Says You
sand
one broadcast on WNYC (probably out of National Public Radio) which
is highly directed to language and words and the participants are
uniformly intelligent and witty. So people in this group most likely
would be interested in listening. I hear it on the web.
Jan Sand
Robert Lieblich
It's available in Greater Laurel on WETA, 90.9, Saturdays at 11:00
a.m. (followed, inevitably, by the unpteenth series of "My Word"
reruns -- Frank Muir lives!) I, too, find it entertaining and try
to listen each week.
--
Bob Lieblich
Glad to be back
Mike Lyle
OT, but worth noting: When my sister was an undergrad at St Andrews,
the students elected Frank Muir Rector, and he took the job very
seriously rather than merely as an obscure honour. An all-round Good
Bloke.
Mike.
Ross Howard
wrote:
[about Frank Muir]
>An all-round Good Bloke.
And a perfect wole model for those aspiwing to dwy wit.
Ross Howard
--------------------
(Kick ass for e-mail)
Dr Robin Bignall
wrote:
>On 3 Jun 2003 03:46:38 -0700, mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk (Mike Lyle)
>wrote:
>
>[about Frank Muir]
>
>>An all-round Good Bloke.
>
>And a perfect wole model for those aspiwing to dwy wit.
>
He was a wery, wery clever, funny man, much missed.
There are many sites devoted to him and his partner, Denis Norden, who is
still with us, as far as I can tell. One which gives details of Denis, and
a memorial to Frank, is
http://www.magicdragon.com/Norden.html
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Remote Hertfordshire
England
Ross Howard
<docr...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 03 Jun 2003 15:19:09 +0200, Ross Howard <ggu...@yadonkeyhoo.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On 3 Jun 2003 03:46:38 -0700, mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk (Mike Lyle)
>>wrote:
>>
>>[about Frank Muir]
>>
>>>An all-round Good Bloke.
>>
>>And a perfect wole model for those aspiwing to dwy wit.
>>
>He was a wery, wery clever, funny man, much missed.
>
>There are many sites devoted to him and his partner, Denis Norden,
In the wake of the thread about Polari and Rock Hudson, you might wish
to rephrase that. Theatricals, and all that.
ObAUE: I'm *really* unhappy about "partner" apparently having won out
over the competition from "significant other", "live-in lover" and all
the rest to describe ongoing not-married-but-in-a-committed-
relationship situations. Sometimes it's just impossible to tell
whether people are business associates or an item. Try and figure
these out (culled from the Web more or less at random):
Gianni Versace's partner, Antonio D'Amico, told police that...
Donatella Versace, Gianni's sister, partner, and muse....
Excuse me, but are we talking bed meetings or board meetings here?
(Answers: Antonio was his lover for 11 years before his death, while
Donatella had a nepotistic but non-incestuous stake in his firm.)
If we now have to be careful to say "business partner" for the
professional type of association, isn't the language going backwards?
Matti Lamprhey
>
> ObAUE: I'm *really* unhappy about "partner" apparently having won out
> over the competition from "significant other", "live-in lover" and all
> the rest to describe ongoing not-married-but-in-a-committed-
> relationship situations. Sometimes it's just impossible to tell
> whether people are business associates or an item. Try and figure
> these out (culled from the Web more or less at random):
>
> Gianni Versace's partner, Antonio D'Amico, told police that...
>
> Donatella Versace, Gianni's sister, partner, and muse....
>
>
> Excuse me, but are we talking bed meetings or board meetings here?
> (Answers: Antonio was his lover for 11 years before his death, while
> Donatella had a nepotistic but non-incestuous stake in his firm.)
>
> If we now have to be careful to say "business partner" for the
> professional type of association, isn't the language going backwards?
To bring in another thread, why not use "spouse" for the "life partner"
usage? There's no real need for the word to carry "legally married"
connotations, after all. Is it avoided because it's too formal,
perhaps?
Matti
Arcadian Rises
<ggu...@yadonkeyhoo.com> writes:
>If we now have to be careful to say "business partner" for the
>professional type of association, isn't the language going backwards?
>
I don't think so. "Partner" comes from the Latin "partitio". I believe
originally meant part of a whole that may be a couple, a team or other such
association.
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> To bring in another thread, why not use "spouse" for the "life partner"
> usage? There's no real need for the word to carry "legally married"
> connotations, after all. Is it avoided because it's too formal,
> perhaps?
Part of the problem is that the legal profession has latched onto
"spouse," which has occurred because it is gender-neutral -- and
practitioners of divorce law really do need a gender-neutral term
meaning "husband or wife as the case may be." Imagine a statute
saying "The court may order a husband to support a wife or a wife to
support a husband" instead of "The court may order one spouse to
support the other." Not a great improvement in itself, but spread
across countless statutes and court decisions it makes a big
difference. "Spouse" has proved as useful as "parent" and "child,"
and it is used in the practice of divorce law with comparable
frequency. Among other things, in most American jurisdictions
"alimony" is now "spousal support."
But the usage won't work unless "spouse" always refers to one member
of an actual, legal marriage, and there's enough momentum behind it
by now that I doubt the meaning is going to shift.
So it goes.
--
Bob Lieblich
Spouse of divorce lawyer
Laura F Spira
usage seems to have a long history according to NSOED. But there is no
doubt that it can be confusing.
Our son the scriptwriter has a (male) partner, Andy, with whom he writes
(not quite Muir and Norden, but they're still young). When mentioning
Andy I find I need to describe him as Jon's writing partner as, without
this elaboration, people are often puzzled as to what sort of
relationship I'm talking about. The same thing occasionally happens when
my husband refers to his long-standing bridge partner.
--
Laura F Spira
(emulate St. George for email)
Matti Lamprhey
Oh. I thought that alimony was available to partners who were not
legally married but were sufficiently dependent financially upon the
other person. Is that not correct?
Matti
Ross Howard
The most ridiculous situation I've been in was at a party, when the
guy who had the other half of a business I ran for a couple of years
in the '90s[1] realised, to his great embarrassment and everyone
else's fazed puzzlement, that he'd been introducing both me and his
girlfriend to people as "my partner" all night.
[1. The lessons I've learned in life (with apologies to Nick Pileggi
and Martin Scorsese): Don't rat on your friends, always keep your
mouth shut and never agree to an employees' buy-out of an EFL school
on the skids.]
Robert Lieblich
> I thought that alimony was available to partners who were not
> legally married but were sufficiently dependent financially upon the
> other person. Is that not correct?
The law is in flux on that issue. Some states do allow support upon
the breakup of a longtime non-marital relationship, but AFAIK very
few or them. Issues of "morals" are implicated, and courts and
legislatures in states where conservatives predominate are very
worried about a prededent that would allow one member of a
homosexual pair to seek support from the other upon a breakup. (I
wouldn't be at all bothered by such a thing, but the likes of the
Texas Legislature hav no interest in my views).
Nor, when such support is awarded, do they call it "alimony" or
"spousal support." In cases where there has been no marriage, the
person seeking support argues by analogy to situations of actual
marriage. That explains the portmanteau term "palimony." It's not
the same as alimony, so a different label is needed. (I suppose you
could argue that palimony is a subset of alimony, but that's not how
the courts see it.)
--
Bob Lieblich
Legal advice herein warranted up to full amount paid for it
Matti Lamprhey
So in fact the extension of "spouse" to unmarried partners might
actually be useful rather than detrimental to the legal process?
Matti
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> So in fact the extension of "spouse" to unmarried partners might
> actually be useful rather than detrimental to the legal process?
Nah. Way too simple.
And it might just prove, once again, the law of unintended
consequences. When the Congress forced all American jurisdictions
to allow right turns on red traffic lights (by cutting off their
highway funds if they didn't), it had to permit exceptions where
such turns would be risky. The District of Columbia promptly put up
"No turn on red" signs at approximately eighty percent of the
intersections controlled by traffic lights. Many of us in Greater
Laurel took to referring to the new law as the one requiring "No
turn on red" signs all over town.
If "spouse" were to become defined by popular usage to include an
unmarried long-term cohabitant of the opposite sex, many a
legislature would
promptly enact a statute saying "For purposes of spousal support,
the term 'spouse' does not include any person not a party to a
legally valid marriage." And you'd be right back where you started.
Of course, any legislature can always go the other way: "For
purposes of spousal support, the term 'spouse' includes unmarried
long-term cohabitants of the opposite sex to the other cohabitant."
(You'd obviously have to do a better job of drafting than I did, but
I think the point is clear.) But I don't know of any that has.
Time was, common-law marriage filled the legal gap pretty well, and
a true common-law marriage is as much a marriage as any other. But
most American jurisdictions have abolished common-law marriage. Is
this progress? It's not for me to say.
--
Bob Lieblich
Very married
R F
> And it might just prove, once again, the law of unintended
> consequences. When the Congress forced all American jurisdictions
> to allow right turns on red traffic lights (by cutting off their
> highway funds if they didn't), it had to permit exceptions where
> such turns would be risky.
All? What about New York (Largest City in America)? You can't turn
right on red anywhere there, and AFAIK the only sign announcing this
fact is that one with the picture of the apple you see when you enter
the Bronx on one of those highways from Westchester. Perhaps Congress
exempted New York from the law or something.
Robert Lieblich
Sorry, RF, I got lazy. I'm well aware of the exception for New York
(all five boroughs including the Fourth Largest City in America).
I thought that point tangential enough to omit. Mea culpa.
It doth appear, however, that New York has far bigger problems than
right turns on red -- such things as sitting on subway steps or on a
milk crate:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/04/nyregion/04TICK.html>.
--
Bob Lieblich
Who spent last weekend in New York looking over his shoulder
Dr Robin Bignall
wrote:
>Ross Howard wrote:
It's because the word 'partner' has changed its meaning significantly over
the past 20 or 30 years. I can still remember when 'gay' meant
lighthearted, fun-loving, carefree, and had no sexual connotations
whatever. (My time sense is not good - it may have been 50 years ago.)
Evan Kirshenbaum
> It's because the word 'partner' has changed its meaning
> significantly over the past 20 or 30 years. I can still remember
> when 'gay' meant lighthearted, fun-loving, carefree, and had no
> sexual connotations whatever. (My time sense is not good - it may
> have been 50 years ago.)
It's got to be a bit longer than that. In the 1938 movie _Bringing Up
Baby_, Cary Grant explains to his mother why he's wearing a nightgown
by saying "Because I just went gay all of a sudden!" Now I'm sure
that the fact that it could be read innocently was what slipped it
past the censors, but it seems to be clearly intended to be a double
entendre, so there must have been some sexual connotation 65 years
ago. The OED dates the sense to 1935, but their first mention is in a
book of "underworld and prison slang", but if it was used in the
movies three years later it must have spread pretty quickly.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Your claim might have more
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |credibility if you hadn't mispelled
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |"inteligent"
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
John Dean
OED traces 'gay' for homosexual back to 1935. 'gay' for impertinent to 1896.
'gay' for an erect dog's tail to 1927. 'gay' for addicted to social
pleasures to 1637. 'gay' of women working as prostitutes to 1825. 'gay' as
in 'gay science' for poetry to 1813. And various others.
Like lots of words, it has, and has had, a variety of meanings, some related
some not. I get weary of the implication that once upon a time 'gay' meant
only 'carefree' and now it means 'homosexual'. And you don't remember when
gay had no sexual connotations, you just didn't know it had them and has
done so for several hundred years. In fact, if you put your mind to it, you
might recall the expressions 'gay Lothario' 'gay dog' and 'gay blade' and
consider what kind of 'gay' they are describing.
--
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply
Jacqui
> Dr Robin Bignall writes:
>
>> It's because the word 'partner' has changed its meaning
>> significantly over the past 20 or 30 years. I can still remember
>> when 'gay' meant lighthearted, fun-loving, carefree, and had no
>> sexual connotations whatever. (My time sense is not good - it may
>> have been 50 years ago.)
>
> It's got to be a bit longer than that. In the 1938 movie
> _Bringing Up Baby_, Cary Grant explains to his mother why he's
> wearing a nightgown by saying "Because I just went gay all of a
> sudden!" Now I'm sure that the fact that it could be read
> innocently was what slipped it past the censors, but it seems to
> be clearly intended to be a double entendre, so there must have
> been some sexual connotation 65 years ago. The OED dates the
> sense to 1935, but their first mention is in a book of "underworld
> and prison slang", but if it was used in the movies three years
> later it must have spread pretty quickly.
Gay has had sexual connotations for longer than Robin has been alive,
and there's plenty of evidence for it. "A gay girl" was a prostitute
(mid 19th-Century), a "gay-cat" a young tramp who has a homosexual
relationship with an older tramp (US, 1897), a "gay house" an 18thC
brothel, "gaying it" 18thC slang for having sex.
Gay meaning just homosexual dates back to the 1930s (probably derived
from gay-cat or gey-cat above), but the associations with sex go back
much further. It's *possible* the Grant quote is meant to mean tipsy or
forward, two other slang meanings of gay, but something sexual is more
likely.
Jac
Dr Robin Bignall
wrote:
[..]
>OED traces 'gay' for homosexual back to 1935. 'gay' for impertinent to 1896.
>'gay' for an erect dog's tail to 1927. 'gay' for addicted to social
>pleasures to 1637. 'gay' of women working as prostitutes to 1825. 'gay' as
>in 'gay science' for poetry to 1813. And various others.
>Like lots of words, it has, and has had, a variety of meanings, some related
>some not. I get weary of the implication that once upon a time 'gay' meant
>only 'carefree' and now it means 'homosexual'. And you don't remember when
>gay had no sexual connotations, you just didn't know it had them and has
>done so for several hundred years. In fact, if you put your mind to it, you
>might recall the expressions 'gay Lothario' 'gay dog' and 'gay blade' and
>consider what kind of 'gay' they are describing.
Sorry to make you weary, John. My background and upbringing were not very
sophisticated, and I was probably in my mid-teens when the other meanings
struck me. The 'gay blades' that I read about seemed to mainly be concerned
with looking dashing in front of women.
Robert Bannister
'Gay' has been discussed several times before on aue, so I'm not
disputing its history. Nevertheless, the homosexual meaning was not in
general usage before about the 1980s and must have been restricted to an
elite few. Similarly, the prostitute meaning, which is even older, had
dropped out of general use by the time I was born.
--
Rob Bannister