OT: Wall Street Journal discovers linguistic relativism

[Joel S. Berson]

At 7/26/2010 05:15 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>  Fair correction. There is an additional meaning, in Russian, of
>course, based on the derivation--it is the same expression that is
>occasionally used when someone confuses the right and the left, giving
>direct credence to the story.
>
>I exaggerated the "bales", of course, but "wisps" sounds like a lot less
>than the version I heard. Perhaps "handful" or "bunch"--informal
>measures are so hard with long thin objects.
>
>     VS-)
>
>On 7/26/2010 4:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>This supposedly also happened during the American Civil War, though wisps of
>>hay and straw were allegedly used rather than hard-to-manage "bales."
>>
>>JL
>>
>>On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Victor Steinbok<aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>-----------------------
>>>Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>Poster:       Victor Steinbok<aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>>>Subject:      Re: OT:  Wall Street Journal discovers linguistic relativism
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>   Russian lore has it that, when Peter I (the Great, if you wish) wanted
>>>to modernize the Russian military training, essentially following the
>>>"Prussian method", his drill sergeants tied bales of hay to one leg and
>>>straw to the other, thereby commanding the raw recruits to turn toward
>>>hay or straw. This anecdote (likely apocryphal) is often used as folk
>>>etymology for the Russian proverbial "hay-straw" ([seno-soloma]) that is
>>>used in the same sense as "six of one, half a dozen of the other".
>>>
>>>      VS-)
>>>
>>>On 7/26/2010 8:43 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>>At 7/26/2010 05:52 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote [Quoting the WSJ]:
>>>>>>Some indigenous tribes say north, south, east and west, rather than
>>>>>>left and right, and as a consequence have great spatial orientation.
>>>>The "wild Irish," when recruited into the British army, rather than
>>>>left or right would be commanded to turn toward bread or
>>>>cheese.  Having been given those two staples of the contemporary diet
>>>>for their respective pockets.  According to John Dunton, circa 1696,
>>>>while temporarily resident in Massachusetts..  Who would probably
>>>>have agreed that they had lesser spatial orientation than the
>>>>indigenous tribes.
>>>>
>>>>Joel
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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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>
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