, the Iroquois would have exterminated many of the Algonquian languages tribes of the St. Laurence and the Upper Great Lakes. This is common history. This is the well known story of the Iroquois Confederacy, and it was the Iroquois pressure from the east and above the Great Lakes, that pushed the Illinois and other peoples below the Great Lakes. I thought this was generally accepted history? Friend Iroquois (though not the Mohawks), effectively kept the lower Ohio Valley [and St. Laurence and northern Great Lakes - CJW] in a state of high pique in the second 1/2 of the 17th century, until they were more-or-less defeated by the French and their native allies and signed a Treaty of Neutrality in 1701, agreeing not to attack the French or their allies in the interior. CJW The most historically consequential cessation of hostilities between the French/Algonquians and the Iroquois was in the year 1665. Intendant Talon, in Quebec, as part of a large plan backed by the King, had a thousand man Army sent from France, under Tracy, to teach the Iroquois a lesson. They did (for a while). The newly gained safety insured the success of the expeditions of 1665, 1669, 1673, and finally, the object sought (made possible by the quelling of the Iroquois) the 1683 navigation of the Mississippi to the Gulf, and the Proces Verbal on April 9, 1682, declaring the land that was drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries thenceforth belonged to Europe. Friend The French encouraged their Indian allies to attach British settlements, and both French and British paid bounties for scalps and heads (quite high bounties) throughout the colonial era. CJW Scalping was an Amerindian practice. You can't put it on the European for paying such "quite high bounties" --and accordingly owning responsibility. History should not be writ as morality play. Friend Finally, re: the Iroquois taking Illinois as "slaves," captivity among the Iroquois was fluid and contingent. Yes, some would be used as slaves, but their offspring--especially if born to an Iroquois parent (mother esp.) could become full tribal members. CJW This sounds like an apologetic for slavery. "Fluid" and "contingent" to dress up "slavery" works no better than "ritual" to try to clean up "cannibalism" and "protracted human torture" . This is what the first hand accounts describe. Friend Some captives--particularly young children--were most likely to be adopted outright. CJW Yes, perhaps after butchering, and perhaps eating, the parents. Benevolent slavery? As well you know, I'm sure, the adopted "new member of the family" was not allowed to leave. By this reasoning, the ante bellum black slave child, separated from his mother, if put in a good home, . it might be kind of OK. Friend By the way, the practice of scalping came from the Southeast tribes (remnants of the Mississippians) and was introduced to the Iroquois by the English. CJW No. The earliest reference was far north, when Jacques Cartier went 1000 miles up the St. Laurence River, on the second of his four expeditions of discovery, in 1534 -- to meet and describe the Indians of Hochelaga. Cartier (as I recall) noted the pride taken by the leaders, pointing out all the scalps adorning their domicle walls, as reminders of great deeds of warriorship. Friend Landau [he means Weber] is perpetuating myths by using half-truths that are historically and culturally decontextualized. CJW What myths? Half-truths? Of Cannibalism, protracted human torture, and scalping? Culturally and Historically decontextualized? It is difficult to face the historical truths about these matters, and interpreting them away can only go so far. Friend As for Caribs and the islands, there is no evidence that the Arawaks, Tainos, or other Caribbean peoples ever practiced cannibalism, while it is certainly true that the Aztecs did (again, ritualistically). later, CJW The word "cannibal" comes from Carib. And it is also certainly true that, on the contrary, all the Amerindians were anthropophagous. Calling it "ritual" (as opposed to what?) is no exoneration or mitigation. We need to accept these truths of history while at the same time recognizing the inherent dignity of all members of the human family. Here's an image of the word "Canibalis" written on a map in one of the Carib areas - on the north east coast of South America, where famous cannibals lived . http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/2-8.htm CJW From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Wed Jan 16 08:40:59 2002 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:40:59 +0100 Subject: Pastrami Message-ID: The Dictionary of the Swedish National Encyclopedia has for "pastrami" (my translation): pastra?mi subst. [- - -] smoked entrec?te [- - -] by way of Yiddish from Romanian pastrama with the same sense, from pastra "to preserve". Jan Ivarsson, Sweden jan.ivarsson at transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:46 AM Subject: Pastrami (1831?);YAC & RAC; Heronner; Gen. Tso > PASTRAMI (1831?) > > This continues a discussion of "pastrami." David Shulman discussed it on 60 MINUTES II last year. I have two new items. > For whatever it's worth, this is from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831 (James Nisbet, London, 1832) by Anthony N. Groves, pg. 250 (journal entry dated 12 September 1831): > > When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made him some sausages, called in this country _pastourma_; he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained with us, and served us both during the plague.... > If this has already been noted, apologies. However: might this _pastourma_ not, given the geography, more likely be some local version of the Greek (and I think Turkish) _bastourma_ (sp.?) which is a dry lamb (beef?) sausage, I believe with red wine as an ingredient. Despite my ignorance as to the detail of the ingredients I've often bought them from Greek delis in London. They have nothing, other than being meat-based and flavoursome (and eaten without the need for further cooking), in common with pastrami. Jonathon Green From stevekl at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 16 14:15:02 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:15:02 -0500 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Erin McKean wrote: > Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one > that comes up on Google?) > > I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that > spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. > > (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) Erin: Is this the same phenomenon as "whack-a-mole" (which I belive Gareth's covered? That is, does it refer to the steady barrage of windows that pop up when one surfs, usually unwittingly, onto such a site? -- Steve Kl. From JFodor at BROOKLYN.CUNY.EDU Wed Jan 16 14:01:48 2002 From: JFodor at BROOKLYN.CUNY.EDU (Joe Fodor) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:01:48 -0500 Subject: The Finger Message-ID: Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for anyone? --Joe F. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 16 14:56:37 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:56:37 -0500 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: <6F70906B3EB0D311845900508B937A5202139C9B@gemini.brooklyn.cuny.edu> Message-ID: Joe; I think you have this backwards. One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with new findings I haven't followed. dInIs >Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" > >According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the English >settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who populated >the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for anyone? --Joe >F. -- From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Wed Jan 16 14:44:24 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 08:44:24 -0600 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't think it necessarily means the incessant "whack-a-mole" windows; rather, I think he wanted to use a word that meant both pop-up and pop-under. Here's the quote: Consequently I am a BIG fan of web pages that don't waste my precious bandwidth--which is to say, my time. I like sites which are NOT top-heavy with dancing chickens (animated graphics, java routines, Quicktime movies, popcorn windows, etc) that take forever to download, supply no useful information...and not uncommonly crash my archaic (vintage 1995) browser. it's from http://www.baen.com/press.htm (where incidentally they have the first chapter up of the new Miles Vorkosigan book that's due out in May). --Erin >On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Erin McKean wrote: > >> Has anyone seen a cite for this (other than the Spider Robinson one >> that comes up on Google?) >> >> I'm assuming that it means the pop-up and pop-under windows that >> spawn from so many web pages these days. I think it's a useful term. >> >> (Gareth, I think this is a good candidate for Jargon Watch...) > >Erin: Is this the same phenomenon as "whack-a-mole" (which I belive >Gareth's covered? That is, does it refer to the steady barrage of windows >that pop up when one surfs, usually unwittingly, onto such a site? > >-- Steve Kl. From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Wed Jan 16 15:14:23 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 10:14:23 -0500 Subject: "popcorn windows" Message-ID: I can't find any other references to this so I'm thinking Robinson either made it up or he used it erroneously instead of pop-up or pop-under. On a related note, John Walston's "Buzzword of the Day" today is "pop-off," a browser window that pops up (or, I guess, under) in such a way that the "Close" button in the top right corner of the window is off the screen. Apparently the modern Web advertiser believes that user apoplexy is the way to win new customers. And, yes, we now have yet another item to add to the ever-growing "X rage" list: "As the intrusive box springs up across the Web at the behest of marketers, 'pop-up rage' is breaking out in its wake." -- The Sydney Morning Herald, July 3, 2001 The same article also mentions the "piss-off factor": http://www.smh.com.au/news/0107/03/pageone/pageone9.html LexisNexis reports 8 unique citations for this fun phrase, the earliest of which is 1990. I'm going to add it to the Word Spy database. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Wed Jan 16 15:27:24 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 10:27:24 -0500 Subject: Angsty Message-ID: It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet (well, I checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness are obvious. From a story on E! Online today: >>Felicity, starring Russell as angsty New York college gal Felicity Porter and costarring Scott Speedman and Scott Foley, has had its brushes with cancellation since its 1998 debut. << The link is http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/eo/20020115/en/_quot_felicity_quot_bidding_fare well__1.html Alltheweb.com (it's boring to use Google all the time) lists 10,976 web pages using the term in English. John Baker From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 16 02:52:09 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 10:52:09 +0800 Subject: The Finger In-Reply-To: <6F70906B3EB0D311845900508B937A5202139C9B@gemini.brooklyn.cuny.edu> Message-ID: At 9:01 AM -0500 1/16/02, Joe Fodor wrote: >Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" > >According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the English >settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who populated >the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for anyone? --Joe >F. Well, yes, as an almost certain folk etymology, although the "Jan" part may be right (especially based on its hypocoristic variant "Janke"). Still, it's something of a relief to turn from ritual torture and cannibalism to pastrami and cheese. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 16 03:01:53 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:01:53 +0800 Subject: Angsty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:27 AM -0500 1/16/02, Baker, John wrote: > It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet (well, I >checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness are obvious. From >a story on E! Online today: > > >>Felicity, starring Russell as angsty New York college gal Felicity >Porter and costarring Scott Speedman and Scott Foley, has had its brushes >with cancellation since its 1998 debut. << > Useful, but subject to misparsing (with final stress and long "y"). From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 16 16:03:34 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 16:03:34 -0000 Subject: Angsty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 11:01 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 10:27 AM -0500 1/16/02, Baker, John wrote: >> It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet (well, >> I checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness are >> obvious. From a story on E! Online today: >> >> >> Felicity, starring Russell as angsty New York college gal >> >> Felicity >> Porter and costarring Scott Speedman and Scott Foley, has had its brushes >> with cancellation since its 1998 debut. << >> > Useful, but subject to misparsing (with final stress and long "y"). Contrasts with 'angst-ridden'. Sylvia Plath was 'angst-ridden'--Felicity is simply angsty. Does this work: young person : angsty :: middle-aged person : neurotic? Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Wed Jan 16 16:06:50 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:06:50 EST Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary Message-ID: RHHDAS The last I heard was what I read in the WALL STREET JOURNAL about two years ago. I thought Jesse Sheidlower or Bethany Dumas would add an answer here. -------------------------------------------------------- PASTA FAZOOLE (continued) FWIW, a spelling of this dish is in the NEW YORK DAILY MIRROR, 26 January 1940, pg. 31, col. 1: He is slipping like a fly in a glue pot and the sale of pasta fazoole in Naples. -------------------------------------------------------- O.K. SIGN (continued) When I checked the book stand at the airport in Cuba, a book had the "O.K." sign on the cover. The sign, shifted 90 degrees, is in the NEW YORK DAILY MIRROR, 23 January 1940, pg. 26, col. 1 (illustration above this): "Certainment!" snapped the late Champs de Elysses boulevardier, holding up his thumb and two fingers in a snuff-pinching attitude to impress on me the full import of his words. (...) "Ixnay on the double talk?" he said. From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 16 16:14:15 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:14:15 -0500 Subject: Angsty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:27 AM -0500 1/16/02, Baker, John wrote: > > It doesn't seem to have made it into the dictionaries yet > (well, I checked AHD4 and the OED), but its meaning and usefulness > are obvious. OED has drafted an entry for this; I believe the first cite is from the 1950s, but can't tell right now, as I'm in the middle of an office move and my computers are disassembled. Jesse Sheidlower OED From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 16 16:36:11 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 11:36:11 -0500 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary In-Reply-To: <61.195cc922.2976ff1b@aol.com> Message-ID: >RHHDAS > >The last I heard was what I read in the WALL STREET JOURNAL about two years ago. I thought Jesse Sheidlower or Bethany Dumas would add an answer here. If I knew anything, I would reply. If I learn anything, I will post it. Bethany From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 16 17:48:54 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:48:54 -0800 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted vowel, I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > Joe; I think you have this backwards. > > One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John > Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The > explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding > English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" > label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. > > What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned > it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy > and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we > made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with > new findings I haven't followed. > > dInIs > > > >> Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >> >> According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >> English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >> populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >> anyone? --Joe F. > > > -- **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM Wed Jan 16 18:48:42 2002 From: words1 at WORD-DETECTIVE.COM (Evan Morris) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 13:48:42 -0500 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:36 AM 1/16/2002, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >RHHDAS > > > >The last I heard was what I read in the WALL STREET JOURNAL about two >years ago. I thought Jesse Sheidlower or Bethany Dumas would add an >answer here. > >If I knew anything, I would reply. If I learn anything, I will post it. > >Bethany Thanks. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 16 19:30:28 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 14:30:28 -0500 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: <353781.3220163334@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: Another interpretation of "yankee" derives it from the Algonquian pronunciation of "Englishmen" (applied, by extension, to all white Europeans): [iNk at l@Sm at n], cited by Ives Goddard (1977) as Munsee. Leechman and Hall, who collected samples of the Indian English used in native-white contact situations, found the spelling "Ingismon" in early records, and Armstrong (1971) found "Yengees man" and "Yengees," the latter adopted by Fenimore Cooper. With initial palatalization, the transition to "Yengee" and ultimately "Yankee" makes sense. I've discussed this debate and the general history of native-white contact English (a pidgin, in effect) in my dissertation (Indiana, 1981)--available from Ann Arbor, if anyone's interested. BTW, cf. the Amish use (and others?) of "English" for all non-Amish Euro-Americans. At 09:48 AM 1/16/02 -0800, you wrote: >Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a >source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for >cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a >common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric >figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with >cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a >connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: >given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted vowel, >I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form >kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big >Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) > >Peter Mc. > >--On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" > wrote: > >>Joe; I think you have this backwards. >> >>One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John >>Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The >>explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding >>English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" >>label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. >> >>What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned >>it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy >>and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we >>made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with >>new findings I haven't followed. >> >>dInIs >> >> >> >>>Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >>> >>>According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >>>English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >>>populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >>>anyone? --Joe F. >> >> >>-- > > > >**************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.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 stephen_lombardo at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 16 23:13:03 2002 From: stephen_lombardo at YAHOO.COM (s. . .) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 15:13:03 -0800 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? Message-ID: Hi, everyone. Can you please help me paraphrase the following in current English (read the part between arrows >>> <<<): "[A lone policeman on his rounds], >>> the clanging bell of some owl car anxious to be off the street, <<< [the tread of a man hurrying...] Thanks for your insights. Peter Lombardo __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 00:24:39 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:24:39 EST Subject: 401(k) "Lockdown"; "Macadamia" nutty Message-ID: 401(K) "LOCKDOWN" From today's WALL STREET JOURNAL, 16 January 2002, pg. C1, col. 2: _"Lockdowns" of 401(k) Plans Draw Scrutiny_ (...) Last fall, amid the growing news of financial woes at the energy-trading company, Enron officials "locked down" the employee retirement-savings plan to make administrative changes. (...) ...Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), a ranking member of the Finance Committee, says his staff is exmining lockdowns, which also are known as "blackouts" and "quiet periods." -------------------------------------------------------- MACADAMIA (continued) OED supposedly has revised "m," so I assumed that its "macadamia" entry was perfect. I didn't look anywhere else. But what the hay, I turned to THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DICTIONARY (Oxford University Press, 1988). My 1893 citation isn't there, but "macadamia" has citations from 1857, 1880, and 1927. These couldn't make the OED? Who revised this OED entry? From bboling at UNM.EDU Thu Jan 17 00:47:23 2002 From: bboling at UNM.EDU (bruce d. boling) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 17:47:23 -0700 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? In-Reply-To: <20020116231303.28440.qmail@web13205.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: An owl car was a streetcar that ran through the night (as opposed to those that ceased their runs at, say, midnight) . Certain heavily patronized streetcar lines typically provided all-night service. Often owl cars might run slightly different routes from those they ran during the day; separate routes might also be combined for owl car service. Bruce D. Boling Assoc. Professor University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM bboling at unm.edu --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002, 3:13 PM -0800 "s. . ." wrote: > Hi, everyone. > Can you please help me paraphrase the following in > current English (read the part between arrows >>>> <<<): > > "[A lone policeman on his rounds], >>> the clanging > bell of some owl car anxious to be off the street, <<< > [the tread of a man hurrying...] > > Thanks for your insights. > > Peter Lombardo > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! > http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Thu Jan 17 00:51:23 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:51:23 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in bringing down the plane"..... To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been pretty confused about the outcome. A. Murie From einstein at FROGNET.NET Thu Jan 17 00:45:51 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:45:51 -0500 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? Message-ID: [night] owl, therefore a lone [street] car late at night...bell clanging ___________________ David Bergdahl From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 17 00:57:46 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:57:46 -0500 Subject: "owl car" phrase ?? In-Reply-To: <1885928780.1011203243@sr-208-0027.unm.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, bruce d. boling wrote: #An owl car was a streetcar that ran through the night (as opposed to those #that ceased their runs at, say, midnight) . Certain heavily patronized #streetcar lines typically provided all-night service. Often owl cars might #run slightly different routes from those they ran during the day; separate #routes might also be combined for owl car service. Ping! Connection!! Just today or yesterday I saw a sign at a Boston "T" (public transit) streetcar stop with an owl perched on the stylized "T" and a text something like "The night shuttle stops here too!" I don't remember if the text used the word "owl", but of course the owl is a standard symbol of nighttime activity, and a "night owl" a person who is active at night. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 17 01:00:10 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:00:10 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: #AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to #say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane #prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in #bringing down the plane"..... #To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on #Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been #pretty confused about the outcome. Yes, but.... While I feel the same way you do, the language is changing under our feet. As you point out, the replacement of "might" by "may" as the past or contrary-to-fact form of "may" is "increasingly common", and it is you and I whose blank or irritated looks are becoming the exception. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 01:02:51 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:02:51 -0500 Subject: 401(k) "Lockdown"; "Macadamia" nutty In-Reply-To: <37.213aac68.297773c7@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > OED supposedly has revised "m," so I assumed that its "macadamia" > entry was perfect. I didn't look anywhere else. > But what the hay, I turned to THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DICTIONARY > (Oxford University Press, 1988). My 1893 citation isn't there, but > "macadamia" has citations from 1857, 1880, and 1927. These couldn't > make the OED? > Who revised this OED entry? When I look in the OED I see an 1858 quotation -- perhaps this is the same as the 1857 citation you mention, differently dated -- and a 1927 citation -- perhaps this is the same as the 1927 citation in the AND. 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 wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Wed Jan 16 21:00:13 2002 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 21:00:13 -0000 Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary Message-ID: Jon Lighter's agent is currently negotiating a sale of the project to another publisher. I can't give out any details because they're not finalized, but Jon's in capable hands. Wendalyn Nichols ----- Original Message ----- From: "Evan Morris" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 3:29 PM Subject: Random House Historical Dictionary > Reposting a question that may have been lost in the holiday shuffle: > > > > > Given the untimely demise of the Random House Dictionary Division, does > anyone know what is to become of the Historical Dictionary of American > Slang project? From carljweber at MSN.COM Thu Jan 17 02:17:35 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:17:35 -0600 Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: Cannibal 2 James A. Landau said: This same source, as I recall, made the statement that the Iroquois, at least the ones that formed the Five Nations, were masters of psychological warfare, so it was a reasonable conclusion that the Mohawk, whether or not they actually were cannibals, were quite happy to have other Native Americans thinking they were. Carl Jeffrey Weber had written: > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. JAL This statement to me sounds suspiciously like a blood libel. Aside from the Aztecs, whose ritual cannibalism seems to be well attested, I will insist on reasonably good evidence on Native American anthropophagy. (This includes the Caribs, for whom I have never seen any well-attested evidence for cannibalism. The Caribs must have had a reputation among their neighbors resembling that of the Iroquois among theirs, and both sets of neighbors appear to have accepted the legend of cannibalism. That legend could have been due either to fear or to denigration of enemies---the Native American equivalent of "gook"!) CJW (Rhetorical question:) Why the collocation "ritual" cannibalism?? For all the prayers of the Conquistadors, shouldn't they not be granted the same courtesy, i.e., ritual "conquest and annihilation"?? One problem is determining WHAT exactly, or more or less, constitutes "reasonably good evidence"; and another problem is the epistemological quagmire that beckons when there are irreconcilable differences - the majority of Black Americans believe that OJ is innocent. Regarding athropophagic tendencies -- In studying how language grows out of culture, and how culture grows out of language, who - I ask -- would object that truth demands attention to, or at least acknowledgement of, the gamut of proclivities in the smorgasbord of human behaviors - from pastrami to, well, whatever else is on the menu/womenu. Going back to original sources - first hand information -- is the only way one will encounter "good evidence" documentation -- if one's argument is to be believed. The circumstances, the motives of the players, and the temper of the times - all need consideration, and I think I have been considerate. I would very much like to know why I am mis-appraising this, if I am. ///////////////// These are from Parkman's mention of cannibalism in his French Colonial history, the best seller for low and high brow alike since 1865. All his material is referenced with original source narratives - many of which I have read, if not exhaustively, at least representatively. Fascinating adventure and human ordeal! The real stuff of the opening to Europe of the North American interior. Cannibalism is encountered frequently. There's no big deal made about it. Life in the state of nature was nasty, short, and brutish, as said one contemporary commentor. One of the institutions of paleolithic society seems to have been cannibalism. It's part of the human story. Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer of evidence, but maybe there are others. --------------- Historians like Parkman have fallen into disfavor in academia - I suppose for harboring those deep values of the Western canon, like a "truth" that is not relative and contingent. Like Friend's "contingent slavery". "Contingent" making it - kind a', sort a', not too not OK. --------------- These are from Parkman, and he cites the sources. 1024 in reference to Henri Joutel, "like nearly all the early observers of Indian manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism" 265 [from Champlain's volumes] That night, the torture fires blazed along the shore. Champlain saved one prisoner from their clutches, but nothing could save the rest. One body was quartered and eaten. "As for the rest of the prisoners, "says Champlain, "they were kept to be put to death by the women and girls, who in this respect are no less inhuman than the men, and indeed, much more so; for by their subtlety they invented more cruel tortures, and take pleasure in it." 361-62 Re Huron Religious festivals, councils, the entertainment of an envoy, the inauguration of a chief, were all occasions of festivity, in which social pleasure was joined with matters of grave import, and which at times gathered nearly all the nation into one great and harmonious concourse. Warlike expeditions, too, were always preceded by feasting, at which the warriors vaunted the fame of their ancestors, and their own past and prospective exploits. A hideous scene of feasting followed the torture of the prisoners. Like the torture itself, it was, among the Hurons, partly an act of vengeance, and partly a religious rite. If the victim had shown courage, the heart was first roasted, cut into small pieces, and given to the young men and boys, who devoured it to increase their own courage. The body was then divided, thrown into the kettles and eaten by the assembly, the head being the portion of the chief. Many of the Hurons joined in the feast with reluctance and horror, while others took pleasure in it. This was the only form of cannibalism among them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely under the desperation of extreme famine. 496 Lalemant, Relations des Hurons, 1639. The Hurons, this year, had had unwonted success in their war with the Iroquois, and had taken, at various times, nearly a hundred prisoners. Many of these were brought to the seat of the new mission of St. Joseph, and put to death with frightful tortures, though not before several had been converted and baptized. The torture was followed, in spite of the remonstrances of the priests, by those cannibal feasts customary with Hurons on such occasions. Once, when the Fathers had been strenuous in their denunciations, a hand of the victim, duly prepared, was flung in at their door, as an invitation to join in the festivity. As the owner of the severed member had been baptized, they dug a hole in their chapel, and buried it with solemn rites of sepulture. 572-3 A band of Algonquins, late in the autumn of 1641, set forth from Three Rivers on their winter hunt, and, fearful of the Iroquois, made their way far northward, into the depths of the forests that border the Ottawa. Here they thought themselves safe, built their lodges, and began to hunt the moose and beaver. But a large party of their enemies, with a persistent ferocity that is truly astonishing, had penetrated even here, found the traces of the snowshoe, followed up their human prey, and hid at nightfall among the rocks and thickets around the encampment. At midnight, their yells and blows of their war-clubs awakened their sleeping victims. In a few minutes all were in their power. They bound the prisoners hand and foot, rekindled the fire, slung the kettles, cut the bodies of the slain to pieces, and boiled and devoured them before the eyes of the wretched survivors. "in a word," said the narrator, "they ate men with as much appetite and more pleasure than hunters eat a boar or a stag." 573 ... with their prisoners. Among these were three women, of whom the narrator was one, who had each a child of a few weeks or months old. At the first halt, their captors took their infants from them, tied them to wooden spits, placed them to die slowly before a fire, and feasted on them before the eyes of the agonized mothers, whose shrieks, supplications, and frantic efforts to break the cords that bound them were met with mockery and laughter. "They are not men, they are wolves!" sobbed the wretched woman, as she told what had befallen her to the pitying Jesuit. 955 La Salle made five journeys of upwards of five thousand leagues, in great part on foot; and traversed more than six hundred leagues of unknown country, among savages and cannibals.... More Parkman: Traces of cannibalism may be found among most of the North American tribes, though they are rarely very conspicuous. Sometimes the practice arose, as in the present instance, from revenge or ferocity; sometimes it bore a religious character, as with the Miamis, among whom there existed a secret religious fraternity of man-eaters, sometimes the heart of a brave enemy was devoured in the idea that it made the eater brave. This last practice was common. The ferocious threat, used in speaking of an enemy, "I will eat his heart," is by no means a figure of speech. The roving hunter-tribes, in their winter wanderings, were not infrequently impelled to cannibalism by famine. ------------------------------ There are many description available like the above, either the actual sources themselves, or a clear reference in paraphrase. ----------------------------- As far as the Carib being cannibals, I posted the URL of Munster's map (early 16th century) with Canibalis written where the Carib are http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/2-8.htm. These are the people the word came from. Of course that is not proof - but only one item in the preponderance of evidence. Some of what has been said here by other participants has its thread going way back : "The natives live in great fear of the cannibals (i.e., Caribals, or people of Cariba)" -- Columbus. (cited in E. C. Brewer). ////////////////////////////////////////////// There is plenty of evidence, in plenty of in those dusty old books at the library. However, for some people, this kind of evidence would not be sufficient to convince. I can accept that. Furthermore,, I hope the suspicion about "blood libel" is assuaged. CJW Chicago Ontology Recapitulates Philology From angelus at TRUTHMAIL.COM Thu Jan 17 06:49:24 2002 From: angelus at TRUTHMAIL.COM (Administrator) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 01:49:24 -0500 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Notification: You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. at http://www.getabortion.info What you will never see on TV. Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for abortion, will tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join there is human life. Why won't the media show you this? They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other operations on tv and cable. Why not an abortion? You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about abortion. Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of pregnancy, including the day of birth? Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an abortion without their parents knowing? Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US alone kills over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent unborn human murdered every 22 seconds! An entire genertion has been slaughtered. Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated by the money mongers of the industry. See it for yourself. http://getabortion.info From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 09:26:30 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 04:26:30 EST Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: SI COVER JINX The January 21, 2002 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED cover story is: The Cover that _No One_ Would Pose for Is the _SI Jinx_ for Real? I did both "jinx" and "cover jinx" in the old ADS-L archives; the latter citation has been destroyed. The "cover jinx" unquestionably comes from TIME magazine, SI's parent company. The author of the article was on NY1 "Sports on 1" cable television tonight. I tried to call in but didn't get on. -------------------------------------------------------- O.T.: NEW YORK FOOD MUSEUM Another lecture of the New York Culinary Historians is tonight, Thursday, January 17th, 6:30 p.m. registration, Grace Church, East 86th Street (south side) between Lexington and Park. The speaker is Anne Houk-Lawson from the New York Food Museum, and she'll talk about NY food. Food is included in the admission. David Shulman was interested in going, but I couldn't promise him pastrami with an egg cream. Next month's speaker is William Woys Weaver, who's working on SCRIBNER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD. -------------------------------------------------------- "MACADAMIA" IN OED I'm a little confused with Fred's results. Type in "macadamia" on the left side and the hits all show "1904," supposedly the date of the first "macadamia." You do get the 1858 cite, but _only_ if you pull down "etymology" on the "macadamia" entry. The 1858 cite is also noted as "1857" in the AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DICTIONARY. The 1880 AND cite and the 1893 Periodicals Contents Index hit (both before 1904) weren't used. This is just one, corrected food entry.... -------------------------------------------------------- ANTS ON A LOG I was chatting with a woman about "Ants on a Tree," the Chinese menu item. She confused it with "Ants on a Log," the Girl Scouts menu item. Cookbook.com shows a lot of "ants" recipes, most of the "log" variety. "Ants on a Log" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK. I'll try to work on it today. My first guess is the POOH COOK BOOK (1969), then I'll continue with juvenile cookery. A Google/Deja check shows (chime in with any more): Ants on a log Ants climbing a log Bugs on a log Fire ants on a log Salmon going upstream Gnats on a log Cockroaches on a log Caterpillers on a log Poopy on a log -------------------------------------------------------- DELICATESSEN MERCHANT The NYPL has a magazine called DELICATESSEN MERCHANT, from 1933 to 1946. "Assorted Cold Cuts" is in June 1934, pg. 20. (Mariani: "The first printed reference to the term appeared in 1940.") What did the industry shorten the name to? From November 1933, pg. 27, col. 2: "The Astoria Grocers tried to raise Hell, But kept far away from Eric's Del." And from January 1946, pg. 8, cols. 1-2 headline: "_Yankee-style dishes popularize Boston del_." A "DO YOU KNOW THAT" cartoon, March 1934, pg. 6: THE _FIRST_ DELICATESSEN STORE IN AMERICA WAS ESTABLISHED IN NEW YORK CITY, BACK IN 1801......AND NOW THERE ARE _OVER 8000_ IN THE U.S.A.!!! From February 1946, pg. 8, col. 2: _"Dated beverages"_ are a sales appeal that may find wide popularity after awhile, as it has already with coffee. One Eastern soft drink manufacturer now uses the "date" technique. His advertising features this label statement: "This beverage is at its best when used before the date punched on this label." (We don't need no stinking dates. Over at Parking, our Coke cans advertise the Radio City Christmas Show--ed.) From sylvar at VAXER.NET Thu Jan 17 12:04:44 2002 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 04:04:44 -0800 Subject: "popcorn windows" In-Reply-To: <200201170502.g0H52SP18629@maple.vaxer.net> Message-ID: > Apparently the modern Web advertiser believes that user apoplexy Or should we call it apopuplexy? Ben From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 12:39:50 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 07:39:50 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log In-Reply-To: <16b.742e7d2.2977f2c8@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > The 1858 cite is also noted as "1857" in the AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL > DICTIONARY. The 1880 AND cite and the 1893 Periodicals Contents Index > hit (both before 1904) weren't used. Just as the OED does not include every term and phrase from the English language and other languages, it also does not include every early citation. Beyond the earliest use they can find, they pick and choose a small number of other citations that they think are illustrative of the word's usage. They probably intentionally avoid just repeating all the citations from other historical dictionaries. 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 fitzke at MICHCOM.NET Thu Jan 17 14:12:37 2002 From: fitzke at MICHCOM.NET (Robert Fitzke) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 09:12:37 -0500 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake up to reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. ----- Original Message ----- From: Administrator To: Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > Notification: > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > What you will never see on TV. > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for abortion, will > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join there > is human life. > > Why won't the media show you this? > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other operations on tv > and cable. > > Why not an abortion? > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about abortion. > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an > abortion without their parents knowing? > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US alone kills > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent unborn human > murdered every 22 seconds! > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated by > the money mongers of the industry. > > See it for yourself. > > http://getabortion.info > From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 17 14:01:53 2002 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 09:01:53 -0500 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... In-Reply-To: <1011250164.699@0.0.1> Message-ID: Uh, first it was the ??? Messages that originated somewhere in Asia, and now it's this stuff. Is anybody aware of what's making its way to the list. FWIW, I don't find this last message all that germane to the larger concerns of ADS. My two cents. On 1/17/02 1:49 AM, "Administrator" wrote: > Notification: > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > at http://www.getabortion.info > -- Bob Haas Department of English High Point University "Wherever you go, there you are." From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Thu Jan 17 14:15:37 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 16:15:37 +0200 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... In-Reply-To: <017901c19f61$2856b620$24d513d0@rjiredff> Message-ID: I may understand those who support abortions and those who do not. I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the ADS-L. Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > Of Robert Fitzke > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake up to > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Administrator > To: > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > Notification: > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > abortion, will > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join > there > > is human life. > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > operations on tv > > and cable. > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about > abortion. > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US > alone kills > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > unborn human > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated > by > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 15:12:05 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:12:05 EST Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry is bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than 1858 or 1880 or 1893. And I never said that every word from everywhere in the world must be in the OED. And yes, I know that AMERICAN SPEECH note on "86" was prepared before I posted on "86" in December. But it's a bad note anytime. From JBaker at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 17 15:22:33 2002 From: JBaker at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:22:33 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: Barry, I think you're missing something here. When I log into the OED (which I access on a cost-effective basis through the Quality Paperback Book Club, qpb.com) and search for Macadamia, it presents a listing beginning with the 1904 cite, but there is also a button marked "Later" at the upper right corner of the screen. When I click that button, it presents a "NEW EDITION: draft entry Mar. 2000," and the draft entry includes cites from 1857 and 1927. John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [SMTP:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 10:12 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log > > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry is > bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than 1858 or > 1880 or 1893. > And I never said that every word from everywhere in the world must be > in the OED. > And yes, I know that AMERICAN SPEECH note on "86" was prepared before I > posted on "86" in December. But it's a bad note anytime. > > From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 17 15:32:45 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:32:45 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry > is bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than > 1858 or 1880 or 1893. Barry, you're not looking at the revised OED entry, you're looking at OED2. The revised OED entry does have cites from 1858, 1904, and 1927. If you look at the top right portion of the screen I'm quite sure you'll see "SECOND EDITION 1989" there, with a button labelled "LATER" that will bring you to the revised OED. Jesse Sheidlower OED From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 15:35:08 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:35:08 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry is > bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than 1858 > or 1880 or 1893. I think your point boils down to the fact that the basic searches in the OED Online point to the second edition, with new material as a somewhat hidden "add-on". I agree that that is confusing to the user. > And I never said that every word from everywhere in the world must be > in the OED. When you seem to criticize the OED for omitting uncommon, unnaturalized words from other languages, it is hard for the reader of your postings not to conclude that you think all words from all languages should be in the OED (all food words, at least!). > And yes, I know that AMERICAN SPEECH note on "86" was prepared before > I posted on "86" in December. But it's a bad note anytime. Agreed. But I think your valid points would be more credible if they were not so mixed with seemingly invalid points. (I mean this in a friendly spirit -- your valid points deserve more publicity than they get, and I am trying to suggest how you might get more of a hearing.) 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 mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 17 16:05:44 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 11:05:44 -0500 Subject: Yankee (was: The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, Laurence Horn wrote: #Well, yes, as an almost certain folk etymology, although the "Jan" #part may be right (especially based on its hypocoristic variant #"Janke"). Still, it's something of a relief to turn from ritual #torture and cannibalism to pastrami and cheese. (Urp!) 'Scuse me! -- Tasty thread, this... but not under the subject line of "the finger"! -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 17 16:38:19 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 08:38:19 -0800 Subject: Yankee In-Reply-To: <353781.3220163334@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: Indeed I should have checked my Dutch dictionary first. The name of the figure is in fact Jan Kaas, which my Nederlands Koenen (M.J. Koenen-J.B. Drewes, Verklarend Handwoordenboek der Nederlandse Taal) defines as "verpersoonlijking van Nederland, van de Nederlander, z. John Bull" (personification of the Netherlands, of the Dutchman, cf. John Bull). Confusion about the pronunciation could have arisen from an earlier spelling "ae" to indicate /a:/, still to be found in a few place and family names. But I doubt that English-speaking colonial Americans could have picked up a form /jan ke:s/ directly from the pronunciation of Dutch-speaking neighbors. Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:48 AM -0800 "Peter A. McGraw" wrote: > Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a > source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for > cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a > common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric > figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with > cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a > connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: > given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted > vowel, I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form > kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big > Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) > > Peter Mc. > > --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" > wrote: > >> Joe; I think you have this backwards. >> >> One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John >> Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The >> explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding >> English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" >> label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. >> >> What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned >> it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy >> and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we >> made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with >> new findings I haven't followed. >> >> dInIs >> >> >> >>> Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >>> >>> According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >>> English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >>> populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >>> anyone? --Joe F. >> >> >> -- > > > > ************************************************************************* > *** Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 04:02:37 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 12:02:37 +0800 Subject: Fwd: crosspost of possible interest Message-ID: As usual, responses should be directed to the poster, Mr. Lee, as well as copying us. larry --- begin forwarded text LINGUIST List: Vol-13-98. Thu Jan 17 2002. ISSN: 1068-4875. Subject: 13.98, Qs: "Standard American" Accent Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 12:17:58 +0800 (CST) From: clee at cc.NCTU.edu.tw Subject: Standard American accent? Dear Linguists, Someone recently asked me if there was a "standard" American accent. I responded by saying that there are many different American accents and no standard one. But I also mentioned that there was a general concensus among Americans that the northwest accent, seemed to be special among all of them in that it: 1. is the one most people have no problems understanding, 2. is the one that seems to have the least noticable accent, 3. is the one that is the most nondescript, is the one people made least fun of, etc. I recall being told something to this effect 20 years ago and I think they said this was due to some research (anybody know if this is true?). But the research also suggested that this may not be due to anything special about the northwest accent but simply because the national TV newscasters spoke with this accent. But the research also left open the possibility that the TV networks used this accent because they also knew or discovered that it was the most understandable accent. REQUEST I want to make sure that my own bias (I grew up in the northwest) is not influencing me, so what I want to ask this list is if there has really been any research in this area, regardless of whether it was from 20 years ago or more recently? If so, what research has been done and what were their conclusions? Also, other questions that come to mind are: * Is there a way to "objectively" determine in a linguistic way which accent should be the most understandable apart from other factors such as accent exposure or social norms? * Is there a way to quatify what is the most nondescript (i.e. central) accent? - Charles Lee, Ph.D Linguistics --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-13-98 --- end forwarded text From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 18:17:28 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:17:28 EST Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/2002 7:49:19 PM, sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM writes: << AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in bringing down the plane"..... To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been pretty confused about the outcome. A. Murie >> There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some environments. I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the sociolinguistic literature. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 17 18:40:06 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:40:06 -0800 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Alexey: Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. Frankly, I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexey Fuchs" To: Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:15 AM Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > I may understand those who support abortions and those who do not. > I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. > > What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the ADS-L. > > Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > > Of Robert Fitzke > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake up to > > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Administrator > > To: > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > Notification: > > > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want you to know. > > > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > > abortion, will > > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and sperm join > > there > > > is human life. > > > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > > operations on tv > > > and cable. > > > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors who have > > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say about > > abortion. > > > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all nine months of > > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 can get an > > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the US > > alone kills > > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > > unborn human > > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood propagated > > by > > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > > > From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 17 18:42:24 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:42:24 -0800 Subject: Yankee (was: The Finger) Message-ID: To all: > #Well, yes, as an almost certain folk etymology, although the "Jan" > #part may be right (especially based on its hypocoristic variant > #"Janke"). Still, it's something of a relief to turn from ritual > #torture and cannibalism to pastrami and cheese. > > (Urp!) 'Scuse me! -- Tasty thread, this... but not under the > subject line of "the finger"! Wouldn't "Janke" be kind of like "Johnny" in English? Anne G From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Thu Jan 17 18:53:17 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:53:17 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might could"? I think so. Ellen Ellen Johnson Assistant Professor of Linguistics Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing Berry College, Box 350 Mt. Berry, GA 30149 706-368-5638 http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ ejohnson at berry.edu Ron Butters: There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some environments. I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the sociolinguistic literature. From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 19:01:09 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:01:09 EST Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: In a message dated 1/17/2002 1:52:32 PM, ejohnson at BERRY.EDU writes: << do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might could"? I think so. Ellen >> I never thought about that--might be. Or should I say "may be"? From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 19:15:56 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:15:56 EST Subject: EXTREME LIFE form Message-ID: I came across the phrase EXTREME LIFE in today's DURHAM MORNING HERALD (1/17/ 02, pA7/1&3); not sure from the context if it is a nonce form, a mistake, or some established form that I knew nothing about before: <> The article refers to a an article published today in the journal NATURE. From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 17 19:27:43 2002 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:27:43 -0500 Subject: EXTREME LIFE form Message-ID: Extreme life has been around for a few years at least. I believe it was first coined to label the various plant and animal forms discovered living around deep ocean volcanic vents. RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > I came across the phrase EXTREME LIFE in today's DURHAM MORNING HERALD (1/17/ > 02, pA7/1&3); not sure from the context if it is a nonce form, a mistake, or > some established form that I knew nothing about before: > > < without sunlight or oxygen. ... In the light of the findings, researchers > said the question should no longer be whether extreme life exists on Mars and > elsewhere.>> > > The article refers to a an article published today in the journal NATURE. From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 17 19:48:28 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 11:48:28 -0800 Subject: EXTREME LIFE form Message-ID: Ron: > I came across the phrase EXTREME LIFE in today's DURHAM MORNING HERALD (1/17/ > 02, pA7/1&3); not sure from the context if it is a nonce form, a mistake, or > some established form that I knew nothing about before: > > < without sunlight or oxygen. ... In the light of the findings, researchers > said the question should no longer be whether extreme life exists on Mars and > elsewhere.>> I"ve never seen "extreme" used in this sense, for a biological life form, but "extreme" used as a kind of substitute for "ultimate" or "dangerous" or "risky" has been around for some years now(think of the phrase "extreme sports"). Anne g From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 17 06:50:05 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:50:05 +0800 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <28.20ab1e55.29786f38@aol.com> Message-ID: At 1:17 PM -0500 1/17/02, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >In a message dated 1/16/2002 7:49:19 PM, sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM writes: > ><< AG Ashcroft suffers from this increasingly common complaint, causing him to >say, absurdly, that " had not the other passengers" aboard the plane >prevented his doing so, the would-be shoe-bomber "MAY have succeeded in >bringing down the plane"..... >To which I say, had anyone not familiar with this story been relying on >Ashcroft's description for their understanding, they MIGHT well have been >pretty confused about the outcome. >A. Murie >> > >There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >environments. I agree with almost everything Ron says about this merger, except that (i) while there is the age correlation he mentions, it's not absolute. (Actually Ron does say "most", which is probably right.) I check this with my students annually when I teach semantics, and there's always a (non-age-correlated) split among them. The half (or so) who retain the distinction between epistemic 'may' vs. metalinguistic 'might' are as incredulous about the other half (or so) as positive "anymore" speakers are at the fact that not everyone is one. (ii) I don't think it's AS significant a variable as invariant "be", as Ron opines below, but it's one I'm more interested in. > >I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >sociolinguistic literature. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 17 20:41:35 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:41:35 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <04075613166AF949913A8094A388272A119FA3@FSMAIL.AD.Berry.edu> Message-ID: Certainly not for me. I can say 'might could' but have never been able to say 'may can.' dInIs >do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might >could"? I think so. Ellen > >Ellen Johnson >Assistant Professor of Linguistics >Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing >Berry College, Box 350 >Mt. Berry, GA 30149 >706-368-5638 >http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ >ejohnson at berry.edu > > > >Ron Butters: >There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >environments. > >I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >sociolinguistic literature. -- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 20:48:23 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:48:23 EST Subject: S'Mores, Migas (1934) Message-ID: THE OUTDOOR BOOK by Gladys Snyder and C. Frances Loomis Book Number Eight of the Library of the Seven Crafts of the Camp Fire Girls Camp Fire Outfitting Company New York City c. 1934 Pg. 63: BACON AND EGGS ON A STONE... BREAD TWIST... Pg. 66: IMU... Pg. 74: MIGAS From Fort Worth, Texas, comes this recipe which is a favorite among Camp Fire Girls in the southwest: 1 dozen tortillas 1/4 lb. cheese 1 onion 1 can tomatoes 1 small can tomato sauce 1/2 can Wesson oil 1 teaspoon chili powder 2 cloves of garlic 1 teaspoon salt Cut tortillas into twelve parts. Pour oil into pan and heat very hot. Drop pieces of tortillas into fat and, when crisp, drain on paper. Put 1/2 cup of hot fat back in pan (set other aside; do not throw away.) Add onion and garlic which have been chopped fine together, to hot fat. Brown well, add tomatoes, and tomato sauce and bring to a boil. THen add cheese. Season with chili powder and salt. Add tortilla chips. Stir and heat. Serve. TAFFY APPLES... Pg. 79: NOOCHEETO 2 boxes noodles (wide) 2 packages snappy cheese 8 slices toast 2 picnic size cans tomato soup or equivalent 1 teaspoon salt.... BLUSHING BUNNY 3 picnic size cans tomato soup 1 lb. American cheese, cut in small pieces 2 eggs toast.... Pg. 80: CAMPERS' DELIGHT... CHINESE MYSTERY... WILDERNESS HASH... Pg. 81: SQUAW DISH (bacon, onions, tomatoes, corn--ed.) Pg. 96: HEAVENLY CRISP _(Also known as "S'mores")_ 8 bars of plain chocolate (Hershey's or any of the good plain brands of chocolate) 16 graham crackers 16 marshmallows Toast two marshmallows over the coals to a crisp, gooey state and then put them inside a graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich. The heat of the marshmallow between the halves of chocolate bar will melt the chocolate just enough, and the graham crackers on the outside are nice to hold on to, as well as tasy. Though it tastes like "some more," one is really enough. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 17 20:56:21 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:56:21 EST Subject: Chow Mien (1889?)(1892?) Message-ID: HOW TO BUY FOOD, HOW TO COOK IT, AND HOW TO SERVE IT by Alessandro Filippini REVISED EDITION, WITH SUPPLEMENTS Charles L. Wester & Company, NY 1892 (First published 1889) Pg. 414 (Hongkong Menu): Bow Ha Mai. Boiled Prawns in Oil. Chow Chop Suey. Bits of Pork Chops. (...) Pg. 415: Chow Gai Pien. Fried Chicken Wings. (...) Dein Som. Sweetmeats and Jellies. (...) Pg. 416 (Yokahama Menu): Sashimi. Raw Sliced Fish. Teriyaki. Roast Fish. Shiwoyaki. Roasted Fish. (...) Shoyu. Sauce. Saki. Rice Whiskey. Pg. 417 (Corea Menu): Chow Mien. A Kind of Boiled Macaroni, Fried with Thin Strips of Chicken, Pork, Mushrooms, and Celery. ("Ants" later tonight! Gotta go!--ed.) From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Thu Jan 17 21:36:56 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 16:36:56 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: Although might could was once my only acceptable double modal, I find myself saying may can more and more. but then, I'm younger than you! still in Ron's under-45 age group, in fact. Ellen -----Original Message----- From: Dennis R. Preston [mailto:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 3:42 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: may/might confusion Certainly not for me. I can say 'might could' but have never been able to say 'may can.' dInIs >do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might >could"? I think so. Ellen > >Ellen Johnson >Assistant Professor of Linguistics >Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing >Berry College, Box 350 >Mt. Berry, GA 30149 >706-368-5638 >http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ >ejohnson at berry.edu > > > >Ron Butters: >There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >environments. > >I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >sociolinguistic literature. -- From ging at HANMAIL.NET Thu Jan 17 21:44:16 2002 From: ging at HANMAIL.NET (ging) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 06:44:16 +0900 Subject: []ε Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 17 23:46:12 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 18:46:12 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <107.b73f8a0.29787975@aol.com> Message-ID: This would explain the "seeming" lack of verb sequencing in a line in "American Tongues," where a boot seller in Kentucky tells the buyer "he may could wear it in a(n) 8 and a half." I've listened closely many times and I'm sure it's "may could." So perhaps the can/could distinction still holds, even while the may/might one is being lost. "May can" would be distinct from "may could" then, right? At 02:01 PM 1/17/02 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 1/17/2002 1:52:32 PM, ejohnson at BERRY.EDU writes: > ><< do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might could"? > I think so. Ellen >> > >I never thought about that--might be. Or should I say "may be"? _____________________________________________ 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 abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 18 02:32:51 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:32:51 -0500 Subject: FW: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: RE what Jesse says below, i believe it is also OED policy to give the earliest dated citation that seems reliable. The evidence (that can be trusted) is the evidence. Jesse? Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Jesse Sheidlower Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 10:33 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log > Oh c'mon Fred, stop arguing the ridiculous. The revised OED entry > is bad. They didn't "pick and choose" to lead with 1904 rather than > 1858 or 1880 or 1893. Barry, you're not looking at the revised OED entry, you're looking at OED2. The revised OED entry does have cites from 1858, 1904, and 1927. If you look at the top right portion of the screen I'm quite sure you'll see "SECOND EDITION 1989" there, with a button labelled "LATER" that will bring you to the revised OED. Jesse Sheidlower OED From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 18 02:42:57 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:42:57 -0500 Subject: Standard American accent? Message-ID: Not to be contrary, but in my view the most "neutral" American dialect is that heard from those raised in, or longtime denizens of Nebraska. I myself (from northern Ohio/SE Michigan) find the northwest dialect marked, at least in terms of intonational patterns. Examples of native Nebraskans in the media are Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett (influenced, no doubt, by his NE education and long habitation), and Tom Brokaw (overlooking his trouble with saying the letter L). Frank Abate Dictionary & Reference Specialists (DRS) Consulting & Lexicographic Services (860) 349-5400 abatefr at earthlink.net From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 18 02:58:29 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:58:29 -0500 Subject: SI Cover Jinx; Ants on a Log Message-ID: > RE what Jesse says below, i believe it is also OED policy to give the > earliest dated citation that seems reliable. > > The evidence (that can be trusted) is the evidence. > > Jesse? Quite right. We do check all the historical dictionaries, among many other works, and we would very much hope we didn't miss anything in something like the AND. If one of the dictionaries had an early citation that OED felt was _not_ reliable, we'd probably say so in a note just so no one would think we missed it. (This does not apply to slightly differing bibliographical standards that cause AND's 1857 quote to appear as 1858 in OED3.) Jesse Sheidlower OED From pjs7353 at LYCOS.CO.KR Fri Jan 18 01:57:13 2002 From: pjs7353 at LYCOS.CO.KR (DC90) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:57:13 +0900 Subject: []BMW 7980,Ʈ 2250, 6500 常Ͻ ֽϴ Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Fri Jan 18 07:30:39 2002 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 02:30:39 EST Subject: may/might confusion Message-ID: I also think the age factor in "may" vs. "might" isn't so clear. For me, "may" has never existed outside of a polite form of "can" (yeah, I know may isn't a FORM of can, still...). As in "May I go to the bathroom?" vs. "Can I go to the bathroom." That's it. Everywhere else I have "might". My roommate, however, (whom I have known since kindergarten, same town, etc.) makes a hard distinction between "may" and "might" (as well as "can" and "could", which I'm not sure I do). She's asleep. I'll ask the difference tomorrow. Then again, "might could" etc. are completely foreign to her, whereas I have some of them. I do not have "may can" or "may could", the second sounding absolutely ridiculous to me. Incidentally, we were both taught in jr. high that "might" was the past tense of "may" and that was that. -dsb Douglas S. Bigham Southern Illinois University - Carbondale From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 18 09:21:17 2002 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:21:17 -0000 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: > Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. > Frankly, I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. The ADS-L list is set so anybody can post messages to it. In the past this has not caused problems, but now the spammers have discovered it (recent Korean messages, abortion tracts), it is likely that the number of unwanted postings will increase rapidly. It might be worth the list owners considering a revision of the policy on who can post to the list. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From mlee303 at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 18 10:16:40 2002 From: mlee303 at YAHOO.COM (Margaret Lee) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 02:16:40 -0800 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... In-Reply-To: <007701c19f86$63b93240$4cfafd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: It's not surprising that this message was sent to this list, given the fact that mass e-mail addresses are available to anyone who seeks them. --- "ANNE V. GILBERT" wrote: > Alexey: > > Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. > Frankly, > I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. > Anne G > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Alexey Fuchs" > To: > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:15 AM > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > I may understand those who support abortions and those who do > not. > > I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. > > > > What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the > ADS-L. > > > > Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > > > Of Robert Fitzke > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > > > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake > up to > > > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: Administrator > > > To: > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > > > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > > Notification: > > > > > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want > you to > know. > > > > > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > > > abortion, will > > > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and > sperm join > > > there > > > > is human life. > > > > > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > > > operations on tv > > > > and cable. > > > > > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors > who have > > > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say > about > > > abortion. > > > > > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all > nine months > of > > > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 > can get > an > > > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the > US > > > alone kills > > > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > > > unborn human > > > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood > propagated > > > by > > > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > > > > > ===== Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D. Associate Professor - English and Linguistics & University Editor Department of English Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668 (757)727-5769(voice);(757)727-5084(fax);(757)851-5773(home) e-mail: margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu or mlee303 at yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 18 11:05:49 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:05:49 -0000 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:30 am +0000 Douglas Bigham wrote: > I also think the age factor in "may" vs. "might" isn't so clear. Ditto. I (30-something) definitely have a may-might division, but when I teach modals, I find that some of my students don't have half the distinctions I have (and I'm not just talking Brit-American differences--same problems in US). Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Fri Jan 18 14:30:51 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:30:51 -0500 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: <04075613166AF949913A8094A388272A119FA7@FSMAIL.AD.Berry.edu> Message-ID: I'm pretty sure you mean "the age group mentioned by Ron," not "Ron's age group." dInIs (who is two days older than Ron) >Although might could was once my only acceptable double modal, I >find myself saying may can more and more. but then, I'm younger >than you! still in Ron's under-45 age group, in fact. Ellen > >-----Original Message----- >From: Dennis R. Preston [mailto:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] >Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 3:42 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: may/might confusion > > >Certainly not for me. I can say 'might could' but have never been >able to say 'may can.' > >dInIs > > > >>do you think there is a concomitant shift to "may can" from "might >>could"? I think so. Ellen >> >>Ellen Johnson >>Assistant Professor of Linguistics >>Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing >>Berry College, Box 350 >>Mt. Berry, GA 30149 >>706-368-5638 >>http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ >>ejohnson at berry.edu >> >> >> >>Ron Butters: >>There has been a lot written about the merger of MAY and MIGHT, but for many >>people this seems to be a done deal. I know, it is hard to understand how a >>distinction that seems so natural and clear to ME simply does not register >>with most educated Americans under the age of 45 or so (and even older in the >>case of such folks as Ashcroft). I don't even remember, as a youth, having >>had anyone point out to me that there was such a distinction--it seems to me >>to have always been a part of my linguistic "competence." So my gut reaction >>is that this is not something like the prescriptivist SHALL/WILL distinction, >>which has been preserved largely only in textbooks (but cf. "Shall I >>castigate the evil doers?" vs. "Will I castigate the evil doers?"); there is >>really a linguistic change in progress here, and it is inevitable and well on >>its way to completion. MAY is replacing MIGHT in virtually all environments, >>though MIGHT still exists for such speakers as a free variant in some >>environments. >> >>I think this is a linguistic change that is at least as important as the >>extension of invariant BE, though it is scarcely mentioned in the >>sociolinguistic literature. > > >-- From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Fri Jan 18 14:42:13 2002 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:42:13 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans Message-ID: Brokaw's from Yankton, which is spitting distance from Nebraska, but in S. Dakota. From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Fri Jan 18 15:11:23 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:11:23 -0600 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: <158.765af6f.29789475@aol.com> Message-ID: The Chicago Tribune had as a headline in the Tempo section on Wednesday the phrase "weapons-grade charisma" (in a story about Elvis impersonators). I've also finally seen in print (as opposed to Internet postings) the use of the word "heart" (or sometimes ) to stand for the heart symbol (as in "I heart NY"). The use was in a Jane mag advertorial and was something like "I heart these jeans!" I've also seen "" used in place of "heart," I think to signify desire (often facetious) rather than love. "I Russell Crowe" would be a typical use. Anyone else seen this? --Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 03:03:53 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:03:53 +0800 Subject: may/might confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:30 AM -0500 1/18/02, Douglas Bigham wrote: >I also think the age factor in "may" vs. "might" isn't so clear. For me, >"may" has never existed outside of a polite form of "can" (yeah, I know may >isn't a FORM of can, still...). As in "May I go to the bathroom?" vs. "Can I >go to the bathroom." That's it. Everywhere else I have "might". My >roommate, however, (whom I have known since kindergarten, same town, etc.) >makes a hard distinction between "may" and "might" (as well as "can" and >"could", which I'm not sure I do). She's asleep. I'll ask the difference >tomorrow. Well, I doubt you ALWAYS have "might" where others have "may". "You might not take one giant step" doesn't paraphrase "You may not...", where the negation takes scope over the permission modal. "Might" and "may" are much closer in the epistemic possibility use (It {may/might} rain) than they are in the deontic (permission) use or the related logical use (Parallel lines {may/#might} not meet). If "may not" is to be replaced here it would have to be with "can't", not with "might not". larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 03:12:01 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:12:01 +0800 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:11 AM -0600 1/18/02, Erin McKean wrote: >The Chicago Tribune had as a headline in the Tempo section on >Wednesday the phrase "weapons-grade charisma" (in a story about Elvis >impersonators). > >I've also finally seen in print (as opposed to Internet postings) the >use of the word "heart" (or sometimes ) to stand for the heart >symbol (as in "I heart NY"). The use was in a Jane mag advertorial >and was something like "I heart these jeans!" > >I've also seen "" used in place of "heart," I think to signify >desire (often facetious) rather than love. "I Russell Crowe" >would be a typical use. > Maybe it's just me, but another possible interpretation of the relation (especially with Russell Crowe as object) is that it's the antonym (rather than southerly intensifier) of . Of course, in a graphic representation, this could be alternately and unambiguously indicated by the appearance of a heart with a slash through it, but that's kind of hard to represent non-graphically. larry From dave at WILTON.NET Fri Jan 18 16:27:57 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 08:27:57 -0800 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Erin McKean Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 7:11 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" >The Chicago Tribune had as a headline in the Tempo section >on Wednesday the phrase "weapons-grade charisma" (in a >story about Elvis impersonators). Just a note on "weapons-grade." Having spent 1985-98 as an Army chemical officer and arms control negotiator for the Pentagon, I never heard the term "weapons-grade" applied to biological or chemical agents until journalists did so during the recent anthrax crisis. The term was used solely as in the OED2 definition, i.e., applied to fissile (nuclear) material. As for the figurative use, "Weapons-grade salsa" actually makes more sense associated with nuclear rather than biological material, which is also quite literally "hot." Our group in the Pentagon referred to salsa as being either "Schedule 1, 2, or 3," a reference to classes of chemicals in the Chemical Weapons Convention (Schedule 1 being the hottest/most lethal). But I am sure that was a local use and not adopted outside our small circle. "Weaponize" was commonly used for biological agents, less so for chemical (probably because that isn't such a daunting technical challenge and therefore not much of an issue). I don't recall it ever being used for nuclear material, where "enrich" is the common term. The sense is a bit vague, but it meant putting the agent in a device for effective dissemination. It did not mean, as the journalists tended to use it, treating the agent so that it was more virulent, of the proper particle size, etc. Although those steps could be part of "weaponization," that process wasn't complete until the complete weapon was ready for use. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Fri Jan 18 16:28:08 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:28:08 -0000 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Friday, January 18, 2002 11:12 am +0800 Laurence Horn wrote: > Maybe it's just me, but another possible interpretation of the > relation (especially with Russell Crowe as object) is that it's the > antonym (rather than southerly intensifier) of . Of course, Hmmm...can a picture have an 'antonym'? Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Fri Jan 18 03:51:26 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:51:26 +0800 Subject: "weapons-grade" -- another figurative use, plus "heart" In-Reply-To: <385766.3220360088@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 4:28 PM +0000 1/18/02, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Friday, January 18, 2002 11:12 am +0800 Laurence Horn > wrote: > >>Maybe it's just me, but another possible interpretation of the >>relation (especially with Russell Crowe as object) is that it's the >>antonym (rather than southerly intensifier) of . Of course, > >Hmmm...can a picture have an 'antonym'? > Probably not, but a relation (whether it's represented lexically or graphically) can. larry From editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 18 18:07:54 2002 From: editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 18:07:54 -0000 Subject: Thisclose Message-ID: A World Wide Words subscriber has asked in some puzzlement about "thisclose", written as one word. I started off by thinking this was an obvious typo, but a quick newspaper archive search turned up more than a hundred examples in US periodicals, some of which had the word in quotes, suggesting that the writer was marking a known colloquialism. The ADS archives show that Barry Popik noted it about a year ago as a Wall Street usage. Does anyone have any information about its provenance, parentage, and probable distribution? If it is spoken, how is it distinguished from the two words said separately? (I have a mental image of the speaker holding up a hand with the first and second fingers pressed together, but is it augmented by some vocal emphasis?) -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Fri Jan 18 18:20:46 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:20:46 -0800 Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... Message-ID: Margaret: About all I can say to that is, I'm getting kinda tired of all these Korean-language e-mails in my inbox. I've blocked them, of course, but they keep coming . . . . . Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margaret Lee" To: Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 2:16 AM Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > It's not surprising that this message was sent to this list, given > the fact that mass e-mail addresses are available to anyone who seeks > them. > > --- "ANNE V. GILBERT" wrote: > > Alexey: > > > > Well, I don't understand why this message is on this list, either. > > Frankly, > > I was rather startled to get it in my e-mail at all. > > Anne G > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Alexey Fuchs" > > To: > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:15 AM > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > I may understand those who support abortions and those who do > > not. > > > I may also understand vegetarians, muslims and golf lovers. > > > > > > What I do not understand is why should this be posted on the > > ADS-L. > > > > > > Is it a part of the "popcorn windows" thread? > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: American Dialect Society > > [mailto:ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf > > > > Of Robert Fitzke > > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 16:13 > > > > To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu > > > > Subject: Re: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > > > > Fanaticism---in any "cause"--is absurd. You folks ought to wake > > up to > > > > reality; overpopulation is not a myth. Religion is a myth. > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > > From: Administrator > > > > To: > > > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 1:49 AM > > > > Subject: Notification: You are hereby..... > > > > > > > > > > > > > Notification: > > > > > > > > > > You are hereby challenged to see What the Media doen't want > > you to > > know. > > > > > > > > > > The Truth about Abortion with your own eyes. > > > > > > > > > > at http://www.getabortion.info > > > > > > > > > > What you will never see on TV. > > > > > > > > > > Its not a blob of tissue. Every scientist , even those for > > > > abortion, will > > > > > tell you that life begins at conception. Once the egg and > > sperm join > > > > there > > > > > is human life. > > > > > > > > > > Why won't the media show you this? > > > > > > > > > > They show open heart surgery, liver transplants and other > > > > operations on tv > > > > > and cable. > > > > > > > > > > Why not an abortion? > > > > > > > > > > You can watch real videos online from former abortion doctors > > who have > > > > > performed up to 75000 abortions, hear what they have to say > > about > > > > abortion. > > > > > > > > > > Did you know that abortion is perfectly legal through all > > nine months > > of > > > > > pregnancy, including the day of birth? > > > > > > > > > > Did you know that in most states a child under the age of 16 > > can get > > an > > > > > abortion without their parents knowing? > > > > > > > > > > Anyone can plainly see that we are killing our own. > > > > > > > > > > On September 11th 5000 people were killed. Abortion in the > > US > > > > alone kills > > > > > over 4000 children per day that's an average of one innocent > > > > unborn human > > > > > murdered every 22 seconds! > > > > > > > > > > An entire genertion has been slaughtered. > > > > > > > > > > Overpopulation is a myth, back room abortions are a falsehood > > propagated > > > > by > > > > > the money mongers of the industry. > > > > > > > > > > See it for yourself. > > > > > > > > > > http://getabortion.info > > > > > > > > > > > > ===== > Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D. > Associate Professor - English and Linguistics > & University Editor > Department of English > Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668 > (757)727-5769(voice);(757)727-5084(fax);(757)851-5773(home) > e-mail: margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu or mlee303 at yahoo.com > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! > http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 18 18:31:58 2002 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 12:31:58 -0600 Subject: Standard American accent? Message-ID: Many of us native Nebraskans have the low back vowel merger (cot = caught; Don = dawn). Does that disqualify us from being "Standard"? Frank Abate wrote: > Not to be contrary, but in my view the most "neutral" American dialect is > that heard from those raised in, or longtime denizens of Nebraska. > > I myself (from northern Ohio/SE Michigan) find the northwest dialect marked, > at least in terms of intonational patterns. > > Examples of native Nebraskans in the media are Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett > (influenced, no doubt, by his NE education and long habitation), and Tom > Brokaw (overlooking his trouble with saying the letter L). > > Frank Abate > Dictionary & Reference Specialists (DRS) > Consulting & Lexicographic Services > (860) 349-5400 > abatefr at earthlink.net From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jan 18 18:47:21 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:47:21 -0700 Subject: Biennial plea/reminder Message-ID: Howdy folks, Back again with the request/reminder to please not hit the "include previous message" with every response. Much as I enjoy Ron Butters' comments (and don't relish the abortion message), it gets a bit tiresome reading them five or six times, and my mailbox is almost at its limit from the 70,000 lines of text (2/3 repeated) that comes in the daily collection. It takes a few seconds to snip and select relevant previous comments that are being commented on, but it will save a lot of annoyance for listmembers not to have to page through many lines of repeated messages. I don't know how the archive operates, but it must certainly put a strain on it if all of the repeatedly included messages are also archived. Thanks to all, Rudy From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 19:25:09 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:25:09 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020118094144.00a1e530@mail> Message-ID: At 09:42 AM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >Brokaw's from Yankton, which is spitting distance from Nebraska, but in >[South] >Dakota. Yankton's not far from my home area in SW Minnesota, and Brokaw's not TOO much younger than I; yet I don't think we sound quite the same. The Northern/North Midland dialect boundary swerves upward as it crosses the Mississippi into Iowa, so that South Dakota is virtually split in two. Yankton is in the SE corner and essentially on the line, which is why I've always heard South Dakotans (and I've driven all across the state) as different from Minnesotans. Nebraska and points west are in this fanned out (North) Midland belt too, of course. This would suggest that the old North Midland designation may be what people are identifying as the "best" American English--mainly because it's simply spread so far from East to West. In other words, the majority speak it now, so ergo, it's the "best." The same ridiculous but common notion prevails in our Journalism school, where students are told that Columbus speech represents the "ideal" speech of their profession. (Here in SE Ohio the natives _don't_ speak that variety, which of course is why they're mocked, esp. by journalism and telecommunications students.) And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these fields. _____________________________________________ 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 Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Fri Jan 18 19:45:03 2002 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:45:03 EST Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: As far as "best" speech relates to news-anchors: Walter Cronkite's from Leavenworth, Kansas (and we Kansans always thought the "purity" of Kansas speech had something to do with his success. LOL...or maybe Kansas is simply too close to Nebraska....?) Or....what regional variety did Dan Rather learn when he jettisoned his "Texas" accent ? Maybe that points to what journalists themselves con- sider "best" ? Did Peter Jennings make any adjustments of his speech when he came from the CBC ? If not, is a "Canadian" accent the best "American" accent ? Steve Hicks From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 18 19:52:33 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:52:33 -0800 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020118140743.01790b30@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. Peter Mc. --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these > fields. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 18 20:19:55 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:19:55 EST Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: (apologies if I sent a blank e-mail ahead of this time---I hit the wrong button) "Collateral damage" supposedly is a US Armed Forces term (although in my experience it is used almost exclusively by reporters) meaning "civilian casualties." The phrase became well-known with the Gulf War (actually during Desert Shield, the build-up for the Gulf War). Since the US Armed Forces have not been deliberately targeting civilians (else there would have been a lot more civilian dead in the last decade!), the implication of "collateral damage" is "unintentional casualties" or "unfortunate casualties". >From two news articles on the collapse of Enron: David Wessel "The America That Says 'No'" _Wall Street Journal_ January 17, 2002, page A1 column 5: "Enron...was more like junk-bond pioneer Drexel Burnham Lambert, a case in which the Treasury and Fed [Federal Reserve] coped with collateral damage but didn't save the firm." Allan Sloan "Who Killed Enron" _Newsweek_ January 21, 1902, page 19 column 3: "The collateral damage keeps spreading." followed by sentences describing victims, presumably of the collateral damage in the quoted sentence (Arthur Andersen, Wall Street's credibility, utility deregulation, and "impoverished, unemployed Enronians". Two observations: 1) "collateral damage" is being used, not as a euphemism, but as a descriptive phrase, meaning (financial) damage to those collaterally involved in the business collapse (lenders, stockholders, other creditors, i.e. people who did not cause the business collapse but who ended up suffering financial losses because of it) 2) the people who suffer the "collateral damage" are not the innocent bystanders implied by the (alleged) military use of the term, but rather people who were involved in the company as lenders, stockholders, etc. They were not random victims of a war that was not supposed to come to them, but rather had made of their own free will the decision to put money into or to accept employment from Enron. - Jim Landau P.S. I doubt if either of the quoted authors realized it, but there is a far-fetched play on words. The victims who had loaned money to Enron suffered damage (or destruction) to their "collateral". From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 18 20:43:59 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:43:59 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <125.a6de7c2.2979d53f@aol.com> Message-ID: Ah cain;t detect this jettisoning mahsef. dInIs >As far as "best" speech relates to >news-anchors: > >Walter Cronkite's from Leavenworth, Kansas >(and we Kansans always thought the "purity" >of Kansas speech had something to do with >his success. LOL...or maybe Kansas is simply >too close to Nebraska....?) > >Or....what regional variety did Dan Rather learn >when he jettisoned his "Texas" accent ? Maybe >that points to what journalists themselves con- >sider "best" ? > >Did Peter Jennings make any adjustments of his >speech when he came from the CBC ? If not, is >a "Canadian" accent the best "American" accent ? > > > Steve Hicks From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 18 20:45:19 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:45:19 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <804437.3220343553@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: You've spent time in peculiar places then. It's very general everywhere west of of the Mississippi (expect in the southwest and the peculiar LA and SF metro areas). See the latest TELSUR maps from UPenn. dInIs >Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. > >Peter Mc. > >--On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan > wrote: > >>And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland >>and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" >>variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these >>fields. > > > >**************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Fri Jan 18 20:44:12 2002 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (ANNE V. GILBERT) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 12:44:12 -0800 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: James: > "Collateral damage" supposedly is a US Armed Forces term (although in my > experience it is used almost exclusively by reporters) meaning "civilian > casualties." The phrase became well-known with the Gulf War (actually during > Desert Shield, the build-up for the Gulf War). Since the US Armed Forces > have not been deliberately targeting civilians (else there would have been a > lot more civilian dead in the last decade!), the implication of "collateral > damage" is "unintentional casualties" or "unfortunate casualties". > I think "collateral damage" dates back to the Vietnam period. Anne G From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 20:59:22 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:59:22 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: My colleague, who's from Spokane, Washington and is 61 years old, has the complete merger, including Dawn=Don. (And he hasn't picked it up here in SE Ohio.) At 03:45 PM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >You've spent time in peculiar places then. It's very general >everywhere west of of the Mississippi (expect in the southwest and >the peculiar LA and SF metro areas). See the latest TELSUR maps from >UPenn. > >dInIs > > > >>Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. >> >>Peter Mc. >> >>--On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan >> wrote: >> >>>And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland >>>and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" >>>variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these >>>fields. >> >> >> >>**************************************************************************** >> Peter A. McGraw >> Linfield College * McMinnville, OR >> pmcgraw at linfield.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 flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 21:03:39 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:03:39 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <125.a6de7c2.2979d53f@aol.com> Message-ID: I don't think anyone tries to emulate Peter Jennings, who is distinctly eastern Canadian. In fact, I think the idea that newscasters try to emulate any of these bigwigs is a myth put forward by the schools of journalism and broadcasting. At 02:45 PM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >As far as "best" speech relates to >news-anchors: > >Walter Cronkite's from Leavenworth, Kansas >(and we Kansans always thought the "purity" >of Kansas speech had something to do with >his success. LOL...or maybe Kansas is simply >too close to Nebraska....?) > >Or....what regional variety did Dan Rather learn >when he jettisoned his "Texas" accent ? Maybe >that points to what journalists themselves con- >sider "best" ? > >Did Peter Jennings make any adjustments of his >speech when he came from the CBC ? If not, is >a "Canadian" accent the best "American" accent ? > > > Steve Hicks _____________________________________________ 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 mnewman at QC.EDU Fri Jan 18 21:43:23 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:43:23 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <804437.3220343553@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city "have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually don't. All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less speech has been labeled "aristocratic." -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 18 22:05:10 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:05:10 -0800 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: >>> "Peter A. McGraw" 01/18/02 11:52AM >>> Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. Really? I think the vast majority of people in Oregon have caught/cot merger. I have it and a quick poll of one of my classes-24 students- came out 22-2 in favor of merger. One of the non-mergerers is from New jersey, the other is from LA. Also, in the worksheets that I did for LAPNW about 2 years ago, the majority had merger. So, I think the merger is pretty much the norm in Oregon. Fritz Juengling Peter Mc. --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these > fields. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 18 22:26:56 2002 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:26:56 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their idiolect. The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of their speech. But is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as having the least amount of regional marking, such that a speaker of this variety would be difficult to place as to origin? Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Michael Newman Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 4:43 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Nebraskans/Standard English As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city "have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually don't. All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less speech has been labeled "aristocratic." -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 18 22:35:32 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:35:32 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: As one who was born and grew up in Lincoln NE, I'm not sure just what this Nebraskan accent is. There was a fair amount of variation in the speech I heard around me as a child. Some people, e.g., said "crick," others said "creek," I said "warsh" for wash. Is that Standard American? I don't know. At some point I realized that "the rest of the world" said "wash" and made an effort to suppress that /r/. A. Murie From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 22:40:58 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:40:58 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Frank Abate wrote: >Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- > >The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >idiolect. > >The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a >particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to >debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. > >What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal >amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be >clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many >parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, >for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of >their speech. > >But is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as >having the least amount of regional marking, such that a speaker of this >variety would be difficult to place as to origin? I think you're obscuring the question by your use of passive voice. Even with my dialectological savvy, there are accents of American English that *I* can't place (we won't say how many...). Elsewhere in this discussion, for instance, Beverly referred to several different Columbus (OH) accents, and I'm sure I'd be helpless at interpreting any kind of nuanced difference among them. But Beverly obviously can use these differences to place people. I'll generalize from that: for *any* accent of American English, I'd venture to say that there are some people out there, not necessarily dialectologists, who can identify speakers' origins based on that accent. What's non-descript to me isn't necessarily non-descript to others. Note that this is just an extension of the idea, *very* roughly put that many Americans have difficulty distinguishing South African, Australian, and New Zealand accents, even if these are *very* different to denizens of these areas. -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From mnewman at QC.EDU Fri Jan 18 22:56:31 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:56:31 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- > >The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >idiolect. Obviously, but in folk linguistics this is how it is expressed. You can't separate a supposedly neutral one from people's positive evaluation of such perception. People notice European-American NY or Boston (less Philly) and southern, but not as frequently Northern cities. They believe that Midwesterners speak similarly despite the fact that several dialect regions cross that area. All of which is to say that in the area of dialect perceptions, Americans do not map features to dialects with any consistency. So the question, is not really doesn't workable. Think of your question: "is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as having the least amount of regional marking." Once you've established a dialect, you've established a social group that speaks that way. Dialect is language variation by social group, by definition. So the only way the question makes sense is to say is there a dialect that people don't notice much. And the answer is that there are many because Americans aren't generally very good at noticing dialects. As Labov pointed out, how else is that Hollywood can get away with having a supposed NY cop on NYPD Blue speak with a strong Chicago accent? Ironically, there may be a dialect that really covers broad swaths of the US without great geographic varation: AAVE, according to Labov, although it seems clear that AAVE speakers in NY vary considerably from those in Chicago, for instance, phonologically. >The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a >particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to >debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. > >What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal >amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be >clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many >parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, >for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of >their speech. > >But, such that a speaker of this >variety would be difficult to place as to origin? > >Frank Abate > >-----Original Message----- >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf >Of Michael Newman >Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 4:43 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Nebraskans/Standard English > > >As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to >say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any >number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite >differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city >"have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, >and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not >South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas >that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or >another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, >anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various >Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern >cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to >apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually >don't. > >All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have >much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often >condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the >voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less >speech has been labeled "aristocratic." > > >-- >Michael Newman >Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics >Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders >Queens College/CUNY >Flushing, NY 11367 -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 18 23:14:55 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 18:14:55 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: When merged cot/caught, or 'warsh,' or "needs wa(r)shed," or positive "anymore" becomes general and widespread enough, they'll no longer be "marked" as to region or origin. And since (North) Midland speech seems to be moving toward "general and widespread enough," this is likely to become what we used to call General American--it just won't be the same old General American as 50 years ago. At 05:26 PM 1/18/02 -0500, you wrote: >Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- > >The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >idiolect. > >The issue is what seems marked in a general sense, what can be assigned to a >particular region, urban area, or whatever. Clearly, this is subject to >debate, and variations in the evidence, not to mention variations over time. > >What my point is, as to markedness: is there a US dialect has a minimal >amount of clear regional "signs" that mark its origin, such that it can be >clearly assigned to one particular region or regions? Speakers from many >parts of the South, or many natives of Brooklyn, Boston, or Philadelphia, >for example, can often be "spotted" because of certain characteristics of >their speech. > >But is there a dialect of American English that can be characterized as >having the least amount of regional marking, such that a speaker of this >variety would be difficult to place as to origin? > >Frank Abate > >-----Original Message----- >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf >Of Michael Newman >Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 4:43 PM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Nebraskans/Standard English > > >As a NYer who's spent time in many parts of the midwest, I have to >say, I've heard the notion that the "best" speech is found in any >number of cities of that region that, of course, speak quite >differently. A related idea is that people from this or that city >"have no accent." Besides Columbus, they include Cleveland, Detroit, >and Kansas, so it's hardly a surprise to add Nebraska, and why not >South Dakota too. I've heard this urban legend backed up with ideas >that 'communication experts' use these areas for some purpose or >another involving language, or some variation on that theme. Now, >anyone who's been to Columbus can tell you that there are various >Columbus accents, and of course Clevland and Detroit are northern >cities with short vowels that would provoke any prescriptivist to >apoplexy if they actually noticed them, which of course they usually >don't. > >All of which is to say that actual linguistic features do not have >much to do the origin of these ideas or supporting them. Even often >condemned pronunciations such as r-lessness can be "better" in the >voice of someone like former NJ governer Tom Kean, whose r-less >speech has been labeled "aristocratic." > > >-- >Michael Newman >Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics >Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders >Queens College/CUNY >Flushing, NY 11367 _____________________________________________ 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 juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 18 23:57:52 2002 From: juengling_fritz at SMTPGATE.SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:57:52 -0800 Subject: Yankee Message-ID: Peter, in het boek _Nederlandse Dialectkunde_ blz. 210 lezen wij over WGERM. a^ :" Voorts heeft men een lange scherpe ee in een deel van Zuid-Beveland (bijv. Kruiningen), eej, ee, ei en ai in Noord-Holland benoorden het IJ, Tessel en Vlieland, een klank tussen ee en ae in Het Gooi en N.-Utrecht." Men ik weet niet, van welke gebied de kolonisten gekomen zijn. Natuurlijk heeft 'kaas' geen WGERM. a^, omdat dat en leenwoord is, maar het is met WGERM a^ tesammengevallen. met vriendelijke groeten, Fritz >>> "Peter A. McGraw" 01/16/02 09:48AM >>> Can anybody suggest a source of information on this folklore figure? Or a source connecting Kees with cheese? The modern standard Dutch word for cheese is kaas, while Kees is a nickname for Cornelius. Jan-Kees is a common enough compound first name in Dutch, with no echo of a folkloric figure of ridicule as far as I can tell, and certainly no connection with cheese. So I'm at a loss for an internal Dutch explanation for a connection between Kees and cheese. Well, maybe not completely at a loss: given that both the German and the English cognates have an umlauted vowel, I suppose a Dutch dialect with umlaut might be the source of a form kees=cheese, but this is just a guess. (I should perhaps check my big Dutch dictionary when I get home to see if it sheds any light.) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:56 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > Joe; I think you have this backwards. > > One proposed etymology does indeed come from the Dutch Jan Kees (John > Cheese), the traditional nincompoop in Dutch folklore. The > explanation is, therefore, that the Dutch saw their surrounding > English-speaking neighbors as nincompoops and laid this "Jan Kees" > label on them. The rest is interlingual phonological history. > > What's the latest word on this proposed etymology? I guess I reckoned > it to be a fairly well-established one (so much so that Roger Shuy > and I reported it as gospel in the old language variation films we > made for USIA), but the word history hunt is doubtless filled with > new findings I haven't followed. > > dInIs > > > >> Another food-related ethnic tag might be "Yankee" >> >> According to some source I have since lost, the term came from the >> English settlers of New York, who called the cheese-loving Dutchmen who >> populated the area "Jan-Cheeses." Does this explanation ring a bell for >> anyone? --Joe F. > > > -- **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 18 11:35:58 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 19:35:58 +0800 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:56 PM -0500 1/18/02, Michael Newman wrote: >>Re what Michael Newman has said, copied below -- >> >>The issue is not what is "best". There is no "best". And clearly, everyone >>has the signs of their particular origin, upbringing, or education in their >>idiolect. > >Obviously, but in folk linguistics this is how it is expressed. You >can't separate a supposedly neutral one from people's positive >evaluation of such perception. People notice European-American NY or >Boston (less Philly) and southern, but not as frequently Northern >cities. As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") "HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted /ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). It's the same vowel, only more blatant, that Dennis Franz consistently employs as the Andy Sipowicz character uses as a supposed New York cop on NYPD Blue (others have pointed out that this character must have been transplanted to NYC from Chicago without retaining any conscious memory of his Midwestern roots). Anyway, for the reporter in question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning shibboleth. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 01:39:32 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 20:39:32 EST Subject: Margarita (1953? 1956?); Dirty Rice (1954) Message-ID: MARGARITA (continued) Thanks for clearing up how OED online works. I didn't know that the "simple search" doesn't include any of the new material. Who designed the computer program like that? Why? I tested the revised entry of "Margarita," and pressed the "LATER" button. The first citation is 1956. However, when I posted it on ADS-L, I clearly said 1953. Huh?? -------------------------------------------------------- DIRTY RICE (continued) I re-checked DARE, and it has 1967 for "dirty rice." So, I brief check of Louisiana cookbooks in this apartment, and: MARY LAND'S LOUISIANA COOKERY Bonanza Books, NY 1954 (Maryland's Louisiana Cookery? Isn't that like New York's Texas Toast?--ed.) Pg. 206: CAJUN DIRTY RICE Cook one cup of rice for fifteen minutes in fowl stock. Add to it cooked, chopped fowl liver or a generous slice of chopped, cooked calf liver. Add four sliced hard-boiled eggs. (Serves four.) Pg. 346 (Appendix): Dirty rice A Cajun dish of rice cooked with bits of liver. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Jan 19 02:05:41 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 21:05:41 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn said: > >As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to >play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last >night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the >Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") >"HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted >/ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). It's the >same vowel, only more blatant, that Dennis Franz consistently employs >as the Andy Sipowicz character uses as a supposed New York cop on >NYPD Blue (others have pointed out that this character must have been >transplanted to NYC from Chicago without retaining any conscious >memory of his Midwestern roots). Anyway, for the reporter in >question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning >shibboleth. Steve Rushin's column in this week's Sports Illustrated (cover date Jan 21, 2002) has a similar Northern Cities awareness. The column is entitled "Cheesehead Nation" and is about Green Bay Packers fans. It contains the following description of one fan: "Van Nguyen is a Midwesterner by way of Vietnam, from which he emigrated to Green Bay at age 15. Now 32, he speaks in a disarmingly hard-voweled Wiscansin accent." (The "can" in Wisconsin is italicized.) From Davidhwaet at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 05:05:20 2002 From: Davidhwaet at AOL.COM (David Carlson) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 00:05:20 EST Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: I'd have to give my vote to Lebanon, Kansas. It's close to Nebraska and as "central" as you can get in the lower 48. Dave Carlson Amherst MA From Barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Sat Jan 19 09:06:10 2002 From: Barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 04:06:10 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM,Net writes: > >>From two news articles on the collapse of Enron: >P.S. I doubt if either of the quoted authors realized it, but there is a >far-fetched play on words. The victims who had loaned money to Enron >suffered damage (or destruction) to their "collateral". > Very interesting. The Dictionary Companion had an entry in Spring 2000 (Vol. 12.3) with two definitions extending the military usage, one for medical operations and one for "investigations" or "supervision." collateral damage, {M} 1. injury to anything near the site of an attack, such as brain cells near the location of a stroke. Standard (used in contexts dealing especially with biochemistry or medicine; frequency?) Dr. David Pinsky, a researcher at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said the drug appears to stop two neuron-killing reactions that usually follow a stroke caused by a blocked blood vessel. "After a stroke, there is an immune system reaction that acts like a cluster bomb attack in the brain," said Pinsky, the senior author of the Science study. The reactions involve immune system cells that kill neurons directly, and an inflammation in vessels that slows the flow of blood and oxygen to the stroke site. Both of these actions cause "collateral damage," killing neurons that may not have been involved in the original stroke, said Pinsky. Paul Recer, "Today In AOL Health: New Drug May Help Stroke Victims," AOL [America On Line] News, July 22, 1999 2. death, injury or risk to people, animals, activities, or the like, near or loosely associated with others under investigation, supervision, or attack. What he takes from nature is for his personal use and that of those close to him, and not for commercial profit." Not so with loggers. Of course, to a logger owls are not actual quarry, but collateral damage. To be fair, for every hunter on a spiritual quest there's another in search of the perfect six-pack, but that's a different story. Asta Bowen, "Owls Unlimited Would Save Bird," an editorial in the Seattle [Wash.] Post-Intelligencer (Nexis), March 3, 1992, p A9 Kennedy found that in a strict causation sense, it was true that plaintiff's termination resulted from the conspiracy, "but collateral damages to persons outside the competitive area aggrandized by antitrust defendants are inconsistent with the orderly administration of the antitrust laws." In short, the dissent emphasized that the antitrust laws are directed at the preservation of competition, "not employee coercion or discharge," and that while plaintiff had an intimate connection with defendant's alleged anticompetitive scheme, he had little or no relationship to the scheme's anticompetitive effects. William A. Cerillo, "Circuits Disagree on Antitrust Claims by Employees," Legal Times (Nexis), Sept. 13, 1982, p 15 Semantic shift (specialization): from collateral damage (DC 6.3: 1991?), meaning "injury of civilians or damage to civilian property because of proximity to a military target which has been destroyed." Collateral damage may give us the "meaning of the year 2002." Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 19 13:56:54 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 08:56:54 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In quite a lot of the perceptual work we have done with non-northern Cities Shifters, the /a/ fronting (resulting in the "Wiscansin" caricature) is more salient than the /ae/ raising. It would be interesting to know more about the dialect background of the reporter larry reports on. dInIs >Laurence Horn said: >> >>As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to >>play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last >>night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the >>Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") >>"HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted >>/ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). It's the >>same vowel, only more blatant, that Dennis Franz consistently employs >>as the Andy Sipowicz character uses as a supposed New York cop on >>NYPD Blue (others have pointed out that this character must have been >>transplanted to NYC from Chicago without retaining any conscious >>memory of his Midwestern roots). Anyway, for the reporter in >>question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning >>shibboleth. > >Steve Rushin's column in this week's Sports Illustrated (cover date Jan 21, >2002) has a similar Northern Cities awareness. The column is entitled >"Cheesehead Nation" and is about Green Bay Packers fans. It contains the >following description of one fan: "Van Nguyen is a Midwesterner by way of >Vietnam, from which he emigrated to Green Bay at age 15. Now 32, he speaks >in a disarmingly hard-voweled Wiscansin accent." (The "can" in Wisconsin is >italicized.) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 19 16:20:50 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 10:20:50 -0600 Subject: "loose as a goose" Message-ID: A colleague recently passed along the suggestion below about "loose as a goose." A check of _Historical Dictionary of American Slang_ shows the meaning of the expression to be "extremely loose (in any sense)", and the first attestation comes in 1930: Botkin, _Folk-Say_, 106: "There, she's loose as a goose." But nothing is said about the origin of the expression. So the question arises: In what way is a goose loose? Right below my signoff is the suggestion I received. --Gerald Cohen > In the New York Times Crossword no. 1203 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch >1-14-02), "loose as a goose" is the answer to the clue, "completely >relaxed". When I was a boy in the 1930's, my father used the >phrase,"loose as a goose", in a different way. He meant, "having >loose bowels". > I raised geese for several years while I was growing up. From >my observations of them I believe that "loose as a goose" was first >used the way that my father did. When geese walk about they >generally move in a slow, stately manner. They don't dart about >chasing insects like chickens, ducks, or turkeys do, and when they >are resting they do not appear any more relaxed than other poultry. >On the other hand, they tend to have much looser stools than other >domestic fowls. > > > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sat Jan 19 16:50:15 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 11:50:15 -0500 Subject: "loose as a goose" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The "on the other hand" was always my childhood folk (and not necessarily false) etymology. Loose as a goose was first applied to the runs. (I'm at my office without a dictionary and don't know how to spell the D-word.) Later I heard it to mean other "looses" (relaxed, for example), but that was not my earliest encounter. dInIs > A colleague recently passed along the suggestion below about >"loose as a goose." A check of _Historical Dictionary of American >Slang_ shows the meaning of the expression to be "extremely loose (in >any sense)", and the first attestation comes in 1930: Botkin, >_Folk-Say_, 106: "There, she's loose as a goose." But nothing is said >about the origin of the expression. > > So the question arises: In what way is a goose loose? Right below >my signoff is the suggestion I received. > >--Gerald Cohen > >> In the New York Times Crossword no. 1203 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch >>1-14-02), "loose as a goose" is the answer to the clue, "completely >>relaxed". When I was a boy in the 1930's, my father used the >>phrase,"loose as a goose", in a different way. He meant, "having >>loose bowels". >> I raised geese for several years while I was growing up. From >>my observations of them I believe that "loose as a goose" was first >>used the way that my father did. When geese walk about they >>generally move in a slow, stately manner. They don't dart about >>chasing insects like chickens, ducks, or turkeys do, and when they >>are resting they do not appear any more relaxed than other poultry. >>On the other hand, they tend to have much looser stools than other >>domestic fowls. -- 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 douglas at NB.NET Sat Jan 19 18:07:07 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 13:07:07 -0500 Subject: "loose as a goose" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Cf. "like shit through a goose" = "rapidly, without any obstruction" or so. "Now if Ike stops holding Monty's hand and gives me the supplies, I'll go through the Siegfried Line like shit through a goose." -- attributed to Gen. George Patton. The perception is that the goose has rapid intestinal passage. (Thus it's not "loose as a moose".) OTOH, "loose as a goose" is clearly favored by its rhyme: cf. "snug as a bug in a rug". (Thus it's not "loose as a duck".) -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 19:21:10 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 14:21:10 EST Subject: Borsch (1808) Message-ID: OED has 1884. Merriam-Webster has 1829. (O.T.: This is why I get paid the big bucks--$100 eight years ago. NINE HOURS of judging parking tickets yesterday, and it'll be worse on Tuesday--ed.) TRAVELS THROUGH SEVERAL PROVINCES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: WITH AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ZAPOROG COSSACKS, AND OF BESSARABIA, MOLDAVIA, WALLACHIA, AND THE CRIMEA, by Baron Campenhausen London: printed for Richard Phillips 1808 Pg. 28 (KREMENTSCHUK): The inhabitants live almost entirely on flesh; it rarely (Pg. 29--ed.) happens that they have fish or vegetables to be served on their tables. They have a kind of soup, however, which is made of groats and vegetables, of which they are very fond: this soup is rather sour, and is called borsch, from the name of the carrot which is boiled in it. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 19:27:18 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 14:27:18 EST Subject: Burka (1808) Message-ID: Same book (1808) as "borsch." This is in several places in the book. I just checked and got confused with OED's other "burka." OED has 1898. Pg. 35: He was then clothed in the coarse woollen dress of the Cossacks, and was presented with the square felt cloak (burka) which the Cossacks always hang on their shoulder, on the side from whence the wind blows. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 20:20:45 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 15:20:45 EST Subject: Mammaliga (1808) Message-ID: LOOSE AS A GOOSE When baseball relief pitchers warm up, they get their arms loose. I've heard "loose-y goose-y" there. -------------------------------------------------------- MAMMALIGA (1808) The revised OED has 1820, and then 1878. From the same CAMPENHAUSEN'S TRAVELS (1808), pg. 54: The daily food of the peasants in Moldavia and Bessarabia, consists of a dish made of meal mixed with butter, fat, or milk, which is called Mammaliga. Such of them as are at their ease, make this dish more palatable by mixing balls of boiled millet with it, and it is then called Malay. They have a kind of vegetable soup, which is called poreryack. The bread which the peasants and Tatars eat is made of barley, which, in Moldavian, is called kyta, and, in the language of the Tatars, arpaetmeck. From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 19 21:55:53 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 16:55:53 EST Subject: "loose as a xoose" Message-ID: In a message dated 1/19/2002 11:48:47 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: << The "on the other hand" was always my childhood folk (and not necessarily false) etymology. Loose as a goose was first applied to the runs. (I'm at my office without a dictionary and don't know how to spell the D-word.) Later I heard it to mean other "looses" (relaxed, for example), but that was not my earliest encounter. dInIs >> My father always said, "Loose as a moose" ... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 20 00:54:49 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 19:54:49 EST Subject: Hora (dance, 1853) Message-ID: HORA TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA AND THE CRIMEA; THROUGH HUNGARY, WALLACHIA, & MOLDOVIA DURING THE YEAR 1837 by ANATOLE DE DEMIDOFF ("Demidov" was handwritten--ed.) John Mitchell, printer, London 1853 VOLUME I Pg. 158: After dinner, Wallachian dances were executed, and we (Pg. 159--ed.) were so charmed with the severe precision and perfect _ensemble_ of the dancers, that the prince was kind enough to prolong these diversions in our favour, and to procure us copies of the airs, so full of originality and simple grace, which we here insert, and which accompany this Roman dance, _Hora Roumaniaska_, as it is called by the people of Wallachia. (OED has 1878 for "hora"--ed.) VOLUME II Pg. 126: The samowar is without gainsay, the most characteristic utensil to be found in the country. The species of kettle which bears this name, consists of a shining copper case... Pg. 270: ...men on horseback, wrapped in their _bourkas_. These are capital Circassian cloaks, perfectly _impermeables_, as they say in Paris. -------------------------------------------------------- BRAGA OED has something almost like "braga" in "braga-beaker." My Romanian doorman read the "mammaliga" entry and smiled knowingly at "braga," so perhaps it's worth adding. From the same CAMPENHAUSEN'S TRAVELS (1808): Pg. 54: Their usual drink is a mixture of millet-meal and water, which is left for some time to ferment till acidulated, and called braga. -------------------------------------------------------- THROUGH MACEDONIA TO THE ALBANIAN LAKES by Mary Adelaide Walker 1864 Pg. 252: ..."ekmek-adaif" (pancakes with clotted cream inside), "baklava" (pastry floating in syrup), "mohalibe" (milk and rice-flour), "ou-halva" (a paste of flour, sugar, and butter), "yaourt," and other sweet things. (Not quite antedates, but a nice food group--ed.) From carljweber at MSN.COM Sun Jan 20 00:56:51 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 18:56:51 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: Goose/The Finger A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. Yet in English it's the "stork" as the water fowl that answers the question, "where do babies come from?" For some languages without "stork," its the gans/goose that serves as a popular water foul. CJW Ontology Recapitulates Philology From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 19 12:44:38 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:44:38 +0800 Subject: Borsch (1808) In-Reply-To: <17e.2559507.297b2126@aol.com> Message-ID: At 2:21 PM -0500 1/19/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > OED has 1884. > Merriam-Webster has 1829. > >TRAVELS THROUGH SEVERAL PROVINCES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: >WITH AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ZAPOROG COSSACKS, >AND OF BESSARABIA, MOLDAVIA, WALLACHIA, AND THE CRIMEA, >by Baron Campenhausen >London: printed for Richard Phillips >1808 > >Pg. 28 (KREMENTSCHUK): > The inhabitants live almost entirely on flesh; it rarely (Pg. >29--ed.) happens that they have fish or vegetables to be served on >their tables. They have a kind of soup, however, which is made of >groats and vegetables, of which they are very fond: this soup is >rather sour, and is called borsch, from the name of the carrot which >is boiled in it. From the carrot? I've always thought beet was obligatory and accompanying veggies more or less interchangeable, although there's the cabbage variant (which sometimes has another name). Obviously I'm swimming in cloudy red soup here; anyone else able to (dis)confirm the Baron's etymology? The OED is no help, and AHD4 derives it from a word glossed as 'cow parsnip', whatever that is. (Evidently, that's what borsch(t) used to be made out of before they realized it would be more colorful with beets. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 19 12:52:39 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:52:39 +0800 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:05 PM -0500 1/18/02, Alice Faber wrote: > >Steve Rushin's column in this week's Sports Illustrated (cover date Jan 21, >2002) has a similar Northern Cities awareness. The column is entitled >"Cheesehead Nation" and is about Green Bay Packers fans. It contains the >following description of one fan: "Van Nguyen is a Midwesterner by way of >Vietnam, from which he emigrated to Green Bay at age 15. Now 32, he speaks >in a disarmingly hard-voweled Wiscansin accent." (The "can" in Wisconsin is >italicized.) Yes, but to really capture *this* shibboleth, Rushin should render it not as Wis-CAN-sin but Wi-SCAN-sin or even 'SCANsin. Crucially, the local pronounciation resyllabifies the state name (as we've discussed here before, among other local reduction phenomena from Clumps, Ohio to TuhRAHNuh. (As I type this, Dennis ("Sipowicz") Franz is reminding us (in an ad) "I don't do eee-uhds") larry From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Sun Jan 20 03:23:18 2002 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 22:23:18 -0500 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English Message-ID: Toronto is rarely pronounced "TuhRAHNuh" by locals. It's usually rendered as "TRAHno". Less often, a slight nod is given to the first syllable so that it sounds like "TuhRAHno". In both cases the "o" preserves clearly its long vowel sound. The "n" is distinctly part of the last syllable as well. Don >(as we've discussed here before, among other local > reduction phenomena from Clumps, Ohio to TuhRAHNuh. > > (As I type this, Dennis ("Sipowicz") Franz is reminding us (in an ad) > "I don't do eee-uhds") > > larry From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 20 03:20:38 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 22:20:38 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" In-Reply-To: <012d01c1a060$e3985380$c3fafd3f@u5a9c9> Message-ID: On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, ANNE V. GILBERT wrote: > I think "collateral damage" dates back to the Vietnam period. It seems to me that the military usage probably derives from old legal usage. Below is the earliest I have found: 1839 _Edwards' Reports of Chancery Cases_ (N.Y.) III. 290 ff. (Westlaw) Mr. Lawrence...objects, on account of collateral damage not being allowed, i.e., furture damage from a supposed obstruction to the navigation of Harlem river. 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 Sun Jan 20 07:53:49 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 02:53:49 EST Subject: Jo Mazotti (1942); Ants-on-a-Log (1995); Tiramisu Message-ID: JO MAZOTTI I spent a day going through "cookery--juvenile" looking for "ants-on-a-log" and other fanciful names. I found "s'mores" and this instead. This "Jo Mazotti" (1942) adds to Johnny Marzetti/Mazetti and other names for this dish. DARE's first citation is Fannie Farmer's BOSTON COOK BOOK (1946), where it's "Jo Mazzotti." THE FANNIE FARMER JUNIOR COOK BOOK by Wilma Lord Perkins Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1942 Pg. 91: _Jo Mazotti_ 1 1/2 pounds lean pork, ground 8 large onions, sliced 3 cans tomato soup (concentrated) 1 bunch celery, diced 1 large can mushrooms, sliced 2 green peppers, cut fine Juice 1/2 lemon Salt and pepper 1 pound sharp cheese, cut small 1 large package broad noodles 2 tablespoons butter ("Jo Mazotti" has made the reputation of an Italian restaurant.) Melt the butter, add the pork and onions and cook until brown. Add all but the noodles and simmer 15 minutes to make a rich sauce. Cook the noodles (page 105) while the meat is cooking. Drain and mix with the sauce. Cover closely and cook slowly 1 hour on top of the stove or in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.). This is enough to serve 16 persons generously. -------------------------------------------------------- ANTS-ON-A-LOG Ants analog. Not to be confused with digital ants. Useful, perhaps, to anyone writing a book on "peanut butter." I tried to concentrate on the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. I looked at the juvenile cookbooks, but also any articles on "peanut butter" and "celery." I thought I remember it in BETTER HOMES & GARDENS, but it'll take a while to check the monthly index of over 30 years. THE PEANUT BUTTER COOKBOOK FOR KIDS by Judy Ralph and Ray Gompf Hyperion Books for Children, NY 1995 Pg. 14: _Ants on a Log_ _and_ _PB Flowers_ INGREDIENTS 1 medium apple 1 celery stalk4 cup peanut butter Raisins -------------------------------------------------------- TIRAMISU OED has 1982. I'll look more in some travel articles (for Venice, Italy). The earliest GOURMET magazine article I could find is September 1986, pg. 134, col. 1: Q. During a visit to Italy I had a heavenly dessert called _tiramisu_. I would love to duplicate this at home and would greatly appreciate the recipe. ADELE H. BACKS MADISON, WISCONSIN A. Literally "pick-me-up," this dessert will go down well anytime. _Tiramisu_ _(Italian Cake, Cheese, and Chocolate Dessert)_ a 10 3/4-ounce pound cake, sliced horizontally into 6 layers and the layers cut crosswise into slices 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup Grand Marnier, or to taste 3 ounces cream cheese, softened 16 ounces whole-milk ricotta 6 ounces semisweet chocolate, grated (...) From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Sun Jan 20 17:29:13 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 12:29:13 -0500 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida Message-ID: These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 20 18:50:40 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 12:50:40 -0600 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: Thanx for the responses on "loose as a goose." BTW, I'm curious about the source of Patton's quote. Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. "The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in the financial community in NYC. Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the quarterback? Something else? Any information/insight/leads would be very much appreciated. --Gerald Cohen From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 20 06:32:07 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 14:32:07 +0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:50 PM -0600 1/20/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: > Thanx for the responses on "loose as a goose." BTW, I'm curious >about the source of Patton's quote. > > Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" >as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. >"The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., >even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it >used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in >the financial community in NYC. > > Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" >Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the >quarterback? >Something else? > I've only ever heard "out of pocket" in the pants pocket sense: one is forced to pay for something out of (one's own) pocket absent reimbursement. The football sense to my knowledge always involves a quarterback being "out of THE pocket", never "out of pocket" except possibly in an attributive use like "an out-of-pocket quarterback can throw the ball away without getting called for intentional grounding". The unreachable-by-cell-phone use is an odd one to me; I wonder if it results from a nonce re (or mis)interpretation. larry From dave at WILTON.NET Sun Jan 20 19:54:01 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 11:54:01 -0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This sense of "out of pocket" was in common use among my compatriots at the Pentagon, 1994-5. I always assumed it was a football reference, but I have no evidence to support that. Others have suggested to me that it evolved from travel and "out of pocket expenses," but again no evidence was ever presented. I've found a few usenet citations from January 1995. These were the earliest I turned up doing a search of the Google usenet archives: "I have been out of pocket for a few days. Can anyone tell me who beat Alabama?" --ST33410 at vm.cc.latech.edu, Subject: A Techster with a Few Questions, Newsgroups rec.sport.basketball.women, 1995-01-07 16:25:44 PST "No, actually I'll be out of pocket for about five days starting in about five minutes." --Leona Freeman (lcfreema at leona.b8.ingr.com), Subject: I'm outta here!, Newsgroup: soc.singles, 1995-01-12 12:04:31 PST "(..and with Leona out of pocket you'd be on your own...)" --Craig Wall (cwall at swri.edu), Subject: Re: Being Single SUCKS!, Newsgroup: soc.singles, 1995-01-16 07:18:01 PST "If not, is there a way of rnning [sic] lpc without being root? i [sic] need my users to be able to effect their own restarts when I'm out of pocket." --Robert Eskridge (bryny at netcom.com), Subject: SunOS 4.1.2/Annex/WP5.0 print stall, Newsgroup: comp.sys.sun.admin, 1995-01-17 13:52:43 PST "I've had several good penpals--some of whom I met "on the Net," but most are currently out of pocket--or, rather, out of reach of Internet, which is making email just a tad tricky." --Martin Young, martiny at delphi.com, Subject: SWM ISO F Penpal, Newsgroup: soc.penpals, 1995-01-17 20:50:00 PST -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Gerald Cohen Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 10:51 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Thanx for the responses on "loose as a goose." BTW, I'm curious about the source of Patton's quote. Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. "The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in the financial community in NYC. Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the quarterback? Something else? Any information/insight/leads would be very much appreciated. --Gerald Cohen From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 20 20:00:24 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 15:00:24 -0500 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This was discussed on the list in May 1996. There are perhaps a dozen messages on the topic in the old archives. http://www.americandialect.org/adslarchive.shtml From pds at VISI.COM Sun Jan 20 20:17:20 2002 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 14:17:20 -0600 Subject: FW: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I wonder if the reporter's remark was an imitative allusion to the trailer for POLTERGEIST II (or some other horror flic?), and thus not reflective of her other /ae/s. At 07:35 PM 1/18/2002 +0800, Laurence Horn wrote: >As it happens, a feature on Michael Jordan's return to Chicago to >play with the Washington Wizards against his old Bulls on ESPN last >night began with the reporter saying (against a backdrop of the >Jordan statue in front of the United Center that Jordan "built") >"HE'S BEEE-AACK", with a very exaggerated Northern Cities shifted >/ae/ (as a diphthong beginning with a high front vowel). [snip] > Anyway, for the reporter in >question--I forget her name--Northern cities /ae/ is a functioning >shibboleth. Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From Ittaob at AOL.COM Sun Jan 20 20:30:18 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 15:30:18 EST Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/20/02 2:30:28 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: << The unreachable-by-cell-phone use is an odd one to me; I wonder if it results from a nonce re (or mis)interpretation. >> As an attorney who's worked for many years with New York law firm lawyers, investment bankers, etc., I can tell you that "out of pocket" to mean "not available" has been used in these circles for years. I have heard almost daily. No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." Steve Boatti From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Sun Jan 20 20:58:24 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 14:58:24 -0600 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For years and years I have used 'out of pocket' to refer to unavailability, and I've never associated it with football, nor directly with pants pockets. I've also heard it frequently from all kinds of people. It's simply another sense of this concatenation of words, with the pocket being metaphorical rather than literal. DMLance > From: Laurence Horn .......... > > At 12:50 PM -0600 1/20/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: ................ >> Also, today I received a query on the expression "out of pocket" >> as used to mean "really not reachable, really not available"; e.g. >> "The director will be out of pocket for the next two hours." I.e., >> even by cell phone he can't be reached. FWIW, I had never heard it >> used in this sense before. The person who sent me this query works in >> the financial community in NYC. >> >> Would anyone know the original reference of this "out of pocket?" >> Is it figuratively a pants pocket? The football pocket to protect the >> quarterback? >> Something else? >> > I've only ever heard "out of pocket" in the pants pocket sense: one > is forced to pay for something out of (one's own) pocket absent > reimbursement. The football sense to my knowledge always involves a > quarterback being "out of THE pocket", never "out of pocket" except > possibly in an attributive use like "an out-of-pocket quarterback can > throw the ball away without getting called for intentional > grounding". The unreachable-by-cell-phone use is an odd one to me; I > wonder if it results from a nonce re (or mis)interpretation. > > larry > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 20 21:19:17 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 16:19:17 -0500 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: Steve Boatti wrote: >No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." ~~~~~~~~ Not "lacking money," just paying for it out of one's own resources, instead of on an expense account or qualifying for reimbursement. That, to me, suggests a possible path of development: being on one's own -> being OFF on one's own -> being out of reach. A. Murie From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Sun Jan 20 22:56:01 2002 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 17:56:01 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: I believe that Fred is right in supposing that "collateral damage" comes from or is at least influenced by the older legal usage. >>The judge rightly excluded evidence of the four matters of damage which the plaintiff offered to prove. Without inquiring whether they would, under any form of declaration, have been legal grounds of damage, it is sufficient for the decision of this case, that they were not the necessary consequences of the defendant's breach of agreement, which are implied by law; and were not alleged in the declaration. Nor were they consequences which (in the language sometimes used by judges) "in all probability" might follow, or would be "very likely to follow," from that breach. [Citations omitted.] "Mere collateral damage," says Holroyd, J., "must be stated in the declaration, in order to entitle the plaintiff to give it in evidence, lest otherwise the defendant might be taken by surprise." Battley v. Faulkner, 3 B. & Ald. 294.<< Warner v. Bacon, 8 Gray 397, 74 Mass. 397, 69 Am.Dec. 253 (1857). The Battley v. Faulkner case quoted in this passage appears to be an English case that is older than the 1839 case Fred found, although I have not been able to find its text or determine its exact date (sometime between 1810 and 1830). John Baker From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 21 00:58:03 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 16:58:03 -0800 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: <804437.3220343553@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: Both Peter and I must have missed the parts of the West where it's general ... allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan > wrote: > > > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland > > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" > > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these > > fields. > > > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 20 12:22:59 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 20:22:59 +0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:19 PM -0500 1/20/02, sagehen wrote: >Steve Boatti wrote: > >No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." >~~~~~~~~ >Not "lacking money," just paying for it out of one's own resources, instead >of on an expense account or qualifying for reimbursement. exactly. Sorry for not knowing any other senses, and for having evidently forgotten completely about our earlier thread on the topic from '96. (Now where did I leave those brain cells?) >That, to me, suggests a possible path of development: being on one's own >-> being OFF on one's own -> being out of reach. >A. Murie Maybe, or maybe if the basic meaning is that one doesn't have a cell phone (turned on), it really does allude to the phone being out of one's pocket. I still find it a puzzling metaphoric transfer, if that's what it is. But I'm (almost) positive that flushed-out quarterbacks are not relevant. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 02:08:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:08:04 EST Subject: Piroghi (1811) Message-ID: OED has 1854. Merriam-Webster has 1927. (Is that right?) TRAVELS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE, ASIA AND AFRICA by Edward Daniel Clarke Part the First: Russia, Tartary, and Turkey Lorenzo Press, Philadelphia 1811 Pg. 505: Of all the dishes known in Russia, there is nothing in such general esteem from the peasant to the prince, as a kind of _Patee_, which are called _Piroghi_. Pg. 506: These, at the tables of the great, are served with the soup in the first course. In the streets of Moscow and Petersburg, they are sold upon stalls. They are well-tasted, but extremely greasy, and often full of oil; consisting of minced meat, or brains, rolled up in pancakes, which are afterwards fried in butter, or oil, and served hot. The rolls described by Bruce, with which women, in a certain part of Ethiopia, feed their husbands, are nearly similar; only the meat is raw, and the roll is of dough; yet the mouth of a Russian prince would water at the sight of the Ethiopian _piroghi_. From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 21 02:16:05 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 18:16:05 -0800 Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) In-Reply-To: <154.7972919.297c82da@aol.com> Message-ID: >...As an attorney who's worked for many years with New York law firm lawyers, >investment bankers, etc., I can tell you that "out of pocket" to mean "not >available" has been used in these circles for years. I have heard almost >daily. No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." I, too, was surprised the first time I heard out of pocket meaning unavailable/unreachable - and I grew up in NYC, so either all these bankers, et al. came from somewhere else or ? The first time I heard it used this way was from my Oklahoma born and bred mother-in-law. I'd previously only heard meaning having to pay for something yourself, not lacking money. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 02:28:24 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:28:24 EST Subject: Lumps of ("Turkish") Delight (1860) Message-ID: OED has: RAHAT LOKUM--1856, 1861 LUMPS OF DELIGHT--1870 TURKISH DELIGHT--1870, 1877 LOCOUM--1887 I haven't checked the Making of America database. TURKISH LIFE AND CHARACTER by Walter Thornbury Smith, Elder and Co., London 1860 VOLUME I Ill. opp. Pg. 102: SELLER OF SHERBET. Pg. 133: ...or deals with a mahabiji, or street sweetseller, for that delicious sort of rice blancmange he sells, yellow all through, powdered with white sugar, and eaten with a brass spoon of delightfully antique shape; or he is discussing a shovelful of burnt chesnuts, or a head of maize boiled to a flowery pulp, eaten with a ring of bread, and washed down with a draught from the nearest fountain.... Pg. 136: The walls of the shop are hung with long walking-sticks, (cudgels, shall I say?) of that precious and fragrant sweetmeat known in hareems as "rahat li koum," or "lumps of delight," which is a glutinous sort of jelly of a pale lemon or rose colour, floured with sugar, and knotted and veined with the whitest and curdiest of almonds. It is a delicious, paradisaical gluey business, and horribly indigestible, as I found to my cost. Pg. 138: ...smoking black coffee (half grounds, as the Turks drink it).... Pg. 142: I--I eat lamb, pistachio-nut. I eat kibob (very nice kibob)--I drink shirab and champagney wine. Pg. 184: Recruited with cherry sherbet, Grimani, armed with about a yard of "rahat likoum" (lumps of delight), stuffed with pistachio-nuts, and the doctor's pocket filled with scorched nuts, we made straight for the Zaptie, or second prison of Stamboul, and arrived in a few streets at the door of the "house of detention" as the Turkish word Zaptie means. From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 21 05:10:12 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 00:10:12 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Bapopik@aol.com: Macadamia (1857) Message-ID: Forwarded on behalf of Barry Popik. --Jesse Sheidlower ----- Forwarded message from Bapopik at aol.com ----- Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 20:52:54 EST From: Bapopik at aol.com Subject: Macadamia (1857) To: Cc: , , X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version) I hope this attachment makes ADS-L--it's text! --Barry Popik X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.3 Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 11:06:05 +1100 From: "Ian Innes" To: Subject: Re: Fwd: Macadamia (1893) Dear Barry, My name is Ian Innes and I am the Horticultural Planning Officer here at the RBG Sydney. The Curator has asked me to investigate your query regarding Macadamia. I found the following references in Australian Plant Name Index, Australian Flora and Fauna Series #14, Arthur Chapman, AGPS 1991: 1. Ferdinand von Mueller in Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria v.2,p.72 [30 Sept. 1857] regarding Macadamia ternifolia 2. Maiden, Joseph Henry and Betche, Ernest in Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales v.21,p.624 [31 May 1896] regarding Macadamia integrifolia The RBG library holds both journals however the imprints are rather fragile and the Librarian is a little cagey about photocopying. Von Mueller's is the first known published citation, part of "Article X- Account of Some New Australian Plants [read before the Institute 5th August 1857]", pp62-77. In it von Mueller comments on the naming of the genus being "dedicated to John Macadam, Esq., M.D., the talented and deserving Secretary of our Institute". However there is no reference to a common name. Von Mueller was director of the Melbourne Botanic Garden 1857-1873. Maiden's is the next accepted citation. He was the Director of these Gardens 1896-1927. It is in an article in Proc. Linn. Soc. NSW, "ON A NEW SPECIES OF MACADAMIA, TOGETHER WITH NOTES ON TWO PLANTS NEW TO THE COLONY" regarding Macadamia integrifolia another species, but referring to M. ternifolia F.von Muell. as "the Nut-tree". The type specimen was collected from Camden Haven on the New South Wales mid-north coast. After 1900 there are many references in the literature, enough for a diligent honours student to spend a couple of weeks researching! W.D. Francis,1929 in Australian Rainforest Trees refers to Macadamia integrifolia as "Bush Nut, Queensland Nut, Nut Oak" but does not quote a source. Let me know if I can dig for further specific details for you. I suspect common names are going to be hard to trace accurately as the colonists and early settlers invented all sorts of local variants for new plants they were unfamiliar with, and scientists are attached to their Latin nomenclature!! Ian Innes Horticulture and Landscape Planning Officer Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify the sender. Views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, and are not necessarily the views of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust. >>> 14:11:22 16/01/02 >>> Bruce Rann Curator, Sydney Gardens and Domain I'm researching the origin of the name "macadamia"/"Queensland" nut. Sydney planted this in the 1800s. Do you have a citation in an early publication anywhere? Barry Popik (consultant to the OED; member of American Dialect Society) 225 East 57th Street, Apt. 7P New York, NY 10022 (The attached was sent to the ADS listserve.) ----- End forwarded message ----- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 06:53:31 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 01:53:31 EST Subject: Caviar (1555); Dolma (1831); Kebab (1800;1824) Message-ID: CAVIAR THE TURKISH LETTERS OF OGIER GHISELIN DE BUSBECQ Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople, 1554-1562 translated from the Latin of the Elzevir Edition of 1633 by Edward Seymour Forster Oxford: Clarendon Press 1927 (reprinted 1968) Pg. 21 (Vienna, 1 September 1555): During this period of our journey we ate bread baked under ashes; the natives call it _fugacia_. Pg. 36 (Vienna, 1 September 1555): ...nor about the pickled delicacies which are brought to Constantinople from the Sea of Azof and are called by the Italians _moronella_, _botarga_, and _caviare_. Pg. 221: In the next place to him but one was seated an old man of the class which they call Hodja, that is, men of learning. (OED has 1591 and M-W circa 1560 for "caviar." OED has 1598 for "botargo." OED has 1625 for "hodja" or "Khoja"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- DOLMA NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ENGLAND by the Rev. R. Walsh Fourth edition London: Frederick Westley and A. H. Davis 1831 Pg. 4: Next, a canister of Mocha coffee. The greater part of the coffee used in Turkey is sent from our West India plantations, and Mocha coffee is as great a rarity in Constantinople as in London. Pg. 96: ...who daily make cheese, youart, curds, kaimac, and sundry other preparations of milk.... Pg. 110: Their only manufacture is a confection in great request among the Turks; it consists of walnuts enclosed in a sweet gelatinous substance, made from the inspissated juice of grapes: it is formed into long cylindrical rolls, like black-puddings, and so transported (Pg. 111-ed.) to Constantinople, where it is eaten in great quantities. We saw some cart-loads of this confection leaving the town. As we could get nothing to eat at our inn, we entered the shop of a Turkish traiteur, and ordered a supper to the khan. When it arrived, we found it consisted of a dish of broiled ribs of mutton, a dish of dolmas, or young gourds,* stuffed with forced meat, boiled; a dish of sheep's feet, and the cartiliginous parts of the head, stewed; and, finally, a dish of sour cabbage and pickled cucumbers, as large as any of the former. *Cucurbita Pepo. Pg. 154: In this way, a third large dish of kolokithias, or boiled gourds, and a fourth of lachani, or boiled cabbage, were dispatched; and the feast ended in six minutes. Pg. 189 Here were a number of scampavias lying, and Wallachian waggons unloading the produce of the country, to supply the other side. It principally consisted of flakes of buffaloes' flesh, dried in the sun, called bastermans; a kind of flat sausage, like a horse-shoe; and blocks of rock salt, which several boats were taking from the waggons. (Bastermans? Basturma? Pastroma?...OED and M-W have 1889 for "dolma"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- KEBAB JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN ASIA MINOR, WITH COMPARATIVE REMARKS ON THE ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY OF THAT COUNTRY by William Martin Leake London: John Murray 1824 Pg. 41: While the horses are preparing, we eat our _kebab_ in the burying-ground, and take shelter from the cold of the evening in the tent of some camel-drivers, who were enjoying their pipes and coffee over a fire. (The journal entry appears to be from 29 January 1800...OED has 1813 and M-W has 1673 for "kebab"--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 08:50:57 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 03:50:57 EST Subject: Mai-Tai (1961) Message-ID: MAI-TAI As everyone knows, "Trader Vic" (Victor Bergeron) created the "Mai-Tai" in 1944. It says so in his 1972 book. I checked the revised OED entry, and the first cite is 1963! Under "etymology," OED notes that Mai Tai is not in Trader Vic's 1947 drink book. I got out my GOURMET index. The following should be checked ("Mai Tai" could have been mentioned without a full recipe): September 1952, GOURMET _Trader Vic's Recipes_ Coconut Cream...55 Laulaus...54 Lonu-Lonu...54 Roast Pig...55 Scorpion Punch...53 July 1959, GOURMET _Trader Vic's Drinks_ (No "Mai Tai"--ed.) Babalu...27 Daiquiri, Trader Vic's...26 Pino Pepe...27 Punch, Gin Club...26 Punch, Tonga...26 Scorpion...27 Shark's Tooth...27 Syrup, Bar...27 Tahitian Pearl...27 Wahine...27 July 1961, GOURMET _Drinks_ Mai-Tai Royal Hawaiian...44 -------------------------------------------------------- MISC. JOHNNY MAZETTE--This spelling is in CASSEROLE TREASURY by Lousene Rousseau Brunner (Harper & Row, NY, 1964), pg. 197. CHICKEN JERSUSALEM--In GOURMET, October 1955, pg. 69. CHICKEN TAJ MAHAL--In GOURMET, September 1958, pg. 59. MOCHA--Jesse Sheidlower asked about this. "Mocha" is a separate heading in the recipe index in GOURMET, March 1958. From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 21 13:28:12 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 08:28:12 -0500 Subject: Thisclose In-Reply-To: <3C48647A.1517.20B5BA3@localhost> Message-ID: >Does anyone have any information about its provenance, parentage, and >probable distribution? If it is spoken, how is it distinguished from >the two words said separately? (I have a mental image of the speaker >holding up a hand with the first and second fingers pressed together, >but is it augmented by some vocal emphasis?) I don't have any real information but I agree that "thisclose" meaning "very close" is meant to accompany some kind of minimizing gesture. Both syllables would be expected to be stressed relative to context ... and about equally, I think. Quick Web search shows numerous examples: e.g., http://www.thisclose.org/ -- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 21 14:05:12 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 09:05:12 -0500 Subject: Nebraskans/Standard English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Not too be too harsh, but there is also the chance, especially in one's own area, that "missed noticing" is also very likely. People in Michigan don't notice the Northern Cities Chain Shift, but us hillbillies who come here (and East Coasters as well I hear tell) find that it sticks out like a sore tongue. dInIs >Both Peter and I must have missed the parts of the West where it's general >... > >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu > >On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > >> Huh? It's not general in any part of the West that I've spent any time in. >> >> Peter Mc. >> >> --On Friday, January 18, 2002 2:25 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan >> wrote: >> >> > And, since the 'cot/caught' merger is general throughout the North Midland >> > and all through the West, it too has become part of the "best"/"standard" >> > variety, except, I suppose, for the Eastern/New England diehards in these >> > fields. >> >> >> >> **************************************************************************** >> Peter A. McGraw >> Linfield College * McMinnville, OR >> pmcgraw at linfield.edu >> From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 21 14:13:18 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 09:13:18 -0500 Subject: Thisclose In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020121081828.04591bf0@nb.net> Message-ID: "This close" is a bit more precise (and a bit closer) than "yea close" (or "bout yea close"). dInIs >>Does anyone have any information about its provenance, parentage, and >>probable distribution? If it is spoken, how is it distinguished from >>the two words said separately? (I have a mental image of the speaker >>holding up a hand with the first and second fingers pressed together, >>but is it augmented by some vocal emphasis?) > >I don't have any real information but I agree that "thisclose" meaning >"very close" is meant to accompany some kind of minimizing gesture. Both >syllables would be expected to be stressed relative to context ... and >about equally, I think. Quick Web search shows numerous examples: e.g., >http://www.thisclose.org/ > >-- Doug Wilson From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 21 16:27:32 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:27:32 -0000 Subject: n-word Message-ID: There's a review of Randall Kennedy's book: _Nigger: the strange career of a troublesome word_ at: http://salon.com/books/feature/2002/01/22/kennedy/index.html Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Mon Jan 21 16:50:47 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 11:50:47 EST Subject: anecdotal Message-ID: In a message dated 01/16/2002 9:26:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not > representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer > of evidence, but maybe there are others. This is an interesting use of the word "anecdotal". OED2 has no meaning for either "anecdotal" or "anecdote" that comes close (OED2 has three definitions for "anecdote": 1) hitherto unpublished narrative 2) narrative of a single event told as being in itself interesting or striking 3) from art: a painting etc that depicts a small incident). M-W 10th Collegiate has one additional definition: "based on or consisting of reports or obsdervations of usu. unscientific observers (~ evidence)" which is a common usage in scientific reports but does not really fit here. (a citation for the M-W definition, from the Feb 2002 Scientific American page 80 column 1) In experiments, families have volunteered or been paid to stop viewing, typically for a week or a month. Many could not complete the period of abstinence. Some fought, verbally and physically. Anecdotal reports from some families that have tried the annual "TV turn off" week in the U.S. tell a similar story. ) (citation is from the article "Television Addiction is no mere metaphor" by Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) What does carljweber mean by "anecdotal". The context here is tricky, since he is rebutting statements in a previous letter that do not contain the word "anecdotal". Apparently he means to describe reports as being second- or third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability. I.e. "mere anecdotes rather than reliable first-hand reports". Has anyone else seen a similar usage of "anecdotal"? - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 17:06:56 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 12:06:56 EST Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: Hoping to terminate an anthropophagological thread in which I have no interest... In a message dated 01/16/2002 9:26:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. You have presented evidence that a number of Northeastern Amerindian nations, plus the Caribs and Aztecs, practiced cannibalism. However, you are exceeding your own evidence to state "ALL of the Amerindians..." > (Rhetorical question:) Why the collocation "ritual" cannibalism?? Not rhetorical, since I have an answer. Simply, I made a mistake. Thinking about it later, I realized that "ritual cannibalism" is the appropriate term to describe the Catholic mass. > Going back to original sources - first hand information -- is the only way > one will encounter "good evidence" documentation -- if one's argument is to > be believed. The circumstances, the motives of the players, and the temper > of the times - all need consideration Agree. > Ontology Recapitulates Philology An interesting philosophical statement. Unlike ontogeny and philogeny, there is no evident cause-and-effect relationship. Ontology is the study of being and existence; philology is the study of descriptions, the things being described being either real or fictitious. Hence you are claiming that (wo)man cannot contemplate existence but is restricted to rehashing descriptions (not necessarily accuate) of existence. - Jim Landau From ekaqo60 at SAYCLUB.COM Mon Jan 21 18:05:47 2002 From: ekaqo60 at SAYCLUB.COM () Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 03:05:47 +0900 Subject: []̴(eNews) Խ ! İ 50% ΰ! Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 21 05:29:29 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 13:29:29 +0800 Subject: anecdotal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:50 AM -0500 1/21/02, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 01/16/2002 9:26:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, >carljweber at MSN.COM writes: > >> Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not >> representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer >> of evidence, but maybe there are others. > >This is an interesting use of the word "anecdotal". OED2 has no meaning for >either "anecdotal" or "anecdote" that comes close (OED2 has three definitions >for "anecdote": 1) hitherto unpublished narrative 2) narrative of a single >event told as being in itself interesting or striking 3) from art: a painting >etc that depicts a small incident). M-W 10th Collegiate has one additional >definition: "based on or consisting of reports or obsdervations of usu. >unscientific observers (~ evidence)" which is a common usage in scientific >reports but does not really fit here. > >... > >What does carljweber mean by "anecdotal". The context here is tricky, since >he is rebutting statements in a previous letter that do not contain the word >"anecdotal". Apparently he means to describe reports as being second- or >third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, >or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability. I.e. "mere anecdotes >rather than reliable first-hand reports". > Is this use really different from the one from M-W 10 above? Similarly, AHD4 has 2. Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis: "There are anecdotal reports of children poisoned by hot dogs roasted over a fire of the [oleander] stems" (C. Claiborne Ray, New York Times October 10, 1995). which is pretty lively as cites go. I don't see that 'describ[ing] reports as being second- or third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability' is really a distinct sense from these, it's just one way in which an unsystematic, unrigorous and therefore (relatively) unreliable observation can be made. It's true that this sense should be given (and tracked) in the OED, but I think the other dictionaries have carlj's use covered, at least implicitly. From mnewman at QC.EDU Mon Jan 21 20:42:10 2002 From: mnewman at QC.EDU (Michael Newman) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 15:42:10 -0500 Subject: n-word In-Reply-To: <4055942.3220619252@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: >There's a review of Randall Kennedy's book: _Nigger: the strange career of >a troublesome word_ at: > >http://salon.com/books/feature/2002/01/22/kennedy/index.html > >Dr M Lynne Murphy >Lecturer in Linguistics >Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics >School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >phone +44-(0)1273-678844 >fax +44-(0)1273-671320 Glancing through the book, I noticed that he barely mentions the r-less form, and then only with the briefest citation from Geneva Smitherman. He also only has White people using it and non-racial reference use as an insult. He needed to have hung out at some high school for a few days before going to print, either that or bought The Source once or twice. -- Michael Newman Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders Queens College/CUNY Flushing, NY 11367 From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 21 21:43:36 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:43:36 -0500 Subject: "loose as a goose" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020119124356.04909c80@nb.net> Message-ID: I've sometimes heard/seen "loose as a goose on grass". Does that clarify or confuse? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Ittaob at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 21:35:04 2002 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Ittaob at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:35:04 EST Subject: "out of pocket" (= not reachable) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/20/02 8:21:07 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: << Maybe, or maybe if the basic meaning is that one doesn't have a cell phone (turned on), it really does allude to the phone being out of one's pocket. >> My and others' usage of the term well predates the wide availability of cell phones. Steve Boatti From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 21 22:20:52 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:20:52 -0800 Subject: from/for? Message-ID: In today's SF Chronicle, an article about the San Francisco prosecutor chosen for the Enron probe, has the following quote: "She can see the forest from the trees." I know this is a twist on the "can't see the forest... - but isn't it FOR the trees? Is this another of those changes (like eating your cake and having it too, or could care less) due to someone thinking you had to climb the tree to see the forest, maybe? Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 21 23:03:04 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 18:03:04 EST Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown Message-ID: COMFORT CAMP I thought that I had posted this, but I had posted "comfort homes." There's a group seeking to get the kids of 9-11 together for a "comfort camp." There's a web site, www.campcomfort.org. -------------------------------------------------------- EDITRIX TALK magazine folded in a sea of red ink. Several stories mentioned "editrix" Tina Brown. OED doesn't have it. Merriam-Webster doesn't have it, either, but suggests searching "editress." FWIW: David Shulman brought "editrix" to my attention. He was supposed to meet with Ralph Carlson of OUP about a Steve Brodie book, but Carlson never showed up. Shulman is friends with a table-tennis guy who's writing a book for Harold Evans who's married to Tina Brown. Shulman wants to meet with Evans this week. From carljweber at MSN.COM Mon Jan 21 23:28:16 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 17:28:16 -0600 Subject: "loose as a goose" Message-ID: I've heard "loose as a goose in a noose" CJW > I've sometimes heard/seen "loose as a goose on grass". Does > that clarify or confuse? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large > From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 22 01:29:49 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:29:49 -0500 Subject: Plaino instead of "plain old/plain ol'" Message-ID: The administrator of another list I subscribe to had to set up the list on a different server temporarily. When announcing this, he included the following note: "There is no online database or a file area or even a picture gallery. Just a plaino list server." I found some newsgroup citations where the word "plaino" is used instead of "plain old" or "plain ol'." Has anyone else encountered this usage? If so, I'm wondering whether it's use is ironic or if it's just an honest (albeit chuckle-inducing) mistake. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 01:33:23 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:33:23 -0500 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown In-Reply-To: <9.21fe8e56.297df829@aol.com> Message-ID: > TALK magazine folded in a sea of red ink. Several stories > mentioned "editrix" Tina Brown. OED doesn't have it. > Merriam-Webster doesn't have it, either, but suggests searching > "editress." I wrote a short article about this word in Esquire a few years ago. I think OED has an early twentieth century quote in the files, and I'd be surprised if we couldn't find a much earlier one now. > FWIW: David Shulman brought "editrix" to my attention. He was >supposed to meet with Ralph Carlson of OUP about a Steve Brodie book, >but Carlson never showed up. Shulman is friends with a table-tennis >guy who's writing a book for Harold Evans who's married to Tina >Brown. Shulman wants to meet with Evans this week. Carlson has been trying to get in touch with Shulman but Shulman is never in and his residence won't take messages. If Popik knows a good way to get in touch with him Shulman would be grateful. JTS From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 22 01:48:30 2002 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:48:30 -0500 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown Message-ID: Most of the cites for "editrix" seem to be from recent years. Is it just my imagination, or has it become more common in the last few years to use feminine forms previously thought unnecessary, such as "editrix" and "comedienne"? John Baker From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 02:53:25 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 21:53:25 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <001901c1a151$fae7c240$b6345fcf@computer> Message-ID: On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: #Goose/The Finger # #A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the #bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? -- Mark A. Mandel From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 03:38:20 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:38:20 -0500 Subject: 'heart' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last week. In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but if anyone taped or Tivo'ed it, it's there for the taking. It's the episode where Marge goes on a crusade against sugar. -- Steve From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 05:19:24 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 23:19:24 -0600 Subject: from/for? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Maybe it was intentional -- that this prosecutor is capable of climbing up trees from which she can see the forest. DMLance > From: Kim & Rima McKinzey > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:20:52 -0800 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: from/for? > > In today's SF Chronicle, an article about the San Francisco > prosecutor chosen for the Enron probe, has the following quote: > > "She can see the forest from the trees." > > I know this is a twist on the "can't see the forest... - but isn't > it FOR the trees? > > Is this another of those changes (like eating your cake and having it > too, or could care less) due to someone thinking you had to climb the > tree to see the forest, maybe? > > Rima > From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 05:35:36 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 23:35:36 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I associate goosing with the thumb or index finger. But in Texas when I was growing up in the 1940s the goosing was done to the ribs and had only risibility connotations. DMLance > From: Mark A Mandel > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 21:53:25 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > > On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: > > #Goose/The Finger > # > #A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the > #bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. > > Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, > was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the > goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you > prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 06:45:27 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 00:45:27 -0600 Subject: Out of Pocket Message-ID: People keep looking for a literal source of 'out of pocket' = unavailable. If you want a sports source, maybe billiards would be better than American football, since it is older. Maybe cricket. I don't think it's a new term. DMLance > From: sagehen .............. > Steve Boatti wrote: >> No one seems to remember that it originally meant "lacking money." > ~~~~~~~~ > Not "lacking money," just paying for it out of one's own resources, instead > of on an expense account or qualifying for reimbursement. > That, to me, suggests a possible path of development: being on one's own > -> being OFF on one's own -> being out of reach. > A. Murie > From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 22 10:22:59 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:22:59 -0000 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown Message-ID: In re editrix. Rowan Pelling, my editor at the Erotic Review in London, for which I write a monthly words column, styles herself 'Editrice.' Jonathon Green From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 12:25:47 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:25:47 -0500 Subject: Ooops. (Was: Re: 'heart') In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 21 Jan 2002, Steve Kl. wrote: > I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the > characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last week. > In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" Matthew Gordon emailed me, saying: >Are you sure it wasn't Will and Grace? There was a scene in which (just) >Jack said something like "I don't heart prison." Matthew's right. I got back from Chicago last night and watched four shows. I knew at the time I should have written it down, but I was sitting on a comfy couch and didn't want to get up. It was Will & Grace, not the Simpsons. Mea culpa. -- Steve From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 12:35:48 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:35:48 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? dInIs >On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: > >#Goose/The Finger ># >#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. > >Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, >was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the >goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you >prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? > >-- 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 betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 22 13:03:11 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 13:03:11 +0000 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: WORD >From: "Dennis R. Preston" >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:35:48 -0500 > >I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? > >dInIs > >>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: >> >>#Goose/The Finger >># >>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. >> >>Then I guess I'm nobody. I've never known what bird, if any, >>was referred to. You are evidently assuming that it's the >>goose, by association with the verb "to goose". Can you >>prove it? --- And am I the only one so ignorant? >> >>-- 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 _________________________________________________________________ Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 22 13:03:32 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 13:03:32 +0000 Subject: Ooops. (Was: Re: 'heart') Message-ID: word >From: "Steve Kl." >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Ooops. (Was: Re: 'heart') >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:25:47 -0500 > >On Mon, 21 Jan 2002, Steve Kl. wrote: > > > I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the > > characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last >week. > > In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" > >Matthew Gordon emailed me, saying: > > >Are you sure it wasn't Will and Grace? There was a scene in which (just) > >Jack said something like "I don't heart prison." > >Matthew's right. > >I got back from Chicago last night and watched four shows. I knew at the >time I should have written it down, but I was sitting on a comfy couch and >didn't want to get up. It was Will & Grace, not the Simpsons. > >Mea culpa. > >-- Steve _________________________________________________________________ Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 22 13:14:29 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 08:14:29 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >.... What bird? Why bird at all? "Give [someone] the bird" = "make a sound or gesture of derision toward [someone]". Apparently the original "bird" (also "big bird", "goose") (early 19th C. or earlier) was a goose-hiss (used in the theater), later (late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx cheer, and finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. At least this is my impression from a glance at HDAS, Partridge, Cassell/Green, etc. -- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 13:41:56 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 08:41:56 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020122080338.04cf8d50@nb.net> Message-ID: Interesting that Partridge is cited for etymology. Remember him? He's the guy who said tochas meant testicles (sic) and was derived from the tock part of tick-tock, since the items in question reminded him of a swinging pendulum. I've been a little suspicious of his etymologies (especially since he apparently has no Hebrew and very little sense of the nether parts of his own anatomy). dInIs >>.... What bird? Why bird at all? > >"Give [someone] the bird" = "make a sound or gesture of derision toward >[someone]". Apparently the original "bird" (also "big bird", "goose") >(early 19th C. or earlier) was a goose-hiss (used in the theater), later >(late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx cheer, and >finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. At >least this is my impression from a glance at HDAS, Partridge, >Cassell/Green, etc. > >-- Doug Wilson -- 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 Tue Jan 22 13:53:49 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 08:53:49 EST Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/02 8:17:53 AM Eastern Standard Time, douglas at NB.NET writes: > later (late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx cheer, and > finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. Does anyone know if the following anecdote be true: Casey Stengel, when he was an active baseball player rather than a manager, once while playing in Brooklyn took his cap off and a bird flew out. This made Stengel the first man ever to give the bird back to Brooklyn. I read this story in a long-ago newspaper article about Stengel, probably while Stengel was manager of the Mets. Considering that Stengel was in his 70's while with the Mets, his playing days must have been the around the 1910's. - Jim Landau From test at TEST.COM Tue Jan 22 13:47:05 2002 From: test at TEST.COM (Ȩ) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:47:05 +0900 Subject: Ȩ 弼. [] Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 01:14:31 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:14:31 +0800 Subject: "Comfort Camp" & 9-11; "Editrix" Tina Brown In-Reply-To: <003f01c1a32e$c469dda0$023264c0@green> Message-ID: At 10:22 AM +0000 1/22/02, Jonathon Green wrote: >In re editrix. Rowan Pelling, my editor at the Erotic Review in London, for >which I write a monthly words column, styles herself 'Editrice.' > Hmm-- I'd think if *any* editor of the female persuasion self-styled as an editrix it would be one who does so at the Erotic Review ;-) From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Tue Jan 22 14:23:24 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:23:24 -0000 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis R. Preston" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 1:41 PM Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > Interesting that Partridge is cited for etymology. Remember him? He's > the guy who said tochas meant testicles (sic) and was derived from > the tock part of tick-tock, since the items in question reminded him > of a swinging pendulum. > > I've been a little suspicious of his etymologies (especially since he > apparently has no Hebrew and very little sense of the nether parts of > his own anatomy). > > dInIs He also believed, in his first edition of 1937, that _nafka_, a whore and as such another 'steal' from Yiddish/Hebrew, was an elision of 'naughty girl'. And there are others, hardly surprising in a man who would always rather try for _some_ kind of etymology rather than settle for the OED's often correct but unexciting, 'ety. unknown'. Slang etymology is notoriously elusive - in which context one tips the hat to the on-going efforts of Gerald Cohen and Barry Popik - and while one may fault Partridge for such derelictions of lexicographical exactitude he remains one of the great slang collectors of the last century. In any case by the 1970 edn. (it may have been earlier, but I lack the edns. of 1949 and 1961)he had amended his error - I would imagine one or more of his extensive range of correspondents put him right. And he did not, after all, unlike Webster, believe that all language came from Ur of the Chaldees. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 01:33:51 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:33:51 +0800 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:53 AM -0500 1/22/02, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 1/22/02 8:17:53 AM Eastern Standard Time, douglas at NB.NET >writes: > >> later (late 19th or early 20th C.) the "bird" was a raspberry or Bronx >cheer, and >> finally (ca. 1966) the word was applied to a middle-finger 'salute'. > >Does anyone know if the following anecdote be true: Casey Stengel, when he >was an active baseball player rather than a manager, once while playing in >Brooklyn took his cap off and a bird flew out. This made Stengel the first >man ever to give the bird back to Brooklyn. > >I read this story in a long-ago newspaper article about Stengel, probably >while Stengel was manager of the Mets. Considering that Stengel was in his >70's while with the Mets, his playing days must have been the around the >1910's. > Casey played (as an outfielder in the National League) from 1912 to 1925 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Philadelphia Phillies, the New York Giants, and the Boston Braves. He was known as a good fielder and adequate hitter, but did hit the first two World Series home runs in Yankee Stadium. The bird-out-of-the-cap story was already often told in the 1950's when The Ol' Perfesser was the genius who managed the Yankees (as opposed to the 1930's when he was an incompetent manager for the Dodgers and Braves, and the 1960's when he was a buffoon for the Mets) and I assume it's true. Never seen it debunked, anyway. Here's one recounting, courtesy BaseballLibrary.com: ============== He sat on the bench for Pittsburgh in 1918 and 1919. It was during 1919 that one of Stengel's most famous antics took place. During the course of a rough Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn against his old teammates, Stengel had received a small bird from one of the Dodger pitchers in the bullpen and when he came up to bat, Stengel tipped his hat to the jeering crowd; out flew the bird, to the delight of the fans. =============== History doesn't record the species of the bird. larry From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 14:55:31 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:55:31 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Dennis R. Preston wrote: #I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? #>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: #> #>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the #>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. "Give so. the bird" = "give so. the finger" in NYC and Boston-area, at least. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 14:58:57 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:58:57 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: #WORD [Snip dInIs's seconding of my question and the entire rest of Jeremy's post. BTW, I (again) add my voice to the plea not to quote threads in full. And doing so to add literally a single word of comment is egregious.] WTH does this mean, anyway? "Ditto"? My kids (ages 20 and 24) use it, but they haven't been able to define it for me. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Jan 22 15:01:10 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 15:01:10 +0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD >From: Mark A Mandel >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:58:57 -0500 > >On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: > >#WORD > >[Snip dInIs's seconding of my question and the entire rest >of Jeremy's post. BTW, I (again) add my voice to the plea >not to quote threads in full. And doing so to add literally >a single word of comment is egregious.] > >WTH does this mean, anyway? "Ditto"? My kids (ages 20 and >24) use it, but they haven't been able to define it for me. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 15:10:47 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:10:47 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: #WORD #WORD #WORD #WORD [snip about 100 more of this b.s.] *plonk* From davemarc at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 22 15:50:18 2002 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:50:18 -0500 Subject: 'heart' Message-ID: I have the episode on tape. If someone actually wants more of a citation, I could look for it. d. ----- Original Message ----- From: Steve Kl. To: Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 10:38 PM Subject: 'heart' > I don't have the exact cite, but on this Sunday's Simpsons, one of the > characters used the verb 'heart' in the manner Erin brought up last week. > In fact, it was in the frame "I don't heart _____" > > I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but if anyone taped or > Tivo'ed it, it's there for the taking. > > It's the episode where Marge goes on a crusade against sugar. > > -- Steve > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 22 16:10:15 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 11:10:15 EST Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/02 1:18:17 AM Eastern Standard Time, lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU writes: << I associate goosing with the thumb or index finger. But in Texas when I was growing up in the 1940s the goosing was done to the ribs and had only risibility connotations. >> In my own experience, "goose" has always meant to poke someone in the buttocks. cf the spoonerism "Will John goose Sadie's cook?" There is another use of "to goose", which I strongly suspect is related. "To goose someone into action" means "to take some unspecified action to get someone to start doing what s/he is supposed to do" with the implication that obscene methods were not ruled out or that the methods to be used were equivalent to kicking the defaulter in the buttocks. The object of "to goose" could also be an inanimate object, e.g. a computer. Then there is the phrase "three-finger salute" meaning to use the CTL-ALT-DEL keys to reboot a PC. One strongly suspects this is derived from the middle finger salute. There exists a once-world-famous nonce synonym for "the finger". After the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo, they published a photograph showing the Pueblo crew, each member of which was displaying an upraised middle finger. It seems the crew had informed the North Koreans that this was "the Hawaiian good-luck symbol." (This is the same crew that said "we would like to paean North Korea".) Aside to Mark Mandel---the abbreviation "so." is ambiguous, because it could mean either "someone" or "something". - Jim Landau From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:19:21 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:19:21 -0800 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That would be my guess. I've seen al-Qaida and al-Qaeda but not Quida. They are all trying to represent q [velar]-a [as in "father" but longer in duration]-"ayin" [glottal stop not found in English]- i [short as in "it" but sometimes heard as "e" or schwa- d- a [as in "father" but short- final -h is silent but present. The above is probably as clear as mud, as the saying goes. I heard someone pronounce it correctly last week on NPR but can't remember who it was. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This > seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less > frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions > concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of > transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? > > Regards, > David > > barnhart at highlands.com > From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:09:40 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:09:40 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger Message-ID: With reference to Douglas G. Wilson's recent comment that "Apparently the original "bird" (also "big bird", "goose")(early 19th C. or earlier) was a goose-hiss (used in the theater). . . ." Early 19th century newspapers were very personal publications, and the editors were continually bickering with each other. The following bicker is from W. L. Stone of the Evening Post, and is aimed at Mordecai Noah, who was a playwright and also the editor of the National Advocate. Theatrical. -- Last evening, Mr. Noah's last new play of Marion, was performed for the second time; not having been present, nor seeing any account of it in the Advocate of this morning, we should like to know something about it. If we are correctly informed, there was not enough in the house to defray on half the expenses, and it is added, that the curtain fell to the music of a flock of geese. Is it so? New-York Evening Post, December 18, 1821, p. 2, cols. 4 George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:42:49 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:42:49 -0500 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The q is a uvular stop, not a velar, and the "ayin" is not a glottal stop (which is found in English--alif in Arabic) but a voiced pharyngeal fricative. The "silent but present" h is an h written at the end of the word in Arabic but not pronounced; it sometimes shows up in Roman transliterations of other words, sometimes not. Ben Fortson On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, A. Maberry wrote: > That would be my guess. I've seen al-Qaida and al-Qaeda but not Quida. > They are all trying to represent q [velar]-a [as in "father" but longer in > duration]-"ayin" [glottal stop not found in English]- i [short as in "it" > but sometimes heard as "e" or schwa- d- a [as in "father" but short- > final -h is silent but present. > > The above is probably as clear as mud, as the saying goes. > > I heard someone pronounce it correctly last week on NPR but can't remember > who it was. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu > > On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > > > These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This > > seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less > > frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions > > concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of > > transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? > > > > Regards, > > David > > > > barnhart at highlands.com > > > From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 22 17:50:46 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:50:46 -0800 Subject: Qaeda~Qaida~Quida In-Reply-To: Message-ID: True enough. I wish I could find a URL or some link to an audio of someone pronouncing it correctly. On the basis of a description of the phonetics, I doubt that anyone could get more than a vague notion of it. The Library of Congress transliteration scheme retains the final, silent h, so in US library catalogs it will be al-Qa'idah [the ' looking like a superscript small "c". allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Benjamin Fortson wrote: > The q is a uvular stop, not a velar, and the "ayin" is not a glottal stop > (which is found in English--alif in Arabic) but a voiced pharyngeal > fricative. The "silent but present" h is an h written at the end of the > word in Arabic but not pronounced; it sometimes shows up in Roman > transliterations of other words, sometimes not. > > Ben Fortson > > On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, A. Maberry wrote: > > > That would be my guess. I've seen al-Qaida and al-Qaeda but not Quida. > > They are all trying to represent q [velar]-a [as in "father" but longer in > > duration]-"ayin" [glottal stop not found in English]- i [short as in "it" > > but sometimes heard as "e" or schwa- d- a [as in "father" but short- > > final -h is silent but present. > > > > The above is probably as clear as mud, as the saying goes. > > > > I heard someone pronounce it correctly last week on NPR but can't remember > > who it was. > > > > allen > > maberry at u.washington.edu > > > > On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > > > > > These variants are listed in the order in which I found them. This > > > seems to reflect preference in usage. _Quida_ is noticeably less > > > frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions > > > concerning "q" and "u" in English. Is there a contrast in tradition of > > > transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"? > > > > > > Regards, > > > David > > > > > > barnhart at highlands.com > > > > > > From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 22 17:52:25 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 11:52:25 -0600 Subject: anecdotal Message-ID: Upon request, I had presented evidence for Amerindian cannibalism and said, > Calling evidence of Amerindian anthropophagy merely anecdotal, and not > representative of Amerindian culture, seems the only refutation to my offer > of evidence, but maybe there are others. Jim Landau said >This is an interesting use of the word "anecdotal". OED2 has no meaning for either "anecdotal" or "anecdote" that comes close (OED2 has three definitions for "anecdote": 1) hitherto unpublished narrative 2) narrative of a single event told as being in itself interesting or striking 3) from art: a painting etc that depicts a small incident). M-W 10th Collegiate has one additional definition: "based on or consisting of reports or obsdervations of usu. unscientific observers (~ evidence)" which is a common usage in scientific reports but does not really fit here. > Jim Landau said, >What does carljweber mean by "anecdotal". The context here is tricky, since he is rebutting statements in a previous letter that do not contain the word "anecdotal". Apparently he means to describe reports as being second- or third-hand, written long after the fact, collected from unreliable witnesses, or otherwise carrying a presumption of unreliability. I.e. "mere anecdotes rather than reliable first-hand reports". > I say, Suggesting I mean by "anecdotal" that my evidence is unreliable is whacky. I have read many 17th century first hand accounts. The evidence I offered by Parkman was summary or paraphrase of some of those early accounts. Recapitulating the OED definitions is not without its interst. OED definition 2 presents no problem as the one that comes close. I use the general common meaning with the aspect of isolated event. Perhaps easier is the definition in (M) Webster's 1892 High School Dictionary, having to do with "a short story or incident," i.e., self contained and not a pattern or trend. Carl Jeffrey Weber From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 22 18:18:46 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:18:46 -0600 Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: The subject arose -- more or less -- it having been said that the Mohawk Indians -- experts at psychological warfare -- were happy to have their neighbors believe they, the Mohawks, would like to have them for lunch -- not really, but to keep them in check. I said < All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. Others contributed that cannibalism was used simply to "scare the crap out of " other captives. The term "ritual" cannibalism came up, as if saying grace before dinner was a mitigation. And slavery as "contingent slavery" entered the exchange -- somehow "contingent" tenderizing the practice of Indian slavery. And then to cover another base, cannibalism might be explained, it was said, as what one tribe might attribute to their neighbors to demonize them. This all denies a collective historical closet full of bones. The facts of this practice as widespread among the Amerindians has been swept under history's carpet. Maybe in general it should be. Do we tell the boys and girls in fifth grade about this? No. Should we dwell on it? No. However, to characterize, for example, the Conquistadors solely by their atrocity, is an equal miscarriage of history. The barbarisms of our human forebears is there for all to see. I was challenged to show evidence. I did. Jim Landau said >Jim Landau said >about it later, I realized that "ritual cannibalism" is the appropriate term >to describe the Catholic mass. >I (CJWeber) say: >"rites" of "symbolic" cannibalism is better. ~~~~~~~ It seems to me whether "symbolic" or not all depends on where you stand. Presumably to believers it *is* ritual cannibalism. Otherwise, what would transubstantiation mean? A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From ejohnson at BERRY.EDU Tue Jan 22 18:51:53 2002 From: ejohnson at BERRY.EDU (Johnson, Ellen) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 13:51:53 -0500 Subject: Cannibal 2 Message-ID: Carl Weber said: < All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. I didn't mean to start a major argument over cannibalism on this list. I know next to nothing about the subject, but a statement like the above struck me as highly unlikely. There were thousands of Amerindian languages and, one would guess, at least as many cultural groups, from the Yupik in Alaska to the Araucanians in southern Chile. To say anything that applied to ALL of them would have to be very difficult, indeed. Since my knowledge was limited, I asked a Ph.D. historian friend (whose specialty is North American Indian history) to comment. You may continue the discussion with her if you wish. kathryn.abbott at wku.edu Ellen Johnson Assistant Professor of Linguistics Dept. of English, Rhetoric, and Writing Berry College, Box 350 Mt. Berry, GA 30149 706-368-5638 http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson/ ejohnson at berry.edu From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 19:36:32 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:36:32 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As I grow older, I lack clarity. Yes, I know that to give somebody the bird is to give somebody the finger. Why do we say bird instead of finger? And is it really the case that everybody except Mark and me knows the identity of the bird being referred to? Kiwi, tit, jay, robin? dInIs >On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >#I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? > >#>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: >#> >#>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >#>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. > >"Give so. the bird" = "give so. the finger" in NYC and >Boston-area, at least. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large -- 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 TlhovwI at AOL.COM Tue Jan 22 19:34:50 2002 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:34:50 EST Subject: from/for? Message-ID: Sounds fine to me. I can't see the forest from (all) the trees (that are in my way). Both ways are perfectly rational to me. My roommate check, however, told me I was crazy. Both roommates rejected the basic line with "from" but got sketchy when I added the parentheticals. But, if "for" = "because of" in the trees' example, then compare: I got an A from my hard work. Maybe I'm just wrong. I guess I should of thought before I spoke (haha). -dsb Douglas S. Bigham Southern Illinois University - Carbondale From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 22 20:16:59 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:16:59 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: DInIs, I think they're trying to tell you the bird is the goose, but my South Midland doubting Thomas also wonders if that's right. Geese have been known to peck people's behinds as well as other parts of the anatomy, so that's the connection they're trying to make--I think. Probably not a peckerwood or woodpecker. DMLance > From: "Dennis R. Preston" > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:36:32 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > > As I grow older, I lack clarity. Yes, I know that to give somebody > the bird is to give somebody the finger. Why do we say bird instead > of finger? And is it really the case that everybody except Mark and > me knows the identity of the bird being referred to? Kiwi, tit, jay, > robin? > > dInIs > > > >> On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >> #I'm as ignorant as Mark. What bird? Why bird at all? >> >> #>On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, carljweber wrote: >> #> >> #>#A little offer of twined thread synthesis. The "finger" is otherwise "the >> #>#bird," and otherwise f.u. Everybody knows what bird. >> >> "Give so. the bird" = "give so. the finger" in NYC and >> Boston-area, at least. >> >> -- Mark A. Mandel >> Linguist at Large > > -- > 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 paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Tue Jan 22 20:26:40 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:26:40 -0600 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi Message-ID: Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the "finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying together bird and finger. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 22 23:03:17 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:03:17 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <17e.275daad.297ee8e7@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: #In my own experience, "goose" has always meant to poke someone in the #buttocks. cf the spoonerism "Will John goose Sadie's cook?" That's a metathesis, but not a spoonerism. A spoonerism is a metathesis at the phoneme or syllable level, usually between two words: "May I sew you to another sheet?" (show...seat). This metathesis exchanges two words intact. #Aside to Mark Mandel---the abbreviation "so." is ambiguous, because it could #mean either "someone" or "something". Urk. Right you are. I was thinking of SomeOne, but of course there's another 'o' in there. I shoulda used "smn." or "smb.". -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 23:30:01 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:30:01 -0500 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well I'll be hornswaggled. I never knew the bird = the finger) was a goose , but, I'm sorry to say, looking at the evidence presented so far, I still don't. dInIs (who ain't even from Mo.) >DInIs, >I think they're trying to tell you the bird is the goose, but my South >Midland doubting Thomas also wonders if that's right. Geese have been known >to peck people's behinds as well as other parts of the anatomy, so that's >the connection they're trying to make--I think. Probably not a peckerwood >or woodpecker. >DMLance > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 22 23:36:27 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:36:27 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: <3C4DCB00.8090402@mtnhome.com> Message-ID: Good one Paul! Not just Chicago, Louisville too. There's that dang bird! dInIs >Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the >"finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying >together bird and finger. From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 22 23:56:00 2002 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 18:56:00 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi Message-ID: Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the perch? John Baker > -----Original Message----- > From: Dennis R. Preston [SMTP:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] > Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 6:36 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: The Finger/the birdbi > > Good one Paul! Not just Chicago, Louisville too. There's that dang bird! > > dInIs > > > > >Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the > >"finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying > >together bird and finger. From laurieOwens at MSN.COM Wed Jan 23 00:01:58 2002 From: laurieOwens at MSN.COM (laurie owens) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 16:01:58 -0800 Subject: "sounding black" Message-ID: HELP! I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted testimony of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". The only man that was black in a house was arrested based on the police officers "description". The police officer never saw the defendant until trial. The defendant was convicted based on this "identification". Outrageous, no!?! My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites (specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really means). Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Laurie Owens From simon at IPFW.EDU Wed Jan 23 00:20:25 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 19:20:25 -0500 Subject: "sounding black" Message-ID: "sounding black" came up in the O.J. trial beth simon >>> laurieOwens at MSN.COM 01/22/02 19:15 PM >>> HELP! I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted testimony of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". The only man that was black in a house was arrested based on the police officers "description". The police officer never saw the defendant until trial. The defendant was convicted based on this "identification". Outrageous, no!?! My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites (specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really means). Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Laurie Owens From simon at IPFW.EDU Wed Jan 23 00:23:08 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 19:23:08 -0500 Subject: for the listmaster(s?) Message-ID: Sorry to post to the list but I'm not sure whose listermastering nowadays, and also, if this has been discussed, again, sorry, Can/could you block the spam/posts from the @(#$@%(@*$ poster? I checked with my university helpdesk folks and they say they can't do it because it's always posted to the list. thanks, beth From carljweber at MSN.COM Tue Jan 22 23:07:54 2002 From: carljweber at MSN.COM (carljweber) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 17:07:54 -0600 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi Message-ID: Paul M. Johnson said, < Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the "finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying together bird and finger. < That's me. In addition there was a little word-play on "perch" (as the familiar fish you go down and catch off Navy Pier, among other places). "Do ya like to fish? Perch on this." Are there any languages where a "gan-" named bird brings the baby instead of the stork? Isn't Ganz* = bastard? I see that I was a bit geo-centric in thinking "the bird" was well known to be the goose. CJW From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 23 01:46:24 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 20:46:24 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes >this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I >first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the >perch? The finger gesture is old ... compared to young me, that is. I did not know "the bird" in this sense ca. 1960; I think I heard it around 1970. Before that I heard usually "the finger" IIRC. HDAS shows this "bird" from 1966. As for the perch, that's a fish, not a bird. The way I recall it, when I was young(er) -- too young for the "dozens" or even the "sevens", maybe doing the "half-dozens" -- before I knew "the bird" as a gesture -- one line was something like "Do you like fish?" If answered "No", then of course one put forth something like "Then here's some meat for you"; if answered "Yes", one could say "Then perch on this." (With rude gesture [usually not exactly the one-finger salute, though] in either case, followed by [optional] yuk-yuk, arm-punch, palm-slap, etc.) I'm sure there were other versions just as witty and elegant. -- Doug Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 23 03:11:55 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 21:11:55 -0600 Subject: Naming the Euro Message-ID: It wasn't a foregone conclusion that the term "euro" would be chosen to designate the new European currency, and the German news magazine _Spiegel_, Dec. 29, 2001 tells how the selection was made. Here first is the German text, followed by an English translation. p.29, col. 3: 'Auch Theo Waigel, der Mann, der dem Euro sp?ter seinen Namen gab...' p.31 cols.1-2: 'Hart bis aufs Messer waren zudem die Verhandlungen, die der Finanzminister in Europa durchstehen musste. Selbst das Gezerre um den Namen der W?hrung auf dem Gipfel 1995 in Madrid ging bis tief in die Nacht. Thaler, Franken, Mark -- alles schien denkbar. Blo? nicht Ecu, das h?rte sich f?r Waigel zu technisch. Am Ende warf er den Vorschlag Euro in die Runde. Klingt nicht sonderlich erotisch, entgegnete Luxemburgs Premier Jean-Claude Juncker. "Nein, aber es klingt eurotisch [euro- here is italicized]" konterte Waigel. Der Euro hatte seine[n] Namen.' *** translation: (p.29) 'Even Theo Waigel, the man who later gave the euro its name.' p.31: 'In addition, the negotiations which the [German] finance minister had to endure in Europe [i.e., as well as in Germany] were extremely tough. Even the arguing [literally: tugging] about the name of the currency at the 1995 summit talks went deep into the night. Thaler, frank, mark -- all were possible. Only not ecu, that sounded too technical for Waigel. Finally he tossed in the suggestion euro. Doesn't sound especially sexy ["erotic"] replied Luxemburg's premier Jean-Claude Juncker. "No, but it sounds 'EUROtic'", countered Waigel. The euro had its name.' --Gerald Cohen From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 04:02:30 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 23:02:30 -0500 Subject: Change in ADS-L posting options Message-ID: I have changed the posting options for ADS-L so that messages may only be posted by people who are subscribed to the list; previously anyone could post a message just by sending e-mail to the list address. The subscription option is still open; that is, anyone may subscribe without being approved. However, most spammers would not bother to subscribe just to send spam. I do not want to change this option since the effort of approving every request to join the list would be very large, and Terry and I have enough to do already, but there are intermediate options if necessary. Please let Terry or me know if this change causes some difficulty. Best, Jesse Sheidlower co-listowner, ADS-L From pds at VISI.COM Wed Jan 23 04:47:24 2002 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:47:24 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <17e.275daad.297ee8e7@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:10 AM 1/22/2002 EST, James A. Landau wrote: > >Then there is the phrase "three-finger salute" meaning to use the CTL-ALT-DEL >keys to reboot a PC. One strongly suspects this is derived from the middle >finger salute. I first encountered "three-finger(ed) salute" in the Boy Scouts, and "two-finger(ed) salute" in Cub Scouts. Goes back way before my time. Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 15:59:56 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 23:59:56 +0800 Subject: Change in ADS-L posting options In-Reply-To: <20020123040230.GA26477@panix.com> Message-ID: At 11:02 PM -0500 1/22/02, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >I have changed the posting options for ADS-L so that messages may >only be posted by people who are subscribed to the list; previously >anyone could post a message just by sending e-mail to the list >address. > >The subscription option is still open; that is, anyone may subscribe >without being approved. However, most spammers would not bother to >subscribe just to send spam. I do not want to change this option >since the effort of approving every request to join the list would >be very large, and Terry and I have enough to do already, but there >are intermediate options if necessary. Thanks from all of us, Jesse. Those messages have gotten tiresome, even for those of us for whom bandwidth isn't a problem in itself. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 22 16:13:22 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 00:13:22 +0800 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: <006801c1a399$a12eb0c0$0100007f@computer> Message-ID: At 5:07 PM -0600 1/22/02, carljweber wrote: > >Are there any languages where a "gan-" named bird brings the baby instead of >the stork? Isn't Ganz* = bastard? I see that I was a bit geo-centric in >thinking "the bird" was well known to be the goose. > There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. "Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive homosexual--but the form has shifted to "gunsel" and the meaning to 'gunman, hood, thug', e.g. in The Maltese Falcon (early 1940's). It's been reconfigured to evoke a a firearm rather than a waterfowl. larry From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 23 05:34:51 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 23:34:51 -0600 Subject: Goose/The Finger In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20020122224724.00a3cb90@pop.visi.com> Message-ID: When I was in elementary and junior high school in South Texas in the 1940s, Chicano boys had their way of forming the hand and gesturing with the middle finger. They also would give a double insult by curling the index and little fingers and jabbing the middle and ring fingers toward the insultee. Using both hands made it even stronger. The verbal accompaniment would hardly have been considered a salute. What gringos and yankees do these days is puny compared with "the olden days." And 'p?jaro' (bird) would never have come up unless there were some side reference to a zopilote (buzzard) eating the remains of the person who had been chingado. DMLance > From: Tom Kysilko > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:47:24 -0600 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Goose/The Finger > > At 11:10 AM 1/22/2002 EST, James A. Landau wrote: >> >> Then there is the phrase "three-finger salute" meaning to use the CTL-ALT-DEL >> keys to reboot a PC. One strongly suspects this is derived from the middle >> finger salute. > > I first encountered "three-finger(ed) salute" in the Boy Scouts, and > "two-finger(ed) salute" in Cub Scouts. Goes back way before my time. > > > Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services > pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 23 07:34:14 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 02:34:14 EST Subject: Egyptians/Gypsies (1487); Pistachio; Kvass Message-ID: TRAVELS TO TANA AND PERSIA by Josafa (Giosafat--ed.) Barbaro and Amrogio Contarini Translated from the Italian by William Thomas, Clerk of the Countil to Edward VI, and by S. A. Roy, Esq. And edited, with an introduction, by Lord Stanley of Alderley London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society 1873 (The book appears to have been finished on 21 December 1487--ed.) Pg. 7: ...bread made of MIGLIO.... (Margin note--ed.) Miglio is a graine almost as small as mustard seed. Pg. 18: And if it shulde be demaunded wheather they go, like the Egiptians or no?* * This perhaps is one of the earliest occasions of gipsies being mentioned. (OED has 1514 for "Egyptian" meaning "gypsy"--ed.) Pg. 31: This countrey is verie fertyle of corne, fleshe, honye, and divers other things: and their drynke is called BOSSA,* which signifieth ale. * Buzah, Turkish and Persian, a kind of beer; here it means Kwass. (OED has c.1553 for "kvass"--ed.) Pg. 79 (margin note): Pistacchi is a kynde of delicate nuttes. Pg. 152: We took a little rice with which a mixture is made with milk dried in the sun, and called thur, which becomes very hard, tastes rather sour, and is said to e very nourishing. We also had onions and garlic, besides which I obtained with much trouble a quart of biscuits made of very good wheaten flour, and a slated sheep's tail. TRAVELS OF A MERCHANT IN PERSIA (1500s--ed.) (Same Hakluyt Society book on same NYU microfilm reel as above--ed.) Pg. 145: Round the castle is a town of houses dug into the mountain like grottoes, in which the peasants live: a low race like gipsies. -------------------------------------------------------- A JOURNEY FROM ST PETERSBURG TO PEKIN, 1719-22 by John Bell Barnes & Noble, Inc., NY; Edinburgh University Press 1966 Pg. 56: The lakes abound with various kinds of fishes; such as pikes, perches, breams, eels; and, particularly, a fish called karrass, of an uncommon bigness, and very fat. Pg. 62: A zimovy is a house or two, built in a place at a grea distance from any town or village, for the convenience of travellers; and is a sort of inn, where you generally find a warm room, fresh bread, and a wholesome and agreeable liquor, (Pg. 63--ed.) called quass, made of malt, or rye-meal, steeped and fermented; with hay and oats, at easy rates. (I was looking for Pekin duck. Maybe I missed it--ed.) From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Wed Jan 23 08:20:20 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 10:20:20 +0200 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Larry wrote: > There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. > "Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for > a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm > told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive > homosexual--but the form has shifted to "gunsel" and the meaning to > 'gunman, hood, thug', e.g. in The Maltese Falcon (early 1940's). > It's been reconfigured to evoke a a firearm rather than a waterfowl. In Russian prison lingo, a passive homosexual is called "the cock" ('petukh'); it maybe a borrowing from yiddish with a shift from goose to cock (perhaps because the russian 'goose' is more frequently associated with a VIP), the russian prison lingo is full of yiddish words. But, if it's not a borrowing, it must indicate that the 'goose' together with the 'cock' and their gay meaning come from another direction and have little to do with all the geese that were previously discussed, methinks. A.F. From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Wed Jan 23 12:05:23 2002 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 07:05:23 -0500 Subject: "sounding black" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ABC News did a story on this issue based on John Baugh's research on housing discrimination. The term used by Baugh is linguistic profiling. There is a web site address you can go to at abcnews.com that has more information. Baugh is part of a defendant's lawsuit concerning housing discrimination based on his linguistic profiling argument; i.e., he didn't get the house because the realtors didn't want to sell to a Black person (they knew he was Black by the way he sounded on the phone alone). The url is: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/WorldNewsTonight/linguistic_profili ng011206.html > >>> laurieOwens at MSN.COM 01/22/02 19:15 PM >>> >HELP! > >I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am >currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted testimony >of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". The only man >that was black in a house was arrested based on the police officers >"description". The police officer never saw the defendant until trial. >The defendant was convicted based on this "identification". Outrageous, >no!?! > >My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded >inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to >identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated >articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites >(specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really >means). > >Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly >appreciated. > >Sincerely, > >Laurie Owens ************************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (dept.) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30602-6205 http://www.arches.uga.edu/~lanehart ************************************************************** From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 23 13:14:09 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:14:09 +0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! 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FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! FUCK SHIT! >From: Mark A Mandel >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) >Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:10:47 -0500 > >On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeremy Diggz wrote: > >#WORD >#WORD >#WORD >#WORD > > [snip about 100 more of this b.s.] > >*plonk* _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Wed Jan 23 13:21:26 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:21:26 +0200 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Jeremy Diggz wrote, quite insistently: > Subject: Re: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) > > > FUCK SHIT! Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, I sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far behind. Alexey From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 23 12:24:11 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 07:24:11 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL,Net writes: >Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? >Truly, I >sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain >topic, >but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far behind. Some people can't resist displaying their obsessions, no matter how off-color or off-target. David From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 23 13:56:16 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 08:56:16 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I have the accompanying "perch" command from at least the mid-50's. I didn't hear "the bird" until the late 60's. dInIs > Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes >this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I >first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the >perch? > >John Baker > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Dennis R. Preston [SMTP:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU] >> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 6:36 PM >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> Subject: Re: The Finger/the birdbi >> >> Good one Paul! Not just Chicago, Louisville too. There's that dang bird! >> >> dInIs >> >> >> >> >Does anyone else remember the fifties, in Chicago, when, when giving the >> >"finger", it was common to say, "Perch on this"? Thereby neatly tying >> >together bird and finger. From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 23 13:52:24 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:52:24 -0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:21 pm +0200 Alexey Fuchs wrote: > > Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, I > sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain > topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far > behind. Jeremy Diggz is someone who I think is on his way to being banned from this list. Or at least I hope so. I'm writing to his ISP to complain. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 23 13:59:05 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 08:59:05 -0500 Subject: "sounding black" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Get in touch with John Baugh (at Stanford) who can give you a complete report of his experimental as well as "call in" tests on what he calls "linguistic profiling." dInIs >HELP! > >I am a student at the University of Washington, School of Law. I am >currently writing my analytic on a Kentucky case that admitted >testimony of a police officer that the defendant "sounded black". >The only man that was black in a house was arrested based on the >police officers "description". The police officer never saw the >defendant until trial. The defendant was convicted based on this >"identification". Outrageous, no!?! > >My contention is that whoever the police officer heard "sounded >inner-city". I am looking for studies that have run blind tests to >identify the race of American dialect speakers and any associated >articles. I know that some blacks can "sound white" and some whites >(specifically inner-city) do "sound black". (Whatever that really >means). > >Time is of the essence. Any help you can give me would be greatly >appreciated. > >Sincerely, > >Laurie Owens From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 23 14:00:48 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 09:00:48 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020122201524.04d129b0@nb.net> Message-ID: Where's the fish? dInIs >> Although the bird itself, I understand, is quite old, the OED takes >>this meaning of "bird" back only to 1968 - 1970 (which is shortly before I >>first heard the "finger" so called). So: Which came first, the bird or the >>perch? > >The finger gesture is old ... compared to young me, that is. I did not know >"the bird" in this sense ca. 1960; I think I heard it around 1970. Before >that I heard usually "the finger" IIRC. HDAS shows this "bird" from 1966. > >As for the perch, that's a fish, not a bird. The way I recall it, when I >was young(er) -- too young for the "dozens" or even the "sevens", maybe >doing the "half-dozens" -- before I knew "the bird" as a gesture -- one >line was something like "Do you like fish?" If answered "No", then of >course one put forth something like "Then here's some meat for you"; if >answered "Yes", one could say "Then perch on this." (With rude gesture >[usually not exactly the one-finger salute, though] in either case, >followed by [optional] yuk-yuk, arm-punch, palm-slap, etc.) I'm sure there >were other versions just as witty and elegant. > >-- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 23 14:08:32 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 09:08:32 -0500 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: <4324260.3220782744@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: Now now folks. Jeremy has lexicosis, and his state is simply more advanced than many of our honored list members who also prefer words to the near exclusion of other linguistic levels. dInIs >--On Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:21 pm +0200 Alexey Fuchs > wrote: > >> >>Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, I >>sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain >>topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far >>behind. > >Jeremy Diggz is someone who I think is on his way to being banned from this >list. Or at least I hope so. I'm writing to his ISP to complain. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 23 02:37:32 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 10:37:32 +0800 Subject: from "The DISH" Message-ID: I assume someone, if not everyone, on the list received an unsolicited memo from something called "the DISH" at the above address, which inter alia offers some pretentious, self-impressed words on the WOTY vote in San Francisco, along with some incorrect chronology (it depicts the Banned Words release from Lake Superior State as responding to the ADS vote for "9-11", when in fact our vote followed their release by several weeks). Toward the end, this memo also contains the following claim: ====== DISHing It Up Hot! On Words by Dot On 4 January 2002, the American Dialect Society (http://www.americandialect.org/) selected 9-11 as word of the year. Before the hijacked aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the numbers 9-11 formed a date understood only in North America. According to Dr. Wayne Glowka, an English professor at Georgia College and State University and head of the Dialect Society's new words committee, "9-11 is going to be like the 4th of July or Pearl Harbor." Glowka credits the media with being a primary conduit for new words. Presumably, this is the case for 9-11, because readers are left with the impression that media giant CNN coined the term chosen for this year. The DISH would like to take exception to this assumption. A review of The DISH archives shows that mere days after the 9-11 tragedy, "On 9-11" appeared in DISHing It Up Hot! (The DISH Vol. 4 No 37). Published September 21, 2001, "On 9-11" is a DISH original. And, until evidence to the contrary is presented, The DISH is the most likely media source of the word of the year for 2001. The DISH was not mentioned in any of the news reports covering the 2001 word of the year selection or ensuing controversy. ========== This is of course nonsense. A quick search of Nexis shows, among others, this cite: The Tampa Tribune September 13, 2001, Thursday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: NATION/WORLD, Pg. 18 HEADLINE: Flags Express Patriotic Support BYLINE: GEORGE WILKENS, gwilkens at tampatrib.com BODY: AREA RESIDENTS, BUSINESSES DISPLAY AMERICAN SYMBOL Not since Operation Desert Storm in 1991 has there been such a rush to buy American flags, owner John Kennedy said. Realtor Nicole Troupe, 26, improvised after visiting a Tampa Wal-Mart and finding the flags sold out. "I made it last night," she said proudly, displaying a T-shirt decorated with a flag and the words: "In remembrance of those fallen on 9-11, you will never be forgotten." ============= Notice that this appeared in print on 13 September, 8 days before The DISH's "original". I suppose this counts as "evidence to the contrary", although I'm not sure why the author of the memo assumes that "on 9-11" is the WOTY, rather than "9-11" itself, or for that matter why the quote from Wayne is seen as implicitly giving CNN credit for the first use of the WOTY. In any case, I hope the above quote from the Tampa Tribune, which is NOT the first use of "9-11" in the relevant sense (a number of papers published on September 12 used "9/11" or "9-11" to denote the attacks on the previous day, nor is either Mr. Wilkens or the T-shirt manufacturer claiming credit for inventing the term), should dispel the nonsense being dished out. Larry From betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 23 17:40:21 2002 From: betaphish at HOTMAIL.COM (Jeremy Diggz) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 17:40:21 +0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) Message-ID: I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! 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I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! I LOVE TO FUCK DOGS!! I WAS SPAMMED AND PLACED ON THIS SHIT BY THE BASTARDS FROM WWW.LUSSUMO.COM/UTOPIA SO BLAME THOSE BITCHES!! >From: "Dennis R. Preston" >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) >Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 09:08:32 -0500 > >Now now folks. Jeremy has lexicosis, and his state is simply more >advanced than many of our honored list members who also prefer words >to the near exclusion of other linguistic levels. > >dInIs > >>--On Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:21 pm +0200 Alexey Fuchs >> wrote: >> >>> >>>Have I missed something in this thread? Who is this Jeremy Diggz? Truly, >>>I >>>sometimes experience difficulties following a discussion on a certain >>>topic, but as far as I can remember, I have never been lagging so far >>>behind. >> >>Jeremy Diggz is someone who I think is on his way to being banned from >>this >>list. Or at least I hope so. I'm writing to his ISP to complain. >> _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 23 18:05:11 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 18:05:11 -0000 Subject: 9-11 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > ====== > DISHing It Up Hot! > On Words > by Dot > > On 4 January 2002, the American Dialect Society > (http://www.americandialect.org/) selected 9-11 as word of the year. > Before the hijacked aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and > Pentagon, the numbers 9-11 formed a date understood only in North America. > > According to Dr. Wayne Glowka, an English professor at Georgia College and > State University and head of the Dialect Society's new words committee, > "9-11 is going to be like the 4th of July or Pearl Harbor." Glowka > credits the media with being a primary conduit for new words. > Presumably, this is the case for 9-11, because readers are left with the > impression that media giant CNN coined the term chosen for this year. Ignoring the bits about 'the Dish' (whatever), I'd take some issue with Wayne Glowka's claim about the universality of 9-11. In spite of the close US/UK ties since then, I've not heard anyone here call it 9-11, it's always "11th of September" or "September 11th". When I was in the US over cmas, I was struck by how uninformly it's called '9-11' there, when we don't hear it at all over here. An example: A student yesterday was giving a presentation on Koko the gorilla. Koko apparently has made a statement on how she feels about the events. Anyhow, the student clearly had no idea what the site was referring to. She said something like "Patterson asked Koko about something called 9-11 or something, where some people died or something." I had to point out that that meant September 11th in "American"... Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 23 18:09:39 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 18:09:39 -0000 Subject: "word" (was: Goose/The Finger) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The way to report Jeremy Diggz's behaviour is to abuse at hotmail.com. I've done so, forwarding his last missive, but it probably wouldn't hurt for others to complain as well. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 18:41:18 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:41:18 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz Message-ID: I've taken the unusual step of unsubscribing Jeremy Diggz from ADS-L without bothering to contact him first. He hasn't contributed anything apart from his spewings so I didn't think it was worth too much discussion/ruminating, but I wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this is a suppression of free exchange, etc. After all, it wasn't specifically spam. Jesse Sheidlower co-listowner, ADS-L From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 23 20:05:35 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 14:05:35 -0600 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: <20020123184118.GA11459@panix.com> Message-ID: Thank you !!! DMLance > From: Jesse Sheidlower > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 13:41:18 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Mr. Diggz > > I've taken the unusual step of unsubscribing Jeremy Diggz > from ADS-L without bothering to contact him first. He hasn't > contributed anything apart from his spewings so I didn't > think it was worth too much discussion/ruminating, but I > wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this > is a suppression of free exchange, etc. After all, it wasn't > specifically spam. > > Jesse Sheidlower > co-listowner, ADS-L > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 23 20:36:46 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:36:46 -0500 Subject: Test message - please ignore Message-ID: [all will be explained] Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 20:51:04 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:51:04 -0500 Subject: Posting problems Message-ID: Yesterday I announced that I had restricted the posting rights on ADS-L to people who were subscribed to the list. This has had some unfortunate consequences for some people who are genuine members of the list but who have been unable to post. The general reason for this is that the Listserv program looks to see if the originating account is exactly the same as the subscribed account. If there are differences, even slight ones, the post will be rejected. For example, if your basic mail address is something like john at university.edu, and you subscribe with that address, but you actually post from an English department server that gives you the address john at english.university.edu, the post will be rejected. Similarly, if you have aliasing of your name, so that your account is under "jts24 at university.edu" but you usually use "john.smith at university.edu" for convenience, the post will be rejected. If your post is rejected, the rejection message will go to you only, and not to me or Terry. The best solution is for you to unsubscribe under the current address and resubscribe under the correct address. If you have difficulty doing this or are uncertain about the process, please e-mail me or Terry. Sorry for any confusion. I do think that the change will have a real affect on the amount of spam on the list. There is, as I mentioned, an intermediate solution that we can try if this change causes too many problems with posting. Best, Jesse Sheidlower co-listowner, ADS-L From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 23 20:52:42 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:52:42 -0500 Subject: Test message - please ignore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >[all will be explained] Jesse has done it for me. Thanks, Jesse. Bethany From stevekl at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 23 21:02:44 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 16:02:44 -0500 Subject: coney dogs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well, those of you in Michigan know about coney dogs: hot dogs with a savory meat sauce, served with chopped onion and mustard. There's the wet, Detroit variety, and the dry Flint variety, and if you want to try them side by side, the Coney restaurant off of US-23 in Fenton serves both the Flint and the Detroit style. I recall this discussion from the past. The wet Detroit sauce is chili-esque, but the dry Flint one I've never seen anywhere else. Anyhow, I found out the 'secret ingredient' that makes that gives the Flint style coneys their unusual texture: it's ground beef heart. -- Steve From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 23 21:49:20 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 16:49:20 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: <20020123184118.GA11459@panix.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: #I've taken the unusual step of unsubscribing Jeremy Diggz #from ADS-L without bothering to contact him first. He hasn't #contributed anything apart from his spewings so I didn't #think it was worth too much discussion/ruminating, but I #wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this #is a suppression of free exchange, etc. After all, it wasn't #specifically spam. Thank you. It was worse than spam, which at least, sometimes, offers some content that someone, somewhere, may value. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 23 21:17:48 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 16:17:48 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz Message-ID: jester at PANIX.COM,Net writes: >I >wanted to mention it publicly in case anyone felt that this >is a suppression of free exchange Dear Jesse and the rest of the listers: I have been on a number of radio interview programs where callers were screened with a time delay. When an "unacceptable" or "inappropriate" comment justified cutting off the caller, there was no hesitation. I would suggest that you, Jesse, were certainly justified in cutting off Mr. Diggz. "Free exchanges" should not be so free as to allow for offense. People have gone to jail for verbal assaults. I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 24 04:05:51 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 23:05:51 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: #I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. Oh, certainly. And, to get this on topic (not that list policy is off-topic), such people on the Internet are known as trolls. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jan 24 05:03:40 2002 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 21:03:40 -0800 Subject: Posting problems Message-ID: a test to see if this works. (mail goes out @turing.stanford.edu, but @csli.stanford.edu is the standard address for incoming mail, though "turing" will work too.) there's going to be a problem at places with dynamic selection of servers, and for people who use different physical machines on different occasions. i suppose the solution for the latter problem is that people will have to remember which machine they're subscribed under, and then avoid posting to ADS from any of the other machines. arnold From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 24 11:37:00 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 06:37:00 -0500 Subject: The Finger/the birdbi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>Are there any languages where a "gan-" named bird brings the baby instead of >>the stork? Isn't Ganz* = bastard? I see that I was a bit geo-centric in >>thinking "the bird" was well known to be the goose. >There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. >"Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for >a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm >told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive >homosexual--but the form has shifted to "gunsel" and the meaning to >'gunman, hood, thug', e.g. in The Maltese Falcon (early 1940's). >It's been reconfigured to evoke a a firearm rather than a waterfowl. Mencken mentioned "guntzel" in 1936, I think, as tramps' slang for what we might gloss "punk", i.e., a tramp's boy companion, presumably usually or often a catamite; "guntzel" was also (later?) used for "fool" in carny slang. I think this indeed looks like "gosling" in Yiddish or perhaps some other German dialect, although why/how the word was adopted into English isn't clear to me. It seems to me that the original picture might have been of a gosling following behind its mother. A synonym was "prushun", and I've seen this more often, in tramp studies (from ca. 1920 and later), This word seems somewhat mysterious, sometimes said to be derived from "impression" (perhaps in the sense of "impressionable"; or perhaps originally something like [the older tramp's] "[spitten] image" or "proteg?"), although it's tempting to equate it to "Prussian" (with what implication I don't know). Perhaps some Germanicist can explain why the umlaut is omitted ... i.e. (in my primitive conception) why it's like "gansel"/"gunsel" rather than "g?nsel"/"gensel". -- Doug Wilson From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 24 12:30:12 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 07:30:12 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And people who live in Lower Michigan (i.e., people who are not "Yoopers") are known as "trolls" because they live "below the bridge." At least here's a form we can date with some better accuracy since we know when the bridge was built. dInIs >On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote: > >#I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. > >Oh, certainly. And, to get this on topic (not that list policy is >off-topic), such people on the Internet are known as trolls. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large -- 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 24 11:51:14 2002 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 06:51:14 -0500 Subject: Mr. Diggz Message-ID: mam at THEWORLD.COM,Net writes: >#I submit that Mr. Diggz was writing in order to offend. >Oh, certainly. And, to get this on topic (not that list policy is >off-topic), such people on the Internet are known as trolls. Trolls, perhaps. This one is the same breed as the obscene phone caller and deserves the same punishment. Suspension from the list is all we can do short of making a federal case out of it. But, it's likely he'll just find another victim--or set of victims. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU Thu Jan 24 13:12:42 2002 From: maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU (Natalie Maynor) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 07:12:42 -0600 Subject: Posting problems In-Reply-To: <200201240503.g0O53e311945@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: At 09:03 PM 1/23/02 -0800, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >will have to remember which machine >they're subscribed under, and then avoid posting to ADS from any >of the other machines. A better solution, imho, is to subscribe from all of the addresses you're likely to use and then set all but one of them to nomail. This isn't the first time ADS-L has been "send=private" -- we did this at some point back when I was listowner. I can't remember now when and why we went back to "send=public." -- Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu) From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 24 14:01:31 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:01:31 -0500 Subject: donut/doughnut effect [Fwd from Paul Frank] Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from Paul Frank ----- From: "Paul Frank" To: Subject: Re: Posting problems Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 07:37:12 +0100 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Subject: donut/doughnut effect >>From this week's Economist: "Whilst the centre [of Birmingham, West Midlands not Alabama] has prospered, those parts of the city that planners call the 'inner suburb' have crumbled, leaving many stranded in the no-man's land between the booming centre and the plush outer suburbs. Planners call this the 'doughnut effect', which confusingly describes the opposite phenomenon to the 'donut effect' that American planners talk of. The American donut, a sugary ring with an empty centre, is a fine metaphor for the rich suburbs around a collapsed inner city. The British doughnut, a lump of indifferent carbohydrate with jam in the middle, describes rich inner-city development surrounded by acres of doom." Paul _________________________________ Paul Frank English translation from Chinese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Cell phone: +33 681 146 755 - France E-mail: paulfrank at post.harvard.edu From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 24 14:06:25 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:06:25 -0500 Subject: Posting problems In-Reply-To: <200201240503.g0O53e311945@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 09:03:40PM -0800, Arnold Zwicky wrote: > a test to see if this works. (mail goes out @turing.stanford.edu, > but @csli.stanford.edu is the standard address for incoming mail, > though "turing" will work too.) It works. > there's going to be a problem at places with dynamic selection > of servers, and for people who use different physical machines > on different occasions. i suppose the solution for the latter > problem is that people will have to remember which machine > they're subscribed under, and then avoid posting to ADS from any > of the other machines. As Natalie suggests, the best solution for this would be to subscribe under every reasonable address, and set all but one to nomail. That way you'll only get mail delivered to a single address, and won't get multiple copies of things, but you'll be a listmember from any address so can send without worrying about it. Jesse Sheidlower From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 01:51:56 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:51:56 +0800 Subject: gunsel In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020124055630.04913b20@nb.net> Message-ID: At 6:37 AM -0500 1/24/02, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>There's a neat folk etymology sponsored by that particular goose. >>"Gunsel" was originally "ganzel" < Yiddish gendzl 'little goose', for >>a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man >... > >Perhaps some Germanicist can explain why the umlaut is omitted ... i.e. (in >my primitive conception) why it's like "gansel"/"gunsel" rather than >"g?nsel"/"gensel". > >-- Doug Wilson Note that based on the derivation I cited above, borrowed from the HDAS, the English version really *ought* to be "genzel" or "gentsel" rather than "ganzel" > "gunsel", and while the current version reflects folk etymology, it's harder to imagine that having happened if the vowel really were [E] before the reanalysis. So as Doug says, it's puzzling--unless there was a spelling pronunciation, which seems unlikely, how and why would "gendzl" have turned into (back-voweled) "ganzel"? larry From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 15:18:36 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 10:18:36 -0500 Subject: "Collateral Damage" Message-ID: On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Baker, John wrote: > Warner v. Bacon, 8 Gray 397, 74 Mass. 397, 69 Am.Dec. 253 (1857). The > Battley v. Faulkner case quoted in this passage appears to be an English > case that is older than the 1839 case Fred found, although I have not been > able to find its text or determine its exact date (sometime between 1810 and > 1830). Here is the citation, verified from the book: 1820 Richard V. Barnewall & Edward H. Alderson _Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of King's Bench_ III. 294 Mere collateral damage must be stated in the declaration, in order to entitle the plaintiff to give it in evidence, lest otherwise the defendant might be taken by surprise. 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 editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Thu Jan 24 15:54:35 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:54:35 -0600 Subject: Posting problems Message-ID: >As Natalie suggests, the best solution for this would be to >subscribe under every reasonable address, and set all but one >to nomail. That way you'll only get mail delivered to a single >address, and won't get multiple copies of things, but you'll >be a listmember from any address so can send without worrying >about it. > If you need to set nomail, the command is SET ADS-L NOMAIL, sent to the subscription address (listserv at uga.cc.uga.edu), from the address you're setting to nomail. Don't send this to the list! I'd like to ask that we add the instructions for subbing from multiple addresses and setting nomail to the ADS-L list information page on the ADS website. (Steve?) Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 24 16:22:59 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 11:22:59 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings Message-ID: Someone posted: "I first encountered "three-finger(ed) salute" in the Boy Scouts, and "two-finger(ed) salute" in Cub Scouts. Goes back way before my time." I was a Cub Scout in the late 1940s, and recall that the Cubs used a two-finger salute, and that we were promised that if we persevered and became Boy Scouts, we would be allowed to give a salute with three fingers. I might point out that Archer Taylor wrote a short book in the mid 1950s on the "Shanghai Gesture", aka cocking a snoot. (Published in Helsinki in 1956 as FF Communication 66.1) I read it many years ago, and was fascinated by the means Prof. Taylor used to document the history of a hand-gesture. Also: there are two chapters in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel in which characters "debate" in obscene and insulting gestures. Someone raised the question of the species of the bird under Casey Stengel's hat. I looked in the index of Robert Creamer's bio of Stengel, fruitlessly. It needs to be a bird likely to be found in a baseball stadium and small enough to fit under a hat. I have seen Black-crowned Night Herons while at Yankee Stadium, but they are too big. Plus, they were just flying past. (For you birdwatchers out there: no, I didn't see the marks that distinguish them from Yellow- crowned Night Herons, but the latter are even less common around NYC than the Black-crowned.) Dave Winfield notoriously hit and killed a gull with a throw from the outfield, and was arrested for cruelty to animals; but gulls, though sometimes common in ballparks, are also large. I speculate a sparrow. Dashiell Hammett's use of "Gunsel". I remember having read many years ago that Hammett had bet someone that he would put an indecent word into the Maltese Falcon. A quick check of several Hammett bios doesn't entirely confirm this, but William F. Nolan's Hammett: A Life at the Edge says: "Strong editorial censorship existed in the popular magazines during this period. *** Sex was a problem. Brigid's line, "I'm not ashamed to be naked before you" was dropped. . . . *** Hammett's line from Spade "How long have you been off the gooseberry lay, son?" was changed to "How long have you been off the lay?" since [his editor] was certain Hammett had something gamy in mind. He was mistaken. A "gooseberry lay" was crook slang for stealing wash form a clothesline. However, [his editor] did not touch the line "Keep that gunsel away from me. . . ." He assumed that the word "gunsel" meant gunman. Actually, it was a homosexual term that meant "kept boy." (pp. 93-94) GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 16:51:07 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 11:51:07 -0500 Subject: Military Usage of "Collateral Damage" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower tells me that the earliest military citation in the OED's files for "collateral damage" is dated 1975. Here's an earlier one: 1961 Thomas C. Schelling in _Operations Research_ IX. 365 Measures to locate and design our strategic forces so as to minimize collateral damage...would not have, or would have only to a very small extent, this 'destabilizing' influence. 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 24 04:20:45 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:20:45 +0800 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: <19388c819360c7.19360c719388c8@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: At 11:22 AM -0500 1/24/02, George Thompson wrote: > >Dashiell Hammett's use of "Gunsel". I remember having read many years >ago that Hammett had bet someone that he would put an indecent word >into the Maltese Falcon. A quick check of several Hammett bios doesn't >entirely confirm this, but William F. Nolan's Hammett: A Life at the >Edge says: "Strong editorial censorship existed in the popular >magazines during this period. *** Sex was a problem. Brigid's >line, "I'm not ashamed to be naked before you" was dropped. . . . *** >Hammett's line from Spade "How long have you been off the gooseberry >lay, son?" was changed to "How long have you been off the lay?" since >[his editor] was certain Hammett had something gamy in mind. He was >mistaken. A "gooseberry lay" was crook slang for stealing wash form a >clothesline. However, [his editor] did not touch the line "Keep that >gunsel away from me. . . ." He assumed that the word "gunsel" meant >gunman. Actually, it was a homosexual term that meant "kept boy." >(pp. 93-94) > Interesting story, but I wonder. The Hammett use of "gunsel" appears in the OED listing as one of several cites, of which it is not the first, under the Sense 1 heading 'a (na?ve) youth; a tramp's young companion, male lover; a homosexual youth' rather than the Sense 2 heading of 'an informer, a criminal, a gunman', but the problem is that these categories are not entirely disjoint, since some criminals are youths and vice versa. The fact that the first cite in the OED is 1914 JACKSON & HELLYER Vocab. Criminal Slang 40 Gunshel, current amongst yeggs chiefly. A boy; a youth; a neophyte of trampdom. makes one wonder whether it's accurate to say that as of 1930 "actually, it was a homosexual term that meant 'kept boy'". True, the kid in The Maltese Falcon referred to above is a gunman, but he's also a youth; and we've seen that the first sense glossed above doesn't invariably imply 'kept boy'. Further, the version in TMF, published by Knopf in 1930, wasn't the first time Hammett used the term in print; the OED cite of the line is 1929 D. HAMMETT in Black Mask Nov. 43/1 Keep that gunsel away from me while you're making up your mind Assuming this is an earlier version in "a popular magazine" of what would be published in book form as TMF a year later, it makes one wonder whether the above story (putting an indecent word into TMF to win a bet, and assuming it would be read as 'gunman' rather than in the more general "yegg" use as 'boy, youth, neophyte') is really accurate. Still, it's at least possible that Hammett (especially via the 1941 Huston/Bogart movie version) helped move "gunsel" from OED's sense 1 to its sense 2. Larry From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 24 17:30:46 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:30:46 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The HDAS entry may be more useful here than the OED. For etymology, it speculates that the vowel is probably from a blend with English _gun_; this speculation would have come from David Gold, who knows more about the etymologizing of Yiddish words in English than anyone else. > Interesting story, but I wonder. The Hammett use of "gunsel" appears > in the OED listing as one of several cites, of which it is not the > first, under the Sense 1 heading 'a (na?ve) youth; a tramp's young > companion, male lover; a homosexual youth' rather than the Sense 2 > heading of 'an informer, a criminal, a gunman', but the problem is > that these categories are not entirely disjoint, since some criminals > are youths and vice versa. The fact that the first cite in the OED is > > 1914 JACKSON & HELLYER Vocab. Criminal Slang 40 Gunshel, current > amongst yeggs chiefly. A boy; a youth; a neophyte of trampdom. > > makes one wonder whether it's accurate to say that as of 1930 > "actually, it was a homosexual term that meant 'kept boy'". True, HDAS has a 1910 example for the 'raw youth' sense. It also has a separate entry for the specific 'catamite' sense, with two clear pre-1930 cites, one from American Speech. > Assuming this is an earlier version in "a popular magazine" of what > would be published in book form as TMF a year later, it makes one > wonder whether the above story (putting an indecent word into TMF to > win a bet, and assuming it would be read as 'gunman' rather than in > the more general "yegg" use as 'boy, youth, neophyte') is really > accurate. Still, it's at least possible that Hammett (especially via > the 1941 Huston/Bogart movie version) helped move "gunsel" from OED's > sense 1 to its sense 2. I do think that the 'gunman' sense derives from a misunderstanding of the word specifically as used in the movie version of TMF. Jesse Sheidlower OED From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 24 19:40:11 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 14:40:11 EST Subject: GUNSEL: definition Message-ID: I think Mencken's definition is better than the first one given. GUNSELs were not "gay" or even necessarily "homosexual," though persons so designated may have been forced into anal intercourse by circumstances such as surviving in prison or in the world of tramps in the 1920s and 1930s. Or relationship may not even have been sexual--Robin is sort of Batman's gunsel. In a message dated 1/24/02 6:40:32 AM, douglas at NB.NET writes: << >"Gunsel" was originally ... >a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm >told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive >homosexual Mencken mentioned "guntzel" in 1936, I think, as tramps' slang for what we might gloss "punk", i.e., a tramp's boy companion, presumably usually or often a catamite>> From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 24 07:14:01 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 15:14:01 +0800 Subject: GUNSEL: definition In-Reply-To: <2d.1750e9d3.2981bd1b@aol.com> Message-ID: At 2:40 PM -0500 1/24/02, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >I think Mencken's definition is better than the first one given. GUNSELs were >not "gay" or even necessarily "homosexual," though persons so designated may >have been forced into anal intercourse by circumstances such as surviving in >prison or in the world of tramps in the 1920s and 1930s. Or relationship may >not even have been sexual--Robin is sort of Batman's gunsel. > may not have been KNOWN TO BE sexual; there's been a lot of speculation about those two. Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 00:53:15 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 19:53:15 EST Subject: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants Message-ID: CANE JUICE: A STORY OF SOUTHERN LOUISIANA by James Earle Uhler Century Co., NY 1931 This book supposedly got its author fired from LSU...Another person by this name (his son?) wrote a bibliography of Louisiana cookbooks. I was looking for LA food in this novel. Pg. 35: "Is everybody happy?" he called. Pg. 46: "I'd hate to get hog-lawed," (Pg. 47--ed.) he'd say. The "hog-law" was dismissal from the university because of deficiency in studies. Pg. 46: He knew how to hand-shake the professors, how to "get their leg" as the expression runs. Pg. 68: "Have you ever tried a sazerak?" Frank asked. Pg. 108: "Judas' priest! L.S.U.'s a lousy school." Pg. 109: "Judas' priest!" (As in "Judas's priest"?--ed.) Pg. 119: ...--the "you-and-me-both" spirit--... Pg. 192: "...he's a flea-bitten, mangy, wall-eyed, swaybacked wallapaloosis!" (Related to "lallapaloosa"?--ed.) Pg. 257: Football, bull sessions, dances, liquor, women!--it was not for him. Pg. 273: ...--and moochers and snowbirds?--... Pg. 290: Cocktails and high-balls flowed freely--and cafe brule, a mixture of coffee and whisky and spices burned in a large silver dish--and sangaree punch. Pg. 329: "You think I'm a Cajun red-neck, _hein_?" he snapped. -------------------------------------------------------- SAN FRANCISCO RESTAURANTS I've been going through 1980s books on San Francisco restaurants, looking for "General Tso's Chicken" in Chinatown and "tiramisu" in the Italian restaurants. The Jinx Morgan book on SF Chinese Restaurants (1976) resulted in a typical NYPL screwup--two books with the same call number, and the NYPL can find only the wrong book. TWO HUNDRED GOOD RESTAURANTS: A GUIDE TO EATING IN SAN FRANCISCO & THE BAY AREA by Russell S. Riera and CHris Smith Moss Publications, CA 1981 (first edition 1980) This book contains some food history from Robert Hendrickson's FOODS FOR LOVE (1974) that's just awful. Pg. 22 (Tai Chi, 2031 Polk Street, near Broadway): _Menu Specialties_...General Tsuo's Chicken (a country-style dish. Pieces of chicken encased in a golden crust, and served in a light, reddish sauce that looks like liquid jewels.) Pg. 182 (The Royal Mandarin, 234 Northgate Shopping Center): _Menu Specialties_...General Cho Chicken (the menu says it's "Diced Chicken Breast with Special Sauce." And the menu is very accurate--the dish's spicy sherry and ginger-scented sauce is special.) RESTAURANTS OF SAN FRANCISCO by Patricia Unterman and Stan Sesser Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1984 Pg. 153 (Taiwan Restaurant): Another rich chicken dish is _General Tsuo chicken_, a dish from Hunan, described as "Mao Tse-Tung's hometown famous dish." RESTAURANTS OF SAN FRANCISCO: NEW REVIEWS FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE by Patricia Unerman and Stan Sesser Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1988 Pg. 74 (E'Angelo, 2234 Chestnut Street): For dessert there's Stella Bakery's lovely sacripantina cake, with its delicate layers of genoise and zabaglione cream, and a house-made _tiramisu_, that generic dessert of coffee-soaked cake with mascarpone or Italian creme fraiche. Served in a goblet here, the _tiramisu_ was a little joy. (...) --Patricia Unterman, June 28, 1987 Pg. 82 (Ristorante Firenze, 1421 Stockton): For dessert, the restaurant makes its own _tiramisu_ with layers of coffee-soaked sponge cake and mascarpone, or Italian creme fraiche. (...) --Patricia Unterman, September 6, 1987 From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 25 03:16:52 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 22:16:52 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: <19388c819360c7.19360c719388c8@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, 24 Jan 2002, George Thompson wrote: #I might point out that Archer Taylor wrote a short book in the mid #1950s on the "Shanghai Gesture", aka cocking a snoot. Hmm. I know this only as "cocking a snook" (and mostly from British text, at that), but I'm not surprised at the final k->t, esp. since it's done on the nose (snout, snoot). --- Or was "cocking a snoot" the earlier form? -- Mark A. Mandel From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 07:27:06 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, Bulgur, Dolma (1803? 1812?) Message-ID: TRAVELS THROUGH THE SOUTHERN PROVINCES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, IN THE YEARS 1793 AND 1794. translated from the German of P. S. Pallas second edition, in two volumes London: John Stockdale 1812 Arno Press and The New York Times, NY 1970 OED cites this book for "fez" and "vodka." "1812" is given, along with "1802-1803." However, how could OED miss everything else? "Dolma," which it has for 1889? And "bulgur"! OED has 1934!!!! Merriam-Webster has 1926!!!! VOLUME ONE Pg. 496: ...the Russians import dried fruits, marmelade made of boiled grapes, called Bekmess, and that of other fruit, called (Pg. 497--ed.) Nardenk; Anadolian nuts, which are sent to the interior of the country; gall nuts, called Balamut.... Pg. 412: The excellent honey which they produce, is partly made into mead after having been diluted with boiling water, partly used with a fermented liquor made of millet, and called _Busa_, and partly consumed at the table. Pg. 410: Their principal species of grain is millet, of which they make cakes, hasty puddings, and prepare various kinds of pastry, as well as their common beverage, by the natives called _Hantkups_, and by the Kozaks of Terek, _Yantzokh_. VOLUME TWO Pg. 347: ..._Fez_.... Pg. 359 (CRIMEA): Among the most esteemed delicacies are, forced-meat-balls wrapped in green vine or sorrel-leaves, and called Sarma; various fruits, as cucumbers, quinces, or apples, filled with minced meat, _Dolma_; stuffed cucumbers; dishes of melons, _Badilshan_, and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _Bamia_, prepared in various ways with spices or saffron; all of which are served up with rice; also _Pelaw_, or rice, boiled in meat-broth, till it becomes dry; fat mutton and lamb, both boiled and roasted, &c. Pg. 360: ...a kind of pelaw, made either of dried or bruised unripe wheat, and which they call _Bulgur_; and, lastly, their bread is generally composed of mixed grain. Their ordinary beverage is made by triturating and dissolving cheese in water; the former of which is called _Yasma_, being prepared from coagulated milk, or _Yugurt_; but the fashionale intoxicating drink is an ill-tasted and very strong beer, or _Busa_, brewed of ground millet. Many persons also drink a spiritous liquor, _Arraki_.... Pg. 429: Formerly, the Tartars prepared large quantities of _Bekmess_, or marmalade, and _Misseless_, or syrup, from their grapes. Pg. 484: ..._Sekiskaya-Vodka_, or brandy distilled from fruit, and the lees of grapes.... Pg. 486: ...such commerce might be still farther extended by importing Brusian silk, Angora-goats' hair, and many simple drugs, which can be procured at a lower rate directly from the Levant, as well as fafflower ("S" or "F"?--ed.), madder, and saffron. (OED has 1819 and 1867 entries for "angora"--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 07:58:22 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 02:58:22 EST Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) Message-ID: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens) From NEW YORK magazine, 28 August 1978, pg. 107, col. 1: The place has become vastly popular from the sad day of its grand opening, for it is the perfect attraction for tourists and for what certain Manhattan restaurant staffs refer to as BBQ people (Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens). (I haven't heard this used by Manhattan restaurant staffs--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- JEEP, SHUTTERBUG (1939) I've been going through BOYS' LIFE looking for "trick or treat" and soda jerk slang ("86"). I'll have more on Saturday. A check for BOYS' LIFE in OED shows zero hits. No one has read it? "SHUTTERBUG!" is a title for a story in September 1939, pg. 10. OED's first citation is AMERICAN SPEECH (1940). See "THE JEEP SPECIAL" in May 1939. It's about a model airplane(?). From July 1939, pg. 30: "The Chinese wall is the only structure made by human hands that would be visible by the astronomers of the moon." (I thought this--is it true?--began with space flight in the 1960s.--ed.) From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 25 13:27:49 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 08:27:49 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Hmm. I know this only as "cocking a snook" (and mostly from British >text, at that), but I'm not surprised at the final k->t, esp. since it's >done on the nose (snout, snoot). --- Or was "cocking a snoot" the >earlier form? Apparently it was either "cock" or "cut" and either "a snook" or "a snooks" back in the 19th C. ... I don't know for sure what the "snook" means/meant ... there is a Scots verb "snoke"/"snook" = "nose"/"prowl"/"snort"/etc.; I wonder whether there was once a noun form something like "nose" ... now that I think of it, I wonder whether "snoop" in its modern sense might be a descendent of this "snook" (the putative Dutch ancestor "snoepen" seems far removed in sense). "Snooks" is of course a surname too. There was also something like "take a sight" = "cock a snook" ... I suppose this might liken the nose-gesture to the use of a sextant or so? -- Doug Wilson From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 25 14:21:12 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:21:12 -0500 Subject: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants In-Reply-To: <132.7eeecd6.2982067c@aol.com> Message-ID: Minor reaction: I guess I've never paid extremely close attention, but the spelling "Judas' priest" with apostrophe seems odd to me. As a fairly ordinary taboo-deformation of "Jesus Christ" it seems entirely unnecessary (for want of a better word) to make "Judas" possessive, either in the orthography or in pronunciation with an extra syllable (a pronunciation I've never heard, myself--anybody else heard it?). On Thu, 24 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Pg. 108: "Judas' priest! L.S.U.'s a lousy school." > Pg. 109: "Judas' priest!" (As in "Judas's priest"?--ed.) From AAllan at AOL.COM Fri Jan 25 14:59:19 2002 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:59:19 EST Subject: Words of the Year 2001: Newsletter report Message-ID: This is the report that will go in the ADS newsletter. - Allan Metcalf SEPT. 11 ATTACKS OVERWHELM 2001 WORDS OF THE YEAR Dominating the American Dialect Society choices for words of the year 2001 were words for the terrorist attacks of September 11, as the attacks themselves dominated the conversation of Americans after that date. In San Francisco January 4, members and friends of the society voted "9-11" or "September 11" in its various written and spoken forms--including "9/11," "9.11," "nine-one-one" and "nine-eleven"--as the word (or in this case, expression) of the year. In the final show of hands there were 29 votes for "9-11," 10 for "burka," the garment worn by Muslim women in Afghanistan and elsewhere; 5 for "homeland" as in "homeland security"; 4 for "theoterrorism," attacks on civilians for a religious purpose; 4 for "misunderestimate," President Bush's coinage; and 2 for "ground zero," the site of the collapsed World Trade Towers after the attack. Since 1990, the society has chosen words of the year at its annual meeting. They are words that are new or newly prominent, reflecting the concerns and conversations of speakers of American English during the preceding year. All voting is open by show of hands, and participants are invited to speak for or against particular choices before the vote. In the eight categories leading to the final vote on words of the year, post-9-11 terms were likewise dominant. These were the winners, with approximate votes for each: 1. Most outrageous: "assoline" (44) methane used as fuel. Other candidates: "burka blue" (11) the color of the head-to-toe garment worn by some Afghan women. Preliminary vote "assoline" (23), "burka blue" (15), "Osamaniac" (10) woman sexually attracted to Osama bin Laden, "cuddle puddle" (3) pile of Ecstasy users on the floor. 2. Most euphemistic: "daisy cutter" (45) large bomb that explodes a few feet above the ground. Others: "women of cover" (9) Bushism for Muslim women who wear traditional dress, "sneakers-up" (1) a dot-com that goes belly-up. 3. Most likely to succeed: "9-11" (50). Others: "weaponize" (10) adapt anthrax, shoes, etc. for use as a weapon, "ground zero" (5) site of the collapsed World Trade Center towers, "pop-under" (3) Internet ad appearing under the main browser window. 4. Most useful (tie): "facial profiling" (29) scanning video "faceprints" to identify terrorists and criminals, and "second-hand speech" (28) cell phone conversations heard by others in public places. Others in preliminary votes: "linguistic profiling" (15) using language clues to identify a person's ethnicity and other characteristics, "theoterrorism" (9), "weapons-grade" (4) potent as in weapons-grade salsa, "annoyicon" (3) logo in bottom corner of a TV screen, "overconnectedness" (3) being connected everywhere all the time, "debris surge" or "debris storm" (1) spread of debris from a collapsing building, "to table" (1) to staff an informational table. 5. Most creative: "shuicide bomber" (26) terrorist with bomb in shoes. Others: "orthorexia nervosa" (11) obsession with eating the right foods, "second-hand speech" (8), "_so_ September 10" (5) petty or oblivious to possible danger, "Netwallah" (3) website administrator, "assoline" (1). 6. Most unnecessary: "impeachment nostalgia" (27) longing for the superficial news of the Clinton era. Others: "the terrorists will have already won if--" (15), "E.C." (15) emotionally correct as in properly responding to tragedy. Preliminary vote "desk rage" (2) tantrum in the office. 7. Least likely to succeed: "Osamaniac" (50). Others: "dot-orging" (4) changing employment from a dot-com to a nonprofit dot-org, "interruptible" (0) an energy customer allowing interruption of service for a lower rate. There was one additional special category this year: 8. Most inspirational: "Let's roll!" (unanimous) the words of Todd Beamer on United Flight 93 before the attack that foiled the hijackers on September 11, words later repeated by President Bush and put into a song by Neil Young. The next words of the year vote, for the year 2002, will take place in Atlanta January 3, 2003, at the society's annual meeting. Nominations may be sent to the chair of the society's New Words Committee, Professor Wayne Glowka, Department of English and Speech, Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville Georgia 31061, wglowka at mail.gcsu.edu. From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 25 15:40:38 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:40:38 -0600 Subject: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I've always been puzzled by the construction. Is it "the priest of Judas" (possessive), which would anachronistically be Jesus himself? Or does the expression ironically bestow priesthood on Judas? Or is it just a complex set of phonetic metatheses and substitutions (z --> d; k --> p, [ai] --> [i]? I assume the latter, with no apostrophe. DMLance > From: Benjamin Fortson > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:21:12 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Cane Juice (1931); SF Restaurants > > Minor reaction: I guess I've never paid extremely close attention, but the > spelling "Judas' priest" with apostrophe seems odd to me. As a fairly ordinary > taboo-deformation of "Jesus Christ" it seems entirely unnecessary (for > want of a better word) to make "Judas" possessive, either in the > orthography or in pronunciation with an extra syllable (a pronunciation > I've never heard, myself--anybody else heard it?). > > On Thu, 24 Jan 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> Pg. 108: "Judas' priest! L.S.U.'s a lousy school." >> Pg. 109: "Judas' priest!" (As in "Judas's priest"?--ed.) > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 25 16:10:59 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:10:59 -0500 Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, &c Message-ID: >>From Barry Popik's 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST post: " and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _" Another case where ("S" or "F"?--ed.) might well have been inserted. A. Murie From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Fri Jan 25 15:52:41 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:52:41 -0600 Subject: Weird Words of Wall Street In-Reply-To: <1e.220f87ab.2982ccc7@aol.com> Message-ID: Found while looking up other things, as usual: http://www.schwabon.com/Article.asp?article_id=108&category_code=4&partner_id=4 There are two other lists, links to which are in the sidebar on the right, near the bottom. --Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Fri Jan 25 16:00:13 2002 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (Paul M. Johnson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:00:13 -0600 Subject: GUNSEL: batman/robin Message-ID: snip > >not even have been sexual--Robin is sort of Batman's gunsel. > > > may not have been KNOWN TO BE sexual; there's been a lot of > speculation about those two. > > Larry Old Johnnie Carson question man joke: Answer: Cockrobin Question: "What's that in my mouth, Batman?" From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Fri Jan 25 16:13:06 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:13:06 -0600 Subject: Professor Single's Hip Vocabulary Guide In-Reply-To: Message-ID: from yesterday's Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0201240017jan24.story --Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 25 16:44:03 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:44:03 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings Message-ID: Mark A Mandel questions whether "cocking a snoot" isn't properly "cocking a snook". Actually, neither phrase is in my active vocabulary, and I may have been mistaken. Douglas G. Wilson suggests a possible association with one's hand- position while using a sextant: It has been 30+ years since I read his book, but as I recall Prof. Taylor's conclusion, it was that the gesture could not be documented before relatively recent times, perhaps the beginning of the 19th C., and that he supposed that it was a parody of a military salute, which, it seems, also came into use relatively recently. In "anecdotal" support of this supposition, my father, when in his cups -- not an infrequent state of affairs -- would sometimes give a brisk salute to no one in particular, then cry, "Ah, but don't turn your head", turning his head toward his right shoulder as he spoke, which changed the salute into a nose-thumbing gesture. He was a veteran of the WWI army. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 25 16:59:36 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:59:36 -0500 Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, &c In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Should be "esculentus"; must be the old-style s that looks nearly like a lower-case f. (You can always tell the difference, unless badly smudged, by the horizontal stroke, which is only on the left side of the stem in the s and does not cross through it as in the f.) Presumably "Hibiscus" was recognized as not being "Hibifcus" because of its familiarity... Ben On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, sagehen wrote: > >From Barry Popik's 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST post: > > " and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _" > Another case where ("S" or "F"?--ed.) might well have been inserted. > A. Murie > From dave at WILTON.NET Fri Jan 25 17:50:50 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:50:50 -0800 Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) In-Reply-To: <31.2179ac19.29826a1f@aol.com> Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Bapopik at AOL.COM Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 11:58 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) >See "THE JEEP SPECIAL" in May 1939. It's about a model airplane(?). Not surprising. "Jeep" was used in aviation circles in the '30s and '40s. Mencken (Sup. II, p. 784) records that "jeep" was a slang term for the Link trainer in the late-1930s. (Actually, he doesn't mention a date, but I infer from the context that this is the period.) The Link trainer, patented 1931, was the first true flight simulator. HDAS records a 1941 American Speech citation for this sense. HDAS also records the term's use 1942-7 for a small observation plane. There are also current references to 1940 uses of "jeep" to refer to the Northrop N-1M, an mockup of an early flying wing design (HDAS & http://www.nasm.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/northN1M.htm). From simon at IPFW.EDU Fri Jan 25 18:32:20 2002 From: simon at IPFW.EDU (Beth Simon) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 13:32:20 -0500 Subject: Words of the Year 2001: Newsletter report Message-ID: Hi Allan, Great WOTY session! I'd like to propose adding a category: Scariest word of the year. thanks, beth From acurzan at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 25 18:36:39 2002 From: acurzan at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Anne Curzan) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:36:39 -0800 Subject: Conference Circular: SHEL-2 Message-ID: A notice for all interested participants in SHEL-2: Studies in the History of the English Language II (SHEL-2) Registration forms are available on the web site for SHEL-2, and the conference program will be available on the web site by the end of January: . Place: University of Washington in Seattle Date: March 22-24, 2002 Paper Sessions and Plenary Talks: Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 23 Conference Banquet: Saturday Evening, March 23 Pedagogy Workshop: Sunday Morning (9 AM - 1 PM), March 24 Website: http://staff.washington.edu/kke/shel2 Plenary speakers: Douglas Biber (Northern Arizona University) David Lightfoot (Georgetown University) Donka Minkova (UCLA) We encourage interested participants to register and book rooms early, and we look forward to welcoming many of you to Seattle for this conference in March. You can find information about hotels, etc., on the web site. If you have any questions, please contact Anne Curzan (acurzan at u.washington.edu). Purpose and Objectives: The first Studies in the History of the English Language Conference (SHEL-1), organized by Donka Minkova and Robert Stockwell and held at UCLA in May 2000, brought together many of the top scholars in English historical linguistics, as well as promising new scholars, for a fascinating and wide-ranging program highlighting exciting developments in the field. The conference proved a successful first step in fostering conversation and energy around the research in this field in the United States, and we look forward to an equally exciting SHEL-2 conference in Seattle in March, 2002. By way of background: in Europe the biennial conferences known as ICEHL (International Conference on English Historical Linguistics) have served the field of English Language Studies extremely well, giving the field both focus and recognition that it almost certainly would not have achieved otherwise. In North America, despite the presence of many major scholars in the field, Historical English Linguistics -- the History of the English Language told in the light of contemporary linguistic sophistication ? has not emerged with the same kind of recognizable personality. Many scholars who do this kind of work are to a significant extent also working in other fields such as general linguistics, English medieval studies, American dialectology, applied linguistics and teacher training. Our goal in organizing SHEL is to begin to provide the same kind of focus for English Historical Linguistics in North America as the focus achieved in Europe by the ICEHL series, in North America for Germanic Linguistics by GLAC (Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference), for American Dialectology by the American Dialect Society, for Social Dialectology by NWAVE, and of course for General Linguistics by the LSA. We are not in competition with any of these series or organizations; we believe, however, that a weekend meeting dedicated entirely to linguistic issues in the History of English will continue to be an energizing and useful academic experience for both established and emerging scholars in the field. And we hope that the pedagogy workshop devoted to issues in teaching History of English will be engaging and inspiring for teachers in the field. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 25 20:19:05 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:19:05 -0500 Subject: ADS t-shirts Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I am happy to announce that there are still a number of the new ADS t-shirts, #3 in the "Pioneer Series," this one honoring Lorenzo Dow Turner. The shirt depicts Turner on the front, holding up two African masks, and the back shows everything known about eastern US dialects (lexically, at least, as calculated for us by Don Lance). Naturally, since this is an academic shirt, it comes with a handout, providing some information about Turner and bibliographical references for the studies Lance used to construct his map. Here's how you can be the proud owner of one of these handsome shirts: 1) Send an e-mail message to Ms. Chunhua Ma at machunhu at msu.edu in which you tell her how many shirts you want and the size(s) - we have Medium, Large, Extra Large, and Double Extra Large - and provide the snail mail address where you would like the shirt(s) mailed. 3) Ms. Ma will respond, indicating whether the number and sizes you asked for are available, and will tell you how much you owe. Prices are $10 per shirt plus $5.00 shipping and handling. We will calculate different shipping and handling prices for more than one shirt and for non-US delivery. 4) Send your check, made out to "American Dialect Society," to Ms. Ma at Chunhua Ma Department of Languages and Linguistics Wells A 740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 Please do not send money until you have an e-mail response from Ms. Ma indicating that we have what you asked for. All proceeds swell the coffers of ADS. Act now, or you may be disappointed. I am sorry to have to announce that no more shirts honoring our first two pioneers (Charles Grandgent and Louise Pound) are available. -- 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 Fri Jan 25 20:41:13 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:41:13 EST Subject: Ground Zero Message-ID: In a message dated 01/25/2002 10:00:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > members and friends of the society voted "9-11" > as the word (or in this case,expression) of the year. In the final show of hands > there were 2 [votes] for "ground zero," the site of the collapsed > World Trade Towers after the attack. > > 3. Most likely to succeed: "ground zero" (5 [votes]) site of the > collapsed World Trade Center towers, "Ground Zero" is not a new term. Both the OED2 and the M-W 10th Collegiate give a date of 1946. I was able to antedate the OED2 entry by one week. reference: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (published in multiple volumes) Section dated 30 June 1946 on "The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki", as quoted on URL http://home.att.net/~armageddon_watch/stratbda.html some reinforced concrete buildings collapsed and suffered structural damage when within 2,000 feet of ground zero, and some internal wall paneling was demolished even up to 3,800 feet. (For convenience, the term "ground zero" will be used to designate the point on the ground directly beneath the point of detonation, or "air zero.") In addition, the Strategic Bombing Survey also uses a different expression: "The zero area, where the damage was most severe, " Two variations: In the 1950's the Defense Department (or maybe the Atomic Energy Commission) did some research on how soon soldiers could reoccupy an area after a nuclear blast. One soldier who participated in this research had a short-lived fame as "the Mayor of Ground Zero" The book _And the Band Played On_ about AIDS describes "Patient Zero". - Jim Landau From pskuhlman at JUNO.COM Fri Jan 25 21:04:54 2002 From: pskuhlman at JUNO.COM (pskuhlman at JUNO.COM) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:04:54 -0500 Subject: Vodka, Fez, Angora, &c Message-ID: "Hibiscus esculentus" is the old scientific name for okra. (The current name is "Abelmoschus esculentus" according to Hortus III.) The specific epithet "esculentus" means edible. Patricia Kuhlman Brooklyn, NY pskuhlman at juno.com On Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:10:59 -0500 sagehen writes: > >From Barry Popik's 25 Jan 2002 02:27:06 EST post: > > " and _Hibiscus efculentus_, or _" > Another case where ("S" or "F"?--ed.) might well have been > inserted. > A. Murie > From stevekl at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 25 21:23:25 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:23:25 -0500 Subject: Posting problems In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 24 Jan 2002, Erin McKean wrote: > > I'd like to ask that we add the instructions for subbing from > multiple addresses and setting nomail to the ADS-L list information > page on the ADS website. (Steve?) > Will look into this. Thanks. (reminder -- i don't always read ADS posts thoroughly and just happened to catch this -- if you have a specific website concern, be sure to email me) -- Steve From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Fri Jan 25 21:33:26 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:33:26 -0500 Subject: Ground Zero In-Reply-To: <46.216ef429.29831ce9@aol.com> Message-ID: Is there no evidence of "Ground Zero" being used already during the pre-Hiroshima desert A-bomb tests? I vaguely recall this being the case from somewhere, but I could be completely wrong. Ben From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 25 21:45:42 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:45:42 -0500 Subject: Ground Zero In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Benjamin Fortson wrote: #Is there no evidence of "Ground Zero" being used already during the #pre-Hiroshima desert A-bomb tests? I vaguely recall this being the case #from somewhere, but I could be completely wrong. The difference for me between this Ground Zero and those Ground Zeroes is that up till now, "ground zero" with or without caps, was a general term for the ground location at or directly under the detonation of an atomic bomb (fission [A-] or fusion [H-]): (1) the devastating event was an explosion, and (2) the term was generic and needed to be contextualized to a specific explosion in order to acquire specific reference. Now, in the US, "Ground Zero" refers to the -- former -- site of the World Trade Center: (1) the damage was not caused by a bomb or other explosion, and (2) the specific reference needs no context, even if the NY Times still refuses to capitalize the term. To me these are good and sufficient reasons for "Ground Zero" to have been in the WOTY running, and for this definition of it to be be given lexical notice. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 26 02:04:01 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 21:04:01 EST Subject: Ground Zero Message-ID: resubmission - apparently did not make it to the List the first time In a message dated 01/25/2002 10:00:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > members and friends of the society voted "9-11" > as the word (or in this case,expression) of the year. In the final show of hands > there were 2 [votes] for "ground zero," the site of the collapsed > World Trade Towers after the attack. > > 3. Most likely to succeed: "ground zero" (5 [votes]) site of the > collapsed World Trade Center towers, "Ground Zero" is not a new term. Both the OED2 and the M-W 10th Collegiate give a date of 1946. I was able to antedate the OED2 entry by one week. reference: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (published in multiple volumes) Section dated 30 June 1946 on "The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki", as quoted on URL http://home.att.net/~armageddon_watch/stratbda.html some reinforced concrete buildings collapsed and suffered structural damage when within 2,000 feet of ground zero, and some internal wall paneling was demolished even up to 3,800 feet. (For convenience, the term "ground zero" will be used to designate the point on the ground directly beneath the point of detonation, or "air zero.") In addition, the Strategic Bombing Survey also uses a different expression: "The zero area, where the damage was most severe, " Two variations: In the 1950's the Defense Department (or maybe the Atomic Energy Commission) did some research on how soon soldiers could reoccupy an area after a nuclear blast. One soldier who participated in this research had a short-lived fame as "the Mayor of Ground Zero" The book _And the Band Played On_ about AIDS describes "Patient Zero". - Jim Landau From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 26 05:03:41 2002 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 21:03:41 -0800 Subject: BBQ (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens); Jeep, Shutterbug (1939) In-Reply-To: <31.2179ac19.29826a1f@aol.com> Message-ID: >...certain Manhattan restaurant staffs refer to as BBQ people >(Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens). I've heard non-Manhattan residents of NY referred to as the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, but hadn't heard BBQ. Maybe it's specifically a restaurant term? Rima From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 26 16:00:45 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 11:00:45 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in the Times Message-ID: Tomorrow's New York Times (Real Estate section, page 7) has a really large article about George Thompson's researches. Congratulations, George! 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 Sat Jan 26 03:11:41 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 11:11:41 +0800 Subject: Gunsel again Message-ID: For those of you who don't subscribe to Michael Quinion's World Wide Words (http://www.worldwidewords.org), this week's issue has a comment on the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/) for the worst first sentence of an imaginary novel, which prompts Michael to cite a memorable sentence from an actual novel, Anthony Burgess's _Earthly Powers_: "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me". Now we know we can replace "catamite" with "gunsel" and modify the ambience while leaving the denotation unaffected. larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 26 17:03:59 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 12:03:59 EST Subject: Ground Zero Message-ID: In a message dated 1/25/2002 9:05:19 PM, JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: << "Ground Zero" is not a new term. Both the OED2 and the M-W 10th Collegiate give a date of 1946. I was able to antedate the OED2 entry by one week. >> 1. Words of the Year need not necessarily be new, right? For that matter, "9/11" is not really "new"--it just took on a new significance (cf. "Fourth of July"). 2. In any case, the use of "Ground Zero" as a proper noun is new, it seems, especially with the reference it will have in New York City. 3. My vote for "9/11" over "Ground Zero" was based in part on the general significance of the term as it relates to the entire terrifying series of events that took place on 11 September and the media obsession with those events for weeks thereafter. "9/11" refers to it all, not just the New York City locus of those events. My own prediction is that "9/11" will continue to be used widely for years to come, whereas "Ground Zero" will be less important lexicographically. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 27 00:13:10 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 19:13:10 EST Subject: Big-Bang toys (1915); ADS-L miss-ages Message-ID: ADS-L MISS-AGES I checked the ADS web site. I still haven't received over half of Friday's mail--including the messages that I sent on Thursday. O.T.: The snail mail doesn't work, either. I'm ordering some used cookbooks. I live in NYC. Things _used_ to get here almost immediately. Now it takes 7 days, 8 days, 9 days, 10 days, two weeks. Are they coming here on really slow planes? -------------------------------------------------------- BIG-BANG This continues discussion of "Big Bang." Fred Hoyle died a few months ago, and "Big Bang" was in his obituary. A check of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows "Big-Bang" as of September 1915, registered 1917. "Big-Bang" heavily advertised in BOYS' LIFE. From June 1929, pg. 70, col. 1: Big-Bang artillery Big-Bang heavy artillery Big-Bang bombing plane Big-Bang navy gun-boat Big-Bang army tank Big-Bang safety pistol For celebrating, firing salutes, playing at war. A real flash--a real BANG. THE CONESTOGA CORPORATION Bethlehem, Pa. ("Okay, Junior, back to your room! Play with your toys! Do you need more ammo?"--ed.) From alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL Sun Jan 27 07:28:43 2002 From: alexeyf at ZORAN.CO.IL (Alexey Fuchs) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 09:28:43 +0200 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings (snook/snoot) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Hmm. I know this only as "cocking a snook" (and mostly from British > text, at that), but I'm not surprised at the final k->t, esp. since it's > done on the nose (snout, snoot). --- Or was "cocking a snoot" the > earlier form? > > -- Mark A. Mandel It seems that "t" must have been in the earlier form, and then t->k. Semantically 'snoot' is much closer to 'cock a snook' than the 'snook', isn't it? 'To cock a snook' is almost interchangeable with 'snoot', it seems, whereas it is not clear how to tie the 'snook' there. A.Fuchs From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 26 18:15:27 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:15:27 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT (resend) Message-ID: I sent this earlier today, but it doesn't seem to have made it to the list, so I'm trying again. Sorry for any duplication: Our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York Society Library, the article discusses his researches in early newspapers. It can be seen at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/realestate/27SCAP.html Jesse Sheidlower OED From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 26 14:50:13 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 09:50:13 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT Message-ID: Our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York Society Library, the article discusses his researches in early newspapers. It can be seen at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/realestate/27SCAP.html Jesse Sheidlower OED From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 27 17:17:00 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 12:17:00 -0500 Subject: some footnotes to recent postings In-Reply-To: <1d99e2b1d9818d.1d9818d1d99e2b@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >Douglas G. Wilson suggests a possible association with one's hand- >position while using a sextant: It has been 30+ years since I read his >book, but as I recall Prof. Taylor's conclusion, it was that the >gesture could not be documented before relatively recent times, perhaps >the beginning of the 19th C., and that he supposed that it was a parody >of a military salute, which, it seems, also came into use relatively >recently. I don't suggest that the gesture itself is based on use of a sextant or similar device, only that the word "sight" in connection with the nose-thumbing gesture might be so based. Here is an example dated 1702, in Farmer and Henley (under "sight", quoting "Eng. Theophrastus"): <<... there are four little satyrs, one of whom is taking a single sight, or making "a nose" at the lady; whilst a second is taking a double sight, or "long nose," towards the spectator. [N. & Q., 5 S., iii.298.]>> Farmer and Henley give "sight" = "a gesture of derision: the thumb on the nose-tip and the fingers spread fan-wise ... A double sight is made by joining the tip of the little finger (already in position) to the thumb of the other hand, the fingers being similarly extended." Equivalents (in Farmer and Henley) include "making a nose", "cocking/cutting snooks/a snook", "[making (?)] Queen Anne's fan", "taking a sight", "taking a grinder", "working the coffee-mill" [these last two apparently involving pantomiming the operation of an imaginary nose-crank], "pulling bacon". One might speculate as to whether there might be some phallic symbolism .... -- Doug Wilson From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Sun Jan 27 17:23:07 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:23:07 -0600 Subject: Enron Message-ID: Sam & Bud Walton and Kenneth Lay grew up in Boone County MO and attended the same high school and university. I don't think Bud Walton finished college, but he might have. Sam and Ken had the same economics professor, who was later appointed by Richard Nixon to head the Federal Power Commission. There is now a Kenneth L. Lay Chair of international economics at the University of Missouri for which they are now taking applications (and a chair honoring their professor, also funded by Lay). No Walton chair yet, but one will surely come. Bud's daughters' husbands are big into sports, one with the St. Louis Rams, the other having recently given 25 mil to the University of Missouri to build a second basketball arena, which will no doubt match the Walton Arena down in Fayetteville AR. As for what these guys learned in classes at MU, you might ask former mom & pop store owners about one and ask former employees about the other, he said walayingly. Now for the language part of the posting. As treasurer of an organization, at a Board meeting yesterday, I had occasion to say something about taking an Enron around some problem. Which made me wonder whether you word sleuths have searched for such uses in print by people whose coinages are more likely than mine to make their way into general use. DMLance From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 27 17:39:16 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:39:16 -0600 Subject: Request: Andrew E. Drews' thesis Message-ID: I've been working through the ads-l material on "Bob's your uncle" and noticed Aaron E. Drews' (U of Edinburgh) 6 July 2000 mention of his thesis. I'd be grateful--and I'm sure many other ads-l members would also appreciate it--if he would share with us the title and date of the thesis and its main contributions. Anything else the author feels we should know about his work would of course also be welcome. --Gerald Cohen >'...As for working-class, the only working-class folk I've encountered are Scots, and I've never heard it used. Might be a north-south thing. I have heard it used by some of the participants in my thesis, very clearly *not* working-class. ...' From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Sun Jan 27 18:12:07 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:12:07 -0500 Subject: Enron Message-ID: See my work-in-progress list of Enron-related terms: http://www.logophilia.com/WordSpy/enronomics.asp Paul From lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU Sun Jan 27 18:29:55 2002 From: lanehart at ARCHES.UGA.EDU (Sonja L. Lanehart) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:29:55 -0500 Subject: Enron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Frank DeFord's NPR spot on a Wednesday mornings two Wednesdays ago, he used the word 'Enronized', but I can't now recall in reference to what.It was during his 100th or 1000th show or something where he was reflecting on his years in journalism. It immediately struck me as a new word and I figured it would just be one among many based on the tragic events of the company. If you go to their archives, you can probably find it on their web site. --Sonja >Sam & Bud Walton and Kenneth Lay grew up in Boone County MO and attended the >same high school and university. I don't think Bud Walton finished college, >but he might have. Sam and Ken had the same economics professor, who was >later appointed by Richard Nixon to head the Federal Power Commission. >There is now a Kenneth L. Lay Chair of international economics at the >University of Missouri for which they are now taking applications (and a >chair honoring their professor, also funded by Lay). No Walton chair yet, >but one will surely come. Bud's daughters' husbands are big into sports, >one with the St. Louis Rams, the other having recently given 25 mil to the >University of Missouri to build a second basketball arena, which will no >doubt match the Walton Arena down in Fayetteville AR. As for what these >guys learned in classes at MU, you might ask former mom & pop store owners >about one and ask former employees about the other, he said walayingly. > >Now for the language part of the posting. As treasurer of an organization, >at a Board meeting yesterday, I had occasion to say something about taking >an Enron around some problem. Which made me wonder whether you word sleuths >have searched for such uses in print by people whose coinages are more >likely than mine to make their way into general use. > >DMLance ************************************************************** Sonja L. Lanehart Department of English 706-542-2260 (office) University of Georgia 706-542-1261 (dept.) 300 Park Hall 706-542-2181 (fax) Athens, GA 30602-6205 http://www.arches.uga.edu/~lanehart ************************************************************** From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 27 18:38:47 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:38:47 -0500 Subject: Request: Reference Resource Suggestions Message-ID: I am chugging my way through re-doing the ADS web site and I need your suggestions for the following in order to bring our reference suggestions up-to-date. Full cites (or sites) are appreciated! What dictionaries would you recommend to someone seeking more than a definition? What videos do you use in your courses or would you otherwise recommend? What general language-related books would you recommend? What academic language-related books (including textbooks) would you recommend? What language-related periodicals would you recommend? What language-related CD-ROMs or multimedia materials would you recommend? What language-related books have you edited or written? Thanks. Grant American Dialect Society Web Geek From dave at WILTON.NET Sun Jan 27 19:01:30 2002 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:01:30 -0800 Subject: Enron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 25 January, Paul Solman, financial report for PBS's "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" made a pun off of "take the money and Enron." "...there may be nothing worse than a generation of executives who may be able, in effect, to 'take the money and run' - or should we say - 'Enron.'" See http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june02/watchdogs_1-25.html -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Donald M Lance Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 9:23 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Enron Sam & Bud Walton and Kenneth Lay grew up in Boone County MO and attended the same high school and university. I don't think Bud Walton finished college, but he might have. Sam and Ken had the same economics professor, who was later appointed by Richard Nixon to head the Federal Power Commission. There is now a Kenneth L. Lay Chair of international economics at the University of Missouri for which they are now taking applications (and a chair honoring their professor, also funded by Lay). No Walton chair yet, but one will surely come. Bud's daughters' husbands are big into sports, one with the St. Louis Rams, the other having recently given 25 mil to the University of Missouri to build a second basketball arena, which will no doubt match the Walton Arena down in Fayetteville AR. As for what these guys learned in classes at MU, you might ask former mom & pop store owners about one and ask former employees about the other, he said walayingly. Now for the language part of the posting. As treasurer of an organization, at a Board meeting yesterday, I had occasion to say something about taking an Enron around some problem. Which made me wonder whether you word sleuths have searched for such uses in print by people whose coinages are more likely than mine to make their way into general use. DMLance From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 27 19:06:39 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:06:39 -0500 Subject: Request: Your Home Page Message-ID: Also for the new ADS site, I'm looking for web sites run by members, including publications and personal sites. Sites with nothing but a CV or a list of published works are welcome. My intention is to link to them from the ADS web site. Please reply to me directly, not to the list. Thanks. Grant From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Sun Jan 27 19:13:12 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 19:13:12 -0000 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a count noun? Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 27 19:42:36 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:42:36 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > count noun? It was a count noun before it was ever a mass noun, and is still well established as a count noun. 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 Sun Jan 27 20:07:33 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:07:33 -0600 Subject: "Bob's your uncle" revisited Message-ID: As I mentioned in an earlier message today, I've been working through the ads-l messages on "Bob's your uncle" (= everything's all right).And I now have a general observation: If (as seems plausible) the expression derives from the 1887 nepotism of Alfred Balfour being appointed as chief secretary of Ireland by his 'Uncle Bob' (Prime Minister Robert Cecil), and if this unwarranted appointment stirred an uproar, do any contemporary accounts record instances of the dissatisfaction? So even though the ads-l messages may be compiled (a useful step), there's evidently some further checking waiting to be done. ---Gerald Cohen P.S. Here is a helpful excerpt from Michael Quinion's World Wide Words (first presented to ads-l by Lynne Murphy): >'...The most attractive theory is that it derives from a prolonged >act of political nepotism. The prime minister Lord Salisbury (family >name Robert Cecil, pronounced /'SISIL/) appointed his rather less >than popular nephew Arthur Balfour (later himself to be PM from >1902-11) to a succession of posts. The first in 1887 was chief >secretary of Ireland, a post for which Balfour was considered >unsuitable. The consensus among the irreverent in Britain seems to >have been that to have Bob as your uncle guaranteed success, hence >the expression and the common meaning it preserves of something that >is easy to achieve.' From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Sun Jan 27 20:20:33 2002 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:20:33 -0600 Subject: starchitect In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: This showed up in the (Chicago) Tribune Arts section today and I was all set to put it on my list for WOTY next year until a quick Google search showed it to have quite a few hits, some from a year or so back. Anyone got a good first cite for this? It means 'star architect' and seems to be used derogatively as well (in much the same way as 'diva' when not talking about opera singers). I quite like it. Thanks! Erin editor at verbatimmag.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 27 21:05:35 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 16:05:35 EST Subject: Apees (1785) Message-ID: I was doing research on the Pennsylvania Gazette CD-ROM in NYU just now when the screen when dead and couldn't be revived. Nothing works this week. DARE's first citation for "apee" is in 1830. It's from ANNALS OF PHILADELPHIA AND PENNSYLVANIA, and if you type all that with "Ann Page" you'll find it easily enough on the web. Various food sites (including Foodtv.com, which of course will never have me on) have "apee" and state "dating from the 1800s." 23 November 1785, PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE ...Cheese-cakes, Puddings, Jumbles, Jellies, Pies, Tarts, Custards, Sugar Biscuit, Rusk, Apees, Pound Cake, Queen Cake, and every thing of the kind, at the lowest rates, and in the best manner. (...) Margaret Woodby November 17, 1785 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 27 23:24:40 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:24:40 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: 'Well-established' can be 'on its way out.' Me and Lynne can't use it. dInIs >On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > >> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us >> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a >> count noun? > >It was a count noun before it was ever a mass noun, and is still well >established as a count noun. > >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 Sun Jan 27 23:55:01 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:55:01 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The only time I hear it as countable is from non-native speakers (understandably); they also say "informations," among other mass-to-count nouns. At 06:24 PM 1/27/02 -0500, you wrote: >'Well-established' can be 'on its way out.' Me and Lynne can't use it. > >dInIs > >>On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: >> >>> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us >>> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a >>> count noun? >> >>It was a count noun before it was ever a mass noun, and is still well >>established as a count noun. >> >>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 >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____________________________________________ 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 mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 28 00:22:31 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 19:22:31 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020127185309.03c35100@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #The only time I hear it as countable is from non-native speakers #(understandably); they also say "informations," among other mass-to-count #nouns. "Born In the U.S.A.", and I use "research" as count, as well as mass. But "informations" is * for me. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 28 01:06:32 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 20:06:32 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches Message-ID: Mark A. Mandel, Linguist at Large: "Born In the U.S.A.", and I use "research" as count, as well as mass. Alison Murie, 7th or 8th generation No. American of Irish & Scottish extraction, native speaker of English says: "Me too." I find both forms usable and useful. It surprises me that the question arises. It may be, as dInIs says, on the way out, but it ain't dead yet. AM A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 01:42:46 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 20:42:46 EST Subject: confused Message-ID: In a message dated 01/26/2002 4:08:58 PM Eastern Standard Time, RonButters at AOL.COM writes: > Words of the Year need not necessarily be new, right? For that matter, > "9/11" is not really "new"--it just took on a new significance (cf. "Fourth > of July"). In a message dated 01/27/2002 3:21:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM writes: > ["starchitect"] showed up in the (Chicago) Tribune Arts section today and I was > all set to put it on my list for WOTY next year until a quick Google > search showed it to have quite a few hits, some from a year or so > back. Now I'm confused. -Jim Landau P.S. In case anyone be interested, I posted my post about "Ground Zero" because I somehow got the impression that people thought "ground zero" was a new coinage rather than having been around for over half a century. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:00:44 2002 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:00:44 -0800 Subject: George Thompson in NYT (resend) Message-ID: jesse sheidlower writes: >our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive >article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New >York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York >Society Library... not, alas, available in the national edition. you have to go on-line and register to view it. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 28 01:58:52 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 19:58:52 -0600 Subject: "wicket ball" query Message-ID: >From: "John S. Bowman" >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >Subject: Re: [19cBB] Digest Number 111 >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:18:19 -0600 >List-Unsubscribe: > >While SABR members are all occupied with coming up with names for >bat-and-ball games of their youth (in the regular on-line forum) I have a >more specilized query for students of 19th century bat-and ball game. >Again in connection with an exhibit I and a fellow SABR member are >organizing on the early decades of baseball in our town, we are coming >across references to "wicket ball." These references range from the late >1700s at least to the 1850s. They sometimes appear in contexts that seem to >confirm that it is a separate game from baseball and cricket. On the other >hand, the games allowed for large cricket-like scores (over 100). Does >anyone know about "wicket ball" and its rules? From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:21:05 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:21:05 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online In-Reply-To: <200201280200.g0S20iR18859@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Arnold Zwicky wrote: >jesse sheidlower writes: > >our colleague George A. Thompson is the subject of an extensive > >article in the real estate section, of all places, of Sunday's New > >York Times. Illustrated with a lovely picture taken in the New York > >Society Library... > >not, alas, available in the national edition. you have to go on-line >and register to view it. I am not sure what you mean by the national edition - or are you talking about the print edition? - anyway, the online edition is fre. You just have to register. Bethany From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:22:27 2002 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:22:27 -0500 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >about the print edition? - anyway, the online edition is fre. You just >have to register. As we know, I cannot type. Make that free, not fre. Bethany From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:41:23 2002 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 18:41:23 -0800 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online Message-ID: bethany dumas writes, in reply to me: >I am not sure what you mean by the national edition - or are you >talking about the print edition? - anyway, the online edition is >fre[e]. You just have to register. by "national edition" i mean what the NYT labels its "National Edition", the edition(s) of the paper distributed outside the new york area. and yes, old troll that i am, i meant print editions. i never said the online edition wasn't free. i just said you had to register. i admit to being wary of registration; once you register, either they start sending you other stuff, or, eventually, they ask for money to go on. (otherwise, what's the point of registration?) i'm not particularly happy registering in order to get [apparently] simple access. for one thing, each registration means a userid and a password, and i already have between two and three hundred of these to keep track of. [only a few years ago it was 50-100. i expect that soon it will approach a thousand. well, by then, we'll all just use our social security numbers, i guess.] grumbly, the eighth dwarf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 02:49:59 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:49:59 EST Subject: Hey, Rube! Hector was a pup (1891) Message-ID: "SHORT SIXES" STORIES TO BE READ WHILE THE CANDLE BURNS by H. C. Bunner Puck, Keppler & Schwarzmann, NY 1891 H. C. Bunner was an editor of the humor magazine PUCK. His novels are on microfilm in an American Fiction series. One source said that he's noted for slang, so I'm giving him a read. OED already cites some terms from this book of short stories, but not these phrases. FWIW: Candles were sold six to a pound. Pages 163-178 HECTOR Pg. 170: In conclave assembled, the Misses Pellicoe decided to name the dog Hector. (Ah! Probably the first "Since Hector was a pup" is to be found in the pages of PUCK! Unfortunately, it's not online in the MOA database--ed.) Pg. 100: ..."if the boys was here, and I hollered 'Hey Rube!...." (RHHDAS has 1899. I have a song titled "Hey, Rube!" Did I post that it's from 1893?--ed.) Pg. 157: "But, my dear Mitts, where did he get the Latin and Greek?" "He had to learn _something_ at Yale." From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 28 02:57:48 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:57:48 -0500 Subject: "starchitect" Message-ID: Since Fred hasn't yet chipped in with a citation from the account books of James Knox Polk, I figured I'd say that ProQuest shows a 1988 citation from _House and Garden_ for _starchitect,_ in reference to Frank Gehry. Jesse Sheidlower OED From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 04:13:50 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 23:13:50 EST Subject: Kimchee (1889) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster both have 1898 for "kimchee" or "kimchi," a national dish of Korea. Harper's Weekly online has 12 January 1889: If labor in Corea is cheap, so also is living. A meal of soup, meat, kimchee, a sort of _sauer-kraut_, with a compote of persimmon, can be procured for fifty cash--scarcely more than four cents! -------------------------------------------------------- HEY, RUBE!--I just noticed that OED has 1882. For some reason, the RHHDAS didn't pick this up. HAROLD EVANS--David Shulman is meeting with him at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow at the NYPL. I don't want to see Evans. It was ten years ago that I approached Tina Brown's NEW YORKER with "the Big Apple." No one would speak to me. Then I did "New Yorker." Still, no one at the NEW YORKER would speak to me. Then it occurred to me that no matter what I did or how hard I worked, I would never make any money at all. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 07:06:29 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 02:06:29 EST Subject: Incidents of a Whaling Voyage (1841)(LONG!) Message-ID: INCIDENTS OF A WHALING VOYAGE: TO WHICH ARE ADDED OBSERVATIONS ON THE SCENERY, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, AND MISSIONARY STATIONS OF THE SANDWICH AND SOCIETY ISLANDS Accompanied by numerous lithographic prints by Francis Allyn Olmsted 1841 Charles E. Tuttle, Publishers, Rutland, VT 1969 A masterpiece. OED has zero citations from this book. It's a crime! A check of "Olmsted" has 291 hits, most all from the book SLAVE STATES (1856). I didn't find "luau" or "mahimahi" in a very quick search, but so much else is here--in convenient quotes. It's fabulous for whaling terms, and they should make OED whether or not these are the very first cites. Olmsted wanted to be a doctor. He graduated Yale Medical School (that's a school in New Haven, CT), but he passed away at about age 25. Pg. 15: "So much for sailing on Friday," an old salt would say. Pg. 73: There is also in these latitudes a gelatinous substance, a species of the medusae, called by the seamen the "_sea cucumber_," from a resemblance to the garden cucumber in size and shape. Pg. 77: We did so much against our will, as the promise of "fresh grub," was exceedingly tempting, after the liberal exercise we have had upon "salt junk," for some time before. (Junk food?--ed.) Pg. 88: During the hours of work, no trifling of any kind is allowed, and any one seen indulging in "skylarking," subjects himself to the danger of being sent aloft, or stationed at the wheel for many tedious hours, besides going without his usual allowance. Pg. 89: ...are smoking their pipes, "spinning yarns," or listening to a song.... Pg. 92: This evening we partook of rather a novel dish--"flippers" flavored with porpoise's brains! Pg. 93: The natives of some of the Pacific Islands consider _baked dog_ a great luxury.... Pg. 104: There are two kinds, the _baboon jacket_, a short coat without any skirts, and the _monkey jacket_, differing from the other in having a kind of ruffle around the lower edge answering to skirts. Pg. 105: My fingers too are swollen with that annoying complaint the "chilblains," so common an occurrence at home, although usually confined to another part of the system. Pg. 110: Calm and beautiful day, with occasional "catpaws" or puffs of wind sweeping over the ocean in every direction. Pg. 111: A young albatross was captured this morning which made an excellent "sea pie," or fricassee for supper, resembling veal in taste, although one or two of the officers refused to partake of the dish, inasmuch as the bird has no gizzard. Pg. 114: ..."chock pin".... Pg. 115: The usual cry is "Ho! Ho! Hoi!" or "Ho! Ho! Heavo!" which is sung by some one of them, while the rest keep time. (See "heave-ho" in ADS-L archives--ed.) Pg. 118: The most numerous variety was the "Booby," as he is called by the sailors, a bird about the size of a goose. Pg. 146: There are several varieties of fish that accompany ships, the most common of which, are the _albacore_ and _bonetta_, or "skip jack," as he is called by the sailors. Pg. 152: On Monday, corn and beans and pork, sans potatoes; on Tuesday, codfish and potatoes; on Wednesday _mush_ and beef; on Thursday, corn and beans and pork again; on Friday, rice and beef; on Saturday, codfish and potatoes again; and Sunday, beef and _duff_, a sort of pudding known universally to sailors. A ship without her _duff_ on Sunday, would be considered by all sailors, as certainly heterodox, as would the celebration of Christmas appear to an Englishman without his plumb pudding, or of thanksgiving in New England without pumpkin pies. The receipt for duff, used by Mr. Freeman our _primum mobile_ in such things, is as follows: "To a quantity of flour, more or less, (_more_ would be prefereable in Mr. F's opinion,) wet up with equal parts of salt and fresh water and well stirred, add a quantity of "slush" or lard, and yeast; the mixture to be boiled in a bag, until it can be dropped from the top-gallant cross-trees upon deck, without breaking, when it is cooked." This has been the bill of fare for all on board, and (Pg. 153--ed.) such has been its regularity, that our calendar is determined by it, and the days of the week are fancifully named, "mush day," "duff day," corresponding to Wednesday and Sunday old style. With the failure of potatoes, our bill of fare has met with sundry important changes, and we have had to adopt another mode of reckoning time. Our breakfasts and suppers are somewhat similar to our dinners, with the addition in the cabin and steerage of "flippers," or "slapjacks," for breakfast, and occasionally for supper. Pg. 158: ..."square the yards!" shouts the captain.... Pg. 158: ...and "breeching," or "fan-tailing," i. e. displaying their flukes in the air. Pg. 159: ...the "planksheer," or the level of the deck. Pg. 173: The _Cocoa-nut tree_.... The _Pine Apple_.... Pg. 182: "Mother Carey's chickens," as the sailors call these birds, are found in every latitudeall over the globe. (...) The "Mother Carey's chicken," was formerly regarded with superstitious fancies by the mariner. Pg. 207: *The process of _lomi-lomi_, consists in rubbing and kneading with the hands the person who subjects himself to the operation, and it is extremely reviving when one is fatigued. Pg. 222: Each of them had a _surf board_, a smooth, flat board from six to eight feet long, by telve to fifteen inches broad. Illustration Opp. Pg. 223: SANDWICH ISLANDERS PLAYING IN THE SURF. Pg. 230: ...the _pancho_, an oblong blanket of various brilliant colors, having a hole in the middle through which the head is thrust. Pg. 232: The feather and flower _leis_ which are also obnoxious to some of the missionaries, are brilliant garlands of gay feathers and flowers, with which, many of the native women enrich the head and neck, and are very tasteful and pretty ornaments in my opinion, for which they ought to be commended rather than censured. Pg. 233: The _lasso_, the principal instrument in their capture, is made of braided thongs, upon one end of which is a ring forming a slip noose, which is thrown with astonishing precision around any part of the animal. Pg. 234: The pommel is surmounted by a large flat knot, termed the "loggerhead," from which the lasso of the hunter depends. Pg. 340: The condition of our stores may be inferred from the fact, that for several days we have subsisted upon "salt junk, and hard tack,"* with beans for variety at regular intervals.... *Salt meat and sea-bread. Pg. 358: Sometimes, for variety, a preparation of hard bread and beef and pork is served up, which with some slight variation, is known by the elegant denominations of "lobscouse" and "lobdominion." Pg. 359: The tea which sailors drink, is not always the growth of the celestial empire. One variety is said to flourish in North Carolina, and from the huge sticks entangled with the herb, which rise upon the surface of the fluid as they are successively disengaged, receives the appellation of "studding-sail boom tea," a very expressive soubriquet. It has nearly as delicate a flavor as might be expected from a decoction of mullen stalks. Pg. 359: Cape Hatteras, opposite which we crossed the Gulf Stream, like most high headlands, is famous for sudden gusts of wind, called by seamen "white squalls," that without any warning, strike a ship in all their fury, and the first intimation the navigator has of their presence, is indicated by the falling of the spars over the side of the vessel. (...) Hence this admonitory distich is treasured up in the mind of the mariner as he navigates these seas: "If Bermuda let you pass, Then look out for Hatteras." (There's probably more good stuff, but the library was closing--ed.) From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Mon Jan 28 09:09:09 2002 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:09:09 -0000 Subject: "wicket ball" query Message-ID: Whether or not he can help, I cannot say, but I would reccomend contacting John Eddowes, author of _The Language of Cricket_. (London 1997). His address is 35 Anhalt Road, London SW11 4NZ, and by all means mention that I suggested you write. He has reasearched extensively as to the origins of the game and word 'cricket', and I have little doubt that he would have come across 'wicket ball' somewhere along the way. Jonathon Green ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" To: Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 1:58 AM Subject: "wicket ball" query > >From: "John S. Bowman" > >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com > >To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com > >Subject: Re: [19cBB] Digest Number 111 > >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:18:19 -0600 > >List-Unsubscribe: > > > >While SABR members are all occupied with coming up with names for > >bat-and-ball games of their youth (in the regular on-line forum) I have a > >more specilized query for students of 19th century bat-and ball game. > >Again in connection with an exhibit I and a fellow SABR member are > >organizing on the early decades of baseball in our town, we are coming > >across references to "wicket ball." These references range from the late > >1700s at least to the 1850s. They sometimes appear in contexts that seem to > >confirm that it is a separate game from baseball and cricket. On the other > >hand, the games allowed for large cricket-like scores (over 100). Does > >anyone know about "wicket ball" and its rules? > From michael at QUINION.COM Mon Jan 28 11:14:39 2002 From: michael at QUINION.COM (Michael B Quinion) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:14:39 -0000 Subject: Marilyze? In-Reply-To: <200201280906.g0S96h2J024836@jupiter.nildram.co.uk> Message-ID: A World Wide Words subscriber has queried an expression as follows: "My mother used to threaten to 'marilyze' (spelling?) us when we were kids. I can't find it in any dictionary under any spelling I can contrive." Neither can I. Can anyone decode this one? Additional information: both the subscriber and her husband know it separately from their childhoods, suggesting that it is at least a regional expression. One mother grew up in Philadelphia and the other in rural southern New Jersey, both of English-Irish ancestry. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 12:16:24 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 07:16:24 -0500 Subject: Starchitect Message-ID: The account books of James Knox Polk were of no help with "starchitect." Below is an earlier citation than Jesse's 1988 one: Chicago Tribune January 18, 1987 Sunday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: SUNDAY MAGAZINE; Pg. 8; ZONE: C LENGTH: 11396 words HEADLINE: EGO BUILDING; NAME-BRAND ARCHITECTS MAY DRAW TENANTS, BUT WILL THEIR SIGNATURE SKYLINES STAND THE TEST OF TIME? BYLINE: Article by Jeff Lyon. BODY: ...in the era of the big name," observes architect Burgee. "You wear a designer's name on your shirt, and the same thing is happening to an extent with buildings." Chicago's Harry Weese, himself a starchitect, disapproves of the trend. "It's becoming a personality cult," he sneers. "People are trying to slap 'Calvin Klein' on a building's rump." But Robert Belcaster, a managing director of Tishman Speyer ... ...corporate headquarters in Evanston, the peak-roofed, octagonal Oakbrook Terrace Tower and the luminescent, glass-block station at the terminus of the O'Hare rapid transit line. But they city is alive with the work of other starchitects. Pedersen and his colleagues, for example. Their first Chicago entry was the curvilinear, green-tinted, river-dominating 333 W. Wacker Drive Building, which always elicits gasps of admiration from passersby and which won an American ... ...Drive that looks for all the world like a hounds tooth suit. It will house the Leo Burnett advertising agency and be an anchor of the new North Loop project. The trend toward starchitects is not peculiar to Chicago, of course. The same cachet-laden firms are being signed up by developers in cities all over the world. Jahn currently has more projects underway in New ... ...an architect is less important than his reputation for working within budgets, for being flexible and open to design changes and for being sensitive to the needs of users. But here, too, according to insiders, commissioning a starchitect is good insurance. "These guys have a track record," says one knowledgeable source. "They're more likely to give you a great design. They're more likely to give it to you the first time. And they're ... PAGE 2 Chicago Tribune, January 18, 1987 ...at the foot of Manhattan near Battery Park. Jahn's entry called for an Eiffel-styled tower that would dominate New York harbor like a lighthouse. Jahn's emergence as Chicago's premier starchitect has paralleled a decline in the fortune of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the nation's largest architectural firm with offices in nine cites and some 1,500 employees. For years, SOM had a virtual lock ... From bkd at GRAPHNET.COM Mon Jan 28 13:01:59 2002 From: bkd at GRAPHNET.COM (Bruce Dykes) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 08:01:59 -0500 Subject: Marilyze? Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael B Quinion" To: Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 06:14 Subject: Marilyze? > A World Wide Words subscriber has queried an expression as follows: > "My mother used to threaten to 'marilyze' (spelling?) us when we were > kids. I can't find it in any dictionary under any spelling I can > contrive." Neither can I. Can anyone decode this one? > > Additional information: both the subscriber and her husband know it > separately from their childhoods, suggesting that it is at least a > regional expression. One mother grew up in Philadelphia and the other > in rural southern New Jersey, both of English-Irish ancestry. Maybe it's "murdelize"? A further corruption of "murderize", as heard from Bugs Bunny. At least, that's who I heard it from... bkd From john at FENIKS.COM Mon Jan 28 13:32:56 2002 From: john at FENIKS.COM (John Blower) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 08:32:56 -0500 Subject: Marilyze? In-Reply-To: <3C55329F.7813.90F4AA@localhost> Message-ID: At 11:14 AM 1/28/02 +0000, Michael B Quinion wrote: >A World Wide Words subscriber has queried an expression as follows: >"My mother used to threaten to 'marilyze' (spelling?) us when we were >kids. I can't find it in any dictionary under any spelling I can >contrive." Neither can I. Can anyone decode this one? > >Additional information: both the subscriber and her husband know it >separately from their childhoods, suggesting that it is at least a >regional expression. One mother grew up in Philadelphia and the other >in rural southern New Jersey, both of English-Irish ancestry. > >-- >Michael Quinion >Editor, World Wide Words >E-mail: >Web: Perhaps it's a corruption of "marmalize", which was popularised by Liverpool (Liverpool-Irish?) comedian Ken Dodd (and his Diddymen, if I remember correctly) in the 1960s (?). Now, the roots of "marmalize"... Cheers! John Blower/FeNiKs Business Communications 795 Mammoth Rd, #23, Manchester, NH 03104 V: 603 668 5601 F: 707 220 7490 Trainer at Large/Ace Copywriter http://www.feniks.com/ mailto:john at feniks.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 00:39:03 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 08:39:03 +0800 Subject: George Thompson in NYT - online In-Reply-To: <200201280241.g0S2fN819143@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: You can also find in on Nexis. Here's the version appearing there; I haven't adjusted the line lengths, which make these read like free verse. No graphics, unfortunately. larry =================================== The New York Times January 27, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 11; Page 7; Column 1; Real Estate Desk HEADLINE: Streetscapes/Early-19th-Century New York; The Streets Are Familiar, but the Way of Life Is Gone BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER GRAY BODY: LIKE a few other New Yorkers, George A. Thompson methodically reads multiple daily New York newspapers -- but they don't arrive on his doorstep. Over the last decade, Mr. Thompson has been gradually reading dozens of different New York newspapers from the early days of the republic to World War I; last summer he happened upon the earliest recorded use of the term baseball, in 1823. Wading through a twilight zone of sources -- unindexed, uncatalogued, often long forgotten -- he is gradually reconstructing a New York City that seems like a foreign country -- a place where citizens could see the aurora borealis, where Midtown farmers complained of tree rustling and where ribboned steers paraded down Pine Street, Born in Connecticut in 1941 to a Brooklyn-born father, Mr. Thompson got a master's degree in English literature and then a temporary library job in Boston that led to a career in library service. A reference librarian at New York University since 1972, "I have been fascinated for all of my life with time past -- worlds that have disappeared," he said. He said that what strikes him about early photographs is not the vanished buildings, but the evidences of human life visible in the margins -- blurry pedestrians or passers-by somehow caught by the lens. "These people were intent on something," he said. "Our past lives are a succession of moments that absorb us at the time but have faded or been entirely forgotten. The newspapers record what was once the latest moment, and reading them lets me slip back into that time." About 10 years ago Mr. Thompson began scanning early 19th century newspapers for no particular purpose. He ran across notices in a newspaper called The National Advocate about a black man named William A. Brown, who organized a company of black actors in 1821. Their first play was Shakespeare's "Richard III," but Brown also had them perform a play he composed based on his life on the island of St. Vincent. Although players in Brown's "African Theatre" were occasionally harassed by some white New Yorkers, in 1822 Brown built a playhouse on Mercer between Bleecker and Houston Streets. By 1824 it was used by the actor James Hewlett, who billed himself as "the New-York and London colored comedian" and as "Shakespeare's proud representative." Hewlett went to jail in 1834 for theft, and the last reference Mr. Thompson can find has Hewlett attempting a comeback in Trinidad, in a white-managed theater there. Mr. Thompson wrote "A Documentary History of the African Theatre" (Northwestern University Press, 1998) on Brown and Hewlett's efforts. "They mark the fountainhead of one of the main streams of black creativity in this country," he said. His intensive research about the 1820's led him to a discovery that made news worldwide. While double-checking The National Advocate, he saw a story from 1823 that he had missed before: the announcement of a "base ball" game on Broadway south of Eighth Street, pushing the origins of the game far earlier than the traditional story of Abner Doubleday in 1839. Last summer, the discovery was reported on the front page of The New York Times. Now, a decade into his project, Mr. Thompson has read large runs of New York City newspapers in almost every year of the 19th century, especially the period 1815-1835, and the material he has collected presents a New York that is hard to relate to. In 1826 The New-York National Advocate commented on what was apparently a familiar springtime ritual: "A pair of fine steers, bedizened with the usual quantity of cocliquot ribbands, and oranges on the tips of their horns, were paraded yesterday through Pearl, Pine and other streets, with music. They are to be dead and cut up, ornamenting the stall No. 7 Franklin-market, on the 4th of March." Mr. Thompson believes this annual event marked the breaking up of ice on the Hudson, after which upstate farmers could ship their cattle to New York for sale. In a city free of smog and tall buildings, The New-York Evening Post gave an account of an aurora borealis seen from 9 to 11 p.m. in 1830, described as "a vivid flush of light in the sky, extending from east to west, in a long low arch." The article continued: "The light was of a greenish tint, and contrasted beautifully with the dark blue of the heavens, while at intervals the stars were seen faintly twinkling through it. South of the principal arch, luminous spots, like portions of the galaxy, occasionally showed themselves and disappeared." The condition of the streets was a constant annoyance. In 1818 The New-York Evening Post reported in outrage: "A respectable elderly lady, while crossing the intersection of Chambers and Chatham Streets yesterday afternoon, was thrown completely prostrate by a large hog and seriously injured by the fall. The rude boys, who set the drove in full speed among the crowds returning from church, immediately ran off." And in 1825 The Commercial Advertiser lamented on the city's failure to clean the streets, invoking the names of two strikingly unequal mountains: "There is now a pile of manure in William-street, along side of which that of Maiden-lane would dwindle like Butter Hill by the side of Chimborazo. On the highest peak of this heap, some wicked wag this morning erected a monument, inscribed, 'Sacred to the memory of the Street Inspector.' " The Commercial Advertiser expressed annoyance with the 1825 equivalent of scooters: "The driving of hoops upon the side-walks, has become an annoyance. It is now very common to meet three or four boys, of from 10 to 16 years, even in Broadway and Pearl-street, coming full tilt, one after the other, with a hoop rattling along before them. Kites are a dangerous annoyance, too." And in 1829 The Morning Courier chimed in with a satirical plea from the usually unlit "Lamp-Post #10", which lamented in "the voice of one crying in the darkness, 'I will be heard since I cannot be seen.' " IN 1835 The New York Daily Advertiser reported that 14 "valuable oak and hickory trees" on a farm somewhere between 14th and 57th Street had been cut down during the night and stolen. After a chase of about a half mile, a policeman found and arrested one of the thieves "near the windmill," and the paper attributed the crime to a group of "dirt cartmen and laborers, living in the outskirts of the city." On a recent day at the New York Society Library on East 79th Street, Mr. Thompson was scanning The New-York Evening Post, looking up citations he had previously noted and copying them in longhand onto tightly filled notebook pages. He uses microfilm when necessary, but he also checks hard-copy issues of newspapers. "Looking at microfilm is a pain, and often the filmed version misses issues or pages or is illegible," he said. The library has a nearly full run of original copies of The Post from 1804 to 1929. Mr. Thompson is now working on a book-length compilation of early 19th-century newspaper articles, with crime news, a sports page, a travel page, a real estate page, restaurant reviews and similar features. He said he hoped that "readers will finish one story, shake their heads and say, 'I can't believe that New York was ever like that,' then read the next story and shake their heads and say, 'I can't believe that New York has always been like that.' " Mr. Thompson does read current newspapers, but not with the same care he devotes to the old ones: "I sort of leaf through The Times and The News" he said, explaining, "The tragedies I read about in the 1820's are easier to deal with than today's." http://www.nytimes.com GRAPHIC: Photo: George A. Thompson and a very old newspaper in the reference room at the New York Society Library. (Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times) From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Jan 28 14:31:55 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:31:55 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches" In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: "Researches" is a bit funny for me too, but somewhere along the way I think I incorporated it into my grammar as a calque on Fr. "recherches" or something. Ben On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > count noun? > > Lynne > > Dr M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Jan 28 14:48:42 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:48:42 -0500 Subject: Marilyze? In-Reply-To: <04a301c1a7fb$fbe2a8d0$5102020a@graphnet.com> Message-ID: I came across "moidelize" (i.e., "murdelize") in an editorial cartoon depicting the Three Stooges--I don't remember if they themselves used it in any of their episodes. As for "marilyze", presumably we should spell it "maralyze" since presumably "paralyze" plays a role here somewhere...? Ben On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Bruce Dykes wrote: > > Maybe it's "murdelize"? A further corruption of "murderize", as heard from > Bugs Bunny. At least, that's who I heard it from... > > bkd > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 02:40:05 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 10:40:05 +0800 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" Message-ID: Today's lead headline of the New Haven Register reads as above, in a rather large font. And in case you weren't sure (I wasn't), it does indeed involve the "new" sort of counterfactual/subjunctive "may" we've been discussing. The subhead is "Hospital deaths avoidable, doc says", and the article begins: ======= A new method of making sure that sedated patients are breathing might have averted this months's dual tragedy, experts say. Two women undergoing cardiac catheterization at St. Raphael's died in mid-January when they were inadvertently given anesthesia rather than oxygen. A lunchbox-sized device called a capnograph possibly could have warned doctors and nurses sooner that the two women were not receiving enough air, a prominent physician said. ======== [Note the switch to "could" in the text of the article.] I know subjunctive "may" has been spreading, much to the consternation of some of us crypto-prescriptivists (I regret not being able to use may vs. might to illustrate an important semantic distinction), but to see it in a 3 inch headline is sobering indeed. Reminds me of when I first came across the following, in a headline of the Boston Herald sports section in 1971: Colts Want This One? So Don't the Pats --larry P.S. I wonder how long it will take before someone recalls the Marlon Brando line from On the Waterfront as "I may uh been a contender." From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 28 16:45:49 2002 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:45:49 EST Subject: How New M ay/Might the Word of the Year Not Be? Message-ID: Concerning the criterion of "newness", I consulted this year's organizer of the ADS Words of the Year spectacular; he replies as below: In a message dated 1/28/02 11:01:55 AM, wglowka at mail.gcsu.edu writes: I tried to limit my nominations to words that were fairly new or had new meanings, but things came from the floor that were old. Our out is always "newly prominent." "Daisy cutter" really is from the sixties. Wayne Glowka From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 28 18:08:34 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 10:08:34 -0800 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: <15565953.3221147592@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: I can't either. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > count noun? > > Lynne > > Dr M Lynne Murphy > Lecturer in Linguistics > Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Mon Jan 28 18:34:06 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:34:06 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I said I couldn't say "researches" either, but to raise the ghost of "degrees of grammaticality," I am much happier with "researches" than "informations" and with "informations" than "furnitures." I'd say it was because I know to parcel out the latter two in "bits and pieces," respectively, but that would only raise the ire of anti-punsters like larry. But seriously folks, I don't have a "classifier" for "research" as readily at hand as I do for the others. Could that have anything to with it? I doubt it; I've got handy classifiers for "beer," (cans, bottles), but that doesn't stop me from asking for "two beers." But, come to think of it, I have handy classifiers for wine too (bottle, glass), but I would never say give me "five wines," although I am sure waitpersons have no difficulty with this. dInIs >I can't either. > >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu > >On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > >> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us >> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a >> count noun? >> >> Lynne From johnson4 at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Mon Jan 28 18:32:45 2002 From: johnson4 at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Daniel Ezra Johnson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:32:45 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Along the same line, I've noticed "mails" recently, referring to email, where I would (still) have to use "messages". Daniel > I said I couldn't say "researches" either, but to raise the ghost of > "degrees of grammaticality," I am much happier with "researches" than > "informations" and with "informations" than "furnitures." > > dInIs > > > >I can't either. > > > >allen > >maberry at u.washington.edu > > > >> Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us > >> about the NYT article. Am I the only one here who can't use that as a > >> count noun? > >> > >> Lynne > From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Mon Jan 28 18:43:24 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:43:24 -0000 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Monday, January 28, 2002 1:34 pm -0500 "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > But seriously folks, I don't have a "classifier" for "research" as > readily at hand as I do for the others. Could that have anything to > with it? I doubt it; I've got handy classifiers for "beer," (cans, > bottles), but that doesn't stop me from asking for "two beers." But, > come to think of it, I have handy classifiers for wine too (bottle, > glass), but I would never say give me "five wines," although I am > sure waitpersons have no difficulty with this. I suppose part of the reason that count 'researches' strikes me as odd is because I have a range of ways of making 'research' countable that are semantically more transparent--and so 'researches' confuses me as to what's being counted. There's pieces of research --- 'I've seen a few pieces of research that contradict that claim'--in this case, research = the output of researching streams/programs of research -- 'I've got two streams of research going at the moment: lexical relations and social labeling'. but if it's the sum of all the little projects I've done, it's my (mass) research, not my researches. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU Mon Jan 28 20:10:26 2002 From: andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:10:26 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches Message-ID: Lynne Murphy wrote: > > I suppose part of the reason that count 'researches' strikes me as odd is > because I have a range of ways of making 'research' countable that are > semantically more transparent--and so 'researches' confuses me as to what's > being counted. > > There's > > pieces of research --- 'I've seen a few pieces of research that > contradict that claim'--in this case, research = the output of researching > > streams/programs of research -- 'I've got two streams of research going at > the moment: lexical relations and social labeling'. > > but if it's the sum of all the little projects I've done, it's my (mass) > research, not my researches. With this in mind, and even without, 'researches' implies to me separate forays. George Thompson's research into, "Feathers without much chicken," plus George Thompson's research into, "Coniack," comprise two of George Thompson's researches. Not the output of researching, but research activity. That's at least how it seems to me. FWIW, I don't have this one, but I like the way it feels :) From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 28 20:44:33 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:44:33 -0500 Subject: Peter Tamony Message-ID: A book just received in the library here is "Torching the Fink Books and Other Essays on Venacular Culture" by Archie Green. (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.) It contains a memoir of Peter Tamony on pp. 183-98. It appears that this memoir has not been published previously: it's not mentioned in the acknowledgements and it does not appear in the bibliography of Green's writings, which I skimmed for the years after 1985. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 28 20:49:27 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:49:27 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "New device may have prevented tragedies" This is a beautiful example of may/might confusion that produces a very bad result. We read the headline & think, "Whew! tragedy averted; glad to hear it," and move on to the next item. In the case of "Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats,"at least the ambiguity (if not opacity) leads us to check the text to see what's meant. A. Murie ~~~~~~~~~~ Original Message: >Today's lead headline of the New Haven Register reads as above, in a >rather large font. And in case you weren't sure (I wasn't), it does >indeed involve the "new" sort of counterfactual/subjunctive "may" >we've been discussing. The subhead is "Hospital deaths avoidable, >doc says", and the article begins: >======= > A new method of making sure that sedated patients are breathing >might have averted this months's dual tragedy, experts say. Two >women undergoing cardiac catheterization at St. Raphael's died in >mid-January when they were inadvertently given anesthesia rather than >oxygen. A lunchbox-sized device called a capnograph possibly could >have warned doctors and nurses sooner that the two women were not >receiving enough air, a prominent physician said. >======== >[Note the switch to "could" in the text of the article.] >I know subjunctive "may" has been spreading, much to the >consternation of some of us crypto-prescriptivists (I regret not >being able to use may vs. might to illustrate an important semantic >distinction), but to see it in a 3 inch headline is sobering indeed. >Reminds me of when I first came across the following, in a headline >of the Boston Herald sports section in 1971: > >Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats > >--larry > >P.S. I wonder how long it will take before someone recalls the >Marlon Brando line from On the Waterfront as "I may uh been a >contender." ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...or, "Of all sad words of mouth or pen, The saddest are these: It may have been." From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 28 21:03:56 2002 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:03:56 -0500 Subject: Request: Andrew E. Drews' thesis Message-ID: If one searches Google for "edinburgh theses", the 2nd item retrieved will permit a connection with the catalog of the U. of Edinburgh's library. "Edinburgh University theses presented since 1985 are listed in the Library's Catalogue, and can be searched for by author, title or keyword". However, I found nothing under Andrew or Aaron Drew, Drewe, Drewes, or Drews. There is a print publication called "Index to Theses with AbstractsAccepted for Higher Degrees by the Universities of Great Britian and Ireland" This appears 6 times a year. I don't see Drew, &c. in the indexes to the issues of 2000 or 2001. It claims to be searchable on line, at the address "www.theses.com" Subscribers to the print version are said to be eligible for a password. Bobst is a subscriber, but I doubt that we have ever applied for a password. Otherwise, one may "sample" one year, for free, at that address, but the sample year is evidently from the mid-1990s. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Gerald Cohen Date: Sunday, January 27, 2002 12:39 pm Subject: Request: Andrew E. Drews' thesis > I've been working through the ads-l material on "Bob's your uncle" > and noticed Aaron E. Drews' (U of Edinburgh) 6 July 2000 mention of > his thesis. > I'd be grateful--and I'm sure many other ads-l members would also > appreciate it--if he would share with us the title and date of the > thesis and its main contributions. Anything else the author feels we > should know about his work would of course also be welcome. > > --Gerald Cohen > > > >'...As for working-class, the only working-class folk I've > encountered are > Scots, and I've never heard it used. Might be a north-south thing. > I have heard it used by some of the participants in my thesis, very > clearly *not* working-class. ...' > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 28 21:14:51 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 16:14:51 -0500 Subject: George Thompson's researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Finally something an old codger like me can get into. I say "e-mails" (but not "mails"). dInIs >Along the same line, I've noticed "mails" recently, referring to email, >where I would (still) have to use "messages". > >Daniel > From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 28 21:09:26 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:09:26 -0600 Subject: Peter Tamony In-Reply-To: <2622a642625bc2.2625bc22622a64@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: This article is a later and expanded version on Archie Green's presentation in April 1988 at the University of Missouri for the 3rd Annual Peter Tamony Memorial Lecture on American Language. The title he used here was "'Fink': The Labor Connection" and was part of a panel on labor lore and language. DMLance > From: George Thompson > Reply-To: American Dialect Society > Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:44:33 -0500 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Peter Tamony > > A book just received in the library here is "Torching the Fink Books > and Other Essays on Venacular Culture" by Archie Green. (Chapel Hill & > London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.) It contains a > memoir of Peter Tamony on pp. 183-98. It appears that this memoir has > not been published previously: it's not mentioned in the > acknowledgements and it does not appear in the bibliography of Green's > writings, which I skimmed for the years after 1985. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 22:38:18 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 17:38:18 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Monday, January 28, 2002, at 03:49 PM, sagehen wrote: > "New device may have prevented tragedies" > > This is a beautiful example of may/might confusion that produces a very > bad result. We read the headline & think, "Whew! tragedy averted; glad to > hear it," and move on to the next item. > > In the case of "Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats,"at least the > ambiguity (if not opacity) leads us to check the text to see what's meant. > A. Murie > I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, even in Boston. -- Alice Faber Haskins Laboratories Tel: (203) 865-6163 270 Crown St FAX: (203) 865-8163 New Haven, CT 06511 USA faber at haskins.yale.edu From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 29 00:51:31 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 19:51:31 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: <20020128223507.F0FD6792C@alvin.haskins.yale.edu> Message-ID: >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that >in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. > It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, > even in Boston. >-- >Alice Faber ~~~~~~~~ Aren't arresting, slangy headlines the norm, especially on the sports pages? Would this have been clear to New Englanders because this particular inverted syntax was common, or because they'd have known the Pats' motives? A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 01:10:37 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:10:37 EST Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) Message-ID: A SKETCHER'S TOUR ROUND THE WORLD by Robert Elwes London: Hurst and Blackett 1854 This is a very enjoyable book. Gee, it sure would be great to travel around the world. "Piranha" and "Cueca" are antedates of 15+ years. Pg. 45: The _cuisine_, however, was not well furnished, so I had to make acquaintance with the regular Brazilian dishes, farinha and fajao, which are to the natives here what potatoes are to the Irish. Farinha is Mandioco flour, and fajao a sort of small black bean, neither of them bad when eaten as vegetables, but poor fare alone. (OED has "farinha," but "fajao"?--ed.) Pg. 62: ...dried beef, carne sertao (country meat) as it is called.... Pg. 63: ...piranhos (Myletes macropomus).... (OED/M-W have 1869 for "piranha." I didn't copy the page because I didn' think it was an antedate--ed.) Pg. 65: ..._carne seco_ (jerked beef).... Pg. 113: The flakes of meat are put by to make jerked beef, so called from he native name "charqui"... Pg. 142: Felipe Dominguez gave us a very good supper: a large dish of fowls, potatoes, onions and tomatoes, stewed up and garnished with chillies, was placed on the table, and each taking his plate, helped himself. This is the national Chili dish called "Casuela," and will almost bear comparison with Meg Merriles' famous soup. (OED has "cazuela" in "cassolette"--ed.) Pg. 145: ..._puna_, shortness of breath.... Pg. 155: The national dance, the Samuqueca, seemed to be the favourite. (OED has "Cueca" or "Zamacueca" from 1917--ed.) Pg. 228: The missionaries have taught the natives a new game at football, and at this they are always playing, and think of nothing else. Pg. 263: "Hi!" Pg. 287 (Australia): Convicts, transported for life, are called "bellowsers".... Pg. 322: One of the delicacies was _beche-la-mar_ soup, which I tasted for the first time. Pg. 343: Joss being he word for God. Pg. 344: "Pigeon" is the Chinese imitation of the difficult word "business." Pg. 350: Bird's-nest soup is rather an expensive luxury.... -------------------------------------------------------- NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE IN HIS MAJESTY'S LATE SHIP ALCESTE, TO THE YELLOW SEA, ALONG THE COAST OF COREA by John McLeod (also "M'Leod"--ed.) Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son 1818 Pg. 114: Bird-nest soup is also handed round as a great treat, to which the Chinese attribute very extraordinary and invigorating qualities. (OED has a Chinese "Bird's nest" dish in the 1700s, but it's not clear it's a soup--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 01:18:19 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:18:19 EST Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) Message-ID: A re-check of OED shows that "feijao" is 1857, so I've antedated that term, too. (Pg. 45: "fajao") From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 28 13:00:30 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 21:00:30 +0800 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: <20020128223507.F0FD6792C@alvin.haskins.yale.edu> Message-ID: At 5:38 PM -0500 1/28/02, Alice Faber wrote: >On Monday, January 28, 2002, at 03:49 PM, sagehen wrote: > >>"New device may have prevented tragedies" >> >>This is a beautiful example of may/might confusion that produces a very >>bad result. We read the headline & think, "Whew! tragedy averted; glad to >>hear it," and move on to the next item. >> >>In the case of "Colts Want This One? >So Don't the Pats,"at least the >>ambiguity (if not opacity) leads us to check the text to see what's meant. >>A. Murie >> >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that >in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. > It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, > even in Boston. What she said. L From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 29 02:28:09 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:28:09 -0600 Subject: Query: Creek don't rise Message-ID: I've received a second request from a colleague for information on the expression "Good Lord willin' an' the Creek don't rise." He had heard (as did I, independently) that the expression originally referred to the Creek Indians, not to a creek with water. But I no longer remember who gave me that information and which U.S. presidential candidate in the 19th century supposedly started the expression. Before I tell my colleague that I can provide no additional information, I thought I'd run the query by ads-l once more. So, might anyone have any idea about which 19th century political figure first used the expression? ---Gerald Cohen From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 29 02:35:42 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 20:35:42 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Re: wicket ball Message-ID: >From: David Ball >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >Subject: [19cBB] wicket ball lives?? >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:33:42 -0600 >List-Unsubscribe: > >I've been trolling the net for references to wicket ball, finding four or >five, but all frustratingly vague. Mostly what I've found is that it was >still played in 1865 and probably later, and that in the 1840's it could be >played by at least 30 or 40 people. I haven't seen anything to rule it out >being an informal version fo cricket, but nothing to prove that it is such, >of course. > >Then I encountered the web site of an osteopath in Lake Havasu City, >Arizona, which gives a testimonial from an elderly woman named Helen (no >last name given), written in July, 2000, who says that after three joint >replacements, including both shoulders, "Now I can swing a wicket ball bat." > >In fact, there's a picture of her, and she actually does appear to be >swinging a bat, but the angle of the picture is such that you can't see it >at all. > >I don't know what to think of this, except that perhaps wicket ball has >survived as a living fossil on the shores of Lake Havasu, like the monster >in Loch Ness. Here's the site. Take a look for yourself. > > >http://www.havasubonedoc.com/helen.htm > >------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> >Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck >Monitoring Service trial >http://us.click.yahoo.com/ACHqaB/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/9rHolB/TM >---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> > >In order to unsubscribe, send any message (even a blank) to > 19cBB-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to >http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Jan 29 03:33:14 2002 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 22:33:14 -0500 Subject: "New device may have prevented tragedies" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: sagehen said: > >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that >>in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. >> It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, >> even in Boston. >>-- >>Alice Faber > ~~~~~~~~ >Aren't arresting, slangy headlines the norm, especially on the sports pages? >Would this have been clear to New Englanders because this particular >inverted syntax was common, or because they'd have known the Pats' >motives? This construction with a pleonastic negative is reasonably widely used, though I associate it more with Western Massachusetts than with the Boston area. I haven't heard it commented on they way expressions like "I could care less" are (where people who argue that it's illogical are clearly familiar with the intended meaning but have decided, for whatever reason, to be obstreperous about it), but I'd imagine that more people are familiar with it than use it. As for sports headlines in general, there's a certain "dog bites man" quality to a headline asserting that a team wants to win, so (without seeing the story, of course), I'd have to suspect some Gricean subtext--why are we asserting that which is obviously true? But I couldn't say what use of this casual, pleonastic construction contributes to such a subtext. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 29 04:06:51 2002 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 23:06:51 -0500 Subject: Query: Creek don't rise In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Good Lord willin' an' the Creek don't rise." > > Before I tell my colleague that I can provide no additional >information, I thought I'd run the query by ads-l once more. So, >might anyone have any idea about which 19th century political figure >first used the expression? > >---Gerald Cohen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More'n likely Andrew Jackson, according to my informant. A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 04:44:44 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 23:44:44 EST Subject: Tamal, Pisco (1829); Oh, Fudge Message-ID: HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NARRATIVE OF TWENTY YEARS' RESIDENCE IN SOUTH AMERICA by W. B. Stevenson London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green 1829 In three volumes VOLUME ONE Pg. 369: After the paste is made from the boiled maize it is seasoned with salt and an abundance of (Pg. 370--ed.) capsicum, and a portion of lard is added: a quantity of this paste is then laid on a piece of plantain leaf, and some meat is put among it, after which it is rolled up in the leaf, and boiled for several hours. This kind of pudding is called _tamal_, a _Quichua_ word, which inclines me to believe, that it is a dish known to the ancient inhabitants of the country. (This beats OED's 1856 "tamal," from that other Olmsted fellow--ed.) VOLUME TWO Pg. 136: ...a roasted kid hot, boiled turkey cold, collared pig, ham and tongue, with butter, cheese and olives, besides which, wine and brandy, _pisco_, and several _liquers_ were on the table.... Pg. 315: The truth is, that the distilling of rum is a royal monopoly in Quito; whereas that of brandy is not so in Peru: thus, for the purpose of increasing the consumption of rum, which augments the royal revenue, brandy is one of the _pisco_ or _aguardiente_, contraband articles. (OED has 1849 for "pisco"--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- OH, FUDGE Tomorrow, I'll take a day trip to Massachusetts to visit Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges. I won't have much time--leave at five a.m., arrive at 10 a.m., leave at 5 p.m., get home 10 p.m. However, if anyone has any research requests, please e-mail me. I'll be looking for Smith fudge, Deacon Porter's hat, and whether women are sexually satisfied by milk and crackers. (Oh sure, replace me with little elves from a hollow tree....) From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jan 29 05:27:14 2002 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 22:27:14 -0700 Subject: Researches Message-ID: Back in the stone age of 1962 I published an article naively titled "Researches in Coahuiltecan Ethnography", which was a collection of separate research studies from various sources brought together under one roof. It seemed not unnatural to title it thus, though I agree that like other normally noncount nouns, it has a different meaning (like "sugars") when pluralized, i.e. of differentiated instantiations of whatever, and is not commonly used. I hope this doesn't still violate dInIs' and Lynne's Sprachgefuhl. Rudy From michael at QUINION.COM Tue Jan 29 10:15:58 2002 From: michael at QUINION.COM (Michael B Quinion) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:15:58 -0000 Subject: Sunday throat Message-ID: Thanks to everyone who had a go at explaining 'marilyze'. Could I trouble the list again? Another subscriber has asked about the phrase "Sunday throat" for windpipe. My draft reply says: > It's hardly common, to judge from the few references that have > turned up, though it does still seem to be known today, and it's > certainly American in origin. > > The two places in which I've definitively managed to track it down > are both books from the early part of the twentieth century. One > is The Lure Of The Dim Trails by B M Bower, dated 1907: "Hank was > taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. > Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his > Sunday throat - and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's > Sunday throat, eyed him with suspicion". The other is from The > Eskimo Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins (1914): "The water went down > his 'Sunday-throat' and choked him!". > > Apart from this, I'm at a total and complete loss. Why "Sunday"? > Can anybody explain? Can anyone add anything to this? -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 29 12:52:35 2002 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 07:52:35 -0500 Subject: Researches In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Not any more than "rices" and "furnitures" do in such sentences as "The various rices used in cooking." dInIs >Back in the stone age of 1962 I published an article naively titled >"Researches in Coahuiltecan Ethnography", which was a collection of >separate research studies from various sources brought together under one >roof. It seemed not unnatural to title it thus, though I agree that like >other normally noncount nouns, it has a different meaning (like "sugars") >when pluralized, i.e. of differentiated instantiations of whatever, and is >not commonly used. I hope this doesn't still violate dInIs' and Lynne's >Sprachgefuhl. > > Rudy -- 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 Tue Jan 29 01:19:26 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:19:26 +0800 Subject: Fwd: Re: wicket ball In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:35 PM -0600 1/28/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: >>From: David Ball >>Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >>To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >>Subject: [19cBB] wicket ball lives?? >>Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:33:42 -0600 >>List-Unsubscribe: >> >>I've been trolling the net for references to wicket ball, finding four or >>five, but all frustratingly vague. Mostly what I've found is that it was >>still played in 1865 and probably later, and that in the 1840's it could be >>played by at least 30 or 40 people. I haven't seen anything to rule it out >>being an informal version fo cricket, but nothing to prove that it is such, >>of course. >> >>Then I encountered the web site of an osteopath in Lake Havasu City, >>Arizona, which gives a testimonial from an elderly woman named Helen (no >>last name given), written in July, 2000, who says that after three joint >>replacements, including both shoulders, "Now I can swing a wicket ball bat." >> >>In fact, there's a picture of her, and she actually does appear to be >>swinging a bat, but the angle of the picture is such that you can't see it >>at all. >> >>I don't know what to think of this, except that perhaps wicket ball has >>survived as a living fossil on the shores of Lake Havasu, like the monster >>in Loch Ness. Here's the site. Take a look for yourself. Maybe wicket ball came over to Lake Havasu along with the London Bridge, as a package deal. larry From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Jan 29 15:01:42 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:01:42 -0500 Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) In-Reply-To: <10f.b40f572.2987508e@aol.com> Message-ID: >Pg. 63: ...piranhos (Myletes macropomus).... Re piranha/piranho, something's a little funny (fishy?) about this. The genus of the piranha is Serassalmus. Myletes is a genus of related characin fishes, though I've had a hard time finding Myletes macropomus specifically (it may be the tambaqui). There's a Colossoma macropomus (or macropomum), the black-finned pacu, that is also related (and looks awful piranha-like). Anyway, it may not be relevant for OED purposes, but it might be worth looking into precisely what "piranho" referred to (possibly, of course, several similar fishes, including the piranha). Ben From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Jan 29 15:14:46 2002 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:14:46 -0500 Subject: query - laser-focused In-Reply-To: Message-ID: From one of the umpteen Enron articles, "The key to understanding its collapse is contained in its annual report for 2000. The company, the report says, "is laser-focused on earnings per share (EPS), and we expect to continue strong earnings performance." I am assuming it means being focused upon something as a laser would focus on a target - giving it more emphasis than merely "focusing." But, I need proof. Anyone know of any? Thanks, Kathleen E. Miller Safire's "On Language" From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 29 15:32:00 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:32:00 -0500 Subject: query - laser-focused In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020129100509.00a3a910@mail> Message-ID: > From one of the umpteen Enron articles, "The key to understanding its > collapse is contained in its annual report for 2000. The company, the > report says, "is laser-focused on earnings per share (EPS), and we expect > to continue strong earnings performance." > > I am assuming it means being focused upon something as a laser would focus > on a target - giving it more emphasis than merely "focusing." But, I need > proof. Anyone know of any? This seems to be a very common expression, and we have a lot of examples at hand-- 1996 S.F. Chronicle 26 Feb., After 22 visits to California -- including a two-day trip yesterday and today -- the president is "laser-focused" on California, Mulholland said. 1996 Economist 16 Nov., Web surfing is a laser-focused process of picking exactly what you want, when you want it. 2001 N.Y. Times Mag. 18 Nov., How many college students, laser-focused on landing a job on Wall Street or a slot in law school, want to put their G.P.A.'s at risk by studying, say, Urdu? to pick only a few. Jesse Sheidlower OED From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 29 15:40:34 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:40:34 -0500 Subject: Lost positives Message-ID: A correspondent asked me if I knew where he could find a list of lost postives (such as gruntled, kempt, and sheveled). Since (if I understand the term correctly) you can just make up any old lost positive by chopping off an existing word's negative prefix, then a complete list would be silly. However, what about a list of lost positives that were once actual members of the lexicon (such as kempt)? Does anyone know of any books or other resources that have such a list? Thanks. Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From lists at MCFEDRIES.COM Tue Jan 29 16:04:43 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:04:43 -0500 Subject: query - laser-focused Message-ID: Here's the earliest LexisNexis cite: It's just real interesting, and it began rattling around in my head and for some reason, the notion of a kid who by virtue of very specific circumstances had all of those prodigious abilities kind of laser-focused onto medicine. --The Baltimore Sun (via The Record), July 23, 1989 (In case you're wondering, the above is Stephen Bochco talking about creating the character of Doogie Howser.) I'm not sure if you're interested in this, but the metaphor itself appears to be a bit older: Throughout those years, political power in Chicago was focused like a laser beam on Daley himself, as he held the offices of both mayor and chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee. --Fortune, September 11, 1978 Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From douglas at NB.NET Tue Jan 29 16:11:47 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:11:47 -0500 Subject: Sunday throat In-Reply-To: <3C56765E.23053.52DD8B@localhost> Message-ID: >Could I trouble the list again? Another subscriber has asked about >the phrase "Sunday throat" for windpipe. My draft reply says: > > > It's hardly common, to judge from the few references that have > > turned up, though it does still seem to be known today, and it's > > certainly American in origin. > > > > The two places in which I've definitively managed to track it down > > are both books from the early part of the twentieth century. One > > is The Lure Of The Dim Trails by B M Bower, dated 1907: "Hank was > > taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. > > Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his > > Sunday throat - and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's > > Sunday throat, eyed him with suspicion". The other is from The > > Eskimo Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins (1914): "The water went down > > his 'Sunday-throat' and choked him!". > > > > Apart from this, I'm at a total and complete loss. Why "Sunday"? > > Can anybody explain? > >Can anyone add anything to this? There are a very few current examples on the Internet. Here is one from Usenet, Nov. 2001: <> Why "Sunday"? I can make a speculative explanation, although I've never heard the expression and I can't find it in any of my handy books. Attributive "Sunday" = "special", as in "Sunday best [clothes]", "Sunday shirt" = "special/clean shirt [for church]", "Sunday name" (esp. Scots) = "formal name" ... also "Sunday face" = "sanctimonious face/expression". The sense extends from "special" to "alternative". Thus the Sunday suit is distinct from the everyday suit. Also note "Sunday face" (e.g., in Farmer and Henley) = "buttocks" (slang), i.e., the "other face". So the "Sunday throat" is the "other throat", i.e., the trachea rather than the (o)esophagus ... i.e., the throat which is less usually employed in eating. MY mother would say "the wrong pipe". -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 16:15:09 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:15:09 EST Subject: Deacon Porter's Hat & Freshman's Tears (1939) Message-ID: Greetings from South Hadley, Massachusetts. At least, I think that's where I am. I woke up from the bus and it wasn't Hawaii and it wasn't Cuba. SUNDAY THROAT--Preachers do their business on Sunday. They talk a lot. It's a throat necessary for the "big one"--or the problems as a result of it. It probably relates to that. THE YANKEE COOK BOOK: AN ANTHOLOGY OF INCOMPARABLE RECIPES FROM THE SIX NEW ENGLAND STATES by Imogene Wolcott from the files of YANKEE magazine Coward-McCann, Inc., NY 1939 Pg. 182: "FRESHMAN'S TEARS" (A cream tapioca pudding popular in Western Massachusetts) 3 tablespoons pearl tapioca 1 cup water 1/8 teaspoon salt 3 eggs, separated 3 1/2 cups milk, scalded 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla (...) Tapioca pudding was appropriately named "Freshman's Tears" by the undergraduates at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass. This particularly delicious version is from Mrs. Silas Snow, Williamsburg, Mass. In the home of Mrs. Clifton Johnson, Hockanum, Hadley, Mass., "grandma" made this pudding until she was nearly ninety. Pg. 202: DEACON PORTER'S HAT (Recipe from the Office of the Steward, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass.) 1 cup ground suet 1 cup molasses 1 cup raisins 1 cup currants 3 cups flour, sifted 1 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cloves 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 1/2 cups milk 3/4 cup chopped nuts (optional) Combine suet, molasses, raisins, and currants. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add the suet mixture alternately with milk, beating until smooth after each addition. Turn into a greased 2-quart mold, cover tightly, and steam 3 hours. Serve hot with hard sauce. Send to the table whole. Serves 10 to 12. This dessert is well known to students of Mount Holyoke College. Deacon Porter, an early trustee of the college, wore a stovepipe hat, style 1837. This pudding, when it came to the table whole, was given this epithet by some college wag. A light-colored steamed pudding, made in a similar mold, was called Deacon Porter's Summer Hat. Mount Holyoke College, when it was Mount Holyoke Seminary, used to be called "The Minister's Rib Factory" because it turned out so many wives for ministers and missionaries. (The yearbooks here start at 1896, which is too late for "fudge"...Any "Deacon Porter's Hat" in the papers of James Knox Polk?--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 16:17:19 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:17:19 EST Subject: Piranhos, Cueca (1854); Bird-Nest Soup (1818) Message-ID: The passage mentioned "dreaded piranhos" and their sharp teeth. Seems like "piranha" to me. I'll copy the passage here tomorrow if anyone makes a request. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 16:36:36 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:36:36 EST Subject: Milk & Crackers (M&C) Message-ID: From the UNION-NEWS, 11 April 1997, Pg. C3, col. 3 box: _Hampshire:_ "Continuous" dining makes it possible to get a meal any time of the day or night. _Mount Holyoke:_ M&C ("milk and cookies"). Students take a study break at 9:30 p.m., converging on the dining rooms in their respective dorms to nibble on specially-made desserts. From a note card: "Milk and Crackers" letter of Lucy S. Barlow x-class of 1847 December 10, 1844 (p. 2) "There is a recess of 15 minutes in the forenoon and evening at which times if we like we can go down to the middle room...and take luncheon which consists of cake and crackers." Useful for "Temperance Cake" and "Indian Pudding" is this, by Douglass, Mrs. Helen Maria (Graves), Extracts from personal journal, 1848-1849, pg. 8: "We have the old fashioned sponge cake once a week. Every Saturday night and Sabbath morning we have fried cakes. These kinds of cake are made every week and we have them on the table alternately. The temperance cake is the best. In my recipe book I have a particular recipe for Indian Pudding and apple and pumpkin pie crust." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 17:01:50 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:01:50 EST Subject: Sociology of Milk and Crackers (1981) Message-ID: SOCIOLOGY OF MILK AND CRACKERS Jeanne Grout April 22, 1981 Sociology 103 Mr. Smith (11 pages--ed.) Pg. 1: In Mary Lyon's day, preparing simple, nutritious food in the kitchen was part of domestic training at Mount Holyoke Seminary.(1) 1. Lansing, Marion. _Mary Lyon: Through Her Letters_. Books, Inc. (Boston: 1937), p. 231. Pg. 1: In 1912, the home-made "College Cracker" was available at every hour of the day or night....(2) 2. Warner, Frances Lester. _On a New England Campus_. Houghton Mifflin Co. (Boston: 1937), p. 176. Pg. 1: From 1962 to the present, Milk and Crackers (later (Pg. 2--ed.) shortened to M&C's) is mentioned in the freshman handbook along with the "freshman ten" as one MHC ritual.(8) 8. MHC Freshman Handbook, 1962-63 through 1969-70. (The rest of the paper is a survey of current--1981--M&Cs...I posted "freshman ten" here before. That goes back to MHC of 1962??--ed.) From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 17:16:33 2002 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:16:33 EST Subject: Lost positives Message-ID: Here's an enjoyable romp through lost positives: How I met my wife by Jack Winter Published 25 July 1994 in the New Yorker It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. (etc.) . . . . - Allan Metcalf From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 29 04:41:55 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:41:55 +0800 Subject: Lost positives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:16 PM -0500 1/29/02, AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Here's an enjoyable romp through lost positives: > > How I met my wife > by Jack Winter > Published 25 July 1994 in the New Yorker > >It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, >despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. > >I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing >alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total >array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly >way. > >(etc.) And if you want the whole caboodle as well as the kit... It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads and tails of. I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated---as if this were something I was great shakes at---and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it. From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 29 17:44:32 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:44:32 -0500 Subject: "so don't I" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Whereas "I could care less" is transparent, even out of context (to most of us anyway), "so don't I" isn't. When I first heard it years ago, I assumed it meant "Neither do I," until context made this obviously wrong. It's dialectal (extending into New York State too?), and like many dialect features might not be considered stylistically inappropriate in the home area, even in headlines. A similarly non-noticed feature in the South Midland is the much-discussed p.p. + -ed/-en (needs washed, needs done), which appears regularly in headlines in southern Ohio. At 10:33 PM 1/28/02 -0500, you wrote: >sagehen said: > > >I think Larry's point (if I may be so bold as to speak for him) was that > >>in large chunks of New England "so Don't the Pats" isn't at all ambiguous. > >> It's just in a stylistic level one wouldn't expect to find in a headline, > >> even in Boston. > >>-- > >>Alice Faber > > ~~~~~~~~ > >Aren't arresting, slangy headlines the norm, especially on the sports > pages? > >Would this have been clear to New Englanders because this particular > >inverted syntax was common, or because they'd have known the Pats' > >motives? > >This construction with a pleonastic negative is reasonably widely used, >though I associate it more with Western Massachusetts than with the Boston >area. I haven't heard it commented on they way expressions like "I could >care less" are (where people who argue that it's illogical are clearly >familiar with the intended meaning but have decided, for whatever reason, >to be obstreperous about it), but I'd imagine that more people are familiar >with it than use it. > >As for sports headlines in general, there's a certain "dog bites man" >quality to a headline asserting that a team wants to win, so (without >seeing the story, of course), I'd have to suspect some Gricean subtext--why >are we asserting that which is obviously true? But I couldn't say what use >of this casual, pleonastic construction contributes to such a subtext. _____________________________________________ 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 bboling at UNM.EDU Tue Jan 29 18:05:29 2002 From: bboling at UNM.EDU (bruce d. boling) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:05:29 -0700 Subject: Sunday throat In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020129105323.024d7ec0@nb.net> Message-ID: The expression is alive and thriving in my everyday speech (ultimately NW Missouri), where it refers to matter going down the windpipe when it should have gone down the "other throat." The resultant gagging and sputtering evokes the comment "it/something went down my/your Sunday throat." The explanation proposed below (Sunday : weekday :: special, unusual : ordinary) I think is correct--it certainly corresponds to the explanation given me by my mother in the far-off days of childhood when I asked her "what's a Sunday throat?" Bruce D. Boling University of New Mexico bboling at unm.edu --On Tuesday, January 29, 2002, 11:11 AM -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: >> Could I trouble the list again? Another subscriber has asked about >> the phrase "Sunday throat" for windpipe. My draft reply says: >> >> > It's hardly common, to judge from the few references that have >> > turned up, though it does still seem to be known today, and it's >> > certainly American in origin. >> > >> > The two places in which I've definitively managed to track it down >> > are both books from the early part of the twentieth century. One >> > is The Lure Of The Dim Trails by B M Bower, dated 1907: "Hank was >> > taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. >> > Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his >> > Sunday throat - and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's >> > Sunday throat, eyed him with suspicion". The other is from The >> > Eskimo Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins (1914): "The water went down >> > his 'Sunday-throat' and choked him!". >> > >> > Apart from this, I'm at a total and complete loss. Why "Sunday"? >> > Can anybody explain? >> >> Can anyone add anything to this? > > There are a very few current examples on the Internet. Here is one from > Usenet, Nov. 2001: > > < fucking chicken bone. Damn thing gets stuck edgewise about half way down > my Sunday throat.>> > > Why "Sunday"? I can make a speculative explanation, although I've never > heard the expression and I can't find it in any of my handy books. > > Attributive "Sunday" = "special", as in "Sunday best [clothes]", "Sunday > shirt" = "special/clean shirt [for church]", "Sunday name" (esp. Scots) = > "formal name" ... also "Sunday face" = "sanctimonious face/expression". > > The sense extends from "special" to "alternative". Thus the Sunday suit is > distinct from the everyday suit. Also note "Sunday face" (e.g., in Farmer > and Henley) = "buttocks" (slang), i.e., the "other face". So the "Sunday > throat" is the "other throat", i.e., the trachea rather than the > (o)esophagus ... i.e., the throat which is less usually employed in > eating. > > MY mother would say "the wrong pipe". > > -- Doug Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 29 18:05:30 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:05:30 -0600 Subject: wicket bat Message-ID: Here is a message I received today on "wicket bat"---Gerald Cohen >From: Larry McCray >Reply-To: 19cBB at yahoogroups.com >To: 19th Century Egroup <19cBB at yahoogroups.com> >Subject: [19cBB] Helen and the Wicket Bat >Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 21:58:11 -0600 > > >Gentle Nineteeners -- > >I laughed and laughed when I stumbled on >the site that shows Helen and her wicket >bat a couple of nights ago, and thank >Dave Ball for posting it. The site, >by the way, advertises a physician in >the Arizona area. Go figure. > >Let's see. She lives in Lake Havasu. >Isn't that where they uncrated London >Bridge and rebuilt it across a fake >pond? Do you think the wicket bat >had been put in the crate in merrie >old England? [There can be no truth, >of course, to any rumor that Helen >herself came with the crates.] > >[Nor, one assumes, can there me any >truth to any speculation that the >whole notion of a wicket bat came to >Helen's husband, who could not have >become tired of hearing, late at >night, Helen saying she's sorry but >she had a "wicket bat headache." >But we digress.] > >I also googled a now broken site that >apparently claimed that an old alum >of Hobart College in Geneva, NY, >recalled that all they used to have >on campus for activity was swimming >in nearby Seneca Lake and playing >wicket ball on campus. [Now, how >exactly does one cite a broken www >link? > >And, google, says, there is such a >thing as a "wicket bat willow" tree. > >Ya gotta love google. > >G'night, Helen. > >Larry McCray >--------------- >Baseball in Washington in my daughter's lifetime! >email:mccrayL at bellatlantic.net >Arlington, Virginia >BR/TL, NTIM From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 18:47:11 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 13:47:11 EST Subject: "Freshman Ten" (1962) Message-ID: A few more Mount Holyoke notes before I visit Smith. MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE FRESHMAN HANDBOOK FOR THE CLASS OF 1966 FROM THEIR SISTER CLASS, 1964 1962 Pg. 17: CANDLELIGHT, COFFEE AND CONVERSATION The meals on Wednesday evening and Sunday noon are known as "Gracious Living." These are times of metamorphosis from the perpetual bermudas and sweatshirt to stockings, heels, and more formal attire. (...) TEA AND CRUMPETS; MILK AND CRACKERS To help you add those extra freshman ten pounds, milk and crackers are set out each night at 9:45, a welcome break in the study routine. (Now "freshman five" or "freshman fifteen"...First mention of "Gracious Living" is in the Freshman Handbook for 1950/51, pg. 34, although the term is first formally used here--ed.) DIPLOMATIC DISHES: A BOOKLET OF FAVORITE AND TRADITIONAL RECIPES CONTRIBUTED BY MRS. TRUMAN AND LADIES OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS Mount Holyoke Alumnae Club, Washington, D. C. 1949 Pg. 1: Bisschop (Embassy of the Netherlands) Pg. 7: Chestnut Dressing for Turkey (Bess Truman, The White House) Pg. 21: Chippolata (An old-time favorite sweet)(Embassy of the Union of South Africa) Pg. 23: Melopeta (Embassy of Greece) Pg. 24: Melty Moments (Embassy of New Zealand) Pg. 29: Peking Dust (Chinese Embassy) COLLEGE COOKERY Compiled for the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association of Philadelphia (No Date; War recipes are here and there's "'16," so it's about 1918--ed.) Pg. 104: SNICKERDOODLE RECIPE REUNION: A COLLECTION OF FAVORITE RECIPES FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE ALUMNAE 1949 Pg. 55: LINGUA FRANCA. Pg. 63: POMPADOUR PUDDING. Pg. 118: HAYSTACKS. 1 package chocolate bits 2 1/2 cups Rice Krispies Melt chocolate in double boiler. Stir in Rice Krispies. Mix well and drop by teaspoonful on wax paper. Let harden. MOUNT HOLYOKE EMPLOYEES SOCIAL COMMITTEE COOK BOOK Copyright 1968-1978 Pg. 100: HEDGEHOGS 2 c. walnuts 1 c. dates 1 c. brown sugar 2 c. shredded coconut 2 eggs (unbeaten) Grind walnuts and dates. Mix in 1 1/2 cups coconut. Add remaining ingredients. Shape into balls and roll in remaining coconut. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Tue Jan 29 18:51:13 2002 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 13:51:13 -0500 Subject: ..archival sites.. Message-ID: In a message that was forwarded by Gerald Cohen, a question is posed about citing a broken www link. Perhaps the question could be amended to read, "how exactly does one cite a broken www link, if it is archived?" Sometimes, it is possible to resurrect a broken link by pasting it into the following site's 'http' window. http://www.archive.org/ I've had some success with the site, pasting broken links that were found in a Google search, i.e., once I receive a notice that the link is nonexistent, I paste the address of the page into the archive search window. Thus far, for citation purposes, I note that the site was located through an archive search. I'm not aware of any other archival sites, but would like to know about any that might exist. George Cole Shippensburg University From hwilliams at IIE.ORG Tue Jan 29 19:00:01 2002 From: hwilliams at IIE.ORG (Williams, Holly) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:00:01 -0500 Subject: 2003-04 FULBRIGHT DISTINGUISHED CHAIRS IN LINGUISTICS: APPLY NOW Message-ID: The following Fulbright awards are viewed as among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Program. Lecturing is usually in English. Candidates must be U.S. citizens and have a prominent record of scholarly accomplishment. Consult CIES Web site for information about application procedure and current updates. To apply, send a letter of interest (up to 3 pages), c.v. (up to 8 pages) and a sample syllabus (up to 4 pages) to Daria Teutonico, Fulbright Distinguished Chairs Program; Council for International Exchange of Scholars; 3007 Tilden Street, NW; Ste. 5-L; Washington, DC 20008-3009 (phone 202/686-6245, e-mail: dteutonico at cies.iie.org). Materials must arrive on or before the May 1 deadline. AUSTRIA: FULBRIGHT-UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN LINGUISTICS: Grantee will offer two lecture courses and one seminar to undergraduate and graduate students. The University of Innsbruck Faculty of Humanities cultivates an interdisciplinary approach to linguistics and is particularly interested in soliciting applications from scholars of applied linguistics, whose fields of specialization are related to language acquisition and/or the teaching of languages. Lecturing in English. Some knowledge of German is advantageous but not required. Faculty of Humanities. One semester, beginning October 2003 or March 2004. www.uibk.ac.at AUSTRIA: FULBRIGHT-UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN THE HUMANITIES OR SOCIAL SCIENCES: Grantee will offer three courses at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. Course level and content are to be arranged in consultation with the host institution. This chair rotates between faculties and will be hosted by the Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies in 2003-04, which has departments in classical and modern languages and literatures, comparative literature, linguistics and translating, American studies, all fields of history from ancient to contemporary, archaeology, art history, ethnology, musicology, and area studies. Open to any specialization in humanities or area studies at the Faculty. Lecturing in English. Some knowledge of German is desirable. Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies in 2003-04 and Faculty of Human and Social Sciences in 2004-05. Four months, starting October 2003 or March 2004. www.univie.ac.at CANADA: FULBRIGHT-YORK UNIVERSITY CHAIR: Fulbright-York University Chair: Lecture at graduate and undergraduate levels in any field that fits the programs at York University. Academic and scholarly prominence required. York University, Toronto. Scholars are encouraged to include a letter of invitation from a host department at York University. Four and a half months, starting September 2003 or January 2004. www.yorku.ca ITALY: TRIESTE CHAIR IN LINGUISTICS: Full professor to offer one lecturing course and tutorials at graduate level. Subject expertise desired is syntax, semantics or formal history of linguistics. Three months, March-June 2004. University of Trieste. www.univ.trieste.it ITALY: VENICE CHAIR IN PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE/LINGUISTICS: Grantee will teach one course to masters/doctoral students, and will provide some tutorial assistance. Subject expertise desired is theoretical linguistics, with specializations in syntax and semantics. Academic rank open. Three months, beginning March or April 2004. www.unive.it From Hixmaddog at AOL.COM Tue Jan 29 19:31:00 2002 From: Hixmaddog at AOL.COM (Steve Hicks) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:31:00 EST Subject: ..archival sites.. Message-ID: Hi, George: I use the archival site you mentioned (also called the "Wayback Machine," for you Rocky and Bullwinkle fans), and have had good luck finding anything I've ever searched for. The one caveat is that sites that queried a database (for example) cannot do so: only the HTML front-page is available: but the archive seems to be total, at least as far back as 1996. Don't know of any other archival site that even comes close. Steve Hicks Hicks Information From elaine at CHAOS.WUSTL.EDU Tue Jan 29 21:06:34 2002 From: elaine at CHAOS.WUSTL.EDU (Elaine -HFB- Ashton) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 15:06:34 -0600 Subject: Kook d'etat Message-ID: http://dailynews.philly.com/content/daily_news/2002/01/29/local/WITE29C.htm "We're calling it a 'kook d'etat,' " said Joe Roy, director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group in Montgomery, Ala. "It's been in the making for some time now." --- Amusing and fitting twist on coup d'etat...possibly a first usage of it. e. From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Jan 29 21:13:14 2002 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 16:13:14 -0500 Subject: Weapons Grade In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Safire has had me working on weapons-grade since 1/22 - here's some of the pairings my search has come up with in case anyone is really interested. This year alone: Comedy Charisma Mascara Anthrax Pharmaceuticals/drugs Perkiness Basketball Slap Shot (GO Bobby Hull) Since around 1985: Laser Torque Sarcasm Mozzarella Explosives Authenticity Grumpus Cheddar cheese Hypocrites Swoon Heartwarmer Sports drinks Nikes Irascibility Hostility Crush Noise Coffee Maple sap Application And I'm sure there's more. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 00:07:07 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 19:07:07 -0500 Subject: "so don't I" In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020129123651.03c9fa20@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #Whereas "I could care less" is transparent, even out of context (to most of #us anyway) Transparent only if the irony is evident or otherwise understood. I have always understood this idiom as ultimately derived from "As if I could care less" (by deletion), or "I couldn't care less" (by ironic negation). The latter source may be the only reconstructable one for speakers who didn't grow up with Yiddish-influenced NYC English. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 00:52:09 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 19:52:09 -0500 Subject: Lost positives In-Reply-To: <0b2101c1a8db$4d2f6360$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: #A correspondent asked me if I knew where he could find a list of lost #postives (such as gruntled, kempt, and sheveled). Since (if I understand the #term correctly) you can just make up any old lost positive by chopping off #an existing word's negative prefix, then a complete list would be silly. I think you may be missing the point. If the decapitation yields a word that is in the current vocabulary with the expected meaning, the positive isn't lost. E.g., every native speaker analyzes "unhappy" as the negative of the equally familiar "happy", so it's not of interest to your correspondent. The interesting ones are those such as "(un)beknownst" and the ones you mention, whose de-negated forms are *not* part of modern English. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 30 04:46:25 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 23:46:25 EST Subject: Deacon Porter's Hat & Smith Fudge notes Message-ID: I'm back from Massachusetts...I rode past the Yiddish book center at Hampshire College. Forgot that was there. -------------------------------------------------------- DEACON PORTER'S HAT (continued) Andrew Wood Porter, 1795-1877. Mount Holyoke, founded 1837. From the WASHINGTON POST, 12 December 1954: _Here is a Yankee Yummy_ Ever since 1837, this pudding has been a favorite dessert with the students at Mount Holyoke.... From MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE NEWS, 12-3-75: In the 1880's, a cylindrical steamed pudding which was often served at the College was named by the students for the Deacon's legendary headgear. Since then, Deacon Porter's Hat has been traditionally served on special occasions at Mount Holyoke and by alumnae groups around the nation. From the Smith Family Papers, Clara E. Smith (1885): 10-3-83 Miss Blanchard does not wish girls to dance "round dances" Deacon Porters Hat. (So it appears that the dish was eaten much earlier, but named about 1883, after his death--ed.) -------------------------------------------------------- SMITH FUDGE I'd been to the Smith College archives a few years before, researching 1890s "basket ball" and 1890s "ivy" songs and orations (for "Ivy League"). I didn't research food at that time. Not much is here. The faculty cookbooks have nothing surprising. No "fudge" found in the yearbooks, which date from 1897. "Smith College Fudge" recipes from Baker's Chocolate are in the file, but no dates are attached. CHOCOLATE AND COCOA RECIPES by Miss Parloa and HOME MADE CANDY RECIPES by Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill Compliments of Walter Baker & Co., Ltd. (The books date from 1909 and 1916) SIX TABLETS BAKER'S CARACAS SWEET CHOCOLATE TABLETS Made by Walter Baker & Co., Ltd. Dorchester, Mass. Established 1780 Net Weight 1 1/4 ounces ("SMITH COLLEGE FUDGE" recipe is on the box. Baker's was bought by General Foods, which merged into Kraft. I'll visit Kraft one of these days; Andrew Smith surely beat me to it--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 03:16:12 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 11:16:12 +0800 Subject: Weapons Grade In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020129160805.00a32570@mail> Message-ID: At 4:13 PM -0500 1/29/02, Kathleen E. Miller wrote: >Safire has had me working on weapons-grade since 1/22 - here's some of the >pairings my search has come up with in case anyone is really interested. what, no salsa? >This year alone: >Comedy >Charisma >Mascara >Anthrax >Pharmaceuticals/drugs >Perkiness >Basketball >Slap Shot (GO Bobby Hull) > >Since around 1985: > >Laser >Torque >Sarcasm >Mozzarella >Explosives >Authenticity >Grumpus >Cheddar cheese >Hypocrites >Swoon >Heartwarmer >Sports drinks >Nikes >Irascibility >Hostility >Crush >Noise >Coffee >Maple sap >Application > >And I'm sure there's more. From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 30 17:52:44 2002 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 09:52:44 -0800 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020124055630.04913b20@nb.net> Message-ID: Sorry if this reply is a bit stale by now, but I'm slowly digging myself out of a mountain of e-mail that has piled up over the last couple of weeks when I had no time to read it. Just in case anybody cares: I-umlaut is strongest in the north of the German-speaking area and it weakens to the south. The situation in the dialects is reflected in place names such as Innsbruck (cf. standard German Bruecke) and in some words in colloquial Austrian standard. The combination of this with the fact that the -l diminutive is a southern phenomenon accounts for dialectal and colloquial Austrian forms like madl (cf. standard German Maedchen), 'girl'. ("Sauberes Madl," says an Austrian officer approvingly of the main character's lover in J. Strauss's "Gypsy Baron.") So the step from a southern-derived gansl to gunsel (if the u is pronounced as a mid central vowel) would not be a big one. Peter Mc. --On Thursday, January 24, 2002 6:37 AM -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > Perhaps some Germanicist can explain why the umlaut is omitted ... i.e. > (in my primitive conception) why it's like "gansel"/"gunsel" rather than > "g?nsel"/"gensel". **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 05:10:42 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:10:42 +0800 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: <361157.3221373164@[10.218.202.195]> Message-ID: At 9:52 AM -0800 1/30/02, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >Sorry if this reply is a bit stale by now, but I'm slowly digging >myself out of a mountain of e-mail that has piled up over the last >couple of weeks >when I had no time to read it. Just in case anybody cares: > >I-umlaut is strongest in the north of the German-speaking area and >it weakens to the south. The situation in the dialects is reflected >in place names such as Innsbruck (cf. standard German Bruecke) and >in some words in colloquial Austrian standard. The combination of >this with the fact that the -l diminutive is a southern phenomenon >accounts for dialectal and colloquial Austrian forms like madl (cf. >standard German Maedchen), 'girl'. >("Sauberes Madl," says an Austrian officer approvingly of the main >character's lover in J. Strauss's "Gypsy Baron.") > >So the step from a southern-derived gansl to gunsel (if the u is pronounced >as a mid central vowel) would not be a big one. > And since the immediate source was the (cited) Yiddish form "gantzel" (and not "gentzel"), it's plausible that the diminutive crossed the Atlantic with a back vowel in place, before the (minor) folk-etymologized adjustment to "gunsel" (with a wedge/carat/schwa). larry From davemarc at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 30 18:07:13 2002 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:07:13 -0500 Subject: Pitch Perfect? Message-ID: Lately I've noticed the term "pitch perfect" turning up again and again, often in an entertainment context (i.e. Sissy Spacek gives a pitch perfect performance in In the Bedroom). From my point of view, it seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Has this term been defined and/or documented yet? David From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 30 19:53:16 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 14:53:16 EST Subject: Mahimahi (1901-02); Big Apple "whore theory" disappears Message-ID: MAHIMAHI The revised OED has 1905. (Is the second citation the same work?) Merriam-Webster has 1943. (O.T.: I saw an HBO poster for Janet Jackson's concert from Hawaii, on February 17th. At that time, I will also be in Hawaii. Celebrities follow me wherever I go.) U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries THE FISHES AND FISHERIES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. A PRELIMINARY REPORT by David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann COMMERCIAL FISHERIES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS by John N. Cobb Extracted from the U.S. Fish Commission Report for 1901. Pages 353 to 499. Plates 21 to 27. Washington: Government Printing Office 1902 Pg. 358: Mahimahi...Coryphaena hippurus. Pg. 424 (Cobb, cited by OED for 1905?): In fishing for mahimahi (dolphin) young akule (called agi by the Japanese) are used. -------------------------------------------------------- BIG APPLE "WHORE THEORY" DISAPPEARS I went to the Peter Salwen "Why is New York Called the Big Apple?" link on several different computers. It no longer shows up. The link worked earlier in the week. Salwen added his bit of misinformation in 1995, when he stated that "Big Apple" comes from an early 19th-century prostitute named Evelyn, or Eve. I soon wrote to him that there isn't a single piece of evidence to support this theory, and I asked him to take it off the web. He never responded. After September 11th, I wrote to the Internet Public Library not to use this link. The IPL never replied, but added, on its list of "Big Apple" links, that this theory was "very controversial." I met Richard McDermott, also a member of Salwen's Society for New York City History, in the New-York Historical Society after September 11th, and I told McDermott to tell Salwen it's time to take the site down. I don't know what did it, but it's now down. The next part is, _ten years_ after I found the "Big Apple" quotes in the NEW YORK MORNING TELEGRAPH, to publish them in full in the NEW YORK TIMES. I had told William Safire's assistant to publish this in 2000 and I thought this would happen then. I was double-crossed. This disgrace now enters its second decade. No good deed goes unpunished. From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 30 19:58:30 2002 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 14:58:30 -0500 Subject: [Bapopik@aol.com: Baker's "Fudge" date (1901)] Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from Bapopik at aol.com ----- From: "Kinkade, Mary J" To: "'bapopik at aol.com'" Cc: "Wenner, Elisabeth" Subject: Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:36:28 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) X-OriginalArrivalTime: 30 Jan 2002 19:36:19.0312 (UTC) FILETIME=[63EB9700:01C1A9C5] Unfortunately, we are not able to give you access to our Archives Facility, but I can confirm that the earliest BAKER'S recipe for fudge appeared in a 1901 recipe booklet. It was for "Cocoa Fudge. Best of luck to you. Mary Jane Kinkade ----- End forwarded message ----- From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 20:20:52 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:20:52 -0500 Subject: cold turkey Message-ID: I just saw "cold turkey" used in the context of beginning an undertaking with no preparation, rather than ending a habit or addiction by stopping abruptly, as I have always seen it used before. If I can find the quote I'll post it. Is this a new usage? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 30 20:21:32 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:21:32 -0500 Subject: box set Message-ID: I see references to "box sets" of books and CDs rather than the "boxed sets" I'm used to, and likewise "bottle water" instead of "bottled water". Is there a trend to simplifying such expressions? The generalization from these two examples would be N1+-ed N2 => N1 N2 substituting N1, an attributive noun, for the older N1+-ed, an adjective in the form of the past participle of the verb that is zero-derived from the noun. To put a set of volumes in a box is to "box" them, creating a boxed set; similarly, to "bottle" water. In fact, this type of N+-ed adjective meaning 'provided or equipped with N(s)' is a productive derivation independent of the existence of any other form of the putative verb: a tasseled curtain, many-pillared halls. The latter example is IMHO especially difficult to explain as a deverbal form. Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 30 20:45:27 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:45:27 -0000 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 3:21 pm -0500 Mark A Mandel wrote: > I see references to "box sets" of books and CDs rather than the "boxed > sets" I'm used to, and likewise "bottle water" instead of "bottled > water". Is there a trend to simplifying such expressions? The > generalization from these two examples would be > > N1+-ed N2 => N1 N2 > > substituting N1, an attributive noun, for the older N1+-ed, an adjective > in the form of the past participle of the verb that is zero-derived from > the noun. To put a set of volumes in a box is to "box" them, creating a > boxed set; similarly, to "bottle" water. .... > Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I can't find that on the archives. I also could've sworn that we'd discussed (because of my recidivist/prescriptive tendencies) things like man-size versus man-sized. But I can't find that either. So maybe I'm imagining things... Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 30 21:01:03 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:01:03 -0800 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <31489262.3221412327@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > > I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I > can't find that on the archives. I also could've sworn that we'd discussed > (because of my recidivist/prescriptive tendencies) things like man-size > versus man-sized. But I can't find that either. > > So maybe I'm imagining things... > > Lynne > No imagination involved here. Messages involving ice/iced and the related cube/cubed had a spectacularly long run. It looks like the thread started in July 1999 and finally wound down in March 2000. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Jan 30 21:21:47 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 16:21:47 -0500 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If there is a "trend" towards simplifying these expressions, it's not a new one. This was the subject of part of a lecture in the intro historical linguistics course I took in 1987. Given the various dialects with word-final cluster simplification it's probably arisen in lots of places at lots of different times. Ben From nfogli at IOL.IT Wed Jan 30 21:21:11 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 22:21:11 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_"researches"_citations?= Message-ID: FWIW, I came up with a few citations of "researches" while looking through a database of Canadian print articles dating back to the mid- and late-Nineties: - According to researchers at Yale University, the two smells American adults recognize most easily are coffee and peanut butter,which isn't surprising considering North American dietary habits. No. 18 on that list of familiar smells shouldn't come as any surprise, either. It's that unmistakable waxy odour of Crayola crayons. Those Yale intellectuals didn't extend their RESEARCHES north of the border, but it's probably pretty safe to say that that Crayola smell is just as recognizable to Canadians. - The RESEARCHES have found that, while some large male bears will seek out human habitation, feeding at garbage dumps and scavenging rom camp sites, others can be classified as back-country bears, which avoid human contact. - What shocked Zavaglia in his RESEARCHES was "the way so many people turned on their Italian-Canadian neighbors and friends." - Holden's RESEARCHES took him three times to Russia where he discovered continuing roadblocks despite the new climate of freedom following the fall of Communism. - Trusting this evidently naive but enthusiastic visitor, Calvert allowed Schliemann the benefit of all his RESEARCHES. Best, Dr. S. Roti From nfogli at IOL.IT Wed Jan 30 21:31:51 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 22:31:51 +0100 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Hi, I have no idea how the expression originated exactly (especially as a modifier applied to entertainment contexts), but I think this definition will give you a little hint. Hope that helps, Dr. S. Roti From: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th Ed.) 2000 absolute pitch NOUN: 1. The precise pitch of an isolated tone, as established by its rate of vibration measured on a standard scale. 2. Music The ability to identify any pitch heard or produce any pitch referred to by name. Also called PERFECT PITCH. davemarc wrote: Lately I've noticed the term "pitch perfect" turning up again and again, often in an entertainment context (i.e. Sissy Spacek gives a pitch perfect performance in In the Bedroom). From my point of view, it seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Has this term been defined and/or documented yet? David From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Wed Jan 30 21:41:17 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 16:41:17 -0500 Subject: Compered Message-ID: What is "compered"? The OED suggests obsolete for compared or compeered. A Google search turns up about 5,000 results, most of which used it like "hosted by" or "emceed by" (such as in "John will be compering an evening if light comedy" or "The show was compered by Martina") or are mispellings for "compared." It's clearly a Britishism. http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,2763,641918,00.html "Up in the roof, explains Nicola Stephenson from the Huddersfield-based arts group Culture Company, a hidden camera spots the colour of a waiting passenger's clothes and then triggers an audio sequence piped out of hidden speakers in the scarlet walls. "Each segment is compered by a woman's voice, sometimes soothing, sometimes testy, just like the commuters below." From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 09:11:28 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 17:11:28 +0800 Subject: Compered In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:41 PM -0500 1/30/02, Grant Barrett wrote: >What is "compered"? The OED suggests obsolete for compared or compeered. A >Google search turns up about 5,000 results, most of which used it like >"hosted by" or "emceed by" (such as in "John will be compering an evening if >light comedy" or "The show was compered by Martina") or are mispellings for >"compared." It's clearly a Britishism. > >http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,2763,641918,00.html > >"Up in the roof, explains Nicola Stephenson from the Huddersfield-based arts >group Culture Company, a hidden camera spots the colour of a waiting >passenger's clothes and then triggers an audio sequence piped out of hidden >speakers in the scarlet walls. > >"Each segment is compered by a woman's voice, sometimes soothing, sometimes >testy, just like the commuters below." Wonder if there's any relation to the Fr. noun "comp?re" (that's a grave accent), which denotes a confederate (as of a magician or con-man, i.e. someone pulling a scam) or, more generally, a crony. Maybe not. larry From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 30 22:17:58 2002 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 17:17:58 -0500 Subject: box set Message-ID: There are a number of well-established noun adjuncts like "baby carriage," gas station," "government agency" which may be used as the models for "can food drive," "L. I. ice tea" and the like. They are gaining acceptance although the individual ones like "box set" or "bottle water" may strike us as novel. ___________________ David Bergdahl From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Wed Jan 30 23:21:54 2002 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 18:21:54 EST Subject: box set Message-ID: Maybe it has nothing to do with re-analyzing the words. For example, with "box set", you buy a set of CD's that come in a box... a "box set". Nothing got "boxed", all (most) CD's are inherently "boxed" in their jewel cases. "Box sets", however, are more often coming in an actual wooden(ish) box. Even if it's only one CD, it can be a "box set". REM's special edition of "Automatic for the People" was described as a "box set" on the packaging just because it came in wooden box. I'm not saying "box set" and "boxed set" are necessarily two different terms for different things, but the latter is possibily growing redundant. Maybe when LP's came in sleeves, it made more sense. I have no opinion on "bottle water" except that it could be an effort to distinguish from "tap water". After all, bottled tap water could be "bottled water". -dsb Douglas S. Bigham Southern Illinois University - Carbondale From flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 30 23:33:45 2002 From: flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 18:33:45 -0500 Subject: missing Message-ID: I'll add my own query about a new form--new to me at least: CNN (I think) had a topic line recently about the journalist who "went missing" in Pakistan. Just a few days later I saw an article in our local paper about someone who would periodically "go to missing"--just leaving home for a while, apparently. Has this form been around long? 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 maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 30 23:37:33 2002 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:37:33 -0800 Subject: missing In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020130182903.03ca0580@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Isn't "go missing" pretty standard British English for "lost"? However "go to missing" is new to me. Does it occur more than once in the article? If not, maybe just a printing error for "go missing." allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > I'll add my own query about a new form--new to me at least: > CNN (I think) had a topic line recently about the journalist who "went > missing" in Pakistan. Just a few days later I saw an article in our local > paper about someone who would periodically "go to missing"--just leaving > home for a while, apparently. > > Has this form been around long? 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 lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Wed Jan 30 23:41:09 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 23:41:09 -0000 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <76.168d4752.2989da12@aol.com> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:21 pm +0000 Douglas Bigham wrote: > Maybe it has nothing to do with re-analyzing the words. For example, with > "box set", you buy a set of CD's that come in a box... a "box set". But to me, 'box set' would mean 'a set of boxes'. I'd have to go through the 'boxed set' stage to get to that 'in' meaning. Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 30 11:29:31 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 19:29:31 +0800 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <32123371.3221422869@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 11:41 PM +0000 1/30/02, Lynne Murphy wrote: >--On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:21 pm +0000 Douglas Bigham > wrote: > >>Maybe it has nothing to do with re-analyzing the words. For example, with >>"box set", you buy a set of CD's that come in a box... a "box set". > >But to me, 'box set' would mean 'a set of boxes'. I'd have to go through >the 'boxed set' stage to get to that 'in' meaning. > Different intonation, of course: BOX set 'set of boxes' vs. box SET 'boxed set' From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 00:59:38 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 19:59:38 EST Subject: box set Message-ID: In a message dated 01/30/2002 5:24:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, einstein at FROGNET.NET writes: > There are a number of well-established noun adjuncts like "baby carriage," > gas station," "government agency" which may be used as the models for "can > food drive," "L. I. ice tea" and the like. They are gaining acceptance > although the individual ones like "box set" or "bottle water" may strike us > as novel. I think that there are three separate processes that can contribute to the dropping of the past participle suffix. 1) phonetic. There is a limit to what even native speakers of English can accomplish. In "boxed set", even by English language standards, the phonetic combination /ksts/ is preposterous. Try saying it out loud. You will either say /bahkset/ or have to insert a noticeable pause before the /s/ of set. Similarly with "iced tea". To pronounce it as /aisdtee/ requires you to quit voicing a stop (plosive) halfway through, which I suppose can be done but which is not a normal phonetic pattern in English. 2) doubt on the speaker's part about the putative verb. "iced cream", by analogy with ice tea, would be cream with ice cubes floating in it. "Ice cream", on the other hand, is a once-liquid dairy product that has been frozen solid. Or consider "corned beef", which many people, I am sure, render as "corn beef" becasue they are unaware of the meaning, or even the existence, of the verb "to corn". Or "chipped beef", which might become "chip beef" if the speaker did not realize that beef, like tree trunks, can be "chipped." (I have even heard "cream chip beef".) 3) occasionally there is the influence of a similar-sounding expression. For "box set" the speaker may unwittingly draw an analogy with "box seat". - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 12:13:35 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:13:35 +0800 Subject: cold turkey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:20 PM -0500 1/30/02, Mark A Mandel wrote: >I just saw "cold turkey" used in the context of beginning an undertaking >with no preparation, rather than ending a habit or addiction by stopping >abruptly, as I have always seen it used before. If I can find the quote >I'll post it. Is this a new usage? > >-- Mark A. Mandel > Linguist at Large It struck me that this generalized "cold turkey" wasn't entirely foreign to my ear (although I hasn't to add it *is* to my tongue), so I checked google for "go into it cold turkey", and came up with three hits: http://www.smc.edu/schedules/archives/profiles/1993/930_931/ostrom_j.html John Ostrom never thought about much about the sciences and math while in high school..."SMC has opened all the doors for me to Math and Science." It was tough. "I had to go into it 'cold turkey'," he recalls with a chuckle. "But now I've progressed all the way to linear algebra, and I'm liking it." ============ http://www.kissingbooth.com/october.htm Question Hi Sheila! I am a 14 year old girl and I met this really nice 16 year old guy at rugby yesterday. I got his phone number and I called him today and we are going out next Saturday. The problem is I don't know him and I don't know what he expects on the first date and I don't know what to talk about and I don't know what to wear!!! Please help me!!!! Answer It depends on where the two of you are going. If you're going out to dinner, dress up a little more. If you are going some place casual, like to a friend's house, a movie or to the mall, dress nicely but don't overdo it. Dresses are nice for more intimate occasions like dinners or lunches, but I prefer jeans when going some place more casual. A nice sweater and a pair of jeans, do your hair nicely and wear a bit of make-up and you're set. As for talking, think of some things you would like to find out about him. Maybe write them down on a piece of paper and go over them. Think of a scenario the day before so you have some time to think of some things to say. Ask him what he did the night before, or if it is the evening, ask him what he did during the day. Ask him what he normally does on the weekend. Focus your attention and topics on him. Guys don't like it when you talk alot about yourself, unless he specifically asks you some things. But don't go into it cold turkey. Think of some things you'd like to talk about, write them down and get a better idea of where you'd like the conversation to start. =============== [PDF] JUNE FM Hi-RES 2001 A_W ...How many times have we heard that? Any brother wishing to take on this challenging work, don't go into it `cold turkey'. It's kinda neat, I think, a little like positive vs. "normal" "anymore", but it looks from HDAS as though it's not necessarily new, in that adverbial/adjectival "cold turkey" is glossed as 'outright; directly; without preparation or warning', with cites back to 1910 or this one from 1920 that TAD (T. A. Dorgan) produced with all that free time he had because he wasn't drawing hot dog cartoons: "Now tell me on the square--can I get by with this for the wedding--don't string me--tell me cold turkey." Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a turkey? larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 30 12:25:54 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:25:54 +0800 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <181.2ebdd52.2989f0fa@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:59 PM -0500 1/30/02, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 01/30/2002 5:24:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, >einstein at FROGNET.NET writes: > >> There are a number of well-established noun adjuncts like "baby carriage," >> gas station," "government agency" which may be used as the models for "can >> food drive," "L. I. ice tea" and the like. They are gaining acceptance >> although the individual ones like "box set" or "bottle water" may strike us >> as novel. > >I think that there are three separate processes that can contribute to the >dropping of the past participle suffix. > >1) phonetic. There is a limit to what even native speakers of English can >accomplish. In "boxed set", even by English language standards, the phonetic >combination /ksts/ is preposterous. Try saying it out loud. You will either >say /bahkset/ or have to insert a noticeable pause before the /s/ of set. >Similarly with "iced tea". To pronounce it as /aisdtee/ requires you to quit >voicing a stop (plosive) halfway through, which I suppose can be done but >which is not a normal phonetic pattern in English. > You're right about the phonetics, of course, but there's a stage of reanalysis needed. I would always have referred to those three-in-one Vox Boxes some of my fellow ancients may remember as "boxed sets" in writing, but I'm sure I'd have pronounced them as "box sets" for the reason Jim gives. >3) occasionally there is the influence of a similar-sounding expression. For >"box set" the speaker may unwittingly draw an analogy with "box seat". > Good point, as is the one not copied here about the semantic grounds for reanalysis. I'm just saying that there are speakers who delete the /t/ in production but still have the participle in their mental (and orthographic) representation. Incidentally, I think the undeleted version would have to be /aistti:/ with a geminate, not /aisd/ with voicing: compare "I'd like my coffee iced", which can only be /aist/. larry From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 31 01:34:07 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:34:07 -0500 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <31489262.3221412327@blake.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: #--On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 3:21 pm -0500 Mark A Mandel # wrote: # #> I see references to "box sets" of books and CDs rather than the "boxed #> sets" I'm used to, and likewise "bottle water" instead of "bottled #> water". [...] #> Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? # # #I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I #can't find that on the archives. *That's* what I was thinking of! And if two of us think so, then we probably did. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 31 01:39:16 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 19:39:16 -0600 Subject: ice(d) tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote: > > #--On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 3:21 pm -0500 Mark A Mandel > # wrote: > # (snip) > [...] > #> Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? > # > # > #I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I > #can't find that on the archives. > > *That's* what I was thinking of! And if two of us think so, then we > probably did. I am absolutely sure the discussion DID take place. The Subject line probably had some other term in it and was repeated and repeated and repeated because the thread lasted a fair amount of time. DMLance From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 01:44:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:44:17 EST Subject: 911 (1968) and 311 (2002) Message-ID: From the NEW YORK POST, 30 January 2002, pg. 7, col. 2: Mayor Bloomberg will propose a new 311 phone service to divert non-emergency calls from the overburdened 911 system in his first State of the City speech today, aides said. MANHATTAN WHITE PAGES (1967): fire OPERATOR police 440-1234 ambulance 440-1234 doctor 879-1000* coast guard 264-8770 FBI 535-7700 (...) Service Representative Dial 811 Repairman Dial 611 Information--Manhattan Dial 411 MANHATTAN WHITE PAGES (1968): fire "0" (Operator) police, ambulance dial 911 (...) 911--A FIRST FOR NEW YORK: New York is the first major city in the nation to have this new Universal Emergency Number--911, the fastest way to get help in an emergency. Easy to remember, quick to dial, 911 puts you right through to the high-speed communications network of New York City's Police Department. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 01:59:12 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:59:12 EST Subject: Tamale & Mole (1552?) Message-ID: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT MEXICO (1547-1577) by Fray Bernardino de Sahagun Translated by Fanny R. Bandelier from the Spanish version of Carlos Maria de Bustamante Fisk University Press, Nashville 1932 Republished by Blaine Ethridge Books, Detroit 1971 Pg. 218: They also gave food to everyone present, consisting of diverse kinds of tamales and moles as explained here.(1) 1. This may be so in the original; here no further explanation is given. Pg. 228: ...your tamales mouldy.... (I got that "mahimahi" thing backwards. OED cites the first of the two selections, but dates it to 1905 rather than to 1901 or 1902...I have a really bad cold...NYC is hosting an economic summit and there's police everywhere today--ed.) From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 31 02:01:54 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:01:54 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?re:_"researches"_citations?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, [iso-8859-1] -- wrote: #FWIW, I came up with a few citations of "researches" while looking #through a database of Canadian print articles dating back to the mid- #and late-Nineties: # [...] #- The RESEARCHES have found that, while some large male bears will seek #out human habitation, feeding at garbage dumps and scavenging rom camp #sites, others can be classified as back-country bears, which avoid #human contact. This looks more like a typo for "researches". The others all look legit. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 02:18:17 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:18:17 EST Subject: "So long!" (1854) Message-ID: NA MOTU: REEF ROVINGS IN THE SOUTH SEAS. A NARRATIVE OF ADVENTURES AT THE HAWAIIAN, GEORGIAN AND SOCIETY ISLANDS by Edward T. Perkins New York: Pudney & Russell 1854 A fantastic book. I ran out of time and got sick and didn't finish it. Pg. 52: "O Moses!" Pg. 55: ...and let us be friends again ere exchanging "So long" forever. (See ADS-L archive, where I found someone claim it's Australian. OED has 1865; M-W has c. 1861--ed.) Pg. 71: ...among his invectives, the words "Jupiter!" "Moses!" and "Mince-meat!" were conspicuous. Pg. 78: ...the usual "so'-long".... Pg. 80: ...indulge me with "soft tack." From vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 31 02:26:14 2002 From: vze36g5m at VERIZON.NET (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:26:14 -0500 Subject: ice(d) tea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> #> Did we discuss this construction here some time ago? >> # >> # >> #I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I >> #can't find that on the archives. I dunno what you were looking under, but the discussion is there and findable. There are at least 84 messages that match the search term "iced tea." http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S2=ads-l&q=iced+tea&s=&f=&a=&b= From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 31 03:02:37 2002 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:02:37 -0600 Subject: cold turkey Message-ID: At 6:13 AM -0600 1/30/02, Laurence Horn wrote: >...Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal >sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a >turkey? > ***** I've compiled material on "cold turkey" in the article: "Material From the Tamony Files On _Cold Turkey_", _Studies in Slang, IV,ed.: Gerald Leonard Cohen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1995; pp. 89-97.----On page 89 I quote from the _San Francisco Examiner_, May 28, 19978,Sunday Punch, p.1, col. 1, Herb Caen's column: "Meanwhile: Thanks to all the ex-junkies who've filled me in on the origin of the term 'cold turkey,' something I wondered about a few columns ago. It derives from the hideous combination of goosepimples and what Wm. Burroughs calls 'the cold burn' that addicts suffer as they kick the habit. Hasn't a thing to do with what's still in the fridge four days after Thanksgiving." ---Gerald Cohen From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 03:49:48 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 22:49:48 EST Subject: "Windy CIty" wrong again! (JUST SHOOT ME!) Message-ID: Neither the Dow Jones service nor Lexis/Nexis Universe seems to have full text of CHICAGO TRIBUNE. The Tribune web site requires you to pay for over one week old articles. The NYPL main branch told me to check for the latest Tribune across the street. The Mid-Manhattan Library's latest Chicago Tribune is from January 4th. I told them that it's now January 30th. Anyway, a ProQuest (not full text, either) check of "Windy City" and "1893" or "nickname" turned up a January 22nd Chicago Tribune story by Jim Kirk (What context?) and this: WEATHER FACT _Chicago Tribune_, Chicago, Ill.; January 18, 2002 Metro Pg. 12 Abstract: Dana, Charles: (1819-1897) Editor if the New York City Sun who, in 1893, weary... Carl Weber believes that I'll get redemption. I don't believe that's possible after all these years. By the way, remember the Chicago Public Library? Where "Windy City" is wrong on its web site in two places? Remember, months ago, when I was told that the site would be corrected? It hasn't been changed at all. Please, somebody, anybody, maybe Oprah, in the City of Chicago, buy a gun and shoot me. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 11:55:46 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 06:55:46 EST Subject: box set Message-ID: In a message dated 01/30/2002 8:25:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > I think the > undeleted version would have to be /aistti:/ with a geminate, not > /aisd/ with voicing: compare "I'd like my coffee iced", which can > only be /aist/. Yes, I was mistaken. I pronounce "iced" as /aist/ not /aisd/ and I suppose most people do so. Second mistake on my part: English speakers can indeed voice halfway through a stop. Go into your local Plaid (Duncan) Donut shoppe and ask for a "vanilla-iced donut" and you will probably say /aistdo/. I hope you don't mind my amateur phonetic transcriptions. An an amateur, I know OF the IPA alphabet but I am also aware that when it comes to IPA, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. - Jim Landau From lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK Thu Jan 31 12:49:55 2002 From: lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK (Lynne Murphy) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 12:49:55 -0000 Subject: missing In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20020130182903.03ca0580@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:33 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > I'll add my own query about a new form--new to me at least: > CNN (I think) had a topic line recently about the journalist who "went > missing" in Pakistan. Just a few days later I saw an article in our local > paper about someone who would periodically "go to missing"--just leaving > home for a while, apparently. > > Has this form been around long? and where? It's pretty standard British, although I've had it for a long time before I moved here--I don't know if I picked it up from South Africa or earlier than that from movies/books/friends with affectations. I always like it when I can find proof of recent UKEng crossing over to the US, since I take such hell for all the Americanisms coming into the UK! Lynne Dr M Lynne Murphy Lecturer in Linguistics Acting Director, MA in Applied 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 Thu Jan 31 12:51:20 2002 From: lists at MCFEDRIES.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 07:51:20 -0500 Subject: Timewaster alert: Googlewhacking Message-ID: Today's USA Today reports on a new pastime called "Googlewhacking." The idea is that you use Google to search for sites that contain two words that you specify (not a phrase; two separate words). The goal is to come up with a two-word combination that's found on one and only one site. There are other "rules" that make the game a bit more challenging: 1. The words must be in the dictionary.com dictionary (Google tells you this by underlining the search terms on the left side of the blue "Results" bar). 2. Word lists don't count. That is, if you find only one site, but one or both words exist only as part of a word list, the site is rejected. 3. Google sometimes "groups" similar pages, so make sure the Results bar says "Results 1-1 of 1". It's apparently quite addictive, so approach with caution. Here's the Googlewhack page: http://www.unblinking.com/heh/googlewhack.htm Paul http://www.mcfedries.com/ http://www.logophilia.com/ From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 01:00:52 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:00:52 +0800 Subject: cold turkey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:02 PM -0600 1/30/02, Gerald Cohen wrote: >At 6:13 AM -0600 1/30/02, Laurence Horn wrote: >>...Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal >>sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a >>turkey? >> >***** > >I've compiled material on "cold turkey" in the article: "Material >>From the Tamony Files On _Cold Turkey_", _Studies in Slang, IV,ed.: >Gerald Leonard Cohen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1995; pp. >89-97.----On page 89 I quote from the _San Francisco Examiner_, May >28, 19978,Sunday Punch, p.1, col. 1, Herb Caen's column: > "Meanwhile: Thanks to all the ex-junkies who've filled me in >on the origin of the term 'cold turkey,' something I wondered about a >few columns ago. >It derives from the hideous combination of goosepimples and what Wm. >Burroughs calls 'the cold burn' that addicts suffer as they kick the >habit. Hasn't a thing to do with what's still in the fridge four >days after Thanksgiving." > >---Gerald Cohen Interesting, although Herb Caen can't always be entirely trusted. But it still doesn't really answer the question "why turkey?", although it does provide a line on the "cold" part. After all, a turkey isn't a goose, let alone a goosepimple. larry From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 31 14:16:18 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:16:18 -0500 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At 9:52 AM -0800 1/30/02, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >>Sorry if this reply is a bit stale by now, but I'm slowly digging >>myself out of a mountain of e-mail that has piled up over the last >>couple of weeks >>when I had no time to read it. Just in case anybody cares: >> >>I-umlaut is strongest in the north of the German-speaking area and >>it weakens to the south. The situation in the dialects is reflected >>in place names such as Innsbruck (cf. standard German Bruecke) and >>in some words in colloquial Austrian standard. The combination of >>this with the fact that the -l diminutive is a southern phenomenon >>accounts for dialectal and colloquial Austrian forms like madl (cf. >>standard German Maedchen), 'girl'. >>("Sauberes Madl," says an Austrian officer approvingly of the main >>character's lover in J. Strauss's "Gypsy Baron.") >> >>So the step from a southern-derived gansl to gunsel (if the u is pronounced >>as a mid central vowel) would not be a big one. >And since the immediate source was the (cited) Yiddish form "gantzel" >(and not "gentzel"), it's plausible that the diminutive crossed the >Atlantic with a back vowel in place, before the (minor) >folk-etymologized adjustment to "gunsel" (with a wedge/carat/schwa). That's about what I would have thought, although I wouldn't have known north/south from east/west. BTW "M?del" (i.e., "Maedel" I guess) seems natural enough to me from my slight acquaintance with standard German. My ignorance of Yiddish (also Swiss, Austrian, etc.) is somewhat more profound. Let me ask another two questions. (1) In this case [and in other similar ones] where a Yiddish origin is cited, is it known that the origin is Yiddish as opposed to general [or (say) southern] German, or is it just a guess? (2) Do northern and southern Yiddish varieties have the same variations/relations as do northern and southern German varieties in general, or does the designation "Yiddish" narrow things down in this respect? M-W (Web), AHD4 (Web), and Lighter's HDAS show the putative Yiddish ancestor as "gendzl"; my OED and RHUD show it as "genzel". -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 01:46:15 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:46:15 +0800 Subject: "Gunsel" thread: loose end In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020131085515.023cb3d0@nb.net> Message-ID: At 9:16 AM -0500 1/31/02, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >M-W (Web), AHD4 (Web), and Lighter's HDAS show the putative Yiddish >ancestor as "gendzl"; my OED and RHUD show it as "genzel". > Oops, you're right. I think I even cited some of those sources earlier, with the front vowel. Ach! So this casts doubt either on the chronology or on the actual form of the immediate Yiddish (if it was Yiddish) source. What remains hard to imagine is a front vowel de-umlauting to a back (or mid) one without diphthongization, as in a move from "gendzl" to "gantzel" (and thence "gunsel"). larry From fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Thu Jan 31 14:46:16 2002 From: fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Benjamin Fortson) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:46:16 -0500 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <177.2f40c3d.298a8ac2@aol.com> Message-ID: Well, even in "iced donut" you're not *really* "voicing halfway through a stop", since the main difference between voiced and voiceless stops is voice onset time, i.e., how long after release of the stop closure you start vibrating your vocal folds: it's quicker in the case of voiced stops. Thus what one writes or thinks of as a geminate d is no different from a geminate t until a few milliseconds after the closure. Ben On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, James A. Landau wrote: > > Yes, I was mistaken. I pronounce "iced" as /aist/ not /aisd/ and I suppose > most people do so. Second mistake on my part: English speakers can indeed > voice halfway through a stop. Go into your local Plaid (Duncan) Donut shoppe > and ask for a "vanilla-iced donut" and you will probably say /aistdo/. > From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 31 15:24:46 2002 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 10:24:46 -0500 Subject: cold turkey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Related query: whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal >sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor? Why a >turkey? A very good question IMHO. Just from a glance at HDAS one would tend to doubt that the drug-withdrawal sense is primary. "Cold turkey" has been used with the sense "abrupt"/"without preparation" since ca. 1910, and the sense is very similar to the use of "cold" in other combinations such as a salesman's "cold call", or perhaps even the modern computer-related "cold boot" (apparently a version of the older automobile-etc.-related "cold start") ... indeed even now "I used to smoke but I quit cold in 1999" is about the same as "I used to smoke but I quit cold turkey in 1999". It looks like "cold turkey" might be an elaboration of "cold" in this sense. One casual thought (perhaps infelicitous): could "turkey" be a stand-in (an alternative for "rooster") for the taboo "cock"? "Cold-cock" (verb) is often equated to "knock unconscious", but in my own experience it often has more the sense of "sucker-punch" or "strike without warning" .... Alternatively, it might be that turkey was/is generally considered a food well suited to eating cold .... A perhaps irrelevant observation: the expression "turkey on one's back" was once used in reference to drunkenness ... this seems strikingly similar to "monkey on one's back" used for drug addiction (and earlier for possession by anger, apparently) .... -- Doug Wilson From nfogli at IOL.IT Thu Jan 31 15:34:33 2002 From: nfogli at IOL.IT (=?iso-8859-1?Q?--?=) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 16:34:33 +0100 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Error_spotted?= Message-ID: > This looks more like a typo for "researches". The others all look > legit. Dear Mark: thanks for spotting the typo. My mistake. I double-checked my database and I found out that the same error is repeated previously: - "The researches use aircraft to locate the bears..." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 16:46:45 2002 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:46:45 EST Subject: "Let off steam" (1826) Message-ID: RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST TEN YEARS, PASSED IN OCCASIONAL RESIDENCES AND JOURNEYINGS IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI, FROM PITTSBURG AND THE MISSOURI TO THE GULF OF MEXICO, AND FROM FLORIDA TO THE SPANISH FRONTIER; IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO THE REV. JAMES FLINT, OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS by Timothy Flint Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company 1826 Johnson Reprint Corporation, NY 1968 Another great book. I'm not finished with it. These writings date from 1824. Pg. 13: Next in order are the Kentucky flats, or in the vernacular phrase, "broadhorns," a species of ark, very nearly resembling a New England pig-style. (DARE has 1832--ed.) Pg. 29: Grain requires little labour in the cultivation, and the children only need a _pone_ of corn bread, and a bowl of milk. ("Pone" and "Corn-Pone" have widely different OED dates--ed.) Pg. 35: ...he had often tried to "get religion," as the phrase is here.... Pg. 63: ...designate their own state, with the veneration due to age, by the name of "Old Kentucky." Pg. 78: Much of his language is figurative and drawn from the power of a steam-boat. To get ardent and zealous, is to "raise the steam." To get angry, and give vent and scope to these feelings, is to "let off the steam." To encounter any disaster, or meet with a great catastrophe, is to "burst the boiler." (OED has 1831 for "let off steam." Harold Evans, I was told, is researching steamboats and early technology--ed.) Pg. 98: I found, on father inquiry, that the "best" man was understood to be the best fighter, he who had beaten, or, in the Kentucky phrase, had "whipped" all the rest. From lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 31 17:04:31 2002 From: lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU (Donald M Lance) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:04:31 -0600 Subject: box set In-Reply-To: <177.2f40c3d.298a8ac2@aol.com> Message-ID: > From: "James A. Landau" ... > Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 06:55:46 EST ... > In a message dated 01/30/2002 8:25:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, > laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > >> I think the >> undeleted version would have to be /aistti:/ with a geminate, not >> /aisd/ with voicing: compare "I'd like my coffee iced", which can >> only be /aist/. > > Yes, I was mistaken. I pronounce "iced" as /aist/ not /aisd/ and I suppose > most people do so. Second mistake on my part: English speakers can indeed > voice halfway through a stop. Go into your local Plaid (Duncan) Donut shoppe > and ask for a "vanilla-iced donut" and you will probably say /aistdo/. ... > From: Benjamin Fortson ..... > Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:46:16 -0500 ...... > Well, even in "iced donut" you're not *really* "voicing halfway through a > stop", since the main difference between voiced and voiceless stops is > voice onset time, i.e., how long after release of the stop closure you > start vibrating your vocal folds: it's quicker in the case of voiced > stops. Thus what one writes or thinks of as a geminate d is no different > from a geminate t until a few milliseconds after the closure. My ear and my speech mechanisms tell me that the /t/ at the end of the first syllable is glottalized and the first syllable is temporally short, as English demands, before the voiceless stop. And then, as Ben points out, the voice onset follows immediately after release of the stop in the second syllable, thereby indicating a preceding "voiced" stop -- phonotactic rules of English. So the gemination here is emic rather than etic. DMLance From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 31 19:37:12 2002 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 14:37:12 -0500 Subject: score = '20' in headline Message-ID: I was pleased (only linguistically!) to see this morning's top headline in the Boston _Globe_: Scores of priests involved in sex abuse cases It's always refreshing to find a good old word popping up in a register where it has been obsolescent. The lede (sic, 'first sentence of the article') specifies the number as "at least 70". -- Mark A. Mandel Linguist at Large From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 06:56:05 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 14:56:05 +0800 Subject: score = '20' in headline In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:37 PM -0500 1/31/02, Mark A Mandel wrote: >I was pleased (only linguistically!) to see this morning's top headline >in the Boston _Globe_: > Scores of priests involved in sex abuse cases > >It's always refreshing to find a good old word popping up in a register >where it has been obsolescent. The lede (sic, 'first sentence of the >article') specifies the number as "at least 70". > Assuming the intention here wasn't to create a somewhat off-color pun, I would guess the use of "scores" rather than "dozens" here was motivated by the informality of the latter and/or the greater cardinality of the former. Obviously if there had been 300 involved, "Hundreds of..." would have been used, but since "scores" is the next approximator down from "hundreds", it's more felicitious for evoking an approximated value in the 60-90 range. The hard part is NOT thinking about the pun once you've thought of it. larry From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 31 20:23:02 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:23:02 -0500 Subject: 911 (1968) and 311 (2002) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: FYI, 311 is older than 2002 -- other cities have used it for non-emergency services already. See http://www.911dispatch.com/information/311map.html for a listing of those cities. -- Steve Kl. From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 31 20:26:16 2002 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:26:16 -0500 Subject: Timewaster alert: Googlewhacking In-Reply-To: <0f4f01c1aa55$fe26c3e0$8321d0d8@paul> Message-ID: On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > Today's USA Today reports on a new pastime called "Googlewhacking." I once tried to find an online script for the movie Heathers. Searching on Heather /script etc, got me alot of sites *about* the script, but by searching one two salient words in the script (myriad, Eskimo) and long with Heather, I got one and only one hit -- the script to Heathers. I was quite pleased with myself. (Now, many, many more pop up.) -- Steve From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 31 20:47:15 2002 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:47:15 EST Subject: cold turkey Message-ID: In a message dated Thu, 31 Jan 2002 10:25:43 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Douglas G. Wilson" writes: >the modern computer-related "cold > boot" (apparently a version of the older automobile- >etc.-related "cold start") I have no idea whether it is related to automobiles, but "cold-boot" has a complicated history. When you first turn the power on for a computer, what happens? Nothing. The computer's memory (RAM) is blank and no program is running. So how do you get the computer started? There used to be several means. By far the most user-friendly was the "bootstrap loader". The computer was rigged so that when power was turned on (or the LOAD button pushed), one read operation was performed on a specified input device. That read brought in a very small program called the "bootstrap loader" which then proceeded to read in bigger programs etc., that is, the computer was "loaded by its bootstraps", a variation of the older phrase "to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." cf Puerto Rico's "Operation Bootstrap". Eventually, of course, "bootstrap loader" was shortened to "boot loader" and spawned the verb "to boot" or "to boot up". In the 1970's circuitry became cheap enough that computers could have as much as needed, so that a loader program could be permanently installed in the computer, bypassing the old bootstrap process with its need for sleight-of-hand tricks. However, by habit this permanently-resident program was still called the "boot loader" although it no longer performed the gyrations required of the older boot programs. A "cold" boot was one that occurred when the computer was first turned on and had no software in RAM memory. A "warm" boot occurred when the computer had already been cold-booted and some software was running, but the user decided to restart. I have no idea whether "cold" and "warm" were inspired by sutomobiles (starting cold, crank, crank, crank; starting warm, touch the starter button and off you go), but it is possible. An analogy---the thread was about "cold turkey" and you cold-booted (or cold-started) a new thread about other frigid compounds. >"Cold-cock" (verb) is > often equated to "knock unconscious", but in my own > experience it often has more the sense of > "sucker-punch" or "strike without warning" .... In your own experience? I don't think I want to meet you in a dark alley. I have never heard "cold-cock" used to mean "to knock cold (unconscious)". Instead to cold-cock is to punch someone without any preliminaries. Frequently it means "to punch without warning" but sometimes not, e.g. in "the bouncer cold-cocked the unruly patron" one might assume the bouncer merely performed his office in a most direct manner and the patron cannot legitimately complain of being taken by surprise. - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 07:57:26 2002 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:57:26 +0800 Subject: Timewaster alert: Googlewhacking In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 3:26 PM -0500 1/31/02, Steve Kl. wrote: >On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Paul McFedries wrote: > >> Today's USA Today reports on a new pastime called "Googlewhacking." > >I once tried to find an online script for the movie Heathers. Searching on >Heather /script etc, got me alot of sites *about* the script, but by >searching one two salient words in the script (myriad, Eskimo) and long >with Heather, I got one and only one hit -- the script to Heathers. I was >quite pleased with myself. > >(Now, many, many more pop up.) > Indeed, the first "myriad Eskimo" site that pops up on google is a 1994 Linguist List posting on the purported myriad Eskimo words for snow. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 31 22:49:55 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 17:49:55 -0500 Subject: Early Example of "Wop" In-Reply-To: <165.7a984c0.298b0754@aol.com> Message-ID: I don't know what Jon Lighter has in his files for "wop," but the OED has 1914 meaning a foreigner in general and 1915 specifically for a person of Italian extraction. In looking through the lyrics of Irving Berlin I see that he had a 1914 song entitled "Hey, Wop": 1914 Irving Berlin _Hey, Wop_ (song) in _Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin_ (2001) 94 "Hey, wop, it's seven o'clock, get up, Sleep-a no more, sleep-a no more, You wake-a da kids when you make-a da snore. The lyrics seem to be a caricature of Italian-American speech. 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 Thu Jan 31 22:57:54 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 17:57:54 -0500 Subject: Earlier Example of "Wop" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: OK, I looked a little further in the lyrics of Irving Berlin, and found an earlier example of "wop": 1912 Irving Berlin _My Sweet Italian Man_ (song) in _Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin_ (2001) 59 "My sweet Italian man, I'm-a sick, I'm-a sick, Love-a me much-a quick, Come here and squeeze-a my hand; Say you love me, wop-a, Like you love your barbar shop-a. 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 Thu Jan 31 23:05:16 2002 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 18:05:16 -0500 Subject: "Wop" in 1908? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: After sending my last posting, I noticed in W10 that Merriam-Webster dates "wop" 1908. Perhaps Joanne Despres might post the 1908 citation from M-W's files? 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------