HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: padutton@wpi.WPI.EDU (Peter Alan Dutton)
Subject: Re: "Route"
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 12:39:33 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.052915.14487@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Aug11.210423.4859@news.eng.convex.com> tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes:
>>
>>What do you mean "new"?  I've never heard a native midwesterner 
>>pronounce it anyway but as you've written, that is, rhyming with
>>"pout".  Consider the carpentry tool called a router.  Have you 
>>ever heard anyone call it a ruter?   Of course, folks where I'm 
>>from think "root" rhymes with "foot" and "soot", not with "toot"
>>and "hoot".
>
>In New York, that'd rhyme with "hoot," including the word router.
>

Nope. "Route" DOES rime with "hoot", but "router", the carpentry
tool, rhymes with "powder". But maybe that's the Eastun Long
Island Subdialect of N'Yoark speak...

(You say that you're going to Easton, Pennsylvania, and we'll
reply "WHERE in Eastern Pennsylvania"??)

(NOT "lawn guyland"!!! Never never never!!)

Peter!
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: What ~did~ Don Quixote sit on?
Date: 18 Aug 92 23:30:46 GMT
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Realtime Development, Colorado Springs, CO
Originator: tchrist@pixel.convex.com
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

I believe you've find that Don Quixote sat upon his ass, but
rode upon Rosinante, a horse -- mangy, yes, but still a horse.

--tom
-- 
    Tom Christiansen      tchrist@convex.com      convex!tchrist


    "We don't care.  We don't have to.  We're the Phone Company."
From: dks@athena.mit.edu (dks)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Whose Ox
Date: 18 Aug 92 03:40:08 GMT
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

In article <199208171708.AA02961@das.wang.com>,
VSLARRY@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Larry Israel) writes:
>>  And so on.  As you can see, in Exodus it is the ox that does the goring,
>>  whereas the phrase that has come down to us -- as used/mentioned above by
>>  Bob and Roger -- casts the poor beast as victim.  Synecdoche or not, the
>>  gored ox is still a puzzle to me: speculation on its pedigree is welcome.
>
>However, if Dhanesh had continued looking until Exodus 21:35 [...]

Heh-heh-heh... anyone watching closely would have known that I can only
take the Bible five verses per day!  Exodus 21:35 was on my list for
tomorrow, honest!


>[...] he would have found (my translation):
>
>35 If a man's ox push his friend's ox and he dies they shall sell the living
>ox and split the money and split the dead ox as well.
>
>36 Or if he was informed that his ox was a gorer in days past and his owners
>did not guard him, he shall pay an ox for an ox, and the dead ox shall belong
>to him.


Well, OK.  But I did look this far, and my translation (King Jim again) goes
as follows:

     35 And if one man's ox hurt another's, that he die; then they
        shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the
        dead ox also they shall divide.

     36 Or if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past,
        and his owner hath not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for
        ox; and the dead shall be his own.

If these murdered oxen were indeed gored, then I'm happy (well, you know
what I mean -- or most of you do, anyway).


Dhanesh

[This post is dedicated to Moses.]
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Subject: Re: Less versus Fewer: Victory at NPR!
Reply-To: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 04:46:25 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.165856.13240@Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>
>No, you should have pointed out that "8 items or less" is flat-out
>*correct.*  And idiomatic.  And long-standing usage.  And standard.

.......NOT!


--
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
Subject: Re: The Great Debate : Clarifications (LONG)
From: engf002@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
Date: 21 Aug 92 17:34:13 +1200
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

In article <1992Aug19.112717.16987@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>, bf455@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale) writes:
> 
> ...
> I never heard anything but kil-OM-e-ter until my kids started getting
> metric in school.  Then they were told to pronounce it KIL-o-meet-er. 
> Sounds very weird to me.
> 
> Bonita
You don't say cen-TIM-e-ter or mi-LIM-e-ter or even ki-LO-gram
so why say kil-OM-e-ter?

Andrew Earl
--- To err is human. To moo, bovine. ---
From: pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Philippa Hogben)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Puns
Date: 14 Aug 92 10:31:21 GMT
Organization: cam.eng

TSOS@uni-duesseldorf.de (Detlef Lannert) writes:

>In article <pjh.713703937@nessi> pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Philippa Hogben) writes:

>>BTW I am well known around here for being a punster - I suppose the
>                                             ^^^^^^^
>>people I spoke to were "expecting" it to be a pun.

>Could anybody help me with the correct female form of "punster" -
>is it "punstress" (or "pun-stress"), or perhaps "pundette"?

What is wrong with punster? I am female and used that term to describe
myself. I find it unnecessary and even somewhat annoying when people
contrive to invent "feminine" forms for words which don't have them.
Similarly, I find it a little silly when people try to coin
"non-gender specific" terms for things for which there are pefrectly
addequate names already as in the waiter/waitress/waitron discussion.
For this reason, I refer to myself as an engineer not an engineeress
or whatever the feminine form is "supposed" to be. I know that most
people assume that engineers are (almost) always male. I do not think
that it will really make any difference if there is a feminine form.
It may just make peolpe think that female engineers are somehow
unusual or different from male engineers which seems to be exactly the
opposite effect to the one people are intending.


I apologise if this seems like a personal flame - it is not intended
as such. It is just my response to the whole thread I have been
reading over the past week and which I have so far not replied to.
Your question just pushed the button which motivated me to respond. I
apologise also for going off into a tirade about it.

Philippa

(hoping the .sig is now fixed)
--
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: dks@athena.mit.edu (dks)
Subject: Re: Gender Benders!
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 02:20:29 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.181135.10388@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
mmmirash@corsair.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar Mukund Mirashi) writes:
>It is time for me to plunge into the debate about gender specific words.

You will, I hope, excuse the group for not agreeing _en_masse_.


>Aren't our prejudices a part of ourselves,
>rather than the words we use? Gender non-specific words will hardly
>ameliorate the situation.

It depends on how you view language.  If reality is that which is shared
by two people by virtue of a conversation between them -- and, yes, there
are those who hold this view -- then we cannot separate "ourselves" from
the words we use.


>For example, even if you replace "waiter" and
>"waitress" with "waitron", wouldn't the person who confronts the waitron
>be able to determine the waitron's sex? We should attempt to efface
>inherent prejudices that exist about the sexes, rather than the words
>which define them.

Again, you are maintaining a wall between words and (constructed) reality.
So be it.  Just be aware that not everyone sees your wall.


>Unisex words and unisex clothing styles prevail
>currently. What next? A single gender? (will we then indulge in self-
>reproduction like plants?

This is the sort of "rhetoric" that gets you into trouble!


>Why can we not accept that the male
>and female sexes are different (physically) and not come to terms
>with these differences? Why can we not prevent ourselves from making
>sweeping generalisations such as "Women! You know what they are like!"
>or "But he's a man!"?

My sentiments exactly.


>Gender specific words will continue to 
>(and should be allowed to) thrive as long as there are 2 distinct
>genders. This is because there *are* certain things that women can do
>that men can't and vice-versa.

The logic that links these two sentences is not clear to me.  I'll
give it another look in the morning over a cup of Darjeeling.


>    The one and only,
>         Mandar.

No, really?


Dhanesh,
  dime a dozen

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron)
Subject: Re: and - or - but
Organization: University of Illinois
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:12:15 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.211626.6941@ac.dal.ca> asuncion@ac.dal.ca writes:
>From: asuncion@ac.dal.ca
>Subject: and - or - but
>Date: 12 Aug 92 21:16:26 -0300
>
>People who begin sentences with "And", "But", or "Or" should be slapped silly
>by an English teacher. NEVER BEGIN A SENTENCE WITH and, or, but!
>

As an English teacher, I take some umbrage (enough not to put a smiley
but not so much as to be really angry) at the assumption that it is the
job of English teachers to control students' language.  English teachers
are no better at behavior mod than psychologists.  And I for one don't 
expect them to be.

First of all, English teachers generally have no training in language.
Their course of study in the US consists largely of literature with an
overlay of education courses that have little to do with anything at all.
For their teaching license, English teachers _may_ be required in some
states to take one course in grammar, history of English, or intro to
linguistics.  

Nonetheless, society expects English teachers to be language experts.
Although their training does not provide them any expertise, many of them
elect to become experts anyway, without so much as a certificate from
the kind of school that advertises on match book covers ("If you can
parse this sentence you can qualify for the Professional Pedant school
and drive those 18 wheelers . . .").

I work a lot with English teachers.  In my experience they are almost
completely unaware of the usage controversies that swirl about in the
current literature, or the ones that get discussed in this newsgroup.
Maybe, just maybe, they have an opinion on can/may.  I was surprised to
find one group of Illinois h.s. teachers, among them several NEH seminar-
ians and a couple of nuns, who had no idea there was any squabble over
sentence initial _hopefully_.

And by the way, there is nothing whatever wrong with starting an English
sentence with and.  Nothing.  Whatsoever.

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                   ==).            \__________\
                                 (__)             ()__________)
From: s913606@yallara.cs.rmit.OZ.AU (Mab)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Use of 'I' and 'me'
Date: 17 Aug 92 02:05:49 GMT

We were discussing the use of the term 'you and I' as opposed to 'you
and me' the other day... as in:

'You and I can go now' (pretend there's no such word as 'we' okay?)

and

'He called you and me'

I figure that both of these are correct, as you use the 'I' when you
would use it normally ('I can go now') and the same with the 'me'
('He called me'). What does everybody think? A friend of mine thinks
that it should be 'He called you and I'... is this right?

ADVthanxANCE.
     __  __      __   _  Email the Mabster at: s913606@yallara.cs.rmit.OZ.AU
.___/  |/  |____/  |_| |____________________________________________________.
|  / /| /| | __/_| |_| |____  "That's one small step for man, and ---       |
| / / |/ | | \  _| |_| |_  /   SHIT! There's a f**king alien!"              |
`/ /     | |/ /\ | | | | /            -Neil Armstrong (Before govt coverup).|
(_/------|___/--\__|-|__/---------------------------------------------------'
From: aek@cs.man.ac.uk (Alan Knowles)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: X-ray or X-Ray
Date: 14 Aug 92 16:32:18 GMT
Organization: Dept Computer Science,University of Manchester,U.K.

In article <1992Aug14.105203.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu>, 
amconn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes:

|> 
|> It should be noted that X ray (no hyphen) is the noun form, X-ray is the
|> adjective, and x-ray (no capital) is the verb, although the verb usage varies
|> between x-ray and X-ray.
|> 
|> Connor/Castigat ridendo mores

Does anyone know the origin of the word codswallop?
Is everyone familiar with its usage?

My OED says it is X-ray in verb and noun form. (Upper case X, hyphenated. No
options. (Actually, I lie. It's the Oxford Paperback Dictionary (OPD?)) ;-}

===========================================================================
Dr. Alan Knowles, Department of Computer Science,
The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

Tel:    +44 61 275 6185 
Fax:    +44 61 275 6236

email address:-
        aek@cs.man.ac.uk
or (if the above fails to work):-
        aek%cs.man.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
===========================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: dks@MIT.EDU (dks)
Subject: Re: and - or - but
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 22:02:09 EST
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Dennis Baron (baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu) writes:
> As an English teacher, I take some umbrage (enough not to put a smiley
> but not so much as to be really angry) at the assumption that it is the
> job of English teachers to control students' language.  English teachers
> are no better at behavior mod than psychologists.  And I for one don't 
> expect them to be.

As the still-recovering son of an English teacher, I think I understand
your exasperation.  From both sides, as it were.


> First of all, English teachers generally have no training in language.
> Their course of study in the US consists largely of literature with an
> overlay of education courses that have little to do with anything at all.

Is there no one who will spring to the defense of the "education courses"?
For all their futility, they seem to be securely inside our curricular tent.


> For their teaching license, English teachers _may_ be required in some
> states to take one course in grammar, history of English, or intro to
> linguistics.

This is not a pun on "license" either, is it?


> Nonetheless, society expects English teachers to be language experts.
> Although their training does not provide them any expertise, many of them
> elect to become experts anyway [ . . . ]
> I work a lot with English teachers.  In my experience they are almost
> completely unaware of the usage controversies that swirl about in the
> current literature, or the ones that get discussed in this newsgroup.
> Maybe, just maybe, they have an opinion on can/may.  I was surprised to
> find one group of Illinois h.s. teachers, among them several NEH seminar-
> ians and a couple of nuns, who had no idea there was any squabble over
> sentence initial _hopefully_.

Dennis, I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate.  Mail is fine by me if
you think the subject is not of general interest in this group.


> And by the way, there is nothing whatever wrong with starting an English
> sentence with and.  Nothing.  Whatsoever.

Here, you have my agreement, for what it's worth.


Dhanesh

[Bygones being bygones, this post is dedicated to my father.]
From: roddi@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Roddi Walker)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: did vs. done
Date: 22 Aug 92 08:35:24 GMT
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.

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.

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 :-)

Opinions anyone?

Roddi

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).
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
From: cummings@milton.u.washington.edu (Michael Cummings)
Subject: Re: Can I axe you a question?
Organization: University of Washington
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 18:21:14 GMT

cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>Is this common in other word that have the "sk" in them?  Or is the
>reversal lexical in "ask?"  It could just be lexical.

	I often hear people pronounce "asterisk" as "asteriks" or more
commonly, "asterick."

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: dian@arpeggio.gg.caltech.edu (Dian  De Sha)
Subject: Re: ---istocracy ???
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: all
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:49:42 GMT

In <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 is the form of
>governance that is by the least able or competent...as in the
>administration of a university...is this also kakistocracy?


        Ineptocracy?

____
Dian
From: TSOS@uni-duesseldorf.de (Detlef Lannert)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Can I axe you a question?
Date: 21 Aug 92 15:32:49 GMT
Organization: Universitaetsrechenzentrum, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet, Duesseldorf

In article <pjh.714401779@nessi> pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Philippa Hogben) writes:

>How about: less refers to an amount, fewer to a number.
> [...]
>If you are talking about a number of items (as in this case) you must
>have fewer than a certain number not less than a certain amount.

You argue that "fewer" should be applied to countable quantities.
The amount of items in a shopping basket, however, is obviously
not countable: Most of the people in the express chain can't count
them (or otherwise they wouldn't carry more than 10), and the
management don't really want the items to be counted - just to be
paid for. And that counts.

[This is an express posting - 10 smileys or fewer. Don't count.]
--
Detlef Lannert      DC3EK      E-Mail: tsos@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de
"Ab morgen wird gearbeitet."
From: maj@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Verbing Nouns
Date: 13 Aug 92 13:06:54 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Sorry, I've lost the references.

Shakespeare used to verb nouns. I don't think it's specifically
American to form them. My favourites are the transitive verbs
'to pause <something>' and 'to fast-forward <something>', the
origin of which is obvious.

-- 
Murray A. Jorgensen [ maj@waikato.ac.nz ]    University of Waikato
Department of Mathematics and Statistics     Hamilton, New Zealand      
__________________________________________________________________
'Tis the song of the Jubjub! the proof is complete,
if only I've stated it thrice.'
From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: ---istocracy ???
Date: 21 Aug 92 14:53:09 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

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.
-- 
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
From: shaevel@Apple.COM (Jeff Shaevel)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Less versus Fewer... time to give up?
Date: 16 Aug 92 15:48:28 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA

cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com (A. Jing Hippy) writes:

>In every grocery store in the country:

>"Express line - 12 items or less"

Well, not *every* grocery store....

In Arlington, VA, I remember a time when the express lines first started
at a major supermarket with the "12 items or less" signs in place.  Within
one week there were formal paste-ups over the "less" so the signs read
"12 items or fewer".  Within a month, the signs were replaced completely
with the correct phrase.  I was very impressed.  Northern Virginia (it 
wasn't only that store) is the only place I've been to that's gotten it 
right.

Any others out there?

-- 
Jeff Shaevel        :-)-: (comedy/tragedy)    Love may be blind, 
shaevel@apple.com                             but lust is autistic.

Xref: sparky alt.usage.english:6438 soc.culture.british:11570
From: Geraint.Jones@comlab.oxford.ac.uk (Geraint Jones)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Name for Brits and Irish?
Date: 16 Aug 92 12:35:49 GMT
Organization: The Little Sisters of Our Lady of Heavy Artillery

cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) pontificated:
(  
(  > 1. Ireland is not part of Britain.
(  
(  Yes it is - it's just not part of the United Kingdom of *Great* Britain
(  and Northern Ireland. Britain is composed of the British Isles - all the
(  islands. I believe it was fashionable at one time (and may still be in
(  certain circles) to call the Irish "West Britons"

Bah, humbug.  This is a modern (as in roughly 17th Century) misuse of 
`Britain'.  Prydain is one of those P/Q softenings of Cedyrn, and Ynys
(island, singular you notice) y Cedyrn, the Isle of the Mighty, was
the big one, in contrast to Gwerddon Erin (y Werddon, yr Iwerddon) which 
was where the wife-beating Matholwch came from.

And we didn't used to get on with them much back then.  Except for the
ritual exchange of missionaries and slaves.  And occasional friendly
massacres.  A good rule to work to is that you can call anything whatever
you like, provided you don't mind who you offend.  You're right, Matholwch
didn't beat his wife, he employed a butcher to do it for him.

Did I really get involved in the periodic slanging match about which bit of /
mouldy green rock in the West Atlantic (Cefnfor yr Iwerydd, the Irish      /
Ocean, not to be confused with Cardigan Bay) is called what?  Drat.       / g