HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: briand@tekig5.pen.tek.com (Brian D Diehm)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: pop &c.
Date: 17 Nov 92 19:25:28 GMT
Reply-To: briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <BxvBMM.31H@news.cso.uiuc.edu> tdlg9831@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Tracey Dianne Layng) writes:
>[stuff deleted]
>
>I read somewhere that Kleenex used to pay writers who remembered to note
>that Kleenex is a trademark. 
>
>Tracey

I remember an anecdote in the Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes edited by
Clifton Fadiman. Authenticity of their anecdotes is not guaranteed, but this
one supposedly really happened. I don't have the book in front of me right
now, so this is just the gist. If requested, I will post the anecdote word
for word (despite copyright considerations, I guess).

It seems that in the '50s or '60s, a Kimberly-Clark competitor wanted to put
on some TV ads letting people know that Kleenex wasn't the only tissue out
there; that they also put out perfectly good facial tissues. The conversation
on the set between the director and the actress became somewhat tense, as she
repeatedly failed to sneeze just right or something.

Finally, the director shouted at her in exasperation, "Look, sweetheart, just
sneeze into the Kleenex and then look at the camera!"

--
Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.                (503) 627-3437         briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM
P.O. Box 500, M/S 19-286
Beaverton, OR   97077
From: baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron)
Subject: Re: A gender neutral pronoun
Organization: University of Illinois
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 18:35:18 GMT


>The moral of the story is: When dining with a group of grammarians,
>never be the first to leave the table.
>
>-- 

Because after you leave everyone will talk about you, won't he?

___
Dennis


debaron@uiuc.edu               (\                   217-333-2392
                               \'\             fax: 217-333-4321
Dennis Baron                    \'\           __________
Department of English           / '|         ()_________)
Univ. of Illinois               \ '/          \ ~~~~~~~~ \
608 S. Wright St.                 \             \ ~~~~~~   \
Urbana IL 61801                   ==).            \__________\
                                 (__)             ()__________)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: jwa@vipunen.hut.fi (Jyrki J Wahlstedt)
Subject: Re: I palindrome I
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
	<1992Nov16.143335@IASTATE.EDU> <1e95s8INNc92@agate.berkeley.edu>
Distribution: alt
Date: 18 Nov 92 01:21:08

In article <1e95s8INNc92@agate.berkeley.edu> dgreen@thor (David Greenebaum) writes:

>The other day, I was listening to They Might Be Giants' song "I
>Palindrome I" and a question occurred to me.  The song doesn't have
>much in the way of "standard" palindromes ("mom" and "dad" are about
>the most impressive), but it does have the following passage:
>  "Son, I am able," she said, "though you scare me."  "Watch," said
>  I; "Beloved," I said, "watch me scare you, though."  Said she:
>  "Able am I, son."
>So. Two questions: 1) Is this a palindrome, or does it have another name?
>And 2) Are there other passages like this that you folks know?

  I had a look on my Concise Oxford Dict. and it says: palindrome n & a 
  (word, verse etc.) that reads the same backwards as forwards (e.g. rotator).
  So I'd like to say it isn't.

  As I am a Finn and we have been taught that our word "saippuakauppias"
  is the longest palindrome word in the world (I'm not sure, but it is
  one of the longest anyhow), that implies that in a palindrome you have
  to reverse the characters, not only the words.
--
!
!	Jyrki Wahlstedt
!		Jyrki.Wahlstedt@hut.fi
!
!  Our life is no dream, but it should and will perhaps become one.
!
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: umjaco19@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Martin Andreas Jacobs)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Distribution: alt
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 22:41:24 GMT

In article <Bxy9Gy.How@ccu.umanitoba.ca> ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca () writes:
>In <28361@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>[...]
>>The specialisation of originally synonymous terms to express finer
>>distinctions, or to remove ambiguity, for example. An instance of this
>>is the British adoption of the US spelling "program" to designate a
>>computer program, and the specialisation of "programme" for such cases
>>as "programme of research". 
>
>'Program' is not just the US spelling; it was the regular British
>spelling until the 19th century.
>
>In any case the word has pretty much the same meaning in both cases.
>Would you consider it an improvement to adopt yet another spelling for
>a TV programn? The possibility for ambiguity between a computer
      ^^^^^^^^
Huh ?

[stuff deleted]

>>Another improvement is the adoption in
>>Britain of the US meaning of "billion", rather than fostering
>>ambiguity by continuing to fight a losing battle in favour of the
>>British "billion".
>
>At last! Before you know it, we'll have you spelling 'favor' correctly.
                                                       ^^^^^
>
[even more stuff deleted]
>

The last time I checked, 'favour' was still spelled with a 'u' in Canada !

>Werner

Martin


-- 
--- 
 e-mail : Martin_Jacobs@Umanitoba.CA
 
 "Und wenn Du glaubst es geht nicht mehr, kommt irgendwo ein Lichtlein her... "
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com (A. Jing Hippy)
Subject: Re: typing faster
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 18:55:11 GMT
Organization: A Suffusion of Yellow

j..barrett@madness.network23.com (J. Barrett)  writes: 
| Hi a. jing,

hi j

| If one wanted to type faster they would abbreviate a lot more than
| normal. 4=for, 2=to/two/too, u=you, etc.
| i've often used just one letter, no vowels and not many can follow.

i had a manager that often did this in messages and the time that 1
person saved in typing it was more than made up 4 in the time that it
would take multiple people 2 try 2 figure the damned thing out when
they got it

overall it wasted much more time than it saved

i actually had people call me on the phone in an effort 2 figure out what
the boss was telling us

it bugs the hell out of me

whyevenbother2hitthespacebar

+--------------------------------------------------+
|Dave Cochran, Data General Corporation, RTP, NC   |
|cochran@dg-rtp.dg.com                             |
+--------------------------------------------------+
|"With just enough of learning to misquote."       |
|                                   --Lord Byron   |
+--------------------------------------------------+
From: idx009@cck.coventry.ac.uk (the Crisco Kid)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Things go better with cola-flavored soft drinks
Date: 16 Nov 92 17:11:01 GMT
Organization: Eris's Restaurant

In article <1e83k0INN7tn@uranium.sto.pdb.sni.de> sav@nanette.sni.de (Dr.Savory) writes:
>And in spain:   UNIX is a brand of fire-extinguishers

And, in the UK, at least, VAX make carpet cleaners.

				Kay
-- 
6'2", dark short hair, blue eyes, bisexual and horny as ....
Kay Dekker, Dept of Industrial Design, Coventry University, Coventry UK
37 Old Winnings Road, Keresley Village, Coventry   |B0 f t+ g++ k++! s+ e r p!
Phone: +44 203 838668 (work) +44 203 337865 (home) |Deflowerer-of-innocents
From: ted@physics3 (Emory F. Bunn)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: What's cooking?
Followup-To: alt.usage.english
Date: 18 Nov 1992 01:47:36 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics3.berkeley.edu

In article <1ec3g6INNrep@agate.berkeley.edu> dgreen@thor (David Greenebaum) writes:
>Jin-Yuan Wu writes:
>>
>>I read a food ad and found two sentances which I don't understand.
(stuff deleted.)

>>(2) So come see what's cooking at Applebee's Festa Italiana.
>
>This is an idiomatic expression.  "What's cooking?", like "What's
>up?", is not meant to be taken literally.  It means, "what's going
>on, what's happening," or sometimes, "what is developing, what is
>about to happen".  The ad uses the expression in order to make a joke
>on the word "cooking".
>
David is certainly correct in pointing out that the ad is playing on the
two meanings of the phrase, "what's cooking."  But putting that aside,
I would like to point out that the sentence is perfectly correct even
in its literal meaning, at least in my dialect.

In my experience, the verb "to cook" has both an active and a passive sense.
That is, both "I am cooking the eggplants" and "The eggplants are cooking"
are correct.  I believe Jin-Yuan's original question was something like
"Is sentence (2) acceptable usage?"  I would answer that it is.

-Ted
From: wex@castle.ed.ac.uk (John Wexler)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Unique hypothesis--comments welcome!
Date: 18 Nov 92 14:39:55 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University Computing Service

I have little use for the word "unique".  Nevertheless, I think I
understand its meaning, and I might use it from time to time.

If it meant "unparalleled in every respect, among all the things that
exist or have ever existed in the whole universe" then I would never be
able to apply it to anything.  I therefore suggest that the word can
reasonably be used to mean "unparalleled in certain important respects,
in some domain of interest".

If you accept that, then I can argue that if thing X is unparalleled in
more respects than thing Y, then X is more unique than Y.

Example: Fred is the only person known to me who has converted from the
Orthodox Church to Judaism. Fred is unique.  Jim is the only person
known to me who has converted from Hinduism to Judaism. Jim is also the
only person who lives on the Shiant Islands. Jim is more unique than Fred.

On the other hand, if X is unmatched in a domain of a million members,
and Y is unmatched in the same respects but in a domain of ten million,
then Y is more unique than X. 

Example: Fred is the only person known to me who has converted from the
Orthodox Church to Judaism. Fred is unique.  Bert is the only person
known to anybody reading this newsgroup who has converted from the
Orthodox Chuch to Zoroastrianism.  Bert is more unique than Fred.

For all that, I would avoid saying "more unique"; not because it must be
wrong, but because I would get funny looks and tedious arguments from
other people.

    John Wexler
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: mikulska@crux.Princeton.EDU (Margaret Mikulska)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: mikulska@astro.princeton.edu (Margaret Mikulska)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 23:40:08 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.221451.14168@bcrka451.bnr.ca> nadeau@bcarh1ab.bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau) writes:
>In article <1992Nov18.192304.15503@nas.nasa.gov> asimov@wk223.nas.nasa.gov (Daniel A. Asimov) writes:
>>
>>Since there are infinitely more real numbers than integers, 
>>perhaps it *does* make sense to say that 1/3 is "more unique" 
>>than the number 2, in the above contexts.
>
>Wrong - there are not infinitely more real numbers than integers.  If I
>had my university notes, I could trot out the proof, but in the
>meantime:  there are infinite numbers of integers and of real numbers.
>"Infinite" being an absolute term, you can't say that one infinite set
>is larger than the other (and certainly not infinitely larger).

Complete rubbish and utter nonsense, not to mention total ignorance of
set theory.  The cardinality of the set of integers is much smaller than
the cardinality of the set of real numbers.  In set theory there is a
whole hierarchy of infinities; you very well can say that an infinite set 
is larger than another infinite set, if "large" refers to the cardinality 
of the sets, as it indeed does.  If you can show that there are as many
real numbers as there are integers, we might as well throw out the whole
mathematics as we know it out of the window.  I'm not holding my breath.

I wonder what course your university notes are from ...


-Margaret
mikulska@astro.princeton.edu

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Distribution: alt
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 20:33:35 GMT

In article <BxtI97.n4I@dcs.ed.ac.uk>, pdc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley) writes:
> I agree with Fowler that "very unique" and "most unique" aren't good
> usage, but I'd make a special case for "quite unique".  It's something
> of an archaism, but you can use "quite" to emphasise adjectives which are
> not of degree:
> 
> "The butler lay in the hallway.  Checking his pulse, Lord Dalliwell
> found that he was quite dead."
> 
> This is a different shade of meaning of "quite" from that which would
> imply "fairly dead".
>   __                                ____
> \/ o\ Paul Crowley pdc@dcs.ed.ac.uk \  /
> /\__/ "I'm the boy without a soul"   \/


This seems like a British-ism to me.   


Marie Coffin
 
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Subject: Re: dassn't
Date: 15 Nov 92 18:35:05 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Windows/DOS Users Ed Group

In article <1992Nov14.190523.16065@rose.com> greg.grainger@rose.com (greg grainger) writes:
>
>Date Entered: 11-14-92 14:00
>On Nov. 12, chantal@osf.org (Chantal Eide) wrote:
>
>C(>I heard a very old lady use the word "dassn't."
>C(>"I dassn't miss another day."  Sort of like dare not
>C(>or ought not.  Does anyone know something about this
>C(>word?  Where it originated?  If it's a contraction?
>
>It's a contraction of 'dare not' - I have always had the idea that it is a
>dialect variant from the American South.
>
>It comes up in Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' and I think in 'Tom Sawyer'
>as well.
>

I ain't an old lady nor a character in a Mark Twain novel, but I use
dasn't all the time (except in formal writing). It is my default
formation.  I'm not a Southerner, but I grew up around displaced
Southerners, as well as native Westerners, in eastern Washington
State.

It is, of course, American dialect for "daren't". I note in Webster's
Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (a variant
of the big Random House Dictionary) that the word is sometimes spelt
"das'n't", but presumably this would be in older sources (just as one
can find "ca'n't" in 19th century sources). I wonder if "dasn't"
doesn't originate by eliding the "r" in "dares not", a not uncommon
development in many dialects.

-- 
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
	"Well, I'm a little muddled." -- Glinda
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: peter.churchill@rose.com (peter churchill)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Organization: Rose Media Inc, Toronto, Ontario.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:39:14 GMT
X-Gated-By: Usenet <==> RoseMail Gateway (v1.70)


Date Entered: 11-16-92 13:34

microsoc@black.ox.ac.uk (Marc B.A. Read) firing one into the Jolly 
Hotdog (Lustig-Weiner) bunfest asks:
 
| Roger -
| 
|         You aren't related to Humpty Dumpty, by any chance, are you?
| 
| Yours,
| 
|                 Marc
| 
| PS I haven't got my copy of Alice with me at the moment; perhaps someone
|         would care to post the quotation that I'm thinking of...

If you were to find Humpty Dumpty in your copy of Alice it would 
indeed be unique -- even singular. 

Humpty and Alice hang out in "Through the Looking-Glass" where there 
is a reply to an objection from Alice : '...When _I_ use a word,' 
Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I 
choose it to mean, --neither more nor less.'

Regards: *PC* <peter.Churchill@rose.com> -- just far enough from 
                                            Toronto
---
   RoseReader 1.70 P001013
   RM 2.00 : RoseNet<=>Usenet Gateway : Rose Media 416-733-2285
From: meachem@acsu.buffalo.edu (The Meach)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: quite unique
Date: 20 Nov 92 14:18:04 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <1992Nov19.234008.26718@Princeton.EDU> mikulska@astro.princeton.edu (Margaret Mikulska) writes:
>In article <1992Nov18.221451.14168@bcrka451.bnr.ca> nadeau@bcarh1ab.bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau) writes:

>Complete rubbish and utter nonsense, not to mention total ignorance of
>set theory.  The cardinality of the set of integers is much smaller than
>the cardinality of the set of real numbers.  In set theory there is a
>whole hierarchy of infinities; you very well can say that an infinite set 
>is larger than another infinite set, if "large" refers to the cardinality 
>of the sets, as it indeed does.  If you can show that there are as many
>real numbers as there are integers, we might as well throw out the whole
>mathematics as we know it out of the window.  I'm not holding my breath.
>
>I wonder what course your university notes are from ...

I wonder what newsreader you have, that doesn't let you know that this has
been followed up numerous times already. . . in a much more civil fashion!

--jm
[crankier than usual!]                                            {{rjn}}

>
>-Margaret
>mikulska@astro.princeton.edu
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: mmmirash@banshee.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar M. Mirashi)
Subject: Re: Uniquely fuzzy
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 01:07:12 GMT
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

In article <1992Nov20.090118.12334@waikato.ac.nz> maj@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>In article <TSOS.179.722160418@uni-duesseldorf.de>, TSOS@uni-duesseldorf.de (Detlef Lannert) writes:
>> In article <1992Nov15.001709.14852@Princeton.EDU> roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>> 
>>  [...]
>>>Moreover, a thing can be "quite unique" wrt *one* basis for comparison,
>>>by not even coming close to anything else.  After all, most of the comparisons
>>>we do are not simply same/different; they take into account degrees of
>>>difference.  
>>  [...]
>> 
>> The times of the clear "unique"/"not unique" distinction are over.
>> If there is fuzzy logic in every washing machine you can buy, why
>> shouldn't it be in the language as well? English couldn't survive
>> on the world market if it ignored the modern concepts.
>> 
>> And speakers will always (have to) adapt to their language. So it's
>> time for everyone to get fuzzy. Or should I say "quite fuzzy"?
>> 
>
>Both languages and washing machines would be far better without
>fuzzy logic. It's the wrong way to handle uncertainty about real
>events. Because it's purely formal and without any clear semantics
>I think it's probably the wrong way to handle conceptual vagueness
>as well.
>-- 

      That's the funniest thing I've heard today! :)  Even computers
have difficulty in representing events precisely. For example, take
the case of numbers. When you say "He's 5'10" ", when has the person
referred to ever been exactly 5'10" feet tall? He could be 5'9.99"
or 5'10.01" for that matter! Ambiguity always occurs in human speech
and this because each of us has a different notion about certain
concepts. Yes, there may be certain events which always result in a
simple "Yes" or "No" decision (binary for all you computer lingo
aficionados), but many events are conceived differently by different
persons. Let me relate the case of our fuzzy logic class. The professor
asked us to write down at what age a person was considered to be "young".
When the responses were tallied, they varied in the range from 5-30 years!

        Human beings will never be able to converse in precise terms,
however many milleniums may pass. 

                                                            Mandar.

                                                       

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Space the final frontier" - Star Trek.
"Try to see it my way, only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong"
                                                         - The Beatles
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: sborders@nyx.cs.du.edu (Scott Borders)
Subject: Re: quite unique research?
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 04:45:53 GMT

roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>In article <1992Nov16.143026.23853@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov16.112547.22880@black.ox.ac.uk> microsoc@black.ox.ac.uk (Marc B.A. Read) writes:


>>>(I'm still shaking at the memory of Roger's flames to this newcomer to
>>>Usenet about "concertize"....)

>>A pity, isn't it.  
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>What's a pity?  That people can't walk over to the dictionary (or hook up
>with the on-line OED)?  That whole issue was avoidable, and the people who
>spoke of that usage as being "depressing," "ugly," etc. might have saved
>their breath.

I believe the writer was referring to your penchant for becoming rude
and abusive when others disagree with you.  This was the reason I
dropped the recent thread on "pro-active" and "impact"; I didn't 
feel like responding to personal abuse and snide remarks.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going shopping for some asbestos Fruit of
the Looms.  With Roger around, it's best to be prepared for those
below-the-belt flames, too.

--
Scott Borders
sborders@nyx.cs.du.edu
borders_scott@tandem.com

--
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Apostrophes in Plural forms?
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 18:40:11 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.141032.26433@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com> lange@lmsc.lockheed.com writes:
>srinivas@lips.ecn.purdue.edu (The Abode of Wealth) writes:

>: I have noticed that people use an apostrophe in writing "1960s". What is
>: right, "1960s" or "1960's"?  I feel that the use of an apostrophe is 
>: wrong because when the words are used instead of numbers, "sixties" 
>: is the correct word and not "sixty's". The apostrophes also creep 
>: into plurals of commonly used abbreviations. What is right - "IMHOs" 
>: or "IMHO's"?

>According to one widely accepted (in the US) reference work,
>_The Chicago Manual of Style_, 13th ed., 1982, rule 6.9, p. 160,
>the apostrophe should not be used:

>  6.9 _Letters, noun coinages, numbers._ So far as it can be done
>      without confusion, single or multiple letters used as words,
>      hyphenated coinages used as nouns, and numbers (whether spelled
>      out or in figures) form the plural by adding _s_ alone:
>
>           the three Rs         several YMCAs and AYHs
>           thank-you-ma'ams     CODs and IOUs
>           in twos and threes   the early 1920s

>"IMHOs" is correct, according to _Chicago_.

Unless you feel that it would cause confusion, says rule 6.10!  If
you pronounce IMHO as a word (to rhyme with "bimbo" -- more or less)
and you think the 's' would shorten the 'o' or lead readers to think 
it's a 5-letter abbreviation or something, go with the apostrophe.

>Some net-writers, however, might insist that "IMHOen" is best. Another
>variation on your question is "Which is correct, 'VAXs' or 'VAXes'?"
>This earth-shaking, cosmos-stopping question was settled humorously
>by the coinage "VAXen," borrowing the Germanic plural suffix "en" (as in
>"children," "oxen"). (See the JARGON file for more on "VAXen.")

Was it really from German? I always thought "vixen" was involved.

>_Chicago_ would insist that "VAXs" is the correct form.

Not sure about that.  They explicitly give "SOS's."  Note that none
of the examples in 6.9 is pronounced as a word, but rather as a string
of letters (also true of "SOS" of course).  If you think "VAXs" might
look like "VAXS" or lead someone to pronounce the thing oddly, the
apostrophe is fine.

Roger