Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Consiglio su frase

"Our friendship has lasted (for) five years. We have been writing to each
other as/so/that long".
Posto che la seconda frase sia corretta, voi usereste "as", "so" o "that",
magari con diverse sfumature? Personalmente, "as" non mi piace qui (è
corretto?), "so" mi sembra un poco più ricercato e "that", invece, mi
sembra neutro. Che ne dite? Parliamo di sfumature, lo so bene.
Ciao, FB
-- 
"Nasalization is just a part of life"
(Joey DoWop Dee on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese)

 Ciao, FB
To my ear, 'as' and 'that' have the same significance, and equate the
length of the friendship with the length of the letter writing.
Using 'so' tells me that they've been writing for a long (long) time, but I
don't know how long. I might assume the letter writing started before the
friendship.
-- 
The foregoing is my opinion, and my opinion alone. It is intended to
demonstrate modern American English -- colloquial and spoken, (but well
spoken) for the most part; not literary American English. Ergo, caveat
lector. (No, not you, Hannibal)
Oh, if you feel the need to e-mail me, un-not my address first.

 friendship.
Now I see. What if I wrote 
"Our friendship has lasted (for) five years, and we have been writing to
each other as/so/that long"?
Could it mean the same thing as if I used "as" or "that" in lieu of "so"
(even if the sense of an indefinite "sooo long" would be possible)?
What if (it's nothing to do with the considerations above) I rephrased it
thus:
"Our friendship has lasted five years, and as/that long have we been
writing to each other".
Would you see it as literary, only poetic, excessively ponderous or just
wrong?
Bye, FB
-- 
Se dico "siedi!" manca l'oggetto.
Siedo chi? Lei o me?
(da it.cultura.linguistica.italiano)

 wrong?
Yes.


 writing to each other".
The inverted word order is very poetic or studied. Either as or that could
be used, but again with the same meaning.
"Our friendship has lasted five years, and that long have we been
writing to each other." (Sounds odd to an AmEng ear.)
*"Our friendship has lasted five years, and as long have we been
writing to each other". *Non si direbbe mai.
In either case, "...and we have been writing to each other as/that long" is
more natural.


 writing to each other". *Non si direbbe mai.
So, with "that long" the sentence is odd, with "as long" it is just
impossible?
Ciao, neh!
-- 
L'importante č che risplenda tu, sola primadonna e immarcescibile leggenda
del tuo pianerottolo.
(Lucangel su it.cultura.libri)


I've got nothing else better to do, it's Alt+149.

 I've got nothing else better to do, it's Alt+149.
It seems to be the code for "ò" (accento grave), which we happen to have in
(on?) our keyboards, here in Italy. The code for "ó" is alt+162. We haven't
got it in our keyboards as no Italian word has (could I say "bears"?) that
accent, in that we only use a graphic accent on truncated words, such as
"però", all of which happen to end with an open "o".
Ciao, FB
-- 
Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry. 'She was determined to drop his
acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she had never been
acquainted with him at all'. (Jane Austen)

 impossible?
The second just doesn't make sense; the first sounds weird, man! :)


 The second just doesn't make sense; the first sounds weird, man! :)
I guess I have to surrender, then. (smiling face)
Bye, FB
-- 
Io ho deciso di rifiutarmi di vederlo: Ettore con la faccia di Eric Banana
mi fa venire i conati.
(commento sul film "Troy" su it.fan.scrittori.tolkien)

 "però", all of which happen to end with an open "o".
Yes! You could say "bears that accent" instead of "has that accent"; the
latter is an example of writing that's to the point, no frills. The former
is IMHO an example of "writing up" a bit, a little more colorful. (But not
Austenian colorful. :)


"però", all of which happen to end with an open "o".
I don't use ascii, I just switch to the Italian language when writing
accents. On my English keyboard(@ = à)([ = è).... etc I've just about
remembered where they all are now. I did try to find "è" capitalised,
but the closest I got was É (alt+144) the only use for this is if I
ever break out into capitalised hysteria i.e. PERCHÉ!!!!???? but I
can't see me doing this. Speaking of "perché" I've seen the "é" spelt
also with accento grave (è) sometimes, can you explain this?

 also with accento grave (č) sometimes, can you explain this?
The speaker was either absent-minded or a bit ignorant * (but it's no big
deal): all the words ending with stressed "che" bear an "accento acuto"
(e.g. "perché", "giacché", "poiché", "anziché"). 
It's just occurred to me that maybe the speaker was from Northern Italy,
perhaps Lombardia: here you hear "perchč" most of the time, but I suppose
that someone so educated as to notice an open or close "o" would also know
that "perché" has an "accento acuto" (because it should be pronounced in
that way).
* but then we all are, aren't we? Tommaso Campanella wrote in a poem "e
quanto intendo piů, tanto piů ignoro", that is "and the more I know, the
more I am unaware of" (I suppose it could be translated better).
Ciao, FB


 more I am unaware of" (I suppose it could be translated better).
With license, I would translate it as "The more I learn, the less I know."
Verrry philosophical!


more I am unaware of" (I suppose it could be translated better).
Ain't it the truth :) The more I study, the more confused I get.


When I first studied Italian at the university in 1958, there was
only ONE accent ever used... the grave.  I never saw perché written
with an acute accent until around 20 years ago.  Since then it
seems to have become standard for all final stressed "e" to have
a grave accent when they are open and an acute accent when they are
closed.  This doesn't occur with "o" because final stressed "o" is
always open.  With the other vowels, they are always either open
or closed and therefore no distinction is necessary so they always
have the grave accent.  That is to say that "a" is always open while
"i" and "u" are always closed, but you never see an acute accent on
either "i" or "u."
In the literature, I have seen many, many examples of "perchč"
one of which I just looked at now:  Published by G. Ricordi & Co.
of Milan, the opera Tosca by G. Puccini, specifically the aria
"Vissi d'arte..." where Tosca says "perchč me ne rimuneri cosě?"
and again "Perchč, perchč, Signor, perchč me ne rinumeri cosě?"
-- 
Dale Erwin
Salamanca 116
Pueblo Libre
Lima 21 PERU
Tel. +51(1)461-3084
Cel. +51(1)9743-6439
DALE ERWIN'S OPERA FILES - 
http://www.geocities.com/dale_erwin

 and again "Perchè, perchè, Signor, perchè me ne rinumeri così?"
Uhm, strange, I suppose. Anyway I daresay nothing special has occurred
during the last twenty years; during the last one hundred years, maybe.
Perhaps they were just looser on orthography.


 I've got nothing else better to do, it's Alt+149.
I just hit the ` key, then the vowel o, and get ò.
It's intuitive, with no codes to worry about.
^ key then vowel
â     ê     î    ô    û
Or, ^ key and uppercase vowel
Â    Ê    Î    Ô   Û
`key (grave accent) then vowel
à     è     ì    ò    ù
' (apostrophe [acute accent] key) then vowel
á     é     í    ó    ú
~ key then a, n, or o
ã      ñ     õ
" key then vowel
ä      ë      ï     ö    ü     ÿ
I thought all the Europeans used this system.
Just out of curiosity, what operating system do you use?
Joe from Massachusetts


What about saying "Our friendship has lasted (for) five years. We have
been writing to each
other for that long"?
Joe from Massachusetts


That's they way my system works, too, Joe, except that I have
to use the right ALT key with all except the ` and ~ key.




That's the original sentence (except for the second "for"), isn't it?
Bye, FB
-- 
L'importante è che risplenda tu, sola primadonna e immarcescibile leggenda


 I thought all the Europeans used this system.
No - I don't remember what UK keyboards are like, but here in Italy, for
example, we use the Italian keyboard which has ^, à, é, è, ì, ò, ù and ç
characters, and the French keyboard is similar, but without the Italian
accented characters. There isn't a dead-key accent character on our
keyboard except for the circumflex.
For other accented characters there are some useful Word shortcuts, such
as CTRL-SHIFT-: followed by a vowel to give a character with an umlaut
over it.
-- 
Mary

over it.
If you use windows, you can install also more than one "language" for
the keyboard and switch to the layout you want when you need it.
I use the "en-us" layout all the time but if I really need to type
characters like ùòé I just switch to "it" :-)
'bye

 There isn't a dead-key accent character on our keyboard except for the circumflex.
I haven't a dead-key character for the circumflex. Do you?
Bye, FB
-- 
"Gli americani sono ignoranti per loro stessa natura"
that is "The Americans are naturally ignorant"
(Paolo Bonardi on it.cultura.linguistica)

Which O.S. does allow you that, or is it a feature of some program?
In my case a Spanish keyboard. I have an Arabic keyboard and now it's
set as a Spanish one. I use Windows XP.
If I hit ` plus a letter I get these:
à è ù ì ò 
If I hit ´ plus a letter I get these:
á é ú í ó ý 
if I hit ¨ (shift + ´) plus a letter I get these:
ä ë ü ï ö ÿ
If I hit ^ (shift + `) plus a letter I get these
â ê û î ô
Sebastiano

 I haven't a dead-key character for the circumflex. Do you?
Yes, on my Italian keyboard.
It's at the top right, above the ě character.
(Psst... devi dire "I haven't got", o "I don't have" se vuoi far
l'americano.)
-- 
Mary

 o "I don't have" se vuoi far l'americano
No, no, che americano? (faccina sorridente e scherzosa) Non ho capito bene
una cosa: si usa davvero "to have" con l'ausiliare "to do" in inglese
britannico?
Ciao, FB
-- 
L'importante è che risplenda tu, sola primadonna e immarcescibile leggenda


 No, no, che americano?
You should be so lucky.
Would that you were so lucky.
In a pig's *ss!   :)


 britannico?
Certo.  Do you have breakfast every day? So do I.
Ma normalmente non quando "have" è usato per indicare possesso.
-- 
Mary

 Ma normalmente non quando "have" è usato per indicare possesso.
Va bene. Grazie.
* Agli stranieri: per quanto possa risultare difficile comprendere il
concetto di accento, vi prego di essere particolarmente cauti per questa
parola.
Ciao, FB
-- 
"Nasalization is just a part of life"
(Joey DoWop Dee on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese)

 parola.
Please provide an in-depth explanation of this, and include what the
outcome of a mis-pronunciation might be. Preferably in Italian. :)


outcome of a mis-pronunciation might be. Preferably in Italian. :)
I was trying to find a similitude in English, maybe this could work:
Talking about a chess game you want to say "he drags the queen" but
you come out with "he's the drag queen"  :-)
'bye

à è ù ì ò 
Nice feature, though I don't think I'll install XP on my PC just to
have it :-)
'bye

outcome of a mis-pronunciation might be. Preferably in Italian. :)
Chécche significa "fags". Il singolare è checca. No, "fag" è troppo
forte. Una checca è una persona effemminata, non necessariamente gay.
Ma lo puoi anche usare in modo offensivo, per indicare degli
omosessuali. "Guarda quelle checche di merda!". Qui non è certo usato
in modo leggero. Ah, vale solo per i maschi. Le lesbiche non possono
essere checche.
Checché significa "qualunque cosa", come in "checché tu dica", ovvero
"qualunque cosa tu dica".
"checché" non è molto usato, comunque, checché dica FB. ;D
Sebastiano



I don't think it has to do with the OS you use. I wanted to install that
feature as well, and of course Sebba will tell me how to do so.
Bye, FB
-- 
Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry. 'She was determined to drop his
acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she had never been
acquainted with him at all'. (Jane Austen)

 "checché" non è molto usato, comunque, checché dica FB. ;D
Io posso dire checchessia *, o no?
* qui, invece, rispettare la doppia, altrimenti sembra un improbabile "e
checche sia!". Ora la pianto.



A few other intuitively accessible characters I forgot:
' key then c = ç
alt + ! = ¡
alt + ? =¿
alt + s = ß
I use Win 98 SE, with standard physical US 102-key "Windows"
keyboard..
Language: English, US with the US International
keyboard layout installed, in place of the default Standard US
keyboard layout,  under W98 setup.
All accents and special characters needed for Spanish,
French, Italian, and German are intuitively accessible.
I can see no reason why an English-speaking American would use
any other keyboard layout, but the default Standard US keyboard
layout is used by the vast majority of Windows users.
The only disadvantage of the US
Intl kybd is that if you want to type one of the "special" characters
by themselves (` ' ^ ~ "), you have to follow it with a space, so to
type '  I am actually typing 'space. This can be disconcerting for
some people.
The right Alt key, by itself, or in combination with the shift key, as
Dale mentioned, also provides additional characters
(some of which are duplicates of those
accessed by the "special" keys), whose location is not intuitive,
in the way that the accent keys and a few others are. The most useful
would be the new  ? symbol,  ¥,  Ð, £, ¢ × , ÷ , the
degree symbol ° , the superscripts and fractions, and the German ß.
I notice that sometimes the Euro (?) symbol sometimes disappears in
emails.
`  1  2  3  4  5   6  7  8   9  0  -  =  \   Normal LC
    ¡  ²  ³   ¤  ?  ¼  ½  ¾  '  '  ¥  ×  ¬   ALT
    ¹     £                ÷  ¦                       ALT SH
q  w  e   r  t    y   u   i   o  p  {  }       LC
ä   å   é ®  þ  ü  ú  í  ó  ö                 ALT
Ä  Å  É     Þ  Ü  Ú  Í  Ó  Ö  «  »     ALT Sh
a  s  d  f  g  h  j  k  l  ;  '      LC
Á §  Ð           Ø  ¶             ALT
á  ß  ð            ø  °               ALT
z  x   c  v  b  n  m  ,  .  /       LC
æ      ©        ñ  µ  Ç            ALT
Æ      ¢        Ñ     ç     ¿      ALT SH
Joe from Massachusetts

     ¹     £                ÷  ¦                       ALT SH
Just pretend that the ? is the symbol for the Euro.
I'll have to fix that.
Joe from Massachusetts

 sgrammaticato, o che altro?
Neanche in inglese americano suona bene.  Ma direi io che anche se
non suona bene č corretto grammaticalmente.
"I haven't the time to bother with that" č perfettamente corretto.



???????? guadagna un mucchio di ?uro a Wimbledon.
Bye bye, Kornikova..
I think I finally figured out what the problem was with the character
set.
Joe from Massachusetts

 wrote in message
news:ZnAFc.27075$WI2.25919@lakeread05...

Maybe not.

 




Шарапова guadagna un mucchio di €.


I think I have the character problem fixed 
now.



 



**********************(Repost of improperly formatted 
message)************************

would be the new  € symbol,  Ðퟀ�, ¥  , 
£,  ¢ , × , ÷ , µ , the


degree symbol °  , the superscripts and 
fractions, and the German ß .
I notice that sometimes the Euro (€) 
symbol sometimes disappears in
emails.
`  1  2  3  
4  5   6  7  8   9  0  -  
=   \     Lower Case


    ¡   ²   
³  ¤  €   ¼  ½ ¾ ‘   ’   ¥  
×  ¬    ALT
    
¹           
£                                  
÷  ¦    ALT SH
q  w  e   
r   t    y   u   i   
o  p  {  }       LC
ä  
å  é   ®  þ  ü   ú   
í    ó ö  « 
»      ALT


Ä Å  
É       Þ  Ü  Ú  
Í    Ó 
Ö             ALT 
SH


a  s  d  f  g  h  
j  k  l    ;   '      
LC
á  ß  
ð                   
ø  
¶          ALT
A §  
Ð                  Ø  
°           ALT 
SH
z    x   c  v  b  n  
m  ,    .   /       
LC
æ       
©         ñ  µ   
ç      
¿     ALT


Á        
¢         
Ñ       
Ç             ALT 
SH


Joe from 
Massachusetts



 I think I have the character problem fixed now.
эд э aнкэ уиa грaн бэллa ньёккa.
Ciao, FB
-- 
Io ho deciso di rifiutarmi di vederlo: Ettore con la faccia di Eric Banana
mi fa venire i conati.
(commento sul film "Troy" su it.fan.scrittori.tolkien)

 I think I have the character problem fixed now.
Why don't you switch to 40tude Dialog? It chooses automatically the aptest
(would "suitable" be better?) charset. 
I myself used Outlook but, trust me, Dialog is way better, especially if
you like languages, and then may need to use several charsets.
Bye, FB


 
Ла плум де ма тант ест 
сур ла табл  :>) 


 


Я не знаю эту "Диалог".


I don't know anything about "Dialog", but I will certainly 
look into it. My problem, I think, is that my mail and news were not set up for 
Unicode. Things appear to be working fine now.


I suddenly developed a great interest in Russian while 
watching that tennis match this morning. Since Maria's cell phone didn't work at 
the end of 


the match, I'll bet she gets a big contract with some 
cell-phone company or cell-phone service provider.


 


Joe from Massachusetts



 эд э aнкэ уиa грaн бэллa ньёккa.
 
Но это наверно не Русский!


 Но это наверно не Русский!
Questo è russo vero? Io scrivevo in cirillitaliano.



Ma che dici, l'ho capito bene, vuol dire che la Sharapova č una bella
ragazza.  :<)
Joe from Massachusetts

            Encoding: quoted-printable
Are you posting in html?
I haven't been able to read your latest posts.
-- 
Mary

"Mary Cassidy" <ma...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:40E7328F...@invalid.invalid...

Meno male.  :>)
Actually, I have been experimenting with my mail and news settings,
because the ? Euro symbol was not appearing  in mail which I sent.
Joe from Massachusetts

 Questo è russo vero? Io scrivevo in cirillitaliano.
Да, конечно это наверно русский. А да, я это знал.
Sì, naturalment è vero russo. E sì, questo lo sapevo.



Mi sembra invece il solito cirillicazzato.
Joe from Massachusetts



One of the problems with using extended character sets in e-mail and
newsgroups is that for one reason or another, what is sent is often
not received by everyone in the original format.
I used to work with several Russian-speaking engineers from the former
Soviet Union, and we discovered that the most reliable method of
sending Russian text was to compose letters in Russian, in a word
processor, then convert the letters to pdf format, and send them as
attachments to e-mail. Pdf files can contain embedded fonts, so even
if the recipient of a pdf file does not have Russian fonts installed
on his computer, he will still be able to read the Russian text, and
print it. The same goes for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, and I would
guess Arabic and any other language. The Acrobat Reader required to
read pdf files is free, and works with most operating systems, but the
software required to create true pdf files (files with scalable
embedded fonts) is rather expensive for an individual, but well worth
the cost for a business. Another alternative is to send a bmp file of
a document containing unusual characters, but these files tend to be
rather large, and the text is rather fuzzy.
I have been a user of Adobe Acrobat for quite some time, mainly
because of my interest in languages, but also because of its
usefulness in transmitting engineering (CAD) drawings which can be
printed exactly as created, by anyone possessing the free Acrobat
Reader software. Once, in order to convince a former employer to
purchase a copy of the Adobe Acrobat software, I installed my copy of
the software at work, and  created a pdf file containing pages from
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian newspapers "captured" from the
internet. The file also contained several complex electrical and
mechanical drawings for some of the company's products, along with
manuals and spreadsheets, complete with detailed graphics.
Within weeks they bought a few copies of the software.
I didn't realize that just because Joey D and FB could read my posts,
that not everyone else could. But of course, those two are unusual
characters, so one would expect them to understand unusual character
sets. :>)
Joe from Massachusetts

 эд э aнкэ уиa грaн бэллa ньёккa.
э сa пурэ джёкaрэ a тэннис!!
Ciao, FB
-- 
Se dico "siedi!" manca l'oggetto.
Siedo chi? Lei o me?
(da it.cultura.linguistica.italiano)

 э сa пурэ джёкaрэ a тэннис!!
Io avrei detto: э сa пурэ джoкaрэ a тэннис!!
perché l'ё prende sempre l'accento, dunque sarebbe: giòcare. :)
-- 


 embedded fonts) is rather expensive for an individual, but well worth
The word processor component of OpenOffice.org can save any
document as a .pdf file which can be read by the Acrobat Reader.
And it's free.


 And it's free.
I like OpenOffice. Sometimes, when MS Word makes me lose my temper,
OpenOffice is the solution. I once were able to open some text documents I
couldn't open with Word; moreover I think that Writer (OpenOffice
word-processor) handles images far better.
Ciao, FB


 perché l'ё prende sempre l'accento, dunque sarebbe: giòcare. :)
Tanto più che la "i", non pronunciata in italiano, serve solo a segnalare
il suono della "g" come in "gioco", non come in "gara". Nella trascrizione
in cirillico questo non serve.


 Ciao, FB
I beg to differ. Although the sound of дж isn't native to Russian, in
transcriptions it always renders the sound of soft g or j, as in джoий, my
name. And there's still the matter of the stress being on the ё.


 name. 
How do you differ, then? I said that not only was "ё" inappropriate, as you
had pointed out, it was also useless, as the "i" in "giocare" is not
pronounced (I guess in Naples it is, but it's not correct).
Bye, FB




I apologize; I apparently misinterpreted your post. Although your
transcription would work for a word accented on ё, it doesn't here. For
some reason I thought you were saying it doesn't work at all. A thousand
pardons! :)


 wrote in message
news:2kr5ftF...@uni-berlin.de...

I agree that the pdf export feature of Open Office would be a solution
to the problem of transmitting unusual charcter sets via email.
I was unaware that my posts (and those of Joey D and FB) containing
Russian characters were not being viewed by all who accessed this NG,
until Mary brought this to my attention. I then tried to access the NG
via the internet, rather than via my ISP and Outlook Express, which is
my normal mode of access. I could read the Russian characters in
Outlook, but not on the internet.
I use Adobe Acrobat every day to download, or "capture", with just a
few clicks of the mouse, complete newspapers in pdf format into a
single file, which I can then peruse at my leisure, skipping from page
to page, zooming in and out, searching for particular text, etc. The
number of newspapers publishing in pdf format is increasing, but,
unfortunately, so is the number of newspapers which charge a fee to
access the pdf versions of their newspapers.
Joe from Massachusetts

 In it.sport.calcio there are 7 "perché('s)" and 13 "perchè('s)"!
<snip>
Incidentally, on the Italian Usenet it's generally recommended not to
write accented vowels in the Subject, and replace them with vovel +
apostophe/accent sign [perché ==> perche'], while accented vowels are
no longer an issue in the text of the message :)