HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mbm@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Malcolm Mladenovic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: O-levels, A-levels etc was Re: THE COMPLETE BRITISH TO AMERICAN DICT.
Date: 6 Sep 92 15:52:17 GMT
Organization: UNIX Centre, ICL, Bracknell, UK

In article <25582@castle.ed.ac.uk> egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
>In article <1992Sep5.192103.13256@cco.caltech.edu> miriam@seismo.gps.caltech.edu (Miriam Jackson) writes:
>=>There are also O/A levels, halfway between O-levels and A-levels,
>=>and S levels which are harder that A-levels, and are taken by
>=>people aiming for Oxbridge.
>
>Small quibble here: S-levels have/had? no special significance for Oxbridge,
>because most Oxbridge applicants take/took? the special entrance exams, which
>are/were? harder than S-levels.

I don't know about Oxford (though I would expect it to be similar) but most
(perhaps all) colleges in Cambridge use interviews and A-levels/S-levels
these days.   The CCE (Cambridge Colleges' Examination) was already beginning
to go out of favour when I took it (1979), though it depended a lot on the
individual college.

I'm not sure that I would agree that the entrance exam papers were harder than
S-levels - at least not the ones I took, though they were for some subjects
(eg mathematics).   Having to take them only half way through the A-level course
didn't help, though!  (It was taken into account.)

Note that O/A-levels were actually A/O (Alternative Ordinary).  The only one
I did was maths and it was much closer to O-level standard than to A-level.

-Malcolm
From: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: What is a 2.1 equivalent to ?
Date: 14 Sep 92 09:06:23 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK.

From: librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik)
>Grades are also very different in the States.  Here, an "A" means you did
>everything right.  You needn't write a brilliant essay or do an exceptional
>project to get an A, it simply means you understood everything the teacher
>was trying to teach you.  An intelligent student would have no problem
>getting an A in any low-level first-year introductory course; thus,
>perfect or near-perfect grade-point-averages at American universities
>are not rare.

It's very similar in Britain, certainly in technical subjects
like Computer Science. Part of the process which decides
whether a graduate gets a 1st or a 2.1 involves the faculty
sitting round trying to decide whether a student has genuinely
shown flair, or has just got everything right, which might
involve looking at things such as projects where there is more
scope for personal initiative.

>Americans, when confronted with the British system of rating degrees, tend
>to recoil in shock.  Instead of having your degree as a reward for
>accumulated good work, your whole life is controlled by your performance on
>_one set of examinations_, covering maybe a couple of weeks of your
>time at university.

Few British universities work like that these days. Almost all
set exams at the end of every year, though the final year will
count for more. Most have a coursework component to the marks.
A substantial proportion of the marks is obtained not through
exams, but through project work, and, as I said above,
performance on project work will be given particular importance
when deciding on degree classes.

>of interesting subjects.  In Britain, students look on university as rather
>like work: you do what you must every day, but after it's over you go out
>to the pub with your friends and relax from it all.

If only my students worked like that. Every year, I try but
fail to get them to treat it like a job - telling them to give
it roughly 40 hours a week with a fairly regular timetable. In
my experience most British students treat university as a time
when you spend every day in the pub with your friends; you
attend lectures in order to find the answer to the only
question that really bothers you "what is the minimum amount of
effort I can put into this course and still pass", and work
like hell the day before your coursework of project is due in,
and the day before you have to sit an exam :-(

Matthew Huntbach
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: British Slang
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<12SEP199217480222@sscvx1.ssc.gov> <BuIGv9.3uq@newcastle.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 12:33:26 GMT

In article <BuIGv9.3uq@newcastle.ac.uk> w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk writes:

   >So far as I know that is not a new word, it has been used as slang
   >in Tyneside, (and maybe in the North of England in general) for many 
   >years.  When the Sun started using it (noticed how they don't seem to
   >use it now) I was long familiar with it.

  The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, by Tony Thorne, has
this to say about "bonk":


         bonk  vb British

         to have sex (with). A vogue word of the late 1980s; first heard
         in the late 1970s and quickly picked up by the media as a useful,
         vigorous, but printable euphemism for fuck. (The word was first
         broadcast in a British TV comedy series; at a later date, the
         tennis champion Boris Becker was dubbed 'Bonking Boris' by the
         gutter press.) It is a childish synonym for hit: the sexual
         sense may derive from the sound of energetic bouncing. Alternatively
         an extended correspondence in Private Eye magazine suggested that
         this had long been a schoolboy term meaning masturbate or ejaculate.
         It may also be significant that the immediately precedent vogue
         word for copulate among teenagers was knob, which in back-
         slang would give bonk.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: buying peerage
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 18:15:08 GMT

In article <1992Sep6.142616.9041@cl.cam.ac.uk>, ag129@cl.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair
Grant) writes:
|>>In <CC.92Sep4124007@arran.dcs.ed.ac.uk> cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Chris Cooke)
|>writes:
|>>
|>>>Yes, it's quite possible.  Donating money to charity will only get you a
|>>>fairly minor title, though.  To get a big, important title you have to
|>donate
|>>>lots of money to the Conservative Party.  Sad but true.  The whole thing is
|>>>corrupt beyond belief.
|>
|>Not nearly as corrupt as under Harold Wilson's Labour government, though,
|>where random personal friends of senior Party members got peerages.

There was never any suggestion that money had changed hands over the "lavender
list"

the point of issue was the problem of hypocrisy, despite the angry denunciations
of the honours system the snouts were still in the trough. The fact is though
that those complaining (T. Benn etc) and those feeding snouts (H. Wilson) were
different persons.


|>The fact that industry leaders get peerages may be as much to do with the
|>fact that they are perceived as creating jobs and helping exports, as with
|>the amount they give to the Tories (which may be nothing - I think there
|>were at least a couple of industrial peers who signed the pro-Labour letter
|>in the Times before the election). Remember that the Tories value the
|>tradition of the peerage, and are actually less likely to be partisan about
|>it than Labour.

The tories value the tradition that gives them an in built veto over
legislation.


|>A steady supply of new peers is necessary for a balanced House of Lords.
|>Academics and artists get made peers too.

But not at the same rate. The fact of the matter is that of the top 100
companies, chairmen who give their shareholders money to the Tory party are
twice as likely to get an honour as those that do not.

You may not see anything wrong with buying favours with other peoples money or
in the government taking bribes. But then this is a typical Tory attitude.

--

Phill Hallam-Baker
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: cmorris@Ingres.COM (Colin Morris)
Subject: Re: Revolution in t'UK?
Reply-To: cmorris@Ingres.COM (Colin Morris)
Organization: Ask Computer Systems Inc., Ingres Division, Alameda CA 94501
Date: 8 Sep 92 17:25:53 GMT

In article <prestonm.715612375@cs.man.ac.uk> prestonm@cs.man.ac.uk (Martin Preston (Research Student)) writes:
>In <Sep02.205610.67292@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> hg798502@LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Hugh Graham) writes:
>
>>THEN I open the Grauniad, to find that Steve Bell & If... is still 
>>missing.  Is he dead, on ANOTHER holiday, working for the Sun or
>>taking a sabatical a la  G. Trudeau??   Please advise soonest.
>
>Yes its worrying isn't it. He's done a couple of large panels for the main
>Grauniad section but no "If.." for a bit (though the cuddly bunnies made up
>for the gap).
>
There were a couple of "IF..." strips on "New-Age Travellers" during
August, but nothing else. And those strips bore a large similarity to
some "hippie" cartoons he'd done back in '86. Hopefully he'll be back
soon, steaming into the American Presidential election campaign in his
own inimitable style: "Vote for Bush on account of he's cute and got a
one syllable name...".

--
Colin Morris       Ingres, an ASK company       cmorris@ws2s.ingres.com

"And there'll be more football in a moment, but first we've got
 highlights of the Scottish League Cup Final" -- Gary Newbon
From: cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Chris Cooke)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Unemplyment in England
Date: 14 Sep 92 11:32:00 GMT
	<1992Sep14.084726.22336@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
In-reply-to: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk's message of 14 Sep 92 08:47:26 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.084726.22336@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes:

   To pre-empt the whingeing Scots,

... and the others of us too!

Goodness, you sound like a London newspaper editor :-)
--
	-- Chris. 	cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk   (on Janet, cc@uk.ac.ed.dcs)

		
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn)
Subject: Re: O-levels, A-levels etc was Re: THE COMPLETE BRITISH TO AMERICAN DICT.
Organization: On the Brew.
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 20:52:39 GMT

In referenced article, ag129@cl.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant) writes:
 >A-levels...are used...quite widely outside Britain, to allow students
 >from backward countries to get a recognised secondary qualification.
 >
 >In Australia I did a general maths A-level, which was at least a year's
 >work beyond the Australian Pure

So, Australia is a backward country is it?  Hmm...
-- 
Ray Dunn at home    |    ray@philmtl.philips.ca    |    (514) 630 3749
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner
From: tex@cs.nott.ac.uk (Timothy Emanuel)
Subject: Re: Americanising of the UK, Now: British TV in North America
Organization: Nottingham University
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 92 19:02:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.190516.29239@enterprise.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com> baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com writes:
>In article <7SEP199223274689@venus.tamu.edu>, ewm6965@venus.tamu.edu (The Guardian) writes:
>>
>>(I think Bull on Night Court ordered head cheese as a food product once, but 
>>then he's known for eating disgusting things anyway.)
>
>Whoa there! Lets not give Bull a repuptation for being stranger than
>he really is! There is a food product known as head cheese that has nothing
>to do with smegma. It is produced by boiling the head or brains
>of a slaughtered farm animal.

Oh right, well that's ok then, nothing disgusting about that is there? ;-)

Tim

Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY)
Subject: Re: British Slang
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 23:48:00 GMT

In article <4057@keele.keele.ac.uk>, cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear)        writes...
>From article <92255.193525TAS137@psuvm.psu.edu>, by TAS137@psuvm.psu.edu:
>> Can someone please explain to me what 'GOBSMACKED' means?
>> thank you
> 
>Having the feeling of having been smacked in the gob, easy really
> 
>Andy

In fairness it must be said that "gobsmacked" is not truly British slang,
but was invented by Murdoch's appalling SUN newspaper in an attempt to
describe the sensation, common amongst its readers, of being faced with
an event which they had difficulty comprehending.  For example "when 
asked to pay my Paris hotel bill in French Francs I was totally gobsmacked"
or "when asked to pay 25 pence for 18 pages of SUN drivel directed at readers
with a mental age of 8 I was completely gobsmacked" etc.

This is also true of the verb "to bonk", and the noun "bonk".  This is
used by the SUN to describe the sexual act between two persons of 
opposite sex, for example a well-known Conservative minister and a very
poor actress.  One can only guess at its reasons for inventing a new word,
when the English language already contains a wealth of possibilities.

For those interested in British slang, I recall having seen a Dictionary
of Slang many years ago, and presumably it still exists.

Laurence

Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:12463 rec.arts.tv.uk:5438 rec.arts.drwho:6087 alt.tv.prisoner:1376
From: danaf@vccsouth20.its.rpi.edu (Frank R. Dana Jr.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner
Subject: Re: Tanstaafl (was:Americanising of the UK
Date: 14 Sep 92 15:36:47 GMT
Reply-To: danaf@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

In article <92255.143008U48073@uicvm.uic.edu>, Cole Kendall <U48073@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
|> In article <1992Sep09.081125.15198@bnr.uk>, agc@bmdhh298.bnr.ca (Alan Carter)
|> says on the origin of TANSTAAFL:
|> 
|> >In the early 80s (Ronald Reagan, Maggie Thatcher, Anal Retentiveness,
|> >Radioactive Megadeath etc) Milton Freidman, a pseudoeconomist who didn't
|> >beleive that economics has feedback loops in it, it's just 'individuals and
|> >their choice', pretended he invented TANSTAAFL. He nicked it.
|> 
|> The use of TANSTAAFL by U of Chicago economists predates the "early 80s."
|> While I am unaware of any pseudoeconomists who don't "beleive" in
|> feedback loops, I first encountered the acronym in introductory
|> graduate price theory at the U of C in the late 1970s (after Friedman
|> left Chicago to go to Hoover, before Lady T. became PM, before Mr. R
|> was elected president...but I'm not sure about AR or RM).
|> 
|> Cole Kendall

Yes, well, Heinlein's _Moon...Harsh_Mistress_ was (c) 1962, so it still seems
to be the winner...

-- 
/////////////////////////[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
(718)             (212)                        (516)             (518)
=======Amiuser============Frank R. Dana, Jr.============Doc Ami=======     
--------My opinions rarely reflect those of any sane person,----------
	   living, dead, or undead... that's gonna CHANGE.
From: ag129@cl.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: House of Lords (was buying peerages)
Date: 11 Sep 92 13:33:46 GMT
Reply-To: ag129@cl.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK


(apologies: 'rn' is bombing out when I try to reply to the original item)

Phill Hallam-Baker writes:
> You show remarkable courage in bringing up that precedent! I would have
> brought it up myself to show just how unrepresentative such systems can be.
> Here we have an elected government dismissed by an unelected official,
> namely the governor-general. The result is that Australia will be a republic
> before the end of the decade.

Australia may be a republic by the end of the decade (though it is unlikely),
but not because of the events of 1975, which were supported by most
Australians. Leaving aside the possibility of corruption in the Whitlam
government, the simple fact is that when Lower and Upper Houses are
controlled by opposite parties, and the Lower House's attempts to pass its
budget are continually defeated by the Upper House, the country grinds to
a halt.

Either you have to draw the teeth of the Upper House so that it only
becomes important in nonsense like the War Crimes bill, or you must make
it effectively non-political, like the House of Lords. (Yes, many Lords
are Conservative, but this is nearly always by inclination, not because
they are party functionaries like the average backbench MP. In an elected
Senate, people who vote against their party _are not put up for re-election_.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Tanstaafl (was:Americanising of the UK
Followup-To: poster
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 18:06:31 GMT

> > > In the early 80s ... Milton Freidman [sic] ...
> > > pretended he invented TANSTAAFL. He nicked it.
> >
> > I always understood ... that H.L Mencken originated the phrase.
> 
> That's about the right time, but the true origin lies in the
> folk wisdom of the Great Depression (not to be confused with Four
> More Years). ... Mencken was probably the first person to use the
> phrase under conditions where it became a matter of record.

That wouldn't surprise me; however, the original question was not about
the phrase "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", but the acronym
"tanstaafl".  *This* is what Heinlein is credited with originating in
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".  In the book, it is a slangy word used
by lunar citizens, whose language has other interesting features as well.

I think someone mentioned Larry Niven a while back in the thread.  The
confusion there comes from his invention of a future swearword "tanj",
this being an acronym for "there ain't no justice".

I find it hard to believe that Friedman claimed to invent either the
acronym or the word.  I think it more likely that he used it without
attribution sometime because he assumed the reader would know it.
The first-quoted poster is probably a bit prejudiced against Friedman;
he called him "a pseudoeconomist", but the Nobel Prize people felt
otherwise.  (I make no judgement one way or the other, but then, I
claim no expertise in the field.)

As this thread now seems to be irrelevant to all four newsgroups, I have
directed followups to email.
-- 
Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com
#define	MSB(type)	(~(((unsigned type)-1)>>1))

This article is in the public domain.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:12183 rec.arts.tv.uk:5253 rec.arts.drwho:5807 alt.tv.prisoner:1294
From: prestonm@cs.man.ac.uk (Martin Preston (Research Student))
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner
Subject: Re: Revolution in t'UK?
Date: 4 Sep 92 13:12:55 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.british

In <Sep02.205610.67292@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> hg798502@LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Hugh Graham) writes:

>THEN I open the Grauniad, to find that Steve Bell & If... is still 
>missing.  Is he dead, on ANOTHER holiday, working for the Sun or
>taking a sabatical a la  G. Trudeau??   Please advise soonest.

Yes its worrying isn't it. He's done a couple of large panels for the main
Grauniad section but no "If.." for a bit (though the cuddly bunnies made up
for the gap).

Maybe we ought to start a petition to get rid of If..'s crap replacement.
Am i the only person to find it desperately unfunny?

Martin
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Martin Preston,        (preston@uk.ac.mcc.cgu.v2)    |    S A V E        |
|Computer Graphics Unit, Manchester Computing Centre, |      THE          |
|University of Manchester,                            |    N.U.R.B.       |
|Manchester, U.K., M13 9PL     Phone : 061 275 6095   |                   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Brit. Govt. begs for DM (was Re: VNS)
Date: 10 Sep 92 09:36:03 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computing & Electrical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland

In article <1992Sep9.124302.7721@rz-berlin.mpg.de> gray@rz-berlin.mpg.de writes:
>
>  This all has the effect of increasing the Government's reputation for
>fiscal rectitude and ingenuity among the banking community, while
>baffling the man-on-the-Bristol-ommnibus.  Notice that the press was
>full of comment on and discussion about the clever *method* that Lamont
>and his band of used-car salesmen had cooked up to borrow the money, and
>next to nobody saw fit to ask *why* they needed an extra seven billion
>in the first place.
>

An article in the Guardian yesterday had people saying the artificially high
German interest rates making for a very strong DM portrayed a false story
of actually how strong the German economy is. Businesses there are being
crucified by the interest rate in Germany and export markets crumbling away
because their products are too expensive overseas due to hign DM.

The rest of Europe/World is being hammered because of the German interest rate.

I thought part of the idea behind the ERM and it's financial limits was that
all the countries worked together for a stable level of exchange so that
European business knew that currency would not take a dive in the future and
they could plan their trade and business in advance.

It appears to me, the first strife the Germans have, they jack up their
interest rates protect their currency and butt-fuck the rest of the ERM/World
in the process.

Neil


****************************| Sig' Time |*********************************
JANET: 	  neilp@uk.ac.hw.cs   *   Neil Postlethwaite, Rm G.25, 
INTERNET: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk   *   Dept of Computer Science,  
UUCP: 	  ..!uknet!hwcs!neilp *   Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton Campus
                              *   Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, United Kingdom.
------------------------------*-------------------------------------------
Computer Science Account      *   Phone +44 (0)31 449-5111 x4174
From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: What is a 2.1 equivalent to ?
Date: 14 Sep 92 01:12:16 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <librik.716420549@cory.Berkeley.EDU> librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik) writes:

>There's a fundamental difference between the American and the British
>systems which most Americans don't spot -- and when they do, they're
>horrified that anyone could run a university that way.

Your description of the "British" system is in fact the English
system. The Scottish system is quite different, and in some respects
closer to the American.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:12505 soc.culture.canada:6575
From: bernard@sirius.gte.com (Bernard Silver)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Are foreignborn kids of UK citizens british?
Date: 15 Sep 92 14:13:48 GMT
	<1992Sep14.111848.28443@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
	<1992Sep15.111713.19489@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Followup-To: soc.culture.british
Organization: GTE Laboratories Incorporated
In-reply-to: btg@cl.cam.ac.uk's message of 15 Sep 92 11:17:13 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.111713.19489@cl.cam.ac.uk> btg@cl.cam.ac.uk (Brian Graham) writes: