From stmorgan at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 1 01:04:30 2003 From: stmorgan at LINFIELD.EDU (Stephanie Morgan) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 17:04:30 -0800 Subject: Remove from List In-Reply-To: <1041337317.3e118be5669aa@descartes.linfield.edu> Message-ID: Please remove my name from the list. Thanks From cheerchick94 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 1 02:36:08 2003 From: cheerchick94 at HOTMAIL.COM (Lakita Hampton) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 21:36:08 -0500 Subject: Remove from List Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ktaylorschlieper at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 1 06:16:15 2003 From: ktaylorschlieper at YAHOO.COM (Kathy Schlieper) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 22:16:15 -0800 Subject: Please remove me from list Message-ID: Thanks very much. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Jan 1 17:46:11 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 12:46:11 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Mark A. Mandel writes: >I've found that the ease of editing electronic >text has more than once led me into errors that I can hardly imagine >making in hard-copy draft. -- Has anyone done a study of this >phenomenon? ~~ I agree. Drag & drop, cut&paste, copy&paste are all dandy tools, but their very ease tends to leave a trail of weird blunders. ~~ > >This is a very able writer, which is why I wondered if it might be a >>regionalism that I simply was unfamiliar with. >Whence he? I grew up in NYC and it's far from me! ~~ The writer in question, Archer Mayor, lives & writes in Vermont at present, and has written a solid series of character-driven police novels laid in Vermont. I find from the bio para on the jacket that he has lived all over the US & Europe and had a great variety of jobs. Can't tell from this what his native dialect may have been. AM From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 1 19:36:37 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 14:36:37 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:04 PM 12/31/2002 -0800, you wrote: > > Hey, that's Southeast Ohio, where we also have a Fur Peace Ranch, run by > > Jorma Kaukonen as a guitar camp and concert "venue" (somehow that word > > doesn't sound right in this context). > >Sounds like a retirement home for superannuated mink. No? No, for ageing hippies! (The 'peace' is intended.) He was with Jefferson Airplane years ago--but you probably already knew that. In fact, he was featured on NPR a few mornings ago--a nice piece. The "ranch" (in Ohio? actually a set of cabins in the woods) is not too fur a piece down the road from Athens, near the Ohio River. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 1 19:54:14 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 14:54:14 -0500 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am bcc-ing her on this post.) >>>>> #Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In #Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good #Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes #from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, #it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the #context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however #truncated - Hebrew word in our language. Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew [roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any information on this? <<<<< Comments, anyone? -- Mark A. Mandel From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 1 20:23:55 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 15:23:55 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030101143255.01f0caa0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 2:36 PM -0500 1/1/03, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >At 01:04 PM 12/31/2002 -0800, you wrote: >> > Hey, that's Southeast Ohio, where we also have a Fur Peace Ranch, run by >>> Jorma Kaukonen as a guitar camp and concert "venue" (somehow that word >>> doesn't sound right in this context). >> >>Sounds like a retirement home for superannuated mink. No? > >No, for ageing hippies! (The 'peace' is intended.) He was with Jefferson >Airplane years ago--but you probably already knew that. In fact, he was >featured on NPR a few mornings ago--a nice piece. The "ranch" (in >Ohio? actually a set of cabins in the woods) is not too fur a piece down >the road from Athens, near the Ohio River. JK's "Blue Country Heart" is very highly recommended, for anyone into that sort of music (traditional/string band/bluegrass). Wonderful songs, wonderfully played and sung. OK, I know, off thread. Happy new year anyway. Larry From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Wed Jan 1 20:34:20 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:34:20 +0100 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: Heinz Küpper, Wörterbuch der deutschen Alltagssprache has the following on Rutsch and the verb rutschen: "eine kurze, rasche Reise unternehmen, 17. Jh." "Guter (glücklicher) R.! = gute Reise. Etwa seit 1800." "guter (guten) R. ins neue Jahr!: Neujahrswunsch. Spätestens seit 1900." He does not mention Yiddish, only the natural sense of "slide". Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark A Mandel" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 8:54 PM Subject: [ADS-L] Guten Rutsch > A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an > etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am > bcc-ing her on this post.) > > >>>>> > > #Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In > #Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good > #Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes > #from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, > #it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the > #context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however > #truncated - Hebrew word in our language. > > Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little > suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is > often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I > can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general > German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew > [roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would > be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any > information on this? > > <<<<< > > Comments, anyone? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 1 20:54:01 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 15:54:01 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030101143255.01f0caa0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >No, for ageing hippies! (The 'peace' is intended.) He was with Jefferson >Airplane years ago--but you probably already knew that. In fact, he was >featured on NPR a few mornings ago--a nice piece. The "ranch" (in >Ohio? actually a set of cabins in the woods) is not too fur a piece down >the road from Athens, near the Ohio River. Interesting cabins, too. They are tiny and clearly designed only for sleeping, since they are pretty much open to the world and have no shades/drapes/etc. All are communal. When you are there you are supposed to play your guitar, eat excellent meals, and sleep a bit. Bethany From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 1 21:05:23 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 15:05:23 -0600 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: The Hebrew wish for a Happy New Year is Shanah Tovah (stress on final syllable in each word; = "Year Good"). There's no Rosh in sight here other than in the name of the holiday (Rosh ha-Shanah). Meanwhile, German Rutsch "slide" in guten Rutsch (ins neue Jahr) seems to make perfect sense. I assume the slide is that of a sled or skier starting to move downhill. Gerald Cohen >At 2:54 PM -0500 1/1/03, Mark A Mandel wrote: >A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an >etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am >bcc-ing her on this post.) > > >>>>> > >#Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In >#Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good >#Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes >#from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, >#it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the >#context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however >#truncated - Hebrew word in our language. > >Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little >suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is >often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I >can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general >German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew >[roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would >be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any >information on this? > > <<<<< > >Comments, anyone? > >-- Mark A. Mandel From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 1 21:23:21 2003 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 16:23:21 -0500 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: I never heard the expression but my Bavarian (1st) wife used "rutsch" all the time in the sense of "move over, slide over" and as an adj "rutschy" for "slick, slippery"; moreover, a student in my American dialects class investigating "scoot" found "rutsch" to be a synonym in upstate New York for a prompt something like "what do you say when someone wants to sit down and the people sitting have to move?" I doubt that Upstate is much influenced by Yiddish although Bayerisch is, like Yiddish, South [=high] German. _________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 1 22:33:44 2003 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:33:44 -0500 Subject: rutschy7 Message-ID: Also, in a second sense of feeling queezy, as in one's stomach feels rutschy. _________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 1 22:43:10 2003 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:43:10 -0500 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: For an example of a greeting card w/Good Slide (complete with pigs) see http://grusskarten.crazy-crazy.de/gutenrutsch2001_de.shtml _________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU Thu Jan 2 02:15:20 2003 From: philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU (Philip Trauring) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:15:20 -0500 Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense Message-ID: Today I saw a use of the word 'downloading' I had never before seen. I was skiing at Waterville Valley in NH and after the usual sign that tells you when to 'unload' i.e. get off the chair lift at the top, there was another sign telling people that there was 'No Downloading' allowed. Clearly the intention is to say that you're not allowed to get on the chair lift at the top to take it down the mountain. The only definition I've been able to find for downloading, is the computer sense. Is this sense in any dictionary? I still haven't been able to track down a reasonably priced OED, so I can't check the OED. Philip Trauring p.s. Someone from the list did contact me previously about a compact edition of the OED, but my e-mail got corrupted and I lost the e-mail before I could respond. If that person reads this, please get back in touch. From philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU Thu Jan 2 02:41:11 2003 From: philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU (Philip Trauring) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:41:11 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: I'm curious if anything has been written on multilingual rhyming slang. Sure, we've all heard of Cockney Rhyming Slang, but clearly other rhyming slangs exist. There must be many examples of phrases being spoken because they rhyme with phrases in other languages - thus multilingual rhyming slang. I would imagine there were many such phrases introduced in America by immigrants in the past century. One which jumps to mind is 'Cashmere and Togas' - which sounds like 'Kish mir in Tuchis' - Yiddish slang which parallels directly with the English phrase "Kiss my &%$". Anyone know of other similar phrases from other languages? Philip Trauring From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 2 04:08:29 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 22:08:29 -0600 Subject: yannigan bag (lumberjack term): Is it actually attested anywhere in context? Message-ID: Is the term "yannigan" (lumberjack's carpetbag) attested in context anywhere? Wentworth and Flexner's _Dictionary of American Slang_ say that "yannigan" ( =baseball rookie; obsolete) derives from "yannigan bag." And under "yannigan bag" they say: "A home-made or carpet bag in which loggers, prospectors, and traveling performers used to carry their possessions. Obsolete." Meanwhile, Paul Dickson (The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 1999) reports that James Stevens (American Speech, Dec. 1925) suggested that the word was born in American lumber camps: "Like such old terms as 'cross cut,' 'bitted,' yannigan,' and 'snubline' they had the ringing life of the timber in them."' I don't find "yannigan (bag)" in the Oxford English Dictionary. (Reason: ?). Is it anywhere else? For easy access, below my signoff I reproduce part of Paul Dickson's treatment of baseball "yannigan." Gerald Cohen [from the New Dickson Baseball Dictionary]: ...Etymology: The term appears in other slang contexts; e.g. The "yannigan bags" that lumberjacks, prospectors, and others used to carry their clothing. Joseph McBride (High and Inside, 1980) states that the baseball term derived from the carpetbag, and was a reference to the disreputability of rookies and subs. McBride adds: "According to Lee Allen, Jerry Denny, a third baseman for Providence in 1884, was responsible for dumping the name 'yannigan' on rookies." There is no clear link between this term and a word in another language or an earlier form of English or an English dialect; e.g., no word close to "yannigan" appears in John S. Farmer and W.E. Henley's Slang and Its Analogues (1905). James Stevens (American Speech, Dec. 1925) suggested that the word was born in American lumber camps: "Like such old terms as 'cross cut,' 'bitted,' yannigan,' and 'snubline' they had the ringing life of the timber in them."' From dwhause at JOBE.NET Thu Jan 2 03:44:05 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:44:05 -0600 Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense Message-ID: OAD lists only the computer sense and AHD4 lists that as secondary, with primary being to unload cargo from an aircraft; neither has "ride a ski lift down." Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip Trauring" Today I saw a use of the word 'downloading' I had never before seen. I was skiing at Waterville Valley in NH and after the usual sign that tells you when to 'unload' i.e. get off the chair lift at the top, there was another sign telling people that there was 'No Downloading' allowed. From davemarc at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 2 02:38:26 2003 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:38:26 -0500 Subject: Google Message-ID: Recalling recent discussions revolving around the name Google, I figured some subscribers would be interested to know of the following origin story, which is offered at the Google website. Please pardon me if this information has already been considered here. The Meaning of Google Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to refer to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web. http://www.google.com/press/facts.html d. From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Thu Jan 2 10:38:13 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 10:38:13 -0000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: > Sure, we've all heard of Cockney Rhyming Slang, but clearly other > rhyming slangs exist. There must be many examples of phrases being > spoken because they rhyme with phrases in other languages - thus > multilingual rhyming slang. 'Clearly'? I'm not so sure. Whatever its origins - 19C Irish 'navvies' working on British railways and canals; London street balladeers; or, as ever with slang, villains seeking to fool the authorities - rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language phenomenon. And as such almost invariably rhymes with English terms. That it spread to Australia, where it still flourishes, and appears briefly (primarily 1920s-40s) in America, is undeniable. But I still can't find an input from immigrants. I have around 3000 such terms, dead and alive, on my database. Of these I have unearthed a couple: 'flour mixer' = 'shikse' (Yiddish: a gentile female) and the Australian 'cook', which means a glance, and while it may rhyme simply on look, may equally well come from Yid. 'geb a guck', take a look. There may be more, but I don't have them, and nor do other collectors of the rhyming slang lexicon. The once-strong Jewish, and thus Yiddish presence in Cockney London undoubtedly contributed to 'mainstream' slang, but not to its rhyming subset. Might I suggest that the innate 'London-ness' of the vocabulary means that the rhymes are almost variably 'English'. Rhyming slang may preserve the names of century-dead music-hall (vaudeville) stars and rhyme both Germaine Greer and Britney Spears with 'beer' but funny foreign stuff? On yer bike, squire! Jonathon Green From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 2 14:52:09 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 09:52:09 -0500 Subject: yannigan bag (lumberjack term): Is it actually attested anywhere in context? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Is the term "yannigan" (lumberjack's carpetbag) attested in context > anywhere? I surely can't find it immediately. "Yannigan" = "scrub player" appears in Mathews and in MW2 and MW3, with possible etymology from "young-un" = "young one". "Yannigan" looks like a surname (cf. Finnegan, Bennigan, Hooligan) and indeed I find both Yannigan and Yanigan (as well as Yanahan) as (infrequent) surnames. There is for example a Mary Yanigan gravestone (1867-1906) in my general neighborhood. I find "rookie" (young/undisciplined) soldiers called "Yanigans" in discussion of the My Lai incident on the Web (so maybe the term isn't entirely obsolete after all?). "Yannigan" apparently had a broader sense of "youngster"/"rookie" (beyond baseball) earlier too (based on a single 1904 example which appears to refer to junior reporters). I find one mention of a Hartford baseball player (1885) named "Con Yannigan" on the Web: I don't know whether there was ever really such a person nor even what team might have existed in Hartford in 1885 (my knowledge of baseball is very slight). -- Doug Wilson From mejarc at TWOBANJOS.COM Thu Jan 2 15:49:38 2003 From: mejarc at TWOBANJOS.COM (Melanie Archer) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 07:49:38 -0800 Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense In-Reply-To: <200301020500.h0250G087063@mx3.daemonmail.net> Message-ID: >From: Philip Trauring > >The only definition I've been able to find for downloading, is the >computer sense. Is this sense in any dictionary? I still haven't been >able to track down a reasonably priced OED, so I can't check the OED. > Like Dave Hause, I find only computer-related usages in the OED; the earliest-dated supporting quotation is for a noun form ("Changes at this stage are readily achieved by a simple process of re-edit, assemble and download." Scientific American, 1977) >p.s. Someone from the list did contact me previously about a compact >edition of the OED, but my e-mail got corrupted and I lost the e-mail >before I could respond. If that person reads this, please get back in >touch. You might try the Oxford University Press Web sites: http://oup-usa.org/intl/globe.html Enjoy, Melanie Archer From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Thu Jan 2 16:23:15 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 16:23:15 -0000 Subject: yannigan bag (lumberjack term): Is it actually attested anywhere in context? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030102084622.04a05e00@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: I'm not at all sure whether it helps matters at all, but I found this in "The Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis", which was published in 1917, but which contains the following comments in a letter dated from Tokyo on 22nd May 1904: "Yesterday we all went to Yokohama. There are four wild American boys here just out of Harvard who started the cry of "Ping Yang" for the "Ping Yannigans" they being the "Yannigans." They help to make things very lively and are affectionately regarded by all classes." -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 2 17:31:11 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 09:31:11 -0800 Subject: Guten Rutsch In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Lutz Roehrich often has Hebrew sources for German sayings in his Lexikon der sprichwoertlichen Redensarten, but he doesn't give any for "Guten Rutsch." He says only that the connotation of a slow, almost unnoticeable slide over into the new year is at the base of the expression, attested since about 1900. Apparently related: "einen Rutsch(er) machen" 'take a little trip' is attested in the Saxony/Thuringia/Berlin area since the middle of the 19th Century. I'd be suspicious of the Hebrew connection as well; I think your note about the bad phonological fit is correct. PR On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Mark A Mandel wrote: > A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an > etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am > bcc-ing her on this post.) > > >>>>> > > #Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In > #Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good > #Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes > #from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, > #it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the > #context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however > #truncated - Hebrew word in our language. > > Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little > suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is > often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I > can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general > German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew > [roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would > be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any > information on this? > > <<<<< > > Comments, anyone? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Thu Jan 2 17:37:13 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:37:13 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Comment for the ADS Webmaster Message-ID: Forwarded to the list without comment. Début du message réexpédié : > De: Pasampson at aol.com > Date: Thu 2 Jan 2003 12:35:15 America/New_York > À: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: Comment for the ADS Webmaster > > Just saw an article in the paper re: the Word of the Year -- please, > Please, PLEASE do not encourage President Bush in his mangling of the > English language by conferring your approval upon his made-up words > such as "embetterment"! > > Page Sampson > Glen Ridge, NJ > From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 2 17:38:29 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 09:38:29 -0800 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Do you mean stuff like "Donkey field mouse" for "Danke vielmals"? That should be easy to find. I doubt, though, that there's any significant connection with immigrants' experiences. PR On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Philip Trauring wrote: > I'm curious if anything has been written on multilingual rhyming slang. > > I would imagine there were many such phrases introduced in America by > immigrants in the past century. One which jumps to mind is 'Cashmere > and Togas' - which sounds like 'Kish mir in Tuchis' - Yiddish slang > which parallels directly with the English phrase "Kiss my &%$". > > Anyone know of other similar phrases from other languages? > > Philip Trauring > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 17:53:01 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:53:01 EST Subject: "George Carlin Strikes Again" Message-ID: This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, State of Michigan. Mr. Ryan DeVries 2088 Dagget Pierson, MI 49339 SUBJECT: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County Dear Mr. DeVries: It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity: Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated. The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2002. Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action. We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions. Sincerely, David L. Price District Representative Land and Water Management Division ******************* This is the actual response sent back........ Dear Mr. Price, Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County. Your certified letter dated 12/17/01 has been handed to me to respond to. First of all, Mr. Ryan DeVries is not the legal Landowner and/or Contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan. I am the legal owner and a couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity. My first dam question to you is: (1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers or (2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request? If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated. I have several concerns. My first concern is - aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation - so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event causing flooding is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names. If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers - but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English. In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams.). So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2002? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then. In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they dump!) Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office. Sincerely, Stephen L.Tvedten ****************************************************************************** ** Ever wonder about those people who spend $2.00 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool? OK... so if the Jacksonville Jaguars are known as the "Jags" and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are known as the "Bucs", what does that make the Tennessee Titans ? If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one enjoys it? There are three religious truths: 1. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. 2. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith. 3. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters 1. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented? 2. If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes? 3. Why do we say something is out of whack? What's a whack? 4. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery? 5. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled? 6. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? 7. When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts" and you put your two cents in . . . what happens to the other penny? 8. Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? 9. Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with? 10. When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say? 11. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist? 12. Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites? 13. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things? 14. Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety one? 15. "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence? 16. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed? 17. If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP? 18. Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks? 19. What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men? 20. I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me . . they're cramming for their final exam. 21. I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks, so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks? 22. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail? 23. If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for? 24. You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. 25. No one ever says, "It's only a game" when their team is winning. 26. Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag? 27. Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts. 28. If a cow laughed, would milk come out of her nose? 29. Whatever happened to Preparations A through G? ********************************************************************* You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night. You pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for the bus: 1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die. 2. An old friend who once saved your life. 3. The perfect man (or) woman you have been dreaming about. Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car. Think before you continue reading. This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application. You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first; or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back. However, you may never be able to find your perfect dream lover again. The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer. WHAT DID HE SAY? He simply answered: "I would give the car keys to my old friend, and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the woman of my dreams." ***************************************************************************** A U.S. Navy cruiser pulled into port in Mississippi for a week's liberty. The first evening, the Captain was more than a little surprised to receive the following letter from the wife of a wealthy plantation owner: "Dear Captain, Thursday will be my daughter Melinda's, coming of age party. I would like you to send four well mannered, handsome, unmarried officers. They should arrive at 8 p.m. prepared for an evening of polite southern conversation and dance with lovely young ladies. One last point: No, Mexicans. We don't like Mexicans." Sure enough, at 8 p.m. on Thursday, the lady heard a rap at the door. She opened the door to find, in dress uniform, four exquisitely mannered, smiling black officers. Her jaw hit the floor, but pulling herself together she stammered, "There must be some mistake!" "On no, madam," said the first officer, "Captain Martinez doesn't make mistakes." From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 18:00:56 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:00:56 EST Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense Message-ID: In a message dated 1/2/03 11:00:24 AM Eastern Standard Time, mejarc at TWOBANJOS.COM writes: > I find only computer-related usages in the OED; the > earliest-dated supporting quotation is for a noun form ("Changes at this > stage are readily achieved by a simple process of re-edit, assemble and > download." Scientific American, 1977) "noun form"? This looks like three verbs to me. - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From dave at WILTON.NET Thu Jan 2 18:11:30 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 10:11:30 -0800 Subject: "George Carlin Strikes Again" In-Reply-To: <153.19bc3639.2b45d67d@aol.com> Message-ID: Ah, the famous "dam letter." It's a bit of an internet urban legend--albeit in this case it's a true one. Letters very similar to these were actually sent. The legendary element is the propagation. The actual letters are from 1997. Note here that the dates have been changed to 2001-02 (although the file numbers are still "97"). It's interesting that someone went to the trouble to change the dates to make the incident seem current. The original versions, which at first glance appear identical except for the dates, can be found at http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.htm > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of James A. Landau > Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 9:53 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: "George Carlin Strikes Again" > > > This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by > the Michigan > Department of Environmental Quality, State of Michigan. > > > > Mr. Ryan DeVries > 2088 Dagget Pierson, MI 49339 > > SUBJECT: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; > Montcalm County > > Dear Mr. DeVries: > > It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental > Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the > above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as > the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following > unauthorized activity: > > Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the > outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to > the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's > files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the > Department has determined that this activity is in violation of > Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and > Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, > being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled > Laws, annotated. > > The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams > partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and > flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this > nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The > Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities > at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow > condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the > stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later > than January 31, 2002. > > Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed > so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our > staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further > unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being > referred for elevated enforcement action. > > We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this > matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have > any questions. > > > Sincerely, David L. Price > > District Representative Land and Water Management Division > > > ******************* > > This is the actual response sent back........ > > > > Dear Mr. Price, > > Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; > Montcalm County. > > Your certified letter dated 12/17/01 has been handed to me to > respond to. > > First of all, Mr. Ryan DeVries is not the legal Landowner and/or > Contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan. I am the legal > owner and a couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) > process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams > across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. > > While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam > project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their > skillful use of natures building materials "debris." > > I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate > their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe > I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam > skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam > persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic. > > As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they > must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type > of dam activity. > > My first dam question to you is: (1) Are you trying to > discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers or (2) do you require > all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request? > > If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, > through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies > of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been > issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of > Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and > Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, > being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled > Laws, annotated. > > I have several concerns. My first concern is - aren't the beavers > entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are > financially destitute and are unable to pay for said > representation - so the State will have to provide them with a dam > lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of > the dams failed during a recent rain event causing flooding is > proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is > required to protect. > > In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone > rather than harassing them and calling their dam names. If you > want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please > contact the beavers - but if you are going to arrest them, they > obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being > unable to read English. > > In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to > build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the > grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam > rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department > of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its > name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the > environment (Beavers' Dams.). > > So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can > be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why > wait until 1/31/2002? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the > dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to > contact/harass them then. > > In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real > environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the > bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely > believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave > the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver > dam, watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they > dump!) > > Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to > contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this > response to your dam office. > > Sincerely, > > Stephen L.Tvedten From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 18:32:34 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:32:34 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Fwd:=20Comment=20for=20th?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?e=20ADS=20Webmaster?= Message-ID: This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling just because many people think he is an idiot? In a message dated 1/2/03 12:38:02 PM, gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > Forwarded to the list without comment. > > Début du message réexpédié : > > > De: Pasampson at aol.com > > Date: Thu 2 Jan 2003  12:35:15 America/New_York > > À: gbarrett at americandialect.org > > Objet: Comment for the ADS Webmaster > > > > Just saw an article in the paper re: the Word of the Year -- please, > > Please, PLEASE do not encourage President Bush in his mangling of the > > English language by conferring your approval upon his made-up words > > such as "embetterment"! > > > > Page Sampson > > Glen Ridge, NJ > > > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 2 18:52:45 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:52:45 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Comment for th e ADS Webmaster In-Reply-To: <165.18f720d7.2b45dfc2@aol.com> Message-ID: At 1:32 PM -0500 1/2/03, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and not a >clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling just because >many people think he is an idiot? In any case, since when do we "confer [our] approval" upon the selected WOTY candidates? The existence of categories like "most unnecessary" should put the lie to that calumny. larry >In a message dated 1/2/03 12:38:02 PM, gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > > >> Forwarded to the list without comment. >> >> Début du message réexpédié : >> >> > De: Pasampson at aol.com >> > Date: Thu 2 Jan 2003 12:35:15 America/New_York >> > À: gbarrett at americandialect.org >> > Objet: Comment for the ADS Webmaster >> > >> > Just saw an article in the paper re: the Word of the Year -- please, >> > Please, PLEASE do not encourage President Bush in his mangling of the >> > English language by conferring your approval upon his made-up words >> > such as "embetterment"! >> > >> > Page Sampson >> > Glen Ridge, NJ >> > >> >> From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 19:23:35 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 14:23:35 EST Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: Time magazine (URL http://www.time.com/time/europe/forecast2003/) has put together a list of bad predictions. Some of them have been discussed here in ADS-L previously, such as I think there is a world market for maybe five computers THOMAS WATSON, chairman of IBM, 1943 on seeing the first mainframe computer As I have previously commented, the attribution to Thomas Watson [Sr.] is highly suspect. Also TIME added a mistake to this mistake by using the word "mainframe" which was not coined until years later and which cannot be applied to any computer before Great Britain's EDSAC, first operational in 1948. A few others which might comtend for the honor of being "computer proverbs" Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to communicate electronically across or under the stormy North Atlantic Ocean Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London This one is suspect because of the word "electronically" which is a 20th Century term and which refers to devices which were not invented/discovered until circa the 1880's. Another from the same predictor: Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London Radio has no future LORD KELVIN, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897 [By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do HERBERT A. SIMON, of Carnegie Mellon University — considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence — speaking in 1965 Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop — because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it This antitrust thing will blow over BILL GATES, founder of Microsoft You wouldn't want to be in an airplane, you wouldn't want to be in an elevator, and you wouldn't want to be in a hospital... contingency plans need to be put into place to minimize the harm from widespread failures Sen. CHRIS DODD, Year 2000 Tech Committee Senate Hearings into the Millennium Bug, June 12, 1998 Sterility may be inherited PACIFIC RURAL NEWS Huh? and I can't resist this one, even though not computer-related: A short-lived satirical pulp TIME, writing off Mad magazine in 1956. Mad is still going. (So is TIME) - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 2 19:38:53 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 11:38:53 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: "James A. Landau" wrote: > > Time magazine (URL http://www.time.com/time/europe/forecast2003/) has put > together a list of bad predictions. Some of them have been discussed here in > ADS-L previously, such as > > I think there is a world market for maybe five computers > THOMAS WATSON, > chairman of IBM, 1943 on seeing the first mainframe computer > > As I have previously commented, the attribution to Thomas Watson [Sr.] is > highly suspect. Also TIME added a mistake to this mistake by using the word > "mainframe" which was not coined until years later and which cannot be > applied to any computer before Great Britain's EDSAC, first operational in > 1948. > > A few others which might comtend for the honor of being "computer proverbs" > > Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to communicate > electronically across or under the stormy North Atlantic Ocean > Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), > professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College > London > > This one is suspect because of the word "electronically" which is a 20th > Century term and which refers to devices which were not invented/discovered > until circa the 1880's. Another from the same predictor: > > Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, > unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia > Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), > professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London > > Radio has no future > LORD KELVIN, > Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal > Society, > 1897 > > [By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do > HERBERT A. SIMON, > of Carnegie Mellon University -- considered to be a founder of the > field of artificial intelligence -- speaking in 1965 > > Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like > to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change > their minds > TIME, > 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone > had ever heard of it > > This antitrust thing will blow over > BILL GATES, > founder of Microsoft > > You wouldn't want to be in an airplane, you wouldn't want to be in an > elevator, and you wouldn't want to be in a hospital... contingency plans need to > be put into place to minimize the harm from widespread failures > Sen. CHRIS DODD, > Year 2000 Tech Committee Senate Hearings into the Millennium Bug, > June 12, 1998 > > Sterility may be inherited > PACIFIC RURAL NEWS > > Huh? > > and I can't resist this one, even though not computer-related: > > A short-lived satirical pulp > TIME, > writing off Mad magazine in 1956. Mad is still going. (So is TIME) Here are a few more: (1949) - "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons." - Popular Mechanics (1977) - "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (1982) - "$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft." - IBM, 1982 More here: and here: search: computers olson watson predictions Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 2 22:15:58 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:15:58 -0500 Subject: Computer proverbs In-Reply-To: <187.13c30b56.2b45ebb7@aol.com> Message-ID: I don't want to call these "proverbs". A proverb is a phrase or sentence that is popularly used to encapsulate a perceived truth, whether general (An apple a day keeps the doctor away) or specific to a type of situation (A day late and a dollar short). These lines, OTOH, are putative quotations that are used as popular examples of mistaken predictions. -- Mark A. Mandel From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 2 22:19:35 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:19:35 -0500 Subject: Derivation of the word oaktag In-Reply-To: <6F4FBC24.0E695075.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > 16 January 1949, NEW YORK TIMES, classifieds, pg. F14: > PAPER PRODUCTS...oaktag board. > > 2 June 1963, NEW YORK TIMES, classified, pg. 155: > Oak tag all colors...GEM PAPER 594 Bway NY. I missed these. Barry has more patience in going through the classified ad hits (or non-hits) on ProQuest Historical Newspapers than I do. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 2 22:26:19 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:26:19 -0500 Subject: Comment for the ADS Webmaster In-Reply-To: <165.18f720d7.2b45dfc2@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and not a #clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling just because #many people think he is an idiot? "[The race is not always to the swift, nor the contest to the strong]... but that's the way to bet." I'm sure I've mangled the quotation from The Preacher in this quip, and probably the relevant part as well, but Dubya is so much in the habit of tripping over his own (physical and native) tongue that any form first observed coming out of his mouth is odds-on to be a blunder. -- Mark A. Mandel From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 2 22:35:27 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 14:35:27 -0800 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Fwd:_Comment_for_the_ADS_Webmaster?= In-Reply-To: <165.18f720d7.2b45dfc2@aol.com> Message-ID: I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain wide acceptance and which ones don't. Peter Mc. --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > just because many people think he is an idiot? **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From sussex at UQ.EDU.AU Thu Jan 2 22:34:47 2003 From: sussex at UQ.EDU.AU (Prof. R. Sussex) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:34:47 +1000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: <200301020500.h0250KuU002847@mailhub2.uq.edu.au> Message-ID: Phillip Trauring asks about multilingual rhyming slang. I'd be most interested to hear if there are any examples, but I haven't found any in Australia, a multicultural place with a highly active use of rhyming slang, AND it's productive: new ones are arising all the time. For instance Barry Crocker (a well known personality) = "shocker" = something bad: so I've had a shocker of a day I've had a Barry Crocker of a day I've had a Barry Crocker I've had a real Barry - nothing went right The last two involve the progressive removal of the clues which allow hearers to recover a possible rhyme - if they didn't know the allusion in the first place. This is a piece of in-group solidarity, or obscurity, involving ludic language. This is a very British / Cockney thing in origin, but lively in some Commonwealth places (New Zealand, e.g.). Apparently some Australian hoods went to Chicago around 1925 and took some of their rhyming slang with them; rumour has it that some survives in the Windy City. All of that notwithstanding (ah, I have now had my annual use of that word), multilingual rhyming slang from other languages would be a curio (echo phrases like "namby pamby" are another matter). "Cashmere and togas" (new to me) looks like a possible candidate. You'd need a substantial immigre population speaking another language in the presence of Anglophones, and probably code-switching, so that the mis-heard phrase would have some kind of Anglo context in which to be mis-heard. Though "Cashmere and togas" as an exclamation might have enough context to make restricted sense. -- Roly Sussex Professor of Applied Language Studies Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and Applied Linguistics School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies The University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland 4072 AUSTRALIA Office: Greenwood 434 (Building 32) Phone: +61 7 3365 6896 Fax: +61 7 3365 6799 Email: sussex at uq.edu.au Web: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/profiles/sussex.html School's website: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/ Language Talkback ABC radio: Web: http://www.cltr.uq.edu.au/languagetalkback/ Audio: from http://www.abc.net.au/darwin/ ********************************************************** From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 2 22:46:19 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:46:19 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Prof. R. Sussex wrote: > I've had a real Barry - nothing went right Are you referring to traffic ticket procedures or New York Times corrections here? :) Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 2 22:49:31 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:49:31 -0500 Subject: "An Arm and a Leg" Antedating Message-ID: Updated OED material has an entry for the expression "an arm and a leg" with a first citation dated 1956 (Billie Holiday's _Lady Sings the Blues_). ProQuest Historical Newspapers yields this antedating: 1948 _New York Times_ 13 June R3 (advertisement) It's very welcome news to hear of a house that doesn't demand an arm and a leg to buy it. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Fri Jan 3 01:46:36 2003 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:46:36 -0800 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:______Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Fwd:_Comment_for_the_ADS_Webmaster?= Message-ID: Such as "normalcy" allegedly invented by by Pres Harding, another leader of less than Einsteinian intlligence, and which is about 90% acceptable today... J foster ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter A. McGraw" To: Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 2:35 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: Comment for the ADS Webmaster > I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think > they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain > wide acceptance and which ones don't. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > > not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > > just because many people think he is an idiot? > > > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 01:54:56 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 20:54:56 EST Subject: : Comment for the ADS Webmaster Message-ID: In a message dated 01/02/2003 8:40:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > Such as "normalcy" allegedly invented by by Pres Harding, another leader of > less than Einsteinian intlligence, and which is about 90% acceptable > today... "Return to Normalcy" was the Republican slogan in the 1920 campaign, which means it is as legitimate a term as "New Deal" or "Great Society". I don't know off-hand who coined the term---if one wanted to be demeaning, one could say that Harding didn't have the brains to come up with the term. And why can't ANYONE use "President Bush" and "malaprop" in the same sentence? - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 02:16:37 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 21:16:37 EST Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: Aside to Mark---Fred Shapiro specifically asked for "computer proverbs" and people have been using that in the subject lines ever since. Yes, you are right that they mostly fall short of being "proverbs", but it's better for Fred to have a full slushpile than an empty page in his new book. Bill Gates, "Bill Gates on Microsoft BASIC" in Steve Ditlea, ed "Idealism Spawns Realism" _Datamation_, vol and number not available, October, 1982, page 33ff "one thing hasn't changed: mainframes and personal computers remain at odds." "It is, after all, easier to learn a completely different [computer] language than to learn one that is supposedly the same except for a few subtle differences." "Even BASIC requires a user to understand variables, loops, and line numbers. If we want millions of machines to be used effectively, we have to eliminate this complexity by only presenting concepts that users already understand, such as paper, files, or procedures." Gary Kildall "Gary Kildall on CP/M" ibid pp 39f "micro users can work with icons as opposed to keying information into the computer system. Icons are used in our society in many different ways. Symbols on automobile dashboards are a good example---where a picture of a gas pump is used instead of the word "fuel". In computers, we will see operating systems allowing us to work with pictures, not abstractions expressed in cryptic written commands and responses. With an icon, or graphics-oriented system, the abstractions are hidden and users can communicate in ways they find natural." Note: the preceding quote, written in 1982, is a remarkable prediction of the Apple LISA of 1983 and the Apple Macintosh of 1984 (or maybe Kildall had advance knowledge). Dan Bricklin "Dan Bricklin on VisiCalc" ibid pp 40f "What I had in mind was a "magic blackboard" where, when one number in the equation changed, the computer could automatically refigure the solution and change all the numbers in the rows and columns accordingly." "Business people were going into computer stores to buy Apploe II computers ust so they could run VisiCalc." "What we had done with VisiCalc was technically possible long before we had attempted it. It was a case of no one thinking of the fundamental concept or application." - Jim Landau PS - I told someone---I don't remember who---at Jesse's party that "to boot" is derived from "bootstrap loader". From the same article, Bill Gates says: [referring to his successful attempt to sell Microsoft BASIC to MITS] "The night before Paul [Allen] left to go to [MITS at] Albuquerque, I stayed up reviewing everything to make sure it would run on the real machine. Paul worte the bootstrap loader on the planes. Everyone, including ourselves, was amazed when this BASIC worked the first time." From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 02:18:29 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 21:18:29 EST Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Is "Axis of Evil" eligible? William Safire in his column 24 March 2002 "axis of evil---the most memorable phrase so far in his presidency" - Jim Landau From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 3 02:53:17 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 21:53:17 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > Aside to Mark---Fred Shapiro specifically asked for "computer proverbs" and > people have been using that in the subject lines ever since. Yes, you are > right that they mostly fall short of being "proverbs", but it's better for > Fred to have a full slushpile than an empty page in his new book. I originally had in mind true computer proverbs like "garbage in, garbage out." But really I am interested in all very famous computer-related quotations. Jim Landau has worked hard in helping me with this, although most of the sayings he comes up with are not all that famous. > Dan Bricklin "Dan Bricklin on VisiCalc" ibid pp 40f > > "What I had in mind was a "magic blackboard" where, when one number in the > equation changed, the computer could automatically refigure the solution and > change all the numbers in the rows and columns accordingly." In 1970 when I entered MIT I joined their then-famous tiddlywinks team. My partner (tournament tiddlywinks is usually played two-against-two) in my first tournament was not a very good tiddlywinks player, but he made his mark in the personal computing realm. His name was Dan Bricklin. When Byte Magazine published their ranking of the most important figures in the history of personal computing, Gates was #2 and Dan was #1. And Dan is a hell of a lot nicer guy than Gates. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From sylvar at VAXER.NET Fri Jan 3 03:41:47 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 19:41:47 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with a bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like "Dutch courage" might also qualify. I'd be interested in hearing about variations on these, as well as other such items you may know about. And is there a name for this sort of thing? Ben -- "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." -- Charles M. Schulz From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Fri Jan 3 03:53:03 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 19:53:03 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I know several people from Winnipeg (many of them move here because of our balmy winters and cool summers) but I've never heard of a "Winnipeg handshake". Where did you hear this expression? Was it artistic license on a radio/tv show, perhaps? BTW, 'downloading' is commonly used in British Columbian ski resorts. Vida. in Vancouver BC Canada -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Ben Ostrowsky Sent: January 2, 2003 7:42 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with a bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like "Dutch courage" might also qualify. I'd be interested in hearing about variations on these, as well as other such items you may know about. And is there a name for this sort of thing? Ben -- "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." -- Charles M. Schulz From sylvar at VAXER.NET Fri Jan 3 04:00:43 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 20:00:43 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > I know several people from Winnipeg (many of them move here because of our > balmy winters and cool summers) but I've never heard of a "Winnipeg > handshake". Where did you hear this expression? Was it artistic license on > a radio/tv show, perhaps? I saw it here: http://everything2.com/?node_id=1409866 Ben From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 05:20:43 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 00:20:43 EST Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20Re:=20=E2=80=A0=20?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=A0=20=E2=80=A0=20Fwd:=20Comment=20for=20the=20ADS=20Web?= =?UTF-8?Q?master?= Message-ID: I didn't mean these questions to be merely rhetorical, no--I agree with Peter. Consider: "Apparently, as soon as the power is restored, our telephone and computer connections will also be restored.I will continue to work on this situation. Hopefully, we may be able to have some connectivity by tomorrow." --Memo received today from the Director, First-Year Writing Program, Duke University. I only have one dictionary with me on vacation, and it has an entry for CONNECTIVITY in this sense, so I guess it has been around for a while--but perhaps not very long, I'd guess. Was the person who coined this term any less of a mangler than Bush was with his "embetterment"? (Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.) In a message dated 1/2/03 5:36:19 PM, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think > they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain > wide acceptance and which ones don't. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > > not a  clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > > just because  many people think he is an idiot? > From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 3 08:59:50 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:59:50 -0000 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with > a bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a > general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, > as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like > "Dutch courage" might also qualify. A Glasgow kiss is a head butt (also known, I'm told, as a Gorbals kiss). A Chelsea smile is a knife slash across the face, in this case strictly named for the supporters of the football team rather than the place. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 3 09:19:02 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:19:02 -0000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: > This is a very British / Cockney thing in origin, but lively in some > Commonwealth places (New Zealand, e.g.). Apparently some Australian > hoods went to Chicago around 1925 and took some of their rhyming > slang with them; rumour has it that some survives in the Windy City. Whether it was 'hoods' in Chicago (more likely conmen or pickpockets, who then as now left Australia for the lucrative streets of the US and UK), or, as I tend to believe, merchant seamen docking in American ports, one might note that the first discussion of rhyming slang in the US - David Maurer 'Australian Rhyming Argot in the American Underworld' in American Speech Oct. 1944 - dealt with what was then a prevalent US belief: that the phenomenon was 'Australian.' Maurer, working with Australia's then leading slang expert Sidney Baker, offered a representative glossary through which he exploded that theory and acknowledged that rhyming slang was primarily British. That said, his reliance on Baker, who deplored rhyming slang and whose dictionaries downplay its long and lively presence in his country, may have skewed his essay. Australia was, and as Professor Sussex says, remains, the greatest enthusiast for and originator of the lexicon outside the UK. Jonathon Green From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 3 09:30:15 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:30:15 -0000 Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: Also: Liverpool kiss: 1957 Kersh _Fowlers End_ 28: You know what it is, a Liverpool kiss? Make a quick grab for the lapels o' the coat, an' pull somebody forward. At the same time bunt 'im in the face miv the top o' your 'ead an' kick 'im in the stomach miv your knee. Naturally 'e falls forward. While 'e's falling, punch 'im in the jaw miv all your might so he gradually falls dahn senseless. Then, at your leisure, kick 'im in the 'ead. Or the 'Byker teacake', another head-butt. Byker is a notoriously tough housing project in the northern city of Newcastle (as in 'coals to . . .'). A teacake (in case such delights haven't crossed the Atlantic) is 'a light kind of flat cake to be eaten at tea' (OED). Jonathon Green From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Fri Jan 3 11:54:32 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:54:32 +0100 Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: Reinhold Aman's review "Maledicta" has a few essays on slurs that contain also geographical euphemisms, among others Sterling Eisiminger's "Glossary of ethnic slurs in American English" in Vol. III No. 2 and Vol. IX. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathon Green" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:30 AM Subject: [ADS-L] geog. euphemisms > Also: > > Liverpool kiss: > > 1957 Kersh _Fowlers End_ 28: You know what it is, a Liverpool kiss? Make a > quick grab for the lapels o' the coat, an' pull somebody forward. At the > same time bunt 'im in the face miv the top o' your 'ead an' kick 'im in the > stomach miv your knee. Naturally 'e falls forward. While 'e's falling, punch > 'im in the jaw miv all your might so he gradually falls dahn senseless. > Then, at your leisure, kick 'im in the 'ead. > > Or the 'Byker teacake', another head-butt. Byker is a notoriously tough > housing project in the northern city of Newcastle (as in 'coals to . . .'). > A teacake (in case such delights haven't crossed the Atlantic) is 'a light > kind of flat cake to be eaten at tea' (OED). > > Jonathon Green > From yvonne_frasure at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 3 13:07:15 2003 From: yvonne_frasure at YAHOO.COM (yvonne frasure) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 05:07:15 -0800 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: <46.33568754.2b4677ab@aol.com> Message-ID: I missed some of the posts and George W.'s use of this word. However, looking at the last two or three posts concerning this word, I get the impression this is more about political B-S. than it is about language misuse. Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be an acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a situation or individual better" The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well. Idiot- a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. A mornon may take a normal place in society, but needs constant supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:I didn't mean these questions to be merely rhetorical, no--I agree with Peter. Consider: "Apparently, as soon as the power is restored, our telephone and computer connections will also be restored.I will continue to work on this situation. Hopefully, we may be able to have some connectivity by tomorrow." --Memo received today from the Director, First-Year Writing Program, Duke University. I only have one dictionary with me on vacation, and it has an entry for CONNECTIVITY in this sense, so I guess it has been around for a while--but perhaps not very long, I'd guess. Was the person who coined this term any less of a mangler than Bush was with his "embetterment"? (Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.) In a message dated 1/2/03 5:36:19 PM, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think > they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain > wide acceptance and which ones don't. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > > not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > > just because many people think he is an idiot? > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Fri Jan 3 12:09:09 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 07:09:09 -0500 Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: Not all such "geog" slurs are ethnic, are they? There are a slew of them in gambling: California bet, California bible, California blackjack, California C-note, California fourteen, and California prayer book. Other geographical names that serve as a formant in similar compounds include African, Alameda, Alaska, Albany, American, Arkansas (and that's just the A's). There's also Boston (as in _big Joe from Boston_) and Broadway, Scotland (in curse of Scotland), Gardena (as in Gardena miracle), Elk River, Las Vegas (as in Las Vegas riffle), Kentucky (as in Kentucky setup), Philadelphia (as in Philadelphia layout), and Texas (as in Texas sunflower). For more about names in gambling see: Thomas Clark, "Noms de Felt: Names in Gambling," Names, 34 (1986), pp 11-29. Regards, David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:11:29 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:11:29 EST Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: Language is also used metaphorically, and the extension of IDIOT into the realm of MORON (and even MORNON) is so frequent that I would expect at least some larger dictionaries to make note of the usage. Of course, for the more extreme critics of the current president, IDIOT is not all that metaphorical, even given the writer's definition. My AOL spellchecker rfejects EMBETTERMENT, but even so, I agree with the writer (elsewhere in her post) that much of the discussion about EMBETTERMENT is largely "about political B-S," though in my opinion she incorrectly contrasts "political B-S" with "language misuse." The very term "language misuse" is itself political in the larger sense of "political"; that is to say, to attempt to establish that someone else's usage is a "misuse" confers political advantage on the person who assumes that her usage is a "correct" use. There are no "misuses," there are only socially differentiable ones. (Of course, one could reasonably argue that I am arguing that the writer has misused the term "misuse," I guess. ...) In a message dated 1/3/03 8:07:36 AM, yvonne_frasure at YAHOO.COM writes: > The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well.  Idiot- a > person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and requiring > constant care.  The idiot is incapable of learning and understanding, and > is completely helpless.  An imbecile may learn to communicate with others, > but is incapable of earning his own living.  A mornon [sic] may take a > normal place in society, but needs constant supervision.  Technically speak > ing...he's a moron , not an idiot. > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:15:25 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:15:25 EST Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: The dividing line between your "geographical euphemisms" and ethnic slurs is arbitrary---e.g. how would you classify "Mexican standoff"? That said, here are my contributions: "to shanghai" any number of terms for diarrhea, such as "Virginia quickstep" or "Bangkok belly" (although the latter may refer specifically to amebal dysentery) "Sloane Ranger" (the reference is to Sloane Square in London) "Kentucky breakfast" which consists of a steak, a bulldog, and a bottle of bourbon. This may be a nonce usage---it appeared in the obituary of a Kentucky mountains resident in 1961-2. Why the bulldog? To eat the steak. "Bronx cowboy"---again a possible nonce usage, from Harry Harrison's _The Technicolor Time Machine_ "mountain dew" (not the soft drink but moonshine whiskey---the stereotype is that moonshiners are exclusively mountaineers) "Acapulco gold" (either marijuana in general or a specific grade of marijuana) "Night of the Sicilian Vespers" (the original one, not the 20th Century re-enactment) "Welsh rabbit" "prairie oysters" "Hudson seal" - Jim Landau From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 3 14:41:44 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 06:41:44 -0800 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --- "Prof. R. Sussex" wrote: > Phillip Trauring asks about multilingual rhyming > slang. > .... > This is a very British / Cockney thing in origin, > but lively in some > Commonwealth places (New Zealand, e.g.). Apparently > some Australian > hoods went to Chicago around 1925 and took some of > their rhyming > slang with them; rumour has it that some survives in > the Windy City. > > > Roly Sussex > Professor of Applied Language Studies > Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and > Applied Linguistics > School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies > The University of Queensland > Brisbane > Queensland 4072 > AUSTRALIA > I can't remember the name of the movie, but Cary Grant played an Austalian tough-guy living in the States, using this type of language. The heroine's English butler translated for her. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:42:32 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:42:32 EST Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: "Arkansas toothpick" for a geographical anti-euphemism: "Mississippi River mud" "Washington DC, that unique combination of Northern graciousness and Southern efficiency" (alternate: "Canada offers American manners, French efficiency, and English cooking") a little far-fetched but "wienie" meaning "penis" "Swiss cheese" referring to the results of a gun battle "Bluegrass treatment" referring to the old Bluegrass Hospital for treating narcotics addicts - Jim Landau From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Fri Jan 3 13:34:32 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:34:32 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: Re: embetterment: Embetter is an entry in some large dictionaries. Betterment is an entry in most large dictionaries. So, why not embetterment? When I am wearing my "neologism-watcher"-hat, I jump for joy over embetterment. When I think about it from the point of view of analogical linguistic formations, I think "how nice." >From the standpoint of idiot vs. moron, I find that reading the OED entry is very enlightening. Senses are organized usually on the basis of oldest first. In OED: 1a. a person without learning (1377) b. a layman (1380) c. one not professionally learned or skilled (1638) 2. a person so deficient in mental or intellectual faculty as to be incapable of ordinary acts of reasoning or rational conduct (a1300) b. a term of reprobation for one who speaks of acts in what the speaker considers an irrational way (c1375) c. a man of weak intellect maintained to afford amusement to others (1526) 3 aatrib or quasi-adj. 4 comb. 2b seems to be the appropriate one, don't you think? Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 3 14:50:27 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:50:27 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: <20030103130715.92131.qmail@web21308.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, yvonne frasure wrote: [1] # Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine #anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as #embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be #an acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a #situation or individual better" [...] [2] #(Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.) [2] "Betterment", "improvement"; what hole? [1] One can always assume, but many assumptions are unwarranted. One can also wonder if Bush was trying for "betterment". Then there's "embitterment", which differs from his coinage only by a common vowel already heard, "*embetterment". And of the three "emb..." words you mention, "embellishing/ embellishment" provides no template -- "*bellish"? "*bell" [in the sense of 'beauty', in English]? -- and "embarkation" is not much better. "The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow" -- The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 3 14:53:02 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:53:02 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, vida morkunas wrote: #I know several people from Winnipeg (many of them move here because of our #balmy winters and cool summers) but I've never heard of a "Winnipeg #handshake". Where did you hear this expression? Was it artistic license on #a radio/tv show, perhaps? Denizens of the place being denigrated are IMHO the *last* people you're likely to hear such an expression from. They may have heard it, but they won't use it, esp. with an outsider. -- Mark A. Mandel From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:53:23 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:53:23 EST Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: The city of Tokyo has seen so many disastrous fires that they are referred to as "flowers of Edo" ("Edo" is an old name for Tokyo). No relation to "Tokyo Rose". - Jim Landau From psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Fri Jan 3 14:58:26 2003 From: psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Peter Sokolowski) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:58:26 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: Hi folks: >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language >phenomenon. I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. Just seems a bit myopic. I think the French may still sing "la p'tite fille" to the Beatles' "Let It Be." Cheers, Peter Peter A. Sokolowski Associate Editor Merriam-Webster, Inc. 47 Federal Street Springfield, MA 01102 Phone: (413) 734-3134 E-mail: psokolowski at Merriam-Webster.com Visit us online at http://www.Merriam-Webster.com From linguist at PUNCHCUTTER.ML1.NET Fri Jan 3 15:01:58 2003 From: linguist at PUNCHCUTTER.ML1.NET (Dave) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:01:58 -0700 Subject: Computer quotes Message-ID: Here are a couple that I haven't seen yet. I'm pretty certain about the correctness and attribution of the first (quite a famous one), but not necessarily the second. The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but that we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway. --Bernard Avishai Dave From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 15:07:04 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:07:04 EST Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: In a message dated 1/3/03 9:57:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM writes: > I think the French may still sing "la p'tite fille" to the Beatles' "Let > It Be." I hope so. It will serve the Beatles right for the contempt for the French language that they demonstrated in "Michelle ma belle". - Jim Landau From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 3 15:15:55 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:15:55 -0500 Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20Re:=20=E2=80=A0=20?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=A0=20=E2=80=A0=20Fwd:=20Comment=20for=20the=20ADS=20Web?= =?UTF-8?Q?mast In-Reply-To: <46.33568754.2b4677ab@aol.com> Message-ID: (BTW, I see this subject line as: [UTF-8] Re: {1} {1} {1} Re: {2} [UTF-8] {2} {2} Fwd: Comment for the ADS Web[UTF-8] master where {1} = NOT-SIGN DAGGER {2} = BLOB CARET INVERTED-QUESTION-MARK DAGGER BLOB represents a rectangle that means "I don't have a representation for this character". The line ends immediately after "mast". Has somebody been using Word punctuation in the subject line?) On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #I didn't mean these questions to be merely rhetorical, no--I agree with #Peter. Consider: # #"Apparently, as soon as the power is restored, our telephone and #computer connections will also be restored.I will continue to work on #this situation. Hopefully, we may be able to have some connectivity by #tomorrow." # #--Memo received today from the Director, First-Year Writing Program, Duke #University. # #I only have one dictionary with me on vacation, and it has an entry for #CONNECTIVITY in this sense, so I guess it has been around for a while--but #perhaps not very long, I'd guess. Was the person who coined this term any #less of a mangler than Bush was with his "embetterment"? You can say that about any single new word. But where's the line between creating a new word and speaking incomprehensible gobbledygook composed entirely of new words? Bush certainly isn't doing the latter, but the frequency with which he comes out with malapropisms and distortions is IMHO pretty good grounds for inferring he's not being constructively creative. -- Mark A. Mandel From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 3 15:17:14 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 15:17:14 -0000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Sokolowski" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:58 PM Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > Hi folks: > > >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language > >phenomenon. > > I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native > argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and > fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > > Just seems a bit myopic. > As the initiator of the generalization, I take the point. And any examples from other slangs to back it up would be received with much interest. Of course every language lends itself to play, rhyming often being part of it, but I would still suggest that rhyming slang, as a fully realised system, does seem to be an English language creation. I don't believe, for instance, that French, with an extensive argot (as in = slang) of its own, appears to offer any such subset. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 3 15:38:57 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:38:57 -0500 Subject: "An Arm and a Leg" Antedating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:49 PM -0500 1/2/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >Updated OED material has an entry for the expression "an arm and a leg" >with a first citation dated 1956 (Billie Holiday's _Lady Sings the >Blues_). ProQuest Historical Newspapers yields this antedating: > >1948 _New York Times_ 13 June R3 (advertisement) It's very welcome news >to hear of a house that doesn't demand an arm and a leg to buy it. > And the first cite of "a nominal egg"? Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 3 15:50:52 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:50:52 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: <180.13e587e7.2b46f4fd@aol.com> Message-ID: >The dividing line between your "geographical euphemisms" and ethnic slurs is >arbitrary---e.g. how would you classify "Mexican standoff"? > >That said, here are my contributions: > >"to shanghai" > >any number of terms for diarrhea, such as "Virginia quickstep" or "Bangkok >belly" (although the latter may refer specifically to amebal dysentery) > >"Sloane Ranger" (the reference is to Sloane Square in London) > >"Kentucky breakfast" which consists of a steak, a bulldog, and a bottle of >bourbon. This may be a nonce usage---it appeared in the obituary of a >Kentucky mountains resident in 1961-2. Why the bulldog? To eat the steak. > >"Bronx cowboy"---again a possible nonce usage, from Harry Harrison's _The >Technicolor Time Machine_ > >"mountain dew" (not the soft drink but moonshine whiskey---the stereotype is >that moonshiners are exclusively mountaineers) > >"Acapulco gold" (either marijuana in general or a specific grade of marijuana) > >"Night of the Sicilian Vespers" (the original one, not the 20th Century >re-enactment) > >"Welsh rabbit" > >"prairie oysters" > >"Hudson seal" > Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American Speech_: Welsh rabbit: a dish with melted cheese and various other ingredients Irish apricot (apple, lemon): a potato Irishman's dinner: a fast Irish evidence: false witness Irish kiss: a slap in the face Irish promotion: a pay-cut Irish tan: sunburn Irish twins: two siblings who are not twins but are born less than a year apart Irish wedding: the emptying of a cesspool Dutch act: suicide Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices Dutch bargain: a bargain all on one side Dutch-clock: a bedpan; a wife Dutch concert/medley: a hubbub, whereat everyone sings and plays at the same time Dutch consolation: Job's comfort ("Thank heaven it is no worse") Dutch courage: pot-valiancy, courage due to intoxication Dutch fuck: the practice of lighting one cigarette from another Dutch milk: beer Dutch treat: an outing at which one pays one's own way Dutch widow: a prostitute Dutch wife: a bolster (on a bed) Alabama wool (= cotton) Alaska turkey (= salmon; cf. Jewish turkey = salami, Irish turkey = corned beef) Albany beef (= sturgeon) Block Island turkey (= salted codfish) Yarmouth capon (= herring) and of course prairie oyster, which comes in two tasty varieties (raw egg yolk dipped in whiskey and sprinkled with Worcestershire and hot sauce or cooked calves' testicles swallowed whole). In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". Larry From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Fri Jan 3 16:00:25 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:00:25 +0100 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: In French there is something called "contrepèterie" (the word is known since 1582): "Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots spécialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage ait également un sens, de préférence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: Femme folle à la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle à la fesse." This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. If you want to pursue the thread, I can recommend a very amusing book: Joël Martin, Manuel de contrepet. L'art de déCaler les Sons (Albin Michel, 1986) The over 2000 contrepéteries in its 328 pages will teach you how to "déssaler les cons". Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathon Green" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 4:17 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Multilingual Rhyming Slang > > >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language > > >phenomenon. > > > > I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native > > argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and > > fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > > > > Just seems a bit myopic. > > > > As the initiator of the generalization, I take the point. And any examples > from other slangs to back it up would be received with much interest. Of > course every language lends itself to play, rhyming often being part of it, > but I would still suggest that rhyming slang, as a fully realised system, > does seem to be an English language creation. I don't believe, for instance, > that French, with an extensive argot (as in = slang) of its own, appears to > offer any such subset. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > > Jonathon Green > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 3 16:05:54 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 11:05:54 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David Barnhart writes: >Re: embetterment: > >Embetter is an entry in some large dictionaries. Betterment is an >entry in most large dictionaries. So, why not embetterment? When I am >wearing my "neologism-watcher"-hat, I jump for joy over embetterment. >When I think about it from the point of view of analogical linguistic >formations, I think "how nice." > >>>From the standpoint of idiot vs. moron, I find that reading the OED >entry is very enlightening. Senses are organized usually on the basis >of oldest first. In OED: > >1a. a person without learning (1377) >b. a layman (1380) >c. one not professionally learned or skilled (1638) >2. a person so deficient in mental or intellectual faculty as to be >incapable of ordinary acts of reasoning or rational conduct (a1300) >b. a term of reprobation for one who speaks of acts in what the speaker >considers an irrational way (c1375) >c. a man of weak intellect maintained to afford amusement to others >(1526) >3 aatrib or quasi-adj. >4 comb. > >2b seems to be the appropriate one, don't you think? > >Regards, >David >barnhart at highlands.com ~~~~~~~ Wa-a-l-l......a case could be made for 2c. AM From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 3 16:01:59 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 11:01:59 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: Actually, a Dutch auction is a descending-price auction, with several variations in practice. It derives from the auction system used in the Netherlands to auction tulips. It is believed to produce higher prices than traditional ascending-price auctions, at least in some contexts. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:51 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American Speech_: [snip] Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices [snip] In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". Larry From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 3 16:17:20 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 11:17:20 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: I notice that the standard library subject tracing for this book as for several others on the topic is "spoonerisms" -- which differs from rhyming slang. The other books are: Antel, Jacques. Le contrepet quotidien / Jacques Antel. -- Paris : Editions Ramsay/J.-J. Pauvert, c1990. 327 p. Etienne, Luc. L'Art du contrepet: petit traite a l'usage des amateurs pour resoudre les contrepeteries proposees et en inventer de nouvelles ... [par] Luc Etienne; suivi d'un commentaire d'Andre Therive. Paris, le Livre de poche, 1972. 297 p. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jan Ivarsson TransEdit Date: Friday, January 3, 2003 11:00 am Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > In French there is something called "contrepèterie" (the word is > known since 1582): > "Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots > spécialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage > ait également un sens, de préférence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: > Femme folle à la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle à la fesse." > This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me > to correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. > If you want to pursue the thread, I can recommend a very amusing > book: Joël Martin, Manuel de contrepet. L'art de déCaler les Sons > (Albin Michel, 1986) > The over 2000 contrepéteries in its 328 pages will teach you how > to "déssaler les cons". > > Jan Ivarsson > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jonathon Green" > To: > Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 4:17 PM > Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Multilingual Rhyming Slang > > > > > >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English > language> > >phenomenon. > > > > > > I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near- > native> > argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. > Wordplay and > > > fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > > > > > > Just seems a bit myopic. > > > > > > > As the initiator of the generalization, I take the point. And > any examples > > from other slangs to back it up would be received with much > interest. Of > > course every language lends itself to play, rhyming often being > part of it, > > but I would still suggest that rhyming slang, as a fully > realised system, > > does seem to be an English language creation. I don't believe, > for instance, > > that French, with an extensive argot (as in = slang) of its own, > appears to > > offer any such subset. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > > > > Jonathon Green > > > From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 3 18:06:25 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:06:25 -0500 Subject: Cleveland Indians Message-ID: In the course of a larger discussion here, a year or so ago, of present day sports teams with insensitive or offensive nicknames and logos, the fact was noted that the Cleveland Indians claim their nickname should be spared from this criticism, because it was originally a sentimental gesture honoring the memory of a former player, Lou Sockalexis, who was a Penobscot Indian. As I recall, one of us pointed out that Sockalexis' career with the Indians had lasted only months and had been a decade and a half in the past when the present nickname was established, and that therefore the story is unlikely. A new book has just passed through my hands here, from which I take the following extracts. From David L. Fleitz, Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian, Jefferson, N. C. & London: McFarland & Co., 2002. [The Cleveland baseball club was called the Spiders before Sockalexis joined.] No one cared for the name "Spiders," which dated from the early 1890s, and in those days team nicknames varied from year to year, depending on the whims of the [sports] writers. *** The main paper in Cleveland, the Plain Dealer, used the term "Indians" for the first time in a headline on March 20, 1897, the day after Sockalexis arrived in Cleveland. Within a week, the writers were identifying the team as the Indians on a regular basis. On March 27, the Plain Dealer commented on the upcoming slate of outdoor practices. "The Indians," remarked the Plain Dealer, "have a spring schedule which is bound to give them good, hard work." (p. 60) [Sockalexis' career with the Indian -- and in baseball -- lasted only a few months. In the early 1900s, Napoleon Lajoie, now in the Hall of Fame, joined the team.] So popular was this French-Canadian second baseman that soon after his arrival in 1902, the writers started calling the team the Naps in his honor, much as they renamed the Spiders the Indians when Sockalexis joined. The well-respected Lajoie became the playing manager of the team in 1905 and drove the Naps up the standings. . . . The Naps reached their high-water mark in 1908, when they lost the pennant to Detroit by half a game. . . . Lajoie stepped down as manager in 1909. . . . By 1914, the Cleveland team had hit rock bottom. *** . . . in January 1915 Charles Somers reluctantly released his most popular player [Lajoie] to his old team, the Athletics. The Cleveland team could no longer be called the Naps with Lajoie gone to Philadelphia, so Somers asked the Cleveland sportswriters for ideans on a new nickname. *** Some of the local writers solicited suggestions from the public in their columns. . . . [I haven't actually read this book, and didn't photocopy what it says about the nickname of the team after Sockalexis had left it and before Lajoie joined it. If I recall correctly, the sports writers had reverted to the old nickname the "Spiders."] The Cleveland Plain Dealer of January 17, 1915, explained what happened next: "*** The title of Indians was [the sports writers'] choice, it having been one of the names applied to the old National league club many years ago. The nickname, howver, is but temporarily bestowed, as the club may so conduct itself during the present season as to earn some other cognomen, which may be more appropriate." (p. 181-82) *** The Plain Dealer, on January 18, 1915, printed an editorial that tied the memory of Sockalexis to the new name. ""Many years ago there was an Indian named Sockalexis who was the star player of the Cleveland baseball club. As batter, fielder, and base runner he was a marvel. Sockalexis so far outshone his teammates that he naturally came to be regarded as the whole team. The "fans" throughout the country began to call the Clevelanders the "Indians." It was an honorable name, and while it stuck the team made an excellent record. It has now been decided to revive this name. *** There will be no real red Indians on the roster, but the name will recall fine traditions. *** It also serves to revive the memory of a single great player who has been called to his fathes in the happy hunting grounds of the Abenakis." (p. 182) [Sockalexis had died in 1913. This misrepresents the original coining of the nickname, in attributing it to the folk, rather than to sports wri! ters. Fleitz also offers a second reason for reviving that particular nickname: a bad team in Boston in 1914 had changed its nickname from the "Beaneaters" to the "Braves" and had won its league's pennant.] Some of the Cleveland writers opined that a Native American nickname would revitalize the Cleveland team in a similar fashion. (p. 183) [On p. 184-85 Fleitz quotes the 1996 Indian's media guide's misrepresentation of the history of the nickname.] [The ethnic stereotyping of Indians in the passage from the Plain Dealer has not escaped my notice; and if I could possibly be dense enough that it might have, there is an editorial cartoon reproduced on p. 183 that makes the point graphically. But in any event, the story tracing the history of the nickname to the memory of Sockalexis, evidently has some justification. Whether the team's current Chief Wahoo logo is justified is no doubt a matter of taste. I assume at least that the local sports writers no longer ring the changes on the Indians scalping their opponents, or being scalped, as it seems they did until fairly recently.] GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Jan 3 20:03:09 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 15:03:09 -0500 Subject: Origin of Dead Rabbits? Message-ID: This article by Dan Cassidy purports to have determined the origin of the gang name "Dead Rabbits." http://www.observer.com/pages/wiseguys.asp In Matsell’s dictionary, the word rabbit is "a rowdy," and a dead rabbit is "a very athletic, rowdy fellow." Rabbit suckers are defined as "young spendthrifts." A slew of other slang terms in Matsell’s dictionary jump out at you from the soundtrack of Mr. Scorsese’s film: ballum rancum for a wild party, crusher for a cop, mort for a woman and lay for one’s criminal leaning or occupation. [...] In an Irish-English dictionary published in Dublin in 1992, the Irish word ráibéad is defined as a "big, hulking person." It is that word, ráibéad—along with the slang intensifier dead, meaning "very"—that provides the simple solution to the 150-year-old mystery of the moniker "Dead Rabbit." -- Grant Barrett gbarrett at worldnewyork.org gbarrett at americandialect.org American Dialect Society webmaster http://www.americandialect.org/ From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Fri Jan 3 20:56:51 2003 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 15:56:51 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" Message-ID: A great client of ours with a soft, charming Long Island accent flips the "k" and "s" around in "ask" so that it comes out as "axe." Her co-worker, however, also blessed with this exquisite accent, does not. The "axer" has an Italian surname, so I would hazard to guess that she is not African-American. (I had always thought this sort of consonant switching was limited to the African-American community.) Is this known as a feature of "Long Islandese," or would you rather call it a peculiar feature of my client's idiolect? Best, Don From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Jan 3 21:03:47 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:03:47 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <008b01c2b36a$a3bbe2e0$0101a8c0@billionbridges1> Message-ID: I believe if you read the journals of Lewis and Clark, particularly those of Clark, whose spelling was more free-spirited, you'll find more than one instance of this ask/aks transposition. Whether that can be correctly said to be a faithful rendering of spoken language is, of course, debatable, but it's interesting to consider. Le Friday, 3 Jan 2003, à 15:56 America/New_York, Billionbridges.com a écrit : > A great client of ours with a soft, charming > Long Island accent flips the "k" and "s" around > in "ask" so that it comes out as "axe." Her > co-worker, however, also blessed with this > exquisite accent, does not. > > The "axer" has an Italian surname, so I would > hazard to guess that she is not African-American. > (I had always thought this sort of consonant > switching was limited to the African-American > community.) > > Is this known as a feature of "Long Islandese," > or would you rather call it a peculiar feature of > my client's idiolect? From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 3 21:12:50 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:12:50 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <008b01c2b36a$a3bbe2e0$0101a8c0@billionbridges1> Message-ID: This pronunciation is a feature of the speech of a friend who grew up in Brooklyn, third generation American, whose forebears were from Sicily & Gibraltar. A. Murie From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Fri Jan 3 21:15:50 2003 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:15:50 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <008b01c2b36a$a3bbe2e0$0101a8c0@billionbridges1> Message-ID: A Latina employee of the City of Alexandria, VA does the exact same thing. She said "axe" about 5 times in a story to a co-worker while I stood at the window waiting for the "locality sticker" for my bike. I've heard Rosie Perez do it too, but I don't know if the accent in "It Could Happen To You" is the way she really speaks. Kathleen E. Miller Research Assistant to William Safire The New York Times At 03:56 PM 1/3/2003 -0500, you wrote: >A great client of ours with a soft, charming >Long Island accent flips the "k" and "s" around >in "ask" so that it comes out as "axe." Her >co-worker, however, also blessed with this >exquisite accent, does not. > >The "axer" has an Italian surname, so I would >hazard to guess that she is not African-American. >(I had always thought this sort of consonant >switching was limited to the African-American >community.) > >Is this known as a feature of "Long Islandese," >or would you rather call it a peculiar feature of >my client's idiolect? > >Best, >Don From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 3 21:40:19 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:40:19 -0800 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: <001f01c2b341$3d37abe0$79ded0d9@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >In French there is something called "contrepèterie" (the word is >known since 1582): >"Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots >spécialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage >ait également un sens, de préférence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: >Femme folle à la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle à la fesse." >This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to >correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. It seems to me that's more of a Spoonerism. Rima From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 3 21:50:26 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:50:26 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20030103160812.00b183f0@smtp-store.nytimes.com> Message-ID: There is a recording of this pron and some explanation in Noah Webster's (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near the bottom, in the facsimile edition. So it's been in American English for nearly 200 years, from people of all colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people pronounce aks". In fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is the "true pronunciation of the original word". Well, I don't know about that, but Noah makes an interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites it, is "acsian or axian". Frank Abate From nichols18 at MARSHALL.EDU Fri Jan 3 22:37:47 2003 From: nichols18 at MARSHALL.EDU (Erin E Nichols) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:37:47 -0500 Subject: remove from list Message-ID: To whom it may concern: Please remove my name from the list as soon as possible. Thank you. From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Fri Jan 3 22:55:10 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:55:10 -0600 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: Maybe I do not fully understand the question here. The way I read the original, the questioner was talking about "spoonerisms" that became productive slang terms for something perhaps better left unsaid in its original form. Is that what "we" are talking about here, or almost universal tendencies to link together words that sound alike (such as "teeny-weeny" for very small) to emphasize a quality or amount? Or do we mean general "spoonerisms" that come to mean something only to speakers of that Argot? ("Wheeze gasp and mutter" only means "please pass the butter" to a person in the subset of people who know of [I think] Mrs Piggle-Wiggle.) How large does the subset of people to which it makes sense, have to be, for it to "count"? I am sure I can think of some examples in both German and English, if I first know we are talking about the same phenomenon, and which definition one wants to use for it. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 3:40 PM Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > >In French there is something called "contrepèterie" (the word is > >known since 1582): > >"Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots > >spécialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage > >ait également un sens, de préférence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: > >Femme folle à la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle à la fesse." > >This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to > >correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. > > It seems to me that's more of a Spoonerism. > > Rima > From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Fri Jan 3 23:08:26 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:08:26 -0600 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: In my experience, "Rutsch mal", for "scootch over" or whatever, is common all over Germany. I have heard several Americans use "rutsch" for "scootch", "scoosh", "slide" also, but it is nowhere near as common in English (where it seems to occur most often in areas with large numbers of German immigrants) as it is in German (I have heard it in NE Germany -- Sachsen, and SW Germany--Schwabian, two enormously different areas in terms of dialects). I always assumed that "Rutsch" in German came from its sense of "slide", maybe with a touch of "push" added in (push to start someone sliding...). I have never heard the alleged Hebrew derivation. Though I must say, it is my opinion Yiddish had more of an influence in German slang in some areas than the people living there still today would realize ("scheit", "toodeln" related to drinking, "batsch" for a slapping sound, and/or really "botching" something up,...). Then again, my random musings like this have been "proven" wrong before... -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bergdahl" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 3:23 PM Subject: Re: Guten Rutsch > I never heard the expression but my Bavarian (1st) wife used "rutsch" all > the time in the sense of "move over, slide over" and as an adj "rutschy" for > "slick, slippery"; moreover, a student in my American dialects class > investigating "scoot" found "rutsch" to be a synonym in upstate New York for > a prompt something like "what do you say when someone wants to sit down and > the people sitting have to move?" I doubt that Upstate is much influenced > by Yiddish although Bayerisch is, like Yiddish, South [=high] German. > _________________________________ > "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" > --Albert Einstein > From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Fri Jan 3 23:25:59 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:25:59 -0600 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: Actually, Duane (I think it was) gave us a good example of what I am talking about with his reply to WOTY: quoted verbatim....... "In an attempt to improve myself culturally, tonight I was watching Bruce Willis in one of the iterations of Die Hard, this time on a broadcast channel rather than a cable movie channel, and that required a great deal of overdubbing, sometimes quite creative. Every few minutes one of the characters would aggressively call another a "melon farmer." For those of us who were sitting there drinking bad beer, eating chips, and watching trashy movies, I have no doubt that "melon farmer" has become a permanent addition to our vocabulary." I have to add that I really really like "melon farmer". I will have to start using that when I am trying to watch my language around little ones. :-) -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Millie Webb" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 4:55 PM Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > Maybe I do not fully understand the question here. The way I read the > original, the questioner was talking about "spoonerisms" that became > productive slang terms for something perhaps better left unsaid in its > original form. Is that what "we" are talking about here, or almost > universal tendencies to link together words that sound alike (such as > "teeny-weeny" for very small) to emphasize a quality or amount? Or do we > mean general "spoonerisms" that come to mean something only to speakers of > that Argot? ("Wheeze gasp and mutter" only means "please pass the butter" > to a person in the subset of people who know of [I think] Mrs > Piggle-Wiggle.) How large does the subset of people to which it makes > sense, have to be, for it to "count"? > I am sure I can think of some examples in both German and English, if I > first know we are talking about the same phenomenon, and which definition > one wants to use for it. -- Millie > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > To: > Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 3:40 PM > Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > > > > >In French there is something called "contrepèterie" (the word is > > >known since 1582): > > >"Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots > > >spécialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage > > >ait également un sens, de préférence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: > > >Femme folle à la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle à la fesse." > > >This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to > > >correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. > > > > It seems to me that's more of a Spoonerism. > > > > Rima > > > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 4 01:59:55 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 19:59:55 -0600 Subject: Yannigan continued; note slang "turkey" Message-ID: I'm presently trying to track down a few references to the loggers'/vagrants' term "yannigan bag" and am preceding on the assumption that the obsolete baseball term "yannigan" (inexperienced player, esp. in spring training) in fact derives from that bag. I find a possibly striking parallel to this in slang "turkey" (bad play), originally short for "turkey show," probably deriving from the itinerant "turkey troupe" which in turn probably derives from the loggers'/itinerants' term "turkey" (a bundle or hold-all). If this pans out, at least some "yannigans" (rookies) would have shown up in spring-training camps with their yannigan bags--marking them instantly as newcomers to the professional game. So, carpet-baggers were named for their carpet bags, the turkey troupes were probably named for their "turkeys" (bundles/hold alls), and now it seems that the yannigans (rookies) might have been named for their traveling bags. In 1995 I published on article on "turkey" and will now reprint part of its abstract; the 2nd paragraph is the most relevant one: "...Theatrical _turkey_ is traceable to burlesque theatre, but here a problem arises: we find reference both to _turkey shows_ and _turkey troupes_. Which one came first? Were the turkey shows so called because they were performed by turkey troupes? Or were the turkey troupes so called because they performed turkey shows? And whichever came first, why was _turkey_ used? "Since no convincing explanation exists for the origin of _turkey_ in reference to a show, I will conjecture that _turkey troupe_ is original. Note a now largely obsolete meaning of _turkey_, viz. a bundle or hold-all carried by lumbermen and (by extension) other itinerant workers, vagrants, etc. The turkey troupes were of course continually on the move, and they were apparently named for the symbol of itinerancy, the turkey (bundle/hold-all). "That bundle/hold-all/bag was probably called a turkey because of its bulky, round shape. "In the mid-1920s _turkey (show)_ was extended from a strictly burlesque context to the legitimate theatre -- a development apparently due to an unusual streak of bad quality that hit the legitimate theatre in Syracuse at that time. The road shows were derided in Syracuse as 'turkeys,' with clear reference to the itinerant (fly-by-night, grossly incompetent) turkey troupes of burlesque vintage. From Syracuse the extended use of _turkey_ 'third rate production (in the legitimate theatre too)' spread to New York City and hence into standard slang. ...--- quoted from: "Material for the study of slang _turkey_" . in: Studies in Slang, part 4. edited by Gerald Leonard Cohen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag. pp. 100-119; the quoted portion just above is from p. 100. ---Gerald Cohen From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 4 02:50:55 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 21:50:55 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #Aside to Mark---Fred Shapiro specifically asked for "computer proverbs" and #people have been using that in the subject lines ever since. Yes, you are #right that they mostly fall short of being "proverbs", but it's better for #Fred to have a full slushpile than an empty page in his new book. Thank you for the reminder. I had forgotten about Fred's request, and I quite agree with your reasoning. Here are two related expressions that I've heard in the field, though they are probably not limited to it. For neither am I aware of a strict wording. 1. Good, fast, or cheap: choose two. 2. Don't get it perfect, get it out! -- Mark A. Mandel From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sat Jan 4 04:02:18 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 23:02:18 -0500 Subject: Yannigan continued; note slang "turkey" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Bindle stiff" would seem to belong somewhere in here, too, along with "turkey." A. Murie From dsgood at VISI.COM Sat Jan 4 06:31:23 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 00:31:23 -0600 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <20030104050016.A42434AA2@bran.mc.mpls.visi.com> Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:59:50 -0000 > From: Michael Quinion > Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > > > Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with a > > bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a > > general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, > > as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like > > "Dutch courage" might also qualify. > > A Glasgow kiss is a head butt (also known, I'm told, as a Gorbals > kiss). A Chelsea smile is a knife slash across the face, in this case > strictly named for the supporters of the football team rather than the > place. Welsh rabbit; Oklahoma credit card (siphon). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 4 15:54:27 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:54:27 -0500 Subject: "Windy City" myth in Chicago Tribune (12-24-02) Message-ID: Greetings from Mombasa, Kenya. I have four days in Zanzibar before I head back to NYC next week. A quick check of www.chicagotribune.com shows that the NY Sun editor Charles A. Dana "Windy City" myth is there AGAIN. I have told the New York Sun to defend Dana several times. I'm sending this to them again. Is there any reason why this still continues? Maybe someone out there can write a better e-mail to the Chicago Tribune ombudsman than I can? Barry Popik (This is being sent to the American Dialect Society list and the NEW YORK SUN. I have traced "Windy City" to the CINCINNATI ENQUIRER of January 1883. "Windy City," again, was neither coined nor popularized by New York Sun editor Charles A. Dana and his statements about the 1893 fair.) WEATHER TERM Chicago Tribune; Chicago, Ill.; Dec 24, 2002; Words in Document: 35 Available Formats: Buy Full Text Abstract: Windy City: First used in 1893 when New York Sun editor Charles Dana, tired... Click to Purchase Complete Document: Buy Full Text Copyright © 2003 The Chicago Tribune From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 4 15:57:35 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:57:35 -0500 Subject: "No Soap, Radio" Message-ID: I think I understand the anti-joke "no soap, radio," but what is its provenance? Is it associated with some particular comedian or time-period? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 4 16:10:19 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:10:19 -0500 Subject: Twitchers, Tommies, Spronking, Mosquitoes, Speed Hump Message-ID: Greetings from Mombasa. There were no internet connections in Serengeti or Ngorongoro, but I should be connected for the rest of this trip (Zanzibar) until I come home. Happy New Year, y'all. MOSQUITOES--Hawkers who approach the vehicle while stopped at border crossings, selling the usual tourist stuff. SPEED HUMP--A speed bump, also called "sleeping policemen" here. This is from a traffic sign. (A few of us misunderstood it for sex slang.) WASTEPAPER FLOWERS--White flowers, seen all over. They look like crumpled bits of papers. MAGNETIC LEVITATION TRAIN--A German train that made it's debut in China last week. Seen on CNN or BBC. NGORONGORE, TANZANIA LAND-PEOPLE-HISTORY Harare: African Publishing Group first published 1999, second edition 2000 (Copyright by David Martin) Pg. 64: The White Bearded Wildebeest, whose scientific name is _Connochaetes taurinus_, is affectionately known as "The Clown of the Plains" because of its comic behaviour. It was once said of this lovable but scatter-brained creature that it had been "designed by a committee and assembled from spare parts." (Wasn't that said of a camel?--ed.) Pg. 64: If this fails the contending bulls drop to their knees (Pg. 65--ed.) with their "bosses" (the bony protuberance between the horns) noisily clashing. Pg. 67: Thompson's (gazelles--ed.), or "Tommies," are one of the most attractive and delicate animals seen in the area. Pg. 68: When alarmed, THomson's flee in a series of bounds called "spronking" or "stotting" which involves the legs and head remaining stiff as they spring up and down rather like mobile rocking horses. Pg. 71: Frequently rhinoceros will be seen with Redbilled or Yellowbilled Oxpeckers, known as "tick birds," perched on them. Pg. 81: The "mega" bird The translucent coloured Angola pitta or, as it has been recently renamed, the African pitta, which advanced "twitchers" pay thousands of dollars to see, is one of the species found at Ngorongoro. (How old is "twitchers" for birders? In CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG?--ed.) Pg. 89: Old Man's Beard. (A plant. OED?--ed.) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 4 16:39:40 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:39:40 -0600 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: A reporter on CNN this morning was interviewing four snowboarders in Vermont, following a heavy snow. They all agreed the snowboarding is great now, as compared to some time in the past when the weather (or snow?) was "shisety", as one of the young men described it. When the broadcast shifted back to the two anchors, the male anchor commented that he liked "the shisety dude" and then he or the female anchor wondered briefly where the word comes from. Evidently neither one knows German or they wouldn't have asked. They then proceeded to another subject. Anyway, is "shisety" a term now being used in teenage slang? Does it exist at all outside the speech of the one snowboarder who used it on CNN? Gerald Cohen From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 4 16:56:12 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:56:12 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Gerald Cohen wrote: # A reporter on CNN this morning was interviewing four snowboarders #in Vermont, following a heavy snow. They all agreed the snowboarding #is great now, as compared to some time in the past when the weather #(or snow?) was "shisety", as one of the young men described it. # # When the broadcast shifted back to the two anchors, the male #anchor commented that he liked "the shisety dude" and then he or the #female anchor wondered briefly where the word comes from. Evidently #neither one knows German or they wouldn't have asked. They then #proceeded to another subject. The pronunciation was opaque to me till the second paragraph: Scheiss-ty, Eng./'Sajsti/, nicht wahr? -- Mark A. Mandel From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 4 17:10:03 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 12:10:03 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 10:39:40AM -0600, Gerald Cohen wrote: > > Anyway, is "shisety" a term now being used in teenage slang? Does > it exist at all outside the speech of the one snowboarder who used it > on CNN? Yes, it does. I first heard this in the speech of New York City youth c.1996, and I know I have earlier written examples from other sources. Jesse Sheidlower From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Sat Jan 4 17:20:17 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 17:20:17 -0000 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: I have a ref. to _shisety_ or _shysty_, a mid-19C US term, based on _shyster_, and meaning tight-fisted or mean. A check though Google (for _shysty_, _sheisty_ and, just in case, _scheissty_) brings up c.365 hits, some 353 of which opt for _shysty_. They all seem to indicate that the snowboarders' use, ie a negative, is the accepted definition. The term is usually used of people, in which case elements of arrogance and cockiness are implied. It does seem, the 19C use notwithstanding, to be a pretty recent coinage. (Although one ref. to the problems caused by a 'shysty' rock promoter - the context suggests financial meanness - suggests that the older use is still to be found.) In the end, like many slang qualifiers, it means, once one accepts the over-riding negative, what the context requires. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 4 17:36:10 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 12:36:10 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Actually, a Dutch auction is a descending-price auction, >with several variations in practice. It derives from the auction >system used in the Netherlands to auction tulips. It is believed to >produce higher prices than traditional ascending-price auctions, at >least in some contexts. > >John Baker > Thanks for the correction. My entry was part of a group of anti-Dutch slurs dating to the Herring Wars from the Victorian era Farmer & Henley _Slang and its Analogues_. I wonder if they got it wrong, if there always were two different senses/uses of "Dutch auction", or if the sense has changed. Anyone know? Larry >-----Original Message----- >From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] >Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:51 AM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > > >Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted >nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American >Speech_: > >[snip] > >Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices > >[snip] > >In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". > >Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 4 19:35:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 14:35:28 -0500 Subject: Mt. Meru Menus (2002) Message-ID: WINNIPEG WAVE--My tour guide (from Winnipeg) has never heard of the Winnipeg Handshake. He says that the Winnipeg Wave is the finger point a driver does before turning. UPSIDE-DOWN TREE--A nickname for the Baobab tree. NYAMA CHOMA--Seen everywhere in Kenya. OED? A brief check of "Tanzania" and "Kenya" in the OED database shows me there's room for improvement. I'll post just one cookbook now. I can't say that Kenyan or Tanzanian immigrants are numerous in the U.S., or that they're top ten cuisines. But still, things like "ugali" and "posho" and "ndizi" have to have some OED hits. MT. MERU MENUS A COOKBOOK IN AID OF THE UPENDO LEPROSY REHABILITATION CENTRE OF MAJI YA CHAI, ARUSHA, TANZANIA Printed in March 2002 by the Joshua Foundation Pg. 2: "First Toasties" is an expression I had never heard before coming to East Africa. It is food consumed, with a drink, at sundown, or before your evening meal. "Snacks," "Bitings," "Nibbles"--call it what you like, but don't let them spoil your tea, dinner, supper or whatever you like to call it! Pg. 8: _DAWA--MY FAVOURITE SUNDOWNER_ "Dawa" is Swahili for medicine and this particular medicine is available all over the continent in one form or another, certainly where the sun-down is marked. This recipe uses Konyagi, the Tanzanian gin produced in Arusha. ("Dawa" must be in the OED!--ed.) Pg. 10: _G AND TEA_ (Gin, iced tea, tonic water, lemon, mint leaves, crushed ice--ed.) Pg. 16: _MDTORI_ Mtori is a traditional dish of the natives of Kilimanjaro. When the women give birth they are confined to the compound for 3 months during which time they are fed on this soup. When they emerge they are beautifully rounded and blooming with health. Very nutritious, easily digestible and although not very attractive in appearance, this soup is very "moreish." Serves 4. 1 kg beef shin bones with some meat left on them 16 green bananas known as "ndizi Uganda," chopped 2 large onions, chopped 1.2 tsp. salt 2 tbsp. margarine (...) Pg. 17: _ZANZIBAR FISH SOUP_. Pg. 34: _HEAVEN AND EARTH POTATOES_ This is a vegetable dish I enjoyed when I lived in Germany. It is called such as apples come from above and potatoes come from the ground. It is a good accompaniment to veal and pork. When it is ready it resembles a thin golden coloured sponge cake! Pg. 38: _"CHOROKOS" IN COCONUT MILK_. Pg. 46: _LAMB MAHGREB_ North African dish with a nice fragrance. Pg. 49: _BEEF AND GREEN BANANA STEW_ (Ndizi za Kupika) A Tanzanian specialty; a local "comfort food." Pg. 59: _P-5_ No, not a secret Italian Masonic lodge or a coveted UN appointment but shorthand for a delicious pasta dish: (_P_enne alla _Panna, al _P_orri, al _P_rosciutto e a; _P_armigiano). Pg. 71: _MALVA PUDDING_ (Forgot to check if this is in OED--ed.) From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Sat Jan 4 23:20:17 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 18:20:17 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: Anyway, is "shisety" a term now being used in teenage slang? Does it exist at all outside the speech of the one snowboarder who used it on CNN? Gerald Cohen Yes, my "whigger" son, 12, has been using the term to refer to me for about the last year or so. He uses it to demean me when I am being "cheap" and also when I am being "unfair" in any general sense of the word. He also allows just now that it means "crappy" in the same sense of the snowboarder. And, indeed, how could it not have come from someone's hearing "scheiss"? Returning US servicemen stationed in Germany the last 10 years or so? From Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM Sun Jan 5 00:49:01 2003 From: Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM (Jewls2u) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:49:01 -0800 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: <001e01c2b447$d8a40220$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >>>>He also allows just now that it means "crappy" in the same sense of the snowboarder. And, indeed, how could it not have come from someone's hearing "scheiss"? Returning US servicemen stationed in Germany the last 10 years or so?<<<< It just looks like a slightly more sanitised version of shizitty. Same word-bend as bizitch and fizucker. All of which has been kicking around since at least the mid-80's. I don't recall hearing beeatch until the 90's though. Julienne From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 01:21:31 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 20:21:31 EST Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > Don't get it perfect, get it out! The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is attributed to Voltaire. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 01:25:02 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 20:25:02 EST Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: Philadelphia lawyer DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually attributed to DC - Jim Landau From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 5 01:23:34 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 19:23:34 -0600 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my signoff. Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. Gerald Cohen [Message I received on "mingya"]: >A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been >able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with >no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here >goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: > >> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' >> >> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley >> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new year. >> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, >> (not surprising) >> and we would like to have some inkling. > >Any help appreciated! > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 5 02:14:57 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 21:14:57 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Jewls2u wrote: #>>>>He also allows just now that it means "crappy" in the same sense of the #snowboarder. # #And, indeed, how could it not have come from someone's hearing "scheiss"? #Returning US servicemen stationed in Germany the last 10 years or so?<<<< # #It just looks like a slightly more sanitised version of shizitty. Same #word-bend as bizitch and fizucker. All of which has been kicking around #since at least the mid-80's. I don't recall hearing beeatch until the 90's #though. "Looks" is right. If this is /'Saisti/, with a "long" first letter "i", it sounds nothing like "shizitty" and is more plausibly deriveable from "Scheisse". OTOH, if it is /SI'sIt'i/, then "shisety" is (IMHO, and to stay in character) a piss-poor way to spell it; I would use something more like "shisitty". And if it is /SI'zIt'i/ then the spelling you've already used is the best one. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 5 02:16:04 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 21:16:04 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: <17f.14a6516e.2b48e29b@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, #mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: # #> Don't get it perfect, get it out! # #The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is #attributed to Voltaire. V's is quite possibly related/ancestral, but it doesn't capture the conflict, or trade-off, between quality and schedule. -- Mark A. Mandel From self at TOWSE.COM Sun Jan 5 02:36:32 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 18:36:32 -0800 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: "James A. Landau" wrote: > > In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, > mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > > > Don't get it perfect, get it out! > > The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is > attributed to Voltaire. I've been casting nets into the wide Web sea because I've always heard Mark's version, with a slightly different wording, attributed to seignior Gates -- something more like, "It doesn't need to be perfect. It only needs to work. Ship it." Another maxim I've heard through years of software development is, "Only God is perfect." a variant of the reasoning behind the aforementioned "Ship it." -- loosely based on an age-old maxim about flaws in handmade rugs. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From dwhause at JOBE.NET Sun Jan 5 04:17:13 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 22:17:13 -0600 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: And I think the computer version, if originating from Voltaire, was filtered through George Patton, "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Towse" "James A. Landau" wrote: > > In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, > mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > > > Don't get it perfect, get it out! > > The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is > attributed to Voltaire. I've been casting nets into the wide Web sea because I've always heard Mark's version, with a slightly different wording, attributed to seignior Gates -- something more like, "It doesn't need to be perfect. It only needs to work. Ship it." From pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU Sun Jan 5 05:30:58 2003 From: pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter Farruggio) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 21:30:58 -0800 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian Americans have used it for several generations as a gross expletive for "Wow!" or "Holy Sh*t!" Pete Farruggio ' At 05:23 PM 1/4/03, you wrote: > A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would >anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my >signoff. > > Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. > >Gerald Cohen > > >[Message I received on "mingya"]: > >>A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been >>able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with >>no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here >>goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: >> >>> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' >>> >>> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley >>> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new year. >>> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, >>> (not surprising) >>> and we would like to have some inkling. >> >>Any help appreciated! > > > > >--- >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 -------------- next part -------------- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 5 12:27:10 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 07:27:10 -0500 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.2.20030104212707.0298aa10@uclink4.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: >It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the >spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian Americans >have used it for several generations as a gross expletive for "Wow!" or >"Holy Sh*t!" I find it written in Italian "minchia" (apparently derived from Latin "mentula" = "penis"). -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 14:16:46 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 09:16:46 -0500 Subject: Githeri, Mchuzi, Traffic Lights, Marie & Nice Biscuits Message-ID: Greetings again from Mombasa. I head for four nights in Zanzibar tomorrow before I return home. I should have some library time in Zanzibar, so make your Swahili requests now. The library was closed today (Sunday) for Mombasa, and I had no time in Nairobi. The NEW YORK TIMES food section ran articles on Louisiana meat pies and Hopping John. As usual, no one spoke to me. Gosh, is all this depressing. Maybe if I wait three million years to give my work away for free, then come at them with guns, someone will eventually condescend to speak to me. And if that works--if I'm not dead in three million years---I'll try the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. No trip would be complete without a visit to the supermarket. I'm typing this near the NAKUMATT (Nairobi-Mambasa-Kisumu, Kenya's Choice Superstore). There is a very large selection of Indian food here, as there has been at the lodges where I've been staying. Here are some items: GITHERI--Maize, Beans, and salt. A Kenyan dish. OED? MCHUZI MIX--OED? There are two different ones, but the Nutri Mchuzi Mix has soya flour (GMO FREE), corn starch, glutamate, spices, salt, caramel. NICE BISCUITS--Several brands offer this. MARIE BISCUITS--Several brands offer this. OED? RAFI BISCUITS TARIATA BISCUITS FAMILY BISCUITS GLUCOSE BISCUITS DIGESTIVE BISCUITS BARVITA BISCUITS GINGERNUTS BISCUITS TRAFFIC LIGHTS--A cookie-type of bakery thing with three holes in it, filled with green, red, and yellow coloring. PALMIERS--No "elephant ears" in Africa? CHARCOAL MAKAA SOLD AT THE BUTCHERY--From a sign at the store. Makaa? OED? A-1 KHEER MIX RICE PUDDING--The chef on the box makes the "OK" sign. I've seen the sign at least one other place, so I guess it's acceptable here. DHOKLA MIX VADAI MIX RASMALAI MIX KULFI MIX GULAB JAMUN MIX PAPAD LENTIL TORTILLAS KHARI PAPDI TIKKI PAPDI DHANA JEERA AJMA SEEDS SUPARI (scented arecanut) CHHUNDO CHUTNEY PATRA (curried) KADHI (curried) UDHIU (curried) SAMBHAR (curried) SOOJI SEMOLINA MOONG DALL MAJOOR DALL URAD DALL TAL SAKRI (simsim and sugar) (OK, so there's a lot of Indian stuff here--ed.) CARR'S TABLE WATER--a registered trademark. WAGON WHEELS--Sold here. THe advertised web site is www.wagonwheels.com. JAMMIE DODGERS--Gooey jam "SPLODGED" between two shortcake biscuits. MURRAY MINTS--From Cadbury Kenya. Trademark? MISHIKAKI--Also, MSHIKAKI. Not seen at the supermarket, but a local meat dish in several of my cookbooks. OED? MASTICABLES--A gum. Trademark? From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 5 14:20:14 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 09:20:14 -0500 Subject: FW: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: Adding to what has been mentioned already, the word is heard in the movie Godfather II, from the character young Clemenza, who says it several times, in scenes where the dialogue is in Sicilian dialect. The etym from Latin mentula makes good sense -- the Latin word was also vulgar (both senses), appearing very infrequently, one famous time in a bawdy poem of Catullus. The sound change from mentula to minchia (whatever the spelling) is defensible. I heard it recently (this past summer) "in the flesh" from the mouth of my washing machine repair guy, who is a late-50ish Italian American from central Conn. So it's still around. Frank Abate *********************** It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian Americans have used it for several generations as a gross expletive for "Wow!" or "Holy Sh*t!" Pete Farruggio ' At 05:23 PM 1/4/03, you wrote: > A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would >anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my >signoff. > > Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. > >Gerald Cohen > > >[Message I received on "mingya"]: > >>A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been >>able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with >>no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here >>goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: >> >>> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' >>> >>> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley >>> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new year. >>> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, >>> (not surprising) >>> and we would like to have some inkling. >> >>Any help appreciated! > > > > >--- >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: ATT00003.txt URL: From Vocabula at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 16:25:20 2003 From: Vocabula at AOL.COM (Robert Hartwell Fiske) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 11:25:20 EST Subject: New Year's Resolutions Message-ID: A brief diversion: http://www.vocabula.com/index.asp#TVRPoll Robert Hartwell Fiske Editor and Publisher The Vocabula Review www.vocabula.com ______________________ The Vocabula Review A measly $5.95 a year www.vocabula.com ______________________ The Vocabula Review 10 Grant Place Lexington, MA 02420 United States Tel: (781) 861-1515 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 5 16:51:07 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 11:51:07 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: <011001c2b471$53c32fc0$a6bf22d0@dwhause> Message-ID: At 10:17 PM -0600 1/4/03, Dave Hause wrote: >And I think the computer version, if originating from Voltaire, was filtered >through George Patton, "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan >tomorrow." >Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net >Ft. Leonard Wood, MO Then there's the variant for us procrastinator types: "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow." L From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 5 18:22:23 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 13:22:23 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: #Then there's the variant for us procrastinator types: "Never do #today what you can put off until tomorrow." I'm giving up on procrastination: I just can't seem to get around to it. -- Mark M. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 19:06:33 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 14:06:33 -0500 Subject: Mishikaki & Mtori (A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR) Message-ID: A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR CHAKULA KIZURI by Zarina Jafferji Zanzibar: The Gallery Publications gallery at swahilicoast.com; www.galleryzanzibar.com; zjafferji at aol.com 96 pages, paperback, $18 2002 This is an attractive book, using full color. It's in English and Swahili. Here are two items that probably should be in the OED, but probably are not. Pg. 47: _Barbecued meat (Mshikaki)_ Serves 6 people Barbecued meat is sold by many street vendors in Zanzibar. Small pieces of beef are skewered then cooked over glowing charcoal, brushed with a chilli sauce to add flavour. _Ingredients_ 2 1/2 lbs. lamb, rump or fillet steak cut into small pieces 1 tsp. red chilli powder 1/2 tsp. black pepper 1 tbsp. ginger paste 1 tbsp. garlic paste 1 tbsp. tomato paste (optional) 2 tbsps. cooking oil salt to taste 1 tbsp. crushed raw papaya (an optional tenderiser for meat) _Method_ Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and marinade the meat overnight or for at least four hours in a refrigerator. Prepare a charcoal fire and grill the meat on skewers. Occasionally baste the meat with oil and also brush with a chilli sauce. Serve immediately with a green salad and Zanzibari sauce. _Meat with banana puree (Mtori)_ Serves 6 people This dish is prepared with savoury bananas and is deliciously creamy. _Ingredients_ 1 lb. stewing meat 6 small green bananas 2 onions chopped 2 tbsps. butter 2 cups chopped potatoes 1 tsp. garlic paste 1 tsp. ginger paste 2 fresh green chillies 1/2 cup thick coconut milk salt and pepper to taste _Method_ Cut the meat into small pieces and marinade in the garlic, ginger and green chillies for one to two hours. Cook the meat in some water until tender. Peel the bananas and add to the meat with the chopped onions. Add water if necessary and allow to simmer until tender. Add the butter and mash the banana. Lastly add the thick coconut milk and cook over a low heat for a further 5 minutes. _Meat curry (Mchuzi wa nyama)_ Serves 6-8 people. Perfect with rice. You can substitute chicken as well. (Typist leaving for Zanzibar--ed.) From zafav at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 5 20:28:00 2003 From: zafav at HOTMAIL.COM (zafer avar) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 20:28:00 +0000 Subject: Mishikaki & Mtori (A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR) Message-ID: Dear friends, I am a person who makes translation from Eng to turkish. But firs time While translating on medical fields, I faced some statements follow like: 1-"Air/Silicone Exchange": Q:Silicone means Silisium or silicone in medical texts 2-"Fluid/silicone exchange is unnecessary and more difficult to visualize" Q:What does it mean to visualize in this sentence; What of exchange of fluid/silicone is difficult to visualize? its performing or what? 3-Bubble expansion from air: Q:If someone breaths it? 4-best prohibited : what is the difference than normal prohibited? 5-vascular occlusion: Is a kind of expansion of vascular? 6-interfacial tension :What? >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Mishikaki & Mtori (A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR) >Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 14:06:33 -0500 > >A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR >CHAKULA KIZURI >by Zarina Jafferji >Zanzibar: The Gallery Publications >gallery at swahilicoast.com; www.galleryzanzibar.com; zjafferji at aol.com >96 pages, paperback, $18 >2002 > > This is an attractive book, using full color. It's in English and >Swahili. Here are two items that probably should be in the OED, but >probably are not. > >Pg. 47: >_Barbecued meat (Mshikaki)_ >Serves 6 people >Barbecued meat is sold by many street vendors in Zanzibar. Small pieces of >beef are skewered then cooked over glowing charcoal, brushed with a chilli >sauce to add flavour. >_Ingredients_ >2 1/2 lbs. lamb, rump or fillet steak cut into small pieces >1 tsp. red chilli powder >1/2 tsp. black pepper >1 tbsp. ginger paste >1 tbsp. garlic paste >1 tbsp. tomato paste (optional) >2 tbsps. cooking oil >salt to taste >1 tbsp. crushed raw papaya (an optional tenderiser for meat) >_Method_ >Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and marinade the meat overnight or >for at least four hours in a refrigerator. Prepare a charcoal fire and >grill the meat on skewers. Occasionally baste the meat with oil and also >brush with a chilli sauce. Serve immediately with a green salad and >Zanzibari sauce. > >_Meat with banana puree (Mtori)_ >Serves 6 people >This dish is prepared with savoury bananas and is deliciously creamy. >_Ingredients_ >1 lb. stewing meat >6 small green bananas >2 onions chopped >2 tbsps. butter >2 cups chopped potatoes >1 tsp. garlic paste >1 tsp. ginger paste >2 fresh green chillies >1/2 cup thick coconut milk >salt and pepper to taste >_Method_ >Cut the meat into small pieces and marinade in the garlic, ginger and green >chillies for one to two hours. Cook the meat in some water until tender. >Peel the bananas and add to the meat with the chopped onions. Add water if >necessary and allow to simmer until tender. Add the butter and mash the >banana. Lastly add the thick coconut milk and cook over a low heat for a >further 5 minutes. > >_Meat curry (Mchuzi wa nyama)_ >Serves 6-8 people. >Perfect with rice. You can substitute chicken as well. > >(Typist leaving for Zanzibar--ed.) _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Sun Jan 5 22:41:24 2003 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 17:41:24 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: The meanings of the following variants may differ, but they represent the earliest uses, on Google Advanced Groups, of the use of a given spelling variant. Searching on shisty finds 3 hits, with earliest to 10 NOV 1993: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shisty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=3i8cmv%24lk1%40news.cs.brandeis.edu&rnum=1 http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shisty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=JOHNSONBT%25CS35.17%40cadetmail.usafa.af.mil&rnum=2 http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shisty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=1993Nov10.185052.6201%40bvc.edu&rnum=3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shysty, with earliest to 29 MAR 1995: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shysty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=3lcg5n%24muo%40usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu&rnum=1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sheisty, with earliest to 10 NOV 1993 (same as above site; seemingly indicates that there is an equivalence, i.e., shisty = sheisty): http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22sheisty%22&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=1993Nov10.185052.6201%40bvc.edu&rnum=12 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shiesty, with earliest to 10 JUL 1993: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shiesty%22&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=927.171.uupcb%40mwbbs.com&rnum=14 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ George Cole Shippensburg University From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 6 13:59:13 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 05:59:13 -0800 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I hear the "asked" to "axed" switch occasionally here in Utah. No real demographic that I can identify. The man I heard use it yesterday uses inventive sentence structures and non-standard phrases; he uses a lot of similes and metaphors. He exaggerates pronunciation, especially syllable breaks, for effect. However, his use of "axed" seems to be part of his natural speech, not an affectation. He was born and raised here in the SLC area. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 14:46:22 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 09:46:22 -0500 Subject: FW: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: I remember hearing this word quite frequently in the speech of the boys in my grammar school class, which was located in the Merrimack Valley (these were working-class Catholic boys, fwiw, but mainly of French-Canadian rather than Italian descent). The word really sticks in my head because I made the mistake of using it one day in conversation with my mother (who speaks a Sicilian dialect of Italian) and being shocked by her reaction: "What did you say? Joanne, that's a terrible Italian swear-word!" I had no idea what it meant and was too cowed to ask her, but I see now why she was upset. Thanks to the Italophones on this list for shedding light on this matter! Joanne Despres From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 15:20:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:20:22 -0500 Subject: Zanzibar food; Mombasa meaning Message-ID: Greetings from Zanzibar. This place has a Havana feel to it. It seems like nothing has been built here in the past 50 years. The tiny library has no computers and old books. The one cookbook (I was looking for old books here) I was shown was the one I had just bought. So it looks like any real research on the food of this region of the world will have to wait until I get back home to the NYPL and Library of Congress. MOMBASA--My Fort Jesus tour guide said that there was a miscommunication with the Portuguese when they asked what the name of the place was. The response was something like "Mombasa"--"I don't understand what you're saying." I've heard similar stories with other placenames. I haven't checked "Mombasa" in a web search yet. DINERS DHOW FOR COASTAL DISHES--Masala chips, Chicken tikka kebabs, minced pizza, mishikaki. (From a Mombasa restaurant sign--ed.) AFRICAN DISHES--Mitaha, Sima, Ndundira mkindani. (From other signs in Mombasa--ed.) TALK CARD--"Calling Card" in Mombasa. SIGNS FOR THESE VARIOUS ITEMS IN MOMBASA: KITENGE KHANGAS KIKOYS KILIM PILI PILI BEDS SWAHILI BEDS TSAVORITE ZANZIBAR CHESTS, BENCHES, DINING-TABLES LAMU CHESTS, BEDS, COFFEE TABLES MAKONDES (OED?--ed.) _ZANZIBAR FOOD_ _DOLPHIN GARDEN RESTAURANT_ BOLOGNESE ARABIATA (CABONARA) STEAK--PEPPER/GARLIC/MISHIKAKI MSETO--rice and green lentils with fish in coconut sauce SAMAKI WA KUPAKA--grilled whole snapper covered in coconut sauce CHUKUCHUKU OCRA (lady's finger) _FANY'S RESTAURANT_ ZANZIBAR CHICKEN PINEAPPLE PIZZA--t-sauce, chicken, pineapple, green pepper, cheese Traditional Zanzibar Breakfast--Maandazi or Chapati _THE AFRICA HOUSE HOTEL_ PILI-PILI CRAB--fresh crab sauteed in garlic, chilli and Zanzibari spices MISHIKAKI (succulent fish, beef or chicken kebabs) PESTO ALLA ZANZIBARI--fresh basil and garlic TOASTED--toasted sandwich with your choice of filling KATLERI--potato croquettes filled with your choice of meat, vegetables or fish and served with pili-pili sauce (OED for "pili-pili"?--ed.) VEGETABLE OR MEAT SAMBUSA CHUKUCHUKU YA KUKU NA WALI--chicken casserole cooked to a traditional recipe MBATATO NYAMA--delicious Zanzibari dish of meat, potatoes and spices _DHOW RESTAURANT_ PRAWN KEBABS PILI PILI (Salad) TRADITIONAL KACHUMBARI (Dessert) TRADITIONAL "KAIMATI" IN CARDAMOM SYRUP _SERENA HOTEL RESTAURANT_ ZANZIBARI PIZZA--finely ground beef delicately filled into a spicy dough served with kachumbari PASTA MDELE--tossed with spring vegetables or Queen prawns Appetizers CHILLED CHICKEN TIKKA SERVED ON A BED OF GREENS LENTIL AND POTATO BHAJIA WITH GREEN CHUTNEY SMOKED SAILFISH PANCAKE WITH TAMARIND AND COCONUT SAUCE Soup SWAHILI SEAFOOD CONSOMME WITH MILD CHILLIES, CORIANDER AND LEMONGRASS Spice Island Specialties GRILLED BABY EGGPLANT MASALA ZANZIBARI VEGETABLE LASAGNA KAMBA CHUKU CHUKU--steamed tiger prawns in ginger-wine and Zanzibari "pot pourri" KUKU WA KUPAKA--grilled half spring chicken simmered in coconut and exotic spices CHILLED MARINATED ROCK LOBSTER SIZZLED IN COCONUT, TURMERIC AND CORIANDER DUCK BREAST FILLED WITH DATES AND NUTS SET ON A PEPPERED CRANBERRY SAUCE Desserts CARROT HALWA WITH SPICY ICE CREAM APPLE RINGS COATED WITH CINNAMON SET ON VANILLA AND CARDAMOM SAUCE SWEET POTATO PIE WITH A SCOOP OF BUNGO ICE-CREAM _LA FENICE RESTAURANT_ _Menu Swahili_ SUPA YA BOGA--pumpkin soup CHICKEN MASALA SEMBE KWA MCHUZI WA NYAMA--beef and vegetables stew with sembe (maize flour) PWEZA ZANZIBAR--octopus with coconut sauce and Swahili spices PILAU YA SAMAKI KWA KACHUMBARI--spice rice and fried king fish NDIZI MBICHI YA NAZI KWA SAMAKI--green banana with fish in coconut sauce JAHUZI CICALE (with spinach)--lobster DESSERT SWAHILI--sweet banana in coconut and spices sauce From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 6 16:07:16 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:07:16 -0500 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: Indeed, I had been discussing this word just last week with a friend, and had been intending to post it here. The friend is 50+, from Lawrence, Mass., and Jewish. He knew the word from his high school friends. He and his older brother and sister used to use it, rather in the spirit of showing how the natives back in Lawrence talked. I haven't heard it since I left Boston and stopped seeing them. He illustrated the word for my son by saying that it might be said in response to an astonishing bit of news: "Mingya!!" (as Peter Farruggio says, = Wow or Holy shit) or to add emphasis to an expression:"Mingya, will you get moving!" He regarded the word as a shibboleth of Lawrence, and said that someone he knew said he had once, in passing a group of soldiers in the Nam, overheard one of them say "mingya". He had immediately stopped and said, "OK, what part of Lawrence do you come from?" GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Farruggio Date: Sunday, January 5, 2003 0:30 am Subject: Re: Query: alleged word "mingya" > It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the > spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian > Americanshave used it for several generations as a gross expletive > for "Wow!" or > "Holy Sh*t!" > > Pete Farruggio > > > ' > > At 05:23 PM 1/4/03, you wrote: > > > A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would > >anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my > >signoff. > > > > Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. > > > >Gerald Cohen > > > > > >[Message I received on "mingya"]: > > > >>A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been > >>able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with > >>no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here > >>goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: > >> > >>> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' > >>> > >>> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley > >>> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new > year.>>> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, > >>> (not surprising) > >>> and we would like to have some inkling. > >> > >>Any help appreciated! > > > > > > > > > >--- > >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. > >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > >Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 > -------------- next part -------------- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 16:29:58 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:29:58 EST Subject: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: Here are some details on our Words of the Year vote. This is a draft of what will be in the ADS newsletter. If you can improve on the short definitions, please let me know. After getting your suggestions and acting on them, we'll post it on the ADS website. - Allan Metcalf -------------------- The grim forebodings of the past year were reflected in the American Dialect Society's choice of "weapons of mass destruction" and its abbreviation "WMD" as word (or phrase) of the year 2002. In the 13th annual vote among members and friends of the society, conducted this time in Atlanta Jan. 3 during the society's annual meeting, "weapons of mass destruction" received 38 votes of the approximately 60 cast. Vote numbers are approximate because voting was by show of hands. Other candidates for Word of the Year were: "google" (verb) - to search the Web using the search engine Google for information on a person or thing: 11 votes. "blog" - from "weblog," a website of personal events, comments, and links: 6 votes. "Amber alert" - public announcement of a missing child: 4 votes. "regime change" - forced change in leadership: 3 votes. Words of the Year are those that reflect the concerns and preoccupations of the year gone by. They need not be new, but they usually are newly prominent. Before the voting on Word of the Year, words were also chosen in particular categories. These were the categories for 2002: - Most likely to succeed: "blog" (30 votes). Other candidates: "Amber alert" (20); "Axis of _____," alliance (8); "teen angstrel," angst-ridden popular singer (1). - Most useful: "google" (verb). All 60 votes in this category were for this word. Other candidates, with no votes, were: "dataveillance," surveillance using computer data; the prefix "war-" as in "wardriving" or "warchalking," finding locations for unauthorized wireless Internet access; "My big fat ______,"; "like no other," extremely. - Most creative: "Iraqnophobia," strong fear of Iraq (38 votes in a runoff). Other candidate in the runoff: "walking pinata," a person subject to relentless criticism, most recently Trent Lott (25). Other candidates in the first vote: "dialarhoea," inadvertent dialing of a cell phone in a pocket or handbag (8); "201 (k)," a 401 (k) retirement account ruined by stock losses (8); "apatheist," someone believing that God or gods exist but are not of any use (7). - Most unnecessary: "wombanization," feminization, from Alexander Barnes' book "The Book Read Backwards: The Deconstruction of Patriarchy and the Wombanization of Being" (46 votes). Other candidates: "Saddameter," meter on television showing daily likelihood of war with Iraq (13); "virtuecrat," person both politically correct and morally righteous (10); "black tide," large-scale oil pollution at sea (0). - Most outrageous: "Neuticles," fake testicles for neutered pets (40 votes in a runoff). Other candidate in the runoff: "grid butt," marks left on the buttocks by fishnet pantyhose (30). Other candidates in the first vote: "sausage fest," slang term for a party with more males than females (7); "diabulimia," loss of weight by a diabetic skipping insulin doses (3); "Botox party," party at which a physician injects guests with Botox (2); "comprendo-challenged," unable to understand the U.S. Constitution (0). - Most euphemistic: "regime change" (38 votes). Other candidates: "V card," slang term for virginity (14); "newater," sewage water purified and recycled into the fresh water system (7); "unorthodox entrepreneur," panhandler, prostitute, or drug dealer in a Vancouver park (4); "Enronomics," fraudulent business and accounting practices (1); "dirty bomb," conventional bomb laced with radioactive material (0). One candidate was proposed for the special category of Most Inspirational: President Bush's coinage "embetterment," as in "the embetterment of mankind." By a vote of 45 to 12, the society decided against this category and candidate. A category of Bushisms was suggested for future years. Choices for the years 1990 through 2002 may be found on the society's website, www.americandialect.org. The next vote, on words for 2003, will take place Friday, January 9, 2004, at the American Dialect Society's annual meeting in Boston at the Sheraton Hotel. Nominations for words of the year 2003 are welcome anytime. Send them to the chair of the society's New Words Committee, Professor Wayne Glowka of Georgia College and State University, at wglowka at mail.gcsu.edu. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 16:44:48 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 08:44:48 -0800 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think Ol' Noah had it right. OE acsian seems to be at the base of it all--although one (especially one without a competent dictionary at hand at the moment) wonders whether there's an unbroken chain from OE aks- to ModE aks, or whether the metathesis to ask already took place in MidE. In fact, is there a double showing metathesis already in OE (i.e. ascian, acsian)? That could account for both forms in ModE. If not, who might be the culprit who is responsible for spreading the gospel of ask? Is our old friend Bishop Lowth lurking in the woodpile, perhaps? PR On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Frank Abate wrote: > There is a recording of this pron and some explanation in Noah Webster's > (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language > (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near the bottom, in the > facsimile edition. > > So it's been in American English for nearly 200 years, from people of all > colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people pronounce aks". In > fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is the "true pronunciation of > the original word". Well, I don't know about that, but Noah makes an > interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites it, is "acsian or axian". > > Frank Abate > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 17:03:25 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:03:25 EST Subject: Zanzibar food; Mombasa meaning Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 10:21:23 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Greetings from Zanzibar. This place has a Havana feel to it. It seems like > nothing has been built here in the past 50 years. Or as John Brunner said, "Stand on, Zanzibar!" - Jim Landau From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Mon Jan 6 17:18:01 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:18:01 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <64.2aa09903.2b48e36e@aol.com> Message-ID: Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >Philadelphia lawyer > >DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard >this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington >DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually >attributed to DC > > - Jim Landau From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Mon Jan 6 17:10:29 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (raspears) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:10:29 -0600 Subject: Fw: Re: "axe" for "ask" Message-ID: Similarly, *lax* (as in bowels) and *lask* diarrhea, an obsolete dialect term [see OED]. R. Spears ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Richardson" To: Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 10:44 AM Subject: Re: "axe" for "ask" > > I think Ol' Noah had it right. OE acsian seems to be > at the base of it > > all--although one (especially one without a competent > dictionary at hand > > at the moment) wonders whether there's an unbroken > chain from OE aks- to > > ModE aks, or whether the metathesis to ask already > took place in MidE. In > > fact, is there a double showing metathesis already in > OE (i.e. ascian, > > acsian)? That could account for both forms in ModE. > If not, who might be > > the culprit who is responsible for spreading the > gospel of ask? Is our > > old friend Bishop Lowth lurking in the woodpile, > perhaps? > > > > PR > > > > On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Frank Abate wrote: > > > > > There is a recording of this pron and some > explanation in Noah Webster's > > > (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of > the English Language > > > (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near > the bottom, in the > > > facsimile edition. > > > > > > So it's been in American English for nearly 200 > years, from people of all > > > colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people > pronounce aks". In > > > fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is > the "true pronunciation of > > > the original word". Well, I don't know about that, > but Noah makes an > > > interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites > it, is "acsian or axian". > > > > > > Frank Abate > > > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 17:39:10 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:39:10 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030106121559.00a565e0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a significant one. Larry > >At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >>Philadelphia lawyer >> >>DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard >>this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington >>DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually >>attributed to DC >> >> - Jim Landau From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 6 17:40:48 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 09:40:48 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030106121559.00a565e0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California > driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never > comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. Hence the term "California stop" for such a rolling stop, or non-stop, if you prefer ... allen maberry at u.washington.edu From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 6 17:47:01 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 09:47:01 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: How about: Swedish thumbprint = a roundish dent made by a hammer California finish hammer = a framing hammer (24-30 oz. hammer often with a waffled face as opposed to a "finish hammer", 16 oz. or less, always with a smooth face). This is probably confined to the Northwest and refers to fast, shoddy, construction associated justly or not, with California. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California > >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never > >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > significant one. > > Larry > > > > >At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: > >>Philadelphia lawyer > >> > >>DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard > >>this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington > >>DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually > >>attributed to DC > >> > >> - Jim Landau > From dsgood at VISI.COM Mon Jan 6 18:04:05 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:04:05 -0600 Subject: (Fwd) Fw: Re: The Starbuck-ization of Mayberry Message-ID: Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking Subject: Re: The Starbuck-ization of Mayberry From: "MH" Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 01:49:41 GMT "Dan Goodman" wrote in message news:Xns92FAB21233A41dsgoodvisicom at 209.98.13.60... > Cindy Fuller wrote in news:cjfuller- > 6D26E0.13383505012003 at news.mindspring.com: > > > We were running errands today and noticed that the Krispy Kreme in > > our neighborhood now serves espresso (according to the sign in > > their front window). It's mighty difficult to dunk one of their > > doughnuts into an espresso cup. SO asked, "What's next? Will > > they serve croissants covered in sugar glaze and sprinkles?" The > > mind boggles. > > I knew espresso was advancing downscale when I noticed that a tire > store had an espresso machine for their customers. > > In Minneapolis, SuperAmerica sells coffee and espresso. You can't have a coffee place in San Francisco without offering espresso, which has been around here a lot longer than Starf**ks. Martha H. Go Niners!!! -= END forwarded message =- ------- End of forwarded message ------- From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 6 18:17:41 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:17:41 -0600 Subject: Irish Tattoo (Was Geographical euphemisms) Message-ID: My daughter (half Irish) and I (full) referred to the inadvertent splotches of sunburn we picked up bicycling around Ireland last summer as "Irish tattoos." I thought I made up the phrase, but maybe I encountered it somewhere and forgot. Does anyone know? ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 6 18:20:23 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:20:23 -0600 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: The phrase "Chinese wall" seems to be becoming politically incorrect in legal English. -----Original Message----- From: James A. Landau [mailto:JJJRLandau at AOL.COM] Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 8:15 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? The dividing line between your "geographical euphemisms" and ethnic slurs is arbitrary---e.g. how would you classify "Mexican standoff"? That said, here are my contributions: "to shanghai" any number of terms for diarrhea, such as "Virginia quickstep" or "Bangkok belly" (although the latter may refer specifically to amebal dysentery) "Sloane Ranger" (the reference is to Sloane Square in London) "Kentucky breakfast" which consists of a steak, a bulldog, and a bottle of bourbon. This may be a nonce usage---it appeared in the obituary of a Kentucky mountains resident in 1961-2. Why the bulldog? To eat the steak. "Bronx cowboy"---again a possible nonce usage, from Harry Harrison's _The Technicolor Time Machine_ "mountain dew" (not the soft drink but moonshine whiskey---the stereotype is that moonshiners are exclusively mountaineers) "Acapulco gold" (either marijuana in general or a specific grade of marijuana) "Night of the Sicilian Vespers" (the original one, not the 20th Century re-enactment) "Welsh rabbit" "prairie oysters" "Hudson seal" - Jim Landau ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:30:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:30:17 -0500 Subject: (Fwd) Fw: Re: The Starbuck-ization of Mayberry In-Reply-To: <3E1970B5.20054.2DCAB7@localhost> Message-ID: > > >> I knew espresso was advancing downscale when I noticed that a tire >> store had an espresso machine for their customers. >> > > In Minneapolis, SuperAmerica sells coffee and espresso. > Is that so terrible? Vending machines in Europe (at least in Germany last time I was there) dispense espresso--one mark for a cup that was definitely drinkable, and much better than any vending machine coffee I've had here. (That was back when they had marks, now it's probably up to 1 euro/cup.) Larry From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Mon Jan 6 18:30:34 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:30:34 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: Dutch auction, in the descending-price auction sense, is an important financial and economic term, such that if there ever were an alternative meaning (which I doubt), it has disappeared today. It's listed in the OED (under auction), but no quotes are given. Here's one from 1834: >>Then comes the act of 1798, which contains the enactments before quoted, and besides them, these others.--That the Sheriff should set up the whole tract of land, liable for taxes, by way of Dutch auction, and strike off so much to the person who offered to take the smallest number of acres for the sums to be raised.<< Avery v. Rose, 4 Dev. 549, 15 N.C. 549 (N.C. 1834). I haven't seen the 1798 statute referred to in the quote, but I suspect that it describes the method of sale rather than using the descriptive term Dutch auction. It's interesting to note how many of these geographical euphemisms are pejorative. Are there any true ironyms (which Dutch auction, of course, is not, since it really is an auction) that are not pejorative? John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 12:36 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > Actually, a Dutch auction is a descending-price auction, >with several variations in practice. It derives from the auction >system used in the Netherlands to auction tulips. It is believed to >produce higher prices than traditional ascending-price auctions, at >least in some contexts. > >John Baker > Thanks for the correction. My entry was part of a group of anti-Dutch slurs dating to the Herring Wars from the Victorian era Farmer & Henley _Slang and its Analogues_. I wonder if they got it wrong, if there always were two different senses/uses of "Dutch auction", or if the sense has changed. Anyone know? Larry >-----Original Message----- >From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] >Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:51 AM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > > >Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted >nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American >Speech_: > >[snip] > >Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices > >[snip] > >In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". > >Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:34:13 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:34:13 -0500 Subject: Irish Tattoo (Was Geographical euphemisms) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:17 PM -0600 1/6/03, Joyce, Thomas F. wrote: >My daughter (half Irish) and I (full) referred to the inadvertent >splotches of sunburn we picked up bicycling around Ireland last >summer as "Irish tattoos." I thought I made up the phrase, but >maybe I encountered it somewhere and forgot. Does anyone know? > One of the Irish ironyms in my list was "Irish tan" = 'sunburn', based on the premise that a true Irish(wo)man doesn't tan. The above would seem to be based on the same premise. Not quite as insulting as most of the other ones, anyway. larry From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:33:52 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:33:52 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I say possible, because I think I've heard it several ways, sometimes as "Oregon liquid sunshine" and sometimes just as "liquid sunshine," this last sometimes accompanied by the further clarification "Oregon's 'liquid sunshine.'" These latter variations make it an uncertain member of this class of expressions. To my knowledge all of these versions are used only self-deprecatingly by Oregonians. After all, Washington would have an equal claim on "liquid sunshine." Have any of you Washingtonians ever heard of "Washington liquid sunshine"? PMc --On Monday, January 6, 2003 12:39 PM -0500 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: >> Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the >> "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules >> and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > significant one. > > Larry > >> >> At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >>> Philadelphia lawyer >>> >>> DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only >>> heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of >>> Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that >>> matter, usually attributed to DC >>> >>> - Jim Landau **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 18:35:42 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:35:42 EST Subject: California drivers Message-ID: According to Wendalyn Nichols: >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a while ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the L.A. area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave in and out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm about slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. I compare them with the more aggressive and hazardous drivers of Chicago, not to mention the cab drivers of Manhattan. Perhaps drivers are really laid back in the Northwest . . . though I have heard of "ferry rage." And of course truth is not a necessary condition for a stereotype. - Allan Metcalf From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 18:36:07 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:36:07 EST Subject: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 11:30:43 AM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > One candidate was proposed for the special category of Most Inspirational: > President Bush's coinage "embetterment," as in "the embetterment of > mankind." > By a vote of 45 to 12, the society decided against this category and > candidate. A category of Bushisms was suggested for future years. > I object to this reporting of the minutes of the meeting. In fact, GRID BUTT (a.k.a. BUTT GRID) was also nominated (from the floor) as a candidate for Most Inspirational word of the year. Anyone who has ever sat naked on a lawn chair for any length of time will surely recognize the spiritual importance of having a term for the resultant distressing epidermal condition. However, the dictitorial chair of the meeting refused even to allow a vote on this nomination, thus violating our rights according to our established procedures. Given that the Most Inspirational category is also one that is closely allied to religious beliefs, our rights to free exercise of relgion may have been violated as well. At any rate, the most important purpose of meetings of the American Dialect Society--the free interchange of scholarly thinking about language--was thereby put in jeapordy by the black tide of dictatorship. We will never know what the scholarly conclusion would have been with respect to the Most Inspirational nature of GRID BUTT (not to mention MY BIG FAT BUTT GRID). It seems clear that the chair was swayed by the fact that our session this year was being recorded for national television. He just did not want to take the chance of appearing on CBS News saying, "All in favor of GRID BUTT say 'Aye'!" In this craven action I say he acted like a Neuticle-driven, comprendo-challenged scholarly angstrel. He has turned our sacred deliberations into one big like-no-other Botox party and limp sausagefest. I do not wish to turn our beloved Secretary into a walking pinyata; I do not mean to suggest that we need a metcalfameter to monitor his future actions. I am not asking for Regime Change. Rather, I am fully willing to forgive him for his outrageous virtuecratrism, even though, for the sake of a few moments of glory on televison, he has robbed us of our intellectual V-card. I would like to propose, however, that he promise that, in the future, we MUST ban the press from our deliberations. From sylvar at VAXER.NET Mon Jan 6 18:44:49 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:44:49 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: > Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I suppose it's the converse of "If the sun don't come you get a tan from sitting in the English rain". :) Ben From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:47:50 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:47:50 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: I've heard "liquid sunshine" in both Oregon and Washington but without the geographical qualification. I'm sure that there are those on both sides of the border who would swear to the superiority of their particular brand. The rain is a pretty standard complaint in both states (west of the Cascades, that is). E.g. the comment I've heard more than once "Must be almost summer ... rain's gettin' warmer." allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I > say possible, because I think I've heard it several ways, sometimes as > "Oregon liquid sunshine" and sometimes just as "liquid sunshine," this last > sometimes accompanied by the further clarification "Oregon's 'liquid > sunshine.'" These latter variations make it an uncertain member of this > class of expressions. To my knowledge all of these versions are used only > self-deprecatingly by Oregonians. After all, Washington would have an > equal claim on "liquid sunshine." Have any of you Washingtonians ever > heard of "Washington liquid sunshine"? > > PMc > > --On Monday, January 6, 2003 12:39 PM -0500 Laurence Horn > wrote: > > > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > >> Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the > >> "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules > >> and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > > significant one. > > > > Larry > > > >> > >> At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: > >>> Philadelphia lawyer > >>> > >>> DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only > >>> heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of > >>> Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that > >>> matter, usually attributed to DC > >>> > >>> - Jim Landau > > > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu > From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 18:49:45 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:49:45 -0500 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" In-Reply-To: <37b717380602.38060237b717@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: Just for the record, my grammar school was located in Methuen, a town that borders on Lawrence and draws a great many relocating Lawrencians. I suppose many on this list would be aware aware that Lawrence is a mill town roughly 25 miles north of Boston that has traditionally attracted a very large immigrant population, including (among many others) Italians, particularly during the first half of the twentieth century. Within the past 30 years or so, many second- and third-generation European and Middle Eastern immigrant families have moved to neighboring towns and the demographics of the city have shifted heavily in favor of Latinos, mainly from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Joanne On 6 Jan 2003, at 11:07, George Thompson wrote: > Indeed, I had been discussing this word just last week with a friend, and had been intending to post it here. > > The friend is 50+, from Lawrence, Mass., and Jewish. He knew the word from his high school friends. He and his older brother and sister used to use it, rather in the spirit of showing how the natives back in Lawrence talked. I haven't heard it since I left Boston and stopped seeing them. > > He illustrated the word for my son by saying that it might be said in response to an astonishing bit of news: "Mingya!!" (as Peter Farruggio says, = Wow or Holy shit) or to add emphasis to an expression:"Mingya, will you get moving!" He regarded the word as a shibboleth of Lawrence, and said that someone he knew said he had once, in passing a group of soldiers in the Nam, overheard one of them say "mingya". He had immediately stopped and said, "OK, what part of Lawrence do you come from?" > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From andrij73 at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 6 19:11:18 2003 From: andrij73 at HOTMAIL.COM (... ...) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 19:11:18 +0000 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Hello! i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most correct to the most uncorrect forms? 1) You open us your heart 2) You open to us your heart 3) You open your heart to us Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? Thanks. Andrew _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 6 19:23:19 2003 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:23:19 -0800 Subject: Geographic Euphamism Message-ID: How about Chinese auction for a silent auction or tricky tray? Ed __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 19:24:59 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:24:59 EST Subject: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: Clearly, as Ron points out, the paragraph of the announcement regarding "Most Inspirational" needs improved. Formerly: <> How about this: <> I don't name names here, following the pattern for the rest of the announcement, but if naming the responsible parties seems important, I will happily do so. - Allan Metcalf From SO'Bryant at UNUMPROVIDENT.COM Mon Jan 6 19:23:32 2003 From: SO'Bryant at UNUMPROVIDENT.COM (O'Bryant, Susan F) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:23:32 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. ********************************************* RE: Hello! i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most correct to the most uncorrect forms? 1) You open us your heart 2) You open to us your heart 3) You open your heart to us Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? Thanks. Andrew From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 6 19:45:55 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:45:55 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Over the holidays, my mother used the 19th century term "Boston marriage," meaning long-term cohabitation by two women. In the 19th century such cohabitations were publically assumed to be nonsexual, although viewed with 21st century sensibility many were undoubtedly closeted lesbian relationships. The term isn't in the OED, DARE, or HDAS; it is in AHD4, which suggests the term may be inspired the women depicted in Henry James's "The Bostonians." There is also a recent David Mamet play titled "Boston Marriage" (which may be what reminded my mother of the term). From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 19:38:28 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:38:28 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <5FD8BD221C693D43A0ECD01AE6F2D2E4672E7F@chae2m01.up.corp.upc> Message-ID: I'd agree, though I see this as an issue of idiomaticness rather than grammaticality. That is, all phrases (I think) are possible within the constraints of English grammar, but some would occur more naturally in English than others: #1 is perfectly idiomatic, #2 is not perfectly idiomatic in spoken use, though it might appear natural in some written contexts, and #3 is extremely unidiomatic in either spoken or written form. Joanne D. Merriam-Webster. Inc. On 6 Jan 2003, at 14:23, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: > I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. > > ********************************************* > RE: > > Hello! > i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most > correct to the most uncorrect forms? > > 1) You open us your heart > 2) You open to us your heart > 3) You open your heart to us > > Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? > > Thanks. > Andrew From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 6 19:59:31 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:59:31 -0600 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: 3-2-1: I don't understand why this is even hard. -----Original Message----- From: Joanne M. Despres [mailto:jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM] Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 1:38 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: grammatically speaking... I'd agree, though I see this as an issue of idiomaticness rather than grammaticality. That is, all phrases (I think) are possible within the constraints of English grammar, but some would occur more naturally in English than others: #1 is perfectly idiomatic, #2 is not perfectly idiomatic in spoken use, though it might appear natural in some written contexts, and #3 is extremely unidiomatic in either spoken or written form. Joanne D. Merriam-Webster. Inc. On 6 Jan 2003, at 14:23, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: > I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. > > ********************************************* > RE: > > Hello! > i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most > correct to the most uncorrect forms? > > 1) You open us your heart > 2) You open to us your heart > 3) You open your heart to us > > Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? > > Thanks. > Andrew ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Mon Jan 6 19:59:38 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:59:38 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Vancouver Sunshine = rain Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net (slightly to the North of WA state) -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw Sent: January 6, 2003 10:34 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: geographical slanders/euphemisms Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I say possible, because I think I've heard it several ways, sometimes as "Oregon liquid sunshine" and sometimes just as "liquid sunshine," this last sometimes accompanied by the further clarification "Oregon's 'liquid sunshine.'" These latter variations make it an uncertain member of this class of expressions. To my knowledge all of these versions are used only self-deprecatingly by Oregonians. After all, Washington would have an equal claim on "liquid sunshine." Have any of you Washingtonians ever heard of "Washington liquid sunshine"? PMc --On Monday, January 6, 2003 12:39 PM -0500 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: >> Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the >> "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules >> and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > significant one. > > Larry > >> >> At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >>> Philadelphia lawyer >>> >>> DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only >>> heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of >>> Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that >>> matter, usually attributed to DC >>> >>> - Jim Landau **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 20:02:43 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:02:43 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: > That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a while > ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been > impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the L.A. > area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave in and > out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm about > slowdowns. That's because all the rest of them moved to the Northwest, I guess... PR From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 6 20:20:20 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:20:20 -0600 Subject: Sunday Morning Message-ID: Has anyone seen the piece done by CBS Sunday Morning on the Word of the Year vote? If so, could you please give us a report on how it was treated? From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 20:20:07 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:20:07 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > It's interesting to note how many of these geographical >euphemisms are pejorative. Are there any true ironyms (which Dutch >auction, of course, is not, since it really is an auction) that are >not pejorative? > >John Baker > Good point. I can't think of any offhand, although we have to remember that pejorativeness is in the mind of the beholder. The fact that I can refer to garlic as "the stinking rose" doesn't mean that I would choose roses over garlic if I could enjoy only one of these two great gifts of God. And of course "French kiss" isn't necessarily pejorative, but it's not a true ironym either. In fact, the asymmetry you point to is a good argument for dubbing them "ironyms", since irony shares this asymmetry. It's far easier to get an ironic and hence pejorative reading for "that was a brilliant/great move", "real smart", "he's a real genius", etc. than to get a positive ironic reading on "that was a dumb move", "he's a real idiot", etc. "Oregon sunshine" for 'rain' does work very elegantly, but compare the implausibility of "California rain" for 'sunshine'. Larry From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 6 20:26:02 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:26:02 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <5FD8BD221C693D43A0ECD01AE6F2D2E4672E7F@chae2m01.up.corp.upc> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: #I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. #********************************************* #1) You open us your heart #2) You open to us your heart #3) You open your heart to us I agree, and I'll add that IMHO #1 is ungrammatical, and #2, while grammatical, is unidiomatic and unlikely to be used by a native speaker. -- Mark A. Mandel From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 6 20:34:59 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:34:59 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >1) You open us your heart >2) You open to us your heart >3) You open your heart to us > >Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? #3 #2 sounds like a translation from a language like French, which places the object before the subject. #1 sounds like something is missing Rima From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 21:01:11 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 16:01:11 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:34 PM -0800 1/6/03, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>1) You open us your heart >>2) You open to us your heart >>3) You open your heart to us >> >>Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? > >#3 > >#2 sounds like a translation from a language like French, which >places the object the pronominal object, anyway >before the subject. I think you mean before the verb, not the subject. But then it (= Vous nous ouvrez votre coeur.) isn't quite analogous to #2, which would have to be the ungrammatical "Vous ouvrez nous votre coeur". I guess I'm not sure what you mean by the allusion to French. > Actually #2 would be OK in English if the object were "heavy" or long enough: "You open to us your most generous and loving heart." or even as it stands now, providing there's enough implicit contrast or drama involved: "You open to us...(ta-da)...your HEART!" (with the utterance of the object accompanied by the appearance of a large pulsing heart projected on an immense IMAX screen). larry From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 6 21:06:31 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:06:31 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: >>> wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM 01/06/03 09:18AM >>> >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. Of course, that rolling stop is called a "California stop." Fritz Juengling From philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU Mon Jan 6 21:33:48 2003 From: philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU (Philip Trauring) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 16:33:48 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: One other: French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's debts Philip Trauring From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 21:44:26 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:44:26 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The only meaning I remember ever hearing for "take French leave" was 'go AWOL'. --On Monday, January 6, 2003 4:33 PM -0500 Philip Trauring wrote: > One other: > > French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's > debts > > Philip Trauring **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 21:43:50 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 16:43:50 -0500 Subject: FW: Re: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: John Baker was kind enough to point out to me that I had #s 1 and 3 transposed in my last posting. Sorry! Joanne From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 6 22:13:07 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:13:07 -0800 Subject: "axe" for "ask" Message-ID: Both 'acsian' and 'ascian' were found in Old English. There are cognates in Old Saxon, Old High German, Old Frisian as well as other non-Germanic languages. All of them point to an original /sk/; hence OE 'ascian.' Middle English has reflexes of both forms: asshe, asche, axy, axe among others. The real question is where the modern standard form, 'ask', comes from, because WGerm /sk/ usually went to /sh/ in OE. The ODEE says, "The standard form ask (c . 1200) resulted from the metathesis of aks-, ax-." If this is correct, we have WGerm *aiskojan >OE ascian (but this form dies out, leaving only relics) > OE acsian (with metathesis, which comes down to us as 'aks') > ME 'ask' (with re-metathesis) > mod Eng 'ask'. I can't help wonder whether there was some OE dialect in which there was no metathesis and no assibilation of /sk/ which could have provided the modern form. Fritz Juengling >>> prichard at LINFIELD.EDU 01/06/03 08:44AM >>> I think Ol' Noah had it right. OE acsian seems to be at the base of it all--although one (especially one without a competent dictionary at hand at the moment) wonders whether there's an unbroken chain from OE aks- to ModE aks, or whether the metathesis to ask already took place in MidE. In fact, is there a double showing metathesis already in OE (i.e. ascian, acsian)? That could account for both forms in ModE. If not, who might be the culprit who is responsible for spreading the gospel of ask? Is our old friend Bishop Lowth lurking in the woodpile, perhaps? PR On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Frank Abate wrote: > There is a recording of this pron and some explanation in Noah Webster's > (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language > (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near the bottom, in the > facsimile edition. > > So it's been in American English for nearly 200 years, from people of all > colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people pronounce aks". In > fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is the "true pronunciation of > the original word". Well, I don't know about that, but Noah makes an > interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites it, is "acsian or axian". > > Frank Abate > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 22:17:59 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:17:59 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Sunday=20Morning?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 3:20:07 PM, GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: > Has anyone seen the piece done by CBS Sunday Morning on the Word of the > Year vote? If so, could you please give us a report on how it was > treated? > Charles Carson taped it, but I haven't seen it yet. Is there any way a version could be put on someone's website so that everyone can view it? In the middle of the session chaired by Walt Wolfram Sunday morning Kirk Hazen announced that he had seen it and thought that it was good. It lasted about 5 minutes and made us look like serious scholars with liberal politics, according to KH. From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 22:29:06 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:29:06 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: That's amazing! Last time I was in LA (admittedly it's been a few years), I was sure there must be careful instructions somewhere in the California drivers' manual about how to exit from an eight-lane freeway: "When approaching a right exit, be sure you are in the far left lane. When you are about 200 feet from the exit, swiftly cross all three other lanes, allowing at least two feet between your rear bumper and the front bumpers of the cars traveling in the other three lanes. Once you have cleared the freeway, you are permited to slow down if there is a stop sign at the end of the off-ramp." I've seen this maneuver in Oregon in recent years, but still not frequently. I've tried to think of an appropriate ironym for the maneuver (the LA dodger?), but so far the muse has eluded me. (Sorry--off-topic, I know.) Peter Mc. --On Monday, January 6, 2003 1:35 PM -0500 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a > while ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been > impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the > L.A. area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave > in and out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm > about slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 22:33:43 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:33:43 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Words=20of=20the=20Year=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?announcement?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 2:25:45 PM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > I don't name names here, following the pattern for the rest of the > announcement, but if naming the responsible parties seems important, I will > happily do so. > > Thanks, Allan, for the suggested emendation. I really do think it is better to tell the full story, and the explanation with respect to last year is both responsible and clarifying. Even so, I don't see any reason to use names here if you don't elsewhere. My nomination of "grid butt" WAS serious, but it was not meant to denigrate either the source of last year's Most Inspirational selection nor (necessarily) the category itself: I really DO think that "grid butt" as an advertising ploy represents the vitality and marvelous creativity of the actual users of the language, and as a linguist I am always inspired by the cleverness of native speakers in morphological innovation. From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Mon Jan 6 22:49:01 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:49:01 -0500 Subject: Sunday Morning Message-ID: Here's the transcript. Paul ======================================== ANTHONY MASON, co-host: They say one picture is worth a thousand words, so could a four-word phrase possibly sum up one full year? Our Mark Strassmann has just spent some time with the experts who say the answer, in a word, is yes. (Footage of building exterior) Unidentified Woman #1: Coordinates differ from commutatives in having noun phrases with equal syntactic status. (Footage of registration sign; person filling out form; name cards being placed on table) Unidentified Man #1: As a species of analogical figure, a simile showed several characteristics which are... MARK STRASSMANN reporting: What is your area of expertise? Unidentified Man #2: Logical plurals, logical conjunction. Unidentified Woman #2: How simile is different from metaphor basically on a cognitive level. Unidentified Man #3: Lexical semantics, computational linguistics. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) If you want to learn what's in a word, this is the group to ask. Unidentified Woman #3: Mimetics are different from non-mimetic words in that they do no bare definable meanings. Unidentified Woman #1: They function as a single, unsplittable constituent and trigger obligatory plural verb agreement... (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) If it all sounds Greek to you, these professional wordsmiths get it... Unidentified Woman #1: (Voiceover) ...as well as adverbial particles, aspect markers and clausal conjunctions. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) And once a year, they re-emerge from the far-flung back roads of linguistics to share it. Unidentified Woman #4: A topic that I'm interested in, which is what happens when people who speak completely non-mutually intelligible languages who come together over a period of time. (Footage of people at seminar; form) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Eight hundred members of the Linguistic Society of America gathered this past week in Atlanta, in part to choose a word that says it all about an entire year. Unidentified Woman #5: Iraqnaphobia. Unidentified Man #4: What's that? Unidentified Woman #5: It's an unusually strong fear of Iraq. (Footage of people at seminar) Professor WAYNE GLOWKA: Several people have asked that Google be on the list. (Footage of Glowka speaking at seminar) Prof. GLOWKA: Sometimes the words just jump out at you. And--and, you know, there--there are thousands, millions of things going on in American life every single day, but somehow one single theme, one single word will just rise to the top. It's... (Footage of Glowka; forms; Glowka and others at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Wayne Glowka, normally a professor of medieval literature, is here looking for more recent classics. He's chairman of the Word of the Year committee. Prof. GLOWKA: Anything else that's outrageous... Unidentified Woman #6: How about Botox Party? Prof. GLOWKA: Botox Party is a fairly outrageous thing it seems to me. I'm really, really fond of grid butt, which comes from an advertisement I think sent to me by The Agios, marks left on buttocks by fishnet pantyhose... (Footage of Glowka and others at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) The word can be funny... Unidentified Woman #7: 'My big, fat' blank, based on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," so... (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) ...or serious... Unidentified Woman #8: I want to speak in--in favor of Amber Alert, because I think... (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) ...new or newly popular... Prof. GLOWKA: Dialrhea, a tendency of a cell phone to make a call when left in your pocket or your bag with the keypad unlocked. (Footage of people at seminar) Prof. GLOWKA: It's that ultimately haiku. It--it tells us what was probably the most important thing we were focused on. Sometimes we miss, I'll admit, but sometimes I think we really do hit--hit that nail right on the head. (Footage of World Trade Center tragedy; graphic of '9/11'; mom at soccer game; graphic of words 'Soccer Mom'; fireworks; graphic of 'Y2K'; dimpled ballots; graphic of word 'Chad') STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) For 2001, the obvious choice was '9/11.' There was 'soccer mom' in 1996; 'Y2K' for 1999; for 2000, 'chad 'won in a linguist landslide. (Footage of Saddam Hussein and soldiers; graphic of words 'Mother of All...') Professor ALLAN METCALF (Executive Secretary, American Dialect Society): (Voiceover) The strong one back in 1991 was 'Mother of all,' a phrase that Saddam Hussein used when he was talking about the mother of all battles. (Footage of Metcalf; report) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Professor Alan Metcalf, the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, created this annual award. He admits not all winning words will stick. Prof. METCALF: Actually, our first choice of word of the year in 1990 was 'Bushlips,' which referred to the older George Bush promise no new taxes. (Footage of former President George Bush) President GEORGE BUSH: (From 1988) Read my lips: 'No new taxes.' (Footage of 1988 Republican National Convention; President George W. Bush) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Bushlips, meaning to break a political promise, faded fast. A decade later, this President Bush shows a knack for creating new words... President GEORGE W. BUSH: Misunderestimate or--excuse me, underestimate... (Footage of President Bush) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) ...a sort of presidential jabberwocky... Pres. BUSH: Just making sure you were paying attention. You--you were. STRASSMANN: So George W. Bush for you is good for business. Prof. METCALF: Wonderful, yes. (Footage of coal mine rescue; Enron logo; Martha Stewart; John Walker Lindh; sniper crime scene; John Geoghan; Amber Alert highway sign; Cardinal Bernard Law at Mass STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Like all years, 2002 was a kaleidoscope of human events. But of all its many issues and moments, no one dominated. In a slower year like this, is it harder or more challenging or more fun to--to come up with the right word? Prof. GLOWKA: You know, it's certainly more challenging. It might be fun because the word of the year may just end up being a surprise. Unidentified Man #5: Now we come to our most solemn and profound charge: the word or phrase of the year. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Some of this year's nominees... Unidentified Man #6: 'Bushism.' Prof. METCALF: 'Regime change,"Amber Alert,"Google...' Unidentified Man #7: I strongly support 'weapons of mass destruction.' Prof. METCALF: All who favor 'weapons of mass destruction,' raise your hand. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) In a close vote, 'weapons of mass destruction' carried the day. Secretary DONALD RUMSFELD (Defense Department): ...weapons of mass destruction. Secretary COLIN POWELL (State Department): ...weapons of mass destruction. Pres. BUSH: ...weapons of mass destruction. (Footage of Strassmann, Glowka and Metcalf) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) To these linguists, it's a clunky phrase. Prof. GLOWKA: But it is very long, and there--there certainly must be something that could encapsulate the idea with fewer syllables, but you never know. STRASSMANN: So a--a fru--a frustrating phrase and a frustrating conclusion to a somewhat frustrating year? Prof. METCALF: Yes. Prof. GLOWKA: I--I believe so. Yes. (Footage of New York Times Square 2003 celebration) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) But this is now 2003, five days into a new year of endless linguistic possibility. Unidentified Woman #1: (Voiceover) Coordinates differ from commutatives in having noun phrases with equal syntactic status, same thematic role case and so on, which form... From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Mon Jan 6 23:00:06 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 18:00:06 -0500 Subject: Experts List Message-ID: Folks, I have a mailbox full of messages from journalists who are looking for someone to interview regarding the Words of the Year, most of them for the radio. If you would like to be included in an impromptu experts list that I can forward to these people, please send your contact information to me as soon as possible. (Some of these requests are asking for interviews *this afternoon* which seems unlikely to happen, but the sooner I have your information, the better). Include: Name Organizational affiliation(s) Title/Profession Other relevant credentials (such as books published, or specialty Preferred email address(es) Preferred phone number(s) Thanks, in any case. -- Grant Barrett gbarrett at americandialect.org American Dialect Society webmaster http://www.americandialect.org/ From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 23:47:10 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:47:10 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Perhaps add "Texas tea" (= oil) to this mix? I don't know that this really exists apart from the Flatt & Scruggs ballad, though. PR From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 7 00:45:45 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 19:45:45 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: <002501c2b338$91de4a40$70224da1@mw.com> Message-ID: >Especially apt from a Sokolowski. Polish is very rich in rhyming >slang. I wonder what language isn't? dInIs >Hi folks: > >>- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language >>phenomenon. > >I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native >argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and >fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > >Just seems a bit myopic. > >I think the French may still sing "la p'tite fille" to the Beatles' "Let >It Be." > >Cheers, > >Peter > >Peter A. Sokolowski >Associate Editor >Merriam-Webster, Inc. >47 Federal Street >Springfield, MA 01102 >Phone: (413) 734-3134 >E-mail: psokolowski at Merriam-Webster.com > >Visit us online at http://www.Merriam-Webster.com -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Languages 740 Wells Hall A Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office - (517) 353-0740 Fax - (517) 432-2736 From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Tue Jan 7 01:15:04 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:15:04 -0500 Subject: Fwd: are you serious? Message-ID: Well, it's been a busy day for the ADS email box. Besides all the messages from journalists, we received the beaut copied below, the only really negative message. I did have to do a lot of the usual polite "we don't invent the words, m'am, we just note their existence" debunking. We also received many letters from excited teachers, interested laypersons, people inquiring about membership, several people trying to convince us to canonize a word they've invented, and one asking about copyrighting a word signifying the plural of nieces and nephews, something akin to "children", a word which, alas, was not shared. There was also a correspondent taking us to task for choosing a *phrase* as *word* of the year, but he more or less apologized when I explained that the vote is merely a fun little bit of whimsy from people who otherwise spend their time writing the most impenetrable but grammatically sound academic prose in the English language, and who do, in fact, understand the difference between the a word and a phrase. I think the key to winning him over was explaining that many of the people who write "the dictionary" are the very people who participated in the vote. Which reminds me: the best ADS web site message I ever received (and for some reason deleted, although I usually don't), was from an Indian fellow who, excited by his recent learning about the common Indo-European roots of many modern languages, extrapolated that a man called "Pop" by his kids was probably married to a woman nick-named "Mop" or "Bop." Something not quite right there... Here's the message of the day: > De: better dead than ed hitler > Date: Mon 6 Jan 2003 18:53:37 America/New_York > À: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: are you serious? > > apparently so. > > the world wide web never ceases to amaze me. there is > so much useless garbage on the internet. words of the > year? here are two for you: fool pool. think about it, > you worthless shits. > > ===== > > viva el huncho! > > Life is good! > > It's time to go to http://www.realkeywest-art.com > > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. > http://mailplus.yahoo.com (Just kidding about the impenetrable academic prose part). -- Grant Barrett gbarrett at americandialect.org American Dialect Society webmaster http://www.americandialect.org/ From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 7 01:27:33 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:27:33 -0500 Subject: Fwd: are you serious? Message-ID: I wouldn't give a lot of thought to anyone who uses the pen name "eddiehitler_99." John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Grant Barrett [mailto:gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG] Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 8:15 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Fwd: are you serious? Here's the message of the day: > De: better dead than ed hitler > Date: Mon 6 Jan 2003 18:53:37 America/New_York > À: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: are you serious? > > apparently so. > > the world wide web never ceases to amaze me. there is > so much useless garbage on the internet. words of the > year? here are two for you: fool pool. think about it, > you worthless shits. > From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Tue Jan 7 02:29:29 2003 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:29:29 -0600 Subject: nieces and nephews Was Re: Fwd: are you serious? In-Reply-To: <7391A47B-21DD-11D7-B5D4-000A9567113C@americandialect.org> Message-ID: >one asking about copyrighting a word >signifying the plural of nieces and nephews, something akin to >"children", a word which, alas, was not shared. I kind of like sibkids. Barbara Need UChicago From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 7 04:20:11 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:20:11 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: Growing up in Utah, we called any hot dog driver, anyone who sped or accelarated more than necesary, anyone who was reckless or a show-off, etc. a "California Driver". Now, however, they all seem to have moved to Utah, so now I guess they're "Utah drivers". --- AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > According to Wendalyn Nichols: > >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are > familiar with the "California > >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards > traffic rules and never > >comes to a complete stop at a controlled > intersection. > > That's interesting, because as one who lived in > Southern California a while > ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I > have always been > impressed at the politeness of California drivers. > The freeways in the L.A. > area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, > few drivers weave in and > out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and > drivers seem calm about > slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. I > compare them with the more > aggressive and hazardous drivers of Chicago, not to > mention the cab drivers > of Manhattan. > > Perhaps drivers are really laid back in the > Northwest . . . though I have > heard of "ferry rage." > > And of course truth is not a necessary condition for > a stereotype. - Allan > Metcalf ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 15:16:34 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:16:34 -0500 Subject: WOTY on CNN Message-ID: WOTY closed the segment of CNN this morning. CNN did a cutesy thing and proprosed words they'd rather NOT see in 2003: BAGHDADDY IRAQABOO KORHEA PYONGYANXIETY REMILITARIZED ZONE WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION And one they'd like to see: RAELITY I didn't see this on the CNN web site just now, but look for it in a day or two. IMHO, WOTY is a bit of whimsy, biased by a certain handful people who submit the words, by what happens late in the year, and, obviously, by the people who attend the meeting. I saw "weapons" as clearly better than "weapons of mass destruction." I don't know the procedures, but "weapons" (which would include "weapons inspection" and "biological weapons" as well as "weapons of mass destruction") received ZERO votes? And in a year marked by tragic "homicide bombings" or "suicide bombings," our list instead mentions "grid butt"? I'm happy that journalists are interested in this bit of fluff. But I can't understand when the same journalists are approached by the work of a member such as me, and they don't even respond. Ah, such is life. I leave it for others to respond to those eager journalists. From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Tue Jan 7 15:21:00 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 07:21:00 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: I remember when I moved down there and commented on a California stop (one where there is only a pause at a stop sign) and was told they call them Hollywood stops in California. There's no doubt in my mind about the difference in driving in California from Seattle, though. Both my partner and I experienced shock moving down to San Francisco and then relaxed a few years later when we moved back. Things happen much more quickly so you really have to be on your toes in California when driving. I generally felt safer in California, though, because of the increased alertness that people seem to drive with. Benjamin Barrett Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of AAllan at AOL.COM Sent: Monday, 06 January, 2003 10:36 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: California drivers According to Wendalyn Nichols: >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the >"California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic >rules and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a while ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the L.A. area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave in and out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm about slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. I compare them with the more aggressive and hazardous drivers of Chicago, not to mention the cab drivers of Manhattan. Perhaps drivers are really laid back in the Northwest . . . though I have heard of "ferry rage." And of course truth is not a necessary condition for a stereotype. - Allan Metcalf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 15:54:34 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:54:34 -0500 Subject: Two Zanzibar Cookbooks Message-ID: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? --Freddie Mercury (Zanzibar resident of the rock group QUEEN, from "Bohemian Rhapsody") A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR--which I had posted in part--was written by an author who lives in the "Freddie Mercury house" here in Zanzibar. Here are two other cookbooks. Some Swahili food names deserve to be considered worth recording for the OED. ZANZIBAR TRADITIONAL COOKERY by Amir A. Moh'd Zanziber: Good Luck Publishers First edition 1999 Second edition 2000 87 pages, paperback Pg. 13: CHAPATI (MKATE WA KUSUKUMA) Pg. 14: SOFT CHAPATI (MKATE WA GOLE) Pg. 16: WHEAT FLOUR (SWEET) (ANDAZI LA MAFUTA) Pg. 17: BAKED BUN (SWEET) ANDAZI KAVU (HAMRI) Pg. 18: RICE BUN (SWEET) (VITUMBUA) Pg. 19: RICE PAN CAKE (MKATE WA CHILA) Pg. 21: SIMSIM BREAD (MKATE WA UFUTA) Pg. 22: RICE PIE SWEET (MKATE WA KUMIMINA) Pg. 23: SPONGE CAKE (MKATE WA MAYAI) Pg. 25: CAKE (KEKI) Pg. 26: JAM BUTTONS (VILEJA) Pg. 27: WHOLE WHEAT PORRIDGE (UJI WA NGANO) Pg. 28: MILLET FLOUR PORRIDGE (UJI WA MTAMA) Pg. 29: RICE PORRIDGE (UJI WA MAPANDE) Pg. 30: HOT GINGER DRINK (CHAI YA TANGAWIZI) Pg. 31: MILK YOGHURT (MTINDI WA MAZIWA) (OED for Mtindi?--ed.) Pg. 32: GUAVA JUICE (MAJI YA MAPERA) Pg. 33: BEAN PORRIDGE (UJI WA KUNDE) Pg. 34: SWEET MILLET DRINK (TOGWA) Pg. 35: BEEF PILAU (PILAU YA NYAMA) Pg. 37: BEEF BIRIAN (BIRIANI YA NYAMA) Pg. 39: COCONUT MILKED RICE (WALI WA NAZI) Pg. 40: RAW BANANAS (NDIZI MBICHI ZA NAZI) Pg. 41: MAIZE FLOUR MEAL (UGALI WA SEMBE) Pg. 42: MAIZE FLOUR PORRIDGE (UJI WA SEMBE) Pg. 43: COCONUT MILKED CASSAVA (MUHOGO W ANAZI) Pg. 44: SUN-DRIED CASSAVA MEAL (MAKOPA YA NAZI) Pg. 45: SUN-DRIED CASSAVA FLOUR MEAL (UGALI WA MUHOGO) Pg. 46: COCONUT MILK KIDNEY BEANS (MAHARAGE YA NAZI) Pg. 47: COCONUT MILKED BREAD FRUIT (MASHELISHELI YA NAZI) Pg. 48: POUNDED BOILED BREAD FRUITS (MPONDA WA MASHELISHELI) Pg. 49: RICE MIXED WITH GRAMS (MSETO WA CHOOKO) Pg. 50: COCONUT MILKED GRILLED FISH (SAMAKI WA KUPAKA) Pg. 51: COCONUT MILKED SQUID (NGISI WA MCHUZI WA NAZI) Pg. 52: CHICKEN CURRY (MCHUZI WA KUKU) Pg. 53: LENTIL CURRY (MCHUZI WA ADESI) Pg. 54: MINCED MEAT CURRY (MCHUZI WA CHUNDO) Pg. 56: COCONUT MILKED VERMICELLI (TAMBI ZA NAZI) Pg. 57: BOKOBOKO RECIPE (BOKOBOKO) (OED?--ed.) Pg. 58: COMMORIAM RICE PIE (MKATE WA KINGAZIJA) Pg. 60: COCONUT MILKED SPINACH (MBOGA YA MCHICHA YA NAZI) Pg. 61: COCONUT MILKED CASSAVA LEAVES (MBOGA YA NAZI YA KISAMVU) Pg. 62: COCONUT MILKED COCOYAM LEAVES (MBOGA MAYUGWA YA NAZI) Pg. 63: BEEF SAMOSA (SAMBUSA YA NYAMA) Pg. 65: MEAT KEBAB (KABABU YA NYAMA) Pg. 66: ROASTED MEAT (NYAMA CHOMA--MISHIKAKI) (OED?--ed.) Pg. 68: MILLET FLOUR BALLS (LADU YA MTAMA) Pg. 69: FRIED BREAD FRUITS (MASHELI SHELI YA KUKAANGA) Pg. 70: FRIED RIPE BANANAS (NDIZI MBIVU ZA MKONO ZA KUKAANGA) Pg. 71: FRIED VERMICELLI (TAMBI ZA KUKAANGA) Pg. 72: RICE FLOUR DESSERT (VIPOPOO) Pg. 73: COCONUT MILK PUMPKIN (BOGA LA NAZI) Pg. 74: SWEET MEAT (HALUWA) Pg. 76: SWEET FLOUR PUFFS (KAIMATI) Pg. 78: LARGE SWEET PUFFS (VILOSA) Pg. 79: PUDDING (PUDIN) Pg. 80: CHINA GRASS DESSERT (FALUDA) Pg. 81: POUNDED RAW RICE (PEPETA) Pg. 82: COCONUT FUDGE (KASHATA YA NAZI) Pg. 83: GROUNDNUT FUDGE (KASHATA YA NJUGU) Pg. 84: SIMSIM FUDGE (KASHATA YA UFUTA) Pg. 85: LIME PICKLES (ACHARI RA NDIMU) Pg. 86: MANGO PICKLES (ACHARI YA EMBE) Pg. 87: FRESH FRUIT MIX (FRUIT MCHANGANYIKO) THE PLEASURE OF COOKING WITH SPICES FROM THE SPICE ISLAND ZANZIBAR by Bharti R. Ved Zanzibar: Gifts and Spices 32 pages, paperback No Date Pg. 9: Masala Tea; Lemon Grass Tea; Arabic Coffee Pg. 10: Zanzib Iced Coffee; Fruit Cup; Mint and Ginger Cup Pg. 11: Cheese Sticks; Mustard Potatoes; Chorafari; Cottage Cheese Pg. 12: Noodle Soup; Mchuzi-Eoupe (Clear Soup); Leek Soup Pg. 13: Banana Relish; Fresh Fruit and Ginger Cocktail; Green Salad Pg. 14: Egg Curry; Vegetale Chilly Fried Pg. 15: Sweet and Sour Turkey; Chinese Rice Saute Pg. 16: Chiches (Chick-Peas) Pg. 17: Mixed Vegetable Stew; Cauliflower & Cottage CHeese Stew Pg. 18: Peas and Cheese; Baked Pineapple Vegetable; Vegetable Jhalfrazie Pg. 19: Cheese Souffle; Mackerel en Papillote Pg. 20: Fish Cutlets; Chicken Croquettes Pg. 21: Prawn Saute (Masala Prawns); Pork Curry Pg. 22: Cumin Parathas; Cheese Paratha Pg. 23: Naan Pg. 24: Vegetable Biryani Pg. 25: Green Pullav; Buttered Rice Pg. 26: Chocolate Ice-Cream; Spicy Ice-Cream Pg. 27: Saffron Sundae; Vanilla Caramel Sundae Pg. 28: Pears Delight; Vedic Kheer Pg. 29: Party Cake Pg. 30: Traditional Christmas Cake; Sweet and Spicy Cakes Pg. 31: Pemba Honey Loaf Pg. 32: Ginger Biscuits; Kaju Barfi; Mango Pickle From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 16:51:10 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:51:10 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I would say 3,2,1 in that order, with no hesitation. In French, the direct and indirect object pronouns come after the subject and before the verb. If sentence number 2 were in French it would read: You to us open your heart. However, and I have not as yet been able to figure this out, I, a native American speaker teaching at the Université du Havre, France, hear French colleagues in the English Department always say things with some similarity to sentence number 1, for example: Explain me what you mean. To me that's grammatically incorrect. I don't know if the English language somewhere in the world today considers that OK. I'd love to know if that is the case. Lois Nathan From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:03:11 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:03:11 EST Subject: California drivers Message-ID: Since I inaugurated this thread, maybe I should emphasize that I was referring to Southern California drivers, not Northern (=San Francisco Bay Area) ones. I think the north is less friendly. There is, of course, some difference and some antagonism between north and south in California. (ignoring for the moment the complication that true north is that vast area north of San Francisco) There's even a vocabulary difference, one we've discussed before: freeways in the south use "the" before a number, as in "the 405" or "the 5," while in the north as in most of the rest of the US they don't. - Allan Metcalf From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:24:55 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:24:55 EST Subject: Literary Onomastics Message-ID: (Here's an announcement I was asked to make - Allan Metcalf) << A new linguistic organization The International Society for Literary Onomastics is being incorporated in New York and will hold its first meeting on 2 May 2003 at Baruch College of The City University of New York. Would you please bring to the attention of ADS members that this organization is going to offer new opportunities for them to read papers and publish in the new journal on matters of names as they are connected to myth and folklore, dialectology was represented in literature and similar topics. The organization will offer expanded opportunities for presentation, discussion and publication and will welcome papers in which there is research into how popular ideas and various dialects are represented in literature. Proposals of 150-200 word abstracts for 15 minute papers can be expanded to as many as 15 single-spaced pages in the printed proceedings are solicited. Abstracts should reach Wayne Finke by 10 March 2003 at wayne_finke at baruch.cuny.edu We hope that this organization will cooperate with ADS, ANS and other language-oriented groups. >> From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 17:46:59 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:46:59 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Onomastics" In-Reply-To: <11.693012f.2b4c6767@aol.com> Message-ID: The following antedates the OED's 1936 first use for "onomastics": 1927 _American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_ 44: 35 We must, therefore, speak of proto-Aramean names when we refer to the onomastics of the second millennium B.C. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:48:24 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:48:24 EST Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: I've heard "liquid sunshine" used in south Florida during the summer especially, when there is a lot of it, by language playful and disgruntled residents. Lois Nathan From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:56:42 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:56:42 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20WOTY=20on=20CNN?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached by the work of a > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. From self at TOWSE.COM Tue Jan 7 18:11:20 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:11:20 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: Lois Nathan wrote: > > I've heard "liquid sunshine" used in south Florida during the summer > especially, when there is a lot of it, by language playful and disgruntled > residents. Berkeley sunshine was a trade name for the LSD that (allegedly) was cooked up by folks with access to the UCB chem labs during the late 60s, early 70s. I must be getting old, Google doesn't show reference one to that usage. Black sunshine, yes. California sunshine, yes. Sunshine, yes. Yellow sunshine, yes. ... Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 7 18:20:43 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:20:43 -0800 Subject: =?us-ascii?Q?RE:_______WOTY_on_CNN?= In-Reply-To: <79.67b4ecb.2b4c6eda@aol.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of RonButters at AOL.COM > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: WOTY on CNN > > > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached > by the work of a > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > > > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research or fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one likes to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 18:37:13 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:37:13 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <3E1B1848.B769301@towse.com> Message-ID: At 10:11 AM -0800 1/7/03, Towse wrote: >Lois Nathan wrote: >> >> I've heard "liquid sunshine" used in south Florida during the summer >> especially, when there is a lot of it, by language playful and disgruntled >> residents. > >Berkeley sunshine was a trade name for the LSD that (allegedly) >was cooked up by folks with access to the UCB chem labs during >the late 60s, early 70s. > >I must be getting old, Google doesn't show reference one to that >usage. Black sunshine, yes. California sunshine, yes. Sunshine, >yes. Yellow sunshine, yes. ... > >Sal which brings up "Acapulco gold", one of many "x gold" collocations referring to such valuables as oil ("black gold", "Texas gold") as well as to marijuana and other treasured items I can't think of at the moment. Larry From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Tue Jan 7 18:13:45 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:13:45 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <18a.1411ab80.2b4c5f7e@aol.com> Message-ID: Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on "explique-moi..."? Maybe it is grammatically incorrect, at least within this context; on the other hand, personal pronouns are sometimes used as datives in English, as in the expressions, "send me an e-mail," "drop me a line," "write me when you get back," etc. I guess those analogous examples led me to think of the syntactic structure of sentence #1 as theoretically possible, or at least not wholly unprecedented, though in practice never used by native English speakers with this particular verb. Joanne On 7 Jan 2003, at 11:51, Lois Nathan wrote: > However, and I have not as yet been able to figure this > out, I, a native American speaker teaching at the Université du Havre, > France, hear French colleagues in the English Department always say things > with some similarity to sentence number 1, for example: Explain me what you > mean. To me that's grammatically incorrect. I don't know if the English > language somewhere in the world today considers that OK. I'd love to know if > that is the case. > > Lois Nathan From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Jan 7 18:59:50 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:59:50 -0800 Subject: California drivers Message-ID: before a number, as in "the 405" or "the 5," while in the north as in most of the rest of the US they don't. In Oregon, we say 'i-5.' Is that commmon in Cal.? From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 19:21:25 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 14:21:25 EST Subject: NCTE in November in San Francisco Message-ID: If you happen to be thinking of attending the 2003 convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in San Francisco, Nov. 20-25, and if you want to present a paper or organize a session there, and if you're quick, NCTE has just sent me a notice of an opportunity: ADS can organize a session and will be guaranteed to get it on the program. The only catch is, the deadline for proposals is January 13! They do say that a little flexibility in the deadline is possible, but if you are interested and ready to move quickly, please let me know (AAllan at aol.com) right away. - Allan Metcalf From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 7 19:22:08 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:22:08 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: Larry: > which brings up "Acapulco gold", one of many "x gold" collocations > referring to such valuables as oil ("black gold", "Texas gold") as > well as to marijuana and other treasured items I can't think of at > the moment. Huh? I thought "liquid sunshine" was a Pacific NW specialty(referring to our frequent and often seemingly endless winter rains). Anne G From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 7 19:36:25 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:36:25 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 7, 2003 10:59 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > In Oregon, we say 'i-5.' Or just "5". > Is that commmon in Cal.? There was a discussion of this on this list several years ago, and as I recall from that, "the 5" becomes "5/I-5" somewhere between LA and San Francisco. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 19:53:32 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 14:53:32 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <006501c2b682$12b85830$51c34b43@annehpbrww9plk> Message-ID: At 11:22 AM -0800 1/7/03, Anne Gilbert wrote: > Larry: > >> which brings up "Acapulco gold", one of many "x gold" collocations >> referring to such valuables as oil ("black gold", "Texas gold") as >> well as to marijuana and other treasured items I can't think of at >> the moment. > >Huh? I thought "liquid sunshine" was a Pacific NW specialty(referring to >our frequent and often seemingly endless winter rains). >Anne G Yes, but if you look at Sal's message, which I was replying to (and incorporated in my message), you'll see that he was referring to "Berkeley sunshine" as a type of LSD: >Berkeley sunshine was a trade name for the LSD that (allegedly) >was cooked up by folks with access to the UCB chem labs during >the late 60s, early 70s. *That's* what led me to "Acapulco gold", which in turn carried me by free association to "Texas/black gold" for 'oil', etc. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 19:56:41 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 14:56:41 -0500 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <414707.1041939385@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: At 11:36 AM -0800 1/7/03, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >--On Tuesday, January 7, 2003 10:59 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING > wrote: > >>In Oregon, we say 'i-5.' > >Or just "5". > >>Is that commmon in Cal.? > >There was a discussion of this on this list several years ago, and as I >recall from that, "the 5" becomes "5/I-5" somewhere between LA and San >Francisco. > >Peter Mc. > Right. And more specifically the isoroutogloss is north of Santa Barbara, if Sue Grafton and/or Kinsey Millhone is/are to be believed. Larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 20:14:49 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:14:49 EST Subject: good idea for WOTY for Boston Message-ID: I think this is a great idea! Are you listening, Wayne and Allan? I think it would be GREAT if next year we had the members vote on WINDY CITY and BIG APPLE (and OK????? and THE WHOLE NINE YARDS????) and explain where the conventional wisdom is wrong. In a message dated 1/7/03 1:22:47 PM, dave at WILTON.NET writes: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society > > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > > Of RonButters at AOL.COM > > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re:       WOTY on CNN > > > > > > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > > > > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached > > by the work of a > > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > > > > > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. > > Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" > the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. > > Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant > linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an > "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research > or > fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, > the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to > investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one > likes > to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can > report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all > these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never > mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the > White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. > > From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 7 20:28:19 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:28:19 -0800 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In all the excitement over the media coverage of WOTY, no one has seen fit to mention that Jesse Sheidlower was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night (6 January). They did a feature on how email and electronic communications is changing the language. Jesse was one of two linguists interviewed. The other was Patricia O'Conner, who has written an email style guide. It was an excellent piece, one of the best examples of media coverage of a linguistic issue that I've seen. A RealAudio version of the story is available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 7 20:51:52 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:51:52 -0500 Subject: good idea for WOTY for Boston In-Reply-To: <14d.19e7ec23.2b4c8f39@aol.com> Message-ID: >The Folk Etymology of the Year. I love it too. dInIs > I think this is a great idea! Are you listening, Wayne and Allan? I think it >would be GREAT if next year we had the members vote on WINDY CITY and BIG >APPLE (and OK????? and THE WHOLE NINE YARDS????) and explain where the >conventional wisdom is wrong. > > >In a message dated 1/7/03 1:22:47 PM, dave at WILTON.NET writes: > > > >> > -----Original Message----- >> > From: American Dialect Society >> > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf >> > Of RonButters at AOL.COM >> > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM >> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> > Subject: Re: WOTY on CNN >> > >> > >> > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: >> > >> > >> > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached >> > by the work of a >> > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. >> > > >> > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. >> >> Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" >> the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. >> >> Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant >> linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an >> "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research >> or >> fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, >> the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to >> investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one >> likes >> to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can >> report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all >> these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never >> mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the >> White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. >> >> -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 7 21:02:27 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:02:27 -0600 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour Message-ID: I was impressed with Jesse's part, but it's not fair to call Patricia O'Conner a "linguist". She's an editor turned language maven. From what I can tell, her book is a prescriptivist attempt to return email to those golden days of letter writing. >From the jacket of _You Send Me_: "Will the computer be the death of good writing? Not necessarily... The good news is we're writing again, but we'll have to upgrade our lousy language and social skills or suffer the cyber-consequences." Dave Wilton wrote: > In all the excitement over the media coverage of WOTY, no one has seen fit > to mention that Jesse Sheidlower was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer last > night (6 January). They did a feature on how email and electronic > communications is changing the language. Jesse was one of two linguists > interviewed. The other was Patricia O'Conner, who has written an email style > guide. > > It was an excellent piece, one of the best examples of media coverage of a > linguistic issue that I've seen. A RealAudio version of the story is > available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html. From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 7 21:06:12 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:06:12 -0600 Subject: good idea for WOTY for Boston Message-ID: To spice things up, I suggest we make up our own folk etymologies and try to get the media to repeat them. If we're really sucessful, this would give Barry's progeny some more things to debunk in 50 years. "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > >The Folk Etymology of the Year. I love it too. > > dInIs > > > I think this is a great idea! Are you listening, Wayne and Allan? I think it > >would be GREAT if next year we had the members vote on WINDY CITY and BIG > >APPLE (and OK????? and THE WHOLE NINE YARDS????) and explain where the > >conventional wisdom is wrong. > > > > > >In a message dated 1/7/03 1:22:47 PM, dave at WILTON.NET writes: > > > > > > > >> > -----Original Message----- > >> > From: American Dialect Society > >> > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > >> > Of RonButters at AOL.COM > >> > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM > >> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >> > Subject: Re: WOTY on CNN > >> > > >> > > >> > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > >> > > >> > > >> > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached > >> > by the work of a > >> > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > >> > > > >> > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. > >> > >> Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" > >> the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. > >> > >> Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant > >> linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an > >> "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research > >> or > >> fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, > >> the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to > >> investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one > >> likes > >> to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can > >> report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all > >> these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never > >> mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the > >> White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. > >> > >> > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, > Asian & African Languages > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 > e-mail: preston at msu.edu > phone: (517) 353-9290 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 7 21:32:08 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 16:32:08 -0500 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour In-Reply-To: <000001c2b68b$51ac2220$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: Well, I'd question the "linguist" status of O'Conner--but Jesse was excellent. At 12:28 PM 1/7/2003 -0800, you wrote: >In all the excitement over the media coverage of WOTY, no one has seen fit >to mention that Jesse Sheidlower was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer last >night (6 January). They did a feature on how email and electronic >communications is changing the language. Jesse was one of two linguists >interviewed. The other was Patricia O'Conner, who has written an email style >guide. > >It was an excellent piece, one of the best examples of media coverage of a >linguistic issue that I've seen. A RealAudio version of the story is >available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 7 22:52:16 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 17:52:16 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" Message-ID: This is a nice little scrap. The OED has 1848 as the first appearance of "cancan" in English. This is from 1842, and from an American source at that. The following is not quite the whole of the original, but is a good deal more than is absolutely necessary for philological purposes. However, the story is intereting for a number of other reasons, so here it all is. 1842: MORALS OF THE WALL STREET PRESS. -- We find the following exquisite bit of morality in the "New York American" of last evening, conducted by Charles King. . . : -- THE GAIETIES AND MORALS OF THE COURT OF FRANCE are thus described by a Paris correspondent. The occasion was a fancy dress ball, given by the Duke of Orleans, at the Pavillon Mersan, that portion of the palace of the Tuilleries occupied by the Heir apparent. We pass over the first part, which, while the King and Queen were present, was orderly. . . . The tables were abandoned to resume the dance: and now the Paris letter speaks: -- "The dance was recommenced and with fury. The Princess, Messrs Joinville and d'Aumale, with Mesdames Liardiere, and Hochet, danced the cancan, a sort of cachuca, danced outside the gates of Paris, not without grace, but very free in its attitudes. At first, this caused some scandal, or some appearance of it; little by little, however, people became bolder, and the quadrille was enlarged. The spectators pressed round, and finally, to accomodate those behind, the men in front of the circle sat down on the floor. The freedom of the dance becoming licentious, the whirling trails of the ladies brushing the faces of the gentlemen, all but extended on the floor, and their indiscrete hands seized, in some instances, that upon which Henry VIII of England founded an order of knighthood. Some ladies considered this quite funny; others, in indignation, quitted the experiment. Among the dancers were the Queen of Spain, Mrs. T., wearing the diamonds that belonged to the church of T! oledo, and Madame Casaiora: There were, moreover, two young Spanish girls, who spoke of a dance sometimes practiced in their country, and which terminates by the gentlemen raising his partner on his hands. This seemed difficult, but it was tried -- at first with little success -- afterwards with better; but the attempt led to indescribable confusion: the feet slipped from the hands -- the hands from the feet, &c. &c. * * * * ["]But, it is asked, where were the husbands all this time? -- eating and drinking, or talking with the Duke of Orleans. Be it so, but they were certainly very imprudent husbands. ***["] The "New York American" and the King clique were among the first in Wall street, that raised the hue and cry about the "immorality of the New York Herald," because we published innocent and graceful descriptions of balls and soirees, &c. We now confidently appeal to the public -- to the whole American public -- if there ever appeared any article in the Herald, from the first day of its existence up to this time, that could approach, in the remotest degree, the freedom, the immorality, the indecency, the licentiousness of this astounding and extraordinary article. No one in New York -- no one can -- ever dare to impeach our private morals -- the blamelessness of our private life -- the honesty and integrity of all our private relations -- but in order to deceive the public, and to gratify malignity of rivals, the outcry was raised against the morality of the herald, by such miserable beings as King & Co. *** NY Herald, March 19, 1842, p. 2, col. 1 The library here has as much of the American as is available on microfilm, having both the Library of Congress and the NYPL files, but 1842 is not included in either, or I would have cited this from it. The editor of the Herald was James Gordon Bennett. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. I don't know much about his private life, but the vulgarity of his newspaper was astonishing. However, I will no doubt keep plowing through it, and may well find the first American actual cancan dancing, if I do. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 7 22:20:01 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 17:20:01 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: <20030103130715.92131.qmail@web21308.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 05:07 AM 1/3/2003 -0800, you wrote: >I missed some of the posts and George W.'s use of this word. However, >looking at the last two or three posts concerning this word, I get the >impression this is more about political B-S. than it is about language >misuse. Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine >anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as >embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be an >acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a >situation or individual better" >The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well. Idiot- >a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and >requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and >understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to >communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. A >moron may take a normal place in society, but needs constant >supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. Just as someone in Canada recently said! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 8 01:11:16 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:11:16 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: (as opposed to taboo avoidance) On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? larry From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 8 01:26:27 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:26:27 -0500 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030107163059.01b011b8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 04:32:08PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > Well, I'd question the "linguist" status of O'Conner--but Jesse was > excellent. Thanks. Best, Jesse From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Wed Jan 8 01:18:52 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:18:52 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 05:07:15 -0800 yvonne frasure writes: > Idiot- a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form > and requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and > understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to > communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. > A mornon may take a normal place in society, but needs constant > supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. Which makes it all the more delicious when he constantly prevails over his opposition here and abroad. Or ... I'm sorry, aren't we supposed to make political comments here? D From dwhause at JOBE.NET Wed Jan 8 02:57:00 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:57:00 -0600 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: I've heard the term used that way (no reference) metaphorically to mean something like, "not what I really wanted" or maybe as something which will distract the recipient from an objective (oh, maybe that is the actual usage.) Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" (as opposed to taboo avoidance) On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? larry From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 8 03:01:12 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 19:01:12 -0800 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I would take this to mean a frivolous action or monkeying around, not a con job... Benjamin Barrett Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Laurence Horn Sent: Tuesday, 07 January, 2003 17:11 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: taboo attraction? (as opposed to taboo avoidance) On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? larry From dave at WILTON.NET Wed Jan 8 03:10:50 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 19:10:50 -0800 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: <001b01c2b6c2$37115a70$d2c84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: I would place it between monkeying around and a con job. Something along the lines of "don't lead me on" or "don't try to put one over on me." I've never heard "handjob" in this context, but I have heard "jerk off" as in "you better not be jerking me off." (Jerk around is a common euphemism--or perhaps the original from.) There's also a hand motion that can substitute for the words. > I would take this to mean a frivolous action or monkeying > around, not a > con job... > > Benjamin Barrett > Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf > Of Laurence Horn > Sent: Tuesday, 07 January, 2003 17:11 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: taboo attraction? > > > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses > "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who > is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of > favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is > another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that > no, she's > really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound > otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying > attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? > > larry > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 8 03:29:04 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 19:29:04 -0800 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: benjamin barrett, following up on larry horn on "hand job": >I would take this to mean a frivolous action or monkeying around, not a >con job... like b.b., i suspect this is yet another extension from the notion of masturbation to the wider notion of 'pointless, unproductive enterprises'. as in earlier postings on "mental masturbation". arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 04:57:05 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 23:57:05 EST Subject: hand job 'deception' Message-ID: In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'.  He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says.  To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time.  Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested?  Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 8 05:01:34 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 00:01:34 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses >"hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. I think some version of "masturbate [someone [male]]" is commonly used for "bullshit [someone]" or "snow [someone]", often with some flavor of "placate"/"pacify". In one of the "Dirty Harry" movies ("The Enforcer" maybe?) some politician is informed that the [rabid] press is waiting for a statement, and he says something like "Well, let's go jerk them off" = more or less "Let's go tell them something to placate them." Also compare "pull [someone's] leg/chain/pisser" and "extract the urine/Mickey"/"take the piss out of"/etc. (I picture this as a semi-euphemistic image like milking a cow) -- all with the sense of "bullshit" (v. trans.) although with some semantic incongruities. Also consider "stroke [someone]", more or less equivalent. Some of these may be etymologically distinct, but if so I believe there has been convergence. The construction of "con job", "snow job" is a giveaway (cf. "hand job", "blow job", etc.). I think the basic assumption is that a male person can be calmed/placated by rubbing/pulling his penis ... thus he might be talked into something, for example. -- Doug Wilson From pds at VISI.COM Wed Jan 8 06:32:23 2003 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 00:32:23 -0600 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <3E1AD289.7737.18B4C1EE@localhost> Message-ID: At 01:13 PM 1/7/2003 -0500, Joanne M. Despres wrote: >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on >"explique-moi..."? >Maybe it is grammatically incorrect, at least within this context; on >the other hand, personal pronouns are sometimes used as datives >in English, as in the expressions, "send me an e-mail," "drop me a >line," "write me when you get back," etc. I guess those analogous >examples led me to think of the syntactic structure of sentence #1 >as theoretically possible, or at least not wholly unprecedented, >though in practice never used by native English speakers with this >particular verb. How about "Open me a beer." --Tom Kysilko Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 8 09:02:35 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 04:02:35 -0500 Subject: FW: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: Dear ADS listers, I for one would appreciate it greatly if listers would keep their comments focused on things linguistic, and rein in passing political commentary (example cc'd below). It's one thing if Bush commits a verbal gaffe, as he often does -- that would be worthy of note and comment here. But the carryover to general comments on his mental capacity are unwarranted. The current prez is decidedly NOT an intellectual. He is shaky at best at public speaking. He may be dyslexic. None of these things, I think reasonable people would agree, make him an imbecile, an idiot, a moron, or anything like that. They make him different from the previous prez and many other presidents, yes, but they do not necessarily indicate his mental capacity or his ability to make decisions. If you are just trying to be funny, OK. But if you are airing your disagreement with the politics of the prez, please take that to another list, or write letters to the editor of your newspaper of choice. Besides, not all of us agree on things political, and the ADS is not, by its nature or bylaws, concerned with politics of any sort or any side. Let the MLA and other "scholarly" groups be political if they so choose; I hope ADS will not follow that path. Thanks, Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Beverly Flanigan Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 5:20 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: embetterment?? Idiot?? At 05:07 AM 1/3/2003 -0800, you wrote: >I missed some of the posts and George W.'s use of this word. However, >looking at the last two or three posts concerning this word, I get the >impression this is more about political B-S. than it is about language >misuse. Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine >anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as >embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be an >acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a >situation or individual better" >The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well. Idiot- >a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and >requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and >understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to >communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. A >moron may take a normal place in society, but needs constant >supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. Just as someone in Canada recently said! From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 8 09:09:30 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 04:09:30 -0500 Subject: FW: hand job 'deception' Message-ID: Ron B commented (below) on what Larry H noted: >> In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. << One possibility is that the dialogue refers to a hand job as a poor alternative to sexual intercourse. Since the scene involves a husband and wife, that might be the idea behind the use of "hand job" here. Frank Abate From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Wed Jan 8 09:52:02 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 09:52:02 -0000 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: 'Hand job' as 'any form of deceit, misinformation' (which seems to cover the usage in question), comes on stream in '70s, e.g. 1979 Torres _After Hours_ 120: I think Kleinfeld's giving us a handjob. The original, masturbatory def. is a '30s coinage. Jonathon Green From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 11:00:02 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 06:00:02 -0500 Subject: Spatchcock Chicken; Shisha; Boa Message-ID: SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN--Served at Blues restaurant here in Zanzibar. It's chicken patted down. OED? SHISHA--A drink served at Mercury's Zanzibar. I haven't Googled these items yet. BOA--A popular board game. OED? MEREKANI--Unbleached cloth. OED? Gotta go and find out if fat-bottomed girls make the rockin' world go round... From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 8 12:38:09 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 07:38:09 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry, I've heard and used this for some time. The sense, which seems transparent, is that one was promised (or assumed one was) the real thing (i.e., sexual intercourse) but ended up with only a "hand job." dInIs >(as opposed to taboo avoidance) > >On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, >uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his >ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to >call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. >"So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures >him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this >use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to >see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer >discretion" label? > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 8 13:08:46 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 08:08:46 -0500 Subject: FW: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: Ron et al. Another solution to the problem would be for the ADS WOTY chair to simply act and speak normally and let the broadcast folks edit out what they don't like. I assume the TV people were recording it, right? They edit all that stuff anyway, so you can really say whatever you want, and they will bowdlerize it later as they see fit. Frank Abate In a message dated 1/6/03 11:30:43 AM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > One candidate was proposed for the special category of Most Inspirational: > President Bush's coinage "embetterment," as in "the embetterment of > mankind." > By a vote of 45 to 12, the society decided against this category and > candidate. A category of Bushisms was suggested for future years. > I object to this reporting of the minutes of the meeting. In fact, GRID BUTT (a.k.a. BUTT GRID) was also nominated (from the floor) as a candidate for Most Inspirational word of the year. Anyone who has ever sat naked on a lawn chair for any length of time will surely recognize the spiritual importance of having a term for the resultant distressing epidermal condition. However, the dictitorial chair of the meeting refused even to allow a vote on this nomination, thus violating our rights according to our established procedures. Given that the Most Inspirational category is also one that is closely allied to religious beliefs, our rights to free exercise of relgion may have been violated as well. At any rate, the most important purpose of meetings of the American Dialect Society--the free interchange of scholarly thinking about language--was thereby put in jeapordy by the black tide of dictatorship. We will never know what the scholarly conclusion would have been with respect to the Most Inspirational nature of GRID BUTT (not to mention MY BIG FAT BUTT GRID). It seems clear that the chair was swayed by the fact that our session this year was being recorded for national television. He just did not want to take the chance of appearing on CBS News saying, "All in favor of GRID BUTT say 'Aye'!" In this craven action I say he acted like a Neuticle-driven, comprendo-challenged scholarly angstrel. He has turned our sacred deliberations into one big like-no-other Botox party and limp sausagefest. I do not wish to turn our beloved Secretary into a walking pinyata; I do not mean to suggest that we need a metcalfameter to monitor his future actions. I am not asking for Regime Change. Rather, I am fully willing to forgive him for his outrageous virtuecratrism, even though, for the sake of a few moments of glory on televison, he has robbed us of our intellectual V-card. I would like to propose, however, that he promise that, in the future, we MUST ban the press from our deliberations. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 8 13:48:35 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 05:48:35 -0800 Subject: hand job In-Reply-To: <001b01c2b6c2$37115a70$d2c84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: Perhaps related to "sleight of hand"? --- Benjamin Barrett wrote: > I would take this to mean a frivolous action or > monkeying around, not a > con job... > > Benjamin Barrett > Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf > Of Laurence Horn > Sent: Tuesday, 07 January, 2003 17:11 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: taboo attraction? > > > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. > Tony Rodriguez, uses > "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking > to his ex-wife, who > is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of > favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is > another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's > really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound > otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see > if we were paying > attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 8 13:47:53 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 08:47:53 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" In-Reply-To: <6acd316ae459.6ae4596acd31@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >... The Princess, Messrs Joinville and d'Aumale, with Mesdames Liardiere, >and Hochet, danced the cancan, a sort of cachuca, danced outside the gates >of Paris, not without grace, but very free in its attitudes. .... And is "cachuca"/"cachucha" an ancestor of "hoochy-coochy"? An interesting passage. -- Doug Wilson From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 8 14:41:03 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 09:41:03 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: <003b01c2b6fb$9a8cf210$ad00a8c0@green> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 09:52:02AM -0000, Jonathon Green wrote: > 'Hand job' as 'any form of deceit, misinformation' (which seems to cover the > usage in question), comes on stream in '70s, e.g. There is an entry covering this rough ground in HDAS, sense 2, from 1972 onwards, with citations from police usage. It's defined there as "an act of insincere assuaging or assuring; flattery; blandishment", which does seem to cover the NYPD Blue example, though perhaps this definition is too limited; I'm sure the term is used more broadly in a 'misinformation' sense. Jesse Sheidlower OED From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 8 15:14:47 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:14:47 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: <20030108144103.GB4548@panix.com> Message-ID: At 9:41 AM -0500 1/8/03, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 09:52:02AM -0000, Jonathon Green wrote: >> 'Hand job' as 'any form of deceit, misinformation' (which seems to cover the >> usage in question), comes on stream in '70s, e.g. > >There is an entry covering this rough ground in HDAS, sense 2, >from 1972 onwards, with citations from police usage. It's defined >there as "an act of insincere assuaging or assuring; flattery; >blandishment", which does seem to cover the NYPD Blue example, >though perhaps this definition is too limited; I'm sure the >term is used more broadly in a 'misinformation' sense. > Aha. My bad--I should have checked my HDAS. Yes, the lieutenant's use definitely fits under the "misinformation" or more specifically "insincere assuring" sense, especially since it's evidently a term of art among the police. And as mentioned by other contributors in the thread, there is a link (albeit somewhat attenuated) from the manual masturbation sense. Ain't metaphor grand? larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 15:23:32 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:23:32 -0500 Subject: Zanzibar doors Message-ID: Perhaps the most famous bit of architecture here is what's know as the "Zanzibar door." It has metal spikes in it, to prevent charges by elephants. (Not that there's been an elephant charge recently.) One such door is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. "Zanzibar door" is not in OED. Below is information about a recent book on the famous Zanzibar doors. O.T. I just checked, and OED has 1967 for "khanga." No way I can beat that...I just returned from feeding the tortoises on Prison Island, a bit of snorkeling on the Indian Ocean, and then seeing the rare Colobus monkeys in the Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Area. From a brochure: "One tree--_Mlappa_--is even named after this tiny antelope (paa)." Mlapaa is not in the revised OED...Spice tour tomorrow, then Dar es Salaam, and then home. Doors of Zanzibar by Mwalim A. Mwalim, 1998, photos by Uwe Rav Our Price: $29.50 Format: Paperback, 143 pp. Dimensions: (in cms.) 1 x 24 x 27 Ask any visitor to Zanzibar as to what best reminds him of these evergreen tropical islands famous for its spices, and there is a one in three chance that the answer will be the Stone Town・ Likewise, there is a one to three probability that what best reminds the one of Stone Town are its famous carved doors: the Zanzibar Doors. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 15:45:04 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:45:04 -0500 Subject: Soft Bomb Message-ID: From this week's VILLAGE VOICE (Greenwich Village; no connection to Zanzibar): Weapon of the Week by George Smith The Soft Bomb January 8 - 14, 2003 In war, one of the first things the Pentagon likes to do is turn out the lights. Along with liberal use of high explosives, it now does the job with a cluster bomb whose canisters spin out a payload that looks much like angel hair; the fine fibrous stuff you used to find in packets of itching powder as a child. This classified weapon has been called the "blackout" or "soft" bomb, the latter because it doesn't explode with a big bang or tear people to bits outright while going about its business. Whether it is actually harmless is still a matter for debate. The Pentagon, you see, won't talk about it much, and the only pictures of the thing seem to come from former Yugoslavia, where it was used to destroy Serbia's power grid in 1999. The bomb works by spraying a large cloud of tiny carbon filaments into the air over electrical generation facilities, switching stations, and high-voltage wires. Like paper clips stuck in a wall socket, the filaments cause arcing and short circuits on contact. The onslaught of sparking, melting, and electrical fire is apparently more than enough to cause the collapse of a nation's power system. Mainstream U.S. war journalists, as alert and enterprising as ever, have never actually reported what it's like for people to endure a good "soft bombing," with exposure to clouds of carbon filament of classified nature (fibrosis in the lung 10 years on, anyone?) or proximity to short-circuiting power plants. Instead, the soft bomb is said to be really groovy because it avoids collateral damage. The military euphemism for civilians being killed, fast or slow, or otherwise made to cry out in pain. The soft bomb's cost is estimated to be about that of an average cluster bomb. Several hundred thousand dollars; taking it easy on the taxpayer wallet by Department of Defense standards. History indicates that the soft bomb was probably not built with an eye to avoiding casualties, but instead came about by accident. The original story, perhaps apocryphal, is that the U.S. military was testing an anti-radar wire off California decades ago when winds shifted and blew the chaff over the coast. It came down across power lines and caused a local blackout. The Pentagon weaponized the trick and attacked Iraq's power grid in Gulf War I with Tomahawk missiles carrying carbon-filament wire. Then came Yankee innovation and, voil・ the soft bomb was born. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 8 16:23:49 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 08:23:49 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.1.20030108003133.01a24bf8@pop.visi.com> Message-ID: > >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on > >"explique-moi..."? > > How about "Open me a beer." I feel a draft. Either close me the window or open me the door. PR From davemarc at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 8 18:38:59 2003 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 13:38:59 -0500 Subject: Boontling, a California Lingo Message-ID: FYI, there's a reference to Boontling, a lingo of Boonville, California, in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/08/dining/08ANDE.html?pagewanted=1&8idg d. From rnewby at ZADIG-LLC.COM Wed Jan 8 18:54:16 2003 From: rnewby at ZADIG-LLC.COM (Rick Newby) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 11:54:16 -0700 Subject: Call for Rocky Mountain Region Scholars Message-ID: Call for Rocky Mountain Region Scholars Rocky Mountain Regional Culture I am seeking contributors for a reference work on Rocky Mountain regional culture. The Rocky Mountain volume is part of a Greenwood Reference Series on American regional cultures; the series also includes volumes on New England, the Mid-Atlantic Region, the Midwest, the South, the Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Pacific Region. For the purposes of the Greenwood series, the Rocky Mountain region is made up of the states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The core audience for the series will be high school and university students as well as public library patrons. FORMAT: Topical chapters in each volume include Architecture, Art, Ecology/Environment, Ethnicity, Fashion, Film, Folklore, Food, Language, Literature, Music, Religion, and Sports/Recreation. Each chapter will identify and examine a particular aspect of regional culture as it has evolved over time, through the beginning of the 21st century, always taking into account the rich diversity of cultural expressions within each region. For example, in the Rocky Mountain volume, the "Ecology/Environment" chapter might focus on Native American attitudes toward the natural world, the state of the Rocky Mountain environment when first encountered by Euro-Americans, the near eradication of the American bison and other species, air and water pollution, Yellowstone as the world's first national park, wilderness and wild rivers, reintroduction of the wolf, the contested role of fire, and the challenges of population growth. The chapters will be approximately 15,000 words. Contributors will receive an honorarium and one copy. Please note that I am NOT calling for the submission of articles but am seeking inquiries from scholars who wish to contribute topical overview chapters to this volume on Rocky Mountain regional culture. If you are interested in being a part of this exciting opportunity to help articulate a sense of place for the Rocky Mountains, please submit your curriculum vitae for consideration to Rick Newby at rnewby at zadig-llc.com, indicating the chapter you are interested in writing. Rocky Mountain Volume Editor: Rick Newby Zadig, LLC 710 Harrison Avenue Helena, MT 59601 phone: 406.449.6291 fax: 208.979.5469 e-mail: rnewby at zadig-llc.com From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 8 19:28:49 2003 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 14:28:49 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It's 3, then 2, then 1, but that's just me. I'm sure that Yoda would be most happy with number 2. On 1/6/03 3:26 PM, "Mark A Mandel" wrote: > On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: > > #I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. > > #********************************************* > #1) You open us your heart > #2) You open to us your heart > #3) You open your heart to us > > I agree, and I'll add that IMHO #1 is ungrammatical, and #2, while > grammatical, is unidiomatic and unlikely to be used by a native speaker. > > -- Mark A. Mandel ‹ Bob Haas Department of English High Point University "Wherever you go, there you are." From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Wed Jan 8 21:41:51 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 15:41:51 -0600 Subject: hand job 'deception' Message-ID: I think Frank's is the correct interpretation. -----Original Message----- From: Frank Abate [mailto:abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET] Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 3:10 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: FW: hand job 'deception' Ron B commented (below) on what Larry H noted: >> In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. << One possibility is that the dialogue refers to a hand job as a poor alternative to sexual intercourse. Since the scene involves a husband and wife, that might be the idea behind the use of "hand job" here. Frank Abate ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 22:50:17 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 17:50:17 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I think "explain me what you mean" probably is a calque on "explique-moi". That's the only explanation I can find for it. And that doesn't make it grammatical English to my mind. And I heard it again today. "Open me a beer" seems to be "for me" and not "to me" as in the first case. Does "close me the window" work?? Lois Nathan From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 8 23:23:49 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 15:23:49 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: >>> LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM 01/08/03 02:50PM >>> I think "explain me what you mean" probably is a calque on "explique-moi". That's the only explanation I can find for it. And that doesn't make it grammatical English to my mind. And I heard it again today. "Open me a beer" seems to be "for me" Not necessarily. In German, such constructions are common and they were more common in English a looong time ago. As the dative and accusative cases merged, prepositions started doing more work. This type of sentence 'open me a beer' is probably a relic of the use of the dative without a preposition. "Explain me what you mean" does not bother me as much as it seems to bother others who have responded--probably because I am a German speaker (and have had quite a bit of experience with OE). German: Erklaer MIR, was du meinst. I even find myself saying such things in English periodically. Fritz Juengling and not "to me" as in the first case. Does "close me the window" work?? Lois Nathan From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 23:27:44 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 18:27:44 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Joanne, I'm trying to identify what is different between your three examples "send me an e-mail, drop me a line, write me when you get back" which work, and "explain me what you mean," which I don't think works. It may be usage or the functioning of the verbs themselves. In your three examples there's very little ambiguity in putting the indirect object before the direct object. The "me" in "send me" and "drop me" as dierct object would be very little used, except for example in the song: "Yoooou send me." "Drop me" would suppose "you" were holding "me". But I think one "explains" something to someone, in that order. To "explain someone" could exist. "I can explain him" for example. That would be to explain that person so that others could understand him, if he were impenetrable. In contrast, "tell me something" or "tell something to me" both work in that form. But "tell me" isn't ambiguous. Just food for thought. Lois Nathan From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 8 23:59:33 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 15:59:33 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: re "explain me what you mean": there's a much larger, and fairly well studied, phenomenon of which this is just one example: the alternation between prepositional and unmarked indirect objects, as in GIVE THE MONEY TO ME ~ GIVE ME THE MONEY. verbs of transfer (literal or figurative) generally allow the prepositional construction, but only a few allow the unmarked construction (DONATE THE MONEY TO US, but *DONATE US THE MONEY). the big generalization seems to be that if you understand the semantics of a verb of transfer, you'll get it in the prepositional construction, but to get it in the unmarked construction you probably have to hear someone use it there. the full set of facts is a bit more complicated than this, since there's a least one class of transfer verbs (denominal means-of-communication verbs like TELEPHONE, FAX, and XEROX) that seem to allow the unmarked construction directly. it's also true, as many writers have noted (going back to georgia green's ph.d. dissertation, at least), that speakers sometimes extend the unmarked construction to new verbs within semantic subclasses. but mostly it seems to be "what you hear is what you get". EXPLAIN is a figurative transfer verb. for most speakers, it doesn't allow the unmarked indirect-object construction. it's like DONATE. not everything has a deeper explanation. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), who does indeed know about proposals that the number of syllables, stress pattern, and/or anglo-saxon stratum of the vocabulary are determinants, but thinks these ideas won't fly when you look at the facts in detail From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 9 01:09:27 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:09:27 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <6d.6b2f96a.2b4e0df0@aol.com> Message-ID: At 6:27 PM -0500 1/8/03, Lois Nathan wrote: >Joanne, > I'm trying to identify what is different between your three examples >"send me an e-mail, drop me a line, write me when you get back" which work, >and "explain me what you mean," which I don't think works. These were studied intensively in the early years of generative grammar, where the usual conclusion (which doesn't completely work) was that "dative movement", the rule responsible for converting X verbs Y to Z into X verbs Z Y, is "lexically governed" and in general only applies (oversimplifying a bit) to native English (and typically monosyllabic) as opposed to Latinate (and typically polysyllabic) verbs. Thus the contrasts in She {gave/donated} all her money to the poor. She {gave/*donated} the poor all her money. I {told/related} the story to the children. I {told/*related} the children the story. I {sent/transmitted/conveyed} the package to my cousin. I {sent/*transmitted/*conveyed} the package to my cousin. and so on. As predicted by the standard theory of the time (mid-1960's), a "dative passive" is impossible in just those cases where the dative form is impossible: The poor were {given/*donated} the money. The children were {told/*related} the story. My cousin was {sent/*transmitted/*conveyed} the package. As discussed in detail in books and dissertations of the era (see especially Georgia Green's and Dick Oehrle's), it's more complicated than this, but the generalization above does extend nicely to "tell", "write", and "drop" as opposed to "explain". It doesn't work, however, for "offer" (which allows dative movement) or "say" (which doesn't). Oops, I see Arnold has addressed this too. I'll post my message anyway, since I think it complements, rather than being totally supplanted by, his. larry From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 9 01:45:36 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 17:45:36 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on >> >"explique-moi..."? >> > > How about "Open me a beer." This is like the old "Make me a milkshake." "Ok, Poof! You're a milkshake." Rima From sputnik at KU.EDU Thu Jan 9 02:23:33 2003 From: sputnik at KU.EDU (Anderson, Bradley Bramwell) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:23:33 -0600 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: Hello all, I'm trying to find any information on a word heard in Carroll County, Virginia. The spelling of the word is unclear; it sounds like "widdie" and refers to a pre-pubescent chicken, just before becoming a "pullet" - an adolescent chicken. This was (or still is) a common term among farmers in the area. Does anyone have any information on the origin of this word or anything else about its meaning? Thanks! Brad Montgomery-Anderson Linguistics Department University of Kansas From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 9 00:18:48 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 16:18:48 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Remember, though, that the people who produced the utterances the original query was about were native speakers of French, not German (or earlier varieties of English). --On Wednesday, January 8, 2003 3:23 PM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: >>>> LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM 01/08/03 02:50PM >>> > I think "explain me what you mean" probably is a calque on "explique-moi". > That's the only explanation I can find for it. And that doesn't make it > grammatical English to my mind. And I heard it again today. > "Open me a beer" seems to be "for me" > > Not necessarily. In German, such constructions are common and they were > more common in English a looong time ago. As the dative and accusative > cases merged, prepositions started doing more work. This type of > sentence 'open me a beer' is probably a relic of the use of the dative > without a preposition. "Explain me what you mean" does not bother me as > much as it seems to bother others who have responded--probably because I > am a German speaker (and have had quite a bit of experience with OE). > German: Erklaer MIR, was du meinst. I even find myself saying such > things in English periodically. Fritz Juengling > > > and not "to me" as in the first > case. Does "close me the window" work?? > > Lois Nathan **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 9 02:46:18 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 18:46:18 -0800 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: "Anderson, Bradley Bramwell" wrote: > I'm trying to find any information on a word heard in Carroll County, > Virginia. The spelling of the word is unclear; it sounds like "widdie" and > refers to a pre-pubescent chicken, just before becoming a "pullet" - an > adolescent chicken. This was (or still is) a common term among farmers in > the area. Does anyone have any information on the origin of this word or > anything else about its meaning? A "biddy" is a "young bird especially of domestic fowl" [ref: ] although some other references say a biddy == hen. Could you be hearing "biddy"? Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 10:19:03 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 05:19:03 -0500 Subject: Mother/Father of the Spices Message-ID: Greetings from my last day (Thursday) in Zanzibar. I have Dar es Salaam on Friday and a six-hour layover in Amsterdam before arriving back in New York on Saturday. MOTHER OF THE SPICES--Ginger. FATHER OF THE SPICES--Cloves. BABY SPICE--The result of combining the above two spices...A member of the Spice Girls...OK, I made this one up. NATURAL IODINE NATURAL LIPSTICK--My tour guide didn't give other names for these plants. OED? MALARIA TREE--Quinine, for its supposed help in curing malaria. OED? MYOMA--The tour guide said that something was good for diarrhea, so I asked if there was anything like "Montezuma's revenge" or "Aztec two-step" or "Turkey trots" or "Delly belly." He said that this the Swahili name for diarrhea. However, tell ten of your friends it's "Zanzibar zing" and that it started here. These (English?) descriptions are from the spice packages that I bought. I'll send the spices to the first person to request them and pay postage: GINGER ROOTS--This is good for rice making and tea especially for cold area in case it gives body warm and also is good for men that it give up or stimulates men sexual organs. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. NUTMEG--This is better for drinks, cooking and for woman that given up strong desire for making or to fulfill their men. You have to break and inside you get nut that what we used for cooking like meat etc. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. PRODUCED BY BAHAMA SPICE FARM. CLOVES--is better for tooth pain and stomach pain as wel for cooking rice and tea making. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. ZANZIBAR BLACK PEPPER--Is better spice which we are use for making Curry but also Black Pepper can be use for making Pilau or rice also Black Pepper we use for cooking in some of sweet food like test milk and porridge, Black Pepper is better for meat that gives slight hot test in meat. PRODUCED BY BAHAMA SPICE FARM. HOT CHILLY--This is hottest Spices that given hot test for food and well it gives body warm. Gift from Zanzibar Spice Island. CARDAMOM--This is Spice that used for multi purpose e.g rice, cakes, maandazi, tea etc. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. TURMERIC POWDER--This better for making curry also turmeric can be used in all grill cooking inspite of this turmeric can be used for cooking in meat, fishes, just to change the colour or to give colour good. ZANZIBAR RED CURRY--This is good for red coloring of good e.g. Chicken, Fishers and other they all Chicken Tandoori. Gift from Zanzibar Spice Island. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 9 09:21:12 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 04:21:12 -0500 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: self at TOWSE.COM,Net writes: >A "biddy" is a "young bird especially of domestic fowl" [ref: >] although >some other references say a biddy == hen. >Could you be hearing "biddy"? DARE offers: biddy=a young or newly hatched chicken. The evidence reported is from eastern Alabama, eastern Georgia, eastern South Carolina, Texas, eastern Kentucky and North Carolina. Also in DARE are entries for biddy-hen and biddy pen. There is also biddy-peck defined as hen-peck. Regards, David From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 9 12:38:55 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 07:38:55 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <200301082359.h08NxXC29159@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: arnold, I'm sure that you are right in the details when one looks at individual items, but some of the generalizations you wipe out (e.g., Anglo-Saxon stratum, syllable structure, stress pattern, themselves perhaps interrelated) seem to me to be pretty good predictors (he gave me his hand, he offered me his hand, *he extended me his hand in friendship) if you take a probabilistic attitude towards them. Of course, probabilities are not deep ... dInIs re "explain me what you mean": there's a much larger, and fairly well studied, phenomenon of which this is just one example: the alternation between prepositional and unmarked indirect objects, as in GIVE THE MONEY TO ME ~ GIVE ME THE MONEY. verbs of transfer (literal or figurative) generally allow the prepositional construction, but only a few allow the unmarked construction (DONATE THE MONEY TO US, but *DONATE US THE MONEY). the big generalization seems to be that if you understand the semantics of a verb of transfer, you'll get it in the prepositional construction, but to get it in the unmarked construction you probably have to hear someone use it there. the full set of facts is a bit more complicated than this, since there's a least one class of transfer verbs (denominal means-of-communication verbs like TELEPHONE, FAX, and XEROX) that seem to allow the unmarked construction directly. it's also true, as many writers have noted (going back to georgia green's ph.d. dissertation, at least), that speakers sometimes extend the unmarked construction to new verbs within semantic subclasses. but mostly it seems to be "what you hear is what you get". EXPLAIN is a figurative transfer verb. for most speakers, it doesn't allow the unmarked indirect-object construction. it's like DONATE. not everything has a deeper explanation. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), who does indeed know about proposals that the number of syllables, stress pattern, and/or anglo-saxon stratum of the vocabulary are determinants, but thinks these ideas won't fly when you look at the facts in detail -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Thu Jan 9 13:23:26 2003 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 08:23:26 -0500 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: Biddy/biddie was also used in Delaware, both in Delmar, in the southern part of the state, and in Christiana, in the north, in the 1950s and 1960s, by the farmers whom I knew. I'm not sure which spelling was in the mind of the speaker. 'Little biddy' could refer to a small hen, especially a bantam hen; and little biddies could refer to a clutch of newly hatched chicks. Delaware, The Blue Hen State, had the first farms that raised chickens as a profit-making venture, rather than as merely a source of egg money. George Cole Shippensburg University From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Jan 9 14:20:45 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:20:45 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <6d.6b2f96a.2b4e0df0@aol.com> Message-ID: Okay, I think I'm convinced now that example #1 can be called "ungrammatical". It's not that I ever doubted that it would register as "wrong" to an English speaker -- I just wasn't sure whether to call it ungrammatical (which I initially interpreted as "syntactically unprecedented and non-transparent") or unidiomatic (i.e., "syntactically possible and semantically transparent but in fact never used in standard speech/writing"). I think what most people understand as ungrammatical is something that, essentially, is never used. Thanks very much to the linguists on the list for shedding light on the nature of the constructions. Obviously, we English language and lit folks would benefit from a course or two in the theory of syntax! Joanne From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 15:30:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 10:30:51 -0500 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors Message-ID: From a restaurant called SWEET & EAZY here in Zanzibar: CAIPINYAGI--Brazil-Zanzibar; Konyagi, lime, can sugar. SWEET EAZY SPECIAL--white rum, vodka, triple sec MARINATED JOHARI--(Tuna. I had this at another placed as "catch of the day"--ed.) UGALI--a porridge of maize flour boiled in chicken stock. (OED?--ed.) CHIPSI--Carved potatoes deep fried, sprayed with a sprinkled of salt. A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR--I changed my copy for a signed copy. I was told that the author has two more East African cookbooks coming out, including a Zanzibar restaurant menu thing. See the e-mail addresses in that prior post. MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRINCESS by Emilie Ruete (1844-1924). This is the Zanzibar classic work, published by Princess Salme, who married a German man. The NYPL has several copies that I'll get to soon; it's in several languages, but from at least 1888 in English. I just checked OED for the author's name and the book title--did no one from the OED ever read this book? THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY CARVED WOODEN DOORS OF THE EAST AFRICAN COAST by Judith Aldrick Reprinted by permission from Azania, the Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, Volume XXV, 1990 This 20-page book has the "Zanzibar doors." On pages 17-18 is "Appendix: Woods commonly used for carved doors." OED needs a really good Swahili specialist, because almost all of these start with the letter "M." Pages 19-20 include a 1992 comment on the Swahili and scientific names mentioned in pages 17-18. Pg. 17: ..._mvule_, which is indigenous has often been used as a substitute for teak. _Mvule_ (_Chlorophora milicia_) is a hardwood formerly found particularly on Pemba island, but which is nowadays increasingly scarce, while _mbamba kofi_ (_Afzalia quanzensis_) is still found in most forest areas of the coast. Pg. 19: _Swahili ethnobotany and carved doors_ (...) mbambakofi...mchano...mfensi...mgurure...mkongachale...mpingo...mtu...mtumbati...muhuhu...muia...(Pg. 20--ed.) mvule...mwembe. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 9 17:00:02 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 12:00:02 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:45 PM -0800 1/8/03, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >> > >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on >>> >"explique-moi..."? >>> >> > How about "Open me a beer." > >This is like the old "Make me a milkshake." "Ok, Poof! You're a milkshake." > Or the slightly more ethnic version I remember, in which "malted" substitutes for "milkshake" and the genie-character has a Yiddish accent (and doesn't say "OK"). Larry From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 9 17:00:38 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:00:38 -0800 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > From a restaurant called SWEET & EAZY here in Zanzibar: > > CAIPINYAGI--Brazil-Zanzibar; Konyagi, lime, can sugar. I've never heard of caipinyagi from the Brazilian angle. Caipirinha, yes, which is made with cachaca (white rum), superfine sugar, and lime. Brazil also has the batida, which is essentially the same thing -- maybe a difference between south and north? The batida is something they drink up in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon. The recipe for batida is "one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, and four of weak: lime juice, superfine sugar, cachaca, crushed ice. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 9 17:22:12 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:22:12 -0600 Subject: "in the soup" revisited Message-ID: In a 3 Oct. 2002 ads-l message Barry Popik noted OED2's first attestation of April 1889 for "in the soup" (= in serious difficulty) and then presented a slightly earlier one: 1 September 1888, New York Times, p. 8: 'McLaughlin won with King Crab in the easiest possible fashion, and Speedwell finished "in the soup."' It may be significant that this first known attestation of "in the soup" comes in a context which provides a rationale for the expression: a winning horse named "(King) Crab" and another other horse which is left behind (in the soup, i.e., the hot water which the crab has left). Maybe the sportswriter of this turf article coined the expression. Of course, maybe slang "in the soup" already existed without having previously made its way into print. But the above first attestation might still be significant for having introduced the term into print--in the prestigious New York Times, specifically in a horse-racing article whose readers share the same love of word/expression creativity as many sportswriters do. (Just look at horseracing lingo and some of the monikers fastened on the powerful and exquisitely beautiful racehorses). With the seal of approval of an appearance in the NY Times, the expression could then move more easily from the periphery of American speech into the mainstream of American (thence British) colloquial expressions. I assume that for the average speaker of English, the original imagery of a crab leaving the soup was soon lost and replaced by that of cannibals boiling their next meal. Gerald Cohen From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 18:21:57 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:21:57 EST Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: "Know thy users - for they are not you" The writer (one D.R. Lenorovitz) was critiquing some software in which, when the user reached a certain point, the meaning of one of the keys on the keyboard changed. After describing in detail what was wrong with this, the writer then stated "In summary, one of the primary design dictates is: "Know thy users - for they are not you".", meaning that just because some input made sense to the designer, it should be avoided if it did not make sense to the users. Lenorovitz also commented, regarding the use of the jargon phrase "strongly typed" which would not be known to the audience, "I can guarantee that it will result in at least some users banging excessively hard on their keyboards!!" - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 18:35:39 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:35:39 EST Subject: New word "descoped" Message-ID: I heard (or noted) for the first time yesterday a new word: "Descoped". Meaning: "removed from the scope of the contract" or in plainer English "removed from the list of things that the contractor is expected to do under this contract." - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 9 19:10:03 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 14:10:03 -0500 Subject: Computer proverbs In-Reply-To: <190.13ab9a87.2b4f17c5@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: # # "Know thy users - for they are not you" I LIKE that one! This is similar, but not a proverb, just a saying of mine: "It's a given that your end-users will think of ways to use your product and its features that you never even imagined." -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 9 19:16:20 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 14:16:20 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: #Or the slightly more ethnic version I remember, in which "malted" #substitutes for "milkshake" and the genie-character has a Yiddish #accent (and doesn't say "OK"). I remember it as Make me a malted! Poof! You're a malted. No accent, not ethnic, but maybe NYC? -- Mark A. Mandel From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 9 19:18:25 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:18:25 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: Mark A Mandel wrote: > > On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > > #An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: > # > # "Know thy users - for they are not you" > > I LIKE that one! > > This is similar, but not a proverb, just a saying of mine: "It's a given > that your end-users will think of ways to use your product and its > features that you never even imagined." My motto: Make your code idiot-proof because idiots will be using it. Or one I just made up and wish Bill had hanging in the lobby at Microsoft: Check the buffer size before moving your data. DON'T MOVE DATA INTO A BUFFER IF IT WON'T FIT. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 9 21:18:06 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:18:06 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: All: How about this one: "Computers are like cats. You never know what they're going to do next."(just made that one u p too, after a long period of observation of both). Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Towse" To: Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 11:18 AM Subject: Re: Computer proverbs > Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > > On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > > > > #An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: > > # > > # "Know thy users - for they are not you" > > > > I LIKE that one! > > > > This is similar, but not a proverb, just a saying of mine: "It's a given > > that your end-users will think of ways to use your product and its > > features that you never even imagined." > > My motto: Make your code idiot-proof because idiots will be using > it. > > Or one I just made up and wish Bill had hanging in the lobby at > Microsoft: > > Check the buffer size before moving your data. > DON'T MOVE DATA INTO A BUFFER IF IT WON'T FIT. > > Sal > -- > 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally > curious > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 9 21:48:40 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 16:48:40 -0500 Subject: Computer proverbs In-Reply-To: <02fa01c2b824$9aaf5330$eecc4b43@annehpbrww9plk> Message-ID: At 1:18 PM -0800 1/9/03, Anne Gilbert wrote: >All: > >How about this one: "Computers are like cats. You never know what they're >going to do next."(just made that one u p too, after a long period of >observation of both). >Anne G Especially appropriate for laptops. L From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 23:05:50 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 18:05:50 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I appreciate the exchange on this subject. It's helpful to know what others have found who have worked on, for example, transfer verbs like "explain". Good justifications to use in front of people for whom the information is inconvenient. Thanks to all. Lois Nathan From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 00:30:11 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 19:30:11 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or is this one legit? larry ================================== The New York Times January 6, 2003, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 4; Column 3; Foreign Desk Paris Journal; Call It the City of Darkness, and Give It Vitamin D BYLINE: By ELAINE SCIOLINO DATELINE: PARIS, Jan. 5 These are dark days in the City of Light. It is a cruel trick played on those who are not forewarned. Paris is a northern city, on about the same latitude as Seattle and Vancouver. New York, by contrast, sits on a level with Madrid and Naples. So when winter comes, Paris's northern position combines with humidity, above-freezing temperatures, the absence of fierce winds and a location at the bottom of a basin to rob the city of sun and light. ... As for Paris's century-old nickname as the City of Light, it has nothing to do with the atmosphere. The seven-month-long Paris Fair of 1900 included a Palace of Electricity that displayed light encapsulated in glass and electrical motors that became symbols of modernity. Paris became one of the first urban centers to light its streets, factories and department stores -- artificially, with electric light. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 00:51:55 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 19:51:55 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant > etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began > to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really > traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be > consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. > Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to > mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or > is this one legit? If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City of Light" as far back as 1886. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 10 01:16:28 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:16:28 -0500 Subject: FW: "City of Light" Message-ID: Re Paris as the City of Light, don't forget the line from Randy Newman: "Cleveland, City of Light, City of Magic" . . . and in the same song, re the Cuyahoga River (which actually DID catch on fire in the Dark Days before the Clean Water Act): "Burn on, Big River, Burn on" . . . and: "The Lord can make you tumble, the Lord can make you turn, the Lord can make you overflow . . . but the Lord can't make you burn." Frank Abate >> On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant > etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began > to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really > traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be > consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. > Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to > mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or > is this one legit? If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City of Light" as far back as 1886. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Fri Jan 10 01:58:24 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:58:24 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant >etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began >to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really >traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900 .... I would casually assume that "City of Light[s]" (I've seen it both ways) for Paris is a (good or bad) translation of something(s) French. Surely the general idea is much older than 1900. EB says "Ville Lumie`re" for Paris dates from the EnLIGHTenment (i.e. I guess 18th century?). But there's no reason why French PR writers couldn't have used the same expression or a very similar one as a double-entendre slogan for the 1900 Fair, at least partly to celebrate the electric light I suppose. I'm sure the truth is well known, but since I'm incompetent in French maybe I'm not well equipped to look for it. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 02:14:11 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:14:11 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I recall something like this from my childhood (probably it was already ancient then). Portly hotel guest: "Please call me a cab." Doorman: "OK, you're a cab ... but you look more like a bus to me." -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 02:19:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:19:17 -0500 Subject: "City of Light", "oaktag" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:51 PM -0500 1/9/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > >> We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant >> etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began >> to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really >> traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be >> consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. >> Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to >> mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or >> is this one legit? > >If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would >get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A >search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City >of Light" as far back as 1886. > >Fred Shapiro > Aha. Thought so. Sounded a bit fishy to me. On a different note, I just heard my first "oaktag", or at least the first one I remember. It was on "The West Wing", the Christmas show that I taped then and just watched tonight, in which White House Director of Communications Toby Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff) uses it in the sense we've discussed. The character is from New York (Brighton Beach) and Jewish. I'm still not sure how I avoided familiarity with this lexical item my whole life, but I'm willing to accept that it's my fault and not its. Larry From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 10 02:40:07 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:40:07 -0600 Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation from 1847. -----Original Message----- From: Fred Shapiro [mailto:fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU] Sent: Thu 1/9/2003 6:51 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: "City of Light" On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant > etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began > to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really > traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be > consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. > Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to > mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or > is this one legit? If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City of Light" as far back as 1886. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From pds at VISI.COM Fri Jan 10 03:33:30 2003 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:33:30 -0600 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I first heard the "Poof! You're a malted" gag in a Lenny Bruce routine -- with accent. --Tom Kysilko At 02:16 PM 1/9/2003 -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > >#Or the slightly more ethnic version I remember, in which "malted" >#substitutes for "milkshake" and the genie-character has a Yiddish >#accent (and doesn't say "OK"). > >I remember it as > Make me a malted! > Poof! You're a malted. >No accent, not ethnic, but maybe NYC? > >-- Mark A. Mandel From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 03:48:15 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 22:48:15 -0500 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors In-Reply-To: <3E1DAAB6.50993F77@towse.com> Message-ID: > > CAIPINYAGI--Brazil-Zanzibar; Konyagi, lime, can ["cane"? -DW] sugar. > >I've never heard of caipinyagi from the Brazilian angle. >Caipirinha, yes, which is made with cachaca (white rum), >superfine sugar, and lime. Konyagi is a [brand name of a] distilled liquor similar to rum, conventional in East Africa, I think. "Caipinyagi" = "caipirinha" + "Konyagi", I think. -- Doug Wilson From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 04:36:16 2003 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 23:36:16 -0500 Subject: "City of Light", "oaktag" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: > >On a different note, I just heard my first "oaktag", or at least the >first one I remember. It was on "The West Wing", the Christmas show >that I taped then and just watched tonight, in which White House >Director of Communications Toby Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff) >uses it in the sense we've discussed. The character is from New York >(Brighton Beach) and Jewish. > >I'm still not sure how I avoided familiarity with this lexical item >my whole life, but I'm willing to accept that it's my fault and not >its. > I seem not to have printed out the usenet posting I noticed the other day (in alt.sports.hockey.nhl.ny-islanders, if you must know) in which oaktag occurred properly. The context involved getting together to picket Cablevision, and the only uncertainty with regard to the substance was whether it's "oaktag" or "oak tag". -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 10 06:00:55 2003 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 01:00:55 -0500 Subject: RISUMI (an "autocoinage") Message-ID: This is very interesting. It was sent to the Jargon Watch mailbox by sci-fi author and master blogger Cory Doctorow (of boingboing.net). I had not heard of RISUMI or AUTOCOINAGE. From this week's NTK.net -- "risumi," an autocoinage variant of "resume." The new edition of the Shorter OED came out too early (or too late) to include medireview, the Yahoo-generated alternative to medieval [NTK 2002-07-12]. We have higher hopes for the next edition and "risumi" - a new autocoinage spotted by Jeremy Ardley and still, it would seem, growing in popularity. A "risumi", word fans, is a special kind of "resume" that has been written with a ISO-8859-1/14 character set and then sent through a mailer that drops the high bit. Lowercase e with an acute accent, minus the top bit, turns into an "i". Hence, risumi. Our favourite citation for the new dictionary entry: an article by Peter Kaufman, "creative strategist" at clickz.com, who confidently declares "Why would anyone hire a person with spelling errors in a document? Several risumis I've seen over the years have had spelling, grammar and syntax serrors that would make you either laugh or cry". Coincidentally or not, Kaufman's piece is now the highest hit on Google for the neologism. How diclassi. http://www.clickz.com/article.php/838241 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 07:38:19 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 02:38:19 -0500 Subject: Maasai Proverbs Message-ID: KONYAGI--Yes, the drink is a Caipirinha (see archives) with the local alcohol Konyagi. The place is "Sweet Eazy," not "Sweet & Eazy" as I typed. O.T. There is a little elephant keychain here. It's pretty heavy, and I dropped my keychain and broke the elephant's tusk. That's a ton of years bad luck, I think. My group consoled me with their tuskless keychains. ------------------------------------------------------ WISDOM OF MAASAI by A Ol'Oloisolo Massek and J. O. Sidai 52 pages, paperback Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers 1974 I sent a post of this two weeks ago to Jesse Sheidlower, but I don't think it was sent to the list. The hotel sent the e-mail a few days late, and I sent a near-identical e-mail later without this book's information. This book has 279 proverbs, in Maasai and in English, and with explanations. There are then 75 proverbs collected by A. C. Hollis, from his THE MASAI: THEIR LANGUAGE AND FOLKLORE. 17 proverbs are similar. "It takes a village to raise a child" is not here, although pictures of the Clintons were at nearly every stop of my trip. The book might be useful to the Fred Shapiro-types out there. If anyone needs it, I'll copy the pages for you. A few proverbs/wisdoms: Pg. 11: The eye of God is large. Pg. 13: Don't pinch the heifer's vagina. (i.e. Never argue with a new bride.) Pg. 15: The neck cannot become the head. (Told to a disobedient son.) Pg. 27: Do not allow the belly to make you useless. Pg. 28: One finger does not kill a louse. (i.e. Co-operation is power.) Pg. 31: One house cannot be divided. Pg. 31: Lonely is one. Pg. 38: The night has ears. The forest has ears. Pg. 39: A particle of goat dung cannot be eaten by a large gourd. Pg. 40: The buttocks never mistake the ground (because they are in contact with each other so much of the time.) Pg. 42: The cow has no owner. (i.e. The milk of a cow may be given to anyone.) Pg. 45: Hide the mouthfuls of food. (Don't tell others your secrets.) Pg. 45: He is like a hyena's sinew. (He refuses to admit defeat.) Pg. 48: The man does not see the brisket he is eating. Pg. 51: It is better to be poor and live long than to be rich and die young. (Our translation: Trouble is long; happiness is short.) From bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 10 08:20:03 2003 From: bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM (Bruce Hunter) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 00:20:03 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Towse" > Mark A Mandel wrote: > > On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > >> > # An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: > > # "Know thy users - for they are not you" > My motto: Make your code idiot-proof because idiots will be using > it. > Or one I just made up and wish Bill had hanging in the lobby at > Microsoft: > Check the buffer size before moving your data. > DON'T MOVE DATA INTO A BUFFER IF IT WON'T FIT. and then there is... Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. Bruce Hunter From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 12:06:14 2003 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 07:06:14 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Riddle me this, Batman.... Just out of curiosity, does anyone get a *better* reading with a pronoun instead of a noun phrase? For example: "donate me this lamp" sounds a lot worse than (while holding said lamp, saying) "donate me this". Anyone share this opinion? Just wondering.... -dsb Douglas S. Bigham University of Texas - Austin From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 12:35:16 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 07:35:16 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <2209664F1C807643B7FA01C8230C0F994341DA@col-mailnode03.col. missouri.edu> Message-ID: >The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation from 1847. It reads "Paris is emphatically the city of light, intelligence, society, and refined life ..." I do believe myself that this reflects "Paris" = "the City of Light" but in isolation it's not entirely decisive IMHO. Here is a passage from Jules Verne's "Robur-le-Conquérant" (1886) (Ch. 11): ---------- Sa vitesse n'avait point été modérée. Il passait comme une bombe au-dessus des villes, des bourgs, des villages, si nombreux en ces riches provinces de la France septentrionale. C'étaient, sur ce méridien de Paris, après Dunkerque, Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint-Denis. Rien ne le fit dévier de la ligne droite. C'est ainsi que, vers minuit, il arriva au-dessus de la « Ville Lumière », qui mérite ce nom même quand ses habitants sont couchés — ou devraient l'être. Par quelle étrange fantaisie l'ingénieur fut-il porté à faire halte au-dessus de la cité parisienne? on ne sait. Ce qui est certain, c'est que l'Albatros s'abaissa de manière à ne la dominer que de quelques centaines de pieds seulement. Robur sortit alors de sa cabine, et tout son personnel vint respirer un peu de l'air ambiant sur la plate-forme. Uncle Prudent et Phil Evans n'eurent garde de manquer l'excellente occasion qui leur était offerte. Tous deux, après avoir quitté leur roufle, cherchèrent à s'isoler, afin de pouvoir choisir l'instant le plus propice. Il fallait surtout éviter d'être vu. L'Albatros, semblable à un gigantesque scarabée, allait doucement au-dessus de la grande ville. Il parcourut la ligne des boulevards, si brillamment éclairés alors par les appareils Edison. .... ---------- Paris is explicitly called "Ville Lumie`re" here, and the bright lighting by "Edison apparati" (i.e., lightbulbs) is mentioned. Here is a translation from the Web (for which I don't vouch): ---------- There was no diminution in her speed. She shot like a rocket over the towns and villages so numerous in northern France. She was flying straight on to Paris, and after Dunkirk came Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint Denis. She never left the line; and about midnight she was over the "city of light," which merits its name even when its inhabitants are asleep or ought to be. By what strange whim was it that she was stopped over the city of Paris? We do not know; but down she came till she was within a few hundred feet of the ground. Robur then came out of his cabin, and the crew came on to the deck to breathe the ambient air. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans took care not to miss such an excellent opportunity. They left their deck-house and walked off away from the others so as to be ready at the propitious moment. It was important their action should not be seen. The "Albatross," like a huge coleopter, glided gently over the mighty city. She took the line of the boulevards, then brilliantly lighted by the Edison lamps. .... ---------- -- Doug Wilson From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 13:43:27 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:43:27 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Off the bat, man, I personally don't like either. But that may be just me. Sorry. Lois Nathan Université du Havre From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Fri Jan 10 13:57:58 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:57:58 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <183.14fccc16.2b5027ff@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Lois Nathan wrote: >Off the bat, man, I personally don't like either. What an interesting sentence! I wonder: don't like WHAT either? Or is "off the bat" what the writer does not like? I know - context is all. I have no idea what preceded this! Bethany From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Fri Jan 10 13:48:28 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:48:28 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <34.334b342a.2b501136@aol.com> Message-ID: "Donate me this" does sound better to me, but I'm imagining it delivered in a self-consciously playful way, somewhat along the lines of the Elizabethan construction "X me no Xs" (e.g., "king me no kings, grief me no griefs," etc.). I guess the effect of the verbal play I'm imagining turns on the clever economy of the apparent archaism (to which the brevity of the direct object contributes). If the sentence were delivered without playful intent, though, it probably wouldn't sound any better to me than "donate me this lamp." Joanne On 10 Jan 2003, at 7:06, Douglas Bigham wrote: > Riddle me this, Batman.... > > Just out of curiosity, does anyone get a *better* reading with a pronoun > instead of a noun phrase? For example: "donate me this lamp" sounds a lot > worse than (while holding said lamp, saying) "donate me this". Anyone share > this opinion? > > Just wondering.... > > -dsb > Douglas S. Bigham > University of Texas - Austin From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 10 14:55:30 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 09:55:30 -0500 Subject: Maasai Proverbs Message-ID: So what's the explanation for the goat dung proverb? -----Original Message----- From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 2:38 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Maasai Proverbs WISDOM OF MAASAI by A Ol'Oloisolo Massek and J. O. Sidai 52 pages, paperback Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers 1974 Pg. 39: A particle of goat dung cannot be eaten by a large gourd. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 15:40:56 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:40:56 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030110071041.04a3d070@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 7:35 AM -0500 1/10/03, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation >>from 1847. > >It reads "Paris is emphatically the city of light, intelligence, society, >and refined life ..." I do believe myself that this reflects "Paris" = "the >City of Light" but in isolation it's not entirely decisive IMHO. > >Here is a passage from Jules Verne's "Robur-le-Conquérant" (1886) (Ch. 11): > I agree that the passage below is much more clearly decisive than the one above; "Ville Lumière" in quotes is a clear sobriquet. Even though this gives the lie to the 1900 Paris Fair as the source of the label, it does support the claim in the Times piece that it's the new Edison electric lights that provide the name, as Doug points out, and not the play of sunlight on the Seine or whatever. larry > > Sa vitesse n'avait point été modérée. Il passait comme une bombe >au-dessus des villes, des bourgs, des villages, si nombreux en ces riches >provinces de la France septentrionale. C'étaient, sur ce méridien de Paris, >après Dunkerque, Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint-Denis. Rien ne le fit >dévier de la ligne droite. C'est ainsi que, vers minuit, il arriva >au-dessus de la « Ville Lumière », qui mérite ce nom même quand ses >habitants sont couchés — ou devraient l'être. > Par quelle étrange fantaisie l'ingénieur fut-il porté à faire halte >au-dessus de la cité parisienne? on ne sait. Ce qui est certain, c'est que >l'Albatros s'abaissa de manière à ne la dominer que de quelques centaines >de pieds seulement. Robur sortit alors de sa cabine, et tout son personnel >vint respirer un peu de l'air ambiant sur la plate-forme. > Uncle Prudent et Phil Evans n'eurent garde de manquer l'excellente >occasion qui leur était offerte. Tous deux, après avoir quitté leur roufle, >cherchèrent à s'isoler, afin de pouvoir choisir l'instant le plus propice. >Il fallait surtout éviter d'être vu. > L'Albatros, semblable à un gigantesque scarabée, allait doucement >au-dessus de la grande ville. Il parcourut la ligne des boulevards, si >brillamment éclairés alors par les appareils Edison. .... > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 10 15:49:29 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:49:29 -0500 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030109224227.04a2c660@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Doug Wilson writes: > >Konyagi is a [brand name of a] distilled liquor similar to rum, >conventional in East Africa, I think. ~~~~~~~~ This is surely a take-off on "cognac," isn't it? I'm tempted to bring in "cognate," but mimesis is probably closer. A. Murie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 15:50:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:50:17 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <34.334b342a.2b501136@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:06 AM -0500 1/10/03, Douglas Bigham wrote: >Riddle me this, Batman.... > >Just out of curiosity, does anyone get a *better* reading with a pronoun >instead of a noun phrase? For example: "donate me this lamp" sounds a lot >worse than (while holding said lamp, saying) "donate me this". Anyone share >this opinion? > >Just wondering.... > To the extent that this is true, it may represent part of a general tendency for pronouns to cliticize onto the preceding verb and thus become part of that word rather than a separate word. I get the distinction between pronouns and full NPs more clearly in other contexts (and with "light" pronouns like "me", "him", "her", "them", "it" rather than "this"). Thus: I gave the man the book. *I gave the man it. (?)I gave him it. She sent her sister the money yesterday. *She sent her sister it yesterday. (?)She sent her it yesterday. This relates to stressable constituents (I feel embarrassed writing about this on a list that includes Arnold), and has been treated by way of a surface constraint that would also apply to other cases in which a direct object clitic pronoun is separated from the verb by intervening material, e.g. I looked up the man/the number. I looked up HIM (not her). [non-clitic pronoun] *I looked up him/it. But in the "I gave him it", "She sent her it", the "it" doesn't count as separated from the verb because the relevant verb is "gave'm", "sent'r". Not that any of this applies directly to "Donate me this." Or the new movie "Analyze Me THAT" ;) larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 15:51:55 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:51:55 -0500 Subject: Tinga Tinga painting; Merekani cloth; Me Serengeti Message-ID: Greetings from Dar es Salaam. We've all been impressed with this city...There is a memorial in the national museum to the U.S. embassy bombing. The new U.S. building is a gigantic structure. I have a 12:30 a.m. flight to Amsterdam. It's about ten hours, and I'll arrive about 8 a.m. Then I have six hours until my next flight to NYC. TINGA TINGA PAINTING--This style of painting is seen all over. I'm typing this from the place where it all started, about 35 years ago. OED? MEREKANI UNBLEACHED CLOTH--OED? I read yesterday that "Merekani" meant "American." TAARAB DANCING--Several signs for this were seen. OED? KANGA & KIKOYI & KITENGE & KANZU--Clothing words I'll work on when I get back. From the museum display: "Kanzu is a common dress worn by the coastal people." MGONO--OED? Also from the museum here: "A mgono is a kind of fish trap used by small fishermen in Tanzania for catching fish in shallow rivers, swamps and lakes." GOAT DUNG MAASAI PROVERB--Sorry, this one didn't have an explanation. SERENGETI BEER BILLBOARD AD: Me Serengeti and lots of fun. ("Me" and not "my"?--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 16:19:00 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 11:19:00 -0500 Subject: Maasai Proverbs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > So what's the explanation for the goat dung proverb? I think of it as similar to not being able to put a round peg in a square hole, or some more appropriate proverb I can't remember. (Something about needing the right tool for the right job.) The idea, to my mind, is that even something as tiny as a particle of goat dung can't be consumed by even something as big as a large gourd because gourds don't have mouths. >-----Original Message----- >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] >Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 2:38 AM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Maasai Proverbs > >WISDOM OF MAASAI >by A Ol'Oloisolo Massek and J. O. Sidai >52 pages, paperback >Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers >1974 > > >Pg. 39: >A particle of goat dung cannot be eaten by a large gourd. From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 10 16:26:54 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:26:54 -0600 Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: Here's an 1876 citation from Appleton's (MOA/umich version): THE writer of an article in a recent Saturday Review on Victor Hugo's " Pendant l'Exil" amuses himself with "taking off" M. Hugo's style. Here is a paragraph: " There are some wonderful pages about Paris toward the close of the introductory chapter. Paris, he says, is the frontier of the future, the visible frontier of the unknown, all the quantity of To-morrow which may be visible in To-day. Whoso seeks for progress with his eyes shall behold Paris. There are black cities; Paris is the City of Light. It is impossible to get out of Paris; for every living man, though he knoweth it not, hath Paris in the depths of his being. Also, there's one in an 1871 play by Robert Williams Buchanan, _The Drama of Kings_, spoken by Napoleon: "But what of Paris? What of the city of light?" Did Edison's lights come in around 1879 or so? There are many earlier references to a City of Light (not Paris) where the reference is religious. Is it biblical? My guess would be that it went from an original religious reference (i.e., heaven as the city of light) to something in line with the citation from 1847 where light = learning, enlightenment, etc. and maybe later to a more literal sense of light(s). But it seems the sobriquet for Paris predated the lightbulb sense (if I've got my dates right). -----Original Message----- From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] Sent: Fri 1/10/2003 9:40 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: "City of Light" At 7:35 AM -0500 1/10/03, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation >>from 1847. > >It reads "Paris is emphatically the city of light, intelligence, society, >and refined life ..." I do believe myself that this reflects "Paris" = "the >City of Light" but in isolation it's not entirely decisive IMHO. > >Here is a passage from Jules Verne's "Robur-le-Conquérant" (1886) (Ch. 11): > I agree that the passage below is much more clearly decisive than the one above; "Ville Lumière" in quotes is a clear sobriquet. Even though this gives the lie to the 1900 Paris Fair as the source of the label, it does support the claim in the Times piece that it's the new Edison electric lights that provide the name, as Doug points out, and not the play of sunlight on the Seine or whatever. larry > > Sa vitesse n'avait point été modérée. Il passait comme une bombe >au-dessus des villes, des bourgs, des villages, si nombreux en ces riches >provinces de la France septentrionale. C'étaient, sur ce méridien de Paris, >après Dunkerque, Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint-Denis. Rien ne le fit >dévier de la ligne droite. C'est ainsi que, vers minuit, il arriva >au-dessus de la « Ville Lumière », qui mérite ce nom même quand ses >habitants sont couchés — ou devraient l'être. > Par quelle étrange fantaisie l'ingénieur fut-il porté à faire halte >au-dessus de la cité parisienne? on ne sait. Ce qui est certain, c'est que >l'Albatros s'abaissa de manière à ne la dominer que de quelques centaines >de pieds seulement. Robur sortit alors de sa cabine, et tout son personnel >vint respirer un peu de l'air ambiant sur la plate-forme. > Uncle Prudent et Phil Evans n'eurent garde de manquer l'excellente >occasion qui leur était offerte. Tous deux, après avoir quitté leur roufle, >cherchèrent à s'isoler, afin de pouvoir choisir l'instant le plus propice. >Il fallait surtout éviter d'être vu. > L'Albatros, semblable à un gigantesque scarabée, allait doucement >au-dessus de la grande ville. Il parcourut la ligne des boulevards, si >brillamment éclairés alors par les appareils Edison. .... > From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 10 16:29:24 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:29:24 -0800 Subject: Tinga Tinga painting; Merekani cloth; Me Serengeti In-Reply-To: <3CF5162D.7B00BC4A.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > SERENGETI BEER BILLBOARD AD: > Me Serengeti > and lots of fun. ("Me" and not "my"?--ed.) Maybe it's meant to be read: Me, Serengeti, and lots of fun. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 10 18:30:19 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 13:30:19 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" (hoochy-coochy) Message-ID: > >... The Princess, Messrs Joinville and d'Aumale, with Mesdames > Liardiere,>and Hochet, danced the cancan, a sort of cachuca, > danced outside the gates > >of Paris, not without grace, but very free in its attitudes. .... > > And is "cachuca"/"cachucha" an ancestor of "hoochy-coochy"? > > An interesting passage. > > -- Doug Wilson > I was hoping that someone more learned than myself would reply to this. Assuming that hoochy coochy is a phrase like razzle dazzle, only one half of it needs to be meaningful. HDAS and OED agree that the first appearance of "hootchy-kootchy" is in 1890, as an expression, a greeting, used by a minstrel show performer known as Billy "hoochy-coochy" Rice. HDAS has it referring to the dance in 1895, the OED in 1898. George Odell, Annals of the New York Stage has more or less numerous references to Billy Rice in vols. 8-13, (the season of 1868/69) through volume 13 (the season of 1887/88). There are a few reference to Rice in vols. 14 and 15 (the last of the set), but he seems to hvae been not very active (in NYC anyway) in the early/mid 90s. The last reference is from the season of 1893/94. I didn't look at every one of these references, but all the ones I did look at are a simple lising of his name as part of the ensemble of "Haverly's Mammoth Minstrel" show or the other companies he was associated with. Odell's method of citing his sources seems ragged, but is actually fairly reliable, and tracing them might clarify Rice's use of hoochy coochy! . Before doing that, someone might check the clippings file at the NYPL's theatre division at Lincoln Center, that Barry has cited more than once. I myself don't expect to be at Lincoln Center's library anytime soon. The OED has "cachucha" from 1840, as a lively Spanish dance. the dictionary of the Real Accademia doesn't give dates or citations, but indicates that the cachucha is danced with castanets. So does the Oxford dictionary of Dance. Le Grand Robert (2001) has "cancan" from 1829 and "cachucha" from 1836, citing Paul de Kock ("Nice name he has" -- Molly Bloom) the International Dictionary of Dance (1998) has an entry on the cancan: "At the time, dance writers compared it with the chahut, a rowdy dance performed in Paris at public ball-rooms. . . ." Its entry on cachucha is a cross reference to an entry on the ballet Le diable boiteux, first performed in Paris in 1836: Fanny Elssler caused a sensation by dancing a cachucha in the role of Florinda. The best the NYTimes historical database can do is "Hootchy-eye", a place in Alaska, from November 30, 1897 and an element in "Chattahootchy", a place in the south. I limited the search to before 1901, but checked variant spellings. Where does this all leave us? Is there any chance that either Hootchie or Cootchie can be Indian words? GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 19:54:46 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 14:54:46 EST Subject: "our National Game" Message-ID: Checking for "Billy Rice" on Google, I came across the following Web site http://www1.shore.net/~persnav/adv5.htm which sells old advertising handbills etc. The Ray--Boston Theatre handbill dated January 30, 1884 Boston, MA: H.A. M'Glenen. Advertising sheet features Boston Theatre program: Thatcher, Primrose & West's Minstrels, Bones, Billy Rice; Tambo, George Primrose; satire on our National Game, Base Ball, with Captain Bostons, Billy Rice and Captain Providences Carl Rankin. Mr. Frank E. McNish, the comical wonder of the 19th century. pp. 23 x 31 cm. Paper handbill, printed on both sides, edges chipped, good. (5337) $14.00. Advertising It would appear that referring to baseball as "our National Game" goes way back. Interesting spelling "base ball" - Jim Landau "You don't have to be a murdered to contribute to the OED" - Jesse Sheidlower From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 20:32:13 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:32:13 EST Subject: antedating of "cancan" (hoochy-coochy) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/10/03 1:31:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, george.thompson at NYU.EDU writes: > HDAS and OED agree that the first appearance of "hootchy-kootchy" is in 1890, > as an expression, a greeting, used by a minstrel show performer known as > Billy "hoochy-coochy" Rice. A totally different history of "hoochy-koochy" can be found at URL http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm which claims that the "hoochy-coochy" was introduced to the United States at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 by an impresario named Sol Bloom and that it was entangled with the "belly dance", a name that also arose at the 1893 Exposition. "When you consider the tightly-corseted fashions worn by the American women of the Victorian era, it's no wonder the dancing prompted Sol Bloom to advertise the shows as "Belly Dancing", a name that in North America has stuck with Oriental dance for over a century, along with the unfortunate association with the titillating "hoochy koochy". Modern-day Oriental dance artists are still trying to dislodge that." The Web site presents some evidence that the term "hoochy-koochy" is derived from Algerian or Arabic song titled "Kradoutja," which may date to circa 1600. There is no mention on this Web site of minstrel shows. I don't know how to judge this theory, but it's interesting to read. > Is there any chance that either Hootchie or Cootchie can be Indian words? Atlanta Georgia is on the Chattahoochee River. It's certainly possible that Billy Rice or some other minstrel originally called himself "Chattahoochee Billy" or something similar. Web site URL http://www.visibledarkness.com/blog/mt/000140.php says this "the word “hooch” comes from Alaska. “The Indians of the archipelago distilled a drink they called hoochinoo” " - Jim Landau From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 10 20:36:33 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 12:36:33 -0800 Subject: Maasai Proverbs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > So what's the explanation for the goat dung proverb? > THat makes two of us (at least) wondering... Rima From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 22:21:29 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:21:29 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" (hoochy-coochy) In-Reply-To: <155.1a1b4b9a.2b5087cd@aol.com> Message-ID: At 3:32 PM -0500 1/10/03, James A. Landau wrote: > >A totally different history of "hoochy-koochy" can be found at URL > http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm >which claims that the "hoochy-coochy" was introduced to the United States at >the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 by an impresario named Sol >Bloom and that it was entangled with I don't know. My etym(yth)ological motto is "Beware the Fair". >the "belly dance", a name that also >arose at the 1893 Exposition. > L From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Fri Jan 10 22:24:26 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:24:26 -0500 Subject: French leave In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Typical of the relations between the two countries, iIn France, the expression is "filer a l'anglaise"--'to run off in the English manner'. At 04:33 PM 1/6/03 -0500, you wrote: >One other: > >French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's debts > >Philip Trauring From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Fri Jan 10 22:33:20 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:33:20 -0500 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' In-Reply-To: <7391A47B-21DD-11D7-B5D4-000A9567113C@americandialect.org> Message-ID: Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. >I did have to do a lot of the usual polite "we don't invent the words, >m'am, we just note their existence" debunking. We also received many >letters from excited teachers, interested laypersons, people inquiring >about membership, several people trying to convince us to canonize a >word they've invented, and one asking about copyrighting a word >signifying the plural of nieces and nephews, something akin to >"children", a word which, alas, was not shared. From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 22:47:34 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:47:34 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <2209664F1C807643B7FA01C8230C0F994341DB@col-mailnode03.col. missouri.edu> Message-ID: >Here's an 1876 citation from Appleton's (MOA/umich version): > >THE writer of an article in a recent Saturday Review on Victor Hugo's " >Pendant l'Exil" amuses himself with "taking off" M. Hugo's style. Here is >a paragraph: " There are some wonderful pages about Paris toward the close >of the introductory chapter. Paris, he says, is the frontier of the >future, the visible frontier of the unknown, all the quantity of To-morrow >which may be visible in To-day. Whoso seeks for progress with his eyes >shall behold Paris. There are black cities; Paris is the City of Light. It >is impossible to get out of Paris; for every living man, though he knoweth >it not, hath Paris in the depths of his being. > >Also, there's one in an 1871 play by Robert Williams Buchanan, _The Drama >of Kings_, spoken by Napoleon: >"But what of Paris? What of the city of light?" > >Did Edison's lights come in around 1879 or so? There are many earlier >references to a City of Light (not Paris) where the reference is >religious. Is it biblical? >My guess would be that it went from an original religious reference (i.e., >heaven as the city of light) to something in line with the citation from >1847 where light = learning, enlightenment, etc. and maybe later to a more >literal sense of light(s). But it seems the sobriquet for Paris predated >the lightbulb sense (if I've got my dates right). Any metropolis will be a "city of light" (in the evening) to the bumpkin from the boonies, I suppose: no doubt Babylon amazed its visitors long ago with its torches or lamps. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" referred to a City of Light or so, didn't it? As for "Ville Lumie`re" = "Paris", here is an apparent memoir by Lord Frederick Hamilton ("The Days Before Yesterday", 1921 [I think]) (Project Gutenberg): ---------- The London of the "sixties" was a very dark and dingy place. The streets were sparingly lit with the dimmest of gas-jets set very far apart: the shop-windows made no display of lights, and the general effect was one of intense gloom. Until I was seven years old, I had never left the United Kingdom. We then all went to Paris for a fortnight, on our way to the Riviera. I well remember leaving London at 7 a.m. on a January morning, in the densest of fogs. So thick was the fog that the footman had to lead the horses all the way to Charing Cross Station. Ten hours later I found myself in a fairy city of clean white stone houses, literally blazing with light. I had never imagined such a beautiful, attractive place, and indeed the contrast between the dismal London of the "sixties" and this brilliant, glittering town was unbelievable. Paris certainly deserved the title of "La Ville Lumiere" in a literal sense. I like the French expression, "une ville ruisselante de lumiere," "a city dripping with light." That is an apt description of the Paris of the Second Empire, for it was hardly a manufacturing city then, and the great rim of outlying factories that now besmirch the white stone of its house fronts had not come into existence, the atmosphere being as clear as in the country. ---------- This is 1860's, apparently, as remembered much later. The electric lights would have appeared in public places right around 1880, I think. But before that of course there were gas street-lights, etc. -- Doug Wilson From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 10 23:14:41 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:14:41 -0800 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030110173040.00a230f0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: Niblings is a perfect word and needs to be promoted, especially by those of us whose nieces and nephews tend to visit us--especially when we have snacks available. Nibblings for the niblings. PR On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that > I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her > nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've > adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. From self at TOWSE.COM Sat Jan 11 00:22:42 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 16:22:42 -0800 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' Message-ID: Peter Richardson wrote: > > Niblings is a perfect word and needs to be promoted, especially by those > of us whose nieces and nephews tend to visit us--especially when we have > snacks available. Nibblings for the niblings. > > PR > > On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > > > Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that > > I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her > > nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've > > adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. Lovely word. Let's see if a few properly placed uses of "niblings" is enough. You know, if one person, just one person uses it they may think he's misspeaking. And if two people, two people use it, in harmony, they may think it's caprice and a nonce word. And three people use it, three, can you imagine, three people walking onto Oprah and talking about their niblings and walking out? They may think it's a neologism. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day on Montel and King and Oprah and WFUV and Rush and KFOG's Morning Show talking about their niblings and walking out? Friends they may think it's a word that's here to stay and worthy of the OED. Apologies to Arlo, Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 11 02:27:34 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 21:27:34 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Franglais" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030110170415.04a40b30@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: The OED's first use for "franglais" is 1964 (1959 in a French context). Here is an earlier citation: 1952 _Modern Language Journal_ XXXVI. 197 On principle, we do not like sentences of the type "Apprenez les first five lignes par coeur"; students already have too great a tendency to speak so-called "franglais." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 11 03:46:16 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 22:46:16 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Yalie" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The OED's first use of "Yalie" is dated 1969. Here are earlier examples from New York Times Historical: 1952 _N.Y. Times_ 27 Aug. 25 (crossword puzzle clue) Yalies. 1961 _N.Y. Times_ 12 Feb. S2 And as for those cruelly beset Yalies, what say we let them stand as symbols and examples to oncoming generations? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 11 03:54:07 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 22:54:07 -0500 Subject: French leave In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030110172100.00a4e300@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: >Typical of the relations between the two countries, iIn France, the >expression is "filer a l'anglaise"--'to run off in the English manner'. >At 04:33 PM 1/6/03 -0500, you wrote: >>One other: >> >>French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's debts >> And let's not forget "French letter" vs. "capote [lit., overcoat] anglaise". I believe "the pox" is similar. L From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 11 07:24:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 02:24:28 -0500 Subject: Tanzania Cook Book (1978) Message-ID: TANZANIA COOKBOOK by Eva Pendaeli-Sarakikya Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House 165 pages, paperback, $10 First published 1978 Reprinted 1981 Reprinted 1996 Greetings from the Amsterdam Schipol Airport, during a six-hour layover. I bought this book at the Dar es Salaam airport before leaving...My last post should be "tingatinga" (one word), not "Tinga Tinga." It's from the person's name...The in-flight movies were SWEET HOME ALABAMA (which bashed New York City) and CHANGING LANES (which bashed Jewish lawyers). I almost walked out. I won't argue that Tanzanian is a major world cuisine, but here goes: Pg. 10: PUMPKIN SOUP (PUMPKIN MTORI)...BANANA SOUP (NDIZI MTORI). Pg. 13: MAMUMUNYA (GOURD) SAUCE. Pg. 14: BRINGAL SAUCE. Pg. 20: FRIED GOURDS (MAMUMUNYA)...MAIZE AND SPINACH MIX (NTUNYULA). Pg. 25: PEAS PILAU (MCHANYATO). Pg. 26: VEGETABLE SAMBUSAS...POTATO BAJIA. Pg. 32: MAGIMBI LEAVES (YAM LEAVES). Pg. 40: STUFFED RICE UGALI. Pg. 42: PLAIN NDOLO (MEAT IN YELLOW MAIZE). Pg. 44: KANDE WITH MEAT. Pg. 46: MEAT WITH CASSAVA (MUHOGO). Pg. 47: MAIZE BEANS WITH COCONUT MILK (KANDE ZA NAZI)...MEAT WITH DENGU (LENTILS). Pg. 49: NGANDI (GOAT'S MEAT WITH MASHED BANANAS). Pg. 53: CHOROKO IN MEAT CURRY. Pg. 57: MUTTON WITH NYANYA (BEAN LEAVES). Pg. 70: KUKU PAKA. Pg. 78: FISH MAKANDE (MAIZE). Pg. 79: GRILLED NGURU WITH SAUCE. Pg. 85: DAGAA AND COCONUT SPINACH. pG. 87: FRESH PRAWN CURRY (KAMBA). Pg. 94: "KIBURU" BANANA WITH BEANS (BROWN BEANS)...SHIRO BANANA WITH BEANS. Pg. 97: COCONUT BEANS (BOROHOA). Pg. 99: KISHUMBA (SWEET POTATOES WITH BEANS). Pg. 101: MSETO (RICE WITH LENTILS). Pg. 102: MBAAZI ROJO. Pg. 105: SWEET POTATOES AND KUNDE (COWPEAS). Pg. 109: MASANGU (MAIZE WITH GROUNDNUTS). Pg. 111: UGALI (STIFF PORRIDGE). Pg. 112: LUSHORO (MAIZE, BEANS AND MILK). Pg. 115: CHENGA. Pg. 116: KIMBOYA (MASHED CASSAVA WITH BEANS). Pg. 120: KITAWA (BANANA AND SOUR MILK). Pg. 133: STEWED MAPERA (GUAVAS). Pg. 134: GROUNDNUT KASHATA. Pg. 140: TAMBI (SWEET VERMICELLI). Pg. 142: PEPETA (FRIED RICE AND GROUNDNUTS). Pg. 143: MAHANDO. Pg. 144: VIMANDA (BANANA AND RICE BALLS). Pg. 149: BANANA CAKES (MABUMUNDA OR VIMANDA). Pg. 158: CARROT SAMBARO. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 11 11:01:29 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 06:01:29 -0500 Subject: Suasso's kookrecepten (2002) Message-ID: SUASSO'S KOOKRECEPTEN: EEN PORTUGEES-JOODS KOOKBOEK UIT DE 18E EEUW Drs R. N. Ferro Amsterdam: Amphora Books 96 pages, paperback, 17 euro 2002 An important "new" book for Jewish food. I bought this book today at the Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam. It is not available in English. The back cover has a nice blurb by Claudia Roden. There is a fine bibliography which includes "Stolz, J., _Kochbuch der Israelieten_, Karlsruhe 1815," the book that I was looking for while in Berlin last July. Menus from 1852, 1868, and 1916 are included. There are a few illustrations from Amsterdam Historisch Museum. Here are some items (more detail upon request--I'm in a rush to catch a plane): Pg. 44: Frikassee van schelvis. (More proof that Elvis was Jewish. FWIW, in Tanzania we saw Elvis & Marilyn postage stamps--ed.) Pg. 46: Amandel taart. Pg. 50: Engelse booles...Hollandse booles. Pg. 52: Binjees...Engelse snee...Spritz. Pg. 54: Marmelade van kwitten...Flambosen. Pg. 57: Blanc mangez. Pg. 58: Troochie. Pg. 61: Gusberi foel. Pg. 63: Appel dompling. Pg. 65: zonder titel. Pg. 66: Appelstruif...Brood poddng...Beschuit podding. Pg. 70: Amandel koek...Kransjes. Pg. 94: _Eiermatzes_ Tot slot een oorspronkelijk recept met matzes, dat niet in Suasso's boek staat, maar dat de familie ongetwijfeld heeft gekend. Het recept is afkomstig uit Rebekka WOlfs Kookboek voor Israelitische huisgezinnen (1881). Het taalgebruik van 1881. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 11 13:07:44 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 08:07:44 -0500 Subject: Frank Abate Column in N.Y. Times In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Tomorrow's guest "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine is written by Frank Abate. The column is about "How American presidents move, mangle and manipulate the language." Congratulations to Frank! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 11 18:21:14 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 13:21:14 EST Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: In a message dated 01/10/2003 5:48:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, douglas at NB.NET writes: > The electric lights would have appeared in public places right around 1880, > I think. But before that of course there were gas street-lights, etc. You are confusing two different types of electric light. The carbon-arc light was invented by Sir Humphry Davy (178-1829) but did not become practical until the invention of steam-driven electrical generators in the 1860's. The carbon-arc light is far too bright for indoor use but was used for outdoor illumination starting in the 1860's. I believe the nickname "The Great White Way" for New York's Broadway refers to carbon-arc lighting. The fist incandescant light was invented by a German=American watchmaker and optician anmed Goebel about 1850. Goebel's light was not good enough for practical use and were used only for advertising novelties. A number of later inventors tackled the problem of the incandescant light. Edison made the first practical one---in combination with his development of a practical electrical generation and distribution system---in 1880. Hence it is certainly possible that the term "City of Light" referred to an urban area lit by carbon-arc lights as early as the 1860's---and the "Second Empire" lasted until 1870, so the timing fits. - Jim Landau From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 11 21:28:32 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 16:28:32 -0500 Subject: "our National Game" In-Reply-To: <6b.6d2b2bd.2b507f06@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #Interesting spelling "base ball" That's the spelling Jane Austen uses, whatever the rules may have been. #"You don't have to be a murdered to contribute to the OED" *** r *** , surely? # - Jesse Sheidlower -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 11 21:57:30 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 16:57:30 -0500 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030110173040.00a230f0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: #Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that #I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her #nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've #adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. I'm sure I've heard that before, in this sense, but I don't know where, and also as essentially somebody's coinage or family in-word. Good term, anyway. -- Mark M. From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 11 23:40:50 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 18:40:50 -0500 Subject: "our National Game" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2003 at 04:28:32PM -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > #"You don't have to be a murdered to contribute to the OED" > *** r *** , surely? Well, works both ways, doesn't it ;-)? From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 12 01:31:44 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 20:31:44 -0500 Subject: Jawaiian Message-ID: Japanese-Hawaiian?? "Just overlook the trite Jawaiian rehash of C&K's classic "Sunflower" and a few other misfires, and buy a copy to help this important social service organization." On http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/18/features/records.html . -- Mark A. Mandel From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 12 01:00:11 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 20:00:11 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <12.2b7d43d9.2b51ba9a@aol.com> Message-ID: >You are confusing two different types of electric light. > >The carbon-arc light was invented by Sir Humphry Davy (178-1829) but did not >become practical until the invention of steam-driven electrical generators in >the 1860's. The carbon-arc light is far too bright for indoor use but was >used for outdoor illumination starting in the 1860's. I believe the nickname >"The Great White Way" for New York's Broadway refers to carbon-arc lighting. > >The fist incandescant light was invented by a German=American watchmaker and >optician anmed Goebel about 1850. Goebel's light was not good enough for >practical use and were used only for advertising novelties. A number of >later inventors tackled the problem of the incandescant light. Edison made >the first practical one---in combination with his development of a practical >electrical generation and distribution system---in 1880. > >Hence it is certainly possible that the term "City of Light" referred to an >urban area lit by carbon-arc lights as early as the 1860's---and the "Second >Empire" lasted until 1870, so the timing fits. In a quick browse at the library, I've been unable to find any support for electric street lights much before 1880. A couple of sources claim the first public street lighting by electricity (with carbon-arc lamps, to be sure) was in Cleveland in April 1879. I see claims for electric store lighting in 1878 (Philadelphia), electric home lighting around 1881 (Morgans, Vanderbilts, et al.) (also an early experiment with battery-powered electric lights at home by a Massachusetts professor in 1859). Some Web sources claim 1878 for the first electric street lights in London. I suppose there could have been a few outdoor carbon-arc lamps around 1870 or earlier, maybe at the railroad stations or something like that, but I couldn't find any mention of such. Just a few of these might have been enough to amaze the visitors ... but then, a lot of bright gas lamps might have had the same or greater impact, and these were apparently present in Paris in the 1860's (BTW, I find one mention of lighting by piped natural gas around 400 BC [Beijing]!). An opinion from a Paris-area Frenchman: <> -- Doug Wilson From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 12 16:09:53 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 11:09:53 -0500 Subject: N Korean expression Message-ID: An item Drew Danielson brought to our attention in November perhaps gives color to today's declarations by N. Korea: >Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:48:58 -0500 >From: Drew Danielson ?Subject: kajigaedu-oh-itda / kajigaedutta >http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/11/18/nkorea.nukes/index.>html >Though the ethnically homogeneous South and North Koreans share the same >language, there are various differences in pronunciation across the >Korean peninsula. >The phrase used in the announcement is unclear. "Kajigaedu-oh-itda", >which means 'entitled to have' sounds very similar to "kajigaedutta", >which means to 'already possess.' >Officials say they are also wary because it is not the way North Korea >usually makes such important statements. >/snip >DREW DANIELSON . . >http://pcdrew.ece.cmu.edu/ >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++>++++++++++++++++++ >Clear writers assume, with a pessimism born of experience, that whatever >isn't plainly stated the reader will invariably misconstrue. > -- John R. Trimble ~~~~~~~~~~ A. Murie From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 17:39:19 2003 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 12:39:19 EST Subject: Shooting fish... Message-ID: There's a commercial out for a new PS2 game, some military shooter game, anyway, the point is that it's a bunch of college kids vs. a military officer. In the end the officer wins (obviously) and says: "It's like shooting fish in a bucket" I've never shot fish in anything but a barrel. I was wondering if anyone else was familiar with this "bucket" variant. -dsb Douglas S. Bigham University of Texas - Austin From jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA Sun Jan 12 18:57:06 2003 From: jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA (James McIntosh) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 13:57:06 -0500 Subject: Jawaiian In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:31 PM 1/11/03 -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: >Japanese-Hawaiian?? > >"Just overlook the trite Jawaiian rehash of C&K's classic "Sunflower" >and a few other misfires, and buy a copy to help this important social >service organization." > >On http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/18/features/records.html . > >-- Mark A. Mandel In my total ignorance, I would have assumed Jamaican/Hawaiian. From RonButters at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 19:00:52 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:00:52 EST Subject: Abate in TIMES Message-ID: Below Frank Abate reminded a few of his friends of his ON LANGUAGE column today. The subject is more or less the contributions of American presidents to lexicographical change and innovation in the United States. In my opinion it is an excellent column, and I recommend it to all. As he notes, you can read it free online at the TIMES website. ------------------------------------------------------- Just wanted to remind you to check out my guest column in the NY Times Sunday Magazine THIS Sunday, Jan 12, in Safire's "On Language" column.  I think you'll enjoy it.  You don't even need to buy a copy; it's free from the online edition. Frank Frank Abate Dictionaries International Consulting & Editorial Services for Reference Publications 860-349-5400  [USA access code: 1] abatefr at earthlink.net From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 12 21:16:18 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:16:18 -0500 Subject: Jawaiian In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20030112132613.093f17b0@mail.look.ca> Message-ID: [Mark A Mandel] #>Japanese-Hawaiian?? #> #>"Just overlook the trite Jawaiian rehash of C&K's classic "Sunflower" #>and a few other misfires, and buy a copy to help this important social #>service organization." #> #>On http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/18/features/records.html . [James McIntosh] #In my total ignorance, I would have assumed Jamaican/Hawaiian. Just as likely a priori, but Japanese is more likely in Hawaii than it is in, say, Philadelphia. -- Mark M. From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Sun Jan 12 22:30:43 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:30:43 -0600 Subject: hand job as 'deception' Message-ID: I hope this is not already considered "settled", and I am beating a dead horse? (So to speak...) To my understanding, it is a procedure or promise that is supposed to get you all excited, but then ends up not being as good as you think it will be (or ending differently than expected). To some people, intercourse is the only "real sex", and a "hand job" is only a sad approximation of "real sex", and so "not real", such as the promises to "change", "sober up", "clean up" that never come to fruition. Oooh, I wish I could say I used that word on purpose. How about a "trojan horse": in the sense of an offering that is not all it seems to be? Anyway, I have heard it before, but not in mixed company (in societal terms), and it is not one I would choose to use on my own. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 10:57 PM Subject: hand job 'deception' In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 22:44:18 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:44:18 -0500 Subject: Periodical Contents Index full text Message-ID: Greetings from New York City. I just gave my Mount Kilimanjaro T-shirt to David Shulman and dropped my Zanzibar spices off at Bonnie Slotnick's cookbook store. The newest database of 2003 here at NYU Bobst Library is the Periodicals Contents Index full text database, available on a trial basis. I've been trying it and it's surprisingly awful. As with the TIMES (LONDON) and the AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES, the thing is not done yet. Only a tiny portion of PCI is full text. And what is full text is some really obscure stuff. The British Journal of Aesthetics is full text! How did I ever sleep at night? FYI, this is from the NYU database list and PCI: FROM NYU: NYU Libraries: Trial Databases Help us evaluate new electronic databases and information sources. The following are available for trial: Periodical Contents Index / Full Text: Trial through Feb 15 Overall dates of coverage: 1770-1991 An online archive of digitized, full-image journal articles, PCI full-text currently provides access to the contents of 228 complete journal runs, providing access to over 3.9 million article pages and over 13 million article records for diverse fields in the humanities and socials sciences. Comments / evaluations to Jennifer Schwartz jennifer.schwartz at nyu.edu FROM PCI: Articles with full text You can filter your search to only display results where the article record has associated full text (page images). There are currently 220 journals ( 500,000 articles) with full text included in PCI Full Text. PCI Full Text is being enhanced to enable searching within the text of an article in addition to its citation. This functionality has been introduced for the following titles: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, British Journal of Aesthetics, British Journal of Social Work, Community Development Journal, Early Music and Yearbook of English Studies. This marks the beginning of our programme to include searchable full text for at least half of all forthcoming journals in PCI Full Text. From dsgood at VISI.COM Sun Jan 12 23:30:43 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:30:43 -0600 Subject: Dave Barry & Hoosier Message-ID: The Dave Barry column run in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press is largely about the word "Hoosier". In a previous column, he said that nobody knew what it meant. Readers in Indiana sent him the one, absolutely definitive origin of the word. He gives all seven. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 23:34:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:34:09 -0500 Subject: RLG Cultural Materials database Message-ID: RLG (Research Library Group) Cultural Materials database is another new database here at NYU. Like PCI, it has the potential to be enormous, but just sucks right now. It has materials from the Chicago Historical Society and the Chicago Daily News, so I typed in "Windy City." I got a blank screen. It has materials from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, so I typed in "Audrey Munson." I got a blank screen. I get a blank screen with whatever I type in. No slow little bar going up to 100%. Just a blank screen with "DONE" at the bottom. Here's what the RLG CULTURAL MATERIALS database supposedly contains: Welcome What's Inside How to use it Maps, photographs, objects, documents, art, sound, and motion. Archives, libraries, and museums from around the world are making their treasured collections available through RLG Cultural Materials. The content reflects the richness of the human experience through time — high-quality digital versions of ancient maps, medieval manuscripts, handwritten letters, drawings, paintings, sound recordings, books, and moving images — from prestigious memory institutions. Bringing these exceptional materials together encourages new kinds of multidisciplinary research. Credits CURRENT CONTRIBUTORS RLG Cultural Materials is expanding. As of November 27th, 2002 the service contains 142,553 works in 60 collections from the following contributors: American Antiquarian Society Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Chicago Historical Society Duke University Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Indiana University International Institute of Social History Library of Congress Linda Hall Library London School of Economics National Library of Australia National Library of Scotland National Library of Wales Natural History Museum Pennsylvania State University Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Institution. Archives of American Art University of Edinburgh University of Glasgow University of Minnesota University of Oxford University of Pennsylvania CURRENT COLLECTIONS American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, Ca. 1490 - 1920 American History Material Culture American Terra Cotta Company Photograph Collection Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar Artistic Homes of California By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 C. Hart Merriam Collection of Native American Photographs, ca. 1930-1968 California Faces: Selections from The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection California Gold Rush Mining Towns Photographed by Alma Lavenson, 1930-1968 Carl Van Vechten Photograph Collection Cased photographs and related images from The Bancroft Library Pictorial Collections Chairman Smiles: Posters from the former Soviet Union, Cuba and China Chicago Daily News negative collection Farber Gravestone Photograph Collection First Scottish Books Frank M. Hohenberger Photograph Collection Furness Shakespeare Library George E. Hyde & Co. Canning Operations, 1915-1921 Gweithiau celf mewn ffram / Framed works of art Hill & Adamson Collection Historic American Sheet Music Collection James D. Phelan Photograph Albums, 1902-1929 Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks Documenting San Francisco History and Law Enforcement, ca. 1895-1936 Last Letter of Mary Queen of Scots London School of Economics Pamphlet Collection Lone Mountain College Collection of Stereographs by Eadweard Muybridge, 1867-1880 MacGillivray Maps from the Library of Congress Maps of Scotland, 1560-1769 Medical History Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 National Library of Australia - Digitised Images from the Pictorial Collection Natural History: Digital Editions Out of this World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas Pennsylvania Bridges Collection, 1884-1915 Photographs from the Jack London Collection Photographs of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915 Photographs Related to the San Francisco Graft Trial, 1907-1908 Production Photographs from "Greed," Erich von Stroheim Production Adapted from Frank Norris' "McTeague," Produced for Goldwyn Film Corp. (February to October, 1923) Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material Roy D. Graves Pictorial Collection, ca. 1850-ca. 1970 Roy Flamm Photographs of Buildings Designed by Bernard Maybeck, ca. 1950-1955 Russian Children's Picture Books Scenic Collections Database Science and Technology Digital Editions Selections from the Marcel Breuer papers Simon Marmion illuminations from the Book of Hours Souvenir of the California Midwinter International Exposition 1894 Stereographs of the West from the Bancroft Library Pictorial Collection, ca. 1858-1906 Stereoscopic Images of India ca. 1900 Tebtunis Papyri Collection Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera Views of San Quentin Prison and Events, ca. 1925-1935 Views of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915 Walter Scott Digital Archive War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement, 1942-1945 Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive William Gedney Photographs and Writings William Gray Purcell Job Files Woodcuts From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 01:35:25 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:35:25 -0500 Subject: Kanga, Kikoi (1929) Message-ID: KENYA: FROM CHARTERED COMPANY TO CROWN COLONY THIRTY YEARS OF EXPLORATION AND ADMINISTRATION IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA by C. W. Hobley London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. First edition 1929 Second edition 1970 (The second edition seems to just have a new introduction--ed.) As I said, beating OED's "khanga" (1967) and "kikoi" (1942) is going to be tough. Pg. 65: These rock pools are called _ngurunga_. (Useful for "ngorongoro"--ed.) Pg. 114: The natives have stories of a marine monster which inhabits the lake and occasionallt attacks fishermen: it is called _lukwata_. (OED has this later, but another spelling earlier--ed.) Pg. 197: In organising a porter caravan, the first thing to be done was to secure the services of a native headman or _Mniapara_. (Not in the revised OED?--ed.) Pg. 210: The great armies of soldier ants, locally known by the name of _siafu_, cannot fail at some time or other to obtrude themselves on the notice of the resident in Africa. (OED has 1920 in brackets, then 1959--ed.) Pg. 245: _Cotton cloth_. It is generally known by the Swahili name of "_nguo_." The standard cloth was and is known as "Amerikani," and described in the trade as "grey sheeting." It was first introduced from the United States, hence its name. Pg. 246: A smaller unit was the "_mkono_," or the length of the forearm, thus eight "_mikono_" constitute a "_doti_." After the Amerikani, came cheaper and lighter types of unbleached cloths, such as "Bombei or Mombei" (Bombay). These, as the name implies, came from India; there was also a common rough cloth known as "_Shiti_;" these, however, never had a great vogue. "_Bafta_" is a finer bleached calico with a glaze on it, and it was useful for presents to chiefs and headmen; it is to-day mostly used for the long garment called the "_Kanzu_," worn by house servants and others. "_Kaniki_" is an indigo coloured cotton cloth packed in separate lengths and much favoured by women. "_Kangas_" are squares of thin cotton material with gaudy patterns roughly printed on them. They have still a great vogue among the native ladies on the coast, and the fashion changes according to the designs, well nigh monthly. They were very little used up-country in the old days. "_Bendera_" is the Swahili word for flag, and derives its name from the fact that it is the same colour as the flag of the Sultan of Zanzibar, viz. bright red. A small quantity was always carried, as it was appreciated by native headmen up-country, who liked either to make a turban of it or to drape it round their shoulders. "_Kikoi_" was a white cloth with a coloured border which was generally utilised for presents. There were different qualities, and the comparative values of each were well known. Pg. 246: _Beads_. (None of these are in the OED? I'll just list the names, if OED is interested--ed.) "_ushanga_" "_golabio_" "_maziwa_" (milk) "_maji bahari_" (sea-water) "_shadda_" Pg. 247: "_koja_" "_kikete_" "Mtinorok_" "_Ukuta_" "_Punda Milia_" (Swahili for zebra) "_Nsambia_" "_Bora_" The brass wire was called "_masanago_"... Its Swahili name was "_senengi_," and it was in great demand in Masailand for personal adornment. The thin iron chain called "_mkufu_"... They were called "_simbi_." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 03:09:31 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 22:09:31 -0500 Subject: Dill Pickle (1895); Neapolitan Ice Cream (1868) Message-ID: I was searching with the RLG Cultural Resources database. DILL PICKLE--The RLG shows a "Dill Pickle" song, about 1906. Merriam-Webster has 1904 for "dill pickle" and OED has 1906. It's found earlier in the NEW YORK TIMES, 14 December 1895, pg. 14: "Charles Sharpegger, Jr., importer of German dill pickles and manufacturer of sauerkraut, at 220 West Street." NEAPOLITAN ICE CREAM--M-W and OED have 1895. This is from the RLG database, which takes it from the Library of Congress's American Memory database (www.loc.gov): Neapolitan ice cream ... The subscriber takes this method to inform the lovers of rare confectionary, that he is manufacturing an entire new article of ice cream, which far surpasses anything in that line ever offered in this city ... E. S. Colton. [Boston 1868]. Colton, E. S. CREATED/PUBLISHED Boston, 1868. NOTES Printed Ephemera Collection; Portfolio 72, Folder 33a. SUBJECTS Advertisements--Massachusetts--Boston United States--Massachusetts--Boston. MEDIUM 1 p.; 20.5 x 14.5 cm. CALL NUMBER Portfolio 72, Folder 33a COLLECTION Broadsides, leaflets, and pamphlets from America and Europe DIGITAL ID rbpe 0720330a http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.0720330a From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 13 15:13:03 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:13:03 -0500 Subject: regime change Message-ID: Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? Regards, David From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Mon Jan 13 16:52:58 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (pipo) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:52:58 -0600 Subject: regime change Message-ID: Isn't it _euphemization_? The degree of odiousness or non-odiousness is relative. The direction of euphemizing is always from odiousness to non-odious, though. Something can be bettter than bad, but still not be good (despite most definitions of _better_ ). R. Spears ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barnhart" To: Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 9:13 AM Subject: regime change > Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by > substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of > replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? > > Regards, > David From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 13 17:04:07 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 12:04:07 -0500 Subject: regime change In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by >substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of >replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? > >Regards, >David What did Orwell call it? Newspeak? In Bushtalk, "regime change" seems to mean /assassination/, primarily, and /coup d'etat/ only as a second choice. A. Murie From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 17:36:39 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 12:36:39 EST Subject: All that jazz Message-ID: Those who want the most up-to-date, thorough, and definitive information on the origin of the American Dialect Society's Word of the 20th Century should turn to the Dec. 2002-Jan. 2003 issue of _Comments on Etymology_, edited and published by Gerald Cohen. This issue has 87 pages of the earliest citations (including many in facsimile) and commentary. Also a bibliography. You can read the primary sources and decide for yourself. The only way you can get this is by writing Cohen at Dept. of Applied Arts and Cultural Studies; University of Missouri-Rolla; Rolla, Missouri 65401. Subscriptions are $15 per year for individuals, $19 for libraries and institutions. - Allan Metcalf From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 13 18:10:37 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:10:37 -0800 Subject: regime change In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by > >substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of > >replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? > > > >Regards, > >David > > What did Orwell call it? Newspeak? > In Bushtalk, "regime change" seems to mean /assassination/, > primarily, and > /coup d'etat/ only as a second choice. > A. Murie The term is one that means different things to different people. "Regime change" means that the only acceptable political outcomes are those where Saddam Hussein (and his sons and cronies) are no longer in power. The mechanism is open (assassination, revolution, coup, Vuitton bag and Air France ticket, and the 82nd Airborne are all options) and the preferred alternative left for the audience to infer. Also, the term predates the Bush Administration, having been used to describe US policy toward Iraq since 1998 and has been used in other contexts prior to that. It is a euphemism, but it is also a generalization that comprises a number of alternatives. Such phrasings are common in political-diplomatic contexts, allowing for the widest possible agreement with each party interpreting it slightly differently. I don't think there is a particular term for this, "obfuscation" isn't quite right. From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 13 19:13:20 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 14:13:20 -0500 Subject: All that jazz In-Reply-To: <72.28b63962.2b545327@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Those who want the most up-to-date, thorough, and definitive information on >the origin of the American Dialect Society's Word of the 20th Century should >turn to the Dec. 2002-Jan. 2003 issue of _Comments on Etymology_, edited and >published by Gerald Cohen. This issue has 87 pages of the earliest citations >(including many in facsimile) and commentary. Also a bibliography. You can >read the primary sources and decide for yourself. What is the word? Bethany From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 20:18:37 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:18:37 EST Subject: All that jazz Message-ID: << What is the word? >> Jazz. - Allan Metcalf From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 13 20:22:52 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:22:52 -0500 Subject: All that jazz In-Reply-To: <49.295ff228.2b54791d@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: ><< What is the word? >> > >Jazz. Thanks, Bethany From ReesA at UWYO.EDU Mon Jan 13 20:39:00 2003 From: ReesA at UWYO.EDU (Amanda Rees) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:39:00 -0700 Subject: Call For Participation: Great Plains Linguists and Literarians Message-ID: Call for Great Plains Scholars: I am presently editing a text on the Great Plains as part of an eight-volume American regional culture series to be published by Greenwood Press in 2004. This series is designed to be the definitive reference for American regionalism for years to come and works to establish as sense of place for the each region by exploring themes such as: Architecture, Arts, Ecology and the Environment, Ethnicity, Fashion, Film, Folklore, Food, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Religion, and Sports and Recreation. This Great Plains text will offer an accessible overview of each theme and its role within the region in order to provide a comprehensive sense of Great Plains culture. Our core audience will be high school and university students as well as public library patrons. I am looking for authors to assign the Linguistics and the Literature chapters. Word Length: 15,000 and bibliography Deadline: August 1st 2003 Illustrations and primary documents encouraged If you are interested in being a part of this exciting opportunity to articulate a sense of place for the Great Plains please submit your curriculum vitae for consideration to Amanda Rees at reesa at uwyo.edu indicating the chapter you are interested in writing. (Please note this is NOT a call for the submission of articles.) Amanda Rees Ph.D. Department of Geography and Recreation University of Wyoming PO Box 3371 Laramie Wyoming 82071-3371 E-mail: reesa at uwyo.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 13 21:01:09 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 16:01:09 -0500 Subject: Blue laws In-Reply-To: <3DF72298.27869.9FD5BA@localhost> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Michael Quinion wrote: > The following appears on a web site devoted to the rebuttal of > hoaxes (www.museumofhoaxes.com/bluelaws.html): "The term 'Blue > Laws' describes laws that regulate public morality. The phrase was > first used in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1762 titled 'The > Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy, Especially in > the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England'". This - if > correct - predates the usual first citation in the Reverend Samuel > Peters' work of 1782 entitled "A General History of Connecticut". I looked at the book in question, and it does indeed antedate the OED's 1781 first use: 1762 Noah Welles _The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy Especially in the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England_ 29 I have heard that some of them [polite gentlemen] begin to be ashamed of their blue laws at _New-Haven_. In a quick skimming of the book, the above was the only usage of _blue laws_ I saw. Unfortunately, there is nothing shedding light on the etymology, i.e., why are these laws "blue." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 22:21:33 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 17:21:33 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation Message-ID: SANDWICH GENERATION The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich generation." "Club sandwich" is not defined and my work is not mentioned. This is simply a spin-off of "sandwich generation," which Wordspy traces to the TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL of May 18, 1978, from the NEW YORK TIMES (that article is 10 May 1978, pg. C1). This (1974) is from OCLC WORLDCAT: Title: Coping with aged parents Corp Author(s): Hospital Satellite Network. ; Primark Corporation. ; Domus Design Studio, Inc. Publication: [Los Angeles, Calif.] :; Hospital Satellite Network, Year: 1974 Description: 1 videocassette (60 min.) :; sd., col. ;; 1/2 in. Language: English Abstract: Dr. T. Franklin Williams punctures some of the myths and describes stresses associated with growing old. He addresses the challenges of the "sandwich generation"; middle-aged people caught between raising their own children and caring for aging parents. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Aging parents. System Info: VHS. Note(s): Presented by Primark Corporation. Responsibility: producer, Arna Vodenos ; director, Mark Marqua ; a Domus Design Studio, Inc., Production. Photography, Bill Stafford. Material Type: Projected image (pgr); Videorecording (vid); VHS tape (vhs) Document Type: Visual Material Entry: 19880107 Update: 20020817 Accession No: OCLC: 17315744 Database: WorldCat --------------------------------------------------------------- "BIG APPLE" BITES Timothy "Speed" Levitch, a quirky, when-he's-in-the-mood-for-working NYC tour guide, got a small measure of fame when an independent feature film was made about his life. He's appeared on the Conan O'Brien show several times, and many other tv shows--something that's never happened to me. Conan likes the fact that Levitch is a nutjob. His unpublishable book was finally published. SPEEDOLOGY: SPEED ON NEW YORK ON SPEED by Timothy "Speed" Levitch New York: Context Books 2002 Pg. 17: Jazz musicians in the Depression era referred to New York City as the "Big Apple" on their concert tour itineraries that were filled with cities they called apples. All the cities they visited and serenaded provided for them life, knowledge, and juiciness, but New York City was the juiciest, most incredible fiasco. When I left on vacation, I read the FINANCIAL TIMES on the airplane. A letter to the editor stated that New York City had won the American 2012 Olympics bid because everyone felt sorry for it. This wasn't true, so I wrote a letter to the FT editor. New York City, as the Olympic comittee had stated, won the bid on the merits. I added that New York City is my home, that I'm the person who solved the Big Apple, and that I welcome the Olympics to the Big Apple in 2012. (The apple could be used for the Olympic rings symbol.) When I got home late on Saturday night, I saw that the FT had left a message on my answering machine. The line "solved the Big Apple" didn't make any sense to them. It would be taken out of my letter. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 14 02:30:56 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 20:30:56 -0600 Subject: All that jazz Message-ID: My thanks to Allan Metcalf for his kind words. I hasten to add that the "jazz" treatment represents the work of many scholars, and that I give due credit throughout the issue. These include ads-l members Barry Popik, Rudolph Troike, Jan Ivarsson, Paul Johnson, Jesse Sheidlower, George Thompson, Douglas Wilson' pioneering researchers of the term "jazz" Peter Tamony and Dick Holbrook; David Shulman for his refutation of the 1909 attestation; Bruce Vermazen for his work on Art Hickman (would anyone have Bruce Vermazen's e-mail address?). I recently noticed a March 30, 2001 e-mail from Gareth Branwyn, which should have been included. I'll have it appear in the next rewrite of the treatment. This is an ongoing project. The above list is not complete, but it helps illustrate that the present project is very much a team effort. Gerald Cohen >At 12:36 PM -0500 1/13/03, AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Those who want the most up-to-date, thorough, and definitive information on >the origin of the American Dialect Society's Word of the 20th Century should >turn to the Dec. 2002-Jan. 2003 issue of _Comments on Etymology_, edited and >published by Gerald Cohen. This issue has 87 pages of the earliest citations >(including many in facsimile) and commentary. Also a bibliography. You can >read the primary sources and decide for yourself. > >The only way you can get this is by writing Cohen at Dept. of Applied Arts >and Cultural Studies; University of Missouri-Rolla; Rolla, Missouri 65401. >Subscriptions are $15 per year for individuals, $19 for libraries and >institutions. > >- Allan Metcalf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 06:25:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 01:25:52 EST Subject: Swahili Slang (1958, 1962); Swahili Glossary (1896) Message-ID: A pre-LION KING "Hakuna Matata" isn't here, but it's still interesting. Some (mostly food) excerpts from two articles: December 1958, TANGANYIKA NOTES AND RECORDS, pp. 250-254. SWAHILI SLANG by R. H. Glover. Pg. 251: Amongst the names given to various types of food, there is a noticeable liking for reduplication which serves to give the impression of succulent deliciousness. "Mapochopocho" is used for food in general. It is often used in pleasureable anticipation when someone goes off to look for food at the end of a tiring day. "Shatashata" is used for any particularly sweet food. Shata is the lees of coconut oil in which such food would normally be cooked. A similar reduplication can be seen in "mchuzi wa rojorojo" which means particularly thick gravy. A descriptive phrase for this sort of gravy is "mchuzi wa kukata na shoka" which indicates that the gravy is so thick that you would require an axe to cut through it. This inevitably reminds one of the Army cup of strong tea in which you could stand up a teaspoon. Pg. 253: It is perhaps not surprising that the richest variety of slang is used in relation to women. Much of it hardly bears recording here. A desirable woman is known variously as a "koo," "mchipukizi," "gashi," "mtoto shoo" or "toto shuuweya." The word "koo" is generally used when referring to prostitutes. Mchipukizi is derived from the verb "kuchipua"--to sprout; it is used particularly to describe a young girl, but carries with it an implication of plumpness. "Gashi" is a corruption from the Japanese "Gaisha." It is thought to have originated in coastal ports amongst the guides taking round tourists. "Shoo" is also used to describe the bonnet of a car--the manufacturer's show piece. Its use in the present context is readily understandable. (...) "Mchakalamu" is used to describe a forward girl--one who is quick at repartee. The derivation is from the noun "kalamu"--a pencil, i.e. she is as sharp as a pencil. The phrase "maziwa dodo" is used to describe a young woman's breasts. "Dodo" is also used for the largest of the two types of mango. The smaller variety is known as sindano--literally a needle. There is an odd contradiction in this as "dodo" is also an adjectival root that appears in many Bantu languages and means small. (Mango?..Compare with the Cuban slang for papaya--ed.) Mach-September 1962, TANGANYIKA NOTES AND RECORDS, pp. 205-206. A NOTE ON SCHOOL SLANG by P. H. C. Clarke Pg. 205: "Discus" and "Javelin" are round and long _maandazi_ (small fried cakes of wheat flour and sugar) sold by local women at the school. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY: BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO MOUNT KENYA AND LAKE BARINGO by J. W. Gregory London: Frank Cass & Co. First edition 1896 New impression 1968 Pg. 409: GLOSSARY OF NATIVE WORDS AND TECHNICAL TERMS (I'll list just the Swahili--ed.) _Askari_ (Suah.), a sergeant in a caravan of Zanzibari. _Barra_ (Suah.), open-grass-covered country, in contradistinction to cultivated areas and forests. _Boma_ (Suah.), a stockade or zeriba, generally made of thorn bush. _Bwana_ (Suah.), master. _Domo_ (Suah.), a door, used also by Zanzibari for a mountain pass. _Hongo_ (Suah.), taz levied by a tribe for right of passage through the country. _Kanzu_ (Suah.), the long rober worn by Arabs and better-class Suahili. _Kiringozi_ (Suah.), the guide of a caravan. _Kiriboto_ (Suah.), the name of the Arab and Beluchi soldiers of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Pg. 410: _Mau_ (Suah.), a canoe. _Mhogo_ (Suah.), cassava, the root of native arrowroot. _Munipara_ (Suah.), a native headman. _Mvita_ (Suah.), one of the native names of Mombasa. The term means "battle." _Posho_ (Suah.), a day's food allowance. _Potiss_ (Suah.), a native food made of boiled flour. _Safari_ (Suah.), a journey or a caravan. _Shadda_ (Suah.), ten strings of beads, a Suahili measure of value. _Shamba_ (Suah.), a plantation or cultivated field. _Shauri_ (Suah.), a conference. _Taenda_ (Suah.), the order to "start." _Waschenzi_ (Suah.), a term applied by Zanzibari to up-country natives. It means "savages." It is sometimes used in a more limited sense for a tribe near Bagamoyo. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 16:15:31 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:15:31 -0500 Subject: Blue laws In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:01 PM -0500 1/13/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Michael Quinion wrote: > >> The following appears on a web site devoted to the rebuttal of >> hoaxes (www.museumofhoaxes.com/bluelaws.html): "The term 'Blue >> Laws' describes laws that regulate public morality. The phrase was >> first used in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1762 titled 'The >> Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy, Especially in >> the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England'". This - if >> correct - predates the usual first citation in the Reverend Samuel >> Peters' work of 1782 entitled "A General History of Connecticut". > >I looked at the book in question, and it does indeed antedate the OED's >1781 first use: > >1762 Noah Welles _The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy >Especially in the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England_ 29 I >have heard that some of them [polite gentlemen] begin to be ashamed of >their blue laws at _New-Haven_. > So even if we can't claim the first pizza (from Pepe's) or hamburgers (from Louis' Lunch), we still have priority on (hot) dogs, frisbees, and blue laws. (I think there might have been other firsts that Barry found in the Yale Record, but I can't recall them at the moment.) We still can't buy beer (or anything else alcoholic) on Sundays, and the supermarkets put discreet sheets to shield the beer from sight so we can't even THINK about buying (or presumably drinking) it. (No alcohol sales after 8p.m. in New Haven, or the rest of Connecticut, either, but I'm not sure whether that counts as a blue law--for me, the term is just applicable to Sunday laws.) Other (non-alcohol-related) blue laws are no longer in effect, and bars are open on Sunday (especially during football season). Larry P.S. I recall that decades ago stores larger than some specified size were not allowed to be open on Sundays, and that these "blue laws" were kept in force by the smaller mom-and-pop stores that could stay in business by virtue [no pun intended] of these blue laws, but I guess eventually the larger stores threw their economic muscle around and had the regulations repealed, here and in other eastern states. -- From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 16:37:33 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:37:33 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation In-Reply-To: <06876A62.5CD234DB.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: >SANDWICH GENERATION > > The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich >generation." "Club sandwich" is not defined and my work is not >mentioned. > This is simply a spin-off of "sandwich generation," which Wordspy >traces to the TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL of May 18, 1978, from the NEW >YORK TIMES (that article is 10 May 1978, pg. C1). If I were to be considered a member of the sandwich generation, I'd make sure I had access to the alternatives to club sandwiches featured on a wonderful PBS show some of you may have caught the other night. It was sort of an American Tongue(s) Sandwich show, covering regional specialties ranging from the pastramis of Katz's Deli on New York's lower East Side to the Muffulettas and Po' Boys of New Orleans to some other delicious looking concoctions in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and elsewhere. (I think I'll take a pass on Louisville's Hot Brown, unless it's better than it looks and sounds--dInIs?) Somehow, talking about their regional specialties really seemed to accentuate the regional dialects of the speakers (sandwich preparers and eaters) involved. It's worth recording for class use if they replay it. Larry -- From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 16:58:10 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:58:10 EST Subject: Sandwich Generation Message-ID: In a message dated 1/14/03 11:36:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich > >generation." If "sandwich generation" refers to people sandwiched in between caring for their children and caring for their parents, then I am baffled what "club sandwich generation" might refer to, since a "club sandwich" has three slices of bread and two layers of filling. >. (I think I'll take a pass on Louisville's Hot Brown I have a vague recollection that the name refers not to the appearance of the dish but rather to its having been originated in Louisville's Brown Hotel. - Jim Landau From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 14 17:01:47 2003 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 09:01:47 -0800 Subject: Blue laws In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > P.S. I recall that decades ago stores larger than > some specified > size were not allowed to be open on Sundays, and > that these "blue > laws" were kept in force by the smaller mom-and-pop > stores that could > stay in business by virtue [no pun intended] of > these blue laws, but > I guess eventually the larger stores threw their > economic muscle > around and had the regulations repealed, here and in > other eastern > states. > -- In Bergen county, NJ--home of Paramus--there are general "no shopping" blue laws so that no stores are suppposed to be open on Sunday. However, some stores open anyway. I've heard the fine is only $25.00. These laws stay on the books apparently because residents want them to keep traffic down. It's almost impossible to get anywhere on 17 on a Saturday in a reasonable amount of time. Ed __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 17:16:26 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 12:16:26 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation In-Reply-To: <8.32bc4cd9.2b559ba2@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:58 AM -0500 1/14/03, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 1/14/03 11:36:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, >laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > >. (I think I'll take a pass on Louisville's Hot Brown > >I have a vague recollection that the name refers not to the appearance of the >dish but rather to its having been originated in Louisville's Brown Hotel. > Indeed, that connection was stressed, and the sandwich itself was white. But not terribly appealing, in my view, whatever the color. Especially compared with the competition from Pittsburgh and New Orleans. -- From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 14 19:44:00 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:44:00 -0800 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: <1086044.1042551303@dhcp-073-091.ellis.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: > 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' > instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned > that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on > accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just > NW? > _________________________________________ If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 14 19:47:37 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:47:37 -0800 Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: David: > 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" > was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned > Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. > Any insight from the group? > 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' > instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned > that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on > accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just > NW? I don't know if "on accident" is specifically West Coast or Pacific NW, but I *do* know it's been around for a while. My daughter used to say "on accident" all the time when she was growing up. I think she still does. And she lives in California now. Anne G From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 14 18:35:03 2003 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 13:35:03 -0500 Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. Any insight from the group? 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just NW? _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 14 19:55:57 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 14:55:57 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And he is to appear again to defend the ADS selections against the recommendations "The Next Big Thing" people have got from their audience. dInIs PS: Gracefully? Thanks. Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big Thing"? Or are people suffocating under the avalanche of counter proposals for the WOTY submitted by the listeners to that program? It came on on the heels of NPR's ATC here last night. When I heard ADS mentioned in the headlines, I left it running, and by golly, there was dInIs submitting gracefully to a ribbing over "weapons of mass destruction." Incredulity was expressed at the choice of WMD over the also-nominated "to google." Target audience, what? 15-25? A. Murie From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Tue Jan 14 19:53:29 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 13:53:29 -0600 Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: Thos are two of the idiolectal oddities I first noticed in a very close college friend from Southern Michigan, when I first met him at our MN college (I grew up in St Paul). They both threw me to some extent, but the second much more than the first. I doubt the f**king-a one is specific to the NE, though I suppose it is possible it could have started there over fifty years ago? Two more oddities in his speech and that of others that I first encountered in college are the "positive anymore" ("We all do it that way anymore."), and "all of a suddenly", instead of either "all of a sudden" or "suddenly". I would have written off this latter one to misspeaking, but he used it with extreme consistency, and still does almost fifteen years later. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bergdahl" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 12:35 PM Subject: F**king-A and on accident > 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" > was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned > Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. > Any insight from the group? > 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' > instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned > that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on > accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just > NW? > _________________________________________ > "We are all New Yorkers" > --Dominique Moisi > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 14 19:29:25 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 14:29:25 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio Message-ID: Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big Thing"? Or are people suffocating under the avalanche of counter proposals for the WOTY submitted by the listeners to that program? It came on on the heels of NPR's ATC here last night. When I heard ADS mentioned in the headlines, I left it running, and by golly, there was dInIs submitting gracefully to a ribbing over "weapons of mass destruction." Incredulity was expressed at the choice of WMD over the also-nominated "to google." Target audience, what? 15-25? A. Murie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 20:05:31 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 15:05:31 -0500 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:44 AM -0800 1/14/03, A. Maberry wrote: >On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: >> 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' >> instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned >> that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on >> accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just >> NW? >> _________________________________________ > >If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. >I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on >accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have >moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might >hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. > Yes, we talked about this a coon's age (or maybe even donkey's years) ago, and concluded, or at least some of us did, that it was more a generational thing than a regional one. Kids say "on accident" a whole lot, I assume by analogy with "on purpose". Maybe more Northwesterners (or emigres to the NW) are forever young and retain the usage longer. L -- From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Tue Jan 14 20:52:53 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 15:52:53 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation Message-ID: In the sandwich part of "sandwich generation," the two layers of bread represent a person's children and parents, while the filling represents the person. In "club sandwich generation" (also called "triple decker generation"), the third slice of bread represents the person's grandchildren. The multiple layers of filling still represent the person (perhaps suggesting, not to put too fine a point on it, the multiple responsibilities such a person incurs). Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "James A. Landau" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 11:58 AM Subject: Re: Sandwich Generation > In a message dated 1/14/03 11:36:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, > laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > > > The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich > > >generation." > > If "sandwich generation" refers to people sandwiched in between caring for > their children and caring for their parents, then I am baffled what "club > sandwich generation" might refer to, since a "club sandwich" has three slices > of bread and two layers of filling. From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 22:10:11 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 17:10:11 EST Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: My impression, when I first heard F**cking-A at Columbia in the late 60s, was that it was short for "F**cking-Ass." Never heard any connection to Flying-A, nor did I make such a connection, even though I was familiar with Flying-A gasoline. That was in fact a well-known Northeast brand of the Tidewater Oil Co. Steve Boatti From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Tue Jan 14 22:47:56 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 14:47:56 -0800 Subject: F**king-A and on accident In-Reply-To: <1086044.1042551303@dhcp-073-091.ellis.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I've never heard 'on accident' here in Vancouver, nor in Seattle perhaps this is prevalent only in a specific age group? An age group that goes to a school where some teachers don't correct obvious grammatical mistakes ;) When I read 'I went to the wrong classroom on accident' I feel that this implies 'to make it look by accident, but it was premeditated' cheers from sunny and warm Vancouver BC, Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of David Bergdahl Sent: January 14, 2003 10:35 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: F**king-A and on accident 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. Any insight from the group? 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just NW? _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 23:11:09 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 18:11:09 EST Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: Perhaps some people use "on accident" by analogy to "on purpose." Steve Boatti From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 14 23:34:12 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 15:34:12 -0800 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 11:44 AM -0800 "A. Maberry" wrote: > On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: >> 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' >> instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I >> mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong >> classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it >> west coast or just NW? >> _________________________________________ > > If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. > I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on > accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have > moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might > hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu I haven't heard it, either, and I think it would have got my attention if I had. Yes, maybe it's all them furriners that's been a-movin' up from California. Or maybe it's a new usage among the young, and Allen and I have never heard it because we only talk with troglodytes like ourselves. (Oops--'scuse me, Allen. I meant to say, "like MYself.") Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Jan 15 01:02:25 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 20:02:25 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. --Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bergdahl" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 1:35 PM Subject: F**king-A and on accident 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. Any insight from the group? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 02:46:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 21:46:16 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: Early English Books Online has been available for a while now. I've been waiting, and I checked the NYPL's databases today. EEBO is now full-text searchable! However, I wouldn't rely on it. Spellings can vary, as will be seen below. If you see a book of interest, it's probably going to be short, anyway. Read the whole thing! Especially if it's a cookbook and it has a recipe index. Here are two terms. MAIDES OF HONOR The revised OED has 1595. Is it Maid of Honour, or Maid of Honor, or Maids of Honor, or Maids of Honour, or Maides of Honour, or Maides of Honor...? It is also the name of a food. EEBO has it from Robert Greene (1558?-1592), EUPHUES HIS CENSURE TO PHILAUTUS (1587), "next morning one of her maides of honor being stricktlie examined, confssed that..." HIGH HOLY DAYES Jim Landau wrote that this is not in the OED. Landau submitted 1923. EEBO has Alexander Goughe, THE QUEEN (1653), "or at a feast upon high holy dayes, three red Sprats in a dish..." LITERATURE ONLINE has Thomas D'Urfey, THE RISE AND FALL OF MASSANIELLO, part ii (1700), "...that your Ladyship reserves for high Holy-days..." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 03:18:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:18:41 EST Subject: Twang-and-Bang Message-ID: Terri Clark's latest studio release, the earthy "Pain to Kill," is full of twang 'n' bang. --NEW YORK POST, 14 January 2003, pg. 54. Like "rock 'n' roll," only countrified. It's been said of Shania Twain and Faith Hill, and now of Terri Clark. Can a guy "twang-and-bang"? There aren't a whole lot of hits just yet, but this is from Google Groups: From: RKerseyJr (rkerseyjr at aol.com) Subject: Re: Shania & Faith in "EW"! View: Complete Thread (43 articles) Original Format Newsgroups: rec.music.country.western Date: 2002-09-15 11:16:53 PST The print of the copy of the Shania article is kind of small.Here's what the whole thing says:THE HOOK In praise of the tortoise: While Eminem was spouting off about hismother and Britney was writhing with serpents, the top-knotted and flat-tummied queen of country-pop crossover has been quietly shoring up her strength as a commercial colossus. Shania’s last album, 1997’ s Come On Over, has sold 19 million copies in the U.S. alone, tying it for the sixth hugest album inAmerican music history. Still for the past two years or so, fans haven’theard a peep; In 1999 Twain and her husband/producer, the reclusive power-riff warlock Robert John “Mutt” Lange, moved to a chateau in Switzerland (yes,Switzerland), where they had a baby (son Eja) and tinkered away at their next twang-and-bang manifesto. From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 03:52:44 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:52:44 EST Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: A Chairde: I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words Áth (pronounced Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and béal (pron. beeul), for the mouth of a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. Big Apple Big Áth Béal Big Crossing at the Mouth (of the Rivers) New York City. Áth: Ford; a river crossing. Béal: Mouth (of a river). +++ Belfast: Béal Feirste: Mouth of the Farset River; or approach to the sandbank/river Farset. Béal can also mean “approach to a river crossing place ” as well as the "mouth" of a river or a person. Dublin: Baile Átha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles (of the Liffey river). New York: The Big Áth Béal: The Big Ford (at the) Mouth (of the Hudson and East rivers). New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the Irish names for Belfast and Dublin, Áth and Béal. The "Big" came naturally. A significant number of the millions of Irish speaking immigrants who came through The Big Apple, over the past five hundred years, were bilingual in Irish and Hiberno-English. +++ The Big Onion is another Irish monicker for NYC. The Big Onion The Big Anonn (to an ear that hears in English, it sounds like onion) Anonn  Over, to the other side. Anonn thar abhainn, over, to the other side of, the river. Anonn go Meiriceá, over to America Anonn go Bhig Áth Béil ... came my own family from the Irish Gaeltacht. I would welcome feedback. These etymologies are part of a project I have just completed involving the Irish and Gaelic languages in North America. I am a new list member and the director of the Irish Studies Program at New College of California in San Francisco. I am publishing a series of articles this spring and summer and would like to correspond with people who have an interest in the NYC dialect, particularly the old north Brooklyn dialect. My other native tongue. Slan agus Beannachtai, Daniel Cassidy Director An Léann Éireannach The Irish Studies Program New College of California San Francisco From monickels at MAC.COM Wed Jan 15 04:32:13 2003 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 23:32:13 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Le Tuesday, 14 Jan 2003, à 14:29 America/New_York, sagehen a écrit : > Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big > Thing"? I didn't hear it this week. Was that the slot normally occupied by Erin McKean? From monickels at MAC.COM Wed Jan 15 04:34:47 2003 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 23:34:47 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Le Tuesday, 14 Jan 2003, à 14:55 America/New_York, Dennis R. Preston a écrit : > And he is to appear again to defend the ADS selections against the > recommendations "The Next Big Thing" people have got from their > audience. PS: The first episode is available on The Next Big Thing web site in RealAudio format: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/tnbt/episodes/01122003/ From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 05:17:14 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:17:14 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/14/03 8:02:15 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: > I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. > I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). > > In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, > "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII.  But those "60+" NE'ders weren't > around in WWII to know that, were they?  They probably associate the two > because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. > > --Sam Clements > I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my life heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. The full phrase from the 1950s Iowa high school I attended was "Fuck-an-A John!" This meant about what "Right on!" meant in the 1970s, and translates roughly into what I hear as "Damn Straight" today. From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 15 06:13:33 2003 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 01:13:33 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_F**king-A?= In-Reply-To: <42.33a246f4.2b5648da@aol.com> Message-ID: Ron et al, Take a look at the movie adaptation of _The Right Stuff_. The phrase is a favorite of Gus Grissom's, as portrayed by Fred Ward. The final "g" is not there, but it's seems pretty clear that he's saying "Fuckin'-A, brother!" in one moment of solidarity with his Mercury Astronaut peers. I'd check in my copy of Wolfe's original text, but I think my brother has it. Fuckin'-A! As for the translation, yeah, "damn, straight," or "Hell, yeah" or any equivalent seems correct. Cheers, Bob On Wednesday, January 15, 2003, at 12:17 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my > life > heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. The full phrase > from the > 1950s Iowa high school I attended was "Fuck-an-A John!" This meant > about what > "Right on!" meant in the 1970s, and translates roughly into what I > hear as > "Damn Straight" today. "Wherever you go, there you are." Bob Haas Department of English High Point University From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 15 07:39:10 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 02:39:10 -0500 Subject: on accident Message-ID: >maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU,Net writes: >If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. >I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on >accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people >have >moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might >hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu Yes, it did come up a couple of years ago. The first reference in the archives is this from 2000: This morning an AP story on the Simpsons, reprinted in our student newspaper, contained the following description of Maggie Simpson: "Perpetual infant best known for shooting Monty Burns, on accident." I had first heard the phrase "on accident" in the early '80s from my son, then 12 or so. It struck me then as formed on the analogy of "on purpose", (although why that wouldn't have change to "by purpose" on analogy to "by accident" I can't imagine). Today was the first time I'd seen it in print, and the timing was perfect since I was talking to my HEL class today about analogic change. The students in the class are all Midwestern, white, and in their early twenties. I asked how many would normally say "on accident" and nearly every hand went up, About 3/4 of them said they would never say "by accident" and some weren't even familiar with it. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (1989) has entries for "accidentally" and "on" but not "on accident." I've just done a search of the ADS-L archives for the phrase and didn't come up with anything. On the basis of my limited experience, then, I'd guess that the change started in the Midwest (we moved to Indiana from Atlanta in 1980 and my children didn't say "on accident" before that) in the late 70s to early 80s and has pretty much taken over in this population. Does anyone know of other references to the phrase, its sources and its spread? Herb Stahlke AND I have been following the ADS discussion of 'on accident' with some interest since I have been studying it for the past several years and am in the process of writing up a paper on it. I have data collected in Indiana, Michigan, and California, with speakers of all ages and actually from many different states. There is definitely an age correlation in both usage and acceptance, and I have found it in every region studied so far, but I can't give all the details here. Because of the discussion, I am going to run it in Georgia too. I have been trying to get the analysis done over the past week since everyone started discussing it and will attempt to have it out this spring. Leslie Barratt ejlesbb at root.indstate.edu Indiana State University AND Ron Butters said: > > I just asked two guys from Chicago about this (one is actually from central > Micihgan, age about 30; the other is 40). > > They are both aware of BOTH usages and seem to find a semantic distinction > between them: BY ACCIDENT means "unintentionally" in a broad sense; ON > ACCIDENT refers to some physical incident in which someone is culpible: BY > ACCIDENT I CAME ACROSS SOME FAMILY JEWELS HIDDENT IN A WALL but ON ACCIDENT I > TIPPED OVER THE DRINK. > This sounds absolutely right to me. I think it further underscores the relation to 'on purpose', since the kinds of things that get done 'on acci- dent' can also get done 'on purpose', but those that happen 'by accident' can't necessarily _happen_ 'on purpose'. Lynne Just to cite a couple. Regards, David Barnhart From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 15 07:45:01 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 02:45:01 -0500 Subject: on accident Message-ID: Darn it! I pushed the send button before I meant to. My own reply to this is here: _by accident_ is sufficiently transparent (i.e. non-idiomatic) to be used by W3 in its definition 2 of _accidentally_. _by accident_ is not entered in dictionaries generally: W3, W2, Encarta, CD, _by accident_ is, however, an entry in WBD, _by accident_ is in a sentence in the appropriate definition in Random House, OED, AHD, The print examples in my collection are from west of the Mississippi R. When I searched _on accident_ on www if found that the examples were more numerous than in print resources of Nexis. Is this grounds for considering it generational? Following are some examples of _on accident_: A store clerk working when Moya was killed said a man who had been in the store with Moya ran back inside after the shooting and yelled: ?I just shot my friend on accident.? Daniel J. Chacon, ?Police Seek to Question Man,? The Santa Fe New Mexican (Nexis), Jan. 3, 2000, p A-1 The team traveled all over Southern California, playing against winter league teams and colleges such as Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Los Angeles. [James] Ferguson allowed one hit in three innings against USC. ?Playing against those college guys gave me a lot more confidence,? he said. ?I felt that now, if there was any big situation or tough games, I would have the ability to go out there and win. I knew I wasn't just going out there, hoping for luck, and maybe win on accident. And after that, it (this season) was pretty much a piece of cake.? Barbie Ludovise, ?A Loss Becomes A Lesson; Servite?s [a high school] Ferguson Wasn?t Stalled By Rocky Start,? Los Angeles Times (Nexis), May 4, 1987, Sports sect., p 13 A borg dron is created on accident and matures from baby to adult. Seven begins instructing him to be an individual, however the Collective is alerted to his presence. ?Season Five of Star Trek Voyager,? www.geocities.com/TelevisionCitys/7557/season five.html Regards, David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 15 12:22:37 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:22:37 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <001701c2bc31$c4d7eda0$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >I grew up as culturally distant from New England as one can get in >Americaa (Louisville, KY), and I was a "fucking-a" user by 1946 or >so. Us Louisville kids had no doubts that the "a" was "ass-hole." dInIs >I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. >I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). > >In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, >"Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't >around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two >because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. > >--Sam Clements > > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "David Bergdahl" >To: >Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 1:35 PM >Subject: F**king-A and on accident > > > 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" > was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned > Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. > Any insight from the group? -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 15 12:24:56 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:24:56 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: <517B8BBE-2842-11D7-BC99-000A9567113C@mac.com> Message-ID: Yes, and I'll be there again next week taking on all comers from the public who want to dump the ADS word-of-the-year and propose one of their won. (The very idea). dInIs >Le Tuesday, 14 Jan 2003, à 14:29 America/New_York, sagehen a écrit : > >>Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big >>Thing"? > >I didn't hear it this week. Was that the slot normally occupied by Erin >McKean? -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 15 12:32:08 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:32:08 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <42.33a246f4.2b5648da@aol.com> Message-ID: I wonder how many times any of us have heard "fucking" with the velar nasal? I find it hard to do. (Just like "fishing"; I go "fishin," commercial fishermen go "fishing." Actually, guys who dress up in funnly pants-boots and hats and use big ol long skinny poles to catch trout also go "fishing" in my speech.) I suppose "fucking a's" pronunciation with an alveolar could cause those given to alveolar pronunciations in general to folk etymologize it. On the other hand, us alveolarizers could be said to have folk etymologized for the same reason. I fact, the sense ("you bet," or "damn straight") is absolutely right in my speech, and leads one to hypothesize that "fucking" simply plays the role of an intensifier (as it so often does) and "A" is not (as us kids had it) "ass-hole" at all, but from the collection of "A" expression like "A number one" (first class), etc... . An interesting proposal. dInIs >In a message dated 1/14/03 8:02:15 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: > > >> I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. >> I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). >> >> In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, >> "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't >> around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two >> because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. >> >> --Sam Clements >> > >I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my life >heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. The full phrase from the >1950s Iowa high school I attended was "Fuck-an-A John!" This meant about what >"Right on!" meant in the 1970s, and translates roughly into what I hear as >"Damn Straight" today. -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 12:36:36 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:36:36 EST Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: Ah, no. Not at all. Not even close. This is all a joke, isn't it? A bad dream, perhaps? Barry Popik, wondering how Allen Walker Read put up with all the "OK" stuff that was not "OK" From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 15 13:14:43 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:14:43 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion In-Reply-To: <14d.1a4aa521.2b56350c@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Daniel Cassidy wrote: I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words Áth (pronounced Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and béal (pron. beeul), for the mouth of a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. *** Is this what is known as "trolling"? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Wed Jan 15 13:27:42 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:27:42 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There are various stories about the "A". "Aye" has somewhat the right sense but I find it phonetically unlikely (perhaps a case could be made for a variant of the "ayup" Stephen-King type?). "All-right", "A-one", etc., don't have the usual sense, which I believe is or was basically "f*cking A" = "[that's] right" (NOT "that's great" or so). "Arsehole" etc. would be just nonsense (not necessarily impossible though!). My own conjecture is that the "A" was originally "amen" ... *possibly* with "F*cking amen!" = "Amen" [intensified]/"That's right"/"I agree" reanalyzed as "F*cking A, men!" (in a military setting) or "F*cking A, man!" by (maybe less religiously inclined?) listeners. This conjecture may not be provable, but it seems to me so natural that I presume somebody has presented it before (but I haven't seen it AFAIK). -- Doug Wilson From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Wed Jan 15 13:52:44 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (pipo) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:52:44 -0600 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: I haven't seen it mentioned, but the period of use of _f**king-A_ corresponds nicely with _Abso-f**king-lutely_, and it has the same meaning and patterns of use. R. Spears ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 7:27 AM Subject: Re: F**king-A > > My own conjecture is that the "A" was originally "amen" ... *possibly* with > "F*cking amen!" = "Amen" [intensified]/"That's right"/"I agree" reanalyzed > as "F*cking A, men!" (in a military setting) or "F*cking A, man!" by (maybe > less religiously inclined?) listeners. This conjecture may not be provable, > but it seems to me so natural that I presume somebody has presented it > before (but I haven't seen it AFAIK). > > -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 14:09:05 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:09:05 EST Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." In this version, there is no pause between "A" and "John"; John is the highest in pitch with a fall at the end. So intonationally, the utterance must mean 'John, you [do] fuck an A', it can't mean 'You [are a] fucking A, John," (i.e., the schwa+nasal could not possibly be {-ing}). Of course, I suppose that "You fuck an A John!" could be a back formation from "Fucking A," but the fact that Iowa schoolboys in the mid-1950s regularly used the "full" form indicates that a lot of us analyzed the phrase as pseudoimperative, not participial. (By the way, I don't have any trouble saying FUCKING with a velar nasal. In fact, In would HAVE TO use a velar nasal in a sentence such as "I don't believe it, Miss Pringle gave me a fucking A on my mental health paper.") I never really speculated about what "A" meant, though I don't think that 'Amen!" would have made much sense to me, despite Doug Wilson's conjecture. Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" And the reanalysis of "Amen" to "A, men" seems highly implausible. 'Asshole' would have made perfect sense to me, however: 'You fuck an asshole John!' (when thought of in the context of adolescent male heterosexual fantasies) would have been seen as conveying a particularly positive message. In a message dated 1/15/03 7:26:59 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: > I wonder how many times any of us have heard "fucking" with the velar > nasal? I find it hard to do. (Just like "fishing"; I go "fishin," > commercial fishermen go "fishing." Actually, guys who dress up in > funnly pants-boots and hats and use big ol long skinny poles to catch > trout also go "fishing" in my speech.) > > I suppose "fucking a's" pronunciation with an alveolar could cause > those given to alveolar pronunciations in general to folk etymologize > it. On the other hand, us alveolarizers could be said to have folk > etymologized for the same reason. I fact, the sense ("you bet," or > "damn straight") is absolutely right in my speech, and leads one to > hypothesize that "fucking" simply plays the role of an intensifier > (as it so often does) and "A" is not (as us kids had it) "ass-hole" > at all, but from the collection of "A" expression like "A number one" > (first class), etc... . An interesting proposal. > > dInIs > From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Wed Jan 15 15:04:23 2003 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:04:23 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: My innocent ear, along with the one less innocent, had presumed that the F***ing A was using an abbreviation of AOK. True, I'd never stopped the speaker, in late 1950s, early 1960s, to seek a clarification; it was evident that the person had made something of an emotional declaration. George Cole Shippensburg University From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 15 15:17:23 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:17:23 -0600 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it may be. I'm curious about the underlying claim that many of the (Scots-)Irish immigrants were bilingual. Does anyone have figures on the rates of bilingualism? I seem to remember reading that there were few Irish/Gaelic transfers into American English, at least in the lexicon. -----Original Message----- From: Daniel Cassidy [mailto:DanCas1 at AOL.COM] Sent: Tue 1/14/2003 9:52 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Big Apple Big Onion A Chairde: I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words Áth (pronounced Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and béal (pron. beeul), for the mouth of a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. Big Apple Big Áth Béal Big Crossing at the Mouth (of the Rivers) New York City. Áth: Ford; a river crossing. Béal: Mouth (of a river). +++ Belfast: Béal Feirste: Mouth of the Farset River; or approach to the sandbank/river Farset. Béal can also mean “approach to a river crossing place ” as well as the "mouth" of a river or a person. Dublin: Baile Átha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles (of the Liffey river). New York: The Big Áth Béal: The Big Ford (at the) Mouth (of the Hudson and East rivers). New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the Irish names for Belfast and Dublin, Áth and Béal. The "Big" came naturally. A significant number of the millions of Irish speaking immigrants who came through The Big Apple, over the past five hundred years, were bilingual in Irish and Hiberno-English. +++ The Big Onion is another Irish monicker for NYC. The Big Onion The Big Anonn (to an ear that hears in English, it sounds like onion) Anonn  Over, to the other side. Anonn thar abhainn, over, to the other side of, the river. Anonn go Meiriceá, over to America Anonn go Bhig Áth Béil ... came my own family from the Irish Gaeltacht. I would welcome feedback. These etymologies are part of a project I have just completed involving the Irish and Gaelic languages in North America. I am a new list member and the director of the Irish Studies Program at New College of California in San Francisco. I am publishing a series of articles this spring and summer and would like to correspond with people who have an interest in the NYC dialect, particularly the old north Brooklyn dialect. My other native tongue. Slan agus Beannachtai, Daniel Cassidy Director An Léann Éireannach The Irish Studies Program New College of California San Francisco From psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Wed Jan 15 15:36:31 2003 From: psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Peter Sokolowski) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:36:31 -0500 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? Message-ID: Hi folks: In chatting with a colleague the other day we got to wondering about the extent to which bilingual dictionaries are truly reciprocal, meaning (I guess) that every word used as a translation word has an entry. I submitted that perhaps very small bilingual dictionaries could maintain such a policy, but that larger, desk-sized dictionaries would probably balloon out of control if a strict policy of reciprocity were attempted. To what extent is reciprocity desirable? To what extent is reciprocity feasible? What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? Many thanks, Cheers, Peter Peter A. Sokolowski Associate Editor Merriam-Webster, Inc. From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 15:51:01 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:51:01 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 10:04:39 AM, gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU writes: > F***ing A was using an abbreviation of AOK. > I don't understand how it could be an "abbvreviation" of "AOK"--after all, "A-OK" is shorter. I guess "Fuckin' A" could be an intensification of "A-OK" -- but probably not in the "full" phrase "You fuck'n A John!" From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 15 16:05:14 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:05:14 -0800 Subject: on accident Message-ID: Most interesting. This can't be a Wash-Ore isogloss--maybe it runs between McMinn and Salem. I hear this all the time--so often that it doesn't bother me and never thought about it before. I am sure I even use it. I think for those who use it, it is the opposite of 'on purpose,' hence, 'on.' I just polled 7 young ladies in my class (I went to the wrong class on accident and I stepped on your foot on accident). One said, 'it should be 'by,' but she knows that only because her mom is an English teacher and corrects her all the time; another said she says 'by,' but upon further reflection admitted to using 'on.' The other five just thought I was a weirdo for asking such a silly question--of course they use 'on.' I don't know where each of them is from, but I am sure most of them are natives. I think this is one thing we NWers can't blame on California. Fritz PS the secong sentence seems more acceptible with 'on.' >>> pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU 01/14/03 03:34PM >>> --On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 11:44 AM -0800 "A. Maberry" wrote: > On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: >> 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' >> instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I >> mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong >> classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it >> west coast or just NW? >> _________________________________________ > > If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. > I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on > accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have > moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might > hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu I haven't heard it, either, and I think it would have got my attention if I had. Yes, maybe it's all them furriners that's been a-movin' up from California. Or maybe it's a new usage among the young, and Allen and I have never heard it because we only talk with troglodytes like ourselves. (Oops--'scuse me, Allen. I meant to say, "like MYself.") Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 16:18:51 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 11:18:51 EST Subject: US Copyright laws: a librarian's perspective Message-ID: >From the National Humanities Alliance, an association in Washington that advocates support for the humanities and that ADS belongs to, comes this report on developments in US copyright law. It's not directly related to our discussions of language, but it is related to the research we do. - Allan Metcalf ---------------------------- The Practical Realities of the New Copyright Laws: A Librarian's Perspective Presented at the Modern Language Association Conference in New York City on December 28, 2002 by Duane Webster ARL Executive Director 1. Introduction I am pleased to have this opportunity to engage in this dialogue concerning the changes taking place in the system of scholarly communication. Librarians are often in the crossfire between publishers seeking more control over their digital information resources and users seeking easy, convenient, transparent access to needed information resources. Frankly, academic research libraries are laboring to meet the challenge of moving to the new publishing models and providing robust, affordable electronic information services. We face a bewildering array of legal changes and technological innovations. In effect, both the recipe and the ingredients in the new smorgasbord of electronic information access are changing. This combination of changing ingredients and recipe include: extensive new copyright laws; new business models based on licenses and leasing of information rather than owning of information; and the introduction of technological controls over the use of these electronic information resources. This combination of factors has radically changed the traditional landscape of scholarly publishing that has worked relatively well since the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976. Let me review the legislation. In October 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act which extended the copyright period of protection by an additional 20 years, resulting in a significant decline in works entering the public domain and protecting the narrow financial interests of the entertainment industry. That same month, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which creates rigorous compliance measures, introduces the domination of technological controls of information over the exercise of fair use, and through anti-circumvention measures generally threatens basic copyright exceptions such as first sale, fair use, and preservation. And this year, Congress passed the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH) which extends important fair-use provisions into the distance learning arena but at a cost of additional complexity and compliance requirements. These laws take copyright principles into the digital information age and establish complicated rules that most users do not yet fully appreciate and libraries are scrambling to implement. To reflect on the practical implications of these developments, I will draw upon recent testimony provided to the Copyright Office by an alliance of the five major library associations in the U.S. The full testimony is available from the ARL web-site http://www.arl.org/. I want to start, however, by noting that research libraries have long been among the nation's largest volume-purchasers of copyrighted works. This last year, for example, ARL members in the aggregate spent almost one billion dollars on information resources. 16% of those expenditures went for electronic resources up from 5% just five years ago. Libraries and their staffs are also diligent law abiders. Most of us come from the generation that tries to understand and adhere to the balance that the Constitution and copyright law have struck between the rights of copyright owners and users. I am not so sure that the younger generation is as willing to work through this increasingly complex legal environment. We may well be heading toward a period when copyright laws are so complex that they will be overlooked or simplified by these confused users. I also want to note for you that libraries have invested considerable time and effort in working on these legal issues with the scholarly community, including the Modern Language Association. One example of these joint efforts is our work with the National Humanities Alliance. 2. The NHA Principles on Use of Electronic Information Five years ago, the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) adopted a statement of "Basic Principles for Managing Intellectual Property in the Digital Environment." The statement was updated and simplified this last year and is available as a handout today and on the NHA web-site: http://www.nhalliance.org/ip/ip_principles.html. This statement frames many of the issues I am addressing today: assuring a balance of competing interests, ease of compliance, robust public domain, and ready access to needed information resources. Since the educational community encompasses such a wide range of institutions and individuals who are creators, owners, and users of intellectual property, there is a need for the educational community to come to understand and advocate on these issues. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled: "Copyright as Cudgel" underscores the importance of faculty understanding what is at stake in the move to the electronic environment. Today, I will briefly examine five concerns librarians are struggling with as we move into the digital environment: 1) availability of digital works, 2) electronic interlibrary borrowing and lending, 3) meeting our preservation responsibilities, 4) assuring the privacy of our users, and 5) availability of a robust public domain. 3. Availability of digital works At the center of our concern with the new copyright laws and business models that emphasize licenses is the impact these developments have on the ready availability of digital works. In the past decade, electronic distribution has grown into a dominant method for publishing many kinds of copyrighted works. The DMCA anti-circumvention and access rules encourage publishers to distribute digital works by providing greater assurance to copyright owners that those who abuse access barriers will be subject to severe penalties. This assurance comes in the form of technological measures that control access to the information. But, these technological measures, augmented by the threat of criminal sanctions for circumventing those measures, permit publishers to control uses in new and unprecedented ways. Routine library practices permitted under copyright law, such as interlibrary borrowing, lending for classroom or at-home use by patrons, archiving, preservation, and duplication for fair use purposes, have all been restricted, in some cases severely restricted and in other instances barred by licensing agreements. Digital publishers now have the ability to manage the kind of day-to-day operational decisions that were previously within the discretion of libraries. Previously, as owner of a particular copy of a book, a library was entitled to set the terms of patron access to that copy. In the new world of libraries as licensee of a digital work subject to technological measures, the library may be denied such right. Publishers can now block a lawful licensee's access to digital content by activating a control device embedded into the code. These access controls combined with anti-circumvention technologies impose unprecedented limits on a library's ability to lend and make fair use of lawfully acquired digital works. The law also established unprecedented accountability for a library or a university providing the network from which a user gains access to digital works. Mindful of the accountability imposed by these technologies, libraries are asked to comply with licensing terms that effectively restrict the time, place, and duration of private intellectual engagement. Moreover, one patron's misuse may be used as the pretense for foreclosing access not just to the offending individual but to all authorized users. For example, one university recently had several services turned off by the vendor because of "unusual patterns of use" such as excessive searches and downloads by one individual. The DMCA and its legislative history indicate that the prohibitions on unauthorized access in the law were not to affect other rights, remedies and limitations in the 1976 Copyright Act. Presumably, fair use, first sale, and library exceptions are protected. However, any exercise of these rights is uncertain if the technological measures used to control access also prevent use of the underlying works in ways that have traditionally been permitted under the first sale, fair use and library exceptions. In light of the accountability and criminal penalties imposed by the new laws, many individual librarians are understandably reluctant to make the fair use judgment calls that previously were standard management decisions or to expose patrons to the new sanctions. Where uncertainty about permissible use exists, liability concerns may lead librarians to forego uses that are actually permitted under the copyright law. 4. Interlibrary lending concerns A specific aspect of our concern with the availability of digital works is related to interlibrary borrowing and loan practices of libraries. Because information resources are costly and library budgets are limited, few libraries can afford to acquire access to all the works that are likely to be sought by patrons. Interlibrary borrowing has traditionally enabled libraries to supplement from each other's collections on behalf of patrons seeking access to material that is unavailable in the patron's local library. Let me emphasize, interlibrary borrowing is not a substitute for purchasing frequently needed material. It is used to obtain material infrequently requested by users. Unlike printed books or journals, however, digital products are generally made available via license agreements and these licenses often prohibit making the information available through interlibrary loan. On many occasions print copies may substitute but often there is no print equivalent. Librarians around the country have provided detailed commentary on the loss of this lending right: * "Most licenses do not cover inter-library loan privileges, and must be negotiated. While we are able to ILL anything from our print collection, publishers are reluctant to extend that provision to electronic material." * "The mish-mash of licensing terms has simply made inter-library loan of digital materials impractical for us to provide to the detriment of users around the globe with whom we otherwise share scholarly material." Interlibrary lending is a vital aspect of our educational system. Acquired digital works should have the same status as their print and analog companions when it comes to interlibrary loans. 5. Preservation Concerns I will now turn to our concerns with preservation of digital works. The DMCA provides the most significant updating of library and archival preservation rules since procedures to cope with photocopy machines were established in 1976. The changes permit preservation and storage of a copyrighted work in a digitized format. There are important questions over whether the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA may prevent libraries from working with specific resources such as early PC software. Much of this software is about to decay and it is not clear we are allowed to circumvent technical protection measures to save it. The DMCA may prevent libraries from saving some of the most creative works of the 20th century from being lost. In addition, as libraries obtain more electronic products under license rather than purchase, they are losing control over archiving and preservation. This is because many licenses prohibit copying digital works for archival or any other purpose, and because the prohibitions on copying are enforced by technological measures. From the Libraries' perspective, works that exist only on content providers' servers may be subject to corruption, sabotage, subsequent alteration and selective preservation. There are no firm statistics on losses because the transition to digital publishing is still in the relatively early stages. Furthermore, it is entirely likely that publishers will be reluctant to invest in archiving older works that are no longer marketable on a large commercial scale. Libraries have also expressed concern that they will lose access to digital works in the event that publishers merge, cease operations, or decide not to convert existing works into new formats as technology evolves. Libraries have been the persistent guardians of America's and much of the world's literary heritage, but in the electronic environment they are finding themselves increasingly at the mercy of publishers' willingness to allow archiving and preservation. 6. Privacy Concerns Librarians also have significant concerns about the potential loss of privacy that often accompanies use of digital resources. This is a critical issue since digital resources are often delivered over the net from the publisher's server. Despite Congressional efforts to protect privacy in the DMCA, Digital Rights Management Systems ("DRM") technologies such as "digital watermarks," "digital signatures," and "digital object identifiers" give content owners an unprecedented ability to track ongoing use of digital works. These technologies allow publishers to monitor who is looking at a work and exactly what the users are doing with it. While the exact nature and extent of the detrimental effects remain unclear at this time, there is a need for a full understanding of the interaction between DRM and patron privacy. The way these technologies are implemented may discourage use of a library's digital resources for research in areas where anonymous inquiry and the absence of a digital trail are critical. Of course, this chill can affect not only scholarly researchers, but more broadly faculty, students and the general public. I should also mention another related piece of legislation, the USA Patriot Act. Like the copyright laws it is an extensive and complex piece of legislation. Three specific areas that librarians are concerned about are: 1) the expanded circumstances under which surveillance and physical searches can be conducted, 2) the more liberal definition of which records can be obtained from libraries, and 3) the use of roving wiretaps and e-mail tracing. America's libraries have always protected the right of patrons to enter the library's facilities, access works lawfully owned by the library, and use those works, often anonymously, as allowed by copyright laws. Any potential threat to this right will be vigorously resisted. 7. The threat to the public domain Let me now turn to another concern - the threat of new laws to limiting the growth and utility of the public domain. Moving in tandem to the DMCA legislation was another copyright reform bill-term extension. The nation's first copyright law, passed in 1790, gave creators copyright protection for a term of 14 years with the possibility of a 14-year renewal. Congress has extended the term of copyright protection 11 times over the last 40 years. These repeated extensions create, in practice, an unlimited term of copyright protection. The most recent copyright term law passed in October 1998, retrospectively extends copyright protection of existing works by 20 years. The copyright term is now the author's life plus 70 years. The library community argues that the overwhelming majority of copyrighted works are neither commercially exploited nor readily accessible in the marketplace after several decades, much less 70 years after an author's death. Yet, for researchers and scholars, access to such works from the library's collection are important and no limitation should be made on such noncommercial uses. The new term extension law delays by decades the entry of substantial numbers of works into the public domain. This diminishment of the public domain has a profound and negative effect on librarians and other scholars by prohibiting the republication and dissemination of older works that have no commercial value, yet are of strong interest to the scholarly community. On October 9th, four years after Congress passed the Term Extension Act, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a challenge to the Act's constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision some time during the spring of 2003. While the debate accompanying the Supreme Court's consideration of this Act is encouraging, the library community is not optimistic about the outcome of this process. Ultimately, we believe, scholars will need to find ways to build a "creative commons" that assures the ready availability of their work to the educational and research community. 8. Closure We are in the midst of a time where there is an accelerating availability of digital formats. Public policy has focused on encouraging commercial interests to move to this electronic environment. The practical realities of the new copyright laws and their impact on the traditional practices of fair use, first sale, personal use of one's own materials, and preservation/access of electronic resources is of great concern. Librarians, faculty, and students are finding it difficult to understand and implement the recent array of copyright laws with the potential of widespread confusion and inconsistent application. Under these new laws, usage for instructional resources that have traditionally been readily available to teachers and students is more restricted. Furthermore, the systems for compliance with these laws are cumbersome, expensive, and slow. The public domain, a rich resource for digital material in course delivery, is severely reduced and is threatened with further restrictions. Contractual licenses are supplanting copyright laws with content owners mandating more restrictions on who uses resources and how these resources may be used. The end result of all of these changes is a more complicated and restricted environment for the teacher, the student, and the librarian. There is, however, opportunity for change and improvement. The Copyright Office must by law review every three years the impact of 1201 (the anti circumvention provision) is having and the ability of the public to make fair use of works protected by technological measures. The recently enacted TEACH act holds promise for addressing some of the difficulties caused by the DMCA in the distance education arena. Congressman Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, has introduced legislation that would temper the more draconian aspects of the DMCA. The Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (H.R. 5544) would amend Section 1201 of the DMCA to prohibit the circumvention of a technological protection measure only when the purpose is to infringe on the copyright of the work. An act of circumvention for fair use purposes would be lawful. Most importantly, many in the faculty are becoming aware of the increased restrictions and complexity these new copyright laws and publisher's business models mandate. Faculty advocacy on these issues could lead to improvements in legislation, pressure publishers to modify their business practices, and encourage authors to negotiate with publishers to retain some control of their intellectual resources. We hope the scholarly community finds ways to positively influence the movement to digital publishing so that educational uses are recognized as legitimate and beneficial for society. 12/27/02 dew revised for distribution to NHA members 1/3/03 From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 15 15:25:29 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:25:29 -0500 Subject: S11 Message-ID: An abbreviation I just heard that might have been in the running for WOTY.... S11 for September 11th or 9-11. For an example see http://www.peacenowar.net/ Regards, David From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Wed Jan 15 17:00:00 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:00:00 -0000 Subject: On the wagon Message-ID: Talking of folk etymologies, a subscriber rather took me to task today for giving what he said was a false origin for "on the wagon". When challenged, he said that his version must be right, because it's on a Salvation Army Web site: > The phrase "on the wagon" was coined by men and women receiving > the services of The Salvation Army. Former National Commander > Evangeline Booth – founder William Booth's daughter – drove a hay > wagon through the streets of New York to encourage alcoholics on > board for a ride back to The Salvation Army. Hence, alcoholics in > recovery were said to be "on the wagon." [See ] -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 15 18:38:54 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:38:54 -0800 Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) In-Reply-To: <60.2bed2101.2b562578@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > HIGH HOLY DAYES > Jim Landau wrote that this is not in the OED. Landau submitted 1923. > EEBO has Alexander Goughe, THE QUEEN (1653), "or at a feast upon high holy > dayes, three red Sprats in a dish..." > LITERATURE ONLINE has Thomas D'Urfey, THE RISE AND FALL OF MASSANIELLO, > part ii (1700), "...that your Ladyship reserves for high Holy-days..." Wasn't Jim Landau providing a date for High Holy Days in the Jewish calendar? The cites from EEBO seem to refer to something else. Anyway, here is a slightly earlier cite for High Holy Days found in the Historical Index to the New York Times 21 August 1918 page 8 col. 7 under United States--Army: Jews "orders issued for furloughs for high holy days" allen maberry at u.washington.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 19:40:45 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:40:45 EST Subject: Big Apple Big Onion; Blimp (1916) Message-ID: BIG APPLE BIG ONION In a message dated 1/15/2003 10:18:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: > I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of > the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it > may be. > > We've done this a thousand times. This serves no purpose other than giving me a heart attack. As I wrote in IRISH AMERICA in 1994, "Big Apple" was indeed popularized by an Irishman named John J. Fitz Gerald, in his horseracing columns in the NEW YORK MORNING TELEGRAPH in the 1920s. However, Fitz Gerald admitted that he'd heard it from an African-American stablehand in New Orleans. Horses love apples. The stablehand almost certainly spoke no Gaelic. To rise even to a theory, someone must find a Gaelic "Big Apple" in ONE SINGLE HISTORICAL CITATION, ANYWHERE. The same holds true for "the Big Onion." I haven't seen "Big Onion" until the tour group of that name started running NYC tours in the 1990s. Now, if someone would kindly show me "the Big Onion," written anywhere, in any context, we'll be a little further along for its Gaelic origins. Or one can simply forget the trouble about finding a single historical citation and just set up a web site, where it will be quoted as fact by the New York Public Library, the American Museum of Natural History, and LET'S GO NEW YORK CITY 2004. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- BLIMP The TIMES OF LONDON full text database is still not nearly complete, but it's no longer 1921-1971. It now goes back to January 1, 1914. 24 November 1916, pg. 5, col. C, TIMES OF LONDON: NEW AEROPLANE FILMS. A FLIGHT IN A "BLIMP." (...) A flight is made in an airship--a "blimp," as it is called. The "blimp" is taken from its huge shed and harnessed up for its trip; bombs are attached, and the pilot and his observer take their places as the airship strains at the tethering ropes held by the crew. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 15 19:42:06 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 11:42:06 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <000b01c2bcab$e07fda20$70224da1@mw.com> Message-ID: These good questions remind me of my old Cassell's Latin-English, E-L dictionary. I doubt that Latin words are listed (divined?) for current English ones such as automobile (carrus automaticus?), but modern students would likely look for words to describe their own world, not necessarily being able to imagine a world in which all these wonders (airplanes, printing presses, bullets) didn't exist. On the other hand, Latin words without an equivalent in modern cultures would have to be described in a roundabout way without direct equivalents--things relating to rituals or beliefs that are no longer current, for example. That's a long reply to suppose that, no, absolute reciprocity isn't possible, and maybe we don't even have to reach into the "dead" languages for that conclusion. Peter R. On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Peter Sokolowski wrote: > > To what extent is reciprocity desirable? > > To what extent is reciprocity feasible? > > What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Wed Jan 15 20:48:30 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (Richard A. Spears) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:48:30 -0600 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Sokolowski" Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 9:36 AM Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > To what extent is reciprocity desirable? No one knows. It may be a good selling point, but teachers and students may not understand the principle. Advanced and professional users will likely be using a large monolingual dictionary. You are referring to two-way bilingual dictionaries (both directions in one volume), I think. European bilingual dictionaries are typical not two-way. That is, there is a Spanish > English volume and an English > Spanish volume. European dictionaries are sometimes licensed to publishers in other nations who combine two volumes into one, thus giving the semblance of a two-way bilingual dictionary. Rarely are the two components coordinated in a way that makes them reciprocal because they weren't made that way to begin with. The beginner probably cannot benefit from a finely-honed reciprocity and the advanced user or professional may not require it. > > To what extent is reciprocity feasible? It's might be feasible to simulate reciprocity fairly well, depending on what you assume the user already knows about both languages. If you just look at the individual words involved, it might be doable. If you really want to capture all the idiomatic uses surrounding each of the words--in both languages--it becomes less feasible. A beginner's dictionary can easily grow huge if every word is defined in every sense on both sides. I've worked on a few (two with Frank Abate) where one side of a bilingual dictionary was flipped to provide the basis of the other side of the dictionary. Then both sides were "tuned" to each other. There were only about 1,700 words on each side, however. > > What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? Is there just one pattern? There are a few practices, and I think they depend on the level of the potential user. Starting from scratch is not the norm in bilingual dictionaries. How does a dictionary maker know how far to go in making absolute reciprocity a feature? You know the answer. Cheers, Spears From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 15 22:08:28 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:08:28 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <000b01c2bcab$e07fda20$70224da1@mw.com> Message-ID: I would say there's a more interesting definition of reciprocity in reference to bilingual dictionaries than the word-for-word notion hazarded below. In fact, the lack of one such reciprocity is the subject of one of the griping letters that I have been meaning to write for years. A leading (AFAIK THE leading) series of Dutch mono- and bilingual dictionaries, Wolters Woordenboeken, publishes an English-Dutch and a Dutch-English dictionary, neither of which indicates the gender of nouns. Clearly the dictionaries were designed exclusively for Dutch-speaking users, who already know the noun genders. For English-speaking users this lack of reciprocity severely limits their usefulness. It's too bad, because otherwise they are excellent dictionaries. From my point of view as a native speaker of English, such reciprocity is extremely important, and its absence downright irrational. After all, you would think it would be in the publisher's commercial self-interest to maximize the dictionaries' usefulness to speakers of two languages instead of just one. As it is, if I don't know the Dutch equivalent of an English noun, I first have to look it up in the E-D volume, then in turn look up the result in the big monolingual Dutch Wolters, which paradoxically DOES give gender, even though that dictionary is quite properly aimed exclusively at native Dutch speakers. So in other words, they forced me to buy three dictionaries instead of two....(hmm...let's see, what was that I was saying about commercial self-interest?) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:36 AM -0500 Peter Sokolowski wrote: > Hi folks: > > In chatting with a colleague the other day we got to wondering about the > extent to which bilingual dictionaries are truly reciprocal, meaning (I > guess) that every word used as a translation word has an entry. I > submitted that perhaps very small bilingual dictionaries could maintain > such a policy, but that larger, desk-sized dictionaries would probably > balloon out of control if a strict policy of reciprocity were attempted. > > To what extent is reciprocity desirable? > > To what extent is reciprocity feasible? > > What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? > > Many thanks, > > Cheers, > > Peter > > Peter A. Sokolowski > Associate Editor > Merriam-Webster, Inc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 15 22:10:01 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:10:01 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion; Blimp (1916) In-Reply-To: <114.1d945f09.2b57133d@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: #In a message dated 1/15/2003 10:18:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, #GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: # # #> I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of #> the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it #> may be. # # We've done this a thousand times. But the person writing in with this supposed etymology, if he is in good faith -- and I see not indication to the contrary -- doesn't know that. As the sergeant said to his 47th crew of raw recruits who didn't know left from right, "Jee-zus CHRIST!!! I've been screamin' at you morons for a month-and-a-half and you STILL ain't got it straight!!???" This is part of the price we pay for having been in this game a long time. There are ALWAYS new people. And that's good. -- Mark A. Mandel From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 15 22:25:20 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:25:20 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <169656.1042639708@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: This has long been a point of irritation for me, too. Use any Japanese to English dictionary and you'll find all sorts of interesting cultural items. But if you forget the Japanese word after you look it up, good luck because E to J dictionaries don't include cultural words like clothes changing day (i.e., summer to winter and vice-versa) and summer kimono (yukata). I assume they aren't included because you don't run into those sorts of words in English corpora. The problem is that the student needs those words really desperately. The J/E dictionary quality has gotten better over the years (and the new Green Goddess by Kenkyusha in May promises to be better yet), and more of those items are being included, but it's still a nightmare for the student. Benjamin Barrett Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 14:08 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > I would say there's a more interesting definition of > reciprocity in reference to bilingual dictionaries than the > word-for-word notion hazarded below. In fact, the lack of > one such reciprocity is the subject of one of the griping > letters that I have been meaning to write for years. From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Wed Jan 15 23:14:32 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 18:14:32 -0500 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <004b01c2bce5$00b91f20$afc84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: Complete reciprocity isn't truly possible because languages don't have one-to-one correspondence of individual terms, let alone idioms and collocations. For instance, in Benjamin's example below, there would not be a headword for the compound "clothes changing day" on the English side of an E-J dictionary, because this is not a recognized compound in English. However, a good dictionary would show such terms as glossed examples at the most relevant entry--usually the first or core noun in a compound or phrase. On projects that, from the outset, are meant to aid the student in both directions--ones that have both an L1-L2 and an L2-L1 side--it is now possible, and indeed desirable, to use electronic sweeps to help you determine if the words used on one side are represented on the other. But this only gets you so far; there's no substitute for carefully developed headword lists that are all but complete before a project starts, so that the compilers of each side have both lists to refer to. By the way, Benjamin, DeLaurenti's Deli in the Pike Place Market brought the recipe for tiramisu into its newsletter for ordinary Seattleites many moons ago--at least by the early 80s when I briefly worked there! Of course, since your tiramisu is "fancy", maybe we all could use the recipe? ;-) Wendalyn Nichols At 02:25 PM 1/15/03 -0800, Benjamin Barrett wrote: >This has long been a point of irritation for me, too. > >Use any Japanese to English dictionary and you'll find all sorts of >interesting cultural items. But if you forget the Japanese word after >you look it up, good luck because E to J dictionaries don't include >cultural words like clothes changing day (i.e., summer to winter and >vice-versa) and summer kimono (yukata). I assume they aren't included >because you don't run into those sorts of words in English corpora. The >problem is that the student needs those words really desperately. > >The J/E dictionary quality has gotten better over the years (and the new >Green Goddess by Kenkyusha in May promises to be better yet), and more >of those items are being included, but it's still a nightmare for the >student. > >Benjamin Barrett >Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society > > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw > > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 14:08 > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > > > > I would say there's a more interesting definition of > > reciprocity in reference to bilingual dictionaries than the > > word-for-word notion hazarded below. In fact, the lack of > > one such reciprocity is the subject of one of the griping > > letters that I have been meaning to write for years. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 15 23:15:15 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 15:15:15 -0800 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: <004b01c2bce5$00b91f20$afc84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: I'll confess that I've never heard "on accident" before--that is, until this morning, when I asked about 20 students after seeing the ADS posting. They all agreed that one would say, "I did it on accident," but that it would have to be "It happened by accident." Presumably the difference involves a personal subject vs. an impersonal one, although I didn't question the reason for the difference. They did say that "I did it by accident" would sound odd. Now, Fritz Juengling may well be right: perhaps there's an isogloss between McMinnville and Salem (our 2 towns in Oregon), for he seems comfortable with the "on." Or maybe the difference is purely generational, with me representing the aged and infirm. PR From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Thu Jan 16 00:28:47 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 19:28:47 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: It has been suggested to me that the "A" could have come from "affirmative" in the sense that the military usage of "affirmative" to mean "yes" or "you are correct" might have been been the inspiration. "Fucking Affirmative, Sir!" shortened to "Fuckin'-A." Was "affirmative" a well-used military word in WWII and before? Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 8:27 AM Subject: Re: F**king-A > There are various stories about the "A". "Aye" has somewhat the right sense > but I find it phonetically unlikely (perhaps a case could be made for a > variant of the "ayup" Stephen-King type?). "All-right", "A-one", etc., > don't have the usual sense, which I believe is or was basically "f*cking A" > = "[that's] right" (NOT "that's great" or so). "Arsehole" etc. would be > just nonsense (not necessarily impossible though!). > > My own conjecture is that the "A" was originally "amen" ... *possibly* with > "F*cking amen!" = "Amen" [intensified]/"That's right"/"I agree" reanalyzed > as "F*cking A, men!" (in a military setting) or "F*cking A, man!" by (maybe > less religiously inclined?) listeners. This conjecture may not be provable, > but it seems to me so natural that I presume somebody has presented it > before (but I haven't seen it AFAIK). > > -- Doug Wilson > From Friolly at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 01:34:26 2003 From: Friolly at AOL.COM (Fritz Juengling) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:34:26 EST Subject: on accident Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 3:15:39 PM Pacific Standard Time, prichard at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > > Now, Fritz Juengling may well be right: perhaps there's an isogloss > between McMinnville and Salem (our 2 towns in Oregon), for he seems > comfortable with the "on." Or maybe the difference is purely generational, > with me representing the aged and infirm. > > PR Perhaps, but I'm not too much of a young-un, either. Fritz From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 02:21:18 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 21:21:18 EST Subject: Turkey (1504?) Message-ID: I plugged "tomato" into EEBO full text, without success. I then tried "turkey" and came up with this. OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1555 for "turkey." See what you think about it. HERE BEGYNNETH THE BOKE CALLED THE EXAMPLE OF VERTU by Stephen Hawes (d. 1523?) London: Wynkyn de Worde 1504? Forth than we went vnto the habytacle Of dame hardynes moost pure and fayre Aboue all places a ryght fayre spectacle Strowyd with floures that gaue good eyer Of vertuous turkeys there was a cheyr Wherein she sate in her cote armure Berynge a shelde the felde of asure. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 16 02:32:31 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:32:31 -0600 Subject: "Big Apple", "Big Onion" (and "shyster") Message-ID: Dear Dr. Cassidy, I appreciate your reflecting on the origin of "Big Apple", "Big Onion" (message shared with the American Dialect Society) and on "shyster" (message just to me). In all cases I prefer to support the positions already presented on ads-l, with published research fully able to support these positions. I've been swamped with work the passed several days due to the start of the winter semester, but I should have some free time this weekend. I'll be happy then to fill you in on the research that has been done on the above topics and to answer any questions you may have. Also, I find the origin of Irish place-names to be fascinating, and your familiarity with Irish would no doubt be very enlightening to the members of the American Dialect Society unfamiliar with that language. You include most of your snail-mail address on your ads-l message; if you let me know the zip code, I'll be happy to send you with my compliments my two monographs on "shyster" and some material on "The Big Apple." Btw, before this latter term became a nickname for NYC, it meant "NYC racetracks," spelled with lower-case letters. Also, there's an earlier, 1909, attestation of "the big apple" which refers to NYC and at first glance seems to mean NYC but which I have argued actually means "overweaning big shot." It no more means NYC than a reference to Washington D.C. as the big enchilada" (of political power) would make this the nickname of our nation's capital. The 1909 attestation of "the big apple" in reference to NYC is totally isolated. With best wishes. Sincerely, Gerald Cohen, Editor Comments on Etymology (and Professor of German and Russian) University of Missouri-Rolla Rolla, MO 65409 At 10:52 PM -0500 1/14/03, Daniel Cassidy wrote: >Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:52:44 EST >Reply-To: American Dialect Society From: Daniel Cassidy >Subject: Big Apple Big Onion >Comments: To: ADS-L at uga.cc.uga.edu >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >A Chairde: > >I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my >hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words Áth (pronounced >Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and béal (pron. beeul), for the mouth of >a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. > > > >Big Apple >Big Áth Béal >Big Crossing at the Mouth (of the Rivers) >New York City. > >Áth: Ford; a river crossing. >Béal: Mouth (of a river). > >+++ [snip] From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 05:09:43 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 00:09:43 EST Subject: Confectionery Trade-Marks (1910) Message-ID: CONFECTIONERY TRADE-MARKS compiled by MIDA'S TRADE-MARK BUREAU, Chicago Chicago: The Criterion Publishing Co. 1910 This book arrived by inter-library loan from Chicago (the only place that has it; it was missing from the LOC). I copied all 96 pages if you have any candy questions. The names are useful not only for candy information, but for information of the current slang at this time. What is NOT here is useful, also. There is no candy named "jazz" in 1910. Here are some entries (*Indicates Registered Brand): Pg. 7: Ambrosia Angel's Food Sweet Vanilla Chocolate...Chocolate..Ambrosia Chocolate Co....Milwaukee, Wis. (Vanilla Chocolate=White Chocolate?--ed.) Pg. 8: Animal Shows...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (Like Animal Crackers?--ed.) Pg. 8: *Atlantic City, The original...Taffy...Wendle W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. (Providence?--ed.) Pg. 10: *Bakers'...Va. Choc....Henry L. Pierce...Boston, Mass. (Vanilla Chocolate again...One of many "Baker" entries here--ed.) Pg. 10: Balls, Snow...P'corn...The Albert Dickinson Co.,,,Chicago, Ill. Pg. 11: Barry...Candy...Abraham B. Schopf...Philadelphia, Pa. (Must be a sucker--ed.) Pg. 11: Bears, Teddy...Candy...Hawley & Hoops...New York, N. Y. Pg. 13: Big Ike Big, Long Big Six Big Stick (No "Big Apple"--ed.) Pg. 14: Bingo Bars...Fudges...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 17: *Bromo...Chew. Gum...Faultless Chemical Co....Baltimore, Md. *Bromo Pepsin Chewing Gum...Chew. Gum...Forest City Chemical Gum Co....Portland, Me. Pg. 17: *Brownie...Chew. Gum...The Brownie Vending Machine Co....Philadelphia, Pa. *Brownie...Choc. Cr....Proctor-White...Peria, Ill. *Brownies...Candies...Hawley & Hoops...New York, N. Y. Pg. 17: *Bubble Balloon...Chew..Gum...John B. Robbins...Malden, Mass. (John Mariani states that "...Fleer, whose brother Frank made the first 'bubble gum' in 1906 that could be blown into a bubble, but not until 1928 did an accountant named Walter Diemer come up with a formula, which he sold to Fleer, that wouldn't stick to the blower's face"--ed.) Pg. 17: *Bucket filled with Chocolate Chips...Choc. Cov'd Mol. Chips...Wm. S. Trowbridge...Meadville, Pa. Pg. 17: *Buffalo Sweet Chocolates...Chocolate...Chas. Steck & Co....Buffalo, N. Y. Pg. 18: *Butter Creams...Candy...Philip Wunderle...Philadelphia, Pa. Pg. 21: *Chew White's Yucatan Gum...Chew. Gum...Wm. J. White...Cleveland, O. Pg. 22: Chiclets...Chew. Gum...Frank H. Fleer & Co....Philadelphia, Pa. Pg. 26: Coons, Comical...Gum work...James J. Matchett Co....Brooklyn, N. Y. (Sure, try selling "Comical Coons" in Brooklyn today--ed.) Pg. 26: *Cracker Jack...Popcorn...F. W. Rueckheim & Bro....Chicago, Ill. Pg. 28: Crows, Jim...Choc....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (And if you thought "Comical Coons" was an easy sell in Brooklyn...--ed.) Pg. 31: *Dentyne...Chew. Gum...Bon-Bon Co....New York, N. Y. *Dentyne...Chew. Gum...American Physicians' Supply Co....New York, N. Y. Pg. 32: Dinks, Hinky...Candy suckers...Schwarz & Son...Newark, N. J. (There was a joint by this name in Chicago for many years--ed.) Pg. 32: *Dinner, After...Salted P'nuts *Dinner, After...Mint Candy *Dinner, After...Mint Candy *Dinner, After (design of bon-bon dish)...Mint Candy Dinner Mints, After...Choc. Dinner Mint, After...Confec. Pg. 33: *Doubled Vanilla...Chocolat...Henry L. Pierce...Boston & Milton, Mass. Pg. 34: *Duche's Original Flexible Licorice...Licorice...T. M. Duche & WSons...New York, N. Y. Pg. 37: *Fairy Floss...Candy...Electric Candy Machine Co....Nashville, Tenn. (See this and "Candy Floss" and "Cotton Candy" in ADS-L archives--ed.) Pg. 38: *Fellows, Original Jolly...Chew. Gum...Wm. J. Paul...Pittsburg, Pa. Pg. 38: Fish, Fortune Telling...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (Like fortune cookies?--ed.) Pg. 40: Foam Sea...Candies...The WIll & Baumer Co....Syracuse, N. Y. *Foam, Sea...Confec....The George Close Co....Cambridge, Mass. Pg. 41: Forkdipt Chocolates, Bell's...Choc....J. S. Bell Confec. Co....Cambridge, Mass. (Useful for "dipt" spelling, perhaps--ed.) Pg. 42: Frosted Flakes...Popcorn...A. A. Berry Seed Co....Clarinda, Ia. Pg. 42: *Frutti, Tutti...Chew. Gum...Adams & Sons...New York, N. Y. Pg. 45: Goo...Confec...Mfg. Co. of America...Philadelphia, Pa. *Goo-Goo...Pep. chew. gum...Freeport Novelty Co....Freeport, Ill. *Gooberines...Candies...Hall & Hayward Co....Louisville, Ky. Gooberines...Licorice...Hall & Heyward Co....Louisville, Ky. Pg. 45: Grand Opera Drops...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 47: Haystacks...Cocanut...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 48: Hershey's...Choc. cocoa, etc....Milton S. Hershey...Derry Church, Pa. (Is Derry Church near Hershey, PA? What about a Derry Church Bar?--ed.) Pg. 49: Hot Air...Confec. *Hot Stuff...Chew. gum (No "Hot Dog" confection--ed.) Pg. 50: I Am John Mackintosh, the Toffee King...Toffee...Mackintosh Toffee Co....Bradley Beach, N. J. Pg. 51: Indeed, It Do Taste Delicious...Candies...Davies Williamsd Co....Akron, O. (Spoils your teeth AND your English at the same time--ed.) Pg. 51: It...Candy...Startup Candy Co....Provo, Utah Pg. 54: *Kisses, Soul...Confections...Huyler's...New York, N. Y. Kisses, Soul...Candy...Benjamin F. Jackson...Jersey City, N. J. Pg. 55: *Last Drop Is as Good as the First, The...Broma cocoa prep....Walter Baker & Co., Ltd....Boston, Mass. (Related to "Good to the last drop"?--ed.) Pg. 57: *Lu-Lu...Popcorn...Louis A. Archer...Milwaukee, Wis. Pg. 59: Melt-In-Your-Mouth...Fudge...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...CHicago, Ill. (Not in your hand?--ed.) Pg. 61: *Mixed Nuts, Table Choice...Confec....Francis M. Ironmonger...Brooklyn, N. Y. Pg. 63: Nonpareil...Stick Cdy....Puckhaber Bros. Co....Charleston, S. C. Nonpareil...Cocoanut Balls...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Nonpareils...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (OED, Mariani, anyone have "nonpareils"?--ed.) Pg. 64: Opera...Caramels...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Opera Bars...Candies...Startup Candy Co....Provo, Utah Opera Dips, Grand...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Opera Drops...Choc....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. *Opera Nuggets...Confec....Royal Remedy & Extract Co....Dayton, O. Opera Spice Drops...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Opera Spice Drops...Spice drops...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 64: *Out of Sight...Confec'd Popcorn...Sterling D. COne...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 66: *Peanolia Candies...P'nut Butter Candy...The Peanolia Food Co....New Haven, Conn. Peanut Block...Candy...A. C. McCardell...Frederick, Md. Peanut Crisp...Candy...The Bradley Smith Co....New Haven, Conn. Peanut Crisp...Penny P'nut & Cocoanut confec....R. H. Hardesty Co....Richmond, Va. *Peanut Geack, New...P'nut Confec....Jas. P. Berelos...Chicago, Ill. *Pea-nut design...P'nut Butter Candy...Boas & Shorb...Canton, O. P'nut...Candy...Startup Candy Co....Provo, utah *Peanutine...P'nut Mol. candy...Alvah N. Phelps...Old Orchard, me. Peanutines...P'nut cluster cream centr....Harter & Co....Tiffin, O. Pg. 70: Queen Toasted Marshmallows...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 70: R. U. Hungree...Ice cream cones...Fred E. McCoy...Denver, Colo. (Useful for "R. U.=Are You," also perhaps for "ice cream cone"--ed.) Pg. 73: *Rye and Rock...Candies...Michael Costello...New York, N. Y. (Probably from the drink Rock & Rye--ed.) Pg. 74: *Salt Water...Taffy...Wendele W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. Pg. 74: Schraffts...Choc. Solid Choc....W. F. Schrafft & Sons...Boston, Mass. Pg. 76: Skidoo & Demon design...Popcorn...Morton Wickum & Co....Los Angeles, Cal. Pg. 76: Smart Set...Choc....Snyder Chaffee Co....Columbus, O. Smart Set Sweets---S.S.S....Candy...The Murbach Co....Baltimore, Md. Pg. 76: *Smith Bros, bust portraits...Confec. for coughs and colds...Smith Bros....Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Pg. 79: Swastika...Candies...Startup Candy Co....Provo, Utah Pg. 81: *Tiddledywinks...Confec....John Kranz...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 82: Tootsies...Pull Candies...Stern & Saalberg Co....New York, N. Y. (Tootsie Roll?--ed.) Pg. 83: *Ubet...Chew. Gum...Luther Loy...Columbus, O. (Not to be confused with Fox's U-Bet sauce, a prime ingredient for making egg creams--ed.) Pg. 84: Vassar Cream Kisses...Candy...Hiller Confec. Co....Canajoharie, N. Y. Pg. 89: Yum-Yum...Candies...Jesse Minor...Pittsburg, Pa. Yum-Yum Bar...Caonfec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Thu Jan 16 09:57:52 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:57:52 +0100 Subject: Turkey (1504?) Message-ID: I could bet a small sum on this "turkeys" being "turquoise". RHUD gives ME turkeis < MF under "turquoise". In MA turquoise was considered to possess many virtues and was often carried as an amulet. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 3:21 AM Subject: [ADS-L] Turkey (1504?) > I plugged "tomato" into EEBO full text, without success. I then tried > "turkey" and came up with this. OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1555 for > "turkey." See what you think about it. > > > HERE BEGYNNETH THE BOKE CALLED THE EXAMPLE OF VERTU > by Stephen Hawes (d. 1523?) > London: Wynkyn de Worde > 1504? > > Forth than we went vnto the habytacle > Of dame hardynes moost pure and fayre > Aboue all places a ryght fayre spectacle > Strowyd with floures that gaue good eyer > Of vertuous turkeys there was a cheyr > Wherein she sate in her cote armure > Berynge a shelde the felde of asure. > From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 11:35:10 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 06:35:10 EST Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... Message-ID: A few of the hundreds of place names in Ireland and Scotland beginning with A/th (ahh), a ford or river crossing. Annacloy Ath na Cloiche        The Stone Ford Annalong Ath na Long Ford of the Ships Ahoghill      Ath Eochaille Ford of the Yew Trees and for brooklyn and nyc: Apple          Ath Beil          Ford of the (river's) mouth (NYC) From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 11:47:36 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 06:47:36 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ath=20na=A0=20Long=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Long=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ford=20of=20the=20Ships?= Message-ID: Annalong Ath na  Long        Long Ford of the Ships Ath as in Ath Beil= NYC. Long = ship as in long siar (longshore, boat quay) or so/ long as in so long. Don't believe the hype, or the buan cumadh, bunkum, perpetual invention, long drawn out story. But, let's be frank, there are people out there who actually believe "bootlegger" derives from the practice of stuffing bottles in boots, rather than two Irish words that mean a bottle service: buidelai gar. It is too funny for television. Beannachtai, Daniel Cassidy An leann Eireannach Colaiste Nuadh From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Thu Jan 16 12:54:42 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:54:42 -0000 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_[ADS-L]______________Ath_na=A0_Long=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Long_______________Ford_of_the_Ships?= In-Reply-To: <193.1416541b.2b57f5d8@aol.com> Message-ID: > But, let's be frank, there are people out there who actually > believe "bootlegger" derives from the practice of stuffing bottles > in boots, rather than two Irish words that mean a bottle service: > buidelai gar. It is too funny for television. I'm among them: see . Yours is an intriguing idea. I'm more than prepared to accept that, in common with other standard sources, I may be wrong about this. And in recent years we have heard some interesting suggestions about the impact of Irish, not least a plausible proposal that "didgeridoo", for the Australian Aboriginal instrument, is in fact from Irish. But in this case we have first to circumvent the recorded evidence to the contrary. So do provide the full story behind this tantalising comment. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 14:11:58 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:11:58 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20[ADS-L]=20Ath=20na=A0=20Long=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A0=A0=A0Long=20=20Ford=20of=20the=20Ships?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 6:47:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, DanCas1 at AOL.COM writes: > Long = ship as in long siar (longshore, boat quay) or so/ long as in so long. I think Malay "salang" (cognate to Hebrew "shalom" and Arabic "salaam") is more likely. "So long" is a candidate for "term for which the most etymythologies exist", easily beating out "OK". A certain etymologist of my acquaintance has a form letter to send to people who submit unsubstantiated origions for "so long". > Don't believe the hype, or the buan cumadh, bunkum, perpetual invention, > long drawn out story. According to MWCD10, "Buncombe County, NC; fr. a remark made by its congressman, who defended an irrelevant speech by claiming that he was speaking to Buncombe". However, this leaves open the question of where the name "Buncombe" comes from. Perhaps the name of an early settler, whose eponymous ancestor was run out of Ireland for being a boring storyteller. While on the subject, I'd like to propose an etymology or perhaps etymytholgy for "hard-bitten" (MWCD10 says 1784). In the second half of the 18th Century (and probably earlier), while civilians used powder horns for their muskets, soldiers used "cartridges" (from French "cartouche", from Italian "carta", leaf of paper, from Latin "charta" leaf of papyrus, from Greek "chartes") which was a rolled-up sheet of paper containing both the bullet and the gunpowder charge. In order to load a musket, the soldier had to bite off the end of the cartridge to free the gunpowder which he then poured down the barrel of the musket, after which he ramrodded the bullet (still in its paper) down the barrel. Eighteenth century battlefields were littered not just with blood and gore but also with bits of cartridge paper. A soldier who could reliably perform the intricate, almost sleight-of-hand, process of loading a muzzle-loading musket amidst the chaos, the blinding gunpowder smoke, and the traumatic stress of the battlefield could easily have been described as "hard-biting", which in some dialects would be rendered as "hard-bitin' ", misrendered by non-combatants as "hard-bitten". So long like a hot dog - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 14:20:33 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:20:33 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 1:39:31 PM Eastern Standard Time, maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU writes: > Wasn't Jim Landau providing a date for High Holy Days in the Jewish > calendar? The cites from EEBO seem to refer to something else. Anyway, > here is a slightly earlier cite for High Holy Days found in the Historical > Index to the New York Times 21 August 1918 page 8 col. 7 under United > States--Army: Jews "orders issued for furloughs for high holy days" Yes, the title of my post was "Judaica antedatings". Did you find the cite for "high holy days" on page 6 of the March 15, 1922 issue of the New York Times? It is interesting that neither time is the phrase capitalized. I found this one while unsuccessfully trying to find a report of Judith Kaplan's "bat mitzvah" in the New York Times. Lucikly Barry Popik was able to find an actual 1922 citation---my best was an embarrassing 1933. - Jim Landau "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to the OED" --- Jesse Sheidlower From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 16 04:10:39 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 23:10:39 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Nobody seems to have cited the HDAS on this thread. It's not decisive--acknowledging "origin unknown" as it does--but the entry does suggest, tentatively, "abstraction from a phrase such as 'You're fuckin A-number-one right!" I'm not convinced. In any case, there are lots of useful cites, many from a military context, beginning with one from Mailer's _The Naked and the Dead_ (1947): "You're fuggin ay", Gallagher snorted. (I forget of whom the story was told--Mary McCarthy? Lillian Hellman?--that when she was introduced to Norman Mailer she announced to him "So YOU'RE the man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'".) Anyway, the HDAS entry goes on for over a column, including "fucking Able" (from the military 'spelling' of A) and "fucking A well". Several distinct uses of "fucking A" are distinguished, as variously to signal assent, astonishment, dismay, or recognition, as an intensifier, as an equivalent to 'very well' or to 'splendid' (modulo the register shift, one assumes--just try out "Very well, splendid, fuckin A" with an RP accent). There's also a nice use (treated as a separate nominal sense) of "fucking A" as a minimizer--more specifically a squatitive--in negative polarity contexts: "Youth workers. Shit on them. They don't know fucking A about us." larry From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 16 15:40:33 2003 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:40:33 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > (I forget of whom the story was told--Mary McCarthy? Lillian > Hellman?--that when she was introduced to Norman Mailer she announced > to him "So YOU'RE the man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'".) Talullah Bankhead _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 16:54:23 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:54:23 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/14/03 9:46:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Early English Books Online has been available for a while now. I've been > waiting, and I checked the NYPL's databases today. EEBO is now full-text > searchable! Thanks for telling me about this database. I went into the "Free featured content" section (wwwkub,ynu,cin.eebi) and unearthed an antedating for "Shema" "The hope of Israel: written by Menasseh ben Israel, a Hebrew divine, and philosopher. Newly extant, and printed in Amsterdam, and dedicated by the author to the High Court, the Parliament of England, and to the Councell of State. Translated into English, and published by authority. In this treatise is shewed the place wherein the ten tribes at this present are, proved partly by the strange relation of one Anthony Montezinus, a Jew, of what befell him as he travelled over the Mountaines Cordillaere, with divers other particulars about the restoration of the Jewes, and the time when. by Manasseh ben Israel, 1604-1657. Printed at London : by R.I. for Hannah Allen, at the Crown in Popes-head Alley, 1650" The applicable quote is on page 89 (image 52 of 53) As for the other things in the relation of our Montezinus, they say nothing which savours of falsehood. For their saying that Semah, truly it is the custome of our people, in what part soever of the world they live: and it is the abridgement of the confession, and religion of the Iewes. page 9 (image 12 of 53) Then those two men comming on each side of Montezinus, they spoke in Hebrew, the fourth Verse of Deut. 6.Semah Israel, adonai Elohenu adonai ehad; that is, Heare O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. Thanks again, and see you 'round like a bagel, - Jim Landau From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Jan 16 16:58:58 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:58:58 -0500 Subject: Question for the Lexies Message-ID: t's possible that the entries are included on the basis of their containing definitions other than the literal ones -- that is, "secondary" senses that for the most part probably have little to do with the countries bearing the names of the entry-word. Such a policy of inclusion might obtain in the case of a dictionary like Webster's Third New International, which was designed as a lexicon of generic words -- i.e., one that systematically excluded "proper nouns," such as the names of people and places. Joanne Despres Merriam-Webster From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 16 17:08:41 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:08:41 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as excerpted at http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html, Norman Mailer is reminiscing: >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course we had never met.<< John Baker -----Original Message----- From: David Bergdahl [mailto:bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 10:41 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: F**king-A > (I forget of whom the story was told--Mary McCarthy? Lillian > Hellman?--that when she was introduced to Norman Mailer she announced > to him "So YOU'RE the man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'".) Talullah Bankhead _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 16 17:24:34 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:24:34 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: Regarding the use of Irish in NYC in the early 19th century. There is a chapter by Kenneth E. Nilsen called "the Irish Language in New York, 1850-1900" in The New York Irish, Ronald H. Bayor & Timothy J. Meagher, eds., Johns Hopkins UPr., 1996, pp. 252-74. This indicaties that there is little documentation that the Irish who immigrated to America before the famine were Irish-speakers, although many of them must have been, since it is known that Irish was very widely spoken in Ireland. "In 1800 about half of the Irish [in Ireland] were Irish-speaking." (p. 254) But he has only assorted anecdotes about immigrants who later made some name for themselves who described themselves as Irish-speakers when they arrived over here early in the 19th C. However, I was reading in the newspaper just the other day. . . . (My children have learned that when I begin a statement with this preamble to look doubtful and ask "and just exactly when what this newspaper published? So be warned.) 1821: John Downs and Elizabeth Downs, assault and battery, did not appear, fined $5 and costs. In the last mentioned case, of Downs and his wife, the trial was attended with some laughable occurences. The charge was for an assault and battery of a mild character. Mrs. Downs, a corpulent lady, being called, laid aside her cloak, bonnet and shawl, and, coming forward, made a low courtesy to the court, crossed herself devoutly, and declared that she intended to tell the truth. She then proceeded, most vehemently, in her justification; threw her arms around the District Attorney, and gave him a close hug, to illustrate the manner of the assault; and at length, getting warm in argument, she commenced speaking Irish. Counsellor Swanton, being against her, commenced also to speak in Irish. A ludicrous scene ensued; and the whole examination progressed in Irish, to the infinite amusement of the court. National Advocate, October 15, 1821, p. 2, col. 3 I don't know who the judge was in this case, though it is probably possible to find out. Presumably he didn't understand Irish himself, and seems to have allowed Counsellor Swanton to provide whatever translation of his cross-examination was wanted. I've been hoping for some years to find a loving home for this paragraph. Perhaps Prof. Cassidy will take it in. I'm staying far far away from the question of the origin of the "big apple", however. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 17:42:16 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:42:16 EST Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 7:28:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: > It has been suggested to me that the "A" could have come from "affirmative" > in the sense that the military usage of "affirmative" to mean "yes" or "you > are correct" might have been been the inspiration. "Fucking Affirmative, > Sir!" shortened to "Fuckin'-A." > > Was "affirmative" a well-used military word in WWII and before? I think the use of "affirmative" was mostly from aviation, both civilian and military, and there was a legitimate reason for it. Circa 1940 most air-to-ground radio was in the frequencies below 30 megahertz, and at these frequencies static is a problem. (AM broadcast is between .5 and 1.5 megahertz and suffers from static.) Japan trained its pilots in Morse code, but the US, Great Britain, and Germany depended on voice radio for air-to-ground. (Those are the only countries I happen to know about. In the US, if the crew were large enough to include a radio operator, he used Morse.) On a static-filled channel a single syllable like "yes" or "no" can easily get swallowed up in static, so the custom arose of using multi-syllable words such as "affirmative", "negative", and "negatory". As to whether these were commonly used in World War II, you might check some movies about air warfare in WWII. These will probably have their jargon correct, if not much else. Nowadays air-to-ground radio is in the VHF band (30 to 300 megahertz, which also includes FM broadcast) and has little problem with static. However, over the oceans radio in the "High Frequency" (also called "short wave") band, 3 to 30 megahertz, is still used, because only short wave signals can be counted on to reach across the ocean. Over the oceans it is not uncommon for a message to have to be repeated from plane to plane to get to its destination. (Eventually it will be replaced by reliable satellite channels in the UHF band). In both British and US Navies the affirmative is not "yes" but rather "aye" or "aye aye". I don't recall ever having encountered "F**king Aye", although I have heard "Aye-firmative". This may be an argument against a military origin. "Affirmative" when used by a pilot or controller simply means "yes". However, "negative" means "no" or "permission not granted" or "that is not correct". What do you do if you don't have a radio? There are visual signals. For "affirmative" on the ground wave a white cloth vertically, and from the air dip the nose of the plane several times. For "negative" wave a white cloth horizontally and from the air fishtail the plane. [Reference: Federal Aviation Regulations/Airman's Information Manual, 1993 edition] - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to the OED" - Jesse Sheidlower From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 16 18:30:02 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:30:02 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030115175540.00a0bdd0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: Although I have seen dictionaries pull multiple word entries into headwords like get up, I agree they are best dealt with inside other entries. There is still the problem of trying to weed through the get entry in English to find get up, etc., though, because a good J to E has dozens of subentries. As for the tiramisu, we hope to be open by the 10th of February or so, across the street from Eva. The store will probably be called Hiroki. We are confident our fancy tiramisu will live up to even the hardest-core DiLaurentian fan. In addition to our regular (fancy) tiramisu, we think our "green tea tiramisu" will take Seattle by surprise. Although we'd like to take credit for creating this noun, Google has more than 120 hits. Ours still might be the first to incorporate sake in the recipe. Benjamin Barrett Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wendalyn Nichols > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 15:15 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > Complete reciprocity isn't truly possible because languages > don't have one-to-one correspondence of individual terms, let > alone idioms and collocations. For instance, in Benjamin's > example below, there would not be a headword for the compound > "clothes changing day" on the English side of an E-J > dictionary, because this is not a recognized compound in > English. However, a good dictionary would show such terms as > glossed examples at the most relevant entry--usually the > first or core noun in a compound or phrase. On projects that, > from the outset, are meant to aid the student in both > directions--ones that have both an L1-L2 and an L2-L1 > side--it is now possible, and indeed desirable, to use > electronic sweeps to help you determine if the words used on > one side are represented on the other. But this only gets you > so far; there's no substitute for carefully developed > headword lists that are all but complete before a project > starts, so that the compilers of each side have both lists to > refer to. > > By the way, Benjamin, DeLaurenti's Deli in the Pike Place > Market brought the recipe for tiramisu into its newsletter > for ordinary Seattleites many moons ago--at least by the > early 80s when I briefly worked there! Of course, since your > tiramisu is "fancy", maybe we all could use the recipe? ;-) > > Wendalyn Nichols > > At 02:25 PM 1/15/03 -0800, Benjamin Barrett wrote: > >This has long been a point of irritation for me, too. > > > >Use any Japanese to English dictionary and you'll find all sorts of > >interesting cultural items. But if you forget the Japanese > word after > >you look it up, good luck because E to J dictionaries don't include > >cultural words like clothes changing day (i.e., summer to winter and > >vice-versa) and summer kimono (yukata). I assume they aren't > included > >because you don't run into those sorts of words in English > corpora. The > >problem is that the student needs those words really desperately. > > > >The J/E dictionary quality has gotten better over the years (and the > >new Green Goddess by Kenkyusha in May promises to be better > yet), and > >more of those items are being included, but it's still a > nightmare for > >the student. > > > >Benjamin Barrett > >Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On > > > Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw > > > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 14:08 > > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > > > > > > > I would say there's a more interesting definition of > reciprocity in > > > reference to bilingual dictionaries than the word-for-word notion > > > hazarded below. In fact, the lack of one such reciprocity is the > > > subject of one of the griping letters that I have been meaning to > > > write for years. > From dave at WILTON.NET Thu Jan 16 18:34:57 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:34:57 -0800 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as > excerpted at > http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html > , Norman Mailer is reminiscing: > > >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For > twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public > relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she > said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to > spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was > because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course > we had never met.<< I have always heard this story told with Dorothy Parker as the protagonist. Roy Blount's foreword to Jesse Sheidlower's "The F-Word" attributes the comment to Parker. From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 16 18:47:30 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 13:47:30 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <001d01c2bd8d$f8eb3e00$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:34:57AM -0800, Dave Wilton wrote: > > From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as > > excerpted at > > http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html > > , Norman Mailer is reminiscing: > > > > >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For > > twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public > > relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she > > said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to > > spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was > > because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course > > we had never met.<< > > I have always heard this story told with Dorothy Parker as the protagonist. > Roy Blount's foreword to Jesse Sheidlower's "The F-Word" attributes the > comment to Parker. And I have always heard it with Talullah Bankhead, despite the version in my book featuring Dorothy Parker. I wonder if anyone's ever asked Mailer about it directly. Jesse Sheidlower From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 19:18:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:18:22 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... Message-ID: "Ath" and "Beal" equal citations for "Big Apple." Oh boy. This never ends! I guess people aren't familiar with ADS-L archives, the RANDOM HOUSE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, or even Google, so here goes again. We don't have one single citation anywhere that would indicate that "Big Apple," as the nickname for New York City, comes from the Irish language. We have huge databases at our fingertips--full text of the NEW YORK TIMES, full text of the WASHINGTON POST, the MAKING OF AMERICA databases, the AMERICAN MEMORY database, the HARPER'S WEEKLY full text database, THE NATION full text database, full text of many Irish songs, slang lists such as George Matsell's--really, that's a lot. And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. Go to the New York Public Library and read until your eye sockets fall out. New York will thank you for it. Read every single year and every single issue of IRISH ECHO and IRISH VOICE and IRISH WORLD and IRISH CITIZEN and UNITED IRISHMAN. Pick up a publication such as GAELIC AMERICAN (1903-1951). Read through every single word that's been printed for the entire run. Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. We'll listen to you! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 19:30:23 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:30:23 -0500 Subject: Kanga, Kanzu, Kikoi (1910) Message-ID: GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR by Ethel Younghusband London: John Long, Limited 1910 This is a great book for the places I just visited. I have only a few minutes to type it all. Pg. 26: ...Ngoma (dance)... Pg. 34: Boys wear a cotton singlet, a loin cloth of "amerikani" (unbleached calico from America) or if rich enough, then a "kikoi," a white longcloth with a native woven coloured border and ends, and a "kanzu," a long white shirt reaching nearly to the ankles, often sewn with red at the neck, and sometimes made of very thin muslin or tussore silk. On their heads either a red tarboush or white cap, the head is always covered. Very often a master gives his boy a livery of coloured "kisibas," a waistcoat with his initials on the pocket, and braided with some contrasting colour. THe sultan of Zanzibar always uses the royal scarlet, but dark green or royal blue look well. The women in East Africa simply wear two cloths, or "kangas," one tied under both arms, and the other thrown over their necks and arms. Pg. 39: As in SOuth Africa, there is the "wait-a-bit" thorn, about three inches long. Pg. 56: ...shook in his "chuplies," not daring to move. Pg. 83: ...Mshenzi (wild woman)? Pg. 107: These ladies brought mtama (a native seed) and maize to me for my boy to buy as food for my chickens. Pg. 119: We saw plenty of "Tommies" (Thomson's gazelle), kongoni (native name for hartebeeste) and zebra... Pg. 134: ..."dawa" (medicine)... Pg. 146: ...Bwana (master)... Pg. 152: Some ate of the impala, others did not eat what they call "wild meat." Pg. 180: ..."Hodi" (a Swahili word always used in East Africa to ask admission into a house, as bells are very scarce and the boys usually live at teh back). Pg. 188: ..."nyama" (meat)... Pg. 219: ...kanzus, kangas... From patty at CRUZIO.COM Thu Jan 16 19:38:35 2003 From: patty at CRUZIO.COM (Patty Davies) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:38:35 -0800 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: <02B7F6C1.35B8E017.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: Wow, Barry! In one relatively brief post, you have a great listing of resources for researching purposes! Very helpful email to save. Thanks, Patty At 02:18 PM 1/16/03 -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > "Ath" and "Beal" equal citations for "Big Apple." Oh boy. This never > ends! I guess people aren't familiar with ADS-L archives, the RANDOM > HOUSE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, or even Google, so here > goes again. > We don't have one single citation anywhere that would indicate that > "Big Apple," as the nickname for New York City, comes from the Irish > language. We have huge databases at our fingertips--full text of the NEW > YORK TIMES, full text of the WASHINGTON POST, the MAKING OF AMERICA > databases, the AMERICAN MEMORY database, the HARPER'S WEEKLY full text > database, THE NATION full text database, full text of many Irish songs, > slang lists such as George Matsell's--really, that's a lot. > And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. > If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. Go to the New York > Public Library and read until your eye sockets fall out. New York will > thank you for it. Read every single year and every single issue of IRISH > ECHO and IRISH VOICE and IRISH WORLD and IRISH CITIZEN and UNITED IRISHMAN. > Pick up a publication such as GAELIC AMERICAN (1903-1951). Read > through every single word that's been printed for the entire run. > Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. > We'll listen to you! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 16 19:40:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:40:17 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <001d01c2bd8d$f8eb3e00$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: At 10:34 AM -0800 1/16/03, Dave Wilton wrote: > > From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as >> excerpted at > > http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html >> , Norman Mailer is reminiscing: >> >> >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For >> twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public >> relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she >> said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to >> spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was >> because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course >> we had never met.<< > >I have always heard this story told with Dorothy Parker as the protagonist. >Roy Blount's foreword to Jesse Sheidlower's "The F-Word" attributes the >comment to Parker. Actually, the version I was trying to remember did feature Parker, now that the two nominees have been presented. For all I know, though, the stories are both apocryphal: no, Charley, I vusn't dere. I'd just as soon it was Tallulah, though, even if the misspelling with the single L preceding the geminate makes me suspicious about the anecdote in question. I've had a soft spot for her ever since my late mother told me Tallulah made a pass at her when she--my mother, not Tallulah--was working as a cigarette girl in N.Y. night clubs in the 30's. larry, wondering if Dorothy Parker made the quip but Mailer remembered it as having been Tallulah because she was more his type -- From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 16 19:58:45 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:58:45 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion; Blimp (1916) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >#In a message dated 1/15/2003 10:18:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, >#GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: ># ># >#> I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of >#> the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it >#> may be. ># ># We've done this a thousand times. > >But the person writing in with this supposed etymology, if he is in good >faith -- and I see not indication to the contrary -- doesn't know that. >As the sergeant said to his 47th crew of raw recruits who didn't know >left from right, "Jee-zus CHRIST!!! I've been screamin' at you morons >for a month-and-a-half and you STILL ain't got it straight!!???" I often feel that way myself when I'm teaching intro classes. > >This is part of the price we pay for having been in this game a long >time. There are ALWAYS new people. And that's good. > It's also an argument for maintaining a FAQ, including etymological info on "Big Apple", "hot dog", "Windy City", etc. Notice I'm not volunteering for the job. larry -- From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 16 20:55:27 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 15:55:27 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion: addendum Message-ID: I have just seen the new(?) vol. 6 of the Cambridge History of the English Language: English in America, John A. Algeo, ed. This has scattered references to the Irish influennce on AmEngl, but pp. 89-92, in Michael Montgomery's chapter "British and Irish Antecedents" discusses the Irish language. The book is ostensibly a 2001 imprint, but has just been received here. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 21:05:55 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 16:05:55 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 11:54:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: > Thanks for telling me about this database. I went into the "Free featured > content" section (wwwkub,ynu,cin.eebi) and unearthed an antedating for > "Shema" Er, that should be http://wwwlib.umi.com/eebo. > "The hope of Israel: written by Menasseh ben Israel, a Hebrew divine, and > philosopher. Newly extant, and printed in Amsterdam, and dedicated by the > author to the High Court, the Parliament of England, and to the Councell of > State. Translated into English, and published by authority. In this treatise > is shewed the place wherein the ten tribes at this present are, proved > partly > by the strange relation of one Anthony Montezinus, a Jew, of what befell him > as he travelled over the Mountaines Cordillaere, with divers other > particulars about the restoration of the Jewes, and the time when. by > Manasseh ben Israel, 1604-1657. Printed at London : by R.I. for Hannah Allen, > at the Crown in Popes-head Alley, 1650" The apparently prescient "by Manasseh ben Israel, 1604-1657" was inserted by the database people and is NOT on the title page. - Jim Landau From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 16 21:41:09 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 15:41:09 -0600 Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: On 15 Jan. 2003 Barry Popik wrote: >BLIMP > > The TIMES OF LONDON full text database is still not nearly complete, but >it's no longer 1921-1971. It now goes back to January 1, 1914. > >24 November 1916, pg. 5, col. C, TIMES OF LONDON: > NEW AEROPLANE FILMS. > A FLIGHT IN A "BLIMP." (...) A flight is made in an airship--a "blimp," as it is called. The >"blimp" is taken from its huge shed and harnessed up for its trip; >bombs are attached, and the pilot and his observer take their places >as the airship >strains at the tethering ropes held by the crew. Word-researcher and nonagenarian David Shulman once sent me a 1915 attestation of "blimp." Barry, if you'd give him a call and get his permission for me to post it on ads-l, I'll be happy to do so. Due credit would of course be given to him. Gerald Cohen From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 16 23:22:45 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 18:22:45 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion In-Reply-To: <24a30f248c0b.248c0b24a30f@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: This is purely speculative, since I haven't seen Nilsen's article, but wouldn't the poor post-famine Irish have been likely to come with (at least some residual) Irish? I just saw "Gangs of New York," which portrayed some of the newcomers as mouthing Irish phrases--maybe just religious incantations, given the ferocity of the street fighting, and therefore "residual" if nothing more substantive. My digging through census records from the 1850s and '60s (for Flanigans, obviously) also finds "Irish" listed as the L1 of many immigrants from Ireland; "English" and "Irish" vary considerably, and even though census records are notorious for their inaccuracies, the listings are probably reasonably credible. What does Nilsen say? At 12:24 PM 1/16/2003 -0500, you wrote: >Regarding the use of Irish in NYC in the early 19th century. > >There is a chapter by Kenneth E. Nilsen called "the Irish Language in New >York, 1850-1900" in The New York Irish, Ronald H. Bayor & Timothy J. >Meagher, eds., Johns Hopkins UPr., 1996, pp. 252-74. This indicaties that >there is little documentation that the Irish who immigrated to America >before the famine were Irish-speakers, although many of them must have >been, since it is known that Irish was very widely spoken in Ireland. "In >1800 about half of the Irish [in Ireland] were Irish-speaking." (p. >254) But he has only assorted anecdotes about immigrants who later made >some name for themselves who described themselves as Irish-speakers when >they arrived over here early in the 19th C. > >However, I was reading in the newspaper just the other day. . . . (My >children have learned that when I begin a statement with this preamble to >look doubtful and ask "and just exactly when what this newspaper >published? So be warned.) > >1821: John Downs and Elizabeth Downs, assault and battery, did not >appear, fined $5 and costs. >In the last mentioned case, of Downs and his wife, the trial was attended >with some laughable occurences. The charge was for an assault and battery >of a mild character. Mrs. Downs, a corpulent lady, being called, laid >aside her cloak, bonnet and shawl, and, coming forward, made a low >courtesy to the court, crossed herself devoutly, and declared that she >intended to tell the truth. She then proceeded, most vehemently, in her >justification; threw her arms around the District Attorney, and gave him a >close hug, to illustrate the manner of the assault; and at length, getting >warm in argument, she commenced speaking Irish. Counsellor Swanton, being >against her, commenced also to speak in Irish. A ludicrous scene ensued; >and the whole examination progressed in Irish, to the infinite amusement >of the court. >National Advocate, October 15, 1821, p. 2, col. 3 > >I don't know who the judge was in this case, though it is probably >possible to find out. Presumably he didn't understand Irish himself, and >seems to have allowed Counsellor Swanton to provide whatever translation >of his cross-examination was wanted. > >I've been hoping for some years to find a loving home for this >paragraph. Perhaps Prof. Cassidy will take it in. > >I'm staying far far away from the question of the origin of the "big >apple", however. > >GAT > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 00:46:01 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:46:01 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: <02B7F6C1.35B8E017.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: (cc: to Mr. Cassidy, because I don't know if he's on the list) On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: [snip list of sources] # And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. # If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. [snip list of "requirements"] # Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. # We'll listen to you! I will add here for Mr. Cassidy's benefit -- since I don't know if he's on the list and familiar with Barry's research -- that Barry's words are not empty: he *does* this. Barry spends many hours in libraries all over the country and around the world reading early sources and taking copious notes, which he writes up as well as posting here. We -- I daresay we all -- respect his industriousness, care, and sheer sitzfleisch, and his findings have been a rich source of important data for many of the lexicographers and other researchers on this list. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 00:56:09 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:56:09 -0500 Subject: F**king-A and on accident In-Reply-To: <39.32475792.2b55f30d@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Steve Boatti wrote: #Perhaps some people use "on accident" by analogy to "on purpose." D'ohhh! So I should read to the end of the thread before posting!!! -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 00:59:28 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:59:28 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You #fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." I assume that you are remembering from hearing, not reading, the expression. Could that have been "You fuckin' A, John!"? That is, - "fuckin'" rather than the homophonous "fuck an" - copula deletion from, or as in, AAVE ? -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 01:10:53 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 20:10:53 -0500 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Peter Richardson wrote: #I'll confess that I've never heard "on accident" before--that is, until #this morning, when I asked about 20 students after seeing the ADS posting. #They all agreed that one would say, "I did it on accident," but that it #would have to be "It happened by accident." Presumably the difference #involves a personal subject vs. an impersonal one, although I didn't #question the reason for the difference. They did say that "I did it by #accident" would sound odd. IMHO this supports the hypothesis of analogy with "on purpose", which requires an agent -- *"It happened on purpose" is wrong for all normal interpretations of the universe. -- Mark A. Mandel From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Fri Jan 17 01:09:54 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 17:09:54 -0800 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate to our Barry? I put the word into Google, and eventually found the following: http://zhurnal.net/ww/zw?BottomPower Sitzfleisch is another one of those inimitably useful German words. Literally it's "Sitting Meat". What it means is patience --- as associated with the gluteus maximus and surrounding padding that enables someone to perch on a hard chair for hours. In a chess context Sitzfleisch describes the kind of dogged analysis that a good player has to do in a complex position. (see Long Think (2002 April 9)) [...] Not unrelated to Sitzfleisch is the phrase Bottom Power --- a West African English dialect term for that special feminine callipygean ability to sway male minds.... Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark A Mandel Sent: January 16, 2003 4:46 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... (cc: to Mr. Cassidy, because I don't know if he's on the list) On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: [snip list of sources] # And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. # If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. [snip list of "requirements"] # Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. # We'll listen to you! I will add here for Mr. Cassidy's benefit -- since I don't know if he's on the list and familiar with Barry's research -- that Barry's words are not empty: he *does* this. Barry spends many hours in libraries all over the country and around the world reading early sources and taking copious notes, which he writes up as well as posting here. We -- I daresay we all -- respect his industriousness, care, and sheer sitzfleisch, and his findings have been a rich source of important data for many of the lexicographers and other researchers on this list. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From gcohen at UMR.EDU Fri Jan 17 01:33:46 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:33:46 -0600 Subject: My misspelling of overweening (with -ea-) Message-ID: Yes, it's spelled "overweening". My bad. Gerald Cohen >At 7:27 PM -0500 1/16/03, Mark A Mandel wrote: >Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:27:13 -0500 >From: Mark A Mandel >To: Gerald Cohen >Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Big Apple", "Big Onion" (and "shyster") > >(off-list nit-pick) > >On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Gerald Cohen wrote: > >[An excellent letter, compromising neither scholarship nor civility] > >#argued actually means "overweaning big shot." It no more means NYC > >Isn't that usually spelled "overwning"? > >-- Mark A. Mandel From dwhause at JOBE.NET Fri Jan 17 02:46:40 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 20:46:40 -0600 Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: I'm afraid this is folk etymology, but the derivation I remember (unattested) is that early lighter-than-air craft were either rigid, such as the infamous Hindenburg, or "limp" and that the version adopted was the model B, hence, Blimp. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" On 15 Jan. 2003 Barry Popik wrote: >BLIMP From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 02:59:16 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 21:59:16 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: Well, of course part of what I "heard" was the way I was parsing it at the time. As I said before, from age 15 or 16 on I just assumed that the syllabic /n/ was an article, not a participial marker. Since no one ever used a velar here, why should I think any different? I'm still mystified as to why every lexicographical source--and most of the people in this discussion--feel the /n/ HAS TO be a remnant of {-ing}. FUCKING is used as an intensifier in exclamations (as in "These guys have been talking about the phrase 'Fuck-n-A for days? Fucking unreal!"), but not in any set phrases that I can think of. On the other hand, there are lots of sete phrases of the form Verb+Article+Noun (e.g., "Eat a big one!"). I hope it is clear that I am not saying that the parsing with FUCK is "wrong"--there is no way that we can expect to construct some sort of definitive etymology here--as Connie Eble reminds us in her book, when it comes to slang, multiple etymologies are often the right scientific conclusion, since the ONLY reality that some slang phrases have are the ones that are invented by hearers. Even so, while the parsing as an intensifier would have made sense to me; the alternative derivation from a deleted ARE (as Mark suggests) couldn't have worked at all. We were not prone to AUX deletion in eastern iowa in 1956, and AAVE would have been of marginal influence on my adolescent speech--there were only five or so African Americans in the whole school, and they were not very prone to heavy AUX-be deletion. Eastern Iowa in 1956 was also quite r-ful, so there wouldn't even have been much opportunity for phonological deletion of ARE, either. It makes no difference to this argument, but Mark puts a comma in "You fuckin' A, John!" As I explained in my earlier post, this was not the pronunciation that we used. There was no pause at all between the "A "and the "John." In a message dated 1/16/03 7:59:53 PM, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > #Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > #fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." > > I assume that you are remembering from hearing, not reading, the > expression. Could that have been "You fuckin' A, John!"? That is, > - "fuckin'" rather than the homophonous "fuck an" > - copula deletion from, or as in, AAVE >         ? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 03:07:21 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:07:21 EST Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... Message-ID: Thanks much for feedback. Please see my version of "apple" again and then short note below... Big Apple Big Áth Béil   (gen. of béal)  (pron. ahh-beeul) Big Ford of the Mouth (of the Rivers) New York City. Áth: Ford; a river crossing. Béal: Mouth (of a river). Belfast: Béal Feirste: Mouth of the sandy bank of Farset River Dublin: Baile Átha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles (of the Liffey River).  New York: The Big Áth Béal: The Big Ford of the Mouth of the (Hudson and East) rivers. New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the Irish names for Belfast and Dublin.  An ancient Gaelic name for the ancient crossing of the two great North Atlantic Rivers. +++ A Chairde: (Friends...) The two Irish words A/TH and BE/AL are used in hundreds of place names in Ireland, Scotland and the Isles.  I believe it is the source of the Gaelic monicker the "apple" for NYC. If some do not agree with me than their big apple can be as English as big Liz Windsor. as far as citations of Irish words in English, that would be humorous if it were not for the long and well known depredations of cultural imperialism in Ireland. the language was first banned in 1366 with the statutes of Kilkenny. that was copper fastened with the passage of the penal laws in the early 18th century. a modern dictionary was not published until 1926. the Irish language was not permitted to be taught in schools in English colonized Ireland for close to half a millennium. 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that came to north America were illiterate. This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over spoken rather than written sources. With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue you must put your ear to the ground. I look forward to the discussions...Thanks for the note. Sl/an agus Beannachtai/ Health and Blessings, Daniel Cassidy From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 03:11:53 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:11:53 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, vida morkunas wrote: #Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of #studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate #to our Barry? Actually I've always thought of it as being as much Yiddish as German, though I spelled it as German (without the capital letter). ... Not in Rosten's _Joy of Yiddish_ ... not in AHD4 ... Found it in Weinreich's Y/E dictionary: zitsflaysh [my translit -- MAM] : perseverance (humorous) My wife's recollection of its use in Yiddish (her parents were native speakers) is that when it was applied to a child, it often referred to a behavior of pattern of being unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting, standing up, moving around, etc. "Nowadays we diagnose it as ADHD." -- Mark A. Mandel From hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET Fri Jan 17 03:26:54 2003 From: hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET (Herbert Stahlke) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:26:54 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: We used the term Sitzfleisch as a euphemism for ass when I was in prep school back in the '50s at Concordia College in Milwaukee. This very German Missouri Synod Lutheran institution didn't have much Yiddish influence. Herb Stahlke On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, vida morkunas wrote: #Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of #studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate #to our Barry? Actually I've always thought of it as being as much Yiddish as German, though I spelled it as German (without the capital letter). ... Not in Rosten's _Joy of Yiddish_ ... not in AHD4 ... Found it in Weinreich's Y/E dictionary: zitsflaysh [my translit -- MAM] : perseverance (humorous) My wife's recollection of its use in Yiddish (her parents were native speakers) is that when it was applied to a child, it often referred to a behavior of pattern of being unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting, standing up, moving around, etc. "Nowadays we diagnose it as ADHD." -- Mark A. Mandel From alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET Fri Jan 17 06:22:59 2003 From: alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET (george.sand) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 01:22:59 -0500 Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: Joe Hajak who piloted the Goodyear airship for a number of years, mentioned to me also that "b-limp" was a traditional though not certain etymology. He seemed to consider it as belonging to folkways. Paul Kusinitz Newport RI ----- Original Message ----- From: Dave Hause To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 9:46 PM Subject: Re: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) I'm afraid this is folk etymology, but the derivation I remember (unattested) is that early lighter-than-air craft were either rigid, such as the infamous Hindenburg, or "limp" and that the version adopted was the model B, hence, Blimp. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" On 15 Jan. 2003 Barry Popik wrote: >BLIMP From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 17 09:31:05 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 09:31:05 -0000 Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... In-Reply-To: <10.2b58c2c3.2b58cd69@aol.com> Message-ID: Nobody would deny the impoverished status of Irish, even lower than that of Welsh. It is surely true that the Irish influence on English has in the past been underrated and under-acknowledged. However, members of this list know that it is astonishingly easy to find apparent similarities between languages that can lead to false beliefs about origins - for example, that "OK" comes from one of a variety of languages ranging from Finnish "oikea" to Wolof "waw kay". Members will also know my willingness, when the trail of evidence runs out, to be prepared to strike out into the unknown in the hope of picking up leads to a new line of enquiry. But, as I said in my last message, when seeking to discredit a mass of evidence to the contrary - as with "Big Apple" and "bootlegger" - rather more than flat assertions and wishful thinking are required. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 17 10:25:45 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:25:45 -0000 Subject: Irish Apples Message-ID: Since Daniel Cassidy's assertion vis-a-vis the alleged Irish origins of Big Apple is currently occupying the list, I offer a letter I sent him after reading the original piece in the NY Observer (http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6755). In this he asserted similarly Irish origins for various canting (underworld) terms, used in the movie _The Gangs of New York_. To precis, he suggested that 'rabbit' (a rowdy), 'rabbit-sucker', 'ballum rancum' (an orgy), 'crusher' (a policeman), 'lay' (a criminal occupation), 'mort' (a woman), and 'buckaroo', were all 'Irish', and cited the source words. I don't think, fwiw, that all these are wholly risible, as my letter indicates, but I took issue with his unswerving and what I feel is over-optimistic inclusiveness. Jonathon Green ************** [...] I was fascinated by your piece on the Irish input into NY slang, as published the NY Observer (1/6/03) and enormously grateful for hitherto unknown etymologies for '(dead) rabbit' [DC: ráibéad is defined as a big, hulking person] and 'rabbit-sucker' [ráibéad sách úr, which in Irish means "a fresh, well-fed, big fellow]. Being a lexicographer, however, I must quibble. This is not to say you're wrong, just to wonder. The problem with Matsell's Vocabulum [1859, from which he takes his slang examples] is that in approx. 90% of its entries it is far from 'encyclopedic' [as he describes it] but a simple ripoff of Pierce Egan's 1823 edition of the Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose, which first appeared in 1785. It may be that New York villains used late 18C/early 19C London cant, but quite so much? Of the terms you mention, ballum rancum [DC: Ball iomrá na gcumainn: the place everyone is talking about], lay [DC: Lé: Leaning, partiality, inclination], and mort [DC: Mór te: fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection] are all in Grose. Indeed mort can be found in a cant glossary of 1566 (as 'a harlot' or a tramp's female companion) and lay, usually in combination and denoting some form of criminal speciality (the clouting lay, the chiving lay) first appears in mid-17C. Grose defines ballum rancum as a dance at which all concerned 'dance in their birthday suits.' The accepted etymology is that such events (were there many?) were dignified by a kind of 'cod-Latin', where ballum comes from ball, a dance and rancum from rank, stinking, putrid. The Irish ety. is undeniably appealing, and there were certainly many Irish tinkers, tramps and members of the contemporary London underworld, but did such orgies happen so often for them to create the name? Lay is doubtless linked to Lé but that in turn is one of various cognates, in Portuguese, French, and other Romance langs. all of which come from Old French lei and ult. Latin lex. So I don't see the origins of its slang use as especially Irish. Crusher [DC: Cuir siar ar (the s is pronounced "sh"): to force upon; an enforcer]: again, the prevailing ety. is not Irish. The image is of police violence and even large, crushing feet. The term is not in Grose, but is certainly on stream by 1835, and maybe earlier. Here I think you may be correct. Again, however, we have to wonder just how influential the Irish villains were. I appreciate, and this goes for all these terms, that they had a massive presence in NY, but, as I see it, these terms were imports, not creations. (The next question being, were these Irish immigrants, whom I take as coming from rural Ireland, not London, up with the cant of London's underworld?) Then mort. Here I think you have cracked a centuries'-old conundrum. No-one has ever been able to pin this one down. The OED is most honest: 'Origin unknown' and other suggestions are pretty specious. The question remains, was the Irish term in existence c. 1560? As for buckaroo [DC: bocaí rua, "wild playboys" or "bloody bucks], the generally accepted etymology is the Sp. vaquero, cowherd. (See R.F. Adams Western Words, 1968). I like the Irish ety, but given the Spanish influence on so much Western language, I'm still inclined to accept vaquero. [...] From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 10:59:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 05:59:09 EST Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/2003 10:07:52 PM Eastern Standard Time, DanCas1 at AOL.COM writes: > > 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that came to > north > America were illiterate. > > This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over spoken > rather > than written sources. > > With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue you must > put > your ear to the ground. > > PUT MY EAR TO THE GROUND? The facts are that we certainly do have a written trail for Irish immigrants to New York City, and it's there for anyone to examine. I'll admit that many Irish publications are not full-text searchable yet (as are 19th Century African-American publications), but some are full text searchable and the results are not promising. The Library of Congress's AMERICAN MEMORY database, on second check, shows about 25 copyrighted songs in the Irish language. None have "apple"/"Big Apple" in them. The AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES, although not finished, is enormously useful. It has the NATIONAL POLICE GAZETTE, a publication full of Irish criminals and full of slang. Publications such as Mike Walsh's THE SUBTERRANEAN and THE IRISH SHIELD are also in the series. There's not a single clue that "apple"/"Big Apple" comes from the Irish language, and there's not a single "Big Onion," either. I did record a few "Big Potato" citations, but fairly recently in the late 20th-Century, if I recall correctly. I could put "my ear to the ground" some more, but it will probably get stuck to a piece of gum. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 12:27:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 07:27:41 EST Subject: Ugali (1909); Siafu (1924); Zanzibar Doors (1949) Message-ID: A quick note before work and giving more people T-shirts...Why don't people give me anything?...Why doesn't someone pick on someone else's work? ADS president Dennis Preston's work is completely wrong, I have no documentary evidence at all, but it's obvious to anyone if you just stick your nose in the closet? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- UGALI NATIVE LIFE IN EAST AFRICA by Karl Weule London: Sir Isaac Priman & Sons, Ltd. 1909 Pg. 84: _Ugali_, always _ugali_--stiff porridge of millet, maize or manioc, boiled till it has almost a vitreous consistency, and then shaped with the spoon used for stirring into a kind of pudding--forms the staple of their meals day after day. (OED has the awful 1970 for "ugali"--ed.) Pg. 212: The grains of _Usanye_ (a red kind of millet) cried in the basket. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- SIAFU BENEATH AFRICAN GLACIERS by Anne Dundas London: H. F. & G. Witherby 1924 Pg. 5: The name "Mombasa" is derived from Mombas, the first Portuguese governor. (Ah! I was told yet another folk etymology!--ed.) Pg. 45: There is time for the first "sundowner," or evening drink... Pg. 60: ..._kanzu_... Pg. 219: Of these, the small black species called _siafu_ are perhaps the most venomous... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- ZANZIBAR DOORS A GUIDE TO ZANZIBAR (By Geoffrey Henry Shelswell-White, not on title page--ed.) Zanzibar: Printed by the Government Printer 1949 Pg. 11: The milk of the nuts at a certain stage of their growth (madafu) provides a favourite drink. Pg. 22: The local Arab is generally bearded and his ordinary dress consists of a plain white cotton garment (_kanzu_), reaching from the neck to the ankles, a white cotton cap, and sandals. Pg. 23: The designs of these _kangas_ are worth noticing: they are drawn in Zanzibar, often with a short sentence in Kiswahili included. Pg. 83: African Dances (_ngoma_)..._Kirua_..._Lelemama_..._Maulidi_..._Dhikri_... Pg. 101: ZANZIBAR DOORS by J. J. ADIE. (Reproduced with the kind permission of the _East African Standard_). Pg. 104: ZANZIBAR "ARAB" CHESTS by J. J. ADIE. (Reproduced with the kind permission of the _East African Standard_). (...) These chests (_kasha la njumu_ in Kiswahili) are known by Europeans in the neighbouring territories on the mainland as "Lamu" chests, and in Zanzibar as "Arab" chests; they are, however, made in Persia and India (Surat and Bombay), and are only identified with the Arabs on account of the fact that they have been an item of importation into Arabia for a very long period and have made their way into Zanzibar by the dhows which come from Arabia and the adjacent countries on the north-east monsoon. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 15:01:05 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:01:05 EST Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 9:46:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, dwhause at JOBE.NET writes: > I'm afraid this is folk etymology, but the derivation I remember > (unattested) is that early lighter-than-air craft were either rigid, such as > the infamous Hindenburg, or "limp" and that the version adopted was the > model B, hence, Blimp. Apparently an etymythology, although a widespread one. A derivation from "Colonel Blimp" is also unlikely. Here is what appears to be a reasonably authoritative source: >From "Glossary of Airship Terms" URL http://www.blimpinfo.com/glossary.html blimp: a term coined in 1915 as a friendly synonym for a pressure airship. The word is said to have mimicked the sound made when a man snapped his thumb on the airship’s gas-filled envelope. It is not derived from the description of an apocryphal type of World War I British airship, the "Balloon, Type B, limp." There was never a "Type B" nor a designation "limp" applied to a British airship before, during or after WW I. The term most likely originated with Lieutenant (later Air Commodore) A. D. Cunningham of the Royal Naval Air Service, commanding officer of the British airship station at Capel in December 1915. During a weekly inspection, Lt. Cunningham visited an aircraft hangar to examine a "Submarine Scout" pressure airship, His Majesty’s Airship SS-12. Cunningham broke the solemnity of the occasion by playfully flipping his thumb at the gasbag and was rewarded with an odd noise that echoed off the taut fabric. Cunningham imitated this sound by uttering: "Blimp!" A young midshipman, who later became known as Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard, repeated the tale of this humorous inspection to his fellow officers in the mess hall before lunch the same day. It is believed that by this route the word came into common usage. What is a "pressure airship"? pressure airship: a term used to describe an airship whose shape is dependent on the gas inside its envelope having a higher pressure than is found in the atmosphere outside. With no lifting gas in its envelope, a pressure airship is only an empty bag on the ground with its control car, fins and hardware fittings the only rigid structures. Also called a "non-rigid airship." About this Web site "BlimpInfo.com is a publication of The Lighter-Than-Air Society, 526 S. Main Street, Suite 232, Akron OH 44311. Address all suggestions to Suggest at BlimpInfo.com " - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU Fri Jan 17 15:10:19 2003 From: andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:10:19 -0500 Subject: greenlit Message-ID: Mmm ... renewal: Fox has greenlit two more seasons of animated powerhouse "The Simpsons" and another year of its Sunday benchmate "King of the Hill." http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/17/television.simpsons.reut/index.html Variety-style verbing? From Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM Fri Jan 17 15:23:42 2003 From: Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM (LeMay, William) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:23:42 -0500 Subject: greenlit Message-ID: I worked with a software engineer who always said "highlit" instead of highlighted when describing use cases. The other prevalent term in the shop was "vertice" as the singular of vertices. I am also happy to see that the Simpsons will be around a couple more years to "embiggen" us with some more linguistic laughs. http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/10/10-346.html Bill Le May -----Original Message----- From: Drew Danielson [ mailto:andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU ] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 9:10 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: greenlit Mmm ... renewal: Fox has greenlit two more seasons of animated powerhouse "The Simpsons" and another year of its Sunday benchmate "King of the Hill." http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/17/television.simpsons.reut/index. html Variety-style verbing? From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 17:13:36 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:13:36 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= In-Reply-To: <42.33a246f4.2b5648da@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #In a message dated 1/14/03 8:02:15 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: #> In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, #> "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't #> around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two #> because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. #I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my life #heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. Neither did I... and I never expected to hear a velar nasal there. Relevant points: 1. "-in'" was thoroughly established as a colloquial alternate to "-ing". 2. This was a fixed expression, so one said it as one heard it. "Yer fucking A!" with a velar would have been as hypercorrectively or miscorrectively wrong (though not as blatantly so) as later on *"Tell it as it is!" for "Tell it like it is!" 3. / k @ ng / would have required either a release and reforming of the velar closure, or a syllabic nasal with nasal release, either of which (IMO) would have been less consistent with the forceful way in which I always heard this pronounced than / k I n / would. #The full phrase from the 1950s Iowa high school I attended was #"Fuck-an-A John!" This meant about what "Right on!" meant in the #1970s, and translates roughly into what I hear as "Damn Straight" #today. Somewhat different full form with the same sense. -- Mark A. Mandel From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 17 18:12:33 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 13:12:33 -0500 Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... Message-ID: It is true that as a matter of established fact, the earliest appearance in print of The Big Apple is from the early 1920s, in columns by a horse-racing journalist who heard the expression spoken by a couple of black hot-walkers at the track. But this of course is not the origin of the term, since the earliest citation makes clear that the term was already in oral use. Nor is there an explanation for why the term should have been Big Apple as opposed to Big Pumpkin, Long Zucchini (with reference to the shape of the island, perhaps), Great Something, Old Whatever. Gerry Cohen has speculated that since fruit was often served at the end of a banquet, an apple might have been considered a special treat. Children were also often given apples and nuts as stocking fillers at Christmas. But this is a speculation. Now we have another speculation, that the term arose, I suppose by Hobson-Jobson, from an Irish phrase. None of our phoneticians have weigh in as to the likelihood of such a development. We have heard objections that this origin isn't documented, as indeed it isn't. Presumably whatever is the true origin and explanation of The Big Apple will never be proven, because at or near the date of origin no note was written down, or because whatever note was written has been lost, or because the note, though still existing, will not be read during our lifetimes by anyone interested enough in the Big Apple to publicize the find. But who knows. I'm spending 5-10 hours a week reading NYC newspapers from the 1830s & 1840s. I've found a 50 year antedating of at least one word, as well as words or senses that aren't in the OED. As Barry knows, new stuff is being digitized every month. I posted the courtroom scene from 1821 in the spirit of sending it out into the world to make its fortune. Its an example of language use in America. To the present purpose, it showed that Irish was in fact spoken in NYC before the Famine migration, and not only by the common folk, but also by a learned gentleman -- well, by a lawyer, at least. If Irish was understood then by literate NYers, maybe there was, maybe there still are, written notes giving details of what they said. The newspaper I'm currently reading once printed a paragraph in Hebrew, just to show that it could, and because the editor the week before had let out an anti-semitic tirade, and he wanted to prove that some of his best friends were Jews. As for Beverly Flanigan's question: I read the chapter on the Irish language in NY several years ago, and reread only the opening few pages before I sent off my recent missive. I posted the statement from it that Irish was widely spoken in Ireland in 1800. As I recall, the author says that even before the Famine the language was beginning to go the way of all low-prestige languages in competition with a language spoken by the holders of power and wealth; and that the Famine and the disruption it caused to Irish society and culture added to this process, until by the late 19th C Irish was spoken only by bogtrotters. So a hypothesis has been made, and we sit back and await future developments. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Daniel Cassidy Date: Thursday, January 16, 2003 10:07 pm Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... > Thanks much for feedback. Please see my version of "apple" again > and then > short note below... > > Big Apple > Big Áth Béil (gen. of béal) (pron. ahh-beeul) > Big Ford of the Mouth (of the Rivers) > New York City. > > Áth: Ford; a river crossing. > Béal: Mouth (of a river). > Belfast: Béal Feirste: Mouth of the sandy bank of Farset River > Dublin: Baile Átha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles > (of the Liffey River). > New York: The Big Áth Béal: The Big Ford of the Mouth of the > (Hudson and > East) rivers. > > New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the > Irish names > for Belfast and Dublin. An ancient Gaelic name for the ancient > crossing of > the two great North Atlantic Rivers. > > +++ > > > A Chairde: (Friends...) > > The two Irish words A/TH and BE/AL are used in hundreds of place > names in > Ireland, Scotland and the Isles. I believe it is the source of > the Gaelic > monicker the "apple" for NYC. If some do not agree with me than > their big > apple can be as English as big Liz Windsor. > > as far as citations of Irish words in English, that would be > humorous if it > were not for the long and well known depredations of cultural > imperialism in > Ireland. the language was first banned in 1366 with the statutes > of Kilkenny. > that was copper fastened with the passage of the penal laws in the > early 18th > century. a modern dictionary was not published until 1926. the > Irish language > was not permitted to be taught in schools in English colonized > Ireland for > close to half a millennium. > > 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that > came to north > America were illiterate. > > This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over > spoken rather > than written sources. > > With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue > you must put > your ear to the ground. > > I look forward to the discussions...Thanks for the note. > > Sl/an agus Beannachtai/ > Health and Blessings, > > Daniel Cassidy > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 18:51:00 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 13:51:00 EST Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: Another Web site, URL http://www.worldwar1.com/sfzepp.htm, has this to say A number of theories have been advanced concerning the etymology of "blimp," but in fact it is an onomatopoeic word whose coinage can be traced specifically to 5-Dec-1915 when Royal Naval Air Service Lieutenant A. D. Cunningham playfully flicked a finger against the envelope of SS. 12 at the Capel air station and then mimicked aloud the sound It had made. "Blimp," then, is essentially a slang term, although it was given one official cachet in Jul-1943 when the U.S. Navy, the only service in the world to operate airships during World War II, inexplicably changed the designation "airship patrol squadron:" to "blimp squadron." What is useful about this site's cite is that an exact date (5 December 1915) is given. I would like to see the 1915 citation David Shulman has. If it is earlier than December 1915, or from December 1915 but not plausibly from Lt. Cunningham, then the theory in the above quote would be, uh, "shot down in flames". - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA PS. Does anyone know if the cartoon character "Colonel Blimp" (dating from the 1930's) was named after the airship? From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 17 19:09:27 2003 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:09:27 -0500 Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... In-Reply-To: <3c1df23c6a6e.3c6a6e3c1df2@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: In The Story of English companion volume pp. 170-1 there are maps delineating the retreat of Gaelic in Ireland. In 1800 only the area around Dublin and Belfast as English speaking and the rest Gaelic but for the population born 1771-1781 only the western half has more than 50% speaking Irish; that area decreases rapidly after the cohort born 1831-41. --On Friday, January 17, 2003 1:12 PM -0500 George Thompson wrote: > It is true that as a matter of established fact, the earliest appearance > in print of The Big Apple is from the early 1920s, in columns by a > horse-racing journalist who heard the expression spoken by a couple of > black hot-walkers at the track. But this of course is not the origin of > the term, since the earliest citation makes clear that the term was > already in oral use. Nor is there an explanation for why the term should > have been Big Apple as opposed to Big Pumpkin, Long Zucchini (with > reference to the shape of the island, perhaps), Great Something, Old > Whatever. Gerry Cohen has speculated that since fruit was often served > at the end of a banquet, an apple might have been considered a special > treat. Children were also often given apples and nuts as stocking > fillers at Christmas. But this is a speculation. > > Now we have another speculation, that the term arose, I suppose by > Hobson-Jobson, from an Irish phrase. None of our phoneticians have weigh > in as to the likelihood of such a development. We have heard objections > that this origin isn't documented, as indeed it isn't. Presumably > whatever is the true origin and explanation of The Big Apple will never > be proven, because at or near the date of origin no note was written > down, or because whatever note was written has been lost, or because the > note, though still existing, will not be read during our lifetimes by > anyone interested enough in the Big Apple to publicize the find. But who > knows. I'm spending 5-10 hours a week reading NYC newspapers from the > 1830s & 1840s. I've found a 50 year antedating of at least one word, as > well as words or senses that aren't in the OED. As Barry knows, new > stuff is being digitized every month. > > I posted the courtroom scene from 1821 in the spirit of sending it out > into the world to make its fortune. Its an example of language use in > America. To the present purpose, it showed that Irish was in fact spoken > in NYC before the Famine migration, and not only by the common folk, but > also by a learned gentleman -- well, by a lawyer, at least. If Irish was > understood then by literate NYers, maybe there was, maybe there still > are, written notes giving details of what they said. The newspaper I'm > currently reading once printed a paragraph in Hebrew, just to show that > it could, and because the editor the week before had let out an > anti-semitic tirade, and he wanted to prove that some of his best friends > were Jews. > > As for Beverly Flanigan's question: I read the chapter on the Irish > language in NY several years ago, and reread only the opening few pages > before I sent off my recent missive. I posted the statement from it that > Irish was widely spoken in Ireland in 1800. As I recall, the author says > that even before the Famine the language was beginning to go the way of > all low-prestige languages in competition with a language spoken by the > holders of power and wealth; and that the Famine and the disruption it > caused to Irish society and culture added to this process, until by the > late 19th C Irish was spoken only by bogtrotters. > > So a hypothesis has been made, and we sit back and await future > developments. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Daniel Cassidy > Date: Thursday, January 16, 2003 10:07 pm > Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... > >> Thanks much for feedback. Please see my version of "apple" again >> and then >> short note below... >> >> Big Apple >> Big Áth Béil (gen. of béal) (pron. ahh-beeul) >> Big Ford of the Mouth (of the Rivers) >> New York City. >> >> Áth: Ford; a river crossing. >> Béal: Mouth (of a river). >> Belfast: Béal Feirste: Mouth of the sandy bank of Farset River >> Dublin: Baile Átha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles >> (of the Liffey River). >> New York: The Big Áth Béal: The Big Ford of the Mouth of the >> (Hudson and >> East) rivers. >> >> New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the >> Irish names >> for Belfast and Dublin. An ancient Gaelic name for the ancient >> crossing of >> the two great North Atlantic Rivers. >> >> +++ >> >> >> A Chairde: (Friends...) >> >> The two Irish words A/TH and BE/AL are used in hundreds of place >> names in >> Ireland, Scotland and the Isles. I believe it is the source of >> the Gaelic >> monicker the "apple" for NYC. If some do not agree with me than >> their big >> apple can be as English as big Liz Windsor. >> >> as far as citations of Irish words in English, that would be >> humorous if it >> were not for the long and well known depredations of cultural >> imperialism in >> Ireland. the language was first banned in 1366 with the statutes >> of Kilkenny. >> that was copper fastened with the passage of the penal laws in the >> early 18th >> century. a modern dictionary was not published until 1926. the >> Irish language >> was not permitted to be taught in schools in English colonized >> Ireland for >> close to half a millennium. >> >> 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that >> came to north >> America were illiterate. >> >> This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over >> spoken rather >> than written sources. >> >> With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue >> you must put >> your ear to the ground. >> >> I look forward to the discussions...Thanks for the note. >> >> Sl/an agus Beannachtai/ >> Health and Blessings, >> >> Daniel Cassidy >> _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 00:39:31 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:39:31 EST Subject: sitzfleish (was ?) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/16/2003 11:00:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET writes: > We used the term Sitzfleisch as a euphemism for ass when I was in prep > school back in the '50s at Concordia College in Milwaukee. This very German > Missouri Synod Lutheran institution didn't have much Yiddish influence. > #Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of > #studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate > #to our Barry? > > Actually I've always thought of it as being as much Yiddish as German, > though I spelled it as German (without the capital letter). ... Not in > Rosten's _Joy of Yiddish_ ... not in AHD4 ... Found it in Weinreich's > Y/E dictionary: > > zitsflaysh [my translit -- MAM] : perseverance (humorous) > > My wife's recollection of its use in Yiddish (her parents were native > speakers) is that when it was applied to a child, it often referred to a > behavior of pattern of being unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting, > standing up, moving around, etc. "Nowadays we diagnose it as ADHD." Herbert Tarr _The Conversion of Chaplain Cohen_ New York: Avon, 1963, no ISBN, beginning of chapter 7 "Classes at Chaplain School continued unabated, but the interest of the chaplains did not. By the middle of January, with almost a month still remaining till the end of the course, the men were growing restless. Most of them, veterans of a minimum of seven years of higher education, were weary by now of any additional schooling; their _sitzfleisch_ had clearly been worn to the bone." - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 01:40:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 20:40:51 EST Subject: Glam Burger; Irish Apple Message-ID: GLAM BURGER Today's NEW YORK POST, 17 January 2003, pg. 7, col. 2,: _GLAM BURGER_ _For $50,_ _it _better__ _be good_ DB Bistro Moderne burger *** The full-color photo illustration must be seen to be believed. Wait a while and see if "glam burger" catches on as slang for an expensive hamburger. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- IRISH APPLE In a message dated 1/17/2003 1:12:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, george.thompson at NYU.EDU writes: > So a hypothesis has been made, and we sit back and await future > developments. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr. > You're going to have to wait a long time, almost as long as for the African sources for "OK." Or, if you're writing THE STORY OF ENGLISH, don't even bother to wait at all. As I've said, not only do we NOT HAVE ONE SINGLE PIECE OF SUPPORTING EVIDENCE in any of our HUGE DATABANKS OF MILLIONS OF HISTORICAL WRITINGS, we have COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE. "Apple" meant "apple." It didn't come from an Irish speaker in New York City, but from an African-American in New Orleans. Horses like apples. Horses don't eat zucchini and they don't eat much pumpkin. The apple was and still is the king of the fruits. As I've said before, but I guess George missed it, various apple-growing places, such as Washington, British Columbia, Colorado, and Missouri, all advertised as "Land of the Big Red Apples" since at least the 1890s. No "mouth of the river" from Irish in that. "Apples"--Big Apples. But if you want to wait, go ahead and wait. Get Bill Gates to digitize every single Irish work ever published. You won't find anything of relevance, and it won't be what the African-American had meant, and it won't be what John J. Fitz Gerald had meant, and it won't be what a living witness such as Shirley Povich has told me. And if you don't find anything at all, your theory is still true, but it's just that no one had bothered to write it down. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 03:02:27 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 21:02:27 -0600 Subject: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) Message-ID: In Jonathon Green's very helpful ads-l message about Daniel Cassidy's _NY Observer_ article, there's mention that Cassidy might have solved a centuries-old problem: the origin of cant "mort" "woman, harlot". The _NY Observer_ article says: "Mort: old New York slang for a woman -- Mór te: fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection." Green, addressing D. Cassidy says: >...Then mort. Here I think you have cracked a centuries'-old conundrum. No-one >has ever been able to pin this one down. The OED is most honest: 'Origin >unknown' and other suggestions are pretty specious. The question remains, >was the Irish term in existence c. 1560?... However, in Oct. 1990 my _Comments on Etymology_ carried what I consider to be a plausible explanation of this "mort", and it was then published formally in my _Studies in Slang, part IV_; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995, p. 51; article title "Cant _mort_ 'girl, woman' from _mort_ 'salmon in its third year',"; author: Gerald Cohen. I'll now reproduce the article up to the Reference: "OED2 presents cant _mort_ (sb. #4) as meaning 'girl, woman' and being of unknown origin. But I believe a lead can be furnished by an awareness of the now dated German slang _Backfisch_ 'frying fish,'; cf. its appearance in 'Meine erste Liebe,' (part of _Lausbubengeschichten_) by the Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma. "_Backfisch_ 'teenage girl' is known to derive from the idea of young fish past the throw-back stage being more suited for frying -- and hence eating -- than the adult fish. German clearly indicates that men could liken women to fish; and this is part of the larger picture of men describing women with food imagery, e.g. _a peach_, _a tomato_, _a dish_. "Now, it turns out that _mort_ is also a term for a salmon, specifically a salmon in its third year (see OED2, sb. #3). And a check of Chambers 1753 _Encyclopedia_ shows that the fish becomes officially a salmon in its sixth year; i.e. a mort is neither very young nor very old: "(under salmon): 'The salmon in the different stages of its life and growth has different names. The Latins call it when young _salar_, when of middle growth _sario_ or _fario_, and only when fully grown _salmon_. In England the fishermen have names for it in every year of its growth. In the first it is called a _smelt_, in the second a _sprod_, in the third a _mort_, in the fourth a _fork tail_, and in the fifth a _half-fish_; finally, in the sixth it is called a _salmon_. This is the common agreement of our fishermen, though there are some who say the _salmon_ comes much sooner to full growth.' "The first attestation of _mort_ as a fish is 1530; as a girl/woman: 1561-75. So chronologically there are no problems with the suggestion of _mort_ 'salmon to woman' in cant." **** That's the article. Also, if "mort" (woman) is in fact derived from Irish Mór te (fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection), one would expect this semantic development to have occurred first within Irish. Gerald Cohen From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 18 14:46:51 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 09:46:51 -0500 Subject: FW: [DSNA] Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order Message-ID: Jesse sure nailed this, below. BUT, here is a related quiz for you . . . Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 vowels in his first name? You have thirty seconds . . . Frank Abate ******************************************************* On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:22:55PM -0600, Luanne von Schneidemesser wrote: > > > > > >I'm looking for the two words in the English language that have the > >letters "a e i o u y" in the word in order, they can be separated by other > >letters. Can you help? The two? What makes you think there are only two? There are a number of words in English with the vowels in order, including _abstemious, abstentious, adventitious,_ and _facetious_, along with some more obscure ones like _caesious_ (the shortest in English with the five main vowels in order) and _parecious_. Most of these can have an _-ly_ suffix, giving the letters you ask for. Drop _adventitious_ from the list if you are bothered by the repeated _i_s, but there are certainly more than two. Jesse Sheidlower Oxford English Dictionary For more information:http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html Post message: DSNA at yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Sat Jan 18 14:37:39 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 14:37:39 -0000 Subject: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) Message-ID: I was, of course, aware of the Studies in Slang suggestion as to the etymology of mort. And would not be so foolish as to dismiss it out of hand: that etymology is among those I offer in CDS. But I am no German scholar (nor indeed speaker) and while I happened upon the word backfisch many years ago, and know its etymology, I cannot get away from the question: can a 20C German term create a backwards analogy, as it were, as the basis for the etymology of a 16C English one. But the equation of women with fish is of course a venerable one (Shakespeare has it in 1595 and there are allusions in the early 15C) and it may indeed be Gerald Cohen who, not for the first time, has 'cracked' a problem in slang. A good deal seems to turn on exactly who made up the ranks of itinerant criminal beggars apostrophised as the 16C 'canting crew'. (For those who want a serious discussion thereupon, I recommend John L. McMullan The Canting Crew; Rutgers 1984). It would certainly appear that as well as a core of native Englishmen, there were Irishmen (and gypsies, another source, via Romani, of 16C cant). There were also number of ex-soldiers, who would have served in Ireland. Indeed, in the hierarchy of 'knaves', as listed variously by Harman (1566), Awdelay (1657) and various successors, there is noted the 'Irish toyle', who was essentially a travelling villain who posed as a seller of haberdashery in order to commit robberies as he moved from town to town. One might assume that some, even if not all of such rogues were in fact Irish and that it had begun as an Irish 'speciality'. Harman also specifies 'above a hundred Irish men and women that wander about to beg for their living, that have come over within these two years (i.e. 1564-6). It is because I believe that there were sufficient Irishmen to influence the language of the canting crew that I am willing to credit Daniel Cassidy with making a realistic suggestion as to the etymology of mort. It is because I do not believe that the Irish villains of 19C New York City had invented the slang he discusses, but picked it up from a vocabulary imported from late 18C/early 19C London, that I part company with him on the other terms I mention. (Rabbit and rabbit sucker, being 'homegrown' may well, as I accept in my letter, have Irish origins: certainly it's a feasible as Asbury's picture of a dead rabbit brandished on a pole.) Mor te may be wrong, but so may that juvenile salmon. One last suggestion, which I culled from my reading of C. J. Ribton-Turner A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging (London 1887) suggests Welsh modryb, a matron, or morwyn, a virgin. Jonathon Green From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 04:14:06 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 23:14:06 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: I think we are beginning to repeat ourselves, but let me take a stab at in one more time. Concerning Mark's "relevant point" (1): Just as <-in'> is "thoroughly established as a colloquial alternate to" <-ng>, so too is <'n> thoroughly established as a colloquial alternative to . On these grounds, then, it could be reasonably analyzed as either "fuckin' a" or "fuck 'n a". Concerning his "relevant point" (2): Both "fuckin' a" with a velar nasal and "fuck 'n a" with a full "ae" vowel would be less likely. Neither would be "hypercorrect," however, just functionally emphatic. If I say, "You fucking fool!" with a velar nasal, it sounds to me like the speaker is really serious, not that the speaker doesn't know the rules for informal English. Concerning his "relevant point" (3): If I can say I can say . If I understand him rightly, Mark is saying that pronounced with schwa+velar nasal is not easy to pronounce, whereas [I]+alveolar nasal is easy to pronounce. Whatever. I certainly never maintained that (or would be pronounced with a schwa. The normal vowel (if there is one, and not just a syllabic alveolar nasal) would be [I] in both cases. So the "relevance" of this point escapes me, if I understand him correctly. In a message dated 1/17/03 12:14:05 PM, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: ... I never expected to hear a velar nasal [in fuckin' A]. Relevant points: 1. "-in'" was thoroughly established as a colloquial alternate to "-ing". 2. This was a fixed expression, so one said it as one heard it. "Yer fucking A!" with a velar would have been as hypercorrectively or miscorrectively wrong (though not as blatantly so) as later on *"Tell it as it is!" for "Tell it like it is!" 3. / k @ ng / would have required either a release and reforming of the velar closure, or a syllabic nasal with nasal release, either of which (IMO) would have been less consistent with the forceful way in which I always heard this pronounced than / k I n / would. >> From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Sat Jan 18 16:50:02 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 16:50:02 -0000 Subject: "mort" (woman) Message-ID: Mot is etymologised in the OED as no more than an alternative sp. and chronological successor to mort and the two words share an entry. Other suggestions have been the Dutch mot, a woman (Barrere & Leland, who call it 'old Dutch slang') and (surely less feasible) French amourette, a girlfriend. Its first published use seems to be in Captain Grose's Classical Dict.of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), 'Mot: a girl or wench. See mort.' Whether there is a real link betw. mort/mot is by no means proven. Other than in consciously archaic uses by Walter Scott and Ainsworth, both writing historical novels, and a wholly anachronistic apparance in James Curtis' Gilt Kid (1936) mort had pretty much vanished by mid-18C. I quote (and agree with) Gordon Williams Dict. of Sexual Language & Imagery in Shakespearian & Stuart Lit.' (1994; vol II p.911): Mot is found is most collections of C19 flash lingo; Barrere and Leland are probably to be relied on in tracing it to old Dutch slang mot, whore, since there is no evidence of mort's continuity. They have 'mot-cart', mattress, and F[armer] & H[enley] have 'motting', wenching. Their 'mot-carpet' = woman's pubis derives from 'motte', hillock, which is similarly used. The fact that modern Dubliners use mot does not, I would suggest, have any bearing on the Irishness or otherwise of mort. Jonathon Green From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 15:57:34 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 09:57:34 -0600 Subject: "mort" (woman) Message-ID: My thanks to Jonathon Green for his latest ads-l message on "mort" and to Daniel Cassidy for a private message he sent to me on the subject; the latter is reproduced below my signoff. With a bit of further questioning/investigating, perhaps we can clarify the matter. I'm not wedded to my suggestion advanced yesterday (quoting from my article in _Studies in Slang_, IV), although the suggestion still seems plausible to me. If the Germans (in whatever century) could view a teenage girl as a fish ("Backfisch"), maybe the English could too (hence: "mort" = "salmon in its third year" leading to "mort" = "girl, woman"). But let's set that aside now and look at Dr. Cassidy's suggestion (_NY Observer_ article): "Mort: old New York slang for a woman -- Mór te: fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection." What's troubling here is that the development of "mor + te" (passion/etc.) to "mort" (woman) is assumed to have occurred not in Irish but in English. English speakers, however, would not be expected to combine two Irish words meaning "passion/etc." to form the word for "woman." That should be done by the Irish themselves. Dr. Cassidy's message below introduces new information: Irish "mot" (woman) deriving from "mort." But unless this "mort" arose within Irish, we're back to the unlikely assumption that the English formed the word based on two Irish roots. Bernard Share's _Slanguage: A Dictionary of Irish Slang_, 1997, has an item "mot" (from "mort") but makes no claim for a native Irish origin of the term. How do we know that the term in his dictionary is a native Irish one rather than a borrowing from English cant? And if "mort" (woman) is in fact a native Irish word, why can't we simply say that this native Irish term was borrowed into English with the same meaning? This would be very straightforward, and we could leave the ultimate origin of the Irish word to the scholars of Celtic Gerald Cohen At 1:41 AM -0500 1/18/03, DanCas1 at aol.com wrote: >From: DanCas1 at aol.com >Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 01:41:03 EST >Subject: Re: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort >"salmon" (was: Irish a... >To: gcohen at umr.edu > > >Mort? A German salmon? Why not? The slang of the crossroad is an >infinite helix. > >+++ > >If the Irish word for "ring" (fáinne) can morph into "phony" -- and >the English word "bad" can mean "good," all things are possible with >the living language. > >I will not give you the whole kit and caboodle on the Irish word Mór. > >Here's a precis... > >Mór m. 1. Great; much, many. 2. Friendliness. (3) Pride, vanity; >great person, proud person. An mór a cheansú, to tame the proud. > >Mór a1. (comp Mó). Big, great, large, full-grown; mighty, renowned; >proud; rich, well-to-do; main, major, chief; friendly (with, le)... > >(O'Donaill, p. 877, Dineen, p. 761) > >There are pages of compounds...Here's a particularly apt one: > >Mórtas, m. (gs. -ais) 1. Pride, haughtiness. 2. High spirits. 3. Friendliness. > >Then we go back to the 6th or 7th century CE if published citations >are a must for a mort. > >Mór : a woman's name, type of the average woman, esp. the peasant >woman of proverbs; oft. Englished Martha or Mary...Dineen p. 763 > >These two are pre-Christian and prehistoric, > >Mór Mumhan, the beautiful wife of Cathal Mac Fionghaine; > >Mór Cluana, a famous fairy or goddess...Dineen pp. 763-4 > >There are many exclamations, proverbs, and sayings involving Mór. > >Mór do beatha, hail! > >Cailín ag Móir is Mór ag iarraidh déirce... >Mór though a beggar must have her maid, anything to keep up >appearances. (O'Donaill, p. 877) > >Mór, Muire is Pádraig duit, Mór, Mary and Patrick bless thee. > >Mór is Mairsile i macnas múchta, Mór and Marcella swamped in luxury. > > >A Mór te or "Mort" then is a Mór who is te: " hot, warm; zealous, >passionate, high-spirited, apt to lose one's temper..." >(DeBhaldraithe) > >MOT: > >Mort morphs into Mot over time and is very popular Dublin working >class and youth slang for "woman or girl" >See Roddy Doyle's "The Snapper," "The Commitments," etc. > >"Mot" is not used in Belfast or Derry or the larger towns of Ulster > >TE : a. Hot, warm, ardent, hot-tempered, fiery, affectionate... > >Mort like "Cove" for a man faded out in NYC/Brooklyn. > >Modern "Mot" though can be heard among the jackeens (Dubliners) in >Sunnyside, the East Side, and the Bronx, as well as out here on the >left coast in San Francisco. > >Daniel Cassidy From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 19:47:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 14:47:51 -0500 Subject: Turkey Day (1887) Message-ID: Andrew Smith (editor of the forthcoming OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK) asked me about "Turkey Day" for "Thanksgiving." He'd found it in postcards from around 1900-1910. DARE has--what? From the NEW YORK TIMES, 20 November 1887, pg. 16: The near advent of Thanksgiving has had the usual effect that the approach of a holiday generally produces on the social world; that is, it has cast somewhat of a damper on gayety. The past week has had little of incident, and the present, from the outlook this morning, offers still less. With "Turkey Day," as New-England children call it, over and gone, there will be a revival of gayety for the few weeks before Christmas, when the same story will be repeated. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 21:09:38 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 15:09:38 -0600 Subject: (Big) Apple as disguised from Irish words Message-ID: Daniel Cassidy's proposed Irish derivation needs to be fully aired. A new wrinkle in the discussion is that he sent me a private message with a request that it not be shared. So I'm not sure how I'm supposed to publicly probe evidence/material which I'm requested to keep confidential. So let me proceed as best I can: 1) Setting aside the controversial 1909 attestation, the first attestations of "the big apple" (in lower-case letters; 1921) refer to the New York City racetracks, not to NYC as a whole. And as Barry Popik has clearly shown, the turf writer who introduced "the big apple" (= NYC racetracks) to popular consciousness (1921) picked up the term from two African-American stable-hands in New Orleans a year earlier. 2) Apples have always been regarded as a special fruit, and the big red delicious apples, developed in Iowa in the 1870s, were regarded as something extra special. Therefore, "big apple" came to mean a big shot (i.e., someone who thinks he's very important), pretty much as "the big cheese" did. Cf. _Underworld Lingo_ by Hyman Goldin et al.: "_Big apple_. A big shot: one who has, or creates the illusion of having, influence, money, etc. 'There ain't no big apples in this stir (prison). You pull a tough bit (serve a harsh term) here.' _Apple. A big shot: a personage of real or pretended distinction in th underworld. 'Mike's got to be an apple in the alky (alcohol) racket now.'" It was precisely this sense of "(overweening) big shot" that I suppose appears in the 1909 attestation: "It [the Midwest] inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap." The reference here is to NYC, but as I mentioned previously, "the big apple" was no more NYC's nickname in 1909 than "The Big Enchilada" is Washington D.C.'s nickname now, even though I might refer to our nation's capital as "the big enchilada" in a discussion of political power. This use of "the big apple" in reference to NYC is totally isolated; no other source prior to 1921 has it. (For more information on this topic see my monograph _Origin of New York City's Nickname The Big Apple_, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991. pp.6ff.; but for a full treatment of "the big apple" this monograph must be supplemented by the material that Barry Popik later discovered) 3) So we now have "the big apple" back to an African-American context. And at this point I've engaged in some theorizing of my own based on the statement of the 1920 stablehand: "This ain't no bull ring stable. We's goin' to the big apple." For jockeys and trainers active in the bushes (county fairs in Idaho, etc.), the NYC racetracks with their excitement and big purses represented the big time, an extra-special treat symbolized by the big apple (apples were sometimes even given as Xmas gifts). New Yorkers tend to take their city for granted; it's the non-New Yorkers looking to make the big time in show-business, racing, etc. who look with great excitement to the possibility of getting there. 4) Now, Dr. Daniel Cassidy has proposed that "Big Apple" derives from Irish Big Áth Béal (pronounced Ahh Beeul) and means: Big Crossing at the Mouth. Okay, where's the evidence? Well, there is none. Maybe some African-Americans spoke with some Irish (not an impossibility). Maybe the Irish referred to NYC as the Big Crossing at the Mouth (nowhere actually attested), and so maybe the African-Americans acquired "Big Áth Béal" and misinterpreted its sounds to be "Big Apple." That's three maybes without a shred of evidence. Coming up with a revolutionary interpretation is fine, but the next stage in scholarship is to see if any evidence supports it. Dr. Cassidy has not only failed to provide any at all but has proceeded to the next stage of deriding the one in which a big apple really is an apple. The ball is in his court on this one. If he can find any evidence to support his theory, we shall listen with great interest, and no doubt a good discussion will ensue. In the meantime, the work which Barry Popik and I did (with an assist from several other scholars) should be considered as still valid. Gerald Cohen From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 21:29:14 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 15:29:14 -0600 Subject: Big Apple--make that TWO maybes Message-ID: At 3:09 PM -0600 1/18/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: >Maybe some >African-Americans spoke with some Irish (not an impossibility). >Maybe the Irish referred to NYC as the Big Crossing at the Mouth >(nowhere actually attested), and so maybe the African-Americans >acquired "Big Áth Béal" and misinterpreted its sounds to be "Big >Apple." I'm here amending my message that I sent a few minutes ago. There's no doubt that some African-Americans spoke with some Irish. The main lack of evidence concerns the Irish referring to NYC as Big Ath Beal (accent aigu over A and e). Thus far there's none, zero, zip, nada. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 19 00:55:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 19:55:09 EST Subject: Tanzanite (September 1968) Message-ID: My trip to Tanzania wouldn't be complete without an antedate of "tanzanite." OED has 14 October 1968. It's mentioned that, although the gem is from Africa, the name comes from right here on 57th Street (Tiffany's). I can confirm that with a slightly earlier citation. LAPIDARY JOURNAL, August 1968, pages 636-637: _ZOISITE--A NEWLY-FOUND GEM from Tanzania_ ("Tanzanite" is not mentioned in the article. There are 1968 citations from THE JOURNAL OF GEMMOLOGY and GEMS & GEMOLOGY that I'll check out in the NYPL later next week--ed.) LAPIDARY JOURNAL, September 1968, pg. 736: _MORE ABOUT ZOISITE_ _A New Gem Sensation_ by Richard T. Liddicoat, Jr., and G. Robert Crowningshield GEMOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA (...) "Tanzanite," to which we refer in this article, is a newly discovered variety of the mineral zoisite that owes its color to a small amount if vanadium. (...) The lovely transparent blue variety with a spectacular trichroism was very recently discovered in Tanzania; thus, the suggestion of a new varietal name, "tanzanite." The name was suggested by Henry Platt, G. G., Vice President and gem buyer for Tiffany & Co., when he received a magnificent Ceylon sapphire-blue 35-carat faceted stone. (Pg. 740, col. 3, end of article--ed.) Zoisite seems to be a rather unpleasant term for a gemstone, so the varietal name "tanzanite" has been suggested, relating to its source. It seems that for this lovely gemstone to have any possibility of a sales appeal, some other term than zoisite is indicated; thus, the suggestion of "tanzanite." The authors feel that this is going to be an important gemstone because of its exceptional beauty. Although the Ceylon sapphire-blue variety has attracted the most attention, the orientation that gives a combination of ruby red and blue is unlike anything in the gem world. Picture a red Maltese Cross in a sapphire-blue gemstone. "Tanzanite" is a very appealing gemstone--a welcome addition to the spectrum of gem materials. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Jan 19 03:14:55 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 19:14:55 -0800 Subject: piss elegance Message-ID: just got the fall 2002 issue of NEST ("a quarterly of interiors"), which declared itself to be about PISS ELEGANCE. on an early page - as with other with-it magazines, it's very hard to figure out what the page number of anything is - there is a declaration of topic: "Piss elegant": Most decorators use the expression and hear themselves so described. Moreover, "piss elegance" is a theme for this issue of NEST. [the front part of the magazine is about toilets and their equivalents.] But we confess to being unable to find an origin for this provocative word-join. NEST has racked its collective brain, even consulting such authorities as the Internet, without avail. Would readers care to help? just passing this on... arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 19 04:22:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:22:41 EST Subject: Hoppers and Mallung (Ceylon Cookery) Message-ID: The round-the-world etymological mystery tour continues next with Sri Lanka in February (www.ceylonexpress.com). I had met an Australian couple last February on my New Zealand tour, and the beautiful wife is from Sri Lanka. They're in Sri Lanka now, and they told me they've warned all the local women about me, whatever that means. Sri Lanka is an extremely dangerous place, more dangerous than Israel. However, temporary peace agreements were signed recently, and my visit will coincide with the visit of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Tourism is starting to pick up, and it'll probably be a flood very soon. The major staples of the cuisine, such as "hoppers" and "mallun/mallung/mallum," are not in the OED. NEOS GUIDE SRI LANKA, MALDIVES Michelin Travel Publications 432 pages, paperback, $23.95 2001 Pg. 71: ...it has borrowed all sorts of recipes, from _aluwa_, sugared semolina from the Arab world, to _dodol_ (coconut milk caramel with palm syrup), _sathe_ (thin strips of meat on skewers) and _sambol_ from Malaysia. (...) _Hoppers_ (_appa_) resemble pancakes which have been leavened by incorporating palm beer (_toddy_), mixed with coconut milk and fried in a special little pan. (...) _String hoppers_ (_idiappa_), little steamed nests of noodles, are eaten with the same accompaniments. Pg. 72: If the combination of spices in the dish is not hot enough, they tuck into some _mallun_ (a salad of shredded green leaves served cold having been cooked in water with onions and chillies) or _sambol_ , a seasoning based on ground chilli pepper, salt, onion and dried fish, sometimes served with grated coconut (_pol sambol_). SRI LANKA by Verity Campbell and Christine Niven Melbourne: Lonely Planet Publications 328 pages, paperback, $16.99 First published February 1980 8th edition August 2001 Pg. 84: ..._pol sambol_, a red-hot side dish made with grated coconut, chilli and spice. Sambol is the general name used to describe any spicy-hot dish. (...) ...mallung_ (shredded green leaves with spices, lightly stir-fried) is common, and the meal would not be complete without _parripu_ (red lentil dhal) or another pulse curry. (...) ..._kool_, a boiled, fried and dried-in-the-sun vegetable combination. Pg. 85: ..._ambul thiyal_, a pickle usually made from tuna, which is literally translated as "sour fish curry." Unique Sri Lankan foods include _hoppers_, which are usually a breakfast or evening snack. (...) A popular breakfast among Sri Lankans is fresh bread dipped in dhal or a curry with a thin gravy or _hodhi_. Another rice substitute os +pittu_, a mixture of flour and grated coconut steamed in a bamboo mould so thjat it comes out shaped like a cylinder. _Lamprai_, a popular dish of Dutch origin, is made of rice boiled in meat stock, then added to vegetables and meat and slowly baked in a banana-leaf wrapping. Pg. 86: A rotty chopped up and mixed with vegetables (or meat or egg) is called a _kotthu rotty_. (...) The Sri Lankans also have lots of ideas for desserts, including _wattalappam_, a Malay-originated egg pudding, vaguely caramel-like in taste. Curd and honey, or curd and treacle known as _kiri peni_, is good at any time of day. (...) The treacle, called _kitul_, is really syrup from the kitul palm. If it's boiled and set to form hard blocks you have _jaggery_, an all-purpose Sri-Lankan candy or sweetener. Like Indians, Sir Lankans waste no opportunity to indulge their sweet tooth--sweets are known as _rasa-kavili_. You could try _kavun_, spiced flour and treacle batter-cake fried in coconut oil, or _aluva_, which is rice flour, treacle and cashew-nut fudge. Coconut milk jaggery and cashew nuts give you the dark and delicious _kalu dodol_. _Kiri bath_ is a dessert or rice cooked in milk. THE OXFORD COMPANION TO FOOD by Alan Davidson Oxford University Press 1999 Pg. 385: HOPPER Pg. 689: SAMBAL Pg. 750: SRI LANKA (...) _Mallums_ are distinctive vegetable dishes thus described by Chandra Dissanayake (1976): "a preparation in which a fruit, edible root, leaf, vegetable or coconut may (Pg. 751--ed.) be finely shredded or grated and cooked until done with coconut." CEYLON COOKERY OR THE NATIVE COOK'S ASSISTANT IN ENGLISH AND SINHALESE Fourth Edition--Revised and Enlarged Colombo: A. M. J. Ferguson 1901 The first edition was published October 1881. This is the earliest cookbook that the NYPL has, and boy, does it disappoint. The Sinhalese type is not transliterated and is unreadable to English speakers. I didn't see "hoppers" here. The recipes are such Tamil classics as "Irish stew." Some items from the Index: BEEF:-- Polpetti Saunders MADE DISHES:-- Debris Pudding Kedgeree MISCELLANEOUS:-- Billing (Billimbe) Jam MUTTON:-- Dormars VEGETABLES:-- Brinjals au Gratin CEYLON: THE PARADISE OF ADAM by Caroline Corner London: John Lane 1908 Pg. 104: After this and a cup of tea and "string _appas_" they felt "fit." (Many, many "appas" are here instead of "hoppers"--ed.) EVERY DAY LIFE ON A CEYLON COCOA ESTATE by Mary E. Steuart London: Henry T. Drake 1908 Pg. 68: "Poochee" is the generic Ceylon name for pestilent insects, and truly their name is legion. THINGS SEEN IN CEYLON by Clare Rettie New York: E. P. Dutton & Company 1929 Pg. 34: On returning to olombo, after those pleasing excursions, it is well to see, before turning into bed, that mosquito nets are intact, in case some wicke _poochie_ (all creepy, crawly things are called "poochies" in Ceylon) gets inside. Pg. 70: It must be explained that, for some extraordinary reason (nobody seems to know why), all pupils on tea estates are called "Creepers"; the custom is universal in Ceylon. Pg. 76: Others have a collection of strange vegetables: bandakai, brinjals, vivid red chillies, avocada pears, and insipid breadfruit; or they may display ingredients for curry making; piles of snowy rice, coco-nuts, Bombay duck, popodums, and so on. There are odd looking cakes, too, called "hoppers," made of coco-nut milk and rice flour; pottery of artistic shapes; tawdry jewellery--the medley of things always to be seen where Natives congregate. Pg. 77: Many of them come from remote bungalows, which, even in these days of motors, must often be lonely, and few of the "sine Dorais" (literally "Little Masters," used by Natives in addressing all young Europeans) can afford the luwury of a car. A CEYLON COOKERY BOOK by Doreen Peiris Revised Second Edition Colombo: Lanka Trading Co. 1967? There's a huge NYPL cookbook gap from 1901 to 1967. Maybe a library in Colombo has English-lanugage cookbooks? Pg. 54: MUKUNUWANNA MALLUM...KATHURUMURUNGA MALLUM Pg. 128: HOPPERS (APPA) Pg. 129: EGG HOPPERS Pg. 130: JAGGERY HOPPERS (Hakuru Appa)...WANDU APPA (Steamed Hoppers) Pg. 131: WANDU APPA (Steamed Hoppers)...STRING HOPPERS (with only Rice Flour) Pg. 132: STRING HOOPERS...STRING HOPPER LAVARIYA Pg. 133: PITTU...SAGO PITTU...KURAKKAN PITTU FAVOURITE RECIPES Compiled by The Past Pupils of GOOD SHEPHERD CONVENT, KOTAHENA Colombo: Arosan Printers 1968 Pg. 14: ATIRAHA--THE CEYL:ON OIL CAKES Pg. 15: BIBIKKAN Pg. 17: SATTI THOSI I...SEENI MAHA Pg. 18: SATI THOSI II...BROEDER II Pg. 23: KONDE KAVUN...KOKIS Pg. 61: MOCK WATTALAPAN...MOSS JELLY & JAGGERY PUDDING Pg. 65: GHULAB JAN--AN INDIAN SWEET Pg. 66: JAGGERY & CADJUNUT TOFFEE...POTATO ALUWA Pg. 67: PUNTHALOO...RULANG SWEET Pg. 73: CHATTY THOUSY Pg. 77: KALU DODOL Pg. 94: DRUMSTICK FUGETTI Pg. 95: POLOS PAHIE Pg. 108: CHELLUM Pg. 134: HACHII (SAVOURY BEEF & ONION STEW) GUNASENA COOKERY BOOK Colombo: M. D. Gunasena & Co., Ltd. 1970 Pg. 22: Kiribath (Milk RIce) Pg. 30: Idiappa (String-hoppers) Pg. 31: Idiappa Buriyani...Pittu Pg. 24: Sudu Appa (Hoppers) Pg. 35: Egg Hoppers--I Pg. 36: Vellavahum Pg. 37: Kiri Roti Pg. 39: Hakuru-appa or Pani-appa (Jaggery Hoppers) Pg. 51: Sago Dodol-I Pg. 52: Vali Thalapa-I Pg. 55: Rulang Aluva-I Pg. 57: Tala Guli (Gingelly Balls)-I Pg. 61: Puhul Dosi (Pumpkin Preserve)-I Pg. 86: Mukunuvenna Mallung Pg. 87: Gotukola Mallung Pg. 103: Chilli Sambol Pg. 114: Bandakka (Ladies' Fingers) Sambol-I Pg. 164: Kunissan Malluma Pg. 168: Ingura Baduma Pg. 231: Dried Mango Paehi From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Sun Jan 19 08:36:57 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:36:57 -0800 Subject: to geekize: is this a first instance? In-Reply-To: <200301190314.h0J3Etj15811@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: from today's NY Times, an article about Fossil watches: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/business/yourmoney/19ROOT.html?todaysheadl ines "FOSSIL INC., along with competitors like Swatch, made a mark in the 1980's by "fashionizing" watches — turning them into fashion accessories. But Fossil says its recently announced partnership with Microsoft to produce watches that can receive short text messages does not mean that it is now in the business of fashionizing geekware. "Instead, designers and engineers at Fossil's headquarters in this Dallas suburb say their mission is to geekize fashion wear — that is, to make watches that look good and just happen to contain a computer. To them, it's an important distinction." is this the first usage of the [horrid] word 'geekize'? thank you, Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net From mlee303 at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 19 10:46:01 2003 From: mlee303 at YAHOO.COM (Margaret Lee) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 02:46:01 -0800 Subject: FW: [DSNA] Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 19 10:48:18 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 05:48:18 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order Message-ID: Margaret L wins the prize! I just don't know what the prize is. Go Tigers! We're comin' back! Frank Abate > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 19 14:39:14 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 09:39:14 EST Subject: Aurelio Lopez/Rodriguez Message-ID: From: Mpoconnor7 (mpoconnor7 at aol.comnojunk) Subject: Re: Aurelio Rodriguez, 52, former major leaguer Newsgroups: alt.obituaries Date: 2000-09-24 10:08:51 PST >Damn. That really stinks.>>Actually, for many years I confused him with Aurelio Lopez, who also played>for the Tigers; one of my favorite non-hometown teams (especially that '84>squad). I guess it was the fact that both were from Mexico, played their>prime years with Detroit, and shared a first name.They are the only two major leaguers ever to have all five vowels (a,e,i,o,u)in their first name. The only player to have all five vowels in his last nameis Ed Figureoa. The above is from Google Groups. Actually, the main problem with the trivia question is that it assumes that the Detroit Tigers play baseball. Barry Popik (Just kidding! Like the New York Yankees have shown me a lot of love??) Subj: Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order Date: 1/19/2003 5:48:54 AM Eastern Standard Time From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Reply-to: abatefr at earthlink.net To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Margaret L wins the prize! I just don't know what the prize is. Go Tigers! We're comin' back! Frank Abate > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 19 15:43:56 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 10:43:56 -0500 Subject: Aurelio Lopez/Rodriguez In-Reply-To: <195.142c02d6.2b5c1292@aol.com> Message-ID: Ed Figureoa sounds like a player who might have had an accident on the field. I'm sure Barry's Google Group author means Figueroa. dInIs >Damn. That really stinks.>>Actually, for many years I confused him with Aurelio Lopez, who also played>for the Tigers; one of my favorite non-hometown teams (especially that '84>squad). I guess it was the fact that both were from Mexico, played their>prime years with Detroit, and shared a first name.They are the only two major leaguers ever to have all five vowels (a,e,i,o,u)in their first name. The only player to have all five vowels in his last nameis Ed Figureoa. The above is from Google Groups. Actually, the main problem with the trivia question is that it assumes that the Detroit Tigers play baseball. Barry Popik (Just kidding! Like the New York Yankees have shown me a lot of love??) Margaret L wins the prize! I just don't know what the prize is. Go Tigers! We're comin' back! Frank Abate > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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 From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 19 20:35:07 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 14:35:07 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Stable Hand Theory : "Big" Apple and Jump Jim Crow Message-ID: Below my signoff is a response I received today from Dr. Cassidy. In a follow-up note he asked only that this response, if shared, be presented in its entirety; that request is of course complied with. Gerald Cohen From: DanCas1 at aol.com Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 12:49:44 EST Subject: Stable Hand Theory : "Big" Apple and Jump Jim Crow To: gcohen at umr.edu Dear Doctor Cohen: Thank you very much for your time and attention. I look forward to discussing "The Apple" with you in the future. My 3-4 days on the ADS list has certainly been instructive. As a kid in NYC back in the 50s-60s, we referred to NYC as The Apple. Not the Big Apple. That came later, with the PR push and the Ad campaign for tourists in the 1970s. Either way, Dr. Cohen, we both agree that there is an Irish American element to the name "The (Big) Apple." As I said in my personal note to you, the Stable Hand Theory of Big Apple's etymology is just a retelling of Thomas Dartmouth (Daddy) Rice's world famous Stable Hand tale of how he discovered the song and dance, "Jump Jim Crow." Only Daddy Rice's African-American stablehand was from Cincinnati, or Louisville, (depending on who Rice was talking to...) rather than New Orleans. Though, perhaps, Daddy Rice's stablehand was the grandfather of Fitzgerald's stable hand? I opt for a moniker whose very words (A/th and Be/al) mirror the ancient naming patterns of Gaelic Ireland and Scotland in a language spoken by millions of immigrants to The Americas -- over a period of five centuries - Irish and Scottish Gaelic. So, at the end of the day, we both agree that the term "The (Big) Apple" arises from the mouths and imaginations of the common folk and is popularized by people of the Gaelic Diaspora in America. You like the stable hand story, I prefer two words in Irish that describe NYC's ancient gestalt as a key crossroad of the old New World. Peace agus Beannachtai/, Daniel Cassidy Director The Irish Studies Program An Leann Eireannach New College of California 777 Valencia Street San Francisco, 94131 415-437-3402, ext. 427 fax: 415-285-5947 irishstudies at newcollege.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 04:35:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 23:35:16 EST Subject: Slaw Burger; "Big" Apple and Jump Jim Crow Message-ID: SLAW BURGER Columbia and NYU were closed today, but Columbia will have limited hours tomorrow. Both resume normal hours starting Tuesday. I bought the January-February 2003 SAVEUR, Special Issue: The Saveur 100: Our favorite foods, restaurants, recipes, people, place and things. It's certainly a quirky listing. Pg. 76: The two-volume AMERICAN HERITAGE COOKBOOK AND ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF AMERICAN EATING & DRINKING (1964). Only about 40 years old now. I wonder what it has on panini sandwiches and wraps and smoothies and cappuccino. Pg. 71: The ESQUIRE DRINK BOOK (1956). Yes, these are good books, or rather were good books. A strange list for 2003, to be sure. Pg. 78: STEAK 'N SHAKE. This made a top 100 food list? Pg. 73: R. O.'S SLAW. Since 1946, also served in a "slaw burger." The web site is www.rosbbq.com. It's worthy of inclusion in the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD & DRINK sandwich section. From Gastonia, North Carolina. Pg. 16 says that January 19th is National Popcorn Day. HOW COULD I FORGET?? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- "BIG" APPLE AND JUMP JIM CROW This is just psycho nuts crazy. It might even be racist. The "apple" in "Big Apple" means "apple," and not two words from the Irish language. I should have added that there's not a shred of evidence on the British & Irish Women's database, either. (I had found "Irish stew" there.) The Making of American (Cornell) database, for example, mentions "Irish" 32,666 times and "Gaelic" 1,172 times. Again, we have _no_ Irish language "Big Apple" citation evidence. Maybe there's a reason why every database and every Irish scholar misses such "Big Apple" evidence? To add "Jim Crow" to this and to assert that track writer John J. Fitz Gerald was borrowing or making up a "Jim Crow"-type story is just insane. Fitz Gerald mentioned the New Orleans "Big Apple" story twice--in wintertime, when he was covering New Orleans racing and describing remembered events. Trainer Jake Byer was mentioned by name, and he is not fictional. An Irishman got "the Big Apple" from an African-American. Please accept this. The first thing I tried to do--eleven years ago now--was to find and honor the African American. Is he still alive? Did he have children who remember the story? I asked the NEW YORK TIMES to publish his words. I asked the NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE to publish his words. Neither would respond or ever publish his words. It's MLK, Jr. day, and I'm begging still. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 14:14:31 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 09:14:31 EST Subject: "Jackalope" inventor dies Message-ID: DARE has "jackalope," but from only 1955. The facts from this NEW YORK TIMES article are absent in the DARE entry. OED does not have an entry. Google shows that a few places offer a "jackalope burger," but it's no "turducken" or "churkendoose." From the NEW YORK TIMES: Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead By DOUGLAS MARTIN Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope — half bunny, half antelope and 100 percent tourist trap — died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyo. He was 82. The cause was bone and lung cancer, his brother, Ralph, said. Douglas Herrick lived in Casper, but it was in his hometown, Douglas, Wyo., that luck changed his life. In 1932 (other accounts say 1934, 1939 and 1940, but Ralph Herrick swears it was 1932), the Herrick brothers had returned from hunting. "We just throwed the dead jack rabbit in the shop when we come in and it slid on the floor right up against a pair of deer horns we had in there," Ralph said. "It looked like that rabbit had horns on it." His brother's eyes brightened with inspiration. "Let's mount that thing!" he said. That was tens of thousands of jackalopes ago. A jackalope, of course, is a legendary animal with a jack rabbit's body and the antlers of a pronghorn antelope, which resembles a small deer. The last syllable of the name comes from antelope. (Jackadeer? Nah.) Whether jackalopes ever hopped the earth's surface is rather like the same question about the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot; it depends on the observer. Believers say that Buddha mentioned a horned rabbit, although they usually neglect to mention that the Enlightened One implied they do not exist. They also point to a picture of a horned rabbit painted in the 1500's, but scientists suspect its cerebral protuberances were tumors from a rabbit virus. Cowboys have said that while they were singing around the fire, their chorus was joined by a distant jackalope, often in harmony, usually in the tenor line. (Yep.) Whether truth, fiction or metaphor, the mounted version of the jackalope, many made with deer horn tips, relentlessly proliferated. Many thousands were made by Ralph Herrick and his son Jim. Douglas Herrick was less interested in the family taxidermy shop. "I don't think my brother ever made more than a thousand, if he done that," Ralph Herrick said. By contrast, Jim Herrick delivers 400 jackalopes to Wall Drug in South Dakota three times a year, a small portion of his total production. Douglas became the jackalope capital. In 1965, the state of Wyoming trademarked the name, and in 1985 Gov. Ed Herschler pronounced it the animal's official home. Jackalope images adorn everything from park benches to fire trucks. Jackalope hunting licenses are sold; an applicant must supposedly pass a test to prove he has an I.Q. higher than 50 but not more than 72. Hunting is permitted only on June 31, from midnight to 2 a.m. Jackalope milk is available at several stores, though its authenticity is questionable; everyone knows how dangerous it is to milk a jackalope. An oft-repeated legend is that the Herricks' grandfather saw a jackalope in Buffalo, Wyo., in 1920 and told his family about it. Not true, Ralph said. The first mounted jackalope was sold for $10 (they now go for $35) to Roy Ball, who displayed it in his Bonte Hotel in Douglas. It was stolen. Others have tried to take the jackalope's peculiar evolution further. A Colorado bar displays a jackapanda, a cross between a jackalope and a panda, while Wall Drug has a flying jackalope, with some partridge feathers glued to its tail. Douglas Eugene Herrick was born on July 8, 1920, and grew up on a ranch. In World War II, he was a tail gunner on a B-17. He later worked in construction and at an Amoco refinery, in addition to stuffing animals. Although Governor Herschler specifically mentioned Mr. Herrick in 1985 as the Jackalope's creator, his brother said the town tried to charge him a commission for each jackalope. It relented. (...) From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 20 15:34:57 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 10:34:57 -0500 Subject: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > "OED2 presents cant _mort_ (sb. #4) as meaning 'girl, woman' and >being of unknown origin. But I believe a lead can be furnished by an >awareness of the now dated German slang _Backfisch_ 'frying fish,'; >cf. its appearance in 'Meine erste Liebe,' (part of >_Lausbubengeschichten_) by the Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma. > > "_Backfisch_ 'teenage girl' is known to derive from the idea of >young fish past the throw-back stage being more suited for frying -- >and hence eating -- than the adult fish. German clearly indicates >that men could liken women to fish; and this is part of the larger >picture of men describing women with food imagery, e.g. _a peach_, _a >tomato_, _a dish_. How surely is this explanation of "Backfisch" = "teenaged girl" known? Here is a discussion ... http://www.ceryx.de/sprache/wd_backfisch.htm ... in which (inter alia) a derivation of this "Backfisch" from English is put forth: <> ... that is, the Backfisch = [throw-]back-fish is too small to keep (if I'm reading it right) ... as the 'bobbysoxer" is insufficiently mature for the man's presumptive interests, I suppose. [Note that "backfisch" (but not "backfish") appears in OED and MW3.] Anyway, I'll freely grant that "young fish" > "[young] gal" is believable. > "Now, it turns out that _mort_ is also a term for a salmon, >specifically a salmon in its third year (see OED2, sb. #3). And a >check of Chambers 1753 _Encyclopedia_ shows that the fish becomes >officially a salmon in its sixth year; i.e. a mort is neither very >young nor very old: > > "(under salmon): 'The salmon in the different stages of its life >and growth has different names. The Latins call it when young >_salar_, when of middle growth _sario_ or _fario_, and only when >fully grown _salmon_. In England the fishermen have names for it in >every year of its growth. In the first it is called a _smelt_, in >the second a _sprod_, in the third a _mort_, in the fourth a _fork >tail_, ... Compare modern "split-tail" = "woman" [crude], also a fish! >... and in the fifth a _half-fish_; finally, in the sixth it is >called a _salmon_. This is the common agreement of our fishermen, >though there are some who say the _salmon_ comes much sooner to full >growth.' > > "The first attestation of _mort_ as a fish is 1530; as a >girl/woman: 1561-75. So chronologically there are no problems with >the suggestion of _mort_ 'salmon to woman' in cant." But whence "mort" = "young salmon"? Maybe the connection could be the other way around? >... if "mort" (woman) is in fact derived >from Irish Mór te (fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection), one >would expect this semantic development to have occurred first within >Irish. I agree. A very strained derivation is this Irish one, without some additional support, IMHO. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 20 16:02:58 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:02:58 -0500 Subject: FW: [DSNA] Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:46 AM -0500 1/18/03, Frank Abate wrote: >Jesse sure nailed this, below. BUT, here is a related quiz for you . . . > >Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 vowels in his first >name? > >You have thirty seconds . . . > >Frank Abate It took me more than thirty seconds, but relaxing the rules a bit I can supplement Margaret's correct response (Aurelio Rodriguez, the good-field no-hit third-sacker of the Tigers et al.) with "Figueroa, Ed" (it is his first name in the phone book--or Chinese style, as we've learned from Yao Ming) and then, speaking of ex-Tigers, there's Mark "the Bird" Fidrych, known in Francophone circles as "Oiseau" Fidrych. > >******************************************************* > >On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:22:55PM -0600, Luanne von Schneidemesser wrote: > > > >> >I'm looking for the two words in the English language that have the >> >letters "a e i o u y" in the word in order, they can be separated by >other >> >letters. Can you help? >[Jesse S.:] >The two? What makes you think there are only two? > >There are a number of words in English with the vowels in order, including >_abstemious, abstentious, adventitious,_ and _facetious_, along with some >more obscure ones like _caesious_ (the shortest in English with the five >main vowels in order) and _parecious_. Most of these can have an _-ly_ >suffix, giving the letters you ask for. Drop _adventitious_ from the list >if you are bothered by the repeated _i_s, but there are certainly more >than two. > I've usually seen this with the answer "abstemiously" and "facetiously"; I assume the other adverbs-in-waiting are either not considered "words" or (in the case of "adventitiously") not well-formed according to the riddle for the reason Jesse mentions. larry (upset that he couldn't answer the original query in time because he had no internet access this weekend) -- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 16:16:47 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:16:47 EST Subject: Sri Lanka Handbook (2000); Fire and Spice (1989) Message-ID: FIRE AND SPICE: THE CUISINE OF SRI LANKA by Heather Jansz Balasuriya and Karin Winegar New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company 1989 Balasuriya (from Sri Lanka, a Minnesota restaurateur and also a model) and Winegar (a Minnesota journalist) provide an American introduction to Sri Lankan cuisine. Eleanor Mondale ("an actress") writes a blurb. Evan Balasuriya (now divorced from Heather--a Sri Lankan named Heather??) opened the Mulligan Stew House #1 in Minneapolis in 1978. This became the Sri Lanka Curry House, which closed in 1998. He's trying to makle a go of a restaurant called Sri Lanka, from Google information. "A Glossary of Sri Lankan Terms and Ingredients" starts the book. Pg. 22: banana chilies...cardamom...coriander...curd...curry leaves Pg. 23: _cutlets_--From the Sinhalese _cutlis_. THese patties of seasoned meat or seafood, finely chopped vegetables, and mashed potato are really what Westerners call "croquettes." Sri Lankan cutlets are formed into balls or patties and are usually dipped into beaten egg, and then breaded and fried. They are served either as appetizers or as main courses. dhal...dried shrimp. Pg. 24: fenugreek... _frickadels_--Minced meat or fish, shaped in balls, coated with bread crumbs and fried. One of the ingredients in the complicated holiday dish, lampris. (_Frikkadels_ is the Dutch word for "force-meat balls," or stuffing made into meatball form.) ghee Pg. 25: gingelly oil...goraka...green chilies... _hoppers_--A hopper looks something like a crepe before it's folded, something like an English muffin. The word comes from the Tamil _appam_ or _apu_, which means clapping with the hands; and that is how hoppers are shaped. They are eaten for breakfast and as snacks along with sambols, with sweetening such as honey or syrup, or with butter and jam. Originally, palm toddy was used for leavening in hoppers, but this has been reploaced by yeast. Pg. 26: Jackfruit, or jakfruit...jaggery...lampries...lemongrass...Maldive fish. Pg. 27: _mallung_--Sri Lankan term for a vegetable dish cooked with coconut meat. Dried prawn mallung or dried fish mallung are also popular. Marmite...mustard seed. Pg. 28: _pittu_--A steamed flour or rice flour pastry that replaces bread, rice, or rotti in a meal. It is served crumbled or sliced, and is typically eaten for breakfast--although many people like it for dinner. rampa (pandanus leaf)...red chilies...rottis...rulang. Pg. 29: saffron...sambol...seeni sambol...tamarind...treacle...turmeric...Vegemite...woodapple. Pg. 107: *_Badum_ is a Sinhalese style of cooking: frying. Pg. 119: *_Thaldala_ is the Sinhalese word for "cooking with oil." Pg. 199: _Pana_ is the Sinhalese word for "comb"; perhaps it's a reference to the hairlike resemblance of the dough when it is squeezed out of a mold. Pg. 201: Watelappan is a Muslim dessert served at many special occasions in Sri Lanka, such as weddings. It's very traditional--all the ingredients are indigenous. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- SRI LANKA HANDBOOK Bath, England: Footprint Handbooks Ltd. 2000 A really good food listing, plus a nice glossary can be found here. Pg. 341: _Sri Lankan specialties_ _amblulthial_ sour fish curry _kahu buth_ kaha rice (yellow, cooked in coconut milk with spices and saffron/turmeric colouring) kiri rice is similar but white and unspiced, served with treacle, chilli or pickle _biththara rotti_ rotti mixed with eggs _buriyani_ rice cooked in meat stock and pieces of spiced meat sometimes garnished with boiled egg slices _hoppers (appa)_ cupped pancakes made of fermented rice flour, coconut milk, yeast, eaten with savoury (or sweet) curry _lamprai_ rice cooked in stock parcelled in a banana leaf with dry meat and vegetable curries, fried meat and fish balls and baked gently _mellung_ boiled, shredded vegetables cooked with spice and coconut _pittu_ rice-flour and grated coconut steamed in bamboo moulds, eaten with coconut milk and curry _polos pahi_ pieces of young jackfruit (tree lamb) replaces meat in this dry curry _rotty or rotti_ flat, circular, unleavened bread cooked on a griddle _sambal_ hot and spicy accompaniment usually made with onions, grated coconut, pepper (and sometimes dried fish) _sathai_ spicy meat pieces baked on skewers (sometimes sweet and sour) _"short eats"_ a selection of meat and vegetable snacks (in pastry or crumbled and fried) charged as eaten _string hoppers (indiappa)_ flat circles of steamed rice flour noodles eaten usually at breakfast with thin curry _thosai or dosai_ large crisp pancake made with rice and lentil flour batter _vadai_ deep-fried savoury lentil doughnut rings _Sweets (rasakavilis)_ _curd_ rich, creamy, buffalo milk yoghurt served with treacle or jaggery _gulab jamun_ dark, fried spongy balls of milk curd and flour soaked in syrup _halwal aluva_ fudge-like, made with milk, nuts and fruit _kadju kordial_ fudge squares made with cashew nuts and jaggery _kaludodol_ dark, mil-based, semi-solid sweet mixed with jaggery, cashew and spices (a moorish delicacy) _rasgulla_ syrup-filled white spongy balls of milk-curd and flour _thalaguli_ balls formed after pounding roasted sesame seeds with jaggery _wattalappam_ set "custard" of coconut, milk, eggs and cashew, flavoured with spices and jaggery _Indian specialties_ A typical meal in an Indian restaurant would include some "bread" (roti, chapati or nan) and/or rice, a vegetable curry and/or a meat curry, lentils (dal), raita (yogurt with shredded cucumber or fruit) and papadam (deep fried pulse flour wafer rounds). _do piaza_ with onions (added twice during cooking) _dal makhani_ lentils coated with butter _dum aloo_ potato curry with a spicy yogurt, tomato and onion sauce _kebab_ skewered (or minced and shaped) meat or fish; a dry spicy dish cooked on a fire _kima mattar_ mince meat with peas _korma_ in a fairly mild rich sauce using cream/yoghurt _matar panir_ curd cheese cubes with peas and spices (and often tomatoes) _mughlai_ rich north Indian style _murgh massallam_ chicken in a rich creamy marinade of yoghurt, spices and herbs with nuts _rogan josh_ mutton/beef pieces in a rich creamy, red sauce _tandoori_ baked in a tandoor (special clay oven) _tikka_ marinated meat pieces baked quite dry Pg. 333: GLOSSARY (I'll list "M" and "N" entries, with detail for entries not in the OED--ed.) _maha_ great; in Sri Lanka, the main rice crop _Mahabodhi_ Great Enlightenment of Buddha _Mahadeva_ lit. "Great Lord," Siva _Mahavansa_ literally "Great Dynasty or Chronicle," a major source on early history and legend _mahayana_ _Mahesha_ (Maheshvara) Great Lord, Siva _mahout_ _Maitreya_ _makara_ _malai_ _mandapa_ _mandir_ _mantra_ _Mara_ _mawatha_ roadway _maya_ illusion _Minakshi_ lit. "fish-eyed," Parvati, Siva's consort _Mohammad_ _moksha_ _moonstone_ _mudra_ _Muharram_ _Naga_ _Nandi_ _Narayana_ _Nataraja_ _Natha_ _navagraha_ _navaratri_ _niche_ _nirvana_ From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 20 16:27:24 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:27:24 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ron Butters: >Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You >fuck an A John!" I don't think this is the 'full' phrase in general (although it may be in some milieu); I think the "John" is a nonsense elaboration. By analogy, I don't think that "F*ck you, Charlie" is the 'full' form of "F*ck you" ... although "F*ck you, Charlie" has some currency (far more, by Google, than does "f*ckin' A[,] John") and was immortalized in the "Harvard Lampoon" about 30 years ago (in the character Charles Ulmer Farley [Chuck U. Farley]). >... Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be >recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" .... Google shows several instances of "f*cking amen" in exactly the correct sense. These are of course not old enough, but WW II era printed citations may be expected to be sparse because of the unacceptable F-word. I can't say exactly why I interpret this "f*ck'n' A" as "f*cking A" rather than "f*ck an A", but just about everybody else seems to also. Picture yourself walking down the street and seeing a man coming out of a doorway muttering "F*ck'n' idiot!" The context is unknown to you. Is he saying "F*cking idiot!" or is he saying "F*ck an idiot!"? In isolation, knowing only the phonetics, one perhaps cannot tell, but .... Also: why abbreviate the "asshole" and not the "f*ck'n'" (which I think is more strongly taboo usually)? Why wouldn't "F*ck 'n' asshole" > "Eff 'n' A"? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 16:43:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:43:28 EST Subject: Folk etymology in Francois Valentijan's CEYLON (1726) Message-ID: FRANCOIS VALENTIJN'S DESCRIPTION OF CEYLON translated and edited by Sinnappah Arasaratnam London: THe Hakluyt Society 1978 Francois Valentijn (1656-1727) published the original volume in Dutch in 1726. I couldn't find any "hoppers." Pg. 99: For as the Persians and Arbas sail with difficulty to this island past this reef, they always had it in their minds, saying they went to or came from Cinlao*, which means nothing else but that they went to or came from the reef of the Chinese, which letter having changed somewhat in time, there grew the name of Ceylaon or Ceylon.** *Cin-lao. _Lao_ (Chinese)--Torrent, breaking of waves. **Both Couto and Barros have this interpretation which seems fanciful (Barros p. 33, Couto p. 88). Pg. 118: It gets its name from a mango leaf, which is named in the Cingalese language, Cola Ambo,* as _Ambo_ means mango fruit and _Cola_ a leaf from which the Portuguese and we after them have made up Colombo.** *_Kola_ (Sinh.)--leaf; _amba_ (Sinh.)--mango. **This is a folk etymology of Colombo of doubtful validity. It was, however, widely held in Ceylon. Knox (pp. 1-2) gives a similar version. A more likely derivation is _kolamba_ (old Sinh.)--breach in bank or river or tank. Pg. 161: The attire of the Cingalese, who generally have long, smooth hair and thick beard like the Swiss, consists of a piece of cloth made into a jacket with folds or a cotton _baju_* or a cloth that they wrap round their middle, pull through under the legs and let it hang down to the feet. *_Baju_ (Malay)--a loose coat. (OED has 1820 for "baju"--ed.) Pg. 163: Generally their houses are bad, small and low, but covered with straw or _atap_,* made of poles or sticks like huts and plastered with clay; but the walls are reasonably smooth and even. *_Atap_ (Malay)--thatch for roofing. (OED has 1817 for "atap," with 1672 in brackets--ed.) Pg. 164: Their food Rice is their bread and they are satisfied if they have some salt, a little stewed vegetables with pepper and salt added and some lemon juice over it. To eat beef is a crime among them. There is not much of other flesh or fish and if they have some they will rather make money and sell it to foreigners than eat it themselves, but for the very important and the noblemen who have on their tables various curries* of fish or flesh steamed for a long time. For otherwise it is an honour among them to be sparing, miserly and stingy and those who know how to subsist very frugally are often praised. Their most important food consists of rice, bananas and in this and that other fruit which the land produces abundantly. *_Kari_ (Hindi, Tam.)--spiced, dressed up dish eaten with rice. The word is now in vogue in the English language as curry. Pg. 293: It consisted of 60 canisters* cinnamon, 16 bales of pepper and 3 bales of _curcuma_** or Indian saffron. *Boxes or baskets. In vogue in Ceylon from Portuguese "canastra." **_Kumkum_ (Hindi)--saffron. (OED has 1938 for "kumkum"--ed.) From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 20 16:57:16 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:57:16 +0100 Subject: mort "woman"-- backfisch etymology (was: Irish apples) Message-ID: Wahrig, Deutsches Woerterbuch, gives the following under "backfisch" 1. Gebackener fisch (baked or fried fish) 2. halbwuechsiges Maedchen [zu _backen_; unter einfluss von _backalaureus_ "junger Gelehrter" zuerst bezeichnung fuer unreife Studenten. Junge Fische, die schon zu gross sind, um wieder ins Wasser geworfen zu werden, eignen sich ihrer jugendlichen Zartheit wegen besser zum Backen als die ausgewachsene Fische.] No reference to English. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 4:34 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) > > "OED2 presents cant _mort_ (sb. #4) as meaning 'girl, woman' and > >being of unknown origin. But I believe a lead can be furnished by an > >awareness of the now dated German slang _Backfisch_ 'frying fish,'; > >cf. its appearance in 'Meine erste Liebe,' (part of > >_Lausbubengeschichten_) by the Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma. > > > > "_Backfisch_ 'teenage girl' is known to derive from the idea of > >young fish past the throw-back stage being more suited for frying -- > >and hence eating -- than the adult fish. German clearly indicates > >that men could liken women to fish; and this is part of the larger > >picture of men describing women with food imagery, e.g. _a peach_, _a > >tomato_, _a dish_. > > How surely is this explanation of "Backfisch" = "teenaged girl" known? > > Here is a discussion ... > > http://www.ceryx.de/sprache/wd_backfisch.htm > > ... in which (inter alia) a derivation of this "Backfisch" from English is > put forth: > > < beim Einholen der Netze back, also zurück ins Wasser geworfen wird, weil er > aufgrund seiner geringen Größe auf dem Markt noch nichts taugt.>> > > ... that is, the Backfisch = [throw-]back-fish is too small to keep (if I'm > reading it right) ... as the 'bobbysoxer" is insufficiently mature for the > man's presumptive interests, I suppose. > > [Note that "backfisch" (but not "backfish") appears in OED and MW3.] > > Anyway, I'll freely grant that "young fish" > "[young] gal" is believable. > > -- Doug Wilson > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 16:59:33 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:59:33 EST Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: This makes a lot of sense to me on the whole, particularly the idea that "John" got added as a "nonsense elaboration." Indeed, at the level of the hearer (rather than some hypothetical creator of the phrase), the "A" also can be just a "nonsense elaboration." What I meant by "full phrase" was simply that, when we said this as kids, we often used "John" but never any other name. The phrase was ALWAYS used as a rejoinder, frequently beginninng with "You," so the isolated context of overhearing someone say "Fuck-n-idiot" in isolation is totally irrelevant. My parsing--"You fuck an A" (whether followed by "John" or not)--as a rejoinder--is certainly plausible (cf. "You got that right!"), though of course the use of "fucking" as an intensifier is a plausible interpretation, as well, for the "clipped" phrase, at least in a contemporary setting. I don't think that "fuckin' " as an intensifier (e.g., "You are fuckin' crazy") was nearly so prevalent in the 1950s as today. The rise of intensifier "fuckin'" might explain in part why most people interpret "-n-" as "-ing" rather than "an." Just for the record, I tried this out on my students, all linguistics majors in a capstone seminar, and all nine native speakers liked "-ing" rather than "an." And all nine had never heard the phrase prefixed with "you" or suffixed with "John" or anything else. It had never occured to them to speculate about what "A" could mean. In a message dated 1/20/03 11:27:29 AM, douglas at NB.NET writes: > Ron Butters: > > >Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > >fuck an A John!" > > I don't think this is the 'full' phrase in general (although it may be in > some milieu); I think the "John" is a nonsense elaboration. By analogy, I > don't think that "F*ck you, Charlie" is the 'full' form of "F*ck you" ... > although "F*ck you, Charlie" has some currency (far more, by Google, than > does "f*ckin' A[,] John") and was immortalized in the "Harvard Lampoon" > about 30 years ago (in the character Charles Ulmer Farley [Chuck U. > Farley]). > > >... Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be > >recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" .... > > Google shows several instances of "f*cking amen" in exactly the correct > sense. These are of course not old enough, but WW II era printed citations > may be expected to be sparse because of the unacceptable F-word. > > I can't say exactly why I interpret this "f*ck'n' A" as "f*cking A" rather > than "f*ck an A", but just about everybody else seems to also. Picture > yourself walking down the street and seeing a man coming out of a doorway > muttering "F*ck'n' idiot!" The context is unknown to you. Is he saying > "F*cking idiot!" or is he saying "F*ck an idiot!"? In isolation, knowing > only the phonetics, one perhaps cannot tell, but .... > > Also: why abbreviate the "asshole" and not the "f*ck'n'" (which I think is > more strongly taboo usually)? Why wouldn't "F*ck 'n' asshole" > "Eff 'n' > A"? > > -- Doug Wilson > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 20 17:11:23 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 12:11:23 -0500 Subject: Sri Lanka Handbook (2000); Fire and Spice (1989) In-Reply-To: <1cb.51401f.2b5d7aef@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry provides: >FIRE AND SPICE: >THE CUISINE OF SRI LANKA >by Heather Jansz Balasuriya and Karin Winegar >New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company >1989 > > >Pg. 23: >_cutlets_--From the Sinhalese _cutlis_. THese patties of seasoned meat or >seafood, finely chopped vegetables, and mashed potato are really what >Westerners call "croquettes." Sri Lankan cutlets are formed into balls or >patties and are usually dipped into beaten egg, and then breaded and fried. >They are served either as appetizers or as main courses. another folk etymology, it appears, although it's not clear whether the authors are claiming that the English word derives from the Sinhalese or vice versa. In any case, as the OED implies, the English word is itself a folk-etymologized version [= 'little cut-off thingie'] of the French source: [OED] Message-ID: I never watch the "Golden Globes" show (well, hardly ever), but last night when U2's Bono accepted for best song of the year (in "Gangs of New York"), he said "This is fuckin' great!"--so fast it couldn't be bleeped out. The effect was electric, as they say. At 11:59 AM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: >This makes a lot of sense to me on the whole, particularly the idea that >"John" got added as a "nonsense elaboration." Indeed, at the level of the >hearer (rather than some hypothetical creator of the phrase), the "A" also >can be just a "nonsense elaboration." What I meant by "full phrase" was >simply that, when we said this as kids, we often used "John" but never any >other name. > >The phrase was ALWAYS used as a rejoinder, frequently beginning with "You," >so the isolated context of overhearing someone say "Fuck-n-idiot" in >isolation is totally irrelevant. My parsing--"You fuck an A" (whether >followed by "John" or not)--as a rejoinder--is certainly plausible (cf. "You >got that right!"), though of course the use of "fucking" as an intensifier is >a plausible interpretation, as well, for the "clipped" phrase, at least in a >contemporary setting. I don't think that "fuckin' " as an intensifier (e.g., >"You are fuckin' crazy") was nearly so prevalent in the 1950s as today. The >rise of intensifier "fuckin'" might explain in part why most people interpret >"-n-" as "-ing" rather than "an." > >Just for the record, I tried this out on my students, all linguistics majors >in a capstone seminar, and all nine native speakers liked "-ing" rather than >"an." And all nine had never heard the phrase prefixed with "you" or suffixed >with "John" or anything else. It had never occured to them to speculate about >what "A" could mean. > > >In a message dated 1/20/03 11:27:29 AM, douglas at NB.NET writes: > > > > Ron Butters: > > > > >Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > > >fuck an A John!" > > > > I don't think this is the 'full' phrase in general (although it may be in > > some milieu); I think the "John" is a nonsense elaboration. By analogy, I > > don't think that "F*ck you, Charlie" is the 'full' form of "F*ck you" ... > > although "F*ck you, Charlie" has some currency (far more, by Google, than > > does "f*ckin' A[,] John") and was immortalized in the "Harvard Lampoon" > > about 30 years ago (in the character Charles Ulmer Farley [Chuck U. > > Farley]). > > > > >... Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be > > >recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" .... > > > > Google shows several instances of "f*cking amen" in exactly the correct > > sense. These are of course not old enough, but WW II era printed citations > > may be expected to be sparse because of the unacceptable F-word. > > > > I can't say exactly why I interpret this "f*ck'n' A" as "f*cking A" rather > > than "f*ck an A", but just about everybody else seems to also. Picture > > yourself walking down the street and seeing a man coming out of a doorway > > muttering "F*ck'n' idiot!" The context is unknown to you. Is he saying > > "F*cking idiot!" or is he saying "F*ck an idiot!"? In isolation, knowing > > only the phonetics, one perhaps cannot tell, but .... > > > > Also: why abbreviate the "asshole" and not the "f*ck'n'" (which I think is > > more strongly taboo usually)? Why wouldn't "F*ck 'n' asshole" > "Eff 'n' > > A"? > > > > -- Doug Wilson > > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 18:49:02 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:49:02 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20FW:=20[DSNA]=20Fwd:?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=20Two=20English=20words=20with=20all=20the=20vowels=20(a?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?nd=20y)=20in=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=A0=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?order?= Message-ID: Ah, yeah, and relaxing the rules only a little bit there is Yogui Berra (who must have spelled it that way some of the time, so that folks wouldn't think it was pronounced "yo! gee!"). " In a message dated 1/20/03 11:03:09 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > At 9:46 AM -0500 1/18/03, Frank Abate wrote: > >Jesse sure nailed this, below.  BUT, here is a related quiz for you . . . > > > >Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 vowels in his first > >name? > > > >You have thirty seconds . . . > > > >Frank Abate > > It took me more than thirty seconds, but relaxing the rules a bit I > can supplement Margaret's correct response (Aurelio Rodriguez, the > good-field no-hit third-sacker of the Tigers et al.) with "Figueroa, > Ed" (it is his first name in the phone book--or Chinese style, as > we've learned from Yao Ming) and then, speaking of ex-Tigers, there's > Mark "the Bird" Fidrych, known in Francophone circles as "Oiseau" > Fidrych. > > > > >******************************************************* > > > >On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:22:55PM -0600, Luanne von Schneidemesser wrote: > >  > > > >>  >I'm looking for the two words in the English language that have the > >>  >letters "a e i o u y" in the word in order, they can be separated by > >other > >>  >letters.  Can you help? > >[Jesse S.:] > >The two? What makes you think there are only two? > > > >There are a number of words in English with the vowels in order, including > >_abstemious, abstentious, adventitious,_ and _facetious_, along with some > >more obscure ones like _caesious_ (the shortest in English with the five > >main vowels in order) and _parecious_. Most of these can have an _-ly_ > >suffix, giving the letters you ask for. Drop _adventitious_ from the list > >if you are bothered by the repeated _i_s, but there are certainly more > >than two. > > > > I've usually seen this with the answer "abstemiously" and > "facetiously"; I assume the other adverbs-in-waiting are either not > considered "words" or (in the case of "adventitiously") not > well-formed according to the riddle for the reason Jesse mentions. > > larry (upset that he couldn't answer the original query in time > because he had no internet access this weekend) > > > -- > > From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 20 18:50:08 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 10:50:08 -0800 Subject: Rent-boy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There is a current discussion on my website regarding the British slang term "rent-boy." The OED and other sources date it to 1969. But there are several websites that cite a March 1893 letter purportedly by Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas that contains the line: "I would sooner be blackmailed by every rent-boy in London than to have you bitter, unjust, hating." Has anyone run across this or similar early uses of "rent-boy" before? Could the letter be genuine? None of the websites that cite the letter have anything resembling a traceable citation. I'm skeptical, but it doesn't seem to be beyond the realm of possibility. The full text of the alleged letter reads: Savoy Hotel, London Dearest of all Boys, Your letter was delightful, red and yellow wine to me; but I am sad and out of sorts. Bosie, you must not make scenes with me. They kill me, they wreck the loveliness of life. I cannot see you, so Greek and gracious, distorted with passion. I cannot listen to your curved lips saying hideous things to me. I would sooner be blackmailed by every rent-boy in London than to have you bitter, unjust, hating. You are the divine thing I want, the thing of grace and beauty; but I don't know how to do it. Shall I come to Salisbury? My bill here is 49 pounds for a week. I have also got a new sitting-room over the Thames. Why are you not here, my dear, my wonderful boy? I fear I must leave; no money, no credit, and a heart of lead. Your own, OSCAR From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 18:59:16 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:59:16 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Rent-boy?= Message-ID: The letter certainly SOUNDS like Wilde, but I don't know if it is really authentic. I'll ask on OUTIL. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 20 18:39:02 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:39:02 -0500 Subject: "Jackalope" inventor dies In-Reply-To: <172.1542d857.2b5d5e47@aol.com> Message-ID: And then there's the swimming rabbit that attacked Jimmy Carter. . . . At 09:14 AM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: > DARE has "jackalope," but from only 1955. The facts from this NEW YORK >TIMES article are absent in the DARE entry. OED does not have an entry. > Google shows that a few places offer a "jackalope burger," but it's no >"turducken" or "churkendoose." > From the NEW YORK TIMES: > >Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead > >By DOUGLAS MARTIN > >Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the >tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope — half bunny, hallf >antelope and 100 percent tourist trap — died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyyo. He >was >82. > >The cause was bone and lung cancer, his brother, Ralph, said. > >Douglas Herrick lived in Casper, but it was in his hometown, Douglas, Wyo., >that luck changed his life. > >In 1932 (other accounts say 1934, 1939 and 1940, but Ralph Herrick swears it >was 1932), the Herrick brothers had returned from hunting. "We just throwed >the dead jack rabbit in the shop when we come in and it slid on the floor >right up against a pair of deer horns we had in there," Ralph said. "It >looked like that rabbit had horns on it." > >His brother's eyes brightened with inspiration. > >"Let's mount that thing!" he said. > >That was tens of thousands of jackalopes ago. A jackalope, of course, is a >legendary animal with a jack rabbit's body and the antlers of a pronghorn >antelope, which resembles a small deer. The last syllable of the name comes >from antelope. (Jackadeer? Nah.) > >Whether jackalopes ever hopped the earth's surface is rather like the same >question about the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot; it depends on the >observer.. >Believers say that Buddha mentioned a horned rabbit, although they usually >neglect to mention that the Enlightened One implied they do not exist. > >They also point to a picture of a horned rabbit painted in the 1500's, but >scientists suspect its cerebral protuberances were tumors from a rabbit >virus. Cowboys have said that while they were singing around the fire, their >chorus was joined by a distant jackalope, often in harmony, usually in the >tenor line. (Yep.) > >Whether truth, fiction or metaphor, the mounted version of the jackalope, >many made with deer horn tips, relentlessly proliferated. Many thousands were >made by Ralph Herrick and his son Jim. Douglas Herrick was less interested in >the family taxidermy shop. > >"I don't think my brother ever made more than a thousand, if he done that," >Ralph Herrick said. By contrast, Jim Herrick delivers 400 jackalopes to Wall >Drug in South Dakota three times a year, a small portion of his total >production. > >Douglas became the jackalope capital. In 1965, the state of Wyoming >trademarked the name, and in 1985 Gov. Ed Herschler pronounced it the >animal's official home. Jackalope images adorn everything from park benches >to fire trucks. > >Jackalope hunting licenses are sold; an applicant must supposedly pass a test >to prove he has an I.Q. higher than 50 but not more than 72. Hunting is >permitted only on June 31, from midnight to 2 a.m. > >Jackalope milk is available at several stores, though its authenticity is >questionable; everyone knows how dangerous it is to milk a jackalope. > >An oft-repeated legend is that the Herricks' grandfather saw a jackalope in >Buffalo, Wyo., in 1920 and told his family about it. Not true, Ralph said. > >The first mounted jackalope was sold for $10 (they now go for $35) to Roy >Ball, who displayed it in his Bonte Hotel in Douglas. It was stolen. > >Others have tried to take the jackalope's peculiar evolution further. A >Colorado bar displays a jackapanda, a cross between a jackalope and a panda, >while Wall Drug has a flying jackalope, with some partridge feathers glued to >its tail. > >Douglas Eugene Herrick was born on July 8, 1920, and grew up on a ranch. In >World War II, he was a tail gunner on a B-17. He later worked in construction >and at an Amoco refinery, in addition to stuffing animals. > >Although Governor Herschler specifically mentioned Mr. Herrick in 1985 as the >Jackalope's creator, his brother said the town tried to charge him a >commission for each jackalope. It relented. >(...) From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 20 19:25:08 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 14:25:08 -0500 Subject: Rent-boy In-Reply-To: <000001c2c0b4$c1ebfd70$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > Has anyone run across this or similar early uses of "rent-boy" before? Could > the letter be genuine? None of the websites that cite the letter have > anything resembling a traceable citation. I'm skeptical, but it doesn't seem > to be beyond the realm of possibility. The word Wilde actually used was "renter." It is, in fact, the first use in OED for that sense of "renter." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 20 19:27:32 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:27:32 -0800 Subject: Rent-boy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks. I should have cross-checked "renter" in the OED2 before asking. > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Fred Shapiro > Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 11:25 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Rent-boy > > > On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > > > Has anyone run across this or similar early uses of > "rent-boy" before? Could > > the letter be genuine? None of the websites that cite the > letter have > > anything resembling a traceable citation. I'm skeptical, > but it doesn't seem > > to be beyond the realm of possibility. > > The word Wilde actually used was "renter." It is, in fact, > the first use > in OED for that sense of "renter." > > Fred Shapiro > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 20:09:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 15:09:51 -0500 Subject: PBS's American Experience Message-ID: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/sfeature/sf_made.html I don't know if anyone saw this. PBS's American Experience last week had a three-part series called CHICAGO: CITY OF THE CENTURY. The web site credits Finley Peter Dunne of the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS with "southpaw" and Michael Cassius McDonald with "There's a sucker born every minute" and "Never give a sucker an even break." "Mickey Finn" is another phrase that is mentioned. The only food mentioned is "Cracker Jack." I'll wait to see what the full text CHICAGO TRIBUNE has on these terms. That should be available later this year. My work, as is sometimes the case, was honored in absentia, because nowhere to be found is... From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 20 20:46:45 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:46:45 +0100 Subject: "Jackalope" inventor dies Message-ID: There are precursors of the jackalope. See e.g. http://www.strangescience.net/stfor2.htm for the Swedish "skvader" (there is an image on the site). Here is the text: "Years: 1874-1918 Con artists: Håkan Dahlmark, Halvar Friesendahl, Carl Erik Hammarberg and Rudolf Granberg Now appears in: The Historical Preservation Society in Medelpad This cross between a female hare and a wood grouse cock was allegedly shot by Dahlmark in 1874. On his birthday in 1907, Dahlmark's housekeeper asked her nephew, Friesendahl, to paint a picture of it. Before his death, Dahlmark donated the painting to the historical society. Inspired to create a "real" skvader, the society's new director, Hammarberg, contacted Granberg, a talented taxidermist, and Granberg obliged him by making a stuffed specimen. In 1918, Hammarberg wrote an article in the local newspaper about the rare skvader, which, thanks to the sale of 3,000 postcards, would soon develop a worldwide reputation. Although some visitors to the historical society's museum are disappointed to find the skvader isn't genuine, few people have taken it very seriously." Jan Ivarsson jan.ivarsson at transedit.st http://www.transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beverly Flanigan" To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 7:39 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Jackalope" inventor dies And then there's the swimming rabbit that attacked Jimmy Carter. . . . At 09:14 AM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: > DARE has "jackalope," but from only 1955. The facts from this NEW YORK >TIMES article are absent in the DARE entry. OED does not have an entry. > Google shows that a few places offer a "jackalope burger," but it's no >"turducken" or "churkendoose." > From the NEW YORK TIMES: > >Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead > >By DOUGLAS MARTIN > >Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the >tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope - half bunny, hallf >antelope and 100 percent tourist trap - died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyyo. He >was >82. > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 21:02:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:02:52 -0500 Subject: Pooch (1919) Message-ID: "Pooch" is an "origin unknown." I always thought it was from "poodle." OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1924. I was thinking about this while writing about "poochee" (the Sri Lankan term for insects). I've been putting a number of terms into the AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES online here at Columbia--what a mess the database is. You get things that have nothing to do with "pooch." Sometimes you get "pouch." I have "hot pooch" for "hot dog," but I forget the date for that. 17 June 1919, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 18: Our favorite of the many sorry attempts was the sorry pooch, or towser, impersonated by Phil Dwyer, than whom no dog was ever doggier. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 21:25:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:25:51 -0500 Subject: Sausage Sandwich (1871) Message-ID: I've been asked some sandwich questions recently. I don't think I posted this on the "sausage sandwich." That would be a sausage between two slices of bread--something that was not invented, surely, until the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The story is "Return of the Landwehr," about the guards of the Prussian Army. "Hot dogs" in Germany? Who would have thought that? From HARPER'S WEEKLY, 13 May 1871, pg. 431: Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 71-05-13 . . . b> erously cheered by the large crowds assembled to welcome them, and wherever they stopped hundreds of hands were stretched out for them to shake, and innumerable were the seidels of beer and the sausage sandwiches which were proffered for their refreshment. Should also one of the troops belong to that particular town, he was instantly transformed into a hero, and was proudly recognized and greeted by his fel . . . From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 21:37:11 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:37:11 -0500 Subject: Sausage Sandwich (1875, 1882) Message-ID: Two more "sausage sandwiches" from HARPER'S WEEKLY full text. The first seems to involve Hans Christian Andersen, but the second is from Germany. 10-9-1875, pg. 830 5-20-1882, pg. 317 Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 75-10-09 . . . n a brave face and bought a gallery ticket for the op- era of Paul and Vir- ginia. The scene of the separation of the lovers affected him so to tears that some sympathetic woman near by gave him a sausage sandwich for consolation, whereupon he explained ear- nestly that the theatre was his Virginia, and he wept to think that, like Paul, he was to be sep- arated from it. He told his forlorn experience,< . . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 82-05-20 . . . ll the washing of the family linen at home, and make their own dresses. Withal, they are very hospitable in a homely way. They delight in evening parties at which café au lait is served with cakes and sausage-sandwiches. A carpet dance, a little singing and music, round games, and a good deal of frank flirtation between the young people, furnish the diversions at these en- tertainments. In the winter, seve . . . From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 22:05:19 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:05:19 -0500 Subject: Coney Island sausage (1891) Message-ID: If you're still interested in sausage. Scroll to the paragraph beginning with "Just outside..." and to the next one beginning "To be in with the people you must eat with them." Notice that the sausage purchaser "invested the casual nickel." From HARPER'S WEEKLY, 12 September 1891, pg. 694: Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 Return to: Main Menu | New Search -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 91-09-12 A PILGRIMAGE TO CONEY'S ISLE. BY FLAVEL SCOTT MINES. It was a hot day in August. Weary men halted in front of all the available thermom- eters, and sighed to find their estimate of the sun's power several degrees beyond that registered by the instrument. The north pole was out of the question, and the next best place suggested was that strip of sand lying off the Long Island coast known as Coney Island. The Pilgrims forthwith acted upon the suggestion. The Bay held its powers to charm in the shape of an erratic zephyr which hovered above the waters; but when the Narrows were reached, great rollers tumbled in be- fore a rousing wind from the southeast, and the heart of man was once more content. The wind might carry off the soft strains of "Comrades," as rendered by the Italian band, but it also bore away all the petty thoughts that were provoked by extra heat. It was cheering to find such unanimous good hu- mor as prevailed among the boat passengers. Old and young, beautiful and ordinary, wore a continual smile in anticipation of delights to come. A portly priest was the embodi- ment of satisfaction, and yielding to the in- fluence of harmony, beat time to profane music. Relief was granted to the weary Pil- grims, and by the time the pier was reached they were most anxious for amusement. The West End of Coney Island is a most extraordinary jumble. With a few notable exceptions, the architecture is suggestive of a Western mining camp in its palmy days, with a most wonderful leaning toward the Moorish. Here and there, at all turns, are Alhambraic turrets and minarets, garish dec- orations and gilded domes, utterly at vari- ance with all other styles. The Artist Pil- grim heaved a sigh as he came upon the main street, for his artistic soul was touched. The twain halted a moment to gain breath, for the place burst upon the travellers with a suddenness that was appalling. Conflicting strains of music came from everywhere, and found their common centre in their imme- diate vicinity. Stentorian voices of the street fakirs mingled with the hum of everybody are everything. Revolving swings and mer- ry-go-rounds, shooting-galleries and concert halls, razzle-dazzles and switch-backs, tobog- gan-rollers and photographers, Frankfurters and pea-nuts, beer, music, noise -- all these things combined and intensified made up the first glance at the West End. "We will be one of the people to-day," said the Artist, when he recovered from the first shock, and the Other Pilgrim, meekly assenting, followed him into the roller-skat- ing rink and donned the skates. Here the noises were two separate and distinct things -- a brass band and the rumble of the skat- ers. A few rounds on the skates failed to renew the elasticity of youth, and the pair This marks the beginning of Column 3 were glad to cease. Seeking the open air, and incidentally the noise again, the Pilgrims passed by a tempting sign of a "Labyrinth," the latter composed of wire netting run in all directions, which invited you to come in and lose yourself in the mazes for five cents. Neither did the razzle-dazzle tempt them. What a thing it was! A great circular frame with seats all around, to which you mounted by aid of outside steps, and then, when seated, the frame swung around and around, up first, then down, bringing into play all the sensa- tions awakened by the tossing of a ship and not infrequently the dire results. This ma- lignant invention the Artist passed hurriedly by, for the steamboat coming down had been enough for him, and he had already decided to return by rail. The merry-go-round that next burst upon the Pilgrims would have filled a student of natural history with envy -- it would have suggested possible types of beasts, fish, and fowl that had been neglected by Nature. If Noah's arks would only take pattern after these revolving specimens, the joys of childhood would be increased tenfold. "It has always been my desire to shoot at one of these things," remarked the Artist, as he stood before a shooting-gallery, "but I object to making myself appear foolish upon principle. I know I couldn't hit them." Lion, tiger, bear, and wolf appeared in rapid succession above a line, keeping up a con- tinual round, while a series of crystal balls slid up and down narrow streams of water. They were very alluring to the would-be marksman, and just as elusive to the tiny bullet that generally tried to find them. A score of catchpenny contrivances lined the street -- the one desire of the working popu- lation being to derive an income from the transient visitor. "This race for wealth is very depressing," remarked the Other Pilgrim, as his eye took in the street. "Very," agreed the Artist, as a pint of fresh pea-nuts was poured into his pocket. There was something exhilarating in the pil- grimage. The hot, dusty city was forgotten; the cares of life were laid aside. The Pilgrims were in search of pleasure, and soon wearied themselves in the not by any means hopeless search. For there was pleasure in watching the people and seeing the evident enjoyment depicted on their countenances. Down on the beach the surf rolled in and tumbled the bathers up and down. Stout men clung to the ropes, and sighed to see a slim maid dive head first into an incoming roller. "There is nothing artificial in pleasure of this sort," remarked the Artist, as he dug holes in the sand and pointed his camera at two exceedingly stout females who had sat down not far away, and seemed to find it im- possible to rise. "No," said the Other Pilgrim, joining in the general laugh at two or three strangers who were thrown into each other's arms by the playful surf. The gilded attractions of the town seemed to be wholly apart from the beach and the sand heaps which everybody made. Just outside the ropes a boat was anchor- ed, and in the stern a large dog watched all the bathers -- he was the only occupant of the boat, and seemed to appreciate the re- sponsible position that he held, for he never looked aside. But again the glittering gen- eralities of life lured the Pilgrims from the beach, and they came to the massive cow that is said to give anything, from cream to milk-punch. A renewed activity was no- ticeable among the sandwich and sausage men, for the sun gave indication of passing out of sight for a while, and these purveyors evidently looked for a hungry crowd. "To be in with the people you must eat with them." remarked the Artist, halting before a sausage stand and investing in a lengthy Frankfurter hidden within the slices of a roll. It was quite the thing to do, for everybody seemed smitten with a sudden liking for sausages, and invested the casual nickel. "What a place for the National Educator, who desires to instruct and raise people by the drama," mused the Other Pilgrim, as the glittering "stage attractions" (on paper) met the eyes of the tourists. "True," assented the Artist; "what a place, indeed." The drama at Coney Island has its degrees. Not what is called the "legitimate drama," per- haps, but the style that is known as "variety." Gilmore and Seidl lie to eastward, but they ap- peal alone to the ear. West Brighton is the haunt of song and dance, trapeze acting, and juggling. Of these there are all kinds -- and they all appeal to the great American public because they are free. A man, guiltless of a coat, stands outside of many halls and thus presents the case: "Only respectable show on Coney Island. Only show patronized by the élite that come to Coney Island. Cost you nothing, gentlemen, cost you nothing. All free of charge. Ladies laugh, gentlemen laugh, children laugh. Step right in and take a seat." "I can't resist such an appeal," laughed the Artist; "to do Coney Island thoroughly we must see these shows," and the Pilgrims entered and timidly took rear seats. A white- aproned waiter immediately desired to know what was wished. The wish was quickly supplied, and they were thenceforth privi- leged to devote their attention to the stage. A negro minstrel held the audience enthrall- ed, until a tall female with an air of Lady Macbeth interrupted him and proceeded to engage his attention in a roaring farce. The This marks the beginning of Column 4 Pilgrims sauntered forth again after heed- ing a placard which read, "Wait for Frank Bush." Here it might be stated that such was the tenor of a sign in nearly every hall that the Pilgrims visited, but never did they get a glimpse of the much-advertised artist. To and fro they went on their quest, darting suddenly into unlooked-for places, hurrying around corners, but to no avail. Mr. Bush was a thing of the future, and through the afternoon and evening, though a dozen or more signs waved defiance in their faces, the longing was unsatisfied. "Why doesn't the come?" sighed the Artist, in sheer weariness of spirit. "I dare not ex- pose my ignorance and ask," and the name haunted him at every turn, until it became a burden to the eye and a thorn in the flesh -- but to-day the Pilgrims know not what de- tained Mr. Bush, or what he was expected to do after being waited for. Another phase of the drama was the place where a "quarter" was composed of seven persons -- five females in abbreviated skirts and two corked end-men. The "stage-man- ager," in civilized costume, sat on the stage and consulted with the singers in a stage- whisper as to what they knew and what they didn't know. And what impressed the Pil- grims was the fact that the musical educa- tion of the troupe had been neglected, for when three persons knew a song it was gen- erally found that the others were not famil- iar with it, and never once was a song com- pleted -- the middle of the third verse was gen- erally the fatal halting-place, and the virtuoso at the piano, in his shirt sleeves, had it all to himself. The audience sometimes lacked familiarity with the world theatrical, as was illustrated by the attempts of a youth of ten- der years to blow out the foot-lights. He effectually drowned the chorus when forci- bly removed. There was a gentle hint con- veyed to the audience at one hall, where a sign read, "He is here. Who? The waiter." And though the Pilgrims had evidence of that fact, yet they doubted a companion sign announcing a certain trio of sisters as "next." It was likened unto a Frank Bush snare, for the sign was tacked on the wall. Amid the singing and the dancing was ever heard the man outside inviting everybody to come in. But, as the Pilgrims discovered, there were degrees, and as the evening wore on, they wandered into a hall of extra dimen- sions, where the background of Niagara (on the stage) was hidden partly by a low terra- cotta building. There was really first-class "variety," and when two Japs appeared they were recognized as being above the ordinary. The climax was reached when the maiden, fair of feature, threw a mass of tangled pa- pers into the air, which were converted in a twinkling into a series of small American flags reaching across the stage (and the band played "Hail, Columbia"). The girl made a pretty picture as she bowed to the awe- struck audience, and the artist was enrapt- ured. There is no doubt of the popularity of the drama by the sea. It is undoubtedly cheap, and it encompasseth many strange things, but as an educator it is unworthy of consid- eration. The exception that goes to prove each and all of these rules is not lacking, and the lesson that it teachers is love and kindness, so it is deserving to rank as an educator. The actors are not on speaking terms with any of their professional brethren, but they are nei- ther proud nor uppish in their bearing. The Artist saw the sign from afar off, and hasten- ed to pay his ten cents. The actors were lolling around the tent in various positions, and some, it is sad to say, where bound with ropes. Sullivan sat in the ring, and occa- sionally waved a gloved paw in the air in defiance to an unseen Kilrain, and the Learn- ed Goose looked out from his wired prison with the air of a martyr. When the trainer came he was greeted with delight, and the Learned Goose came out and picked out any number desired, and told time by looking at a watch and indicating the hour and minute by picking up the different numbers that were scattered about. "Not such a goose as he looks," said the Artist, sotto voce. Sullivan and Kilrain had three rounds with soft gloves, and a battle royal it was! Once or twice they clinched, but as a rule they stood up and dealt blows at each other, taking care not to hit except in the face. When Kilrain was final- ly knocked clear over the ropes, Sullivan looked at his adversary with a professional pride, but embraced him fondly after the au- dience were gone. They were very happy and good-natured, but they were cats. The dogs, who contributed to a great part of the performance, would have won the heart of any one who was possessed of such an arti- cle. It was worth a dozen of the other shows to see these well-trained animals, and the Art- ist conceived such a violent admiration for them that it was with great difficulty that he could be persuaded to move on. Many curious types were seen along the street; but as the Artist said, the place to study the people was in some concert-hall. Everybody went to the latter. Mothers with baskets and babies and whole hordes of youngsters would suddenly pounce upon and occupy a table in these halls, and while all the stage-business was carefully noted, a single glass of lemonade would circulate among half a dozen little mouths, which seemed al- ways to be open. Then a party of rough men would walk down near the front, and after ordering beer, indicate some particular girl on the stage whom they wished to treat. The beverages This marks the beginning of page 695 from the 09-12-1891 issue of Harper's Weekly. Next page. Please click on one of the following links to see a Small, Medium, or Large image of this page of Harper's Weekly. This marks the beginning of Column 1 indulged in by all members was a species of pink lemonade or beer. Social conditions do not exist in this minor Arcadia; every man is as good as another, and what is more, the fact is generally recognized. Force is the potent factor, and leads one to believe in the survival, etc. The white-aproned waiters make a numerous class at Coney Island, and a formidable one too. They must be able to hold their own under all conditions, and carry out any threats they care to indulge in. They are the supreme powers -- bearing themselves with an easy fa- miliarity toward all patrons, and caring for no one. They are young and old, none beau- tiful except from a pugilistic stand-point. The Artist and the Other Pilgrim tried tip- ping these awful beings, more from a matter of habit than fear or reverence. Five cents was accepted with delight and surprise; ten cents regarded as a bribe for something that might be unfolded later, but accepted every time. "Your is gents," remarked one man, and was evidently so sincere that the Other Pil- grim did not like to hurt his feelings by firmly denying the allegation. One waiter forgot to collect for a cigar that was being smoked by the Other Pilgrim, and when re- minded of the fact a pathetic expression il- lumined his countenance. "Dere ain't many such men on all de island," he exclaimed. "I never knowed it to happen once before." And when the Pilgrims went out of that place they were regarded as curiosities by the staring waiters near the door. Some of the waiters resembled ex-prize-fighters, others were like champions in embryo; but all were tamed, subdued, and rendered docile by the nickel gratuity. "My brain is in a perfect whirl," sighed the Artist, as the Pilgrims started to return. "What do you recall as the prominent fea- ture of the West End of Coney Island?" The Other Pilgrim caressed an Invincible (purchased at Manhattan), and shook his head. "The cigars," he said, "which are the worst in the world. I have waited all the afternoon and evening for a good smoke. I even begin to understand the counterblast of James I. -- under some circumstances it might be forgiven," which was a great deal for the Other Pilgrim to say, for he was very much of a smoker. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 20 22:06:26 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:06:26 -0500 Subject: Pooch In-Reply-To: <1D632E94.554B36EE.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: "Pooch" is used in some regions for belly/stomach "pouch," i.e., to suggest a nicely rounded little belly--as in "I patted my pooch." (It was even used in a TV commercial a year or so ago, but I can't recall what for.) At 04:02 PM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: > "Pooch" is an "origin unknown." I always thought it was from > "poodle." OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1924. > I was thinking about this while writing about "poochee" (the Sri > Lankan term for insects). I've been putting a number of terms into the > AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES online here at Columbia--what a mess the > database is. You get things that have nothing to do with > "pooch." Sometimes you get "pouch." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 23:24:43 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 18:24:43 -0500 Subject: Marlin-spike fish (1907) Message-ID: This should get me Florida Marlins tickets. Do they still play baseball? The revised OED has the July 1917 VANITY FAIR (!) for "marlin" (the swordfish, not the bird). The full text LOS ANGELES TIMES should help a lot (and maybe also for "tuna"), but here are some citations. May 1907, AMERICAN NATURALIST, pg. 335 (JSTOR database) In the Proceedings of the United States National Museum for 1907 (vol. XXXII), Jordan and Starks describe a collection of fishes from Santa Catalina Island, California. Among these are _Cerano macroplevus_, the yellow-fin Albacore, heretofore known from Japan and Hawaii; _Tetrapterus mitzukurri_, the Marlin-spike fish, heretofore known from Japan; _Lepidopus xantusi_, known from Cape San Lucas; _Chaenopsis alepidota_, known from the Gulf of California; and _Luvavus imperialis_, known from the Mediterranean. 21 October 1917, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 100: _BIG SWORDFISH LANDED._ _Pacific Coast Record Catch Credited to New York Angler._ George S. Pollitz of this city has the season's record catch of marlin swordfish, the finest game fish of the Pacific Ocean. (...)(326 pounds!--ed.) Frederick Gray Griswold of the Union Club, whose privately printed and circulated stories of the fishing for this gamest of salt water fish have attracted so much attention among New York club men, is largely responsible for the number of New York sportsmen who made the trip to California in late August and spent most of the month of September hunting the marlin off San Clemente, a government-owned island about twenty miles south of Santa Catalina, where the Tuna Club has its clubhouse and records. See the following NYPL entry. Griswold's an interesting author, writing 30 books about fishing and polo and horse racing and gourmet food. Perhaps I'll take a look at "The Lady and the Tuna." Call # MY (Griswold, F. G. Stolen kisses) Author Griswold, F. Gray (Frank Gray), 1854-1937. Title Stolen kisses : recollections of Frank Gray Griswold. -- Imprint Norwood, Mass. : Privately printed, 1914. LOCATION CALL # STATUS Humanities-Genrl Res MY (Griswold, F. G. Stolen kisses) Location Humanities-Genrl Res Descript 143p. : ill. Note Inscribed to Robert P.Perkins. "Principal authorities quoted in the text," p. [144] Stolen kisses. What happened to the bulldogs. The tragic end of Reddy the fox. A day with the "Wards." The sporting barber's close shave. Jack Travail's first love. The lady and the tuna. The twilight of racing. Iroquois. Westward. The origin of the America's cup. Sixteen plates printed on both sides. Local note With author's autograph. Subject Fox hunting. Yachting. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 00:02:34 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:02:34 EST Subject: Marlin-spike fish (1907) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/20/2003 6:25:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > _Tetrapterus mitzukurri_, the Marlin-spike fish, heretofore known from Japan; I wonder if there is a sailor's play on words here. A "marlinspike" is a device used by sailors for knotting and splicing, hence "marlinspike seamanship" the art of tying knots and making splices. "Tetra-pterus" = "four wings"??? - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 00:02:46 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:02:46 -0500 Subject: Arugula (1960) Message-ID: OED doesn't have "arugula"? Add it right now! Merriam-Webster has 1967. The library closes in seven minutes; last one. 24 May 1960, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 33: _Food News: A Green by Any Name_ _Pungent Ingredient Is_ _Cause of Confusion_ _for City Shopper_ By CRAIG CLAIBORNE _Arugula--or Rocket--_ _is the Secret of_ _Experts' Salads_ (...) Ask Italian greengrocers for arugula, rucola or ruccoli; ask other markets for rouquette, rocket salad or, simply, rocket. The phrase "secret ingredient" is a slightly ludicrous thing since it conjures up images of Mephistophelian brews. Most Italian chefs know, however, that arugula or rocket--call it what you will--is the secret ingredient of many of their salads-about-town. (...) Arugula, or rocket salad as it were, is almost in the same league with spinach concerning the sand that clings to its leaves. When purchased the green should be washed thoroughly in several changes of water, then dried gingerly. New York does not have a corner on the vegetable's availability in the United States. Rocket salad is tremendously popular in the Creole country of Louisiana. Here is an adaptation of a recipe that is frequently served in the home of Mrs. Edward McIlhenny, a superb young hostess of Avery Island, La. It is for a canape that is almost insidiously beguiling to the palate. ROCKET CANAPES (...) (OED has got to add "arugula"! I'll bet they serve it in Tukwila!--ed.) From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 21 01:15:37 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 20:15:37 -0500 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030120132823.00b6bf30@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #I never watch the "Golden Globes" show (well, hardly ever), but last night #when U2's Bono accepted for best song of the year (in "Gangs of New York"), #he said "This is fuckin' great!"--so fast it couldn't be bleeped out. The #effect was electric, as they say. Last year Neil Gaiman won the Hugo, the biggest award in science fiction and fantasy. As I heard the story, his acceptance speech either consisted of, or was very short and was followed by, the line "Fuck, I got a Hugo!" Someone commented that he'd better not say the corresponding thing if he ever wins an award (AFAIK, so far nonexistent) named in honor of Philip K. Dick. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 21 01:17:18 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 20:17:18 -0500 Subject: Pooch In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030120170321.01ff8cf8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #"Pooch" is used in some regions for belly/stomach "pouch," i.e., to suggest #a nicely rounded little belly--as in "I patted my pooch." (It was even #used in a TV commercial a year or so ago, but I can't recall what for.) I've seen/heard (not sure which, or both) "pooch out" for 'bulge out'. -- Mark A. Mandel From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 21 03:27:35 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:27:35 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Last year Neil Gaiman won the Hugo, the biggest award in science fiction >and fantasy. As I heard the story, his acceptance speech either >consisted of, or was very short and was followed by, the line "Fuck, I >got a Hugo!" The acceptance speech was relatively short and the last line was as you heard. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 05:32:36 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 00:32:36 EST Subject: Boston lettuce (1880); Rotelli/Rotelle Salad Message-ID: I was just in my local supermarket when I was reminded that I didn't do these two. BOSTON LETTUCE--Not in the OED. Not in DARE. Hey, it's BOSTON lettuce, fer cryin' out loud. Not Sri Lanka--BOSTON! Over 4,200 Google hits; over 500 Google Groups hits. WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY OF CULINARY ARTS has "A variety of butterhead lettufce with soft, pliable pale green leaves that have a buttery texture and flavor and are larger and paler than bibb lettuce leaves." The American Periodical Series is not all there with digitizing its agricultural periodicals, so I'll have to check back later.. The Making of America-Cornell database has SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, June 1880, pg. 162, "...with canned vegetables and Boston lettuce that kept up a make-believe spring all winter long." ROTELLI/ROTELLE SALAD--The supermarket sold "Rotelli Salad." It looked a little strange with this spelling and without the word "pasta." WEBSTER'S CULINARY ARTS has "rotelle" as "Italian for small wheel and used to describe pasta shaped like a wheel with spokes." Neither "rotelli" nor "rotelle" is in the OED. The Google numbers: ROTELLI SALAD--17 ROTELLE SALAD--35 ROTELLI PASTA SALAD--32 ROTELLE PASTA SALAD--39 ROTELLI PASTA--263 ROTELLE PASTA--681 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 07:08:07 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 02:08:07 EST Subject: O.T.: Al Hirschfeld dies, age 99 Message-ID: Artist Al Hirschfeld has died. There's an extensive obituary in today's NEW YORK TIMES. He was 99 years old and had celebrations planned for 100, but it wasn't to be. I had cited from his 1932 book, MANHATTAN OASES, about New York's speakeasies. The obituary says that it will be reprinted. Get yourself a copy, although all of the places (except "21") are no longer in business. Perhaps "Nina" could be entered in some dictionary somewhere? From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Tue Jan 21 10:43:09 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:43:09 +0100 Subject: Sausage Sandwich (1871, 1875, 1882) Message-ID: I think that it is more probable that all three of those sausage-sandwiches are of the type made in Germany (Wurstbrot) and in Sweden (korvsmörgås) and other Scandinavian countries, consisting of a slice of buttered bread, covered with one or several slices of some sausage, considerably thicker than the Frankfurter, the whole sometimes covered with another slice of bread. The 1891 sandwich of course is a hot-dog, even if the name is lacking. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Sausage Sandwich (1875, 1882) > Two more "sausage sandwiches" from HARPER'S WEEKLY full text. The first seems to involve Hans Christian Andersen, but the second is from Germany. ....> From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 14:52:25 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 09:52:25 EST Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 8:00:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > #Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > #fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." > > I assume that you are remembering from hearing, not reading, the > expression. Could that have been "You fuckin' A, John!"? That is, > - "fuckin'" rather than the homophonous "fuck an" Has anyone considered that "john" is a well-known argot term for the client of a prostitute? Hence in "you f**kin' a john?" the word "john" is the direct object of a verb (in progressive aspect, with "are" missing), whereas "you f**k a A john" makes sense only if prostitutes had a rating system for their clients. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 14:55:13 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 09:55:13 EST Subject: Turkey (1504?) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 9:21:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > I plugged "tomato" into EEBO full text, without success. It's nice to see that the EEBO full text database is proof against critics throwing tomatoes. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 15:22:05 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 10:22:05 EST Subject: Salt Water Taffy (again) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 12:21:56 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes (inter alia): > CONFECTIONERY TRADE-MARKS > compiled by MIDA'S TRADE-MARK BUREAU, Chicago > Chicago: The Criterion Publishing Co. > 1910 > > Here are some entries (*Indicates Registered Brand): > > Pg. 8: > *Atlantic City, The original...Taffy...Wendle W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. > (Providence?--ed.) > > Pg. 74: > *Salt Water...Taffy...Wendele W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. Barry, tell your friend Ed not to be surprised. from URL http://www.virtualnjshore.com/tbswtaffy.html It appears the first taffy made and sold in Atlantic City called 'Salt Water Taffy' was more gimmick than anything else. One legend has it that a taffy vendor named David Bradley jokingly referred to the candy as "salt water taffy" after sea water soaked his supply of the candy in an 1883 summer storm. Although many people believe Bradley invented the candy, no one really knows who was responsible for it's recipe. Another legend says it was created by the Ritchie Brothers and Windle Hollis in 1880. Taffy historians claim that the candy was being sold at Midwest county fairs that same year, but the Ritchie Brothers and Hollis were the first to make the candy in Atlantic City. So they may or may not have been the candy's original true creators. from the Fralinger's Web site http://www.fralingers.com/his_forward.htm The year 1889 saw the first mention of Salt Water Taffy in the Atlantic City Directory, "Hollis Windle W., Original Salt Water Taffy, Boardwalk near Arkansas Avenue." Salt Water Taffy was not again listed until the 1899 Atlantic City Directory, when forty-two 'Confectioners' were listed. Only John Cassidy and Joseph Fralinger are associated with Salt Water Taffy from the names shown. The city was growing rapidly and Salt Water Taffy was becoming a household word. It is therefore possible that Windle (or Wendele) Hollis moved his candy business from Atlantic City to Providence sometime between 1889 and 1910---this may explain why he does not seem to appear in the 1899 Atlantic City Directory. What is confusing is that Hollis has a "registered brand" on "salt water taffy". - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 15:23:39 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 10:23:39 EST Subject: Larry La Prise Message-ID: What with all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in - and then the trouble started... From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 21 16:31:41 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:31:41 -0500 Subject: Larry La Prise Message-ID: More specifically, Larry La Prise died on April 4, 1996. And his status as song-writer of "The Hokey Pokey" has been challenged. Take a look at http://www.goodbyemag.com/apr/hokey.htm John Baker -----Original Message----- From: James A. Landau [mailto:JJJRLandau at AOL.COM] Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 10:24 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Larry La Prise What with all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in - and then the trouble started... From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Tue Jan 21 17:38:40 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 12:38:40 -0500 Subject: Arugula (1960) In-Reply-To: <55B90685.0206AE8B.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: Possibly the omission is due to the fact that they call it "rocket" in England. At 07:02 PM 1/20/03 -0500, you wrote: > OED doesn't have "arugula"? Add it right now! > Merriam-Webster has 1967. > The library closes in seven minutes; last one. > > 24 May 1960, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 33: >_Food News: A Green by Any Name_ > >_Pungent Ingredient Is_ >_Cause of Confusion_ >_for City Shopper_ >By CRAIG CLAIBORNE > >_Arugula--or Rocket--_ >_is the Secret of_ >_Experts' Salads_ > >(...) Ask Italian greengrocers for arugula, rucola or ruccoli; ask other >markets for rouquette, rocket salad or, simply, rocket. > The phrase "secret ingredient" is a slightly ludicrous thing since it > conjures up images of Mephistophelian brews. Most Italian chefs know, > however, that arugula or rocket--call it what you will--is the secret > ingredient of many of their salads-about-town. >(...) > Arugula, or rocket salad as it were, is almost in the same league with > spinach concerning the sand that clings to its leaves. When purchased > the green should be washed thoroughly in several changes of water, then > dried gingerly. > New York does not have a corner on the vegetable's availability in the > United States. Rocket salad is tremendously popular in the Creole > country of Louisiana. Here is an adaptation of a recipe that is > frequently served in the home of Mrs. Edward McIlhenny, a superb young > hostess of Avery Island, La. It is for a canape that is almost > insidiously beguiling to the palate. > ROCKET CANAPES >(...) > >(OED has got to add "arugula"! I'll bet they serve it in Tukwila!--ed.) From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 21 17:36:19 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 12:36:19 -0500 Subject: Arugula (1960) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030121123730.00a55210@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 12:38:40PM -0500, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > Possibly the omission is due to the fact that they call it "rocket" in > England. It's been drafted, just hasn't appeared yet. Jesse Sheidlower OED From mamandel at UNAGI.CIS.UPENN.EDU Tue Jan 21 19:12:40 2003 From: mamandel at UNAGI.CIS.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 14:12:40 -0500 Subject: [DSNA] The Web as a Corpus In-Reply-To: <003001c2a76d$db72c180$5e224da1@jkossuth.m-w.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, James Kossuth wrote: #There is a free downloadable app that is supposed to make #the Web somewhat more valuable as a corpus and is #available at http://www.miniappolis.com/. It does provide #results in KWIC format. I'ven't used it yet myself, but it #seems like it might be useful. "I'ven't"? That's a new combo to me. -- Mark A. Mandel From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 19:58:11 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 14:58:11 EST Subject: [DSNA] The Web as a Corpus Message-ID: In a message dated 1/21/03 2:13:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, mamandel at UNAGI.CIS.UPENN.EDU writes: > "I'ven't"? That's an abbreviation for the well-known expression, "Ivan saying NYET!" - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 23:59:20 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:20 EST Subject: Providence (Re: Salt Water Taffy (again)) Message-ID: This Thursday (in about two days), I'll take an Amtrak up to Providence for a day research trip. The Providence newspapers, the library had told me, are indexed. I'll look for everything from New York System hot dogs to Salt Walter Taffy to Cabinets (shakes). If anyone wants anything researched (maybe I'll go to Brown University as well; I'll try the historical society, but won't have time for Johnson & Wales), tell me now. Also, maybe someone can warn the women? Barry Popik From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 23:59:50 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:50 EST Subject: German Taco Message-ID: Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The introduction page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: "Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a spell. Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, German tacos, and other snacks." What are German tacos? Steve Boatti From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 00:21:42 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 19:21:42 EST Subject: Anglosphere Message-ID: "Anglosphere" has over 4000 Google hits, yet its first mention on Google Groups is from only January 2000. The term is mentioned today on Andrew Sullivan's blog at www.andrewsullivan.com, with this link: http://www.pattern.com/bennettj-anglosphereprimer.html From self at TOWSE.COM Wed Jan 22 00:39:12 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 16:39:12 -0800 Subject: Anglosphere Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > "Anglosphere" has over 4000 Google hits, yet its first mention on Google > Groups is from only January 2000. > The term is mentioned today on Andrew Sullivan's blog at > www.andrewsullivan.com, with this link: > > http://www.pattern.com/bennettj-anglosphereprimer.html According to that Jan 2000 reference in Googja, the word was first used by Neal Stephenson in THE DIAMOND AGE, which was published in 1995. If Stephenson coined the word in 1995, five years seems a long time for it to hit the newsgroups. According to Simberg , Francosphere was used on a French language site before then. In a similar vein William T Quick claims he was blending "logos" with "blog" to coin "blogosphere" a year ago New Year's. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 01:18:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 20:18:16 EST Subject: Wyotana or Montoming Message-ID: Wyoming + Montana. Everybody's got to get into the coinage act. From the NEW YORK TIMES, 17 January 2003 (www.nytimes.com): Wyotana: Home of the Second Home By ANNA BAHNEY AGGED mountain peaks pierce the clouds as their nine-million-year-old spires loom above a patch of delicate blue harebells still wet with morning dew. The lake below reflects the shifting colors of the rocks — green at the bottom, gray melding to white at the top — as they stretch toward the infinite blue sky. Off in the distance, a moose slowly makes its way to the water's edge. A bald eagle soars above, talons ready, looking for breakfast. Welcome to Wyotana: part State of Wyoming, part State of Montana, part state of mind. You won't find it on any maps, but Wyotana (or Montoming, as it might be dubbed every odd-numbered year when the Montana Legislature is in session) exists nonetheless. It's the home of the second home for celebrities like Harrison Ford, Tom Brokaw and David Letterman and hundreds of other out-of-staters willing to pay $5 million or more to embrace their inner ranch owner. It's the land of big sky and big prices. Thinking about moving in? Before whipping out your checkbook, get out the map. With Yellowstone National Park as its anchor, Wyotana stretches with eminent-domain-like authority over the forested and mountainous regions of northwest Wyoming and central and western Montana. From Sheridan County, Wyo., draw a line slanting down to the Utah-Idaho border. Follow the state line of Idaho upward until it is even with the Flathead Valley, and then go over to Kalispell, Mont. Shoot straight back down to Sheridan, making sure Billings, Mont., is included. Now you have the rough parameters of Wyotana, a 103,300-square-mile enclave of sweeping vistas and storied beauty. (...) (But I can't move there! I'm scared of jackalopes!--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 01:55:55 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 20:55:55 -0500 Subject: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" Message-ID: I got a call from someone in the Midwest who vaguely recalled a survey conducted by someone in the Yale Department of Linguistics aimed at determining the "ten most powerful English words". He remembered the list as including _love_ and _new_, but all topped by the #1 most powerful, _hope_. I told him I could be pretty certain that no such survey had been conducted by anyone here in the last 20 years, and that it didn't really sound like a survey anyone in linguistics would have conducted, but I promised I'd ask around. So I hereby do so, not expecting too much in the way of a response. (He thought it might have been cited in a magazine like _American Demography_.) On the quote: I was just now vaguely watching an ESPN SportsCentury bio of Vince Lombardi that mentioned the quote attributed to him, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. If I heard right, the SportsCentury bio called TATW a 1940 movie, but my VideoHound Movie Retriever authoritatively places _Trouble Along the Way_ in 1953 (which still predates Lombardi's coaching career). But they also called it a John Ford movie, which the 1953 one (starring John Wayne) wasn't. So maybe there was an earlier version of TATW in 1940 directed by John Ford that hasn't come out in video (since it's not in the VideoHound) and that contains the motto (the excerpt was black and white, but the 1953 movie is listed in the VideoHound as b&w, so that doesn't help), or maybe when the bio said "a John Ford movie" it really meant "a John Wayne movie". I'll watch more closely if they ever replay the Lombardi bio. larry From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 02:02:57 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 21:02:57 -0500 Subject: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the > line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at > that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, > _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time > college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young > daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. The earliest anyone has found this Red Sanders quote is in the 1953 movie _Trouble Along the Way_. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From lamerrill at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 22 07:47:59 2003 From: lamerrill at EARTHLINK.NET (Leila A. Merrill) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 01:47:59 -0600 Subject: German Taco Message-ID: Hi all, A German Taco, according to the Amarillo Globe-News, is a flour tortilla stuffed with slices of summer sausage and jalapeño cheese, then wrapped like a burrito and heated. Fredericksburg, as the name suggests, was a German settlement. Now it's a nice place to spend a weekend because the area's pretty, there are plenty of sights to see, little shops, etc. Here in Dallas, we have fish tacos in addition the usual varieties. I haven't seen the German kind, but I might have just not noticed. - Leila Merrill linguistics grad student > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: > German Taco > From: > Steve Boatti > Date: > Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:50 EST > > >Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of >Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The introduction >page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: > >"Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a spell. >Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, German tacos, >and other snacks." > >What are German tacos? > >Steve Boatti > > From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 22 11:37:15 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 06:37:15 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: All ANSers, ADSers, and DSNAers I urge you to look at the latest issue of National Geographic, for Feb 2003 (the cover is an image of a star being born -- quite cool). There is a good story in this issue about Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea, with some great photos of the terrain they encountered and art to depict some of the scenes described in the actual written records of the expedition. They quote from several journals, so the story is backed with primary evidence, plus the input of several experts of today. The story mentions, though does not go into detail, the controversy over her name and its spelling and pronunciation (hence the inclusion of ADS-L and DSNA-L on this email), and discusses her actual history, as far as it is known (very little), and how her story and place in history were revived by the suffragists and feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those who were at the recent ANS annual meeting were regaled by ANS Past President Tom Gasque and his excellent talk about Sacagawea and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Expedition is now -- and for the next two years running, with various events around the country -- being commemorated on its 200th anniversary. It's very fitting that Natl Geog has this story now, and that it backs up much of what Tom said, though he said far more than what the NG story has, and of course, Tom's was from an onomastic viewpoint. But the NG story is worth a read, and it even has a few tidbits that I for one was not aware of. Frank Frank Abate Dictionaries International Consulting & Editorial Services for Reference Publications 860-349-5400 [USA access code: 1] abatefr at earthlink.net From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 22 12:12:06 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 07:12:06 -0500 Subject: FW: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" Message-ID: FWIW, the Oxford History of World Cinema, in its write-up on John Ford (pp. 288-89), does not mention the TATW title in its "Select Filmography". For 1940, he did The Grapes of Wrath. He also had 3 feature films released in 1939, and one in 1941, and one in 1942, and then was in the US Navy for WWII, so I expect he did not squeeze in anything else around that time. I think the John Ford-John Wayne connection was the likely cause for this apparent confusion. Frank Abate On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the > line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at > that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, > _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time > college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young > daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. The earliest anyone has found this Red Sanders quote is in the 1953 movie _Trouble Along the Way_. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 22 12:31:42 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 07:31:42 -0500 Subject: German Taco In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I would have expected Japanese tacos at a Brew Bonnet place. dInIs >Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of >Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The introduction >page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: > >"Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a spell. >Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, German tacos, >and other snacks." > >What are German tacos? > >Steve Boatti -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From monickels at MAC.COM Wed Jan 22 13:50:46 2003 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:50:46 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I did not hear Tom Gasque's speech, nor have I yet seen the particular issue of National Geographic, but one language- and Sacagawea-related item which I have read recently talks about the difficulties of translation encountered. Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at Fort Mandan. "Sacagawea spoke a little Hidatsa in which she had to converse with her husband, who was a Canadian and did not understand English. A mulatto, who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the Captains [Lewis and Clark], so that a single word to be understood b the party required to pass from the natives to the woman, from the woman to the husband, from the husband to the mulatto, from the mulatto to the captains." Ambrose adds: "That might not have been so bad, except that Charbonneau [Sacagawea's husband] and Jessaume argued about the meaning of every French word they used." -- Grant Barrett Editor, World New York http://www.worldnewyork.org/ gbarrett at worldnewyork.org From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 13:58:37 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:58:37 EST Subject: Providence (Re: Salt Water Taffy (again)) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/21/03 7:00:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > This Thursday (in about two days), I'll take an Amtrak up to Providence Shouldn't that be "Providence (RI: Salt Water Taffy)"? Some linguistic musings to pass the time on your trip: There are two cities in North America named after the Deity. Providence is one. Name the other. (References to the Christian Trinity are excluded, although you might want to find a place named after the Holy Ghost.) England is a subset of Britain, yet New Britain is a subset of New England. Find not one but two "New Scotlands" and half of a "New Wales". The Northeast has many "New x" place names (e.g. see previous) including "New Square". Where is "Old Square"? The _Titanic_ was sunk by an iceberg. What happened to its sister ship the _Hoosatanic_? Locate the Four Seasons of Massachusetts. What is unique (linguistically) about the Bostoner Rebbe? Riddle: why is New Haven the obvious site for the first appearance of the Anglophone bagel? Riddle: what kind of sex life does a backwards Yalie have? Riddle: why can't you get to Rhode Island by train? And straying from the Northeast: why is everyone in the United States convinced that there is a city in Mexico named "Aunt Jane"? In a message dated 1/21/03 8:18:47 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Wyoming + Montana. > Everybody's got to get into the coinage act. "Kentuckiana" has been around for as long as I can remember (and probably as long as Professor Preston can remember). It is an advertising/PR term meaning "Kentucky plus those parts of Indiana in which the Louisville Courier-Journal circulates." Of even older vintage: Texarkana, Calexico, Mexicali, the Delmarva Peninsula. And then there is Marven Gardens, famously misspelled on the Monopoly board. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 14:05:06 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:05:06 EST Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/03 8:51:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, monickels at MAC.COM writes: > A mulatto, > who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the > Captains [Lewis and Clark], Charbonneau > [Sacagawea's husband] and Jessaume argued about the meaning of every > French word they used." Please clarify whether the "mulatto" mentioned (Jessaume?) was or was not Clark's slave York. - James A. Landau From Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM Wed Jan 22 14:09:50 2003 From: Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM (Michael Cassidy) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:09:50 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: Grant Barrett writes: Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at Fort Mandan. I've been online for about 18 years and one thing I've learned: its amazing how email sucks the snottiness out of people. I guess its alright Ambose is dead and created a greater body of work than Grant. From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Wed Jan 22 14:22:14 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:22:14 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea In-Reply-To: <6d.7d64559.2b5fff12@aol.com> Message-ID: Le Wednesday, 22 Jan 2003, à 09:05 America/New_York, James A. Landau a écrit : >> A mulatto, >> who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the >> Captains [Lewis and Clark], Charbonneau >> [Sacagawea's husband] and Jessaume argued about the meaning of every >> French word they used." > > Please clarify whether the "mulatto" mentioned (Jessaume?) was or was > not > Clark's slave York. René Jessaume was a mulatto trader who lived with the Mandan Indians. As far as I know, York has never been referred to as a mulatto. According to this page, Jessaume (one of several spellings, Jussaume being the most common variant), was a freeman. http://www.northwestjournal.ca/XI1.htm -- Grant Barrett Editor, World New York http://www.worldnewyork.org/ gbarrett at worldnewyork.org From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Wed Jan 22 14:28:22 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:28:22 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea In-Reply-To: <85256CB6.004D94CD.00@ares.condenast.com> Message-ID: Le Wednesday, 22 Jan 2003, à 09:09 America/New_York, Michael Cassidy a écrit : > Grant Barrett writes: > > Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather > Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles > MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at > Fort Mandan. > > I've been online for about 18 years and one thing I've learned: > its amazing how email sucks the snottiness out of people. > I guess its alright Ambose is dead and created a greater body of work > than > Grant. Dead or not, I believe Ambrose was the worst sort of writer: a pastiche artist, an incautious self-editor, repetitive, and, yes, pedestrian: lacking in imagination to such a degree that one can read a book such as "Undaunated Courage" and feel cheated out of the best parts of the story. A large body of such work is nothing to me. -- Grant Barrett Editor, World New York http://www.worldnewyork.org/ gbarrett at worldnewyork.org From Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM Wed Jan 22 15:09:54 2003 From: Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM (Michael Cassidy) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:09:54 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea & Fuckin A Message-ID: Ah shucks and gee wiz Jim & Grant are mad at me! Weep weep. Taking pretty much needless shots at someone not on the list and dead shows character. As "Fuckin A", its simple. "A OK" shorten to "OK". And on the brief that anything said can be made clearer by adding fucking to it, 'Fucking A OK' shorten to "Fuckin A". Everyone I spoke to knows it as an afirmative. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 22 16:15:02 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:15:02 -0800 Subject: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) lists only two films made by John Ford in 1940, The Grapes of Wrath and The Long Voyage Home which was based on 4 short plays by Eugene O'Neill and starred John Wayne as Ole Olsen. The 1953 movie Trouble Along the Way (AKA Alma Mater) was directed by Michael Curtiz (who, BTW, directed 3 films in 1940, all of which starred Errol Flynn). allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. If I heard right, > the SportsCentury bio called TATW a 1940 movie, but my VideoHound > Movie Retriever authoritatively places _Trouble Along the Way_ in > 1953 (which still predates Lombardi's coaching career). But they > also called it a John Ford movie, which the 1953 one (starring John > Wayne) wasn't. So maybe there was an earlier version of TATW in 1940 > directed by John Ford that hasn't come out in video From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 16:54:50 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:54:50 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Message-ID: Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? RERUN OF A BAD MOVIE--President Bush said this week that Saddam's actions are like a "rerun of a bad movie." That's a "nightmare," perhaps worse. Google Groups has this since at least 1996. It might have been coined with the movie ENDLESS LOVE, I dunno. NAIL JELLY TO THE WALL--I was flipping through the tv channels yesterday, and stopped at the History Channel program on the Panama Canal. President Teddy Roosevelt's "nail currant jelly to the wall" alleged quotation was mentioned. I've heard "jelly to the wall" again recently. Has Fred Shapiro nailed this one down? Did Teddy coin it? Do people really try nailing jelly to the wall? How about Jell-O? From Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM Wed Jan 22 17:00:43 2003 From: Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM (LeMay, William) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 12:00:43 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Message-ID: >From the New Hacker's Dictionary: like nailing jelly to a tree adj. Used to describe a task thought to be impossible, esp. one in which the difficulty arises from poor specification or inherent slipperiness in the problem domain. "Trying to display the `prettiest' arrangement of nodes and arcs that diagrams a given graph is like nailing jelly to a tree, because nobody's sure what `prettiest' means algorithmically." Hacker use of this term may recall mainstream slang originated early in the 20th century by President Theodore Roosevelt. There is a legend that, weary of inconclusive talks with Colombia over the right to dig a canal through its then-province Panama, he remarked, "Negotiating with those pirates is like trying to nail currant jelly to the wall." Roosevelt's government subsequently encouraged the anti-Colombian insurgency that created the nation of Panama. -----Original Message----- From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [ mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM ] Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 10:55 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? RERUN OF A BAD MOVIE--President Bush said this week that Saddam's actions are like a "rerun of a bad movie." That's a "nightmare," perhaps worse. Google Groups has this since at least 1996. It might have been coined with the movie ENDLESS LOVE, I dunno. NAIL JELLY TO THE WALL--I was flipping through the tv channels yesterday, and stopped at the History Channel program on the Panama Canal. President Teddy Roosevelt's "nail currant jelly to the wall" alleged quotation was mentioned. I've heard "jelly to the wall" again recently. Has Fred Shapiro nailed this one down? Did Teddy coin it? Do people really try nailing jelly to the wall? How about Jell-O? From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 18:11:43 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:11:43 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall In-Reply-To: <4B563BD7.17760E75.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: yOn Wed, 22 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? This question is a good excuse for me to clarify a point. Barry's postings sometimes seem to envision that the Yale Dictionary of Quotations is going to cover every phrase or expression ever uttered; this expectation parallels his apparent expectation that the OED should cover every term ever uttered in English or any other language. In fact, my book will be limited to more significant quotations, just as every real-world reference book has to be limited in various ways. It would never occur to me that "rerun of a bad movie" or "nail jelly to the wall" would be significant enough for me to cover. In a way I hate to articulate the above, because Barry posts such great stuff in furtherance of his unlimited vision of inclusiveness and I don't want to discourage him, but I don't want unrealistic expectations to grow up with regard to my book. Please keep up the great work, Barry! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dave at WILTON.NET Wed Jan 22 18:32:52 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:32:52 -0800 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This thread, plus the one about the Vince Lombardi quote and a discussion on my website about a 19th century economics quote, got me thinking... Is there a source that addresses misattributed or fallacious quotes in something resembling a comprehensive manner? There are an enormous number of false quotations floating about out there. A single volume (or website) that debunks the worst of these would be a very useful tool. I know that many books of quotations and sites like snopes.com do this on a case-by-case basis, but I've never seen a source that attempts a comprehensive treatment. I'm not suggesting that Fred's book do this. I'm just wondering if anyone has done it. > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Fred Shapiro > Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 10:12 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall > > > yOn Wed, 22 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > > Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? > > This question is a good excuse for me to clarify a point. Barry's > postings sometimes seem to envision that the Yale Dictionary > of Quotations > is going to cover every phrase or expression ever uttered; this > expectation parallels his apparent expectation that the OED > should cover > every term ever uttered in English or any other language. In fact, my > book will be limited to more significant quotations, just as every > real-world reference book has to be limited in various ways. It would > never occur to me that "rerun of a bad movie" or "nail jelly > to the wall" > would be significant enough for me to cover. > > In a way I hate to articulate the above, because Barry posts > such great > stuff in furtherance of his unlimited vision of inclusiveness and I > don't want to discourage him, but I don't want unrealistic > expectations to > grow up with regard to my book. > > Please keep up the great work, Barry! > > Fred Shapiro > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------ > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY > OF QUOTATIONS > Access 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 22 18:47:02 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:47:02 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall In-Reply-To: <001b01c2c244$acc017b0$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > Is there a source that addresses misattributed or fallacious quotes in > something resembling a comprehensive manner? There are an enormous number of > false quotations floating about out there. A single volume (or website) that > debunks the worst of these would be a very useful tool. I know that many > books of quotations and sites like snopes.com do this on a case-by-case > basis, but I've never seen a source that attempts a comprehensive treatment. > > I'm not suggesting that Fred's book do this. I'm just wondering if anyone > has done it. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has a section of misquotations. My book will certainly address many misquotations. The best book focusing on misquotations is Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys Finish Last, which is really quite brilliant. The quality of his research is better than any other quotation book ever published (to date). Another one is Paul F. Boller and John George, They Never Said It : A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions, which is pretty good but not nearly up to Keyes's standards. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 22 18:48:40 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:48:40 -0500 Subject: Keyes Mistitle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I gave the wrong title of Ralph Keyes's great book on misquotations. The real title is the following: "Nice guys finish seventh" : false phrases, spurious sayings, and familiar misquotations Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Wed Jan 22 21:23:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:23:51 -0500 Subject: Boston lettuce (1878); Roosevelt's currant jelly (1912) Message-ID: BOSTON LETTUCE 17 November 1878, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 9: Those varieties that are not furnished plentifully at this season by the market-gardens are received from the hothouses, as, for instance, "Boston lettuce" raised under glass, which brings the highest price. --------------------------------------------------------------- ROOSEVELT'S CURRANT JELLY William Safire, an ADS member who writes an "On Language" column for an obscure publication called THE NEW YORK TIMES, discussed "like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree" on 26 January 1986. Joe E. Decker, a history professor of the University of Tampa (FL), wrote a letter on 9 March 1986, mentioning a Roosevelt letter in 1915. On 6 April 1986, Safire re-addressed the jelly issue, using again the 1915 date. 9 April 1912, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: "Somebody asked me why I did not get an agreement with Colombia. They might just as well ask me why I do not nail cranberry jelly to the wall. It would not be my fault or the fault of the nail; it would be the fault of the jelly." (Of course! Who nails cranberry jelly to a wall? Try STRAWBERRY jelly!--ed.) From Ittaob at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 21:34:19 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:34:19 EST Subject: Boston lettuce (1878); Roosevelt's currant jelly (1912) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/03 4:24:26 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: << 9 April 1912, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: "Somebody asked me why I did not get an agreement with Colombia. They might just as well ask me why I do not nail cranberry jelly to the wall. It would not be my fault or the fault of the nail; it would be the fault of the jelly." >> This is the precise TR quote that was used yesterday on the History Channel documentary on Teddy. Steve Boatti From dsgood at VISI.COM Wed Jan 22 22:41:18 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:41:18 -0600 Subject: German taco In-Reply-To: <20030122050051.34BB049B6@bodb.mc.mpls.visi.com> Message-ID: > Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:50 EST > From: Steve Boatti > Subject: German Taco > > Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of > Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The > introduction page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: > > "Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a > spell. Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, > German tacos, and other snacks." > > What are German tacos? > >From an Amarillo newspaper article on the Tri-State Fair in 2000: http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/091900/tri_friedfood.shtml After their work shifts, Bielz planned to eat a hot link plus ice cream for dessert. Dorsey planned to eat a German taco, which is a flour tortilla stuffed with slices of summer sausage and jalapeno cheese, then wrapped like a burrito and heated. My guess is, the "German" part is the summer sausage. Fredericksburg is in the part of Texas which got a lot of German immigration, right? From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Wed Jan 22 23:08:51 2003 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 18:08:51 -0500 Subject: German taco, and an off-topic anecdote In-Reply-To: <3E2EC9AE.23263.DDE333@localhost> Message-ID: At 04:41 PM 1/22/2003 -0600, Dan Goodman wrote: >... a German taco, which is a flour tortilla stuffed with slices of summer >sausage and jalapeno >cheese, then wrapped like a burrito and heated. That's Right. >Fredericksburg is in the part of Texas which got a lot of German >immigration, right? To make a very long and very interesting, albeit possibly apocryphal story, short: The Comancheria, an area of Texas slated specifically for the Comanche, had parts of it "sold" to a group of German immigrants ("Anybody want to by the Brooklyn Bridge?") They moved in, the Comanche got a little miffed, and an envoy was sent to try and work it out. The German's made a proposal, the Comanche accepted, and showed the acceptance by lighting fires along the hills that ring Fredricksburg - it happened to be Easter Sunday, the "treaty" between the Germans and the Comanche has never been broken, and the Girl and Boy Scouts still "light them Easter fires ever' Easter." [Blame my history professor, Dr. June Welch, if this "ain't so." Boy, could that man tell a story]. The town boasts the Brew Bonnet, several German deli's, an annual Oktoberfest, and is Chester Nimitz's hometown - with a museum to prove it and all. You should check it out - then head on over to WEST for some of those kolaches we were taking about earlier and a visit to the Czech descendant there..... Kathleen E. Miller Research Assistant to William Safire and part time resident of Georgetown, TX The New York Times From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Wed Jan 22 23:08:31 2003 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:08:31 -0600 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: I must agree, "Undaunted Courage," was, at best, a very poor book, at worse, a hack job cashing in on the author's name. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Barrett" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 8:28 AM Subject: Re: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea > Le Wednesday, 22 Jan 2003, à 09:09 America/New_York, Michael Cassidy a > écrit : > > > Grant Barrett writes: > > > > Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather > > Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles > > MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at > > Fort Mandan. > > > > I've been online for about 18 years and one thing I've learned: > > its amazing how email sucks the snottiness out of people. > > I guess its alright Ambose is dead and created a greater body of work > > than > > Grant. > > Dead or not, I believe Ambrose was the worst sort of writer: a pastiche > artist, an incautious self-editor, repetitive, and, yes, pedestrian: > lacking in imagination to such a degree that one can read a book such > as "Undaunated Courage" and feel cheated out of the best parts of the > story. A large body of such work is nothing to me. > > -- > Grant Barrett > Editor, World New York > http://www.worldnewyork.org/ > gbarrett at worldnewyork.org > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 23:28:26 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 18:28:26 -0500 Subject: FW: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:12 AM -0500 1/22/03, Frank Abate wrote: >FWIW, the Oxford History of World Cinema, in its write-up on John Ford (pp. >288-89), does not mention the TATW title in its "Select Filmography". For >1940, he did The Grapes of Wrath. He also had 3 feature films released in >1939, and one in 1941, and one in 1942, and then was in the US Navy for >WWII, so I expect he did not squeeze in anything else around that time. > >I think the John Ford-John Wayne connection was the likely cause for this >apparent confusion. > >Frank Abate > So it would appear. My VideoHound actually lists *another* John Ford movie from 1940 (besides Grapes of Wrath): The Long Voyage Home (from the Eugene O'Neill play), starring John Wayne. And many of his movies did star John Wayne, so the connection, or confusion, is plausible. We can go with the 1953 TATW (directed not by Ford but by Michael Curtiz) as the first clearly attested source for "WIEITOT", whether or not Red Sanders was the one who popularized it earlier. larry > >On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > >> "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the >> line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at >> that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, >> _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time >> college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young >> daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. > >The earliest anyone has found this Red Sanders quote is in the 1953 movie >_Trouble Along the Way_. > >Fred Shapiro > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Fred R. Shapiro Editor >Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > Access 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 Wed Jan 22 23:25:50 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 18:25:50 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea & F*ckin A In-Reply-To: <85256CB6.005314D6.00@ares.condenast.com> Message-ID: At 10:09 AM -0500 1/22/03, Michael Cassidy wrote: >Ah shucks and gee wiz Jim & Grant are mad at me! >Weep weep. I'd appreciate your damping down the gratuitious flames. > >As "Fuckin A", its simple. >"A OK" shorten to "OK". >And on the brief that anything said can be made clearer by adding >fucking to it, >'Fucking A OK' shorten to "Fuckin A". > >Everyone I spoke to knows it as an afirmative. I didn't see any cites of "F*ckin(g) A OK" in HDAS among the copious cites of "f*cking A", and in any case "A-OK" is only cited from 1959, while "f*ckin A", as discussed earlier in the thread, goes back at least to Norman Mailer's use in _Naked and the Dead_, 1947 (which presumably reflects WWII usage, if he can be trusted). This makes it pretty unlikely that "A-OK" is the source. larry -- From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 22 23:26:43 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:26:43 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Query on "Great Scott!" Message-ID: One of my students wanted to post a query to ads-l, but I suppose he has to subscribe to the listserve first. His message appears below my signoff, and I'll forward any responses to him. Gerald Cohen >While watching "Back to the Future" this past weekend, one of my >friends asked: Where does the expression "Great Scott" come from? >Would anyone be able to help me on this? > >Thank you, >Brian Van Vertloo >Student, University of Missouri-Rolla > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 23 00:28:33 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 19:28:33 -0500 Subject: German Taco In-Reply-To: <3E2E4CAF.8070607@earthlink.net> Message-ID: >Hi all, > >A German Taco, according to the Amarillo Globe-News, is a flour tortilla >stuffed with slices of summer sausage and jalapeño cheese, then wrapped >like a burrito and heated. >Fredericksburg, as the name suggests, was a German settlement. Now it's >a nice place to spend a weekend because the area's pretty, there are >plenty of sights to see, little shops, etc. Here in Dallas, we have >fish tacos in addition the usual varieties. I haven't seen the German >kind, but I might have just not noticed. > German taco is a new one on me, although after reading the description it's not as exotic as it first sounded, although with a flour tortilla and heated as above I'd call it a German burrito. In my lexicon, "taco" entails corn tortilla(s), although there can be one or two (the latter is standard if the filling is sauced) and they can be hard or soft. As for fish tacos, they've been big in southern CA for years. They sell them at San Diego Padres games. (And I had a good one at an outdoor stand near the LSA/ADS hotel last time we met in L.A.) larry -- From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Thu Jan 23 01:16:20 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 20:16:20 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Query on "Great Scott!" Message-ID: I think Michael Quinion's column on the subject is rather recent and state of the art. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gre4.htm Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 6:26 PM Subject: Fwd: Query on "Great Scott!" > One of my students wanted to post a query to ads-l, but I suppose > he has to subscribe to the listserve first. His message appears below > my signoff, and I'll forward any responses to him. > > Gerald Cohen > > > >While watching "Back to the Future" this past weekend, one of my > >friends asked: Where does the expression "Great Scott" come from? > >Would anyone be able to help me on this? > > > >Thank you, > >Brian Van Vertloo > >Student, University of Missouri-Rolla > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 01:54:55 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 20:54:55 -0500 Subject: Barbecue (1695?); "Big Apple" and Jake Byer Message-ID: "BIG APPLE" AND JAKE BYER "Peter Quince" was an extremely popular horse. The name is from William Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. I checked the full text NEW YORK TIMES for that name with the keyword "race." The first hit that shows up is 1907, and there are 121 hits for "Peter Quince." Perhaps "quince" is not "apple" and perhaps Shakespeare wasn't Irish, but whatever. Most interesting is a NEW YORK TIMES full text check for "Jake Byer." The first hit is from New Orleans in 1920! Exactly the time John J. Fitz Gerald was also in New Orleans (as I reported 11 years ago). 22 January 1920, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 18: _TRAINER'S LICENSE REVOKED BY JUDGES_ _Jake Byer Disciplined by New Orleans Officials--Bar His Horses from Races._ Not only that, but there's a photo of Jake Byer at age 85, and it's not from ancient history, either... 17 September 1969, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 41: _Jake Byer, at 85, Still Follows Form Charts at Belmont_ _Ex-Trainer on Hand for 100th Running of Jerome Today_ (...) (Photo caption--ed.) Jake Byer, retired trainer, figuring winners at Belmont As I said 11 years ago, Byer (although certainly not alive) might have had children. Those children might be alive. Their fathers records might be lying in an attic. I've begged 11 years for the NEW YORK TIMES to run an article on New York City's history. Silence=Death. --------------------------------------------------------------- BARBECUE This is a late translation, but "barbecue" is an important word. Call # HEA (Berkel, A. van. Adriaan van Berkel's Travels in South America) Author Berkel, Adriaan van. Title Adriaan van Berkel's Travels in South America between the Berbice and Essequibo rivers and in Surinam, 1670-1689, translated and edited by Walter Edmund Roth, 1925. Imprint Georgetown, British Guiana, The "Daily chronicle," ltd., 1941 [i. e. 1942] LOCATION CALL # STATUS Humanities-Genrl Res HEA (Berkel, A. van. Adriaan van Berkel's Travels in South America) Location Humanities-Genrl Res Descript 2 p. l., xvi p., 2 l., 145, v p. plates, fold. map. 22 cm. Series The "Daily chronicle's" Guiana edition of reprints and original works dealing with all phases of life in British Guiana. Ed. by Vincent Roth. [No. 2] Note Series in part at head of t.-p. On cover: 2d impression, 1942. "Appeared serially in the 'Daily chronicle' newspaper during 1926-27."--Foreword. Translation of Amerikaansche voyagien. Subject Guyana -- Description and travel. Suriname -- Description and travel. Berbice River (Guyana) Add'l name Roth, Walter E. (Walter Edmund), 1861?-1933, ed. and tr. Page 23: Be it a hare, rabbit, hog, deer, etc., the hair is burnt off, the guts washed and the meat laid on a _berbekot_. This is an Indian grid of little wooden sticks about two feet high. On this they place their food, flesh, or fish, without salting it; and being half done roasted, they crumble it into the pepper-pot to eat at once or to keep for a more convenient time, because the pepper-pot is the only recourse. From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 23 02:14:54 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 21:14:54 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <002d01c2bcf6$3d78d160$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >It has been suggested to me that the "A" could have come from "affirmative" >in the sense that the military usage of "affirmative" to mean "yes" or "you >are correct" might have been been the inspiration. "Fucking Affirmative, >Sir!" shortened to "Fuckin'-A." > >Was "affirmative" a well-used military word in WWII and before? "Affirmative" in the desired context has been conventional since Korea certainly. I'm not sure about WW II. This is one of several reasonable possibilities, I think. Derivation from "A-OK" on the other hand appears implausible ... since "f*cking-A" or equivalent seems to predate "A-OK" by at least a decade. {Those offended by rank speculation or woolgathering should ignore the item below.} Another possibility (not my favorite because of Occam's razor) is that the expression is so contracted that the original form is obscured. For example, one could assume that Ron Butters' long form "you f*ckin' A John" is actually an early form, later contracted; in this case my conjecture would be that this might represent "U f*cking A J", an intensified version of "U A J", an abbreviation of "you ain't joking/jiving" or so. [Compare "f*cking-Able", an alternative form of "f*cking-A" with presumably military "Able" for "A" (in HDAS). "U A" for "you ain't" appears in "U A W" = "United Auto Workers" but once slang for something like "you ain't white, you ain't working" IIRC (something like this is in Jonathon Green's slang dictionary). Compare also "J" and "John" used interchangeably for "jack" in poker, with "John" most likely just an elaboration of "J" IMHO. A variant speculation would assign "John" = virtually homophonous "jawin'", thus "you [f*cking] ain't [just] jawing".] -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 02:57:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 21:57:22 -0500 Subject: Navel Orange (1869) Message-ID: From Wednesday's NEW YORK TIMES: An Orange Whose Season Has Come By DAVID KARP RIVERSIDE, Calif. FIFTY miles east of Los Angeles stands the most revered and historic fruit tree in the United States. This centenarian might pass for any old orange tree, were it not for the unusual grafted roots that sustain it, like arterial bypasses, and the entourage of heaters ready to coddle it during freezes. The tree, one of two from which all Washington navel oranges in California descended, is guarded by a locked fence and commemorated by a bronze plaque. It was propagated from trees imported from Brazil in 1870. The Washington, a large, easily peeled, seedless orange, caused a sensation when it was exhibited at a citrus fair 124 years ago. The new variety, with its built-in trademark — a rudimentary second fruit in its blossom end — helped create an orange empire that once stretched from Pasadena to Redlands. The navel orange came to be regarded as a sacred tree in Southern California. (...) --------------------------------------------------------------- OED has 1888 for "navel orange." The revised entry has--what? September 1869, OVERLAND MONTHLY AND OUT WEST MAGAZINE (American Periodical Series online, but the MOA also has this periodical), pg. 0001: Near by (Bahia, Brazil--ed.), was a fine plantation, belonging to the same person, with an orange grove, said to be the finest in South America, producing the variety known as the navel orange, so called from a little proturberance in the rind, containing the seeds. The pulp of the orange is solid throughout, and deliciously sweet. No variety so fine finds its way to the Northern markets. 31 December 1871, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 2: _ORANGE CULTURE IN NEW SOUTH WALES._ (...) The orange in New South Wales often grows to a very large size. Some navel oranges, taken from five-year-old trees, and grafted on seedlings, were exhibited very recently in the Sydney market, and were found to weigh respectively 22, 22 3/4, and 25 1/2 ounces. 19 September 1874, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 3: (From Bahia, Brazil, 14 July 1874--ed.) We soon found one, from whom we bought some navel oranges and sapoties (accent on the last syllable.) As these fruits are unknown in the United States, perhaps it will be well to describe them. The navel orange is from four to five inches in diameter, has a thick skin, and is very sweet. The seeds, instead of being in the centre as usual, are contained in a cell about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, situated on the side opposite the stem, where it produces an umbilicated swelling, from which the fruit takes its name. The sapotie resembles a large plum in size and shape, but it contains two small seeds in its centre, and has a skin like that of a peach, except that it is of a dirty cinnamon color. It's taste is sweetish and agreeable, although unlike that of any of our Northern fruits. Sapoties and oranges are sold at the same price--two cents each--and our refreshments cost us the nominal sum of six cents per head. From timothy.benell at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 23 03:45:25 2003 From: timothy.benell at VERIZON.NET (Timothy Benell) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 22:45:25 -0500 Subject: unsubscribe Message-ID: unsubscribe ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 9:57 PM Subject: Navel Orange (1869) > From Wednesday's NEW YORK TIMES: > > An Orange Whose Season Has Come > By DAVID KARP > > RIVERSIDE, Calif. > FIFTY miles east of Los Angeles stands the most revered and historic fruit tree in the United States. This centenarian might pass for any old orange tree, were it not for the unusual grafted roots that sustain it, like arterial bypasses, and the entourage of heaters ready to coddle it during freezes. > > The tree, one of two from which all Washington navel oranges in California descended, is guarded by a locked fence and commemorated by a bronze plaque. It was propagated from trees imported from Brazil in 1870. > > The Washington, a large, easily peeled, seedless orange, caused a sensation when it was exhibited at a citrus fair 124 years ago. The new variety, with its built-in trademark — a rudimentary second fruit in its blossom end — helped create an orange empire that once stretched from Pasadena to Redlands. The navel orange came to be regarded as a sacred tree in Southern California. > (...) > --------------------------------------------------------------- > OED has 1888 for "navel orange." The revised entry has--what? > > September 1869, OVERLAND MONTHLY AND OUT WEST MAGAZINE (American Periodical Series online, but the MOA also has this periodical), pg. 0001: > Near by (Bahia, Brazil--ed.), was a fine plantation, belonging to the same person, with an orange grove, said to be the finest in South America, producing the variety known as the navel orange, so called from a little proturberance in the rind, containing the seeds. The pulp of the orange is solid throughout, and deliciously sweet. No variety so fine finds its way to the Northern markets. > > 31 December 1871, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 2: > _ORANGE CULTURE IN NEW SOUTH WALES._ > (...) The orange in New South Wales often grows to a very large size. Some navel oranges, taken from five-year-old trees, and grafted on seedlings, were exhibited very recently in the Sydney market, and were found to weigh respectively 22, 22 3/4, and 25 1/2 ounces. > > 19 September 1874, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 3: > (From Bahia, Brazil, 14 July 1874--ed.) > We soon found one, from whom we bought some navel oranges and sapoties (accent on the last syllable.) As these fruits are unknown in the United States, perhaps it will be well to describe them. The navel orange is from four to five inches in diameter, has a thick skin, and is very sweet. The seeds, instead of being in the centre as usual, are contained in a cell about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, situated on the side opposite the stem, where it produces an umbilicated swelling, from which the fruit takes its name. The sapotie resembles a large plum in size and shape, but it contains two small seeds in its centre, and has a skin like that of a peach, except that it is of a dirty cinnamon color. It's taste is sweetish and agreeable, although unlike that of any of our Northern fruits. Sapoties and oranges are sold at the same price--two cents each--and our refreshments cost us the nominal sum of six cents per head. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 05:39:17 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 00:39:17 -0500 Subject: Boston Curled Lettuce (1872) Message-ID: Two from HARPER'S WEEKLY full text. Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 72-02-03 (Pg. 110--ed.) GREGORY'S SEED CATALOGUE Having been the first to introduce to the public the Hubbard Squash, American Turban Squash, Marble- head Mammoth Cabbage, Mexican Sweet Corn, Phin- ney's Water-Melon, Brown's New Dwarf Marrowfat Pea, Boston Curled Lettuce, and other New and Valuable Vegetables, with the return of another season I am again prepared to supply the public with Vegetable and Flower Seeds of the purest quality. My Annual Catalogue is now ready, and will be sent free to all. It has not only all novelties, but the standard vegetables of the farm and garden (over one hundred which are of my own grow- ing), and a carefully selected list of Flower Seeds. On the cover of my Catalogue will be found copies of let- ters received from farmers and gardeners residing in over thirty different states and territories who have used my seed from one to ten years. I warrant -- 1st, That all money sent shall reach me; 2d, That all seed ordered shall reach the purchaser; 3d, That my seed shall be fresh, and true to name. Catalogues free to all. JAMES J. H. GREGORY , Marblehead, Mass. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 79-02-15 (Pg. 131--ed.) HOME AND FOREIGN GOSSIP. A stranger from the country making a tour through Fulton and Washington markets at this season would be astonished not only at the inconvenient old build- ings, and the often untidy aspect of the interiors, but at the immense quantity of meat displayed, and the variety of fruits and vegetables exposed for sale in midwinter. Probably no other markets in the world exhibit such a variety of rarities out of their season. Early vegetables come to the New York market from all parts of the country, and, as luxuries, command a fancy price. Many of these come from the South, but some of the very first arrivals are from the North. Fresh rhubarb, large, tender, and white, comes as early as January from a farm near Quebec; in March it is sent from Long Island. All through the winter cucumbers come from Boston; but not many people can afford to eat Boston cucumbers in January, for they cost at wholesale six dollars a dozen. They are also sent to our market from other places, but these are inferior in quality, and do not command so high a price. Boston lettuce is crisp and white, and the best radishes come from the same city. Among other vegetables which are seen in our market in winter or early spring, far in advance of their season, are toma- toes from Nassau and Bermuda; onions, potatoes, and beets from Bermuda; asparagus from South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and, later in the season, from Long Island; peas, in January and February, from New Or- leans and from Florida, while in April they come from Maryland; string-beans from Florida; turnips from Charleston; and Baltimore spinach is always in the market. The largest supply of cauliflower during the winter comes from Long Island; but about the first of February it is sent from France, as also are artichokes. These luxuries and many others in the vegetable line are almost always obtainable in New York by those who seek novelties for their table, and have money enough to pay for them. And the same is true of many kinds of fruits. For example, straw- berries were on sale in this city several weeks ago, but the majority of our citizens contented themselves with looking at them. The Belfast (Maine) Journal gives an interesting ac- count of smelt-fishing on the coast of Maine. For about two months in midwinter the smelt visit the rivers near the coast and are readily caught by hook. The fishermen erect little canvas tents on the ice, cut a hole, drop the line, and patiently wait for a bite. Cold, stormy days are those which bring most success in smelt-fishing. (...) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 23 09:18:30 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 04:18:30 -0500 Subject: LONG comment re "Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall" Message-ID: The point that Fred S makes below in reply to something Barry P asked is a very important one re understanding how ref publications are compiled, and how they must be compiled in order to be both useful to the majority of potential users AND in order to ever get published in a reasonable time period. All publishers, even university presses, have budgets for their individual titles, and hope, with the exception of monographs and such, to make some money on each book, even if just a little. If this were not the case, there would be no ref books published at all, at least no good ones -- the ones with sound, recent research and professional editing. There are many ref pubs in the public domain, either very old and out-of-copyright (like an old edition (1911 I think) of Roget's Thesaurus, and miscellaneous dictionaries that one can access online, from lots of websites) or given away by the compiler because the work has little or no commercial value or a minuscule market (like a lot of bilingual dicts where the two languages covered are "exotic"). For this reason, the web is littered with a lot of very bad reference data -- a ton of data, many tons, but most of it out-of-date, of limited interest, or unprofessionally done (there are exceptions). Unfortunately, the ubiquity and abundance of this data deceives the casual or inexperienced web user. Sure, there is a LOT of ref data on the web, but the great, great majority of the free stuff is virtually worthless, IMHO. I do not count the e-pubs that one pays for, such as OED Online, MW3 Online, xreferplus, and other subscription services. I also do not count the wealth of "free" government data available online, such as the GNIS from USGS (geographic names) or the CIA World Factbook. (For the govt data, some of which is dynamite stuff, "free" really means "already paid for by tax dollars".) The argument that "Information wants to be free" is a nice idealistic one, but is a pipe dream. As the computer guru Ted Nelson once said, people write books for one of only two reasons -- profit or glory. If one considers that those are the prime motivations (and I agree that they are; there are some altruistic people around who are giving stuff away, but most folks who edit ref pubs have to buy groceries, too), then one can see why information cannot and will never be absolutely free -- for good, freshly researched, and professionally edited ref data, you gotta pay the workers. There is no way around that, not that I know of. One can envision a different kind of publishing model where the ref editors get paid by the sale of advertising or some such -- the way in which commercial TV and radio is "free" in the USA, and the way that many dot-coms give stuff away (or used to, till they dot-bombed because almost nobody looks at online ads). But aside from that kind of model, I'm afraid that information -- at least good, solid reference data -- will NEVER be free. Thus he spoke . . . Frank Abate ******************************* yOn Wed, 22 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? This question is a good excuse for me to clarify a point. Barry's postings sometimes seem to envision that the Yale Dictionary of Quotations is going to cover every phrase or expression ever uttered; this expectation parallels his apparent expectation that the OED should cover every term ever uttered in English or any other language. In fact, my book will be limited to more significant quotations, just as every real-world reference book has to be limited in various ways. It would never occur to me that "rerun of a bad movie" or "nail jelly to the wall" would be significant enough for me to cover. In a way I hate to articulate the above, because Barry posts such great stuff in furtherance of his unlimited vision of inclusiveness and I don't want to discourage him, but I don't want unrealistic expectations to grow up with regard to my book. Please keep up the great work, Barry! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From AAllan at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 19:34:11 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 14:34:11 EST Subject: January ADS Newsletter Message-ID: Guess what - the January issue of NADS is actually out in January! Thanks to webmaster Grant Barrett, you can get it now if you go to our website http://www.americandialect.org/ and click on the pdf download. The issue has calls for papers for all known ADS meetings in the rest of 2003, and then some. It also reports on Executive Council business at our recent meeting, and of course there are those elusive words DARE would like to know more about. The old-fashioned hard-copy version is at the printer now. It will be next week before that gets sent out by old-fashioned postal service. If you have paid ADS dues for 2003, you'll be sure to get a copy, and even those who paid for 2002 but haven't quite yet paid for 2003 will be sent copies too. If you're not an ADS member but would like this, merely one of the least of the benefits of membership, go to the website and click on "Become a member" and see what excitement follows. If you're a member but would be content to forego the old-fashioned copy by mail, please let me know: AAllan at aol.com, and I won't trouble you with one, and you'll save us 37 cents or more. - Allan Metcalf, executive secretary, ADS From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 23 19:55:23 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 14:55:23 -0500 Subject: January ADS Newsletter In-Reply-To: <67.7f915b5.2b619db3@aol.com> Message-ID: Allan, Cut out my hard copy. Dennis >Guess what - the January issue of NADS is actually out in January! Thanks to >webmaster Grant Barrett, you can get it now if you go to our website > >http://www.americandialect.org/ > >and click on the pdf download. > >The issue has calls for papers for all known ADS meetings in the rest of >2003, and then some. It also reports on Executive Council business at our >recent meeting, and of course there are those elusive words DARE would like >to know more about. > >The old-fashioned hard-copy version is at the printer now. It will be next >week before that gets sent out by old-fashioned postal service. If you have >paid ADS dues for 2003, you'll be sure to get a copy, and even those who paid >for 2002 but haven't quite yet paid for 2003 will be sent copies too. If >you're not an ADS member but would like this, merely one of the least of the >benefits of membership, go to the website and click on "Become a member" and >see what excitement follows. > >If you're a member but would be content to forego the old-fashioned copy by >mail, please let me know: AAllan at aol.com, and I won't trouble you with one, >and you'll save us 37 cents or more. > >- Allan Metcalf, executive secretary, ADS -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 23 20:35:12 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:35:12 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Message-ID: Even Homer nods. The title of Keyes' book is "Nice guys finish seventh" : false phrases, spurious sayings, and familiar misquotations . GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Shapiro Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 1:47 pm Subject: Re: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall > On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > > > Is there a source that addresses misattributed or fallacious > quotes in > > something resembling a comprehensive manner? There are an > enormous number of > > false quotations floating about out there. A single volume (or > website) that > > debunks the worst of these would be a very useful tool. I know > that many > > books of quotations and sites like snopes.com do this on a case- > by-case > > basis, but I've never seen a source that attempts a > comprehensive treatment. > > > > I'm not suggesting that Fred's book do this. I'm just wondering > if anyone > > has done it. > > The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has a section of misquotations. > My book will certainly address many misquotations. > > The best book focusing on misquotations is Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys > FinishLast, which is really quite brilliant. The quality of his > research is > better than any other quotation book ever published (to date). > Anotherone is Paul F. Boller and John George, They Never Said It : > A Book of Fake > Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions, which is pretty > good but > not nearly up to Keyes's standards. > > Fred Shapiro > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF > QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale > University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu > http://quotationdictionary.com------------------------------------- > ------------------------------------- > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 21:42:50 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 16:42:50 EST Subject: Providence Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/03 8:59:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: > There are two cities in North America named after the Deity. Providence is > one. Name the other. Manitou Beach, Saskatchewan > (References to the Christian Trinity are excluded, > although you might want to find a place named after the Holy Ghost.) Espirito Santo (state in Brazil) or Espiritu Santo (island in South Pacific) > England is a subset of Britain, yet New Britain is a subset of New England. > Find not one but two "New Scotlands" and half of a "New Wales". Nova Scotia, New Caledonia, New South Wales > The Northeast has many "New x" place names (e.g. see previous) including > "New Square". Where is "Old Square"? The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, original home of the Skvirer Rebbe whose followers founded New Square > The _Titanic_ was sunk by an iceberg. What happened to its sister ship the > _Hoosatanic_? Apologies for the spelling error, which misled at least one reader. That was the USS _Housatanic_, which was the first ship ever sunk by a submarine. Do NOT check http://thepoeticlink.com/pl/view_one_poem.php3?poem_num=6770 How Satanic. > Locate the Four Seasons of Massachusetts. Winter Island (in Salem Harbor), Springfield, Somerville (suburb of Boston), Fall River > What is unique (linguistically) about the Bostoner Rebbe? He is the only Chassidic dynastic whose title comes from a city in the New World rather than from a municipality in Europe. (Boston is a shtetl?) > Riddle: why is New Haven the obvious site for the first appearance of the > Anglophone bagel? Even Fred Shapiro knows that New Haven is the home of Yale lox. > Riddle: what kind of sex life does a backwards Yalie have? An e-lay, obviously. However, if he crosses Long Island Sound, he can get Great Neck-ing. > Riddle: why can't you get to Rhode Island by train? Because road islands are only found on highways. - Jim Landau P.S. A friend of mine thought he had the perfect trivia question about the New York subways: "Many subway stations have references to water in their names, such as "Bay Ridge" or "Aqueduct" or "Fresh Pond Road". Identify the station which has two references to water in its name." The answer was supposed to have been something like "Ocean Parkway-Neptune Avenue". However, when he tried the question, the answer he got was "Main Street-Flushing"! And while we're on New York City geography, what is the story behind the name "Ozone Park"? From AnneR at HKUSA.COM Thu Jan 23 23:17:44 2003 From: AnneR at HKUSA.COM (Anne Rogers) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 17:17:44 -0600 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say something similar to this in the last two days: jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished art jives with the art manuscript." Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- "needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be washed" phrasing. Anne Rogers From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 23 23:21:43 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:21:43 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: I remember people using jive for jibe in the 1970s. My high school principal (south central Kentucky, 1973 - 1977) used to do it in particular. I haven't heard it so much since then, but that may be because the words jibe and jive themselves have become less common. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Anne Rogers [mailto:AnneR at HKUSA.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 6:18 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say something similar to this in the last two days: jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished art jives with the art manuscript." Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? From patty at CRUZIO.COM Thu Jan 23 23:28:48 2003 From: patty at CRUZIO.COM (Patty Davies) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:28:48 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.c om> Message-ID: Hi Anne - comment below: At 05:17 PM 1/23/03 -0600, Anne Rogers wrote: >Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure >things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say >something similar to this in the last two days: > >jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished >art jives with the art manuscript." > >Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Yes, I have heard this substitution, sort of hard to catch and I don't remember when in the past I first started hearing this >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. This sounds very odd phrasing to me, I don't think I have heard it and would think it was not grammatical Patty - West Coast >Anne Rogers From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 23 23:35:24 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:35:24 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: >jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished >art jives with the art manuscript." >Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Hear this all the time and it drives me batty. >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. My wife and her family say it all the time. I hear it from many people as well. Don't know where it originated, but it is alive and well here in the Mid-Willamette Valley (and other places in the US, as my in-laws relocate). Fritz in Oregon From pkurtz at HEIDELBERG.EDU Thu Jan 23 23:40:54 2003 From: pkurtz at HEIDELBERG.EDU (Patti Kurtz) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:40:54 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030123152530.00a5e4d0@mail.cruzio.com> Message-ID: Hey all-- I usually just read the messages on this list, but the thread of "needs washed" drew my attention. This is typical in my dialect-- I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. I say that all the time-- "The car needs washed, the clothes need ironed." I'm also always being corrected by people from "more correct" dialects and I recently overheard one of our English profs correcting a student's use of that (I teach in NW Ohio) So I'd say it's at least a western PA/eastern Ohio dialect feature. It may spread wider than that, but it doesn't go further east, because I know people from eastern PA who just think it's plain wrong. -- Patti J. Kurtz Assistant Professor, English Heidelberg College Tiffin, Ohio From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 23:42:54 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:42:54 -0500 Subject: New York System (1931); Diner (1926); Johnny cake & Jonny-cake Message-ID: Greetings from a computer in the Providence Library. The Rhode Island Collection closed at 5 p.m., and the cookbooks that are supposed to be on the open shelves (on reserve) aren't there. It would have helped if I could have gone into the RI Collection. A librarian goes there and gets the stuff for you. Yes, there is an index to the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, but it starts in the late 1930s. Those 1840 "OK" articles aren't indexed. The 1983-present PJ is available electronically, and I used that a lot all day. Nothing at all on "Salt Water Taffy." I couldn't even find "W. Hollis" listed in the City Directories. JOHNNY CAKE/JONNY CAKE--A card catalog note has: Jonny-cake Spelling in Newport--Johnny cake Spelling in South County--Jonny-cake DINER--I might have done this before, but here goes. PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY, BUSINESS DIRECTORY 1926 Pg. 1491, col. 1: Greene's Diner 149 Broad PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY, BUSINESS DIRECTORY 1927 Pg. 1522, col. 3: Queen City Diner 51 Spring Pg. 1523, col. 1: Greene's Diner 149 Broad NEW YORK SYSTEM-- PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY 1931 Pg. 575, col. 2: Coney Island Hot Weiners (Theodore Kanelos) lunch 762 Westminster Coney Island Special (Aristides Pantelakas) restr 686 Westminster Pg. 1031, col. 2: New York System (Gust Pappas) restr 424 Smith (It's "Weiner," not "Wiener." Perhaps Pappas took the name "New York System" simply because "Coney Island" had been taken? "New York System" should be in DARE and probably the OED. It was quickly copied, as seen below. I think the city directories are available on microfiche everywhere, but it's easier to check the actual books from the shelf--ed.) PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY 1932 Pg. 1035, col. 2: New York Hot Weiners (Aaron Krasner) lunch room 710 Westminster Pg. 1036, col. 1: New York System (Gust Pappas) restr 424 Smith PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY 1933 Pg. 958, col. 2: New System Lunch 10 Pine New York Hot Weiners 710 Westminster New York Restaurant 86 Chestnut New York System 424 Smith 10-11-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL (www.projo.com), pg. M-16: THE UNBEATABLE NEW YORK SYSTEM: The Pappas family weiners (sic) have been a Rhode Island treasure for 60 years by THOMAS J. MORGAN (...) The business was founded in 1927 by his grandfather Gust Pappas, who died in 1936. (...) "New York System," Gus Pappas tries to explain, isn't a chain. There are any number of them around, but all are operated by Pappas relatives, many of whom learned the secrets of the business (and of the sauce) during their apprenticeship on Smith Hill. (...) "There is a distinct difference between hot dogs and wieners," according to Ernie Pappas. But, he says, a true wiener is more than just a sausage. "It's the condiments too," he says. "The chili sauce is the most important," he says, oblivious of having just tipped off part of the secret recipe, "with the fresh chopped onions and celery salt. You have to cook a wiener--you don't give it raw, or well done. You have to just make it luscious. When you stick the fork in there to pick it up and put it on the bun, it just oozes with juice. I still love them after so many years. That's the best part of it, boy, I tell you." (...) (Rumford Baking Powder, Rhode Island clam chowder, stuffies, lobster rolls, clam cakes, dough boys, malassadas, awful awfuls, RI-speak such as "Jeet?"...I ain't got time now--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 23:50:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:50:09 -0500 Subject: "Bug Chaser" Message-ID: An awful term, from an awful story. Why was it published? This is from drudgereport.com. which took it from msnbc.com: THE STORY IS TEASED on the cover as a SPECIAL REPORT—BUG CHASERS, THE MEN WHO LONG TO BE HIV+. The majority of the piece focuses on Carlos, a gay New Yorker who seeks out HIV-positive partners and purposefully has unprotected sex. “I think it turns the other guy on to know that I’m negative and that they’re bringing me into the brotherhood,” the article quotes Carlos as saying. “That gets me off, too.” For people like Carlos, and for gay men a generation removed from the front lines of the AIDS crisis, getting HIV is seen as the ultimate, nihilistic, erotic adventure, according to the story. “It’s like living with diabetes,” Carlos says. “You take a few pills and get on with your life.” While the fringe phenomenon of gay men looking to get infected has been known about for years, the Rolling Stone story asserts that “bug chasers” are a significant phenomenon in the gay population. The piece’s most eyepopping statistic comes from Dr. Bob Cabaj, the director of behavioral-health services for San Francisco County. The story says that “Cabaj estimates that at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men” are either purposefully seeking infection or are “actively seeking HIV but are in denial and wouldn’t call themselves bug chasers.” But Cabaj says that attribution is made-up. “That’s totally false. I never said that. And when the fact checker called me and asked me if I said that, I said no. I said no. This is unbelievable.” Cabaj said there’s no way of knowing what percentage... From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 23:53:16 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:53:16 EST Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: In a message dated 01/23/2003 6:18:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, AnneR at HKUSA.COM writes: > jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished > art jives with the art manuscript." > > Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? I would chalk this one up to ignorance or more likely momentary confusion, since "jibe" is not that common a word. However, I'm not a trained linguist and might be missing something more significant. In this particular context, the word "jive" sense: "finished art break-dances with the manuscript." In fact, the nautical word "gybe" (of a sail, to move across the deck suddenly and dangerously) makes sense here. > Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, > because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the > dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs > restored," etc. _American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. - James A. Landau From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 23 23:34:19 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:34:19 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.c om> Message-ID: On the second question, the Midwest is a mighty big area. Where in fact have you heard "needs washed"? It's all through mid- and southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and extends westward at least as far as Colorado. But it's not in Minnesota (also Midwest to me). And regarding the gerund: I grew up with it in Minnesota, but Southerners tell me they can't accept it. So you have three variants, one or two of which may be acceptable to anyone you ask, but probably not all three. So who's to say which or how many of these are "correct"? Not me! (There are lots of studies of these variants, if you're interested. See our journal, _American Speech_, for one source.) At 05:17 PM 1/23/2003 -0600, you wrote: >Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure >things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say >something similar to this in the last two days: > >jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished >art jives with the art manuscript." > >Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? > >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. > >Anne Rogers From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 24 00:09:13 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 16:09:13 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 23, 2003 3:35 PM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: >> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >> Midwest, because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >> anyway): the dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," >> "the clock needs restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund >> was used instead -- "needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like >> it best with the "to be washed" phrasing. > > My wife and her family say it all the time. I hear it from many people > as well. Don't know where it originated, but it is alive and well here > in the Mid-Willamette Valley (and other places in the US, as my in-laws > relocate). Fritz in Oregon Dang! There's that McMinnville/Salem isogloss again! The first time I heard this was when the topic came up on ads-l a number of years ago. (Admittedly, I can't guarantee I might not have heard it before and just not noticed, but it sounds so strange that I think I would have noticed.) Since then, whenever I've heard it, I've asked the person where he/she was from (if I could do so at all politely). They've always turned out to be from one of the areas where it's native. I would not have described it as "alive and well" here. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 24 00:16:54 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 16:16:54 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <1734243.1043338153@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: > > Dang! There's that McMinnville/Salem isogloss again! The first time I > heard this was when the topic came up on ads-l a number of years ago. > (Admittedly, I can't guarantee I might not have heard it before and just > not noticed, but it sounds so strange that I think I would have noticed.) > Since then, whenever I've heard it, I've asked the person where he/she was > from (if I could do so at all politely). They've always turned out to be > from one of the areas where it's native. I would not have described it as > "alive and well" here. > > Peter Mc. Yep, I concur on the McM / Salem isogloss. There's none of the "needs washed/worshed" here. Pretty soon there'll be a linguistic toll booth somewhere on Wallace Rd. to keep each town's riffraff in place. PR From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 23 23:52:58 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:52:58 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <1043365254.3e307d867deab@mail.heidelberg.edu> Message-ID: A nice comment. A friend of mine who teaches in the English Dept. here at Ohio University and is also from Pennsylvania (I can't recall where) has actually been chided by her own faculty colleagues about "needs washed"--talk about arrogance. But you're right--it's common in central and southern Ohio but not in your northern area. At 06:40 PM 1/23/2003 -0500, you wrote: >Hey all-- I usually just read the messages on this list, but the thread of >"needs washed" drew my attention. > >This is typical in my dialect-- I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. I say that >all the >time-- "The car needs washed, the clothes need ironed." I'm also always being >corrected by people from "more correct" dialects and I recently overheard >one of >our English profs correcting a student's use of that (I teach in NW Ohio) > >So I'd say it's at least a western PA/eastern Ohio dialect feature. It may >spread wider than that, but it doesn't go further east, because I know people >from eastern PA who just think it's plain wrong. > > > > > >-- >Patti J. Kurtz >Assistant Professor, English >Heidelberg College >Tiffin, Ohio From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 24 02:15:40 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 21:15:40 -0500 Subject: Providence In-Reply-To: <1e9.21a0f.2b61bbda@aol.com> Message-ID: At 4:42 PM -0500 1/23/03, James A. Landau wrote [in response to his earlier riddles]: >In a message dated 1/22/03 8:59:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, >JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: > >> The Northeast has many "New x" place names (e.g. see previous) including >> "New Square". Where is "Old Square"? > >The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, The closest I could find in my old atlas is the town of Skwirzyna in Western Poland. >original home of the Skvirer >Rebbe whose followers founded New Square > >> The _Titanic_ was sunk by an iceberg. What happened to its sister ship the >> _Hoosatanic_? > >Apologies for the spelling error, which misled at least one reader. That was >the USS _Housatanic_, which was the first ship ever sunk by a submarine. Do >NOT check http://thepoeticlink.com/pl/view_one_poem.php3?poem_num=6770 > >How Satanic. I assume it was actually the Housatonic, like our river just west and north of New Haven (a city that I trust will survive the onslaught it receives below). But it's pronounced as if it were "HOO-satonic", which makes both the above pun and my proposed mixer outlet, The House O' Tonic, pretty inaccessible. larry > >> Riddle: why is New Haven the obvious site for the first appearance of the >> Anglophone bagel? > >Even Fred Shapiro knows that New Haven is the home of Yale lox. > >> Riddle: what kind of sex life does a backwards Yalie have? > >An e-lay, obviously. However, if he crosses Long Island Sound, he can get >Great Neck-ing. > From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Fri Jan 24 02:13:26 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:13:26 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. I have not heard this in Vancouver BC, does not sound 'right', Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Jan 24 02:33:46 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 21:33:46 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the 1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? Sam Clements From Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM Fri Jan 24 02:32:22 2003 From: Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM (Jewls2u) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:32:22 -0800 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <394d203940ef.3940ef394d20@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: This query came off of another list I belong to, I thought people on this list might be able to help: < Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? Students have asked me if there are European equivalents to the American geek/nerd stereotype for engineers and scientists. I am aware of the related term "otaku" for Japan, but nothing for other coutries. Any information would be appreciated, especially printed or web references for further information. Dr. Mark Clark Oregon Institute of Technology>> From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 24 03:23:12 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 22:23:12 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's In-Reply-To: <000801c2c351$068bfcc0$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope >which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for >McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many >posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the >1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the >commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. > >Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? > >Sam Clements HDAS's first cite (via Nexis) is: 1977 Wash. Post At midnight, McDonald's--fondly known as Mickey D's to those who follow the fast-food circuit--is jam-packed with black teenagers who have just left the roller-skating rink. The next cite is from the N. Y. Daily News in 1983, a listing in a "Teentalk glossary", followed by a couple of U. of Tennessee cites. The given cites are consistent with, but not probative of, an origin of the type suggested above, and there is a much later (1992) cite from "In Living Color". But the 1977 quote would presumably predate the commercials in question. larry From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 24 03:32:14 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 22:32:14 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: I remember my brother, who happens not to be Black, talking about Mickey D's no later than 1981 in southern California. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Sam Clements [mailto:sclements at NEO.RR.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 9:34 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the 1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? Sam Clements From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 03:55:00 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 22:55:00 EST Subject: Providence Message-ID: In a message dated 01/23/2003 9:15:13 PM Eastern Standard Time, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > >The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, > > The closest I could find in my old atlas is the town of Skwirzyna in > Western Poland. The first Rebbe of what became the Skver Dynasty was Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl (yes, the site of the nuclear plant), 1730-1797, a student of the Baal Shem Tov. The second Rebbe was Mordechai of Chernobyl, 1770-1837, probably a son of Menachem Nachum. The third Rebbe was Yitzchak of Skver, 1812-1885, the fourth was David of Skver, and the fifth was Yaakov Yosef of Skver. Why the change of place-name I don't know; I suppose that for some reason the third Rebbe moved from Chernobyl to a town called Skver. The current Rebbe is David Twersky, so apparently the position of Rebbe never left the Twersky family. I'm afraid that doesn't help much in determining where, or perhaps what, was Skver. A strange twist on a thread labelled "Providence". - Jim Landau From positive_pcr at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 24 04:44:52 2003 From: positive_pcr at HOTMAIL.COM (positive pcr) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 23:44:52 -0500 Subject: Gestures substituting for a 'taboo' word? Message-ID: In a National Public Radio story from 18 Jan 2003, 'Cuba Confidential' Looks at Castro and the Future, (discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=926210) NPR's Tom Gjelten reports that some Cubans use a hand movement (of tugging at the chin simulating a beard) to avoid using Fidel Castro's name when talking about him. Are there other common examples where certain "taboo" words are replaced with non-spoken gestures? Religious examples? Political examples? --Graham _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Jan 24 04:48:24 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 23:48:24 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: I'm embarassed that I didn't look in RHDAS. It never occured to me that Mickey D's would be there. That'll teach me. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 10:23 PM Subject: Re: Mickey D's=McDonald's > >While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope > >which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for > >McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many > >posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the > >1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the > >commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. > > > >Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? > > > >Sam Clements > > HDAS's first cite (via Nexis) is: > > 1977 Wash. Post > At midnight, McDonald's--fondly known as Mickey D's to those who > follow the fast-food circuit--is jam-packed with black teenagers who > have just left the roller-skating rink. > > The next cite is from the N. Y. Daily News in 1983, a listing in a > "Teentalk glossary", followed by a couple of U. of Tennessee cites. > > The given cites are consistent with, but not probative of, an origin > of the type suggested above, and there is a much later (1992) cite > from "In Living Color". But the 1977 quote would presumably predate > the commercials in question. > > larry > From Friolly at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 06:17:40 2003 From: Friolly at AOL.COM (Fritz Juengling) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 01:17:40 EST Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: OK. I think the McMinnville/Salem isogloss is easy to explain--you folks got the college and we gots the state prison, Oregon State Correctional Institute, State Mental Mospital, and the State Legislature (am I being redundant?). Seriously, when I was going out with my wife, I did find it odd to hear her family say 'needs washed,' but I do hear it often now. Surely, it was there, but I just didn't notice it. I'd be curious to know whether this is found in Missouri and other neighboring states (whence most of the early settlers to Oregon came). If so, there is a good likelihood that it came with the pioneers to the Willamette Valley. I guess the whole business needs investigated. Fritz (who will do his best to keep our riffraff in Marion County--you can have West Salem. BTW, do you folks in McM pronounce the in Polk (County)?) > > > > > > Dang! There's that McMinnville/Salem isogloss again! The first time I > > heard this was when the topic came up on ads-l a number of years ago. > > (Admittedly, I can't guarantee I might not have heard it before and just > > not noticed, but it sounds so strange that I think I would have noticed.) > > Since then, whenever I've heard it, I've asked the person where he/she > was > > from (if I could do so at all politely). They've always turned out to be > > from one of the areas where it's native. I would not have described it > as > > "alive and well" here. > > > > Peter Mc. > > Yep, I concur on the McM / Salem isogloss. There's none of the "needs > washed/worshed" here. Pretty soon there'll be a linguistic toll booth > somewhere on Wallace Rd. to keep each town's riffraff in place. > > PR > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 08:15:18 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 03:15:18 EST Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: From the US Patent and Trademark Office: Typed DrawingWord Mark MICKEY DS Goods and Services IC 042. US 100. G & S: Restaurant Services. FIRST USE: 19811115. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19811228 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 73396576 Filing Date September 30, 1982 Published for Opposition April 10, 1984 Registration Number 1292557 Registration Date August 28, 1984 Owner (REGISTRANT) McDonald's Corporation CORPORATION DELAWARE McDonald's Plz. Oak Brook ILLINOIS 60521 Attorney of Record John R. Horwitz Type of Mark SERVICE MARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). Other Data The mark is a fanciful name and is not the name of any living individual. Live/Dead Indicator LIVE From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 08:57:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 03:57:09 EST Subject: Congo Bars/Squares Message-ID: Greetings from New York City. I just walked 30 blocks home from Penn Station in the freezing cold. David Shulman called twice and said he's at the Victory Memorial Hospital. The second message said he was feeling better. I'll visit him on Friday or Saturday. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- This is from Amtrak's ARRIVE magazine, January/February 2003, pg. 11: She (Judy Rosenberg of Rosie's Bakery, started about 1974 in Cambridge, Mass.--ed.) dubbed her creations Harvard Squares, Boom Booms and Congo Bars. Www.rosiesbakery.com states that "Congo Bars" are "a sweet and chewy butterscotch square chock full of chocolate chips and walnuts." The term is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK. There are 198 Google hits for "Congo Bars," although some are for a "bar"=tavern by that name. There are many hits for "Congo Squares" (another name for "Congo Bars"), but the place name in New Orleans occupies most of those hits. Neither "Congo Bar" nor "Congo Square" appears to be trademarked. Was it used by Nestle's and when? (See the Google Groups discussion below.) "Congo Bar" does not appear to have been coined by Rosie's Bakery. 1-7-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. B-06: Now, I'd like a recipe for Congo Bars, using one or two eggs. 2-11-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. B-04: Here is my mother's recipe for Congo Squares as requested. 2-18-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. B-02: Last week, the recipe for Congo Bars contained a typographical error in the instructions. THERE IS NO MILK in the recipe. Here it is again in its entirety. 7-3-1996, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. G-05: Some time ago, someone asked about Congo Bars, sometimes called blonde brownies. Here's a recipe. From Google Groups: Message 1 in thread From: Ngoeb (ngoeb at aol.com.mil.org) Subject: Looking for Congo Bar recipe Newsgroups: rec.food.baking Date: 1999/10/13 Does anyone have a recipe for Congo Bars? It's an old Nestle Chocolate Chipbar cookie recipe.Thank you.Nan Message 2 in thread From: Gaylen D. Cook (cook0314 at NOSPAMnetins.net) Subject: Re: Looking for Congo Bar recipe Newsgroups: rec.food.baking Date: 1999/10/13 > Does anyone have a recipe for Congo Bars? It's an old Nestle Chocolate Chip> bar cookie recipe.> > Thank you.> NanI found it here ---> http://mcgees.com/kitchen/recipes/desserts/d099703.htmCongo BarsRecipe by: "Gooseberry Patch" Old-Fashioned Country CookiesSubmitted by: Valerie Hutchinson 2/3 cup butter or margarine -- melted1 pound brown sugar3 eggs1 teaspoon vanilla2 3/4 cups flour -- sifted2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder1/2 teaspoon salt1 cup chopped nuts -- optional12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips In a large bowl or pan (after melting), combine butter and brown sugar.Add eggs one at a time, beating well aftereach. Add vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients and add to sugarmixture. Add nuts and chocolate chips. Pour intogreased, shallow roasting pan. Bake at 350F for 22-25 minutes (don'toverbake).Gaylen Cookcook0314 at netins.net (O.T. MESSAGE TO TRAVEL AGENT: Got any Congo tours?) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 10:23:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 05:23:30 EST Subject: Rhode Island Dictionary (1993, 2002) Message-ID: THE RHODE ISLAND DICTIONARY by Mark Patinkin illustrated by Don Bousquet not paginated N. Attleboro, MA: Covered Bridge Press 1993 After reading this book in the Providence Library until the 8 p.m. closing, I went to Borders in the Providence Place Mall and found out that the book was re-issued in 2002. It's about 100 pages paperback, and is worth a chuckle to add to a collection of regional American speech. I'll cite a few food items. AIGS: Eggs. AWDA: What you do after the waitress comes to your table. BA-BING, BA-BING: Pronto. BABA: Cuts hair. BLENDA: Common appliance... BLINKA: What Rhode Island motorists nevva use. BREH'FISS: What you eat afta y'mornin showwa. BUBBLA: Sole source of drinkable water in P'tucket, except for those brave enough to drink from forcetts. BUTTA: Higher in klestrole than mahgrin. CAB'NIT: Popular at the Creamree. CAH: Lodge, four-wheeled device for displaying vantee plates. CAMBLEEVE: The inability to accept a truth or event. CAWFEE: Official state flavoring. CAWNA STO-WUH: Also known as "Milk Sto-wuh." CHIGONNA: What are you going to? CHINER: Located south of Mongolier. CHODGE: Purpose of plastic. CHOWDA: Neks to coffee milk and lemonade slush, Roe Dyelin's third most popula liquid food group. CLEANSAS: Where Rhode Island women have hair-mousse stains drycleaned off blouse shouldiz. COBBLA: Known as shoe repairmen in otha states. COLE DOWT: Description of outdoor temperature. COMB: Popular way to awda ice cream at the Creamree. COMPUTA COPPITBAGGA DAWDA: Opposite of son. DAZZIT: Yes ma'am, that will be all. DENNISS: Extrax moluzz. DOUGHBOY: One of tree major food groups in Roe Dyelin during the summa. DOWNCITY: Downtown. DRAW: Storage unit, usually found in beh'rooms and kitchens. ELDLEE: Only group of Roe Dyelindas who don't speed up on yelliz. FEEL GOLD: Football term. FOMMACIST FRENNAMINE GAGGIZ: Over-sized hot dogs. Also called "weeniz" or "bellybusters." GRINDA: Common reason for triple bypass. GUIDO: Local high schoolas' description of fashion style deemed opposite of prep. HAMBEUHG: Less popula in Roe Dyelin than weeniz. HOD: Not easy. IDEAR ILLINOISE: Lodge midwestin state. INNIT?: Rhetorical question. JEET: A question among co-workers at lunchtime. Roughly: Have you eaten yet? Long form is "Jeejet?" "Jeet? (Cartoon has one person say "JEET?" and the other answer "NO, JOOZ?"--ed.) JOOZEET: Asking more than one person whether they've eaten. JWANNA: Do you want to? KO-HOG: Quahog. LAYTA: Roe Dyelin for "goodbye." LOBSTA: Unofficial state crustaceon. MIH-INS: Warma than gloves. MUNTS: Twelve of them make a year. MUSTIT: Grey Poupon. N-G: Description, usually shared between female friends, of any ex-husband or boyfriend in disfava. NEVVAMINE: F'get abow'it. ONNACONNA: On account of. OSCAR: Inquire of her. OUTTASTAYTA OZ: Ours. P.S.D.S.: Pierced ears. PACKIE: Liquor store. PAWDOGS: Main food group at McCoy stadium, fahllid closely by that cotton candy they sell vacuum-sealed in aluminum foil packs. PEPPIZ: Ingredient of grindas. POKKABOOK: Purse. RAHJA: First name of Rhide Island's founda. RALLY: Rarely. RAWL: We are all. REGLA: Unusual Roe Dyelin version of coffee. SADDY: First day of the weekend. SALIT: Most locals prefer seeza. SANGWIDGE: When you're not in the mood for a whole grinda. SCO: Let's go. SEAV-UP: Syrup. SHAW DINNA: State's most notable natural resawce. SHOCK: Often swims with fin out of water. SHOOWA: Sure. SINKA: Doughnut. SMATTA WITCHA? SODER: Soft drink. SOURCE: Sauce. SOWWA BAWLS: Popula hod candy. SQUEET: A word that comes from saying the following phrase at lightning speed: Let's go eat. "Jeet? No? Squeet." STEEMIZ: Clams. STUFFIES: More clams. SUP?: What is going on? SUPPA: Late lunch. TAHDDA SOURCE: Popula condiment. TIE IT: How you feel when you're ready for bed. TREE: Can be found in Roe Dyelin between "two" and "faw." TWIRLY: No thank you, it's too early. (A question on an earlier page is "Twirly tweet?"--ed.) VINEGA: Preferred condiment for French fries. WARSH: What the machine downcella does to your clothing. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 24 13:31:13 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:31:13 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, > because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the > dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs > restored," etc. _American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. - James A. Landau And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + participle construction). dInIs -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 13:49:58 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:49:58 EST Subject: "Mixed Income" Message-ID: We are coming up in the world in the quality of our informants, who in this case are the City Council of New Brunswick, New Jersey. My son Joel, who has the local political beat for the student newspaper at Rutgers University, Main (New Brunswick) campus, reports the phrase is in use at City Council meetings, with the apparent meaning of "greater than 'low income' but not sufficient to afford good housing". (He also reports proudly that the City Councilors are avid---in fact, quite critical---readers of Metro stories in the student newspaper.) Google has 23,900 hits on "mixed income", dating back to at least 1997. James A. Landau "Those who can, do. Those who can't, write analysis articles" - Joel Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 13:57:48 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:57:48 EST Subject: "You don't have to be a murderer..." Message-ID: The Jesse Sheidlower quote "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to the OED" has now been submitted to Fred Shapiro's Quotation Dictionary Web site, URL http://www.yale.edu/yup/qyd/submit.html. It is now official that the OED is a contributor to Fred Shapiro. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 24 14:09:02 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 06:09:02 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This use of "jive" sounds natural to me. I use "jive" in this sense or context. If this isn't a "correct" use of "jive" to you, just what does this word mean to you, and how do you use it? Maybe it's because I'm a landlubber and "gybe" means absolutely nothing to me. JIM --- "James A. Landau" wrote: > In a message dated 01/23/2003 6:18:07 PM Eastern > Standard Time, > AnneR at HKUSA.COM writes: > > > jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've > got to make sure the > finished > > art jives with the art manuscript." > > > > Is this a common substitution that other people > have heard? > > I would chalk this one up to ignorance or more > likely momentary confusion, > since "jibe" is not that common a word. However, > I'm not a trained linguist > and might be missing something more significant. > > In this particular context, the word "jive" sense: > "finished art break-dances > with the manuscript." In fact, the nautical word > "gybe" (of a sail, to move > across the deck suddenly and dangerously) makes > sense here. > ....> > - James A. Landau ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 24 14:14:36 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:14:36 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.c om> Message-ID: >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. "Needs to be X-ed" and "needs X-ing" are 'standard'; "needs X-ed" is nonstandard (IMHO), but conventional in some areas. We've discussed this here in the past. I can contribute personal impressions. When I lived in Columbus OH in 1971, I heard people from Cleveland, Detroit, etc. say that those Columbus folks used several solecisms ... including "needs washed" etc. which in my experience was at that time entirely absurd usage in Detroit or Chicago or Cleveland. Now of course I've not met a statistically significant percentage of the population of any of these places, but I've read a lot of stuff over the years, and I don't think this usage has had wide acceptance in print. While in Columbus I did hear this usage, but not all that often. When I moved to Pittsburgh in 1989, I was struck by its prevalence on the first day: it's not just something a few yokels might say: it's conventional, you hear it every day, it's printed in the newspaper, it's used in office memoranda and semi-official documents, it's on TV, etc. If there is a study which concludes that this usage is just as conventional in (say) Indianapolis or St. Louis as it is in Pittsburgh, I am skeptical (although of course I don't recommend that my perhaps idiosyncratic impressions be given great weight). -- Doug Wilson From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 24 14:20:43 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:20:43 -0500 Subject: "You don't have to be a murderer..." In-Reply-To: <7e.3475cece.2b62a05c@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 08:57:48AM -0500, James A. Landau wrote: > The Jesse Sheidlower quote "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to > the OED" has now been submitted to Fred Shapiro's Quotation Dictionary Web > site, URL http://www.yale.edu/yup/qyd/submit.html. I'm sure that Mr. Shapiro will apply his statement "my book will be limited to more significant quotations" in order to prevent such random detritus from clogging up his book. Jesse "But thanks" Sheidlower From lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG Fri Jan 24 16:50:28 2003 From: lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG (Scott Sadowsky) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 11:50:28 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030124085333.04a68090@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Fri Jan 24 15:30:04 2003 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Hall) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:30:04 -0600 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And DARE treats this at need (verb) sense 2. The regional label is "Chiefly Midland, especially Pennsylvania." At 08:31 AM 1/24/2003 -0500, you wrote: >> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >> Midwest, >> because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >> anyway): the >> dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock >> needs >> restored," etc. > >_American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by >Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of >where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. > > - James A. Landau > >And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this >year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the >apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional >phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the >house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows >a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with >some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas >where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + >participle construction). > >dInIs > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Professor of Linguistics >Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, > Asian & African Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 >e-mail: preston at msu.edu >phone: (517) 353-9290 From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Fri Jan 24 15:33:34 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 10:33:34 -0500 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Britain they are called "anoraks" because of the stereotype of them all wearing anoraks (parkas). And don't forget their cousins, trainspotters. At 06:32 PM 1/23/03 -0800, you wrote: >This query came off of another list I belong to, I thought people on this >list might be able to help: > ><From: Mark Clark >Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? > >Students have asked me if there are European equivalents to the American >geek/nerd stereotype for engineers and scientists. I am aware of the >related term "otaku" for Japan, but nothing for other >coutries. Any information would be appreciated, especially printed or web >references for further information. > > >Dr. Mark Clark >Oregon Institute of Technology>> From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 24 15:49:38 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 10:49:38 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030124092920.025062e8@wiscmail.wisc.edu> Message-ID: At 9:30 AM -0600 1/24/03, Joan Hall wrote: >And DARE treats this at need (verb) sense 2. The regional label is >"Chiefly Midland, especially Pennsylvania." Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be at Erica Benson's talk, but for me (and I venture to suggest my fellow northeasterners, or at least my fellow New Yorkers) there's a big difference between "Bill wants in" and "The cat wants out" on the one hand (both of which are fine) and "The dog wants in the house", "The cat needs in the house" (both of which are impossible). I'm willing to believe that the latter ones, with the full PP, are related to the needs/washed + participle, but the ones with the bare particle (or intransitive preposition, as people used to call it) seem distinct, and are possibly frozen (like the poor cat and dog). "needs in/out" sounds much less likely than "wants in/out". Larry > >At 08:31 AM 1/24/2003 -0500, you wrote: >>> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >>>Midwest, >>> because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >>>anyway): the >>> dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock >>>needs >>> restored," etc. >> >>_American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by >>Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of >>where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. >> >> - James A. Landau >> >>And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this >>year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the >>apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional >>phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the >>house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows >>a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with >>some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas >>where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + >>participle construction). >> >>dInIs >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Professor of Linguistics >>Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian & African Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 >>e-mail: preston at msu.edu >>phone: (517) 353-9290 From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 24 15:51:42 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 07:51:42 -0800 Subject: Providence In-Reply-To: <14d.1ab7367c.2b621314@aol.com> Message-ID: The town in question is Skvyra (var. Skvira, Skwira) in Kyivska oblast. Cf. Encyc. of Ukraine: b v. 4, p. 739 (Skvyra, city and raion center in Kiev oblast. First mentioned in 1390 as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1482 it was destroyed by the Tatars. From 1569 it was under Polish rule. Under the Hetmanate State Skvyra was a company center of the Bila Tserkva (1648-51) and Pavloch (1651-74) regiments. It was recaptured by Poland in 1686 and acquired by Russia in 1793. From 1797 it was a county center in Kiev gubernia. In 1938 it was granted city status) BGN gives the coordinates as 49[degrees]44[minutes]N, 29[degrees]40[minutes]E. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > In a message dated 01/23/2003 9:15:13 PM Eastern Standard Time, > laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > > >The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, > > > > The closest I could find in my old atlas is the town of Skwirzyna in > > Western Poland. > > The first Rebbe of what became the Skver Dynasty was Rabbi Menachem Nachum > Twersky of Chernobyl (yes, the site of the nuclear plant), 1730-1797, a > student of the Baal Shem Tov. The second Rebbe was Mordechai of Chernobyl, > 1770-1837, probably a son of Menachem Nachum. The third Rebbe was Yitzchak > of Skver, 1812-1885, the fourth was David of Skver, and the fifth was Yaakov > Yosef of Skver. Why the change of place-name I don't know; I suppose that > for some reason the third Rebbe moved from Chernobyl to a town called Skver. > > The current Rebbe is David Twersky, so apparently the position of Rebbe never > left the Twersky family. > > I'm afraid that doesn't help much in determining where, or perhaps what, was > Skver. > > A strange twist on a thread labelled "Providence". > > - Jim Landau > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 24 16:14:12 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 11:14:12 -0500 Subject: needs/wants in/out In-Reply-To: Message-ID: larry's right; non-Midlanders like want plus particles better than need plus particles, but I don't think the frozen construction argument will fly here. Erica has used a great variety of contexts around the items she has sought judgments on. Another interesting observation of Erica's was that non-Midlanders like nonconcrete versions of these constructions (It's a good deal; I need in) better than concrete ones (It's cold out; I need in). Go figger. dInIs At 9:30 AM -0600 1/24/03, Joan Hall wrote: >And DARE treats this at need (verb) sense 2. The regional label is >"Chiefly Midland, especially Pennsylvania." Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be at Erica Benson's talk, but for me (and I venture to suggest my fellow northeasterners, or at least my fellow New Yorkers) there's a big difference between "Bill wants in" and "The cat wants out" on the one hand (both of which are fine) and "The dog wants in the house", "The cat needs in the house" (both of which are impossible). I'm willing to believe that the latter ones, with the full PP, are related to the needs/washed + participle, but the ones with the bare particle (or intransitive preposition, as people used to call it) seem distinct, and are possibly frozen (like the poor cat and dog). "needs in/out" sounds much less likely than "wants in/out". Larry > >At 08:31 AM 1/24/2003 -0500, you wrote: >>> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >>>Midwest, >>> because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >>>anyway): the >>> dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock >>>needs >>> restored," etc. >> >>_American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by >>Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of >>where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. >> >> - James A. Landau >> >>And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this >>year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the >>apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional >>phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the >>house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows >>a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with >>some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas >>where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + >>participle construction). >> >>dInIs >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Professor of Linguistics >>Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian & African Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 >>e-mail: preston at msu.edu >>phone: (517) 353-9290 -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 24 17:15:04 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:15:04 -0800 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030124103208.00a43180@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: I'm not sure I know all the connotations of "geek" and "nerd," but there is, or was, a British term "swot," whose semantic range seems at least to intersect with these. It means (or meant) something like 'studyoholic', and "swotting" means 'really hitting the books'. Some of our British listers may be able to shed better light on this word. Peter Mc. --On Friday, January 24, 2003 10:33 AM -0500 Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > In Britain they are called "anoraks" because of the stereotype of them all > wearing anoraks (parkas). And don't forget their cousins, trainspotters. > > At 06:32 PM 1/23/03 -0800, you wrote: >> This query came off of another list I belong to, I thought people on this >> list might be able to help: >> >> <> From: Mark Clark >> Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? >> >> Students have asked me if there are European equivalents to the American >> geek/nerd stereotype for engineers and scientists. I am aware of the >> related term "otaku" for Japan, but nothing for other >> coutries. Any information would be appreciated, especially printed or web >> references for further information. >> >> >> Dr. Mark Clark >> Oregon Institute of Technology>> **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 24 17:40:15 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 17:40:15 -0000 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <221594.1043399704@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Peter A McGraw wrote: > I'm not sure I know all the connotations of "geek" and "nerd," but > there is, or was, a British term "swot," whose semantic range > seems at least to intersect with these. It means (or meant) > something like 'studyoholic', and "swotting" means 'really hitting > the books'. Some of our British listers may be able to shed better > light on this word. "Swot" (derived from "sweat") does have that meaning, and is a deeply pejorative term. It is now somewhat passe, being a term more in use by the grandfathers of current school-age persons than by the present generation. There was a fashion for "boffin" some 20 years ago with similar meaning, but I don't know what the current term is. Regarding an earlier message, I would say that "anorak" is - or was: my impression is that this, too, has rather fallen out of fashion - a term for a person deeply or obsessively engaged in some pursuit or hobby that is regarded as of no significance - trainspotting was the archetypal such activity, for which anoraks were essential outerwear on cold station platforms. I have to confess that for a while, aged 12, I was a trainspotter, though this was before the days of anoraks, and it was an acceptable hobby at that age. It's the adult ones that were thought odd ... -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Fri Jan 24 18:16:40 2003 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas M. Paikeday) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:16:40 -0500 Subject: the alien corn Message-ID: Several of the ADS teaching fraternity who listened to my Jan. 2 talk "Jew" v. "Gentile" at the Atlanta annual meeting suggested the proposition that "Gentile" is an exclusionary term as used by Jews be voted on by students in classrooms. I agreed, although the outcome seems a foregone conclusion (as stressed in capitals in my paper below) if the question is about perceptions rather than the meaning of the term. In case you have nothing better to read on the weekend, here's the complete paper including comments from Mark Mandel and his family representing the opposition. "Jew" v. "gentile" (ADS meeting, Atlanta Hilton, Jan. 2/03) First, contrary to what is said in the abstract, I have had second thoughts about the secret ballot; such a vote may serve no useful purpose. But I leave it up to the Chair or, if the Chair allows it, to any member of the audience to call for a show of hands on the question whether "gentile" is exclusionary or not when used in reference to non-Jews, especially in their hearing. Secondly, my thanks to Mark A. Mandel (the Jewish linguist referred to in my abstract) and his family for reviewing this paper and offering useful comments as from the opposition. "Exclusionary" is used as defined in the New Shorter Oxford, 2002: "having the effect of excluding." Examples of exclusionary terms are "foreigner," "heathen," "infidel," "outsider," and "stranger" (all with negative connotations) and "brahmin," "the elect," "native speaker," etc. (positive). Derogatory terms like "goy" are not even considered here. There are four citations in the full-text OED, as in the 1992 CD-ROM, dating from 1817. This shows how old the usage is. My own private database of current English (about 100 million words of text from circa 1990, drawn mainly from U.S. publications, which was used in The User's® Webster, 2000) has nearly 90 citations. This shows how widespread the use of the word is. The "exclusionary rule" (legal term referring to illegally obtained evidence) is the best-known of current usages. "Exclusionary zoning" (another legal term) comes closer to the discussion of "gentile." Black's Law Dictionary, 1990, defines it as "any form of zoning ordinance which tends to exclude specific classes of persons or businesses from a particular district or area." Here are three citations from general English texts: (1) "Mary GiaQuinta said such a trade grouping could become exclusionary or discriminatory to countries that aren't part of the [GATT] agreement" (Jim Ostroff, Daily News Record, Dec. 27, 1990, p. 11). (2) "African-American women had to battle derogatory white images of their worth and status, and they had to demolish exclusionary barriers that were often erected by white women" (Vanessa N. Gamble, The Nation, Apr. 16, 1990, p. 536). (3) "Dan Quayle was not reacting to the exclusionary practices of Pine Valley [country club]" (Tom Callahan, U.S. News and World Report, Aug. 20, 1990, p. 60). This should clarify the distinction between "exclusionary" and the more common, innocuous, and neutral "exclusive," the latter as in: an exclusive neighborhood (with only people of one social group or income bracket); an exclusive news story (that no other media may carry); an exclusive feature (that no other product has); an exclusive economic zone claimed by countries beyond their coastal waters to protect fishing and mineral rights. (These are not citations but idiomatic examples of common usage, culled from The User's® Webster). Incidentally, I happen to believe that concrete idiomatic examples define a word or usage better than abstract definitions. I will not, therefore, belabour the point by quoting the Oxford definitions of "exclusive" which come grouped under six numbers or the Merriam-Webster Collegiate which has a total of nine definitions. I like to call that atomization of meaning; quoting such definitions will only cloud the issue instead of clarifying it. Sorry if I sound unnecessarily provocative. Briefly, therefore, for the sake of comparison or contrast, whereas "exclusionary" means "tending to exclude" (Shorter Oxford), "exclusive" means "limited to only one person or group of people," as succinctly defined by Cambridge International Dictionary, 1995, a dictionary after my own lexicographical heart (which, incidentally, was bared at length in a five-page Preface to my Penguin Canadian Dictionary, 1990). The opposite of "exclusionary" is "inclusionary," as in the following citation: "To get some idea of the eclectic range of Men's Life [magazine], look at the logo: Men's Life - Adventure, Career, Women, Kids, Sports, Ideas, Humor, Stuff. That will include health, grooming, money, 'sensible' fashion, cooking, travel, and some investigative journalism. Men's Life, says [publisher] Scullin, won't be hip, trendy, downtown or uptown; it will be inclusionary, not exclusionary" (Michael Garry & Henry Eng, Marketing and Media Decisions, Sept. 1990, p. 38). However, "inclusive" is more common in general use than "inclusionary," (which, unlike "exclusionary" vis-a-vis "exclusive," seems a more formal term for "inclusive") as in the expressions "inclusive language" such as 'humanity' for 'mankind'; 'partner' instead of 'wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend,' etc.; "inclusive education for students with disabilities"; "racially inclusive"; "inclusive and tolerant," etc. Google.ca (the Canadian version) has 4,770,000 hits for "inclusive," but only 20,700 for "inclusionary," regardless of meanings and other factors that make the Google database not very useful for lexicographical purposes. As to whether the use of "inclusionary" or "inclusive" terms is mere political correctness, that seems an idle question to me. Mark Mandel responds: [~MAM 1: <>] All those noun usages, just like the definition, should sound very exclusionary to most of us. [~MAM 3: If you mean 'defining by exclusion', how else should they sound? (See my note #1.) If not, it is fair to ask how exclusionary they sounded when written.] Noun def. "2. A heathen, a pagan (Now rare)" has this citation: 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. i. §6: One is a Christian, another a Jew, a third a Mahometan, a fourth an idolatrous Gentile. The Shorter Oxford, 2002, has better definitions of "gentile" (which I am sure are in the OED online, something I don't have access to), the n. def. (I, 1) introduced by the restrictive phrase "Among the Jews." The adj. def. (I, 2) starts thus: "from a Jewish standpoint; non-Jewish." A more satisfactory way of determining the claimed meanings of "gentile" would have been: (a) to collect a respectable sample of citations and show that most of them are exclusionary in meaning rather than inclusionary; (b) show that they are from the writings of Jews rather than non-Jews; (c) show whether they were perceived as exclusionary at the time, as Mark Mandel points out. Since the writings are published pieces, I suppose they were meant for general consumption rather than for Jewish audiences. My citations were selected to show that there is evidence of a negative feeling about the Gentiles, that they were considered foreigners, idolators, and the non-elect of God (I feel bad about Ruth standing in tears amid the alien corn), and certainly not Christians. Hence my being taken aback when I first heard the usage back in 1962. HOWEVER, I SUPPOSE THE AVERAGE AMERICAN USER OF ENGLISH WHO HAS NOT READ ANY LATIN OR MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE OR EVEN MEDIEVAL HISTORY COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT BEING REFERRED TO AS A GENTILE WITHIN HIS HEARING. Coming now to current English, here are a few selected citations illustrating the exclusionary nature of "gentile": (1) "Harry has this gentile prejudice that Jews do everything a little better than other people, something about all those generations crouched over the Talmud and watch-repair tables, they aren't as distracted as other persuasions, they don't expect to have as much fun." It must be a great religion, he thinks, "once you get past the circumcision" (Hermione Lee's review of John Updike's Rabbit at Rest, in The New Republic, Dec. 24, 1990, p. 34). (2) "From California to Florida, the need to find a minority member became urgent. At Crystal Downs in Michigan, where the 'Gentiles Only' sign came down years ago (though no Jews have noticed), one member issued this hopeful report to the Associated Press": 'We have a female doctor of Chinese descent who plays [golf] frequently, but I believe her husband is the [minority] member'" (Tom Callahan, U.S. News and World Report, Aug. 20, 1990, p. 60). (3) "A Czech writer of Jewish origin, who asked to remain anonymous, said 'there is aggression' in the attitude of the gentiles towards the country's estimated 15,000 Jews" (John Bierman, Maclean's [magazine], April 16, 1990, p. 26)." To conclude, if this kind of selective citation gathering seems unsatisfactory, let me offer you a test of the putative popular reaction to "gentile" by non-Jews in a purely fictitious situation. Our friendly neighbourhood B'nai B'rith is holding an open house for a neutral celebration like Canada Day (July 1). A sign at their door says (not the exact words): OPEN HOUSE / FREE COFFEE & DONUTS / JEWS AND GENTILES WELCOME. I wonder how many gentiles would be induced to step inside. [~MAM 4: But this is the *last* place to use a term defined by difference. My wife commented, "I'd expect something like ALL ARE WELCOME". You don't make all feel welcome by highlighting differences. Mrs. Mandel's suggestion may make for good public relations, but it misses the point of the exercise which is to illustrate the meaning of "gentile," namely "non-Jew," using a test sentence with minimal interference from other words. Mark continues: My daughter said, "'Gentile' can be offensive when used by one Jew to another in the presence of the person referred to". Your own encounter, which she wasn't aware of when she said this, seems to fit this "third-person invisible" usage. But, she adds, it may not be offensive when the non-Jew is included in the conversation. I find Susanna's observation very perspicacious indeed! Mark continues: [Consider these two events: (1) My son reminded me of a time when I prefaced a song that hinged on some intricacies of Jewish dietary law with some words of explanation "for the gentiles in the room". (2) This very afternoon I was telling some gentile neighbors of the experiences of my late father-in-law, a Polish Jew, in World War II. I said, "He jumped off a death train and was found and saved by a gentile Polish farmer." In neither case, I believe, did anyone find the word offensive. Yes, it excludes, as a statement in set algebra: a gentile is not a Jew. And in these contexts that's all it does. You might consider the possibility that negative connotation arises not from the meaning of the word, but from how it is used.] I beg to differ. We are not talking connotations here. The meaning of an expression illustrated by idiomatic usages is objectively more significant than the bare denotative meaning based on genus and differentia. If one says "I am a gentile," "You are a gentile," or "He's a gentile," what does each utterance mean to the generality of English users? In my view, the referent is more important here than the reference, like Venus being more important than "evening star" and "morning star." My own reaction to the sign mentioned above may be to go in and see what's going on, especially if it could be changed to read, instead of "free coffee & donuts," say, "free wine & cheese." Thank you. Mark Mandel has the last word: POSTNOTE ON "GENTILE" My wife Rene just said that you should check out Terry (-i? -ie?) Gross's interview on the NPR program "Fresh Air" with KISS performer Gene Simmons, ne Chaim Weitz. It was first aired earlier this year but was replayed yesterday (or Sunday?), and should probably still be available on their website. This interview was apparently responsiblefor Simmons's being labeled "biggest disappointment of the year" by one publication and "weirdest" by another. In the first few minutes Simmons corrected Gross's pronunciation of his birth name, saying that the reason she couldn't pronounce it right was that she wasn't Jewish, a point on which Ms. Gross disabused him. Rene doesn't remember if he used the word "gentile" or not, but she characterizes his manner as definitely exclusionary. Coming back to that word, ISTM that the definition you're focusing on includes something like this: "intended to highlight in-group vs. out-group identification; making the referred-to group feel that they are the outsiders, and the others, by default, insiders". That is, I think that connotation, or affect, is essential to your point. Is so? More comments welcome. - Thomas Paikeday (www.paikeday.net) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 24 19:13:22 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 14:13:22 -0500 Subject: FW: Blue laws Message-ID: Adding to the observations of Fred S and Larry H on Connecticut and blue laws, let me add mine on the same topic. I'm a Connecticut resident for over 20 years now (longer than I have lived in any other state, except Ohio). Some of this may seem off-topic, but I do use a lot of the local lingo in it, so it really is not. The package stores (or "packies" as they are called informally, esp. by those who use them most often) legally can open at 8 am here, and MUST close at 8 pm. Now I ask you -- who buys alcohol in the morning? Surely those who need to really need anti-alcohol laws, if we are to have any! And if you are having a party in CT into the evening and are running low on adult beverages, you'd better have planned ahead or be ready to send somebody to the packy (sing?) before 7:30 or so. Some will deliver, but you gotta know which, and you gotta call early enough. Otherwise it's soft drinks for the rest of the night. The grocery stores in CT can sell beer and malt bevs and such -- but not wine. It may have to do with the percentage of alcohol, I don't know. But it is silly; don't you always see people (esp. college age) getting drunk on wine, and never on Budweiser 40s from a bag, or on Smirnoff Ice. In Ohio, you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores, and some even have licenses for the hard stuff. And if you are leaving the bar at last call in Ohio, you can buy a six-pack, even a case, to go (one Columbus bartender used to say at closing time, "Pick up your carry-outs, and carry out your pick-ups."). None of that in Puritanical Connecticut. Packaged goods can only be sold here in package stores, hence the name. I believe that sales in bars (OK on Sunday even in CT) are officially referred to in CT statutes as sales "by the dram". What a place. When was the last time you ordered a dram of whiskey? In Connecticut, if one wants wine or booze in bottles, it's only available from package stores (which are, btw, prohibited from selling food in ANY form; no chips, not even Slim Jims or chewing gum; gotta go to a grocery or convenience store for that). And make sure you get to the packy before 8, and remember that they are all closed on Sunday, no exceptions. Of course, if you are hard core, you can drive to NY state, Mass., or RI, where one can buy packaged goods on Sunday. But the blue laws still apply in CT on Sunday. The other states in the region, even ones settled by Puritans, have long since lightened up. But Connecticut is, after all, "The Land of Steady Habits". Finally, if it is Sunday in CT, and you have nothing in the fridge or liquor cabinet or wine cellar, and you are thirsting for an adult beverage, you can of course go to a bar. You can have as many drinks there as you can afford and as long as they will serve you. You can then get off the bar stool and drive home. But you cannot, if you have nothing in the house on a Sunday in CT, go to any store in the state, buy a bottle, bring it home, and drink it sensibly while watching the tube, car in the driveway. Go figure. Frank Abate PS: It would be a fascinating study to compare liquor laws nationwide in each state, and the associated lingo. I suspect, without studying it formally, that the variation is because all these laws were written by each state individually in the 1930s, after Prohibition was lifted by the feds. Now there's a dissertation topic for ya! And the research -- a grad student's dream! Why you could even expense the drinking!!! At 4:01 PM -0500 1/13/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Michael Quinion wrote: > >> The following appears on a web site devoted to the rebuttal of >> hoaxes (www.museumofhoaxes.com/bluelaws.html): "The term 'Blue >> Laws' describes laws that regulate public morality. The phrase was >> first used in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1762 titled 'The >> Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy, Especially in >> the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England'". This - if >> correct - predates the usual first citation in the Reverend Samuel >> Peters' work of 1782 entitled "A General History of Connecticut". > >I looked at the book in question, and it does indeed antedate the OED's >1781 first use: > >1762 Noah Welles _The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy >Especially in the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England_ 29 I >have heard that some of them [polite gentlemen] begin to be ashamed of >their blue laws at _New-Haven_. > So even if we can't claim the first pizza (from Pepe's) or hamburgers (from Louis' Lunch), we still have priority on (hot) dogs, frisbees, and blue laws. (I think there might have been other firsts that Barry found in the Yale Record, but I can't recall them at the moment.) We still can't buy beer (or anything else alcoholic) on Sundays, and the supermarkets put discreet sheets to shield the beer from sight so we can't even THINK about buying (or presumably drinking) it. (No alcohol sales after 8p.m. in New Haven, or the rest of Connecticut, either, but I'm not sure whether that counts as a blue law--for me, the term is just applicable to Sunday laws.) Other (non-alcohol-related) blue laws are no longer in effect, and bars are open on Sunday (especially during football season). Larry P.S. I recall that decades ago stores larger than some specified size were not allowed to be open on Sundays, and that these "blue laws" were kept in force by the smaller mom-and-pop stores that could stay in business by virtue [no pun intended] of these blue laws, but I guess eventually the larger stores threw their economic muscle around and had the regulations repealed, here and in other eastern states. -- From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 24 19:13:36 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 14:13:36 -0500 Subject: FW: Eng. Dialect Message-ID: Given the recent discussion on the pronunciation of ask, the following, from the UK's Daily Telegraph for Jan 14, seems appropriate to share with the ADS-L. Frank Abate *********************************** From today's Daily Telegraph, Peterborough: Home thoughts A moment of high farce enlivened yesterday's debate at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The UK Independence Party's new MEP Graham Booth gave his maiden speech, electing - as is his right - to speak in his mother tongue: Devonian. "Maister Preziden," reads the speech, on regionalisation. "If I axed my mates back 'ome where they come from, they'd zay 'Deb'm'. Not Cornwall, cross the River Tamar, which is furrin parts; not Zomerset, where awl they toffs live. That's to close to Lunnon for their liking." "As for Lunnon," he adds, "that used to be dree days on the vast stagecoach, and there's many of uz volks who never did get used to they new-vangled things like 'orseless carriages and they motorway things which brings awl they furriners to our neck of the woods." From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 24 20:01:10 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:01:10 -0500 Subject: "line in the sand" Message-ID: This doesn't seem to have been discussed on ADS-L. I wonder if anyone has anything useful on the figurative use of _line in the sand_ 'a boundary; limit of tolerance' etc. The earliest example we have is only from 1978, which seems quite late, but all the earlier cites I've laboriously tracked down have been literal. Anyone have something earlier, or a suggestion of why such a seemingly predictable phrase would be so recent? Thanks. Jesse Sheidlower OED From remlingk at GVSU.EDU Fri Jan 24 20:06:22 2003 From: remlingk at GVSU.EDU (Kathryn Remlinger) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:06:22 -0500 Subject: call for papers Message-ID: (With apologies for cross-posting.) American Dialect Society at the 45th Annual Midwest Modern Language Association Convention, November 7-9, 2003, Chicago, Congress Plaza Hotel Topic: ?New Directions in Language Variation and Change? For more information about ADS at MMLA, see the MMLA website, www.uiowa.edu/~mmla, go to ?Call for Papers?, scroll down to ?Associated Organizations?, then to ?American Dialect Society, New Directions in Language Variation and Change.? Please submit abstracts, maximum 250 words. Presentations may be based in traditional dialectology, or in other areas of language variation and change, including sociolinguistics, historical, anthropological or folk linguistics, language and gender, critical discourse analysis, or narratology. Email submissions preferred. Please submit by 1 April 2003 to Kate Remlinger remlingk at gvsu.edu By mail to Kate Remlinger Department of English Grand Valley State University 1 Campus Drive Allendale, MI 49401 By fax Attention: Kate Remlinger, 1-616-331-3775 Many thanks, Kate Remlinger Midwest Regional Secretary, ADS Associate Professor of English: Linguistics Grand Valley State University remlingk at gvsu.edu 1-616-331-3122 Kathryn Remlinger, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English: Linguistics Department of English Grand Valley State University 1 Campus Drive Allendale, MI 49401 USA remlingk at gvsu.edu tel: 616-331-3122 fax: 616-331-3430 From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 24 21:01:24 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:01:24 -0800 Subject: note from office Message-ID: Here is a note that our school secretary sent to all us staff members. It is not on any topic that we have been discussing, but it does have to do with language and I thought the list folks might get a laugh out of it. The invitation in the second sentence, which was not intentional, brought a snicker to many a face: I have contacted downtown and they will contact me as soon as a network person comes in (8ish). Please be bare with me while we figure this out. Until this is taken care of those using ClassXP will not be able to get into do attendance. Salem is a cool place to work. Fritz From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 24 21:02:56 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:02:56 -0800 Subject: "line in the sand" In-Reply-To: <20030124200109.GA28389@panix.com> Message-ID: In "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" (1955), either Col. Travis or Jim Bowie draws a line in the sand, to be crossed by those who choose to remain and defend the Alamo, but I can't recall if he speaks the words "line in the sand." JIM --- Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > This doesn't seem to have been discussed on ADS-L. I > wonder > if anyone has anything useful on the figurative use > of _line > in the sand_ 'a boundary; limit of tolerance' etc. > The earliest > example we have is only from 1978, which seems quite > late, but > all the earlier cites I've laboriously tracked down > have been > literal. > > Anyone have something earlier, or a suggestion of > why such a > seemingly predictable phrase would be so recent? > > Thanks. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 24 21:15:21 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:15:21 -0800 Subject: "line in the sand" Message-ID: Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier is the name of the movie. Of course, as every Texan knows, it was Travis who draws the line and (in the movie) Bowie, lying on his cot, has to be carried across. I think the Alamo line is well known, i.e. literal, but the query was about figurative uses Fritz >>> jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM 01/24/03 01:02PM >>> In "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" (1955), either Col. Travis or Jim Bowie draws a line in the sand, to be crossed by those who choose to remain and defend the Alamo, but I can't recall if he speaks the words "line in the sand." JIM --- Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > This doesn't seem to have been discussed on ADS-L. I > wonder > if anyone has anything useful on the figurative use > of _line > in the sand_ 'a boundary; limit of tolerance' etc. > The earliest > example we have is only from 1978, which seems quite > late, but > all the earlier cites I've laboriously tracked down > have been > literal. > > Anyone have something earlier, or a suggestion of > why such a > seemingly predictable phrase would be so recent? > > Thanks. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From sylvar at VAXER.NET Fri Jan 24 21:17:47 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:17:47 -0500 Subject: "line in the sand" In-Reply-To: <20030124210256.7516.qmail@web9703.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > In "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" (1955), The Internet Movie Database doesn't know this. It does list "The Last Command" (1955), known as "Alamo" in Italy, and "Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo" (1926). I've never seen either, but presume you mean the former. Ben From Jim.Walker at WANADOO.FR Fri Jan 24 21:26:28 2003 From: Jim.Walker at WANADOO.FR (Jim Walker) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 22:26:28 +0100 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <221594.1043399704@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: I'm not sure I know all the connotations of "geek" and "nerd," but there is, or was, a British term "swot," whose semantic range seems at least to intersect with these. It means (or meant) something like 'studyoholic', and "swotting" means 'really hitting the books'. Some of our British listers may be able to shed better light on this word. **To the best of my knowledge (I'm British, but have lived in France for the last 10 years, which has done shocking things to my native speaker intuitions), still "means" rather than "meant". 'Swot' has the studyoholic connotation, certainly, but I think you have to be a successful studier, by which I mean that it has 'top of the class' connotations, too. If you spend half your life in a library, but you still cannot pass your exams, you're not a swot. You're a would-be swot. If you come top of the class without having to do a jot of work, then you're not a swot either. I wouldn't say that there is anything 'nerdy' or 'geeky' about a swot, though. Sometimes extended to 'girly swot', regardless of sex, which in itself says a lot about gender stereotyping in schools. I wouldn't agree with Michael Quinion that it is "deeply pejorative". If anything, it feels slightly endearing to me (maybe this is just personal, I went throughout my schooldays being called a swot, but it wasn't meant pejoratively. Was it?). Typical sentence: "the girly swots always sit at the front of the class". I would also suggest that it is not as old as Michael Quinion suggests. My schooldays are, what, 15 years behind me, and the term was alive and well then, and my half-brother of 10 at least understands it, if he doesn't use it himself On a similar note, the term in vogue when I studied at Cambridge (a place for swots if ever there was one) for the 'nerds' was "Comski / Comsci / Comsky" (I don't remember ever having seen it written), which was derived from "Computer Science". Even more common, and I would venture elmost entirely synonymous, was "Natsky", from "Natural Science" Best regards Jim Walker, a swot but no natsky Jim Walker Maître de Conférences Directeur du 1er cycle Dpt. d'Etudes du Monde Anglophone Université Lumière Lyon 2 86 rue Pasteur 69365 LYON Cedex 07 Jim.Walker at univ-lyon2.fr From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 24 21:52:28 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:52:28 -0500 Subject: Navel Orange (1869) In-Reply-To: <6AB47443.44D51C71.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 09:57:22PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > (...) > --------------------------------------------------------------- > OED has 1888 for "navel orange." The revised entry has--what? 1856. Go to it, Barry! Jesse Sheidlower From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 24 22:00:10 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 17:00:10 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Anne Rogers wrote: #jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished #art jives with the art manuscript." # #Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Yes. I don't like it, but it's too far advanced to be stopped. #Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, #because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the #dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs #restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- #"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be #washed" phrasing. Oh, brother, are you ever gonna get answers and discussion here! I'll stay out of this one. -- Mark M. From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Sat Jan 25 00:52:42 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:52:42 -0800 Subject: note from office In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Friday, January 24, 2003 1:01 PM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > Here is a note that our school secretary sent to all us staff members. > It is not on any topic that we have been discussing, but it does have to > do with language and I thought the list folks might get a laugh out of > it. The invitation in the second sentence, which was not intentional, > brought a snicker to many a face: > > I have contacted downtown and they will contact me as soon as a network > person comes in (8ish). Please be bare with me while we figure this out. > Until this is taken care of those using ClassXP will not be able to get > into do attendance. > > > Salem is a cool place to work. > Fritz And by the same token not a good place to be bare, one would think. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 25 02:15:59 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 21:15:59 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Nazi" In-Reply-To: <20030124215228.GA27213@panix.com> Message-ID: The OED's first uses for "Nazi" as both noun and adjective are dated Sept. 1930. Here is slightly earlier usage from the Times Digital Archive: 1930 _Times_ (London) 19 May 13 In another encounter after midnight a "Nazi" shot two Communists dead with an automatic revolver. 1930 _Times_ (London) 30 May 15 Herr Frick ... has tried hard to make Thuringia a "Nazi cell" within the Reich. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 02:27:20 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 21:27:20 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Racism" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here's another antedating derived from searching the Times Digital Archive: racism (OED 1936) 1933 _Times_ (London) 12 Sept. 12 [Translation of French resolution:] They ... denounce the quadruple crime which is being prepared in the name of racism and intolerance. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 13:56:48 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 08:56:48 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Screwball" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The searchable historical newspapers are particularly powerful for antedating sports vocabulary, as Barry Popik has so ably demonstrated. Here is a significant baseball antedating: screwball (Baseball) (OED 1928) 1926 _N.Y. Times_ 9 Oct. 11 He [Grover Cleveland Alexander] defied the Yanks to molest his fast ball, his screw ball, his perfect control. The Washington Post may have even earlier usage, but I do not currently have access to Pro Quest Historical Washington Post. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 15:24:58 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 10:24:58 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Stewardess" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here's an antedating of the modern sense of "stewardess," from a New York Times Historical search: stewardess (OED, c., 1931) 1930 _N.Y. Times_ 20 July SM3 There is Miss Inez Keller, stewardess, or rather traveling hostess. The Boeing system has solved the problem of looking after the passengers by putting girls on all the liners. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 14:16:56 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 09:16:56 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Snowmobile" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The New York Times Historical database shows that this was used pretty commonly before the OED's first use: snowmobile (OED 1931) 1926 _N.Y. Times_ 14 Feb. E8 (heading) Snowmobiles' failure in Canada makes gold-seekers use dogs. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 25 15:20:35 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 10:20:35 EST Subject: Rhode Island's "May Breakfast" Message-ID: "May breakfast" is not in John Mariani's ENCYLCOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK. DARE has "May breakfast" from 1968-1970. Yikes! From the web, where it has over 1,000 Google hits. THE BLOCK ISLAND TIMES, 7 April 2001 May Breakfast a Rhode — but not Block— Island tradition By Elizabeth Stone For many Rhode Islanders, the coming of spring is celebrated with a century-old tradition, May Breakfast, but not on Block Island. May Breakfast originated in Cranston, at the Oak Lawn Community Baptist Church in 1867. This year, 21 communities will hold May Breakfast, which feature traditional breakfast fare highlighted by the Rhode Island johnnycake. Block Island Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kathy Szabo said she had never heard of May Breakfast. However, long-time Block Island residents remember May Breakfast on the island many years ago, usually held at the Baptist Church or the Block Island School. Each year, the Governor of Rhode Island hosts a special May Breakfast honoring Rhode Island residents 100 years and older. A typical May Breakfast is simple but filling. Most menus include fried or scrambled eggs, ham, bacon, baked beans, muffins, juice, coffee, tea and milk and a Rhode Island tradition, the johnnycake. According to the Rhode Island Tourism Division the johnnycake is derived from an Indian recipe using flint corn, a variety of hard kernel corn that thrives in the fog and salt air of the Ocean State. Early settlers stuffed the small, hard cakes called "journeycakes," into their pockets or saddlebags to eat during long trips. Today, johnnycakes have become synonymous with traditional Rhode Island. Most towns hold their May Breakfast on May 4, Rhode Island’s Independence Day. On that day in 1776, Rhode Island, the smallest colony, declared independence from British rule, two months before the rest of the colonies. May is "Heritage Month" in Rhode Island. While you are out of luck on Block Island, there are some May Breakfasts held nearby on the mainland. Among them: The oldest and original May Breakfast will be held for the 134th time at Oak Lawn Baptist Church, 229 Wilbur Avenue, in Cranston from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. on May 1. Also on May 1, Christ Church Parish House, 7 Elm Street, in Westerly, will hold its 87th annual May Breakfast on May 1, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. On May 6, a May Breakfast will benefit the Snug Harbor Volunteer Fire Association. The event will be held from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the fire station, 17 Bliss Road (off Succotash Road) in South Kingston. The Norman Bird Sanctuary, off Third Beach Road in Middletown, will hold the 12th annual May Birds and Breakfast on May 20 fro 6:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. The morning features guided birdwalks through the sanctuary’s 450 acres, followed by a breakfast of egg casseroles, scrambled eggs, pancakes, fruit salad, pastries, bagels, coffee, tea and juice. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 16:18:46 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 11:18:46 EST Subject: RI cookbooks, articles Message-ID: NOW my Nets beat the Lakers....Safire discusses "smoking gun" this week. Didn't he do that before?..It's finally gotten warmer out here in NYC. A few tidbits before I go "navel"-gazing and check in at Brooklyn's Victory Memorial Hospital. A RHODE ISLANDER COOKBOOK by the Providence Journal-Bulletin 1962 (A stamp here says 1967. Check library catalog--ed.) Pg. 5: BAKED STUFFED CLAMS. (I didn't, unfortunately, see the word "stuffies." The next DARE will have what?--ed.) Pg. 15: Put a bushel pf softshell clams (better known as R.I. "steamers") on top of the wire mesh. (The next DARE has what for "steamers"?--ed.) JUST A FEW TRIED AND TRUE RECEIPTS: BEING A MANUSCRIPT COOK-BOOK PRINTED AND SOLD FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PROVIDENCE DAY NURSERY ASSOCIATION AND SOCIAL SETTLEMENT WORK IN THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND 1916 Pg. 44: PHILADELPHIA CINNAMON BUN. (Not called "sticky bun" here--ed.) Pg. 54: APPLE JONATHAN. Pg. 141: MIGNONS. (Butter, sugar, egg yolks, almonds, flour, Rumford Baking Powder, cinnamon, vanilla extract--ed.) Pg. 168: MONACO SANDWICHES. (Eggs and salmon or shrimps--ed.) Pg. 169: BOSTON SANDWICHES. (Boston brown bread, Neufchatel cheese, olives, peanuts--ed.) Pg. 175: JANUARY THAW. (Brown sugar, milk, nuts, butter--ed.) TESTED RECIPES: CONTRIBUTED BY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE RICHMOND VISITING NURSE ASSOCIATION Richmond, RI 1925 (?) (unpaginated--ed.) PHILIPINO ROLL FILIPINO ROLL POTATO VOLCANO TOCKWOTTEN COOKIES NELLIE HAWK'S COOKIES SNIPPY DOODLES SNICKERDOODLES JEWISH DANTIES (Rugelach? Dainties?--ed.) 1 cup flour, well sifted 1 cream cheese 1/2 cup butter Mix night before using, and set on ice. In morning roll out, cut in squares, turn over each point and bake. Put in each a little jam, jelly or lemon filling. Mrs. Hinchliffe, Carolina. CHINESE CHEWS SPANISH CLUB SANDWICHES MILK SHAKE (Not a "cabinet"!--ed.) A RHODE ISLAND RULE BOOK by Leah Inman Lapham Providence, RI: Oxford Press 1939 Reprinted, March 1945 Pg. 8: JOHNSTON SPANKS (A.M.P.)...JOHNNY CAKES. Pg. 9: KEACH CAKES (Blanche). Pg. 28: MONKEY FACES. THE RHODE ISLAND HANDBOOK by Mark Patinkin illustrated by Don Bousquet N. Attleborough, Mass.: Covered Bridge Press 1994 Pg. 33: WORDS I'D WISHED I'D HAVE PUT IN "THE RHODE ISLAND DICTIONARY" Meatbowls--(Enhances Pahster.) Motta--(Someone who likes to suffa.)(PS: That's "martyr" by the way, not "mother." Though some say the two words are synonymous.) Torque--(Talk.) Yerp--(Continent west of Ay-zher.) Pg. 24: THE DIALECT TERM I SEARCHED FOR IN VAIN LAST BOOK AND FINALLY FOUND THIS TIME. "The Rhode Island Glottal Stop." Pg. 118: RHODE ISLAND'S FOUR MAJOR LIQUID FOOD GROUPS Coffee milk. Del's Frozen Lemonade. Quahog Chowder. Awful-Awfuls. (Joonya Orfuls-Orfuls also available.) FOUR MORE RHODE ISLAND LIQUID FOOD GROUPS Coffee Cabinets. Iced coffee. Dunkin Donuts coffee--regula. And finally: Coffee syrup (straight up). Pg. 120: OFFICIAL LOCAL CONDIMENT Vinega. But it only counts on fries. THREE MAJOR FOOD GROUPS Grindas. Grindas. And grindas. Pg. 121: THE RHODE ISLAND SANGWIDGE See "Grindas" above. Though if you call it a sandwich, you're allowed to use wheat bread. You're not, however, allowed to call it a Roe Dyelin sangwidge if you simply fill it with turkey and mayo. You have to go ethnic. In most places, order an eggplant parmesan sandwich on white, and you might cause a riot. Here, no one would blink. Pg. 124: THE SHAW DINNA Some here say the closest thing to a secular temple in Rhode Island is the Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall, consecrated to the worship of clamcakes and chowder. And corn and fries. And cole slaw. And bakeed fish with creole sauce. And don't forget the boiled lobster, boiled chicken and linguine with clam sauce. And fish and chips. And did I mention the Indian pudding and watermelon? After the above is consumed during early evening services, it's traditional to ride the Plunge and the Corkscrew roller coaster. Then you eat a doughboy--a ring of fried fat the size of an El Dorado hubcap--and call it a Rhode Island night. RHODE ISLAND'S VERSION OF FAST FOOD: FAST FISH The standout example is clam cakes. They were made famous by the Rocky Point Palladium which has a special window offering an elaborately well-thought-out menu of Rhode Island choices giving you the option of clamcakes, clamcakes, clamcakes, or clamcakes. DECIDING WHAT TO ORDER FOR DINNER, RHODE ISLAND VERSION "Stot with chowda, Chollie?" "Fine, Dahris, and maybe we split a plate of stuffies. You want anything else for an app?" "Maybe some steamiz and clamcakes. But only if they have the lih'il necks. What do you like for the main cawse?" "Not a grinda, I had one for lunch: sorsage and peppiz." "Let's go with a New Yawk System, Chollie. Or do they seuhve Saugies here?" "What difference? Wenniz ah weeniz. They're all bellybustiz to me." "Weeniz ahnt weeniz, Chollie. There's nuthin' like a Pawdog." 9-23, 1998, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. D-11 _NATIVES' GUIDE TO GREATER RHODE ISLAND_ _Tasty tidbits we call our own_ Awful-Awfuls... Coffee milk... Clamcakes... Doughboys--Elsewhere they're called fried-dough. (...) The Dynamite--Comes to us courtesy of Woonsocket--A long submarine roll covered with a mixture of ground meat, tomato sauce, peppers, onions and other spices. You can get them at restaurants in the Woonsocket area, but the locals there say they really should be made at home by mom. French fries--A real native drowns her French fries in vinegar (cider vinegar please, none of that red wine stuff). (...) Gaggers, bellybusters, weiners (sic)--You can probably get these elsewhere, but we sure do consume a lot of these little hot dogs smothered with mustard, relish, onions, chili sauce and celery salt. We even have a whole chain of stores named--what else--New York Systems. Indian pudding--a cornmeal and molasses pudding. Don't say "yuck," it's a killer when served hot with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream melting over the top. Gets you through our long gray winters. Johnnycakes... Malassadas---A cousin to the doughboy. (Not in the revised OED--ed.) (...) Saugy--Our own hot dog; we order 'em by name. They've been around 100 years or so and snap and spew when broken--due to those natural lamb casings, no doubt. What's in 'em? Veal, pork jowls, beef, shaved ice, nonfat dry milk, secret spices and "a little" sodium notrate. Yum. Stuffies--A few little pieces of rubbery clams mixed in with lots of breadcrumbs and spices and then mounded back inside a quahog shell and sprinkled with paprika. Best consumed at a bar abd washed down with a nice cold beer. Zeppole... _NATIVES' GUIDE TO GREATER RHODE ISLAND_ _What we're really trying to say is..._ (...) Bubbla: A drinking fountain. Cabinet: A milk shake or a frappe. A cabinet is milk and ice cream; an ice cream soda is ice cream and soda water; a milk shake is syrup and milk. You won't get any strange looks around here if you belly up to an ice cream bar and say, "I'd like a coffee (or chocolate, or vanilla) cainet, please." Cleansers: It's "cleaners" everywhere else. (...) Frankfoots: Hot dogs, like they serve in Germany. Grinda: A grinder here is a sub, a torpedo or a hoagie elsewhere. (...) Quahog: The Indian word for clam. Tiny clams, called cherrystones, are eaten raw on the half-shell; little necks appear cooked as clams casino. Chowders are big and tough, so they're usually cut up for chowder and for stuffies--stuffed quahogs. See, we've come to call chowders quahogs. And we argue about how to spell quahog (or quahaug?) and how to say it (KWAW-hawg or KO-hawg?). But we love our clams. Rhode Island: The name of the state is pronounced Rud-EYE-lin. (...) Sangwich: Sandwich. (...) Tumaytuz, peppuz: Tomatoes, peppers. (...) 8-20-1989, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. M-04 _R. I. SPEAKS_ by MARRY ANN SORRENTINO (...) "American bread": The soft loaf in the plastic bag. As opposed to "bread": the crusty Italian loaf purchased at the bakery,. which, in Rhode Island, exists on nearly every block. "Bubbler"... "Cleansers"... "Doughboy"... "Down-cella"... "Downtown": No matter what direction you're coming from, if you're heading for Providence, you're heading "downtown." (Note: Rhode Islanders over 60 may say "down-city.") Identification by emploer... "Jitney"... "New York ystem"... Past tense--present tense: A grammatical construction that produces such oddities as "She went and see" and "They came and buy." (Legend has it that the infinitive was lost in the hurricane of '38.) "Regular coffee": Coffee with cream and sugar. "Snail salad": Garden inhabitants crawling through piles of lettuce may spring to mind, but this is a seafood dish. "Twenty minutes": The amount of time Rhode Islanders say it takes to drive from "downtown" (Providence) to almost any other point in the state. Rhode Island's size notwithstanding, don't believe it. 5-14-1991, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. E-01 _To a youngsta in Utah, a pitcha of Rhode Island_ by MARK PATINKIN (...) And speaking of language, we use it in other novel ways, too. If you come here and someone barks at you: "Jee-jet?" This simply means, "Did you eat yet?" Once they get to know you, they will be more familiar and simply say, "Jeet?" (...) From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 25 07:49:19 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 23:49:19 -0800 Subject: Fwd: how to speak execliche Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 20:29:56 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 15:29:56 -0500 Subject: Ketchup, Parmesan Cheese, Olio?, Vanilla? (1698); No "Congo Bar" in Nestle (1962) Message-ID: KETCHUP OED has 1711 for "ketchup." A quick check of LITERATURE ONLINE has: Pope, Water, d. 1714 (From MORAL AND POLITICAL FABLES (1698)): Pg. 95: Here's all variety your heart can wish, Olios, Ambigues, Bisques, Grilliades, Cocoes, Vinelli, Pigniates, Pistaccios, _Parmisan_ Cheese, Botargo, Caveare, And Ketchup, which will make you please your Wife, And several other Dishes, whose strange Names The untravelld Mouse had never heard before;... --------------------------------------------------------------- NO "CONGO BAR" IN NESTLE (1962) PERFECT ENDINGS: CHOCOLATE DESSERT AND BEVERAGE COOK BOOK >From the Test Kitchens of The Nestle Company, Inc. 1962 No "Congo Bar" here. No "Blondies" either. Sand Tarts, 63 (...) Stackmores (dessert), 109 Pg. 109: STACKMORES SPREAD 6 graham crackers with 1 tbs. marshmallow cream, each SPRINKLE each with 1 tsp. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels Repeat layer on each and top with graham cracker YIELD: 6 (S'MORES are STACKMORES?..."Congo Bar" is mentioned in a Joan Nathan article about a bakery in Little Compton, RI in the NEW YORK TIMES, 6 September 1989, pg. C3--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 23:38:03 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 18:38:03 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: What other food book has this? Nigella, Emeril, Martha Stewart, John Mariani--they don't know "jeet jet." Two records from OCLC WorldCat: Title: Light, bluesy and moody. Author(s): Ammons, Gene. ; prf Publication: Mercury Year: 1950-1959? Description: 1 disc.; 33 1/3 rpm. mono.; 12 in. Language: N/A Music Type: Jazz Contents: Red top.--Hot springs.--When you're gone.--Little slam.--Concentration.--Idaho.--Jeet Jet.--Odd-en-dow.--McDougal's sprout.--Hold that money. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Jazz. Note(s): Program notes on container./ Participants: Jazz ensembles; featuring Gene Ammons, tenor saxophone. Class Descriptors: LC: M1366.A66 Material Type: Music (msr); LP (lps) Document Type: Sound Recording Entry: 19801208 Update: 20011008 Accession No: OCLC: 7011515 Database: WorldCat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Light, bluesy and moody Author(s): Ammons, Gene. prf Publication: [Chicago] :; Wing, Year: 1958 Description: 1 sound disc :; analog, 33 1/3 rpm, stereo. ;; 12 in. Language: N/A Music Type: Jazz Standard No: Publisher: SRW-16156; Wing Contents: Red top -- Hot springs -- When you're gone -- Little slam --Concentration -- Idaho -- Jeet jet -- Odd-en-dow -- McDougal's sprout -- Hold that money. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Saxophone with jazz ensemble. Note(s): Tenor saxophone with jazz ensemble./ Program notes on container. Other Titles: Red top.; Hot springs.; When you're gone.; Little slam.; Concentration.; Idaho.; Jeet jet.; Odd-en-dow.; McDougal's sprout.; Hold that money. Responsibility: Gene Ammons. Material Type: Music (msr); LP (lps) Document Type: Sound Recording Entry: 19860201 Update: 20011023 Accession No: OCLC: 13097014 Database: WorldCat From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 23:44:31 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 18:44:31 -0500 Subject: Congo Bar origins (Boston Globe, 1994) Message-ID: 08/25/1994 The Boston Globe City Edition 3 (Copyright 1994) Mystery clouds the origins of the congo bar. Who invented it? When? How did it get its name? Just one thing's sure: The cookie is a winner. Consider its antecedents. The congo bar is "the brownie" version of a chocolate chip cookie, explains baker Judy Rosenberg, owner of Rosie's Bakery. "Anything that's in any way reminiscent of the chocolate chip cookie is an all-American favorite." Chewy with brown suger, rich with butter, studded with walnuts and semisweet chocolate chips, the congo bar is a classic lunchbox treat. Hefty squares of the cookie are now sold around Boston, alongside upscale baked goods. Reference staff at Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library have sought the source of the recipe -- and its name -- without luck. Even so, there's a core concept to the congo bar. For example, we knew the thin, rather dry versions weren't it. Nor was the tall, mild, cakelike example. The paradigm should be medium-thick, moist and sweet. We found it. Even other bakers referred us to Rosie's. Rosenberg got her first congo bar recipe from a friend 20 years ago, when she was starting out baking in her home. She now sells about 1,200 of the cookies a week at her various stores. A person can invent what they like to explain the congo bar. Our theory is, arm yourself with a glass of milk and try one. Rosie's Bakery, 9 Boylston St., Chestnut Hill, Newton. 277-5629. The bakery's congo bars are $1.50 each. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 26 00:56:29 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 19:56:29 -0500 Subject: Ketchup, Parmesan Cheese, Olio?, Vanilla? (1698); No "Congo Bar" in Nestle (1962) In-Reply-To: <0F8FA2A8.3CF29B72.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: At 3:29 PM -0500 1/25/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >KETCHUP > > OED has 1711 for "ketchup." A quick check of LITERATURE ONLINE has: > >Pope, Water, d. 1714 (From MORAL AND POLITICAL FABLES (1698)): >Pg. 95: > Here's all variety your heart can wish, > Olios, Ambigues, Bisques, Grilliades, > Cocoes, Vinelli, Pigniates, Pistaccios, > _Parmisan_ Cheese, Botargo, Caveare, > And Ketchup, which will make you please your Wife,... It's those natural mellowing agents... >NESTLE (1962) >PERFECT ENDINGS: >CHOCOLATE DESSERT AND BEVERAGE COOK BOOK > >From the Test Kitchens of The Nestle Company, Inc. 1962 > >Stackmores (dessert), 109 > >Pg. 109: >STACKMORES >SPREAD 6 graham crackers with 1 tbs. marshmallow cream, each >SPRINKLE each with 1 tsp. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels >Repeat layer on each and top with graham cracker >YIELD: 6 >(S'MORES are STACKMORES?... Evidently. Now we know what the apostrophe replaced: a removed tack. And obviously "some mores" was just a convenient reanalysis. Larry From e.pearsons at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 26 00:51:50 2003 From: e.pearsons at EARTHLINK.NET (Enid Pearsons) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 19:51:50 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: ...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? Enid From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 26 01:39:08 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 20:39:08 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: <000b01c2c4d5$1cded940$6401a8c0@Enid1> Message-ID: >...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? > >Enid I always thought the full dialogue was "Jeet jet?" "No, Jew?" Didn't Woody Allen once have a routine in Annie Hall or somewhere about the antisemitism revealed in the above? larry From dsgood at VISI.COM Sun Jan 26 02:13:10 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 20:13:10 -0600 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: 1) According to a native of Pittsburgh, the proper pronunciation is "needs warshed". 2) In a Usenet discussion, someone from Northern Ireland was very surprised to learn that "needs washed" is unusual in any part of the English-speaking world. From lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG Sun Jan 26 06:50:01 2003 From: lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG (Scott Sadowsky) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 01:50:01 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <3E32EFD6.1632.799E2E@localhost> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hpst at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 26 15:06:51 2003 From: hpst at EARTHLINK.NET (Page Stephens) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 07:06:51 -0800 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: Perhaps my ear is entirely out of tune with the rest of you but as a person who grew up in Southern Illinois the correct pronunciation of the word is woyshed a pronunciation I keep until this day just so that I can upset my friends who incorrectly pronounce it warshed wahshed, etc. Everyone ultimately has to draw a line in the sand, and this is where I draw mine. Page Stephens ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Goodman" To: Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 6:13 PM Subject: needs washed > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dan Goodman > Subject: needs washed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > 1) According to a native of Pittsburgh, the proper pronunciation is > "needs warshed". > > 2) In a Usenet discussion, someone from Northern Ireland was very > surprised to learn that "needs washed" is unusual in any part of the > English-speaking world. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 26 17:28:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 12:28:30 EST Subject: Mall Punk, Flyering, Teensploitation, ATMitations, Human Shields Message-ID: OT: Quickly, while doing the laundry...I have a blind date to see THE PRODUCERS in a few hours. I'm a great date. I take a woman to "Big Apple Corner" near THE LATE SHOW, explain that I'll never be on David Letterman or any tv show ever, and explain that my gross lifetime earnings from writing and researching is below two thousand dollars (before expenses)...The woman who set this up is my sister's mother-in-law, who also set up my super-successful "interview" with a literary agent a while back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- MALL PUNK, FLYERING, TEENSPLOITATION From the NEW YORK POST, 26 January 2003, pg. 52, col. 1: _Teensplotation_ _The art of selling almost anything to kids_ (...) In describing how one anti-corporate punk kid from Long Island protests the global marketplace, she writes, "He has tried to break out of that trap by 'flyering,' or giving out Zeroxed copies of invites to (rock) shows to a breed of kids he calls 'mallpunks.'" ("Mallpunk" or "mall punk" is not in the OED, but has over 50,000 Google hits--ed.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- ATMitations From the NEW YORK POST, 26 January 2003, pg. 19, col. 2: _It's money in the bank for guys on the make_ (...) An online novelty store is offering real-looking ATM slips, with whopping account balances, that can be pulled from (Col. 3--ed.) your pocket and used as a handy piece of paper on which to jot a telephone number. "You'll make a deposit into her account in no time," boasts the Web site www.pullmyfinger.com, which sells "ATMitations" at $3.95 for a pad of 24 slips. (I can do this legally, but this leads to a lasting relationship of trust?--ed.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- HUMAN SHIELD "Human shields" are heading to Iraq. These are people who don't believe in war, so they're willing to sacrifice their lives so that a madman can develop chemical and biological weapons. Something like that--the logic escapes me. "Human shield" is not in the OED. It certainly was used in the first round with Iraq, as the below NYPL citation shows. There's probably no real definitive origin--even ancient warring armies had "human shields" to protect their leaders. There are no MAKING OF AMERICA cites, however. Call # JFE 94-15266 Author Lewis, Tim, 1953- Title The human shield : British hostages in the Gulf and the work of the Gulf Support Group / [by Tim Lewis with Josie Brookes]. Imprint Lichfield, Staffordshire : Leomansley Press ; London : Distributed by Turnaround, 1991. LOCATION CALL # STATUS Humanities-Genrl Res JFE 94-15266 Location Humanities-Genrl Res Descript xi, 494 p. : ill., maps ; 22 cm. Subject Iraq-Kuwait Crisis, 1990-1991. Hostages -- Iraq -- History. Hostages -- Kuwait -- History. Hostages -- Great Britain -- History. British -- Iraq -- History. British -- Kuwait -- History. Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- Iraq. Iraq -- Foreign relations -- Great Britain. Add'l name Brookes, Josie. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 26 17:39:48 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 12:39:48 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: <000b01c2c4d5$1cded940$6401a8c0@Enid1> Message-ID: >...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? > >Enid ~~~~~~~~~~ dInIs wrote to Ads-L on 12/7/01: >I think (but I haven't seen it for a while, and, as Ellen Johnson >suggests, it is a bit old-timey) that the entire conversation from >the old Shuy-Preston USIA film was >Jeet chet? >Nachet. Jew? >No. >Skweet. Slate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A. Murie From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 26 13:49:48 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:49:48 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Woody Allen did indeed complain about the antisemitism of "No, Jew," and, like larry, I forgot where. By the way, the 'full full form' of the dialog is: Jeet jet. No; jew? No. Skweet; slate. dInIs >>...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? >> >>Enid > >I always thought the full dialogue was > >"Jeet jet?" >"No, Jew?" > >Didn't Woody Allen once have a routine in Annie Hall or somewhere >about the antisemitism revealed in the above? > >larry From ron.silliman at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 26 13:25:20 2003 From: ron.silliman at VERIZON.NET (Ron) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:25:20 -0500 Subject: "Happy Super Bowl" Message-ID: Yesterday, I noticed some workers at a change of shift at the King of Prussia Mall wishing one another "Happy Super Bowl," as though it were some kind of holiday. It made an impression, perhaps because the local team -- the Eagles -- are so pointedly not playing this year. But it was the first time I had heard the event treated linguistically as though it were some kind of holiday. Has anyone else heard that? Ron From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Sun Jan 26 20:34:35 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 14:34:35 -0600 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Sun Jan 26 21:25:51 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 15:25:51 -0600 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: I am glad it is not just me, Ron. I also had always assumed it was "f*cking-A", half the time with "f*ckin" instead of the -ing, and I had only heard it with a preceding "you" or ANYTHING following it (John, Charlie, etc.) fewer than ten times ever. I did not have the sense at all, growing up (in the 70s and 80s -- having almost never heard it since then) that it meant something like "you are so right". To me, it was always much more of a rejoinder of surprise, or even upset (for example, "Fuckin-A, I can't believe he did that."). Maybe I just misunderstood it all those years, but I certainly had the sense in the groups I "hung" in, that it was somewhat negative, always a surprise, and sometimes even a shocked response. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 10:59 AM Subject: Fuck an A >> > Just for the record, I tried this out on my students, all linguistics majors > in a capstone seminar, and all nine native speakers liked "-ing" rather than > "an." And all nine had never heard the phrase prefixed with "you" or suffixed > with "John" or anything else. It had never occured to them to speculate about > what "A" could mean. > > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Jan 26 22:03:36 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 14:03:36 -0800 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: i'm watching Manhattan again (tenth time or so), and checked out the beginning of Annie Hall (almost as many viewings). i'm almost positive that the "anti-semitic 'jew eat'" bit occurs in Play It Again, Sam (which i don't have a copy of at home); it's part of the manhattan vs. l.a. theme of that movie, as i remember. but i could just be misremembering. i do that. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 27 03:22:16 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 21:22:16 -0600 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: >From an online script of Annie Hall (I can't vouch for accuracy): ROB Alvy, you're a total paranoid. ALVY Wh- How am I a paran-? Well, I pick up on those kind o' things. You know, I was having lunch with some guys from NBC, so I said ... uh, "Did you eat yet or what?" and Tom Christie said, "No, didchoo?" Not, did you, didchoo eat? Jew? No, not did you eat, but Jew eat? Jew. You get it? Jew eat? -----Original Message----- From: Arnold Zwicky [mailto:zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU] Sent: Sun 1/26/2003 4:03 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) i'm watching Manhattan again (tenth time or so), and checked out the beginning of Annie Hall (almost as many viewings). i'm almost positive that the "anti-semitic 'jew eat'" bit occurs in Play It Again, Sam (which i don't have a copy of at home); it's part of the manhattan vs. l.a. theme of that movie, as i remember. but i could just be misremembering. i do that. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 04:14:25 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 23:14:25 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: <200301262203.h0QM3ap04118@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >i'm watching Manhattan again (tenth time or so), and checked out >the beginning of Annie Hall (almost as many viewings). i'm almost >positive that the "anti-semitic 'jew eat'" bit occurs in Play It >Again, Sam (which i don't have a copy of at home); it's part of the >manhattan vs. l.a. theme of that movie, as i remember. > >but i could just be misremembering. i do that. > Could be any of those three--I've seen them all, and can't recall which of them it came from. The lobsters were Annie Hall, but the rest... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 06:38:35 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 01:38:35 EST Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder Message-ID: "Snail salad" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. Will it be in the next volume of DARE? "Rabe" is in Merriam-Webster, with a first date of only 1976. "Rabe" is not in the OED. Well, "rabe" is _sort of_ in the OED. It says that "rabe" is "rabbi." Correct this at once. MY RABBI IS NOT MADE OF BROCCOLI! 12-2-1992, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-02: _FOODWISE R.I. cuisine from traditional to ethnic_ by Donna Lee (...) That led to talk about Rhode Island food. My husband, a Rhode Island native, asked which foods I had never tasted before I moved from Massachusetts 10 years ago. It was a long list. First was spinach pie. In my north-of-Boston town, it meant quiche made with spinach--not Rhode Island's spinach-filled turnover. I had eaten marinated squid and octopus in Boston but never heard it called snail salad. We had sugared fried dough at fairs, but didn't call them doughboys. The list included coffee syrup, Del's frozen lemonade, pepper biscuits, rice pie at Easter, deep-fried smelts, jonnycakes, French pork pie, plain tomato pie instead of cheese-topped pizza. I never tasted any of these until I moved south of the Bay State border. We had clam fritters, but nothing like the mostly dough clam cakes of Rhode Island. As a Bostonian, I never encountered a N.Y. System wiener. I'm still not converted; I'd rather have a Saugy (another Rhode Island discovery) than the squishy-soft N.Y. System wiener. A decade later, I' still trying to understand why some spell it "wiener," some spell it "weiner" and some shops spell it both ways on the same store front. Rabe--which I learned to cook by tasting the great version at Mike's Kitchen at the VFW Post in Cranston--was new to me 10 years ago. Since then, Boston's culinary horizons have broaded, and rabe wouldn't be so unusual. But 10 years ago, innovative restaurants such as Biba, Hamersley's Bistro, Jasper's, Olives, East Coast Grill and Michela's were still in Boston's future; Yankee standards such as Parker House scrod and Durgin Park Indian pudding were the norm, and not many Yankees ate rabe. 10-18-1988, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-01: _WHAT'S UP ON THE HILL:_ _We owe "our own" clam cakes and red chowder to the earliest Italian immigrants_ by Donna Lee Many of Rhode Island's favorite foods can be traced to Italy. Even those doughy deep-fried balls known as clam cakes have an Italian heritage. "Neapolitans called them 'pizzette' and served them in fish restaurants," says Nancy Verde Barr of Providence, who is completing a book of souther Italian cooking to be published by Knopf. Rhode Island and Manhattan each have a red clam chowder. Manhattan chowder starts with vegetables and contains no milk. One of Rhode Island's versions combines milk, clams, potatoes and tomatoes. Guess who put tomatoes in the chowder? "The Italians," says Barr, who has taught Italian food history ar Brown University Learning Community. 4-27-1994, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. G-02: _Baking powder history_ Baking powder is what makes muffins, banana bread and cakes rise. Rumford Baking Powder was launched 140 years ago right here in Rhode Island, developed by Eben Horsford. He was a chemistry professor at Harvard University, a position endowed as the COunt Rumford chair. While another brand had been introduced around that time in Boston, Rumford's endured. The East Providence Historical Society is marking the anniversary of Rumford Baking Powder with displays throuhgout May. (...) When George F. WIlson and Horsford started Rumford Chemical Company in 1854 in what is now East Providence, the name of Horsford's benefactor was used for the company. As the business grew, the community in East Providence became known as Rumford. Rumford Baking Powder is now manufactured in Terre Haute, Ind. 10-15-1997, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. C-04: The Rumford Chemical Works was historically important because it was the first company that made baking powder, according to Edna Anness, curator of the East Providence Historical Society. Gearoge F. Wilson, a businessman, and Eben N. Horsford, a scientist, established a plant here in 1856, and over the years it employed thousands of people. (...) Rumford got its name from the plant and came to be known as the "kitchen capital of the world." (The first company to make "baking powder" or not? It was made in 1854 or in 1856? Did the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL and the East Providence Historical Society forget _everything_ in the three years between articles?--ed.) From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Mon Jan 27 07:19:53 2003 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 23:19:53 -0800 Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder Message-ID: Just what is a N.Y. System weiner or wiener anyway? 50 years of eating in NYC and I never heard of it. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 10:38 PM Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder > "Snail salad" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND > DRINK. Will it be in the next volume of DARE? > "Rabe" is in Merriam-Webster, with a first date of only 1976. "Rabe" is > not in the OED. Well, "rabe" is _sort of_ in the OED. It says that "rabe" > is "rabbi." Correct this at once. MY RABBI IS NOT MADE OF BROCCOLI! > > > 12-2-1992, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-02: > _FOODWISE R.I. cuisine from traditional to ethnic_ > by Donna Lee > (...) That led to talk about Rhode Island food. My husband, a Rhode Island > native, asked which foods I had never tasted before I moved from > Massachusetts 10 years ago. > It was a long list. > First was spinach pie. In my north-of-Boston town, it meant quiche made > with spinach--not Rhode Island's spinach-filled turnover. > I had eaten marinated squid and octopus in Boston but never heard it > called snail salad. We had sugared fried dough at fairs, but didn't call > them doughboys. The list included coffee syrup, Del's frozen lemonade, > pepper biscuits, rice pie at Easter, deep-fried smelts, jonnycakes, French > pork pie, plain tomato pie instead of cheese-topped pizza. I never tasted > any of these until I moved south of the Bay State border. > We had clam fritters, but nothing like the mostly dough clam cakes of > Rhode Island. > As a Bostonian, I never encountered a N.Y. System wiener. I'm still not > converted; I'd rather have a Saugy (another Rhode Island discovery) than the > squishy-soft N.Y. System wiener. A decade later, I' still trying to > understand why some spell it "wiener," some spell it "weiner" and some shops > spell it both ways on the same store front. > Rabe--which I learned to cook by tasting the great version at Mike's > Kitchen at the VFW Post in Cranston--was new to me 10 years ago. > Since then, Boston's culinary horizons have broaded, and rabe wouldn't be > so unusual. But 10 years ago, innovative restaurants such as Biba, > Hamersley's Bistro, Jasper's, Olives, East Coast Grill and Michela's were > still in Boston's future; Yankee standards such as Parker House scrod and > Durgin Park Indian pudding were the norm, and not many Yankees ate rabe. > > > 10-18-1988, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-01: > _WHAT'S UP ON THE HILL:_ > _We owe "our own" clam cakes and red chowder to the earliest Italian > immigrants_ > by Donna Lee > Many of Rhode Island's favorite foods can be traced to Italy. > Even those doughy deep-fried balls known as clam cakes have an Italian > heritage. "Neapolitans called them 'pizzette' and served them in fish > restaurants," says Nancy Verde Barr of Providence, who is completing a book > of souther Italian cooking to be published by Knopf. > Rhode Island and Manhattan each have a red clam chowder. Manhattan > chowder starts with vegetables and contains no milk. One of Rhode Island's > versions combines milk, clams, potatoes and tomatoes. Guess who put tomatoes > in the chowder? "The Italians," says Barr, who has taught Italian food > history ar Brown University Learning Community. > > > 4-27-1994, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. G-02: > _Baking powder history_ > Baking powder is what makes muffins, banana bread and cakes rise. > Rumford Baking Powder was launched 140 years ago right here in Rhode > Island, developed by Eben Horsford. He was a chemistry professor at Harvard > University, a position endowed as the COunt Rumford chair. > While another brand had been introduced around that time in Boston, > Rumford's endured. > The East Providence Historical Society is marking the anniversary of > Rumford Baking Powder with displays throuhgout May. (...) > When George F. WIlson and Horsford started Rumford Chemical Company in > 1854 in what is now East Providence, the name of Horsford's benefactor was > used for the company. As the business grew, the community in East Providence > became known as Rumford. Rumford Baking Powder is now manufactured in Terre > Haute, Ind. > > > 10-15-1997, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. C-04: > The Rumford Chemical Works was historically important because it was the > first company that made baking powder, according to Edna Anness, curator of > the East Providence Historical Society. > Gearoge F. Wilson, a businessman, and Eben N. Horsford, a scientist, > established a plant here in 1856, and over the years it employed thousands of > people. (...) Rumford got its name from the plant and came to be known as > the "kitchen capital of the world." > > (The first company to make "baking powder" or not? It was made in 1854 or in > 1856? Did the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL and the East Providence Historical Society > forget _everything_ in the three years between articles?--ed.) > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 27 14:40:53 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 08:40:53 -0600 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody Allen movie. Gerald Cohen >At 2:34 PM -0600 1/26/03, Millie Webb wrote: >I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining >about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the >example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one >guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have >not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I >first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:11:35 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:11:35 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't think anyone so far has suggested that the Woody Allen movie was the source of this. dInIs >I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I >distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to >my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to >Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I >wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating >something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some >general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody >Allen movie. > > >Gerald Cohen > >>At 2:34 PM -0600 1/26/03, Millie Webb wrote: >>I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining >>about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the >>example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one >>guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have >>not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I >>first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:19:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:19:17 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:40 AM -0600 1/27/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: >I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I >distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to >my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to >Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I >wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating >something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some >general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody >Allen movie. > > >Gerald Cohen My claim was not that Woody Allen invented the exchange, which is simply a recognition of the common occurrrence of palatalization in fast speech. What he invented, in "Manhattan" or "Play It Again, Sam" [the latter a nice example of an unappreciated genre, Movie Titles Based on Movie Misquotes], was the riff off the (mock-)claim that the "No Jew" part represents anti-Semitism. larry > >>At 2:34 PM -0600 1/26/03, Millie Webb wrote: >>I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining >>about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the >>example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one >>guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have >>not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I >>first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:24:38 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:24:38 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:19 AM -0500 1/27/03, Laurence Horn wrote: >At 8:40 AM -0600 1/27/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: >>I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I >>distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to >>my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to >>Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I >>wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating >>something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some >>general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody >>Allen movie. >> >> >>Gerald Cohen > >My claim was not that Woody Allen invented the exchange, which is >simply a recognition of the common occurrrence of palatalization in >fast speech. What he invented, in "Manhattan" or "Play It Again, >Sam" [the latter a nice example of an unappreciated genre, Movie >Titles Based on Movie Misquotes], or "Annie Hall" after all, as it appears from Matthew Gordon's evidence >was the riff off the (mock-)claim >that the "No Jew" part represents anti-Semitism. > >larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:37:24 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:37:24 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030126013609.02b463f0@66.36.96.30> Message-ID: At 1:50 AM -0500 1/26/03, Scott Sadowsky wrote: >On 2003-01-25 21:13, Dan Goodman wrote the following: > >>1) According to a native of Pittsburgh, the proper pronunciation is >>"needs warshed". >> > >That epenthetic /r/ is hardly ubiquitous in Pittsburgh -- it seems >to be limited to certain segments of the working class. It has, >however, been taken to be prototypical of Pittsburgh speech, and >I've seen it mentioned as being the "authentic" Pittsburgh >pronunciation in booklets of the "How to speak Pittsburghese" ilk. > >The "needs"+past participle construction seems to be universal thereabouts. > Along the same lines: "need/want" + p.ppl. is typically taken to be a shibboleth for Pittsburghese (although technically, as we've seen, it extends to S. and C. Ohio and other adjacent and even non-adjacent areas), while the "warshington" R is thought of as much more widely dispersed. This is, to be sure, what dInIs would call perceptual dialectology rather than the real thing. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:49:23 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:49:23 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe... In-Reply-To: <118.1e357be4.2b662deb@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry on rabe: > "Rabe" is in Merriam-Webster, with a first date of only 1976. "Rabe" is >not in the OED. Well, "rabe" is _sort of_ in the OED. It says that "rabe" >is "rabbi." Correct this at once. MY RABBI IS NOT MADE OF BROCCOLI! > Another spelling of this (superb) vegetable is "raab". Note the AHD4 entry: ============ broccoli raab PRONUNCIATION: räb VARIANT FORMS: or broccoli rabe NOUN: A vegetable plant (Brassica rapa) related to the turnip and grown for its pungent leafy shoots. Also called rapini. ETYMOLOGY: Italian broccoli di rapa : broccoli, pl. diminutive of brocco, sprout, shoot; see broccoli + di, of (from Latin d; see de-) + rapa, turnip; see rape2. =============== And no, "raab" isn't in the OED either. A search conducted recently for a different purpose (I was trying to convince a friend that broccoli rabe/raab is in fact identical to rapini, rather than a different and more (or less) bitter vegetable) happened to turn up (heh heh) many examples of both "raab" and "rabe" spellings. I had previously encountered only the latter, but the former has the virtue of yielding the right pronunciation. There's also the spelling "rape", although it seems to have undergone taboo avoidance. larry P.S. Is "pungent" the right adjective? For me, broccoli rabe is bitter (which isn't a pejorative) but not pungent. Coriander/cilantro is pungent (which isn't a pejorative either). From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 27 16:56:05 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 11:56:05 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry writes: > >P.S. Is "pungent" the right adjective? For me, broccoli rabe is >bitter (which isn't a pejorative) but not pungent. >Coriander/cilantro is pungent (which isn't a pejorative either). ~~~~~~~ Raab, since I found it in a seed catalog 8 or 10 yars ago, has been the favorite summer veg in our garden. It is less sweet than standard broccoli, and much more flavorful. It is somewhat bitter, but it is a rich bitterness, much more satisfying than bland broccoli. It also has the advantage of being not as palatable to the cabbage butterfly, the larvae of which will skeletalize broccoli in a matter of days while barely touching raab. A. Murie From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 17:28:48 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 12:28:48 EST Subject: Snail Salad Message-ID: In a message dated 1/27/03 1:39:08 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: >    "Snail salad" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND > DRINK.  Will it be in the next volume of DARE? > Is this a regionalism? If not, DARE won't have it. And shouldn't. In fact, should any dictionary list SNAIL SALAD? Should it really be a lexical entry in any reference work except MAYBE something so specialized as an ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD? Or a cookbook? If one thinks of all the things that one could make a salad out of, it would take a book as big as a volume of DARE just to list them all. We could call it "Barry's Dictionary of Salad," and each of the zillion entries could list the earliest date that Barry could find for each one after traveling the world and reading salad menus and old newspapers. In 1973&1974 we used the following sentence as a repetition test for North Carolina informants: "We both like to eat snail salad often." I thought we were making up "snail salad" -- at any rate no one in North Carolina had ever eaten such a thing. We thought that the absurdity (to our North Carolina informants) of eating snails would distract our subjects from focussing any attention on the pronunciation of the final fricative in "both." From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 18:16:17 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:16:17 EST Subject: "You don't have to be a murderer..." Message-ID: In a message dated 1/24/03 9:20:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, jester at PANIX.COM writes: > I'm sure that Mr. Shapiro will apply his statement "my book > will be limited to more significant quotations" in order to > prevent such random detritus from clogging up his book. As I commented earlier, it is better for Mr. Shapiro to have an overflowing slush pile than an empty page in his book. Which reminds me: OED2 does not have "slush" in the meaning "unsolicited manuscripts". I seem to recall that this sense was used in Aldous Huxley's novel _Point Counterpoint_ - Jim Landau From bjv6xc at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 27 18:14:31 2003 From: bjv6xc at UMR.EDU (Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student)) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 12:14:31 -0600 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From stevekl at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 27 18:31:59 2003 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:31:59 -0500 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Czech, there's a sentence you can type into your computer that contains all of the letters in Czech with diacritics (a thru y with length mark, s, c, z, r, e and n with hackek, and u with krouzek) so you can see whether or not you/re getting all the special characters: The too pinkish horse groaned demonic odes. Unfortunately, relaying this sentence in Czech would look like gibberish in most people's screens. In fact, if some of the more techincally minded can help me wade through UNIX (I've set the proper LANG in PINE, and I've added it to my .config, but I still can't get it to display properly), please drop me a private email. Thanks. -- Steve Kl. From alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET Mon Jan 27 18:43:18 2003 From: alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET (george.sand) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:43:18 -0500 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 27 20:42:49 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:42:49 +0100 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox Message-ID: Finnish goes one better. The word "törkylempijävongahdus", which means "trashlover's bawl", contains all the letters in the Finnish alphabet, just once. Finns do not use B, C, F, Q, W, X or Z. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Kl." To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 7:31 PM Subject: [ADS-L] beyond the quick brown fox > In Czech, there's a sentence you can type into your computer that contains > all of the letters in Czech with diacritics (a thru y with length mark, s, > c, z, r, e and n with hackek, and u with krouzek) so you can see whether > or not you/re getting all the special characters: > > The too pinkish horse groaned demonic odes. > > > -- Steve Kl. > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 27 20:42:28 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 15:42:28 -0500 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox In-Reply-To: <004e01c2c644$ac0ffd40$911642d5@oemcomputer> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Jan Ivarsson TransEdit wrote: #Finnish goes one better. The word "törkylempijävongahdus", which means #"trashlover's bawl", contains all the letters in the Finnish alphabet, #just once. Finns do not use B, C, F, Q, W, X or Z. #Jan Ivarsson "Bawl" (loud shout or weeping) or "ball" (toy, or formal dance event)? -- Mark A. Mandel #----- Original Message ----- #From: "Steve Kl." #To: #Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 7:31 PM #Subject: [ADS-L] beyond the quick brown fox # # #> In Czech, there's a sentence you can type into your computer that contains #> all of the letters in Czech with diacritics (a thru y with length mark, s, #> c, z, r, e and n with hackek, and u with krouzek) so you can see whether #> or not you/re getting all the special characters: #> #> The too pinkish horse groaned demonic odes. #> > #> -- Steve Kl. #> # From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 20:49:32 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 15:49:32 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: HUMAN SHIELD Russell Sage has a college named after him in Troy, NY. I went to college in that town, to RPI. I was once planning to dramatize a biography of Russell Sage, and I was familiar with the assassination attempt on Sage's life and his use of a "human shield" to save himself. "Human shield" shows 301 NEW YORK TIMES hits, most in the past 15 years involving Iraq. However, the first hit is that Russell Sage incident. 18 November 1893, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: _LAIDLAW A WINNER AT LAST_ _RUSSELL SAGE MAY HAVE TO_ _PAY FOR HIS HUMAN SHIELD._ (Cheap-skate Sage didn't compensate the hapless guy much for saving Sage's life--ed.) --------------------------------------------------------------- BROCCOLI RABE As expected, Merriam-Webster's 1976 is way off. I searched for "rabe" with the keyword "broccoli," to avoid playwright "David Rabe" hits. There were 380 hits in the NEW YORK TIMES alone. Does OED need more evidence? 25 March 1928, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 49: _PRODUCE MARKETS_ (...) Broccoli rabe: Cal., crt... Tex., crt... Tex, bak... 10 April 1938, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 128: Broccoli, okra and broccoli rabe (a loose, leafy type sold by the pound like spinach) are inexpensive and good. --------------------------------------------------------------- SNAIL SALAD "New York System" is in DARE--from 1982. That's over 50 years off! "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE. It is an American regionalism. Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good citational evidence are separate questions. For what it's worth, this (which says near the bottom that "snail salad" is a "local thing" from RI) is from Google Groups: From: Bob Wells (bwells at tax.org) Subject: Re: Philadelphia Cheese Steaks View: Complete Thread (16 articles) Original Format Newsgroups: rec.food.restaurants Date: 1997/11/03 Friend wrote: > > David Hoffman (hoffman at Xenon.Stanford.EDU) wrote: > : In article <63amkd$g7t at dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, > : Avoid Jim's Steaks on South Street. It's an extremely popular > : destination, but I think it's only because of the location and the > : hype. For goodness sake, instead of real provolone they spread some > : crap on with a knife! Undoubtedly some devotees will be happy to > : contradict. > > The "crap" that you refer to is called Cheese Whiz. I like Jim's much more > than Pat's mostly because Jim's has an indoor eating area. I also hate > Cheese Whiz, but I don't see what your point is because Cheese Whiz is used > at the Pat's and just about every other place that sells cheese steaks in > Philadelphia. You get a choice of American Cheese, Cheese Whiz, or Provalone > at almost all cheese steak places. In fact, not only do people in Philly > debate where the best cheese steak can be bought, but "we" also debate whether > or not a real authentic Philly Cheese Steak has Cheese Whiz or another kind > of cheese. I prefer Provalone. I am not even sure if Cheese Whiz is a real > food product! It tastes mostly of chemicals. Provolone is what you'd get on a cheesesteak in Mass. or R.I. Much better in my book. I've been to Pat's and it was fun, but I'd say it's more of a local thing than anything else, like loose meat hamburger in Iowa, barbecued snoots in St. Louis, snail salad in RI, etc. I always try to go native, but given my choice of junk food a cheese whiz cheesesteak isn't it. Bob Wells From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Mon Jan 27 20:57:07 2003 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 14:57:07 -0600 Subject: No subject Message-ID: ads-l set no mail From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 27 21:05:57 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:05:57 +0100 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox Message-ID: "bawl" or "roar". I got it from Vasa linguist Rune Ingo's "Från källspråk till målspråk" (From SL to TL), Vasa 1991. The character "å" - the a with a little circle on top, pronounced "o" - wont get through, I suppose. Regards Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark A Mandel" To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 9:42 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] beyond the quick brown fox > On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Jan Ivarsson TransEdit wrote: > > #Finnish goes one better. The word "törkylempijävongahdus", which means > #"trashlover's bawl", contains all the letters in the Finnish alphabet, > #just once. Finns do not use B, C, F, Q, W, X or Z. > #Jan Ivarsson > > "Bawl" (loud shout or weeping) or "ball" (toy, or formal dance event)? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 27 21:16:03 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:16:03 -0800 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <18.2bd571ad.2b66c650@aol.com> Message-ID: A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name "superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan 67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent coinages. From Miriam.Meyers at METROSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 27 21:20:52 2003 From: Miriam.Meyers at METROSTATE.EDU (Miriam Meyers) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 15:20:52 -0600 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of course. Miriam Meyers Miriam Meyers Professor Emerita Literature and Language Metropolitan State University St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota 612-374-5581 miriammeyers at visi.com or miriam.meyers at metrostate.edu 2000 W. 21st Street Minneapolis, MN 55405-2414 From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 27 21:36:48 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:36:48 -0800 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain place, that's all. It certainly did not originally indicate knighthood, peerage, or nobility. In Germany, 'von' was used at one time by people from all classes, but as the common folk used it less and less, 'von' became nearly restricted to and associated with nobility. Therefore, in German, 'von' became a marker of nobility. However, this change did not occur in Dutch. Dick van Dyke's ancestor, for example, was not the duke of dyke. He simply was the fellow who lived near the dyke. I have also heard that a man had to pay a sum for the addition to his name. However, besides the fact that this does not have the ring of truth to it, I, in my hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in genealogical research, have never been able to substantiate this. No, no one had to purchase the the preposition in The Netherlands or Germany. Fritz Juengling >>> alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET 01/27/03 10:43AM >>> "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 21:50:12 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:50:12 -0500 Subject: Super Bowl (1966) Message-ID: From the first citation on the NEW YORK TIMES database: 4 September 1966, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 153: _National Football League Set to Open Season That Will End in Super Bowl_ From the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Word Mark SUPER BOWL Goods and Services IC 028. US 022. G & S: EQUIPMENT (OR APPARATUS) SOLD AS A UNIT FOR PLAYING A FOOTBALL-TYPE BOARD GAME. FIRST USE: 19661206. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19661206 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72261119 Filing Date December 19, 1966 Supplemental Register Date December 20, 1967 Registration Number 0846056 Registration Date March 12, 1968 Owner (REGISTRANT) TUDOR METAL PRODUCTS CORPORATION CORPORATION NEW YORK 176 JOHNSTON ST. BROOKLYN NEW YORK (LAST LISTED OWNER) NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNINC. ASSOCIATION ASSIGNEE OF NEW YORK 410 PARK AVE. NEW YORK NEW YORK 10022 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record TOWNLEY & UPDIKE Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register SUPPLEMENTAL Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 19880312 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Word Mark SUPER BOWL Goods and Services IC 041. US 107. G & S: ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES IN THE NATURE OF FOOTBALL EXHIBITIONS. FIRST USE: 19670115. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19670115 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72321005 Filing Date March 7, 1969 Registration Number 0882283 Registration Date December 9, 1969 Owner (REGISTRANT) NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNKNOWN NEW YORK 410 PARK AVE. NEW YORK NEW YORK 10022 (LAST LISTED OWNER) NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNINC. ASSOCIATION ASSIGNEE OF NEW YORK 280 PARK AVENUE NEW YORK NEW YORK 10017 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record DAVID M. PROPER Type of Mark SERVICE MARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20001206. Renewal 2ND RENEWAL 20001206 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE From alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET Mon Jan 27 21:50:22 2003 From: alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET (george.sand) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:50:22 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: "Van" in names Message-ID: Mr. Juengling I was obviously vandervelde, leftside, & stand corrected! P.K. ----- Original Message ----- From: FRITZ JUENGLING To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 4:36 PM Subject: Re: "Van" in names The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain place, that's all. It certainly did not originally indicate knighthood, peerage, or nobility. In Germany, 'von' was used at one time by people from all classes, but as the common folk used it less and less, 'von' became nearly restricted to and associated with nobility. Therefore, in German, 'von' became a marker of nobility. However, this change did not occur in Dutch. Dick van Dyke's ancestor, for example, was not the duke of dyke. He simply was the fellow who lived near the dyke. I have also heard that a man had to pay a sum for the addition to his name. However, besides the fact that this does not have the ring of truth to it, I, in my hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in genealogical research, have never been able to substantiate this. No, no one had to purchase the the preposition in The Netherlands or Germany. Fritz Juengling >>> alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET 01/27/03 10:43AM >>> "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 27 21:40:02 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South Midland are in the mainstream! At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the first >time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his family >members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family combines >Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) >But here's the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public >Television repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE >the setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of course. >Miriam Meyers > > >Miriam Meyers >Professor Emerita >Literature and Language >Metropolitan State University >St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota >612-374-5581 >miriammeyers at visi.com or >miriam.meyers at metrostate.edu >2000 W. 21st Street >Minneapolis, MN 55405-2414 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 22:35:13 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:35:13 -0500 Subject: Iraqi cuisine (pacha, sabzi, manelsama) Message-ID: IRAQI CUISINE (PACHA, SABZI, MANELSAMA) "Metrognome" Gersh Kuntzman in today's NEW YORK POST (www.nypost.com) writes about that elusive Iraqi cuisine. OED doesn't have "pacha," has "sabzi" in a different meaning, and doesn't have "manelsama." Iraq is one of the few places I haven't been to and have no current plans to visit, so here goes: //metrognome logo// A very wise philosopher once said, "Before attacking your enemy, you should dine at his table." That's nice in theory, but on the eve of America's impending invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive investigation by The Post revealed that there is not a single Iraqi restaurant in the five boroughs. In a city of 8 million -- where every national cuisine from Afghani to Yugoslavian are deliciously represented along with plenty of tribal, nomadic and ethnic subcuisines -- the estimated 957 Iraqis living in New York do not have a restaurant to call their own. But one man is breaking down the U.S.-Iraq wall of enmity one lamb kabob at a time. True, none of Salam al-Rawi's downtown restaurants -- the exceptional Mamlouk and two Moustache eateries -- are exclusive outposts of that elusive commodity known as Iraqi cuisine, but they do offer a rare glimpse under the burqa that shrouds day-to-day eating under Saddam Hussein. For example, did you realize that there really is no such thing as "Iraqi cuisine"? "It's true. Even in Iraq, there are no Iraqi restaurants," al-Rawi told me. "Iraqi food is simple grilled meats and stews. All our refined dishes come from Iran." Even national dishes such as pacha (a broiled lamb head whose description is best kept vague) and sabzi (a spinach and black-eyed-pea stew) are Iranian. That's so pathetic that instead of bombing Iraq, we could demoralize it into surrender by dropping leaflets reminding Iraq of its cultural debt to Iran. No wonder Saddam deported 3 million Iranians from Iraq. He was obviously jealous. Not that al-Rawi doesn't have his culinary pride. The 47-year-old, who fled Baghdad in 1977, speaks lovingly of the lunchtime stews shared by garbagemen and government officials, the late-night grilled fish joints, the whole turnips boiled in date syrup, and the crisp Iraqi lager that he might serve at his restaurants were it not for U.N. sanctions. And don't get him started on manelsama, a nougat ball made out of hazelnut sap that is indigenous to Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq. "It is so fantastic that it is imitated all over the Middle East," al-Rawi said. As proof, he called over a Lebanese waiter, who, despite an obvious sense of culinary superiority, admitted that manelsama is a true treasure (and explains why Saddam is so desperate to hold onto Kurdistan.) It all sounded delicious. And maybe someday we'll all be able to eat at a genuine "Iraqi restaurant" -- if we can just remember the message of Salam al-Rawi's first name. --30-- gersh.kuntzman at verizon.net --------------------------------------------------------------- SOMEBODY, ANYBODY PLEASE SHOOT ME! ("HOT DOG," CONTINUED) Although my work on the "hot dog" is about eight years old, my name hasn't been mentioned in any "hot dog" story on even a single television station, radio station, or newspaper. It hasn't been for lack of opportunities. From just yesterday, courtesy of the Dow Jones database: MEATY MORSELS BUILD MORALE Craig Lovelace FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 01/26/2003 The Columbus Dispatch Home Final 05H Harry Hirschinger wants to help in the war against terrorism, and the only way he can think of is -- hot dogs. Hot dogs? The Columbus resident and Army veteran wants to feed troops serving in Afghanistan or elsewhere overseas a food as American as, well, apple pie. (...) Harry Hirschinger has spent a good portion of his adult life feeding hot dogs to U.S. troops overseas. Here's some background on his favorite food: * Beginnings: Claims exist that the hot dog was invented in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, in 1487; others say the small sausage was created in the late 1600s by butcher Johann Georghehner in Coburg, Germany, who later traveled to Frankfurt to promote his product; still others claim it was invented in the Austrian capital, Vienna (Wien in German, hence the moniker wiener ). * The name: References among German immigrants in the United States to ''dachshund'' sausages, or ''little-dog'' sausages, can be traced to the 1800s. Popular lore says that in 1901, Tad Dorgan, a New York sports cartoonist, saw vendors hawking ''red-hot dachshund sausages'' at a baseball game in the Polo Grounds. Unsure of how to spell dachshund for a cartoon, he simply wrote hot dog . However, the cartoon has never been found. * Hot dogs and baseball: In 1893, Chris Von de Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Browns, introduced baseball fans to the ballpark hot dog. * Hot dogs and buns: In 1871, Charles Feltman opened the first hot-dog stand at Coney Island amusement park in New York, selling 3,684 dachshund sausages in milk rolls. But lore says the bun was born in 1904, when Anton Feuchtwanger, a sausage vendor at the St. Louis Exposition, had his brother-in-law, a baker, improvise a long, soft roll to hold the sausage. Source: American Meat Institute, National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, qualitystreetcarts.com From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 27 23:22:17 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:22:17 -0600 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: Didn't the ambitious young Beethoven seek entree among the upper classes by fostering the mistaken assumption that he was "von" not "van" Beethoven (Dutch somewhere on his father's side)? -----Original Message----- From: FRITZ JUENGLING [mailto:juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US] Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 3:37 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: "Van" in names The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain place, that's all. It certainly did not originally indicate knighthood, peerage, or nobility. In Germany, 'von' was used at one time by people from all classes, but as the common folk used it less and less, 'von' became nearly restricted to and associated with nobility. Therefore, in German, 'von' became a marker of nobility. However, this change did not occur in Dutch. Dick van Dyke's ancestor, for example, was not the duke of dyke. He simply was the fellow who lived near the dyke. I have also heard that a man had to pay a sum for the addition to his name. However, besides the fact that this does not have the ring of truth to it, I, in my hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in genealogical research, have never been able to substantiate this. No, no one had to purchase the the preposition in The Netherlands or Germany. Fritz Juengling >>> alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET 01/27/03 10:43AM >>> "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 23:59:55 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 18:59:55 EST Subject: Iraqi cuisine (pacha, sabzi, manelsama) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/27/2003 5:36:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > the crisp Iraqi lager that he might serve at his restaurants were it not for > U.N. sanctions. Does Iraq produce and hope to export lager beer? Or is "lager" used here to describe some non-alcoholic brew? From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 00:18:39 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 19:18:39 -0500 Subject: Contact with David Barnhart In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I am trying to reach David Barnhart. He occasionally posts to this list, but I get no response from e-mails or phone messages to him. If anyone knows how to get through to him, I would welcome any assistance with making contact. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 28 00:35:52 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 19:35:52 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <69799884.2743F21E.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: At 3:49 PM -0500 1/27/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >--------------------------------------------------------------- >BROCCOLI RABE > > As expected, Merriam-Webster's 1976 is way off. I searched for >"rabe" with the keyword "broccoli," to avoid playwright "David Rabe" >hits. There were 380 hits in the NEW YORK TIMES alone. Does OED >need more evidence? Agreed; "broccoli rabe" and or "raab" should be in the OED and indeed in every dictionary and produce store. > > 25 March 1928, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 49: >_PRODUCE MARKETS_ >(...) >Broccoli rabe: > Cal., crt... > Tex., crt... > Tex, bak... > > 10 April 1938, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 128: > Broccoli, okra and broccoli rabe (a loose, leafy type sold by the >pound like spinach) are inexpensive and good. Agreed, although the first of those gets boring more quickly. Unfortunately, the price of okra and broccoli rabe have risen (even relative to other veggies, as well as absolutely) over the last 65 years. But they're still worth it. > > "New York System" is in DARE--from 1982. That's over 50 years off! I don't have my DARE on me at home, but my memory is that the dates in their entries aren't intended to give first cites the way the OED's are, but just as indices of when a given form was collected. Is that wrong? > For what it's worth, this (which says near the bottom that "snail >salad" is a "local thing" from RI) is from Google Groups: > > >From: Bob Wells (bwells at tax.org) >Subject: Re: Philadelphia Cheese Steaks > You get a choice of American Cheese, Cheese Whiz, or Provalone > > at almost all cheese steak places. In fact, not only do people in Philly >> debate where the best cheese steak can be bought, but "we" also >>debate whether >> or not a real authentic Philly Cheese Steak has Cheese Whiz or another kind >> of cheese. I prefer Provalone. I am not even sure if Cheese Whiz is a real >> food product! It tastes mostly of chemicals. > >Provolone is what you'd get on a cheesesteak in Mass. or R.I. Much better >in my book. I've been to Pat's and it was fun, but I'd say it's more of a >local thing than anything else, like loose meat hamburger in Iowa, >barbecued snoots in St. Louis, snail salad in RI, etc. I always try to go >native, but given my choice of junk food a cheese whiz cheesesteak isn't >it. Agreed, although my Philly hosts always turn up their nose at my choice of provolone, resulting in what is to them a faux-cheese steak sandwich. I guess cheez whiz is an acquired taste (and texture), but then that's what people tell me about broc. rabe and okra. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 00:55:18 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 19:55:18 -0500 Subject: Iraqi cuisine (pacha, sabzi, manelsama) In-Reply-To: <1e5.73ab7e.2b6721fb@aol.com> Message-ID: >In a message dated 01/27/2003 5:36:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, >Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > >> the crisp Iraqi lager that he might serve at his restaurants were it not >for >> U.N. sanctions. > >Does Iraq produce and hope to export lager beer? Or is "lager" used here to >describe some non-alcoholic brew? I would think the former. Lager is lager, as far as I (or the OED) know. Iraq is pretty secular as Arab/Moslem countries go (note the uncovered women in all the news shots, at least in the cities), and the beer in the equally Islamic and even more secular Turkey is pretty good. (Plus they have all that raki there, if you like licorice-flavored booze.) I had beer--I think lager--in East Jerusalem, but that was produced by Palestinian Christians. Larry P.S. Note the OED's entry for the nominal compound _lager lout_: ======== _lager lout_ colloq., a young man who behaves in an aggressive, boorish manner as a result of drinking (typically lager) excessively. ======== Something to watch out for if and when we invade. From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Tue Jan 28 01:18:12 2003 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:18:12 -0800 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many cites in google? ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 12:49 PM Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad > HUMAN SHIELD > > Russell Sage has a college named after him in Troy, NY. I went to college in that town, to RPI. I was once planning to dramatize a biography of Russell Sage, and I was familiar with the assassination attempt on Sage's life and his use of a "human shield" to save himself. > "Human shield" shows 301 NEW YORK TIMES hits, most in the past 15 years involving Iraq. However, the first hit is that Russell Sage incident. > > 18 November 1893, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: > _LAIDLAW A WINNER AT LAST_ > _RUSSELL SAGE MAY HAVE TO_ > _PAY FOR HIS HUMAN SHIELD._ > (Cheap-skate Sage didn't compensate the hapless guy much for saving Sage's life--ed.) > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > BROCCOLI RABE > > As expected, Merriam-Webster's 1976 is way off. I searched for "rabe" with the keyword "broccoli," to avoid playwright "David Rabe" hits. There were 380 hits in the NEW YORK TIMES alone. Does OED need more evidence? > > 25 March 1928, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 49: > _PRODUCE MARKETS_ > (...) > Broccoli rabe: > Cal., crt... > Tex., crt... > Tex, bak... > > 10 April 1938, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 128: > Broccoli, okra and broccoli rabe (a loose, leafy type sold by the pound like spinach) are inexpensive and good. > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > SNAIL SALAD > > "New York System" is in DARE--from 1982. That's over 50 years off! > "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE. It is an American regionalism. Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good citational evidence are separate questions. > For what it's worth, this (which says near the bottom that "snail salad" is a "local thing" from RI) is from Google Groups: > > > From: Bob Wells (bwells at tax.org) > Subject: Re: Philadelphia Cheese Steaks > View: Complete Thread (16 articles) > Original Format > Newsgroups: rec.food.restaurants > Date: 1997/11/03 > > Friend wrote: > > > > David Hoffman (hoffman at Xenon.Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > : In article <63amkd$g7t at dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, > > : Avoid Jim's Steaks on South Street. It's an extremely popular > > : destination, but I think it's only because of the location and the > > : hype. For goodness sake, instead of real provolone they spread some > > : crap on with a knife! Undoubtedly some devotees will be happy to > > : contradict. > > > > The "crap" that you refer to is called Cheese Whiz. I like Jim's much more > > than Pat's mostly because Jim's has an indoor eating area. I also hate > > Cheese Whiz, but I don't see what your point is because Cheese Whiz is used > > at the Pat's and just about every other place that sells cheese steaks in > > Philadelphia. You get a choice of American Cheese, Cheese Whiz, or Provalone > > at almost all cheese steak places. In fact, not only do people in Philly > > debate where the best cheese steak can be bought, but "we" also debate whether > > or not a real authentic Philly Cheese Steak has Cheese Whiz or another kind > > of cheese. I prefer Provalone. I am not even sure if Cheese Whiz is a real > > food product! It tastes mostly of chemicals. > > Provolone is what you'd get on a cheesesteak in Mass. or R.I. Much better > in my book. I've been to Pat's and it was fun, but I'd say it's more of a > local thing than anything else, like loose meat hamburger in Iowa, > barbecued snoots in St. Louis, snail salad in RI, etc. I always try to go > native, but given my choice of junk food a cheese whiz cheesesteak isn't > it. > > Bob Wells From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 01:36:14 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 20:36:14 -0500 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <000401c2c649$4ceeb5e0$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: At 1:16 PM -0800 1/27/03, Dave Wilton wrote: >A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's >discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner >Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." >This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name >"superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. I remember it as being official as of Super Bowl III, the famous Jets-Colts matchup in January '69. Remember that in those days (until the 1970 season ending in what we now call Super Bowl IV) the leagues hadn't yet merged, so it would need to be both NFL and AFL archives that would have to be checked. I've also heard the Lamar Hunt/superball theory. I wonder whether Barry's instantly-found 1966 cite makes that story less likely. >I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan >67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by >sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an >obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent >coinages. From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 28 01:41:19 2003 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:41:19 -0800 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Larry: Next time you're in Philly, go to Tony Luke's in South Philly. It's somewhere around 2nd or 3rd street south of Washington. I'm sure you can get directions. Anyway, there you can get a cheesesteak with broccoli rabe (and provolone if you must). You can also get rabe on a pork sandwich if you're in the mood. Sarcone's at 10th and Christian also has rabe on sandwiches, bu they're a little more "gourmet" than Tony Luke's. Besides Tony Luke's has the best commercials. Ed > > Agreed, although my Philly hosts always turn up > their nose at my > choice of provolone, resulting in what is to them a > faux-cheese steak > sandwich. I guess cheez whiz is an acquired taste > (and texture), but > then that's what people tell me about broc. rabe and > okra. > > larry __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 02:01:53 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:01:53 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <001b01c2c66b$211c5360$0400a8c0@charterpipeline.com> Message-ID: At 5:18 PM -0800 1/27/03, Jerome Foster wrote: >Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many >cites in google? > > Yes, and the same as rapini. By any other name it would taste as bitter. And good. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 02:11:15 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:11:15 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <20030128014119.36096.qmail@web20418.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 5:41 PM -0800 1/27/03, Ed Keer wrote: >Larry: > >Next time you're in Philly, go to Tony Luke's in South >Philly. It's somewhere around 2nd or 3rd street south >of Washington. I'm sure you can get directions. >Anyway, there you can get a cheesesteak with broccoli >rabe (and provolone if you must). You can also get >rabe on a pork sandwich if you're in the mood. > >Sarcone's at 10th and Christian also has rabe on >sandwiches, bu they're a little more "gourmet" than >Tony Luke's. Besides Tony Luke's has the best >commercials. > >Ed > Thanks, Ed. Sounds great. I'll practice by stuffing some leftover broccoli rabe into one of the "Philly Steak and Cheese Lean Pockets" currently residing in my freezer. (Actually, the rabe on a pork sandwich sounds better, but I'll wait until my next visit to the C. of B.L. for that.) Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 02:24:45 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:24:45 -0500 Subject: Ceylon "Hoppers" (1882) Message-ID: Again, this major national dish is not in the OED. 31 August 1882, FOREST AND STREAM: A JOURNAL OF OUTDOOR LIFE, TRAVEL, NATURE STUDY, SHOOTING, FISHING, YACHTING (American Periodical Series online database), pg. 86: _AN ELK HUNT IN THE "SPICY ISLE."_ (...) Into the tub, or rather small swimming bath, which is an adjunct of all good Ceylon bungalows, a grand rub down, and then into the dining-room, where ten as jolly planters as ever drunk beer, sounded a loud "toot-toot" on the old horn. "Just one more peg, old chappie," and "Here's to the health of them that's awa'in in the dear old country," sat round the festive board, the kerosene lamp struggling with the light that was slowly beginning to dawn. Eggs, bacon, bread and "hoppers," all the delicacies of a planter's morning tea, were being rapidly consumed, and the clatter of the plates was drowned by the clatter of the tongues, as every one "jawed" about his past, present or future hunts. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 02:46:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:46:52 -0500 Subject: Root Beer (1840) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster both have 1843 for "root beer," a good old American drink. LITERATURE ONLINE (prose database) has 1843, 1844, and 1845 hits. August 1842, AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST (American Periodical Series online), "SUMMER DRINKS," pg. 143, col. 2: Light beers, as ginger beer, mild hop and root beer, are economically made, palatable, not injurious, and within every one's reach. "Root beer" on New York CIty's Spring Street? This is from ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES: ITEM #15171 July 4, 1840 THE COLORED AMERICAN New York, New York J.B. BROWN & S.L. WOOD CONFECTIONARY & Fruit Store, No. 99 Spring street, corner of Mercer street. Mead, Root-Beer, Ice-Cream, Preserves, &c., Families supplied with all articles in their line. N.B. The Store is closed on Sunday. From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 02:52:19 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:52:19 EST Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: << Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many cites in google? >> Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper Italian term is "Broccoli di rape". I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in southern dialects,and it probably gained currency in English because of the uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- probably the same reason "rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." Steve Boatti From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 03:27:56 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:27:56 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <1c6.4255a79.2b674a63@aol.com> Message-ID: >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many > >cites in google? > > >> > >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper Italian term is "Broccoli >di rape". Right, from the Latin _(brassica) rapa_--all that is actually given in the AHD4 entry I posted earlier. Of course the Italian "rape" is bisyllabic. >I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in southern >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English because of the >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- probably the same reason >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." > >Steve Boatti From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 04:20:02 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 23:20:02 -0500 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <000401c2c649$4ceeb5e0$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: At 1:16 PM -0800 1/27/03, Dave Wilton wrote: >A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's >discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner >Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." >This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name >"superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. > >I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan >67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by >sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an >obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent >coinages. Just located my copy of _The New York Times at the Super Bowl_ (1974, Leonard Koppett, ed.), and the very first columns reproduced, Jan. 8, 1967 (the week before Super Bowl I), by Frank Litsky and William N. Wallace, contain several references to "the Super Bowl" or "the Super Bowl game". But what of the Roman numerals? No references to the first one as "Super Bowl I", but then Charles I wasn't so called until II came along, right? But actually II wasn't so-called either, or III. The upcoming or just completed games, in the several columns reproduced in the book, are just called "the Super Bowl (game, contest)", as in the corresponding college bowl games ("the Rose Bowl (game)", etc., not "Rose Bowl XCVII" or whatever). Indeed, the first reference I can find in the reproduced columns to Super Bowl N for a roman numeral N is Super Bowl VI (1/15/72), in columns by Red Smith and Arthur M. Daley. But it's clear they didn't originate the practice. One of Daley's columns after the game (1/17/72) refers to "the production billed in fancy Roman numerals as Super Bowl VI." And as the commercial says, it was the Super Bowl that "turned Roman numerals into Roman numerals". Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 04:23:40 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 23:23:40 -0500 Subject: Birch Beer (1873) Message-ID: "Birch beer" is in the OED from 1883. Both "birch beer" and "root beer" supposedly date from the American Revolution, but I sure didn't see them in the full text PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE or in GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK in ACCCESSIBLE ARCHIVES. The LOC's AMERICAN MEMORY database doesn't even have "birch beer" at all, at any time. I expected a much larger antedating, but whatever. 9 July 1873, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 5: A keg of birch beer exploded on a Jersey City fruit-stand, yesterday, doing damage to the amount of $25. 26 May 1877, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (American Periodical Series online), pg. 331: (7) T. B. asks: (...) 2. What are the quantities necessary to the gallon of carbonic-charged birch beer, to prevent it from souring? A. Unless the salt were very pure it would be liable to give a somewhat disagreeable flavor to such beer. About 5 or 10 grains to the gallon would perhaps suffice. From pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU Tue Jan 28 05:18:32 2003 From: pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter Farruggio) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:18:32 -0800 Subject: Broccoli Rabe In-Reply-To: <1c6.4255a79.2b674a63@aol.com> Message-ID: I was once told by older family members that the bitter cruciferous vegetable called broccoli rabe in the US has another name in Sicily, something like "manzanetta" (?) and that it is a relative of the mustard family of vegetables, and not closely related to broccoli, despite the fact that they are both cruciferous. Maybe a botanist can clear this up. But the story goes on to say that uneducated Italian immigrants and their children coined the term broccoli rabe for "bitter broccoli" here in the US as a way to identify it for produce people, who were more familiar with broccoli, and thus this other cruciferous green veggie is the "bitter broccoli" I also remember "rapini" as a very different veggie, common in Northern Italy, not the same thing at all. I remember some old Northern Italian (Lucca region) produce men in San Francisco misunderstanding me and giving me something they called rapini when I asked for broccoli rabe. Since I didn't look closely once I realized it was the wrong stuff, I can't remember if it was the same as the veggie called rapini in Italy. Anybody have a clearer knowledge of this? Pete Farruggio At 06:52 PM 1/27/03, you wrote: >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many > >cites in google? > > >> > >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper Italian term is "Broccoli >di rape". I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in southern >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English because of the >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- probably the same reason >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." > >Steve Boatti > > >--- >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.445 / Virus Database: 250 - Release Date: 1/21/03 -------------- next part -------------- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.445 / Virus Database: 250 - Release Date: 1/21/03 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 05:25:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 00:25:30 -0500 Subject: Ginger Ale (1863) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster have "ginger ale" from 1886. This is also the earliest date for a "ginger ale" advertisement in HARPER'S WEEKLY. Several other databases have earlier. From ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES: ITEM #5934 February, 1863 Godey's Lady's Book Philadelphia Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Vol LXVI Page 198 MISCELLANEOUS. OIL STAINS IN SILK AND OTHER FABRICS. Benzine collas is most effectual, not only for silk, but in any other material whatever. It can be procured from any chemist. By simply covering both sides of greased silk with magnesia, and allowing it to remain for a few hours, the oil is absorbed by the powder. Should the first application be insufficient, it may be repeated, and even rubbed in with the hand. Should the silk be Tussah or Indian silk, it will wash. Oil stains can also be entirely removed from silks and all dress materials, also leather, paper, etc., by applying pipe-clay, powdered and moistened with water to the consistency of thick cream, laid on the stain, and left to dry some hours, then lightly scraped or rubbed off with a knife or flannel, so as not to injure the surface. If the pipe-clay dries off quite light in color, all oil has been removed; if it comes off dark-looking, then more should be laid on, as grease still remains to be removed. Pipe-clay will not injure the most delicate tints of silk or paper. << GINGER ALE>> . To ten gallons of water, put twelve pounds of sugar, six ounces of bruised ginger (unbleached is the best). Boil it one hour, put it into a barrel with one ounce of hops and three or four spoonfuls of yeast. Let it stand three days; then close the barrel, putting in one ounce of isinglass. In a week it is fit for use. Draw out in a jug, and use as beer. (...) FATHER MATHEW by John Francis Maguire (NY: D. & J. Sodlier & Co., 1864) (MAKING OF AMERICA-Mich.-Books) Pg. 302: ...Such as Soda, Peppermt. Ginger ale, cordial, lemonade... (There are several "ginger ale" database hits for during the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial. VISITOR'S GUIDE TO NEW ORLEANS (1875) has an ad selling drinks including "Cautrell & Cochrane's Ginger Ale"--ed.) 1 November 1871, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 7: ...sell the person property of the bankrupts, consisting of a lot of ginger ale, soda, sarsaparilla, ale and porter in bottles, syrup and sugar in barrels... 8 April 1876, SATURDAY EVENING POST (American Periodical Series online), pg. 2: It may be interesting to thirsty mortals to know something of what they drink. There is no sarsaparilla in "sarsaparilla;" there is no ginger in "ginger ale;" there is nothing of a mineral character in "mineral water," and "seltzer" has nothing appertaining to the real seltzer, or Seltzer's water in its composition--except water. Ottawa beer is usually made with sugar, snake-root, and aromatics which will acetify soon after the beer is manufactured. It should be made fresh every day; but it is not. The carbonic acid gas will disguise the bad taste of stale Ottawa beer until you have swallowed it, but you may expect internal disturbances. Fresh Ottawa beer is rather a nice drink, and kept freshly on tap is rather popular in summer time. A first-class drug store will sometimes sell forty gallons daily in the sultry season. Pure sarsaparilla has no flavor at all, and the agreeable flavor of the so-called "extract of sarsaparilla" is produced by a decoction of wintergreen and sassafras. The "sarsaparilla" sold in saloons has nothing of wintergreen or sassafras, not to say sarsaparilla, in its composition. It is simply carbonated water, colored with caramel or burnt sugar, and sweetened with common syrup and bad molasses. Druggists who sell soda-water sweetened with "sarsaparilla" generally manufacture a better article from clear sugar and liquorice extract, and those who have a large soda-water trade will sometimes use the real decoction of wintergreen, oil of lemon, caramel and sassafras. "Mineral Water" is aerated water, flavored with lemon syrup of poor quality, or with aritifical sugar or glucese, manufactured from potato starch. "Ginger Ale" is aerated water sweetened with sugar, and flavored with Cayenne pepper in small quantities is rather beneficial than otherwise, and this is really a healthy and refreshing beverage compared with others. Good ginger ale--like the imported Belfast ginger ale--should be made with lemons, ginger, sugar, and tartaric (?--ed.) acid. "Seltzer water" is carbonated water flavored with salts--generally common salts, sometimes Epsom and medicinal salts. This is not a beverage very pleasant to the palate, but it certainly has a specific influence on the bowels, and is quite effective in "straightening a fellow out" when he has been meddled up over night in a crooked whisky investigation. In fact, none of the above drinks are injurious--rather the opposite, provided their bases have been made in wholesome fountains. From dsgood at VISI.COM Tue Jan 28 05:57:43 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 23:57:43 -0600 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <20030128050149.830DE4AFA@bodb.mc.mpls.visi.com> Message-ID: > Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 > From: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: needs washed > > Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and > Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier > writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South > Midland are in the mainstream! I'd like to look that up; where does he say this? (I'm interested in where the boundaries are in the British Isles.) Is it found anywhere in Canada? > At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that > >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the > >first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his > >family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family > >combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's > >the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television > >repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the > >setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't > >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of > >course. Miriam Meyers > > From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Tue Jan 28 06:43:23 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:43:23 -0800 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <3E35C777.7796.BE7176@localhost> Message-ID: >Is it found anywhere in Canada? I have never heard 'needs washed', neither in my native Montreal, nor in Vancouver (where I've lived since 1990) cheers - Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net ps: am I the only Canadian here? -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Dan Goodman Sent: January 27, 2003 9:58 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: needs washed > Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 > From: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: needs washed > > Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and > Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier > writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South > Midland are in the mainstream! I'd like to look that up; where does he say this? (I'm interested in where the boundaries are in the British Isles.) Is it found anywhere in Canada? > At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that > >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the > >first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his > >family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family > >combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's > >the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television > >repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the > >setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't > >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of > >course. Miriam Meyers > > From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Tue Jan 28 12:10:57 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 07:10:57 -0500 Subject: Contact with David Barnhart Message-ID: I, too, have been trying to reach Mr. Barnhart via e-mail for several months now, and I've received no response. I would appreciate being CC'd on the contact info. Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Shapiro" To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 7:18 PM Subject: Contact with David Barnhart > I am trying to reach David Barnhart. He occasionally posts to this list, > but I get no response from e-mails or phone messages to him. If anyone > knows how to get through to him, I would welcome any assistance with > making contact. > > Fred Shapiro From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 28 13:43:42 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 05:43:42 -0800 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: So broccoli rabe and broccoli di rape are turnip greens? JIM --- Laurence Horn wrote: > >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, > funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > > > ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli > rape of which there are many > > > >cites in google? > > > > >> > > > >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper > Italian term is "Broccoli > >di rape". > > Right, from the Latin _(brassica) rapa_--all that is > actually given > in the AHD4 entry I posted earlier. Of course the > Italian "rape" is > bisyllabic. > > >I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in > southern > >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English > because of the > >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- > probably the same reason > >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." > > > >Steve Boatti ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 14:08:53 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 09:08:53 EST Subject: Ginger Ale (1863) Message-ID: In his very interesting set of posts on root beer, birch beer, and ginger ale, Barry Popik unfortunately fails to distinguish between soft (i.e. non-alcoholic) and hard (alcoholic) beverages. In a message dated 1/28/03 12:25:55 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > << GINGER ALE>> . To ten gallons of water, put twelve pounds of sugar, six > ounces of bruised ginger (unbleached is the best). Boil it one hour, put it > into a barrel with one ounce of hops and three or four spoonfuls of yeast. > Let it stand three days; then close the barrel, putting in one ounce of > isinglass. In a week it is fit for use. Draw out in a jug, and use as beer. If you let yeast work for a week in a closed barrel of sugar water, you are definitely going to get an alcoholic beverage. In a message dated 1/27/03 9:47:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Light beers, as ginger beer, mild hop and root beer, are economically made, > palatable, not injurious, and within every one's reach. > Mead, Root-Beer, Ice-Cream, Preserves, &c., One cannot tell from context whether either of these two root beers are soft or hard. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 14:16:20 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 09:16:20 EST Subject: Root Beer (1840) Message-ID: An indirect citation for 1816-18 for "root beer". The Making of America database has Origin, rise, and progress of Mormonism : biography of its founders and history of its church : personal remembrances and historical collections hitherto unwritten ... . Tucker, Pomeroy 302 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. New York : Appleton, 1867. pages 11-12 state that Joseph Smith, Sr. (whose son Joseph Smith Jr. founded Mormonism) ran a "cake and beer shop" in Palmyra, New York, from 1816 to 1818. page 12 Mr. Smith's shop merchandise, consisting of gingerbread. pies, boiled eggs, root-beer, and other like notions of traffic, soon became popular with the juvenile people of the town and country, commanding brisk sales, especially on Fourth of July anniversaries, and on military training days, as these prevailed at that period. - Jim Landau (whose Mormon roommate in college called him a "Gentile") From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 15:22:38 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:22:38 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <20030128134342.3615.qmail@web9701.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 5:43 AM -0800 1/28/03, James Smith wrote: >So broccoli rabe and broccoli di rape are turnip >greens? > >JIM It certainly doesn't seem to be from the form. Turnip, collard, and mustard greens and kale are all first cousins, I'd say, and maybe beet greens as well. Broccoli rabe/raab/di rape/rape/rapini (which I'm still not convinced denote more than one vegetable among them, but Pete's message does suggest that rapini/rabe distinction I was skeptical about earlier) has something of the sharp flavor of turnip, but a very different texture and feel to it, as well as having the little florets that resemble those of broccoli or perhaps cauliflower, which the other greens don't. And stalks, although tenderer than those of true broccoli. And there's no underground part of the rabe corresponding to the turnip "bulb". So no, broccoli rabe =/= turnip greens. larry > >--- Laurence Horn wrote: >> >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, >> funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: >> > >> ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli >> rape of which there are many >> > >> >cites in google? >> > >> > >> >> > >> >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper >> Italian term is "Broccoli >> >di rape". >> >> Right, from the Latin _(brassica) rapa_--all that is >> actually given >> in the AHD4 entry I posted earlier. Of course the >> Italian "rape" is >> bisyllabic. >> >> >I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in >> southern >> >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English >> because of the >> >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- >> probably the same reason >> >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." >> > >> >Steve Boatti > > >===== >James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything >South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued >jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > >__________________________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. >http://mailplus.yahoo.com From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Tue Jan 28 16:08:39 2003 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Hall) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:08:39 -0600 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I don't have my DARE on me at home, but my memory is that the dates >in their entries aren't intended to give first cites the way the >OED's are, but just as indices of when a given form was collected. >Is that wrong? DARE does try to include earliest cites, but it was only with Volume IV that we had access to Internet sources that often provide what now prove to be earliest examples. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 15:56:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:56:30 EST Subject: Congo Squares/Bars (1959) Message-ID: David Shulman left the hospital yesterday. The St. Nicholas Home kindly thought to give him some fresh air and left the window to his room open. It's FIVE DEGREES out! This David Barnhart thing is troubling. Where is he? I'll check "ginger ale" today on the BRITISH AND IRISH WOMEN'S LETTERS AND DIARIES database (only at NYU), then go to the NYPL, then scoot to Columbia for the AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES database (only at Columbia). This database searching is harder than you think. Below is a very early "Congo Squares" that beats the Harvard Square "Congo Bars" by over a decade. It's from Becky Mercuri, an ADS-L lurker with a lot of food knowledge and a gazillion cookbooks: Subj: Revised Info: Congo Bars Date: 1/27/2003 4:59:43 PM Eastern Standard Time From: Beckymercuri To: Bapopik Barry: My mom went on a search and destroy mission - the more she thought about the dating of Congo Bars, the more she decided they were later than 1950. She found them: Nestles Semi-Sweet Chocolate Kitchen Recipes, 1959, 64 pages. It's listed in Col. Bob Allen's A Guide to Collecting Cookbooks. The actual recipe appears as "Congo Squares." Becky From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 28 16:37:15 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:37:15 -0600 Subject: Superbowl Message-ID: First, thanx for the clarification about the Woody Allen movie "Manhattan." I think I made the final statement in my last e-mail a bit stronger than I intended. Now, to "Superbowl." I remember the great amount of hype that accompanied the first Superbowl. The football announcers had evidently been told to talk up the upcoming Superbowl, and in the preceding month or so there was continual mention of "the Superbowl on Super Sunday" (add emotional overtones of great anticipation; as one announcer said: "...the Superbowl on Super Sunday. I can't wait!") This all got to be a bit too much for one sportswriter, who wrote a humorous column attaching "super" to as many nouns as he could. I only remember one specific quote from this lampoon: "Then the super coach blew his super whistle,..." So, with football announcers talking up the Superbowl (or was it "the Super Bowl?) and with fans able to refer to it by no other term, this term was about as official as one could get whether or not a committee specifically authorized it. But football announcers don't go off on their own in talking up a new term/product/etc. They clearly had their marching orders. Those marching orders clearly came from above--from the highest authorities in football, whoever they were. It's therefore hard to imagine the term not being official right from the beginning. Gerald Cohen At 1:16 PM -0800 1/27/03, Dave Wilton wrote: >A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's >discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner >Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." >This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name >"superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. > >I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan >67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by >sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an >obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent >coinages. From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 16:51:03 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 11:51:03 EST Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/27/03 3:50:09 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: >    "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE.  It is an > American regionalism.  Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good > citational evidence are separate questions. > I'm certainly willing to be educated, but I found 8,000 hits for this on Google, from Hollywood to Rhode Island. It seems to me that anybody who eats seafood can conceive of seafood salad, and anybody who eats snails could well eat snail salad. So how can SNAIL SALAD be a genuine compound word at all, much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON or DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 17:04:22 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 12:04:22 EST Subject: Superbowl Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 11:39:52 AM Eastern Standard Time, gcohen at UMR.EDU writes: > But football announcers don't go off on their own in talking up > a new term/product/etc. They clearly had their marching orders. > Those marching orders clearly came from above--from the highest > authorities in football, whoever they were. No, football announcers (and other announcers as well, and do you "commentators"?) take their orders from their employers. Some football announcers work for the networks and some work for local stations. The networks hyped the Super Bowl because it meant high ratings for the actual broadcast, which means they could charge more for commercials. Local stations do not usually do much to hype network shows---why bother? the network is already doing that. It might be interesting to see whether annuncers working for local stations also hyped the Super Bowl. Perhaps they did not. No, the "highest authorities in football" did not give marching orders to the announcers. Why not? They didn't have to. Football, as a business, was interested in increasing its revenue, which a highly-publicized national championship would do. Hence football and the networks were allies in pushing the Super Bowl, and undoubtedly got together to plot advertising strategy, so it did not matter in practice that football did not give orders to announcers, since the networks were happy to. This brings up the purely academic question: was it football or the networks that invented the phrase "Super Bowl"? - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 17:14:02 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 12:14:02 -0500 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:37 AM -0600 1/28/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: > > So, with football announcers talking up the Superbowl (or was it >"the Super Bowl?) and with fans able to refer to it by no other term, >this term was about as official as one could get whether or not a >committee specifically authorized >it. But football announcers don't go off on their own in talking up >a new term/product/etc. They clearly had their marching orders. >Those marching orders clearly came from above--from the highest >authorities in football, whoever they were. It's therefore hard to >imagine the term not being official >right from the beginning. > >Gerald Cohen I'm not sure what determines officialness, but at the time it was often stated that the game was officially the NFC-AFC Championship Game and that the moniker "Super Bowl" was an unofficial sobriquet that everyone used illicitly, including (as I mentioned) the N. Y. Times columnists. Eventually the league (post-merger) gave way on that. I'm not sure why columnists, announcers, and ordinary folks couldn't use a term without the "marching orders" you mention, or why their use of such term entails that it was official at that time. League materials in the first couple of years consistently referred to it as the Championship Game, not as the Super Bowl. A parallel is in baseball, where the 7 game series between the National League and American League champions to determine the World Series participants, and more recently also the series leading up to those series, have been universally called the playoffs since they began in 1969 (when there was just the one pre-World Series series). But this has never been official usage, which only sanctions NLCS, ALCS, and (now) Divisional Series. Yes, these terms are popularly used as well, but alongside the unsanctioned "playoffs". Back to football: In the Times book, all the columnists spelled it "Super Bowl", on the model of "Rose Bowl", "Orange Bowl", etc. Larry From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Jan 28 18:31:59 2003 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:31:59 -0500 Subject: Query -- Scantily Clad Message-ID: Hello All. Thanks to the mud-wrestling commercial - I have this assignment. The early hits in the New York Times from the mid-to-late 1800's are literal. Poor, destitute children with not enough clothes on for the cold were "scantily clad." In 1861, a "recruit who was scantily clad for a sea voyage..." [NY Times]; in 1885, "a sandy waste, which is scantily clad with herbage." [OED]. Then, in 1897, "Father Adam and Mother Eve in their most primitive condition would blush for the unloveliness of their scantily clad descendants,..." about a day at the beach in Atlantic City. After that the "pejorative" sense proliferates, but is still generic. Now to modern day: I conducted a very unscientific experiment using Nexis: Plug in "scantily clad" in the last 60 days (90 won't work because it gives more than 1,000 and Nexis is persnickety about that) and you get 675 hits. Subtract women from the equation - it drops to 295. Similarly, - girl* drops to 207, -dancer* to 190, -waitress* to 173, -woman to 137, -cheerleader* to 131, - female* to 119, -babe* to 115, -virgin* to 111, -model* to 99, -chick* to 98. ["scantily clad superwomen amazons", and "scantily clad bimbos" were in there, but didn't cross my mind when conducting the search]. Of the 98 remaining [fudge factor, for some reason Nexis only gave me 95 when I downloaded] only 25 referred to something other than women, ie. men, feet, "spring breakers," tuna, etc. Some of the references to the "scantily clad" man are pejorative, most are literal, "scantily clad man found dead in home" sort of thing. Several show use of the idiotic phrase "scantily clad clothing." So the question is, how [and when, if anyone has an idea] did this completely innocuous phrase which meant someone just didn't have enough clothes on, move to a moral judgement about the amount of clothing someone was wearing, to a pejorative statement almost completely reserved for females? Any suggestions, other examples of such phrases, comments about my being off-base, miraculous answers - welcome. Thanks, Kathleen E. Miller Research Assistant to William Safire (who, without my huge wool/leather coat, would be "scantily clad" for our 29 degrees) The New York Times From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 18:38:57 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:38:57 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) In-Reply-To: <1ad.f88b02a.2b680ef7@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It > APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON or > DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. This raises an interesting question for Barry: Does Barry believe that "committee chairperson" and "lexicon inflater" should be in the OED? Everything I see in his postings suggests to me that his answer would be "yes." Fred -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 28 18:43:26 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:43:26 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. John Baker From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 28 18:50:51 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:50:51 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: Did someone call for a botanist? I'm a horticulturist, which is like calling for a supermodel and getting a dancer from a two dollar cover bar, but I seem to be the best you've got. All the vegetables in question here are in the genus Brassica and several of them are even the same species, Brassica oleracea. So turnip (Brassica rapa, just to confuse things) is a first cousin to broccoli (Brassica oleracea italica). But broccoli in its various forms, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, and others are more like identical twins raised in different families, being the same species with variations that have been selected out over the centuries from the same wild plant, a leafy cabbage. Because of the complex history, there is not unaminity among taxonomists -- there seldom is -- but here is how the NYT Book of Vegetable Garden shakes it out: broccoli Brassica oleracea italica cabbage Brassica oleracea capitata Brussels sprouts Brassica oleracea gemmifera cauliflower Brassica oleracea botrytis collards Brassica oleracea acephala kale (common) Brassica oleracea acephala Chinese cabbage Brassica chinensis and B. pekinensis kohlrabi Brassica caulorapa (listed with oleracea by some) mustard Brassica juncea rutabaga Brassica napobrassica turnip Brassica rapa Hortus III has a slightly different take on it, as does Bailey's Manual of Cultivated Plants. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World has about twenty pages that further confuse the issue. Barry, if you haven't looked at this book, you really should. None of this actually nails it. I went through some seed catalogs with emphasis on foreign ... I mean international seeds, and most duck the issue. But Pinetree Seed gives the following: "Broccoli di rapa. Called Broccoli Raab or Rapini in this country, this is actually a non-heading broccoli." None of this, of course, makes much difference once it's steamed with a little butter. D From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 28 19:01:00 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 11:01:00 -0800 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 28, 2003 1:43 PM -0500 "Baker, John" wrote: > Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing > snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad > with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the > latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee > chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. Or, e.g., if it DOESN'T actually contain snails, but rather something that reminded its inventor of snails. I.e., if the term is something like "dirty rice." Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 28 19:07:26 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 14:07:26 -0500 Subject: Query -- Scantily Clad Message-ID: I'm not sure I really see the claimed evolution of the phrase in your examples. As far as I can tell, "scantily clad" simply means "not wearing enough clothing," and it's maintained that meaning over time, although the phrase seems to have become more common and to be applied more frequently to sexually provocative attire. I suspect that such evolution as has occurred tells us less about the phrase than about societal mores and changing fashions: In recent decades, society has allowed women to wear less clothing but has condemned them for it. When men wear less clothing, however, it's not necessarily seen as sexually provocative. John Baker From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 19:07:32 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 14:07:32 EST Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: >>Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad with snails?  (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.)  If the latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee chairperson" to being a genuine compound word.>> I agree, but the strength of the claim rests really upon the degree to which the compound does not merely equal the sum of its parts, and perhaps on how important the referant is culturally. I don't see any evidence that the difference between SNAIL SALAD and 'a salad made from snails' is very important outside of a cookbook. And to Fred (below) ne might well ask what the upper limit is, e.g., what about CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISTION COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON SEAT? In a message dated 1/28/03 1:39:24 PM, fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU writes: > On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It > > APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON > or > > DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. > > This raises an interesting question for Barry:  Does Barry believe that > "committee chairperson" and "lexicon inflater" should be in the OED? > Everything I see in his postings suggests to me that his answer would be > "yes." > > Fred > From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Tue Jan 28 19:08:57 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:08:57 -0600 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: I can tell you that -- these days anyway -- if someone has "von" in their last name in Germany or German territories before WWII, it is highly likely (if not certain) that they are descended from nobility. Everyone in our little village of Hohnhorst, talked of "The Von Hohnhorsts" with somewhat of a mix of awe of their nobility and jealous snideness about the fact that they still owned most of the property in the village and just rented it to "regular people". I had a friend when studying in Tuebingen, who was a "Freiherr Johannes von ____". he said it was essentially a useless title of viscount (his older brother would be the count, I believe), that made him "unlanded gentry" because his family came West from Ostpressuen during and after the War. Then they settled in Southern Schwabia, about as dialectally different from Ostpreussen as one could get at the time.... -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joyce, Thomas F." To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 5:22 PM Subject: Re: "Van" in names > Didn't the ambitious young Beethoven seek entree among the upper classes by fostering the mistaken assumption that he was "von" not "van" Beethoven (Dutch somewhere on his father's side)? > > -----Original Message----- > From: FRITZ JUENGLING [mailto:juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US] > Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 3:37 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "Van" in names > > > The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Tue Jan 28 19:16:47 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:16:47 -0600 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: Sorry if this gets posted twice, but it seemed to send only to Vida the first time.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't think you are quite the ONLY Canadian here, but probably one of few. Anyway, I have heard "needs + PP" in Southern Ontario quite a bit. BUT, I need to add that many of the people I know in So Ontario are Amish/Mennonite, who came up from (mostly) PA, OH and IN, either 100 years ago, or in the newer settlements, about 20 years ago. Whichever time they (or their ancestors) came up to Canada, they could have brought that regionalism with them. They tend to be very conservative linguistically as well.... Then again, I cannot say I have ever consciously observed how many times I have heard it from Old Order Amish (OOA) versus Mennonites versus "regular Canadians". -- Millie PS - I NEVER heard it growing up in the Twin Cities in MN, until my German teacher (who was originally from PA) used it in class, and was ribbed about it for some time (he even said "warshed"). ----- Original Message ----- From: "vida morkunas" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 12:43 AM Subject: Re: needs washed > >Is it found anywhere in Canada? > > I have never heard 'needs washed', neither in my native Montreal, nor in > Vancouver (where I've lived since 1990) > > cheers - > > Vida. > vidamorkunas at telus.net > > ps: am I the only Canadian here? From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 20:02:21 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:02:21 -0500 Subject: Query -- Scantily Clad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:07 PM -0500 1/28/03, Baker, John wrote: > I'm not sure I really see the claimed evolution of the >phrase in your examples. As far as I can tell, "scantily clad" >simply means "not wearing enough clothing," and it's maintained that >meaning over time, although the phrase seems to have become more >common and to be applied more frequently to sexually provocative >attire. I suspect that such evolution as has occurred tells us less >about the phrase than about societal mores and changing fashions: >In recent decades, society has allowed women to wear less clothing >but has condemned them for it. When men wear less clothing, >however, it's not necessarily seen as sexually provocative. > >John Baker cf. _scanties_ for women's (and not men's) undergarments. I thought this was a relatively new usage, but consider: "Shuffle Off to Buffalo", from 42nd Street, 1932, Dubin (lyrics)/Warren (music) Dick Powell singing to Ruby Keeler: I'll go home and get my panties You go home and get your scanties And away we'll go; Mm, off we're going to shuffle, Shuffle off to Buffalo Interestingly, this relaxes the [+female] constraint on "panties" while maintaining it for "scanties". This constraint is observed by all the OED cites (except the ironical one from 1959) and implied by the gloss itself: SCANTY n. Now only pl. Underwear, esp. short knickers or panties for women. colloq. (orig. U.S.). 1928 J. P. MCEVOY Show Girl (title-page), The hottest little wench that ever shook a scanty at a tired business man. 1929 M. LIEF Hangover 269 There's no law in New Jersey forcing a husband to look at his wife's scanties, is there? 1934 T. SMITH Bishop's Jaegers 5 Whereas men..still struggle along with the old-fashioned..name of drawers..women have far outstripped them. Theirs must be known now by such frivolous... appellations as panties, scanties.. step-ins..and other similar..terms. 1944 E. CARR House of All Sorts 101 A puff of wind from the open door caught and ballooned the scanties. 1951 M. DICKENS My Turn to make Tea iv. 73 No don't go, dear. You've seen me in my scanties, anyway. 1959 'O. MILLS' Stairway to Murder vii. 75 'Now you've got some midnight-blue scanties.' He held up Charles's underpants apologetically. 1964 J. HALE Grudge Fight I. i. 22 Bennet, who always looks after number one, is wearing Scapa scanties next to the skin. Long underpants and a long-sleeved vest made of thick, oily wool. 1977 Time 24 Jan. 46/1 Maddie's blue scanties emerge from the M.P.s' briefcases at inauspicious moments and whip through the air like naval pennants. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 20:09:30 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:09:30 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) In-Reply-To: <634160.1043751660@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: At 11:01 AM -0800 1/28/03, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >--On Tuesday, January 28, 2003 1:43 PM -0500 "Baker, John" > wrote: > >> Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing >>snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad >>with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the >>latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee >>chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. > >Or, e.g., if it DOESN'T actually contain snails, but rather something that >reminded its inventor of snails. I.e., if the term is something like >"dirty rice." > e.g. if it's just very slow-moving salad From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 28 20:27:36 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:27:36 -0500 Subject: Broccoli Rabe Message-ID: Here we go. The Cooks Garden by Shepherd Ogden says: "A member of the mustard family that is often mistaken for broccoli is spring raab, or rapini. It is not really a broccoli at all, but was selected from turnips for its shoots and flowers. Gourmet Gardening from Organic Gardening (under Brassica campestris) "This variously-spelled vegetable is well known to Americans of Italian stock ... this tender shoot of the wintered-over turnip is as welcome sight in early April, when it parts the soil as one of the first greens of the new gardening year. Also called turnip broccoli, which is almost a direct translation of the Italian phrase broccolini di rapa ..." D From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 28 20:26:56 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 12:26:56 -0800 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <167.1ac87581.2b681216@aol.com> Message-ID: > This brings up the purely academic question: was it football > or the networks > that invented the phrase "Super Bowl"? Not "the networks," but perhaps "the media." The TV contract for the first Superbowl wasn't granted until mid-December 1966, well after use of the term was established. As to who invented it, as always one has to rely on the cites. Neither the OED cite or the one Barry provided uses the quotes on the term. To me this indicates that these aren't the first uses of the term. I expect that earlier cites will turn up and that the term was probably independently coined by a number of sportswriters. The NFL officials didn't object to it and eventually, some years later, embraced it. And was the hype for the first Superbowl all that big? (Being 3-years old at the time, my own memories are suspect.) I do know that about a third of the seats in the LA Coliseum were empty and the TV broadcast was blacked out in LA, so if there was a lot of hype it didn't work too well. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 20:31:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:31:28 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: "Snail salad" and "stuffies" deserve to be in the next volume of DARE, just as much as "New York System" (over 50 years off on the dating) and "May breakfast" (about 100 years off on the dating) and "doughboys" and "johnnycake" and "cabinet" were in previous DARE volumes. "Snail salad" wasn't mentioned by John Mariani in his ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK, and I just pointed out again that he missed some Americanisms. "Snail salad" also deserves serious consideration for the OED and the food book that David Barnhart is writing (wherever he is). "Lexicon inflator"? I have to respond to this? DARE and others can use my work for free. I spent my own money to take a train up to Providence. It cost me about $200, or about 20% of my lifetime earnings. Maybe sometime, somewhere, somehow, SOMEONE CAN THROW SOME KIND WORDS MY WAY? Maybe give me credit for my own work once in a while? Maybe I have to work much harder for a few more decades? Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with "lexicon inflator"? This is from the Sterns, authors of ROADFOOD and experts on American regional cuisine (taken from the earliest article in the Dow Jones database): LIFESTYLE / FOOD A TASTE OF AMERICA A QUIRKY OCEAN STATE SPECIALTY: RED, WHITE, AND PERFECT By Jane and Michael Stern, Syndicated Columnists, {C} 1987, Jane and Michael Stern 08/05/1987 The Record, Northern New Jersey For a little state, Rhode Island has a mighty big cuisine. In fact, there are few places anywhere in the United States with as vivid a sense of culinary self. First there is the actual matter of size. The classic Rhode Island meal is gigantic, whether it is all-you-can-eat chicken (accompanied by mountains of swirly cinnamon rolls) or an oceanside shore dinner of chowder, clam cakes, steamers, lobster, fish, and watermelon. At Archie's Tavern in Pawtucket, prime rib is listed on the menu as a "Neanderthal cut." Order pork chops, and you get three. The Boathouse Restaurant in Warwick features the "Eat 'Til You Drop" breakfast special: They keep bringing eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, pancakes, French toast, potatoes, and coffee until you tell them to stop. It is not just huge portions that make eating in Rhode Island so exhilarating. Athough Ocean State cuisine is Yankee in spirit, many of the specialties are unique, even quirky. Snail salad, johnnycakes, "New York system" hot dogs, "cabinets" (known to the rest of the world as milkshakes), stuffies (stuffed quahog clams), and clam cakes: No one else makes any of these quite the way they're made in Rhode Island. And that is the way the locals like it. Rhode Islanders are feisty when it comes to eating; they relish arguments. They will tell you, for instance, that a johnnycake (the cloud-light pancake for which the state is best known) is good only if it is made with ultrafine locally stone-ground white cornmeal. Furthermore, they debate among themselves whether johnnycakes should be plate-wide and paper-thin (as at Commons Lunch in Little Compton) or silver dollar size and pillowy (as at the Dovecrest Restaurant in Arcadia). Swordfish is another issue. Everybody knows that the finest swordfish are caught off Block Island. But netting 'em isn't good enough for Rhode Island seafood aficionados. They explain that if a fish is caught in a net, it gets dragged in the water for hours before it's pulled up. During that time, the flesh starts to soften. So they insist upon harpooned swordfish only, which are hauled in and dressed immediately. If you really want to engage an Ocean Stater in a culinary colloquy, bring up the issue of chowder. North of Rhode Island, chowder hounds insist that it be white and creamy. South, you'll find partisans of the creamless red variety (Manhattan style). Rhode Island has its very own style of chowder _ a creamless, tomato-less ocean broth containing little more than clams, potatoes, and the smack of salt pork. To confuse the matter even more, most local restaurants offer all three kinds, and some of the finest shore dinner halls sell a fourth, made with both cream and tomatoes! A fine place to investigate the chowder phenomenon, as well as Rhode Island gastronomy in all its summertime glory, is the Rocky Point Park Shore Dinner Hall. Here is shoreline eating at its happiest. Rocky Point is an amusement park. Its Chowderdome is an immense pavilion capable of serving 20,000 people a day at tables as long as bowling alleys. It is noisy and brusque, and it smells of cool ocean breezes and hot corn on the cob. Chowder is the heart and soul of every meal, whether you come for only chowder (accompanied by puffy clam cakes) or a full-scale shore dinner, from steamer clams and drawn butter to Indian pudding for dessert. The chowder they serve is the weird, fourth kind _ not New England, not Manhattan, not even the official clear Rhode Island variety. It is more like an ocean-scented cream of tomato soup. We have named our version Chowderdome Chowder in honor of Rocky Point. It's great with any seafood, from sophisticated fish to tuna salad sandwiches. CHOWDERDOME CHOWDER 1/4 pound salt pork, diced 1 onion, chopped 2 cups potatoes, diced 1 1/2 cups boiling water 2 cups chopped clams 1/2 cup chopped stewed tomatoes 1/8 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup cream Salt and pepper 8 saltine crackers 4 tablespoons butter Fry pork in skillet until crisp. Remove pork with slotted spoon and reserve. Fry onion in fat until soft. Pour fat and onion into stockpot. Add potatoes. Add water. Simmer until potatoes soften, about 15 to 20 minutes. Add clams. Mix tomatoes and baking soda and add to pot. Simmer 5 minutes. Stir in cream and heat to simmer, but do not boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place saltines at bottom of 4 soup bowls. Pour in soup. Top each serving with pat of butter, and garnish (if desired) with salt pork cracklings. DRAWING - WILLIAM HOGAN / THE RECORD - Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 28 20:52:42 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:52:42 -0500 Subject: screw loose/a screw Message-ID: This is from the NY Herald, May 27, 1842, p. 1, col. 5. [A convict, awaiting a trial on an additional charge, escaped "by walking out of the prison door in broad day light." The Herald complained that this was the 3rd escape in recent months.] The keeper must look to his "screws" as some of them are certainly more than loose. This alludes to the expression "to have a screw loose", which the OED cites from 1810, 1821, 1848, 1833, 1841, 1870. The citations are in that order, which seems odd. All I think are from English sources. So this passage, though 32 years later than the earliest citation, stands as the first American citation. In addition, the passage exhibits the word "screw", referring to a prison guard. Curiously, this sense isn't in the OED at all, although Partridge's Dictionary of the Underworld traces it to 1821, I think -- it's not to hand -- and it's also in Farmer & Henley. It was Brendan Behan's ordinary term for prison guard in Borstal Boy. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 20:58:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:58:28 -0500 Subject: Superbowl; Pescatarian, Deck Message-ID: PESCATARIAN, DECK From the NEW YORK SUN, 28 January 2003, pg. 1, col. 1: _Brooklyn's Happy Hipster Is Definitely "Deck"_ By LAUREN MECHLING Leave it to the author of "The Hipster Handbook" to ask a reporter to meet him at Oznot's Dish, a Williamsburg joint where, Zagat's cautions, "waiters with sideburns set the tone." Robert Lanham, 31, is all too happy to decree that everybody else in the restaurant is a hipster, but over a plate of vegetarian crepes (he's a pescatarian, thank you very much), he squirms when asked if he counts himself among them. Apparently, there's something Zen Koanish about being a hipster: If you are one, you wouldn't dare say so. And if you aren't one, then you can say whatever floats your boat. This mum's-the-word-when-asked-if-you're-a-hipster rule is just the tip of the iceberg in Mr. Lanham's super-sharp bible of what is cool, or, as he calls it, "deck." (...) ("Deck"?...There's a nice mention of "pescatorian" on the AskOxford web site. I couldn't find "pescatorian" beyond the 2 September 1994 post on Google Groups--ed.) --------------------------------------------------------------- "SUPER BOWL" AND MORE I just did a check of THE SPORTING NEWS here at NYU Bobst. 23 July 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 50, col. 5: Partisans of both sides will contend with heated eloquence until the "world-world" match reduces speculation to a hard fact next January. 5 November 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 2, col. 3: ...the super championship game between the National and American Football League winners on SUnday, January 8. 26 November 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 12, col. 3: Then early in the "mud bowl" game which the Pats and Broncos played in Fenway Park... 10 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 2, col. 3: _How About It, Boys? Let's Have Dream Bowl_ Commissioner Pete Rozelle--you're doing a nice job, Peter, with your championship game, the Runner-up Bowl, the Super Bowl and the Pro Bowl. How about going one step further and playing a Dream Bowl matching the stars of the American Football League against the stars of the National Football League? 17 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 6, col. 2: _Will Super Bowl Pot Nip Player Rebellion?_ (...) ...the first meeting of the league champions, generally called the Super Bowl. 24 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 7, col. 3: _Chiefs Dreaming of Cookie Jar_ (...) (They ought to call that bowl the Cookie Jar because the sweet swag is $15,000 each for the winners, $7,500 for the losers.) FWIW: HOT DOG 17 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 14, col. 3: It has already been noted by the punsters that when San Francisco hired Peanuts Lowrey as a coach, it was a great ad for the concessions stands. The Giants, in addition to selling Peanuts (Lowrey) to the public, have Cookie (Lavagetto) and (Herman) Franks. The Giants, it is said, also have a few "hot dogs," as temperamental players are called in the trade. FWIW: BIG APPLE 12 November 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 2, col. 3: Say you pick eight winners. You get 60 to 1 odds. You should get 255 to 1. Or try for the big apple. That's 10 out of 10. They'll give you a walloping 150 to 1. From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 21:00:10 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:00:10 EST Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: Mention of "not quite the ONLY Canadian" brings to mind the relative quiescence of Canadian dialect studies within the American Dialect Society in recent years. Our constitution declares that we study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary (H. Rex Wilson). But there has been only one Canadian on our annual meeting program for the past two years, and not necessarily with Canadian topics. Is it the fault of us who live south of the border? Do Canadians no longer feel welcome in ADS? Or is something else going on? - Allan Metcalf From self at TOWSE.COM Tue Jan 28 21:03:48 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:03:48 -0800 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > In a message dated 1/27/03 3:50:09 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE. It is an > > American regionalism. Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good > > citational evidence are separate questions. > > > > I'm certainly willing to be educated, but I found 8,000 hits for this on > Google, from Hollywood to Rhode Island. It seems to me that anybody who eats > seafood can conceive of seafood salad, and anybody who eats snails could well > eat snail salad. So how can SNAIL SALAD be a genuine compound word at all, > much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It > APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON or > DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. My quick Google search for /"snail salad" recipe/ didn't turn up any recipes for this dish, but I did find a few places where the ingredients were named. This, from a restaurant called Caffe Dolce Vita on Federal Hill in Providence: Snail Salad - Snails, onions, celery, olives, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, balsamic vinegar. [ref: ] Judging from this post to the Conch-L list [ref: ], the concoction is an Italian recipe, probably brought to RI by the families of those splendid folks who call Federal Hill home. "Busycon (carica and canaliculatum) are used in a tasty dish available at many restaurants and delis in this area. The english name is snail salad. It has an Italian name too, but if I try it I'll probably pick the wrong one. It's a mixture of thin-sliced Busycon meat (primarily the foot) with spices, vinegar, onions, celery, and probably a few things I don't know about. I believe the meat is marinated, but that's about all I know of it. I eat it but I don't make it." Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 21:05:25 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:05:25 EST Subject: Broccoli Rabe Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 3:27:20 PM, dcamp911 at JUNO.COM writes: << "A member of the mustard family that is often mistaken for broccoli is spring raab, or rapini. It is not really a broccoli at all, but was selected from turnips for its shoots and flowers. >> This makes some etymological sense. The term "broccolo" in Italian originally meant "shoot" (of a plant). Thus "broccoli (or broccolini) di rapa" literally means turnip shoots. Steve Boatti From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 28 21:10:37 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:10:37 -0500 Subject: pet names for oysters Message-ID: Look out, folks. Food terms are coming at you from an unexpected angle. Why should Barry have all the fun? The OED lists some varieties of oyster. I noticed bluepoint, Malpeque, Milton and Olympia, for instance. Chickamora is not in the OED, however, nor the Dictionary of Americanisms. OYSTERS. -- Florence, 240 Broadway, has just received a fresh supply of the choicest oysters -- chickamora of the old bed -- also cave and channels. *** NY Herald, April 20, 1842, p. 2, col. 4 The following story, also from the Herald of 1842, shows that New Yorkers then realized that the oyster was more than just a comestible. A Mysterious Affair. *** [a brawl in a low tavern.] Turner left a few minutes after to get an oyster to put on Crandall's black eye, and when he returned Black and Purdy were among the missing. NY Herald, March 4, 1842, p. 2, cols. 3-4 Also from the Herald, a description of an up-scale restaurant. AN HOUR IN THE KREMLIN. -- After sauntering on the sunny side of Broadway, until [he became hungry, JGB begins to think about finding a restaurant; he decides on The Kremlin, because it is] now the "Very's" or Gotham, the El Dorado of "bon vivants." *** Upon ascending a flight of marble stairs, of milky whiteness, we found ourself in the Salle a Manger. *** Recovering in due course of time our wonted presence of mind, and espying a country acquaintance sipping from his Demi Tasse at one of the tables, we seated ourself opposite him. In a moment the garçon presented us with a bill of fare, commencing with a potage a la Julienne, and following that, salmon with shrimp sauce, Riz de veau a la financier, and some three or four veritable entrements (sic) Francais, brought us to a pause. *** "And who is that tall, self-satisfied looking gentleman with an eye-glass, so gingerly removing his perfumed kid?" "That is the 'man about town.'" *** Dispatching our mocha and maraschino, and walking up to the captain's office, where we were again surprised at the very small charge for our dinner, we bade adieu to these delightful saloons. NY Herald, April 29, 1842, p. 2, col. 5. I do not know how it came about that the proprietor chose the name of "Kremlin" for his place. For most or all of these terms, this is the earliest U. S. Citation, if the OED has a U. S. cite at all. THe OED has: bon vivant: OED: a1695, 1798, 1824, 1862 Salle a Manger: OED: 1762, 1862, 1887 Demi Tasse: OED: 1842, 1870, 1897, &c garçon: OED: 1788, 1829, 1839, 1850, 1942 -- all clearly refer to use by travellers in France or Italy, except perhaps 1829 potage a la Julienne: OED 1841, 1883 (julienne) shrimp sauce: OED has citations with this phrase from 1747, 1758, 1855 Riz de veau: OED: 1820, 1861, 1877, 1927 a la financier: OED: not found mocha and maraschino: OED has mocha from 1773; maraschino from 1791/93; the combination from 1875 man about town: OED: 1734, &c; no U. S. cites, except perhaps 1979 GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Tue Jan 28 12:35:53 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 07:35:53 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Query on "No-Fly Zone" Message-ID: Début du message réexpédié : > De: "Hirohito Onishi  大西博人" > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 05:33:36 America/New_York > À: > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > Dear Sirs, > I am a teacher of English at a public high school in Kobe, Japan. I > have been interested in current English. I want to find out the origin > of "no-fly zone" which has appeared in many articles concerning with > Iraq for almost a decade. > I guess this phrase came into being together with the develpment of > aricraft and anti-air defense. When was it that this phrase was first > used in a written form, I wonder? I would appreciate it very much if > you might be kind enough to let me know about it. > Thanks. January 28, 2003 > > Hirohito Onishi (Mr.) > E-mail: lifeisabitch at infoseek.jp > > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 28 23:06:26 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:06:26 -0500 Subject: Congo Squares/Bars (1959) In-Reply-To: <4b.29fb2bd6.2b68022e@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: # David Shulman left the hospital yesterday. The St. Nicholas Home kindly #thought to give him some fresh air and left the window to his room open. #It's FIVE DEGREES out! No wonder he left. Seriously, I'm glad he's well enough to go home. -- Mark A. Mandel From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Tue Jan 28 23:21:46 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:21:46 -0500 Subject: Query: Homographs Message-ID: Début du message réexpédié : > De: "Alan J. Friedman" > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). I have read that, in > contrast to the multitude of homonyms, there are less than 100 > homographs. Are there any scholars who may have a running list of > homographs? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 23:28:17 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:28:17 EST Subject: Query: Homographs Message-ID: In a message dated 01/28/2003 6:22:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > > pronounciation. heteronyms? From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 29 00:09:43 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 19:09:43 -0500 Subject: Query: Homographs In-Reply-To: <39.330e2c06.2b686c11@aol.com> Message-ID: >Could you have watched the Super Bowl instead? dInIs, who always liked "polish" >In a message dated 01/28/2003 6:22:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, >gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > >> > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, >> > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon >> > pronounciation. > >heteronyms? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 01:51:21 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 20:51:21 -0500 Subject: Wish(ing) bone (1847, 1850, 1853) Message-ID: Andy Smith (editor of the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK) mentioned on the train to Providence that he did some work on the Americanism "wishbone" (also called "merrythought"). Michael Quinion's World Wide Words addressed the topic, and you can look it up on Google Groups at rec.food.historic. OED has 1860 and Merriam-Webster has 1853 for "wishbone." This is from ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES. ITEM #8054 October 7, 1847 THE NATIONAL ERA Washington, D.C., Vol. I No. 40 p. 1 For the National Era. RECOLLECTIONS OF COUNTRY LIFE. ----- BY PATTY LEE. ----- CAROLINE BRADLEY'S QUILTING. ----- CHAPTER V. (...) 'Begin to feel, as well I might, The keen demands of appetite.'" So saying, she ran laughingly down stairs. Whether her admirer quilted any better, I am not able to say; but he consoled himself by acting the agreeable to Miss Lane, a plain but superior woman, to whom I shall devote a chapter one of these days. Supper was soon announced, but, in these days of spiritualists and Grahamites, I am almost afraid to tell about the chickens and sweet potatoes, and peaches and cream, that graced the snowy cloth of our hostess. Sally did the honors of the coffee urn, and Caroline "handed round the things," and Dr. Watson made himself generally useful; but notwithstanding all, some of the ladies were soon heard to say, "thank you, I've eaten very hearty!" while Sally "Pressed the bashful strangers to their food, And learned the luxury of doing good;" and Caroline said they had nothing very inviting. Then came the breaking of the "<< wish-bones>> ;" but the girls all refused to tell their wishes, excepting Hannah, who wished aloud, as she broke the mystic bone with the good-natured Mrs. Bradley, that she might have a charming beau to wait upon her home. "Did you ever!" exclaimed the hostess. "What a strange wish!" said the girls, hiding their faces; but the Doctor said, bowing gracefully to Hannah, who was merrily drawing the bones from the plump hand of the hostess, to see if she should get her wish, that he should be too happy, if to verify her wish were in his power. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ITEM #20905 January 3, 1850 THE NATIONAL ERA Washington, D.C., Vol. IV No. 157 p. 1 For the National Era. THE LOST AND FOUND. ------- A STORY OF THANKSGIVING DAY. (LONG! Jump to end!--ed.) ----- BY MARY IRVING. ----- "Hoowa for Thanksgiving Day;" chirruped a fat three-year-old, bursting in his night-gown into Farmer Talbot's warm kitchen. He was trying to unlock two bright blue eyes, that Sleep had sealed up pretty fairly, and cut quite a ludicrous figure with his stentorian "Hoowa!" "Bravo, Bobby! Bravo-o-o!" laughed the grandfather from his chimney corner. "Try it again, Bobby; you'll keep up the honor of the family. Come here, sir!" Bobby's eyes were fairly open by this time - he had found his mother, and took refuge in the folds of her cheek dress, sucking his thumb in quiet thankfulness. Mamma looked around from the gridiron she was superintending, with a gentle smile. That smile seemed rather sad, methinks, for the scene and the day; but we will know more of her. Thanksgiving was always a joyous time at Grandfather Talbot's, not merely for its turkeys, puddings, and pies - though (softly be it spoken) Grandmamma Talbot and her daughters did excel all other grandmammas and aunties at a roaster - in the estimation of the grandchildren, large and small. But Farmer Talbot and his "guide-wife" were stanch old Puritans - two of that good old stock with which our blessed New England shores were planted. This stock has been grafted with many other and foreign shoots since - but is it not still the tree of our nation's prosperity? It has long been fashionable to ridicule the quaint manners and the starched strictness of the Puritans. Children are taught to picture them as forever conning a psalm-book with a nasal twang - as the deadly foes of all cheerfulness and merriment. Is not this almost treason to the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers who sleep beneath us? Foes to the wild exuberance of untamed spirits, they were indeed - and often too prone to stretch every mind to their own stature of opinion and feeling. But they were a cheerful race. The happiest, yes, the merriest Thanksgiving day that brightened my young life was spent beneath the roof of a stanch Puritan old lady, one of the few that linger, like sombre evergreens in Autumn, among the more gay and careless of this generation. Farmer Talbot kept Thanksgiving day religiously as well as cheerily. Good old patriarch! He might be forgiven the pride with which he glanced round on his seven children, with all their little ones around him, and then lifted up his hand to bless Heaven in their behalf. But for three years, ever since the little Bobby had been a sunbeam to bless the good old man's hearth, there had been a shadow, too, upon it - a gentle shadow, but a sad one. That shadow was the graceful mother of the child - the favorite daughter of the family. Adelaide Talbot was beautiful and lovely in her youth, dearly loved by all, but best by those of her own fireside circle. She was, indeed, the richest gem in that circlet. When the long lashes were lifted from her ever-changing cheek, you could look into the very soul of the high-minded, sunny-hearted girl. Six years before, she had stood in her father's low parlor on Thanksgiving eve - she had stood between that father and another to whose face she lifted her soul-speaking eye, his bride of an hour. And as the good mother's raspberry wine, carefully bottled for the occasion, went round, she dreamed not that in that cup lurked a demon that should yet overthrow the altar just erected. Caleb Reynolds was now a drunkard, and a deserter from his home. He had enlisted - it was thought, in an hour of intoxication - but his wife was left to learn it from other lips. He went, without one word of farewell, to the plains of Mexico - and never since had she heard of him. Poor Adelaide carried her crushed heart back to her father's house, longing only to lay it in the grave. Have you ever seen a tree in our Western forests, blighted by "girding," as the woodsmen call it - cut off from its connection with the life-giving earth, and then left to wither for years? I never pass such a tree without thinking of the slow death of the heart, to which some writer has strikingly compared it. It was thus that Adelaide stood among the other plants of her father's nurture. Have you ever seen, from such a girded tree, a young shoot spring out, and, striking down its fibres, form a feeble connection with the bark below, and sustain a sure though sickly life in the tree? It was thus that little Robert came, to bind a few broken fibres from her early hopes and dreams to earth. But we are forgetting our Thanksgiving. None of the aunties forget it, however - or the cousins; and by the time Farmer Talbot's "big sleigh" had emptied its contents twice upon the old salt-sprinkled stone step, all were brought home from church, and all were there. All - except two unaccountable stragglers, "the boys," as two striplings nearly six feet high continued to be called, who were cultivating the sciences in a college not many miles away. And why were they not there? So questioned every one; and grandmamma did not answer - only wiped her spectacles every two minutes on her apron, and peered out of the southwest window. Meanwhile the new-comers were all clustered in the "sitting room,' making a merry use of the interlude between service and dinner. There was Robert, the eldest son, with his romping family and anxious-looking wife. there was Charlotte - no, nobody knew her by that name - Lottie, blooming in her prime, and managing her little ones to a charm. There was Philip, the "old bachelor," though by no means a crusty one. Next him sat a pale, stiff-looking cousin from the nearest factory village. Last, but not least - though, in truth, she was a little one - was the "schoolma'am,' - the youngest of her father's flock, the laughing, fun-loving Susie. She was not beautiful, as Addie had been, but there was such a world of good nature in her low broad forehead and dimpling cheeks, that you loved her at first sight. I will not attempt her portrait, for I do not know that she ever sat still long enough to have it taken, except in church. This day she was here, and there, and everywhere, among the children, kissing one, romping with another, and then tossing up Robert's baby, to the terror of its mamma and the delight of all others. "You must let me go to help grandmamma take up the turkey, indeed you must," cried Susan, laughing, as she pushed through the doorway, followed by the whole scampering troop. One had sprung from the top of the arm-chair to her shoulder, and sat crowing like a parrot on his perch. As she advanced towards the kitchen, the outer door was thrown suddenly open, and "A merry Thanksgiving to you!" burst from the lips of the intruders, amid the renewed shouts of the boisterous brood. "Bless me, where did you drop from?" cried the mother, dropping her ladle into the coals in her surprise. "Why brothers, we never heard your sleigh bells," exclaimed Susan, throwing off her encumbrance, and heartily welcoming the young collegians. "I dare say not," replied Edward, as he knocked the snow from his boots. "We chartered other sort of vehicles - hey, Will?" "The fact is," explained Will, "that we started with the sunrise this morning, but met with a most provoking 'break-down' by the way. So, not to be cheated out of our Thanksgiving, we footed it through the drifts. We've lost Parson Wood's sermon, but we're in time for mother's dinner; and I assure you a walk of eight miles has given us a pair of appetites." So they sat down to dinner at least, all the loving and the merry ones. Grandfather hushed them for a moment, while he lifted his bronzed hands over the huge platter, and invoked bountiful Heaven in a lengthy but fervent "blessing." Then followed the usual clattering, and - but I need not describe it all; you see it as well as I do. The "<< wish-bone>> " (a great prize that) fell to the share of the shyest one, little blue-eyed Nelly, who carefully wrapped it in her white apron, as a sacred treasure. "Coz, may I break with you," screamed her cousin Harry, from the other end of the table. "No; I am going to break with" -- "With whom, I should like to know?" "With Aunt Susie, then," said the little dove, nestling timidly to her side." "Aunt Susie - ha, ha! Aunt Susie would look finely breaking a << wish-bone>> ." "And why not, Master Harry?" said Susan, merrily. "I assure you I have broken more than one << wish-bone>> at this very table." "And did your wishes ever come to pass - did they ever, Aunt Susie?" cried three voices at once. "Yes, did they ever, Aunt Susie?" chimed in Edward, casting up from his plate a sidelong, demure glance, that brought blushes and dimples to her cheeks. Susie had seen some quiet little flirtations, even under he father's Argus eye. Suddenly her face grew serious. She caught Adelaide's expression of countenance, as the latter quietly rose from the table, and made some excuse for withdrawing. The "<< wish-bone>> " was broken to a charm - snapping exactly in the middle, to the infinite amusement of the juveniles, who had been making bets on the result. The "babies" went to sleep at the right hour precisely, and were packed into their snug candles with blankets and pillows. The elders of the juvenile community were ensconced in a corner to play "button;" and the brothers and sisters clustered in quiet little knots. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ITEM #3318 January, 1853 Godey's Lady's Book Philadelphia Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Vol XLVI Page 41 THE MERRY THOUGHT. BY THE AUTHOR OP "MISS BREMER'S VISIT TO COOPER'S LANDING," "GETTING INTO SOCIETY," "BOARDING-HOUSE POLITICS," ETC. (...) I will tell you what did happen: Nannie and Augusta chanced to be visiting a mutual friend in New York the next winter, when Augusta was delightfully surprised to see her cousin's name in the list of passengers just arrived from Savannah. Of course he called on them, and was happy to renew his acquaintance with Miss Barton, taking the cousinly liberty of seeing the ladies very often, and being promoted to serve in a series of New Year's Tableaux, then in preparation, in which they were both to appear as "belles of the olden time." The rehearsals, not en costume, went off very cleverly, and the important night arrived. Now it so chanced that our friends were to appear in the very first scene, and came down to the little boudoir appointed for a withdrawing-room, before any of the rest, and here Mr. Grayson found them, opening the door softly, intending a surprise. He scarcely recognized them at first in their old-time costume, Nannie in a bodice of pearl gray satin, with white cambric sleeves, and no adornment but a broad black ribbon about her fair throat. Augusta's little figure tried to look imposing in a dark close-fitting velvet, set off by the identical Mechlin lace belonging to her mother, which had arrived the day before, per Adams's Express, from Philadelphia. And there, like two very unromantic young people, to say nothing of the dignity befitting their costume, they were playfully quarrelling over a merrythought, or "<< wishing-bone>> ," as the children call it, secured from the lunch that had just been served up to the performers. "I declare, Nan, you are not fair," he heard Augusta say; "you have taken hold too high up, and I know you are going to wish to be my cousin, after all! Come, now, confess!" "Nonsense, Augusta: come, pull: there now!" Gerard Grayson would have given his new seal ring to know which won; but he concluded it would not do to appear just then. He was discovered, a few moments after, in the dressing-room, making a very dark mustache of burnt cork on his upper lip, in deep absence of mind. Now this was entirely unsuited to his costume, the sober garb of a young country squire of years ago, and it cost him some trouble to efface it. He had already sacrificed his own cherished mustache to the character, and the brown flowingwig parted in the middle, was received with bursts of applause and laughter, as he presented himself to his fair companions, who were unsuspicious of what he had seen and heard. As the curtain fell after they had been duly admired, Gerard Grayson heard Augusta whisper, "a penny for your thoughts," and then Nannie certainly did blush, and turn her eyes away from his questioning look. "After all, they were married?" Yes, and never, till then, did Gerard allude to the omnibus disaster. They were at Niagara on their bridal tour last summer, and were waiting for the gong to sound for dinner, when he noticed that Nannie wore a flounced tissue. Both smiled, and the young bride hid her face on his shoulder as she said, "Truly, Gerard, tell me, what did you think?" "You won't scold me if I tell you, as you did when I confessed about the << wishing-bone>> ?" "No, indeed, if you will be candid." "Well, then, I could not help noticing shall I tell you? that the tear had revealed a very neat and very pure underskirt, and I have such a horror of a sloven! Not even a 'merrythought,' you see, dear!" Was there ever a less romantic confession for believers in love at first sight! From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 03:03:11 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 22:03:11 EST Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 3:34:54 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: >    Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with > "lexicon inflator"? > There is a difference between SNAIL SALAD on the one hand and "stuffies ... New York System ... ... May breakfast ... doughboys ... johnnycake and cabinet." These items are all opaque. Their meaning is not apparent from the sum of the parts of each. Dictionaries are less inclined to consider compounds as worthwshile entries if they are opaque and highly productive. Probably few people outside the South eat collard salad, but that doesn't mean that COLLARD SALAD is a regionalism. The fact that somebody in 1987 said that people in Rhode Island eat snail salad doesn't make the eating of snails regional, nor does it make SNAIL SALAD regional. Anywhere that people eat snails and meat salad they doubtless eat snail salad. This includes Hollywood, which is a right far piece from Rhode Island. I hope David Barnhardt is outtside playing with his children in the coastal New Yorrk snow. He is a good guy and I'm sorry folks seem to think he is lost. Maybe he went to Chicago to eat snail salad with all the Italians who settled there. Or to New Orleans to eat snail salad with the French. From self at TOWSE.COM Wed Jan 29 03:18:05 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 19:18:05 -0800 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > In a message dated 1/28/03 3:34:54 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with > > "lexicon inflator"? > > > There is a difference between SNAIL SALAD on the one hand and "stuffies ... > New York System ... ... May breakfast ... doughboys ... johnnycake and > cabinet." These items are all opaque. Their meaning is not apparent from the > sum of the parts of each. Dictionaries are less inclined to consider > compounds as worthwshile entries if they are opaque and highly productive. > Probably few people outside the South eat collard salad, but that doesn't > mean that COLLARD SALAD is a regionalism. > > The fact that somebody in 1987 said that people in Rhode Island eat snail > salad doesn't make the eating of snails regional, nor does it make SNAIL > SALAD regional. Anywhere that people eat snails and meat salad they doubtless > eat snail salad. This includes Hollywood, which is a right far piece from > Rhode Island. > > I hope David Barnhardt is outtside playing with his children in the coastal > New Yorrk snow. He is a good guy and I'm sorry folks seem to think he is > lost. Maybe he went to Chicago to eat snail salad with all the Italians who > settled there. Or to New Orleans to eat snail salad with the French. According to the second reference I cited earlier ([ref: ]), the "snail" in the RI "snail salad" is actually whelk or conch, not those tasty little gastropods that leave slime trails in the garden. FWIW, I find both RI and other eastern seaport areas offering "scungilli salad", "scungilli" being the Italian name for the whelk or conch. Would calling the salad "snail salad" when it's really whelk/conch/scungilli qualify as a regionalism? And, oh yum. Popping /scungilli recipe/ into my search engine of choice brings up conch fritter recipes as well as scungilli alla Sorrentina, scungilli marinara, ... Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 29 03:17:11 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 19:17:11 -0800 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. In-Reply-To: <173.1568f120.2b689e6f@aol.com> Message-ID: >There is a difference between SNAIL SALAD on the one hand and "stuffies ... I tend to agree with Ron on this. I mean is tuna salad or chicken salad listed specifically in dictionaries? On the other hand, >New York System ... What is that??? I know someone else asked a couple of days ago, but I haven't seen a response. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 05:07:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:07:16 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: I feel that "snail salad" is worth recording, certainly for the various people who read my posts. Ron doesn't think it's recording outside of a cookbook. We disagree. The travelin' Sterns say that "snail salad" is uniquely Rhode Island. DARE will have to give it consideration. Say it's included in the next DARE. I've done work for no pay. Say it's NOT included in the next DARE. And say that OED is not interested. And say OUP's OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK is not interested. And say that David Barnhart is not interested for his book. What do you want me to do then? Apologize to everyone on the ADS-L list for not cutting "snail salad" out of a post that also included "rabe"? Shoot myself? Jump off a bridge? Isn't "snail salad" for all of those groups to decide for _themselves_, after reading about it? Do we have to have a flame about this? Don't I ever do anything that you do like? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 05:20:33 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:20:33 -0500 Subject: Cough Drops (1799) Message-ID: "Cough drops" can possibly be included as "candy" in the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. OED has 1851, but Merriam-Webster has an earlier 1831 for "cough drop." The American Periodical Series online has these early hits: 1806, LITERARY MISCELLANY, pg. 358: "_Cough drops_ and _infallible cures for consumptions_ are manufactured by the disinterested friends of humanity, and our shops are furnished with the means of resuscitation, like the huts on the desolate beach for the shipwrecked mariner." 1 November 1817, THE ATHENEUM, Vol. 2, Iss. 2, pg. 88 title: _Quack medicines, pectoral balsams, cough drops, and lotions._ 10 May 1823, SATURDAY EVENING POST, pg. 3 ad: DR. MELLEN'S Cough Drops. (There were many "cough drop" ads in this periodical--ed.) This is from the PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, full text on Accessible Archives: ITEM #82760 April 17, 1799 The Pennsylvania Gazette REMOVAL GEORGE ABBOTT, Apothecary and Druggist. HAS removed from No. 69 to 85, Market street, lately occupied by Owen Biddle, deceased, and has for sale, as usual, a general assortment of fresh DRUGS and MEDICINES, of the first quality. Also a valuable assortment of PATENT MEDICINES, amongst which are Robberds's Balsamic Elixir, Church's << Cough Drops>> , For consumptions. Hill's Balsam of Honey, Coltsfoot Lozenges, for coughs and colds, Steere's Chemical Opodildock, for sprains, bruises and rheumatism. Jesuits Antivenerial Drops and electuary. Keyser's ditto Pills. Ching's Worm destroying Lozenges. Gowland's Lotion for the face and skin. Salt of Lemon, for removing spots and stains, &c. Likewise Dying and Colouring Drugs, Paints, Oil and Glass. Prescriptions from medical practitioners particularly attended to, and orders from the country executed with care and dispatch. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 05:48:32 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:48:32 -0500 Subject: Crock Pot (1970) Message-ID: "Crock pot" is often used as a generic, like "band aid" or xerox." From today's NEW YORK TIMES: _Slow and Low Is the Way to Go_ By MARK BITTMAN IT cost me $30. I call it the Monster of Braising. I use it almost every day. Go ahead and sneer. I love my slow cooker. Essentially a small, closed electric pot that provides extremely low and reliably even heat, the slow cooker is simple, safe and, as long as you don't try to stretch its capabilities, virtually foolproof. You may know it as the Crock-Pot. The Rival Company, now owned by the Holmes Group, trademarked that name when it introduced the product in 1971. (...) From the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Word Mark CROCK-POT Goods and Services IC 011. US 021. G & S: ELECTRIC COOKING APPLIANCES-NAMELY, CASSEROLES. FIRST USE: 19701105. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19701105 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72376956 Filing Date November 23, 1970 Registration Number 0928614 Registration Date February 8, 1972 Owner (REGISTRANT) RIVAL MANUFACTURING COMPANY CORPORATION MISSOURI 3601 BENNINGTON STREET KANSAS CITY MISSOURI 941291893 (LAST LISTED OWNER) RIVAL COMPANY, THE CORPORATION BY ASSIGNMENT DELAWARE 1 HOLMES WAY, BLDG. A MILFORD MASSACHUSETTS 01757 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20020222. Renewal 2ND RENEWAL 20020222 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE From pds at VISI.COM Wed Jan 29 06:57:57 2003 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:57:57 -0600 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <009201c2c581$805fa4c0$7001a8c0@HP> Message-ID: I viewed John Sayles' "The Return of the Secaucus 7" last night. I noted two instances of "Fuckin' A". One clearly indicated agreement with what had just been said. The other is probably best glossed as "Wow!". Not surprize, really. More like amazement. I couldn't find a screenplay on-line, so I can't give the quotations. At 03:25 PM 1/26/2003 -0600, Millie Webb wrote: > I did not have the sense at all, growing >up (in the 70s and 80s -- having almost never heard it since then) that it >meant something like "you are so right". To me, it was always much more of >a rejoinder of surprise, or even upset (for example, "Fuckin-A, I can't >believe he did that."). Maybe I just misunderstood it all those years, but >I certainly had the sense in the groups I "hung" in, that it was somewhat >negative, always a surprise, and sometimes even a shocked response. -- >Millie Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Wed Jan 29 08:53:32 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 08:53:32 -0000 Subject: Wish(ing) bone (1847, 1850, 1853) In-Reply-To: <4051E880.2D00DBA1.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: > Andy Smith (editor of the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & > DRINK) mentioned on the train to Providence that he did some work > on the Americanism "wishbone" (also called "merrythought"). Michael > Quinion's World Wide Words addressed the topic, and you can look > it up on Google Groups at rec.food.historic. You'll find my piece, FWIW, at . -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 14:46:40 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 09:46:40 EST Subject: a hard, gem-like flame Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/03 12:22:07 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: >   Do we have to have a flame about this? >    Don't I ever do anything that you do like? > I didn't think that I was "having a flame about this." I'm always eager to apologize if I've offended. I was just trying to have a discussion about a couple of linguistic issues that Barry raised in suggesting that SNAIL SALAD belongs in DARE. And I got some discussion of the nature of regionalisms and what might qualify SNAIL SALAD as a word and not just the result of a productive noun adjunct process. And even a little bit of discussion on compounding as a process. These are issues that interest me. I'm still not convinced that SNAIL SALAD is a regionalism, despite the fact that some people in Rhode Island and Hollywood may make their SNAIL SALAD out of conches, which are just big snails, after all. I'm still not convinced that it is really a "word" in the sense of plausible dictionary entry. Barry feels otherwise. The people who actually put the dictionaries together get the last word. I will be happy either way. And maybe I'll have learned something from the discussion. I do think of this list as more than just a site for listing zillions of food terms from around the world and zillions of antedatings (and complain that the world doesn't appreciate them, despite the great personal expenses that their lexicographical efforts cost them). I don't mean to suggest for a moment that the LISTINGS are inappropriate, and it is clear that many others find them interesting (and are at least willing to accept the complaints as a worthwhile trade-off that can be amusing). And it takes me very little time to delete them without reading them, though I do occasionally open one if the headword catches my eye. So, live and let live, eh? I hope if Barry does indeed jump off a bridge (as he suggests he may do) that he does it off a very low bridge into some very warm water. I try do that every once in a while when I'm on my travels. And then I crawl up into a beach chair, read a book for its content and not its lexicographical significance, and just CHILL OUT. From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 15:21:05 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 10:21:05 EST Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: >From a correspondent - <> - Allan Metcalf From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Wed Jan 29 16:11:19 2003 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas M. Paikeday) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:11:19 -0500 Subject: SNAIL BUTTER [was Re: Re: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?)] Message-ID: Good question. "Snail salad" could be a genuine compound word like "snail butter" (Joy of Cooking). TOM www.paikeday.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Baker, John" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 1:43 PM Subject: Re: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) > Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. > > John Baker From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 29 16:13:19 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:13:19 -0500 Subject: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Davis, Iain E. wrote: #Hmm. Define "online". # #If it means "at a computer", It's probably something close to 100 #hrs/wk for me. I certainly wouldn't call it that, any more than being in a room with a radio -- not necessarily turned on -- counts as listening to the radio. "Online", to me, means actively using the Internet (including its subset the WWW). Well, I guess it could depend on context. If my machine is connected to the Internet and I get an alert when email arrives, even if I'm using a local app, then I could say that I'm online in the sense of being accessible by Internet, but not in the sense of where my attention is. I find this question interesting linguistically, and I'm bcc-ing this post to the American Dialect Society's discussion list. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 16:23:10 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 08:23:10 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: [warning: taboo language, reference to gay male sex acts, possibly more information about my private life than you'd like. if any of these things make you uneasy, skip this posting.] tom kysilko reports on instances of "fuckin' a" in sayles' The Return of the Secaucus 7. i can now report on multiple instances of the expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick starring a guy whose stage name is Zak Spears. (yes, the names are often hilarious.) spears varies the frequent "yeah, yeah" of the genre with "fuckin' a". what makes this (possibly) worth reporting is that on a number of occasions when he utters "fuckin' a" meaning 'yeah, oh yes', he is in fact fuckin' a (and at least a few times when he says it he's playing catcher rather than pitcher), so that we get what is almost surely an unintended combination of the formulaic expression and its literal applicability. no other participant (i hesitate to say "actor") in the film uses "fuckin' a", and i don't recall its use in other films in the genre. presumably it's a piece of improvisation by spears, something he says naturally; scripting in these movies tends to be minimal, especially in the sweatier sections. of course, it's true that people (regardless of sex or sexuality, in real life and in the movies) sometimes cry out the exclamation "fuck" while engaged in intercourse, without any intention of referring to sexual acts. in that context, "fuck" is an alternative to, among other things, "oh god", "christ", "jesus" (none of these carrying any religious commitment), or "shit". (i'm probably not the first person to point out that the path of "shit" from 'feces' to an exclamation of dismay to an exclamation of strong feeling, usable even in contexts of pleased surprise or joy, involves, in its last step, an astonishing bit of amelioration, especially remarkable in that the much milder "piss" has made it only to the exclamation-of-dismay stage. probably not a suitable example of amelioration for semantics textbooks, though.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 16:28:45 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:28:45 -0500 Subject: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:13 AM -0500 1/29/03, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Davis, Iain E. wrote: > >#Hmm. Define "online". ># >#If it means "at a computer", It's probably something close to 100 >#hrs/wk for me. > >I certainly wouldn't call it that, any more than being in a room with a >radio -- not necessarily turned on -- counts as listening to the radio. >"Online", to me, means actively using the Internet (including its >subset the WWW). > >Well, I guess it could depend on context. If my machine is connected to >the Internet and I get an alert when email arrives, even if I'm using a >local app, then I could say that I'm online in the sense of being >accessible by Internet, but not in the sense of where my attention is. > >I find this question interesting linguistically, and I'm bcc-ing this >post to the American Dialect Society's discussion list. > I think it has to allow for the latter, more "liberal" context. My daughter is online whenever she's on a computer because she has her AIM activated even when she's writing a paper. I think "using or accessible by the Internet" would cover this. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 16:41:40 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:41:40 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. In-Reply-To: <3E3747ED.DCE0544A@towse.com> Message-ID: At 7:18 PM -0800 1/28/03, Towse wrote: >RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >> > > >> The fact that somebody in 1987 said that people in Rhode Island eat snail >> salad doesn't make the eating of snails regional, nor does it make SNAIL >> SALAD regional. Anywhere that people eat snails and meat salad >>they doubtless >> eat snail salad. This includes Hollywood, which is a right far piece from > > Rhode Island. >> >According to the second reference I cited earlier ([ref: >]), >the "snail" in the RI "snail salad" is actually whelk or conch, >not those tasty little gastropods that leave slime trails in the >garden. > >FWIW, I find both RI and other eastern seaport areas offering >"scungilli salad", "scungilli" being the Italian name for the >whelk or conch. > >Would calling the salad "snail salad" when it's really >whelk/conch/scungilli qualify as a regionalism? > >And, oh yum. Popping /scungilli recipe/ into my search engine of >choice brings up conch fritter recipes as well as scungilli alla >Sorrentina, scungilli marinara, ... > I agree with Ron's theoretical point, and now that Sal has provided us with the relevant datum, I agree with Barry's contention that "snail salad" (meaning 'scungilli salad') should be listed because of its opacity. I also agree with Sal's "yum". I knew I liked scungilli salad, I just didn't know I'd ever eaten snail salad, since we don't call it that in Connecticut. In fact the use of "snail salad" in place of "scungilli salad" in R.I. is sort of the reverse of the almost ubiquitous reference to squid as calamari (well, in European-style restaurants as opposed to Chinese- or Thai-style ones). Dysphemism rather than euphemism. The parallel to the "calamari" case was the fact that when I was much younger, snails were always referred to in restaurants as "escargots". And the seasoning was called "escargot butter", not "snail butter". Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 16:44:52 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:44:52 EST Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: Interesting data. Even though I prefer to treasncribve the phrase as "Fuck an A," and even though taking Zack Spears literally would make my transcription more likely than the more commonplace alternative ("Fucking A"), I agree with Arnold that Zack is doubtless using the phrase formulaically, in which case either paarsing will do. As I've also heard said in such movies, "Suck! 'Blow' is just qa figure of speech." In a message dated 1/29/03 11:24:05 AM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: << [warning: taboo language, reference to gay male sex acts, possibly more information about my private life than you'd like. if any of these things make you uneasy, skip this posting.] tom kysilko reports on instances of "fuckin' a" in sayles' The Return of the Secaucus 7. i can now report on multiple instances of the expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick starring a guy whose stage name is Zak Spears. (yes, the names are often hilarious.) spears varies the frequent "yeah, yeah" of the genre with "fuckin' a". what makes this (possibly) worth reporting is that on a number of occasions when he utters "fuckin' a" meaning 'yeah, oh yes', he is in fact fuckin' a (and at least a few times when he says it he's playing catcher rather than pitcher), so that we get what is almost surely an unintended combination of the formulaic expression and its literal applicability. no other participant (i hesitate to say "actor") in the film uses "fuckin' a", and i don't recall its use in other films in the genre. presumably it's a piece of improvisation by spears, something he says naturally; scripting in these movies tends to be minimal, especially in the sweatier sections. of course, it's true that people (regardless of sex or sexuality, in real life and in the movies) sometimes cry out the exclamation "fuck" while engaged in intercourse, without any intention of referring to sexual acts. in that context, "fuck" is an alternative to, among other things, "oh god", "christ", "jesus" (none of these carrying any religious commitment), or "shit". (i'm probably not the first person to point out that the path of "shit" from 'feces' to an exclamation of dismay to an exclamation of strong feeling, usable even in contexts of pleased surprise or joy, involves, in its last step, an astonishing bit of amelioration, especially remarkable in that the much milder "piss" has made it only to the exclamation-of-dismay stage. probably not a suitable example of amelioration for semantics textbooks, though.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)>> From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 17:19:04 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:19:04 EST Subject: The secret life of Snail Salad Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/03 11:39:58 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > I agree with Ron's theoretical point, and now that Sal has provided us with the relevant datum, I agree with Barry's contention that "snail salad" (meaning 'scungilli salad') should be listed because of its opacity. I also agree with Sal's "yum". I knew I liked scungilli salad, I just didn't know I'd ever eaten snail salad, since we don't call it that in Connecticut. In fact the use of "snail salad" in place of "scungilli salad" in R.I. is sort of the reverse of the almost ubiquitous reference to squid as calamari (well, in European-style restaurants as opposed to Chinese- or Thai-style ones). Dysphemism rather than euphemism. The parallel to the "calamari" case was the fact that when I was much younger, snails were always referred to in restaurants as "escargots". And the seasoning was called "escargot butter", not "snail butter". Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" >> Well, dunno that SNAIL SALAD is "opaque' just because it is made with scungilli. It seems to me that SNAIL SALAD is more accesible than SCUNGILLI SALAD! WHAT THE HELL IS A SCUNGILLI, I'd like to know--and I would look that up in my dictionary. Isn't a sungilli just a kind of snail? If people in Iowa make my potato salad with red potatoes should we say that POTATO SALAD is a regionalism for RED POTATO SALAD? It seems to me that Larry is suggesting that we need a dictionary entry for SNAIL SALAD simply because it is sometimes made with peculiar kinds of snails. Do I really need my unabridged dictionary to tell me that SNAIL SALAD is sometimes made with conche? Do I need to have an entry for DOG SALAD if some people make it only with a poodle? I was carefully tutored to say /kank/ during a recent trip to Granada. From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Wed Jan 29 17:32:36 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:32:36 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: I've been on the list for nearly five years, and I'm a member of the ADS, but I didn't know that the scope of the ADS was *North* American. I've contributed to a few Canuck-related threads, but always with a sheepish, "should-we-be-doing-this?" feeling. I didn't feel unwelcome on the list; rather, I just thought that non-U.S. threads were off-topic. Now that I know that the Free Trade Agreement extends to language, as well, I'll be happy to initiate and contribute to Canadian-lingo topics. Paul wordspy.com ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 4:00 PM Subject: Canadians in ADS > Mention of > "not quite the ONLY Canadian" > brings to mind the relative quiescence of Canadian dialect studies within the > American Dialect Society in recent years. Our constitution declares that we > study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had > even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary > (H. Rex Wilson). But there has been only one Canadian on our annual meeting > program for the past two years, and not necessarily with Canadian topics. > Is it the fault of us who live south of the border? Do Canadians no longer > feel welcome in ADS? Or is something else going on? > - Allan Metcalf > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 17:46:51 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:46:51 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: <062301c2c7bc$6a40dcd0$ef9afea9@paul> Message-ID: At 12:32 PM -0500 1/29/03, Paul McFedries wrote: >I've been on the list for nearly five years, and I'm a member of the ADS, >but I didn't know that the scope of the ADS was *North* American. I've >contributed to a few Canuck-related threads, but always with a sheepish, >"should-we-be-doing-this?" feeling. I didn't feel unwelcome on the list; >rather, I just thought that non-U.S. threads were off-topic. Now that I know >that the Free Trade Agreement extends to language, as well, I'll be happy to >initiate and contribute to Canadian-lingo topics. > But as others have pointed out, we're the American [Dialect Society] not the [American Dialect] Society. So in principle even non-NAFTA dialects are fair game as well. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 17:55:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:55:52 EST Subject: Hipster Handbook Glossary Message-ID: HIPSTER HANDBOOK GLOSSARY--I forgot to give the web address for the deck=cool guy of THE HIPSTER HANDBOOK: http://www.thehipsterhandbook.com/glossary.html NEW YORK SYSTEM--As I said, it's in DARE. FOOD ENTRIES: DARE has a "collard" entry. Webster's Dictionary of Culinary Arts has a "broccoli rabe" entry that's worthwhile. Yes, it has an entry for "tuna salad." John Mariani has a "toasted ravioli" entry, stolen straight from the Sterns--it's a specialty of St. Louis. Will DARE have "toasted ravioli"? Will I get "toasted" if I post this? These things are not an exact science. I post them in good faith, and people who are not interested should delete them. I've said many times that my posts are not ADS-L. Other people are certainly welcome to post on their specialties--such as, for example, Canadian snail salad. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 18:02:54 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 13:02:54 -0500 Subject: The secret life of Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <1a3.fef778d.2b696708@aol.com> Message-ID: True, to the extent you consider a conch/whelk to be a snail. I have different mental lexicon entries for snails/escargots and for conchs/scungilli. The former is a mollusk eaten in French restaurants with butter and garlic stuffed stuffed into its shell by means of that funny escargot-grasping apparatus; the latter is a mollusk sliced thin (perhaps after hammering flat) and then served in an Italian vinagrette-type salad preferably with hot peppers, or with cocktail sauce, or cooked with other sea-creatures in a seafood pasta or such. The former is soft and squishy, the latter crunchy. (And yes, they're both great, but the former has too much cholesterol.) The fact that one might not be familiar with "scungilli" as a lexical item doesn't make "scungilli salad" opaque, since it's denotation is still computable from that of its parts. If you tell me that they eat okapi salad somewhere in Africa, I still wouldn't put that in my lexicon if it's a salad made from okapi, even if don't know an okapi from a hole in the ground. Accessible =/= transparent. (I chose that one by opening a dictionary at random to the page including "okapi".) I will concede, though, that the opacity or transparency of "snail salad" with reference to one made of scungilli is not transparent, since it depends on one's representation for "snail". larry At 12:19 PM -0500 1/29/03, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >In a message dated 1/29/03 11:39:58 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: >> >I agree with Ron's theoretical point, and now that Sal has provided >us with the relevant datum, I agree with Barry's contention that >"snail salad" (meaning 'scungilli salad') should be listed because of >its opacity. I also agree with Sal's "yum". I knew I liked >scungilli salad, I just didn't know I'd ever eaten snail salad, since >we don't call it that in Connecticut. In fact the use of "snail >salad" in place of "scungilli salad" in R.I. is sort of the reverse >of the almost ubiquitous reference to squid as calamari (well, in >European-style restaurants as opposed to Chinese- or Thai-style >ones). Dysphemism rather than euphemism. The parallel to the >"calamari" case was the fact that when I was much younger, snails >were always referred to in restaurants as "escargots". And the >seasoning was called "escargot butter", not "snail butter". > >Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside >of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" >> > >Well, dunno that SNAIL SALAD is "opaque' just because it is made with >scungilli. It seems to me that SNAIL SALAD is more accesible than SCUNGILLI >SALAD! WHAT THE HELL IS A SCUNGILLI, I'd like to know--and I would look that >up in my dictionary. Isn't a sungilli just a kind of snail? If people in Iowa >make my potato salad with red potatoes should we say that POTATO SALAD is a >regionalism for RED POTATO SALAD? It seems to me that Larry is suggesting >that we need a dictionary entry for SNAIL SALAD simply because it is >sometimes made with peculiar kinds of snails. Do I really need my unabridged >dictionary to tell me that SNAIL SALAD is sometimes made with conche? Do I >need to have an entry for DOG SALAD if some people make it only with a poodle? > >I was carefully tutored to say /kank/ during a recent trip to Granada. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 18:07:55 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 13:07:55 -0500 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <200301291623.h0TGNAN26246@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Arnold writes: > >tom kysilko reports on instances of "fuckin' a" in sayles' The Return >of the Secaucus 7. i can now report on multiple instances of the >expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick starring a guy >whose stage name is Zak Spears. (yes, the names are often hilarious.) > >spears varies the frequent "yeah, yeah" of the genre with "fuckin' a". >what makes this (possibly) worth reporting is that on a number of >occasions when he utters "fuckin' a" meaning 'yeah, oh yes', he is in >fact fuckin' a (and at least a few times when he says it he's playing >catcher rather than pitcher),... Unless the latter is an instance of "fucken a", with the archaic or dialectal past participle (cf. discussion of _shitten_ in Horn, to appear, "Spitten image"). >(i'm probably not the first person to point out that the path of >"shit" from 'feces' to an exclamation of dismay to an exclamation of >strong feeling, usable even in contexts of pleased surprise or joy, >involves, in its last step, an astonishing bit of amelioration, >especially remarkable in that the much milder "piss" has made it only >to the exclamation-of-dismay stage. probably not a suitable example >of amelioration for semantics textbooks, though.) > Note along these lines that it's much easier to find _holy shit_ than _holy piss_. larry From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 29 18:29:38 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:29:38 -0600 Subject: Dialect Mixing Message-ID: In reading various studies of the dialects of the Midwest and West, I've been struck by the tendency to frame the analysis almost exclusively in terms of the traditional dialect divisions of the East Coast: Northern, Midland, and Southern. Several studies develop complicated formulas to calculate the relative influence of these dialects on the area under investigation. It's easy to understand the motivation for this approach given the emphasis on settlement history in traditional dialect geography. Still, this focus on historical retentions has resulted in dialectologists missing some important new features in these areas (e.g., The Northern Cities Shift). Does anyone know of an explicit defense of this approach as a method of studying American dialects off the Atlantic Coast? Did, e.g., Kurath argue that all American dialects can be adequately described with reference to his "original" divisions? Are there parallels in the study of dialects in other countries? For example, do studies of Hiberno-English count the number of Midland or Northern English forms? From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Wed Jan 29 18:55:09 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:55:09 -0600 Subject: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) Message-ID: Sorry, Larry, but I had to point out the weird parse I had of your comment. I read it at first as your daughter either "Using", or "accessible by the Internet". As in, "yes, my daughter is using" being comparable to "my daughter is accessible by the Internet". Have I just read too many posts in a row now? -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 10:28 AM Subject: Re: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) discussion list. > > > I think it has to allow for the latter, more "liberal" context. My > daughter is online whenever she's on a computer because she has her > AIM activated even when she's writing a paper. I think "using or > accessible by the Internet" would cover this. > > Larry > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:04:39 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:04:39 -0800 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: <062301c2c7bc$6a40dcd0$ef9afea9@paul> Message-ID: Hmm--NAFTADS. Has a ring to it. (Though it does sound a bit like the name of the creatures that insiders know are REALLY the key ingredient in "snail salad"--and that outsiders would just as soon leave opaque.) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 29, 2003 12:32 PM -0500 Paul McFedries wrote: > Now that I know > that the Free Trade Agreement extends to language, as well, I'll be happy > to initiate and contribute to Canadian-lingo topics. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:53:31 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:53:31 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: i'm shifting the topic a bit here, away from the internal structure of this expression (which i'll now refer to neutrally as "f-a") and towards its social functions. i take f-a to be part of what i think of as a "man's man" repertoire of behaviors. (at first, i used the label "hypermasculine", but that suggests a more conscious display than i think is going on here.) it goes along with using "brew" to refer to a beer, high frequencies of -in' for -ing, aggressive kidding, other linguistic phenomena, and a variety of non-linguistic behaviors (like leg-jiggling). i've known a fair number of men with this style (including a columbus neighbor who was a construction worker). it's not comfortable as a style for me, though; on me it would seem like deliberate "butching it up" (or, perhaps, "butchin' it up"). zak spears presents himself as a man's man (in all ways except his sexuality, which is flagrantly and enthusiastically off the masculine norm). f-a is just part of that presentation. actually, it might well be that spears is not just acting the part of a man's man (except for that sexuality thing) on screen, but that this is his everyday presentation of self. (i once had a boyfriend who was, with the exception already noted, a man's man.) gay personals ads frequently include codings - "straight-acting" and "regular guy", especially - that refer to normative masculinity but often point beyond it to a man's man style. my partner jacques and i both have enough masculinity points that we pretty much have to *tell* people we're gay (a fact we both find astonishing), but we're pretty sure we fail to count as straight-acting regular guys for the purposes of these ads. i have a friend who uses pieces of the man's man style - in particular, f-a - to mock (a) gay men he thinks are inauthentically butching it up, (b) gay men who've put down other gay men they find "faggy" (that is, not sufficiently masculine), and (c) gay men expressing misogynistic views. Fear of Femininity is what unites these guys, and charlie can make them surprisingly uncomfortable by instantly turning into a tough-talkin' man's man. (it's so not him.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), noting that there are plenty of man's men (including my columbus neighbor and my old boyfriend) who are not pigs; The Man Show is not a documentary From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:57:08 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:57:08 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: ron butters: >... I agree with Arnold that Zack is doubtless using the phrase >formulaically... Zak, not Zack. trust me on this. i would no more misspell zak's name than i would joey stefano's. but yes, there's no real issue in whether the expression is spelled "fuck an a" or "fuckin' a" (though the latter is the interpretation i've had all of my life, and is the only spelling i'd seen until this ads-l discussion started). arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 20:32:00 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 15:32:00 -0500 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <200301291957.h0TJv8J00098@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: At 11:57 AM -0800 1/29/03, Arnold Zwicky wrote: > >but yes, there's no real issue in whether the expression is spelled >"fuck an a" or "fuckin' a" (though the latter is the interpretation >i've had all of my life, and is the only spelling i'd seen until this >ads-l discussion started). > FWIW (maybe not much), I just did a quick and dirty google count. "Fuckin A" (with quotes) has 14,700 hits (with or without the apostrophe, which is ignored in any case). "Fuck an A" has 166, although some may be irrelevant (such as one on the first page of hits that reads "An A in the west is not neccessarily an A elsewhere, and really there's no reason for you to even know what the fuck an A is in the first place" larry From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Wed Jan 29 20:37:00 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 21:37:00 +0100 Subject: The secret life of Snail Salad Message-ID: "Scungilli" is most probably a dialect form (southern Italy and Sicily) of the Italian "conchiglie", meaning "conch". Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 6:19 PM Subject: [ADS-L] The secret life of Snail Salad > Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside > of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" >> > > Well, dunno that SNAIL SALAD is "opaque' just because it is made with > scungilli. It seems to me that SNAIL SALAD is more accesible than SCUNGILLI > SALAD! WHAT THE HELL IS A SCUNGILLI, I'd like to know--and I would look that > up in my dictionary. Isn't a sungilli just a kind of snail? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 21:22:09 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:22:09 EST Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 10:25:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET writes: > is tuna salad or chicken > salad listed specifically in dictionaries? I always thought I knew what chicken salad was (julienne chicken in mayonnaise) until once in England I ordered "chicken salad" in a restaurant near Windsor Castle and got a cold quarter (leg + thigh) of chicken on a bed of lettuce. Is this standard English English, or did I encounter an eccentric restaurant? Seen on another mailing list: "If a tin whistle is made of tin, then what is a fog horn made of?" - Jim Landau In a "theatre" in "Edinboro": ME: I'm afraid I'm having trouble understanding what the actors are saying. NEIGHBOR: They're from Bristol. We can't understand them either. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 21:30:23 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:30:23 EST Subject: F-A Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/03 11:23:43 AM Eastern Standard Time, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: > i can now report on multiple instances of the > expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick A linguist need never apologize for quoting pornography, erotica, or billingsgate. After all, a cunning linguist is not necessarily a cunnilinguist. For what it's worth, I never seem to meet a male homosexual who does not have at least a mustache and frequently a full beard. - Jim Landau From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:57:00 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:57:00 -0500 Subject: Softscape and hardscape In-Reply-To: <28.32b89b5f.2b694b61@aol.com> Message-ID: Now THESE are interesting innovations. At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > From a correspondent - > ><"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, lighting, >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade >earlier. > > >George Winnacker>> > >- Allan Metcalf From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:29:08 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:29:08 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <3E35C777.7796.BE7176@localhost> Message-ID: At 11:57 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > > Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 > > From: Beverly Flanigan > > Subject: Re: needs washed > > > > Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and > > Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier > > writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South > > Midland are in the mainstream! > >I'd like to look that up; where does he say this? (I'm interested in >where the boundaries are in the British Isles.) > >Is it found anywhere in Canada? > > > At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > > >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that > > >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the > > >first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his > > >family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family > > >combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's > > >the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television > > >repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the > > >setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't > > >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of > > >course. Miriam Meyers > > > In Trudgill's Chapter 1 of his _On Dialect: Social and Geographical Perspectives_ (NYU Press, 1983), he uses "My hair needs washed" in a questionnaire eliciting use vs. familiarity vs. unknown construction. On this item, he says "This construction is the one normally employed in Scotland as well as in some areas immediately to the south of the border and in parts of the USA" (p. 16). Of his respondents at Reading University, only two lecturers said they knew the form (and knew it was Scots), but 90% of the students believed "no native speaker could say it." We get roughly the same results when we survey students here in Ohio: Southern Ohioans know the form, but outsiders don't and reject it as ungrammatical. Although Trudgill doesn't mention Ireland in this case, it has been attested as common in Ireland and/or Ulster as well. (Michael, is there a difference in preponderance of use between Eire and Ulster?) I've also checked Hughes and Trudgill, _English Accents and Dialects_, 3rd ed. (Arnold, 1996), p. 16, where p.p. after 'need' and 'want' varies across So. England, Midlands/No. England, and Scotland; of these, only Scotland has "It needs washed." Interestingly, So. England and Scotland are cited as having "I want it washed," while Mid/No. has "I want it washing." But the "missing" infinitive here is "to have," not "to be"--which throws the paradigm into a different standard/nonstandard frame! If "to be" is deleted, a change to gerundive "washing" is considered "standard" and "washed" is "nonstandard." But if "to have" is deleted, "washed" is standard and gerundive (or pres. part.?) "washing" is nonstandard. Or am I missing something here? From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 29 22:58:51 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:58:51 -0800 Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: I am a bit surprised to learn that the ADS is dedicated only to the English language in N Am. I have to admit that I have never read the the constitution of the ADS, but I was under the impression (I am sure someone mentioned this to me once) that the ADS was dedicated to all languages of N Am. American Speech has published articles on other languages, e.g. Chinook Jargon, and on areas outside North America, e.g. New Zealand and South Africa. As far as ADS-L is concerned, people contribute messages all the time whose content has nothing to do with dialects--e.g. about food, sex, politics, and so on. So, I don't understand how Canadian English could ever be considered off-topic. I don't think many things really stop at the 49th, esp. language features Fritz >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/28/03 01:00PM >>> Mention of " Our constitution declares that we study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary (H. Rex Wilson). From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 29 23:17:39 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 18:17:39 -0500 Subject: F-A In-Reply-To: <14.8883a72.2b69a1ef@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #For what it's worth, I never seem to meet a male homosexual who does not have #at least a mustache and frequently a full beard. Huh. I know a fair number with neither. -- Mark A. Mandel From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 23:30:10 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 15:30:10 -0800 Subject: F-A Message-ID: jim landau: >A linguist need never apologize for quoting pornography, erotica, or >billingsgate. After all, a cunning linguist is not necessarily a >cunnilinguist. not an apology, just a caveat lector. >For what it's worth, I never seem to meet a male homosexual who does >not have at least a mustache and frequently a full beard. (i've had both since 1969.) but in case you're interested in meeting counterexamples, i can introduce you to hundreds. there is, of course, an interesting topic here about the projection of masculinity. and gayness. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 23:42:21 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 18:42:21 EST Subject: Snail Salad & Wandies Message-ID: This is from the Chowhound New England Message Board. "Snail salad" was listed as the first of "errors, omissions, quibbles" with that November 2002 NEW YORK TIMES article on Rhode Island food. The author of the article has a reply post on this site. I'll also attach the post about "wandies" (DARE?) Chowhound's New England Message Board > Subject: Foods of Rhode IslandName: Bob W.Posted: November > 13, 2002 at 10:50:50Message: Decent article in today's New York Times > on the peculiar native cuisine of Little Rhody. > > Overall, it's informative and entertaining. Perhaps almost as much as my > posts on RI food. :>) > > Kudos to the author for using the term "up the arm" in his discussion of > weiners, and for his mention of George's of Galilee as a good source for > stuffies and clamcakes. > > Errors, omissions, quibbles: > > 1. No mention of snail salad. > > 2. No mention of grapenut custard. > > 3. Misspelling of jonnycake mecca Common's Lunch as Commons Lunch. The > apostrophe gives it that extra-special quirky RI flavor. > > 4. Clamcakes are nothing at all like hushpuppies, and I think to even > mention hushpuppies gives people a misleading impression of clamcakes. > Chowhound's New England Message Board > Subject: Re(2): Foods of Rhode IslandFrom: pfox at mwe.com (pfox) > Posted: November 13, 2002 at 14:01:56In Reply To: Re(1): Foods of > Rhode Island Posted by Coyote on November 13, 2002 at 12:33:29 > Message: Wandies are crispy fried doughs. They are very thin and > usually shaped into a bow, after deep frying, they are taken out of the oil > and sprinkled with sugar or powdered sugar. It is an Italian treat. I > remember my grandmother making them in her kitchen on a huge wooden board > that was covered with flour, cutting the dough with something that looked > like a pizza cutter that had a zig-zag edge to it and filling up straw > baskets with them. Generally made for the holidays and weddings. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 30 00:55:36 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 19:55:36 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I believe the more comprehensive current statement (paraphrased) is that ADS is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America and to languages which it has influenced and been influenced by. Moreover, it regularly engages in its publications important general questions of dialect and language variation even if the exemplary data do not come from the categories listed above. Not too exclusive in my opinion. dInIs I am a bit surprised to learn that the ADS is dedicated only to the English language in N Am. I have to admit that I have never read the the constitution of the ADS, but I was under the impression (I am sure someone mentioned this to me once) that the ADS was dedicated to all languages of N Am. American Speech has published articles on other languages, e.g. Chinook Jargon, and on areas outside North America, e.g. New Zealand and South Africa. As far as ADS-L is concerned, people contribute messages all the time whose content has nothing to do with dialects--e.g. about food, sex, politics, and so on. So, I don't understand how Canadian English could ever be considered off-topic. I don't think many things really stop at the 49th, esp. language features Fritz >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/28/03 01:00PM >>> Mention of " Our constitution declares that we study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary (H. Rex Wilson). From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 30 01:29:34 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:29:34 -0800 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > Now THESE are interesting innovations. > > At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > > From a correspondent - > > > >< >"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, lighting, > >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade > >earlier. > > > > > >George Winnacker>> I first bumped into "hardscape" when the library commission I was headed was considering a rework of the library's landscaping maybe five years ago. We were going to combine xeriscape with hardscape for a low-water-needs landscape. I hadn't realized that "hardscape" had been around since ca. 1980. I've never heard of "softscape". Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 30 01:31:28 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:31:28 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Some weeks ago there was discussion of schwa insertion. The other day I was in a local auto parts store, gabbing with an older (i.e. older than I am) employee who came up with "agonostic--you know, doesn't believe or whatever." A nice way to ease the transition from g to n. Is there any "igganore" or "sigganature" out there? Or is this just likely contamination from _agony_ (ergo the misery of the nonbeliever)? Peter R. From bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 30 07:33:01 2003 From: bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM (Bruce Hunter) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 23:33:01 -0800 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beverly Flanigan" > Now THESE are interesting innovations. > At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > > From a correspondent - > >< >"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, lighting, > >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade > >earlier. > >George Winnacker>> > >- Allan Metcalf Then the irrigation system would be wetscape? Bruce Hunter From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Thu Jan 30 10:52:02 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:52:02 -0000 Subject: Softscape and hardscape In-Reply-To: <3E387FFE.FBA06F62@towse.com> Message-ID: When I was working with a large landscape architects' practice in Bristol (UK) ten years ago, the usual terms were "hard landscaping" and "soft landscaping" and these were the standard terms we put into the thesaurus of terms we were creating. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 13:21:42 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:21:42 EST Subject: schwa insertion Message-ID: The classic example of schwa insertion is the Mexican city of "Tijuana" which north of the border is commonly pronounced as "Tiajuana", which would be the Spanish for "Aunt Joan" or "Aunt Joanne" (in my post of 22 January I rendered it as "Aunt Jane" (and also misspelled "Housatanic")). The schwa here is firmly established in Norteamericano music, e.g. Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana Brass, the folk song "Here we are in the Tiajuana jail" Someone whose name I failed to note told me this schwa insertion was due to the lack of any /ee wa/ strings in English, so English speakers found it necessary to insert something to make "Tijuana" pronounceable. However, "marijuana" does not get rendered into English as "mariajuana"---this may be because the "i" of "marijuana" is already a schwa. - Jim Landau - Jim Landau From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Thu Jan 30 13:52:59 2003 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 07:52:59 -0600 Subject: Query: Homographs Message-ID: Homonyms! Homonym is like metaphor. Metaphor, as a cover term, includes metaphor and simile. Homonyn covers homographs (written the same, but sound different) and homophones (sound the same). Some people, I think, use homonym to refer to homographs only??? I've come across somewhat of the same situation with the words jargon, argot and slang. Is there really a lot of confusion or is the confusion regional? Grant Barrett wrote: > Début du message réexpédié : > > > De: "Alan J. Friedman" > > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York > > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there > > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there > > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). I have read that, in > > contrast to the multitude of homonyms, there are less than 100 > > homographs. Are there any scholars who may have a running list of > > homographs? From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Thu Jan 30 15:43:05 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:43:05 -0500 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <1eb.9933cc.2b6a80e6@aol.com> Message-ID: There are people, however, who say "mare-uh-juh-wana." On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 8:22AM -0500, James A. Landau wrote: > "marijuana" does not get rendered into English as "mariajuana"---this > may be > because the "i" of "marijuana" is already a schwa. From AAllan at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 16:13:55 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:13:55 EST Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: Here is the official statement of ADS purpose, Article II of our constitution: <> The editorial policy on the inside back cover of American Speech follows this declaration but is more cosmopolitan: <> In practice, I think we focus appropriately on our core with due attention to our periphery, at all of our venues: our meetings, our journals, and our discussion list. But I do think we haven't heard as much from Canadians and about Canada as we had in the past, and I miss that. - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 30 16:25:30 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:25:30 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: <11f.1d79a3f7.2b6aa943@aol.com> Message-ID: >I am gald to see that my paraphrasing skills are not that far off. dInIs >Here is the official statement of ADS purpose, Article II of our constitution: > ><community and not for profit. Its object is the study of the English language >in North America, together with other languages or dialects of other >languages influencing it or influenced by it.>> > >The editorial policy on the inside back cover of American Speech follows this >declaration but is more cosmopolitan: > ><Western Hemisphere, although contributions dealing with English in other >parts of the world, with other languages influencing English or influenced by >it, and with general linguistic theory may also be submitted . . . . The >journal welcomes articles dealing with current usage, dialectology, and the >history and structure of English. American Speech is not committed to any >particular theoretical framework, but preference is given to articles that >are likely to be of interest to a wide readership.>> > >In practice, I think we focus appropriately on our core with due attention to >our periphery, at all of our venues: our meetings, our journals, and our >discussion list. But I do think we haven't heard as much from Canadians and >about Canada as we had in the past, and I miss that. > >- Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 30 16:28:32 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:28:32 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A woman of my family's acquaintance used to complain of her "Arthuritis." The folk etymological possibilities are even more transparent here, of course, but since the phenomenon crops up fairly frequently, and "athaletic," e.g., has no folk etymological explanation I can think of, I wonder if both folk etymological and phonological factors aren't sometimes at work. --On Wednesday, January 29, 2003 5:31 PM -0800 Peter Richardson wrote: > Some weeks ago there was discussion of schwa insertion. The other day I > was in a local auto parts store, gabbing with an older (i.e. older than I > am) employee who came up with "agonostic--you know, doesn't believe or > whatever." A nice way to ease the transition from g to n. Is there any > "igganore" or "sigganature" out there? Or is this just likely > contamination from _agony_ (ergo the misery of the nonbeliever)? > > Peter R. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 17:20:36 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:20:36 EST Subject: Jeat Jet? (Salinger, 1953); Saddamite; OT: AIDS in Africa Message-ID: JEAT JET? This citation was mentioned on Google Groups, and it checks out. I'll have to go and check the original NEW YORKER story for the original date (1948-1951?). From NINE STORIES by J.D. Salinger (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, April 1953, paperback edition January 2001), "Just Before the War with the Eskimos," pg. 67: "Jeat jet?" he asked. "What?" "Jeat lunch yet?" Ginnie shook her head. "I'll eat when I get home," she said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- SADDAMITE I'm increasingly seeing "Saddamite," or the Saddam Hussein spin on the word "sodomite." "Saddamite" was used by some to describe Scott Ritter, the weapons inspector (and to some, Saddam apologist) who allegedly tried to have sexual relations with an underaged female. "Saddamite" was used by Andrew Sullivan today on his blog. "Saddamite" will probably go the way of "Bork," but it's certainly been receiving a lot of play this month. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- OT: AIDS IN AFRICA (OR, WHY NO HEALTH INFORMATION IN HOTELS?) President Bush addressed African AIDS in his recent State of the Union speech. I recently did the same during my African trip, but my words couldn't be published, I guess. My letter to the FINANCIAL TIMES about the 2012 Olympics corrected a published error, but was much less important. I arrived about just before midnight in Kenya's Nairobi Hilton. The first person to greet me was a prostitute. I'd heard that AIDS was a plague in Africa, so I looked about my hotel room for AIDS information to read. There was no AIDS information to read. There was, of course, a Gideon New Testament. A few days later, I stayed in several lodges in remote areas. There were mosquito nets over the beds. I looked around the room for information about mosquito bites and malaria. There was no health information whatsoever. There was, again, a Gideon New Testament. My tour ended in Zanzibar. We had a free day, and then met up with the tour guide for dinner. The local tour guide mentioned that the night market had been closed because of a recent cholera epidemic. The hotel staff, which knew about the local cholera outbreak, had told me nothing when I arrived that morning. This was all horrendous. In the first case, where the Hilton hotel staff surely gets money from the prostitutes, it's probably something more than horrendous. All this has occurred in my other travels, also. I go to Traveler's Medical Advisory, on 57th Street and Madison. I went there this week (for my next trip), and I told the doctor there. She wasn't surprised, but offered lame reasons. "Hotels don't care," she said. "Most people don't get really sick until they get back home." The GUARDIAN is somewhat of an international newspaper, and its Notes & Queries has my responses on "hot dog" and "Big Apple." I wrote to the GUARDIAN to be a, well, guardian. Why is there no World Health Organization pamphlet or bulletin board in any hotel, anywhere? Exactly what kind of plague must occur before they'll tell you anything? The Gideons are in hotels; what about the WHO? A WHO health pamphlet could give information and even sell ads for local health providers, such as Flying Doctors. A simple health pamphlet could save lives AND make money. The GUARDIAN never published the letter. I sent the letter to THE NEW YORK TIMES, which never published it, either. I'm glad the President Bush is addressing AIDS in Africa. But the New York Times and the Guardian (both of which have run many AIDS stories) don't care, and the Hilton hotel chain will gladly profit from your demise! From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 17:44:43 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:44:43 EST Subject: Signs of the times Message-ID: re all of those dot.bomb etc. coinages, Business Week had an article on the possibilities of a revival in the on-line business. The headline was "Dot.Comback?" The local model railroad club has an open house every year to show off their layout to the public. Since they are just off a main highway, the local authorities post warning signs which read SPECIAL EVENT PEDESTRAIN TRAFFIC A notorious local strip joint has this anticlimax posted on its marquee SEXY, SAUCY, SENSUOUS GIRLS now serving lunch - Jim Landau From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 30 18:02:03 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:02:03 -0600 Subject: Very forward Message-ID: An interesting example of reanalysis (of some kind): "I'm looking VERY forward to..." I heard this from an NPR caller this morning but I think it's pretty common even among people who don't call into radio programs. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 30 17:00:34 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:00:34 -0500 Subject: Softscape and hardscape In-Reply-To: <3E387FFE.FBA06F62@towse.com> Message-ID: Now the question is--what's xeriscape? At 05:29 PM 1/29/2003 -0800, you wrote: >Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > Now THESE are interesting innovations. > > > > At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > > > From a correspondent - > > > > > >< > >"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, > lighting, > > >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade > > >earlier. > > > > > > > > >George Winnacker>> > >I first bumped into "hardscape" when the library commission I was >headed was considering a rework of the library's landscaping >maybe five years ago. We were going to combine xeriscape with >hardscape for a low-water-needs landscape. > >I hadn't realized that "hardscape" had been around since ca. >1980. I've never heard of "softscape". > >Sal >-- >3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally >curious From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 30 18:15:00 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:15:00 -0800 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > Now the question is--what's xeriscape? Landscaping (soft and hard :-) to maximize water conservation. When the library was thinking of redoing its grounds, we were in the middle of the last long California drought. Minimizing water use with a plan that used solutions other than just putting in gravel and rocks was on everyone's minds. The word was coined from "scape" and the Greek word "xeros" for dry. A good discussion and examples of xeriscape: Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 30 18:18:57 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:18:57 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion Message-ID: Grant: > There are people, however, who say "mare-uh-juh-wana." I thought that was a joke. At least I knew it was the last time I heard marijuana pronounced that way. Anne g From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Thu Jan 30 18:32:39 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 13:32:39 -0500 Subject: Homographs, from a lexicographer's POV In-Reply-To: <3E392E3B.448806B6@wku.edu> Message-ID: What Lesa says is almost right: "homonym" is indeed an umbrella term (a hypernym, if you will); but "homographs" are simply words that are spelled the same whether they sound the same or not, and "homophones" sound the same whether they are spelled the same or not. A list of words that have the same spelling but different pronunciations would still be a list of homographs; just be aware that word X doesn't have to have a different pronunciation from word Y to qualify as a homograph of word Y. To illustrate what I mean, let's look at how homographs work in dictionaries. Native-speaker dictionaries tend to nest all the parts of speech that share a common etymological derivation under the main entry (headword)--thus, the headword form at the first entry for "bow" /bau/ in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary is the intransitive verb ('bend the knee or body'), with the transitive verb and noun nested at that entry. The second entry for "bow" is pronounced /bou/; it has both a different pronunciation and a slightly different etymology, two typical reasons to make a new entry instead of nesting these meanings under the first entry. Note that difference in meaning is not a criterion for making a new headword: this entry covers everything from the bow of an arrow to a bow on a gift to a violin bow. Bow 1 and bow 2 are homographs. They are not homophones. There is a third entry for "bow," however--pronounced /bau/ (the bow of a ship)--and it is also separated out because its etymology is different. Bow 3 is a homograph of both bow 1 and bow 2, but it is only a homophone of bow 1. Bow 3 and bow 1 are BOTH homographs AND homophones. In some native-speaker dictionaries and nearly all ESL dictionaries, part of speech is also a qualifying criterion for main entry status, and thus there could be many more than three homographs of "bow." ESL dictionaries don't show etymologies, so they would put all the nouns in one entry, all the verbs in another, etc., unless the pronunciation is different. So an important point to note is that there is some flexibility as to what one chooses to call a homograph, depending on the style guide of the dictionary. At 07:52 AM 1/30/03 -0600, you wrote: >Homonyms! Homonym is like metaphor. Metaphor, as a cover term, includes >metaphor and simile. Homonyn covers homographs (written the same, but sound >different) and homophones (sound the same). Some people, I think, use homonym >to refer to homographs only??? >I've come across somewhat of the same situation with the words jargon, argot >and slang. Is there really a lot of confusion or is the confusion regional? > >Grant Barrett wrote: > > > Début du message réexpédié : > > > > > De: "Alan J. Friedman" > > > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York > > > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > > > > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > > > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > > > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there > > > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there > > > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > > > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). I have read that, in > > > contrast to the multitude of homonyms, there are less than 100 > > > homographs. Are there any scholars who may have a running list of > > > homographs? From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 30 19:11:18 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:11:18 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion (fwd) Message-ID: Peter R. has demanded that I share this scholarly exchange with the list. (He was scared to.) Peter Mc. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- > --On Thursday, January 30, 2003 8:54 AM -0800 Peter McGraw > wrote: > > >> A woman of my family's acquaintance used to complain of her > >> "Arthuritis." And Peter Richardson answered: > > That's a disease contracted by those put to the sword by a medieval > > English king, isn't it? > > Only to be answered thusly by "Peter A. McGraw" : > Oh, I see! I always thought it was the aches and pains suffered by > English kings who lived beyond middle age in the Middle Ages. (Those > cold, damp castles and all. Not to mention repeated stooping to get > through those famously low doors. And that climate! You know how they > always speak of "the rain of King Arthur.") > And finally (one hopes), Peter Richardson replied: Date: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:47 AM -0800rrom: Peter Richardson To: "Peter A. McGraw" Subject: Re: schwa insertion OK, now send this little banter on to the group, who will have already begun to wonder about the drinking water in this place... ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 30 21:11:08 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:11:08 -0500 Subject: Homographs, from a lexicographer's POV In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030130130251.009d1250@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: #What Lesa says is almost right: "homonym" is indeed an umbrella term (a #hypernym, if you will); but "homographs" are simply words that are spelled #the same whether they sound the same or not, and "homophones" sound the #same whether they are spelled the same or not. # #A list of words that have the same spelling but different pronunciations #would still be a list of homographs; just be aware that word X doesn't have #to have a different pronunciation from word Y to qualify as a homograph of #word Y. This is not the first time this terminological question has come up. I have sometimes called such words "heterophones". True, analytically that would mean 'expressions that are pronounced differently', and the completely transparent term would be "heterophonic homograph", or vice versa "homographic heterophone". But since 1. there's an evident need for a term with the former meaning, and 2. I don't see any demand for a term meaning just 'expressions that are pronounced differently' (which applies to almost all pairs of expressions in any language), I hereby propose "heterophone" tout court. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 30 19:01:38 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:01:38 -0500 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: This thread has surprised me. I just assumed that hardscape and softscape went back to, oh, Frederick Law Olmsted. However _A Technical Glossary of Horticultural and Landscape Terminology_ published in 1972 does not have either nor do any of my books on landscaping prior to just a few years ago. D From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 30 21:55:45 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:55:45 -0500 Subject: "garcon" again (was "pet names for oysters") Message-ID: I see that I have an earlier appearance of :garcon" in my notes, having posted 1842 last week. I still claim the earliest U. S. use, and apparently only the second use not in a narrative of travel on the continent. The OED has it from 1829, in Horace Foote, A Companion to the Theatres; and Manual of the British Drama. Its previous citation, from 1789, and its third citation, from 1839 are both from traveller's writings. 1835: What will become of all our chefs de cuisine and their retinue of garcons and scullions? Cooking by gas, introduced first here, and recently at New Orleans, will put them hors de combat. *** Delmonico's, and Palmo's, and Milford's, and a thousand others, will present a scene of high life below stairs frightful to think upon. *** Evening Star, June 26, 1835, p. 2, col. 3 This also gives us "chef de cuisine" OED has 1842 for "chef" and its earliest citation containing "chef de cuisine" is from 1900 (under "jipper"). GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 00:03:06 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:03:06 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1947, 1948) Message-ID: That J. D. Salinger story is in THE NEW YORKER, 5 June 1948, pages 37-40. The citation is on page 38. There were three records for the "Jeet Jet" song. I had given the 1950s OCLC WorldCat citations. This is from 1947, but lists 1976 first and that threw me off: "Jug" sessions Gene Ammons; Albert Ammons; Junior Mance; Eugene Wright 1976, 1947 Sound Recording : Music : Jazz : LP recording 2 sound discs (79 min.) : analog, 33 1/3 rpm ; 12 in. Chicago : Mercury, Title: "Jug" sessions Author(s): Ammons, Gene. prf; Ammons, Albert,; 1907-1949. ; prf; Mance, Junior,; 1928- ; prf; Wright, Eugene,; 1923- ; prf Publication: Chicago :; Mercury, Year: 1976, 1947 Description: 2 sound discs (79 min.) :; analog, 33 1/3 rpm ;; 12 in. Language: N/A Series: EmArcy jazz series Music Type: Jazz Standard No: Publisher: EMS 20400; Mercury Contents: Concentration -- Red Top -- Idaho -- St. Louis blues -- Shufflin' the boogie -- S.P. blues -- Hiroshima -- McDougal's sprout -- Hold that money -- Shermanski -- Harold the Fox -- Jeet jet -- Odd-en-dow -- Going for the okey doak -- E.A.A.K. blues -- Blowing the family jewels -- Sugar coated -- Dues in blues -- Jay, Jay -- Daddy Sauce's airline -- Little Irv -- Abdullah's fiesta -- Brother Jug's sermon -- Everything depends on you -- Hot springs -- When you're gone -- Little slam. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Jazz -- 1941-1950. Note(s): All selections previously released on Mercury albums./ Notes by Dan Morgenstern on container./ Participants: Jazz; Gene Ammons, saxophone ; Albert Ammons, Junior Mance, pianos ; Gene Wright, bass; with others./ Recorded in Chicago between June 17, 1947 and October 4, 1949. Other Titles: Concentration.; Red Top.; Idaho.; St. Louis blues.; Shufflin' the boogie.; S.P. blues.; Hiroshima.; McDougal's sprout.; Hold that money.; Shermanski.; Harold the Fox.; Jeet jet.; Odd-en-dow.; Going for the okey doak.; E.A.A.K. blues.; Blowing the family jewels.; Sugar coated.; Dues in blues.; Jay, Jay.; Daddy Sauce's airline.; Little Irv.; Abdullah's fiesta.; Brother Jug's sermon.; Everything depends on you.; Hot springs.; When you're gone.; Little slam. Responsibility: Gene Ammons. Material Type: Music (msr); LP (lps) Document Type: Sound Recording Entry: 19840919 Update: 20010122 Accession No: OCLC: 11172118 Database: WorldCat From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 00:20:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:20:41 -0500 Subject: Slow cooker (1917?) Message-ID: More stuff in response to Wednesday's NEW YORK TIMES piece (www.nytimes.com) on the "crock pot" ("slow cooker"). There definitely will be something on this in the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. "Slow cooker" may or may not make OED. In either case, please don't kill me. There's not a whole lot for "slow cooker" before 1970 (full text NY TIMES and trademark records were checked), but there's a ton of stuff _starting_ that year. Here are the first two OCLC WorldCat citations, and notice the large gap. A "crock pot" in 1917 at the University of Washington? Libraries with Item: "Design and construction o..."( Record for Item )Location Library Code WA UNIV OF WASHINGTON LIBR WAU Ownership: Check the catalogs in your library. Libraries that Own Item: 1 Title: Design and construction of an electric cooker for slow cooking. Author(s): Edson, Arthur Allen. Year: 1917 Description: 38 L. Language: English SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Electric furnaces. Note(s): Dissertation: A thesis submitted for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering--University of Washington, 1917 Other Titles: Electric cooker for slow cooking Material Type: Thesis/dissertation (deg); Manuscript text (mtx) Document Type: Book --------------------------------------------------------------- Libraries with Item: "Crock-pot slow electric c..."( Record for Item )Location Library Code EU GUILDHALL LIBR LGL Record for Item: "Crock-pot slow electric c..."( Libraries with Item ) Libraries that Own Item: 1 Title: Crock-pot slow electric cooker cook book / Author(s): Cutts, Susan. Corp Author(s): Prestige Group. Publication: London : The Prestige Group, Year: 1970-1979? Description: 72 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 20 cm. Language: English Note(s): Rainbird Collection./ Cover title./ Text on inside covers. Responsibility: [by Susan Cutts for the Prestige Group] Document Type: Book From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 00:43:54 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:43:54 -0500 Subject: Query: Homographs In-Reply-To: <3E392E3B.448806B6@wku.edu> Message-ID: > > >> > De: "Alan J. Friedman" >> > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York >> > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster >> > >> > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, >> > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon >> > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there >> > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there >> > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > > > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). Note that this last example is a true homonym (as opposed to a non-homophonic homograph) for those speakers who pronounce "route" to rhyme with "out" rather than with "boot". I think I'm using those homo-terms the way I want to. (For me, "routed" as the past tense of "route" can be pronounced either way, while "routed" as the past tense of "rout" can only be pronounced to rhyme with "outed". Of course in the former case, "routed" will be a homophone of "rooted".) larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 00:53:05 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:53:05 -0500 Subject: Soda Water and Ginger Ale (Thwaites and C&C) Message-ID: SLOW COOKER (continued) 18 June 1950, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. SM20, "Timely Aids for the Cook" by June Nickerson, photo caption: For cooking on porch, earthenware pot fits on hot plate that heats to simmering point. Good for beans, soups, spaghetti sauce, other "slow cookers." By West Bend. (The "slow cooker" here refers to the food--ed.) --------------------------------------------------------------- SODA WATER AND GINGER ALE Do both come from Ireland? I couldn't find them easily, but look at this item from the NYPL: I. SLATER'S NATIONAL COMMERCIAL DIRECTORY OF IRELAND Manchester and London: I. Slater 1846 Pg. 211: MINERAL & SODA WATER & GINGER BEER MANUFCTES. (...) Thwaites, A. & R. & Co. (inventors and sole proprietors of the double and single soda water), 57 Upper Sackville st (See advertisement) (Where is the advertisement? Does it state what drinks the company made in 1846?...This is listed in the Directory under "Dublin"...From the www.cantrell.ie/history.htm web site comes the below--ed.) Ireland has always been a good place for drinks. Perched on the edge of the Atlantic, and lulled by the flow of the gulf stream, Ireland's temperate climate produces ideal natural conditions for the best raw materials to flourish. New ideas seem to flourish here too. It was in Ireland that the first "uisce beatha" was distilled; where the more modern skills gave birth to the smooth dairy liqueurs we call Irish Creams, and where, over two centuries ago, the antecedents of our company, The Cantrell & Cochrane Group, developed a method of carbonating pure water, an invention they called Soda Water. Today at the heart of a vigorous and diverse drinks industry you'll find us making Carbonated soft Drinks, Mixers, Mineral Water, Squashes and Cordials, Juices, Ciders, Perries, Liqueurs and Spirits. Over the years we have become the most broadly based of all drinks companies in Ireland, operating in almost every segment of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks market. The company was started in 1852 in Belfast by Dr. Thomas Cantrell, apothecary and surgeon. However, we can trace our history back to 1769 to A & R Thwaites and Co. which subsequently became a constituent company within the C & C Group. Dr. Cantrell formed a partnership with Alderman Cochrane (later Sir Henry and Lord Mayor of Dublin). This partnership lasted until 1885 when Dr. Cantrell retired. In 1869 they opened a factory in Dublin and created the foundation of a business that was to become a thriving international industry. In 1871 the Belfast business moved to a new premises at Cromac Building, Victoria Square and the company continued to expand and establish an extensive export trade to many parts of the world. Changing world conditions around the 1914 - 1918 war created difficulties in the export market which led the company to concentrate on the home market. Following this change of direction factories were set up in London, Stockport and Glasgow with service depots throughout Great Britain. In 1956 Cantrell & Cochrane Belfast moved to its current premises in Castlereagh Road, Belfast. 1968 was an important year in the history of Cantrell & Cochrane as this was when Cantrell & Cochrane Group of companies came together as a result of a merger of the Soft Drinks and Cider companies. The merger was a result of an arrangement by which Allied Breweries (now Allied Domecq) and Guinness acquired the Cantrell & Cochrane... From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Fri Jan 31 02:11:37 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 21:11:37 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Dialect Tests? Message-ID: Please reply to the original sender as well as to the list. Début du message réexpédié : > De: L Poage > Date: Thu 30 Jan 2003 19:48:17 America/New_York > À: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: Dialect Tests? > > I am currently working on a research project on how dialects affect > phonic knowledge for an education class. My instructor said she once > took a test which catagorized people as to which American dialect they > spoke. Thus far, I've not been able to find such a test. Do you have > any knowledge of tests of this nature? It'd make a great addition to > the presentation. > > Thanks, > Leonard Poage > > Leonard Poage > Career Specialist > Jobs for Ohio's Graduates > Minford High School > Minford, OH > lpoage at minford.k12.oh.us > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 02:12:58 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 21:12:58 -0500 Subject: Animal Crackers (Pittsburgh, 1895) Message-ID: Something for the ADS-Lers from Pittsburgh. The Oxford Symposium this year deals with children's food, so I've got to get "cracking." ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES has this LADIES' HOME JOURNAL, October 1895, pg. 24 ad: _MARVIN'S_ _Noah's Ark_ "Filled with animals, tame and wild, A tasteful luncheon for a child." _The Animal Crackers_ put up as above are light and appetizing and just the thing to please the children; grown folks likethem, too. If your grocer does not sell our biscuits, write to: _MARVIN--Pittsburg_ For more on "animal crackers," including the National Biscuit Company's 1902 product (which stole the term), see this from www.foodreference.com: ANIMAL CRACKERS The product we know today as Animal Crackers came into being in 1902, but it they had existed in similar forms for generations. In the late 1800s, ‘Animals’ (animal shaped fancy cookies) were imported from England. Many of the small, local bakeries in America made different versions called 'Animals' or 'Circus Crackers'. Bakeries began to unite into larger companies with regional and eventual national distribution at the end of the 19th century. One of these was the National Biscuit Company. Packaging became an important factor in marketing on a national scale. Their ‘Animal Biscuits’ were officially renamed 'Barnum's Animals' in 1902. During the Christmas season, the package was redesigned as a circus wagon with a string attached to it, so it could be hung as a Christmas tree ornament. They sold for 5 cents, and they were an immediate hit. In total there have been 37 different varieties of animal crackers since 1902. The current 17 varieties of crackers are tigers, cougars, camels, rhinoceros, kangaroos, hippopotami, bison, lions, hyenas, zebras, elephants, sheep, bears, gorillas, monkeys, seals, and giraffes. There are 22 crackers per box. More than 40 million packages of these are sold each year, and they are exported to 17 countries. They are turned out at the rate of 12,000 per minute, and nearly 6,000 miles of string are used on the packages. Christopher Morley wrote a poem named for them. "Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink, That is the finest of suppers, I think. When I’m grown up and can have what I please, I think I shall always insist upon these." By Christopher Morley. But the most famous reference to Animal Crackers is most likely in the Shirley Temple film 'Curleytop', in which she sang "Animal crackers in my soup, Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop, Gosh, oh, gee, but I have fun! " From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 03:00:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:00:22 -0500 Subject: Bar tender (1830) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster have 1836 for "bartender." It's here under "bar tender." There are some earlier "bartender" hits, but they looked (from the article titles) like the usual APS misdirections. I have to do this, because it's now the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD _AND DRINK_. 15 May 1830, SATURDAY EVENING POST (American Periodical Series online), pg. 2: He stated in his defense that the liquor was sold contrary to his orders by his bar tender; who has since been discharged his service. From scorn at PACIFIC.NET.AU Fri Jan 31 01:28:34 2003 From: scorn at PACIFIC.NET.AU (Steve Cornelius) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 12:28:34 +1100 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <72540.1043915312@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Peter McGraw's mention of "athaletic" reminds me that "triathalon" and its variants (e.g. "duathalon", "biathalon") are common around here. Do these occur in North America and UK too? Steve Cornelius Sydney, Australia From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 03:24:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:24:52 -0500 Subject: Munster cheese, Bed and Breakfast (1858) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster have 1902 for "Munster" cheese. What does the OED revision have? This is long--"<>" is roughly in the middle. OED and Merriam-Webster also both have 1910 for "bed and breakfast," but you might not like this citation of it in the second-to-last paragraph. Notice the "Jewish-German" here instead of "Yiddish." From both the American Periodical Series and, here, Accessible Archives: ITEM #79464 September 16, 1858 THE NATIONAL ERA Washington, D.C., Vol. XII No. 611 P. 145 A PLEASANT NIGHT OF IT! ----- What a very happy period of my life that was when I was supposed to be studying Roman law at the feet of the great Professor Mittermaier at Heidelberg. Little did my fond parents wreck the way in which I spent my nights, or the mad scenes of which I was sharer, among the feather-brained Burschen. I had had only recently quitted Cambridge, after four years of college experience and forgetfulness of what I had learned at school, and the contrast a German university presented was most striking. Still I took to the new mode of life very kindly, and by the time I was able to express my wants and wishes in fearfully broken German, I was perfectly happy; for life is so pleasant at twenty! Perhaps, though, I enjoyed my vacations even more than I did my terms, for I was my own master, and could wander whither I pleased. I had a passport in my pocket, and a respectable amount of florins, and with knapsack on back, I trudged through the whole of the Black Forest, learning German (of a sort, it is true) rapidly on the road, and meeting with various queer adventures. One of the queerest, however, that befel me was in the Vosges, and I may as well narrate it here, as another instance of those strange things which travellers sometimes see. I had ever a predilection for Alsace, for in that happy land the quart bottle holds not merely a quart, which is a rarity, but just three pints, which is a marvel. Nor is the quality of the wine depreciated by the quantity; on the contrary, Chablis is not a patch upon the white wines that grow on the sunny slopes of the Vosges. “If you doubt what I say, take a bumper and try;” which you can easily do, reader, on your next visit to Strasbourg, by calling in at the Rebstock, and asking for a litre of white wine with the ochre seal. However, as I knew that I was going into the country where the delectable wine grew, I did not dally at Strasbourg, but strode manfully away toward the Vosges, full of glorious anticipations, and carefully studying the patois by conversing with every peasant I fell in with. There is a very simple plan, however, to make yourself comprehended in Alsace: always use a French word and a German word alternately; it is wonderful what success you meet with. An infallible rule to make yourself liked is, by lugging in the name of Napoleon le Grand on every possible occasion, and, if you are sufficiently cosmopolitan, you may tacitly assent to the fact that he won the battle of Waterloo. There is only one defect connected with Alsace: when it rains there, there is no mistake about it. I was fated to discover this interesting meteorological fact at the expense of a thorough wetting. I had dined at a little village inn on the inevitable cold veal and picled plums, and when I set out on my jaunt to my night's quarters, seventeen miles off, the clouds were beginning to collect ominously in the west. I buttoned my blouse round me, and trudged manfully onward along a road which had not been traversed by a respectable conveyance within the memory of man. It was full of ruts, hard enough at first, but which the persistent rain, which had commenced by this time to fall, converted into so many pitfalls, into which I was continually slipping. To add to my troubles, night set in with that rapidity peculiar to Southern Germany, and there was no sign of the village at which I intended to spend the night. Not a creature did I meet; nobody was foolish enough to venture out in such weather, save pleasure travellers like myself, and on I went, making about half a mile an hour, and growing very savage - whether the result of the wetting, or of indignation, I really cannot say. My brandy flask had long been emptied; there was no chance of filling it, and I was weared - so wearied that I could have lain down to sleep in a dry ditch, had there been one handy; but against that the elements had carefully guarded. There was no hope for it; I must trudge onward. Suddenly, through the rain, I fancied I could see a light glimmering a short distance from the road. I stopped, and looked steadily; it was no Will-o'-the-wisp, and by a sudden impulse I bounded over the low hedge, and went stumbling over a ploughed field toward the house, as I now felt certain it was. Up to the present, I had regarded the peasant's cabins with considerable aversion, and pour cause: there were the dirtiest places imaginable, and I had no desire to sleep in them so long as an auberge could be found. But now I would have gladly paid a handsome sum for the use of a dog kennel, so long as it sheltered me from the pitiless rain, and held out the prospect of a glass of brandy to warm my inner man, which stood so much in need of that refreshment. I soon approached the cabin, which stood beneath the shade of some gloomy trees, and the light, which probably came from the fire, burned so dimly, that I hesitated for a moment; all appeared so unutterably wretched about the house, that I had a nervous timidity about approaching it. I am not constitutionally fearful; on the contrary, I am usually too prone to run into foolhardiness; but now, whether it was the soaking or the veal, I felt horribly nervous. A moment, however, sufficed to recover me, and I walked across the yard, and knocked boldly at the door. All remained perfectly quiet in the house, except that I fancied I could hear the growling of a huge dog, like distant thunder; then I knocked again somewhat more loudly, and a dog began barking violently. At the same time, however, I had the satisfaction of hearing footsteps approach the doro. “Who is without?” a voice was heard saying, in execrable Jewish-German; “is it you, Benjamin?” “'Tis a stranger,” I shouted, fearing lest any hesitation might render my friend inside suspicious; “I want shelter for the night, and will pay you handsomely for it.” “Are you alone?” the voice asked again. “Quiet, Nero! down dog! what do you mean by growling when I did not order you to watch him?” “All alone, but as wet as if I had been dipped in the river.” “You'd be clever to keep yourself dry this day,” he said, as he pulled back the bolts, and opened the door slowly and cautiously. “Come in - the dog won't hurt you when I'm with you. What weather! Come to the fire, and dry yourself.,” He walked in front of me to the fire, stirred up the smouldering wood, and threw a few sticks upon it. All this while I could notice he was taking quick, sharp glances at me; then he went up to my knapsack, which I had laid on a chair, appeared to feel its weight for a moment, and brought it up to the fire to dry as well as myself. “And you're hungry, too, I suppose! out for pleasure, eh? Young blood! young blood!” and he grinned in a manner to me quite diabolical. He then went to the tale, spread a very dirty tablecloth, on which he placed a loaf of black bread, stuck a knife into it, and then produced a large green glass jar, containing the much desired fluid. After filling an iron saucepan with hot water, and putting it on the wood, he quitted the room for a while. During his absence, I surveyed the room in which I was seated, and the very sight of it made me uncomfortable. It was quite destitute of furniture, contrary to the usual fashion of the peasantry, and I shuddered involuntarily. But, nonsense, it could only be the cold and the moisture the fire was drawing out of my clothes, and yet, for all that, I began to wish I had trudged on through the rain. And then, that immense dog that lay close to the fireplace, and kept its small, suspicious eyes fixed upon me. And the walls were shining with grease and soot, and the small cupboards fixed against them, and shelves. But, Heavens! I could hardly suppress a cry of surprise when my eye fell on an old mummy-like woman, who rose from the dark corner where she had probably been sleeping, and walked toward me and the fire. She was a model of ugliness and disgust, this old woman, with her tangled masses of gray hair hanging over her forehead and temples, her sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, and wrinkled neck, as she stood there shivering with cold, and stretched out her this bony hands to the fire. I fell back a step to give the old creature room, but on my first attempt to quit the chimney-place, the dog growled, and, as I turned toward him, his eyes sparkled so vividly that I thought it advisable to stay where I was, and not anger him unnecessarily. The woman now turned her face to me, and after gazing fixedly at me for a moment, whispered a few hurried words in a language of which I did not understand a syllable. “What a pity,” I thought to myself, “I did not understand a little Hebrew.” I then looked carefully at the old woman, trying to find out from her gestures what she really meant. Again she began her whispering, turning her head timidly toward the door, and pointing at the same time to the table. “I can't understand you!” I said, in the usual patois, hoping she would understand me at any rate. “Hush!” the crone said, quickly and fearfully, holding up her finger in warning; at this moment the door opened, and the Jew, on seeing the old woman by my side, went up angrily to her, and spoke harshly in the same unknown tongue. The woman crept timidly away, wrapped herself more closely in her old cloak, and lay down again in her corner. The Jew then said, pleasantly enough, to me - “Don't bother about the old girl; she is quiet and harmless; but not quite right here,” he said, pointing to his forehead. “When we are alone, I let her do much as she likes; but when strangers visit me, which is seldom enough, she must keep in her corner. But here,” he added, in a louder voice, “is something for you to eat - bread and << Munster cheese>> , I lately brought from Strasbourg, and a famous glass of brandy, which will do you more good, I fancy, than all the rest; the water will be hot by this time. Ah, I see it's boiling, and I'll mix you a glass of punch in the meanwhile. So, now, go to the table, and begin.” I was really almost starving, and yet I could not swallow anything. That confounded dog had his eyes still fixed so dangerously upon me. “The dog won't hurt you,” said the Jew, calmly, “he is only not accustomed to strangers.” “But if I had stirred while you were out of the room, he would have sprung at me,” I said, rather angrily. “It's an old dog,” the man continued, with a smile, “and hasn't a tooth left in his head; but he often pretends to be savage. The time is long past since he bit any one, and you can go up and pat him, and he won't say a word.” However, I did not feel the slightest inclination to try the experiment; I therefore proceeded to the table, and cut a hunch of bread and << cheese>> , while the old Jew stooped down to the fire, and, after shaking something out of a paper into the glass, poured the water upon it. “There!” he said, as he came to the table, “now, put in as much brandy as you like, but the stiffer the better, for it will keep you from catching cold.” “What have you put in the glass, my friend?” I asked, as I held the glass to the fire. “Sugar and water; the sugar is good, and takes off the strength of the brandy.” “I'm not so fond of sugar,” I replied, suspiciously; “and, if you've no objection, I'll mix for myself.” “Not like sugar! why it's the best part of it,” said the Jew, “only taste it, and you'll soon see how good it is.” However, I persisted in throwing the mixture away, and, after carefully washing the glass out, I filled it afresh with water, and poured in some brandy. “More, my friend - more,” the Jew advised me; “that's not half enough, and won't draw the cold out of your limbs. Why, my old woman will drink stronger punch, if I give it to her.” “Thanks, thanks!” I said, as I turned away the bottle, from which the Jew persisted in pouring more into my glass. “I'm not accustomed to strong drinks, and shall have a headache tomorrow morning.” “Oh! tomorrow! I'll guarantee you against that,” the old man laughed to himself; “the brandy is capital, and no one has a headache from it.” I really felt such a shiver come over me at these words, (though, of, course, I ascribed it to my wet clothes,) and the brandy really tasted so good, that I took up the glass and emptied it at a draught. By Jupiter! how it burned! “And now you had better lie down,” the Jew said, after removing the brandy and other things from the table; “it is late in the night, and, after your sleeping draught, you will sleep sound in spite of your hard bed. The best place for you will be here by the fire. Before we go to bed, I'll put on some fresh wood, and by the time that is burnt out, you'll be warm enough. The nights are beginning to grow fresh.” I was glad enough to lie down, so I took up my knapsack, which had dried a little by this time, to serve as a pillow, and the old man brought me a blanket and a sheepskin, regretting that he had nothing better to offer me, but all his beds were occupied. “But I'll bring you something to keep your feet warm,” he added; “that is the chief things, and by the morning you will be all right again.” With these words he took a canvas sack, which appeared to me to be ominously stained, from the chimney nook, and then, bringing it to my feet, (for I had lain down by this time,) requested me to put them in it. “In the sack?” I said, in amazement - “why?” “Oh! you'll see how warm that will keep your feet.” “No, I'd rather lay it over them; that will answer the same purpose.” “Not half so good, I tell you,” the old man continued, and tried to draw the sack over my feet, but I strenuously resisted. There was something so dangerous, in my opinion, in knowing my feet were in a sack, which I could not easily remove in the dark, if I were obliged to spring up in a hurry. If ----? Besides, the old fellow's pressing made me feel uncommon uncomfortable (I may tell you so in strict confidence.) What reason on earth could he have for insisting on my putting my feet in the sack. However, when the Jew found that I was obstinate, he laid the sack over my feet, and went back to the fire instead of retiring to bed as I had expected, and sat cross-legged, staring fixedly into the flame. Well, I shut my eyes and tried to go to sleep, but somehow I could to manage it; the fire burned low, and I could see the old fellow still sitting there, but I felt that his eyes were fixed upon me, and that he was watching my every movement, every breath. Why? I lay thus for an half hour, and the strangest feelings came over me. Then I had a curious taste in my mouth - the brandy, of course, but why was it so metallic? And my head began to go round, and my eyelids grew heavy as lead. At last, I could stand it no longer, and determined to jump up; but I was unable to do so; my limbs refused me their service, a veil seemed to be let down over my eyes, and I felt that a deep, irresistible sleep was overpowering me. How long I lay in this sort of half-dreaming condition I do not know, although I struggled against this unnatural state with all the strength of my mind, and should finally have yielded to it, had not a slight sound just at the right moment come to my aid in resisting it. The Jew, who was still seated at the fire, moved, gently and noiselessly, it is true; still he got up, and now stood with his face turned toward me. I tried to close my eyes, and dispel the odious vision which my fancy seemed to summon up, but at that moment I felt the light, crawling steps of the old man on the floor, felt that he was drawing nearer and nearer; and when I half opened my eyes, cautiously enough, lest the scowling fellow might see I was awake, I saw him standing a few paces from me, with his body half bent to listen, and watching my every breath. What was he about - what did he want? Should I jump up and meet him, in case he attempted to attack me - but then the dog, which was still lying in the room? And again, was the Jew really going to attack me, or might it not be anxiety whether I slept comfortably? I determined to wait and judge for myself, even at the risk of exposing myself to his attack, for I was young and strong, and if the old man designed evil he should meet with a resistance he little anticipated. So, in order to leave the old man at leisure to carry out his designs, whatever they might be, I began breathing loudly and regularly, while watching him carefully through my half-closed eyelids. The Jew remained for a while observing me, as if to make sure that my sleep was real; but then, as if every doubt were removed, he crept quietly back to the chimney, threw some brushwood on the glimmering charcoal, which began to glisten and crackle, and went to the opposite end of the room, where the crockery was kept. Anxiously I watched him; but I must confess that my blood appeared to stagnate, and an icy feeling ran down my back, when I saw him take up a long gleaming knife, and while trying its edge with his thumb, seem to measure the distance between himself and his victim. As I have told you before, I believe I am anything but a coward; I have stood behind a four-foot barricade, and looked up into the gaping muzzles of the cannon as they poured a shower of bullets on your slight defences; but I am bound to say, that the present was the most uncomfortable moment in my life. The calculating villainy of the old scoundrel, and the simplicity with which I had entered the snare, seemed to render escape almost impossible. Still I made up my mind to sell my life as dearly as possible. Fortunately I had in my pocket a Spanish spring-back stiletto, generally employed in the peaceful duties of cutting bread and << cheese>> , (German and French knives being made, like Peter Pindar's razors, to sell, and not to cut,) and I cautiously moved my hand to my breast-pocket, and noiselessly drew it out. When I once held it in my hand, my confidence returned to me. I opened it very quietly, and then laying my left arm across my breast, to parry the first blow, which would probably be aimed there, I held my knife firmly clutched in my hand, and awaited the attack with ground teeth, but no failing determination. My heart, though, would beat so loudly and so violently, that I feared the Jew must hear it; but when I saw him approaching, with the knife cautiously held behind his back, when I felt his foot against my own, when he bent over me, and felt along the wall with his left hand, to find a spot on which to rest it and give his blow more certainty, my fears entirely disappeared. It is a well-known fact, that danger really exists only so long as it threatens us, and it is robbed of more than half its terrors when it breaks over us with undiminished force. This was just my case; I had felt terrified, and could hardly struggle against the feeling, so long as the danger was drawing nearer and nearer to me; but every thought, save that of self-defence, disappeared when I knew that the knife was directed against my heart. so soon as he struck at me, I determined to parry the blow by means of the left arm, an d the blank lying over it would afford me great protection; but then I would start up, and bury my knife in the villain's ribs, before he could recover from his surprise, or summon the dog. I should soon be able to overcome the weak old man; and as for the brute, once on my legs, I dare say I could keep him from doing me an injury. Such was my line of thought, and I was quite prepared to carry it into effect. But why did the Jew hesitate so long? He had advanced his left foot a little, his arm was still supported against the wall, yet he did not raise his other arm to strike the blow. Was he afraid? I bit my teeth mere closely together, and almost longed for the decisive moment to come, so excited did I feel - anything, sooner than endure this horrible suspense. Suddenly the Jew drew back; he did not strike at me - his left arm quitted the wall, and he held in it - I hardly knew whether I was awake or dreaming - the same loaf from which I had previously been eating. He walked with it to the fire, cut off a hunch with the fearful long knife, laid the remainder on the chimney board, and, after poking up the wood fire till it threw a brilliant light over the room, he began quietly eating, without troubling himself any further about my presence. I drew a deep breath - it was as if a large stone had been rolled off my chest - and I lay for a long while in a sort of dreamy condition, hardly able to realize this state of perfect security following closely on the danger which I had fancied so shortly before had menaced me. I really began to feel ashamed of the cruel injustice I had done, though only in thought, to a man who had so hospitably entertained me; and I almost felt inclined to jump up and tell him of my foolish suspicions. But no - that would not do; he would laugh at me. Still I felt I must do something, if only to reconcile my own conscience. I therefore shut up my knife as quietly as possible, returned it to my pocket, and then, pretending to wake from a deep sleep, I threw off the blanket, took the sack, and put my feet quietly into it. “Aha!” chuckled my host, who, on hearing my movement, turned his head quietly toward me; “one's feet generally get cold on nights, if they have been wet during the day; but the sack will keep them warm enough. “I think so, too. I fancy it will be better so,” I replied; then fell back on my somewhat hard pillow, drew the blanket up to my chin, and in a few seconds had fallen into a deep and sweet sleep. When I woke the next morning, I found that the sun was high in the heavens, and on the table a comfortable breakfast had been laid. A pretty little girl was tidying the room, and her presence really rendered it quite cheerful. “So, sir,” she said, good-humoredly, “you are awake at last. Uncle did not like to disturb you. I am sorry, though, you had no better bed than this; but I only came home last night from Strasbourg on a visit, and we had all gone to bed for the night.” The old Jew now came in, and gave me a hearty welcome. I hardly had the heart to look him in the face. I was then forced to sit down to the breakfast table, at which the old man's son, a fine young fellow of twenty-four, joined us. Hearing from him that he was going back with his light cart to Strasbourg that morning, I willingly accepted his offer of accompanying him. I had had quite enough of adventures for this bout, and, besides, sundry rheumatic twinges told me that I ought not to venture away so far from civilization, lest I might be laid on my back in a rustic village, and my mourning relatives never learn where they should set up a cenotaph to my memory. When the light cart came up to the door, I inquired what I had to pay; but the old Jew could not be induced to accept a farthing for the accommodation. Bed and breakfast, he said, had both been poor enough; and I shook his hand heartily upon leaving him. And, upon my honor, in the bright sunshine, he wasn't half such a bad-looking old fellow. There was something quite patriarchal about him. Now, I dare say, you'll all laugh very heartily at my story, and fancy I must have been a great cur to let myself be frightened by an old man; but really, even now, in writing it, I have had an uncomfortable feeling crawl over me at the reminiscence. It's a good many years since it happened, and there's not much prospect of my having any more adventures of that or a similar nature; and, between ourselves - in strict confidence, mind - I prefer making “a pleasant night of it” with Smith, and Jones, and Thompson, after a very different fashion. From hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET Fri Jan 31 03:14:19 2003 From: hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET (Herbert Stahlke) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:14:19 -0500 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <1043941389.16201CF7@r5.dngr.org> Message-ID: Some years ago I was watching a televized question session from the House of Commons, and one of the ministers, answering a question, called the weed /mEridZuana/, with an /i/ instead of the schwa Grant seems to suggest. I took this as the same sort of RP spelling pronunciation as Cervantes' Don /kwiksowt/ or Byron's Don /dZu at n/. But I don't know RP well enough to be sure of this. Herb -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Grant Barrett Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:43 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: schwa insertion There are people, however, who say "mare-uh-juh-wana." On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 8:22AM -0500, James A. Landau wrote: > "marijuana" does not get rendered into English as "mariajuana"---this > may be > because the "i" of "marijuana" is already a schwa. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 04:10:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 23:10:30 -0500 Subject: Bridge Mix (1945) Message-ID: "Bridge mix" is not in OED. It's a real puzzler. Everyone knows that the Brooklyn Bridge and the George Washington Bridge shouldn't be mixed. Any bridge players out there? 29 November 1945, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 36: CANDY-chocolate coated bridge mix, one-pound boxes. Pakt Specialties Co. 641 Morris Av., MO 9-3968. The earliest trademark is this: Word Mark BRIDGE MIX Goods and Services (EXPIRED) IC 030. US 046. G & S: CRACKERS. FIRST USE: 19640502. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19640502 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72193722 Filing Date May 18, 1964 Registration Number 0834841 Registration Date September 5, 1967 Owner (REGISTRANT) KEEBLER COMPANY CORPORATION DELAWARE 2407-2411 W. NORTH AVE. MELROSE PARK, ILL., BY CHANGE OF NAME FROM UNITED BISCUIT COMPANY OF AMERICA (DELAWARE CORPORATION) MELROSE PARK, ILL. Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Disclaimer THE WORD "MIX" IS DISCLAIMED EXCEPT AS A PART OF THE COMBINATION WORD MARK "BRIDGE MIX." Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Live/Dead Indicator DEAD From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 04:44:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 23:44:30 -0500 Subject: Canadian bacon (1897) Message-ID: Something for the Canadian(s) here. Merriam-Webster has 1934 for "Canadian bacon." OED doesn't have "Canadian bacon," so I have to bring it home. October 1897, NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW (American Periodical Series online; also on Making of America-Cornell, the only hit there), pg. 418 start: Being excluded from the American market by heavy duties upon pork and swine, the farmers and packers of Canada set about ascertaining what grade of goods would best suit the English taste, with a determination to shape their business in such a way as to meet that taste. The result is that Canadian bacon and hams so far lead the American product in the English market that, during all of the present season, hogs have been worth at railway stations throughout the Province of Ontario on an average twenty-five per cent. more than in the stock market at Buffalo or Chicago, and the business of furnishing meats to England is growing with phenomenal rapidity. 13 February 1910, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. SM4: (First "Canadian bacon" hit in an article on food markets--ed.) 11 June 1911, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 63 ad: _MACY'S_ MANY GROCERY SPECIALS-- For Shrewd Housewives (...) _Bacon_, a special sale of Wilshire imported Canadian bacon; a fresh shipment just received, freshly cured, delicately flavored; we receive monthly shipments; weights 3 to 25 lbs; at this sale, lb. ... 24 cents (No "Canadian bacon" in the Early Canadiana Online database--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 05:21:38 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 00:21:38 -0500 Subject: Canola (1979); Canola Oil (1983) Message-ID: Something more for Canada! OED doesn't have "canola" or "canola oil." Amazing. Slang even a decade later such as "going postal" got in! Add "canola" with "rabe" right now! Merriam-Webster has 1979 for "canola" and 1986 for "canola oil." MW has "canola"="Canada oil-low acid." These cites are from ProQuest Historical Newspapers. 3 April 1979, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. A18: _Purification_ It was only a matter of time before somebody decided something had to be done about rapeseed. No matter that the "rape" of this oil seed comes from the Latin "rapum," or turnip, and not from the Latin "rapere," meaning to seize. Rapeseed processors in Canada want to call their product "canola," a name that sounds as if it were inspired by granola, holism's favorite breakfast food. But purging rapeseed is only the beginning of the work that needs to be done to cleanse the botanical vocabulary. How can the pure-in-tongue rest easy while the fields are full of horehound, lady-in-the-night and squawroot--also known as Stinking Benjamin? 2 December 1983, WALL STREET JOURNAL, pg. 15: _Algeria Orders From Canada_ $22 Million of Vegetable Oil_ OTTAWA--Algeria ordered 30,000 metric tons of Canadian rapeseed oil valued at $22 million, Canadian Commercial Corp., a government enterprise, said. Rapeseed oil, also known as canola oil, is a vegetable oil used in cooking and food processing. It is Canada's main oil-seed product. (...) 21 February 1984, WALL STREET JOURNAL, pg. 49: _FDA Is Seen Clearing_ _Rapeseed Oil for Use_ _In U.S. Food Products_ OTTAWA--The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize soon the use of rapeseed oil as a food product in the U.S., FDA officials said. Rapeseed oil is used in many countries as an ingredient in such foods as margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing and shortening. It competes with other oilseeds, including soybean and sunflowers. The U.S. has barred rapeseed oil from its edible-oil market because it contains erucic acid, a fatty acid that was cited in the early 1970s as a possible source of heart problems. The proposed FDA regulation would allow only rapeseed oil with low erucic acid content to be used in foods in the U.S. The Canadian government has taken the initiative in seeking FDA clearance for low erucic acid rapeseed oil, asking in 1982 that low erucic acid rapeseed oil be put on the FDA's list of products "generally regarded as safe." Rapeseed, which grows well in northern climates, is Canada's major oilseed crop. It accounts for about 54% of Canada's domestic market for edible oils. The Canola Council of Canada, a rapeseed-industry trade group, said FDA authorization would open the U.S. market to Canadian exports of rapeseed oil and to products containing rapeseed oil. Canada has given the name Canola to tis low erucic acid varieties of rapeseed oil. (...) See the following: http://www.canola-council.org/ From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 12:32:26 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 07:32:26 -0500 Subject: Animal Crackers (Pittsburgh, 1895) In-Reply-To: <4938531F.3804A81D.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > But the most famous reference to Animal Crackers is most likely in the > Shirley Temple film 'Curleytop', in which she sang "Animal crackers in > my soup, Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop, Gosh, oh, gee, but I have > fun! " This is more famous than the Marx Brothers film?? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 12:44:25 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 07:44:25 -0500 Subject: Animal Crackers (Pittsburgh, 1895) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: My last message may have looked like Barry Popik had said some Shirley Temple usage of "animal crackers" was more famous than the Marx Brothers film. Barry was quoting someone; he would know better than to have said that, I'm sure. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Fri Jan 31 12:48:08 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 07:48:08 -0500 Subject: Fwd : American Dialect Assistance in South Africa Message-ID: Please reply to the original sender. Début du message réexpédié : > Good day > > I am the Training and Development manager of a Contact Centre in Cape > Town South Africa. Our agents offer support to many American > customers. We would like to offer our agents the opportunity to learn > more about American Dialects and also possibly explore which words > they use might be confusing to the customers. > > I assume you are situated somewhere in the states, we however need to > get in contact with someone in South Africa who might be able to help > us. > > I would appreciate it if you could contact me today still. > > Kind regards, > > Lisa van Reede van Oudtshoorn > Contact Centre HR Development Manager > ForwardSLASH > Contact Number : 021 430 6520 > Mobile : 082 476 6044 > Lisav at forwardslash.com > Lisa at forwardslash.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 14:49:31 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 09:49:31 -0500 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030131122535.00a6dc20@po.pacific.net.au> Message-ID: At 12:28 PM +1100 1/31/03, Steve Cornelius wrote: >Peter McGraw's mention of "athaletic" reminds me that "triathalon" and its >variants (e.g. "duathalon", "biathalon") are common around here. Do these >occur in North America and UK too? > Yes, at least for "biath(a)lon", "decath(a)lon" and "pentath(a)lon" and for this part of North America. In fact much more common than "ath(a)lete"/"ath(a)letic". I suspect the frequency of "athlete" blocks schwa insertion there, and the stress pattern of "athletic" makes it less likely there (as well as the frequency factor). In "decath(a)lon" and its comrades, both the infrequency and the stress pattern increase the likelihood of the (phonetically natural) schwa insertion. Larry P.S. I imagine for "duath(a)lon" too, but I've never heard that one. From stmorgan at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 1 01:04:30 2003 From: stmorgan at LINFIELD.EDU (Stephanie Morgan) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 17:04:30 -0800 Subject: Remove from List In-Reply-To: <1041337317.3e118be5669aa@descartes.linfield.edu> Message-ID: Please remove my name from the list. Thanks From cheerchick94 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jan 1 02:36:08 2003 From: cheerchick94 at HOTMAIL.COM (Lakita Hampton) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 21:36:08 -0500 Subject: Remove from List Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ktaylorschlieper at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 1 06:16:15 2003 From: ktaylorschlieper at YAHOO.COM (Kathy Schlieper) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 22:16:15 -0800 Subject: Please remove me from list Message-ID: Thanks very much. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Jan 1 17:46:11 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 12:46:11 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Mark A. Mandel writes: >I've found that the ease of editing electronic >text has more than once led me into errors that I can hardly imagine >making in hard-copy draft. -- Has anyone done a study of this >phenomenon? ~~ I agree. Drag & drop, cut&paste, copy&paste are all dandy tools, but their very ease tends to leave a trail of weird blunders. ~~ > >This is a very able writer, which is why I wondered if it might be a >>regionalism that I simply was unfamiliar with. >Whence he? I grew up in NYC and it's far from me! ~~ The writer in question, Archer Mayor, lives & writes in Vermont at present, and has written a solid series of character-driven police novels laid in Vermont. I find from the bio para on the jacket that he has lived all over the US & Europe and had a great variety of jobs. Can't tell from this what his native dialect may have been. AM From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 1 19:36:37 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 14:36:37 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 01:04 PM 12/31/2002 -0800, you wrote: > > Hey, that's Southeast Ohio, where we also have a Fur Peace Ranch, run by > > Jorma Kaukonen as a guitar camp and concert "venue" (somehow that word > > doesn't sound right in this context). > >Sounds like a retirement home for superannuated mink. No? No, for ageing hippies! (The 'peace' is intended.) He was with Jefferson Airplane years ago--but you probably already knew that. In fact, he was featured on NPR a few mornings ago--a nice piece. The "ranch" (in Ohio? actually a set of cabins in the woods) is not too fur a piece down the road from Athens, near the Ohio River. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 1 19:54:14 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 14:54:14 -0500 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am bcc-ing her on this post.) >>>>> #Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In #Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good #Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes #from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, #it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the #context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however #truncated - Hebrew word in our language. Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew [roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any information on this? <<<<< Comments, anyone? -- Mark A. Mandel From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 1 20:23:55 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 15:23:55 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030101143255.01f0caa0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: At 2:36 PM -0500 1/1/03, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >At 01:04 PM 12/31/2002 -0800, you wrote: >> > Hey, that's Southeast Ohio, where we also have a Fur Peace Ranch, run by >>> Jorma Kaukonen as a guitar camp and concert "venue" (somehow that word >>> doesn't sound right in this context). >> >>Sounds like a retirement home for superannuated mink. No? > >No, for ageing hippies! (The 'peace' is intended.) He was with Jefferson >Airplane years ago--but you probably already knew that. In fact, he was >featured on NPR a few mornings ago--a nice piece. The "ranch" (in >Ohio? actually a set of cabins in the woods) is not too fur a piece down >the road from Athens, near the Ohio River. JK's "Blue Country Heart" is very highly recommended, for anyone into that sort of music (traditional/string band/bluegrass). Wonderful songs, wonderfully played and sung. OK, I know, off thread. Happy new year anyway. Larry From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Wed Jan 1 20:34:20 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:34:20 +0100 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: Heinz K?pper, W?rterbuch der deutschen Alltagssprache has the following on Rutsch and the verb rutschen: "eine kurze, rasche Reise unternehmen, 17. Jh." "Guter (gl?cklicher) R.! = gute Reise. Etwa seit 1800." "guter (guten) R. ins neue Jahr!: Neujahrswunsch. Sp?testens seit 1900." He does not mention Yiddish, only the natural sense of "slide". Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark A Mandel" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 8:54 PM Subject: [ADS-L] Guten Rutsch > A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an > etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am > bcc-ing her on this post.) > > >>>>> > > #Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In > #Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good > #Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes > #from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, > #it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the > #context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however > #truncated - Hebrew word in our language. > > Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little > suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is > often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I > can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general > German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew > [roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would > be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any > information on this? > > <<<<< > > Comments, anyone? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Jan 1 20:54:01 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 15:54:01 -0500 Subject: "far to"...specific spot? In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030101143255.01f0caa0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >No, for ageing hippies! (The 'peace' is intended.) He was with Jefferson >Airplane years ago--but you probably already knew that. In fact, he was >featured on NPR a few mornings ago--a nice piece. The "ranch" (in >Ohio? actually a set of cabins in the woods) is not too fur a piece down >the road from Athens, near the Ohio River. Interesting cabins, too. They are tiny and clearly designed only for sleeping, since they are pretty much open to the world and have no shades/drapes/etc. All are communal. When you are there you are supposed to play your guitar, eat excellent meals, and sleep a bit. Bethany From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 1 21:05:23 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 15:05:23 -0600 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: The Hebrew wish for a Happy New Year is Shanah Tovah (stress on final syllable in each word; = "Year Good"). There's no Rosh in sight here other than in the name of the holiday (Rosh ha-Shanah). Meanwhile, German Rutsch "slide" in guten Rutsch (ins neue Jahr) seems to make perfect sense. I assume the slide is that of a sled or skier starting to move downhill. Gerald Cohen >At 2:54 PM -0500 1/1/03, Mark A Mandel wrote: >A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an >etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am >bcc-ing her on this post.) > > >>>>> > >#Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In >#Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good >#Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes >#from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, >#it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the >#context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however >#truncated - Hebrew word in our language. > >Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little >suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is >often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I >can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general >German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew >[roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would >be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any >information on this? > > <<<<< > >Comments, anyone? > >-- Mark A. Mandel From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 1 21:23:21 2003 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 16:23:21 -0500 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: I never heard the expression but my Bavarian (1st) wife used "rutsch" all the time in the sense of "move over, slide over" and as an adj "rutschy" for "slick, slippery"; moreover, a student in my American dialects class investigating "scoot" found "rutsch" to be a synonym in upstate New York for a prompt something like "what do you say when someone wants to sit down and the people sitting have to move?" I doubt that Upstate is much influenced by Yiddish although Bayerisch is, like Yiddish, South [=high] German. _________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 1 22:33:44 2003 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:33:44 -0500 Subject: rutschy7 Message-ID: Also, in a second sense of feeling queezy, as in one's stomach feels rutschy. _________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From einstein at FROGNET.NET Wed Jan 1 22:43:10 2003 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:43:10 -0500 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: For an example of a greeting card w/Good Slide (complete with pigs) see http://grusskarten.crazy-crazy.de/gutenrutsch2001_de.shtml _________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU Thu Jan 2 02:15:20 2003 From: philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU (Philip Trauring) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:15:20 -0500 Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense Message-ID: Today I saw a use of the word 'downloading' I had never before seen. I was skiing at Waterville Valley in NH and after the usual sign that tells you when to 'unload' i.e. get off the chair lift at the top, there was another sign telling people that there was 'No Downloading' allowed. Clearly the intention is to say that you're not allowed to get on the chair lift at the top to take it down the mountain. The only definition I've been able to find for downloading, is the computer sense. Is this sense in any dictionary? I still haven't been able to track down a reasonably priced OED, so I can't check the OED. Philip Trauring p.s. Someone from the list did contact me previously about a compact edition of the OED, but my e-mail got corrupted and I lost the e-mail before I could respond. If that person reads this, please get back in touch. From philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU Thu Jan 2 02:41:11 2003 From: philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU (Philip Trauring) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:41:11 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: I'm curious if anything has been written on multilingual rhyming slang. Sure, we've all heard of Cockney Rhyming Slang, but clearly other rhyming slangs exist. There must be many examples of phrases being spoken because they rhyme with phrases in other languages - thus multilingual rhyming slang. I would imagine there were many such phrases introduced in America by immigrants in the past century. One which jumps to mind is 'Cashmere and Togas' - which sounds like 'Kish mir in Tuchis' - Yiddish slang which parallels directly with the English phrase "Kiss my &%$". Anyone know of other similar phrases from other languages? Philip Trauring From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 2 04:08:29 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 22:08:29 -0600 Subject: yannigan bag (lumberjack term): Is it actually attested anywhere in context? Message-ID: Is the term "yannigan" (lumberjack's carpetbag) attested in context anywhere? Wentworth and Flexner's _Dictionary of American Slang_ say that "yannigan" ( =baseball rookie; obsolete) derives from "yannigan bag." And under "yannigan bag" they say: "A home-made or carpet bag in which loggers, prospectors, and traveling performers used to carry their possessions. Obsolete." Meanwhile, Paul Dickson (The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 1999) reports that James Stevens (American Speech, Dec. 1925) suggested that the word was born in American lumber camps: "Like such old terms as 'cross cut,' 'bitted,' yannigan,' and 'snubline' they had the ringing life of the timber in them."' I don't find "yannigan (bag)" in the Oxford English Dictionary. (Reason: ?). Is it anywhere else? For easy access, below my signoff I reproduce part of Paul Dickson's treatment of baseball "yannigan." Gerald Cohen [from the New Dickson Baseball Dictionary]: ...Etymology: The term appears in other slang contexts; e.g. The "yannigan bags" that lumberjacks, prospectors, and others used to carry their clothing. Joseph McBride (High and Inside, 1980) states that the baseball term derived from the carpetbag, and was a reference to the disreputability of rookies and subs. McBride adds: "According to Lee Allen, Jerry Denny, a third baseman for Providence in 1884, was responsible for dumping the name 'yannigan' on rookies." There is no clear link between this term and a word in another language or an earlier form of English or an English dialect; e.g., no word close to "yannigan" appears in John S. Farmer and W.E. Henley's Slang and Its Analogues (1905). James Stevens (American Speech, Dec. 1925) suggested that the word was born in American lumber camps: "Like such old terms as 'cross cut,' 'bitted,' yannigan,' and 'snubline' they had the ringing life of the timber in them."' From dwhause at JOBE.NET Thu Jan 2 03:44:05 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:44:05 -0600 Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense Message-ID: OAD lists only the computer sense and AHD4 lists that as secondary, with primary being to unload cargo from an aircraft; neither has "ride a ski lift down." Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip Trauring" Today I saw a use of the word 'downloading' I had never before seen. I was skiing at Waterville Valley in NH and after the usual sign that tells you when to 'unload' i.e. get off the chair lift at the top, there was another sign telling people that there was 'No Downloading' allowed. From davemarc at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 2 02:38:26 2003 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:38:26 -0500 Subject: Google Message-ID: Recalling recent discussions revolving around the name Google, I figured some subscribers would be interested to know of the following origin story, which is offered at the Google website. Please pardon me if this information has already been considered here. The Meaning of Google Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to refer to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web. http://www.google.com/press/facts.html d. From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Thu Jan 2 10:38:13 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 10:38:13 -0000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: > Sure, we've all heard of Cockney Rhyming Slang, but clearly other > rhyming slangs exist. There must be many examples of phrases being > spoken because they rhyme with phrases in other languages - thus > multilingual rhyming slang. 'Clearly'? I'm not so sure. Whatever its origins - 19C Irish 'navvies' working on British railways and canals; London street balladeers; or, as ever with slang, villains seeking to fool the authorities - rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language phenomenon. And as such almost invariably rhymes with English terms. That it spread to Australia, where it still flourishes, and appears briefly (primarily 1920s-40s) in America, is undeniable. But I still can't find an input from immigrants. I have around 3000 such terms, dead and alive, on my database. Of these I have unearthed a couple: 'flour mixer' = 'shikse' (Yiddish: a gentile female) and the Australian 'cook', which means a glance, and while it may rhyme simply on look, may equally well come from Yid. 'geb a guck', take a look. There may be more, but I don't have them, and nor do other collectors of the rhyming slang lexicon. The once-strong Jewish, and thus Yiddish presence in Cockney London undoubtedly contributed to 'mainstream' slang, but not to its rhyming subset. Might I suggest that the innate 'London-ness' of the vocabulary means that the rhymes are almost variably 'English'. Rhyming slang may preserve the names of century-dead music-hall (vaudeville) stars and rhyme both Germaine Greer and Britney Spears with 'beer' but funny foreign stuff? On yer bike, squire! Jonathon Green From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 2 14:52:09 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 09:52:09 -0500 Subject: yannigan bag (lumberjack term): Is it actually attested anywhere in context? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Is the term "yannigan" (lumberjack's carpetbag) attested in context > anywhere? I surely can't find it immediately. "Yannigan" = "scrub player" appears in Mathews and in MW2 and MW3, with possible etymology from "young-un" = "young one". "Yannigan" looks like a surname (cf. Finnegan, Bennigan, Hooligan) and indeed I find both Yannigan and Yanigan (as well as Yanahan) as (infrequent) surnames. There is for example a Mary Yanigan gravestone (1867-1906) in my general neighborhood. I find "rookie" (young/undisciplined) soldiers called "Yanigans" in discussion of the My Lai incident on the Web (so maybe the term isn't entirely obsolete after all?). "Yannigan" apparently had a broader sense of "youngster"/"rookie" (beyond baseball) earlier too (based on a single 1904 example which appears to refer to junior reporters). I find one mention of a Hartford baseball player (1885) named "Con Yannigan" on the Web: I don't know whether there was ever really such a person nor even what team might have existed in Hartford in 1885 (my knowledge of baseball is very slight). -- Doug Wilson From mejarc at TWOBANJOS.COM Thu Jan 2 15:49:38 2003 From: mejarc at TWOBANJOS.COM (Melanie Archer) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 07:49:38 -0800 Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense In-Reply-To: <200301020500.h0250G087063@mx3.daemonmail.net> Message-ID: >From: Philip Trauring > >The only definition I've been able to find for downloading, is the >computer sense. Is this sense in any dictionary? I still haven't been >able to track down a reasonably priced OED, so I can't check the OED. > Like Dave Hause, I find only computer-related usages in the OED; the earliest-dated supporting quotation is for a noun form ("Changes at this stage are readily achieved by a simple process of re-edit, assemble and download." Scientific American, 1977) >p.s. Someone from the list did contact me previously about a compact >edition of the OED, but my e-mail got corrupted and I lost the e-mail >before I could respond. If that person reads this, please get back in >touch. You might try the Oxford University Press Web sites: http://oup-usa.org/intl/globe.html Enjoy, Melanie Archer From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Thu Jan 2 16:23:15 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 16:23:15 -0000 Subject: yannigan bag (lumberjack term): Is it actually attested anywhere in context? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030102084622.04a05e00@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: I'm not at all sure whether it helps matters at all, but I found this in "The Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis", which was published in 1917, but which contains the following comments in a letter dated from Tokyo on 22nd May 1904: "Yesterday we all went to Yokohama. There are four wild American boys here just out of Harvard who started the cry of "Ping Yang" for the "Ping Yannigans" they being the "Yannigans." They help to make things very lively and are affectionately regarded by all classes." -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 2 17:31:11 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 09:31:11 -0800 Subject: Guten Rutsch In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Lutz Roehrich often has Hebrew sources for German sayings in his Lexikon der sprichwoertlichen Redensarten, but he doesn't give any for "Guten Rutsch." He says only that the connotation of a slow, almost unnoticeable slide over into the new year is at the base of the expression, attested since about 1900. Apparently related: "einen Rutsch(er) machen" 'take a little trip' is attested in the Saxony/Thuringia/Berlin area since the middle of the 19th Century. I'd be suspicious of the Hebrew connection as well; I think your note about the bad phonological fit is correct. PR On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Mark A Mandel wrote: > A German friend on another list sent New Year's greetings with an > etymology I find suspicious. Here is her posting with my reply. (I am > bcc-ing her on this post.) > > >>>>> > > #Oh, and then I have something cute for the linguists on this list. In > #Germany, we say "Guten Rutsch" on New Year's Eve. It literally means "Good > #Slide". Sounds sort of science fiction-y, doesn't it? Well, it really comes > #from "Rosh" (= Hebrew for "beginning"). Handed down over centuries, > #it changed into a German word that doesn't make too much sense in the > #context. Somehow, I feel a deep satisfaction that we have a - however > #truncated - Hebrew word in our language. > > Lovely, and thank you. Sad to say, I have to be at least a little > suspicious, (1) because it sounds almost cute (which in etymology is > often a red flag), and (2) because the only reasonably likely route I > can imagine is via Yiddish, and for that to make its way into general > German usage doesn't seem too likely to me. And (3) why should Hebrew > [roS] "rosh", which fits perfectly well into German phonology (it would > be spelled "rosch"), be distorted into "rutsch" [rUtS]? Do you have any > information on this? > > <<<<< > > Comments, anyone? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Thu Jan 2 17:37:13 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:37:13 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Comment for the ADS Webmaster Message-ID: Forwarded to the list without comment. D?but du message r?exp?di? : > De: Pasampson at aol.com > Date: Thu 2 Jan 2003 12:35:15 America/New_York > ?: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: Comment for the ADS Webmaster > > Just saw an article in the paper re: the Word of the Year -- please, > Please, PLEASE do not encourage President Bush in his mangling of the > English language by conferring your approval upon his made-up words > such as "embetterment"! > > Page Sampson > Glen Ridge, NJ > From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 2 17:38:29 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 09:38:29 -0800 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Do you mean stuff like "Donkey field mouse" for "Danke vielmals"? That should be easy to find. I doubt, though, that there's any significant connection with immigrants' experiences. PR On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Philip Trauring wrote: > I'm curious if anything has been written on multilingual rhyming slang. > > I would imagine there were many such phrases introduced in America by > immigrants in the past century. One which jumps to mind is 'Cashmere > and Togas' - which sounds like 'Kish mir in Tuchis' - Yiddish slang > which parallels directly with the English phrase "Kiss my &%$". > > Anyone know of other similar phrases from other languages? > > Philip Trauring > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 17:53:01 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:53:01 EST Subject: "George Carlin Strikes Again" Message-ID: This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, State of Michigan. Mr. Ryan DeVries 2088 Dagget Pierson, MI 49339 SUBJECT: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County Dear Mr. DeVries: It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity: Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated. The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2002. Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action. We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions. Sincerely, David L. Price District Representative Land and Water Management Division ******************* This is the actual response sent back........ Dear Mr. Price, Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County. Your certified letter dated 12/17/01 has been handed to me to respond to. First of all, Mr. Ryan DeVries is not the legal Landowner and/or Contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan. I am the legal owner and a couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity. My first dam question to you is: (1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers or (2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request? If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated. I have several concerns. My first concern is - aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation - so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event causing flooding is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names. If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers - but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English. In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams.). So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2002? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then. In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they dump!) Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office. Sincerely, Stephen L.Tvedten ****************************************************************************** ** Ever wonder about those people who spend $2.00 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool? OK... so if the Jacksonville Jaguars are known as the "Jags" and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are known as the "Bucs", what does that make the Tennessee Titans ? If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one enjoys it? There are three religious truths: 1. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. 2. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith. 3. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters 1. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented? 2. If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes? 3. Why do we say something is out of whack? What's a whack? 4. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery? 5. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled? 6. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? 7. When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts" and you put your two cents in . . . what happens to the other penny? 8. Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? 9. Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with? 10. When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say? 11. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist? 12. Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites? 13. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things? 14. Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety one? 15. "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence? 16. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed? 17. If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP? 18. Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks? 19. What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men? 20. I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me . . they're cramming for their final exam. 21. I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks, so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks? 22. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail? 23. If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for? 24. You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. 25. No one ever says, "It's only a game" when their team is winning. 26. Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag? 27. Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts. 28. If a cow laughed, would milk come out of her nose? 29. Whatever happened to Preparations A through G? ********************************************************************* You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night. You pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for the bus: 1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die. 2. An old friend who once saved your life. 3. The perfect man (or) woman you have been dreaming about. Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car. Think before you continue reading. This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application. You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first; or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back. However, you may never be able to find your perfect dream lover again. The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer. WHAT DID HE SAY? He simply answered: "I would give the car keys to my old friend, and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the woman of my dreams." ***************************************************************************** A U.S. Navy cruiser pulled into port in Mississippi for a week's liberty. The first evening, the Captain was more than a little surprised to receive the following letter from the wife of a wealthy plantation owner: "Dear Captain, Thursday will be my daughter Melinda's, coming of age party. I would like you to send four well mannered, handsome, unmarried officers. They should arrive at 8 p.m. prepared for an evening of polite southern conversation and dance with lovely young ladies. One last point: No, Mexicans. We don't like Mexicans." Sure enough, at 8 p.m. on Thursday, the lady heard a rap at the door. She opened the door to find, in dress uniform, four exquisitely mannered, smiling black officers. Her jaw hit the floor, but pulling herself together she stammered, "There must be some mistake!" "On no, madam," said the first officer, "Captain Martinez doesn't make mistakes." From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 18:00:56 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:00:56 EST Subject: downloading, in the chair lift sense Message-ID: In a message dated 1/2/03 11:00:24 AM Eastern Standard Time, mejarc at TWOBANJOS.COM writes: > I find only computer-related usages in the OED; the > earliest-dated supporting quotation is for a noun form ("Changes at this > stage are readily achieved by a simple process of re-edit, assemble and > download." Scientific American, 1977) "noun form"? This looks like three verbs to me. - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From dave at WILTON.NET Thu Jan 2 18:11:30 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 10:11:30 -0800 Subject: "George Carlin Strikes Again" In-Reply-To: <153.19bc3639.2b45d67d@aol.com> Message-ID: Ah, the famous "dam letter." It's a bit of an internet urban legend--albeit in this case it's a true one. Letters very similar to these were actually sent. The legendary element is the propagation. The actual letters are from 1997. Note here that the dates have been changed to 2001-02 (although the file numbers are still "97"). It's interesting that someone went to the trouble to change the dates to make the incident seem current. The original versions, which at first glance appear identical except for the dates, can be found at http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.htm > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of James A. Landau > Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 9:53 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: "George Carlin Strikes Again" > > > This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by > the Michigan > Department of Environmental Quality, State of Michigan. > > > > Mr. Ryan DeVries > 2088 Dagget Pierson, MI 49339 > > SUBJECT: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; > Montcalm County > > Dear Mr. DeVries: > > It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental > Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the > above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as > the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following > unauthorized activity: > > Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the > outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to > the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's > files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the > Department has determined that this activity is in violation of > Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and > Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, > being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled > Laws, annotated. > > The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams > partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and > flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this > nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The > Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities > at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow > condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the > stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later > than January 31, 2002. > > Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed > so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our > staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further > unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being > referred for elevated enforcement action. > > We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this > matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have > any questions. > > > Sincerely, David L. Price > > District Representative Land and Water Management Division > > > ******************* > > This is the actual response sent back........ > > > > Dear Mr. Price, > > Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; > Montcalm County. > > Your certified letter dated 12/17/01 has been handed to me to > respond to. > > First of all, Mr. Ryan DeVries is not the legal Landowner and/or > Contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan. I am the legal > owner and a couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) > process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams > across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. > > While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam > project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their > skillful use of natures building materials "debris." > > I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate > their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe > I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam > skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam > persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic. > > As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they > must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type > of dam activity. > > My first dam question to you is: (1) Are you trying to > discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers or (2) do you require > all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request? > > If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, > through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies > of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been > issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of > Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and > Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, > being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled > Laws, annotated. > > I have several concerns. My first concern is - aren't the beavers > entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are > financially destitute and are unable to pay for said > representation - so the State will have to provide them with a dam > lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of > the dams failed during a recent rain event causing flooding is > proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is > required to protect. > > In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone > rather than harassing them and calling their dam names. If you > want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please > contact the beavers - but if you are going to arrest them, they > obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being > unable to read English. > > In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to > build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the > grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam > rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department > of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its > name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the > environment (Beavers' Dams.). > > So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can > be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why > wait until 1/31/2002? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the > dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to > contact/harass them then. > > In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real > environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the > bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely > believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave > the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver > dam, watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they > dump!) > > Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to > contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this > response to your dam office. > > Sincerely, > > Stephen L.Tvedten From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 18:32:34 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:32:34 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Fwd:=20Comment=20for=20th?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?e=20ADS=20Webmaster?= Message-ID: This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling just because many people think he is an idiot? In a message dated 1/2/03 12:38:02 PM, gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > Forwarded to the list without comment. > > D?but du message r?exp?di? : > > > De: Pasampson at aol.com > > Date: Thu 2 Jan 2003? 12:35:15 America/New_York > > ?: gbarrett at americandialect.org > > Objet: Comment for the ADS Webmaster > > > > Just saw an article in the paper re: the Word of the Year -- please, > > Please, PLEASE do not encourage President Bush in his mangling of the > > English language by conferring your approval upon his made-up words > > such as "embetterment"! > > > > Page Sampson > > Glen Ridge, NJ > > > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 2 18:52:45 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:52:45 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Comment for th e ADS Webmaster In-Reply-To: <165.18f720d7.2b45dfc2@aol.com> Message-ID: At 1:32 PM -0500 1/2/03, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and not a >clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling just because >many people think he is an idiot? In any case, since when do we "confer [our] approval" upon the selected WOTY candidates? The existence of categories like "most unnecessary" should put the lie to that calumny. larry >In a message dated 1/2/03 12:38:02 PM, gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > > >> Forwarded to the list without comment. >> >> D?but du message r?exp?di? : >> >> > De: Pasampson at aol.com >> > Date: Thu 2 Jan 2003 12:35:15 America/New_York >> > ?: gbarrett at americandialect.org >> > Objet: Comment for the ADS Webmaster >> > >> > Just saw an article in the paper re: the Word of the Year -- please, >> > Please, PLEASE do not encourage President Bush in his mangling of the >> > English language by conferring your approval upon his made-up words >> > such as "embetterment"! >> > >> > Page Sampson >> > Glen Ridge, NJ >> > >> >> From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 2 19:23:35 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 14:23:35 EST Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: Time magazine (URL http://www.time.com/time/europe/forecast2003/) has put together a list of bad predictions. Some of them have been discussed here in ADS-L previously, such as I think there is a world market for maybe five computers THOMAS WATSON, chairman of IBM, 1943 on seeing the first mainframe computer As I have previously commented, the attribution to Thomas Watson [Sr.] is highly suspect. Also TIME added a mistake to this mistake by using the word "mainframe" which was not coined until years later and which cannot be applied to any computer before Great Britain's EDSAC, first operational in 1948. A few others which might comtend for the honor of being "computer proverbs" Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to communicate electronically across or under the stormy North Atlantic Ocean Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London This one is suspect because of the word "electronically" which is a 20th Century term and which refers to devices which were not invented/discovered until circa the 1880's. Another from the same predictor: Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London Radio has no future LORD KELVIN, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897 [By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do HERBERT A. SIMON, of Carnegie Mellon University ? considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence ? speaking in 1965 Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop ? because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it This antitrust thing will blow over BILL GATES, founder of Microsoft You wouldn't want to be in an airplane, you wouldn't want to be in an elevator, and you wouldn't want to be in a hospital... contingency plans need to be put into place to minimize the harm from widespread failures Sen. CHRIS DODD, Year 2000 Tech Committee Senate Hearings into the Millennium Bug, June 12, 1998 Sterility may be inherited PACIFIC RURAL NEWS Huh? and I can't resist this one, even though not computer-related: A short-lived satirical pulp TIME, writing off Mad magazine in 1956. Mad is still going. (So is TIME) - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 2 19:38:53 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 11:38:53 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: "James A. Landau" wrote: > > Time magazine (URL http://www.time.com/time/europe/forecast2003/) has put > together a list of bad predictions. Some of them have been discussed here in > ADS-L previously, such as > > I think there is a world market for maybe five computers > THOMAS WATSON, > chairman of IBM, 1943 on seeing the first mainframe computer > > As I have previously commented, the attribution to Thomas Watson [Sr.] is > highly suspect. Also TIME added a mistake to this mistake by using the word > "mainframe" which was not coined until years later and which cannot be > applied to any computer before Great Britain's EDSAC, first operational in > 1948. > > A few others which might comtend for the honor of being "computer proverbs" > > Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to communicate > electronically across or under the stormy North Atlantic Ocean > Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), > professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College > London > > This one is suspect because of the word "electronically" which is a 20th > Century term and which refers to devices which were not invented/discovered > until circa the 1880's. Another from the same predictor: > > Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, > unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia > Dr DIONYSYS LARDER (1793-1859), > professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London > > Radio has no future > LORD KELVIN, > Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal > Society, > 1897 > > [By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do > HERBERT A. SIMON, > of Carnegie Mellon University -- considered to be a founder of the > field of artificial intelligence -- speaking in 1965 > > Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like > to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change > their minds > TIME, > 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone > had ever heard of it > > This antitrust thing will blow over > BILL GATES, > founder of Microsoft > > You wouldn't want to be in an airplane, you wouldn't want to be in an > elevator, and you wouldn't want to be in a hospital... contingency plans need to > be put into place to minimize the harm from widespread failures > Sen. CHRIS DODD, > Year 2000 Tech Committee Senate Hearings into the Millennium Bug, > June 12, 1998 > > Sterility may be inherited > PACIFIC RURAL NEWS > > Huh? > > and I can't resist this one, even though not computer-related: > > A short-lived satirical pulp > TIME, > writing off Mad magazine in 1956. Mad is still going. (So is TIME) Here are a few more: (1949) - "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons." - Popular Mechanics (1977) - "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (1982) - "$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft." - IBM, 1982 More here: and here: search: computers olson watson predictions Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 2 22:15:58 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:15:58 -0500 Subject: Computer proverbs In-Reply-To: <187.13c30b56.2b45ebb7@aol.com> Message-ID: I don't want to call these "proverbs". A proverb is a phrase or sentence that is popularly used to encapsulate a perceived truth, whether general (An apple a day keeps the doctor away) or specific to a type of situation (A day late and a dollar short). These lines, OTOH, are putative quotations that are used as popular examples of mistaken predictions. -- Mark A. Mandel From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 2 22:19:35 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:19:35 -0500 Subject: Derivation of the word oaktag In-Reply-To: <6F4FBC24.0E695075.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > 16 January 1949, NEW YORK TIMES, classifieds, pg. F14: > PAPER PRODUCTS...oaktag board. > > 2 June 1963, NEW YORK TIMES, classified, pg. 155: > Oak tag all colors...GEM PAPER 594 Bway NY. I missed these. Barry has more patience in going through the classified ad hits (or non-hits) on ProQuest Historical Newspapers than I do. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 2 22:26:19 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:26:19 -0500 Subject: Comment for the ADS Webmaster In-Reply-To: <165.18f720d7.2b45dfc2@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and not a #clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling just because #many people think he is an idiot? "[The race is not always to the swift, nor the contest to the strong]... but that's the way to bet." I'm sure I've mangled the quotation from The Preacher in this quip, and probably the relevant part as well, but Dubya is so much in the habit of tripping over his own (physical and native) tongue that any form first observed coming out of his mouth is odds-on to be a blunder. -- Mark A. Mandel From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 2 22:35:27 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 14:35:27 -0800 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Fwd:_Comment_for_the_ADS_Webmaster?= In-Reply-To: <165.18f720d7.2b45dfc2@aol.com> Message-ID: I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain wide acceptance and which ones don't. Peter Mc. --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > just because many people think he is an idiot? **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From sussex at UQ.EDU.AU Thu Jan 2 22:34:47 2003 From: sussex at UQ.EDU.AU (Prof. R. Sussex) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:34:47 +1000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: <200301020500.h0250KuU002847@mailhub2.uq.edu.au> Message-ID: Phillip Trauring asks about multilingual rhyming slang. I'd be most interested to hear if there are any examples, but I haven't found any in Australia, a multicultural place with a highly active use of rhyming slang, AND it's productive: new ones are arising all the time. For instance Barry Crocker (a well known personality) = "shocker" = something bad: so I've had a shocker of a day I've had a Barry Crocker of a day I've had a Barry Crocker I've had a real Barry - nothing went right The last two involve the progressive removal of the clues which allow hearers to recover a possible rhyme - if they didn't know the allusion in the first place. This is a piece of in-group solidarity, or obscurity, involving ludic language. This is a very British / Cockney thing in origin, but lively in some Commonwealth places (New Zealand, e.g.). Apparently some Australian hoods went to Chicago around 1925 and took some of their rhyming slang with them; rumour has it that some survives in the Windy City. All of that notwithstanding (ah, I have now had my annual use of that word), multilingual rhyming slang from other languages would be a curio (echo phrases like "namby pamby" are another matter). "Cashmere and togas" (new to me) looks like a possible candidate. You'd need a substantial immigre population speaking another language in the presence of Anglophones, and probably code-switching, so that the mis-heard phrase would have some kind of Anglo context in which to be mis-heard. Though "Cashmere and togas" as an exclamation might have enough context to make restricted sense. -- Roly Sussex Professor of Applied Language Studies Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and Applied Linguistics School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies The University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland 4072 AUSTRALIA Office: Greenwood 434 (Building 32) Phone: +61 7 3365 6896 Fax: +61 7 3365 6799 Email: sussex at uq.edu.au Web: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/profiles/sussex.html School's website: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/ Language Talkback ABC radio: Web: http://www.cltr.uq.edu.au/languagetalkback/ Audio: from http://www.abc.net.au/darwin/ ********************************************************** From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 2 22:46:19 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:46:19 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Prof. R. Sussex wrote: > I've had a real Barry - nothing went right Are you referring to traffic ticket procedures or New York Times corrections here? :) Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 2 22:49:31 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:49:31 -0500 Subject: "An Arm and a Leg" Antedating Message-ID: Updated OED material has an entry for the expression "an arm and a leg" with a first citation dated 1956 (Billie Holiday's _Lady Sings the Blues_). ProQuest Historical Newspapers yields this antedating: 1948 _New York Times_ 13 June R3 (advertisement) It's very welcome news to hear of a house that doesn't demand an arm and a leg to buy it. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Fri Jan 3 01:46:36 2003 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 17:46:36 -0800 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:______Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Fwd:_Comment_for_the_ADS_Webmaster?= Message-ID: Such as "normalcy" allegedly invented by by Pres Harding, another leader of less than Einsteinian intlligence, and which is about 90% acceptable today... J foster ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter A. McGraw" To: Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 2:35 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: Comment for the ADS Webmaster > I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think > they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain > wide acceptance and which ones don't. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > > not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > > just because many people think he is an idiot? > > > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 01:54:56 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 20:54:56 EST Subject: : Comment for the ADS Webmaster Message-ID: In a message dated 01/02/2003 8:40:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > Such as "normalcy" allegedly invented by by Pres Harding, another leader of > less than Einsteinian intlligence, and which is about 90% acceptable > today... "Return to Normalcy" was the Republican slogan in the 1920 campaign, which means it is as legitimate a term as "New Deal" or "Great Society". I don't know off-hand who coined the term---if one wanted to be demeaning, one could say that Harding didn't have the brains to come up with the term. And why can't ANYONE use "President Bush" and "malaprop" in the same sentence? - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 02:16:37 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 21:16:37 EST Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: Aside to Mark---Fred Shapiro specifically asked for "computer proverbs" and people have been using that in the subject lines ever since. Yes, you are right that they mostly fall short of being "proverbs", but it's better for Fred to have a full slushpile than an empty page in his new book. Bill Gates, "Bill Gates on Microsoft BASIC" in Steve Ditlea, ed "Idealism Spawns Realism" _Datamation_, vol and number not available, October, 1982, page 33ff "one thing hasn't changed: mainframes and personal computers remain at odds." "It is, after all, easier to learn a completely different [computer] language than to learn one that is supposedly the same except for a few subtle differences." "Even BASIC requires a user to understand variables, loops, and line numbers. If we want millions of machines to be used effectively, we have to eliminate this complexity by only presenting concepts that users already understand, such as paper, files, or procedures." Gary Kildall "Gary Kildall on CP/M" ibid pp 39f "micro users can work with icons as opposed to keying information into the computer system. Icons are used in our society in many different ways. Symbols on automobile dashboards are a good example---where a picture of a gas pump is used instead of the word "fuel". In computers, we will see operating systems allowing us to work with pictures, not abstractions expressed in cryptic written commands and responses. With an icon, or graphics-oriented system, the abstractions are hidden and users can communicate in ways they find natural." Note: the preceding quote, written in 1982, is a remarkable prediction of the Apple LISA of 1983 and the Apple Macintosh of 1984 (or maybe Kildall had advance knowledge). Dan Bricklin "Dan Bricklin on VisiCalc" ibid pp 40f "What I had in mind was a "magic blackboard" where, when one number in the equation changed, the computer could automatically refigure the solution and change all the numbers in the rows and columns accordingly." "Business people were going into computer stores to buy Apploe II computers ust so they could run VisiCalc." "What we had done with VisiCalc was technically possible long before we had attempted it. It was a case of no one thinking of the fundamental concept or application." - Jim Landau PS - I told someone---I don't remember who---at Jesse's party that "to boot" is derived from "bootstrap loader". From the same article, Bill Gates says: [referring to his successful attempt to sell Microsoft BASIC to MITS] "The night before Paul [Allen] left to go to [MITS at] Albuquerque, I stayed up reviewing everything to make sure it would run on the real machine. Paul worte the bootstrap loader on the planes. Everyone, including ourselves, was amazed when this BASIC worked the first time." From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 02:18:29 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 21:18:29 EST Subject: WOTY Message-ID: Is "Axis of Evil" eligible? William Safire in his column 24 March 2002 "axis of evil---the most memorable phrase so far in his presidency" - Jim Landau From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 3 02:53:17 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 21:53:17 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > Aside to Mark---Fred Shapiro specifically asked for "computer proverbs" and > people have been using that in the subject lines ever since. Yes, you are > right that they mostly fall short of being "proverbs", but it's better for > Fred to have a full slushpile than an empty page in his new book. I originally had in mind true computer proverbs like "garbage in, garbage out." But really I am interested in all very famous computer-related quotations. Jim Landau has worked hard in helping me with this, although most of the sayings he comes up with are not all that famous. > Dan Bricklin "Dan Bricklin on VisiCalc" ibid pp 40f > > "What I had in mind was a "magic blackboard" where, when one number in the > equation changed, the computer could automatically refigure the solution and > change all the numbers in the rows and columns accordingly." In 1970 when I entered MIT I joined their then-famous tiddlywinks team. My partner (tournament tiddlywinks is usually played two-against-two) in my first tournament was not a very good tiddlywinks player, but he made his mark in the personal computing realm. His name was Dan Bricklin. When Byte Magazine published their ranking of the most important figures in the history of personal computing, Gates was #2 and Dan was #1. And Dan is a hell of a lot nicer guy than Gates. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From sylvar at VAXER.NET Fri Jan 3 03:41:47 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 19:41:47 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with a bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like "Dutch courage" might also qualify. I'd be interested in hearing about variations on these, as well as other such items you may know about. And is there a name for this sort of thing? Ben -- "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." -- Charles M. Schulz From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Fri Jan 3 03:53:03 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 19:53:03 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I know several people from Winnipeg (many of them move here because of our balmy winters and cool summers) but I've never heard of a "Winnipeg handshake". Where did you hear this expression? Was it artistic license on a radio/tv show, perhaps? BTW, 'downloading' is commonly used in British Columbian ski resorts. Vida. in Vancouver BC Canada -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Ben Ostrowsky Sent: January 2, 2003 7:42 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with a bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like "Dutch courage" might also qualify. I'd be interested in hearing about variations on these, as well as other such items you may know about. And is there a name for this sort of thing? Ben -- "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." -- Charles M. Schulz From sylvar at VAXER.NET Fri Jan 3 04:00:43 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 20:00:43 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > I know several people from Winnipeg (many of them move here because of our > balmy winters and cool summers) but I've never heard of a "Winnipeg > handshake". Where did you hear this expression? Was it artistic license on > a radio/tv show, perhaps? I saw it here: http://everything2.com/?node_id=1409866 Ben From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 05:20:43 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 00:20:43 EST Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20Re:=20=E2=80=A0=20?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=A0=20=E2=80=A0=20Fwd:=20Comment=20for=20the=20ADS=20Web?= =?UTF-8?Q?master?= Message-ID: I didn't mean these questions to be merely rhetorical, no--I agree with Peter. Consider: "Apparently, as soon as the power is restored, our telephone and computer connections will also be restored.I will continue to work on this situation. Hopefully, we may be able to have some connectivity by tomorrow." --Memo received today from the Director, First-Year Writing Program, Duke University. I only have one dictionary with me on vacation, and it has an entry for CONNECTIVITY in this sense, so I guess it has been around for a while--but perhaps not very long, I'd guess. Was the person who coined this term any less of a mangler than Bush was with his "embetterment"? (Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.) In a message dated 1/2/03 5:36:19 PM, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think > they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain > wide acceptance and which ones don't. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > > not a? clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > > just because? many people think he is an idiot? > From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 3 08:59:50 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:59:50 -0000 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with > a bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a > general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, > as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like > "Dutch courage" might also qualify. A Glasgow kiss is a head butt (also known, I'm told, as a Gorbals kiss). A Chelsea smile is a knife slash across the face, in this case strictly named for the supporters of the football team rather than the place. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 3 09:19:02 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:19:02 -0000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: > This is a very British / Cockney thing in origin, but lively in some > Commonwealth places (New Zealand, e.g.). Apparently some Australian > hoods went to Chicago around 1925 and took some of their rhyming > slang with them; rumour has it that some survives in the Windy City. Whether it was 'hoods' in Chicago (more likely conmen or pickpockets, who then as now left Australia for the lucrative streets of the US and UK), or, as I tend to believe, merchant seamen docking in American ports, one might note that the first discussion of rhyming slang in the US - David Maurer 'Australian Rhyming Argot in the American Underworld' in American Speech Oct. 1944 - dealt with what was then a prevalent US belief: that the phenomenon was 'Australian.' Maurer, working with Australia's then leading slang expert Sidney Baker, offered a representative glossary through which he exploded that theory and acknowledged that rhyming slang was primarily British. That said, his reliance on Baker, who deplored rhyming slang and whose dictionaries downplay its long and lively presence in his country, may have skewed his essay. Australia was, and as Professor Sussex says, remains, the greatest enthusiast for and originator of the lexicon outside the UK. Jonathon Green From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 3 09:30:15 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:30:15 -0000 Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: Also: Liverpool kiss: 1957 Kersh _Fowlers End_ 28: You know what it is, a Liverpool kiss? Make a quick grab for the lapels o' the coat, an' pull somebody forward. At the same time bunt 'im in the face miv the top o' your 'ead an' kick 'im in the stomach miv your knee. Naturally 'e falls forward. While 'e's falling, punch 'im in the jaw miv all your might so he gradually falls dahn senseless. Then, at your leisure, kick 'im in the 'ead. Or the 'Byker teacake', another head-butt. Byker is a notoriously tough housing project in the northern city of Newcastle (as in 'coals to . . .'). A teacake (in case such delights haven't crossed the Atlantic) is 'a light kind of flat cake to be eaten at tea' (OED). Jonathon Green From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Fri Jan 3 11:54:32 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:54:32 +0100 Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: Reinhold Aman's review "Maledicta" has a few essays on slurs that contain also geographical euphemisms, among others Sterling Eisiminger's "Glossary of ethnic slurs in American English" in Vol. III No. 2 and Vol. IX. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathon Green" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:30 AM Subject: [ADS-L] geog. euphemisms > Also: > > Liverpool kiss: > > 1957 Kersh _Fowlers End_ 28: You know what it is, a Liverpool kiss? Make a > quick grab for the lapels o' the coat, an' pull somebody forward. At the > same time bunt 'im in the face miv the top o' your 'ead an' kick 'im in the > stomach miv your knee. Naturally 'e falls forward. While 'e's falling, punch > 'im in the jaw miv all your might so he gradually falls dahn senseless. > Then, at your leisure, kick 'im in the 'ead. > > Or the 'Byker teacake', another head-butt. Byker is a notoriously tough > housing project in the northern city of Newcastle (as in 'coals to . . .'). > A teacake (in case such delights haven't crossed the Atlantic) is 'a light > kind of flat cake to be eaten at tea' (OED). > > Jonathon Green > From yvonne_frasure at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 3 13:07:15 2003 From: yvonne_frasure at YAHOO.COM (yvonne frasure) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 05:07:15 -0800 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: <46.33568754.2b4677ab@aol.com> Message-ID: I missed some of the posts and George W.'s use of this word. However, looking at the last two or three posts concerning this word, I get the impression this is more about political B-S. than it is about language misuse. Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be an acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a situation or individual better" The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well. Idiot- a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. A mornon may take a normal place in society, but needs constant supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:I didn't mean these questions to be merely rhetorical, no--I agree with Peter. Consider: "Apparently, as soon as the power is restored, our telephone and computer connections will also be restored.I will continue to work on this situation. Hopefully, we may be able to have some connectivity by tomorrow." --Memo received today from the Director, First-Year Writing Program, Duke University. I only have one dictionary with me on vacation, and it has an entry for CONNECTIVITY in this sense, so I guess it has been around for a while--but perhaps not very long, I'd guess. Was the person who coined this term any less of a mangler than Bush was with his "embetterment"? (Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.) In a message dated 1/2/03 5:36:19 PM, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think > they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain > wide acceptance and which ones don't. > > Peter Mc. > > --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and > > not a clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling > > just because many people think he is an idiot? > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Fri Jan 3 12:09:09 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 07:09:09 -0500 Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: Not all such "geog" slurs are ethnic, are they? There are a slew of them in gambling: California bet, California bible, California blackjack, California C-note, California fourteen, and California prayer book. Other geographical names that serve as a formant in similar compounds include African, Alameda, Alaska, Albany, American, Arkansas (and that's just the A's). There's also Boston (as in _big Joe from Boston_) and Broadway, Scotland (in curse of Scotland), Gardena (as in Gardena miracle), Elk River, Las Vegas (as in Las Vegas riffle), Kentucky (as in Kentucky setup), Philadelphia (as in Philadelphia layout), and Texas (as in Texas sunflower). For more about names in gambling see: Thomas Clark, "Noms de Felt: Names in Gambling," Names, 34 (1986), pp 11-29. Regards, David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:11:29 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:11:29 EST Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: Language is also used metaphorically, and the extension of IDIOT into the realm of MORON (and even MORNON) is so frequent that I would expect at least some larger dictionaries to make note of the usage. Of course, for the more extreme critics of the current president, IDIOT is not all that metaphorical, even given the writer's definition. My AOL spellchecker rfejects EMBETTERMENT, but even so, I agree with the writer (elsewhere in her post) that much of the discussion about EMBETTERMENT is largely "about political B-S," though in my opinion she incorrectly contrasts "political B-S" with "language misuse." The very term "language misuse" is itself political in the larger sense of "political"; that is to say, to attempt to establish that someone else's usage is a "misuse" confers political advantage on the person who assumes that her usage is a "correct" use. There are no "misuses," there are only socially differentiable ones. (Of course, one could reasonably argue that I am arguing that the writer has misused the term "misuse," I guess. ...) In a message dated 1/3/03 8:07:36 AM, yvonne_frasure at YAHOO.COM writes: > The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well.? Idiot- a > person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and requiring > constant care.? The idiot is incapable of learning and understanding, and > is completely helpless.? An imbecile may learn to communicate with others, > but is incapable of earning his own living.? A mornon [sic] may take a > normal place in society, but needs constant supervision.? Technically speak > ing...he's a moron , not an idiot. > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:15:25 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:15:25 EST Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: The dividing line between your "geographical euphemisms" and ethnic slurs is arbitrary---e.g. how would you classify "Mexican standoff"? That said, here are my contributions: "to shanghai" any number of terms for diarrhea, such as "Virginia quickstep" or "Bangkok belly" (although the latter may refer specifically to amebal dysentery) "Sloane Ranger" (the reference is to Sloane Square in London) "Kentucky breakfast" which consists of a steak, a bulldog, and a bottle of bourbon. This may be a nonce usage---it appeared in the obituary of a Kentucky mountains resident in 1961-2. Why the bulldog? To eat the steak. "Bronx cowboy"---again a possible nonce usage, from Harry Harrison's _The Technicolor Time Machine_ "mountain dew" (not the soft drink but moonshine whiskey---the stereotype is that moonshiners are exclusively mountaineers) "Acapulco gold" (either marijuana in general or a specific grade of marijuana) "Night of the Sicilian Vespers" (the original one, not the 20th Century re-enactment) "Welsh rabbit" "prairie oysters" "Hudson seal" - Jim Landau From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 3 14:41:44 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 06:41:44 -0800 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --- "Prof. R. Sussex" wrote: > Phillip Trauring asks about multilingual rhyming > slang. > .... > This is a very British / Cockney thing in origin, > but lively in some > Commonwealth places (New Zealand, e.g.). Apparently > some Australian > hoods went to Chicago around 1925 and took some of > their rhyming > slang with them; rumour has it that some survives in > the Windy City. > > > Roly Sussex > Professor of Applied Language Studies > Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and > Applied Linguistics > School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies > The University of Queensland > Brisbane > Queensland 4072 > AUSTRALIA > I can't remember the name of the movie, but Cary Grant played an Austalian tough-guy living in the States, using this type of language. The heroine's English butler translated for her. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:42:32 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:42:32 EST Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: "Arkansas toothpick" for a geographical anti-euphemism: "Mississippi River mud" "Washington DC, that unique combination of Northern graciousness and Southern efficiency" (alternate: "Canada offers American manners, French efficiency, and English cooking") a little far-fetched but "wienie" meaning "penis" "Swiss cheese" referring to the results of a gun battle "Bluegrass treatment" referring to the old Bluegrass Hospital for treating narcotics addicts - Jim Landau From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Fri Jan 3 13:34:32 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:34:32 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: Re: embetterment: Embetter is an entry in some large dictionaries. Betterment is an entry in most large dictionaries. So, why not embetterment? When I am wearing my "neologism-watcher"-hat, I jump for joy over embetterment. When I think about it from the point of view of analogical linguistic formations, I think "how nice." >From the standpoint of idiot vs. moron, I find that reading the OED entry is very enlightening. Senses are organized usually on the basis of oldest first. In OED: 1a. a person without learning (1377) b. a layman (1380) c. one not professionally learned or skilled (1638) 2. a person so deficient in mental or intellectual faculty as to be incapable of ordinary acts of reasoning or rational conduct (a1300) b. a term of reprobation for one who speaks of acts in what the speaker considers an irrational way (c1375) c. a man of weak intellect maintained to afford amusement to others (1526) 3 aatrib or quasi-adj. 4 comb. 2b seems to be the appropriate one, don't you think? Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 3 14:50:27 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:50:27 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: <20030103130715.92131.qmail@web21308.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, yvonne frasure wrote: [1] # Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine #anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as #embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be #an acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a #situation or individual better" [...] [2] #(Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.) [2] "Betterment", "improvement"; what hole? [1] One can always assume, but many assumptions are unwarranted. One can also wonder if Bush was trying for "betterment". Then there's "embitterment", which differs from his coinage only by a common vowel already heard, "*embetterment". And of the three "emb..." words you mention, "embellishing/ embellishment" provides no template -- "*bellish"? "*bell" [in the sense of 'beauty', in English]? -- and "embarkation" is not much better. "The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow" -- The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 3 14:53:02 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:53:02 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, vida morkunas wrote: #I know several people from Winnipeg (many of them move here because of our #balmy winters and cool summers) but I've never heard of a "Winnipeg #handshake". Where did you hear this expression? Was it artistic license on #a radio/tv show, perhaps? Denizens of the place being denigrated are IMHO the *last* people you're likely to hear such an expression from. They may have heard it, but they won't use it, esp. with an outsider. -- Mark A. Mandel From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 14:53:23 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:53:23 EST Subject: geog. euphemisms Message-ID: The city of Tokyo has seen so many disastrous fires that they are referred to as "flowers of Edo" ("Edo" is an old name for Tokyo). No relation to "Tokyo Rose". - Jim Landau From psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Fri Jan 3 14:58:26 2003 From: psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Peter Sokolowski) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:58:26 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: Hi folks: >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language >phenomenon. I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. Just seems a bit myopic. I think the French may still sing "la p'tite fille" to the Beatles' "Let It Be." Cheers, Peter Peter A. Sokolowski Associate Editor Merriam-Webster, Inc. 47 Federal Street Springfield, MA 01102 Phone: (413) 734-3134 E-mail: psokolowski at Merriam-Webster.com Visit us online at http://www.Merriam-Webster.com From linguist at PUNCHCUTTER.ML1.NET Fri Jan 3 15:01:58 2003 From: linguist at PUNCHCUTTER.ML1.NET (Dave) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:01:58 -0700 Subject: Computer quotes Message-ID: Here are a couple that I haven't seen yet. I'm pretty certain about the correctness and attribution of the first (quite a famous one), but not necessarily the second. The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but that we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway. --Bernard Avishai Dave From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 3 15:07:04 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:07:04 EST Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: In a message dated 1/3/03 9:57:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM writes: > I think the French may still sing "la p'tite fille" to the Beatles' "Let > It Be." I hope so. It will serve the Beatles right for the contempt for the French language that they demonstrated in "Michelle ma belle". - Jim Landau From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 3 15:15:55 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:15:55 -0500 Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20=C2=A0=20Re:=20=E2=80=A0=20?= =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=A0=20=E2=80=A0=20Fwd:=20Comment=20for=20the=20ADS=20Web?= =?UTF-8?Q?mast In-Reply-To: <46.33568754.2b4677ab@aol.com> Message-ID: (BTW, I see this subject line as: [UTF-8] Re: {1} {1} {1} Re: {2} [UTF-8] {2} {2} Fwd: Comment for the ADS Web[UTF-8] master where {1} = NOT-SIGN DAGGER {2} = BLOB CARET INVERTED-QUESTION-MARK DAGGER BLOB represents a rectangle that means "I don't have a representation for this character". The line ends immediately after "mast". Has somebody been using Word punctuation in the subject line?) On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #I didn't mean these questions to be merely rhetorical, no--I agree with #Peter. Consider: # #"Apparently, as soon as the power is restored, our telephone and #computer connections will also be restored.I will continue to work on #this situation. Hopefully, we may be able to have some connectivity by #tomorrow." # #--Memo received today from the Director, First-Year Writing Program, Duke #University. # #I only have one dictionary with me on vacation, and it has an entry for #CONNECTIVITY in this sense, so I guess it has been around for a while--but #perhaps not very long, I'd guess. Was the person who coined this term any #less of a mangler than Bush was with his "embetterment"? You can say that about any single new word. But where's the line between creating a new word and speaking incomprehensible gobbledygook composed entirely of new words? Bush certainly isn't doing the latter, but the frequency with which he comes out with malapropisms and distortions is IMHO pretty good grounds for inferring he's not being constructively creative. -- Mark A. Mandel From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 3 15:17:14 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 15:17:14 -0000 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Sokolowski" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:58 PM Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > Hi folks: > > >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language > >phenomenon. > > I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native > argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and > fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > > Just seems a bit myopic. > As the initiator of the generalization, I take the point. And any examples from other slangs to back it up would be received with much interest. Of course every language lends itself to play, rhyming often being part of it, but I would still suggest that rhyming slang, as a fully realised system, does seem to be an English language creation. I don't believe, for instance, that French, with an extensive argot (as in = slang) of its own, appears to offer any such subset. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 3 15:38:57 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:38:57 -0500 Subject: "An Arm and a Leg" Antedating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:49 PM -0500 1/2/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >Updated OED material has an entry for the expression "an arm and a leg" >with a first citation dated 1956 (Billie Holiday's _Lady Sings the >Blues_). ProQuest Historical Newspapers yields this antedating: > >1948 _New York Times_ 13 June R3 (advertisement) It's very welcome news >to hear of a house that doesn't demand an arm and a leg to buy it. > And the first cite of "a nominal egg"? Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 3 15:50:52 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:50:52 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: <180.13e587e7.2b46f4fd@aol.com> Message-ID: >The dividing line between your "geographical euphemisms" and ethnic slurs is >arbitrary---e.g. how would you classify "Mexican standoff"? > >That said, here are my contributions: > >"to shanghai" > >any number of terms for diarrhea, such as "Virginia quickstep" or "Bangkok >belly" (although the latter may refer specifically to amebal dysentery) > >"Sloane Ranger" (the reference is to Sloane Square in London) > >"Kentucky breakfast" which consists of a steak, a bulldog, and a bottle of >bourbon. This may be a nonce usage---it appeared in the obituary of a >Kentucky mountains resident in 1961-2. Why the bulldog? To eat the steak. > >"Bronx cowboy"---again a possible nonce usage, from Harry Harrison's _The >Technicolor Time Machine_ > >"mountain dew" (not the soft drink but moonshine whiskey---the stereotype is >that moonshiners are exclusively mountaineers) > >"Acapulco gold" (either marijuana in general or a specific grade of marijuana) > >"Night of the Sicilian Vespers" (the original one, not the 20th Century >re-enactment) > >"Welsh rabbit" > >"prairie oysters" > >"Hudson seal" > Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American Speech_: Welsh rabbit: a dish with melted cheese and various other ingredients Irish apricot (apple, lemon): a potato Irishman's dinner: a fast Irish evidence: false witness Irish kiss: a slap in the face Irish promotion: a pay-cut Irish tan: sunburn Irish twins: two siblings who are not twins but are born less than a year apart Irish wedding: the emptying of a cesspool Dutch act: suicide Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices Dutch bargain: a bargain all on one side Dutch-clock: a bedpan; a wife Dutch concert/medley: a hubbub, whereat everyone sings and plays at the same time Dutch consolation: Job's comfort ("Thank heaven it is no worse") Dutch courage: pot-valiancy, courage due to intoxication Dutch fuck: the practice of lighting one cigarette from another Dutch milk: beer Dutch treat: an outing at which one pays one's own way Dutch widow: a prostitute Dutch wife: a bolster (on a bed) Alabama wool (= cotton) Alaska turkey (= salmon; cf. Jewish turkey = salami, Irish turkey = corned beef) Albany beef (= sturgeon) Block Island turkey (= salted codfish) Yarmouth capon (= herring) and of course prairie oyster, which comes in two tasty varieties (raw egg yolk dipped in whiskey and sprinkled with Worcestershire and hot sauce or cooked calves' testicles swallowed whole). In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". Larry From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Fri Jan 3 16:00:25 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:00:25 +0100 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: In French there is something called "contrep?terie" (the word is known since 1582): "Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots sp?cialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage ait ?galement un sens, de pr?f?rence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: Femme folle ? la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle ? la fesse." This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. If you want to pursue the thread, I can recommend a very amusing book: Jo?l Martin, Manuel de contrepet. L'art de d?Caler les Sons (Albin Michel, 1986) The over 2000 contrep?teries in its 328 pages will teach you how to "d?ssaler les cons". Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathon Green" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 4:17 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Multilingual Rhyming Slang > > >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language > > >phenomenon. > > > > I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native > > argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and > > fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > > > > Just seems a bit myopic. > > > > As the initiator of the generalization, I take the point. And any examples > from other slangs to back it up would be received with much interest. Of > course every language lends itself to play, rhyming often being part of it, > but I would still suggest that rhyming slang, as a fully realised system, > does seem to be an English language creation. I don't believe, for instance, > that French, with an extensive argot (as in = slang) of its own, appears to > offer any such subset. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > > Jonathon Green > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 3 16:05:54 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 11:05:54 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David Barnhart writes: >Re: embetterment: > >Embetter is an entry in some large dictionaries. Betterment is an >entry in most large dictionaries. So, why not embetterment? When I am >wearing my "neologism-watcher"-hat, I jump for joy over embetterment. >When I think about it from the point of view of analogical linguistic >formations, I think "how nice." > >>>From the standpoint of idiot vs. moron, I find that reading the OED >entry is very enlightening. Senses are organized usually on the basis >of oldest first. In OED: > >1a. a person without learning (1377) >b. a layman (1380) >c. one not professionally learned or skilled (1638) >2. a person so deficient in mental or intellectual faculty as to be >incapable of ordinary acts of reasoning or rational conduct (a1300) >b. a term of reprobation for one who speaks of acts in what the speaker >considers an irrational way (c1375) >c. a man of weak intellect maintained to afford amusement to others >(1526) >3 aatrib or quasi-adj. >4 comb. > >2b seems to be the appropriate one, don't you think? > >Regards, >David >barnhart at highlands.com ~~~~~~~ Wa-a-l-l......a case could be made for 2c. AM From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 3 16:01:59 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 11:01:59 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: Actually, a Dutch auction is a descending-price auction, with several variations in practice. It derives from the auction system used in the Netherlands to auction tulips. It is believed to produce higher prices than traditional ascending-price auctions, at least in some contexts. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:51 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American Speech_: [snip] Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices [snip] In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". Larry From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 3 16:17:20 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 11:17:20 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: I notice that the standard library subject tracing for this book as for several others on the topic is "spoonerisms" -- which differs from rhyming slang. The other books are: Antel, Jacques. Le contrepet quotidien / Jacques Antel. -- Paris : Editions Ramsay/J.-J. Pauvert, c1990. 327 p. Etienne, Luc. L'Art du contrepet: petit traite a l'usage des amateurs pour resoudre les contrepeteries proposees et en inventer de nouvelles ... [par] Luc Etienne; suivi d'un commentaire d'Andre Therive. Paris, le Livre de poche, 1972. 297 p. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jan Ivarsson TransEdit Date: Friday, January 3, 2003 11:00 am Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > In French there is something called "contrep?terie" (the word is > known since 1582): > "Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots > sp?cialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage > ait ?galement un sens, de pr?f?rence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: > Femme folle ? la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle ? la fesse." > This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me > to correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. > If you want to pursue the thread, I can recommend a very amusing > book: Jo?l Martin, Manuel de contrepet. L'art de d?Caler les Sons > (Albin Michel, 1986) > The over 2000 contrep?teries in its 328 pages will teach you how > to "d?ssaler les cons". > > Jan Ivarsson > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jonathon Green" > To: > Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 4:17 PM > Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Multilingual Rhyming Slang > > > > > >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English > language> > >phenomenon. > > > > > > I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near- > native> > argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. > Wordplay and > > > fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > > > > > > Just seems a bit myopic. > > > > > > > As the initiator of the generalization, I take the point. And > any examples > > from other slangs to back it up would be received with much > interest. Of > > course every language lends itself to play, rhyming often being > part of it, > > but I would still suggest that rhyming slang, as a fully > realised system, > > does seem to be an English language creation. I don't believe, > for instance, > > that French, with an extensive argot (as in = slang) of its own, > appears to > > offer any such subset. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > > > > Jonathon Green > > > From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 3 18:06:25 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:06:25 -0500 Subject: Cleveland Indians Message-ID: In the course of a larger discussion here, a year or so ago, of present day sports teams with insensitive or offensive nicknames and logos, the fact was noted that the Cleveland Indians claim their nickname should be spared from this criticism, because it was originally a sentimental gesture honoring the memory of a former player, Lou Sockalexis, who was a Penobscot Indian. As I recall, one of us pointed out that Sockalexis' career with the Indians had lasted only months and had been a decade and a half in the past when the present nickname was established, and that therefore the story is unlikely. A new book has just passed through my hands here, from which I take the following extracts. From David L. Fleitz, Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian, Jefferson, N. C. & London: McFarland & Co., 2002. [The Cleveland baseball club was called the Spiders before Sockalexis joined.] No one cared for the name "Spiders," which dated from the early 1890s, and in those days team nicknames varied from year to year, depending on the whims of the [sports] writers. *** The main paper in Cleveland, the Plain Dealer, used the term "Indians" for the first time in a headline on March 20, 1897, the day after Sockalexis arrived in Cleveland. Within a week, the writers were identifying the team as the Indians on a regular basis. On March 27, the Plain Dealer commented on the upcoming slate of outdoor practices. "The Indians," remarked the Plain Dealer, "have a spring schedule which is bound to give them good, hard work." (p. 60) [Sockalexis' career with the Indian -- and in baseball -- lasted only a few months. In the early 1900s, Napoleon Lajoie, now in the Hall of Fame, joined the team.] So popular was this French-Canadian second baseman that soon after his arrival in 1902, the writers started calling the team the Naps in his honor, much as they renamed the Spiders the Indians when Sockalexis joined. The well-respected Lajoie became the playing manager of the team in 1905 and drove the Naps up the standings. . . . The Naps reached their high-water mark in 1908, when they lost the pennant to Detroit by half a game. . . . Lajoie stepped down as manager in 1909. . . . By 1914, the Cleveland team had hit rock bottom. *** . . . in January 1915 Charles Somers reluctantly released his most popular player [Lajoie] to his old team, the Athletics. The Cleveland team could no longer be called the Naps with Lajoie gone to Philadelphia, so Somers asked the Cleveland sportswriters for ideans on a new nickname. *** Some of the local writers solicited suggestions from the public in their columns. . . . [I haven't actually read this book, and didn't photocopy what it says about the nickname of the team after Sockalexis had left it and before Lajoie joined it. If I recall correctly, the sports writers had reverted to the old nickname the "Spiders."] The Cleveland Plain Dealer of January 17, 1915, explained what happened next: "*** The title of Indians was [the sports writers'] choice, it having been one of the names applied to the old National league club many years ago. The nickname, howver, is but temporarily bestowed, as the club may so conduct itself during the present season as to earn some other cognomen, which may be more appropriate." (p. 181-82) *** The Plain Dealer, on January 18, 1915, printed an editorial that tied the memory of Sockalexis to the new name. ""Many years ago there was an Indian named Sockalexis who was the star player of the Cleveland baseball club. As batter, fielder, and base runner he was a marvel. Sockalexis so far outshone his teammates that he naturally came to be regarded as the whole team. The "fans" throughout the country began to call the Clevelanders the "Indians." It was an honorable name, and while it stuck the team made an excellent record. It has now been decided to revive this name. *** There will be no real red Indians on the roster, but the name will recall fine traditions. *** It also serves to revive the memory of a single great player who has been called to his fathes in the happy hunting grounds of the Abenakis." (p. 182) [Sockalexis had died in 1913. This misrepresents the original coining of the nickname, in attributing it to the folk, rather than to sports wri! ters. Fleitz also offers a second reason for reviving that particular nickname: a bad team in Boston in 1914 had changed its nickname from the "Beaneaters" to the "Braves" and had won its league's pennant.] Some of the Cleveland writers opined that a Native American nickname would revitalize the Cleveland team in a similar fashion. (p. 183) [On p. 184-85 Fleitz quotes the 1996 Indian's media guide's misrepresentation of the history of the nickname.] [The ethnic stereotyping of Indians in the passage from the Plain Dealer has not escaped my notice; and if I could possibly be dense enough that it might have, there is an editorial cartoon reproduced on p. 183 that makes the point graphically. But in any event, the story tracing the history of the nickname to the memory of Sockalexis, evidently has some justification. Whether the team's current Chief Wahoo logo is justified is no doubt a matter of taste. I assume at least that the local sports writers no longer ring the changes on the Indians scalping their opponents, or being scalped, as it seems they did until fairly recently.] GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Jan 3 20:03:09 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 15:03:09 -0500 Subject: Origin of Dead Rabbits? Message-ID: This article by Dan Cassidy purports to have determined the origin of the gang name "Dead Rabbits." http://www.observer.com/pages/wiseguys.asp In Matsell?s dictionary, the word rabbit is "a rowdy," and a dead rabbit is "a very athletic, rowdy fellow." Rabbit suckers are defined as "young spendthrifts." A slew of other slang terms in Matsell?s dictionary jump out at you from the soundtrack of Mr. Scorsese?s film: ballum rancum for a wild party, crusher for a cop, mort for a woman and lay for one?s criminal leaning or occupation. [...] In an Irish-English dictionary published in Dublin in 1992, the Irish word r?ib?ad is defined as a "big, hulking person." It is that word, r?ib?ad?along with the slang intensifier dead, meaning "very"?that provides the simple solution to the 150-year-old mystery of the moniker "Dead Rabbit." -- Grant Barrett gbarrett at worldnewyork.org gbarrett at americandialect.org American Dialect Society webmaster http://www.americandialect.org/ From translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM Fri Jan 3 20:56:51 2003 From: translation at BILLIONBRIDGES.COM (Billionbridges.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 15:56:51 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" Message-ID: A great client of ours with a soft, charming Long Island accent flips the "k" and "s" around in "ask" so that it comes out as "axe." Her co-worker, however, also blessed with this exquisite accent, does not. The "axer" has an Italian surname, so I would hazard to guess that she is not African-American. (I had always thought this sort of consonant switching was limited to the African-American community.) Is this known as a feature of "Long Islandese," or would you rather call it a peculiar feature of my client's idiolect? Best, Don From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Jan 3 21:03:47 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:03:47 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <008b01c2b36a$a3bbe2e0$0101a8c0@billionbridges1> Message-ID: I believe if you read the journals of Lewis and Clark, particularly those of Clark, whose spelling was more free-spirited, you'll find more than one instance of this ask/aks transposition. Whether that can be correctly said to be a faithful rendering of spoken language is, of course, debatable, but it's interesting to consider. Le Friday, 3 Jan 2003, ? 15:56 America/New_York, Billionbridges.com a ?crit : > A great client of ours with a soft, charming > Long Island accent flips the "k" and "s" around > in "ask" so that it comes out as "axe." Her > co-worker, however, also blessed with this > exquisite accent, does not. > > The "axer" has an Italian surname, so I would > hazard to guess that she is not African-American. > (I had always thought this sort of consonant > switching was limited to the African-American > community.) > > Is this known as a feature of "Long Islandese," > or would you rather call it a peculiar feature of > my client's idiolect? From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 3 21:12:50 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:12:50 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <008b01c2b36a$a3bbe2e0$0101a8c0@billionbridges1> Message-ID: This pronunciation is a feature of the speech of a friend who grew up in Brooklyn, third generation American, whose forebears were from Sicily & Gibraltar. A. Murie From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Fri Jan 3 21:15:50 2003 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:15:50 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <008b01c2b36a$a3bbe2e0$0101a8c0@billionbridges1> Message-ID: A Latina employee of the City of Alexandria, VA does the exact same thing. She said "axe" about 5 times in a story to a co-worker while I stood at the window waiting for the "locality sticker" for my bike. I've heard Rosie Perez do it too, but I don't know if the accent in "It Could Happen To You" is the way she really speaks. Kathleen E. Miller Research Assistant to William Safire The New York Times At 03:56 PM 1/3/2003 -0500, you wrote: >A great client of ours with a soft, charming >Long Island accent flips the "k" and "s" around >in "ask" so that it comes out as "axe." Her >co-worker, however, also blessed with this >exquisite accent, does not. > >The "axer" has an Italian surname, so I would >hazard to guess that she is not African-American. >(I had always thought this sort of consonant >switching was limited to the African-American >community.) > >Is this known as a feature of "Long Islandese," >or would you rather call it a peculiar feature of >my client's idiolect? > >Best, >Don From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 3 21:40:19 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:40:19 -0800 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: <001f01c2b341$3d37abe0$79ded0d9@oemcomputer> Message-ID: >In French there is something called "contrep?terie" (the word is >known since 1582): >"Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots >sp?cialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage >ait ?galement un sens, de pr?f?rence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: >Femme folle ? la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle ? la fesse." >This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to >correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. It seems to me that's more of a Spoonerism. Rima From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 3 21:50:26 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:50:26 -0500 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20030103160812.00b183f0@smtp-store.nytimes.com> Message-ID: There is a recording of this pron and some explanation in Noah Webster's (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near the bottom, in the facsimile edition. So it's been in American English for nearly 200 years, from people of all colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people pronounce aks". In fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is the "true pronunciation of the original word". Well, I don't know about that, but Noah makes an interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites it, is "acsian or axian". Frank Abate From nichols18 at MARSHALL.EDU Fri Jan 3 22:37:47 2003 From: nichols18 at MARSHALL.EDU (Erin E Nichols) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:37:47 -0500 Subject: remove from list Message-ID: To whom it may concern: Please remove my name from the list as soon as possible. Thank you. From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Fri Jan 3 22:55:10 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 16:55:10 -0600 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: Maybe I do not fully understand the question here. The way I read the original, the questioner was talking about "spoonerisms" that became productive slang terms for something perhaps better left unsaid in its original form. Is that what "we" are talking about here, or almost universal tendencies to link together words that sound alike (such as "teeny-weeny" for very small) to emphasize a quality or amount? Or do we mean general "spoonerisms" that come to mean something only to speakers of that Argot? ("Wheeze gasp and mutter" only means "please pass the butter" to a person in the subset of people who know of [I think] Mrs Piggle-Wiggle.) How large does the subset of people to which it makes sense, have to be, for it to "count"? I am sure I can think of some examples in both German and English, if I first know we are talking about the same phenomenon, and which definition one wants to use for it. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 3:40 PM Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > >In French there is something called "contrep?terie" (the word is > >known since 1582): > >"Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots > >sp?cialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage > >ait ?galement un sens, de pr?f?rence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: > >Femme folle ? la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle ? la fesse." > >This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to > >correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. > > It seems to me that's more of a Spoonerism. > > Rima > From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Fri Jan 3 23:08:26 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:08:26 -0600 Subject: Guten Rutsch Message-ID: In my experience, "Rutsch mal", for "scootch over" or whatever, is common all over Germany. I have heard several Americans use "rutsch" for "scootch", "scoosh", "slide" also, but it is nowhere near as common in English (where it seems to occur most often in areas with large numbers of German immigrants) as it is in German (I have heard it in NE Germany -- Sachsen, and SW Germany--Schwabian, two enormously different areas in terms of dialects). I always assumed that "Rutsch" in German came from its sense of "slide", maybe with a touch of "push" added in (push to start someone sliding...). I have never heard the alleged Hebrew derivation. Though I must say, it is my opinion Yiddish had more of an influence in German slang in some areas than the people living there still today would realize ("scheit", "toodeln" related to drinking, "batsch" for a slapping sound, and/or really "botching" something up,...). Then again, my random musings like this have been "proven" wrong before... -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bergdahl" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 3:23 PM Subject: Re: Guten Rutsch > I never heard the expression but my Bavarian (1st) wife used "rutsch" all > the time in the sense of "move over, slide over" and as an adj "rutschy" for > "slick, slippery"; moreover, a student in my American dialects class > investigating "scoot" found "rutsch" to be a synonym in upstate New York for > a prompt something like "what do you say when someone wants to sit down and > the people sitting have to move?" I doubt that Upstate is much influenced > by Yiddish although Bayerisch is, like Yiddish, South [=high] German. > _________________________________ > "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist er nicht" > --Albert Einstein > From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Fri Jan 3 23:25:59 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 17:25:59 -0600 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang Message-ID: Actually, Duane (I think it was) gave us a good example of what I am talking about with his reply to WOTY: quoted verbatim....... "In an attempt to improve myself culturally, tonight I was watching Bruce Willis in one of the iterations of Die Hard, this time on a broadcast channel rather than a cable movie channel, and that required a great deal of overdubbing, sometimes quite creative. Every few minutes one of the characters would aggressively call another a "melon farmer." For those of us who were sitting there drinking bad beer, eating chips, and watching trashy movies, I have no doubt that "melon farmer" has become a permanent addition to our vocabulary." I have to add that I really really like "melon farmer". I will have to start using that when I am trying to watch my language around little ones. :-) -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Millie Webb" To: Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 4:55 PM Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > Maybe I do not fully understand the question here. The way I read the > original, the questioner was talking about "spoonerisms" that became > productive slang terms for something perhaps better left unsaid in its > original form. Is that what "we" are talking about here, or almost > universal tendencies to link together words that sound alike (such as > "teeny-weeny" for very small) to emphasize a quality or amount? Or do we > mean general "spoonerisms" that come to mean something only to speakers of > that Argot? ("Wheeze gasp and mutter" only means "please pass the butter" > to a person in the subset of people who know of [I think] Mrs > Piggle-Wiggle.) How large does the subset of people to which it makes > sense, have to be, for it to "count"? > I am sure I can think of some examples in both German and English, if I > first know we are talking about the same phenomenon, and which definition > one wants to use for it. -- Millie > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kim & Rima McKinzey" > To: > Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 3:40 PM > Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang > > > > >In French there is something called "contrep?terie" (the word is > > >known since 1582): > > >"Interversion des lettres ou des syllabes d'un ensemble de mots > > >sp?cialement choisis, afin d'en obtenir d'autres dont l'assemblage > > >ait ?galement un sens, de pr?f?rence burlesque ou grivois. Ex.: > > >Femme folle ? la messe (Rabelais, 1532) pour femme molle ? la fesse." > > >This definition (from Petit Robert, Dictionnaire...) seems to me to > > >correspond very well with the definition of Rhyming Slang. > > > > It seems to me that's more of a Spoonerism. > > > > Rima > > > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 4 01:59:55 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 19:59:55 -0600 Subject: Yannigan continued; note slang "turkey" Message-ID: I'm presently trying to track down a few references to the loggers'/vagrants' term "yannigan bag" and am preceding on the assumption that the obsolete baseball term "yannigan" (inexperienced player, esp. in spring training) in fact derives from that bag. I find a possibly striking parallel to this in slang "turkey" (bad play), originally short for "turkey show," probably deriving from the itinerant "turkey troupe" which in turn probably derives from the loggers'/itinerants' term "turkey" (a bundle or hold-all). If this pans out, at least some "yannigans" (rookies) would have shown up in spring-training camps with their yannigan bags--marking them instantly as newcomers to the professional game. So, carpet-baggers were named for their carpet bags, the turkey troupes were probably named for their "turkeys" (bundles/hold alls), and now it seems that the yannigans (rookies) might have been named for their traveling bags. In 1995 I published on article on "turkey" and will now reprint part of its abstract; the 2nd paragraph is the most relevant one: "...Theatrical _turkey_ is traceable to burlesque theatre, but here a problem arises: we find reference both to _turkey shows_ and _turkey troupes_. Which one came first? Were the turkey shows so called because they were performed by turkey troupes? Or were the turkey troupes so called because they performed turkey shows? And whichever came first, why was _turkey_ used? "Since no convincing explanation exists for the origin of _turkey_ in reference to a show, I will conjecture that _turkey troupe_ is original. Note a now largely obsolete meaning of _turkey_, viz. a bundle or hold-all carried by lumbermen and (by extension) other itinerant workers, vagrants, etc. The turkey troupes were of course continually on the move, and they were apparently named for the symbol of itinerancy, the turkey (bundle/hold-all). "That bundle/hold-all/bag was probably called a turkey because of its bulky, round shape. "In the mid-1920s _turkey (show)_ was extended from a strictly burlesque context to the legitimate theatre -- a development apparently due to an unusual streak of bad quality that hit the legitimate theatre in Syracuse at that time. The road shows were derided in Syracuse as 'turkeys,' with clear reference to the itinerant (fly-by-night, grossly incompetent) turkey troupes of burlesque vintage. From Syracuse the extended use of _turkey_ 'third rate production (in the legitimate theatre too)' spread to New York City and hence into standard slang. ...--- quoted from: "Material for the study of slang _turkey_" . in: Studies in Slang, part 4. edited by Gerald Leonard Cohen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag. pp. 100-119; the quoted portion just above is from p. 100. ---Gerald Cohen From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 4 02:50:55 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 21:50:55 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #Aside to Mark---Fred Shapiro specifically asked for "computer proverbs" and #people have been using that in the subject lines ever since. Yes, you are #right that they mostly fall short of being "proverbs", but it's better for #Fred to have a full slushpile than an empty page in his new book. Thank you for the reminder. I had forgotten about Fred's request, and I quite agree with your reasoning. Here are two related expressions that I've heard in the field, though they are probably not limited to it. For neither am I aware of a strict wording. 1. Good, fast, or cheap: choose two. 2. Don't get it perfect, get it out! -- Mark A. Mandel From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sat Jan 4 04:02:18 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 23:02:18 -0500 Subject: Yannigan continued; note slang "turkey" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "Bindle stiff" would seem to belong somewhere in here, too, along with "turkey." A. Murie From dsgood at VISI.COM Sat Jan 4 06:31:23 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 00:31:23 -0600 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <20030104050016.A42434AA2@bran.mc.mpls.visi.com> Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:59:50 -0000 > From: Michael Quinion > Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > > > Until I saw "Winnipeg handshake" (getting one's face smashed with a > > bottle) online tonight, I wasn't aware that this might form a > > general class of expressions. "Bronx cheer" seems a likely member, > > as does "Sicilian necktie", and I suppose broader slanders like > > "Dutch courage" might also qualify. > > A Glasgow kiss is a head butt (also known, I'm told, as a Gorbals > kiss). A Chelsea smile is a knife slash across the face, in this case > strictly named for the supporters of the football team rather than the > place. Welsh rabbit; Oklahoma credit card (siphon). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 4 15:54:27 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:54:27 -0500 Subject: "Windy City" myth in Chicago Tribune (12-24-02) Message-ID: Greetings from Mombasa, Kenya. I have four days in Zanzibar before I head back to NYC next week. A quick check of www.chicagotribune.com shows that the NY Sun editor Charles A. Dana "Windy City" myth is there AGAIN. I have told the New York Sun to defend Dana several times. I'm sending this to them again. Is there any reason why this still continues? Maybe someone out there can write a better e-mail to the Chicago Tribune ombudsman than I can? Barry Popik (This is being sent to the American Dialect Society list and the NEW YORK SUN. I have traced "Windy City" to the CINCINNATI ENQUIRER of January 1883. "Windy City," again, was neither coined nor popularized by New York Sun editor Charles A. Dana and his statements about the 1893 fair.) WEATHER TERM Chicago Tribune; Chicago, Ill.; Dec 24, 2002; Words in Document: 35 Available Formats: Buy Full Text Abstract: Windy City: First used in 1893 when New York Sun editor Charles Dana, tired... Click to Purchase Complete Document: Buy Full Text Copyright ? 2003 The Chicago Tribune From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 4 15:57:35 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:57:35 -0500 Subject: "No Soap, Radio" Message-ID: I think I understand the anti-joke "no soap, radio," but what is its provenance? Is it associated with some particular comedian or time-period? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 4 16:10:19 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:10:19 -0500 Subject: Twitchers, Tommies, Spronking, Mosquitoes, Speed Hump Message-ID: Greetings from Mombasa. There were no internet connections in Serengeti or Ngorongoro, but I should be connected for the rest of this trip (Zanzibar) until I come home. Happy New Year, y'all. MOSQUITOES--Hawkers who approach the vehicle while stopped at border crossings, selling the usual tourist stuff. SPEED HUMP--A speed bump, also called "sleeping policemen" here. This is from a traffic sign. (A few of us misunderstood it for sex slang.) WASTEPAPER FLOWERS--White flowers, seen all over. They look like crumpled bits of papers. MAGNETIC LEVITATION TRAIN--A German train that made it's debut in China last week. Seen on CNN or BBC. NGORONGORE, TANZANIA LAND-PEOPLE-HISTORY Harare: African Publishing Group first published 1999, second edition 2000 (Copyright by David Martin) Pg. 64: The White Bearded Wildebeest, whose scientific name is _Connochaetes taurinus_, is affectionately known as "The Clown of the Plains" because of its comic behaviour. It was once said of this lovable but scatter-brained creature that it had been "designed by a committee and assembled from spare parts." (Wasn't that said of a camel?--ed.) Pg. 64: If this fails the contending bulls drop to their knees (Pg. 65--ed.) with their "bosses" (the bony protuberance between the horns) noisily clashing. Pg. 67: Thompson's (gazelles--ed.), or "Tommies," are one of the most attractive and delicate animals seen in the area. Pg. 68: When alarmed, THomson's flee in a series of bounds called "spronking" or "stotting" which involves the legs and head remaining stiff as they spring up and down rather like mobile rocking horses. Pg. 71: Frequently rhinoceros will be seen with Redbilled or Yellowbilled Oxpeckers, known as "tick birds," perched on them. Pg. 81: The "mega" bird The translucent coloured Angola pitta or, as it has been recently renamed, the African pitta, which advanced "twitchers" pay thousands of dollars to see, is one of the species found at Ngorongoro. (How old is "twitchers" for birders? In CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG?--ed.) Pg. 89: Old Man's Beard. (A plant. OED?--ed.) From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 4 16:39:40 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:39:40 -0600 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: A reporter on CNN this morning was interviewing four snowboarders in Vermont, following a heavy snow. They all agreed the snowboarding is great now, as compared to some time in the past when the weather (or snow?) was "shisety", as one of the young men described it. When the broadcast shifted back to the two anchors, the male anchor commented that he liked "the shisety dude" and then he or the female anchor wondered briefly where the word comes from. Evidently neither one knows German or they wouldn't have asked. They then proceeded to another subject. Anyway, is "shisety" a term now being used in teenage slang? Does it exist at all outside the speech of the one snowboarder who used it on CNN? Gerald Cohen From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 4 16:56:12 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:56:12 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Gerald Cohen wrote: # A reporter on CNN this morning was interviewing four snowboarders #in Vermont, following a heavy snow. They all agreed the snowboarding #is great now, as compared to some time in the past when the weather #(or snow?) was "shisety", as one of the young men described it. # # When the broadcast shifted back to the two anchors, the male #anchor commented that he liked "the shisety dude" and then he or the #female anchor wondered briefly where the word comes from. Evidently #neither one knows German or they wouldn't have asked. They then #proceeded to another subject. The pronunciation was opaque to me till the second paragraph: Scheiss-ty, Eng./'Sajsti/, nicht wahr? -- Mark A. Mandel From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 4 17:10:03 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 12:10:03 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 10:39:40AM -0600, Gerald Cohen wrote: > > Anyway, is "shisety" a term now being used in teenage slang? Does > it exist at all outside the speech of the one snowboarder who used it > on CNN? Yes, it does. I first heard this in the speech of New York City youth c.1996, and I know I have earlier written examples from other sources. Jesse Sheidlower From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Sat Jan 4 17:20:17 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 17:20:17 -0000 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: I have a ref. to _shisety_ or _shysty_, a mid-19C US term, based on _shyster_, and meaning tight-fisted or mean. A check though Google (for _shysty_, _sheisty_ and, just in case, _scheissty_) brings up c.365 hits, some 353 of which opt for _shysty_. They all seem to indicate that the snowboarders' use, ie a negative, is the accepted definition. The term is usually used of people, in which case elements of arrogance and cockiness are implied. It does seem, the 19C use notwithstanding, to be a pretty recent coinage. (Although one ref. to the problems caused by a 'shysty' rock promoter - the context suggests financial meanness - suggests that the older use is still to be found.) In the end, like many slang qualifiers, it means, once one accepts the over-riding negative, what the context requires. Jonathon Green From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 4 17:36:10 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 12:36:10 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Actually, a Dutch auction is a descending-price auction, >with several variations in practice. It derives from the auction >system used in the Netherlands to auction tulips. It is believed to >produce higher prices than traditional ascending-price auctions, at >least in some contexts. > >John Baker > Thanks for the correction. My entry was part of a group of anti-Dutch slurs dating to the Herring Wars from the Victorian era Farmer & Henley _Slang and its Analogues_. I wonder if they got it wrong, if there always were two different senses/uses of "Dutch auction", or if the sense has changed. Anyone know? Larry >-----Original Message----- >From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] >Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:51 AM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > > >Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted >nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American >Speech_: > >[snip] > >Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices > >[snip] > >In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". > >Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 4 19:35:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 14:35:28 -0500 Subject: Mt. Meru Menus (2002) Message-ID: WINNIPEG WAVE--My tour guide (from Winnipeg) has never heard of the Winnipeg Handshake. He says that the Winnipeg Wave is the finger point a driver does before turning. UPSIDE-DOWN TREE--A nickname for the Baobab tree. NYAMA CHOMA--Seen everywhere in Kenya. OED? A brief check of "Tanzania" and "Kenya" in the OED database shows me there's room for improvement. I'll post just one cookbook now. I can't say that Kenyan or Tanzanian immigrants are numerous in the U.S., or that they're top ten cuisines. But still, things like "ugali" and "posho" and "ndizi" have to have some OED hits. MT. MERU MENUS A COOKBOOK IN AID OF THE UPENDO LEPROSY REHABILITATION CENTRE OF MAJI YA CHAI, ARUSHA, TANZANIA Printed in March 2002 by the Joshua Foundation Pg. 2: "First Toasties" is an expression I had never heard before coming to East Africa. It is food consumed, with a drink, at sundown, or before your evening meal. "Snacks," "Bitings," "Nibbles"--call it what you like, but don't let them spoil your tea, dinner, supper or whatever you like to call it! Pg. 8: _DAWA--MY FAVOURITE SUNDOWNER_ "Dawa" is Swahili for medicine and this particular medicine is available all over the continent in one form or another, certainly where the sun-down is marked. This recipe uses Konyagi, the Tanzanian gin produced in Arusha. ("Dawa" must be in the OED!--ed.) Pg. 10: _G AND TEA_ (Gin, iced tea, tonic water, lemon, mint leaves, crushed ice--ed.) Pg. 16: _MDTORI_ Mtori is a traditional dish of the natives of Kilimanjaro. When the women give birth they are confined to the compound for 3 months during which time they are fed on this soup. When they emerge they are beautifully rounded and blooming with health. Very nutritious, easily digestible and although not very attractive in appearance, this soup is very "moreish." Serves 4. 1 kg beef shin bones with some meat left on them 16 green bananas known as "ndizi Uganda," chopped 2 large onions, chopped 1.2 tsp. salt 2 tbsp. margarine (...) Pg. 17: _ZANZIBAR FISH SOUP_. Pg. 34: _HEAVEN AND EARTH POTATOES_ This is a vegetable dish I enjoyed when I lived in Germany. It is called such as apples come from above and potatoes come from the ground. It is a good accompaniment to veal and pork. When it is ready it resembles a thin golden coloured sponge cake! Pg. 38: _"CHOROKOS" IN COCONUT MILK_. Pg. 46: _LAMB MAHGREB_ North African dish with a nice fragrance. Pg. 49: _BEEF AND GREEN BANANA STEW_ (Ndizi za Kupika) A Tanzanian specialty; a local "comfort food." Pg. 59: _P-5_ No, not a secret Italian Masonic lodge or a coveted UN appointment but shorthand for a delicious pasta dish: (_P_enne alla _Panna, al _P_orri, al _P_rosciutto e a; _P_armigiano). Pg. 71: _MALVA PUDDING_ (Forgot to check if this is in OED--ed.) From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Sat Jan 4 23:20:17 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 18:20:17 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: Anyway, is "shisety" a term now being used in teenage slang? Does it exist at all outside the speech of the one snowboarder who used it on CNN? Gerald Cohen Yes, my "whigger" son, 12, has been using the term to refer to me for about the last year or so. He uses it to demean me when I am being "cheap" and also when I am being "unfair" in any general sense of the word. He also allows just now that it means "crappy" in the same sense of the snowboarder. And, indeed, how could it not have come from someone's hearing "scheiss"? Returning US servicemen stationed in Germany the last 10 years or so? From Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM Sun Jan 5 00:49:01 2003 From: Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM (Jewls2u) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:49:01 -0800 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: <001e01c2b447$d8a40220$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >>>>He also allows just now that it means "crappy" in the same sense of the snowboarder. And, indeed, how could it not have come from someone's hearing "scheiss"? Returning US servicemen stationed in Germany the last 10 years or so?<<<< It just looks like a slightly more sanitised version of shizitty. Same word-bend as bizitch and fizucker. All of which has been kicking around since at least the mid-80's. I don't recall hearing beeatch until the 90's though. Julienne From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 01:21:31 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 20:21:31 EST Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > Don't get it perfect, get it out! The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is attributed to Voltaire. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 01:25:02 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 20:25:02 EST Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: Philadelphia lawyer DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually attributed to DC - Jim Landau From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 5 01:23:34 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 19:23:34 -0600 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my signoff. Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. Gerald Cohen [Message I received on "mingya"]: >A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been >able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with >no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here >goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: > >> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' >> >> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley >> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new year. >> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, >> (not surprising) >> and we would like to have some inkling. > >Any help appreciated! > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 5 02:14:57 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 21:14:57 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Jewls2u wrote: #>>>>He also allows just now that it means "crappy" in the same sense of the #snowboarder. # #And, indeed, how could it not have come from someone's hearing "scheiss"? #Returning US servicemen stationed in Germany the last 10 years or so?<<<< # #It just looks like a slightly more sanitised version of shizitty. Same #word-bend as bizitch and fizucker. All of which has been kicking around #since at least the mid-80's. I don't recall hearing beeatch until the 90's #though. "Looks" is right. If this is /'Saisti/, with a "long" first letter "i", it sounds nothing like "shizitty" and is more plausibly deriveable from "Scheisse". OTOH, if it is /SI'sIt'i/, then "shisety" is (IMHO, and to stay in character) a piss-poor way to spell it; I would use something more like "shisitty". And if it is /SI'zIt'i/ then the spelling you've already used is the best one. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 5 02:16:04 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 21:16:04 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: <17f.14a6516e.2b48e29b@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, #mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: # #> Don't get it perfect, get it out! # #The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is #attributed to Voltaire. V's is quite possibly related/ancestral, but it doesn't capture the conflict, or trade-off, between quality and schedule. -- Mark A. Mandel From self at TOWSE.COM Sun Jan 5 02:36:32 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 18:36:32 -0800 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: "James A. Landau" wrote: > > In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, > mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > > > Don't get it perfect, get it out! > > The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is > attributed to Voltaire. I've been casting nets into the wide Web sea because I've always heard Mark's version, with a slightly different wording, attributed to seignior Gates -- something more like, "It doesn't need to be perfect. It only needs to work. Ship it." Another maxim I've heard through years of software development is, "Only God is perfect." a variant of the reasoning behind the aforementioned "Ship it." -- loosely based on an age-old maxim about flaws in handmade rugs. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From dwhause at JOBE.NET Sun Jan 5 04:17:13 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 22:17:13 -0600 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) Message-ID: And I think the computer version, if originating from Voltaire, was filtered through George Patton, "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Towse" "James A. Landau" wrote: > > In a message dated 01/03/2003 9:51:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, > mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > > > Don't get it perfect, get it out! > > The version I have heard is "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and is > attributed to Voltaire. I've been casting nets into the wide Web sea because I've always heard Mark's version, with a slightly different wording, attributed to seignior Gates -- something more like, "It doesn't need to be perfect. It only needs to work. Ship it." From pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU Sun Jan 5 05:30:58 2003 From: pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter Farruggio) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 21:30:58 -0800 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian Americans have used it for several generations as a gross expletive for "Wow!" or "Holy Sh*t!" Pete Farruggio ' At 05:23 PM 1/4/03, you wrote: > A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would >anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my >signoff. > > Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. > >Gerald Cohen > > >[Message I received on "mingya"]: > >>A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been >>able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with >>no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here >>goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: >> >>> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' >>> >>> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley >>> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new year. >>> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, >>> (not surprising) >>> and we would like to have some inkling. >> >>Any help appreciated! > > > > >--- >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 -------------- next part -------------- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 5 12:27:10 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 07:27:10 -0500 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.2.20030104212707.0298aa10@uclink4.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: >It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the >spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian Americans >have used it for several generations as a gross expletive for "Wow!" or >"Holy Sh*t!" I find it written in Italian "minchia" (apparently derived from Latin "mentula" = "penis"). -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 14:16:46 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 09:16:46 -0500 Subject: Githeri, Mchuzi, Traffic Lights, Marie & Nice Biscuits Message-ID: Greetings again from Mombasa. I head for four nights in Zanzibar tomorrow before I return home. I should have some library time in Zanzibar, so make your Swahili requests now. The library was closed today (Sunday) for Mombasa, and I had no time in Nairobi. The NEW YORK TIMES food section ran articles on Louisiana meat pies and Hopping John. As usual, no one spoke to me. Gosh, is all this depressing. Maybe if I wait three million years to give my work away for free, then come at them with guns, someone will eventually condescend to speak to me. And if that works--if I'm not dead in three million years---I'll try the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. No trip would be complete without a visit to the supermarket. I'm typing this near the NAKUMATT (Nairobi-Mambasa-Kisumu, Kenya's Choice Superstore). There is a very large selection of Indian food here, as there has been at the lodges where I've been staying. Here are some items: GITHERI--Maize, Beans, and salt. A Kenyan dish. OED? MCHUZI MIX--OED? There are two different ones, but the Nutri Mchuzi Mix has soya flour (GMO FREE), corn starch, glutamate, spices, salt, caramel. NICE BISCUITS--Several brands offer this. MARIE BISCUITS--Several brands offer this. OED? RAFI BISCUITS TARIATA BISCUITS FAMILY BISCUITS GLUCOSE BISCUITS DIGESTIVE BISCUITS BARVITA BISCUITS GINGERNUTS BISCUITS TRAFFIC LIGHTS--A cookie-type of bakery thing with three holes in it, filled with green, red, and yellow coloring. PALMIERS--No "elephant ears" in Africa? CHARCOAL MAKAA SOLD AT THE BUTCHERY--From a sign at the store. Makaa? OED? A-1 KHEER MIX RICE PUDDING--The chef on the box makes the "OK" sign. I've seen the sign at least one other place, so I guess it's acceptable here. DHOKLA MIX VADAI MIX RASMALAI MIX KULFI MIX GULAB JAMUN MIX PAPAD LENTIL TORTILLAS KHARI PAPDI TIKKI PAPDI DHANA JEERA AJMA SEEDS SUPARI (scented arecanut) CHHUNDO CHUTNEY PATRA (curried) KADHI (curried) UDHIU (curried) SAMBHAR (curried) SOOJI SEMOLINA MOONG DALL MAJOOR DALL URAD DALL TAL SAKRI (simsim and sugar) (OK, so there's a lot of Indian stuff here--ed.) CARR'S TABLE WATER--a registered trademark. WAGON WHEELS--Sold here. THe advertised web site is www.wagonwheels.com. JAMMIE DODGERS--Gooey jam "SPLODGED" between two shortcake biscuits. MURRAY MINTS--From Cadbury Kenya. Trademark? MISHIKAKI--Also, MSHIKAKI. Not seen at the supermarket, but a local meat dish in several of my cookbooks. OED? MASTICABLES--A gum. Trademark? From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 5 14:20:14 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 09:20:14 -0500 Subject: FW: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: Adding to what has been mentioned already, the word is heard in the movie Godfather II, from the character young Clemenza, who says it several times, in scenes where the dialogue is in Sicilian dialect. The etym from Latin mentula makes good sense -- the Latin word was also vulgar (both senses), appearing very infrequently, one famous time in a bawdy poem of Catullus. The sound change from mentula to minchia (whatever the spelling) is defensible. I heard it recently (this past summer) "in the flesh" from the mouth of my washing machine repair guy, who is a late-50ish Italian American from central Conn. So it's still around. Frank Abate *********************** It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian Americans have used it for several generations as a gross expletive for "Wow!" or "Holy Sh*t!" Pete Farruggio ' At 05:23 PM 1/4/03, you wrote: > A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would >anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my >signoff. > > Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. > >Gerald Cohen > > >[Message I received on "mingya"]: > >>A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been >>able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with >>no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here >>goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: >> >>> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' >>> >>> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley >>> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new year. >>> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, >>> (not surprising) >>> and we would like to have some inkling. >> >>Any help appreciated! > > > > >--- >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: ATT00003.txt URL: From Vocabula at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 16:25:20 2003 From: Vocabula at AOL.COM (Robert Hartwell Fiske) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 11:25:20 EST Subject: New Year's Resolutions Message-ID: A brief diversion: http://www.vocabula.com/index.asp#TVRPoll Robert Hartwell Fiske Editor and Publisher The Vocabula Review www.vocabula.com ______________________ The Vocabula Review A measly $5.95 a year www.vocabula.com ______________________ The Vocabula Review 10 Grant Place Lexington, MA 02420 United States Tel: (781) 861-1515 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 5 16:51:07 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 11:51:07 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: <011001c2b471$53c32fc0$a6bf22d0@dwhause> Message-ID: At 10:17 PM -0600 1/4/03, Dave Hause wrote: >And I think the computer version, if originating from Voltaire, was filtered >through George Patton, "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan >tomorrow." >Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net >Ft. Leonard Wood, MO Then there's the variant for us procrastinator types: "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow." L From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 5 18:22:23 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 13:22:23 -0500 Subject: Computer quotes (was computer proverbs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: #Then there's the variant for us procrastinator types: "Never do #today what you can put off until tomorrow." I'm giving up on procrastination: I just can't seem to get around to it. -- Mark M. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 5 19:06:33 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 14:06:33 -0500 Subject: Mishikaki & Mtori (A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR) Message-ID: A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR CHAKULA KIZURI by Zarina Jafferji Zanzibar: The Gallery Publications gallery at swahilicoast.com; www.galleryzanzibar.com; zjafferji at aol.com 96 pages, paperback, $18 2002 This is an attractive book, using full color. It's in English and Swahili. Here are two items that probably should be in the OED, but probably are not. Pg. 47: _Barbecued meat (Mshikaki)_ Serves 6 people Barbecued meat is sold by many street vendors in Zanzibar. Small pieces of beef are skewered then cooked over glowing charcoal, brushed with a chilli sauce to add flavour. _Ingredients_ 2 1/2 lbs. lamb, rump or fillet steak cut into small pieces 1 tsp. red chilli powder 1/2 tsp. black pepper 1 tbsp. ginger paste 1 tbsp. garlic paste 1 tbsp. tomato paste (optional) 2 tbsps. cooking oil salt to taste 1 tbsp. crushed raw papaya (an optional tenderiser for meat) _Method_ Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and marinade the meat overnight or for at least four hours in a refrigerator. Prepare a charcoal fire and grill the meat on skewers. Occasionally baste the meat with oil and also brush with a chilli sauce. Serve immediately with a green salad and Zanzibari sauce. _Meat with banana puree (Mtori)_ Serves 6 people This dish is prepared with savoury bananas and is deliciously creamy. _Ingredients_ 1 lb. stewing meat 6 small green bananas 2 onions chopped 2 tbsps. butter 2 cups chopped potatoes 1 tsp. garlic paste 1 tsp. ginger paste 2 fresh green chillies 1/2 cup thick coconut milk salt and pepper to taste _Method_ Cut the meat into small pieces and marinade in the garlic, ginger and green chillies for one to two hours. Cook the meat in some water until tender. Peel the bananas and add to the meat with the chopped onions. Add water if necessary and allow to simmer until tender. Add the butter and mash the banana. Lastly add the thick coconut milk and cook over a low heat for a further 5 minutes. _Meat curry (Mchuzi wa nyama)_ Serves 6-8 people. Perfect with rice. You can substitute chicken as well. (Typist leaving for Zanzibar--ed.) From zafav at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Jan 5 20:28:00 2003 From: zafav at HOTMAIL.COM (zafer avar) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 20:28:00 +0000 Subject: Mishikaki & Mtori (A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR) Message-ID: Dear friends, I am a person who makes translation from Eng to turkish. But firs time While translating on medical fields, I faced some statements follow like: 1-"Air/Silicone Exchange": Q:Silicone means Silisium or silicone in medical texts 2-"Fluid/silicone exchange is unnecessary and more difficult to visualize" Q:What does it mean to visualize in this sentence; What of exchange of fluid/silicone is difficult to visualize? its performing or what? 3-Bubble expansion from air: Q:If someone breaths it? 4-best prohibited : what is the difference than normal prohibited? 5-vascular occlusion: Is a kind of expansion of vascular? 6-interfacial tension :What? >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM >Reply-To: American Dialect Society >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Mishikaki & Mtori (A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR) >Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 14:06:33 -0500 > >A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR >CHAKULA KIZURI >by Zarina Jafferji >Zanzibar: The Gallery Publications >gallery at swahilicoast.com; www.galleryzanzibar.com; zjafferji at aol.com >96 pages, paperback, $18 >2002 > > This is an attractive book, using full color. It's in English and >Swahili. Here are two items that probably should be in the OED, but >probably are not. > >Pg. 47: >_Barbecued meat (Mshikaki)_ >Serves 6 people >Barbecued meat is sold by many street vendors in Zanzibar. Small pieces of >beef are skewered then cooked over glowing charcoal, brushed with a chilli >sauce to add flavour. >_Ingredients_ >2 1/2 lbs. lamb, rump or fillet steak cut into small pieces >1 tsp. red chilli powder >1/2 tsp. black pepper >1 tbsp. ginger paste >1 tbsp. garlic paste >1 tbsp. tomato paste (optional) >2 tbsps. cooking oil >salt to taste >1 tbsp. crushed raw papaya (an optional tenderiser for meat) >_Method_ >Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and marinade the meat overnight or >for at least four hours in a refrigerator. Prepare a charcoal fire and >grill the meat on skewers. Occasionally baste the meat with oil and also >brush with a chilli sauce. Serve immediately with a green salad and >Zanzibari sauce. > >_Meat with banana puree (Mtori)_ >Serves 6 people >This dish is prepared with savoury bananas and is deliciously creamy. >_Ingredients_ >1 lb. stewing meat >6 small green bananas >2 onions chopped >2 tbsps. butter >2 cups chopped potatoes >1 tsp. garlic paste >1 tsp. ginger paste >2 fresh green chillies >1/2 cup thick coconut milk >salt and pepper to taste >_Method_ >Cut the meat into small pieces and marinade in the garlic, ginger and green >chillies for one to two hours. Cook the meat in some water until tender. >Peel the bananas and add to the meat with the chopped onions. Add water if >necessary and allow to simmer until tender. Add the butter and mash the >banana. Lastly add the thick coconut milk and cook over a low heat for a >further 5 minutes. > >_Meat curry (Mchuzi wa nyama)_ >Serves 6-8 people. >Perfect with rice. You can substitute chicken as well. > >(Typist leaving for Zanzibar--ed.) _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Sun Jan 5 22:41:24 2003 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 17:41:24 -0500 Subject: "shisety" (new word?) Message-ID: The meanings of the following variants may differ, but they represent the earliest uses, on Google Advanced Groups, of the use of a given spelling variant. Searching on shisty finds 3 hits, with earliest to 10 NOV 1993: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shisty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=3i8cmv%24lk1%40news.cs.brandeis.edu&rnum=1 http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shisty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=JOHNSONBT%25CS35.17%40cadetmail.usafa.af.mil&rnum=2 http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shisty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=1993Nov10.185052.6201%40bvc.edu&rnum=3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shysty, with earliest to 29 MAR 1995: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shysty%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=3lcg5n%24muo%40usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu&rnum=1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sheisty, with earliest to 10 NOV 1993 (same as above site; seemingly indicates that there is an equivalence, i.e., shisty = sheisty): http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22sheisty%22&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=1993Nov10.185052.6201%40bvc.edu&rnum=12 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shiesty, with earliest to 10 JUL 1993: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22shiesty%22&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=r&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=1996&selm=927.171.uupcb%40mwbbs.com&rnum=14 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ George Cole Shippensburg University From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 6 13:59:13 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 05:59:13 -0800 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I hear the "asked" to "axed" switch occasionally here in Utah. No real demographic that I can identify. The man I heard use it yesterday uses inventive sentence structures and non-standard phrases; he uses a lot of similes and metaphors. He exaggerates pronunciation, especially syllable breaks, for effect. However, his use of "axed" seems to be part of his natural speech, not an affectation. He was born and raised here in the SLC area. ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 14:46:22 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 09:46:22 -0500 Subject: FW: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: I remember hearing this word quite frequently in the speech of the boys in my grammar school class, which was located in the Merrimack Valley (these were working-class Catholic boys, fwiw, but mainly of French-Canadian rather than Italian descent). The word really sticks in my head because I made the mistake of using it one day in conversation with my mother (who speaks a Sicilian dialect of Italian) and being shocked by her reaction: "What did you say? Joanne, that's a terrible Italian swear-word!" I had no idea what it meant and was too cowed to ask her, but I see now why she was upset. Thanks to the Italophones on this list for shedding light on this matter! Joanne Despres From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 15:20:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:20:22 -0500 Subject: Zanzibar food; Mombasa meaning Message-ID: Greetings from Zanzibar. This place has a Havana feel to it. It seems like nothing has been built here in the past 50 years. The tiny library has no computers and old books. The one cookbook (I was looking for old books here) I was shown was the one I had just bought. So it looks like any real research on the food of this region of the world will have to wait until I get back home to the NYPL and Library of Congress. MOMBASA--My Fort Jesus tour guide said that there was a miscommunication with the Portuguese when they asked what the name of the place was. The response was something like "Mombasa"--"I don't understand what you're saying." I've heard similar stories with other placenames. I haven't checked "Mombasa" in a web search yet. DINERS DHOW FOR COASTAL DISHES--Masala chips, Chicken tikka kebabs, minced pizza, mishikaki. (From a Mombasa restaurant sign--ed.) AFRICAN DISHES--Mitaha, Sima, Ndundira mkindani. (From other signs in Mombasa--ed.) TALK CARD--"Calling Card" in Mombasa. SIGNS FOR THESE VARIOUS ITEMS IN MOMBASA: KITENGE KHANGAS KIKOYS KILIM PILI PILI BEDS SWAHILI BEDS TSAVORITE ZANZIBAR CHESTS, BENCHES, DINING-TABLES LAMU CHESTS, BEDS, COFFEE TABLES MAKONDES (OED?--ed.) _ZANZIBAR FOOD_ _DOLPHIN GARDEN RESTAURANT_ BOLOGNESE ARABIATA (CABONARA) STEAK--PEPPER/GARLIC/MISHIKAKI MSETO--rice and green lentils with fish in coconut sauce SAMAKI WA KUPAKA--grilled whole snapper covered in coconut sauce CHUKUCHUKU OCRA (lady's finger) _FANY'S RESTAURANT_ ZANZIBAR CHICKEN PINEAPPLE PIZZA--t-sauce, chicken, pineapple, green pepper, cheese Traditional Zanzibar Breakfast--Maandazi or Chapati _THE AFRICA HOUSE HOTEL_ PILI-PILI CRAB--fresh crab sauteed in garlic, chilli and Zanzibari spices MISHIKAKI (succulent fish, beef or chicken kebabs) PESTO ALLA ZANZIBARI--fresh basil and garlic TOASTED--toasted sandwich with your choice of filling KATLERI--potato croquettes filled with your choice of meat, vegetables or fish and served with pili-pili sauce (OED for "pili-pili"?--ed.) VEGETABLE OR MEAT SAMBUSA CHUKUCHUKU YA KUKU NA WALI--chicken casserole cooked to a traditional recipe MBATATO NYAMA--delicious Zanzibari dish of meat, potatoes and spices _DHOW RESTAURANT_ PRAWN KEBABS PILI PILI (Salad) TRADITIONAL KACHUMBARI (Dessert) TRADITIONAL "KAIMATI" IN CARDAMOM SYRUP _SERENA HOTEL RESTAURANT_ ZANZIBARI PIZZA--finely ground beef delicately filled into a spicy dough served with kachumbari PASTA MDELE--tossed with spring vegetables or Queen prawns Appetizers CHILLED CHICKEN TIKKA SERVED ON A BED OF GREENS LENTIL AND POTATO BHAJIA WITH GREEN CHUTNEY SMOKED SAILFISH PANCAKE WITH TAMARIND AND COCONUT SAUCE Soup SWAHILI SEAFOOD CONSOMME WITH MILD CHILLIES, CORIANDER AND LEMONGRASS Spice Island Specialties GRILLED BABY EGGPLANT MASALA ZANZIBARI VEGETABLE LASAGNA KAMBA CHUKU CHUKU--steamed tiger prawns in ginger-wine and Zanzibari "pot pourri" KUKU WA KUPAKA--grilled half spring chicken simmered in coconut and exotic spices CHILLED MARINATED ROCK LOBSTER SIZZLED IN COCONUT, TURMERIC AND CORIANDER DUCK BREAST FILLED WITH DATES AND NUTS SET ON A PEPPERED CRANBERRY SAUCE Desserts CARROT HALWA WITH SPICY ICE CREAM APPLE RINGS COATED WITH CINNAMON SET ON VANILLA AND CARDAMOM SAUCE SWEET POTATO PIE WITH A SCOOP OF BUNGO ICE-CREAM _LA FENICE RESTAURANT_ _Menu Swahili_ SUPA YA BOGA--pumpkin soup CHICKEN MASALA SEMBE KWA MCHUZI WA NYAMA--beef and vegetables stew with sembe (maize flour) PWEZA ZANZIBAR--octopus with coconut sauce and Swahili spices PILAU YA SAMAKI KWA KACHUMBARI--spice rice and fried king fish NDIZI MBICHI YA NAZI KWA SAMAKI--green banana with fish in coconut sauce JAHUZI CICALE (with spinach)--lobster DESSERT SWAHILI--sweet banana in coconut and spices sauce From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Jan 6 16:07:16 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:07:16 -0500 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" Message-ID: Indeed, I had been discussing this word just last week with a friend, and had been intending to post it here. The friend is 50+, from Lawrence, Mass., and Jewish. He knew the word from his high school friends. He and his older brother and sister used to use it, rather in the spirit of showing how the natives back in Lawrence talked. I haven't heard it since I left Boston and stopped seeing them. He illustrated the word for my son by saying that it might be said in response to an astonishing bit of news: "Mingya!!" (as Peter Farruggio says, = Wow or Holy shit) or to add emphasis to an expression:"Mingya, will you get moving!" He regarded the word as a shibboleth of Lawrence, and said that someone he knew said he had once, in passing a group of soldiers in the Nam, overheard one of them say "mingya". He had immediately stopped and said, "OK, what part of Lawrence do you come from?" GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Farruggio Date: Sunday, January 5, 2003 0:30 am Subject: Re: Query: alleged word "mingya" > It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis" I guess the > spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable) Italian > Americanshave used it for several generations as a gross expletive > for "Wow!" or > "Holy Sh*t!" > > Pete Farruggio > > > ' > > At 05:23 PM 1/4/03, you wrote: > > > A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would > >anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my > >signoff. > > > > Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries. > > > >Gerald Cohen > > > > > >[Message I received on "mingya"]: > > > >>A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been > >>able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with > >>no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here > >>goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer: > >> > >>> i need a definition of the word 'mingya.' > >>> > >>> it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley > >>> and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new > year.>>> however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means, > >>> (not surprising) > >>> and we would like to have some inkling. > >> > >>Any help appreciated! > > > > > > > > > >--- > >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. > >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > >Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 > -------------- next part -------------- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 12/30/02 From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 16:29:58 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:29:58 EST Subject: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: Here are some details on our Words of the Year vote. This is a draft of what will be in the ADS newsletter. If you can improve on the short definitions, please let me know. After getting your suggestions and acting on them, we'll post it on the ADS website. - Allan Metcalf -------------------- The grim forebodings of the past year were reflected in the American Dialect Society's choice of "weapons of mass destruction" and its abbreviation "WMD" as word (or phrase) of the year 2002. In the 13th annual vote among members and friends of the society, conducted this time in Atlanta Jan. 3 during the society's annual meeting, "weapons of mass destruction" received 38 votes of the approximately 60 cast. Vote numbers are approximate because voting was by show of hands. Other candidates for Word of the Year were: "google" (verb) - to search the Web using the search engine Google for information on a person or thing: 11 votes. "blog" - from "weblog," a website of personal events, comments, and links: 6 votes. "Amber alert" - public announcement of a missing child: 4 votes. "regime change" - forced change in leadership: 3 votes. Words of the Year are those that reflect the concerns and preoccupations of the year gone by. They need not be new, but they usually are newly prominent. Before the voting on Word of the Year, words were also chosen in particular categories. These were the categories for 2002: - Most likely to succeed: "blog" (30 votes). Other candidates: "Amber alert" (20); "Axis of _____," alliance (8); "teen angstrel," angst-ridden popular singer (1). - Most useful: "google" (verb). All 60 votes in this category were for this word. Other candidates, with no votes, were: "dataveillance," surveillance using computer data; the prefix "war-" as in "wardriving" or "warchalking," finding locations for unauthorized wireless Internet access; "My big fat ______,"; "like no other," extremely. - Most creative: "Iraqnophobia," strong fear of Iraq (38 votes in a runoff). Other candidate in the runoff: "walking pinata," a person subject to relentless criticism, most recently Trent Lott (25). Other candidates in the first vote: "dialarhoea," inadvertent dialing of a cell phone in a pocket or handbag (8); "201 (k)," a 401 (k) retirement account ruined by stock losses (8); "apatheist," someone believing that God or gods exist but are not of any use (7). - Most unnecessary: "wombanization," feminization, from Alexander Barnes' book "The Book Read Backwards: The Deconstruction of Patriarchy and the Wombanization of Being" (46 votes). Other candidates: "Saddameter," meter on television showing daily likelihood of war with Iraq (13); "virtuecrat," person both politically correct and morally righteous (10); "black tide," large-scale oil pollution at sea (0). - Most outrageous: "Neuticles," fake testicles for neutered pets (40 votes in a runoff). Other candidate in the runoff: "grid butt," marks left on the buttocks by fishnet pantyhose (30). Other candidates in the first vote: "sausage fest," slang term for a party with more males than females (7); "diabulimia," loss of weight by a diabetic skipping insulin doses (3); "Botox party," party at which a physician injects guests with Botox (2); "comprendo-challenged," unable to understand the U.S. Constitution (0). - Most euphemistic: "regime change" (38 votes). Other candidates: "V card," slang term for virginity (14); "newater," sewage water purified and recycled into the fresh water system (7); "unorthodox entrepreneur," panhandler, prostitute, or drug dealer in a Vancouver park (4); "Enronomics," fraudulent business and accounting practices (1); "dirty bomb," conventional bomb laced with radioactive material (0). One candidate was proposed for the special category of Most Inspirational: President Bush's coinage "embetterment," as in "the embetterment of mankind." By a vote of 45 to 12, the society decided against this category and candidate. A category of Bushisms was suggested for future years. Choices for the years 1990 through 2002 may be found on the society's website, www.americandialect.org. The next vote, on words for 2003, will take place Friday, January 9, 2004, at the American Dialect Society's annual meeting in Boston at the Sheraton Hotel. Nominations for words of the year 2003 are welcome anytime. Send them to the chair of the society's New Words Committee, Professor Wayne Glowka of Georgia College and State University, at wglowka at mail.gcsu.edu. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 16:44:48 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 08:44:48 -0800 Subject: "axe" for "ask" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think Ol' Noah had it right. OE acsian seems to be at the base of it all--although one (especially one without a competent dictionary at hand at the moment) wonders whether there's an unbroken chain from OE aks- to ModE aks, or whether the metathesis to ask already took place in MidE. In fact, is there a double showing metathesis already in OE (i.e. ascian, acsian)? That could account for both forms in ModE. If not, who might be the culprit who is responsible for spreading the gospel of ask? Is our old friend Bishop Lowth lurking in the woodpile, perhaps? PR On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Frank Abate wrote: > There is a recording of this pron and some explanation in Noah Webster's > (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language > (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near the bottom, in the > facsimile edition. > > So it's been in American English for nearly 200 years, from people of all > colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people pronounce aks". In > fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is the "true pronunciation of > the original word". Well, I don't know about that, but Noah makes an > interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites it, is "acsian or axian". > > Frank Abate > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 17:03:25 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:03:25 EST Subject: Zanzibar food; Mombasa meaning Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 10:21:23 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Greetings from Zanzibar. This place has a Havana feel to it. It seems like > nothing has been built here in the past 50 years. Or as John Brunner said, "Stand on, Zanzibar!" - Jim Landau From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Mon Jan 6 17:18:01 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:18:01 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <64.2aa09903.2b48e36e@aol.com> Message-ID: Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >Philadelphia lawyer > >DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard >this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington >DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually >attributed to DC > > - Jim Landau From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Mon Jan 6 17:10:29 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (raspears) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:10:29 -0600 Subject: Fw: Re: "axe" for "ask" Message-ID: Similarly, *lax* (as in bowels) and *lask* diarrhea, an obsolete dialect term [see OED]. R. Spears ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Richardson" To: Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 10:44 AM Subject: Re: "axe" for "ask" > > I think Ol' Noah had it right. OE acsian seems to be > at the base of it > > all--although one (especially one without a competent > dictionary at hand > > at the moment) wonders whether there's an unbroken > chain from OE aks- to > > ModE aks, or whether the metathesis to ask already > took place in MidE. In > > fact, is there a double showing metathesis already in > OE (i.e. ascian, > > acsian)? That could account for both forms in ModE. > If not, who might be > > the culprit who is responsible for spreading the > gospel of ask? Is our > > old friend Bishop Lowth lurking in the woodpile, > perhaps? > > > > PR > > > > On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Frank Abate wrote: > > > > > There is a recording of this pron and some > explanation in Noah Webster's > > > (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of > the English Language > > > (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near > the bottom, in the > > > facsimile edition. > > > > > > So it's been in American English for nearly 200 > years, from people of all > > > colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people > pronounce aks". In > > > fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is > the "true pronunciation of > > > the original word". Well, I don't know about that, > but Noah makes an > > > interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites > it, is "acsian or axian". > > > > > > Frank Abate > > > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 17:39:10 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:39:10 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030106121559.00a565e0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a significant one. Larry > >At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >>Philadelphia lawyer >> >>DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard >>this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington >>DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually >>attributed to DC >> >> - Jim Landau From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 6 17:40:48 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 09:40:48 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030106121559.00a565e0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California > driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never > comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. Hence the term "California stop" for such a rolling stop, or non-stop, if you prefer ... allen maberry at u.washington.edu From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 6 17:47:01 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 09:47:01 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: How about: Swedish thumbprint = a roundish dent made by a hammer California finish hammer = a framing hammer (24-30 oz. hammer often with a waffled face as opposed to a "finish hammer", 16 oz. or less, always with a smooth face). This is probably confined to the Northwest and refers to fast, shoddy, construction associated justly or not, with California. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California > >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never > >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > significant one. > > Larry > > > > >At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: > >>Philadelphia lawyer > >> > >>DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only heard > >>this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of Washington > >>DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that matter, usually > >>attributed to DC > >> > >> - Jim Landau > From dsgood at VISI.COM Mon Jan 6 18:04:05 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:04:05 -0600 Subject: (Fwd) Fw: Re: The Starbuck-ization of Mayberry Message-ID: Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking Subject: Re: The Starbuck-ization of Mayberry From: "MH" Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 01:49:41 GMT "Dan Goodman" wrote in message news:Xns92FAB21233A41dsgoodvisicom at 209.98.13.60... > Cindy Fuller wrote in news:cjfuller- > 6D26E0.13383505012003 at news.mindspring.com: > > > We were running errands today and noticed that the Krispy Kreme in > > our neighborhood now serves espresso (according to the sign in > > their front window). It's mighty difficult to dunk one of their > > doughnuts into an espresso cup. SO asked, "What's next? Will > > they serve croissants covered in sugar glaze and sprinkles?" The > > mind boggles. > > I knew espresso was advancing downscale when I noticed that a tire > store had an espresso machine for their customers. > > In Minneapolis, SuperAmerica sells coffee and espresso. You can't have a coffee place in San Francisco without offering espresso, which has been around here a lot longer than Starf**ks. Martha H. Go Niners!!! -= END forwarded message =- ------- End of forwarded message ------- From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 6 18:17:41 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:17:41 -0600 Subject: Irish Tattoo (Was Geographical euphemisms) Message-ID: My daughter (half Irish) and I (full) referred to the inadvertent splotches of sunburn we picked up bicycling around Ireland last summer as "Irish tattoos." I thought I made up the phrase, but maybe I encountered it somewhere and forgot. Does anyone know? ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 6 18:20:23 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:20:23 -0600 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: The phrase "Chinese wall" seems to be becoming politically incorrect in legal English. -----Original Message----- From: James A. Landau [mailto:JJJRLandau at AOL.COM] Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 8:15 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? The dividing line between your "geographical euphemisms" and ethnic slurs is arbitrary---e.g. how would you classify "Mexican standoff"? That said, here are my contributions: "to shanghai" any number of terms for diarrhea, such as "Virginia quickstep" or "Bangkok belly" (although the latter may refer specifically to amebal dysentery) "Sloane Ranger" (the reference is to Sloane Square in London) "Kentucky breakfast" which consists of a steak, a bulldog, and a bottle of bourbon. This may be a nonce usage---it appeared in the obituary of a Kentucky mountains resident in 1961-2. Why the bulldog? To eat the steak. "Bronx cowboy"---again a possible nonce usage, from Harry Harrison's _The Technicolor Time Machine_ "mountain dew" (not the soft drink but moonshine whiskey---the stereotype is that moonshiners are exclusively mountaineers) "Acapulco gold" (either marijuana in general or a specific grade of marijuana) "Night of the Sicilian Vespers" (the original one, not the 20th Century re-enactment) "Welsh rabbit" "prairie oysters" "Hudson seal" - Jim Landau ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:30:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:30:17 -0500 Subject: (Fwd) Fw: Re: The Starbuck-ization of Mayberry In-Reply-To: <3E1970B5.20054.2DCAB7@localhost> Message-ID: > > >> I knew espresso was advancing downscale when I noticed that a tire >> store had an espresso machine for their customers. >> > > In Minneapolis, SuperAmerica sells coffee and espresso. > Is that so terrible? Vending machines in Europe (at least in Germany last time I was there) dispense espresso--one mark for a cup that was definitely drinkable, and much better than any vending machine coffee I've had here. (That was back when they had marks, now it's probably up to 1 euro/cup.) Larry From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Mon Jan 6 18:30:34 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:30:34 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? Message-ID: Dutch auction, in the descending-price auction sense, is an important financial and economic term, such that if there ever were an alternative meaning (which I doubt), it has disappeared today. It's listed in the OED (under auction), but no quotes are given. Here's one from 1834: >>Then comes the act of 1798, which contains the enactments before quoted, and besides them, these others.--That the Sheriff should set up the whole tract of land, liable for taxes, by way of Dutch auction, and strike off so much to the person who offered to take the smallest number of acres for the sums to be raised.<< Avery v. Rose, 4 Dev. 549, 15 N.C. 549 (N.C. 1834). I haven't seen the 1798 statute referred to in the quote, but I suspect that it describes the method of sale rather than using the descriptive term Dutch auction. It's interesting to note how many of these geographical euphemisms are pejorative. Are there any true ironyms (which Dutch auction, of course, is not, since it really is an auction) that are not pejorative? John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 12:36 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > Actually, a Dutch auction is a descending-price auction, >with several variations in practice. It derives from the auction >system used in the Netherlands to auction tulips. It is believed to >produce higher prices than traditional ascending-price auctions, at >least in some contexts. > >John Baker > Thanks for the correction. My entry was part of a group of anti-Dutch slurs dating to the Herring Wars from the Victorian era Farmer & Henley _Slang and its Analogues_. I wonder if they got it wrong, if there always were two different senses/uses of "Dutch auction", or if the sense has changed. Anyone know? Larry >-----Original Message----- >From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] >Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:51 AM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: Geographical euphemisms? > > >Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted >nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American >Speech_: > >[snip] > >Dutch auction: a sale at minimum prices > >[snip] > >In the paper, I dub these "ironyms". > >Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:34:13 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:34:13 -0500 Subject: Irish Tattoo (Was Geographical euphemisms) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:17 PM -0600 1/6/03, Joyce, Thomas F. wrote: >My daughter (half Irish) and I (full) referred to the inadvertent >splotches of sunburn we picked up bicycling around Ireland last >summer as "Irish tattoos." I thought I made up the phrase, but >maybe I encountered it somewhere and forgot. Does anyone know? > One of the Irish ironyms in my list was "Irish tan" = 'sunburn', based on the premise that a true Irish(wo)man doesn't tan. The above would seem to be based on the same premise. Not quite as insulting as most of the other ones, anyway. larry From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:33:52 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:33:52 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I say possible, because I think I've heard it several ways, sometimes as "Oregon liquid sunshine" and sometimes just as "liquid sunshine," this last sometimes accompanied by the further clarification "Oregon's 'liquid sunshine.'" These latter variations make it an uncertain member of this class of expressions. To my knowledge all of these versions are used only self-deprecatingly by Oregonians. After all, Washington would have an equal claim on "liquid sunshine." Have any of you Washingtonians ever heard of "Washington liquid sunshine"? PMc --On Monday, January 6, 2003 12:39 PM -0500 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: >> Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the >> "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules >> and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > significant one. > > Larry > >> >> At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >>> Philadelphia lawyer >>> >>> DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only >>> heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of >>> Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that >>> matter, usually attributed to DC >>> >>> - Jim Landau **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 18:35:42 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:35:42 EST Subject: California drivers Message-ID: According to Wendalyn Nichols: >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a while ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the L.A. area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave in and out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm about slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. I compare them with the more aggressive and hazardous drivers of Chicago, not to mention the cab drivers of Manhattan. Perhaps drivers are really laid back in the Northwest . . . though I have heard of "ferry rage." And of course truth is not a necessary condition for a stereotype. - Allan Metcalf From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 18:36:07 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:36:07 EST Subject: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 11:30:43 AM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > One candidate was proposed for the special category of Most Inspirational: > President Bush's coinage "embetterment," as in "the embetterment of > mankind." > By a vote of 45 to 12, the society decided against this category and > candidate. A category of Bushisms was suggested for future years. > I object to this reporting of the minutes of the meeting. In fact, GRID BUTT (a.k.a. BUTT GRID) was also nominated (from the floor) as a candidate for Most Inspirational word of the year. Anyone who has ever sat naked on a lawn chair for any length of time will surely recognize the spiritual importance of having a term for the resultant distressing epidermal condition. However, the dictitorial chair of the meeting refused even to allow a vote on this nomination, thus violating our rights according to our established procedures. Given that the Most Inspirational category is also one that is closely allied to religious beliefs, our rights to free exercise of relgion may have been violated as well. At any rate, the most important purpose of meetings of the American Dialect Society--the free interchange of scholarly thinking about language--was thereby put in jeapordy by the black tide of dictatorship. We will never know what the scholarly conclusion would have been with respect to the Most Inspirational nature of GRID BUTT (not to mention MY BIG FAT BUTT GRID). It seems clear that the chair was swayed by the fact that our session this year was being recorded for national television. He just did not want to take the chance of appearing on CBS News saying, "All in favor of GRID BUTT say 'Aye'!" In this craven action I say he acted like a Neuticle-driven, comprendo-challenged scholarly angstrel. He has turned our sacred deliberations into one big like-no-other Botox party and limp sausagefest. I do not wish to turn our beloved Secretary into a walking pinyata; I do not mean to suggest that we need a metcalfameter to monitor his future actions. I am not asking for Regime Change. Rather, I am fully willing to forgive him for his outrageous virtuecratrism, even though, for the sake of a few moments of glory on televison, he has robbed us of our intellectual V-card. I would like to propose, however, that he promise that, in the future, we MUST ban the press from our deliberations. From sylvar at VAXER.NET Mon Jan 6 18:44:49 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:44:49 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: > Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I suppose it's the converse of "If the sun don't come you get a tan from sitting in the English rain". :) Ben From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Jan 6 18:47:50 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:47:50 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: I've heard "liquid sunshine" in both Oregon and Washington but without the geographical qualification. I'm sure that there are those on both sides of the border who would swear to the superiority of their particular brand. The rain is a pretty standard complaint in both states (west of the Cascades, that is). E.g. the comment I've heard more than once "Must be almost summer ... rain's gettin' warmer." allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I > say possible, because I think I've heard it several ways, sometimes as > "Oregon liquid sunshine" and sometimes just as "liquid sunshine," this last > sometimes accompanied by the further clarification "Oregon's 'liquid > sunshine.'" These latter variations make it an uncertain member of this > class of expressions. To my knowledge all of these versions are used only > self-deprecatingly by Oregonians. After all, Washington would have an > equal claim on "liquid sunshine." Have any of you Washingtonians ever > heard of "Washington liquid sunshine"? > > PMc > > --On Monday, January 6, 2003 12:39 PM -0500 Laurence Horn > wrote: > > > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > >> Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the > >> "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules > >> and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > > significant one. > > > > Larry > > > >> > >> At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: > >>> Philadelphia lawyer > >>> > >>> DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only > >>> heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of > >>> Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that > >>> matter, usually attributed to DC > >>> > >>> - Jim Landau > > > > **************************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw > Linfield College * McMinnville, OR > pmcgraw at linfield.edu > From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 18:49:45 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:49:45 -0500 Subject: Query: alleged word "mingya" In-Reply-To: <37b717380602.38060237b717@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: Just for the record, my grammar school was located in Methuen, a town that borders on Lawrence and draws a great many relocating Lawrencians. I suppose many on this list would be aware aware that Lawrence is a mill town roughly 25 miles north of Boston that has traditionally attracted a very large immigrant population, including (among many others) Italians, particularly during the first half of the twentieth century. Within the past 30 years or so, many second- and third-generation European and Middle Eastern immigrant families have moved to neighboring towns and the demographics of the city have shifted heavily in favor of Latinos, mainly from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Joanne On 6 Jan 2003, at 11:07, George Thompson wrote: > Indeed, I had been discussing this word just last week with a friend, and had been intending to post it here. > > The friend is 50+, from Lawrence, Mass., and Jewish. He knew the word from his high school friends. He and his older brother and sister used to use it, rather in the spirit of showing how the natives back in Lawrence talked. I haven't heard it since I left Boston and stopped seeing them. > > He illustrated the word for my son by saying that it might be said in response to an astonishing bit of news: "Mingya!!" (as Peter Farruggio says, = Wow or Holy shit) or to add emphasis to an expression:"Mingya, will you get moving!" He regarded the word as a shibboleth of Lawrence, and said that someone he knew said he had once, in passing a group of soldiers in the Nam, overheard one of them say "mingya". He had immediately stopped and said, "OK, what part of Lawrence do you come from?" > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > From andrij73 at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Jan 6 19:11:18 2003 From: andrij73 at HOTMAIL.COM (... ...) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 19:11:18 +0000 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Hello! i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most correct to the most uncorrect forms? 1) You open us your heart 2) You open to us your heart 3) You open your heart to us Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? Thanks. Andrew _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 6 19:23:19 2003 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:23:19 -0800 Subject: Geographic Euphamism Message-ID: How about Chinese auction for a silent auction or tricky tray? Ed __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 19:24:59 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:24:59 EST Subject: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: Clearly, as Ron points out, the paragraph of the announcement regarding "Most Inspirational" needs improved. Formerly: <> How about this: <> I don't name names here, following the pattern for the rest of the announcement, but if naming the responsible parties seems important, I will happily do so. - Allan Metcalf From SO'Bryant at UNUMPROVIDENT.COM Mon Jan 6 19:23:32 2003 From: SO'Bryant at UNUMPROVIDENT.COM (O'Bryant, Susan F) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:23:32 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. ********************************************* RE: Hello! i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most correct to the most uncorrect forms? 1) You open us your heart 2) You open to us your heart 3) You open your heart to us Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? Thanks. Andrew From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 6 19:45:55 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:45:55 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Over the holidays, my mother used the 19th century term "Boston marriage," meaning long-term cohabitation by two women. In the 19th century such cohabitations were publically assumed to be nonsexual, although viewed with 21st century sensibility many were undoubtedly closeted lesbian relationships. The term isn't in the OED, DARE, or HDAS; it is in AHD4, which suggests the term may be inspired the women depicted in Henry James's "The Bostonians." There is also a recent David Mamet play titled "Boston Marriage" (which may be what reminded my mother of the term). From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 19:38:28 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:38:28 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <5FD8BD221C693D43A0ECD01AE6F2D2E4672E7F@chae2m01.up.corp.upc> Message-ID: I'd agree, though I see this as an issue of idiomaticness rather than grammaticality. That is, all phrases (I think) are possible within the constraints of English grammar, but some would occur more naturally in English than others: #1 is perfectly idiomatic, #2 is not perfectly idiomatic in spoken use, though it might appear natural in some written contexts, and #3 is extremely unidiomatic in either spoken or written form. Joanne D. Merriam-Webster. Inc. On 6 Jan 2003, at 14:23, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: > I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. > > ********************************************* > RE: > > Hello! > i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most > correct to the most uncorrect forms? > > 1) You open us your heart > 2) You open to us your heart > 3) You open your heart to us > > Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? > > Thanks. > Andrew From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 6 19:59:31 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:59:31 -0600 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: 3-2-1: I don't understand why this is even hard. -----Original Message----- From: Joanne M. Despres [mailto:jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM] Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 1:38 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: grammatically speaking... I'd agree, though I see this as an issue of idiomaticness rather than grammaticality. That is, all phrases (I think) are possible within the constraints of English grammar, but some would occur more naturally in English than others: #1 is perfectly idiomatic, #2 is not perfectly idiomatic in spoken use, though it might appear natural in some written contexts, and #3 is extremely unidiomatic in either spoken or written form. Joanne D. Merriam-Webster. Inc. On 6 Jan 2003, at 14:23, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: > I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. > > ********************************************* > RE: > > Hello! > i have got a question. Could you arrange these sentences from the most > correct to the most uncorrect forms? > > 1) You open us your heart > 2) You open to us your heart > 3) You open your heart to us > > Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? > > Thanks. > Andrew ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Mon Jan 6 19:59:38 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:59:38 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <529648.1041849231@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Vancouver Sunshine = rain Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net (slightly to the North of WA state) -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw Sent: January 6, 2003 10:34 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: geographical slanders/euphemisms Another possible Northwest candidate is "Oregon sunshine," i.e., rain. I say possible, because I think I've heard it several ways, sometimes as "Oregon liquid sunshine" and sometimes just as "liquid sunshine," this last sometimes accompanied by the further clarification "Oregon's 'liquid sunshine.'" These latter variations make it an uncertain member of this class of expressions. To my knowledge all of these versions are used only self-deprecatingly by Oregonians. After all, Washington would have an equal claim on "liquid sunshine." Have any of you Washingtonians ever heard of "Washington liquid sunshine"? PMc --On Monday, January 6, 2003 12:39 PM -0500 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:18 PM -0500 1/6/03, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: >> Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the >> "California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules >> and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. > > Notice, though, that some of these slurs and slanders are not ironyms > in my sense. A Welsh rabbit is not a rabbit (but what the poor > rabbit-deprived Welsh presumably think is one), nor is a prairie > oyster an oyster. And the DC parking permit below is not a parking > permit. But a California driver is a driver, however reckless, just > as a Philadelphia lawyer is a lawyer. I think the distinction is a > significant one. > > Larry > >> >> At 08:25 PM 1/4/03 -0500, you wrote: >>> Philadelphia lawyer >>> >>> DC parking permit (the emergency flashers on your car)---I have only >>> heard this from one person (from Baltimore, worked in a seedy area of >>> Washington DC) so I'm not sure it's in general use, or, for that >>> matter, usually attributed to DC >>> >>> - Jim Landau **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 20:02:43 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:02:43 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: > That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a while > ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been > impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the L.A. > area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave in and > out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm about > slowdowns. That's because all the rest of them moved to the Northwest, I guess... PR From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 6 20:20:20 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:20:20 -0600 Subject: Sunday Morning Message-ID: Has anyone seen the piece done by CBS Sunday Morning on the Word of the Year vote? If so, could you please give us a report on how it was treated? From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 20:20:07 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:20:07 -0500 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > It's interesting to note how many of these geographical >euphemisms are pejorative. Are there any true ironyms (which Dutch >auction, of course, is not, since it really is an auction) that are >not pejorative? > >John Baker > Good point. I can't think of any offhand, although we have to remember that pejorativeness is in the mind of the beholder. The fact that I can refer to garlic as "the stinking rose" doesn't mean that I would choose roses over garlic if I could enjoy only one of these two great gifts of God. And of course "French kiss" isn't necessarily pejorative, but it's not a true ironym either. In fact, the asymmetry you point to is a good argument for dubbing them "ironyms", since irony shares this asymmetry. It's far easier to get an ironic and hence pejorative reading for "that was a brilliant/great move", "real smart", "he's a real genius", etc. than to get a positive ironic reading on "that was a dumb move", "he's a real idiot", etc. "Oregon sunshine" for 'rain' does work very elegantly, but compare the implausibility of "California rain" for 'sunshine'. Larry From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 6 20:26:02 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:26:02 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <5FD8BD221C693D43A0ECD01AE6F2D2E4672E7F@chae2m01.up.corp.upc> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: #I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. #********************************************* #1) You open us your heart #2) You open to us your heart #3) You open your heart to us I agree, and I'll add that IMHO #1 is ungrammatical, and #2, while grammatical, is unidiomatic and unlikely to be used by a native speaker. -- Mark A. Mandel From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Mon Jan 6 20:34:59 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:34:59 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >1) You open us your heart >2) You open to us your heart >3) You open your heart to us > >Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? #3 #2 sounds like a translation from a language like French, which places the object before the subject. #1 sounds like something is missing Rima From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 6 21:01:11 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 16:01:11 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:34 PM -0800 1/6/03, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >>1) You open us your heart >>2) You open to us your heart >>3) You open your heart to us >> >>Which is the best (grammatically speaking)? > >#3 > >#2 sounds like a translation from a language like French, which >places the object the pronominal object, anyway >before the subject. I think you mean before the verb, not the subject. But then it (= Vous nous ouvrez votre coeur.) isn't quite analogous to #2, which would have to be the ungrammatical "Vous ouvrez nous votre coeur". I guess I'm not sure what you mean by the allusion to French. > Actually #2 would be OK in English if the object were "heavy" or long enough: "You open to us your most generous and loving heart." or even as it stands now, providing there's enough implicit contrast or drama involved: "You open to us...(ta-da)...your HEART!" (with the utterance of the object accompanied by the appearance of a large pulsing heart projected on an immense IMAX screen). larry From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 6 21:06:31 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:06:31 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: >>> wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM 01/06/03 09:18AM >>> >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the "California >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic rules and never >comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. Of course, that rolling stop is called a "California stop." Fritz Juengling From philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU Mon Jan 6 21:33:48 2003 From: philip at CS.BRANDEIS.EDU (Philip Trauring) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 16:33:48 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: One other: French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's debts Philip Trauring From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 21:44:26 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 13:44:26 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The only meaning I remember ever hearing for "take French leave" was 'go AWOL'. --On Monday, January 6, 2003 4:33 PM -0500 Philip Trauring wrote: > One other: > > French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's > debts > > Philip Trauring **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Jan 6 21:43:50 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 16:43:50 -0500 Subject: FW: Re: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: John Baker was kind enough to point out to me that I had #s 1 and 3 transposed in my last posting. Sorry! Joanne From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 6 22:13:07 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:13:07 -0800 Subject: "axe" for "ask" Message-ID: Both 'acsian' and 'ascian' were found in Old English. There are cognates in Old Saxon, Old High German, Old Frisian as well as other non-Germanic languages. All of them point to an original /sk/; hence OE 'ascian.' Middle English has reflexes of both forms: asshe, asche, axy, axe among others. The real question is where the modern standard form, 'ask', comes from, because WGerm /sk/ usually went to /sh/ in OE. The ODEE says, "The standard form ask (c . 1200) resulted from the metathesis of aks-, ax-." If this is correct, we have WGerm *aiskojan >OE ascian (but this form dies out, leaving only relics) > OE acsian (with metathesis, which comes down to us as 'aks') > ME 'ask' (with re-metathesis) > mod Eng 'ask'. I can't help wonder whether there was some OE dialect in which there was no metathesis and no assibilation of /sk/ which could have provided the modern form. Fritz Juengling >>> prichard at LINFIELD.EDU 01/06/03 08:44AM >>> I think Ol' Noah had it right. OE acsian seems to be at the base of it all--although one (especially one without a competent dictionary at hand at the moment) wonders whether there's an unbroken chain from OE aks- to ModE aks, or whether the metathesis to ask already took place in MidE. In fact, is there a double showing metathesis already in OE (i.e. ascian, acsian)? That could account for both forms in ModE. If not, who might be the culprit who is responsible for spreading the gospel of ask? Is our old friend Bishop Lowth lurking in the woodpile, perhaps? PR On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Frank Abate wrote: > There is a recording of this pron and some explanation in Noah Webster's > (yes, the man himself) A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language > (1806), in the Preface, page xvi, paragraph near the bottom, in the > facsimile edition. > > So it's been in American English for nearly 200 years, from people of all > colors. Noah W says, "ask, which our common people pronounce aks". In > fact, Noah goes on to say that the "aks" pron is the "true pronunciation of > the original word". Well, I don't know about that, but Noah makes an > interesting point. The "Saxon verb", as he cites it, is "acsian or axian". > > Frank Abate > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 22:17:59 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:17:59 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Sunday=20Morning?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 3:20:07 PM, GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: > Has anyone seen the piece done by CBS Sunday Morning on the Word of the > Year vote? If so, could you please give us a report on how it was > treated? > Charles Carson taped it, but I haven't seen it yet. Is there any way a version could be put on someone's website so that everyone can view it? In the middle of the session chaired by Walt Wolfram Sunday morning Kirk Hazen announced that he had seen it and thought that it was good. It lasted about 5 minutes and made us look like serious scholars with liberal politics, according to KH. From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 22:29:06 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:29:06 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: That's amazing! Last time I was in LA (admittedly it's been a few years), I was sure there must be careful instructions somewhere in the California drivers' manual about how to exit from an eight-lane freeway: "When approaching a right exit, be sure you are in the far left lane. When you are about 200 feet from the exit, swiftly cross all three other lanes, allowing at least two feet between your rear bumper and the front bumpers of the cars traveling in the other three lanes. Once you have cleared the freeway, you are permited to slow down if there is a stop sign at the end of the off-ramp." I've seen this maneuver in Oregon in recent years, but still not frequently. I've tried to think of an appropriate ironym for the maneuver (the LA dodger?), but so far the muse has eluded me. (Sorry--off-topic, I know.) Peter Mc. --On Monday, January 6, 2003 1:35 PM -0500 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a > while ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been > impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the > L.A. area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave > in and out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm > about slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 6 22:33:43 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:33:43 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Words=20of=20the=20Year=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?announcement?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/6/03 2:25:45 PM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > I don't name names here, following the pattern for the rest of the > announcement, but if naming the responsible parties seems important, I will > happily do so. > > Thanks, Allan, for the suggested emendation. I really do think it is better to tell the full story, and the explanation with respect to last year is both responsible and clarifying. Even so, I don't see any reason to use names here if you don't elsewhere. My nomination of "grid butt" WAS serious, but it was not meant to denigrate either the source of last year's Most Inspirational selection nor (necessarily) the category itself: I really DO think that "grid butt" as an advertising ploy represents the vitality and marvelous creativity of the actual users of the language, and as a linguist I am always inspired by the cleverness of native speakers in morphological innovation. From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Mon Jan 6 22:49:01 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:49:01 -0500 Subject: Sunday Morning Message-ID: Here's the transcript. Paul ======================================== ANTHONY MASON, co-host: They say one picture is worth a thousand words, so could a four-word phrase possibly sum up one full year? Our Mark Strassmann has just spent some time with the experts who say the answer, in a word, is yes. (Footage of building exterior) Unidentified Woman #1: Coordinates differ from commutatives in having noun phrases with equal syntactic status. (Footage of registration sign; person filling out form; name cards being placed on table) Unidentified Man #1: As a species of analogical figure, a simile showed several characteristics which are... MARK STRASSMANN reporting: What is your area of expertise? Unidentified Man #2: Logical plurals, logical conjunction. Unidentified Woman #2: How simile is different from metaphor basically on a cognitive level. Unidentified Man #3: Lexical semantics, computational linguistics. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) If you want to learn what's in a word, this is the group to ask. Unidentified Woman #3: Mimetics are different from non-mimetic words in that they do no bare definable meanings. Unidentified Woman #1: They function as a single, unsplittable constituent and trigger obligatory plural verb agreement... (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) If it all sounds Greek to you, these professional wordsmiths get it... Unidentified Woman #1: (Voiceover) ...as well as adverbial particles, aspect markers and clausal conjunctions. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) And once a year, they re-emerge from the far-flung back roads of linguistics to share it. Unidentified Woman #4: A topic that I'm interested in, which is what happens when people who speak completely non-mutually intelligible languages who come together over a period of time. (Footage of people at seminar; form) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Eight hundred members of the Linguistic Society of America gathered this past week in Atlanta, in part to choose a word that says it all about an entire year. Unidentified Woman #5: Iraqnaphobia. Unidentified Man #4: What's that? Unidentified Woman #5: It's an unusually strong fear of Iraq. (Footage of people at seminar) Professor WAYNE GLOWKA: Several people have asked that Google be on the list. (Footage of Glowka speaking at seminar) Prof. GLOWKA: Sometimes the words just jump out at you. And--and, you know, there--there are thousands, millions of things going on in American life every single day, but somehow one single theme, one single word will just rise to the top. It's... (Footage of Glowka; forms; Glowka and others at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Wayne Glowka, normally a professor of medieval literature, is here looking for more recent classics. He's chairman of the Word of the Year committee. Prof. GLOWKA: Anything else that's outrageous... Unidentified Woman #6: How about Botox Party? Prof. GLOWKA: Botox Party is a fairly outrageous thing it seems to me. I'm really, really fond of grid butt, which comes from an advertisement I think sent to me by The Agios, marks left on buttocks by fishnet pantyhose... (Footage of Glowka and others at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) The word can be funny... Unidentified Woman #7: 'My big, fat' blank, based on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," so... (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) ...or serious... Unidentified Woman #8: I want to speak in--in favor of Amber Alert, because I think... (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) ...new or newly popular... Prof. GLOWKA: Dialrhea, a tendency of a cell phone to make a call when left in your pocket or your bag with the keypad unlocked. (Footage of people at seminar) Prof. GLOWKA: It's that ultimately haiku. It--it tells us what was probably the most important thing we were focused on. Sometimes we miss, I'll admit, but sometimes I think we really do hit--hit that nail right on the head. (Footage of World Trade Center tragedy; graphic of '9/11'; mom at soccer game; graphic of words 'Soccer Mom'; fireworks; graphic of 'Y2K'; dimpled ballots; graphic of word 'Chad') STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) For 2001, the obvious choice was '9/11.' There was 'soccer mom' in 1996; 'Y2K' for 1999; for 2000, 'chad 'won in a linguist landslide. (Footage of Saddam Hussein and soldiers; graphic of words 'Mother of All...') Professor ALLAN METCALF (Executive Secretary, American Dialect Society): (Voiceover) The strong one back in 1991 was 'Mother of all,' a phrase that Saddam Hussein used when he was talking about the mother of all battles. (Footage of Metcalf; report) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Professor Alan Metcalf, the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, created this annual award. He admits not all winning words will stick. Prof. METCALF: Actually, our first choice of word of the year in 1990 was 'Bushlips,' which referred to the older George Bush promise no new taxes. (Footage of former President George Bush) President GEORGE BUSH: (From 1988) Read my lips: 'No new taxes.' (Footage of 1988 Republican National Convention; President George W. Bush) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Bushlips, meaning to break a political promise, faded fast. A decade later, this President Bush shows a knack for creating new words... President GEORGE W. BUSH: Misunderestimate or--excuse me, underestimate... (Footage of President Bush) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) ...a sort of presidential jabberwocky... Pres. BUSH: Just making sure you were paying attention. You--you were. STRASSMANN: So George W. Bush for you is good for business. Prof. METCALF: Wonderful, yes. (Footage of coal mine rescue; Enron logo; Martha Stewart; John Walker Lindh; sniper crime scene; John Geoghan; Amber Alert highway sign; Cardinal Bernard Law at Mass STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Like all years, 2002 was a kaleidoscope of human events. But of all its many issues and moments, no one dominated. In a slower year like this, is it harder or more challenging or more fun to--to come up with the right word? Prof. GLOWKA: You know, it's certainly more challenging. It might be fun because the word of the year may just end up being a surprise. Unidentified Man #5: Now we come to our most solemn and profound charge: the word or phrase of the year. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) Some of this year's nominees... Unidentified Man #6: 'Bushism.' Prof. METCALF: 'Regime change,"Amber Alert,"Google...' Unidentified Man #7: I strongly support 'weapons of mass destruction.' Prof. METCALF: All who favor 'weapons of mass destruction,' raise your hand. (Footage of people at seminar) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) In a close vote, 'weapons of mass destruction' carried the day. Secretary DONALD RUMSFELD (Defense Department): ...weapons of mass destruction. Secretary COLIN POWELL (State Department): ...weapons of mass destruction. Pres. BUSH: ...weapons of mass destruction. (Footage of Strassmann, Glowka and Metcalf) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) To these linguists, it's a clunky phrase. Prof. GLOWKA: But it is very long, and there--there certainly must be something that could encapsulate the idea with fewer syllables, but you never know. STRASSMANN: So a--a fru--a frustrating phrase and a frustrating conclusion to a somewhat frustrating year? Prof. METCALF: Yes. Prof. GLOWKA: I--I believe so. Yes. (Footage of New York Times Square 2003 celebration) STRASSMANN: (Voiceover) But this is now 2003, five days into a new year of endless linguistic possibility. Unidentified Woman #1: (Voiceover) Coordinates differ from commutatives in having noun phrases with equal syntactic status, same thematic role case and so on, which form... From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Mon Jan 6 23:00:06 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 18:00:06 -0500 Subject: Experts List Message-ID: Folks, I have a mailbox full of messages from journalists who are looking for someone to interview regarding the Words of the Year, most of them for the radio. If you would like to be included in an impromptu experts list that I can forward to these people, please send your contact information to me as soon as possible. (Some of these requests are asking for interviews *this afternoon* which seems unlikely to happen, but the sooner I have your information, the better). Include: Name Organizational affiliation(s) Title/Profession Other relevant credentials (such as books published, or specialty Preferred email address(es) Preferred phone number(s) Thanks, in any case. -- Grant Barrett gbarrett at americandialect.org American Dialect Society webmaster http://www.americandialect.org/ From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Mon Jan 6 23:47:10 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:47:10 -0800 Subject: Geographical euphemisms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Perhaps add "Texas tea" (= oil) to this mix? I don't know that this really exists apart from the Flatt & Scruggs ballad, though. PR From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 7 00:45:45 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 19:45:45 -0500 Subject: Multilingual Rhyming Slang In-Reply-To: <002501c2b338$91de4a40$70224da1@mw.com> Message-ID: >Especially apt from a Sokolowski. Polish is very rich in rhyming >slang. I wonder what language isn't? dInIs >Hi folks: > >>- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language >>phenomenon. > >I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native >argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here. Wordplay and >fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English. > >Just seems a bit myopic. > >I think the French may still sing "la p'tite fille" to the Beatles' "Let >It Be." > >Cheers, > >Peter > >Peter A. Sokolowski >Associate Editor >Merriam-Webster, Inc. >47 Federal Street >Springfield, MA 01102 >Phone: (413) 734-3134 >E-mail: psokolowski at Merriam-Webster.com > >Visit us online at http://www.Merriam-Webster.com -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Languages 740 Wells Hall A Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office - (517) 353-0740 Fax - (517) 432-2736 From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Tue Jan 7 01:15:04 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:15:04 -0500 Subject: Fwd: are you serious? Message-ID: Well, it's been a busy day for the ADS email box. Besides all the messages from journalists, we received the beaut copied below, the only really negative message. I did have to do a lot of the usual polite "we don't invent the words, m'am, we just note their existence" debunking. We also received many letters from excited teachers, interested laypersons, people inquiring about membership, several people trying to convince us to canonize a word they've invented, and one asking about copyrighting a word signifying the plural of nieces and nephews, something akin to "children", a word which, alas, was not shared. There was also a correspondent taking us to task for choosing a *phrase* as *word* of the year, but he more or less apologized when I explained that the vote is merely a fun little bit of whimsy from people who otherwise spend their time writing the most impenetrable but grammatically sound academic prose in the English language, and who do, in fact, understand the difference between the a word and a phrase. I think the key to winning him over was explaining that many of the people who write "the dictionary" are the very people who participated in the vote. Which reminds me: the best ADS web site message I ever received (and for some reason deleted, although I usually don't), was from an Indian fellow who, excited by his recent learning about the common Indo-European roots of many modern languages, extrapolated that a man called "Pop" by his kids was probably married to a woman nick-named "Mop" or "Bop." Something not quite right there... Here's the message of the day: > De: better dead than ed hitler > Date: Mon 6 Jan 2003 18:53:37 America/New_York > ?: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: are you serious? > > apparently so. > > the world wide web never ceases to amaze me. there is > so much useless garbage on the internet. words of the > year? here are two for you: fool pool. think about it, > you worthless shits. > > ===== > > viva el huncho! > > Life is good! > > It's time to go to http://www.realkeywest-art.com > > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. > http://mailplus.yahoo.com (Just kidding about the impenetrable academic prose part). -- Grant Barrett gbarrett at americandialect.org American Dialect Society webmaster http://www.americandialect.org/ From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 7 01:27:33 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:27:33 -0500 Subject: Fwd: are you serious? Message-ID: I wouldn't give a lot of thought to anyone who uses the pen name "eddiehitler_99." John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Grant Barrett [mailto:gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG] Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 8:15 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Fwd: are you serious? Here's the message of the day: > De: better dead than ed hitler > Date: Mon 6 Jan 2003 18:53:37 America/New_York > ?: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: are you serious? > > apparently so. > > the world wide web never ceases to amaze me. there is > so much useless garbage on the internet. words of the > year? here are two for you: fool pool. think about it, > you worthless shits. > From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Tue Jan 7 02:29:29 2003 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:29:29 -0600 Subject: nieces and nephews Was Re: Fwd: are you serious? In-Reply-To: <7391A47B-21DD-11D7-B5D4-000A9567113C@americandialect.org> Message-ID: >one asking about copyrighting a word >signifying the plural of nieces and nephews, something akin to >"children", a word which, alas, was not shared. I kind of like sibkids. Barbara Need UChicago From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 7 04:20:11 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 20:20:11 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: Growing up in Utah, we called any hot dog driver, anyone who sped or accelarated more than necesary, anyone who was reckless or a show-off, etc. a "California Driver". Now, however, they all seem to have moved to Utah, so now I guess they're "Utah drivers". --- AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: > According to Wendalyn Nichols: > >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are > familiar with the "California > >driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards > traffic rules and never > >comes to a complete stop at a controlled > intersection. > > That's interesting, because as one who lived in > Southern California a while > ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I > have always been > impressed at the politeness of California drivers. > The freeways in the L.A. > area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, > few drivers weave in and > out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and > drivers seem calm about > slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. I > compare them with the more > aggressive and hazardous drivers of Chicago, not to > mention the cab drivers > of Manhattan. > > Perhaps drivers are really laid back in the > Northwest . . . though I have > heard of "ferry rage." > > And of course truth is not a necessary condition for > a stereotype. - Allan > Metcalf ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 15:16:34 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:16:34 -0500 Subject: WOTY on CNN Message-ID: WOTY closed the segment of CNN this morning. CNN did a cutesy thing and proprosed words they'd rather NOT see in 2003: BAGHDADDY IRAQABOO KORHEA PYONGYANXIETY REMILITARIZED ZONE WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION And one they'd like to see: RAELITY I didn't see this on the CNN web site just now, but look for it in a day or two. IMHO, WOTY is a bit of whimsy, biased by a certain handful people who submit the words, by what happens late in the year, and, obviously, by the people who attend the meeting. I saw "weapons" as clearly better than "weapons of mass destruction." I don't know the procedures, but "weapons" (which would include "weapons inspection" and "biological weapons" as well as "weapons of mass destruction") received ZERO votes? And in a year marked by tragic "homicide bombings" or "suicide bombings," our list instead mentions "grid butt"? I'm happy that journalists are interested in this bit of fluff. But I can't understand when the same journalists are approached by the work of a member such as me, and they don't even respond. Ah, such is life. I leave it for others to respond to those eager journalists. From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Tue Jan 7 15:21:00 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 07:21:00 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <89.21df7a80.2b4b267e@aol.com> Message-ID: I remember when I moved down there and commented on a California stop (one where there is only a pause at a stop sign) and was told they call them Hollywood stops in California. There's no doubt in my mind about the difference in driving in California from Seattle, though. Both my partner and I experienced shock moving down to San Francisco and then relaxed a few years later when we moved back. Things happen much more quickly so you really have to be on your toes in California when driving. I generally felt safer in California, though, because of the increased alertness that people seem to drive with. Benjamin Barrett Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of AAllan at AOL.COM Sent: Monday, 06 January, 2003 10:36 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: California drivers According to Wendalyn Nichols: >Those of us who grew up in the Northwest are familiar with the >"California driver"--a reckless speed demon who disregards traffic >rules and never comes to a complete stop at a controlled intersection. That's interesting, because as one who lived in Southern California a while ago, and who spent four days there two weeks ago, I have always been impressed at the politeness of California drivers. The freeways in the L.A. area are packed, but most drivers don't tailgate, few drivers weave in and out of lanes, they enter and exit easily, and drivers seem calm about slowdowns. The few exceptions were noticeable. I compare them with the more aggressive and hazardous drivers of Chicago, not to mention the cab drivers of Manhattan. Perhaps drivers are really laid back in the Northwest . . . though I have heard of "ferry rage." And of course truth is not a necessary condition for a stereotype. - Allan Metcalf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 15:54:34 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:54:34 -0500 Subject: Two Zanzibar Cookbooks Message-ID: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? --Freddie Mercury (Zanzibar resident of the rock group QUEEN, from "Bohemian Rhapsody") A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR--which I had posted in part--was written by an author who lives in the "Freddie Mercury house" here in Zanzibar. Here are two other cookbooks. Some Swahili food names deserve to be considered worth recording for the OED. ZANZIBAR TRADITIONAL COOKERY by Amir A. Moh'd Zanziber: Good Luck Publishers First edition 1999 Second edition 2000 87 pages, paperback Pg. 13: CHAPATI (MKATE WA KUSUKUMA) Pg. 14: SOFT CHAPATI (MKATE WA GOLE) Pg. 16: WHEAT FLOUR (SWEET) (ANDAZI LA MAFUTA) Pg. 17: BAKED BUN (SWEET) ANDAZI KAVU (HAMRI) Pg. 18: RICE BUN (SWEET) (VITUMBUA) Pg. 19: RICE PAN CAKE (MKATE WA CHILA) Pg. 21: SIMSIM BREAD (MKATE WA UFUTA) Pg. 22: RICE PIE SWEET (MKATE WA KUMIMINA) Pg. 23: SPONGE CAKE (MKATE WA MAYAI) Pg. 25: CAKE (KEKI) Pg. 26: JAM BUTTONS (VILEJA) Pg. 27: WHOLE WHEAT PORRIDGE (UJI WA NGANO) Pg. 28: MILLET FLOUR PORRIDGE (UJI WA MTAMA) Pg. 29: RICE PORRIDGE (UJI WA MAPANDE) Pg. 30: HOT GINGER DRINK (CHAI YA TANGAWIZI) Pg. 31: MILK YOGHURT (MTINDI WA MAZIWA) (OED for Mtindi?--ed.) Pg. 32: GUAVA JUICE (MAJI YA MAPERA) Pg. 33: BEAN PORRIDGE (UJI WA KUNDE) Pg. 34: SWEET MILLET DRINK (TOGWA) Pg. 35: BEEF PILAU (PILAU YA NYAMA) Pg. 37: BEEF BIRIAN (BIRIANI YA NYAMA) Pg. 39: COCONUT MILKED RICE (WALI WA NAZI) Pg. 40: RAW BANANAS (NDIZI MBICHI ZA NAZI) Pg. 41: MAIZE FLOUR MEAL (UGALI WA SEMBE) Pg. 42: MAIZE FLOUR PORRIDGE (UJI WA SEMBE) Pg. 43: COCONUT MILKED CASSAVA (MUHOGO W ANAZI) Pg. 44: SUN-DRIED CASSAVA MEAL (MAKOPA YA NAZI) Pg. 45: SUN-DRIED CASSAVA FLOUR MEAL (UGALI WA MUHOGO) Pg. 46: COCONUT MILK KIDNEY BEANS (MAHARAGE YA NAZI) Pg. 47: COCONUT MILKED BREAD FRUIT (MASHELISHELI YA NAZI) Pg. 48: POUNDED BOILED BREAD FRUITS (MPONDA WA MASHELISHELI) Pg. 49: RICE MIXED WITH GRAMS (MSETO WA CHOOKO) Pg. 50: COCONUT MILKED GRILLED FISH (SAMAKI WA KUPAKA) Pg. 51: COCONUT MILKED SQUID (NGISI WA MCHUZI WA NAZI) Pg. 52: CHICKEN CURRY (MCHUZI WA KUKU) Pg. 53: LENTIL CURRY (MCHUZI WA ADESI) Pg. 54: MINCED MEAT CURRY (MCHUZI WA CHUNDO) Pg. 56: COCONUT MILKED VERMICELLI (TAMBI ZA NAZI) Pg. 57: BOKOBOKO RECIPE (BOKOBOKO) (OED?--ed.) Pg. 58: COMMORIAM RICE PIE (MKATE WA KINGAZIJA) Pg. 60: COCONUT MILKED SPINACH (MBOGA YA MCHICHA YA NAZI) Pg. 61: COCONUT MILKED CASSAVA LEAVES (MBOGA YA NAZI YA KISAMVU) Pg. 62: COCONUT MILKED COCOYAM LEAVES (MBOGA MAYUGWA YA NAZI) Pg. 63: BEEF SAMOSA (SAMBUSA YA NYAMA) Pg. 65: MEAT KEBAB (KABABU YA NYAMA) Pg. 66: ROASTED MEAT (NYAMA CHOMA--MISHIKAKI) (OED?--ed.) Pg. 68: MILLET FLOUR BALLS (LADU YA MTAMA) Pg. 69: FRIED BREAD FRUITS (MASHELI SHELI YA KUKAANGA) Pg. 70: FRIED RIPE BANANAS (NDIZI MBIVU ZA MKONO ZA KUKAANGA) Pg. 71: FRIED VERMICELLI (TAMBI ZA KUKAANGA) Pg. 72: RICE FLOUR DESSERT (VIPOPOO) Pg. 73: COCONUT MILK PUMPKIN (BOGA LA NAZI) Pg. 74: SWEET MEAT (HALUWA) Pg. 76: SWEET FLOUR PUFFS (KAIMATI) Pg. 78: LARGE SWEET PUFFS (VILOSA) Pg. 79: PUDDING (PUDIN) Pg. 80: CHINA GRASS DESSERT (FALUDA) Pg. 81: POUNDED RAW RICE (PEPETA) Pg. 82: COCONUT FUDGE (KASHATA YA NAZI) Pg. 83: GROUNDNUT FUDGE (KASHATA YA NJUGU) Pg. 84: SIMSIM FUDGE (KASHATA YA UFUTA) Pg. 85: LIME PICKLES (ACHARI RA NDIMU) Pg. 86: MANGO PICKLES (ACHARI YA EMBE) Pg. 87: FRESH FRUIT MIX (FRUIT MCHANGANYIKO) THE PLEASURE OF COOKING WITH SPICES FROM THE SPICE ISLAND ZANZIBAR by Bharti R. Ved Zanzibar: Gifts and Spices 32 pages, paperback No Date Pg. 9: Masala Tea; Lemon Grass Tea; Arabic Coffee Pg. 10: Zanzib Iced Coffee; Fruit Cup; Mint and Ginger Cup Pg. 11: Cheese Sticks; Mustard Potatoes; Chorafari; Cottage Cheese Pg. 12: Noodle Soup; Mchuzi-Eoupe (Clear Soup); Leek Soup Pg. 13: Banana Relish; Fresh Fruit and Ginger Cocktail; Green Salad Pg. 14: Egg Curry; Vegetale Chilly Fried Pg. 15: Sweet and Sour Turkey; Chinese Rice Saute Pg. 16: Chiches (Chick-Peas) Pg. 17: Mixed Vegetable Stew; Cauliflower & Cottage CHeese Stew Pg. 18: Peas and Cheese; Baked Pineapple Vegetable; Vegetable Jhalfrazie Pg. 19: Cheese Souffle; Mackerel en Papillote Pg. 20: Fish Cutlets; Chicken Croquettes Pg. 21: Prawn Saute (Masala Prawns); Pork Curry Pg. 22: Cumin Parathas; Cheese Paratha Pg. 23: Naan Pg. 24: Vegetable Biryani Pg. 25: Green Pullav; Buttered Rice Pg. 26: Chocolate Ice-Cream; Spicy Ice-Cream Pg. 27: Saffron Sundae; Vanilla Caramel Sundae Pg. 28: Pears Delight; Vedic Kheer Pg. 29: Party Cake Pg. 30: Traditional Christmas Cake; Sweet and Spicy Cakes Pg. 31: Pemba Honey Loaf Pg. 32: Ginger Biscuits; Kaju Barfi; Mango Pickle From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 16:51:10 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:51:10 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I would say 3,2,1 in that order, with no hesitation. In French, the direct and indirect object pronouns come after the subject and before the verb. If sentence number 2 were in French it would read: You to us open your heart. However, and I have not as yet been able to figure this out, I, a native American speaker teaching at the Universit? du Havre, France, hear French colleagues in the English Department always say things with some similarity to sentence number 1, for example: Explain me what you mean. To me that's grammatically incorrect. I don't know if the English language somewhere in the world today considers that OK. I'd love to know if that is the case. Lois Nathan From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:03:11 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:03:11 EST Subject: California drivers Message-ID: Since I inaugurated this thread, maybe I should emphasize that I was referring to Southern California drivers, not Northern (=San Francisco Bay Area) ones. I think the north is less friendly. There is, of course, some difference and some antagonism between north and south in California. (ignoring for the moment the complication that true north is that vast area north of San Francisco) There's even a vocabulary difference, one we've discussed before: freeways in the south use "the" before a number, as in "the 405" or "the 5," while in the north as in most of the rest of the US they don't. - Allan Metcalf From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:24:55 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:24:55 EST Subject: Literary Onomastics Message-ID: (Here's an announcement I was asked to make - Allan Metcalf) << A new linguistic organization The International Society for Literary Onomastics is being incorporated in New York and will hold its first meeting on 2 May 2003 at Baruch College of The City University of New York. Would you please bring to the attention of ADS members that this organization is going to offer new opportunities for them to read papers and publish in the new journal on matters of names as they are connected to myth and folklore, dialectology was represented in literature and similar topics. The organization will offer expanded opportunities for presentation, discussion and publication and will welcome papers in which there is research into how popular ideas and various dialects are represented in literature. Proposals of 150-200 word abstracts for 15 minute papers can be expanded to as many as 15 single-spaced pages in the printed proceedings are solicited. Abstracts should reach Wayne Finke by 10 March 2003 at wayne_finke at baruch.cuny.edu We hope that this organization will cooperate with ADS, ANS and other language-oriented groups. >> From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 17:46:59 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:46:59 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Onomastics" In-Reply-To: <11.693012f.2b4c6767@aol.com> Message-ID: The following antedates the OED's 1936 first use for "onomastics": 1927 _American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_ 44: 35 We must, therefore, speak of proto-Aramean names when we refer to the onomastics of the second millennium B.C. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:48:24 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:48:24 EST Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: I've heard "liquid sunshine" used in south Florida during the summer especially, when there is a lot of it, by language playful and disgruntled residents. Lois Nathan From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 17:56:42 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:56:42 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20WOTY=20on=20CNN?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached by the work of a > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. From self at TOWSE.COM Tue Jan 7 18:11:20 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:11:20 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: Lois Nathan wrote: > > I've heard "liquid sunshine" used in south Florida during the summer > especially, when there is a lot of it, by language playful and disgruntled > residents. Berkeley sunshine was a trade name for the LSD that (allegedly) was cooked up by folks with access to the UCB chem labs during the late 60s, early 70s. I must be getting old, Google doesn't show reference one to that usage. Black sunshine, yes. California sunshine, yes. Sunshine, yes. Yellow sunshine, yes. ... Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 7 18:20:43 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:20:43 -0800 Subject: =?us-ascii?Q?RE:_______WOTY_on_CNN?= In-Reply-To: <79.67b4ecb.2b4c6eda@aol.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of RonButters at AOL.COM > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: WOTY on CNN > > > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached > by the work of a > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > > > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research or fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one likes to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 18:37:13 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:37:13 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <3E1B1848.B769301@towse.com> Message-ID: At 10:11 AM -0800 1/7/03, Towse wrote: >Lois Nathan wrote: >> >> I've heard "liquid sunshine" used in south Florida during the summer >> especially, when there is a lot of it, by language playful and disgruntled >> residents. > >Berkeley sunshine was a trade name for the LSD that (allegedly) >was cooked up by folks with access to the UCB chem labs during >the late 60s, early 70s. > >I must be getting old, Google doesn't show reference one to that >usage. Black sunshine, yes. California sunshine, yes. Sunshine, >yes. Yellow sunshine, yes. ... > >Sal which brings up "Acapulco gold", one of many "x gold" collocations referring to such valuables as oil ("black gold", "Texas gold") as well as to marijuana and other treasured items I can't think of at the moment. Larry From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Tue Jan 7 18:13:45 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:13:45 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <18a.1411ab80.2b4c5f7e@aol.com> Message-ID: Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on "explique-moi..."? Maybe it is grammatically incorrect, at least within this context; on the other hand, personal pronouns are sometimes used as datives in English, as in the expressions, "send me an e-mail," "drop me a line," "write me when you get back," etc. I guess those analogous examples led me to think of the syntactic structure of sentence #1 as theoretically possible, or at least not wholly unprecedented, though in practice never used by native English speakers with this particular verb. Joanne On 7 Jan 2003, at 11:51, Lois Nathan wrote: > However, and I have not as yet been able to figure this > out, I, a native American speaker teaching at the Universit? du Havre, > France, hear French colleagues in the English Department always say things > with some similarity to sentence number 1, for example: Explain me what you > mean. To me that's grammatically incorrect. I don't know if the English > language somewhere in the world today considers that OK. I'd love to know if > that is the case. > > Lois Nathan From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Jan 7 18:59:50 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:59:50 -0800 Subject: California drivers Message-ID: before a number, as in "the 405" or "the 5," while in the north as in most of the rest of the US they don't. In Oregon, we say 'i-5.' Is that commmon in Cal.? From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 19:21:25 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 14:21:25 EST Subject: NCTE in November in San Francisco Message-ID: If you happen to be thinking of attending the 2003 convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in San Francisco, Nov. 20-25, and if you want to present a paper or organize a session there, and if you're quick, NCTE has just sent me a notice of an opportunity: ADS can organize a session and will be guaranteed to get it on the program. The only catch is, the deadline for proposals is January 13! They do say that a little flexibility in the deadline is possible, but if you are interested and ready to move quickly, please let me know (AAllan at aol.com) right away. - Allan Metcalf From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 7 19:22:08 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:22:08 -0800 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms Message-ID: Larry: > which brings up "Acapulco gold", one of many "x gold" collocations > referring to such valuables as oil ("black gold", "Texas gold") as > well as to marijuana and other treasured items I can't think of at > the moment. Huh? I thought "liquid sunshine" was a Pacific NW specialty(referring to our frequent and often seemingly endless winter rains). Anne G From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 7 19:36:25 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:36:25 -0800 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 7, 2003 10:59 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > In Oregon, we say 'i-5.' Or just "5". > Is that commmon in Cal.? There was a discussion of this on this list several years ago, and as I recall from that, "the 5" becomes "5/I-5" somewhere between LA and San Francisco. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 19:53:32 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 14:53:32 -0500 Subject: geographical slanders/euphemisms In-Reply-To: <006501c2b682$12b85830$51c34b43@annehpbrww9plk> Message-ID: At 11:22 AM -0800 1/7/03, Anne Gilbert wrote: > Larry: > >> which brings up "Acapulco gold", one of many "x gold" collocations >> referring to such valuables as oil ("black gold", "Texas gold") as >> well as to marijuana and other treasured items I can't think of at >> the moment. > >Huh? I thought "liquid sunshine" was a Pacific NW specialty(referring to >our frequent and often seemingly endless winter rains). >Anne G Yes, but if you look at Sal's message, which I was replying to (and incorporated in my message), you'll see that he was referring to "Berkeley sunshine" as a type of LSD: >Berkeley sunshine was a trade name for the LSD that (allegedly) >was cooked up by folks with access to the UCB chem labs during >the late 60s, early 70s. *That's* what led me to "Acapulco gold", which in turn carried me by free association to "Texas/black gold" for 'oil', etc. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 7 19:56:41 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 14:56:41 -0500 Subject: California drivers In-Reply-To: <414707.1041939385@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: At 11:36 AM -0800 1/7/03, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >--On Tuesday, January 7, 2003 10:59 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING > wrote: > >>In Oregon, we say 'i-5.' > >Or just "5". > >>Is that commmon in Cal.? > >There was a discussion of this on this list several years ago, and as I >recall from that, "the 5" becomes "5/I-5" somewhere between LA and San >Francisco. > >Peter Mc. > Right. And more specifically the isoroutogloss is north of Santa Barbara, if Sue Grafton and/or Kinsey Millhone is/are to be believed. Larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 7 20:14:49 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:14:49 EST Subject: good idea for WOTY for Boston Message-ID: I think this is a great idea! Are you listening, Wayne and Allan? I think it would be GREAT if next year we had the members vote on WINDY CITY and BIG APPLE (and OK????? and THE WHOLE NINE YARDS????) and explain where the conventional wisdom is wrong. In a message dated 1/7/03 1:22:47 PM, dave at WILTON.NET writes: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society > > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > > Of RonButters at AOL.COM > > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re:? ? ?? WOTY on CNN > > > > > > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > > > > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached > > by the work of a > > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > > > > > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. > > Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" > the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. > > Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant > linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an > "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research > or > fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, > the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to > investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one > likes > to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can > report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all > these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never > mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the > White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. > > From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 7 20:28:19 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:28:19 -0800 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In all the excitement over the media coverage of WOTY, no one has seen fit to mention that Jesse Sheidlower was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night (6 January). They did a feature on how email and electronic communications is changing the language. Jesse was one of two linguists interviewed. The other was Patricia O'Conner, who has written an email style guide. It was an excellent piece, one of the best examples of media coverage of a linguistic issue that I've seen. A RealAudio version of the story is available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 7 20:51:52 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:51:52 -0500 Subject: good idea for WOTY for Boston In-Reply-To: <14d.19e7ec23.2b4c8f39@aol.com> Message-ID: >The Folk Etymology of the Year. I love it too. dInIs > I think this is a great idea! Are you listening, Wayne and Allan? I think it >would be GREAT if next year we had the members vote on WINDY CITY and BIG >APPLE (and OK????? and THE WHOLE NINE YARDS????) and explain where the >conventional wisdom is wrong. > > >In a message dated 1/7/03 1:22:47 PM, dave at WILTON.NET writes: > > > >> > -----Original Message----- >> > From: American Dialect Society >> > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf >> > Of RonButters at AOL.COM >> > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM >> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> > Subject: Re: WOTY on CNN >> > >> > >> > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: >> > >> > >> > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached >> > by the work of a >> > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. >> > > >> > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. >> >> Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" >> the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. >> >> Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant >> linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an >> "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research >> or >> fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, >> the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to >> investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one >> likes >> to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can >> report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all >> these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never >> mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the >> White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. >> >> -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 7 21:02:27 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:02:27 -0600 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour Message-ID: I was impressed with Jesse's part, but it's not fair to call Patricia O'Conner a "linguist". She's an editor turned language maven. From what I can tell, her book is a prescriptivist attempt to return email to those golden days of letter writing. >From the jacket of _You Send Me_: "Will the computer be the death of good writing? Not necessarily... The good news is we're writing again, but we'll have to upgrade our lousy language and social skills or suffer the cyber-consequences." Dave Wilton wrote: > In all the excitement over the media coverage of WOTY, no one has seen fit > to mention that Jesse Sheidlower was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer last > night (6 January). They did a feature on how email and electronic > communications is changing the language. Jesse was one of two linguists > interviewed. The other was Patricia O'Conner, who has written an email style > guide. > > It was an excellent piece, one of the best examples of media coverage of a > linguistic issue that I've seen. A RealAudio version of the story is > available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html. From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Jan 7 21:06:12 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 15:06:12 -0600 Subject: good idea for WOTY for Boston Message-ID: To spice things up, I suggest we make up our own folk etymologies and try to get the media to repeat them. If we're really sucessful, this would give Barry's progeny some more things to debunk in 50 years. "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: > >The Folk Etymology of the Year. I love it too. > > dInIs > > > I think this is a great idea! Are you listening, Wayne and Allan? I think it > >would be GREAT if next year we had the members vote on WINDY CITY and BIG > >APPLE (and OK????? and THE WHOLE NINE YARDS????) and explain where the > >conventional wisdom is wrong. > > > > > >In a message dated 1/7/03 1:22:47 PM, dave at WILTON.NET writes: > > > > > > > >> > -----Original Message----- > >> > From: American Dialect Society > >> > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > >> > Of RonButters at AOL.COM > >> > Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 9:57 AM > >> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >> > Subject: Re: WOTY on CNN > >> > > >> > > >> > In a message dated 1/7/03 10:16:56 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > >> > > >> > > >> > > I can't understand when the same journalists are approached > >> > by the work of a > >> > > member such as me, and they don't even respond. > >> > > > >> > Surely there is a lesson here, if we could only see what it is. > >> > >> Maybe if we added a WOTY category of "Etymological Debunking of the Year" > >> the media would take notice of at least some of Barry's work. > >> > >> Or maybe ADS ought to issue periodic press releases of significant > >> linguistic and etymological discoveries (or Barry could create an > >> "institute" and do it himself). Most reporters don't do any real research > >> or > >> fact checking. They just regurgitate press releases. (Or to be charitable, > >> the editors get story ideas from press releases and then tell reporters to > >> investigate.) Don't attempt to correct them when they're wrong--no one > >> likes > >> to be shown up. You have to get in front and create a story that they can > >> report on--the story isn't that they have been wrong about "Windy City" all > >> these years, it's that someone has just discovered the true origin; never > >> mind that the truth has been known for over fifty years. That's how the > >> White House and public advocacy groups manipulate the media. > >> > >> > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, > Asian & African Languages > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 > e-mail: preston at msu.edu > phone: (517) 353-9290 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 7 21:32:08 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 16:32:08 -0500 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour In-Reply-To: <000001c2b68b$51ac2220$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: Well, I'd question the "linguist" status of O'Conner--but Jesse was excellent. At 12:28 PM 1/7/2003 -0800, you wrote: >In all the excitement over the media coverage of WOTY, no one has seen fit >to mention that Jesse Sheidlower was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer last >night (6 January). They did a feature on how email and electronic >communications is changing the language. Jesse was one of two linguists >interviewed. The other was Patricia O'Conner, who has written an email style >guide. > >It was an excellent piece, one of the best examples of media coverage of a >linguistic issue that I've seen. A RealAudio version of the story is >available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 7 22:52:16 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 17:52:16 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" Message-ID: This is a nice little scrap. The OED has 1848 as the first appearance of "cancan" in English. This is from 1842, and from an American source at that. The following is not quite the whole of the original, but is a good deal more than is absolutely necessary for philological purposes. However, the story is intereting for a number of other reasons, so here it all is. 1842: MORALS OF THE WALL STREET PRESS. -- We find the following exquisite bit of morality in the "New York American" of last evening, conducted by Charles King. . . : -- THE GAIETIES AND MORALS OF THE COURT OF FRANCE are thus described by a Paris correspondent. The occasion was a fancy dress ball, given by the Duke of Orleans, at the Pavillon Mersan, that portion of the palace of the Tuilleries occupied by the Heir apparent. We pass over the first part, which, while the King and Queen were present, was orderly. . . . The tables were abandoned to resume the dance: and now the Paris letter speaks: -- "The dance was recommenced and with fury. The Princess, Messrs Joinville and d'Aumale, with Mesdames Liardiere, and Hochet, danced the cancan, a sort of cachuca, danced outside the gates of Paris, not without grace, but very free in its attitudes. At first, this caused some scandal, or some appearance of it; little by little, however, people became bolder, and the quadrille was enlarged. The spectators pressed round, and finally, to accomodate those behind, the men in front of the circle sat down on the floor. The freedom of the dance becoming licentious, the whirling trails of the ladies brushing the faces of the gentlemen, all but extended on the floor, and their indiscrete hands seized, in some instances, that upon which Henry VIII of England founded an order of knighthood. Some ladies considered this quite funny; others, in indignation, quitted the experiment. Among the dancers were the Queen of Spain, Mrs. T., wearing the diamonds that belonged to the church of T! oledo, and Madame Casaiora: There were, moreover, two young Spanish girls, who spoke of a dance sometimes practiced in their country, and which terminates by the gentlemen raising his partner on his hands. This seemed difficult, but it was tried -- at first with little success -- afterwards with better; but the attempt led to indescribable confusion: the feet slipped from the hands -- the hands from the feet, &c. &c. * * * * ["]But, it is asked, where were the husbands all this time? -- eating and drinking, or talking with the Duke of Orleans. Be it so, but they were certainly very imprudent husbands. ***["] The "New York American" and the King clique were among the first in Wall street, that raised the hue and cry about the "immorality of the New York Herald," because we published innocent and graceful descriptions of balls and soirees, &c. We now confidently appeal to the public -- to the whole American public -- if there ever appeared any article in the Herald, from the first day of its existence up to this time, that could approach, in the remotest degree, the freedom, the immorality, the indecency, the licentiousness of this astounding and extraordinary article. No one in New York -- no one can -- ever dare to impeach our private morals -- the blamelessness of our private life -- the honesty and integrity of all our private relations -- but in order to deceive the public, and to gratify malignity of rivals, the outcry was raised against the morality of the herald, by such miserable beings as King & Co. *** NY Herald, March 19, 1842, p. 2, col. 1 The library here has as much of the American as is available on microfilm, having both the Library of Congress and the NYPL files, but 1842 is not included in either, or I would have cited this from it. The editor of the Herald was James Gordon Bennett. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. I don't know much about his private life, but the vulgarity of his newspaper was astonishing. However, I will no doubt keep plowing through it, and may well find the first American actual cancan dancing, if I do. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 7 22:20:01 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 17:20:01 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? In-Reply-To: <20030103130715.92131.qmail@web21308.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 05:07 AM 1/3/2003 -0800, you wrote: >I missed some of the posts and George W.'s use of this word. However, >looking at the last two or three posts concerning this word, I get the >impression this is more about political B-S. than it is about language >misuse. Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine >anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as >embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be an >acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a >situation or individual better" >The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well. Idiot- >a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and >requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and >understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to >communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. A >moron may take a normal place in society, but needs constant >supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. Just as someone in Canada recently said! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 8 01:11:16 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:11:16 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: (as opposed to taboo avoidance) On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? larry From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 8 01:26:27 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:26:27 -0500 Subject: Jesse Sheidlower on PBS Newshour In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030107163059.01b011b8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 04:32:08PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > Well, I'd question the "linguist" status of O'Conner--but Jesse was > excellent. Thanks. Best, Jesse From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Wed Jan 8 01:18:52 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:18:52 -0500 Subject: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 05:07:15 -0800 yvonne frasure writes: > Idiot- a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form > and requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and > understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to > communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. > A mornon may take a normal place in society, but needs constant > supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. Which makes it all the more delicious when he constantly prevails over his opposition here and abroad. Or ... I'm sorry, aren't we supposed to make political comments here? D From dwhause at JOBE.NET Wed Jan 8 02:57:00 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 20:57:00 -0600 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: I've heard the term used that way (no reference) metaphorically to mean something like, "not what I really wanted" or maybe as something which will distract the recipient from an objective (oh, maybe that is the actual usage.) Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" (as opposed to taboo avoidance) On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? larry From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 8 03:01:12 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 19:01:12 -0800 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I would take this to mean a frivolous action or monkeying around, not a con job... Benjamin Barrett Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Laurence Horn Sent: Tuesday, 07 January, 2003 17:11 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: taboo attraction? (as opposed to taboo avoidance) On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? larry From dave at WILTON.NET Wed Jan 8 03:10:50 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 19:10:50 -0800 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: <001b01c2b6c2$37115a70$d2c84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: I would place it between monkeying around and a con job. Something along the lines of "don't lead me on" or "don't try to put one over on me." I've never heard "handjob" in this context, but I have heard "jerk off" as in "you better not be jerking me off." (Jerk around is a common euphemism--or perhaps the original from.) There's also a hand motion that can substitute for the words. > I would take this to mean a frivolous action or monkeying > around, not a > con job... > > Benjamin Barrett > Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf > Of Laurence Horn > Sent: Tuesday, 07 January, 2003 17:11 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: taboo attraction? > > > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses > "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who > is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to call in a lot of > favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. "So if this is > another hand job...", he says. To which she assures him that > no, she's > really serious about quitting this time. Is this use of the compound > otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see if we were paying > attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer discretion" label? > > larry > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 8 03:29:04 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 19:29:04 -0800 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: benjamin barrett, following up on larry horn on "hand job": >I would take this to mean a frivolous action or monkeying around, not a >con job... like b.b., i suspect this is yet another extension from the notion of masturbation to the wider notion of 'pointless, unproductive enterprises'. as in earlier postings on "mental masturbation". arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 04:57:05 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 23:57:05 EST Subject: hand job 'deception' Message-ID: In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'.? He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says.? To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time.? Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested?? Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 8 05:01:34 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 00:01:34 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, uses >"hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. I think some version of "masturbate [someone [male]]" is commonly used for "bullshit [someone]" or "snow [someone]", often with some flavor of "placate"/"pacify". In one of the "Dirty Harry" movies ("The Enforcer" maybe?) some politician is informed that the [rabid] press is waiting for a statement, and he says something like "Well, let's go jerk them off" = more or less "Let's go tell them something to placate them." Also compare "pull [someone's] leg/chain/pisser" and "extract the urine/Mickey"/"take the piss out of"/etc. (I picture this as a semi-euphemistic image like milking a cow) -- all with the sense of "bullshit" (v. trans.) although with some semantic incongruities. Also consider "stroke [someone]", more or less equivalent. Some of these may be etymologically distinct, but if so I believe there has been convergence. The construction of "con job", "snow job" is a giveaway (cf. "hand job", "blow job", etc.). I think the basic assumption is that a male person can be calmed/placated by rubbing/pulling his penis ... thus he might be talked into something, for example. -- Doug Wilson From pds at VISI.COM Wed Jan 8 06:32:23 2003 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 00:32:23 -0600 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <3E1AD289.7737.18B4C1EE@localhost> Message-ID: At 01:13 PM 1/7/2003 -0500, Joanne M. Despres wrote: >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on >"explique-moi..."? >Maybe it is grammatically incorrect, at least within this context; on >the other hand, personal pronouns are sometimes used as datives >in English, as in the expressions, "send me an e-mail," "drop me a >line," "write me when you get back," etc. I guess those analogous >examples led me to think of the syntactic structure of sentence #1 >as theoretically possible, or at least not wholly unprecedented, >though in practice never used by native English speakers with this >particular verb. How about "Open me a beer." --Tom Kysilko Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 8 09:02:35 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 04:02:35 -0500 Subject: FW: embetterment?? Idiot?? Message-ID: Dear ADS listers, I for one would appreciate it greatly if listers would keep their comments focused on things linguistic, and rein in passing political commentary (example cc'd below). It's one thing if Bush commits a verbal gaffe, as he often does -- that would be worthy of note and comment here. But the carryover to general comments on his mental capacity are unwarranted. The current prez is decidedly NOT an intellectual. He is shaky at best at public speaking. He may be dyslexic. None of these things, I think reasonable people would agree, make him an imbecile, an idiot, a moron, or anything like that. They make him different from the previous prez and many other presidents, yes, but they do not necessarily indicate his mental capacity or his ability to make decisions. If you are just trying to be funny, OK. But if you are airing your disagreement with the politics of the prez, please take that to another list, or write letters to the editor of your newspaper of choice. Besides, not all of us agree on things political, and the ADS is not, by its nature or bylaws, concerned with politics of any sort or any side. Let the MLA and other "scholarly" groups be political if they so choose; I hope ADS will not follow that path. Thanks, Frank Abate -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Beverly Flanigan Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 5:20 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: embetterment?? Idiot?? At 05:07 AM 1/3/2003 -0800, you wrote: >I missed some of the posts and George W.'s use of this word. However, >looking at the last two or three posts concerning this word, I get the >impression this is more about political B-S. than it is about language >misuse. Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine >anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as >embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be an >acceptable term. "the act of making something better" or "making a >situation or individual better" >The term idiot is perhaps being used inappropriately here as well. Idiot- >a person exhibiting mental deficiency in its most severe form and >requiring constant care. The idiot is incapable of learning and >understanding, and is completely helpless. An imbecile may learn to >communicate with others, but is incapable of earning his own living. A >moron may take a normal place in society, but needs constant >supervision. Technically speaking...he's a moron , not an idiot. Just as someone in Canada recently said! From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 8 09:09:30 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 04:09:30 -0500 Subject: FW: hand job 'deception' Message-ID: Ron B commented (below) on what Larry H noted: >> In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. << One possibility is that the dialogue refers to a hand job as a poor alternative to sexual intercourse. Since the scene involves a husband and wife, that might be the idea behind the use of "hand job" here. Frank Abate From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Wed Jan 8 09:52:02 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 09:52:02 -0000 Subject: taboo attraction? Message-ID: 'Hand job' as 'any form of deceit, misinformation' (which seems to cover the usage in question), comes on stream in '70s, e.g. 1979 Torres _After Hours_ 120: I think Kleinfeld's giving us a handjob. The original, masturbatory def. is a '30s coinage. Jonathon Green From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 11:00:02 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 06:00:02 -0500 Subject: Spatchcock Chicken; Shisha; Boa Message-ID: SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN--Served at Blues restaurant here in Zanzibar. It's chicken patted down. OED? SHISHA--A drink served at Mercury's Zanzibar. I haven't Googled these items yet. BOA--A popular board game. OED? MEREKANI--Unbleached cloth. OED? Gotta go and find out if fat-bottomed girls make the rockin' world go round... From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 8 12:38:09 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 07:38:09 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry, I've heard and used this for some time. The sense, which seems transparent, is that one was promised (or assumed one was) the real thing (i.e., sexual intercourse) but ended up with only a "hand job." dInIs >(as opposed to taboo avoidance) > >On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, >uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his >ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to >call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. >"So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures >him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this >use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to >see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer >discretion" label? > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 8 13:08:46 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 08:08:46 -0500 Subject: FW: Words of the Year announcement Message-ID: Ron et al. Another solution to the problem would be for the ADS WOTY chair to simply act and speak normally and let the broadcast folks edit out what they don't like. I assume the TV people were recording it, right? They edit all that stuff anyway, so you can really say whatever you want, and they will bowdlerize it later as they see fit. Frank Abate In a message dated 1/6/03 11:30:43 AM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes: > One candidate was proposed for the special category of Most Inspirational: > President Bush's coinage "embetterment," as in "the embetterment of > mankind." > By a vote of 45 to 12, the society decided against this category and > candidate. A category of Bushisms was suggested for future years. > I object to this reporting of the minutes of the meeting. In fact, GRID BUTT (a.k.a. BUTT GRID) was also nominated (from the floor) as a candidate for Most Inspirational word of the year. Anyone who has ever sat naked on a lawn chair for any length of time will surely recognize the spiritual importance of having a term for the resultant distressing epidermal condition. However, the dictitorial chair of the meeting refused even to allow a vote on this nomination, thus violating our rights according to our established procedures. Given that the Most Inspirational category is also one that is closely allied to religious beliefs, our rights to free exercise of relgion may have been violated as well. At any rate, the most important purpose of meetings of the American Dialect Society--the free interchange of scholarly thinking about language--was thereby put in jeapordy by the black tide of dictatorship. We will never know what the scholarly conclusion would have been with respect to the Most Inspirational nature of GRID BUTT (not to mention MY BIG FAT BUTT GRID). It seems clear that the chair was swayed by the fact that our session this year was being recorded for national television. He just did not want to take the chance of appearing on CBS News saying, "All in favor of GRID BUTT say 'Aye'!" In this craven action I say he acted like a Neuticle-driven, comprendo-challenged scholarly angstrel. He has turned our sacred deliberations into one big like-no-other Botox party and limp sausagefest. I do not wish to turn our beloved Secretary into a walking pinyata; I do not mean to suggest that we need a metcalfameter to monitor his future actions. I am not asking for Regime Change. Rather, I am fully willing to forgive him for his outrageous virtuecratrism, even though, for the sake of a few moments of glory on televison, he has robbed us of our intellectual V-card. I would like to propose, however, that he promise that, in the future, we MUST ban the press from our deliberations. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Jan 8 13:48:35 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 05:48:35 -0800 Subject: hand job In-Reply-To: <001b01c2b6c2$37115a70$d2c84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: Perhaps related to "sleight of hand"? --- Benjamin Barrett wrote: > I would take this to mean a frivolous action or > monkeying around, not a > con job... > > Benjamin Barrett > Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf > Of Laurence Horn > Sent: Tuesday, 07 January, 2003 17:11 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: taboo attraction? > > > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. > Tony Rodriguez, uses > "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking > to his ex-wife, who > is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of > favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is > another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's > really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound > otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to see > if we were paying > attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Wed Jan 8 13:47:53 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 08:47:53 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" In-Reply-To: <6acd316ae459.6ae4596acd31@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: >... The Princess, Messrs Joinville and d'Aumale, with Mesdames Liardiere, >and Hochet, danced the cancan, a sort of cachuca, danced outside the gates >of Paris, not without grace, but very free in its attitudes. .... And is "cachuca"/"cachucha" an ancestor of "hoochy-coochy"? An interesting passage. -- Doug Wilson From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 8 14:41:03 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 09:41:03 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: <003b01c2b6fb$9a8cf210$ad00a8c0@green> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 09:52:02AM -0000, Jonathon Green wrote: > 'Hand job' as 'any form of deceit, misinformation' (which seems to cover the > usage in question), comes on stream in '70s, e.g. There is an entry covering this rough ground in HDAS, sense 2, from 1972 onwards, with citations from police usage. It's defined there as "an act of insincere assuaging or assuring; flattery; blandishment", which does seem to cover the NYPD Blue example, though perhaps this definition is too limited; I'm sure the term is used more broadly in a 'misinformation' sense. Jesse Sheidlower OED From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 8 15:14:47 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:14:47 -0500 Subject: taboo attraction? In-Reply-To: <20030108144103.GB4548@panix.com> Message-ID: At 9:41 AM -0500 1/8/03, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 09:52:02AM -0000, Jonathon Green wrote: >> 'Hand job' as 'any form of deceit, misinformation' (which seems to cover the >> usage in question), comes on stream in '70s, e.g. > >There is an entry covering this rough ground in HDAS, sense 2, >from 1972 onwards, with citations from police usage. It's defined >there as "an act of insincere assuaging or assuring; flattery; >blandishment", which does seem to cover the NYPD Blue example, >though perhaps this definition is too limited; I'm sure the >term is used more broadly in a 'misinformation' sense. > Aha. My bad--I should have checked my HDAS. Yes, the lieutenant's use definitely fits under the "misinformation" or more specifically "insincere assuring" sense, especially since it's evidently a term of art among the police. And as mentioned by other contributors in the thread, there is a link (albeit somewhat attenuated) from the manual masturbation sense. Ain't metaphor grand? larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 15:23:32 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:23:32 -0500 Subject: Zanzibar doors Message-ID: Perhaps the most famous bit of architecture here is what's know as the "Zanzibar door." It has metal spikes in it, to prevent charges by elephants. (Not that there's been an elephant charge recently.) One such door is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. "Zanzibar door" is not in OED. Below is information about a recent book on the famous Zanzibar doors. O.T. I just checked, and OED has 1967 for "khanga." No way I can beat that...I just returned from feeding the tortoises on Prison Island, a bit of snorkeling on the Indian Ocean, and then seeing the rare Colobus monkeys in the Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Area. From a brochure: "One tree--_Mlappa_--is even named after this tiny antelope (paa)." Mlapaa is not in the revised OED...Spice tour tomorrow, then Dar es Salaam, and then home. Doors of Zanzibar by Mwalim A. Mwalim, 1998, photos by Uwe Rav Our Price: $29.50 Format: Paperback, 143 pp. Dimensions: (in cms.) 1 x 24 x 27 Ask any visitor to Zanzibar as to what best reminds him of these evergreen tropical islands famous for its spices, and there is a one in three chance that the answer will be the Stone Town? Likewise, there is a one to three probability that what best reminds the one of Stone Town are its famous carved doors: the Zanzibar Doors. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 15:45:04 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:45:04 -0500 Subject: Soft Bomb Message-ID: From this week's VILLAGE VOICE (Greenwich Village; no connection to Zanzibar): Weapon of the Week by George Smith The Soft Bomb January 8 - 14, 2003 In war, one of the first things the Pentagon likes to do is turn out the lights. Along with liberal use of high explosives, it now does the job with a cluster bomb whose canisters spin out a payload that looks much like angel hair; the fine fibrous stuff you used to find in packets of itching powder as a child. This classified weapon has been called the "blackout" or "soft" bomb, the latter because it doesn't explode with a big bang or tear people to bits outright while going about its business. Whether it is actually harmless is still a matter for debate. The Pentagon, you see, won't talk about it much, and the only pictures of the thing seem to come from former Yugoslavia, where it was used to destroy Serbia's power grid in 1999. The bomb works by spraying a large cloud of tiny carbon filaments into the air over electrical generation facilities, switching stations, and high-voltage wires. Like paper clips stuck in a wall socket, the filaments cause arcing and short circuits on contact. The onslaught of sparking, melting, and electrical fire is apparently more than enough to cause the collapse of a nation's power system. Mainstream U.S. war journalists, as alert and enterprising as ever, have never actually reported what it's like for people to endure a good "soft bombing," with exposure to clouds of carbon filament of classified nature (fibrosis in the lung 10 years on, anyone?) or proximity to short-circuiting power plants. Instead, the soft bomb is said to be really groovy because it avoids collateral damage. The military euphemism for civilians being killed, fast or slow, or otherwise made to cry out in pain. The soft bomb's cost is estimated to be about that of an average cluster bomb. Several hundred thousand dollars; taking it easy on the taxpayer wallet by Department of Defense standards. History indicates that the soft bomb was probably not built with an eye to avoiding casualties, but instead came about by accident. The original story, perhaps apocryphal, is that the U.S. military was testing an anti-radar wire off California decades ago when winds shifted and blew the chaff over the coast. It came down across power lines and caused a local blackout. The Pentagon weaponized the trick and attacked Iraq's power grid in Gulf War I with Tomahawk missiles carrying carbon-filament wire. Then came Yankee innovation and, voil? the soft bomb was born. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 8 16:23:49 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 08:23:49 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.1.20030108003133.01a24bf8@pop.visi.com> Message-ID: > >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on > >"explique-moi..."? > > How about "Open me a beer." I feel a draft. Either close me the window or open me the door. PR From davemarc at PANIX.COM Wed Jan 8 18:38:59 2003 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 13:38:59 -0500 Subject: Boontling, a California Lingo Message-ID: FYI, there's a reference to Boontling, a lingo of Boonville, California, in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/08/dining/08ANDE.html?pagewanted=1&8idg d. From rnewby at ZADIG-LLC.COM Wed Jan 8 18:54:16 2003 From: rnewby at ZADIG-LLC.COM (Rick Newby) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 11:54:16 -0700 Subject: Call for Rocky Mountain Region Scholars Message-ID: Call for Rocky Mountain Region Scholars Rocky Mountain Regional Culture I am seeking contributors for a reference work on Rocky Mountain regional culture. The Rocky Mountain volume is part of a Greenwood Reference Series on American regional cultures; the series also includes volumes on New England, the Mid-Atlantic Region, the Midwest, the South, the Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Pacific Region. For the purposes of the Greenwood series, the Rocky Mountain region is made up of the states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The core audience for the series will be high school and university students as well as public library patrons. FORMAT: Topical chapters in each volume include Architecture, Art, Ecology/Environment, Ethnicity, Fashion, Film, Folklore, Food, Language, Literature, Music, Religion, and Sports/Recreation. Each chapter will identify and examine a particular aspect of regional culture as it has evolved over time, through the beginning of the 21st century, always taking into account the rich diversity of cultural expressions within each region. For example, in the Rocky Mountain volume, the "Ecology/Environment" chapter might focus on Native American attitudes toward the natural world, the state of the Rocky Mountain environment when first encountered by Euro-Americans, the near eradication of the American bison and other species, air and water pollution, Yellowstone as the world's first national park, wilderness and wild rivers, reintroduction of the wolf, the contested role of fire, and the challenges of population growth. The chapters will be approximately 15,000 words. Contributors will receive an honorarium and one copy. Please note that I am NOT calling for the submission of articles but am seeking inquiries from scholars who wish to contribute topical overview chapters to this volume on Rocky Mountain regional culture. If you are interested in being a part of this exciting opportunity to help articulate a sense of place for the Rocky Mountains, please submit your curriculum vitae for consideration to Rick Newby at rnewby at zadig-llc.com, indicating the chapter you are interested in writing. Rocky Mountain Volume Editor: Rick Newby Zadig, LLC 710 Harrison Avenue Helena, MT 59601 phone: 406.449.6291 fax: 208.979.5469 e-mail: rnewby at zadig-llc.com From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 8 19:28:49 2003 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 14:28:49 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It's 3, then 2, then 1, but that's just me. I'm sure that Yoda would be most happy with number 2. On 1/6/03 3:26 PM, "Mark A Mandel" wrote: > On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, O'Bryant, Susan F wrote: > > #I vote for #3 as best, then #2, then #1. > > #********************************************* > #1) You open us your heart > #2) You open to us your heart > #3) You open your heart to us > > I agree, and I'll add that IMHO #1 is ungrammatical, and #2, while > grammatical, is unidiomatic and unlikely to be used by a native speaker. > > -- Mark A. Mandel ? Bob Haas Department of English High Point University "Wherever you go, there you are." From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Wed Jan 8 21:41:51 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 15:41:51 -0600 Subject: hand job 'deception' Message-ID: I think Frank's is the correct interpretation. -----Original Message----- From: Frank Abate [mailto:abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET] Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 3:10 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: FW: hand job 'deception' Ron B commented (below) on what Larry H noted: >> In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. << One possibility is that the dialogue refers to a hand job as a poor alternative to sexual intercourse. Since the scene involves a husband and wife, that might be the idea behind the use of "hand job" here. Frank Abate ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 22:50:17 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 17:50:17 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I think "explain me what you mean" probably is a calque on "explique-moi". That's the only explanation I can find for it. And that doesn't make it grammatical English to my mind. And I heard it again today. "Open me a beer" seems to be "for me" and not "to me" as in the first case. Does "close me the window" work?? Lois Nathan From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 8 23:23:49 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 15:23:49 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: >>> LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM 01/08/03 02:50PM >>> I think "explain me what you mean" probably is a calque on "explique-moi". That's the only explanation I can find for it. And that doesn't make it grammatical English to my mind. And I heard it again today. "Open me a beer" seems to be "for me" Not necessarily. In German, such constructions are common and they were more common in English a looong time ago. As the dative and accusative cases merged, prepositions started doing more work. This type of sentence 'open me a beer' is probably a relic of the use of the dative without a preposition. "Explain me what you mean" does not bother me as much as it seems to bother others who have responded--probably because I am a German speaker (and have had quite a bit of experience with OE). German: Erklaer MIR, was du meinst. I even find myself saying such things in English periodically. Fritz Juengling and not "to me" as in the first case. Does "close me the window" work?? Lois Nathan From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 8 23:27:44 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 18:27:44 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Joanne, I'm trying to identify what is different between your three examples "send me an e-mail, drop me a line, write me when you get back" which work, and "explain me what you mean," which I don't think works. It may be usage or the functioning of the verbs themselves. In your three examples there's very little ambiguity in putting the indirect object before the direct object. The "me" in "send me" and "drop me" as dierct object would be very little used, except for example in the song: "Yoooou send me." "Drop me" would suppose "you" were holding "me". But I think one "explains" something to someone, in that order. To "explain someone" could exist. "I can explain him" for example. That would be to explain that person so that others could understand him, if he were impenetrable. In contrast, "tell me something" or "tell something to me" both work in that form. But "tell me" isn't ambiguous. Just food for thought. Lois Nathan From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 8 23:59:33 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 15:59:33 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: re "explain me what you mean": there's a much larger, and fairly well studied, phenomenon of which this is just one example: the alternation between prepositional and unmarked indirect objects, as in GIVE THE MONEY TO ME ~ GIVE ME THE MONEY. verbs of transfer (literal or figurative) generally allow the prepositional construction, but only a few allow the unmarked construction (DONATE THE MONEY TO US, but *DONATE US THE MONEY). the big generalization seems to be that if you understand the semantics of a verb of transfer, you'll get it in the prepositional construction, but to get it in the unmarked construction you probably have to hear someone use it there. the full set of facts is a bit more complicated than this, since there's a least one class of transfer verbs (denominal means-of-communication verbs like TELEPHONE, FAX, and XEROX) that seem to allow the unmarked construction directly. it's also true, as many writers have noted (going back to georgia green's ph.d. dissertation, at least), that speakers sometimes extend the unmarked construction to new verbs within semantic subclasses. but mostly it seems to be "what you hear is what you get". EXPLAIN is a figurative transfer verb. for most speakers, it doesn't allow the unmarked indirect-object construction. it's like DONATE. not everything has a deeper explanation. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), who does indeed know about proposals that the number of syllables, stress pattern, and/or anglo-saxon stratum of the vocabulary are determinants, but thinks these ideas won't fly when you look at the facts in detail From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 9 01:09:27 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:09:27 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <6d.6b2f96a.2b4e0df0@aol.com> Message-ID: At 6:27 PM -0500 1/8/03, Lois Nathan wrote: >Joanne, > I'm trying to identify what is different between your three examples >"send me an e-mail, drop me a line, write me when you get back" which work, >and "explain me what you mean," which I don't think works. These were studied intensively in the early years of generative grammar, where the usual conclusion (which doesn't completely work) was that "dative movement", the rule responsible for converting X verbs Y to Z into X verbs Z Y, is "lexically governed" and in general only applies (oversimplifying a bit) to native English (and typically monosyllabic) as opposed to Latinate (and typically polysyllabic) verbs. Thus the contrasts in She {gave/donated} all her money to the poor. She {gave/*donated} the poor all her money. I {told/related} the story to the children. I {told/*related} the children the story. I {sent/transmitted/conveyed} the package to my cousin. I {sent/*transmitted/*conveyed} the package to my cousin. and so on. As predicted by the standard theory of the time (mid-1960's), a "dative passive" is impossible in just those cases where the dative form is impossible: The poor were {given/*donated} the money. The children were {told/*related} the story. My cousin was {sent/*transmitted/*conveyed} the package. As discussed in detail in books and dissertations of the era (see especially Georgia Green's and Dick Oehrle's), it's more complicated than this, but the generalization above does extend nicely to "tell", "write", and "drop" as opposed to "explain". It doesn't work, however, for "offer" (which allows dative movement) or "say" (which doesn't). Oops, I see Arnold has addressed this too. I'll post my message anyway, since I think it complements, rather than being totally supplanted by, his. larry From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 9 01:45:36 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 17:45:36 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on >> >"explique-moi..."? >> > > How about "Open me a beer." This is like the old "Make me a milkshake." "Ok, Poof! You're a milkshake." Rima From sputnik at KU.EDU Thu Jan 9 02:23:33 2003 From: sputnik at KU.EDU (Anderson, Bradley Bramwell) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:23:33 -0600 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: Hello all, I'm trying to find any information on a word heard in Carroll County, Virginia. The spelling of the word is unclear; it sounds like "widdie" and refers to a pre-pubescent chicken, just before becoming a "pullet" - an adolescent chicken. This was (or still is) a common term among farmers in the area. Does anyone have any information on the origin of this word or anything else about its meaning? Thanks! Brad Montgomery-Anderson Linguistics Department University of Kansas From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 9 00:18:48 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 16:18:48 -0800 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Remember, though, that the people who produced the utterances the original query was about were native speakers of French, not German (or earlier varieties of English). --On Wednesday, January 8, 2003 3:23 PM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: >>>> LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM 01/08/03 02:50PM >>> > I think "explain me what you mean" probably is a calque on "explique-moi". > That's the only explanation I can find for it. And that doesn't make it > grammatical English to my mind. And I heard it again today. > "Open me a beer" seems to be "for me" > > Not necessarily. In German, such constructions are common and they were > more common in English a looong time ago. As the dative and accusative > cases merged, prepositions started doing more work. This type of > sentence 'open me a beer' is probably a relic of the use of the dative > without a preposition. "Explain me what you mean" does not bother me as > much as it seems to bother others who have responded--probably because I > am a German speaker (and have had quite a bit of experience with OE). > German: Erklaer MIR, was du meinst. I even find myself saying such > things in English periodically. Fritz Juengling > > > and not "to me" as in the first > case. Does "close me the window" work?? > > Lois Nathan **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 9 02:46:18 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 18:46:18 -0800 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: "Anderson, Bradley Bramwell" wrote: > I'm trying to find any information on a word heard in Carroll County, > Virginia. The spelling of the word is unclear; it sounds like "widdie" and > refers to a pre-pubescent chicken, just before becoming a "pullet" - an > adolescent chicken. This was (or still is) a common term among farmers in > the area. Does anyone have any information on the origin of this word or > anything else about its meaning? A "biddy" is a "young bird especially of domestic fowl" [ref: ] although some other references say a biddy == hen. Could you be hearing "biddy"? Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 10:19:03 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 05:19:03 -0500 Subject: Mother/Father of the Spices Message-ID: Greetings from my last day (Thursday) in Zanzibar. I have Dar es Salaam on Friday and a six-hour layover in Amsterdam before arriving back in New York on Saturday. MOTHER OF THE SPICES--Ginger. FATHER OF THE SPICES--Cloves. BABY SPICE--The result of combining the above two spices...A member of the Spice Girls...OK, I made this one up. NATURAL IODINE NATURAL LIPSTICK--My tour guide didn't give other names for these plants. OED? MALARIA TREE--Quinine, for its supposed help in curing malaria. OED? MYOMA--The tour guide said that something was good for diarrhea, so I asked if there was anything like "Montezuma's revenge" or "Aztec two-step" or "Turkey trots" or "Delly belly." He said that this the Swahili name for diarrhea. However, tell ten of your friends it's "Zanzibar zing" and that it started here. These (English?) descriptions are from the spice packages that I bought. I'll send the spices to the first person to request them and pay postage: GINGER ROOTS--This is good for rice making and tea especially for cold area in case it gives body warm and also is good for men that it give up or stimulates men sexual organs. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. NUTMEG--This is better for drinks, cooking and for woman that given up strong desire for making or to fulfill their men. You have to break and inside you get nut that what we used for cooking like meat etc. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. PRODUCED BY BAHAMA SPICE FARM. CLOVES--is better for tooth pain and stomach pain as wel for cooking rice and tea making. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. ZANZIBAR BLACK PEPPER--Is better spice which we are use for making Curry but also Black Pepper can be use for making Pilau or rice also Black Pepper we use for cooking in some of sweet food like test milk and porridge, Black Pepper is better for meat that gives slight hot test in meat. PRODUCED BY BAHAMA SPICE FARM. HOT CHILLY--This is hottest Spices that given hot test for food and well it gives body warm. Gift from Zanzibar Spice Island. CARDAMOM--This is Spice that used for multi purpose e.g rice, cakes, maandazi, tea etc. Gift from Zanzibar Spices Islands. TURMERIC POWDER--This better for making curry also turmeric can be used in all grill cooking inspite of this turmeric can be used for cooking in meat, fishes, just to change the colour or to give colour good. ZANZIBAR RED CURRY--This is good for red coloring of good e.g. Chicken, Fishers and other they all Chicken Tandoori. Gift from Zanzibar Spice Island. From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Jan 9 09:21:12 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 04:21:12 -0500 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: self at TOWSE.COM,Net writes: >A "biddy" is a "young bird especially of domestic fowl" [ref: >] although >some other references say a biddy == hen. >Could you be hearing "biddy"? DARE offers: biddy=a young or newly hatched chicken. The evidence reported is from eastern Alabama, eastern Georgia, eastern South Carolina, Texas, eastern Kentucky and North Carolina. Also in DARE are entries for biddy-hen and biddy pen. There is also biddy-peck defined as hen-peck. Regards, David From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 9 12:38:55 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 07:38:55 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <200301082359.h08NxXC29159@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: arnold, I'm sure that you are right in the details when one looks at individual items, but some of the generalizations you wipe out (e.g., Anglo-Saxon stratum, syllable structure, stress pattern, themselves perhaps interrelated) seem to me to be pretty good predictors (he gave me his hand, he offered me his hand, *he extended me his hand in friendship) if you take a probabilistic attitude towards them. Of course, probabilities are not deep ... dInIs re "explain me what you mean": there's a much larger, and fairly well studied, phenomenon of which this is just one example: the alternation between prepositional and unmarked indirect objects, as in GIVE THE MONEY TO ME ~ GIVE ME THE MONEY. verbs of transfer (literal or figurative) generally allow the prepositional construction, but only a few allow the unmarked construction (DONATE THE MONEY TO US, but *DONATE US THE MONEY). the big generalization seems to be that if you understand the semantics of a verb of transfer, you'll get it in the prepositional construction, but to get it in the unmarked construction you probably have to hear someone use it there. the full set of facts is a bit more complicated than this, since there's a least one class of transfer verbs (denominal means-of-communication verbs like TELEPHONE, FAX, and XEROX) that seem to allow the unmarked construction directly. it's also true, as many writers have noted (going back to georgia green's ph.d. dissertation, at least), that speakers sometimes extend the unmarked construction to new verbs within semantic subclasses. but mostly it seems to be "what you hear is what you get". EXPLAIN is a figurative transfer verb. for most speakers, it doesn't allow the unmarked indirect-object construction. it's like DONATE. not everything has a deeper explanation. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), who does indeed know about proposals that the number of syllables, stress pattern, and/or anglo-saxon stratum of the vocabulary are determinants, but thinks these ideas won't fly when you look at the facts in detail -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Thu Jan 9 13:23:26 2003 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 08:23:26 -0500 Subject: Question on word from Western Virginia Message-ID: Biddy/biddie was also used in Delaware, both in Delmar, in the southern part of the state, and in Christiana, in the north, in the 1950s and 1960s, by the farmers whom I knew. I'm not sure which spelling was in the mind of the speaker. 'Little biddy' could refer to a small hen, especially a bantam hen; and little biddies could refer to a clutch of newly hatched chicks. Delaware, The Blue Hen State, had the first farms that raised chickens as a profit-making venture, rather than as merely a source of egg money. George Cole Shippensburg University From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Jan 9 14:20:45 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:20:45 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <6d.6b2f96a.2b4e0df0@aol.com> Message-ID: Okay, I think I'm convinced now that example #1 can be called "ungrammatical". It's not that I ever doubted that it would register as "wrong" to an English speaker -- I just wasn't sure whether to call it ungrammatical (which I initially interpreted as "syntactically unprecedented and non-transparent") or unidiomatic (i.e., "syntactically possible and semantically transparent but in fact never used in standard speech/writing"). I think what most people understand as ungrammatical is something that, essentially, is never used. Thanks very much to the linguists on the list for shedding light on the nature of the constructions. Obviously, we English language and lit folks would benefit from a course or two in the theory of syntax! Joanne From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 15:30:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 10:30:51 -0500 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors Message-ID: From a restaurant called SWEET & EAZY here in Zanzibar: CAIPINYAGI--Brazil-Zanzibar; Konyagi, lime, can sugar. SWEET EAZY SPECIAL--white rum, vodka, triple sec MARINATED JOHARI--(Tuna. I had this at another placed as "catch of the day"--ed.) UGALI--a porridge of maize flour boiled in chicken stock. (OED?--ed.) CHIPSI--Carved potatoes deep fried, sprayed with a sprinkled of salt. A TASTE OF ZANZIBAR--I changed my copy for a signed copy. I was told that the author has two more East African cookbooks coming out, including a Zanzibar restaurant menu thing. See the e-mail addresses in that prior post. MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRINCESS by Emilie Ruete (1844-1924). This is the Zanzibar classic work, published by Princess Salme, who married a German man. The NYPL has several copies that I'll get to soon; it's in several languages, but from at least 1888 in English. I just checked OED for the author's name and the book title--did no one from the OED ever read this book? THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY CARVED WOODEN DOORS OF THE EAST AFRICAN COAST by Judith Aldrick Reprinted by permission from Azania, the Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, Volume XXV, 1990 This 20-page book has the "Zanzibar doors." On pages 17-18 is "Appendix: Woods commonly used for carved doors." OED needs a really good Swahili specialist, because almost all of these start with the letter "M." Pages 19-20 include a 1992 comment on the Swahili and scientific names mentioned in pages 17-18. Pg. 17: ..._mvule_, which is indigenous has often been used as a substitute for teak. _Mvule_ (_Chlorophora milicia_) is a hardwood formerly found particularly on Pemba island, but which is nowadays increasingly scarce, while _mbamba kofi_ (_Afzalia quanzensis_) is still found in most forest areas of the coast. Pg. 19: _Swahili ethnobotany and carved doors_ (...) mbambakofi...mchano...mfensi...mgurure...mkongachale...mpingo...mtu...mtumbati...muhuhu...muia...(Pg. 20--ed.) mvule...mwembe. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 9 17:00:02 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 12:00:02 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 5:45 PM -0800 1/8/03, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote: >> > >Could the "explain me what you mean" construction be a calque on >>> >"explique-moi..."? >>> >> > How about "Open me a beer." > >This is like the old "Make me a milkshake." "Ok, Poof! You're a milkshake." > Or the slightly more ethnic version I remember, in which "malted" substitutes for "milkshake" and the genie-character has a Yiddish accent (and doesn't say "OK"). Larry From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 9 17:00:38 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:00:38 -0800 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > From a restaurant called SWEET & EAZY here in Zanzibar: > > CAIPINYAGI--Brazil-Zanzibar; Konyagi, lime, can sugar. I've never heard of caipinyagi from the Brazilian angle. Caipirinha, yes, which is made with cachaca (white rum), superfine sugar, and lime. Brazil also has the batida, which is essentially the same thing -- maybe a difference between south and north? The batida is something they drink up in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon. The recipe for batida is "one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, and four of weak: lime juice, superfine sugar, cachaca, crushed ice. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 9 17:22:12 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:22:12 -0600 Subject: "in the soup" revisited Message-ID: In a 3 Oct. 2002 ads-l message Barry Popik noted OED2's first attestation of April 1889 for "in the soup" (= in serious difficulty) and then presented a slightly earlier one: 1 September 1888, New York Times, p. 8: 'McLaughlin won with King Crab in the easiest possible fashion, and Speedwell finished "in the soup."' It may be significant that this first known attestation of "in the soup" comes in a context which provides a rationale for the expression: a winning horse named "(King) Crab" and another other horse which is left behind (in the soup, i.e., the hot water which the crab has left). Maybe the sportswriter of this turf article coined the expression. Of course, maybe slang "in the soup" already existed without having previously made its way into print. But the above first attestation might still be significant for having introduced the term into print--in the prestigious New York Times, specifically in a horse-racing article whose readers share the same love of word/expression creativity as many sportswriters do. (Just look at horseracing lingo and some of the monikers fastened on the powerful and exquisitely beautiful racehorses). With the seal of approval of an appearance in the NY Times, the expression could then move more easily from the periphery of American speech into the mainstream of American (thence British) colloquial expressions. I assume that for the average speaker of English, the original imagery of a crab leaving the soup was soon lost and replaced by that of cannibals boiling their next meal. Gerald Cohen From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 18:21:57 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:21:57 EST Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: "Know thy users - for they are not you" The writer (one D.R. Lenorovitz) was critiquing some software in which, when the user reached a certain point, the meaning of one of the keys on the keyboard changed. After describing in detail what was wrong with this, the writer then stated "In summary, one of the primary design dictates is: "Know thy users - for they are not you".", meaning that just because some input made sense to the designer, it should be avoided if it did not make sense to the users. Lenorovitz also commented, regarding the use of the jargon phrase "strongly typed" which would not be known to the audience, "I can guarantee that it will result in at least some users banging excessively hard on their keyboards!!" - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 18:35:39 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:35:39 EST Subject: New word "descoped" Message-ID: I heard (or noted) for the first time yesterday a new word: "Descoped". Meaning: "removed from the scope of the contract" or in plainer English "removed from the list of things that the contractor is expected to do under this contract." - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 9 19:10:03 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 14:10:03 -0500 Subject: Computer proverbs In-Reply-To: <190.13ab9a87.2b4f17c5@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: # # "Know thy users - for they are not you" I LIKE that one! This is similar, but not a proverb, just a saying of mine: "It's a given that your end-users will think of ways to use your product and its features that you never even imagined." -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 9 19:16:20 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 14:16:20 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: #Or the slightly more ethnic version I remember, in which "malted" #substitutes for "milkshake" and the genie-character has a Yiddish #accent (and doesn't say "OK"). I remember it as Make me a malted! Poof! You're a malted. No accent, not ethnic, but maybe NYC? -- Mark A. Mandel From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 9 19:18:25 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:18:25 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: Mark A Mandel wrote: > > On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > > #An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: > # > # "Know thy users - for they are not you" > > I LIKE that one! > > This is similar, but not a proverb, just a saying of mine: "It's a given > that your end-users will think of ways to use your product and its > features that you never even imagined." My motto: Make your code idiot-proof because idiots will be using it. Or one I just made up and wish Bill had hanging in the lobby at Microsoft: Check the buffer size before moving your data. DON'T MOVE DATA INTO A BUFFER IF IT WON'T FIT. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 9 21:18:06 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:18:06 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: All: How about this one: "Computers are like cats. You never know what they're going to do next."(just made that one u p too, after a long period of observation of both). Anne G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Towse" To: Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 11:18 AM Subject: Re: Computer proverbs > Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > > On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > > > > #An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: > > # > > # "Know thy users - for they are not you" > > > > I LIKE that one! > > > > This is similar, but not a proverb, just a saying of mine: "It's a given > > that your end-users will think of ways to use your product and its > > features that you never even imagined." > > My motto: Make your code idiot-proof because idiots will be using > it. > > Or one I just made up and wish Bill had hanging in the lobby at > Microsoft: > > Check the buffer size before moving your data. > DON'T MOVE DATA INTO A BUFFER IF IT WON'T FIT. > > Sal > -- > 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally > curious > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 9 21:48:40 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 16:48:40 -0500 Subject: Computer proverbs In-Reply-To: <02fa01c2b824$9aaf5330$eecc4b43@annehpbrww9plk> Message-ID: At 1:18 PM -0800 1/9/03, Anne Gilbert wrote: >All: > >How about this one: "Computers are like cats. You never know what they're >going to do next."(just made that one u p too, after a long period of >observation of both). >Anne G Especially appropriate for laptops. L From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 9 23:05:50 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 18:05:50 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: I appreciate the exchange on this subject. It's helpful to know what others have found who have worked on, for example, transfer verbs like "explain". Good justifications to use in front of people for whom the information is inconvenient. Thanks to all. Lois Nathan From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 00:30:11 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 19:30:11 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or is this one legit? larry ================================== The New York Times January 6, 2003, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 4; Column 3; Foreign Desk Paris Journal; Call It the City of Darkness, and Give It Vitamin D BYLINE: By ELAINE SCIOLINO DATELINE: PARIS, Jan. 5 These are dark days in the City of Light. It is a cruel trick played on those who are not forewarned. Paris is a northern city, on about the same latitude as Seattle and Vancouver. New York, by contrast, sits on a level with Madrid and Naples. So when winter comes, Paris's northern position combines with humidity, above-freezing temperatures, the absence of fierce winds and a location at the bottom of a basin to rob the city of sun and light. ... As for Paris's century-old nickname as the City of Light, it has nothing to do with the atmosphere. The seven-month-long Paris Fair of 1900 included a Palace of Electricity that displayed light encapsulated in glass and electrical motors that became symbols of modernity. Paris became one of the first urban centers to light its streets, factories and department stores -- artificially, with electric light. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 00:51:55 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 19:51:55 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant > etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began > to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really > traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be > consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. > Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to > mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or > is this one legit? If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City of Light" as far back as 1886. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 10 01:16:28 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:16:28 -0500 Subject: FW: "City of Light" Message-ID: Re Paris as the City of Light, don't forget the line from Randy Newman: "Cleveland, City of Light, City of Magic" . . . and in the same song, re the Cuyahoga River (which actually DID catch on fire in the Dark Days before the Clean Water Act): "Burn on, Big River, Burn on" . . . and: "The Lord can make you tumble, the Lord can make you turn, the Lord can make you overflow . . . but the Lord can't make you burn." Frank Abate >> On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant > etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began > to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really > traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be > consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. > Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to > mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or > is this one legit? If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City of Light" as far back as 1886. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Fri Jan 10 01:58:24 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:58:24 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant >etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began >to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really >traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900 .... I would casually assume that "City of Light[s]" (I've seen it both ways) for Paris is a (good or bad) translation of something(s) French. Surely the general idea is much older than 1900. EB says "Ville Lumie`re" for Paris dates from the EnLIGHTenment (i.e. I guess 18th century?). But there's no reason why French PR writers couldn't have used the same expression or a very similar one as a double-entendre slogan for the 1900 Fair, at least partly to celebrate the electric light I suppose. I'm sure the truth is well known, but since I'm incompetent in French maybe I'm not well equipped to look for it. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 02:14:11 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:14:11 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I recall something like this from my childhood (probably it was already ancient then). Portly hotel guest: "Please call me a cab." Doorman: "OK, you're a cab ... but you look more like a bus to me." -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 02:19:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:19:17 -0500 Subject: "City of Light", "oaktag" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:51 PM -0500 1/9/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > >> We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant >> etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began >> to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really >> traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be >> consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. >> Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to >> mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or >> is this one legit? > >If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would >get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A >search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City >of Light" as far back as 1886. > >Fred Shapiro > Aha. Thought so. Sounded a bit fishy to me. On a different note, I just heard my first "oaktag", or at least the first one I remember. It was on "The West Wing", the Christmas show that I taped then and just watched tonight, in which White House Director of Communications Toby Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff) uses it in the sense we've discussed. The character is from New York (Brighton Beach) and Jewish. I'm still not sure how I avoided familiarity with this lexical item my whole life, but I'm willing to accept that it's my fault and not its. Larry From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 10 02:40:07 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:40:07 -0600 Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation from 1847. -----Original Message----- From: Fred Shapiro [mailto:fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU] Sent: Thu 1/9/2003 6:51 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: "City of Light" On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > We've been through enough fair-based and city-nickname-relevant > etymythologies that when I saw this little story I immediately began > to wonder: Is "the City of Light" as a sobriquet for Paris really > traceable back to the Paris Fair of 1900, or should that story be > consigned to the murky dustbin of urban legend, along with the St. > Louis World's Fair that didn't really give us hamburgers, not to > mention the Dana non-source of "the Windy City" and Eve's Apples? Or > is this one legit? If this story is the standard one and if Barry lived in France, we would get daily bulletins from him about newspapers printing the wrong story. A search in New York Times Historical shows references to Paris as the "City of Light" as far back as 1886. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From pds at VISI.COM Fri Jan 10 03:33:30 2003 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:33:30 -0600 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I first heard the "Poof! You're a malted" gag in a Lenny Bruce routine -- with accent. --Tom Kysilko At 02:16 PM 1/9/2003 -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > >#Or the slightly more ethnic version I remember, in which "malted" >#substitutes for "milkshake" and the genie-character has a Yiddish >#accent (and doesn't say "OK"). > >I remember it as > Make me a malted! > Poof! You're a malted. >No accent, not ethnic, but maybe NYC? > >-- Mark A. Mandel From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 03:48:15 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 22:48:15 -0500 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors In-Reply-To: <3E1DAAB6.50993F77@towse.com> Message-ID: > > CAIPINYAGI--Brazil-Zanzibar; Konyagi, lime, can ["cane"? -DW] sugar. > >I've never heard of caipinyagi from the Brazilian angle. >Caipirinha, yes, which is made with cachaca (white rum), >superfine sugar, and lime. Konyagi is a [brand name of a] distilled liquor similar to rum, conventional in East Africa, I think. "Caipinyagi" = "caipirinha" + "Konyagi", I think. -- Doug Wilson From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 04:36:16 2003 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 23:36:16 -0500 Subject: "City of Light", "oaktag" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Laurence Horn wrote: > >On a different note, I just heard my first "oaktag", or at least the >first one I remember. It was on "The West Wing", the Christmas show >that I taped then and just watched tonight, in which White House >Director of Communications Toby Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff) >uses it in the sense we've discussed. The character is from New York >(Brighton Beach) and Jewish. > >I'm still not sure how I avoided familiarity with this lexical item >my whole life, but I'm willing to accept that it's my fault and not >its. > I seem not to have printed out the usenet posting I noticed the other day (in alt.sports.hockey.nhl.ny-islanders, if you must know) in which oaktag occurred properly. The context involved getting together to picket Cablevision, and the only uncertainty with regard to the substance was whether it's "oaktag" or "oak tag". -- ============================================================================= Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258 New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963 From garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 10 06:00:55 2003 From: garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET (Gareth Branwyn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 01:00:55 -0500 Subject: RISUMI (an "autocoinage") Message-ID: This is very interesting. It was sent to the Jargon Watch mailbox by sci-fi author and master blogger Cory Doctorow (of boingboing.net). I had not heard of RISUMI or AUTOCOINAGE. From this week's NTK.net -- "risumi," an autocoinage variant of "resume." The new edition of the Shorter OED came out too early (or too late) to include medireview, the Yahoo-generated alternative to medieval [NTK 2002-07-12]. We have higher hopes for the next edition and "risumi" - a new autocoinage spotted by Jeremy Ardley and still, it would seem, growing in popularity. A "risumi", word fans, is a special kind of "resume" that has been written with a ISO-8859-1/14 character set and then sent through a mailer that drops the high bit. Lowercase e with an acute accent, minus the top bit, turns into an "i". Hence, risumi. Our favourite citation for the new dictionary entry: an article by Peter Kaufman, "creative strategist" at clickz.com, who confidently declares "Why would anyone hire a person with spelling errors in a document? Several risumis I've seen over the years have had spelling, grammar and syntax serrors that would make you either laugh or cry". Coincidentally or not, Kaufman's piece is now the highest hit on Google for the neologism. How diclassi. http://www.clickz.com/article.php/838241 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 07:38:19 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 02:38:19 -0500 Subject: Maasai Proverbs Message-ID: KONYAGI--Yes, the drink is a Caipirinha (see archives) with the local alcohol Konyagi. The place is "Sweet Eazy," not "Sweet & Eazy" as I typed. O.T. There is a little elephant keychain here. It's pretty heavy, and I dropped my keychain and broke the elephant's tusk. That's a ton of years bad luck, I think. My group consoled me with their tuskless keychains. ------------------------------------------------------ WISDOM OF MAASAI by A Ol'Oloisolo Massek and J. O. Sidai 52 pages, paperback Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers 1974 I sent a post of this two weeks ago to Jesse Sheidlower, but I don't think it was sent to the list. The hotel sent the e-mail a few days late, and I sent a near-identical e-mail later without this book's information. This book has 279 proverbs, in Maasai and in English, and with explanations. There are then 75 proverbs collected by A. C. Hollis, from his THE MASAI: THEIR LANGUAGE AND FOLKLORE. 17 proverbs are similar. "It takes a village to raise a child" is not here, although pictures of the Clintons were at nearly every stop of my trip. The book might be useful to the Fred Shapiro-types out there. If anyone needs it, I'll copy the pages for you. A few proverbs/wisdoms: Pg. 11: The eye of God is large. Pg. 13: Don't pinch the heifer's vagina. (i.e. Never argue with a new bride.) Pg. 15: The neck cannot become the head. (Told to a disobedient son.) Pg. 27: Do not allow the belly to make you useless. Pg. 28: One finger does not kill a louse. (i.e. Co-operation is power.) Pg. 31: One house cannot be divided. Pg. 31: Lonely is one. Pg. 38: The night has ears. The forest has ears. Pg. 39: A particle of goat dung cannot be eaten by a large gourd. Pg. 40: The buttocks never mistake the ground (because they are in contact with each other so much of the time.) Pg. 42: The cow has no owner. (i.e. The milk of a cow may be given to anyone.) Pg. 45: Hide the mouthfuls of food. (Don't tell others your secrets.) Pg. 45: He is like a hyena's sinew. (He refuses to admit defeat.) Pg. 48: The man does not see the brisket he is eating. Pg. 51: It is better to be poor and live long than to be rich and die young. (Our translation: Trouble is long; happiness is short.) From bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Jan 10 08:20:03 2003 From: bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM (Bruce Hunter) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 00:20:03 -0800 Subject: Computer proverbs Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Towse" > Mark A Mandel wrote: > > On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > >> > # An interesting computer proverb crossed my desk today: > > # "Know thy users - for they are not you" > My motto: Make your code idiot-proof because idiots will be using > it. > Or one I just made up and wish Bill had hanging in the lobby at > Microsoft: > Check the buffer size before moving your data. > DON'T MOVE DATA INTO A BUFFER IF IT WON'T FIT. and then there is... Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. Bruce Hunter From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 12:06:14 2003 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 07:06:14 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Riddle me this, Batman.... Just out of curiosity, does anyone get a *better* reading with a pronoun instead of a noun phrase? For example: "donate me this lamp" sounds a lot worse than (while holding said lamp, saying) "donate me this". Anyone share this opinion? Just wondering.... -dsb Douglas S. Bigham University of Texas - Austin From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 12:35:16 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 07:35:16 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <2209664F1C807643B7FA01C8230C0F994341DA@col-mailnode03.col. missouri.edu> Message-ID: >The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation from 1847. It reads "Paris is emphatically the city of light, intelligence, society, and refined life ..." I do believe myself that this reflects "Paris" = "the City of Light" but in isolation it's not entirely decisive IMHO. Here is a passage from Jules Verne's "Robur-le-Conqu?rant" (1886) (Ch. 11): ---------- Sa vitesse n'avait point ?t? mod?r?e. Il passait comme une bombe au-dessus des villes, des bourgs, des villages, si nombreux en ces riches provinces de la France septentrionale. C'?taient, sur ce m?ridien de Paris, apr?s Dunkerque, Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint-Denis. Rien ne le fit d?vier de la ligne droite. C'est ainsi que, vers minuit, il arriva au-dessus de la ? Ville Lumi?re ?, qui m?rite ce nom m?me quand ses habitants sont couch?s ? ou devraient l'?tre. Par quelle ?trange fantaisie l'ing?nieur fut-il port? ? faire halte au-dessus de la cit? parisienne? on ne sait. Ce qui est certain, c'est que l'Albatros s'abaissa de mani?re ? ne la dominer que de quelques centaines de pieds seulement. Robur sortit alors de sa cabine, et tout son personnel vint respirer un peu de l'air ambiant sur la plate-forme. Uncle Prudent et Phil Evans n'eurent garde de manquer l'excellente occasion qui leur ?tait offerte. Tous deux, apr?s avoir quitt? leur roufle, cherch?rent ? s'isoler, afin de pouvoir choisir l'instant le plus propice. Il fallait surtout ?viter d'?tre vu. L'Albatros, semblable ? un gigantesque scarab?e, allait doucement au-dessus de la grande ville. Il parcourut la ligne des boulevards, si brillamment ?clair?s alors par les appareils Edison. .... ---------- Paris is explicitly called "Ville Lumie`re" here, and the bright lighting by "Edison apparati" (i.e., lightbulbs) is mentioned. Here is a translation from the Web (for which I don't vouch): ---------- There was no diminution in her speed. She shot like a rocket over the towns and villages so numerous in northern France. She was flying straight on to Paris, and after Dunkirk came Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint Denis. She never left the line; and about midnight she was over the "city of light," which merits its name even when its inhabitants are asleep or ought to be. By what strange whim was it that she was stopped over the city of Paris? We do not know; but down she came till she was within a few hundred feet of the ground. Robur then came out of his cabin, and the crew came on to the deck to breathe the ambient air. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans took care not to miss such an excellent opportunity. They left their deck-house and walked off away from the others so as to be ready at the propitious moment. It was important their action should not be seen. The "Albatross," like a huge coleopter, glided gently over the mighty city. She took the line of the boulevards, then brilliantly lighted by the Edison lamps. .... ---------- -- Doug Wilson From LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 13:43:27 2003 From: LBNath88545112 at AOL.COM (Lois Nathan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:43:27 EST Subject: grammatically speaking... Message-ID: Off the bat, man, I personally don't like either. But that may be just me. Sorry. Lois Nathan Universit? du Havre From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Fri Jan 10 13:57:58 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:57:58 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <183.14fccc16.2b5027ff@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Lois Nathan wrote: >Off the bat, man, I personally don't like either. What an interesting sentence! I wonder: don't like WHAT either? Or is "off the bat" what the writer does not like? I know - context is all. I have no idea what preceded this! Bethany From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Fri Jan 10 13:48:28 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:48:28 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <34.334b342a.2b501136@aol.com> Message-ID: "Donate me this" does sound better to me, but I'm imagining it delivered in a self-consciously playful way, somewhat along the lines of the Elizabethan construction "X me no Xs" (e.g., "king me no kings, grief me no griefs," etc.). I guess the effect of the verbal play I'm imagining turns on the clever economy of the apparent archaism (to which the brevity of the direct object contributes). If the sentence were delivered without playful intent, though, it probably wouldn't sound any better to me than "donate me this lamp." Joanne On 10 Jan 2003, at 7:06, Douglas Bigham wrote: > Riddle me this, Batman.... > > Just out of curiosity, does anyone get a *better* reading with a pronoun > instead of a noun phrase? For example: "donate me this lamp" sounds a lot > worse than (while holding said lamp, saying) "donate me this". Anyone share > this opinion? > > Just wondering.... > > -dsb > Douglas S. Bigham > University of Texas - Austin From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 10 14:55:30 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 09:55:30 -0500 Subject: Maasai Proverbs Message-ID: So what's the explanation for the goat dung proverb? -----Original Message----- From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 2:38 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Maasai Proverbs WISDOM OF MAASAI by A Ol'Oloisolo Massek and J. O. Sidai 52 pages, paperback Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers 1974 Pg. 39: A particle of goat dung cannot be eaten by a large gourd. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 15:40:56 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:40:56 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030110071041.04a3d070@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 7:35 AM -0500 1/10/03, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation >>from 1847. > >It reads "Paris is emphatically the city of light, intelligence, society, >and refined life ..." I do believe myself that this reflects "Paris" = "the >City of Light" but in isolation it's not entirely decisive IMHO. > >Here is a passage from Jules Verne's "Robur-le-Conqu?rant" (1886) (Ch. 11): > I agree that the passage below is much more clearly decisive than the one above; "Ville Lumi?re" in quotes is a clear sobriquet. Even though this gives the lie to the 1900 Paris Fair as the source of the label, it does support the claim in the Times piece that it's the new Edison electric lights that provide the name, as Doug points out, and not the play of sunlight on the Seine or whatever. larry > > Sa vitesse n'avait point ?t? mod?r?e. Il passait comme une bombe >au-dessus des villes, des bourgs, des villages, si nombreux en ces riches >provinces de la France septentrionale. C'?taient, sur ce m?ridien de Paris, >apr?s Dunkerque, Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint-Denis. Rien ne le fit >d?vier de la ligne droite. C'est ainsi que, vers minuit, il arriva >au-dessus de la ? Ville Lumi?re ?, qui m?rite ce nom m?me quand ses >habitants sont couch?s ? ou devraient l'?tre. > Par quelle ?trange fantaisie l'ing?nieur fut-il port? ? faire halte >au-dessus de la cit? parisienne? on ne sait. Ce qui est certain, c'est que >l'Albatros s'abaissa de mani?re ? ne la dominer que de quelques centaines >de pieds seulement. Robur sortit alors de sa cabine, et tout son personnel >vint respirer un peu de l'air ambiant sur la plate-forme. > Uncle Prudent et Phil Evans n'eurent garde de manquer l'excellente >occasion qui leur ?tait offerte. Tous deux, apr?s avoir quitt? leur roufle, >cherch?rent ? s'isoler, afin de pouvoir choisir l'instant le plus propice. >Il fallait surtout ?viter d'?tre vu. > L'Albatros, semblable ? un gigantesque scarab?e, allait doucement >au-dessus de la grande ville. Il parcourut la ligne des boulevards, si >brillamment ?clair?s alors par les appareils Edison. .... > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Jan 10 15:49:29 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:49:29 -0500 Subject: Caipinyagi; Carved Doors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030109224227.04a2c660@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Doug Wilson writes: > >Konyagi is a [brand name of a] distilled liquor similar to rum, >conventional in East Africa, I think. ~~~~~~~~ This is surely a take-off on "cognac," isn't it? I'm tempted to bring in "cognate," but mimesis is probably closer. A. Murie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 15:50:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:50:17 -0500 Subject: grammatically speaking... In-Reply-To: <34.334b342a.2b501136@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:06 AM -0500 1/10/03, Douglas Bigham wrote: >Riddle me this, Batman.... > >Just out of curiosity, does anyone get a *better* reading with a pronoun >instead of a noun phrase? For example: "donate me this lamp" sounds a lot >worse than (while holding said lamp, saying) "donate me this". Anyone share >this opinion? > >Just wondering.... > To the extent that this is true, it may represent part of a general tendency for pronouns to cliticize onto the preceding verb and thus become part of that word rather than a separate word. I get the distinction between pronouns and full NPs more clearly in other contexts (and with "light" pronouns like "me", "him", "her", "them", "it" rather than "this"). Thus: I gave the man the book. *I gave the man it. (?)I gave him it. She sent her sister the money yesterday. *She sent her sister it yesterday. (?)She sent her it yesterday. This relates to stressable constituents (I feel embarrassed writing about this on a list that includes Arnold), and has been treated by way of a surface constraint that would also apply to other cases in which a direct object clitic pronoun is separated from the verb by intervening material, e.g. I looked up the man/the number. I looked up HIM (not her). [non-clitic pronoun] *I looked up him/it. But in the "I gave him it", "She sent her it", the "it" doesn't count as separated from the verb because the relevant verb is "gave'm", "sent'r". Not that any of this applies directly to "Donate me this." Or the new movie "Analyze Me THAT" ;) larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 15:51:55 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:51:55 -0500 Subject: Tinga Tinga painting; Merekani cloth; Me Serengeti Message-ID: Greetings from Dar es Salaam. We've all been impressed with this city...There is a memorial in the national museum to the U.S. embassy bombing. The new U.S. building is a gigantic structure. I have a 12:30 a.m. flight to Amsterdam. It's about ten hours, and I'll arrive about 8 a.m. Then I have six hours until my next flight to NYC. TINGA TINGA PAINTING--This style of painting is seen all over. I'm typing this from the place where it all started, about 35 years ago. OED? MEREKANI UNBLEACHED CLOTH--OED? I read yesterday that "Merekani" meant "American." TAARAB DANCING--Several signs for this were seen. OED? KANGA & KIKOYI & KITENGE & KANZU--Clothing words I'll work on when I get back. From the museum display: "Kanzu is a common dress worn by the coastal people." MGONO--OED? Also from the museum here: "A mgono is a kind of fish trap used by small fishermen in Tanzania for catching fish in shallow rivers, swamps and lakes." GOAT DUNG MAASAI PROVERB--Sorry, this one didn't have an explanation. SERENGETI BEER BILLBOARD AD: Me Serengeti and lots of fun. ("Me" and not "my"?--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 16:19:00 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 11:19:00 -0500 Subject: Maasai Proverbs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > So what's the explanation for the goat dung proverb? I think of it as similar to not being able to put a round peg in a square hole, or some more appropriate proverb I can't remember. (Something about needing the right tool for the right job.) The idea, to my mind, is that even something as tiny as a particle of goat dung can't be consumed by even something as big as a large gourd because gourds don't have mouths. >-----Original Message----- >From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] >Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 2:38 AM >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Maasai Proverbs > >WISDOM OF MAASAI >by A Ol'Oloisolo Massek and J. O. Sidai >52 pages, paperback >Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers >1974 > > >Pg. 39: >A particle of goat dung cannot be eaten by a large gourd. From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Fri Jan 10 16:26:54 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:26:54 -0600 Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: Here's an 1876 citation from Appleton's (MOA/umich version): THE writer of an article in a recent Saturday Review on Victor Hugo's " Pendant l'Exil" amuses himself with "taking off" M. Hugo's style. Here is a paragraph: " There are some wonderful pages about Paris toward the close of the introductory chapter. Paris, he says, is the frontier of the future, the visible frontier of the unknown, all the quantity of To-morrow which may be visible in To-day. Whoso seeks for progress with his eyes shall behold Paris. There are black cities; Paris is the City of Light. It is impossible to get out of Paris; for every living man, though he knoweth it not, hath Paris in the depths of his being. Also, there's one in an 1871 play by Robert Williams Buchanan, _The Drama of Kings_, spoken by Napoleon: "But what of Paris? What of the city of light?" Did Edison's lights come in around 1879 or so? There are many earlier references to a City of Light (not Paris) where the reference is religious. Is it biblical? My guess would be that it went from an original religious reference (i.e., heaven as the city of light) to something in line with the citation from 1847 where light = learning, enlightenment, etc. and maybe later to a more literal sense of light(s). But it seems the sobriquet for Paris predated the lightbulb sense (if I've got my dates right). -----Original Message----- From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU] Sent: Fri 1/10/2003 9:40 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: "City of Light" At 7:35 AM -0500 1/10/03, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>The Making of America database (Cornell's version) shows a citation >>from 1847. > >It reads "Paris is emphatically the city of light, intelligence, society, >and refined life ..." I do believe myself that this reflects "Paris" = "the >City of Light" but in isolation it's not entirely decisive IMHO. > >Here is a passage from Jules Verne's "Robur-le-Conqu?rant" (1886) (Ch. 11): > I agree that the passage below is much more clearly decisive than the one above; "Ville Lumi?re" in quotes is a clear sobriquet. Even though this gives the lie to the 1900 Paris Fair as the source of the label, it does support the claim in the Times piece that it's the new Edison electric lights that provide the name, as Doug points out, and not the play of sunlight on the Seine or whatever. larry > > Sa vitesse n'avait point ?t? mod?r?e. Il passait comme une bombe >au-dessus des villes, des bourgs, des villages, si nombreux en ces riches >provinces de la France septentrionale. C'?taient, sur ce m?ridien de Paris, >apr?s Dunkerque, Doullens, Amiens, Creil, Saint-Denis. Rien ne le fit >d?vier de la ligne droite. C'est ainsi que, vers minuit, il arriva >au-dessus de la ? Ville Lumi?re ?, qui m?rite ce nom m?me quand ses >habitants sont couch?s ? ou devraient l'?tre. > Par quelle ?trange fantaisie l'ing?nieur fut-il port? ? faire halte >au-dessus de la cit? parisienne? on ne sait. Ce qui est certain, c'est que >l'Albatros s'abaissa de mani?re ? ne la dominer que de quelques centaines >de pieds seulement. Robur sortit alors de sa cabine, et tout son personnel >vint respirer un peu de l'air ambiant sur la plate-forme. > Uncle Prudent et Phil Evans n'eurent garde de manquer l'excellente >occasion qui leur ?tait offerte. Tous deux, apr?s avoir quitt? leur roufle, >cherch?rent ? s'isoler, afin de pouvoir choisir l'instant le plus propice. >Il fallait surtout ?viter d'?tre vu. > L'Albatros, semblable ? un gigantesque scarab?e, allait doucement >au-dessus de la grande ville. Il parcourut la ligne des boulevards, si >brillamment ?clair?s alors par les appareils Edison. .... > From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 10 16:29:24 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:29:24 -0800 Subject: Tinga Tinga painting; Merekani cloth; Me Serengeti In-Reply-To: <3CF5162D.7B00BC4A.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > SERENGETI BEER BILLBOARD AD: > Me Serengeti > and lots of fun. ("Me" and not "my"?--ed.) Maybe it's meant to be read: Me, Serengeti, and lots of fun. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 10 18:30:19 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 13:30:19 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" (hoochy-coochy) Message-ID: > >... The Princess, Messrs Joinville and d'Aumale, with Mesdames > Liardiere,>and Hochet, danced the cancan, a sort of cachuca, > danced outside the gates > >of Paris, not without grace, but very free in its attitudes. .... > > And is "cachuca"/"cachucha" an ancestor of "hoochy-coochy"? > > An interesting passage. > > -- Doug Wilson > I was hoping that someone more learned than myself would reply to this. Assuming that hoochy coochy is a phrase like razzle dazzle, only one half of it needs to be meaningful. HDAS and OED agree that the first appearance of "hootchy-kootchy" is in 1890, as an expression, a greeting, used by a minstrel show performer known as Billy "hoochy-coochy" Rice. HDAS has it referring to the dance in 1895, the OED in 1898. George Odell, Annals of the New York Stage has more or less numerous references to Billy Rice in vols. 8-13, (the season of 1868/69) through volume 13 (the season of 1887/88). There are a few reference to Rice in vols. 14 and 15 (the last of the set), but he seems to hvae been not very active (in NYC anyway) in the early/mid 90s. The last reference is from the season of 1893/94. I didn't look at every one of these references, but all the ones I did look at are a simple lising of his name as part of the ensemble of "Haverly's Mammoth Minstrel" show or the other companies he was associated with. Odell's method of citing his sources seems ragged, but is actually fairly reliable, and tracing them might clarify Rice's use of hoochy coochy! . Before doing that, someone might check the clippings file at the NYPL's theatre division at Lincoln Center, that Barry has cited more than once. I myself don't expect to be at Lincoln Center's library anytime soon. The OED has "cachucha" from 1840, as a lively Spanish dance. the dictionary of the Real Accademia doesn't give dates or citations, but indicates that the cachucha is danced with castanets. So does the Oxford dictionary of Dance. Le Grand Robert (2001) has "cancan" from 1829 and "cachucha" from 1836, citing Paul de Kock ("Nice name he has" -- Molly Bloom) the International Dictionary of Dance (1998) has an entry on the cancan: "At the time, dance writers compared it with the chahut, a rowdy dance performed in Paris at public ball-rooms. . . ." Its entry on cachucha is a cross reference to an entry on the ballet Le diable boiteux, first performed in Paris in 1836: Fanny Elssler caused a sensation by dancing a cachucha in the role of Florinda. The best the NYTimes historical database can do is "Hootchy-eye", a place in Alaska, from November 30, 1897 and an element in "Chattahootchy", a place in the south. I limited the search to before 1901, but checked variant spellings. Where does this all leave us? Is there any chance that either Hootchie or Cootchie can be Indian words? GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 19:54:46 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 14:54:46 EST Subject: "our National Game" Message-ID: Checking for "Billy Rice" on Google, I came across the following Web site http://www1.shore.net/~persnav/adv5.htm which sells old advertising handbills etc. The Ray--Boston Theatre handbill dated January 30, 1884 Boston, MA: H.A. M'Glenen. Advertising sheet features Boston Theatre program: Thatcher, Primrose & West's Minstrels, Bones, Billy Rice; Tambo, George Primrose; satire on our National Game, Base Ball, with Captain Bostons, Billy Rice and Captain Providences Carl Rankin. Mr. Frank E. McNish, the comical wonder of the 19th century. pp. 23 x 31 cm. Paper handbill, printed on both sides, edges chipped, good. (5337) $14.00. Advertising It would appear that referring to baseball as "our National Game" goes way back. Interesting spelling "base ball" - Jim Landau "You don't have to be a murdered to contribute to the OED" - Jesse Sheidlower From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 10 20:32:13 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:32:13 EST Subject: antedating of "cancan" (hoochy-coochy) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/10/03 1:31:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, george.thompson at NYU.EDU writes: > HDAS and OED agree that the first appearance of "hootchy-kootchy" is in 1890, > as an expression, a greeting, used by a minstrel show performer known as > Billy "hoochy-coochy" Rice. A totally different history of "hoochy-koochy" can be found at URL http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm which claims that the "hoochy-coochy" was introduced to the United States at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 by an impresario named Sol Bloom and that it was entangled with the "belly dance", a name that also arose at the 1893 Exposition. "When you consider the tightly-corseted fashions worn by the American women of the Victorian era, it's no wonder the dancing prompted Sol Bloom to advertise the shows as "Belly Dancing", a name that in North America has stuck with Oriental dance for over a century, along with the unfortunate association with the titillating "hoochy koochy". Modern-day Oriental dance artists are still trying to dislodge that." The Web site presents some evidence that the term "hoochy-koochy" is derived from Algerian or Arabic song titled "Kradoutja," which may date to circa 1600. There is no mention on this Web site of minstrel shows. I don't know how to judge this theory, but it's interesting to read. > Is there any chance that either Hootchie or Cootchie can be Indian words? Atlanta Georgia is on the Chattahoochee River. It's certainly possible that Billy Rice or some other minstrel originally called himself "Chattahoochee Billy" or something similar. Web site URL http://www.visibledarkness.com/blog/mt/000140.php says this "the word ?hooch? comes from Alaska. ?The Indians of the archipelago distilled a drink they called hoochinoo? " - Jim Landau From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 10 20:36:33 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 12:36:33 -0800 Subject: Maasai Proverbs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > So what's the explanation for the goat dung proverb? > THat makes two of us (at least) wondering... Rima From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 10 22:21:29 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:21:29 -0500 Subject: antedating of "cancan" (hoochy-coochy) In-Reply-To: <155.1a1b4b9a.2b5087cd@aol.com> Message-ID: At 3:32 PM -0500 1/10/03, James A. Landau wrote: > >A totally different history of "hoochy-koochy" can be found at URL > http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm >which claims that the "hoochy-coochy" was introduced to the United States at >the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 by an impresario named Sol >Bloom and that it was entangled with I don't know. My etym(yth)ological motto is "Beware the Fair". >the "belly dance", a name that also >arose at the 1893 Exposition. > L From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Fri Jan 10 22:24:26 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:24:26 -0500 Subject: French leave In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Typical of the relations between the two countries, iIn France, the expression is "filer a l'anglaise"--'to run off in the English manner'. At 04:33 PM 1/6/03 -0500, you wrote: >One other: > >French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's debts > >Philip Trauring From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Fri Jan 10 22:33:20 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:33:20 -0500 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' In-Reply-To: <7391A47B-21DD-11D7-B5D4-000A9567113C@americandialect.org> Message-ID: Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. >I did have to do a lot of the usual polite "we don't invent the words, >m'am, we just note their existence" debunking. We also received many >letters from excited teachers, interested laypersons, people inquiring >about membership, several people trying to convince us to canonize a >word they've invented, and one asking about copyrighting a word >signifying the plural of nieces and nephews, something akin to >"children", a word which, alas, was not shared. From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 10 22:47:34 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:47:34 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <2209664F1C807643B7FA01C8230C0F994341DB@col-mailnode03.col. missouri.edu> Message-ID: >Here's an 1876 citation from Appleton's (MOA/umich version): > >THE writer of an article in a recent Saturday Review on Victor Hugo's " >Pendant l'Exil" amuses himself with "taking off" M. Hugo's style. Here is >a paragraph: " There are some wonderful pages about Paris toward the close >of the introductory chapter. Paris, he says, is the frontier of the >future, the visible frontier of the unknown, all the quantity of To-morrow >which may be visible in To-day. Whoso seeks for progress with his eyes >shall behold Paris. There are black cities; Paris is the City of Light. It >is impossible to get out of Paris; for every living man, though he knoweth >it not, hath Paris in the depths of his being. > >Also, there's one in an 1871 play by Robert Williams Buchanan, _The Drama >of Kings_, spoken by Napoleon: >"But what of Paris? What of the city of light?" > >Did Edison's lights come in around 1879 or so? There are many earlier >references to a City of Light (not Paris) where the reference is >religious. Is it biblical? >My guess would be that it went from an original religious reference (i.e., >heaven as the city of light) to something in line with the citation from >1847 where light = learning, enlightenment, etc. and maybe later to a more >literal sense of light(s). But it seems the sobriquet for Paris predated >the lightbulb sense (if I've got my dates right). Any metropolis will be a "city of light" (in the evening) to the bumpkin from the boonies, I suppose: no doubt Babylon amazed its visitors long ago with its torches or lamps. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" referred to a City of Light or so, didn't it? As for "Ville Lumie`re" = "Paris", here is an apparent memoir by Lord Frederick Hamilton ("The Days Before Yesterday", 1921 [I think]) (Project Gutenberg): ---------- The London of the "sixties" was a very dark and dingy place. The streets were sparingly lit with the dimmest of gas-jets set very far apart: the shop-windows made no display of lights, and the general effect was one of intense gloom. Until I was seven years old, I had never left the United Kingdom. We then all went to Paris for a fortnight, on our way to the Riviera. I well remember leaving London at 7 a.m. on a January morning, in the densest of fogs. So thick was the fog that the footman had to lead the horses all the way to Charing Cross Station. Ten hours later I found myself in a fairy city of clean white stone houses, literally blazing with light. I had never imagined such a beautiful, attractive place, and indeed the contrast between the dismal London of the "sixties" and this brilliant, glittering town was unbelievable. Paris certainly deserved the title of "La Ville Lumiere" in a literal sense. I like the French expression, "une ville ruisselante de lumiere," "a city dripping with light." That is an apt description of the Paris of the Second Empire, for it was hardly a manufacturing city then, and the great rim of outlying factories that now besmirch the white stone of its house fronts had not come into existence, the atmosphere being as clear as in the country. ---------- This is 1860's, apparently, as remembered much later. The electric lights would have appeared in public places right around 1880, I think. But before that of course there were gas street-lights, etc. -- Doug Wilson From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 10 23:14:41 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:14:41 -0800 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030110173040.00a230f0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: Niblings is a perfect word and needs to be promoted, especially by those of us whose nieces and nephews tend to visit us--especially when we have snacks available. Nibblings for the niblings. PR On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that > I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her > nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've > adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. From self at TOWSE.COM Sat Jan 11 00:22:42 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 16:22:42 -0800 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' Message-ID: Peter Richardson wrote: > > Niblings is a perfect word and needs to be promoted, especially by those > of us whose nieces and nephews tend to visit us--especially when we have > snacks available. Nibblings for the niblings. > > PR > > On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > > > Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that > > I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her > > nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've > > adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. Lovely word. Let's see if a few properly placed uses of "niblings" is enough. You know, if one person, just one person uses it they may think he's misspeaking. And if two people, two people use it, in harmony, they may think it's caprice and a nonce word. And three people use it, three, can you imagine, three people walking onto Oprah and talking about their niblings and walking out? They may think it's a neologism. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day on Montel and King and Oprah and WFUV and Rush and KFOG's Morning Show talking about their niblings and walking out? Friends they may think it's a word that's here to stay and worthy of the OED. Apologies to Arlo, Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 11 02:27:34 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 21:27:34 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Franglais" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030110170415.04a40b30@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: The OED's first use for "franglais" is 1964 (1959 in a French context). Here is an earlier citation: 1952 _Modern Language Journal_ XXXVI. 197 On principle, we do not like sentences of the type "Apprenez les first five lignes par coeur"; students already have too great a tendency to speak so-called "franglais." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 11 03:46:16 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 22:46:16 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Yalie" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The OED's first use of "Yalie" is dated 1969. Here are earlier examples from New York Times Historical: 1952 _N.Y. Times_ 27 Aug. 25 (crossword puzzle clue) Yalies. 1961 _N.Y. Times_ 12 Feb. S2 And as for those cruelly beset Yalies, what say we let them stand as symbols and examples to oncoming generations? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 11 03:54:07 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 22:54:07 -0500 Subject: French leave In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030110172100.00a4e300@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: >Typical of the relations between the two countries, iIn France, the >expression is "filer a l'anglaise"--'to run off in the English manner'. >At 04:33 PM 1/6/03 -0500, you wrote: >>One other: >> >>French Leave - leaving without saying goodbye, or without paying one's debts >> And let's not forget "French letter" vs. "capote [lit., overcoat] anglaise". I believe "the pox" is similar. L From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 11 07:24:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 02:24:28 -0500 Subject: Tanzania Cook Book (1978) Message-ID: TANZANIA COOKBOOK by Eva Pendaeli-Sarakikya Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House 165 pages, paperback, $10 First published 1978 Reprinted 1981 Reprinted 1996 Greetings from the Amsterdam Schipol Airport, during a six-hour layover. I bought this book at the Dar es Salaam airport before leaving...My last post should be "tingatinga" (one word), not "Tinga Tinga." It's from the person's name...The in-flight movies were SWEET HOME ALABAMA (which bashed New York City) and CHANGING LANES (which bashed Jewish lawyers). I almost walked out. I won't argue that Tanzanian is a major world cuisine, but here goes: Pg. 10: PUMPKIN SOUP (PUMPKIN MTORI)...BANANA SOUP (NDIZI MTORI). Pg. 13: MAMUMUNYA (GOURD) SAUCE. Pg. 14: BRINGAL SAUCE. Pg. 20: FRIED GOURDS (MAMUMUNYA)...MAIZE AND SPINACH MIX (NTUNYULA). Pg. 25: PEAS PILAU (MCHANYATO). Pg. 26: VEGETABLE SAMBUSAS...POTATO BAJIA. Pg. 32: MAGIMBI LEAVES (YAM LEAVES). Pg. 40: STUFFED RICE UGALI. Pg. 42: PLAIN NDOLO (MEAT IN YELLOW MAIZE). Pg. 44: KANDE WITH MEAT. Pg. 46: MEAT WITH CASSAVA (MUHOGO). Pg. 47: MAIZE BEANS WITH COCONUT MILK (KANDE ZA NAZI)...MEAT WITH DENGU (LENTILS). Pg. 49: NGANDI (GOAT'S MEAT WITH MASHED BANANAS). Pg. 53: CHOROKO IN MEAT CURRY. Pg. 57: MUTTON WITH NYANYA (BEAN LEAVES). Pg. 70: KUKU PAKA. Pg. 78: FISH MAKANDE (MAIZE). Pg. 79: GRILLED NGURU WITH SAUCE. Pg. 85: DAGAA AND COCONUT SPINACH. pG. 87: FRESH PRAWN CURRY (KAMBA). Pg. 94: "KIBURU" BANANA WITH BEANS (BROWN BEANS)...SHIRO BANANA WITH BEANS. Pg. 97: COCONUT BEANS (BOROHOA). Pg. 99: KISHUMBA (SWEET POTATOES WITH BEANS). Pg. 101: MSETO (RICE WITH LENTILS). Pg. 102: MBAAZI ROJO. Pg. 105: SWEET POTATOES AND KUNDE (COWPEAS). Pg. 109: MASANGU (MAIZE WITH GROUNDNUTS). Pg. 111: UGALI (STIFF PORRIDGE). Pg. 112: LUSHORO (MAIZE, BEANS AND MILK). Pg. 115: CHENGA. Pg. 116: KIMBOYA (MASHED CASSAVA WITH BEANS). Pg. 120: KITAWA (BANANA AND SOUR MILK). Pg. 133: STEWED MAPERA (GUAVAS). Pg. 134: GROUNDNUT KASHATA. Pg. 140: TAMBI (SWEET VERMICELLI). Pg. 142: PEPETA (FRIED RICE AND GROUNDNUTS). Pg. 143: MAHANDO. Pg. 144: VIMANDA (BANANA AND RICE BALLS). Pg. 149: BANANA CAKES (MABUMUNDA OR VIMANDA). Pg. 158: CARROT SAMBARO. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 11 11:01:29 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 06:01:29 -0500 Subject: Suasso's kookrecepten (2002) Message-ID: SUASSO'S KOOKRECEPTEN: EEN PORTUGEES-JOODS KOOKBOEK UIT DE 18E EEUW Drs R. N. Ferro Amsterdam: Amphora Books 96 pages, paperback, 17 euro 2002 An important "new" book for Jewish food. I bought this book today at the Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam. It is not available in English. The back cover has a nice blurb by Claudia Roden. There is a fine bibliography which includes "Stolz, J., _Kochbuch der Israelieten_, Karlsruhe 1815," the book that I was looking for while in Berlin last July. Menus from 1852, 1868, and 1916 are included. There are a few illustrations from Amsterdam Historisch Museum. Here are some items (more detail upon request--I'm in a rush to catch a plane): Pg. 44: Frikassee van schelvis. (More proof that Elvis was Jewish. FWIW, in Tanzania we saw Elvis & Marilyn postage stamps--ed.) Pg. 46: Amandel taart. Pg. 50: Engelse booles...Hollandse booles. Pg. 52: Binjees...Engelse snee...Spritz. Pg. 54: Marmelade van kwitten...Flambosen. Pg. 57: Blanc mangez. Pg. 58: Troochie. Pg. 61: Gusberi foel. Pg. 63: Appel dompling. Pg. 65: zonder titel. Pg. 66: Appelstruif...Brood poddng...Beschuit podding. Pg. 70: Amandel koek...Kransjes. Pg. 94: _Eiermatzes_ Tot slot een oorspronkelijk recept met matzes, dat niet in Suasso's boek staat, maar dat de familie ongetwijfeld heeft gekend. Het recept is afkomstig uit Rebekka WOlfs Kookboek voor Israelitische huisgezinnen (1881). Het taalgebruik van 1881. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 11 13:07:44 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 08:07:44 -0500 Subject: Frank Abate Column in N.Y. Times In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Tomorrow's guest "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine is written by Frank Abate. The column is about "How American presidents move, mangle and manipulate the language." Congratulations to Frank! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 11 18:21:14 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 13:21:14 EST Subject: "City of Light" Message-ID: In a message dated 01/10/2003 5:48:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, douglas at NB.NET writes: > The electric lights would have appeared in public places right around 1880, > I think. But before that of course there were gas street-lights, etc. You are confusing two different types of electric light. The carbon-arc light was invented by Sir Humphry Davy (178-1829) but did not become practical until the invention of steam-driven electrical generators in the 1860's. The carbon-arc light is far too bright for indoor use but was used for outdoor illumination starting in the 1860's. I believe the nickname "The Great White Way" for New York's Broadway refers to carbon-arc lighting. The fist incandescant light was invented by a German=American watchmaker and optician anmed Goebel about 1850. Goebel's light was not good enough for practical use and were used only for advertising novelties. A number of later inventors tackled the problem of the incandescant light. Edison made the first practical one---in combination with his development of a practical electrical generation and distribution system---in 1880. Hence it is certainly possible that the term "City of Light" referred to an urban area lit by carbon-arc lights as early as the 1860's---and the "Second Empire" lasted until 1870, so the timing fits. - Jim Landau From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 11 21:28:32 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 16:28:32 -0500 Subject: "our National Game" In-Reply-To: <6b.6d2b2bd.2b507f06@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #Interesting spelling "base ball" That's the spelling Jane Austen uses, whatever the rules may have been. #"You don't have to be a murdered to contribute to the OED" *** r *** , surely? # - Jesse Sheidlower -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sat Jan 11 21:57:30 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 16:57:30 -0500 Subject: the plural of 'nieces and nephews' In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030110173040.00a230f0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: #Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that #I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her #nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've #adopted the term, having nine such critters myself. I'm sure I've heard that before, in this sense, but I don't know where, and also as essentially somebody's coinage or family in-word. Good term, anyway. -- Mark M. From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Jan 11 23:40:50 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 18:40:50 -0500 Subject: "our National Game" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2003 at 04:28:32PM -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > #"You don't have to be a murdered to contribute to the OED" > *** r *** , surely? Well, works both ways, doesn't it ;-)? From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 12 01:31:44 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 20:31:44 -0500 Subject: Jawaiian Message-ID: Japanese-Hawaiian?? "Just overlook the trite Jawaiian rehash of C&K's classic "Sunflower" and a few other misfires, and buy a copy to help this important social service organization." On http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/18/features/records.html . -- Mark A. Mandel From douglas at NB.NET Sun Jan 12 01:00:11 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 20:00:11 -0500 Subject: "City of Light" In-Reply-To: <12.2b7d43d9.2b51ba9a@aol.com> Message-ID: >You are confusing two different types of electric light. > >The carbon-arc light was invented by Sir Humphry Davy (178-1829) but did not >become practical until the invention of steam-driven electrical generators in >the 1860's. The carbon-arc light is far too bright for indoor use but was >used for outdoor illumination starting in the 1860's. I believe the nickname >"The Great White Way" for New York's Broadway refers to carbon-arc lighting. > >The fist incandescant light was invented by a German=American watchmaker and >optician anmed Goebel about 1850. Goebel's light was not good enough for >practical use and were used only for advertising novelties. A number of >later inventors tackled the problem of the incandescant light. Edison made >the first practical one---in combination with his development of a practical >electrical generation and distribution system---in 1880. > >Hence it is certainly possible that the term "City of Light" referred to an >urban area lit by carbon-arc lights as early as the 1860's---and the "Second >Empire" lasted until 1870, so the timing fits. In a quick browse at the library, I've been unable to find any support for electric street lights much before 1880. A couple of sources claim the first public street lighting by electricity (with carbon-arc lamps, to be sure) was in Cleveland in April 1879. I see claims for electric store lighting in 1878 (Philadelphia), electric home lighting around 1881 (Morgans, Vanderbilts, et al.) (also an early experiment with battery-powered electric lights at home by a Massachusetts professor in 1859). Some Web sources claim 1878 for the first electric street lights in London. I suppose there could have been a few outdoor carbon-arc lamps around 1870 or earlier, maybe at the railroad stations or something like that, but I couldn't find any mention of such. Just a few of these might have been enough to amaze the visitors ... but then, a lot of bright gas lamps might have had the same or greater impact, and these were apparently present in Paris in the 1860's (BTW, I find one mention of lighting by piped natural gas around 400 BC [Beijing]!). An opinion from a Paris-area Frenchman: <> -- Doug Wilson From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 12 16:09:53 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 11:09:53 -0500 Subject: N Korean expression Message-ID: An item Drew Danielson brought to our attention in November perhaps gives color to today's declarations by N. Korea: >Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:48:58 -0500 >From: Drew Danielson ?Subject: kajigaedu-oh-itda / kajigaedutta >http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/11/18/nkorea.nukes/index.>html >Though the ethnically homogeneous South and North Koreans share the same >language, there are various differences in pronunciation across the >Korean peninsula. >The phrase used in the announcement is unclear. "Kajigaedu-oh-itda", >which means 'entitled to have' sounds very similar to "kajigaedutta", >which means to 'already possess.' >Officials say they are also wary because it is not the way North Korea >usually makes such important statements. >/snip >DREW DANIELSON . . >http://pcdrew.ece.cmu.edu/ >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++>++++++++++++++++++ >Clear writers assume, with a pessimism born of experience, that whatever >isn't plainly stated the reader will invariably misconstrue. > -- John R. Trimble ~~~~~~~~~~ A. Murie From TlhovwI at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 17:39:19 2003 From: TlhovwI at AOL.COM (Douglas Bigham) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 12:39:19 EST Subject: Shooting fish... Message-ID: There's a commercial out for a new PS2 game, some military shooter game, anyway, the point is that it's a bunch of college kids vs. a military officer. In the end the officer wins (obviously) and says: "It's like shooting fish in a bucket" I've never shot fish in anything but a barrel. I was wondering if anyone else was familiar with this "bucket" variant. -dsb Douglas S. Bigham University of Texas - Austin From jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA Sun Jan 12 18:57:06 2003 From: jemcinto at IDIRECT.CA (James McIntosh) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 13:57:06 -0500 Subject: Jawaiian In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:31 PM 1/11/03 -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: >Japanese-Hawaiian?? > >"Just overlook the trite Jawaiian rehash of C&K's classic "Sunflower" >and a few other misfires, and buy a copy to help this important social >service organization." > >On http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/18/features/records.html . > >-- Mark A. Mandel In my total ignorance, I would have assumed Jamaican/Hawaiian. From RonButters at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 19:00:52 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:00:52 EST Subject: Abate in TIMES Message-ID: Below Frank Abate reminded a few of his friends of his ON LANGUAGE column today. The subject is more or less the contributions of American presidents to lexicographical change and innovation in the United States. In my opinion it is an excellent column, and I recommend it to all. As he notes, you can read it free online at the TIMES website. ------------------------------------------------------- Just wanted to remind you to check out my guest column in the NY Times Sunday Magazine THIS Sunday, Jan 12, in Safire's "On Language" column.? I think you'll enjoy it.? You don't even need to buy a copy; it's free from the online edition. Frank Frank Abate Dictionaries International Consulting & Editorial Services for Reference Publications 860-349-5400? [USA access code: 1] abatefr at earthlink.net From mam at THEWORLD.COM Sun Jan 12 21:16:18 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:16:18 -0500 Subject: Jawaiian In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20030112132613.093f17b0@mail.look.ca> Message-ID: [Mark A Mandel] #>Japanese-Hawaiian?? #> #>"Just overlook the trite Jawaiian rehash of C&K's classic "Sunflower" #>and a few other misfires, and buy a copy to help this important social #>service organization." #> #>On http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/18/features/records.html . [James McIntosh] #In my total ignorance, I would have assumed Jamaican/Hawaiian. Just as likely a priori, but Japanese is more likely in Hawaii than it is in, say, Philadelphia. -- Mark M. From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Sun Jan 12 22:30:43 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:30:43 -0600 Subject: hand job as 'deception' Message-ID: I hope this is not already considered "settled", and I am beating a dead horse? (So to speak...) To my understanding, it is a procedure or promise that is supposed to get you all excited, but then ends up not being as good as you think it will be (or ending differently than expected). To some people, intercourse is the only "real sex", and a "hand job" is only a sad approximation of "real sex", and so "not real", such as the promises to "change", "sober up", "clean up" that never come to fruition. Oooh, I wish I could say I used that word on purpose. How about a "trojan horse": in the sense of an offering that is not all it seems to be? Anyway, I have heard it before, but not in mixed company (in societal terms), and it is not one I would choose to use on my own. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 10:57 PM Subject: hand job 'deception' In a message dated 1/7/03 8:09:03 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > (as opposed to taboo avoidance) > > On a recent NYPD blue, the head of the squad, Lt. Tony Rodriguez, > uses "hand job" in the sense of 'con job'. He's talking to his > ex-wife, who is trying to get off drugs, explaining how he had to > call in a lot of favors to get her into a detox center in Brooklyn. > "So if this is another hand job...", he says. To which she assures > him that no, she's really serious about quitting this time. Is this > use of the compound otherwise attested? Or were they just trying to > see if we were paying attention and/or trying to earn their "viewer > discretion" label? > > larry > Or maybe we are just supposed to think that Rodriguez is a bit of a poet, given to speaking metaphorically with metaphors that he creates himself. At any rate, I've never heard hand job 'deception' myself. Come to think about it, it isn't a very good metaphor, is it? That is to say, a "hand job" is not very likely to be a deception. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 22:44:18 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:44:18 -0500 Subject: Periodical Contents Index full text Message-ID: Greetings from New York City. I just gave my Mount Kilimanjaro T-shirt to David Shulman and dropped my Zanzibar spices off at Bonnie Slotnick's cookbook store. The newest database of 2003 here at NYU Bobst Library is the Periodicals Contents Index full text database, available on a trial basis. I've been trying it and it's surprisingly awful. As with the TIMES (LONDON) and the AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES, the thing is not done yet. Only a tiny portion of PCI is full text. And what is full text is some really obscure stuff. The British Journal of Aesthetics is full text! How did I ever sleep at night? FYI, this is from the NYU database list and PCI: FROM NYU: NYU Libraries: Trial Databases Help us evaluate new electronic databases and information sources. The following are available for trial: Periodical Contents Index / Full Text: Trial through Feb 15 Overall dates of coverage: 1770-1991 An online archive of digitized, full-image journal articles, PCI full-text currently provides access to the contents of 228 complete journal runs, providing access to over 3.9 million article pages and over 13 million article records for diverse fields in the humanities and socials sciences. Comments / evaluations to Jennifer Schwartz jennifer.schwartz at nyu.edu FROM PCI: Articles with full text You can filter your search to only display results where the article record has associated full text (page images). There are currently 220 journals ( 500,000 articles) with full text included in PCI Full Text. PCI Full Text is being enhanced to enable searching within the text of an article in addition to its citation. This functionality has been introduced for the following titles: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, British Journal of Aesthetics, British Journal of Social Work, Community Development Journal, Early Music and Yearbook of English Studies. This marks the beginning of our programme to include searchable full text for at least half of all forthcoming journals in PCI Full Text. From dsgood at VISI.COM Sun Jan 12 23:30:43 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:30:43 -0600 Subject: Dave Barry & Hoosier Message-ID: The Dave Barry column run in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press is largely about the word "Hoosier". In a previous column, he said that nobody knew what it meant. Readers in Indiana sent him the one, absolutely definitive origin of the word. He gives all seven. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 12 23:34:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:34:09 -0500 Subject: RLG Cultural Materials database Message-ID: RLG (Research Library Group) Cultural Materials database is another new database here at NYU. Like PCI, it has the potential to be enormous, but just sucks right now. It has materials from the Chicago Historical Society and the Chicago Daily News, so I typed in "Windy City." I got a blank screen. It has materials from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, so I typed in "Audrey Munson." I got a blank screen. I get a blank screen with whatever I type in. No slow little bar going up to 100%. Just a blank screen with "DONE" at the bottom. Here's what the RLG CULTURAL MATERIALS database supposedly contains: Welcome What's Inside How to use it Maps, photographs, objects, documents, art, sound, and motion. Archives, libraries, and museums from around the world are making their treasured collections available through RLG Cultural Materials. The content reflects the richness of the human experience through time ? high-quality digital versions of ancient maps, medieval manuscripts, handwritten letters, drawings, paintings, sound recordings, books, and moving images ? from prestigious memory institutions. Bringing these exceptional materials together encourages new kinds of multidisciplinary research. Credits CURRENT CONTRIBUTORS RLG Cultural Materials is expanding. As of November 27th, 2002 the service contains 142,553 works in 60 collections from the following contributors: American Antiquarian Society Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Chicago Historical Society Duke University Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Indiana University International Institute of Social History Library of Congress Linda Hall Library London School of Economics National Library of Australia National Library of Scotland National Library of Wales Natural History Museum Pennsylvania State University Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Institution. Archives of American Art University of Edinburgh University of Glasgow University of Minnesota University of Oxford University of Pennsylvania CURRENT COLLECTIONS American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, Ca. 1490 - 1920 American History Material Culture American Terra Cotta Company Photograph Collection Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar Artistic Homes of California By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 C. Hart Merriam Collection of Native American Photographs, ca. 1930-1968 California Faces: Selections from The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection California Gold Rush Mining Towns Photographed by Alma Lavenson, 1930-1968 Carl Van Vechten Photograph Collection Cased photographs and related images from The Bancroft Library Pictorial Collections Chairman Smiles: Posters from the former Soviet Union, Cuba and China Chicago Daily News negative collection Farber Gravestone Photograph Collection First Scottish Books Frank M. Hohenberger Photograph Collection Furness Shakespeare Library George E. Hyde & Co. Canning Operations, 1915-1921 Gweithiau celf mewn ffram / Framed works of art Hill & Adamson Collection Historic American Sheet Music Collection James D. Phelan Photograph Albums, 1902-1929 Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks Documenting San Francisco History and Law Enforcement, ca. 1895-1936 Last Letter of Mary Queen of Scots London School of Economics Pamphlet Collection Lone Mountain College Collection of Stereographs by Eadweard Muybridge, 1867-1880 MacGillivray Maps from the Library of Congress Maps of Scotland, 1560-1769 Medical History Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 National Library of Australia - Digitised Images from the Pictorial Collection Natural History: Digital Editions Out of this World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas Pennsylvania Bridges Collection, 1884-1915 Photographs from the Jack London Collection Photographs of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915 Photographs Related to the San Francisco Graft Trial, 1907-1908 Production Photographs from "Greed," Erich von Stroheim Production Adapted from Frank Norris' "McTeague," Produced for Goldwyn Film Corp. (February to October, 1923) Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material Roy D. Graves Pictorial Collection, ca. 1850-ca. 1970 Roy Flamm Photographs of Buildings Designed by Bernard Maybeck, ca. 1950-1955 Russian Children's Picture Books Scenic Collections Database Science and Technology Digital Editions Selections from the Marcel Breuer papers Simon Marmion illuminations from the Book of Hours Souvenir of the California Midwinter International Exposition 1894 Stereographs of the West from the Bancroft Library Pictorial Collection, ca. 1858-1906 Stereoscopic Images of India ca. 1900 Tebtunis Papyri Collection Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera Views of San Quentin Prison and Events, ca. 1925-1935 Views of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915 Walter Scott Digital Archive War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement, 1942-1945 Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive William Gedney Photographs and Writings William Gray Purcell Job Files Woodcuts From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 01:35:25 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:35:25 -0500 Subject: Kanga, Kikoi (1929) Message-ID: KENYA: FROM CHARTERED COMPANY TO CROWN COLONY THIRTY YEARS OF EXPLORATION AND ADMINISTRATION IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA by C. W. Hobley London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. First edition 1929 Second edition 1970 (The second edition seems to just have a new introduction--ed.) As I said, beating OED's "khanga" (1967) and "kikoi" (1942) is going to be tough. Pg. 65: These rock pools are called _ngurunga_. (Useful for "ngorongoro"--ed.) Pg. 114: The natives have stories of a marine monster which inhabits the lake and occasionallt attacks fishermen: it is called _lukwata_. (OED has this later, but another spelling earlier--ed.) Pg. 197: In organising a porter caravan, the first thing to be done was to secure the services of a native headman or _Mniapara_. (Not in the revised OED?--ed.) Pg. 210: The great armies of soldier ants, locally known by the name of _siafu_, cannot fail at some time or other to obtrude themselves on the notice of the resident in Africa. (OED has 1920 in brackets, then 1959--ed.) Pg. 245: _Cotton cloth_. It is generally known by the Swahili name of "_nguo_." The standard cloth was and is known as "Amerikani," and described in the trade as "grey sheeting." It was first introduced from the United States, hence its name. Pg. 246: A smaller unit was the "_mkono_," or the length of the forearm, thus eight "_mikono_" constitute a "_doti_." After the Amerikani, came cheaper and lighter types of unbleached cloths, such as "Bombei or Mombei" (Bombay). These, as the name implies, came from India; there was also a common rough cloth known as "_Shiti_;" these, however, never had a great vogue. "_Bafta_" is a finer bleached calico with a glaze on it, and it was useful for presents to chiefs and headmen; it is to-day mostly used for the long garment called the "_Kanzu_," worn by house servants and others. "_Kaniki_" is an indigo coloured cotton cloth packed in separate lengths and much favoured by women. "_Kangas_" are squares of thin cotton material with gaudy patterns roughly printed on them. They have still a great vogue among the native ladies on the coast, and the fashion changes according to the designs, well nigh monthly. They were very little used up-country in the old days. "_Bendera_" is the Swahili word for flag, and derives its name from the fact that it is the same colour as the flag of the Sultan of Zanzibar, viz. bright red. A small quantity was always carried, as it was appreciated by native headmen up-country, who liked either to make a turban of it or to drape it round their shoulders. "_Kikoi_" was a white cloth with a coloured border which was generally utilised for presents. There were different qualities, and the comparative values of each were well known. Pg. 246: _Beads_. (None of these are in the OED? I'll just list the names, if OED is interested--ed.) "_ushanga_" "_golabio_" "_maziwa_" (milk) "_maji bahari_" (sea-water) "_shadda_" Pg. 247: "_koja_" "_kikete_" "Mtinorok_" "_Ukuta_" "_Punda Milia_" (Swahili for zebra) "_Nsambia_" "_Bora_" The brass wire was called "_masanago_"... Its Swahili name was "_senengi_," and it was in great demand in Masailand for personal adornment. The thin iron chain called "_mkufu_"... They were called "_simbi_." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 03:09:31 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 22:09:31 -0500 Subject: Dill Pickle (1895); Neapolitan Ice Cream (1868) Message-ID: I was searching with the RLG Cultural Resources database. DILL PICKLE--The RLG shows a "Dill Pickle" song, about 1906. Merriam-Webster has 1904 for "dill pickle" and OED has 1906. It's found earlier in the NEW YORK TIMES, 14 December 1895, pg. 14: "Charles Sharpegger, Jr., importer of German dill pickles and manufacturer of sauerkraut, at 220 West Street." NEAPOLITAN ICE CREAM--M-W and OED have 1895. This is from the RLG database, which takes it from the Library of Congress's American Memory database (www.loc.gov): Neapolitan ice cream ... The subscriber takes this method to inform the lovers of rare confectionary, that he is manufacturing an entire new article of ice cream, which far surpasses anything in that line ever offered in this city ... E. S. Colton. [Boston 1868]. Colton, E. S. CREATED/PUBLISHED Boston, 1868. NOTES Printed Ephemera Collection; Portfolio 72, Folder 33a. SUBJECTS Advertisements--Massachusetts--Boston United States--Massachusetts--Boston. MEDIUM 1 p.; 20.5 x 14.5 cm. CALL NUMBER Portfolio 72, Folder 33a COLLECTION Broadsides, leaflets, and pamphlets from America and Europe DIGITAL ID rbpe 0720330a http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.0720330a From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Jan 13 15:13:03 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:13:03 -0500 Subject: regime change Message-ID: Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? Regards, David From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Mon Jan 13 16:52:58 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (pipo) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:52:58 -0600 Subject: regime change Message-ID: Isn't it _euphemization_? The degree of odiousness or non-odiousness is relative. The direction of euphemizing is always from odiousness to non-odious, though. Something can be bettter than bad, but still not be good (despite most definitions of _better_ ). R. Spears ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barnhart" To: Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 9:13 AM Subject: regime change > Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by > substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of > replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? > > Regards, > David From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 13 17:04:07 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 12:04:07 -0500 Subject: regime change In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by >substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of >replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? > >Regards, >David What did Orwell call it? Newspeak? In Bushtalk, "regime change" seems to mean /assassination/, primarily, and /coup d'etat/ only as a second choice. A. Murie From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 17:36:39 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 12:36:39 EST Subject: All that jazz Message-ID: Those who want the most up-to-date, thorough, and definitive information on the origin of the American Dialect Society's Word of the 20th Century should turn to the Dec. 2002-Jan. 2003 issue of _Comments on Etymology_, edited and published by Gerald Cohen. This issue has 87 pages of the earliest citations (including many in facsimile) and commentary. Also a bibliography. You can read the primary sources and decide for yourself. The only way you can get this is by writing Cohen at Dept. of Applied Arts and Cultural Studies; University of Missouri-Rolla; Rolla, Missouri 65401. Subscriptions are $15 per year for individuals, $19 for libraries and institutions. - Allan Metcalf From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 13 18:10:37 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:10:37 -0800 Subject: regime change In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >Is there linguistic term to describe the "sanitization" of policy by > >substituting a neutral term for an odious one, as in the case of > >replacing _regime change_ for _coup d'etat_ ? > > > >Regards, > >David > > What did Orwell call it? Newspeak? > In Bushtalk, "regime change" seems to mean /assassination/, > primarily, and > /coup d'etat/ only as a second choice. > A. Murie The term is one that means different things to different people. "Regime change" means that the only acceptable political outcomes are those where Saddam Hussein (and his sons and cronies) are no longer in power. The mechanism is open (assassination, revolution, coup, Vuitton bag and Air France ticket, and the 82nd Airborne are all options) and the preferred alternative left for the audience to infer. Also, the term predates the Bush Administration, having been used to describe US policy toward Iraq since 1998 and has been used in other contexts prior to that. It is a euphemism, but it is also a generalization that comprises a number of alternatives. Such phrasings are common in political-diplomatic contexts, allowing for the widest possible agreement with each party interpreting it slightly differently. I don't think there is a particular term for this, "obfuscation" isn't quite right. From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 13 19:13:20 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 14:13:20 -0500 Subject: All that jazz In-Reply-To: <72.28b63962.2b545327@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Those who want the most up-to-date, thorough, and definitive information on >the origin of the American Dialect Society's Word of the 20th Century should >turn to the Dec. 2002-Jan. 2003 issue of _Comments on Etymology_, edited and >published by Gerald Cohen. This issue has 87 pages of the earliest citations >(including many in facsimile) and commentary. Also a bibliography. You can >read the primary sources and decide for yourself. What is the word? Bethany From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 20:18:37 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:18:37 EST Subject: All that jazz Message-ID: << What is the word? >> Jazz. - Allan Metcalf From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Jan 13 20:22:52 2003 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:22:52 -0500 Subject: All that jazz In-Reply-To: <49.295ff228.2b54791d@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: ><< What is the word? >> > >Jazz. Thanks, Bethany From ReesA at UWYO.EDU Mon Jan 13 20:39:00 2003 From: ReesA at UWYO.EDU (Amanda Rees) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:39:00 -0700 Subject: Call For Participation: Great Plains Linguists and Literarians Message-ID: Call for Great Plains Scholars: I am presently editing a text on the Great Plains as part of an eight-volume American regional culture series to be published by Greenwood Press in 2004. This series is designed to be the definitive reference for American regionalism for years to come and works to establish as sense of place for the each region by exploring themes such as: Architecture, Arts, Ecology and the Environment, Ethnicity, Fashion, Film, Folklore, Food, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Religion, and Sports and Recreation. This Great Plains text will offer an accessible overview of each theme and its role within the region in order to provide a comprehensive sense of Great Plains culture. Our core audience will be high school and university students as well as public library patrons. I am looking for authors to assign the Linguistics and the Literature chapters. Word Length: 15,000 and bibliography Deadline: August 1st 2003 Illustrations and primary documents encouraged If you are interested in being a part of this exciting opportunity to articulate a sense of place for the Great Plains please submit your curriculum vitae for consideration to Amanda Rees at reesa at uwyo.edu indicating the chapter you are interested in writing. (Please note this is NOT a call for the submission of articles.) Amanda Rees Ph.D. Department of Geography and Recreation University of Wyoming PO Box 3371 Laramie Wyoming 82071-3371 E-mail: reesa at uwyo.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 13 21:01:09 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 16:01:09 -0500 Subject: Blue laws In-Reply-To: <3DF72298.27869.9FD5BA@localhost> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Michael Quinion wrote: > The following appears on a web site devoted to the rebuttal of > hoaxes (www.museumofhoaxes.com/bluelaws.html): "The term 'Blue > Laws' describes laws that regulate public morality. The phrase was > first used in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1762 titled 'The > Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy, Especially in > the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England'". This - if > correct - predates the usual first citation in the Reverend Samuel > Peters' work of 1782 entitled "A General History of Connecticut". I looked at the book in question, and it does indeed antedate the OED's 1781 first use: 1762 Noah Welles _The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy Especially in the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England_ 29 I have heard that some of them [polite gentlemen] begin to be ashamed of their blue laws at _New-Haven_. In a quick skimming of the book, the above was the only usage of _blue laws_ I saw. Unfortunately, there is nothing shedding light on the etymology, i.e., why are these laws "blue." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 13 22:21:33 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 17:21:33 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation Message-ID: SANDWICH GENERATION The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich generation." "Club sandwich" is not defined and my work is not mentioned. This is simply a spin-off of "sandwich generation," which Wordspy traces to the TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL of May 18, 1978, from the NEW YORK TIMES (that article is 10 May 1978, pg. C1). This (1974) is from OCLC WORLDCAT: Title: Coping with aged parents Corp Author(s): Hospital Satellite Network. ; Primark Corporation. ; Domus Design Studio, Inc. Publication: [Los Angeles, Calif.] :; Hospital Satellite Network, Year: 1974 Description: 1 videocassette (60 min.) :; sd., col. ;; 1/2 in. Language: English Abstract: Dr. T. Franklin Williams punctures some of the myths and describes stresses associated with growing old. He addresses the challenges of the "sandwich generation"; middle-aged people caught between raising their own children and caring for aging parents. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Aging parents. System Info: VHS. Note(s): Presented by Primark Corporation. Responsibility: producer, Arna Vodenos ; director, Mark Marqua ; a Domus Design Studio, Inc., Production. Photography, Bill Stafford. Material Type: Projected image (pgr); Videorecording (vid); VHS tape (vhs) Document Type: Visual Material Entry: 19880107 Update: 20020817 Accession No: OCLC: 17315744 Database: WorldCat --------------------------------------------------------------- "BIG APPLE" BITES Timothy "Speed" Levitch, a quirky, when-he's-in-the-mood-for-working NYC tour guide, got a small measure of fame when an independent feature film was made about his life. He's appeared on the Conan O'Brien show several times, and many other tv shows--something that's never happened to me. Conan likes the fact that Levitch is a nutjob. His unpublishable book was finally published. SPEEDOLOGY: SPEED ON NEW YORK ON SPEED by Timothy "Speed" Levitch New York: Context Books 2002 Pg. 17: Jazz musicians in the Depression era referred to New York City as the "Big Apple" on their concert tour itineraries that were filled with cities they called apples. All the cities they visited and serenaded provided for them life, knowledge, and juiciness, but New York City was the juiciest, most incredible fiasco. When I left on vacation, I read the FINANCIAL TIMES on the airplane. A letter to the editor stated that New York City had won the American 2012 Olympics bid because everyone felt sorry for it. This wasn't true, so I wrote a letter to the FT editor. New York City, as the Olympic comittee had stated, won the bid on the merits. I added that New York City is my home, that I'm the person who solved the Big Apple, and that I welcome the Olympics to the Big Apple in 2012. (The apple could be used for the Olympic rings symbol.) When I got home late on Saturday night, I saw that the FT had left a message on my answering machine. The line "solved the Big Apple" didn't make any sense to them. It would be taken out of my letter. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 14 02:30:56 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 20:30:56 -0600 Subject: All that jazz Message-ID: My thanks to Allan Metcalf for his kind words. I hasten to add that the "jazz" treatment represents the work of many scholars, and that I give due credit throughout the issue. These include ads-l members Barry Popik, Rudolph Troike, Jan Ivarsson, Paul Johnson, Jesse Sheidlower, George Thompson, Douglas Wilson' pioneering researchers of the term "jazz" Peter Tamony and Dick Holbrook; David Shulman for his refutation of the 1909 attestation; Bruce Vermazen for his work on Art Hickman (would anyone have Bruce Vermazen's e-mail address?). I recently noticed a March 30, 2001 e-mail from Gareth Branwyn, which should have been included. I'll have it appear in the next rewrite of the treatment. This is an ongoing project. The above list is not complete, but it helps illustrate that the present project is very much a team effort. Gerald Cohen >At 12:36 PM -0500 1/13/03, AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: >Those who want the most up-to-date, thorough, and definitive information on >the origin of the American Dialect Society's Word of the 20th Century should >turn to the Dec. 2002-Jan. 2003 issue of _Comments on Etymology_, edited and >published by Gerald Cohen. This issue has 87 pages of the earliest citations >(including many in facsimile) and commentary. Also a bibliography. You can >read the primary sources and decide for yourself. > >The only way you can get this is by writing Cohen at Dept. of Applied Arts >and Cultural Studies; University of Missouri-Rolla; Rolla, Missouri 65401. >Subscriptions are $15 per year for individuals, $19 for libraries and >institutions. > >- Allan Metcalf From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 06:25:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 01:25:52 EST Subject: Swahili Slang (1958, 1962); Swahili Glossary (1896) Message-ID: A pre-LION KING "Hakuna Matata" isn't here, but it's still interesting. Some (mostly food) excerpts from two articles: December 1958, TANGANYIKA NOTES AND RECORDS, pp. 250-254. SWAHILI SLANG by R. H. Glover. Pg. 251: Amongst the names given to various types of food, there is a noticeable liking for reduplication which serves to give the impression of succulent deliciousness. "Mapochopocho" is used for food in general. It is often used in pleasureable anticipation when someone goes off to look for food at the end of a tiring day. "Shatashata" is used for any particularly sweet food. Shata is the lees of coconut oil in which such food would normally be cooked. A similar reduplication can be seen in "mchuzi wa rojorojo" which means particularly thick gravy. A descriptive phrase for this sort of gravy is "mchuzi wa kukata na shoka" which indicates that the gravy is so thick that you would require an axe to cut through it. This inevitably reminds one of the Army cup of strong tea in which you could stand up a teaspoon. Pg. 253: It is perhaps not surprising that the richest variety of slang is used in relation to women. Much of it hardly bears recording here. A desirable woman is known variously as a "koo," "mchipukizi," "gashi," "mtoto shoo" or "toto shuuweya." The word "koo" is generally used when referring to prostitutes. Mchipukizi is derived from the verb "kuchipua"--to sprout; it is used particularly to describe a young girl, but carries with it an implication of plumpness. "Gashi" is a corruption from the Japanese "Gaisha." It is thought to have originated in coastal ports amongst the guides taking round tourists. "Shoo" is also used to describe the bonnet of a car--the manufacturer's show piece. Its use in the present context is readily understandable. (...) "Mchakalamu" is used to describe a forward girl--one who is quick at repartee. The derivation is from the noun "kalamu"--a pencil, i.e. she is as sharp as a pencil. The phrase "maziwa dodo" is used to describe a young woman's breasts. "Dodo" is also used for the largest of the two types of mango. The smaller variety is known as sindano--literally a needle. There is an odd contradiction in this as "dodo" is also an adjectival root that appears in many Bantu languages and means small. (Mango?..Compare with the Cuban slang for papaya--ed.) Mach-September 1962, TANGANYIKA NOTES AND RECORDS, pp. 205-206. A NOTE ON SCHOOL SLANG by P. H. C. Clarke Pg. 205: "Discus" and "Javelin" are round and long _maandazi_ (small fried cakes of wheat flour and sugar) sold by local women at the school. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY: BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO MOUNT KENYA AND LAKE BARINGO by J. W. Gregory London: Frank Cass & Co. First edition 1896 New impression 1968 Pg. 409: GLOSSARY OF NATIVE WORDS AND TECHNICAL TERMS (I'll list just the Swahili--ed.) _Askari_ (Suah.), a sergeant in a caravan of Zanzibari. _Barra_ (Suah.), open-grass-covered country, in contradistinction to cultivated areas and forests. _Boma_ (Suah.), a stockade or zeriba, generally made of thorn bush. _Bwana_ (Suah.), master. _Domo_ (Suah.), a door, used also by Zanzibari for a mountain pass. _Hongo_ (Suah.), taz levied by a tribe for right of passage through the country. _Kanzu_ (Suah.), the long rober worn by Arabs and better-class Suahili. _Kiringozi_ (Suah.), the guide of a caravan. _Kiriboto_ (Suah.), the name of the Arab and Beluchi soldiers of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Pg. 410: _Mau_ (Suah.), a canoe. _Mhogo_ (Suah.), cassava, the root of native arrowroot. _Munipara_ (Suah.), a native headman. _Mvita_ (Suah.), one of the native names of Mombasa. The term means "battle." _Posho_ (Suah.), a day's food allowance. _Potiss_ (Suah.), a native food made of boiled flour. _Safari_ (Suah.), a journey or a caravan. _Shadda_ (Suah.), ten strings of beads, a Suahili measure of value. _Shamba_ (Suah.), a plantation or cultivated field. _Shauri_ (Suah.), a conference. _Taenda_ (Suah.), the order to "start." _Waschenzi_ (Suah.), a term applied by Zanzibari to up-country natives. It means "savages." It is sometimes used in a more limited sense for a tribe near Bagamoyo. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 16:15:31 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:15:31 -0500 Subject: Blue laws In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 4:01 PM -0500 1/13/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Michael Quinion wrote: > >> The following appears on a web site devoted to the rebuttal of >> hoaxes (www.museumofhoaxes.com/bluelaws.html): "The term 'Blue >> Laws' describes laws that regulate public morality. The phrase was >> first used in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1762 titled 'The >> Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy, Especially in >> the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England'". This - if >> correct - predates the usual first citation in the Reverend Samuel >> Peters' work of 1782 entitled "A General History of Connecticut". > >I looked at the book in question, and it does indeed antedate the OED's >1781 first use: > >1762 Noah Welles _The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy >Especially in the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England_ 29 I >have heard that some of them [polite gentlemen] begin to be ashamed of >their blue laws at _New-Haven_. > So even if we can't claim the first pizza (from Pepe's) or hamburgers (from Louis' Lunch), we still have priority on (hot) dogs, frisbees, and blue laws. (I think there might have been other firsts that Barry found in the Yale Record, but I can't recall them at the moment.) We still can't buy beer (or anything else alcoholic) on Sundays, and the supermarkets put discreet sheets to shield the beer from sight so we can't even THINK about buying (or presumably drinking) it. (No alcohol sales after 8p.m. in New Haven, or the rest of Connecticut, either, but I'm not sure whether that counts as a blue law--for me, the term is just applicable to Sunday laws.) Other (non-alcohol-related) blue laws are no longer in effect, and bars are open on Sunday (especially during football season). Larry P.S. I recall that decades ago stores larger than some specified size were not allowed to be open on Sundays, and that these "blue laws" were kept in force by the smaller mom-and-pop stores that could stay in business by virtue [no pun intended] of these blue laws, but I guess eventually the larger stores threw their economic muscle around and had the regulations repealed, here and in other eastern states. -- From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 16:37:33 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:37:33 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation In-Reply-To: <06876A62.5CD234DB.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: >SANDWICH GENERATION > > The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich >generation." "Club sandwich" is not defined and my work is not >mentioned. > This is simply a spin-off of "sandwich generation," which Wordspy >traces to the TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL of May 18, 1978, from the NEW >YORK TIMES (that article is 10 May 1978, pg. C1). If I were to be considered a member of the sandwich generation, I'd make sure I had access to the alternatives to club sandwiches featured on a wonderful PBS show some of you may have caught the other night. It was sort of an American Tongue(s) Sandwich show, covering regional specialties ranging from the pastramis of Katz's Deli on New York's lower East Side to the Muffulettas and Po' Boys of New Orleans to some other delicious looking concoctions in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and elsewhere. (I think I'll take a pass on Louisville's Hot Brown, unless it's better than it looks and sounds--dInIs?) Somehow, talking about their regional specialties really seemed to accentuate the regional dialects of the speakers (sandwich preparers and eaters) involved. It's worth recording for class use if they replay it. Larry -- From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 16:58:10 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:58:10 EST Subject: Sandwich Generation Message-ID: In a message dated 1/14/03 11:36:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich > >generation." If "sandwich generation" refers to people sandwiched in between caring for their children and caring for their parents, then I am baffled what "club sandwich generation" might refer to, since a "club sandwich" has three slices of bread and two layers of filling. >. (I think I'll take a pass on Louisville's Hot Brown I have a vague recollection that the name refers not to the appearance of the dish but rather to its having been originated in Louisville's Brown Hotel. - Jim Landau From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 14 17:01:47 2003 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 09:01:47 -0800 Subject: Blue laws In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > P.S. I recall that decades ago stores larger than > some specified > size were not allowed to be open on Sundays, and > that these "blue > laws" were kept in force by the smaller mom-and-pop > stores that could > stay in business by virtue [no pun intended] of > these blue laws, but > I guess eventually the larger stores threw their > economic muscle > around and had the regulations repealed, here and in > other eastern > states. > -- In Bergen county, NJ--home of Paramus--there are general "no shopping" blue laws so that no stores are suppposed to be open on Sunday. However, some stores open anyway. I've heard the fine is only $25.00. These laws stay on the books apparently because residents want them to keep traffic down. It's almost impossible to get anywhere on 17 on a Saturday in a reasonable amount of time. Ed __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 17:16:26 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 12:16:26 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation In-Reply-To: <8.32bc4cd9.2b559ba2@aol.com> Message-ID: At 11:58 AM -0500 1/14/03, James A. Landau wrote: >In a message dated 1/14/03 11:36:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, >laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > >. (I think I'll take a pass on Louisville's Hot Brown > >I have a vague recollection that the name refers not to the appearance of the >dish but rather to its having been originated in Louisville's Brown Hotel. > Indeed, that connection was stressed, and the sandwich itself was white. But not terribly appealing, in my view, whatever the color. Especially compared with the competition from Pittsburgh and New Orleans. -- From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Jan 14 19:44:00 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:44:00 -0800 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: <1086044.1042551303@dhcp-073-091.ellis.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: > 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' > instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned > that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on > accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just > NW? > _________________________________________ If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. allen maberry at u.washington.edu From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Tue Jan 14 19:47:37 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:47:37 -0800 Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: David: > 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" > was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned > Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. > Any insight from the group? > 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' > instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned > that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on > accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just > NW? I don't know if "on accident" is specifically West Coast or Pacific NW, but I *do* know it's been around for a while. My daughter used to say "on accident" all the time when she was growing up. I think she still does. And she lives in California now. Anne G From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Tue Jan 14 18:35:03 2003 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 13:35:03 -0500 Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. Any insight from the group? 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just NW? _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Tue Jan 14 19:55:57 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 14:55:57 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And he is to appear again to defend the ADS selections against the recommendations "The Next Big Thing" people have got from their audience. dInIs PS: Gracefully? Thanks. Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big Thing"? Or are people suffocating under the avalanche of counter proposals for the WOTY submitted by the listeners to that program? It came on on the heels of NPR's ATC here last night. When I heard ADS mentioned in the headlines, I left it running, and by golly, there was dInIs submitting gracefully to a ribbing over "weapons of mass destruction." Incredulity was expressed at the choice of WMD over the also-nominated "to google." Target audience, what? 15-25? A. Murie From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Tue Jan 14 19:53:29 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 13:53:29 -0600 Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: Thos are two of the idiolectal oddities I first noticed in a very close college friend from Southern Michigan, when I first met him at our MN college (I grew up in St Paul). They both threw me to some extent, but the second much more than the first. I doubt the f**king-a one is specific to the NE, though I suppose it is possible it could have started there over fifty years ago? Two more oddities in his speech and that of others that I first encountered in college are the "positive anymore" ("We all do it that way anymore."), and "all of a suddenly", instead of either "all of a sudden" or "suddenly". I would have written off this latter one to misspeaking, but he used it with extreme consistency, and still does almost fifteen years later. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bergdahl" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 12:35 PM Subject: F**king-A and on accident > 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" > was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned > Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. > Any insight from the group? > 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' > instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned > that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on > accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just > NW? > _________________________________________ > "We are all New Yorkers" > --Dominique Moisi > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Jan 14 19:29:25 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 14:29:25 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio Message-ID: Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big Thing"? Or are people suffocating under the avalanche of counter proposals for the WOTY submitted by the listeners to that program? It came on on the heels of NPR's ATC here last night. When I heard ADS mentioned in the headlines, I left it running, and by golly, there was dInIs submitting gracefully to a ribbing over "weapons of mass destruction." Incredulity was expressed at the choice of WMD over the also-nominated "to google." Target audience, what? 15-25? A. Murie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 14 20:05:31 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 15:05:31 -0500 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:44 AM -0800 1/14/03, A. Maberry wrote: >On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: >> 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' >> instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned >> that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on >> accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just >> NW? >> _________________________________________ > >If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. >I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on >accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have >moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might >hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. > Yes, we talked about this a coon's age (or maybe even donkey's years) ago, and concluded, or at least some of us did, that it was more a generational thing than a regional one. Kids say "on accident" a whole lot, I assume by analogy with "on purpose". Maybe more Northwesterners (or emigres to the NW) are forever young and retain the usage longer. L -- From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Tue Jan 14 20:52:53 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 15:52:53 -0500 Subject: Sandwich Generation Message-ID: In the sandwich part of "sandwich generation," the two layers of bread represent a person's children and parents, while the filling represents the person. In "club sandwich generation" (also called "triple decker generation"), the third slice of bread represents the person's grandchildren. The multiple layers of filling still represent the person (perhaps suggesting, not to put too fine a point on it, the multiple responsibilities such a person incurs). Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "James A. Landau" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 11:58 AM Subject: Re: Sandwich Generation > In a message dated 1/14/03 11:36:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, > laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > > > The Paul McFedries Wordspy word-of-the-day is "club sandwich > > >generation." > > If "sandwich generation" refers to people sandwiched in between caring for > their children and caring for their parents, then I am baffled what "club > sandwich generation" might refer to, since a "club sandwich" has three slices > of bread and two layers of filling. From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 22:10:11 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 17:10:11 EST Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: My impression, when I first heard F**cking-A at Columbia in the late 60s, was that it was short for "F**cking-Ass." Never heard any connection to Flying-A, nor did I make such a connection, even though I was familiar with Flying-A gasoline. That was in fact a well-known Northeast brand of the Tidewater Oil Co. Steve Boatti From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Tue Jan 14 22:47:56 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 14:47:56 -0800 Subject: F**king-A and on accident In-Reply-To: <1086044.1042551303@dhcp-073-091.ellis.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I've never heard 'on accident' here in Vancouver, nor in Seattle perhaps this is prevalent only in a specific age group? An age group that goes to a school where some teachers don't correct obvious grammatical mistakes ;) When I read 'I went to the wrong classroom on accident' I feel that this implies 'to make it look by accident, but it was premeditated' cheers from sunny and warm Vancouver BC, Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of David Bergdahl Sent: January 14, 2003 10:35 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: F**king-A and on accident 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. Any insight from the group? 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it west coast or just NW? _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 14 23:11:09 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 18:11:09 EST Subject: F**king-A and on accident Message-ID: Perhaps some people use "on accident" by analogy to "on purpose." Steve Boatti From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 14 23:34:12 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 15:34:12 -0800 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 11:44 AM -0800 "A. Maberry" wrote: > On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: >> 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' >> instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I >> mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong >> classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it >> west coast or just NW? >> _________________________________________ > > If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. > I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on > accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have > moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might > hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu I haven't heard it, either, and I think it would have got my attention if I had. Yes, maybe it's all them furriners that's been a-movin' up from California. Or maybe it's a new usage among the young, and Allen and I have never heard it because we only talk with troglodytes like ourselves. (Oops--'scuse me, Allen. I meant to say, "like MYself.") Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Jan 15 01:02:25 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 20:02:25 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. --Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bergdahl" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 1:35 PM Subject: F**king-A and on accident 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. Any insight from the group? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 02:46:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 21:46:16 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: Early English Books Online has been available for a while now. I've been waiting, and I checked the NYPL's databases today. EEBO is now full-text searchable! However, I wouldn't rely on it. Spellings can vary, as will be seen below. If you see a book of interest, it's probably going to be short, anyway. Read the whole thing! Especially if it's a cookbook and it has a recipe index. Here are two terms. MAIDES OF HONOR The revised OED has 1595. Is it Maid of Honour, or Maid of Honor, or Maids of Honor, or Maids of Honour, or Maides of Honour, or Maides of Honor...? It is also the name of a food. EEBO has it from Robert Greene (1558?-1592), EUPHUES HIS CENSURE TO PHILAUTUS (1587), "next morning one of her maides of honor being stricktlie examined, confssed that..." HIGH HOLY DAYES Jim Landau wrote that this is not in the OED. Landau submitted 1923. EEBO has Alexander Goughe, THE QUEEN (1653), "or at a feast upon high holy dayes, three red Sprats in a dish..." LITERATURE ONLINE has Thomas D'Urfey, THE RISE AND FALL OF MASSANIELLO, part ii (1700), "...that your Ladyship reserves for high Holy-days..." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 03:18:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:18:41 EST Subject: Twang-and-Bang Message-ID: Terri Clark's latest studio release, the earthy "Pain to Kill," is full of twang 'n' bang. --NEW YORK POST, 14 January 2003, pg. 54. Like "rock 'n' roll," only countrified. It's been said of Shania Twain and Faith Hill, and now of Terri Clark. Can a guy "twang-and-bang"? There aren't a whole lot of hits just yet, but this is from Google Groups: From: RKerseyJr (rkerseyjr at aol.com) Subject: Re: Shania & Faith in "EW"! View: Complete Thread (43 articles) Original Format Newsgroups: rec.music.country.western Date: 2002-09-15 11:16:53 PST The print of the copy of the Shania article is kind of small.Here's what the whole thing says:THE HOOK In praise of the tortoise: While Eminem was spouting off about hismother and Britney was writhing with serpents, the top-knotted and flat-tummied queen of country-pop crossover has been quietly shoring up her strength as a commercial colossus. Shania?s last album, 1997? s Come On Over, has sold 19 million copies in the U.S. alone, tying it for the sixth hugest album inAmerican music history. Still for the past two years or so, fans haven?theard a peep; In 1999 Twain and her husband/producer, the reclusive power-riff warlock Robert John ?Mutt? Lange, moved to a chateau in Switzerland (yes,Switzerland), where they had a baby (son Eja) and tinkered away at their next twang-and-bang manifesto. From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 03:52:44 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:52:44 EST Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: A Chairde: I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words ?th (pronounced Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and b?al (pron. beeul), for the mouth of a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. Big Apple Big ?th B?al Big Crossing at the Mouth (of the Rivers) New York City. ?th: Ford; a river crossing. B?al: Mouth (of a river). +++ Belfast: B?al Feirste: Mouth of the Farset River; or approach to the sandbank/river Farset. B?al can also mean ?approach to a river crossing place ? as well as the "mouth" of a river or a person. Dublin: Baile ?tha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles (of the Liffey river). New York: The Big ?th B?al: The Big Ford (at the) Mouth (of the Hudson and East rivers). New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the Irish names for Belfast and Dublin, ?th and B?al. The "Big" came naturally. A significant number of the millions of Irish speaking immigrants who came through The Big Apple, over the past five hundred years, were bilingual in Irish and Hiberno-English. +++ The Big Onion is another Irish monicker for NYC. The Big Onion The Big Anonn (to an ear that hears in English, it sounds like onion) Anonn? Over, to the other side. Anonn thar abhainn, over, to the other side of, the river. Anonn go Meirice?, over to America Anonn go Bhig ?th B?il ... came my own family from the Irish Gaeltacht. I would welcome feedback. These etymologies are part of a project I have just completed involving the Irish and Gaelic languages in North America. I am a new list member and the director of the Irish Studies Program at New College of California in San Francisco. I am publishing a series of articles this spring and summer and would like to correspond with people who have an interest in the NYC dialect, particularly the old north Brooklyn dialect. My other native tongue. Slan agus Beannachtai, Daniel Cassidy Director An L?ann ?ireannach The Irish Studies Program New College of California San Francisco From monickels at MAC.COM Wed Jan 15 04:32:13 2003 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 23:32:13 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Le Tuesday, 14 Jan 2003, ? 14:29 America/New_York, sagehen a ?crit : > Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big > Thing"? I didn't hear it this week. Was that the slot normally occupied by Erin McKean? From monickels at MAC.COM Wed Jan 15 04:34:47 2003 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 23:34:47 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Le Tuesday, 14 Jan 2003, ? 14:55 America/New_York, Dennis R. Preston a ?crit : > And he is to appear again to defend the ADS selections against the > recommendations "The Next Big Thing" people have got from their > audience. PS: The first episode is available on The Next Big Thing web site in RealAudio format: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/tnbt/episodes/01122003/ From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 05:17:14 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:17:14 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/14/03 8:02:15 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: > I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. > I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). > > In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, > "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII.? But those "60+" NE'ders weren't > around in WWII to know that, were they?? They probably associate the two > because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. > > --Sam Clements > I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my life heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. The full phrase from the 1950s Iowa high school I attended was "Fuck-an-A John!" This meant about what "Right on!" meant in the 1970s, and translates roughly into what I hear as "Damn Straight" today. From highbob at MINDSPRING.COM Wed Jan 15 06:13:33 2003 From: highbob at MINDSPRING.COM (Bob Haas) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 01:13:33 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_F**king-A?= In-Reply-To: <42.33a246f4.2b5648da@aol.com> Message-ID: Ron et al, Take a look at the movie adaptation of _The Right Stuff_. The phrase is a favorite of Gus Grissom's, as portrayed by Fred Ward. The final "g" is not there, but it's seems pretty clear that he's saying "Fuckin'-A, brother!" in one moment of solidarity with his Mercury Astronaut peers. I'd check in my copy of Wolfe's original text, but I think my brother has it. Fuckin'-A! As for the translation, yeah, "damn, straight," or "Hell, yeah" or any equivalent seems correct. Cheers, Bob On Wednesday, January 15, 2003, at 12:17 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my > life > heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. The full phrase > from the > 1950s Iowa high school I attended was "Fuck-an-A John!" This meant > about what > "Right on!" meant in the 1970s, and translates roughly into what I > hear as > "Damn Straight" today. "Wherever you go, there you are." Bob Haas Department of English High Point University From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 15 07:39:10 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 02:39:10 -0500 Subject: on accident Message-ID: >maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU,Net writes: >If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. >I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on >accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people >have >moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might >hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. >allen >maberry at u.washington.edu Yes, it did come up a couple of years ago. The first reference in the archives is this from 2000: This morning an AP story on the Simpsons, reprinted in our student newspaper, contained the following description of Maggie Simpson: "Perpetual infant best known for shooting Monty Burns, on accident." I had first heard the phrase "on accident" in the early '80s from my son, then 12 or so. It struck me then as formed on the analogy of "on purpose", (although why that wouldn't have change to "by purpose" on analogy to "by accident" I can't imagine). Today was the first time I'd seen it in print, and the timing was perfect since I was talking to my HEL class today about analogic change. The students in the class are all Midwestern, white, and in their early twenties. I asked how many would normally say "on accident" and nearly every hand went up, About 3/4 of them said they would never say "by accident" and some weren't even familiar with it. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (1989) has entries for "accidentally" and "on" but not "on accident." I've just done a search of the ADS-L archives for the phrase and didn't come up with anything. On the basis of my limited experience, then, I'd guess that the change started in the Midwest (we moved to Indiana from Atlanta in 1980 and my children didn't say "on accident" before that) in the late 70s to early 80s and has pretty much taken over in this population. Does anyone know of other references to the phrase, its sources and its spread? Herb Stahlke AND I have been following the ADS discussion of 'on accident' with some interest since I have been studying it for the past several years and am in the process of writing up a paper on it. I have data collected in Indiana, Michigan, and California, with speakers of all ages and actually from many different states. There is definitely an age correlation in both usage and acceptance, and I have found it in every region studied so far, but I can't give all the details here. Because of the discussion, I am going to run it in Georgia too. I have been trying to get the analysis done over the past week since everyone started discussing it and will attempt to have it out this spring. Leslie Barratt ejlesbb at root.indstate.edu Indiana State University AND Ron Butters said: > > I just asked two guys from Chicago about this (one is actually from central > Micihgan, age about 30; the other is 40). > > They are both aware of BOTH usages and seem to find a semantic distinction > between them: BY ACCIDENT means "unintentionally" in a broad sense; ON > ACCIDENT refers to some physical incident in which someone is culpible: BY > ACCIDENT I CAME ACROSS SOME FAMILY JEWELS HIDDENT IN A WALL but ON ACCIDENT I > TIPPED OVER THE DRINK. > This sounds absolutely right to me. I think it further underscores the relation to 'on purpose', since the kinds of things that get done 'on acci- dent' can also get done 'on purpose', but those that happen 'by accident' can't necessarily _happen_ 'on purpose'. Lynne Just to cite a couple. Regards, David Barnhart From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 15 07:45:01 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 02:45:01 -0500 Subject: on accident Message-ID: Darn it! I pushed the send button before I meant to. My own reply to this is here: _by accident_ is sufficiently transparent (i.e. non-idiomatic) to be used by W3 in its definition 2 of _accidentally_. _by accident_ is not entered in dictionaries generally: W3, W2, Encarta, CD, _by accident_ is, however, an entry in WBD, _by accident_ is in a sentence in the appropriate definition in Random House, OED, AHD, The print examples in my collection are from west of the Mississippi R. When I searched _on accident_ on www if found that the examples were more numerous than in print resources of Nexis. Is this grounds for considering it generational? Following are some examples of _on accident_: A store clerk working when Moya was killed said a man who had been in the store with Moya ran back inside after the shooting and yelled: ?I just shot my friend on accident.? Daniel J. Chacon, ?Police Seek to Question Man,? The Santa Fe New Mexican (Nexis), Jan. 3, 2000, p A-1 The team traveled all over Southern California, playing against winter league teams and colleges such as Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Los Angeles. [James] Ferguson allowed one hit in three innings against USC. ?Playing against those college guys gave me a lot more confidence,? he said. ?I felt that now, if there was any big situation or tough games, I would have the ability to go out there and win. I knew I wasn't just going out there, hoping for luck, and maybe win on accident. And after that, it (this season) was pretty much a piece of cake.? Barbie Ludovise, ?A Loss Becomes A Lesson; Servite?s [a high school] Ferguson Wasn?t Stalled By Rocky Start,? Los Angeles Times (Nexis), May 4, 1987, Sports sect., p 13 A borg dron is created on accident and matures from baby to adult. Seven begins instructing him to be an individual, however the Collective is alerted to his presence. ?Season Five of Star Trek Voyager,? www.geocities.com/TelevisionCitys/7557/season five.html Regards, David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 15 12:22:37 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:22:37 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <001701c2bc31$c4d7eda0$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >I grew up as culturally distant from New England as one can get in >Americaa (Louisville, KY), and I was a "fucking-a" user by 1946 or >so. Us Louisville kids had no doubts that the "a" was "ass-hole." dInIs >I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. >I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). > >In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, >"Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't >around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two >because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. > >--Sam Clements > > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "David Bergdahl" >To: >Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 1:35 PM >Subject: F**king-A and on accident > > > 1. At lunch today one of the group claimed that the expression "f**king-A" > was a play on Flying-A gas stations, a New England chain--someone mentioned > Tidewater Oil. The two people we heard it from were 60+ New Englanders. > Any insight from the group? -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 15 12:24:56 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:24:56 -0500 Subject: dInIs on the radio In-Reply-To: <517B8BBE-2842-11D7-BC99-000A9567113C@mac.com> Message-ID: Yes, and I'll be there again next week taking on all comers from the public who want to dump the ADS word-of-the-year and propose one of their won. (The very idea). dInIs >Le Tuesday, 14 Jan 2003, ? 14:29 America/New_York, sagehen a ?crit : > >>Am I the only one willing to admit that I heard dInIs on"The Next Big >>Thing"? > >I didn't hear it this week. Was that the slot normally occupied by Erin >McKean? -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 15 12:32:08 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:32:08 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <42.33a246f4.2b5648da@aol.com> Message-ID: I wonder how many times any of us have heard "fucking" with the velar nasal? I find it hard to do. (Just like "fishing"; I go "fishin," commercial fishermen go "fishing." Actually, guys who dress up in funnly pants-boots and hats and use big ol long skinny poles to catch trout also go "fishing" in my speech.) I suppose "fucking a's" pronunciation with an alveolar could cause those given to alveolar pronunciations in general to folk etymologize it. On the other hand, us alveolarizers could be said to have folk etymologized for the same reason. I fact, the sense ("you bet," or "damn straight") is absolutely right in my speech, and leads one to hypothesize that "fucking" simply plays the role of an intensifier (as it so often does) and "A" is not (as us kids had it) "ass-hole" at all, but from the collection of "A" expression like "A number one" (first class), etc... . An interesting proposal. dInIs >In a message dated 1/14/03 8:02:15 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: > > >> I doubt that 60+ New Englanders would be good authorities on the expression. >> I am 58 and also remember it from my early college days(1962). >> >> In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, >> "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't >> around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two >> because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. >> >> --Sam Clements >> > >I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my life >heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. The full phrase from the >1950s Iowa high school I attended was "Fuck-an-A John!" This meant about what >"Right on!" meant in the 1970s, and translates roughly into what I hear as >"Damn Straight" today. -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 12:36:36 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:36:36 EST Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: Ah, no. Not at all. Not even close. This is all a joke, isn't it? A bad dream, perhaps? Barry Popik, wondering how Allen Walker Read put up with all the "OK" stuff that was not "OK" From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 15 13:14:43 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:14:43 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion In-Reply-To: <14d.1a4aa521.2b56350c@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Daniel Cassidy wrote: I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words ??th (pronounced Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and b??al (pron. beeul), for the mouth of a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. *** Is this what is known as "trolling"? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Wed Jan 15 13:27:42 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:27:42 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There are various stories about the "A". "Aye" has somewhat the right sense but I find it phonetically unlikely (perhaps a case could be made for a variant of the "ayup" Stephen-King type?). "All-right", "A-one", etc., don't have the usual sense, which I believe is or was basically "f*cking A" = "[that's] right" (NOT "that's great" or so). "Arsehole" etc. would be just nonsense (not necessarily impossible though!). My own conjecture is that the "A" was originally "amen" ... *possibly* with "F*cking amen!" = "Amen" [intensified]/"That's right"/"I agree" reanalyzed as "F*cking A, men!" (in a military setting) or "F*cking A, man!" by (maybe less religiously inclined?) listeners. This conjecture may not be provable, but it seems to me so natural that I presume somebody has presented it before (but I haven't seen it AFAIK). -- Doug Wilson From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Wed Jan 15 13:52:44 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (pipo) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:52:44 -0600 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: I haven't seen it mentioned, but the period of use of _f**king-A_ corresponds nicely with _Abso-f**king-lutely_, and it has the same meaning and patterns of use. R. Spears ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 7:27 AM Subject: Re: F**king-A > > My own conjecture is that the "A" was originally "amen" ... *possibly* with > "F*cking amen!" = "Amen" [intensified]/"That's right"/"I agree" reanalyzed > as "F*cking A, men!" (in a military setting) or "F*cking A, man!" by (maybe > less religiously inclined?) listeners. This conjecture may not be provable, > but it seems to me so natural that I presume somebody has presented it > before (but I haven't seen it AFAIK). > > -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 14:09:05 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:09:05 EST Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." In this version, there is no pause between "A" and "John"; John is the highest in pitch with a fall at the end. So intonationally, the utterance must mean 'John, you [do] fuck an A', it can't mean 'You [are a] fucking A, John," (i.e., the schwa+nasal could not possibly be {-ing}). Of course, I suppose that "You fuck an A John!" could be a back formation from "Fucking A," but the fact that Iowa schoolboys in the mid-1950s regularly used the "full" form indicates that a lot of us analyzed the phrase as pseudoimperative, not participial. (By the way, I don't have any trouble saying FUCKING with a velar nasal. In fact, In would HAVE TO use a velar nasal in a sentence such as "I don't believe it, Miss Pringle gave me a fucking A on my mental health paper.") I never really speculated about what "A" meant, though I don't think that 'Amen!" would have made much sense to me, despite Doug Wilson's conjecture. Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" And the reanalysis of "Amen" to "A, men" seems highly implausible. 'Asshole' would have made perfect sense to me, however: 'You fuck an asshole John!' (when thought of in the context of adolescent male heterosexual fantasies) would have been seen as conveying a particularly positive message. In a message dated 1/15/03 7:26:59 AM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes: > I wonder how many times any of us have heard "fucking" with the velar > nasal? I find it hard to do. (Just like "fishing"; I go "fishin," > commercial fishermen go "fishing." Actually, guys who dress up in > funnly pants-boots and hats and use big ol long skinny poles to catch > trout also go "fishing" in my speech.) > > I suppose "fucking a's" pronunciation with an alveolar could cause > those given to alveolar pronunciations in general to folk etymologize > it. On the other hand, us alveolarizers could be said to have folk > etymologized for the same reason. I fact, the sense ("you bet," or > "damn straight") is absolutely right in my speech, and leads one to > hypothesize that "fucking" simply plays the role of an intensifier > (as it so often does) and "A" is not (as us kids had it) "ass-hole" > at all, but from the collection of "A" expression like "A number one" > (first class), etc... . An interesting proposal. > > dInIs > From gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU Wed Jan 15 15:04:23 2003 From: gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU (GSCole) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:04:23 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: My innocent ear, along with the one less innocent, had presumed that the F***ing A was using an abbreviation of AOK. True, I'd never stopped the speaker, in late 1950s, early 1960s, to seek a clarification; it was evident that the person had made something of an emotional declaration. George Cole Shippensburg University From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 15 15:17:23 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:17:23 -0600 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it may be. I'm curious about the underlying claim that many of the (Scots-)Irish immigrants were bilingual. Does anyone have figures on the rates of bilingualism? I seem to remember reading that there were few Irish/Gaelic transfers into American English, at least in the lexicon. -----Original Message----- From: Daniel Cassidy [mailto:DanCas1 at AOL.COM] Sent: Tue 1/14/2003 9:52 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Big Apple Big Onion A Chairde: I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words ?th (pronounced Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and b?al (pron. beeul), for the mouth of a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. Big Apple Big ?th B?al Big Crossing at the Mouth (of the Rivers) New York City. ?th: Ford; a river crossing. B?al: Mouth (of a river). +++ Belfast: B?al Feirste: Mouth of the Farset River; or approach to the sandbank/river Farset. B?al can also mean ?approach to a river crossing place ? as well as the "mouth" of a river or a person. Dublin: Baile ?tha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles (of the Liffey river). New York: The Big ?th B?al: The Big Ford (at the) Mouth (of the Hudson and East rivers). New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the Irish names for Belfast and Dublin, ?th and B?al. The "Big" came naturally. A significant number of the millions of Irish speaking immigrants who came through The Big Apple, over the past five hundred years, were bilingual in Irish and Hiberno-English. +++ The Big Onion is another Irish monicker for NYC. The Big Onion The Big Anonn (to an ear that hears in English, it sounds like onion) Anonn? Over, to the other side. Anonn thar abhainn, over, to the other side of, the river. Anonn go Meirice?, over to America Anonn go Bhig ?th B?il ... came my own family from the Irish Gaeltacht. I would welcome feedback. These etymologies are part of a project I have just completed involving the Irish and Gaelic languages in North America. I am a new list member and the director of the Irish Studies Program at New College of California in San Francisco. I am publishing a series of articles this spring and summer and would like to correspond with people who have an interest in the NYC dialect, particularly the old north Brooklyn dialect. My other native tongue. Slan agus Beannachtai, Daniel Cassidy Director An L?ann ?ireannach The Irish Studies Program New College of California San Francisco From psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Wed Jan 15 15:36:31 2003 From: psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Peter Sokolowski) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:36:31 -0500 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? Message-ID: Hi folks: In chatting with a colleague the other day we got to wondering about the extent to which bilingual dictionaries are truly reciprocal, meaning (I guess) that every word used as a translation word has an entry. I submitted that perhaps very small bilingual dictionaries could maintain such a policy, but that larger, desk-sized dictionaries would probably balloon out of control if a strict policy of reciprocity were attempted. To what extent is reciprocity desirable? To what extent is reciprocity feasible? What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? Many thanks, Cheers, Peter Peter A. Sokolowski Associate Editor Merriam-Webster, Inc. From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 15:51:01 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:51:01 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 10:04:39 AM, gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU writes: > F***ing A was using an abbreviation of AOK. > I don't understand how it could be an "abbvreviation" of "AOK"--after all, "A-OK" is shorter. I guess "Fuckin' A" could be an intensification of "A-OK" -- but probably not in the "full" phrase "You fuck'n A John!" From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 15 16:05:14 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:05:14 -0800 Subject: on accident Message-ID: Most interesting. This can't be a Wash-Ore isogloss--maybe it runs between McMinn and Salem. I hear this all the time--so often that it doesn't bother me and never thought about it before. I am sure I even use it. I think for those who use it, it is the opposite of 'on purpose,' hence, 'on.' I just polled 7 young ladies in my class (I went to the wrong class on accident and I stepped on your foot on accident). One said, 'it should be 'by,' but she knows that only because her mom is an English teacher and corrects her all the time; another said she says 'by,' but upon further reflection admitted to using 'on.' The other five just thought I was a weirdo for asking such a silly question--of course they use 'on.' I don't know where each of them is from, but I am sure most of them are natives. I think this is one thing we NWers can't blame on California. Fritz PS the secong sentence seems more acceptible with 'on.' >>> pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU 01/14/03 03:34PM >>> --On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 11:44 AM -0800 "A. Maberry" wrote: > On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Bergdahl wrote: >> 2. My daughter in Seattle writes "people on this coast say 'on accident' >> instead of 'by accident' which sounds really weird to me. Have I >> mentioned that to you before? For example, 'I went to the wrong >> classroom on accident.'" I, personally, have never heard this--is it >> west coast or just NW? >> _________________________________________ > > If I remember correctly this came up a couple of years ago. > I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Washington or Oregon use "on > accident" instead of "by accident". On the other hand, so many people have > moved to the NW especially to Seattle over the 25 years or so, she might > hear "on accident" regularly--just not from natives. > > allen > maberry at u.washington.edu I haven't heard it, either, and I think it would have got my attention if I had. Yes, maybe it's all them furriners that's been a-movin' up from California. Or maybe it's a new usage among the young, and Allen and I have never heard it because we only talk with troglodytes like ourselves. (Oops--'scuse me, Allen. I meant to say, "like MYself.") Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 16:18:51 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 11:18:51 EST Subject: US Copyright laws: a librarian's perspective Message-ID: >From the National Humanities Alliance, an association in Washington that advocates support for the humanities and that ADS belongs to, comes this report on developments in US copyright law. It's not directly related to our discussions of language, but it is related to the research we do. - Allan Metcalf ---------------------------- The Practical Realities of the New Copyright Laws: A Librarian's Perspective Presented at the Modern Language Association Conference in New York City on December 28, 2002 by Duane Webster ARL Executive Director 1. Introduction I am pleased to have this opportunity to engage in this dialogue concerning the changes taking place in the system of scholarly communication. Librarians are often in the crossfire between publishers seeking more control over their digital information resources and users seeking easy, convenient, transparent access to needed information resources. Frankly, academic research libraries are laboring to meet the challenge of moving to the new publishing models and providing robust, affordable electronic information services. We face a bewildering array of legal changes and technological innovations. In effect, both the recipe and the ingredients in the new smorgasbord of electronic information access are changing. This combination of changing ingredients and recipe include: extensive new copyright laws; new business models based on licenses and leasing of information rather than owning of information; and the introduction of technological controls over the use of these electronic information resources. This combination of factors has radically changed the traditional landscape of scholarly publishing that has worked relatively well since the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976. Let me review the legislation. In October 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act which extended the copyright period of protection by an additional 20 years, resulting in a significant decline in works entering the public domain and protecting the narrow financial interests of the entertainment industry. That same month, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which creates rigorous compliance measures, introduces the domination of technological controls of information over the exercise of fair use, and through anti-circumvention measures generally threatens basic copyright exceptions such as first sale, fair use, and preservation. And this year, Congress passed the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH) which extends important fair-use provisions into the distance learning arena but at a cost of additional complexity and compliance requirements. These laws take copyright principles into the digital information age and establish complicated rules that most users do not yet fully appreciate and libraries are scrambling to implement. To reflect on the practical implications of these developments, I will draw upon recent testimony provided to the Copyright Office by an alliance of the five major library associations in the U.S. The full testimony is available from the ARL web-site http://www.arl.org/. I want to start, however, by noting that research libraries have long been among the nation's largest volume-purchasers of copyrighted works. This last year, for example, ARL members in the aggregate spent almost one billion dollars on information resources. 16% of those expenditures went for electronic resources up from 5% just five years ago. Libraries and their staffs are also diligent law abiders. Most of us come from the generation that tries to understand and adhere to the balance that the Constitution and copyright law have struck between the rights of copyright owners and users. I am not so sure that the younger generation is as willing to work through this increasingly complex legal environment. We may well be heading toward a period when copyright laws are so complex that they will be overlooked or simplified by these confused users. I also want to note for you that libraries have invested considerable time and effort in working on these legal issues with the scholarly community, including the Modern Language Association. One example of these joint efforts is our work with the National Humanities Alliance. 2. The NHA Principles on Use of Electronic Information Five years ago, the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) adopted a statement of "Basic Principles for Managing Intellectual Property in the Digital Environment." The statement was updated and simplified this last year and is available as a handout today and on the NHA web-site: http://www.nhalliance.org/ip/ip_principles.html. This statement frames many of the issues I am addressing today: assuring a balance of competing interests, ease of compliance, robust public domain, and ready access to needed information resources. Since the educational community encompasses such a wide range of institutions and individuals who are creators, owners, and users of intellectual property, there is a need for the educational community to come to understand and advocate on these issues. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled: "Copyright as Cudgel" underscores the importance of faculty understanding what is at stake in the move to the electronic environment. Today, I will briefly examine five concerns librarians are struggling with as we move into the digital environment: 1) availability of digital works, 2) electronic interlibrary borrowing and lending, 3) meeting our preservation responsibilities, 4) assuring the privacy of our users, and 5) availability of a robust public domain. 3. Availability of digital works At the center of our concern with the new copyright laws and business models that emphasize licenses is the impact these developments have on the ready availability of digital works. In the past decade, electronic distribution has grown into a dominant method for publishing many kinds of copyrighted works. The DMCA anti-circumvention and access rules encourage publishers to distribute digital works by providing greater assurance to copyright owners that those who abuse access barriers will be subject to severe penalties. This assurance comes in the form of technological measures that control access to the information. But, these technological measures, augmented by the threat of criminal sanctions for circumventing those measures, permit publishers to control uses in new and unprecedented ways. Routine library practices permitted under copyright law, such as interlibrary borrowing, lending for classroom or at-home use by patrons, archiving, preservation, and duplication for fair use purposes, have all been restricted, in some cases severely restricted and in other instances barred by licensing agreements. Digital publishers now have the ability to manage the kind of day-to-day operational decisions that were previously within the discretion of libraries. Previously, as owner of a particular copy of a book, a library was entitled to set the terms of patron access to that copy. In the new world of libraries as licensee of a digital work subject to technological measures, the library may be denied such right. Publishers can now block a lawful licensee's access to digital content by activating a control device embedded into the code. These access controls combined with anti-circumvention technologies impose unprecedented limits on a library's ability to lend and make fair use of lawfully acquired digital works. The law also established unprecedented accountability for a library or a university providing the network from which a user gains access to digital works. Mindful of the accountability imposed by these technologies, libraries are asked to comply with licensing terms that effectively restrict the time, place, and duration of private intellectual engagement. Moreover, one patron's misuse may be used as the pretense for foreclosing access not just to the offending individual but to all authorized users. For example, one university recently had several services turned off by the vendor because of "unusual patterns of use" such as excessive searches and downloads by one individual. The DMCA and its legislative history indicate that the prohibitions on unauthorized access in the law were not to affect other rights, remedies and limitations in the 1976 Copyright Act. Presumably, fair use, first sale, and library exceptions are protected. However, any exercise of these rights is uncertain if the technological measures used to control access also prevent use of the underlying works in ways that have traditionally been permitted under the first sale, fair use and library exceptions. In light of the accountability and criminal penalties imposed by the new laws, many individual librarians are understandably reluctant to make the fair use judgment calls that previously were standard management decisions or to expose patrons to the new sanctions. Where uncertainty about permissible use exists, liability concerns may lead librarians to forego uses that are actually permitted under the copyright law. 4. Interlibrary lending concerns A specific aspect of our concern with the availability of digital works is related to interlibrary borrowing and loan practices of libraries. Because information resources are costly and library budgets are limited, few libraries can afford to acquire access to all the works that are likely to be sought by patrons. Interlibrary borrowing has traditionally enabled libraries to supplement from each other's collections on behalf of patrons seeking access to material that is unavailable in the patron's local library. Let me emphasize, interlibrary borrowing is not a substitute for purchasing frequently needed material. It is used to obtain material infrequently requested by users. Unlike printed books or journals, however, digital products are generally made available via license agreements and these licenses often prohibit making the information available through interlibrary loan. On many occasions print copies may substitute but often there is no print equivalent. Librarians around the country have provided detailed commentary on the loss of this lending right: * "Most licenses do not cover inter-library loan privileges, and must be negotiated. While we are able to ILL anything from our print collection, publishers are reluctant to extend that provision to electronic material." * "The mish-mash of licensing terms has simply made inter-library loan of digital materials impractical for us to provide to the detriment of users around the globe with whom we otherwise share scholarly material." Interlibrary lending is a vital aspect of our educational system. Acquired digital works should have the same status as their print and analog companions when it comes to interlibrary loans. 5. Preservation Concerns I will now turn to our concerns with preservation of digital works. The DMCA provides the most significant updating of library and archival preservation rules since procedures to cope with photocopy machines were established in 1976. The changes permit preservation and storage of a copyrighted work in a digitized format. There are important questions over whether the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA may prevent libraries from working with specific resources such as early PC software. Much of this software is about to decay and it is not clear we are allowed to circumvent technical protection measures to save it. The DMCA may prevent libraries from saving some of the most creative works of the 20th century from being lost. In addition, as libraries obtain more electronic products under license rather than purchase, they are losing control over archiving and preservation. This is because many licenses prohibit copying digital works for archival or any other purpose, and because the prohibitions on copying are enforced by technological measures. From the Libraries' perspective, works that exist only on content providers' servers may be subject to corruption, sabotage, subsequent alteration and selective preservation. There are no firm statistics on losses because the transition to digital publishing is still in the relatively early stages. Furthermore, it is entirely likely that publishers will be reluctant to invest in archiving older works that are no longer marketable on a large commercial scale. Libraries have also expressed concern that they will lose access to digital works in the event that publishers merge, cease operations, or decide not to convert existing works into new formats as technology evolves. Libraries have been the persistent guardians of America's and much of the world's literary heritage, but in the electronic environment they are finding themselves increasingly at the mercy of publishers' willingness to allow archiving and preservation. 6. Privacy Concerns Librarians also have significant concerns about the potential loss of privacy that often accompanies use of digital resources. This is a critical issue since digital resources are often delivered over the net from the publisher's server. Despite Congressional efforts to protect privacy in the DMCA, Digital Rights Management Systems ("DRM") technologies such as "digital watermarks," "digital signatures," and "digital object identifiers" give content owners an unprecedented ability to track ongoing use of digital works. These technologies allow publishers to monitor who is looking at a work and exactly what the users are doing with it. While the exact nature and extent of the detrimental effects remain unclear at this time, there is a need for a full understanding of the interaction between DRM and patron privacy. The way these technologies are implemented may discourage use of a library's digital resources for research in areas where anonymous inquiry and the absence of a digital trail are critical. Of course, this chill can affect not only scholarly researchers, but more broadly faculty, students and the general public. I should also mention another related piece of legislation, the USA Patriot Act. Like the copyright laws it is an extensive and complex piece of legislation. Three specific areas that librarians are concerned about are: 1) the expanded circumstances under which surveillance and physical searches can be conducted, 2) the more liberal definition of which records can be obtained from libraries, and 3) the use of roving wiretaps and e-mail tracing. America's libraries have always protected the right of patrons to enter the library's facilities, access works lawfully owned by the library, and use those works, often anonymously, as allowed by copyright laws. Any potential threat to this right will be vigorously resisted. 7. The threat to the public domain Let me now turn to another concern - the threat of new laws to limiting the growth and utility of the public domain. Moving in tandem to the DMCA legislation was another copyright reform bill-term extension. The nation's first copyright law, passed in 1790, gave creators copyright protection for a term of 14 years with the possibility of a 14-year renewal. Congress has extended the term of copyright protection 11 times over the last 40 years. These repeated extensions create, in practice, an unlimited term of copyright protection. The most recent copyright term law passed in October 1998, retrospectively extends copyright protection of existing works by 20 years. The copyright term is now the author's life plus 70 years. The library community argues that the overwhelming majority of copyrighted works are neither commercially exploited nor readily accessible in the marketplace after several decades, much less 70 years after an author's death. Yet, for researchers and scholars, access to such works from the library's collection are important and no limitation should be made on such noncommercial uses. The new term extension law delays by decades the entry of substantial numbers of works into the public domain. This diminishment of the public domain has a profound and negative effect on librarians and other scholars by prohibiting the republication and dissemination of older works that have no commercial value, yet are of strong interest to the scholarly community. On October 9th, four years after Congress passed the Term Extension Act, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a challenge to the Act's constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision some time during the spring of 2003. While the debate accompanying the Supreme Court's consideration of this Act is encouraging, the library community is not optimistic about the outcome of this process. Ultimately, we believe, scholars will need to find ways to build a "creative commons" that assures the ready availability of their work to the educational and research community. 8. Closure We are in the midst of a time where there is an accelerating availability of digital formats. Public policy has focused on encouraging commercial interests to move to this electronic environment. The practical realities of the new copyright laws and their impact on the traditional practices of fair use, first sale, personal use of one's own materials, and preservation/access of electronic resources is of great concern. Librarians, faculty, and students are finding it difficult to understand and implement the recent array of copyright laws with the potential of widespread confusion and inconsistent application. Under these new laws, usage for instructional resources that have traditionally been readily available to teachers and students is more restricted. Furthermore, the systems for compliance with these laws are cumbersome, expensive, and slow. The public domain, a rich resource for digital material in course delivery, is severely reduced and is threatened with further restrictions. Contractual licenses are supplanting copyright laws with content owners mandating more restrictions on who uses resources and how these resources may be used. The end result of all of these changes is a more complicated and restricted environment for the teacher, the student, and the librarian. There is, however, opportunity for change and improvement. The Copyright Office must by law review every three years the impact of 1201 (the anti circumvention provision) is having and the ability of the public to make fair use of works protected by technological measures. The recently enacted TEACH act holds promise for addressing some of the difficulties caused by the DMCA in the distance education arena. Congressman Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, has introduced legislation that would temper the more draconian aspects of the DMCA. The Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (H.R. 5544) would amend Section 1201 of the DMCA to prohibit the circumvention of a technological protection measure only when the purpose is to infringe on the copyright of the work. An act of circumvention for fair use purposes would be lawful. Most importantly, many in the faculty are becoming aware of the increased restrictions and complexity these new copyright laws and publisher's business models mandate. Faculty advocacy on these issues could lead to improvements in legislation, pressure publishers to modify their business practices, and encourage authors to negotiate with publishers to retain some control of their intellectual resources. We hope the scholarly community finds ways to positively influence the movement to digital publishing so that educational uses are recognized as legitimate and beneficial for society. 12/27/02 dew revised for distribution to NHA members 1/3/03 From ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Jan 15 15:25:29 2003 From: ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:25:29 -0500 Subject: S11 Message-ID: An abbreviation I just heard that might have been in the running for WOTY.... S11 for September 11th or 9-11. For an example see http://www.peacenowar.net/ Regards, David From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Wed Jan 15 17:00:00 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:00:00 -0000 Subject: On the wagon Message-ID: Talking of folk etymologies, a subscriber rather took me to task today for giving what he said was a false origin for "on the wagon". When challenged, he said that his version must be right, because it's on a Salvation Army Web site: > The phrase "on the wagon" was coined by men and women receiving > the services of The Salvation Army. Former National Commander > Evangeline Booth ? founder William Booth's daughter ? drove a hay > wagon through the streets of New York to encourage alcoholics on > board for a ride back to The Salvation Army. Hence, alcoholics in > recovery were said to be "on the wagon." [See ] -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 15 18:38:54 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:38:54 -0800 Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) In-Reply-To: <60.2bed2101.2b562578@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > HIGH HOLY DAYES > Jim Landau wrote that this is not in the OED. Landau submitted 1923. > EEBO has Alexander Goughe, THE QUEEN (1653), "or at a feast upon high holy > dayes, three red Sprats in a dish..." > LITERATURE ONLINE has Thomas D'Urfey, THE RISE AND FALL OF MASSANIELLO, > part ii (1700), "...that your Ladyship reserves for high Holy-days..." Wasn't Jim Landau providing a date for High Holy Days in the Jewish calendar? The cites from EEBO seem to refer to something else. Anyway, here is a slightly earlier cite for High Holy Days found in the Historical Index to the New York Times 21 August 1918 page 8 col. 7 under United States--Army: Jews "orders issued for furloughs for high holy days" allen maberry at u.washington.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 15 19:40:45 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:40:45 EST Subject: Big Apple Big Onion; Blimp (1916) Message-ID: BIG APPLE BIG ONION In a message dated 1/15/2003 10:18:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: > I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of > the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it > may be. > > We've done this a thousand times. This serves no purpose other than giving me a heart attack. As I wrote in IRISH AMERICA in 1994, "Big Apple" was indeed popularized by an Irishman named John J. Fitz Gerald, in his horseracing columns in the NEW YORK MORNING TELEGRAPH in the 1920s. However, Fitz Gerald admitted that he'd heard it from an African-American stablehand in New Orleans. Horses love apples. The stablehand almost certainly spoke no Gaelic. To rise even to a theory, someone must find a Gaelic "Big Apple" in ONE SINGLE HISTORICAL CITATION, ANYWHERE. The same holds true for "the Big Onion." I haven't seen "Big Onion" until the tour group of that name started running NYC tours in the 1990s. Now, if someone would kindly show me "the Big Onion," written anywhere, in any context, we'll be a little further along for its Gaelic origins. Or one can simply forget the trouble about finding a single historical citation and just set up a web site, where it will be quoted as fact by the New York Public Library, the American Museum of Natural History, and LET'S GO NEW YORK CITY 2004. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- BLIMP The TIMES OF LONDON full text database is still not nearly complete, but it's no longer 1921-1971. It now goes back to January 1, 1914. 24 November 1916, pg. 5, col. C, TIMES OF LONDON: NEW AEROPLANE FILMS. A FLIGHT IN A "BLIMP." (...) A flight is made in an airship--a "blimp," as it is called. The "blimp" is taken from its huge shed and harnessed up for its trip; bombs are attached, and the pilot and his observer take their places as the airship strains at the tethering ropes held by the crew. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 15 19:42:06 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 11:42:06 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <000b01c2bcab$e07fda20$70224da1@mw.com> Message-ID: These good questions remind me of my old Cassell's Latin-English, E-L dictionary. I doubt that Latin words are listed (divined?) for current English ones such as automobile (carrus automaticus?), but modern students would likely look for words to describe their own world, not necessarily being able to imagine a world in which all these wonders (airplanes, printing presses, bullets) didn't exist. On the other hand, Latin words without an equivalent in modern cultures would have to be described in a roundabout way without direct equivalents--things relating to rituals or beliefs that are no longer current, for example. That's a long reply to suppose that, no, absolute reciprocity isn't possible, and maybe we don't even have to reach into the "dead" languages for that conclusion. Peter R. On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Peter Sokolowski wrote: > > To what extent is reciprocity desirable? > > To what extent is reciprocity feasible? > > What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? From raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM Wed Jan 15 20:48:30 2003 From: raspears.pipo at XEMAPS.COM (Richard A. Spears) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:48:30 -0600 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Sokolowski" Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 9:36 AM Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > To what extent is reciprocity desirable? No one knows. It may be a good selling point, but teachers and students may not understand the principle. Advanced and professional users will likely be using a large monolingual dictionary. You are referring to two-way bilingual dictionaries (both directions in one volume), I think. European bilingual dictionaries are typical not two-way. That is, there is a Spanish > English volume and an English > Spanish volume. European dictionaries are sometimes licensed to publishers in other nations who combine two volumes into one, thus giving the semblance of a two-way bilingual dictionary. Rarely are the two components coordinated in a way that makes them reciprocal because they weren't made that way to begin with. The beginner probably cannot benefit from a finely-honed reciprocity and the advanced user or professional may not require it. > > To what extent is reciprocity feasible? It's might be feasible to simulate reciprocity fairly well, depending on what you assume the user already knows about both languages. If you just look at the individual words involved, it might be doable. If you really want to capture all the idiomatic uses surrounding each of the words--in both languages--it becomes less feasible. A beginner's dictionary can easily grow huge if every word is defined in every sense on both sides. I've worked on a few (two with Frank Abate) where one side of a bilingual dictionary was flipped to provide the basis of the other side of the dictionary. Then both sides were "tuned" to each other. There were only about 1,700 words on each side, however. > > What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? Is there just one pattern? There are a few practices, and I think they depend on the level of the potential user. Starting from scratch is not the norm in bilingual dictionaries. How does a dictionary maker know how far to go in making absolute reciprocity a feature? You know the answer. Cheers, Spears From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 15 22:08:28 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:08:28 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <000b01c2bcab$e07fda20$70224da1@mw.com> Message-ID: I would say there's a more interesting definition of reciprocity in reference to bilingual dictionaries than the word-for-word notion hazarded below. In fact, the lack of one such reciprocity is the subject of one of the griping letters that I have been meaning to write for years. A leading (AFAIK THE leading) series of Dutch mono- and bilingual dictionaries, Wolters Woordenboeken, publishes an English-Dutch and a Dutch-English dictionary, neither of which indicates the gender of nouns. Clearly the dictionaries were designed exclusively for Dutch-speaking users, who already know the noun genders. For English-speaking users this lack of reciprocity severely limits their usefulness. It's too bad, because otherwise they are excellent dictionaries. From my point of view as a native speaker of English, such reciprocity is extremely important, and its absence downright irrational. After all, you would think it would be in the publisher's commercial self-interest to maximize the dictionaries' usefulness to speakers of two languages instead of just one. As it is, if I don't know the Dutch equivalent of an English noun, I first have to look it up in the E-D volume, then in turn look up the result in the big monolingual Dutch Wolters, which paradoxically DOES give gender, even though that dictionary is quite properly aimed exclusively at native Dutch speakers. So in other words, they forced me to buy three dictionaries instead of two....(hmm...let's see, what was that I was saying about commercial self-interest?) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:36 AM -0500 Peter Sokolowski wrote: > Hi folks: > > In chatting with a colleague the other day we got to wondering about the > extent to which bilingual dictionaries are truly reciprocal, meaning (I > guess) that every word used as a translation word has an entry. I > submitted that perhaps very small bilingual dictionaries could maintain > such a policy, but that larger, desk-sized dictionaries would probably > balloon out of control if a strict policy of reciprocity were attempted. > > To what extent is reciprocity desirable? > > To what extent is reciprocity feasible? > > What's the historical pattern in bilingual dictionaries? > > Many thanks, > > Cheers, > > Peter > > Peter A. Sokolowski > Associate Editor > Merriam-Webster, Inc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 15 22:10:01 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:10:01 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion; Blimp (1916) In-Reply-To: <114.1d945f09.2b57133d@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: #In a message dated 1/15/2003 10:18:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, #GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: # # #> I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of #> the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it #> may be. # # We've done this a thousand times. But the person writing in with this supposed etymology, if he is in good faith -- and I see not indication to the contrary -- doesn't know that. As the sergeant said to his 47th crew of raw recruits who didn't know left from right, "Jee-zus CHRIST!!! I've been screamin' at you morons for a month-and-a-half and you STILL ain't got it straight!!???" This is part of the price we pay for having been in this game a long time. There are ALWAYS new people. And that's good. -- Mark A. Mandel From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Jan 15 22:25:20 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:25:20 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <169656.1042639708@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: This has long been a point of irritation for me, too. Use any Japanese to English dictionary and you'll find all sorts of interesting cultural items. But if you forget the Japanese word after you look it up, good luck because E to J dictionaries don't include cultural words like clothes changing day (i.e., summer to winter and vice-versa) and summer kimono (yukata). I assume they aren't included because you don't run into those sorts of words in English corpora. The problem is that the student needs those words really desperately. The J/E dictionary quality has gotten better over the years (and the new Green Goddess by Kenkyusha in May promises to be better yet), and more of those items are being included, but it's still a nightmare for the student. Benjamin Barrett Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 14:08 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > I would say there's a more interesting definition of > reciprocity in reference to bilingual dictionaries than the > word-for-word notion hazarded below. In fact, the lack of > one such reciprocity is the subject of one of the griping > letters that I have been meaning to write for years. From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Wed Jan 15 23:14:32 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 18:14:32 -0500 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <004b01c2bce5$00b91f20$afc84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: Complete reciprocity isn't truly possible because languages don't have one-to-one correspondence of individual terms, let alone idioms and collocations. For instance, in Benjamin's example below, there would not be a headword for the compound "clothes changing day" on the English side of an E-J dictionary, because this is not a recognized compound in English. However, a good dictionary would show such terms as glossed examples at the most relevant entry--usually the first or core noun in a compound or phrase. On projects that, from the outset, are meant to aid the student in both directions--ones that have both an L1-L2 and an L2-L1 side--it is now possible, and indeed desirable, to use electronic sweeps to help you determine if the words used on one side are represented on the other. But this only gets you so far; there's no substitute for carefully developed headword lists that are all but complete before a project starts, so that the compilers of each side have both lists to refer to. By the way, Benjamin, DeLaurenti's Deli in the Pike Place Market brought the recipe for tiramisu into its newsletter for ordinary Seattleites many moons ago--at least by the early 80s when I briefly worked there! Of course, since your tiramisu is "fancy", maybe we all could use the recipe? ;-) Wendalyn Nichols At 02:25 PM 1/15/03 -0800, Benjamin Barrett wrote: >This has long been a point of irritation for me, too. > >Use any Japanese to English dictionary and you'll find all sorts of >interesting cultural items. But if you forget the Japanese word after >you look it up, good luck because E to J dictionaries don't include >cultural words like clothes changing day (i.e., summer to winter and >vice-versa) and summer kimono (yukata). I assume they aren't included >because you don't run into those sorts of words in English corpora. The >problem is that the student needs those words really desperately. > >The J/E dictionary quality has gotten better over the years (and the new >Green Goddess by Kenkyusha in May promises to be better yet), and more >of those items are being included, but it's still a nightmare for the >student. > >Benjamin Barrett >Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: American Dialect Society > > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw > > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 14:08 > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > > > > I would say there's a more interesting definition of > > reciprocity in reference to bilingual dictionaries than the > > word-for-word notion hazarded below. In fact, the lack of > > one such reciprocity is the subject of one of the griping > > letters that I have been meaning to write for years. From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 15 23:15:15 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 15:15:15 -0800 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: <004b01c2bce5$00b91f20$afc84b43@BTranslations> Message-ID: I'll confess that I've never heard "on accident" before--that is, until this morning, when I asked about 20 students after seeing the ADS posting. They all agreed that one would say, "I did it on accident," but that it would have to be "It happened by accident." Presumably the difference involves a personal subject vs. an impersonal one, although I didn't question the reason for the difference. They did say that "I did it by accident" would sound odd. Now, Fritz Juengling may well be right: perhaps there's an isogloss between McMinnville and Salem (our 2 towns in Oregon), for he seems comfortable with the "on." Or maybe the difference is purely generational, with me representing the aged and infirm. PR From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Thu Jan 16 00:28:47 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 19:28:47 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: It has been suggested to me that the "A" could have come from "affirmative" in the sense that the military usage of "affirmative" to mean "yes" or "you are correct" might have been been the inspiration. "Fucking Affirmative, Sir!" shortened to "Fuckin'-A." Was "affirmative" a well-used military word in WWII and before? Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 8:27 AM Subject: Re: F**king-A > There are various stories about the "A". "Aye" has somewhat the right sense > but I find it phonetically unlikely (perhaps a case could be made for a > variant of the "ayup" Stephen-King type?). "All-right", "A-one", etc., > don't have the usual sense, which I believe is or was basically "f*cking A" > = "[that's] right" (NOT "that's great" or so). "Arsehole" etc. would be > just nonsense (not necessarily impossible though!). > > My own conjecture is that the "A" was originally "amen" ... *possibly* with > "F*cking amen!" = "Amen" [intensified]/"That's right"/"I agree" reanalyzed > as "F*cking A, men!" (in a military setting) or "F*cking A, man!" by (maybe > less religiously inclined?) listeners. This conjecture may not be provable, > but it seems to me so natural that I presume somebody has presented it > before (but I haven't seen it AFAIK). > > -- Doug Wilson > From Friolly at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 01:34:26 2003 From: Friolly at AOL.COM (Fritz Juengling) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:34:26 EST Subject: on accident Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 3:15:39 PM Pacific Standard Time, prichard at LINFIELD.EDU writes: > > Now, Fritz Juengling may well be right: perhaps there's an isogloss > between McMinnville and Salem (our 2 towns in Oregon), for he seems > comfortable with the "on." Or maybe the difference is purely generational, > with me representing the aged and infirm. > > PR Perhaps, but I'm not too much of a young-un, either. Fritz From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 02:21:18 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 21:21:18 EST Subject: Turkey (1504?) Message-ID: I plugged "tomato" into EEBO full text, without success. I then tried "turkey" and came up with this. OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1555 for "turkey." See what you think about it. HERE BEGYNNETH THE BOKE CALLED THE EXAMPLE OF VERTU by Stephen Hawes (d. 1523?) London: Wynkyn de Worde 1504? Forth than we went vnto the habytacle Of dame hardynes moost pure and fayre Aboue all places a ryght fayre spectacle Strowyd with floures that gaue good eyer Of vertuous turkeys there was a cheyr Wherein she sate in her cote armure Berynge a shelde the felde of asure. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 16 02:32:31 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:32:31 -0600 Subject: "Big Apple", "Big Onion" (and "shyster") Message-ID: Dear Dr. Cassidy, I appreciate your reflecting on the origin of "Big Apple", "Big Onion" (message shared with the American Dialect Society) and on "shyster" (message just to me). In all cases I prefer to support the positions already presented on ads-l, with published research fully able to support these positions. I've been swamped with work the passed several days due to the start of the winter semester, but I should have some free time this weekend. I'll be happy then to fill you in on the research that has been done on the above topics and to answer any questions you may have. Also, I find the origin of Irish place-names to be fascinating, and your familiarity with Irish would no doubt be very enlightening to the members of the American Dialect Society unfamiliar with that language. You include most of your snail-mail address on your ads-l message; if you let me know the zip code, I'll be happy to send you with my compliments my two monographs on "shyster" and some material on "The Big Apple." Btw, before this latter term became a nickname for NYC, it meant "NYC racetracks," spelled with lower-case letters. Also, there's an earlier, 1909, attestation of "the big apple" which refers to NYC and at first glance seems to mean NYC but which I have argued actually means "overweaning big shot." It no more means NYC than a reference to Washington D.C. as the big enchilada" (of political power) would make this the nickname of our nation's capital. The 1909 attestation of "the big apple" in reference to NYC is totally isolated. With best wishes. Sincerely, Gerald Cohen, Editor Comments on Etymology (and Professor of German and Russian) University of Missouri-Rolla Rolla, MO 65409 At 10:52 PM -0500 1/14/03, Daniel Cassidy wrote: >Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:52:44 EST >Reply-To: American Dialect Society From: Daniel Cassidy >Subject: Big Apple Big Onion >Comments: To: ADS-L at uga.cc.uga.edu >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > >A Chairde: > >I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my >hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words ?th (pronounced >Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and b?al (pron. beeul), for the mouth of >a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland. > > > >Big Apple >Big ?th B?al >Big Crossing at the Mouth (of the Rivers) >New York City. > >?th: Ford; a river crossing. >B?al: Mouth (of a river). > >+++ [snip] From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 05:09:43 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 00:09:43 EST Subject: Confectionery Trade-Marks (1910) Message-ID: CONFECTIONERY TRADE-MARKS compiled by MIDA'S TRADE-MARK BUREAU, Chicago Chicago: The Criterion Publishing Co. 1910 This book arrived by inter-library loan from Chicago (the only place that has it; it was missing from the LOC). I copied all 96 pages if you have any candy questions. The names are useful not only for candy information, but for information of the current slang at this time. What is NOT here is useful, also. There is no candy named "jazz" in 1910. Here are some entries (*Indicates Registered Brand): Pg. 7: Ambrosia Angel's Food Sweet Vanilla Chocolate...Chocolate..Ambrosia Chocolate Co....Milwaukee, Wis. (Vanilla Chocolate=White Chocolate?--ed.) Pg. 8: Animal Shows...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (Like Animal Crackers?--ed.) Pg. 8: *Atlantic City, The original...Taffy...Wendle W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. (Providence?--ed.) Pg. 10: *Bakers'...Va. Choc....Henry L. Pierce...Boston, Mass. (Vanilla Chocolate again...One of many "Baker" entries here--ed.) Pg. 10: Balls, Snow...P'corn...The Albert Dickinson Co.,,,Chicago, Ill. Pg. 11: Barry...Candy...Abraham B. Schopf...Philadelphia, Pa. (Must be a sucker--ed.) Pg. 11: Bears, Teddy...Candy...Hawley & Hoops...New York, N. Y. Pg. 13: Big Ike Big, Long Big Six Big Stick (No "Big Apple"--ed.) Pg. 14: Bingo Bars...Fudges...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 17: *Bromo...Chew. Gum...Faultless Chemical Co....Baltimore, Md. *Bromo Pepsin Chewing Gum...Chew. Gum...Forest City Chemical Gum Co....Portland, Me. Pg. 17: *Brownie...Chew. Gum...The Brownie Vending Machine Co....Philadelphia, Pa. *Brownie...Choc. Cr....Proctor-White...Peria, Ill. *Brownies...Candies...Hawley & Hoops...New York, N. Y. Pg. 17: *Bubble Balloon...Chew..Gum...John B. Robbins...Malden, Mass. (John Mariani states that "...Fleer, whose brother Frank made the first 'bubble gum' in 1906 that could be blown into a bubble, but not until 1928 did an accountant named Walter Diemer come up with a formula, which he sold to Fleer, that wouldn't stick to the blower's face"--ed.) Pg. 17: *Bucket filled with Chocolate Chips...Choc. Cov'd Mol. Chips...Wm. S. Trowbridge...Meadville, Pa. Pg. 17: *Buffalo Sweet Chocolates...Chocolate...Chas. Steck & Co....Buffalo, N. Y. Pg. 18: *Butter Creams...Candy...Philip Wunderle...Philadelphia, Pa. Pg. 21: *Chew White's Yucatan Gum...Chew. Gum...Wm. J. White...Cleveland, O. Pg. 22: Chiclets...Chew. Gum...Frank H. Fleer & Co....Philadelphia, Pa. Pg. 26: Coons, Comical...Gum work...James J. Matchett Co....Brooklyn, N. Y. (Sure, try selling "Comical Coons" in Brooklyn today--ed.) Pg. 26: *Cracker Jack...Popcorn...F. W. Rueckheim & Bro....Chicago, Ill. Pg. 28: Crows, Jim...Choc....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (And if you thought "Comical Coons" was an easy sell in Brooklyn...--ed.) Pg. 31: *Dentyne...Chew. Gum...Bon-Bon Co....New York, N. Y. *Dentyne...Chew. Gum...American Physicians' Supply Co....New York, N. Y. Pg. 32: Dinks, Hinky...Candy suckers...Schwarz & Son...Newark, N. J. (There was a joint by this name in Chicago for many years--ed.) Pg. 32: *Dinner, After...Salted P'nuts *Dinner, After...Mint Candy *Dinner, After...Mint Candy *Dinner, After (design of bon-bon dish)...Mint Candy Dinner Mints, After...Choc. Dinner Mint, After...Confec. Pg. 33: *Doubled Vanilla...Chocolat...Henry L. Pierce...Boston & Milton, Mass. Pg. 34: *Duche's Original Flexible Licorice...Licorice...T. M. Duche & WSons...New York, N. Y. Pg. 37: *Fairy Floss...Candy...Electric Candy Machine Co....Nashville, Tenn. (See this and "Candy Floss" and "Cotton Candy" in ADS-L archives--ed.) Pg. 38: *Fellows, Original Jolly...Chew. Gum...Wm. J. Paul...Pittsburg, Pa. Pg. 38: Fish, Fortune Telling...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (Like fortune cookies?--ed.) Pg. 40: Foam Sea...Candies...The WIll & Baumer Co....Syracuse, N. Y. *Foam, Sea...Confec....The George Close Co....Cambridge, Mass. Pg. 41: Forkdipt Chocolates, Bell's...Choc....J. S. Bell Confec. Co....Cambridge, Mass. (Useful for "dipt" spelling, perhaps--ed.) Pg. 42: Frosted Flakes...Popcorn...A. A. Berry Seed Co....Clarinda, Ia. Pg. 42: *Frutti, Tutti...Chew. Gum...Adams & Sons...New York, N. Y. Pg. 45: Goo...Confec...Mfg. Co. of America...Philadelphia, Pa. *Goo-Goo...Pep. chew. gum...Freeport Novelty Co....Freeport, Ill. *Gooberines...Candies...Hall & Hayward Co....Louisville, Ky. Gooberines...Licorice...Hall & Heyward Co....Louisville, Ky. Pg. 45: Grand Opera Drops...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 47: Haystacks...Cocanut...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 48: Hershey's...Choc. cocoa, etc....Milton S. Hershey...Derry Church, Pa. (Is Derry Church near Hershey, PA? What about a Derry Church Bar?--ed.) Pg. 49: Hot Air...Confec. *Hot Stuff...Chew. gum (No "Hot Dog" confection--ed.) Pg. 50: I Am John Mackintosh, the Toffee King...Toffee...Mackintosh Toffee Co....Bradley Beach, N. J. Pg. 51: Indeed, It Do Taste Delicious...Candies...Davies Williamsd Co....Akron, O. (Spoils your teeth AND your English at the same time--ed.) Pg. 51: It...Candy...Startup Candy Co....Provo, Utah Pg. 54: *Kisses, Soul...Confections...Huyler's...New York, N. Y. Kisses, Soul...Candy...Benjamin F. Jackson...Jersey City, N. J. Pg. 55: *Last Drop Is as Good as the First, The...Broma cocoa prep....Walter Baker & Co., Ltd....Boston, Mass. (Related to "Good to the last drop"?--ed.) Pg. 57: *Lu-Lu...Popcorn...Louis A. Archer...Milwaukee, Wis. Pg. 59: Melt-In-Your-Mouth...Fudge...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...CHicago, Ill. (Not in your hand?--ed.) Pg. 61: *Mixed Nuts, Table Choice...Confec....Francis M. Ironmonger...Brooklyn, N. Y. Pg. 63: Nonpareil...Stick Cdy....Puckhaber Bros. Co....Charleston, S. C. Nonpareil...Cocoanut Balls...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Nonpareils...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. (OED, Mariani, anyone have "nonpareils"?--ed.) Pg. 64: Opera...Caramels...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Opera Bars...Candies...Startup Candy Co....Provo, Utah Opera Dips, Grand...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Opera Drops...Choc....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. *Opera Nuggets...Confec....Royal Remedy & Extract Co....Dayton, O. Opera Spice Drops...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Opera Spice Drops...Spice drops...Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 64: *Out of Sight...Confec'd Popcorn...Sterling D. COne...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 66: *Peanolia Candies...P'nut Butter Candy...The Peanolia Food Co....New Haven, Conn. Peanut Block...Candy...A. C. McCardell...Frederick, Md. Peanut Crisp...Candy...The Bradley Smith Co....New Haven, Conn. Peanut Crisp...Penny P'nut & Cocoanut confec....R. H. Hardesty Co....Richmond, Va. *Peanut Geack, New...P'nut Confec....Jas. P. Berelos...Chicago, Ill. *Pea-nut design...P'nut Butter Candy...Boas & Shorb...Canton, O. P'nut...Candy...Startup Candy Co....Provo, utah *Peanutine...P'nut Mol. candy...Alvah N. Phelps...Old Orchard, me. Peanutines...P'nut cluster cream centr....Harter & Co....Tiffin, O. Pg. 70: Queen Toasted Marshmallows...Confec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 70: R. U. Hungree...Ice cream cones...Fred E. McCoy...Denver, Colo. (Useful for "R. U.=Are You," also perhaps for "ice cream cone"--ed.) Pg. 73: *Rye and Rock...Candies...Michael Costello...New York, N. Y. (Probably from the drink Rock & Rye--ed.) Pg. 74: *Salt Water...Taffy...Wendele W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. Pg. 74: Schraffts...Choc. Solid Choc....W. F. Schrafft & Sons...Boston, Mass. Pg. 76: Skidoo & Demon design...Popcorn...Morton Wickum & Co....Los Angeles, Cal. Pg. 76: Smart Set...Choc....Snyder Chaffee Co....Columbus, O. Smart Set Sweets---S.S.S....Candy...The Murbach Co....Baltimore, Md. Pg. 76: *Smith Bros, bust portraits...Confec. for coughs and colds...Smith Bros....Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Pg. 79: Swastika...Candies...Startup Candy Co....Provo, Utah Pg. 81: *Tiddledywinks...Confec....John Kranz...Chicago, Ill. Pg. 82: Tootsies...Pull Candies...Stern & Saalberg Co....New York, N. Y. (Tootsie Roll?--ed.) Pg. 83: *Ubet...Chew. Gum...Luther Loy...Columbus, O. (Not to be confused with Fox's U-Bet sauce, a prime ingredient for making egg creams--ed.) Pg. 84: Vassar Cream Kisses...Candy...Hiller Confec. Co....Canajoharie, N. Y. Pg. 89: Yum-Yum...Candies...Jesse Minor...Pittsburg, Pa. Yum-Yum Bar...Caonfec....Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein...Chicago, Ill. From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Thu Jan 16 09:57:52 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:57:52 +0100 Subject: Turkey (1504?) Message-ID: I could bet a small sum on this "turkeys" being "turquoise". RHUD gives ME turkeis < MF under "turquoise". In MA turquoise was considered to possess many virtues and was often carried as an amulet. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 3:21 AM Subject: [ADS-L] Turkey (1504?) > I plugged "tomato" into EEBO full text, without success. I then tried > "turkey" and came up with this. OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1555 for > "turkey." See what you think about it. > > > HERE BEGYNNETH THE BOKE CALLED THE EXAMPLE OF VERTU > by Stephen Hawes (d. 1523?) > London: Wynkyn de Worde > 1504? > > Forth than we went vnto the habytacle > Of dame hardynes moost pure and fayre > Aboue all places a ryght fayre spectacle > Strowyd with floures that gaue good eyer > Of vertuous turkeys there was a cheyr > Wherein she sate in her cote armure > Berynge a shelde the felde of asure. > From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 11:35:10 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 06:35:10 EST Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... Message-ID: A few of the hundreds of place names in Ireland and Scotland beginning with A/th (ahh), a ford or river crossing. Annacloy Ath na Cloiche ?????? The Stone Ford Annalong Ath na Long Ford of the Ships Ahoghill ???? Ath Eochaille Ford of the Yew Trees and for brooklyn and nyc: Apple????????? Ath Beil????????? Ford of the (river's) mouth (NYC) From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 11:47:36 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 06:47:36 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ath=20na=A0=20Long=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Long=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ford=20of=20the=20Ships?= Message-ID: Annalong Ath na? Long????????Long Ford of the Ships Ath as in Ath Beil= NYC. Long = ship as in long siar (longshore, boat quay) or so/ long as in so long. Don't believe the hype, or the buan cumadh, bunkum, perpetual invention, long drawn out story. But, let's be frank, there are people out there who actually believe "bootlegger" derives from the practice of stuffing bottles in boots, rather than two Irish words that mean a bottle service: buidelai gar. It is too funny for television. Beannachtai, Daniel Cassidy An leann Eireannach Colaiste Nuadh From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Thu Jan 16 12:54:42 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:54:42 -0000 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_[ADS-L]______________Ath_na=A0_Long=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Long_______________Ford_of_the_Ships?= In-Reply-To: <193.1416541b.2b57f5d8@aol.com> Message-ID: > But, let's be frank, there are people out there who actually > believe "bootlegger" derives from the practice of stuffing bottles > in boots, rather than two Irish words that mean a bottle service: > buidelai gar. It is too funny for television. I'm among them: see . Yours is an intriguing idea. I'm more than prepared to accept that, in common with other standard sources, I may be wrong about this. And in recent years we have heard some interesting suggestions about the impact of Irish, not least a plausible proposal that "didgeridoo", for the Australian Aboriginal instrument, is in fact from Irish. But in this case we have first to circumvent the recorded evidence to the contrary. So do provide the full story behind this tantalising comment. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 14:11:58 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:11:58 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20[ADS-L]=20Ath=20na=A0=20Long=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A0=A0=A0Long=20=20Ford=20of=20the=20Ships?= Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 6:47:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, DanCas1 at AOL.COM writes: > Long = ship as in long siar (longshore, boat quay) or so/ long as in so long. I think Malay "salang" (cognate to Hebrew "shalom" and Arabic "salaam") is more likely. "So long" is a candidate for "term for which the most etymythologies exist", easily beating out "OK". A certain etymologist of my acquaintance has a form letter to send to people who submit unsubstantiated origions for "so long". > Don't believe the hype, or the buan cumadh, bunkum, perpetual invention, > long drawn out story. According to MWCD10, "Buncombe County, NC; fr. a remark made by its congressman, who defended an irrelevant speech by claiming that he was speaking to Buncombe". However, this leaves open the question of where the name "Buncombe" comes from. Perhaps the name of an early settler, whose eponymous ancestor was run out of Ireland for being a boring storyteller. While on the subject, I'd like to propose an etymology or perhaps etymytholgy for "hard-bitten" (MWCD10 says 1784). In the second half of the 18th Century (and probably earlier), while civilians used powder horns for their muskets, soldiers used "cartridges" (from French "cartouche", from Italian "carta", leaf of paper, from Latin "charta" leaf of papyrus, from Greek "chartes") which was a rolled-up sheet of paper containing both the bullet and the gunpowder charge. In order to load a musket, the soldier had to bite off the end of the cartridge to free the gunpowder which he then poured down the barrel of the musket, after which he ramrodded the bullet (still in its paper) down the barrel. Eighteenth century battlefields were littered not just with blood and gore but also with bits of cartridge paper. A soldier who could reliably perform the intricate, almost sleight-of-hand, process of loading a muzzle-loading musket amidst the chaos, the blinding gunpowder smoke, and the traumatic stress of the battlefield could easily have been described as "hard-biting", which in some dialects would be rendered as "hard-bitin' ", misrendered by non-combatants as "hard-bitten". So long like a hot dog - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 14:20:33 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:20:33 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 1:39:31 PM Eastern Standard Time, maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU writes: > Wasn't Jim Landau providing a date for High Holy Days in the Jewish > calendar? The cites from EEBO seem to refer to something else. Anyway, > here is a slightly earlier cite for High Holy Days found in the Historical > Index to the New York Times 21 August 1918 page 8 col. 7 under United > States--Army: Jews "orders issued for furloughs for high holy days" Yes, the title of my post was "Judaica antedatings". Did you find the cite for "high holy days" on page 6 of the March 15, 1922 issue of the New York Times? It is interesting that neither time is the phrase capitalized. I found this one while unsuccessfully trying to find a report of Judith Kaplan's "bat mitzvah" in the New York Times. Lucikly Barry Popik was able to find an actual 1922 citation---my best was an embarrassing 1933. - Jim Landau "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to the OED" --- Jesse Sheidlower From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 16 04:10:39 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 23:10:39 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Nobody seems to have cited the HDAS on this thread. It's not decisive--acknowledging "origin unknown" as it does--but the entry does suggest, tentatively, "abstraction from a phrase such as 'You're fuckin A-number-one right!" I'm not convinced. In any case, there are lots of useful cites, many from a military context, beginning with one from Mailer's _The Naked and the Dead_ (1947): "You're fuggin ay", Gallagher snorted. (I forget of whom the story was told--Mary McCarthy? Lillian Hellman?--that when she was introduced to Norman Mailer she announced to him "So YOU'RE the man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'".) Anyway, the HDAS entry goes on for over a column, including "fucking Able" (from the military 'spelling' of A) and "fucking A well". Several distinct uses of "fucking A" are distinguished, as variously to signal assent, astonishment, dismay, or recognition, as an intensifier, as an equivalent to 'very well' or to 'splendid' (modulo the register shift, one assumes--just try out "Very well, splendid, fuckin A" with an RP accent). There's also a nice use (treated as a separate nominal sense) of "fucking A" as a minimizer--more specifically a squatitive--in negative polarity contexts: "Youth workers. Shit on them. They don't know fucking A about us." larry From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 16 15:40:33 2003 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:40:33 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > (I forget of whom the story was told--Mary McCarthy? Lillian > Hellman?--that when she was introduced to Norman Mailer she announced > to him "So YOU'RE the man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'".) Talullah Bankhead _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 16:54:23 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:54:23 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/14/03 9:46:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Early English Books Online has been available for a while now. I've been > waiting, and I checked the NYPL's databases today. EEBO is now full-text > searchable! Thanks for telling me about this database. I went into the "Free featured content" section (wwwkub,ynu,cin.eebi) and unearthed an antedating for "Shema" "The hope of Israel: written by Menasseh ben Israel, a Hebrew divine, and philosopher. Newly extant, and printed in Amsterdam, and dedicated by the author to the High Court, the Parliament of England, and to the Councell of State. Translated into English, and published by authority. In this treatise is shewed the place wherein the ten tribes at this present are, proved partly by the strange relation of one Anthony Montezinus, a Jew, of what befell him as he travelled over the Mountaines Cordillaere, with divers other particulars about the restoration of the Jewes, and the time when. by Manasseh ben Israel, 1604-1657. Printed at London : by R.I. for Hannah Allen, at the Crown in Popes-head Alley, 1650" The applicable quote is on page 89 (image 52 of 53) As for the other things in the relation of our Montezinus, they say nothing which savours of falsehood. For their saying that Semah, truly it is the custome of our people, in what part soever of the world they live: and it is the abridgement of the confession, and religion of the Iewes. page 9 (image 12 of 53) Then those two men comming on each side of Montezinus, they spoke in Hebrew, the fourth Verse of Deut. 6.Semah Israel, adonai Elohenu adonai ehad; that is, Heare O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. Thanks again, and see you 'round like a bagel, - Jim Landau From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Jan 16 16:58:58 2003 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:58:58 -0500 Subject: Question for the Lexies Message-ID: t's possible that the entries are included on the basis of their containing definitions other than the literal ones -- that is, "secondary" senses that for the most part probably have little to do with the countries bearing the names of the entry-word. Such a policy of inclusion might obtain in the case of a dictionary like Webster's Third New International, which was designed as a lexicon of generic words -- i.e., one that systematically excluded "proper nouns," such as the names of people and places. Joanne Despres Merriam-Webster From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 16 17:08:41 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:08:41 -0500 Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as excerpted at http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html, Norman Mailer is reminiscing: >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course we had never met.<< John Baker -----Original Message----- From: David Bergdahl [mailto:bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 10:41 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: F**king-A > (I forget of whom the story was told--Mary McCarthy? Lillian > Hellman?--that when she was introduced to Norman Mailer she announced > to him "So YOU'RE the man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'".) Talullah Bankhead _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 16 17:24:34 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:24:34 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion Message-ID: Regarding the use of Irish in NYC in the early 19th century. There is a chapter by Kenneth E. Nilsen called "the Irish Language in New York, 1850-1900" in The New York Irish, Ronald H. Bayor & Timothy J. Meagher, eds., Johns Hopkins UPr., 1996, pp. 252-74. This indicaties that there is little documentation that the Irish who immigrated to America before the famine were Irish-speakers, although many of them must have been, since it is known that Irish was very widely spoken in Ireland. "In 1800 about half of the Irish [in Ireland] were Irish-speaking." (p. 254) But he has only assorted anecdotes about immigrants who later made some name for themselves who described themselves as Irish-speakers when they arrived over here early in the 19th C. However, I was reading in the newspaper just the other day. . . . (My children have learned that when I begin a statement with this preamble to look doubtful and ask "and just exactly when what this newspaper published? So be warned.) 1821: John Downs and Elizabeth Downs, assault and battery, did not appear, fined $5 and costs. In the last mentioned case, of Downs and his wife, the trial was attended with some laughable occurences. The charge was for an assault and battery of a mild character. Mrs. Downs, a corpulent lady, being called, laid aside her cloak, bonnet and shawl, and, coming forward, made a low courtesy to the court, crossed herself devoutly, and declared that she intended to tell the truth. She then proceeded, most vehemently, in her justification; threw her arms around the District Attorney, and gave him a close hug, to illustrate the manner of the assault; and at length, getting warm in argument, she commenced speaking Irish. Counsellor Swanton, being against her, commenced also to speak in Irish. A ludicrous scene ensued; and the whole examination progressed in Irish, to the infinite amusement of the court. National Advocate, October 15, 1821, p. 2, col. 3 I don't know who the judge was in this case, though it is probably possible to find out. Presumably he didn't understand Irish himself, and seems to have allowed Counsellor Swanton to provide whatever translation of his cross-examination was wanted. I've been hoping for some years to find a loving home for this paragraph. Perhaps Prof. Cassidy will take it in. I'm staying far far away from the question of the origin of the "big apple", however. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 17:42:16 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:42:16 EST Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 7:28:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: > It has been suggested to me that the "A" could have come from "affirmative" > in the sense that the military usage of "affirmative" to mean "yes" or "you > are correct" might have been been the inspiration. "Fucking Affirmative, > Sir!" shortened to "Fuckin'-A." > > Was "affirmative" a well-used military word in WWII and before? I think the use of "affirmative" was mostly from aviation, both civilian and military, and there was a legitimate reason for it. Circa 1940 most air-to-ground radio was in the frequencies below 30 megahertz, and at these frequencies static is a problem. (AM broadcast is between .5 and 1.5 megahertz and suffers from static.) Japan trained its pilots in Morse code, but the US, Great Britain, and Germany depended on voice radio for air-to-ground. (Those are the only countries I happen to know about. In the US, if the crew were large enough to include a radio operator, he used Morse.) On a static-filled channel a single syllable like "yes" or "no" can easily get swallowed up in static, so the custom arose of using multi-syllable words such as "affirmative", "negative", and "negatory". As to whether these were commonly used in World War II, you might check some movies about air warfare in WWII. These will probably have their jargon correct, if not much else. Nowadays air-to-ground radio is in the VHF band (30 to 300 megahertz, which also includes FM broadcast) and has little problem with static. However, over the oceans radio in the "High Frequency" (also called "short wave") band, 3 to 30 megahertz, is still used, because only short wave signals can be counted on to reach across the ocean. Over the oceans it is not uncommon for a message to have to be repeated from plane to plane to get to its destination. (Eventually it will be replaced by reliable satellite channels in the UHF band). In both British and US Navies the affirmative is not "yes" but rather "aye" or "aye aye". I don't recall ever having encountered "F**king Aye", although I have heard "Aye-firmative". This may be an argument against a military origin. "Affirmative" when used by a pilot or controller simply means "yes". However, "negative" means "no" or "permission not granted" or "that is not correct". What do you do if you don't have a radio? There are visual signals. For "affirmative" on the ground wave a white cloth vertically, and from the air dip the nose of the plane several times. For "negative" wave a white cloth horizontally and from the air fishtail the plane. [Reference: Federal Aviation Regulations/Airman's Information Manual, 1993 edition] - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to the OED" - Jesse Sheidlower From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Jan 16 18:30:02 2003 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:30:02 -0800 Subject: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030115175540.00a0bdd0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: Although I have seen dictionaries pull multiple word entries into headwords like get up, I agree they are best dealt with inside other entries. There is still the problem of trying to weed through the get entry in English to find get up, etc., though, because a good J to E has dozens of subentries. As for the tiramisu, we hope to be open by the 10th of February or so, across the street from Eva. The store will probably be called Hiroki. We are confident our fancy tiramisu will live up to even the hardest-core DiLaurentian fan. In addition to our regular (fancy) tiramisu, we think our "green tea tiramisu" will take Seattle by surprise. Although we'd like to take credit for creating this noun, Google has more than 120 hits. Ours still might be the first to incorporate sake in the recipe. Benjamin Barrett Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wendalyn Nichols > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 15:15 > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > Complete reciprocity isn't truly possible because languages > don't have one-to-one correspondence of individual terms, let > alone idioms and collocations. For instance, in Benjamin's > example below, there would not be a headword for the compound > "clothes changing day" on the English side of an E-J > dictionary, because this is not a recognized compound in > English. However, a good dictionary would show such terms as > glossed examples at the most relevant entry--usually the > first or core noun in a compound or phrase. On projects that, > from the outset, are meant to aid the student in both > directions--ones that have both an L1-L2 and an L2-L1 > side--it is now possible, and indeed desirable, to use > electronic sweeps to help you determine if the words used on > one side are represented on the other. But this only gets you > so far; there's no substitute for carefully developed > headword lists that are all but complete before a project > starts, so that the compilers of each side have both lists to > refer to. > > By the way, Benjamin, DeLaurenti's Deli in the Pike Place > Market brought the recipe for tiramisu into its newsletter > for ordinary Seattleites many moons ago--at least by the > early 80s when I briefly worked there! Of course, since your > tiramisu is "fancy", maybe we all could use the recipe? ;-) > > Wendalyn Nichols > > At 02:25 PM 1/15/03 -0800, Benjamin Barrett wrote: > >This has long been a point of irritation for me, too. > > > >Use any Japanese to English dictionary and you'll find all sorts of > >interesting cultural items. But if you forget the Japanese > word after > >you look it up, good luck because E to J dictionaries don't include > >cultural words like clothes changing day (i.e., summer to winter and > >vice-versa) and summer kimono (yukata). I assume they aren't > included > >because you don't run into those sorts of words in English > corpora. The > >problem is that the student needs those words really desperately. > > > >The J/E dictionary quality has gotten better over the years (and the > >new Green Goddess by Kenkyusha in May promises to be better > yet), and > >more of those items are being included, but it's still a > nightmare for > >the student. > > > >Benjamin Barrett > >Bringing fancy tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On > > > Behalf Of Peter A. McGraw > > > Sent: Wednesday, 15 January, 2003 14:08 > > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > > Subject: Re: reciprocity for bilingual dictionaries? > > > > > > > > > I would say there's a more interesting definition of > reciprocity in > > > reference to bilingual dictionaries than the word-for-word notion > > > hazarded below. In fact, the lack of one such reciprocity is the > > > subject of one of the griping letters that I have been meaning to > > > write for years. > From dave at WILTON.NET Thu Jan 16 18:34:57 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:34:57 -0800 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as > excerpted at > http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html > , Norman Mailer is reminiscing: > > >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For > twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public > relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she > said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to > spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was > because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course > we had never met.<< I have always heard this story told with Dorothy Parker as the protagonist. Roy Blount's foreword to Jesse Sheidlower's "The F-Word" attributes the comment to Parker. From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Jan 16 18:47:30 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 13:47:30 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <001d01c2bd8d$f8eb3e00$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:34:57AM -0800, Dave Wilton wrote: > > From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as > > excerpted at > > http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html > > , Norman Mailer is reminiscing: > > > > >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For > > twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public > > relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she > > said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to > > spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was > > because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course > > we had never met.<< > > I have always heard this story told with Dorothy Parker as the protagonist. > Roy Blount's foreword to Jesse Sheidlower's "The F-Word" attributes the > comment to Parker. And I have always heard it with Talullah Bankhead, despite the version in my book featuring Dorothy Parker. I wonder if anyone's ever asked Mailer about it directly. Jesse Sheidlower From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 19:18:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:18:22 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... Message-ID: "Ath" and "Beal" equal citations for "Big Apple." Oh boy. This never ends! I guess people aren't familiar with ADS-L archives, the RANDOM HOUSE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, or even Google, so here goes again. We don't have one single citation anywhere that would indicate that "Big Apple," as the nickname for New York City, comes from the Irish language. We have huge databases at our fingertips--full text of the NEW YORK TIMES, full text of the WASHINGTON POST, the MAKING OF AMERICA databases, the AMERICAN MEMORY database, the HARPER'S WEEKLY full text database, THE NATION full text database, full text of many Irish songs, slang lists such as George Matsell's--really, that's a lot. And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. Go to the New York Public Library and read until your eye sockets fall out. New York will thank you for it. Read every single year and every single issue of IRISH ECHO and IRISH VOICE and IRISH WORLD and IRISH CITIZEN and UNITED IRISHMAN. Pick up a publication such as GAELIC AMERICAN (1903-1951). Read through every single word that's been printed for the entire run. Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. We'll listen to you! From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 19:30:23 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:30:23 -0500 Subject: Kanga, Kanzu, Kikoi (1910) Message-ID: GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR by Ethel Younghusband London: John Long, Limited 1910 This is a great book for the places I just visited. I have only a few minutes to type it all. Pg. 26: ...Ngoma (dance)... Pg. 34: Boys wear a cotton singlet, a loin cloth of "amerikani" (unbleached calico from America) or if rich enough, then a "kikoi," a white longcloth with a native woven coloured border and ends, and a "kanzu," a long white shirt reaching nearly to the ankles, often sewn with red at the neck, and sometimes made of very thin muslin or tussore silk. On their heads either a red tarboush or white cap, the head is always covered. Very often a master gives his boy a livery of coloured "kisibas," a waistcoat with his initials on the pocket, and braided with some contrasting colour. THe sultan of Zanzibar always uses the royal scarlet, but dark green or royal blue look well. The women in East Africa simply wear two cloths, or "kangas," one tied under both arms, and the other thrown over their necks and arms. Pg. 39: As in SOuth Africa, there is the "wait-a-bit" thorn, about three inches long. Pg. 56: ...shook in his "chuplies," not daring to move. Pg. 83: ...Mshenzi (wild woman)? Pg. 107: These ladies brought mtama (a native seed) and maize to me for my boy to buy as food for my chickens. Pg. 119: We saw plenty of "Tommies" (Thomson's gazelle), kongoni (native name for hartebeeste) and zebra... Pg. 134: ..."dawa" (medicine)... Pg. 146: ...Bwana (master)... Pg. 152: Some ate of the impala, others did not eat what they call "wild meat." Pg. 180: ..."Hodi" (a Swahili word always used in East Africa to ask admission into a house, as bells are very scarce and the boys usually live at teh back). Pg. 188: ..."nyama" (meat)... Pg. 219: ...kanzus, kangas... From patty at CRUZIO.COM Thu Jan 16 19:38:35 2003 From: patty at CRUZIO.COM (Patty Davies) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:38:35 -0800 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: <02B7F6C1.35B8E017.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: Wow, Barry! In one relatively brief post, you have a great listing of resources for researching purposes! Very helpful email to save. Thanks, Patty At 02:18 PM 1/16/03 -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > "Ath" and "Beal" equal citations for "Big Apple." Oh boy. This never > ends! I guess people aren't familiar with ADS-L archives, the RANDOM > HOUSE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, or even Google, so here > goes again. > We don't have one single citation anywhere that would indicate that > "Big Apple," as the nickname for New York City, comes from the Irish > language. We have huge databases at our fingertips--full text of the NEW > YORK TIMES, full text of the WASHINGTON POST, the MAKING OF AMERICA > databases, the AMERICAN MEMORY database, the HARPER'S WEEKLY full text > database, THE NATION full text database, full text of many Irish songs, > slang lists such as George Matsell's--really, that's a lot. > And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. > If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. Go to the New York > Public Library and read until your eye sockets fall out. New York will > thank you for it. Read every single year and every single issue of IRISH > ECHO and IRISH VOICE and IRISH WORLD and IRISH CITIZEN and UNITED IRISHMAN. > Pick up a publication such as GAELIC AMERICAN (1903-1951). Read > through every single word that's been printed for the entire run. > Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. > We'll listen to you! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 16 19:40:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:40:17 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <001d01c2bd8d$f8eb3e00$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: At 10:34 AM -0800 1/16/03, Dave Wilton wrote: > > From George Plimpton, _Truman Capote_ (1997), as >> excerpted at > > http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1297/plimpton/excerpt.html >> , Norman Mailer is reminiscing: >> >> >>For example, there was Talullah Bankhead! For >> twenty years she'd been enjoying the coup her public >> relations man had given her when as the legend had it, she >> said to me, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to >> spell 'fuck.'" For those who are too young to know, it was >> because I had used "fug" in The Naked and the Dead. Of course >> we had never met.<< > >I have always heard this story told with Dorothy Parker as the protagonist. >Roy Blount's foreword to Jesse Sheidlower's "The F-Word" attributes the >comment to Parker. Actually, the version I was trying to remember did feature Parker, now that the two nominees have been presented. For all I know, though, the stories are both apocryphal: no, Charley, I vusn't dere. I'd just as soon it was Tallulah, though, even if the misspelling with the single L preceding the geminate makes me suspicious about the anecdote in question. I've had a soft spot for her ever since my late mother told me Tallulah made a pass at her when she--my mother, not Tallulah--was working as a cigarette girl in N.Y. night clubs in the 30's. larry, wondering if Dorothy Parker made the quip but Mailer remembered it as having been Tallulah because she was more his type -- From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 16 19:58:45 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:58:45 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion; Blimp (1916) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >#In a message dated 1/15/2003 10:18:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, >#GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU writes: ># ># >#> I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of >#> the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it >#> may be. ># ># We've done this a thousand times. > >But the person writing in with this supposed etymology, if he is in good >faith -- and I see not indication to the contrary -- doesn't know that. >As the sergeant said to his 47th crew of raw recruits who didn't know >left from right, "Jee-zus CHRIST!!! I've been screamin' at you morons >for a month-and-a-half and you STILL ain't got it straight!!???" I often feel that way myself when I'm teaching intro classes. > >This is part of the price we pay for having been in this game a long >time. There are ALWAYS new people. And that's good. > It's also an argument for maintaining a FAQ, including etymological info on "Big Apple", "hot dog", "Windy City", etc. Notice I'm not volunteering for the job. larry -- From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 16 20:55:27 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 15:55:27 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion: addendum Message-ID: I have just seen the new(?) vol. 6 of the Cambridge History of the English Language: English in America, John A. Algeo, ed. This has scattered references to the Irish influennce on AmEngl, but pp. 89-92, in Michael Montgomery's chapter "British and Irish Antecedents" discusses the Irish language. The book is ostensibly a 2001 imprint, but has just been received here. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 16 21:05:55 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 16:05:55 EST Subject: Maides of Honor (1587); High Holy Dayes (1653) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 11:54:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: > Thanks for telling me about this database. I went into the "Free featured > content" section (wwwkub,ynu,cin.eebi) and unearthed an antedating for > "Shema" Er, that should be http://wwwlib.umi.com/eebo. > "The hope of Israel: written by Menasseh ben Israel, a Hebrew divine, and > philosopher. Newly extant, and printed in Amsterdam, and dedicated by the > author to the High Court, the Parliament of England, and to the Councell of > State. Translated into English, and published by authority. In this treatise > is shewed the place wherein the ten tribes at this present are, proved > partly > by the strange relation of one Anthony Montezinus, a Jew, of what befell him > as he travelled over the Mountaines Cordillaere, with divers other > particulars about the restoration of the Jewes, and the time when. by > Manasseh ben Israel, 1604-1657. Printed at London : by R.I. for Hannah Allen, > at the Crown in Popes-head Alley, 1650" The apparently prescient "by Manasseh ben Israel, 1604-1657" was inserted by the database people and is NOT on the title page. - Jim Landau From gcohen at UMR.EDU Thu Jan 16 21:41:09 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 15:41:09 -0600 Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: On 15 Jan. 2003 Barry Popik wrote: >BLIMP > > The TIMES OF LONDON full text database is still not nearly complete, but >it's no longer 1921-1971. It now goes back to January 1, 1914. > >24 November 1916, pg. 5, col. C, TIMES OF LONDON: > NEW AEROPLANE FILMS. > A FLIGHT IN A "BLIMP." (...) A flight is made in an airship--a "blimp," as it is called. The >"blimp" is taken from its huge shed and harnessed up for its trip; >bombs are attached, and the pilot and his observer take their places >as the airship >strains at the tethering ropes held by the crew. Word-researcher and nonagenarian David Shulman once sent me a 1915 attestation of "blimp." Barry, if you'd give him a call and get his permission for me to post it on ads-l, I'll be happy to do so. Due credit would of course be given to him. Gerald Cohen From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 16 23:22:45 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 18:22:45 -0500 Subject: Big Apple Big Onion In-Reply-To: <24a30f248c0b.248c0b24a30f@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: This is purely speculative, since I haven't seen Nilsen's article, but wouldn't the poor post-famine Irish have been likely to come with (at least some residual) Irish? I just saw "Gangs of New York," which portrayed some of the newcomers as mouthing Irish phrases--maybe just religious incantations, given the ferocity of the street fighting, and therefore "residual" if nothing more substantive. My digging through census records from the 1850s and '60s (for Flanigans, obviously) also finds "Irish" listed as the L1 of many immigrants from Ireland; "English" and "Irish" vary considerably, and even though census records are notorious for their inaccuracies, the listings are probably reasonably credible. What does Nilsen say? At 12:24 PM 1/16/2003 -0500, you wrote: >Regarding the use of Irish in NYC in the early 19th century. > >There is a chapter by Kenneth E. Nilsen called "the Irish Language in New >York, 1850-1900" in The New York Irish, Ronald H. Bayor & Timothy J. >Meagher, eds., Johns Hopkins UPr., 1996, pp. 252-74. This indicaties that >there is little documentation that the Irish who immigrated to America >before the famine were Irish-speakers, although many of them must have >been, since it is known that Irish was very widely spoken in Ireland. "In >1800 about half of the Irish [in Ireland] were Irish-speaking." (p. >254) But he has only assorted anecdotes about immigrants who later made >some name for themselves who described themselves as Irish-speakers when >they arrived over here early in the 19th C. > >However, I was reading in the newspaper just the other day. . . . (My >children have learned that when I begin a statement with this preamble to >look doubtful and ask "and just exactly when what this newspaper >published? So be warned.) > >1821: John Downs and Elizabeth Downs, assault and battery, did not >appear, fined $5 and costs. >In the last mentioned case, of Downs and his wife, the trial was attended >with some laughable occurences. The charge was for an assault and battery >of a mild character. Mrs. Downs, a corpulent lady, being called, laid >aside her cloak, bonnet and shawl, and, coming forward, made a low >courtesy to the court, crossed herself devoutly, and declared that she >intended to tell the truth. She then proceeded, most vehemently, in her >justification; threw her arms around the District Attorney, and gave him a >close hug, to illustrate the manner of the assault; and at length, getting >warm in argument, she commenced speaking Irish. Counsellor Swanton, being >against her, commenced also to speak in Irish. A ludicrous scene ensued; >and the whole examination progressed in Irish, to the infinite amusement >of the court. >National Advocate, October 15, 1821, p. 2, col. 3 > >I don't know who the judge was in this case, though it is probably >possible to find out. Presumably he didn't understand Irish himself, and >seems to have allowed Counsellor Swanton to provide whatever translation >of his cross-examination was wanted. > >I've been hoping for some years to find a loving home for this >paragraph. Perhaps Prof. Cassidy will take it in. > >I'm staying far far away from the question of the origin of the "big >apple", however. > >GAT > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998. From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 00:46:01 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:46:01 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: <02B7F6C1.35B8E017.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: (cc: to Mr. Cassidy, because I don't know if he's on the list) On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: [snip list of sources] # And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. # If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. [snip list of "requirements"] # Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. # We'll listen to you! I will add here for Mr. Cassidy's benefit -- since I don't know if he's on the list and familiar with Barry's research -- that Barry's words are not empty: he *does* this. Barry spends many hours in libraries all over the country and around the world reading early sources and taking copious notes, which he writes up as well as posting here. We -- I daresay we all -- respect his industriousness, care, and sheer sitzfleisch, and his findings have been a rich source of important data for many of the lexicographers and other researchers on this list. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 00:56:09 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:56:09 -0500 Subject: F**king-A and on accident In-Reply-To: <39.32475792.2b55f30d@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Steve Boatti wrote: #Perhaps some people use "on accident" by analogy to "on purpose." D'ohhh! So I should read to the end of the thread before posting!!! -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 00:59:28 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:59:28 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You #fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." I assume that you are remembering from hearing, not reading, the expression. Could that have been "You fuckin' A, John!"? That is, - "fuckin'" rather than the homophonous "fuck an" - copula deletion from, or as in, AAVE ? -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 01:10:53 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 20:10:53 -0500 Subject: on accident In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Peter Richardson wrote: #I'll confess that I've never heard "on accident" before--that is, until #this morning, when I asked about 20 students after seeing the ADS posting. #They all agreed that one would say, "I did it on accident," but that it #would have to be "It happened by accident." Presumably the difference #involves a personal subject vs. an impersonal one, although I didn't #question the reason for the difference. They did say that "I did it by #accident" would sound odd. IMHO this supports the hypothesis of analogy with "on purpose", which requires an agent -- *"It happened on purpose" is wrong for all normal interpretations of the universe. -- Mark A. Mandel From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Fri Jan 17 01:09:54 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 17:09:54 -0800 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate to our Barry? I put the word into Google, and eventually found the following: http://zhurnal.net/ww/zw?BottomPower Sitzfleisch is another one of those inimitably useful German words. Literally it's "Sitting Meat". What it means is patience --- as associated with the gluteus maximus and surrounding padding that enables someone to perch on a hard chair for hours. In a chess context Sitzfleisch describes the kind of dogged analysis that a good player has to do in a complex position. (see Long Think (2002 April 9)) [...] Not unrelated to Sitzfleisch is the phrase Bottom Power --- a West African English dialect term for that special feminine callipygean ability to sway male minds.... Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark A Mandel Sent: January 16, 2003 4:46 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... (cc: to Mr. Cassidy, because I don't know if he's on the list) On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: [snip list of sources] # And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere. # If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong. [snip list of "requirements"] # Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find. # We'll listen to you! I will add here for Mr. Cassidy's benefit -- since I don't know if he's on the list and familiar with Barry's research -- that Barry's words are not empty: he *does* this. Barry spends many hours in libraries all over the country and around the world reading early sources and taking copious notes, which he writes up as well as posting here. We -- I daresay we all -- respect his industriousness, care, and sheer sitzfleisch, and his findings have been a rich source of important data for many of the lexicographers and other researchers on this list. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From gcohen at UMR.EDU Fri Jan 17 01:33:46 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:33:46 -0600 Subject: My misspelling of overweening (with -ea-) Message-ID: Yes, it's spelled "overweening". My bad. Gerald Cohen >At 7:27 PM -0500 1/16/03, Mark A Mandel wrote: >Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:27:13 -0500 >From: Mark A Mandel >To: Gerald Cohen >Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Big Apple", "Big Onion" (and "shyster") > >(off-list nit-pick) > >On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Gerald Cohen wrote: > >[An excellent letter, compromising neither scholarship nor civility] > >#argued actually means "overweaning big shot." It no more means NYC > >Isn't that usually spelled "overwning"? > >-- Mark A. Mandel From dwhause at JOBE.NET Fri Jan 17 02:46:40 2003 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 20:46:40 -0600 Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: I'm afraid this is folk etymology, but the derivation I remember (unattested) is that early lighter-than-air craft were either rigid, such as the infamous Hindenburg, or "limp" and that the version adopted was the model B, hence, Blimp. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" On 15 Jan. 2003 Barry Popik wrote: >BLIMP From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 02:59:16 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 21:59:16 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: Well, of course part of what I "heard" was the way I was parsing it at the time. As I said before, from age 15 or 16 on I just assumed that the syllabic /n/ was an article, not a participial marker. Since no one ever used a velar here, why should I think any different? I'm still mystified as to why every lexicographical source--and most of the people in this discussion--feel the /n/ HAS TO be a remnant of {-ing}. FUCKING is used as an intensifier in exclamations (as in "These guys have been talking about the phrase 'Fuck-n-A for days? Fucking unreal!"), but not in any set phrases that I can think of. On the other hand, there are lots of sete phrases of the form Verb+Article+Noun (e.g., "Eat a big one!"). I hope it is clear that I am not saying that the parsing with FUCK is "wrong"--there is no way that we can expect to construct some sort of definitive etymology here--as Connie Eble reminds us in her book, when it comes to slang, multiple etymologies are often the right scientific conclusion, since the ONLY reality that some slang phrases have are the ones that are invented by hearers. Even so, while the parsing as an intensifier would have made sense to me; the alternative derivation from a deleted ARE (as Mark suggests) couldn't have worked at all. We were not prone to AUX deletion in eastern iowa in 1956, and AAVE would have been of marginal influence on my adolescent speech--there were only five or so African Americans in the whole school, and they were not very prone to heavy AUX-be deletion. Eastern Iowa in 1956 was also quite r-ful, so there wouldn't even have been much opportunity for phonological deletion of ARE, either. It makes no difference to this argument, but Mark puts a comma in "You fuckin' A, John!" As I explained in my earlier post, this was not the pronunciation that we used. There was no pause at all between the "A "and the "John." In a message dated 1/16/03 7:59:53 PM, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > #Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > #fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." > > I assume that you are remembering from hearing, not reading, the > expression. Could that have been "You fuckin' A, John!"? That is, > - "fuckin'" rather than the homophonous "fuck an" > - copula deletion from, or as in, AAVE > ? ? ? ? ? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From DanCas1 at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 03:07:21 2003 From: DanCas1 at AOL.COM (Daniel Cassidy) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:07:21 EST Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... Message-ID: Thanks much for feedback. Please see my version of "apple" again and then short note below... Big Apple Big ?th B?il?? (gen. of b?al)? (pron. ahh-beeul) Big Ford of the Mouth (of the Rivers) New York City. ?th: Ford; a river crossing. B?al: Mouth (of a river). Belfast: B?al Feirste: Mouth of the sandy bank of Farset River Dublin: Baile ?tha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles (of the Liffey River).? New York: The Big ?th B?al: The Big Ford of the Mouth of the (Hudson and East) rivers. New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the Irish names for Belfast and Dublin.? An ancient Gaelic name for the ancient crossing of the two great North Atlantic Rivers. +++ A Chairde: (Friends...) The two Irish words A/TH and BE/AL are used in hundreds of place names in Ireland, Scotland and the Isles.? I believe it is the source of the Gaelic monicker the "apple" for NYC. If some do not agree with me than their big apple can be as English as big Liz Windsor. as far as citations of Irish words in English, that would be humorous if it were not for the long and well known depredations of cultural imperialism in Ireland. the language was first banned in 1366 with the statutes of Kilkenny. that was copper fastened with the passage of the penal laws in the early 18th century. a modern dictionary was not published until 1926. the Irish language was not permitted to be taught in schools in English colonized Ireland for close to half a millennium. 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that came to north America were illiterate. This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over spoken rather than written sources. With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue you must put your ear to the ground. I look forward to the discussions...Thanks for the note. Sl/an agus Beannachtai/ Health and Blessings, Daniel Cassidy From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 03:11:53 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:11:53 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, vida morkunas wrote: #Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of #studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate #to our Barry? Actually I've always thought of it as being as much Yiddish as German, though I spelled it as German (without the capital letter). ... Not in Rosten's _Joy of Yiddish_ ... not in AHD4 ... Found it in Weinreich's Y/E dictionary: zitsflaysh [my translit -- MAM] : perseverance (humorous) My wife's recollection of its use in Yiddish (her parents were native speakers) is that when it was applied to a child, it often referred to a behavior of pattern of being unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting, standing up, moving around, etc. "Nowadays we diagnose it as ADHD." -- Mark A. Mandel From hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET Fri Jan 17 03:26:54 2003 From: hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET (Herbert Stahlke) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:26:54 -0500 Subject: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: We used the term Sitzfleisch as a euphemism for ass when I was in prep school back in the '50s at Concordia College in Milwaukee. This very German Missouri Synod Lutheran institution didn't have much Yiddish influence. Herb Stahlke On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, vida morkunas wrote: #Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of #studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate #to our Barry? Actually I've always thought of it as being as much Yiddish as German, though I spelled it as German (without the capital letter). ... Not in Rosten's _Joy of Yiddish_ ... not in AHD4 ... Found it in Weinreich's Y/E dictionary: zitsflaysh [my translit -- MAM] : perseverance (humorous) My wife's recollection of its use in Yiddish (her parents were native speakers) is that when it was applied to a child, it often referred to a behavior of pattern of being unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting, standing up, moving around, etc. "Nowadays we diagnose it as ADHD." -- Mark A. Mandel From alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET Fri Jan 17 06:22:59 2003 From: alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET (george.sand) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 01:22:59 -0500 Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: Joe Hajak who piloted the Goodyear airship for a number of years, mentioned to me also that "b-limp" was a traditional though not certain etymology. He seemed to consider it as belonging to folkways. Paul Kusinitz Newport RI ----- Original Message ----- From: Dave Hause To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 9:46 PM Subject: Re: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) I'm afraid this is folk etymology, but the derivation I remember (unattested) is that early lighter-than-air craft were either rigid, such as the infamous Hindenburg, or "limp" and that the version adopted was the model B, hence, Blimp. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" On 15 Jan. 2003 Barry Popik wrote: >BLIMP From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 17 09:31:05 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 09:31:05 -0000 Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... In-Reply-To: <10.2b58c2c3.2b58cd69@aol.com> Message-ID: Nobody would deny the impoverished status of Irish, even lower than that of Welsh. It is surely true that the Irish influence on English has in the past been underrated and under-acknowledged. However, members of this list know that it is astonishingly easy to find apparent similarities between languages that can lead to false beliefs about origins - for example, that "OK" comes from one of a variety of languages ranging from Finnish "oikea" to Wolof "waw kay". Members will also know my willingness, when the trail of evidence runs out, to be prepared to strike out into the unknown in the hope of picking up leads to a new line of enquiry. But, as I said in my last message, when seeking to discredit a mass of evidence to the contrary - as with "Big Apple" and "bootlegger" - rather more than flat assertions and wishful thinking are required. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Fri Jan 17 10:25:45 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:25:45 -0000 Subject: Irish Apples Message-ID: Since Daniel Cassidy's assertion vis-a-vis the alleged Irish origins of Big Apple is currently occupying the list, I offer a letter I sent him after reading the original piece in the NY Observer (http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6755). In this he asserted similarly Irish origins for various canting (underworld) terms, used in the movie _The Gangs of New York_. To precis, he suggested that 'rabbit' (a rowdy), 'rabbit-sucker', 'ballum rancum' (an orgy), 'crusher' (a policeman), 'lay' (a criminal occupation), 'mort' (a woman), and 'buckaroo', were all 'Irish', and cited the source words. I don't think, fwiw, that all these are wholly risible, as my letter indicates, but I took issue with his unswerving and what I feel is over-optimistic inclusiveness. Jonathon Green ************** [...] I was fascinated by your piece on the Irish input into NY slang, as published the NY Observer (1/6/03) and enormously grateful for hitherto unknown etymologies for '(dead) rabbit' [DC: r?ib?ad is defined as a big, hulking person] and 'rabbit-sucker' [r?ib?ad s?ch ?r, which in Irish means "a fresh, well-fed, big fellow]. Being a lexicographer, however, I must quibble. This is not to say you're wrong, just to wonder. The problem with Matsell's Vocabulum [1859, from which he takes his slang examples] is that in approx. 90% of its entries it is far from 'encyclopedic' [as he describes it] but a simple ripoff of Pierce Egan's 1823 edition of the Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose, which first appeared in 1785. It may be that New York villains used late 18C/early 19C London cant, but quite so much? Of the terms you mention, ballum rancum [DC: Ball iomr? na gcumainn: the place everyone is talking about], lay [DC: L?: Leaning, partiality, inclination], and mort [DC: M?r te: fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection] are all in Grose. Indeed mort can be found in a cant glossary of 1566 (as 'a harlot' or a tramp's female companion) and lay, usually in combination and denoting some form of criminal speciality (the clouting lay, the chiving lay) first appears in mid-17C. Grose defines ballum rancum as a dance at which all concerned 'dance in their birthday suits.' The accepted etymology is that such events (were there many?) were dignified by a kind of 'cod-Latin', where ballum comes from ball, a dance and rancum from rank, stinking, putrid. The Irish ety. is undeniably appealing, and there were certainly many Irish tinkers, tramps and members of the contemporary London underworld, but did such orgies happen so often for them to create the name? Lay is doubtless linked to L? but that in turn is one of various cognates, in Portuguese, French, and other Romance langs. all of which come from Old French lei and ult. Latin lex. So I don't see the origins of its slang use as especially Irish. Crusher [DC: Cuir siar ar (the s is pronounced "sh"): to force upon; an enforcer]: again, the prevailing ety. is not Irish. The image is of police violence and even large, crushing feet. The term is not in Grose, but is certainly on stream by 1835, and maybe earlier. Here I think you may be correct. Again, however, we have to wonder just how influential the Irish villains were. I appreciate, and this goes for all these terms, that they had a massive presence in NY, but, as I see it, these terms were imports, not creations. (The next question being, were these Irish immigrants, whom I take as coming from rural Ireland, not London, up with the cant of London's underworld?) Then mort. Here I think you have cracked a centuries'-old conundrum. No-one has ever been able to pin this one down. The OED is most honest: 'Origin unknown' and other suggestions are pretty specious. The question remains, was the Irish term in existence c. 1560? As for buckaroo [DC: boca? rua, "wild playboys" or "bloody bucks], the generally accepted etymology is the Sp. vaquero, cowherd. (See R.F. Adams Western Words, 1968). I like the Irish ety, but given the Spanish influence on so much Western language, I'm still inclined to accept vaquero. [...] From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 10:59:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 05:59:09 EST Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/2003 10:07:52 PM Eastern Standard Time, DanCas1 at AOL.COM writes: > > 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that came to > north > America were illiterate. > > This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over spoken > rather > than written sources. > > With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue you must > put > your ear to the ground. > > PUT MY EAR TO THE GROUND? The facts are that we certainly do have a written trail for Irish immigrants to New York City, and it's there for anyone to examine. I'll admit that many Irish publications are not full-text searchable yet (as are 19th Century African-American publications), but some are full text searchable and the results are not promising. The Library of Congress's AMERICAN MEMORY database, on second check, shows about 25 copyrighted songs in the Irish language. None have "apple"/"Big Apple" in them. The AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES, although not finished, is enormously useful. It has the NATIONAL POLICE GAZETTE, a publication full of Irish criminals and full of slang. Publications such as Mike Walsh's THE SUBTERRANEAN and THE IRISH SHIELD are also in the series. There's not a single clue that "apple"/"Big Apple" comes from the Irish language, and there's not a single "Big Onion," either. I did record a few "Big Potato" citations, but fairly recently in the late 20th-Century, if I recall correctly. I could put "my ear to the ground" some more, but it will probably get stuck to a piece of gum. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 12:27:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 07:27:41 EST Subject: Ugali (1909); Siafu (1924); Zanzibar Doors (1949) Message-ID: A quick note before work and giving more people T-shirts...Why don't people give me anything?...Why doesn't someone pick on someone else's work? ADS president Dennis Preston's work is completely wrong, I have no documentary evidence at all, but it's obvious to anyone if you just stick your nose in the closet? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- UGALI NATIVE LIFE IN EAST AFRICA by Karl Weule London: Sir Isaac Priman & Sons, Ltd. 1909 Pg. 84: _Ugali_, always _ugali_--stiff porridge of millet, maize or manioc, boiled till it has almost a vitreous consistency, and then shaped with the spoon used for stirring into a kind of pudding--forms the staple of their meals day after day. (OED has the awful 1970 for "ugali"--ed.) Pg. 212: The grains of _Usanye_ (a red kind of millet) cried in the basket. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- SIAFU BENEATH AFRICAN GLACIERS by Anne Dundas London: H. F. & G. Witherby 1924 Pg. 5: The name "Mombasa" is derived from Mombas, the first Portuguese governor. (Ah! I was told yet another folk etymology!--ed.) Pg. 45: There is time for the first "sundowner," or evening drink... Pg. 60: ..._kanzu_... Pg. 219: Of these, the small black species called _siafu_ are perhaps the most venomous... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- ZANZIBAR DOORS A GUIDE TO ZANZIBAR (By Geoffrey Henry Shelswell-White, not on title page--ed.) Zanzibar: Printed by the Government Printer 1949 Pg. 11: The milk of the nuts at a certain stage of their growth (madafu) provides a favourite drink. Pg. 22: The local Arab is generally bearded and his ordinary dress consists of a plain white cotton garment (_kanzu_), reaching from the neck to the ankles, a white cotton cap, and sandals. Pg. 23: The designs of these _kangas_ are worth noticing: they are drawn in Zanzibar, often with a short sentence in Kiswahili included. Pg. 83: African Dances (_ngoma_)..._Kirua_..._Lelemama_..._Maulidi_..._Dhikri_... Pg. 101: ZANZIBAR DOORS by J. J. ADIE. (Reproduced with the kind permission of the _East African Standard_). Pg. 104: ZANZIBAR "ARAB" CHESTS by J. J. ADIE. (Reproduced with the kind permission of the _East African Standard_). (...) These chests (_kasha la njumu_ in Kiswahili) are known by Europeans in the neighbouring territories on the mainland as "Lamu" chests, and in Zanzibar as "Arab" chests; they are, however, made in Persia and India (Surat and Bombay), and are only identified with the Arabs on account of the fact that they have been an item of importation into Arabia for a very long period and have made their way into Zanzibar by the dhows which come from Arabia and the adjacent countries on the north-east monsoon. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 15:01:05 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:01:05 EST Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 9:46:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, dwhause at JOBE.NET writes: > I'm afraid this is folk etymology, but the derivation I remember > (unattested) is that early lighter-than-air craft were either rigid, such as > the infamous Hindenburg, or "limp" and that the version adopted was the > model B, hence, Blimp. Apparently an etymythology, although a widespread one. A derivation from "Colonel Blimp" is also unlikely. Here is what appears to be a reasonably authoritative source: >From "Glossary of Airship Terms" URL http://www.blimpinfo.com/glossary.html blimp: a term coined in 1915 as a friendly synonym for a pressure airship. The word is said to have mimicked the sound made when a man snapped his thumb on the airship?s gas-filled envelope. It is not derived from the description of an apocryphal type of World War I British airship, the "Balloon, Type B, limp." There was never a "Type B" nor a designation "limp" applied to a British airship before, during or after WW I. The term most likely originated with Lieutenant (later Air Commodore) A. D. Cunningham of the Royal Naval Air Service, commanding officer of the British airship station at Capel in December 1915. During a weekly inspection, Lt. Cunningham visited an aircraft hangar to examine a "Submarine Scout" pressure airship, His Majesty?s Airship SS-12. Cunningham broke the solemnity of the occasion by playfully flipping his thumb at the gasbag and was rewarded with an odd noise that echoed off the taut fabric. Cunningham imitated this sound by uttering: "Blimp!" A young midshipman, who later became known as Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard, repeated the tale of this humorous inspection to his fellow officers in the mess hall before lunch the same day. It is believed that by this route the word came into common usage. What is a "pressure airship"? pressure airship: a term used to describe an airship whose shape is dependent on the gas inside its envelope having a higher pressure than is found in the atmosphere outside. With no lifting gas in its envelope, a pressure airship is only an empty bag on the ground with its control car, fins and hardware fittings the only rigid structures. Also called a "non-rigid airship." About this Web site "BlimpInfo.com is a publication of The Lighter-Than-Air Society, 526 S. Main Street, Suite 232, Akron OH 44311. Address all suggestions to Suggest at BlimpInfo.com " - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU Fri Jan 17 15:10:19 2003 From: andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU (Drew Danielson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:10:19 -0500 Subject: greenlit Message-ID: Mmm ... renewal: Fox has greenlit two more seasons of animated powerhouse "The Simpsons" and another year of its Sunday benchmate "King of the Hill." http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/17/television.simpsons.reut/index.html Variety-style verbing? From Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM Fri Jan 17 15:23:42 2003 From: Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM (LeMay, William) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 10:23:42 -0500 Subject: greenlit Message-ID: I worked with a software engineer who always said "highlit" instead of highlighted when describing use cases. The other prevalent term in the shop was "vertice" as the singular of vertices. I am also happy to see that the Simpsons will be around a couple more years to "embiggen" us with some more linguistic laughs. http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/10/10-346.html Bill Le May -----Original Message----- From: Drew Danielson [ mailto:andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU ] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 9:10 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: greenlit Mmm ... renewal: Fox has greenlit two more seasons of animated powerhouse "The Simpsons" and another year of its Sunday benchmate "King of the Hill." http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/17/television.simpsons.reut/index. html Variety-style verbing? From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 17 17:13:36 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:13:36 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= In-Reply-To: <42.33a246f4.2b5648da@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: #In a message dated 1/14/03 8:02:15 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes: #> In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower, #> "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII. But those "60+" NE'ders weren't #> around in WWII to know that, were they? They probably associate the two #> because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE. #I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my life #heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal. Neither did I... and I never expected to hear a velar nasal there. Relevant points: 1. "-in'" was thoroughly established as a colloquial alternate to "-ing". 2. This was a fixed expression, so one said it as one heard it. "Yer fucking A!" with a velar would have been as hypercorrectively or miscorrectively wrong (though not as blatantly so) as later on *"Tell it as it is!" for "Tell it like it is!" 3. / k @ ng / would have required either a release and reforming of the velar closure, or a syllabic nasal with nasal release, either of which (IMO) would have been less consistent with the forceful way in which I always heard this pronounced than / k I n / would. #The full phrase from the 1950s Iowa high school I attended was #"Fuck-an-A John!" This meant about what "Right on!" meant in the #1970s, and translates roughly into what I hear as "Damn Straight" #today. Somewhat different full form with the same sense. -- Mark A. Mandel From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Jan 17 18:12:33 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 13:12:33 -0500 Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... Message-ID: It is true that as a matter of established fact, the earliest appearance in print of The Big Apple is from the early 1920s, in columns by a horse-racing journalist who heard the expression spoken by a couple of black hot-walkers at the track. But this of course is not the origin of the term, since the earliest citation makes clear that the term was already in oral use. Nor is there an explanation for why the term should have been Big Apple as opposed to Big Pumpkin, Long Zucchini (with reference to the shape of the island, perhaps), Great Something, Old Whatever. Gerry Cohen has speculated that since fruit was often served at the end of a banquet, an apple might have been considered a special treat. Children were also often given apples and nuts as stocking fillers at Christmas. But this is a speculation. Now we have another speculation, that the term arose, I suppose by Hobson-Jobson, from an Irish phrase. None of our phoneticians have weigh in as to the likelihood of such a development. We have heard objections that this origin isn't documented, as indeed it isn't. Presumably whatever is the true origin and explanation of The Big Apple will never be proven, because at or near the date of origin no note was written down, or because whatever note was written has been lost, or because the note, though still existing, will not be read during our lifetimes by anyone interested enough in the Big Apple to publicize the find. But who knows. I'm spending 5-10 hours a week reading NYC newspapers from the 1830s & 1840s. I've found a 50 year antedating of at least one word, as well as words or senses that aren't in the OED. As Barry knows, new stuff is being digitized every month. I posted the courtroom scene from 1821 in the spirit of sending it out into the world to make its fortune. Its an example of language use in America. To the present purpose, it showed that Irish was in fact spoken in NYC before the Famine migration, and not only by the common folk, but also by a learned gentleman -- well, by a lawyer, at least. If Irish was understood then by literate NYers, maybe there was, maybe there still are, written notes giving details of what they said. The newspaper I'm currently reading once printed a paragraph in Hebrew, just to show that it could, and because the editor the week before had let out an anti-semitic tirade, and he wanted to prove that some of his best friends were Jews. As for Beverly Flanigan's question: I read the chapter on the Irish language in NY several years ago, and reread only the opening few pages before I sent off my recent missive. I posted the statement from it that Irish was widely spoken in Ireland in 1800. As I recall, the author says that even before the Famine the language was beginning to go the way of all low-prestige languages in competition with a language spoken by the holders of power and wealth; and that the Famine and the disruption it caused to Irish society and culture added to this process, until by the late 19th C Irish was spoken only by bogtrotters. So a hypothesis has been made, and we sit back and await future developments. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Daniel Cassidy Date: Thursday, January 16, 2003 10:07 pm Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... > Thanks much for feedback. Please see my version of "apple" again > and then > short note below... > > Big Apple > Big ?th B?il (gen. of b?al) (pron. ahh-beeul) > Big Ford of the Mouth (of the Rivers) > New York City. > > ?th: Ford; a river crossing. > B?al: Mouth (of a river). > Belfast: B?al Feirste: Mouth of the sandy bank of Farset River > Dublin: Baile ?tha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles > (of the Liffey River). > New York: The Big ?th B?al: The Big Ford of the Mouth of the > (Hudson and > East) rivers. > > New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the > Irish names > for Belfast and Dublin. An ancient Gaelic name for the ancient > crossing of > the two great North Atlantic Rivers. > > +++ > > > A Chairde: (Friends...) > > The two Irish words A/TH and BE/AL are used in hundreds of place > names in > Ireland, Scotland and the Isles. I believe it is the source of > the Gaelic > monicker the "apple" for NYC. If some do not agree with me than > their big > apple can be as English as big Liz Windsor. > > as far as citations of Irish words in English, that would be > humorous if it > were not for the long and well known depredations of cultural > imperialism in > Ireland. the language was first banned in 1366 with the statutes > of Kilkenny. > that was copper fastened with the passage of the penal laws in the > early 18th > century. a modern dictionary was not published until 1926. the > Irish language > was not permitted to be taught in schools in English colonized > Ireland for > close to half a millennium. > > 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that > came to north > America were illiterate. > > This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over > spoken rather > than written sources. > > With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue > you must put > your ear to the ground. > > I look forward to the discussions...Thanks for the note. > > Sl/an agus Beannachtai/ > Health and Blessings, > > Daniel Cassidy > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 17 18:51:00 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 13:51:00 EST Subject: blimp 1916 -- (David Shulman has 1915) Message-ID: Another Web site, URL http://www.worldwar1.com/sfzepp.htm, has this to say A number of theories have been advanced concerning the etymology of "blimp," but in fact it is an onomatopoeic word whose coinage can be traced specifically to 5-Dec-1915 when Royal Naval Air Service Lieutenant A. D. Cunningham playfully flicked a finger against the envelope of SS. 12 at the Capel air station and then mimicked aloud the sound It had made. "Blimp," then, is essentially a slang term, although it was given one official cachet in Jul-1943 when the U.S. Navy, the only service in the world to operate airships during World War II, inexplicably changed the designation "airship patrol squadron:" to "blimp squadron." What is useful about this site's cite is that an exact date (5 December 1915) is given. I would like to see the 1915 citation David Shulman has. If it is earlier than December 1915, or from December 1915 but not plausibly from Lt. Cunningham, then the theory in the above quote would be, uh, "shot down in flames". - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA PS. Does anyone know if the cartoon character "Colonel Blimp" (dating from the 1930's) was named after the airship? From bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Fri Jan 17 19:09:27 2003 From: bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU (David Bergdahl) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:09:27 -0500 Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... In-Reply-To: <3c1df23c6a6e.3c6a6e3c1df2@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: In The Story of English companion volume pp. 170-1 there are maps delineating the retreat of Gaelic in Ireland. In 1800 only the area around Dublin and Belfast as English speaking and the rest Gaelic but for the population born 1771-1781 only the western half has more than 50% speaking Irish; that area decreases rapidly after the cohort born 1831-41. --On Friday, January 17, 2003 1:12 PM -0500 George Thompson wrote: > It is true that as a matter of established fact, the earliest appearance > in print of The Big Apple is from the early 1920s, in columns by a > horse-racing journalist who heard the expression spoken by a couple of > black hot-walkers at the track. But this of course is not the origin of > the term, since the earliest citation makes clear that the term was > already in oral use. Nor is there an explanation for why the term should > have been Big Apple as opposed to Big Pumpkin, Long Zucchini (with > reference to the shape of the island, perhaps), Great Something, Old > Whatever. Gerry Cohen has speculated that since fruit was often served > at the end of a banquet, an apple might have been considered a special > treat. Children were also often given apples and nuts as stocking > fillers at Christmas. But this is a speculation. > > Now we have another speculation, that the term arose, I suppose by > Hobson-Jobson, from an Irish phrase. None of our phoneticians have weigh > in as to the likelihood of such a development. We have heard objections > that this origin isn't documented, as indeed it isn't. Presumably > whatever is the true origin and explanation of The Big Apple will never > be proven, because at or near the date of origin no note was written > down, or because whatever note was written has been lost, or because the > note, though still existing, will not be read during our lifetimes by > anyone interested enough in the Big Apple to publicize the find. But who > knows. I'm spending 5-10 hours a week reading NYC newspapers from the > 1830s & 1840s. I've found a 50 year antedating of at least one word, as > well as words or senses that aren't in the OED. As Barry knows, new > stuff is being digitized every month. > > I posted the courtroom scene from 1821 in the spirit of sending it out > into the world to make its fortune. Its an example of language use in > America. To the present purpose, it showed that Irish was in fact spoken > in NYC before the Famine migration, and not only by the common folk, but > also by a learned gentleman -- well, by a lawyer, at least. If Irish was > understood then by literate NYers, maybe there was, maybe there still > are, written notes giving details of what they said. The newspaper I'm > currently reading once printed a paragraph in Hebrew, just to show that > it could, and because the editor the week before had let out an > anti-semitic tirade, and he wanted to prove that some of his best friends > were Jews. > > As for Beverly Flanigan's question: I read the chapter on the Irish > language in NY several years ago, and reread only the opening few pages > before I sent off my recent missive. I posted the statement from it that > Irish was widely spoken in Ireland in 1800. As I recall, the author says > that even before the Famine the language was beginning to go the way of > all low-prestige languages in competition with a language spoken by the > holders of power and wealth; and that the Famine and the disruption it > caused to Irish society and culture added to this process, until by the > late 19th C Irish was spoken only by bogtrotters. > > So a hypothesis has been made, and we sit back and await future > developments. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Daniel Cassidy > Date: Thursday, January 16, 2003 10:07 pm > Subject: the irish apple and the english apple... > >> Thanks much for feedback. Please see my version of "apple" again >> and then >> short note below... >> >> Big Apple >> Big ?th B?il (gen. of b?al) (pron. ahh-beeul) >> Big Ford of the Mouth (of the Rivers) >> New York City. >> >> ?th: Ford; a river crossing. >> B?al: Mouth (of a river). >> Belfast: B?al Feirste: Mouth of the sandy bank of Farset River >> Dublin: Baile ?tha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles >> (of the Liffey River). >> New York: The Big ?th B?al: The Big Ford of the Mouth of the >> (Hudson and >> East) rivers. >> >> New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the >> Irish names >> for Belfast and Dublin. An ancient Gaelic name for the ancient >> crossing of >> the two great North Atlantic Rivers. >> >> +++ >> >> >> A Chairde: (Friends...) >> >> The two Irish words A/TH and BE/AL are used in hundreds of place >> names in >> Ireland, Scotland and the Isles. I believe it is the source of >> the Gaelic >> monicker the "apple" for NYC. If some do not agree with me than >> their big >> apple can be as English as big Liz Windsor. >> >> as far as citations of Irish words in English, that would be >> humorous if it >> were not for the long and well known depredations of cultural >> imperialism in >> Ireland. the language was first banned in 1366 with the statutes >> of Kilkenny. >> that was copper fastened with the passage of the penal laws in the >> early 18th >> century. a modern dictionary was not published until 1926. the >> Irish language >> was not permitted to be taught in schools in English colonized >> Ireland for >> close to half a millennium. >> >> 90% of the several million Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers that >> came to north >> America were illiterate. >> >> This is the old debate fought by Murray, Furnivall et al. over >> spoken rather >> than written sources. >> >> With Irish, Native American, African, and other penalized tongue >> you must put >> your ear to the ground. >> >> I look forward to the discussions...Thanks for the note. >> >> Sl/an agus Beannachtai/ >> Health and Blessings, >> >> Daniel Cassidy >> _________________________________________ "We are all New Yorkers" --Dominique Moisi From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 00:39:31 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:39:31 EST Subject: sitzfleish (was ?) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/16/2003 11:00:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET writes: > We used the term Sitzfleisch as a euphemism for ass when I was in prep > school back in the '50s at Concordia College in Milwaukee. This very German > Missouri Synod Lutheran institution didn't have much Yiddish influence. > #Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of > #studying German. Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate > #to our Barry? > > Actually I've always thought of it as being as much Yiddish as German, > though I spelled it as German (without the capital letter). ... Not in > Rosten's _Joy of Yiddish_ ... not in AHD4 ... Found it in Weinreich's > Y/E dictionary: > > zitsflaysh [my translit -- MAM] : perseverance (humorous) > > My wife's recollection of its use in Yiddish (her parents were native > speakers) is that when it was applied to a child, it often referred to a > behavior of pattern of being unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting, > standing up, moving around, etc. "Nowadays we diagnose it as ADHD." Herbert Tarr _The Conversion of Chaplain Cohen_ New York: Avon, 1963, no ISBN, beginning of chapter 7 "Classes at Chaplain School continued unabated, but the interest of the chaplains did not. By the middle of January, with almost a month still remaining till the end of the course, the men were growing restless. Most of them, veterans of a minimum of seven years of higher education, were weary by now of any additional schooling; their _sitzfleisch_ had clearly been worn to the bone." - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 01:40:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 20:40:51 EST Subject: Glam Burger; Irish Apple Message-ID: GLAM BURGER Today's NEW YORK POST, 17 January 2003, pg. 7, col. 2,: _GLAM BURGER_ _For $50,_ _it _better__ _be good_ DB Bistro Moderne burger *** The full-color photo illustration must be seen to be believed. Wait a while and see if "glam burger" catches on as slang for an expensive hamburger. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- IRISH APPLE In a message dated 1/17/2003 1:12:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, george.thompson at NYU.EDU writes: > So a hypothesis has been made, and we sit back and await future > developments. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr. > You're going to have to wait a long time, almost as long as for the African sources for "OK." Or, if you're writing THE STORY OF ENGLISH, don't even bother to wait at all. As I've said, not only do we NOT HAVE ONE SINGLE PIECE OF SUPPORTING EVIDENCE in any of our HUGE DATABANKS OF MILLIONS OF HISTORICAL WRITINGS, we have COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE. "Apple" meant "apple." It didn't come from an Irish speaker in New York City, but from an African-American in New Orleans. Horses like apples. Horses don't eat zucchini and they don't eat much pumpkin. The apple was and still is the king of the fruits. As I've said before, but I guess George missed it, various apple-growing places, such as Washington, British Columbia, Colorado, and Missouri, all advertised as "Land of the Big Red Apples" since at least the 1890s. No "mouth of the river" from Irish in that. "Apples"--Big Apples. But if you want to wait, go ahead and wait. Get Bill Gates to digitize every single Irish work ever published. You won't find anything of relevance, and it won't be what the African-American had meant, and it won't be what John J. Fitz Gerald had meant, and it won't be what a living witness such as Shirley Povich has told me. And if you don't find anything at all, your theory is still true, but it's just that no one had bothered to write it down. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 03:02:27 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 21:02:27 -0600 Subject: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) Message-ID: In Jonathon Green's very helpful ads-l message about Daniel Cassidy's _NY Observer_ article, there's mention that Cassidy might have solved a centuries-old problem: the origin of cant "mort" "woman, harlot". The _NY Observer_ article says: "Mort: old New York slang for a woman -- M?r te: fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection." Green, addressing D. Cassidy says: >...Then mort. Here I think you have cracked a centuries'-old conundrum. No-one >has ever been able to pin this one down. The OED is most honest: 'Origin >unknown' and other suggestions are pretty specious. The question remains, >was the Irish term in existence c. 1560?... However, in Oct. 1990 my _Comments on Etymology_ carried what I consider to be a plausible explanation of this "mort", and it was then published formally in my _Studies in Slang, part IV_; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995, p. 51; article title "Cant _mort_ 'girl, woman' from _mort_ 'salmon in its third year',"; author: Gerald Cohen. I'll now reproduce the article up to the Reference: "OED2 presents cant _mort_ (sb. #4) as meaning 'girl, woman' and being of unknown origin. But I believe a lead can be furnished by an awareness of the now dated German slang _Backfisch_ 'frying fish,'; cf. its appearance in 'Meine erste Liebe,' (part of _Lausbubengeschichten_) by the Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma. "_Backfisch_ 'teenage girl' is known to derive from the idea of young fish past the throw-back stage being more suited for frying -- and hence eating -- than the adult fish. German clearly indicates that men could liken women to fish; and this is part of the larger picture of men describing women with food imagery, e.g. _a peach_, _a tomato_, _a dish_. "Now, it turns out that _mort_ is also a term for a salmon, specifically a salmon in its third year (see OED2, sb. #3). And a check of Chambers 1753 _Encyclopedia_ shows that the fish becomes officially a salmon in its sixth year; i.e. a mort is neither very young nor very old: "(under salmon): 'The salmon in the different stages of its life and growth has different names. The Latins call it when young _salar_, when of middle growth _sario_ or _fario_, and only when fully grown _salmon_. In England the fishermen have names for it in every year of its growth. In the first it is called a _smelt_, in the second a _sprod_, in the third a _mort_, in the fourth a _fork tail_, and in the fifth a _half-fish_; finally, in the sixth it is called a _salmon_. This is the common agreement of our fishermen, though there are some who say the _salmon_ comes much sooner to full growth.' "The first attestation of _mort_ as a fish is 1530; as a girl/woman: 1561-75. So chronologically there are no problems with the suggestion of _mort_ 'salmon to woman' in cant." **** That's the article. Also, if "mort" (woman) is in fact derived from Irish M?r te (fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection), one would expect this semantic development to have occurred first within Irish. Gerald Cohen From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 18 14:46:51 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 09:46:51 -0500 Subject: FW: [DSNA] Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order Message-ID: Jesse sure nailed this, below. BUT, here is a related quiz for you . . . Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 vowels in his first name? You have thirty seconds . . . Frank Abate ******************************************************* On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:22:55PM -0600, Luanne von Schneidemesser wrote: > > > > > >I'm looking for the two words in the English language that have the > >letters "a e i o u y" in the word in order, they can be separated by other > >letters. Can you help? The two? What makes you think there are only two? There are a number of words in English with the vowels in order, including _abstemious, abstentious, adventitious,_ and _facetious_, along with some more obscure ones like _caesious_ (the shortest in English with the five main vowels in order) and _parecious_. Most of these can have an _-ly_ suffix, giving the letters you ask for. Drop _adventitious_ from the list if you are bothered by the repeated _i_s, but there are certainly more than two. Jesse Sheidlower Oxford English Dictionary For more information:http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html Post message: DSNA at yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Sat Jan 18 14:37:39 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 14:37:39 -0000 Subject: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) Message-ID: I was, of course, aware of the Studies in Slang suggestion as to the etymology of mort. And would not be so foolish as to dismiss it out of hand: that etymology is among those I offer in CDS. But I am no German scholar (nor indeed speaker) and while I happened upon the word backfisch many years ago, and know its etymology, I cannot get away from the question: can a 20C German term create a backwards analogy, as it were, as the basis for the etymology of a 16C English one. But the equation of women with fish is of course a venerable one (Shakespeare has it in 1595 and there are allusions in the early 15C) and it may indeed be Gerald Cohen who, not for the first time, has 'cracked' a problem in slang. A good deal seems to turn on exactly who made up the ranks of itinerant criminal beggars apostrophised as the 16C 'canting crew'. (For those who want a serious discussion thereupon, I recommend John L. McMullan The Canting Crew; Rutgers 1984). It would certainly appear that as well as a core of native Englishmen, there were Irishmen (and gypsies, another source, via Romani, of 16C cant). There were also number of ex-soldiers, who would have served in Ireland. Indeed, in the hierarchy of 'knaves', as listed variously by Harman (1566), Awdelay (1657) and various successors, there is noted the 'Irish toyle', who was essentially a travelling villain who posed as a seller of haberdashery in order to commit robberies as he moved from town to town. One might assume that some, even if not all of such rogues were in fact Irish and that it had begun as an Irish 'speciality'. Harman also specifies 'above a hundred Irish men and women that wander about to beg for their living, that have come over within these two years (i.e. 1564-6). It is because I believe that there were sufficient Irishmen to influence the language of the canting crew that I am willing to credit Daniel Cassidy with making a realistic suggestion as to the etymology of mort. It is because I do not believe that the Irish villains of 19C New York City had invented the slang he discusses, but picked it up from a vocabulary imported from late 18C/early 19C London, that I part company with him on the other terms I mention. (Rabbit and rabbit sucker, being 'homegrown' may well, as I accept in my letter, have Irish origins: certainly it's a feasible as Asbury's picture of a dead rabbit brandished on a pole.) Mor te may be wrong, but so may that juvenile salmon. One last suggestion, which I culled from my reading of C. J. Ribton-Turner A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging (London 1887) suggests Welsh modryb, a matron, or morwyn, a virgin. Jonathon Green From RonButters at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 04:14:06 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 23:14:06 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20F**king-A?= Message-ID: I think we are beginning to repeat ourselves, but let me take a stab at in one more time. Concerning Mark's "relevant point" (1): Just as <-in'> is "thoroughly established as a colloquial alternate to" <-ng>, so too is <'n> thoroughly established as a colloquial alternative to . On these grounds, then, it could be reasonably analyzed as either "fuckin' a" or "fuck 'n a". Concerning his "relevant point" (2): Both "fuckin' a" with a velar nasal and "fuck 'n a" with a full "ae" vowel would be less likely. Neither would be "hypercorrect," however, just functionally emphatic. If I say, "You fucking fool!" with a velar nasal, it sounds to me like the speaker is really serious, not that the speaker doesn't know the rules for informal English. Concerning his "relevant point" (3): If I can say I can say . If I understand him rightly, Mark is saying that pronounced with schwa+velar nasal is not easy to pronounce, whereas [I]+alveolar nasal is easy to pronounce. Whatever. I certainly never maintained that (or would be pronounced with a schwa. The normal vowel (if there is one, and not just a syllabic alveolar nasal) would be [I] in both cases. So the "relevance" of this point escapes me, if I understand him correctly. In a message dated 1/17/03 12:14:05 PM, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: ... I never expected to hear a velar nasal [in fuckin' A]. Relevant points: 1. "-in'" was thoroughly established as a colloquial alternate to "-ing". 2. This was a fixed expression, so one said it as one heard it. "Yer fucking A!" with a velar would have been as hypercorrectively or miscorrectively wrong (though not as blatantly so) as later on *"Tell it as it is!" for "Tell it like it is!" 3. / k @ ng / would have required either a release and reforming of the velar closure, or a syllabic nasal with nasal release, either of which (IMO) would have been less consistent with the forceful way in which I always heard this pronounced than / k I n / would. >> From slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK Sat Jan 18 16:50:02 2003 From: slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK (Jonathon Green) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 16:50:02 -0000 Subject: "mort" (woman) Message-ID: Mot is etymologised in the OED as no more than an alternative sp. and chronological successor to mort and the two words share an entry. Other suggestions have been the Dutch mot, a woman (Barrere & Leland, who call it 'old Dutch slang') and (surely less feasible) French amourette, a girlfriend. Its first published use seems to be in Captain Grose's Classical Dict.of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), 'Mot: a girl or wench. See mort.' Whether there is a real link betw. mort/mot is by no means proven. Other than in consciously archaic uses by Walter Scott and Ainsworth, both writing historical novels, and a wholly anachronistic apparance in James Curtis' Gilt Kid (1936) mort had pretty much vanished by mid-18C. I quote (and agree with) Gordon Williams Dict. of Sexual Language & Imagery in Shakespearian & Stuart Lit.' (1994; vol II p.911): Mot is found is most collections of C19 flash lingo; Barrere and Leland are probably to be relied on in tracing it to old Dutch slang mot, whore, since there is no evidence of mort's continuity. They have 'mot-cart', mattress, and F[armer] & H[enley] have 'motting', wenching. Their 'mot-carpet' = woman's pubis derives from 'motte', hillock, which is similarly used. The fact that modern Dubliners use mot does not, I would suggest, have any bearing on the Irishness or otherwise of mort. Jonathon Green From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 15:57:34 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 09:57:34 -0600 Subject: "mort" (woman) Message-ID: My thanks to Jonathon Green for his latest ads-l message on "mort" and to Daniel Cassidy for a private message he sent to me on the subject; the latter is reproduced below my signoff. With a bit of further questioning/investigating, perhaps we can clarify the matter. I'm not wedded to my suggestion advanced yesterday (quoting from my article in _Studies in Slang_, IV), although the suggestion still seems plausible to me. If the Germans (in whatever century) could view a teenage girl as a fish ("Backfisch"), maybe the English could too (hence: "mort" = "salmon in its third year" leading to "mort" = "girl, woman"). But let's set that aside now and look at Dr. Cassidy's suggestion (_NY Observer_ article): "Mort: old New York slang for a woman -- M?r te: fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection." What's troubling here is that the development of "mor + te" (passion/etc.) to "mort" (woman) is assumed to have occurred not in Irish but in English. English speakers, however, would not be expected to combine two Irish words meaning "passion/etc." to form the word for "woman." That should be done by the Irish themselves. Dr. Cassidy's message below introduces new information: Irish "mot" (woman) deriving from "mort." But unless this "mort" arose within Irish, we're back to the unlikely assumption that the English formed the word based on two Irish roots. Bernard Share's _Slanguage: A Dictionary of Irish Slang_, 1997, has an item "mot" (from "mort") but makes no claim for a native Irish origin of the term. How do we know that the term in his dictionary is a native Irish one rather than a borrowing from English cant? And if "mort" (woman) is in fact a native Irish word, why can't we simply say that this native Irish term was borrowed into English with the same meaning? This would be very straightforward, and we could leave the ultimate origin of the Irish word to the scholars of Celtic Gerald Cohen At 1:41 AM -0500 1/18/03, DanCas1 at aol.com wrote: >From: DanCas1 at aol.com >Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 01:41:03 EST >Subject: Re: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort >"salmon" (was: Irish a... >To: gcohen at umr.edu > > >Mort? A German salmon? Why not? The slang of the crossroad is an >infinite helix. > >+++ > >If the Irish word for "ring" (f?inne) can morph into "phony" -- and >the English word "bad" can mean "good," all things are possible with >the living language. > >I will not give you the whole kit and caboodle on the Irish word M?r. > >Here's a precis... > >M?r m. 1. Great; much, many. 2. Friendliness. (3) Pride, vanity; >great person, proud person. An m?r a cheans?, to tame the proud. > >M?r a1. (comp M?). Big, great, large, full-grown; mighty, renowned; >proud; rich, well-to-do; main, major, chief; friendly (with, le)... > >(O'Donaill, p. 877, Dineen, p. 761) > >There are pages of compounds...Here's a particularly apt one: > >M?rtas, m. (gs. -ais) 1. Pride, haughtiness. 2. High spirits. 3. Friendliness. > >Then we go back to the 6th or 7th century CE if published citations >are a must for a mort. > >M?r : a woman's name, type of the average woman, esp. the peasant >woman of proverbs; oft. Englished Martha or Mary...Dineen p. 763 > >These two are pre-Christian and prehistoric, > >M?r Mumhan, the beautiful wife of Cathal Mac Fionghaine; > >M?r Cluana, a famous fairy or goddess...Dineen pp. 763-4 > >There are many exclamations, proverbs, and sayings involving M?r. > >M?r do beatha, hail! > >Cail?n ag M?ir is M?r ag iarraidh d?irce... >M?r though a beggar must have her maid, anything to keep up >appearances. (O'Donaill, p. 877) > >M?r, Muire is P?draig duit, M?r, Mary and Patrick bless thee. > >M?r is Mairsile i macnas m?chta, M?r and Marcella swamped in luxury. > > >A M?r te or "Mort" then is a M?r who is te: " hot, warm; zealous, >passionate, high-spirited, apt to lose one's temper..." >(DeBhaldraithe) > >MOT: > >Mort morphs into Mot over time and is very popular Dublin working >class and youth slang for "woman or girl" >See Roddy Doyle's "The Snapper," "The Commitments," etc. > >"Mot" is not used in Belfast or Derry or the larger towns of Ulster > >TE : a. Hot, warm, ardent, hot-tempered, fiery, affectionate... > >Mort like "Cove" for a man faded out in NYC/Brooklyn. > >Modern "Mot" though can be heard among the jackeens (Dubliners) in >Sunnyside, the East Side, and the Bronx, as well as out here on the >left coast in San Francisco. > >Daniel Cassidy From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 18 19:47:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 14:47:51 -0500 Subject: Turkey Day (1887) Message-ID: Andrew Smith (editor of the forthcoming OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK) asked me about "Turkey Day" for "Thanksgiving." He'd found it in postcards from around 1900-1910. DARE has--what? From the NEW YORK TIMES, 20 November 1887, pg. 16: The near advent of Thanksgiving has had the usual effect that the approach of a holiday generally produces on the social world; that is, it has cast somewhat of a damper on gayety. The past week has had little of incident, and the present, from the outlook this morning, offers still less. With "Turkey Day," as New-England children call it, over and gone, there will be a revival of gayety for the few weeks before Christmas, when the same story will be repeated. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 21:09:38 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 15:09:38 -0600 Subject: (Big) Apple as disguised from Irish words Message-ID: Daniel Cassidy's proposed Irish derivation needs to be fully aired. A new wrinkle in the discussion is that he sent me a private message with a request that it not be shared. So I'm not sure how I'm supposed to publicly probe evidence/material which I'm requested to keep confidential. So let me proceed as best I can: 1) Setting aside the controversial 1909 attestation, the first attestations of "the big apple" (in lower-case letters; 1921) refer to the New York City racetracks, not to NYC as a whole. And as Barry Popik has clearly shown, the turf writer who introduced "the big apple" (= NYC racetracks) to popular consciousness (1921) picked up the term from two African-American stable-hands in New Orleans a year earlier. 2) Apples have always been regarded as a special fruit, and the big red delicious apples, developed in Iowa in the 1870s, were regarded as something extra special. Therefore, "big apple" came to mean a big shot (i.e., someone who thinks he's very important), pretty much as "the big cheese" did. Cf. _Underworld Lingo_ by Hyman Goldin et al.: "_Big apple_. A big shot: one who has, or creates the illusion of having, influence, money, etc. 'There ain't no big apples in this stir (prison). You pull a tough bit (serve a harsh term) here.' _Apple. A big shot: a personage of real or pretended distinction in th underworld. 'Mike's got to be an apple in the alky (alcohol) racket now.'" It was precisely this sense of "(overweening) big shot" that I suppose appears in the 1909 attestation: "It [the Midwest] inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap." The reference here is to NYC, but as I mentioned previously, "the big apple" was no more NYC's nickname in 1909 than "The Big Enchilada" is Washington D.C.'s nickname now, even though I might refer to our nation's capital as "the big enchilada" in a discussion of political power. This use of "the big apple" in reference to NYC is totally isolated; no other source prior to 1921 has it. (For more information on this topic see my monograph _Origin of New York City's Nickname The Big Apple_, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991. pp.6ff.; but for a full treatment of "the big apple" this monograph must be supplemented by the material that Barry Popik later discovered) 3) So we now have "the big apple" back to an African-American context. And at this point I've engaged in some theorizing of my own based on the statement of the 1920 stablehand: "This ain't no bull ring stable. We's goin' to the big apple." For jockeys and trainers active in the bushes (county fairs in Idaho, etc.), the NYC racetracks with their excitement and big purses represented the big time, an extra-special treat symbolized by the big apple (apples were sometimes even given as Xmas gifts). New Yorkers tend to take their city for granted; it's the non-New Yorkers looking to make the big time in show-business, racing, etc. who look with great excitement to the possibility of getting there. 4) Now, Dr. Daniel Cassidy has proposed that "Big Apple" derives from Irish Big ?th B?al (pronounced Ahh Beeul) and means: Big Crossing at the Mouth. Okay, where's the evidence? Well, there is none. Maybe some African-Americans spoke with some Irish (not an impossibility). Maybe the Irish referred to NYC as the Big Crossing at the Mouth (nowhere actually attested), and so maybe the African-Americans acquired "Big ?th B?al" and misinterpreted its sounds to be "Big Apple." That's three maybes without a shred of evidence. Coming up with a revolutionary interpretation is fine, but the next stage in scholarship is to see if any evidence supports it. Dr. Cassidy has not only failed to provide any at all but has proceeded to the next stage of deriding the one in which a big apple really is an apple. The ball is in his court on this one. If he can find any evidence to support his theory, we shall listen with great interest, and no doubt a good discussion will ensue. In the meantime, the work which Barry Popik and I did (with an assist from several other scholars) should be considered as still valid. Gerald Cohen From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Jan 18 21:29:14 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 15:29:14 -0600 Subject: Big Apple--make that TWO maybes Message-ID: At 3:09 PM -0600 1/18/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: >Maybe some >African-Americans spoke with some Irish (not an impossibility). >Maybe the Irish referred to NYC as the Big Crossing at the Mouth >(nowhere actually attested), and so maybe the African-Americans >acquired "Big ?th B?al" and misinterpreted its sounds to be "Big >Apple." I'm here amending my message that I sent a few minutes ago. There's no doubt that some African-Americans spoke with some Irish. The main lack of evidence concerns the Irish referring to NYC as Big Ath Beal (accent aigu over A and e). Thus far there's none, zero, zip, nada. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 19 00:55:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 19:55:09 EST Subject: Tanzanite (September 1968) Message-ID: My trip to Tanzania wouldn't be complete without an antedate of "tanzanite." OED has 14 October 1968. It's mentioned that, although the gem is from Africa, the name comes from right here on 57th Street (Tiffany's). I can confirm that with a slightly earlier citation. LAPIDARY JOURNAL, August 1968, pages 636-637: _ZOISITE--A NEWLY-FOUND GEM from Tanzania_ ("Tanzanite" is not mentioned in the article. There are 1968 citations from THE JOURNAL OF GEMMOLOGY and GEMS & GEMOLOGY that I'll check out in the NYPL later next week--ed.) LAPIDARY JOURNAL, September 1968, pg. 736: _MORE ABOUT ZOISITE_ _A New Gem Sensation_ by Richard T. Liddicoat, Jr., and G. Robert Crowningshield GEMOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA (...) "Tanzanite," to which we refer in this article, is a newly discovered variety of the mineral zoisite that owes its color to a small amount if vanadium. (...) The lovely transparent blue variety with a spectacular trichroism was very recently discovered in Tanzania; thus, the suggestion of a new varietal name, "tanzanite." The name was suggested by Henry Platt, G. G., Vice President and gem buyer for Tiffany & Co., when he received a magnificent Ceylon sapphire-blue 35-carat faceted stone. (Pg. 740, col. 3, end of article--ed.) Zoisite seems to be a rather unpleasant term for a gemstone, so the varietal name "tanzanite" has been suggested, relating to its source. It seems that for this lovely gemstone to have any possibility of a sales appeal, some other term than zoisite is indicated; thus, the suggestion of "tanzanite." The authors feel that this is going to be an important gemstone because of its exceptional beauty. Although the Ceylon sapphire-blue variety has attracted the most attention, the orientation that gives a combination of ruby red and blue is unlike anything in the gem world. Picture a red Maltese Cross in a sapphire-blue gemstone. "Tanzanite" is a very appealing gemstone--a welcome addition to the spectrum of gem materials. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Jan 19 03:14:55 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 19:14:55 -0800 Subject: piss elegance Message-ID: just got the fall 2002 issue of NEST ("a quarterly of interiors"), which declared itself to be about PISS ELEGANCE. on an early page - as with other with-it magazines, it's very hard to figure out what the page number of anything is - there is a declaration of topic: "Piss elegant": Most decorators use the expression and hear themselves so described. Moreover, "piss elegance" is a theme for this issue of NEST. [the front part of the magazine is about toilets and their equivalents.] But we confess to being unable to find an origin for this provocative word-join. NEST has racked its collective brain, even consulting such authorities as the Internet, without avail. Would readers care to help? just passing this on... arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 19 04:22:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:22:41 EST Subject: Hoppers and Mallung (Ceylon Cookery) Message-ID: The round-the-world etymological mystery tour continues next with Sri Lanka in February (www.ceylonexpress.com). I had met an Australian couple last February on my New Zealand tour, and the beautiful wife is from Sri Lanka. They're in Sri Lanka now, and they told me they've warned all the local women about me, whatever that means. Sri Lanka is an extremely dangerous place, more dangerous than Israel. However, temporary peace agreements were signed recently, and my visit will coincide with the visit of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Tourism is starting to pick up, and it'll probably be a flood very soon. The major staples of the cuisine, such as "hoppers" and "mallun/mallung/mallum," are not in the OED. NEOS GUIDE SRI LANKA, MALDIVES Michelin Travel Publications 432 pages, paperback, $23.95 2001 Pg. 71: ...it has borrowed all sorts of recipes, from _aluwa_, sugared semolina from the Arab world, to _dodol_ (coconut milk caramel with palm syrup), _sathe_ (thin strips of meat on skewers) and _sambol_ from Malaysia. (...) _Hoppers_ (_appa_) resemble pancakes which have been leavened by incorporating palm beer (_toddy_), mixed with coconut milk and fried in a special little pan. (...) _String hoppers_ (_idiappa_), little steamed nests of noodles, are eaten with the same accompaniments. Pg. 72: If the combination of spices in the dish is not hot enough, they tuck into some _mallun_ (a salad of shredded green leaves served cold having been cooked in water with onions and chillies) or _sambol_ , a seasoning based on ground chilli pepper, salt, onion and dried fish, sometimes served with grated coconut (_pol sambol_). SRI LANKA by Verity Campbell and Christine Niven Melbourne: Lonely Planet Publications 328 pages, paperback, $16.99 First published February 1980 8th edition August 2001 Pg. 84: ..._pol sambol_, a red-hot side dish made with grated coconut, chilli and spice. Sambol is the general name used to describe any spicy-hot dish. (...) ...mallung_ (shredded green leaves with spices, lightly stir-fried) is common, and the meal would not be complete without _parripu_ (red lentil dhal) or another pulse curry. (...) ..._kool_, a boiled, fried and dried-in-the-sun vegetable combination. Pg. 85: ..._ambul thiyal_, a pickle usually made from tuna, which is literally translated as "sour fish curry." Unique Sri Lankan foods include _hoppers_, which are usually a breakfast or evening snack. (...) A popular breakfast among Sri Lankans is fresh bread dipped in dhal or a curry with a thin gravy or _hodhi_. Another rice substitute os +pittu_, a mixture of flour and grated coconut steamed in a bamboo mould so thjat it comes out shaped like a cylinder. _Lamprai_, a popular dish of Dutch origin, is made of rice boiled in meat stock, then added to vegetables and meat and slowly baked in a banana-leaf wrapping. Pg. 86: A rotty chopped up and mixed with vegetables (or meat or egg) is called a _kotthu rotty_. (...) The Sri Lankans also have lots of ideas for desserts, including _wattalappam_, a Malay-originated egg pudding, vaguely caramel-like in taste. Curd and honey, or curd and treacle known as _kiri peni_, is good at any time of day. (...) The treacle, called _kitul_, is really syrup from the kitul palm. If it's boiled and set to form hard blocks you have _jaggery_, an all-purpose Sri-Lankan candy or sweetener. Like Indians, Sir Lankans waste no opportunity to indulge their sweet tooth--sweets are known as _rasa-kavili_. You could try _kavun_, spiced flour and treacle batter-cake fried in coconut oil, or _aluva_, which is rice flour, treacle and cashew-nut fudge. Coconut milk jaggery and cashew nuts give you the dark and delicious _kalu dodol_. _Kiri bath_ is a dessert or rice cooked in milk. THE OXFORD COMPANION TO FOOD by Alan Davidson Oxford University Press 1999 Pg. 385: HOPPER Pg. 689: SAMBAL Pg. 750: SRI LANKA (...) _Mallums_ are distinctive vegetable dishes thus described by Chandra Dissanayake (1976): "a preparation in which a fruit, edible root, leaf, vegetable or coconut may (Pg. 751--ed.) be finely shredded or grated and cooked until done with coconut." CEYLON COOKERY OR THE NATIVE COOK'S ASSISTANT IN ENGLISH AND SINHALESE Fourth Edition--Revised and Enlarged Colombo: A. M. J. Ferguson 1901 The first edition was published October 1881. This is the earliest cookbook that the NYPL has, and boy, does it disappoint. The Sinhalese type is not transliterated and is unreadable to English speakers. I didn't see "hoppers" here. The recipes are such Tamil classics as "Irish stew." Some items from the Index: BEEF:-- Polpetti Saunders MADE DISHES:-- Debris Pudding Kedgeree MISCELLANEOUS:-- Billing (Billimbe) Jam MUTTON:-- Dormars VEGETABLES:-- Brinjals au Gratin CEYLON: THE PARADISE OF ADAM by Caroline Corner London: John Lane 1908 Pg. 104: After this and a cup of tea and "string _appas_" they felt "fit." (Many, many "appas" are here instead of "hoppers"--ed.) EVERY DAY LIFE ON A CEYLON COCOA ESTATE by Mary E. Steuart London: Henry T. Drake 1908 Pg. 68: "Poochee" is the generic Ceylon name for pestilent insects, and truly their name is legion. THINGS SEEN IN CEYLON by Clare Rettie New York: E. P. Dutton & Company 1929 Pg. 34: On returning to olombo, after those pleasing excursions, it is well to see, before turning into bed, that mosquito nets are intact, in case some wicke _poochie_ (all creepy, crawly things are called "poochies" in Ceylon) gets inside. Pg. 70: It must be explained that, for some extraordinary reason (nobody seems to know why), all pupils on tea estates are called "Creepers"; the custom is universal in Ceylon. Pg. 76: Others have a collection of strange vegetables: bandakai, brinjals, vivid red chillies, avocada pears, and insipid breadfruit; or they may display ingredients for curry making; piles of snowy rice, coco-nuts, Bombay duck, popodums, and so on. There are odd looking cakes, too, called "hoppers," made of coco-nut milk and rice flour; pottery of artistic shapes; tawdry jewellery--the medley of things always to be seen where Natives congregate. Pg. 77: Many of them come from remote bungalows, which, even in these days of motors, must often be lonely, and few of the "sine Dorais" (literally "Little Masters," used by Natives in addressing all young Europeans) can afford the luwury of a car. A CEYLON COOKERY BOOK by Doreen Peiris Revised Second Edition Colombo: Lanka Trading Co. 1967? There's a huge NYPL cookbook gap from 1901 to 1967. Maybe a library in Colombo has English-lanugage cookbooks? Pg. 54: MUKUNUWANNA MALLUM...KATHURUMURUNGA MALLUM Pg. 128: HOPPERS (APPA) Pg. 129: EGG HOPPERS Pg. 130: JAGGERY HOPPERS (Hakuru Appa)...WANDU APPA (Steamed Hoppers) Pg. 131: WANDU APPA (Steamed Hoppers)...STRING HOPPERS (with only Rice Flour) Pg. 132: STRING HOOPERS...STRING HOPPER LAVARIYA Pg. 133: PITTU...SAGO PITTU...KURAKKAN PITTU FAVOURITE RECIPES Compiled by The Past Pupils of GOOD SHEPHERD CONVENT, KOTAHENA Colombo: Arosan Printers 1968 Pg. 14: ATIRAHA--THE CEYL:ON OIL CAKES Pg. 15: BIBIKKAN Pg. 17: SATTI THOSI I...SEENI MAHA Pg. 18: SATI THOSI II...BROEDER II Pg. 23: KONDE KAVUN...KOKIS Pg. 61: MOCK WATTALAPAN...MOSS JELLY & JAGGERY PUDDING Pg. 65: GHULAB JAN--AN INDIAN SWEET Pg. 66: JAGGERY & CADJUNUT TOFFEE...POTATO ALUWA Pg. 67: PUNTHALOO...RULANG SWEET Pg. 73: CHATTY THOUSY Pg. 77: KALU DODOL Pg. 94: DRUMSTICK FUGETTI Pg. 95: POLOS PAHIE Pg. 108: CHELLUM Pg. 134: HACHII (SAVOURY BEEF & ONION STEW) GUNASENA COOKERY BOOK Colombo: M. D. Gunasena & Co., Ltd. 1970 Pg. 22: Kiribath (Milk RIce) Pg. 30: Idiappa (String-hoppers) Pg. 31: Idiappa Buriyani...Pittu Pg. 24: Sudu Appa (Hoppers) Pg. 35: Egg Hoppers--I Pg. 36: Vellavahum Pg. 37: Kiri Roti Pg. 39: Hakuru-appa or Pani-appa (Jaggery Hoppers) Pg. 51: Sago Dodol-I Pg. 52: Vali Thalapa-I Pg. 55: Rulang Aluva-I Pg. 57: Tala Guli (Gingelly Balls)-I Pg. 61: Puhul Dosi (Pumpkin Preserve)-I Pg. 86: Mukunuvenna Mallung Pg. 87: Gotukola Mallung Pg. 103: Chilli Sambol Pg. 114: Bandakka (Ladies' Fingers) Sambol-I Pg. 164: Kunissan Malluma Pg. 168: Ingura Baduma Pg. 231: Dried Mango Paehi From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Sun Jan 19 08:36:57 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:36:57 -0800 Subject: to geekize: is this a first instance? In-Reply-To: <200301190314.h0J3Etj15811@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: from today's NY Times, an article about Fossil watches: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/business/yourmoney/19ROOT.html?todaysheadl ines "FOSSIL INC., along with competitors like Swatch, made a mark in the 1980's by "fashionizing" watches ? turning them into fashion accessories. But Fossil says its recently announced partnership with Microsoft to produce watches that can receive short text messages does not mean that it is now in the business of fashionizing geekware. "Instead, designers and engineers at Fossil's headquarters in this Dallas suburb say their mission is to geekize fashion wear ? that is, to make watches that look good and just happen to contain a computer. To them, it's an important distinction." is this the first usage of the [horrid] word 'geekize'? thank you, Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net From mlee303 at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 19 10:46:01 2003 From: mlee303 at YAHOO.COM (Margaret Lee) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 02:46:01 -0800 Subject: FW: [DSNA] Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 19 10:48:18 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 05:48:18 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order Message-ID: Margaret L wins the prize! I just don't know what the prize is. Go Tigers! We're comin' back! Frank Abate > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 19 14:39:14 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 09:39:14 EST Subject: Aurelio Lopez/Rodriguez Message-ID: From: Mpoconnor7 (mpoconnor7 at aol.comnojunk) Subject: Re: Aurelio Rodriguez, 52, former major leaguer Newsgroups: alt.obituaries Date: 2000-09-24 10:08:51 PST >Damn. That really stinks.>>Actually, for many years I confused him with Aurelio Lopez, who also played>for the Tigers; one of my favorite non-hometown teams (especially that '84>squad). I guess it was the fact that both were from Mexico, played their>prime years with Detroit, and shared a first name.They are the only two major leaguers ever to have all five vowels (a,e,i,o,u)in their first name. The only player to have all five vowels in his last nameis Ed Figureoa. The above is from Google Groups. Actually, the main problem with the trivia question is that it assumes that the Detroit Tigers play baseball. Barry Popik (Just kidding! Like the New York Yankees have shown me a lot of love??) Subj: Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order Date: 1/19/2003 5:48:54 AM Eastern Standard Time From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Reply-to: abatefr at earthlink.net To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Margaret L wins the prize! I just don't know what the prize is. Go Tigers! We're comin' back! Frank Abate > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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 From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 19 15:43:56 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 10:43:56 -0500 Subject: Aurelio Lopez/Rodriguez In-Reply-To: <195.142c02d6.2b5c1292@aol.com> Message-ID: Ed Figureoa sounds like a player who might have had an accident on the field. I'm sure Barry's Google Group author means Figueroa. dInIs >Damn. That really stinks.>>Actually, for many years I confused him with Aurelio Lopez, who also played>for the Tigers; one of my favorite non-hometown teams (especially that '84>squad). I guess it was the fact that both were from Mexico, played their>prime years with Detroit, and shared a first name.They are the only two major leaguers ever to have all five vowels (a,e,i,o,u)in their first name. The only player to have all five vowels in his last nameis Ed Figureoa. The above is from Google Groups. Actually, the main problem with the trivia question is that it assumes that the Detroit Tigers play baseball. Barry Popik (Just kidding! Like the New York Yankees have shown me a lot of love??) Margaret L wins the prize! I just don't know what the prize is. Go Tigers! We're comin' back! Frank Abate > Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 > vowels in his first > name? > > You have thirty seconds . . . > That would be Aurelio Rodriguez, former third baseman for the Detroit Tigers. > ******************************************************* ===== 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 From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Jan 19 20:35:07 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 14:35:07 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Stable Hand Theory : "Big" Apple and Jump Jim Crow Message-ID: Below my signoff is a response I received today from Dr. Cassidy. In a follow-up note he asked only that this response, if shared, be presented in its entirety; that request is of course complied with. Gerald Cohen From: DanCas1 at aol.com Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 12:49:44 EST Subject: Stable Hand Theory : "Big" Apple and Jump Jim Crow To: gcohen at umr.edu Dear Doctor Cohen: Thank you very much for your time and attention. I look forward to discussing "The Apple" with you in the future. My 3-4 days on the ADS list has certainly been instructive. As a kid in NYC back in the 50s-60s, we referred to NYC as The Apple. Not the Big Apple. That came later, with the PR push and the Ad campaign for tourists in the 1970s. Either way, Dr. Cohen, we both agree that there is an Irish American element to the name "The (Big) Apple." As I said in my personal note to you, the Stable Hand Theory of Big Apple's etymology is just a retelling of Thomas Dartmouth (Daddy) Rice's world famous Stable Hand tale of how he discovered the song and dance, "Jump Jim Crow." Only Daddy Rice's African-American stablehand was from Cincinnati, or Louisville, (depending on who Rice was talking to...) rather than New Orleans. Though, perhaps, Daddy Rice's stablehand was the grandfather of Fitzgerald's stable hand? I opt for a moniker whose very words (A/th and Be/al) mirror the ancient naming patterns of Gaelic Ireland and Scotland in a language spoken by millions of immigrants to The Americas -- over a period of five centuries - Irish and Scottish Gaelic. So, at the end of the day, we both agree that the term "The (Big) Apple" arises from the mouths and imaginations of the common folk and is popularized by people of the Gaelic Diaspora in America. You like the stable hand story, I prefer two words in Irish that describe NYC's ancient gestalt as a key crossroad of the old New World. Peace agus Beannachtai/, Daniel Cassidy Director The Irish Studies Program An Leann Eireannach New College of California 777 Valencia Street San Francisco, 94131 415-437-3402, ext. 427 fax: 415-285-5947 irishstudies at newcollege.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 04:35:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 23:35:16 EST Subject: Slaw Burger; "Big" Apple and Jump Jim Crow Message-ID: SLAW BURGER Columbia and NYU were closed today, but Columbia will have limited hours tomorrow. Both resume normal hours starting Tuesday. I bought the January-February 2003 SAVEUR, Special Issue: The Saveur 100: Our favorite foods, restaurants, recipes, people, place and things. It's certainly a quirky listing. Pg. 76: The two-volume AMERICAN HERITAGE COOKBOOK AND ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF AMERICAN EATING & DRINKING (1964). Only about 40 years old now. I wonder what it has on panini sandwiches and wraps and smoothies and cappuccino. Pg. 71: The ESQUIRE DRINK BOOK (1956). Yes, these are good books, or rather were good books. A strange list for 2003, to be sure. Pg. 78: STEAK 'N SHAKE. This made a top 100 food list? Pg. 73: R. O.'S SLAW. Since 1946, also served in a "slaw burger." The web site is www.rosbbq.com. It's worthy of inclusion in the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD & DRINK sandwich section. From Gastonia, North Carolina. Pg. 16 says that January 19th is National Popcorn Day. HOW COULD I FORGET?? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- "BIG" APPLE AND JUMP JIM CROW This is just psycho nuts crazy. It might even be racist. The "apple" in "Big Apple" means "apple," and not two words from the Irish language. I should have added that there's not a shred of evidence on the British & Irish Women's database, either. (I had found "Irish stew" there.) The Making of American (Cornell) database, for example, mentions "Irish" 32,666 times and "Gaelic" 1,172 times. Again, we have _no_ Irish language "Big Apple" citation evidence. Maybe there's a reason why every database and every Irish scholar misses such "Big Apple" evidence? To add "Jim Crow" to this and to assert that track writer John J. Fitz Gerald was borrowing or making up a "Jim Crow"-type story is just insane. Fitz Gerald mentioned the New Orleans "Big Apple" story twice--in wintertime, when he was covering New Orleans racing and describing remembered events. Trainer Jake Byer was mentioned by name, and he is not fictional. An Irishman got "the Big Apple" from an African-American. Please accept this. The first thing I tried to do--eleven years ago now--was to find and honor the African American. Is he still alive? Did he have children who remember the story? I asked the NEW YORK TIMES to publish his words. I asked the NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE to publish his words. Neither would respond or ever publish his words. It's MLK, Jr. day, and I'm begging still. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 14:14:31 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 09:14:31 EST Subject: "Jackalope" inventor dies Message-ID: DARE has "jackalope," but from only 1955. The facts from this NEW YORK TIMES article are absent in the DARE entry. OED does not have an entry. Google shows that a few places offer a "jackalope burger," but it's no "turducken" or "churkendoose." From the NEW YORK TIMES: Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead By DOUGLAS MARTIN Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope ? half bunny, half antelope and 100 percent tourist trap ? died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyo. He was 82. The cause was bone and lung cancer, his brother, Ralph, said. Douglas Herrick lived in Casper, but it was in his hometown, Douglas, Wyo., that luck changed his life. In 1932 (other accounts say 1934, 1939 and 1940, but Ralph Herrick swears it was 1932), the Herrick brothers had returned from hunting. "We just throwed the dead jack rabbit in the shop when we come in and it slid on the floor right up against a pair of deer horns we had in there," Ralph said. "It looked like that rabbit had horns on it." His brother's eyes brightened with inspiration. "Let's mount that thing!" he said. That was tens of thousands of jackalopes ago. A jackalope, of course, is a legendary animal with a jack rabbit's body and the antlers of a pronghorn antelope, which resembles a small deer. The last syllable of the name comes from antelope. (Jackadeer? Nah.) Whether jackalopes ever hopped the earth's surface is rather like the same question about the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot; it depends on the observer. Believers say that Buddha mentioned a horned rabbit, although they usually neglect to mention that the Enlightened One implied they do not exist. They also point to a picture of a horned rabbit painted in the 1500's, but scientists suspect its cerebral protuberances were tumors from a rabbit virus. Cowboys have said that while they were singing around the fire, their chorus was joined by a distant jackalope, often in harmony, usually in the tenor line. (Yep.) Whether truth, fiction or metaphor, the mounted version of the jackalope, many made with deer horn tips, relentlessly proliferated. Many thousands were made by Ralph Herrick and his son Jim. Douglas Herrick was less interested in the family taxidermy shop. "I don't think my brother ever made more than a thousand, if he done that," Ralph Herrick said. By contrast, Jim Herrick delivers 400 jackalopes to Wall Drug in South Dakota three times a year, a small portion of his total production. Douglas became the jackalope capital. In 1965, the state of Wyoming trademarked the name, and in 1985 Gov. Ed Herschler pronounced it the animal's official home. Jackalope images adorn everything from park benches to fire trucks. Jackalope hunting licenses are sold; an applicant must supposedly pass a test to prove he has an I.Q. higher than 50 but not more than 72. Hunting is permitted only on June 31, from midnight to 2 a.m. Jackalope milk is available at several stores, though its authenticity is questionable; everyone knows how dangerous it is to milk a jackalope. An oft-repeated legend is that the Herricks' grandfather saw a jackalope in Buffalo, Wyo., in 1920 and told his family about it. Not true, Ralph said. The first mounted jackalope was sold for $10 (they now go for $35) to Roy Ball, who displayed it in his Bonte Hotel in Douglas. It was stolen. Others have tried to take the jackalope's peculiar evolution further. A Colorado bar displays a jackapanda, a cross between a jackalope and a panda, while Wall Drug has a flying jackalope, with some partridge feathers glued to its tail. Douglas Eugene Herrick was born on July 8, 1920, and grew up on a ranch. In World War II, he was a tail gunner on a B-17. He later worked in construction and at an Amoco refinery, in addition to stuffing animals. Although Governor Herschler specifically mentioned Mr. Herrick in 1985 as the Jackalope's creator, his brother said the town tried to charge him a commission for each jackalope. It relented. (...) From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 20 15:34:57 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 10:34:57 -0500 Subject: mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > "OED2 presents cant _mort_ (sb. #4) as meaning 'girl, woman' and >being of unknown origin. But I believe a lead can be furnished by an >awareness of the now dated German slang _Backfisch_ 'frying fish,'; >cf. its appearance in 'Meine erste Liebe,' (part of >_Lausbubengeschichten_) by the Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma. > > "_Backfisch_ 'teenage girl' is known to derive from the idea of >young fish past the throw-back stage being more suited for frying -- >and hence eating -- than the adult fish. German clearly indicates >that men could liken women to fish; and this is part of the larger >picture of men describing women with food imagery, e.g. _a peach_, _a >tomato_, _a dish_. How surely is this explanation of "Backfisch" = "teenaged girl" known? Here is a discussion ... http://www.ceryx.de/sprache/wd_backfisch.htm ... in which (inter alia) a derivation of this "Backfisch" from English is put forth: <> ... that is, the Backfisch = [throw-]back-fish is too small to keep (if I'm reading it right) ... as the 'bobbysoxer" is insufficiently mature for the man's presumptive interests, I suppose. [Note that "backfisch" (but not "backfish") appears in OED and MW3.] Anyway, I'll freely grant that "young fish" > "[young] gal" is believable. > "Now, it turns out that _mort_ is also a term for a salmon, >specifically a salmon in its third year (see OED2, sb. #3). And a >check of Chambers 1753 _Encyclopedia_ shows that the fish becomes >officially a salmon in its sixth year; i.e. a mort is neither very >young nor very old: > > "(under salmon): 'The salmon in the different stages of its life >and growth has different names. The Latins call it when young >_salar_, when of middle growth _sario_ or _fario_, and only when >fully grown _salmon_. In England the fishermen have names for it in >every year of its growth. In the first it is called a _smelt_, in >the second a _sprod_, in the third a _mort_, in the fourth a _fork >tail_, ... Compare modern "split-tail" = "woman" [crude], also a fish! >... and in the fifth a _half-fish_; finally, in the sixth it is >called a _salmon_. This is the common agreement of our fishermen, >though there are some who say the _salmon_ comes much sooner to full >growth.' > > "The first attestation of _mort_ as a fish is 1530; as a >girl/woman: 1561-75. So chronologically there are no problems with >the suggestion of _mort_ 'salmon to woman' in cant." But whence "mort" = "young salmon"? Maybe the connection could be the other way around? >... if "mort" (woman) is in fact derived >from Irish M?r te (fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection), one >would expect this semantic development to have occurred first within >Irish. I agree. A very strained derivation is this Irish one, without some additional support, IMHO. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 20 16:02:58 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:02:58 -0500 Subject: FW: [DSNA] Fwd: Two English words with all the vowels (and y) in order In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 9:46 AM -0500 1/18/03, Frank Abate wrote: >Jesse sure nailed this, below. BUT, here is a related quiz for you . . . > >Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 vowels in his first >name? > >You have thirty seconds . . . > >Frank Abate It took me more than thirty seconds, but relaxing the rules a bit I can supplement Margaret's correct response (Aurelio Rodriguez, the good-field no-hit third-sacker of the Tigers et al.) with "Figueroa, Ed" (it is his first name in the phone book--or Chinese style, as we've learned from Yao Ming) and then, speaking of ex-Tigers, there's Mark "the Bird" Fidrych, known in Francophone circles as "Oiseau" Fidrych. > >******************************************************* > >On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:22:55PM -0600, Luanne von Schneidemesser wrote: > > > >> >I'm looking for the two words in the English language that have the >> >letters "a e i o u y" in the word in order, they can be separated by >other >> >letters. Can you help? >[Jesse S.:] >The two? What makes you think there are only two? > >There are a number of words in English with the vowels in order, including >_abstemious, abstentious, adventitious,_ and _facetious_, along with some >more obscure ones like _caesious_ (the shortest in English with the five >main vowels in order) and _parecious_. Most of these can have an _-ly_ >suffix, giving the letters you ask for. Drop _adventitious_ from the list >if you are bothered by the repeated _i_s, but there are certainly more >than two. > I've usually seen this with the answer "abstemiously" and "facetiously"; I assume the other adverbs-in-waiting are either not considered "words" or (in the case of "adventitiously") not well-formed according to the riddle for the reason Jesse mentions. larry (upset that he couldn't answer the original query in time because he had no internet access this weekend) -- From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 16:16:47 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:16:47 EST Subject: Sri Lanka Handbook (2000); Fire and Spice (1989) Message-ID: FIRE AND SPICE: THE CUISINE OF SRI LANKA by Heather Jansz Balasuriya and Karin Winegar New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company 1989 Balasuriya (from Sri Lanka, a Minnesota restaurateur and also a model) and Winegar (a Minnesota journalist) provide an American introduction to Sri Lankan cuisine. Eleanor Mondale ("an actress") writes a blurb. Evan Balasuriya (now divorced from Heather--a Sri Lankan named Heather??) opened the Mulligan Stew House #1 in Minneapolis in 1978. This became the Sri Lanka Curry House, which closed in 1998. He's trying to makle a go of a restaurant called Sri Lanka, from Google information. "A Glossary of Sri Lankan Terms and Ingredients" starts the book. Pg. 22: banana chilies...cardamom...coriander...curd...curry leaves Pg. 23: _cutlets_--From the Sinhalese _cutlis_. THese patties of seasoned meat or seafood, finely chopped vegetables, and mashed potato are really what Westerners call "croquettes." Sri Lankan cutlets are formed into balls or patties and are usually dipped into beaten egg, and then breaded and fried. They are served either as appetizers or as main courses. dhal...dried shrimp. Pg. 24: fenugreek... _frickadels_--Minced meat or fish, shaped in balls, coated with bread crumbs and fried. One of the ingredients in the complicated holiday dish, lampris. (_Frikkadels_ is the Dutch word for "force-meat balls," or stuffing made into meatball form.) ghee Pg. 25: gingelly oil...goraka...green chilies... _hoppers_--A hopper looks something like a crepe before it's folded, something like an English muffin. The word comes from the Tamil _appam_ or _apu_, which means clapping with the hands; and that is how hoppers are shaped. They are eaten for breakfast and as snacks along with sambols, with sweetening such as honey or syrup, or with butter and jam. Originally, palm toddy was used for leavening in hoppers, but this has been reploaced by yeast. Pg. 26: Jackfruit, or jakfruit...jaggery...lampries...lemongrass...Maldive fish. Pg. 27: _mallung_--Sri Lankan term for a vegetable dish cooked with coconut meat. Dried prawn mallung or dried fish mallung are also popular. Marmite...mustard seed. Pg. 28: _pittu_--A steamed flour or rice flour pastry that replaces bread, rice, or rotti in a meal. It is served crumbled or sliced, and is typically eaten for breakfast--although many people like it for dinner. rampa (pandanus leaf)...red chilies...rottis...rulang. Pg. 29: saffron...sambol...seeni sambol...tamarind...treacle...turmeric...Vegemite...woodapple. Pg. 107: *_Badum_ is a Sinhalese style of cooking: frying. Pg. 119: *_Thaldala_ is the Sinhalese word for "cooking with oil." Pg. 199: _Pana_ is the Sinhalese word for "comb"; perhaps it's a reference to the hairlike resemblance of the dough when it is squeezed out of a mold. Pg. 201: Watelappan is a Muslim dessert served at many special occasions in Sri Lanka, such as weddings. It's very traditional--all the ingredients are indigenous. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- SRI LANKA HANDBOOK Bath, England: Footprint Handbooks Ltd. 2000 A really good food listing, plus a nice glossary can be found here. Pg. 341: _Sri Lankan specialties_ _amblulthial_ sour fish curry _kahu buth_ kaha rice (yellow, cooked in coconut milk with spices and saffron/turmeric colouring) kiri rice is similar but white and unspiced, served with treacle, chilli or pickle _biththara rotti_ rotti mixed with eggs _buriyani_ rice cooked in meat stock and pieces of spiced meat sometimes garnished with boiled egg slices _hoppers (appa)_ cupped pancakes made of fermented rice flour, coconut milk, yeast, eaten with savoury (or sweet) curry _lamprai_ rice cooked in stock parcelled in a banana leaf with dry meat and vegetable curries, fried meat and fish balls and baked gently _mellung_ boiled, shredded vegetables cooked with spice and coconut _pittu_ rice-flour and grated coconut steamed in bamboo moulds, eaten with coconut milk and curry _polos pahi_ pieces of young jackfruit (tree lamb) replaces meat in this dry curry _rotty or rotti_ flat, circular, unleavened bread cooked on a griddle _sambal_ hot and spicy accompaniment usually made with onions, grated coconut, pepper (and sometimes dried fish) _sathai_ spicy meat pieces baked on skewers (sometimes sweet and sour) _"short eats"_ a selection of meat and vegetable snacks (in pastry or crumbled and fried) charged as eaten _string hoppers (indiappa)_ flat circles of steamed rice flour noodles eaten usually at breakfast with thin curry _thosai or dosai_ large crisp pancake made with rice and lentil flour batter _vadai_ deep-fried savoury lentil doughnut rings _Sweets (rasakavilis)_ _curd_ rich, creamy, buffalo milk yoghurt served with treacle or jaggery _gulab jamun_ dark, fried spongy balls of milk curd and flour soaked in syrup _halwal aluva_ fudge-like, made with milk, nuts and fruit _kadju kordial_ fudge squares made with cashew nuts and jaggery _kaludodol_ dark, mil-based, semi-solid sweet mixed with jaggery, cashew and spices (a moorish delicacy) _rasgulla_ syrup-filled white spongy balls of milk-curd and flour _thalaguli_ balls formed after pounding roasted sesame seeds with jaggery _wattalappam_ set "custard" of coconut, milk, eggs and cashew, flavoured with spices and jaggery _Indian specialties_ A typical meal in an Indian restaurant would include some "bread" (roti, chapati or nan) and/or rice, a vegetable curry and/or a meat curry, lentils (dal), raita (yogurt with shredded cucumber or fruit) and papadam (deep fried pulse flour wafer rounds). _do piaza_ with onions (added twice during cooking) _dal makhani_ lentils coated with butter _dum aloo_ potato curry with a spicy yogurt, tomato and onion sauce _kebab_ skewered (or minced and shaped) meat or fish; a dry spicy dish cooked on a fire _kima mattar_ mince meat with peas _korma_ in a fairly mild rich sauce using cream/yoghurt _matar panir_ curd cheese cubes with peas and spices (and often tomatoes) _mughlai_ rich north Indian style _murgh massallam_ chicken in a rich creamy marinade of yoghurt, spices and herbs with nuts _rogan josh_ mutton/beef pieces in a rich creamy, red sauce _tandoori_ baked in a tandoor (special clay oven) _tikka_ marinated meat pieces baked quite dry Pg. 333: GLOSSARY (I'll list "M" and "N" entries, with detail for entries not in the OED--ed.) _maha_ great; in Sri Lanka, the main rice crop _Mahabodhi_ Great Enlightenment of Buddha _Mahadeva_ lit. "Great Lord," Siva _Mahavansa_ literally "Great Dynasty or Chronicle," a major source on early history and legend _mahayana_ _Mahesha_ (Maheshvara) Great Lord, Siva _mahout_ _Maitreya_ _makara_ _malai_ _mandapa_ _mandir_ _mantra_ _Mara_ _mawatha_ roadway _maya_ illusion _Minakshi_ lit. "fish-eyed," Parvati, Siva's consort _Mohammad_ _moksha_ _moonstone_ _mudra_ _Muharram_ _Naga_ _Nandi_ _Narayana_ _Nataraja_ _Natha_ _navagraha_ _navaratri_ _niche_ _nirvana_ From douglas at NB.NET Mon Jan 20 16:27:24 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:27:24 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ron Butters: >Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You >fuck an A John!" I don't think this is the 'full' phrase in general (although it may be in some milieu); I think the "John" is a nonsense elaboration. By analogy, I don't think that "F*ck you, Charlie" is the 'full' form of "F*ck you" ... although "F*ck you, Charlie" has some currency (far more, by Google, than does "f*ckin' A[,] John") and was immortalized in the "Harvard Lampoon" about 30 years ago (in the character Charles Ulmer Farley [Chuck U. Farley]). >... Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be >recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" .... Google shows several instances of "f*cking amen" in exactly the correct sense. These are of course not old enough, but WW II era printed citations may be expected to be sparse because of the unacceptable F-word. I can't say exactly why I interpret this "f*ck'n' A" as "f*cking A" rather than "f*ck an A", but just about everybody else seems to also. Picture yourself walking down the street and seeing a man coming out of a doorway muttering "F*ck'n' idiot!" The context is unknown to you. Is he saying "F*cking idiot!" or is he saying "F*ck an idiot!"? In isolation, knowing only the phonetics, one perhaps cannot tell, but .... Also: why abbreviate the "asshole" and not the "f*ck'n'" (which I think is more strongly taboo usually)? Why wouldn't "F*ck 'n' asshole" > "Eff 'n' A"? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 16:43:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:43:28 EST Subject: Folk etymology in Francois Valentijan's CEYLON (1726) Message-ID: FRANCOIS VALENTIJN'S DESCRIPTION OF CEYLON translated and edited by Sinnappah Arasaratnam London: THe Hakluyt Society 1978 Francois Valentijn (1656-1727) published the original volume in Dutch in 1726. I couldn't find any "hoppers." Pg. 99: For as the Persians and Arbas sail with difficulty to this island past this reef, they always had it in their minds, saying they went to or came from Cinlao*, which means nothing else but that they went to or came from the reef of the Chinese, which letter having changed somewhat in time, there grew the name of Ceylaon or Ceylon.** *Cin-lao. _Lao_ (Chinese)--Torrent, breaking of waves. **Both Couto and Barros have this interpretation which seems fanciful (Barros p. 33, Couto p. 88). Pg. 118: It gets its name from a mango leaf, which is named in the Cingalese language, Cola Ambo,* as _Ambo_ means mango fruit and _Cola_ a leaf from which the Portuguese and we after them have made up Colombo.** *_Kola_ (Sinh.)--leaf; _amba_ (Sinh.)--mango. **This is a folk etymology of Colombo of doubtful validity. It was, however, widely held in Ceylon. Knox (pp. 1-2) gives a similar version. A more likely derivation is _kolamba_ (old Sinh.)--breach in bank or river or tank. Pg. 161: The attire of the Cingalese, who generally have long, smooth hair and thick beard like the Swiss, consists of a piece of cloth made into a jacket with folds or a cotton _baju_* or a cloth that they wrap round their middle, pull through under the legs and let it hang down to the feet. *_Baju_ (Malay)--a loose coat. (OED has 1820 for "baju"--ed.) Pg. 163: Generally their houses are bad, small and low, but covered with straw or _atap_,* made of poles or sticks like huts and plastered with clay; but the walls are reasonably smooth and even. *_Atap_ (Malay)--thatch for roofing. (OED has 1817 for "atap," with 1672 in brackets--ed.) Pg. 164: Their food Rice is their bread and they are satisfied if they have some salt, a little stewed vegetables with pepper and salt added and some lemon juice over it. To eat beef is a crime among them. There is not much of other flesh or fish and if they have some they will rather make money and sell it to foreigners than eat it themselves, but for the very important and the noblemen who have on their tables various curries* of fish or flesh steamed for a long time. For otherwise it is an honour among them to be sparing, miserly and stingy and those who know how to subsist very frugally are often praised. Their most important food consists of rice, bananas and in this and that other fruit which the land produces abundantly. *_Kari_ (Hindi, Tam.)--spiced, dressed up dish eaten with rice. The word is now in vogue in the English language as curry. Pg. 293: It consisted of 60 canisters* cinnamon, 16 bales of pepper and 3 bales of _curcuma_** or Indian saffron. *Boxes or baskets. In vogue in Ceylon from Portuguese "canastra." **_Kumkum_ (Hindi)--saffron. (OED has 1938 for "kumkum"--ed.) From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 20 16:57:16 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:57:16 +0100 Subject: mort "woman"-- backfisch etymology (was: Irish apples) Message-ID: Wahrig, Deutsches Woerterbuch, gives the following under "backfisch" 1. Gebackener fisch (baked or fried fish) 2. halbwuechsiges Maedchen [zu _backen_; unter einfluss von _backalaureus_ "junger Gelehrter" zuerst bezeichnung fuer unreife Studenten. Junge Fische, die schon zu gross sind, um wieder ins Wasser geworfen zu werden, eignen sich ihrer jugendlichen Zartheit wegen besser zum Backen als die ausgewachsene Fische.] No reference to English. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G. Wilson" To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 4:34 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples) > > "OED2 presents cant _mort_ (sb. #4) as meaning 'girl, woman' and > >being of unknown origin. But I believe a lead can be furnished by an > >awareness of the now dated German slang _Backfisch_ 'frying fish,'; > >cf. its appearance in 'Meine erste Liebe,' (part of > >_Lausbubengeschichten_) by the Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma. > > > > "_Backfisch_ 'teenage girl' is known to derive from the idea of > >young fish past the throw-back stage being more suited for frying -- > >and hence eating -- than the adult fish. German clearly indicates > >that men could liken women to fish; and this is part of the larger > >picture of men describing women with food imagery, e.g. _a peach_, _a > >tomato_, _a dish_. > > How surely is this explanation of "Backfisch" = "teenaged girl" known? > > Here is a discussion ... > > http://www.ceryx.de/sprache/wd_backfisch.htm > > ... in which (inter alia) a derivation of this "Backfisch" from English is > put forth: > > < beim Einholen der Netze back, also zur?ck ins Wasser geworfen wird, weil er > aufgrund seiner geringen Gr??e auf dem Markt noch nichts taugt.>> > > ... that is, the Backfisch = [throw-]back-fish is too small to keep (if I'm > reading it right) ... as the 'bobbysoxer" is insufficiently mature for the > man's presumptive interests, I suppose. > > [Note that "backfisch" (but not "backfish") appears in OED and MW3.] > > Anyway, I'll freely grant that "young fish" > "[young] gal" is believable. > > -- Doug Wilson > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 16:59:33 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:59:33 EST Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: This makes a lot of sense to me on the whole, particularly the idea that "John" got added as a "nonsense elaboration." Indeed, at the level of the hearer (rather than some hypothetical creator of the phrase), the "A" also can be just a "nonsense elaboration." What I meant by "full phrase" was simply that, when we said this as kids, we often used "John" but never any other name. The phrase was ALWAYS used as a rejoinder, frequently beginninng with "You," so the isolated context of overhearing someone say "Fuck-n-idiot" in isolation is totally irrelevant. My parsing--"You fuck an A" (whether followed by "John" or not)--as a rejoinder--is certainly plausible (cf. "You got that right!"), though of course the use of "fucking" as an intensifier is a plausible interpretation, as well, for the "clipped" phrase, at least in a contemporary setting. I don't think that "fuckin' " as an intensifier (e.g., "You are fuckin' crazy") was nearly so prevalent in the 1950s as today. The rise of intensifier "fuckin'" might explain in part why most people interpret "-n-" as "-ing" rather than "an." Just for the record, I tried this out on my students, all linguistics majors in a capstone seminar, and all nine native speakers liked "-ing" rather than "an." And all nine had never heard the phrase prefixed with "you" or suffixed with "John" or anything else. It had never occured to them to speculate about what "A" could mean. In a message dated 1/20/03 11:27:29 AM, douglas at NB.NET writes: > Ron Butters: > > >Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > >fuck an A John!" > > I don't think this is the 'full' phrase in general (although it may be in > some milieu); I think the "John" is a nonsense elaboration. By analogy, I > don't think that "F*ck you, Charlie" is the 'full' form of "F*ck you" ... > although "F*ck you, Charlie" has some currency (far more, by Google, than > does "f*ckin' A[,] John") and was immortalized in the "Harvard Lampoon" > about 30 years ago (in the character Charles Ulmer Farley [Chuck U. > Farley]). > > >... Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be > >recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" .... > > Google shows several instances of "f*cking amen" in exactly the correct > sense. These are of course not old enough, but WW II era printed citations > may be expected to be sparse because of the unacceptable F-word. > > I can't say exactly why I interpret this "f*ck'n' A" as "f*cking A" rather > than "f*ck an A", but just about everybody else seems to also. Picture > yourself walking down the street and seeing a man coming out of a doorway > muttering "F*ck'n' idiot!" The context is unknown to you. Is he saying > "F*cking idiot!" or is he saying "F*ck an idiot!"? In isolation, knowing > only the phonetics, one perhaps cannot tell, but .... > > Also: why abbreviate the "asshole" and not the "f*ck'n'" (which I think is > more strongly taboo usually)? Why wouldn't "F*ck 'n' asshole" > "Eff 'n' > A"? > > -- Doug Wilson > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 20 17:11:23 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 12:11:23 -0500 Subject: Sri Lanka Handbook (2000); Fire and Spice (1989) In-Reply-To: <1cb.51401f.2b5d7aef@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry provides: >FIRE AND SPICE: >THE CUISINE OF SRI LANKA >by Heather Jansz Balasuriya and Karin Winegar >New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company >1989 > > >Pg. 23: >_cutlets_--From the Sinhalese _cutlis_. THese patties of seasoned meat or >seafood, finely chopped vegetables, and mashed potato are really what >Westerners call "croquettes." Sri Lankan cutlets are formed into balls or >patties and are usually dipped into beaten egg, and then breaded and fried. >They are served either as appetizers or as main courses. another folk etymology, it appears, although it's not clear whether the authors are claiming that the English word derives from the Sinhalese or vice versa. In any case, as the OED implies, the English word is itself a folk-etymologized version [= 'little cut-off thingie'] of the French source: [OED] Message-ID: I never watch the "Golden Globes" show (well, hardly ever), but last night when U2's Bono accepted for best song of the year (in "Gangs of New York"), he said "This is fuckin' great!"--so fast it couldn't be bleeped out. The effect was electric, as they say. At 11:59 AM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: >This makes a lot of sense to me on the whole, particularly the idea that >"John" got added as a "nonsense elaboration." Indeed, at the level of the >hearer (rather than some hypothetical creator of the phrase), the "A" also >can be just a "nonsense elaboration." What I meant by "full phrase" was >simply that, when we said this as kids, we often used "John" but never any >other name. > >The phrase was ALWAYS used as a rejoinder, frequently beginning with "You," >so the isolated context of overhearing someone say "Fuck-n-idiot" in >isolation is totally irrelevant. My parsing--"You fuck an A" (whether >followed by "John" or not)--as a rejoinder--is certainly plausible (cf. "You >got that right!"), though of course the use of "fucking" as an intensifier is >a plausible interpretation, as well, for the "clipped" phrase, at least in a >contemporary setting. I don't think that "fuckin' " as an intensifier (e.g., >"You are fuckin' crazy") was nearly so prevalent in the 1950s as today. The >rise of intensifier "fuckin'" might explain in part why most people interpret >"-n-" as "-ing" rather than "an." > >Just for the record, I tried this out on my students, all linguistics majors >in a capstone seminar, and all nine native speakers liked "-ing" rather than >"an." And all nine had never heard the phrase prefixed with "you" or suffixed >with "John" or anything else. It had never occured to them to speculate about >what "A" could mean. > > >In a message dated 1/20/03 11:27:29 AM, douglas at NB.NET writes: > > > > Ron Butters: > > > > >Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > > >fuck an A John!" > > > > I don't think this is the 'full' phrase in general (although it may be in > > some milieu); I think the "John" is a nonsense elaboration. By analogy, I > > don't think that "F*ck you, Charlie" is the 'full' form of "F*ck you" ... > > although "F*ck you, Charlie" has some currency (far more, by Google, than > > does "f*ckin' A[,] John") and was immortalized in the "Harvard Lampoon" > > about 30 years ago (in the character Charles Ulmer Farley [Chuck U. > > Farley]). > > > > >... Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be > > >recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" .... > > > > Google shows several instances of "f*cking amen" in exactly the correct > > sense. These are of course not old enough, but WW II era printed citations > > may be expected to be sparse because of the unacceptable F-word. > > > > I can't say exactly why I interpret this "f*ck'n' A" as "f*cking A" rather > > than "f*ck an A", but just about everybody else seems to also. Picture > > yourself walking down the street and seeing a man coming out of a doorway > > muttering "F*ck'n' idiot!" The context is unknown to you. Is he saying > > "F*cking idiot!" or is he saying "F*ck an idiot!"? In isolation, knowing > > only the phonetics, one perhaps cannot tell, but .... > > > > Also: why abbreviate the "asshole" and not the "f*ck'n'" (which I think is > > more strongly taboo usually)? Why wouldn't "F*ck 'n' asshole" > "Eff 'n' > > A"? > > > > -- Doug Wilson > > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 18:49:02 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:49:02 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20FW:=20[DSNA]=20Fwd:?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=20Two=20English=20words=20with=20all=20the=20vowels=20(a?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?nd=20y)=20in=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=A0=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?order?= Message-ID: Ah, yeah, and relaxing the rules only a little bit there is Yogui Berra (who must have spelled it that way some of the time, so that folks wouldn't think it was pronounced "yo! gee!"). " In a message dated 1/20/03 11:03:09 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > At 9:46 AM -0500 1/18/03, Frank Abate wrote: > >Jesse sure nailed this, below.? BUT, here is a related quiz for you . . . > > > >Who is the ONLY major league player EVER to have all 5 vowels in his first > >name? > > > >You have thirty seconds . . . > > > >Frank Abate > > It took me more than thirty seconds, but relaxing the rules a bit I > can supplement Margaret's correct response (Aurelio Rodriguez, the > good-field no-hit third-sacker of the Tigers et al.) with "Figueroa, > Ed" (it is his first name in the phone book--or Chinese style, as > we've learned from Yao Ming) and then, speaking of ex-Tigers, there's > Mark "the Bird" Fidrych, known in Francophone circles as "Oiseau" > Fidrych. > > > > >******************************************************* > > > >On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:22:55PM -0600, Luanne von Schneidemesser wrote: > >? > > > >>? >I'm looking for the two words in the English language that have the > >>? >letters "a e i o u y" in the word in order, they can be separated by > >other > >>? >letters.? Can you help? > >[Jesse S.:] > >The two? What makes you think there are only two? > > > >There are a number of words in English with the vowels in order, including > >_abstemious, abstentious, adventitious,_ and _facetious_, along with some > >more obscure ones like _caesious_ (the shortest in English with the five > >main vowels in order) and _parecious_. Most of these can have an _-ly_ > >suffix, giving the letters you ask for. Drop _adventitious_ from the list > >if you are bothered by the repeated _i_s, but there are certainly more > >than two. > > > > I've usually seen this with the answer "abstemiously" and > "facetiously"; I assume the other adverbs-in-waiting are either not > considered "words" or (in the case of "adventitiously") not > well-formed according to the riddle for the reason Jesse mentions. > > larry (upset that he couldn't answer the original query in time > because he had no internet access this weekend) > > > -- > > From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 20 18:50:08 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 10:50:08 -0800 Subject: Rent-boy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There is a current discussion on my website regarding the British slang term "rent-boy." The OED and other sources date it to 1969. But there are several websites that cite a March 1893 letter purportedly by Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas that contains the line: "I would sooner be blackmailed by every rent-boy in London than to have you bitter, unjust, hating." Has anyone run across this or similar early uses of "rent-boy" before? Could the letter be genuine? None of the websites that cite the letter have anything resembling a traceable citation. I'm skeptical, but it doesn't seem to be beyond the realm of possibility. The full text of the alleged letter reads: Savoy Hotel, London Dearest of all Boys, Your letter was delightful, red and yellow wine to me; but I am sad and out of sorts. Bosie, you must not make scenes with me. They kill me, they wreck the loveliness of life. I cannot see you, so Greek and gracious, distorted with passion. I cannot listen to your curved lips saying hideous things to me. I would sooner be blackmailed by every rent-boy in London than to have you bitter, unjust, hating. You are the divine thing I want, the thing of grace and beauty; but I don't know how to do it. Shall I come to Salisbury? My bill here is 49 pounds for a week. I have also got a new sitting-room over the Thames. Why are you not here, my dear, my wonderful boy? I fear I must leave; no money, no credit, and a heart of lead. Your own, OSCAR From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 18:59:16 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:59:16 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Rent-boy?= Message-ID: The letter certainly SOUNDS like Wilde, but I don't know if it is really authentic. I'll ask on OUTIL. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 20 18:39:02 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:39:02 -0500 Subject: "Jackalope" inventor dies In-Reply-To: <172.1542d857.2b5d5e47@aol.com> Message-ID: And then there's the swimming rabbit that attacked Jimmy Carter. . . . At 09:14 AM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: > DARE has "jackalope," but from only 1955. The facts from this NEW YORK >TIMES article are absent in the DARE entry. OED does not have an entry. > Google shows that a few places offer a "jackalope burger," but it's no >"turducken" or "churkendoose." > From the NEW YORK TIMES: > >Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead > >By DOUGLAS MARTIN > >Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the >tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope ? half bunny, hallf >antelope and 100 percent tourist trap ? died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyyo. He >was >82. > >The cause was bone and lung cancer, his brother, Ralph, said. > >Douglas Herrick lived in Casper, but it was in his hometown, Douglas, Wyo., >that luck changed his life. > >In 1932 (other accounts say 1934, 1939 and 1940, but Ralph Herrick swears it >was 1932), the Herrick brothers had returned from hunting. "We just throwed >the dead jack rabbit in the shop when we come in and it slid on the floor >right up against a pair of deer horns we had in there," Ralph said. "It >looked like that rabbit had horns on it." > >His brother's eyes brightened with inspiration. > >"Let's mount that thing!" he said. > >That was tens of thousands of jackalopes ago. A jackalope, of course, is a >legendary animal with a jack rabbit's body and the antlers of a pronghorn >antelope, which resembles a small deer. The last syllable of the name comes >from antelope. (Jackadeer? Nah.) > >Whether jackalopes ever hopped the earth's surface is rather like the same >question about the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot; it depends on the >observer.. >Believers say that Buddha mentioned a horned rabbit, although they usually >neglect to mention that the Enlightened One implied they do not exist. > >They also point to a picture of a horned rabbit painted in the 1500's, but >scientists suspect its cerebral protuberances were tumors from a rabbit >virus. Cowboys have said that while they were singing around the fire, their >chorus was joined by a distant jackalope, often in harmony, usually in the >tenor line. (Yep.) > >Whether truth, fiction or metaphor, the mounted version of the jackalope, >many made with deer horn tips, relentlessly proliferated. Many thousands were >made by Ralph Herrick and his son Jim. Douglas Herrick was less interested in >the family taxidermy shop. > >"I don't think my brother ever made more than a thousand, if he done that," >Ralph Herrick said. By contrast, Jim Herrick delivers 400 jackalopes to Wall >Drug in South Dakota three times a year, a small portion of his total >production. > >Douglas became the jackalope capital. In 1965, the state of Wyoming >trademarked the name, and in 1985 Gov. Ed Herschler pronounced it the >animal's official home. Jackalope images adorn everything from park benches >to fire trucks. > >Jackalope hunting licenses are sold; an applicant must supposedly pass a test >to prove he has an I.Q. higher than 50 but not more than 72. Hunting is >permitted only on June 31, from midnight to 2 a.m. > >Jackalope milk is available at several stores, though its authenticity is >questionable; everyone knows how dangerous it is to milk a jackalope. > >An oft-repeated legend is that the Herricks' grandfather saw a jackalope in >Buffalo, Wyo., in 1920 and told his family about it. Not true, Ralph said. > >The first mounted jackalope was sold for $10 (they now go for $35) to Roy >Ball, who displayed it in his Bonte Hotel in Douglas. It was stolen. > >Others have tried to take the jackalope's peculiar evolution further. A >Colorado bar displays a jackapanda, a cross between a jackalope and a panda, >while Wall Drug has a flying jackalope, with some partridge feathers glued to >its tail. > >Douglas Eugene Herrick was born on July 8, 1920, and grew up on a ranch. In >World War II, he was a tail gunner on a B-17. He later worked in construction >and at an Amoco refinery, in addition to stuffing animals. > >Although Governor Herschler specifically mentioned Mr. Herrick in 1985 as the >Jackalope's creator, his brother said the town tried to charge him a >commission for each jackalope. It relented. >(...) From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 20 19:25:08 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 14:25:08 -0500 Subject: Rent-boy In-Reply-To: <000001c2c0b4$c1ebfd70$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > Has anyone run across this or similar early uses of "rent-boy" before? Could > the letter be genuine? None of the websites that cite the letter have > anything resembling a traceable citation. I'm skeptical, but it doesn't seem > to be beyond the realm of possibility. The word Wilde actually used was "renter." It is, in fact, the first use in OED for that sense of "renter." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 20 19:27:32 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:27:32 -0800 Subject: Rent-boy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks. I should have cross-checked "renter" in the OED2 before asking. > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Fred Shapiro > Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 11:25 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Rent-boy > > > On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > > > Has anyone run across this or similar early uses of > "rent-boy" before? Could > > the letter be genuine? None of the websites that cite the > letter have > > anything resembling a traceable citation. I'm skeptical, > but it doesn't seem > > to be beyond the realm of possibility. > > The word Wilde actually used was "renter." It is, in fact, > the first use > in OED for that sense of "renter." > > Fred Shapiro > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 20:09:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 15:09:51 -0500 Subject: PBS's American Experience Message-ID: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/sfeature/sf_made.html I don't know if anyone saw this. PBS's American Experience last week had a three-part series called CHICAGO: CITY OF THE CENTURY. The web site credits Finley Peter Dunne of the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS with "southpaw" and Michael Cassius McDonald with "There's a sucker born every minute" and "Never give a sucker an even break." "Mickey Finn" is another phrase that is mentioned. The only food mentioned is "Cracker Jack." I'll wait to see what the full text CHICAGO TRIBUNE has on these terms. That should be available later this year. My work, as is sometimes the case, was honored in absentia, because nowhere to be found is... From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 20 20:46:45 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:46:45 +0100 Subject: "Jackalope" inventor dies Message-ID: There are precursors of the jackalope. See e.g. http://www.strangescience.net/stfor2.htm for the Swedish "skvader" (there is an image on the site). Here is the text: "Years: 1874-1918 Con artists: H?kan Dahlmark, Halvar Friesendahl, Carl Erik Hammarberg and Rudolf Granberg Now appears in: The Historical Preservation Society in Medelpad This cross between a female hare and a wood grouse cock was allegedly shot by Dahlmark in 1874. On his birthday in 1907, Dahlmark's housekeeper asked her nephew, Friesendahl, to paint a picture of it. Before his death, Dahlmark donated the painting to the historical society. Inspired to create a "real" skvader, the society's new director, Hammarberg, contacted Granberg, a talented taxidermist, and Granberg obliged him by making a stuffed specimen. In 1918, Hammarberg wrote an article in the local newspaper about the rare skvader, which, thanks to the sale of 3,000 postcards, would soon develop a worldwide reputation. Although some visitors to the historical society's museum are disappointed to find the skvader isn't genuine, few people have taken it very seriously." Jan Ivarsson jan.ivarsson at transedit.st http://www.transedit.st ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beverly Flanigan" To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 7:39 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Jackalope" inventor dies And then there's the swimming rabbit that attacked Jimmy Carter. . . . At 09:14 AM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: > DARE has "jackalope," but from only 1955. The facts from this NEW YORK >TIMES article are absent in the DARE entry. OED does not have an entry. > Google shows that a few places offer a "jackalope burger," but it's no >"turducken" or "churkendoose." > From the NEW YORK TIMES: > >Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead > >By DOUGLAS MARTIN > >Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the >tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope - half bunny, hallf >antelope and 100 percent tourist trap - died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyyo. He >was >82. > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 21:02:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:02:52 -0500 Subject: Pooch (1919) Message-ID: "Pooch" is an "origin unknown." I always thought it was from "poodle." OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1924. I was thinking about this while writing about "poochee" (the Sri Lankan term for insects). I've been putting a number of terms into the AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES online here at Columbia--what a mess the database is. You get things that have nothing to do with "pooch." Sometimes you get "pouch." I have "hot pooch" for "hot dog," but I forget the date for that. 17 June 1919, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 18: Our favorite of the many sorry attempts was the sorry pooch, or towser, impersonated by Phil Dwyer, than whom no dog was ever doggier. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 21:25:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:25:51 -0500 Subject: Sausage Sandwich (1871) Message-ID: I've been asked some sandwich questions recently. I don't think I posted this on the "sausage sandwich." That would be a sausage between two slices of bread--something that was not invented, surely, until the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The story is "Return of the Landwehr," about the guards of the Prussian Army. "Hot dogs" in Germany? Who would have thought that? From HARPER'S WEEKLY, 13 May 1871, pg. 431: Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 71-05-13 . . . b> erously cheered by the large crowds assembled to welcome them, and wherever they stopped hundreds of hands were stretched out for them to shake, and innumerable were the seidels of beer and the sausage sandwiches which were proffered for their refreshment. Should also one of the troops belong to that particular town, he was instantly transformed into a hero, and was proudly recognized and greeted by his fel . . . From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 21:37:11 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:37:11 -0500 Subject: Sausage Sandwich (1875, 1882) Message-ID: Two more "sausage sandwiches" from HARPER'S WEEKLY full text. The first seems to involve Hans Christian Andersen, but the second is from Germany. 10-9-1875, pg. 830 5-20-1882, pg. 317 Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 75-10-09 . . . n a brave face and bought a gallery ticket for the op- era of Paul and Vir- ginia. The scene of the separation of the lovers affected him so to tears that some sympathetic woman near by gave him a sausage sandwich for consolation, whereupon he explained ear- nestly that the theatre was his Virginia, and he wept to think that, like Paul, he was to be sep- arated from it. He told his forlorn experience,< . . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 82-05-20 . . . ll the washing of the family linen at home, and make their own dresses. Withal, they are very hospitable in a homely way. They delight in evening parties at which caf? au lait is served with cakes and sausage-sandwiches. A carpet dance, a little singing and music, round games, and a good deal of frank flirtation between the young people, furnish the diversions at these en- tertainments. In the winter, seve . . . From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 22:05:19 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:05:19 -0500 Subject: Coney Island sausage (1891) Message-ID: If you're still interested in sausage. Scroll to the paragraph beginning with "Just outside..." and to the next one beginning "To be in with the people you must eat with them." Notice that the sausage purchaser "invested the casual nickel." From HARPER'S WEEKLY, 12 September 1891, pg. 694: Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 Return to: Main Menu | New Search -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 91-09-12 A PILGRIMAGE TO CONEY'S ISLE. BY FLAVEL SCOTT MINES. It was a hot day in August. Weary men halted in front of all the available thermom- eters, and sighed to find their estimate of the sun's power several degrees beyond that registered by the instrument. The north pole was out of the question, and the next best place suggested was that strip of sand lying off the Long Island coast known as Coney Island. The Pilgrims forthwith acted upon the suggestion. The Bay held its powers to charm in the shape of an erratic zephyr which hovered above the waters; but when the Narrows were reached, great rollers tumbled in be- fore a rousing wind from the southeast, and the heart of man was once more content. The wind might carry off the soft strains of "Comrades," as rendered by the Italian band, but it also bore away all the petty thoughts that were provoked by extra heat. It was cheering to find such unanimous good hu- mor as prevailed among the boat passengers. Old and young, beautiful and ordinary, wore a continual smile in anticipation of delights to come. A portly priest was the embodi- ment of satisfaction, and yielding to the in- fluence of harmony, beat time to profane music. Relief was granted to the weary Pil- grims, and by the time the pier was reached they were most anxious for amusement. The West End of Coney Island is a most extraordinary jumble. With a few notable exceptions, the architecture is suggestive of a Western mining camp in its palmy days, with a most wonderful leaning toward the Moorish. Here and there, at all turns, are Alhambraic turrets and minarets, garish dec- orations and gilded domes, utterly at vari- ance with all other styles. The Artist Pil- grim heaved a sigh as he came upon the main street, for his artistic soul was touched. The twain halted a moment to gain breath, for the place burst upon the travellers with a suddenness that was appalling. Conflicting strains of music came from everywhere, and found their common centre in their imme- diate vicinity. Stentorian voices of the street fakirs mingled with the hum of everybody are everything. Revolving swings and mer- ry-go-rounds, shooting-galleries and concert halls, razzle-dazzles and switch-backs, tobog- gan-rollers and photographers, Frankfurters and pea-nuts, beer, music, noise -- all these things combined and intensified made up the first glance at the West End. "We will be one of the people to-day," said the Artist, when he recovered from the first shock, and the Other Pilgrim, meekly assenting, followed him into the roller-skat- ing rink and donned the skates. Here the noises were two separate and distinct things -- a brass band and the rumble of the skat- ers. A few rounds on the skates failed to renew the elasticity of youth, and the pair This marks the beginning of Column 3 were glad to cease. Seeking the open air, and incidentally the noise again, the Pilgrims passed by a tempting sign of a "Labyrinth," the latter composed of wire netting run in all directions, which invited you to come in and lose yourself in the mazes for five cents. Neither did the razzle-dazzle tempt them. What a thing it was! A great circular frame with seats all around, to which you mounted by aid of outside steps, and then, when seated, the frame swung around and around, up first, then down, bringing into play all the sensa- tions awakened by the tossing of a ship and not infrequently the dire results. This ma- lignant invention the Artist passed hurriedly by, for the steamboat coming down had been enough for him, and he had already decided to return by rail. The merry-go-round that next burst upon the Pilgrims would have filled a student of natural history with envy -- it would have suggested possible types of beasts, fish, and fowl that had been neglected by Nature. If Noah's arks would only take pattern after these revolving specimens, the joys of childhood would be increased tenfold. "It has always been my desire to shoot at one of these things," remarked the Artist, as he stood before a shooting-gallery, "but I object to making myself appear foolish upon principle. I know I couldn't hit them." Lion, tiger, bear, and wolf appeared in rapid succession above a line, keeping up a con- tinual round, while a series of crystal balls slid up and down narrow streams of water. They were very alluring to the would-be marksman, and just as elusive to the tiny bullet that generally tried to find them. A score of catchpenny contrivances lined the street -- the one desire of the working popu- lation being to derive an income from the transient visitor. "This race for wealth is very depressing," remarked the Other Pilgrim, as his eye took in the street. "Very," agreed the Artist, as a pint of fresh pea-nuts was poured into his pocket. There was something exhilarating in the pil- grimage. The hot, dusty city was forgotten; the cares of life were laid aside. The Pilgrims were in search of pleasure, and soon wearied themselves in the not by any means hopeless search. For there was pleasure in watching the people and seeing the evident enjoyment depicted on their countenances. Down on the beach the surf rolled in and tumbled the bathers up and down. Stout men clung to the ropes, and sighed to see a slim maid dive head first into an incoming roller. "There is nothing artificial in pleasure of this sort," remarked the Artist, as he dug holes in the sand and pointed his camera at two exceedingly stout females who had sat down not far away, and seemed to find it im- possible to rise. "No," said the Other Pilgrim, joining in the general laugh at two or three strangers who were thrown into each other's arms by the playful surf. The gilded attractions of the town seemed to be wholly apart from the beach and the sand heaps which everybody made. Just outside the ropes a boat was anchor- ed, and in the stern a large dog watched all the bathers -- he was the only occupant of the boat, and seemed to appreciate the re- sponsible position that he held, for he never looked aside. But again the glittering gen- eralities of life lured the Pilgrims from the beach, and they came to the massive cow that is said to give anything, from cream to milk-punch. A renewed activity was no- ticeable among the sandwich and sausage men, for the sun gave indication of passing out of sight for a while, and these purveyors evidently looked for a hungry crowd. "To be in with the people you must eat with them." remarked the Artist, halting before a sausage stand and investing in a lengthy Frankfurter hidden within the slices of a roll. It was quite the thing to do, for everybody seemed smitten with a sudden liking for sausages, and invested the casual nickel. "What a place for the National Educator, who desires to instruct and raise people by the drama," mused the Other Pilgrim, as the glittering "stage attractions" (on paper) met the eyes of the tourists. "True," assented the Artist; "what a place, indeed." The drama at Coney Island has its degrees. Not what is called the "legitimate drama," per- haps, but the style that is known as "variety." Gilmore and Seidl lie to eastward, but they ap- peal alone to the ear. West Brighton is the haunt of song and dance, trapeze acting, and juggling. Of these there are all kinds -- and they all appeal to the great American public because they are free. A man, guiltless of a coat, stands outside of many halls and thus presents the case: "Only respectable show on Coney Island. Only show patronized by the ?lite that come to Coney Island. Cost you nothing, gentlemen, cost you nothing. All free of charge. Ladies laugh, gentlemen laugh, children laugh. Step right in and take a seat." "I can't resist such an appeal," laughed the Artist; "to do Coney Island thoroughly we must see these shows," and the Pilgrims entered and timidly took rear seats. A white- aproned waiter immediately desired to know what was wished. The wish was quickly supplied, and they were thenceforth privi- leged to devote their attention to the stage. A negro minstrel held the audience enthrall- ed, until a tall female with an air of Lady Macbeth interrupted him and proceeded to engage his attention in a roaring farce. The This marks the beginning of Column 4 Pilgrims sauntered forth again after heed- ing a placard which read, "Wait for Frank Bush." Here it might be stated that such was the tenor of a sign in nearly every hall that the Pilgrims visited, but never did they get a glimpse of the much-advertised artist. To and fro they went on their quest, darting suddenly into unlooked-for places, hurrying around corners, but to no avail. Mr. Bush was a thing of the future, and through the afternoon and evening, though a dozen or more signs waved defiance in their faces, the longing was unsatisfied. "Why doesn't the come?" sighed the Artist, in sheer weariness of spirit. "I dare not ex- pose my ignorance and ask," and the name haunted him at every turn, until it became a burden to the eye and a thorn in the flesh -- but to-day the Pilgrims know not what de- tained Mr. Bush, or what he was expected to do after being waited for. Another phase of the drama was the place where a "quarter" was composed of seven persons -- five females in abbreviated skirts and two corked end-men. The "stage-man- ager," in civilized costume, sat on the stage and consulted with the singers in a stage- whisper as to what they knew and what they didn't know. And what impressed the Pil- grims was the fact that the musical educa- tion of the troupe had been neglected, for when three persons knew a song it was gen- erally found that the others were not famil- iar with it, and never once was a song com- pleted -- the middle of the third verse was gen- erally the fatal halting-place, and the virtuoso at the piano, in his shirt sleeves, had it all to himself. The audience sometimes lacked familiarity with the world theatrical, as was illustrated by the attempts of a youth of ten- der years to blow out the foot-lights. He effectually drowned the chorus when forci- bly removed. There was a gentle hint con- veyed to the audience at one hall, where a sign read, "He is here. Who? The waiter." And though the Pilgrims had evidence of that fact, yet they doubted a companion sign announcing a certain trio of sisters as "next." It was likened unto a Frank Bush snare, for the sign was tacked on the wall. Amid the singing and the dancing was ever heard the man outside inviting everybody to come in. But, as the Pilgrims discovered, there were degrees, and as the evening wore on, they wandered into a hall of extra dimen- sions, where the background of Niagara (on the stage) was hidden partly by a low terra- cotta building. There was really first-class "variety," and when two Japs appeared they were recognized as being above the ordinary. The climax was reached when the maiden, fair of feature, threw a mass of tangled pa- pers into the air, which were converted in a twinkling into a series of small American flags reaching across the stage (and the band played "Hail, Columbia"). The girl made a pretty picture as she bowed to the awe- struck audience, and the artist was enrapt- ured. There is no doubt of the popularity of the drama by the sea. It is undoubtedly cheap, and it encompasseth many strange things, but as an educator it is unworthy of consid- eration. The exception that goes to prove each and all of these rules is not lacking, and the lesson that it teachers is love and kindness, so it is deserving to rank as an educator. The actors are not on speaking terms with any of their professional brethren, but they are nei- ther proud nor uppish in their bearing. The Artist saw the sign from afar off, and hasten- ed to pay his ten cents. The actors were lolling around the tent in various positions, and some, it is sad to say, where bound with ropes. Sullivan sat in the ring, and occa- sionally waved a gloved paw in the air in defiance to an unseen Kilrain, and the Learn- ed Goose looked out from his wired prison with the air of a martyr. When the trainer came he was greeted with delight, and the Learned Goose came out and picked out any number desired, and told time by looking at a watch and indicating the hour and minute by picking up the different numbers that were scattered about. "Not such a goose as he looks," said the Artist, sotto voce. Sullivan and Kilrain had three rounds with soft gloves, and a battle royal it was! Once or twice they clinched, but as a rule they stood up and dealt blows at each other, taking care not to hit except in the face. When Kilrain was final- ly knocked clear over the ropes, Sullivan looked at his adversary with a professional pride, but embraced him fondly after the au- dience were gone. They were very happy and good-natured, but they were cats. The dogs, who contributed to a great part of the performance, would have won the heart of any one who was possessed of such an arti- cle. It was worth a dozen of the other shows to see these well-trained animals, and the Art- ist conceived such a violent admiration for them that it was with great difficulty that he could be persuaded to move on. Many curious types were seen along the street; but as the Artist said, the place to study the people was in some concert-hall. Everybody went to the latter. Mothers with baskets and babies and whole hordes of youngsters would suddenly pounce upon and occupy a table in these halls, and while all the stage-business was carefully noted, a single glass of lemonade would circulate among half a dozen little mouths, which seemed al- ways to be open. Then a party of rough men would walk down near the front, and after ordering beer, indicate some particular girl on the stage whom they wished to treat. The beverages This marks the beginning of page 695 from the 09-12-1891 issue of Harper's Weekly. Next page. Please click on one of the following links to see a Small, Medium, or Large image of this page of Harper's Weekly. This marks the beginning of Column 1 indulged in by all members was a species of pink lemonade or beer. Social conditions do not exist in this minor Arcadia; every man is as good as another, and what is more, the fact is generally recognized. Force is the potent factor, and leads one to believe in the survival, etc. The white-aproned waiters make a numerous class at Coney Island, and a formidable one too. They must be able to hold their own under all conditions, and carry out any threats they care to indulge in. They are the supreme powers -- bearing themselves with an easy fa- miliarity toward all patrons, and caring for no one. They are young and old, none beau- tiful except from a pugilistic stand-point. The Artist and the Other Pilgrim tried tip- ping these awful beings, more from a matter of habit than fear or reverence. Five cents was accepted with delight and surprise; ten cents regarded as a bribe for something that might be unfolded later, but accepted every time. "Your is gents," remarked one man, and was evidently so sincere that the Other Pil- grim did not like to hurt his feelings by firmly denying the allegation. One waiter forgot to collect for a cigar that was being smoked by the Other Pilgrim, and when re- minded of the fact a pathetic expression il- lumined his countenance. "Dere ain't many such men on all de island," he exclaimed. "I never knowed it to happen once before." And when the Pilgrims went out of that place they were regarded as curiosities by the staring waiters near the door. Some of the waiters resembled ex-prize-fighters, others were like champions in embryo; but all were tamed, subdued, and rendered docile by the nickel gratuity. "My brain is in a perfect whirl," sighed the Artist, as the Pilgrims started to return. "What do you recall as the prominent fea- ture of the West End of Coney Island?" The Other Pilgrim caressed an Invincible (purchased at Manhattan), and shook his head. "The cigars," he said, "which are the worst in the world. I have waited all the afternoon and evening for a good smoke. I even begin to understand the counterblast of James I. -- under some circumstances it might be forgiven," which was a great deal for the Other Pilgrim to say, for he was very much of a smoker. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 20 22:06:26 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:06:26 -0500 Subject: Pooch In-Reply-To: <1D632E94.554B36EE.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: "Pooch" is used in some regions for belly/stomach "pouch," i.e., to suggest a nicely rounded little belly--as in "I patted my pooch." (It was even used in a TV commercial a year or so ago, but I can't recall what for.) At 04:02 PM 1/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: > "Pooch" is an "origin unknown." I always thought it was from > "poodle." OED and MERRIAM-WEBSTER have 1924. > I was thinking about this while writing about "poochee" (the Sri > Lankan term for insects). I've been putting a number of terms into the > AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES online here at Columbia--what a mess the > database is. You get things that have nothing to do with > "pooch." Sometimes you get "pouch." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 20 23:24:43 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 18:24:43 -0500 Subject: Marlin-spike fish (1907) Message-ID: This should get me Florida Marlins tickets. Do they still play baseball? The revised OED has the July 1917 VANITY FAIR (!) for "marlin" (the swordfish, not the bird). The full text LOS ANGELES TIMES should help a lot (and maybe also for "tuna"), but here are some citations. May 1907, AMERICAN NATURALIST, pg. 335 (JSTOR database) In the Proceedings of the United States National Museum for 1907 (vol. XXXII), Jordan and Starks describe a collection of fishes from Santa Catalina Island, California. Among these are _Cerano macroplevus_, the yellow-fin Albacore, heretofore known from Japan and Hawaii; _Tetrapterus mitzukurri_, the Marlin-spike fish, heretofore known from Japan; _Lepidopus xantusi_, known from Cape San Lucas; _Chaenopsis alepidota_, known from the Gulf of California; and _Luvavus imperialis_, known from the Mediterranean. 21 October 1917, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 100: _BIG SWORDFISH LANDED._ _Pacific Coast Record Catch Credited to New York Angler._ George S. Pollitz of this city has the season's record catch of marlin swordfish, the finest game fish of the Pacific Ocean. (...)(326 pounds!--ed.) Frederick Gray Griswold of the Union Club, whose privately printed and circulated stories of the fishing for this gamest of salt water fish have attracted so much attention among New York club men, is largely responsible for the number of New York sportsmen who made the trip to California in late August and spent most of the month of September hunting the marlin off San Clemente, a government-owned island about twenty miles south of Santa Catalina, where the Tuna Club has its clubhouse and records. See the following NYPL entry. Griswold's an interesting author, writing 30 books about fishing and polo and horse racing and gourmet food. Perhaps I'll take a look at "The Lady and the Tuna." Call # MY (Griswold, F. G. Stolen kisses) Author Griswold, F. Gray (Frank Gray), 1854-1937. Title Stolen kisses : recollections of Frank Gray Griswold. -- Imprint Norwood, Mass. : Privately printed, 1914. LOCATION CALL # STATUS Humanities-Genrl Res MY (Griswold, F. G. Stolen kisses) Location Humanities-Genrl Res Descript 143p. : ill. Note Inscribed to Robert P.Perkins. "Principal authorities quoted in the text," p. [144] Stolen kisses. What happened to the bulldogs. The tragic end of Reddy the fox. A day with the "Wards." The sporting barber's close shave. Jack Travail's first love. The lady and the tuna. The twilight of racing. Iroquois. Westward. The origin of the America's cup. Sixteen plates printed on both sides. Local note With author's autograph. Subject Fox hunting. Yachting. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 00:02:34 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:02:34 EST Subject: Marlin-spike fish (1907) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/20/2003 6:25:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > _Tetrapterus mitzukurri_, the Marlin-spike fish, heretofore known from Japan; I wonder if there is a sailor's play on words here. A "marlinspike" is a device used by sailors for knotting and splicing, hence "marlinspike seamanship" the art of tying knots and making splices. "Tetra-pterus" = "four wings"??? - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 00:02:46 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:02:46 -0500 Subject: Arugula (1960) Message-ID: OED doesn't have "arugula"? Add it right now! Merriam-Webster has 1967. The library closes in seven minutes; last one. 24 May 1960, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 33: _Food News: A Green by Any Name_ _Pungent Ingredient Is_ _Cause of Confusion_ _for City Shopper_ By CRAIG CLAIBORNE _Arugula--or Rocket--_ _is the Secret of_ _Experts' Salads_ (...) Ask Italian greengrocers for arugula, rucola or ruccoli; ask other markets for rouquette, rocket salad or, simply, rocket. The phrase "secret ingredient" is a slightly ludicrous thing since it conjures up images of Mephistophelian brews. Most Italian chefs know, however, that arugula or rocket--call it what you will--is the secret ingredient of many of their salads-about-town. (...) Arugula, or rocket salad as it were, is almost in the same league with spinach concerning the sand that clings to its leaves. When purchased the green should be washed thoroughly in several changes of water, then dried gingerly. New York does not have a corner on the vegetable's availability in the United States. Rocket salad is tremendously popular in the Creole country of Louisiana. Here is an adaptation of a recipe that is frequently served in the home of Mrs. Edward McIlhenny, a superb young hostess of Avery Island, La. It is for a canape that is almost insidiously beguiling to the palate. ROCKET CANAPES (...) (OED has got to add "arugula"! I'll bet they serve it in Tukwila!--ed.) From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 21 01:15:37 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 20:15:37 -0500 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030120132823.00b6bf30@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #I never watch the "Golden Globes" show (well, hardly ever), but last night #when U2's Bono accepted for best song of the year (in "Gangs of New York"), #he said "This is fuckin' great!"--so fast it couldn't be bleeped out. The #effect was electric, as they say. Last year Neil Gaiman won the Hugo, the biggest award in science fiction and fantasy. As I heard the story, his acceptance speech either consisted of, or was very short and was followed by, the line "Fuck, I got a Hugo!" Someone commented that he'd better not say the corresponding thing if he ever wins an award (AFAIK, so far nonexistent) named in honor of Philip K. Dick. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 21 01:17:18 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 20:17:18 -0500 Subject: Pooch In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20030120170321.01ff8cf8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Beverly Flanigan wrote: #"Pooch" is used in some regions for belly/stomach "pouch," i.e., to suggest #a nicely rounded little belly--as in "I patted my pooch." (It was even #used in a TV commercial a year or so ago, but I can't recall what for.) I've seen/heard (not sure which, or both) "pooch out" for 'bulge out'. -- Mark A. Mandel From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jan 21 03:27:35 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:27:35 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Last year Neil Gaiman won the Hugo, the biggest award in science fiction >and fantasy. As I heard the story, his acceptance speech either >consisted of, or was very short and was followed by, the line "Fuck, I >got a Hugo!" The acceptance speech was relatively short and the last line was as you heard. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 05:32:36 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 00:32:36 EST Subject: Boston lettuce (1880); Rotelli/Rotelle Salad Message-ID: I was just in my local supermarket when I was reminded that I didn't do these two. BOSTON LETTUCE--Not in the OED. Not in DARE. Hey, it's BOSTON lettuce, fer cryin' out loud. Not Sri Lanka--BOSTON! Over 4,200 Google hits; over 500 Google Groups hits. WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY OF CULINARY ARTS has "A variety of butterhead lettufce with soft, pliable pale green leaves that have a buttery texture and flavor and are larger and paler than bibb lettuce leaves." The American Periodical Series is not all there with digitizing its agricultural periodicals, so I'll have to check back later.. The Making of America-Cornell database has SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, June 1880, pg. 162, "...with canned vegetables and Boston lettuce that kept up a make-believe spring all winter long." ROTELLI/ROTELLE SALAD--The supermarket sold "Rotelli Salad." It looked a little strange with this spelling and without the word "pasta." WEBSTER'S CULINARY ARTS has "rotelle" as "Italian for small wheel and used to describe pasta shaped like a wheel with spokes." Neither "rotelli" nor "rotelle" is in the OED. The Google numbers: ROTELLI SALAD--17 ROTELLE SALAD--35 ROTELLI PASTA SALAD--32 ROTELLE PASTA SALAD--39 ROTELLI PASTA--263 ROTELLE PASTA--681 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 07:08:07 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 02:08:07 EST Subject: O.T.: Al Hirschfeld dies, age 99 Message-ID: Artist Al Hirschfeld has died. There's an extensive obituary in today's NEW YORK TIMES. He was 99 years old and had celebrations planned for 100, but it wasn't to be. I had cited from his 1932 book, MANHATTAN OASES, about New York's speakeasies. The obituary says that it will be reprinted. Get yourself a copy, although all of the places (except "21") are no longer in business. Perhaps "Nina" could be entered in some dictionary somewhere? From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Tue Jan 21 10:43:09 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:43:09 +0100 Subject: Sausage Sandwich (1871, 1875, 1882) Message-ID: I think that it is more probable that all three of those sausage-sandwiches are of the type made in Germany (Wurstbrot) and in Sweden (korvsm?rg?s) and other Scandinavian countries, consisting of a slice of buttered bread, covered with one or several slices of some sausage, considerably thicker than the Frankfurter, the whole sometimes covered with another slice of bread. The 1891 sandwich of course is a hot-dog, even if the name is lacking. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Sausage Sandwich (1875, 1882) > Two more "sausage sandwiches" from HARPER'S WEEKLY full text. The first seems to involve Hans Christian Andersen, but the second is from Germany. ....> From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 14:52:25 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 09:52:25 EST Subject: F**king-A Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 8:00:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, mam at THEWORLD.COM writes: > #Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You > #fuck an A John!" meaning 'totally right, I agree." > > I assume that you are remembering from hearing, not reading, the > expression. Could that have been "You fuckin' A, John!"? That is, > - "fuckin'" rather than the homophonous "fuck an" Has anyone considered that "john" is a well-known argot term for the client of a prostitute? Hence in "you f**kin' a john?" the word "john" is the direct object of a verb (in progressive aspect, with "are" missing), whereas "you f**k a A john" makes sense only if prostitutes had a rating system for their clients. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 14:55:13 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 09:55:13 EST Subject: Turkey (1504?) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/15/03 9:21:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > I plugged "tomato" into EEBO full text, without success. It's nice to see that the EEBO full text database is proof against critics throwing tomatoes. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 15:22:05 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 10:22:05 EST Subject: Salt Water Taffy (again) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/16/03 12:21:56 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes (inter alia): > CONFECTIONERY TRADE-MARKS > compiled by MIDA'S TRADE-MARK BUREAU, Chicago > Chicago: The Criterion Publishing Co. > 1910 > > Here are some entries (*Indicates Registered Brand): > > Pg. 8: > *Atlantic City, The original...Taffy...Wendle W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. > (Providence?--ed.) > > Pg. 74: > *Salt Water...Taffy...Wendele W. Hollis...Providence, R. I. Barry, tell your friend Ed not to be surprised. from URL http://www.virtualnjshore.com/tbswtaffy.html It appears the first taffy made and sold in Atlantic City called 'Salt Water Taffy' was more gimmick than anything else. One legend has it that a taffy vendor named David Bradley jokingly referred to the candy as "salt water taffy" after sea water soaked his supply of the candy in an 1883 summer storm. Although many people believe Bradley invented the candy, no one really knows who was responsible for it's recipe. Another legend says it was created by the Ritchie Brothers and Windle Hollis in 1880. Taffy historians claim that the candy was being sold at Midwest county fairs that same year, but the Ritchie Brothers and Hollis were the first to make the candy in Atlantic City. So they may or may not have been the candy's original true creators. from the Fralinger's Web site http://www.fralingers.com/his_forward.htm The year 1889 saw the first mention of Salt Water Taffy in the Atlantic City Directory, "Hollis Windle W., Original Salt Water Taffy, Boardwalk near Arkansas Avenue." Salt Water Taffy was not again listed until the 1899 Atlantic City Directory, when forty-two 'Confectioners' were listed. Only John Cassidy and Joseph Fralinger are associated with Salt Water Taffy from the names shown. The city was growing rapidly and Salt Water Taffy was becoming a household word. It is therefore possible that Windle (or Wendele) Hollis moved his candy business from Atlantic City to Providence sometime between 1889 and 1910---this may explain why he does not seem to appear in the 1899 Atlantic City Directory. What is confusing is that Hollis has a "registered brand" on "salt water taffy". - James A. Landau systems engineer FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI) Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 15:23:39 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 10:23:39 EST Subject: Larry La Prise Message-ID: What with all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in - and then the trouble started... From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 21 16:31:41 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:31:41 -0500 Subject: Larry La Prise Message-ID: More specifically, Larry La Prise died on April 4, 1996. And his status as song-writer of "The Hokey Pokey" has been challenged. Take a look at http://www.goodbyemag.com/apr/hokey.htm John Baker -----Original Message----- From: James A. Landau [mailto:JJJRLandau at AOL.COM] Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 10:24 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Larry La Prise What with all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in - and then the trouble started... From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Tue Jan 21 17:38:40 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 12:38:40 -0500 Subject: Arugula (1960) In-Reply-To: <55B90685.0206AE8B.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: Possibly the omission is due to the fact that they call it "rocket" in England. At 07:02 PM 1/20/03 -0500, you wrote: > OED doesn't have "arugula"? Add it right now! > Merriam-Webster has 1967. > The library closes in seven minutes; last one. > > 24 May 1960, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 33: >_Food News: A Green by Any Name_ > >_Pungent Ingredient Is_ >_Cause of Confusion_ >_for City Shopper_ >By CRAIG CLAIBORNE > >_Arugula--or Rocket--_ >_is the Secret of_ >_Experts' Salads_ > >(...) Ask Italian greengrocers for arugula, rucola or ruccoli; ask other >markets for rouquette, rocket salad or, simply, rocket. > The phrase "secret ingredient" is a slightly ludicrous thing since it > conjures up images of Mephistophelian brews. Most Italian chefs know, > however, that arugula or rocket--call it what you will--is the secret > ingredient of many of their salads-about-town. >(...) > Arugula, or rocket salad as it were, is almost in the same league with > spinach concerning the sand that clings to its leaves. When purchased > the green should be washed thoroughly in several changes of water, then > dried gingerly. > New York does not have a corner on the vegetable's availability in the > United States. Rocket salad is tremendously popular in the Creole > country of Louisiana. Here is an adaptation of a recipe that is > frequently served in the home of Mrs. Edward McIlhenny, a superb young > hostess of Avery Island, La. It is for a canape that is almost > insidiously beguiling to the palate. > ROCKET CANAPES >(...) > >(OED has got to add "arugula"! I'll bet they serve it in Tukwila!--ed.) From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Jan 21 17:36:19 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 12:36:19 -0500 Subject: Arugula (1960) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030121123730.00a55210@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 12:38:40PM -0500, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > Possibly the omission is due to the fact that they call it "rocket" in > England. It's been drafted, just hasn't appeared yet. Jesse Sheidlower OED From mamandel at UNAGI.CIS.UPENN.EDU Tue Jan 21 19:12:40 2003 From: mamandel at UNAGI.CIS.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 14:12:40 -0500 Subject: [DSNA] The Web as a Corpus In-Reply-To: <003001c2a76d$db72c180$5e224da1@jkossuth.m-w.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, James Kossuth wrote: #There is a free downloadable app that is supposed to make #the Web somewhat more valuable as a corpus and is #available at http://www.miniappolis.com/. It does provide #results in KWIC format. I'ven't used it yet myself, but it #seems like it might be useful. "I'ven't"? That's a new combo to me. -- Mark A. Mandel From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 19:58:11 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 14:58:11 EST Subject: [DSNA] The Web as a Corpus Message-ID: In a message dated 1/21/03 2:13:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, mamandel at UNAGI.CIS.UPENN.EDU writes: > "I'ven't"? That's an abbreviation for the well-known expression, "Ivan saying NYET!" - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 23:59:20 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:20 EST Subject: Providence (Re: Salt Water Taffy (again)) Message-ID: This Thursday (in about two days), I'll take an Amtrak up to Providence for a day research trip. The Providence newspapers, the library had told me, are indexed. I'll look for everything from New York System hot dogs to Salt Walter Taffy to Cabinets (shakes). If anyone wants anything researched (maybe I'll go to Brown University as well; I'll try the historical society, but won't have time for Johnson & Wales), tell me now. Also, maybe someone can warn the women? Barry Popik From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 21 23:59:50 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:50 EST Subject: German Taco Message-ID: Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The introduction page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: "Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a spell. Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, German tacos, and other snacks." What are German tacos? Steve Boatti From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 00:21:42 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 19:21:42 EST Subject: Anglosphere Message-ID: "Anglosphere" has over 4000 Google hits, yet its first mention on Google Groups is from only January 2000. The term is mentioned today on Andrew Sullivan's blog at www.andrewsullivan.com, with this link: http://www.pattern.com/bennettj-anglosphereprimer.html From self at TOWSE.COM Wed Jan 22 00:39:12 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 16:39:12 -0800 Subject: Anglosphere Message-ID: Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > "Anglosphere" has over 4000 Google hits, yet its first mention on Google > Groups is from only January 2000. > The term is mentioned today on Andrew Sullivan's blog at > www.andrewsullivan.com, with this link: > > http://www.pattern.com/bennettj-anglosphereprimer.html According to that Jan 2000 reference in Googja, the word was first used by Neal Stephenson in THE DIAMOND AGE, which was published in 1995. If Stephenson coined the word in 1995, five years seems a long time for it to hit the newsgroups. According to Simberg , Francosphere was used on a French language site before then. In a similar vein William T Quick claims he was blending "logos" with "blog" to coin "blogosphere" a year ago New Year's. Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 01:18:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 20:18:16 EST Subject: Wyotana or Montoming Message-ID: Wyoming + Montana. Everybody's got to get into the coinage act. From the NEW YORK TIMES, 17 January 2003 (www.nytimes.com): Wyotana: Home of the Second Home By ANNA BAHNEY AGGED mountain peaks pierce the clouds as their nine-million-year-old spires loom above a patch of delicate blue harebells still wet with morning dew. The lake below reflects the shifting colors of the rocks ? green at the bottom, gray melding to white at the top ? as they stretch toward the infinite blue sky. Off in the distance, a moose slowly makes its way to the water's edge. A bald eagle soars above, talons ready, looking for breakfast. Welcome to Wyotana: part State of Wyoming, part State of Montana, part state of mind. You won't find it on any maps, but Wyotana (or Montoming, as it might be dubbed every odd-numbered year when the Montana Legislature is in session) exists nonetheless. It's the home of the second home for celebrities like Harrison Ford, Tom Brokaw and David Letterman and hundreds of other out-of-staters willing to pay $5 million or more to embrace their inner ranch owner. It's the land of big sky and big prices. Thinking about moving in? Before whipping out your checkbook, get out the map. With Yellowstone National Park as its anchor, Wyotana stretches with eminent-domain-like authority over the forested and mountainous regions of northwest Wyoming and central and western Montana. From Sheridan County, Wyo., draw a line slanting down to the Utah-Idaho border. Follow the state line of Idaho upward until it is even with the Flathead Valley, and then go over to Kalispell, Mont. Shoot straight back down to Sheridan, making sure Billings, Mont., is included. Now you have the rough parameters of Wyotana, a 103,300-square-mile enclave of sweeping vistas and storied beauty. (...) (But I can't move there! I'm scared of jackalopes!--ed.) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 01:55:55 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 20:55:55 -0500 Subject: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" Message-ID: I got a call from someone in the Midwest who vaguely recalled a survey conducted by someone in the Yale Department of Linguistics aimed at determining the "ten most powerful English words". He remembered the list as including _love_ and _new_, but all topped by the #1 most powerful, _hope_. I told him I could be pretty certain that no such survey had been conducted by anyone here in the last 20 years, and that it didn't really sound like a survey anyone in linguistics would have conducted, but I promised I'd ask around. So I hereby do so, not expecting too much in the way of a response. (He thought it might have been cited in a magazine like _American Demography_.) On the quote: I was just now vaguely watching an ESPN SportsCentury bio of Vince Lombardi that mentioned the quote attributed to him, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. If I heard right, the SportsCentury bio called TATW a 1940 movie, but my VideoHound Movie Retriever authoritatively places _Trouble Along the Way_ in 1953 (which still predates Lombardi's coaching career). But they also called it a John Ford movie, which the 1953 one (starring John Wayne) wasn't. So maybe there was an earlier version of TATW in 1940 directed by John Ford that hasn't come out in video (since it's not in the VideoHound) and that contains the motto (the excerpt was black and white, but the 1953 movie is listed in the VideoHound as b&w, so that doesn't help), or maybe when the bio said "a John Ford movie" it really meant "a John Wayne movie". I'll watch more closely if they ever replay the Lombardi bio. larry From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 02:02:57 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 21:02:57 -0500 Subject: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the > line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at > that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, > _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time > college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young > daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. The earliest anyone has found this Red Sanders quote is in the 1953 movie _Trouble Along the Way_. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From lamerrill at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 22 07:47:59 2003 From: lamerrill at EARTHLINK.NET (Leila A. Merrill) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 01:47:59 -0600 Subject: German Taco Message-ID: Hi all, A German Taco, according to the Amarillo Globe-News, is a flour tortilla stuffed with slices of summer sausage and jalape?o cheese, then wrapped like a burrito and heated. Fredericksburg, as the name suggests, was a German settlement. Now it's a nice place to spend a weekend because the area's pretty, there are plenty of sights to see, little shops, etc. Here in Dallas, we have fish tacos in addition the usual varieties. I haven't seen the German kind, but I might have just not noticed. - Leila Merrill linguistics grad student > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: > German Taco > From: > Steve Boatti > Date: > Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:50 EST > > >Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of >Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The introduction >page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: > >"Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a spell. >Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, German tacos, >and other snacks." > >What are German tacos? > >Steve Boatti > > From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 22 11:37:15 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 06:37:15 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: All ANSers, ADSers, and DSNAers I urge you to look at the latest issue of National Geographic, for Feb 2003 (the cover is an image of a star being born -- quite cool). There is a good story in this issue about Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea, with some great photos of the terrain they encountered and art to depict some of the scenes described in the actual written records of the expedition. They quote from several journals, so the story is backed with primary evidence, plus the input of several experts of today. The story mentions, though does not go into detail, the controversy over her name and its spelling and pronunciation (hence the inclusion of ADS-L and DSNA-L on this email), and discusses her actual history, as far as it is known (very little), and how her story and place in history were revived by the suffragists and feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those who were at the recent ANS annual meeting were regaled by ANS Past President Tom Gasque and his excellent talk about Sacagawea and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Expedition is now -- and for the next two years running, with various events around the country -- being commemorated on its 200th anniversary. It's very fitting that Natl Geog has this story now, and that it backs up much of what Tom said, though he said far more than what the NG story has, and of course, Tom's was from an onomastic viewpoint. But the NG story is worth a read, and it even has a few tidbits that I for one was not aware of. Frank Frank Abate Dictionaries International Consulting & Editorial Services for Reference Publications 860-349-5400 [USA access code: 1] abatefr at earthlink.net From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 22 12:12:06 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 07:12:06 -0500 Subject: FW: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" Message-ID: FWIW, the Oxford History of World Cinema, in its write-up on John Ford (pp. 288-89), does not mention the TATW title in its "Select Filmography". For 1940, he did The Grapes of Wrath. He also had 3 feature films released in 1939, and one in 1941, and one in 1942, and then was in the US Navy for WWII, so I expect he did not squeeze in anything else around that time. I think the John Ford-John Wayne connection was the likely cause for this apparent confusion. Frank Abate On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the > line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at > that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, > _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time > college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young > daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. The earliest anyone has found this Red Sanders quote is in the 1953 movie _Trouble Along the Way_. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 22 12:31:42 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 07:31:42 -0500 Subject: German Taco In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I would have expected Japanese tacos at a Brew Bonnet place. dInIs >Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of >Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The introduction >page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: > >"Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a spell. >Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, German tacos, >and other snacks." > >What are German tacos? > >Steve Boatti -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From monickels at MAC.COM Wed Jan 22 13:50:46 2003 From: monickels at MAC.COM (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:50:46 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I did not hear Tom Gasque's speech, nor have I yet seen the particular issue of National Geographic, but one language- and Sacagawea-related item which I have read recently talks about the difficulties of translation encountered. Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at Fort Mandan. "Sacagawea spoke a little Hidatsa in which she had to converse with her husband, who was a Canadian and did not understand English. A mulatto, who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the Captains [Lewis and Clark], so that a single word to be understood b the party required to pass from the natives to the woman, from the woman to the husband, from the husband to the mulatto, from the mulatto to the captains." Ambrose adds: "That might not have been so bad, except that Charbonneau [Sacagawea's husband] and Jessaume argued about the meaning of every French word they used." -- Grant Barrett Editor, World New York http://www.worldnewyork.org/ gbarrett at worldnewyork.org From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 13:58:37 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:58:37 EST Subject: Providence (Re: Salt Water Taffy (again)) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/21/03 7:00:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > This Thursday (in about two days), I'll take an Amtrak up to Providence Shouldn't that be "Providence (RI: Salt Water Taffy)"? Some linguistic musings to pass the time on your trip: There are two cities in North America named after the Deity. Providence is one. Name the other. (References to the Christian Trinity are excluded, although you might want to find a place named after the Holy Ghost.) England is a subset of Britain, yet New Britain is a subset of New England. Find not one but two "New Scotlands" and half of a "New Wales". The Northeast has many "New x" place names (e.g. see previous) including "New Square". Where is "Old Square"? The _Titanic_ was sunk by an iceberg. What happened to its sister ship the _Hoosatanic_? Locate the Four Seasons of Massachusetts. What is unique (linguistically) about the Bostoner Rebbe? Riddle: why is New Haven the obvious site for the first appearance of the Anglophone bagel? Riddle: what kind of sex life does a backwards Yalie have? Riddle: why can't you get to Rhode Island by train? And straying from the Northeast: why is everyone in the United States convinced that there is a city in Mexico named "Aunt Jane"? In a message dated 1/21/03 8:18:47 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Wyoming + Montana. > Everybody's got to get into the coinage act. "Kentuckiana" has been around for as long as I can remember (and probably as long as Professor Preston can remember). It is an advertising/PR term meaning "Kentucky plus those parts of Indiana in which the Louisville Courier-Journal circulates." Of even older vintage: Texarkana, Calexico, Mexicali, the Delmarva Peninsula. And then there is Marven Gardens, famously misspelled on the Monopoly board. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 14:05:06 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:05:06 EST Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/03 8:51:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, monickels at MAC.COM writes: > A mulatto, > who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the > Captains [Lewis and Clark], Charbonneau > [Sacagawea's husband] and Jessaume argued about the meaning of every > French word they used." Please clarify whether the "mulatto" mentioned (Jessaume?) was or was not Clark's slave York. - James A. Landau From Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM Wed Jan 22 14:09:50 2003 From: Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM (Michael Cassidy) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:09:50 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: Grant Barrett writes: Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at Fort Mandan. I've been online for about 18 years and one thing I've learned: its amazing how email sucks the snottiness out of people. I guess its alright Ambose is dead and created a greater body of work than Grant. From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Wed Jan 22 14:22:14 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:22:14 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea In-Reply-To: <6d.7d64559.2b5fff12@aol.com> Message-ID: Le Wednesday, 22 Jan 2003, ? 09:05 America/New_York, James A. Landau a ?crit : >> A mulatto, >> who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the >> Captains [Lewis and Clark], Charbonneau >> [Sacagawea's husband] and Jessaume argued about the meaning of every >> French word they used." > > Please clarify whether the "mulatto" mentioned (Jessaume?) was or was > not > Clark's slave York. Ren? Jessaume was a mulatto trader who lived with the Mandan Indians. As far as I know, York has never been referred to as a mulatto. According to this page, Jessaume (one of several spellings, Jussaume being the most common variant), was a freeman. http://www.northwestjournal.ca/XI1.htm -- Grant Barrett Editor, World New York http://www.worldnewyork.org/ gbarrett at worldnewyork.org From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Wed Jan 22 14:28:22 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:28:22 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea In-Reply-To: <85256CB6.004D94CD.00@ares.condenast.com> Message-ID: Le Wednesday, 22 Jan 2003, ? 09:09 America/New_York, Michael Cassidy a ?crit : > Grant Barrett writes: > > Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather > Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles > MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at > Fort Mandan. > > I've been online for about 18 years and one thing I've learned: > its amazing how email sucks the snottiness out of people. > I guess its alright Ambose is dead and created a greater body of work > than > Grant. Dead or not, I believe Ambrose was the worst sort of writer: a pastiche artist, an incautious self-editor, repetitive, and, yes, pedestrian: lacking in imagination to such a degree that one can read a book such as "Undaunated Courage" and feel cheated out of the best parts of the story. A large body of such work is nothing to me. -- Grant Barrett Editor, World New York http://www.worldnewyork.org/ gbarrett at worldnewyork.org From Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM Wed Jan 22 15:09:54 2003 From: Michael_Cassidy at CONDENAST.COM (Michael Cassidy) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:09:54 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea & Fuckin A Message-ID: Ah shucks and gee wiz Jim & Grant are mad at me! Weep weep. Taking pretty much needless shots at someone not on the list and dead shows character. As "Fuckin A", its simple. "A OK" shorten to "OK". And on the brief that anything said can be made clearer by adding fucking to it, 'Fucking A OK' shorten to "Fuckin A". Everyone I spoke to knows it as an afirmative. From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Jan 22 16:15:02 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:15:02 -0800 Subject: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) lists only two films made by John Ford in 1940, The Grapes of Wrath and The Long Voyage Home which was based on 4 short plays by Eugene O'Neill and starred John Wayne as Ole Olsen. The 1953 movie Trouble Along the Way (AKA Alma Mater) was directed by Michael Curtiz (who, BTW, directed 3 films in 1940, all of which starred Errol Flynn). allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. If I heard right, > the SportsCentury bio called TATW a 1940 movie, but my VideoHound > Movie Retriever authoritatively places _Trouble Along the Way_ in > 1953 (which still predates Lombardi's coaching career). But they > also called it a John Ford movie, which the 1953 one (starring John > Wayne) wasn't. So maybe there was an earlier version of TATW in 1940 > directed by John Ford that hasn't come out in video From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 16:54:50 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:54:50 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Message-ID: Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? RERUN OF A BAD MOVIE--President Bush said this week that Saddam's actions are like a "rerun of a bad movie." That's a "nightmare," perhaps worse. Google Groups has this since at least 1996. It might have been coined with the movie ENDLESS LOVE, I dunno. NAIL JELLY TO THE WALL--I was flipping through the tv channels yesterday, and stopped at the History Channel program on the Panama Canal. President Teddy Roosevelt's "nail currant jelly to the wall" alleged quotation was mentioned. I've heard "jelly to the wall" again recently. Has Fred Shapiro nailed this one down? Did Teddy coin it? Do people really try nailing jelly to the wall? How about Jell-O? From Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM Wed Jan 22 17:00:43 2003 From: Bill.LeMay at MCKESSON.COM (LeMay, William) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 12:00:43 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Message-ID: >From the New Hacker's Dictionary: like nailing jelly to a tree adj. Used to describe a task thought to be impossible, esp. one in which the difficulty arises from poor specification or inherent slipperiness in the problem domain. "Trying to display the `prettiest' arrangement of nodes and arcs that diagrams a given graph is like nailing jelly to a tree, because nobody's sure what `prettiest' means algorithmically." Hacker use of this term may recall mainstream slang originated early in the 20th century by President Theodore Roosevelt. There is a legend that, weary of inconclusive talks with Colombia over the right to dig a canal through its then-province Panama, he remarked, "Negotiating with those pirates is like trying to nail currant jelly to the wall." Roosevelt's government subsequently encouraged the anti-Colombian insurgency that created the nation of Panama. -----Original Message----- From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [ mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM ] Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 10:55 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? RERUN OF A BAD MOVIE--President Bush said this week that Saddam's actions are like a "rerun of a bad movie." That's a "nightmare," perhaps worse. Google Groups has this since at least 1996. It might have been coined with the movie ENDLESS LOVE, I dunno. NAIL JELLY TO THE WALL--I was flipping through the tv channels yesterday, and stopped at the History Channel program on the Panama Canal. President Teddy Roosevelt's "nail currant jelly to the wall" alleged quotation was mentioned. I've heard "jelly to the wall" again recently. Has Fred Shapiro nailed this one down? Did Teddy coin it? Do people really try nailing jelly to the wall? How about Jell-O? From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 18:11:43 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:11:43 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall In-Reply-To: <4B563BD7.17760E75.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: yOn Wed, 22 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? This question is a good excuse for me to clarify a point. Barry's postings sometimes seem to envision that the Yale Dictionary of Quotations is going to cover every phrase or expression ever uttered; this expectation parallels his apparent expectation that the OED should cover every term ever uttered in English or any other language. In fact, my book will be limited to more significant quotations, just as every real-world reference book has to be limited in various ways. It would never occur to me that "rerun of a bad movie" or "nail jelly to the wall" would be significant enough for me to cover. In a way I hate to articulate the above, because Barry posts such great stuff in furtherance of his unlimited vision of inclusiveness and I don't want to discourage him, but I don't want unrealistic expectations to grow up with regard to my book. Please keep up the great work, Barry! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dave at WILTON.NET Wed Jan 22 18:32:52 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:32:52 -0800 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This thread, plus the one about the Vince Lombardi quote and a discussion on my website about a 19th century economics quote, got me thinking... Is there a source that addresses misattributed or fallacious quotes in something resembling a comprehensive manner? There are an enormous number of false quotations floating about out there. A single volume (or website) that debunks the worst of these would be a very useful tool. I know that many books of quotations and sites like snopes.com do this on a case-by-case basis, but I've never seen a source that attempts a comprehensive treatment. I'm not suggesting that Fred's book do this. I'm just wondering if anyone has done it. > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Fred Shapiro > Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 10:12 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall > > > yOn Wed, 22 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > > Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? > > This question is a good excuse for me to clarify a point. Barry's > postings sometimes seem to envision that the Yale Dictionary > of Quotations > is going to cover every phrase or expression ever uttered; this > expectation parallels his apparent expectation that the OED > should cover > every term ever uttered in English or any other language. In fact, my > book will be limited to more significant quotations, just as every > real-world reference book has to be limited in various ways. It would > never occur to me that "rerun of a bad movie" or "nail jelly > to the wall" > would be significant enough for me to cover. > > In a way I hate to articulate the above, because Barry posts > such great > stuff in furtherance of his unlimited vision of inclusiveness and I > don't want to discourage him, but I don't want unrealistic > expectations to > grow up with regard to my book. > > Please keep up the great work, Barry! > > Fred Shapiro > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------ > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY > OF QUOTATIONS > Access 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 22 18:47:02 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:47:02 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall In-Reply-To: <001b01c2c244$acc017b0$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > Is there a source that addresses misattributed or fallacious quotes in > something resembling a comprehensive manner? There are an enormous number of > false quotations floating about out there. A single volume (or website) that > debunks the worst of these would be a very useful tool. I know that many > books of quotations and sites like snopes.com do this on a case-by-case > basis, but I've never seen a source that attempts a comprehensive treatment. > > I'm not suggesting that Fred's book do this. I'm just wondering if anyone > has done it. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has a section of misquotations. My book will certainly address many misquotations. The best book focusing on misquotations is Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys Finish Last, which is really quite brilliant. The quality of his research is better than any other quotation book ever published (to date). Another one is Paul F. Boller and John George, They Never Said It : A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions, which is pretty good but not nearly up to Keyes's standards. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 22 18:48:40 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:48:40 -0500 Subject: Keyes Mistitle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I gave the wrong title of Ralph Keyes's great book on misquotations. The real title is the following: "Nice guys finish seventh" : false phrases, spurious sayings, and familiar misquotations Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Wed Jan 22 21:23:51 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:23:51 -0500 Subject: Boston lettuce (1878); Roosevelt's currant jelly (1912) Message-ID: BOSTON LETTUCE 17 November 1878, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 9: Those varieties that are not furnished plentifully at this season by the market-gardens are received from the hothouses, as, for instance, "Boston lettuce" raised under glass, which brings the highest price. --------------------------------------------------------------- ROOSEVELT'S CURRANT JELLY William Safire, an ADS member who writes an "On Language" column for an obscure publication called THE NEW YORK TIMES, discussed "like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree" on 26 January 1986. Joe E. Decker, a history professor of the University of Tampa (FL), wrote a letter on 9 March 1986, mentioning a Roosevelt letter in 1915. On 6 April 1986, Safire re-addressed the jelly issue, using again the 1915 date. 9 April 1912, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: "Somebody asked me why I did not get an agreement with Colombia. They might just as well ask me why I do not nail cranberry jelly to the wall. It would not be my fault or the fault of the nail; it would be the fault of the jelly." (Of course! Who nails cranberry jelly to a wall? Try STRAWBERRY jelly!--ed.) From Ittaob at AOL.COM Wed Jan 22 21:34:19 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:34:19 EST Subject: Boston lettuce (1878); Roosevelt's currant jelly (1912) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/03 4:24:26 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes: << 9 April 1912, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: "Somebody asked me why I did not get an agreement with Colombia. They might just as well ask me why I do not nail cranberry jelly to the wall. It would not be my fault or the fault of the nail; it would be the fault of the jelly." >> This is the precise TR quote that was used yesterday on the History Channel documentary on Teddy. Steve Boatti From dsgood at VISI.COM Wed Jan 22 22:41:18 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:41:18 -0600 Subject: German taco In-Reply-To: <20030122050051.34BB049B6@bodb.mc.mpls.visi.com> Message-ID: > Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:59:50 EST > From: Steve Boatti > Subject: German Taco > > Today I received a flower catalog in the mail from Wildseed Farms of > Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 70 miles west of Austin. The > introduction page ("Visiting Central Texas?") states: > > "Our Brew-Bonnet Biergarten offers guests a place to relax and sit a > spell. Beer, wine and soft drinks are available, as well as ice cream, > German tacos, and other snacks." > > What are German tacos? > >From an Amarillo newspaper article on the Tri-State Fair in 2000: http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/091900/tri_friedfood.shtml After their work shifts, Bielz planned to eat a hot link plus ice cream for dessert. Dorsey planned to eat a German taco, which is a flour tortilla stuffed with slices of summer sausage and jalapeno cheese, then wrapped like a burrito and heated. My guess is, the "German" part is the summer sausage. Fredericksburg is in the part of Texas which got a lot of German immigration, right? From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Wed Jan 22 23:08:51 2003 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 18:08:51 -0500 Subject: German taco, and an off-topic anecdote In-Reply-To: <3E2EC9AE.23263.DDE333@localhost> Message-ID: At 04:41 PM 1/22/2003 -0600, Dan Goodman wrote: >... a German taco, which is a flour tortilla stuffed with slices of summer >sausage and jalapeno >cheese, then wrapped like a burrito and heated. That's Right. >Fredericksburg is in the part of Texas which got a lot of German >immigration, right? To make a very long and very interesting, albeit possibly apocryphal story, short: The Comancheria, an area of Texas slated specifically for the Comanche, had parts of it "sold" to a group of German immigrants ("Anybody want to by the Brooklyn Bridge?") They moved in, the Comanche got a little miffed, and an envoy was sent to try and work it out. The German's made a proposal, the Comanche accepted, and showed the acceptance by lighting fires along the hills that ring Fredricksburg - it happened to be Easter Sunday, the "treaty" between the Germans and the Comanche has never been broken, and the Girl and Boy Scouts still "light them Easter fires ever' Easter." [Blame my history professor, Dr. June Welch, if this "ain't so." Boy, could that man tell a story]. The town boasts the Brew Bonnet, several German deli's, an annual Oktoberfest, and is Chester Nimitz's hometown - with a museum to prove it and all. You should check it out - then head on over to WEST for some of those kolaches we were taking about earlier and a visit to the Czech descendant there..... Kathleen E. Miller Research Assistant to William Safire and part time resident of Georgetown, TX The New York Times From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Wed Jan 22 23:08:31 2003 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:08:31 -0600 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea Message-ID: I must agree, "Undaunted Courage," was, at best, a very poor book, at worse, a hack job cashing in on the author's name. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Barrett" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 8:28 AM Subject: Re: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea > Le Wednesday, 22 Jan 2003, ? 09:09 America/New_York, Michael Cassidy a > ?crit : > > > Grant Barrett writes: > > > > Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather > > Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles > > MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at > > Fort Mandan. > > > > I've been online for about 18 years and one thing I've learned: > > its amazing how email sucks the snottiness out of people. > > I guess its alright Ambose is dead and created a greater body of work > > than > > Grant. > > Dead or not, I believe Ambrose was the worst sort of writer: a pastiche > artist, an incautious self-editor, repetitive, and, yes, pedestrian: > lacking in imagination to such a degree that one can read a book such > as "Undaunated Courage" and feel cheated out of the best parts of the > story. A large body of such work is nothing to me. > > -- > Grant Barrett > Editor, World New York > http://www.worldnewyork.org/ > gbarrett at worldnewyork.org > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 22 23:28:26 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 18:28:26 -0500 Subject: FW: query; "Winning Isn't Everything" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 7:12 AM -0500 1/22/03, Frank Abate wrote: >FWIW, the Oxford History of World Cinema, in its write-up on John Ford (pp. >288-89), does not mention the TATW title in its "Select Filmography". For >1940, he did The Grapes of Wrath. He also had 3 feature films released in >1939, and one in 1941, and one in 1942, and then was in the US Navy for >WWII, so I expect he did not squeeze in anything else around that time. > >I think the John Ford-John Wayne connection was the likely cause for this >apparent confusion. > >Frank Abate > So it would appear. My VideoHound actually lists *another* John Ford movie from 1940 (besides Grapes of Wrath): The Long Voyage Home (from the Eugene O'Neill play), starring John Wayne. And many of his movies did star John Wayne, so the connection, or confusion, is plausible. We can go with the 1953 TATW (directed not by Ford but by Michael Curtiz) as the first clearly attested source for "WIEITOT", whether or not Red Sanders was the one who popularized it earlier. larry > >On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Laurence Horn wrote: > >> "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The bio traced the >> line to UCLA coach Red Sanders (IIRC--I was only half-listening at >> that point) and then played an excerpt from a John Ford movie, >> _Trouble Along the Way_, in which a child--not the ex-big time >> college coach fallen on hard times but maybe his young >> daughter--unmistakably utters the infamous line. > >The earliest anyone has found this Red Sanders quote is in the 1953 movie >_Trouble Along the Way_. > >Fred Shapiro > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Fred R. Shapiro Editor >Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS > Access 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 Wed Jan 22 23:25:50 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 18:25:50 -0500 Subject: New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea & F*ckin A In-Reply-To: <85256CB6.005314D6.00@ares.condenast.com> Message-ID: At 10:09 AM -0500 1/22/03, Michael Cassidy wrote: >Ah shucks and gee wiz Jim & Grant are mad at me! >Weep weep. I'd appreciate your damping down the gratuitious flames. > >As "Fuckin A", its simple. >"A OK" shorten to "OK". >And on the brief that anything said can be made clearer by adding >fucking to it, >'Fucking A OK' shorten to "Fuckin A". > >Everyone I spoke to knows it as an afirmative. I didn't see any cites of "F*ckin(g) A OK" in HDAS among the copious cites of "f*cking A", and in any case "A-OK" is only cited from 1959, while "f*ckin A", as discussed earlier in the thread, goes back at least to Norman Mailer's use in _Naked and the Dead_, 1947 (which presumably reflects WWII usage, if he can be trusted). This makes it pretty unlikely that "A-OK" is the source. larry -- From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Jan 22 23:26:43 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:26:43 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Query on "Great Scott!" Message-ID: One of my students wanted to post a query to ads-l, but I suppose he has to subscribe to the listserve first. His message appears below my signoff, and I'll forward any responses to him. Gerald Cohen >While watching "Back to the Future" this past weekend, one of my >friends asked: Where does the expression "Great Scott" come from? >Would anyone be able to help me on this? > >Thank you, >Brian Van Vertloo >Student, University of Missouri-Rolla > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Jan 23 00:28:33 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 19:28:33 -0500 Subject: German Taco In-Reply-To: <3E2E4CAF.8070607@earthlink.net> Message-ID: >Hi all, > >A German Taco, according to the Amarillo Globe-News, is a flour tortilla >stuffed with slices of summer sausage and jalape?o cheese, then wrapped >like a burrito and heated. >Fredericksburg, as the name suggests, was a German settlement. Now it's >a nice place to spend a weekend because the area's pretty, there are >plenty of sights to see, little shops, etc. Here in Dallas, we have >fish tacos in addition the usual varieties. I haven't seen the German >kind, but I might have just not noticed. > German taco is a new one on me, although after reading the description it's not as exotic as it first sounded, although with a flour tortilla and heated as above I'd call it a German burrito. In my lexicon, "taco" entails corn tortilla(s), although there can be one or two (the latter is standard if the filling is sauced) and they can be hard or soft. As for fish tacos, they've been big in southern CA for years. They sell them at San Diego Padres games. (And I had a good one at an outdoor stand near the LSA/ADS hotel last time we met in L.A.) larry -- From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Thu Jan 23 01:16:20 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 20:16:20 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Query on "Great Scott!" Message-ID: I think Michael Quinion's column on the subject is rather recent and state of the art. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gre4.htm Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Cohen" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 6:26 PM Subject: Fwd: Query on "Great Scott!" > One of my students wanted to post a query to ads-l, but I suppose > he has to subscribe to the listserve first. His message appears below > my signoff, and I'll forward any responses to him. > > Gerald Cohen > > > >While watching "Back to the Future" this past weekend, one of my > >friends asked: Where does the expression "Great Scott" come from? > >Would anyone be able to help me on this? > > > >Thank you, > >Brian Van Vertloo > >Student, University of Missouri-Rolla > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 01:54:55 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 20:54:55 -0500 Subject: Barbecue (1695?); "Big Apple" and Jake Byer Message-ID: "BIG APPLE" AND JAKE BYER "Peter Quince" was an extremely popular horse. The name is from William Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. I checked the full text NEW YORK TIMES for that name with the keyword "race." The first hit that shows up is 1907, and there are 121 hits for "Peter Quince." Perhaps "quince" is not "apple" and perhaps Shakespeare wasn't Irish, but whatever. Most interesting is a NEW YORK TIMES full text check for "Jake Byer." The first hit is from New Orleans in 1920! Exactly the time John J. Fitz Gerald was also in New Orleans (as I reported 11 years ago). 22 January 1920, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 18: _TRAINER'S LICENSE REVOKED BY JUDGES_ _Jake Byer Disciplined by New Orleans Officials--Bar His Horses from Races._ Not only that, but there's a photo of Jake Byer at age 85, and it's not from ancient history, either... 17 September 1969, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 41: _Jake Byer, at 85, Still Follows Form Charts at Belmont_ _Ex-Trainer on Hand for 100th Running of Jerome Today_ (...) (Photo caption--ed.) Jake Byer, retired trainer, figuring winners at Belmont As I said 11 years ago, Byer (although certainly not alive) might have had children. Those children might be alive. Their fathers records might be lying in an attic. I've begged 11 years for the NEW YORK TIMES to run an article on New York City's history. Silence=Death. --------------------------------------------------------------- BARBECUE This is a late translation, but "barbecue" is an important word. Call # HEA (Berkel, A. van. Adriaan van Berkel's Travels in South America) Author Berkel, Adriaan van. Title Adriaan van Berkel's Travels in South America between the Berbice and Essequibo rivers and in Surinam, 1670-1689, translated and edited by Walter Edmund Roth, 1925. Imprint Georgetown, British Guiana, The "Daily chronicle," ltd., 1941 [i. e. 1942] LOCATION CALL # STATUS Humanities-Genrl Res HEA (Berkel, A. van. Adriaan van Berkel's Travels in South America) Location Humanities-Genrl Res Descript 2 p. l., xvi p., 2 l., 145, v p. plates, fold. map. 22 cm. Series The "Daily chronicle's" Guiana edition of reprints and original works dealing with all phases of life in British Guiana. Ed. by Vincent Roth. [No. 2] Note Series in part at head of t.-p. On cover: 2d impression, 1942. "Appeared serially in the 'Daily chronicle' newspaper during 1926-27."--Foreword. Translation of Amerikaansche voyagien. Subject Guyana -- Description and travel. Suriname -- Description and travel. Berbice River (Guyana) Add'l name Roth, Walter E. (Walter Edmund), 1861?-1933, ed. and tr. Page 23: Be it a hare, rabbit, hog, deer, etc., the hair is burnt off, the guts washed and the meat laid on a _berbekot_. This is an Indian grid of little wooden sticks about two feet high. On this they place their food, flesh, or fish, without salting it; and being half done roasted, they crumble it into the pepper-pot to eat at once or to keep for a more convenient time, because the pepper-pot is the only recourse. From douglas at NB.NET Thu Jan 23 02:14:54 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 21:14:54 -0500 Subject: F**king-A In-Reply-To: <002d01c2bcf6$3d78d160$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >It has been suggested to me that the "A" could have come from "affirmative" >in the sense that the military usage of "affirmative" to mean "yes" or "you >are correct" might have been been the inspiration. "Fucking Affirmative, >Sir!" shortened to "Fuckin'-A." > >Was "affirmative" a well-used military word in WWII and before? "Affirmative" in the desired context has been conventional since Korea certainly. I'm not sure about WW II. This is one of several reasonable possibilities, I think. Derivation from "A-OK" on the other hand appears implausible ... since "f*cking-A" or equivalent seems to predate "A-OK" by at least a decade. {Those offended by rank speculation or woolgathering should ignore the item below.} Another possibility (not my favorite because of Occam's razor) is that the expression is so contracted that the original form is obscured. For example, one could assume that Ron Butters' long form "you f*ckin' A John" is actually an early form, later contracted; in this case my conjecture would be that this might represent "U f*cking A J", an intensified version of "U A J", an abbreviation of "you ain't joking/jiving" or so. [Compare "f*cking-Able", an alternative form of "f*cking-A" with presumably military "Able" for "A" (in HDAS). "U A" for "you ain't" appears in "U A W" = "United Auto Workers" but once slang for something like "you ain't white, you ain't working" IIRC (something like this is in Jonathon Green's slang dictionary). Compare also "J" and "John" used interchangeably for "jack" in poker, with "John" most likely just an elaboration of "J" IMHO. A variant speculation would assign "John" = virtually homophonous "jawin'", thus "you [f*cking] ain't [just] jawing".] -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 02:57:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 21:57:22 -0500 Subject: Navel Orange (1869) Message-ID: From Wednesday's NEW YORK TIMES: An Orange Whose Season Has Come By DAVID KARP RIVERSIDE, Calif. FIFTY miles east of Los Angeles stands the most revered and historic fruit tree in the United States. This centenarian might pass for any old orange tree, were it not for the unusual grafted roots that sustain it, like arterial bypasses, and the entourage of heaters ready to coddle it during freezes. The tree, one of two from which all Washington navel oranges in California descended, is guarded by a locked fence and commemorated by a bronze plaque. It was propagated from trees imported from Brazil in 1870. The Washington, a large, easily peeled, seedless orange, caused a sensation when it was exhibited at a citrus fair 124 years ago. The new variety, with its built-in trademark ? a rudimentary second fruit in its blossom end ? helped create an orange empire that once stretched from Pasadena to Redlands. The navel orange came to be regarded as a sacred tree in Southern California. (...) --------------------------------------------------------------- OED has 1888 for "navel orange." The revised entry has--what? September 1869, OVERLAND MONTHLY AND OUT WEST MAGAZINE (American Periodical Series online, but the MOA also has this periodical), pg. 0001: Near by (Bahia, Brazil--ed.), was a fine plantation, belonging to the same person, with an orange grove, said to be the finest in South America, producing the variety known as the navel orange, so called from a little proturberance in the rind, containing the seeds. The pulp of the orange is solid throughout, and deliciously sweet. No variety so fine finds its way to the Northern markets. 31 December 1871, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 2: _ORANGE CULTURE IN NEW SOUTH WALES._ (...) The orange in New South Wales often grows to a very large size. Some navel oranges, taken from five-year-old trees, and grafted on seedlings, were exhibited very recently in the Sydney market, and were found to weigh respectively 22, 22 3/4, and 25 1/2 ounces. 19 September 1874, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 3: (From Bahia, Brazil, 14 July 1874--ed.) We soon found one, from whom we bought some navel oranges and sapoties (accent on the last syllable.) As these fruits are unknown in the United States, perhaps it will be well to describe them. The navel orange is from four to five inches in diameter, has a thick skin, and is very sweet. The seeds, instead of being in the centre as usual, are contained in a cell about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, situated on the side opposite the stem, where it produces an umbilicated swelling, from which the fruit takes its name. The sapotie resembles a large plum in size and shape, but it contains two small seeds in its centre, and has a skin like that of a peach, except that it is of a dirty cinnamon color. It's taste is sweetish and agreeable, although unlike that of any of our Northern fruits. Sapoties and oranges are sold at the same price--two cents each--and our refreshments cost us the nominal sum of six cents per head. From timothy.benell at VERIZON.NET Thu Jan 23 03:45:25 2003 From: timothy.benell at VERIZON.NET (Timothy Benell) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 22:45:25 -0500 Subject: unsubscribe Message-ID: unsubscribe ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 9:57 PM Subject: Navel Orange (1869) > From Wednesday's NEW YORK TIMES: > > An Orange Whose Season Has Come > By DAVID KARP > > RIVERSIDE, Calif. > FIFTY miles east of Los Angeles stands the most revered and historic fruit tree in the United States. This centenarian might pass for any old orange tree, were it not for the unusual grafted roots that sustain it, like arterial bypasses, and the entourage of heaters ready to coddle it during freezes. > > The tree, one of two from which all Washington navel oranges in California descended, is guarded by a locked fence and commemorated by a bronze plaque. It was propagated from trees imported from Brazil in 1870. > > The Washington, a large, easily peeled, seedless orange, caused a sensation when it was exhibited at a citrus fair 124 years ago. The new variety, with its built-in trademark ? a rudimentary second fruit in its blossom end ? helped create an orange empire that once stretched from Pasadena to Redlands. The navel orange came to be regarded as a sacred tree in Southern California. > (...) > --------------------------------------------------------------- > OED has 1888 for "navel orange." The revised entry has--what? > > September 1869, OVERLAND MONTHLY AND OUT WEST MAGAZINE (American Periodical Series online, but the MOA also has this periodical), pg. 0001: > Near by (Bahia, Brazil--ed.), was a fine plantation, belonging to the same person, with an orange grove, said to be the finest in South America, producing the variety known as the navel orange, so called from a little proturberance in the rind, containing the seeds. The pulp of the orange is solid throughout, and deliciously sweet. No variety so fine finds its way to the Northern markets. > > 31 December 1871, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 2: > _ORANGE CULTURE IN NEW SOUTH WALES._ > (...) The orange in New South Wales often grows to a very large size. Some navel oranges, taken from five-year-old trees, and grafted on seedlings, were exhibited very recently in the Sydney market, and were found to weigh respectively 22, 22 3/4, and 25 1/2 ounces. > > 19 September 1874, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 3: > (From Bahia, Brazil, 14 July 1874--ed.) > We soon found one, from whom we bought some navel oranges and sapoties (accent on the last syllable.) As these fruits are unknown in the United States, perhaps it will be well to describe them. The navel orange is from four to five inches in diameter, has a thick skin, and is very sweet. The seeds, instead of being in the centre as usual, are contained in a cell about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, situated on the side opposite the stem, where it produces an umbilicated swelling, from which the fruit takes its name. The sapotie resembles a large plum in size and shape, but it contains two small seeds in its centre, and has a skin like that of a peach, except that it is of a dirty cinnamon color. It's taste is sweetish and agreeable, although unlike that of any of our Northern fruits. Sapoties and oranges are sold at the same price--two cents each--and our refreshments cost us the nominal sum of six cents per head. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 05:39:17 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 00:39:17 -0500 Subject: Boston Curled Lettuce (1872) Message-ID: Two from HARPER'S WEEKLY full text. Search the Full-Text of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1912 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 72-02-03 (Pg. 110--ed.) GREGORY'S SEED CATALOGUE Having been the first to introduce to the public the Hubbard Squash, American Turban Squash, Marble- head Mammoth Cabbage, Mexican Sweet Corn, Phin- ney's Water-Melon, Brown's New Dwarf Marrowfat Pea, Boston Curled Lettuce, and other New and Valuable Vegetables, with the return of another season I am again prepared to supply the public with Vegetable and Flower Seeds of the purest quality. My Annual Catalogue is now ready, and will be sent free to all. It has not only all novelties, but the standard vegetables of the farm and garden (over one hundred which are of my own grow- ing), and a carefully selected list of Flower Seeds. On the cover of my Catalogue will be found copies of let- ters received from farmers and gardeners residing in over thirty different states and territories who have used my seed from one to ten years. I warrant -- 1st, That all money sent shall reach me; 2d, That all seed ordered shall reach the purchaser; 3d, That my seed shall be fresh, and true to name. Catalogues free to all. JAMES J. H. GREGORY , Marblehead, Mass. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 79-02-15 (Pg. 131--ed.) HOME AND FOREIGN GOSSIP. A stranger from the country making a tour through Fulton and Washington markets at this season would be astonished not only at the inconvenient old build- ings, and the often untidy aspect of the interiors, but at the immense quantity of meat displayed, and the variety of fruits and vegetables exposed for sale in midwinter. Probably no other markets in the world exhibit such a variety of rarities out of their season. Early vegetables come to the New York market from all parts of the country, and, as luxuries, command a fancy price. Many of these come from the South, but some of the very first arrivals are from the North. Fresh rhubarb, large, tender, and white, comes as early as January from a farm near Quebec; in March it is sent from Long Island. All through the winter cucumbers come from Boston; but not many people can afford to eat Boston cucumbers in January, for they cost at wholesale six dollars a dozen. They are also sent to our market from other places, but these are inferior in quality, and do not command so high a price. Boston lettuce is crisp and white, and the best radishes come from the same city. Among other vegetables which are seen in our market in winter or early spring, far in advance of their season, are toma- toes from Nassau and Bermuda; onions, potatoes, and beets from Bermuda; asparagus from South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and, later in the season, from Long Island; peas, in January and February, from New Or- leans and from Florida, while in April they come from Maryland; string-beans from Florida; turnips from Charleston; and Baltimore spinach is always in the market. The largest supply of cauliflower during the winter comes from Long Island; but about the first of February it is sent from France, as also are artichokes. These luxuries and many others in the vegetable line are almost always obtainable in New York by those who seek novelties for their table, and have money enough to pay for them. And the same is true of many kinds of fruits. For example, straw- berries were on sale in this city several weeks ago, but the majority of our citizens contented themselves with looking at them. The Belfast (Maine) Journal gives an interesting ac- count of smelt-fishing on the coast of Maine. For about two months in midwinter the smelt visit the rivers near the coast and are readily caught by hook. The fishermen erect little canvas tents on the ice, cut a hole, drop the line, and patiently wait for a bite. Cold, stormy days are those which bring most success in smelt-fishing. (...) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Thu Jan 23 09:18:30 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 04:18:30 -0500 Subject: LONG comment re "Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall" Message-ID: The point that Fred S makes below in reply to something Barry P asked is a very important one re understanding how ref publications are compiled, and how they must be compiled in order to be both useful to the majority of potential users AND in order to ever get published in a reasonable time period. All publishers, even university presses, have budgets for their individual titles, and hope, with the exception of monographs and such, to make some money on each book, even if just a little. If this were not the case, there would be no ref books published at all, at least no good ones -- the ones with sound, recent research and professional editing. There are many ref pubs in the public domain, either very old and out-of-copyright (like an old edition (1911 I think) of Roget's Thesaurus, and miscellaneous dictionaries that one can access online, from lots of websites) or given away by the compiler because the work has little or no commercial value or a minuscule market (like a lot of bilingual dicts where the two languages covered are "exotic"). For this reason, the web is littered with a lot of very bad reference data -- a ton of data, many tons, but most of it out-of-date, of limited interest, or unprofessionally done (there are exceptions). Unfortunately, the ubiquity and abundance of this data deceives the casual or inexperienced web user. Sure, there is a LOT of ref data on the web, but the great, great majority of the free stuff is virtually worthless, IMHO. I do not count the e-pubs that one pays for, such as OED Online, MW3 Online, xreferplus, and other subscription services. I also do not count the wealth of "free" government data available online, such as the GNIS from USGS (geographic names) or the CIA World Factbook. (For the govt data, some of which is dynamite stuff, "free" really means "already paid for by tax dollars".) The argument that "Information wants to be free" is a nice idealistic one, but is a pipe dream. As the computer guru Ted Nelson once said, people write books for one of only two reasons -- profit or glory. If one considers that those are the prime motivations (and I agree that they are; there are some altruistic people around who are giving stuff away, but most folks who edit ref pubs have to buy groceries, too), then one can see why information cannot and will never be absolutely free -- for good, freshly researched, and professionally edited ref data, you gotta pay the workers. There is no way around that, not that I know of. One can envision a different kind of publishing model where the ref editors get paid by the sale of advertising or some such -- the way in which commercial TV and radio is "free" in the USA, and the way that many dot-coms give stuff away (or used to, till they dot-bombed because almost nobody looks at online ads). But aside from that kind of model, I'm afraid that information -- at least good, solid reference data -- will NEVER be free. Thus he spoke . . . Frank Abate ******************************* yOn Wed, 22 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > Two presidential phrases. What does Fred Shapiro have? This question is a good excuse for me to clarify a point. Barry's postings sometimes seem to envision that the Yale Dictionary of Quotations is going to cover every phrase or expression ever uttered; this expectation parallels his apparent expectation that the OED should cover every term ever uttered in English or any other language. In fact, my book will be limited to more significant quotations, just as every real-world reference book has to be limited in various ways. It would never occur to me that "rerun of a bad movie" or "nail jelly to the wall" would be significant enough for me to cover. In a way I hate to articulate the above, because Barry posts such great stuff in furtherance of his unlimited vision of inclusiveness and I don't want to discourage him, but I don't want unrealistic expectations to grow up with regard to my book. Please keep up the great work, Barry! Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From AAllan at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 19:34:11 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 14:34:11 EST Subject: January ADS Newsletter Message-ID: Guess what - the January issue of NADS is actually out in January! Thanks to webmaster Grant Barrett, you can get it now if you go to our website http://www.americandialect.org/ and click on the pdf download. The issue has calls for papers for all known ADS meetings in the rest of 2003, and then some. It also reports on Executive Council business at our recent meeting, and of course there are those elusive words DARE would like to know more about. The old-fashioned hard-copy version is at the printer now. It will be next week before that gets sent out by old-fashioned postal service. If you have paid ADS dues for 2003, you'll be sure to get a copy, and even those who paid for 2002 but haven't quite yet paid for 2003 will be sent copies too. If you're not an ADS member but would like this, merely one of the least of the benefits of membership, go to the website and click on "Become a member" and see what excitement follows. If you're a member but would be content to forego the old-fashioned copy by mail, please let me know: AAllan at aol.com, and I won't trouble you with one, and you'll save us 37 cents or more. - Allan Metcalf, executive secretary, ADS From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 23 19:55:23 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 14:55:23 -0500 Subject: January ADS Newsletter In-Reply-To: <67.7f915b5.2b619db3@aol.com> Message-ID: Allan, Cut out my hard copy. Dennis >Guess what - the January issue of NADS is actually out in January! Thanks to >webmaster Grant Barrett, you can get it now if you go to our website > >http://www.americandialect.org/ > >and click on the pdf download. > >The issue has calls for papers for all known ADS meetings in the rest of >2003, and then some. It also reports on Executive Council business at our >recent meeting, and of course there are those elusive words DARE would like >to know more about. > >The old-fashioned hard-copy version is at the printer now. It will be next >week before that gets sent out by old-fashioned postal service. If you have >paid ADS dues for 2003, you'll be sure to get a copy, and even those who paid >for 2002 but haven't quite yet paid for 2003 will be sent copies too. If >you're not an ADS member but would like this, merely one of the least of the >benefits of membership, go to the website and click on "Become a member" and >see what excitement follows. > >If you're a member but would be content to forego the old-fashioned copy by >mail, please let me know: AAllan at aol.com, and I won't trouble you with one, >and you'll save us 37 cents or more. > >- Allan Metcalf, executive secretary, ADS -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 23 20:35:12 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:35:12 -0500 Subject: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall Message-ID: Even Homer nods. The title of Keyes' book is "Nice guys finish seventh" : false phrases, spurious sayings, and familiar misquotations . GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Shapiro Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 1:47 pm Subject: Re: Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall > On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote: > > > Is there a source that addresses misattributed or fallacious > quotes in > > something resembling a comprehensive manner? There are an > enormous number of > > false quotations floating about out there. A single volume (or > website) that > > debunks the worst of these would be a very useful tool. I know > that many > > books of quotations and sites like snopes.com do this on a case- > by-case > > basis, but I've never seen a source that attempts a > comprehensive treatment. > > > > I'm not suggesting that Fred's book do this. I'm just wondering > if anyone > > has done it. > > The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has a section of misquotations. > My book will certainly address many misquotations. > > The best book focusing on misquotations is Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys > FinishLast, which is really quite brilliant. The quality of his > research is > better than any other quotation book ever published (to date). > Anotherone is Paul F. Boller and John George, They Never Said It : > A Book of Fake > Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions, which is pretty > good but > not nearly up to Keyes's standards. > > Fred Shapiro > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------- > Fred R. Shapiro Editor > Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF > QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale > University Press, > Yale Law School forthcoming > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu > http://quotationdictionary.com------------------------------------- > ------------------------------------- > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 21:42:50 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 16:42:50 EST Subject: Providence Message-ID: In a message dated 1/22/03 8:59:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: > There are two cities in North America named after the Deity. Providence is > one. Name the other. Manitou Beach, Saskatchewan > (References to the Christian Trinity are excluded, > although you might want to find a place named after the Holy Ghost.) Espirito Santo (state in Brazil) or Espiritu Santo (island in South Pacific) > England is a subset of Britain, yet New Britain is a subset of New England. > Find not one but two "New Scotlands" and half of a "New Wales". Nova Scotia, New Caledonia, New South Wales > The Northeast has many "New x" place names (e.g. see previous) including > "New Square". Where is "Old Square"? The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, original home of the Skvirer Rebbe whose followers founded New Square > The _Titanic_ was sunk by an iceberg. What happened to its sister ship the > _Hoosatanic_? Apologies for the spelling error, which misled at least one reader. That was the USS _Housatanic_, which was the first ship ever sunk by a submarine. Do NOT check http://thepoeticlink.com/pl/view_one_poem.php3?poem_num=6770 How Satanic. > Locate the Four Seasons of Massachusetts. Winter Island (in Salem Harbor), Springfield, Somerville (suburb of Boston), Fall River > What is unique (linguistically) about the Bostoner Rebbe? He is the only Chassidic dynastic whose title comes from a city in the New World rather than from a municipality in Europe. (Boston is a shtetl?) > Riddle: why is New Haven the obvious site for the first appearance of the > Anglophone bagel? Even Fred Shapiro knows that New Haven is the home of Yale lox. > Riddle: what kind of sex life does a backwards Yalie have? An e-lay, obviously. However, if he crosses Long Island Sound, he can get Great Neck-ing. > Riddle: why can't you get to Rhode Island by train? Because road islands are only found on highways. - Jim Landau P.S. A friend of mine thought he had the perfect trivia question about the New York subways: "Many subway stations have references to water in their names, such as "Bay Ridge" or "Aqueduct" or "Fresh Pond Road". Identify the station which has two references to water in its name." The answer was supposed to have been something like "Ocean Parkway-Neptune Avenue". However, when he tried the question, the answer he got was "Main Street-Flushing"! And while we're on New York City geography, what is the story behind the name "Ozone Park"? From AnneR at HKUSA.COM Thu Jan 23 23:17:44 2003 From: AnneR at HKUSA.COM (Anne Rogers) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 17:17:44 -0600 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say something similar to this in the last two days: jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished art jives with the art manuscript." Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- "needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be washed" phrasing. Anne Rogers From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Jan 23 23:21:43 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:21:43 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: I remember people using jive for jibe in the 1970s. My high school principal (south central Kentucky, 1973 - 1977) used to do it in particular. I haven't heard it so much since then, but that may be because the words jibe and jive themselves have become less common. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Anne Rogers [mailto:AnneR at HKUSA.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 6:18 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say something similar to this in the last two days: jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished art jives with the art manuscript." Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? From patty at CRUZIO.COM Thu Jan 23 23:28:48 2003 From: patty at CRUZIO.COM (Patty Davies) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:28:48 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.c om> Message-ID: Hi Anne - comment below: At 05:17 PM 1/23/03 -0600, Anne Rogers wrote: >Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure >things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say >something similar to this in the last two days: > >jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished >art jives with the art manuscript." > >Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Yes, I have heard this substitution, sort of hard to catch and I don't remember when in the past I first started hearing this >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. This sounds very odd phrasing to me, I don't think I have heard it and would think it was not grammatical Patty - West Coast >Anne Rogers From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Jan 23 23:35:24 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:35:24 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: >jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished >art jives with the art manuscript." >Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Hear this all the time and it drives me batty. >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. My wife and her family say it all the time. I hear it from many people as well. Don't know where it originated, but it is alive and well here in the Mid-Willamette Valley (and other places in the US, as my in-laws relocate). Fritz in Oregon From pkurtz at HEIDELBERG.EDU Thu Jan 23 23:40:54 2003 From: pkurtz at HEIDELBERG.EDU (Patti Kurtz) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:40:54 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030123152530.00a5e4d0@mail.cruzio.com> Message-ID: Hey all-- I usually just read the messages on this list, but the thread of "needs washed" drew my attention. This is typical in my dialect-- I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. I say that all the time-- "The car needs washed, the clothes need ironed." I'm also always being corrected by people from "more correct" dialects and I recently overheard one of our English profs correcting a student's use of that (I teach in NW Ohio) So I'd say it's at least a western PA/eastern Ohio dialect feature. It may spread wider than that, but it doesn't go further east, because I know people from eastern PA who just think it's plain wrong. -- Patti J. Kurtz Assistant Professor, English Heidelberg College Tiffin, Ohio From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 23:42:54 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:42:54 -0500 Subject: New York System (1931); Diner (1926); Johnny cake & Jonny-cake Message-ID: Greetings from a computer in the Providence Library. The Rhode Island Collection closed at 5 p.m., and the cookbooks that are supposed to be on the open shelves (on reserve) aren't there. It would have helped if I could have gone into the RI Collection. A librarian goes there and gets the stuff for you. Yes, there is an index to the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, but it starts in the late 1930s. Those 1840 "OK" articles aren't indexed. The 1983-present PJ is available electronically, and I used that a lot all day. Nothing at all on "Salt Water Taffy." I couldn't even find "W. Hollis" listed in the City Directories. JOHNNY CAKE/JONNY CAKE--A card catalog note has: Jonny-cake Spelling in Newport--Johnny cake Spelling in South County--Jonny-cake DINER--I might have done this before, but here goes. PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY, BUSINESS DIRECTORY 1926 Pg. 1491, col. 1: Greene's Diner 149 Broad PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY, BUSINESS DIRECTORY 1927 Pg. 1522, col. 3: Queen City Diner 51 Spring Pg. 1523, col. 1: Greene's Diner 149 Broad NEW YORK SYSTEM-- PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY 1931 Pg. 575, col. 2: Coney Island Hot Weiners (Theodore Kanelos) lunch 762 Westminster Coney Island Special (Aristides Pantelakas) restr 686 Westminster Pg. 1031, col. 2: New York System (Gust Pappas) restr 424 Smith (It's "Weiner," not "Wiener." Perhaps Pappas took the name "New York System" simply because "Coney Island" had been taken? "New York System" should be in DARE and probably the OED. It was quickly copied, as seen below. I think the city directories are available on microfiche everywhere, but it's easier to check the actual books from the shelf--ed.) PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY 1932 Pg. 1035, col. 2: New York Hot Weiners (Aaron Krasner) lunch room 710 Westminster Pg. 1036, col. 1: New York System (Gust Pappas) restr 424 Smith PROVIDENCE CITY DIRECTORY 1933 Pg. 958, col. 2: New System Lunch 10 Pine New York Hot Weiners 710 Westminster New York Restaurant 86 Chestnut New York System 424 Smith 10-11-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL (www.projo.com), pg. M-16: THE UNBEATABLE NEW YORK SYSTEM: The Pappas family weiners (sic) have been a Rhode Island treasure for 60 years by THOMAS J. MORGAN (...) The business was founded in 1927 by his grandfather Gust Pappas, who died in 1936. (...) "New York System," Gus Pappas tries to explain, isn't a chain. There are any number of them around, but all are operated by Pappas relatives, many of whom learned the secrets of the business (and of the sauce) during their apprenticeship on Smith Hill. (...) "There is a distinct difference between hot dogs and wieners," according to Ernie Pappas. But, he says, a true wiener is more than just a sausage. "It's the condiments too," he says. "The chili sauce is the most important," he says, oblivious of having just tipped off part of the secret recipe, "with the fresh chopped onions and celery salt. You have to cook a wiener--you don't give it raw, or well done. You have to just make it luscious. When you stick the fork in there to pick it up and put it on the bun, it just oozes with juice. I still love them after so many years. That's the best part of it, boy, I tell you." (...) (Rumford Baking Powder, Rhode Island clam chowder, stuffies, lobster rolls, clam cakes, dough boys, malassadas, awful awfuls, RI-speak such as "Jeet?"...I ain't got time now--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 23:50:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:50:09 -0500 Subject: "Bug Chaser" Message-ID: An awful term, from an awful story. Why was it published? This is from drudgereport.com. which took it from msnbc.com: THE STORY IS TEASED on the cover as a SPECIAL REPORT?BUG CHASERS, THE MEN WHO LONG TO BE HIV+. The majority of the piece focuses on Carlos, a gay New Yorker who seeks out HIV-positive partners and purposefully has unprotected sex. ?I think it turns the other guy on to know that I?m negative and that they?re bringing me into the brotherhood,? the article quotes Carlos as saying. ?That gets me off, too.? For people like Carlos, and for gay men a generation removed from the front lines of the AIDS crisis, getting HIV is seen as the ultimate, nihilistic, erotic adventure, according to the story. ?It?s like living with diabetes,? Carlos says. ?You take a few pills and get on with your life.? While the fringe phenomenon of gay men looking to get infected has been known about for years, the Rolling Stone story asserts that ?bug chasers? are a significant phenomenon in the gay population. The piece?s most eyepopping statistic comes from Dr. Bob Cabaj, the director of behavioral-health services for San Francisco County. The story says that ?Cabaj estimates that at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men? are either purposefully seeking infection or are ?actively seeking HIV but are in denial and wouldn?t call themselves bug chasers.? But Cabaj says that attribution is made-up. ?That?s totally false. I never said that. And when the fact checker called me and asked me if I said that, I said no. I said no. This is unbelievable.? Cabaj said there?s no way of knowing what percentage... From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 23 23:53:16 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:53:16 EST Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: In a message dated 01/23/2003 6:18:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, AnneR at HKUSA.COM writes: > jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished > art jives with the art manuscript." > > Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? I would chalk this one up to ignorance or more likely momentary confusion, since "jibe" is not that common a word. However, I'm not a trained linguist and might be missing something more significant. In this particular context, the word "jive" sense: "finished art break-dances with the manuscript." In fact, the nautical word "gybe" (of a sail, to move across the deck suddenly and dangerously) makes sense here. > Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, > because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the > dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs > restored," etc. _American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. - James A. Landau From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 23 23:34:19 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:34:19 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.c om> Message-ID: On the second question, the Midwest is a mighty big area. Where in fact have you heard "needs washed"? It's all through mid- and southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and extends westward at least as far as Colorado. But it's not in Minnesota (also Midwest to me). And regarding the gerund: I grew up with it in Minnesota, but Southerners tell me they can't accept it. So you have three variants, one or two of which may be acceptable to anyone you ask, but probably not all three. So who's to say which or how many of these are "correct"? Not me! (There are lots of studies of these variants, if you're interested. See our journal, _American Speech_, for one source.) At 05:17 PM 1/23/2003 -0600, you wrote: >Perhaps this is because in my job we're constantly talking about making sure >things agree with each other, but I've heard two different people say >something similar to this in the last two days: > >jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished >art jives with the art manuscript." > >Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? > >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. > >Anne Rogers From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 24 00:09:13 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 16:09:13 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, January 23, 2003 3:35 PM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: >> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >> Midwest, because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >> anyway): the dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," >> "the clock needs restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund >> was used instead -- "needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like >> it best with the "to be washed" phrasing. > > My wife and her family say it all the time. I hear it from many people > as well. Don't know where it originated, but it is alive and well here > in the Mid-Willamette Valley (and other places in the US, as my in-laws > relocate). Fritz in Oregon Dang! There's that McMinnville/Salem isogloss again! The first time I heard this was when the topic came up on ads-l a number of years ago. (Admittedly, I can't guarantee I might not have heard it before and just not noticed, but it sounds so strange that I think I would have noticed.) Since then, whenever I've heard it, I've asked the person where he/she was from (if I could do so at all politely). They've always turned out to be from one of the areas where it's native. I would not have described it as "alive and well" here. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 24 00:16:54 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 16:16:54 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <1734243.1043338153@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: > > Dang! There's that McMinnville/Salem isogloss again! The first time I > heard this was when the topic came up on ads-l a number of years ago. > (Admittedly, I can't guarantee I might not have heard it before and just > not noticed, but it sounds so strange that I think I would have noticed.) > Since then, whenever I've heard it, I've asked the person where he/she was > from (if I could do so at all politely). They've always turned out to be > from one of the areas where it's native. I would not have described it as > "alive and well" here. > > Peter Mc. Yep, I concur on the McM / Salem isogloss. There's none of the "needs washed/worshed" here. Pretty soon there'll be a linguistic toll booth somewhere on Wallace Rd. to keep each town's riffraff in place. PR From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 23 23:52:58 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:52:58 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <1043365254.3e307d867deab@mail.heidelberg.edu> Message-ID: A nice comment. A friend of mine who teaches in the English Dept. here at Ohio University and is also from Pennsylvania (I can't recall where) has actually been chided by her own faculty colleagues about "needs washed"--talk about arrogance. But you're right--it's common in central and southern Ohio but not in your northern area. At 06:40 PM 1/23/2003 -0500, you wrote: >Hey all-- I usually just read the messages on this list, but the thread of >"needs washed" drew my attention. > >This is typical in my dialect-- I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. I say that >all the >time-- "The car needs washed, the clothes need ironed." I'm also always being >corrected by people from "more correct" dialects and I recently overheard >one of >our English profs correcting a student's use of that (I teach in NW Ohio) > >So I'd say it's at least a western PA/eastern Ohio dialect feature. It may >spread wider than that, but it doesn't go further east, because I know people >from eastern PA who just think it's plain wrong. > > > > > >-- >Patti J. Kurtz >Assistant Professor, English >Heidelberg College >Tiffin, Ohio From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 24 02:15:40 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 21:15:40 -0500 Subject: Providence In-Reply-To: <1e9.21a0f.2b61bbda@aol.com> Message-ID: At 4:42 PM -0500 1/23/03, James A. Landau wrote [in response to his earlier riddles]: >In a message dated 1/22/03 8:59:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, >JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes: > >> The Northeast has many "New x" place names (e.g. see previous) including >> "New Square". Where is "Old Square"? > >The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, The closest I could find in my old atlas is the town of Skwirzyna in Western Poland. >original home of the Skvirer >Rebbe whose followers founded New Square > >> The _Titanic_ was sunk by an iceberg. What happened to its sister ship the >> _Hoosatanic_? > >Apologies for the spelling error, which misled at least one reader. That was >the USS _Housatanic_, which was the first ship ever sunk by a submarine. Do >NOT check http://thepoeticlink.com/pl/view_one_poem.php3?poem_num=6770 > >How Satanic. I assume it was actually the Housatonic, like our river just west and north of New Haven (a city that I trust will survive the onslaught it receives below). But it's pronounced as if it were "HOO-satonic", which makes both the above pun and my proposed mixer outlet, The House O' Tonic, pretty inaccessible. larry > >> Riddle: why is New Haven the obvious site for the first appearance of the >> Anglophone bagel? > >Even Fred Shapiro knows that New Haven is the home of Yale lox. > >> Riddle: what kind of sex life does a backwards Yalie have? > >An e-lay, obviously. However, if he crosses Long Island Sound, he can get >Great Neck-ing. > From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Fri Jan 24 02:13:26 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:13:26 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. I have not heard this in Vancouver BC, does not sound 'right', Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Jan 24 02:33:46 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 21:33:46 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the 1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? Sam Clements From Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM Fri Jan 24 02:32:22 2003 From: Jewls2u at WHIDBEY.COM (Jewls2u) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:32:22 -0800 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <394d203940ef.3940ef394d20@homemail.nyu.edu> Message-ID: This query came off of another list I belong to, I thought people on this list might be able to help: < Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? Students have asked me if there are European equivalents to the American geek/nerd stereotype for engineers and scientists. I am aware of the related term "otaku" for Japan, but nothing for other coutries. Any information would be appreciated, especially printed or web references for further information. Dr. Mark Clark Oregon Institute of Technology>> From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 24 03:23:12 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 22:23:12 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's In-Reply-To: <000801c2c351$068bfcc0$c9a35d18@neo.rr.com> Message-ID: >While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope >which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for >McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many >posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the >1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the >commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. > >Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? > >Sam Clements HDAS's first cite (via Nexis) is: 1977 Wash. Post At midnight, McDonald's--fondly known as Mickey D's to those who follow the fast-food circuit--is jam-packed with black teenagers who have just left the roller-skating rink. The next cite is from the N. Y. Daily News in 1983, a listing in a "Teentalk glossary", followed by a couple of U. of Tennessee cites. The given cites are consistent with, but not probative of, an origin of the type suggested above, and there is a much later (1992) cite from "In Living Color". But the 1977 quote would presumably predate the commercials in question. larry From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Jan 24 03:32:14 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 22:32:14 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: I remember my brother, who happens not to be Black, talking about Mickey D's no later than 1981 in southern California. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: Sam Clements [mailto:sclements at NEO.RR.COM] Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 9:34 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the 1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? Sam Clements From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 03:55:00 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 22:55:00 EST Subject: Providence Message-ID: In a message dated 01/23/2003 9:15:13 PM Eastern Standard Time, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > >The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, > > The closest I could find in my old atlas is the town of Skwirzyna in > Western Poland. The first Rebbe of what became the Skver Dynasty was Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl (yes, the site of the nuclear plant), 1730-1797, a student of the Baal Shem Tov. The second Rebbe was Mordechai of Chernobyl, 1770-1837, probably a son of Menachem Nachum. The third Rebbe was Yitzchak of Skver, 1812-1885, the fourth was David of Skver, and the fifth was Yaakov Yosef of Skver. Why the change of place-name I don't know; I suppose that for some reason the third Rebbe moved from Chernobyl to a town called Skver. The current Rebbe is David Twersky, so apparently the position of Rebbe never left the Twersky family. I'm afraid that doesn't help much in determining where, or perhaps what, was Skver. A strange twist on a thread labelled "Providence". - Jim Landau From positive_pcr at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Jan 24 04:44:52 2003 From: positive_pcr at HOTMAIL.COM (positive pcr) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 23:44:52 -0500 Subject: Gestures substituting for a 'taboo' word? Message-ID: In a National Public Radio story from 18 Jan 2003, 'Cuba Confidential' Looks at Castro and the Future, (discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=926210) NPR's Tom Gjelten reports that some Cubans use a hand movement (of tugging at the chin simulating a beard) to avoid using Fidel Castro's name when talking about him. Are there other common examples where certain "taboo" words are replaced with non-spoken gestures? Religious examples? Political examples? --Graham _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From sclements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Jan 24 04:48:24 2003 From: sclements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 23:48:24 -0500 Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: I'm embarassed that I didn't look in RHDAS. It never occured to me that Mickey D's would be there. That'll teach me. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 10:23 PM Subject: Re: Mickey D's=McDonald's > >While it may be mundane, there is a thread over at the StraightDope > >which intimates that the origin of the term "Mickey D's" for > >McDonald's was originated in/or for the Black community. Many > >posters have offered that they first heard it in commercials in the > >1980's, and many offered that Afro-American actors were in the > >commercials. I can't vouch for any of the memories. > > > >Can any database jockey find a cite for "Mickey D's" ? > > > >Sam Clements > > HDAS's first cite (via Nexis) is: > > 1977 Wash. Post > At midnight, McDonald's--fondly known as Mickey D's to those who > follow the fast-food circuit--is jam-packed with black teenagers who > have just left the roller-skating rink. > > The next cite is from the N. Y. Daily News in 1983, a listing in a > "Teentalk glossary", followed by a couple of U. of Tennessee cites. > > The given cites are consistent with, but not probative of, an origin > of the type suggested above, and there is a much later (1992) cite > from "In Living Color". But the 1977 quote would presumably predate > the commercials in question. > > larry > From Friolly at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 06:17:40 2003 From: Friolly at AOL.COM (Fritz Juengling) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 01:17:40 EST Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed Message-ID: OK. I think the McMinnville/Salem isogloss is easy to explain--you folks got the college and we gots the state prison, Oregon State Correctional Institute, State Mental Mospital, and the State Legislature (am I being redundant?). Seriously, when I was going out with my wife, I did find it odd to hear her family say 'needs washed,' but I do hear it often now. Surely, it was there, but I just didn't notice it. I'd be curious to know whether this is found in Missouri and other neighboring states (whence most of the early settlers to Oregon came). If so, there is a good likelihood that it came with the pioneers to the Willamette Valley. I guess the whole business needs investigated. Fritz (who will do his best to keep our riffraff in Marion County--you can have West Salem. BTW, do you folks in McM pronounce the in Polk (County)?) > > > > > > Dang! There's that McMinnville/Salem isogloss again! The first time I > > heard this was when the topic came up on ads-l a number of years ago. > > (Admittedly, I can't guarantee I might not have heard it before and just > > not noticed, but it sounds so strange that I think I would have noticed.) > > Since then, whenever I've heard it, I've asked the person where he/she > was > > from (if I could do so at all politely). They've always turned out to be > > from one of the areas where it's native. I would not have described it > as > > "alive and well" here. > > > > Peter Mc. > > Yep, I concur on the McM / Salem isogloss. There's none of the "needs > washed/worshed" here. Pretty soon there'll be a linguistic toll booth > somewhere on Wallace Rd. to keep each town's riffraff in place. > > PR > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 08:15:18 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 03:15:18 EST Subject: Mickey D's=McDonald's Message-ID: From the US Patent and Trademark Office: Typed DrawingWord Mark MICKEY DS Goods and Services IC 042. US 100. G & S: Restaurant Services. FIRST USE: 19811115. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19811228 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 73396576 Filing Date September 30, 1982 Published for Opposition April 10, 1984 Registration Number 1292557 Registration Date August 28, 1984 Owner (REGISTRANT) McDonald's Corporation CORPORATION DELAWARE McDonald's Plz. Oak Brook ILLINOIS 60521 Attorney of Record John R. Horwitz Type of Mark SERVICE MARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). Other Data The mark is a fanciful name and is not the name of any living individual. Live/Dead Indicator LIVE From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 08:57:09 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 03:57:09 EST Subject: Congo Bars/Squares Message-ID: Greetings from New York City. I just walked 30 blocks home from Penn Station in the freezing cold. David Shulman called twice and said he's at the Victory Memorial Hospital. The second message said he was feeling better. I'll visit him on Friday or Saturday. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- This is from Amtrak's ARRIVE magazine, January/February 2003, pg. 11: She (Judy Rosenberg of Rosie's Bakery, started about 1974 in Cambridge, Mass.--ed.) dubbed her creations Harvard Squares, Boom Booms and Congo Bars. Www.rosiesbakery.com states that "Congo Bars" are "a sweet and chewy butterscotch square chock full of chocolate chips and walnuts." The term is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK. There are 198 Google hits for "Congo Bars," although some are for a "bar"=tavern by that name. There are many hits for "Congo Squares" (another name for "Congo Bars"), but the place name in New Orleans occupies most of those hits. Neither "Congo Bar" nor "Congo Square" appears to be trademarked. Was it used by Nestle's and when? (See the Google Groups discussion below.) "Congo Bar" does not appear to have been coined by Rosie's Bakery. 1-7-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. B-06: Now, I'd like a recipe for Congo Bars, using one or two eggs. 2-11-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. B-04: Here is my mother's recipe for Congo Squares as requested. 2-18-1987, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. B-02: Last week, the recipe for Congo Bars contained a typographical error in the instructions. THERE IS NO MILK in the recipe. Here it is again in its entirety. 7-3-1996, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. G-05: Some time ago, someone asked about Congo Bars, sometimes called blonde brownies. Here's a recipe. From Google Groups: Message 1 in thread From: Ngoeb (ngoeb at aol.com.mil.org) Subject: Looking for Congo Bar recipe Newsgroups: rec.food.baking Date: 1999/10/13 Does anyone have a recipe for Congo Bars? It's an old Nestle Chocolate Chipbar cookie recipe.Thank you.Nan Message 2 in thread From: Gaylen D. Cook (cook0314 at NOSPAMnetins.net) Subject: Re: Looking for Congo Bar recipe Newsgroups: rec.food.baking Date: 1999/10/13 > Does anyone have a recipe for Congo Bars? It's an old Nestle Chocolate Chip> bar cookie recipe.> > Thank you.> NanI found it here ---> http://mcgees.com/kitchen/recipes/desserts/d099703.htmCongo BarsRecipe by: "Gooseberry Patch" Old-Fashioned Country CookiesSubmitted by: Valerie Hutchinson 2/3 cup butter or margarine -- melted1 pound brown sugar3 eggs1 teaspoon vanilla2 3/4 cups flour -- sifted2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder1/2 teaspoon salt1 cup chopped nuts -- optional12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips In a large bowl or pan (after melting), combine butter and brown sugar.Add eggs one at a time, beating well aftereach. Add vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients and add to sugarmixture. Add nuts and chocolate chips. Pour intogreased, shallow roasting pan. Bake at 350F for 22-25 minutes (don'toverbake).Gaylen Cookcook0314 at netins.net (O.T. MESSAGE TO TRAVEL AGENT: Got any Congo tours?) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 10:23:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 05:23:30 EST Subject: Rhode Island Dictionary (1993, 2002) Message-ID: THE RHODE ISLAND DICTIONARY by Mark Patinkin illustrated by Don Bousquet not paginated N. Attleboro, MA: Covered Bridge Press 1993 After reading this book in the Providence Library until the 8 p.m. closing, I went to Borders in the Providence Place Mall and found out that the book was re-issued in 2002. It's about 100 pages paperback, and is worth a chuckle to add to a collection of regional American speech. I'll cite a few food items. AIGS: Eggs. AWDA: What you do after the waitress comes to your table. BA-BING, BA-BING: Pronto. BABA: Cuts hair. BLENDA: Common appliance... BLINKA: What Rhode Island motorists nevva use. BREH'FISS: What you eat afta y'mornin showwa. BUBBLA: Sole source of drinkable water in P'tucket, except for those brave enough to drink from forcetts. BUTTA: Higher in klestrole than mahgrin. CAB'NIT: Popular at the Creamree. CAH: Lodge, four-wheeled device for displaying vantee plates. CAMBLEEVE: The inability to accept a truth or event. CAWFEE: Official state flavoring. CAWNA STO-WUH: Also known as "Milk Sto-wuh." CHIGONNA: What are you going to? CHINER: Located south of Mongolier. CHODGE: Purpose of plastic. CHOWDA: Neks to coffee milk and lemonade slush, Roe Dyelin's third most popula liquid food group. CLEANSAS: Where Rhode Island women have hair-mousse stains drycleaned off blouse shouldiz. COBBLA: Known as shoe repairmen in otha states. COLE DOWT: Description of outdoor temperature. COMB: Popular way to awda ice cream at the Creamree. COMPUTA COPPITBAGGA DAWDA: Opposite of son. DAZZIT: Yes ma'am, that will be all. DENNISS: Extrax moluzz. DOUGHBOY: One of tree major food groups in Roe Dyelin during the summa. DOWNCITY: Downtown. DRAW: Storage unit, usually found in beh'rooms and kitchens. ELDLEE: Only group of Roe Dyelindas who don't speed up on yelliz. FEEL GOLD: Football term. FOMMACIST FRENNAMINE GAGGIZ: Over-sized hot dogs. Also called "weeniz" or "bellybusters." GRINDA: Common reason for triple bypass. GUIDO: Local high schoolas' description of fashion style deemed opposite of prep. HAMBEUHG: Less popula in Roe Dyelin than weeniz. HOD: Not easy. IDEAR ILLINOISE: Lodge midwestin state. INNIT?: Rhetorical question. JEET: A question among co-workers at lunchtime. Roughly: Have you eaten yet? Long form is "Jeejet?" "Jeet? (Cartoon has one person say "JEET?" and the other answer "NO, JOOZ?"--ed.) JOOZEET: Asking more than one person whether they've eaten. JWANNA: Do you want to? KO-HOG: Quahog. LAYTA: Roe Dyelin for "goodbye." LOBSTA: Unofficial state crustaceon. MIH-INS: Warma than gloves. MUNTS: Twelve of them make a year. MUSTIT: Grey Poupon. N-G: Description, usually shared between female friends, of any ex-husband or boyfriend in disfava. NEVVAMINE: F'get abow'it. ONNACONNA: On account of. OSCAR: Inquire of her. OUTTASTAYTA OZ: Ours. P.S.D.S.: Pierced ears. PACKIE: Liquor store. PAWDOGS: Main food group at McCoy stadium, fahllid closely by that cotton candy they sell vacuum-sealed in aluminum foil packs. PEPPIZ: Ingredient of grindas. POKKABOOK: Purse. RAHJA: First name of Rhide Island's founda. RALLY: Rarely. RAWL: We are all. REGLA: Unusual Roe Dyelin version of coffee. SADDY: First day of the weekend. SALIT: Most locals prefer seeza. SANGWIDGE: When you're not in the mood for a whole grinda. SCO: Let's go. SEAV-UP: Syrup. SHAW DINNA: State's most notable natural resawce. SHOCK: Often swims with fin out of water. SHOOWA: Sure. SINKA: Doughnut. SMATTA WITCHA? SODER: Soft drink. SOURCE: Sauce. SOWWA BAWLS: Popula hod candy. SQUEET: A word that comes from saying the following phrase at lightning speed: Let's go eat. "Jeet? No? Squeet." STEEMIZ: Clams. STUFFIES: More clams. SUP?: What is going on? SUPPA: Late lunch. TAHDDA SOURCE: Popula condiment. TIE IT: How you feel when you're ready for bed. TREE: Can be found in Roe Dyelin between "two" and "faw." TWIRLY: No thank you, it's too early. (A question on an earlier page is "Twirly tweet?"--ed.) VINEGA: Preferred condiment for French fries. WARSH: What the machine downcella does to your clothing. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 24 13:31:13 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:31:13 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, > because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the > dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs > restored," etc. _American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. - James A. Landau And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + participle construction). dInIs -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 13:49:58 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:49:58 EST Subject: "Mixed Income" Message-ID: We are coming up in the world in the quality of our informants, who in this case are the City Council of New Brunswick, New Jersey. My son Joel, who has the local political beat for the student newspaper at Rutgers University, Main (New Brunswick) campus, reports the phrase is in use at City Council meetings, with the apparent meaning of "greater than 'low income' but not sufficient to afford good housing". (He also reports proudly that the City Councilors are avid---in fact, quite critical---readers of Metro stories in the student newspaper.) Google has 23,900 hits on "mixed income", dating back to at least 1997. James A. Landau "Those who can, do. Those who can't, write analysis articles" - Joel Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Jan 24 13:57:48 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:57:48 EST Subject: "You don't have to be a murderer..." Message-ID: The Jesse Sheidlower quote "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to the OED" has now been submitted to Fred Shapiro's Quotation Dictionary Web site, URL http://www.yale.edu/yup/qyd/submit.html. It is now official that the OED is a contributor to Fred Shapiro. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 24 14:09:02 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 06:09:02 -0800 Subject: jibe/jive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This use of "jive" sounds natural to me. I use "jive" in this sense or context. If this isn't a "correct" use of "jive" to you, just what does this word mean to you, and how do you use it? Maybe it's because I'm a landlubber and "gybe" means absolutely nothing to me. JIM --- "James A. Landau" wrote: > In a message dated 01/23/2003 6:18:07 PM Eastern > Standard Time, > AnneR at HKUSA.COM writes: > > > jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've > got to make sure the > finished > > art jives with the art manuscript." > > > > Is this a common substitution that other people > have heard? > > I would chalk this one up to ignorance or more > likely momentary confusion, > since "jibe" is not that common a word. However, > I'm not a trained linguist > and might be missing something more significant. > > In this particular context, the word "jive" sense: > "finished art break-dances > with the manuscript." In fact, the nautical word > "gybe" (of a sail, to move > across the deck suddenly and dangerously) makes > sense here. > ....> > - James A. Landau ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Fri Jan 24 14:14:36 2003 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:14:36 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.c om> Message-ID: >Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, >because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the >dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs >restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- >"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be >washed" phrasing. "Needs to be X-ed" and "needs X-ing" are 'standard'; "needs X-ed" is nonstandard (IMHO), but conventional in some areas. We've discussed this here in the past. I can contribute personal impressions. When I lived in Columbus OH in 1971, I heard people from Cleveland, Detroit, etc. say that those Columbus folks used several solecisms ... including "needs washed" etc. which in my experience was at that time entirely absurd usage in Detroit or Chicago or Cleveland. Now of course I've not met a statistically significant percentage of the population of any of these places, but I've read a lot of stuff over the years, and I don't think this usage has had wide acceptance in print. While in Columbus I did hear this usage, but not all that often. When I moved to Pittsburgh in 1989, I was struck by its prevalence on the first day: it's not just something a few yokels might say: it's conventional, you hear it every day, it's printed in the newspaper, it's used in office memoranda and semi-official documents, it's on TV, etc. If there is a study which concludes that this usage is just as conventional in (say) Indianapolis or St. Louis as it is in Pittsburgh, I am skeptical (although of course I don't recommend that my perhaps idiosyncratic impressions be given great weight). -- Doug Wilson From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 24 14:20:43 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:20:43 -0500 Subject: "You don't have to be a murderer..." In-Reply-To: <7e.3475cece.2b62a05c@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 08:57:48AM -0500, James A. Landau wrote: > The Jesse Sheidlower quote "You don't have to be a murderer to contribute to > the OED" has now been submitted to Fred Shapiro's Quotation Dictionary Web > site, URL http://www.yale.edu/yup/qyd/submit.html. I'm sure that Mr. Shapiro will apply his statement "my book will be limited to more significant quotations" in order to prevent such random detritus from clogging up his book. Jesse "But thanks" Sheidlower From lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG Fri Jan 24 16:50:28 2003 From: lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG (Scott Sadowsky) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 11:50:28 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030124085333.04a68090@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Fri Jan 24 15:30:04 2003 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Hall) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:30:04 -0600 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And DARE treats this at need (verb) sense 2. The regional label is "Chiefly Midland, especially Pennsylvania." At 08:31 AM 1/24/2003 -0500, you wrote: >> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >> Midwest, >> because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >> anyway): the >> dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock >> needs >> restored," etc. > >_American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by >Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of >where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. > > - James A. Landau > >And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this >year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the >apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional >phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the >house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows >a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with >some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas >where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + >participle construction). > >dInIs > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >Professor of Linguistics >Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, > Asian & African Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 >e-mail: preston at msu.edu >phone: (517) 353-9290 From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Fri Jan 24 15:33:34 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 10:33:34 -0500 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Britain they are called "anoraks" because of the stereotype of them all wearing anoraks (parkas). And don't forget their cousins, trainspotters. At 06:32 PM 1/23/03 -0800, you wrote: >This query came off of another list I belong to, I thought people on this >list might be able to help: > ><From: Mark Clark >Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? > >Students have asked me if there are European equivalents to the American >geek/nerd stereotype for engineers and scientists. I am aware of the >related term "otaku" for Japan, but nothing for other >coutries. Any information would be appreciated, especially printed or web >references for further information. > > >Dr. Mark Clark >Oregon Institute of Technology>> From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 24 15:49:38 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 10:49:38 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030124092920.025062e8@wiscmail.wisc.edu> Message-ID: At 9:30 AM -0600 1/24/03, Joan Hall wrote: >And DARE treats this at need (verb) sense 2. The regional label is >"Chiefly Midland, especially Pennsylvania." Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be at Erica Benson's talk, but for me (and I venture to suggest my fellow northeasterners, or at least my fellow New Yorkers) there's a big difference between "Bill wants in" and "The cat wants out" on the one hand (both of which are fine) and "The dog wants in the house", "The cat needs in the house" (both of which are impossible). I'm willing to believe that the latter ones, with the full PP, are related to the needs/washed + participle, but the ones with the bare particle (or intransitive preposition, as people used to call it) seem distinct, and are possibly frozen (like the poor cat and dog). "needs in/out" sounds much less likely than "wants in/out". Larry > >At 08:31 AM 1/24/2003 -0500, you wrote: >>> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >>>Midwest, >>> because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >>>anyway): the >>> dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock >>>needs >>> restored," etc. >> >>_American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by >>Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of >>where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. >> >> - James A. Landau >> >>And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this >>year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the >>apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional >>phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the >>house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows >>a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with >>some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas >>where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + >>participle construction). >> >>dInIs >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Professor of Linguistics >>Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian & African Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 >>e-mail: preston at msu.edu >>phone: (517) 353-9290 From maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Jan 24 15:51:42 2003 From: maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (A. Maberry) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 07:51:42 -0800 Subject: Providence In-Reply-To: <14d.1ab7367c.2b621314@aol.com> Message-ID: The town in question is Skvyra (var. Skvira, Skwira) in Kyivska oblast. Cf. Encyc. of Ukraine: b v. 4, p. 739 (Skvyra, city and raion center in Kiev oblast. First mentioned in 1390 as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1482 it was destroyed by the Tatars. From 1569 it was under Polish rule. Under the Hetmanate State Skvyra was a company center of the Bila Tserkva (1648-51) and Pavloch (1651-74) regiments. It was recaptured by Poland in 1686 and acquired by Russia in 1793. From 1797 it was a county center in Kiev gubernia. In 1938 it was granted city status) BGN gives the coordinates as 49[degrees]44[minutes]N, 29[degrees]40[minutes]E. allen maberry at u.washington.edu On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: > In a message dated 01/23/2003 9:15:13 PM Eastern Standard Time, > laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > > >The town of Skvir (sp?) somewhere in Europe, > > > > The closest I could find in my old atlas is the town of Skwirzyna in > > Western Poland. > > The first Rebbe of what became the Skver Dynasty was Rabbi Menachem Nachum > Twersky of Chernobyl (yes, the site of the nuclear plant), 1730-1797, a > student of the Baal Shem Tov. The second Rebbe was Mordechai of Chernobyl, > 1770-1837, probably a son of Menachem Nachum. The third Rebbe was Yitzchak > of Skver, 1812-1885, the fourth was David of Skver, and the fifth was Yaakov > Yosef of Skver. Why the change of place-name I don't know; I suppose that > for some reason the third Rebbe moved from Chernobyl to a town called Skver. > > The current Rebbe is David Twersky, so apparently the position of Rebbe never > left the Twersky family. > > I'm afraid that doesn't help much in determining where, or perhaps what, was > Skver. > > A strange twist on a thread labelled "Providence". > > - Jim Landau > From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Fri Jan 24 16:14:12 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 11:14:12 -0500 Subject: needs/wants in/out In-Reply-To: Message-ID: larry's right; non-Midlanders like want plus particles better than need plus particles, but I don't think the frozen construction argument will fly here. Erica has used a great variety of contexts around the items she has sought judgments on. Another interesting observation of Erica's was that non-Midlanders like nonconcrete versions of these constructions (It's a good deal; I need in) better than concrete ones (It's cold out; I need in). Go figger. dInIs At 9:30 AM -0600 1/24/03, Joan Hall wrote: >And DARE treats this at need (verb) sense 2. The regional label is >"Chiefly Midland, especially Pennsylvania." Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be at Erica Benson's talk, but for me (and I venture to suggest my fellow northeasterners, or at least my fellow New Yorkers) there's a big difference between "Bill wants in" and "The cat wants out" on the one hand (both of which are fine) and "The dog wants in the house", "The cat needs in the house" (both of which are impossible). I'm willing to believe that the latter ones, with the full PP, are related to the needs/washed + participle, but the ones with the bare particle (or intransitive preposition, as people used to call it) seem distinct, and are possibly frozen (like the poor cat and dog). "needs in/out" sounds much less likely than "wants in/out". Larry > >At 08:31 AM 1/24/2003 -0500, you wrote: >>> Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the >>>Midwest, >>> because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, >>>anyway): the >>> dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock >>>needs >>> restored," etc. >> >>_American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by >>Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of >>where they appear or don't appear. 6 pages of bibliography, too. >> >> - James A. Landau >> >>And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this >>year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the >>apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional >>phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the >>house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows >>a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with >>some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas >>where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants + >>participle construction). >> >>dInIs >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>Professor of Linguistics >>Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian & African Languages >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 >>e-mail: preston at msu.edu >>phone: (517) 353-9290 -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Jan 24 17:15:04 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:15:04 -0800 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030124103208.00a43180@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: I'm not sure I know all the connotations of "geek" and "nerd," but there is, or was, a British term "swot," whose semantic range seems at least to intersect with these. It means (or meant) something like 'studyoholic', and "swotting" means 'really hitting the books'. Some of our British listers may be able to shed better light on this word. Peter Mc. --On Friday, January 24, 2003 10:33 AM -0500 Wendalyn Nichols wrote: > In Britain they are called "anoraks" because of the stereotype of them all > wearing anoraks (parkas). And don't forget their cousins, trainspotters. > > At 06:32 PM 1/23/03 -0800, you wrote: >> This query came off of another list I belong to, I thought people on this >> list might be able to help: >> >> <> From: Mark Clark >> Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? >> >> Students have asked me if there are European equivalents to the American >> geek/nerd stereotype for engineers and scientists. I am aware of the >> related term "otaku" for Japan, but nothing for other >> coutries. Any information would be appreciated, especially printed or web >> references for further information. >> >> >> Dr. Mark Clark >> Oregon Institute of Technology>> **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Fri Jan 24 17:40:15 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 17:40:15 -0000 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <221594.1043399704@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Peter A McGraw wrote: > I'm not sure I know all the connotations of "geek" and "nerd," but > there is, or was, a British term "swot," whose semantic range > seems at least to intersect with these. It means (or meant) > something like 'studyoholic', and "swotting" means 'really hitting > the books'. Some of our British listers may be able to shed better > light on this word. "Swot" (derived from "sweat") does have that meaning, and is a deeply pejorative term. It is now somewhat passe, being a term more in use by the grandfathers of current school-age persons than by the present generation. There was a fashion for "boffin" some 20 years ago with similar meaning, but I don't know what the current term is. Regarding an earlier message, I would say that "anorak" is - or was: my impression is that this, too, has rather fallen out of fashion - a term for a person deeply or obsessively engaged in some pursuit or hobby that is regarded as of no significance - trainspotting was the archetypal such activity, for which anoraks were essential outerwear on cold station platforms. I have to confess that for a while, aged 12, I was a trainspotter, though this was before the days of anoraks, and it was an acceptable hobby at that age. It's the adult ones that were thought odd ... -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Fri Jan 24 18:16:40 2003 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas M. Paikeday) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:16:40 -0500 Subject: the alien corn Message-ID: Several of the ADS teaching fraternity who listened to my Jan. 2 talk "Jew" v. "Gentile" at the Atlanta annual meeting suggested the proposition that "Gentile" is an exclusionary term as used by Jews be voted on by students in classrooms. I agreed, although the outcome seems a foregone conclusion (as stressed in capitals in my paper below) if the question is about perceptions rather than the meaning of the term. In case you have nothing better to read on the weekend, here's the complete paper including comments from Mark Mandel and his family representing the opposition. "Jew" v. "gentile" (ADS meeting, Atlanta Hilton, Jan. 2/03) First, contrary to what is said in the abstract, I have had second thoughts about the secret ballot; such a vote may serve no useful purpose. But I leave it up to the Chair or, if the Chair allows it, to any member of the audience to call for a show of hands on the question whether "gentile" is exclusionary or not when used in reference to non-Jews, especially in their hearing. Secondly, my thanks to Mark A. Mandel (the Jewish linguist referred to in my abstract) and his family for reviewing this paper and offering useful comments as from the opposition. "Exclusionary" is used as defined in the New Shorter Oxford, 2002: "having the effect of excluding." Examples of exclusionary terms are "foreigner," "heathen," "infidel," "outsider," and "stranger" (all with negative connotations) and "brahmin," "the elect," "native speaker," etc. (positive). Derogatory terms like "goy" are not even considered here. There are four citations in the full-text OED, as in the 1992 CD-ROM, dating from 1817. This shows how old the usage is. My own private database of current English (about 100 million words of text from circa 1990, drawn mainly from U.S. publications, which was used in The User's? Webster, 2000) has nearly 90 citations. This shows how widespread the use of the word is. The "exclusionary rule" (legal term referring to illegally obtained evidence) is the best-known of current usages. "Exclusionary zoning" (another legal term) comes closer to the discussion of "gentile." Black's Law Dictionary, 1990, defines it as "any form of zoning ordinance which tends to exclude specific classes of persons or businesses from a particular district or area." Here are three citations from general English texts: (1) "Mary GiaQuinta said such a trade grouping could become exclusionary or discriminatory to countries that aren't part of the [GATT] agreement" (Jim Ostroff, Daily News Record, Dec. 27, 1990, p. 11). (2) "African-American women had to battle derogatory white images of their worth and status, and they had to demolish exclusionary barriers that were often erected by white women" (Vanessa N. Gamble, The Nation, Apr. 16, 1990, p. 536). (3) "Dan Quayle was not reacting to the exclusionary practices of Pine Valley [country club]" (Tom Callahan, U.S. News and World Report, Aug. 20, 1990, p. 60). This should clarify the distinction between "exclusionary" and the more common, innocuous, and neutral "exclusive," the latter as in: an exclusive neighborhood (with only people of one social group or income bracket); an exclusive news story (that no other media may carry); an exclusive feature (that no other product has); an exclusive economic zone claimed by countries beyond their coastal waters to protect fishing and mineral rights. (These are not citations but idiomatic examples of common usage, culled from The User's? Webster). Incidentally, I happen to believe that concrete idiomatic examples define a word or usage better than abstract definitions. I will not, therefore, belabour the point by quoting the Oxford definitions of "exclusive" which come grouped under six numbers or the Merriam-Webster Collegiate which has a total of nine definitions. I like to call that atomization of meaning; quoting such definitions will only cloud the issue instead of clarifying it. Sorry if I sound unnecessarily provocative. Briefly, therefore, for the sake of comparison or contrast, whereas "exclusionary" means "tending to exclude" (Shorter Oxford), "exclusive" means "limited to only one person or group of people," as succinctly defined by Cambridge International Dictionary, 1995, a dictionary after my own lexicographical heart (which, incidentally, was bared at length in a five-page Preface to my Penguin Canadian Dictionary, 1990). The opposite of "exclusionary" is "inclusionary," as in the following citation: "To get some idea of the eclectic range of Men's Life [magazine], look at the logo: Men's Life - Adventure, Career, Women, Kids, Sports, Ideas, Humor, Stuff. That will include health, grooming, money, 'sensible' fashion, cooking, travel, and some investigative journalism. Men's Life, says [publisher] Scullin, won't be hip, trendy, downtown or uptown; it will be inclusionary, not exclusionary" (Michael Garry & Henry Eng, Marketing and Media Decisions, Sept. 1990, p. 38). However, "inclusive" is more common in general use than "inclusionary," (which, unlike "exclusionary" vis-a-vis "exclusive," seems a more formal term for "inclusive") as in the expressions "inclusive language" such as 'humanity' for 'mankind'; 'partner' instead of 'wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend,' etc.; "inclusive education for students with disabilities"; "racially inclusive"; "inclusive and tolerant," etc. Google.ca (the Canadian version) has 4,770,000 hits for "inclusive," but only 20,700 for "inclusionary," regardless of meanings and other factors that make the Google database not very useful for lexicographical purposes. As to whether the use of "inclusionary" or "inclusive" terms is mere political correctness, that seems an idle question to me. Mark Mandel responds: [~MAM 1: <>] All those noun usages, just like the definition, should sound very exclusionary to most of us. [~MAM 3: If you mean 'defining by exclusion', how else should they sound? (See my note #1.) If not, it is fair to ask how exclusionary they sounded when written.] Noun def. "2. A heathen, a pagan (Now rare)" has this citation: 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. i. ?6: One is a Christian, another a Jew, a third a Mahometan, a fourth an idolatrous Gentile. The Shorter Oxford, 2002, has better definitions of "gentile" (which I am sure are in the OED online, something I don't have access to), the n. def. (I, 1) introduced by the restrictive phrase "Among the Jews." The adj. def. (I, 2) starts thus: "from a Jewish standpoint; non-Jewish." A more satisfactory way of determining the claimed meanings of "gentile" would have been: (a) to collect a respectable sample of citations and show that most of them are exclusionary in meaning rather than inclusionary; (b) show that they are from the writings of Jews rather than non-Jews; (c) show whether they were perceived as exclusionary at the time, as Mark Mandel points out. Since the writings are published pieces, I suppose they were meant for general consumption rather than for Jewish audiences. My citations were selected to show that there is evidence of a negative feeling about the Gentiles, that they were considered foreigners, idolators, and the non-elect of God (I feel bad about Ruth standing in tears amid the alien corn), and certainly not Christians. Hence my being taken aback when I first heard the usage back in 1962. HOWEVER, I SUPPOSE THE AVERAGE AMERICAN USER OF ENGLISH WHO HAS NOT READ ANY LATIN OR MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE OR EVEN MEDIEVAL HISTORY COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT BEING REFERRED TO AS A GENTILE WITHIN HIS HEARING. Coming now to current English, here are a few selected citations illustrating the exclusionary nature of "gentile": (1) "Harry has this gentile prejudice that Jews do everything a little better than other people, something about all those generations crouched over the Talmud and watch-repair tables, they aren't as distracted as other persuasions, they don't expect to have as much fun." It must be a great religion, he thinks, "once you get past the circumcision" (Hermione Lee's review of John Updike's Rabbit at Rest, in The New Republic, Dec. 24, 1990, p. 34). (2) "From California to Florida, the need to find a minority member became urgent. At Crystal Downs in Michigan, where the 'Gentiles Only' sign came down years ago (though no Jews have noticed), one member issued this hopeful report to the Associated Press": 'We have a female doctor of Chinese descent who plays [golf] frequently, but I believe her husband is the [minority] member'" (Tom Callahan, U.S. News and World Report, Aug. 20, 1990, p. 60). (3) "A Czech writer of Jewish origin, who asked to remain anonymous, said 'there is aggression' in the attitude of the gentiles towards the country's estimated 15,000 Jews" (John Bierman, Maclean's [magazine], April 16, 1990, p. 26)." To conclude, if this kind of selective citation gathering seems unsatisfactory, let me offer you a test of the putative popular reaction to "gentile" by non-Jews in a purely fictitious situation. Our friendly neighbourhood B'nai B'rith is holding an open house for a neutral celebration like Canada Day (July 1). A sign at their door says (not the exact words): OPEN HOUSE / FREE COFFEE & DONUTS / JEWS AND GENTILES WELCOME. I wonder how many gentiles would be induced to step inside. [~MAM 4: But this is the *last* place to use a term defined by difference. My wife commented, "I'd expect something like ALL ARE WELCOME". You don't make all feel welcome by highlighting differences. Mrs. Mandel's suggestion may make for good public relations, but it misses the point of the exercise which is to illustrate the meaning of "gentile," namely "non-Jew," using a test sentence with minimal interference from other words. Mark continues: My daughter said, "'Gentile' can be offensive when used by one Jew to another in the presence of the person referred to". Your own encounter, which she wasn't aware of when she said this, seems to fit this "third-person invisible" usage. But, she adds, it may not be offensive when the non-Jew is included in the conversation. I find Susanna's observation very perspicacious indeed! Mark continues: [Consider these two events: (1) My son reminded me of a time when I prefaced a song that hinged on some intricacies of Jewish dietary law with some words of explanation "for the gentiles in the room". (2) This very afternoon I was telling some gentile neighbors of the experiences of my late father-in-law, a Polish Jew, in World War II. I said, "He jumped off a death train and was found and saved by a gentile Polish farmer." In neither case, I believe, did anyone find the word offensive. Yes, it excludes, as a statement in set algebra: a gentile is not a Jew. And in these contexts that's all it does. You might consider the possibility that negative connotation arises not from the meaning of the word, but from how it is used.] I beg to differ. We are not talking connotations here. The meaning of an expression illustrated by idiomatic usages is objectively more significant than the bare denotative meaning based on genus and differentia. If one says "I am a gentile," "You are a gentile," or "He's a gentile," what does each utterance mean to the generality of English users? In my view, the referent is more important here than the reference, like Venus being more important than "evening star" and "morning star." My own reaction to the sign mentioned above may be to go in and see what's going on, especially if it could be changed to read, instead of "free coffee & donuts," say, "free wine & cheese." Thank you. Mark Mandel has the last word: POSTNOTE ON "GENTILE" My wife Rene just said that you should check out Terry (-i? -ie?) Gross's interview on the NPR program "Fresh Air" with KISS performer Gene Simmons, ne Chaim Weitz. It was first aired earlier this year but was replayed yesterday (or Sunday?), and should probably still be available on their website. This interview was apparently responsiblefor Simmons's being labeled "biggest disappointment of the year" by one publication and "weirdest" by another. In the first few minutes Simmons corrected Gross's pronunciation of his birth name, saying that the reason she couldn't pronounce it right was that she wasn't Jewish, a point on which Ms. Gross disabused him. Rene doesn't remember if he used the word "gentile" or not, but she characterizes his manner as definitely exclusionary. Coming back to that word, ISTM that the definition you're focusing on includes something like this: "intended to highlight in-group vs. out-group identification; making the referred-to group feel that they are the outsiders, and the others, by default, insiders". That is, I think that connotation, or affect, is essential to your point. Is so? More comments welcome. - Thomas Paikeday (www.paikeday.net) From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 24 19:13:22 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 14:13:22 -0500 Subject: FW: Blue laws Message-ID: Adding to the observations of Fred S and Larry H on Connecticut and blue laws, let me add mine on the same topic. I'm a Connecticut resident for over 20 years now (longer than I have lived in any other state, except Ohio). Some of this may seem off-topic, but I do use a lot of the local lingo in it, so it really is not. The package stores (or "packies" as they are called informally, esp. by those who use them most often) legally can open at 8 am here, and MUST close at 8 pm. Now I ask you -- who buys alcohol in the morning? Surely those who need to really need anti-alcohol laws, if we are to have any! And if you are having a party in CT into the evening and are running low on adult beverages, you'd better have planned ahead or be ready to send somebody to the packy (sing?) before 7:30 or so. Some will deliver, but you gotta know which, and you gotta call early enough. Otherwise it's soft drinks for the rest of the night. The grocery stores in CT can sell beer and malt bevs and such -- but not wine. It may have to do with the percentage of alcohol, I don't know. But it is silly; don't you always see people (esp. college age) getting drunk on wine, and never on Budweiser 40s from a bag, or on Smirnoff Ice. In Ohio, you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores, and some even have licenses for the hard stuff. And if you are leaving the bar at last call in Ohio, you can buy a six-pack, even a case, to go (one Columbus bartender used to say at closing time, "Pick up your carry-outs, and carry out your pick-ups."). None of that in Puritanical Connecticut. Packaged goods can only be sold here in package stores, hence the name. I believe that sales in bars (OK on Sunday even in CT) are officially referred to in CT statutes as sales "by the dram". What a place. When was the last time you ordered a dram of whiskey? In Connecticut, if one wants wine or booze in bottles, it's only available from package stores (which are, btw, prohibited from selling food in ANY form; no chips, not even Slim Jims or chewing gum; gotta go to a grocery or convenience store for that). And make sure you get to the packy before 8, and remember that they are all closed on Sunday, no exceptions. Of course, if you are hard core, you can drive to NY state, Mass., or RI, where one can buy packaged goods on Sunday. But the blue laws still apply in CT on Sunday. The other states in the region, even ones settled by Puritans, have long since lightened up. But Connecticut is, after all, "The Land of Steady Habits". Finally, if it is Sunday in CT, and you have nothing in the fridge or liquor cabinet or wine cellar, and you are thirsting for an adult beverage, you can of course go to a bar. You can have as many drinks there as you can afford and as long as they will serve you. You can then get off the bar stool and drive home. But you cannot, if you have nothing in the house on a Sunday in CT, go to any store in the state, buy a bottle, bring it home, and drink it sensibly while watching the tube, car in the driveway. Go figure. Frank Abate PS: It would be a fascinating study to compare liquor laws nationwide in each state, and the associated lingo. I suspect, without studying it formally, that the variation is because all these laws were written by each state individually in the 1930s, after Prohibition was lifted by the feds. Now there's a dissertation topic for ya! And the research -- a grad student's dream! Why you could even expense the drinking!!! At 4:01 PM -0500 1/13/03, Fred Shapiro wrote: >On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Michael Quinion wrote: > >> The following appears on a web site devoted to the rebuttal of >> hoaxes (www.museumofhoaxes.com/bluelaws.html): "The term 'Blue >> Laws' describes laws that regulate public morality. The phrase was >> first used in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1762 titled 'The >> Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy, Especially in >> the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England'". This - if >> correct - predates the usual first citation in the Reverend Samuel >> Peters' work of 1782 entitled "A General History of Connecticut". > >I looked at the book in question, and it does indeed antedate the OED's >1781 first use: > >1762 Noah Welles _The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy >Especially in the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England_ 29 I >have heard that some of them [polite gentlemen] begin to be ashamed of >their blue laws at _New-Haven_. > So even if we can't claim the first pizza (from Pepe's) or hamburgers (from Louis' Lunch), we still have priority on (hot) dogs, frisbees, and blue laws. (I think there might have been other firsts that Barry found in the Yale Record, but I can't recall them at the moment.) We still can't buy beer (or anything else alcoholic) on Sundays, and the supermarkets put discreet sheets to shield the beer from sight so we can't even THINK about buying (or presumably drinking) it. (No alcohol sales after 8p.m. in New Haven, or the rest of Connecticut, either, but I'm not sure whether that counts as a blue law--for me, the term is just applicable to Sunday laws.) Other (non-alcohol-related) blue laws are no longer in effect, and bars are open on Sunday (especially during football season). Larry P.S. I recall that decades ago stores larger than some specified size were not allowed to be open on Sundays, and that these "blue laws" were kept in force by the smaller mom-and-pop stores that could stay in business by virtue [no pun intended] of these blue laws, but I guess eventually the larger stores threw their economic muscle around and had the regulations repealed, here and in other eastern states. -- From abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET Fri Jan 24 19:13:36 2003 From: abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET (Frank Abate) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 14:13:36 -0500 Subject: FW: Eng. Dialect Message-ID: Given the recent discussion on the pronunciation of ask, the following, from the UK's Daily Telegraph for Jan 14, seems appropriate to share with the ADS-L. Frank Abate *********************************** From today's Daily Telegraph, Peterborough: Home thoughts A moment of high farce enlivened yesterday's debate at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The UK Independence Party's new MEP Graham Booth gave his maiden speech, electing - as is his right - to speak in his mother tongue: Devonian. "Maister Preziden," reads the speech, on regionalisation. "If I axed my mates back 'ome where they come from, they'd zay 'Deb'm'. Not Cornwall, cross the River Tamar, which is furrin parts; not Zomerset, where awl they toffs live. That's to close to Lunnon for their liking." "As for Lunnon," he adds, "that used to be dree days on the vast stagecoach, and there's many of uz volks who never did get used to they new-vangled things like 'orseless carriages and they motorway things which brings awl they furriners to our neck of the woods." From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 24 20:01:10 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:01:10 -0500 Subject: "line in the sand" Message-ID: This doesn't seem to have been discussed on ADS-L. I wonder if anyone has anything useful on the figurative use of _line in the sand_ 'a boundary; limit of tolerance' etc. The earliest example we have is only from 1978, which seems quite late, but all the earlier cites I've laboriously tracked down have been literal. Anyone have something earlier, or a suggestion of why such a seemingly predictable phrase would be so recent? Thanks. Jesse Sheidlower OED From remlingk at GVSU.EDU Fri Jan 24 20:06:22 2003 From: remlingk at GVSU.EDU (Kathryn Remlinger) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:06:22 -0500 Subject: call for papers Message-ID: (With apologies for cross-posting.) American Dialect Society at the 45th Annual Midwest Modern Language Association Convention, November 7-9, 2003, Chicago, Congress Plaza Hotel Topic: ?New Directions in Language Variation and Change? For more information about ADS at MMLA, see the MMLA website, www.uiowa.edu/~mmla, go to ?Call for Papers?, scroll down to ?Associated Organizations?, then to ?American Dialect Society, New Directions in Language Variation and Change.? Please submit abstracts, maximum 250 words. Presentations may be based in traditional dialectology, or in other areas of language variation and change, including sociolinguistics, historical, anthropological or folk linguistics, language and gender, critical discourse analysis, or narratology. Email submissions preferred. Please submit by 1 April 2003 to Kate Remlinger remlingk at gvsu.edu By mail to Kate Remlinger Department of English Grand Valley State University 1 Campus Drive Allendale, MI 49401 By fax Attention: Kate Remlinger, 1-616-331-3775 Many thanks, Kate Remlinger Midwest Regional Secretary, ADS Associate Professor of English: Linguistics Grand Valley State University remlingk at gvsu.edu 1-616-331-3122 Kathryn Remlinger, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English: Linguistics Department of English Grand Valley State University 1 Campus Drive Allendale, MI 49401 USA remlingk at gvsu.edu tel: 616-331-3122 fax: 616-331-3430 From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 24 21:01:24 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:01:24 -0800 Subject: note from office Message-ID: Here is a note that our school secretary sent to all us staff members. It is not on any topic that we have been discussing, but it does have to do with language and I thought the list folks might get a laugh out of it. The invitation in the second sentence, which was not intentional, brought a snicker to many a face: I have contacted downtown and they will contact me as soon as a network person comes in (8ish). Please be bare with me while we figure this out. Until this is taken care of those using ClassXP will not be able to get into do attendance. Salem is a cool place to work. Fritz From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Jan 24 21:02:56 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:02:56 -0800 Subject: "line in the sand" In-Reply-To: <20030124200109.GA28389@panix.com> Message-ID: In "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" (1955), either Col. Travis or Jim Bowie draws a line in the sand, to be crossed by those who choose to remain and defend the Alamo, but I can't recall if he speaks the words "line in the sand." JIM --- Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > This doesn't seem to have been discussed on ADS-L. I > wonder > if anyone has anything useful on the figurative use > of _line > in the sand_ 'a boundary; limit of tolerance' etc. > The earliest > example we have is only from 1978, which seems quite > late, but > all the earlier cites I've laboriously tracked down > have been > literal. > > Anyone have something earlier, or a suggestion of > why such a > seemingly predictable phrase would be so recent? > > Thanks. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Jan 24 21:15:21 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 13:15:21 -0800 Subject: "line in the sand" Message-ID: Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier is the name of the movie. Of course, as every Texan knows, it was Travis who draws the line and (in the movie) Bowie, lying on his cot, has to be carried across. I think the Alamo line is well known, i.e. literal, but the query was about figurative uses Fritz >>> jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM 01/24/03 01:02PM >>> In "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" (1955), either Col. Travis or Jim Bowie draws a line in the sand, to be crossed by those who choose to remain and defend the Alamo, but I can't recall if he speaks the words "line in the sand." JIM --- Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > This doesn't seem to have been discussed on ADS-L. I > wonder > if anyone has anything useful on the figurative use > of _line > in the sand_ 'a boundary; limit of tolerance' etc. > The earliest > example we have is only from 1978, which seems quite > late, but > all the earlier cites I've laboriously tracked down > have been > literal. > > Anyone have something earlier, or a suggestion of > why such a > seemingly predictable phrase would be so recent? > > Thanks. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From sylvar at VAXER.NET Fri Jan 24 21:17:47 2003 From: sylvar at VAXER.NET (Ben Ostrowsky) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:17:47 -0500 Subject: "line in the sand" In-Reply-To: <20030124210256.7516.qmail@web9703.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > In "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" (1955), The Internet Movie Database doesn't know this. It does list "The Last Command" (1955), known as "Alamo" in Italy, and "Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo" (1926). I've never seen either, but presume you mean the former. Ben From Jim.Walker at WANADOO.FR Fri Jan 24 21:26:28 2003 From: Jim.Walker at WANADOO.FR (Jim Walker) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 22:26:28 +0100 Subject: European Geeks/Nerds? In-Reply-To: <221594.1043399704@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: I'm not sure I know all the connotations of "geek" and "nerd," but there is, or was, a British term "swot," whose semantic range seems at least to intersect with these. It means (or meant) something like 'studyoholic', and "swotting" means 'really hitting the books'. Some of our British listers may be able to shed better light on this word. **To the best of my knowledge (I'm British, but have lived in France for the last 10 years, which has done shocking things to my native speaker intuitions), still "means" rather than "meant". 'Swot' has the studyoholic connotation, certainly, but I think you have to be a successful studier, by which I mean that it has 'top of the class' connotations, too. If you spend half your life in a library, but you still cannot pass your exams, you're not a swot. You're a would-be swot. If you come top of the class without having to do a jot of work, then you're not a swot either. I wouldn't say that there is anything 'nerdy' or 'geeky' about a swot, though. Sometimes extended to 'girly swot', regardless of sex, which in itself says a lot about gender stereotyping in schools. I wouldn't agree with Michael Quinion that it is "deeply pejorative". If anything, it feels slightly endearing to me (maybe this is just personal, I went throughout my schooldays being called a swot, but it wasn't meant pejoratively. Was it?). Typical sentence: "the girly swots always sit at the front of the class". I would also suggest that it is not as old as Michael Quinion suggests. My schooldays are, what, 15 years behind me, and the term was alive and well then, and my half-brother of 10 at least understands it, if he doesn't use it himself On a similar note, the term in vogue when I studied at Cambridge (a place for swots if ever there was one) for the 'nerds' was "Comski / Comsci / Comsky" (I don't remember ever having seen it written), which was derived from "Computer Science". Even more common, and I would venture elmost entirely synonymous, was "Natsky", from "Natural Science" Best regards Jim Walker, a swot but no natsky Jim Walker Ma?tre de Conf?rences Directeur du 1er cycle Dpt. d'Etudes du Monde Anglophone Universit? Lumi?re Lyon 2 86 rue Pasteur 69365 LYON Cedex 07 Jim.Walker at univ-lyon2.fr From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Jan 24 21:52:28 2003 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:52:28 -0500 Subject: Navel Orange (1869) In-Reply-To: <6AB47443.44D51C71.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 09:57:22PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > (...) > --------------------------------------------------------------- > OED has 1888 for "navel orange." The revised entry has--what? 1856. Go to it, Barry! Jesse Sheidlower From mam at THEWORLD.COM Fri Jan 24 22:00:10 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 17:00:10 -0500 Subject: jibe/jive, needs washed In-Reply-To: <2E8440B99F0D1B4F9D4F3099A3778FB502401E31@exchange4.hkusa.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Anne Rogers wrote: #jive for jibe (to be in accord, agree): "We've got to make sure the finished #art jives with the art manuscript." # #Is this a common substitution that other people have heard? Yes. I don't like it, but it's too far advanced to be stopped. #Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the Midwest, #because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed, anyway): the #dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock needs #restored," etc. I wouldn't have a problem if the gerund was used instead -- #"needs washing" or "needs restoring" -- but I like it best with the "to be #washed" phrasing. Oh, brother, are you ever gonna get answers and discussion here! I'll stay out of this one. -- Mark M. From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Sat Jan 25 00:52:42 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:52:42 -0800 Subject: note from office In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Friday, January 24, 2003 1:01 PM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > Here is a note that our school secretary sent to all us staff members. > It is not on any topic that we have been discussing, but it does have to > do with language and I thought the list folks might get a laugh out of > it. The invitation in the second sentence, which was not intentional, > brought a snicker to many a face: > > I have contacted downtown and they will contact me as soon as a network > person comes in (8ish). Please be bare with me while we figure this out. > Until this is taken care of those using ClassXP will not be able to get > into do attendance. > > > Salem is a cool place to work. > Fritz And by the same token not a good place to be bare, one would think. Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Jan 25 02:15:59 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 21:15:59 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Nazi" In-Reply-To: <20030124215228.GA27213@panix.com> Message-ID: The OED's first uses for "Nazi" as both noun and adjective are dated Sept. 1930. Here is slightly earlier usage from the Times Digital Archive: 1930 _Times_ (London) 19 May 13 In another encounter after midnight a "Nazi" shot two Communists dead with an automatic revolver. 1930 _Times_ (London) 30 May 15 Herr Frick ... has tried hard to make Thuringia a "Nazi cell" within the Reich. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 02:27:20 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 21:27:20 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Racism" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here's another antedating derived from searching the Times Digital Archive: racism (OED 1936) 1933 _Times_ (London) 12 Sept. 12 [Translation of French resolution:] They ... denounce the quadruple crime which is being prepared in the name of racism and intolerance. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 13:56:48 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 08:56:48 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Screwball" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The searchable historical newspapers are particularly powerful for antedating sports vocabulary, as Barry Popik has so ably demonstrated. Here is a significant baseball antedating: screwball (Baseball) (OED 1928) 1926 _N.Y. Times_ 9 Oct. 11 He [Grover Cleveland Alexander] defied the Yanks to molest his fast ball, his screw ball, his perfect control. The Washington Post may have even earlier usage, but I do not currently have access to Pro Quest Historical Washington Post. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 15:24:58 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 10:24:58 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Stewardess" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here's an antedating of the modern sense of "stewardess," from a New York Times Historical search: stewardess (OED, c., 1931) 1930 _N.Y. Times_ 20 July SM3 There is Miss Inez Keller, stewardess, or rather traveling hostess. The Boeing system has solved the problem of looking after the passengers by putting girls on all the liners. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 Sat Jan 25 14:16:56 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 09:16:56 -0500 Subject: Antedating of "Snowmobile" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The New York Times Historical database shows that this was used pretty commonly before the OED's first use: snowmobile (OED 1931) 1926 _N.Y. Times_ 14 Feb. E8 (heading) Snowmobiles' failure in Canada makes gold-seekers use dogs. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 25 15:20:35 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 10:20:35 EST Subject: Rhode Island's "May Breakfast" Message-ID: "May breakfast" is not in John Mariani's ENCYLCOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK. DARE has "May breakfast" from 1968-1970. Yikes! From the web, where it has over 1,000 Google hits. THE BLOCK ISLAND TIMES, 7 April 2001 May Breakfast a Rhode ? but not Block? Island tradition By Elizabeth Stone For many Rhode Islanders, the coming of spring is celebrated with a century-old tradition, May Breakfast, but not on Block Island. May Breakfast originated in Cranston, at the Oak Lawn Community Baptist Church in 1867. This year, 21 communities will hold May Breakfast, which feature traditional breakfast fare highlighted by the Rhode Island johnnycake. Block Island Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kathy Szabo said she had never heard of May Breakfast. However, long-time Block Island residents remember May Breakfast on the island many years ago, usually held at the Baptist Church or the Block Island School. Each year, the Governor of Rhode Island hosts a special May Breakfast honoring Rhode Island residents 100 years and older. A typical May Breakfast is simple but filling. Most menus include fried or scrambled eggs, ham, bacon, baked beans, muffins, juice, coffee, tea and milk and a Rhode Island tradition, the johnnycake. According to the Rhode Island Tourism Division the johnnycake is derived from an Indian recipe using flint corn, a variety of hard kernel corn that thrives in the fog and salt air of the Ocean State. Early settlers stuffed the small, hard cakes called "journeycakes," into their pockets or saddlebags to eat during long trips. Today, johnnycakes have become synonymous with traditional Rhode Island. Most towns hold their May Breakfast on May 4, Rhode Island?s Independence Day. On that day in 1776, Rhode Island, the smallest colony, declared independence from British rule, two months before the rest of the colonies. May is "Heritage Month" in Rhode Island. While you are out of luck on Block Island, there are some May Breakfasts held nearby on the mainland. Among them: The oldest and original May Breakfast will be held for the 134th time at Oak Lawn Baptist Church, 229 Wilbur Avenue, in Cranston from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. on May 1. Also on May 1, Christ Church Parish House, 7 Elm Street, in Westerly, will hold its 87th annual May Breakfast on May 1, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. On May 6, a May Breakfast will benefit the Snug Harbor Volunteer Fire Association. The event will be held from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the fire station, 17 Bliss Road (off Succotash Road) in South Kingston. The Norman Bird Sanctuary, off Third Beach Road in Middletown, will hold the 12th annual May Birds and Breakfast on May 20 fro 6:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. The morning features guided birdwalks through the sanctuary?s 450 acres, followed by a breakfast of egg casseroles, scrambled eggs, pancakes, fruit salad, pastries, bagels, coffee, tea and juice. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 16:18:46 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 11:18:46 EST Subject: RI cookbooks, articles Message-ID: NOW my Nets beat the Lakers....Safire discusses "smoking gun" this week. Didn't he do that before?..It's finally gotten warmer out here in NYC. A few tidbits before I go "navel"-gazing and check in at Brooklyn's Victory Memorial Hospital. A RHODE ISLANDER COOKBOOK by the Providence Journal-Bulletin 1962 (A stamp here says 1967. Check library catalog--ed.) Pg. 5: BAKED STUFFED CLAMS. (I didn't, unfortunately, see the word "stuffies." The next DARE will have what?--ed.) Pg. 15: Put a bushel pf softshell clams (better known as R.I. "steamers") on top of the wire mesh. (The next DARE has what for "steamers"?--ed.) JUST A FEW TRIED AND TRUE RECEIPTS: BEING A MANUSCRIPT COOK-BOOK PRINTED AND SOLD FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PROVIDENCE DAY NURSERY ASSOCIATION AND SOCIAL SETTLEMENT WORK IN THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND 1916 Pg. 44: PHILADELPHIA CINNAMON BUN. (Not called "sticky bun" here--ed.) Pg. 54: APPLE JONATHAN. Pg. 141: MIGNONS. (Butter, sugar, egg yolks, almonds, flour, Rumford Baking Powder, cinnamon, vanilla extract--ed.) Pg. 168: MONACO SANDWICHES. (Eggs and salmon or shrimps--ed.) Pg. 169: BOSTON SANDWICHES. (Boston brown bread, Neufchatel cheese, olives, peanuts--ed.) Pg. 175: JANUARY THAW. (Brown sugar, milk, nuts, butter--ed.) TESTED RECIPES: CONTRIBUTED BY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE RICHMOND VISITING NURSE ASSOCIATION Richmond, RI 1925 (?) (unpaginated--ed.) PHILIPINO ROLL FILIPINO ROLL POTATO VOLCANO TOCKWOTTEN COOKIES NELLIE HAWK'S COOKIES SNIPPY DOODLES SNICKERDOODLES JEWISH DANTIES (Rugelach? Dainties?--ed.) 1 cup flour, well sifted 1 cream cheese 1/2 cup butter Mix night before using, and set on ice. In morning roll out, cut in squares, turn over each point and bake. Put in each a little jam, jelly or lemon filling. Mrs. Hinchliffe, Carolina. CHINESE CHEWS SPANISH CLUB SANDWICHES MILK SHAKE (Not a "cabinet"!--ed.) A RHODE ISLAND RULE BOOK by Leah Inman Lapham Providence, RI: Oxford Press 1939 Reprinted, March 1945 Pg. 8: JOHNSTON SPANKS (A.M.P.)...JOHNNY CAKES. Pg. 9: KEACH CAKES (Blanche). Pg. 28: MONKEY FACES. THE RHODE ISLAND HANDBOOK by Mark Patinkin illustrated by Don Bousquet N. Attleborough, Mass.: Covered Bridge Press 1994 Pg. 33: WORDS I'D WISHED I'D HAVE PUT IN "THE RHODE ISLAND DICTIONARY" Meatbowls--(Enhances Pahster.) Motta--(Someone who likes to suffa.)(PS: That's "martyr" by the way, not "mother." Though some say the two words are synonymous.) Torque--(Talk.) Yerp--(Continent west of Ay-zher.) Pg. 24: THE DIALECT TERM I SEARCHED FOR IN VAIN LAST BOOK AND FINALLY FOUND THIS TIME. "The Rhode Island Glottal Stop." Pg. 118: RHODE ISLAND'S FOUR MAJOR LIQUID FOOD GROUPS Coffee milk. Del's Frozen Lemonade. Quahog Chowder. Awful-Awfuls. (Joonya Orfuls-Orfuls also available.) FOUR MORE RHODE ISLAND LIQUID FOOD GROUPS Coffee Cabinets. Iced coffee. Dunkin Donuts coffee--regula. And finally: Coffee syrup (straight up). Pg. 120: OFFICIAL LOCAL CONDIMENT Vinega. But it only counts on fries. THREE MAJOR FOOD GROUPS Grindas. Grindas. And grindas. Pg. 121: THE RHODE ISLAND SANGWIDGE See "Grindas" above. Though if you call it a sandwich, you're allowed to use wheat bread. You're not, however, allowed to call it a Roe Dyelin sangwidge if you simply fill it with turkey and mayo. You have to go ethnic. In most places, order an eggplant parmesan sandwich on white, and you might cause a riot. Here, no one would blink. Pg. 124: THE SHAW DINNA Some here say the closest thing to a secular temple in Rhode Island is the Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall, consecrated to the worship of clamcakes and chowder. And corn and fries. And cole slaw. And bakeed fish with creole sauce. And don't forget the boiled lobster, boiled chicken and linguine with clam sauce. And fish and chips. And did I mention the Indian pudding and watermelon? After the above is consumed during early evening services, it's traditional to ride the Plunge and the Corkscrew roller coaster. Then you eat a doughboy--a ring of fried fat the size of an El Dorado hubcap--and call it a Rhode Island night. RHODE ISLAND'S VERSION OF FAST FOOD: FAST FISH The standout example is clam cakes. They were made famous by the Rocky Point Palladium which has a special window offering an elaborately well-thought-out menu of Rhode Island choices giving you the option of clamcakes, clamcakes, clamcakes, or clamcakes. DECIDING WHAT TO ORDER FOR DINNER, RHODE ISLAND VERSION "Stot with chowda, Chollie?" "Fine, Dahris, and maybe we split a plate of stuffies. You want anything else for an app?" "Maybe some steamiz and clamcakes. But only if they have the lih'il necks. What do you like for the main cawse?" "Not a grinda, I had one for lunch: sorsage and peppiz." "Let's go with a New Yawk System, Chollie. Or do they seuhve Saugies here?" "What difference? Wenniz ah weeniz. They're all bellybustiz to me." "Weeniz ahnt weeniz, Chollie. There's nuthin' like a Pawdog." 9-23, 1998, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. D-11 _NATIVES' GUIDE TO GREATER RHODE ISLAND_ _Tasty tidbits we call our own_ Awful-Awfuls... Coffee milk... Clamcakes... Doughboys--Elsewhere they're called fried-dough. (...) The Dynamite--Comes to us courtesy of Woonsocket--A long submarine roll covered with a mixture of ground meat, tomato sauce, peppers, onions and other spices. You can get them at restaurants in the Woonsocket area, but the locals there say they really should be made at home by mom. French fries--A real native drowns her French fries in vinegar (cider vinegar please, none of that red wine stuff). (...) Gaggers, bellybusters, weiners (sic)--You can probably get these elsewhere, but we sure do consume a lot of these little hot dogs smothered with mustard, relish, onions, chili sauce and celery salt. We even have a whole chain of stores named--what else--New York Systems. Indian pudding--a cornmeal and molasses pudding. Don't say "yuck," it's a killer when served hot with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream melting over the top. Gets you through our long gray winters. Johnnycakes... Malassadas---A cousin to the doughboy. (Not in the revised OED--ed.) (...) Saugy--Our own hot dog; we order 'em by name. They've been around 100 years or so and snap and spew when broken--due to those natural lamb casings, no doubt. What's in 'em? Veal, pork jowls, beef, shaved ice, nonfat dry milk, secret spices and "a little" sodium notrate. Yum. Stuffies--A few little pieces of rubbery clams mixed in with lots of breadcrumbs and spices and then mounded back inside a quahog shell and sprinkled with paprika. Best consumed at a bar abd washed down with a nice cold beer. Zeppole... _NATIVES' GUIDE TO GREATER RHODE ISLAND_ _What we're really trying to say is..._ (...) Bubbla: A drinking fountain. Cabinet: A milk shake or a frappe. A cabinet is milk and ice cream; an ice cream soda is ice cream and soda water; a milk shake is syrup and milk. You won't get any strange looks around here if you belly up to an ice cream bar and say, "I'd like a coffee (or chocolate, or vanilla) cainet, please." Cleansers: It's "cleaners" everywhere else. (...) Frankfoots: Hot dogs, like they serve in Germany. Grinda: A grinder here is a sub, a torpedo or a hoagie elsewhere. (...) Quahog: The Indian word for clam. Tiny clams, called cherrystones, are eaten raw on the half-shell; little necks appear cooked as clams casino. Chowders are big and tough, so they're usually cut up for chowder and for stuffies--stuffed quahogs. See, we've come to call chowders quahogs. And we argue about how to spell quahog (or quahaug?) and how to say it (KWAW-hawg or KO-hawg?). But we love our clams. Rhode Island: The name of the state is pronounced Rud-EYE-lin. (...) Sangwich: Sandwich. (...) Tumaytuz, peppuz: Tomatoes, peppers. (...) 8-20-1989, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. M-04 _R. I. SPEAKS_ by MARRY ANN SORRENTINO (...) "American bread": The soft loaf in the plastic bag. As opposed to "bread": the crusty Italian loaf purchased at the bakery,. which, in Rhode Island, exists on nearly every block. "Bubbler"... "Cleansers"... "Doughboy"... "Down-cella"... "Downtown": No matter what direction you're coming from, if you're heading for Providence, you're heading "downtown." (Note: Rhode Islanders over 60 may say "down-city.") Identification by emploer... "Jitney"... "New York ystem"... Past tense--present tense: A grammatical construction that produces such oddities as "She went and see" and "They came and buy." (Legend has it that the infinitive was lost in the hurricane of '38.) "Regular coffee": Coffee with cream and sugar. "Snail salad": Garden inhabitants crawling through piles of lettuce may spring to mind, but this is a seafood dish. "Twenty minutes": The amount of time Rhode Islanders say it takes to drive from "downtown" (Providence) to almost any other point in the state. Rhode Island's size notwithstanding, don't believe it. 5-14-1991, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. E-01 _To a youngsta in Utah, a pitcha of Rhode Island_ by MARK PATINKIN (...) And speaking of language, we use it in other novel ways, too. If you come here and someone barks at you: "Jee-jet?" This simply means, "Did you eat yet?" Once they get to know you, they will be more familiar and simply say, "Jeet?" (...) From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Jan 25 07:49:19 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 23:49:19 -0800 Subject: Fwd: how to speak execliche Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 20:29:56 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 15:29:56 -0500 Subject: Ketchup, Parmesan Cheese, Olio?, Vanilla? (1698); No "Congo Bar" in Nestle (1962) Message-ID: KETCHUP OED has 1711 for "ketchup." A quick check of LITERATURE ONLINE has: Pope, Water, d. 1714 (From MORAL AND POLITICAL FABLES (1698)): Pg. 95: Here's all variety your heart can wish, Olios, Ambigues, Bisques, Grilliades, Cocoes, Vinelli, Pigniates, Pistaccios, _Parmisan_ Cheese, Botargo, Caveare, And Ketchup, which will make you please your Wife, And several other Dishes, whose strange Names The untravelld Mouse had never heard before;... --------------------------------------------------------------- NO "CONGO BAR" IN NESTLE (1962) PERFECT ENDINGS: CHOCOLATE DESSERT AND BEVERAGE COOK BOOK >From the Test Kitchens of The Nestle Company, Inc. 1962 No "Congo Bar" here. No "Blondies" either. Sand Tarts, 63 (...) Stackmores (dessert), 109 Pg. 109: STACKMORES SPREAD 6 graham crackers with 1 tbs. marshmallow cream, each SPRINKLE each with 1 tsp. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels Repeat layer on each and top with graham cracker YIELD: 6 (S'MORES are STACKMORES?..."Congo Bar" is mentioned in a Joan Nathan article about a bakery in Little Compton, RI in the NEW YORK TIMES, 6 September 1989, pg. C3--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 23:38:03 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 18:38:03 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: What other food book has this? Nigella, Emeril, Martha Stewart, John Mariani--they don't know "jeet jet." Two records from OCLC WorldCat: Title: Light, bluesy and moody. Author(s): Ammons, Gene. ; prf Publication: Mercury Year: 1950-1959? Description: 1 disc.; 33 1/3 rpm. mono.; 12 in. Language: N/A Music Type: Jazz Contents: Red top.--Hot springs.--When you're gone.--Little slam.--Concentration.--Idaho.--Jeet Jet.--Odd-en-dow.--McDougal's sprout.--Hold that money. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Jazz. Note(s): Program notes on container./ Participants: Jazz ensembles; featuring Gene Ammons, tenor saxophone. Class Descriptors: LC: M1366.A66 Material Type: Music (msr); LP (lps) Document Type: Sound Recording Entry: 19801208 Update: 20011008 Accession No: OCLC: 7011515 Database: WorldCat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Light, bluesy and moody Author(s): Ammons, Gene. prf Publication: [Chicago] :; Wing, Year: 1958 Description: 1 sound disc :; analog, 33 1/3 rpm, stereo. ;; 12 in. Language: N/A Music Type: Jazz Standard No: Publisher: SRW-16156; Wing Contents: Red top -- Hot springs -- When you're gone -- Little slam --Concentration -- Idaho -- Jeet jet -- Odd-en-dow -- McDougal's sprout -- Hold that money. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Saxophone with jazz ensemble. Note(s): Tenor saxophone with jazz ensemble./ Program notes on container. Other Titles: Red top.; Hot springs.; When you're gone.; Little slam.; Concentration.; Idaho.; Jeet jet.; Odd-en-dow.; McDougal's sprout.; Hold that money. Responsibility: Gene Ammons. Material Type: Music (msr); LP (lps) Document Type: Sound Recording Entry: 19860201 Update: 20011023 Accession No: OCLC: 13097014 Database: WorldCat From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sat Jan 25 23:44:31 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 18:44:31 -0500 Subject: Congo Bar origins (Boston Globe, 1994) Message-ID: 08/25/1994 The Boston Globe City Edition 3 (Copyright 1994) Mystery clouds the origins of the congo bar. Who invented it? When? How did it get its name? Just one thing's sure: The cookie is a winner. Consider its antecedents. The congo bar is "the brownie" version of a chocolate chip cookie, explains baker Judy Rosenberg, owner of Rosie's Bakery. "Anything that's in any way reminiscent of the chocolate chip cookie is an all-American favorite." Chewy with brown suger, rich with butter, studded with walnuts and semisweet chocolate chips, the congo bar is a classic lunchbox treat. Hefty squares of the cookie are now sold around Boston, alongside upscale baked goods. Reference staff at Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library have sought the source of the recipe -- and its name -- without luck. Even so, there's a core concept to the congo bar. For example, we knew the thin, rather dry versions weren't it. Nor was the tall, mild, cakelike example. The paradigm should be medium-thick, moist and sweet. We found it. Even other bakers referred us to Rosie's. Rosenberg got her first congo bar recipe from a friend 20 years ago, when she was starting out baking in her home. She now sells about 1,200 of the cookies a week at her various stores. A person can invent what they like to explain the congo bar. Our theory is, arm yourself with a glass of milk and try one. Rosie's Bakery, 9 Boylston St., Chestnut Hill, Newton. 277-5629. The bakery's congo bars are $1.50 each. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 26 00:56:29 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 19:56:29 -0500 Subject: Ketchup, Parmesan Cheese, Olio?, Vanilla? (1698); No "Congo Bar" in Nestle (1962) In-Reply-To: <0F8FA2A8.3CF29B72.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: At 3:29 PM -0500 1/25/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >KETCHUP > > OED has 1711 for "ketchup." A quick check of LITERATURE ONLINE has: > >Pope, Water, d. 1714 (From MORAL AND POLITICAL FABLES (1698)): >Pg. 95: > Here's all variety your heart can wish, > Olios, Ambigues, Bisques, Grilliades, > Cocoes, Vinelli, Pigniates, Pistaccios, > _Parmisan_ Cheese, Botargo, Caveare, > And Ketchup, which will make you please your Wife,... It's those natural mellowing agents... >NESTLE (1962) >PERFECT ENDINGS: >CHOCOLATE DESSERT AND BEVERAGE COOK BOOK > >From the Test Kitchens of The Nestle Company, Inc. 1962 > >Stackmores (dessert), 109 > >Pg. 109: >STACKMORES >SPREAD 6 graham crackers with 1 tbs. marshmallow cream, each >SPRINKLE each with 1 tsp. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels >Repeat layer on each and top with graham cracker >YIELD: 6 >(S'MORES are STACKMORES?... Evidently. Now we know what the apostrophe replaced: a removed tack. And obviously "some mores" was just a convenient reanalysis. Larry From e.pearsons at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 26 00:51:50 2003 From: e.pearsons at EARTHLINK.NET (Enid Pearsons) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 19:51:50 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: ...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? Enid From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Jan 26 01:39:08 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 20:39:08 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: <000b01c2c4d5$1cded940$6401a8c0@Enid1> Message-ID: >...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? > >Enid I always thought the full dialogue was "Jeet jet?" "No, Jew?" Didn't Woody Allen once have a routine in Annie Hall or somewhere about the antisemitism revealed in the above? larry From dsgood at VISI.COM Sun Jan 26 02:13:10 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 20:13:10 -0600 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: 1) According to a native of Pittsburgh, the proper pronunciation is "needs warshed". 2) In a Usenet discussion, someone from Northern Ireland was very surprised to learn that "needs washed" is unusual in any part of the English-speaking world. From lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG Sun Jan 26 06:50:01 2003 From: lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG (Scott Sadowsky) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 01:50:01 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <3E32EFD6.1632.799E2E@localhost> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hpst at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Jan 26 15:06:51 2003 From: hpst at EARTHLINK.NET (Page Stephens) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 07:06:51 -0800 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: Perhaps my ear is entirely out of tune with the rest of you but as a person who grew up in Southern Illinois the correct pronunciation of the word is woyshed a pronunciation I keep until this day just so that I can upset my friends who incorrectly pronounce it warshed wahshed, etc. Everyone ultimately has to draw a line in the sand, and this is where I draw mine. Page Stephens ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Goodman" To: Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 6:13 PM Subject: needs washed > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dan Goodman > Subject: needs washed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > 1) According to a native of Pittsburgh, the proper pronunciation is > "needs warshed". > > 2) In a Usenet discussion, someone from Northern Ireland was very > surprised to learn that "needs washed" is unusual in any part of the > English-speaking world. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Jan 26 17:28:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 12:28:30 EST Subject: Mall Punk, Flyering, Teensploitation, ATMitations, Human Shields Message-ID: OT: Quickly, while doing the laundry...I have a blind date to see THE PRODUCERS in a few hours. I'm a great date. I take a woman to "Big Apple Corner" near THE LATE SHOW, explain that I'll never be on David Letterman or any tv show ever, and explain that my gross lifetime earnings from writing and researching is below two thousand dollars (before expenses)...The woman who set this up is my sister's mother-in-law, who also set up my super-successful "interview" with a literary agent a while back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- MALL PUNK, FLYERING, TEENSPLOITATION From the NEW YORK POST, 26 January 2003, pg. 52, col. 1: _Teensplotation_ _The art of selling almost anything to kids_ (...) In describing how one anti-corporate punk kid from Long Island protests the global marketplace, she writes, "He has tried to break out of that trap by 'flyering,' or giving out Zeroxed copies of invites to (rock) shows to a breed of kids he calls 'mallpunks.'" ("Mallpunk" or "mall punk" is not in the OED, but has over 50,000 Google hits--ed.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- ATMitations From the NEW YORK POST, 26 January 2003, pg. 19, col. 2: _It's money in the bank for guys on the make_ (...) An online novelty store is offering real-looking ATM slips, with whopping account balances, that can be pulled from (Col. 3--ed.) your pocket and used as a handy piece of paper on which to jot a telephone number. "You'll make a deposit into her account in no time," boasts the Web site www.pullmyfinger.com, which sells "ATMitations" at $3.95 for a pad of 24 slips. (I can do this legally, but this leads to a lasting relationship of trust?--ed.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- HUMAN SHIELD "Human shields" are heading to Iraq. These are people who don't believe in war, so they're willing to sacrifice their lives so that a madman can develop chemical and biological weapons. Something like that--the logic escapes me. "Human shield" is not in the OED. It certainly was used in the first round with Iraq, as the below NYPL citation shows. There's probably no real definitive origin--even ancient warring armies had "human shields" to protect their leaders. There are no MAKING OF AMERICA cites, however. Call # JFE 94-15266 Author Lewis, Tim, 1953- Title The human shield : British hostages in the Gulf and the work of the Gulf Support Group / [by Tim Lewis with Josie Brookes]. Imprint Lichfield, Staffordshire : Leomansley Press ; London : Distributed by Turnaround, 1991. LOCATION CALL # STATUS Humanities-Genrl Res JFE 94-15266 Location Humanities-Genrl Res Descript xi, 494 p. : ill., maps ; 22 cm. Subject Iraq-Kuwait Crisis, 1990-1991. Hostages -- Iraq -- History. Hostages -- Kuwait -- History. Hostages -- Great Britain -- History. British -- Iraq -- History. British -- Kuwait -- History. Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- Iraq. Iraq -- Foreign relations -- Great Britain. Add'l name Brookes, Josie. From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Jan 26 17:39:48 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 12:39:48 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: <000b01c2c4d5$1cded940$6401a8c0@Enid1> Message-ID: >...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? > >Enid ~~~~~~~~~~ dInIs wrote to Ads-L on 12/7/01: >I think (but I haven't seen it for a while, and, as Ellen Johnson >suggests, it is a bit old-timey) that the entire conversation from >the old Shuy-Preston USIA film was >Jeet chet? >Nachet. Jew? >No. >Skweet. Slate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A. Murie From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Sun Jan 26 13:49:48 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:49:48 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Woody Allen did indeed complain about the antisemitism of "No, Jew," and, like larry, I forgot where. By the way, the 'full full form' of the dialog is: Jeet jet. No; jew? No. Skweet; slate. dInIs >>...which, it seems to me, should be "jeet chet." Any cites? >> >>Enid > >I always thought the full dialogue was > >"Jeet jet?" >"No, Jew?" > >Didn't Woody Allen once have a routine in Annie Hall or somewhere >about the antisemitism revealed in the above? > >larry From ron.silliman at VERIZON.NET Sun Jan 26 13:25:20 2003 From: ron.silliman at VERIZON.NET (Ron) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:25:20 -0500 Subject: "Happy Super Bowl" Message-ID: Yesterday, I noticed some workers at a change of shift at the King of Prussia Mall wishing one another "Happy Super Bowl," as though it were some kind of holiday. It made an impression, perhaps because the local team -- the Eagles -- are so pointedly not playing this year. But it was the first time I had heard the event treated linguistically as though it were some kind of holiday. Has anyone else heard that? Ron From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Sun Jan 26 20:34:35 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 14:34:35 -0600 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Sun Jan 26 21:25:51 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 15:25:51 -0600 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: I am glad it is not just me, Ron. I also had always assumed it was "f*cking-A", half the time with "f*ckin" instead of the -ing, and I had only heard it with a preceding "you" or ANYTHING following it (John, Charlie, etc.) fewer than ten times ever. I did not have the sense at all, growing up (in the 70s and 80s -- having almost never heard it since then) that it meant something like "you are so right". To me, it was always much more of a rejoinder of surprise, or even upset (for example, "Fuckin-A, I can't believe he did that."). Maybe I just misunderstood it all those years, but I certainly had the sense in the groups I "hung" in, that it was somewhat negative, always a surprise, and sometimes even a shocked response. -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 10:59 AM Subject: Fuck an A >> > Just for the record, I tried this out on my students, all linguistics majors > in a capstone seminar, and all nine native speakers liked "-ing" rather than > "an." And all nine had never heard the phrase prefixed with "you" or suffixed > with "John" or anything else. It had never occured to them to speculate about > what "A" could mean. > > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Jan 26 22:03:36 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 14:03:36 -0800 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: i'm watching Manhattan again (tenth time or so), and checked out the beginning of Annie Hall (almost as many viewings). i'm almost positive that the "anti-semitic 'jew eat'" bit occurs in Play It Again, Sam (which i don't have a copy of at home); it's part of the manhattan vs. l.a. theme of that movie, as i remember. but i could just be misremembering. i do that. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Mon Jan 27 03:22:16 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 21:22:16 -0600 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: >From an online script of Annie Hall (I can't vouch for accuracy): ROB Alvy, you're a total paranoid. ALVY Wh- How am I a paran-? Well, I pick up on those kind o' things. You know, I was having lunch with some guys from NBC, so I said ... uh, "Did you eat yet or what?" and Tom Christie said, "No, didchoo?" Not, did you, didchoo eat? Jew? No, not did you eat, but Jew eat? Jew. You get it? Jew eat? -----Original Message----- From: Arnold Zwicky [mailto:zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU] Sent: Sun 1/26/2003 4:03 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) i'm watching Manhattan again (tenth time or so), and checked out the beginning of Annie Hall (almost as many viewings). i'm almost positive that the "anti-semitic 'jew eat'" bit occurs in Play It Again, Sam (which i don't have a copy of at home); it's part of the manhattan vs. l.a. theme of that movie, as i remember. but i could just be misremembering. i do that. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 04:14:25 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 23:14:25 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: <200301262203.h0QM3ap04118@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: >i'm watching Manhattan again (tenth time or so), and checked out >the beginning of Annie Hall (almost as many viewings). i'm almost >positive that the "anti-semitic 'jew eat'" bit occurs in Play It >Again, Sam (which i don't have a copy of at home); it's part of the >manhattan vs. l.a. theme of that movie, as i remember. > >but i could just be misremembering. i do that. > Could be any of those three--I've seen them all, and can't recall which of them it came from. The lobsters were Annie Hall, but the rest... From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 06:38:35 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 01:38:35 EST Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder Message-ID: "Snail salad" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. Will it be in the next volume of DARE? "Rabe" is in Merriam-Webster, with a first date of only 1976. "Rabe" is not in the OED. Well, "rabe" is _sort of_ in the OED. It says that "rabe" is "rabbi." Correct this at once. MY RABBI IS NOT MADE OF BROCCOLI! 12-2-1992, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-02: _FOODWISE R.I. cuisine from traditional to ethnic_ by Donna Lee (...) That led to talk about Rhode Island food. My husband, a Rhode Island native, asked which foods I had never tasted before I moved from Massachusetts 10 years ago. It was a long list. First was spinach pie. In my north-of-Boston town, it meant quiche made with spinach--not Rhode Island's spinach-filled turnover. I had eaten marinated squid and octopus in Boston but never heard it called snail salad. We had sugared fried dough at fairs, but didn't call them doughboys. The list included coffee syrup, Del's frozen lemonade, pepper biscuits, rice pie at Easter, deep-fried smelts, jonnycakes, French pork pie, plain tomato pie instead of cheese-topped pizza. I never tasted any of these until I moved south of the Bay State border. We had clam fritters, but nothing like the mostly dough clam cakes of Rhode Island. As a Bostonian, I never encountered a N.Y. System wiener. I'm still not converted; I'd rather have a Saugy (another Rhode Island discovery) than the squishy-soft N.Y. System wiener. A decade later, I' still trying to understand why some spell it "wiener," some spell it "weiner" and some shops spell it both ways on the same store front. Rabe--which I learned to cook by tasting the great version at Mike's Kitchen at the VFW Post in Cranston--was new to me 10 years ago. Since then, Boston's culinary horizons have broaded, and rabe wouldn't be so unusual. But 10 years ago, innovative restaurants such as Biba, Hamersley's Bistro, Jasper's, Olives, East Coast Grill and Michela's were still in Boston's future; Yankee standards such as Parker House scrod and Durgin Park Indian pudding were the norm, and not many Yankees ate rabe. 10-18-1988, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-01: _WHAT'S UP ON THE HILL:_ _We owe "our own" clam cakes and red chowder to the earliest Italian immigrants_ by Donna Lee Many of Rhode Island's favorite foods can be traced to Italy. Even those doughy deep-fried balls known as clam cakes have an Italian heritage. "Neapolitans called them 'pizzette' and served them in fish restaurants," says Nancy Verde Barr of Providence, who is completing a book of souther Italian cooking to be published by Knopf. Rhode Island and Manhattan each have a red clam chowder. Manhattan chowder starts with vegetables and contains no milk. One of Rhode Island's versions combines milk, clams, potatoes and tomatoes. Guess who put tomatoes in the chowder? "The Italians," says Barr, who has taught Italian food history ar Brown University Learning Community. 4-27-1994, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. G-02: _Baking powder history_ Baking powder is what makes muffins, banana bread and cakes rise. Rumford Baking Powder was launched 140 years ago right here in Rhode Island, developed by Eben Horsford. He was a chemistry professor at Harvard University, a position endowed as the COunt Rumford chair. While another brand had been introduced around that time in Boston, Rumford's endured. The East Providence Historical Society is marking the anniversary of Rumford Baking Powder with displays throuhgout May. (...) When George F. WIlson and Horsford started Rumford Chemical Company in 1854 in what is now East Providence, the name of Horsford's benefactor was used for the company. As the business grew, the community in East Providence became known as Rumford. Rumford Baking Powder is now manufactured in Terre Haute, Ind. 10-15-1997, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. C-04: The Rumford Chemical Works was historically important because it was the first company that made baking powder, according to Edna Anness, curator of the East Providence Historical Society. Gearoge F. Wilson, a businessman, and Eben N. Horsford, a scientist, established a plant here in 1856, and over the years it employed thousands of people. (...) Rumford got its name from the plant and came to be known as the "kitchen capital of the world." (The first company to make "baking powder" or not? It was made in 1854 or in 1856? Did the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL and the East Providence Historical Society forget _everything_ in the three years between articles?--ed.) From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Mon Jan 27 07:19:53 2003 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 23:19:53 -0800 Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder Message-ID: Just what is a N.Y. System weiner or wiener anyway? 50 years of eating in NYC and I never heard of it. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 10:38 PM Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder > "Snail salad" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND > DRINK. Will it be in the next volume of DARE? > "Rabe" is in Merriam-Webster, with a first date of only 1976. "Rabe" is > not in the OED. Well, "rabe" is _sort of_ in the OED. It says that "rabe" > is "rabbi." Correct this at once. MY RABBI IS NOT MADE OF BROCCOLI! > > > 12-2-1992, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-02: > _FOODWISE R.I. cuisine from traditional to ethnic_ > by Donna Lee > (...) That led to talk about Rhode Island food. My husband, a Rhode Island > native, asked which foods I had never tasted before I moved from > Massachusetts 10 years ago. > It was a long list. > First was spinach pie. In my north-of-Boston town, it meant quiche made > with spinach--not Rhode Island's spinach-filled turnover. > I had eaten marinated squid and octopus in Boston but never heard it > called snail salad. We had sugared fried dough at fairs, but didn't call > them doughboys. The list included coffee syrup, Del's frozen lemonade, > pepper biscuits, rice pie at Easter, deep-fried smelts, jonnycakes, French > pork pie, plain tomato pie instead of cheese-topped pizza. I never tasted > any of these until I moved south of the Bay State border. > We had clam fritters, but nothing like the mostly dough clam cakes of > Rhode Island. > As a Bostonian, I never encountered a N.Y. System wiener. I'm still not > converted; I'd rather have a Saugy (another Rhode Island discovery) than the > squishy-soft N.Y. System wiener. A decade later, I' still trying to > understand why some spell it "wiener," some spell it "weiner" and some shops > spell it both ways on the same store front. > Rabe--which I learned to cook by tasting the great version at Mike's > Kitchen at the VFW Post in Cranston--was new to me 10 years ago. > Since then, Boston's culinary horizons have broaded, and rabe wouldn't be > so unusual. But 10 years ago, innovative restaurants such as Biba, > Hamersley's Bistro, Jasper's, Olives, East Coast Grill and Michela's were > still in Boston's future; Yankee standards such as Parker House scrod and > Durgin Park Indian pudding were the norm, and not many Yankees ate rabe. > > > 10-18-1988, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-01: > _WHAT'S UP ON THE HILL:_ > _We owe "our own" clam cakes and red chowder to the earliest Italian > immigrants_ > by Donna Lee > Many of Rhode Island's favorite foods can be traced to Italy. > Even those doughy deep-fried balls known as clam cakes have an Italian > heritage. "Neapolitans called them 'pizzette' and served them in fish > restaurants," says Nancy Verde Barr of Providence, who is completing a book > of souther Italian cooking to be published by Knopf. > Rhode Island and Manhattan each have a red clam chowder. Manhattan > chowder starts with vegetables and contains no milk. One of Rhode Island's > versions combines milk, clams, potatoes and tomatoes. Guess who put tomatoes > in the chowder? "The Italians," says Barr, who has taught Italian food > history ar Brown University Learning Community. > > > 4-27-1994, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. G-02: > _Baking powder history_ > Baking powder is what makes muffins, banana bread and cakes rise. > Rumford Baking Powder was launched 140 years ago right here in Rhode > Island, developed by Eben Horsford. He was a chemistry professor at Harvard > University, a position endowed as the COunt Rumford chair. > While another brand had been introduced around that time in Boston, > Rumford's endured. > The East Providence Historical Society is marking the anniversary of > Rumford Baking Powder with displays throuhgout May. (...) > When George F. WIlson and Horsford started Rumford Chemical Company in > 1854 in what is now East Providence, the name of Horsford's benefactor was > used for the company. As the business grew, the community in East Providence > became known as Rumford. Rumford Baking Powder is now manufactured in Terre > Haute, Ind. > > > 10-15-1997, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. C-04: > The Rumford Chemical Works was historically important because it was the > first company that made baking powder, according to Edna Anness, curator of > the East Providence Historical Society. > Gearoge F. Wilson, a businessman, and Eben N. Horsford, a scientist, > established a plant here in 1856, and over the years it employed thousands of > people. (...) Rumford got its name from the plant and came to be known as > the "kitchen capital of the world." > > (The first company to make "baking powder" or not? It was made in 1854 or in > 1856? Did the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL and the East Providence Historical Society > forget _everything_ in the three years between articles?--ed.) > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 27 14:40:53 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 08:40:53 -0600 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) Message-ID: I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody Allen movie. Gerald Cohen >At 2:34 PM -0600 1/26/03, Millie Webb wrote: >I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining >about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the >example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one >guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have >not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I >first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:11:35 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:11:35 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't think anyone so far has suggested that the Woody Allen movie was the source of this. dInIs >I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I >distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to >my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to >Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I >wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating >something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some >general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody >Allen movie. > > >Gerald Cohen > >>At 2:34 PM -0600 1/26/03, Millie Webb wrote: >>I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining >>about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the >>example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one >>guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have >>not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I >>first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:19:17 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:19:17 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:40 AM -0600 1/27/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: >I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I >distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to >my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to >Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I >wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating >something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some >general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody >Allen movie. > > >Gerald Cohen My claim was not that Woody Allen invented the exchange, which is simply a recognition of the common occurrrence of palatalization in fast speech. What he invented, in "Manhattan" or "Play It Again, Sam" [the latter a nice example of an unappreciated genre, Movie Titles Based on Movie Misquotes], was the riff off the (mock-)claim that the "No Jew" part represents anti-Semitism. larry > >>At 2:34 PM -0600 1/26/03, Millie Webb wrote: >>I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie. He was complaining >>about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer. I believe he gave the >>example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one >>guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew". I have >>not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I >>first saw it over ten years ago. -- Millie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:24:38 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:24:38 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:19 AM -0500 1/27/03, Laurence Horn wrote: >At 8:40 AM -0600 1/27/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: >>I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I >>distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to >>my sister when we were still living in NYC. I moved from NYC to >>Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I >>wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating >>something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some >>general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody >>Allen movie. >> >> >>Gerald Cohen > >My claim was not that Woody Allen invented the exchange, which is >simply a recognition of the common occurrrence of palatalization in >fast speech. What he invented, in "Manhattan" or "Play It Again, >Sam" [the latter a nice example of an unappreciated genre, Movie >Titles Based on Movie Misquotes], or "Annie Hall" after all, as it appears from Matthew Gordon's evidence >was the riff off the (mock-)claim >that the "No Jew" part represents anti-Semitism. > >larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:37:24 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:37:24 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030126013609.02b463f0@66.36.96.30> Message-ID: At 1:50 AM -0500 1/26/03, Scott Sadowsky wrote: >On 2003-01-25 21:13, Dan Goodman wrote the following: > >>1) According to a native of Pittsburgh, the proper pronunciation is >>"needs warshed". >> > >That epenthetic /r/ is hardly ubiquitous in Pittsburgh -- it seems >to be limited to certain segments of the working class. It has, >however, been taken to be prototypical of Pittsburgh speech, and >I've seen it mentioned as being the "authentic" Pittsburgh >pronunciation in booklets of the "How to speak Pittsburghese" ilk. > >The "needs"+past participle construction seems to be universal thereabouts. > Along the same lines: "need/want" + p.ppl. is typically taken to be a shibboleth for Pittsburghese (although technically, as we've seen, it extends to S. and C. Ohio and other adjacent and even non-adjacent areas), while the "warshington" R is thought of as much more widely dispersed. This is, to be sure, what dInIs would call perceptual dialectology rather than the real thing. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Jan 27 15:49:23 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:49:23 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe... In-Reply-To: <118.1e357be4.2b662deb@aol.com> Message-ID: Barry on rabe: > "Rabe" is in Merriam-Webster, with a first date of only 1976. "Rabe" is >not in the OED. Well, "rabe" is _sort of_ in the OED. It says that "rabe" >is "rabbi." Correct this at once. MY RABBI IS NOT MADE OF BROCCOLI! > Another spelling of this (superb) vegetable is "raab". Note the AHD4 entry: ============ broccoli raab PRONUNCIATION: r?b VARIANT FORMS: or broccoli rabe NOUN: A vegetable plant (Brassica rapa) related to the turnip and grown for its pungent leafy shoots. Also called rapini. ETYMOLOGY: Italian broccoli di rapa : broccoli, pl. diminutive of brocco, sprout, shoot; see broccoli + di, of (from Latin d; see de-) + rapa, turnip; see rape2. =============== And no, "raab" isn't in the OED either. A search conducted recently for a different purpose (I was trying to convince a friend that broccoli rabe/raab is in fact identical to rapini, rather than a different and more (or less) bitter vegetable) happened to turn up (heh heh) many examples of both "raab" and "rabe" spellings. I had previously encountered only the latter, but the former has the virtue of yielding the right pronunciation. There's also the spelling "rape", although it seems to have undergone taboo avoidance. larry P.S. Is "pungent" the right adjective? For me, broccoli rabe is bitter (which isn't a pejorative) but not pungent. Coriander/cilantro is pungent (which isn't a pejorative either). From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Jan 27 16:56:05 2003 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 11:56:05 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >larry writes: > >P.S. Is "pungent" the right adjective? For me, broccoli rabe is >bitter (which isn't a pejorative) but not pungent. >Coriander/cilantro is pungent (which isn't a pejorative either). ~~~~~~~ Raab, since I found it in a seed catalog 8 or 10 yars ago, has been the favorite summer veg in our garden. It is less sweet than standard broccoli, and much more flavorful. It is somewhat bitter, but it is a rich bitterness, much more satisfying than bland broccoli. It also has the advantage of being not as palatable to the cabbage butterfly, the larvae of which will skeletalize broccoli in a matter of days while barely touching raab. A. Murie From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 17:28:48 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 12:28:48 EST Subject: Snail Salad Message-ID: In a message dated 1/27/03 1:39:08 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > ?? "Snail salad" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND > DRINK.? Will it be in the next volume of DARE? > Is this a regionalism? If not, DARE won't have it. And shouldn't. In fact, should any dictionary list SNAIL SALAD? Should it really be a lexical entry in any reference work except MAYBE something so specialized as an ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD? Or a cookbook? If one thinks of all the things that one could make a salad out of, it would take a book as big as a volume of DARE just to list them all. We could call it "Barry's Dictionary of Salad," and each of the zillion entries could list the earliest date that Barry could find for each one after traveling the world and reading salad menus and old newspapers. In 1973&1974 we used the following sentence as a repetition test for North Carolina informants: "We both like to eat snail salad often." I thought we were making up "snail salad" -- at any rate no one in North Carolina had ever eaten such a thing. We thought that the absurdity (to our North Carolina informants) of eating snails would distract our subjects from focussing any attention on the pronunciation of the final fricative in "both." From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 18:16:17 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:16:17 EST Subject: "You don't have to be a murderer..." Message-ID: In a message dated 1/24/03 9:20:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, jester at PANIX.COM writes: > I'm sure that Mr. Shapiro will apply his statement "my book > will be limited to more significant quotations" in order to > prevent such random detritus from clogging up his book. As I commented earlier, it is better for Mr. Shapiro to have an overflowing slush pile than an empty page in his book. Which reminds me: OED2 does not have "slush" in the meaning "unsolicited manuscripts". I seem to recall that this sense was used in Aldous Huxley's novel _Point Counterpoint_ - Jim Landau From bjv6xc at UMR.EDU Mon Jan 27 18:14:31 2003 From: bjv6xc at UMR.EDU (Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student)) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 12:14:31 -0600 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From stevekl at PANIX.COM Mon Jan 27 18:31:59 2003 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:31:59 -0500 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Czech, there's a sentence you can type into your computer that contains all of the letters in Czech with diacritics (a thru y with length mark, s, c, z, r, e and n with hackek, and u with krouzek) so you can see whether or not you/re getting all the special characters: The too pinkish horse groaned demonic odes. Unfortunately, relaying this sentence in Czech would look like gibberish in most people's screens. In fact, if some of the more techincally minded can help me wade through UNIX (I've set the proper LANG in PINE, and I've added it to my .config, but I still can't get it to display properly), please drop me a private email. Thanks. -- Steve Kl. From alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET Mon Jan 27 18:43:18 2003 From: alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET (george.sand) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:43:18 -0500 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 27 20:42:49 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:42:49 +0100 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox Message-ID: Finnish goes one better. The word "t?rkylempij?vongahdus", which means "trashlover's bawl", contains all the letters in the Finnish alphabet, just once. Finns do not use B, C, F, Q, W, X or Z. Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Kl." To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 7:31 PM Subject: [ADS-L] beyond the quick brown fox > In Czech, there's a sentence you can type into your computer that contains > all of the letters in Czech with diacritics (a thru y with length mark, s, > c, z, r, e and n with hackek, and u with krouzek) so you can see whether > or not you/re getting all the special characters: > > The too pinkish horse groaned demonic odes. > > > -- Steve Kl. > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Mon Jan 27 20:42:28 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 15:42:28 -0500 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox In-Reply-To: <004e01c2c644$ac0ffd40$911642d5@oemcomputer> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Jan Ivarsson TransEdit wrote: #Finnish goes one better. The word "t?rkylempij?vongahdus", which means #"trashlover's bawl", contains all the letters in the Finnish alphabet, #just once. Finns do not use B, C, F, Q, W, X or Z. #Jan Ivarsson "Bawl" (loud shout or weeping) or "ball" (toy, or formal dance event)? -- Mark A. Mandel #----- Original Message ----- #From: "Steve Kl." #To: #Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 7:31 PM #Subject: [ADS-L] beyond the quick brown fox # # #> In Czech, there's a sentence you can type into your computer that contains #> all of the letters in Czech with diacritics (a thru y with length mark, s, #> c, z, r, e and n with hackek, and u with krouzek) so you can see whether #> or not you/re getting all the special characters: #> #> The too pinkish horse groaned demonic odes. #> > #> -- Steve Kl. #> # From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 20:49:32 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 15:49:32 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: HUMAN SHIELD Russell Sage has a college named after him in Troy, NY. I went to college in that town, to RPI. I was once planning to dramatize a biography of Russell Sage, and I was familiar with the assassination attempt on Sage's life and his use of a "human shield" to save himself. "Human shield" shows 301 NEW YORK TIMES hits, most in the past 15 years involving Iraq. However, the first hit is that Russell Sage incident. 18 November 1893, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: _LAIDLAW A WINNER AT LAST_ _RUSSELL SAGE MAY HAVE TO_ _PAY FOR HIS HUMAN SHIELD._ (Cheap-skate Sage didn't compensate the hapless guy much for saving Sage's life--ed.) --------------------------------------------------------------- BROCCOLI RABE As expected, Merriam-Webster's 1976 is way off. I searched for "rabe" with the keyword "broccoli," to avoid playwright "David Rabe" hits. There were 380 hits in the NEW YORK TIMES alone. Does OED need more evidence? 25 March 1928, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 49: _PRODUCE MARKETS_ (...) Broccoli rabe: Cal., crt... Tex., crt... Tex, bak... 10 April 1938, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 128: Broccoli, okra and broccoli rabe (a loose, leafy type sold by the pound like spinach) are inexpensive and good. --------------------------------------------------------------- SNAIL SALAD "New York System" is in DARE--from 1982. That's over 50 years off! "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE. It is an American regionalism. Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good citational evidence are separate questions. For what it's worth, this (which says near the bottom that "snail salad" is a "local thing" from RI) is from Google Groups: From: Bob Wells (bwells at tax.org) Subject: Re: Philadelphia Cheese Steaks View: Complete Thread (16 articles) Original Format Newsgroups: rec.food.restaurants Date: 1997/11/03 Friend wrote: > > David Hoffman (hoffman at Xenon.Stanford.EDU) wrote: > : In article <63amkd$g7t at dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, > : Avoid Jim's Steaks on South Street. It's an extremely popular > : destination, but I think it's only because of the location and the > : hype. For goodness sake, instead of real provolone they spread some > : crap on with a knife! Undoubtedly some devotees will be happy to > : contradict. > > The "crap" that you refer to is called Cheese Whiz. I like Jim's much more > than Pat's mostly because Jim's has an indoor eating area. I also hate > Cheese Whiz, but I don't see what your point is because Cheese Whiz is used > at the Pat's and just about every other place that sells cheese steaks in > Philadelphia. You get a choice of American Cheese, Cheese Whiz, or Provalone > at almost all cheese steak places. In fact, not only do people in Philly > debate where the best cheese steak can be bought, but "we" also debate whether > or not a real authentic Philly Cheese Steak has Cheese Whiz or another kind > of cheese. I prefer Provalone. I am not even sure if Cheese Whiz is a real > food product! It tastes mostly of chemicals. Provolone is what you'd get on a cheesesteak in Mass. or R.I. Much better in my book. I've been to Pat's and it was fun, but I'd say it's more of a local thing than anything else, like loose meat hamburger in Iowa, barbecued snoots in St. Louis, snail salad in RI, etc. I always try to go native, but given my choice of junk food a cheese whiz cheesesteak isn't it. Bob Wells From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Mon Jan 27 20:57:07 2003 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 14:57:07 -0600 Subject: No subject Message-ID: ads-l set no mail From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Mon Jan 27 21:05:57 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:05:57 +0100 Subject: beyond the quick brown fox Message-ID: "bawl" or "roar". I got it from Vasa linguist Rune Ingo's "Fr?n k?llspr?k till m?lspr?k" (From SL to TL), Vasa 1991. The character "?" - the a with a little circle on top, pronounced "o" - wont get through, I suppose. Regards Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark A Mandel" To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 9:42 PM Subject: Re: [ADS-L] beyond the quick brown fox > On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Jan Ivarsson TransEdit wrote: > > #Finnish goes one better. The word "t?rkylempij?vongahdus", which means > #"trashlover's bawl", contains all the letters in the Finnish alphabet, > #just once. Finns do not use B, C, F, Q, W, X or Z. > #Jan Ivarsson > > "Bawl" (loud shout or weeping) or "ball" (toy, or formal dance event)? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Jan 27 21:16:03 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:16:03 -0800 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <18.2bd571ad.2b66c650@aol.com> Message-ID: A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name "superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan 67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent coinages. From Miriam.Meyers at METROSTATE.EDU Mon Jan 27 21:20:52 2003 From: Miriam.Meyers at METROSTATE.EDU (Miriam Meyers) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 15:20:52 -0600 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of course. Miriam Meyers Miriam Meyers Professor Emerita Literature and Language Metropolitan State University St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota 612-374-5581 miriammeyers at visi.com or miriam.meyers at metrostate.edu 2000 W. 21st Street Minneapolis, MN 55405-2414 From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Jan 27 21:36:48 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:36:48 -0800 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain place, that's all. It certainly did not originally indicate knighthood, peerage, or nobility. In Germany, 'von' was used at one time by people from all classes, but as the common folk used it less and less, 'von' became nearly restricted to and associated with nobility. Therefore, in German, 'von' became a marker of nobility. However, this change did not occur in Dutch. Dick van Dyke's ancestor, for example, was not the duke of dyke. He simply was the fellow who lived near the dyke. I have also heard that a man had to pay a sum for the addition to his name. However, besides the fact that this does not have the ring of truth to it, I, in my hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in genealogical research, have never been able to substantiate this. No, no one had to purchase the the preposition in The Netherlands or Germany. Fritz Juengling >>> alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET 01/27/03 10:43AM >>> "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 21:50:12 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:50:12 -0500 Subject: Super Bowl (1966) Message-ID: From the first citation on the NEW YORK TIMES database: 4 September 1966, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 153: _National Football League Set to Open Season That Will End in Super Bowl_ From the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Word Mark SUPER BOWL Goods and Services IC 028. US 022. G & S: EQUIPMENT (OR APPARATUS) SOLD AS A UNIT FOR PLAYING A FOOTBALL-TYPE BOARD GAME. FIRST USE: 19661206. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19661206 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72261119 Filing Date December 19, 1966 Supplemental Register Date December 20, 1967 Registration Number 0846056 Registration Date March 12, 1968 Owner (REGISTRANT) TUDOR METAL PRODUCTS CORPORATION CORPORATION NEW YORK 176 JOHNSTON ST. BROOKLYN NEW YORK (LAST LISTED OWNER) NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNINC. ASSOCIATION ASSIGNEE OF NEW YORK 410 PARK AVE. NEW YORK NEW YORK 10022 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record TOWNLEY & UPDIKE Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register SUPPLEMENTAL Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 19880312 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Word Mark SUPER BOWL Goods and Services IC 041. US 107. G & S: ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES IN THE NATURE OF FOOTBALL EXHIBITIONS. FIRST USE: 19670115. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19670115 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72321005 Filing Date March 7, 1969 Registration Number 0882283 Registration Date December 9, 1969 Owner (REGISTRANT) NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNKNOWN NEW YORK 410 PARK AVE. NEW YORK NEW YORK 10022 (LAST LISTED OWNER) NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNINC. ASSOCIATION ASSIGNEE OF NEW YORK 280 PARK AVENUE NEW YORK NEW YORK 10017 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record DAVID M. PROPER Type of Mark SERVICE MARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20001206. Renewal 2ND RENEWAL 20001206 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE From alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET Mon Jan 27 21:50:22 2003 From: alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET (george.sand) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:50:22 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: "Van" in names Message-ID: Mr. Juengling I was obviously vandervelde, leftside, & stand corrected! P.K. ----- Original Message ----- From: FRITZ JUENGLING To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 4:36 PM Subject: Re: "Van" in names The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain place, that's all. It certainly did not originally indicate knighthood, peerage, or nobility. In Germany, 'von' was used at one time by people from all classes, but as the common folk used it less and less, 'von' became nearly restricted to and associated with nobility. Therefore, in German, 'von' became a marker of nobility. However, this change did not occur in Dutch. Dick van Dyke's ancestor, for example, was not the duke of dyke. He simply was the fellow who lived near the dyke. I have also heard that a man had to pay a sum for the addition to his name. However, besides the fact that this does not have the ring of truth to it, I, in my hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in genealogical research, have never been able to substantiate this. No, no one had to purchase the the preposition in The Netherlands or Germany. Fritz Juengling >>> alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET 01/27/03 10:43AM >>> "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Jan 27 21:40:02 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South Midland are in the mainstream! At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the first >time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his family >members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family combines >Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) >But here's the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public >Television repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE >the setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of course. >Miriam Meyers > > >Miriam Meyers >Professor Emerita >Literature and Language >Metropolitan State University >St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota >612-374-5581 >miriammeyers at visi.com or >miriam.meyers at metrostate.edu >2000 W. 21st Street >Minneapolis, MN 55405-2414 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 22:35:13 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:35:13 -0500 Subject: Iraqi cuisine (pacha, sabzi, manelsama) Message-ID: IRAQI CUISINE (PACHA, SABZI, MANELSAMA) "Metrognome" Gersh Kuntzman in today's NEW YORK POST (www.nypost.com) writes about that elusive Iraqi cuisine. OED doesn't have "pacha," has "sabzi" in a different meaning, and doesn't have "manelsama." Iraq is one of the few places I haven't been to and have no current plans to visit, so here goes: //metrognome logo// A very wise philosopher once said, "Before attacking your enemy, you should dine at his table." That's nice in theory, but on the eve of America's impending invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive investigation by The Post revealed that there is not a single Iraqi restaurant in the five boroughs. In a city of 8 million -- where every national cuisine from Afghani to Yugoslavian are deliciously represented along with plenty of tribal, nomadic and ethnic subcuisines -- the estimated 957 Iraqis living in New York do not have a restaurant to call their own. But one man is breaking down the U.S.-Iraq wall of enmity one lamb kabob at a time. True, none of Salam al-Rawi's downtown restaurants -- the exceptional Mamlouk and two Moustache eateries -- are exclusive outposts of that elusive commodity known as Iraqi cuisine, but they do offer a rare glimpse under the burqa that shrouds day-to-day eating under Saddam Hussein. For example, did you realize that there really is no such thing as "Iraqi cuisine"? "It's true. Even in Iraq, there are no Iraqi restaurants," al-Rawi told me. "Iraqi food is simple grilled meats and stews. All our refined dishes come from Iran." Even national dishes such as pacha (a broiled lamb head whose description is best kept vague) and sabzi (a spinach and black-eyed-pea stew) are Iranian. That's so pathetic that instead of bombing Iraq, we could demoralize it into surrender by dropping leaflets reminding Iraq of its cultural debt to Iran. No wonder Saddam deported 3 million Iranians from Iraq. He was obviously jealous. Not that al-Rawi doesn't have his culinary pride. The 47-year-old, who fled Baghdad in 1977, speaks lovingly of the lunchtime stews shared by garbagemen and government officials, the late-night grilled fish joints, the whole turnips boiled in date syrup, and the crisp Iraqi lager that he might serve at his restaurants were it not for U.N. sanctions. And don't get him started on manelsama, a nougat ball made out of hazelnut sap that is indigenous to Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq. "It is so fantastic that it is imitated all over the Middle East," al-Rawi said. As proof, he called over a Lebanese waiter, who, despite an obvious sense of culinary superiority, admitted that manelsama is a true treasure (and explains why Saddam is so desperate to hold onto Kurdistan.) It all sounded delicious. And maybe someday we'll all be able to eat at a genuine "Iraqi restaurant" -- if we can just remember the message of Salam al-Rawi's first name. --30-- gersh.kuntzman at verizon.net --------------------------------------------------------------- SOMEBODY, ANYBODY PLEASE SHOOT ME! ("HOT DOG," CONTINUED) Although my work on the "hot dog" is about eight years old, my name hasn't been mentioned in any "hot dog" story on even a single television station, radio station, or newspaper. It hasn't been for lack of opportunities. From just yesterday, courtesy of the Dow Jones database: MEATY MORSELS BUILD MORALE Craig Lovelace FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 01/26/2003 The Columbus Dispatch Home Final 05H Harry Hirschinger wants to help in the war against terrorism, and the only way he can think of is -- hot dogs. Hot dogs? The Columbus resident and Army veteran wants to feed troops serving in Afghanistan or elsewhere overseas a food as American as, well, apple pie. (...) Harry Hirschinger has spent a good portion of his adult life feeding hot dogs to U.S. troops overseas. Here's some background on his favorite food: * Beginnings: Claims exist that the hot dog was invented in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, in 1487; others say the small sausage was created in the late 1600s by butcher Johann Georghehner in Coburg, Germany, who later traveled to Frankfurt to promote his product; still others claim it was invented in the Austrian capital, Vienna (Wien in German, hence the moniker wiener ). * The name: References among German immigrants in the United States to ''dachshund'' sausages, or ''little-dog'' sausages, can be traced to the 1800s. Popular lore says that in 1901, Tad Dorgan, a New York sports cartoonist, saw vendors hawking ''red-hot dachshund sausages'' at a baseball game in the Polo Grounds. Unsure of how to spell dachshund for a cartoon, he simply wrote hot dog . However, the cartoon has never been found. * Hot dogs and baseball: In 1893, Chris Von de Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Browns, introduced baseball fans to the ballpark hot dog. * Hot dogs and buns: In 1871, Charles Feltman opened the first hot-dog stand at Coney Island amusement park in New York, selling 3,684 dachshund sausages in milk rolls. But lore says the bun was born in 1904, when Anton Feuchtwanger, a sausage vendor at the St. Louis Exposition, had his brother-in-law, a baker, improvise a long, soft roll to hold the sausage. Source: American Meat Institute, National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, qualitystreetcarts.com From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Jan 27 23:22:17 2003 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:22:17 -0600 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: Didn't the ambitious young Beethoven seek entree among the upper classes by fostering the mistaken assumption that he was "von" not "van" Beethoven (Dutch somewhere on his father's side)? -----Original Message----- From: FRITZ JUENGLING [mailto:juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US] Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 3:37 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: "Van" in names The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain place, that's all. It certainly did not originally indicate knighthood, peerage, or nobility. In Germany, 'von' was used at one time by people from all classes, but as the common folk used it less and less, 'von' became nearly restricted to and associated with nobility. Therefore, in German, 'von' became a marker of nobility. However, this change did not occur in Dutch. Dick van Dyke's ancestor, for example, was not the duke of dyke. He simply was the fellow who lived near the dyke. I have also heard that a man had to pay a sum for the addition to his name. However, besides the fact that this does not have the ring of truth to it, I, in my hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in genealogical research, have never been able to substantiate this. No, no one had to purchase the the preposition in The Netherlands or Germany. Fritz Juengling >>> alastor.shelley at VERIZON.NET 01/27/03 10:43AM >>> "Van" is the Dutch form of German "von," meaning in English "of," as in Robin of Luxley (Robin Hood.) Originally it denoted a knight or peer who carried a surname indicating the land which he ruled, as a duchy, earldom, etc. Paul Kusinitz ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Vertloo, Brian J. (UMR-Student) To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 1:14 PM Subject: "Van" in names Where does the "Van" come from in Dutch names? I've heard that a man had to pay some amount of money for the addition to his surname, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Brian Van Vertloo ------------------------------------------ The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Jan 27 23:59:55 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 18:59:55 EST Subject: Iraqi cuisine (pacha, sabzi, manelsama) Message-ID: In a message dated 01/27/2003 5:36:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > the crisp Iraqi lager that he might serve at his restaurants were it not for > U.N. sanctions. Does Iraq produce and hope to export lager beer? Or is "lager" used here to describe some non-alcoholic brew? From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 00:18:39 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 19:18:39 -0500 Subject: Contact with David Barnhart In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I am trying to reach David Barnhart. He occasionally posts to this list, but I get no response from e-mails or phone messages to him. If anyone knows how to get through to him, I would welcome any assistance with making contact. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access 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 28 00:35:52 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 19:35:52 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <69799884.2743F21E.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: At 3:49 PM -0500 1/27/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >--------------------------------------------------------------- >BROCCOLI RABE > > As expected, Merriam-Webster's 1976 is way off. I searched for >"rabe" with the keyword "broccoli," to avoid playwright "David Rabe" >hits. There were 380 hits in the NEW YORK TIMES alone. Does OED >need more evidence? Agreed; "broccoli rabe" and or "raab" should be in the OED and indeed in every dictionary and produce store. > > 25 March 1928, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 49: >_PRODUCE MARKETS_ >(...) >Broccoli rabe: > Cal., crt... > Tex., crt... > Tex, bak... > > 10 April 1938, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 128: > Broccoli, okra and broccoli rabe (a loose, leafy type sold by the >pound like spinach) are inexpensive and good. Agreed, although the first of those gets boring more quickly. Unfortunately, the price of okra and broccoli rabe have risen (even relative to other veggies, as well as absolutely) over the last 65 years. But they're still worth it. > > "New York System" is in DARE--from 1982. That's over 50 years off! I don't have my DARE on me at home, but my memory is that the dates in their entries aren't intended to give first cites the way the OED's are, but just as indices of when a given form was collected. Is that wrong? > For what it's worth, this (which says near the bottom that "snail >salad" is a "local thing" from RI) is from Google Groups: > > >From: Bob Wells (bwells at tax.org) >Subject: Re: Philadelphia Cheese Steaks > You get a choice of American Cheese, Cheese Whiz, or Provalone > > at almost all cheese steak places. In fact, not only do people in Philly >> debate where the best cheese steak can be bought, but "we" also >>debate whether >> or not a real authentic Philly Cheese Steak has Cheese Whiz or another kind >> of cheese. I prefer Provalone. I am not even sure if Cheese Whiz is a real >> food product! It tastes mostly of chemicals. > >Provolone is what you'd get on a cheesesteak in Mass. or R.I. Much better >in my book. I've been to Pat's and it was fun, but I'd say it's more of a >local thing than anything else, like loose meat hamburger in Iowa, >barbecued snoots in St. Louis, snail salad in RI, etc. I always try to go >native, but given my choice of junk food a cheese whiz cheesesteak isn't >it. Agreed, although my Philly hosts always turn up their nose at my choice of provolone, resulting in what is to them a faux-cheese steak sandwich. I guess cheez whiz is an acquired taste (and texture), but then that's what people tell me about broc. rabe and okra. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 00:55:18 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 19:55:18 -0500 Subject: Iraqi cuisine (pacha, sabzi, manelsama) In-Reply-To: <1e5.73ab7e.2b6721fb@aol.com> Message-ID: >In a message dated 01/27/2003 5:36:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, >Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > >> the crisp Iraqi lager that he might serve at his restaurants were it not >for >> U.N. sanctions. > >Does Iraq produce and hope to export lager beer? Or is "lager" used here to >describe some non-alcoholic brew? I would think the former. Lager is lager, as far as I (or the OED) know. Iraq is pretty secular as Arab/Moslem countries go (note the uncovered women in all the news shots, at least in the cities), and the beer in the equally Islamic and even more secular Turkey is pretty good. (Plus they have all that raki there, if you like licorice-flavored booze.) I had beer--I think lager--in East Jerusalem, but that was produced by Palestinian Christians. Larry P.S. Note the OED's entry for the nominal compound _lager lout_: ======== _lager lout_ colloq., a young man who behaves in an aggressive, boorish manner as a result of drinking (typically lager) excessively. ======== Something to watch out for if and when we invade. From funex79 at SLONET.ORG Tue Jan 28 01:18:12 2003 From: funex79 at SLONET.ORG (Jerome Foster) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:18:12 -0800 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many cites in google? ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 12:49 PM Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad > HUMAN SHIELD > > Russell Sage has a college named after him in Troy, NY. I went to college in that town, to RPI. I was once planning to dramatize a biography of Russell Sage, and I was familiar with the assassination attempt on Sage's life and his use of a "human shield" to save himself. > "Human shield" shows 301 NEW YORK TIMES hits, most in the past 15 years involving Iraq. However, the first hit is that Russell Sage incident. > > 18 November 1893, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 1: > _LAIDLAW A WINNER AT LAST_ > _RUSSELL SAGE MAY HAVE TO_ > _PAY FOR HIS HUMAN SHIELD._ > (Cheap-skate Sage didn't compensate the hapless guy much for saving Sage's life--ed.) > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > BROCCOLI RABE > > As expected, Merriam-Webster's 1976 is way off. I searched for "rabe" with the keyword "broccoli," to avoid playwright "David Rabe" hits. There were 380 hits in the NEW YORK TIMES alone. Does OED need more evidence? > > 25 March 1928, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 49: > _PRODUCE MARKETS_ > (...) > Broccoli rabe: > Cal., crt... > Tex., crt... > Tex, bak... > > 10 April 1938, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 128: > Broccoli, okra and broccoli rabe (a loose, leafy type sold by the pound like spinach) are inexpensive and good. > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > SNAIL SALAD > > "New York System" is in DARE--from 1982. That's over 50 years off! > "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE. It is an American regionalism. Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good citational evidence are separate questions. > For what it's worth, this (which says near the bottom that "snail salad" is a "local thing" from RI) is from Google Groups: > > > From: Bob Wells (bwells at tax.org) > Subject: Re: Philadelphia Cheese Steaks > View: Complete Thread (16 articles) > Original Format > Newsgroups: rec.food.restaurants > Date: 1997/11/03 > > Friend wrote: > > > > David Hoffman (hoffman at Xenon.Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > : In article <63amkd$g7t at dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, > > : Avoid Jim's Steaks on South Street. It's an extremely popular > > : destination, but I think it's only because of the location and the > > : hype. For goodness sake, instead of real provolone they spread some > > : crap on with a knife! Undoubtedly some devotees will be happy to > > : contradict. > > > > The "crap" that you refer to is called Cheese Whiz. I like Jim's much more > > than Pat's mostly because Jim's has an indoor eating area. I also hate > > Cheese Whiz, but I don't see what your point is because Cheese Whiz is used > > at the Pat's and just about every other place that sells cheese steaks in > > Philadelphia. You get a choice of American Cheese, Cheese Whiz, or Provalone > > at almost all cheese steak places. In fact, not only do people in Philly > > debate where the best cheese steak can be bought, but "we" also debate whether > > or not a real authentic Philly Cheese Steak has Cheese Whiz or another kind > > of cheese. I prefer Provalone. I am not even sure if Cheese Whiz is a real > > food product! It tastes mostly of chemicals. > > Provolone is what you'd get on a cheesesteak in Mass. or R.I. Much better > in my book. I've been to Pat's and it was fun, but I'd say it's more of a > local thing than anything else, like loose meat hamburger in Iowa, > barbecued snoots in St. Louis, snail salad in RI, etc. I always try to go > native, but given my choice of junk food a cheese whiz cheesesteak isn't > it. > > Bob Wells From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 01:36:14 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 20:36:14 -0500 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <000401c2c649$4ceeb5e0$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: At 1:16 PM -0800 1/27/03, Dave Wilton wrote: >A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's >discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner >Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." >This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name >"superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. I remember it as being official as of Super Bowl III, the famous Jets-Colts matchup in January '69. Remember that in those days (until the 1970 season ending in what we now call Super Bowl IV) the leagues hadn't yet merged, so it would need to be both NFL and AFL archives that would have to be checked. I've also heard the Lamar Hunt/superball theory. I wonder whether Barry's instantly-found 1966 cite makes that story less likely. >I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan >67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by >sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an >obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent >coinages. From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 28 01:41:19 2003 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:41:19 -0800 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Larry: Next time you're in Philly, go to Tony Luke's in South Philly. It's somewhere around 2nd or 3rd street south of Washington. I'm sure you can get directions. Anyway, there you can get a cheesesteak with broccoli rabe (and provolone if you must). You can also get rabe on a pork sandwich if you're in the mood. Sarcone's at 10th and Christian also has rabe on sandwiches, bu they're a little more "gourmet" than Tony Luke's. Besides Tony Luke's has the best commercials. Ed > > Agreed, although my Philly hosts always turn up > their nose at my > choice of provolone, resulting in what is to them a > faux-cheese steak > sandwich. I guess cheez whiz is an acquired taste > (and texture), but > then that's what people tell me about broc. rabe and > okra. > > larry __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 02:01:53 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:01:53 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <001b01c2c66b$211c5360$0400a8c0@charterpipeline.com> Message-ID: At 5:18 PM -0800 1/27/03, Jerome Foster wrote: >Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many >cites in google? > > Yes, and the same as rapini. By any other name it would taste as bitter. And good. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 02:11:15 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:11:15 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <20030128014119.36096.qmail@web20418.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 5:41 PM -0800 1/27/03, Ed Keer wrote: >Larry: > >Next time you're in Philly, go to Tony Luke's in South >Philly. It's somewhere around 2nd or 3rd street south >of Washington. I'm sure you can get directions. >Anyway, there you can get a cheesesteak with broccoli >rabe (and provolone if you must). You can also get >rabe on a pork sandwich if you're in the mood. > >Sarcone's at 10th and Christian also has rabe on >sandwiches, bu they're a little more "gourmet" than >Tony Luke's. Besides Tony Luke's has the best >commercials. > >Ed > Thanks, Ed. Sounds great. I'll practice by stuffing some leftover broccoli rabe into one of the "Philly Steak and Cheese Lean Pockets" currently residing in my freezer. (Actually, the rabe on a pork sandwich sounds better, but I'll wait until my next visit to the C. of B.L. for that.) Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 02:24:45 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:24:45 -0500 Subject: Ceylon "Hoppers" (1882) Message-ID: Again, this major national dish is not in the OED. 31 August 1882, FOREST AND STREAM: A JOURNAL OF OUTDOOR LIFE, TRAVEL, NATURE STUDY, SHOOTING, FISHING, YACHTING (American Periodical Series online database), pg. 86: _AN ELK HUNT IN THE "SPICY ISLE."_ (...) Into the tub, or rather small swimming bath, which is an adjunct of all good Ceylon bungalows, a grand rub down, and then into the dining-room, where ten as jolly planters as ever drunk beer, sounded a loud "toot-toot" on the old horn. "Just one more peg, old chappie," and "Here's to the health of them that's awa'in in the dear old country," sat round the festive board, the kerosene lamp struggling with the light that was slowly beginning to dawn. Eggs, bacon, bread and "hoppers," all the delicacies of a planter's morning tea, were being rapidly consumed, and the clatter of the plates was drowned by the clatter of the tongues, as every one "jawed" about his past, present or future hunts. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 02:46:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:46:52 -0500 Subject: Root Beer (1840) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster both have 1843 for "root beer," a good old American drink. LITERATURE ONLINE (prose database) has 1843, 1844, and 1845 hits. August 1842, AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST (American Periodical Series online), "SUMMER DRINKS," pg. 143, col. 2: Light beers, as ginger beer, mild hop and root beer, are economically made, palatable, not injurious, and within every one's reach. "Root beer" on New York CIty's Spring Street? This is from ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES: ITEM #15171 July 4, 1840 THE COLORED AMERICAN New York, New York J.B. BROWN & S.L. WOOD CONFECTIONARY & Fruit Store, No. 99 Spring street, corner of Mercer street. Mead, Root-Beer, Ice-Cream, Preserves, &c., Families supplied with all articles in their line. N.B. The Store is closed on Sunday. From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 02:52:19 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:52:19 EST Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: << Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many cites in google? >> Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper Italian term is "Broccoli di rape". I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in southern dialects,and it probably gained currency in English because of the uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- probably the same reason "rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." Steve Boatti From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 03:27:56 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:27:56 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <1c6.4255a79.2b674a63@aol.com> Message-ID: >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many > >cites in google? > > >> > >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper Italian term is "Broccoli >di rape". Right, from the Latin _(brassica) rapa_--all that is actually given in the AHD4 entry I posted earlier. Of course the Italian "rape" is bisyllabic. >I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in southern >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English because of the >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- probably the same reason >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." > >Steve Boatti From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 04:20:02 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 23:20:02 -0500 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <000401c2c649$4ceeb5e0$0300a8c0@HPN5290> Message-ID: At 1:16 PM -0800 1/27/03, Dave Wilton wrote: >A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's >discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner >Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." >This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name >"superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. > >I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan >67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by >sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an >obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent >coinages. Just located my copy of _The New York Times at the Super Bowl_ (1974, Leonard Koppett, ed.), and the very first columns reproduced, Jan. 8, 1967 (the week before Super Bowl I), by Frank Litsky and William N. Wallace, contain several references to "the Super Bowl" or "the Super Bowl game". But what of the Roman numerals? No references to the first one as "Super Bowl I", but then Charles I wasn't so called until II came along, right? But actually II wasn't so-called either, or III. The upcoming or just completed games, in the several columns reproduced in the book, are just called "the Super Bowl (game, contest)", as in the corresponding college bowl games ("the Rose Bowl (game)", etc., not "Rose Bowl XCVII" or whatever). Indeed, the first reference I can find in the reproduced columns to Super Bowl N for a roman numeral N is Super Bowl VI (1/15/72), in columns by Red Smith and Arthur M. Daley. But it's clear they didn't originate the practice. One of Daley's columns after the game (1/17/72) refers to "the production billed in fancy Roman numerals as Super Bowl VI." And as the commercial says, it was the Super Bowl that "turned Roman numerals into Roman numerals". Larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 04:23:40 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 23:23:40 -0500 Subject: Birch Beer (1873) Message-ID: "Birch beer" is in the OED from 1883. Both "birch beer" and "root beer" supposedly date from the American Revolution, but I sure didn't see them in the full text PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE or in GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK in ACCCESSIBLE ARCHIVES. The LOC's AMERICAN MEMORY database doesn't even have "birch beer" at all, at any time. I expected a much larger antedating, but whatever. 9 July 1873, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 5: A keg of birch beer exploded on a Jersey City fruit-stand, yesterday, doing damage to the amount of $25. 26 May 1877, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (American Periodical Series online), pg. 331: (7) T. B. asks: (...) 2. What are the quantities necessary to the gallon of carbonic-charged birch beer, to prevent it from souring? A. Unless the salt were very pure it would be liable to give a somewhat disagreeable flavor to such beer. About 5 or 10 grains to the gallon would perhaps suffice. From pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU Tue Jan 28 05:18:32 2003 From: pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter Farruggio) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:18:32 -0800 Subject: Broccoli Rabe In-Reply-To: <1c6.4255a79.2b674a63@aol.com> Message-ID: I was once told by older family members that the bitter cruciferous vegetable called broccoli rabe in the US has another name in Sicily, something like "manzanetta" (?) and that it is a relative of the mustard family of vegetables, and not closely related to broccoli, despite the fact that they are both cruciferous. Maybe a botanist can clear this up. But the story goes on to say that uneducated Italian immigrants and their children coined the term broccoli rabe for "bitter broccoli" here in the US as a way to identify it for produce people, who were more familiar with broccoli, and thus this other cruciferous green veggie is the "bitter broccoli" I also remember "rapini" as a very different veggie, common in Northern Italy, not the same thing at all. I remember some old Northern Italian (Lucca region) produce men in San Francisco misunderstanding me and giving me something they called rapini when I asked for broccoli rabe. Since I didn't look closely once I realized it was the wrong stuff, I can't remember if it was the same as the veggie called rapini in Italy. Anybody have a clearer knowledge of this? Pete Farruggio At 06:52 PM 1/27/03, you wrote: >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli rape of which there are many > >cites in google? > > >> > >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper Italian term is "Broccoli >di rape". I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in southern >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English because of the >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- probably the same reason >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." > >Steve Boatti > > >--- >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.445 / Virus Database: 250 - Release Date: 1/21/03 -------------- next part -------------- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.445 / Virus Database: 250 - Release Date: 1/21/03 From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 05:25:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 00:25:30 -0500 Subject: Ginger Ale (1863) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster have "ginger ale" from 1886. This is also the earliest date for a "ginger ale" advertisement in HARPER'S WEEKLY. Several other databases have earlier. From ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES: ITEM #5934 February, 1863 Godey's Lady's Book Philadelphia Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Vol LXVI Page 198 MISCELLANEOUS. OIL STAINS IN SILK AND OTHER FABRICS. Benzine collas is most effectual, not only for silk, but in any other material whatever. It can be procured from any chemist. By simply covering both sides of greased silk with magnesia, and allowing it to remain for a few hours, the oil is absorbed by the powder. Should the first application be insufficient, it may be repeated, and even rubbed in with the hand. Should the silk be Tussah or Indian silk, it will wash. Oil stains can also be entirely removed from silks and all dress materials, also leather, paper, etc., by applying pipe-clay, powdered and moistened with water to the consistency of thick cream, laid on the stain, and left to dry some hours, then lightly scraped or rubbed off with a knife or flannel, so as not to injure the surface. If the pipe-clay dries off quite light in color, all oil has been removed; if it comes off dark-looking, then more should be laid on, as grease still remains to be removed. Pipe-clay will not injure the most delicate tints of silk or paper. << GINGER ALE>> . To ten gallons of water, put twelve pounds of sugar, six ounces of bruised ginger (unbleached is the best). Boil it one hour, put it into a barrel with one ounce of hops and three or four spoonfuls of yeast. Let it stand three days; then close the barrel, putting in one ounce of isinglass. In a week it is fit for use. Draw out in a jug, and use as beer. (...) FATHER MATHEW by John Francis Maguire (NY: D. & J. Sodlier & Co., 1864) (MAKING OF AMERICA-Mich.-Books) Pg. 302: ...Such as Soda, Peppermt. Ginger ale, cordial, lemonade... (There are several "ginger ale" database hits for during the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial. VISITOR'S GUIDE TO NEW ORLEANS (1875) has an ad selling drinks including "Cautrell & Cochrane's Ginger Ale"--ed.) 1 November 1871, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 7: ...sell the person property of the bankrupts, consisting of a lot of ginger ale, soda, sarsaparilla, ale and porter in bottles, syrup and sugar in barrels... 8 April 1876, SATURDAY EVENING POST (American Periodical Series online), pg. 2: It may be interesting to thirsty mortals to know something of what they drink. There is no sarsaparilla in "sarsaparilla;" there is no ginger in "ginger ale;" there is nothing of a mineral character in "mineral water," and "seltzer" has nothing appertaining to the real seltzer, or Seltzer's water in its composition--except water. Ottawa beer is usually made with sugar, snake-root, and aromatics which will acetify soon after the beer is manufactured. It should be made fresh every day; but it is not. The carbonic acid gas will disguise the bad taste of stale Ottawa beer until you have swallowed it, but you may expect internal disturbances. Fresh Ottawa beer is rather a nice drink, and kept freshly on tap is rather popular in summer time. A first-class drug store will sometimes sell forty gallons daily in the sultry season. Pure sarsaparilla has no flavor at all, and the agreeable flavor of the so-called "extract of sarsaparilla" is produced by a decoction of wintergreen and sassafras. The "sarsaparilla" sold in saloons has nothing of wintergreen or sassafras, not to say sarsaparilla, in its composition. It is simply carbonated water, colored with caramel or burnt sugar, and sweetened with common syrup and bad molasses. Druggists who sell soda-water sweetened with "sarsaparilla" generally manufacture a better article from clear sugar and liquorice extract, and those who have a large soda-water trade will sometimes use the real decoction of wintergreen, oil of lemon, caramel and sassafras. "Mineral Water" is aerated water, flavored with lemon syrup of poor quality, or with aritifical sugar or glucese, manufactured from potato starch. "Ginger Ale" is aerated water sweetened with sugar, and flavored with Cayenne pepper in small quantities is rather beneficial than otherwise, and this is really a healthy and refreshing beverage compared with others. Good ginger ale--like the imported Belfast ginger ale--should be made with lemons, ginger, sugar, and tartaric (?--ed.) acid. "Seltzer water" is carbonated water flavored with salts--generally common salts, sometimes Epsom and medicinal salts. This is not a beverage very pleasant to the palate, but it certainly has a specific influence on the bowels, and is quite effective in "straightening a fellow out" when he has been meddled up over night in a crooked whisky investigation. In fact, none of the above drinks are injurious--rather the opposite, provided their bases have been made in wholesome fountains. From dsgood at VISI.COM Tue Jan 28 05:57:43 2003 From: dsgood at VISI.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 23:57:43 -0600 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <20030128050149.830DE4AFA@bodb.mc.mpls.visi.com> Message-ID: > Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 > From: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: needs washed > > Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and > Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier > writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South > Midland are in the mainstream! I'd like to look that up; where does he say this? (I'm interested in where the boundaries are in the British Isles.) Is it found anywhere in Canada? > At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that > >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the > >first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his > >family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family > >combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's > >the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television > >repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the > >setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't > >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of > >course. Miriam Meyers > > From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Tue Jan 28 06:43:23 2003 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (vida morkunas) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:43:23 -0800 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <3E35C777.7796.BE7176@localhost> Message-ID: >Is it found anywhere in Canada? I have never heard 'needs washed', neither in my native Montreal, nor in Vancouver (where I've lived since 1990) cheers - Vida. vidamorkunas at telus.net ps: am I the only Canadian here? -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Dan Goodman Sent: January 27, 2003 9:58 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: needs washed > Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 > From: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: needs washed > > Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and > Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier > writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South > Midland are in the mainstream! I'd like to look that up; where does he say this? (I'm interested in where the boundaries are in the British Isles.) Is it found anywhere in Canada? > At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that > >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the > >first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his > >family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family > >combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's > >the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television > >repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the > >setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't > >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of > >course. Miriam Meyers > > From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Tue Jan 28 12:10:57 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 07:10:57 -0500 Subject: Contact with David Barnhart Message-ID: I, too, have been trying to reach Mr. Barnhart via e-mail for several months now, and I've received no response. I would appreciate being CC'd on the contact info. Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Shapiro" To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 7:18 PM Subject: Contact with David Barnhart > I am trying to reach David Barnhart. He occasionally posts to this list, > but I get no response from e-mails or phone messages to him. If anyone > knows how to get through to him, I would welcome any assistance with > making contact. > > Fred Shapiro From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Tue Jan 28 13:43:42 2003 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 05:43:42 -0800 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: So broccoli rabe and broccoli di rape are turnip greens? JIM --- Laurence Horn wrote: > >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, > funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: > > > ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli > rape of which there are many > > > >cites in google? > > > > >> > > > >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper > Italian term is "Broccoli > >di rape". > > Right, from the Latin _(brassica) rapa_--all that is > actually given > in the AHD4 entry I posted earlier. Of course the > Italian "rape" is > bisyllabic. > > >I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in > southern > >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English > because of the > >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- > probably the same reason > >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." > > > >Steve Boatti ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 14:08:53 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 09:08:53 EST Subject: Ginger Ale (1863) Message-ID: In his very interesting set of posts on root beer, birch beer, and ginger ale, Barry Popik unfortunately fails to distinguish between soft (i.e. non-alcoholic) and hard (alcoholic) beverages. In a message dated 1/28/03 12:25:55 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > << GINGER ALE>> . To ten gallons of water, put twelve pounds of sugar, six > ounces of bruised ginger (unbleached is the best). Boil it one hour, put it > into a barrel with one ounce of hops and three or four spoonfuls of yeast. > Let it stand three days; then close the barrel, putting in one ounce of > isinglass. In a week it is fit for use. Draw out in a jug, and use as beer. If you let yeast work for a week in a closed barrel of sugar water, you are definitely going to get an alcoholic beverage. In a message dated 1/27/03 9:47:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > Light beers, as ginger beer, mild hop and root beer, are economically made, > palatable, not injurious, and within every one's reach. > Mead, Root-Beer, Ice-Cream, Preserves, &c., One cannot tell from context whether either of these two root beers are soft or hard. - Jim Landau From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 14:16:20 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 09:16:20 EST Subject: Root Beer (1840) Message-ID: An indirect citation for 1816-18 for "root beer". The Making of America database has Origin, rise, and progress of Mormonism : biography of its founders and history of its church : personal remembrances and historical collections hitherto unwritten ... . Tucker, Pomeroy 302 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. New York : Appleton, 1867. pages 11-12 state that Joseph Smith, Sr. (whose son Joseph Smith Jr. founded Mormonism) ran a "cake and beer shop" in Palmyra, New York, from 1816 to 1818. page 12 Mr. Smith's shop merchandise, consisting of gingerbread. pies, boiled eggs, root-beer, and other like notions of traffic, soon became popular with the juvenile people of the town and country, commanding brisk sales, especially on Fourth of July anniversaries, and on military training days, as these prevailed at that period. - Jim Landau (whose Mormon roommate in college called him a "Gentile") From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 15:22:38 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:22:38 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <20030128134342.3615.qmail@web9701.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 5:43 AM -0800 1/28/03, James Smith wrote: >So broccoli rabe and broccoli di rape are turnip >greens? > >JIM It certainly doesn't seem to be from the form. Turnip, collard, and mustard greens and kale are all first cousins, I'd say, and maybe beet greens as well. Broccoli rabe/raab/di rape/rape/rapini (which I'm still not convinced denote more than one vegetable among them, but Pete's message does suggest that rapini/rabe distinction I was skeptical about earlier) has something of the sharp flavor of turnip, but a very different texture and feel to it, as well as having the little florets that resemble those of broccoli or perhaps cauliflower, which the other greens don't. And stalks, although tenderer than those of true broccoli. And there's no underground part of the rabe corresponding to the turnip "bulb". So no, broccoli rabe =/= turnip greens. larry > >--- Laurence Horn wrote: >> >In a message dated 1/27/03 8:10:54 PM, >> funex79 at SLONET.ORG writes: >> > >> ><< Isn't broccoli rabe the same thing as broccoli >> rape of which there are many >> > >> >cites in google? >> > >> > >> >> > >> >Yes. "Rape" means "turnips" in Italian. The proper >> Italian term is "Broccoli >> >di rape". >> >> Right, from the Latin _(brassica) rapa_--all that is >> actually given >> in the AHD4 entry I posted earlier. Of course the >> Italian "rape" is >> bisyllabic. >> >> >I believe "Broccoli rabe" is a variation based in >> southern >> >dialects,and it probably gained currency in English >> because of the >> >uncomfortable association with the word "rape" -- >> probably the same reason >> >"rapeseed oil" is now called "canola oil." >> > >> >Steve Boatti > > >===== >James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything >South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued >jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > >__________________________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. >http://mailplus.yahoo.com From jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Tue Jan 28 16:08:39 2003 From: jdhall at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Joan Hall) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:08:39 -0600 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >I don't have my DARE on me at home, but my memory is that the dates >in their entries aren't intended to give first cites the way the >OED's are, but just as indices of when a given form was collected. >Is that wrong? DARE does try to include earliest cites, but it was only with Volume IV that we had access to Internet sources that often provide what now prove to be earliest examples. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 15:56:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:56:30 EST Subject: Congo Squares/Bars (1959) Message-ID: David Shulman left the hospital yesterday. The St. Nicholas Home kindly thought to give him some fresh air and left the window to his room open. It's FIVE DEGREES out! This David Barnhart thing is troubling. Where is he? I'll check "ginger ale" today on the BRITISH AND IRISH WOMEN'S LETTERS AND DIARIES database (only at NYU), then go to the NYPL, then scoot to Columbia for the AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES database (only at Columbia). This database searching is harder than you think. Below is a very early "Congo Squares" that beats the Harvard Square "Congo Bars" by over a decade. It's from Becky Mercuri, an ADS-L lurker with a lot of food knowledge and a gazillion cookbooks: Subj: Revised Info: Congo Bars Date: 1/27/2003 4:59:43 PM Eastern Standard Time From: Beckymercuri To: Bapopik Barry: My mom went on a search and destroy mission - the more she thought about the dating of Congo Bars, the more she decided they were later than 1950. She found them: Nestles Semi-Sweet Chocolate Kitchen Recipes, 1959, 64 pages. It's listed in Col. Bob Allen's A Guide to Collecting Cookbooks. The actual recipe appears as "Congo Squares." Becky From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Jan 28 16:37:15 2003 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Gerald Cohen) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:37:15 -0600 Subject: Superbowl Message-ID: First, thanx for the clarification about the Woody Allen movie "Manhattan." I think I made the final statement in my last e-mail a bit stronger than I intended. Now, to "Superbowl." I remember the great amount of hype that accompanied the first Superbowl. The football announcers had evidently been told to talk up the upcoming Superbowl, and in the preceding month or so there was continual mention of "the Superbowl on Super Sunday" (add emotional overtones of great anticipation; as one announcer said: "...the Superbowl on Super Sunday. I can't wait!") This all got to be a bit too much for one sportswriter, who wrote a humorous column attaching "super" to as many nouns as he could. I only remember one specific quote from this lampoon: "Then the super coach blew his super whistle,..." So, with football announcers talking up the Superbowl (or was it "the Super Bowl?) and with fans able to refer to it by no other term, this term was about as official as one could get whether or not a committee specifically authorized it. But football announcers don't go off on their own in talking up a new term/product/etc. They clearly had their marching orders. Those marching orders clearly came from above--from the highest authorities in football, whoever they were. It's therefore hard to imagine the term not being official right from the beginning. Gerald Cohen At 1:16 PM -0800 1/27/03, Dave Wilton wrote: >A question came up about the origin of the term "Superbowl" on my site's >discussion board. A common tale is that it was coined by a KC Chiefs owner >Lamar Hunt in 1970 after seeing his daughter playing with a "superball." >This has all the marks of an apocryphal story, but evidently the name >"superbowl" was not used officially by the NFL until 1970 or so. > >I know the OED has a cite from 1966 (a reference to the upcoming game in Jan >67), but is this an isolated use or was the term in general use by >sportswriters and others before the NFL adopted it? Super + bowl is such an >obvious coinage that I wouldn't be surprised if there were independent >coinages. From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 16:51:03 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 11:51:03 EST Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: In a message dated 1/27/03 3:50:09 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > ?? "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE.? It is an > American regionalism.? Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good > citational evidence are separate questions. > I'm certainly willing to be educated, but I found 8,000 hits for this on Google, from Hollywood to Rhode Island. It seems to me that anybody who eats seafood can conceive of seafood salad, and anybody who eats snails could well eat snail salad. So how can SNAIL SALAD be a genuine compound word at all, much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON or DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 17:04:22 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 12:04:22 EST Subject: Superbowl Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 11:39:52 AM Eastern Standard Time, gcohen at UMR.EDU writes: > But football announcers don't go off on their own in talking up > a new term/product/etc. They clearly had their marching orders. > Those marching orders clearly came from above--from the highest > authorities in football, whoever they were. No, football announcers (and other announcers as well, and do you "commentators"?) take their orders from their employers. Some football announcers work for the networks and some work for local stations. The networks hyped the Super Bowl because it meant high ratings for the actual broadcast, which means they could charge more for commercials. Local stations do not usually do much to hype network shows---why bother? the network is already doing that. It might be interesting to see whether annuncers working for local stations also hyped the Super Bowl. Perhaps they did not. No, the "highest authorities in football" did not give marching orders to the announcers. Why not? They didn't have to. Football, as a business, was interested in increasing its revenue, which a highly-publicized national championship would do. Hence football and the networks were allies in pushing the Super Bowl, and undoubtedly got together to plot advertising strategy, so it did not matter in practice that football did not give orders to announcers, since the networks were happy to. This brings up the purely academic question: was it football or the networks that invented the phrase "Super Bowl"? - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 17:14:02 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 12:14:02 -0500 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:37 AM -0600 1/28/03, Gerald Cohen wrote: > > So, with football announcers talking up the Superbowl (or was it >"the Super Bowl?) and with fans able to refer to it by no other term, >this term was about as official as one could get whether or not a >committee specifically authorized >it. But football announcers don't go off on their own in talking up >a new term/product/etc. They clearly had their marching orders. >Those marching orders clearly came from above--from the highest >authorities in football, whoever they were. It's therefore hard to >imagine the term not being official >right from the beginning. > >Gerald Cohen I'm not sure what determines officialness, but at the time it was often stated that the game was officially the NFC-AFC Championship Game and that the moniker "Super Bowl" was an unofficial sobriquet that everyone used illicitly, including (as I mentioned) the N. Y. Times columnists. Eventually the league (post-merger) gave way on that. I'm not sure why columnists, announcers, and ordinary folks couldn't use a term without the "marching orders" you mention, or why their use of such term entails that it was official at that time. League materials in the first couple of years consistently referred to it as the Championship Game, not as the Super Bowl. A parallel is in baseball, where the 7 game series between the National League and American League champions to determine the World Series participants, and more recently also the series leading up to those series, have been universally called the playoffs since they began in 1969 (when there was just the one pre-World Series series). But this has never been official usage, which only sanctions NLCS, ALCS, and (now) Divisional Series. Yes, these terms are popularly used as well, but alongside the unsanctioned "playoffs". Back to football: In the Times book, all the columnists spelled it "Super Bowl", on the model of "Rose Bowl", "Orange Bowl", etc. Larry From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Jan 28 18:31:59 2003 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:31:59 -0500 Subject: Query -- Scantily Clad Message-ID: Hello All. Thanks to the mud-wrestling commercial - I have this assignment. The early hits in the New York Times from the mid-to-late 1800's are literal. Poor, destitute children with not enough clothes on for the cold were "scantily clad." In 1861, a "recruit who was scantily clad for a sea voyage..." [NY Times]; in 1885, "a sandy waste, which is scantily clad with herbage." [OED]. Then, in 1897, "Father Adam and Mother Eve in their most primitive condition would blush for the unloveliness of their scantily clad descendants,..." about a day at the beach in Atlantic City. After that the "pejorative" sense proliferates, but is still generic. Now to modern day: I conducted a very unscientific experiment using Nexis: Plug in "scantily clad" in the last 60 days (90 won't work because it gives more than 1,000 and Nexis is persnickety about that) and you get 675 hits. Subtract women from the equation - it drops to 295. Similarly, - girl* drops to 207, -dancer* to 190, -waitress* to 173, -woman to 137, -cheerleader* to 131, - female* to 119, -babe* to 115, -virgin* to 111, -model* to 99, -chick* to 98. ["scantily clad superwomen amazons", and "scantily clad bimbos" were in there, but didn't cross my mind when conducting the search]. Of the 98 remaining [fudge factor, for some reason Nexis only gave me 95 when I downloaded] only 25 referred to something other than women, ie. men, feet, "spring breakers," tuna, etc. Some of the references to the "scantily clad" man are pejorative, most are literal, "scantily clad man found dead in home" sort of thing. Several show use of the idiotic phrase "scantily clad clothing." So the question is, how [and when, if anyone has an idea] did this completely innocuous phrase which meant someone just didn't have enough clothes on, move to a moral judgement about the amount of clothing someone was wearing, to a pejorative statement almost completely reserved for females? Any suggestions, other examples of such phrases, comments about my being off-base, miraculous answers - welcome. Thanks, Kathleen E. Miller Research Assistant to William Safire (who, without my huge wool/leather coat, would be "scantily clad" for our 29 degrees) The New York Times From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 18:38:57 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:38:57 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) In-Reply-To: <1ad.f88b02a.2b680ef7@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It > APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON or > DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. This raises an interesting question for Barry: Does Barry believe that "committee chairperson" and "lexicon inflater" should be in the OED? Everything I see in his postings suggests to me that his answer would be "yes." Fred -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 28 18:43:26 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:43:26 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. John Baker From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 28 18:50:51 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:50:51 -0500 Subject: Human Shield (1893); Broccoli Rabe (1928); Snail Salad Message-ID: Did someone call for a botanist? I'm a horticulturist, which is like calling for a supermodel and getting a dancer from a two dollar cover bar, but I seem to be the best you've got. All the vegetables in question here are in the genus Brassica and several of them are even the same species, Brassica oleracea. So turnip (Brassica rapa, just to confuse things) is a first cousin to broccoli (Brassica oleracea italica). But broccoli in its various forms, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, and others are more like identical twins raised in different families, being the same species with variations that have been selected out over the centuries from the same wild plant, a leafy cabbage. Because of the complex history, there is not unaminity among taxonomists -- there seldom is -- but here is how the NYT Book of Vegetable Garden shakes it out: broccoli Brassica oleracea italica cabbage Brassica oleracea capitata Brussels sprouts Brassica oleracea gemmifera cauliflower Brassica oleracea botrytis collards Brassica oleracea acephala kale (common) Brassica oleracea acephala Chinese cabbage Brassica chinensis and B. pekinensis kohlrabi Brassica caulorapa (listed with oleracea by some) mustard Brassica juncea rutabaga Brassica napobrassica turnip Brassica rapa Hortus III has a slightly different take on it, as does Bailey's Manual of Cultivated Plants. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World has about twenty pages that further confuse the issue. Barry, if you haven't looked at this book, you really should. None of this actually nails it. I went through some seed catalogs with emphasis on foreign ... I mean international seeds, and most duck the issue. But Pinetree Seed gives the following: "Broccoli di rapa. Called Broccoli Raab or Rapini in this country, this is actually a non-heading broccoli." None of this, of course, makes much difference once it's steamed with a little butter. D From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Jan 28 19:01:00 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 11:01:00 -0800 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, January 28, 2003 1:43 PM -0500 "Baker, John" wrote: > Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing > snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad > with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the > latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee > chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. Or, e.g., if it DOESN'T actually contain snails, but rather something that reminded its inventor of snails. I.e., if the term is something like "dirty rice." Peter Mc. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Jan 28 19:07:26 2003 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 14:07:26 -0500 Subject: Query -- Scantily Clad Message-ID: I'm not sure I really see the claimed evolution of the phrase in your examples. As far as I can tell, "scantily clad" simply means "not wearing enough clothing," and it's maintained that meaning over time, although the phrase seems to have become more common and to be applied more frequently to sexually provocative attire. I suspect that such evolution as has occurred tells us less about the phrase than about societal mores and changing fashions: In recent decades, society has allowed women to wear less clothing but has condemned them for it. When men wear less clothing, however, it's not necessarily seen as sexually provocative. John Baker From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 19:07:32 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 14:07:32 EST Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: >>Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad with snails?? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.)? If the latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee chairperson" to being a genuine compound word.>> I agree, but the strength of the claim rests really upon the degree to which the compound does not merely equal the sum of its parts, and perhaps on how important the referant is culturally. I don't see any evidence that the difference between SNAIL SALAD and 'a salad made from snails' is very important outside of a cookbook. And to Fred (below) ne might well ask what the upper limit is, e.g., what about CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISTION COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON SEAT? In a message dated 1/28/03 1:39:24 PM, fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU writes: > On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > > much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It > > APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON > or > > DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. > > This raises an interesting question for Barry:? Does Barry believe that > "committee chairperson" and "lexicon inflater" should be in the OED? > Everything I see in his postings suggests to me that his answer would be > "yes." > > Fred > From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Tue Jan 28 19:08:57 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:08:57 -0600 Subject: "Van" in names Message-ID: I can tell you that -- these days anyway -- if someone has "von" in their last name in Germany or German territories before WWII, it is highly likely (if not certain) that they are descended from nobility. Everyone in our little village of Hohnhorst, talked of "The Von Hohnhorsts" with somewhat of a mix of awe of their nobility and jealous snideness about the fact that they still owned most of the property in the village and just rented it to "regular people". I had a friend when studying in Tuebingen, who was a "Freiherr Johannes von ____". he said it was essentially a useless title of viscount (his older brother would be the count, I believe), that made him "unlanded gentry" because his family came West from Ostpressuen during and after the War. Then they settled in Southern Schwabia, about as dialectally different from Ostpreussen as one could get at the time.... -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joyce, Thomas F." To: Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 5:22 PM Subject: Re: "Van" in names > Didn't the ambitious young Beethoven seek entree among the upper classes by fostering the mistaken assumption that he was "von" not "van" Beethoven (Dutch somewhere on his father's side)? > > -----Original Message----- > From: FRITZ JUENGLING [mailto:juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US] > Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 3:37 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "Van" in names > > > The German and Dutch forms have the same meaning--'from.' It originally meant someone from a certain From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Tue Jan 28 19:16:47 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:16:47 -0600 Subject: needs washed Message-ID: Sorry if this gets posted twice, but it seemed to send only to Vida the first time.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't think you are quite the ONLY Canadian here, but probably one of few. Anyway, I have heard "needs + PP" in Southern Ontario quite a bit. BUT, I need to add that many of the people I know in So Ontario are Amish/Mennonite, who came up from (mostly) PA, OH and IN, either 100 years ago, or in the newer settlements, about 20 years ago. Whichever time they (or their ancestors) came up to Canada, they could have brought that regionalism with them. They tend to be very conservative linguistically as well.... Then again, I cannot say I have ever consciously observed how many times I have heard it from Old Order Amish (OOA) versus Mennonites versus "regular Canadians". -- Millie PS - I NEVER heard it growing up in the Twin Cities in MN, until my German teacher (who was originally from PA) used it in class, and was ribbed about it for some time (he even said "warshed"). ----- Original Message ----- From: "vida morkunas" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 12:43 AM Subject: Re: needs washed > >Is it found anywhere in Canada? > > I have never heard 'needs washed', neither in my native Montreal, nor in > Vancouver (where I've lived since 1990) > > cheers - > > Vida. > vidamorkunas at telus.net > > ps: am I the only Canadian here? From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 20:02:21 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:02:21 -0500 Subject: Query -- Scantily Clad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:07 PM -0500 1/28/03, Baker, John wrote: > I'm not sure I really see the claimed evolution of the >phrase in your examples. As far as I can tell, "scantily clad" >simply means "not wearing enough clothing," and it's maintained that >meaning over time, although the phrase seems to have become more >common and to be applied more frequently to sexually provocative >attire. I suspect that such evolution as has occurred tells us less >about the phrase than about societal mores and changing fashions: >In recent decades, society has allowed women to wear less clothing >but has condemned them for it. When men wear less clothing, >however, it's not necessarily seen as sexually provocative. > >John Baker cf. _scanties_ for women's (and not men's) undergarments. I thought this was a relatively new usage, but consider: "Shuffle Off to Buffalo", from 42nd Street, 1932, Dubin (lyrics)/Warren (music) Dick Powell singing to Ruby Keeler: I'll go home and get my panties You go home and get your scanties And away we'll go; Mm, off we're going to shuffle, Shuffle off to Buffalo Interestingly, this relaxes the [+female] constraint on "panties" while maintaining it for "scanties". This constraint is observed by all the OED cites (except the ironical one from 1959) and implied by the gloss itself: SCANTY n. Now only pl. Underwear, esp. short knickers or panties for women. colloq. (orig. U.S.). 1928 J. P. MCEVOY Show Girl (title-page), The hottest little wench that ever shook a scanty at a tired business man. 1929 M. LIEF Hangover 269 There's no law in New Jersey forcing a husband to look at his wife's scanties, is there? 1934 T. SMITH Bishop's Jaegers 5 Whereas men..still struggle along with the old-fashioned..name of drawers..women have far outstripped them. Theirs must be known now by such frivolous... appellations as panties, scanties.. step-ins..and other similar..terms. 1944 E. CARR House of All Sorts 101 A puff of wind from the open door caught and ballooned the scanties. 1951 M. DICKENS My Turn to make Tea iv. 73 No don't go, dear. You've seen me in my scanties, anyway. 1959 'O. MILLS' Stairway to Murder vii. 75 'Now you've got some midnight-blue scanties.' He held up Charles's underpants apologetically. 1964 J. HALE Grudge Fight I. i. 22 Bennet, who always looks after number one, is wearing Scapa scanties next to the skin. Long underpants and a long-sleeved vest made of thick, oily wool. 1977 Time 24 Jan. 46/1 Maddie's blue scanties emerge from the M.P.s' briefcases at inauspicious moments and whip through the air like naval pennants. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Jan 28 20:09:30 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:09:30 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) In-Reply-To: <634160.1043751660@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: At 11:01 AM -0800 1/28/03, Peter A. McGraw wrote: >--On Tuesday, January 28, 2003 1:43 PM -0500 "Baker, John" > wrote: > >> Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing >>snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad >>with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the >>latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee >>chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. > >Or, e.g., if it DOESN'T actually contain snails, but rather something that >reminded its inventor of snails. I.e., if the term is something like >"dirty rice." > e.g. if it's just very slow-moving salad From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Tue Jan 28 20:27:36 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:27:36 -0500 Subject: Broccoli Rabe Message-ID: Here we go. The Cooks Garden by Shepherd Ogden says: "A member of the mustard family that is often mistaken for broccoli is spring raab, or rapini. It is not really a broccoli at all, but was selected from turnips for its shoots and flowers. Gourmet Gardening from Organic Gardening (under Brassica campestris) "This variously-spelled vegetable is well known to Americans of Italian stock ... this tender shoot of the wintered-over turnip is as welcome sight in early April, when it parts the soil as one of the first greens of the new gardening year. Also called turnip broccoli, which is almost a direct translation of the Italian phrase broccolini di rapa ..." D From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Jan 28 20:26:56 2003 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 12:26:56 -0800 Subject: Superbowl In-Reply-To: <167.1ac87581.2b681216@aol.com> Message-ID: > This brings up the purely academic question: was it football > or the networks > that invented the phrase "Super Bowl"? Not "the networks," but perhaps "the media." The TV contract for the first Superbowl wasn't granted until mid-December 1966, well after use of the term was established. As to who invented it, as always one has to rely on the cites. Neither the OED cite or the one Barry provided uses the quotes on the term. To me this indicates that these aren't the first uses of the term. I expect that earlier cites will turn up and that the term was probably independently coined by a number of sportswriters. The NFL officials didn't object to it and eventually, some years later, embraced it. And was the hype for the first Superbowl all that big? (Being 3-years old at the time, my own memories are suspect.) I do know that about a third of the seats in the LA Coliseum were empty and the TV broadcast was blacked out in LA, so if there was a lot of hype it didn't work too well. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 20:31:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:31:28 -0500 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: "Snail salad" and "stuffies" deserve to be in the next volume of DARE, just as much as "New York System" (over 50 years off on the dating) and "May breakfast" (about 100 years off on the dating) and "doughboys" and "johnnycake" and "cabinet" were in previous DARE volumes. "Snail salad" wasn't mentioned by John Mariani in his ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK, and I just pointed out again that he missed some Americanisms. "Snail salad" also deserves serious consideration for the OED and the food book that David Barnhart is writing (wherever he is). "Lexicon inflator"? I have to respond to this? DARE and others can use my work for free. I spent my own money to take a train up to Providence. It cost me about $200, or about 20% of my lifetime earnings. Maybe sometime, somewhere, somehow, SOMEONE CAN THROW SOME KIND WORDS MY WAY? Maybe give me credit for my own work once in a while? Maybe I have to work much harder for a few more decades? Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with "lexicon inflator"? This is from the Sterns, authors of ROADFOOD and experts on American regional cuisine (taken from the earliest article in the Dow Jones database): LIFESTYLE / FOOD A TASTE OF AMERICA A QUIRKY OCEAN STATE SPECIALTY: RED, WHITE, AND PERFECT By Jane and Michael Stern, Syndicated Columnists, {C} 1987, Jane and Michael Stern 08/05/1987 The Record, Northern New Jersey For a little state, Rhode Island has a mighty big cuisine. In fact, there are few places anywhere in the United States with as vivid a sense of culinary self. First there is the actual matter of size. The classic Rhode Island meal is gigantic, whether it is all-you-can-eat chicken (accompanied by mountains of swirly cinnamon rolls) or an oceanside shore dinner of chowder, clam cakes, steamers, lobster, fish, and watermelon. At Archie's Tavern in Pawtucket, prime rib is listed on the menu as a "Neanderthal cut." Order pork chops, and you get three. The Boathouse Restaurant in Warwick features the "Eat 'Til You Drop" breakfast special: They keep bringing eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, pancakes, French toast, potatoes, and coffee until you tell them to stop. It is not just huge portions that make eating in Rhode Island so exhilarating. Athough Ocean State cuisine is Yankee in spirit, many of the specialties are unique, even quirky. Snail salad, johnnycakes, "New York system" hot dogs, "cabinets" (known to the rest of the world as milkshakes), stuffies (stuffed quahog clams), and clam cakes: No one else makes any of these quite the way they're made in Rhode Island. And that is the way the locals like it. Rhode Islanders are feisty when it comes to eating; they relish arguments. They will tell you, for instance, that a johnnycake (the cloud-light pancake for which the state is best known) is good only if it is made with ultrafine locally stone-ground white cornmeal. Furthermore, they debate among themselves whether johnnycakes should be plate-wide and paper-thin (as at Commons Lunch in Little Compton) or silver dollar size and pillowy (as at the Dovecrest Restaurant in Arcadia). Swordfish is another issue. Everybody knows that the finest swordfish are caught off Block Island. But netting 'em isn't good enough for Rhode Island seafood aficionados. They explain that if a fish is caught in a net, it gets dragged in the water for hours before it's pulled up. During that time, the flesh starts to soften. So they insist upon harpooned swordfish only, which are hauled in and dressed immediately. If you really want to engage an Ocean Stater in a culinary colloquy, bring up the issue of chowder. North of Rhode Island, chowder hounds insist that it be white and creamy. South, you'll find partisans of the creamless red variety (Manhattan style). Rhode Island has its very own style of chowder _ a creamless, tomato-less ocean broth containing little more than clams, potatoes, and the smack of salt pork. To confuse the matter even more, most local restaurants offer all three kinds, and some of the finest shore dinner halls sell a fourth, made with both cream and tomatoes! A fine place to investigate the chowder phenomenon, as well as Rhode Island gastronomy in all its summertime glory, is the Rocky Point Park Shore Dinner Hall. Here is shoreline eating at its happiest. Rocky Point is an amusement park. Its Chowderdome is an immense pavilion capable of serving 20,000 people a day at tables as long as bowling alleys. It is noisy and brusque, and it smells of cool ocean breezes and hot corn on the cob. Chowder is the heart and soul of every meal, whether you come for only chowder (accompanied by puffy clam cakes) or a full-scale shore dinner, from steamer clams and drawn butter to Indian pudding for dessert. The chowder they serve is the weird, fourth kind _ not New England, not Manhattan, not even the official clear Rhode Island variety. It is more like an ocean-scented cream of tomato soup. We have named our version Chowderdome Chowder in honor of Rocky Point. It's great with any seafood, from sophisticated fish to tuna salad sandwiches. CHOWDERDOME CHOWDER 1/4 pound salt pork, diced 1 onion, chopped 2 cups potatoes, diced 1 1/2 cups boiling water 2 cups chopped clams 1/2 cup chopped stewed tomatoes 1/8 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup cream Salt and pepper 8 saltine crackers 4 tablespoons butter Fry pork in skillet until crisp. Remove pork with slotted spoon and reserve. Fry onion in fat until soft. Pour fat and onion into stockpot. Add potatoes. Add water. Simmer until potatoes soften, about 15 to 20 minutes. Add clams. Mix tomatoes and baking soda and add to pot. Simmer 5 minutes. Stir in cream and heat to simmer, but do not boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place saltines at bottom of 4 soup bowls. Pour in soup. Top each serving with pat of butter, and garnish (if desired) with salt pork cracklings. DRAWING - WILLIAM HOGAN / THE RECORD - Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 28 20:52:42 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:52:42 -0500 Subject: screw loose/a screw Message-ID: This is from the NY Herald, May 27, 1842, p. 1, col. 5. [A convict, awaiting a trial on an additional charge, escaped "by walking out of the prison door in broad day light." The Herald complained that this was the 3rd escape in recent months.] The keeper must look to his "screws" as some of them are certainly more than loose. This alludes to the expression "to have a screw loose", which the OED cites from 1810, 1821, 1848, 1833, 1841, 1870. The citations are in that order, which seems odd. All I think are from English sources. So this passage, though 32 years later than the earliest citation, stands as the first American citation. In addition, the passage exhibits the word "screw", referring to a prison guard. Curiously, this sense isn't in the OED at all, although Partridge's Dictionary of the Underworld traces it to 1821, I think -- it's not to hand -- and it's also in Farmer & Henley. It was Brendan Behan's ordinary term for prison guard in Borstal Boy. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 20:58:28 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:58:28 -0500 Subject: Superbowl; Pescatarian, Deck Message-ID: PESCATARIAN, DECK From the NEW YORK SUN, 28 January 2003, pg. 1, col. 1: _Brooklyn's Happy Hipster Is Definitely "Deck"_ By LAUREN MECHLING Leave it to the author of "The Hipster Handbook" to ask a reporter to meet him at Oznot's Dish, a Williamsburg joint where, Zagat's cautions, "waiters with sideburns set the tone." Robert Lanham, 31, is all too happy to decree that everybody else in the restaurant is a hipster, but over a plate of vegetarian crepes (he's a pescatarian, thank you very much), he squirms when asked if he counts himself among them. Apparently, there's something Zen Koanish about being a hipster: If you are one, you wouldn't dare say so. And if you aren't one, then you can say whatever floats your boat. This mum's-the-word-when-asked-if-you're-a-hipster rule is just the tip of the iceberg in Mr. Lanham's super-sharp bible of what is cool, or, as he calls it, "deck." (...) ("Deck"?...There's a nice mention of "pescatorian" on the AskOxford web site. I couldn't find "pescatorian" beyond the 2 September 1994 post on Google Groups--ed.) --------------------------------------------------------------- "SUPER BOWL" AND MORE I just did a check of THE SPORTING NEWS here at NYU Bobst. 23 July 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 50, col. 5: Partisans of both sides will contend with heated eloquence until the "world-world" match reduces speculation to a hard fact next January. 5 November 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 2, col. 3: ...the super championship game between the National and American Football League winners on SUnday, January 8. 26 November 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 12, col. 3: Then early in the "mud bowl" game which the Pats and Broncos played in Fenway Park... 10 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 2, col. 3: _How About It, Boys? Let's Have Dream Bowl_ Commissioner Pete Rozelle--you're doing a nice job, Peter, with your championship game, the Runner-up Bowl, the Super Bowl and the Pro Bowl. How about going one step further and playing a Dream Bowl matching the stars of the American Football League against the stars of the National Football League? 17 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 6, col. 2: _Will Super Bowl Pot Nip Player Rebellion?_ (...) ...the first meeting of the league champions, generally called the Super Bowl. 24 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 7, col. 3: _Chiefs Dreaming of Cookie Jar_ (...) (They ought to call that bowl the Cookie Jar because the sweet swag is $15,000 each for the winners, $7,500 for the losers.) FWIW: HOT DOG 17 December 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 14, col. 3: It has already been noted by the punsters that when San Francisco hired Peanuts Lowrey as a coach, it was a great ad for the concessions stands. The Giants, in addition to selling Peanuts (Lowrey) to the public, have Cookie (Lavagetto) and (Herman) Franks. The Giants, it is said, also have a few "hot dogs," as temperamental players are called in the trade. FWIW: BIG APPLE 12 November 1966, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 2, col. 3: Say you pick eight winners. You get 60 to 1 odds. You should get 255 to 1. Or try for the big apple. That's 10 out of 10. They'll give you a walloping 150 to 1. From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 21:00:10 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:00:10 EST Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: Mention of "not quite the ONLY Canadian" brings to mind the relative quiescence of Canadian dialect studies within the American Dialect Society in recent years. Our constitution declares that we study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary (H. Rex Wilson). But there has been only one Canadian on our annual meeting program for the past two years, and not necessarily with Canadian topics. Is it the fault of us who live south of the border? Do Canadians no longer feel welcome in ADS? Or is something else going on? - Allan Metcalf From self at TOWSE.COM Tue Jan 28 21:03:48 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:03:48 -0800 Subject: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) Message-ID: RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > In a message dated 1/27/03 3:50:09 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > "Snail salad" should certainly be in the next volume of DARE. It is an > > American regionalism. Whether it makes DARE and whether it receives good > > citational evidence are separate questions. > > > > I'm certainly willing to be educated, but I found 8,000 hits for this on > Google, from Hollywood to Rhode Island. It seems to me that anybody who eats > seafood can conceive of seafood salad, and anybody who eats snails could well > eat snail salad. So how can SNAIL SALAD be a genuine compound word at all, > much less a regionalism? Maybe it could be an entry in a cookbook, but It > APPEARS to be just an ordinary noun adjunct, like COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON or > DICTIONARY MAKER or LEXICON INFLATER. My quick Google search for /"snail salad" recipe/ didn't turn up any recipes for this dish, but I did find a few places where the ingredients were named. This, from a restaurant called Caffe Dolce Vita on Federal Hill in Providence: Snail Salad - Snails, onions, celery, olives, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, balsamic vinegar. [ref: ] Judging from this post to the Conch-L list [ref: ], the concoction is an Italian recipe, probably brought to RI by the families of those splendid folks who call Federal Hill home. "Busycon (carica and canaliculatum) are used in a tasty dish available at many restaurants and delis in this area. The english name is snail salad. It has an Italian name too, but if I try it I'll probably pick the wrong one. It's a mixture of thin-sliced Busycon meat (primarily the foot) with spices, vinegar, onions, celery, and probably a few things I don't know about. I believe the meat is marinated, but that's about all I know of it. I eat it but I don't make it." Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From Ittaob at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 21:05:25 2003 From: Ittaob at AOL.COM (Steve Boatti) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:05:25 EST Subject: Broccoli Rabe Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 3:27:20 PM, dcamp911 at JUNO.COM writes: << "A member of the mustard family that is often mistaken for broccoli is spring raab, or rapini. It is not really a broccoli at all, but was selected from turnips for its shoots and flowers. >> This makes some etymological sense. The term "broccolo" in Italian originally meant "shoot" (of a plant). Thus "broccoli (or broccolini) di rapa" literally means turnip shoots. Steve Boatti From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Tue Jan 28 21:10:37 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:10:37 -0500 Subject: pet names for oysters Message-ID: Look out, folks. Food terms are coming at you from an unexpected angle. Why should Barry have all the fun? The OED lists some varieties of oyster. I noticed bluepoint, Malpeque, Milton and Olympia, for instance. Chickamora is not in the OED, however, nor the Dictionary of Americanisms. OYSTERS. -- Florence, 240 Broadway, has just received a fresh supply of the choicest oysters -- chickamora of the old bed -- also cave and channels. *** NY Herald, April 20, 1842, p. 2, col. 4 The following story, also from the Herald of 1842, shows that New Yorkers then realized that the oyster was more than just a comestible. A Mysterious Affair. *** [a brawl in a low tavern.] Turner left a few minutes after to get an oyster to put on Crandall's black eye, and when he returned Black and Purdy were among the missing. NY Herald, March 4, 1842, p. 2, cols. 3-4 Also from the Herald, a description of an up-scale restaurant. AN HOUR IN THE KREMLIN. -- After sauntering on the sunny side of Broadway, until [he became hungry, JGB begins to think about finding a restaurant; he decides on The Kremlin, because it is] now the "Very's" or Gotham, the El Dorado of "bon vivants." *** Upon ascending a flight of marble stairs, of milky whiteness, we found ourself in the Salle a Manger. *** Recovering in due course of time our wonted presence of mind, and espying a country acquaintance sipping from his Demi Tasse at one of the tables, we seated ourself opposite him. In a moment the gar?on presented us with a bill of fare, commencing with a potage a la Julienne, and following that, salmon with shrimp sauce, Riz de veau a la financier, and some three or four veritable entrements (sic) Francais, brought us to a pause. *** "And who is that tall, self-satisfied looking gentleman with an eye-glass, so gingerly removing his perfumed kid?" "That is the 'man about town.'" *** Dispatching our mocha and maraschino, and walking up to the captain's office, where we were again surprised at the very small charge for our dinner, we bade adieu to these delightful saloons. NY Herald, April 29, 1842, p. 2, col. 5. I do not know how it came about that the proprietor chose the name of "Kremlin" for his place. For most or all of these terms, this is the earliest U. S. Citation, if the OED has a U. S. cite at all. THe OED has: bon vivant: OED: a1695, 1798, 1824, 1862 Salle a Manger: OED: 1762, 1862, 1887 Demi Tasse: OED: 1842, 1870, 1897, &c gar?on: OED: 1788, 1829, 1839, 1850, 1942 -- all clearly refer to use by travellers in France or Italy, except perhaps 1829 potage a la Julienne: OED 1841, 1883 (julienne) shrimp sauce: OED has citations with this phrase from 1747, 1758, 1855 Riz de veau: OED: 1820, 1861, 1877, 1927 a la financier: OED: not found mocha and maraschino: OED has mocha from 1773; maraschino from 1791/93; the combination from 1875 man about town: OED: 1734, &c; no U. S. cites, except perhaps 1979 GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Tue Jan 28 12:35:53 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 07:35:53 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Query on "No-Fly Zone" Message-ID: D?but du message r?exp?di? : > De: "Hirohito Onishi ?????" > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 05:33:36 America/New_York > ?: > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > Dear Sirs, > I am a teacher of English at a public high school in Kobe, Japan. I > have been interested in current English. I want to find out the origin > of "no-fly zone" which has appeared in many articles concerning with > Iraq for almost a decade. > I guess this phrase came into being together with the develpment of > aricraft and anti-air defense. When was it that this phrase was first > used in a written form, I wonder? I would appreciate it very much if > you might be kind enough to let me know about it. > Thanks. January 28, 2003 > > Hirohito Onishi (Mr.) > E-mail: lifeisabitch at infoseek.jp > > From mam at THEWORLD.COM Tue Jan 28 23:06:26 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:06:26 -0500 Subject: Congo Squares/Bars (1959) In-Reply-To: <4b.29fb2bd6.2b68022e@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: # David Shulman left the hospital yesterday. The St. Nicholas Home kindly #thought to give him some fresh air and left the window to his room open. #It's FIVE DEGREES out! No wonder he left. Seriously, I'm glad he's well enough to go home. -- Mark A. Mandel From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Tue Jan 28 23:21:46 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:21:46 -0500 Subject: Query: Homographs Message-ID: D?but du message r?exp?di? : > De: "Alan J. Friedman" > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). I have read that, in > contrast to the multitude of homonyms, there are less than 100 > homographs. Are there any scholars who may have a running list of > homographs? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Jan 28 23:28:17 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:28:17 EST Subject: Query: Homographs Message-ID: In a message dated 01/28/2003 6:22:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > > pronounciation. heteronyms? From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Wed Jan 29 00:09:43 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 19:09:43 -0500 Subject: Query: Homographs In-Reply-To: <39.330e2c06.2b686c11@aol.com> Message-ID: >Could you have watched the Super Bowl instead? dInIs, who always liked "polish" >In a message dated 01/28/2003 6:22:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, >gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes: > >> > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, >> > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon >> > pronounciation. > >heteronyms? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 01:51:21 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 20:51:21 -0500 Subject: Wish(ing) bone (1847, 1850, 1853) Message-ID: Andy Smith (editor of the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK) mentioned on the train to Providence that he did some work on the Americanism "wishbone" (also called "merrythought"). Michael Quinion's World Wide Words addressed the topic, and you can look it up on Google Groups at rec.food.historic. OED has 1860 and Merriam-Webster has 1853 for "wishbone." This is from ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES. ITEM #8054 October 7, 1847 THE NATIONAL ERA Washington, D.C., Vol. I No. 40 p. 1 For the National Era. RECOLLECTIONS OF COUNTRY LIFE. ----- BY PATTY LEE. ----- CAROLINE BRADLEY'S QUILTING. ----- CHAPTER V. (...) 'Begin to feel, as well I might, The keen demands of appetite.'" So saying, she ran laughingly down stairs. Whether her admirer quilted any better, I am not able to say; but he consoled himself by acting the agreeable to Miss Lane, a plain but superior woman, to whom I shall devote a chapter one of these days. Supper was soon announced, but, in these days of spiritualists and Grahamites, I am almost afraid to tell about the chickens and sweet potatoes, and peaches and cream, that graced the snowy cloth of our hostess. Sally did the honors of the coffee urn, and Caroline "handed round the things," and Dr. Watson made himself generally useful; but notwithstanding all, some of the ladies were soon heard to say, "thank you, I've eaten very hearty!" while Sally "Pressed the bashful strangers to their food, And learned the luxury of doing good;" and Caroline said they had nothing very inviting. Then came the breaking of the "<< wish-bones>> ;" but the girls all refused to tell their wishes, excepting Hannah, who wished aloud, as she broke the mystic bone with the good-natured Mrs. Bradley, that she might have a charming beau to wait upon her home. "Did you ever!" exclaimed the hostess. "What a strange wish!" said the girls, hiding their faces; but the Doctor said, bowing gracefully to Hannah, who was merrily drawing the bones from the plump hand of the hostess, to see if she should get her wish, that he should be too happy, if to verify her wish were in his power. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ITEM #20905 January 3, 1850 THE NATIONAL ERA Washington, D.C., Vol. IV No. 157 p. 1 For the National Era. THE LOST AND FOUND. ------- A STORY OF THANKSGIVING DAY. (LONG! Jump to end!--ed.) ----- BY MARY IRVING. ----- "Hoowa for Thanksgiving Day;" chirruped a fat three-year-old, bursting in his night-gown into Farmer Talbot's warm kitchen. He was trying to unlock two bright blue eyes, that Sleep had sealed up pretty fairly, and cut quite a ludicrous figure with his stentorian "Hoowa!" "Bravo, Bobby! Bravo-o-o!" laughed the grandfather from his chimney corner. "Try it again, Bobby; you'll keep up the honor of the family. Come here, sir!" Bobby's eyes were fairly open by this time - he had found his mother, and took refuge in the folds of her cheek dress, sucking his thumb in quiet thankfulness. Mamma looked around from the gridiron she was superintending, with a gentle smile. That smile seemed rather sad, methinks, for the scene and the day; but we will know more of her. Thanksgiving was always a joyous time at Grandfather Talbot's, not merely for its turkeys, puddings, and pies - though (softly be it spoken) Grandmamma Talbot and her daughters did excel all other grandmammas and aunties at a roaster - in the estimation of the grandchildren, large and small. But Farmer Talbot and his "guide-wife" were stanch old Puritans - two of that good old stock with which our blessed New England shores were planted. This stock has been grafted with many other and foreign shoots since - but is it not still the tree of our nation's prosperity? It has long been fashionable to ridicule the quaint manners and the starched strictness of the Puritans. Children are taught to picture them as forever conning a psalm-book with a nasal twang - as the deadly foes of all cheerfulness and merriment. Is not this almost treason to the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers who sleep beneath us? Foes to the wild exuberance of untamed spirits, they were indeed - and often too prone to stretch every mind to their own stature of opinion and feeling. But they were a cheerful race. The happiest, yes, the merriest Thanksgiving day that brightened my young life was spent beneath the roof of a stanch Puritan old lady, one of the few that linger, like sombre evergreens in Autumn, among the more gay and careless of this generation. Farmer Talbot kept Thanksgiving day religiously as well as cheerily. Good old patriarch! He might be forgiven the pride with which he glanced round on his seven children, with all their little ones around him, and then lifted up his hand to bless Heaven in their behalf. But for three years, ever since the little Bobby had been a sunbeam to bless the good old man's hearth, there had been a shadow, too, upon it - a gentle shadow, but a sad one. That shadow was the graceful mother of the child - the favorite daughter of the family. Adelaide Talbot was beautiful and lovely in her youth, dearly loved by all, but best by those of her own fireside circle. She was, indeed, the richest gem in that circlet. When the long lashes were lifted from her ever-changing cheek, you could look into the very soul of the high-minded, sunny-hearted girl. Six years before, she had stood in her father's low parlor on Thanksgiving eve - she had stood between that father and another to whose face she lifted her soul-speaking eye, his bride of an hour. And as the good mother's raspberry wine, carefully bottled for the occasion, went round, she dreamed not that in that cup lurked a demon that should yet overthrow the altar just erected. Caleb Reynolds was now a drunkard, and a deserter from his home. He had enlisted - it was thought, in an hour of intoxication - but his wife was left to learn it from other lips. He went, without one word of farewell, to the plains of Mexico - and never since had she heard of him. Poor Adelaide carried her crushed heart back to her father's house, longing only to lay it in the grave. Have you ever seen a tree in our Western forests, blighted by "girding," as the woodsmen call it - cut off from its connection with the life-giving earth, and then left to wither for years? I never pass such a tree without thinking of the slow death of the heart, to which some writer has strikingly compared it. It was thus that Adelaide stood among the other plants of her father's nurture. Have you ever seen, from such a girded tree, a young shoot spring out, and, striking down its fibres, form a feeble connection with the bark below, and sustain a sure though sickly life in the tree? It was thus that little Robert came, to bind a few broken fibres from her early hopes and dreams to earth. But we are forgetting our Thanksgiving. None of the aunties forget it, however - or the cousins; and by the time Farmer Talbot's "big sleigh" had emptied its contents twice upon the old salt-sprinkled stone step, all were brought home from church, and all were there. All - except two unaccountable stragglers, "the boys," as two striplings nearly six feet high continued to be called, who were cultivating the sciences in a college not many miles away. And why were they not there? So questioned every one; and grandmamma did not answer - only wiped her spectacles every two minutes on her apron, and peered out of the southwest window. Meanwhile the new-comers were all clustered in the "sitting room,' making a merry use of the interlude between service and dinner. There was Robert, the eldest son, with his romping family and anxious-looking wife. there was Charlotte - no, nobody knew her by that name - Lottie, blooming in her prime, and managing her little ones to a charm. There was Philip, the "old bachelor," though by no means a crusty one. Next him sat a pale, stiff-looking cousin from the nearest factory village. Last, but not least - though, in truth, she was a little one - was the "schoolma'am,' - the youngest of her father's flock, the laughing, fun-loving Susie. She was not beautiful, as Addie had been, but there was such a world of good nature in her low broad forehead and dimpling cheeks, that you loved her at first sight. I will not attempt her portrait, for I do not know that she ever sat still long enough to have it taken, except in church. This day she was here, and there, and everywhere, among the children, kissing one, romping with another, and then tossing up Robert's baby, to the terror of its mamma and the delight of all others. "You must let me go to help grandmamma take up the turkey, indeed you must," cried Susan, laughing, as she pushed through the doorway, followed by the whole scampering troop. One had sprung from the top of the arm-chair to her shoulder, and sat crowing like a parrot on his perch. As she advanced towards the kitchen, the outer door was thrown suddenly open, and "A merry Thanksgiving to you!" burst from the lips of the intruders, amid the renewed shouts of the boisterous brood. "Bless me, where did you drop from?" cried the mother, dropping her ladle into the coals in her surprise. "Why brothers, we never heard your sleigh bells," exclaimed Susan, throwing off her encumbrance, and heartily welcoming the young collegians. "I dare say not," replied Edward, as he knocked the snow from his boots. "We chartered other sort of vehicles - hey, Will?" "The fact is," explained Will, "that we started with the sunrise this morning, but met with a most provoking 'break-down' by the way. So, not to be cheated out of our Thanksgiving, we footed it through the drifts. We've lost Parson Wood's sermon, but we're in time for mother's dinner; and I assure you a walk of eight miles has given us a pair of appetites." So they sat down to dinner at least, all the loving and the merry ones. Grandfather hushed them for a moment, while he lifted his bronzed hands over the huge platter, and invoked bountiful Heaven in a lengthy but fervent "blessing." Then followed the usual clattering, and - but I need not describe it all; you see it as well as I do. The "<< wish-bone>> " (a great prize that) fell to the share of the shyest one, little blue-eyed Nelly, who carefully wrapped it in her white apron, as a sacred treasure. "Coz, may I break with you," screamed her cousin Harry, from the other end of the table. "No; I am going to break with" -- "With whom, I should like to know?" "With Aunt Susie, then," said the little dove, nestling timidly to her side." "Aunt Susie - ha, ha! Aunt Susie would look finely breaking a << wish-bone>> ." "And why not, Master Harry?" said Susan, merrily. "I assure you I have broken more than one << wish-bone>> at this very table." "And did your wishes ever come to pass - did they ever, Aunt Susie?" cried three voices at once. "Yes, did they ever, Aunt Susie?" chimed in Edward, casting up from his plate a sidelong, demure glance, that brought blushes and dimples to her cheeks. Susie had seen some quiet little flirtations, even under he father's Argus eye. Suddenly her face grew serious. She caught Adelaide's expression of countenance, as the latter quietly rose from the table, and made some excuse for withdrawing. The "<< wish-bone>> " was broken to a charm - snapping exactly in the middle, to the infinite amusement of the juveniles, who had been making bets on the result. The "babies" went to sleep at the right hour precisely, and were packed into their snug candles with blankets and pillows. The elders of the juvenile community were ensconced in a corner to play "button;" and the brothers and sisters clustered in quiet little knots. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ITEM #3318 January, 1853 Godey's Lady's Book Philadelphia Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Vol XLVI Page 41 THE MERRY THOUGHT. BY THE AUTHOR OP "MISS BREMER'S VISIT TO COOPER'S LANDING," "GETTING INTO SOCIETY," "BOARDING-HOUSE POLITICS," ETC. (...) I will tell you what did happen: Nannie and Augusta chanced to be visiting a mutual friend in New York the next winter, when Augusta was delightfully surprised to see her cousin's name in the list of passengers just arrived from Savannah. Of course he called on them, and was happy to renew his acquaintance with Miss Barton, taking the cousinly liberty of seeing the ladies very often, and being promoted to serve in a series of New Year's Tableaux, then in preparation, in which they were both to appear as "belles of the olden time." The rehearsals, not en costume, went off very cleverly, and the important night arrived. Now it so chanced that our friends were to appear in the very first scene, and came down to the little boudoir appointed for a withdrawing-room, before any of the rest, and here Mr. Grayson found them, opening the door softly, intending a surprise. He scarcely recognized them at first in their old-time costume, Nannie in a bodice of pearl gray satin, with white cambric sleeves, and no adornment but a broad black ribbon about her fair throat. Augusta's little figure tried to look imposing in a dark close-fitting velvet, set off by the identical Mechlin lace belonging to her mother, which had arrived the day before, per Adams's Express, from Philadelphia. And there, like two very unromantic young people, to say nothing of the dignity befitting their costume, they were playfully quarrelling over a merrythought, or "<< wishing-bone>> ," as the children call it, secured from the lunch that had just been served up to the performers. "I declare, Nan, you are not fair," he heard Augusta say; "you have taken hold too high up, and I know you are going to wish to be my cousin, after all! Come, now, confess!" "Nonsense, Augusta: come, pull: there now!" Gerard Grayson would have given his new seal ring to know which won; but he concluded it would not do to appear just then. He was discovered, a few moments after, in the dressing-room, making a very dark mustache of burnt cork on his upper lip, in deep absence of mind. Now this was entirely unsuited to his costume, the sober garb of a young country squire of years ago, and it cost him some trouble to efface it. He had already sacrificed his own cherished mustache to the character, and the brown flowingwig parted in the middle, was received with bursts of applause and laughter, as he presented himself to his fair companions, who were unsuspicious of what he had seen and heard. As the curtain fell after they had been duly admired, Gerard Grayson heard Augusta whisper, "a penny for your thoughts," and then Nannie certainly did blush, and turn her eyes away from his questioning look. "After all, they were married?" Yes, and never, till then, did Gerard allude to the omnibus disaster. They were at Niagara on their bridal tour last summer, and were waiting for the gong to sound for dinner, when he noticed that Nannie wore a flounced tissue. Both smiled, and the young bride hid her face on his shoulder as she said, "Truly, Gerard, tell me, what did you think?" "You won't scold me if I tell you, as you did when I confessed about the << wishing-bone>> ?" "No, indeed, if you will be candid." "Well, then, I could not help noticing shall I tell you? that the tear had revealed a very neat and very pure underskirt, and I have such a horror of a sloven! Not even a 'merrythought,' you see, dear!" Was there ever a less romantic confession for believers in love at first sight! From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 03:03:11 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 22:03:11 EST Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 3:34:54 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > ?? Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with > "lexicon inflator"? > There is a difference between SNAIL SALAD on the one hand and "stuffies ... New York System ... ... May breakfast ... doughboys ... johnnycake and cabinet." These items are all opaque. Their meaning is not apparent from the sum of the parts of each. Dictionaries are less inclined to consider compounds as worthwshile entries if they are opaque and highly productive. Probably few people outside the South eat collard salad, but that doesn't mean that COLLARD SALAD is a regionalism. The fact that somebody in 1987 said that people in Rhode Island eat snail salad doesn't make the eating of snails regional, nor does it make SNAIL SALAD regional. Anywhere that people eat snails and meat salad they doubtless eat snail salad. This includes Hollywood, which is a right far piece from Rhode Island. I hope David Barnhardt is outtside playing with his children in the coastal New Yorrk snow. He is a good guy and I'm sorry folks seem to think he is lost. Maybe he went to Chicago to eat snail salad with all the Italians who settled there. Or to New Orleans to eat snail salad with the French. From self at TOWSE.COM Wed Jan 29 03:18:05 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 19:18:05 -0800 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > > In a message dated 1/28/03 3:34:54 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > > > Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with > > "lexicon inflator"? > > > There is a difference between SNAIL SALAD on the one hand and "stuffies ... > New York System ... ... May breakfast ... doughboys ... johnnycake and > cabinet." These items are all opaque. Their meaning is not apparent from the > sum of the parts of each. Dictionaries are less inclined to consider > compounds as worthwshile entries if they are opaque and highly productive. > Probably few people outside the South eat collard salad, but that doesn't > mean that COLLARD SALAD is a regionalism. > > The fact that somebody in 1987 said that people in Rhode Island eat snail > salad doesn't make the eating of snails regional, nor does it make SNAIL > SALAD regional. Anywhere that people eat snails and meat salad they doubtless > eat snail salad. This includes Hollywood, which is a right far piece from > Rhode Island. > > I hope David Barnhardt is outtside playing with his children in the coastal > New Yorrk snow. He is a good guy and I'm sorry folks seem to think he is > lost. Maybe he went to Chicago to eat snail salad with all the Italians who > settled there. Or to New Orleans to eat snail salad with the French. According to the second reference I cited earlier ([ref: ]), the "snail" in the RI "snail salad" is actually whelk or conch, not those tasty little gastropods that leave slime trails in the garden. FWIW, I find both RI and other eastern seaport areas offering "scungilli salad", "scungilli" being the Italian name for the whelk or conch. Would calling the salad "snail salad" when it's really whelk/conch/scungilli qualify as a regionalism? And, oh yum. Popping /scungilli recipe/ into my search engine of choice brings up conch fritter recipes as well as scungilli alla Sorrentina, scungilli marinara, ... Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET Wed Jan 29 03:17:11 2003 From: rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET (Kim & Rima McKinzey) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 19:17:11 -0800 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. In-Reply-To: <173.1568f120.2b689e6f@aol.com> Message-ID: >There is a difference between SNAIL SALAD on the one hand and "stuffies ... I tend to agree with Ron on this. I mean is tuna salad or chicken salad listed specifically in dictionaries? On the other hand, >New York System ... What is that??? I know someone else asked a couple of days ago, but I haven't seen a response. Rima From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 05:07:16 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:07:16 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: I feel that "snail salad" is worth recording, certainly for the various people who read my posts. Ron doesn't think it's recording outside of a cookbook. We disagree. The travelin' Sterns say that "snail salad" is uniquely Rhode Island. DARE will have to give it consideration. Say it's included in the next DARE. I've done work for no pay. Say it's NOT included in the next DARE. And say that OED is not interested. And say OUP's OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK is not interested. And say that David Barnhart is not interested for his book. What do you want me to do then? Apologize to everyone on the ADS-L list for not cutting "snail salad" out of a post that also included "rabe"? Shoot myself? Jump off a bridge? Isn't "snail salad" for all of those groups to decide for _themselves_, after reading about it? Do we have to have a flame about this? Don't I ever do anything that you do like? From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 05:20:33 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:20:33 -0500 Subject: Cough Drops (1799) Message-ID: "Cough drops" can possibly be included as "candy" in the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. OED has 1851, but Merriam-Webster has an earlier 1831 for "cough drop." The American Periodical Series online has these early hits: 1806, LITERARY MISCELLANY, pg. 358: "_Cough drops_ and _infallible cures for consumptions_ are manufactured by the disinterested friends of humanity, and our shops are furnished with the means of resuscitation, like the huts on the desolate beach for the shipwrecked mariner." 1 November 1817, THE ATHENEUM, Vol. 2, Iss. 2, pg. 88 title: _Quack medicines, pectoral balsams, cough drops, and lotions._ 10 May 1823, SATURDAY EVENING POST, pg. 3 ad: DR. MELLEN'S Cough Drops. (There were many "cough drop" ads in this periodical--ed.) This is from the PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, full text on Accessible Archives: ITEM #82760 April 17, 1799 The Pennsylvania Gazette REMOVAL GEORGE ABBOTT, Apothecary and Druggist. HAS removed from No. 69 to 85, Market street, lately occupied by Owen Biddle, deceased, and has for sale, as usual, a general assortment of fresh DRUGS and MEDICINES, of the first quality. Also a valuable assortment of PATENT MEDICINES, amongst which are Robberds's Balsamic Elixir, Church's << Cough Drops>> , For consumptions. Hill's Balsam of Honey, Coltsfoot Lozenges, for coughs and colds, Steere's Chemical Opodildock, for sprains, bruises and rheumatism. Jesuits Antivenerial Drops and electuary. Keyser's ditto Pills. Ching's Worm destroying Lozenges. Gowland's Lotion for the face and skin. Salt of Lemon, for removing spots and stains, &c. Likewise Dying and Colouring Drugs, Paints, Oil and Glass. Prescriptions from medical practitioners particularly attended to, and orders from the country executed with care and dispatch. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 05:48:32 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:48:32 -0500 Subject: Crock Pot (1970) Message-ID: "Crock pot" is often used as a generic, like "band aid" or xerox." From today's NEW YORK TIMES: _Slow and Low Is the Way to Go_ By MARK BITTMAN IT cost me $30. I call it the Monster of Braising. I use it almost every day. Go ahead and sneer. I love my slow cooker. Essentially a small, closed electric pot that provides extremely low and reliably even heat, the slow cooker is simple, safe and, as long as you don't try to stretch its capabilities, virtually foolproof. You may know it as the Crock-Pot. The Rival Company, now owned by the Holmes Group, trademarked that name when it introduced the product in 1971. (...) From the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Word Mark CROCK-POT Goods and Services IC 011. US 021. G & S: ELECTRIC COOKING APPLIANCES-NAMELY, CASSEROLES. FIRST USE: 19701105. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19701105 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72376956 Filing Date November 23, 1970 Registration Number 0928614 Registration Date February 8, 1972 Owner (REGISTRANT) RIVAL MANUFACTURING COMPANY CORPORATION MISSOURI 3601 BENNINGTON STREET KANSAS CITY MISSOURI 941291893 (LAST LISTED OWNER) RIVAL COMPANY, THE CORPORATION BY ASSIGNMENT DELAWARE 1 HOLMES WAY, BLDG. A MILFORD MASSACHUSETTS 01757 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20020222. Renewal 2ND RENEWAL 20020222 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE From pds at VISI.COM Wed Jan 29 06:57:57 2003 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:57:57 -0600 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <009201c2c581$805fa4c0$7001a8c0@HP> Message-ID: I viewed John Sayles' "The Return of the Secaucus 7" last night. I noted two instances of "Fuckin' A". One clearly indicated agreement with what had just been said. The other is probably best glossed as "Wow!". Not surprize, really. More like amazement. I couldn't find a screenplay on-line, so I can't give the quotations. At 03:25 PM 1/26/2003 -0600, Millie Webb wrote: > I did not have the sense at all, growing >up (in the 70s and 80s -- having almost never heard it since then) that it >meant something like "you are so right". To me, it was always much more of >a rejoinder of surprise, or even upset (for example, "Fuckin-A, I can't >believe he did that."). Maybe I just misunderstood it all those years, but >I certainly had the sense in the groups I "hung" in, that it was somewhat >negative, always a surprise, and sometimes even a shocked response. -- >Millie Tom Kysilko Practical Data Services pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Wed Jan 29 08:53:32 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 08:53:32 -0000 Subject: Wish(ing) bone (1847, 1850, 1853) In-Reply-To: <4051E880.2D00DBA1.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: > Andy Smith (editor of the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & > DRINK) mentioned on the train to Providence that he did some work > on the Americanism "wishbone" (also called "merrythought"). Michael > Quinion's World Wide Words addressed the topic, and you can look > it up on Google Groups at rec.food.historic. You'll find my piece, FWIW, at . -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 14:46:40 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 09:46:40 EST Subject: a hard, gem-like flame Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/03 12:22:07 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes: > ? Do we have to have a flame about this? > ?? Don't I ever do anything that you do like? > I didn't think that I was "having a flame about this." I'm always eager to apologize if I've offended. I was just trying to have a discussion about a couple of linguistic issues that Barry raised in suggesting that SNAIL SALAD belongs in DARE. And I got some discussion of the nature of regionalisms and what might qualify SNAIL SALAD as a word and not just the result of a productive noun adjunct process. And even a little bit of discussion on compounding as a process. These are issues that interest me. I'm still not convinced that SNAIL SALAD is a regionalism, despite the fact that some people in Rhode Island and Hollywood may make their SNAIL SALAD out of conches, which are just big snails, after all. I'm still not convinced that it is really a "word" in the sense of plausible dictionary entry. Barry feels otherwise. The people who actually put the dictionaries together get the last word. I will be happy either way. And maybe I'll have learned something from the discussion. I do think of this list as more than just a site for listing zillions of food terms from around the world and zillions of antedatings (and complain that the world doesn't appreciate them, despite the great personal expenses that their lexicographical efforts cost them). I don't mean to suggest for a moment that the LISTINGS are inappropriate, and it is clear that many others find them interesting (and are at least willing to accept the complaints as a worthwhile trade-off that can be amusing). And it takes me very little time to delete them without reading them, though I do occasionally open one if the headword catches my eye. So, live and let live, eh? I hope if Barry does indeed jump off a bridge (as he suggests he may do) that he does it off a very low bridge into some very warm water. I try do that every once in a while when I'm on my travels. And then I crawl up into a beach chair, read a book for its content and not its lexicographical significance, and just CHILL OUT. From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 15:21:05 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 10:21:05 EST Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: >From a correspondent - <> - Allan Metcalf From t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA Wed Jan 29 16:11:19 2003 From: t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA (Thomas M. Paikeday) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:11:19 -0500 Subject: SNAIL BUTTER [was Re: Re: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?)] Message-ID: Good question. "Snail salad" could be a genuine compound word like "snail butter" (Joy of Cooking). TOM www.paikeday.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Baker, John" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 1:43 PM Subject: Re: Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?) > Does "snail salad" refer generally to any salad containing snails, or does it refer specifically to only one specific kind of salad with snails? (I've never encountered the term, so cannot say.) If the latter, it seems to me that it has a much better claim than "committee chairperson" to being a genuine compound word. > > John Baker From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 29 16:13:19 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:13:19 -0500 Subject: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Davis, Iain E. wrote: #Hmm. Define "online". # #If it means "at a computer", It's probably something close to 100 #hrs/wk for me. I certainly wouldn't call it that, any more than being in a room with a radio -- not necessarily turned on -- counts as listening to the radio. "Online", to me, means actively using the Internet (including its subset the WWW). Well, I guess it could depend on context. If my machine is connected to the Internet and I get an alert when email arrives, even if I'm using a local app, then I could say that I'm online in the sense of being accessible by Internet, but not in the sense of where my attention is. I find this question interesting linguistically, and I'm bcc-ing this post to the American Dialect Society's discussion list. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 16:23:10 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 08:23:10 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: [warning: taboo language, reference to gay male sex acts, possibly more information about my private life than you'd like. if any of these things make you uneasy, skip this posting.] tom kysilko reports on instances of "fuckin' a" in sayles' The Return of the Secaucus 7. i can now report on multiple instances of the expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick starring a guy whose stage name is Zak Spears. (yes, the names are often hilarious.) spears varies the frequent "yeah, yeah" of the genre with "fuckin' a". what makes this (possibly) worth reporting is that on a number of occasions when he utters "fuckin' a" meaning 'yeah, oh yes', he is in fact fuckin' a (and at least a few times when he says it he's playing catcher rather than pitcher), so that we get what is almost surely an unintended combination of the formulaic expression and its literal applicability. no other participant (i hesitate to say "actor") in the film uses "fuckin' a", and i don't recall its use in other films in the genre. presumably it's a piece of improvisation by spears, something he says naturally; scripting in these movies tends to be minimal, especially in the sweatier sections. of course, it's true that people (regardless of sex or sexuality, in real life and in the movies) sometimes cry out the exclamation "fuck" while engaged in intercourse, without any intention of referring to sexual acts. in that context, "fuck" is an alternative to, among other things, "oh god", "christ", "jesus" (none of these carrying any religious commitment), or "shit". (i'm probably not the first person to point out that the path of "shit" from 'feces' to an exclamation of dismay to an exclamation of strong feeling, usable even in contexts of pleased surprise or joy, involves, in its last step, an astonishing bit of amelioration, especially remarkable in that the much milder "piss" has made it only to the exclamation-of-dismay stage. probably not a suitable example of amelioration for semantics textbooks, though.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 16:28:45 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:28:45 -0500 Subject: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:13 AM -0500 1/29/03, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Davis, Iain E. wrote: > >#Hmm. Define "online". ># >#If it means "at a computer", It's probably something close to 100 >#hrs/wk for me. > >I certainly wouldn't call it that, any more than being in a room with a >radio -- not necessarily turned on -- counts as listening to the radio. >"Online", to me, means actively using the Internet (including its >subset the WWW). > >Well, I guess it could depend on context. If my machine is connected to >the Internet and I get an alert when email arrives, even if I'm using a >local app, then I could say that I'm online in the sense of being >accessible by Internet, but not in the sense of where my attention is. > >I find this question interesting linguistically, and I'm bcc-ing this >post to the American Dialect Society's discussion list. > I think it has to allow for the latter, more "liberal" context. My daughter is online whenever she's on a computer because she has her AIM activated even when she's writing a paper. I think "using or accessible by the Internet" would cover this. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 16:41:40 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:41:40 -0500 Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. In-Reply-To: <3E3747ED.DCE0544A@towse.com> Message-ID: At 7:18 PM -0800 1/28/03, Towse wrote: >RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >> > > >> The fact that somebody in 1987 said that people in Rhode Island eat snail >> salad doesn't make the eating of snails regional, nor does it make SNAIL >> SALAD regional. Anywhere that people eat snails and meat salad >>they doubtless >> eat snail salad. This includes Hollywood, which is a right far piece from > > Rhode Island. >> >According to the second reference I cited earlier ([ref: >]), >the "snail" in the RI "snail salad" is actually whelk or conch, >not those tasty little gastropods that leave slime trails in the >garden. > >FWIW, I find both RI and other eastern seaport areas offering >"scungilli salad", "scungilli" being the Italian name for the >whelk or conch. > >Would calling the salad "snail salad" when it's really >whelk/conch/scungilli qualify as a regionalism? > >And, oh yum. Popping /scungilli recipe/ into my search engine of >choice brings up conch fritter recipes as well as scungilli alla >Sorrentina, scungilli marinara, ... > I agree with Ron's theoretical point, and now that Sal has provided us with the relevant datum, I agree with Barry's contention that "snail salad" (meaning 'scungilli salad') should be listed because of its opacity. I also agree with Sal's "yum". I knew I liked scungilli salad, I just didn't know I'd ever eaten snail salad, since we don't call it that in Connecticut. In fact the use of "snail salad" in place of "scungilli salad" in R.I. is sort of the reverse of the almost ubiquitous reference to squid as calamari (well, in European-style restaurants as opposed to Chinese- or Thai-style ones). Dysphemism rather than euphemism. The parallel to the "calamari" case was the fact that when I was much younger, snails were always referred to in restaurants as "escargots". And the seasoning was called "escargot butter", not "snail butter". Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 16:44:52 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:44:52 EST Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: Interesting data. Even though I prefer to treasncribve the phrase as "Fuck an A," and even though taking Zack Spears literally would make my transcription more likely than the more commonplace alternative ("Fucking A"), I agree with Arnold that Zack is doubtless using the phrase formulaically, in which case either paarsing will do. As I've also heard said in such movies, "Suck! 'Blow' is just qa figure of speech." In a message dated 1/29/03 11:24:05 AM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: << [warning: taboo language, reference to gay male sex acts, possibly more information about my private life than you'd like. if any of these things make you uneasy, skip this posting.] tom kysilko reports on instances of "fuckin' a" in sayles' The Return of the Secaucus 7. i can now report on multiple instances of the expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick starring a guy whose stage name is Zak Spears. (yes, the names are often hilarious.) spears varies the frequent "yeah, yeah" of the genre with "fuckin' a". what makes this (possibly) worth reporting is that on a number of occasions when he utters "fuckin' a" meaning 'yeah, oh yes', he is in fact fuckin' a (and at least a few times when he says it he's playing catcher rather than pitcher), so that we get what is almost surely an unintended combination of the formulaic expression and its literal applicability. no other participant (i hesitate to say "actor") in the film uses "fuckin' a", and i don't recall its use in other films in the genre. presumably it's a piece of improvisation by spears, something he says naturally; scripting in these movies tends to be minimal, especially in the sweatier sections. of course, it's true that people (regardless of sex or sexuality, in real life and in the movies) sometimes cry out the exclamation "fuck" while engaged in intercourse, without any intention of referring to sexual acts. in that context, "fuck" is an alternative to, among other things, "oh god", "christ", "jesus" (none of these carrying any religious commitment), or "shit". (i'm probably not the first person to point out that the path of "shit" from 'feces' to an exclamation of dismay to an exclamation of strong feeling, usable even in contexts of pleased surprise or joy, involves, in its last step, an astonishing bit of amelioration, especially remarkable in that the much milder "piss" has made it only to the exclamation-of-dismay stage. probably not a suitable example of amelioration for semantics textbooks, though.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)>> From RonButters at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 17:19:04 2003 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:19:04 EST Subject: The secret life of Snail Salad Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/03 11:39:58 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > I agree with Ron's theoretical point, and now that Sal has provided us with the relevant datum, I agree with Barry's contention that "snail salad" (meaning 'scungilli salad') should be listed because of its opacity. I also agree with Sal's "yum". I knew I liked scungilli salad, I just didn't know I'd ever eaten snail salad, since we don't call it that in Connecticut. In fact the use of "snail salad" in place of "scungilli salad" in R.I. is sort of the reverse of the almost ubiquitous reference to squid as calamari (well, in European-style restaurants as opposed to Chinese- or Thai-style ones). Dysphemism rather than euphemism. The parallel to the "calamari" case was the fact that when I was much younger, snails were always referred to in restaurants as "escargots". And the seasoning was called "escargot butter", not "snail butter". Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" >> Well, dunno that SNAIL SALAD is "opaque' just because it is made with scungilli. It seems to me that SNAIL SALAD is more accesible than SCUNGILLI SALAD! WHAT THE HELL IS A SCUNGILLI, I'd like to know--and I would look that up in my dictionary. Isn't a sungilli just a kind of snail? If people in Iowa make my potato salad with red potatoes should we say that POTATO SALAD is a regionalism for RED POTATO SALAD? It seems to me that Larry is suggesting that we need a dictionary entry for SNAIL SALAD simply because it is sometimes made with peculiar kinds of snails. Do I really need my unabridged dictionary to tell me that SNAIL SALAD is sometimes made with conche? Do I need to have an entry for DOG SALAD if some people make it only with a poodle? I was carefully tutored to say /kank/ during a recent trip to Granada. From mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM Wed Jan 29 17:32:36 2003 From: mailinglists at LOGOPHILIA.COM (Paul McFedries) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:32:36 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: I've been on the list for nearly five years, and I'm a member of the ADS, but I didn't know that the scope of the ADS was *North* American. I've contributed to a few Canuck-related threads, but always with a sheepish, "should-we-be-doing-this?" feeling. I didn't feel unwelcome on the list; rather, I just thought that non-U.S. threads were off-topic. Now that I know that the Free Trade Agreement extends to language, as well, I'll be happy to initiate and contribute to Canadian-lingo topics. Paul wordspy.com ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 4:00 PM Subject: Canadians in ADS > Mention of > "not quite the ONLY Canadian" > brings to mind the relative quiescence of Canadian dialect studies within the > American Dialect Society in recent years. Our constitution declares that we > study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had > even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary > (H. Rex Wilson). But there has been only one Canadian on our annual meeting > program for the past two years, and not necessarily with Canadian topics. > Is it the fault of us who live south of the border? Do Canadians no longer > feel welcome in ADS? Or is something else going on? > - Allan Metcalf > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 17:46:51 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:46:51 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: <062301c2c7bc$6a40dcd0$ef9afea9@paul> Message-ID: At 12:32 PM -0500 1/29/03, Paul McFedries wrote: >I've been on the list for nearly five years, and I'm a member of the ADS, >but I didn't know that the scope of the ADS was *North* American. I've >contributed to a few Canuck-related threads, but always with a sheepish, >"should-we-be-doing-this?" feeling. I didn't feel unwelcome on the list; >rather, I just thought that non-U.S. threads were off-topic. Now that I know >that the Free Trade Agreement extends to language, as well, I'll be happy to >initiate and contribute to Canadian-lingo topics. > But as others have pointed out, we're the American [Dialect Society] not the [American Dialect] Society. So in principle even non-NAFTA dialects are fair game as well. larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 17:55:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:55:52 EST Subject: Hipster Handbook Glossary Message-ID: HIPSTER HANDBOOK GLOSSARY--I forgot to give the web address for the deck=cool guy of THE HIPSTER HANDBOOK: http://www.thehipsterhandbook.com/glossary.html NEW YORK SYSTEM--As I said, it's in DARE. FOOD ENTRIES: DARE has a "collard" entry. Webster's Dictionary of Culinary Arts has a "broccoli rabe" entry that's worthwhile. Yes, it has an entry for "tuna salad." John Mariani has a "toasted ravioli" entry, stolen straight from the Sterns--it's a specialty of St. Louis. Will DARE have "toasted ravioli"? Will I get "toasted" if I post this? These things are not an exact science. I post them in good faith, and people who are not interested should delete them. I've said many times that my posts are not ADS-L. Other people are certainly welcome to post on their specialties--such as, for example, Canadian snail salad. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 18:02:54 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 13:02:54 -0500 Subject: The secret life of Snail Salad In-Reply-To: <1a3.fef778d.2b696708@aol.com> Message-ID: True, to the extent you consider a conch/whelk to be a snail. I have different mental lexicon entries for snails/escargots and for conchs/scungilli. The former is a mollusk eaten in French restaurants with butter and garlic stuffed stuffed into its shell by means of that funny escargot-grasping apparatus; the latter is a mollusk sliced thin (perhaps after hammering flat) and then served in an Italian vinagrette-type salad preferably with hot peppers, or with cocktail sauce, or cooked with other sea-creatures in a seafood pasta or such. The former is soft and squishy, the latter crunchy. (And yes, they're both great, but the former has too much cholesterol.) The fact that one might not be familiar with "scungilli" as a lexical item doesn't make "scungilli salad" opaque, since it's denotation is still computable from that of its parts. If you tell me that they eat okapi salad somewhere in Africa, I still wouldn't put that in my lexicon if it's a salad made from okapi, even if don't know an okapi from a hole in the ground. Accessible =/= transparent. (I chose that one by opening a dictionary at random to the page including "okapi".) I will concede, though, that the opacity or transparency of "snail salad" with reference to one made of scungilli is not transparent, since it depends on one's representation for "snail". larry At 12:19 PM -0500 1/29/03, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: >In a message dated 1/29/03 11:39:58 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: >> >I agree with Ron's theoretical point, and now that Sal has provided >us with the relevant datum, I agree with Barry's contention that >"snail salad" (meaning 'scungilli salad') should be listed because of >its opacity. I also agree with Sal's "yum". I knew I liked >scungilli salad, I just didn't know I'd ever eaten snail salad, since >we don't call it that in Connecticut. In fact the use of "snail >salad" in place of "scungilli salad" in R.I. is sort of the reverse >of the almost ubiquitous reference to squid as calamari (well, in >European-style restaurants as opposed to Chinese- or Thai-style >ones). Dysphemism rather than euphemism. The parallel to the >"calamari" case was the fact that when I was much younger, snails >were always referred to in restaurants as "escargots". And the >seasoning was called "escargot butter", not "snail butter". > >Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside >of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" >> > >Well, dunno that SNAIL SALAD is "opaque' just because it is made with >scungilli. It seems to me that SNAIL SALAD is more accesible than SCUNGILLI >SALAD! WHAT THE HELL IS A SCUNGILLI, I'd like to know--and I would look that >up in my dictionary. Isn't a sungilli just a kind of snail? If people in Iowa >make my potato salad with red potatoes should we say that POTATO SALAD is a >regionalism for RED POTATO SALAD? It seems to me that Larry is suggesting >that we need a dictionary entry for SNAIL SALAD simply because it is >sometimes made with peculiar kinds of snails. Do I really need my unabridged >dictionary to tell me that SNAIL SALAD is sometimes made with conche? Do I >need to have an entry for DOG SALAD if some people make it only with a poodle? > >I was carefully tutored to say /kank/ during a recent trip to Granada. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 18:07:55 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 13:07:55 -0500 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <200301291623.h0TGNAN26246@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: Arnold writes: > >tom kysilko reports on instances of "fuckin' a" in sayles' The Return >of the Secaucus 7. i can now report on multiple instances of the >expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick starring a guy >whose stage name is Zak Spears. (yes, the names are often hilarious.) > >spears varies the frequent "yeah, yeah" of the genre with "fuckin' a". >what makes this (possibly) worth reporting is that on a number of >occasions when he utters "fuckin' a" meaning 'yeah, oh yes', he is in >fact fuckin' a (and at least a few times when he says it he's playing >catcher rather than pitcher),... Unless the latter is an instance of "fucken a", with the archaic or dialectal past participle (cf. discussion of _shitten_ in Horn, to appear, "Spitten image"). >(i'm probably not the first person to point out that the path of >"shit" from 'feces' to an exclamation of dismay to an exclamation of >strong feeling, usable even in contexts of pleased surprise or joy, >involves, in its last step, an astonishing bit of amelioration, >especially remarkable in that the much milder "piss" has made it only >to the exclamation-of-dismay stage. probably not a suitable example >of amelioration for semantics textbooks, though.) > Note along these lines that it's much easier to find _holy shit_ than _holy piss_. larry From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Jan 29 18:29:38 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:29:38 -0600 Subject: Dialect Mixing Message-ID: In reading various studies of the dialects of the Midwest and West, I've been struck by the tendency to frame the analysis almost exclusively in terms of the traditional dialect divisions of the East Coast: Northern, Midland, and Southern. Several studies develop complicated formulas to calculate the relative influence of these dialects on the area under investigation. It's easy to understand the motivation for this approach given the emphasis on settlement history in traditional dialect geography. Still, this focus on historical retentions has resulted in dialectologists missing some important new features in these areas (e.g., The Northern Cities Shift). Does anyone know of an explicit defense of this approach as a method of studying American dialects off the Atlantic Coast? Did, e.g., Kurath argue that all American dialects can be adequately described with reference to his "original" divisions? Are there parallels in the study of dialects in other countries? For example, do studies of Hiberno-English count the number of Midland or Northern English forms? From millie-webb at CHARTER.NET Wed Jan 29 18:55:09 2003 From: millie-webb at CHARTER.NET (Millie Webb) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:55:09 -0600 Subject: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) Message-ID: Sorry, Larry, but I had to point out the weird parse I had of your comment. I read it at first as your daughter either "Using", or "accessible by the Internet". As in, "yes, my daughter is using" being comparable to "my daughter is accessible by the Internet". Have I just read too many posts in a row now? -- Millie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 10:28 AM Subject: Re: OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon) discussion list. > > > I think it has to allow for the latter, more "liberal" context. My > daughter is online whenever she's on a computer because she has her > AIM activated even when she's writing a paper. I think "using or > accessible by the Internet" would cover this. > > Larry > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:04:39 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:04:39 -0800 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: <062301c2c7bc$6a40dcd0$ef9afea9@paul> Message-ID: Hmm--NAFTADS. Has a ring to it. (Though it does sound a bit like the name of the creatures that insiders know are REALLY the key ingredient in "snail salad"--and that outsiders would just as soon leave opaque.) Peter Mc. --On Wednesday, January 29, 2003 12:32 PM -0500 Paul McFedries wrote: > Now that I know > that the Free Trade Agreement extends to language, as well, I'll be happy > to initiate and contribute to Canadian-lingo topics. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:53:31 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:53:31 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: i'm shifting the topic a bit here, away from the internal structure of this expression (which i'll now refer to neutrally as "f-a") and towards its social functions. i take f-a to be part of what i think of as a "man's man" repertoire of behaviors. (at first, i used the label "hypermasculine", but that suggests a more conscious display than i think is going on here.) it goes along with using "brew" to refer to a beer, high frequencies of -in' for -ing, aggressive kidding, other linguistic phenomena, and a variety of non-linguistic behaviors (like leg-jiggling). i've known a fair number of men with this style (including a columbus neighbor who was a construction worker). it's not comfortable as a style for me, though; on me it would seem like deliberate "butching it up" (or, perhaps, "butchin' it up"). zak spears presents himself as a man's man (in all ways except his sexuality, which is flagrantly and enthusiastically off the masculine norm). f-a is just part of that presentation. actually, it might well be that spears is not just acting the part of a man's man (except for that sexuality thing) on screen, but that this is his everyday presentation of self. (i once had a boyfriend who was, with the exception already noted, a man's man.) gay personals ads frequently include codings - "straight-acting" and "regular guy", especially - that refer to normative masculinity but often point beyond it to a man's man style. my partner jacques and i both have enough masculinity points that we pretty much have to *tell* people we're gay (a fact we both find astonishing), but we're pretty sure we fail to count as straight-acting regular guys for the purposes of these ads. i have a friend who uses pieces of the man's man style - in particular, f-a - to mock (a) gay men he thinks are inauthentically butching it up, (b) gay men who've put down other gay men they find "faggy" (that is, not sufficiently masculine), and (c) gay men expressing misogynistic views. Fear of Femininity is what unites these guys, and charlie can make them surprisingly uncomfortable by instantly turning into a tough-talkin' man's man. (it's so not him.) arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), noting that there are plenty of man's men (including my columbus neighbor and my old boyfriend) who are not pigs; The Man Show is not a documentary From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:57:08 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:57:08 -0800 Subject: Fuck an A Message-ID: ron butters: >... I agree with Arnold that Zack is doubtless using the phrase >formulaically... Zak, not Zack. trust me on this. i would no more misspell zak's name than i would joey stefano's. but yes, there's no real issue in whether the expression is spelled "fuck an a" or "fuckin' a" (though the latter is the interpretation i've had all of my life, and is the only spelling i'd seen until this ads-l discussion started). arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Jan 29 20:32:00 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 15:32:00 -0500 Subject: Fuck an A In-Reply-To: <200301291957.h0TJv8J00098@Turing.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: At 11:57 AM -0800 1/29/03, Arnold Zwicky wrote: > >but yes, there's no real issue in whether the expression is spelled >"fuck an a" or "fuckin' a" (though the latter is the interpretation >i've had all of my life, and is the only spelling i'd seen until this >ads-l discussion started). > FWIW (maybe not much), I just did a quick and dirty google count. "Fuckin A" (with quotes) has 14,700 hits (with or without the apostrophe, which is ignored in any case). "Fuck an A" has 166, although some may be irrelevant (such as one on the first page of hits that reads "An A in the west is not neccessarily an A elsewhere, and really there's no reason for you to even know what the fuck an A is in the first place" larry From jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST Wed Jan 29 20:37:00 2003 From: jan.ivarsson at TRANSEDIT.ST (Jan Ivarsson TransEdit) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 21:37:00 +0100 Subject: The secret life of Snail Salad Message-ID: "Scungilli" is most probably a dialect form (southern Italy and Sicily) of the Italian "conchiglie", meaning "conch". Jan Ivarsson ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 6:19 PM Subject: [ADS-L] The secret life of Snail Salad > Larry, wondering if "conch salad" isn't used because nobody outside > of Key West is sure of how to pronounce "conch" >> > > Well, dunno that SNAIL SALAD is "opaque' just because it is made with > scungilli. It seems to me that SNAIL SALAD is more accesible than SCUNGILLI > SALAD! WHAT THE HELL IS A SCUNGILLI, I'd like to know--and I would look that > up in my dictionary. Isn't a sungilli just a kind of snail? From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 21:22:09 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:22:09 EST Subject: Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 1/28/03 10:25:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET writes: > is tuna salad or chicken > salad listed specifically in dictionaries? I always thought I knew what chicken salad was (julienne chicken in mayonnaise) until once in England I ordered "chicken salad" in a restaurant near Windsor Castle and got a cold quarter (leg + thigh) of chicken on a bed of lettuce. Is this standard English English, or did I encounter an eccentric restaurant? Seen on another mailing list: "If a tin whistle is made of tin, then what is a fog horn made of?" - Jim Landau In a "theatre" in "Edinboro": ME: I'm afraid I'm having trouble understanding what the actors are saying. NEIGHBOR: They're from Bristol. We can't understand them either. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 21:30:23 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:30:23 EST Subject: F-A Message-ID: In a message dated 1/29/03 11:23:43 AM Eastern Standard Time, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: > i can now report on multiple instances of the > expression in The Joint, a recent gay male porn flick A linguist need never apologize for quoting pornography, erotica, or billingsgate. After all, a cunning linguist is not necessarily a cunnilinguist. For what it's worth, I never seem to meet a male homosexual who does not have at least a mustache and frequently a full beard. - Jim Landau From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:57:00 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:57:00 -0500 Subject: Softscape and hardscape In-Reply-To: <28.32b89b5f.2b694b61@aol.com> Message-ID: Now THESE are interesting innovations. At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > From a correspondent - > ><"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, lighting, >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade >earlier. > > >George Winnacker>> > >- Allan Metcalf From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Jan 29 19:29:08 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:29:08 -0500 Subject: needs washed In-Reply-To: <3E35C777.7796.BE7176@localhost> Message-ID: At 11:57 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > > Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:40:02 -0500 > > From: Beverly Flanigan > > Subject: Re: needs washed > > > > Peter Trudgill confirms that much of northern England, Ireland, and > > Scotland all have "needs/wants/(and likes?) + p.p."--so, as an earlier > > writer noted too, this isn't surprising. Pittsburgh and the South > > Midland are in the mainstream! > >I'd like to look that up; where does he say this? (I'm interested in >where the boundaries are in the British Isles.) > >Is it found anywhere in Canada? > > > At 03:20 PM 1/27/2003 -0600, you wrote: > > >My spouse, a Pittsburgh native, has "needs washed," something that > > >struck my Southern ear (Atlanta native) as quite strange from the > > >first time I heard it (36+ years ago). Neither he nor any of his > > >family members (at least the ones I know) has "warshed." (The family > > >combines Pittsburgh working and middle class backgrounds.) But here's > > >the interesting observation: Last night Twin Cities Public Television > > >repeated a Nature film on puppies. The Scotsman (I BELIEVE the > > >setting was Scotland) observed of a Border collie pup that he "won't > > >want petted" under certain circumstances. My ears perked up, of > > >course. Miriam Meyers > > > In Trudgill's Chapter 1 of his _On Dialect: Social and Geographical Perspectives_ (NYU Press, 1983), he uses "My hair needs washed" in a questionnaire eliciting use vs. familiarity vs. unknown construction. On this item, he says "This construction is the one normally employed in Scotland as well as in some areas immediately to the south of the border and in parts of the USA" (p. 16). Of his respondents at Reading University, only two lecturers said they knew the form (and knew it was Scots), but 90% of the students believed "no native speaker could say it." We get roughly the same results when we survey students here in Ohio: Southern Ohioans know the form, but outsiders don't and reject it as ungrammatical. Although Trudgill doesn't mention Ireland in this case, it has been attested as common in Ireland and/or Ulster as well. (Michael, is there a difference in preponderance of use between Eire and Ulster?) I've also checked Hughes and Trudgill, _English Accents and Dialects_, 3rd ed. (Arnold, 1996), p. 16, where p.p. after 'need' and 'want' varies across So. England, Midlands/No. England, and Scotland; of these, only Scotland has "It needs washed." Interestingly, So. England and Scotland are cited as having "I want it washed," while Mid/No. has "I want it washing." But the "missing" infinitive here is "to have," not "to be"--which throws the paradigm into a different standard/nonstandard frame! If "to be" is deleted, a change to gerundive "washing" is considered "standard" and "washed" is "nonstandard." But if "to have" is deleted, "washed" is standard and gerundive (or pres. part.?) "washing" is nonstandard. Or am I missing something here? From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Jan 29 22:58:51 2003 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:58:51 -0800 Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: I am a bit surprised to learn that the ADS is dedicated only to the English language in N Am. I have to admit that I have never read the the constitution of the ADS, but I was under the impression (I am sure someone mentioned this to me once) that the ADS was dedicated to all languages of N Am. American Speech has published articles on other languages, e.g. Chinook Jargon, and on areas outside North America, e.g. New Zealand and South Africa. As far as ADS-L is concerned, people contribute messages all the time whose content has nothing to do with dialects--e.g. about food, sex, politics, and so on. So, I don't understand how Canadian English could ever be considered off-topic. I don't think many things really stop at the 49th, esp. language features Fritz >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/28/03 01:00PM >>> Mention of " Our constitution declares that we study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary (H. Rex Wilson). From mam at THEWORLD.COM Wed Jan 29 23:17:39 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 18:17:39 -0500 Subject: F-A In-Reply-To: <14.8883a72.2b69a1ef@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, James A. Landau wrote: #For what it's worth, I never seem to meet a male homosexual who does not have #at least a mustache and frequently a full beard. Huh. I know a fair number with neither. -- Mark A. Mandel From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Jan 29 23:30:10 2003 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 15:30:10 -0800 Subject: F-A Message-ID: jim landau: >A linguist need never apologize for quoting pornography, erotica, or >billingsgate. After all, a cunning linguist is not necessarily a >cunnilinguist. not an apology, just a caveat lector. >For what it's worth, I never seem to meet a male homosexual who does >not have at least a mustache and frequently a full beard. (i've had both since 1969.) but in case you're interested in meeting counterexamples, i can introduce you to hundreds. there is, of course, an interesting topic here about the projection of masculinity. and gayness. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Jan 29 23:42:21 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 18:42:21 EST Subject: Snail Salad & Wandies Message-ID: This is from the Chowhound New England Message Board. "Snail salad" was listed as the first of "errors, omissions, quibbles" with that November 2002 NEW YORK TIMES article on Rhode Island food. The author of the article has a reply post on this site. I'll also attach the post about "wandies" (DARE?) Chowhound's New England Message Board > Subject: Foods of Rhode IslandName: Bob W.Posted: November > 13, 2002 at 10:50:50Message: Decent article in today's New York Times > on the peculiar native cuisine of Little Rhody. > > Overall, it's informative and entertaining. Perhaps almost as much as my > posts on RI food. :>) > > Kudos to the author for using the term "up the arm" in his discussion of > weiners, and for his mention of George's of Galilee as a good source for > stuffies and clamcakes. > > Errors, omissions, quibbles: > > 1. No mention of snail salad. > > 2. No mention of grapenut custard. > > 3. Misspelling of jonnycake mecca Common's Lunch as Commons Lunch. The > apostrophe gives it that extra-special quirky RI flavor. > > 4. Clamcakes are nothing at all like hushpuppies, and I think to even > mention hushpuppies gives people a misleading impression of clamcakes. > Chowhound's New England Message Board > Subject: Re(2): Foods of Rhode IslandFrom: pfox at mwe.com (pfox) > Posted: November 13, 2002 at 14:01:56In Reply To: Re(1): Foods of > Rhode Island Posted by Coyote on November 13, 2002 at 12:33:29 > Message: Wandies are crispy fried doughs. They are very thin and > usually shaped into a bow, after deep frying, they are taken out of the oil > and sprinkled with sugar or powdered sugar. It is an Italian treat. I > remember my grandmother making them in her kitchen on a huge wooden board > that was covered with flour, cutting the dough with something that looked > like a pizza cutter that had a zig-zag edge to it and filling up straw > baskets with them. Generally made for the holidays and weddings. From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 30 00:55:36 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 19:55:36 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I believe the more comprehensive current statement (paraphrased) is that ADS is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America and to languages which it has influenced and been influenced by. Moreover, it regularly engages in its publications important general questions of dialect and language variation even if the exemplary data do not come from the categories listed above. Not too exclusive in my opinion. dInIs I am a bit surprised to learn that the ADS is dedicated only to the English language in N Am. I have to admit that I have never read the the constitution of the ADS, but I was under the impression (I am sure someone mentioned this to me once) that the ADS was dedicated to all languages of N Am. American Speech has published articles on other languages, e.g. Chinook Jargon, and on areas outside North America, e.g. New Zealand and South Africa. As far as ADS-L is concerned, people contribute messages all the time whose content has nothing to do with dialects--e.g. about food, sex, politics, and so on. So, I don't understand how Canadian English could ever be considered off-topic. I don't think many things really stop at the 49th, esp. language features Fritz >>> AAllan at AOL.COM 01/28/03 01:00PM >>> Mention of " Our constitution declares that we study "the English language in North America," and in the past we have had even a Canadian president (Murray Kinloch) and a Canadian executive secretary (H. Rex Wilson). From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 30 01:29:34 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:29:34 -0800 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > Now THESE are interesting innovations. > > At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > > From a correspondent - > > > >< >"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, lighting, > >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade > >earlier. > > > > > >George Winnacker>> I first bumped into "hardscape" when the library commission I was headed was considering a rework of the library's landscaping maybe five years ago. We were going to combine xeriscape with hardscape for a low-water-needs landscape. I hadn't realized that "hardscape" had been around since ca. 1980. I've never heard of "softscape". Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From prichard at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 30 01:31:28 2003 From: prichard at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter Richardson) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:31:28 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Some weeks ago there was discussion of schwa insertion. The other day I was in a local auto parts store, gabbing with an older (i.e. older than I am) employee who came up with "agonostic--you know, doesn't believe or whatever." A nice way to ease the transition from g to n. Is there any "igganore" or "sigganature" out there? Or is this just likely contamination from _agony_ (ergo the misery of the nonbeliever)? Peter R. From bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Jan 30 07:33:01 2003 From: bhunter3 at MINDSPRING.COM (Bruce Hunter) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 23:33:01 -0800 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beverly Flanigan" > Now THESE are interesting innovations. > At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > > From a correspondent - > >< >"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, lighting, > >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade > >earlier. > >George Winnacker>> > >- Allan Metcalf Then the irrigation system would be wetscape? Bruce Hunter From TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Thu Jan 30 10:52:02 2003 From: TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:52:02 -0000 Subject: Softscape and hardscape In-Reply-To: <3E387FFE.FBA06F62@towse.com> Message-ID: When I was working with a large landscape architects' practice in Bristol (UK) ten years ago, the usual terms were "hard landscaping" and "soft landscaping" and these were the standard terms we put into the thesaurus of terms we were creating. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 13:21:42 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:21:42 EST Subject: schwa insertion Message-ID: The classic example of schwa insertion is the Mexican city of "Tijuana" which north of the border is commonly pronounced as "Tiajuana", which would be the Spanish for "Aunt Joan" or "Aunt Joanne" (in my post of 22 January I rendered it as "Aunt Jane" (and also misspelled "Housatanic")). The schwa here is firmly established in Norteamericano music, e.g. Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana Brass, the folk song "Here we are in the Tiajuana jail" Someone whose name I failed to note told me this schwa insertion was due to the lack of any /ee wa/ strings in English, so English speakers found it necessary to insert something to make "Tijuana" pronounceable. However, "marijuana" does not get rendered into English as "mariajuana"---this may be because the "i" of "marijuana" is already a schwa. - Jim Landau - Jim Landau From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Thu Jan 30 13:52:59 2003 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 07:52:59 -0600 Subject: Query: Homographs Message-ID: Homonyms! Homonym is like metaphor. Metaphor, as a cover term, includes metaphor and simile. Homonyn covers homographs (written the same, but sound different) and homophones (sound the same). Some people, I think, use homonym to refer to homographs only??? I've come across somewhat of the same situation with the words jargon, argot and slang. Is there really a lot of confusion or is the confusion regional? Grant Barrett wrote: > D?but du message r?exp?di? : > > > De: "Alan J. Friedman" > > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York > > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there > > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there > > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). I have read that, in > > contrast to the multitude of homonyms, there are less than 100 > > homographs. Are there any scholars who may have a running list of > > homographs? From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Thu Jan 30 15:43:05 2003 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:43:05 -0500 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <1eb.9933cc.2b6a80e6@aol.com> Message-ID: There are people, however, who say "mare-uh-juh-wana." On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 8:22AM -0500, James A. Landau wrote: > "marijuana" does not get rendered into English as "mariajuana"---this > may be > because the "i" of "marijuana" is already a schwa. From AAllan at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 16:13:55 2003 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:13:55 EST Subject: Canadians in ADS Message-ID: Here is the official statement of ADS purpose, Article II of our constitution: <> The editorial policy on the inside back cover of American Speech follows this declaration but is more cosmopolitan: <> In practice, I think we focus appropriately on our core with due attention to our periphery, at all of our venues: our meetings, our journals, and our discussion list. But I do think we haven't heard as much from Canadians and about Canada as we had in the past, and I miss that. - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary From preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU Thu Jan 30 16:25:30 2003 From: preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:25:30 -0500 Subject: Canadians in ADS In-Reply-To: <11f.1d79a3f7.2b6aa943@aol.com> Message-ID: >I am gald to see that my paraphrasing skills are not that far off. dInIs >Here is the official statement of ADS purpose, Article II of our constitution: > ><community and not for profit. Its object is the study of the English language >in North America, together with other languages or dialects of other >languages influencing it or influenced by it.>> > >The editorial policy on the inside back cover of American Speech follows this >declaration but is more cosmopolitan: > ><Western Hemisphere, although contributions dealing with English in other >parts of the world, with other languages influencing English or influenced by >it, and with general linguistic theory may also be submitted . . . . The >journal welcomes articles dealing with current usage, dialectology, and the >history and structure of English. American Speech is not committed to any >particular theoretical framework, but preference is given to articles that >are likely to be of interest to a wide readership.>> > >In practice, I think we focus appropriately on our core with due attention to >our periphery, at all of our venues: our meetings, our journals, and our >discussion list. But I do think we haven't heard as much from Canadians and >about Canada as we had in the past, and I miss that. > >- Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary -- Dennis R. Preston Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 e-mail: preston at msu.edu phone: (517) 353-9290 From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 30 16:28:32 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:28:32 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A woman of my family's acquaintance used to complain of her "Arthuritis." The folk etymological possibilities are even more transparent here, of course, but since the phenomenon crops up fairly frequently, and "athaletic," e.g., has no folk etymological explanation I can think of, I wonder if both folk etymological and phonological factors aren't sometimes at work. --On Wednesday, January 29, 2003 5:31 PM -0800 Peter Richardson wrote: > Some weeks ago there was discussion of schwa insertion. The other day I > was in a local auto parts store, gabbing with an older (i.e. older than I > am) employee who came up with "agonostic--you know, doesn't believe or > whatever." A nice way to ease the transition from g to n. Is there any > "igganore" or "sigganature" out there? Or is this just likely > contamination from _agony_ (ergo the misery of the nonbeliever)? > > Peter R. **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 17:20:36 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:20:36 EST Subject: Jeat Jet? (Salinger, 1953); Saddamite; OT: AIDS in Africa Message-ID: JEAT JET? This citation was mentioned on Google Groups, and it checks out. I'll have to go and check the original NEW YORKER story for the original date (1948-1951?). From NINE STORIES by J.D. Salinger (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, April 1953, paperback edition January 2001), "Just Before the War with the Eskimos," pg. 67: "Jeat jet?" he asked. "What?" "Jeat lunch yet?" Ginnie shook her head. "I'll eat when I get home," she said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- SADDAMITE I'm increasingly seeing "Saddamite," or the Saddam Hussein spin on the word "sodomite." "Saddamite" was used by some to describe Scott Ritter, the weapons inspector (and to some, Saddam apologist) who allegedly tried to have sexual relations with an underaged female. "Saddamite" was used by Andrew Sullivan today on his blog. "Saddamite" will probably go the way of "Bork," but it's certainly been receiving a lot of play this month. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- OT: AIDS IN AFRICA (OR, WHY NO HEALTH INFORMATION IN HOTELS?) President Bush addressed African AIDS in his recent State of the Union speech. I recently did the same during my African trip, but my words couldn't be published, I guess. My letter to the FINANCIAL TIMES about the 2012 Olympics corrected a published error, but was much less important. I arrived about just before midnight in Kenya's Nairobi Hilton. The first person to greet me was a prostitute. I'd heard that AIDS was a plague in Africa, so I looked about my hotel room for AIDS information to read. There was no AIDS information to read. There was, of course, a Gideon New Testament. A few days later, I stayed in several lodges in remote areas. There were mosquito nets over the beds. I looked around the room for information about mosquito bites and malaria. There was no health information whatsoever. There was, again, a Gideon New Testament. My tour ended in Zanzibar. We had a free day, and then met up with the tour guide for dinner. The local tour guide mentioned that the night market had been closed because of a recent cholera epidemic. The hotel staff, which knew about the local cholera outbreak, had told me nothing when I arrived that morning. This was all horrendous. In the first case, where the Hilton hotel staff surely gets money from the prostitutes, it's probably something more than horrendous. All this has occurred in my other travels, also. I go to Traveler's Medical Advisory, on 57th Street and Madison. I went there this week (for my next trip), and I told the doctor there. She wasn't surprised, but offered lame reasons. "Hotels don't care," she said. "Most people don't get really sick until they get back home." The GUARDIAN is somewhat of an international newspaper, and its Notes & Queries has my responses on "hot dog" and "Big Apple." I wrote to the GUARDIAN to be a, well, guardian. Why is there no World Health Organization pamphlet or bulletin board in any hotel, anywhere? Exactly what kind of plague must occur before they'll tell you anything? The Gideons are in hotels; what about the WHO? A WHO health pamphlet could give information and even sell ads for local health providers, such as Flying Doctors. A simple health pamphlet could save lives AND make money. The GUARDIAN never published the letter. I sent the letter to THE NEW YORK TIMES, which never published it, either. I'm glad the President Bush is addressing AIDS in Africa. But the New York Times and the Guardian (both of which have run many AIDS stories) don't care, and the Hilton hotel chain will gladly profit from your demise! From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Jan 30 17:44:43 2003 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:44:43 EST Subject: Signs of the times Message-ID: re all of those dot.bomb etc. coinages, Business Week had an article on the possibilities of a revival in the on-line business. The headline was "Dot.Comback?" The local model railroad club has an open house every year to show off their layout to the public. Since they are just off a main highway, the local authorities post warning signs which read SPECIAL EVENT PEDESTRAIN TRAFFIC A notorious local strip joint has this anticlimax posted on its marquee SEXY, SAUCY, SENSUOUS GIRLS now serving lunch - Jim Landau From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Thu Jan 30 18:02:03 2003 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:02:03 -0600 Subject: Very forward Message-ID: An interesting example of reanalysis (of some kind): "I'm looking VERY forward to..." I heard this from an NPR caller this morning but I think it's pretty common even among people who don't call into radio programs. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Jan 30 17:00:34 2003 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:00:34 -0500 Subject: Softscape and hardscape In-Reply-To: <3E387FFE.FBA06F62@towse.com> Message-ID: Now the question is--what's xeriscape? At 05:29 PM 1/29/2003 -0800, you wrote: >Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > Now THESE are interesting innovations. > > > > At 10:21 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote: > > > From a correspondent - > > > > > >< > >"hardscape." Softscape is plants, and hardscape is paths, benches, > lighting, > > >etc. Probably derived from software and hardware, which occurred a decade > > >earlier. > > > > > > > > >George Winnacker>> > >I first bumped into "hardscape" when the library commission I was >headed was considering a rework of the library's landscaping >maybe five years ago. We were going to combine xeriscape with >hardscape for a low-water-needs landscape. > >I hadn't realized that "hardscape" had been around since ca. >1980. I've never heard of "softscape". > >Sal >-- >3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally >curious From self at TOWSE.COM Thu Jan 30 18:15:00 2003 From: self at TOWSE.COM (Towse) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:15:00 -0800 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > Now the question is--what's xeriscape? Landscaping (soft and hard :-) to maximize water conservation. When the library was thinking of redoing its grounds, we were in the middle of the last long California drought. Minimizing water use with a plan that used solutions other than just putting in gravel and rocks was on everyone's minds. The word was coined from "scape" and the Greek word "xeros" for dry. A good discussion and examples of xeriscape: Sal -- 3K+ useful links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET Thu Jan 30 18:18:57 2003 From: avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET (Anne Gilbert) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:18:57 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion Message-ID: Grant: > There are people, however, who say "mare-uh-juh-wana." I thought that was a joke. At least I knew it was the last time I heard marijuana pronounced that way. Anne g From wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM Thu Jan 30 18:32:39 2003 From: wendalyn at NYC.RR.COM (Wendalyn Nichols) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 13:32:39 -0500 Subject: Homographs, from a lexicographer's POV In-Reply-To: <3E392E3B.448806B6@wku.edu> Message-ID: What Lesa says is almost right: "homonym" is indeed an umbrella term (a hypernym, if you will); but "homographs" are simply words that are spelled the same whether they sound the same or not, and "homophones" sound the same whether they are spelled the same or not. A list of words that have the same spelling but different pronunciations would still be a list of homographs; just be aware that word X doesn't have to have a different pronunciation from word Y to qualify as a homograph of word Y. To illustrate what I mean, let's look at how homographs work in dictionaries. Native-speaker dictionaries tend to nest all the parts of speech that share a common etymological derivation under the main entry (headword)--thus, the headword form at the first entry for "bow" /bau/ in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary is the intransitive verb ('bend the knee or body'), with the transitive verb and noun nested at that entry. The second entry for "bow" is pronounced /bou/; it has both a different pronunciation and a slightly different etymology, two typical reasons to make a new entry instead of nesting these meanings under the first entry. Note that difference in meaning is not a criterion for making a new headword: this entry covers everything from the bow of an arrow to a bow on a gift to a violin bow. Bow 1 and bow 2 are homographs. They are not homophones. There is a third entry for "bow," however--pronounced /bau/ (the bow of a ship)--and it is also separated out because its etymology is different. Bow 3 is a homograph of both bow 1 and bow 2, but it is only a homophone of bow 1. Bow 3 and bow 1 are BOTH homographs AND homophones. In some native-speaker dictionaries and nearly all ESL dictionaries, part of speech is also a qualifying criterion for main entry status, and thus there could be many more than three homographs of "bow." ESL dictionaries don't show etymologies, so they would put all the nouns in one entry, all the verbs in another, etc., unless the pronunciation is different. So an important point to note is that there is some flexibility as to what one chooses to call a homograph, depending on the style guide of the dictionary. At 07:52 AM 1/30/03 -0600, you wrote: >Homonyms! Homonym is like metaphor. Metaphor, as a cover term, includes >metaphor and simile. Homonyn covers homographs (written the same, but sound >different) and homophones (sound the same). Some people, I think, use homonym >to refer to homographs only??? >I've come across somewhat of the same situation with the words jargon, argot >and slang. Is there really a lot of confusion or is the confusion regional? > >Grant Barrett wrote: > > > D?but du message r?exp?di? : > > > > > De: "Alan J. Friedman" > > > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York > > > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster > > > > > > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, > > > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon > > > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there > > > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there > > > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > > > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). I have read that, in > > > contrast to the multitude of homonyms, there are less than 100 > > > homographs. Are there any scholars who may have a running list of > > > homographs? From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Jan 30 19:11:18 2003 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:11:18 -0800 Subject: schwa insertion (fwd) Message-ID: Peter R. has demanded that I share this scholarly exchange with the list. (He was scared to.) Peter Mc. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- > --On Thursday, January 30, 2003 8:54 AM -0800 Peter McGraw > wrote: > > >> A woman of my family's acquaintance used to complain of her > >> "Arthuritis." And Peter Richardson answered: > > That's a disease contracted by those put to the sword by a medieval > > English king, isn't it? > > Only to be answered thusly by "Peter A. McGraw" : > Oh, I see! I always thought it was the aches and pains suffered by > English kings who lived beyond middle age in the Middle Ages. (Those > cold, damp castles and all. Not to mention repeated stooping to get > through those famously low doors. And that climate! You know how they > always speak of "the rain of King Arthur.") > And finally (one hopes), Peter Richardson replied: Date: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:47 AM -0800rrom: Peter Richardson To: "Peter A. McGraw" Subject: Re: schwa insertion OK, now send this little banter on to the group, who will have already begun to wonder about the drinking water in this place... ---------- End Forwarded Message ---------- **************************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College * McMinnville, OR pmcgraw at linfield.edu From mam at THEWORLD.COM Thu Jan 30 21:11:08 2003 From: mam at THEWORLD.COM (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:11:08 -0500 Subject: Homographs, from a lexicographer's POV In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20030130130251.009d1250@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Wendalyn Nichols wrote: #What Lesa says is almost right: "homonym" is indeed an umbrella term (a #hypernym, if you will); but "homographs" are simply words that are spelled #the same whether they sound the same or not, and "homophones" sound the #same whether they are spelled the same or not. # #A list of words that have the same spelling but different pronunciations #would still be a list of homographs; just be aware that word X doesn't have #to have a different pronunciation from word Y to qualify as a homograph of #word Y. This is not the first time this terminological question has come up. I have sometimes called such words "heterophones". True, analytically that would mean 'expressions that are pronounced differently', and the completely transparent term would be "heterophonic homograph", or vice versa "homographic heterophone". But since 1. there's an evident need for a term with the former meaning, and 2. I don't see any demand for a term meaning just 'expressions that are pronounced differently' (which applies to almost all pairs of expressions in any language), I hereby propose "heterophone" tout court. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From dcamp911 at JUNO.COM Thu Jan 30 19:01:38 2003 From: dcamp911 at JUNO.COM (Duane Campbell) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:01:38 -0500 Subject: Softscape and hardscape Message-ID: This thread has surprised me. I just assumed that hardscape and softscape went back to, oh, Frederick Law Olmsted. However _A Technical Glossary of Horticultural and Landscape Terminology_ published in 1972 does not have either nor do any of my books on landscaping prior to just a few years ago. D From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Thu Jan 30 21:55:45 2003 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:55:45 -0500 Subject: "garcon" again (was "pet names for oysters") Message-ID: I see that I have an earlier appearance of :garcon" in my notes, having posted 1842 last week. I still claim the earliest U. S. use, and apparently only the second use not in a narrative of travel on the continent. The OED has it from 1829, in Horace Foote, A Companion to the Theatres; and Manual of the British Drama. Its previous citation, from 1789, and its third citation, from 1839 are both from traveller's writings. 1835: What will become of all our chefs de cuisine and their retinue of garcons and scullions? Cooking by gas, introduced first here, and recently at New Orleans, will put them hors de combat. *** Delmonico's, and Palmo's, and Milford's, and a thousand others, will present a scene of high life below stairs frightful to think upon. *** Evening Star, June 26, 1835, p. 2, col. 3 This also gives us "chef de cuisine" OED has 1842 for "chef" and its earliest citation containing "chef de cuisine" is from 1900 (under "jipper"). GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 00:03:06 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:03:06 -0500 Subject: Jeet Jet (1947, 1948) Message-ID: That J. D. Salinger story is in THE NEW YORKER, 5 June 1948, pages 37-40. The citation is on page 38. There were three records for the "Jeet Jet" song. I had given the 1950s OCLC WorldCat citations. This is from 1947, but lists 1976 first and that threw me off: "Jug" sessions Gene Ammons; Albert Ammons; Junior Mance; Eugene Wright 1976, 1947 Sound Recording : Music : Jazz : LP recording 2 sound discs (79 min.) : analog, 33 1/3 rpm ; 12 in. Chicago : Mercury, Title: "Jug" sessions Author(s): Ammons, Gene. prf; Ammons, Albert,; 1907-1949. ; prf; Mance, Junior,; 1928- ; prf; Wright, Eugene,; 1923- ; prf Publication: Chicago :; Mercury, Year: 1976, 1947 Description: 2 sound discs (79 min.) :; analog, 33 1/3 rpm ;; 12 in. Language: N/A Series: EmArcy jazz series Music Type: Jazz Standard No: Publisher: EMS 20400; Mercury Contents: Concentration -- Red Top -- Idaho -- St. Louis blues -- Shufflin' the boogie -- S.P. blues -- Hiroshima -- McDougal's sprout -- Hold that money -- Shermanski -- Harold the Fox -- Jeet jet -- Odd-en-dow -- Going for the okey doak -- E.A.A.K. blues -- Blowing the family jewels -- Sugar coated -- Dues in blues -- Jay, Jay -- Daddy Sauce's airline -- Little Irv -- Abdullah's fiesta -- Brother Jug's sermon -- Everything depends on you -- Hot springs -- When you're gone -- Little slam. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Jazz -- 1941-1950. Note(s): All selections previously released on Mercury albums./ Notes by Dan Morgenstern on container./ Participants: Jazz; Gene Ammons, saxophone ; Albert Ammons, Junior Mance, pianos ; Gene Wright, bass; with others./ Recorded in Chicago between June 17, 1947 and October 4, 1949. Other Titles: Concentration.; Red Top.; Idaho.; St. Louis blues.; Shufflin' the boogie.; S.P. blues.; Hiroshima.; McDougal's sprout.; Hold that money.; Shermanski.; Harold the Fox.; Jeet jet.; Odd-en-dow.; Going for the okey doak.; E.A.A.K. blues.; Blowing the family jewels.; Sugar coated.; Dues in blues.; Jay, Jay.; Daddy Sauce's airline.; Little Irv.; Abdullah's fiesta.; Brother Jug's sermon.; Everything depends on you.; Hot springs.; When you're gone.; Little slam. Responsibility: Gene Ammons. Material Type: Music (msr); LP (lps) Document Type: Sound Recording Entry: 19840919 Update: 20010122 Accession No: OCLC: 11172118 Database: WorldCat From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 00:20:41 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:20:41 -0500 Subject: Slow cooker (1917?) Message-ID: More stuff in response to Wednesday's NEW YORK TIMES piece (www.nytimes.com) on the "crock pot" ("slow cooker"). There definitely will be something on this in the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK. "Slow cooker" may or may not make OED. In either case, please don't kill me. There's not a whole lot for "slow cooker" before 1970 (full text NY TIMES and trademark records were checked), but there's a ton of stuff _starting_ that year. Here are the first two OCLC WorldCat citations, and notice the large gap. A "crock pot" in 1917 at the University of Washington? Libraries with Item: "Design and construction o..."( Record for Item )Location Library Code WA UNIV OF WASHINGTON LIBR WAU Ownership: Check the catalogs in your library. Libraries that Own Item: 1 Title: Design and construction of an electric cooker for slow cooking. Author(s): Edson, Arthur Allen. Year: 1917 Description: 38 L. Language: English SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Electric furnaces. Note(s): Dissertation: A thesis submitted for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering--University of Washington, 1917 Other Titles: Electric cooker for slow cooking Material Type: Thesis/dissertation (deg); Manuscript text (mtx) Document Type: Book --------------------------------------------------------------- Libraries with Item: "Crock-pot slow electric c..."( Record for Item )Location Library Code EU GUILDHALL LIBR LGL Record for Item: "Crock-pot slow electric c..."( Libraries with Item ) Libraries that Own Item: 1 Title: Crock-pot slow electric cooker cook book / Author(s): Cutts, Susan. Corp Author(s): Prestige Group. Publication: London : The Prestige Group, Year: 1970-1979? Description: 72 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 20 cm. Language: English Note(s): Rainbird Collection./ Cover title./ Text on inside covers. Responsibility: [by Susan Cutts for the Prestige Group] Document Type: Book From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 00:43:54 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:43:54 -0500 Subject: Query: Homographs In-Reply-To: <3E392E3B.448806B6@wku.edu> Message-ID: > > >> > De: "Alan J. Friedman" >> > Date: Tue 28 Jan 2003 15:41:23 America/New_York >> > Objet: Question for the ADS Webmaster >> > >> > My son and I have compiled about 90 words -- words like bow, minute, >> > tear, delegate, intimate -- that change meaning depending upon >> > pronounciation. Some people call these words "homographs." Is there >> > an official linguistic category for such words? If not, should there >> > be? My favorites are "axes" (plural of ax and axis), "entrance," and > > > "routed" (past tenses of rout and route). Note that this last example is a true homonym (as opposed to a non-homophonic homograph) for those speakers who pronounce "route" to rhyme with "out" rather than with "boot". I think I'm using those homo-terms the way I want to. (For me, "routed" as the past tense of "route" can be pronounced either way, while "routed" as the past tense of "rout" can only be pronounced to rhyme with "outed". Of course in the former case, "routed" will be a homophone of "rooted".) larry From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 00:53:05 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:53:05 -0500 Subject: Soda Water and Ginger Ale (Thwaites and C&C) Message-ID: SLOW COOKER (continued) 18 June 1950, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. SM20, "Timely Aids for the Cook" by June Nickerson, photo caption: For cooking on porch, earthenware pot fits on hot plate that heats to simmering point. Good for beans, soups, spaghetti sauce, other "slow cookers." By West Bend. (The "slow cooker" here refers to the food--ed.) --------------------------------------------------------------- SODA WATER AND GINGER ALE Do both come from Ireland? I couldn't find them easily, but look at this item from the NYPL: I. SLATER'S NATIONAL COMMERCIAL DIRECTORY OF IRELAND Manchester and London: I. Slater 1846 Pg. 211: MINERAL & SODA WATER & GINGER BEER MANUFCTES. (...) Thwaites, A. & R. & Co. (inventors and sole proprietors of the double and single soda water), 57 Upper Sackville st (See advertisement) (Where is the advertisement? Does it state what drinks the company made in 1846?...This is listed in the Directory under "Dublin"...From the www.cantrell.ie/history.htm web site comes the below--ed.) Ireland has always been a good place for drinks. Perched on the edge of the Atlantic, and lulled by the flow of the gulf stream, Ireland's temperate climate produces ideal natural conditions for the best raw materials to flourish. New ideas seem to flourish here too. It was in Ireland that the first "uisce beatha" was distilled; where the more modern skills gave birth to the smooth dairy liqueurs we call Irish Creams, and where, over two centuries ago, the antecedents of our company, The Cantrell & Cochrane Group, developed a method of carbonating pure water, an invention they called Soda Water. Today at the heart of a vigorous and diverse drinks industry you'll find us making Carbonated soft Drinks, Mixers, Mineral Water, Squashes and Cordials, Juices, Ciders, Perries, Liqueurs and Spirits. Over the years we have become the most broadly based of all drinks companies in Ireland, operating in almost every segment of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks market. The company was started in 1852 in Belfast by Dr. Thomas Cantrell, apothecary and surgeon. However, we can trace our history back to 1769 to A & R Thwaites and Co. which subsequently became a constituent company within the C & C Group. Dr. Cantrell formed a partnership with Alderman Cochrane (later Sir Henry and Lord Mayor of Dublin). This partnership lasted until 1885 when Dr. Cantrell retired. In 1869 they opened a factory in Dublin and created the foundation of a business that was to become a thriving international industry. In 1871 the Belfast business moved to a new premises at Cromac Building, Victoria Square and the company continued to expand and establish an extensive export trade to many parts of the world. Changing world conditions around the 1914 - 1918 war created difficulties in the export market which led the company to concentrate on the home market. Following this change of direction factories were set up in London, Stockport and Glasgow with service depots throughout Great Britain. In 1956 Cantrell & Cochrane Belfast moved to its current premises in Castlereagh Road, Belfast. 1968 was an important year in the history of Cantrell & Cochrane as this was when Cantrell & Cochrane Group of companies came together as a result of a merger of the Soft Drinks and Cider companies. The merger was a result of an arrangement by which Allied Breweries (now Allied Domecq) and Guinness acquired the Cantrell & Cochrane... From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Fri Jan 31 02:11:37 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 21:11:37 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Dialect Tests? Message-ID: Please reply to the original sender as well as to the list. D?but du message r?exp?di? : > De: L Poage > Date: Thu 30 Jan 2003 19:48:17 America/New_York > ?: gbarrett at americandialect.org > Objet: Dialect Tests? > > I am currently working on a research project on how dialects affect > phonic knowledge for an education class. My instructor said she once > took a test which catagorized people as to which American dialect they > spoke. Thus far, I've not been able to find such a test. Do you have > any knowledge of tests of this nature? It'd make a great addition to > the presentation. > > Thanks, > Leonard Poage > > Leonard Poage > Career Specialist > Jobs for Ohio's Graduates > Minford High School > Minford, OH > lpoage at minford.k12.oh.us > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 02:12:58 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 21:12:58 -0500 Subject: Animal Crackers (Pittsburgh, 1895) Message-ID: Something for the ADS-Lers from Pittsburgh. The Oxford Symposium this year deals with children's food, so I've got to get "cracking." ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES has this LADIES' HOME JOURNAL, October 1895, pg. 24 ad: _MARVIN'S_ _Noah's Ark_ "Filled with animals, tame and wild, A tasteful luncheon for a child." _The Animal Crackers_ put up as above are light and appetizing and just the thing to please the children; grown folks likethem, too. If your grocer does not sell our biscuits, write to: _MARVIN--Pittsburg_ For more on "animal crackers," including the National Biscuit Company's 1902 product (which stole the term), see this from www.foodreference.com: ANIMAL CRACKERS The product we know today as Animal Crackers came into being in 1902, but it they had existed in similar forms for generations. In the late 1800s, ?Animals? (animal shaped fancy cookies) were imported from England. Many of the small, local bakeries in America made different versions called 'Animals' or 'Circus Crackers'. Bakeries began to unite into larger companies with regional and eventual national distribution at the end of the 19th century. One of these was the National Biscuit Company. Packaging became an important factor in marketing on a national scale. Their ?Animal Biscuits? were officially renamed 'Barnum's Animals' in 1902. During the Christmas season, the package was redesigned as a circus wagon with a string attached to it, so it could be hung as a Christmas tree ornament. They sold for 5 cents, and they were an immediate hit. In total there have been 37 different varieties of animal crackers since 1902. The current 17 varieties of crackers are tigers, cougars, camels, rhinoceros, kangaroos, hippopotami, bison, lions, hyenas, zebras, elephants, sheep, bears, gorillas, monkeys, seals, and giraffes. There are 22 crackers per box. More than 40 million packages of these are sold each year, and they are exported to 17 countries. They are turned out at the rate of 12,000 per minute, and nearly 6,000 miles of string are used on the packages. Christopher Morley wrote a poem named for them. "Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink, That is the finest of suppers, I think. When I?m grown up and can have what I please, I think I shall always insist upon these." By Christopher Morley. But the most famous reference to Animal Crackers is most likely in the Shirley Temple film 'Curleytop', in which she sang "Animal crackers in my soup, Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop, Gosh, oh, gee, but I have fun! " From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 03:00:22 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:00:22 -0500 Subject: Bar tender (1830) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster have 1836 for "bartender." It's here under "bar tender." There are some earlier "bartender" hits, but they looked (from the article titles) like the usual APS misdirections. I have to do this, because it's now the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD _AND DRINK_. 15 May 1830, SATURDAY EVENING POST (American Periodical Series online), pg. 2: He stated in his defense that the liquor was sold contrary to his orders by his bar tender; who has since been discharged his service. From scorn at PACIFIC.NET.AU Fri Jan 31 01:28:34 2003 From: scorn at PACIFIC.NET.AU (Steve Cornelius) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 12:28:34 +1100 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <72540.1043915312@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Peter McGraw's mention of "athaletic" reminds me that "triathalon" and its variants (e.g. "duathalon", "biathalon") are common around here. Do these occur in North America and UK too? Steve Cornelius Sydney, Australia From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 03:24:52 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:24:52 -0500 Subject: Munster cheese, Bed and Breakfast (1858) Message-ID: OED and Merriam-Webster have 1902 for "Munster" cheese. What does the OED revision have? This is long--"<>" is roughly in the middle. OED and Merriam-Webster also both have 1910 for "bed and breakfast," but you might not like this citation of it in the second-to-last paragraph. Notice the "Jewish-German" here instead of "Yiddish." From both the American Periodical Series and, here, Accessible Archives: ITEM #79464 September 16, 1858 THE NATIONAL ERA Washington, D.C., Vol. XII No. 611 P. 145 A PLEASANT NIGHT OF IT! ----- What a very happy period of my life that was when I was supposed to be studying Roman law at the feet of the great Professor Mittermaier at Heidelberg. Little did my fond parents wreck the way in which I spent my nights, or the mad scenes of which I was sharer, among the feather-brained Burschen. I had had only recently quitted Cambridge, after four years of college experience and forgetfulness of what I had learned at school, and the contrast a German university presented was most striking. Still I took to the new mode of life very kindly, and by the time I was able to express my wants and wishes in fearfully broken German, I was perfectly happy; for life is so pleasant at twenty! Perhaps, though, I enjoyed my vacations even more than I did my terms, for I was my own master, and could wander whither I pleased. I had a passport in my pocket, and a respectable amount of florins, and with knapsack on back, I trudged through the whole of the Black Forest, learning German (of a sort, it is true) rapidly on the road, and meeting with various queer adventures. One of the queerest, however, that befel me was in the Vosges, and I may as well narrate it here, as another instance of those strange things which travellers sometimes see. I had ever a predilection for Alsace, for in that happy land the quart bottle holds not merely a quart, which is a rarity, but just three pints, which is a marvel. Nor is the quality of the wine depreciated by the quantity; on the contrary, Chablis is not a patch upon the white wines that grow on the sunny slopes of the Vosges. ?If you doubt what I say, take a bumper and try;? which you can easily do, reader, on your next visit to Strasbourg, by calling in at the Rebstock, and asking for a litre of white wine with the ochre seal. However, as I knew that I was going into the country where the delectable wine grew, I did not dally at Strasbourg, but strode manfully away toward the Vosges, full of glorious anticipations, and carefully studying the patois by conversing with every peasant I fell in with. There is a very simple plan, however, to make yourself comprehended in Alsace: always use a French word and a German word alternately; it is wonderful what success you meet with. An infallible rule to make yourself liked is, by lugging in the name of Napoleon le Grand on every possible occasion, and, if you are sufficiently cosmopolitan, you may tacitly assent to the fact that he won the battle of Waterloo. There is only one defect connected with Alsace: when it rains there, there is no mistake about it. I was fated to discover this interesting meteorological fact at the expense of a thorough wetting. I had dined at a little village inn on the inevitable cold veal and picled plums, and when I set out on my jaunt to my night's quarters, seventeen miles off, the clouds were beginning to collect ominously in the west. I buttoned my blouse round me, and trudged manfully onward along a road which had not been traversed by a respectable conveyance within the memory of man. It was full of ruts, hard enough at first, but which the persistent rain, which had commenced by this time to fall, converted into so many pitfalls, into which I was continually slipping. To add to my troubles, night set in with that rapidity peculiar to Southern Germany, and there was no sign of the village at which I intended to spend the night. Not a creature did I meet; nobody was foolish enough to venture out in such weather, save pleasure travellers like myself, and on I went, making about half a mile an hour, and growing very savage - whether the result of the wetting, or of indignation, I really cannot say. My brandy flask had long been emptied; there was no chance of filling it, and I was weared - so wearied that I could have lain down to sleep in a dry ditch, had there been one handy; but against that the elements had carefully guarded. There was no hope for it; I must trudge onward. Suddenly, through the rain, I fancied I could see a light glimmering a short distance from the road. I stopped, and looked steadily; it was no Will-o'-the-wisp, and by a sudden impulse I bounded over the low hedge, and went stumbling over a ploughed field toward the house, as I now felt certain it was. Up to the present, I had regarded the peasant's cabins with considerable aversion, and pour cause: there were the dirtiest places imaginable, and I had no desire to sleep in them so long as an auberge could be found. But now I would have gladly paid a handsome sum for the use of a dog kennel, so long as it sheltered me from the pitiless rain, and held out the prospect of a glass of brandy to warm my inner man, which stood so much in need of that refreshment. I soon approached the cabin, which stood beneath the shade of some gloomy trees, and the light, which probably came from the fire, burned so dimly, that I hesitated for a moment; all appeared so unutterably wretched about the house, that I had a nervous timidity about approaching it. I am not constitutionally fearful; on the contrary, I am usually too prone to run into foolhardiness; but now, whether it was the soaking or the veal, I felt horribly nervous. A moment, however, sufficed to recover me, and I walked across the yard, and knocked boldly at the door. All remained perfectly quiet in the house, except that I fancied I could hear the growling of a huge dog, like distant thunder; then I knocked again somewhat more loudly, and a dog began barking violently. At the same time, however, I had the satisfaction of hearing footsteps approach the doro. ?Who is without?? a voice was heard saying, in execrable Jewish-German; ?is it you, Benjamin?? ?'Tis a stranger,? I shouted, fearing lest any hesitation might render my friend inside suspicious; ?I want shelter for the night, and will pay you handsomely for it.? ?Are you alone?? the voice asked again. ?Quiet, Nero! down dog! what do you mean by growling when I did not order you to watch him?? ?All alone, but as wet as if I had been dipped in the river.? ?You'd be clever to keep yourself dry this day,? he said, as he pulled back the bolts, and opened the door slowly and cautiously. ?Come in - the dog won't hurt you when I'm with you. What weather! Come to the fire, and dry yourself.,? He walked in front of me to the fire, stirred up the smouldering wood, and threw a few sticks upon it. All this while I could notice he was taking quick, sharp glances at me; then he went up to my knapsack, which I had laid on a chair, appeared to feel its weight for a moment, and brought it up to the fire to dry as well as myself. ?And you're hungry, too, I suppose! out for pleasure, eh? Young blood! young blood!? and he grinned in a manner to me quite diabolical. He then went to the tale, spread a very dirty tablecloth, on which he placed a loaf of black bread, stuck a knife into it, and then produced a large green glass jar, containing the much desired fluid. After filling an iron saucepan with hot water, and putting it on the wood, he quitted the room for a while. During his absence, I surveyed the room in which I was seated, and the very sight of it made me uncomfortable. It was quite destitute of furniture, contrary to the usual fashion of the peasantry, and I shuddered involuntarily. But, nonsense, it could only be the cold and the moisture the fire was drawing out of my clothes, and yet, for all that, I began to wish I had trudged on through the rain. And then, that immense dog that lay close to the fireplace, and kept its small, suspicious eyes fixed upon me. And the walls were shining with grease and soot, and the small cupboards fixed against them, and shelves. But, Heavens! I could hardly suppress a cry of surprise when my eye fell on an old mummy-like woman, who rose from the dark corner where she had probably been sleeping, and walked toward me and the fire. She was a model of ugliness and disgust, this old woman, with her tangled masses of gray hair hanging over her forehead and temples, her sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, and wrinkled neck, as she stood there shivering with cold, and stretched out her this bony hands to the fire. I fell back a step to give the old creature room, but on my first attempt to quit the chimney-place, the dog growled, and, as I turned toward him, his eyes sparkled so vividly that I thought it advisable to stay where I was, and not anger him unnecessarily. The woman now turned her face to me, and after gazing fixedly at me for a moment, whispered a few hurried words in a language of which I did not understand a syllable. ?What a pity,? I thought to myself, ?I did not understand a little Hebrew.? I then looked carefully at the old woman, trying to find out from her gestures what she really meant. Again she began her whispering, turning her head timidly toward the door, and pointing at the same time to the table. ?I can't understand you!? I said, in the usual patois, hoping she would understand me at any rate. ?Hush!? the crone said, quickly and fearfully, holding up her finger in warning; at this moment the door opened, and the Jew, on seeing the old woman by my side, went up angrily to her, and spoke harshly in the same unknown tongue. The woman crept timidly away, wrapped herself more closely in her old cloak, and lay down again in her corner. The Jew then said, pleasantly enough, to me - ?Don't bother about the old girl; she is quiet and harmless; but not quite right here,? he said, pointing to his forehead. ?When we are alone, I let her do much as she likes; but when strangers visit me, which is seldom enough, she must keep in her corner. But here,? he added, in a louder voice, ?is something for you to eat - bread and << Munster cheese>> , I lately brought from Strasbourg, and a famous glass of brandy, which will do you more good, I fancy, than all the rest; the water will be hot by this time. Ah, I see it's boiling, and I'll mix you a glass of punch in the meanwhile. So, now, go to the table, and begin.? I was really almost starving, and yet I could not swallow anything. That confounded dog had his eyes still fixed so dangerously upon me. ?The dog won't hurt you,? said the Jew, calmly, ?he is only not accustomed to strangers.? ?But if I had stirred while you were out of the room, he would have sprung at me,? I said, rather angrily. ?It's an old dog,? the man continued, with a smile, ?and hasn't a tooth left in his head; but he often pretends to be savage. The time is long past since he bit any one, and you can go up and pat him, and he won't say a word.? However, I did not feel the slightest inclination to try the experiment; I therefore proceeded to the table, and cut a hunch of bread and << cheese>> , while the old Jew stooped down to the fire, and, after shaking something out of a paper into the glass, poured the water upon it. ?There!? he said, as he came to the table, ?now, put in as much brandy as you like, but the stiffer the better, for it will keep you from catching cold.? ?What have you put in the glass, my friend?? I asked, as I held the glass to the fire. ?Sugar and water; the sugar is good, and takes off the strength of the brandy.? ?I'm not so fond of sugar,? I replied, suspiciously; ?and, if you've no objection, I'll mix for myself.? ?Not like sugar! why it's the best part of it,? said the Jew, ?only taste it, and you'll soon see how good it is.? However, I persisted in throwing the mixture away, and, after carefully washing the glass out, I filled it afresh with water, and poured in some brandy. ?More, my friend - more,? the Jew advised me; ?that's not half enough, and won't draw the cold out of your limbs. Why, my old woman will drink stronger punch, if I give it to her.? ?Thanks, thanks!? I said, as I turned away the bottle, from which the Jew persisted in pouring more into my glass. ?I'm not accustomed to strong drinks, and shall have a headache tomorrow morning.? ?Oh! tomorrow! I'll guarantee you against that,? the old man laughed to himself; ?the brandy is capital, and no one has a headache from it.? I really felt such a shiver come over me at these words, (though, of, course, I ascribed it to my wet clothes,) and the brandy really tasted so good, that I took up the glass and emptied it at a draught. By Jupiter! how it burned! ?And now you had better lie down,? the Jew said, after removing the brandy and other things from the table; ?it is late in the night, and, after your sleeping draught, you will sleep sound in spite of your hard bed. The best place for you will be here by the fire. Before we go to bed, I'll put on some fresh wood, and by the time that is burnt out, you'll be warm enough. The nights are beginning to grow fresh.? I was glad enough to lie down, so I took up my knapsack, which had dried a little by this time, to serve as a pillow, and the old man brought me a blanket and a sheepskin, regretting that he had nothing better to offer me, but all his beds were occupied. ?But I'll bring you something to keep your feet warm,? he added; ?that is the chief things, and by the morning you will be all right again.? With these words he took a canvas sack, which appeared to me to be ominously stained, from the chimney nook, and then, bringing it to my feet, (for I had lain down by this time,) requested me to put them in it. ?In the sack?? I said, in amazement - ?why?? ?Oh! you'll see how warm that will keep your feet.? ?No, I'd rather lay it over them; that will answer the same purpose.? ?Not half so good, I tell you,? the old man continued, and tried to draw the sack over my feet, but I strenuously resisted. There was something so dangerous, in my opinion, in knowing my feet were in a sack, which I could not easily remove in the dark, if I were obliged to spring up in a hurry. If ----? Besides, the old fellow's pressing made me feel uncommon uncomfortable (I may tell you so in strict confidence.) What reason on earth could he have for insisting on my putting my feet in the sack. However, when the Jew found that I was obstinate, he laid the sack over my feet, and went back to the fire instead of retiring to bed as I had expected, and sat cross-legged, staring fixedly into the flame. Well, I shut my eyes and tried to go to sleep, but somehow I could to manage it; the fire burned low, and I could see the old fellow still sitting there, but I felt that his eyes were fixed upon me, and that he was watching my every movement, every breath. Why? I lay thus for an half hour, and the strangest feelings came over me. Then I had a curious taste in my mouth - the brandy, of course, but why was it so metallic? And my head began to go round, and my eyelids grew heavy as lead. At last, I could stand it no longer, and determined to jump up; but I was unable to do so; my limbs refused me their service, a veil seemed to be let down over my eyes, and I felt that a deep, irresistible sleep was overpowering me. How long I lay in this sort of half-dreaming condition I do not know, although I struggled against this unnatural state with all the strength of my mind, and should finally have yielded to it, had not a slight sound just at the right moment come to my aid in resisting it. The Jew, who was still seated at the fire, moved, gently and noiselessly, it is true; still he got up, and now stood with his face turned toward me. I tried to close my eyes, and dispel the odious vision which my fancy seemed to summon up, but at that moment I felt the light, crawling steps of the old man on the floor, felt that he was drawing nearer and nearer; and when I half opened my eyes, cautiously enough, lest the scowling fellow might see I was awake, I saw him standing a few paces from me, with his body half bent to listen, and watching my every breath. What was he about - what did he want? Should I jump up and meet him, in case he attempted to attack me - but then the dog, which was still lying in the room? And again, was the Jew really going to attack me, or might it not be anxiety whether I slept comfortably? I determined to wait and judge for myself, even at the risk of exposing myself to his attack, for I was young and strong, and if the old man designed evil he should meet with a resistance he little anticipated. So, in order to leave the old man at leisure to carry out his designs, whatever they might be, I began breathing loudly and regularly, while watching him carefully through my half-closed eyelids. The Jew remained for a while observing me, as if to make sure that my sleep was real; but then, as if every doubt were removed, he crept quietly back to the chimney, threw some brushwood on the glimmering charcoal, which began to glisten and crackle, and went to the opposite end of the room, where the crockery was kept. Anxiously I watched him; but I must confess that my blood appeared to stagnate, and an icy feeling ran down my back, when I saw him take up a long gleaming knife, and while trying its edge with his thumb, seem to measure the distance between himself and his victim. As I have told you before, I believe I am anything but a coward; I have stood behind a four-foot barricade, and looked up into the gaping muzzles of the cannon as they poured a shower of bullets on your slight defences; but I am bound to say, that the present was the most uncomfortable moment in my life. The calculating villainy of the old scoundrel, and the simplicity with which I had entered the snare, seemed to render escape almost impossible. Still I made up my mind to sell my life as dearly as possible. Fortunately I had in my pocket a Spanish spring-back stiletto, generally employed in the peaceful duties of cutting bread and << cheese>> , (German and French knives being made, like Peter Pindar's razors, to sell, and not to cut,) and I cautiously moved my hand to my breast-pocket, and noiselessly drew it out. When I once held it in my hand, my confidence returned to me. I opened it very quietly, and then laying my left arm across my breast, to parry the first blow, which would probably be aimed there, I held my knife firmly clutched in my hand, and awaited the attack with ground teeth, but no failing determination. My heart, though, would beat so loudly and so violently, that I feared the Jew must hear it; but when I saw him approaching, with the knife cautiously held behind his back, when I felt his foot against my own, when he bent over me, and felt along the wall with his left hand, to find a spot on which to rest it and give his blow more certainty, my fears entirely disappeared. It is a well-known fact, that danger really exists only so long as it threatens us, and it is robbed of more than half its terrors when it breaks over us with undiminished force. This was just my case; I had felt terrified, and could hardly struggle against the feeling, so long as the danger was drawing nearer and nearer to me; but every thought, save that of self-defence, disappeared when I knew that the knife was directed against my heart. so soon as he struck at me, I determined to parry the blow by means of the left arm, an d the blank lying over it would afford me great protection; but then I would start up, and bury my knife in the villain's ribs, before he could recover from his surprise, or summon the dog. I should soon be able to overcome the weak old man; and as for the brute, once on my legs, I dare say I could keep him from doing me an injury. Such was my line of thought, and I was quite prepared to carry it into effect. But why did the Jew hesitate so long? He had advanced his left foot a little, his arm was still supported against the wall, yet he did not raise his other arm to strike the blow. Was he afraid? I bit my teeth mere closely together, and almost longed for the decisive moment to come, so excited did I feel - anything, sooner than endure this horrible suspense. Suddenly the Jew drew back; he did not strike at me - his left arm quitted the wall, and he held in it - I hardly knew whether I was awake or dreaming - the same loaf from which I had previously been eating. He walked with it to the fire, cut off a hunch with the fearful long knife, laid the remainder on the chimney board, and, after poking up the wood fire till it threw a brilliant light over the room, he began quietly eating, without troubling himself any further about my presence. I drew a deep breath - it was as if a large stone had been rolled off my chest - and I lay for a long while in a sort of dreamy condition, hardly able to realize this state of perfect security following closely on the danger which I had fancied so shortly before had menaced me. I really began to feel ashamed of the cruel injustice I had done, though only in thought, to a man who had so hospitably entertained me; and I almost felt inclined to jump up and tell him of my foolish suspicions. But no - that would not do; he would laugh at me. Still I felt I must do something, if only to reconcile my own conscience. I therefore shut up my knife as quietly as possible, returned it to my pocket, and then, pretending to wake from a deep sleep, I threw off the blanket, took the sack, and put my feet quietly into it. ?Aha!? chuckled my host, who, on hearing my movement, turned his head quietly toward me; ?one's feet generally get cold on nights, if they have been wet during the day; but the sack will keep them warm enough. ?I think so, too. I fancy it will be better so,? I replied; then fell back on my somewhat hard pillow, drew the blanket up to my chin, and in a few seconds had fallen into a deep and sweet sleep. When I woke the next morning, I found that the sun was high in the heavens, and on the table a comfortable breakfast had been laid. A pretty little girl was tidying the room, and her presence really rendered it quite cheerful. ?So, sir,? she said, good-humoredly, ?you are awake at last. Uncle did not like to disturb you. I am sorry, though, you had no better bed than this; but I only came home last night from Strasbourg on a visit, and we had all gone to bed for the night.? The old Jew now came in, and gave me a hearty welcome. I hardly had the heart to look him in the face. I was then forced to sit down to the breakfast table, at which the old man's son, a fine young fellow of twenty-four, joined us. Hearing from him that he was going back with his light cart to Strasbourg that morning, I willingly accepted his offer of accompanying him. I had had quite enough of adventures for this bout, and, besides, sundry rheumatic twinges told me that I ought not to venture away so far from civilization, lest I might be laid on my back in a rustic village, and my mourning relatives never learn where they should set up a cenotaph to my memory. When the light cart came up to the door, I inquired what I had to pay; but the old Jew could not be induced to accept a farthing for the accommodation. Bed and breakfast, he said, had both been poor enough; and I shook his hand heartily upon leaving him. And, upon my honor, in the bright sunshine, he wasn't half such a bad-looking old fellow. There was something quite patriarchal about him. Now, I dare say, you'll all laugh very heartily at my story, and fancy I must have been a great cur to let myself be frightened by an old man; but really, even now, in writing it, I have had an uncomfortable feeling crawl over me at the reminiscence. It's a good many years since it happened, and there's not much prospect of my having any more adventures of that or a similar nature; and, between ourselves - in strict confidence, mind - I prefer making ?a pleasant night of it? with Smith, and Jones, and Thompson, after a very different fashion. From hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET Fri Jan 31 03:14:19 2003 From: hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET (Herbert Stahlke) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:14:19 -0500 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <1043941389.16201CF7@r5.dngr.org> Message-ID: Some years ago I was watching a televized question session from the House of Commons, and one of the ministers, answering a question, called the weed /mEridZuana/, with an /i/ instead of the schwa Grant seems to suggest. I took this as the same sort of RP spelling pronunciation as Cervantes' Don /kwiksowt/ or Byron's Don /dZu at n/. But I don't know RP well enough to be sure of this. Herb -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Grant Barrett Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:43 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: schwa insertion There are people, however, who say "mare-uh-juh-wana." On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 8:22AM -0500, James A. Landau wrote: > "marijuana" does not get rendered into English as "mariajuana"---this > may be > because the "i" of "marijuana" is already a schwa. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 04:10:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 23:10:30 -0500 Subject: Bridge Mix (1945) Message-ID: "Bridge mix" is not in OED. It's a real puzzler. Everyone knows that the Brooklyn Bridge and the George Washington Bridge shouldn't be mixed. Any bridge players out there? 29 November 1945, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 36: CANDY-chocolate coated bridge mix, one-pound boxes. Pakt Specialties Co. 641 Morris Av., MO 9-3968. The earliest trademark is this: Word Mark BRIDGE MIX Goods and Services (EXPIRED) IC 030. US 046. G & S: CRACKERS. FIRST USE: 19640502. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19640502 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72193722 Filing Date May 18, 1964 Registration Number 0834841 Registration Date September 5, 1967 Owner (REGISTRANT) KEEBLER COMPANY CORPORATION DELAWARE 2407-2411 W. NORTH AVE. MELROSE PARK, ILL., BY CHANGE OF NAME FROM UNITED BISCUIT COMPANY OF AMERICA (DELAWARE CORPORATION) MELROSE PARK, ILL. Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Disclaimer THE WORD "MIX" IS DISCLAIMED EXCEPT AS A PART OF THE COMBINATION WORD MARK "BRIDGE MIX." Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Live/Dead Indicator DEAD From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 04:44:30 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 23:44:30 -0500 Subject: Canadian bacon (1897) Message-ID: Something for the Canadian(s) here. Merriam-Webster has 1934 for "Canadian bacon." OED doesn't have "Canadian bacon," so I have to bring it home. October 1897, NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW (American Periodical Series online; also on Making of America-Cornell, the only hit there), pg. 418 start: Being excluded from the American market by heavy duties upon pork and swine, the farmers and packers of Canada set about ascertaining what grade of goods would best suit the English taste, with a determination to shape their business in such a way as to meet that taste. The result is that Canadian bacon and hams so far lead the American product in the English market that, during all of the present season, hogs have been worth at railway stations throughout the Province of Ontario on an average twenty-five per cent. more than in the stock market at Buffalo or Chicago, and the business of furnishing meats to England is growing with phenomenal rapidity. 13 February 1910, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. SM4: (First "Canadian bacon" hit in an article on food markets--ed.) 11 June 1911, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 63 ad: _MACY'S_ MANY GROCERY SPECIALS-- For Shrewd Housewives (...) _Bacon_, a special sale of Wilshire imported Canadian bacon; a fresh shipment just received, freshly cured, delicately flavored; we receive monthly shipments; weights 3 to 25 lbs; at this sale, lb. ... 24 cents (No "Canadian bacon" in the Early Canadiana Online database--ed.) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Jan 31 05:21:38 2003 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 00:21:38 -0500 Subject: Canola (1979); Canola Oil (1983) Message-ID: Something more for Canada! OED doesn't have "canola" or "canola oil." Amazing. Slang even a decade later such as "going postal" got in! Add "canola" with "rabe" right now! Merriam-Webster has 1979 for "canola" and 1986 for "canola oil." MW has "canola"="Canada oil-low acid." These cites are from ProQuest Historical Newspapers. 3 April 1979, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. A18: _Purification_ It was only a matter of time before somebody decided something had to be done about rapeseed. No matter that the "rape" of this oil seed comes from the Latin "rapum," or turnip, and not from the Latin "rapere," meaning to seize. Rapeseed processors in Canada want to call their product "canola," a name that sounds as if it were inspired by granola, holism's favorite breakfast food. But purging rapeseed is only the beginning of the work that needs to be done to cleanse the botanical vocabulary. How can the pure-in-tongue rest easy while the fields are full of horehound, lady-in-the-night and squawroot--also known as Stinking Benjamin? 2 December 1983, WALL STREET JOURNAL, pg. 15: _Algeria Orders From Canada_ $22 Million of Vegetable Oil_ OTTAWA--Algeria ordered 30,000 metric tons of Canadian rapeseed oil valued at $22 million, Canadian Commercial Corp., a government enterprise, said. Rapeseed oil, also known as canola oil, is a vegetable oil used in cooking and food processing. It is Canada's main oil-seed product. (...) 21 February 1984, WALL STREET JOURNAL, pg. 49: _FDA Is Seen Clearing_ _Rapeseed Oil for Use_ _In U.S. Food Products_ OTTAWA--The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize soon the use of rapeseed oil as a food product in the U.S., FDA officials said. Rapeseed oil is used in many countries as an ingredient in such foods as margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing and shortening. It competes with other oilseeds, including soybean and sunflowers. The U.S. has barred rapeseed oil from its edible-oil market because it contains erucic acid, a fatty acid that was cited in the early 1970s as a possible source of heart problems. The proposed FDA regulation would allow only rapeseed oil with low erucic acid content to be used in foods in the U.S. The Canadian government has taken the initiative in seeking FDA clearance for low erucic acid rapeseed oil, asking in 1982 that low erucic acid rapeseed oil be put on the FDA's list of products "generally regarded as safe." Rapeseed, which grows well in northern climates, is Canada's major oilseed crop. It accounts for about 54% of Canada's domestic market for edible oils. The Canola Council of Canada, a rapeseed-industry trade group, said FDA authorization would open the U.S. market to Canadian exports of rapeseed oil and to products containing rapeseed oil. Canada has given the name Canola to tis low erucic acid varieties of rapeseed oil. (...) See the following: http://www.canola-council.org/ From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 12:32:26 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 07:32:26 -0500 Subject: Animal Crackers (Pittsburgh, 1895) In-Reply-To: <4938531F.3804A81D.0015B172@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > But the most famous reference to Animal Crackers is most likely in the > Shirley Temple film 'Curleytop', in which she sang "Animal crackers in > my soup, Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop, Gosh, oh, gee, but I have > fun! " This is more famous than the Marx Brothers film?? Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 12:44:25 2003 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 07:44:25 -0500 Subject: Animal Crackers (Pittsburgh, 1895) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: My last message may have looked like Barry Popik had said some Shirley Temple usage of "animal crackers" was more famous than the Marx Brothers film. Barry was quoting someone; he would know better than to have said that, I'm sure. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG Fri Jan 31 12:48:08 2003 From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 07:48:08 -0500 Subject: Fwd : American Dialect Assistance in South Africa Message-ID: Please reply to the original sender. D?but du message r?exp?di? : > Good day > > I am the Training and Development manager of a Contact Centre in Cape > Town South Africa. Our agents offer support to many American > customers. We would like to offer our agents the opportunity to learn > more about American Dialects and also possibly explore which words > they use might be confusing to the customers. > > I assume you are situated somewhere in the states, we however need to > get in contact with someone in South Africa who might be able to help > us. > > I would appreciate it if you could contact me today still. > > Kind regards, > > Lisa van Reede van Oudtshoorn > Contact Centre HR Development Manager > ForwardSLASH > Contact Number : 021 430 6520 > Mobile : 082 476 6044 > Lisav at forwardslash.com > Lisa at forwardslash.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Jan 31 14:49:31 2003 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 09:49:31 -0500 Subject: schwa insertion In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030131122535.00a6dc20@po.pacific.net.au> Message-ID: At 12:28 PM +1100 1/31/03, Steve Cornelius wrote: >Peter McGraw's mention of "athaletic" reminds me that "triathalon" and its >variants (e.g. "duathalon", "biathalon") are common around here. Do these >occur in North America and UK too? > Yes, at least for "biath(a)lon", "decath(a)lon" and "pentath(a)lon" and for this part of North America. In fact much more common than "ath(a)lete"/"ath(a)letic". I suspect the frequency of "athlete" blocks schwa insertion there, and the stress pattern of "athletic" makes it less likely there (as well as the frequency factor). In "decath(a)lon" and its comrades, both the infrequency and the stress pattern increase the likelihood of the (phonetically natural) schwa insertion. Larry P.S. I imagine for "duath(a)lon" too, but I've never heard that one.