There are 21 messages totalling 487 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. the uuencoded stuff 2. ADS-ANS deadline September 1 (5) 3. knee high to ? (2) 4. ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply (4) 5. secret codes (2) 6. Knee High 7. Pot-house politicians (fwd) 8. My Final Post on uuencoding 9. pothouse (2) 10. NOT: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 11. Fwd: knee-high ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 14:53:49 +1000 From: Baden Hughes Subject: the uuencoded stuff To the rest of the world To all the rest of those out there on the Linguist list, I'm not sure about you but no-one seems to have gotten to the bottom of this uuencoded problem yet. I'm sure there's one simple solution, *don't send uuencoded messages* then we don't have to fill up our list with a lot of unnecessary rubbish. If problems do arise with stuff like this I'm sure individuals could mail individuals. Baden Hughes B.HUGHES[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]student.anu.edu.au ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 23:59:30 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 At 4:26 PM 8/31/95, Allan Metcalf wrote: >Dear Betty, > I don't know what's in your mail. I don't have Pegasus, and I have no idea >how to decode it manually. Can you send plain text? > Thanks - Allan Metcalf Hey, folks; get any version of the uudecoders (uuUndo, uuLite are fine). UUencoding is becoming a standard for long files that won't fit in the limited space used by email programs. If you have a Mac, get a copy of BinHex 4 as well. Use your FTP (Archie?) fetcher. If the term FTP is nonsense to you, get any one of the Internet manuals (I use _Internet for Dummies_) Check your manuals for "attachments". (Welcome to the 'Net!) On the other hand, we just tried to decode the message and nothing came up at all. So obviously there is a problem somewhere. Are we all using the same Captain Video Decoder Rings? r mckinzey ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 04:55:36 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 > As to why anyone sending a message would send it in a > uueoncoded format, I'm afraid I haven't figured that one out. The only reason to use uuencode is to mail a non-text file: either an executable file (an application of some kind) or a file in a format like regular Wordperfect (not ASCII). If you have something like a Wordperfect document that you want to e-mail to somebody without losing features like underlining, you can uuencode it. The person who receives it uudecodes it and has the full-featured document, not an ASCII version. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 04:58:13 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 > UUencoding is becoming a standard for long files that won't fit in the > limited space used by email programs. Uuencode does not compress. There is no reason to use it except for e-mailing binary files. IT WILL NOT MAKE YOUR FILE SHORTER. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 06:49:32 -0500 From: wachal robert s Subject: knee high to ? "a grasshopper" is standard and the only form listed in Wentworth and Flexner. Chapman also lists 'bumblebee', 'spit', and 'splinter'. Spears 1st ed. doesn't list the item and I don't have his 2nd ed. here at home. Maybe Joan Hall has something from the DARE files. Bob Wachal ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 09:28:00 -0500 From: Molly Dickmeyer Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply For those of you who are also wordslers, does this coded message business remind you of the Wild man? I repeat: in my opinion, the majority of the burden of being understood in a written communication lies on the writer, not the reader. This is why we have composition 101. I just refuse to worry about reading it. I think it's rude, even. Molly Dickmeyer dickmeye[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]phl.lrpub.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 10:04:41 -0400 From: Al Futrell Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 On Fri, 1 Sep 1995, Natalie Maynor wrote: > > UUencoding is becoming a standard for long files that won't fit in the > > limited space used by email programs. > > Uuencode does not compress. There is no reason to use it except for > e-mailing binary files. IT WILL NOT MAKE YOUR FILE SHORTER. > --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) Indeed, usually uuencoding makes the file longer!!! Al Futrell -- al[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]spieler.comm.louisville.edu -- http://www.louisville.edu/~awfutr01 Dept of Communication -- University of Louisville ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 09:13:38 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply > lies on the writer, not the reader. This is why we have composition > 101. I just refuse to worry about reading it. I think it's rude, > even. I think it was an accident in this case. I also think that it was probably meant to go just to Allan, not to the whole list. I meant to say that earlier this morning. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 09:58:01 -0400 From: "Williams, Kitty" Subject: secret codes It may be because I am not particularly interested in information about the September 1 deadline, but I laughed out loud while reading the messages about the uuencoded document. Y'all (youse guys) have to admit - it's a pretty funny saga! By the way, if those long messages about NEH funding fit into an e-mail (message), that ADS-ANS deadline message ought to as well. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 10:16:44 -0400 From: Dennis R Preston Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply I am especially fond of some of the most recent reponses to coded messages which suggest that the sender is rude. For old childhood bilinguals like me, I feel they are uncomfortably close to generally unfortunate US responses to bilingualism. If one says something to his or her own speech community, another (even if only an unratified overhearer [a term I am especially fond of, by the way]), often responds angrily. One of my favorite anecdotes comes from an Ann Arbor friend (just to show that such xenophobia is not limited to what the hoity-toity may think of as backwater areas). He was out for a stroll in one of the many public green areas of Ann Arbor. Two young women speaking Arabic (which my friend is capable of identifying, by the way) came strolling along the path in the other direction. A local, walking near the young women and in the same direction, turned to them and said (in what my friend decribed as a most unpleasant tone, probably an understatement), SPEAK ENGLISH! While we are on this general topic, did others see in their local newspapers the notice that a judge in Amarillo TX found a woman guilty of child abuse because she spoke only Spanish to her pre-school age child at home? Her avowed purpose (since she is fluent in English) is to create a bilingual child. Bilinguals, aint no bilinguals around these parts, pardner. What did a former president say? Millions for elitist second language teaching but not one penny for lower-status language preservation. If we are not careful, we may succeed in English Only and end up with the peaceful and unified culture which Serbo-Croatian provided the former Yugoslavia. Wow! I must have got up on the Ann Arbor side of the bed today. [dInIs] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 09:37:12 CST From: Luanne von Schneidemesser Subject: Re: knee high to ? In Message Fri, 1 Sep 1995 06:49:32 -0500, wachal robert s writes: >"a grasshopper" is standard and the only form listed in Wentworth and >Flexner. >Chapman also lists 'bumblebee', 'spit', and 'splinter'. Spears 1st ed. >doesn't list the item and I don't have his 2nd ed. here at home. > >Maybe Joan Hall has something from the DARE files. > >Bob Wachal We are entering 'knee-high to a grasshopper' in vol. 3. It appears throughout the country, but the form 'knee-high to a duck' is found chiefly in the South and South Midland. We also cite 'knee-high to a pup, jackrabbit, toad, bumblebee, cock-sparrow, June-bug, nothing.' Luanne ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 09:44:44 CDT From: Randy Roberts Subject: Knee High Like others, knee high to a grasshopper, was most familiar to me in Kansas. Maybe it's because we had so many hoppers. I've looked through Peter Tamony's files on the phrase and his notes lead to several other interesting examples, as follows: "Who was it kilt that danged black bull of Pete Darby's, away back that when the devil warn't no more than knee high to a toad frog?" Thames Williamson, The Woods Colt, A Novel of the Ozark Hills, New York, 1933, page 6. "Swinging Indian clubs filled the interludes, and two or three artists at this business won applause, particularly a 'knee high to a load' boy, who was an expert of the first water." The Spirit of the Times, New York, 24 March 1877, page 179, column 2. R. H. Thornton, An American Glossary, London, 1912. Gives a number of variations such as knee high to a bantam, to a duck, and to a toad. Slang and Its Analogues has knee high to a mosquito, to a toad, to a chaw of tobacco, and others. Carey Woofter, "Dialect Words from West Virginia," American Speech, May 1927, records knee high to a duck and to a grasshopper. Chancey M'Govern, Sarjint Larry An' Friends, Manila, P.I., 1906, page 95. "Well, sirr, not since I was a shirt-tail kid not knee-high to a lame duck . . . " Randy Roberts University of Missouri-Columbia robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ext.missouri.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 08:29:09 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 It's really too bad this comedy act posing as a thread was under such a misleading title. I almost dumped them before reading! Bethany's is a voice of sanity in an increasingly jargonized and polarized society -- and I used to do software tech support! It's little enough understood that each computer domain becomes its own world ("PC" -- ambiguous enough these days indeed, logically meaning just a personal computer but more usually found in "what do you have, a PC or a Mac?"; those who are hooked into networks, usually at work, have yet another terminological overlay; some go thru a university but others thru commercial providers, etc.). I say let's send the Bethany/Larry show on the road to perform at computer faires! On Thu, 31 Aug 1995, Bethany Dumas, UTK wrote: > Thanks, Larry. Let me be sure I understand: > > I should find a program called UULite on something called a university > file server, download it, then -- what/ How do I get the computer > garbage I received INTO the thing that is going to decode it? > > I'm certain you computer literates are sick of reading how little I > know about all this. But if someone can just help me get started ... > > Thanks, > Bethany > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 10:22:04 -0600 From: Marianna Di Paolo Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply >If one says something to his or her own speech community, another (even if >only an unratified overhearer [a term I am especially fond of, by the way]), >often responds angrily. >One of my favorite anecdotes comes from an Ann Arbor friend (just to show that >such xenophobia is not limited to what the hoity-toity may think of as >backwater areas). He was out for a stroll in one of the many public green >areas of Ann Arbor. Two young women speaking Arabic (which my friend is capable >of identifying, by the way) came strolling along the path in the other >direction. A local, walking near the young women and in the same direction, >turned to them and said (in what my friend decribed as a most unpleasant tone, >probably an understatement), SPEAK ENGLISH! >While we are on this general topic, did others see in their local newspapers >the notice that a judge in Amarillo TX found a woman guilty of child abuse >because she spoke only Spanish to her pre-school age child at home? Her avowed >purpose (since she is fluent in English) is to create a bilingual child. >Bilinguals, aint no bilinguals around these parts, pardner. What did a former >president say? Millions for elitist second language teaching but not one >penny for lower-status language preservation. If we are not careful, we may >succeed in English Only and end up with the peaceful and unified culture which >Serbo-Croatian provided the former Yugoslavia. >Wow! I must have got up on the Ann Arbor side of the bed today. >[dInIs] > Since this recent court decision seems to me to be a more pertinent topic for this list than uudecoding, I thought I would take the opportunity to jump in. I was just interviewed by a local radio talk show host about this incident. Although he is an avowed right-winger and is on a conservative radio station that broadcasts throughout the region dominated by Salt Lake City, he agreed with me that it is good to promote early childhood bilingualism and that it is very unreasonable to call it "child abuse" as the judge in the custody hearing did. Unfortunately, I didn't get to hear the subsequent discussion between the host and the callers, but my guess is that it was largely pro-bilingualism. Why? Because the LDS (Latter Day Saints/Mormon) Church promotes second language learning and seems to be (recently??) also promoting language maintenance. I am fairly sure that this is connected to the missionary functions of the LDS Church. But maybe someone out there can say more about this. In spite of the supposed positive regard for bilingualism, I still get more xenophobic responses to my name here than I remember getting in Texas and it would also be no surprise to hear that Dennis' Ann Arbor incident actually happened in Salt Lake City. And like Dennis, I may be more sensitive to the contradictory attitudes towards bilingualism because I am an early childhood bilingual. Anyway, I think that it's important to keep in mind that Amarillo is probably one of the least bilingual of the Texas cities of its size because of its social history. I think that it would have been very unlikely for a judge south of the "language line" in Texas to decide that the mother's use of Spanish was abusive. Marianna Di Paolo m.dipaolo[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]m.cc.utah.edu Linguistics Program 2300 LNCO University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 13:09:21 -0400 From: Jerry Miller Subject: Re: Pot-house politicians (fwd) I don't actually know the answer, but my instincts tell me a "pot-house" was exactly what it implies -- an outhouse. I'll now see if I can find something that confirms or invalidates that common-sense response, okay? Jerry Miller ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 13:13:09 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: My Final Post on uuencoding I wrote our univ. helpdesk this query: > I keep being sent uuencoded files that look like garbage. If I am > working on a Macintosh and I want to figure out what one of those files says, > what do I do? Someone suggested that I find a program called UULite on my > "university file server," down load it --but then did not tell me what > to do next? What do I turn to for help? The helpdesk responded: I looked all through our mac server called Promethius. I could not find a uudecoder. You may want to check with some of your friends that have macs. You may be able to access a bulletin board and down load a file that will do it. If you have other questions you can call us here. Have a good weekend. I think I can live without uuencoding for now. That's all, follks. Enjoyed the thread, irrelevant as it was. Bethany Dumas dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 14:13:33 +0000 From: "E. W. Gilman" Subject: pothouse Pothouse is entered in W3 with the meaning "alehouse, tavern". The similar-sounding word for an outhouse is "boghouse". ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 13:37:09 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: NOT: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 > It's really too bad this comedy act posing as a thread was under such a > misleading title. I almost dumped them before reading! INDEED! I dumped nearly all of mine before I discovered what I had done. Am I going to have to open every file on every topic now? Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 20:24:47 -0400 From: "Aaron E. Drews" Subject: Re: pothouse > Pothouse is entered in W3 with the meaning "alehouse, tavern". The > similar-sounding word for an outhouse is "boghouse". In Scotland, I heard referred to just as "bog".... kind of a nice place to be after visiting the pothouses (according to W3's definition) too much. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 21:15:37 -0400 From: Douglas Mazanec Subject: Re: Fwd: knee-high In Cleveland, it's been (and still is) knee-high to a grasshopper. Douglas Mazanec (Mazman[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]delphi.com) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 23:53:25 EDT From: Terry Lynn Irons Subject: Re: secret codes If we don't understand uuencoding and the other things that new technologies allow us to do, do we really have any right to say that the NEH should give us money? Increasingingly I find technology being used by humans who are not in control of it and it scares me. I don't know why, but I still think the people using the machines should be smarter than the machines. As objections arise, I need to point out that the of my first sentence emcompasses a wide group of people. Some of you already know, I hope, that my comments do not apply to you. Pardon me, while I go back to work. I accidentally whipped out my config.sys and autoexec.bat files when I meant to delete files on my a: drive. It was at first a frustration, but now I see it as an opportunity to rethink what I do. Now if I can only configure the programs I have been loading. Something to do with mapping. Bye the bye, thanks, Don and Virginia. PS: Natalie, I need to ask you to force remove a group of people from ADS-L. Our domain name here has been changed to direct mail to more than 1 machine via a nameserver, and so people can't unsub because of the reply-to header in the messages. (And they don't know how to customize headers or use EMACS--the god command application of all applications in UNIX). Last year I asked students in a class to sub to ADS-L as a class requirement and either post or reply to a query. At semester's end many did not unsub and they donh't read their mail and our usemail dir is filling up with stuff. BE WARNED: I am using the same assignment this fall with a new group of students. BUt I need to clean things up both here and there first. Reply to let me know what info you need to do the purging. Terry -- (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 31 Aug 1995 to 1 Sep 1995 *********************************************** There is one message totalling 23 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. uuencoded files, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 14:16:32 -0400 From: ALICE FABER Subject: uuencoded files, etc. With regard to the whole uuencoding fiasco, a few comments. My problem with the message was not its being uuencoded (if someone sends me something in a format I can't read, I won't read it; if they want me to read it, they'll send it in a format I *can* read, like good old text!), but its length. I get ADS-L in digest form, to keep my mailbox from being cluttered up with 20-30 messages a day. When the second message in the digest is 20-30 screens long and gibberish, there is a very strong likelihood that I'm not going to hit return that many times but instead will trash the whole digest. If I'd done that this time, I would have missed a lot of interesting stuff. For this reason, I very much appreciate Allan Metcalf's offer to created a mailing list for the NEH messages; they're important, but I often don't have time to deal with them, and they decrease the likelihood that I'll see the rest of what's in the ADS-L digest for that day. Alice Faber faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]haskins.yale.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 1 Sep 1995 to 2 Sep 1995 ********************************************** There is one message totalling 48 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. ADS-L Digest - 1 Sep 1995 to 2 Sep 1995 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 3 Sep 1995 09:13:29 -0500 From: wachal robert s Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 1 Sep 1995 to 2 Sep 1995 I second as strongly as I can the following message, for I also am a digester. Bob Wachal On Sun, 3 Sep 1995, Automatic digest processor wrote: > There is one message totalling 23 lines in this issue. > > Topics of the day: > > 1. uuencoded files, etc. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 14:16:32 -0400 > From: ALICE FABER > Subject: uuencoded files, etc. > > With regard to the whole uuencoding fiasco, a few comments. My problem with > the message was not its being uuencoded (if someone sends me something in a > format I can't read, I won't read it; if they want me to read it, they'll send > it in a format I *can* read, like good old text!), but its length. I get ADS-L > in digest form, to keep my mailbox from being cluttered up with 20-30 messages > a day. When the second message in the digest is 20-30 screens long and > gibberish, there is a very strong likelihood that I'm not going to hit return > that many times but instead will trash the whole digest. If I'd done that this > time, I would have missed a lot of interesting stuff. For this reason, I very > much appreciate Allan Metcalf's offer to created a mailing list for the NEH > messages; they're important, but I often don't have time to deal with them, > and they decrease the likelihood that I'll see the rest of what's in the ADS-L > digest for that day. > > Alice Faber > faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]haskins.yale.edu > > ------------------------------ > > End of ADS-L Digest - 1 Sep 1995 to 2 Sep 1995 > ********************************************** > ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 2 Sep 1995 to 3 Sep 1995 ********************************************** There are 13 messages totalling 301 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Fwd: knee-high (fwd) 2. English-only (5) 3. secret codes 4. ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply (2) 5. pothouse 6. English-only (fwd) 7. hung dogs 8. Pan-Scandinavian dialects ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 06:35:34 -0500 From: jeffrey howard allen Subject: Fwd: knee-high (fwd) It's subject to a very wide variation. For one tribe in Panama, it is "knee-high as a blade of grass". JEFF ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 16:25:26 GMT From: Barnhart To: Multiple recipients of list ADS-L Subject: Fwd: knee-high I have been doing some looking about at Americanism lately. One I found listed with several variants was _knee-high to a toad_ and _knee-high to a mosquito_ and _knee-high to a frog_ and _knee-high to a duck_ and even _knee-high to nothing_. I was born in the Chicaog area and spent most of my childhood in the New York City area. The expression for me was always _knee-high to a grasshopper_. My query to anyone interested is: Is this regional or just subject to wild variation? David K. Barnhart Barnhart[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Highlands.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 07:02:00 CDT From: Tom Murray Subject: English-only According to a New Hampshire newspaper, that state became the 22nd to pass Engl ish-only legislation (making English the "official" language of those states). Now, does anyone happen to know what the other 21 states are? Thanks. --Tom Murray ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 08:32:05 -0400 From: David Muschell Subject: Re: secret codes Terry Lynn Irons recently wrote: >If we don't understand uuencoding and the other things that new technologies >allow us to do, do we really have any right to say that the NEH should >give us money? > >Increasingingly I find technology being used by humans who are not in control >of it and it scares me. I don't know why, but I still think the people >using the machines should be smarter than the machines. That's quite a leap in logic. Since when is computer programming part of the humanities? Must we pass a computer skills test as part of the grant application process now? My instincts tell me that technology has always been used by humans who are not in control of it: from the bow and arrow to the musket to the "smart bomb." I have some idea how the air conditioner cooling my office works, but I couldn't take it apart and fix it if it broke. It has only been a few years since I was dragged into using the device that is sending this mail, and I resist getting too deeply caught in its web (world-wide or otherwise). I don't necessarily believe I have to be "machine smart" to be an effective teacher or to make fair use of a computer. I'm certainly no language chauvinist when it comes to a computer code being sent to me as a message, but I do believe in an audience-centered communication process and that one missed the mark for me. David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 07:20:18 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: English-only Since I make sure MY students know that spoken English and written English are two different languages, I'm curious what the good voters of 22 states thought they were voting for -- written English only, spoken English only, or "it don't matter!"? Can anyone in one of those 22 states tell us if it was aimed at written only in their state? On Tue, 5 Sep 1995, Tom Murray wrote: > According to a New Hampshire newspaper, that state became the 22nd to pass Engl > ish-only legislation (making English the "official" language of those states). > Now, does anyone happen to know what the other 21 states are? Thanks. > > --Tom Murray > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 10:13:19 -0600 From: Bruce Gelder Subject: Re: English-only I happened to see a headline in this morning's USA today saying that Bob Dole is sponsoring yet another piece of legislation attempting to make English the national language. Does anyone happen to have a copy of the bill or know anything more about it than what it said in USA Today? Thanks, Bruce Gelder bgelder[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]es.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 12:11:49 +0100 From: debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: Re: English-only Yes, it was in his speech to the American Legion convention yesterday in Indianapolis. He came out for ELA and against bilingual ed. There are wire service reports on clari.news. and in today's NY Times, p. A8. --"Dole Attacks Liberals" The race is on . . . Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu Department of English office: 217-333-2392 University of Illinois fax: 217-333-4321 608 South Wright Street home: 217-384-1683 Urbana, Illinois 61801 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 12:57:52 EST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply Good letter in today's NYT: "Bilingual Americans Are Role Models" beth simon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 15:31:32 EDT From: Shani Walker Subject: Re: pothouse > > > Pothouse is entered in W3 with the meaning "alehouse, tavern". The > > similar-sounding word for an outhouse is "boghouse". > In Scotland, I heard referred to just as "bog".... kind of a > nice place to be after visiting the pothouses (according to W3's > definition) too much. > I think the defintion depands upon the person perceiving the phrase "pot-house". For instance, if you are form a small town or community, you may take the defintion given to you by Webster. However, if you are from a big city, then you may see the phrase "pot-house" under negative connotations, such as a place where persons who engage in illegal smoking activity go, and hang-out. It all depends upon the perceiver. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 14:54:58 -0500 From: jeffrey howard allen Subject: Re: English-only (fwd) Dole was on the News last night where he addressed the issue. His point was about English being the means of economic potential for children in school who would later need jobs. I was shocked to see him slamming language programs. Another ethnocentric American. Guess that means that if he becomes president he won't be speaking with diplomatic leaders of other countries in their languages. JEFF ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 10:13:19 -0600 From: Bruce Gelder To: Multiple recipients of list ADS-L Subject: Re: English-only I happened to see a headline in this morning's USA today saying that Bob Dole is sponsoring yet another piece of legislation attempting to make English the national language. Does anyone happen to have a copy of the bill or know anything more about it than what it said in USA Today? Thanks, Bruce Gelder bgelder[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]es.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 15:30:28 CDT From: Barbara Need Subject: Re: English-only I was at a joint meeting of the LSA and MLA in San Francisco some years back when California was considering such a law. Supporters of English Only were there as part of a panel. I asked, pointing out that, as a composition instructor I had become aware of the differences between my English and that of my students, [sorry, a comma is missing above] which English would be official. The answer: " Well, English English", of course! was the subtext. Meaing, I suppose, well English--there is only ONE English and it is the right one and it is mine (that is the speaker's). > Since I make sure MY students know that spoken English and written > English are two different languages, I'm curious what the good voters of > 22 states thought they were voting for -- written English only, spoken > English only, or "it don't matter!"? Can anyone in one of those 22 states > tell us if it was aimed at written only in their state? [above from Dan Alford] Barbara Need University of Chicago--Linguistics ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 16:16:45 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 -Reply What I particularly loved about that bilingualism story was that the judge's avowed reason why the mother should speak only English to her child was so that the child would "Do good in school" [sic]. I love the English language, but I don't think it guarantees virtue, as he implies. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 17:07:25 EDT From: Arnold Zwicky Subject: hung dogs a shape-note singer in minneapolis (sooner or later all the disparate threads of my life seem to come together) writes to ask about the origins of "when all the dogs are hung" meaning 'when things are over'. lighter under DOG gives citations from 1867 on for "till/until all the dogs were hung" meaning 'until the end or resolution', which i'll take to be close enough to the original queried phrase not to matter. joan, i didn't find anything in DARE under DOG, but then i did a very quick search and might have missed it. is there anything in your files, maybe under TILL or UNTIL, or possibly HUNG? i would guess that the dogs in question are not our canine friends but one of the many inanimate sorts of dogs, capable of being hung (up). but which one, and how did hanging them (up) come to signify the end of some event? arnold (zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ling.ohio-state.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 09:42:54 +1000 From: Baden Hughes Subject: Pan-Scandinavian dialects I'm currently doing some research on Pan-Scandinavian (hereafter P-Sc) languages, and their historical development since Ivar Aasen started standardising Norwegian in the mid 19th century. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has expertise in this area. My main questions are : 1. How have individual dialects contributed to the now standardised languages of Scandinavia ? 2. Can the current P-Sc languages be considered *dialects* of a wider P-Sc grouping ? 3. If the answer to 2 is affirmative, then can one be justified in conducting a dialect-oriented comparative survey of the P-Sc languages ? Any ideas on methodology ? I'd be very grateful of anyone's thoughts on these questions. Any replies please direct to me personally : Baden Hughes (B.Hughes[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]student.anu.edu.au) Thanks Baden B.HUGHES[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]student.anu.edu.au ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 3 Sep 1995 to 5 Sep 1995 ********************************************** There are 22 messages totalling 520 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Bounced Mail 2. hung dogs -Reply 3. Pronounciation of Oxymoron (4) 4. English-only (10) 5. English-only (fwd) 6. hung dogs 7. English-only legislation (again) (2) 8. courses on language and gender or language and power 9. add to courses on language and gender ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 05:32:01 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Bounced Mail **************************************************************** REMINDER: WHEN INCLUDING A PREVIOUS LIST POSTING IN SOMETHING YOU'RE SENDING TO THE LIST, BE SURE TO EDIT OUT ALL REFERENCES TO ADS-L IN THE HEADERS. **************************************************************** > Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 22:09:43 -0400 > From: "L-Soft list server at UGA (1.8b)" > Subject: ADS-L: error report from BINGSUNS.CC.BINGHAMTON.EDU > >The enclosed message, found in the ADS-L mailbox and shown under the spool ID >2199 in the system log, has been identified as a possible delivery error notice >for the following reason: "Sender:", "From:" or "Reply-To:" field pointing to >the list has been found in mail body. > > -------------- Message in error (60 lines) -------------------------- > From: "H. Stephen STRAIGHT (Binghamton University/SUNY)" > Subject: Re: English-only (fwd) > > Thank you, jeffrey howard allen, for sharing these latest Dole-ful > tidings. > > It's a mark of the ethno-/linguo-/racio-centric tendencies of the world > today that the primary candidate of the primary party of the primary > nation can out of one side of his mouth condemn efforts to help people who > _already know_ a language other than English (LOTE) while out of the other > side of his mouth encouraging efforts to make that same nation more > effective in the world economy/culture/polity, which would at a minimum > require that we increase our proficiency in LOTEs (presumably through > schooling, though he doesn't offer funding for it). > > Haven't we wasted enough generations of multilingual immigrants to realize > that they and their children may hold the key to a new international > comity? I look forward to the day when the president of the U.S. speaks > to a world leader in a LOTE that is the first language of _both_ of > them. (Sort of like the day the current pope first spoke to the > president of Poland!) > > So many languages, so few linguists, so little time! Languaculture rules! > > On Tue, 5 Sep 1995, jeffrey howard allen wrote: > > Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 14:54:58 -0500 > > From: jeffrey howard allen > > Subject: Re: English-only (fwd) > > > > Dole was on the News last night where he addressed the issue. His point > > was about English being the means of economic potential for children in > > school who would later need jobs. I was shocked to see him slamming > > language programs. Another ethnocentric American. Guess that means that > > if he becomes president he won't be speaking with diplomatic leaders of > > other countries in their languages. > > > > JEFF > > Best. Bye. Steve > signature =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > H Stephen STRAIGHT LxC Binghamton University (SUNY) > Assoc Prof, Anthro and Ling Box 6000, Binghamton NY 13902-6000 > Dir, Langs Across the Curriculum Tel: 607-777-2824 Fax: 607-777-2889 > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 09:39:39 -0500 From: Molly Dickmeyer Subject: hung dogs -Reply Just a guess, but I know that the iron latches that hold back shutters and are sometimes quite decorative are known as dogs. Could these be the dogs in question? Molly Dickmeyer dickmeye[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]phl.lrpub.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 06:54:24 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" Subject: Pronounciation of Oxymoron I heard a newsclip on the radio of Marcia Clark (OJ trial) pronouncing Oxymoron as AWK-sim-ar-ron. Until then I've always heard and used OX-ee-mor-on (kind of like the first half of Oxygen followed by moron.). Since my paperback Webster New World doesn't have it, can anyone tell me which is the preferred? Thanks, -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 11:10:54 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron I would say OX-ee-MOR-on, and that's the only way I've ever heard it. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 12:37:04 -0400 From: MICHAEL M FARRELL Subject: Re: English-only English should never become a second language in America. If it were not so, the founding fathers would have written the constitution in several other languages. I feel it is a disgrace when considerations to alter American society for the betterment of the less fortunant is ridiculous. My grandparents came from Italy, and had to learn English if they wanted to succeed in life. Thus, I feel if someone does not know or want to learn English...TOUGH! Furthermore, it is disgusting to go down towards Miami or Southern California and seeing all those Spanish signs. It almost makes me feel as if I were in mexico (yes thats a small 'm'). Also, it is a waste of my tax dollars on teaching young immigrants their native languages rather than the English language. The breakdown of one source of communication is another aspect of how this country is falling apart. To continue, conservatives attacking the liberals......poor baby! Hello, wake-up call! The liberals have attacked the conservative viewpoints for over 30 years, right? And, they have had this country in their control for that longer, or longer, right? And, finally they have been forcing their liberal views on this society long enough. It is way past due for America to stand up again and realize what this countrys core values are. I am not against homosexuals, women who feel they need abortions, or against any viewpoint the liberals might have. I just feel we need to re-evaluate how we deal with teen-age sex, drugs, crime, and racism. I am so tired of everybody crying foul, and saying this group offended this group. Come on WAKE-UP AMERICA......pitts off! Still a Patriot! Mikey ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 12:46:41 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Re: English-only "the betterment of the less fortunant is ridiculous" evidence of nasalization of unstressed vowel following a nasal consonant Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 12:47:51 -0400 From: MICHAEL M FARRELL Subject: Re: English-only (fwd) Why would he communicate in a foreign language our foreign policy? Come on don't you think English should be the primary language in America? If not, which do you prefer....how about Russian or Chinesse? I heard those are good foreign languages to know. We should make all our road signs in those languages side by side, so we don't offend that one person who doesn't know Russian or vice versa. Also, lets go ahead and switch our currency over to the.....lets see.....the peso! I bet our Economy would do wonders with that. Furthermore lets change our cultural history and habits to make those who are not from America feel right at home. Lastly, lets just rename America to The United Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, African, Tibetan, Indian, etc. States of the World. The only good thing about all this would be maybe we wouldn't have to vote for Bill or Bob and just ask some other leader from another nation to sit in the White House. Why not, huh? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 11:15:58 CST From: Joan Hall Subject: Re: hung dogs DARE will enter this under "last dog is hung, until the". I'll send you a copy of the entry, Arnold. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 13:43:03 -0400 From: "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron OK- and AWK- first syllables are possible for speakers who neutralize the distinction between *cot* and *caught*, as common in the West. Strong initial stress with no primary or secondary stress on the -mor- syllable is possible with American speakers as an alternate pronunciation in polysyllabic Latinate words; it is the rule for British speakers in words like laboratory and secretary, with syncopation of the penultimate syllable on which Americans would put secondary stress: Br SE-kre-try vs. Am SE-kre-TAR-y. I suppose somebody might even stress the the second syllable, ok-SIM-a-run, by analogy with such similarly unfamiliar words as pen-TAM-e-ter or de-KAM-er-on. I would judge the most frequent AM pronunciation to be OK(or AWK)-se-MOR-on, and will so report it for Oxford. Regards, Bill ****************************************************************************** Bill Kretzschmar Phone: 706-542-2246 Dept. of English (Park 317) FAX: 706-542-2181 University of Georgia Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu Athens, GA 30602-6205 Atlas Web Page: http://hyde.park.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 12:59:00 CDT From: Tom Murray Subject: English-only legislation (again) >From several folks who responded to my earlier query regarding the 22 states th at have passed English-only legislation, I've been able to piece together that the following 21 states have such legislation in place: Alabama, Arizona, Arka nsas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentuc ky, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakot a, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia. (Actually, Hawaii re cognizes both Hawaiian and English as "official" languages, though the recognit ion of Hawaiian, I think, is more honorary than anything.) Now, can someone PL EASE tell me the 22nd state? Many thanks. --Tom Murray ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 15:20:55 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: English-only In response to Michael Farrell (mmfarr01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]morehead-st.edu), I could equally well ask why the leader of Russia, or France, or Japan should have to communicate her foreign policy in English. If the leader of the US is speaking to the leader of a non-English-speaking country, either one of them will have to use a language other than that of his or her country, or they'll have to use translators. Why shouldn't the United States elect a few multi-lingual leaders. And yes, I think English is a fine _primary_ language for the United States. But that doesn't mean it should be the only language we use: Spanish, Navaho, Cherokee, French (to pick a few examples from among our great wealth) are also good languages. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 12:57:19 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" Subject: Re: English-only legislation (again) ... (Actually, Hawaii recognizes both Hawaiian and English as "official" languages, though the recognition of Hawaiian, I think, is more honorary than anything.) ... Don't bet the ranch on it!!! A significant group in Hawaii has some serious intentions on seceding from the USofA and taking their state with them. For more information use your WEB browser to check out the URL http://hawaii-nation.org/nation/ -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 16:35:43 -0400 From: Michael Elkins Subject: English-only Perhaps English isn't being taught in our schools after all. Otherwise, we wouldn't have people confusing patriotism with what sounds more like bigotry. What an "unfortunant" state of affairs. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 16:58:06 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron And just this afternoon on our local Public Radio station, I heard the pronunciation 'num ri cal for what I call nu 'me ri kl Bethany Dumas ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 17:01:24 -0400 From: "Christopher R. Coolidge" Subject: Re: English-only To all you alarmists out there, declaring one obviously predominantly spo- ken language the "official" language of a country does not mean the kiss of death for other languages spoken in that country. It merely officially states what's self-evident. On the other hand, I am strongly against language ever becoming a legal question; you only have to look at Quebec, where you prac- tically need a law degree specialising in language law to understand the le- gal ramifications of displaying a public sign in English in Quebec. In a nut- shell, an English sign can be posted indoors(in a store, for example)if ac- companied by a French translation where the letters are at least twice as big as those in the English print; outdoors, a sign may be displayed in French along with any other, but only one other language. This could be Chinese, English, Italian, Cree, Inuit...There are many exceptions depending on the size of the store or establishment. The only place where English and French get equal treatment is in federal government buildings; in provincial go- vernment buildings, everything's in French, with English translations available on request. Gee, don't we have it good down here? So what if we have an official lan- guage. The official language of Holland is Dutch, in Norway it's Norwegian, and so on. There are other languages spoken besides the predominant langu- age in any country. Try granting official status to the several thousand different dialects and languages in India, ALL of them, and see what hap- pens. Chaos. Those who want to keep a language alive will never let it die. We don't need governments legislating language. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 16:11:23 EST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: Re: English-only Does anyone know about this: A student said that "recently" there had been a move to make part of Florida officially "SPanish only". I didn't know anything of such a proposition. Does anyone know about a "Spanish" language proposition in Florida? Thanks, Beth Beth Simon Dept. of English and Linguistics IPFW ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 21:05:59 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: English-only It is interesting to note how a political issue brings out an extreme overload of misinformation. (I thought we made enough mistakes when we were just talking about distributions, etymologies, etc....) I am really very interested in hearing opinions about the offical language question, but I am really not interested in the slightest in hearing people justify whatever their position might be with glaring inaccuracies of fact. Those who write the list should have some sense that most of us are professional linguists, and we will be little impressed by arguments which include such glaring inaccuracies as, for example, the claim that Norwegian is the official language of Norway. Let us at least fulminate with facts or join political discussion list where there is apparently less regard for accuracy. Dennis Preston ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 21:34:08 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: Re: English-only "Mikey," calling himself "Still a Patriot," wrote some fascinating sentences, to wit: 1. If it were not so, the founding fathers would have written the constitution in several other languages. I do admire those who can read the minds of individuals who have been dead many decades! 2. I feel it is a disgrace when considerations to alter American society for the betterment of the less fortunant is ridiculous. I also feel that it is a disgrace when "considerations ... is ridiculous." (But I don't usually say so in public!) 3. Furthermore, it is disgusting to go down towards Miami or Southern California and seeing all those Spanish signs. Ah, yes -- one might even think that some Americans are actually smart enough to learn more than one language! And we all now that that ain't true! Etc. etc. etc. Thank you, Mikey, for your highly revealing post! (But just which language were you writing in? I couldn't tell.) Bethany Dumas ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 20:57:39 -0400 From: "Aaron E. Drews" Subject: Re: English-only I guess it's time for my two-bits worth. My brother and I hav have often discussed this issue. First of all, language, as of yet, is a State's right, (not to be confused with States' rights). Let the other 27-odd odd states decide for themselves. Kentucky, for example, doesn't have a lot of Chinese immigrants, whereas California does. A national law as such wouldn't encompass different States' needs. I apologise for this part.... I've been reading a novel on the Civil War. Now, the largest argument I have heard is "my grandparents had to learn English when coming here" etc. I fell safe in assuming that all of us on this list had ancestors that *had* to learn English or they would have had some serious troubles. Yet, several communities were able, and still are able, to maintain a non-English environment. They have managed to do with *without* English-only legislation. My great- grandparents learned English (as far as I know without an "accent" of the old country) because they would have been ridiculed back to the old country if they hadn't. THose were social rules. I admit today's climate is sensitive to everyone's needs, but by printing official documents, road signs, menus, shoelace instructions, ad naseum only in English, one maintains English-only without need for new laws (which is the last thing this country needs. Sorry, I'm confusing that with lawyers). From my understanding of Dole's comments, bilingual education would find no government funding (not that it doesn't already) and other such programmes would be hurt as well. Well, we pride ourselves on capitalism, we could promote private schools of culture and language. I don't know how many times I was disappointed as a kid because most of my Asian friends had to go to Japanese school or Chinese school after regular school and on the weekends. I have a distinct feeling, call it fear, that, were an English-only legislation to pass, a xenophobic sentiment would be aimed at the private schools along the lines of "damned foreigners don't have no respect for our school...." even though English speaking private schools are just fine and dandy. I don't think language should have anything to do with politics.... except for new laws being understandable by the common citizen. That was more than I intended to say..... Aaron Drews P.S. I'm just happy Ben Franklin's fettish for Latin didn't become a national language. Gen 11:9 "...From Babel the Lord scatter them over the face of the whole eart and sent those that spoke Babel to Washington" (Reduced Shakespear Company). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 19:40:04 -0700 From: Milton Azevedo Subject: Re: English-only Mikey wrote a message which not everyone on this list agrees with, and it is perfectly appropriate to take exception with his ideas. Criticism, however, seems to degenerate into a kind of commentary (such as "just which language were you writing in? I couldn't tell") that is not only inappropriate, but also entirely out of keeping with what should be the professional tenor of a list like this one. If we are here to discuss ideas, decorum is essential --and not just a minimum of it. If some participants choose to ignore this norm, the best thing others can do is to ignore them altogether instead of taking pot-shot at them in a manner that does not contribute to clarify the issues at hand. Milton Azevedo --------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Milton Azevedo Dept of Spanish & Portuguese Univ of California, Berkeley Berkeley CA 94720 - USA E-MAIL: ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu Tel. (510) 642-0471 or -2116 --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 21:56:39 EST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: courses on language and gender or language and power I'd like to hear from anyone who has taught a course on language and gender, or on language and power. Thanks, beth Beth Simon Dept of English and Linguistics IPFW ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 21:57:40 EST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: add to courses on language and gender Sorry, forgot to say, please respond to simon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu thanks again beth ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 5 Sep 1995 to 6 Sep 1995 ********************************************** There are 23 messages totalling 625 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. English-only (4) 2. Bounced Mail 3. Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply (2) 4. language legislation conference 5. nuclear 6. Pronounciation of Oxymoron 7. patriots, etc. (2) 8. /a:I/ vs. /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]I/ (2) 9. English-Only States (2) 10. Correction:Bigots, not Conservatives (2) 11. Attacks on reasonable people (2) 12. Anachronistic usage? (2) 13. Lolita ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 22:00:49 -0700 From: Gail Stygall Subject: Re: English-only Then you are perhaps unaware of the deluge of litigation on just such matters after California passed its ELA in 1986, cases such as Asian Business Owners Assn. vs. City of Pomono? That case (and there were plenty of similar cases) contested the city requirement that owners of various businesses, specifically those having bilingual customers, make sure that the English on their signs was bigger than the Chinese or Vietnamese. These were, needless to say, successful businesses. The business owners won on First Amendment grounds if I remember correctly. So perhaps we could say that Californians making signs must have higher degrees in the arcana of language law? Having vacationed in Vancouver this summer, I found the English-French combination a welcome recognition of historical and contemporary diversity. Cheers, Gail ______________________________________________________________________________ Gail Stygall (206) 685-2384 English, Box 354330, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195-4330 ______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 08:06:58 -0400 From: Heilan Yvette Grimes Subject: Re: English-only >Mikey wrote a message which not everyone on this list >agrees with, and it is perfectly appropriate to take >exception with his ideas. Criticism, however, seems >to degenerate into a kind of commentary (such as >"just which language were you writing in? I couldn't tell") >that is not only inappropriate, but also entirely out of >keeping with what should be the professional tenor of >a list like this one. If we are here to discuss ideas, >decorum is essential --and not just a minimum of it. If >some participants choose to ignore this norm, the best >thing others can do is to ignore them altogether >instead of taking pot-shot at them in a manner that >does not contribute to clarify the issues at hand. > >Milton Azevedo I believe the person commenting on Mikey's English usage was pointing out the ridiculousness of someone being so adamantly opposed to second languages while being so grammatically incorrect in his own language. It is obvious Mikey doesn't speak a second language, and obvious he barely speaks a first. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 08:29:43 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Bounced Mail **************************************************************** REMINDER: WHEN INCLUDING A PREVIOUS LIST POSTING IN SOMETHING YOU'RE SENDING TO THE LIST, BE SURE TO EDIT OUT ALL REFERENCES TO ADS-L IN THE HEADERS. **************************************************************** > Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 09:11:31 -0400 > From: "L-Soft list server at UGA (1.8b)" > Subject: ADS-L: error report from VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU > >The enclosed message, found in the ADS-L mailbox and shown under the spool ID >7952 in the system log, has been identified as a possible delivery error notice >for the following reason: "Sender:", "From:" or "Reply-To:" field pointing to >the list has been found in mail body. > >------------------ Message in error (51 lines) -------------------------- > Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 06:11:31 -0700 > From: ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu > Subject: Re: English-only > > Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 08:06:58 -0400 > From: Heilan Yvette Grimes > Subject: Re: English-only > >>Mikey wrote a message which not everyone on this list >>agrees with, and it is perfectly appropriate to take >>exception with his ideas. Criticism, however, seems >>to degenerate into a kind of commentary (such as >>"just which language were you writing in? I couldn't tell") >>that is not only inappropriate, but also entirely out of >>keeping with what should be the professional tenor of >>a list like this one. If we are here to discuss ideas, >>decorum is essential --and not just a minimum of it. If >>some participants choose to ignore this norm, the best >>thing others can do is to ignore them altogether >>instead of taking pot-shot at them in a manner that >>does not contribute to clarify the issues at hand. >> >>Milton Azevedo > >I believe the person commenting on Mikey's English usage was pointing out the >ridiculousness of someone being so adamantly opposed to second languages >while being so grammatically incorrect in his own language. It is obvious >Mikey doesn't speak a second language, and obvious he barely speaks a first. > > > Yes siree, maybe "obvious he barely speaks a first" but he shore ain't alone. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 10:29:15 -0500 From: Molly Dickmeyer Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Bethany: At about the same time on my version of NPR, I heard my personal favorite (mis)pronunciation--nuke-u-lar. Who snuck that second "u" in there? Molly ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 09:44:01 -0500 From: Charles F Juengling Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, Molly Dickmeyer wrote: > Bethany: > At about the same time on my version of NPR, I heard my personal > favorite (mis)pronunciation--nuke-u-lar. Who snuck that second "u" in > there? > Molly Jimmy Carter. Actually, that's probably not fair to say. People were saying nuke-u-lar before Carter landed in the White House, but that's one thing that many people remember about him. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 10:16:01 +0100 From: debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: language legislation conference NOTE REVISED DATES NOTE REVISED DATES NOTE REVISED DATES CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT/CALL FOR PAPERS "Language Legislation and Linguistic Rights": An International Conference Organizers: Dennis E. Baron, English Eyamba Bokamba, Division of English as an International Language C. C. Cheng, Language Learning Laboratory Braj B. Kachru, Linguistics Douglas A. Kibbee, French Dates: March 21-23, 1996. (Revised from earlier post!) The University of Illinois will host a colloquium on Language Legislation and Linguistic Rights on March 21-23, 1996. A select group of speakers from around the world will address linguistic issues such as language and culture, language and power, bilingualism; and the linguistic aspects of social issues such as community vs. individual rights, cultural survival, and free trade. It is expected that the conference proceedings will be published. Language legislation and the concept of linguistic human rights have moved to the forefront of national and international news. In the United States, language legislation has taken the form of the national English Language Amendment, and a variety of state and local ordinances. In the US, legal solutions to perceived threats have quickly found their way to the courts, with appeals leading all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Many other countries around the globe have erected legal barriers against the penetration of English or other languages perceived as threats. These laws often conflict with guarantees of individual human rights, such as the UN Charter or the D=E9claration des Droits de l'Homme. In the realm of international law, language protection has colored debate on such issues as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and has influenced the structure of international institutions like the European Community and the United Nations. =46or further information, contact: Douglas A. Kibbee Language Legislation Conference Department of French University of Illinois 2090 Foreign Languages Building/ MC-158 707 South Mathews Avenue Urbana IL 61801 USA =46AX: (1) (217) 244-2223 email: dkibbee[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Those wishing to participate should send a 1-2 page proposal to the organizers at the address listed above. DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: NOVEMBER 1, 1995 ------------------------------------------------------ Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu Department of English office: 217-333-2392 University of Illinois fax: 217-333-4321 608 South Wright Street home: 217-384-1683 Urbana, Illinois 61801 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 08:38:37 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: English-only A penetrating critique of Farrell's position, Wayne! :-) And, much as we hate to admit it, he's RIGHT -- as conservatives usually are metaphorically. ;-) On Wed, 6 Sep 1995, Wayne Glowka wrote: > "the betterment of the less fortunant is ridiculous" > > evidence of nasalization of unstressed vowel following a nasal consonant > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 11:54:37 +0000 From: "E. W. Gilman" Subject: nuclear For the rundown on the pronunciation of nuclear, see Merriam-WQebster'd Dictionary of English Usage, page 673. Gil ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 08:57:38 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron Speaking of which, where does Chris Darden (OJ Prosecution team) get his pronunciation for "cumulative" as k[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] 'm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]l [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] tIv instead of 'kju mju l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] tIv? On Wed, 6 Sep 1995, Bethany Dumas, UTK wrote: > And just this afternoon on our local Public Radio station, I heard > the pronunciation 'num ri cal for what I call nu 'me ri kl > > Bethany Dumas > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 12:54:42 -0400 From: Ellen Johnson Subject: patriots, etc. First, in a nod to accuracy, I am pleased to report that Georgia's governor, Zell Miller, vetoed the English-only legislation that passed there this year, fortunately in time for the Olympics. (Gee, I am getting paranoid now about going back to correct my typos, somthing I don't always do on e-mail!) Second, isn't it interesting how we non-prescriptivists fall back on prescriptive grammar as a means of defense when someone less educated (at least who writes that way) invades our domain. Still, having grown up in the South, I learned long ago that rational arguments have no effect on bigots, since their positions are not based on reason, but emotion, usually fear of some sort. Sometimes I'm brave enough to state outright that I disagree, sometimes I just ignore it; usually leaving the room gets the point across and gets me to a place with better company. Ellen Johnson new address: ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cc.memphis.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 14:52:58 EDT From: Douglas Bayer x3701 3NW Subject: /a:I/ vs. /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]I/ I'd like any information about the geographical distribution of the /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]I/ allophone of AY, and similar centering/raising or shortening of other vowels and diphthongs before voiceless consonants. Could anyone point me to papers, maybe even URLs on the 'Net? dbayer[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ileaf.com ---------- LONG -------------- I've heard that distinction in the following pairs described as "Northern" or even "chiefly Canadian." And I haven't seen or heard it implemented in any speech generation systems: /a:I/ = /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]I/ (AAH-ey vs. UH-ey) eyes = ice rider = writer high/hind/hide = height why/wine/wide = white Yet it's obligatory for me. Isn't it "General American"? It's the sole distinguishing feature in the pair rider = writer, and often even in eyes = ice (because the voicing of the final "s" can't always be heard). The rule seems to be long, open /a:I/ when the vowel is followed by no consonant, a voiced consonant, or a nasal; and short, mid /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]I/ before a voiceless consonant. But in the Great Lakes region, even "-ire" can go to /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jR/. This seems less wide-spread. (I'm acutely aware because I pronounce my German name /ba:jR/ but many people say /b[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jR/) Does similar centering/raising occur with other vowels or diphthongs? For example, is there a region where "OH" differentially goes to /o:w/ or /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]w/ in the same environments? Any pointers appreciated. (And I'll gladly accept uuencoded or .ps.Z files by email... :) Doug Bayer, Techdoc Toolsmith Interleaf Inc. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 12:46:20 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: English-Only States Although I haven't tried any kind of formal investigation, I've been asking around informally ever since I saw Tom Murray's list of twenty-one states with "English-only legislation in place," and I have yet to find a single Mississippian who was aware we had such a law. At lunch today we concluded that maybe Mississippi was on that list because such a law was passed many, many years ago. Is that likely? What was that list of the twenty-one states based on? --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 14:48:46 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Re: patriots, etc. Are you quite positive, Ellen, that only conservatives have opinions based on emotion? Tom Creswell ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 14:59:35 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Correction:Bigots, not Conservatives Sorry, so many of the other emails had castigated conservatives that I had them in my mind when replying to Ellen's message. However, now that I think it over, it seems that many of the messages casting scorn on those who do not support legislation mandating bilingualism or who believe that the public affairs of the United States should be conducted in English implied that the reasons for supporting such positions are based in xenophobia which is, I believe, an emotion. All supporters of bilingualism, of course, base their position on unim- peachably solid, objective, unchallengeably _rational_ assumptions. Tom Creswell------------------------------------- Name: tom creswell Morality is simply the E-mail: creswell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dodo.crown.net (tom creswell) attitude we adopt toward Date: 06/27/95 people we dislike. Time: 12:24:20 --Oscar Wilde This message was sent by Chameleon ------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 17:53:47 -0400 From: "Christopher R. Coolidge" Subject: Re: English-only Point taken. It's good to know that the Quebecois don't have a monopoly on asinine language policies. Glad to hear you enjoyed Vancouver; it's a beautiful city. As far as their bilingual signs are concerned, they're a great courtesy to the occasional Quebecois tourist, but they're a rather empty tip of the hat to the status of French as Canada's other official language. They don't reflect the reality that Vancouver has maybe slightly more native French-speaking residents than Haida Indian residents. As far as sheer numbers are concerned, Chinese would be more appropriate as a se- cond language, or Japanese. Though I could live with an official language policy if it happens, I re- tract yesterday's statement on the subject. I'd rather not see any legisla- tion on language in the USA at all. It's so tempting to think that passing a law will solve an difficult problem, but it usually doesn't; I'd tempo- rarily forgotten that. I'm all for some sort of official confirmation of fact that a certain predominant language is the predominant language, but I'd stop short of signing it into law. Besides, what if the Iroquois and Cherokee, for example, had passed such a law on our ancestors? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 18:00:07 -0400 From: "H. Stephen STRAIGHT (Binghamton University/SUNY)" Subject: Re: Attacks on reasonable people Ooops! I must have deleted some messages without reading them. Could someone please send me copies of the postings described in the following? I'd like to share them with the students in my introductory linguistics class this semester when we get to our planned discussion of the political sociolinguistics of the U.S. English movement. Thanks. On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, tom creswell wrote: > messages casting > scorn on those who do not support legislation mandating bilingualism > or who believe that the public affairs of the United States should be > conducted in English signature =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= H Stephen STRAIGHT LxC Binghamton University (SUNY) Assoc Prof, Anthro and Ling Box 6000, Binghamton NY 13902-6000 Dir, Langs Across the Curriculum Tel: 607-777-2824 Fax: 607-777-2889 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 17:41:33 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: Attacks on reasonable people > Ooops! I must have deleted some messages without reading them. Could > someone please send me copies of the postings described in the following? Logs of all ADS-L mail (except for the first year) are available via ftp (ftp.msstate.edu/pub/archives/ADS), gopher (gopher.msstate.edu -- follow the menus), and the web (http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/ADS/). The files are monthly logs except for the current month, which has daily logs (always running one day behind -- e.g., the log of today's mail will be in place early tomorrow morning). --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 17:13:46 -0400 From: "Aaron E. Drews" Subject: Re: /a:I/ vs. /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]I/ Walking down the street one day, I discovered this [ai] vs [[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]i] phenomenon in myself. I'm from LA, and this is a feature I had *before* being influenced by the Scots and the English of Edinburgh Univ. It was only enhanced there, due mostly to the Scots. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 18:45:12 -0500 From: Nancy Dray Subject: Anachronistic usage? Subject: Time:4:56 PM OFFICE MEMO Anachronistic usage? Date:9/7/95 ******Please note that I'm no longer on ADS-L, so EVEN IF YOU POST RESPONSES TO THE LIST, PLEASE ALSO E-MAIL ME DIRECTLY; my address is n-dray[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu. ******** The Linguistics Department at the University of Chicago got a call yesterday (which I fielded) from someone working on a new film version of "Lolita," directed by Adrian Lyne. The caller was trying to find out whether certain words and phrases in the screenplay are plausible for speech by characters in a film set in 1947, or if they should be changed to avoid anachronism. The items are as follows (I've given glosses or context when she gave it to me): (1) zit ('pimple') (2) cool (3) guy (4) the use of "major" in the phrase "that's a MAJOR option" (5) "get fucked" (They know that "fuck" is an old term, but they're wondering about "get fucked," in the following odd context: two girls are talking, one says, "see you later, alligator," the other replies "in a while, crocodile," and the first comes back with "get fucked, Daffy Duck" (which of course also raises the questions of when the "see you later, alligator" exchanges were in vogue and when Daffy Duck appeared...). I have some quick guesses for all of these, but I haven't checked any sources yet (no time until the weekend). I wish I had asked for more context, especially for "cool" and "guy"; the use of "cool" she's referring to may even be the most recently fashionable one-word clipped response, but I don't know for sure. One idea I mentioned to her off the top of my head was to be mindful of intonation, too, since I've seen a lot of historical shows involving teenagers that had comically anachronistic intonation patterns, as well as some anachronistic usage of current catch phrases. (I must admit, though, that some of my awareness of anachronism is based on the Hollywood world, not the real world---i.e., language from the 1950s and '60s sounds normal in a western, because that's the way people talk in old westerns, whether or not it's the way they actually talked in the Old West; language from the '90s, on the other hand, sounds really funny in westerns.) I also will suggest that she be cautious about accepting just any early attestation as confirming that a usage is okay for any character in the movie, since some usages may have appeared first in a very different context (e.g., there may be some early attestations of a phrase among jazz musicians, but that doesn't mean a young white country girl would be saying it). But I think it's great that she bothered to check this, and that she knew to seek out a linguist, so I'm trying to be as much help as I can. (Perhaps this is an area where opportunities could be created for linguistic consultants and public awareness could be raised concerning dialects, language change, etc.?) The caller wanted the info ASAP (of course), and I promised I'd call or fax her by Monday, Sept. 11, with whatever I had then. I'd therefore be tremendously grateful for any help ADS-L readers might offer, including suggested references (preferably on-line). Of course, if anyone feels like actually tracking this down and sending me an answer I can simply fax to her, I'd be even more grateful! In any case, thanks much, greetings to all, and I hope to be seeing many of you at the winter meetings in Chicago. Nancy L. Dray n-dray[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu *****Please note that I'm no longer on ADS-L, so EVEN IF YOU POST RESPONSES TO THE LIST, PLEASE ALSO E-MAIL ME DIRECTLY****** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 21:24:43 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: Correction:Bigots, not Conservatives I thought things were weird when I read that the official language of Norway was Norwegian. Now I hear that people oppose legislation mandating bilingualism. I admit that I have not read every bill offered in every state legislature, but I would be very much surprised by one which mandated bilingualism. (I take that to mean legislation which decrees that any or all of the citizens of a state must be or become bilinguals.) Please let me know if there is such a proposal. If it reaches Michigan, I want to start cranking up my whatever-langauge-it-is before I am sent to the language hoosegow (sp?). Dennis Preston ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 22:17:02 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: Re: English-Only States I have not checked on the status of the TN law recently, but I recall that in 1985 the legislature passed an "English-only" law. One of my law school classmates took a look at it and said that it was clearly unconstitutional (at the state level). The reason? TN had a law that made it illegal for a law to have a title longer than it was, and the English-only law had such a title. Someone else did a little research and announced that in such a case prior law obtianed and there was some evidence that Cherokee had once been an "official" of the area occupied by TN, so it followed that from 1985 to the present (unless the law has changed again) the official language of TN is Cherokee. (Yes, I'm joking, but just barely.) Bethany Dumas English/UTK ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 22:17:27 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Lolita Amazing. I got the same call (or our department at Yale did and I fielded it), and like Nancy (hi, Nancy!) I tried my best, mostly off the cuff with a little help from some slang dictionaries I had lying around. I tried pushing the same warnings on context as Nancy did (although I suspect not as fluently), but I did end up suggesting that they'd be OK on 1947 uses of 'cool' and 'guy', while 'zit' was pretty unlikely. I thought 'major' in 'major option' MIGHT have been OK, unless it represents the currently prevalent slang use, but since even if it doesn't, members of the audience might think it did, they'd be safer to avoid it. I was also skeptical about 'get fucked', in the context [SOMEONE:] See you later, alligator! [LOLITA:] Get fucked, Daffy Duck! Fucked, yes. Fucked out, fucked up, yes; get fucked, probably not. Of course I was winging it, since I probably wouldn't recall this particular item being used in 1947 (when I was 2) even if it was around, and I couldn't find any clear citations even afterward. (I did check with an owner of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang later, who at least didn't DISconfirm any of my guesses; she did note, though, that the relevant volume for 'zit' hasn't yet appeared in print. I second Nancy's bravo for Hollywood in checking with us on these things, even if our responses are not fully informed. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 22:27:49 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: Re: Anachronistic usage? At a minimum, I'd suggest that Lighter's entries (Vol 1 of his Random House Dictionary of Slang) be carefully checked. He would be quite useful as a consultant, I think. Bethany Dumas English/U of TN, Knoxville dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 6 Sep 1995 to 7 Sep 1995 ********************************************** There are 23 messages totalling 537 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. English-only 2. Lolita 3. DEG ADJ of a N (3) 4. English-Only States (4) 5. Correction:Bigots, not Conservatives 6. contempt vs. content (10) 7. English Only 8. "contempt" or "content"? 9. ADS-ANS deadline September 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 00:02:57 -0700 From: Anton Sherwood Subject: English-only > English should never become a second language in America. If it were not > so, the founding fathers would have written the constitution in several > other languages. [ . . . ] Which ones? (They could not have predicted a need for Spanish or Chinese!) > My grandparents came from Italy, and had to learn English if they wanted > to succeed in life. Thus, I feel if someone does not know or want to > learn English...TOUGH! Furthermore, it is disgusting to go down towards > Miami or Southern California and seeing all those Spanish signs. If you hate to be reminded that there are other peoples in the world, or that some shops care more about serving their customers efficiently than about enticing _you_, why not just stay home? Florida and California were Spanish for centuries. I don't imagine the then residents of those lands wanted to be ruled in English any more than you want to learn Spanish. (I've even heard that the treaty with Mexico made Spanish the official language of California!) > It almost makes me feel as if I were in mexico (yes thats a small 'm'). Lots of place names have become common nouns, but this is the first time I've seen "mexico" used as such -- what does it mean? > Also, it is a waste of my tax dollars on teaching young immigrants their > native languages rather than the English language. [ . . . ] Agreed. And it's a waste of my tax dollars to imprison children and teach them to love Big Brother and hate learning. Separation of school and state will make a lot of divisive issues fade away. > The breakdown of one source of communication is another aspect > of how this country is falling apart. More a symptom than a cause. The country-as-institution is no longer inclusive or attractive. Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]netcom.com (in San Francisco, where almost everyone still speaks English) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 09:40:00 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: Lolita Get fucked is OK for 1947 (at least Louisville area). I'm older than Larry Harn, and although I was not a frequent user in 1947, I was a frequent unratified overhearer (I get to say this twice in only a week or two!) or target: ME: Hey you guys, can I play basketball? OLDER GUYS: Get fucked kid. Dennis Preston (who ended up getting to play anyhow) preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 10:33:48 EDT From: Arnold Zwicky Subject: DEG ADJ of a N in my work on exceptional degree modifiers - those, like HOW, SO, and TOO, that occur with a+N (HOW BIG A DOG) rather than the bare N (VERY BIG DOG) - i have had to say a bit about the variant with OF (HOW BIG OF A DOG), which is nonstandard but fairly widespread in the u.s. i do *not* need examples. but i would like to be sure that i haven't disregarded any literature on the subject. this is not easy to search for, given that the relevant crucial word is OF. does anyone know of published articles of any substance on the construction? arnold (zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ling.ohio-state.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 10:23:37 +0100 From: debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: Re: English-Only States According to my records, Natalie, MS does have an official language law. Or it did as of 1989. I hope that's not wrong. You'll need to check your state statutes to confirm when it was passed and what it said. CAll your law library for help in that. Dennis -- Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu Department of English office: 217-333-2392 University of Illinois fax: 217-333-4321 608 South Wright Street home: 217-384-1683 Urbana, Illinois 61801 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 11:22:41 CST From: Joan Hall Subject: Re: DEG ADJ of a N See 1989 American Speech 64.94-95 and 1991 American Speech 66.213-230. Joan Hall, DARE ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 14:36:20 -0400 From: "Christopher R. Coolidge" Subject: Re: Correction:Bigots, not Conservatives I don't think you need to worry; we just need to look at Canada to see that mandated bilingualism doesn't work. Trouble is, they're afraid to dismantle it because the lack of any law might have worse consequences. As if a law that doesn't work is better than no law at all. Consider this: most of Canada's bilingual people are in Quebec; most of the remainder are originally from Quebec. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 13:09:49 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Re: DEG ADJ of a N See the entry "of a" in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, p. 680. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 13:40:24 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: contempt vs. content Hello, I just received a message from someone in Virginia who is familiar with the expression, "Familiarity breeds contempt," but has never heard, "Familiarity breeds content." I, who have lived primarily in the western states (CA, WA, and UT), had only heard the "content" version. Are both versions in common usage now or has one of us merely misheard something? Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 14:53:47 -0500 From: Katherine Catmull Subject: Re: contempt vs. content On Fri, 8 Sep 1995, Tom Uharriet wrote: > I just received a message from someone in Virginia who is familiar > with the expression, > > "Familiarity breeds contempt," > > but has never heard, > > "Familiarity breeds content." I've only heard the former version, never the latter. I've lived mostly in the south and Texas but have northerner parents (UT, MN). Kate Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bga.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 14:07:20 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: English Only We all learn more of our own languages by studying others'. Whatever the law, we should all learn to speak outside of our own back yards. As far as legislation goes, I believe that an English Only law could help immigrants to integrate. Sometimes a little added motivation is a good thing. I am particularly thinking of the children. In the name of fairness, we have been seeking to teach them in their own language so that we would not leave them out of the education system. The result is that we teach the standard subjects and leave them out of the whole Engllish speaking society. Until they learn English, they will always be as foreigners (even if they and their parents were born here). Living in the US without being taught English certainly hurts them more than letting other academic subjects suffer for a few semesters. Some argue that theaching them English should be limited to their ESL (English as a Second Language) class. However, it is clear that total imersion in a language is the best way to teach it. It is learned much faster, much more completely, and much more permanantly. The entire educational system breaks down for these disadvantaged children when we drag out the English learning while teaching other subjects in other languages. Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 14:11:22 -0600 From: Bruce Gelder Subject: Re: contempt vs. content >I just received a message from someone in Virginia who is familiar >with the expression, > > "Familiarity breeds contempt," > >but has never heard, > > "Familiarity breeds content." > >I, who have lived primarily in the western states (CA, WA, and UT), >had only heard the "content" version. Are both versions in common >usage now or has one of us merely misheard something? I've mainly lived in Utah, and I've never heard the "content" version--only the "contempt" version. --Bruce Gelder bgelder[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]es.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 15:53:24 EDT From: Bruce Southard Subject: Re: English-Only States USA Today's Thursday edition (9/7/95) had a map identifying the twenty-two states with English-only laws. The map also gave the year the legislation was passed. I was surprised to see North Carolina on the list; evidently the legislation passed in 1987, a couple of years before I moved here. There is currently litigation involving the state's lackluster performance in providing ESL instruction. I'm surprised that one side or the other hasn't raised the English-only issue. Bruce Southard English Department East Carolina University ensoutha[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ecuvm1 ensoutha[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ecuvm.cis.ecu.edu 919-328-6041 919-328-4889 (FAX) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 13:13:03 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" Subject: Re: contempt vs. content "Familiarity breeds contempt" is the one of the two that makes sense to me, and the only way I've ever interpreted it. -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 16:20:57 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: Re: contempt vs. content "Familiarity breeds content." Never heard it before. Bethany Dumas ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 10:01:31 -0600 From: Larry Davis Subject: Re: English-Only States Kansas is not one of the English Only States, but, a number of years ago, the state legislature did pass a law establishing "pi" at 3.0. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 16:33:40 -0400 From: Virginia Clark Subject: "contempt" or "content"? I agree with Katherine Catmull; I've heard only "Familiarity breeds contempt," never "Familiarity breeds content." I've lived mostly in New England. Department of English University of Vermont Burlington, VT 05405 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 16:03:34 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: contempt vs. content > I, who have lived primarily in the western states (CA, WA, and UT), > had only heard the "content" version. Are both versions in common > usage now or has one of us merely misheard something? The only one I've ever heard is "familiarity breeds contempt." Until now if I had heard somebody say "familiarity breeds content," I would have assumed the person was playing around with the expression for fun. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) native Mississippian still in Mississippi (with a few years spent in other Southern states) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 13:37:47 -0700 From: David Harnick-Shapiro Subject: Re: ADS-ANS deadline September 1 On Thu, 31 Aug 1995 14:23, Betty Phillips writes: > * This message contains the file 'PHILLIPS.ADS', which has been > * uuencoded. If you are using Pegasus Mail, then you can use > * the browser's eXtract function to lift the original contents > * out to a file, otherwise you will have to extract the message > * and uudecode it manually. and all hell breaks loose. Some good things did come out of this affair -- an increase in the number of humanists who appreciate the difficulties in file exchange, for example. And I'll bet there's quite a few who will think twice before assuming, "I use , so *everyone* must use it"; they may even disabuse a few colleagues. So why am I dragging this up again? I *did* bother to try to find out what the original post was, and thought I'd share with those more noted for their morbid curiousity than for their reason. Here we go: message comes in as a digest; program number one is my mail reader. Burst the message out of the digest: that's program number two. Three: an editor to remove the mail headers and other non-uuencoded stuff (this step was probably not actually necessary). Four: uudecode. This is the first step where an error is reported; the file was probably not uuencoded properly, or the uuencoded version may have been clobbered, but let's press on regardless. Five and six: the Unix "file" and "less" commands, to try to figure out what kind of file was created; decide it's not a Unix or text file (which was unlikely, anyway), so I'll try a Mac. Seven: 'Fetch', to copy the file from Unix to a Macintosh. Eight: MS Word for Mac. Word, when coerced into opening the file, announced that it was converting a WordPerfect 5.1 file, but was unable to finish. So: eight programs, two platforms, several machines and several networks later, I have: an unreadable portion of a WordPerfect file. I love the way computers empower me. :-) -------- David Harnick-Shapiro Information and Computer Science david[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ics.uci.edu University of California, Irvine ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 16:14:26 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: contempt vs. content I'm familiar with "familiarity breeds contempt" as a common phrase; I've heard "breeds content" once or twice in contexts that suggested it was intended as a rejoinder to "breeds contempt." Born, raised, and living in New York City; attended college in Connecticut. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 14:18:36 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" Subject: Re: English-Only States >> Kansas ... but, a number of years ago, the >> state legislature did pass a law establishing "pi" at 3.0. Is this an urban myth? I've heard the same thing, but it was legistated by either Kentucky or Tennessee. -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 18:11:17 -0400 From: E Wayles Browne Subject: Re: contempt vs. content On Fri, 8 Sep 1995, Tom Uharriet wrote: > Hello, > > I just received a message from someone in Virginia who is familiar > with the expression, > > "Familiarity breeds contempt," > > but has never heard, > > "Familiarity breeds content." > > I, who have lived primarily in the western states (CA, WA, and UT), > had only heard the "content" version. Are both versions in common > usage now or has one of us merely misheard something? > > > > Tom Uharriet > Springville, Utah > utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu I know only "contempt"--I've lived in Massachusetts, Maryland, and now New York State. Wayles Browne, Cornell U. Dept. of Linguistics ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 22:04:52 EDT From: David Bergdahl Subject: Re: contempt vs. content From: NAME: David Bergdahl FUNC: English TEL: (614) 593-2783 To: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX I've only lived in the east and have never heard the "content" one. BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Where Appalachia meets the Midwest" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 22:16:35 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: contempt vs. content This is a question that particularly interests me, since one of my recent research programs has exploited this very contrast. Let me explain and illustrate. In a paper I gave at a conference in Helsinki in 1993 (following earlier oral presentations of the same material) and wrote up for the proceedings, I sponsored a slogan of the form "Familiarity Breeds CNTNT". The paper, called "Economy and Redundancy in a Dualistic Model of Natural Language", was published in SKY 1993 ("SKY" is, of course, an acronym for the Linguistic Association of Finland--don't ask), edited by Maria Vilkuna and Susanna Shore. The first section of the paper is called I. FAMILIARITY BREEDS CNTNT: an overview and a relevant passage refers notes that "...the inverse correlation of familiarity and linguistic form--the principle I dub Familiarity Breeds CNTNT--is reflected by minimal pairs in which the locally more familiar or frequent member retains or comes to acquire reduced expression." (This principle, unlike its cover label, is hardly my invention; it was iden- tified by Paul, Martinet, and especially Zipf. I'll spare you the details, since this isn't a pragmatics list, but sample illustrations of its effects include the degree of vowel reduction in frequent words [astronomy vs. gastronomy]; the initialization of OSU with different interpretations in the midwest, southwest, and northwest; and the "marking reversals" noted by Witkowski and Brown in their Language paper in 1983.) So a few months after the paper appeared, I received an outraged note from a friend and colleague, who (while not a native speaker) evidently shares the majority dialect of ADSers... >Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 11:36:07 -0500 >From: Knud Lambrecht >To: lhorn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yalevm.ycc.yale.edu >Subject: breeds cntNt ??? >I hve nthng bt cntMPt fr yr ignrnce, lrry. >Or is it the Finns that screwed up? You can all see where this is heading, and you can probably anticipate my response to Knud... >No, no, it's intentional, and in any case it's not the Finns' fault. Now I'll >admit that the more standard and no doubt the original form of the adage is >the -MP- version. But I've heard the other quite a bit too, and assume it >responds to "Out of sight, out of mind", just as the other (your) version >responds to "Absence makes the heart grow fonder". (Sort of like "Look >before you leap" and "Fools go in where angels fear to tread" vs. "He >who hesitates is lost".) In any event, since it's got to represent the >idea that the more familiar or predictable the expression is, the more >compressed the content can be, while keeping the form >constant (cnstnt?), I need it to be my version. Of course, this assumes a >finesse over CONtent and conTENT as well as over familiarity's breedee, but I >assume you'll let that one pass. Too bad there's no OED for adages. My background is New York City > Rochester > Southern California > Northern California >... I have no idea where I might have picked up the "content" version, and I freely acknowledge that I'm not the most impartial source. In any case, I'm mr thn cntnt to welcome a few speakers with no career stake in their judgment to my side of the isogloss. --Larry ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Sep 1995 to 8 Sep 1995 ********************************************** There are 9 messages totalling 231 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. contempt vs. content (5) 2. English-Only States (2) 3. English Only (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 21:53:39 -0700 From: THOMAS CLARK Subject: Re: contempt vs. content I've lived in and out of Utah. I knew "contempt" before I lived there, but I've heard "content" used by old husbands who know better than to rile their wives. But Marianna Dipaolo will be able to set us all right. Cheers, tlc ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 11:00:29 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: English-Only States Last night I was told that Indiana legislated a figure for pi, (but I was told this by a generativist syntactician, so I ignored the data, assuming it only fit his dialect anyhow). Dennis Preston ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 09:31:24 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: contempt vs. content I've lived my entire life in California except for 5 yrs in Montana, and in neither place have I heard the "content" phrase, though I can see its 'logic'. Somehow it reminds me of sitting in church as a child and hearing about other children who drew pictures of "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear" on hearing "...gladly the cross I'd bear". On Fri, 8 Sep 1995, Tom Uharriet wrote: > Hello, > > I just received a message from someone in Virginia who is familiar > with the expression, > > "Familiarity breeds contempt," > > but has never heard, > > "Familiarity breeds content." > > I, who have lived primarily in the western states (CA, WA, and UT), > had only heard the "content" version. Are both versions in common > usage now or has one of us merely misheard something? > > > > Tom Uharriet > Springville, Utah > utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 10:00:05 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: English Only I have a major problem with this English Only thread/t, and it has to do with my four years in the early '70s as Administrator and Linguist for the Northern Cheyenne Bilingual/Bicultural Education Program in Montana. Not only is English Only an insult to the original inhabitants of this country (except for administrative purposes?), it endangers their very way of being in the world. As one Native American told me, "If we had known then what we know now, we would have set up STRICTER immigration laws!" And then, had they set up Native Language Only laws, so that by their very speech the immigrants were always mindful of respect for life and environment and mystery, unlearning their ancient European fear of the forest and learning to go there for spiritual insight, unlearning linear time and relearning curved cycles -- wow, what a different place this would be! Problem is, if we lock English Only into place now, with its insistence on static nouns and things instead of paying attention to dynamic processes and relationships ("how can you tell the dancers from the dance?"), I'm afraid our planet is doomed. The most chilling statistic I ever heard (to nonsensically jump from language to culture) is that if today China decided to use toilet paper the way we do, it would take only about a year to deplete the rest of the planet's forests! Finally, back to the comments below: they make so much 'surface sense', true, but only from a MONOLINGUAL perspective! "You'll only confuse them." There's a pernicious fallacy underlying this which analogizes bilingualism to schizophrenia or something, that pathologizes that which is normally quite healthy to those who have it. Effective language learners often create new personalities for themselves in their new languages (primarily to take the heat off their 'ego' for being grown up but sounding like a 3 yr-old) -- what we can call POSITIVE multiple personalities (again, usually pathologized in a MONOLINGUAL culture, which insists on us ignoring the obvious and acting as though we have a MONOPERSONALITY. The difference between healthy multiple personality people and those with a disorder is that in the latter, the multiples don't communicate, are closed off from each other, while in the former they can easily pass information and knowledge to their other personalities -- what normally happens to those who know more than one language and culture. Enuf. --Moonhawk On Fri, 8 Sep 1995, Tom Uharriet wrote: > We all learn more of our own languages by studying others'. Whatever > the law, we should all learn to speak outside of our own back yards. > > As far as legislation goes, I believe that an English Only law could > help immigrants to integrate. Sometimes a little added motivation is > a good thing. I am particularly thinking of the children. In the > name of fairness, we have been seeking to teach them in their own > language so that we would not leave them out of the education system. > The result is that we teach the standard subjects and leave them out > of the whole Engllish speaking society. Until they learn English, > they will always be as foreigners (even if they and their parents > were born here). Living in the US without being taught English > certainly hurts them more than letting other academic subjects suffer > for a few semesters. > > Some argue that theaching them English should be limited to their ESL > (English as a Second Language) class. However, it is clear that > total imersion in a language is the best way to teach it. It is > learned much faster, much more completely, and much more > permanantly. The entire educational system breaks down for these > disadvantaged children when we drag out the English learning while > teaching other subjects in other languages. > > > > Tom Uharriet > Springville, Utah > utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 10:04:02 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: English-Only States Ah, Larry! I'd forgotten about that one -- to make it easier for the children in math classes, if I remember. It's one of those things that when you see it staring you in the face again, it just makes you sit back and draw a deep breath and contemplate the world. Thanks for the inspiration! On Fri, 8 Sep 1995, Larry Davis wrote: > Kansas is not one of the English Only States, but, a number of years ago, the > state legislature did pass a law establishing "pi" at 3.0. > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 15:20:09 -0400 From: "Christopher R. Coolidge" Subject: Re: English Only I must confess I'm not even sure what the English language is any more. You put the following people in a room together: a gang member from Harlem, a Cockney from East London, an older person from a Kentucky mining town, a shipyard worker from the Virgin Islands, a college professor from Harvard Univ., a fisherman from Newfoundland,...OK, that's enough. All of them sup- posedly speak the same language, but they'll all have a challenge trying to understand each other.(I can't wait for the Cockney to ask the gang member if he has any fags)Now, whose English are the powers that be proposing to prescribe here? The English language will not stay still for anybody, laws or no laws; if all 50 states pass an English only law, then we'll confound them by speaking 50 different dialects and pidgins. If we passed a Cherokee- only law, we'd all speak our own form of pidgin Cherokee colored by our eth- nic background. What's the difference? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 14:59:01 -0700 From: Sylvia Swift Subject: Re: contempt vs. content i've heard only the contempt version in my WY>RI>OR>CA life, and assumed (before i read about the helsinki paper) that it was a joking version along the lines of "abcess makes the heart grow fonder." out of curiousity, i checked _bartlett's familiar quotations_, where most of the stuff i used to think my mom made up turns out to be. there are no content cites, four for contempt: publius syrius, maxim 640 aesop, "the fox and the lion" shakespeare, _the merry wives of windsor_, act i, scene i, line 258 cervantes, _don quixote_ sylvia swift madonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 19:09:02 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: contempt vs. content No. No. Not 'Abcess makes the heart grow softer.' 'Absinth makes the brain grow softer.' As for the rest of what y'all are talking about (except for Larry Horn's cutesy Helsinki title), I swear I don't know if y'all mean conTENT or CONtent. If the latter, I think it was Foucault or Bakhtin who said it. So what! They ain't linguists. Dennis Preston P.S.: I apologize for an earlier reference to Larry 'Harn.' Y'all should assume it was my fingers not my vowels. I haven't been in Michigan that long. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 18:52:58 -0700 From: THOMAS CLARK Subject: Re: contempt vs. content On Sat, 9 Sep 1995, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > No. No. Not 'Abcess makes the heart grow softer.' 'Absinth makes the brain > grow softer.' Actually, Absinth makes the heart grow Fonda (as in J). ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 8 Sep 1995 to 9 Sep 1995 ********************************************** Topics of the day: 1. contempt vs. content (6) 2. Familiarity 3. Absinthe 4. Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply (4) 5. pi=4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 23:52:43 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: contempt vs. content Sylvia Swift writes: >i've heard only the contempt version in my WY>RI>OR>CA life, and assumed >(before i read about the helsinki paper) that it was a joking version >along the lines of "abcess makes the heart grow fonder." out of >curiousity, i checked _bartlett's familiar quotations_, where most of the >stuff i used to think my mom made up turns out to be. there are no >content cites, four for contempt: >publius syrius, maxim 640 >aesop, "the fox and the lion" >shakespeare, _the merry wives of windsor_, act i, scene i, line 258 >cervantes, _don quixote_ Now wait just a minute, here. Shakespeare, OK. But I'm prepared to wager that not a single one of his mates--Publius Syrius, Aesop, Cervantes--wrote or said "Familiarity breeds contempt". Since we're talking about the sentence and not the proposition--I take it that both sides of the coin are sentiments widely attested and indeed registered elsewhere in adages, as I mentioned in my earlier note ("Absence makes the heart grow fonder" vs. "Out of sight, out of mind")--the fact that Publius Syrius, Aesop or Cervantes might have written something in Latin, Greek, or Spanish that translates as "Familiarity breeds contempt" doesn't strike me as compelling evidence. I'm willing to grant that when people mention familiarity breeding something, it's usually contempt (or, as Mark Twain noted, children), but I'm still not sure whether the occurrence of 'content' (and that's conTENT, not CONtent, except to make a point) in this frame is an instance of a "pullet surprise" or simply a variant. It doesn't appear to be a geographical variant, in any case; nor is it (necessarily) a joke. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 23:23:06 -0700 From: Sylvia Swift Subject: Re: contempt vs. content On Sat, 9 Sep 1995, Larry Horn wrote: > Now wait just a minute, here. Shakespeare, OK. But . . . . > the fact that Publius Syrius, Aesop or Cervantes might have written > something in Latin, Greek, or Spanish that translates as "Familiarity breeds > contempt" doesn't strike me as compelling evidence . . . . > when people mention familiarity breeding something, it's usually contempt > . . . . but I'm still not sure whether the > occurrence of 'content' in this frame is an instance of a "pullet > surprise" or simply a variant. It doesn't appear to be a geographical >variant, in any case; nor is it (necessarily) a joke. actually, his name was publius syrus. my typing is far from perfect. i'm not trying to offer compelling evidence of anything. but because i've lived in the west most of my life and never heard it, i doubt the first tentative hypothesis offered, that "content" may be the western variant. publius syrus is also the guy who gave us a version of "strike while the iron is hot" (maxim 262), which _bartlett's_ enters under john heywood (who edited the first collection of english colloquial sayings), with footnotes for rabelais and syrus. probably most americans encounter "strike while the iron is hot" as the slogan on the cream of wheat box. that doesn't mean that it didn't enter the language, and stay there for awhile, in a popular/preferred translation. my mother's family (the older generations anyway) pepper their speech with _bartlett's_y commonplaces. none of them ever read cervantes, but their biblical aphorisms are always in king james, their shakespeare (even though they seldom realize that's what it is) is frozen in word order, and their classical allusions run to what i imagine were british-schoolboy norms before 1920. if i did want to offer my own hypothesis about this phenomenon (which i emphatically don't--i'm going right back to lurking in three shakes of a lamb's tail), i would guess this will not turn out to be a regional variant, and that you won't find a body of written attestations for it that turn out to be very old. further, i would guess that most americans now add to the stock of proverbs they know at least as much from television and radio as from dusty old books and things grandma used to say. that means that if ricki lake decides to say "kneehigh to a walkman," or "since hector was a puppy," it has, at least potentially, a huge effect. i wonder if the real isogloss for content/contempt is not a geographical but a temporal marking; that the usage will turn out to begin after a paul harvey broadcast from 1962. final attempts to ward off the blows i feel coming: i love this list because of the possibilities it opens up. i don't want to defend a position on this topic, and i look forward to further evidence which points in other directions. i am a bookworm from a family of bookworms; when i see a post about a mid-nineteenth century usage of pothouse politician, i know from something i read somewhere that a pothouse is a place where you get a pot of something restorative like soup or ale, that it reminds me of dickens and penguin translations of stendhal, but i can't put my finger on it. it makes me sad that we have to go to the _oed_ or _webster's third_ to remember what this meant; the suggestion that since it means something like "a place where people smoke pot" in one poster's speech community makes that meaning more likely in 1850 makes me sadder still. and it makes me nervous that it makes me sad--how can i be such a descriptivist about form and such a prescriptivist about content! sylvia swift madonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 00:56:49 -0700 From: Sylvia Swift Subject: Re: contempt vs. content preemptive self-flaming of my last post: ok, so the isogloss metaphor doesn't work. sylvia swift madonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 10:46:02 -0400 From: David Muschell Subject: Re: contempt vs. content >Hello, > >I just received a message from someone in Virginia who is familiar >with the expression, > > "Familiarity breeds contempt," > >but has never heard, > > "Familiarity breeds content." > >I, who have lived primarily in the western states (CA, WA, and UT), >had only heard the "content" version. Are both versions in common >usage now or has one of us merely misheard something? > > > >Tom Uharriet >Springville, Utah >utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." "Absence makes the false heart wander." David ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 11:13:37 -0400 From: "E. Wayles Browne" Subject: Re: contempt vs. content If _comptroller_ can be pronounced _controller_, one would think that _contempt_ could be pronounced _content_ (though I still wouldn't want to pronounce it content, myself). Does anyone know how the first pair of words came to resemble each other? Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics Morrill Hall, Cornell University Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A. tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h) e-mail ewb2[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cornell.edu (1989 to 1993 was: jn5j[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cornella.bitnet // jn5j[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cornella.cit.cornell.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 11:25:56 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: contempt vs. content The information Wales wants on 'comptroller' is in Pyles (The Origins and Development of the English Language), p. 72. 'Comptroller' is a pseudolearned respelling of 'controller,' taken by English from Old French. The fancy spelling is doubtless due to an erroneous association with French 'compte' "count." The word has fairly recently acquired a new pronunciation based on the misspelling. Dennis Preston ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 11:20:54 -0500 From: wachal robert s Subject: Familiarity Was it Dorothy Parker who said. "Familiarity breeds"? Bob Wachal ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 11:19:51 -0500 From: wachal robert s Subject: Absinthe And then there was the health problem that only a Japanese gastrointestinal specialist was able to solve. The punch line that he uttered to the person who had the problem was "Absinthe makes the farts go 'Honda'." Bob :-( Wachal ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 18:56:36 CDT From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Pres Carter said "noo-key-er", not "noo-cue-ler". DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 18:21:26 -0700 From: THOMAS CLARK Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply I thought it was LBJ who said "noo kya ler." On Sun, 10 Sep 1995, Donald M. Lance wrote: > Pres Carter said "noo-key-er", not "noo-cue-ler". DMLance > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 20:25:08 CDT From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Lotsa people say noo-cue-ler, but few say noo-key-er. Recently I noticed 'noo-cue-ler' in a 1950s film on the development of these "ultimate toys." A clip from the 1950s film was used in a TV documentary. When I was in the Army, in the Basic Officers Course in 1952-53 the major assigned to teach us about atomic energy referred to what was dropped on the Japanese cities as an "Adam bum." I think I've heard 'new-cue-ler' in British speech too. I don't think there was an "originator" of this pronunciation, as some postings have seemed to imply. There are some phonotactic rules at work here, not disfluencies or bad imitations of standard speech or unfortunate imitations of bad speech. The major taught us just the fundamentals of nuclear fission and fusion and consequences thereof. He had different medial consonants in these two words, as I do, and as spelling suggests (analogous to poisson and poison in French). It just occurred to me as I reread my text that Jimmy Carter probably says nyu- rather than noo- in 'new-key-er' (Southern pronunciation of 'new'/'nu-'). DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 22:26:23 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Is it safe to assume (as I always have, safely or not) that 'n(y)u-cue-lar' comes from analogizing that particular adjective to others with the relatively prevalent -(c)ular ending (popular, vernacular, spectacular, ocular)? This would mean it's not exactly a matter of phonotactics per se. Evidence for this line would be people who differentiate 'nucular' from 'nucleus' (vs. *nuculus), where the phonotactics would be similar but the tendency for analogizing would be less (given the relatively infrequent -(c)ulus ending for nominals). Larry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 20:35:24 -0700 From: Anton Sherwood Subject: pi=4 In 1897, Indiana's lower house passed "A bill introducing a new Mathematical truth" which made some dubious claims about pi and related matters. (It doesn't _directly_ give pi a value.) A professor of mathematics from Purdue happened to visit the capitol while the upper house was debating the bill. By his intervention, it was referred to the Committee on Temperance and never seen again. (This from "A History of pi" by Petr Beckmann, 1970.) Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]netcom.com ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 9 Sep 1995 to 10 Sep 1995 *********************************************** There are 38 messages totalling 952 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. nuclear pron 2. write/write to (2) 3. Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply (5) 4. nuclear (2) 5. FOR English Only (9) 6. CD-ROM Bibliographies 7. pronunciation: jewelry (6) 8. English-only (one last time) 9. DEG ADJ of a N (2) 10. Thank you (re Lolita) 11. contempt vs. content (2) 12. sugar and spice (4) 13. English only cartoon 14. Internet Term Stumper (fwd) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 23:21:37 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: nuclear pron In this household, the MidWestern Ph.D. husband (Ok, Dad's from Oklahoma...) pronounces nuclear "atomic" whenever in hearing of the pronchick wife (Oxford Desk Dict now out!) rkm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 08:30:02 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: write/write to A colleague on another list asks whether the ff. construction would raise the eyebrows of any American linguist: I wrote Bethany. (compare: "I wrote to Bethany") And, what about the ff: "I wrote back to him." vs. "I wrote him back." Comments? Thanks, Bethany K. Dumas, J.D.., Ph.D. | Applied Linguistics, Language & Law Dep't of English, UT, Knoxville | EMAIL: dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu 415 McClung Tower | (615) 974-6965 | FAX (615) 974-6926 Knoxville, TN 37996-0430 | See Webpage at http://hamlet.la.utk.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 08:44:55 CDT From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply People who say 'nucular' also tend to say 'relator' for 'realtor' and several others that I can't remember at the moment. They also tend to misspell these words. The -er seems to be a factor in the phonotactics. I'm sure I've also heard 'nuculus'. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 09:07:17 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: write/write to > I wrote Bethany. > (compare: "I wrote to Bethany") > > And, what about the ff: "I wrote back to him." vs. "I wrote him back." > > Comments? All four sound perfectly normal to me. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 10:13:50 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Donald Lance just wrote: >People who say 'nucular' also tend to say 'relator' for 'realtor' and >several others that I can't remember at the moment. They also tend to >misspell these words. The -er seems to be a factor in the phonotactics. >I'm sure I've also heard 'nuculus'. DMLance Is the former claim one there's any empirical evidence for? I tend to think each of these tendencies (along with others--I have always said 'jewlery' for 'jewelry' but don't do any of the aforementioned bits) goes its own way and has its own constituency. My impression is that mine (jew-le-ry) is (of course) more common than 'nucular', which in turn is more frequent than 'feb-u-ary', which in turn is heard more often than 'liberry'. I'm not sure where 'relator' (for 'realtor') fits in, but I think there may be a number of different factors responsible for the variation in these forms, including phonological and phonetic tendencies (ease of articulation, least effort, whatever), analogizing (see my line on 'nucular'), and variation in underlying form (which would be supported by Don's point about the variant spellings). Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 11:58:42 -0400 From: "H. Stephen STRAIGHT (Binghamton University/SUNY)" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Larry Horn wrote: > Donald Lance just wrote: > >People who say 'nucular' also tend to say 'relator' for 'realtor' and > >several others that I can't remember at the moment. They also tend to > >misspell these words. The -er seems to be a factor in the phonotactics. > >I'm sure I've also heard 'nuculus'. DMLance > > Is the former claim one there's any empirical evidence for? I tend to think > each of these tendencies (along with others--I have always said 'jewlery' for > 'jewelry' but don't do any of the aforementioned bits) goes its own way and > has its own constituency. My impression is that mine (jew-le-ry) is (of > course) more common than 'nucular', which in turn is more frequent than > 'feb-u-ary', which in turn is heard more often than 'liberry'. Well, for what it's worth, the American Heritage Dictionary, known for its heavily prescriptive cast, explicitly condones 'feb-u-ary' but not 'nu-cu-lar' or 'li-ber-ry', and it's silent on 'jew-ler-y'. Larry's probably right to doubt that all these non-orthographic pronunciations hang together, but he's probably wrong to assert that they're implicationally scaled. Instead, these variants seem to exhibit a rather complex geo- and socio-lectal distributional diversity. H Stephen STRAIGHT, Anthro/Ling/Lgs Across the Curric, Binghamton U (SUNY) Box 6000, Binghamton NY 13902-6000 Tel: 607-777-2824 Fax: 607-777-2889 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 09:21:05 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: nuclear May I respectfully suggest to all you linguistic scholars our there that you consult Merrian Webster's Dictionary of English Usage--available at about $20..00 per copy --for well-informed, data-supported, non-anecdotal inform- ation about such matters as the variant pronunciations of _nuclear_, . ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 10:31:27 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: FOR English Only Christopher R. Coolidge wrote: > If all 50 states pass an English only law, then we'll confound > them by speaking 50 different dialects and pidgins. If we passed a Cherokee- > only law, we'd all speak our own form of pidgin Cherokee colored by our eth- > nic background. What's the difference? > Was that an emotional appeal or merely innocent confusion of issues? Aside from educational objectives to teach Standard American English grammar/usage, I know of no current drive to mandate the use of any particular dialect. That is a different issue altogether. English Only legislation eliminates states' requirements to provide education and state materials in any language that is spoken (as a native language) within those states. When California, for example (unless I am mistaken), originates public materials, they must be available in several languages at the expense of the tax payer. When printing in English, however, they do not write one version in the South Central L.A. Black English dialect, another in the East L.A. Hispanic English dialect, another the dialects of Chinatown, desert towns, mountain regions, beach teens, San Fernando Vallians, etc. Instead, they write their material (as closely as they know how) in Standard American English--that language that is found in most of our school's grammar books. This so-called "Standard" English is not morally superior or more legitimate than any other dialect. Nor is English morally superior to other languages. English Only legislation does not discourage people from using their own dialects. Nor does it prevent one from learning a second or third language. It simply says that those states are able to publish in English without being required to make multiple language versions. Likewise, they can teach in English without protecting their students from needing to learn this language. We all contribute to this e-mail discussion without difficulty even though we speak very different dialects. I have no more problem understanding entries from South Africa, Texas, New York, Alabama, Boston, or Watts than I do from any other country, state, or city. Why? Because no matter what we have learned to speak, we all come close enough to being able to write in Standard American English to be able to freely communicate. English Only legislation has nothing to do with dialects. What is does have to do with is eliminating our mandated non-expectation of immigrants to learn to communicate as freely in Standard American English as we do. Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 12:42:49 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Stephen Straight writes: >> ...My impression is that mine (jew-le-ry) is (of >>course) more common than 'nucular', which in turn is more frequent than >>'feb-u-ary', which in turn is heard more often than 'liberry'. >Well, for what it's worth, the American Heritage Dictionary, known for its >heavily prescriptive cast, explicitly condones 'feb-u-ary' but not >'nu-cu-lar' or 'li-ber-ry', and it's silent on 'jew-ler-y'. Larry's >probably right to doubt that all these non-orthographic pronunciations >hang together, but he's probably wrong to assert that they're >implicationally scaled. Instead, these variants seem to exhibit a rather >complex geo- and socio-lectal distributional diversity. I agree entirely, and apologize for the false impression that I was making any such claim (of implicational scaling). I was just trying to indicate my (admittedly impressionistic) sense of relative frequency of these innovative phonologies (if innovative they are). As for Tom Creswell's suggestion, OK. Mea culpa. I'll try to track down a copy of Merriam-Webster Dict. of English usage to get the real dope on how 'nucular' got to be pronounced that way and how that relates or fails to relate to 'jewlery', 'Febuary', 'liberry',... Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:13:01 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: CD-ROM Bibliographies After reading the exchanges here and listening to some lackluster debate on Jesse Jackson's show yesterday in regard to English Only, I had to fire off a piece this morning for the local newspaper about my failure to see the unified culture of America, but now I have to go to work. The Problem: The CD-ROM version of the MLA Bibliography is horribly expensive. Indeed, it is so expensive (over $2000 per year) that my college (and I'm sure many others) has has not been able to purchase it. My university system has tried to get it licensed for the entire system, but no one's had any success in budging the MLA. The Question: When I was in graduate school, I always double-checked my bibliography work in literature against the entries in the MHRA annual bibliography, which seemed to be as thorough as the MLA bibliography was in the late 1970s. Is the MHRA bibliography available on CD-ROM? Is it cheaper than the MLA bibliography? Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:12:14 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: pronunciation: jewelry I've always pronounced it as "jewl-er-ee," and occasionally wondered why it's pronounced that way, but I've never heard any other pronunciation. How do the rest of you pronounce "jewelry"? Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 14:09:22 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Re: pronunciation: jewelry >I've always pronounced it as "jewl-er-ee," and occasionally wondered >why it's pronounced that way, but I've never heard any other pronunciation. >How do the rest of you pronounce "jewelry"? > >Vicki Rosenzweig >vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com >New York, NY I say it the way that you do. A common pronunciation in Central Georgia sounds like "jewry." Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 12:14:20 -0700 From: Milton Azevedo Subject: Re: FOR English Only All other issues aside, I wish people would remember, when they talk about FL materials produced at tax payers' expenses, that the FL speakers who use those materials --electoral information and ballots or driving learners'manuals, to mention only two categories-- also pay taxes, so it isn't as if they were benefitting from monolinguals' unvoluntary largesse. --------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Milton Azevedo Dept of Spanish & Portuguese Univ of California, Berkeley Berkeley CA 94720 - USA E-MAIL: ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu Tel. (510) 642-0471 or -2116 --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 14:22:06 -0500 From: Katherine Catmull Subject: Re: pronunciation: jewelry On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote: > I've always pronounced it as "jewl-er-ee," and occasionally wondered > why it's pronounced that way, but I've never heard any other pronunciation. > How do the rest of you pronounce "jewelry"? "Jewl-ree." I'm trying to think if I've ever heard it pronounced your way--I think I have, and thought "That person is Not From Here." ;-) Kate Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bga.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 14:21:00 CDT From: Tom Murray Subject: English-only (one last time) In a recent post to this list, I incorrectly identified Michigan as a state tha t had passed English-only legislation. Sorry about that. The other 20 states I listed were correct; numbers 21 and 22 are Louisiana and Montana. --Tom Murray ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 15:49:34 -0400 From: "H. Stephen STRAIGHT (Binghamton University/SUNY)" Subject: Re: pronunciation: jewelry > Subject: pronunciation: jewelry > I've always pronounced it as "jewl-er-ee," and occasionally wondered > why it's pronounced that way, but I've never heard any other pronunciation. > How do the rest of you pronounce "jewelry"? > Vicki Rosenzweig > New York, NY JEWL-ry (two syllables), every time. But then I'm from Shuh-KAW-go, so what can you expect? H Stephen STRAIGHT, Anthro/Ling/Lgs Across the Curric, Binghamton U (SUNY) Box 6000, Binghamton NY 13902-6000 Tel: 607-777-2824 Fax: 607-777-2889 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 16:06:05 -0400 From: "H. Stephen STRAIGHT (Binghamton University/SUNY)" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply My apologies to Larry Horn for misrepresenting his statement of subjective impressions of the relative frequency of particular non-orthographic pronunciations as a claim that they were implicationally scaled. A less polite list-er might have taken me to task for the misrepresentation. Thank you, Larry. Even relative-frequency judgments are, however, suspect. For example, my own experience growing up in a houseful of English teachers in the Midwest found feb-yu-air-ee, but NONE of the other examples cited in this thread. Presumably, by the way, it's not at all a matter of not knowing how to spell. After all, there are innumerable examples of words that no one ever pronounces in accordance with their spelling (take the word "word", for example). And, interestingly, all of the realtors I know say reel-a-ter and reel-a-tee, but most of them seem to spell these words in the prescribed manner. By the way, remember that Jimmy Carter has a degree in nuclear engineering. Education and expertise don't make the difference, either. H Stephen STRAIGHT, Anthro/Ling/Lgs Across the Curric, Binghamton U (SUNY) Box 6000, Binghamton NY 13902-6000 Tel: 607-777-2824 Fax: 607-777-2889 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 15:42:51 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: nuclear >May I respectfully suggest to all you linguistic scholars our there that you >consult Merrian Webster's Dictionary of English Usage--available at about >$20..00 per copy --for well-informed, data-supported, non-anecdotal inform- >ation about such matters as the variant pronunciations of _nuclear_, . OK, so this linguistic scholar consulted (a bit tricky, since the Yale library system has not seen fit to order a copy of M W's D of E U) and read its well- informed, data-supported, non-anecdotal entry for 'nuclear', from which I learned that speakers who pronounce it 'nucular' "have succumbed to the gravi- tational tug of a far more prevalent pattern" of words ending in -cular ('particular', 'spectacular', 'vernacular', etc.). Gee, I could have sworn that's what I had mumbled (anecdotally). I'm not sure what makes Merriam- Webster's opinion more 'well-informed', 'data-supported', or 'non-anecdotal' than mine, but I am forced to admit that "succumbing to the gravitational tug of a far more prevalent pattern" certainly SOUNDS more impressive than "analo- gizing that particular adjective [nuclear] to others with the relatively pre- valent -(c)ular ending". Unlike my posting, M-W's D of E U does give other in- stances of the same analogic--oops, sorry, GRAVITATIONAL--reasoning, including 'similar' pronounced 'simular' (gravitating toward 'cellular', 'angular', 'fabulous'), which I find not entirely convincing (I suspect the existence of 'simulate' might be involved as well), and 'nuptual' (tugged toward 'con- ceptual', although I'd have thought 'actual', 'factual' would be stronger forces). Oh, and 'jewlery' and 'relator' are both listed as (equally) non- standard metatheses, which I assume doesn't imply that they're equally frequent. No data cited anywhere along the way, as far as I can tell, but interesting reading on the level of (dare I say) anecdotal speculation. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 14:08:52 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Re: FOR English Only My thanks and admiration to Mr. Uharriet for shining the clear light of reason into the emotional murk of this "discussion." Tom Creswell ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 14:08:47 -0600 From: POLSKY ELLEN S Subject: Re: FOR English Only Can anyone really define STANDARD American English? We can't say that it's what the newscasters use, because they speak on t.v. in a variety of dialects. To say it's what the grammar books in school use is not satisfactory because there are many traditionally ungrammatical structures in the grammar books. So, what is "standard" English? If the Official English movement is in favor of having non-native speakers of English communicate in English, do they also support, and will the government, then, fund ESL programs across the country? As an ESL instructor, I can report that our programs are being CUT, not expanded! Ellen S. Polsky (Ellen.Polsky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Colorado.EDU) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 14:45:54 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only Milton Azevedo writes, > All other issues aside, I wish people would remember, when > they talk about FL materials produced at tax payers' expenses, > that the FL speakers who use those materials --electoral > information and ballots or driving learners'manuals, to mention > only two categories-- also pay taxes, so it isn't as if they > were benefitting from monolinguals' unvoluntary largesse. While of course it is true that they all contribute to the tax base of each state, there is a significant difference in operating costs --and in educational costs--between English Only guidelines and FL mandates. Everyone pays more without English Only legislation. On the other hand, what evidence do we have that non-English speakers are collectively better off in the long run by not being expected to learn English? It is often argued that they are better served, at least economically, by helping them to assimilate. Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 15:13:16 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only POLSKY ELLEN S writes: > Can anyone really define STANDARD American English? We can't say > that it's what the newscasters use, because they speak on t.v. in > a variety of dialects. . . . So, what is "standard" English? Let's not kid ourselves. All across the country, at least on a most basic level, we tell our students to recognize the difference between sentence fragments and complete sentences. Even though local dialects may permit these fragments, they are generally less welcome in school papers. I have only taught in three states, but I have good reason to believe that the rules are the same across the continent. Local influences may impact our writing styles, and even dictate which aspects of the school grammar books are ignored, but they do not usually lead us to produce writing books to promote our own dialects. There are many shades of blue. Calling one shade "blue" does not require us to rename every other shade. There are many shades of Standard American English. Aren't we beyond trying to name a particular dialect as the true standard? It was mentioned that some grammar books contain errors. The fact that we can recognize those errors supports the idea that we know the standard--or that we can be educated to know it. We cannot then pretend that such a standard does not exist. Such pretence may be PC, but we know better. Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 17:21:50 EDT From: Douglas Bayer x3701 3NW Subject: Re: DEG ADJ of a N Arnold, Do you have a simple explanation for the OF in these "how long of a drive" constructions? Many speakers object strongly to the intrusive "of." Yet to my ear its quite natural. I'd love to learn a defense... --Doug Bayer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 18:25:43 -0400 From: "Cynthia L. Moore" Subject: Re: pronunciation: jewelry I grew up in Cleveland Ohio and pronounce it JOO WOOL RY. I'm not certain, however, whether that is the standard pronciation in that area. Cindie Moore, now of Arlington, VA. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 17:43:34 -0500 From: Nancy Dray Subject: Thank you (re Lolita) Subject: Time:5:16 PM OFFICE MEMO Thank you (re Lolita) Date:9/11/95 I just wanted to thank all those who responded to my query regarding possible linguistic anachronisms in an upcoming Adrian Lyne film of "Lolita." I faxed Mr. Lyne's assistant a summary, with excerpts from OED cites and ADS-L replies. I also suggested she consider ADS if she is ever seeking language consultants in the future (I gave her Allan Metcalf's address as a contact for the society). Needless to say, she was very pleased--and eager to get on-line and explore the 'Net herself. So, how can we encourage other movie directors and TV producers to check this sort of thing (and pay us, too)? And can this be useful in creating good p.r. for dialectology, lexicography, linguistics? Just a thought... Nancy L. Dray (n-dray[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 16:57:56 -0600 From: Marianna Di Paolo Subject: Re: contempt vs. content >I've lived in and out of Utah. I knew "contempt" before I lived there, >but I've heard "content" used by old husbands who know better than to >rile their wives. But Marianna Dipaolo will be able to set us all right. >Cheers, >tlc Well, I wish I could, Tom, but I have never heard the expression with anything other than "contempt". But so far the discussion suggests that "content" only occurs in Utah and maybe only in small towns. Is that right? Marianna Di Paolo m.dipaolo[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]m.cc.utah.edu Linguistics Program 2300 LNCO University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 16:06:13 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: pronunciation: jewelry I've always said 'jew-[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]l-ri as long as I can remember. On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer wrote: > I've always pronounced it as "jewl-er-ee," and occasionally wondered > why it's pronounced that way, but I've never heard any other pronunciation. > How do the rest of you pronounce "jewelry"? > > Vicki Rosenzweig > vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com > New York, NY > ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 16:08:56 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: FOR English Only STANDARD English is written. There is no spoken standard. Those are really two different languages. On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, POLSKY ELLEN S wrote: > Can anyone really define STANDARD American English? We can't say that > it's what the newscasters use, because they speak on t.v. in a variety of > dialects. To say it's what the grammar books in school use is not > satisfactory because there are many traditionally ungrammatical > structures in the grammar books. So, what is "standard" English? > > If the Official English movement is in favor of having non-native > speakers of English communicate in English, do they also support, > and will the government, then, fund ESL programs across the country? As > an ESL instructor, I can report that our programs are being CUT, not > expanded! > > Ellen S. Polsky (Ellen.Polsky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Colorado.EDU) > ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 19:23:07 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: FOR English Only What an incredible question. Of course I can (and have). Standard English is the English spoken in Michigan. If you don't believe it, ask the people of Michigan. Dennis Preston P.S.: One of my nastiest local tricks is to chuckle when Michiganders speak. When thay ask me what's so damn funny, I say 'They way y'all talk just tickles the shit out of me' (with my native South Midland phonology, of course). The range of emotions goes from puzzlement to anger, but similar comments from Michiganders to 'real' dialect speakers (that is, speakers of English from practically everywhere else) never raises a local eyebrow. Fun, huh? >Can anyone really define STANDARD American English? We can't say that >it's what the newscasters use, because they speak on t.v. in a variety of >dialects. To say it's what the grammar books in school use is not >satisfactory because there are many traditionally ungrammatical >structures in the grammar books. So, what is "standard" English? > > >Ellen S. Polsky (Ellen.Polsky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Colorado.EDU) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 19:51:10 EDT From: Arnold Zwicky Subject: Re: DEG ADJ of a N what i am about to say in print about this is that this use of OF is presumably an extension of the rule for NPs with quantity (rather than degree) modifiers like MORE, LESS, ENOUGH, A BIT, in combination with singular count nouns: MORE OF A LIAR, ENOUGH OF A LINGUIST, A BIT OF A CHARMER. people who have the OF A i talked about have it *exactly* where others have modifiers with A (HOW BIG A DOG etc.). so what i'm saying is that there is no "intrusive" OF at all, but rather an extension of a widespread rule for "special" modifiers of N (those that don't just combine with bare N, but take indef.art + N): use the "flag" OF. what i'm saying is that those of us who say HOW BIG A DOG etc. have an extra wrinkle in our grammars; the OF-flagged NP is what we should expect for a dependent that combines with a full NP, but instead there is no flag. arnold ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 19:23:18 EDT From: Ahmen Dodd Subject: sugar and spice Stop surfing the net and start using it! We spend about 62% of our time surfing on the net leaving only 38% to use it. No more with The Official Internet Site Directory- this US printed directory contains hundreds of thousands of sites relating to subjects such as... Education Art Economy Business News Government Information Entertainment and much much more... Until now this has only published for a selected number of users but is now available to all. To receive your copy send a check or money order in US dollars in the amount of 25.90(21.95 plus 3.95 S & H) made payable to A.I. Dodd A.I. Dodd Publishing Co. Internet Directory 1329 West Touhy Avenue Chicago Illinois 60626 Order within the next week and receive also Sights I Never Knew Existed. This inch think directory contains hundreds of unique sites. Examples such as Adult only all the way to details of Zsa Zsa Gabors run in with the police. Free with your order if you order within the next week or purchased separately just 11.95 plus 3.95 S & H. Yours free when you order The Official Internet Site Directory. By using either directory you will help not only your own proficiency but you will waste less time on the net. So order your copy today! (If you can think of others who could use this directory you have our permission to forward this message to them.) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 19:31:04 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: sugar and spice Uh oh. Spammers are beginning to figure out ways to fool the listserv spam-filter. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 20:33:17 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: Re: sugar and spice Natalie, can you elaborate? On spammers and spam-filters? Thanks, Bethany ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 19:41:34 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: sugar and spice > Natalie, can you elaborate? On spammers and spam-filters? Spam is junk mail sent to multiple lists. A spammer is one who sends such mail. The latest version of listserv has a filter that catches most spam and bounces it to the listowner, who can forward it on to the list if it turns out to be a legitimate posting. I'm not sure exactly how the filter works (exactly what it looks for as an indicator of likely spamming -- ain't morphology great), but it seems to work quite well. So far I haven't seen the spam-filter catch anything but real spam. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 22:38:11 EDT From: David Bergdahl Subject: English only cartoon Ohio University Electronic Communication Date: 11-Sep-1995 10:34pm EST To: Remote Addressee ( _MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU ) From: David Bergdahl Dept: English BERGDAHL Tel No: (614) 593-2783 Subject: English only cartoon Am I the only lister who noticed the cartoon in the News of the Week in Review section of the Sunday [NY] Times? Senator Dole, holding up a loaf of what appears to be Wonder Bread, declares that White Bread is the OFFICIAL bread of the U.S. and that pumpernickel, pita, &c. &c. should no longer be bought, eaten, enjoyed &c. &c. BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Where Appalachia meets the Midwest" Received: 11-Sep-1995 10:38pm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 22:52:47 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: contempt vs. content Marianna di Paolo writes (in response to Tom Clark), >>I've lived in and out of Utah. I knew "contempt" before I lived there, >>but I've heard "content" used by old husbands who know better than to >>rile their wives. But Marianna Dipaolo will be able to set us all right. >>Cheers, >>tlc >Well, I wish I could, Tom, but I have never heard the expression with >anything other than "contempt". But so far the discussion suggests that >"content" only occurs in Utah and maybe only in small towns. Is that >right? > Well, Marianna, I can assure you that while my "content" may have been picked up in New York (Manhattan or Long Island--the source, no doubt, of my "jew-le-ry"), or perhaps in California (L.A. or Berkeley), or even in the midwest (Ann Arbor or Madison), it most definitely was not contracted in a small town in Utah. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 23:12:18 -0400 From: TERRY IRONS Subject: Re: FOR English Only On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Tom Uharriet wrote: > particular dialect. That is a different issue altogether. English > Only legislation eliminates states' requirements to provide education > and state materials in any language that is spoken (as a native > language) within those states. >... English Only legislation does not discourage > people from using their own dialects. Nor does it prevent one from > learning a second or third language. It simply says that those > states are able to publish in English without being required to make > multiple language versions. Likewise, they can teach in English > without protecting their students from needing to learn this > language. > > be able to freely communicate. English Only legislation has nothing > to do with dialects. What is does have to do with is eliminating our > mandated non-expectation of immigrants to learn to communicate as > freely in Standard American English as we do. > > > Question: who is the "we" above? English Only legislation is also a veiled position stating that monolinguals need not learn to communicate as freely in another language just as its adherents would have non-native speakers of English lects do. The Equal Protection Clause of one of them-thar emendationments to that that-thar constituation thang that them guys writ in Anglish whan they shud of knowed to use some really good langage likes Latin or Iroquois (and why they din't use Frenchy is beyond me cuz Jefferson writed lots of stuff in Frenchy) is the impetus underlying multilingual documents and bilingual education in the US of A (WAVE THAT FLAG HIGH, GOOD OLE BOYS!) There was some Supreme Court case to that effect. I do not have my materials on it at home so I cannot give the exact citation. It involved the Board of Education of San Francisco and the local Chinese community. For a public institution to fail to communicate to a citizen constitutes a violation of equal protection before the law. The burden of communication rests in the public institution, not the five year old who has grown hearing only Spanish, which has been spoken continuosly on this continent longer than English. (Or insert Chinese in the above sentence to get closer to the original case. For dialects and the burden of communication there is an appellate (I believe) court decision from Ann ARbor. But these are facts that are known and I would presume respected by all members of this list. If not, I humbly say, get the F*** off. SO much for my flame this week. My point in raising these facts is this: can state legislation, as the posting that I cite above suggests, in fact overturn the Supreme Court decision of 1974 mentioned above. Can a state pass legislation that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution? English first maybe, but I question that. English Only? NEVER. Terry (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 22:34:15 -0500 From: Daniel S Goodman Subject: Internet Term Stumper (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 09:27:19 -0400 From: Terry L. Wirick To: stumpers-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CRF.CUIS.EDU Subject: Internet Term Stumper Fellow Stumpers, I hope I don't get spammed for this, but does anyone know how the term 'spamming' got coined for mass e-mailing? I checked the Internet books that are available in my library, but spamming is not mentioned. Thanks, Terry Wirick Erie County Library System Erie, PA ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 10 Sep 1995 to 11 Sep 1995 ************************************************ There are 24 messages totalling 856 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Internet Term Stumper (fwd) (6) 2. Pronounciation of ... 3. spam: can't help it 4. Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply (2) 5. nuclear (2) 6. sugar and spice 7. pronunciation of oxymoron, jewelry, etc. 8. FOR English Only (5) 9. contempt vs. content (2) 10. English Only 11. please send info (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 21:45:58 -0700 From: Sylvia Swift Subject: Re: Internet Term Stumper (fwd) On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Daniel S Goodman forwarded: > I hope I don't get spammed for this, but does anyone know how the > term 'spamming' got coined for mass e-mailing? i read that it's from the metaphor of spam (yes, the trademarked pork product) hitting a fan, and the resulting havoc. i don't have a copy at home, but i think it's mentioned in _internet for dummies_. sylvia swift madonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 00:41:29 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: Re: Pronounciation of ... The folks I know who say "relator" also tend to say "joolery" for jewelry - but they're not necessarily the folks who say nucular. Also, of those I've heard say nucular - they usually say nucleus just fine. I wrote the above before I read all the other responses which also included the jewelry example. So responding to the thread, I say joolree usually, although occasionally I actually say jooalree. Grew up in NY. Re the other examples; I (as pron editor) included febyooery in AHD (hadn't realized I was considered all that prescriptive) because it is so prevalent and accepted - whereas liberree isn't. When I was still in school, we were taught that the definition of "correct" speech and pronunciation was that which was spoken by the educated folks in any given area. Sometimes, however, we more-or-less descriptivist pronchics still get unhappy. At Random House, we put in the nucular pron because Carter said it (referencing The President's Speech theory), and originally were going to put a pronunciation modifier along with it: "nookleear, often nookular" to be really read as, "and entirely too often". Rima ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 08:46:45 -0500 From: Katherine Catmull Subject: Re: Internet Term Stumper (fwd) On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Sylvia Swift wrote: > On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Daniel S Goodman forwarded: > > > I hope I don't get spammed for this, but does anyone know how the > > term 'spamming' got coined for mass e-mailing? > > i read that it's from the metaphor of spam (yes, the trademarked pork > product) hitting a fan, and the resulting havoc. i don't have a copy at > home, but i think it's mentioned in _internet for dummies_. On Usenet, where spam is a much greater problem than it is on e-mail lists, there is a group called news.admin.net-abuse.misc (I think--maybe no "admin" in the name) to discuss and deal with the problem. They have an excellent and informative FAQ which among other things gives a very presice definition of spam. And I believe it was in that FAQ I read that the term "spam" is a reference to the ancient Monty Python skit about the restaurant where you can't order anything that doesn't include spam--and where a chorus of men keeps leaping up to chant "SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM . . ." endlessly. It's an apt and amusing etymology and I hope it's true. Kate Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bga.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 09:29:37 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: Internet Term Stumper (fwd) I can't find a citation for this (I thought it was in "The New Hacker's Dictionary," but all that says is "from the MUD community"), but I think "spam" in its net sense derives from the Monty Python skit about spam, spam, eggs, and spam, probably via science fiction fandom. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 10:00:58 EDT From: Douglas Bayer x3701 3NW Subject: Re: Internet Term Stumper (fwd) Every discussion of this that I've read eventually comes to the conclusion that the fan story, however compelling to all who know the old saloon joke, is a "reinterpretation." Wired and others "in-the-know" would have us believe "spam" is based on the incessant chant in the Monty-Python song of the same name (sung to the Charge! tune familiar to hockey fans): "SPAM-SPAM-SPAM-SPAM! SPAM-SPAM-SPAM-SPAM! ..." --LONG--- (Doesn't ring a bell for you either?) Most "Did you know...?" column-fillers state one version or the other as plain fact. But a few cast doubt on the "fan" story and state that those "in the know" claim the MP song is the real origin, then ask the reader to decide... So the whole story is that people tell both versions. And just as a jazz pianist can play a chord with one finger-- by setting you up to expect a different note that e plays-- the word is the richer for both, and for the debate. Members of this list may be qualified to judge which is more plausible. Personally, I'm intrigued by the idea that it started with the cult song, but as it gained currency, it outran its obscure reference. Far more people have heard, or even told, the s***-hit-the-fan joke at least once in their lifetime than have ever heard or sung the MP song. --Doug > > I hope I don't get spammed for this, but does anyone know how the > > term 'spamming' got coined for mass e-mailing? > > i read that it's from the metaphor of spam (yes, the trademarked pork > product) hitting a fan, and the resulting havoc. i don't have a copy at > home, but i think it's mentioned in _internet for dummies_. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 08:02:23 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: Internet Term Stumper (fwd) On Tue, 12 Sep 1995, Douglas Bayer x3701 3NW wrote: > Personally, I'm intrigued by the idea that it started with the > cult song, but as it gained currency, it outran its obscure > reference. Far more people have heard, or even told, the > s***-hit-the-fan joke at least once in their lifetime than have > ever heard or sung the MP song. > > --Doug > Problem is, Doug, it only takes ONE PROGRAMMER or whatnot to get such a term started. Besides, I'm still not sure what s*** hitting the fan, in either joke (?) or formulaic speech form, has to do with spam. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 11:28:01 EST From: Boyd Davis Subject: spam: can't help it A story in the Charlotte (NC) Observer last year explained that Charlotte was the spam-capital of the universe in that more people either actually ate Spam, or were willing to confess to such, than anywhere else. I do not expect this thrilling tidbit to explain variation or isogloss shift, but thought you'd want to know... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 09:28:14 -0700 From: David Harnick-Shapiro Subject: Re: Internet Term Stumper (fwd) On Mon, 11 Sep 1995 22:34, Daniel S Goodman forwarded: > I hope I don't get spammed for this, but does anyone know how the > term 'spamming' got coined for mass e-mailing? > > I checked the Internet books that are available in my library, but > spamming is not mentioned. THE source for computer-related slang is the "Jargon file"; while not the work of trained lexicologists, at least native speakers tend to agree with its pronouncements. And it says: spam vt. [from "Monty Python's Flying Circus"] 1. To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data. See also buffer overflow, overrun screw, smash the stack. 2. To cause a newsgroup to be flooded with irrelevant or inappropriate messages. You can spam a newsgroup with as little as one well- (or ill-) planned message (e.g. asking "What do you think of abortion?" on soc.women). This is often done with cross-posting (e.g. any message which is crossposted to alt.rush-limbaugh and alt.politics.homosexuality will almost inevitably spam both groups). The second definition has become much more prevalent as the Internet has opened up to non-techies, and to many Usenetters it is probably now (1995) primary. . (I happened to look at the copy at http://www.fwi.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/s/spam.html; as far as I am aware, the original is somewhere at MIT. Now here's quality scholarship for you! :-) I actually first heard the term used to describe intentionally flooding someone's mailbox with nuisance email (a sense which is clearly related to those given above). Further, it was clear that this sense always implied the activity was done as a form of vigilante justice. Oh, and if the etymology is a little unclear to non-Python fans: there is a skit in one of the Monty Python episodes where a couple in a restaurant, attempting to discuss their order, are repeatedly interrupted and overwhelmed by a chorus of Vikings singing "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam! Wonderful Spam, Lovely Spam!...". -------- David Harnick-Shapiro Information and Computer Science david[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ics.uci.edu University of California, Irvine ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 13:02:19 CDT From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Remember that what's REAL is idiolect, not dialect, the latter being a construct hypothesized by linguists or school teachers or politicians or whoever. Phonotactic rules are real, thus in idiolect. And idiolects vary. Forces such as analogy certainly do influence idiolect, but only to the extent and in the ways in which the language-acquirer's idiolectal phonotactics allow. It shoud not be surprising that some people might use some of the "metathesized" forms like 'relator', 'nucular,' nuculus', 'jewlery', and others that aren't hovering above my keyboard at the moment -- but not use all of them, and behave differently when tired, drunk, irritated, feeling cool, being facetious, burdened by linguistic anxiety, whatever. Larry asked about empirical evidence for my claim that people who nuculate also relatate. That's a really good thing to investigate; one might even find some interesting statistical tendencies in individual behaviors. When I, so filled with confidence, posted my insight, I had in memory the behavior of a vast sample of 1.0 native speakers: a former Chair of the English Department at the U of MO. When I noted his 'relator' he said he was aware that he said 'nucular' (and maybe 'nuculus') but he'd never noticed 'relator'. He also says 'jewlery'. One needs larger samples, of course, to make heavy claims. We tend to use the term "metathesis" for these forms as if we are somehow subconcsiously aware of the form in which these forms exist out there in the ether, alongside phlogyston, and then screw them up when we speak. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 12:45:53 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Re: nuclear I wish to apologize for having made it seem, due to my inexperience with email and listserv protocol, that my observation regarding the use- fulness of MWDEU seemed to apply to Larry Horn's message, to which it was attached. To the contary, I regarded his message as extremely reasonable, well-informed, and thoughtful. I was reacting, instead, to numerous messages that appear on the ADSlist which do not have those qualities, and which might be improved by reference to the work cited. However, I must now express regret that, having apparently believed that his message was the one under attack, Horn replied with an _ad linguam_ attack of a sort that has characterized numerous messages about "English Only." MDEU is not written with an audience made up specifically of linguists and other academics in mind. Its use of "gravitational" rather than "analogic" in describing the forces leading to such variant pronunciations as those under discussion is consistent with its aim toward a larger, less specialized, audience. It is also, moreover, indisputably "data based," being derived from a study of the more than 14 million citations, including pronunciation records, in the Merriam Webster citation file. Again, my apologies to Larry Horn, but my recommendation of MWDEU stands. It is an excellent source of thoughtful,well-informed, data-based _non -anecdotal_ information about English usage, and anyone with an interest in usage should find it a most useful source of information. Tom Creswell ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 12:21:01 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" Subject: Re: sugar and spice Other than the fact that this spamadvertisement is a waste of time and money, did anyone else catch the following error in its text: Order within the next week and receive also Sights I Never Knew Existed. This ^^^^^^ Unless maybe he's also selling pictures too. -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 15:11:54 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: pronunciation of oxymoron, jewelry, etc. D. M. Lance makes some interesting points, but I want to add that while we may subconsciously be aware of an alternate form to the one we're using when we say things like "nucular," that awareness may be buried very deeply. I was not being facetious when I asked how people pronounce "jewelry": I've only ever heard it as three syllables. On the other hand, many native speakers are aware that there are people out there who will correct some of our pronunciations, and may thus alter our speech to avoid this (including avoiding certain words altogether if there's an alternative that we're confident of our pronunciation of). Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 14:00:53 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only TERRY IRONS wrote: > But these are facts that are known and I would presume respected by all > members of this list. If not, I humbly say, get the F*** off. Where do you get off telling those who do not share your views to get the F*** off? If your views cannot stand the scrutiny of friendly disagreement, maybe you should reconsider your argument before resorting to ***'s. Now, back to the issue: Terry asks, > can state legislation . . . > overturn the Supreme Court > decision of 1974 mentioned above [?] Terry, You obviously know they CAN pass English Only legislation. That capacity is well established by those who have done so already. The question we have been addressing is whether they SHOULD. A growing number of states say they should. Others say the whole nation should. There are solid, well thought out reasons for it. There are also good reasons not to do it. We have heard both from thinking members of our group. It is not a good guys vs. bad guys issue. We simply see the benefits and the drawbacks and weigh them according to what we see is the most relavent. What more can we do? I hope you have found enough diversity of thought on this issue to make the discussion meaningful. To the credit of all of us, there is nothing that any of us can say to make all of us feel the same way about this issue. We are all too intelligent for that to happen. We think for ourselves. A primary purpose of this discussion is to hear views that are not our own. We gain understanding that way. Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 14:11:56 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: contempt vs. content Marianna Di Paolo writes, > Well, I wish I could, Tom, but I have never heard the expression with > anything other than "contempt". But so far the discussion suggests that > "content" only occurs in Utah and maybe only in small towns. Is that > right? Marianna, I apreciate your attempt to identify a pattern for this usage. I don't think you've quite found it; but we don't get anywhere without at least trying. Although I live in Utah now, I think I picked that phrase up before moving here. Most likely, I got it from Los Angeles (where I've lived most of my life). Please let me know if you ever hear it used at the University of Utah. Thanks, Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 16:23:28 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: English Only This issue has turned a normally polite and friendly forum into a nasty, face-scratching free-for-all. It has been difficult to stay calm. We have moved out of linguistics and into politics and maybe religion. It is interesting that our local paper (the Milledgeville _Union-Recorder_) devoted the whole editorial page today to the issue--without my column, which will probably appear on one of the days reserved for community people. I guess I should prepare for some foul responses. So why does this issue get so emotional? Why does my grammar class for English-education majors get so emotional? I guess we're all idiots armed with idiolects. Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 15:33:57 CST From: salikoko mufwene Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply In Message Tue, 12 Sep 1995 13:02:19 CDT, "Donald M. Lance" writes: >Remember that what's REAL is idiolect, not dialect, the latter being a >construct hypothesized by linguists or school teachers or politicians >or whoever. Is 'idiolect" really more REAL than 'dialect'? Aren't both abstractions relative to speech? Or are you just speaking about levels of abstraction? Sali. *********************************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene University of Chicago Dept. of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 13:45:23 -0700 From: "christina.myers[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ucop.edu" Subject: please send info Sorry to clutter everyone's mailbox with this request. Can someone please forward the information for unsubscribing from this list? Thanks very much. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 16:12:49 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: please send info > Can someone please forward the information for unsubscribing from this list? I'm answering on the list in case anybody else has the question. To unsubscribe, send this command to listserv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu: unsub ADS-L (Case doesn't matter. I normally use upper case when telling somebody what to do because a lower-case l looks like a 1.) To stop mail temporarily, send this command: set ADS-L nomail To start it again, send this: set ADS-L mail To see a list of subscribers, send this: review ADS-L To change to digest, send this: set ADS-L digest --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:46:46 -0400 From: TERRY IRONS Subject: Re: FOR English Only On Tue, 12 Sep 1995, Tom Uharriet wrote: > > Where do you get off telling those who do not share your views to get > the F*** off? If your views cannot stand the scrutiny of friendly > disagreement, maybe you should reconsider your argument before > resorting to ***'s. My position, by analogy, is very similar to the intent of English Only Legislation. It basically says, You no speak the English, You get the Hell out. WHo are the ENGISH ONLY people to be saying this to other americans. I was not presenting views. I was reminding people of some facts. Mandating one language in America is a violation of the constitution. Then after one language is mandated, they start telling us what we can say in it. > > You obviously know they CAN pass English Only legislation. That > capacity is well established by those who have done so already. The > question we have been addressing is whether they SHOULD. A growing > number of states say they should. Others say the whole nation > should. There are solid, well thought out reasons for it. There are > also good reasons not to do it. We have heard both from thinking > members of our group. It is not a good guys vs. bad guys issue. We > simply see the benefits and the drawbacks and weigh them according to > what we see is the most relavent. What more can we do? I hope you > have found enough diversity of thought on this issue to make the > discussion meaningful. To the credit of all of us, there is nothing > that any of us can say to make all of us feel the same way about this > issue. We are all too intelligent for that to happen. We think for > ourselves. A primary purpose of this discussion is to hear views > that are not our own. We gain understanding that way. I used the wrong modal. Dennis Baron pointed out to me that one such state statute was found to be unconstitutional, on 1st amendment grounds. Others have been upheld or not challenged. Does anyone know of cases in which state mandates for one language only have been upheld. I have seen no thoughtful reasons in support of ENGLISH ONLY. Only bigoted provincialism. ANd I still don't know who this "we" and "our group" is. From my perspective, the issue is a good guys vs. bad guys issue. Those who wish to impose their language on other citizens of this nation are quite simply imperialist oppressors. What benefit accrues to the hispanic or navaho or chinese child who is denied equal access to our society because he or she did not happen to be born in a white middle class suburb where SAE is spoken? What are these solid reasons? But my ire rises again. As Wayne suggests, this discussion has gone from polite to nasty. I fear I am to blame. But I cannot abide bigotry masquerading as rational thought. And I must speak. Where reason does not suffice, I have found insult to work. Terry (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:50:39 -0400 From: "Christopher R. Coolidge" Subject: Re: contempt vs. content On Sat, 9 Sep 1995, THOMAS CLARK wrote: > On Sat, 9 Sep 1995, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > > > No. No. Not 'Abcess makes the heart grow softer.' 'Absinth makes the brain > > grow softer.' > > Actually, Absinth makes the heart grow Fonda (as in J). > Uh...It isn't abcess makes the heart grow fungus? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:08:49 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: FOR English Only They can _pass_ anything, including a law stating that only red-haired Masons with degrees from the University of North Dakota can vote if it rains on Election Day. The question is whether, if the law they pass is challenged, it will stand up to the Constitution. Does anyone here know whether an English-only law has been tested in the courts? Vicki Rosenzweig Associate Editor, Computing Reviews vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com 1-212-626-0666 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:46:04 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only Did anyone catch the irony of TERRY IRONS calling ALL English Only people bigots? This discussion has really gotten out of control. Where before we were all seeing evidence of valid thought on both sides, it has degenerated to sensationalism and abuse. I had hoped that in spite of it all, we were at least all seeking to understand both sides of the issue. However, statements such as > I have seen no thoughtful reasons in support of ENGLISH ONLY. suggest to me that this exchange is not really a discussion at all. If we close our eyes to others' views and scream our own as the only true American way, we have lost sight of the worth of open exchange. The same individual who told me to get the F*** off of this network if I don't share his views now brings the first amendment into the argument. Would he eliminate my freedom of speech here? Am I abusing this freedom by not sharing his view? Any legislation that is poorly written is likely to be overturned. It doesn't make the primary concept behind the legislation wrong. Nor does allowing the law to stand make it right. Sensationalism was employed in suggesting that the EOL will open a way for the government to control what we say. Also, if the EOL is written as it should be, it does not prevent people from speaking their own languages. It merely establishes a language for conducting state business. Either way, it is totally unrelated to what people have the right to say. There are enough reasonable arguments against EOL. We don't need this kind of emotionalism. Likewise, speaking of emotionalism, contrary to what was written, English Only proponents are certainly not un-American. To the contrary, I have already argued that EOL facilitates assimulation of immigrants into main stream America. That concept of American unity does not fall under the heading of un-American. On the other hand, neither does the anti-EOL position. A common language facilitates and preserves national unity. We, of all people, recognize the power of language. That's what makes EOL such a hot topic for us. I suggest that a national language has the potential of preserving our national unity. In light of the growing rate of immigration of non-English speakers, we need to use language to hold us together. Canada is getting close to a breaking point--divided by language. We too are building non-English communities which we are subsidising--to keep them non-English speaking. By subsidising, I mean our taxes are being spent to keep them comfortable in their non-English American lives. EOL does not give anyone the right to complain about their native languages. It simply gives states the right to work in a single language. I am NOT suggesting that non-English states will seek to break away from the union. I am suggesting that they are already broken away in the sense that they--because of language differences--are distanced from main stream America. No other nation that I am aware of is facing the language challenge that we are up against. In spite of our technological advances, such as this e-mail, communication is breaking down due to language diversification. With the rate of growth of non-English communities, it is increasingly difficult to maintain viable communication. As I reflect on how awful it was for the common people a couple thousand years ago to have the Greek language spread across the world, I feel for them. It was not comfortable. It was not fair. It was not nice. But without it, it would have been impossible to run the empire. We open our doors to people of all languages. I do not object to that. If I were born in some of their native lands, I would probably want to move here too. But now that they are here, we have a country to run. I see EOL as a way to help hold it all together. Are we speaking the same language? To the extent that we do, we can commune. If, after all that has been written, you still see no thoughtful reasons for EOL (whether or not you agree with them), then we must not be speaking the same language. If we are divided by language, consider how fragmented American society is becoming with the tax-supported preservation of non-English speaking. Whether it is fair, nice, or comfortable, Americans need to be able to freely communicate with most other Americans. On that point, I think we all agree. The question is how to reach that end. The Non-EOL approach is for the government to pay to communicate with everyone in their own language--even if that means that those people cannot in turn communicate with most other Americans. The EOL approach is to have everyone learn a common language so that everyone can communicate with everyone and be thereby united in language--even though many people may be offended by needing to pay for their own translators until they themselves learn the national language. Both approaches have merit. Both have serious flaws. As you know, I would rather empower them with a second (or third, . . .) language then protect them from it. I see it as giving them fishing poles instead of more fish. I wish it were possible to teach them all English. If not that, I would settle for making it more politically comfortable for them to learn it. As with all things, we can find examples of things not working as they should. I wish we could be sure that ESL programs would increase with EOL. The truth is, because of all the factors involved in funding anything, we would propbaly see it increase in some districts and decrease in others. Perhaps, people in those states which have passed EOL should lobby for aggressive ESL programs for young and old alike. In states where such legislation is yet coming, if you cannot block it (if you believe you should), maybe you can work ESL funding into the same bill. One last quote from Terry: > Where reason does not suffice, I have found insult to work. Does this tactic really work among thinking people? I hope not. When reason does not suffice, let's open our minds to see the other side. When our views are not shaken by that broader understanding, let's try better reasoning. But even then, we won't convince anyone who isn't willing to be convinced--insults or no insults. Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:02:10 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: nuclear Okay, Tom -- I don't know about anyone else, but you piqued my interest the first time with "gravitational," and the second time moved me to action. Can you explain this linguistic usage of the term? Since Whorf has one or two unpublished papers on gravity in the Yale Archives, it sounds like something he would have done, blending physics and linguistics. Explain please. (Tho if you don't do it quickly I won't see it until Monday.) -- moonhawk On Tue, 12 Sep 1995, tom creswell wrote: > MDEU is not written with an audience made up specifically of linguists > and other academics in mind. Its use of "gravitational" rather than "analogic" > in describing the forces leading to such variant pronunciations as those > under discussion is consistent with its aim toward a larger, less specialized, > audience. It is also, moreover, indisputably "data based," being derived from > a study of the more than 14 million citations, including pronunciation records, in > the Merriam Webster citation file. > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 20:45:18 -0400 From: TERRY IRONS Subject: Re: FOR English Only On Tue, 12 Sep 1995, Tom Uharriet wrote: > This discussion has really gotten out of control. Where before we > were all seeing evidence of valid thought on both sides, it has > degenerated to sensationalism and abuse. I had hoped that in spite > of it all, we were at least all seeking to understand both sides of > the issue. However, statements such as I will admit that I do not seek to understand the other side at all. I intend to do what I can to frustrate its efforts at every turn. > Sensationalism was employed in suggesting that the EOL will open a > way for the government to control what we say. Also, if the EOL In telling us what language we have to use to be heard in our communities, government is de facto controlling what we say. > > I suggest that a national language has the potential of preserving > our national unity. In light of the growing rate of immigration of > non-English speakers, we need to use language to hold us together. WHY? This is not a thoughtful argument. It is an unsupported assumption. > Canada is getting close to a breaking point--divided by language. We > too are building non-English communities which we are subsidising--to > keep them non-English speaking. By subsidising, I mean our taxes are > being spent to keep them comfortable in their non-English American > lives. EOL does not give anyone the right to complain about their Again, who is this "we"? Each of my posts has asked this question and yet you do not respond. Your use of "we" is a rhetorical manipulation that implies exclusion of the non-we, who are, of course, in your world, non-English speaking. As someone pointed out, "they" pay taxes too. > When reason does not suffice, let's open our minds to see the other > side. When our views are not shaken by that broader understanding, > let's try better reasoning. But even then, we won't convince anyone > who isn't willing to be convinced--insults or no insults. > Yes, I have used non-logical rhetoric in my posts. But I have also stated two very important facts about EOL that you have not responded to in the least. (1) EOL violates equal protection under the law. Did you even see my next to last paragraph about the situaiton in education? Your response does not address it. (2) EOL amounts to exclusion/economic domination based on language cultural heritage. These last two points are facts that suggest EOL is therefore wrong. You have presented no argument in favor of EOL based on facts. You make some vague assertions (which are not facts) about national unity crap, some american identity crap, and some confused comments about communication and taxpayer expense. The cost of multiple language publications, for all of its benefits, is nothing near what we spend perhaps weekly developing things to kill people. I have considered your position and I find it to lack support. I would expect you to consider the two powerful reasons against EOL that I have presented in my posts. I do not, however, seek to convince you. I only hope that others see through the deception going on here, that EOL is somehow good for AMerica. It is not, and this conclusion is not really open to debate. SOme people know what is right and others don't. I would prefer to ignore all of this and get on with studying language variation in AMerica, the purpose of the AMerican Dialect Society. But I can't stick my head in the sand and ignore the politics going on. ANd the mood in AMerika seems to be growing nasty again. Especially when those on one side tell us we are being sensational and ignoring their position, when the truth is exactly the opposite. Tom, I am not part of your "we." Terry Irons (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Sep 1995 to 12 Sep 1995 ************************************************ There are 30 messages totalling 936 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. jewelry 2. not much of an answer 3. Internet Term Stumper 4. FOR English Only (13) 5. nuclear 6. FOR English, AGAINST Closed Minds 7. Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply (4) 8. for English only 9. Bounced Mail 10. SED Volumes 11. Quick, Dumb Question 12. contempt vs. content 13. Pronounciation of ... (2) 14. English Only ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 22:09:11 -0700 From: Anton Sherwood Subject: jewelry > How do the rest of you pronounce "jewelry"? Two syllables, jule-ri. *\\* Anton Ubi scriptum? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 00:23:29 -0700 From: Anton Sherwood Subject: not much of an answer Doug Bayer scripsit: > Do you have a simple explanation for the OF in these > "how long of a drive" constructions? > Many speakers object strongly to the intrusive "of." > Yet to my ear its quite natural. I'd love to learn > a defense... How about this: it's the partitive "of" in "a pint of beer" or the French "des cailloux" (`some pebbles', lit. `of the pebbles'). Not much of an answer, I admit. -- Nancy Dray says: > [...] So, how can we encourage other movie directors and > TV producers to check this sort of thing (and pay us, too)? [...] I dunno, but I can think of no end of subjects on which I wish they would consult *some*body. Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 00:25:26 -0700 From: Anton Sherwood Subject: Re: Internet Term Stumper > I hope I don't get spammed for this, but does anyone know how the > term 'spamming' got coined for mass e-mailing? An explanation that I find plausible cites a Monty Python skit set in a coffee-shop where every item on the menu contains Spam. "Egg and Spam; egg, bacon and Spam; egg, bacon, sausage and Spam; Spam, egg, sausage and Spam; egg, bacon, Spam and sausage; ..." As the waitress recites the menu, a group of Vikings, sitting at a table in the background, chant: "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, lovely Spam, wonderful Spam...." increasing in volume until they drown out the waitress. The aptness of the allusion is enhanced by the image of Spam hitting a fan. *\\* Anton Ubi scriptum? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 07:42:40 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: FOR English Only > No other nation that I am aware of is facing the language challenge > that we are up against. In spite of our technological advances, such > as this e-mail, communication is breaking down due to language > diversification. With the rate of growth of non-English communities, > it is increasingly difficult to maintain viable communication. I assume you're talking about the number of different languages spoken in the US. Right? Has anybody established a maximum number of different languages appropriate for maintaining viable communication? Obviously it has to be four or more since Switzerland seems to do ok. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 08:46:26 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Re: nuclear I respectfully suggest that Dan Alford consult almost any English dictionary. At random, I looked in the nearest at hand, the _Random House Unabridged Dictionary_. S.v. "gravitation, I find this: " 3. a movement or tendency toward something or someone: [example] the gravitation of people toward the sub- urbs. At the end of the entry, the derived form _gravitational_ is given. I have found in the past that reading too much of the work of Benjamin Lee Whorf can often result in a gravitational pull toward muddlement. Hope this clears up your puzzlement, Dan. Tom Creswell ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 09:05:21 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Re: FOR English Only I wonder if Terry Irons can tell me what part of the US Constitution forbids the mandating of English as the national language ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 10:02:51 CST From: salikoko mufwene Subject: Re: FOR English Only >> No other nation that I am aware of is facing the language challenge >> that we are up against. Perhaps not as hysterically? The development of the Sociology of Language is in part attributable to misguided promises to help Third World countries solve their economic and political development problems by eliminating societal multilingualism. The literature dealt with the epiphenomenon and ignored almost everything that mattered for the "development" of those countries. Of course, there was also the hypermetropic illusion that those problems were characteristic of the Third World in the wake on "political independence." >>In spite of our technological advances, such >> as this e-mail, communication is breaking down due to language >> diversification. With the rate of growth of non-English communities, >> it is increasingly difficult to maintain viable communication. >I assume you're talking about the number of different languages spoken >in the US. Right? Has anybody established a maximum number of different >languages appropriate for maintaining viable communication? Obviously it >has to be four or more since Switzerland seems to do ok. Could you both start by explaining what you mean by "viable communication?" at what level of interaction? Sali. *********************************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene University of Chicago Dept. of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 09:20:11 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: FOR English, AGAINST Closed Minds TERRY IRONS writes: > I will admit that I do not seek to understand the other side at all. That says it all. I see no reason to continue this discussion. We (yes, Terry, including yourself) will continue to differ on this one until I come across more compelling evidence than has been presented by this group (Terry, by "this group," to answer one of your earlier questions, I mean subscribers to ADS-L). Until I change my view, if I ever do, let's (you and me) understand that it is okay for us to differ in our views of what is best for the United States. Best Wishes, Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu Tom Uharriet Springville, Utah utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 10:39:50 CDT From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Yes, Sali, clearly constructs such as 'dialect' are real, as are observable patterns of behavior of all sorts. Individuals have neurons that do something physical when they speak, as well as when they understand language. That's the "reality" I was referring to. One's concept of a neuron may be a construct, but a neuron is a concrete physical entity. Likewise the size and contour of the vocal tract is "real" and surely plays a part in the production of speech -- as well as the musculature in the chest and larynx that is activated as syllables are produced. The "reality of the phoneme" is another instance of something that is real, though probably with no single, specifiable physical locus. Here I'm thinking of the 1920s or 30s article (by Sapir?). DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 11:09:48 CDT From: Barbara Need Subject: Re: FOR English Only The question was raised about whether English Only laws have reached the Supreme Court. As far I know, not in this go-round. However (I think I read it in an _English Today_ article sometime in 88-89--I can check when I go home), laws of this nature were passed in the early part of the century (mostly relating to use of German) and one of those DID make it to the Supreme Court. It was declared unconstitutional (but I don't remember on what grounds). Barbara Need University of Chicago--Linguistics ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 10:14:50 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only > >> In spite of our technological advances, such > >> as this e-mail, communication is breaking down due to language > >> diversification. With the rate of growth of non-English communities, > >> it is increasingly difficult to maintain viable communication. > > >I assume you're talking about the number of different languages spoken > >in the US. Right? Has anybody established a maximum number of different > >languages appropriate for maintaining viable communication? > > Could you both start by explaining what you mean by "viable > communication?" at what level of interaction? > Back to basics, communication at all levels of interaction is easier to establish and maintain when a language is shared. The greater the diversification, the more complicated the problem of communication becomes. This line of thought is nothing new. Who among us finds it as easy to communicate with people whom they do not share a common language? Why complicate the obvious? If I moved to Poland, I would need to find someone to translate for me. (Notice, I would take responsibility for that. I would not expect the Polish government to pay for it--even if I do pay taxes there.) Until I learn their language, I would be an outsider. My ability to communicate--and to become one with those people--would only increase as I aquired Polish. At what level of communication does my language skills not matter? Tom Uharriet utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 12:23:08 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply >Yes, Sali, clearly constructs such as 'dialect' are real, as are >observable patterns of behavior of all sorts. Individuals have neurons >that do something physical when they speak, as well as when they understand >language. That's the "reality" I was referring to. One's concept >of a neuron may be a construct, but a neuron is a concrete physical >entity. Likewise the size and contour of the vocal tract is "real" and >surely plays a part in the production of speech -- as well as the musculature >in the chest and larynx that is activated as syllables are produced. > >The "reality of the phoneme" is another instance of something that is >real, though probably with no single, specifiable physical locus. Here I'm >thinking of the 1920s or 30s article (by Sapir?). DMLance You may be thinking of something else, but you can get close with de Saussure, Ferdinand. "The Object of Linguistics." Ch. III of _Course in General Linguistics_. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye. 1915. Trans. Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959. See p. 15: "4) Language [langue?] is concrete, no less so than speaking [parole?] . . . . Linguistic signs, though basically psychological, are not abstractions; associations which bear the stamp of collective approval--and which added together constitute language--are realities that have their seat in the brain . . . .Besides, linguistic signs are tangible; it is possible to reduce them to conventional written symbols . . . ." [Untangle that syntax!] Sapir, Edward. "The Sounds of Language." Ch. III of _Language_. 1921. Rpt. New York: Harcourt, 1949. See p. 55: "The inner sound-system, overlaid though it may be by the mechanical or the irrelevant, is a real and immensely important principle in the life of a language." Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 12:20:28 +0100 From: debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: for English only Here's a copy of my note on the court question: Can a state pass legislation that >violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment to the US >Constitution? English first maybe, but I question that. English Only? Federal law takes precedence over state law. In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), the US Supreme Court ruled that Nebraska could not prohibit the teaching of foreign languages in its public and private schools. The case was decided on equal protection, in this case the right of f.l. instructors to pursue their profession, and the right of parents to decide their children's education. A couple of years ago the US Court of Appeals (9th circuit?) ruled Arizona's official English law unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds: the law prohibited state employees from conducting business in any language other than English. The governor of Arizona, who opposed the law anyway, did not appeal that decision. Other state official language laws have withstood constitutional tests or have not been challenged. Dennis -- Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu Department of English office: 217-333-2392 University of Illinois fax: 217-333-4321 608 South Wright Street home: 217-384-1683 Urbana, Illinois 61801 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 13:03:42 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: FOR English Only > >>In spite of our technological advances, such > >> as this e-mail, communication is breaking down due to language > >> diversification. With the rate of growth of non-English communities, > >> it is increasingly difficult to maintain viable communication. > > >I assume you're talking about the number of different languages spoken > >in the US. Right? Has anybody established a maximum number of different > >languages appropriate for maintaining viable communication? Obviously it > >has to be four or more since Switzerland seems to do ok. > > Could you both start by explaining what you mean by "viable > communication?" at what level of interaction? > Sali. My response assumed that "viable communication" in the original posting meant communication sufficient to maintain some sort of national identity. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 13:05:49 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Bounced Mail **************************************************************** REMINDER: WHEN INCLUDING A PREVIOUS LIST POSTING IN SOMETHING YOU'RE SENDING TO THE LIST, BE SURE TO EDIT OUT ALL REFERENCES TO ADS-L IN THE HEADERS. **************************************************************** > Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 11:20:59 -0400 > From: "L-Soft list server at UGA (1.8b)" > Subject: ADS-L: error report from ADMN.712.NEBO.EDU > >The enclosed message, found in the ADS-L mailbox and shown under the spool ID >3266 in the system log, has been identified as a possible delivery error notice >for the following reason: "Sender:", "From:" or "Reply-To:" field pointing to >the list has been found in mail body. > > --------------- Message in error (53 lines) -------------------------- > From: Tom Uharriet > Organization: Springville High School > Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 09:17:03 MST > Subject: Re: FOR English Only > > > Date sent: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:08:49 EDT > > Subject: Re: FOR English Only > > > They can _pass_ anything, including a law stating that only > > red-haired Masons with degrees from the University of North Dakota > > can vote if it rains on Election Day. The question is whether, if > > the law they pass is challenged, it will stand up to the Constitution. > > Does anyone here know whether an English-only law has been tested in > > the courts? > > > > > > Vicki Rosenzweig > > If they do not hold up, we have no need to fear them. I believe it > was Terry that said one was already overturned. The issue of why it > was overturned is relavant. I do not know the reason, but it > probably went too far. It is one thing to give states the right to > decide how many languages they will print their material in. It is > quite another to tell residents that they cannot have Chinese > billboards. The former seems very reasonable to me, the latter would > excite the kind of anger in me that Terry has been expressing. > > Best Wishes, > > > > > Tom Uharriet > Springville, Utah > utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admin.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 13:05:49 -0500 From: "Gregory J. Pulliam" Subject: Re: FOR English Only Tom, Why have you STILL not responded to Terry's points? Why are you so eager to latch on to her anger and so unwilling to engage the primary arguments against EOL? I think many of us assume it's because you have no reasonable response, and therefore, choose to make no response at all. Additionally, several people have taken Terry's "get the f*** off this list" out of context, it seems to me. The ADS-L is a list for people who are in favor of linguistic diversity--both within the English-speaking community, and within and between other languages. Most of us celebrate diversity, so to come online and start talking about "national unity" and other such notions is by nature inflammatory. It would be analogous to joining a list for baseball lovers and continuously dissing the sport, and then when confronted with numerous flames from baseball-lovers, claiming to be the victim of an unfair assault. There are forums for people interested in language issues in general to exchange ideas. I wish you'd write to them. Greg Pulliam Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago humpulliam[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]minna.acc.iit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 13:15:17 -0500 From: Charles F Juengling Subject: SED Volumes Dear Subscribers, I have been in contact with Dr. David Parry of the English Department of the University College, Swansea, Wales. He reports that he has "literally hundreds of copies" of the Survey of English Dialects West Midlands 1 & 2 and East Midlands 2 & 3. Dr. Parry, who was a fieldworker for the SED, is retiring soon and would like these books to find good homes, rather than being simply dumped. He is willing to GIVE away the volumes in return for postage, which ran around 15 pounds when I got the volumes earlier this year. He can be reached at: Dr. David Parry, Department of English University College, Singleton Park Swansea SA2 8PP, Great Britain Here is an opportunity to pickup for yourself or your school library several volumes of the SED at a very good price. Dr. Parry is eager to have this information passed on to anyone who might be interested. My apologies to those who may have read this message on another list. Fritz Juengling Program Germanic Philology U of MN ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 15:05:29 CST From: salikoko mufwene Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Don: For a moment I thought I read you wrong yesterday. I reread the statement which I questioned but think I read you right. You said: <> Now I read you saying: <> Has your position changed? Also, aren't you contradicting yourself in this second statement? If a dialect is a construct (presumably out of some reality--I assume speech), can it be real in the same way as the reality from which it has been projected? As we go back to perception, I perceive speech/utterances, not a language, though I identify utterances as instantiations of a category called language L. Are categories realities in the same way that their members are? (I am not quite happy with this analogy either, because languages are not clusters of utterances, but I hope you get my point). I think you are off track in your other considerations, except in referring me to the notion of phoneme. I do not think a phoneme is as real as a speech sound is. A phoneme is a construct, but a speech sound is not. I perceive the latter not the former. Now, since Wayne refers me to Saussure, I'd like to point out that although he helped linguistics in distinguishing between "langue" and "parole" (among several other good things), he still did not conceptualize everything right about language, especially its relation to individual speakers. For instance, he insisted so much on the institutional aspect of language, an institution to which native speakers are born, that he could not reconcile this view with the role of native speakers in innovating and bringing about changes. Claude Hagege does a better job than Saussure on this matter (in his book THE LANGUAGE BUILDER, 1993). Native speakers both use inherited principles and modify some of them as they speak, and thus a language is constantly being rebuilt, which I find very normal/natural because I know of no school where native speakers are sent to be certified native speakers... And I'd like to claim that some native speakers are more skilled than others in using their language, but then I would be opening a Pandora's box I am very reluctant to get into. Anyway, my question yesterday was intended to suggest that idiolect, dialect, and language are all constructs, perhaps with different degrees of remoteness from reality, nonetheless very useful constructs. Sali. *********************************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene University of Chicago Dept. of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 15:40:30 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Quick, Dumb Question Sorry to bother everybody with the question, but I need a quick answer. (And this is ADS-related since it involves the nomination of a chair for next year's SAADS metting.) Where is SAMLA going to meet in '96? --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 15:05:30 CST From: salikoko mufwene Subject: Re: FOR English Only Natalie and Tom: I am glad I asked the question about "viable communication," because I realize now that you both did not assume the same thing, at least based on the answers I just read. In concession to Tom, I should have asked the question in terms of "scale of communication," not "level of communication." Natalie, as you answer the question in terms of <> should I assume that mutilingual nations would have identity problems? But I'll go back to Tom's reply, very briefly, the need for having a common language for communication at the level of a few individuals does not translate empirically into the need for one single nationwide language for communication. There are a host of sociohistorical factors to take into account in this case. Besides, there are problems of communication (mutual intelligibility) in monolingual countries. Even here in the United States, I have witnessed native speakers of English failing to communicate successful in their own native English! You may as well follow some incidents on this list too, but the experiences I referred to involve nonlinguists. Sali. *********************************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene University of Chicago Dept. of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 16:44:42 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: FOR English Only > Natalie, as you answer the question in terms of > <> > should I assume that mutilingual nations would have identity problems? Yes -- that was the point of my sarcasm. Poor Switzerland, for example, just can't quite make it in the world because it has all those people speaking different languages. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 15:55:46 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only Gregory J. Pulliam writes: > Tom, > Why have you STILL not responded to Terry's points? I have responded to many of Terry's points. I never attempted to respond to everything Terry said. Though I am flattered that you would want me to. Some of those "points" were simply too absurd to deserve a response. Others didn't elicit a response because I agreed with them and had nothing to add. In spite of Terry's harsh words toward me, not everything in those messages was emotional dribble. A lot of it was valid. I have never intentionally given the message that this issue is entirely a black and white one. There are good reasons on both sides. Both sides have poor ones too. I have not always favored EOL. I still have many reasons for opposing it. I have not argued that way because the reasons I have for supporting it weigh heavier in me than my reasons against it. Most of us ADS-L subcribers would weigh it heavier the other way. That's okay. I do appreciate the messages, open and private, that have been supportive. But it's been fun going the rounds with the rest of you too. > Why are you so eager > to latch on to her anger . . . ? His "anger" was hard to resist. Being told to get the F*** off the network caught my attention--as he intended. I don't recommend this method, but it did work for him. > Most of us celebrate diversity, Good! I certainly do. That's why in spite of my EOL position, I would feel a loss to our country if we ever lost Chinatown and the many other non-English communities. Our nation is much richer because of them. Of course, well written EOL would not hinder preserving those centers of ethnic variety. It merely gives those people added incentive to aquire English as a second or third language. Even if they knew English (as many of them already do), they would still be who they are. But this leads us back to what I have already explained. > to come online and start talking about "national unity" and other > such notions is by nature inflammatory. You missed the point completely. To the extent that we truly do celebrate our diversity, we are united. I do not suggest that anyone loses his/her native language. I do, however, believe that everyone can benefit by learning a second language. For those whose native tongue is English, I cannot recommend any particular language over any other. Again, the more variety the better. But for those who do not speak English, who live in most parts of the world, I certainly recommend that they learn English. It is rapidly becoming the international language of commerce and technology. In our country, if they do not understand English, with or without EOL, they are missing out on too much of what this nation has to offer. > There are forums for people interested in language issues in > general to exchange ideas. Yes, that's why I'm in this circle. Until last month, I have not contributed very often because my views did not differ enough to really contribute much. I did not subscribe for political reasons. If my views radically oppose yours, you are welcome. I'm glad I could stimulate some thought in you. If your intention is to tell the network that you support Terry's messages, so be it. So do I in a large measure. Some of our exchanges have been too hostile for this forum. But at the heart of it all, we are not far apart. His professional background in language far surpasses my own. He has my respect. I am glad that he has yours as well. Whether we agree with his position or not, whether we agree with his tactics or not, whether we've been comfortable with his messages or not, he has done a lot to stir some thought on this issue. With his background and his zeal, he has a lot to add to this group. He and I have communicated outside of this forum; and he really is a decent guy. Thanks anyway, but you really don't need to excuse, explain, or defend his words. We both enjoy a good argument now and then. This issue gave us that opprotunity. Thanks, Tom Uharriet utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 16:24:58 -0600 From: Marianna Di Paolo Subject: Re: contempt vs. content >Marianna di Paolo writes (in response to Tom Clark), > >>>I've lived in and out of Utah. I knew "contempt" before I lived there, >>>but I've heard "content" used by old husbands who know better than to >>>rile their wives. But Marianna Dipaolo will be able to set us all right. >>>Cheers, >>>tlc > >>Well, I wish I could, Tom, but I have never heard the expression with >>anything other than "contempt". But so far the discussion suggests that >>"content" only occurs in Utah and maybe only in small towns. Is that >>right? >> > >Well, Marianna, I can assure you that while my "content" may have been picked >up in New York (Manhattan or Long Island--the source, no doubt, of my >"jew-le-ry"), or perhaps in California (L.A. or Berkeley), or even in the >midwest (Ann Arbor or Madison), it most definitely was not contracted in a >small town in Utah. > >Larry Sorry, Larry, I didn't remember your contribution when I tried to respond to Tom Clark. I must say that I enjoyed Tom's contextualization of his first hearing of "Familiarity breeds conTENT". Have the rest of you only heard it used facetiously as well or is it used in other types of contexts as well? Marianna Di Paolo m.dipaolo[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]m.cc.utah.edu Linguistics Program 2300 LNCO University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 16:22:27 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only Thanks Salikoko, > The need for having a common > language for communication at the level of a few individuals does not > translate empirically into the need for one single nationwide language for > communication. True. The nation could go on for quite awhile without non-English speakers comfortably communicating with the government. We are nowhere near such a breaking point. On the other hand, there is a point at which that can become a serious problem. It seems that we may be headed in that direction--though a long way from getting there. More significant in my mind is the isolation that these people are living in by not speaking the language of the nation. As much as I favor EOL, I favor teaching ESL far more. I would like to see these issues combined in any EOL legislation. Too many people living in a country that they do not feel fully a part of is, in my mind, dangerous for the health of that country. > Besides, there are problems of communication (mutual > intelligibility) in monolingual countries. Even here in the United States, I > have witnessed native speakers of English failing to communicate successful > in their own native English! Absolutely! I think I made that point in an earlier message. It is tough enough to communicate within our own language. It is even tougher to communicate across languages. Thus, I wish everyone knew more than one language. In the United States, I would like one of everyone's languages to be English. To borrow some lines from a great, musically gifted, philosopher, "You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us [via language] and the world will live as one [or, at least a step closer to it]." Thanks again for your message, Tom Uharriet utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 17:31:04 CDT From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of Oxymoron -Reply Sali: No, my position has not changed. All of the "real" that we have _conscious_ access to is a product of some sort of construct-building, because thinking is construct-building. When we produce syllables (e.g., in the string 'nu-cu-lar' or the string 'nu-klee-ar') we are using "physically real" neurons and muscles without "thinking" about how or where precisely to place peaks and valleys in the amount of muscular energy applied to the speech mechanisms. What I was doing was playing around the dichotomy between "physical reality" and "mental reality." You're absolutely on target in your comments about degrees or "remoteness" in abstractions. The article on the psychological reality of the phoneme was written by Sapir, in French; I haven't looked at it in years, but my recollection is that he was attempting to deal with what we do _un_consciously as we differentiate between phonemes. Recent work with infant perception of speech tries to get at that phenomenon by pairing a "high" vowel (/i/ or /e/) with a low vowel (/a/ or /o/) [second formant having high versus low frequency]. When the infant looks at the light when it hears /i/ and looks at the ball when it hears /a/, it is not engaging in the kind of abstraction that we adults do when we differentiate between /nit/ and /nat/, but both the infant and the adult respond to something "physically real" in the vowel sound uttered. The adult can assign the sound to a phoneme class but the infant can't. And go from one idiolect to another and adults might mis-hear "not" as "naught" because of the different "hard-wired" phonological systems in the two idiolects. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 17:44:37 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" Subject: Re: FOR English Only I suspect one of the reasons for taking a position against English-Only laws, is the fear that some languages (Native-American possibly) will become unnecessary, and eventually extinct. This seems to be a good forum to ask the question, What is the downside of a language becoming extinct? Are there upsides? Not necessarily dumb, but curious, -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 17:48:58 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" Subject: Re: FOR English Only >> ... Poor Switzerland, for example, >> just can't quite make it in the world because it has all those people >> speaking different languages. For example, having too many languages, has forced Switzerland into being a military midget. No way could they become a military power like the US because everyone talks different. -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 21:37:38 -0400 From: "Cynthia L. Moore" Subject: Re: Pronounciation of ... While we are on the subject of various pronciations (e.g., jewelry), I thought I'd mention some English words with difficult to pronounce final consonants. In the following, I commonly hear one or more of the final consonants dropped: twelfth, pron'd TWELF ("th" dropped) sixth, pron'd SIKST ("h" dropped) months, pron'd MUNTS ("h" dropped) wreaths, pron'd REEZ ("th" dropped) Have other people noticed this? Maybe pronchick Rima Mc has. Cindie Moore, Arlington, VA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 20:01:35 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: Re: English Only Ok, I'll stick my 2 cents into this mess. I was taught that the purpose of speech (or writing) was communication. It is therefore mostly the responsibility of the speaker/writer to take care of that communication. Assuming communication to be a good and important thing, and I do, it is therefore incumbent upon the speaker/writer to achieve it. If I were in an other language speaking country, I would do my utmost to learn that language. I would find it crucial to be able to talk to and understand people/signs/ and what was going on around me. I would not think it reasonable for everyone there to necessarily accomodate my linguistic limitations. On the other hand, if there were an emergency or legal issue, I would very much want to find someone who spoke English and would go out of my way to do so. I would also appreciate it if emergency/danger/warning type signs were in English as well as other languages. If I wanted to function in that country, it would be my responsibility to learn their language. It would be their responsibility to make that learning accessible and inexpensive (if not free). I think it very important for people in this country to be able to communicate with each other. This creates at least some understanding and the possibility for friendship/goodwill/neighborliness/etc. This says nothing at all about what I would speak at home, teach my children, write in my diary. Like so many other things in this country, the English Only issue seems to be gone at backwards. ESL classes should be readily accessible, funded, popular. It should be abundantly clear to non-English speakers that their employment/educational/financial futures are severely limited by not speaking the predominant language used here. Yes, there are many more or less monolingual non-English speaking communities around the country, and if I were living in one of them - and had to function at all - I would try to gain at least a rudimentary knowledge of that language. But they should also learn English. It's a difficult issue that needs to be approached from both directions - the teaching and the learning. I know I'm not offering a solution, but at least I'm adding to the confusion. Rima ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 22:04:56 -0500 From: Charles F Juengling Subject: Re: Pronounciation of ... On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, Cynthia L. Moore wrote: > While we are on the subject of various pronciations (e.g., jewelry), I > thought I'd mention some English words with difficult to pronounce final > consonants. In the following, I commonly hear one or more of the final > consonants dropped: > > twelfth, pron'd TWELF ("th" dropped) I've never heard this pronunciation, but I have heard 'TWELTH' and 'FITH' (5th). How many people out there say 'clothes' exactly as they say 'close'? (BTW, are there any 'tloze' speakers left anywhere?) Fritz Juengling > sixth, pron'd SIKST ("h" dropped) > months, pron'd MUNTS ("h" dropped) > wreaths, pron'd REEZ ("th" dropped) > > Have other people noticed this? Maybe pronchick Rima Mc has. > > Cindie Moore, Arlington, VA > ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 12 Sep 1995 to 13 Sep 1995 ************************************************ There are 26 messages totalling 720 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. FOR English Only (6) 2. Pronounciation of ... 3. English Only (2) 4. Consonant Cluster Reduction (4) 5. Consonant Cluster Reduction/Busleft (2) 6. Consonant Cluster Reduction: Corrected 7. with a bullet (6) 8. Contempt vs Content 9. Quick, dumb question: SAMLA (2) 10. ?Mice/Mouses (fwd) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 22:42:48 -0700 From: THOMAS CLARK Subject: Re: FOR English Only On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, Natalie Maynor wrote: [snip] > I assume you're talking about the number of different languages spoken > in the US. Right? Has anybody established a maximum number of different > languages appropriate for maintaining viable communication? Obviously it California State Legislature in Sacramento recognized 220 different languages used in the state, according to the San Jose Mercury News. I could name 78 before I gave up. Cheers, tlc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 22:49:25 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: Re: Pronounciation of ... Cindie, I've heard twelf and munts, but not sikst or reez (of course, in the general scheme of things, I haven't heard wreaths much either). I have, however, heard many many fiths for fifths. Rima ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 01:49:32 CDT From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: English Only When I spent a year in Germany on exchange, I had hoped to develop more than a modicum of fluency in the language. But I was around university people most of the time, and they wanted to practice their English. Occasionally I had an opportunity to use German with someone who knew no English. Then I learned some German fairly fast and it was relatively fast in my brain afterward, whereas schoolbooks put some German into my brain only temporarily. But that was Germany, not the good ole U. S. of A. And just look: They've got Helmut Kohl, but we've got Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and Newty! Ah for a Helmut Schmidt! DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 05:49:07 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: FOR English Only > > in the US. Right? Has anybody established a maximum number of different > > languages appropriate for maintaining viable communication? Obviously it > > California State Legislature in Sacramento recognized 220 different I'm beginning to think that not everybody realized I was being sarcastic in asking my question about a maximum number of different languages. (But that's ok -- I found this one an interesting response.) --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 06:56:37 -0500 From: Dennis Baron Subject: Re: FOR English Only EOL sure does generate some heat, even among informed types like us. Some points I'd like to add: a major problem with EOL is that it will not ensure compliance: just how do you _make_ someone learn/use a language? Anyone who survived foreign language requirements in school knows that it just doesn't work for most people. Complicating things further is the fact that historically in the US there has never been more than a token ESL opportunity compared to the number of people who need/want ESL courses (for children or adults). Furthermore, my fear is that EOL will become a barrier to learning English, make it more threatening, make non-English speakers or limited English speakers feel more isolated from the mainstream than they already do. Finally, why not leave well enough alone? The US has achieved without official language legislation a far higher percentage of majority language use than any other nation with official language mandates. More than 97% of the US population reports using English according to the last Census. Non-English speakers actually WANT to learn English to get ahead. It is minority languages, not English, that are endangered species in this country. The problem for some OEL advocates, of course, is that there is a relatively high percentage of people who ALSO use a language other than English or live in a household where someone else does. So what else is new? That percentage may be up from the inter-war years (when immigration was curtailed drastically and the Census didn't ask language questions anyway), but in the long run it's nothing unusual for this country. Does this mar our cherished image of monolingualality? My daughter, who is in 7th grade, has to choose a pen pal for a school project from a list of approved countries. She told me the other day, of course the pen pal has to speak English before they let them join the program. Then she added, how come they always have to use our language and we never have to use theirs? The same supporters of EOL are telling immigrants to lose their native tongue. Then they turn around and complain that monolingual Americans can't compete in a multilingual world economy. Dennis -- Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu Department of English office: 217-333-2392 University of Illinois fax: 217-333-4321 608 S. Wright Street home: 217-384-1683 Urbana, IL 61801 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 08:37:55 EDT From: Terry Lynn Irons Subject: Consonant Cluster Reduction > > While we are on the subject of various pronciations (e.g., jewelry), I > thought I'd mention some English words with difficult to pronounce final > consonants. In the following, I commonly hear one or more of the final > consonants dropped: > > twelfth, pron'd TWELF ("th" dropped) > sixth, pron'd SIKST ("h" dropped) > months, pron'd MUNTS ("h" dropped) > wreaths, pron'd REEZ ("th" dropped) > > Have other people noticed this? Maybe pronchick Rima Mc has. > This kind of final consonant cluster reduction is quite common in much of spoken American English. Various scholars have pointed to it as a feature of African American English Vernacular. It is a function of the basic tendency in language to move toward ease of articulation. Terry Irons -- (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 09:04:32 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: Consonant Cluster Reduction My favorite plural of that type is _sixths_, which I believe is the only in- stance of a tautosyllabic 4 obstruent cluster. I have a feeling I pronounce it (at least in fast speech) with a very long [s], i.e. [sIks::]. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 09:10:59 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Re: Consonant Cluster Reduction/Busleft >> >> While we are on the subject of various pronciations (e.g., jewelry), I >> thought I'd mention some English words with difficult to pronounce final >> consonants. In the following, I commonly hear one or more of the final >> consonants dropped: >> >> twelfth, pron'd TWELF ("th" dropped) >> sixth, pron'd SIKST ("h" dropped) >> months, pron'd MUNTS ("h" dropped) >> wreaths, pron'd REEZ ("th" dropped) >> >> Have other people noticed this? Maybe pronchick Rima Mc has. >> > >This kind of final consonant cluster reduction is quite common in much of >spoken American English. Various scholars have pointed to it as a feature >of African American English Vernacular. It is a function of the basic >tendency in language to move toward ease of articulation. > > >Terry Irons Yes, my favorite white Central Georgian locution is "fifty cents," which comes out [fIti + sInt]. (Read nasalization for [n]. I don't think I can send a tilde) Speaking of Central Georgian: one of the history professors from Ohio was waylaid when his eight-year-old son exclaimed the other day, "I was busleft!" Did an earlier discussion establish that this guiltless expression for missing the bus was also used in North Georgia? Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 09:26:26 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Re: Consonant Cluster Reduction >My favorite plural of that type is _sixths_, which I believe is the only in- >stance of a tautosyllabic 4 obstruent cluster. I have a feeling I pronounce it >(at least in fast speech) with a very long [s], i.e. [sIks::]. > >Larry The Guiness Book of World Records used to have the following as the record tongue twister: The sixth sick sheiks sixth sheep's sick. I like to give it on transcription tests, although some students just give up in the attempt. Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 09:43:23 -0400 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Re: Consonant Cluster Reduction: Corrected >>My favorite plural of that type is _sixths_, which I believe is the only in- >>stance of a tautosyllabic 4 obstruent cluster. I have a feeling I pronounce >>it >>(at least in fast speech) with a very long [s], i.e. [sIks::]. >> >>Larry > >The Guiness Book of World Records used to have the following as the record >tongue twister: > >The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick. > >I like to give it on transcription tests, although some students just give >up in the attempt. > > > > >Wayne Glowka >Professor of English >Director of Research and Graduate Student Services >Georgia College >Milledgeville, GA 31061 >912-453-4222 >wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 09:47:54 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: with a bullet OK, now that we've settled the English Only dispute and the issues of meta- theses and related non-standard pronunciations and consonant cluster simplification, I wonder if it's time to introduce a new topic. Can anyone help me pin down the above? I did check a few recent slang dictionaries (and regular ones) to no avail, although one contained a related verb in a citation from the Rolling Stone about a song that was "bulleting its way to the top of the charts". I think the first uses I recall involved "No. n with a bullet", and I understood them to mean something like "No n. [on the charts, said of a popular song] but moving up rapidly". This would then constitute an instance of D.J. lingo, but where did it start? Does this 'bullet' have anything to do with the kind that shoots, or with the typographic symbol (Opt-8 on my Mac keyboard)? Is the use expanding to different contexts? (There was a subhead in Tuesday's N. Y. Times reading "Giants and Jets: 0-4 with a bullet", which I interpreted as meaning that the teams' combined 0-4 record was likely to be- come even worse.) Can anyone help? (I did notice it wasn't in DARE, but then it may not count as a specialized regional use.) Larry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 10:32:50 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" <104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA> Subject: Re: with a bullet i believe the origins of the bullet are of the typographical sort. the bullet is from _billboard_ magazine, whose top forty list is, if not the original (i don't know), at least the one that is taken to be the most authoritive (sp?). the typographical bullet is placed in the margin (i think--it' been a while since i've seen this) next to items on the list that are moving particularly quickly, often those that enter the charts at a relatively high point (i.e., a low number). i think the success of the phrase, however (as spread through deejays), is based on its metaphorical power. lots of people don't know what a typographical bullet is (i certainly didn't when i first heard the phrase as a kid), so the interpretation might be (as it was for me) that the item is shooting toward the top of the list as on a bullet. of course, this could've been on the minds of the billboard people when they originated the bullet, or on those of deejays, if they were the ones who originated the phrase. lynne --------------------------------------------------------------------- M. Lynne Murphy 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za Department of Linguistics phone: 27(11)716-2340 University of the Witwatersrand fax: 27(11)716-4199 Johannesburg 2050 SOUTH AFRICA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 09:43:08 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: Consonant Cluster Reduction/Busleft > Speaking of Central Georgian: one of the history professors from Ohio was > waylaid when his eight-year-old son exclaimed the other day, "I was > busleft!" Did an earlier discussion establish that this guiltless > expression for missing the bus was also used in North Georgia? I don't know, but I was surprised recently to hear one of my colleagues objecting to the use of "weedeat" as a verb. Sounds like a perfectly normal verb to me: weedeat, weedate, weedeaten, weedeating. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 08:14:00 -0700 From: Anton Sherwood Subject: Re: with a bullet Doesn't "# with a bullet" come from the Billboard charts? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 11:35:43 -0400 From: ALICE FABER Subject: Contempt vs Content Previous Postings: Tom Clark: I've lived in and out of Utah. I knew "contempt" before I lived there, but I've heard "content" used by old husbands who know better than to rile their wives. But Marianna Dipaolo will be able to set us all right. Marianna Di Paolo: Well, I wish I could, Tom, but I have never heard the expression with anything other than "contempt". But so far the discussion suggests that "content" only occurs in Utah and maybe only in small towns. Is that right? Larry Horn: Well, Marianna, I can assure you that while my "content" may have been picked up in New York (Manhattan or Long Island--the source, no doubt, of my "jew-le-ry"), or perhaps in California (L.A. or Berkeley), or even in the midwest (Ann Arbor or Madison), it most definitely was not contracted in a small town in Utah. Marianna Di Paolo: Sorry, Larry, I didn't remember your contribution when I tried to respond to Tom Clark. I must say that I enjoyed Tom's contextualization of his first hearing of "Familiarity breeds conTENT". Have the rest of you only heard it used facetiously as well or is it used in other types of contexts as well? ****************************************************************************** Has anyone considered the possibility that this is *purely* phonological? On ESPN's early SportsCenter (Weds. 13 Sept), I heard (in the summary of the day's OJ developments) that Marcia Clark had been cited for "conTENT of court". Alice Faber ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 11:07:17 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: with a bullet I`m fairly sure it's "bullet" in the typographic rather than the firearms sense, but Larry's query is the first time I've heard "bulleting" used in this sense of a verb. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 11:36:00 CDT From: Randy Roberts Subject: with a bullet I have checked in the cite files of Peter Tamony and Clarence Barnhart held here in Missouri. Each has a number of examples of bullet used in this sense from the mid-1970s to early 1980s. Includes examples of bulleting to the top and bulleted at the top, etc. The earliest example, however, is from Tom Wolfe's THE KANDY-KOLORED TANGERINE FLAKE STREAMLINE BABY of 1965. Tamony lifted a quote from page 62: "His latest record, 'You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin',' by the Righteous Brothers, rose from the 70's to No. 37 with a 'bullet' beside it ----- meaning 'going up fast'." Sorry, but I don't see anything which addresses the origin of the phrase. Randy Roberts University of Missouri-Columbia robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ext.missouri.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 12:14:05 -0700 From: Sylvia Swift Subject: Re: with a bullet casey kasem (sorry if that's not the right spelling, i haven't seen the tony robbins infommercial in a while)'s syndicated radio show, "american top forty" probably did a great deal to popularize this phrase. the statistics for that show were drawn from _billboard_ magazine, especially their lists of best-selling/most played-on-the-air records broken down by market. the last time i looked at an issue of _billboard_, they still maintained such lists. a bullet (typographical symbol, that is) appearing next to a number meant something like "fast-moving"; there was an explanatory note at the bottom of the chart (cf. _the new york times book review_ chart, where an asterisk denotes little difference between an entry and its neighbor). on the etymology of bullet (looks like a bullet-hole?) in its typographical sense, you might try _pocket pal: a graphic arts production handbook_, published (and updated every year or so) by international paper company or _the chicago manual of style_. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 15:30:52 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf Subject: Quick, dumb question: SAMLA Natalie's question about where SAMLA will meet in the future is the kind that the Newsletter of the American Dialect Society always tries to have an answer for. The answer is 1996 Nov. 8-10 Savannah; 1997 (dates not determined) Atlanta. In the most recent (May) issue you'll find this information on page 9. The newsletter is not even the most important benefit of membership in ADS, which costs $30 a year, $15 for students. If you're not a member but would like to know more, send me your s-mail address for a copy of the newsletter and a membership form. - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 13:50:40 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: English Only Rima writes: > I was taught that the purpose of speech (or writing) was communication. It > is therefore mostly the responsibility of the speaker/writer to take care > of that communication. Isn't the hearer/reader as responsible as the speaker/writer? > I know I'm not offering a solution, but at least I'm adding to the confusion. Write On! Tom ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 16:20:17 -0500 From: Donald Larmouth Subject: Re: FOR English Only I thought it might be useful to review exactly what is involved in the proposed "English only" legislation--especially since the author of H.R. 739 is Toby Roth, the congressman from my district here in Wisconsin. Mr. Roth and I have traded guest editorials on the subject in the local paper, and I presented a mock debate to the Wisconsin TESOL group last spring. (Mr. Roth couldn't come, so I quoted his remarks from the Congressional Record to represent his side of the debate.) Here are the particulars of the proposed Declaration of Official Language Act, word for word (minus the various section numbers and headings): English is the official language of the government of the United States. English is the preferred language of communication among citizens of the United States. The Government of the United States shall promote and support the use of English for communications among United States citizens. Communications by officers and employees of the Government of the United States shall be in English. All United States citizens should be encouraged to read, write, and speak English to the extent of their physical and mental abilities. It has been the long-standing national belief that full citizenship in the United States requires fluency in English. English is the language of opportunity for all immigrants to take their rightful place in American society. The Immigration and Naturalization Service shall enforce the established English language proficiency standard for all applicants for United States citizenship and conduct all naturalization ceremonies entirely in English. This chapter does not apply to the use of a language other than English for religious purposes, training in foreign languages for international communication, or use of non-English terms of art in government documents. This chapter preempts any State or Federal law which is inconsistent with this chapter. This Act is not intended to affect programs in schools designed to encourage students to learn foreign languages. Whoever is injured by a violation of this chapter may, in a civil action, obtain appropriate relief. In any action under this chapter, the court may allow a prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of costs. The table of chapters for Title 4, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item: Repeals: (1) Bilingual education: Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (other than Sections 7201 through 7309) is repealed. (2) Bilingual ballot: Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973aa-1a) is repealed. [end of quotation] Thus, H.R. 739 would not only identify English as the official language of the government of the United States; it would repeal the present requirements for bilingual education and for ballots in languages other than English and would exclude the use of languages other than English in providing government services (Mr. Roth calls them "non-English languages.") For me, then, the key questions are these: 1) what is the effect of identifying English as the official language of the United States (does it, for example, diminish other languages--and will their speakers also feel diminished); 2) what is the effect of repealing the a/m sections of Title VII (Mr. Roth claims that bilingual education is ineffective); 3) what is the effect of prohibiting government workers from providing services in any language other than English (does this include medical services, for example); and 4) what is the effect of abolishing the use of ballots in languages other than English (are anyone's voting rights compromised)? I know that other bills are also before the Congress, but I am less familiar with their details. However, I hope that the details of H.R. 739 will be helpful to our discussion. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 16:31:40 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: Quick, dumb question: SAMLA > Natalie's question about where SAMLA will meet in the future is the kind that > the Newsletter of the American Dialect Society always tries to have an answer > for. The answer is 1996 Nov. 8-10 Savannah; 1997 (dates not determined) > Atlanta. In the most recent (May) issue you'll find this information on page > 9. He's right. And that issue of NADS was sitting about three feet away from me when I posted the question yesterday. . But thanks for the answer, Allan. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 17:22:27 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only Thank you Donald Larmouth for the most useful English Only info. yet! This legislation goes further than saying that government business CAN be conducted in English Only. It says it HAS TO. While the former removes restrictions, the latter adds it. One of the many points that won me over to English Only was its lessoning of Big Brother control. > Communications by > officers and employees of the Government of the United States shall be in > English. This line troubles me. It is one thing to say that the government does not have to provide materials in every one of the hundreds of languages in this country. (I hope by now you all know that I find that requirement absurd, wasteful, and counter-productive.) But it is quite another thing to suppose that the CIA, FBI, IRS, TFA, etc. would NOT BE ALLOWED to speak other languages. We should be removing restrictions, not adding them. Taken to an extreem--which would be possible with the poor wording of this bill--a bi-lingual applicant could not be favored over an English only speaker to do field work in non-English communities! The way this bill is worded, the government agancy could be sued for hiring the more qualified candidate. I hope my remarks on this bill, which I would have to vote against, do not turn any of you off to better English Only legislation. So often in legislation, the drafters go too far. Most of what is in this bill is very reasonable. I hope it is improved be worthwhile. > I know that other bills are also before the Congress, but I am less > familiar with their details. Let's hope they are better than this one. Thanks again, Tom Uharriet utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 20:28:27 -0400 From: Robert Howren Subject: Re: Consonant Cluster Reduction On Thu, 14 Sep 1995, Terry Lynn Irons wrote: > Subject: Consonant Cluster Reduction > > > While we are on the subject of various pronciations (e.g., jewelry), I > > thought I'd mention some English words with difficult to pronounce final > > consonants. In the following, I commonly hear one or more of the final > > consonants dropped: > > > > twelfth, pron'd TWELF ("th" dropped) > > sixth, pron'd SIKST ("h" dropped) > > months, pron'd MUNTS ("h" dropped) > > wreaths, pron'd REEZ ("th" dropped) > > > It should be pointed out that while the first and fourth of these words do indeed illustrate "dropped" consonants, the second and third don't. "h" is dropped in these two only in an orthographic sense. The dental fricative in "sixth" pronounced as SIKST and in "months" pronounced as MUNTS is >replaced< by a different consonant, not deleted. --rh |>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>| | Robert Howren howren[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]email.unc.edu | | Hillsborough, NC | |<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<| ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 21:42:02 -0500 From: Daniel S Goodman Subject: ?Mice/Mouses (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 12:05:39 -0400 (EDT) From: David Stanley To: stumpers-list[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CRF.CUIS.EDU Subject: ?Mice/Mouses I've had two patrons stump me recently with this question: What is the correct plural term for the mouse that is used with a computer? The people I've polled seem to be equally divided between mice and mouses. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, David Stanley \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ David H. Stanley Phone (412) 852-3278 Library Systems Administrator Fax (412) 627-4188 Waynesburg College Library email dstanley[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]waynesburg.edu Waynesburg, PA 15370 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 22:15:18 -0500 From: Dennis Baron Subject: Re: FOR English Only For Don Larmouth (and others): do you think your Rep. who proposed the OE legislation would be interested in speaking to our language and legislation conference in March? We are trying to find intelligent speakers to represent the official English position and are coming up pretty empty -- we don't really want a party-line US English representative, but would like someone who could communicate effectively to the academics and lawyers attending the conference. Anybody on this list is welcome to submit an abstract -- if anyone missed my earlier post on the conference and call for papers, let me know and I'll repeat it. Dennis -- Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu Department of English office: 217-333-2392 University of Illinois fax: 217-333-4321 608 S. Wright Street home: 217-384-1683 Urbana, IL 61801 ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Sep 1995 to 14 Sep 1995 ************************************************ There are 22 messages totalling 806 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. English Only 2. Neologism needed? 3. ADS-L Digest - 13 Sep 1995 to 14 Sep 1995 4. ?Mice/Mouses 5. ?Mice/Mouses (fwd) (3) 6. EOL legislation 7. FOR English Only (4) 8. Consonant Cluster Reduction 9. Mouses (3) 10. English-only 11. contempt vs. content (2) 12. *** No Subject *** (2) 13. bullets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 23:55:41 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: Re: English Only Tom, I think the responsibility is on the one most motivated. In most cases, my guess is that the speaker/writer is generally the initiator and the more motivated for communicative understanding. Obviously, if the hearer/reader is the more motivated, it would be up to that person to work on the communication. Rima ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 00:02:41 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: Neologism needed? The following was forwarded to me by a friend and I thought this was the appropriate venue to which to pass it along. Rima >Dorothy Schwartzberg was here on Sunday and gave me a massage. >In the midst of my ullulations we decided to write an article on >"authentic massage pleasure sounds". Here is the list so far... > >Yeep! -------- Sound made when going over a hot spot. > >Airt' -------- Exclamation associated with pressure on a lymph node, > specifically in the armpit. > >EeeeSha! ----- Two syllable plosive associated with first bunching a > long muscle and then releasing it as the massage stroke > continues. > >Nmrnym ------- Murmur generated by spreading the pectorals > > >Thought you would like it, or have something to add. I've asked a >linguist friend for a techno term describing such nonlanguage, meaning >carrying utterances, but he is stumped. Too bad. It would have been so >nice to be highbrow. > > Daniel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 06:47:29 -0500 From: wachal robert s Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 13 Sep 1995 to 14 Sep 1995 I get the ADS msgs in digest form, but I've stopped reading them because of all the diatribes about "English only." If things don't calm down soon, I'll probably quit the list. Yes, I know, I can go to NODIGEST and then deal with screenfuls beclouding the stuff I want from other sources as well as from ADS. I'd especially hate to miss Don Lance's thoughtful comments and some others too. Bob Wachal ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 06:56:23 -0500 From: jeffrey howard allen Subject: ?Mice/Mouses I teach technical writing systems and translation system with many folks who have always used DOS applications and are now starting to use the windows-based environment with a mouse. If you notice in the tutorials and manuals for many applications on the market today, only the singular "mouse" is used because you will only have 1 mouse connected to your computer/workstation. So there is no standard that I know of set up in technical documentation. As for the users, I have heard more the natives of the central Illinois area here at work use "mouses". This is difficult to judge as they are from the socio-cultural spectrum. I even know one person who has been a teacher for a number of years and is familar with computers a bit that uses "mouses" I always have used "mice" because I was always told that it was the irregular plural of "mouse" and taught it that way overseas for a number of years. However, I do see myself divert to the plural "mouses" if I am doing one-on-one mentoring with a person who uses that form, though I continue to use "mice" in the classroom. Call me schizophrenic about rodents or computer accessories, but I do find that it lets my customer feel more comfortable. Now, what will happen when I use "mice" in class, and I mentor that person later and use "mouses". Will need to find out. Just yesterday evening my wife used the same kind of construction in French as we were talking about a foreigners who come to the States and kill themselves by working several part-time jobs the same day. My wife said "Elle a trois travails par jour". I looked at her and said that this seemed funny because in theory the plural is "travaux" but the semantic content of "travaux" means global construction work or even a collection of research studies that one does. The French language, standard French that is, allows "aller au travail" (go to work) or "j'ai du travail a faire" (I've got work to do), but it sounds really weird to try and put that in the regular plural form "travaux" when talking about several jobs that one does during the day. So my wife used the word "travails". I thought about it even more with respect to a better plural to use with a different word. What about "emploi"? Even "emplois" to mean "jobs" as in several part-time jobs sounds a bit funny. Putting the slang word "boulot" in the plural doesn't sound much better. Maybe it is just a semantic issue that cannot be resolved so quickly. The French always have an "employeur principal" (main employer) if they choose to have some kind of secondary teaching job where they work for "heures supplementaires" where the word "job" or "employer" is not used and happens to overlap with the word for overtime work "heures supplementaires". This may be something to investigate. So, I don't think that a Mice/Mouse standard is set. It might reflect regional uses, social levels, or something else. I've just learned to adapt to my environment and use both. JEFF ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 21:42:02 -0500 From: Daniel S Goodman To: Multiple recipients of list ADS-L Subject: ?Mice/Mouses (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 12:05:39 -0400 (EDT) From: David Stanley To: stumpers-list[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CRF.CUIS.EDU Subject: ?Mice/Mouses I've had two patrons stump me recently with this question: What is the correct plural term for the mouse that is used with a computer? The people I've polled seem to be equally divided between mice and mouses. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, David Stanley \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ David H. Stanley Phone (412) 852-3278 Library Systems Administrator Fax (412) 627-4188 Waynesburg College Library email dstanley[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]waynesburg.edu Waynesburg, PA 15370 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 07:48:29 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: ?Mice/Mouses (fwd) > I've had two patrons stump me recently with this question: What is the > correct plural term for the mouse that is used with a computer? The > people I've polled seem to be equally divided between mice and mouses. > Any input would be greatly appreciated. > > Thanks, > David Stanley Mice have my vote. Tom Uharriet utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 08:17:52 -0600 From: Bruce Gelder Subject: EOL legislation I apologize for not letting this thread die (quite yet). On Thu, 14 Sep 1995, Donald Larmouth wrote: >I thought it might be useful to review exactly what is involved in the proposed >"English only" legislation--especially since the author of H.R. 739 is Toby >Roth, the congressman from my district here in Wisconsin. Actually, there are at least six bills before the House right now having to do directly with such legislation (including H.J. Res. 87, a constitutional amendment sponsored by Steve Stockman of Texas that requires everyone over the age of five to be able to communicate in English in order to obtain citizenship). One of the six bills (H. Con. Res. 83) opposes the establishment of an official language (while at the same time recognizing that English is the dominant language); the other five favor it. There are also bills dealing indirectly with the concept, including (for example) one that provides tax deductions to employers who pay to have English taught to their employees. The four remaining bills attempting to establish English as the official language (H.R. 123, H.R. 345, H.R. 739, and H.R. 1005) all state that they are amending title 4 of the U.S. Code (I don't know what title 4 says), and they also all state that English is to be considered the official language of government. H.R 739, the one sponsored by Congressman Roth, is typical of them; I'm including the complete text below for anyone who's interested. I'm also including the texts of the bill opposing EOL and of the proposed constitutional amendment. ----------------------------------------------- H.R. 739 104th Congress H. R. 739 As Introduced in the House Note: This document is the unofficial version of a Bill or Resolution. The printed Bill and Resolution produced by the Government Printing Office is the only official version. VERSION As Introduced in the House CONGRESS 104th CONGRESS 1st Session BILL H. R. 739 TITLE To amend title 4, United States Code, to declare English as the official language of the Government of the United States. -------------------- IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JANUARY 30, 1995 Mr. Roth (for himself, Mr. Packard, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Bartlett of Maryland, Mr. Parker, Mr. Burton of Indiana, Mr. Coble, Mr. Archer, Mr. Callahan, Mr. Bunning of Kentucky, Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. Stump, Mr. Inglis of South Carolina, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Lipinski, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Royce, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Ney, Mr. Forbes, Mr. Solomon, Mr. Kingston, Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr. Oxley, and Mr. King) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities -------------------- TEXT A BILL To amend title 4, United States Code, to declare English as the official language of the Government of the United States. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the `Declaration of Official Language Act of 1995`. SEC. 2. ENGLISH AS OFFICIAL LANGUAGE. (a) In General . - Title 4, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new chapter: `CHAPTER 6 - LANGUAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT `Sec. `161. Declaration of official language. `162. Preferred language of communication `163. Preserving and enhancing the role of the official language `164. Duties of citizenship. `165. Reform of naturalization requirement. `166. Exceptions. `167. Preemption. `168. Construction. `169. Enforcement. `Sec. 161. Declaration of official language `English is the official language of the Government of the United States. `Sec. 162. Preferred language of communication `English is the preferred language of communication among citizens of the United States. `Sec. 163. Preserving and enhancing the role of the official language `The Government of the United States shall promote and support the use of English for communications among United States citizens. Communications by officers and employees of the Government of the United States with United States citizens shall be in English. `Sec. 164. Duties of citizenship `All United States citizens should be encouraged to read, write, and speak English to the extent of their physical and mental abilities. `Sec. 165. Reform of naturalization requirements `(a) It has been the long-standing national belief that full citizenship in the United States requires fluency in English. English is the language of opportunity for all immigrants to take their rightful place in American society. `(b) The Immigration and Naturalization Service shall - `(1) enforce the established English language proficiency standard for all applicants for United States citizenship, and `(2) conduct all naturalization ceremonies entirely in English. `Sec. 166. Exceptions `This chapter does not apply to the use of a language other than English for - `(1) religious purposes, `(2) training in foreign languages for international communication, or `(3) use of non-English terms of art in government documents. `Sec. 167. Preemption `This chapter preempts any State or Federal law which is inconsistent with this chapter. `Sec. 168. Construction `This Act is not intended to affect programs in schools designed to encourage students to learn foreign languages. `Sec. 169. Enforcement `(a) Cause of Action . - Whoever is injured by a violation of this chapter may, in a civil action, obtain appropriate relief. `(b) Attorney`s Fees . - In any action under this chapter, the court may allow a prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney`s fee as part of costs.`. (b) Clerical Amendment . - The table of chapters for title 4, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item: `6. Language of the Government 161`. (c) Repeals . - (1) Bilingual education . - Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (other than sections 7201 through 7309) is repealed. (2) Bilingual ballot . - Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973aa-1a) is repealed. .. ----------------------------------------------- H. Con. Res. 83 (opposes EOL) 104th Congress H. CON. RES. 83 As Introduced in the House Note: This document is the unofficial version of a Bill or Resolution. The printed Bill and Resolution produced by the Government Printing Office is the only official version. VERSION As Introduced in the House CONGRESS 104th CONGRESS 1st Session BILL H. CON. RES. 83 TITLE Entitled, the `English Plus Resolution`. -------------------- IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JULY 13, 1995 Mr. Serrano (for himself, Mr. Pastor, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, Ms. Vela 1zquez, Mr. Underwood, Mr. Romero-Barcelo 1, Mr. Gutierrez, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Torres, Mr. Becerra, Ms. Roybal-Allard, Mr. Gonzalez, Mr. Ortiz, Mr. Tejeda, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Towns, Mr. Owens, Mr. Farr, Mr. McDermott, Mr. Moran, Mrs. Meek of Florida, Ms. Jackson-Lee, Mr. Fattah, Mr. Scott, Mr. Dellums, Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Miller of California, Mr. Lewis of Georgia, Mr. Nadler, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Mineta, Mrs. Mink of Hawaii, and Mr. Abercrombie) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities -------------------- TEXT CONCURRENT RESOLUTION Entitled, the `English Plus Resolution`. Whereas English is the primary language of the United States, and all members of the society recognize the importance of English to national life and individual accomplishment; Whereas many residents of the United States speak native languages other than English, including many languages indigenous to this country, and these linguistic resources should be conserved and developed; Whereas this Nation was founded on a commitment to democratic principles, and not on racial, ethnic, or religious homogeneity, and has drawn strength from a diversity of languages and cultures and from a respect for individual liberties; Whereas multilingualism, or the ability to speak languages in addition to English, is a tremendous resource to the United States because such ability enhances American competitiveness in global markets by permitting improved communication and cross-cultural understanding between producers and suppliers, vendors and clients, and retailers and consumers; Whereas multilingualism improves United States diplomatic efforts by fostering enhanced communication and greater understanding between nations; Whereas multilingualism has historically been an essential element of national security, including the use of Native American languages in the development of coded communications during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War; Whereas multilingualism promotes greater cross-cultural understanding between different racial and ethnic groups in the United States; Whereas there is no threat to the status of English in the United States, a language that is spoken by 94 percent of United States residents, according to the 1990 United States Census, and there is no need to designate any official United States language or to adopt similar restrictionist legislation; Whereas `English-only` measures, or proposals to designate English as the sole official language of the United States, would violate traditions of cultural pluralism, divide communities along ethnic lines, jeopardize the provision of law enforcement, public health, education, and other vital services to those whose English is limited, impair government efficiency, and undercut the national interest by hindering the development of language skills needed to enhance international competitiveness and conduct diplomacy; and Whereas such `English-only` measures would represent an unwarranted Federal regulation of self-expression, abrogate constitutional rights to freedom of expression and equal protection of the laws, violate international human rights treaties to which the United States is a signatory, and contradict the spirit of the 1923 Supreme Court case Meyer v. Nebraska, wherein the Court declared that `The protection of the Constitution extends to all; to those who speak other languages as well as to those born with English on the tongue`: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the United States Government should pursue policies that - (1) encourage all residents of this country to become fully proficient in English by expanding educational opportunities; (2) conserve and develop the Nation`s linguistic resources by encouraging all residents of this country to learn or maintain skills in a language other then English; (3) assist Native Americans, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, and other peoples indigenous to the United States, in their efforts to prevent the extinction of their languages and cultures; (4) continue to provide services in languages other than English as needed to facilitate access to essential functions of government, promote public health and safety, ensure due process, promote equal educational opportunity, and protect fundamental rights; and (5) recognize the importance of multilingualism to vital American interests and individual rights, and oppose `English-only` measures and similar language restrictionist measures. .. ----------------------------------------------- H.J. Res. 87 (proposed constitutional amendment) 104th Congress H. J. RES. 87 As Introduced in the House Note: This document is the unofficial version of a Bill or Resolution. The printed Bill and Resolution produced by the Government Printing Office is the only official version. VERSION As Introduced in the House CONGRESS 104th CONGRESS 1st Session BILL H. J. RES. 87 TITLE Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding citizenship in the United States. -------------------- IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MAY 3, 1995 Mr. Stockman (for himself, Mr. Jones, Mr. Funderburk, Mrs. Chenoweth, Mr. Burton of Indiana, and Mr. Salmon) introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary -------------------- TEXT JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding citizenship in the United States. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification: `ARTICLE - `Section 1. Citizens of the United States shall only be persons born to a parent who is a citizen of the United States, persons born within the United States and to a parent who was lawfully present in and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of that parent`s entry into the United States, and all persons naturalized according to the laws of the United States. `Section 2. Nothing in this Constitution shall require either the Congress or the States to provide payments or services to any person who is not a citizen of the United States. `Section 3. No person shall become a naturalized citizen of the United States who is not conversant in the English language, except for persons under the age of five, and who has not sworn allegiance to the United States over and above allegiance to any other polity. `Section 4. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting only the number of citizens of each State.`. .. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 09:25:01 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: FOR English Only My immediate thought is that some people's voting rights are compromised: the problem isn't naturalization, but people who are born citizens and have another native language, including many Puerto Ricans and First Nations people. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 11:04:55 EDT From: David Bergdahl Subject: Re: Consonant Cluster Reduction From: NAME: David Bergdahl FUNC: English TEL: (614) 593-2783 To: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX The "sixths" discussion reminds me of the following grade school riddle: There were [twEntisIk] sheep and one died. How many were left? Ans: 25 :-) BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Where Appalachia meets the Midwest" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 11:21:01 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" <104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA> Subject: Re: ?Mice/Mouses (fwd) > > I've had two patrons stump me recently with this question: What is the > > correct plural term for the mouse that is used with a computer? The > > people I've polled seem to be equally divided between mice and mouses. > > Any input would be greatly appreciated. > > > > Thanks, > > David Stanley i think the natural plural is "mouses"--when people say "mice" it is usually remarked on or giggled at. just like people have walkmans instead of walkmen (but the trademark lawyers say you have sony walkman personal stereos). lynne m. --------------------------------------------------------------------- M. Lynne Murphy 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za Department of Linguistics phone: 27(11)716-2340 University of the Witwatersrand fax: 27(11)716-4199 Johannesburg 2050 SOUTH AFRICA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 09:48:45 MST From: Tom Uharriet Subject: Re: FOR English Only > My immediate thought is that some people's voting rights are compromised: > the problem isn't naturalization, but people who are born citizens and > have another native language, including many Puerto Ricans . . . . > > Vicki Rosenzweig I was under the impression that Puerto Ricans neither have the right to vote nor have the burdon of federal taxes (since they can have no taxation w/o representation). Tom Uharriet utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 11:11:31 CST From: salikoko mufwene Subject: Re: ?Mice/Mouses (fwd) >> I've had two patrons stump me recently with this question: What is the >> correct plural term for the mouse that is used with a computer? The >> people I've polled seem to be equally divided between mice and mouses. >> Any input would be greatly appreciated. >> In some computer literature I have read but cannot identify specifically at the moment, the plural is "mice." The same literature also uses "rodent" in relation to the category of computer "mice." Sali. *********************************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu University of Chicago 312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861 Dept. of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 ********************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 05:56:59 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: FOR English Only > abstract -- if anyone missed my earlier post on the conference and call for > papers, let me know and I'll repeat it. It's also in the ADS web pages. The job ads and calls for papers seem to be very popular web pages, btw. The access logs show that they're looked at quite often by people all over the world. When looking at our web pages, if any of you notice errors or oddities, please let me know. I use lynx to check additions or revisions most of the time, sometimes because I have no choice, sometimes because I don't have enough time to fool with Netscape or Mosaic (which I understand are faster on ethernet than by modem but I have to use them by modem since my office computer can't run such applications). Lynx is fine for checking text but can't show any images, even things like the colored lines separating job announcements or conferences. So if you notice messed-up images on our web pages, please let me know. Thanks. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) P.S. In case you've forgotten, our URL is http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/ ADS/. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 13:32:43 -0500 From: Charles F Juengling Subject: Mouses Just last month I was in Orem, Utah and saw a computer store that was advertising 'mice.' It seemed strange. I think this situation is analogous to 'fly out' in baseball-- 'Smith flied out to right last inning', not 'flew out.' Altho a word might already have a past or plural, a new meaning for the word might effect a new past or plural form. My vote goes to 'mouses.' Fritz Juengling ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 14:11:38 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: English-only Residents of Puerto Rico, regardless of where they were born, do not vote in federal elections, but they do vote for the local government. And all Puerto Ricans are US citizens: a citizen born in San Juan who moves to Milwaukee has the same right to vote as any other citizen who lives there. While Puerto Rico is not a state, its residents are US citizens. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 16:04:19 -0500 From: jeffrey howard allen Subject: Mouses I think that our discussion of mice/mouses might lead someone to do a linguistic study on irregular forms that have recent regular counterparts due to specific domains and/or expressions. Anybody know of references on the subject? JEFF ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 13:32:43 -0500 From: Charles F Juengling To: Multiple recipients of list ADS-L Subject: Mouses Just last month I was in Orem, Utah and saw a computer store that was advertising 'mice.' It seemed strange. I think this situation is analogous to 'fly out' in baseball-- 'Smith flied out to right last inning', not 'flew out.' Altho a word might already have a past or plural, a new meaning for the word might effect a new past or plural form. My vote goes to 'mouses.' Fritz Juengling ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 16:23:29 -0500 From: Donald Larmouth Subject: Re: FOR English Only I doubt that Mr. Roth would be eager to come, but it may be worth a try. The Wisconsin TESOL group invited him to participate in a debate in May (with me, as it happens), and he declined. When I was invited, there was some concern that Mr. Roth might not accept, and I had jokingly suggested that I could represent his position as well as my own. When the TESOL group took me up on that suggestion, I extracted his remarks from the Congressional Record, rearranged them somewhat, and set up the debate, moving from one podium to the other as I changed roles. Mr. Roth no doubt realized that the TESOL group might be unfriendly, whereas polls in the district indicate popular support for his initiative--so why take the risk? However, when the local paper subsequently invited guest editorials from Mr. Roth and myself, he did contribute an editorial. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 16:22:51 EST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: Re: Mouses One of the tech writing people here, who does a lot of work onthe side for the Ma Bells, says "mice" and "mouses" are equally used. His preference is for "mouses." He says "rodent" is not used in this context, neither genus nor species. beth simon ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 15:39:17 -0600 From: Marianna Di Paolo Subject: contempt vs. content >up in New York (Manhattan or Long Island--the source, no doubt, of my >"jew-le-ry"), or perhaps in California (L.A. or Berkeley), or even in the >midwest (Ann Arbor or Madison), it most definitely was not contracted in a >small town in Utah. > >Marianna Di Paolo: >Sorry, Larry, I didn't remember your contribution when I tried to respond >to Tom Clark. I must say that I enjoyed Tom's contextualization of his >first hearing of "Familiarity breeds conTENT". Have the rest of you only >heard it used facetiously as well or is it used in other types of contexts >as well? > >****************************************************************************** > >Has anyone considered the possibility that this is *purely* phonological? >On ESPN's early SportsCenter (Weds. 13 Sept), I heard (in the summary of the >day's OJ developments) that Marcia Clark had been cited for "conTENT of >court". > > >Alice Faber > Yeah, I thought we were assuming that it was at least partially phonological (like a pullet surprise is) and partially semantic. I was wondering, however, if it was only a nonce form or if it actually had some social group connection. Marianna Di Paolo m.dipaolo[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]m.cc.utah.edu Linguistics Program 2300 LNCO University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 17:59:26 -0400 From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK" Subject: Re: contempt vs. content What is a "pullet surprise"??? Thanks, Bethany Bethany K. Dumas, J.D.., Ph.D. | Applied Linguistics, Language & Law Dep't of English, UT, Knoxville | EMAIL: dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu 415 McClung Tower | (615) 974-6965 | FAX (615) 974-6926 Knoxville, TN 37996-0430 | See Webpage at http://hamlet.la.utk.edu (Hamlet is asleep for a few days, I think.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 15:25:00 -0700 From: Sheila Brennan Subject: *** No Subject *** Does anyone have an e-address for a human being associated with the running of this list? I am having a problem that neither I nor my internet provider can solve. Thank you sbrennan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hooked.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 18:43:08 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: *** No Subject *** > Does anyone have an e-address for a human being associated with the running > of this list? Will a dog do? Bernard Chien Perro, a fine half-beagle, runs the list. You can see his picture and hear him bark by going to http://walt.cs. msstate.edu/~maynor/. Sorry, gang. It's just the late-Friday crazies at work on my brain. I've sent a note to Sheila asking what the problem is. Meanwhile, any time anybody wants to find out various details of the list settings, including my address and my dog's address as listowners -- and the addresses of all the subscribers, send this command to listserv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu: review ADS-L --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 21:34:52 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: bullets Well, it was a nice suggestion. What's funny is that the lexicons seem to list the derived meanings (I take it that this 'bullet' is a secondary forma- tion from the PP 'with a bullet', as is the verb listed elsewhere) but for the most part not the expression they derive from. Maybe Billboard magazine has that one copyrighted :) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Sorry, J. E. Lighter's _Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang_ (vol. 1, A-G) is not any help. Meaning 12. Says (in its entirety) "_Music Industry_. A recording that rapidly becomes a hit. 1974 _Night-Stalker_ (ABC-TV): A _bullet_ is a tune that goes right to the top, that's gonna be a hit. 1979 Homer _Jargon_ 119: _Bullet_. A record believed to be a potential success." I guess for "with a bullet" we'll have to wait until they get to the volume that has W in it. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 14 Sep 1995 to 15 Sep 1995 ************************************************ There are 13 messages totalling 306 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. length of postings (2) 2. Mondegreens (2) 3. Going postal (7) 4. ?Pea Turkey Squat (fwd) 5. email address ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 00:28:34 -0400 From: ALICE FABER Subject: length of postings Robert Wachal wrote: >> I get the ADS msgs in digest form, but I've stopped reading them because >> of all the diatribes about "English only." If things don't calm down >> soon, I'll probably quit the list. Yes, I know, I can go to NODIGEST and >> then deal with screenfuls beclouding the stuff I want from other sources >> as well as from ADS. I'd especially hate to miss Don Lance's thoughtful >> comments and some others too. I sympathize completely. In my mind, however, the problem is not the topic per se--I think English only legislation, pro and con--is well within the "charter" of ADS-L. Rather, the problem is the *length* of postings. For example, in tonight's digest there were complete copies (at least, I think they were complete, but I don't know, since I scrolled through them as quickly as my modem connection will allow) of two pieces of proposed English only legislation. Since there are clearly people on the list who are interested in such things--the discussion clearly wouldn't be continuing if there weren't--can we perhaps think of a way to shift the burden of such postings to those who *are* interested from those of us who are seriously overwhelmed by them? I can think of two ways to do this: i) instead of posting something lengthy (say > 100 lines), post a two line summary, ending "email me if you want a copy". ii) work out a way to link such things to the ADS web page, and announce that they're there. I think the first of these is preferable, since it wouldn't add to Natalie's work load and it doesn't presuppose technological access and expertise beyond what all ADS-L subscribers already have. Perhaps some other subscribers can add to my suggestions. Note that I *haven't* suggested that we convert ADS-L to something more like Linguist List (moderated postings grouped together by topic [by an actual editor] and circulated as much as 2 weeks after they're sent in); this option would require a lot of volunteer work. And, in any case, another subscriber has reminded me that one of the benefits of ADS-L is that any one of us can post a question in the morning and have extensive feedback and response by the time we go home for the evening (or the next morning, for us Digest readers). Alice Faber faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]haskins.yale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 00:29:04 -0700 From: Rima & Kim McKinzey Subject: Re: Mondegreens "pullet surprise" is what many of us call Mondegreens, those mishearings we've all had at one time or another. This one is a mishearing of Pullitzer Prize. The term Mondegreen is from the old English ballad "The Earl of Murray." The line in question goes something like "and they killed the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green" which was heard as the killing of two people, the poor Earl of Murray and Lady Mondegreen. They include "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear," "Lead us not into Penn Station" etc. I remember as a kid hearing what I thought was Notor Republic. I knew what a republic was, but had never heard of one that was Notor. And my grandmother used to say someone looked "Pale as a goat." Rima ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 05:10:23 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: length of postings > ii) work out a way to link such things to the ADS web page, and > announce that they're there. That would be no problem at all. I'm always happy to find new material to put in our web, ftp, and gopher files. > I think the first of these is preferable, since it wouldn't add to Natalie's > work load and it doesn't presuppose technological access and expertise beyond > what all ADS-L subscribers already have. Don't worry about my "work load." I don't think of anything net-related as being work-related. It's all fun. As for people's technological access and expertise, it would be unusual these days to find many people in the academic world without at least ftp and gopher access, and probably most have some kind of web access, although perhaps text-only (which is all I have at my office -- I have to come home to use Netscape). And technical expertise has a way of developing quickly when there's something in particular that somebody wants to do. Almost everything I've ever learned about net life, or about computers in general, has been prompted by a sudden need or desire to do something in particular. > Perhaps some other subscribers can add to my suggestions. Note that I > *haven't* suggested that we convert ADS-L to something more like Linguist List > (moderated postings grouped together by topic [by an actual editor] and > circulated as much as 2 weeks after they're sent in); this option would Good. I hate moderated lists. About the only thing I do with LINGUIST is grab job ads and calls for papers from it to put on our web pages. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 06:27:15 -0500 From: "Becky Howard, Department of Interdisciplinary Writing, Colgate University" Subject: Going postal Heard a new version of "going ballistic" yesterday: "going postal" (i.e., postal workers' violence). Like "going ballistic," "going postal" means having a strong reaction--usually an excessively strong reaction-- to a situation. I heard this one from a colleague who heard it from a student. Is it a Colgate quirk, or have some of you heard it, too? Becky Howard Department of Interdisciplinary Writing Colgate University Hamilton NY 13346 Voice (315) 824-7315; FAX (315) 824-7121 BHOWARD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 07:11:48 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: Going postal > I heard this one from a colleague who heard it from a student. Is it a > Colgate quirk, or have some of you heard it, too? I've been hearing it for a good while now -- ever since shortly after the post-office shootings back whenever. (I hesitate to make a guess about how long ago that was, having noticed lately that my sense of time has become very screwed up. Several times lately I've claimed that something was "a few months ago" only to discover that it was five years ago. Tempus fugit.) --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 10:12:39 -0400 From: "H. Stephen STRAIGHT (Binghamton University/SUNY)" Subject: Re: Going postal On Sat, 16 Sep 1995, Becky Howard, Department of Interdisciplinary Writing, Colgate University wrote: > Heard a new version of "going ballistic" yesterday: "going postal" What a coincidence! I heard it for the first time this week, from a colleague. I didn't ask where he heard it, but Hamilton is just up the road from here, and he lives in Ithaca, so it may be a phenom of the Cornell-Binghamton-Hamilton triangle. H Stephen STRAIGHT, Anthro/Ling/Lgs Across the Curric, Binghamton U (SUNY) Box 6000, Binghamton NY 13902-6000 Tel: 607-777-2824 Fax: 607-777-2889 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 09:24:28 -0600 From: Katherine Catmull Subject: Re: Going postal >On Sat, 16 Sep 1995, Becky Howard, Department of Interdisciplinary >What a coincidence! I heard it for the first time this week, from a >colleague. I didn't ask where he heard it, but Hamilton is just up the >road from here, and he lives in Ithaca, so it may be a phenom of the >Cornell-Binghamton-Hamilton triangle. I don't think so--I live in Texas and I've been hearing it for at least a year. It's even beginning to take on variations ("Watch out--the boss looks postal this morning.") Kate Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bga.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 11:05:12 -0700 From: Anton Sherwood Subject: Re: Going postal > Heard a new version of "going ballistic" yesterday: "going postal" My friend Vince Miller (head of the International Society for Individual Liberty here in San Francisco) claims to have coined it. Certainly I first heard it from him or someone near him. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 11:16:44 -0700 From: Sylvia Swift Subject: Re: Going postal > Heard a new version of "going > ballistic" yesterday: "going postal" i first started hearing this phrase in california in about december 1994, in connection with a public lecture on violence in the work place sponsored by the american studies working group at berkeley. the speaker, whose name escapes me (i could probably dig it out of our website, if anyone's interested), reportedly used the phrase to mean something like, "to take weapons into one's place of current or former employment and commit a violent act." i missed the talk, but in the following months i heard several speakers use the phrase in what i thought was this same sense. i heard it recently on the radio, and that time it may have had the broader (variation of ballastic) sense. i've also seen it in print at least once, probably in _the bay guardian_ or _east bay express_, our free weeklies. sylvia swift madonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 15:28:41 -0500 From: Daniel S Goodman Subject: Re: ?Pea Turkey Squat (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 11:00:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Marian Drabkin To: "Curtis R. Rogers" Cc: stumpers-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CRF.CUIS.EDU, CURTIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]leo.scsl.state.sc.us Subject: Re: ?Pea Turkey Squat It's probably related to the term "diddly squat" for the same meaning. I'd hazard a guess (don't flame me for guessing, please!) that "squat" here is only a euphemism for excrement, as in "aw, he don't know s__t!" -- Marian On Thu, 14 Sep 1995, Curtis R. Rogers wrote: > > Patron is asking for the origin of what we believe to > be a southern colloquialism - but cannot locate. > to be used in the phrase: > You don't know 'pea turkey squat' about that! > meaning you don't know anything about that... > Thanks in advance! > Curtis Rogers > SC State Library > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 19:28:35 -0400 From: "William H. Smith" Subject: email address Does anyone have the email addres for Texas A & M? I am trying to reach Barbara Johnstone, but I have the wrong address. Bill Smith Piedmont College Demorest, GA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 21:54:57 -0400 From: James C Stalker Subject: Re: Going postal My first awareness of "going postal" is from a bit in