HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 09:53:45 EDT
From:         "Judith E. Schrier" <PRIMATE@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject:      QOTD
Comments: To: WORDS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU, EJS <MICROSOFT!EVANS@UUNET.UU.NET>,
              Fred Stollnitz <FSTOLLNI%NSF.BITNET@BROWNVM.brown.edu>

"My lecture on the reversibility of time will be
held yesterday."  ---  Josiah Carberry
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Date:         Mon, 14 Sep 1992 05:26:37 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Gleanings (59)
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> But I thought that the logs of October and November, 1989 had been
> <included> in the archive tape.  Their filenames are WORD8910.LOG (74.6 KB)
> and WORD8911.LOG (214.9 KB), respectively.  If they happen to be <missing>,
> let me know.  I can <always> send these two files to you.  The first file
> contains a <distinguished> article on 'split infinitive' by <Anne Harwell>.

I didn't realize that you had included those early logs.  (I haven't seen
the tape.)  That's good!  That means that the list archives are in fact
complete.

>  1) Steel Magnolia culture (Natalie)

Women in the U.S. South are expected to be flower-like.  If they are strong
or intelligent, the strength/intelligence must be hidden:  magnolia appearance
even though the magnolia is really steel.

>  4) Juan Pablo Forner/Galdo/Concha-Ruth Morell/Tsuchiya (Natalie/<Gilbert>)

Ask giggles.  He deals with these people in his other life.  (I find it
interesting sometimes to think about the other lives of WORDSLers.  I assume
that we all have "real lives," i.e., serious professional lives, in addition
to our list lives.  There are no doubt some pretty big differences in some
cases between list persona and real-life persona.)

>  6) Soybean goat (Natalie)

Vegetarians often use soybeans as a meat substitute.  I've heard of soybean
turkeys cooked on Thanksgiving -- soybeans sculpted in some way to look like
a turkey.  Presumbably a goat-substitute could be made from soybeans.

> 14) Dr. Spock school of linguistic child-raising (Natalie)

I don't think I said this.  I think it was said by somebody else in
reference to me.  I can't really explain it since it didn't make any
sense in relation to linguistics.
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
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Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 06:28:46 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Plumbing Woes
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

Speaking of toilets, does anybody have a suggestion of how to cover up
(paint?) a small knick in the porcelain of a toilet bowl?  I've been
using liquid paper but would like to find something more permanent since
the liquid paper washes off and has to be replaced every couple of weeks.
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
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Original_cc:  AUSBROOK
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:40:00 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK%IUBACS.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      Prescription

To respond to several posts together:

>>Right.  Your arguing, of course, won't preserve the distinction.
[Natalie]

>On the contrary, given a sufficient number of people with like feelings
>the distinction will be preserved. That's after all the point of arguing.
[Tushar]

Yes indeedy--an ancient argument from the days of language and
gender.

>If a sufficient number of people have like feelings, the distinction will
>be preserved because they're making the distinction, not because they're
>arguing about it.
[Natalie]

No--I don't think that's right.  There could be a distinction
that is in the process of being lost.  Arguing "raises
consciousness" (right up there with proactive) and the folks who
are abandoning the distinction may adopt it again as their very
own.

>> OK, let me be clearer: is it illogical or unscientific to prescribe on usage
>> of words? Is it merely useless?
>
>Not being very science-minded, I probably shouldn't try to comment on
>whether it's unscientific.  Illogical?  Not necessarily.  It's mainly
>useless.
>   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)

It is certainly not unscientific.  Nor is it illogical if, as a
political matter, you are trying to preserve what it is you are
prescribing.  It's either useless or not depending upon how
successful you are in your politicking.

>The point is that usage dictates the "norm" -- prescriptions don't.  If
>the majority are using a word in a certain way, that will become the
>"standard" usage -- regardless of why they're doing it or what they're
>saying about it.
>   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)

This is getting depressingly close to requiring a discussion--
eminently missable--on another list about "discourse communities"
and the like.  But I do not think that it is so that the majority
rules with linguistic usage.  You may, of course, tautologically
define "norm" as what the majority uses.  But I do not think it
is so that what a majority on day X uses will necessarily become,
at any point, the "norm" as defined by something other than what
the majority uses.  If majority use is the definition of "norm",
then it doesn't make any sense to say that what the majority uses
will become the norm--it already is by definition.

Am I babbling sufficiently clearly?

>Which reminds me to ask, am I the only one on the list who distinguishes
>'argument' from 'argumentation'?
>
>Karen

I don't know.  I know I distinguish the attack itself from the
tactics employed.  Kindalikethat?

In response to G

>And I don't see anything in what you said that would lead me to call you
>a prescriptivist.
>   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)

Well, if you scorn a usage with a particular description, the act
of judgment carries with it a kind of imperative that the
practice be stamped out.  But maybe not.


-Mka
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:17:38 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: wordsler birthdays
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> Certainly not; I was just adapting to US idiom for Natalie's benefit.

Guess what.  I always write dates with the month in the middle.  That's
the first thing I change with a new copy of Wordperfect, for example.
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 18:04:24 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Angling
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> So what is Bernard's favorite non-canned dog food?

Pizza or steak.  (But he puts up with dry Alpo or Kibbles n Bits or
various others.)
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
From: richh@netcom.com (richh)
Subject: Re: Thanatopsis
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 00:23:04 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In article <Pine.3.03.9209131853.A15813-8100000@Joyce-Perkins.tenet.edu> Anne Burton Harwell <harwell@TENET.EDU> writes:
>On Sun, 13 Sep 1992, Bayla Singer wrote:
>
>> A poem should not mean, but be. [I'm plagiarizing again: keats, I think.
>> probably a <good thing> I'm *not* an English prof]
>
>Archibald MacLeish wrote that.

He would later, of course, become famous as Cary Grant.

RICHH
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Date:         Tue, 15 Sep 1992 02:42:08 MED
From:         Graham Toal <gtoal@STACK.URC.TUE.NL>
Subject: Re: Gleanings (59)
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>

The Ideology of the Dependent Clause?
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Date:         Sun, 6 Sep 1992 19:31:13 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Anglicizing
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> >>>to give English pronunciations to foreign words in English.
> >> I have always wondered why it is wrong to do that now. What is the
> >Who said it was wrong?
> >   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
>
> Natalie, your strange concept of wrong and right has been commented
> on before! To repeat, methodology of Linguistics has nothing to do
> with what is right and wrong. We are SUBJECTS trying to see what sounds
> sensible to us. Take off your researcher's glasses at once before saying
> anything on this subject. You CANNOT, by your own admission of being
> completely non-prescriptive!

Huh?  I asked a simple question and got hopelessly lost in the answer.
I repeat the simple question:  Who says that it's wrong to anglicize
pronunciations?
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 15:49:39 EDT
From:         mgarber@DHVX20.CSUDH.EDU
Subject:      Re: Goodbye
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

To Evelyn. I'm glad you're back.. I found your farewill
a weighty, evocative, expressive and confusing statement.
Now you say you were depressed. What does this list have to
do with those feelings...that you would want to leave because
of them, and then having them under control, you decide to
stay... Marilyn
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 22:22:38 +0200
From:         torkel@SICS.SE
Subject:      Re: "Prescriptivism"
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
              10 Sep 92 07:19:58 -0500. <9209101221.AA24434@sics.se>

 >Look around.  They're everywhere.  Safire et al.

  Are you by any chance mixing up prescriptivists and descriptivists? In
my experience, descriptivists are often called prescriptivists.
For example, I am a fanatical descriptivist. It would never occur to me
to prescribe anything at all, in any circumstances. The very thought
makes me shudder. On the other hand, I often describe people's usage.
For example, I say "this is not just revolting jargon, but revolting
imbecile jargon", or I say "this usage is wrong, and found only in the
speech of illiterates who don't understand their own language", or
"it's astonishing that this idiot usage has become so widespread". There
is nothing in the least prescriptive about any of these comments, yet
people often refer to them as "prescriptive". This is a very silly usage,
and completely incorrect. Please note: I do not prescribe the abandoning
of this incorrect and idiotic usage.
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 18:26:00 MST
From:         "JOHN WHAT'S-THE-M-FOR? WILLIAMS"
 <WILLIAMS%MC.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      Re: family [tree and otherwise]

>John, you are hereby notified that you are my official list son (uh, how
>old are you, anyway).  As such, you are charged with never (repeat - never)
>denigrating yourself again.  With Williams as a name, you are a Winner, kiddo.
>Doris Ann *Williams* Smith
Aaaaaaw.  Thank you!  That's the nicest thing I've heard in weeks!
(Which should give you some small idea how my Life has been going!)
Does this mean I can go down to the safety deposit box at Citibank and take
Whiteout (tm) to my birth certificate?  8-)
<sniff>

John "Yea, and Mean & NASTY too!" W.
From: ak743@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Doretta Hanschka)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Subject: Re: WHTMITL2
Date: 10 Sep 1992 04:37:47 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: ak743@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Doretta Hanschka)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, N567126@NCSUADM.ACS.NCSU.EDU (Gilbert Smith) says:

>
>Hate to leave such an appreciative audience, but have to grade those
>Business Spanish papers....  just calm down, Marty, until tomorrow.
It *is* tomorrow, oh <maybe> cousin, so shut up and type.  Business Spanish
students should expect the manana grading system anyway.

>Read up on Budapest.
I don't have to; a friend is teaching English there this year.  I already 
read up on the place.  
>--ggs (who is *not* making any of this up... it is the GT)
Do you swear on the library copy of the Authorized?

-- 
Nethead, aka the Ruth Hanschka, hath enscribed herein, a message
	ap290 and ak743 , both of the Cleveland Freenet
			Here Be Dragons
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:46:00 EDT
From:         Gilbert Smith <N567126@NCSUADM.ACS.NCSU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: What happened in the damned library?
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

> Greetings,
>
> Well, what happened to the rest of the story?  Did the subject heading
> change, or what?  Small wonder nobody responded to ggs's last tale, if this
> is the way he intends to treat his audience.
                ^^^^^^^
> Marty

The author begs that the audience bear with him during his momentary
lapse of long-term memory and also that his audience pay more
attention to the integrity of the textual narrative generated by the
implied author than to the intention of the historical author.
--ggs
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X-Prolog:     University of South Florida
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 07:20:17 GMT
Comments:     Converted from OfficeVision to RFC822 by PUMP V2.2X
From:         DBFABAK%CFRVM.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Re: wordsler birthdays

*** Resending note of 09/10/92 22:37

>Hmmm... clearly I should have used the wording I thought of first, and
>said "Yankee date format".

>Tony H.

Don't know what "Yankee date format" is, but as a Southernized Yankee (you
know, as in "honey chile" or "y'all" instead of "you guys") I would write
my sons time and date of birth like this:  2332hours, 31 Dec 60.  Any other
way does not seem logical.
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Date:         Sun, 13 Sep 1992 16:46:13 EDT
From:         Rita Marie Rouvalis <rita@EFF.ORG>
Subject:      Re: Garcia Marquez
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
              92 1:41 pm

> That is the sort of thing that I have been making my students
> do for years, but I would probably fail a test like that.  I do
> know OHYOS well enough (having taught it about 15 times) to answer
> a lot of wierd questions....  but that particular one has me
> stumped.....   I would need time to make up a significance.

	Ooh.  I can't wait.  Make up something good so that
I can sound smart when I'm discussing it with my best friend,
who has me jealous 'cuz she's in graduate school now (not
that I want to go to grad school; I'm just jealous of those
who do) and therefore make her jealous that I could get so
smart without grad school.  Hee!  You should see the things
I'm doing to her over the wedding.  She's my maid o' honor,
and I'm threatening her with having to wear some of the gowns
I'm finding in <those magazines>.



> --ggs (who still thinks the first baby should be named
>        Czarinita Garcia Rouvalis....  lovely sound to it...)

	Does, though, huh?  I wonder if my mother would object
to it as stongly as she has to our music selection for the
wedding.


>   p.s.:  Most of the stuff in OHYOS can't be *explained*... it's

	What about the ants, though?  And what's the link between
the singing birds, the candy animals, and the ants?	There's
gotta be one there..

Rita
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Date:         Mon, 7 Sep 1992 23:48:42 -0500
From:         Nancy Harwood <harwood@TENET.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Howdy from the green place
Comments: To: Doretta Hanschka <ak743@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Comments: cc: Multiple recipients of list WORDS-L <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>

> >The Guiness postcard was great, by the way!
> It's just too bad it was only postcards, and not the real thing?:-)
> The school teachers on here could probably use a case of the stuff....

I tried Guiness...it may be good for you, but I'd rather have some
Bailey's Irish Cream...and yes, Ruth, a case *would* be nice right now.
ndh
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 12:02:14 EDT
From:         Rita Marie Rouvalis <rita@EFF.ORG>
Subject:      Re: Family Tree
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
              92 8:45 pm

	Goodness!  Does this mean I gave birth to words-l out of
wedlock?

Rita
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 09:41:00 EST
From:         Blue eyes cryin' in the rain <TRAVEN@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU>
Subject: re: family
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.EDU

>You remember correctly, sis.  The <grandbaby no. 1> is due on September
>24, arriving at the home of Michael Stephens Griffing Smith and

	If the nin~o-to-be waits just a few hours, he/she would be honored to
	share my birthday (ggs, I recall that yours is next week, as is someone
	else's on the list...).

>Cecilia Valdes-Smith (or, actually, according to the system I
>explained in the Garcia Marquez post -- Cecilia Valdes Espinosa de
>Smith) in Hoboken, NJ.  My *consuegra* (lovely word
>in Spanish with no equivalent in English -- something like
>co-mother/father-in-law), Yasmina Espinosa <??> de Valdes (don't

	There's also a word for that relationship in Yiddish -- 'makhatunim'.
	I like the fact that there are languages where such a word exists.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
neal    traven@pittvms                  Bitnet          412-624-0097 (office)
        traven@vms.cis.pitt.edu         Internet        412-624-0110 (fax)
                    "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever."
                                          -- Larry Andersen, relief pitcher
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Date:         Sat, 5 Sep 1992 18:11:42 EDT
From:         mgarber@DHVX20.CSUDH.EDU
Subject:      RE: Two Bits of News
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

I may be able to help with a temp acct through CSUDH.  Marilyn
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 06:14:00 GMT
From:         WERTSJ <WERTSJ%DIALOG@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Amazon T-shirt News
Comments: To: mbx <words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu>

>> > Of the colors described, here's my ranking:
>> >
>> > 1. Columbia blue
>> > 2. raspberry
>> > 3. good purple
>> > 4. green green
>> >    --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
>>
>> Or maybe
>>  1.  raspberry
>>  2.  Columbia blue
>>  3.  good purple
>> 42.  green green
>> ndh
>
>And then again, maybe
>  1. raspberry
>  2. Columbia blue
>  3. green green  (uh, *what* was this about Graham and abh's shorts?)
>  4. better be a *real* good purple
>Doris

I'll vote with Aunt Doris, altho I think 3. and 4. are pretty much
interchangable.

Jill
   (wertsj%dialog@mcimail.com)
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Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 22:24:59 -0500
From:         Doris Smith <dorisann@TENET.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Why I Teach
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Comments: cc: Multiple recipients of list WORDS-L <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>

> Are there too many required courses or too many college students?

Since I teach high school I don't think this question applies to the
message to which it was attached.  And I don't think I want to continue
this thread, so I won't answer it from the perspective of a high school
teacher.

What's the weather like where you are?
Read any good books lately?
Come across any neat new words in the last day or two?
Doris
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Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 15:33:00 EDT
From:         Gilbert Smith <N567126@NCSUADM.ACS.NCSU.EDU>
Subject: RE: T-shirt colors
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

> > Does she talk to her students this way?
> > --ggs (very appreciative of this <wet> wit)
>                                    ~~~~~~~~~~
> I do believe this is where I (or you) came in. I don't remember any of
> your posts prior to my innocent question several months ago about the
> existence of wet wit, in contrast to dry wit.
>
> Doris

That, sis, was our *finest* hour, I'm sure....  but we are so much
more enlightened now....
--ggs
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 18:49:17 -0400
From:         Agnes Kruchio <kruchio@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: A strange find
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
              Sep 11, 92 4:05 pm

>
> Maybe the "strange find" has something to do with the ghost of
> Agnes.
> --ggs (beginning to get the memory back....)
>

Not THIS Agnes...I hope...though these days I do feel rather close to
being a ghost, with the little sleep I've been getting lately...

But this does worry me...what ever do you mean...could this be
a sort of "Secret life of Veronique" with me as heroine (are we
still allowed to be called by such gender-specific terms in the PC age...)
it's all weird, rather weird...

AGNES
hanging in %-)
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 23:03:57 -0400
From:         RKESSLER@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU
Subject:      Re: Abbie hoffman
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the very same day.
--Rod
From: TONY@VM1.MCGILL.CA (Tony Harminc)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Subject: RE: wordsler birthdays
Date: 13 Sep 92 16:33:09 GMT
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              11 Sep 1992 17:55:18 -0600 from <WHITERJ@ZENO.MSCD.EDU>

On Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:55:18 -0600 The Ronin said:
>     So long as the subject is being batted around, I am 29SEP57.
>
>     Further, I did not develop that style of writing a date from 16
>years of being a military brat, but rather from working in an office
>which was so damn international that anything less specific would be
>misinterpretted.

Bingo!  The ambiguity is the problem - not the cultural issues.
Certainly dd/mm/yy looks right to me, just as mm/dd/yy does to most
Americans.  But I haven't used dd/mm/yy for years, because it just
causes too many problems for the approximately 36% of dates
that are ambiguous.  I wish American software writers could learn this.
IBM, bless their little hearts, have introduced the format mm/dd/yyyy
for most of their newer software.  So ambiguity can continue well
into the next millenia.

Use a name for the month or, if you want all numeric dates, use
the ISO approved yyyy-mm-dd format.

>                  And I'll be switched if I am going to write out more
>than 7 characters for a date between now and the year 2000.

Dates you write now may well be around into the next century.

Tony H.