"the apocryphal HDAS III"

Tue Aug 3 09:54:39 UTC 2010

>70% of native English speakers are American versus 16% British.

>I wonder how many books are printed in Amglish versus Briglish?

About 30 years ago I pointed out to a Brit that there were far more American
English speakers than Brit speakers. He replied that there were far more
Fords than Rolls Royces, too.

The EFL markets around the world do know which English they are being taught
and to a surprising extent they prefer the British variety. I was co-author
of a "Business English" EFL series (Macmillan and later Prentice Hall) that
was published in otherwise identical British and American English versions.
In Japan, the British version outsold the American version about 5 to 1. The
rest of the world (outside the US) was closer to 3 to 1.
DAD

>: Re: "the apocryphal HDAS III"
>
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>
> Joel Berson describes the OED's practice:
> ". . . the OED is not especially interested in documenting American
English, as distinguished from British English. If there is an American
antedating or useful interdating or postdating, it may be taken just as if
it were British. But if an American quotation is "too near" an existing
British quotation, it will not be taken. . . ."
>
> This is exactly my impression, and I'm not satisfied with it. It's been a
few years since I last bothered to check to see whether anything from the
word-lists I've submitted to the OED have been included in the OED. When I
had checked, I had dependably found that unless one of my quotations was an
absolute antedating, they were not used.
> "What did the Yanks know, and when did they know it?" seems like a
legitimate question, whether it's a matter of prize-fighting or Kantean
metaphysics, and the answer to this sort of question could use as evidence
the years when the distinctive vocabulary of the field entered American
English.
> The folks in Oxford ought to take note of the fact that there are more
Yanks speaking English than Limeys. We demand our rights.
>
> I do not blame or criticize Jesse Sheidlower for this policy, by the way.
He does indeed "spend his time in documenting
> American English".
>
> What I really want from Oxford University Press is HDAS III. If I had
that, I'd say to hell with the OED.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Shapiro, Fred"
> Date: Monday, August 2, 2010 10:53 am
> Subject: Re: "the apocryphal HDAS III"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> > I'm not sure where George gets the assertion that "the chief editors
> > of the OED aren't interested in documenting American English." My
> > impression is that Jesse Sheidlower spends his time in documenting
> > American English, and that many of the citations in the revised OED
> > come from American sources.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> > George Thompson [george.thompson at NYU.EDU]
> > Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 10:16 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: "the apocryphal HDAS III"
> >
> > This raises a very galling point: how long do we have to wait for
> > Oxford University Press to bring out the final volumes of HDAS? If I
> > thought that the material JL has gathered for it would someday be
> > incorporated in the OED, I might be content. But it's clear that the
> > chief editors of the OED aren't interested in documenting American
> > English, except in so far as a word's first appearance is in an
> > American source.
> > Slang is a very useful indication of thought and habits, but it's hard
> > to study, without a source like HDAS. 10 years ago or so, Gerry Cohen
> > kindly published a collection of prize-fighting slang I had gathered
> > from NYC newspapers, 1817-1835. This included a few absolute
> > antedatings of the in-print OED which if they hold up will make the
> > revised OED, but otherwise I expect them to wind up on the copy-hook.
> > But the collection was interesting because it showed that the fad for
> > prize-fighting among raffish English noblemen passed very quickly to
> > the United States, despite the War of 1812 and the embargo that
> > preceded it. Other aspects of cultural and social history can be
> > studied in an extensive collection of dated slang material
> >
> > The OUP needs to stop sitting on the material for HDAS III & IV and
> > produce them, or I will start remembering it in my bed-time curses,
> > along with the despised Bertelsmann House.
> >
> > What can the collective might of ADS-L do to bring this about -- in
> > addition to our collective bed-time curses, of course
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Jonathan Lighter
> > Date: Monday, August 2, 2010 7:44 am
> > Subject: Re: Submariner [was "thousand-yard stare"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> > > George, see the apocryphal HDAS III. For some reason in the U.S. it's
> > > "piss" that the designee cannot pour from the boot. Even if the boot
> > > has a
> > > instructions *and* a spout.
> > >
> > > Just a cultural thing, I guess.
> > >
> > > JL
> > >
> > > On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 10:38 PM, George Thompson wrote:
> > >
> > > > Subject: Re: Submariner [was "thousand-yard stare"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
> > > >
> > > >
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> > > >
> > > > There is a put-down that I think I saw in Brendan Behan's Borstal
> > > Boy, that
> > > > someone was too dumb to pour sand out of a boot, even if the
instructions
> > > > were printed on the heel.
> > > >
> > > > GAT
> > > >
> > > > George A. Thompson
> > > > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
Northwestern
> > > > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: Laurence Horn
> > > > Date: Sunday, August 1, 2010 8:56 pm
> > > > Subject: Re: Submariner [was "thousand-yard stare"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
> > > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > >
> > > > > At 8:38 PM -0400 8/1/10, Mark Mandel wrote:
> > > > > >I have a pair of Dockers brand pants, less than a year old, that
> > > have
> > > > > "ONE
> > > > > >LEG AT A TIME" printed in red letters an inch high on the inside
> > > of the
> > > > > >waistband, right front.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >m a m
> > > > >
> > > > > Not quite rising to the level of the apocryphal Coke bottles in
> > (pick
> > > > > a country) with the legend on the bottom reading "OPEN OTHER END",
> > > > > but...
> > > > >
> > > > > LH
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Dave Wilton
> > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >> I remember a manual for US Army chemical officers (officers,
> > not
> > > > enlisted)
> > > > > >> that detailed all the tasks that a chemical officer needed to
> > > > > know. The one
> > > > > >> for donning chemical protective gear included instructions
> > > such as
> > > > > "put on
> > > > > >> pants one leg at a time, fly facing front." The only
non-intuitive
> > > > > step in
> > > > > >> the task that actually required some instruction was lacing
> > the
> > > > chemical
> > > > > >> protective overboots--which were not like standard boots--and
> > > the
> > > > > >> instruction for that was simply "lace boots."
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> I'm convinced it was written by a captain who had been passed
> > > over
> > > > > for
> > > > > >> promotion and was exacting a bit of revenge.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >
> > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------
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> > > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > truth."
> > >
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