HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ccjal@cc.newcastle.edu.au (John A Lambert)
Subject: Re: a/an exceptionsREAD/NEW
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 22:46:28 GMT

>In article <1993Jan26.102653.13166@netcom.com>, scotty@netcom.com (J Scott Peter) writes:
>> In article <C1FD2v.35x@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> norlin@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Norman Lin) writes:
>>>This bugs me
>>>almost as much as a passage I read in "USA today" a few days ago,
>>>concerning price/performance of new semiconductor technologies:
>>>"blah blah, $xxxxx/yyy MIPS, which is $xxx/MIP."
>>>
>>>What on earth is a MIP?  "Million Instructions Per."  Per WHAT, fergawdzake?
>>>
>>>Sigh.
>> 
>> Oh, come on.  Much as I hate language errors in general, you have to love
>> an errnoneous back-formation like MIP.  Probably the first people to use
>> it did it inadvertently at first, realised their error, then decided to
>> use it anyway for the silliness of it.
>> 
>> Have you never said `How many MIPS is it?', treating the word as a
>> plural?
>> -- 
-- 
I think this sort of use has to be seen as part of the formation/adoption
process. In this case an acronym has become a word and then because it ends
in an `s' it is treated as a plural and a singular obtained by dropping the
`s'.

I find the use of the word `zucchinis' even odder than the use of `MIP'.
Here a plural word is not recognised as such an an `s' is added to form what to
me seems a double plural. To the majority of anglophones however the
singular/plural pair is zucchini/zucchinis rather than zucchino/zucchini.

John A Lambert
Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing
The University of Newcastle NSW 2308 Australia
ccjal@cc.newcastle.edu.au
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: concertising
Date: 21 Jan 93 11:13:34 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1993Jan19.4867.9479@dosgate> "peter curran" <peter.curran@canrem.com> writes:
>Maybe "concertise" came from Russian?  Although in that case
>it must have lost a few prefizes along the way.   (:-))

By no means.  I have never come across a Russian counterpart of "concertise",
but if one existed, it would have no prefizes, just a different suffiz.

-- 
 `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski  (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)    Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Presently
Date: 21 Jan 93 10:48:50 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1993Jan17.232011.3285@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <C10s7w.31u@ecf.toronto.edu> pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN) writes:
>>(Of course, you people spell "colour" without the "u." :) )
>
>So did the Romans.

Which, of course, is why they are all dead.  Serves them right, too.

>I don't know where "you people" got off putting some
>silly "u" back in there.

Ah!  That's where we disagree.  It is not a silly "u" we put there; it
is a jolly bright one, such as you people haven't yet learnt to use.

>Whip, whip.  Don't worry.  I left an "r" out of "occurring."

You left three "r"s out of three separate occur-r-ences of "occurring".
(Hint: Say that you only mistyped it once, and your editor propagated
the typo.)

-- 
 `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski  (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)    Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
From: hayesstw@risc1.unisa.ac.za (Steve Hayes)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: toward or towards
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 15:58:41 GMT
Organization: University of South Africa
NNTP-Posting-Host: pchayest.unisa.ac.za

In article <25479@galaxy.ucr.edu> judson@watserv.ucr.edu (Mike Judson) writes:

>When do you use toward and towards?
>

You use "toward" when you are west of the Atlantic and east of the Pacific, 
and "towards" when you're anywhere else.

============================================================
Steve Hayes, Department of Missiology & Editorial Department
Univ. of South Africa, P.O. Box 392, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa
Internet: hayesstw@risc1.unisa.ac.za
          steve.hayes@p5.f22.n7101.z5.fidonet.org
          stephen.hayes@f20.n7101.z5.fidonet.org
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: concertising
Date: 27 Jan 93 05:28:36 GMT
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Distribution: alt
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1993Jan26.113722.11527@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>In article <1993Jan19.222226.12650@Princeton.EDU>, roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>[Yawn! We'll be rid of this one day]

>> Now, that's 30 years ago.  It may very well be that the word has 
>> fallen out of favor.  But sightings in America and England in 
>> general contexts (i.e., not the places where jargon appears)
>> for a century (OED citations, the above, and this one) gainsay
>> any accusations of "jargon," "non-word," "neologism," "sloppy,"
>> etc.

>Can you provide the OED citations please, or at least give references for them?

Like, they don't have an OED at your institution?  8-)

>So far my quotation of David Mellor and your (deleted) reference to an American
>book have been our only printed examples, apart from the performer's biog which
>started this whole thing off.

OK:

First citation is from 1883, in a metaphoric use marked off in quote marks:
farm animals 'concertizing.' This indicates that the word already existed
in its non-metaphoric use; it would be weird to invent a word for the purpose
of using it metaphorically, without establishing its simple meaning.  This
is American, from Harper's Magazine.

Next, an English one, a report of a Belgian violinist (not Ysaye) coming
to England to concertize.  This is from 1885, cited in a book on
language (I think): Ware's _Passing English_ of 1909.  _Pall Mall_,
a London magazine used it in 1888 and 1889, the first time quoting the
child prodigy Josef Hofmann, the second time just reporting about Anton
Rubinstein.  Alfred Einstein (a distant cousin of mine) used it in 
_Music in the Romantic Era_ in 1947.  Norton's editors didn't mind.

There seems to be a second meaning, which OED doesn't explicitly 
acknowledge: a transitive form meaning "to make a concert version of."
Examples regarding spirituals (_THe Observer_, 1928) and Gershwin (Ulanov's
_History of Jazz in America_, 1952) are given.  Note that the earlier one
is English (and that it uses quote marks to set off the attempt at coinage).

OED gives "colloq." for the word, but the uses in books such as Einstein
and Schonberg would suggest that "informal" might be more precise.
AHD3 and W3NID make no such comments, but simply give the word with
an undated citation.  

Incidentally, only the 1883, 1888, and 1889 items are in Murray's 'C'
volume.  I don't know whether he considered the word to be 'colloq.'

Roger
From: briand@tekig5.pen.tek.com (Brian D Diehm)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: "Have a Nice Day"
Date: 22 Jan 93 19:33:10 GMT
Reply-To: briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

:Congratulations!  You win the alt.usage.english prize for being the first
:person I've spotted on the net to use 'prevarication' properly.

:A second prize awaits the first person to use 'procrastination' *at all*, as
:its use seems to have been wholly subsumed by prevarication :-(

Well, I was going to use procrastination too, but I decided to put it off
for a while.

-Brian
--
Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.                (503) 627-3437         briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM
P.O. Box 500, M/S 19-286
Beaverton, OR   97077
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: "Registrating" or "Registration"?
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:47:58 +0000

:In article <1993Jan26.112928.11526@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:

:>You register births, marriages and deaths at the Registry Office. I suppose
:>there's no reason other than cussedness why that word isn't used of other
:>offices.

:I believe the name is actually Register Office.  It's the place where 
:the register is kept, after all.

Depends if you're talking marriage or Lloyds...

G
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: glen@slate.cs.wisc.edu (Glen Ecklund)
Subject: Re: "Registrating" or "Registration"?
Organization: U of Wisconsin Madison - Computer Sciences
Distribution: alt
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 21:03:30 GMT

etxsvkl@garboa03.ericsson.se (Svante Kleist) writes:

>	imagine that something is registered somewhere, e.g.  a report is
>	registered at an office.

>	What do you then call that office?  "The registration office"
>	or "The registering office"? (I suspect the former being correct.)

The registration office.
Certainly not Registrating, although this form of some words comes up a lot
lately in the US.
Perhaps "The registering office" would be an office which is registering
for something.
-- 
Every child shall be treated with complete respect.

Glen Ecklund     glen@cs.wisc.edu   (608) 262-1318 Office, 262-1204 Dept. Sec'y
Department of Computer Sciences        1210 W. Dayton St., Room 3355
University of Wisconsin, Madison       Madison, Wis. 53706  U.S.A.
From: shakib.otaqui@almac.co.uk (Shakib Otaqui)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: UN: Back from the UK
Date: 25 Jan 93 22:37:00 GMT
Reply-To: shakib.otaqui@almac.co.uk (Shakib Otaqui)
Organization: Almac BBS Ltd. +44 (0)324 665371

RY>   To satisfy my curiosity, what are other stereotypical American
  >   characteristics?  
  >   I remember seeing a Monty Python skit where an American couple
  >   was dining with a British couple and the Grim Reaper dropped in.
  >   In the skit, the American was stereotyped as a pushy, overbearing
  >   know-it-all.  

RY>   So, here's your chance, Brits.  Let us Americans have it.

  I've never seen the point of racial or national stereotypes, so
  here's a story about an American in London with a fine mastery of
  the language.

  He was overheard ordering "coffee and milk" at a cafe.  When the
  waitress brought him a white coffee, he complained that it was not
  what he ordered.  "What's the difference?" she asked.

  "My dear girl," he replied mildly.  "Is a woman _and_ child the
  same as a woman _with_ child?"


---
 . PQ 2.15 189 . Premature articulation: spilling the beans.
From: Cannam@sc.ZIB-Berlin.de (Chris Cannam)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Hi Fi etc
Date: 27 Jan 93 10:37:00
Organization: Konrad Zuse Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik Berlin
Distribution: alt
	<1993Jan26.160452.5917@cs.hw.ac.uk> <C1H6t9.GI@demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: borodin.zib-berlin.de
In-reply-to: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk's message of Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:15:08 GMT


In article <C1H6t9.GI@demon.co.uk> gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham
Toal) writes:

   In article <1993Jan26.160452.5917@cs.hw.ac.uk> neilg@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil MG Gall) writes:
   :	finance

   Duh, you appear to be British - is /fei-nans/ a new trend here that I
   missed?  finance has sounded like fiddlesticks! for as long as I remember.

Uh?  To me finance is /fei-nans/, and always has been.  My dictionary
agrees with me.  Or is this a bizarre joke?

								Chris

--
           on sighting mathematicians it should unhook the algebra from their
             minds and replace it with poetry;  on sighting poets it should
               unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra
From: LMEBGO@kiera.ericsson.se (Bengt G{llmo, L M Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: that/which/who
Date: 23 Jan 1993 15:17:25 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Roger Lustig writes:

	Various English Bibles over the centuries have given "Our 
	Father, that/which/who art in heaven..."  Seems to me that, 
	given the direct form of address, the "that" is non-restrictive; 
	why bother to distinguish from all other fathers?

	Anyway, it's not very common anymore; one hears a non-restrictive 
	"that" in the spoken dialect, but rarely sees it written.

It might interest the readers of this newsgroup to know how English
is taught as a second language, at least how it was to me.  I don't 
remember any discussion of restrictive vs. non-restrictive relative 
clauses.  What I do remember is a punctuation rule: *necessary* 
relative clauses, i.e. clauses that cannot be removed without changing
the meaning of the sentence or making it unclear, are not separated  
by commas in English (in Swedish, all relative clauses are separated 
by commas, by those of us who still worry about punctuation at all).  
In the case of the Lord's prayer, the comma signals that "that/who/which 
art in heaven" is sort of a side remark (no heresy intended).  One could 
conceivably omit it: "Our Father (capital F!), hallowed be thy name ...".  
Had the clause been necessary to distinguish our Father in heaven from 
Fathers elsewhere, it would not have been separated by commas. 

How does that explanation strike a linguist of today, and one with
English as native language?

Bengt
-- 
Forwarded-By:
Bengt Gallmo                        e-mail: lmebgo@kiera.ericsson.se
Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson    phone:  +46 8 719 1940
S-126 25 STOCKHOLM                  fax:    +46 8 719 3988
SWEDEN

The bad thing about good things is that they usually come to an end.
The good thing about bad things is that they, also, usually come to an end.
From: jerry@incc.com (Jerry Rocteur)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: informatics
Date: 27 Jan 93 02:51:00 GMT
Organization: DELDRA S.P.R.L. Perwez, Belgium

In article <1993Jan26.215230.1@wombat.newcastle.edu.au> eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan) writes:
>In article <C1Etoz.2K7@incc.com>, jerry@incc.com (Jerry Rocteur) writes:
>> I am seeing the word "informatics" used a lot by people over here in
>> Belgium, yet this word is not in any of my 'English' dictionaries.
>> 
>> This is a word of French origin but is it used anywhere else, I
>> particularly like the word better than ADP or EDP or IT, any
>> comments?
>
>[deleted....]
>
>    [* After writing that, I remembered that I have in fact seen
>      a case of an Australian University with a Faculty of
>      Informatics - but their meaning of the word is rather

University of Wollongong, New South Wales.

>      different from its meaning in Belgian English.]
>
>It's certainly not equivalent to any of ADP or EDP or IT, although
>those can be substituted for it in certain limited contexts.  Nor is
>it equivalent to Computer Science or Computer Engineering or
>Information Science, etc., although again there are contexts where
>any one (but not all simultaneously) will work as translations.
>On the other hand, it's a bit more restrictive than the union of
>all of these things.

It all depends if you look at the dictionary meaning or how the word
is used, in Belgium the word informatique, is used just like it is
described in the "Le Robert & Collins":

	Informatique computer science, 1 nf (science) computing: (techniques) 
	data processing. il est dans l'~ he's in computing; l'ere de l'~ the
	age of the computer. 2 adj computer (epith).

This may be a subset of its full meaning, but this is how it is used,
if anyone cares I'll post or send the full meaning of the word out of
"le Petit Larousse".

> [ deleted....]
>While writing this, it occurred to me that the English word
>"cybernetics" used to mean roughly what the French word "informatique"
>means.  Unfortunately the meaning of "cybernetics" has changed
>quite a bit over time, so it's no longer anywhere near being a
>reasonable translation.

cybernetics is one of my favourite words....

>P.S.  In case anyone cares, I wasn't joking when I suggested
>that there exists a dialect of English called Belgian English.

Hmmmmm, maybe a long time ago, now we all speak good English like 
what you do :-) seriously, this may have come about from the Flemish
(Dutch) influence, I am only guessing, I have not heard this before.

Jerry.
-- 
 __^__                                                              __^__
( ___ )------------------------------------------------------------( ___ )
 | / | Jerry Rocteur                       Email: jerry@InCC.COM    | \ |
 | / |             Independent Computer Consultants                 | \ |
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: spinaa@rpi.edu (Matt Garretson)
Subject: "all but"
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 18:01:12 GMT

  Ever since I first saw the movie STAR WARS, I've been bothered by the
expression "all but" ("Now the Jedi are all but extinct."). I understand it
to mean "almost", but would think that if it were taken literally, it
would mean "everything except"-- quite the opposite of its accepted meaning.

Does anyone have any idea as to how this expression came to mean what
it means?

-Matt
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: emcoop@bnr.ca (hume smith)
Subject: Re: Learning the ropes of "Ins and Outs"
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
	<1js3c7INNfe@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> <1k1ll8INNjkm@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 13:49:30 GMT

In article <1k1ll8INNjkm@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> au500@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Linda Zinn) writes:

   In a previous article, baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron) says:

   db:
   >So what do you do with do's and don'ts

   I'd do just what you have done. Two of three dictionaries I checked give
   "do's" as the preferred plural over "dos." The third only lists "do's."
   I wonder whether that's because the Spanish _dos_ is so familiar to English
   speakers or because "do's" simply looks better beside "don'ts."

the spanish isn't intrinsically familiar to english speakers.  in canada
it's more likely to be compared with french, which has no "dos" familiar
enough that i'd potentially confuse it.

i vote for the "looks better" part.
--
Hume Smith                                Honour sick and davey cris-cross
hume.smith@acadiau.ca                     McTruloff sentimie
emcoop@bnr.ca                             A parsnip inner pair threes.
From: judson@watserv.ucr.edu (Mike Judson)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: toward or towards
Date: 27 Jan 93 05:41:18 GMT
Reply-To: judson@watserv.ucr.edu

When do you use toward and towards?

--
You know what would make a good story?  Something about a clown 
who makes people happy, but inside he's real sad.  Also, he has 
severe diarrhea.

                         Jack Handy

judson@watserv.ucr.edu
From: wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: concertising
Date: 26 Jan 93 11:37:22 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <1993Jan19.222226.12650@Princeton.EDU>, roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

[Yawn! We'll be rid of this one day]

> Now, that's 30 years ago.  It may very well be that the word has 
> fallen out of favor.  But sightings in America and England in 
> general contexts (i.e., not the places where jargon appears)
> for a century (OED citations, the above, and this one) gainsay
> any accusations of "jargon," "non-word," "neologism," "sloppy,"
> etc.
> 
Can you provide the OED citations please, or at least give references for them?
So far my quotation of David Mellor and your (deleted) reference to an American
book have been our only printed examples, apart from the performer's biog which
started this whole thing off.
-- 

Stephen Wilcox             |   For Sale: Posts in British Government. Suit
wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk    |   outgoing American. Highest bids accepted.
From: mjw@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Alien)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: verb + "er" vs. verb + "or"
Date: 21 Jan 93 23:01:29 GMT
Organization: Coventry University


Re the -or, -er ,or -ar endings: -or is obviously applicable to Latin-based
words whether from back-formation or not; -er is from Anglo-Saxon words, is
still the rule in German for all male do-ers; am I right in thinking that
-ar comes from French-based words?
  Someone mentioned that lowly occupations take the -er ending e.g 'carpenter'
  and prestigious ones take the -or ( whilst beggar and scholar seem to 
  indicate that there is no such rule-of-thumb for the -ar ending). Anyway
  this is right and is so for historical reasons i.e the educated classes
  had the posh jobs and knew Latin whereas the poor grunts spoke good olde
  Englishe.
 However, the 'rule' is far from being comprehensive and yet many of us
 still have *no* difficulty choosing which to use! Does this mean we have
 incredible memories or is there a rule if we could think of it? Saying
 one has a 'feel' for it is not good enough.

 P.S "Feel badly"? I've heard "feel poorly" before but feel badly sounds
 all wrong to me -even though they appear to be grammatically identical.

 P.P.S In German there is not such a hard distinction between adverb and 
 adjective...

 
-- 
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: Query: semiliterate quotation marks
Organization: Cuddlehogs Anonymous
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 21:37:29 GMT

In article <EMCOOP.93Jan22113626@bcars148.bnr.ca> emcoop@bnr.ca (hume smith) writes:
:this reminds me of something i heard from someone once and i'd like
:some sort of confirmation.  i.e.: there is a very simple rule about
:when the apostrophe is used - ONLY for contractions - keeping
:in mind (and here's the part i'm worried about) that possessives
:such as "Doug's" and "the dog's" were, once, long ago, "Doug his" and
:"the dog its".

ARGH!!!!!!!!

Jeez, the short term memory on this group is getting as bad as a.f.u

Even if Mark finishes the FAQ file, he's going to have to post it daily :-(

G
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: jerry@incc.com (Jerry Rocteur)
Subject: informatics
Organization: SPRL DELDRA
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 12:36:35 GMT

I am seeing the word "informatics" used a lot by people over here in
Belgium, yet this word is not in any of my 'English' dictionaries.

This is a word of French origin but is it used anywhere else, I
particularly like the word better than ADP or EDP or IT, any
comments?
-- 
 __^__                                                              __^__
( ___ )------------------------------------------------------------( ___ )
 | / | Jerry Rocteur                       Email: jerry@InCC.COM    | \ |
 | / |             Independent Computer Consultants                 | \ |
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english