HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: th2_oate@csd.uwe.ac.uk (Tom Oates)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: What *really* happened on Nov 5th...
Date: 6 Nov 92 13:21:58 GMT
Organization: University of the West of England, Bristol

What an incredible account of the Gunpowder plot! What a pity it's not
entirely correct. If it were, some Hollywood stoodio would surely buy the 
film rights and shoot a movie. Picture the scene:-

Anthony Perkins (if he were still alive) as Guido Fawkes, twitches nervously
as he waits in the cellars to light the fuse. Not forgetting plenty of that
London fog and a few cockney pearlie kings to say 'Gawd bless yer, Guvnor" 
as the hero (Sylvester Stallone) gallops by with the Houses of Parliament
and Big Ben towering above him. It's a race against the clock, but the good 
guy wins in the end and gets the gal.

"Uh...gotta tell them Beefeaters the joint is about to blow!" grunts
Sly with the reins clenched in his teeth.

"Cut!" shouts the director. "Remember Sly, we're talking 1605 here."

"So?"

"So ride your horse on the wrong side of the boulevard. You just *gotta* 
be authentic." 

"But where's my motivation?"

-- 
****************************************************************************** 
* Tom Oates (Univ. of West of England) * DISCLAIMER:I speak only for myself. * 
* Email to: th2_oate@uk.ac.uwe.csd     * PGP 2.0 Key available upon request. *
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: In your school?
Date: 5 Nov 92 09:01:00 GMT
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1

In article <1992Nov4.184103.18887@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>, migod@turing.toronto.edu (Mike Godfrey)   writes...
>In article <4NOV199217052369@sscvx1.ssc.gov> godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY) writes:
>>So Canada stands twice condemned - it has to hire mediocre
>>Brits and it does so because it can't produce anything less mediocre itself.
> 
>And occasionally Canada realizes its mistakes and refuses grants to
>particularly mediocre Brits.
> 
>-- 
>Mike Godfrey                                "I came so far for beauty,
>Dept of Comp Sci, UofT                       I left so much behind."
>migod@turing.toronto.edu                                -- Leonard Cohen

As I've told you on at least one occasion, I have NOT been refused a grant
by Canada (I don't know where you got this idea from).  I repeat, I had 
a dispute with your laughable National Research Council who employed me
and quit my job with them in 1987.  Check if you wish.

Laurence
From: cwilson@gssec.bt.co.uk (Colin Wilson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Accent and Dialect, the politics there
Date: 10 Nov 92 18:43:44 GMT
Organization: BT

In article <1992Nov10.025316.1@vxcrna.cern.ch>, zeus@vxcrna.cern.ch writes:

[    ...diatribe about cricket and haggis deleted...  ]

|> 
|> It seems somewhat pointless to create unneeded barriers to comunication by
|> seeking to resurect dead languages in the hope of fostering some form
|> of national identity.

Scots is not a dead language. It is the everyday tongue of a
significant proportion of the population of Scotland. Linguistic
diversity does not in itself create barriers between people, it is some
people's unwillingness to accept it that creates barriers.

|> And before people start leaping up and down complaining about the loss of
|> "their" cultural herritage, poetry and language isn't national property.
|> A German or Spaniard has as much right to read Burns as a Scott.

I don't recall anyone trying to deny Germans or Spaniards the right to
read Burns. Indeed, the emphasis in this thread has been to stress his
position as a writer of international renown. Nevertheless, his work is
part of Scotland's heritage, which is not the same as saying that it is
Scotland's property.
 
|> If the Scotts find that Burns is no longer relevant to their culture it will
|> only be because they have found another icon to identify with. Its fine
|> for people to identify themselves with national symbols, but forcing them
|> on others is wrong. 

Quite. I take it that you mean "the Scots", though.

|> It seems to imply that by identifying with an icon
|> one gains the right to ram it down the throats of others just beacuse they
|> happened to be born in the same locality. It's that sort of thinking thats
|> rather too popular in Iran at present.

Let me see if I've understood this. I want to encourage the use of my
own language, so I'm on the same level as the people who want Salman
Rushdie murdered, is that it?

********************************************************************************
*  Colin Wilson,                           E-mail:  cwilson@gssec.bt.co.uk     *
*  Glasgow Engineering Centre,             POTS:    (041) 220 5340             *
*  British Telecommunications plc.                  (+ 44 41) 220 5340         *
*  7 Caledon Street,                                                           *
*  Glesca / Glaschu G12 9BY,             Scotland a Twa-Leidit Fowkrick        *
*  Scotland / Alba.                      Biodh Alba 'na Poblachd Dha-Chananach *  ********************************************************************************
From: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: The dog in the House of Commons
Date: 6 Nov 92 07:53:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: rdg.1992Nov6.085703.12126
Organization: Digital Equipment Co. Ltd., Reading, England


In article <Bx8K6E.Lws@sci.kun.nl>, caspar@sci.kun.nl (Caspar Terheggen) writes...
>I hope you didn't expect some political observation, because this
>is about a real dog.  ;-)
> 
>Watching the debates about the Maastricht treaty, I saw a dog
>lying on the floor on "Labour's side" of the House of Commons
>(sp?).  This was quite a surprise, because I don't think they
>would allow a dog in the "tweede kamer" of the Dutch Parliament.
>I had noticed it before, but it's not always there.  Whose dog
>is it?
> 

David Blunkett's. He's blind, and it's his guide dog.
David is on the Labour front benches.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Craig Cockburn, Digital Equipment Co. Ltd, Reading, England.     Suas
  Internet: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com                           leis
  UUCP:..!decwrl!edieng.enet.dec.com!cockburn                      a'
                                                                   Gha\idhlig!
  Views here are my own, and are not necessarily those of Digital
From: kakleman@soc13.acpub.duke.edu (Kubilay Akleman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Why Berwick-upon-Tweed?
Date: 13 Nov 92 04:40:56 GMT
Reply-To: kakleman@soc13.acpub.duke.edu (Kubilay Akleman)


Berwick-upon-Tweed used to belong to Scotland. There was a long period when 
no-one knew where it belonged to (like: it was in Northumberland (England) but
Scottish laws applied etc.) I don't know the exact dates or details, I'm sure someone 
else would have more accurate information. (Or I'm sure you could find details in
one of Harvard's 11 million books -yes I am being jealous!)  Anyway, it's in
England now, for all intents and purposes. I do know however that while declaring
the Crimean War on Russia, (Queen Victoria's time) Berwick was included but when 
signing the peace treaty it was not mentioned. So an official state of war existed 
between Berwick and Russia until recently (when a Soviet leader -I THINK it was 
Gorby) visited the place and the state of war was ended!
Andrew - Lord of useless information.

Suas leis an Alba Ga\idhealach
Suas le E/ire Gaelach
A Chymru i'r Gymry!
From: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Private Uni's
Date: 6 Nov 92 10:32:22 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK.

From: graikund@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au (Gitesh Raikundalia)
>        I was hoping to ask if anybody out there can give me an "order of
>reputation" of private universities (if any) in England. How well-accepted
>are they compared to the public uni's, like Oxford, Cambridge, etc.? Do
>the public universities take postgraduate/research students via personal
>funding?

There is only one private university, Buckingham. Anything else
using the name is a degree mill.

The fact that you say "like Oxford, Cambridge, etc" is
illuminating. Many of the misconceptions about English
universities arise because people tend to think in terms of
Oxford and Cambridge. In fact these two are not very typical of
the rest, they have a lot of peculiarities due to being the
only ones founded centuries ago.

So long as you have enough qualifications to satisfy the entry
requirements most uiversities will accept self-funded
postgraduates. The lack of availability of public grants in
British universities now is so bad that there would hardly be
any postgraduate students at all if they didn't.

Matthew Huntbach
From: cwilson@gssec.bt.co.uk (Colin Wilson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Accent and Dialect, the politics there
Date: 9 Nov 92 18:27:58 GMT
Organization: BT

In article <A.Grant.16.721163002@ucs.cam.ac.uk>, A.Grant@ucs.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov6.142335.8244@gssec.bt.co.uk> cwilson@gssec.bt.co.uk (Colin Wilson) writes:
|> >In any case, some of the classic Scots literature goes back to a time
|> >before the "union" with England when there was no need, or place, for
|> >nostalgia or misrepresentation.  Grieve was well known for his
|> >admiration of Dunbar, a prominent member of a succession of writers
|> >known as the "Makaris".  In the fifteenth century, Dunbar, Barbour and
|> >their peers produced work that won admiration all over Europe, in a
|> >Scots that was as respected a literary medium as any other European
|> >language of that time.
|> 
|> But surely this is true of dozens of now-extinct European languages and
|> dialects?  The point is, is it worth someone living in Scotland _now_ 
|> learning Scots, when instead they could learn French or Russian and have
|> access to an infinitely greater corpus of literature than a few rusty old
|> curiosities?  Not to mention speaking to Britain's European partners in
|> their own languages?
|>

My point was that I would like any children that I have to grow up knowing
the literature of their own language. I said nothing at all about people
approaching it as learners.
 
|> p.s. I still claim that Burns is not respected _in his own right_. If he
|> hadn't written in dialect, he would have been entirely forgotten.

Burns could hardly not have written "in dialect": all forms of language are
dialect, whether they have the status of a standardised language or not.
In any case, if you're reading his work in Russian or Japanese, as is possible,
it hardly matters what he wrote it in.

********************************************************************************
*  Colin Wilson,                           E-mail:  cwilson@gssec.bt.co.uk     *
*  Glasgow Engineering Centre,             POTS:    (041) 220 5340             *
*  British Telecommunications plc.                  (+ 44 41) 220 5340         *
*  7 Caledon Street,                                                           *
*  Glesca / Glaschu G12 9BY,             Scotland a Twa-Leidit Fowkrick        *
*  Scotland / Alba.                      Biodh Alba 'na Poblachd Dha-Chananach *  ********************************************************************************
From: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: East Anglia Polytechnic - still exist???
Date: 10 Nov 92 10:49:06 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK.

From: aoaass@registry.adelaide.edu.au
>Just need to find outwhether Anglia Polytechnic still exists or whether it
>has changed its name. Suggestion that now is called Chelmer Institute of
>higher Education. One of my fellow uni administrators needs to know for a
>qualification check.

Your suggestion is certainly wrong. A "polytechnic" would be
rated more prestigious than an "Institute of Higher Education",
if anything the renaming would be the other way round. Are you
sure that is not in fact the case with your qualification check
(was Chelmer, is now Anglia). On the other hand, following a
recent piece of legislation, polytechnics have been allowed
to call themselves "Universities", and as this is even more
prestigious, most (all?) of them have had a name change
to <something> University. A number of institutions have successively
changed from "Institutes of Higher Education" to "Polytechnics" to
"Universities" within five years or so, each change involving
nothing more than a few new signs being painted and a change in
headed notepaper. So it may well be "was Chelmer, then Anglia,
then ... (maybe just Anglia University)".

Matthew Huntbach
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.celtic
From: mike@shemesh.lbl.gov (Michael Helm)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Re: Accent and Dialect, the politics there
Date: 13 Nov 92 18:56:34 GMT
Reply-To: mike@shemesh.lbl.gov (Michael Helm)
Organization: N.I.C.E.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.128.63

Graham Walker writes:
>> Graham Walker writes:
>>>c) Personally, I am on the fence. My view is that lallans is merely old
>>>english with bits from gaelic, fressian, and norse thrown in, and that

mike> No, I don't think this is rite, Scots English or whatever is
mike> as far away from Anglo-Saxon grammar as standard English(es).
mike> It too lacks all the complicated inflections & has different
mike> 3rd person pronouns (I think) than Anglo-Saxon dialects had.

>What do you mean by "Anglo-saxon" grammer, both present day english and
>lallans is present day Anglo-saxon grammer. How far back are you

to me, "old english" == "anglo-saxon" == English as it was written
before 1066 or thereabouts .  That's the standard meaning of "old
English".  There are various dialects of it, incl Northumbrian, which
I think is the dialect Scots or whatever descends from.  Now if you
want to talk about Chaucer, that's early modern English or Middle
English (most people call it the latter).  Certainly the Scots from
the middle ages (Dunbar, poems/ballads) is different from what's
written by Chaucer & earlier southern / midlands English writers. 
I really don't have any idea whether you could call them distinct
languages at that time; I found both middle English & medieval
Scottish similar enuf to modern English to not require a lot of
advanced prep, but both sufficiently different from modern English
that glossary help & some grammatical guidance are needed.

It doesn't look to me, from Craig's quick guidebook, that Scots
is all that close to Middle English either.  I don't remember the
few extracts of medieval Scots well enuf to have an opinion on
whether Scots is closer to its medieval form than modern English
is to Middle English; someone more familiar with the material
may be able to say.  Perhaps Scots is more conservative.  I think
if we encountered a group of people speaking (pre-)Chaucerian
English we would consider their language to be separate from our
own, we would find it very strange indeed.  Isn't there a recently-extinct
dialect of English from the Waterford area that was real archaic,
Yoda or something like that?  Came over in the 14-15th centuries?
I've seen a sample of it somewhere, very different.

>Also, I am unclear as to which "it" you are refering to in your last
>sentence (infact could you retype your last sentence).
sheesh
mike> It [Scots, Scottish English, lallands, whatever you call it]
mike> too lacks all the complicated inflections & has different
mike> 3rd person pronouns (I think) than Anglo-Saxon dialects had.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn)
Subject: Re: Accent and Dialect, the politics there
Organization: Digital Equipment Co. Ltd., Reading, England
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 08:58:36 GMT


In article <A.Grant.16.721163002@ucs.cam.ac.uk>, A.Grant@ucs.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant) writes...
>In article <1992Nov6.142335.8244@gssec.bt.co.uk> cwilson@gssec.bt.co.uk (Colin Wilson) writes:
> 
>But surely this is true of dozens of now-extinct European languages and
>dialects?  The point is, is it worth someone living in Scotland _now_ 
>learning Scots, when instead they could learn French or Russian and have
>access to an infinitely greater corpus of literature than a few rusty old
>curiosities?  Not to mention speaking to Britain's European partners in
>their own languages?
> 
Perhaps there are jobs available writing scripts in Scots for all the comedies!

Seriously, Gaelic has come a long way in this respect and, apart from the
cultural/nationalistic reasons for learning Gaelic, there's the simple one
of
There are more job vacancies in Scotland which require fluency in Gaelic
than there are for any other language except English. 

So, when it comes to learning a language and wanting to be able to use it
without leaving your homeland, then Gaelic is the obvious choice. Gaelic
also gives you access to Ireland, Nova Scotia and the Isle of Man.

The number of jobs which require fluency in Scots is probably tiny, but
I expect it will grow as more and more people take it seriously.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Craig Cockburn, Digital Equipment Co. Ltd, Reading, England.     Suas
  Internet: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com                           leis
  UUCP:..!decwrl!edieng.enet.dec.com!cockburn                      a'
                                                                   Gha\idhlig!
  Views here are my own, and are not necessarily those of Digital
From: tahonen@katk.Helsinki.FI (Timo Ahonen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: The amazing disappearing British Constitution
Date: 11 Nov 92 08:28:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki, Computing Centre

In article <1dme1vINNatj@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:

>And what goes for Britain goes for much of the rest of
>Europe.  The other day, Italy acceeded to the Maastricht
>Treaty, surely a pretty significant change in anyone's
>Constitution.   They did so by holding a Cabinet meeting.
>No referendum, not even a Parliamentary vote.

Quite recently it was reported that the Italian parlament had ratified the 
Maastricht treaty, and only then was the legal process of joining the treaty 
finally over. The usual way is that the governments/presidents can sign 
international treaties on their own, but before they come into the force 
they must be ratified by the parlaments. A significant change for Italy, 
yes, but not just by the decision of the Italian government.

>jon.

Timo Ahonen                        "Sometimes I think the surest sign that
University of Helsinki             intelligent life exists elsewhere in the
Finland                            universe is that none of it has tried to
Timo.Ahonen@Helsinki.FI            contact us." Calvin by Bill Watterson
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.celtic
From: walker@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Graham Walker, 227 West Old Main,268-3847,)
Subject: Re: Accent and Dialect, the politics there
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 21:09:17 GMT

From article <1992Nov12.174224.2801@rdg.dec.com>, by cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn):
>> Stuff from Graham Walker 
>> 
>>Scots or Lallan (or the Doric) is probable only spoken to any great
>>extent to-day in the Grampian region. Unfortunately, I would say that no
>>one to-day speaks "pure" lallans, but, rather regular english with
>>lallans words substituted for english words. However, when I was small
> 
>   I studied Scots, as part of English O-grade. We started doing "Sunset
>   Song" and then switched to doing "Hamlet" after about a week. Most of the
>   class gave up on the first chapter. I read the whole book twice and then
>   bought "Cloud Howe" and "Grey Granite", the sequels. We also studied
>   Scots in our History class, and as my father is nearly 70 and Scottish,
>   he uses quite a lot of Scots words too. So I was quite familiar with
>   about 90% of the words in your list.
> 
>   However, are you sure that simple word substitution isn't just the
>   mark of a dialect, rather than a language?  Who can come up with 
>   some good Scots grammar? 
> 
>   For those doubters of Scots being a language, I would suggest reading
>   "Why Scots Matters", published by the Saltire Society, Edinburgh.
> 
> 	Craig

a) Sunset Song has hardly any lallans in it Gibbon knew that he was
writing for an english audiance and put in bits that would be reasonable
understandable.

b) In your penultimate paragraph you seem to be suggesting that lallans
is not a language, but in your last paragraph you seem to be implying
that it is a language. Are you on the fence on this one? 

c) Personally, I am on the fence. My view is that lallans is merely old
english with bits from gaelic, fressian, and norse thrown in, and that
any grammer differences that do exist are because the grammer that is
associated with lallans is old english. Consequently, if the "world
village" had not appeared I believe that lallans would have become a
different language (e.g. spanish and portugese), however, now it has
become a "super" dialect (less than a language but more than a dialect).

														GW

Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: dunn@CAM.ORG (Ray Dunn)
Subject: Re: Down with Maastricht
Organization: A cam follower.
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 18:02:19 GMT

In refd article, gdb15@cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry) writes:
>the Yodeller writes:
>>American (n) - A person resident or born on the Continient of America
>                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^
>Does this include Canadia?

No, here in Canadia we're all incontinient.

[That's why Laurence was so pissed off here!]
-- 
Ray Dunn at home  |  Beaconsfield, Quebec  |  (514) 630 3749  |  dunn@cam.org
From: dvp@getafix (Dave Parry)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Salaries+cost of living in UK
Date: 7 Nov 92 13:18:24 GMT
Organization: ICL, Bracknell, Berks, UK
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes:
> From: godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY)
> In article <S2QSBBVM@cc.swarthmore.edu>, ment@cs.swarthmore.edu (Andrew Ment)      writes...
> >ajj@zycor.lgc.com (Andrew Jackson) writes:
> >>Could somebody out there clue me in about Windsor and vicinity? Is
> >>housing readily available? If so, where would be a good place to
> >>look? Should my parents bother with a car? Questions about basic
> >>living in Windsor (if there is such a thing).
> >
> >I can give a little more help than that.  Windsor is just a short distance
> >from London (maybe 30 miles or so from centre of London), and contains one
> >of the queen's most impressive castles.  It is a rich area - house prices
> >are expensive, rents are quite high, but cheaper than much of London.
> >It is very quaint - tea shops (real ones - not the sort you get in the
> >Far east!!).
> 
> In practice, wouldn't living in the area mean living somewhere
> like Slough? (cue Betjeman quote) That would be a lot cheaper,
> though less pleasant. You'd only want to live in Windsor if you
> valued being right next to work (assuming it actually is in
> Windsor, and not somewhere boringly suburban nearby but they
> say "Windsor" because it sounds better) and can afford to pay
> the premium. Housing is readily available almost anywhere in
> England now due to the property crash - many people have
> slashed their prices drastically in order to try and get a
> sale, others are trapped with mortgages more than could be
> raised through sale and are thus forced to rent out their
> unwanted properties so there's a glut of rented stuff as well.
> 
> Matthew Huntbach

They could always come and live in sunny Bracknell (10 miles west of
Windsor). Thatchers 'Dream Town' as the Guardian called it a few years
ago. :)

Dave
--
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------ Dave Parry  ICL, Bracknell, Berks, UK | "Send more paramedics.."--
------ email = dvp@oasis.icl.co.uk           | 
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