phone number or phone numbers
Elain
"phone number."
dontbother
> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural.
Only if you're asking someone with more than one phone for each phone
number.
> But many people say "phone number."
That's because we consider all the numbers needed to call someone on a
particular phone a single phone number rather than a bunch of individual
numbers.
One telephone, one phone number. Two telephones, two telephone numbers. Got
it?
--
Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
It's all in the way you say it, innit?
"Impatience is the mother of misery."
HEMI - Powered
> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many
> people say "phone number."
>
No, it is an entity, not a series of digits, so it is properly a
singular term. There are lots of these apparent anomolies that
are just cause for debate with semantics elitists. Two examples:
Calling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the United
Stes by its acronym in this form: FISA Act. Or FISA Act Court,
instead of the correct FISA court. It is the like of "wrt to"
which I sometimes accidently do wrong, but "wrt" means "with
respect to" or "with regards to" and already has the "to" in it.
And, when speaking of the serial number assigned to every vehicle
sold in the United States, the Vehicle Identification Number, or
VIN, it is often used incorrectly as VIN number, which would
translated to "Vehicle Identification Number number".
But, "IBM machine", to describe an early computer, adding machine
or the like /was/ correct, as International Business MachineS was
the name of the company, so it was and is still correct to say
International Business Machines machine.
And, our SSAN - Social Security Account Number, often cut down to
just SS number or Social Security Number, is a singluar entity,
and not plural, so Social Security Account Numbers wouldn't refer
to the 9 digits with two dashes, as 111-22-3333, but would refer
to more than one SSAN.
So for one to say can I have yoour phone numberS would imply that
you want more than one, e.g., home, work, cell, etc.
--
HP, aka Jerry
Member, Chrysler Employee Motorsport Association (CEMA)
http://www.cemaclub.org/default.html
HEMI - Powered
> "Elain" <elain...@kordparty.com> wrote:
>
>> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural.
>
> Only if you're asking someone with more than one phone for
> each phone number.
>
>> But many people say "phone number."
>
> That's because we consider all the numbers needed to call
> someone on a particular phone a single phone number rather
> than a bunch of individual numbers.
>
> One telephone, one phone number. Two telephones, two telephone
> numbers. Got it?
>
Exactly. See my several example clarifications to the OP. Now, in
your sig
> Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
> Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
> Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
What does "EFL" mean? I assume that "native speaker of American
English" means that you a) speak American and not English, as I do,
which can be quite different in spelling voculary, usage, grammar,
and punctuation, and that it is your first language, and b) you're
living/working in Taiwan and for some reason want people to know
how you speak.
Tony Cooper
Numbers - the plural - is commonly the case today. Ask me, and I'll
give you both my home and mobile number. Each is singular, though.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
HEMI - Powered
I've not heard people use "phone number", a single entity, in the
plural except as you say in your second sentence. So, perhaps why
it is so widely used in the plural sense today is that people
minimally want to give you both their home and cell phone numberS,
and maybe additional cells belonging to their spouse, children,
etc., or even business/work number(s), the plural possibly
referring to two exensions an executive may have and/or their page
and/or a company-paid cell phone in addition to their private
numberS. So, some people might have 4,5 8+ numberS and it would be
correct to say "give me your phone numberS".
But, for us common folk who speak colloquial American, "phone
number" is singular
Arcadian Rises
Elain wrote:
> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many people say
> "phone number."
And rightfully so.
Phone number, like file number for example, is only one number. For
convenience's sake we "spell it out" number by number. It would be
impractical to recite your telephone number as "seven million five
hundred thirty nine thousand two hundred seventy one". I do it digit by
digit.
Some people break it down to groups or hundred or tens, which, for a
reason I cannot understand, irritates me.
Salvatore Volatile
> Today, Elain made these interesting comments ...
>
>> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many
>> people say "phone number."
>>
> No, it is an entity, not a series of digits, so it is properly a
> singular term.
I agree, except that I find it odd, if not exactly grossly incorrect, to
call a phone number an "entity". THE is an entity; IBM is an entity; the
USA is an entity; but a phone number is a mere thing.
> But, "IBM machine", to describe an early computer, adding machine
> or the like /was/ correct, as International Business MachineS was
> the name of the company, so it was and is still correct to say
> International Business Machines machine.
Truly.
--
Salvatore Volatile
Father Ignatius
news:1154284485....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Phone number, like file number for example, is only one number. For
> convenience's sake we "spell it out" number by number. It would be
digit by digit
Arcadian Rises
Tony Cooper wrote:
> Numbers - the plural - is commonly the case today.
Not anymore. You ask for, or give, the "coordinates", which include the
fixes, faxes, mobiles, email and snailmail addresses, and perhaps your
dub-dub-dub. That's usually done via email on the cell phone of the
requester.
> Ask me, and I'll
> give you both my home and mobile number.
And you keep secret the office number/s?
Arcadian Rises
Thanks for the correction. I have no idea why I wrote "# by #" then, in
the same message, I wrote also the correct version. Could it be the
canicular weather?
R H Draney
>
>But, "IBM machine", to describe an early computer, adding machine
>or the like /was/ correct, as International Business MachineS was
>the name of the company, so it was and is still correct to say
>International Business Machines machine.
I'm sad to see the imminent departure of a business that's been part of the
landscape here in Phoenix for decades, and in particular to think that its
signature jingle will soon be a thing of the past:
"I love my Metropolitan Mattress mattress"
....r
--
It's the crack on the wall and the stain on the cup that gets to you
in the very end...every cat has its fall when it runs out of luck,
so you can do with a touch of zen...cause when you're screwed,
you're screwed...and when it's blue, it's blue.
the Omrud
> Tony Cooper wrote:
>
> > Numbers - the plural - is commonly the case today.
>
> Not anymore. You ask for, or give, the "coordinates", which include the
> fixes, faxes, mobiles, email and snailmail addresses, and perhaps your
> dub-dub-dub. That's usually done via email on the cell phone of the
> requester.
Not in UK English, although the equivalent word (les coordonnées) is
commonly used in French.
> > Ask me, and I'll give you both my home and mobile number.
Why do we both need it?
> And you keep secret the office number/s?
Methinks Tony is retired.
--
David
=====
Home again, home again.
Tony Cooper
<Arcadi...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Ask me, and I'll
>> give you both my home and mobile number.
>
>And you keep secret the office number/s?
My mobile is my "office" number.
dontbother
[...]
>> Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
>> Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
>
> What does "EFL" mean?
English as a foreign language.
> I assume that "native speaker of American
> English" means that you a) speak American
Yes. I was born and raised in the USA and lived there for 40 years.
> and not English,
That should be "British English" or "Canadian English" or "Whatever
English". American English is English.
> as I do,
> which can be quite different in spelling voculary, usage, grammar,
> and punctuation,
It's not "quite different" in all those ways, only "slightly different",
but Bitish English idioms and American English idioms are quite
different.
> and that it is your first language,
Yes.
> and b) you're living/working in Taiwan
For the past ten years, yes.
> and for some reason want people to know how you speak.
I want them to know that I'm a native speaker of American English and not
a native speaker of any other variety or English or of Chinese or
Taiwanese. That should make it fairly clear that when I say something
about English usage, that I'm saying it as an americanophone and not a
britainophone. In other words, I make no claims about varieties of
English other than American English.
--
Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
Peacenik
news:11542805...@nsserver1.polyu.edu.hk...
> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many people say
> "phone number."
A: Can I have your phone number?
B: Sure. It's 555-1212.
In the above, it's singular.
Below, it's plural.
A: I have a cell phone and a land line at home.
B: Can I have both your numbers?
A: Sure. My cell phone number is 555-1212 and my home number is 555-1234.
Oleg Lego
Drives me nuts, it does,
(1) when a company (or person, though it's rare (uh oh)), uses a word
to give the number, making it perhaps a little easier to remember, but
a whole lot harder to dial.
(2) uses a cadence that doesn't 'group' the number in the standard
way, standard being, of course, xxx<pause>yyyy.
I find it almost impossible to get the number on the first try if it's
said xxxx<pause>yyy.
R H Draney
>
>"Elain" <elain...@kordparty.com> wrote in message
>news:11542805...@nsserver1.polyu.edu.hk...
>> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many people say
>> "phone number."
>
>A: Can I have your phone number?
>B: Sure. It's 555-1212.
Then there's the current fashion:
A: Hit me with your digits.
LFS
> Peacenik filted:
>
>>"Elain" <elain...@kordparty.com> wrote in message
>>news:11542805...@nsserver1.polyu.edu.hk...
>>
>>>Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many people say
>>>"phone number."
>>
>>A: Can I have your phone number?
>>B: Sure. It's 555-1212.
>
>
> Then there's the current fashion:
>
> A: Hit me with your digits.
>
Asking for a slap, shirley?
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
HEMI - Powered
> HEMI - Powered wrote:
>> Today, Elain made these interesting comments ...
>>
>>> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many
>>> people say "phone number."
>>>
>> No, it is an entity, not a series of digits, so it is
>> properly a singular term.
>
> I agree, except that I find it odd, if not exactly grossly
> incorrect, to call a phone number an "entity". THE is an
> entity; IBM is an entity; the USA is an entity; but a phone
> number is a mere thing.
This place is full of people with strange ideason semantics and
usage who object if what they read here is even 1% off-beat to
them, but not necessarily unknown in a particular country or to
someone with a particular education or background. The word
"entity" is more often used by someone in the scientific
commumity, as I am loosely, being educated as an engineer,
because it can be used to describe so many things precisely.
An "entity" - to me - is any single thing, idea, concept,
anything that is concrete and can be described and is singular.
It does not have to be real or solid or have mass nor does it
have to be as in "UFO alien entity". So, why is it odd to call a
phone number an entity any more than to say that you are not one,
or a car, or anything else I can see or describe in words? It may
not be in common usage, but I selected it specifically for this
purpose to show that a "phone number" is both a defined thingy of
some sort and is singular. I could have used "object" or any of a
dozen other words, except that many of them describe physical
thingies, as in object, not abstract, or mathematical, or numeric
ones.
>> But, "IBM machine", to describe an early computer, adding
>> machine or the like /was/ correct, as International Business
>> MachineS was the name of the company, so it was and is still
>> correct to say International Business Machines machine.
>
> Truly.
--
HEMI - Powered
> "HEMI - Powered" <no...@none.xxx> wrote:
> [...]
>>> Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
>>> Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
>>> Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
>>
>> What does "EFL" mean?
>
> English as a foreign language.
>
>> I assume that "native speaker of American
>> English" means that you a) speak American
>
> Yes. I was born and raised in the USA and lived there for 40
> years.
>
>> and not English,
>
> That should be "British English" or "Canadian English" or
> "Whatever English". American English is English.
Not according to George Bernard Shaw or most people in this NT,
they view American as some slang "dialect" with incorrect
spellings, pronounciations, vocabularly, usage, and definitions.
>> as I do,
>> which can be quite different in spelling voculary, usage,
>> grammar, and punctuation,
>
> It's not "quite different" in all those ways, only "slightly
> different", but Bitish English idioms and American English
> idioms are quite different.
Having conversed with Canadians and Brits 35 years ago and on to
this day, I can categorically say that it can be indeed an
experience where the tradtional English speakers/writers not only
cannot fully understand "American", but look down their blue,
snobby noses at us "colonists". I find that condescending and
rude. Moreover, "American" is far from a full codified language
and varies widely in vernacular usage by region, as well as the
use of slang, slurs, idioms, general usage, pronounciation,
accent both of the speaking tone and of word syllables, etc.
It has been said that the Mid West, in which I live, has no
accept. However, linguists are quick to point out that it /does/
have an accept, that which is not readily definable though, and
most often "measured" by its absense of what is defined in New
England, varying parts of the American South, southern and
western "Mid West", Texas, the far west, or Kalyfornia, for some
easy examples. And, just south across the Detroit Rivers,
residents of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, speak entirely differently
than do Michiganders.
>> and that it is your first language,
>
> Yes.
>
>> and b) you're living/working in Taiwan
>
> For the past ten years, yes.
>
>> and for some reason want people to know how you speak.
>
> I want them to know that I'm a native speaker of American
> English and not a native speaker of any other variety or
> English or of Chinese or Taiwanese. That should make it fairly
> clear that when I say something about English usage, that I'm
> saying it as an americanophone and not a britainophone. In
> other words, I make no claims about varieties of English other
> than American English.
>
That's your privelige, I suppose, but I wonder why it is so
important to broadcast that in an English usage NG ...
HEMI - Powered
> "Elain" <elain...@kordparty.com> wrote in message
> news:11542805...@nsserver1.polyu.edu.hk...
>> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many
>> people say "phone number."
>
> A: Can I have your phone number?
> B: Sure. It's 555-1212.
I said that the phrase, as presented by the OP, was singular.
However, if someone used it as in your example above, I would
have to ask a qualifying question: "home, cell, work, business,
what?" because people do, in fact, almost always have more than
one these days.
> In the above, it's singular.
>
> Below, it's plural.
>
> A: I have a cell phone and a land line at home.
> B: Can I have both your numbers?
> A: Sure. My cell phone number is 555-1212 and my home number
> is 555-1234.
>
This is how I answer when asked for my "phone number". I phrase
it that way because the person in the doctor's office, a software
or hardware vendor I want to buy from, a retail store I am buying
from where they're filling out a delivery form, the paperwork for
a new car, etc. etc. etc., they will want to know /all/ the phone
numberS, unless, of course, I am filling out the form myself.
And, in the rare cases when they make an assumption as to which
singular number I give them, I will qualify it myself as with
"that's my home phone, it has an answering machine on it; do you
also want my cell or my wife's cell?" The reason is that brief
explanative sentences on my part saves a lot of interragatories.
But, the main problem is that so many people are trainged to go
in some bullshit sequence so they will usually ignore me until
later in the form they're filling out and ask, at which time I
say "I already answered that, you should practice your listening
skills."
dontbother
> Today, dontbother made these interesting comments ...
>> English and not a native speaker of any other variety or
>> English or of Chinese or Taiwanese. That should make it fairly
>> clear that when I say something about English usage, that I'm
>> saying it as an americanophone and not a britainophone. In
>> other words, I make no claims about varieties of English other
>> than American English.
>>
> That's your privelige, I suppose, but I wonder why it is so
> important to broadcast that in an English usage NG ...
Because national varieties of English are different, so what is acceptable
in one variety may not be in another.
--
Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
the Omrud
> Today, dontbother made these interesting comments ...
>
> > "HEMI - Powered" <no...@none.xxx> wrote:
> > [...]
> >>> Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
> >>> Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
> >>> Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
> >>
> >> What does "EFL" mean?
> >
> > English as a foreign language.
> >
> >> I assume that "native speaker of American
> >> English" means that you a) speak American
> >
> > Yes. I was born and raised in the USA and lived there for 40
> > years.
> >
> >> and not English,
> >
> > That should be "British English" or "Canadian English" or
> > "Whatever English". American English is English.
>
> Not according to George Bernard Shaw or most people in this NT,
> they view American as some slang "dialect" with incorrect
> spellings, pronounciations, vocabularly, usage, and definitions.
Can you back that up? It's not my experience. "different", sure,
but not "incorrect".
GBS spoke Irish English with a Dublin accent (unsurprisingly, since
that's where he was from). That's not the way I talk.
Hatunen
<no...@none.xxx> wrote:
>Not according to George Bernard Shaw or most people in this NT,
>they view American as some slang "dialect" with incorrect
>spellings, pronounciations, vocabularly, usage, and definitions.
Some of which were retained from the Englsih English spoken at
the time of the colonies, the English in England having changed
since then, that is, Americans use some words that are now
archaic in England, but weren't originally.
>>> as I do,
>>> which can be quite different in spelling voculary, usage,
>>> grammar, and punctuation,
>>
>> It's not "quite different" in all those ways, only "slightly
>> different", but Bitish English idioms and American English
>> idioms are quite different.
>
>Having conversed with Canadians and Brits 35 years ago and on to
>this day, I can categorically say that it can be indeed an
>experience where the tradtional English speakers/writers not only
>cannot fully understand "American", but look down their blue,
>snobby noses at us "colonists". I find that condescending and
>rude. Moreover, "American" is far from a full codified language
>and varies widely in vernacular usage by region,
As does, of course, the English spoken in the British Isles. In
fact, there is far more variation in the British isles than in
North America.
>as well as the
>use of slang, slurs, idioms, general usage, pronounciation,
>accent both of the speaking tone and of word syllables, etc.
Ditto.
>It has been said that the Mid West, in which I live, has no
>accept.
Not by a linguist. EVERYONE has an accent. The midwest accent is
close to what some call Standard American English (which is
variously defined), though. And, needless to say, everyone who
speaks a midwestern accent thinks he or she has no accent. One
rarely thinks of one's native tongue as an accent.
>However, linguists are quick to point out that it /does/
>have an accept, that which is not readily definable though, and
>most often "measured" by its absense of what is defined in New
>England, varying parts of the American South, southern and
>western "Mid West", Texas, the far west, or Kalyfornia, for some
>easy examples. And, just south across the Detroit Rivers,
>residents of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, speak entirely differently
>than do Michiganders.
Linguists have no trouble defining the midwest accent, or at
least A midwest accent; it is not a single accent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English.
Anyone intersted in American English should also at least scan H
L Mencken's massive book, "The American Language" and it's two
supplements. But written in the early 20th century it is already
a bit out of date, the language having moved on.
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
HEMI - Powered
>> Not according to George Bernard Shaw or most people in this
>> NT, they view American as some slang "dialect" with
>> incorrect spellings, pronounciations, vocabularly, usage,
>> and definitions.
>
> Can you back that up? It's not my experience. "different",
> sure, but not "incorrect".
It is incorrect to spell any word like "color" with a "u" in it, as
the English and Canadians do. Anyone can cite hundreds, maybe
thousands of these. Also, we spell that shiny, light metal
"aluminum", and "aluminium", which used in gest, is incorrect. But,
I clarified my assertions further by talking about regional
differences of "English" as used in the United States. You'll hear
hundreds of words in the Deep South you won't hear anyplace else,
and you will /not/ hear hundreds more. In fact, using that easy
example, it can be difficult to even understand the slurred,
contracted words and wordphrases used by the "good ole boys".
> GBS spoke Irish English with a Dublin accent (unsurprisingly,
> since that's where he was from). That's not the way I talk.
It isn't the way I talk, either, but that isn't the point.
NOSPAM
> A: Can I have your phone number?
> B: Sure. It's 555-1212.
>
Can I call you with this number?
(just kidding :) )
HEMI - Powered
> Some of which were retained from the Englsih English spoken at
> the time of the colonies, the English in England having
> changed since then, that is, Americans use some words that are
> now archaic in England, but weren't originally.
If one reads the Declaration of Independence or the U.S.
Constitution, to name just two famous documents, you can easily
see the correctness in what you say, including spelling in the
English form. And, in the hand-written colonial parchments,
leading letters are often so "distorted" to the English norms of
the times that it can be difficult to read if you don't know what
it already says.
>>It has been said that the Mid West, in which I live, has no
>>accept.
>
> Not by a linguist. EVERYONE has an accent. The midwest accent
> is close to what some call Standard American English (which is
> variously defined), though. And, needless to say, everyone who
> speaks a midwestern accent thinks he or she has no accent. One
> rarely thinks of one's native tongue as an accent.
I said that, in the paragraph you quote just below.
>>However, linguists are quick to point out that it /does/
>>have an accept,
this should obviously have said "accent", not "accept", which may
have misled you, but my meaning should have been clear from
context.
that which is not readily definable though,
>>and most often "measured" by its absense of what is defined in
>>New England, varying parts of the American South, southern and
>>western "Mid West", Texas, the far west, or Kalyfornia, for
>>some easy examples. And, just south across the Detroit Rivers,
>> residents of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, speak entirely
>>differently than do Michiganders.
>
> Linguists have no trouble defining the midwest accent, or at
> least A midwest accent; it is not a single accent.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English.
I do not recognize wikepedia as an authority on anything. In
fact, like all web sites that allow readers to alter its
contents, there is no authentication of anything and wikepedia
goes in and out of correctness from one paragraph to the next in
some documents.
Again, /everyone/ has an "accent", but after some point, most
people would say that none is discernible. And, broadly, the
upper Mid West including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
and possible a few more western, eastern and southern Mid-West
states have no real accent. However, as you move further in any
of the 3 possible directions, a clear accent is heard, straying
in from states further in that direction and from people moving
short distances over their lives or that of their parents or
grandparents.
> Anyone intersted in American English should also at least scan
> H L Mencken's massive book, "The American Language" and it's
> two supplements. But written in the early 20th century it is
> already a bit out of date, the language having moved on.
>
the Omrud
> Today, the Omrud made these interesting comments ...
>
> >> Not according to George Bernard Shaw or most people in this
> >> NT, they view American as some slang "dialect" with
> >> incorrect spellings, pronounciations, vocabularly, usage,
> >> and definitions.
> >
> > Can you back that up? It's not my experience. "different",
> > sure, but not "incorrect".
>
> It is incorrect to spell any word like "color" with a "u" in it, as
> the English and Canadians do. Anyone can cite hundreds, maybe
> thousands of these. Also, we spell that shiny, light metal
> "aluminum", and "aluminium", which used in gest, is incorrect.
I was quibbling about your assertion that "most people" in AUE
believe that their own native version of English is "correct" and
that those other people across the pond are "incorrect". In fact,
you're the only poster I can remember making this suggestion.
> But,
> I clarified my assertions further by talking about regional
> differences of "English" as used in the United States. You'll hear
> hundreds of words in the Deep South you won't hear anyplace else,
> and you will /not/ hear hundreds more. In fact, using that easy
> example, it can be difficult to even understand the slurred,
> contracted words and wordphrases used by the "good ole boys".
Of course they are different and it can be difficult to understand
them, as it can be difficult for Londoners to understand Glaswegians.
But that doesn't make any of them incorrect. Do you honestly believe
that my native English is *wrong*?
dontbother
[...]
> Do you honestly believe that my native English is *wrong*?
It sure seems that way to me. We might have another riclanders troll on our
hands. Best to avoid him, IMHO.
--
Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
the Omrud
> the Omrud <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > Do you honestly believe that my native English is *wrong*?
>
> It sure seems that way to me. We might have another riclanders troll on our
> hands.
Did he go away while I was on my hols in deepest, remote, rural
France?
> Best to avoid him, IMHO.
Will consider.
Hatunen
>people would say that none is discernible. And, broadly, the
>upper Mid West including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
>and possible a few more western, eastern and southern Mid-West
>states have no real accent.
Of course they have an accent. Ask any Englishman. One thing I
noticed after living a year in Montreal: Americans talk through
their noses. (I'm from Ohio.)
Hatunen
With the area code, you can maybe get his real number. 555-1212
is the American information/directory assistance number.
Mike Lyle
Hatunen wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:26:53 -0400, NOSPAM <n...@nospam.no> wrote:
>
> >Peacenik wrote:
> >
> >> A: Can I have your phone number?
> >> B: Sure. It's 555-1212.
> >>
> >Can I call you with this number?
> >(just kidding :) )
>
> With the area code, you can maybe get his real number. 555-1212
> is the American information/directory assistance number.
For your collection of facts which may one day come in handy if you
meet an allusion in literature: as listeners to the SOS messages on the
BBC Home Service know, "WHItehall, one two one two" used to be Scotland
Yard's number. ISTR the comma was always audible; and nobody says "two"
like that on today's Beeb.
--
Mike.
LFS
When did the BBC stop making those scary announcements asking people who
were "last heard of in Wokingham in 1963" to phone hospitals where their
family members were "seriously ill"?
Mike Lyle
LFS wrote:
> Mike Lyle wrote:
[...]
> > For your collection of facts which may one day come in handy if you
> > meet an allusion in literature: as listeners to the SOS messages on the
> > BBC Home Service know, "WHItehall, one two one two" used to be Scotland
> > Yard's number. ISTR the comma was always audible; and nobody says "two"
> > like that on today's Beeb.
> >
>
> When did the BBC stop making those scary announcements asking people who
> were "last heard of in Wokingham in 1963" to phone hospitals where their
> family members were "seriously ill"?
I don't know, but they do seem to have stopped, don't they? It was a
slightly grim one of my "baby's milestones" when I had actually _known_
the missing person: I rather think that was during the 90s.
--
Mike.
the Omrud
>
> LFS wrote:
> > Mike Lyle wrote:
> [...]
> > > For your collection of facts which may one day come in handy if you
> > > meet an allusion in literature: as listeners to the SOS messages on the
> > > BBC Home Service know, "WHItehall, one two one two" used to be Scotland
> > > Yard's number. ISTR the comma was always audible; and nobody says "two"
> > > like that on today's Beeb.
Still is, in part: 020 7230 1212
> > When did the BBC stop making those scary announcements asking people who
> > were "last heard of in Wokingham in 1963" to phone hospitals where their
> > family members were "seriously ill"?
I am fairly sure it was "dangerously ill".
> I don't know, but they do seem to have stopped, don't they? It was a
> slightly grim one of my "baby's milestones" when I had actually _known_
> the missing person: I rather think that was during the 90s.
It wasn't all that long ago - less than 10 years I would say.
HEMI - Powered
> I was quibbling about your assertion that "most people" in AUE
> believe that their own native version of English is "correct"
> and that those other people across the pond are "incorrect".
> In fact, you're the only poster I can remember making this
> suggestion.
The operative word is is "quibling". And, I agree that I'm the
only poster asserting these things because this place is full of
people who are full of themselves and want to quibble about
semantics and nuances of what other posters say and not at all
try to rationally and unemotionally discuss the issue at hand.
>> But,
>> I clarified my assertions further by talking about regional
>> differences of "English" as used in the United States. You'll
>> hear hundreds of words in the Deep South you won't hear
>> anyplace else, and you will /not/ hear hundreds more. In
>> fact, using that easy example, it can be difficult to even
>> understand the slurred, contracted words and wordphrases
>> used by the "good ole boys".
>
> Of course they are different and it can be difficult to
> understand them, as it can be difficult for Londoners to
> understand Glaswegians. But that doesn't make any of them
> incorrect. Do you honestly believe that my native English is
> *wrong*?
>
I have not seen nearly enough of your English prose to say that
you are incorrect and never said that. What I said was, there is
correct usage of English within the United States, but varying
according to geographical region and evolving over time, and
there is incorrect usage in its broadest definition. Plus, both
correct and incorrect use of /American/ is completely different
than the same for /English/.
Now, that should be fodder enough for you to quibble about, but
save your breath as I will not respond again.
HEMI - Powered
> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:23:24 -0000, "HEMI - Powered"
>>Again, /everyone/ has an "accent", but after some point, most
>>people would say that none is discernible. And, broadly, the
>>upper Mid West including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and
>>Illinois, and possible a few more western, eastern and
>>southern Mid-West states have no real accent.
>
> Of course they have an accent. Ask any Englishman. One thing I
> noticed after living a year in Montreal: Americans talk
> through their noses. (I'm from Ohio.)
>
Accents either exist or they do not. What I said was that within
the United States, it is generally believed that Mid-Westerners
either have no accent or none that is definable. I then
immediately qualfified that by saying that what Mid-Westerners
really have is an /absense/ of regional /American/ accents, and
subsequently cited several examples of same, as well as commonly
held opinions of linguists.
Now, since the entire world, especially the United States, has
gone "PC" to the point that nothing has been preserved from
previously held scientific beliefs, it is not a surprise to me
that considerable controversy swirls around all of this, none of
which can be shown, much less proven, by citing anything. Authors
and even entire branches of the formal sciences have basically
ran to the middle and simply will no longer take any stance that
might be even remotely offensive to any consituency or any of
well over 100 registered and/or protected minorities in the
United States, not just the 2 or 3 most common. This is the
general source of the PC-ing of America. Besides the "clear and
present danger" of getting sued and/or arrested for some presumed
offense or even slight or slur, authors and professors, much less
businessman and politicians, are loathe to self-limit their
audience by pandering to one set of constituents/audiences or by
accidently pissing off others. I think this is tragically wrong
in a country founded on Judeo-Christian principles and with laws
and customs based on the generally held beliefs that basic
freedoms are guaranteed, including the concept at least of free
speech.
Mike Lyle
the Omrud wrote:
>[ Mike Lyle <mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> had it:]
>
> >
> > LFS wrote:
[...]
> > > When did the BBC stop making those scary announcements asking people who
> > > were "last heard of in Wokingham in 1963" to phone hospitals where their
> > > family members were "seriously ill"?
>
> I am fairly sure it was "dangerously ill".
Yes, you're right.
--
Mike.
Hatunen
<no...@none.xxx> wrote:
>Today, Hatunen made these interesting comments ...
>
>> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:23:24 -0000, "HEMI - Powered"
>>>Again, /everyone/ has an "accent", but after some point, most
>>>people would say that none is discernible. And, broadly, the
>>>upper Mid West including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and
>>>Illinois, and possible a few more western, eastern and
>>>southern Mid-West states have no real accent.
>>
>> Of course they have an accent. Ask any Englishman. One thing I
>> noticed after living a year in Montreal: Americans talk
>> through their noses. (I'm from Ohio.)
>>
>Accents either exist or they do not. What I said was that within
>the United States, it is generally believed that Mid-Westerners
>either have no accent or none that is definable.
I refer you to the Linguistic Society of America and their
webpage at http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-accent.cfm
"In reality, everybody has an accent - in somebody else's
opinion!"
'nuff said.
Nick Spalding
on 31 Jul 2006 11:13:04 -0700:
Where the hell did that ghastly teeoo come from?
--
Nick Spalding
Mike Lyle
HEMI - Powered wrote:
[...]
Round here, mere eccentricity, especially verbose half-power
eccentricity, doesn't really make the cut. Study Follett: he can do it
in under a dozen lines, and can be very funny.
--
Mike.
HEMI - Powered
> I refer you to the Linguistic Society of America and their
> webpage at http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-accent.cfm
>
Read /everything/ I have said on this part of the subject, I
already acknowledged that linquised /do/ recognize an accent for
Mid-Westerners, as they do for /everybody/, but that people
/generally/ say that of any region of the United States, the Mid-
West has no discerible accent. A layman's definition of
"discernible" and that of a linguistic scientist are two different
things. But, your comments just support my general opinion of
people in this NG - they are quibblers who like to grovel in
unimportant minutia of semantics and minor spelling or usage errors
to the point of becoming elitists, and often, anally retentive.
I speak and write vernacular, colloquial American. I don't quibble
with elitists who don't like that. I either ignore them or take
them on. Now, if you have something substantive and factual to
contribute to the base thread subject, whether phone digits are
singular or plural, I will discuss that but I won't discuss minutia
that has no meaning to anyone except someone who is full of both
themselves and some nasty smelling brown stuff.
T.H. Entity
wrought:
It's relatively nyee. Although they were much mocked, and deservedly
so, in their day, yee'd never catch your Golden Age Beeblies -- your
Bob Wellingses, Valerie Singletons, Frank Boughs, Harry Carpentators,
Alan Weekeses or even See Lawleys -- ever yeezing it. (They were
probably far TEE busy PUTTING the stress IN all the wrong places.)
No. I fear that the treeth is that -- like so much else that is so
despicable about this Once Great Nation of Arse -- it came in with
Nyee Labour.
--
THE
"Incompetence reins." -- Oliver North
HEMI - Powered
It is not necessary to be laconic or to practice extreme brevity in
order to be an effective speaker or writer, nor is it necessary to
follow Follett any more than it is to follow Robert's Rules of
Order unless your intention is to become as rediculous as the
United States Congress in their intent to be correct and polite
even when everybody knows who is making fun of whom.
And, more rather than fewer words allows a reader to absorb or
discard the excess without harm but words unsaid cannot be
comprehended, leading inevitably to further quibbling on semantics
and meaning. I am a big believe in discussion via analogy, example,
and metaphor, and teaching via the Socratic Method. People can
eitehr accept that or they will be varying degrees of unhappy
reading my etchings, which is /their/ problem and not mine.
But, I can and do take on the elitists and when /I/ tire of their
inane and often insane babbling, I put them out of my misery via my
First Amendment rights to plonk them, as with you - go ye to the
bit bucket, troll!
Mike Lyle
HEMI - Powered wrote:
> Today, Mike Lyle made these interesting comments ...
> >
> > Round here, mere eccentricity, especially verbose half-power
> > eccentricity, doesn't really make the cut. Study Follett: he
> > can do it in under a dozen lines, and can be very funny.
>
> It is not necessary to be laconic or to practice extreme brevity in
Oh yes it is, if you want to hold an audience with drivel. Pity you
aren't reading this.
--
Mike.
Salvatore Volatile
> For your collection of facts which may one day come in handy if you
> meet an allusion in literature: as listeners to the SOS messages on the
> BBC Home Service know, "WHItehall, one two one two" used to be Scotland
> Yard's number. ISTR the comma was always audible; and nobody says "two"
> like that on today's Beeb.
They say something more like "tay" or "tee" now, wot?
--
Salvatore Volatile
Father Ignatius
Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> a écrit:
> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:23:24 -0000, "HEMI - Powered"
>> Again, /everyone/ has an "accent", but after some point, most
>> people would say that none is discernible. And, broadly, the
>> upper Mid West including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
>> and possible a few more western, eastern and southern Mid-West
>> states have no real accent.
>
> Of course they have an accent. Ask any Englishman. One thing I
> noticed after living a year in Montreal: Americans talk through
> their noses. (I'm from Ohio.)
After living in London[1] for a while, an Australian friend noticed that
same thing about Sydneysiders.
[1] England
the Omrud
> Today, the Omrud made these interesting comments ...
>
> > I was quibbling about your assertion that "most people" in AUE
> > believe that their own native version of English is "correct"
> > and that those other people across the pond are "incorrect".
> > In fact, you're the only poster I can remember making this
> > suggestion.
>
> The operative word is is "quibling". And, I agree that I'm the
> only poster asserting these things because this place is full of
> people who are full of themselves and want to quibble about
> semantics and nuances of what other posters say and not at all
> try to rationally and unemotionally discuss the issue at hand.
Hardly surprising in a newsgroup dedicated to discussing the use of
English. And you don't specifically direct the final charge at me,
but I reject any notion that I am emotional in my Usenet postings.
> >> But,
> >> I clarified my assertions further by talking about regional
> >> differences of "English" as used in the United States. You'll
> >> hear hundreds of words in the Deep South you won't hear
> >> anyplace else, and you will /not/ hear hundreds more. In
> >> fact, using that easy example, it can be difficult to even
> >> understand the slurred, contracted words and wordphrases
> >> used by the "good ole boys".
> >
> > Of course they are different and it can be difficult to
> > understand them, as it can be difficult for Londoners to
> > understand Glaswegians. But that doesn't make any of them
> > incorrect. Do you honestly believe that my native English is
> > *wrong*?
> >
> I have not seen nearly enough of your English prose to say that
> you are incorrect and never said that. What I said was, there is
> correct usage of English within the United States, but varying
> according to geographical region and evolving over time, and
> there is incorrect usage in its broadest definition. Plus, both
> correct and incorrect use of /American/ is completely different
> than the same for /English/.
You stated that UK English pronunciation, punctuation and spelling
are incorrect.
> Now, that should be fodder enough for you to quibble about, but
> save your breath as I will not respond again.
I don't think I use much breath to type, but I'm impressed to be
dumped - I think that's my first time.
D. Glenn Arthur Jr.
HEMI - Powered <no...@none.xxx> wrote:
>> eccentricity, doesn't really make the cut. Study Follett: he
>> can do it in under a dozen lines, and can be very funny.
>
>It is not necessary to be laconic or to practice extreme brevity in
>
>And, more rather than fewer words allows a reader to absorb or
>discard the excess without harm but words unsaid cannot be
>comprehended, leading inevitably to further quibbling on semantics
>and meaning.
Ah yes, about that ...
"Know, gentle reader, and I speak here as an experienced and
accomplished chronicler in my own right (as the gentle reader has
already had occasion to judge, from his perusal of these preceding
pages of our tale), that of all the sins and foibles which afflict
the writer -- be that writer a scribe or a scribbler, a diarist or a
dramatist, a narrator or a notary -- there is none so foul, so
odious, so disreputable, so arrant, so untoward, so deplorable, so
infamous and so peccant as verbosity, yes, I say again, *verbosity*,
that malignant cancer of the narrator's craft, which, under its many
names -- whether those be the names preferred by the educated
gentility: wordiness, long-windedness, prolixity, superfluity or
garrulity; or yet those more exact and fine-focused terms which are
the natural optation of the scholar, the rigor of whose training in
the necessity of precise meaning naturally leads them to such labels
as: longiloquence, largiloquence, grandiloquence, multiloquence,
polylogy and rodomontade, not to mention the yet-more-technical terms
of the specialist: nimiety, pleonasm and amphigory (or amphigouri, as
the purists insist); or those euphemisms which are, not surprisingly,
the terms of choice of the verbose themselves, I speak here of:
circumlocution, loquacity and eloquence; or even, for we should not
in natural pride of our intellect and refinement ignore their
cultural contributions, meager and crude though these be, the coarse
epithets which are oft heard from the lips of the uneducated and
unwashed: chatter, jabber, prattle, gabble, babble, blabber and
blather -- wreaks the greatest havoc of all the literary vices upon
the heart of literature and narrative itself, that heart being,
although most (even exceptionally well-read) literates are
unconscious -- say rather, not fully conscious -- even of its
existence, much less its centrality, the fundamental bond of trust
which develops 'twixt writer and reader as these twain intersect,
though indirectly and at a distance (a distance measured not simply
in space but in time), without which education itself becomes an
impossibility, for the reader becomes wearied and overtaxed, and thus
loses his concentration, indeed, even his interest, while -- what is
worse! -- the writer loses all sense of the purpose of his craft, the
which is not to aggrandize himself, in a frivolous display of empty
virtuosity, but to impart to the reader the pith and the meat of the
tale which he tells, and in so doing, loses all grasp on reality and
reason, falling thus further and further into the fell sway of those
psychologic disorders which we know as solipsism and egomania."
- Alfred CCLXXIX, narrator (along with his ancestors) of parts of
_Forward_the_Mage_, by Eric Flint & Richard Roach (Baen Books,
2002; ISBN: 0-7434-3524-9 1, LC: PS3556.L548 F67 2002,
DD: 813'.54--dc21 2001056468)
--
D. Glenn Arthur Jr./The Human Vibrator, dgl...@panix.com
Due to hand/wrist problems my newsreading time varies so I may miss followups.
"Being a _man_ means knowing that one has a choice not to act like a 'man'."
http://www.radix.net/~dglenn/ http://dglenn.livejournal.com
Robert Lieblich
>
> Today, Mike Lyle made these interesting comments ...
>
> >
> > HEMI - Powered wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > Round here, mere eccentricity, especially verbose half-power
> > eccentricity, doesn't really make the cut. Study Follett: he
> > can do it in under a dozen lines, and can be very funny.
>
> It is not necessary to be laconic or to practice extreme brevity in
> order to be an effective speaker or writer, nor is it necessary to
> follow Follett any more than it is to follow Robert's Rules of
> Order unless your intention is to become as rediculous as the
> United States Congress in their intent to be correct and polite
> even when everybody knows who is making fun of whom.
WHOOSH!
I'm confident that Mike was invoking James Follett (not to be confused
with Ken), highly successful author of fiction, curmudgeonly
eccentric, and championship raconteur. I doubt you'll find a dozen
people reading this thread who would give Wilson Follett or his book
the time of day. Do watch for JF's posts, and remember that he's
writing for his amusement and ours.
--
Bob Lieblich
Glad Jimbo came back
R H Draney
Robert Lieblich wrote:
>
> I'm confident that Mike was invoking James Follett (not to be confused
> with Ken), highly successful author of fiction, curmudgeonly
> eccentric, and championship raconteur. I doubt you'll find a dozen
> people reading this thread who would give Wilson Follett or his book
> the time of day. Do watch for JF's posts, and remember that he's
> writing for his amusement and ours.
Which at times may actually be one thing and the same....r
LFS
AOL.
And don't forget Mary Parker Follett.
Chris Waigl
> For your collection of facts which may one day come in handy if you meet
> an allusion in literature: as listeners to the SOS messages on the BBC
> Home Service know, "WHItehall, one two one two" used to be Scotland Yard's
> number. ISTR the comma was always audible; and nobody says "two" like that
> on today's Beeb.
One thing I urgently, desperately need is some half-way decent piece of
portable audio recording equipment. London's so totally full of public
announcements in a vast variety of accents, pronunciations, intonations
and degrees of annoyance and surrealism -- I'm just in awe.
But I can't afford spending hundreds of £ on something semi-professional
from Marantz. Any good ideas what I might use? (Not my laptop. That's
impractical.)
Chris Waigl, now a gyal in Brixton
[Earlier today, Green Park Station, around 8:30pm, while I was trying to
get home from work, to the best of my memory (I heard it at least three
times):
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a customer information service
announcement. The Victoria Line is suspended between Seven Sisters and
Walthamstow Central owing to signal failure at Walthamstow; severe delays
are carried to the rest of the line. The Picadilly Line is subject to
severe delays. This is owing to an earlier fire alarm at Uxbridge. The
District Line is subject to severe delays. This is owing to an earlier
fire alarm at Uxbridge and to a passenger emergency at South Kensington.
The Northern Line is subject to minor delays. This is owing to congestion
in the northern part of the line. There is excellent service on all other
London Underground lines."
And don't say Tube speech isn't quality English, with those "owing to"s
and all the alighting going on. ]
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
John Kane
Oleg Lego wrote:
> The Arcadian Rises entity posted thusly:
>
> >
> >Elain wrote:
> >
> >> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many people say
> >> "phone number."
> >
> >And rightfully so.
> >
> >Phone number, like file number for example, is only one number. For
> >convenience's sake we "spell it out" number by number. It would be
> >impractical to recite your telephone number as "seven million five
> >hundred thirty nine thousand two hundred seventy one". I do it digit by
> >digit.
> >
> >Some people break it down to groups or hundred or tens, which, for a
> >reason I cannot understand, irritates me.
>
> Drives me nuts, it does,
> (1) when a company (or person, though it's rare (uh oh)), uses a word
> to give the number, making it perhaps a little easier to remember, but
> a whole lot harder to dial.
>
> (2) uses a cadence that doesn't 'group' the number in the standard
> way, standard being, of course, xxx<pause>yyyy.
> I find it almost impossible to get the number on the first try if it's
> said xxxx<pause>yyy.
I believe this depends on where you live. North American numbers are
grouped this way but a French number (as of a few years ago anyway) was
of the form 99 99 99 99 and the Britsh when I was last in the UK in
2000 had numbers like 04567 5678 or 999 9999 and it seems to me that
some German ones were 999 999 and so on.
John Kane
Don Aitken
wrote:
>On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:13:04 -0700, Mike Lyle wrote:
>
>> For your collection of facts which may one day come in handy if you meet
>> an allusion in literature: as listeners to the SOS messages on the BBC
>> Home Service know, "WHItehall, one two one two" used to be Scotland Yard's
>> number. ISTR the comma was always audible; and nobody says "two" like that
>> on today's Beeb.
>
>One thing I urgently, desperately need is some half-way decent piece of
>portable audio recording equipment. London's so totally full of public
>announcements in a vast variety of accents, pronunciations, intonations
>and degrees of annoyance and surrealism -- I'm just in awe.
>
>But I can't afford spending hundreds of £ on something semi-professional
>from Marantz. Any good ideas what I might use? (Not my laptop. That's
>impractical.)
>
The BBC uses the Sony Walkman Professional, which I'm sure isn't
cheap, but if you can convince them you have an idea which might make
a good radio programme they will lend you one - a friend of mine got
one that way, and managed to hang onto it for several years.
>Chris Waigl, now a gyal in Brixton
>
>[Earlier today, Green Park Station, around 8:30pm, while I was trying to
>get home from work, to the best of my memory (I heard it at least three
>times):
>
>"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a customer information service
>announcement. The Victoria Line is suspended between Seven Sisters and
>Walthamstow Central owing to signal failure at Walthamstow; severe delays
>are carried to the rest of the line. The Picadilly Line is subject to
>severe delays. This is owing to an earlier fire alarm at Uxbridge. The
>District Line is subject to severe delays. This is owing to an earlier
>fire alarm at Uxbridge and to a passenger emergency at South Kensington.
>The Northern Line is subject to minor delays. This is owing to congestion
>in the northern part of the line. There is excellent service on all other
>London Underground lines."
>
>And don't say Tube speech isn't quality English, with those "owing to"s
>and all the alighting going on. ]
I always find it odd that they feel the need to tell us that the
problem is due to something that happened "earlier". How could it not
be?
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
dontbother
> dontbother <dontb...@mushmail.mom> had it:
>> the Omrud <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> > Do you honestly believe that my native English is *wrong*?
>>
>> on our hands.
>
> Did he go away while I was on my hols in deepest, remote, rural
> France?
I think so. But he promsied to be back if he thought we needed him.
>> Best to avoid him, IMHO.
>
> Will consider.
>
--
Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
Native speaker of American English, posting from Taiwan
It's all in the way you say it, innit?
"Impatience is the mother of misery."
Richard Bollard
<Arcadi...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>Elain wrote:
>
>> Can I have your phone numbers? It should be plural. But many people say
>> "phone number."
>
>And rightfully so.
>
>Phone number, like file number for example, is only one number. For
>convenience's sake we "spell it out" number by number. It would be
>impractical to recite your telephone number as "seven million five
>hundred thirty nine thousand two hundred seventy one". I do it digit by
>digit.
>
>Some people break it down to groups or hundred or tens, which, for a
>reason I cannot understand, irritates me.
In Australia, it is commonplace to use the word "double" where
appropriate when giving a number. So, for example, 96659920 would be
"called" "nine double-six five double-nine two oh". I have the
impression that this is not standard everywhere, or at least in the
US.
Show of hands?
--
Richard Bollard
Canberra Australia
To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT.
Hatunen
wrote:
>On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:13:04 -0700, Mike Lyle wrote:
>
>> For your collection of facts which may one day come in handy if you meet
>> an allusion in literature: as listeners to the SOS messages on the BBC
>> Home Service know, "WHItehall, one two one two" used to be Scotland Yard's
>> number. ISTR the comma was always audible; and nobody says "two" like that
>> on today's Beeb.
>
>One thing I urgently, desperately need is some half-way decent piece of
>portable audio recording equipment. London's so totally full of public
>announcements in a vast variety of accents, pronunciations, intonations
>and degrees of annoyance and surrealism -- I'm just in awe.
Surely Prof Higgins' old recordings are available on CD?
Hatunen
<rich...@spamt.edu.au> wrote:
>In Australia, it is commonplace to use the word "double" where
>appropriate when giving a number. So, for example, 96659920 would be
>"called" "nine double-six five double-nine two oh". I have the
>impression that this is not standard everywhere, or at least in the
>US.
In the US saying "double-six" or the like is certainy common
enough. Personally I think a telephone number is easier for the
hearer to remember if, say, 622.2812, is given as six-two-two
twenty-eight, twelve. (622 is the exchange and locals are
familiar with the local exchanges.)
j...@bcs.org.uk
HEMI - Powered wrote:
> Today, dontbother made these interesting comments ...
>
> > "HEMI - Powered" <no...@none.xxx> wrote:
> > [...]
> >> I assume that "native speaker of American
> >> English" means that you a) speak American
> >
> > Yes. I was born and raised in the USA and lived there for 40
> > years.
> >
> >> and not English,
> >
> > That should be "British English" or "Canadian English" or
> > "Whatever English". American English is English.
>
> Not according to George Bernard Shaw or most people in this NT,
> they view American as some slang "dialect" with incorrect
> spellings, pronounciations, vocabularly, usage, and definitions.
Since GBS was one of the main proponents of revising and
"rationalising" English spelling, it seems very unlikely that he would
classify Webster's spellings as "incorrect".
What's an "NT", by the way?
Default User
I see, once again, we have the AUE love of feeding the trolls in full
swing.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Peter Moylan
>> It has been said that the Mid West, in which I live, has no accept.
>>
>
> Not by a linguist. EVERYONE has an accent. The midwest accent is
> close to what some call Standard American English (which is variously
> defined), though. And, needless to say, everyone who speaks a
> midwestern accent thinks he or she has no accent. One rarely thinks
> of one's native tongue as an accent.
I've believed for years that the prototypical midwest accent is that one
that sounds like a sheet of rusty iron being dragged along a gravel
road. Has the midwest moved, or am I just misremembering the region?
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain
eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer
reliably receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses.
The optusnet address still has about 2 months of life left.
Peter Moylan
>> Of course they have an accent. Ask any Englishman. One thing I
>> noticed after living a year in Montreal: Americans talk through
>> their noses. (I'm from Ohio.)
>
> After living in London[1] for a while, an Australian friend noticed that
> same thing about Sydneysiders.
Except on the North Shore. There, they talk down their noses.
Peter Moylan
> HEMI - Powered wrote:
>> But, "IBM machine", to describe an early computer, adding machine
>> or the like /was/ correct, as International Business MachineS was
>> the name of the company, so it was and is still correct to say
>> International Business Machines machine.
>
> Truly.
She's a machine?? I know that working for IBM did strange things to
people, but even so ...
Peter Moylan
> I'm sad to see the imminent departure of a business that's been part
> of the landscape here in Phoenix for decades, and in particular to
> think that its signature jingle will soon be a thing of the past:
>
> "I love my Metropolitan Mattress mattress"
A mattress company jingle that still remains with me, many years after
the company disappeared, was "Sleep wonderfully warm with Linda". A good
friend of mine, whose mother was named Linda, found this most offensive.
Peter Moylan
> In Australia, it is commonplace to use the word "double" where
> appropriate when giving a number. So, for example, 96659920 would be
> "called" "nine double-six five double-nine two oh". I have the
> impression that this is not standard everywhere, or at least in the
> US.
I sometimes use the "double" and sometimes not, but I do follow the
standard Australian practice of writing the number as two groups of four
digits. (This, by the way, causes many web page forms to fail. Web page
designers aren't very bright, and don't know what to do with redundant
space characters.)
I'm finding, though, that almost any eight-digit number overflows my
short-term memory. Because of this I'm seriously considering switching
over to the French system of "ninety six, sixty five, ninety nine,
twenty". Somehow four two-digit numbers are easier to remember than two
groups of four digits.
the Omrud
> I'm confident that Mike was invoking James Follett (not to be confused
> with Ken), highly successful author of fiction, curmudgeonly
> eccentric, and championship raconteur. I doubt you'll find a dozen
> people reading this thread who would give Wilson Follett or his book
> the time of day.
Being a good, middle class English boy, I would be perfectly content
to give Wilson Follett the time of day, should he happen to ask me
for it. I wouldn't know who he was, of course, but I don't usually
ask for government-issued photo ID before vouchsafing that it's
twenty minutes to ten.
the Omrud
> Mike Lyle wrote:
>
> >
> > HEMI - Powered wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > Round here, mere eccentricity, especially verbose half-power
> > eccentricity, doesn't really make the cut. Study Follett: he can do it
> > in under a dozen lines, and can be very funny.
>
> I see, once again, we have the AUE love of feeding the trolls in full
> swing.
If HEMI is a troll then he's a not completed the full training
course. He backed out of a discussion with me and has plonked more
than one AUE regular.
the Omrud
> One thing I urgently, desperately need is some half-way decent piece of
> portable audio recording equipment. London's so totally full of public
> announcements in a vast variety of accents, pronunciations, intonations
> and degrees of annoyance and surrealism -- I'm just in awe.
>
> But I can't afford spending hundreds of £ on something semi-professional
> from Marantz. Any good ideas what I might use? (Not my laptop. That's
> impractical.)
A decent portable mini-disc recorder will suit - they are very small
but you would need to make sure that there is the capability to
record from microphone (and buy a reasonable microphone). They are
now being wound down as MP3 players take over, but there are plenty
available second hand and there's almost nothing to go wrong with
them:
http://tinyurl.com/gbstp
Or for even less money, a simple MP3 player with built-in mic and
recording capability might be enough and is smaller.
Or for really cheap, you could get a personal voice recorder:
http://tinyurl.com/qk822
although I don't know how good the microphone would be at picking up
distant voices.
LFS
I have a Sony cassette recorder (TCM 459V) which is small, has a built
in microphone and is the best thing I've found for recording interviews
which need to be transcribed. My transcriber agrees that its recording
quality is better than some of the larger, more expensive machines.
But the very best thing I've found for recording is the Creative Muvo
Slim MP3 player, which is the size of a business card case. It will
record for up to 15 hours and the quality is excellent. It picks up
sound at quite a distance - I can record meetings and lectures on it
quite well. The only real drawback is that it can only be charged up by
plugging into a PC. I bought it several years ago and next to my little
Sony sub-laptop it's my favourite gadget. I think I paid about £50
for it.
Donna Richoux
> Richard Bollard wrote:
>
> > In Australia, it is commonplace to use the word "double" where
> > appropriate when giving a number. So, for example, 96659920 would be
> > "called" "nine double-six five double-nine two oh". I have the
> > impression that this is not standard everywhere, or at least in the
> > US.
>
> I sometimes use the "double" and sometimes not, but I do follow the
> standard Australian practice of writing the number as two groups of four
> digits. (This, by the way, causes many web page forms to fail. Web page
> designers aren't very bright, and don't know what to do with redundant
> space characters.)
>
> I'm finding, though, that almost any eight-digit number overflows my
> short-term memory. Because of this I'm seriously considering switching
> over to the French system of "ninety six, sixty five, ninety nine,
> twenty". Somehow four two-digit numbers are easier to remember than two
> groups of four digits.
Even when the two-digit number sound like "fourtwenties-sixteen"? (96).
Dutch is the worst, because of the number reversal. In translation: "If
this is an emergency, hang up and dial zero six nine-and-twenty
three-and-eighty six-and-thirty four-and-fifty." Quick, what's that?
(06 29 83 36 54)
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Donna Richoux
Then he will wait till the Midnight Hour, when his love comes tumbling
down.
the Omrud
> Dutch is the worst, because of the number reversal. In translation: "If
> this is an emergency, hang up and dial zero six nine-and-twenty
> three-and-eighty six-and-thirty four-and-fifty." Quick, what's that?
German as well of course.
There's a similar problem in French (but not Belgian French) for the
numbers from 60 - 99. One of our houses is numbered 91 and you can
have fun watching the shop assistant hesitate over the keyboard as
you say "quatre-vingt- ..." and finally stab down on the "9" key as
you give them "onze".
LFS
Uh-oh. That one is a real sticker.
the Omrud
> the Omrud <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
Er, that's Wilson Pickett. I do know from Wilson Pickett and would
be delighted to give him the time of day.
T.H. Entity
wrought:
Too late. He died earlier this summer.
NAAAAH, na-na-na-NAH, na-na-na NAH, na-na-NAH, na-na-NAH.
(Oops. Sorry, Laura.)
--
THE
"Incompetence reins." -- Oliver North
Linz
> Today, the Omrud made these interesting comments ...
>
>> I was quibbling about your assertion that "most people" in AUE
>> believe that their own native version of English is "correct"
>> and that those other people across the pond are "incorrect".
>> In fact, you're the only poster I can remember making this
>> suggestion.
>
> The operative word is is "quibling".
I hate to quibble, but I it's "quibbling".
LFS
> On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 12:12:15 GMT, the Omrud <usenet...@gmail.com>
> wrought:
>
>>Er, that's Wilson Pickett. I do know from Wilson Pickett and would
>>be delighted to give him the time of day.
>
>
> Too late. He died earlier this summer.
>
> NAAAAH, na-na-na-NAH, na-na-na NAH, na-na-NAH, na-na-NAH.
>
> (Oops. Sorry, Laura.)
>
That's OK, my new Billy Joel CD has just arrived. We didn't light the
fire...an excellent antidote.
Mike Lyle
Peter Moylan wrote:
> R H Draney wrote:
>
> > I'm sad to see the imminent departure of a business that's been part
> > of the landscape here in Phoenix for decades, and in particular to
> > think that its signature jingle will soon be a thing of the past:
> >
> > "I love my Metropolitan Mattress mattress"
>
> A mattress company jingle that still remains with me, many years after
> the company disappeared, was "Sleep wonderfully warm with Linda". A good
> friend of mine, whose mother was named Linda, found this most offensive.
She could have been named O'Dea. Mr O'Dea still flogs his superior beds
around Ireland under the brand "Odearest".
--
Mike.
HEMI - Powered
It is obvious that you have a bad case of OCD and cannot except - I
mean, accept - that Xnews has no speillung chekkur, so you
succumbed to overwhelming forces to be a smart-ass. Happy now,
twit?
--
HP, aka Jerry
Member, Chrysler Employee Motorsport Association (CEMA)
http://www.cemaclub.org/default.html
Mike Lyle
Default User wrote:
> Mike Lyle wrote:
>
> >
> > HEMI - Powered wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > Round here, mere eccentricity, especially verbose half-power
> > eccentricity, doesn't really make the cut. Study Follett: he can do it
> > in under a dozen lines, and can be very funny.
>
> I see, once again, we have the AUE love of feeding the trolls in full
> swing.
As David says, this bloke isn't a troll in the ordinary sense. Since he
doesn't see my messages, he won't be offended when I say he seems a
rather ordinary not-quite-kook. I think he's actually quite interested
in the subject, but doesn't know too much about it, and isn't used to
being disagreed with or interrupted. (He doesn't ask, he tells. In
extenso.) You don't have to join in, Brian; it'll soon be over, anyway.
--
Mike.
Linz
> Today, Linz made these interesting comments ...
>
>>>> I was quibbling about your assertion that "most people" in AUE
>>>> believe that their own native version of English is "correct"
>>>> and that those other people across the pond are "incorrect".
>>>> In fact, you're the only poster I can remember making this
>>>> suggestion.
>>>
>>> The operative word is is "quibling".
>>
>> I hate to quibble, but I it's "quibbling".
>>
> It is obvious that you have a bad case of OCD and cannot except - I
> mean, accept - that Xnews has no speillung chekkur, so you
> succumbed to overwhelming forces to be a smart-ass. Happy now,
> twit?
You're the one who was picking up on correctness, Hemi. If you can't manage
it yourself, don't criticise other people.
HEMI - Powered
> As David says, this bloke isn't a troll in the ordinary sense.
> Since he doesn't see my messages, he won't be offended when I
> say he seems a rather ordinary not-quite-kook. I think he's
> actually quite interested in the subject, but doesn't know too
> much about it, and isn't used to being disagreed with or
> interrupted. (He doesn't ask, he tells. In extenso.) You don't
> have to join in, Brian; it'll soon be over, anyway.
First, I am not a Pomey block, I am an American, and quite proud of
it, so I speak and write American, not English. Second, it is quite
obvious I do see you being the elitist troll you are trying to name
me as. So, be gone, ye accursed, you bore me, boy!
R H Draney
Another bed company here in Phoenix for many years was Sun Valley Waterbed
(ObAUE: note the noncount noun)...they had a sale just about every week, always
keyed to the season...when no suitable holiday or other observance suggested a
theme for that week's sale, they decided to hold an annual "Sale Named Frank",
after Frank Imbrie, the owner of the chain....
The commercials always starred Frank's wife Carolyn, who earlier in her career
had been the organist for The Brooklyn Bridge--not, however, at the time they
had their hit "The Worst That Could Happen"....r
--
It's the crack on the wall and the stain on the cup that gets to you
in the very end...every cat has its fall when it runs out of luck,
so you can do with a touch of zen...cause when you're screwed,
you're screwed...and when it's blue, it's blue.
Salvatore Volatile
> Hatunen wrote:
>
>> Not by a linguist. EVERYONE has an accent. The midwest accent is
>> close to what some call Standard American English (which is variously
>> defined), though. And, needless to say, everyone who speaks a
>> midwestern accent thinks he or she has no accent. One rarely thinks
>> of one's native tongue as an accent.
>
> I've believed for years that the prototypical midwest accent is that one
> that sounds like a sheet of rusty iron being dragged along a gravel
> road. Has the midwest moved, or am I just misremembering the region?
No, you're remembering it rightly -- or at least the vowel-shifted accents
of the Upper Midwest (ChiE, etc.), for which your description is a very
good one. Midwesterners as a whole seem sometimes to have an inability
to hear their own accent peculiarities (or even the peculiarities of the
different accents of their Midwestern neighbors -- consider Coop's recent
comments on Dennis Franz).
--
Salvatore Volatile
Default User
> Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> had it:
> > I see, once again, we have the AUE love of feeding the trolls in
> > full swing.
>
> If HEMI is a troll then he's a not completed the full training
> course. He backed out of a discussion with me and has plonked more
> than one AUE regular.
He's either a somewhat unconventional troll, or an argumentative clod.
At any rate, hardly worth bothering with.
My evaluation was troll, and I killfiled him back on 7/19.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Tony Cooper
wrote:
>Today, Mike Lyle made these interesting comments ...
>
>> As David says, this bloke isn't a troll in the ordinary sense.
>> Since he doesn't see my messages, he won't be offended when I
>> say he seems a rather ordinary not-quite-kook. I think he's
>> actually quite interested in the subject, but doesn't know too
>> much about it, and isn't used to being disagreed with or
>> interrupted. (He doesn't ask, he tells. In extenso.) You don't
>> have to join in, Brian; it'll soon be over, anyway.
>
>First, I am not a Pomey block, I am an American, and quite proud of
>it, so I speak and write American, not English. Second, it is quite
>obvious I do see you being the elitist troll you are trying to name
>me as. So, be gone, ye accursed, you bore me, boy!
Like, I suppose, many aue regulars, I form mental images of the
participants in this group. I've only met one participant in person,
and he was much slimmer than I had envisioned.
I have an image of Mike Lyle in mind, and I just can't fit "elitist"
in that picture. He does have a bit of Troll in him, though.
The closest we have to "elitist" would be Mr Follett, but I only
accord him that honor because he tries so hard - and so amusingly - to
project that image.
What is a "Pomey block"? A group of flats in Ooze where displaced
Brats live?
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
Mike Lyle
HEMI - Powered wrote:
> Today, Mike Lyle made these interesting comments ...
>
> > As David says, this bloke isn't a troll in the ordinary sense.
> > Since he doesn't see my messages, he won't be offended when I
> > say he seems a rather ordinary not-quite-kook. I think he's
> > actually quite interested in the subject, but doesn't know too
> > much about it, and isn't used to being disagreed with or
> > interrupted. (He doesn't ask, he tells. In extenso.) You don't
> > have to join in, Brian; it'll soon be over, anyway.
>
> First, I am not a Pomey block, I am an American, and quite proud of
> it, so I speak and write American, not English. Second, it is quite
> obvious I do see you being the elitist troll you are trying to name
> me as. So, be gone, ye accursed, you bore me, boy!
Oh, hallo/hello/hullo! You still here? Or have I failed to grasp how
these plonking thingies work? Which one of us isn't meant to be able to
read the other's stuff? Is there some etiquette I have to follow? Do I
have to make myself invisible by sticking my head in some sand, or
something? I've got a bag of sand in the shed.
Anyhow, what's a "Pomey block"? I like it, but haven't a clue what it
is. I agree you don't quite write English; but it doesn't seem to be
American, either. Back in grad school at WV Anabaptist there was a
Greek geographer called Emimechanokinetos: are you related? If you are,
I bet he never told you about the time we were invited down to the WVU
Engineering School for the pumpkin drop. He was only over to avoid the
draftos Hellenikos, and not really very bright. He wasn't well liked,
poor fellow, so I'm afraid we convinced him that inside the punkins'
elaborate protective armour there had to be a _person_. We compounded
the offence by telling him that the Greek Ambassador's daughter, who
was with us on an exchange program in linguistics (she was as thick as
pig-shit, too), had told a girlfriend that Hemicock (I blush to say
that's what we called him) would be right in there if he showed a touch
of machismo.
So, to cut a long and rather disgraceful story short, we got Hemicock
to _be_ the person inside the punkin barrel thing. It's a seriously
long way down off that building, but he was scientifically padded, and
we'd installed a huge parachute (against the rules, but everybody at
WVU was so drunk they didn't notice at the moment of launching). So,
though the barrel exploded in all imaginable directions, at Ground Zero
he suffered no more than contusions and a broken collar-bone, and lost
a front tooth. When we'd sobered up a bit, we all chipped in to buy him
a crown for the tooth, and it worked out just fine for him, because in
some Byzantine way the fractured clavicle disqualified him from
conscription, and he could go back home a free man. He never forgave
us, though, for the Ambassador's daughter: she reckoned if Hemi was the
last man on earth, the human race could die out on the spot as far as
she was concerned. She's now one of those people who are famous for
being famous, married some American tycoon, and does opinion columns
and blogs, and stuff, for her half-powered views on this and that. The
Dean's mother was Turkish, so he was content to put it all down to
youthful high spirits. Happy ever after for all concerned.
--
Mike.
Skitt
> "HEMI - Powered" wrote:
>> First, I am not a Pomey block, I am an American, and quite proud of
>> it, so I speak and write American, not English. Second, it is quite
>> obvious I do see you being the elitist troll you are trying to name
>> me as. So, be gone, ye accursed, you bore me, boy!
<snip>
> What is a "Pomey block"? A group of flats in Ooze where displaced
> Brats live?
You've got to cut Hemi-head some slack -- he doesn't have a spelling
checker, so there's no help.
--
Skitt
(who does not use a spelling checker either)
Chris Waigl
> Chris Waigl <cwa...@free.fr> had it:
>
>> One thing I urgently, desperately need is some half-way decent piece of
>> portable audio recording equipment. London's so totally full of public
>> announcements in a vast variety of accents, pronunciations, intonations
>> and degrees of annoyance and surrealism -- I'm just in awe.
>>
>> But I can't afford spending hundreds of £ on something
>> semi-professional from Marantz. Any good ideas what I might use? (Not my
>> laptop. That's impractical.)
>
> A decent portable mini-disc recorder will suit - they are very small but
> you would need to make sure that there is the capability to record from
> microphone (and buy a reasonable microphone). They are now being wound
> down as MP3 players take over, but there are plenty available second hand
> and there's almost nothing to go wrong with them:
> http://tinyurl.com/gbstp
Sigh. I knew it that Sony's intentionally castrated, DRM-infested products
are will end up being the most viable choice by far. There's a dearth of
consumer-grade music players that can take external microphones. One or
two out-of-date models of the iRiver, I hear.
Indeed, a friend of mine who is a soon-to-be-ex-BBC journalist does
exactly that: use a minidisc player and then transfer the recording to the
computer via the analog output (and thus a D/A and an A/D conversion, with
the attendant quality loss).
> Or for even less money, a simple MP3 player with built-in mic and
> recording capability might be enough and is smaller.
I used my Samsung Yepp something-or-other, now sadly on sick-leave, to
produce this: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/blogdocs/LS01a.mp3 (2.7MB).
The quality's just not good enough.
Thanks in any case,
Chris Waigl
Chris Waigl
> I have a Sony cassette recorder (TCM 459V) which is small, has a built in
> microphone and is the best thing I've found for recording interviews which
> need to be transcribed. My transcriber agrees that its recording quality
> is better than some of the larger, more expensive machines.
>
> But the very best thing I've found for recording is the Creative Muvo Slim
> MP3 player, which is the size of a business card case. It will record for
> up to 15 hours and the quality is excellent. It picks up sound at quite a
> distance - I can record meetings and lectures on it quite well. The only
> real drawback is that it can only be charged up by plugging into a PC. I
> bought it several years ago and next to my little
> Sony sub-laptop it's my favourite gadget. I think I paid about £50
> for it.
Ah, that's a great piece of advice. The quality of the built-in
microphones and recording software varies widely.
Chris Waigl
setting off to record the Tube
well, maybe not in the middle of the night
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
Chris Waigl
> Even when the two-digit number sound like "fourtwenties-sixteen"? (96).
This was one of my yardsticks for (my own) fluency in French: being able
not only to immediately understand the numbers between 70 and 99 when they
were produced in speech, but also to be able to say them without any
additional mental effort, the intellectual equivalent of drawing breath,
and the conscious awareness that I was about to pronounce a number (or a
year, as it were).
> Dutch is the worst, because of the number reversal. In translation: "If
> this is an emergency, hang up and dial zero six nine-and-twenty
> three-and-eighty six-and-thirty four-and-fifty." Quick, what's that?
My native language being German, I can't say I've found it hard to switch
from the little-endian way of saying numbers to the big-endian style. My
grandmother, by the way, would write the above phone number, if said in
German, the following way: zero, six, leave a blank and nine, two to the
left of the nine, leave a blank and three, eight to the left of the three,
leave a blank and six etc. -- in the same order as the individual digits
appear.
Chris Waigl
LFS
> HEMI - Powered wrote:
>
>>Today, Mike Lyle made these interesting comments ...
>>
>>
>>>As David says, this bloke isn't a troll in the ordinary sense.
>>>Since he doesn't see my messages, he won't be offended when I
>>>say he seems a rather ordinary not-quite-kook. I think he's
>>>actually quite interested in the subject, but doesn't know too
>>>much about it, and isn't used to being disagreed with or
>>>interrupted. (He doesn't ask, he tells. In extenso.) You don't
>>>have to join in, Brian; it'll soon be over, anyway.
>>
>>First, I am not a Pomey block, I am an American, and quite proud of
>>it, so I speak and write American, not English. Second, it is quite
>>obvious I do see you being the elitist troll you are trying to name
>>me as. So, be gone, ye accursed, you bore me, boy!
>
>
> Oh, hallo/hello/hullo! You still here? Or have I failed to grasp how
> these plonking thingies work? Which one of us isn't meant to be able to
> read the other's stuff? Is there some etiquette I have to follow? Do I
> have to make myself invisible by sticking my head in some sand, or
> something? I've got a bag of sand in the shed.
>
...
*laughter and applause*
(A lesson learned: never again shall I read a post from Mr Lyle while
drinking. My nightcap just went painfully up my nose. I strongly advise
against the snorting of single malt.)
Paul Wolff
timed 01 August 2006 08:37:05, the Omrud <usenet...@gmail.com> writes
>Robert Lieblich <r_s_li...@yahoo.com> had it:
>
>> I'm confident that Mike was invoking James Follett (not to be confused
>> with Ken), highly successful author of fiction, curmudgeonly
>> eccentric, and championship raconteur. I doubt you'll find a dozen
>> people reading this thread who would give Wilson Follett or his book
>> the time of day.
>
>Being a good, middle class English boy, I would be perfectly content
>to give Wilson Follett the time of day, should he happen to ask me
>for it. I wouldn't know who he was, of course, but I don't usually
>ask for government-issued photo ID before vouchsafing that it's
>twenty minutes to ten.
>
thirty-seven and five seconds...
--
Paul
In bocca al Lupo!
Paul Wolff
<pe...@DIESPAMMERSozebelg.org> writes
>R H Draney wrote:
>
>> I'm sad to see the imminent departure of a business that's been part
>> of the landscape here in Phoenix for decades, and in particular to
>> think that its signature jingle will soon be a thing of the past:
>> "I love my Metropolitan Mattress mattress"
>
>A mattress company jingle that still remains with me, many years after
>the company disappeared, was "Sleep wonderfully warm with Linda". A good
>friend of mine, whose mother was named Linda, found this most offensive.
>
She wore a nylon negligee
And when our night of love was through
She said I would not have to pay
When I asked her why her love was free
She said Cozy Mattress sponsors me
Last night we were on channel four
Now my secret love's no secret anymore.
Punctuation left as an exercise, etc.
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> Dutch is the worst, because of the number reversal. In translation: "If
> this is an emergency, hang up and dial zero six nine-and-twenty
> three-and-eighty six-and-thirty four-and-fifty." Quick, what's that?
>
> (06 29 83 36 54)
English speakers can throw a similar curve if the numbers so align.
Imagine telling someone you know to be taking notes that your number
is 555-1940, but in this fashion: "five-five-five-nineteen-forty."
The listener writes "555-9", only to be brought up short.
My own home phone number begins 522-2, and I find myself reciting it
"five -- twotwotwo -- [etc.]."
--
Bob Lieblich
Whatever works, baby
Chris Waigl
> On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:28 +0100, Chris Waigl <cwa...@free.fr> quoted:
>
>>"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a customer information service
>>announcement. The Victoria Line is suspended between Seven Sisters and
>>Walthamstow Central owing to signal failure at Walthamstow; severe
>>delays are carried to the rest of the line. The Picadilly Line is
>>subject to severe delays. This is owing to an earlier fire alarm at
>>Uxbridge. The District Line is subject to severe delays. This is owing
>>to an earlier fire alarm at Uxbridge and to a passenger emergency at
>>South Kensington. The Northern Line is subject to minor delays. This is
>>owing to congestion in the northern part of the line. There is excellent
>>service on all other London Underground lines."
>>
>>And don't say Tube speech isn't quality English, with those "owing to"s
>>and all the alighting going on. ]
>
> I always find it odd that they feel the need to tell us that the problem
> is due to something that happened "earlier". How could it not be?
There's "earlier" and there's "early", and as usual with such couples,
"early" is earlier than "earlier" (see "old" and "older", to qualify
people). The last time the (usually reliable) Picadilly Line broke totally
down, about ten days ago, it was "due to early flooding at Boston Manor".
I heard later on the news that there had been a full-fledged mudslide and
the tracks had needed digging out.
If the problem is "due to signal failure", I assume the signal's still
acting up. If it's "due to earlier signal failure", the signal itself
should be repaired, and we're just suffering from the tail-end of the
effects. If it's "due to early signal failure", they should bloody well
have managed to get things going by now, and the fact that they haven't is
worrying.
Chris Waigl
or so