The earth v. Earth

[Dennis Preston]

Colleagues,

You all turn out to be right after all; I'm
really slow to catch on, and this time it wasn't
dialect pronunciation. It took me several
milliseconds to correctly (re)process "American
mfrs."

dInIs

PS: Was it a joke in the fist place? Are there
other exciting stories about abbreviation
ambiguity out there?

>---------------------- Information from the mail
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
>Subject:      Re: The earth v. Earth
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>
>>Of course, I'm abstracting away from the fact that any noun or
>>adjective in English can be made proper and, therefore, require
>>capitalization, as is the case with Tarzan's son, Boy. OTOH, cf,
>>German, in which every noun is capitalized. There's nothing intrinsic
>>about this sort of thing.
>>
>>-Wilson
>~~~~~~~~~~~
>The fastidious French, on the other hand, honor a proper noun by removing
>its capital when it has become so well-incorporated into French life that
>it is recognized as a fully-fledged French word.  American mfrs, with their
>jealous  & zealous protection of their precious brand names might be
>comforted by adopting the French attitude when some miscreant uses, e.g.,
>"kleenex" w/out cap or Å.
>AM
>
>
>
>~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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