HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: norlin@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Norman Lin)
Subject: Re: a/an exceptions
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:35:15 GMT
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau) writes:

>In article <30724@castle.ed.ac.uk> benha@castle.ed.ac.uk (Ben Hambidge) writes:
>>Indefinite article: a preceds consonants, an preceds vowels
>>
>It's a pronounciation rule, not a spelling one.  So silent "h"s don't
>count - "hour" and "heir" are pronounced "our" and "eir", and thus
>take "an".  "Union", etc, are not pronounced "u-" but "yu-", thus
>an implied consonant and "a".

I've always held this (religious) belief, as well.  What, then, is
the rationale behind saying "an historical event?"  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.
-- 
Norman Lin | norlin@mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu   (preferred)   
           | nlin@alliant.backbone.uoknor.edu (alternate 1) 
           | narc@obelisk.pillar.com          (alternate 2)
From: maj@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Canadian English
Date: 24 Jan 93 22:21:18 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <AfM4vQW00iUzI4RNRl@andrew.cmu.edu>, Matthew Isaak <mi0n+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
> Linda Zinn writes:
>>Example: When I (an American) say, in reference to food, for instance,
>>"I'm not too fussy about hamburgers," I mean any old burger will do.
>>When my Canadian fiance says "I'm not too fussy about hamburgers,"
>>he means he doesn't like hamburgers very much. (This could be compounded
>>by the fact that he's a first-generation Canadian whose speech is often
>>flavored by his Scottish heritage.)
> 
> Thank you for pointing this out.  Im a Canadian who lives in Pittsburgh
> now.  When i say fussy, as in "I'n not too fussy about hamburgers", I
> mean I dont like hamburgers.  If I wanted to say that any old burger
> will do, I would say "I'm not too *picky* about hamburgers.  This is
> general to Canada and not an artefact of your husbands heritage. 

Here in NZ we use 'fussy' both ways. The tone of voice clarifies
which meaning is intended. [Sudden doubts: or do we? I spent
quite a bit of time in Canada so maybe I picked up that usage.]
-- 
Murray A. Jorgensen [ maj@waikato.ac.nz ]    University of Waikato
Department of Mathematics and Statistics     Hamilton, New Zealand      
__________________________________________________________________
'Tis the song of the Jubjub! the proof is complete,
if only I've stated it thrice.'
From: nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: a/an exceptions
Date: 25 Jan 93 17:03:00 GMT
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa

In article <30724@castle.ed.ac.uk> benha@castle.ed.ac.uk (Ben Hambidge) writes:
>Indefinite article: a preceds consonants, an preceds vowels
>
>But:  union, unite, unit, universe, one, europe, hour, heir..
>
>Anyone know any other exceptions. I think all eu- words follow this
>rule. But uni- doesn't: e.g. unintentional.

It's a pronounciation rule, not a spelling one.  So silent "h"s don't
count - "hour" and "heir" are pronounced "our" and "eir", and thus
take "an".  "Union", etc, are not pronounced "u-" but "yu-", thus
an implied consonant and "a".

       The Rhealist - nadeau@bnr.ca - Speaking only for myself
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: harper@oracorp.com (Douglas Harper)
Subject: Re: "Have a Nice Day"
Organization: ORA Corporation, Ithaca, New York
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 17:05:11 GMT

In article <9301211055.AA27444@pizzabox.demon.co.uk> gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal) writes:

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

Give me time; I'll get to it.  Frightfully busy just now.

-- 
Douglas Harper | harper@oracorp.com | +1 (607) 277-2020
From: briand@tekig5.pen.tek.com (Brian D Diehm)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: a/an exceptions
Date: 25 Jan 93 22:10:27 GMT
Reply-To: briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

>>It's a pronounciation rule, not a spelling one.  So silent "h"s don't
>>count - "hour" and "heir" are pronounced "our" and "eir", and thus
>>take "an".  "Union", etc, are not pronounced "u-" but "yu-", thus
>>an implied consonant and "a".
>
>I've always held this (religious) belief, as well.  What, then, is
>the rationale behind saying "an historical event?"

Believe it or not, some folks pronounce "historical" without an aspirated
"h." This makes the word "iss-torical", and by the phonetic rule then is
preceded by "an." These same folks, who usually laugh at the Cockneys for
dropping their "h"s, also pronounce "hotel" as "oh-tell." An hotel. Go figure.

Of course, here I reveal my left-of-the-Atlantic provincialism.

The whole thing with "a" vs "an" is because it is difficult to slide from
one vowel sound to another without a consonant between. In the case of "h"
words, it is particularly difficult to slide from soft "a" to aspirated "h."
"An" provides the consonant.

-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: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Presently
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 22:02:30 GMT

In article <C12sEA.DzK@ecf.toronto.edu> pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN) writes:

>  How about this: to determine whether a usage is acceptable, you have
>to look at not only the number of people who use it, but also the authority
>(i.e. respectability) of the people using it?

Getting there.  How about considering the places ant times where the word
is used?  If the word is used only in a few circles, or *never* used in
some circles, then you have a key to acceptability.  However, basing a
universal standard of acceptability on the usages of a few is dangerous,
for those few neither lead the way in language evolution nor generally
know much more than anyone  else about the reasons they accept/don't accept
a given word.

Roger
From: LMEBGO@kiera.ericsson.se (Bengt G{llmo, L M Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: informatics
Date: 27 Jan 1993 10:50:46 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

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?

It, or a variant of it (informatik) is used in Sweden, I believe
originally in connection with libraries, but the word has come to
mean a somewhat wooly union of data processing, telecommunications, 
and maybe a few other things, sometimes with a prefix to indicate
a particular domain, e.g. legal informatics.  There is a professor 
of Informatics at Stockholm University.

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: wald2@husc10.harvard.edu (Kevin Wald)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: "all but"
Date: 23 Jan 93 00:13:00 GMT
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <53k3ttj@rpi.edu> spinaa@rpi.edu (Matt Garretson) writes:
>
>  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

I think that the "almost-though-not-quite" meaning of "all but" does
actually come from its literal meaning of "everything except"; think
of the sentence you quoted as meaning "The Jedi are small in numbers,
scattered, weak -- in fact, they display -> every <- characteristic
of a group going extinct -> except <- having actually done so."

Kevin Wald              | When eight hundred years old *you* reach,
wald2@husc.harvard.edu  | Speak with V_inf O S V_fin syntax *you* will.
From: mjhf@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Michael James Horsfall)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Canadian English
Date: 23 Jan 93 05:58:35 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <AfM4vQW00iUzI4RNRl@andrew.cmu.edu> Matthew Isaak <mi0n+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

>Linda Zinn writes:
>>Example: When I (an American) say, in reference to food, for instance,
>>"I'm not too fussy about hamburgers," I mean any old burger will do.
>>When my Canadian fiance says "I'm not too fussy about hamburgers,"
>>he means he doesn't like hamburgers very much. (This could be compounded
>>by the fact that he's a first-generation Canadian whose speech is often
>>flavored by his Scottish heritage.)

>Thank you for pointing this out.  Im a Canadian who lives in Pittsburgh
>now.  When i say fussy, as in "I'n not too fussy about hamburgers", I
>mean I dont like hamburgers.  If I wanted to say that any old burger
>will do, I would say "I'm not too *picky* about hamburgers.  This is
>general to Canada and not an artefact of your husbands heritage. 

An alternate form I grew up with in Canada was "I'm not too *finicky* about
hamburgers".

Mike Horsfall
(Another Canadian Living Abroad)
--
=====================================================Michael James Horsfall
Phone: (716)-275-8703 (Lab)                        Department of Biophysics
Fax: (716)-275-6007                  University of Rochester Medical Centre
E-mail: mjhf@troi.cc.rochester.edu=========================================
From: benha@castle.ed.ac.uk (Ben Hambidge)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: a/an exceptions
Date: 25 Jan 93 12:00:50 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

Indefinite article: a preceds consonants, an preceds vowels

But:  union, unite, unit, universe, one, europe, hour, heir..

Anyone know any other exceptions. I think all eu- words follow this
rule. But uni- doesn't: e.g. unintentional.

I'm not bothered about 'h' words such as hotel (Some people write an
hotel)

What other words are there (not just nouns)?

Ben.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Hambidge    |                       |Bread is the staff of life; Toast is
4 Merchiston Ave| benha@castle.ed.ac.uk |a decadent capitalist luxury.
EDINBURGH       |-----------------------|------------------------------------ 
EH10 4NX        |Tel: +44 31 447 4047   |Smile they said, life could be worse.
U.K.            |                       |So I did, and it was.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Subject: Re: Have to
Reply-To: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:30:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan20.135433.8397@pixel.kodak.com> john@liebnitz.ssd.kodak.com (John Hall) writes:
>Do you pronounce the word "have" differently in the following
>statements?
>
>	I have two apples.
>
>	I have to leave.
>
>Here in western New York I hear the first as "hav", but the second as
>"haf".

I believe the "haff" pronunciation in the second instance is more or less
consistently the case across native speakers of the language.


--
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
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: informatics
Date: 26 Jan 93 23:25:14 GMT

: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?

: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).

: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.

Isn't this what the Dutch call 'Informatica'?  The Dutch are very keen on
re-inventing Latin...

G
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: djb6@ellis.uchicago.edu (Dennis Brennan)
Subject: Chinese Restaurants (was Re: Collecting Funny Mistranslations
Reply-To: djb6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 18:28:55 GMT

A gem I found on the wrapper of a pair of chopsticks from an Oriental
restaurant here in Chicago:

"Welcome to Chinese Restaurant.  Please try Nice Chinese Food with 
chopsticks, the traditional and glorious typical of Chinese history
and culture!"



-- 
Dennis Brennan
djb6@midway.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: another opposite in action (or is that 'inaction'?)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 18:15:11 +0000

Paraphrased from someone's posting on another group:

: On a related note, does anyone know if <organisation name deleted>
: have net access yet ? Much as I
: would like to sell them <my product>, I doubt it would be
: beyond their means.

Clearly the use of 'I doubt that' here means 'I'm afraid that...'
or 'I have no doubt that...'

Whereas if wanted to say what he wanted to say, I'd have said
"I doubt it would be within their means".

Is the use above strange?  The original poster like me is Scots,
so that doesn't really give me any clues as to where this usage
came from.

G
From: mckeonj@ul.ie
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Thoughts on punctuation
Date: 22 Jan 93 10:35:54 GMT
Organization: University of Limerick, Ireland

What follows is only an opinion, based on experience
Punctuation, or pointing, in printed text, to indicate
to the reader how the words should be said.
It dates from the days of mass illiteracy, when most
people went to church or theatre to hear literature.
As a public reader myself, I find good punctuation
to be very helpful, and I also note, as a choral singer,
that the comma, meaning "breathe here", is occasionally
placed in a music score.
The "full stop" or "period" is obviously an instruction
to deflect, or drop the voice, at the end of a sentence.
The "quaero" (?) obviously raises the voice at the end
in questioning mode, and "io" (!) is for emphasis.
It is interesting to note that ? and ! are actually
abbreviated words, qo and io written vertically,
and similar to No (for "numero"). Would that there
were an ASCII character "No", but I suppose # will
have to do. "Quaero" is, I think, Latin for "question",
and "io" is Greek for "joy". If the latter is true,
then ! should be reserved for joyful exclamations.
Oh frabjous day! Calloo, callay!
Now, the nub of this. Do these thoughts help in determining
the "correct" use of points such as the apostrophe s ('s)?
I think not, since speech has changed, and writing has not.
I think it probable that in former times, the possessive 's
was audibly different from the plural s.
Perhaps the solution would be to avoid the 's, except when
describing speech.
I'll finish with a nice story. Many years ago, I attended
a small country church in the New Forest. The local gentry
included two elderly maiden sisters, who were inseparable
and known collectively as "The Misses Foster".
They arrived at church in the Rolls, and the chauffer would
then drive himself to Chapel nearby. He would return to church
in time to collect the Misses, and report to the Verger that:
"The Misses's car is outside"
-- 
"Ich am of Irlonde" (medieval fragment used by Yeats)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
John McKeon, Material Science Dept. University of Limerick, Ireland
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN)
Subject: Re: discs, was Re: Presently
Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 00:31:52 GMT

In article <8383@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM> briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM writes:
>>>Anyone here from Germany who votes to change "computer" to "komputer"?
>>
>>I don't (fwiw). Btw, the korrekt spelling should be "Kompjuter", and all 
>>acronyms would have to be changed ("PK"; "Kuh" for "kompjuterunter-
>>stuetzte Herstellung"="computer-aided manufacturing")...
>
>Nice rise to the bait, Detlef!
>
>>To my ears, hi-fee sounds ridiculous. Or would anyone in the English-
>>speaking world say so??
>
>This is interesting, because the "fi" sound in English is similarly
>ridiculous. The word is not pronounced "FI-del-i-tee" where the first
>syllable rhymes with "eye." The word is pronounced "fih-DEL-ih-tee"
>with a short "I" sound and the accent on the second syllable.
>
>(U.K. usage may differ.)
>
>So, saying "hi-fi" or "hi-fee" equally misrepresents the word being
>abbreviated. Neither can be more ridiculous than the other, IMHO.
>
  Yah, but "hi-fi" *rhymes*
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: a/an exceptionsREAD/NEW
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:58:20 +0000

	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.

That's because we've adopted the word into English, at which point it
follows normal English behaviour.  Well, into American actually.  I think
we call them something else.  But to preserve the Italianate endings would
only be valid if both singular and plural had been adopted at the same time;
to use the otherwise is just pretentiousness, of the style of British
politicians talking about the new syllabi in schools...

G
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: leveret@warren.demon.co.uk (Nick Leverton)
Subject: Re: Is there an actor
Reply-To: leveret@warren.demon.co.uk
Distribution: world
X-Mailer: cppnews $Revision: 1.20 $
Organization: Indexed; Access: Random.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:52:46 +0000

In article <C1C0z0.1tu@ecf.toronto.edu> pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN) writes:
>  Doesn't anybody think that the stage direction "beat" is related to the
>expression "he let a beat pass."  Folk etymology says it's related to the
>musical beat (unit of time).  The stage direction says to rest for one
>musical beat.

But Ros&Guil is not set to music ...

Seriously, what is the meaning of this expression "to let a beat pass" ?
I haven't heard it on this side of the Atlantic.

Nick
From: mjhf@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Michael James Horsfall)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Canadian English
Date: 24 Jan 93 19:26:32 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <1jt0d3INNh2s@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> au500@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Linda Zinn) writes:


>In a previous article, pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN) says:

>>In article <1993Jan23.055835.22666@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> mjhf@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Michael James Horsfall) writes:
>>>In <AfM4vQW00iUzI4RNRl@andrew.cmu.edu> Matthew Isaak <mi0n+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>>>
>>>>Linda Zinn writes:
>>>>>Example: When I (an American) say, in reference to food, for instance,
>>>>>"I'm not too fussy about hamburgers," I mean any old burger will do.
>>>>>When my Canadian fiance says "I'm not too fussy about hamburgers,"
>>>>>he means he doesn't like hamburgers very much. (This could be compounded
>>>>>by the fact that he's a first-generation Canadian whose speech is often
>>>>>flavored by his Scottish heritage.)
>>>
>>>>Thank you for pointing this out.  Im a Canadian who lives in Pittsburgh
>>>>now.  When i say fussy, as in "I'n not too fussy about hamburgers", I
>>>>mean I dont like hamburgers.  If I wanted to say that any old burger
>>>>will do, I would say "I'm not too *picky* about hamburgers.  This is
>>>>general to Canada and not an artefact of your husbands heritage. 
>>>
>>>An alternate form I grew up with in Canada was "I'm not too *finicky* about
>>>hamburgers".
>>
>>  We all say "I'm not too *crazy* about burgers."
>>

>Oh my! Now I'm confused again. Should I assume that in this case *not too
>finicky* means the same as *not too picky* (above)? And does *not too crazy*
>about them mean you don't like them?

To, hopefully, close up this particular thread (or subthread),
let me summarize:

"I don't like hamburgers very much" = "I'm not too *fussy* about ..."
                                    = "I'm not too *crazy* about ..."

"Just put anything in/on my hamburgers" = "I'm not too *picky* about ..."
                                        = "I'm not too *finicky* about ..."

>Sheesh, I hope someone points out some of the more important 
>differences between Canadian and American shades of meaning before the 
>wedding! Am I safe in assuming that *I do* means *I do* in Can-English? 
>(I just might be in trouble here.) =:)
>
>* Linda Zinn

Actually, at my own wedding (in Canada) we both said *I will*, and I know of
one couple that said *I shall*. I guess it all depends on the question. :-)

Mike
--
=====================================================Michael James Horsfall
Phone: (716)-275-8703 (Lab)                        Department of Biophysics
Fax: (716)-275-6007                  University of Rochester Medical Centre
E-mail: mjhf@troi.cc.rochester.edu=========================================
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english