HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Date:         Sun, 13 Sep 1992 13:29:17 -0500
From:         Anne Burton Harwell <harwell@TENET.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Deconstruction
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>

On Sun, 13 Sep 1992, Gilbert Smith wrote:

> Dont look at me.....  I'm just sitting here reading Derrida and
> deconstructing my nose...

OK, Ellsworth Kelly is modern, David Salle is pomo, what the hell is
Derrida and why does he keep showing up in this group?

Picked up a new word in IRC the other day, maybe you all have already seen
it: Rofling. "I'm sitting here rofling at what he said." I love it, a true
neologism, not based on any ancient languages, instantly sensible to
anyone clued to the net.scene, witty, inventive, so very.

-abh
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 17:30:34 CDT
From:         tushar@MATH.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject:      Re: Bertie Wooster 2

>>Wodehouse's world, like any fictional world, has nothing to do with the
>>real world. Automatic writing on this order does exist there.
>
>  Very feeble. You may as well postulate that the Wodehouse characters
>are all Martians.

No. Although there is nothing to prevent that a priori, one has only to
read a book to know that those characters do have something in common
with human beings.

tushar
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:40:51 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rhubarb Pie: A Plea for Sanity
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

>      concentrations and which is responsible for its characteristic
>      flavor of sour DIRT!

But some people like the taste of dirt.  Mississippi has quite a few
dirt-eaters, I've heard.  I've even heard stories of Mississippians
mailing packages of dirt to relatives in other places since Mississippi
dirt tasted better.
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)

P.S. But I'm not sure how popular sour dirt is.
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Date:         Sat, 5 Sep 1992 08:04:44 EDT
From:         "Judith E. Schrier" <PRIMATE@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Kulchur, NY
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

>>So what did the denizens of the Wormy Apple do to you?
>
>First, I disown a phrase like "denizens of the wormy apple". What they
>did to me was WELCOME me. Jeez, didn't I say that? "Welcome", they said.
>They asked me how I was finding it. They told me that going up the Empire
>State was a thing to do. They were surprised I didn't know where ... um
>say Baxter Street was. They asked me solicitously when I was returning to
>the cultural wasteland of non-NYC. Et cetera.
>
>Is this so uncommon that it happened only to me?
Umm, well, yes. My *favorite* NYC story was when my husband
(a displaced New Yorker who had left at age 21) and I were
at a coffee shop one morning about 1am...he noticed a person
at the counter reading the New York Times. Allan wanted to
buy a copy of the morning Times, but hadn't seen
anywhere to buy one as we were walking to the shop. So he
asked the reader, "Excuse me, where did you buy the newspaper?"
To which the reader, in classic New York fashion, replied,
"Fuck you."

Q: How many New Yorkers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None of your goddamned business.

Q: How many kindly New Yorkers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Both of them.

love, judith, not a New Yorker :-)
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 17:50:55 -0500
From:         Doris Smith <dorisann@TENET.EDU>
Subject: re: family
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>

> 	share my birthday (ggs, I recall that yours is next week, as is someone
> 	else's on the list...).
>
 Do tell us whose birthdays are coming up.  :-)
Doris
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
From: karsten@netcom.com (karsten)
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Rhubarb Pie: A Plea for Sanity
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 00:50:42 GMT
Organization: Karsten's Bit Bucket
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Carol_Carmick@BEAV.INTERSOLV.COM writes:
> Why, karsten, you deviant.  I'll look for further details in
> alt.sex.bondage.vegetables.

I don't think the new group is necessary.  Carrots and cucumbers have
been discussed in ASB before, so I think adequate precedents exist
for discussing brussel sprouts there.

What is be the appropriate term for sex with plants or plant parts?
Botanical sex?  Vegiality?

I suppose this puts a whole new spin on "tree hugger".

--karsten

(Did we lose richh?  I've been providing all of these references
 just to make him feel at home.  Perhaps Rita was right.)
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 21:36:40 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Aspiration
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> > are you saying you pronounce it with three phonemes?  Do you have a [t]
> > before the [theta]?  My tongue can't manage that.  Assimilation eats up
> > that [t].  I pronounce it [e{theta}].
>
> Exactly.  Actually, I'd rather assumed *everyone* pronounced it that way.
> I should have know better with the range of extreme local accents in
> this group!
> G

Exactly which?  You pronounce it [et{theta}]?  I'm trying to make myself
pronounce a [t] followed immediately by a [0] -- hey, that's not a bad
substitute for the IPA symbol, is it?  Anyway, I can't go from [t] to
[0] without putting a schwa or something between them.  No, it's not
really a schwa.  It's not exactly anything vowelish.  My tongue sort of
hops around the top of my mouth in a strange way.
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 04:57:23 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: A taxonomy of humor
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> speech.  Pure English, however,...is so relative a term that almost every
> man is potentially a purist and a sloven at once to persons looking at
> him from a lower and a higher position in the scale than his own..."

I see that he exempts women from these categories.  Interesting.
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
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Date:         Sun, 13 Sep 1992 21:50:00 EDT
From:         Gilbert Smith <N567126@NCSUADM.ACS.NCSU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Good grief, it's today!
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

> Happy birthday, Gilbert...I forgot it was today...if you'd shipped the
> blue Miata it would have jogged my memory and I wouldn't be so late in the
> day wishing you many happy returns :-).  Hope you have had a happy day,
> and will have many more happy birthdays in the future.
>
> ndh (who has been busy planning for her mother's 80th next Wednesday)

Thanks, nan...  And thanks to *all* the other wordlsers who
were, I'm sure, thinking of me today, even though they *did* *not*
*pause* *a* *moment* to send me wishes.  My son gave me a book
entitled _Juggling For The Perfect Klutz_ and I have been practicing
all afternoon in anticipation of the next clambake.
--ggs
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Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 23:51:44 EDT
From:         mgarber@DHVX20.CSUDH.EDU
Subject: Re: My trip- the conclusion.
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

Jenner  Smallpox vaccine from cowpox.  He was the one
who noticed how beautiful were the milkmaids..O!
Marilyn
From: RKESSLER@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU
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Subject: Re:wordsler birthdays
Date: 10 Sep 92 02:31:55 GMT
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....rod's is September 15 (and this year's marks the 25th
anniversary of my going off to college).
-Rod
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:12:00 LCL
From:         Carol_Carmick@BEAV.INTERSOLV.COM
Subject:      Re: Anne, will you marry me?
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

     Anne, your suitor is apparently the mutant son by sperm fusion of
     Philip Roth and Bret Easton Ellis.  I wouldn't do anything
     drastic if I were you.

     Carol
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Date:         Sat, 5 Sep 1992 21:57:51 -0500
From:         Doris Smith <dorisann@TENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: family
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>

> Today is better, I think, because I bought one of those ferocious
> chipper/shredder/mulchers and have been feeding it sticks and
> leaves and vines all day in the back yard.
> I feel *good*!

I'm glad, because your humor has been missed.
Have you begun WHTMITL?  Your fans are awaiting it eagerly.
Doris
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 15:57:29 MST
From:         Dan Lester <ALILESTE@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rhubarb Pie: A Plea for Sanity
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
              4 Sep 1992 16:40:51 CDT from <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>

On Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:40:51 CDT Natalie Maynor said:
>P.S. But I'm not sure how popular sour dirt is.

but sour mash IS popular in MS isn't it Natalie?
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Return-Path: <tushar@math.uchicago.edu>
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Date:         Sun, 13 Sep 1992 23:27:08 CDT
From:         tushar@MATH.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject:      Re: Hopefully

>Because, you pie-in-the-sky-descriptivist, people don't always speak
>correctly. You've also heard "it don't make no difference." That doesn't
>make the double negative a substitute for what we should say.

In this sentence, double negatives don't mean no positive.

tushar
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 12:07:00 EST
From:         Blue eyes cryin' in the rain <TRAVEN@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Today's pop quiz
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.EDU

>	Class of 40 students. 37 interested ones showed up. Pop quiz:
>	"Define (scribbles it on the board) DISINTERESTED"
>	in 10 words or less.

>	Responses ranged from "don't give a fuck" to "lacking interest."
>	All 37 indicated interpretation of lack of interest.

>That was why I suggested a wording, in case Natalie asked a stupid
>question like that.  Fortunately Natalie knows better, but the response
>to this question is of even less value than that to mine.

>You're not testing their active vocabulary - by just giving one choice
>you're liable to drag from their input lexicon the value of the
>closely-coupled 'uninterested'.  That's why I suggested you
>present both words.

>Also that's why I suggested asking who had heard of both first.  If
>on seeing both, they haven't heard of disinterested they can no longer
>answer the question.  A second independent test should also be done
>on *different* students (who haven't had either of these words
>primed) asking 'what is another word for 'unbiased'.

	Graham, are you an epidemiologist in disguise?  Your criticism of Jim's
	methodology warms the cockles of my professional heart.  But, hey, what
	can you expect from him ... he's a sociologist.    ;^)

	Epidemiologists, like all good disinterested researchers, worry about
	whether the questions they ask actually address the issues supposedly
	being investigated.  We probably overdo that worry -- criticism of
	other people's methodology is our middle name.  So I do have to mention
	that you would probably get vanishingly few valuable answers to your
	last question -- would 'disinterested' be the first synonym *you* would
	think of for 'unbiased'?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 17:02:00 LCL
From:         Carol_Carmick@BEAV.INTERSOLV.COM
Subject:      Re[6]: the world's oldest profession
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

>Said like a true hemophiliac.  Believe me, *whenever* I address
>something *to* Carol or merely *concerning* Carol, I shall be
>sure to have my plasma bottles handy na wsjakij sluchaj.

>Oh, the horror.

     <shh-schwink!> (wipes and replaces saber with flourish)

     Buck up, man -- they're doing wonderful things with baboon livers
     these days.

     Carol

     P.S.  Gesundheit.
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Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 16:38:29 EDT
From:         ann mandi <AMM@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Plumbing Woes
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

gee, this might be a little easier if the mail wasn't acting up so
badly today....one message arrives in seconds, as usual, the next
takes over 2 hours.

>How about Ann and I trade even, but I'll pay in advance for somebody to take
>care of all the broken plumbing and yardwork for my house (the Starkville
>one, I mean) for the next five years.  After five years we'll renegotiate.
>She can't have Bernard, though.  He goes to R.I. with me.
>   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)


WHAT?!  me in the South!  somehow I don't think so....  [ROFL]

As for Bernard, I love dogs, but I wouldn't dare try to take him away
from you.

------------------------------------------------------------
ann mandi
bitnet:  AMM@BROWNVM     internet:  AMM@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU

'No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball.'
-- Connie Mack
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 21:17:00 EDT
From:         Gilbert Smith <N567126@NCSUADM.ACS.NCSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Teaching....
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

> Your part of the world must be more <common> than mine, because people
> here generally know the difference.  And pleading to antiquity isn't
> a valid rationalisation for using a meaning of a word totally
> counter to the more common common understanding.  For instance, if
> I suggested you were <terribly nice>, you wouldn't automatically
> assume a meaning of those words not heard in centuries.
>
> G

All I can say after reading this <text> is that after reading this
<text> I can only say say *what*?
--ggs  :-)
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Original_cc:  185422285
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 16:49:00 EST
From:         "Alec D. Plotkin 215-645-4366"
 <185422285%VUVAXCOM.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      A joke which I thought some mmight enjoy.

While attending classes at Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, the
abbreviation TBA was used when the professor/instructor for a class had
not yet been identified.  I always thought TBA meant, To Be Announced
until on the first day of Writing 101, the instructor (who was TBA)
entered the class and said:


          "Good afternoon, I am your TBA -- The Big A**hole!"
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:20:48 -0500
From:         Nancy Harwood <harwood@TENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: wordsler birthdays
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>

>
> 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'm trying to think of any time I've ever heard any Southerner actually
*say* "honey chile"..."hon" or "honey," yes...but "honey chile"?  Maybe
I've been hanging out in the wrong parts of Dixie.
ndh
From: haycock@marley.think.com (Anne Haycock)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Subject: Re: Re[4]: the world's oldest profession
Date: 9 Sep 92 12:15:52
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: marley.think.com
In-reply-to: Entropy Warrior's message of Tue, 8 Sep 1992 19:09:48 EST

Mka posts:

   >>Did I say she wasn't?  Or that you aren't?
   >
   >     Did I comment on what you were or weren't saying?  I was just
   >     repeating an anecdote I found amusing.
   >
   >     Believe me, Mka, when I'm arguing with you, you'll know it.
   >
   >     Carol

   I just love it when you rattle your sabre.


She's not afraid to draw blood.

//anne//

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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 13:09:09 EDT
From:         EL406041@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU
Subject:      Re: 'Prescriptivism'
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

Posted on 10 Sep 1992 at 03:09:54 by tushar@MATH.UCHICAGO.EDU
>"The etymology is not on your side" is not the kind of argument

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

Karen
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
From: richh@netcom.com (richh)
Subject: Re: He *is* afraid of words-l
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 19:13:13 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

Rita Marie Rouvalis <rita@EFF.ORG> writes:

>> (Did we lose richh?  I've been providing all of these references
>>  just to make him feel at home.  Perhaps Rita was right.)

>	Sadly, he couldn't take it.


This isn't what I wanted.
This isn't what I wanted at all.

RICHH
--this does, however, mean war
From: ak743@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Doretta Hanschka)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Subject: Re: Good grief, it's today!
Date: 14 Sep 1992 04:27:47 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:

>Thanks, nan...  And thanks to *all* the other wordlsers who
>were, I'm sure, thinking of me today, even though they *did* *not*
>*pause* *a* *moment* to send me wishes.  My son gave me a book
>entitled _Juggling For The Perfect Klutz_ and I have been practicing
>all afternoon in anticipation of the next clambake.
Just don't do it too near the computer!  Nice color screens are rather
expensive......

btw - did the hard copy B-day greeting [with attendant Rita+Giggles shot]
show up yet?

-- 
Nethead, aka the Ruth Hanschka, hath enscribed herein, a message
	ap290 and ak743 , both of the Cleveland Freenet
			Here Be Dragons
From: ak743@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Doretta Hanschka)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Subject: Re: Amazon T-shirt News
Date: 10 Sep 1992 20:17:31 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, PRIMATE@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU ("Judith E. Schrier") says:

>>
>>Woo-woo! shall we say you're now a "Hot MamaP?"
>>
>>-abh
>
>I guess we can't. I hafta be a "Hot Aunt MamaP", if at all.

Hot and humid, as the case may be.  It's been rotten in Hartford today, not
incredibly hot, but with a relative humidity that felt like South Carolina.
<ecchh>  

		Ruth
	just hot

-- 
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:         Mon, 14 Sep 1992 20:19:23 EDT
From:         Karen Kay <LL23%NEMOMUS.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      Mississippi Masala
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

Well, great film.  We watched it at the home of an Indian friend,
who, interestingly enough, has an MA from USM (Hattiesburg).  He
said that motels all over the south are owned by Indians who were
thrown out of Uganda by Idi Amin.  I had no idea!  He further said
that many of them are owned by people of the last name Patel, and
that some people refer to them as potels rather than motels.  This
film had every racial stereotype in the world, portrayed in a rather
buffoonish fashion, so you had to laugh.

Denzel Washington is a hunk.

Mira Nair and her daughter are both somewhere in this film, but I
couldn't find them.

One of the really silly Indians (about like Tushar at his worst!)
turned out to be named Ramesh, which was the name of our host.  We
cracked up.

I think this film did a good job of capturing the whole multi-
cultural, expatriate thing.

I highly recommend Mississippi Masala.

Karen
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 20:47:53 EDT
From:         BGRISSOM@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject:      Geophagy
              4 Sep 1992 15:44:00 LCL from <Carol_Carmick@BEAV.INTERSOLV.COM>

>     Yes, what's the word for eating dirt?  Pregnant ladies do it, and
>     people with mineral deficiencies...  Also that spooky girl in
>     _One Hundred Years of Solitude_...  Come on, brain...  All I can
>     come up with is terraphagy, but I know there's another word.

Guy Davenport writes in an essay:

One of my great culinary moments was being taken as a tot to my black
nurse's house to eat clay.  "What this child needs," she had muttered
one day while we were out, "is a bait of clay."  Everybody in South
Carolina knew that blacks, for reasons unknown, fancied clay.  Not
until I came to read Toynbee's _A Study of History_ years later did I
learn that eating clay, or geophagy, is a prehistoric habit (it fills
the stomach until you can bring down another aurochs) surviving only
in West Africa and South Carolina.  I even had the opportunity, when
I met Toynbee at a scholarly do, to say that I had been in my day
geophagous.  He gave me a strange, British look.

The eating took place in a bedroom, for the galvanized bucket of
clay was kept under the bed, for the cool.  It was blue clay from
a creek, the consistency of slightly gritty ice cream.  It lay smooth
and delicious-looking in its pail of clear water.  You scooped it out
and ate it from your hand.  The taste was wholesome, mineral, and
emphatic.  I have since eaten many things in respectable restaurants
with far more trepidation.

    --from "The Anthropology of Table Manners from Geophagy Onward,"
      in _The Geography of the Imagination_ (North Point Press,
      1981)

brad
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