Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 08:25:16 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor Subject: from Lynne re candy Lynne asked me to forward the following message, which she accidentally sent to me instead of to the whole list: > From: "M. Lynne Murphy" <104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za> > Organization: University of the Witwatersrand > Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 13:46:13 GMT + 2:00 > Subject: round candy bars > > A candy bar has to be a bar -- > > a loosely defined bar in that it's possible to have a square candy bar > > or possibly even a roundish one, although I can't think of any examples > > of that. A bag of small items like M&Ms can't be a candy bar. > > --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) > > well, we certainly have roundish--as in round cornered--candy bars > (baby ruth, mounds, etc. right?), but is one of those big york > peppermint patties a candy bar? > > the reason i was wondering about this (in case you were wondering) is > that i discuss chocolates with my semantics students here when > working on mass/count distinctions. a peculiarity of s.a. english > (the branford dictionary lists this as "substandard"--not every s. > african does it) is that a bar of chocolate (here: a slab) is "a > chocolate." i discovered this by accident after assigning anna > wierzbicka's article on "oats and wheat" which has an extensive > argument that "a chocolate" is something that you can pop into your > mouth (other criteria too) but anything larger is "some chocolate" or > "a X of chocolate". the students, of course, thought w. didn't know > english. so, i got to thinking about what we do with chocolates in > amurkin english. > > thanks to everyone for all the responses on candy bars and > measurements. re: centigrade temperatures: the trick is to move to > a place where the weather is usually pretty much the same, so you > don't have to worry about it. > > 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 ********************* End of forwarded message. Re "roundish," I was thinking more of circle (circlish?) than of rectangles with rounded edges. A Baby Ruth is definitely a candy bar to me. The big, round peppermint patties I'm not so sure about. They're borderline. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)