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Forks in which hand?

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snopes

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Feb 9, 1994, 12:18:29 AM2/9/94
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Further evidence of approaching senility for Ann and Abby: a recent _Dear
Abby_ column tackling another UL-related topic:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DEAR ABBY: In a recent column, a Clifton, N.J., reader asked why people
switched hands while eating with a knife and fork. This etiquette began in the
British North American colonies for a very good reason.
Almost all the colonists had grown up being taught to hold the fork in the
left hand and the knife in the right. Such a lifelong habit is not easily
abandoned.
Table knives in those days had very sharp edges and pointed tips to
effectively deal with the meats that, by modern standards, were somewhat on the
tough side.
As political opinions began to become more polarized between those loyal to
the crown and those advocating rebellion, hosts (particularly at taverns and
inns) found it advisable not to allow guests at tables to constantly have such
a weapon in their right hands.
They insisted that they knife be used only for brief periods, when
meat-cutting was required. And, to ensure that the knife would be placed on
the table (thus presenting less of a threat), that the fork be used with the
right hand.
Although this did not eliminate all violence in the dining area, it did
suffice to greatly reduce such incidents.
To lay down the knife and occupy the right hand with another less lethal
instrument became the symbol of peaceful intent and was generally adopted.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Eating live worms shows a total disregard for living things. We take a |
| very dim view and just wish people could think of other ways to raise |
| money." |
| - Noeline Tamplin, RSPCA spokeswoman |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| David P. Mikkelson Calif. State Univ., Northridge Northridge, CA USA |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


Rick

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Feb 9, 1994, 1:13:42 AM2/9/94
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Did you know that since this arose out of British etiquette that in World
War II that Allied spys (especially US and British spys) were caught
because of the switching silverware custom? It seems that they forgot to
train spys in this minute area, and since Americans and British are the
only ones to do this, BAM you have a caught spy!

Terry Monks

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Feb 9, 1994, 10:21:14 AM2/9/94
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Rick (ef...@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
: Did you know that since this arose out of British etiquette that in World


British people do not switch hands. The famous near-British commentator
George Mikes in his book on Americans called "How to Scrape Skies,"
attempted to explain American eating habits by pointing out that the
American eater takes on the part of both the mother and the child at a meal:
the mother cuts up the food, switches silverware, and the child eats it.

I have always wondered why (if American know-how is all it's cut out
to be) Americans don't sharpen the sides of their forks.

Terry "Patent Pending" Monks
--
Terry Monks t...@adiva.com Automata Design Inc (703) 742-9400

Jack Campin

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Feb 9, 1994, 12:02:51 PM2/9/94
to

This is obvious twaddle, since it's only the US that does this fork-
juggling; the British and other Europeans eat the same way. Is it
even common for Americans to believe that we eat the same way they do?

However, it does remind me of another UL about how to spot a German spy
that supposedly dates from WW2. This was that the British and German ways
of lacing shoes were different and a German agent would typically get it
wrong. Anyone else heard this one? I'm not even sure what the canonical
British way to lace shoes was meant to be.

=== Jack "personally, I eat like Jeff Goldblum with the donuts" Campin ===

--
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4195 HOME: 031 556 5272 FAX: 031 451 3431
INTERNET: ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk BITNET: via UKACRL BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet

Vicki Robinson

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Feb 9, 1994, 4:19:24 PM2/9/94
to
In article <1994Feb9....@adimail.uucp>, t...@adimail.uucp (Terry Monks) writes:
>
>British people do not switch hands. The famous near-British commentator
>George Mikes in his book on Americans called "How to Scrape Skies,"
>attempted to explain American eating habits by pointing out that the
>American eater takes on the part of both the mother and the child at a meal:
>the mother cuts up the food, switches silverware, and the child eats it.

It would take a lot more than a book to explain American eating habits. But
if we're talking about use of silverware, I was told that we eat with our
right hands because the left one is busy holding our handguns on our laps so
that they don't fall off, and are available for instant use. I don't know why
we don't hold our guns in our right hands. I do, under my napkin, except at
home, where I just leave it on the table. But this was a French
person explaining this to me, so maybe that's the answer.

>
>I have always wondered why (if American know-how is all it's cut out
>to be) Americans don't sharpen the sides of their forks.
>

Hey, cool idea, and it gives new meaning to the expression "wide smile"
doesn't it?

>Terry "Patent Pending" Monks


Vicki "Pssst! Wanna buy a lip-guard?" Robinson
--
Vicki Robinson "It'll just lead to trouble,
Odd physics professor I know it will."
National Technical Institute for the Deaf -- Joel "Vicki Robinson"
VJR...@ritvax.isc.rit.edu Furr, AFU, 1/19/94

Daniel B Case

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Feb 9, 1994, 8:35:00 PM2/9/94
to
In article <CKyvC...@cee.hw.ac.uk>, ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes...

>This is obvious twaddle, since it's only the US that does this fork-
>juggling; the British and other Europeans eat the same way. Is it
>even common for Americans to believe that we eat the same way they do?

Not when I've seen Brits eat hamburgers and hot dogs with a knife and fork, no.

>However, it does remind me of another UL about how to spot a German spy
>that supposedly dates from WW2. This was that the British and German ways
>of lacing shoes were different and a German agent would typically get it
>wrong. Anyone else heard this one? I'm not even sure what the canonical
>British way to lace shoes was meant to be.

I've heard several stories like this, about spies giving themselves away
through some seemingly insignificant practice that was done differently in
the country being spied on.

1) German spies in Russia (and perhaps the US) give themselves away by lighting
cigarettes differently. Americans-and Russians too, supposedly-will light their
cigarettes after putting them in their mouths, whereas Europeans will light them
first. Anybody have any practical observations? (This, incidentally, is how
Bruce Willis makes Alan Reichman in "Die Hard").

2) German spies in Russia give themselves away by the way they write the letter
"A". My Russian professor, a native speaker, told us this when teaching us how
to write in Cyrillic. Apparently the Germans would write the "A" as a large
version of "a", whereas written Cyrillic uses an "A" that has a bar and looks
more like the printed one.

3) IRA and UFF use pronunciation of letter "H" when spelled out to determine
if captives are really Catholic or Protestant-one group says "aitch" and other
says "haitch".

Dan "In what year did Babe Ruth hit 64 home runs?" Case

Daniel Case State University of New York at Buffalo
Prodigy: WDNS15D | GEnie: DCASE.10
Ceci n'est pas une pipe
V140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu dc...@acsu.buffalo.edu

Helge Moulding

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Feb 10, 1994, 4:26:41 PM2/10/94
to
Jack Campin (ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk) wrote:
: ef...@merle.acns.nwu.edu (Rick) wrote:
: > [Silverware etiquette traps German spies...]

: This is obvious twaddle,...

: However, it does remind me of another UL about how to spot a German spy


: that supposedly dates from WW2. This was that the British and German ways
: of lacing shoes were different and a German agent would typically get it
: wrong. Anyone else heard this one? I'm not even sure what the canonical
: British way to lace shoes was meant to be.

Lessee, I am German, and my shoes are laced:

starting under, crossing over (left on top), crossing under (left on top),
crossing over (left on top), crossing under (left on top), right end crosses
over and under left, make loop in left, wrap right once ccw around loop
and finish bow by pushing loop in right under knot.

But that's my right shoe. My left one is a bit different. And then my dress
shoes at home may lace differently again. And my soccer coach taught me
a truly bizarre method of lacing.

In fin, it sounds like BS to me... Of course, maybe there are Brits that
actually were beaten until they consistently got those laces right... I
read were British school masters have training in that sort of thing...
So you could tell a Gerry spy if his laces were sloppy...
--
Helge "So I'd just wear spats..." Moulding
(Just another guy with a weird name)

Helge Moulding

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Feb 10, 1994, 4:42:43 PM2/10/94
to
Vicki Robinson (vjr...@ritvax.isc.rit.edu) wrote:
: In article <1994Feb9....@adimail.uucp>, t...@adimail.uucp (Terry Monks) writes:
: >
: >British people do not switch hands.[...]

: It would take a lot more than a book to explain American eating habits. But

: if we're talking about use of silverware, I was told that we eat with our
: right hands because the left one is busy holding our handguns on our laps so
: that they don't fall off, and are available for instant use. I don't know why
: we don't hold our guns in our right hands. I do, under my napkin, except at
: home, where I just leave it on the table. But this was a French

: person explaining this to me, so maybe that's the answer.[...]

What a story, huh? I was told that it was bad manners not to have both hands
on the table, wrists resting on the table's edge when not otherwise employed.
Then, going to the USA, the keepers of table etiquette informed me that here
I have to keep my left hand on my left leg, unless I need it for the knife.
Oh, yeah, and then I have to learn to switch knife and fork when cutting
meat. (No problem there - I didn't eat meat.) I, too, was told that the
hand under the table allowed Americans to hold onto the gun. Didn't surprise
me...
--
Helge "So I learned to shoot left-handed." Moulding

MHM

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Feb 10, 1994, 5:58:30 PM2/10/94
to
In article <CKzJ4...@acsu.buffalo.edu>, v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
|> >However, it does remind me of another UL about how to spot a German spy
|> >that supposedly dates from WW2. This was that the British and German ways
|> >of lacing shoes were different and a German agent would typically get it
|> >wrong. Anyone else heard this one? I'm not even sure what the canonical
|> >British way to lace shoes was meant to be.
|>
|> I've heard several stories like this, about spies giving themselves away
|> through some seemingly insignificant practice that was done differently in
|> the country being spied on.
|>
|> 1) German spies in Russia (and perhaps the US) give themselves away by lighting
|> cigarettes differently. Americans-and Russians too, supposedly-will light their
|> cigarettes after putting them in their mouths, whereas Europeans will light them
|> first. Anybody have any practical observations? (This, incidentally, is how
|> Bruce Willis makes Alan Reichman in "Die Hard").
|>
|> 2) German spies in Russia give themselves away by the way they write the letter
|> "A". My Russian professor, a native speaker, told us this when teaching us how
|> to write in Cyrillic. Apparently the Germans would write the "A" as a large
|> version of "a", whereas written Cyrillic uses an "A" that has a bar and looks
|> more like the printed one.
|>
|> 3) IRA and UFF use pronunciation of letter "H" when spelled out to determine
|> if captives are really Catholic or Protestant-one group says "aitch" and other
|> says "haitch".
|>
|> Dan "In what year did Babe Ruth hit 64 home runs?" Case

Howdy,

My father had the mispleasure of being in the infantry during WW2.
Among the many stories he told as verifiable fact was as follows:

"In the trenches, at night, very stealthy, black-clad soldiers
would creep about touching the boot laces of those persons they
encountered. Were the boots laced in the 'Allies' crisscross
fashion, the person was spared. Were the boots laced in the
'German' horizontal fashion, the throat, indirectly attahed to
the boots, was cut."

Dear old dad was not pleased when I persisted in lacing up my tennis
shoes in the "German" horizontal fashion.

As for the lighting of cigarettes as a spy giveaway, I doubt it.
I have several European friends who light their cigarettes after
putting them in their mouths. Methinks, perhaps that this is a
bastardization of another "fact". Saith my father:

"When on the battlefield, never light any more than one cigarette
with the same match. To do so makes you an easy target for enemy
snipers (at night of course) due to the duration of the flame."

Fortunately, I don't smoke, so dear old dad only has to worry that
I'll have my throat slit 'cause of my laces.

bill nelson

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Feb 10, 1994, 7:26:23 PM2/10/94
to
vjr...@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Vicki Robinson) writes:
: >
: >I have always wondered why (if American know-how is all it's cut out

: >to be) Americans don't sharpen the sides of their forks.
: >
: Hey, cool idea, and it gives new meaning to the expression "wide smile"
: doesn't it?

It could also be the source of the term "forked tongue".

Bill "Ngghth" Nelson

danny burstein

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Feb 10, 1994, 8:23:21 PM2/10/94
to

<discussion of spies messing up the little details skipped over>

Which, of course, brings up an Isaac Asimov (mhrip) story, or rather, a
fact article he wrote in Fantasy and Science Fiction. He was discussing eh
power of poetry and songs in shaping human opinion (as, example, 'listen
my children and you shall here...') and rambled on a bit.

One example he cited was a story (I believe he stated it was anectodotal,
but was useful for illustrative purposes). In early WW II a group of Nazis
had secretly moved into Russian territory and were, of course, wearing
Russian uniforms.

The local Wesley Crusher world savior sawe them and immediaately turned
them in as spies. How did he know? Because (Asimov relates), the weasal
noted that they (the spies) weren't laughing.


--
----------------------------------
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key!
-dan...@panix.com (or dbur...@mcimail.com)
(10288) 0-700-864-3242

Brian Scearce

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Feb 10, 1994, 8:55:03 PM2/10/94
to
In article <CKzJ4...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
> 1) German spies in Russia (and perhaps the US) give themselves away by
> lighting cigarettes differently. Americans - and Russians too,
> supposedly - will light their cigarettes after putting them in their

> mouths, whereas Europeans will light them first.

Even ignoring the fact that it's a lot easier to get the ciggie started
when you're drawing air through it, I have this odd picture: Match in
one hand. Matchbook in the other. Cigarette in the third hand. Nope,
I don't buy it. With a lighter, it makes more sense, but the cigarette
protocols were no doubt worked out long before lighters became
popular.

> This, incidentally, is how Bruce Willis makes Alan Reichman in "Die

> Hard".

Ah! I knew it was right after he lit his cigarette, but I thought that
either (a) Alan Rictus' hand wasn't shaking enough for a terrified
businessman or (b) he had Galoises or some other odd foreign cancer
stick. Pity, because he had the American accent down pretty well.

It is for tidbits like this -- true or false, it doesn't matter -- that
I read AFU. Thank you, Dan.

> 3) IRA and UFF use pronunciation of letter "H" when spelled out to

> determine if captives are really Catholic or Protestant - one group


> says "aitch" and other says "haitch".

This, incidentally, is how the men of Gilead made the Ephraimites in
"Judges".

Brian "Spion!" Scearce
--
Brian Scearce b...@sector7g.eng.sun.com
The above does not necessarily represent Sun policy.
It's not Beavis and Butthead's fault that their viewers are as stupid as they are.

Paul Tomblin

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Feb 10, 1994, 10:49:17 PM2/10/94
to
hmu...@bmerha9c.bnr.ca (MHM) writes:
> "In the trenches, at night, very stealthy, black-clad soldiers
> would creep about touching the boot laces of those persons they
> encountered. Were the boots laced in the 'Allies' crisscross
> fashion, the person was spared. Were the boots laced in the
> 'German' horizontal fashion, the throat, indirectly attahed to
> the boots, was cut."

When I was in the Canadian army, we were taught to lace our boots horizontal
fashion because it is easier to cut the laces and remove the boot if you're
wounded.

Paul "not to mention the fact that it takes less lace" Tomblin
--
Paul Tomblin - snide Canadian.
"I am not a signature virus, I am a human being" - Vicki Robinson

Daniel B Case

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Feb 11, 1994, 1:23:00 AM2/11/94
to
In article <2jeohn$j...@engnews1.Eng.Sun.COM>, b...@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Scearce) writes...

>In article <CKzJ4...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>> 1) German spies in Russia (and perhaps the US) give themselves away by
>> lighting cigarettes differently. Americans - and Russians too,
>> supposedly - will light their cigarettes after putting them in their
>> mouths, whereas Europeans will light them first.
>
>Even ignoring the fact that it's a lot easier to get the ciggie started
>when you're drawing air through it, I have this odd picture: Match in
>one hand. Matchbook in the other. Cigarette in the third hand. Nope,
>I don't buy it. With a lighter, it makes more sense, but the cigarette
>protocols were no doubt worked out long before lighters became
>popular.

You've obviously never seen that Twilight Zone episode "Will The Real Martian
Please Stand Up?".

Well, try lighting the match off the book first with both hands, then picking
up the cigarette. In any event, lighters were involved-they were well in use at
that time.

>It is for tidbits like this -- true or false, it doesn't matter -- that
>I read AFU. Thank you, Dan.

You're welcome.

Dan "Trying my best" Case

David DeLaney

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Feb 11, 1994, 1:24:54 AM2/11/94
to
b...@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Scearce) writes:
>v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>> 1) German spies in Russia (and perhaps the US) give themselves away by
>> lighting cigarettes differently. Americans - and Russians too,
>> supposedly - will light their cigarettes after putting them in their
>> mouths, whereas Europeans will light them first.
>
>Even ignoring the fact that it's a lot easier to get the ciggie started
>when you're drawing air through it, I have this odd picture: Match in
>one hand. Matchbook in the other. Cigarette in the third hand. Nope,
>I don't buy it. With a lighter, it makes more sense, but the cigarette
>protocols were no doubt worked out long before lighters became popular.

Try this picture, then: Cigarette in one hand. Matchbook in the other.
Matchbook opened, match bent down with thumb (?) and struck while still
in matchbook, quite in defiance of "close cover before striking" legend.
Cigarette lit and transferred to mouth. Can't remember *which* mystery I
read that this turned out to be a clue in... but it's apparently one of the
medium-old-time (before lighters, but after lucifers) marks of the smoker...

Dave "will *not* inhale nicotine-containing gases for food" DeLaney
--
David DeLaney: d...@utkux.utcc.utk.edu; ObQuote: `VISUALIZE BLONDE MELINDA' - T.
Pierce... Disclaimer: Opinions? Nope; Thinking about this disclaimer (or about
theoretical particle physics) may cause headaches. Not particularly interested__
in being Kibo, thanks. Vicki and Paul and Terry but not Barbara or Joel. VR#:1\/

Aris Gerakis

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Feb 11, 1994, 9:30:43 AM2/11/94
to
The whole discussion on spies is pointless; a spy would be caught by his
accent before he had the chance to use fork/knife/shoe. Any spy born/raised
in another country could never get their accent exactly right to blend
in with the locals.
--
Aris Gerakis
ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu

Jack Campin

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Feb 11, 1994, 1:33:51 PM2/11/94
to
ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) wrote in alt.folklore.urban:
[ in a discussion about folkore ways to identify foreign spies,
like by the way they use cutlery or tie their shoelaces ]

> The whole discussion on spies is pointless; a spy would be caught by his
> accent before he had the chance to use fork/knife/shoe. Any spy born/raised
> in another country could never get their accent exactly right to blend in
> with the locals.

A spy doesn't have to exactly blend in with the locals: they only have to
sound like they're from another part of the country where they talk a bit
funny. A lot of Dutch and Scandinavian people manage this in the UK;
however, their native language is in the same family as English, and they
start learning English very young and devote a lot of school time to it.

A common rumour says that the CIA can train pretty near anyone to the level
of not-from-this-town-but-certainly-the-same-country in a fairly short time
(months at most). How plausible is this? Is there any publicly visible
training organization that can replicate that, and with a language at least
as remote from English as Russian?

[ Crossposted to sci.lang; watch followups. ]

Eddie Saxe

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Feb 11, 1994, 2:32:33 PM2/11/94
to
In alt.folklore.urban, ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) writes:
>The whole discussion on spies is pointless; a spy would be caught by his
>accent before he had the chance to use fork/knife/shoe. Any spy born/raised
>in another country could never get their accent exactly right to blend
>in with the locals.

Proven, of course, by the lack of any foreign agents in any country
anywhere in the world.

bah.

Eddie
--
Ceci n'est pas une signature

James Ronald Williams

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Feb 11, 1994, 6:19:29 PM2/11/94
to
ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:

>ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) wrote in alt.folklore.urban:
>[ in a discussion about folkore ways to identify foreign spies,
> like by the way they use cutlery or tie their shoelaces ]
>> The whole discussion on spies is pointless; a spy would be caught by his
>> accent before he had the chance to use fork/knife/shoe. Any spy born/raised
>> in another country could never get their accent exactly right to blend in
>> with the locals.

[stuff about Dutch & Scandinavians in UK deleted]

>A common rumour says that the CIA can train pretty near anyone to the level
>of not-from-this-town-but-certainly-the-same-country in a fairly short time
>(months at most). How plausible is this? Is there any publicly visible
>training organization that can replicate that, and with a language at least
>as remote from English as Russian?

Sounds fairly plausible to me: It only took me 2 years while I was in college
to achieve learn to pronounce Spanish so well that when I studied in Puerto
Rico, most people assumed I was from another Spanish-speaking country until
told otherwise. And the only reason it took me 2 years was because I had to
deal with an English-speaking environment for all but a couple of hours a day.

I've no idea about public organisations, though, nor about the possibility
with other languages with major differences betwixt them. Anyone else...?

--
| ~~/~~ ______ | I don't care what they say, there is a sun, I saw it
| (__/ (_/ _/ / /_ | with my own eyes: There was a pale, silvery spot in the
| __/ | grey sky, and by golly, it felt warm on my face!
--
| ~~/~~ ______ | I don't care what they say, there is a sun, I saw it
| (__/ (_/ _/ / /_ | with my own eyes: There was a pale, silvery spot in the
| __/ | grey sky, and by golly, it felt warm on my face!

Daniel B Case

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Feb 11, 1994, 6:33:00 PM2/11/94
to
In article <ab401.760938557@freenet>, ab...@freenet.carleton.ca writes...

>> "In the trenches, at night, very stealthy, black-clad soldiers
>> would creep about touching the boot laces of those persons they
>> encountered. Were the boots laced in the 'Allies' crisscross
>> fashion, the person was spared. Were the boots laced in the
>> 'German' horizontal fashion, the throat, indirectly attahed to
>> the boots, was cut."
>
>When I was in the Canadian army, we were taught to lace our boots horizontal
>fashion because it is easier to cut the laces and remove the boot if you're
>wounded.

Aha. The real reason why the Canadian troops were sacrificed at Dieppe.

Dan "Standards must be maintained in all Allied armies" Case

Daniel B Case

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Feb 11, 1994, 7:18:00 PM2/11/94
to
In article <CL2ow...@cee.hw.ac.uk>, ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes...

>ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) wrote in alt.folklore.urban:
>[ in a discussion about folkore ways to identify foreign spies,
> like by the way they use cutlery or tie their shoelaces ]
>> The whole discussion on spies is pointless; a spy would be caught by his
>> accent before he had the chance to use fork/knife/shoe. Any spy born/raised
>> in another country could never get their accent exactly right to blend in
>> with the locals.
>
>A spy doesn't have to exactly blend in with the locals: they only have to
>sound like they're from another part of the country where they talk a bit
>funny.

Case in point: Lee Harvey Oswald, whose Russian was such that Marina thought
he was from a non-Russian republic of the USSR (frequently misinterpreted by
overzealous conspiracy theorists to "She thought he was a native Russian; his
Russian was so good")

A lot of Dutch and Scandinavian people manage this in the UK;
>however, their native language is in the same family as English, and they
>start learning English very young and devote a lot of school time to it.

Swedes are especially good at this-I know some that not only have developed
near-perfect American English, but actually have pretty good American regional
accents.

that the CIA can train pretty near anyone to the level

>(months at most). How plausible is this? Is there any publicly visible
>training organization that can replicate that, and with a language at least
>as remote from English as Russian?

Well, Russian isn't that remote from English IME, but that's what five years of
studying it will do for you.
The CIA either sends people to the Defense Language Institute, or has something
similar of its own-I'm not sure which.

Dan "Immersion in either case" Case

Aris Gerakis

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Feb 11, 1994, 11:11:13 PM2/11/94
to
ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:

>A spy doesn't have to exactly blend in with the locals: they only have to
>sound like they're from another part of the country where they talk a bit
>funny.

[...]

Even if that's true, how about idioms and expressions?
It's not only accent, it's also whether they use the lift or the
elevator.

>A common rumour says that the CIA can train pretty near anyone to the level
>of not-from-this-town-but-certainly-the-same-country in a fairly short time
>(months at most). How plausible is this? Is there any publicly visible
>training organization that can replicate that, and with a language at least
>as remote from English as Russian?

>[ Crossposted to sci.lang; watch followups. ]

>--
>-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
> Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
>TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4195 HOME: 031 556 5272 FAX: 031 451 3431
>INTERNET: ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk BITNET: via UKACRL BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet

--
Aris Gerakis
ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu

Bob Hiebert CDS

unread,
Feb 12, 1994, 1:49:14 AM2/12/94
to
In a recent posting, Snopes replays an Abby/Ann story regarding
switching hands for knives and forks during the ritual eating process.


Personally, my left hand is so uncoordinated that neither knives nor
forks can be used. This would be a plausible couter-argument, except
for the geographical location referenced in the article.

Since my origins trace back through Russia/Germany, are there any stories
that would explain the difference in eating habits, since the knife
issue is common to all human types?

hibob


--
----------------------------
Engineering Manager Type |
Not Speaking for Tektronix |

Paul Tomblin

unread,
Feb 12, 1994, 9:41:57 AM2/12/94
to
hi...@interceptor.cds.tek.com (Bob Hiebert CDS) writes:
>Since my origins trace back through Russia/Germany, are there any stories
>that would explain the difference in eating habits, since the knife
>issue is common to all human types?

Oh? Are the chopstick users of the world not human? How about the people
who eat with their hands, or with a piece of roti torn off in the hand?

I'd think that accounts of over 50% of the worlds population.

Personally, I tend to believe the theory that it started on the frontier
where you only had one sharp knife for the whole family, so you cut
everything up, and then put the knife back for somebody else to use.

BTW: Most Canadians, in my experience, do it the "Euro-way", cut a slice, eat
it, cut a slice, eat it, never switching hands. Some Americans do it that
way too, but most cut everything first, then switch hands and start eating.

Paul "Will pick up food with naan for ... food" Tomblin

Barbara Hamel

unread,
Feb 12, 1994, 4:15:17 PM2/12/94
to

In a previous article, ab...@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Tomblin) says:

>BTW: Most Canadians, in my experience, do it the "Euro-way", cut a slice, eat
>it, cut a slice, eat it, never switching hands. Some Americans do it that
>way too, but most cut everything first, then switch hands and start eating.

I have to disagree with you on this, Paul. I'm a Canadian too, and just
about everyone I know uses a "primary hand" method of eating with knife
and fork. By this I mean knife in primary hand and fork in secondary
hand for cutting, then fork in primary hand for eating. In fact, some
people consider it rude for guests sit there with a utensil in each hand
-- looks like they came only for the food and not the conversation. One
hostess I know was quite dismayed by the table manners of her British
guests; she said "they looked like they were just waiting for a break in
the conversation so they could go back to attacking their dinner."

I also believe it is not considered proper to cut up everything on your
plate in one go. I had heard you are supposed to cut off whatever you
deem proper for a forkful and then eat it, and only then go back to cut
something else up.

Barbara "born in Ottawa, Canada and never lived anywhere else" Hamel
--
Barbara Hamel | Chaos is six women and one luncheon check.
ag...@freenet.carleton.ca |
Ottawa, Canada | - The Best Of Bridge

Kevin Haskel Rubin

unread,
Feb 12, 1994, 8:39:37 PM2/12/94
to
ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Barbara Hamel) writes:

>In a previous article, ab...@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Tomblin) says:

>I also believe it is not considered proper to cut up everything on your
>plate in one go. I had heard you are supposed to cut off whatever you
>deem proper for a forkful and then eat it, and only then go back to cut
>something else up.

I'm not at all consistant about how I cut and eat my food. I once did
manage to get yelled at horribly by my grandmother at breakfast for cutting
all my pancakes. In a very horrible, loud voice "Don't play with you're
food. You're just playing with your food. I didn't get up early to cook
you pancakes so you could play with them. You cut a piece then you eat it,
then you cut a piece then you eat it." This was in New Jersey, where there
shouldn't be any sort of culture (just a little more than here in Oregon.)

-kevin
--
Any opinions expressed are probably mine. There
gn...@teleport.com -- probably isn't a pattern as to whether or not they're
TECHbooks.

Brian Scearce

unread,
Feb 12, 1994, 8:52:27 PM2/12/94
to
In article <2jg4qj$s...@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) writes:
> Any spy born/raised in another country could never get their accent
> exactly right to blend in with the locals.

The newscaster Peter Jennings has logged billions of man-hours of
having his speech listened to, and probably very few of his listeners
know that he was born abroad.

Brian "no, I *don't* mean he used to be a woman" Scearce

Chris Grace

unread,
Feb 12, 1994, 9:20:59 PM2/12/94
to
In message <<CL34v...@acsu.buffalo.edu>> v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu writes:
>>ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) wrote in alt.folklore.urban:
>>[ in a discussion about folkore ways to identify foreign spies,
>> like by the way they use cutlery or tie their shoelaces ]
>>> The whole discussion on spies is pointless; a spy would be caught by his
>>> accent before he had the chance to use fork/knife/shoe. Any spy born/raised
>>> in another country could never get their accent exactly right to blend in
>>> with the locals.
>>
>>A spy doesn't have to exactly blend in with the locals: they only have to
>>sound like they're from another part of the country where they talk a bit
>>funny.
>
>Case in point: Lee Harvey Oswald, whose Russian was such that Marina thought
>he was from a non-Russian republic of the USSR (frequently misinterpreted by
>overzealous conspiracy theorists to "She thought he was a native Russian; his
>Russian was so good")
>
> A lot of Dutch and Scandinavian people manage this in the UK;
>>however, their native language is in the same family as English, and they
>>start learning English very young and devote a lot of school time to it.
>
>Swedes are especially good at this-I know some that not only have developed
>near-perfect American English, but actually have pretty good American regional
>accents.
>
I have heard a lot of philipino Women with perfect American accents
which I can only assume the picked up from military personnel in the
Philippines since they had come directly from there to Australia (where
I was living at the time) and had never been to the US. I have seen a
similar thing with Chinese from Hong Kong as well, and Indians who have
been to University in Canada.

Robert Knippen

unread,
Feb 12, 1994, 10:30:15 PM2/12/94
to
In article <1994Feb11....@oswego.Oswego.EDU> jr...@Oswego.EDU (James Ronald Williams) writes:

>It only took me 2 years while I was in college
>to achieve learn to pronounce Spanish so well that when I studied in Puerto
>Rico, most people assumed I was from another Spanish-speaking country until
>told otherwise. And the only reason it took me 2 years was because I had to
>deal with an English-speaking environment for all but a couple of hours a day.

Spanish is an exceptional case with respect to fooling native
speakers into thinking you are a native speaker of Spanish from
somewhere else. Anyone who's been to a linguistic conference
paper where data from Spanish is discussed can vouch for this;
The most basic facts of Spanish are hotly contested by audience
members who speak a different variety. The point is, there are
zillions of kinds of Spanish, and Spanish speakers know this.
Furthermore, most Spanish speakers haven't been subjected to
the myth that there is some privileged variety of Spanish.
Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.

Chico Jablonski

unread,
Feb 13, 1994, 4:31:41 AM2/13/94
to

Americans do generally pretty bad with Portuguese, but I've found an
outstanding exception here in Austin, Texas: there's a singer, Suzana Sharpe
who dominates well enough the pronunciation within the "last flower of
Latio" to have recorded a CD with most of the tracks sung in Portuguese!
And it's nothing that clear and easy like Portuguese from Rio Grande
do Sul or Santa Catarina. She manages very well the accents
from the Northeast of Brazil. My parents, 2nd and 3rd generation brazi-
lians would not be recognized as such in Rio or Sao Paulo due to their
strong accent. Suzanna could easily do it!

The first time I heard her I was kinda slightly "impaired" by a
couple of beers, but I tell you, I only began to notice traces
of accent *after* people told me she is American.

Chico Jablonski


Andrew Lewis

unread,
Feb 13, 1994, 8:18:09 AM2/13/94
to
t...@adimail.uucp (Terry Monks) writes:
> [...]

>I have always wondered why (if American know-how is all it's cut out
>to be) Americans don't sharpen the sides of their forks.

>Terry "Patent Pending" Monks

Don't hold your breath on that patent, Terry. An Australian has already
invented it. It's called a "splade" and resembles a spoon with tines and
sharpened sides (not particularly sharp for obvious reasons). Quite
popular with some, even though Aussies also do not "switch", as you can
eat *and* hold a beer...

Andrew "Just love perpetuating national stereotypes" Lewis

Juan Molinari

unread,
Feb 13, 1994, 1:31:09 PM2/13/94
to
rm...@ellis.uchicago.edu (Robert Knippen) writes:
>zillions of kinds of Spanish, and Spanish speakers know this.
>Furthermore, most Spanish speakers haven't been subjected to
>the myth that there is some privileged variety of Spanish.
>Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
>to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.

Sorry to get into a cultural debate here, but I beg to differ slightly.
Up until recently, most of latin america (Mexico is a clear example) was under
the collective impression that Spaniards, and people who spoke "proper spanish"
(i.e., with a Spanish accent) were of a "high breed" than people who spoke
with a local accent. This was exemplified in such films as those depicting a
Spanish-speaking, white-skinned Jesus living among darker-skinned people who
spoke with a Mexican accent (this is a mexican film, made for and by mexicans).

It is only recently (50 years?) that latin americans have come to
realize that, not only is that type of thinking ludicrous, but it is also
mathematically inconsistent; latin american outnumbers Spain in population many
times over.

So you see, people WERE fed the "proper spanish is better"
imperialistic propaganda for centuries, but somehow they managed to outgrow it.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
Juan G. Molinari ________ 465 Grace Watson Hall
ju...@clark.net \ HI! / RIT
jgm...@ritvax.rit.edu \ / Rochester, NY 14623
jgm...@hendrix.cs.rit.edu \ /
jgm...@ultb-isc.rit.edu \/ (716) 475-3643
Suicide is our way of saying to god:
"You can't fire me, I QUIT!"


bill nelson

unread,
Feb 13, 1994, 2:46:44 PM2/13/94
to
ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Barbara Hamel) writes:
:
: hand for cutting, then fork in primary hand for eating. In fact, some
: people consider it rude for guests sit there with a utensil in each hand
: -- looks like they came only for the food and not the conversation. One
: hostess I know was quite dismayed by the table manners of her British
: guests; she said "they looked like they were just waiting for a break in
: the conversation so they could go back to attacking their dinner."

Sheeh! What do they expect us to do - sit there until the food gets cold,
just because the host/hostess wants to blab for an hour or two? If they
want to do that, they can do so - before or after dinner.

Bill

Daniel B Case

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 1:59:00 AM2/14/94
to
In article <1994Feb13....@midway.uchicago.edu>, rm...@midway.uchicago.edu writes...

>Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
>to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.

Well of course-just go to Vancouver some time.

*Quebecers* have been known to tell Canadians they don't speak French-because
they really can't.

Seriously, I know what you meant, and this recalls a UL that we've discussed
here on AFU...

Quebecer goes to Paris, stops at small bistro, orders in French. Waiter takes
order, then returns with an English version of the menu.

Doubly insulting to a Quebecer, of course, and told by Anglo-Canadians with some
glee, especially in light of recent events. Anybody know of this actually
happening somewhere?

Dan "Mais garcon, je suis de Montreal..." Case

Paul Tomblin

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 10:06:08 AM2/14/94
to
v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
[quebecois given english menu in paris]

>Doubly insulting to a Quebecer, of course, and told by Anglo-Canadians with some
>glee, especially in light of recent events. Anybody know of this actually
>happening somewhere?

No, but at GeoVision when I started, they were very short of desks. So my
buddy Daniel, who was probably the first francophone they'd ever hired, ended
up sharing a desk with Eric Bienvenue, a co-op student from France. Within
hours, they decided that they hated each other's French, and would only speak
English to each other.

Paul "And I shared a conference room with three other guys" Tomblin

DaveHatunen

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 10:24:05 AM2/14/94
to
In article <CL7Cr...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>In article <1994Feb13....@midway.uchicago.edu>, rm...@midway.uchicago.edu writes...
>>Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
>>to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.
>
>Well of course-just go to Vancouver some time.
>
>*Quebecers* have been known to tell Canadians they don't speak French-because
>they really can't.
>
>Seriously, I know what you meant, and this recalls a UL that we've discussed
>here on AFU...
>
>Quebecer goes to Paris, stops at small bistro, orders in French. Waiter takes
>order, then returns with an English version of the menu.
>
>Doubly insulting to a Quebecer, of course, and told by Anglo-Canadians with some
>glee, especially in light of recent events. Anybody know of this actually
>happening somewhere?
>
>Dan "Mais garcon, je suis de Montreal..." Case

When my French teacher at U of Louisville found out I was going to
graduate school in Montreal he got a very deep frown and lamented that
I had a very good accent and Quebec would ruin it. He was from France.


--
********** DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@netcom.com) **********
* Daly City California: *
* where San Francisco meets The Peninsula *
* and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea *
*******************************************************

Pierre Jelenc

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 10:25:01 AM2/14/94
to
In article <CL7Cr...@acsu.buffalo.edu>,

Daniel B Case <v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> wrote:
>
>Quebecer goes to Paris, stops at small bistro, orders in French. Waiter takes
>order, then returns with an English version of the menu.
>
>Doubly insulting to a Quebecer, of course, and told by Anglo-Canadians with some
>glee, especially in light of recent events. Anybody know of this actually
>happening somewhere?

No, but I did have to resort to English once in Quebec City when talking
to someone whose accent was utterly impenetrable. Never had that problem
in Montreal.

Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
rc...@panix.com

Larry M Headlund

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 10:41:16 AM2/14/94
to

jm...@midway.uchicago.edu writes...


>>Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
>>to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.
>

>Seriously, I know what you meant, and this recalls a UL that we've discussed
>here on AFU...
>

>order, then returns with an English version of the menu.
>

>Douby insulting to a Quebecer, of course, and told by Anglo-Canadians with

some >glee, especially in light of recent events. Anybody know of this actually
>happening somewhere?
>

In a related, but verifiable incident, it was reported that the Quebec
film _Decline and Fall of the American Empire_ was shown in France
with French subtitles.
Interested students may wish to compare and contrast with the Jamaican
film _The Harder They Come_, shown in the US with English subtitles.

Larry "Frankly, I wish _Letter to Breznev_ had subtitles", Headlund


--
Larry Headlund l...@world.std.com Eikonal Systems (617) 482-3345
Unix, X and Motif Consulting Motif on Ascii Terminals!

Stephen Kelley

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 11:28:29 AM2/14/94
to
In article <CL80...@world.std.com> l...@world.std.com (Larry M Headlund) writes:
-
- In a related, but verifiable incident, it was reported that the Quebec
- film _Decline and Fall of the American Empire_ was shown in France
- with French subtitles.
- Interested students may wish to compare and contrast with the Jamaican
- film _The Harder They Come_, shown in the US with English subtitles.
-
- Larry "Frankly, I wish _Letter to Breznev_ had subtitles", Headlund


And the Aussie flick 'Mad Max' which was simply dubbed into English.

Steve Kelley


Christopher Neufeld

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 11:54:05 AM2/14/94
to
In article <CL7Cr...@acsu.buffalo.edu>,
Daniel B Case <v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> wrote:
>In article <1994Feb13....@midway.uchicago.edu>, rm...@midway.uchicago.edu writes...
>>Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
>>to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.
>
>Quebecer goes to Paris, stops at small bistro, orders in French. Waiter takes
>order, then returns with an English version of the menu.
>
I was in Geneva at the CERN research lab about seven years ago. At one
point I was talking with one of the firefighters there who run the
late-night taxi service for the lab. He was from France, and we started
talking in French, and as soon as I started talking he gave me a wide
stare and asked where I was from. I had to make a conscious effort to
speak real French instead of the joual I picked up at camp.

>Dan "Mais garcon, je suis de Montreal..." Case
>

J'y y vinte aussi, moy.
Errr, I mean, "je viens aussi de Montreal"

--
Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student neu...@physics.utoronto.ca
"Don't edit reality for | "The nerd projection operator recovers most of his
the sake of simplicity" | amplitude." Insult, probably self-referential.
| -rw-rw-rw- : the file permission of the beast

Paul Tomblin

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 12:23:23 PM2/14/94
to
l...@world.std.com (Larry M Headlund) writes:
>Interested students may wish to compare and contrast with the Jamaican
>film _The Harder They Come_, shown in the US with English subtitles.

So was "Reggae Sunsplash". It was shown on Canadian TV with absolutely lousy
sound, and straight subtitles. I was hoping for an attempt to translate into
normal english, like Barbara Billingsly in "Airplane".

Paul "I and I mash you man. Me vex" Tomblin

Linda Richards

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 1:01:45 PM2/14/94
to
Robert Knippen writes:

> French purists have been known to tell Canadians that they don't even speak
> French.

Umm... *English* purists have known to tell Canadians that they don't even
speak French.

Linda "for the record, I don't speak French" Richards

--
Linda Richards I understand it is
Linda_R...@mindlink.bc.ca bad luck to mention
Joel Furr in your
The Axeman is a close personal friend of mine. signature.


James Nicoll + Jasmine

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 1:34:37 PM2/14/94
to

I used to work in a library, and the person who trained me was
Jamaican, with a very thick accent. I find that particular accent difficult
to understand, which prolonged the training period and I think convinced
her I was making fun of her accent *sigh*.

My first accent was cockney. My father was born and raised in
Lancaster County, PA. As it turns out, he couldn't figure out what I was
saying. We may have been one of the few father-son pairs who required
translators to communicate. Once we moved back to Canada, I picked up
a Southern Ontario accent which, while bland, is similar enough to
Pennsylvania English that direct communication was possible. For some
reason, when I talk in my sleep, I still have that cockney accent, though.

James Nicoll
--
If mail bounces, try jdni...@engrg.uwo.ca
"That's not science, that's just pyromania." "Oh. That's OK."

Alan Munn

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 4:50:47 PM2/14/94
to
In article <CL80...@world.std.com>,

Larry M Headlund <l...@world.std.com> wrote:

>In a related, but verifiable incident, it was reported that the Quebec
>film _Decline and Fall of the American Empire_ was shown in France
>with French subtitles.

Can somebody actually verify this? Since the main characters in
Decline of the American Empire were Montreal academics, they all spoke
a very 'standard' French. The degree to which Quebecois differs from
what one might call "International" french varies almost directly with
socio-economic class with some political overtones thrown in. I doubt
that Decline was subtitled. I don't recall there being any joual in
it at all.

Also, don't the French tend to dub rather than subtitle?

Alan

--
Alan Munn <am...@monad.missouri.edu> NeXTmail Welcome
Dept. of English, University of Missouri, Columbia MO 65211

Gerald Belton

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 5:01:00 PM2/14/94
to
>>It only took me 2 years while I was in college
>>to achieve learn to pronounce Spanish so well that when I studied in Puerto
>>Rico, most people assumed I was from another Spanish-speaking country until

>Spanish is an exceptional case with respect to fooling native


>speakers into thinking you are a native speaker of Spanish from
>somewhere else. Anyone who's been to a linguistic conference

My father-in-law spent six weeks every year in Italy until very
recently; his Italian is nearly perfect.

A few years ago he gave a speech in Panama City. Not wanting to speak
through a translator, he had the speech translated into Spanish and he
then proceeded to memorize it. At the reception following the speech,
the most frequently asked question was, "What part of Italy are you
from?" It seems that he speaks Spanish with an *Italian*, rather than
American, accent.

---
. SLMR 2.1 . .I think this k..b..rd w.s m.d. in M.xico! .No?

----
The Ozone Hole BBS * SKYDIVE New Orleans! * (504)891-3142 * V.32bis/HST

Gerald Belton

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 5:01:00 PM2/14/94
to
>A common rumour says that the CIA can train pretty near anyone to the level
>of not-from-this-town-but-certainly-the-same-country in a fairly short time
>(months at most). How plausible is this? Is there any publicly visible
>training organization that can replicate that, and with a language at least
>as remote from English as Russian?

Ever listen to Radio Moscow on shortwave? The announcers sound British
to my American ear.

---
. SLMR 2.1 . After we pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is NOT our friend!

cask...@ix.wcc.govt.nz

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 6:36:47 PM2/14/94
to
hmu...@bmerha9c.bnr.ca (MHM) writes:
> "In the trenches, at night, very stealthy, black-clad soldiers
> would creep about touching the boot laces of those persons they
> encountered. Were the boots laced in the 'Allies' crisscross
> fashion, the person was spared. Were the boots laced in the
> 'German' horizontal fashion, the throat, indirectly attahed to
> the boots, was cut."

Before he died, my grandfather often told me tales of the time he spent in
the trenches in World War One. On one occasion, he related, he and two
comrades were sleeping in a small dugout after completing their watch.
When he awoke, he discovered that the man in the middle had had his throat
neatly slit in his sleep. Tragically, he had laced his boots the wrong
way.

Steve "he hasn't told me any _since_ he died" Caskey
___________________________________________________________________________
Steve Caskey (cask...@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz)
Disclaimer: If anyone cared what I thought I'd be rich and famous.
"War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it."
Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536 (minVRsigref)

Daniel B Case

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 6:54:00 PM2/14/94
to
In article <ab401.761238368@freenet>, ab...@freenet.carleton.ca writes...

>v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>[quebecois given english menu in paris]
>
>>Doubly insulting to a Quebecer, of course, and told by Anglo-Canadians with some
>>glee, especially in light of recent events. Anybody know of this actually
>>happening somewhere?
>
>No, but at GeoVision when I started, they were very short of desks. So my
>buddy Daniel, who was probably the first francophone they'd ever hired, ended
>up sharing a desk with Eric Bienvenue, a co-op student from France. Within
>hours, they decided that they hated each other's French, and would only speak
>English to each other.

This reminds of some story I heard about one of the World Philosophy Congresses,
where the German attendees listened to the simultaneous English translation of a
paper being given by Juergen Habermas rather than the original, because his
German was so incomprehensible to them. Why was this?

Daniel B Case

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 6:58:00 PM2/14/94
to
In article <hatunenC...@netcom.com>, hat...@netcom.com (DaveHatunen) writes...

>When my French teacher at U of Louisville found out I was going to
>graduate school in Montreal he got a very deep frown and lamented that
>I had a very good accent and Quebec would ruin it. He was from France.

My brother had a Russian piano teacer,, who, upon being informed that I had
studied Russian in college, said "I hope his teacher wasn't Ukrainian!"

Dan "But that might be more historically understandable" Case

Daniel B Case

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 7:10:00 PM2/14/94
to
In article <CL80...@world.std.com>, l...@world.std.com (Larry M Headlund) writes...

>In a related, but verifiable incident, it was reported that the Quebec
>film _Decline and Fall of the American Empire_ was shown in France
>with French subtitles.

I didn't find *that* difficult to understand. How impenetrable is Quebecois
French to a native French speaker anyway? Is there an easy English-language
analogy?
I didn'ty find it *that* difficile a comprendre.


may wish to compare and contrast with the Jamaican
>film _The Harder They Come_, shown in the US with English subtitles.

I have plenty of Jamaican step-relatives, so that film isn't that har to follow
either. But I can see why those with little experience of Jamaican speh woul
nd it difficult (Compale "The Mighty Quinn" filmed in Port Antonio, Jam
Jamaica, with American actors. The dialogue is spot-on words-wise (at least to
me) but I was laughing nonetheless because real Jamaicans never speak that
slowly.

[middle name quote mentioning the dense English of "Letter to Brezhnev"
obliterated by notices of incoming listserv mail]

There was some trailer running in US theaters recently for some British comedy
about work in the building trades which was, perhaps only half-humorously,
subtitled.

Dan "Wishes European movies that show in the US weren't subtitled in bad
colloquial British English" Case

JA...@ukcc.uky.edu

unread,
Feb 14, 1994, 9:31:19 PM2/14/94
to
In article <2jhkt1$n...@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) writes:

>
>Even if that's true, how about idioms and expressions?
>It's not only accent, it's also whether they use the lift or the
>elevator.
>
This, by the by, is a fair example of passing as a native speaker. There
are many Europeans (and even North Africans) who speak such excellent
"British" English, that an American assumes they are in fact British. And
conversely there those who have so nearly mastered "American" English
that the English believe them to be American. This same phenomenon was
made practical use of during WWII, by dropping someone trained to speak
French with a heavy meridionale accent behind enemy lines in Normandy;
or with a Barese accent and dropping him in, say Lombardy. Mastering the
proper dialect (actually regional) vocabulary is a part of the intensive
training to assist some pommy bloke to pass himself off in Toronto as
a fair dinkum citizen of Melbun when he orders a tube of Foster's.
(Helps a bit if he is also from East Lunnon! Don't point that gun at
me!!)

Charles Mitchell

unread,
Feb 15, 1994, 9:06:58 AM2/15/94
to
In article <16F5D12E...@ukcc.uky.edu> of 15 Feb 94 02:31:19 GMT

JA...@ukcc.uky.edu writes:
>In article <2jhkt1$n...@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
>ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) writes:
>
>> (omission)

>This, by the by, is a fair example of passing as a native speaker. There
>are many Europeans (and even North Africans) who speak such excellent
>"British" English, that an American assumes they are in fact British. And
>conversely there those who have so nearly mastered "American" English
>that the English believe them to be American. This same phenomenon was

When I was a student in Strasbourg, France I went on a student hike
during the summer (practically all foreign students). There was one
particular young lady speaking English whom I took for some kind of Brit.
Later, talking with some English students, I found they thought she
was an American (she was actually Norwegian). It was a perfect example
of someone who was perceived by all of us as a native speaker of
English, although we all also knew she was not speaking "our kind" of
it.

Charlie
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Charles Mitchell Academic Information Systems
Phone: 212 854-5023 201 Philosophy
si...@cuvmc.bitnet Columbia University
si...@cuvmc.cc.columbia.edu New York, NY 10027

DaveHatunen

unread,
Feb 15, 1994, 10:20:14 AM2/15/94
to
In article <2jornn$s...@hamlet.umd.edu> am...@monad.missouri.edu writes:
>In article <CL80...@world.std.com>,

[...]

>Can somebody actually verify this? Since the main characters in
>Decline of the American Empire were Montreal academics, they all spoke
>a very 'standard' French. The degree to which Quebecois differs from
>what one might call "International" french varies almost directly with
>socio-economic class with some political overtones thrown in. I doubt
>that Decline was subtitled. I don't recall there being any joual in
>it at all.

My college roommate was Canadian; his family had recently moved to the
states. His father had been an important Canadian physicist, and they
had lived in Montreal for a while. His mother did not speak French, but
they had a Quebecoise maid. The mother had the maid teach her French
over a period of time. As she told it, she finally felt confident
enough to use her new French abilities, and at a faculty-type party she
was finally able to participate in one of those uniquely Montreal
bilingual conversations. After the first sentence or so, the others
started giggling and snickering.

It turned out she had learned the Quebec equivalent of a deep hillbilly
accent.

Robert

unread,
Feb 15, 1994, 11:53:28 AM2/15/94
to
Heard from various sources:

UL: Pakistanis speak English with a lilting intonation, because the first
missionaries to what is now Pakistan were Welsh, and taught them to
speak with a Welsh accent.

Comment: Could a particular intonation have spread so quickly? It seems
dubious to me; more likely the intonation was based on the way they spoke
already.

UL: The _British_ invented curry, to hide the taste of rotting meat (of course
the darkies were used to that sort of thing, you know) in India.

Comment: Frankly I doubt it. Funnily enough, I've only heard it from Brits.
Just like them to take the credit, when they can't even cook the bloody
stuff without reducing the meat and vegetables to the texture of paste.

- Robert "Will make curry. Why ask why?" Alcock
--
LOST, Cambridge, UK, 1992: leather jacket. Artwork on back: red sausage
shape covered with white rectangles, 'PIXIES' in silvery-white; below that,
'Doolittle' in cursive script, blue-grey. Don't want it back, just curious.
E-mail: ie...@csv.warwick.ac.uk Phone: UK (0926)427749. >>Robert Alcock<<

bill nelson

unread,
Feb 15, 1994, 7:28:04 PM2/15/94
to
and...@resntl.bhp.com.au (Andrew Lewis) writes:
:
: >I have always wondered why (if American know-how is all it's cut out

: >to be) Americans don't sharpen the sides of their forks.
:
: >Terry "Patent Pending" Monks
:
: Don't hold your breath on that patent, Terry. An Australian has already
: invented it. It's called a "splade" and resembles a spoon with tines and
: sharpened sides (not particularly sharp for obvious reasons). Quite
: popular with some, even though Aussies also do not "switch", as you can
: eat *and* hold a beer...

I suspect that he will have trouble getting a patent. There have been a
number of such inventions - often aimed towards making it easier to eat
grapefruit.

Bill "White Man speak with forked tongue" Nelson

David DeLaney

unread,
Feb 15, 1994, 7:45:26 PM2/15/94
to
ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Barbara Hamel) writes:
>ab...@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Tomblin) says:
>
>>BTW: Most Canadians, in my experience, do it the "Euro-way", cut a slice, eat
>>it, cut a slice, eat it, never switching hands. Some Americans do it that
>>way too, but most cut everything first, then switch hands and start eating.
>
>I have to disagree with you on this, Paul. I'm a Canadian too, and just
>about everyone I know uses a "primary hand" method of eating with knife
>and fork. By this I mean knife in primary hand and fork in secondary
>hand for cutting, then fork in primary hand for eating. In fact, some
>people consider it rude for guests sit there with a utensil in each hand
>-- looks like they came only for the food and not the conversation. One
>hostess I know was quite dismayed by the table manners of her British
>guests; she said "they looked like they were just waiting for a break in
>the conversation so they could go back to attacking their dinner."
>
>I also believe it is not considered proper to cut up everything on your
>plate in one go. I had heard you are supposed to cut off whatever you
>deem proper for a forkful and then eat it, and only then go back to cut
>something else up.

Well, for questions of what's considered proper, one can go straight to
the top and quote (as I shall now do) from the formidable and esteemed
Judith Martin:

(reproduced quite without permission, and I apologize profusely, but think that
Miss Manners would enjoy being referenced here... I would also like to
apologize in advance for both Miss Manners' and her questioners' confusion
of the USA with America.)
------------------
Dear Miss Manners:
Could Miss Manners resolve a problem for a confused foreigner? I was brought
up (as opposed to raised) to believe that it is correct to hold one's fork in
one's left hand, tines pointing down, and one's knife in one's right. The fork
is used to secure the particular square inch of food on which one has set one's
sight, and the knife to sever it from its main body. The morsel of food thus
attached, in single action, to the fork is conveyed by that utensil (tines
still pointing down, of course) to the mouth. The knife remains poised for
further use, at a suitably discreet angle and elevation, in the right hand.
This procedure is repeated until all the food on one's plate (but not the
gravy) has been eaten, or until the appetite is satiated, whichever happens
sooner.
When I came to the United States over two years ago, I was broad-minded
enough to realize that in America it is normal practice to transfer food
from plate to mouth with the fork (tines up) in the right hand, but
chauvinistic enough to suppose that it is actually more correct to do it in
the manner described above. Now I am being asked by those of my friends who
are concerned for my reputation in polite circles to believe that it is
incorrect (a) to hold the fork with the tines pointing down; an (b) to have
both knife and fork in hand at the same time. Am I to abandon all the tenets
of English etiquette which I have held as true for so long?

Gentle Reader:
A simple answer to your question is that the left-handed eating technique
you describe so well is the correct way to eat in Europe, and the
fork-switching method is correct in the States. However, there are several
hidden issues here that complicate one's choice. If you will be patient, Miss
Manners would like to address these more subtle matters.
Among reasons cited for using the "continental" method in the United States
are the habits of childhoodd and loyalty to one's national origin, the desire
to appear European, and the wish to eat as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In your case, the first reason would be sufficient for you to stick to your
original training. For Americans the second has to do with Western Europeans'
being considered chic in America, while other countries are not, and their
former citizens are usually therefore encouraged to become "Americanized" as
thoroughly as possible. Miss Manners does not approve of native Americans
changing their habits in order to appear fashionably foreign. Nor does she
accept their excuse that the foreign method is more efficient. Efficiency in
food service or consumption is not desirable.


Dear Miss Manners:
I am not asking for advice on manners. Instead, I am offering advice on
how to advise others. You wrote about the use of various forks when eating in
the presence of well-mannered people. How interesting! I have never thought
that such things would be important to those who do not know how to use the
knife and fork in the first place -- that is, to Americans.
The socially proper and internationally adopted handling of eating
implements may date back to the days of the French and English courts. In those
days, the manners of the nobility were imitated by the masses and since then
have become an integral part of today's society, the American part not
considered. In my service for the U.S. government since 1947 [Mo47o mo47o],
or almost thirty-two years, I spent seven years in foreign countries. Quite
often, I had to participate in social occasions, and I was embarrassed at the
way the Americans handled the eating implements, when ebven citizens of other
countries here considered uncivilized could do much better than Americans,
who have no manners to speak of. This abysmal ignorance of international
etiquette must certainly contribute to the progressive deterioration of the
American image in the eyes of the world. If no American diplomat, perhaps not
even the President, knows how to handle the knife and the fork properly, then
what should anyone think of the country that they represent?
According to the international rule of etiquette, the fork is always held
in the left hand and the knife in the right. The fork may be put down
temporarily for picking up a roll or some other tidbit, but the knife must
stay glued to the right hand, except when the eating is temporarily
interrupted, in which case the knife and fork should be left at an angle (not
parallel). There are numerous such rules, some written, some not, of which
the Americans have not the slightest conception. The most disgusting American
habit is to cut the meat into small pieces and then put down the knife and
proceed one-handedly with the right hand [another fine Moghgho attempt,
especially in light of recent CNN-covered trials...]. Just like children, which
just about reflects the overall mentality of the nation. As for myself, I would
rather have no manners than the manners by which this country now lives.

Gentle Reader:
Unlike you, Miss Manners is not easily embarrassed, but the thought of being
represented abroad by an American exhibiting ignorance of his country and
disrespect of the American people has succeeded in embarrassing her.
American table manners are, if anything, a more advanced form of civilized
behavior than the European, because they are more complicated and further
removed from the practical result, always a sign of refinement. One switches
the fork from left to right hand each time a single piece of meat is cut, not
after cutting all meat, an elaborate, time-consuming, and therefore impressive
procedure. You do not impress Miss Manners by speaking of table etiquette at
the French and English courts where, you will find from simple research, the
use of the knife and fork are comparatively recent developments.


Dear Miss Manners:
To me, the cut-and-shift American way of using a fork is silly and I find
the tines-down English way to be inefficient.
I hold my fork mainly in my left hand when there is food to be cut or
pushed onto the fork with my knife. The tines are up, and the handle rests on
my ring finger and first knuckle, with two fingers and the thumb on top.
[Transcriber's note: I just tried this position with my coffee-stirring stick
and find it improbable (but doable), to say the least.] I hold the fork the
same way in my right hand for certain foods. On several occasions, remarks
have been made about this alleged peculiarity of mine. I respond by making it
clear I know the alternatives. You may say that people who make such remarks
have more to learn about manners than what they assume I do not know. Would
you, however, advise me to change a comfortable habit just to earn the good
opinion not only of those who question me about it, but also of people with
the decency to be quiet?

Gentle Reader:
You, sir, are an anarchist, and Miss Manners is frightened to have anything
to do with you.
It is true that questioning the table manners of others is rude. But to
overthrow the accepted conventions of society, on the flimsy grounds that
you have found them silly, inefficient, and discomforting, is a dangerous
step toward destroying civilization. [Film at eleven...]
----------------------------

These three Q&As are taken from "Miss Manners' Guide To Excruciatingly
Correct Behavior", which I will recommend (along with its two companion
volumes) as storehouses of witty, dryly humorous information on the
correct way of doing just about anything...

Dave "will not eat bananas or french fries with knife and fork" DeLaney
--
David DeLaney: d...@utkux.utcc.utk.edu; ObQuote: `VISUALIZE BLONDE MELINDA' - T.
Pierce... Disclaimer: Opinions? Nope; Thinking about this disclaimer (or about
theoretical particle physics) may cause headaches. Not particularly interested__
in being Kibo, thanks. Vicki and Paul and Terry but not Barbara or Joel. VR#:1\/

David DeLaney

unread,
Feb 15, 1994, 7:59:23 PM2/15/94
to
v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>ab...@freenet.carleton.ca writes...

>>No, but at GeoVision when I started, they were very short of desks. So my
>>buddy Daniel, who was probably the first francophone they'd ever hired, ended
>>up sharing a desk with Eric Bienvenue, a co-op student from France. Within
>>hours, they decided that they hated each other's French, and would only speak
>>English to each other.
>
>This reminds of some story I heard about one of the World Philosophy Congresses,
>where the German attendees listened to the simultaneous English translation of a
>paper being given by Juergen Habermas rather than the original, because his
>German was so incomprehensible to them. Why was this?

Possibly because there's at least three different dialects of German running
around out there; from what my brother (who spent a year over there, and who can
spell in German but has been known to misspell his own name in English) tells
me, they translate as "High", "Middle", and "Low" German, and various regions
contain various combinations of the accents.

I might also note that I tend to pick up the *American* accent of people I
work with closely (having worked with Brits and Kiwis in the past); this may
have something to do with growing up in Cleveland Ohio, center of the Midwest
bland accent.

One more note: accents almost always consist mainly of differences in the
*vowels*; consonants tend to stay pretty much the same for different
accents (but may be different in different *dialects* - Castilian "th" vs.
the-other-Spanish-dialect [Aragon?] "s" is a case in point...).

Dave "and I won't mention the diphthong thread I'm in elsewhere" DeLaney


--
David DeLaney: d...@utkux.utcc.utk.edu; ObQuote: `VISUALIZE BLONDE MELINDA' - T.

Pierce... Disclaimer: Opinions? Hmpf; Thinking about this disclaimer (or about
theoretical particle physics) may cause headaches. Not particularly up for __
being elected Kibo, thanks. ASCII Wiener with Vicki virus: ,lgooVRoog' VR#:1\/

Drs. H.J. Kooy Jr.

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 5:06:56 AM2/16/94
to
Helge Moulding (h...@unislc.slc.unisys.com) wrote:
: Jack Campin (ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk) wrote:
: : ef...@merle.acns.nwu.edu (Rick) wrote:
: : > [Silverware etiquette traps German spies...]
:
: : This is obvious twaddle,...
:
: : However, it does remind me of another UL about how to spot a German spy
: : that supposedly dates from WW2. This was that the British and German ways
: : of lacing shoes were different and a German agent would typically get it
: : wrong. Anyone else heard this one? I'm not even sure what the canonical
: : British way to lace shoes was meant to be.
:
: Lessee, I am German, and my shoes are laced:
:
[...details deleted...]
: --
: Helge "So I'd just wear spats..." Moulding
: (Just another guy with a weird name)
I thought it has more to do with being left/right-handed... I *do* recall
a Columbo (TV series) from years back, where this was the trick to catch the
murderer doing his evil deeds, and masking them via dressing the victim up.
(Then again, that might also be an UL)

An UL had it, that spies in WW2 were caught via mistakes they made with the
coins, as Germany had the system with marks and pfennigs while the British
had a system with pounds, shillings and pennies --> what does `two and two'
mean? The UL I heard about WW1 was, that MI5/6 noticed a German officer
getting a haircut in a rather sleezy shop, and following up from that...
(Officer was over for the funeral of reigning monarch (Edward?) in 1911)
--
Drs. H.J. Kooy, EMail: HJK...@hkuxa.hku.hk, HJK...@hkucc.bitnet
Department. of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Rd, HONG KONG
Ph: (852)859-2372 FAX:(852)559-9152, Tlx: 71919 CEREB HK

Olivier CLARY

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 8:06:36 AM2/16/94
to
In article <2jornn$s...@hamlet.umd.edu> am...@monad.missouri.edu writes:
>Also, don't the French tend to dub rather than subtitle?

Not when it's French in the original. French TV more and more often shows
subtitles for native French speakers when their pronounciation is "strange"
- which I disapprove, since it teaches people to restrict the domain of
language varieties that they understand.

-- Olivier

Thomas O'Donnell

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 9:11:02 AM2/16/94
to
> jm...@midway.uchicago.edu writes...
>>>Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
>>>to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.
>>
>>
>
I've seen this reversed. When I was an undergrad, my dorm neighbor,
an American of French-Canadian origins, invited his roommate to visit his
family over a weekend. The family lived in Southbridge, MA, with a large
francophone population. The roommate was French from France.
One night they went out to toss a few at a local hometown bar and
the French guy was bewildered because he could not understand the locals,
even though his English was quite good. It took some doing to persuade him
that they were speaking French. The locals then went on to point out that
since they could understand him perfectly well and he counld not understand
them, _their_ French must be the superior language...

ObPedantry: As I recall, Canadian French started off as 17th century
Norman (?) dialect and then developed in relative isolation for quite a while.
A countryside servant in one of Moliere's comedies, if we had one, should be
able to hack it.

Tom "et ta soeur?" O'Donnell
---

Helge Moulding

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 12:59:36 PM2/16/94
to
Olivier CLARY (cl...@xdata.cnrm.meteo.fr) wrote:

: -- Olivier

I think most broadcasters will do that when the spoken words deviate
in a large degree from the dialect that is "main-stream." Here in the
USA, news stories featuring interviews with "inner city" people use
subtitles most of the time. And a good thing, too. These inner city
dialects get so different that they are extremely difficult to
comprehend unless you are exposed to them quite frequently.

The same thing goes for radio transmissions and telephone recordings,
by the way. When signals recorded from narrower bandwidths are broadcast
over a TV channel, the lack of the lower and higher frequencies that get
compressed out of the signal becomes very noticable, and an ear that is
not attuned to that may not understand.

So all of this begs the question, just what is a native accent? Should
people consider it as some sort of a slight when the Eye Witless News
decides to subtitle what they said? Do the people who speak with these
dialects need translators to understand those of us who speak with the
"common" dialect? Should we all try to learn more dialects, sort of
like learning foreign languages? Is it an unfavorable comment on the
intellectual capacity of main-stream dialect speakers when they cannot
understand what is said in another dialect?
--
Helge "I speak French with an American accent,
German with an English accent,
English with a German accent,
Russian with a Moscow accent, and
Latin with a Highschool accent." Moulding

Thomas O'Donnell

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 6:04:18 PM2/16/94
to
In article A...@acsu.buffalo.edu, v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>In article <ab401.761238368@freenet>, ab...@freenet.carleton.ca writes...
>>
>> they decided that they hated each other's French, and would only speak
>>English to each other.
>
>This reminds of some story I heard about one of the World Philosophy Congresses,
>where the German attendees listened to the simultaneous English translation of a
>paper being given by Juergen Habermas rather than the original, because his
>German was so incomprehensible to them. Why was this?
>
>Daniel Case State University of New York at Buffalo

In undergrad philosophy courses I was told that German students of
philosophy found Kant easier to read in English than in his/their native German.
Dunno it this is really the case.

---
=======================================================================
Tom O'Donnell "Arrogant in Victory, Sullen in Defeat"
Lehman Brothers, Inc. email: todo...@lehman.com
388 Greenwich Street fax: (212) 464-3519
New York, NY 10013 voice: (212) 464-3408
=======================================================================

Lee Rudolph

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 9:44:52 PM2/16/94
to
d...@martha.utcc.utk.edu (David DeLaney) writes:

>I might also note that I tend to pick up the *American* accent of people I
>work with closely (having worked with Brits and Kiwis in the past); this may
>have something to do with growing up in Cleveland Ohio, center of the Midwest
>bland accent.

I was told (as an impressionable lad in Cleveland, myself) that our
speech there was "totally unaccented" American English. Were we all?
Is this a genuine Cleveland UL?

>One more note: accents almost always consist mainly of differences in the
>*vowels*; consonants tend to stay pretty much the same for different
>accents (but may be different in different *dialects* - Castilian "th" vs.
>the-other-Spanish-dialect [Aragon?] "s" is a case in point...).

Here, I beg to differ (though I defer to our colleagues in sci.lang),
at least modulo our possibly different distinctions between "accents" and
"dialects". For instance, the consonant in the middle of "writer"
is quite different in various American regional accents (it's close
to `d' in many or most, `t' in some, and it's a flap--which I don't
know how to notate--in or near South Boston). Similarly, a typical
north-of-the-border accent in Spanish features a "p" which is noticeably
different from the native "p".

Lee "not talking asparagus here" Rudolph

Stewart Tame

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 10:49:04 PM2/16/94
to
In article <ab401.761064117@freenet> ab...@freenet.carleton.ca writes:
>BTW: Most Canadians, in my experience, do it the "Euro-way", cut a slice, eat
>it, cut a slice, eat it, never switching hands. Some Americans do it that
>way too, but most cut everything first, then switch hands and start eating.

Just for the sake of adding another data point, I also eat without switching
hands. I used to do it the other way until my senior year in High School
when one of the teachers organized a trip to the British Isles for a small
group of students. She wanted us all to blend in as well as possible so
as not to seem like typical brash Americans (a lost cause where some members
of our group were concerned.) Among other things covered, she showed us
the "European" style of knife and fork usage and I, being the lazy bastard
that I am, seized immediately upon it as a way of reducing the time spent
hefting silverware (pick up the knife and fork, cut piece, put down knife,
transfer fork to other hand, pick up bite, insert in mouth, repeat).

So far no one has criticized me for the way I eat . . .

-- Stewart "always a first time though" Tame

High Priest, First Universal Church of Barney
Keeper of the Death In June discography

I understand it's obligatory to mention Kibo somewhere in one's postings.
=====a bird in the hand is not dead=========================================
Email: st...@emunix.emich.edu | Disclaimer: Eastern Michigan University
-------------------------------- and all employees thereof fully agree
Snailmail: Stewart Tame | with my opinions. The Easter Bunny told
311 Jarvis, Apt. 102 | me so.
Ypsilanti, MI 48197-2462|____________________________________________
==============================dada is worth two in the bush=================
"Dear diary, today I ditched the wife and kids and discovered the grisly
pleasure of necrophilia." -- The Dysfunctional Family Circus

Derek Tearne

unread,
Feb 16, 1994, 10:52:15 PM2/16/94
to
In article <16F5D12E...@ukcc.uky.edu> JA...@ukcc.uky.edu writes:
>In article <2jhkt1$n...@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
>ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris Gerakis) writes:
>
>>
>>Even if that's true, how about idioms and expressions?
>>It's not only accent, it's also whether they use the lift or the
>>elevator.
>>
>This, by the by, is a fair example of passing as a native speaker. There
>are many Europeans (and even North Africans) who speak such excellent
>"British" English, that an American assumes they are in fact British. And

Are you sure you don't mean 'East' Africa? Most of North Africa is either
'French' speaking or a kind of Arabic. East Africa and Southern Africa
was much more strongly influenced by the English.

Derek "Cadeux por moi, ou est la carte gris" Tearne


--
Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.

Wes Leatherock

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 8:27:36 AM2/17/94
to

rm...@ellis.uchicago.edu (Robert Knippen) writes:

rm> In article <1994Feb11....@oswego.Oswego.EDU> jr...@Oswego.EDU
rm> (James Ronald Williams) writes:

... [text deleted] ...

rm> Spanish is an exceptional case with respect to fooling native
rm> speakers into thinking you are a native speaker of Spanish from
rm> somewhere else. Anyone who's been to a linguistic conference
rm> paper where data from Spanish is discussed can vouch for this;
rm> The most basic facts of Spanish are hotly contested by audience
rm> members who speak a different variety. The point is, there are
rm> zillions of kinds of Spanish, and Spanish speakers know this.
rm> Furthermore, most Spanish speakers haven't been subjected to
rm> the myth that there is some privileged variety of Spanish.

This is true even if you don't speak Spanish. (Yes, I
took Spanish in high school and college, and I understand the signs
that say "No estacionarse mas de una hora" and "Alto", but I get
only occasional words in spoken Spanish, but the sound is very
familiar and distinctive.)

That seems to be the Spanish of Mexico (and Texas), which
I've heard for many years (ever since I lived in Texas; it's now
fairly common in Oklahoma, too).

A year or two ago I attended an "international festival,"
where there were booths from various control extolling the virtues
and/or produce of those countries.

One of those booths was from, I believe, Colombia. Even
though I got only snatches of the words and meaning, the accent was
clearly different from that of speakers of the Spanish of Mexico.
I imagine there were vocabulary differences too, but I'm not
qualified to address that.

But whwat struck me was that, even as a non-Spanish
speaker, I could clearly tell this was Spanish with a different
accent.

Wes Leatherock
w...@obelisk.pillar.com

--
w...@obelisk.pillar.com (Wes Leatherock)
Pillar Communications BBS, Oklahoma City, OK -- +1 405 942 8794

Charles Mitchell

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 9:00:30 AM2/17/94
to
In article <1994Feb16....@unislc.slc.unisys.com> of Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:59:36 GMT
h...@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Helge Moulding) writes:
> (material about French subtitles in broadcasts of people with
> nonstandard French accents omitted.)

>
>I think most broadcasters will do that when the spoken words deviate
>in a large degree from the dialect that is "main-stream." Here in the
>USA, news stories featuring interviews with "inner city" people use
>subtitles most of the time. And a good thing, too. These inner city
>dialects get so different that they are extremely difficult to
>comprehend unless you are exposed to them quite frequently.
>
>The same thing goes for radio transmissions and telephone recordings,
>by the way. When signals recorded from narrower bandwidths are broadcast
>over a TV channel, the lack of the lower and higher frequencies that get
>compressed out of the signal becomes very noticable, and an ear that is
>not attuned to that may not understand.
>
I don't remember seeing a news broadcast that *translated* someone's
odd English in this context. They do give the text of what is being
said when it's not clear (your example of telephone interviews, for
instance), but I have the impression that they put the person's own
words on the screen.

New York City, where I do my news watching, certainly offers material
for interviews with inner-city people, but I just don't remember ever
noticing them showing anything other than the person's own words as
a title.

Charlie "would you translate that into New Jerseyan please?" Mitchell

Jonathan Papai

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 9:41:50 AM2/17/94
to
In Message-ID: <1994Feb16....@unislc.slc.unisys.com>
On or about Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:59:36 GMT
h...@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Helge Moulding) posted:

>
> I think most broadcasters will do that when the spoken words deviate
> in a large degree from the dialect that is "main-stream." Here in the
> USA, news stories featuring interviews with "inner city" people use
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> subtitles most of the time. And a good thing, too. These inner city
> dialects get so different that they are extremely difficult to
> comprehend unless you are exposed to them quite frequently.

Sounds like bullshit to me. Trolling? I've never seen it.

Unless you mean inner city South Africa, or Los Angelinos
speaking Spanish.

Jon "dubious" Papai
--
It doesn't really matter, because if there's a high suicide rate
at McGill, then obviously God exists after all. - Daniel B. Case

Helge Moulding

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 10:18:47 AM2/17/94
to
Thomas O'Donnell asks why some Germans find incomprehensible
text written in a foreign language (like English) easier to
understand than in the native German...

Speaking for myself (which is what I generally aspire to do anyway),
I must agree with that as a general rule. But then I emigrated to
the USA when I was in 8th grade, so my ability to comprehend
English is more mature than my German.

But I would guess that *some* Germans might make the same discovery,
esp. where stuff like Kant is concerned. This is a consequence of
the unfortunate habit of high-brow German writers to construct
unending sequences of subclauses. They are a royal bitch to parse,
and since they must be parsed before translating into a language
like English, the English version tends to be easier to read. Some
of the work has already been done.

I have received letters from relatives, where I had to get a piece
of paper to diagram the damned sentences. Most of them tend to be
the proud owners of one or more university degrees...
--
Helge "You'd think they teach writing at a Uni..." Moulding

131N50000-MaddenTC(DR2071)40

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 11:44:25 AM2/17/94
to
In article <CLCKy...@umassd.edu> rud...@cis.umassd.edu (Lee Rudolph) writes:

[Dave DeLaney's admission of Zelig-like tendencies deleted]

>
>I was told (as an impressionable lad in Cleveland, myself) that our
>speech there was "totally unaccented" American English. Were we all?
>Is this a genuine Cleveland UL?
>

Don't remember being *told* that northeastern-PA American English
was "totally unaccented", but I sure as hell believed it. It came as
quite a shock to find others could place me within 30 miles of my
birthplace merely by my pronounciation of "Scranton". Took a while for
me to discern how they were able to tell. (We swallow the "t",
pronouncing it "Scrant' un".)

Tom "a culm dump is not what you think it is" Madden

____________________________________________________________________
Tom Madden t...@drutx.att.com AT&T Bell Laboratories Denver
These are my opinions only!!

D.M.Procida

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 12:54:15 PM2/17/94
to
In article <CLCAr...@lehman.com>,
todo...@shearson.com writes:

> In undergrad philosophy courses I was told that German students of
>philosophy found Kant easier to read in English than in his/their native
>German. Dunno it this is really the case.

Highly unlikely, I'd say. Kant has not always enjoyed good translation into
English (though there are some notable exceptions). The _Critique of Pure
Reason_ (probably his most important work, if not the most important work in
all western philosophy) in particular has suffered at the hands of
translators. The best available translation in English is by Norman Kemp
Smith, which has serious flaws; most notably a lack of sympathy on the part
of the translator for the intentions of the author. With all the
difficulties in understanding Kant, who would benefit from an extra layer of
interpretation?

Daniele "Not in charge of the sheep-dip" Procida

Linda Richards

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 1:42:30 PM2/17/94
to
> Jonathan Papai writes:
>
> Msg-ID: <2jvvne$j...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> References: <2jornn$sll@
> Posted: 17 Feb 1994 14:41:50 GMT
>
> Org. : The Ohio State University

>
> In Message-ID: <1994Feb16....@unislc.slc.unisys.com>
> On or about Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:59:36 GMT
> h...@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Helge Moulding) posted:
> >
> > I think most broadcasters will do that when the spoken words deviate
> > in a large degree from the dialect that is "main-stream." Here in the
> > USA, news stories featuring interviews with "inner city" people use
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> > subtitles most of the time. And a good thing, too. These inner city
> > dialects get so different that they are extremely difficult to
> > comprehend unless you are exposed to them quite frequently.
>
> Sounds like bullshit to me. Trolling? I've never seen it.


What, you've never seen subtitles on the news from inner city Akron? That
really has to be an extremely difficult to follow patois.


--
Linda Richards I understand it is
Linda_R...@mindlink.bc.ca bad luck to mention
Joel Furr in your
Vancouver, if you must know. The Canadian one. signature.

Jeffrey Davis

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 2:17:35 PM2/17/94
to
Lee Rudolph wrote:
..
..I was told (as an impressionable lad in Cleveland, myself) that our
..speech there was "totally unaccented" American English. Were we all?
..Is this a genuine Cleveland UL?
..
When we moved in the 50s from Louisville to Cleveland we were told
the same gag...I believe that they called it the "Western Reserve"
accent. But it sure as h is accented: it has taken me years to get
the diphthonged long "i" sound out of my voice.

--
Jeffrey Davis <da...@ca.uky.edu> More Champale, my funky friend?

David Salvador Flores

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 3:03:20 PM2/17/94
to
In article <CL80...@world.std.com>,
Larry M Headlund <l...@world.std.com> wrote:
>In article <CL7Cr...@acsu.buffalo.edu>
> v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>>In article <1994Feb13....@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>
>
> jm...@midway.uchicago.edu writes...
>>>Try this with French some time; French purists have been known
>>>to tell Canadians that they don't even speak French.
>>
>>Seriously, I know what you meant, and this recalls a UL that we've discussed
>>here on AFU...
>>
>>order, then returns with an English version of the menu.
>>
>>Douby insulting to a Quebecer, of course, and told by Anglo-Canadians with
>some >glee, especially in light of recent events. Anybody know of this actually
>>happening somewhere?

>>
>
>In a related, but verifiable incident, it was reported that the Quebec
>film _Decline and Fall of the American Empire_ was shown in France
>with French subtitles.
>Interested students may wish to compare and contrast with the Jamaican

>film _The Harder They Come_, shown in the US with English subtitles.

There was a preview for a British film shown here recently in the
local art-house. The characters all spoke cockney, and the film
boasted of being "subtitled" in english for the yanks. The preview
was subtitled, though I felt that I could follow the cockney pretty
well without.

Also, the US release of _Mad-Max_ so I am told, does not have Mel
Gibsons real voice, but an american voice-over, since his thick
australian accent was supposedly difficult to understand. (I've only
heard this, so it may be an UL)


Big_Dave


Scott C DeLancey

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 3:26:40 PM2/17/94
to
In article <CLCKy...@umassd.edu>, Lee Rudolph <rud...@cis.umassd.edu> wrote:
>
>I was told (as an impressionable lad in Cleveland, myself) that our
>speech there was "totally unaccented" American English. Were we all?
>Is this a genuine Cleveland UL?

One hears this notion about various places, but think about it
for a minute--what could it possibly mean for the speech of one
location to be "unaccented"? After all, you pronounce your
vowels, your consonants, your words, a certain way, rather than
any other way--so that's your accent. How could there be speech
without an accent?

>>One more note: accents almost always consist mainly of differences in the
>>*vowels*; consonants tend to stay pretty much the same for different
>>accents (but may be different in different *dialects* - Castilian "th" vs.
>>the-other-Spanish-dialect [Aragon?] "s" is a case in point...).
>
>Here, I beg to differ (though I defer to our colleagues in sci.lang),
>at least modulo our possibly different distinctions between "accents" and
>"dialects". For instance, the consonant in the middle of "writer"
>is quite different in various American regional accents (it's close
>to `d' in many or most, `t' in some, and it's a flap--which I don't
>know how to notate--in or near South Boston).

I'm not sure what you're hearing here. As far as I know this is a flap
in virtually every American dialect (though I'm not a specialist on
American dialects). It definitely is generally the case that vowels
are more likely than consonants to differ across dialects. Sure you
can find examples of consonant variation--for example, some British
dialects reduce final /t/ to a glottal stop--but pretty much invariably
if English dialects are distinct enough to show differences like that,
there will be more and greater differences in the vowels.

Scott DeLancey dela...@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403

Richard N Kitchen

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 3:51:37 PM2/17/94
to

In a previous article, PA...@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai) says:

> In Message-ID: <1994Feb16....@unislc.slc.unisys.com>
> On or about Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:59:36 GMT
>h...@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Helge Moulding) posted:
>>
>> I think most broadcasters will do that when the spoken words deviate
>> in a large degree from the dialect that is "main-stream." Here in the
>> USA, news stories featuring interviews with "inner city" people use
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>> subtitles most of the time. And a good thing, too. These inner city
>> dialects get so different that they are extremely difficult to
>> comprehend unless you are exposed to them quite frequently.
>
>Sounds like bullshit to me. Trolling? I've never seen it.

I have to agree with Jon here. I've never seen subtitles of "inner-cit"
speech. I've seen it when they've replayed 911 calls and audio tapes,
but those are pretty hard to distinguish, no matter who is speaking.

Rick "Subtitled posting" Kitchen

--
Rick Kitchen da...@cleveland.freenet.edu
"I can't function with this guillotine on my back."
--Margo Cody, "Black Tie Affair"

Aris Gerakis

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 4:58:51 PM2/17/94
to
and...@resntl.bhp.com.au (Andrew Lewis) writes:

>Don't hold your breath on that patent, Terry. An Australian has already
>invented it. It's called a "splade" and resembles a spoon with tines and
>sharpened sides (not particularly sharp for obvious reasons). Quite

I have seen this item in the USA, and it is meant to eat grapefruit,
exclusively.
--
Aris Gerakis
ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu

Karen Johnston

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 5:13:56 PM2/17/94
to
In article <2k0par$j...@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>, ar...@psssun.pss.msu.edu (Aris
Gerakis) wrote:

> and...@resntl.bhp.com.au (Andrew Lewis) writes:
>
> >Don't hold your breath on that patent, Terry. An Australian has already
> >invented it. It's called a "splade" and resembles a spoon with tines and
> >sharpened sides (not particularly sharp for obvious reasons). Quite
>
> I have seen this item in the USA, and it is meant to eat grapefruit,
> exclusively.

Wrong, Aris. The grapefruit spoon is a regular spoon with a serrated end.
The "splade" has no serrated edges. It is a fork that has a sort of
spoon-like shape, and its outer edges are sharper than a regular spoon. I
have eaten with both a grapefruit spoon and a splade. They are not the
same utensil. A splade is truly a wonderful thing. Makes one wonder why
no one thought of it years ago.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Karen Spilman Johnston (john...@pobox.upenn.edu) *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* "Nobody has ever measured, not even poets,
* how much the heart can hold."
*
--Zelda Fitzgerald *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Kevin Alexander James Nugent

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 6:07:13 PM2/17/94
to
Daniel B Case (v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu) wrote:

: I didn't find *that* difficult to understand. How impenetrable is Quebecois
: French to a native French speaker anyway? Is there an easy English-language
: analogy?

Probably something like an American trying to order a meal in a pub in
Yorkshire.
That's just a guess.

Kevin

131N50000-MaddenTC(DR2071)40

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 6:21:41 PM2/17/94
to

[Folks named Aris, Andrew, and even Terry calling a splade a spoon
deleted]

In article <johnston-1...@mac13.dev.upenn.edu> john...@pobox.upenn.edu (Karen Johnston) writes:
>
>Wrong, Aris. The grapefruit spoon is a regular spoon with a serrated end.
>The "splade" has no serrated edges. It is a fork that has a sort of
>spoon-like shape, and its outer edges are sharper than a regular spoon. I
>have eaten with both a grapefruit spoon and a splade. They are not the
>same utensil. A splade is truly a wonderful thing. Makes one wonder why
>no one thought of it years ago.

You mean Col. Sanders didn't invent the spork? That it's available in
metal as well as The True Plastic Version? Another illusion destroyed!

ObSomething: A utensil with four tines is called a "fork". With three
tines it should be a "threek". Two tines, a "twook". With one tine,
you'd think "wunk" would do quite nicely, yet we persist in calling it
a "knife".

Tom "does the salad spork go next to the dessert splade?" Madden

Jonathan Papai

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 6:36:57 PM2/17/94
to
and...@resntl.bhp.com.au (Andrew Lewis) writes:

>Don't hold your breath on that patent, Terry. An Australian has already
>invented it. It's called a "splade" and resembles a spoon with tines and
>sharpened sides (not particularly sharp for obvious reasons). Quite


Fork failed-too many processes

Jon "grep this" Papai

Lee Rudolph

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 7:20:58 PM2/17/94
to
dela...@darkwing.uoregon.edu (Scott C DeLancey) writes:

>In article <CLCKy...@umassd.edu>, Lee Rudolph <rud...@cis.umassd.edu> wrote:
>>
>>I was told (as an impressionable lad in Cleveland, myself) that our
>>speech there was "totally unaccented" American English. Were we all?
>>Is this a genuine Cleveland UL?

>One hears this notion about various places, but think about it
>for a minute--what could it possibly mean for the speech of one
>location to be "unaccented"?

"Genuine" was meant to imply "genuinely an Urban Legend [particularly,
but not necessarily, in Cleveland]", not "an Urban Legend which is
nonetheless true". Since 3 of us (so far) have testified to hearing
it in or about Cleveland, I think my intended implication is bearing
up rather well (at least in its weaker form--since you suggest you've
heard the tale about other places, presumably far from Cleveland).

On the other hand, might not something like the following idea
yield a useful meaning for assertions like "Cleveland speech is
unaccented"? (1) Describe some useful metric (numerical measure of
"distance" between pairs) on the set of distinguishable "accents".
(2) Find a (if you're lucky, the) centroid of the resulting metric space
--an accent which minimizes the sum of the distances between it and all
other accents (weighted, if you like, by the number of speakers).

Lee "well, you *asked* me to think for a minute; that's a minute
thought" Rudolph

Robert Gillespie

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 7:24:36 PM2/17/94
to
In article <2k0ju0$j...@pith.uoregon.edu> dela...@darkwing.uoregon.edu (Scott C DeLancey) writes:
>In article <CLCKy...@umassd.edu>, Lee Rudolph <rud...@cis.umassd.edu> wrote:
>>
>>I was told (as an impressionable lad in Cleveland, myself) that our
>>speech there was "totally unaccented" American English. Were we all?
>>Is this a genuine Cleveland UL?
>
>One hears this notion about various places, but think about it
>for a minute--what could it possibly mean for the speech of one
>location to be "unaccented"? After all, you pronounce your
>vowels, your consonants, your words, a certain way, rather than
>any other way--so that's your accent. How could there be speech
>without an accent?
>

I've heard the same legend about the Pacific Northwest, that we speak
something so close to "American Standard English" (sounds like an oxymoron)
that it is difficult for people to identify a specific "accent" for
this region.

Maybe this means we all sound like radio announcers.

Robert "Thank you Don Pardo" Gillespie

Vicki Robinson

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 8:14:01 PM2/17/94
to
In article <16F607E...@CUVMC.AIS.COLUMBIA.EDU>, SI...@CUVMC.AIS.COLUMBIA.EDU(Charles Mitchell) writes:
>In article <1994Feb16....@unislc.slc.unisys.com> of Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:59:36 GMT
>h...@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Helge Moulding) writes:
>> (material about French subtitles in broadcasts of people with
>> nonstandard French accents omitted.)
>>
>>I think most broadcasters will do that when the spoken words deviate
>>in a large degree from the dialect that is "main-stream." Here in the
>>USA, news stories featuring interviews with "inner city" people use
>>subtitles most of the time. And a good thing, too. These inner city
>>dialects get so different that they are extremely difficult to
>>comprehend unless you are exposed to them quite frequently.
>>
> I don't remember seeing a news broadcast that *translated* someone's
>odd English in this context. They do give the text of what is being
>said when it's not clear (your example of telephone interviews, for
>instance), but I have the impression that they put the person's own
>words on the screen.
>


They use a more-or-less standard English version of what the person says. The
speaker may be using a local dialect that is not easily comprehended by
standard-American-English speakers, and the subtitles are used to compensate
for unusual pronounciation, not for idioms or deviations from standard
American English syntax. They *do* use the speaker's words, but not the
way they're spoken.

Vicki "Uses captions regularly" Robinson

--
Vicki Robinson "It'll just lead to trouble,
Odd physics professor I know it will."
National Technical Institute for the Deaf -- Joel "Vicki Robinson"
VJR...@ritvax.isc.rit.edu Furr, AFU, 1/19/94

Michael Robinson x6844

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 8:34:42 PM2/17/94
to
Thomas O'Donnell (todo...@shearson.com) wrote:

: ObPedantry: As I recall, Canadian French started off as 17th century


: Norman (?) dialect and then developed in relative isolation for quite a while.
: A countryside servant in one of Moliere's comedies, if we had one, should be
: able to hack it.

My uncle learned to speak French in Quebec. He went to France
shortly after WW II. Apparently most people there thought he
was from some very isolated rural place and tried to take
advantage of him in the usual "rube in the city" ways. Nowadays
this may be different, as French people would be more familiar
with French Canadian accents.

He did say that when he went to see some Moliere comedies, he
noticed there were some jokes that the French people in the
audience didn't seem to understand.

ObUL: I don't recall any source for this or the name of the
person involved. Famous French writer in New York during WW II,
hears that Paris has just fallen to the Germans. Depressed,
goes for drink. Noticing bartender has a French accent, says
to him in French: "Did you hear that Paris has been captured
by the Germans?" Bartender replies, with 17th century French
accent: "It serves them right for what they did to good King
Louis." Writer realizes Quebecois have a different perspective
on French politics.

Michael Robinson

Paul Tomblin

unread,
Feb 17, 1994, 11:25:06 PM2/17/94
to
PA...@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai) writes:

>>Don't hold your breath on that patent, Terry. An Australian has already
>>invented it. It's called a "splade" and resembles a spoon with tines and
>>sharpened sides (not particularly sharp for obvious reasons). Quite

Yeah, and you get one with just about every airplane meal, too.

>Fork failed-too many processes

Oh, you probably have the old version of rcp.portmapper. FTP the newer one
from sunsite. Oh wait - isn't this comp.os.linux.misc?

Paul "I was told we wouldn't have to be unix geeks on this group" Tomblin
--
Paul Tomblin - snide Canadian.
"I am not a signature virus, I am a human being" - Vicki Robinson

Dave Budd

unread,
Feb 18, 1994, 7:02:18 AM2/18/94
to
In article <2jqum8$1...@lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk> ie...@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Robert) writes:

>UL: The _British_ invented curry, to hide the taste of rotting meat (of course
>the darkies were used to that sort of thing, you know) in India.

>Comment: Frankly I doubt it. Funnily enough, I've only heard it from Brits.
>Just like them to take the credit, when they can't even cook the bloody
>stuff without reducing the meat and vegetables to the texture of paste.

I heard it was the Brits that invented the mindless "curry powder", and the
Indians stuck with all the wonderful variety of cooking they already knew.
Hence the fact that many Indian restaurants have menus in which the word
"curry" does not appear.

Dave "at long last, balti is spreading out from Birmingham to the rest of
Britain" Budd

--
I nearly bought a book on infinity, but I thought "No, I'll never finish it"
Dave Budd,MCC,Oxford Rd,Manchester,England 061-275-6033(fax6040)
D.B...@mcc.ac.uk (Densa's mole in Mensa [or was it vice-versa?]) Juggle!
GAT d-- p-- c++ l u(---) e+(*) m+/m- s/+ n+(---) h--- f? g+ w+ t+ r(poker) y+0

Drs. H.J. Kooy Jr.

unread,
Feb 18, 1994, 8:46:17 AM2/18/94
to
Daniel B Case (v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu) wrote:
:
: My brother had a Russian piano teacer,, who, upon being informed that I had
: studied Russian in college, said "I hope his teacher wasn't Ukrainian!"
:
Friend in putonghwa language course told us that she was moving back to
Australia. Also said that she would try to get hold of a Chinese student
and teach him/her english, while the student would teach her chinese. On
hearing that, the teacher told her to be carefull with students from Taiwan
(where they also speak putonghwa), and apply a small test to determine the
pronounciation before the lessons. :-)

PS: The teacher was originally from Taiwan (but her family moved to there
from the mainland)

: Dan "But that might be more historically understandable" Case
:
: Daniel Case State University of New York at Buffalo
: Prodigy: WDNS15D | GEnie: DCASE.10
Drs. H.J. Kooy, EMail: HJK...@hkuxa.hku.hk, HJK...@hkucc.bitnet
Department. of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Rd, HONG KONG
Ph: (852)859-2372 FAX:(852)559-9152, Tlx: 71919 CEREB HK

Michael W Cantonwine

unread,
Feb 18, 1994, 5:44:52 PM2/18/94
to
In <2k11s4$j...@gaia.ucs.orst.edu> gill...@ucs.orst.edu (Robert Gillespie) writes:

>In article <2k0ju0$j...@pith.uoregon.edu> dela...@darkwing.uoregon.edu (Scott C DeLancey) writes:
>>In article <CLCKy...@umassd.edu>, Lee Rudolph <rud...@cis.umassd.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>I was told (as an impressionable lad in Cleveland, myself) that our
>>>speech there was "totally unaccented" American English. Were we all?
>>>Is this a genuine Cleveland UL?
>>
>>One hears this notion about various places, but think about it
>>for a minute--what could it possibly mean for the speech of one
>>location to be "unaccented"? After all, you pronounce your
>>vowels, your consonants, your words, a certain way, rather than
>>any other way--so that's your accent. How could there be speech
>>without an accent?
>>

>I've heard the same legend about the Pacific Northwest, that we speak
>something so close to "American Standard English" (sounds like an oxymoron)
>that it is difficult for people to identify a specific "accent" for
>this region.

>Maybe this means we all sound like radio announcers.

This is what people say in Iowa too. I mean, doesn't everybody in the
U.S. pronounce wash as warsh? 8)
--
Mike Cantonwine "Count the Moon."
mi...@iastate.edu "One."
"Whoa...."

Alan J Rosenthal

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 1:46:14 PM2/19/94
to
>Ever listen to Radio Moscow on shortwave? The announcers sound British
>to my American ear.

Aargh, I find it really irritating the way that Canadians and Americans (this
is the only fault we share with y'all, but I don't share this fault personally,
obviously) think any English-language accent which isn't Canadian or American
is "British". I heard an Australian accent recently described as "British".
Hormph. This whole language thread has shown an astonishing amount of
ignorance about languages. Open your ears and eyes and learn a bit about
cultures other than your own.

Alan "speaks with a Martian accent" Rosenthal

p.s. I have never listened to Radio Moscow. It may be that the above-quoted
poster is not exhibiting this ignorance and they really do sound British.

Lee Rudolph

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 3:07:03 PM2/19/94
to
fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:

>>Ever listen to Radio Moscow on shortwave? The announcers sound British
>>to my American ear.

>Aargh
[irritation omitted]


>p.s. I have never listened to Radio Moscow. It may be that the above-quoted
>poster is not exhibiting this ignorance and they really do sound British.

I used to for a while, during Gorbachev's heyday. The announcer on
"Accordion Styles of the Autonomous Republics" (in dozens of parts)
just sounded stilted, but who wouldn't. But the gee-whiz guys on the
"War Monger's Weekly" comedy show (I am not making this up!) had
broad midwestern (USA) accents, it was really cute.

Lee "the fun has gone out of it" Rudolph

Vicki Robinson

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 4:43:46 PM2/19/94
to

My ex-, who as some of you know is/was Finnish, spoke with a British accent
when I first met him. OK, spoke *English* with a British accent, not to
mention a Finnish accent. He said that most Europeans who learn English as a
second language in school learn British English, both in accent and spelling
conventions.

And, BTW, I'm going to petition the local school board to initiate a series of
courses, required for graduation from high school, in "Recognition of Various
Accents Used by Native Speakers of English." I agree, it's a disgrace that
many North Americans have the nerve to experience an Irish accent as "British"
or, worse yet, ENGLISH!

I mean, good golly, what DO we teach kids in schools these days?

Vicki "How can you call yourself literate and still not be able to identify a
Cornwall accent!?!?" Robinson

Alan J Rosenthal

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 5:35:33 PM2/19/94
to
rud...@cis.umassd.edu (Lee Rudolph) writes:
>On the other hand, might not something like the following idea
>yield a useful meaning for assertions like "Cleveland speech is
>unaccented"? (1) Describe some useful metric (numerical measure of
>"distance" between pairs) on the set of distinguishable "accents".
>(2) Find a (if you're lucky, the) centroid of the resulting metric space
>--an accent which minimizes the sum of the distances between it and all
>other accents (weighted, if you like, by the number of speakers).

Yes, and then we can refer to the middle house on a street as "unnumbered".

cfb103

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 6:10:05 PM2/19/94
to

In article <1994Feb19....@ultb.isc.rit.edu>, vjr...@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
(Vicki Robinson) says in reponse to Alan Rosenthal's concern over accents of
English:

>
>And, BTW, I'm going to petition the local school board to initiate a series of
>courses, required for graduation from high school, in "Recognition of Various
>Accents Used by Native Speakers of English." I agree, it's a disgrace that
>many North Americans have the nerve to experience an Irish accent as "British"
>or, worse yet, ENGLISH!
>
>I mean, good golly, what DO we teach kids in schools these days?
>
>Vicki "How can you call yourself literate and still not be able to identify a
>Cornwall accent!?!?" Robinson
>
Actually, as Monty Python fans already know, that's pronounced "Coronwall". I
believe the area first became important under "Erizabeth L".

-Josh "The cycling tour" Munn

Ian Phillipps

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 7:27:26 PM2/19/94
to
In article <CLCAr...@lehman.com>,

Thomas O'Donnell <todo...@shearson.com> wrote:

> In undergrad philosophy courses I was told that German students of
>philosophy found Kant easier to read in English than in his/their native German.

Hmm... maybe I should get a copy of a German translation of Finnegan's
Wake. Or maybe just an English translation :-)

I did hear (mentioned on a science program on TV) that Albert Einstein
once gave a lecture in German in the USA, which had been translated
German->English->German to make it easier to understand.

Ian

Ian
--
Ian Phillipps. Tech support manager, Unipalm. News admin, pipex. Internic: IP4
"... we had no interoperability goal when designing ****. Therefore the product
interoperates with itself." [A quote from a developer of a TCP/IP product.]
Name omitted to protect the guilty.

Todd Larason

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 9:38:32 PM2/19/94
to
ds...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (David Salvador Flores) writes:

>Also, the US release of _Mad-Max_ so I am told, does not have Mel
>Gibsons real voice, but an american voice-over, since his thick
>australian accent was supposedly difficult to understand. (I've only
>heard this, so it may be an UL)

And, of course, Arnold Schwarzenneger's Australian accent was dubbed
over in his late 60's "Hercules in New York", aka "Hercules Goes
Bananas".

jtl
--
Todd Larason "i wasnt thinking...obviously this doesnt matter to my
j...@netcom.com point..." -- stencil <am...@namaste.cc.columbia.edu>
"in general, there are exceptions" -- P. Plantec

Justin D. Bukowski

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 10:39:57 PM2/19/94
to
In article <CLDx...@murdoch.acc.virginia.edu>,

David Salvador Flores <ds...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>
>Also, the US release of _Mad-Max_ so I am told, does not have Mel
>Gibsons real voice, but an american voice-over, since his thick
>australian accent was supposedly difficult to understand. (I've only
>heard this, so it may be an UL)

I believe that was true for early release. When I saw it the voice
was his, but the friend with whom I saw it, who was seeing it for
the second time, recalled that the voice had been dubbed when she
first saw it. She was quite disappointed, as she claimed the dubbing
had made the movie even funnier.

Those with a burning desire to know could ask on rec.arts.movies.

Justin "or on soc.culture.austria" Bukowski

Ted Krueger

unread,
Feb 19, 1994, 11:20:08 PM2/19/94
to
In article <1994Feb16.0...@martha.utcc.utk.edu> d...@martha.utcc.utk.edu (David DeLaney) writes:
>v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>>ab...@freenet.carleton.ca writes...
>>>No, but at GeoVision when I started, they were very short of desks. So my
>>>buddy Daniel, who was probably the first francophone they'd ever hired, ended
>>>up sharing a desk with Eric Bienvenue, a co-op student from France. Within
>>>hours, they decided that they hated each other's French, and would only speak
>>>English to each other.
>>
>>This reminds of some story I heard about one of the World Philosophy Congresses,
>>where the German attendees listened to the simultaneous English translation of a
>>paper being given by Juergen Habermas rather than the original, because his
>>German was so incomprehensible to them. Why was this?
>
>Possibly because there's at least three different dialects of German running
>around out there; from what my brother (who spent a year over there, and who can
>spell in German but has been known to misspell his own name in English) tells
>me, they translate as "High", "Middle", and "Low" German, and various regions
>contain various combinations of the accents.

I echo Dave's sentiments. My brother currently lives in Germany and his
German wife also echoes Dave's sentiments. Dialects of German can occur over
as little a difference as 20 miles.

>Dave "and I won't mention the diphthong thread I'm in elsewhere" DeLaney

Ted "Howdya spell that?" Krueger

--
"I will kill you. Remember that."
Temple basketball coach John Cheaney to Mass coach John Calipari

Terry Smith

unread,
Feb 20, 1994, 6:23:54 AM2/20/94
to
Message <14 Feb 1994 22:01> Gerald Belton (3:800/846.23) wrote to All:


GB> Ever listen to Radio Moscow on shortwave? The announcers
GB> sound British to my American ear.

They sound American to my Oz/NZ/Pommie ear, with a German overlay.


Terry [will even work for food] Smith.

* Origin: ETSA Stunt Crew, S.A. /ter...@gastro.apana.org.au
(3:800/846.23)

DaveHatunen

unread,
Feb 20, 1994, 6:43:02 PM2/20/94
to
> On or about Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:59:36 GMT
>h...@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Helge Moulding) posted:

>>
>> I think most broadcasters will do that when the spoken words deviate
>> in a large degree from the dialect that is "main-stream." Here in the
>> USA, news stories featuring interviews with "inner city" people use
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>
>> subtitles most of the time. And a good thing, too. These inner city
>> dialects get so different that they are extremely difficult to
>> comprehend unless you are exposed to them quite frequently.
>
>Sounds like bullshit to me. Trolling? I've never seen it.
>
>Unless you mean inner city South Africa, or Los Angelinos
>speaking Spanish.

Go to Blockbuster.
Rent _Airplane_.
Watch for Barbara Billingsly.

Dave "Grew up speaking Standard American English but could never
convince any one else, no matter how long we stood down by the crick
and talked about it" Hatunen


--
********** DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@netcom.com) **********
* Daly City California: *
* where San Francisco meets The Peninsula *
* and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea *
*******************************************************

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