HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum)
Subject: Re: "cannot" or "can not?"
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 18:32:56 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

In article <1992Sep12.041110.13990@sunb10.cs.uiuc.edu> pjl@sparc10.cs.uiuc.edu (Paul Lucas) writes:
>	First, are they interchangeable?  If not, what's the difference?
>	If so, which is preferred (more formal) if either?  Thanks in
>	advance.

I was taught that when used for negated ability or permission you use
"cannot".  (Basically, this is everywhere you'd be more likely to have
*said* "can't", but it's been impressed upon you that you should never
use contractions in writing.)  The only place that you write "can not"
is when you're expressing the ability not to do something:

	I can go or I can not go; it really doesn't matter to me.

"Cannot" always looked artificial to me.

Evan Kirshenbaum
    HP Laboratories
    3500 Deer Creek Road, Building 26U
    Palo Alto, CA  94304

    kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com
    (415)857-7572


Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: ccjal@cc.newcastle.edu.au (John A Lambert)
Subject: Re: Articles and acronyms (was re: University)
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 00:18:13 GMT

In article <HERMIT.92Sep9042843@am.ucsc.edu>, hermit@cats.UCSC.EDU (William R. Ward) writes:
> In article <1992Sep7.110951.14784@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> uojy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
> |In article <HERMIT.92Sep6181050@am.ucsc.edu>,
> |hermit@cats.UCSC.EDU (William R. Ward) writes: 
> |> Well, there are two large US/rest-of-world differences here.  One is
> 
> Well, there is a philosophical difference among various people when it
> comes to pronouncing and using articles with acronyms.
> 
> Some people prefer to think of it as a bunch of letters, in this case
> "N. A. F. T. A.," rather than a single word, "NAFTA."  Still others,
> think of it as the words it represents, "North American Free Trade
> Agreement."
> 
> So consequently, when you decide whether you add "the" to it or not,
> you can think of it as a word or bunch of letters, in which case you
> don't add "the."  If you think of it as a bunch of words, however, the
> full title is "THE North American Free Trade Agreement," and since the
> word "The" is not included in the acronym, you add it to the
> beginning.
> 
> Similar things happen with acronyms whose first letter is a vowel in
> situations where it would be preceded by "a" or "an."
-- 
An interesting stage in the transition from acronym to word has been reached
here in Australia (and possibly elsewhere) with the acronym PIN (personal
Identification Number) as used for bank ATMs.

One frequently hears and sees references to the (to me) tautological `PIN
number'.

John A Lambert
Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing
The University of Newcastle NSW 2308 Australia
From: thayes@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Acronyms (Was Re: Articles and acronyms)
Date: 12 Sep 92 00:06:02 GMT
Organization: Wright State University

> |One frequently hears and sees references to the (to me) tautological `PIN
> |number'.
> 
> That's quite common here too..  Also, a friend's mother's ex-husband
> (how's that for a mouthful!) used to refer to compact discs as "CD
> Discs" (or was it "Compact CD's"?)!  So to pay homage to his
> stupidity, I often refer to "Compact CD Discs" in jest....

I predict that the term "compact CDs" will get more play once minidisks
become more common.  And then there will be "compact CD players"...!

-----ted hayes
From: rhemler@ems.cdc.com (Bob Hemler)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: euphemistically constructed acronym
Date: 14 Sep 92 16:07:21 GMT
Reply-To: rhemler@ems.cdc.com
Organization: Empros Systems International, a division of CDC

In article <18qeu1INN6vv@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, ai118@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Rich Zidonis) writes:
|> 
|> In a previous article, rhemler@ems.cdc.com (Bob Hemler) says:
|> 
|> >In article <18nhcjINNs49@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, ai118@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Rich Zidonis) writes:
|> >|> 
|> >|> Who's been mucking about with the acronyms?
|> >|> 
|> >|> And just when did the venerable 'fubar' get changed to 'foobar?'
|> >|>
|> >	About the time 'fubar' got *FUBAR* and became 'foobar'.  But
|> >	then 'DILLIGAF' is still not *FUBAR* and still applies.
|> 
|> From the wais client (jargon) at UNC at CH, FUBAR "is generally traced to 
|> the WWII era [as] Army slang.  FUBAR was later bowdlerized to foobar."
|> 
|> That comment aside, Bob, just what is "DILLIGAF?"
|> -- 
|> RAZ     ai118@cleveland.freenet.edu

"DILLIGAF" is a nice sounding way to say "Do I look like I give a fuck?"
I did not make this up, but I think it has a nice polite ring to it.

Bob
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: sp@osf.org (Simon Patience)
Subject: Re: No smegma please, we're American
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 07:48:14 GMT

In article <pel.38.716168051@resntl.bhp.com.au>, pel@resntl.bhp.com.au (Paul Osborn) writes:
> In an Australian supermarket I once noticed, in the frozen fish department, 
> some 'Whiting Pieces', some 'Bream Pieces' and some 'Cod Portions'.

None of which are as painful as the 'battered cod pieces' which you could
buy from Sainsburys.

Simon.

-- 
  Simon Patience
  Open Software Foundation			Phone: +33-76-63-48-72
  Research Institute				FAX:   +33-76-51-05-32
  2 Avenue De Vignate				Email: sp@gr.osf.org
  38610 Gieres, France				       uunet!gr.osf.org!sp
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: cthorne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Thorne)
Subject: Re: "less" vs "fewer"
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:18:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.052006.28453@csi.uottawa.ca> misrael@csi.uottawa.ca (Mark Israel) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.134021.27477@Princeton.EDU>, roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>> I think it's valuable to distinguish "less intelligent people" from
>>> "fewer intelligent people".  "More intelligent people" is ambiguous.

>> Really?  Even in a sentence?

>   Sure!  If someone says "We need more intelligent people in the 
>government", I don't know whether or not he's satisfied with the 
>intelligence of anyone currently in the government.

>> I've never been hampered by any ambiguities from such constructions in
>> actual contexts.

>   I have.

I was always taught that if more was an adverb (modifying intelligent) then
the phrase should be:  more-intelligent people.  Without the hyphen, more
is an adjective modifying people.
From: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Short question on word sequence
Date: 7 Sep 92 04:25:41 GMT
Reply-To: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1992Sep7.022535.4416@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>|1. "One less car", or
>>|2. "One car less" ?
>>
>>"One fewer car," of course!

Of course.

>In other words, it depends.  I wouldn't worry about either 1. or 2.;
>both are quite common.

Both are quite common.  One is wrong, however.


--
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
From: ccjal@cc.newcastle.edu.au (John A Lambert)
Subject: Re: Hedgehog vs Porcupine
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 04:55:29 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.170150.27756@enea.se>, lawe@enea.se (Lars Westin) writes:
> 
> My American friend and I are having a dispute about hedge-
> hogs and  porcupines. 
> 
> 	Hedgehog: any of a genus (Erinaceus) of Old World nocturnal
> 	insectivorous mammals having both hair and spines that they
> 	present outwardly by rolling themselves up.
> 
> 	Porcupine: any of various relatively large rodents having
> 	stiff sharp erectile bristles mingled with the hair and
> 	constituting an Old World terrestrial family (Hystricidae)
> 	and a New World arboreal family (Erethizontidae).
> -- 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Lars Westin - ENEA Data, Stockholm (Sweden) - lawe@enea.se
-- 
The definitions in the Macquarie more-or-less agree with the above. But --
neither is an echidna.

John A Lambert
Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing
The University of Newcastle NSW 2308 Australia
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: henry@netcom.com (Henry Polard)
Subject: Re: A Neologism
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 92 19:40:45 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

(list omitted)
Less obvious:
venereal (from Venus)
as opposed to:
platonic
-- 
 ________________________________________________________
/ Henry  || We are such stuffe as dreames are made on;   \
\ Polard || and our little life is rounded with a sleepe /
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: fish@hpscit.sc.hp.com (John Fisher)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 16:45:25 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: Improper spellingscreen
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english


I can't speak for the world of poor spellers, but I *can* speak for one
of them... me.  I am a poor speller because I put very little effort
into it.  My rationale (I just looked this word up) is all that
information is stored in a very handy memory device... the dictionary.
So, the last thing I do to anything I write is to check the spelling.
The words I use most frequently, I remember.  Those I use less often, I
look up.  

Some people might view this as lazy.  Perhaps they are right.
But, as one not equipped with the Spelling Gene (if that, in fact, is
what is needed), I chose to view my approach as simply incredibly
intelligent.  (Insert the smiley of your choice here.)


John Fisher at Hewlett-Packard |
in Santa Clara, CA             |  This is as bad as it can get,
fish@sc.hp.com                 |  but don't bet on it.
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy J.M. Cain)
Subject: Re: Improper spellingscreen
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:11:35 GMT
Organization: D'Arcy Cain Consulting

iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>> And I once saw "who's" (for "whose") on a plate.  Yes, it had been
>>> produced that way.  Sigh.
>>Hooz plate was that?
>It belonged to an Edinburgh University student, in whose home I was
>having tea one evening.  It was used for biscuits.  You may have come
>across about a story about four fellows styled Everybody, Somebody,
>Anybody, and Nobody--how there was a job that Everybody could have
>done, and Everybody thought Somebody would, and Somebody thought
>Anybody could, so finally Nobody did it--so this instructive story was
>told on the plate, and the title was (in large letters):
>
>     W h o ' s   J o b ?

Now wait a minute.  Are you sure that the misspelling wasn't part of the
joke?  Perhaps Who was expected to do the job when he wasn't playing
first base.   :-)

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain (darcy@druid.com)  |
D'Arcy Cain Consulting              |   There's no government
Toronto, Ontario, Canada            |   like no government!
+1 416 424 2871          DoD#0082   |
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: misrael@csi.uottawa.ca (Mark Israel)
Subject: Re: Short question on word sequence
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 03:05:07 GMT

In article <25611@castle.ed.ac.uk>, cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:

> If this distinction between "less" and "fewer" is important, i.e., it
> would be a loss to the language to treat as a silly distinction and
> simply drop it, what is the corresponding distinction for "more"? My
> suggestion is that since there isn't one, this is a silly distinction
> which English is better off without.

   I think it's valuable to distinguish "less intelligent people" from
"fewer intelligent people".  "More intelligent people" is ambiguous.

misrael@csi.uottawa.ca			Mark Israel
Sunbeams brightly play, where Fancy's fair pavilion once is pight.
From: hermit@cats.UCSC.EDU (William R. Ward)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Improper spellingscreen
Date: 9 Sep 92 03:46:35
Organization: Computing and Telecommunications Services, UCSC
	<1992Sep3.030319.23129@dsuvax.dsu.edu> <10611@scott.ed.ac.uk>
	<1992Sep8.024228.1306@guvax.georgetown.edu>
	<1992Sep9.105101.1@wombat.newcastle.edu.au>
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au's message of Wed, 9 Sep 1992 00:51:01 GMT


Forgive me for not reading a FAQ or whatever, but I don't know how to
use the phonetic spellings I've been seeing on the net, and they don't
make much sense to me, so I'll use amateur phonetics...

In article <1992Sep9.105101.1@wombat.newcastle.edu.au> eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan) writes:
|Observation: for me, and I suspect for all non-rhotic speakers,

I can't find "rhotic" in any dictionary at my disposal, and it's a
word I don't know.  Can someone please enlighten me?

|the word "weird" contains two distinct vowels.  If I try to
|pronounce the 'r', I can see how the two vowels collapse back to
|one, but I can't, for all my trying, make that one vowel sound like
|the one in "receive" or "believe".

Strange ... how *do* you pronounce "weird"?  I seem to add a "u" sound
before the "rd" in order to make the "r" audible, and keep the "ee"
sound in "weird."

|Is there anyone out there for whom the "ei" in "weird" has exactly
|the same sound as the "ie" in "believe"?

Well, I'm in California, so you can't expect me to say anything
correctly, but I pronounce weird "WEE-urd"; the "ee" sound is
basically the same sound I use in "receive" ("ree CEEV") and believe
("bee LEEV").
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: pjl@sparc10.cs.uiuc.edu (Paul Lucas)
Subject: "cannot" or "can not?"
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 04:11:10 GMT

	First, are they interchangeable?  If not, what's the difference?
	If so, which is preferred (more formal) if either?  Thanks in
	advance.
-- 
	- Paul J. Lucas				University of Illinois	
	  AT&T Bell Laboratories		at Urbana-Champaign
	  Naperville, IL			pjl@cs.uiuc.edu
From: fish@hpscit.sc.hp.com (John Fisher)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Re: Improper spellingscreen
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:25:57 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Clara, CA

cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
fish@hpscit.sc.hp.com (John Fisher) writes:

>>I can't speak for the world of poor spellers, but I *can* speak for one
>>of them... me.  I am a poor speller because I put very little effort
>>into it.  My rationale (I just looked this word up) is all that
>>information is stored in a very handy memory device... the dictionary.

>This is only practical if you don't write much, and you only use words
>which can be found in small (e.g. single volume) dictionaries.
>
>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

Well... it may not be practical (I'm not quite sure what might qualify
it as such), but I do, indeed, write a great deal.  In fact, I make a
rather nice living being employed as a writer.  Further, when the sun goes
down, and the shadows rule, I become... SCRIPTWRITER MAN!  

However, since all my output is directed to a very broad audience, I do
confine myself to the use of words that can be found in "small (e.g.
single volume) dictionaries."


John Fisher at Hewlett-Packard |
in Santa Clara, CA             |  All generalizations are faulty.
fish@sc.hp.com                 |  (stolen from the net...can't remember
                               |   from whom)
From: cen@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: No smegma please, we're American
Date: 13 Sep 92 22:29:57 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620


 preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Scott E. Preece) writes:
>  wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
> |
> |
> | > 1 fag n 1 chiefly Brit : TOIL, DRUDGERY  2 a: an English public-school
> | >      boy who acts as servant to an older schoolmate.
> |
> | 1 is correct but not that common; 2a is almost certainly archaic by now as
> | the public schools become more liberal. It doesn't even mention the most common
> | British meaning: slang for a cigarette.
> ---
> While that usage isn't in the quoted definition, the quoted definition
> is only one of four entries.  The cigarette meaning *is* given, and not
> tagged as being especially British.

Just out of interest, cock-up is given a number of definitions, from our
beloved fubar to a young schoolboy being beaten up by his seniors. Think on
that just for a moment, then move onto the next article. I thank you.

Tanaqui

"After-dinner mints?"
"Only if I have nothing better to do"              Julian Clary's new sitcom
From: met@ariel.its.unimelb.EDU.AU (Meteorology General)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: s/he was Re: Why don't you re-write this . . .
Date: 7 Sep 92 08:22:53 GMT
Organization: University of Melbourne Dept of Meteorology

In article <1992Sep6.220301.27636@rs.com> horen@rs.com (Jonathan B. Horen) writes:
>
>Too late, William; too late. And what's more, using "s/he" is a rather
>elegant way to deal with a *very* inelegant problem. I decided some
>eight years ago to trust in my readers' common sense and to "bastardize
>the trusty slash", rather than to be a party (passively or otherwise)
>to the `terrible bastardization of smooth sentence flow'.
>

My (inelegant) suggestion is (s)he.  I do not claim to use it nor do I
commend its use to anyone -- just a passing thought really.  I am currently
somewhat amused by a standard contract which has in its preface ..
  " a reference to any gender shall be interpreted to include the other two"
.. embarrassingly this occurs in a government contract.

>Wasn't it Walt Whitman who wrote: "A foolish consistency is the
>hobgoblin of small minds"?

Close, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"
		Ralph Waldo Emerson 
(according to "Dictionary of Quotations and Proverbs, 
   The Everyman Edition")

Mick.

mick@mullara.met.unimelb.edu.au         | Most people choose to be 
Michael Johnson                         | shaped by their past rather
Dept. of Meteorology, Univ. of Melbourne| than mould their future.
Parkville, Australia                    |
From: wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: No smegma please, we're American
Date: 7 Sep 92 14:54:24 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <baron.41.715616891@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron) writes:
> 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.
> 
Just a moment. Which OED do you use? My Concise Oxford has two little symbols:
a parallel indicates a Briticism (||pavement meaning the bit on the side of the
road) and an asterisk indicates an Americanism (*pavement meaning the surface 
of the road). As far as I can remember, the second edition of the OED, that
massive twenty-something volume work that was published last year, does the
same. Do you have different dictionaries in the states that also emanate from 
St Giles (OED dictionaries department in Oxford), or has someone borrowed the
name? 

-- 

Stephen Wilcox             |   Remember what happened to the dinosaurs!
wilcox@maths.oxford.ac.uk  |    I did---and look what happened to me.
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan)
Subject: Re: Improper spellingscreen
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 00:51:01 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.024228.1306@guvax.georgetown.edu>, aroshwald@guvax.georgetown.edu writes:
> 
> Yes, but 'weird' is the only one of these words in which the vowel
> combination in question is pronounced as a single long E. Of course,
> originally, this might not have been the case -- the E and the I in
> weird might have been pronounced distinctly (as in 'atheist'), and
> perhaps that is why it defies conventional orthographical wisdom. 

Observation: for me, and I suspect for all non-rhotic speakers,
the word "weird" contains two distinct vowels.  If I try to
pronounce the 'r', I can see how the two vowels collapse back to
one, but I can't, for all my trying, make that one vowel sound like
the one in "receive" or "believe".

Is there anyone out there for whom the "ei" in "weird" has exactly
the same sound as the "ie" in "believe"?

-- 
Peter Moylan                      eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Request for Info:  IPA Font?
From: donna@filly.calstate.edu (Donna Furon)
Date: 9 Sep 92 13:12:46 PDT
Distribution: world
Organization: California State University

Does anyone know if there is an IPA font set for the Macintosh; and if so, 
where I might find it?
Many thanks, 
                   - Donna

Reply to:   Donna@filly.calstate.edu
 -OR-       Donna_Furon@qm.calstate.edu


Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan)
Subject: Re: avoiding sexist language (was Re: Less versus Fewer)
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 01:37:28 GMT

In article <88370@netnews.upenn.edu>, crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
> In article <1992Sep9.144921.1@cc.newcastle.edu.au> ccjal@cc.newcastle.edu.au (John A Lambert) writes:
>>-- 
>>No we just don't have cashiers in supermarkets. We have checkout operators (or
>>checkouts) or, if you don't mind being accused of sexism `checkout chicks'
>>(except that they are of both sexes).
> 
> Would we refer to the women as "chicklets," then?  

I'm not sure that "women" is the right term here.  Most of them look
young enough to be my daughter - and she hasn't started school yet.

I'm not quite sure how this happens.  This country does have laws
against exploiting children, and I think also against age discrimination,
but we still manage to have a few companies who get rid of their
employees when they're old enough to demand an adult wage.

-- 
Peter Moylan                      eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: bayla@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: "the" (and "a")
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 15:13:39 GMT

Many words change their pronunciations according to (a) their position in a
sentence (or standing alone) and (b) the degree of emphasis the speaker
wishes to place upon them.  The distinctions noted "'uh' for one way of
many, 'ay' for *please* make special note of the fact that it's -only- one
way and there may be better ways," etc, are representative samples of this
change in emphasis.  One is "taught" this only as one is taught the rhythms
of speech.  

--bayla
From: sunyi@hpsgm2.sgp.hp.com (Yi SUN)
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 06:47:10 GMT
Subject: Testing to talk to you
Organization: HP Singapore Notes-Server
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english

Just for testing notes
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english