HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ccjal@cc.newcastle.edu.au (John A Lambert)
Subject: Re: University
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 06:25:26 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.010002.9082@news.columbia.edu>, gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
> A few remarks/questions about the use of the word "university"
> 
> I notice that many people in the UK use expressions like "He's at
> university" whereas an American would always say "He's at college,"
> even if the college is a university.  Anyone have an explanation other
> than just a basic US/UK difference?
> 
> Similarly, I often see Australians abbreviate the word university as
> "Uni."  Americans would always write "Univ." (or sometimes just "U")
> if they wanted to abbreviate it.  I've seen 'Uni" used in the midst of
> written paragraphs, so I wonder...  is "Uni" an abbreviation used in
> Australian speech, also?  What's the situation with the abbreviation
> in the UK?
> 
> 
> --
> Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ.     "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings 
> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu       to be seriously considered as a means of 
> N2GPZ in ham radio circles        communication. The device is inherently of
> 72355,1226 on CI$                 no value to us." -Western Union memo, 1877
-- 
A reply from Australia. As usual I make no claim to speak for or like all
Australians. However, since I was born here as were ancestors for the past 180
years, I can claim to be a native speaker of Australian English.)

We say `going to university' or `to uni'. We would not say `to college' to mean
the same thing. Also, if weonly use the word `school' to mean K-12.

John A Lambert
Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing
The University of Newcastle NSW 2308 Australia
Phone National        (049)21 5750    Fax National       (049) 21 6910
      International +61 49 21 5750        International +61 49 21 6910
VAXPSI  PSI%0505249626002::CCJAL      AARNet  ccjal@cc.newcastle.edu.au

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: bf455@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale)
Subject: Re: Petrified of ...
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 92 11:28:02 GMT




In a previous article, mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin) says:

>In article <1992Aug28.014216.1868@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com>, evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan
>Kirshenbaum) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug27.101346.1@wombat.newcastle.edu.au>
>eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan) writes:
>> >In article <1992Aug25.112046.28182@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>, segr@nessie.mcc.ac.uk
>(Simon Read) writes:
>> >.  I doubt that you'd find any native speaker of English
>> >saying "petrified of", even when speaking informally.
>> 
>> And now I'm not even a native speaker!
>> ...
>> To reiterate.  Here is a native speaker for whom "petrified of" sounds
>> at least as good as "petrified by".  I'm beginning to think I may be
>> the only such one on the net, but I really would say it, and I'm sure
>> I've heard it.
>> 
>
>It doesn't sound "just as good" to me:  in fact, it sounds wrong.  But
>"petrified of" is commonly used around here.  I always thought it was
>used by people who didn't really know (or didn't stop to think) what
>"petrified" really meant, and just used it as a synonym for "afraid".


It sounds okay to me.  Not great; I don't care for "petrified" myself, and
don't use it much (sounds a little affected: "Dahling, I was simply
-petrified-!).  But I wouldn't have noticed the "of" if it hadn't been
pointed out.  (When it was, I could see it wasn't especially logical.) 
I think people would use it in casual speech without thinking twice about it.

Bonita Kale
From: ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Ed Russell)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Another Americanism?
Date: 27 Aug 92 17:49:46 GMT
 <1992Aug27.102006.3065@osf.org> <1992Aug27.142909.43428@uvmark.uucp>
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

In article <1992Aug27.142909.43428@uvmark.uucp>, roger@uvmark.uucp (Roger
MacNicol) says:
>There is an American use of "for" that always grates on my British ears:
>        She was named for a flower
>"for"?  Did the flower benefit?
>
>The English is:
>        She was named after a flower
>which at least has the correct precedence.

... meaning that the flower was named before the person.
From: cms@dragon.com (Spawn of a Jewish Carpenter (Cindy Smith))
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Puns
Date: 27 Aug 92 03:15:05 GMT
Organization: Computer Projects Unlimited

In article <1992Aug17.145056.4010@dg-rtp.dg.com>, cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com (A. Jing Hippy) writes:

> In article <pjh.714048816@nessi>, pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Philippa Hogben) writes:
> |> 
> |>>In article <1992Aug15.040735.26043@dg-rtp.dg.com>, cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com (A. Jing Hippy) writes:
> |>>> pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Philippa Hogben) writes: 

[snip]

> |> BTW, A. Jing Hippy(*) you are welcome to call me Philippa, but please,
> |> please, please _don't_ call me Phillipa. Yup, yet another thing I am
> |> overly fussy about.
> |> [Written with toungue most firmly in cheek]
> 
> :-)
> Now it's my turn to apologize.  I had your name right there in front of
> me and *still* managed to botch it up.  You have every right to expect your
> name to be spelled properly.  I guess I was just hung up in Phillipians 
> or something with all of this Bible/God/Atheist/Agnostic/quote/misquote
> traffic in this group.  Sorry 'bout that.

 Actually, Philippians is spelled with one "l" also.  Even in the 
Greek, there is only one lambda.  Perhaps this is where Philippa's 
name comes from?

> |> * 1) I hope I hope got the number of follow-ups correct here and am
> |>      addressing the correct person.

 Ditto.

> |Dave Cochran, Data General Corporation, RTP, NC   |
> |cochran@dg-rtp.dg.com                             |

Cindy Smith
cms@dragon.com
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Computer GRAMMAR
From: A.Qadir@massey.ac.nz (A. Qadir)
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 22:57:09 GMT
Organization: Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
X-Reader: NETNEWS/PC Version 2c

Hi!
This is my first posting to this news group. I wonder if any body can
help me. Someone told me that there is one computer programme around
which will correct your english GRAMMER, just like Dictionary, which 
corrects spelling. If anybody knows about any such programme please 
let me know the name of the programme. Thanks
Altaf
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: ---istocracy ???
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:30:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.154357.8473@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>In article <25090@castle.ed.ac.uk>, cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>> In article <Aug.19.21.56.34.1992.16942@pilot.njin.net> jmgreen@pilot.njin.net (Jim Green) writes:

>>>Kakistocracy is governance by the worst.  I take this to mean the most
>>>evil, degraded, despicable, or the like.

>> What's the etymology of this? Looks to me like it means "ruled by
>> shits" which is pretty common these days.

I once blew this one right here on the net, so:   
'kakos' means 'bad,' not 'caca.'

>Surely that's "Koprocracy"---or "Coprocracy" once the Anglicisation has
>happened. A descriptive term for a police state?

A *Singing* police state.

But one that gets cancelled after 13 weeks, doncha know?

Roger
From: pjh@deirdre.noname (Philippa Hogben)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: colloquialism?
Date: 3 Sep 92 13:12:20 GMT
Reply-To: pjh@deirdre.noname
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

In article 6675@dosgate, ernest.blaschke@canrem.com (ernest blaschke) writes:
>While talking to one of my Canadian friends the other day I had this
>vision of a wire being aglow inside a light bulb, shining its light
>onto a man admiring a Rembrandt painting. Then my friend seemed to
>offer I some beer ("I?").............. and I came back to reality.
>
>He had said : " I took a fillam to the artic and brought the pitchers
>for you and I to look at!"
>
>English is not my native tongue. Can the above be ascribed to
>colloquialism or is it just plain poor English?

Both.

>Any comments?

Fillam = fillum (*) = film (i.e. photgraphic)

artic = Arctic ?  Had he been on holiday to polar regions?

pitchers = pictures = photographs

you and I = you and me


(*) In Britain this tends to be pronounced fillum rather than fillam.
There is no vowel between the "l" and the "m".

---
Philippa Hogben   pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk  (Reverse if mailing from Janet)
Any mistakes are mine, all mnie.

I am not a .sig virus. I am a free bug. 
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: mikulska@crux.Princeton.EDU (Margaret Mikulska)
Subject: Re: Why don't you re-write this . . .
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 22:12:54 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.140827.11164@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com> lange@lmsc.lockheed.com writes:
>maj@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>: 
>: I'm going to use he/she and his/her a lot
>: more. Yes it's ugly, but that very ugliness
>: reflects accurately the present tension
>: between the sexes.
>
>I like your forcefulness.  May I suggest that you use
>"s/he"?  This bastardization is _really_ ugly and 
>almost androgynous. Besides, it'll completely grab
>your reader's attention when s/he stumbles over it.

I must say that I like "s/he" and I use it (in informal writing,
though).

>(If someone has already pointed out this usage,
>will s/he forgive me, please?)

OK, you're forgiven for calling "s/he" a 'bastardization'.

-Margaret
mikulska@astro.princeton.edu

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron)
Subject: Re: No smegma please, we're American
Organization: University of Illinois
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 14:28:11 GMT

American dictionaries have always acknowledged, and occasionally
privileged, British usage.  Although the great Noah originally
positioned himself against British spelling, he did not take that
stance for long.  Once his dictionaries started selling in Mother
England, he crossed the pond on a marketing junket and pronounced
with conviction that there was virtually no difference between the
2 forms of English, at least so far as educated speakers were
concerned.

Joseph Emerson Worcester, Webster's main American rival in the 19th 
dictionary trade, specifies his standard of pronunciation and usage
to be that of London, since the US has no geographical or social
center which can serve that purpose.

Most recently, the OED has started to record Americanisms, along with
the words of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and so on.  The only
set of -isms the OED has resisted so far is the set of Briticisms (or
perhaps ANglicisms would be more precise) :
those words used solely in England and nowhere else in the English
speaking world, together with those words given a specific sense in
England but used differently in other places.  John Algeo at the
Univ. of Georgia is preparing a dictionary of these.

Dennis


debaron@uiuc.edu               (\                   217-333-2392
                               \'\             fax: 217-333-4321
Dennis Baron                    \'\           __________
Department of English           / '|         ()_________)
Univ. of Illinois               \ '/          \ ~~~~~~~~ \
608 S. Wright St.                 \             \ ~~~~~~   \
Urbana IL 61801                   ==).            \__________\
                                 (__)             ()__________)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: sue@byron.u.washington.edu (Shu-Chen Eclipse)
Subject: Re:  Hross
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 00:59:43 GMT


Then howcum they could pronounce "horse" for their horses just fine?
And why were there no references to that when they first introduce him to 
strangers? No it was simple, hi name WAS HOSS, period.
From: hermit@am.ucsc.edu (William R. Ward)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Less versus Fewer (supermarkets)
Date: 2 Sep 92 11:45:30 GMT
	<1992Aug17.191839.682@mala.bc.ca>
	<1992Aug20.161132.3658@desire.wright.edu>
	<1992Aug24.160215.3475@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
Organization: Computing and Telecommunications Services, UCSC
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: segr@nessie.mcc.ac.uk's message of 24 Aug 92 16:02:15 GMT

|How about when you go to the check-out and hand the check-out
|operator (avoiding use of sexist pronouns) a 10 thingummy note.
|They reply "Have you got any less?", well they do around here,
|as none of the supermarkets seem to know what float is!

Neither do I; is "float" a Britishism for some concept with which I am
familiar?

|Is that correct use of "less"? What should be used instead?

Neither "less" nor "fewer" is correct.  "Less" would mean "do you have
less money than ___" where ___ is something like "you did yesterday"
or "I have" or "Donald Trump."  Pretty absurd, not to mention
difficult to come up with good examples!  "Fewer" would mean fewer
bills, which in this case is absurd.  You can't have any fewer than
one!  If you handed the checker ten 1 thingummy bills (aka notes),
they ;-) might ask for fewer than ten bills, perhaps.

In any case, the concept in question is not one of quantity but rather
of the characteristics (ie, the denomination) of the piece of paper
that you're using.  Your example is probably as good as anything.

|The best I can do is "Have you got anything smaller?".

Well, over on *this* side of the pond, your suggestion is the standard
phrase.  "Have you got anything smaller?" is exactly what would be
asked.
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: "Grammar"
Date: 26 Aug 92 14:07:53 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Aug24.211701.7761@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.180206.15766@Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>
>Roger, if you want to continue the discussion, feel free to send mail,
>thus sparing the net the flamage.  If not, well, hey?  What can I say?
>You believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe, and neither
>of us seems likely of convincing the other.  I won't lose sleep over it.
>


You are you, and I am I, and if by some chance we find each other, 
it's beautiful.      --- '70s pundit

Actually, Roger, I wonder what **LY HOANG** would have to say about all this?

Sorry, I was put up to that.



-- 
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
            -- J. Danforth Quayle
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Improper spelling
Date: 3 Sep 92 12:16:29 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Sep3.030319.23129@dsuvax.dsu.edu> rolfe@dsuvax.dsu.edu (Tim Rolfe) writes:
>In <1992Sep2.225412.9559@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com> evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum) writes:
>>In article <92246.155543IO11412@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> <IO11412@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:
>>>Why do so many people (especially native speakers of English) spell
>>>incorrectly the following forms:
>
>>>wierd    for      weird
>
>>is probably due to people having internalized the rule "'I' before 'E'
>>except after 'C' [unless sounded like 'ay' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh']".
>
>That's easy --- just remember that weird is . . . weird.

It is not weird.  It would be if it were the only exception from the
weird `"i" before "e" except after "c"' rule.  But, apart from
"weird", there is "(a)theism"/"(a)theist", "deity", "foreign", "their"
(which many people can't distinguish from "there" anyway), all of
which I have seen misspelt with "ie" more than once.  (See alt.atheism
for many examples of this.)  Not what I would call a reasonable rule.

It is also weird that people insist on using "weird" in writing, even
though they can't spell it.  They should substitute "strange", or
"odd", or something that is easier to get right.

And I once saw "who's" (for "whose") on a plate.  Yes, it had been
produced that way.  Sigh.

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: lange@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Alex Lange)
Subject: Re: Britism: "taking silk"
Reply-To: lange@lmsc.lockheed.com
Organization: Moving Finger Rights, Ltd.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 20:17:15 GMT

crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
: a passage that describes a character as having "taken silk" and now
: operating a thriving law practice.  I assume the phrase means the
: equivalent of our "passing the bar" -- true?  Where does it come
: from?

A wild guess: "taken silk" means that the barrister has assumed
an judicial position with the government (such as QC, Queen's Counsel
or a judgeship) and refers to the material of her robe of office.
Guessing from Mortimer's "Rumpole" stories... . Is this correct?

Is the American equivalent "taken graft"?

Alex Lange
From: thayes@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: What does this mean?
Date: 30 Aug 92 00:23:50 GMT
Distribution: all
Organization: Wright State University




GD>I saw an ad in the subway (Toronto) yesterday that said
> 
>"All flavours not available in all provinces"
>in reference to a certain line of coolers  (i.e. fruit, alcohol, and
>water mixtures)

DD> Rather than a problem with a double negative, this is instead an instance 
> of a misplaced negative: "Not all flavours are available in every province"

But in a twisted way the original phrase is technically correct: it
apparently is the case that "(The set of) All flavours [are] not available
(in the set of) all provinces."

Dian's recasting is *much* better.  However, it still requires one to store the
"Not" as a modifier of "available" over the space of three words.  As an
alternative with lesser cognitive demand, how's about:

"Some flavours are unavailable in some provinces." 


-----ted hayes

(P.S.: Dian, look: punctuation within the quotation marks!)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan)
Subject: Re: did vs. done
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 01:43:21 GMT

In article <1992Aug22.083524.3482@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>, roddi@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Roddi Walker) writes:
> Something I've always wondered is when to use "did" and when to use
> "done".
> 
> Consider the following:
> 
> (a) I did my homework.
> (b) I done my homework.  (Personally, I would say "I have done my
> homework" - but people often just say "I done my homework").
> 
> My guess is that you use "did" when you're being specific, "done"
> otherwise.  Eg:
> 
> (a) I did my homework two hours ago.
> (b) I have done my homework.

I hope that this is not going to come out looking offensive to
Roddi, because it's not intended that way.  I'm quoting it because of its
relevance to other discussions we've had in this group.  (By the
way, I'm not answering the original question because I'm sure that
others will do so adequately.)

Here we have an example of someone who was not taught much grammar
at school, who has a vague feeling that "I done my homework" sounds
wrong and that "I have done my homework" sounds better, but can't
understand why.  If I have correctly interpreted the tone of his
question, this has led to (a small amount of) confusion and insecurity.
Roddi's conjecture about the did/done distinction is much more
complicated than what he would have been taught by a halfway
competent English teacher.

As a native speaker of the language, Roddi manages anyway to come
up with the "correct" forms.  Even so, would he not have been better
off had he been taught a bit of prescriptive grammar?  I'm convinced
that he would have been.  The rules are a lot simpler than he now
imagines them to be.

It would be unfair of me not to quote the rest of his posting, so
here goes:

> And ANOTHER thing that bugs me (hell, while I'm here :-) - I was told in
> primary school not to put "and" after a punctuation mark (especially a
> comma).  But I often find myself doing so - for example:
> 
> She had not heard me come in, and continued washing the dishes.
> 
> The above sentence seems fine to me, but the grim spectre of Mrs.
> Treadwell from Grade 2 lurks behind it :-)

OK, I have to admit that Mrs. Treadwell has done some harm by
prescribing overly simplistic rules.  (Fortunately Roddi seems to have
overcome that handicap, probably by picking up examples from his
reading.)  That's probably only because there's a limit on what
can be taught at grade 2 level.  The real problem here, I believe,
is that nobody in the higher grades followed up on what Mrs. Treadwell
said.

Peter.

> PS: ONE more thing :-)  Anyone got a simple (we weren't taught grammar
> in my day :-) definition of a split infinitive?  For "simple" read:
> "jargon free" (ie. nothing like "past participle" etc).

See what I mean?  There's nothing inherently frightening about
the term "past participle"; but our schools are producing people who
think that it's obscure jargon.
-- 
Peter Moylan                      eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Programs (was: Ships and countries)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 07:12:19 GMT


> Check that jargon file extract again: the examples use the neuter pronoun.
> I've never heard programs or computers referred to as "he", only "it".

I have, in Canada.  I would have mentioned it since the excerpt uses
only the neuter, but I thought it was so common as to need no comment:
just one additional degree of informality.  Sorry about that.
-- 
Mark Brader, Toronto		"The time to make up your mind about people
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com	 is never."	    -- The Philadelphia Story

This article is in the public domain.
From: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Reporting Speeches
Date: 4 Sep 92 04:38:43 GMT
Reply-To: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1992Sep1.181715.18995@nuscc.nus.sg> isc30001@nusunix2.nus.sg (WONG KIN HONG) writes:
>
>	What if we are writing minutes ? Suppose the chairman said
>	"The program will start in September." and it's only August
>	now. Do I write "The chairman said that the program would
>	start in September." or "...will start..." ? I'm confused
>	because I've come across minutes written in both the manners.

I would probably use "would" if I were to write the sentence.  The only
circumstance in which I would use "will" above would be if the chairman
had said "If I have to kill someone on Aug. 31, the program *will* start
in September, make no mistake about it."  Then I might write, "He said 
that it *will* start in september."


--
Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ.     "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings 
gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu       to be seriously considered as a means of 
N2GPZ in ham radio circles        communication. The device is inherently of
72355,1226 on CI$                 no value to us." -Western Union memo, 1877
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english