mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin)

[Mark A. Mandel]

FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> asks:
>>>
Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond
(or tonsil)?'
<<<

i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, punctuation,
capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon naturallyspeaking
to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako
escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, etc., and
sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my tendinitis.

i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name was
mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he shortened it. i
like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather than to
avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees and left
only the nuts.

aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; french
also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can see,
"by hand" is away from the tonsils!

it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that eng.
"dozen" is '(group of) 12'.

-- mark by hand