HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan)
Subject: Re: Some Questions
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 04:43:22 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.164536.4159@mach4.wlu.ca>, brea9430@mach4.wlu.ca (breadner kenneth cecil joseph u) writes:
> Can anyone tell me why the phrase "just about", as in, "I'm just about
> finshed" or "Are we there yet?"..."Just about"--can anyone explain why this
> means "not quite"? It seems to me that "just about" is redundant.

It adds a nice distinction.
   I'm about finished = I'm close to being finished
   I'm just about finished = I'm very close to being finished
It's the same as the distinction between "in time" and "just in time".

> Also, why is "do" pronounced with an /oo/ sound, while "don't" is pronounced
> with a long 'o'?

Why is "will" not pronounced "woe"?

-- 
Peter Moylan                      eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan)
Subject: Re: "In hospital" vs. "In the hospital"
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 03:26:39 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.143545.3981@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com>, lange@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Alex Lange) writes:

> In both (US) "in the hospital" and (UK) "in hospital", the reference
> is to a state. That the article is missing or present strikes "British"
> and "American" speakers as odd seemed to me a curiosity of English
> usage.  

OK, I didn't know that "in the hospital" could be used this way in the
US.  (I was assuming that the American equivalent to "in hospital"
was something like "hospitalized".)  This helps us get closer to the
essentials.  Let's forget for a moment that this is a question of
whether or not to use an article.  The real issue, I think, is that
reference to a state (as distinct from, for example, the concrete
building called "the hospital") is in some sense a departure from a
strict literal meaning, and therefore often a matter of idiom.
And idiom is something you would expect to vary from one dialect to
another.

> : Enough.  I'd better get back to the work.
> Bye, thanks, and sorry to waste your time.

That's OK, it's always a pleasure to jump in and muddy the waters.

Peter.
From: mmmirash@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar Mukund Mirashi)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: English English versus *American* English
Date: 29 Jul 92 20:30:36 GMT
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron) writes:

>What has come to be called _American_ spelling (tho it is not universally
>shared by Canadians, for example), is not an American innovation.  18th
>century English spelling showed variations in or/our and -er/-re, as
>well as gray/grey and so on.  The fact that American and British spellings
>began to diverge at this time was partly coincidence, partly an
>American reaction to the Revolutionary War and independence, and
>partly the influence of Noah Webster, though it should be pointed
>out that in his day Webster was considered a dangerous radical by
>some, and a fatuous quack by most.  He advocated spelling _deaf_
>as _deef_ to reflect its (New England) pronunciation, and was
>lambasted in the press for his proposals.

>Webster backed down from most of his radical spellings, and once
>his dictionaries started selling in England as well as the US,
>he took the line that there was no essential difference between
>the English of the two groups.

      Exactly the point which was trying to drive home....no single
individual has the authority to change the language. The spelling 
can be changed only if a majority of it's native speakers (I mean
the English, here) concur. You chaps seem to have wreaked a war on
the language, which is most shameful! Why deface such a beautiful 
language?
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: dave@lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman)
Subject: Re: gay
Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 01:28:28 GMT

baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron) writes:
>The meaning of _gay_ is another example of what happens when
>we consult the experts.  According to Merriam-Webster's leading
>usage editor, the old and new meanings of gay continue to coexist;
>they are always distinguished by context.  According to the Oxford
>English Dictionary, the old gay has succumbed forever.

The old meaning has succumbed in current writings, but of course
there are still lots of books around with it.  My 8-year-old
daughter has been reading Enid Blyton books (written in England
in the 40's and 50's), and asks me quite regularly what various
words mean.  One of them was gay.

I only told her about the old meaning.

David Sherman
Toronto
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: tony@disk.uucp (tony)
Subject: What is a "Homie" or a "Homeboy" ???
Summary: Want to know the source of the words "Homie" and "Homeboy."
Keywords: slang, jargon, homie, homeboy, definition_wanted
Organization: Digital Information Systems of KY
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 03:08:32 GMT

	For the past year or two I have heard the words "homie" (homey,
homeie?) and "homeboy" on television, in conversations of others, and I have
read grafitti that contains that word.  What does it mean?  Is it deroggatory
or should it be considered a complement?  
	I don't watch much t.v., so I'm counting on some worldly netter to
cue me in.  Thanks!

	-=- Tony Safina -=- disk!tony@uunet.UU.NET -=-

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: james@cs.anu.edu.au (James Popple)
Subject: "French" spacing (was: How many spaces after a period?)
Organization: Computer Science Department, ANU, Australia
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 01:34:51 GMT

jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox) writes:

>In article <JHEIKKIL.92Jul14133927@utrio.helsinki.fi> jheikkil@ling.helsinki.fi (Juha Heikkila) writes:
>>[about the number of spaces after a period]
>>
>>Am I right in assuming that this is a purely American convention?
>>What about the other English-speaking countries? It seems to me
>>that the British leave no extra space after sentences (at least
>>not in books), and I have a feeling that this is the practice in
>>many European countries.

>  Well, I know that the TeX command to disable extra spacing at the
>end of sentences is \frenchspacing, which tends to imply that the
>French, at least, do it that way.

I won't pretend to know anything about French typography.  However,
there are several examples in Australian English where the word
"french" is used to indicate abnormality.  (The following definitions
are mine, and come from the top of my head with no guarantees.)

    french cricket:

        A form of cricket in which the batsman holds the bat in front
        of her/his legs, which are used as stumps.

    french cut:

        An unusual, and very foolhardy, stroke played in (normal)
        cricket.

    french knitting:

        A form of crochet using a cotton roll studded with nails.

I suspect that we Australians inherited these terms (or at least this
use of the word "french") from the British.  Although it is possible
that french knitting originated in France, I seriously doubt that
either french cricket or the french cut is French.  Another example
might be "french leave": is it supposed to be the French way of taking
leave, or the abnormal way?  (I guess that "french kiss" and "french
letter" fall into a different category.)

Don't get me wrong; I'm not suggesting that the French are abnormal. 
But I had always thought that the TeX \frenchspacing command was just
another example of this: "french spacing" = "abnormal spacing" = "not
the way it's done in Britain".

Incidently, French spacing is also Australian spacing.  According to
the Australian Government Publishing Service's Style Manual, "There is
no need for increased spacing after a punctuation mark or at the end
of a sentence; a normal word space between the full point and the
following capital is sufficient to advise the reader of the new
sentence." (4th ed., 1988, p. 216)

I disagree; I prefer "\nonfrenchspacing" in TeX and in text.

James Popple                            Department of Computer Science
                                        Faculty of Science
Phone:  +61 6 249 5691                  Australian National University
        +61 6 249 4043                  GPO Box 4
FAX:    +61 6 249 0010                  CANBERRA  ACT  2601
E-Mail: james@cs.anu.edu.au             AUSTRALIA
From: futor@llnl.gov (randy j futor)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: "French" spacing (was: How many spaces after a period?)
Date: 24 Jul 92 23:57:31 GMT
Organization: CSo @ LLNL


 tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes:
> 
> What's a fillet?
It's a boneless section of a fish, Tom.
> 
> Really, it's a filet around here, and pronounced like ballet and beret:
> with the accent on the *last syllable* instead of the barbaric first, 
> and without a final t, the way God and Gaul meant them to be.  :-)
No, sir, it's not.  It rhymes with billet sometimes.  Confusion with
filet, alas, has no doubt caused this.

Whence come I, a filet is the same as a filet mignon ( with the stress
on the syllable you'd likely prefer but nary an attempt at nasalizing ),
most often seen in the bacon-wrapped variety.  Stop just before
medium rare on mine;  just butter & pepper on the potato, please. ;-}
--
__
\/ -+- randy -+- all generalizations are flawed -+- futor@llnl.gov

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David Wald)
Subject: Re: Sound-Bite?
Organization: Laboratory for Computer Science, MIT
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:57:54 GMT

In article <9207292154.AA04952@ha06.eng.ua.edu> bkannan@ha06.eng.ua.edu (Balaji Kannan) writes:
>  Who is a policy-wonk?

If you can get a hold of it, take a look at William Safire's recent
column on this term in the New York Times Magazine, this past Sunday
or the one previous.

-David
--
============================================================================
David Wald                                           wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu
   "Blessed are the peacocks, for they shall be called sonship of God"
             -- Matt 5:9, from a faulty QuickVerse 2.0
============================================================================
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: More unique?  polique!
Date: 24 Jul 92 21:54:03 GMT
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University

In article <SLAGLE.92Jul23135553@sgi417.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com>,
slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com (Mark Slagle) writes:
>                   [...my previous stuff deleted...]
> I rely on the American Heritage.  I have never liked the
> Webster's, and this is yet another reason.  Many of the
> pronunciations for "poly" words with unaccented "y" syllables
> should probably just get a schwa anyway.  The AH makes this
> distinction, but Webster's doesn't.  But I don't care what
> Webster's says about this matter, most of the words I gave are
> ones that I "know" are pronounced with the long "e" in all the US
> dialects to which I have been exposed.  In the case of
> polystyrene, I have been exposed to a lot of organic chemists
> also, and I have never heard it pronounced otherwise than
> "pol-ee-sty-reen".  I can see softening it a little toward a
> shwa, but not much in this case.
> 
> You can say it any way you like, but I'll stick with the lone
> "e" on this one.  And the AH dictionary gets almost all of these
> "right", according to my sense of it.
> --
> ----
> Mark E. Slagle                                 PO Box 61059
> slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com                       Sunnyvale, CA   94088
> 408-756-0895                                   USA

Yes, but the American Heritage also says to pronounce "polynomial" with the
long 'e'.  I and my numerous mathematician friends all "know" that the short
'i' pronunciation is correct.  I really don't care how you pronounce
"polystyrene"
(although, if organic chemists keep exposing themselves to you, maybe you
should
stop talking to them), but it is going to take more than the AH to convince me
to say "pol-ee-nome-ee-ul".   

What is more interesting (to my mind, anyway) is this:  I checked several 
dictionaries yesterday, to see which pronunciation they preferred.  The results
are mixed.

Two dictionaries (American Heritage and Random House) give the long e
pronunciation
for both polynomial and polystyrene.

Four (Chambers, Webster's, Webster's New World, and the Oxford American) give
the short i pronunciation for both.

Funk and Wagnall and the OED do not list "polystyrene" but give the short i 
pronunciation for polynomial and apparently for all other words in which poly
is followed by a consonant.

None of these dictionaries indicates that there are two pronunciations.  Why is
this?  I thought that when two pronunciations are both in use, a dictionary
would
list both and perhaps give an indication of which is preferred.  I find this
very
strange. 

By the way, I don't pretend to have consulted the "best" dictionaries.  I
simply
looked in the ones that were handy.

Marie Coffin
From: dand@buscard.fidonet.org (Dan Davidson)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: el nino              
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 16:20:26 EDT
X-Maildoor: WaflineMail 1.00r

 -=> Quoting Dennis Baron to All <=-

 DB> of countering noise in the communication system.  One of the
 DB> most striking redundancies is the preservation of the distinct
 DB> singular present tense verb form for the 3rd person.  All of

Actually, "thou" was singular and "you" was plural.

"Thou" was also personal and familiar, while the plural "you" was
polite, formal, respectful, or even, when addressing royalty,
reverential.  English may have borrowed that pattern from Norman
French.

But the English aspire to cool reserve, so tended increasingly to
address *everybody* in the plural.

                                                     -- Dan --


... Ad astra per aspera (or, I'll never get off the ground)
--- Blue Wave/QWK v2.10
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: English English versus *American* English
Date: 30 Jul 92 06:08:15 GMT
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

mmmirash@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar Mukund Mirashi) writes:

>     The English spoken and written by the English is the standard for
>the language, and all other varieties of the language spoken and
>written worldwide should be judged according to this standard.

When we're done with this learned discussion, I'd like to have at those
Italians, French, Spanish, etc. for what they did to Latin.  Those ill-
educated bastards.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: dand@buscard.fidonet.org (Dan Davidson)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: anymore unique
Date: 29 Jul 92 04:29:00 GMT
X-Maildoor: WaflineMail 1.00r


  => In a message to All on 07-25-92  18:34 Tyson J R said:

 TJR> In article <gate.gc0BoB1w164w@buscard.fidonet.org>
 TJR> dand@buscard.fidonet.org (Dan Davidson) writes: >
 >
 >Any language is, almost by definition, a logic system.  I hope we can
 >all accept the legitimacy of "more logical" and "less logical.

 TJR> this is no *obviously* true and some people disagree.  Even if it is
 TJR> true that `language is ... a logic system', what property of this
 TJR> system has anything to do with the acceptability of phrases like
 TJR> `more unique'?

I wrote that, but I don't recall the point I was trying to answer.
I've never liked degrees of unique, but my comment looks to be aimed
at somebody's 'aside'.

                                                   -- Dan --

                      +------------------------------+
                      |   dand@buscard.fidonet.org   |
                      +------------------------------+
                      |       Dan Davidson           |
                      +------------------------------+



... Ad astra per aspera (or, I'll never get off the ground)
--- Blue Wave/QWK v2.10
             
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: jaapjl@tab00.larc.nasa.gov (J Lee Jaap)
Subject: Re: Take Back the Dildo
Followup-To: alt.usage.english
Organization: AS&M Inc
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 19:03:28 GMT

In article <9915@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) writes:

   English has THREE numbers for nouns: singular, plural, and mass.
[...]
   Mass examples: water, milk, sewage, entrails

   Mass nouns take the same verb forms and some of the same articles as singular 
   nouns, but that DOES NOT make them singular. 

Do you indeed say `the entrails is ...'?  My AHD says it's a plural
noun, with no note that it takes a singular verb as does `news'.

Good point overall, though.

--
J Lee Jaap <jaapjl@tab00.larc.nasa.gov> +1 804/864-2148
employed by, not speaking for, AS&M Inc, at NASA LaRC, Hampton VA 23665-5225
From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: "French" spacing (was: How many spaces after a period?)
Date: 31 Jul 92 19:13:47 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Jul25.135202.14273@news.eng.convex.com>, tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes:
>:> What's a fillet?
>:It's a boneless section of a fish, Tom.

>I'm going to hate myself for quoting them, but MacDonald's sells
>filets of fish, not fillets thereof.

That's okay, they aren't boneless sections of a fish, either.
More of a fishburger.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com) No, I don't speak for Cabletron.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Daily I'd go over to Congress - that grand old benevolent national asylum - and
report on the inmates there.  Never seen a body of men with tongues more handy,
or information more uncertain.  If one of those men had been present when the
Deity was on the point of saying "Let there be light" we never would've had it.
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: peter.churchill@rose.com (peter churchill)
Subject: Q.E.D.
Organization: Rose Media Inc, Toronto, Ontario.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 22:28:54 GMT
X-Gated-By: Usenet <==> RoseMail Gateway (v1.70)


Date Entered: 07-29-92 23:09

connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu comments:

| In article <1992Jul28.213433.13985@midway.uchicago.edu>, goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
| > kartik@hls.com (Kartik Chandrasekhar) writes:
| >>
| >>I was disturbed to see how the language is used here in the USA.
| >>What I have really come to despise are expressions such as:
| >>
| >>"I did not get the invite."
| >>"Dont do drugs." (Seen on billboards all over the country.)
| >
| > When one learns a language in school that is not one's mother-tongue,
| > one has to memorize a lot of rules that come naturally to a native
| > speaker.  It is easy to get so wrapped up with these rules that one
| > begins to see the rules as the language itself, and not as abstrac-
| > tions from it.  It is also easy to superimpose the norms of standard
| > written English on living speech communities, forgetting that, be-
| > cause you are not part of a living community of first-language Eng-
| > lish speakers, you haven't had the opportunity to learn the various
| > subtleties - regionalisms, levels of formality, etc. - that charac-
| > terize British, American, Australian, South Afreican, Canadian (etc.)
| > speech.
| >
| > If you find colloquial dialects unbearable, given your background,
| > then try reading alt.usage.english.  You may find partial fulfillment
| > there....
|
| My, we are getting nasty, aren't we?  And xenophobic to boot.
|
| Come on.  Native speakers of English make all of the mistakes that
| Kartik complained about, and that you and others have found in his
| post.  We have plenty of natives who try to make us write the way
| Sister Porcupina wanted us to because she thought that was the only
| way.  Kartik didn't tell us anything we didn't already know: that
| American newspapers sometimes make dreadful mistakes, and that some
| speakers of English (both native and foreign) don't write so well.
| Read some of the posts by natives.  Some of you guys don't bother
| to capitalize, punctuate, or even try to spell correctly, and we have
| constant trouble with posts that simply don't say what the poster
| intended.  Even *I* don't always make myself too clear, as a recent
| exchange on Black English --> German dialects illustrated.  Let's
| just cool it, do lunch, and hope that Bush can be beat.
|
| --Leo Connolly

Q.E.D.

Luv it!

Regards: *PC* <peter.churchill@rose.com>   Toronto
---
   RoseReader 1.70 P001013: (1) Open Mouth (2) Insert Foot....
   RoseMail 1.70: RoseNet<=>Usenet Gateway : Rose Media 416-733-2285
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: dks@athena.mit.edu (dks)
Subject: Re: "This" weekend vs. "Next" weekend
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 03:11:37 GMT

In article <1992Jul25.064116.13892@news.columbia.edu> jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox) writes:
>  I noticed recently in a conversation with someone a difference of
>usage between different areas of the U.S.  I distinguish between
>"this" weekend and "next" weekend, so that the former is the weekend
>immediately following the time I am talking about, whereas the latter
>is the weekend after that.  This similarly applies to days of the
>week.
>  However, I have run across many people who do not make this
>distinction--both "this" weekend and "next" weekend refer to the one
>directly following.  Needless to say, this has caused some confusion
>when I am not thinking about my usage...

I used to distinguish them the way you do.  Beginning about five years
ago, I noticed that no one understood me, so I gave up the practice.


>  Any comments?  Is this distinction made anywhere else in the
>English-speaking world?

I haven't done a serious study, but I have a feeling that the
distinction is understood (and used) more frequently by non-USA speakers.


Dhanesh




Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: sav@nanette.sni.de (Dr.Savory)
Subject: Re: Take Back the Dildo
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 06:28:40 GMT
Organization: Siemens Nixdorf Info.Sys. AG, Paderborn, Germany

I do not want to cant, or...
how about       an  infinity, countable infinities, uncountable what(s)?
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: jeremy@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Jeremy Smith)
Subject: Re: English English versus *American* English
Organization: Computer Science Outreach Services - Oregon State University
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 18:37:21 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.183222.20963@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> mmmirash@midway
.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar Mukund Mirashi) writes:
>
>    The major offenders: (written English)
>2. ize instead of ise - standardize instead of standardise!
>3. e instead of oe and ae (as in original Latin) - fetus instead of foetus,
---
>If you want to speak English, speak it like an Englishman.
 
 
I am an English person, born in the UK and brought up there.  In my 1964
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, the one I actually used at
grammar school (I stole it and still use it often), the entries for
standardise/standardize and foetus/fetus show BOTH spellings for both
of them.
Consider items 2 and 3 shot down in flames, less a little hemoglobin :-)

-- 
jeremy@jacobs.cs.orst.edu (Jeremy |-) Smith)
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that... well, yes I can!
SGNTR VRS VRSN 3.1B: Strppd nd cmprssd fr qckr trnsmssn! nfct yrs tdy!
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: English English versus *American* English
Date: 29 Jul 92 20:20:27 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Jul29.193534.21246@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> mmmirash@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar Mukund Mirashi) writes:
>corruption of word spellings! That is certainly a most shameful act, IMHO.
                                                                      ^^^^
Nonsense!  There's nothing whatsoever humble about your opinion.  8-)

.
 
-- 
===============================================================================
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind.  Or not to have a mind.  How true  
that is." -- J. Danforth Quayle at United Negro College Fund luncheon